Originally Posted by
ThirdEmperor
Field
Ah. I did indeed misunderstand the bit about the earth dagger trying to tunnel through the flesh of it's victim, but in the end it wouldn't have mattered much anyway. See, as demonstrated by the fire dagger's lack of effect, the battlemages are fairly well defended from magical assault.
This is due to the half-dozen or so low-grade warding spells they maintain at all times, including one that does indeed prevent enemy casters from using telekinesis to make their spines do backflips and incidentally works pretty well against this mode of attack as well. That said though, the battlemage is still lying on the ground, fighting to remain unconscious and struggling to breath with a huge chunk of rock impaling his collarbone so he's hardly a major threat.
Now, the shield-caster's spell was simple enough that it wouldn't require the invoker to remain still while casting, meaning he can still dodge. The problem is that without his allies watching his back, he doesn't even notice the incoming wind dagger until it's a little too late to do so. Only the rather distinctive sound created by anything moving at 'hurricane-force speeds' alerts the mage to his incoming doom, prompting him to dive for the ground just a few milliseconds too slow to entirely evade the incoming air dagger. Instead of running him through the elemental blade cuts into his back from shoulder to ribcage, shredding the mage's flimsy armor and the equally flimsy flesh below right down to the bone and needless to say, leaving him in enough pain that he won't be doing anything else this round.
This leaves the battlemage Zefir's charging as the only enemy still standing, but even without magic he isn't about to die without a fight. The punch sends him staggering back, forcing the caster onto the defensive for a moment as he reaches for the standard issue Excelsior pistol all battlemages carry.