As the red hot cherry in my pipe burned, smoke rising in wispy strands dancing around my head, before dispersing into the crisp night air, my mind drifted back to the events of the day before, and the intense battles that had occurred in The Arena...
Clove (
The Tournament started off quite smoothly, my opponents being reduced to ash before me... that was... until HE entered The Arena... One of The Bone Crushers... The Notorious Smukkers (
As the roar of the crowd died down, my mind snapped back to the task at hand, Clove had just placed her magical modifications on The Arena Battleground, All Monsters were Heavy Hitters and Speed had been Reversed, she also limited Mana down to only 25. With those restrictions in mind I began to summon my team to the field.
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Smukkers had outplayed me handily, Yodin Zaku's mighty blasts reduced my group to ash. For some reason Clove had mercy on me and ordered a rematch to occur, I could hardly believe my luck! As I stood up and dusted myself off to prepare for the second battle, Clove set the modifiers in place, Aim True and Blast were given to every monster and Mana was limited to 46.
I realized from the last match that I wasn't going to be able to hold back and have any chance of beating this Battle Mage, they were far too skilled. So with a prayer on my lips and a quick set of hand motions I began summoning The Mighty Magician Himself, Valnamor!
Dealing with the cocky youth could sometimes prove to be a handful but the battle I was about to be in was sure to be a hot one, and there aren't too many customers cooler than Valnamor. Once he had fully materialized in we went to work on the remaining battle strategy, we were both in agreement, we were going to need some big bruisers in the front to absorb the shock and some killers in the back ripping faces off, it wasn't going to be pretty, but it should work.
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I could hardly believe it! It took more than a little luck but somehow we had done it! Valnamor and I had beaten back Lorna Shine and Smukkers! After all the dust had settled and the excitement had died down, Clove The Arena Master ordered the final tiebreaking match! Always wanting to keep things interesting she decided the final match needed appropriate modifiers to be in place, namely, only being able to use odd-Mana Monsters and reversing the monster's speed. She also set the mana limit to 20.
I bid farewell to Valnamor and began plotting my next move... 20 Mana is an interesting amount, it is more than a little and yet not quite a lot... and for some reason at this moment, Jarlax the Undead's ethereal voice began echoing in my head,
"Young Battle Mage, choose wisely, choose me. My undead minions and I will lead you to victory over this insatiable foe you find yourself against."
Unnerved at first by how skilled Jarlax was with legilimency, I quickly recovered and summoned the ghastly spectre of a Mage to The Arena so we could discuss strategy without him clawing around in my head. He may be choosing to help me now but Jarlax the Undead isn't such an altruist that he would let me forget this favour any time soon. His mind for battle strategy certainly hasn't diminished in all his many centuries of "existence"... if one could call what Jarlax does, existing...
With our strategy set, we began summoning our team to The Arena...
https://splinterlands.com?p=battle&id=sl_639d1fcc77821c27727abe3be8676cb3&ref=yeshuathehighest
The roar of the crowd told me the outcome before I could make it out for myself! Smukkers' Frost Giant lay in a heap, Camila Sungazer and he had banked on Jarlax and I going heavy in melee monsters but we had decided on a magical front instead!
I could hardly believe I would live to fight another round! And not only that, we put on such a show that she spared Smukkers as well! We both made it out of the arena with our lives for the day at least... but there were still many battles left to be fought, and the road to the tournament grand prize certainly wasn't going to be a cake walk!
NEXT TIME on The Life of a Battle Mage: Bone Crushers Revenge!