The ground shook as the deer carcass was tossed carelessly into the ring with a nasty splushnk of mush and oil. The smell immediately hit Hunter and made his stomach churn as he stepped back, holding his spear out in front of him.

Faceless was rolling away from it, but Hunter fell into a defensive stance as the tendril burst from the poor, mutilated corpse. Staring in horror, the young fisher-elf held his ground even as the wild, chaotic mass swatted toward him.

As it drew close, he smashed his spear into the tendril, deflecting the blow before it could try to take hold of him or his weapon. Gritting his teeth, he continued to slowly back away, all while keeping a careful eye on his opponent... who would surely try to come for him the second his guard was down.
tagging a gm again!

ROUND HAZARD

ATTEMPT: fend off the tendril with his spear

The horrible tendril may as well have shrieked with how it seemed to explode upon being deflected. The pointed end of the spear tore through Oily membrane, and the exposed "flesh" hissed. It evaporated in a flash, sizzling against the cool air and the hot blood soaking the sands. Deflating like a balloon, the profaned tentacle briefly turned itself inside-out before collapsing into a puddle of inky blackness.

Draconua, to even her own surprise, merely grumbled her disdain before uttering yet another hellish roar into the arena.

For a moment, it seemed as if a hole had been punched through the sand where the tentacle had once been. Oil slodged into it, staining the blackening stone even darker.

It did not end there, however; shelves of rock peeled away with resounding crack!s, collapsing into the widening pitfall. As if that weren't enough, the stones beneath both Faceless and Hunter rumbled and shifted, pitching downward like a great, big ramp into a terribly deep pit—or, less mercifully, into crevices between churning stones to be smashed.

Festive.

@Faceless

It swiped, missed, and nearly charged into the deluge of oil that came from the dissolving tentacle. Faceless scrambled to a stop just in time to avoid becoming the second victim of an Oily slip-n-slide that day, hissing frantically. Now Hunter had his spear back, and Draconua was involved, and its chances of survival were suddenly not looking so good anymore.

It hopped from foot to foot, agonizing over what to do next. It didn't want to be anywhere near that pointy spear, but it also knew that the longer this dragged on, the greater its chances of horrific death became. Draconua's second earsplitting roar seemed to galvanize it into action at last, and it sprang toward Hunter once again. Sprinting at full speed as the earth crumbled around it, Faceless leapt for the hybrid with arms extended, aiming to knock him into the yawning fissures currently opening beneath the arena floor.

@Hunter
Round 7/?
Attempt: push Hunter off a cliff or something idk
Defense: arms first
Injuries: burnt, bitten and scratched, bruised ribs (or what would be the rib-area on a normal animal anyway; I don't know how three-mouthed skeletons work lmao), black eye

It dashed around jagged black monoliths thrusting up from the sand and raced ahead of webbed cracks opening underneath its feet. Its entire focus was on getting to Hunter alive, and knocking him into the newly introduced hazards. As it closed the last few meters between them and sprang with its arms reaching forward, it squeezed its eyes shut. If it ended up impaled on the spear of his, it didn't want to know what was coming.

The world roared around Hunter, in more ways than just Draconua's ear splitting screech. He found his own footing uneven, stumbling as the earth split and burst into jagged trenches that threatened to swallow him whole. He tried to keep ahead of the chasms that opened up under foot, stumbling as he went, but then Faceless was upon him.

Hunter didn't have much time to react. He slashed his spear forward, aiming for Faceless's legs in a sweep that he hoped would knock the beast to the ground. Maybe it would tumble and fall into the yawning void that was growing around them, or maybe...

Even if his spear connected with its target, the mass of Faceless's momentum still slammed into him. He was shoved back, and he felt his feet slip off of a ledge as the earth burst around him with a great, thunderous quake.

ROUND 7/7

ATTEMPT: knock faceless off its feet (maybe get it to fall too)
DEFENSE: AAAAAAAAAA
INJURIES: several very nasty puncture/bite wounds along shoulder and back, gash across face

One moment, Hunter was standing on relatively stable footing-- considering the chaos going on-- the next, the air was knocked from his lungs and wind was rushing upward through his fur. For a split second, adrenaline made his fall feel impossibly long.

He was plummeting. He threw his spear into the stone, lashing out with his other hand to try and grab the ledge, claws digging into stone. His spear slammed into some softer earth, digging deep and giving him something to hold on to, and while he nearly tore a claw on the stone, he managed to grab the ledge.

There was a jarring pain through his shoulders as he caught his own weight, hanging from the edge of a dangerous drop into what seemed like a massive, terrible void.

Hunter grit his teeth, and forced himself to start pulling himself up. He wasn't giving up, not yet!
tagging a gm again!

ROUND HAZARD

ATTEMPT: grab a ledge before you fall into a deadly pit of death

A rage-filled scream billowed out over the broken-up earth and bodies twisting and squirming to escape: "DIE ALREADY!"

Draconua fell heavily onto the jutting stones. Her fingers curled, gripping against rough and broken shelves without a care for the spots of Oil left in her wake. Wings flapping only to steady herself, beady black eyes lolled in their sockets before fixing upon the combatants—Hunter, hanging from his grip on his spear and the Faceless beast scrabbling for a hold to cast the mustelid into the abyss.

Her head reared up with a gasping wheeze, as did the rest of her body. Putrid black bloomed in her gullet, stark against even her dark and Oil-stained hide, and with a bellowing screech of a roar... the ground sputtered to fiery life. Where Oil and corrupted rock lay, there was now purple, Chaotic flame.

It was no inundation of hellfire, but it was good enough. Perhaps a bit of it would catch on that spear, and they'd both go tumbling down, down, down—

—and she could go back to whatever it was she'd been doing before. She already forgot what that was.

Apologies for the delay!
@Faceless

Its exultant triumph as its arms made contact was quickly replaced by horror as Hunter's spear smashed into its legs, tangling its footsteps and redirecting its momentum downward. They went, both of them, tumbling into the yawning fissure.

Faceless shrieked wordlessly as it fell. Its throat was taking quite a beating from all the screaming on top of the previous electrocution, but it wasn't in the right state of mind to shut up just because of a lot of pain. Falling off a cliff was an experience that provoked a primal kind of fear, and one that it would do anything to stop--including hugging the legs of the one it'd just been trying to kill.

As it was about to plunge past Hunter with his ledge, it twisted and threw its arms out, grabbing desperately for the hybrid. If it caught, it would simply hang there, not actively trying to pull him down but certainly not doing anything to help either. It was simply a dead weight, a German Shepherd-sized monster that really had no idea what it was doing in a Deathmatch. With no formal combat training or even casual practice against prey animals, it could only do its amateur best to survive.

Round 8/?
Attempt: hang onto Hunter
Defense: hanging on!
Injuries: some very bruised shins, burnt, bitten and scratched, bruised ribbish area, black eye

Whether its desperate grab ensnared Hunter or another wayward ledge, the cold flames igniting beneath it were enough to make it jerk its legs up, curling them out of reach with nothing but pure core strength. If you thought about it, the Deathmatch was kind of turning out to be a great workout. Just not a very beginner-friendly one; it'd probably be sore enough to drain its will to live by tomorrow if it wasn't, y'know, dead.

Before long, its arms and core began to shake. Maybe it was from the justified fear from hanging a few feet above the consuming purple flames, but probably it was because of the fact that hanging in the air all curled up was exhausting. Die already, it pleaded mentally. Why wouldn't its opponent die already so it could get out of here?

@Hunter so sorry for the late replies!

Faceless was sent tumbling down after him, and Hunter held on with everything he had in him. Death was breathing down their necks in the shape of a massive, terrible monster, and now the two of them were hanging on for dear life.

Hunter needed to get up to the top of the ledge, but Faceless was a massive weight that was threatening to snap his spear and make his fingers slip. Either would be a death sentence.

"Hang on," Hunter pleaded, whether he was talking to himself or the beast clinging to him. It took everything in him, but he dragged himself upward, until his arms and chest had crested the top. All it would take would be Faceless to jerk, and they both could be sent plummeting...

ROUND 8/8

ATTEMPT: power climb time! get back up!
DEFENSE: AAAAAAAAAA
INJURIES: several very nasty puncture/bite wounds along shoulder and back, gash across face