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Match Details:
Start Time*: Wednesday, November 30th, 2010 @ 1:00PM
End Time: December 31st, 2010 @ 1:00 PM

Post Response Limit: 5 days

First Post: Sirius Leonine

Match Ending Conditions: Death or KO of one character, surrender, or mutual agreement to draw (must be validated by a judge), or end of viable combat period listed above.

Standard Tournament and T1 Eden Era Rules apply. See the OOC for specific tournament rules.

Stage Description:
The gargantuan sphere forged by Magnus is the locale for the final deciding bout. Possessing its own field of gravity equivalent to the host planet's, fighters will not fall off the sphere by being upside down. The air density is slightly below normal, making it harder to remain airborne and breathe, although the feat is not impossible. Fifty feet of earthen soil forms the "crust" of the pseudo-celestial body, while the rest is composed of pure metal of all kinds. Fifteen meters (~55-60 feet) of airspace is available for the combatants to use, before they hit the spherical barrier which surrounds the massive structure. The sun and moon are both clearly visible in the sky, visibility is fair. The sky is clear.

Damages Accrued: (This may be waived with consent of both fighters and a judge.)
Sirius - None
Shai Sunamon - None

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May the strongest grass blade emerge tallest.

A blank page is an intimidating foe, one that stares back unflinchingly daring its adversaries to make the first move. How much more intimidating Sirius' opponent appeared. A blank mold of a person, one with remarkable talent to have reached this level of the tournament.

Sirius only knew two things from his brief encounter with her in the lobby.
1. She was female
2. She carried a large pole arm

It was a good start on the basic outline of the person that was Shai Sunamon, but it was nowhere near enough to be extremely comfortable in engaging her.

Sirius materialized again, this time on the site of the tournament's final destination. Sirius surveyed the landscape and found it increasingly odd that he seemed to be looking at the surface of the planet Kyrvktz when he looked up. Apparently the man had materialized on the bottom of the great sphere.

"Well this is interesting"

Sirius took a few steps around his position, checking the terrain, and reorienting himself to the odd sight of the ground being very high above him. The surface of the floating planet in a planet was workable earth, molded such that not a single fracture or dent marred it's finely crafted surface. The ground stretched out for a good distance in either direction, the exact amount of distance was indeterminable by sight due to the nature of the object he happened to be standing on.

"Enough musings, concentrate on the fight."

With a hefty sigh, Sirius gave his gauntlets one more quick tug on their straps before beginning to check for any type of unusual pressure in the nearby radius of 70 surface meters. If Shai materialized nearby on the earth, Sirius would register it and begin the task of bring down this final obstacle on his way to victory.

It was with a brief flash that Shai felt herself transported. Dots and distorted lines danced before her eyes and her entire body seemed to lose weight as if in freefall, before with a jerk, once again she was standing on regular ground. It took a few blinks to dismiss the confusion from the transport, and longer for Shai to re-orient herself. She was standing on rock, with very little within her line of sight. The rock was bare -- nothing to hide behind, no cover. That could work to her advantage, as it had in the previous battle.

A quiet murmuring noise drew Shai's attention to her right, and she smiled as Syl scratched at himself. The mount was fully recovered from the ordeals of the previous match, and seemed more than ready for this final confrontation.

Now, all that remained was to figure out where in Nai's name on this forsaken clump of floating dirt her opponent was. And just who he was. Shai was equally oblivious to her opponent's abilities, thanks to her late arrival back at the hotel. She had had no time to investigate him. She didn't doubt that would come back to bite her at some point, but there was no use in dwelling on it.

It was then that Shai looked up. Now, that was certainly odd.

Perhaps that was an understatement of the priestess' reaction, her eyes widening and her head spinning. It was immensely confusing, seeing that the sky had become the ground. For a moment Shai seemed worried that she might fall off this orb, just because she'd noticed that she was upside down - but it became apparent that was not the case. Apparent by the fact that, well... she didn't. Curiously enough, Syl didn't seem bothered by the orientation. Perhaps the mount had a natural instinct for it, or something like that. Either way, Shai wasn't about to let it impede her battle.

Deciding to play things safe, Shai stepped over to her mount and patted him on the neck with a whisper. "Come, one more battle, and then we ride home." she said as she slung herself up and onto the Pteraptor's back, settling into the saddle comfortably. She hefted her polearm and let out a sigh, trailing her fingers over the intricate design on the wood before she returned her attention to her surroundings.

Perhaps her opponent would become more apparent in location if she waited a few moments. If not, she would have to see about seeking him out.

Because, as with a number of other things that may or may not have crossed Shai's mind in the past, not knowing where your opponent was...

... was bad for your health.

Tch no luck. Where is this woman.

Sirius's earthen senses didn't register anything abnormal in the surrounding area. Shai must have been materialized a decent enough distance away.

Well, this'll give me time to get ready for her.

Sirius set about making preparations. When no good offensive opportunities presented themselves, it was best to take defensive ones. Sirius already was developing a plan to lure the woman to him, but first he had to prepare for it. With a practiced air of perfection, Sirius prepped his stoneskin arte. The move was one which could be activated at a moment's notice once it was prepped, and it had served him exceedingly well in the past both offensively and defensively.

Sirius looked around once the move had been completed. There was still no sign on the woman, but that was sure to inevitably change in the near future. Sirius set out westward searching for Shai with his eyes, ears and earthen senses. He knew how important being the first person to find the find the other would be, and with some more time, he would be sure to find her first.

It was with a whisper that Shai ordered Syl into flight, the mount spreading its wings and with a few powerful beats, lifting off. The priestess let herself relax slightly as the wind rushed through her hair as the pair sped up through the air, the sensation a familiar and comforting one. Up on high, Shai had a good view of the battlefield - though with its curving nature, she obviously couldn't see all of it - and instructed Syl to hover whilst she cast her eyes around.

After surveying the area, Shai came to a conclusion. There was definitely some rock there. Not much else, but there was plenty of sphere. Indeed, if there ever had been a shortage of sphere, now was not that time.

However, Shai was not so lucky as to spy her opponent. So instead of blindly seeking him out, Shai decided to use the time to ready herself for when they did meet. With a circular gesture, leaving a crackling trail in the air, the priestess began to gather the winds around her in a globe as she had during the previous battle, to form a bubble-shield of sorts that could aid her in protection against physical attacks -- particularly effective given her height, most such attacks would lose momentum before they reached her.

Of course, she had no idea whether her opponent used physical attacks or not. But it was always good to be prepared, just in case. The spell also had a secondary effect of increasing the thickness of the air around the priestess through sheer volume, though this was unintentional.

Breathing was, always, a plus in such situations.

Nothing so far, no odd sounds, no strange movements, just the simple crunch of the soil beneath Sirius' feet as he proceeded to plod onward around the now frustrating floating globe.

.... This is annoying, I came for a battle not a kid game of hide and seek.

Something about Sirius' surroundings was unnerving him. The entire length of time he had been on this battlefield, the air had been dead silent. No movement, no breeze nothing of interest whatsoever. The lack of any type of airflow was a direct descendant of the force field around the floating globe. It kept combatants in and kept outside interference out. Now however, the wind seemed to be picking up, a light breeze blowing gently into Sirius' face. This light breeze was a side effect of Shai's defense. Accumulating air about herself would form a vacuum in the place the air originally came from. This new breeze was a side effect of the air trying to fill the vaccum.

Curious, there hasn't been any type of airflow at all this entire match....

Sirius turned around, squinting in the same direction the gentle wind was blowing. Far off in the distance a figure was rising into the air. The lack of anything interesting at all upon this bleak surface caused the earth elemental's attention to be drawn to the movement like a moth to a flame. Perhaps this was Shai? The distance was too great to be entirely sure, but the small figure was the only moving thing the eye could see. With an excited chuckle to himself, Sirius prepared the second half of his plan to lure Shai to him.

May as well get some reinforcements out while I have the time

In Sirius' right hand, a glowing white orb began to form. This was a signature of Sirius' summoning abilities when the creature in question couldn't reach the battle without help. In fact, if one looked close enough at the sphere, they would see the face of Sirius' Golem spinning around inside the small white globe. As the globe matured, reaching a final size comparable to that of a cantaloupe, Sirius called out to Shai at the top of his voice.

"Hey, I don't plan on sitting down here waiting for you all damn day. Get your ass over here and lets do this thing."

Smirking, Sirius made his way towards the floating spec in the distance with glowing sphere in hand. Perhaps the summoning of the golem could surprise her and give him some type of edge in this battle.

The call off to her left drew Shai's attention towards Sirius, and the elementalist narrowed her eyes. There was her opponent. It was about time. Now the battle could get under way. With a whisper to her mount, Syl swept around towards Sirius with a few beats of his wings. Shai held her polearm ready, and as she moved towards Sirius - maintaining her height - she began to focus on the weapon, surrounding it with air and charging it with lightning.

It wouldn't take long for Syl to carry Shai towards Sirius' position, the mount was fast. She looked down at the man, wary of his glowing orb, but deciding to focus on the offensive rather than spend time worrying about it. Whatever it did, she would deal with it when it happened, and merely remain conscious of it. Hopefully, whatever it was wouldn't be able to cause her too much trouble from all the way down there.

As Syl passed around Sirius in an arc -- it was quite difficult for the mount to hover perfectly still, and so he circled the foe instead -- Shai focused on him, and drew back her arm. Without rising to the man's taunt, Shai instead spoke using actions, and with a grunt of exertion the polearm was flying through the air towards him like a javelin. The weapon was not designed to be thrown, but carried by closely focused winds and charged with lightning, it didn't need to be. Aerodynamic stability was irrelevant when the air was on your side anyway, propelling the weapon downwards at high speeds.

It would take a few seconds for the weapon to reach Sirius, due to the height difference, giving him plenty of time to avoid it, but perhaps something he wouldn't be expecting would be the fact that the weapon would curve around to follow him, the winds at Shai's command directing it.

It was always useful to have a weapon you could call back to you. It allowed for more risky moves such as this, without quite so much risk.

It was much better than a boomerang, too. Having a sharp, pointy boomerang wouldn't be very healthy. Distracted for a few seconds and bam, your head's off...

The call seemed to attract the attention of the dot in the distance. Over the next several seconds, Sirius was finally able to pick Shai out from her seat on top of her mount. Several things came to mind when he noticed the speed at which the woman was approaching him. First and foremost, the woman was riding some type of winged reptilian horse. This could be used to his advantage in the near future, as Sirius could manipulate creatures to a degree. It was doubtful he could exert enough influence over the creature to turn on its master, but there were other ways of manipulating creatures.

The thought passed through Sirius' head in an instant, but it was not yet the time to act on it. To bring the flying horsewoman out of the sky he would have to combine trickery with talent, and they would have to come together at just the right moment. For now, Sirius was fine with letting things play into Shai's hands for a bit, in an effort to let her feel overconfident. Overconfident people often made the biggest mistakes.

As the woman flew in high overhead, She released her polearm like a javelin, hurdling it at the ground like an angry Zeus trying to punish the earth with lightning. The throw seemed sloppy however, from the distance Sirius had plenty of time to react, and he fully intended to punish this brash opener. With a release on the glowing orb in his hand, Sirius clamped his eyes shut of a brief second as a solitary brilliant flash of light illuminated the area. Standing next to Sirius was one of his stone golem allies. This particular golem was named Granite and stood at an even 12 feet tall, roughly double the size of Sirius himself. (random.org selected 12 from a pool ranging from 8-15 for height). The golem's chiseled features displayed little to no emotion at being summoned to fight, but it knew its purpose.

The brilliant flash from the summoning of one of Sirius' creatures was followed up by a 1-2 punch. Since the opponent would normally not be expecting the flash, often they were slightly disoriented by it. Sirius would use the ensuing confusion to gain some type of upper hand. In this case he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Using his telepathic communication to the golem, Sirius ordered it to intercept the polearm and to destroy it. The golem reached out a large rocky hand over Sirius, intending for the polearm to impact the stone and embed itself in the creatures palm. From there the golem would remove the polearm and then crush it to wooden splinters and mangled metal between it's hands.

Hopefully this would be the first of many weapons Sirius could deprive Shai of.

The flash of light was as unexpected as Sirius had predicted, and Shai's vision was momentarily lost as dots and colours danced in front of her eyes, distracting her attention from the summon that Sirius had produced. When she recovered her orientation, the golem's actions were already in full swing, and Shai had no time to act before the polearm hit with a resounding 'Twang!'.

Not wanting to be deprived of her weapon so early on -- though she had her quarter-staff to fall back on should it be required -- Shai extended her hand outwards towards the polearm as the golem made to crush it. As it was pulling it out, the weapon would abruptly disappear in a flash of light and a loud cracking sound, before reappearing in a similar fashion in Shai's hand overhead. The priestess took a brief moment to examine the weapon -- the tip was broken, making it less effective to thrust, but the bladed edge would still suffice.

But that would become relevant at a later date, if she was forced to the ground. At this point closing in on the foe was ill advised, largely due to the giant stone golem he had standing next to him. Shai got the distinct feeling that it would be rather unpleasant to get within that creature's reach, and that her bones would not be her friends for many days to come should she do so.

As Syl circled around, Shai focused again on Sirius himself. She would disregard the golem for the moment -- it could not reach her at this height, and her bubble of air would hopefully protect her against any chunks of rock it deigned to throw -- and focus on its master. The priestess pressed two fingers together and drew them around herself in a circle, trailing a crackling line of energy, before she arced her hand downwards. From her fingertips shot a bolt of lightning, aimed to arc unnaturally downwards and curve along the floor, hopefully avoiding interception by the golem (as it came from the opposite side of Sirius to that which the golem stood on) and striking Sirius on the upwards curve, aimed toward his chest.

The polearm hit home, embedding itself in the golem's grasp. Pain flashed through the golem's mind, and Sirius telepathically sensed it causing him to cringe for the expressionless golem. The feeling was gone in an instant however, replaced with anger at the pointy stick that dared threaten its master. The earthen creature had endured much worse over its lifetime, but Granite was vengeful. Often the golem was found destroying things that had caused him harm just for good measure. One particular instance came to the forefront of Sirius' mind.

"Granite, let it go, it's just an old tree branch. It didn't mean to fall on you." Sirius watched mildly irritated as the golem began to furiously stomp a large branch to wood dust. The former piece of wood had just fallen out of an ancient oak tree and landed on the creature's shoulder, causing it to stumble. "ROCK FOR ROCK" the creature shot back telepathically to Sirius who huffed and took a seat on the edge of the path, gently stroking a dormant Becky. "Granite that branch is almost eighteen feet long. It's going to take you five minutes to turn that thing into pepper, and we're late as it is." "CRUSH CRUSH CRUSH CRUSH" was the only response that came from the golem. Sighing, Sirius leaned back and took in the amber light that glittered through the treetops, the entire time being serenaded with a stomping symphony of destruction in the background. Soon enough, the golem's stompings completed, and he stood above Sirius with a twig of a branch between it's enormous stone fingers. "WOOD CRUSHED" the golem relayed in an evidently happy tone as it turned the last of the branch into sawdust. "Well done Granite" Sirius replied relieved their travel could now continue "We have to jog now to catch up pace. You made us late for dinner again".

As the earthen creature made to destroy the weapon in retribution for the small pain it caused him, the polearm disappeared in another unexpected flash of light and crack of sound. Fortunately the light was not intense enough to cause blinding, though Sirius squinted as it disappeared and reappeared in Shai's hand high above.

Granite was none too pleased. The earth beast voiced it's displeasure by digging it's hands into the earth while Shai picked over her weapon. Granite extracted a rock the size of a kitchen sink from the surface and hurled the large rock at Shai and her strange horse as Shai cast her arcing bolt of lightning at Sirius.

Sirius however had just as much time to react to this attack as he had when Shai threw her polearm. Maybe a bit less seeing as the energy coursed through the air much quicker then the once falling javelin. Still there was more then enough time for intercept the crackling bolt of electricity, especially since Shai was so kind as to send the bolt close to the ground. As the bolt of electricity raced parallel to the ground, Sirius made a pushing motion with his right hand. This caused a wave of earth to rise up and intercept the bolt effectively negating the attack. With his left hand Sirius reached into the earth, and pulled out his four foot earthen warstaff.

The floating horsewoman would have to do much better then cast attacks at him from such a great distance overhead. Sirius could dodge or negate attacks like this all day, and with his Golem in tow to throw rocks, the pair looked set to dig in for the long haul.

Shai's forethought to erect a barrier of air came to fruition when the golem tossed his rock towards her. Though Syl's circling carried her out of the way in plenty of time, the circling air around her allowed her to more easily carry the rock's momentum. Gathering it on a cushion of air, Shai circled the rock around her in an arc and tossed it straight back at the golem forcefully, though she didn't expect the projectile would reach its intended target.

After all, throwing rocks at an earth mage was like squirting a water pistol at a lake.

But Shai could see that throwing things was going to get her nowhere in this instance, and eventually she would have to close the distance. But before then there was one more thing she could do to try and bring this battle to a close from a safe distance.

Focusing her air currents, Shai began to weave a spell that had been effective in swaying the battle in her favour against Arendus. It was complex, though, and precise, and she would have to focus on it before it could be brought to bear. She was confident that the speed of Syl's movement would be enough to keep her safe until then, however.

"She caught it?"

Sirius was slightly surprised by the ease of which Shai brought the large boulder to a halt. He expected her to dodge of course, she had just the same amount of time to react as he did along with the fact that she was already in motion. As Shai circled relatively close to the boulder, gathering it on her cushion of air, Sirius activated phase two of operation boulder throw.

"Lets see her catch this"

The Golem picked up another rock roughly the same size as the first and sent it soaring again at the circling horse as Sirius set about his work. With a concentrated effort, the first boulder exploded into a shower of rock hail in an attempt to pelt Shai's position and to break whatever barrier she had or cause her direct harm. The bottom and top cones of the boulder's explosion however, turned to sand grains, obfuscating the incoming boulder from the golem twice and falling harmlessly on Sirius and his Golem's position. The rocks from the explosion weren't sharp as this was not a splinter boulder, but they flew apart at a good enough speed to cause significant bludgeoning damage if they connected.

Rough sketch:


If she managed to dodge the interrupting explosion and begin channeling her energy, Sirius would have to switch tactics. A distracted driver would be the perfect time to start to work on driving her mount into the ground.

Though fading due to her shifted concentration, Shai's globe of air was still present enough to guard her from this unexpected explosion. The shards of rock were slowed, and some scattered by the currents of air that were gathered around her. Those that made it through the barrier were slowed enough to be little more than an annoyance as they bounced off of her and her mount. One of the rocks grazed her forehead, but Shai forced herself to maintain concentration.

She was very lucky that Syl himself was still paying attention. The mount's speed allowed for him to already have a good distance on the boulder as it shot towards them, and with a squawk the intelligent creature swerved aside to fully avoid it. It skimmed the edges of Shai's air currents, passing straight through, far too heavy to be hindered, but didn't touch her or Syl.

Wary of another explosion, the mount pressed onwards to put distance between his rider and the rock. In Shai's mind's eye, the layers of her spell were almost complete. The threads were entangled, and their colours merging - it wouldn't be long now.

And then she could go about turning this tennis match into something more closely resembling a battle.

The falling sand from the first boulder obfuscated the results of the second for a few seconds. How the intelligent horse had not been affected by the sandscreen in the same way was a mystery for another time. The creature had avoided the second rock as it passed by rider and mount and kept on soaring through the air. The rider Shai had entered her meditative state and now was the time for Sirius to change strategies.

"Lets bring this to the ground"

As the second boulder thrown by the golem impacted the upper barrier of the battlefield, it exploded due to sheer force meeting an immovable object, resulting in a series of falling rocky debris. It was now that Sirius activated his second plan. Reaching out with his mind he contacted Syl's and began the process of spooking the mount. First the mount would blink, beginning the process, because when it's eyes would reopen the mount would be pursued by the falling rocks from the second boulder and the golem would appear as if it was doing nothing. These would be hallucinations as Sirius could not actually manipulate rocks to fly, and the golem would be removing his third boulder from the ground, but they would look like the real thing to Syl. The rocks would surround the mount from the backside, threatening to impact the creature if it changed direction or speed. If all worked as planned, Syl would fall directly into the trap Sirius was laying for it.

Synchronously as Sirius was performing these actions, the golem hefted a third boulder and threw it at full force to where Syl was being directed. Hopefully, this combination of force and deception would knock the floating duo down a few rungs. If not, Sirius would have to prepare for whatever Shai was doing up there.

Syl's writer had assumed that there would be a moment after which the boulder emerged from the sand for him to swerve, as a reflex response to it, being already almost entirely clear of it, but apologises if he was mistaken there. As she channelled, Shai maintained half an eye on the battlefield, and as a result noted the boulder that the golem had launched. Nudging Syl away with her knee, Shai made to return her focus.

But Syl remained going in the same direction. Which was not useful. In fact, it was positively bad for their health.

There wasn't much that Shai could do while still holding her spell, and her eyes narrowed as a split second decision was made. Several seconds before Syl passed where the boulder would be, Shai shifted backwards.

Off of the mount's back she fell, straight in the air in a carefully controlled descent. She had plenty of time before she would hit the ground.

As she left Syl's back, Shai released her spell. The precisely laid weaves of air magic slotted into place, and Sirius would find himself subject to something that Arendus had experienced in her previous battle. Around the man's wrists, ankles and neck, shackles of air formed, highly pressurised and solid enough to prevent movement, should they manifest successfully.

As they did manifest, Shai gestured upwards with a sweep of her hand that slightly off-balanced her descent, directing the shackles to pull Sirius up with great speed. As Shai shifted her attention, the shackles, without changed instructions, would continue to pull upwards until they and Sirius impacted the overhead barrier. But Shai had other things to worry about.

Now she had another choice. Let herself fall further, and risk death on the rocks below to save Syl, or sacrifice the mount for her own guaranteed safety.

Unfortunately, having implemented her attack in descent gave her little chance to be caught by her mount. And so she was forced to save herself, hastily placing cushions of air beneath her to slow her fall, eventually coming to a halt approximately ten feet off of the ground.

Syl, in the meantime, flew right into the boulder. The sturdy animal may indeed have been sturdy, but a boulder was a boulder, and he was knocked backwards and tumbling with force, letting out a shriek-like squawk as he began to fall towards the ground helplessly.

As Shai slipped off Syl's back, Granite glared at the woman. The pointy stick was in her hands and Granite wanted nothing more then to see that stick reduced to cinders. Without a command from Sirius, who was still controlling Syl into the creature's inevitable fate with the oncoming boulder, The twelve foot golem took several steps away from Sirius interceding itself between the two as Shai descended from the air cloud by cloud. As she neared the golem's reach it made a cross body open palmed swipe at the woman carrying the polearm, as if trying to slap her with a palm the size of a table. The golem's right hand hugged it's chest below the left handed swipe, ready to backhand the woman if she attempted to dodge under the left. While the golem's speed was not too impressive, it's power was phenomenal. A close up hit like this from Sirius' golem was the most powerful single blow in Sirius' entire arsenal. If either swipe managed to hit Shai, the Na'vin could potentially be down for the count for several days to come.

Sirius meanwhile had just dissociated himself from Syl confident his deception had worked like a charm. Syl had driven itself headlong into the oncoming boulder and the resulting crash would leave the creature and it's meditating master seriously worse for the wear.

Only for some reason he was floating some 10 feet above the ground and rising. He couldn't move, and Shai was not falling with the injured Syl who appeared to have a broken wing along with trauma to it's front underside and legs, but instead being assaulted by Granite some thirty feet away.

My how the battle can change in the blink of an eye.

The wind warrior must have been a fan of some strange bondage films, because being chained to by air was pretty creative. It also made for some good fantasy stories, but now was not the time for such thoughts. Sirius struggled against the thick bands of air that engaged him fruitlessly as he rose several more feet into the air. He could just now see Shai over the golem's head, and for some reason Sirius flashed her a smile and a thumbs up as if he wanted to let her know he was enjoying the bout so far. It was likely she wasn't sharing these feelings due to the recent loss of her mount.

As Sirius probably irritated Shai into some form of annoyance, he performed two actions. With the mobility left in his hands, he gestured at Granite. While nothing of note happened to the creature, Sirius had just prepared it to shift forms into his Phoenix should the need arise. The initial summoning of creatures was what took a lot of time in casting them. Once their summoned energy settled down shifting between creatures was simple and only took a few seconds for the forms to change.

Second Sirius activated his Stoneskin ability that he had prepped at the beginning of the match. Stoneskin was probably Sirius' most adept and versatile skill as it greatly increased his defense and offense at the cost of quartering his speed and tripling his weight. In this instance however, Sirius wasn't using Stoneskin for either it's offensive or defensive capabilities, He was using the ability to instantly gain weight, hopefully before he rose any higher then his already lofty position some 23 feet off the ground.

This sudden change in weight from the earth elemental would hopefully be enough to snap the bonds of the wind magic that was holding him and pulling him up. In stoneskin form, Sirius' weight closed in on 540 pounds. It was a gamble, but Sirius was willing to bet these bonds weren't meant to hold such a heavy burden. He tensed his body as well, pulling against the shackles with his arms and legs, trying to put the most resistance possible against his bonds while lessening the sudden strain on his appendages.

Shai's eyes snapped away from Syl as Granite began to attack, and she reacted swiftly. Sweeping her arms forwards, she called a burst of air to sharply shove herself backwards away from the golem's reach, turning in the air to dart away on currents of air. Without her mount she might be, but Shai could still fly. This just meant she actually had to do it herself, rather than being free to cast while Syl dealt with movement. As she did so, she noted Sirius' gesture with a wry stare, not deigning to return it. Smiles and cheery gestures were all fine and well, but this was serious business.

The priestess' eyes widened as abruptly a huge strain developed upon her lifting shackles of air, and she almost reeled from the taxing strength it was now taking to hold Sirius aloft. That wasn't at all maintainable. If she kept that up, she'd collapse before a minute was out!

Lifting her eyes to Sirius' position, Shai narrowed them, and lifted her hand up. After a moment, she threw it downwards, and as she did so the shackles and currents of air surrounding the heavy man reversed their direction. Now he was being propelled forcefully towards the ground, his speed quite literally 'like the wind'. As she did so, Shai continued to propel herself away from Granite, because as a rule, it was a bad plan to be in the vicinity of a giant rock golem that wanted to smush you for very long. The longer you were, the more chance it had of succeeding.

Shai wanted this battle to be smush-free, thank you very much...

As Shai propelled herself away from granite, the golem refrained from following up with it's left hand. The floating smushy thing holding the pointy stick was fast and quite maneuverable. Even the hard headed Granite could see that efforts to chase after the annoyance would prove fruitless. Instead, as Shai's eye's widened and she reeled from the taxing effort to hold Sirius aloft, (an observation the momentarily floating Sirius did not miss) Granite took a step backward and dug his hands into the ground following Sirius' orders.

"This isn't going to be a pretty fall, Granite give me some cover"

Using his ability to crumble rock, Granite turned the ground around his hands into sand and small rocks and began tossing sustained handfuls of sand and rock at Shai. This attack served multiple purposes. First and foremost the sand kicked up by this attack would hopefully create a sufficient enough smokescreen to cover Sirius' crash landing. Second, the small rocks tossed by the golem would pelt Shai and Shai's position hopefully knocking her around or forcing her to dodge long enough for Sirius to recover.

Sirius meanwhile was sent soaring at the ground by Shai's manifested chains.

Fortunately the crafty elementalist was not yet out of ideas.

As Sirius fell towards the rocky surface of the floating orb, he took a deep breath and concentrated on the rock he would soon be impacting. At Sirius' command, the rocky surface broke apart into a 3 foot deep pit of sand. At the very least the sand pit would break the absolute worst of his fall, and his stoneskin would further reduce the impact damage. Closing his eyes and taking another deep breath Sirius prepared for impact, continuing to put strain on Shai's bindings by attempting to pull his legs and arms inward during the course of the fall.

Whoomff

Sirius hit the pit of sand with the force of a small car collision, the impact kicking up a cloud of sand ten feet high and permeating a ten foot radius. The impact was almost as bad as being hit by his golem.

Uooofff

Sirius gasped for breath. Stoneskin had prevented the major scrapes one would expect from falling twenty feet into a pit of sand, and the sand itself had cushioned the fall by a moderate margin. Even still the impact had taken a heavy toll on Sirius which would be immediately noticeable if not for the immense amount of sand that had been expelled out of the pit into the air around him. For several seconds he simply lay in the pit gasping for air through the fabric of his duster. Fortunately the fabric filtered out the floating debris that surrounded him and fell on his position obscuring him more and more from view. Sirius looked very much like a boxer that had taken that well placed punch, winded and staggering, but still in the fight trying to put up a defense long enough to recover.

Even laying at the bottom of his sandpit, his mind and senses reeling Sirius knew something needed to be done about the chains binding him or the match would continue Shai's way until it was over. From the depths of the pit, Sirius brought the sand around him into focus, pooling it around his wrists, ankles and neck, before hardening it to rock, forming bracelets of rock around the chains of air. Continuing to gasp for breath, Sirius could only hope that this attempt to seal the chains off from the surrounding air exterminated Shai's influence on them from his body. If not he had an idea to exert sustained pressure on them until they drained Shai or she gave up on them. The sudden shock she displayed when Sirius turned to stone made him confident that this would work, but for now this simple task was about all Sirius could muster.

The dust settled around Sirius as he brought himself into a kneeling position. Apparently the bracelets of earth had served their purpose, cutting off Shai's chains from the surrounding air. There was no longer the signature tugging on his appendages that had tossed him to and fro. Sirius tried to draw breath, but the thin air made it difficult to recover from the fall he had taken. As Sirius continued sucking in air, trying to bring himself into a state of balance, he noticed something that gave him a bit of hope.

About thirty feet away from him, Shai was being bombarded by the Golem's makeshift sandstorm. The Na'vin warrior had apparently tried to get around the Golem, possibly in an attempt to finish Sirius off as he recovered. She must have misjudged the Golem's attack however, as she had taken the first handful of the Golem's sand and rock mixture head on, disorienting her, while she was hit by a multitude of pebbles and rock fragments to her whole body. Each consecutive rock that connected with the wind warrior impacted her like being shot with an airsoft gun. The rocks were too small to cause serious bodily harm, but they would leave a large amount of the front of her body stinging. Earthen dust and sand kicked up into the air around the Golem and Shai, as the Golem's second handful was thrown at the woman. Shai however, used her air manipulation to ascend above the storm, making the second handful miss the mark.

Sirius spat a red substance out of his mouth from his kneeling position, still trying to catch his breath. The woman appeared above the rising cloud of dust, covered almost from head to toe in sand, dust and small rocks.

Well I can certainly use that

While Shai probably attempted to re-locate Sirius, Sirius focused on the earthen materials that clung to the woman. 20 feet above the cloud of dust that contained an angry Granite, who began to toss more handfuls of dirt and rock upwards, the earthen particles coating Shai would congeal to her skin, clothing and hair like glue. Each additional piece that fused to the woman increased her weight by a moderate margin. If enough of the particles congealed onto Shai she could find herself in a full body cast of stone. At the very least the additional weight of even a few good sized pieces of stone would make it very difficult for the Na'vin to stay aloft for much longer. Sirius expected the thin air that had made it so difficult for him to catch his breath would also serve to either drain this heavier Shai quickly, or force her to land in a timely matter.

Once she was on the ground, Sirius didn't expect the match would last too much longer.

As the first few stones began to fuse to her body, Shai's eyes widened. Realising what Sirius was trying to do, the Na'vin's eyes flashed, as with a powerful swirl of wind the dust and stone was cast away from her. Wincing in pain from the pelting of rocks, Shai's eyes sought out her opponent once more. Thankfully, her gust of wind meant that only a few pebbles were stuck to her body, so the only real limiter on her movement was the stinging pain that the the stones had caused.

But Shai had fought through worse in the past, she pointedly remembered hours spent enduring the smack of a powerful waterfall upon her back reciting passages from scriptures, or casting spells. Her pain tolerance was very high, despite how she had complained at the training at the time.

Now closer to Sirius, she was able to focus more easily on his position for more precise attacks. Swooping to the side and downwards - aiming to both be out of the reach of the golem by distance, but also closer to the other elementalist for her attack to be easier - she narrowed her eyes at him.

Gesturing with two fingers, an orb of air would begin to form around Sirius' head, as the air that surrounded him flowed outwards and away from him. The thinness of the air already present made Shai's task easier, as she aimed to deny Sirius the oxygen that he needed to breathe. Given time, Shai would continue to expand the globe, quickly growing it to encompass his entire upper body to make it harder for him to move out of it even as it followed him with her maintained focus.

Unlike previously, Shai made sure to keep an eye on her surroundings while she channelled - she could not afford another mistake like that which had cost her her mount. Her energy was lacking enough to make more direct and powerful attacks difficult, and so more tactical manoeuvres like this were required.

Because flying into a rock, as Syl had learned, was ... well. Not very helpful to anything. Poor creature.