magician battle

Several hours ago...

Rav landed atop a piked stone pillar on one foot, overlooking the nearby settlements. If his calculations were correct, whoever cast the magic he'd detected at the farm was nearby.

'Hm,' Rav thought to himself, scanning the ground. His eyes were fully slitted, and his body flowed with magic. He didn't have any enhanced sensory abilities from his magic, but he was doing his best to hone the mana into a specific point.

'The mana here is shifted. The Magician of...Plants? Maybe Water?' Rav shook his head. The Magician of Water would never be in a place like this. 

There's also not a more terrible matchup for Rav. The Magician of Water would be able to disperse his clouds.

Finally, his senses locked in on his prey. He looked down at a hut nestled in the mountains not far from him. The distinctive glow of vibrant mana emanated from there. He had no doubt.

Rav leapt through the air, jumping several feet at a time and using his clouds as platforms on the way down. He hopped all the way through the jagged rocks separating him from his quarry. 

As he landed in front of the door, he clicked his fan open and scoffed. "You're really going to make me knock?"

The door immediately swung open, and a woman stood in the shadow of the door. Rav crossed his arms, sizing her up.

She was covered from head to toe in a green veil, obscuring herself from Rav and making it difficult for him to get a good sense of her features. He did note her striking tallness. Taller than him, at least.

"Great Sage of the Clouds. What brings you to my doorstep?" she said. Though he could not see her face, he could tell she was at least trying to smile.

"I see I need no introduction. And what are you supposed to be?"

The woman gestured to herself, but she did not step away from the shadow of the door. "I am Eusevia, the Magician of Wood. I am pleased to make the acquaintance of one as highly regarded as you."

"Yes, yes," Rav rolled his eyes. "I assume you'll be less than pleased when you figure out I'm here to kill you."

"Oh, you think I wasn't aware? With you clomping about, burning mana everywhere? I'm ready to fight, dear Sage, but I figured we could dispense our pleasantries before the battle. I doubt you'll have the time to do so after."

"Good point, I hate talking to corpses. I have been practicing some good victory lines though," Rav snickered. He fans himself with his tail, cracking his knuckles as he talks. "So, Magician of Wood. You make trees or somethin'?"

The woman snapped her fingers, and the hut she was standing in began to unwind itself, blossoming out like a flower of wooden petals. It raised itself higher into the air, the house and the platform Rav was standing on all attached by a spiraling - and growing - circle of roots. 

Rav stumbled for just a moment before he steadied himself on the raised platform. He hisses under his breath. 'A Magician of Wood. Not my first choice of magic to go up against with my Cloud Magic. But not the last.'

"I can do much more than make trees, as you can see," she said, gritting her teeth. "As powerful as you may be, you'd be wise not to underestimate me."

Rav entered an offensive stance. He'd braced himself all he could - the time to strike grew near. 

"Aren't you the one who famously said 'never stand five feet from a Magician'?"

Rav flashed out of the way, moving so fast that most would think he teleported. Eusevia was an experienced mage, however, and she could track his movement. From below, a spear of wood erupted through the platform where Rav was standing just a moment before. It wasn't stopping there, though - not with Eusevia's watchful eye. The spear of wood continued to grow out of the ground and raced toward Rav as fast as it could.

He noticed the attack in time, and adjusted his momentum in midair by using a burst of cloud magic to launch him sideways. He skidded to the ground, drawing a circle in the snow with his foot around him. He was making a mark on the earth, but Eusevia couldn't determine why. Rav had a reason, however. A trump card he could play if things went sour.

"What makes you think you can win against me, huh!?" Rav shouted. "I've never even heard of you! I'm THE legendary sage!"

"Yeah? Well, the world's changed a lot in the six years since you 'retired'," Eusevia taunted. "And I've got some news for you, the game has changed!"

Rav couldn't help but laugh as he conjured a circle of swirling clouds around him. He used them to propel him momentum upward as he withdrew two blades from within his robes. Landing in front of Eusevia, he swiped at her with both of his clawed daggers. She blocked the attack by touching her arms to the now-folded walls of her hut, and using them to generate a thick wooden shield.

The shield blocked both knife attacks, but Rav wasn't finished yet. He clicked his fan a second time, and a circle of blades erupted from the fan. He swiped at her with the fan in his tail from below.

Eusevia jumped over the attack, using a torrent of magic and altering her momentum. She landed a short distance away, and began conjuring up a large-scale spell.

Rav withdrew his daggers, putting them back in his cloak and shaking his head. With those wooden defenses, attacks with his dagger wouldn't suffice. He knew he had to try something different. 

He used his fan to whip up an offensive spell, forming a hard mass within his cloud - a cannonball of ice. He shot it out of the cloud in a violent burst, sending the ice ball spiraling toward Eusevia. She used her right hand to generate a pillar of wood from the earth below, blocking the ice. Strong as the attack was, however, it shattered the pillar, sending tiny pieces of wood flying into the sky.

It was enough to distract Eusevia for a moment, but a moment was all Rav needed. He used a cloud to whisk him away to another part of the battlefield during the ice attack, and Eusevia lost sight of him. With time to generate his own large spell, he began to launch a flurry of attacks against the Wood Magician.

First came an attack from above, a thick, flat cloud that crashed down onto Eusevia. She forced a thick wall of wood to come out over her head and block the cloud, but then one came in from the side, perfectly positioned to pin her against the shelter she'd just created. She took the hit, and was thrown into the wall by the potent Cloud Magic. She shouted something that Rav couldn't hear, and the Wood wall enveloped her, drawing her into the ground in an earthen shell. 

"You're not running away already, are you!?" Rav growled, screaming into the air. He was only just starting to get warmed up, and the mana in his veins was alight in anticipation. 

He received his answer in an instant as a large shell of wood erupted from the ground immediately under him and knocked him into the air. He lost all control of his momentum, spiraling up as the shell opened, revealing Eusevia inside. She reached out her hand and cast a spell, generating a sea of wooden spikes and thrusting them ahead of her, determined to impale Rav with each stake.

Except in the moment before his impalement, Rav disappeared, leaving Eusevia rocketing through the sky by herself. He landed, gracefully, in the center of the circle he drew in the snow earlier.

'Good thing I set that up,' he smirked to himself. 'Didn't think I'd need it against someone like her. Maybe I am a little rusty.'

Eusevia disembarked from her shell, casting another spell in midair. The rocky mountain soil around them began to explode with trees, each one growing toward Rav. He dodged the ones nearest to him, but the ground continued to be breached by new trees, each growing several feet per second. They chased Rav through the landing, forcing him to retreat on a cloud high into the sky. Even floating above the battlefield, the trees continued to grow from the land.

Rav looked down at the messy tangle of trees and winced. His magic would be limited in that grove, whereas his opponent would have full control. He tried to get a good view within, but he couldn't discern where within the newly grown outcrop of trees Eusevia had hidden herself.

"I'll just stay up here, how about that!" he called down to the trees. "I think if it's a matter of patience, you'll have to come out of there before I have to go in! Consider yourself besieged, woman!"

Just at that moment, Rav panicked. He felt it a second too late - the feeling of magic all around him. Encircling him.

He blinked his eyes, and in an instant, he was standing somewhere else. In the middle of a forest, filled with towering and giant trees. Vines and tangled roots erupted from the ground everywhere - the entire ground was just a collection of roots. 

Dead silent as it was, this was no normal forest - Rav knew what this was. He looked up and saw Eusevia hovering before him. She'd immersed him in her mana, and she kept him still long enough to activate her trap. Rav was now inside Eusevia's inner world.

He took a deep breath. The mana around him was different than he was used to - thicker, attuned to Eusevia perfectly. But her magic was focused on creating trees, and other living entities. Where there is life, there's water. And a little mana-infused water is all Rav ever needed to win a fight.

"Welcome," Eusevia cackled, her hands glowing with magical energy. "Now I can show you how I like to play."