"Where brilliance is good and madness is better..."
Helovia Info
Helovia opened in February 2012! We are an active fantasy equine RPG
Where once the world narrowed into naught but gray dust and desolation, the gods called for life. Wielding the elements of fire and light, dark and wind, earth and water, spark and time, they have created Helovia. The realm is set within the mythical globe of Loorien, a planet rich with all variety of creatures and blessed with all manner of magic. Originally populated by nomadic, tribal characters, they've since grown into massive empires saturated with culture and history. Separated into four distinct segments of Helovia, called "The Regions," each band of horse strong enough and capable enough, took up the power and responsibility of leadership. Unicorns, old, wise and mysterious, took to the north, hidden in forests of mists and shadows and rarely making themselves known beyond their cliffs of the World's Edge. Equines, vast, organized and militaristic, split into two, one group went north to the Windtossed Foothills and the other group went south to the Dragon's Throat. Pegasus remained nomadic, making their homes in various parts of The Wilds in a migratory manner. For many generations, the land was peaceful and calm, but peace was never the way of the gods. With a clash of argument, war and bloodshed massacred Helovia, and in the aftermath, the realm was eerily quiet. Now, as newcomers sweep into this land, they are met with the lingering bitterness of the gods and the struggle to reclaim what was lost. Nothing remains safe or certain while sorcerers and soldiers alike brood and bide their time for revenge, honor and glory.
Site Wide Plots
Kaos :: The Beginning of the End ☼ - 6/2017 - Kaos placed Helovia in a time-bubble for a short period of time, but the Helovian gods are fighting back. But Kaos is powerful- far more powerful than anyone thought. This may be the beginning of the end of Helovia as we know it.
Kisamoa :: A New Kind of Kaos ☼ - 3/2017 - Kisamoa asks Helovians to help him restore the Spectral Marsh. Which side will you choose?
Invasions :: All Out War ☼ - 5/2/16 - New layout and the brand new invasion rules are up! Thank you for your patience and we look forward to getting started with this new adventure.
The Rift :: Gods Do Die ☼ - 8/2015 - Helovia Gods are saving the Rift from corrupt gods! Can Helovians band together against these foreign deities?
The Literal Ship ☼ - 2/8/15 - Oh no! You have to pair up for Valentine's day!
Sky Island :: Murder ☼ - 10/25/14 - Vesta has been found dead on the island, and the gods have called to you to solve the murder!
Sky Island :: Peace ☼ - 7/7/14 - An island has appeared in the sky! Clouds carry Helovians from the Veins to the sky.
Restoration :: We Welcome the Dawn ☼ - 9/21/13 - The sun has finally risen on this day, giving the land new light, but the Time God and the Sun God have yet to be seen.
Endless Night :: Broken Magic Plot ☼ - 8/30/13 - The earth god has returned and is walking across Helovia to heal the land. Every area can now be considered lush and prosperous, but the sun has still not risen.
☼ - 7/19/13 - The moon has risen in the sky, heralding the return of the Goddess of the moon. Lamp trees which light the paths have grown brighter, moon flowers which grow in dark places have begun to grow and prosper and the world is brighter, filled with a new hope.
Endless Night :: Dead Magic Plot ☼ - 6/22/13 - The gods of Helovia, in order to protect the world, have disappeared into the rift, leaving the world sunless, moonless and magic-less in their absence. Only the herdlands have a source of light, but lamp-trees with glowing leaves and branches sporadically line the popular roads and paths from place to place.
Doppleganger Plot ☼ - 6/20/13 - The God of Time is still struggling to close the rift though which the dopplegangers have come. He has requested that his brothers and sister assist in closing this hole, but without knowing why it opened, the task is proving difficult. Magic still remains faulty and hard to control, but the herdlands continue to be places of refuge for those who are fortunate enough to call these lands home.
ORANGEMOON cools off the lands with a a viscious force. Colder than normal, a sign of things to come during Frostfall, Helovia is bathed in a rich tropical lushness - albiet a cold one. The coastlines of the Dragon's Throat are pelted constantly by tidal waves, and the desert climate is humid but chilly. Ice begins to form early in the Aurora Basin leaving the winding trails slick and dangerous. The mists of the World's Edge coat everything in a glistening crystalline shine which encourages mould to grow everywhere. The Spectral Marsh is the only area which remains fertile, blissfully temperature and lush.
Cotm
Character of the Month for
June, 2017
WEAVER, Corporal of the Aurora Basin, is a relatively recent addition to Helovia and has taken it by storm. Branded with the seal of Death on her chest, intrigue and interest follow both her past and present. Though she is assuredly beautiful, her sometimes sharp personality reveals that there is more to this uni-peg hybrid than meets the eye. Proving herself able on the battlefield in the Basin’s warrior ranks, we can’t wait to see her test her mettle against the looming Kaos happenings! Congratulations!
Helovia RPG was created by Tamme and Blu and coded by Tamme also known as Schwartze. All coding, palettes and imagery are copyrighted to the website and are not for use outside of Helovia. Thank you to our ServerMaster for hosting Helovia. A special thanks goes to Neo for all of her coding help and fixing Tamme's errors, Boom, for her loyal service and creation of the Time God, and to Ali for her consistent contributions and dedication.
Catacombs and tombs of the fallen stretched before his sights, dense, looming fog surrounding and pervading the layers of restless anarchy, of silent demise, of the haunting, lush grounds of calamity and acrimony. Hilltops languished and anguished the feverish pull of his heresy, and Deimos marched into its midst, beguiled and allured by the fortitude, by the strength, by the enigmatic twists and turns of portended apathy, augured enmity. No other options seemed to exist, like another sequestered plunge into nefarious, diabolical dungeons, iron fences jutting into the scenery, high, looming intimidation ensuring no matter how high the leap, how fruitful the jump, his body would be pinioned upon its locked corridors. Would defeat of the unknown allow his escape, his deliverance, his liberation again? What would finally settle the pinnacle of his freedom – would he have to fight another ally, friend, comrade again, like a plagued nuisance of the heart and mind, or would he merely have to unravel the semblance of his destruction over and over and over again, against an enemy in the murk and haze?
Motions somehow unrestricted from the hold of new garb Huyana had concocted for him (a bright, vibrant red, with silly, plastic horns strewn against his skull - the red bull, pushing us into the ocean she’d said, laughed and mocked), he moved and wandered through the abyss, the labyrinth, scrutinizing, piercing gaze attempting to puncture the layers of desecration he’d have to mar. A sound, soft, scrambling, stumbling, echoed off the arches of stone and monuments towards his left, and instead of turning to persecute the noise, he continued onward, much more thorough in his efforts than before. He craved the knowledge of the layout, the land, to ensure annihilation, to provide obliteration, from the Stygian sectors of haunted corners and hollowed corridors. He wanted to analyze, to unravel, to strangle and suffocate, inveigle Machiavellian designs and callous calculations until the world crashed down upon his daggers and he’d be permitted the feverish reverie of escape, to journey back into the barbaric threads of his glacial empire.
His movements were choked, halted, ceased, however, as another noise was captured by his ears, off to the right, unsettled and fractious like his own building, brewing, brimming maelstrom. Incapable of ignoring this chord, for the engraved, puncturing rapture of battle stirred in the culmination, the finale, of all these anguishing, crusading armaments steeled his fury, he attempted to move amongst the decadence of hushed graves, noiseless dead, hoped to render the stranger into their own tomb. Weaving between the stones, he finally came upon a Pegasus, massive, towering over his own frame (which was a vexation on its own, for the beast must have been capable of great power), and perhaps, as he clenched his jaw, the only advantage he had would be speed. Trying to muster stealth in the vicious, unwinding mist and midst, he pursued, slithered, advanced, Reaper draped in red, hot, ignited and incensed ichor, attempting to come upon the Pegasus’s left. His sword, his rapier, his cutlass, pointed and severe, intended to drag its edge towards the winged one’s shoulder, eager to slice, lacerate and rip, like a tearing, merciless blade, relentless and undone.
[@[Gaucho] @[Arlo]
535 words. Graveyard Champ spar. 1/3 + 0/1 defense.
Deimos is dressed as The Red Bull. Bright, red blanket. Plastic horns strung along head.
Locked in the gates of the graveyard, Deimos intends to find an escape. Believing he must defeat those within in order to acquire his freedom, he marches further into the land. Hearing a noise, he follows it and comes across Gaucho. Relishing the opportunity, he attempts to come upon Gaucho’s left and use his horn to pierce his left shoulder.]
"No. Rudolph is a girl." He stated once again, failing to see why Sohalia wanted to dress him up as a female reindeer. "Gaucho, not a girl.". The white mare sniffed, as if wounded by his words. Frowning, Gaucho conceded and lowered his head to her height, grunting uncomfortably. He had learned it was usually simpler to give in when she got like this: what he had not yet learned, was that she knew it too. As his head lowered, her faux disappointment instantly disappeared, and she resumed happily chattering away to Mara, who was enjoying this process entirely too much in Gaucho's opinion.
After what felt like years, Sohalia stepped back, inspecting Gaucho with a critical eye. As she moved forward to make yet another adjustment, Gaucho raised a tinsel-covered wing in protest. "Done." He advised sternly, twitching his nose uncomfortably. Why was his nose uncomfortable you ask? Because with Mara's help, a flashing red orb was now firmly affixed there, à la Rudolph . Tsking, Sohalia nodded. "Off you go then." With a grunt, Gaucho moved forward, jingling as he did so. A harness of bells was slung from his spiked collar, connecting over his withers and behind his wings, and drooping down on both sides towards his flanks. While Sohalia had been creating his harness, Mara had been placing crystal ornaments in his antlers, courtesy of Sohalia's magic.
As Gaucho's dark wings lifted him into the air and away from the frosty sands of the Throat, he was sure he could hear Sohalia call him "Rudolph", and laughing.
Giddy-up jingle-horse Mara sang in her slithery-mental voice, as Gaucho sailed through the frigid night. The air was crisp, but the dense fog that covered the moon forced Gaucho to land in an unknown area. Moving forward, Gaucho tried to fold his wings against his flanks, to dampen the sound of jingling while he walked. Snapping his tinsel-covered tail, he moved forward towards a rather modest gravestone. Lowering his antlered brow, causing the ornaments to tinkle, he inspected the up-turned earth with a frown. Why? Gaucho thought to Mara. Monssssster Massssh? She replied, slithering down his nose to take a look. Her forked tongue tasted the air, and almost immediately she began to hiss. Her white face retracted as a hand reached upward through the frigid earth, trying to pull her down into the earthy depths. With an aggressive grunt, Gaucho lurched forward, trying to slam his hooves onto the grasping limb, before cantering uneasily into the rest of the graveyard.
During this explosive scene, Gaucho's dark wings had come away from his body, causing his harness of bells to cheerily ring out through the graveyard; little did Gaucho know, that there were more than the undead who would be listening.
Through the haze a figure draped in red seemed to materialize (or perhaps it was because of the constant pulsing red orb on his nose, that Gaucho simply blocked the additional redness). Gaucho's antlered brow lowered defensively, but it was upon Deimos' fake red-horns that Gaucho focused, rather than the real dagger hidden in the night air. The length was also unexpected, and so as Gaucho braced himself to collide with the Red-Reaper's shoulder and possibly lock horns with him, his own shoulder suddenly flared with pain, accompanied by the sound of jingling bells. Deimos' horn sliced cleanly through the top layers of skin causing pain to etch throughout his entire left leg, as his shoulder muscle tightly contracted against the wound. Had Sohalia's harness of bells not been there to partially deter the blade, the wound might have been crippling.
Literally seeing red, as well as feeling it, Gaucho roared at his attacker, stepping to the right to try and protect the rest of his left side from being gouged. His already lowered brow lowered further, trying to return the favor by scraping the Reaper's own flank. Twisting his head away and forcing himself forward, Gaucho bucked towards Deimos' hind-end, as a defensive maneuver, to deter pursuit.
Ahead, he could vaguely make out a whitish shape. Given that the ground had already attacked him, as well as a red yewwneekorn, Gaucho's primitive brain immediately concluded Arlo was a threat. His silvery magic poured from his antlers, forming a large reindeer. Both beasts charged forward in tandem towards Arlo, though one of the figures was considerably favoring his left front leg. Wanting to minimize the damage to his left shoulder, Gaucho tried to approach the white stallion on his right. His goal was to have their right shoulders collide, so that Gaucho's spiked collar would dig into the equines flesh. Meanwhile, the silvery reindeer rushed directly at Arlo's left side, trying to force him into Gaucho.
[WC: 786.
Attack: 1/3
Gaucho lands in the graveyard. After a zombie hand emerges from a grave, Gaucho jingles ahead, running almost straight into Deimos. Deimos' horn slices his shoulder. Gaucho tries to gouge Deimos with his antlers, and buck as he tries to evade him. Moving forward and seeing Arlo, Gaucho uses his magic to create a reindeer, and tries to stab Arlo's right shoulder with his spiked collar. ]
A creature of death, collapse and quietus should have felt at home in the world of catacombs, tombs and sepulchers, should have been brandished and raised like a paragon over the monoliths, monuments and patchwork collection of fallen snow – chilled, wintry, marbled, a statue of Hades amongst the murky doldrums. He and the loam should have been allies, wasting the rest of the earth together, indignant, mordant, trenchant beings craving obliteration and bedlam. Instead, the land, the empire, betrayed his mortal flesh.
As the Pegasus reeled from the monster’s assault, and likely prepared to enact a returning blitz, the ground opened beneath the Reaper. What was once dead, decrepit, withered, faded and decayed, became reanimated, pulsing, vibrating with the sensation of violence from the soil, from the earth. Perhaps if he hadn’t been minding the throngs of war, the mighty cataclysm of machinations and animosity, he would have noted the gnarled, bony fingers flailing for his flesh, entangling first with the lingering threads of his tail, the ends of the crimson blanket, and finally, his right hind. A chiseled, strong hand ensnared his limb, and as he turned his head to stare, to defile, struggled in his burning vexations, flailed, kicked, mauled, maimed, and attempted to destroy the pieces of corruption denouncing him, Gaucho struck.
Like a simultaneous plunge of the trapped, antlers scraped against his left flank, cut, sliced, and a smoldering flicker of pain resonated deep into the hymns, the croons, the murmurs of anarchy pulsing in his Stygian mind. Shocking, blinding, and foolish, he only swung the front end of his body towards the right momentarily, and nearly screamed for the agony reaching through the boughs of his left haunch, to avoid the thrashing, swinging hooves close to his frame. The layers of indignation swarmed, combined with an aching, trickling, bloody side and malevolently tied the resonance of his brutality, of his savagery, into an eternal unrest. A vicious, virulent promise settled across his reticent, archaic, barbarous bones. Something would pay.
The current measure of pain, the blasphemous hand, didn’t bestow much hope for speed, for movement, for any elegant contortion of nefarious muscles. Instead, it harked for the cool predilection of his enchantments, sang and rang for the art of his satanic gifts, called and courted the layers of vehemence to spring amongst the fluid, misty darkness. The distance, for it appeared as though the Pegasus had sauntered onward, pummeling more creatures of the night, would impact the bombardment, but the aching calamity, and the grasp of his captor, supplied him with enough fuel, enough rancor, enough wrath to extend the candor of his might.
He listened for the jingling bells on the winged behemoth, pinned his senses upon the diabolical ruminations of the tinkling tune, and pulled, pushed, pulsed into the pervading monstrosity of his veins, stepped as far forward as he could, a few stretching paces, and allowed the infernal, unholy siege to unwind from his form. Like a fiendish, haunting whisper, it slithered into the darkness, into the abyss, incorporeal, intangible, blending into the ghostly hums of the graveyard, channeling and streaming towards the only other living creature, to render them another one of the decaying.
Only thereafter did the hand release him from his plight.
[543 words. 2/3 + 0/1 defense.
Immediately after Deimos attacks Gaucho, and as Gaucho prepares to strike back, a zombie hand grabs his right hind, leaving him no opportunity to escape. Gaucho strikes his left flank, leaving him bleeding and blinded with pain. Aching, he manages to swing the front end of his body away, towards the right, from Gaucho’s kick.
As Gaucho moves away from him, Deimos concentrates on the jingling bells to provide him with a sense of where the Pegasus’ presence. Still trapped by the zombie’s hand, Deimos sends his death magic to find and maim the fellow combatant.]
Vaguely, Gaucho began to wonder if all the creatures in the graveyard were comprised of dieing flesh. As his antlers raked across Deimos, he could smell the acrid scent of death - although he failed to see the un-dead hand gripping the Reaper's leg and holding him there. Even as he rushed towards Arlo, the pale stallion offered no resistance, and crumbled at his touch. It made little sense, but it would seem the warrior would be forced to figure it out - for as his gaze turned upwards, he saw the thick blanket of fog appear to lower, as if creating a ceiling above their little graveyard arena. Any good pilot would know, that to fly through such a haze without proper instruments could be suicide, and while the blinking light on his nose was good for others to see him, it was not an effective tool for navigation.
Unbeknownst to Gaucho, the fog was to be the least of his worries. Indeed, were he to know what was coming for him in the darkness, he might well have taken his chances in the sky.
A 'crawler' as they have come to be called, was moving with a horrid slowness, towards with jingling form of Gaucho. The creature had no throat, so while its mouth moved with obvious attempts to screaming at him, no sound emerged. It did emit a faint clacking sound, as its teeth gnashed together, but Gaucho failed to hear this over the sound of the bells jingling on his harness. Instead, the warrior strained to find his horned adversary in the darkness. As the light on his nose pulsed and faded away, his eyes spied faint and fake images of red capes and blood soaked horns flitting in the darkness all around him. The warrior screamed with frustration, calling forth the silvery-stag that had previously charged at Arlo. With soundless strides, the creature bolted past Gaucho towards were the brute remembered Deimos to be. As the creature went, it emitted a faint light from it's ethereal body, illuminating the area with a subtle, silvery glow. As it neared Deimos, attempting to charge directly at him, Gaucho was filled with a sudden horror, as the light of his magic fell upon the grasses before Deimos.
The grass was dead. But even more horrifying, the Reaper was not moving.
There were only a few times in his life as a warrior, that Gaucho could recall an adversary not issuing an attack: and that was when the battle had clearly been won. Gaucho had maimed his opponent surely, but they were both still standing, they were both still fine, they were both still -
In his antlers Mara let out a hiss of panic. Perhaps the snake could smell the oncoming scent of death, or perhaps she simply made the connection of what was happening. Either way, she mentally rattled Gaucho's mind to evade. His large hooves back peddled quickly, sending his hind-end directly into the crawler. His hoof stepped upon the thing's skull, cracking it with a dry and unappetizing sound, yet still its arms flailed to grasp him. Gaucho tried to spin, to evade the ghostly after-image of the silent and still Reaper, but his wounded shoulder cried out in pain, and slowed his movements. His hind-legs scrambled to try and rid himself of the crawler, which had now grabbed onto his tail and back right leg, holding onto him like a decapitated koala bear. Even as this horror was quickly unfolding, a path of death was unhurriedly and confidently moving towards him.
With the added weight of the crawler on his leg, and the pain of his shoulder, he could not outrun Deimos' magic - even if he could have, in this dim setting, it wasn't the type of thing he could see coming. Deimos magic struck his right hind-leg and hind-quarter, which caused the crawler to take some of the force, falling like a deadweight from his leg. As for Gaucho....it was the strangest feeling. His leg felt cold, but also tired...there was pain as well and...a sort of restfulness? Part of him thought it felt as though his thigh had been pummeled insistently for hours, while another part felt as thought he had done the work himself, and that he was merely fatigued. Gaucho, who had never died before, or even vaguely experienced death, could find no way to make sense of the feeling in his limb. It still worked, but in an almost lazy way - causing the rest of his body to strain to move himself forward.
Fearing for what might come next, Mara knocked off the glowing bulb on Gaucho's nose that still pulsed a dull red. If death was coming for them, they didn't need to make it easy.
[WC: 798.
Attack: 2/3
Gaucho, unable to find Deimos as he has been stayed by a zombie, sends his silvery-magic-stag towards Deimos to attack, but also to shed some light in the darkness. He see's Deimos merely standing there, but also sees that the grass around him has died. Trying to evade, Gaucho retreats, stepping onto a zombie who grabs hold of his right leg. Spinning slowly and unable to escape, Deimos' magic hits his right hind leg, causing the zombie to fall away, but also effecting that limb. ]
The Reaper drank and absorbed, feasted and reveled in the absorption of energy, felt it pulse through his limbs, quaking, murmuring amongst the aching doldrums, the heady anguish, and renewing the sense of calamity crooning along his Machiavellian sentiments. The only disappointing portion was that the body of the Pegasus still remained upright, carved into the fog and abyss like a towering Colossus, a darkening inferno Deimos sought to see extinguished, snuffed, smothered and doused. What would it take for his opponent to smolder amongst the tombstones, whittle his name into the roughened stone, ramble and saunter within the crowd of undead creatures?
Before he had any further opportunity to ruminate and explore the situation, a strange puff of light coiled amongst the murky darkness, eerie, unearthly, roaming as a deer, leaping, bounding for his flesh. The battered, embittered left flank didn’t permit him to escape the clutches of the divine, consecrated luminescence, drifting towards the right again only increased the onslaught, the agony, of a wound not yet healed, no matter how much soul he’d managed to steal from Gaucho. Frustrations waged an imminent battle when the most bizarre infliction pummeled him, the cervine’s silvery complexion hitting along the left side of his barrel – and a numbing sensation coursed through his veins. The impact was not an intense, loathing pain scorching, reeling or blinding his senses, but the trickle, the nuance, the drowning, cumbersome, sting of terror, freezing his motions, his movements, until he was just a stoic, impassive cretin in the darkness, wondering over the weight of horror. Was this what his victims felt as the satanic necromancy pushed, breathed and ghosted through their skeletons, frozen, paralyzed? Was this what the world felt as he marched over the earth, disturbed, mauled, massacred? Was he eternally the ominous heathen, the nefarious reverie, the foreboding, impending damnation? Did he haunt and unravel as this abyss had? And when could he make that horrendous beast feel the same, crushing, obliterating sensation again?
He was released seconds, an endless, raucous eternity, later. The anomaly gave his enemy precious moments to settle and hide into the wilderness, into the abyss, into the fog, drift off into the nocturnal enigmas, and the fiend’s vexations heightened all over again. Shaking his head, feeling the plastic horns bounding off his skull, he listened – for the scrape, for the steps, of another. Attempting to pick out the sliding, stumbling gaits of other monsters, the walking, crawling dead, unfurling strides to avoid another attempt of snatching his limbs, he finally delved into the corners of his memory, of the other’s garb. A bright, red crimson hue, a jingling fixation - the bells – like a carol, like a beacon, a chorus, an opus, a symphony of iniquity and immorality, pulsed through the darkness, urging him onward, begging, drawing, enticing him towards mayhem, towards devastation and upheaval.
The bestial devil followed the light, airy refrains, drawing into the edges of mist and shadow, motions slowed and aching, but motivations gleaming, dipping, slithering into the molten, infernal schemes of the diabolical, closer, closer, closer, until the sovereign believed he was near the dregs of the winged titan. Attempting to come along the Pegasus’s left side, the long breadth of his sword swung, intending to mark flesh, to scar sinew, to incise brutality, barbarity, and malevolence into the behemoth’s barrel, infusing the depths of his desecration, of his enchantments, with the severe plunge of demise all over again.
[576 words. 3/3 + 0/1 defense.
Taking some of Gaucho’s energy from his previous attack, the Reaper feels a bit better until the silvery-light stag hits his left barrel. But instead of pain, he feels numbed, frozen and terrorized, and he remains immobile for several seconds. Presuming this has given Gaucho time to escape, he slowly moves into the fog and murk again. Following the sound of the bells upon Gaucho’s costume, he attempts to draw towards the Pegasus’s left barrel, intending to pierce and puncture, infuse his deadly magic into the assault.]
Giddy-up jingle horsssssssse Mara once again hissed in Gaucho's mind, although this time there was no humour in her mental-voice. Something about the way her bonded felt after the Reaper's last attack, left her terrified. Never before had she ever felt Gaucho's mind sway and ebb away the way it had when the magic struck - and it wasn't a sensation she wanted him to experience anytime soon. Urging him forward, and away from the blinking light that was now like an eerie marker in the upturned earth, Mara tried to probe into Gaucho's mind, to see what lingering effects there were of the magic. While she found that there was a definite source of pain where the Reaper had sliced his muscular shoulder, she couldn't quite put to words the sensation that she felt in his mind. Knowing now how Gaucho must often feel when he couldn't describe something, Mara simply silently inquired if he was alright.
Fine. Was his response, but he didn't sound fine. He sounded frightened. For a creature like Gaucho who was more braun than brain, it was a truly frightening proposition to know that there were certain things in the world that his strength simply could not overcome. Deimos' death magic seemed to be one of those things. In a rather philosophical sense, Gaucho had just learned a very important lesson: He could not fight death. However as he jingled forward, he felt the feeling - whatever it was - slip away. Whatever sensation supervened on the extreme fatigue of his muscle, was lessening its hold. That in itself was a strange sensation, for now as Gaucho moved forward with more speed, he had the uncanny feeling that the limb which had been struck, was not his own. It had been years since the dun felt out of shape, and it certainly should have taken more than this graveyard tussle to cause his muscles to feel so exhausted. Yet as he struck up a canter - his bells singing out merrily - his back right leg felt at extreme odds with the rest of his well-trained physique.
ssssssssssssh Mara hissed, as his jingling became louder. With a muffled grunt, Gaucho folded his dark wings against his flanks, hoping to dull the sound of the bells as he moved through the dark night, and up one of the hills. His gait slowed as he began to pick his way through the tombstones which now protruded from the earth more regularly. Half-turning amidst the markers, Gaucho caught sight of the fog swirling to allow some unseen shape to also ascend the hill. Quickly the sight of a red cape and horns appeared through the veil, serving as an unpleasant reminder of the magic he just encountered. Gaucho spread his wings, no longer concerned with the sound of his bells as he faced his nearing attacker, and prepared to take to the skies; to fight this bull from a privileged position. However from the ground came a hand, possessing of a grip much stronger than he would have thought possible, effectively grounding his flight. With a snarl his mind turned inward, calculating alternative tactics.
Rearing unsteadily, Gaucho tried to kick the top of a crumbling cross towards the Reaper's hooves, to try and divert his path. The tombstone marker, did crumble and fall, though not with the ease that Gaucho had expected, and the warrior felt pain radiate up through his right front leg. Wings already outspread, the beast made a calculated decision to avoid letting the Reaper's horn come into contact with his core by sacrificing his wing. Jutting his left wing forward and out to try and force Deimos' head away from his flank he simultaneously tried to lunge forward - as far as his un-dead tether would allow - to try and grate his spiked collar against the Reaper's cape and side. Suddenly pain flared in his wing, as he felt Deimos' horn pierce the thin skin of his left wing, under his primary and secondary coverts. Dark primary and secondary feathers covered with blood, littered the ground, as Gaucho roared in pain. Unhindered by this sudden blooming of pain, or the zombie below, Mara's long white body streaked forwards, aiming for the left side of Deimos' thigh, or croup. Venom dripped from her hungry fangs, as she aimed to infect the dark unicorn with her own primitive death-magic.
Knowing that the bull-headed creature would likely make another pass, Gaucho bucked - straining forward on forelimbs that were now both sore, to rid himself of his un-dead leash. With a dry breaking sound, the hand holding onto Gaucho's hind leg snapped off, yet remained firmly closed around his pastern.
[WC: 789.
Attack: 3/3
Gaucho moves up to the top of a hill, as Deimos' magic wears off, but still leaves his leg feeling fatigued. He sees the mist swirl around the Reaper as he approaches, and Gaucho tries to take flight. A zombie hand emerged from a grave and firmly fixes him to the ground. Gaucho rears and kicks at the top of a gravemarker to try and fling it at Deimos' hooves to divert him. He opens his wing to try and knock Deimos' head aside to avoid having his horn hit his barrel, and the horn pierces his wing. Gaucho tries to cut Deimos with his spiked collar as he passes, while Mara lunges to try and bite at Deimos' thigh/back]
Through the pain, through the fog, through the haze and the anguish, chaos filtered and flickered throughout his mind, pummeled, channeled, hummed and hymned as a pulsing, vibrant tenacity – and he relished, reveled in it. Anger, devastation, liberation and deliverance, conveyed and condemned through the zealous, fervent animosities toiled and languished in the opulence, in the decadence, of the heathen brutality. He swallowed the maelstrom, suffered in its overreaching pinnacles, damned and deluded the crushing filaments, the rash, unsung villainy, the violence longing to explode, the coveting, the yearning, to do more and more damage, without time, without instants and junctures to overtake, to maul, to annihilate. Had he enough hours, the Reaper would have shown all of them to their graves.
Deimos advanced up the hill, drove himself on and on, felt the lament of his scorned left flank rise again, surrounding his senses with the predilection of biting, gnawing ill-will, and heard the rumbling of stone, shattering pebbles and monuments. The piercing machinations of his gaze had only a few moments to widen, staring as a piece of marker came tumbling towards his frame. With the pain, the torture, rendered upon his body, he had scarce precious seconds to swivel to the right, and still, as he channeled his energy into motion, into movement, the rock struck against his left front cannon, ricocheting and bounding off bone – bruising, toiling, blinding his sight into tremors and spots of agony. Were he not of resolute, determined blood, he may have fallen and crumbled there, instead, he dug into the ground. Pushing more upon his right, he twisted and distorted, clenched and snorted, gasped and gave one momentous drive forward, to rid himself of this plague, to render himself away from this nuisance, to murder, to slaughter, to massacre.
Satisfaction was rendered with a burst of feathers as his horn struck true, as his sword swiped skin, sinew, and flesh, ducking right once more and brushing against the fringes of the outstretched wing, nicked by the edges of the spiky collar, pelt crumbling away, almost unnoticed and hidden by the other traces of aches and agonies. Even as his senses flashed, danced, spun wildly out of control, induced by pain, torment, throbbing contortions, he allowed the briefest amount of content to embolden his nefarious heart as his opponent roared with thunderous affliction, before another long, ivory streak stunned the nocturnal atmosphere.
Nearly expecting the strange, bizarre element of light again, he attempted another motion towards the right, eager to get far, far away from the prior, numbing force. Instead, a bite seared into his left flank once more, and the torture bloomed, corroded, mauled in tumultuous, feverish ferocity. A gasp echoed from his lungs, barreled into the mist and fog, and he was no longer the dragooning red bull, but the crumbling, crimson fortress. Adrift, lost, in the murk, without clarity, without sense of being, of knowing, he seemingly floated, wandered and meandered a few steps away, embodying confusion, anguish and suffering, silently rendered into a numbing, hushed fortitude. He hardly noticed the flailing hooves of the Pegasus, saved by stumbling away into the darkness, and only surmised the briefest thoughts cluttering and clouding his head. Was it just his left haunch and cannon that ached, breathed fire into his skin and sentiments, coiled brimstone into his heart, or were there other pieces of him broken off, splintered and severed? Had he done enough? Had he earned his escape, his liberation? Or was he doomed, damned all over again to remain here, poised in the makings of his own persecution?
[[599 words. 3/3+ 1/1 defense.
As Deimos advances up the hill, he notices Gaucho’s portion of stone flying towards him, but due to the pain in his left flank, is not capable of moving very far. He swerves to the right, but feels the stone hit his left front cannon, bruising it.
Satisfied thereafter that his attack has left its mark, he barely notices the brush of the spiked-collar, and some pelt falls away from his skin. Mara, on the other hand, stuns him with her bite upon his already injured left flank, leaving him stunned, disoriented and confused, stumbling off to the right. Due to prior motions, Gaucho’s hooves hit nothing, and Deimos is left to muse in his confusion.
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The blast of war blows in our ears [Graveyard Champ]
