Altarial vs. Cadence
Altarial stands very still for a moment, sizing up her opponent and trying to decide the best way to approach him. Immediately, she reaches for a small leather sack that is tied to her thin golden belt. As she opens the bag, one might notice the sharp contrast this sack has to rest of her appearance, as it is very old and looks terribly worn. She reaches in and grabs just a pinch of the fine dust it contains. Then, she walks in a straight line, dropping bit by bit of the minuscule amount of powder on the ground, and each grain of it flares up in a brilliant ember before disappearing as the floor seems to absorb it. After she runs out of this substance, she moves to stand on the opposite side of the invisible line from where her opponent is standing. Nothing happens for a few moments, and the young mage simply watches the ground with a complacent expression. Then, as she continues to watch the ground, she can see that each blade of grass turns gray and crumbles. As soon as this becomes noticeable, the effect of it speeds rapidly, and all the ground starts to crumble into this gray, ash-like substance. The line she made earlier seems to be the starting point of this calamity, and everything moving out from that line quickly turns to dust and crumbles away. Everything that is touching the ground from that point onward is quickly transforming, and Altarial notes with a satisfied nod that her opponent seems to be directly in the path of this destruction.
Cadence ponders for a moment as the ashen threat moves toward him. Realizing that this must be some form of volcanic activity that Altarial has created, Cadence gets to work. Everyone knows that volcanoes come from lava that comes from deep down in the center of the planet. If the lava doesn't flow, the volcano cannot erupt, therefore if the lava doesn't flow this evilness cannot either. Or so Cadence hopes. Cadence quickly pulls to twigs from his hair and beats them together. He slows his rhythm until it is almost nothing. The ashy destruction slows too. Smiling Cadence stops beating the sticks. An unearthly silence fills the amphitheater, and as far as your senses can tell, all of Kuri. The planet has simply stopped. None of the millions of rhythms that make the universe work are functioning. Kuri does not spin nor orbit, the streams do not flow, the air does not move, wind does not blow, and the clouds no longer drift, breath no longer exists, it is almost as if time has simply stopped...yet it has not. Silence will not continue for long as the life is sucked out of the plants, animals, and people of Kuri, the planet will soon break apart, having nothing left to hold it together. The fate of Kuri, and probably any neighboring stars or planets, and perhaps even its sun, is in Altarial's hands.
Altarial frowns deeply as the silence descends. It takes her a moment to understand what is going on, but as she realizes that Cadence seems to be controlling the rhythms of life, she also sees that he seems to be using those two sticks to help him do it. Sensing that this cannot go on forever, she can think of only one logical thing to do to make him quit. She crosses the distance between her and the other magii, walking over top of her own ashen wasteland without sinking in, and stops when she is directly in front of him. Then, she grabs the two sticks out of his hands, and beats them together rapidly, and without any set rhythm, before tossing them away as far as she can to the right. Hoping that this will cause everything to go back to normal, she swiftly prepares her next attack before waiting to see what will happen now that her opponent has been disarmed, so to speak. This time she decides not to trust anything outside her own body, and her eyes suddenly flash an unearthly color. Her pupils begin to swirl with a fiery, molten motion, giving the impression to anyone who looks in them that they are staring into a river of lava. As the glowing intensifies in her eyes, a thin red line appears on her forehead and starts to move up and down, forming some sort of shape. The image quickly becomes discernable as a drawing of a perfectly formed pegasus. Just as the line completes its work, two steady streams of liquid fire shoot out from the mage's eyes, being fed from the fire within. These two streams travel directly for Cadence, since that is direction the young woman is looking in... and since she is standing so close to him, he has very little time to do anything before being scalded, and possibly killed, by her gaze.
Cadence falls to the ground and rolls toward Altarial, hoping to avoid her gaze for a few moments. The streams of fire light the ground just behind where Cadence was standing. Creaks and groans come from deep within Kuri, the effect of someone misusing Cadence's drumsticks. Violent quakes stretch across Kuri's surface. Even the magic in the Amphitheater isn't enough to protect it from the change in rhythms. Streams begin to rush faster than ever, the core of the planet churns more than ever, while gravity is increased by the insane spinning suddenly invoked. Air rushes in and out of people's lungs, forced by the unnatural beat of Cadence's sticks. The shaking and gravity increase pulls Altarial to the ground, spitting fire at anything she looks at as her balance goes astray. Cadence crawls towards his sticks, hoping to stop this mess before everything goes silent again. In the meantime, Altarial is not in much better shape than she was a few moments ago, only this time it is exactly the opposite effect, caused by her own use of Cadence's spell.
Altarial gasps as the violent increase in gravity throws her off her feet. She closes her eyes, stopping the stream of fire, yet when she opens them again the color is still not back to normal. She looks over towards Cadence, and decides to allow him to retrieve his sticks, and hopefully stop some of this damage. Then, as the quakes rip through the planet, she senses that one nearby has exposed a few hidden magma pockets. While still pressed to the ground because of the insane amount of gravity, she closes her eyes again and concentrates very hard. She reaches out, in her mind, towards the nearest deposit of underground lava, trying to grab hold of it with her magic. Finding a stream flowing directly below Pendulis, several hundred feet down, she whispers a soft spell to grab it with an invisible force. Once it is in her control, she redirects the flow upwards, so that it begins coming towards the amphitheater. She also notices that rivers of water are not the only thing affected by this calamity of misused magic, because the lava bed itself is traveling much faster than she wants it to. A split second later, it breaches the surface only a few feet from the other magii, shooting through the fissure like a giant, red geyser. The hole it is coming out of expands, and as the lava continues to fly upwards, it eventually must come down as well. With Cadence so close to the eruption, he is a very bad spot... because the lava will naturally fall on top of him when it comes down.
Cadence races for his sticks and pushes them back in his hair. Just then the lava shoots through the ground just behind him. Pulling the twigs back out from his hair cadence bangs them together once. Everything freezes. Cadence knows that this duel is causing more destruction to Kuri than his magic would ever be able to repair. He turns the sticks around and sits up tall. Concentrating harder than ever, he slowly begins to beat out an unusual rhythm. Slowly the lava seeps back into the hole, the rivers flow backwards. It appears as though he has actually reversed time. The duel itself is replayed backwards, only Cadence remains where he is seated. At the exact moment where he stopped the rhythms of Kuri the first time, Cadence stops beating the sticks together. This time he will try a less destructive approach. Stopping to think, as he literally has all the time that he could want, he ponders another course of action. Snapping his fingers, he releases the spell and Altarial faces him, exactly as she had in her first attack, though her memory follows throughout the entire time of Cadence's work. Cadence slowly beats his sticks together once again, this time to control the subtle rhythm of age. Altarial's fingernails and hair quickly grow long, her skin begins to wrinkle a little slower, arthritis fills her joints, and her mind slowly begins to fade. Can she stop this process before the life is sucked out of her and her corpse begins to decompose?
Altarial eeps loudly as she feels herself beginning to bend over with age. The thought of how ugly she would look as an old woman flits through her mind, and for a moment she begins to panic. However, age brings more than just arthritis and senility... and for this not-so-young-anymore mage, it brings a philosophic and contemplative air to her. She remembers that while men and woman, and all living creatures, will eventually grow old and die, the land itself never does. Furthermore, all the ages cannot quench the fury of a volcano, so she sees that her only hope lies in her connection to it. Very weakly, as her hand is nearly withered away by now, she reaches for her bag again. By now, the effects of speeded up aging has caused the already old leather to decay too, and as soon as she touches it, grabbing a handful of the ash inside, the bag disintegrates, spilling the remainder of her ash on the ground. Yet, she ignores this as she opens her mouth, tilts her head up, raises her hand, and drops the ash into her mouth. After she has swallowed it all, she begins to grow young again, the years melting away from her appearance as if they never happened. By the time this process stops, she almost looks as if she is younger than when the duel first began.
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