2023/24 Stage 2 Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw: Match 3

Damion had been lucky that he had not been hit by anyone's spell yet. He didn't want to jinx it to be honest. He was really hoping for the best. He looked at his teammates and smiled. He cast the spell that he had intended to cast. Saying the spell out clearly he said "Metelojinx." A smile appeared on his face as a stormy cloud appeared over his opponents. He had been successful in casting the spell. Yay.

Stats: Stamina: 14
Evasion: 9
Strength: 9
Wisdom: 8+2 (10)
Arcane Power: 9
Accuracy: 10
Abilities: Lovely Creature | Statiscally Relevant | Broken Broomshaft | Catch | Advance Casting
Action: As strategized.

From within their personal cloud, Pericles heard the ever-reliable Dee reply: "Yeah, I see lots of fog," He gave a dry snort and said "Funny, so do I." "As long as you're still standing, I think we still have this though." That, followed by a much appreciated Reparifors, swapped his wry smirk for a soft smile just as the haze cleared. "Thanks Dee. Animosus." But his attempt at a returned favor, in the form of a Bravery buff, failed. Pericles' forehead furrowed with a perplexed frown, briefly thrown off by the fact that his spell failed to form. He huffed an unhappy "Huh" before resuming his stance. When Pierre apologized, the Ravenclaw called back quickly, "No harm done Well... none that can't healed, anyways." Pi seemed to try stoking Evelynn, but this backfired, and Peri watched with concern and confusion as their opponent's wand arm fall useless. The eagle wasn't one to heckle his opponents, but it didn't sound like trash-talk when he hollered across the piste to Pierre: "Would be a good time to cut your loss. You wouldn't have to apologize for any more spells that way."

Action: As Strategized

If she couldn't see her opponents, Dee figured, she might as well use the time to help out her partners, so she cast a quick healing spell at Pericles. Once again, no spell came her way, but there had also only been one incantation audible from the Gryffindor side.

She smiled, relieved, as the fog finally cleared with her still unharmed, blinking Piérre and Evelynn back into clarity. Oddly, the former was soaked in water, which didn't make sense... until it did. The smile on her face twitched into something closer to a smirk. Perhaps the vaguely sleezy Italian could use a bit more practice. Pericles was too polite to say it, but Dee had no such inhibitions, and her patience with this duel was already running low. "No one would blame you for walking away before you embarrass yourself," she called, then lowered her voice so likely only those next to her could hear it. "More, in any case."

@Evelynn Decipio, @Pericles Dralt & @Dealla Prince

House Colours: Hufflepuff
"Thus the skillful general conducts his army just as though he were leading a single man, willy-nilly, by the hand."

~ Sun Tzu

Piérre was smiling until he glanced over to the side towards Evelynn mid-incantation: "Aqua Eru--

Eevee?"

Water spat out of his wand and blasted into him, sending him sputtering and coughing like a wet cat. He staggered a bit, trying to wipe the water from his eyes as he blinked, just barely making out Evelynn's watery shape through the wet and mess.

Wait.

No.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go... he hadn't... it wasn't supposed to... "Wait, no... Eevee, what..." Thunder rumbled overhead, but Piérre wasn't listening. A chill ran through his chest, flooded around his heart like pneumonia filling the lungs. A terrible chill it was, the immediate sensation of regret, of an error made. Not another one. Not another mistake, another faux pas.

Even if he didn't know what it was. Even if he didn't know what was going on. "I didn't mean that... It was supposed to be..." It was supposed to be a joke. Everything that he said was always supposed to be a joke. He hadn't meant... he never meant... "Wh-what did I... do...?"

But it was words from someone who had no place to speak that suddenly snapped the careful rubber band of his patience. His green eyes shot to the Ravenclaw girl, and in a moment his anger had been flicked into an 'on' position. Someone poked the chimaera, and now it was properly awake... and very, very hungry. "Why don't you bite me." He snarled. "You seem to be obsessed enough with me for it. Any particular reason you're talking down at us while you're in the skies? Covering a husk of a character with false bravado much? Compensating for something?" Nobody was save from his tongue. Nobody ever had been. "At least I have a personality."

Piérre suddenly leapt across the stage, charging for the prideful Prince-girl with a furious scream on his lips and the wand angled in his hand in a way so as to stab as steel talons began to spring from his other hand's fingers--a casting of the Steel Talons Transfiguration spell. He was going for the eyes. "You'll fall just as hard from where you stand, and what a magnificent and terrible fall it'll be, mark my words!"

Hate. Hate. Hate. It boiled over like a kettle, a scream that whistled and reverberated under the skin in a hum that shrieked and strung the strand of the mind taut to the point of snapping. But underneath it a fire, a need. Her words were not right, were something fighting over... because it wasn't his pride that he minded or had a need to defend; indeed, there was nothing left of his left to salvage. Such pride or respect for himself, along with his instincts of self-preservation, had been lost long ago.

It was Evelynn's. His mistake. His error. Surely there was some way he could fix it...

Right?

Emerald eyes turned to Pericles. His eyes narrowed again. "Pericles." His voice turned dark. "I love you, but learn to control your housemates." There was no jest. Not anymore. It had been taken too far. He felt inches from splintering... from cracking completely. Just like at the ball, just like when Romeo had beaten the life out of him last spring, and just like in the wintertime before Christmas Break. This terrible flame, this awful gnawing hunger that lurked in his heart like a devil unto its own. It couldn't leave. It would not leave. He couldn't rid himself of it, this rage... this fury completely blind which knew neither friend or foe. A terrible screaming of the rending of sanity, as the world seemed to corrode, seemed to spiral into the nothing on the edges. "It's uncalled for, and rather tasteless." Venom dripped like a sweet intoxicant. "Take me down first if you like. Make it painful and drawn-out, toy with me as you see fit. But keep the unnecessary side-snideing out of it in the meanwhile." Especially concerning Evelynn. though that was more implied than directly stated. It wasn't needed. "I've got nothing left to lose. After all, if you all do a good enough job I won't be able embarrass myself ever again. It's a win-win for all of us involved."

His jaw tightened. "Bloody your hands and live up to your team name with ruthlessness and calculation, and become celebrated because of it. Maybe then I won't be such a disappointment to everyone I blight with my presence; everyone can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the leprosy of the school has finally been inoculated against once and for all." That twisting in his heart clenched tighter as he recalled the sinuous shape that giggled and wore his face... how terrible... terrible that it was only now that he was starting to realize that day by day, he was becoming that which he feared the most...

Why bury himself in one grave when he could dig many? In quartering himself, in ruining himself, he could fill the graves of all. Everyone could have their pound of flesh. There was more than enough to go around.

Taking a step forward in front of Evelynn and sweeping his foot behind him, Piérre pointed his yew wand towards the opposing team, the teeth that gnashed and snarled for his downfall, and that he would soon be rent apart by in short order in a mist of red and the snapping of bone. Thoughts danced behind his mind, flashed in his eyes, of possibilities and endings cut short. "Uccidimi." He said quietly yet calmly, breathing slow but his gaze never wavering. Green eyes shimmered as hard as bottleglass. There was nothing behind them, only resolution and acceptance mingled with cold fire. The thousand-yard stare of a man who knew he was already dead; who knew now that there was nothing left to fear because his headstone would soon be the last marker of his place in the world. The only eroding piece of him left. "Kill me."

Doing as Strategized
Calming Presence Allies: Evelynn Decipio & Jay Victoria

Distracted. To some onlookers, that's what Evelynn had appeared to be. In a way, she was. Even as the Ravenclaw chattered amongst themselves, and spell incantations were spoken, she simply stood there, head tilted slightly to one side with a far-off lidded gaze directed at nothing and no one in particular. Had a spell been fired in her direction, it likely would have landed. Given her listless appearance, it could accurately be concluded that the only paying the duel any attention at this point was Pierre. The jeering, too, fell on deaf ears.

As the haze began to clear and the sound of coughing and spluttering sounded from somewhere nearby, she shifted her attention to the wand hand hanging loosely to her left side. Creases appeared between her brows. What was the point? At one point, she might have argued that duelling allowed them to consolidate their skills, to practice their aim and self-control during a situation of higher stress and higher stakes than the calm of a classroom. To some degree, that was true. But it was still structured. There were rules. Matches were, for the most part, even. There was an expectation of confrontation, a known direction of assault, and intervention in the event that someone succumbed to sufficient injury to lose consciousness.

It wasn't like this in the real world. There was no "fair", no consideration to preparedness. In reality, the most critical situations arose suddenly and unexpectedly, and often when usual resources were unavailable. How was this supposed to prepare for that? What was the use of the effort when it offered nothing? When they weren't even allowed to use magic outside of school grounds? When the magic that they could use was so... restrictive...

She blinked, lifting her head to glance up, a dazed fatigue washing over her features. For a moment, there had been a thought there, thin and delicately hanging from a fragile thread of hope. Movement had pulled her from the trance of that thought, however, her awareness returning to the present just as Pierre stepped immediately in front of her.

"What are you doing." Her question bounced dully off the back of his head. Only vaguely aware of his earlier monologuing, she hadn't absorbed the context of this action.

The same could not be said of his next words. "Kill me." He hadn't been speaking to her, but he may as well have for how clearly they had sounded. Like a doomed prophecy whispered in her ear, they sparked panic. "No!"

Eyes widened in fear, knuckles white with a refreshed grip of her wand. Reflex leading thought, steps hastened to close the gap between them, a hand already reaching to pull the idiot back by the collar of his robes. A singular train of thought propelled her in the moments that followed--she was not going to let him sacrifice himself for her.

Action: As strategized

Round 4

Evelynn vs. Damion

Reducio

Evelynn casts Nec Divinos Crepitus at Damion

Wisdom DC: 11
Wisdom: [d20:13] + 15 = 28 > 11 → Success!

Backfire: [d20:10] → No backfire

Auto-hit: [d20:14] → No auto-hit
Accuracy: [d20:15] + 12 - 1 (Dealla's Charmer) = 26
Evasion: [d20:15] + 9 = 24
26 > 24 → Hit!

Duration: 1 round
Damage: 50 + 15 * 10 (ARC) = 200
Effect: Damion will suffer -3 wisdom for one round

vs. Dealla (radius damage)
Accuracy: 26
Evasion: [d20:1] + 15 = 16
26 > 16 → Hit!

Duration: 1 round
Damage: 20 + 8 * 10 (ARC) = 100
Effect: Dealla will suffer -3 wisdom for one round

vs. Pericles (radius damage)
Auto-hit: [d20:9] → No auto-hit
Accuracy: 26
Evasion: [d20:15] + 12 = 27
26 < 27 → Miss

Pierre

Reducio

Pierre casts Ventus at the Metelojinx cloud

Wisdom DC: 11 + 2 (Damion's Lovely Creature) = 13
Wisdom: [d20:7] + 12 = 19 > 13 → Success!

Effect: The Ravenclaw team now has 10% chance per round to get hit by lightning. The Gryffindor team is no longer under the Metelojinx effect.

Damion vs. Evelynn and Pierre

Reducio

Damion casts Nebulus at Evelynn and Pierre.

Auto-Fail (5% from Evelynn's Wandmaker): [d20:16] → No auto-fail
Wisdom DC: 12
Wisdom: [d20:5] + 10 = 15 > 12 → Success!

Duration: [d5:5] → 3 rounds
Effects: Evelynn and Pierre will suffer -4 accuracy and -4 evasion for three rounds. Any enemies targetting them for the duration will suffer -4 accuracy.

Dealla vs Evelynn and Pierre

Reducio

Dealla uses spell spread to cast Ventus at Evelynn and Pierre

Auto-Fail (5% from Evelynn's Wandmaker): [d20:7] → No auto-fail
Wisdom DC: 11 + 2 (Spell Spread) = 13
Wisdom: [d20:17] + 14 = 31 > 13 → Success!

Ventus 1 vs. Evelynn
Auto-split: [d20:6] → No auto-split

Accuracy: [d20:15] + 16 - 2 (Spell Spread) = 29
Evasion: [d20:14] + 15 = 29
29 = 29 → Impaired hit

Duration: [d3:2] → 1 round
Damage: 0.5*(50 + 15 * 8 (ARC)) = 85
Effects: Evelynn will suffer -2 evasion for one round.

Ventus 2 vs. Pierre
Auto-split: [d20:19] → Auto-split

Accuracy: [d20:19] + 16 - 2 (Spell Spread) = 33
Evasion: [d20:10] + 18 = 28
33 > 28 → Hit!

Duration: 1 round
Damage: 50 + 15 * 8 (ARC) = 170
Effects: Pierre will suffer -4 evasion for one round.

Ventus 2 vs. Evelynn (auto-split)
Accuracy: [d20:5] + 16 - 2 (Spell Spread) = 19
Evasion: [d20:13] + 15 = 28
19 < 28 → Miss

Pericles vs. Pierre

Reducio

Pericles casts Flipendo at Pierre.

Auto-Fail (5% from Evelynn's Wandmaker): [d20:5] → No auto-fail
Wisdom DC: 9
Wisdom: [d20:7] + 11 = 18 > 9 → Success

Accuracy: [d20:14] + 14 = 28
Evasion: [d20:13] + 18 = 31
28 < 31 → Miss

Lightning

Reducio

vs. Damion: [d20:15] → Miss
vs. Dealla: [d20:1] → Miss
vs. Pericles: [d20:20] → Hit

Damage: 50 + 15 * 9 (ARC) = 185

Finally, after a lull in the action it seemed the match was about to pick back up. Led by Evelynn whose cast of the cracker jinx was incredibly successful, as she managed to hit the entirety of the opposing team. Pierre chose a more indirect offensive and conjured a gust of wind to carry the stormy cloud currently hovering over them both to the other end of the platform, where it immediately release a bolt of lightning that struck Pericles dead on, making the boy's hair stand on end.

The Ravenclaw team had been no less successful with Damion engulfing the two remaining Ravenclaws in a thick fog that would no doubt make it harder for Evelynn to repeat her success, Dealla hitting both Evelynn and Pierre with separate gusts of wind. The only unlucky one was Pericles, who -- perhaps thrown by the shock he'd just received -- missed Pierre by quite a bit with his Knockback Jinx.

Information

1. You have 96 hours (4 days) from the time of this post to post at least 50 words and owl me (Julian Pritchard) your moves.

2. Please don't hint at your move inside of your RP, as it gives the other team an advantage.

3. If you don't post before the deadline, your move will be void.

4. If you have any questions, or notice anything wrong in the mod post, please don't hesitate to send me an owl!

5. Your stats, abilities, and spells have been locked for this duel. Any new abilities added to your trunk after this duel started cannot be used.

6. For your convenience, here are the duelling rules, the duelling spells, and the latest patch.

Good luck!

The spectator thread for this duel can be found here.

Come cheer for your House and friends!

Dee's comment was standard fare, nothing irregular about a bit of ribbing between opponents. Piérre's was not. Pericles saw the snap in him, just as he had that night at the lake: all it had taken was a sideways comment from Eun-Ji and he was spewing hatred like hot bile, accusing her of being high-and-mighty yet empty in what was surely a projection of insecurities. Like before, he turned to Pericles in the midst of it all. "Pericles. I love you, but learn to control your housemates." The Ravenclaw's ears turned a telltale shade of pink. Like the cloud which came to crackle over the Ravenclaws, shock and indignance shadowed his tranquil face. Narrowed emerald eyes met a hard silver stare. "Control yourself," the bird reprimanded icily.

Piérre spat a long-winded invitation to torture him and worse, repeating that morbid death-wish, the source of which couldn't be pinned between self-pity or self-loathing. Likely both. He had made some error with Evelynn, and now he was taking out his frustration with himself on Dealla. Pericles had a deep admiration of Dee, as well as Eun-Ji, despite the anger and snark they struggled with from time to time, much in the same way he'd harbored affection for Piérre despite his lapses into erraticism. Unlike the other two, Pi was testing the limits of his patience. This went beyond erratic. It was unsettling. Peri glanced again to the disheartened Evelynn, who rather looked like she didn't want to be stuck on the stage any longer, all too aware of the sea of spectators taking in this embarrassing debacle. He clenched his jaw as the Gryffindor basically begged other teenagers to kill him. He could tolerate theatrics; this was too much. When Pi was losing his grip, Peri compensated by becoming firmer.

"Piérre, I don't know what you're trying to absolve through martyrdom lately, but an official duel isn't the place. If you're using this match as some sick form of self-punishment, it isn't just unfair to your team, but to your opponents. That's tasteless." Who knew duels could be a lesson in consent? Not Pericles. He was quickly caught up in the storm sent back their way, and after a stunning bolt, his fair hair stood on end in a stellar impression of a dandelion.

Action: As Strategized. Mentions @Eun-ji Lee Hunt

Apparently Piérre couldn't handle a bit of harmless teasing. Asking someone to forfeit what was clearly a losing duel (if with more condescension than was likely necessary), was far from the worst thing she'd ever said in a duel.

Piérre snapped back, and the corner of her lips quirked up. His invitation to bite him was followed by a light-hearted "No, I've had a filling breakfast, and you're a bit... greasy for my tastes, anyway, but thank you for the offer", and she might have added more, except Piérre proceeded into a full-on meltdown. It was a spectacle, for sure, one which Dee witnessed with a steadily increasing amount of both fascination and concern. That wasn't... normal, was it? Really, if this whole mess was what he would term a "personality", she supposed she could do without one.

Pericles seemed to have his own part to say about the unhinged rant, and while he spoke, Dee's eyes wandered over to Julian, her eyebrows raised as if to say "Are you going to call this off? I think he needs help," but apparently, a break to get Piérre into the custody of a mental health specialist (did they have one of those at Hogwarts? Maybe they should) was not in the stars.

So instead, the duel continued, and Dee would blame her failure to evade the colourful crackers Evelynn conjured on still being off-guard by the tirade she'd just been forced to witness. Which, of course, didn't keep her from hitting both Gryffindors with a little wind. They'd gotten enough of a reprieve from her earlier lapse.

@Evelynn Decipio, @Pericles Dralt & @Dealla Prince

House Colours: Hufflepuff
"Thus the skillful general conducts his army just as though he were leading a single man, willy-nilly, by the hand."

~ Sun Tzu

He would take the brunt of it, those spells that had not been directed enough to hit Evelynn as he angled the yew to the skies with an incantation of "Ventus!". The cloud did float over to the other side, and with a vengeance crackled down injury upon Pericles. Seriously, almost every blow done by Piérre had been on Pericles... It was not intentional. From behind him a firecracker jinx spilled from Evelynn, and before him a fog whispered across the stage. It was quite thick at that, too. Wind whipped about him, a familiar impeding wind that the boy had come to despite greatly from prior bad experiences, but the knockback jinx from Pericles went awry and away.

Staggered for a moment, Piérre shook his head and tried to calm his heart, the blood still rushing through him with the rage of an arterial wound exposed to the external world. A bleeding out, a wrenching and ripping feeling that drained him of ability to reason, of ability to stand down now. There could be no retreat for one the likes of him. That had never been an option, had it.

His fingers threaded through his hair, gripping at his temples as he grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. A scream was there, at the back of his throat but swallowed down as the resonance instead echoed in his own mind. What had happened to him? Where had he gone? Where had all of this, all those memories, turned black as pitch and into an inescapable nightmare that only Death seemed capable of alleviating and chasing away into the oblivion beyond this plane? The laughter of children warped into that of his peers, into that of a voice he could not place, into that of his own. Mockery, jeers, chants. 'Diavolo! Diavolo! Lauro! Lauro! Devil, Mythological Lauro/Laurieddhu'

Where had his good gone? Where had he misplaced it, had he squandered it on those that would just as soon see him bled out as gallivanting about for their pleasures? Where was his mind? Where was everything that he thought he was? Where was the truth and the real iteration of himself beneath the lie that was his very being, his very blood, his very heart and soul? His teeth were bared in a grimacing smile, the haunting humor beneath it all still the greatest cosmic joke that he had ever performed up to this point in his life. There it was, that beautifully twisted punchline that he could knot his fingers into and rip the belly of wide open.

'If you want to die so badly, die by yourself.'

'If I was to die, this is how I'd want it to be...'

'If you want to die so badly, die by yourself.'

'...I'll... bug you about it all the time if you come back as a ghost.'

'If you want to die so badly, die by yourself.'

The distressed scream in his mind... 'Uccidimi!'

"We're beaten within inches of our lives in dueling as is." Came the curl of only barely-repressible bitter humor. "The real world will not be so kind as to bring you back when you show weakness. I won't be missed. No past, no present, no future. The least I can do is to make sure others have those things instead. I'm just the practice." A bark of laughter was choked back as a grin spread. "If you feel bad for the way that I act, the truthful things I say... perhaps your team should resign; save yourselves the embarrassment, the burning shame of guilt that comes with the vanity of considering yourselves so powerful that defeating us would appear to be a massacre. The cockerel knowledge that the match was set before it began. To debase yourselves to the level of whipping the peasants."

Emerald eyes softened a bit, considering those bridges that were now charcoal and kindling. "I for one feel no shame. I should simply learn to let go." Nothing left to lose. What was one more friendship, a friendship better off without him to disease it. To save it, perhaps the best thing would be to amputate himself from it. Pericles had grown up when he had not. So many others had grown up when he had not, a child immortal and crystalized into a festering cesspool of denial and inability to allow the truth to sink in. Like sand slipping through fingers, there was only the superficial left to comfort. A beautiful lie. They didn't need him anymore. They didn't want him anymore. "Before I hurt anyone else."

The Jester braced himself again, lost in the mist and the madness. "I say it again, Pericles. Uccidimi."

"Maybe you can kill the thing that I can't."

Doing as Strategized
Calming Presence Allies: Evelynn Decipio & Jay Victoria

Damion had not been very lucky. He had been hit by a spell but he was not going to let it effect him much. He held his wand and cast "Nebulus." He smiled as the fog. He was really glad about it. He was ready for more. He wanted to take his team to victory.

Stats: Stamina: 14
Evasion: 9
Strength: 9
Wisdom: 8+2 (10)
Arcane Power: 9
Accuracy: 10
Abilities: Lovely Creature | Statiscally Relevant | Broken Broomshaft | Catch | Advance Casting
Action: As strategized.