Swamped

Your ploy with the heavy armor has bought you a few precious seconds while Rider considers how best to attack you. He needs more force to either move you or pierce your armor, and most of the ways he can get the extra force will leave him open to attack.

However, his lance gives him more range. Your staff is only about two-thirds of its length, and as it's primarily a blunt weapon, it's more effective at closer ranges.

So, following standard tactics, he has to extend himself to attack you, and you have to extend yourself to attack him.

But you know Rider. Given enough time, he'll find a way to break that stalemate. Your only hope is to think of something first.

The battlefield itself is a key variable - the more stable center of the Knob offers better footing and the advantage of height. But, since the fundamentals of the battle favor Rider, he'll be less concerned with taking the center himself than with keeping you off it.

Ah, and now you spot your first advantage. You can force Rider to react. You step towards the center, and he quickly rushes your way.

The spear doesn't pierce your armor, but he knocks you down. There are loud gasps and cheers in the distance, but you tune them out. You can't waste time worrying about what the crowd thinks. As you fall, you swing at his feet with your staff, and it's enough to knock him off-balance as well.

You plant your staff in the ground, just fast enough to let you get back on your feet sooner. But Rider's regained his footing as well, and he's holding his spear in a more defensive position. You can't use this to land a blow.

He's letting you set the pace of the battle. He's that confident he can win, and it's not misplaced.

That's why you have to work outside the confines of the battle. You may not work real magic, but there's a reason beyond your outfit why your reputation as a wizard lingers.

You back off, enough to make him reconsider his next move. Then you swing the staff, and he blocks it with his lance. As expected.

He starts pressing on the lance, and you press on the staff in turn. If one of you succeeds, you'll disarm the other and claim a great advantage. On the other hand, if either of you backs down, you'll be exposed long enough to take a blow... but that's better than losing your weapon.

Which is why, a little after you feel the staff start to give way, you disengage. Long enough for him to think it was reluctant.

He lunges, and you block the pole of his lance as best you can. It's not very well, and he pushes you back... but you're still standing when you manage to shove his lance away. You start backing off.

More importantly, with all the swinging around you've done, it doesn't look deliberate when you turn the staff so its hooked portion will be towards the ground. You don't want to give away your trick too soon, after all.

Rider backs off, re-evaluating the situation. You're sure he'd have won by now if not for this heavy armor, though you can't say you appreciate how much it's making you sweat. Still, you just need one more apparent "bad" move and you can turn this around.

And Rider gives it to you when he decides to press an attack. He's seen enough of how you fight in the heavy gear to reason that you won't be able to hit back well, and he's right.

So as he strikes, you plant the staff in the firmer parts of the ground, in what looks like an attempt to brace yourself.

You make a few futile, but plausible, swings at him with your free hand to divert him from what you're really doing. You twist the staff around as you fight, and the flint-steel in the hook soon finds something solid enough to make a spark.

"SPARK!" someone shouts from the crowd. Rider pauses to look down, just a moment before it hits a plume of gas.

You use this chance to rush for the high ground, but all of a sudden, everything goes black.

---

You are now Mudviper. And if you didn't know the fool better than anyone here, you'd have a hard time believing Long just did that.

Mercifully, the blast didn't go far beyond the hill. You yell at the panicked Marshguards to hold position until the smoke clears; the battle might be over, or it might just be getting started.

On the other side, you can see a Bogknight corporal, in a uniform that seems a bit too small for him, yelling at his own troops. It takes some time, but everyone settles down before too long.

Until, that is, the smoke clears and there's no sign of either Long or Rider.

What in the hells.