A picturesque forest, untouched by human hands. Beautiful, tall oak trees tower into the sky, but don't block out all the light streaming into this pictorial garden. Shrubs and flowers adorn two sides of a lovingly crafted cobblestone path, swaying slightly in a reassuring light breeze that accompanies the land. Birds twitter in the air, their chatterings adding a level of almost emotional depth to the landscape. The sky is perfectly blue, and the air is crisp.
Ho! A figure comes! His booted feet stride along the path, his leg plates just visible at the point between the foot and the leg, obscured by his long green pants. He wears a breastplate, carefully polished, and a long, huge weapon is on his back. A giant, studded, club.
A look of irritation crosses his face, the pastoral scene before him doing nothing to calm his raging mind. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slim white tube; with his other hand, he sets the tip of it on fire. And puts it to his lips, inhaling.
A trail of weary smoke spews from his lips, and then the mutterings begin.
"Since when was there a ****ing lighting storm in ****ing downtown chicago during the ****ing autumn in a ****ing heatwave," he mumbles. "And why the **** does it have to be just when I'm ****ing calibrating the mechanism for a ****ing psi-driver. Why, world? Why?"
He reaches just below the top of a hill, and stops, truly upset. "And why the **** have I been walking along this path in circles for the LAST THREE DAYS? I swear, I've been to this part of the woods SIX TIMES! SIX! Urgh! I just wanna bloody break something!"
Whipping his mighty weapon from his back, the thick, clubbed iron slams into the ground, causing a mighty clang to be heard as it impacts upon the cobblestones, sending all the birds in the area flying, and a few of the smaller trees are now upended from their roots.
Turning back to the bath and replacing his weapon, the man strides once again over the crest of a hill-
-to see a medieval villiage lying before him, and a few shellshocked farmers tending upon the mysteriously flat are beyond him.
"Wha- the geography just dosn't match up.." mumbles Carthrat, walking towards the villiage and not really noticing the destruction a small earthquake must have recently caused. "I could've sword I was just here..."
On another side of the town, a young woman shifted her backpack uncomfortably as she walked purposefully towards the town, when a slight tremor was felt through the earth.
Pausing for a moment, her blue eyes blinked as she cast her eyes curiously around the area. Nothing seeming to be out of place, she soon shrugged, and with a shake of her head, jostling her blonde hair, she started walking again, kicking a couple of pebbles as she went.
Thank the Gods, she was sick of walking. Horses were just too expensive to be worthwhile these days . . .
Her stomach grumbled slightly.
Lunch would be nice, hopefully this place at least rates a decent inn . . .
It'd better, since it rated a (admittedly tiny) Mage's Guild branch, but that was more positioning than anything else.
Looking around at her surroundings some while walking into the town proper, she noticed the same lack of other travellers she'd seen for the last day or so. Odd, because this place was something of a crosroads, but maybe she'd just gotten lucky.
Relm Tyrean had never been the most social of creatures.
Yawning, Carthrat approached the town gates.
"Welcome to Sun'y'dale! Population: 3123" the sign read, with what looked to be a hand-carved scene of a sun and flowers in a garden. Or something.
His taste for fine art sated, Carthrat wandered into the town and started locating a tavern.
Wherein there would be food, drink, a fire, girls, a bed.. ahh, bliss. He hadn't slept for three days trying to find his way out the bloody forest.
It didn't take long to find the tavern; it was situated at a crossroads of the town. It was nice, like a renaissance style place; there was a fountain in the middle, a few people were sitting around. He supposed it wasn't really a villiage. More of a town.
There were four buildings that really stood out, though, and each of them was a corner of it's own block. The place was arranged like a freaking grid. Weird, for a medieval town.
On one corner was the tavern. It was late afternoon, so people were beginning to trickle inside, no matter if they were other travellers, or just farmers looking for a drink.
Diagonally opposite the tavern was a tall building, over which a dramatically large iron ball as floating, as if suspended in mid-air. The hairs on the back of Carthrat's neck tickled; it must be magic, he mutters to himself.
From another building on the crossroads could be heard the repetive clanging of a blacksmith at work. Swords, horseshoes, and suits of armour were all on display so that one may purchase a fine piece of metalwork.
Opposite the blacksmith building was something akin to an apartment block. It had a simple sign outside it; "Union Office".
Mentally shrugging to himself, Carthrat enters the tavern..
Most people would look at Relm and see a 20-ish woman with blonde hair, wearing a short blue tunic, brown trews and carrying a backpack, trudging along the road (well, road might be a bit generous) towards the center of the town.
The observant would notice that her boots were solid somewhat heavy looking in comparison to the rest of her - and spattered with mud, as were the bottom of her trews. They might then infer, correctly, that she'd recently travelled a decent distance on foot.
Almost everyone would notice the fact that her brow was currently creased in a frown. This was not uncommon.
Anyone who had known her for some time, however, would probably groan at about this point, because they'd recognize the frown as Relm plotting something . . . generally for the purposes of satisfying her curiousity. Which would usually end up satisfied, definitely . . .
. . . it just had this irritating habit of getting her and companions in hot water.
Accidents happen. In any event . . .
--
Relm gave one more appraising look towards the Mage's Guild (well, she assumed it was the Mage's guild. Not many other buildings would have a large iron ball suspended over their heads, only mages tended to have both the capability and the incredible desire to show it off with such a pointless display) before bending over the fountain.
Dropping her backpack on the ground as gently as dropping allowed (not very), Relm bent over the fountain, dipped her hands in and pulled out a handful of water.
A moment of concentration later, she drank it, then straightened and hefted her pack.
I can't believe people actually consider this clean. Ugh.
She paused a moment, watching another traveller enter the tavern - a warrior, by the looks of him, although not many humans wielded large clubs, let alone anything of that size.
Well, at least I can get some food, she noted, moving towards the tavern herself, and some rest wouldn't hurt. I can deal with the mages tomorrow.
Arrogant pricks.
Carthrat can't help but glance at the woman drinking water out of a fountain as he walks past, wondering if she was really so surprised as to have that disgruntled look on her face. Honestly, the 'fresh' water around here was bad enough.
Or maybe he was just too damned used to all those added chemicals..
-
It's hard not to make an impression when you're larger than most trolls and wave around a club that's bigger than most people. While the words 'overcompensation' were heard in a couple of corners of the tavern, that word was spoken only very quietly, and to friends to speakers knew and trusted.
Walking straight up to the bar, Carthrat asks for... a mug of milk.
The results were unfortunately predictable. Once the barkeep got over the fact that the man in front of him was apparently *not* a hard drinker, all the intimidation factor was lost.
"Milk?! Next you'll be saying you want water," he rumbles. A pudgy man with a habit of imbibing on his own ale, he had a presence that could not be denied..
"Milk. Don't tell me you don't have any, I know it's used for mixing drinks," grunts back Carthrat, who also had a presence that really shouldn't be denied.
"I only keep a little under the bar," lies back the barkeep, wanting to sell something that actually costs money to buy.
"That's a lie! I know it!" lies Carthrat, eyes narrowing to sharpened points.
"I know you don't know that," lies back the barkeep.
"Do not."
"Do."
"Do not."
"Do."
"Do not."
"Do."
"Fine, give me some.. ale with milk. 1% ale, 99% milk," growls Carthrat, finally hitting upon what he thinks is an acceptible solution.
"Coming right up," snickers back the bar, doing some maths in his head to work out how much he can charge. There's the mixing fee, the regular ale fee, the milk fee, the irritating customer fee.. such an array of brilliant money-making devices!
Walking into the bar herself, Relm cast a glance around the room and noticed that most of the attention in the place - not that there was a great deal of attention, only being late afternoon the tavern didn't have many patrons - was focused on the large man she'd seen outside.
Which suited her fine, but now that she was a little close and paying a little more attention, she realised just how large he and his club actually were.
Whether or not he could actually wield it was another question, but in any event he was currently having a heated discussion with the bartender, who had something of a smirk plastered across his face.
Noting the barmaid standing idly near the bar with a long suffering look on her face, Relm waved to her for a moment before dropping herself inelegantly into a chair at the table she'd chosen - an empty one near the side of the room.
"What can I get ye today, milady?"
Relm looked up. "What do you have to eat right now?"
"Well . . . we have some cold meat from lunch, and some mutton stew. We won't have anything more until dinner, don't you know."
"Bowl of stew, then."
"Three coppers."
Dropping the requested money onto the table, Relm gave the barmaid a smile as the latter hustled off before looking over to the bar again.
Carthrat dropped his club from it's position over his shoulder and placed it on the ground, none too gently.
After the barkeep had recovered his footing (and watched a few of his customers spill their drinks), he managed to pour out a glass of milk, and added a tiny drop of ale into it.
"That'll be 5 coppers for the milk, 3 for the ale, and a 5 more for the mixing fee, bringing the total to.. a silver and three copper."
Carthrat stares at the man incredulously. "All the ale in this building probably isn't worth that much!" he states, not taking a sip of his drink. "I'll pay you 3 coppers for it."
"3 coppers? A measly 3 coppers?" retorts the man. "Why, the service alone is worth 5 or 6!"
"Look, mate, I know as well as you do that half the people in this tavern have barely a copper to their name," Carthrat replies, drawing several angry glares from the tenants. "Three coppers, or I throw this thing back in your face and take the door with me on my way out."
In the face of such a blunt method of persuasion, the barkeep relented, muttering something about "..union officials hearing about this.."
Well, maybe he -can- wield it . . . but that thing is incredibly heavy. He must be inhumanly strong to even carry it.
Relm suppressed a snicker, looking at the altercation with a neutral expression. Thirteen coppers was ridiculous, but the last thing she needed was to annoy the locals.
Nice to see the greedy bastard being given what for, though.
Carthrat takes a few sips of his drink, noting the bartender hurrying away to someplace, leaving a serving girl to take care of the customers.
"Sorry about Gram, he's a bit of a leech," she comments, leaning down to face him (and exposing a fair bit of cleavage for his viewing pleasure). "If you want a room, I'll let you pay at a discount. Three coppers, eh?" she smiles, winking.
Carthrat tosses her the coppers; "Sure thing, sister," he replies. Thus, their transaction is completed.
-
*About 10 minutes later..*
Carthrat has managed to drink several pints of milk (Does a body good!), when suddenly..
"Hold it there!" bellows a deep, booming voice. The door to the tavern blasts open, revealing a tall, angry looking man with thick sideburns and a moustache. He's got a sword at his side, and looks ready to cut into things with wild abandon.
Flanking him are two slightly shorter but no-less-angry looking men, armed with wooden clubs.
"You there!" the lead man bellows. "Are you responsible for incriminating this man as an untrustworthy salesman? A disgusting crook?"
Carthrat blinks. "Well, uh, if you mean pointing out he was waaay overcharging-"
"Overcharging! What gives you the right to decide how much is too much?! That job is best left to...
THE UNION!"
Dramatic Lightning accompanies his statement, and is quickly followed by a patering of rain on the ground.
"Duh.." replies Carthrat, thoroughly lost for words.
"So! Do you plead guilty?" bellows the lead man, pointing an accusatory finger into Carthrat's face.
"Er.. No?" replies Carthrat, thoroughly bemused. His hand strays to his club..
"Oho! So, tell me. How much did this man wish to sell his fine beverage to you?" speaketh the lead goon, indicating the barkeep, who just then apporached behind him.
"Thirteen coppers," replies Carthrat, irritated. "Look, I-"
"And just HOW MUCH did you pay him?" bellows the man.
"Er.. three coppers. And overpriced, at that." For fear of incriminating her (Though he can't guess what for), Carthrat dosn't mention the barmaid selling milk to her for one copper a mug.
"So! See this before you, citizens of Sun'Y'Dale! The UNION has uncovered this man, who has been prepared to rip off his humble servant, the barkeep! He does not deserve forgiveness, only punishment!"
"Oi, oi, oi!" replies Carthrat, getting upset. "Look here! Um.. a pint of milk is worth less than some.. er, stew, right?" he says, upset.
The man ponders. "I must confer with my asssoicates. Wait a moment."
A short discussion later..
"The Union has agreed that a pint of milk is worth less than a bowl of stew," he says, finally.
"Well, um.. you there! Blondie! How much was that stuff you're eating?" Carthrat asks, pointing at Relm.
Relm raised an eyebrow, and swallowed her mouthful of stew. Good stew, as they went.
"3 coppers, beefcake."
"And from that, you have undenaible testamony that I have in fact paid MORE than the milk was worth!" shoots out Carthrat, triumphant.
"Hmm.. in that case," replies the union official, turning to the barkeep, who is now speaking very quickly.
The official whirls around, pointing an accusatory finger at Carthrat.. again.
"You, sir, have not been telling the full truth! This good man claims he mixed ALE and MILK for you!"
Carthrat blinks. "Ara- oh, come on, it was like half a drop-"
"Silence! To determine what else you might have been LYING about, you will COME WITH US... after we take a Union Check Pass. You DO have a pass, right?" glowers the official, holding his hand out.
"Well, uh, actually.." blinks Carthrat. "No?"
While the Head Official is busy tormenting the unfortunate warrior, his lackeys start checking around the locals, asking questions like.. "Do you have your union pass with you?" and "Can I see your union pass?"
Inevitably, they reach Relms corner table..
Relm looked up again.
"Do you mind? I'm trying to eat my stew."
"Ah, I'm sorry, Miss, but you really must present your Union Pass. It's a matter of town security, you see," replies the lackey, looking somewhat nervous.
Meanwhile, Carthrat and the Head Unionizer are having a shouting match..
"Well, I only arrived today, so I have no idea about your town security . . . but my eating stew can't really be a problem, can it? I'm hungry."
Relm turned a cheerful smile on the lackey.
Must . . . restrain . . . fist . . . of . . . death . . .
Why did people always interrupt her meals?
"It's not so much the stew, miss, as your presence here. Look, you could've showed me your pass and I'dve been gone by now," replies the lackey.
Carthrat and the Head Unionizer are literally butting heads at this point..
"I just said, I just arrived here, so I don't know your rules. Obviously that means I don't know what you're talking about."
Relm was almost done with her stew, thankfully, but she had the sinking feeling she wasn't going to get to finish it.
"Ah, a traveller! Well, then, you can purchase a temproary Union Pass! Good for three days!" replies the lackey, looking extremely cheerful. "If you'll just come with me to the union office.."
"Can I please just finish my stew?" Relm forced another vacant smile onto her face, "I'm really hungry, and I paid for it like any other law-abiding citizen."
"Oho! That man there would be called law abiding by our common courts of justice, but the manner in which he diddle the fine owner of this establishment cannot be denied!" spouts out the lackey, who unfortunately looks to truly be believing what he is saying. "Perhaps we should take you prisoner, too!"
Perhaps a request doomed to failure, as now the Main Man had draw his sword and was pointing it at Carthrat's face, which had gone from a bemused expression to an angry expression to a Downright Pissed expression.
"What, for buying some stew?"
Relm, who had kept eating through the conversation, had just run out of stew.
Well, at least it had been a good meal.
"Well.. uh, anyway, you still have to come and buy a pass," replies the lackey. "Think of it as supporting your fellow man! And, uh, woman. I guess."
The lackey's remark was punctuated by a loud *Crack*, which was followed by a wooshing noise, and then the breaking of thatch.
When next Relm glanced over, Carthrat was replacing his club back on the ground and taking his seat again, while the other lackey was muttering something about '..the inter-town thatchers union is going to have fits..'
Relm looked over at the club-wielder.
"Ah . . . shouldn't you go and help your friend?"
The lackey looks over at his buddy, then gapes.
That club was *awfully* big..
"Er.. I'll have to go and get reinforcements! You come with me, you can buy your union pass, to! We'll do it TOGETHER!" he speaks, grasping Relm's wrist and making to practically drag her away.
Relm glared at the lackey.
"Let go. NOW."
The lackey lets go, more by the tone of Relm's voice rather than what she actually said.
But he was brave; he was not daunted, still he persisted.. "You have to come to the union office!"
"How about I stay here and keep an eye on this guy while you quickly go and get reinforcements? It'd be no good if the reinforcements came and he'd already left, right?"
"Oh.. um, sure, that works," replies the lackey, dissapearing somewhere.
To be quickly followed by his buddy, who scampered out of there without even a twitch from Carthrat.
After all, that club was *awfully* huge.
Carthrat stands up, and decides that another day wandering the wilderness is preferable to hanging around in this town. He makes to head outside..
Grabbing her pack, Relm hefted it onto her back and headed towards the door herself.
Making herself scarce might not be the worst idea.
Carthrat steps outside-
And is immediatly drenched by the oncoming rain.
Several interesting changes take place, not least of which is a change of body density in the chest area, with alot of the extra mass taken from what was on the shoulders and arms. Not to mention a large decrease in height.
Oh, well. Maybe it was for the best. Surely nobody would recognize this woman wearing too-big armour and clothing and carrying a club that looked twice as big as her with no effort whatsoever.
Look like Carthrat didn't need to unpack his Orb of Pest Resistance after all..
A few seconds later, Relm herself stepped outside into the rain . . .
And was greeted by the sight of a brown haired woman wearing the exact same gear as the man she'd followed outside.
Uh-huh.
"Excuse me, but have you seen a man about so high (she gestured), wearing armour like yours, clothes like yours, and carrying a club rather like yours?"
"Oh, Carthrat? He's, uh, busy. I'm his, erm, replacement. The position wasn't vacant for long," replies Carthrat-chan, twiddling her thumbs. "He'll be, uh, not be seen around here a while, but if you follow me, I could take you to him. Maybe."
The reasons Carthrat-chan was acting all self-concious was because of a small crowd of Unionizers gathered outside the Union hall. They didn't see Relm, however, 'cos despite being of the fairer sex, Carthrat was still, even without the excess muscle, quite tall.
"I'll bet." Relm paused a moment. "I don't know about you, but I'm going elsewhere, and if there's anyone with any intelligence at all in that little group over there," she nodded towards the unioners, "you should too."
"That was my plan," replies Carthrat, shrugging, walking off to the East, as opposed to the South, where he came from.
"What a bunch of freaks," she mutters, glancing over at the unionists.
Relm watched the . . . woman? Man? Club wielding figure?
Whatever.
Anyway, after the club-wielding person had gotten some distance away, Relm walked over towards the Union Office, around the edge of the group of Unioners who were gathering out the front.
The unionists appear to be holding some kind of rally. They're constantly chanting slogans and feel-good phrases repeatedly..
"For the Union!"
"The People Deserve This!"
"Don't worry, be happy!"
"The Common Man will prevail!"
While all that garbage was being spewed, Relm enters the union office.
-
Inside, the union office appears to have a sparsely furnished entrance area. A desk stands to one side, with a bored looking clerk behind it. A stairwell leads up the building, presumably to the actual office area.
And the barracks? Judging by the amount of people streaming down the staircase (which was more than this building should really be able to hold), there must be *some* living facilities out there.
-
Meanwhile, the rain stops, and a drenched woman manages to reach the Sun'Y'Dale gate.
"Well, at least they can't *legally* chase me once I leave the town," she mutters to herself. "But, dammit.. I'm so tired.."
Walking just outside the gate, Carthrat-chan leans against the palisade wall surrounding the town.. and promptly falls asleep.
Nobody would dare mug her, though. That club was *awfully* big..
Relm wandered up to the clerk.
"Ah . . . since I'm new in town, can you explain what the rules about this 'union pass' are?"
The clerk looks down at Relm. "Union pass? You're asking about a union pass during a rally?" he snorts. "If you must know, it shows that you are a fully fledged member of...
THE UNION!!!
Er, more importantly, it means you're cleared to conduct your business here," finishes the clerk.
More Dramatic Lightning accompanied his announcement, however, and it promptly started raining again..
-
"Aww, lets just hurry up and do this!" bellows one of the unionists. "I'd rather get inside where it's warm!"
With that announcement, the unionists stream inside the tavern..
"What if you don't -have- any business in town?"
The clerk shrugs.
"Just about anything is considered business by these hooligans," he replies. "Between you and me, I think it's a tad excessive. But the ideals are good!
I just hope someone takes charge over these clowns; you have no idea how the pay can bounce around here."
Relm nodded.
"Thank you, you've been more than helpful."
And so saying, she ducked off towards the door and out before the clerk could say anything more.
When Relm came outside, she witnessed all of the Unionists heading outside as well, looking around nervously.
"Where'd he go?" one of them cries, peering down an alley.
One of the unionists stepped forward. He was the same unionist Relm had promised to help. "You there! You promised to help us! Which way did he go?" he asks. "Tell us, for the good of the people!"
"He went down there," Relm said without skipping a beat, pointing down the road 'Carthrat' had taken, "and then he ducked into that alley there," she pointed to an alley a fair way down the same road.
"I didn't see him come out again, though."
The unionists didn't pause to thank Relm as they thundered down the road towards the alley where Carthrat was apparently hiding, leaving Relm alone on an empty street.
Relm blinked, then shrugged, and walked back to the tavern.
The tavern.. was a wreck. The larger portion of the interior had been smashed about by the unionists in their search for a man who, if he was there, would've really stood out like an elephant in a snail race. Most of the patrons were starting to leave; a few were left helping themselves to the ale, as the barkeep had mysteriously vanished.
Picking her way through the mess, Relm went looking for the barmaid . . .
Locating the barmaid wasn't hard; she was busy setting tables back upright, sweeping away glass, and the million other menial jobs that are required when a building is just trashed by a bunch of fanatics.
"Ah. . ." Relm addressed the barmaid, then asked something different, "Does this happen often?"
The barmaid shrugs. "Only every time a traveller with the brawn to back up his mouth comes along," she replies.
Relm snorted. "Men." A pause, "In any case . . . have you got a room for the night?"
"Well.. yes, we have one room. It was taken by that man before, but I don't think he's coming back, so I guess you can have it. Oh, he's already paid, too. Looks like this is your lucky day," replies the barmaid. "It's up the stairs and to your left."
Relm gave the barmaid a smile, genuine this time. "Probably not, thank you very much then. Do I need a key or anything, or do I just go straight up?"
"Oh, just go straight up. The Unionists didn't go upstairs; for some reason it never occured to them that the man could hide up there. The beds all made and such." With that, the barmaid goes back to cleaning the place. "Dammit, when is Gram going to get back? I don't get paid enough for this.."
Idiots. Anyway.
Nodding acknowledgement as the barmaid went back to cleaning - I don't envy her that job - Relm ducked up the indicated stairs and into the corridor above.
Up the stairs and on the left, she said . . .
Relm managed to find her room without difficulty. The place only had three, and two of them were on the right. Besides, they looked to be the rooms for the owner and maid of the place.
Her room was sparsely furnished, but serviceable. It basically consisted of a bed, a small table with an eating knife on top, a closet, and a small chest at the end of the bed.
Pulling her boots off and dropping the knife concealed there onto the table, Relm tossed her backpack onto the floor next to the bed and unlatched it, pulling out one of the books.
So done, she sat on the bed, hooked her feet underneath her, and started reading. Intently.
OOC: And so she will stay until she either decides to go to sleep, she's distracted by something, or the unioners kick her door down.
Relm is kept awake a short while by the shouts of unioners on the streets searching for Carthrat- after they couldn't find him in the alley, they seemed to spread all over the town.
However, they don't barge down her door or do anything other that search, and she soon falls asleep.
-
The Next Day...
Carthrat-chan wakes up from her position lying against the town fence.
Sleeping there, while not being particularly comfortable, *had* seemed like heaven after wandering through a forest for three days without stopping for rest or food.
Only a canteen of water had seen her through her ordeal, and that canteen was now empty.
Well, being hungry was perhaps an improvement over being tired. A small improvement.
But she couldn't slug it all the way to the next town; it could be an age away. Well, hopefully, with her disguise in place, she should be fine..
-
Carthrat did a credible job of making herself look like a different person; from somewhere, she had produced a long dress, stashed her armour in her pack, and was wearing a modest top.
There's only so much one can do to hide gigantic club, though. Admittedly, it was wrapped in cloth, but it was still *awfully* big..
Upon arriving at the town square, Carthrat-chan looks about for somewhere to buy food from.
-
Meanwhile, Relm wakes up to see a pot of water and some slices of bread and cheese on her small table.
A loud thundercrack was the only warning given before a clouds formed up rather quickly right over the town square.
A scream followed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
A person fell out of the clouds, and hit the fountain in the middle of the square with a spash. Some equipment followed.
The clouds quickly dissipated, as a voice was heard...
"And stay out!"
Carthrat-chan glares at the.. guy? Girl? Thing? who just fell from the clouds and landed in the fountain.
Falling from such a high distance provides a great deal of backing force to the object that is falling; hence, when that force impacted on the ground, it inevitably went somewhere. Normally, such a force would reflect on the object, squishing it.
However, this particular object was more elsatic or light or *something* than most. Since he wasn't squished, the energy went into the fountain, and more specifically, the water.
Which explains why the fountain is now empty (Except for this person) and why Carthrat-chan was drenched.
Again.
Well, it wasn't like she was a guy at the moment, so she supposed nothing was lost.
"And who, pray tell, are you?" she asks, irritated nonetheless.
A groan was the reply to Carthrat-chan's query, followed by the sight of a guy sitting up.
"Jeez, I told them I'd fix it, why don't they ever believe me..."
The mystery man rubbed his head a couple of times, and started gathering his equipment from the now empty fountain, absently missing the query from before.
Carthrat-chan's eyebrow twitched.
Well, maybe she *didn't* want this guy talking to her. Maybe next time he fell out the sky, he'd take her with her or something.
It made no sense, she supposed, but neither did what just happened, so it all worked out.
She decided to head back into the tavern; despite her reservations, she figured it'd have some long-lasting food she could buy.
As she walked, she could no longer muster the energy to carry her 'package' over her shoulder, so instead, she dragged it along the ground.. leaving a good-sized ditch along the way.
Finally shouldering all of his equipment, Ginn noticed a girl in armor trying to drag a rather heavy looking sack along the ground, heading towards what looked like the town tavern.
Hopping out of the ditch, he caught up with her.
"'scuse me, but that looks kinda heavy. Mind if I helped?"
Carthrat-chan blinked. "I'm fine, really," she replies. "You're awfully resilent for someone falling from the sky," she goes on, curiously. "However can you survive a fall like that?"
"It's a bounce enchantment. I'm enchanted so that the energy from most normal blows are mostly transfered out to my surroundings. Like, if someone punched me, they might get thrown back by a wave of energy... or the floor might crack under my feet... or something like that. I never understood the physics of it myself... it was an experiment and... oh, I'm babbling, aren't I..."
Ginn chuckled and scratched his head.
"A.. bounce enchantment? Say, that sounds kinda like a Force Distributor.."
Carthrat-chan rummages through her dress for something, and pulls out.. a miniature train. "Well.. could've sworn I had one.. oh, wait, left it on my desk.. ah well."
Shrugging, she heads inside the tavern.
Ginn follows.
Sitting up with a poorly stifled groan, Relm dragged herself out of bed.
She may have been a great number of things, but she was certainly not a morning person.
After getting herself dressed, eating the food on the table and splashing herself in the face with some ice water - twice - she was feeling vaguely human again.
And she had the Mage Guild to deal with.
Stashing her gear back in her backpack and reconcealing a couple of throwing knives, she hefted the aforementioned pack and picked up the remnants of breakfast before leaving and heading downstairs to the bar . . .
Leaving her 'package' at the door (and being very careful not to cause any tremors with it), Carthrat-chan headed to the bar.
Well, it's not like anyone *could* steal it, even if they wanted to.
"Oi, barkeep! Have you got any dried meat?" she asks.
Upon the mentioning of food, Ginn perked up.
"Barkeep, do you have any decent chow? I'd be willing to pay..."
Ginn make a gold coin appear at his fingertips with some slight of hand...
"One at a time, one at time," gruffs back the barkeep.
He's looking distinctly worse for the wear after the events of the night before; he looks to have not got any sleep.
"Dried meat? Yeah, we've got a bit," he replies. "How much do you want?"
"Oh, about 4 days worth," replies Carthrat-chan. "Y'know, general trail rations and whatnot. And some water."
Grumbling, the barkeep manages to produce the requested goods.
"Roight. 6 coppers," he demands. Carthrat gives him the money, and goes to sit at a table to organize his goods.
"And do you want rations, too?" he rumbles at Ginn.
"I suppose, but I'd also want some nice, warm breakfast too."
"Right. We have mutton stew. 3 coppers for the stew, and 6 coppers for 4 days rations," the barkeep replies.
Meanwhile, Carthrat-chan has produced a chest from somewhere and is rifling through the gear in it, looking for something..
Ginn gives the man a gold and waits for his change.
The barkeep gives a look of dismay as he surveys the gold, before digging underneath the bar for change.
After a bit of searching, he dumps 2 silvers and 21 coppers on the bar.
Ginn slips the money back into his pouch, which goes under his shirt.
He picks up his goods, and sits down a the bar eating.
"Say barkeep, do you know where I am?"
"Sun'y'Dale," grunts back the barkeep. "There's big flamin' signs at every gate, how can you miss it?"
"Yes, but where is "sunnydale?""
The barkeep shrugs. "Just off the coast. To the west, there's the port town of Boa'tsurus, and to the east likes the capitol.
To the south is a road leading into the Mystic Forest, or so it's called. Not many people come from there, and the people that do are always weird.
To the north is some other village. Don't know what it's called, don't really care."
"I see... so is there an adventurer's guild, notice board, town crier, that sort of thing?"
"There's the union hall," replies the barkeep. "Damned pack of useless idiots. Can't even catch one man when they're needed as constables. But I suppose they could tell you more."
At that remark, Carthrat-chan sneezes violently.
Ginn finished his stew.
"Excellent stew, it's been a while since I've had a warm meal."
Thanking the barkeeper, Ginn walked outside and looked for the union hall.
Walking down the stairs, Relm placed the water jug on the bar and waved to the barmaid.
Noticing Carthrat, she gave him/her/it a surprised look, then shrugged and headed towards the door.
Finally packing up all of her gear and stashing it back on her person (with a certain few items chosen for easy access), Carthrat-chan stands up and quickly catches up to Relm. "Hey, uh, can I have a word?"
Relm paused.
"Yes?"
"You're a traveller, right? Which way's the nearest town?" Carthrat replies. "I mean, I'm, uh, new around here, so to speak, and don't know which way is which."
Relm eyed Carthrat appraisingly. "Boa'Tsurus is probably the closest, it's a port town to the west. But you don't really know where you want to go, do you?"
"Well.. uh, no, no I don't," replies Carthrat, chuckling.
Relm smiled wryly. "Well, when you work out what you're looking for, I can tell you roughly where to go."
"Heh. Well.. I'll be seeing you, then, won't I?" replies Carthrat, opening the door for her.
Relm chuckled as she stepped out the door. "Maybe. Fare you well, then."
A few moments after Relm leaves, Carthrat-chan snatches up her package, and wanders out the town herself, figuring that it might be worth looking around the place and soaking up some of that medival atmosphere.
-
Meanwhile, from the north gate, a few travellers on horses appear. One of them is obviously a mage; the pointy hat and black robes kind of gave it away. However, the others appear to be commoners; unarmed, and wearing simple clothing.
As they walk towards the town square, a small group of Unionists walk out their building, and look in their direction, evidently waiting for them.
After a short moment, the party of horsemen reach the town centre, and face up to the unionists, who speak first.
"Well! If it isn't the main party from the Central Office. You must be Foreman Dreschan!" says one of the Unionists, looking quite excitable.
"You've really come at the perfect time, we've got a bit of ah.. situation."
In a forest nearby the little town of Sun'y'dale, and age old philosophical question was being tested.
>CRASH!<
Indeed, a tree falling in the forest, with no one there to hear it DID make a sound.
Admittedly, they young man punching them down may have skewed the test a bit.
"Gawd-F*scking *&^@!! Genetics."
>CRASH!<
"Pop, When I get back home...Grrr!"
>CRASH!<
The young man in question was tall, nearly six feet in height, with a shock of wildly spiky black hair pulled away from his face and currently stormy dark eyes by a crimson headband.
Despite the strength implied by the fact that he was casually punching down trees, and the long, (nearly eight feet in length) heavily wrapped bundle on his shoulder, he was more wiry than bulky, in fact, he was possessed of a lankiness found in the youngest of men, no longer a child, but not yet a man.
His clothing was simple, only black, drawstring pants, and a heavy tunic of dark blue. The hand he was punching trees down with was bandaged, and his feet were protected by split toed cloth boots.
He sighed heavily as he crested a hill, and caught sight of a nearby town...if it could be called that. Even charitably speaking, it was tiny.
"Hm. Don't feel much like seeing other people just yet..." He decided, setting down the wrapped bundle, and dropping a small duffle at his feet, he sat down against one of the trees, and opened the bag, pulling out a small, high tech looking nutrient bar.
"Man, these things taste terrible...Oneechan's cooking is better than this..."
Saying nothing more, he simply began to eat.
OOC: Sorry. >_>
IC:
Crossing the center square without incident, Relm stepped into the Mage Guild.
Not that it was signposted, but only mages would have a large iron ball levitating above their roof. Not to mention have the arrogance to try it.
The room she'd entered was clean and deserted, with the exception of a clerk sitting behind an ornate desk, writing on something. Relm couldn't see from this angle. While she was surveying the room, the clerk looked up irritably.
"Can I help you?" Last thing we need is more gawking yokels . . .
Relm smirked. "I was hoping I could look through some books in your library."
The clerk gave her a flat stare. "I'm sorry, but our archives are not publically viewable."
Relm didn't answer, and just handed over a sealed piece of parchment, waiting patiently as the clerk opened and read through it, his expression changing as he did so.
"You will of course, ah," the clerk paused for a moment, "contribute to the upkeep of our establishment while you're here, correct?"
Relm placed two gold on the desk, and looked at the clerk.
"Right, of course," the clerk pocketed the gold and stood up, "Allow me to show you to the books you were looking for."
"A.. situation?" replies Dreschan. "This place *is* a situation. Look at you! This office has been here for months, yet the town has hardly been assimilated.. honestly, an office of what 20 officials and not one brain amongst you, is what I hear."
The Unionist starts making some feeble excuses. "Oh, shut up," butts in Dreschan. "So tell me your situation."
Relieved, the Unionist starts explaining in-depth the problems that have assualted him ever since 'that man' with a bigass club started flagrantly flaunting the union rules.
Dreschan is unimpressed. "While your zeal is commendable, you should know that there is no point picking fights you cannot win. At the very least you should've called for reinforcements."
"Umm.. yes, sir," replies the Unionist.
"Now, I want you fools to follow me. We'll see if we can't find this.. rulesbreaker. Keep in mind we wouldn't *have* to if you clowns hadn't gone and spooked him so badly he's likely to throw a pipe in the works sooner or later.."
Dreschan mutters a string of arcane words under his breath, and his eyes suddenly turn red. "Right. He lies in this direction," he says, pointing into the alleyways of the town. "You go first."
Meanwhile...
The Mystic Forest was well known amongst the inhabitants of Sun'y'Dale for being one of the main barriers of trade between the North and the South. This was largely on account of three things; firstly, it is difficult to find the correct path through the forest; secondly, the journey as it is was a long one, with no known towns or supplies between the two lands, and thirdly, and most importantly, the weird monsters it spewed out from time to time.
Inevitably, these monsters would demolish the south wall and destablize the existing social structure. It was only due to Sun'Y'Dales advantageous location as a crossroads that it was still standing today, as the public knew that traders would come with supplies to rebuild their town- and money.
Sun'y'Dale lucked out today, though; instead of picking directly on the town, the fierce monster that would've sacked it instead focused it's attention on a smaller, apparently easier target.
It was also a loud target. While some creature may have given pause to a single human knocking down trees with his bare hands (not to mention the recent earthquakes the area has suffered), this creature had a higher opinion of itself than most.
It's methods were not subtle.
It's power was undeniable.
It's tactics were seemingly unbeatable.
-
While Ryoma is munching away, his vision is inevitably drawn to a half-naked girl walking towards him, the look on her face promising incredible happiness.
She was wearing an apparent two-piece made entirely of leaves that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and her beautiful figure was enough to send most men (and a few girls) into a daze simply upon seeing her..
Ryoma looked up from his wholly inadequate lunch. He noted the girl, raising an eyebrow at her manner of dress, which was more than odd. She was ludicrously attired for wandering out in out in a forest.
This manner of thought was unusual for a young man of Ryoma's age.
Most young men of his age would have been instantly in lust. More than a few would have tried seduction on the spot. The vast majority would have been struck dumb with awe.
Ryoma was none of these things. His only reaction, invisible to anyone watching, was the sudden mental superimposing of another girl's face over the apparition of beauty...and a sudden wave of soul-crushing grief.
His jaw tightening almost imperceptibly, he took the last few bites of his rations, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye.
The creature was surprised. It's current observations of humans had shown that this sort of form would reduce the male half of the species into veritable mush.
Perhaps a closer vicinity was required. With that, the woman approached Ryoma, a sly smile on her face. And wiggling her hips in the most *outrageous* fashion...
<->
Meanwhile.. within the town square..
The union was out in force today. Apart from the squad searching the area for their prey, the rest of the squad was out checking passes, to make sure no *other* punks were attempting to infiltrate them. A couple of people had already been hauled away, despite protests of 'I left my wallet at home!'.
Inevitably, one of them approached Ginn.. "Excuse me, sir, but may I see your union pass?"
Ryoma almost...ALMOST blushed. He settled for growling instead, one pointed fang slipping over his lip. This woman had to be some sort of prostitute. What on earth was she doing out here?
"Lady, stop right there. I want to be alone. Leave me be."
The woman paused. Admittedly, her studies might be a few centuries out of date, but could humans have changed so much? They were simple little creatures, after all..
She wasn't entirely sure what it had just said, of course; such a simple language was, ironically, beyond her. It was obviously rejecting her advances, which made this all the more difficult.
Perhaps an even less subtle method was called for. It was, at least, to her mind, unique.
Another point of irony is that a glomp is hardly unique, having been in use for several millenia, virtually since humans learnt to bathe and could be considered 'attractive' rather than 'not entirely disgusting'. It didn't stop the woman leaping towards Ryoma, arms outstretched, though..
Ryoma's eyes narrowed, and his hands came up, intercepting the woman's wrists before they could reach him, arresting her lunge and holding her fast. "I said I didn't want to be disturbed."
An interesting response. If the first two volleys had not suceeded, the third very damn well should have.
Well, it seemed that all hopes of a peaceful assimilation were called off. A new strategy would have to be taken.
Ryoma may have been somewhat surprised when the woman simply dissolved into a mist and floated away..
Ryoma started, and frowned as the woman vanished into mist.
Bad news. I'm outta here. He decided. Picking up his bag, and wrapped bundle, he headed towards the town...
Ginn wandered through town past the guy asking him a question, looking at a map of Seattle and trying to gain his bearings.
Lets see, pike street should be this way...
Walking down another path, he came across a group of people leading what looked like a archotypical mage.
"Scuze me! Yeah, you! Do you know where I am? I'm kinda lost..."
The 'archetypical mage' whirls round and stares at Ginn, before speaking, in a deep, rumbling voice.. "Sun'Y'Dale. More specifically, you are at location x223 y521 of the Area Map."
Ginn already got this answer before.
"Ok, so can you tell me how to get to the Union hall?"
"You must head to x400 y322 to reach the Entrance of the Union Hall," replies the mage, his booming voice reverberating throughout the town.
"Telling me coordinates on a non-existant map isn't going to help me. You're going to have to be more specific, on a landmark level."
The mage raises a finger that crackles with potent magical energy.
"YOU MUST GO.. that way and around the corner. You can't miss it."
Ginn heads north for a bit, then east till he reaches the large, building marked "Union Hall"
Walking in Ginn found the receptionist.
"Scuze me, do you have a map of the surrounding area or of this world?"
The receptionist blinks. "A map? Well.. no, not really. I could contact the cartographers guild and see if they could produce one for you," he replies, pondering..
<->
Meanwhile, Ryoma reaches the town gate to the sight of a guard, wearing chainmail and marching back and forth with a sword in hand. When he spots Ryoma, he turns and faces him, speaking.. "'cuse me, traveller, but if you want to enter the city, you'll need to either produce a Union pass or buy one on the spot."
As he speaks, a low hum can be heard by Ryoma, coming from all directions at once..
Ryoma blinked at the man impeding his progress, and frowned. He wasn't in a very good mood.
"How much?"
Well, he might be angry, but there was no sense in starting needless fights.
"Five gold," replies the guard. "And your name."
Ryoma frowned even deeper. "Show me one of these passes, and explain why I need them." he ordered.
The guard shrugs, and produces a small piece of parchment with an intricate drawing of some kind of military parade on the top, the words 'Union Pass' written in big curly letters underneath it, and a line on the bottom, marked 'Applicant'.
"Passes are required to make sure that those within the workforce are properly represented by the Union. Even if one is presently unemployed or travelling, this pass is still required mainly to ensure that they are under the Union's jurisdiction while within the town, and thus are subject to union laws while within. I should note that having a pass also gifts one the *protection* of the Union laws, and not having a pass while within the city can make life exceedingly problematic.
Actually, people don't normally need a pass to enter. Between you and me, I think they're just overreacting a little to some traveller, but hey, this is my job."
Ryoma takes the pass and examines it, surreptiously looking around for the source of the humming.
The Union Pass felt fairly new; the parchment fresh and unlikely to break. The ink was black, and one side was unmarked. There were crease lines on it, indicating that it was folded up. There wasn't really anything special about it, apart from perhaps the depiction of a military parade.
The picture was well-drawn; at the head a column of men, an important looking man carrying a sickle was leading his troops forward, all of which were holding hammers at an upright position. They were also marching. There was a backdrop of various 'tradesmen' workplaces; a carpenters home, a blacksmiths forge, and a stable.
Ryoma can't really 'see' any direct source of the humming, but that forest was really giving off bad vibes. His instinct tells him that something is about to happen..
<->
As a mage (of sorts), Relm was attuned to certain energies of the world like non-mages weren't, and she noticed a strange buildup of energies coming from the South...
<->
Ginn was just one of those people who'd been everywhere and seen it all; and one thing he got from all of that was a sixth sense for when weird shit was about to happen. And it was going off like an alarm bell.
<->
Carthrat noticed something positively strange.
"It's a Tuesday and the butchers is shut? Dammit, I'm hungry.."
Ryoma folded up the pass, and put it into his shirt pocket. Frowning, he reached into his duffel and withdrew a small, almost comically so, jeweled dagger, inlaid with gold.
"I don't carry the money used here. That will have to do." He replied shortly.
"What's that humming?"
"Humming? Probably your ears, sir. You'll have to wait here while I get this dagger appraised," the guard replies.
Abruptly, the humming stopped. In its place, the ground started to tremble slightly.
"My ears don't hum." Ryoma snapped, unaffected by the trembling earth. "And if you need me again, you find me. I don't have the luxury of waiting on tiny bureaucratic decisons."
He frowned at the ground, waiting for it to either do something more, or stop entirely. "It's not as if I'd be difficult to find in such a tiny villiage anyhow."
"Sir, if you believe you are above the law, you are greatly mistaken," replies the guard, oblivious to the rumbling of the ground. "I can't let you in before the dagger is appraised, it's more than my jobs worth."
At this instant, behind Ryoma, the ground erupted, showering dirt over both him and the guard. Then there was a huge rush of wind and noise..
Relm looked up as she felt a small tremor, and sighed as she closed the book. She'd sensed, and ignored, a bit of earth magic being used to the South. Elemental mages weren't all that common, but one being a little noisy wasn't anything too unusual.
But the tremoring implied trouble on the horizon, because whatever was going on out there, it was big. And if it got any bigger, things would probably start falling down, and it'd be safer not to be inside when it happened.
On the one hand, the book was interesting, and she might actually get somewhere with her research in the near future if this was any indication.
On the other hand, this could be fun. Or interesting. Or anything, really, but recently (apart from last night's brawl, which she'd carefully avoided) there hadn't really been much happening.
Boredom and curiousity.
Never a good combination.
--
Stowing the book she was looking at carefully back on the bookshelf, Relm stepped quickly through the library and out onto the street.
It was big. And tall. And it appeared to be better armoured than most Knights, and that was pretty well armoured.
It was essentially a giant centipede, which was taller than the town by a good 20 metres and looked to still be growing. However, it had made a somewhat inaccurate calculation, as all it's centipede feet were waving vainly in midair, trying to get some purchase.
It was, of course, a Googlepede, a rare kind of critter that tended to decide that the time to morph in a butterfly was right after it waded through a nearby town. The result of such a transformation was a little-seen kind of dragon, which is notably prized for the great fabric it's wings are made of.
They were also known to possess a modicum of intelligence and shape-shifting powers. They are similar to barghests in that they must drain energy from human beings to build up enough energy for their transformation.
Which explains why they transform after trashing large cities.
The beast finally managed to extricate itself from the ground.. and started to fall onto the town, casting an omnious shadow over the people..
Ryoma facepalmed. "Oh, holy cow..." he exclaimed. Well, moaned, really. "All I wanted was something to eat." he said flatly, to the guard behind him. "I try to be nice, abide by the rules, hoping for a quiet day. Instead, I get stupid bureaucratic shit, and a giant snake with legs. Well, I've got your damn union pass. Bug off, pal, because whatever happens next, I'm not going to be happy to see you. "
Ryoma closed his eyes, and a brilliant green corona of energy flared to life, surrounding him resembling nothing so much as a crackling fire. He dropped his duffel, and the long, wrapped bundle, and raised his hands over his head, concentrating.
Yui...Kami, how long has it been? A vision of a quiet, smiling black-haired girl, with a smile he'd do anything to see formed in his mind's eye. The familiar ache returned as regrets and hurts he'd give anything to fix surfaced...I miss you, Yui-chan...
His eyes snapped open, and a ball of green energy about half again as big as a man glowed near his hands. With dead, listless eyes, Ryoma looked up at the falling centipede...and smiled.
"SHI SHI HOKODAN!!!"
A green lance of energy, large enough for an adult man to fit into without bending over, erupted from Ryoma's hands, headed straight for the 'googlepede's' head...
The brilliant beam of energy lanced towards the Googlepedes head just before it landed on the town. This had the added benefit of forcing the beasts body just above the townsfolk and turning it slightly to the left.
Thus, instead of crushing the town square and the middle-class district, it promptly smashed into the slums. Despite the power of the blast, it looked relatively unhurt.
The thing was still long enough to be directly next to Ryoma, as he soon found out when it's end-section whipped towards him with surprising speed..
Ryoma frowned, and hauled a fist back, planting his feet. The thing was too small to hurt him seriously, but it COULD knock him a fair distance if he wasn't careful.
As the tail came within reach, he swung his fist in a technique learned from his father's grandfather, connecting solidly with the beast's tail, in a rapid, double impact punch, and he growled, funneling ki into his fist to further encourage the armour to shatter...
The armour didn't look like it was shattering anytime soon, but Ryoma *did* manage to stop the tail swinging into him, in fact causing it to bounce off him.
The impact *did* send him back a few feet, though, gouging out a pair of feet-tracks along the ground.
The thing was practically reeking energy, now that he had a few close encounters with it. It seemed to be a fair bit more powerful than your average 170-or-so-footlong giant worm.
After it's fall, it seemed to have regained it's footing, and was now rearing up once again, turning it's flexible neck to point the head in Ryomas direction.
It started to speak in some alien tounge..
Standing on top of the roof of the bar, Relm looked down onto what could only be described as a scene of carnage.
"Oh."
A man battling it out with a massive centipede wasn't quite what she'd expected to see, although she supposed it did count as interesting.
"Shit."
Come to think of it, that probably summed up the situation better.
Concentrating, Relm felt around for water sources around her . . . and in short order, all the water she could pull from the village's fountain and well came rushing towards her, spinning into a whirling vortex above the roof she was standing on.
As Relm could handle quite a lot of her chosen element at a time, it was a fairly spectacular show.
Ryoma blinked, staring at his fist. "Hm. Tough bastard." he mumbled, pulling his feet out of the trenches they'd carved in the ground, ignoring the head of the beast for the moment.
A black bolt of energy lanced out from the things mouth and curved to hit Ryoma, who couldn'tve dodged even if he tried.
He felt a rush of energy.. leaving him, being dispersed to the winds. He felt suddenly weaker and less.. competent than he was a few moments ago.
Still plenty strong, though.
<->
Relm's display was quite amusing, though she thought she heard someone saying '..no permit!' throughout all that.
<->
Carthrat-chan, who was sitting on top of a building across the other side of town, whistled over Ryoma and the big-bug-things little fight.
"That'll leave a mark.."
Relm drew an arm back and whirled it forward, concentrating on the water as she did so.
The practical upshot of this was that the watery vortex was now flying towards the head of the creature . . . and that it didn't seem to be a spinning vortex of water anymore, but more a spinning vortex of razor sharp shards of ice.
Hey, it'd proven effective before.
The thing promptly closed it's mouth after it's spell was cast, but that didn't entirely save it from Relm's assualt, which bit and cut at the inside of it, opening some wounds.
A fair bit of the icy shards didn't do any damage, bouncing off it's armoured shell. Only the interior of it's mouth was really damaged, and the extent was difficult to tell.
<->
Carthrat-chan produces a case from somewhere, and opens it, revealing a snap-together rocket-launcher.
"Oh, the memories.." she mumbles, starting to put the thing together..
Ryoma scowled a little, walking over to the body of the centipede, even as he felt the stolen energy begin to replenish itself. Walking directly beneath the beast, (crouching a little, it wasn't that tall) He concentrated until he could see a very specific spot...and he touched it with his forefinger.
"Bakusai Tenketsu." He told the monster conversationally.
An entire plate of armour promptly shattered, revealing the soft skin of the creature.
Though hitting that 15cmx15cm hole might be a challenge..
Ryoma began summoning mana, though it was with some effort, as his reserves weren't very large to begin with, and it was a lot slower to replenish than ki and fighting energy. Quickly, he forced half through his arm, tainting it with his ki to heat the mana to blue flame temperatures, and firing a wide fan of intense heat at the gap in the armor.
With his other hand, Ryoma cast the simplest spell he knew, and as soon as the mana flame had spent itself, his body shimmered and vanished...
It knew that Ryoma had cast an invisibility spell, and thrashed it's tail-end wildly to try and catch him anyway.
However, there was little point in casting a target-spell on an invisible person, so it focused it's attention on Relm. It opened it's mouth...
<->
"Aha!" *click* *Fwoosh!*
<->
A powerful rocket flew from Carthrat's position across the town towards the things mouth. Unfortunately, it managed to react quickly in time to get it's face out the way.
However, it *did* prevent Relm's impending doom, and as well as that, caused the things neck to rear up even higher.
There were even a couple of armour shards missing, but the thing didn't take any real damage from the missile.
Relm had a brief space before the thing got into position again..
Not questioning whatever had just hit the beast, Relm clenched her fist and used an air effect . . . in an attempt to pry the centipede's mouth open.
That one was probably going to be a difficult trick, and Relm's face drew into a tense mask as she bent her will and abilities to the task.
The thing realised what Relm was doing to it, and tried to close it's mouth in response, figuring that not doing whatever it was Relm wanted to do was a good idea.
However, it's jaws slowly started to open, despite it's trashing about..
<->
"You go, little girl!" yells Carthrat, seeing what's happening and perhaps not quite recognizing Relm. If she could open that things mouth, and *keep* it open, well, that'd be game, wouldn't it?
She starts reloading her launcher..
Ryoma shimmered back into view, closer to where he'd dropped his things. Eyeing the current state of the monster, he watched thoughtfully for a moment, then closed his eyes, and a large pair of snow white wings seemed to burst from his back. With a single beat, he took to the air...
The creature trashed about, demolishing stretches of town with it's weight alone. After a brief period, it lunged towards Relm, jaws open wide..
A loud noise was emnating from it's mouth, kinda like a scream.
Ginn blinked at the receptionist.
"Ugg, never mind. Do you know where the library is?"
I'll probably be able to find a map there.
Leaping backwards off the roof, Relm had time to release three gale blades at the creature's open mouth before dropping below the edge of the building, and thusly out of line of sight.
Landing lightly on the ground (cheating, naturally), Relm dashed backwards and to her right; running away from the bar and around the far side of the Mage Guild.
*click* *fwoosh!*
<->
Another rocket streaked across the town, this time missing the creature on account of the bigass fireball that shot from it's open mouth.
The resulting explosion was somewhat large, and it caused, amazingly enough, to force the creature back once more.
It also managed to demolish the roof of the bar (and a fair chunk of the wall), causing it to collapse. Thankfully, it had just been emptied. However, the heat from both missiles could be felt across the whole town square.
Ryoma, from his vantage point, could see everything that was happening, and also that the creatures attention seemed to be on Relm..
Who, having noted that it was indeed a -bigass- fireball, was staying off the roofs for a second as she dashed around a couple more buildings.
Ryoma, for his part, rose higher into the air, staying behind the creature's head, formulating a plan of attack, and weaving around the rockets that somebody appeared to be shooting at it.
Hmm...Maybe they eyes? His mana now fully restored, he wove a small spell to mask the sounds of his movements, examining the other people who were dueling with it. They didn't appear to be in stupid or in immediate danger, so he paused to figure out an approach that wouldn't leave him vulnerable to the drain again...
The creature, as it couldn't quite see Relm or Ryoma easily, turned to it's next threat, the explosives-firing thing from across the town.
Of course, while to any normal person, across the town was a fair distance, it wasn't to the thing, who nonetheless chose a perhaps more effective way of dealing with the threat.
That terrible maw opened once again, and those strange sounds starting rolling out of it..
<->
Carthrat-chan blinked, and realised that the most viable escape route would be, in fact, over the town wall.
Oh well, it beat being squished, she thought, jumping over the edge..
Ryoma frowned. The woman who looked to be the monster's next target didn't look to have an escape route handy. He was marginally gratified to see her leap over the town wall, but this wouldn't buy her much time unless she was exceptionally fast, or she knew something he didn't.
"Time to play distraction..." he murmured, and he swooped over, level with the monster's eye. "This may be overkill, but that draining trick kinda pissed me off." he informed the monster.
Quickly, he raised his index fingers, each glowing green with ki. Pointing one at the monster's eyeball, he stabbed his finger into air. "Distance breaking point...AIR SPEAR!"
A ki charged needle of air fired from his fingertip, straight at the monster's eye. Even as he released the attack, Ryoma flew back to the monster's blindspot, fast enough to leave afterimages, in anticipation of retaliation...
Ginn sighed, and turned away from the receptionist to the sounds coming from the outside.
Stepping outside, he saw half the town swathed in ruins, with various people milling here and there, including a woman leaping over a wall, and a DBZ character shooting ki at a giant centipede thingy.
Ginn lit up a cigarette, and alighted to the roofs (whichever ones were left) to view the fight.
The monsters prompt response to Ryoma's remark and forthcoming attack was a powerful blast of searing heat that blew from it's open mouth, nullifying his little attack and setting Ryoma on FIRE before he could dodge out the way. Perhaps he would've been able to under other circumstances; but the way in which he swooped in front of the monsters forthcoming spell to deliver his own attack didn't *quite* work the way he intented.
Fortunately, Ryoma hadn't been flying in front of the monster, so the flames only scored a partial hit before he fell away from the path of the attack.
The beating of his wings put out the slight charring on the feathers there within moments, and he slapped quickly at the burning sleeve of his shirt, and the leg of his pants, alighting on the monster's head and retracting his wings to finish extinguishing his smouldering clothing. Grabbing tightly onto a handhold, he continued slapping at the flames until his clothing was fire free once again.
Ginn, noticing that the monster was dealing the with the flying man, stealthily made his way to where the monster and his open patch of flesh was. Drawing a special kunai out of his holster, Ginn checked to make sure the hollowed out kunai was still holding the correct payload before striking.
Ginn stabbed deep enough to get the kunai stuck in the flesh, and fled.
With Ryoma essentially sitting on the creatures head, the thing started trashing about, trying to shake him off.
This made it somewhat difficult for Ginn to actually stab the kunai in deep; the hole was not particularly large. However, by fate or chance, the dagger managed to penetrate far enough that it wasn't coming back out..
The monster didn't appear to notice; instead of turning and snapping at Ginn, it began to cast another spell, the moans echoing from it's mouth..
Ginn promptly stuffed the mouth (from a distance) with more kunais.
Having had a moment to catch her breath and get the monster looking at somewhere else again, Relm stepped out from the building (well, most of a building) she was standing behind and lobbed a ball of ice the size of a person's head towards the creature's open mouth.
It was moving faster than it should have been, too, given that she didn't look like she'd thrown it that hard.
Ryoma growled, tightening his grip, and cracking his knuckles.
"Okay, you are ridiculously powerful." he grumbled. "No one likes a showoff... let's see if you have any brains to rattle."
Still holdin on tightly, he wound up for a punch. Kami, this is going to hurt... With all of the considerable force at his disposal, he slammed his fist into the creatures's forehead, rolling his hand to create the 'double impact' effect of the Futae no Kiwami, and hopefully jarring whatever was taking up space in the creature's skull. Hissing in annoyance at the stab of pain that slid up his arm from using the Futae no Kiwami repeatedly, he let go of his handhold, allowing the monster to shake him off...
Between the knives Ginn was chucking, the ice Relm was slinging, and the punch Ryoma was giving, two inevitable outcomes occured.
Firstly, the spell the monster was casting *fucked up*. Instead of a jarring blast of energy to any creatures touching it in a bid to get rid of the guy on it's head, a jarring blast of energy shook up it's body somewhat badly.
Secondly, it was clearly hurting badly. Blood was rushing out it's mouth at an alarming rate, and it was now suffering from spasms as the poison within Ginn's daggers started to do it's work.
Continued combat in the face of such adversity was unlikely.
With a blinding flash, the creature dissapeared, leaving behind a seriously damaged town, full of villagers wondering what the fuck just happened, union officials looking for blame, and a mage emerging from the rubble.
And somewhere on the scene, a 6'2 woman lugging around a club decided that making an exit would be a good idea around now..
OOC: Aww, but if he wasn't powerful, we'd all rape him too easily, and that's no fun. ^^
Ryoma fell through the air, extending his wings to slow his descent, alighting on the ground, and then retracting them. "Ow." he muttered, then glanced at the remains of the town. "No meals available there, I'm guessing." he decided, then cast about for his duffel and wrapped bundle.
Finding them a few hundred yards away, he went to retrieve them, then turned away from the villiage, and began to walk.
Well, great. That hadn't been particularly entertaining, but nor had it been particularly exhausting, and now she was in a particularly annoyed mood.
At least they'd gotten rid of the damn monster, though. A bit of carnage was regrettable, but that wasn't her fault . . . where the hell were the mages from the guild, dammit?
Turning on her heel, Relm walked off quickly in the direction of the Mage Guild . . .
..and bumped into a nosy-looking mage wearing some kind of officus robe.
"Would you be the magi casting spells without a permit?" he asks, looking down at her.
"Oh, you're from the Mage Guild. Perhaps you'd like to explain why you were ignoring the monster rampaging through the town?"
Relm fixed the mage with glare cold enough to freeze him solid where he stood.
Well, not literally.
Not yet.
"What monster?" the mage replies, questioningly. "This looks like the work of people who don't know what they're doing with their.. *ahem* abilities to me."
Relm facepalmed.
"Not this again . . . If you somehow" and Relm's tone made it clear that you'd have to have the intelligence God gifted the average boulder with, "missed all the tremors and fifty foot centipede, the town just got attacked by some kind of wyrm. People hurt it. It promptly vanished. Copious amounts of monster blood on the ground over there," She waved in the general direction, "go and have a look."
"What people? Do you have names?" replies the mage, glancing around. "I've heard rumours of a highly destructive man flagrantly ignoring union rules.."
Carthrat-chan chose this moment to wander by, her previous decision to leave overtaken by the decision to get some food.
"Well, I saw a man get into an argument with the bartender last night, but I haven't seen him since last night. There were two men who I don't know attacking the wyrm-thing, and . . . " she pointed quickly the 6"2 woman who'd been throwing explosives around, "there, she's the fourth person."
OOC: The -moment- he looks, Relm walks off towards the Mage Guild. Not runs, walks.
Carthrat-chan blinks as she's indicated out. "Eh? What?"
The mage takes a quick glance at Carthrat-chan. "You! Did you play a part in the destruction of the town?"
Carthrat-chan shakes her head. "Naw, that was all the big-worm-thing. You can ask her about it!" she continues, pointing at the retreating figure of Relm. "She was all, uh, well, the thing was BIG, so I suppose she may as well've been up-close with it.
That'd take serious guts, man."
The mage snorts. "Yeah, I'll bet she was 'up-close'," he replies, hurrying after Relm into the guild.
"Eh? Whaddya mean by that?" replies Carthrat, curiously, following..
Upon stepping inside the Guild, and out of line of sight of the mage outside (although obviously not the clerk, but she didn't care about him). Relm made a couple of quick hand motions and muttered something under her breath.
A glowing white portal appeared. Relm immediataely ducked through it, and it closed behind her as Relm stepped out upstairs in the library.
Right next to her backpack, actually.
Turning around, Relm grabbed the two volumes she'd been after in the first place, and a third one that looked interesting, and put them quickly into her backpack before shouldering it and walking towards the stairs.
OOC: And no, I -don't- care
The officious mage and Carthrat-chan blundered into the room just in time to see a faint magical shimmer.
"Oh, looks like she got away," says Carthrat, shrugging.
"You helped her in this, didn't you?" replies the mage, looking annoyed (along with a few other magi in reception.)
"Well.. well.. yes, yes, I suppose I did," replies Carthrat. "Watcha gonna do about it?"
This stumped the magi for a few seconds..
. . . until Relm came walking back down the stairs, pack on her shoulder.
"Probably not much, you saw how effective they were against the wyrm." Relm still looked decidedly irritated. "Don't you all have a duty to protect the town, or something?"
"There is still no definateive proof of the wyrms existence!" cries the mage. "We must collect evidene to confirm this."
Carthrat shrugs. "Yeah, well, you do that. Just don't involve us, we're, um, not related."
"Oh, please. You spun the story, so you *must* be related. Don't think I'm stupid," replies the mage. "Surrender or be taken!"
"Oh, for the love of god.." mumbles Carthrat, annoyed. The magi look at Relm..
"What, several destroyed buildings, a number of eyewitnesses in the citizenry and a large amount of monster blood isn't enough for you?"
"If this is true, then you should have no problem in staying with us while we verify that," replies the mage, tartly.
Carthrat chortles at that. "Is everyone in this world as stupid as you?"
Relm facepalmed.
"No thanks, I've been on the wrong end of Mages with a shoulder chip before."
The mage shakes his head mournfully. "A pity," he says, and he snaps his fingers.
About four other nearby and, until now, unoticed magi immediatly being casting spells..
Relm snapped her fingers (which was completely unnecessary, but dramatic) and a shockwave of air rippled out from her at an insane speed - dividing itself around Carthrat and the head mage, but impacting them all with the force of . . . well, a very fast brick wall.
All the windows on the ground level of the mage guild shattered as the shockwave hit them . . .
Carthrat raises his club to smack something, but Relm is much faster than him, and her spell sent most of the magi flying back a short distance, disrupting their spells.. except for one.
Five bolts of red energy fire forth from his fingertips, three heading towards Carthrat, and two heading towards Relm..
Shit!
Yeah, this was going to hurt, but before the missiles impacted Relm waved a hand again and swiped the head Mage's feet out from underneath him with another air effect, then made to hi-
*cracklesfuzzsmack*
"Hah! That's all you got?" taunts Carthrat-chan, only *then* noticing Relm doubled up in pain.
Giving the head mage a good *whap* to stop him breathing in the forseeable future, Carthrat-chan simply picks up Relm in her other hand and hightails it outta there.
With a couple of murmured words - once she got her breath back, which was painful - Relm pressed a glowing white hand to where she'd been hit, and the pain eased immensely.
"You can," she coughed a couple of times, the continued a bit more steadily, "put me down now, I'm fine to walk."
"Certainly," replies Carthrat, setting Relm down. "I don't think they'll follow us just yet, anyway.."
"Thanks for the save." Looking back in the direction they came from, Relm continued with a disgusted look on her face, "They probably won't want to let us go, though. As part of the guild, mages are supposed to help defend the towns their guild branch is based in. Dodging that responsibility gets people in trouble with higher ups. Lots of trouble."
Relm sighed.
"So, yeah, right now they're going to want to get rid of us. If they get rid of us, who else'll dispute whatever story they come up with?"
Carthrat ponders this for a moment.
"Well, I suppose we can safely conclude that it sucks to be them," she says, cheerfully. "Which way're you headed?"
Relm hummed.
"You know, I think we can." She flashed a quick grin. "And nowhere in particular, I was only here to pick up a couple of books. But getting away from here might not be a bad idea."
Relm thought for a moment. "You don't know the area, do you? There's the port town of Linsoltear to the south, which is a good choice if you feel like leaving the country; The capitol is to the north, and the Mystic Forest Of Doom is to the west."
"Hey, it's called the Mystic Forest of Doom?" replies Carthrat. "What, really?"
"Yeah, really. They say that nobody who goes in ever comes out alive, too."
Carthrat ponders. "Weird. Y'know what? I think I'll just tag along with you," he replies. "I'm in no hurry to get anywhere or do anything, and it'd be fun to have someone to talk to."
Relm blinked, then shrugged.
"Suits me, I guess, I don't really have anything much to do right now."
She hmmed again.
"Actually, I might go and see if my brother's still in Kelusk, it's been a while since I've seen him and I'm not really that far away. Quickest way there is straight west through the Mystic Forest Of Doom."
"Sounds fun!" says Carthrat, brazenly.
With a swirl of her dress and a flick of her fingers, her entire mode of dress has changed from a somewhat dignified day-dress to her clothes from the day before, armour and all.
"Actually, it'll be boring as anything. I've been in more dangerous cornfields than that forest. The only reason people don't come back from there is because they get lost, but you try convincing the average farmer of that."
Carthrat blinks. "I can believe that. Sorta. Though I wonder where that big worm-thing came from."
"You know, nobody's really sure, but they tend to pop up all over the realm. Not very often, though, and they're generally not beaten back quite that easily . . ."
Carthrat-chan shrugs. "Well, when you shoot that much shit into it's open mouth..."
"Well, at least it eventually took the hint, unlike certain other people I could mention."
Relm paused for a moment. "So, why were you disguised as a man back in the bar? Or are you disguised now?"
"Because men have better alcohol tolerance than women," replies Carthrat.
"And tend to get charged more for their milk, apparently."
"Absolutely," replies Carthrat. "Naw, I turn into a guy when someone hits me with hot water. Some weird curse thing. Reversed by cold water. Yeah, that's right. Forgot about it. Dosn't come up that often, y'know?"
Relm blinked, then snickered a bit.
"Yeah, I can see that being inconvenient, but at I suppose at least you don't see much hot water around these parts. So . . . what, it's an actual polymorph, not just an illusion?"
"Oh, it's a polymorph, allright. All down to the plumbing," replies Carthrat-chan.
Relm snickered again. "That sounds like someone's nasty practical joke. Where'd you pick the curse up?"
Carthrat ponders. "Jusenkyo! That's it! Legendary Warriors Traning Ground or something. Nobody told me the place was cursed. Oh well."
Relm raised an eyebrow. "So how does getting a polymorph curse help with training, anyway?"
"You're asking me?" replies Carthrat, shrugging. "Everything you see is natural talent honed through experiance, sister."
"Well, there are a lot of idiots out there," Relm glanced meaningfully at the village, "and it might not be a bad idea for us to get moving. Coming?"
Relm made to head west into the forest.
"Yeah, yeah," replies Carthrat, striding along. "Wait, lemme check I've got something.."
Reaching into her armour, she pulls out a sleek pistol, equipped with a laser sight and silencer. Giving it a quick once-over, she slips it back. "Right!" she says, and marches into the forest. "How long is it to the other side?"
Relm blinked. "About sixty miles, give or take, then another twenty or so to Kelusk. And what was that?"
"A gun," replies Carthrat, dismissively. "Nothing special."
After the monster had dissapeared with multiple attacks having hit it, Ginn had sat down for a few moments on a near by tree stump. Looking around, he wondered where everyone else was.
Not actually caring that much, Ginn turned to the west, and started to head out of town towards the forest.
Night..
Relm and Carthrat had managed to find a small clearing about halfway through the forest. It wasn't long before they had a small pile of twigs happening..
Carthrat pulled a zippo from her armour and set fire to a pile of twigs. "Right! And, uh, got anything to eat?" she asks, sheepishly. "I had some chicken, but I think I dropped it in the mage guild."
<->
Meanwhile, Ginn found himself standing in front of a huge tree. While wandering around the forest, he had gotten lost, and wound up in front of it.
The tree had a door in it; the entire thing was about as wide as house and godly high. It was amazing he hadn't seen it from the town.
Next to the door was a wooden knocker.
<->
Ryoma had also gotten lost, but that was to be expected.
He had managed to wind up in the middle of a dense forest, and now he was getting hungry.
He could, however, hear voices to the north..
Ryoma resisted the urge to begin knocking down trees, and looked around. Slowly, he began to head north, in a wandering, erratic fashion, extending his senses into the forest, hoping to detect something edible...
As Ryoma headed through the woods, he saw..
..a pair of slim, female figures, chatting away. They both had pointy ears and slanty eyes, typical of elves. Long blonde hair cascaded down their backs, and they were wearing modest leathers in green and brown colours. Both of them were carrying bows and swords.
They didn't appear to notice Ryoma, who was conveniantly standing behind a bush.
Ryoma blinked. "This place has elves too? Hmm...I wonder if the dialect Legolas taught me works here...Hmm..Arwen was kind of pissy, though...better be ready for trouble."
Gripping the wrapped bundle carefully, Ryoma stepped out from behind the bush, his free hand raised in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture.
<Hello.> He tried, wondering if his limited knowledge of Elvish would get him in trouble.
"Oh, a human," one of the elves says, in Common.
"He must be lost," replies the other one.
They giggle a little. "Where are you going?" they both ask, in chorus.
Ryoma sighed with relief. "Well, that'll make things easier. As for where...Um, what planet is this?" he asked curiously.
"Plah-net? What's that?" asks one of the elves, curiously.
Ryoma crouches down, and points to the ground, then at the forest all around them. "All of this...Uhm. World? Does it have a name?"
"Terra!" the Elves chorus back. "Ah, *that's* what you mean."
Ryoma blinked, smiling a little. "Yeah. Hmm...Terra, huh? Well, I guess that's good. I'm off of Middle-Earth, at least. Uhm, Is there any game running around in this forest? I'm low on food, you see."
The elves giggle. "Plenty, but they avoid humans. You'll have to live off fruits and berrys," they chorus.
Ryoma smiled at them. "I'm not human, but thanks for the heads up." He replied, waving before turning away and wandering into the woods again, looking for a place to set up camp...
Despite his sense of direction, it wasn't long before Ryoma came upon a claering large enough to pitch a good-sized tent in..
Ryoma began removing his camp equipment from his duffel, first setting up a small fire, and then deciding to set up his tent this evening. Removing the highly collapsable item, he went to work...
It wasn't long before Ryoma's tent was all ready to sleep in..
Curling up in the tent, Ryoma began to relax into a passively sensitive ki state, which would allow him advance warning if anyone or anything came near...after which, he relaxed into sleep...
Relm looked up from digging through her pack.
"What, and nothing else? I've got some rations on me, but mostly I was going to hunt and forage through here. Saves the rations and it tastes better, but I can't really be bothered tonight."
"Well, uh, if you lend me some rations tonight, I'll provide dinner tomorrow," Carthrat says, nodding.
Relm looked faintly amused, but after a moment more rummaging she tossed Carthrat some dried meat and cheese.
"Uh-huh. Done much foraging in your time?"
"A bit, but I was thinking bringing down some game," replies Carthrat. "Champion hunter, that's me."
Relm chewed thoughtfully on some cheese as she sized Carthrat up again.
"You don't look like the woodsy type."
"So what gender was I again?" replies Carthrat, cheerily.
"You never even confirmed that you had one," Relm deadpanned.
"That's true, y'know," replies Carthrat. "Oh well. What I meant was, apperances can be decieving.
But in this case, you're absolutely right, I'm no woodswoman. Nonetheless, I *will* be providing, uh, food. Of some description, anyway."
"Well, actually, since we should be hitting a river around tomorrow lunchtime, I was going to get some fish. How about the night after?"
There was a short pause.
"Oh, and ask me before you eat any berries you find, okay? You might already know that, but there are lots of people who don't." Relm rolled her eyes.
Carthrat ponders. "Well, whatever works," she says, munching away.
"So.. what was your name again?" she asks, sheepishly.
Relm adopted a serious expression.
"I am Relm Tyrean, Sorceress of the Seventh Circle, Mistress of both Waves and Thunder, Apprentice of the Blackened Cloak, beloved sister of the Wind Dragon of Kyrenith, Walker of Planes and one of the Master Elementalists of Kyrenith!"
That might have worked better if she wasn't so obviously trying to hold back laughter.
"What, really?" replies Carthrat, wide-eyed.
Relm nodded seriously.
"Yes, really."
"Oh? Well, I'm Karthuratsu Tanewaki of, uh, nowhere in particular, with no particular profession, no career options, and no family or friends," Carthrat replies, nodding. "And I've heard of you, it was like in the last town. But they didn't say all that stuff, they said.. well, maybe you don't wanna hear."
Relm rolled her eyes and chewed on some more cheese before answering.
"Yeah, well, considering that nobody in that dump of a town had heard of me, and that you were in the town for all of five minutes before a fight broke out . . ."
"Oh, it wasn't that town, it was the town before that town," replies Carthrat. "Called you, the, um, well.. Bitch-Queen, I think it was. They seemed to mean it, especially that public official guy."
"Uh-huh. And what town would that have been?"
Relm arched an eyebrow skeptically.
"Began with a J," replies Carthrat. "Ended with a K, that's all I remember. I was, uh, on the run."
"Janaak?"
"Yeah, that's the one," replies Carthrat. "It's, like, north of the forest or something. I forget. I just want to make sure I never go there again.
I figure, if I play my cards right, I could be ostracized from every town in the country before next Friday."
"Wow. It must have been one impressive run, then, since Janaak's two mountain ranges and an ocean to the east of here."
Relm arched the other eyebrow, then grinned.
"I am all that, sort of, but I never said anybody cared. Besides, it doesn't sound as impressive if you don't make titles out of it."
"Fair enough," replies Carthrat, grinning. "I prefer lugging around this thing," she says, indicating the bigass club currently leaning around the tree.
"Welllll, it *usually* scares people off, anyway. I've had a run of bad luck, recently."
"How so? Apart from the fact that fifty foot centipedes don't take well to intimidation, of course," Relm muttered, "too stupid to be scared, those things."
"The last town, *before* the centipede," grumbles Carthrat. "There's nothing I hate more than fearless morons. I swear, it's like that in every other town. I got arrested for not eating a special kind of cake once, just 'cos it was apparently some sort of holy day."
"Oh, yes. Ryshcate, and those'd be Cor'elly'ans. It's good cake, but still."
Carthrat shakes her head. "Bah, I'll never get used to this, I swear. Y'know how much it sucks being displaced?"
Suddenly, there is a noise from the bushes!
Casting her senses out for a moment, Relm noted the figure to be roughly human sized.
'Watching' it carefully, she nonetheless outwardly ignored it.
"Displaced?"
Carthrat's method of recieving the thing is a little different. She pulls out her little gun and shoots the thing. This is followed by a muffled thump.
"Bwaha!" she says, ignoring Relm and rushing over to the bushes.
Relm blinked.
The hell?
And turned to look at Carthrat.
"What was that?"
Carthrat reaches into the bushes and pulls out a deer, with a hole in it's head.
"Dinner, naturally. You up for it?"
Relm shook her head, still looking at Carthrat with a surprised expression.
"No, what was the weapon? And what's displaced?"
"This little beauty? It's a .45 autoloader, of course," replies Carthrat.
Relm motioned for him to continue. "Which means . . . "
"Oh. Well, to put it simply, I point, pull the trigger, and it leaves a hole through something," says Carthrat. "It tends to leave a small hole in the front and a big hole in the back," she continues, turing the deer over and revealing a bloody mess in the back of it's head.
"Well, obviously. Basically, a crossbow sort of weapon, except that it doesn't use a string and the bolt moves very fast?"
"Yeah, functionally like a crossbow.
Well, the execution is completely different, but that definition works for now," she says, pulling out another duplicate of the gun she's holding and tossing it to Relm.
Relm caught it deftly and turned it over in her hands, keeping the front of it pointed away from her.
"Is it loaded? How do you tell?"
"Naw, it's not loaded," replies Carthrat, ejecting a clip from her gun. "It's gotta have one of these up the handle. 13 shots a clip. You reload like this," she continues, walking through with Relm the various facets of using a .45 autoload.
With LASER SIGHT!
"So it . . . loads and cocks itself? Without winding? Like one of those repeater crossbows . . . how quickly can it fire?"
Carthrat demonstrates by unloading a clip in about a second.
"Pretty fast, I'd say."
Relm looked at the mess Carthrat had just made of a tree.
"That's pretty damn quick for thirteen bolts." Understatement of the year.
"Modern technology, sister," replies Carthrat, blowing the nonexistant smoke off the top of the gun and jamming a new clip into it. "Right now.. dinner!"
Producing a knife, she sets about skinning the deer..
Relm munched on some more cheese, sitting down and leaning back against a tree.
"So, what's 'displaced'?"
Carthrat stands up, ramrod straight.
"I am a being of another world!" she thunders out for all to hear. "By cruel and malevolent intentions, my being has been displaced into this one!"
"You're from another plane, or whatnot?"
"Something like that," replies Carthrat. "I messed up an experiment, and here I am. Stupid translocator."
"So, what, you don't know how to get home?"
"Nope! But to tell the truth, I havn't really been looking," replies Carthrat. "Been just wandering around and soaking in the atmosphere."
Relm snickered between mouthfuls. "Sounds like you've been having, ah, an entertaining vacation."
"Absolutely thrilling," replies Carthrat. "I've never been fitter in my life from all this running, I swear."
<->
Ryoma is awoken- there's something in the bushes, and it's making a noise!
"I shudder to think what your home must be like if you aren't scrambling to get back there."
"Aww, it's nothing compared to this place," replies Carthrat. "I mean, back there, people are all so suspicious and plotting and planning that they tangle themselves up in their own webs. They're so easy to predict.
Now, you can never predict an idiot, which is what this place is full of."
"Hah. Be grateful you've only been around this area, then," Relm muttered a curse about moronic flatlanders, "but I have to admit, this is pretty impressive, even for these idiots."
"On what scale?" replies Carthrat, starting to actually cook the deer.
Relm looked at the mess of deer Carthrat was attempting to cook.
"You . . . don't want to be a bit more thorough before you cook that, do you?"
"I've barely eaten in three days," replies Carthrat. "I'd eat it raw if I didn't have to make an attempt at looking civilized."
"Yeucch," Relm made a face, "I'm not sure it'd be worth it, but go ahead."
"Yeah, yeah," replies Carthrat. "Dammit, I wish I'd brought a portable stove or something."
"How would you make a stove portable? They're massive. And why would you want to? They're not much better than a fire, really."
Carthrat pulls a chest out of her armour. It's a big chest; and just by looking at it, one could feel an odd sense of vertigo. "Like that, naturally."
"Well, if you're using magic, it doesn't really count as portable. But if you're using magic, you might as well just summon up some food."
"It's not magic," replies Carthrat, tapping a button on the chest which shrinks it to an extremely small size. "It's Science & Technology! There ain't no magic in that chest, see for yourself."
"Bah," Relm waved dismissively, "Science and magic aren't as different as the alchemists like to tell everyone."
"Oh, the *effects* aren't different, but the theories are polar opposites," replies Carthrat. "Well, that's what I'm told, anyway. Besides, can your alchemists make .45 autoloaders?"
"Not as far as I know, they seem more interested in making potions. Can your alchemists turn lead into gold?"
"Yeah," replies Carthrat. "They also managed to crash the global economy when they did that, so the higher-ups stuck a ban on it."
Ginn chose that moment to seemingly appear from the surroundings, looking down at a map of not this world, and mubling to himself.
"Lets see... I knew I should have made a left at Albuquerque..."
"Typical alchemists. 'Wouldn't this be really great if it worked', they think, and then when it works they're caught completely by surprise."
"Yeah," replies Carthrat, continuning to cook his meat. If cooking meant holding it over a fire until it was warmer, anyway.
"Hey, you're a mage. How much magic is used in like combat as compared to that which has peaceful use? I was never sure."
"It varies, but the vast majority of magic that is universally learnt by mages is, yep, combat. Anything else tends to be quite specific and so learnt by mages who think they'll have a need for it. So while there's far more magic that has a peaceful use, the fireballs and magic missiles are something almost every Mage worth the title will know."
She paused.
"By the way, I was more talking about that tendency the alchemists have to burn down or blow up their own guild halls. And I'm not particularly a mage. Arrogant pricks."
"I define 'mage' as 'magic-slinger', so you fall into the catagory," replies Carthrat, pondering on just how long to cook the dear for.
"Well, that's not really accurate, but since we have company I'll drop it for now."
Relm turned to face the man who'd stepped out of the bushes . . . um . . . she wasn't actually quite sure when.
Oops.
"Ah, hi. I wasn't paying attention, sorry." Relm looked faintly embarassed at that.
OOC:
>_>
<_<
Er. Heh. Sorry? :)
Ginn looked up from his map.
"Oh! People! Umm... can you tell me where I am?"
"The Mystic Forest of Doom," replies Carthrat, taking a chunk of mostly raw meat and ripping it apart like an animal.
"Yes," added Relm, "they say nobody ever returns from it's depths."
"Do you think it has a portal big enough to get me home?"
"No, but it has some fine food," replies Carthrat, mouth stuffed full.
"Don't think it's got any portals at all, really, it's not particularly mystical" Relm turned to regard the newcomer more closely, "Where's home that you need a portal to get there?"
"Not on this world. I kinda got thrown here by... accident, and now I want to go home... or at least somewhere less backwater."
Carthrat says something unintelligible.
"What, another one? What is this, rabbit season?"
Ginn identifies the meat hanging from the spit as not from a rabbit.
"Deer season, actually. Want some? It's kinda warm," says Carthrat, offering a leg to Ginn.
"It's also not cooked. And hardly skinned."
"Even though I can't catch a disease from eating it, I prefer my meat a little more cooked than that."
Ginn changes the subject.
"So what are you two doing here? Couple's camping or something like that?"
"It is too skinned, it's just not gutted or anything else," says Carthrat. "Wild animals don't need cooked meat, anyway."
"Well, I decided to head west, since I don't really want to deal with that," she gestured back towards Sun'y'dale, "right now, and she," she indicated Carthrat, "decided to tag along. You?"
"I'm just trying to find a place with a decent portal. Mind if I tag along?"
"If you think we're so likely to run into one,' says Carthrat around a bloody hunk of deer-flesh.
"Its better than wandering around lost."
"Is it, really?" replies Carthrat. "You might get so lost that you find yourself back home!"
"But this forest is scary. Safety in number and such, you know."
Carthrat eyes Ginn.
"Excuse me for saying so, but you don't strike me as the sort of person who'd be scared by a dark forest.."
"And you aren't the type of person I'd expected to talk so much. What, you like hearing your own self that much?"
Relm coughed loudly, interjecting.
"She does have a point, though - you were willing to take on a googlewyrm, and there's nothing in this forest much nastier than a bear." She paused for a moment. "I don't think there are any perpetually-open planar portals around, probably your best bet is finding a mage that specialises in that sort of thing . . ."
"Err... where would one of those be?"
"Ah . . . you know, that's a damn good question. There was Jeourdahn, but he died a few months back . . ."
"See? All the more reason to wander around with you people. I don't have any freaking idea where I am."
"But who really knows where they are at any given time?" says Carthrat, cryptically. "You could be somewhere completely unexpected and you just havn't opened your inner sight!"
Relm shrugged. "I don't really mind you tagging along with us, but . . . hm. I know there are some . . . I . . . ah, screw it. I think you'd be wanting to go west anyway, because even if there was someone in the Capitol - which I doubt - we wouldn't be welcome there anyway.
Ginn looked oddly at Carthrat for a minute, and before turning back to Relm.
"Errr... then where are you people going?"
"Why? Come'on, these union punks can't have *that* much influence," says Carthrat. "Not that it matters, it's not like any of them can fight."
"Well, let me rephrase. You might be welcome there. It's more the mage guild idiots, actually."
"Oh. Oh well," shrugs Carthrat. "Dosn't really matter, seeing as we're not going there."
"Well, I was going to go and see my brother, since I'm in the area anyway. This person," she pointed a thumb at Carthrat "decided to tag along."
"Well, this person," Ginn pointed at himself, "Also decideds to tag along for a bit. Who knows, maybe your brother can recommend something."
"Maybe," Relm replied standoffishly, before cocking her head at the newcomer, "hey . . . did you bring any food with you?"
Ginn casts create food and water, which makes food and water (jerky, bread, and water in skins) appear nearby on a blanket.
Carthrat reaches over, grabs a skin of water, and starts washing down an amazingly quickly-eaten quarter-cooked dear down. "Thanksh."
Blink-blink.
"Handy. I should learn that one sometime. Sure, I guess you can tag along then."
Relm promptly went back to munching on her jerky.
Done eating, Carthrat lies down and promptly falls asleep.
Ginn waits for morning.
Morning breaks...
Ryoma wakes up, and much to his consternation realises that someone is watching him, but he can't tell where or when. He just *knows* it..
Meanwhile, the other little group of people wake up.
From their respective clearings, the four wanderers can see that it's going to be a rainy day, judging by the huge clouds in the sky.
Ryoma growled irritably, unable to sleep in with the slightly annoying feeling of eyes on him. Getting up, he began gathering his sleeping materials, and packing them up, keeping a wary eye on the sky.
Fortunately, he traveled light, and withing moments, his campsite equipment had vanished into his duffel. Picking up the long, wrapped bundle, he moved into the forest...
Thankfully, it dosn't immediatly start raining when Ryoma gets up. After a short amount of walking (in no particular direction), he happens across a treasure chest, just sitting in the middle of the woods. It looks stacked to the brim.
Ryoma examined the contents of the treasure chest curiously, without approaching it. He looked for anything of obviously greater worth than most of the contents, portability in mind...
OOC: If it 'looks stacked to the brim', I assume I don't have to open it to see inside. If this is in fact NOT the case, say so. >_>
The entire chest looked somewhat expensive; it really was filled with all sorts of expensive-looking items. Standing out in particular was a huge, flawless ruby, a few inches in diameter.
OOC: It's more that you can't properly close the chest because there's so much stuff in it. i.e, you can see a portion of the goodies, but to actually rifle through the junk, you'd have to open it. Make sense?
Ryoma frowned, setting his duffel on the ground for the moment. "This seems a little too convienent..." he decided, taking the long, wrapped bundle fron his shoulder, and gripping it in both hands.
"But, some extra items to hock wouldn't be a bad idea..." Extending his admittedly rudementatry senses, he tried to find any energy surrounding the chest that would give a hint as to the nature of the trap. "'Neechan, where are you when I need you...?"
Ginn wakes up, and notices the other two still sleeping peacefully...
He creeps up on them, does a quick mana weave, and two buckets of water appear and overturn over the sleeping couple.
Splash.
"Y'know, there are more polite ways to wake someone up," says Carthrat, chucking her now-wet blanket over Ginn.
Ryoma detects that the chest in general, and that ruby especially, are giving off a minor aura of an indeterminable type.
Splash.
Relm yawned and got up, paying little attention to the fact that she was sopping wet, and looked over at Ginn.
"You want something?"
"I'd have thought that adventurers would be more inclined to wake up with the sun, so they can slay as many goblins as they could before lunch."
"I can't, I don't get any XP from goblins," replies Carthrat. "They don't have any magic items or treasure, anyway, they're just another irritating random encounter."
Relm gave Ginn a flat look, then turned towards Carthrat. "XP? No, wait, never mind, I don't think I want to know."
Thus saying, she waved her hand over her blanket, drawing the water out of it and into a ball in her hand, then looked at Ginn again.
"I don't know about you, but I tend to prefer my sleep. If you look hard enough you can probably find yourself some goblins, though."
"Fine, go back to sleep, then. Sleep the day away, then."
Ginn sits down and takes down a GBASP and plays some Tetris.
Relm promptly tossed the ball of water at him.
Ginn is drenched, but the GBA is still functioning, so Ginn takes no notice.
"Kinda hard to do while one is wet," mutters Carthrat. "Aww, heck, I'm wearing a white shirt underneath this armour.." she continues, pulling up her breastplate a bit.
Ryoma sighed, and gave the treasure chest a poke with the bundle, hard enough to tip the chest over...
The chest fell over.
It was odd the way it fell over, though, it was more like a single solid object than a chest, with a moving lid and gold inside.
It dropped like a statue, everything in the exact same position except turned about 90 degrees.
Relm rolled her eyes, then gestured and pulled the water from Carthrat into another ball, which she froze, then threw at Ginnezumusha.
This done, she set to packing her gear back in her pack.
While the little group is getting ready to make off again.. an arrow slams into the ground between Relm and Ginn!
Casting her senses out, Relm . . . couldn't find the archer.
She made a noise of severe annoyance.
"Alright," she called out loudly, "what in the seven halls of hell do you want?"
It suddenly occured to Relm that she was getting a *severe* magic reading from the arrow.
The fact that it was glowing black and apparently leaking copious amounts of pus somehow confirmed her suspicions.
Meanwhile, Carthrat was opting for a more direct way of finding the culprit, pulling out her lighter and fiddling with it for a moment..
Waving an arm, Relm grabbed the arrow in a grip of solid air and hurled it back into the forest.
The arrow trailed a thick black fog that promptly obscured all vision from the area, as well as choking the lungs and making it difficult to move.
As soon as the saw the fog coming out of the arrow, Relm jumped straight up. About fifty feet straight up.
Ginn jumped straight away.
About 25 feet away.
Ryoma sighed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. What the heck IS this thing?"
Curiously, he took the wrapped bundle, and weilding it much like one would a golf club, and with a massive swing with the flat side, smacked the treasure chest-thingy at the nearest sturdy-looking tree.
There was a loud screaming sound as the treasure chest impacted with the tree.
The chest promptly grew legs and, upon landing, started to stagger around in a daze..
Carthrat didn't go anywhere, producing a handkerchief from somewhere and holding it over her nose.
From her vantage point, Relm could see a rapidly spread black cloud, however, she couldn't see who fired the arrow.
From his vantage point, Ginn saw black. Lots of black. He wasn't surrounded by it, but it looked to be expanding alarmingly quickly..
Ryoma just stared, a small bead of sweat trickling down the back of his head. "Okay, that's not what I was expecting..."
The chest seemd to recover from it's daze, or at least whatever passed for it's daze.
It turned to face Ryoma, insofar as that it had no eyes and no discernable face, only the front part.
With a *poof*, it turned into.. a barbie doll, which started walking towards Ryoma, that freaky plastic smile on its face..
Relm decided to stay at her current vantage point, and thusly did not land.
Ryoma reached out, pressing the small doll in the chest with the wrapped bundle, holding it at bay. "What the hell are you?"
The chest-turned-doll made an almost panicked, squeaking sound.. before transfoming into a what appeared to be a sort of remote-controlled car, and heading straight for Ryomas leg..
Ryoma leapt up and over the tiny car, and, giving himself the room necessary to block it again, he did so.
"This is just sick. Change into something that can talk, okay?"
The thing blipped, and turned into.. a walkie-talkie, which then lay there, motionless.
Ryoma paused, sweatdropping again. "Okayyyy... That's a start. Since you seem to be able to understand me...try again, but something that can allow you to talk to me."
The thing turned into... an analog telephone, which promptly started to ring.
Ryoma frown, and gently knocked the reciever off with his bundle, and crouched beside it. "Good thing these are fairly loud. "Hello?"
This phone turned out to not be quite so loud. Ryoma could barely hear an indistinct mumbling..
Ryoma frowned and looked at the phone. "Speak up. I'm not getting near you until I know what you are, and if you're safe." he told it firmly, feeling a little stupid.
OOC: *keels over laughing*
Ginn casts wind, producing a light breeze to blow this cloud away.
The clowd did not, in fact, blow away - it kept expanding, and if anything sped up slightly.
Carthrat took a breath through the handkerchief and promptly started feeling nauseous.
And Relm noticed an arrow coming towards her out of the smoke.
Well, shit.
Ginn pulls a gasmask from his pack and puts it on.
He draws a collapsable pole from his sleeve, extends it, and makes his way forward, poking all the while.
The phone makes a sad little sound, and thus transforms into a beach ball, which then rolls away... notably taking some trees with it, carving a path through the forest..
Carthrat plants her rediculously large weapon on the ground, and flicks a switch located near the handle...
*Fwoomp-BANG!*
With a deafaning roar, she sails *70 feet* above the cloud, managing to take the arrow for Relm right in the breastplate.
Inevitably, she started to fall...
..and meanwhile, the mystery archer fired a couple of shots at Ginn, who feels some heat coming from Carthrat's former position..
. . . until she got back down to fifty feet, whereupon she an invisible, yet very solid surface. It was probably the same one Relm was standing on, from the looks of it.
Relm herself, looking faintly irritated, pulled a waterskin out of her pack and threw it into the cloud. It's disappearance was followed by a very loud cracking and shattering sound, and a few shards of ice were seen to fly out of the cloud, only to fall back down again as their momentum was spent . . .
Ryoma sweatdropped. "Well, this is pretty messed up...I...Oh, why the hell not?" He decided, following the path the beachball made.
Ginn turns suddenly, as his stick has encountered something, and the arrows sail past.
The cloud seemed to shatter and fall apart after that, and Ginn looked around.
Ginn, Carthrat, and Relm note that no archer is visible, and that the ground and trees touched by the black cloud look like they've been afflicted with blight or something, because they're all blackened and leaking pus.
The beachball twists and turns through the forest, spraying woodchips and dirt into the air. And then, abruptly, curves around and makes a turn, leaving Ryoma's sight..
..when he catches up, it's gone, and the destruction has also stopped. No odd-looking or out-of-place things are immediatly present..
Relm stayed standing on, well, the air, scouring the forest beneath her for any signs of what might have happened . . .
. . . and incidentally grabbing her bag in a grip of air and levitating it up to her outstretched hand.
The Mystery Archer appears to have vanished. Assuming he wasn't invisible to begin with, and given the incredible sensory capacties of those present, that's unlikely.
The blackened ground is starting to pulse, like a heartbeat..
Swearing under her breath, Relm quickly surveyed the surrounding area.
Apart from the diseased clearing, the forest looked much like a forest. Carthrat was hovering in the air thanks to her magic, that rediculously large club hoisted over her shoulder.
Ginn was still on the ground, in the middle of the clearing..
Ginn looked at the people up in the sky.
"Can ya see anything from up there?"
Relm blinked, then sighed and pulled Ginn up to the same level she was standing on.
"Well," she eyed the pulsing ground, "You probably don't want to be standing there right now. How about we get out of here?"
Ryoma scratched his head, eying the path of destruction. "A beach ball. Who made this place, and what where they doing to their brain at the time?"
Sighing, he looked around, and began checking for a clear path to follow...
There was no obvious path to follow, except, of course, the way back through the carnage.
"Good idea. You were saying something about heading west?"
Ryoma sighed, and set off in a random direction.
As Ryoma walked off into the forest... his face got smacked by a tree branch.
A tree branch that wasn't there a moment ago..
"....The hell?" Ryoma grabbed at the branch, and pulled, using all of his considerable strength. "I've got a funny feeling about this..."
Grabbing the branch proved to be a mistake, as it promptly reavealed itself to be the polymorphing creature in hiding..
It started to meld with Ryoma's skin, turning into some kind of goo and fusing itself into his arm..
"Well, yes. Talk when we're down. Hold on a second, this landing might . . ."
Ginnezumusha and Carthrat didn't hear what this landing might be, as rushing currents of air grabbed the pair and hurled them at high speed off their platform. They barely had time to realize what was happening before the rushing winds dropped them on the forest floor, several hundred meters west of where they'd previously been.
Dropped fairly hard.
And still going at a very high speed.
But still, it was A landing.
Splat.
"Y'know, for all the good it does, armour dosn't absorb the force from a fall that well," notes Carthrat, somewhat loudly.
Ginn plowed into the ground, leaving a rut in the ground several meters long before coming to rest at the base of a tree.
Ginn happened to be quite abused and confused at the moment.
@__@
"Thank you sir, may I have another..."
Relm dropped through the forest canopy, landing lightly on the ground near Ginn and Carthrat.
"Eheheheh," a sheepish expression crossed her face, "sorry, I'm not really good at moving other things that far . . ."
"It's ok. I forgive you. You're buying lunch when we get to wherever it is we were going," says Carthrat, pulling herself up. "Anyway, I think a suitable course of action should be to burn down the forest. We'll smoke out that bastard!"
Carthrat produces a flamethrower and a few sticks of dynamite, and her fingers start to twitch..
Relm blinked.
"We're in the forest."
"It's only fire," says Carthrat, slightly deflated.
"Well, yes, but it's also smoke and stampeding animals and burning villages and . . . "
Relm trailed off, a rather nasty looking expression on her face, looking around the forest.
"I think she wants us to be outside of the forest before burning it down."
"But that's no fun," complains Carthrat, trotting after the elementalist. "What's the point in setting things on fire if you can't enjoy it?"
Relm deflated slightly herself.
"Dammit, the wind's going in the wrong direction to get Sun'y'dale . . ."
Ginn followed.
"Where are we going anyways?"
"West," replied Relm as the group walked, "mainly just away from that dump of a town. Idiot mages."
"I've forgotten," replies Carthrat, shrugging.
Relm gave Carthrat a look, opened her mouth, then shook her head and closed it again.
Quiet mutterings were heard, however.
Ginn decided to say nothing, as Relm seemed scarry.
He did however, follow and keep an eye out for more attacks.
"Don't mutter like that," states Carthrat. "I was talking about where we're going too, not where we're going *from*. I mean, really, one direction is as good as another in thist forest, as long as it's not towards those strange people, right?"
"Well, we're going west. I've got nothing in particular I need to do, so I thought I might as well go and see my brother in Kelusk. You, I thought, were tagging along because he might have some idea of who you need to talk to about getting back to wherever it was you come from."
"I came from somewhere?" replies Carthrat, blinking.
Ryoma snarled, flooding mana and chi into his arm, setting the magic energy as a barrier to halt the being's progress up his arm, and using the chi to raise the temperature of his arm, to try and arrest the fusion. His other hand went to his wrapped bundle, and triggered the catch for the wrappings, which promplty fell away, revealing a giant sword, honed to impressive keenness for a weapon of it's size.
"What are you?" he sent to the thing, both aloud and mentally. "If I don't get a benevolent answer, I'm going to assume you're a leech, and get rid of you. And yes, I can grow body parts back, so don't think I'll hesitate to cut my own arm off."
"Well, yes, I'm sure your parents told you the story about the stork . . ."
"Good grief, no, my parents were rich bitches," replies Carthrat, shrugging. "They kept trying to groom me into some perfect little girl they could show off to their neighbours and stuff. Heavens! Imagine that! Me, a dillante!"
Carthrat shudders.
<->
The growth on Ryoma's arm reddened for a moment, then.. burst into flame. "And you talk to much," says something in Ryomas head, before starting to chuckle madly.
"But keep pumpin' in that Ki! Because I'm.. a Ki-Absorbant Polymorph! Who aborbs Ki! Like a sponge. But don't cut off the arm, man! That'd be BAD! And painful. And I wouldn't be able to do this to you more often!"
A sudden feeling of incredible pleasure shot through Ryomas body.. not destabilizing his magical barrier, though, which seemed to be preventing the growth of the thing up his arm.
"No . . . I don't think I can imagine that."
Relm paused.
"You said you came from another dimension, though." She raised an eyebrow at Carthrat.
"Oh, did I?" replies Carthrat, blinking. "Weird. Wait, I guess you're right. Hang on, uh, what's my name again?"
"Ken," Relm deadpanned.
"That can't be right," replies Carthrat, rolling his eyes. "And if it is, I ain't taking it. What kind of stupid name is 'Ken'?"
"I was sort of wondering that about Carthrat, actually," Relm continued in the same deadpan tone.
"And what's wrong with that name?" retorts Carthrat.
"What's wrong with Ken?"
"It means 'Fist' in Japanese," replies Carthrat. "And it sounds so goofy. Ken.. Ken.. sounds like the name of a nerd who's trying to be a dandy."
"So what does Carthrat mean?" Relm asked innocently.
"It's a Telgravian term of nobility," replies Carthrat, haughtily. "In ancient times, it was used to define those of extremely high birst and stature. However, as the modern era decended, it became a name given to those children who were thought to have a great future in being a pillar of upper-class statesmanship.
God knows why I still use it, really, but it's a better name than 'Ken'."
"Really?" Relm asked, mimicking the tone in which Carthrat had asked the same question the day before . . .
Ryoma shuddered, the pleasure blurring his vision momentarily. "T-That's almost a good reason." he admitted, breathing hard. "But not good enough."
Picking up his giant sword, he lay his arm on the ground, and braced his sword against the barrier, using the pain from the thing's flames on his arm to focus. "Last chance. Get out, and we can negotiate. Do your little trick again, and the arm comes off." He ground out, slowing the flow of ki into his arm to the bare minimum, and raising the sword. All he had to do was let go...
"Yes," replies Carthrat.
<->
"But wouldn't that be *painful*?" questions the thing. "Oh, fine, I'll negotiate.. but I ain't leaving your arm. Someone with so much mastery of their own bodily functions can surely sense any tricks I might play!
But the catch is certainly worth the effort.."
"Yes, it would be painful." Ryoma agreed. "But over the long term, the pain is meaningless. I don't play host to parasites." he said shortly, letting the sword drop until the razor edge pressed hard against his skin, the flesh parting as a weal of bloodbroke through the cut. He stopped the blade again, hissing slightly with the pain, using it as a mental barrier. "Get out now, and I'll see what I can do for you. Stay, and not only does the arm come off, but I'll kill you with a fire spell."
"What an amazing thing."
Relm kept walking.
OOC: So unless you have somehting more to add . . . :P
"You don't play host to parasites?" complains the parasite. "That's a pity. But do me a favour, if you make me get out, I'll die within the hour!"
Ryoma shook his head. "You won't. I can project ki outside my body. Are you willing to deal, or do I have to go through the trouble of re-growing my arm?"
"I'm not just living off ki," replies the parasite. "There's a very physical relationship occuring here. The ki is more of a bonus, really."
Ryoma growled, pressing his sword down a little, opening a wide gash in his arm. On the parasite's side, blood flowed freely from the wound, but the mana barrier kept the blood in on his side.
"Stop stalling." he hissed, pain sliding up his arm, but still in a managable amount. "Get out, and we can deal. Stay there, and die."
"So you're offering me two choices; either die, or die. Thanks. Really. I appreciate it. Never mind I can't even talk to you when I'm not where I am now."
Ryoma gets the distinct impression that the thing would be rolling its eyes, if it had any.
Carthrat hmphs, but dosn't reply.
About fifteen minutes later, Relm and Ginn both get the distinct impression that they're being followed (while Carthrat trots along merrily, victim to no such sense of alertness.)
"You refuse to prove you're not malevolent, and the first thing you did was try an obviously addictive trick on me. Sorry, but I have no intention of becoming your slave, and you're not trustworthy. Forgive me if I won't shed tears over your death."
Ryoma closed his eyes, bracing himself, and pushed slowly. He hissed in pain as the wound opened deeper, blood spilling rapidly from the infected half and onto the soil. The sword hesitated at the bone, and Ryoma gritted his teeth, and prepared to finish severing his own arm, his eyes watering...
The parasite snorts. "You're just too good for me, obviously," he says sarcastically, before Ryoma's arm drops off..
Ryoma can't see clearly, but he thinks he sees the growth on the severed appendage slither off, mutating into some kind of snake as it leaves..
Keeping the barrier in place, Ryoma picked up his sword, and closed his eyes, hurriedly leaping in a random direction, summoning up all the mana he could spare for the barrier and the regrowth spell, wondering dazedly if he could find a place to lie down for the day or so it would take to grow his arm back...
"So, if I fart, do you think someone behind us will catch a whiff of it and run away?"
"Maybe," replies Carthrat. "What did you have for breakfast?"
"It might annoy them, at least, but unless you're holding something quite spectacular I doubt they'll flee."
Ginn holds up a familiar looking knot of herbs.
"What about something really explosive?"
>=D
"You, my friend, have a sick mind," says Carthrat. "I like that! Where'd you get them from?"
Relm blinked, then grinned.l
"Hey, they're your bowels . . . just make sure you're downwind of me."
"Well, I wasn't thinking of actually farting... haven't you heard of the fireball spell or the stinking cloud spell? I don't think I have enough for cloudkill."
Ginn rifes through his pockets.
"So, anyway, why the casting of most pugnant and deadly spells?" questions Carthrat. "A pressing need to blast something?"
"I'm more comfortable with explosions. Plus, I think there's someone following us. And it's easier to shoot a target when its writhing on the ground some distance away, surrounded by a pale green mist."
"Oh. Someones following us?"
Carthrat looks around, haplessly. "I don't see anyone.."
Relm, sociable as ever, decides to help poor Carthrat.
"Behind that tree, you know, the one we passed a couple of minutes ago."
"Can I set it on fire?" replies Carthrat, eagerly.
Relm rolled her eyes. "No."
"Oh. Ok," replies Carthrat, dropping to her knees, and producing a square, black object.
She quickly buries it underneath some handy dirt. "Ok, let's go!"
Relm . . . blinked, and followed Carthrat.
"What WAS that?"
"I *promise* it won't set anything on fire," replies Carthrat.
"I don't believe you."
"And I don't care, so we're even," replies Carthrat.
"Well, I'm not being a party to this. If you're going to set the forest on fire, you do it RIGHT. Like THIS."
Relm gestured and a small ball of fire appeared in her right hand, which she then threw back towards where she figured the person following the group was.
Carthrat eyes Relm. "What's with *you*?" she asks. "Geez. Some kind of karmic spirit is telling me you shouldn't be acting like that. I mean, if I acted like that, it'd be ok, but *you*.."
The ball of fire hits.. someone, who screamed in pain.
<->
Elsewhere, Ryoma hears a scream of pain, coming from rather nearby.. well, if he can hear anything beyond the throbbing in his severed arm.
"Pfft, I got sick of discussing it. We all know he's there."
Relm snaps her finger and the fire gutters out.
"Anyway, shall we go and see what he wants?"
"Sure thing!" replies Carthrat, ambling over to the slightly-scorched area, reaching into it, and hauling out... a singed-looking elf, wearing a simple tunic and holding a bow in one hand.
"What should we do with him? Her. It."
"Oh, get out of the way," Relm stepped past Carthrat and crouched next to the . . . elf . . .
"Dammit," Relm sighed, "Well, at least it was only a small fireball."
Carthrat shakes the elf around a bit. "I dunno. He looks pretty beat up, too. Maybe it wasn't just you," she replies, shrugging, then unanimously dropping the (male) elf on the ground.
Looking at the elf with a pained expression, Relm gestured a few times and muttered an incantation, a white light glowing around her hands . . .
OOC: Cure Moderate Wounds. <_<
The Healing Light of Goodness spreads across the elf, who looks up at Relm, shocked. "Back! Why would a defiler heal me?" he shouts, stumbling back.
OOC: By the way, Ryoma is hearing all this. >_>
"Oh, shut UP. I'm not in the mood for all this 'defiler' garbage, I'm enough on edge. Unless you've got a particularly pressing reason for following us, do me a favour and rack off, alright?"
Relm is tactful!
The elf spits out. "You're an elementalist! I can feel it! Twisting the forces of Gaia to your own devious ends.. no matter how many good deeds you may do, no matter what you may accomplish, you're still just a servant of darkness because of the twisted methods that bring you power!"
Carthrat, for her part, blinks. "Oh, yeah. You know that black box?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm also a sorceress, I eat the occasional animal, and wouldn't you know it I probably knocked down a couple of trees on my way here. I'm so black hearted you'd better get away before I change my mind and spread you across the damn forest, right?"
Relm, not waiting for a response, then turned to Cathrat.
"Black thing, buried, so what WAS it?"
"It defiles shit," replies Carthrat, blandly. "It's probably not a good idea to dig it up right now.
I give the forest maybe.. oh.. seven days?"
". . . what?"
Relm looked dangerously at Carthrat.
"Well, uh, complexities aside, I think we better leave," replies Carthrat, looking around nervously. "Do elves have some kind of weird connection to the forest like they do in movies?"
"Explain, right now."
"Well, that black box is actually a container for something called 'Tendrils of Evil," replies Carthrat, cheerfully. "It's not really magical, and that's just a silly dramatic name. It's used on forest ecologies to completely wipe out the ecosystem in order for terraforming to easily commence, thus allowing the prompt population of new areas.
Basically, the ground is going to turn black, the trees are going to fall over, and any nonintelligent life is probably going to die.
Nothing burns, though!"
"Wonderful. Dig the damn thing up, please, some of us LIKE forests . . ."
"Hell no! It's turned on. You wanna kill everything for 300 miles?" replies Carthrat, shocked.
"Aren't you about to do that anyway?"
"No, this way, it won't actually kill *people*," replies Carthrat, oblivious to the way the elf has produced a dagger and is repeatedly (and ineffectually) trying to stab her with it.
Relm waved a hand and threw the elf about twenty feet away, conveniently (but completely by accident) straight towards Ryoma.
"You said nonintelligent life. Sun'y'dale is that way." Relm points.
"Hey, you're right!" replies Carthrat, returning to her usual cheerful self. "Here, hold this," she says, handing the big club to Relm before producing a shovel and moving to dig up the box..
". . ."
Relm stepped out of the way as the club fell over with a thump.
"Oh, come on. It's not *that* heavy," states Carthrat, pulling up the Black Box (which is emitting a foul-smelling black fog.)
She chucks the thing *high* in the air, and grabs her club, waiting for it to level...
*PoW!*
Onlookers see a trail of black smoke flying across the horizon towards that happy little town..
"Nice shot."
Relm paused.
"Of course, now you really -do- deserve what they're going to blame you for, but who cares . . ."
So saying, she promptly gestured again and created another ball of fire, about twice as large as the previous one, and threw it towards where she'd thrown the elf.
"Stupid bastards. Anyway, let's go!"
"Well, hey, if they're gonna chase me, may as well give them something *real* to complain about," replies Carthrat, shrugging.
Relm waved in the general direction of the fireball.
"Ditto."
The elf takes a spit-take at the second fireball hurling towards him, which promptly explodes, covering a fairly decent radius around him..
Ryoma moved through the forest as quietly as he could, frowning as he heard the voices in nearby. Friendly bunch. He thought dazedly, shaking his head and moving on, trying to get away from where he could hear them.
His efforts were interrupted by the arrival of the elf. Sighing inwardly, he dropped his pack and sword and prepared to snag the hurtling body out of the air by the collar, but his eyes widened as he saw the fireball on hot on his tail. Dammit...Can't let the poor idiot get fried...Even if he probably deserves it...Probably finish cauterizing my arm, anyway..
Decision made, Ryoma's wings burst from his back and he dove at the fireball as fast as he could, his fingers closing around the elf's singed garments as the fireball exploded. He leapt upwards, his wings beating hard as he caught the updrafts from the flames and soared into the sky.
"Goddammit, I am SICK of being set on FIRE!!!"
Relm spun around at the movement and saw the spectacle . . . and also heard the annoyed yell.
She sighed.
"Waste of a good fireball. Oh well," She turned to Ginn and Carthrat, "Shall we go?"
Ryoma cast a quick glance down, and saw the group of people who'd apparently cast the fireball.
They were more or less ignoring him, and since the woman had looked up and seen him, they apparently weren't spoiling for a fight. Ryoma smiled to himself. Good luck at last... Returning the courtesy, he ignored the people on the ground, and flew to the edge of the explosion, (The far side) and alighting on the ground, he retracted his wings and dropped the elf.
"I've had a REALLY bad day." Ryoma warned. "If you don't plan on either being grateful, or leaving quietly, I'm going to hit you. HARD."
The Elf stepped back, looking pale, and pointed a finger at Ryoma.
"Abomination! One of the demonic aasim!"
Ryoma glared. "I warned you." He snapped, and backhanded the elf, just hard enough to stun him, using a fraction of his strength. "Get LOST, Shorty, or I'll do what they did...and I won't be as nice about it."
Ryoma glared at the receding flames. "Shoulda talked to the other elves. at least they seemed nice. Gah, If my stuff got burned...Well, that'd cap off a perfect day. Please, PLEASE let the bag still be fireproof..." he murmured, moving into the explosion area...
"The elf glared after Ryoma. "You think we're going to just let you continue your evil plans, Abomination? You were forced to show your true form, and we know you now."
The elf pointed his miraculously untouched bow at Ryoma and nocked an arrow, "Begone from this forest, abomination!"
Ryoma sighed. "You REALLY make the whole good guy business difficult, shorty. But yeah, go ahead. Shoot me. But first...WHY exactly are you going to shoot me when I saved your ass?"
The elf snorts derisively. "You didn't save me, Abomination. I cannot be killed by a mere fireball!"
He paused, "And you will not fool me into leaving you be! I know your kind, and elves will not permit you to work your black magics in this forest! Leave at once!"
"Tell you what." Ryoma shrugged.
"I'll make you a deal. Help me find my bag and my sword, and show me a way out of the forest, preferably in the direction of someplace I can sleep this off..." He paused to wave his severed forearm at the small man, "And I'll leave gladly. You can even follow, to make sure I don't work any 'black magics'"
The elf looks at the severed limb in horror, then laughs derisively.
"And let you retrieve your weaponry? How stupid do you think I am?" He poses dramatically, "I, Que'Arion, demand you leave this forest -immediately-! You can fly! Go!"
A loud peal of thunder was heard in the background, by some strange coincidence (it was stilla v ery nice looking day).
Ryoma laughed. "Right...and get shot at by MORE of your type? Besides, aren't my wings 'black magic'? I've had it, you racist little bastard. I tried to be nice, you don't want it. That's fine. You won't help? Fine. Leave me alone, then, or I'll toss you back to the witch, and let her eat you."
"They always spoke that demons tongues were forked like snakes. If you were friendly like you claim, you would have left when you found you were tresspassing! Begone from here!"
The elf looked to be almost frothing at the mouth.
Ryoma growled. "I CAN'T leave. I'm LOST. And before you start, if there's anymore like you around I don't wanna fly out. Though, it's not like arrows hurt much...ANYWAY. I'm going to get my stuff, and I'm going to find a way out of this place. You can leave me alone, or you can shoot. Though I WILL make problems for you if you shoot me. Screw this friendly crap."
"Die, demon!"
The elf promptly shot an arrow at Ryoma.
Ryoma promptly batted the arrow away, not risking catching it and getting hit with a spell.
"Run." He growled, beginning to glow a deep, glittering green.
The elf backed away, firing arrows at an incredible speed, and a veritable storm of pointy things came hurtling towards Ryoma . . .
Ryoma fired a ki blast, keeping heat to a minimum and using the ki as a battering ram to first stop the arrows, then blast the irritating elf ass over teakettle into the forest.
"Well...that was a waste if time...Betcha he comes back within a half an hour, and starts up again..."
Ryoma was therefore quite suprised when the elf dodged behind a large tree, which absorbed the ki blast with a shuddering groan, then popped out again, firing -more- arrows.
"Yeah, lets," says Carthrat, cheerfully, walking away.. "Y'know, I think I've seen that winged dude somewhere before."
Relm hummed. "I think he was the fourth person facing down that stupid worm back in Sun'y'dale."
"Oh, yeah! That guy!" says Carthrat. "Oh well. How much more forest is there to walk through, anyway?"
"A couple of days, actually. It's a bit of a walk."
"Oh. Can you make it quicker, magic-girl?" asks Carthrat.
"Yes."
"Oh. Will you?" replies Carthrat.
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Because the only way I have involves, well, trying to fly. And that's not easy when I'm by myself, trying with three people just wouldn't work."
"Oh," replies Carthrat, shrugging. "Guess it's more ground-pounding for us, then.
So, like, are you *sure* there's no Mystic Doom in this forest?"
"Sure there is. Us. Any more questions?"
"Well, then maybe the name *is* appropriate," replies Carthrat, shrugging. "I mean, there must be heaps of groups of people like us wandering around the world, no wonder it's so screwed."
"Honestly, it's not usually this bad." Relm cast a dirty look back towards where they'd left the elf.
"What, how bad is it usually?" replies Carthrat.
"Well, we don't usually have to put up with these union idiots," Relm starts ticking off on her fingers, "the elves, while somewhat bigoted, are usually not quite so idiotic about it, the mages usually do their damn jobs and don't try to kill travellers, googlewyrms don't usually pop up in the middle of towns, and big black clouds of smoke don't usually come out of nowhere."
"Huh. Where I come from, there are big black clouds *everywhere*," replies Carthrat, shrugging. "Dunno about the rest of that junk.
But, say, do you know any places that make fried chicken?"
"Fried chicken? Yes, actually. Canucky fried chicken is known across the world. That's where we're going, if you forgot again."
"Hang on, that's not what you called the place we were going to before," replies Carthrat, scratching her head.
"Yes it was. You couldn't remember it half an hour ago anyway."
"I remember it wasn't.. uh.. the name you gave it just now," replies Carthrat.
"Uh-huh," Relm shrugged, "They're also famous for their Canucky Fried Moose."
"How much for a whole one?" replies Carthrat, ponderin-
"Halt, Abomination!" barks an Elf, swinging in front of the group, tarzan style. He levels a 12-ft long and 3-inch wide sword at Relm, holding it like a rapier, poised to strike. "Ye shall not pass beyond Karshinamolariso the Blademaster!"
"Oh." Relm blinks. "Alright."
She promptly makes a right turn and heads off in that direction.
..where she is met by a cameraman. "That's not they way this scene is supposed to go!" he says, his glasses falling off. "You're supposed to respond to his threats with a plea for sanity!"
"Oh . . . kay."
Relm blinked, then turned back to Karsinocrayola.
"But I'm a defiler, not an abomination. The abomination is back that way, harassing another elf." She points in the direction that she last saw Ryoma.
The elf blinks. "Curses! Tarisylcolamian was supposed to have slain the defilers by now!" he says, annoyed.
"Well, I think he was trying, but the abomination got in the way," Relm frowned sympathetically, then brightened, "But he had wings and was setting the forest on fire, and everything! We're just walking, whereas he might fly away, so you can probably catch up to us without much trouble anyway."
She fixed sparkling eyes on the elf.
"I mean, wouldn't saving another elf, hard-pressed by a winged abomination, look so much better than just . . .well . . . waylaying a defiler? It'd be sooooo heroic!"
The elf rubs the bridge of his nose. "Oh. Well, when you put it that way.. Fear not! I will return to splatter your guts across the forest!
If Iridiansolomsyaku doesn't do it first, anyway."
The elf dashes off..
Relm gestures to the cameraman.
"Er, shouldn't you get after him? You'll miss the show, otherwise."
"Look, that way, there are men. This way, there are women. Way better idea to go this way, if you ask me," he replies, shrugging.
Relm eyed him, then shrugged. "Alright then."
And thusly she kept walking the same way she had been when this whole mess started. Bloody interruptions.
And so the little group continued onward.. until they reached a tent.
It was a nice tent, to be sure, but it took up the entire path, along with a sizable amount of the side area of the forest.
Relm detected a magical wall which would prevent anyone from passing around, over, or under the tent, so there was only one way through..
It was opened, on both sides, but because of a magical distortion, it was impossible to see what was in it.
Relm gave it a flat look, and not waiting to see what the rest of the party was doing, kept walking.
Carthrat follows, peering around. "It's dark in here," she comments.
All of a sudden, a terrible voice can be heard..
"Evildoers.. time is up for you! We elves will not suffer servants of darkness to trample about these woods! Prepare yourself!"
"What the hell do you mean, 'servants of darkness'? Turn a damn light on!"
Relm hears an embarrased cough.
"Well, actually, I'm being paid for this," she hears. "Look, I'm really sorry. Those other two idiots are a bit thick in the head; they just don't realise what they're doing is Bad. They have this silly need to justify themselves, and it's rubbed off a bit on me, I'm afraid."
"Oh. THAT I can understand," Relm snapped her fingers and her palm caught fire, again, which she lifted up so she could see a bit, "they are a bit thick, aren't they?"
"Well, yeah."
Relm makes out a figure, sitting on a broomstick and hovering about 20 feet in the air.
She also notices she's now standing in a grassy field, and the entrance to the tent seems to have vanished.
"Well, shall we get this over with?"
"Do we have to? It's a serious pain in the posterior."
"I dunno. I'm being payed 20,000 gold to kill you. If you can double that, I'll let you off," she replies. "It's not worth less to compromise my reputation."
"Dammit," Relm sighed, "Do you still get paid if the other two die?"
"They're gonna die? Allright. Now you owe me 120,000," replies the witch.
"Well, I don't know they're going to die . . ." Relm looked over at the other two, curious as to their silence.
Carthrat and Ginn.. aren't there.
"Sorry, hun. Your friend missed out," says the witch. "The bounty ain't for her. Just you."
She produces a small amulet.. "She's in here. I figured I'd let her go once I'm one with you. Too bad."
<->
Meanwhile.. to Ginn, it looked as if Carthrat and Relm had just walked inside the tent.. and the whole structure (them inside) simply vanished.
Relm's eyes narrowed.
"Really. Well, as they say . . . "
Relm stopped concentrating on the fire, which immediately vanished, and leaped into the air, hurling a barrage of ice at the witch.
The witch flew up and forward, easily evading the barrage of ice. She started to chant..
. . . and found her neck wrapped in a vicelike grip of air, which started squeezing, hard.
Apart from that, Relm threw a pair of knives, and started descending.
The mage stuttered off, but flicked her wrist and dispelled the choking strands of air.
Some clever mid-air acrobatics resulted in the knives simply sailing past her, and she pointed a finger at Relm, a small red bead flying from it towards her..
Relm encased the bead in a block of elementally charged ice, and then whipped her right arm back, catching the knives she'd missed with in a grip of air and sending them hurtling back at the witch again.
The block of ice hit the ground next to Relm.. and started to steam.
The witch waved her hand, and the knives bounced off an invisible shield of kinetic energy. She started to chant again..
Relm grabbed the piece of ice, commanded the surface ice to cool, and hurled it back at the witch.
Then tried the choking trick again.
Unfortunately for Relm, the fireball encased within the ice *didn't really like* what she was doing to it, and promptly detonated in a dull roar.
Relm, now severely charred, promptly hits the ground screaming . . . but retains enough presence of mind to channel earth as she hits the ground. A massive fount of dirt and rock explodes upwards, obscuring any view for about twenty metres.
The vision thing goes both ways, because now Relm can't see the witch at all.
Relm doesn't mind this. Gritting her teeth, spitting a couple of words and waving her hands, quickly invokes a Cure Serious.
Relm feels the burns across her body vanish in a wave of healing light..
Ryoma blinked at the tree for a moment, then raised a hand, releasing another battering ram of ki at the arrows, swatting them from the sky.
"Hmm...Interesting forest. Well, at least I don't have to worry about propert damage. Though I haveta admit, I'd thought i'd only have to listen to insane small people if I became an office worker back home...Well, it's not as though you're much of a threat, are you?"
Ryoma thought for a few more moments, then shrugged, examining his arm. "Seems to be healed enough to take the barrier off." He observed, flooding mana through the nerve endings in the severed arm, and feeling the slight tingle of the activation of the regeneration. "Well, since you don't have much more than arrows to offer, I'm gonna try and find my stuff. Feel free to keep trying!" So saying, he unfolded his wings and took to the air, trying to find his dropped possessions...
As Ryoma turned his attention away from the elf and started flying off . . . there was a flash of light out of the corner of his eye and an arrow appeared, embedded in his right shoulder.
The arrow was sizzling, and Ryoma hadn't had any indication it was coming, but one point more important than this ran through his mind.
It hurt like a bitch.
--
Relm snapped her fingers and the now falling debris exploded outwards in all directions, as Relm dashed along the ground at an angle from where she last saw the witch . . .
"..litsora kien!"
The final words of the witches spell echoed out through the grassy field.. and the ground started to shake.
Relm made some gestures with one hand and sent a pair of knives spinning towards the witch with the other, then finishing the incantation darted into a Dimension Door, which came out about twenty metres above and behind the witch.
As she dived through the portal, she yanked another pair of throwing knives from her belt.
The witch easily dodged the knives, but was at a loss as to where Relm went.
From her position on high, Relm noted that the ground wasn't just shaking, it was cracking, and building up.
Sorta like a volcano being built up, but much, much, much too fast.
Relm concentrated, and sed air to grab the knives which had fallen to the ground earlier - which were in the witch's view - and hurl them towards the witch.
At the same time, falling towards her opponent, Relm grabbed the knives she'd missed with out of the air and threw the set of four in a pattern around the witch.
The witch put on a sudden burst of speed to avoid the knives flying at her from the ground, but was caught by two other knives being flung downwards.
One caught her in the shoulder, and the other caught the unfortunate woman in the back. Wounded, she started to spiral towards the ground..
..and towards a newly opened hole in the ground, from which smoke was starting to pour out.
Relm channelled air again, grabbed her opponent's neck in a choking grip, and both she and her opponent started to rise. Fast.
Another of the knives flew back towards the woman and straight at her throat.
A sudden blast of steam aided Relm in her job of hoisting her opponent up. It didn't help her knife at all, though, (and she doubted she'd be able to find it again later).
Her opponent didn't really benefit, either; that steam was *hot*, and she was screaming in pain.
Looks like someone didn't use the wards they should have.
Relm dropped to her opponent's level (behind her), keeping the witch in the choking grip, and tore the holding amulet from around said witch's neck.
The amulet was wet and slick, and almost fell through Relms fingers. Luckily, she managed to grab hold of it.
The witch had stopped screaming and closed her eyes. Relm couldn't make out if she was breathing or not.
Ryoma said some fairly vulgar words...quite a few, too. Spotting his dropped items, he fell rapidly from the sky, a flap of his wings arresting most of the speed. Grunting, he began pulling the arrow from his shoulder, vile thoughts on his mind.
"Must not blow *&^$#!! Forest to smithereens, Must not hunt down and murder every tiny napoleon who lives here...happy thoughts, happy thoughts..."
Ryoma, still paying no attention to the elf, had another arrow appear in the same place. Except this time (facing the complete wrong way) he didn't see the flash a split second before.
Relm grabs the witch and holds a knife to her neck . . . and applies a cure light wounds with the other hand.
"Now, how about you get us all out of here before I -use- this."
"I.. need.. spell.." stutters back the witch.
Relm didn't loosen her grip. "Do it."
The magess starts chanting..
Carthrat: After a few moments of hand-waving and mumbo-jumbo, Relm feels the world start to dissapate, and the familiar sensation of being shunted from one place to another via magic..
Carthrat: ..and as the world cleared before her eyes, she realised that something fundamental about her position had changed.
Carthrat: Before, she was the one holding the witch with a knife to her throat. Now, she was being held.
Carthrat: And these *certainly* weren't her clothes. They were too big for her.
Carthrat: Even though they seemed to fit.
Relm Tyrean: "Nice trick."
Carthrat: And she didn't feel quite so burned just before.
Carthrat: And she did see that they had materialized right in front of Ginn.
Carthrat: And that someone had dropped the amulet, because it was lying between the entangled duo and the estranged dimension-traveller.
<->
Ginn, you see the tent vanish, and an expensive-looking amulet drop in front of you, followed by the apperance of Relm grabbing a witch (she's wearing a pointy hat and all) by the throat and holding a knife to her neck.
"Nice trick," says the witch.
The witch winces and continues . . . "Now don't think I'm not annoyed about this, because I am, but you're hardly going to get that bounty like this."
"That's my line," quips Relm.
"Very good, wiseass," the witch indicated Ginn with a nod of her head, "What's his name?"
"Ginn," replies Relm, rolling her eyes. "And the girl you locked inside the amulet is Carthrat."
"You are good at this," the witch said admiringly, "so why haven't you just cut my throat yet and been done with it?"
"Look, cut it with the stupid act," replies Relm. "You're not fooling anyone, y'know."
"Whatever you reckon," she grinned, "Answer the damn question."
"Because I need you to get *her* out the amulet," replies Relm.
"Hah. And I suppose if I refuse, then you cut my throat?"
"Then I torture you," replies Relm. "Until you do."[/quote]
"What happens to Carthrat when doused with hot water?"
"She turns into a boy. I'm amazed you know so much. Have you been studying us long?"
The witch rolled her eyes. "Oh, long enough to pick up a few things. Where'd she get that curse?"
"He never told me," replies Relm, rolling her eyes.
"Bullshit. And he?"
Ginn takes in all the conversation, looking quite confused. However, he is still on top (less than more) of things, so he's been casting a small spell behind his back, which grips the amulet and speeds it towards him.
"He, she. It's all the same for Carthrat, when you think about it," replies Relm.
The witch rolls her eyes. "Uh-huh. Ginn, can you get Rat out of that thing?"
"What makes you think *he'd* be able to?" replies Relm.
Ginn catches the amulet.
Ginn stares at the witch(Relm), and then at Relm(witch). You can here the gears crank in his head.
"Uhhh..."
"Stop that, unless you've got a truth spell you aren't figuring out who's who. Can you get her out of there?"
"Of course he can't. Kindly shut up and start making sense," says Relm, pressing the knife into Relm's throat.
Ginn chants lightly, invoking a somewhat simple (but really freaking useful) lore spell to obtain information about the amulet in question.
The Amulet is a Holding Amulet, which is capable of holding up to 200 kilograms of, well, anything, really. Certain amulets (like this one) are tuned to be able to suck in an unwilling victim, where they are held in a gravityless, walled environment. Releasing them is really a matter of being able to do something about the planar distortion.
Ginn figures that he needs to be able to cast some kind of short-range teleportation spell, or a *powerful* dispelling spell to be able to do something about it.
An amusing facet is if the amulet is enlarged or shrunk, the being (and equipment) inside is also enlarged or shrunk, but if he/she escapes from the Amulet, they stay that way instead of reverting to normal after the spells duration.
Typically, such amulets have command words to activate them. Ginn doesn't get to know what they are.
"Why? You seemed to know precisely what I was talking about a minute ago."
"Though I'm not sure *precicely* why you're asking it," retorts Relm.
Ginn looks at the couple.
"Looks like I'll need a command work. I could work around it, but I'd rather have the command word."
Relm prods the knife into the witches throat. "Ask *her*."
Ginn sighs.
Ginn casts Detect Evil.
"Well, since I don't actually have it to hand over, looks like you're stuck working around. Got any divination spells that work on -people-?"
Relm rolled her eyes, "And bloody well stop that. You aren't going to cut my throat, and we both know it."
Not much happens.
"She's not evil, she's just a mercenary bitch."
Ginn grunts, then selects a different spell.
Ginn casts Know Alignment.
Relm growls. "The only reason I'm not killing you," she says, "Is because you know the command word for the amulet.
You'll bloody well tell it to us, or I *will* kill you. If he can work around it anyway, it's not worth keeping you alive beyond our conveniance."
Relm shows up True Neutral, whereas the Witch shows up Neutral Good.
"And as you well know, I don't have it to tell you. So we're at an impasse, hmm?"
"Ok, fine then. I can get him out just fine. So we don't need the witch. Kill her."
Ginn reaches into the folds of his cloak.
"You're no help. By the way, you forgot that I keep throwing knives on my belt."
The witch is holding another knife to Relm's stomach with her right hand.
Relm grits her teeth. "That's *my* belt," she points out.
"Then how the hell were you stupid enough to forget about the knives?" The witch rolled her eyes, "As I said, impasse."
"I didn't expect you to be so subtle in your movements," replies Relm, irritated.
"Whatever, if you two get too comfortable, take pictures for me."
Ginn casts enlarge on the amulet.
<->
The Amulet gets Bigger, to about twice it's original size.
"Hmmm..."
Ginn does a short chant, then casts Vanish on Carthrat (visualized as the girl) and has him appear a few feet in front of him.
Carthrat appears, notably taller and wider (along with her too-big club).
"Oooh.." she says, as is coming out of a dream.
Relm blinked.
"Well, I suppose the question now is do you want your body back or not? Since we both have knives on each other, and all."
Carthrat whirls around, drunkenly. "Oh, you! You bitch!" she exclaims, punching the witch *hard* in the stomach.
Normally a rather strong woman, enalarged as she was, that punch was hard. It not only caused the witch the fly backwards, but the shock of the blow caused Relm to absorb quite a bit of the force, and the result was that both women lay sprawled across the ground, while Carthrat nursed a fist.
"Stupid.."
Ginn trains both .45 on the women, to each their own.
"Now, I'm pretty sure that Relm is in the witch's body, so I'll ask this only once. Undo it, or you're dead."
"Ugh.." Relm doesn't really look so good.
Given there's a knife sticking out her stomach, and all.
Ginn walks up and lightly sprinkles the wound with salt.
"Er, Ginn? The hell?" says Carthrat, bamboozled.
Relm yelps and says something unintelligible.
"She used a body swap spell, because I was stupid and didn't kill her outright," groans the witch, sitting up, "that gods-damned HURT."
"I'm pretty sure that Relm and the witch switched bodies while you were in that amulet."
Ginn inspects the witch.
The witch looks kinda beat up and slightly burned, but otherwise ok.
"Oh. Right. So that's Relm and that's the bitch," says Carthrat. "Can't we just kill her and be done with it?"
"No. I'd like my body back, THANK you."
"Oh.
She's fucked, though," notes Carthrat. "Like, the knife. And the salt."
"Nothing another healing spell can't fix."
"Yeah, but then she'll pull more fast shit on you," notes Carthrat. "Or something."
Relm continues, "Besides, THIS body isn't in good shape either . . . these burns are pretty painful. Ugh."
"She won't get anywhere unless she does the body swap, and I'm sure you can kill her if she does. Mm'kay?"
"Oh, whatever," replies Carthrat, sighing.
The witch sighs and staggers over.
"Gah. I can't believe I'm doing this AGAIN."
She pulls the knife out . . . her hands go through the familiar motions and a quick incantation later, she's using ANOTHER 'Cure Light Wounds'.
Relm (well, the witch) sits up.
"Uh. Ow."
"Now can you please start cooperating? I think we've thoroughly established you aren't going to get that bounty today."
The witch glowers at Relm. "And what are you going to do *after* you get your body back?"
Relm sighed, "I'll let you go," she glowers, "but if I end up on the wrong end of a knife from you again . . ."
Grudgingly, the witch nods.
She starts to cast a spell..
Relm waits.
A few moments later, Relm is back in her *bruised and bloodied* body once more.
And she casts her last standard spell of the day, a Cure Serious.
Now it's only Relms *outfit* that's got blood all over it.
The witch decides to take this opportunity to bugger off into the forest.
"Now that we got that out of the way, everyone ok?"
"Fine. But if I ever see her again . . ." Relm growled.
"I think it's for the best that you don't," notes Carthrat. "Anyway. Onward, to.. um.. that town. Yeah."
"Karelia."
"That's the second time you've done it! I'm gonna write that down," says Carthrat, producing a notepad and scribbling into it.
"You can't even SPELL Karelia."
"What? Ka-re-li-a? K-A-R-E-L-I-A, right? Or are you using some kind of weird spell convention?"
"K-H-E-L-A . . ." Relm trails off into unpronouncable syllables, which continue for about ten seconds.
"That's bullshit," pronounces Carthrat. "And you *know* it."
"No, really. That's actually how you spell it's name. The letters are in high enochian, and they change in pronounciation depending on the time of day, and the time of year."
Carthrat levels a flat stare at Relm. "What kind of stupid language is that?"
"High enochian," Relm smoothly continues the phrase in a language you don't recognize.
"How long did it take you to learn?"
"Well, see, that's the trick. You need to use a spell to learn the language, really, but you need to know the language before you can incant the spell properly."
Carthrat pauses. "So, what? You use some other spell that lets you speak any language and use it to let you learn the spell or something?"
"Ah, but you see, the language itself is magical, and can only be learned to fluency within a mortal lifetime by a spell that incants using it. It's all very tricky"
"Explain. You've intrigued me," replies Carthrat.
It should be noted that Relm really has to crane her neck to see Carthrat's face, given her present situation (which she doesn't seem to have noticed).
"Hell no. See, it's a barrier, of sorts. You need to know enochian to learn higher forms of magic and understand the higher tiers of magical theory, but you can't learn it unless you already know it. The general reasoning is that if you can't work out how to learn the language you wouldn't be able to get your head around the theory anyway."
"Oh. Ok. That makes no sense, but anyway," replies Carthrat, shrugging.
"Hey, Ginn, is she right?"
"Errr, um, well... yeah. I mean, technically, I can cast a spell with any properties I wanted to, all I have to do is pronounce it correctly. It's like magical linguistics. That way, it eliminates the need to memorize spells and such, as the magical alphabet is all you need to know to construct spells. It took me about a year and a half, but thats because I'm kinda dyslexic."
"Don't spells require components and magical hand-waving and stuff, though?" replies Carthrat, blinking.
"Some, but their main function is just a simplification of the spell, more like, and usually has regards to the nature of the spell. Like, fireball, you throw the little knot of herbs and spices, and all you have to do is recite some short little command phrase. A lot of ritualistic spells will have more components, as opposed to the quick and dirty spells, which might require only a few components or none at all."
Some time later..
"We're here!" says Carthrat, happily. "Um, what's the city called today?"
The forest has come to an end, and the travellers walk out from it's green depths to see the spires, towers, cloud-castles, and japanese gardens of Kurokulucar (for that was it's name at the 12th hour of a Friday) glistening in the noontime sun.
The city had no walls, for it was guarded by Magi, who are testy and prone to blowing things up that displease them. Walls just got in the way.
"Kelusk. Now stop gawking, we're not there yet."
Relm picked her way over a rock and started walking quickly towards the city proper.
Ginn smiles, and follows closely.