this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
Wands at the ready. This battle would be the most important battle of their young lives. No wait... this didn't matter at all. Sorry wrong story.
The battle would be a free for all with three people going all out. Billy eyed both of his opponents with a big smile on his face. Ling he knew well enough thanks to an unfortunate mission involving a kraken. She'd be the hardest to beat probably as despite her youth she was strong and her barriers would be a pain to get around.
The other girl didn't look familiar at all so she for sure wasn't from the Jester's Den. He'd have to be a little cautious with what techniques to use on her as he didn't know her magic. Good thing this didn't matter.
The ground around them was constantly shifting in a slow roll which was kind of weird to the eye. It was like they were purposefully trying to make the battle field so even that it was useless. On the plus side... earth girl didn't get an advantage with the terrain.
"LING! DO YOUR BEST!" he shouted with Dr Puddy currently sitting on his right shoulder. He gave the small feline a small pet before the time began. Within a few seconds the cat jumped down off her witch and darted towards the girl who wasn't ling. There was something in her mouth that looked... glass?
Billy focused his attention on Ling though and started running towards her using his wand to shoot out beams of light via Single Shot at the girl that she'd no doubt put up a wall to block or just dodge them. He was moving pretty quick and seemed very agile. Thank you years of being in the circus.
See, here's the thing: Ling really isn't meant to be a dueller. She's meant for long days curled in the library surrounded by tomes, meant for experiments in the lab ( or anywhere, really ) at stupid o'clock at night, meant for building runic arrays that take weeks and months to fully iron out, meant for exploring ancient ruins and strange artifacts. Not this- this spectator-fuelled frenzy of three witches trying to take each other down.
Granted, she did okay in her first match - is even quite proud of herself for how she did, despite having lost in the end ( an entirely expected result tbh ) - but it really did reinforce the knowledge that she's not a battle witch. Ling is a support through and through, and the only real thing going for her in duels is her creativity and her arsenal of earth techniques.
She eyes her opponents. Billy is familiar to her, being a fellow coven member ( of the same rank, even ) as well as having gone on a mission together recently, however the other girl - Zari Malia - is a relative unknown. From her previous duel, and from vague memories from AEP, all she knows is that Zari is an air elemental. She thinks. This will be... interesting. Hopefully no one will get too injured.
She blinks in surprise as Billy shouts to her. "THANKS!" she hollers back after a beat, giving him a grin and an enthusiastic thumbs up. "YOU TOO!"
And then the duel starts, and he's racing towards her with a flash of light shooting from his wand. Ling darts to the side and lets the beam jet past even as she, too, brings her wand down and cracks open the ground in front of Billy in a deep, wide crater (STANCE SHIFT). Simultaneously, Valkea pulls a forest of stone spears out of the ground, hopefully blocking their opponent off from potential retreat and skewering him.
Both of them are a little more concerned about Billy and Dr Puddy than Zari - she knows Billy is both a novice and has a dangerous array of scrolls and techniques. Thus, a greater threat. ( Not to mention he charged her first. )
Zari didn’t know much about three-ways or how tournaments worked, but if everyone else was cool with it then hey, why ask questions now? Getting this far was already weird enough on its own. Winning the entire thing still sounded attractive, but over the last few hours, rationality started to temper her unrelenting determination. This all started as an opportunity to show off her growing talent, but to say she was the best out of all the contenders might be a little too much, you know? Almost like they were going easy on her, or the rightful champion was barred from entering in the first place.
Regardless, a fight was going to happen. While Zari may have less enthusiasm than before, she could do a damn good job faking it. Pretending to know everything came naturally. She bowed towards her opponents, smiling if only to psyche herself up. Time to show these novices how to really party. So what if they’re awesome and technically better than her, she believed in the impossible.
As the two Jesters stared shooting each other, Zari tried to remember if some rule required her to interfere. The easiest way to overcome the disadvantage placed on her side involved waiting until the others tired themselves out. Part of her wanted to hang out behind one of these sliding platforms until then, but on the off chance she lost this round, Zari didn’t want to be remembered as a coward.
Wand held tightly this time, she performed a completely unnecessary spin and fired a blast of wind in Billy’s general direction. Honestly, there was no intention of actually hitting the dude, as the blade looked as though it would sail right into the mass of spears set up by Ling’s familiar. Oops. Hopefully, the others would feel safe ignoring her. Whatever half-formed plan Zari had cooking out required a few more moments to simmer undisturbed.
He forgot how annoying earth magic was even in this place that wasn't technically earth. The ability to change the battlefield so rapidly was something that earth magic tended to like to do often such as a giant hole in the ground in front of him. The young man skidded to a stop as best he could which worked okay this time at least. He skidded to a stop maybe a foot in front of the ledge the girl had just created.
A big plus was that someone had either bad aim or was just being nice as the stone spears that the stupid familiar was using seemed to be... attacked by wind slices? Okay so the girl was a wind mage and was either trying to hit him and failing... trying to hit Ling and failing or had tried to hit Dr Puddy and failed. Either way aim was probably not a good thing with that girl. Well use it to your advantage that is what mother always said... not that he liked to take advice from that snake.
"Well that was rude!" he humfed at Ling, mildly guilt tripping the girl who had both dodged his light beam and tried to spear him. So rude. "You need a time out missy." he said this all with a smile and a chuckle. He was just being his weird normal self. So since she was not right up in her grill he wasn't sure how powerful this spell would end up being but hey why not try to end this quickly. He pointed his wand at Ling... well more like at Ling's feet using the spell FAIRY RINGS: SCROLL 3 to do what those little mushrooms do best... make someone sleep.
While Billy was doing that Dr Puddy's small cat body was chucking a potion bottle at Zari since the girl hadn't seemed to notice her or had ignored her up to this point. That was probably not a good thing. The potion bottle sailed into the air going towards the girl. She should probably dodge it and not try to destroy it since that is how explosions happen with Aquapyre and that stuff tends to spread fast.
She doesn't, unfortunately, manage to make Billy fall into her crater, nor do Valkea's earth spears manage to skewer him - though the latter is helped out by the burst of wind that sweeps past and slices off a few of the jagged spikes. Right, Zari Malia; this is a three way duel, not two. Though undoubtedly Billy is the far more dangerous opponent, she shouldn't forget about the Knight either unless she wants to potentially be ambushed.
Ling skips a few steps back, then grins cheekily at her fellow Jester. "Come get me then!" she yells, eyes bright. With a quick flick of her wand, she sends a stone dragon roaring towards him at the same time Valkea sprints to the side while pulling more spears from the ground, this time underneath Billy. With the crater in front of him, the stone spears behind him, a stone dragon homing in on him, and more spears bursting out the ground beneath him, hopefully something will hit.
But it seems her opponent has taken the same time she has to cast a spell; at her feet, fungi begin to sprout, encircling her in a ring. She looks down, alarmed, before the strong urge to lie down and sleep settles in her bones - wouldn't it be nice to just lay down and....
'LING!' The shout tears across her consciousness like a bolt of lightning, Valkea thankfully having been just out of range to be caught in the spell and thus aware enough of the effects to notice, and start yelling instructions at her. 'BLINK TO ZARI!' She doesn't want to, she wants to sleep, but her familiar's loud urgency keeps her awake just long enough to gather her mana and blink ( BLINKING SCROLL ) out of the way.
Instantly, her head begins to clear, and the sleepiness that had almost gotten her to lie down right there and then in the arena dissipates like mist in the morning sun. "What was that?!" she exclaims, looking around.
Well, she didn't quite make it to Zari, that's for certain. Ling had instead blinked to somewhere a good distance behind the Knight - further away from Billy, sure, but not her intended destination. In fact, she's just a few feet away from the back wall. Welp, whatever. She doesn't need to be close to cast spells. Pointing her wand at Zari, Ling sends an EARTH SHOWER crashing down on the girl. Hopefully she's not an augmenter.
This duel was starting to make Zari reconsider her life decisions. That boring office job didn’t sound so bad anymore. At least, it didn’t involve any fighting, which turned out to be way harder than she expected. Since all the grown-ups were put in the other group, she kind of…underestimated her current opponents. There wouldn’t be too much of a gap between a top tier apprentice and the lower novices.
Boy was she wrong.
Zari didn’t know what effects the potion flying towards her might cause, and wanted to keep it that way. With a wave of her wand, a fluffy cloud appeared in front of her, hovering about the same level as her head. The thing was designed to hold a person, so one bottle seemed relatively simple. Maybe move it out of the way so Billy can use it somewhere else, not in this duel.
Before she could follow through and pick it up, Zari felt something nudge up against her back. Not wasting time to explain, her familiar continued pushing the girl forward. “Run for it!”
Looks like Aura did a better job of paying attention to both of these opponents. The llama didn't stop until the two of them were positioned underneath the cloud, and even added an extra one to make sure the impending rockalanche never hit anyone. At least, not Zari.
Keeping the spells going for a long time would be exhausting though, and Ling probably had better stamina to keep this up if she wanted to. Seeking a better solution, Zari climbed onto her familiar’s back and pointed towards one of the floating platforms. “Together we ride!”
They charged forward, careful to not outpace the clouds floating above as the llama certainly moved faster than the spell could keep up. Still, they were making progress, and that had to count for something. Spells Used: Cushion Cloud Items “Used”: Basic Wand
Earth magic is very much annoying. He pretty much only had one option given the size of the battlefield and it wasn't a pleasant one either. There was an earth dragon heading towards him as well as spears below and behind him. The only real option was to move sideways. He just needed to be fast and honestly given what he needed to do he probably wasn't going to be fast enough. He let his mana flow into his wand and cast LIGHT DRAGON BULLET in an attempt to intercept the earth dragon thrown at him.
That unfortunately took a few precious seconds away as spears started to come for him. He pushed his mana outwards to use the Blinking Scroll before vanishing in a puff of smoke before appearing towards his left and making a run for it going towards where Ling and that girl were. Those extra seconds to cast the dragon however cost him even if just for a split second. He felt one of the spears graze his thigh with a big rip going through his pants and a large scratch drawing blood on his right leg. It could have been worse of course but the fact of the matter was he'd be hit at all. He sometimes forgets how strong that little girl could be. He could feel it slowing him down as well.
Billy shot another SINGLE SHOT towards Ling's foul familiar before it was kind of annoying him. Those stupid stone spears were very annoying to deal with. Maybe he could tie it up with some wire... he'd need to be closer for that though and he wasn't sure the thing would let him that close. Oh well this was timed after all so he just had to try his best.
While Billy was doing that Dr Puddy's small cat body calling forth mana into her mouth. She fired off a PRISMWIRE towards the potion Zari had since neglected and since the girl wasn't moving very fast thanks to the rocks sailing down upon her the cat tried to chuck it back at them... well in their general direction given that Ling was also in the same area. Hopefully those rocks didn't hit the AQUAPYRE potion or it'd explode... then again it'd explode regardless when it hit anything like say the ground.
Her earth dragon collides with the light dragon bullet Billy manages to summon, and the two crash into each other in a loud bang that sends light and shards of earth exploding outwards. Unfortunately, he also manages to blink out of range, leaving no one close enough to be hit by the debris. Shame - but hey, at least Val manages to score a hit!
Ling takes advantage of the diversion to slap an URUZ on herself to boost her speed and stamina, while Valkea darts deeper into the stone spear forest he'd created to avoid being hit by Billy's beam of light. In this regard, perhaps his smaller size and his agility work to his advantage. Not about to let the attack simply pass by, he retaliates by calling up a shower of stones and rocks and boulders as big as he can manage within the limited time, and directs it straight at Billy's head. And if it doesn't manage to hit him, well. Maybe it'll hit Zari instead.
Meanwhile, Ling catches the flicker of light from Dr Puddy headed in a direction too close to her for comfort; with the swiftness of reflexes afforded by her uruz-enhancement, she withdraws a barrier array from her pocket and activates it with a burst of mana. It shimmers into place, iridescent light sweeping up and to the sides until it domes her within a protective bubble safe from the outside world. It's one of her favourites - no attacks can pass the barrier (within reason, of course), but she can cast spells through it from within; she can't, unfortunately, move the barrier once cast, but hey, if that's necessary, she'll just take it down, easy.
Safe (for now), she raises her wand ready to let loose another stone dragon - or to deal with whatever her opponents might throw her way - while Valkea quietly ducks out of sight (and maybe hopefully out of mind too).
They had to go farther, get higher. If the people organizing this tournament set up all these fancy walls and platforms, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of them. Clearly, Zari needed some kind of assistance to keep up with these fools. Why not take control of the high ground? If only she had brought her broom.
The barrage of rocks chilled out for a minute, which seemed like a good enough time to begin climbing. Hands wrapped around her familiar’s neck, Zari attempted to stand on the llama’s back. The fact that they were still running caused her to wobble back and forth in an effort to stay stable. It didn’t work out for very long. When Aura slowed down to compensate for her witch’s ridiculousness, Zari fell head first onto the ground.
Zari rolled over onto her back, dazed but more frustrated than confused. “You couldn’t warn me or nothing?”
This wasn’t the time to begin an argument over who was the bigger idiot among them, as the duel continued on. That mystery bottle from earlier? Guess what, it was back with a vengeance. Apparently this comeback tour was going to repeat until one of them ended up in pieces on the floor. She tried being nice and letting the thing go home quietly, but if it wanted a fight, she could handle that as well.
Forget winning the whole fight, this one rivalry demanded her attention. If she couldn’t handle this, the rest wouldn’t happen anyway. Swirling her wand around, Zari sent our a burst of wind to knock the potion away. There wasn’t enough force to break the container, the goal was to send it over the nearest wall so none of the liquid could splash back towards her. If there was a gas, well, she could blow that away.
Over the noise of the crowd and the other combatants, Zari heard the bottle break open. Smoke trailed upwards from the general area and captured her attention for a moment. So wait, did that cat just try to set her on fire?
The stupid creature just hid in his weird forest of spears like a coward. Billy had long since grown bored of this whole thing. He much more enjoyed watching and toying with his teammates then actually fighting. Of course he was kind of forced into this tournament as an excuse to annoy heath ambroise and... well that was honestly the only reason he had joined. He didn't even care how he'd beaten that other boy in the duel... and honestly he didn't remember the kids name.
Ling had retreated into one of her barriers like he kind of expected. Those things could handle a giant kraken creature pounding on them so it probably wouldn't do him any good to try and break them. Honestly he could probably try another fairy circle why she was distracted and her familiar was busy so as not to... you know foil the sleepy time this second time. That wasn't fun though. He did have a pocket full of potions though and that seemed very fun.
The young man hummed as he vanished in a poof of smoke to avoid those stupid rocks that came flying towards him. Three poofs of smoke actually... which he actually thought was pretty fun. He liked the sort of teleportation type magic because it was fun to mess with people using it. The young man took out all the AQUAPYRE potions he had in his pocket which... well lets just say he really liked making this potion. He took all of these potion bottles and started chucking them all around the battlefield. Some towards Ling, some towards Zari, some near the boar, some in the chasm Ling had created... honestly it was kind of all random. He was just kind of bored and trying to set the place ablaze. The young man laughed as they all sailed in the air to strike... well whatever they'd hit and he... did a cartwheel? Okay. He obviously wasn't taking this thing nearly as seriously as the other two. Like at all.
Dr Puddy on the other hand was annoyed that her potion had been sent away and did not hit her intended target. If she had cared more this might have made her focus more on Zari in her attack pattern. She however did not really seem to care at all. The small cat poured light magic into her throat and shot off three SINGLE SHOT beams from her mouth in succession like a small dragon. She was aiming at the stupid llama girl. Whether or not they succeeded the cat would huff and lick her paws from all the running she had been forced to do. It was so annoying. Maybe she'd lay down like a cat loaf and nap for a bit too. She'd probably do so in Billy's sweater later.
Neither of her opponents swing their focus entirely onto her and her barrier, so absolutely nothing stops her from letting loose two earth dragons in quick succession roaring towards Zari and Billy. Her fellow Jester vanishes in a burst of smoke a split-second later, so she concentrates and reroutes the dragon she'd aimed at Billy onto the Knight as well. Then she quickly spins around, scanning the arena for where the other novice had blinked to.
She spots him just as he launches a barrage of potions, though the erratic randomosity of his targets and the mildly concerning laughter and the honest-to-earth cartwheel he does makes her wonder absently if he'd gone a little crazy. Or maybe he's just bored and eccentric - he wouldn't be the first Jester. But she doesn't really have time for ruminations on the quirks of her fellow coven member ( or, well, she technically does, but Ling wants to do her best at this tournament, you know ); without missing a beat, she flicks her wand and errects a wall of rock for the potions to splash against.
Fire flares bright and burning across the stone, and the wall trembles before crumbling into ash and dust, but it served its purpose. None of the potions had managed to hit her runic barrier after all, and although she's like 99% confident her barrier would have held no problem, there's no need to take the risk, right? In retaliation, she jabs her wand at Billy focusing on the technique to open a crater beneath his feet as deep as she can make it.
Valkea, meanwhile, takes the reprieve of no one throwing any more spells at him to weave his way through his maze of earthen spears till he ends up somewhere closer to Zari, nimble and careful as he tries not to draw attention to himself. A moment of focus, and then he raises another forest of jagged spears up beneath Zari and her familiar and Dr Puddy, sacrificing some of the spears' height for surface area covered. He is beginning to grow quite fond of the technique, he admits.
These people were trying to kill her. Before today, Zari thought that she survived the demon's nightmare, but apparently, there was a whole fresh layer of hell to discover.
Thank the lords of creation for whoever decided to add all these moving walls and shit. The things were pretty slow, but it was too late to be a choosing beggar. Zari ran as fast as her tiny little body could manage in order to get around one of those walls. Sure, those earth dragons or whatever tried to snake their way around and hit her, but they couldn't adapt perfectly. Her reflexes could beat a pile of rocks.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst problem she'd have to deal with in the last ten seconds. Good Ol' Bill whipped out his giant stash of potions and started making it rain. The teleportation was a little distracting, but not important. Zari just needed to focus. Imagine they were all playing Quidditch. Just gotta stop all the flying objects from scoring.
Wait, no, you catch those bad idea nevermi--
The witch and her familiar stood small, back-to-butt, and began flinging as many bursts of wind that they could manage. There would be more explosions, but maybe one would wind up hitting Billy or his stupid cat. Give them a taste of their own poison.
They were doing so well that they hit themselves. Granted, it was on purpose, as llamas can't really push backward and one look from that cat made it obvious that the two should split up. After Galaxaura knocked Zari down again she took off running. "SCATTER!"
The first light orb whizzed by Zari's left ear. The next managed to cut off her retreat, setting up the third to strike while she wasn't moving. She bounced back against the closest wall, barely catching herself from falling over completely.
Her stubborn refusal to give up was the only thing that kept her going. No one would blame Zari for stopping now, but the words wouldn't form in her mind.
A sudden movement demanded her attention. Ling's familiar decided to cause more trouble. Zari didn't have it in her to continue running away, and knew that more spears would magically show up wherever she tried to go. This would only end with one of them dying. Or 'knocked out', but at this rate, who would blame her for causing an 'accident.'
As the ground vibrated she didn't attempt to get out of the way. When the first spear arrived, Zari shuffled slightly to get out of the way, to let it grow taller. With the pointy bit safely moving away, she maneuvered around the pole, let the momentum carry her around. Another spear stretched too far to immediately impale her, and she switched partners. Zari navigated through the maze of stone, thankful that the enemy seemed distracted from giving her their full attention.
A certain fluffy llama just kept on running. Eventually, she'd have to be out of that fox's line of sight. Once that happened, there would be hell to pay.
líng lù-xī's eyes become unfocused as she enters a short trance, not quite like anything she's experienced before.
[attr="class","stafftemptextarea"]
The sounds of the arena become muffled beneath the crisp crackling of flame and the concerned, but benevolent voice of a woman.
[break][break]"Raindrop? Sweetheart, listen carefully: you have to get out--"
[break][break]The voice is abruptly drowned out by static and the glow of the flame. Dancing tongues of the fire, now rising skyward, pass between her eyes and the audience. In the red and gold of the destructive element, she sees their bodies slumped over, motionless.
[break][break]And then, like waking from a fleeting dream, sound returns to the area and the autonomy of her eyes and body is restored. The voice is gone, and the audience is awake and well.
