the Rift


[JUDGED] We're Comfortable Killers [Confutatis Challenge]

Deimos the Reaper Posts: 527
Deceased atk: 7.0 | def: 12 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 7 HP: 72.5 | Buff: NUMB
Heather
#1


He fed on friction, on maelstroms, on bedlam, on puissance and decadence, sought and chased it down on the threads of insurrection. The contempt, the abhorrence, burned intensely within his chest, distorted, knotted, and gnarled, filtering into the malicious slide of his bones, the menacing motions of his existence. Heedless, unrelenting, a new purpose savored across his tongue and relished in his infidel footfalls. Infernal indignation, curled and coiled like a spring, taut, and unyielding, a ferocious force and blistering barbarism, twisted through the warrior fluidity of his movements. Deimos carved through the lands, a shadow, a devil, a monster, on the slivered and slashed horizon, churning, boiling, and funneling rage into purpose, into motivation. For too many hours they’d been pricked and plucked against, barbs thrown and landed upon Basin hides, a Regime scratching and rasping their claws down mountainside caverns, cackling in the wind. It was all a vicious, unwinding cycle, Illynx chasing a skulled-harpy away from the borders, children and their mother absconded, tortured, and the icy assailments bristling in reply, in response, mauling and pilfering their leader, and with a damning conclusion: the wench freed from her icy prisons. Then Confutatis was ignored, her kind, her ilk, her empire, left for naught – until she set herself upon renewing the sequence. She’d snaked her talons into warrens and caves, set her aim on more of the Reaper’s sovereign, and the Lord, in response, sought out her blood, her suffering, and her misery.

Even while he maneuvered across the worlds, a heathen on his favored turf (war, battle, bloodshed – it undulated and pulsed in the avaricious quiver of his muscles), his calculations couldn’t quite understand her motivations. Why would she seek out the Basin for obliteration time and time again? Hadn’t they destroyed her once before? Hadn’t they stolen her from her webs, hadn’t they snagged and ensnared her into their glacial whims? Hadn’t they shown her their power, their domination, their superiority? Or did she just yearn to remain a blister, a scab, in their minds, seeking to weave havoc and anarchy? It seemed entirely nonsensical, and all he craved, all he coveted, was her devastation for hastening one more nettle. She’d awakened the beast, the Mephistophelean statue, the depraved oeuvre. Provoked and instigated, potent and finessed into the forbidding annihilation, into the seething maelstrom of their carnivore designs, the ethereal, eldritch titan marched into devil’s clarity and drummed smoking savagery. She’d see her foolishness riddled and mired in her ruin. Enough was enough.

She wouldn’t touch them again. He’d protect his herd, his people, his patriots, over and over until she faded away, until acrimony finally caught her, until death ultimately condemned her.

The behemoth’s brow was reticent, but his core feral, fierce, ignited and kindled, lacquered and layered in predacious grandeur. The temptation of treachery furrowed deep into his soul and bristled, seared, scorched, along the edges of his dangerous entity, crossing into the copse and firs of the Ancient Rotunda, where the Regime once reigned, small, stupid, irritating. He didn’t bow beneath the archaic structure, the hues of kaleidoscope skies and marble arches. He didn’t simper in the bright gallows. Instead, the King invaded her terrain, raising his cranium amidst the untouched columns, the overwhelming, overpowering bestial flame seething and unraveling, waiting for the seditious plunge of his sword into her chest, into her skull. A ravenous appetite eager for a bite, restless for a taste of her flesh, of her ignorance, of her ineptitude, unfurled the penetrating, piercing shade of his vocals, calling for Confutatis; for supremacy, for dominance, the pattern continuing, the onslaught persistent, the rhythm relentless.

[0/4 posts. 605 words. Challenge for Confutatis: Deimos is seeking her bone armor and dominance over her actions. I’m not sure if it’s viable to challenge her to leave the Basin alone (maybe an admin could confirm this for me?) If not, then I’ll be satisfied with the latter. ^_^

Setting: Ancient Rotunda, end of Birdsong. Deimos is currently waiting in the center of the rotunda. ]





Odd the doer of things Posts: 115
Administrator atk: 23 | def: 42 | dam: 108
Mare :: Other :: 5"2 :: 27 HP: 108 | Buff: badass
Odd
#2
Challenges can only be made for one thing at a time. Deimos' challenge is for Confutatis' bone armor.

The admin are currently in the process of articulating the parameters of what a challenge to leave a character or a herd 'alone' would be.

Confutatis the World Eater Posts: 179
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.5
Mare :: Equine :: 16.2hh :: 9 HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Mongrel :: Common Kitsune :: Dark Illusions wanda
#3
an appropriate gif


Confutatis
You are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down / Strike a match and I'll burn you to the ground / We are the jack-o-lanterns in July / Setting fire to the sky
Hooks barb into cinereal, unearthly flesh, grapnels aimed to wrest, yank, her back to the place she had long and happily avoided. The cry is clarion, a haunting fanfare for war and barbarism, a stirring call for sensual murder and butchery, an outstretched hand gloved in black velvet; a familiar and delicious song, a hymn to her prowress, her fame, her ego. It's a summons for a beast not finished in her conquests and desires, a wolf clothed in equine skin; a voracious queen, World Eater, poised to devour. A dancing partner.

Except their song would not be a ballet, but a deadly composite of bruising flesh and black necromancy bleeding out from dark pores -- her favourite kind of waltz.

The wolf's head rises, casual insolence leaking out through the movement, and idly begins to make her way towards the origin of the demand. His request -- she does not recognize the voice, nor does she care for he who will fall beneath the enslaught of her poisonous magic -- will be answered in due time. Of course, first, he will wait for her; no Queen gives heed to the wishes and wants of a lowly peasant, and thus she luxuriates in the minutes which drag and trickle by. On occasion she halts, lowering her skull to crop grass here and there, satisfying her body as the hunger pangs demand.

Eventually she arrives at the scene of the deplorable bloodbath in the sharp and imminent future, and her single eye -- a broken bit of gold embedded in charcoal -- roams up to his face; but even without seeing, properly, she knows who he is. There, situated in shadow and ash, is sapphire, polished blue leeched dry of emotion. Or, perhaps, there had never been any feeling to begin with. As for his physical prowress... she is skeptical of it. Certainly there are ramifications of strength, along his neck and shoulders, in the Andalusian heritage touched with the elegance and agility of an Arab; but that is not so much her primary concern as what lingers around him. Death, and sorrow, an omnipresent sensation of darkness.

One brow rises in thick arrogance; what a pleasure. Did the Basin truly think her so much a threat as to send their Lord after her? A sinuous, satisfied smirk blooms out against her cadaverous lips (scarred, cracked things already beginning to dampen with her first form of magic -- acidic saliva.)

Are you ready?
The thought rolls through her head, a scrupulous and nasty inquiry; Mongrel knows she is ready. He, too, can feel it, in the braced set of her legs, in the curl of her arched neck, in the sharp silhouette she cuts on the horizon. Formidable. Fierce. Damning; swarthy arrogance pressed and folded into a dark smear with silvered hairs. And at her feet, her little Yako, mischief and malice compressed into a wolfish form, weaving, knitting away at the vivid imagery which is his favorite pastime.

There is no noticeable beginning, no decisions made between the companions in that brief moment. They simply begin, falling into practiced routine and pre-arranged strategy.

Visions of macabre and unsettling intent are conjured up based on memories remembered for this purpose. First, he paints Confutatis white, draws her in ivory; narrows out her hips, sharpens the slope of her shoulders, pronounces each rib. Then grows from her forehead a horn red, and her mane and tail turn alabastar dipped in scarlet. For all the world, she looks like Ophelia... except dripping in blood. It runs from her 'eyes', from her 'nostrils', and from deep puncture wounds scattered all over her 'body' -- those areas where the skin hasn't been peeled away to 'expose' sinew, that is.
Beneath the studious illusion her armor melts out across her body, bone and leather.

The World Eater charges directly forward, aiming to approach head-on, Mongrel's illusions wrapping tightly around her.
As she [hopefully] nears Deimos' head, attempting to be more to his right side than left, her weight sinks further back over her hocks, redistributing as her forelegs drive up off the ground. It is not a rear by any means -- if anything, only a semi-rear, with her center of gravity still pitched forward as to carry her momentum and truly drive herself into the stallion. Her right forehoof attempts to scrape down the front of Deimos right foreleg's shin, to crack against the bone and bruise the sparsely padded flesh. Simultaneous to this, her skull twists to her right, attempting bite down over his right eye.

She recognizes that she does not have fangs (as much as she might wish it otherwise) and that her teeth are not meant to grip or gouge. Yet she drools acid -- she is confident that even brief contact will do harm.
Or at least she hopes.


1/4 for Confutatis' armor.
Word Counter: 800
OOC: I am using wordcounter.net for my word count, in case there are some discrepancies should an admin find a different total. I hope I made it clear enough in my post, but I was thinking Confutatis was attempting to approach on an angle like this! (Please excuse the sloppiness of the diagram haha.)
Join the Regime.

Deimos the Reaper Posts: 527
Deceased atk: 7.0 | def: 12 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 7 HP: 72.5 | Buff: NUMB
Heather
#4


Initially, he was confused.

The bestial shades of his rage were suddenly consumed in a cooling, petulant slide of bewilderment, sinking and slinking into his barrel – because no sooner had he called, beckoned, commanded Confutatis to show her face, did Ophelia appear. He arched his brow, stood stock still, never pressing his movement or motion into any specific direction until his mind, until his calculations, could catch up with the proceedings.

He’d never met the wench before, but a skull face had marked all of her depictions and descriptions; something the present form in front of him wasn’t wearing. Instead, it was his co-leader and conspirator consumed by the decadent hues and the temple interior, and his membrane could only implode with queries and questions. What was she doing here? Had she come to watch? Had she changed her mind about them rampaging towards the Regime sovereign? Hadn’t she agreed with him? His vocals cast one subtle grate, marked and chiseled in uncertainty. “You…?” His piercing eyes narrowed, taking in every sight, every sound, the slinking, strange movements, the deranged posture, the wounds – and then his twisting machinations folded over the oddest contortion of all. There was no dragon.

The uncanny resemblance was foiled. Didn’t Ophelia take the flying lizard everywhere with her? Didn’t he watch it glide over them in battle? What a method, a tactic, hastening to deceive and exploit rather than match strength for strength, brutality for brutality. A composition of cowardice, a weaving of spineless, gutless provocations: he shouldn’t have been surprised. The monster clenched his jaws, stoked frustration and ire; annoyed and exasperated that he’d nearly been ensnared.

The stinging barbs were set, the infernal mettle cast and colliding. His wrath flared with a caustic, indignant brilliance, carving out the rime and the chill in his bones, posturing hatred in loathing, abhorrent designs, shaping the press of his hooves, hastening the sharp tip of his sword, driving him onward, watching each movement she made.

And in the back of his mind, he laid out a churning, boiling exposition of ire: how dare you.

She charged towards his right front, scraping against the stone floor, imploring his pain, his misery, his agony with a lift of her forehand, aiming to graze him with hoof and enamel. All he could smell, all he could taste, were the toxic incantations of rotten beings, and his senses were nearly overpowered by the disturbing onslaught, because while he employed death, he didn’t embody its withering invocations, and sharply, quickly, he dodged towards the left, away from her scraping daggers and her disgusting ivories.

But he wanted to use their vantage point, their close confines, to rip and tear, to expose and inflict. The beast and behemoth knew nothing of her body type, of her height, weight, muscling or tone, because she lay hidden beneath the cloak of the Forsaken, and he wanted to do naught more than tear it away and discover who the infidel truly was, to bend and break her, to destroy and annihilate her disturbing structure. The walls seemed too far away to ram her into their stone structure, and all the distorted colors of the rotunda could do was paint their battle in ruffian glows.

He maneuvered, swift, cunning, towards the right, hoping to aim for the left side of her nape. Sinister skull lowered, callous cutlass brandished, it yearned to slice and lacerate down the length of her neck, to cause as much agony and torture as the mare had done to his Basin, to his home, to his herd. In the same stead, his veins fueled the flares, the embers, the coals, of his newfound, infidel invocations, blessed by a Red Bull, brewing them to the forefront, so when he opened his maw, one massive fireball erupted from its chambers, intending to lace its searing contents across her chest and down her front legs.


[1/4 posts. 650 words.
Confused and bewildered by the appearance of Confutatis, Deimos is taken slightly off guard. Once realizing this Ophelia has no dragon, he presumes its Confutatis, and as she comes charging towards his front, he dodges to the left, avoiding her attacks. Utilizing their close confines, he attempts to cut back toward the right, lowering his skull and using his horn to stab towards the left side of her neck. He then employs his fire magic, creating one fireball, intending to scorch her chest and forelegs.]





Confutatis the World Eater Posts: 179
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.5
Mare :: Equine :: 16.2hh :: 9 HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Mongrel :: Common Kitsune :: Dark Illusions wanda
#5


Confutatis
You are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down / Strike a match and I'll burn you to the ground / We are the jack-o-lanterns in July / Setting fire to the sky
The Reaper spins away, fleeing from the embrace of crushing pain and she wants to laugh, let free the bubbling fury which burns and coils in her breast. Coward! Did he not love the scream of agonized nerves, the burn of aching sinew and the heady aroma of war-making? How could he wear a raiment of death and not recognize what he stood for—war, carnage, slaughter?

Questions, juxtapositions, she poses, but they are simply to cover up her frustration, the grit of her teeth, the feathering of her jaw. How could she have missed? And why, why did she have to start this way? Whatever she did—whatever she tried, it wasn’t enough. It’s an insecurity which undermines her authority, an uncertainty which tugs at her heartstrings and rises, snake-like and insidious, to weave about her skull.

Black shadows on pale light.
Deimos is painted gaudily in the colors of the Rotunda, gleaming on his iron hide and glittering off his charcoal skull inlaid with sapphires. Her breathing deepens, rasps in and out painfully; her lips slaver, foam, with acid. Eyes narrow, sharp with calculating light.

How can she claim greatness, supremacy, when she could not defeat anyone?
She could rival him. Death he might wield, embroidered on his mantle and crown, but she breathed rot and waste. Desecration and ruin dripped from her pores, crept towards heathenish skin, a kiss she had used gleefully on her victims and children both, freely and wantonly, a prostitute out to stake her claim. It did not have to be where she lost – it did not have to another strike to her long list of failures! Hold your magic. The wolf tucks it close to her skin, where it lurks, waiting for a chance to snap out and latch onto Deimos’ dark skin.

I can be strong.

If not for herself, then for her children she sees watching in her peripheral vision, their faces pale and their eyes so bright. It is the first time in her life she fights for someone other than herself; and she marvels at it, this determination which burns hard and strong and fast in her smoky skin. They expect her to be a war-goddess, a monster with bloody teeth and pinned ears—how could she let them face the reality? I cannot. Their… their opinion of her mattered, more than she would care to admit.
For they were hers, and she was theirs, and she would defend them (and her ego) to her last.

Despite Deimos’ sweep away, she kept her forward momentum, slowing only slightly. The World Eater’s head dips downwards, neck curling, and she shifts her weight, bracing herself. As the dark unicorn brings his horn, aiming to rip and tear into her nape, she throws herself forth, attempting to ram her right shoulder firmly behind his right shoulder—into the barrel area—and check him off-balance. Due to this movement, his cutlass, a glittering crown so vulnerable to ambition, instead cuts cleanly through the air above her withers.

From his vantage point, hidden in the grass beyond the Rotunda, her Mongrel watches, his energy fueling hers, a volatile thing of warped shadows which croons to her, empowering, in the back of her mind: a single chant beseeching VICTORY for them. While his mother fights, he withdraws his illusion, allowing it melt from Confutatis’ body and leave her and her trademark skull in it’s appropriate place. Little, snake-like lips curl in careful thought as he examines the World Eater; what to do? Her side of the bond is consumed in thought of carnage and desecration—from her, in the throes of her concentration, he will get no advice.

Doppelgangers. They appear all around Deimos, dozens of them, packed in tightly against the Rotunda edge, overflowing the fields, walls and walls of Confutatis, repeating and never-ending. In his illusion he weaves as much detail as he can, as much realism; let the Reaper falter in his confusion, perplexion, and give the World Eater a chance at the upper hand!

Flame bestows itself upon the equine’s spine, a flash and gout of red searing the upper layers of Confutatis’ shoulders (due to her movement forward, injury joyously relocated itself.) Skin blisters, scorches beneath her bony armor and the harlot croaks in surprised pain, ears lashing back to her skull. Flesh bubbles, melts, waxes beneath the cruel blow—that, and shock. How is it he managed to land touch upon her when he was so elusive to her touch?

It rips through her: agony and promiscuous rage.
No. He will not get away with this.
And then it bursts from her, a wave of destruction and rot, her necromancy, attempting to desecrate and ruin his cinereal flesh all along his right side, to corrode his ashen skin.



2/4 for Confutatis' armor.
Word Counter: 800
OOC: Used Microsoft Office for my word counter this time around!
Join the Regime.

Deimos the Reaper Posts: 527
Deceased atk: 7.0 | def: 12 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 7 HP: 72.5 | Buff: NUMB
Heather
#6


The battle continued on its bewildering stages, for Deimos’ first attack missed in a strange, altering collision, finding his right side beleaguered by her frame (now morphed; back into how rumors and hearsay claimed she appeared, barely larger than himself), thrown slightly off-balance, scraping against stone and rubble, confused as to how she’d managed to cross paths so quickly. Another game? Another trick? Is that how she’d secured the Impersonator and her twins? Through snares? Through duplicity? Where he’d wanted to pierce and puncture, he only felt air, no flesh, no sinew. The disappointment caused him to clench his teeth, harpoon layers and layers of frustration back into his chest. It would need to be fuel, kindling, for the continuing onslaught.

But lord, how the monster wanted to defeat her. How he wanted to scour her bones and leave them dry, bleached, in the sun. How he wanted to devastate every inch of her soul until it simply vanished, gone, sunken into ruin and disaster. She’d started all of their malice, all of their menace – if she’d left them alone, the Basin wouldn’t constantly have to challenge her, wouldn’t feel harassed, wouldn’t be left wanton and abhorrent (and then the guilt ran through his veins – because he remembered how many times they’d tried to save Arah and her twins, the feeling of failure when they had to escape on their own, and the tortures etched across their bodies; he should have been able to protect them…).

The wrath surged all the more, along his muscles, unwinding in his flesh, as she composed one more ruse: apparitions. As if one Confutatis, some rotting, disgusting wench, wasn’t enough, she’d managed to obtain over a dozen of the infidel creations, stuffing them all unceremoniously into the marble rotunda, lining the ground with their seething, disturbing nuances. He stood, motionless and staring, absorbing the massive amount of infidels storming the building, for a matter of moments, calculating, surveying, wondering how on earth she was able to form these deceptions and tactics constantly (was there another in the midst; a companion he was unaware of? Were they capable of administering these techniques? If so, it’d be another object he’d have to find and destroy.).

One cold machination yearned to simply coat the entire sanction in death, leave it lacquered in demise, so that each fabrication felt his wrath, felt his ferocity, could wither and falter into the floor, leaving only their craven mistress, shirking behind a fallen comrade.

The whispers, the croons, of the satanic ministrations drummed within him in a seething opus, crowding and brooding, brewing and caressing-

But then, there was a striking, demonic foil bolstered against his right side, like the most violent of caresses, and he nearly folded over, stumbling forward at the feeling of its rage, trying to get away from the choking, strangling, suffocating fringes; he dared not look at the withering portions of his skin along his shoulder, struggling to repair, to mend, while the sinew crumbled, leaving only open wounds and flesh. His body shuddered and rippled at the violent claws, at the seething peels, and in some sort of savage, sinister display, his sorcery took over for its possessor, unfurled and unraveled every sanction of his rancorous, vehement haze. Eldritch and menacing, disquieting and unholy, it burst from the crispest, blackest part of his soul, pervading, permeating, surrounding, and filling the halls with its deadly wake, seeking out each and every doppelganger (and perhaps that hidden companion, waiting in the wings?), each and every piece of stone, aiming to destroy, to plunge death and misery and demise back into the squall.

[2/4. 605 words.
OOC Note: I was very confused on the direction changes, since Deimos was going towards Confutatis’ left in his horn attack, and suddenly Confutatis was on his right. I have responded as Confutatis changing to the right in my post.

Presuming the doppelgangers are another ruse, Deimos decides to use his death magic. While getting ready, he is hit by Confutatis’ rot magic on his right side (specifically right shoulder). Painful and choking, the skin along his shoulder begins to rot away, withering down into open wounds and flesh. His death magic takes over, seeking to fill the entire rotunda with its touch (hopefully including the doppelgangers and unknown, unseen companion).]





Confutatis the World Eater Posts: 179
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.5
Mare :: Equine :: 16.2hh :: 9 HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Mongrel :: Common Kitsune :: Dark Illusions wanda
#7


Confutatis
You are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down / Strike a match and I'll burn you to the ground / We are the jack-o-lanterns in July / Setting fire to the sky
It’s not working. The arrogance, the cockiness, the sureness; whatever fuels her, burns through her like wild flame and gasoline, is dying, withering, in the years that pass. When she fought Apollo, warred against him in the rain and the thunder, she had been so full of it, of herself, so sure that she could rise victorious. It wasn’t stepping into another skin; it was her skin.

World Eater, Queen of Skulls, the Cruel… they were names she wore, gleefully, even if none spoke them but her own tangled thoughts. And now, now they are so little.

Confutatis is terrified.
There beneath layers of conviction and confidence and presumed arrogance is an unholy and devout seed germinating to full flower: fear. It is seeded through the fractures in her armor, grows and chokes in her lungs. Each move is done, carefully, with strength and solidity, but it cannot override the fact that for all her former courage and strength, she doesn't know if she can win, doesn't know if this is worth fighting for. Her heart is fluttering, her breath is coming too short, and her nerves are quivering and guttering in the wind. Any moment now, she’ll lose control; her hand will slip on the reins, the horse will get the bit between its teeth, and she’ll be done.

Amber eyes sting but she holds back that fucked agony. I’m not weak. Out of Helovia she had been a queen, a goddess, a monster, a nightmare they only whispered of.

False comfort. Mongrel’s concern pervades through her mind, worry, the faintest hint of sorrow. Each thought he weaves is of death, of murder, of slaughter, of the victories she’s charted away; memories, each cherished, now fallen to ash. Back she shoves against them, wearing a skin of uncaring, and Mongrel’s contact fades away until all she can feel of him is a dull throb of resentment.

No. Much as she hurts, much as she wants to leave, she can’t: because of her children.

I can’t let them down. They watched her, worshiped her, and she punished them, schooled them, loved them with a passion she couldn't explain. Never before had she been controlled so completely by an emotion utterly foreign to her; she had born sons and daughters before (her hips were thick and wide with the signs of it) but it wasn't the same.

Her and her twins' bond was something precious, raw and tender and heartfelt.
They weren't… contaminated by the views of those around her. They saw her for her.
No one would take that away from her.

As Deimos’ magic is unleashed, it doesn't hurt. Not as she would expect it too—it’s not agony, raw and prevalent, but a blanket dark and warm and strangely hollow, wrapping around every inch of her. A soft silk embrace. It draws at her, wiggling into her bones, ringing in her skull, sapping from her the vital energy she so needs to fight; she wavers, quivers, heart thundering. In the back of her mind she can feel a twin pull on Mongrel’s side of the bond, a vague sensation of panic as the illusions begin to flicker and fade. Whereas she, nightmare queen, felt only the lechery of Deimos’ necromancy, Mongrel feels the drain of energy in full.
At last the illusions around them fade in entirety.

Alone, with only the faintest of hums in the back of her mind (annoyance, exhaustion) pertaining to her companion’s state.

Confutatis can’t claim surprise. There’s only a ringing numbness in her ears, a sensation of falling without ever moving. Bones tighten, flex over her skin, her armor pressing in firmly to each curve; and then the agony sinks in, the deep exhaustion lining every crease of her countenance. How easy it would be to give up; how easy it would be, to sink into apathy and melt into shadow. Just another failure to my name.

Hooves skip, slide on the slick Rotunda floor as she skates by Deimos, muscles softened by the use of his magic. With an effort, Confutatis attempts to wrench
herself to her left, to pivot about her hindquarters to face the man in black.

Murderer. Thief. King.
On her she can feel the eyes of her little ones. She can feel the weight of Oblivion’s name on her shoulders.

And then it bursts from her. Rage, and fury, and above all insidious black necromancy to wash him in rot, in ruin, in desecration, a blasphemous magic to slough skin from his bone and strip him down to his white architecture. Be gone with you. Let him be ruined; let him lose, please by all the gods, just let him lose.
All she wants is to be with her children.
All she wants is to be GONE from Helovia.


3/4 for Confutatis' armor.
Word Counter: 799 using wordcounter.net
Summary: Unleashes her rot magic towards him and around the entire Rotunda area.
OOC: To address your concerns:
“… he dodged towards the left, away from her scraping daggers and her disgusting ivories.”
Since you did not signify to Confutatis’ left, I assumed this to mean Deimos’ left, or Confutatis’ right.

“He maneuvered, swift, cunning, towards the right, hoping to aim for the left side of her nape.”
Again, you did not signify Confutatis’ left; I constitute something as hers if you were to say “on her left side, towards x area”. The “her” here is instead being applied to nape, not left. I took this to mean Deimos’ right, which at this point, considering Deimos moved to his left, would be aligned to Confutatis’ right. C: I hope this makes sense!

So unless Deimos was to dodge to his right, therefore coming up on Confutatis’ left, there would be some impossible contortions going on.

In other words:
”… I was very confused on the direction changes, since Deimos was going towards Confutatis’ left in his horn attack, and suddenly Confutatis was on his right.”
She was on his right all along!
Join the Regime.

Deimos the Reaper Posts: 527
Deceased atk: 7.0 | def: 12 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 7 HP: 72.5 | Buff: NUMB
Heather
#8


Every action he had ever committed was for the Basin. It was a strange realization to summon and conjure in his mind now, but amidst the pain and gangrenous edges tumbling down his shoulder, he was left with raw vulnerability, and perhaps the present was the time his membrane chose to address it.

He cherished them like his own flesh and blood, held their presence, their motives, their designs above all others: guarded their halls, wandered their corridors, protected and safeguarded their wares. He’d never expressed his blackguard tendencies towards their battered souls or their winded minds, he’d never told their black hearts that he’d forever sown his devilish opus into their soil and it meant he’d fight, he’d bleed, he’d die for each and every single one of their barbaric existences. The Reaper’s mouth was not his talent; he composed the tale, the promise, the conviction through exploits and deeds, through maneuvers and conduct, and whether or not they ever took notice was not his goal. His designation was always to provide a sanctum, a sanctuary, an overflowing chasm of power and potency.

But she’d rankled it, this Confutatis, seasons before, showed them that sometimes might and glory and danger provided one with naught; and even if one pushed, even if one fought, the results weren’t always in their favor (because she’d taken them and threatened to again, and he wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t cease, until an end was met).

Not since he fought Lace for his freedom, and lost, had so much agony, so much peril filled him; only this time, it wasn’t precisely for himself. She needed to be ruined, sink down below into her chosen devastation and ruin, where she could slink and toil into Tartarean underworlds, where she couldn’t harm any more of his brethren, where she felt misery and turmoil, where all of her transgressions and sins opened up her veins and seared her soul. He wanted her far below their surface, dead and lanced, so she couldn’t touch anyone belonging to the Basin ever again.

Some strange rankling of normalcy entered their fray, his narrowed gaze capturing the nuance of fading images, of doppelgangers fleeing, and suddenly, they were alone, without tricks, without ruses, without ploys, locked in a battle amidst marble and stone. Some energy was brought back to him, taken and stolen from her, fizzling down into the layers of his hate and malice, trying desperately to stitch some portions of his shoulder back together where the fringe hadn’t blackened. His stare followed her, because his body didn’t dare, fused into the floor, right shoulder extending its misery and tribulations through his mind (it was almost exhausting, how bitterly the ache bit into his frame).

She pivoted, she faced him, and they were just two determined monsters, capable of so much treachery, so much danger, so much precision and venom. All he could think, as she wielded another scarring bout of munitions (and he stumbled, shuffled again, his right front claiming uselessness), was if he was going to go down, if he was going to taste and see death rather than wield it, he’d take her with him.

Her rotten invocations traced over him again, escape futile, and he nearly choked once more on the slate of misery strangling, suffocating, binding him to one place, sweat breaking over his nape, down his chest – her wrath licked and rasped and oozed and stretched across his right shoulder again, unwinding all the hard work his Lucifer whispers had exuded, stripping flesh and bearing sinew to the world down his right foreleg. It spread like a disease, like a pestilent regime, flanking and shuddering; he lowered his crown, tried to bend inaudible suffering into the floor. The Reaper plunged one feral gasp, one all-consuming shock of pain and torment, before grinding it against his mind, barreling the friction, the trials, the torture into resolution, into perseverance, into the satanic ritual of behemoth contortions.

He raised his head, bore his eyes into hers, and had the dignity, the devilry, to smirk.

Not moving, not maneuvering: frozen in place, he was still the everlasting cretin, the bestial Grim; and with the strength still left inside him, he fueled the anarchy, the savagery, of his purpose. The fire burned along his chest, chiseled through his throat, embarked on its journey again, flaring as he opened his jaws, unleashed ambitious, blinding, burning, searing menace, one massive ball of flame, of heat, towards her front.

[3/4. 746 words.
OOC Note: I’d been using my directions from the onlooker’s point of view in your diagram. I’m not too fussed anyway, since the attack missed. We’ll just let the judge sort it out.

Deimos is hit by her rotting magic again, and despite the fact that some of his death magic had stolen her energy and tried to heal the wound, it reopens and continues down a rotting path from his right shoulder and wandering along his right foreleg. Unmoving, he channels another fireball, aiming for her front.]




OOC| Edited by Sevin to fix table coding that was messing up the remainder of the page

Confutatis the World Eater Posts: 179
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.5
Mare :: Equine :: 16.2hh :: 9 HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Mongrel :: Common Kitsune :: Dark Illusions wanda
#9


Confutatis
You are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down / Strike a match and I'll burn you to the ground / We are the jack-o-lanterns in July / Setting fire to the sky
They faced each other.
He, painted in cinereal shadow, an unearthly creature with a world of cold in his gaze and death knitted into each line, each abhorrent curve of flesh, so dark and imposing. She, charcoal and grease, supple hips and sharp-cut limbs, ruin and decay -- the ugly, hideous result of murder. Her neck curves, head swaying ever so gently, nostrils cusping wide enough that the ribbon of red lining her nares becomes visible. Colors glisten between them, ruby and gold, emerald and indigo, a kaleidoscope of refracting light playing over the unerringly smooth floor, illuminating greyscale flesh in a wash of summer.

The waves of her magic lick out, necromancy painting him in her colours. Ungraceful, grotesque desecration, gangrene and rings of delicious decay, a reek of prevailing murder resulting in a surge of perverted satisfaction and candied ecstasy. Hers. It sang through her veins, a song of possession -- she left her mark. No matter the result of this fight, he was hers, forever tainted by her ungodly touch.

Weariness presses at her spine, down across her neck and shoulders and sweeping curves, where cold bone bites deep into turgid gray flesh. Amber eyes, twisted and deranged, gazes out from obsidian and shade, studying the stalemate, playing in mild inquiry over the crescent curve of his lips. The edge of her happiness blunts at his simper, his smirk. There hovers in the back of her mind a question she despises: did it not hurt? She watched it grow on him, her mark, hymn to her p o w e r; and yet he did not let it faze him.

Pupils slide in direction of the onlookers, momentarily appraising the situation of the spectators; it's just her children. The mare does not know if she should be happy she has no others to judge and label, to snicker if she loses, or if she should be sorrowful she has no other to see it if she wins.

Eyelids shutter swiftly across copper and filmy white, a pirouette of lashes to hide her momentary surprise, the fleeting astonishment as much directed towards the Reaper's simper as his apparent lack of pain. Twisted joy falters, dulling to thick apathy. HAPPINESS she didn't want from her opponent. The World Eater wanted pain. She wanted intoxicating, thick misery carved into every inch of Deimos' skin, failure left in his dead-eyed gaze, loss scrawled into his bones.

All she wanted was for him to be trodden into the ground, to see him laid out in a delicate array of dead limbs and broken bones, for his skin to be carved with her magic.

Something to show the children.
To teach them that even the greatest foes could be slain -- and if he was not murdered at her unwelcoming hand, she wanted to at least live up to their expectations.
To show that while she was alive, nobody would touch them.

Thick chiseled jaws slide open and the World Eater watches, one brow crawling upwards in faint curiosity. Will he laugh? Will he shriek, roll, with amusement, as Ophelia did? Will he snigger and snort, let laughter rumble through his body and shake his limbs?
It does not occur to her this unhinging of his maw might be a premonition origin of unyielding pain.

And then his magic pours free from his gaping mouth.
There's no time. Nothing. In the back of her hind Mongrel's concern shrieks into being, a scream of fear for her. It's silent to all but them.

The World Eater does not waste time, the split milliseconds, before that vast quantity of flame might touch her. With a wild abandon, she throws diagonally forward and right, hooves scrabbling on the slick floor. Not fast enough. Agony rips through Confutatis' every nerve, every fiber, red-hot torment which shrieks across cells and grates across hair. Her head throws back, jaws twisting into sickly grimace of pain; instinct demands of her to run, to flee, to disentangle herself from the threat. The pulsating heat flashes through her entire body, originating from the moderate but large burns which begin to rise upon her left shoulder and streak down along her left side.

Jaws clench, teeth ramming together as she launches herself back towards Deimos. The outcast attempts to bring her left side to Deimos' left, and push upwards and into him (with a touch more force exerted from her right legs than left.) With her shoulder aching and bruised, she instead hopes to puncture through Deimos left side's flesh with the extended vertebrae along the top of her armour. Simultaneously, her jaws snake forward and attempt to snap down on the curve of his haunches.


4/4 for Confutatis' armor.
Word Counter: 798 using wordcounttool.net

Deimos the Reaper Posts: 527
Deceased atk: 7.0 | def: 12 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 7 HP: 72.5 | Buff: NUMB
Heather
#10


The monster had hated a lot of things in his life, but not nearly as much as he loathed Confutatis.

He abhorred how she’d chosen his herd to desecrate, to scavenge, to savage. He detested how she refused to give in, how they struck back at her ruses and tactics, and she would feel the blow, but not the fall, galvanized and returning, a vexing, rancorous phoenix revived and renewed. He despised how she managed to land blow after blow upon him, how his skin and sinew laid, flayed and open, vulnerable and seeping, agonizing and miserable, how his frame felt, bitter and fatigued.

But he needed to use every ounce of the twisted, contorted malice, every fiber of his aversion, animosity, and acrimony, to implore one more attack, one more siege, one more assault: to show her the might, the tenacity, and the indomitable pride of the Basin.

The ice never ceased. The caverns never faltered. The summits never bowed.

When his brethren were defeated, they clawed and crawled across the ends of the earth, mending and repairing. When they were conquered, they retreated back to their wintry threshold, began anew, started over, and summoned more convictions of strength and diligence.

A burst of indignation coiled in his mind, because maybe, just maybe, he held contempt for her because she reminded him of his empire, his kingdom, his reign. The notion of equality with the sickening, disturbing wench was more than he could bear.

She came at him again, burnt but unfaltering, and he stole a breath of air, embraced the sultry whims of the rotunda, scalding it down into his bones, into his lungs, trying to brew another invocation of strength through the turmoil, through the afflictions. She tore towards his left, because she’d obviously strategized (for where would his weight have to go – along the right, where his hind was undaunted but his front damaged and withering), and he ground frustration through his movements. They were slow and cumbersome, no beautiful, breathtaking displays of swiftness, and leaning towards his right (a fresh grating of pain renewed and stabbed along his skull for his efforts), trying to dodge the spikes of mass and bone, nearly caused him to buckle and slide down to the floor.

Persistence, perseverance, and a quick, upright motion saved him from tumbling into ancient stone and marble, seething, scorching measures shaped and carved his mind into a brilliant display of belligerence and barbarity; her bone armor grazed over his skin, shaving hairs off his back. Her barrage wasn’t finished, however, for as he maneuvered his front end, she drew her mouth to his left haunch, biting at the fluid muscle, the undulating coils. The pain was sudden and significant, searing across his eyes in a blistering, scorching affair, a vehement rapture of torment, joining its brethren amongst their wild, savage throes.

Deimos took the only opportunity that he had within the haze – twisting his body back towards the left, hind balancing his butchered front, aiming for her moving frame, examining the motions rapidly, a scrutinizing study while his misery extended (was the wound already infected?). The cretin’s armor covered a huge portion of her body, her haunches inaccessible, her barrel guarded, but the flank appeared, seemed, open, tender, and susceptible. Maybe there he could maul and continue their brutalizing exchange: blood for blood, agony for agony, torment for torment. The Reaper reached for her left flank, lowering his long sword, yearning to pummel every ferocious sentiment, every unwinding portion of torture, of anarchy, of sinister ardor, into rupturing, into stabbing, into lacerating her flesh.

When this was all over, when the finale crooned its last war cry, when their actions finally ceased, would she remember the taste of his treachery, recall the pain, the torture, or the results of his dangerous tactics? Would she try to maul his brethren again? Or would she flee, back into the shadows, continuing the same pattern she always seemed to cherish, disappearing until her ashes were collected, her embers restored? Would his actions be worth it?

[4/4. 678 words.
As Confutatis reaches for his left, Deimos attempts, despite the massive amount of pain in his right foreleg, to dodge towards the right. Due to his injuries, the movement is slow, and Confutatis’ armor manages to take off pelt and hair from his back.

He can only get his front away from her, and her bite manages to land on his left haunch. In retaliation, he twists his front end back towards the left, lowering his horn, intending to stab towards her left flank.]





Confutatis the World Eater Posts: 179
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.5
Mare :: Equine :: 16.2hh :: 9 HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Mongrel :: Common Kitsune :: Dark Illusions wanda
#11

Confutatis
You are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down / Strike a match and I'll burn you to the ground / We are the jack-o-lanterns in July / Setting fire to the sky
There is a satisfactory grating of flesh as she drives against him, faint reverberations coiling down the bony fixture fused into her shadowy spine. A macabre grin spread, flowers, over dessicated lips; an inconsequential blow, perhaps, but one that she can revel in nonetheless. She only wishes she could've driven the vertebrae harder into his sinews -- that she could've smashed through flesh and through cartilage, snapped him in two beneath her might of will. The harder she can hit him, the more he can bruise and break, the better. Confutatis wants the message ingrained to every pore, painted over every inch: do not come near me again, nor my twins.

Prying jaws snap down over the thick swell of his haunches, skate off hardy flesh and flexed muscle. A jagged gasp of pain wells from between her teeth as her movement forward causes the bony plates over her left shoulder to dig deeper into the raw red sinew melted beneath the Reaper's flame.

As Deimos shifts his forequarters towards her, the World Eater steps out hard on her right foreleg, aiming to shift her momentum into pivot around her front end. It's not a particularly well thought out move; the pressure increases sharply on her right foreleg, grating along the tendons over her knee and down along the front. As her hindquarters begin to slide to her right, to follow her train of thought, Deimos' horn pierces towards her. He is more agile than her, she realizes distantly -- but she cannot spare time to consider it further.

Due to her hindquarters' shift away from him, the Reaper's horn catches at the point of her left hip, slicing cleanly through in a moderately deep line starting at the point of the hip and leading up to her croup. It bites, deeply so, the new wound -- a persistent and suddenly renewed torment to her scarred and calloused body.


1/1 for Confutatis' bone armour
Word Counter: 316
OOC: Used wordcounter.net.

Awesome fight Heather and the best of luck to you in the judging!
Join the Regime.

Official Posts: 847
Administrator
Stallion :: Equine :: ::
Official
#12
By my verdict: DEIMOS is the winner!

CONFUTATIS
Realism [+2]
:: It is my understanding that Confutatis’ right eye is blind. It seems odd to me that she would have chosen to start the fight facing her right side to him of her own choice. Regardless, I would have liked to see more mention of her having difficulty seeing Deimos’ actions on that side.
:: You used your necromancy magic in posts 2/4 and 3/4, but your magic restrictions say it can only be used once per battle.
:: I think you took too much damage in your 4/4 post. Deimos only rolled a 1- Confutatis’ whole left side doesn’t really need to be covered in burns. And speaking of burns, I would have loved to see her first burn mentioned (how it was affecting her, etc.). You did manage to throw this in for your closing defense, though, and it was nice to see there.
:: Not much mention of breed differences or scenery, but I understand that the focus of this battle was more on emotion.
:: Good job getting back on track after the direction change mishap.


Emotion [+3]
:: One brow rises in thick arrogance; what a pleasure. Did the Basin truly think her so much a threat as to send their Lord after her? Well done!
:: I was overwhelmed by the power of Confutatis’ emotion in post 3/4. It was absolutely beautiful. Excellent!


Prose [+4]
:: The wolf's head rises, casual insolence leaking out through the movement, and idly begins to make her way… You’re missing ‘she’ before idly, perhaps more noticeable if you take out the offset part in commas.
:: It did not have to be where she lost – it did not have to another strike to her long list of failures! Add another strike?
:: You write beautifully, and the little coding flourishes that you throw in periodically really help to place emphasis where you want it. Every one of your posts was an absolute pleasure to read.


Readability [+2.5]
:: I didn’t quite understand that Mongrel was using his magic at first, in 1/4.
:: Otherwise obviously well-edited, it shows that you spent a lot of time writing these posts.

Finally tally: 30+(11.5*2)= 53HP

*******************************************

DEIMOS
Realism [+2.5]
:: He maneuvered, swift, cunning, towards the right, hoping to aim for the left side of her nape. They were just standing right side to right side. Is Deimos circling around Confutatis? I don’t get that sense from what you wrote, so I think this is just a direction error. If it was that Deimos was circling around her, which I gather was your intent from a later post, then you needed to make that clearer.
:: Confutatis only rolled a 3 in her 2/4 attack, but in your 3/4 post I see that Deimos is not using his right front at all because of that attack. I don’t think it was necessary to take so much damage from a 3, although I like that you’re carrying your injuries forward into your next posts. On my first read, I thought that this occurred before Deimos took damage in 3/4. On my second read, now I’m having a difficult time deciding if this is before or after he takes damage in 3/4.
:: Not much mention of breed differences or scenery, but I understand that the focus of this battle was more on emotion.
:: Good job getting back on track after the direction change mishap.


Emotion [+2.5]
:: I enjoyed Deimos’ ruminations on Confutatis looking like Ophelia, I thought it was very well done.
:: It was really great to see the depth of Deimos’ emotions during this fight. From the feelings he has about his herd, to the way he feels about Confutatis, I was entirely drawn in.


Prose [+3.5]
:: She needed to be ruined, sink down below into her chosen devastation and ruin, where… Reading this aloud just came off as odd to me, like maybe there needed to be a ‘to’ in front of sink.


Readability [+2]
:: I went back several times regarding the right/left neck thing, just to make sure it wasn’t an error on my part, but I could never really find a passage in your first post that indicated to me Deimos was circling around Confutatis.
:: There was another moment where I was a little confused about at what point in your post you were taking damage from Confutatis, but in general it was clear that you spent a lot of time and energy on these posts.

Finally tally: 42+(10.5*2)= 63HP




Confutatis' bone armor to Deimos and 1VP to Deimos


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