A final breath, and Yvan thrust his glaive to the roof, electricity barely crackling around his hand and yet nothing coming of it.

Aw, hell. His face dropped in disappointment; he should've worked harder! Growls hissed through his gritted teeth as he held his pose, willing, trying, but nothing came. Of course nothing came. He was so good at magic, why did it fail now, why why why?

With a huff, Yvan yanked himself out of his pose and took one look at the crowd, trembling with anger at himself and red in the face with embarrassment. Yeah, he's not winning this one. "G'bye."

And with that, he turned tail and ran. He didn't need to see anyone be disappointed in him, and he certainly didn't need coddling from anyone but Ryoto. He shouldn't have come out here to begin with..!

[exit to run awaysies]

@Khavur

Tectus waited patiently for a while after Yvan had gone for the next contestant, but after waiting a significant amount of time, she sighed.

"Okay, that one is out. NEXT!"

Khavur has forfeit the competition. @Tourmaline is up next.

Okay. Tourmaline takes a deep breath. Here goes nothing. The others before her had put on quite a show, regardless of the spells backfiring. It'd be a high bar to stand up to.

But they'd been kept waiting long enough, from the one ahead of her no-showing. So there's no reason to dilly-dally, and Tourmaline steps out into the center. The Spire's light casts her in stark shadow, and with luck that would help her display.

First she whispers into the air, "Rise," and the sand and silt is picked up on an invisible wind. Twisting up in a spiral, it turns to glass, glimmering in the blue Spire-light.

Keep your breathing steady. She can't loose focus. You are in control. She's lost control too many times before.

Before she can stew on her self-doubt any further, she moves on to her next spell. "Form together," is her next quiet command.

It takes a moment for anything to happen... Too long, almost. But as her first spell peters out, the glass is pulled together into larger pieces. Each is a shining piece of quartz, about an inch across. They hang in the air for a single moment before they fall to the ground, like crystalline hail.

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

And now. Last one. Her breath hitches a bit, her realizing how much everything is riding on this. This is the spell she failed so many times, as she groveled at Emuh's feet. This could be her redemption. This could be her undoing. oxymoron as her thoughts were, the crowd won't wait for her. And neither would Tectus.

"Stand," she commands, louder than the first two. Her voice almost cracks.

The floor shatters. A spear of quartz spears up from under her feet, impaling her on the spot. She sputters, coughing blood, pain filling every inch of her senses. She can't move, she can't do anything, and it's getting dark.

The crowd would watch as she collapses against her own pike, her namesake gem spreading to hide her from the shame.

Exit Tourmaline to Chrysalis

@Fahl

Another little cat came stepping out (Tectus still has to unpack the last cat that came out, but someone doesn't have the energy to write about that right now) and she had good hopes for this one, she seemed confident and was preparing some good showmanship, and she leaned forward, interested in the magic of their shared element. Tectus had not been one to learn magic herself, but the potential for it...

Her thoughts were violently shoved to the side by the cat...killing herself. Tectus blinked, stunned, for a moment trying to work out if that had been intentional or not. It was certainly...a spectacle, to kill yourself in front of everyone, but from the cat's reaction, it didn't look intentional. Another horribly failed spell. How many had happened so far? They were really happening a lot, huh! What the hell was going on?



The Overseer cleared her throat and rose to her feet. "Okay, everyone stay calm, accidents happen. Hold the show for a moment." She climbed her way down from her place and out towards where the grizzly sight of an impaled Tourmaline was beginning to disappear to her chrysalis. She reached forward with her jaw towards the base of the quartz spear and as she wrapped her jaws around it, she sent a quick jolt of her innate magic into it and broke off the pike from the ground, the chrysalis embedded on the length of it.

She quickly shuffled through the crowd and away, where she set the chrysalis down to attach itself to the ground. Now the Tourmaline was both out of the way of the competition and alone to heal in peace. Tectus, meanwhile, returned to her judging spot now that was done. "Okay, sorry about that. Continue - who's next?"

Demonstrating cycles worth of honed magic to a crowd carried a distinct amount of pressure, particularly when it was for the official, as well as unofficial, judgment of strangers. Stir in the fickleness that accompanied coaxing such power into compliance, the danger lurking within failure to maintain control, and even a confident, growing mage such as Fahl could find his nerves ajitter. It didn't help matters that the previous performer's finale was seared into his mind, the prone feline thrust aloft by a rebellious spike of her own making. He was no close acquaintance of Tourmaline, but it hadn't been too long ago that she'd sheltered him and others from a volcanic assault. Seeing how easily her element speared its wielder was a cruel reminder of how easily his could immolate him if willpower slipped even the slightest.

And now it was his turn. The audience awaited. To be succinct about the emotional turmoil squirming over his hide in bright hues of orange and yellow, a single phrase sufficed: oh shit.

Of course, he couldn't verbalize it. If it were any other situation, any place with less eyes upon him, the sentiment would've been more easily expressed. Here, though, presentation trumped his feelings. Letting the last monumental mishap affect him so visibly might ruin the assured image he needed to present. His throat still mending from past burns, what others saw mattered more now than ever, as his words would have to be effective and few. Therefore, narrowed focus forced the shifting patterns upon scales to calm into uniform black and gold stripes while he stepped forward.

Dragged along by his teeth was a branch, thick and sturdy, that he'd acquired for the show. Considering the nature of fire and the equally destructive tendencies his newly discovered native element of energy possessed, using this was preferable to subjecting a Lesser to a horrific and drawn-out fate. He placed it into center view and backed away a few paces in an attempt at achieving a safe but noticeable distance, then rasped out his brief introduction.

"Observe... But do not dare draw too close. What I destroy... cannot be well repaired."

Fahl's silhouette vibrated for a few seconds before his form seemingly split, a duplicate body peeling away from the original. Touch, sound, and smell would give away its phantom nature, but the doppelganger strode over to the branch, imposing itself over the inanimate object. There would be no true victim in his spellcasting, but that didn't mean he couldn't fabricate one. Hopefully, the fresh impaling wouldn't render his already planned act too insensitive in its wake.

Done was the false imitation of life he wished the audience to buy into for momentary immersion. Next came the most difficult aspect of the performance to achieve. Much as he prided himself on bending flames to his intentions, the excursion into the dungeon had proven well how much transcendence had weakened the foundation he'd built over many long and grueling cycles of practice. Should that understanding of fire's temperamental tendencies be too lacking, the following days would not only be spent nursing the usual internal burns, but also ones painfully external. An especially awful stumble could end up leading to the stench of cooking flesh and the renewed terror of his stone smothering him in a pale prison to heal and emerge again.

A steady paw swept out, magic tingling within claws, and pointed to the fake Fahl in everyone's midst. Exhaling a measured breath held within jaws, he abruptly jerked the appendage ceilingward. Where nary a spark existed, a tremendous blaze burst into being, simultaneous to this gesture. It enshrouded the iguana doppelganger, and his mirror image writhed inside its agonizing grip.

Such a brutal yet simple display for observers to behold. If he really desired to impress upon those surrounding him the strength he harbored, Fahl would need to push a little further and increase the flashiness beyond a mere show of someone burning to a crisp. His timing would have to be exact so he could manage this extra bit of flare before the flames died out. Keeping a calm face, he surged into his claws more of the magic he was most familiar with and curled them slowly, dramatically inward.

What'd been ever-shifting tongues of flame began to acquire a deliberate shape. They stretched, holes were pierced into their length, and unmistakable chain links wrapped themselves around the imposter he'd created. Well-bound and unable to escape his torment, the illusion opened his mouth in a final silent scream as he struggled against the scorching bonds.

Fahl opened his suspended paw. The spectacle was consumed in a sudden twisting inferno. Unrestrained at last and free to consume without being held back by a mortal master, this lasted a few seconds at most. When it died out, no victim remained. Only a pile of smoldering ash lay, all that was left of the wooden fuel his blaze had so swiftly and greedily devoured.

He allowed the audience a heartbeat or two, enough time for them to fully absorb his work. Once satisfied they'd taken it in, Fahl forced out a sentence in order to make a proper exit. "Thank you... for your... consideration."

Damn it all. Even that small statement caused his throat to throb once more. He swallowed hard against the growing pain and, with a wide sweeping arc of his finned tail, slunk back into the press of the gathered masses.

@Phelix

It has to be true

Was. Was the magicka show supposed to be this violent?
He got the impression it wasn't, given that MOST of the other acts weren't. But the two before him had been rather scary, so when he went to take his place on the stage it was with a timid, awkward crawl. A long moment of silence as he tried to figure out how to begin. He had planned a speech, before, but it had slipped from his mind as soon as he watched someone get impaled right before his eyes.

Finally he just took a deep breath and spoke, "Howdy, I'm Phelix! My magic isn't really that dangerous at all, so feel free to look as close as you'd like!" He was almost a little embarrassed by the fact his magic wasn't all that volatile, given that so many of the gembound here had spells capable of immolating you, or skewering you, or what have you. But that was a stupid thing to be insecure about, especially since he didn't WANT to hurt anyone. Hopefully it'd just be a nice change of pace for the audience.

He'd exhale, and a trail of bubbles would float out of his siphon, glimmering pleasingly in the light of the spire.

I'm counting on you
To be my wings and my eyes