Act 2: Upheaval V - The Red Sword

The fight begins. Konrad is the quickest, and he discharges the spells in both of his borrowed rings, Hasting his fellow warriors and Steve, and launching a magically weakening effect toward Zdzislaw. Wanda and her two champions seem prepared for anything; when he unleashes the spells, they're not surprised in the least. The effects of the spells are not immediate, but the crowd lets out an "Oooooh!" of amazement at the magical energy being flung through the rain. The shield-bearing warrior braces himself for the attack, and appear momentarily confused for a second. Konrad glares silently as the others begin clashing.

The crowd gasps as the combatants move faster than humanly possible across the field. Nadzieja breathes in deeply and lunges at Szef Makara. She moves so fast that the audience can barely follow the battle. The moment she stops in front of the red mage, she unleashes a barrage of punches and kicks at her. After the first hit, Wanda sluggishly tries to block Nadzieja's next punches and kicks, which she manages to surprisingly. She however drops her sword to the ground. Nadzieja hits her twice more, and nobody can see it through the rain, but blood starts to trickled down the nose of the Makara clan leader.

Just behind Nadia, Arleta attacks her with her short swords. She means to kill her. Konrad glares intently as Nadzieja screams in pain, her back coating in blood, and Arleta returns to Wanda's side. Meanwhile, Mihai unleashes his spells, Hasting Zenobiusz and Konrad as he moves around to Wanda's back, and drawing on his disgust for Wanda as he slashes at Arleta.

"Not nearly as good, but this is for you Leopold."

The female Rogue attempts to deflect Mihai's attack with her swords, but the rain doesn't help her in the least. Waterglass slashes across her chest, and she screams in pain, and Mihai follows up by kicking Wanda’s weapon away from her, in the direction of Konrad. The crowd is very impressed by the pace of the fight, trying to keep track of everything with great difficulty.

Zenobiusz immediately heals Nadzieja and uses his ring to Slow both of their rival’s champions. Both fail to resist, and Zdzisław, distressed but unshaken by the party's attacks, holds his ground and raises his shield towards Wanda. It begins to glow in multicolored light, which then shoots out from it, immediately hitting the Szef. Now fully back in control of her body, Wanda immediately begins to cast. Both Mihai and Nadia use this opportunity to attack Wanda again, only for the red mage to let out an almost inaudible groan. She continues to cast, ignoring the attack from the other Szef and her champion, Hasting her two subordinates, canceling out the spell they were both hit with.

Intelligence 19 (Konrad)
Kn. Arcana 20 (Steve)
Both Steve and Konrad understand that the reason mages usually fail casting when attacked is because pain breaks their concentration, but in Wanda's case, it's as if pain was a minor inconvenience.

Spellcraft 17
Steve recognizes that the spell sent out from Zdzislaw's shield was Esuna, removing Stun from Wanda.

She then turns around and casts something at Mihai. A powerful flash of bright orange hits him in the chest, and he starts to feel drowsy. He tries to resist the effects of this very powerful spell, familiar with it from the time it was cast on him in Narrowfist when Edward set off his trap. He's prepared this time and he manages to stay awake and flips her the middle finger, vexing Szef Makara. She then extends her arm, and her sword suddenly flies through the air and returns to its owner's hand, and bursts with magical flames.

At this time, Steve gets off a barrage of magical energy that illuminates the whole stadium. Blizzard spells freeze the rain as they strike Zdzislaw, causing him to drop on the ground like a sack of potatoes. Quake spells take the form of sharp rocks shooting through the air, hitting Arleta all over her body. The huge amount of blood that spreads from her multiple wounds begins to slowly wash away in the rain. Both champions fall, and the whole audience is agape at this display of magic.

His fury stoked, Konrad approaches within 30ft of Wanda, raising his voice to her: "Your bid to lead Myr is ironic, given that you're just a carbon copy of your 'father'."

He continues to cast.

"Hell, I wish I could say that you're ill-qualified. The truth is I can't stand you!"

Between gestures, he pulls out the ruby ring and puts it on.

"You're ignoble, you're rude, and you're unprincipled!" he goes on, letting his personal feelings fuel an attempt to taunt her. "You're qualified to be ashes!"

As he shouts, balls of fire blaze through the Arena. The rain in its way instantly evaporates, and a wave of heat engulfs Mihai and Nadzieja. The only one who's hit by the Elemental energy however is Wanda, whose armor takes the brunt of the damage. Nonetheless, when the fire dissipates, the Red Sword is still on her two feet. Steam is coming off of her, and she suffers from multiple burns. Nadzieja continues to throw punches and kicks at Wanda, but only manages to strike her but once. She grits her teeth in frustration, Mihai cuts deep into the rival szef, causing her to bleed from a wound that should have elicited a howl of pain or even make her pass out, but with a mere groan, she remains standing.

A small puddle of blood starts to form under Arleta. She and Zdzislaw may as well be dead, for all anyone knows at this point. Zenobiusz casts Regen on the master of the weapon Waterglass, and on the Myrzen pyromaniac, while Wanda steps over her knavish ally. Nadzieja and Mihai each strike at her as she runs from them. She expertly evades the monk's attacks as Mihai swears under his breath, and then casts, giving herself immediate healing and regeneration over time, recovering from wounds faster than the monk and her enraged champion can inflict them. She lunges at Mihai, clashing swords with him, their weapons causing sparks of magic to jump and steam to envelop the two warriors, and then retreats toward the north end of the Arena.

The whole audience is on the edge of their seats. It's five against one, and none can gauge who will emerge victorious. Steve quickly shuffles over behind Konrad, and demonstrates for the whole crowd why he deserves the nickname "Snowstorm". Lightning and ice shoot out of his hands, and a loud BOOM resonates throughout the Arena. The swirl of magical energy pushes the rain out of the way and hits Wanda, pushing her back five feet. Every mage in the audience can tell that this weather assault would destroy a normal human body, and still the leader of Clan Atak persists.

Since unleashing his volatile burst of flame in a smoldering rant, Konrad has been weighing his next move carefully, and decides it would be best to see how close Wanda is to defeat. He casts Scan, and his glimpses at Wanda’s vitals and equipment tells him that her armor has an enchantment which halves all magical damage done to her, this much he figured, but magical interference warps the information he receives beyond recognition, though he manages to glean the following: she's lost more than half of her strength, and she wears a powerful necklace of an unknown enchantment, and finally, she doesn't have an orb in her head. That figures, he thinks to himself.

"She took her orb out,” he says to the young Cursed mage hiding behind him, “but she's more than halfway gone. We can do this."

He retrieves and slips on the Cantrip Dilator ring, then casts the last spell on his person, contained by the ruby ring's magic charge, on his hand-and-a-half sword Gallantry, giving the blade a magical edge, and charges at Wanda with the weapon. Unfortunately, the blade’s multicolored glow makes it easy for Wanda to spot his opening, and she parries his attack, knocking it out of his hand.

While Konrad is running up to Wanda, Nadzieja does the same, continuing the attack. Her efforts to stun Wanda since the first opening have come to naught, but she continues to assail her with her unarmed prowess, confident in winning out in a battle of attrition.

With Nadzieja close, as she punches, Konrad utters a threat to his clan leader, to inform his crush that victory is within their reach. They need only reach out and claim it.

"You've got one foot in the grave, and I'm going to push you in.”

With two people flanking her, it becomes hard for Wanda to withstand Team Nadzieja’s offensive strategy, and yet a third comes in to harry her. A few well made slices later, and more blood wets on Mihai’s sword, frosting over on the blade. Combined, the damage they inflict is overtaken as Szef Makara’s flesh knits back together while she bears the pain to lay into Konrad, bloodying him while Zenobiusz tacitly holds.

"You have no orb!" he laughs mirthlessly, seeking to taunt her further. "It's worse than I thought; you're nothing to him!"

More annoyed at Konrad than mad, she doubles down on her attacks, but at least her attention is on him. She continues to slash at him, and beyond a managed parry in this onslaught and the former, Wildfire’s self-exploration with pain does nothing to mitigate his tolerance for her counterattack, and he cries out in agony from the Haste-bolstered retribution. He swallows a liquid tinged with iron as Steve hits her hard again and expends a ring's charge to cast Protect on Konrad. Wanda starts to wobble, but even now, her wounds are already starting to close.

Wanda smiles with an eerie look of contentment.  "You've exhausted your spells," she says to Nadzieja and her champions. "Surrender now, and I'll spare you."

Zenobiusz chooses to act while Wanda makes her conditional offer of surrender. He heals the red mage, and, with no small concern for what may come next, gives Steve a Regen, shaking his head at the academy graduate to get across his warning that he's almost drained.

Mihai spits "Try and spare me, bitch." He points Waterglass inches from her face. Konrad looks past Wanda and yells, "Grab her!" at Nadzieja who, wiping some blood away from her mouth with her sleeve, fixes her eyes on the Red Sword of Atak.

She lunges at Wanda, feinting to grab her by the waist and aiming for her upper body instead. Then, for a fraction of a second, the champions see both of them vanish from the Arena and suddenly reappear. Her eyes widen in shock, and tries she to break Nadzieja's hold on her to no avail, having lost precious energy to resist.

Int 12 (Mihai)
Spellcraft 18 (Konrad)
Spellcraft 30 (Steve)
Mihai isn't sure what happened, but the mages Steve and Konrad realize that Szef Makara doesn't have Haste or Regen anymore.

Konrad answers in typical Myrzen brass: a fiery look and bold action. With a glare, he drops his shield and drops to pick his multi-hued weapon back up in one motion. He slashes through the Szef's leather armor and draws blood. The crowd now begins to realizes that the tables have turned; however, Wanda doesn't consider herself beaten, straining against the monk’s grasp.

He slashes again, and for the first time since the battle began, Makara screams in pain. Nadzieja’s team can see her talking into her ear, but you don’t see any reciprocating or acquiescent behavior from Makara. While she struggles, Konrad easily walks around to her rear, positioning himself on her flank next to Nadzieja, opposite Mihai, and from the corner of his eye he smiles at her, his confidence returning after it was briefly shaken by Wanda's ultimatum, though he masked his reaction with raw anger.

Nadzieja shouts, "Surrender! Please!"

"In your dreams!" the red mage screams back at her.

"It doesn't matter to her! If she dies here, some poor fuck somewhere else gets her Orb forced in his head. Isn't that right, Captain!?"

And so Wanda seals her fate, refusing to wave the white flag. Konrad gives Nadia a quick nod, in concurrence with Mihai’s reasoning, before Waterglass cuts deep into Wanda's shoulder, causing blood to rush out and spray across Mihai's face, flecking him with red droplets iced over. The Szef's body goes limp upon suffering this fatal wound. As the cheering of the crowd quickly dies down, Wanda stares directly into Mihai's eyes as Nadzieja lets her go. She falls on her knees, with Waterglass still lodged in her chest, stuck toward the middle from the wedge it made in her shoulder. Her breathing, now rasp and weak, slows down to a crawl. Mihai, holding out hope for a recovery, doesn't pull the sword out, for worry of her losing too much blood.

He holds the weapon to support her, to keep it from cutting into her further. With newfound concern, he orders, "Hurry up and say the words already, and let somebody fucking heal you."

"You stopped me here..." she mutters under her breath, raising her hand in defiance and trying to grasp the sword. "But... my brother... is still alive."

She coughs up a gob of bloody flesh. The whole Arena is silent, except for the sound of the rain. "We already have Lorinth... and... and..."

She lowers her head, but the next words never come. Her arm falls to her side, and she stops breathing.