[color=lightblue]"Hmm."[/color]

He harrumphed as his opponent emerged, unharmed of course. He didn't know where he was exactly, but obviously the mage was above him. Somewhere. On the platform.

He'd been observant enough to spot the circle and at least try to avoid it. If he'd been caught off guard, his injuries would've been much, much worse. The cold he was generating was slowly taking effect on his body; the wounds and burns he had were slowly icing over and healing, the effects of the magic ice slowly but very surely returning him to full strength.

The whole process, however, would take quite a long time, well after the fight was over.

Meanwhile, around him, ashes fell. When a flake hit the floor, it immediately froze the ground solid and then crumbled into powder. This, he did not notice. Not immediately, anyway. His focus was on how to beat his opponent without incurring more magical injuries.

Standing up off the central strut of the platform, he stared up at the stone bottom that his opponent was standing on top of. Thick, hardy stone; his ice had barely penetrated it. There was no way he was getting through that unless he had super strength beyond his current capabilities.

[color=lightblue]"Hmm."[/color]

A strategy slowly formed itself in his head. His opponent ran on magic, as did he, but where the mage could conjure many elements but had mastery of none of them, he had his ice and he was a master of it.

He stood straighter and took in a breath and closed his eyes. Then ice began forming all over his body, enclosing him in a hard, thick shell. As the last bits of the ice armour formed over his body, he took a step back, breaking free of the ice shell with a soft crack. Then he looked upwards.

[color=lightblue]"Oh yeah, I'm right down here. Come get me."[/color]

He shouted up, not moving from his spot, but as soon as he was done, he darted nimbly to one side, hiding underneath the platform and a few feet away from the ice shell he'd made of himself. Hopefully the spell the mage was conjuring would hit his shell instead of him. The broken ice would lend evidence to his "defeat", as it were, and he could climb upwards and continue his deception if Metz investigated.

For now, he positioned himself just right, dropping to a low crouch as he waited. He stood just beneath the platform's edge, behind the central strut so that the tall pillar was between him and his ice shell. If Metz just so happened to hop down and blast him, he'd hopefully be low enough to avoid whatever spell the mage threw at him.