His mana ran out before he could finish his masterpiece, but it was still an impressive set up. Three circles overlapped in front of him, all four feet in diameter. The closest to the water was a red fire circle, the left point was air and the right was rock. There was no real way of telling if he’d ever get to use the circles, especially as his tricks tended to only work once before a foe caught on to the implications of the elemental pillars. Still, it was better than wasting his mana sitting around super-charged with his foe no-where in sight, and as he slumped with the weight of his equipment pressing down on him uncomfortably and landed on his ass sitting facing the lake, he wondered if the Dreamers were enjoying the strange display. The grotesque man had chosen to outright flee the field, not a bad decision considering the situation, and Metz couldn’t really be bothered to go after him when the water would probably drown him before he made it half way across the lake. Felenr was dying as he sat around wasting time, fighting fools for prestige and mysterious prizes that meant fuck all to him. There was only really one reason he would fight, to get a chance to stop that monster draining the lifeblood of his people.

“Fucking Dreamers, I bet you make all sorts of people dance to your strings.” The Mage muttered in a dejected manner, wondering if someone up there would hear him and get offended. He ran one hand through his reddish hair as the other pointlessly massaged the armour over the area he had been punched. He was tired, physically of course, but also mentally. How long does a man have to fight for just to survive, ultimately if one’s life is almost perpetual struggle is there really any point in living it? Of course there was a way to end the fight, two actually, but suicide was not all that constructive regardless of how tempting it sometimes felt. No, there was an option, it was the easy option as well, at least in the short term. Metz hand had fell from his chest and crept along his belt. He massaged his forehead to quell the discomfort there, the temptation had snuck up on him as it always did, and his black finger tips brushed his remaining vial of mana. Almost as if lured together like opposite magnets, his hand stuck like glue to the vial, and he prised it away with an actual degree of physical difficulty.

“You know that can’t be the answer to everything Metz.” He said to himself rather sadly, sighing deeply as he returned to massaging his chest. He scratched his beard and looked around, noting that there was really no sign of his foe. There was a fair chance he was either swimming far away from him or had found a secluded spot to drag himself from the water and was even now flanking him. He wondered if the Dreamers would cut the fight short like they did last time, if so he wondered if he’d done enough to pass regardless, like before.