This little adventure starts in a lively tavern in a town some forty miles to the south-east of the capital Saillune.
Normally a quiet tavern, filled only with people wanting to drown the boringness of the day away or in need of a quiet meal, today it is full of excitement as people stare and cheer on what could only be called an incredible food battle.
Plate after plate disappear full of food only to reappear empty, piling one after another at one round table. The two responsible are a young redhead currently going through a deliciously herb-roasted chicken and a long haired blond fellow going through some roast beef he somehow managed to steal from the redhead. His pile of plates still remains lower by at least ten plates.
Besides them, surrounded by the cheers of the townsfolk, sit two awkward people, one a young girl with a horrified twitching grin, moaning about how much this would cost her and wondering what possessed her to offer to pay for dinner, and a robed and masked man, covering his face in his gloved hands, wondering why he was still here.
As the last of the plates with food within disappears down the redhead's throat in one satisfying gulp, a waitress approaches nervously, somewhat shocked at the sheer amount that has been consumed.
"Will...will that be all?" she asks, noting from the glint of their eyes that by far, it most certainly isn't.
***
OOC: Since Corwin's wanting a food battle with Eb, here you go =p
I'll bring in Asrana and Bean later, once the tavern's emptied out some of the amused townsfolk. Rat, I'll want to chat with you before intro'ing you.
Lina stabs Gourry with her fork. "That's for my roast beef, jellyfish brains!"
Turning towards the waitress, she smiles. "Seconds!"
"Ow!" Gourry moans, cradling his stabbed arm by reflex, but not really seeming overly bothered. "Lina, why did you stab me?" he complains before noticing A. there is no more food in front of him, and B. there is a waitress nearby.
"I'd like seconds, too!" he says cheerfully to the waitress, seeming to have already forgotten the brutal and undeserved stabbing he just recieved. "And can you give me some extra portions of roast chicken this time? I must have eaten mine so fast I never even tasted it..." he trails off, looking slightly confused.
"You snooze, you lose," Lina comments, reclining in her chair slightly as she picks at her teeth.
"Seconds? Extra portions?" the waitress asks in amazement before regaining her wits. "I mean, comming right up!"
She turns and wades through the townsfolk as they give another cheer, shaking her head. They'd already asked for two pages of their menu, and they were asking for seconds with extra portions. What an inhuman appetite.
"I wasn't sleeping..." The dopey swordsman replies. "Besides, Lina, do you really think you should eat that much? It never seems to go to your breasts, only your stomach..." Gourry punctuates his statement by prodding Lina's flat chest followed by her rather plump stomach, seeming totally unaware of how badly his actions might be taken...
Lina's face goes red, and she crashes with her seat backwards onto the floor. Twitching, she chants from the ground, "Source of all power, crimson fire burning bright."
Lina points at Gourry from her supine position, and yells, "FLARE ARROW!"
Hearing Lina's chant, Gourry's eyes widen with alarm, and he waves his hands frantically for a few seconds while giving sputtering apologies for whatever set her off this time. Then, as she completes the spell, he dives under the table in hopes of avoiding his punishment!
As Gourry leaps under the table, Lina launches little, jellyfish-shaped arrows of fire at his hide.
At the cry of "Flare Arrow", most of the cheering townsfolk decide that amusement isn't worth getting caught in any possible crossfire. As most of them start to filter out of the tavern, most miss the sight of the "arrow" summoned being in reality jellyfished shaped arrows of fire, smacking against the blond swordsman's rump and causing him to hit his head on the bottom of the table.
Gourry lies insensate on the floor for a brief moment before he picks himself up, groaning and rubbing his head. "Ow, Lina! That wasn't very nice," he complains, standing up.
Sniffing the air, he is distracted from his complaint by the smell of cooking meat. "Hey, is our food nearly ready? That smells nice..." he says, not noticing the smoke coming from behind him...
Raising herself from the floor, Lina palms her forehead. She moves to one of the recently-vacated tables, and snaps her fingers, casting Aqua Create on her dumb sidekick.
"Oh! Cold!" Gourry shivers slightly as the water cascades over his sizzled rump. He then sits back at the table with Zelgadis and Amelia, picks up his fork and knife, and eagerly awaits the rest of his meal, seeming to have completely dismissed the violence that was just inflicted on him.
As if summoned by Gourry's desire, the waitress pops up from the back with four plates in hand, one dish on each of her hands, and one balanced on each of her arms. Gourry's desire is further sated by the sight of it being his roasted chicked request. With extra portions. "The rest will be right up!" she says with a smile as she sets down the four plates. While doing so, she blinks at the changes. "Hey, why's the floor wet? And where'd everyone else go?"
At the waitress' question, Gourry looks down and notices the water around him. He blinks in confusion for a moment before remembering what just happened. "I uh... had an accident," he cheerfully informs her before starting in on the food before Lina can get any.
A knife flies through the aim, imbedding itself in the table in front of Gourry. Lina stalks after it, holding up a fork menacingly. "Don't even think on starting without me!"
The waitress gives an uncertain nod to the swordsman's statement. "I'll...get the mop then. I'll bring the rest of your order afterwards."
With that she turns to go fetch the mop.
Gourry ignores everything around him as he devotes his full attention towards eating as much of the food before him as possible in a short a time as possible.
Lina serves herself the largest portion, and eats at her top speed.
The floor is soon mopped, and dishes exchanged between the waitress and the hunger-driven duo. Though it takes some time, soon they're down to the last few plates and what remaining townsfolk there were begin to filter out of the tavern, certain in the victory of the young redhead in the food battle. Besides, many of them were getting hungry after such a show and smelling so much food travelling by, and they weren't certain those two wouldn't steal their meals if they ordered here. Besides, most of the tables were now stacked with dirty plates, a desperate maneuver from the waitress to keep the towers of plates from stacking too high.
Two young women push through the leaving people at the entrance, and call for the waitress who soon has them sitting at the bar, due to the lack of free tables. They don't mind, glad for the lack of people who might recognize them and give them trouble.
Soon after, as all that were going to depart do so, a man joins those in the tavern, and is soon also sat at the bar. Though he gives a brief recoil at the sight of the moaning princess of Saillune, nobody notices, too interested in either their meals, or trying to to stare at those just finishing their meals. He thanks his disguise skills, and begins to debate on his next plan of action.
OOC: And pause. I'll continue in the morning, and start up the plot, unless Cor, Rat, Asrana, or Bean want to do anything with each other right now.
Kylen drums his fingers on the top of the bar, sparing a glance for the other two newcomers, but more concerned about the people who were already here.
When a waiter appears before him, he fumbles a bit before managing to ask, "Er.. can I have some.. tomato juice?"
The couple of people that turned their heads at his entry saw a man wearing black boots and black pants, with a long-sleeved black shirt. He's wearing white gloves, and a large cape with the hood up that obscures his mouth, hair, and most of his face. His eyes are covered by a pair of black-tinted glasses.
Sighs of content come from the sole occupied table as the last of their dinner is finished. The waitress takes this as a cue to bring out the check, to which a young princess begins to whimper. She was rich, but Miss Lina took way too much advantage of her status.
The payment was put off for now, however, as screams and explosions begin to be heard outside. The waitress turns to look in their direction as someone stumbles in, a man in raggedy clothing and deep bleeding from his shoulder.
"...Lina...Inverse," he mutters before fainting at the entrance, the loss of blood having gotten to him.
"Oh no! She's come to attack our town!" the waitress squeaks with worry, her lack of knowledge as to her most recent customer apparent.
Others more knowledgeable turn to stare at the redheaded sorceress with a defiant 'It wasn't me!' look before the tavern ceiling begins to crumble from an explosion.
Three of them manage to react fast enough to shield themselves, but others are not so lucky, falling unconscious in the rubble around them.
Looking up, there's a black dragon flying in the sky, and twenty or so grinning men, running around, looting and encouraging screams from the townsfolk.
"Remember, more than anything FIND Kizel, but otherwise do whatever you want! Let them all remember the name of the New Dragon's Fang!" yells a big brute decked in black armor and raising a battle axe, it's edge tainted crimson with blood as his men cheer.
"TO THE NEW DRAGON'S FANG!" they yell.
OOC: Lina, Gourry and Amelia are up. Anybody else pops up, just conviniently wake up if Lina doesn't take care of all of them by the time you do >_>
Lina walks in the rubble, and fishes the waitress from under a pile of dishes and wood chunks. Holding her up with one hand, Lina slaps her lightly to wake her up, while ignoring the ranting bandits.
At all the commotion, Gourry stands up with an expression of grim determination on his face, prepared to defend the town from the bandits. He abruptly falters in confusion at the sorceress's actions. "Lina...?" he looks at her with his usual expression of dopey curiousity.
The waitress mumbles as Lina lightly slaps her on the cheek before bleerily opening her eyes. "Wh..What happened?" she asks.
Before Lina could say anything, a bandit who'd noticed them walked up to them with that disturbed grin still plastered on his face. "The New Dragon's Fang is what happened, baby," he says, pulling his sword out and laying it on his shoulder.
The waitress squeaks and grabs Lina in a deep hug, scared out of her wits. Lina's mouth is smushed onto the waitress' breasts, preventing her from doing anything more than mumbling and possibly biting.
"Miss Lina, what are you doing? Bandits are attacking!" Amelia whines, poping up from the rubble.
Lina colors, and pushes the waitress away, squeezing her full breasts in the process.
Gourry sidles up to the bandit and leans in to give a conspiratorial whisper. "Are you guys sure attacking this town is a good idea?" he points at the currently hugged sorceress, "That's Lina Inverse, and you just interrupted her dinner. You guys should probably start running," Gourry finishes, giving the bandit a friendly (but still pretty hard) slap on the back.
Trained waitress reflexes from having to deal with drunk men kick in as Lina squeezes her breasts and a slap resounds the town as Lina finds herself with a handmark in her cheek.
The waitress' mouth becomes o-shaped as she covers it with her hand, shocked at her action as she starts blindly apologizing, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm s..."
The bandit roars with laughter and calls for his friends. "Hey guys, come watch the comedy show! One of the girls isn't that built, but I'm sure we can have some fun with the both of them afterwards!"
"I know they're kinda small," Lina says in a tiny voice, her clenched fists shaking. "But I don't want to hear it from a fat guy with a bigger chest! FIREBALL!"
As Lina casts her spell, Gourry promptly dives away from the bandit!
The other bandits began to talk amongst themselves nervously at Gourry's statement when the bandit that just got slapped by Gourry growls at him.
Swinging his sword at the blond wildly he states confindently, "Like I'll believe a word of that! The Bandit Killer may be a childish, redheaded, flat as a board, ill-tempered girl, but she'd have to be completely useless and living off only her reputation if she was getting smacked by a waitress! That girl's no Lina Inverse!"
The other bandits start nodding amongst themselves and growl at the swordsman who'd just jumped out of the way, for trying to scare them away.
The bandit coughs as he's hit by a fireball and says, "On the other hand..." before falling to the ground, a charred heap of a man.
Amelia glances toward Lina nervously, her eye beginning to tick again.
"M-miss Lina?"
"Source of all power," Lina chants, an aura of fire surrounding her, "crimson fire burning bright."
"FLARE ARROW!" she cries out, sending mutliple arrows of fire at all the ten bandits present.
Climbing to the top of one of the broken suport beams Amelia stands stoticly, pointing toward the heavens.
"The winds call, the earth calls, but more importantly the people call out for justice!"
She drops her arm toward the bandits, pointing an acussing finger. Lightning flashes in the background.
"Foul bandits who pluder villages and ruin dinner, you are the evil I must defeat! In the name of Justice," she crosses her arms and stands with one hand pointing over the other arm, "I will punish you!Burst Rond!" She finishes, casting flaming justice into the croud.
Seeing the two sorceresses are taking care of business inside the inn, Gourry picks himself up from the rubble and exits, looking around for the bandit in black armour, and trying to determine the man's skill.
Of the bandits within range, eight are hit by the spells of both Amelia and Lina, though two are shielded by their friends.
The injured fall to the ground, grasping their bodies in burned pain, but are not yet out, their armors helping to shield them a bit as well.
Angered, the two lucky ones call for reinforcements as the others gingerly get up, grasping their weapons. All of their eyes are ablaze as they make a scream of fury and rush at the two sorcereresses.
The waitress screams and covers her head, shuffling away from Lina and back into the relative safety of the rubble, tears of fear in her eyes.
Gourry in the meantime finds himself staring face to face with the leader of the gang. He motions for the other bandits to go into the broken down tavern. The swordsman was his....
"ROY!" he shouts to the sky.
...and the dragon's. The dragon lands on top of a nearby building, crushing it under his weight, and stares at Gourry.
OOC: your judge opponent skill tells you that the boss's ACV is around 6-8, he has a high focused damage with that axe, and is very skilled with it. He's slow though, because of the weight of his armor and axe and has no extra attacks per round.
With a cry of "Balus Rod!" Lina summons a whip of light, rushing the bandits with it.
Gourry gulps at the sight of the Dragon... hopefully Lina would be able to scare it away before things got too serious, but for now his priority is dealing with the leader. With a flash of silver, his sword is drawn and held ready, and, wasting no more time, the blonde swordsman moves to attack!
OOC: I'm attacking the Bandit chief twice this round, saving one of my extra attacks for two defence attempts.
Caelena growled as she pushed rubble off of herself, trying to brush debris out of her knee length black hair. Kicking more pieces of roof away, she observed the scene about her, looking for some way to release her annoyance with being interrupted...
Amelia hops from broken post to broken post before stopping across from the dragon.
"Fireball!"
The dragon roars as its hide is hit by a fireball. It didn't cause much pain, but it was annoying. A full glare is directed towards Amelia, the swordsman and its master momentarily forgotten. A jet of fire flies towards Amelia from the dragon's opening maw.
Gourry in the meantime makes a dash at the boss bandit, his sword drawn ready to strike. The bandit grins however as he blocks deftly, but the grin soon vanishes as Gourry spins and hits him from behind, leaving a large crack in his armor and drawing some blood. Roaring, he swings his axe downward, barely missing Gourry as rock pieces fly upwards from the axe's impact while Gourry backsteps, ready for more.
As five of the bandits are dispatched by Lina's whip usage, the five other bandits and nine new ones focus their sight on both Lina and Caelena, ready to avenge their fallen comrades.
OOC: Amelia's up first, then Gourry.
Amelia deftly leaps toward the first bit of cover she can find with a heroic cry of "Eeeeeek!"
With the Dragon currently distracted, Gourry presses his attack against the bandit chief even harder, holding nothing back!
A blast of fire flies above Amelia as she leaps for cover, jumping down towards Gourry and the boss bandit, landing a bit off balance. A bit of her hair is singed and smoking, but thankfully, not on fire.
The boss bandit makes a frantic block with his axe as Gourry attack furiously, shouting, "ROY! GET YOUR HIDE HERE AND HELP!"
As with the last strike, Gourry's first attack is blocked, and the second one gets through, this time a shallow cut appearing in the boss bandit's arm, followed by another strike towards his back.
The bandit's armor crackes, falling off. Hissing, the boss bandit eyes Amelia and runs towards her, his axe swinging downward.
The dragon turns towards its master, delighted by his master attacking his annoyance, and chooses to be of likewise help, launching another jet of fire, this time towards Gourry and preventing him from coming to Amelia's aid.
Seeing the jet of flame approaching him from the large dragon, Gourry abandons his fight with the bandit leader, and charges towards 'Roy', hoping that the flames will overshoot him as he does so...
Caelena smiled almost cheerily at the bandits, holding her hands forth as she recited the spell under her breath, a spear of blazing fire forming between them.
"Vice Flare!" she called, loosing the jet of flame.
Sparing a glance at the girl and her spell, Lina walks towards the frightened waitress and digs her out of the rubble again, sighing and slapping her lightly across the cheeks.
"Dil Brand!" Amelia shouts, blasting the annoying doer-O-evil to the heavens.
Caelena's Vice Flare takes out all of the remaining bandits, their pained screams being heard even outside as their lives are sunffed out. Their leader's scream joins them, though not from pain, but rather surprise, as he's launched high into the sky by Amelia's spell. "ROY!!!" he shouts in fear, causing the dragon to stop its attempted attack on Gourry to flap its wings and fly into the sky, catching its master on its neck.
As Lina brings the waitress out of her shell of shock, the waitress screams at the flying dragon, pointing at it while babbling about how they were all going to die.
Lina sighs again. "How much will ridding you of your dragon infestation be worth to you?" she asks the waitress. "On top of the free meal, of course."
"...I...I don't have any money to give you!" she cries out, tears streaming down her eyes.
"PLEASE! YOU HAVE TO HELP!!!" she screams shrilly, grabbing Lina by the shoulders and shaking. "I'LL PAY FOR YOUR DINNER! IT'S THE DAMN BEST I CAN GIVE! PLEASE!!!!"
ooc: You know, you really should have gone hunting for the town elder or something if you wanted money >_>;
Lina sighs for the third time that day. "Don't worry, it won't eat you," she reassures the waitress. "Dragons are cowards. They never come near people for some reason, from personal experience."
Leaving the girl, she walks over to where the exhausted guy who entered the tavern just before it was destroyed, stepping on Zelgadis on her way. "Maybe you could get someone who can pay for dragon extermination?" she suggests to the waitress in a calm voice. "It won't be professional of me to take your own money."
'Besides, you can't afford it,' she thinks sadly, shaking the exhausted man awake.
Amelia runs back into the building, keeping an eye on the terror from the sky.
"Miss Lina, do something!"
Lina keeps on shaking the guy, and rolls her eyes at Amelia's panic mode.
Kizel groans as he's shook awake. He's still low on blood, but he's conscious again. "I'm...alive?" he mutters.
A dragon's roar sounds in the sky, bringing everything that's happened to him back to the forefront. The map. Running away. Being hunted. Lina Inverse...
Realizing who shook him awake, he grabs her arms as he sits up straight. "YOU! YOU HAVE TO SAVE ME FROM HIM! I'LL PAY ANYTHING!"
What better to save an ex-bandit from other bandits than a bandit killer, after all? Besides, he needed her help with the map. Right now, he could offer her all the money from his former comrades, that money was worthless to him. Only the map and its treasure mattered.
"All right!" Lina exclaims, dropping the guy back on the floor. Laughing maniacally to herself, she brings her arms in front of her, chanting, "Lord of the Darkness and the Four Worlds, I call upon you, grant me all the power that you possess!"
Caelena sighed at the panicking stranger, picking her way back towards where she'd been sitting.
Carefully, she started digging her 'sister' out from the rubble, inspecting the younger woman for injuries and building something of a makeshift wall between them and the enemy of all who lives.
A shiver of cold terror flashes through Amelia's spine. Bad, this was baaaad. Leaping to the tallest pillar behind Lina Amelia pulls out a bullhorn and starts shouting evacuation orders.
Hearing Amelia's evacuation orders, Gourry feels a moment of pity for the bandit and his pet dragon.
The moment passes, and the swordsman hides behind some of the rubble from the house that 'Roy' crushed earlier.
"KIZEL!!! TRAITOR!" the boss bandit shouts from up high, noticing his main target as Lina activates the Boost spell on her talismans. His forces, destroyed, all because of one man. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
Roy and boss bandit begin to sweep towards, regardless of danger to them from Lina Inverse. And hey, they might be able to take her out first.
A shout of "TOAST ALL WHO STAND IN MY WAY!!!" is all that's needed for the dragon to open it's mouth and fire a jet of fire downward towards the tavern as it continues to dive towards Kizel.
"Darkness from twilight, crimson from blood that flows;" Lina chants, surrounded by a corona of darkness. "Buried in the flow of time; in Thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness!" An angry red ball of energy gathers in her cupped hands. "Those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power you and I possess!"
The beautiful young sorceress thrust her hands upwards, right at the dragon and its owner, and cries out, "DRAGON SLAVE!!!" sending a ruby spear of death at them.
Lina's spell flies fast and true, obliterating the jet of flame as it goes through the dragon's open mouth and exits through his tail before exploding. Both the dragon and its master are vaporized as the ball of death grows and grows, gales of winds pushing outwards and buffeting against the mess that is the town, blowing apart some structures to some degree, but for the most part managing to do little damage to the town.
"It...it's a miracle!" the waitress cries. "I'M ALIVE! I'M ALIVE!!!!"
Kizel gives a sight of relief as he stares upwards towards the disappeting explosion, his eyes slowly closing, the loss of blood once more taking back to the realm of unconsciousness.
As the buffeting from the explosion passes, Gourry stands up from his shelter, dusts himself off, and returns to the tavern to join the others.
"Hey! DON'T DIE!" Lina yells, shaking the once-again unconscious guy violently. "Amelia, get over here and heal him!" she calls out. "I still haven't been paid yet!"
Amelia just stares in awe, stunned that the city still stands.
"A miracle..."
Kizel springs a leak in his head as blood begins spurting out from all the shaking.
"AAHH!!" Lina yells, dropping him, and running around the ruined inn like a headless chicken. "My fee! Not the fee!"
Caelena shook her head as she watched the goings on. "Really is the enemy of all who lives," she snickered, watching Lina shake the man.
"Wonder if he'll die before a healer gets there." Shrugging, she went back to attending Raquel, looking up every so often to keep abreast of the situation.
Amelia finally comes out of her shock and realises the situation. A mighty leap takes her to the fallen ex-bandit. She smacks him in the head.
"Recovery!"
Gourry enters the inn and notices Lina running around in a panic while Amelia is healing the man. Shrugging, he goes over to check on Zelgadis.
Kizel starts feeling warmth seep into his body as light surrounds him. Amelia's spell does the trick as his wounds close and his body starts to regain some of its lost coloring. Slowly, his eyes open to the sight of Amelia above him.
"You know, getting saved by someone as pretty as you has got to be the only perk of being injured that much," he whispers quietly with a rakish, but forced grin.
"All in a day's work!" Amelia boasts, striking a pose. "Where ever evil pops it's ugly head out of the ground, the hammer of Justice will be there to bop it."
Noticing that Amelia healed her cash cow, Lina zooms over, and grabs him by the lapels of his coat. "You're alive! Excellent! Let's talk about--" her lips curve into a smile "--payment!"
Lina holds him up with her right arm, ticking off the points on the fingers of her left hand as her smile becomes a full-fledged grin. "One bandit leader," she murmurs. "Twenty minions." She giggles to herself. "A black dragon."
"Money!" Lina finally exclaims happily. "I smell lots and lots of money!"
"I did say I'd pay anything, didn't I?" Kizel said. "Would the bandits' treasure suffice? I can lead you to their base, you can keep anything you find there. We had quite a hoard before I left them."
Meanwhile, while Lina and Kizel do 'business', the waitress proceeds to start digging everyone out, hunting for where her boss and the cooks were. If they were still alive, she could convince them to let the others have their meal for free. That way she wouldn't find herself having to pay for the girl's meal. Somehow she didn't feel like protesting that Lina had refused her offer to pay for dinner and try charging her, and she wasn't sure it wouldn't take years to pay off her debt if she did pay for it.
Caelena coughed as she stood up, leaving her friend for the moment to come up behind Lina.
"Excuse me," she said politely, if a tad softly to the red haired sorceress. "But not quite twenty bandits. I took down fourteen of them, I believe," she said sweetly, her lips upturning in a chilly smile.
Lina turns to look at the annoying girl, and smiles sweetly. "He offered to pay after all the flunkies were dead. So, the person who saved him from the dragon and its owner should be the one to get the reward! It's only proper, don't you think?"
She keeps on smiling, but her eyes challenge the other girl to defy her logic.
Caelena's cold smile stayed in place. "That would be up to him. In either case though, it doesn't mean you can claim all the glory for killing the bandits," she replied, staring back at Lina with her hard slate-blue eyes.
Kizel looks between the two's faces and says, "Uhm...I really don't care who gets the loot really, I'm just happy to be alive..."
He figures it's best to leave it between the two and not get involved in this dispute over money. He didn't particularly want to go through another near-death experience.
"I was counting the bandits who came after him, not those I killed," Lina replies in that same sweet tone of voice. "And speaking of taking credit, can you really claim to have defeated the other fourteen without assistance?"
Seeing the sparks starting to fly between the two women, Gourry abandons the chimera (he's made of rock, surely he's fine?) and moves to head off a possible confrontation with his vast wealth of diplomatic skills.
"I'm sure the bandits have enough treasure for both of you," he says amiably as he steps between them, though slightly closer to Lina. "We don't need to blow anything else up, right?" the last part comes out a little timidly.
"Shut UP, Gourry!" Lina snaps at him, all pretenses of niceness gone. "The treasure's all mine, mine MINE!"
Gourry cringes at the verbal onslaught, and backs away from the two women with a whipped expression, content to keep his mouth shut now.
Amelia goes to check on Zel, happy to not be caught between Lina and money. Or Lina and food.
Caelena snickered as Lina began yelling, shaking her head. "As greedy as reputed." Shrugging, she pulled her cloak a little tighter about her, concealing her hands.
"If Miss Lina would like to be competitive, that's her business. But without the bandits, stolen treasure is for those who take it first," she answered, shrugging. "A man who is no longer a member of the band has no real claim to it besides knowledge of the location."
Lina turns towards the ex-bandit at the other girl's words. "That third-rate sorceress is right," she says, nodding to herself. "You know where it is, so that's where we'll go!"
Smiling, she loses herself in dreams of loot.
Raquel's eyes fluttered open and she winced at the slight throbbing of her head. "Ow...Callie?" she asked, sitting up and looking to her 'sister', then around at the rubble that was the inn "I think I must have missed the good parts, huh?" she observed, smiling ruefully up at Caelena.
"What happened?"
"You can't leave yet!" a voice cried out from behind Lina. It's an old man with an arm around the waitress' shoulder for support. He seems to be the owner of the tavern. "We need to do something for you after you saved us from an even worse fate. Is there anything we can do for you all?"
The waitress whispers something to him, and he smiles, "Ah yes, you can forget your bill for the meal, it is the least I can do."
They could just blame the cost of the meal on stolen food by the bandits when requesting for the capital and prince Phil for aid in rebuilding their town, anyhow, so they could afford doing something nice for these people.
"Do you have any flan?" Lina asks out of the blue. "That would be nice for the road!"
"That's really nice of you!" Gourry enthuses at the mans generous offer. "And Lina did a much better job than normally, this time... I remember when I first met her and she blew up the whole town... say, wasn't that gang called the Dragon's Fangs as well?" he trails off, rubbing his chin as he contemplates this.
"These bandit types always go for stupid names like that," Lina comments idly, waving her hand. "Dragon this, phoenix that."
Caelena's smile actually warmed as she rushed to Raquel, the witch bitch forgotten as her companion ecompassed her attention.
"Un, though it wasn't really all that fun...one Vice Flare and proof that Lina Inverse's reputation, all of it, isn't really far off..." she giggled. "Bandits and a small dragon is all."
"I'm not hearing this, I'm not hearing this, I'm not..." Amelia chants, eye beginning to tic.
"Yeah, like the Dragons Head Macho Battlers," Gourry nods sagely in agreement with Lina.
"Flan?" the old man says, scratching his head. "I suppose we could make some, although are kitchens are somewhat in ruin. If you don't mind waiting, I'm sure we could find a willing townsperson to donate their kitchen for our saviors' needs."
Kizel starts laughing at all the comments regarding the gang. "Heh, actually the old Dragon's Fang was led by our boss' second cousin or some such. This gang of bandits were named in its honor. I always figured the name to be a jinx just asking for Lina Inverse to take care of 'em too."
A grin plastered onto his face as he added, "And I guess I was right, even if I had a hand in it happening."
Raquel nodded and smiled, climbing to her feet, and shaking dust from her hair and clothes, and gave a slightly mournful look at the ruins of the dining area. "So much for dinner..."
She turned back to Cz, and looked carefully at her, and slight concern showed on her expression. "So why do you look like you're about to toss off a Burst Flare?"
Caelena smiled, hugging Raquel briefely. "Inverse-baka," she murmured softly, shrugging. "As I said, her rep is richly deserved." Sitting down on a piece of roof, Caelena nervously played with the hilt of her sword.
"We'll have to move on, this place isn't going to be rich enough for mercenaries for long..."
"We'll wait!" Lina happily announces. Then, she takes out a magical marker, and begins doodling on the comatose Zelgadis.
"I'd like some flan, too!" Gourry says, sitting down on a piece of rubble, since all the chairs seem to be destroyed...
Raquel smiled, returning the hug and looked around, her gaze falling briefly on the only person in the room to even slightly fit the description of the famous bandit-killer.
"Lina Inverse? Where-Oh, that little girl? Isn't she a little young? She can't be more than twelve..." Raquel mused, puzzled.
"If flan's what you want, flan is what you'll have!" the old man declares. Looking towards the waitress, he says, "Find those cooks of mine, and have them find a kitchen and make their flan."
The waitress nods, happy that she wasn't going to have to pay for the redhead's dinner, and scampers off to dig up the cooks, leaving the old man in their midst.
Lina doodles on Zelgadis, drawing pretty pictures of super-deformed bunnies on his face, and ignoring the banter of third-rate magic users who weren't even ready for a sudden dragon attack and tavern cave-in.
"All talk," she mutters to herself with a snort.
Caelena smiled, shrugging. "I don't know, didn't we know someone when we were fourteen that kinda looked like that? Kassa or something..."
Humming, she went digging inside her cloak, looking for some of their trail food to serve as dinner.
Raquel nodded, and blinked. "Why are we staying here, then?" she asked curiously as she sat down on a nearby section of wall with scorched edges, hunting for any trail food in her cloak. "Or is the whole town like this?"
As she spoke, she glanced up at the other people in the room, placing threat and skill levels as best she could.
Caelena shrugged, humming. "The rest of the town shouldn't be as bad off. Did you see any other inns coming into town?" she asked, picking a small package of dried apple slices out of a pocket and slowly eating.
Raquel pondered some raisins and nuts, then though better of it, and put them back.
"Not really, but we did come into town the back way." she observed, pulling her knees up to her chest, and peering closely at the blonde man sitting a little way away. "Should we go looking? Or are we moving on quickly?"
With a loud *clunk*, Kylen manages to shove several chunks of tavern remains off him.
Hastily doing up his hood before anybody gets a good look at him, he looks around to make sure Amelia is allright.
Kylen notices Amelia is alright, although her eye is still twitching. One Kizel, ex-bandit member of the New Dragon's Fang, seems to be fairly amused by it.
Stretching out a few loose muscles, Kylen starts wandering around the town, looking for townsfolk who are wounded but alive, and making sure they'll survive without immediate aid.
Kylen finds many injured townsfolk, as well as some dead. Calling for help for them when the people need it, he continues to move around the town, helping with what he can for an hour's time. At that time, he stumbles upon the waitress from the tavern.
Falling to the ground, she manages to save her two plates and their contents from spilling. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she says distractedly as she checks over the two plates to make sure there wasn't any dirt or anything on the flan.
"Are you allright?" Kylen asks, offering to take one of the plates.
"Yes, yes I'm fine, it's just that I'm awfully distracted by all this...damage," she replies, not sure she wanted to describe it in more detail. She notices his offered hand for a plate, and blushes. "Oh thank you, I needed to take these to the tavern, the people who saved us asked for some flan, so I'd been looking for a kitchen and the cooks to make some and we just finished even with all this mess and, oh sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"
She hands him one plate of flan, as she dusts herself and stands up. "Thank you..."
"Perhaps you are, but does it matter? After this sort of thing, most people would be calling for help or trying to make themselves look small," replies Kylen, leisurely walking back to the tavern. "This villiage will be back on track within a month or so," he assures her.
"Yeah...yeah, it probably will," she says, a bit cheered up. Surely Prince Phil would do his utmost to help in their time of need!
"Oh, I shouldn't keep them waiting, they've already been waiting an hour..." she says, remembering the flan and starting to head back to the tavern.
Kylen nods, and continues walking down the path, making a note to check on his current place of residence later tonight.
She makes one short turn to say to her companion as they enter the tavern's remains, and whispers, "Oh, that dish is for the blonde guy, by the way."
Following that, she states more loudly, "Flan's ready!" with a smile as she heads towards Lina with her dish.
Kylen walks up to Gourry. "Hey, slick. This is for you," he says, eyes flickering back and forth between Gourry and Amelia.
"Finally, the flan's here!" Gourry enthuses, cheerfully taking the plate from Kylen. "Thanks!" he says before digging in, totally oblivious to the world around him.
"Not a problem," replies Kylen, taking a moment to size up the man in front of him.
"Say.. you're Gourry Gabriev, aren't you?"
"Flan!" Lina cries out happily. Having better things to do now, and noticing Gourry's complete lack of attention to the rest of the world, Lina plants the marker on him as she makes her way to the waitress. "Thank you!" she enthuses. "This will really hit the spot!"
Hearing his name (and ignoring the magic marker that was just planted on his person), Gourry looks up at Kylen. "Fwuh?" he says, before remembering to chew the mouthfull of flan he currently has. After swallowing, he tries again, "Yes, I'm Gourry Gabriev... um... is this about all those 'wanted' posters I was on a few months ago? That was all just a big misunderstanding because of Lina, and it's been cleared up now. So, if you're a bounty hunter, you won't get anything from me," he finishes, sounding almost apologetic.
"..bounty? No, I've didn't hear of you like that," replies Kylen. "I guessed who you were, actually. I've heard a fair bit about Lina Inverse and her blonde-haired bi- er, companion. After hearing her name tossed around a few times, I thought you might be it."
Kylen shrugs apologetically. "Actually, I'm something of a fan of your little entourage. Is it true that the girl over there is really the Princess Amelia?" he asks, questioningly.
"Wow, you're a fan of ours?" Gourry asks, amazed. "I never thought we'd ever have any fans..." Turning to face his other companions, he waves them over, "Hey, Lina, Amelia! This guy's a fan of ours!"
Finally noticing the magic marker he somehow aquired, Gourry has a brief instant of puzzlement, but quickly shrugs it off as fortunate providence. "Do you want an autograph?" he asks cheerfully, holding up the magic marker.
"Er, no, I'll be right," replies Kylen, nervously taking a couple of steps back. "Well.. uh, maybe one from the Princess? I've always admired her.. er, dedication," he says, looking over at the girl.
Zelgadis regains conciousness, and stands up. Looking around, he stares in shock. "Amazing. Only one building destroyed this time," Zelgadis mutters.
"I'm pretty sure the dragon crushed another one outside," Lina mutters, gobbling down her flan.
The waitress speaks up to say, "Well, the town is actually relatively intact. While there's some damage here and there, for the most part the tavern and the building next door are the only ones that were really destroyed. Most of our problems seem to be some injured and dead people."
"Are the injuries bad?" Lina asks, stopping eating. "Or beyond your town's abilities to care for?"
Hearing of the injured Amelia rushes out the door, already looking for the injured.
"Nobody seems to be injured gravely amongst those living, though it would be nice if we'd had a healer to help out," the waitress replies to Lina, not noticing Amelia's abrupt departure.
Seeing Amelia rush outside, Lina nods with satisfaction. "You're in luck! That girl's a priestess, so this sort of thing is right up her alley."
Lina returns her attention to the flan.
Gourry finishes off his flan and gives a satisfied burp. "That was nice," he says, patting his stomach. "So, what are we going to do now, Lina?" he asks, standing up and walking over to where Lina is eating her flan.
Lina picks up her pace, while guarding against Gorry with her knife, just in case, and her own flan is but a memory in several short moments.
Hey... Kizel, wasn't it?" she calls out, recalling the name the bandits used to call the so-called traitor. "Time to set things straight! Let's go to get that treasure you've promised!"
Zelgadis finishes wiping the rubble from his clothes and walks over to Gourry. "Gourry, what's been happening since the inn collapsed?"
"Yo, Zel, you're awake," Gourry waves to the chimera before his gaze catches on the magic marker held in his hand, then switches to the bedoodled face of Zelgadis. "Uh..." The blond swordsman makes a brief attempt to puzzle things out, before shrugging it off as another of life's little mysteries. If it was really important, someone would probably explain it to him...
Refocusing on the question, Gourry searches his memory to try and give as clear and detailed explanation as possible. "Well," he begins, "After you got knocked out, there were a bunch of bandits running around..." he scratches his head in thought for a second, "I think they were called the Poo Drunken Fags or something like that... and we fought them for a bit, and they had a dragon, and Lina cast Dragon Slave on the dragon. And that guy," he points at Kizel, "Is going to lead us to some bandit treasure now."
His explanation complete, Gourry nods in satisfaction before he notices something amiss on Zel's face. Leaning in, he uncaps the magic marker and finishes off one of the bunnies which is missing an ear. "There, that's better!"
Zelgadis twiches violently and pulls out a mirror...
If one were to listen closely they would hear, "Why me..."
Fortunately, the last several years have been spent trying to solve a certain 'skin condition'. Problems like acne, hives, rashes, warts, eczema, and even leprosy would never bother Zelgadis. Something like a simple magic marker would be child's play to remove. Nevertheless...
"Gourry, could I see that magic marker?"
"Uh... okay," Gourry naively hands the pen over. "Is it yours? I don't really know where it came from... when did you draw those rabbots anyway? I didn't notice them when we were eating..." he trails off before perking up, "The look suits you, though! Makes you seem much more approachable!" he says cheerfully.
"Yeah, Zel-chan," Lina adds, poking the chimera in the ribs with an elbow. "You're much more... what Gourry said, now."
"If by 'approachable' you mean 'downright rediculous," mumbles Kylen to Lina, walking next to her.
Lina can't hold it back anymore, and laughs heartily, slapping Zelgadis on his back.
Kylen gives an amused chuckle.
Well, she *seems* like a well-adjusted young girl.. apart from all this wreckage. I suppose the stories would be half-true..
"Well, Miss Inverse- you *are* Lina Inverse?" Kylen asks, curious-like.
"Of course!" she says proudly, puffing out her chest. "You obviously recognized me from my unparalleled beauty and feminine appeal!"
"Er, well, actually, your name was thrown around a fair bit in the tavern," replies Kylen, wisely avoiding the 'flat-chested redhead' thing that he picked her out on straightaway.
Lina sags slightly. "Ah, is that so?"
"Well, it's not like you're unattractive or anything," continues Kylen, brightly. "But that aside for a moment..
Can you tell me how you met the Princess?" he asks, a little uncertainty creeping into his voice.
"Which one?" she asks, scratching the back of her head. "What's her name, with the Dark Lord Zoamelgustar?" Lina snickers.
"..the what? No, I mean the Princess Amelia," replies Kylen, shrugging. "How many do you meet, anyway? It's not like they're an everday occurence."
"Hmm, now that I think about it, there are fewer and fewer kingdoms these days," Lina says, looking thoughtful. "How mysterious."
Shaking her head, she focuses on his question. "Amelia and I go way back, actually, Mr...?"
"Call me Seyra," replies Kylen. "I'm still surprised that the Princess would stick around somebody like you.. with all the trouble you, er, run into, I'm surprised Prince Phil would even let her."
"Somebody," Lina asks, her left eyebrow twitching, "like me?"
"Well, yes. I mean, an adventurer such as yourself would be going to all sorts of places, wouldn't she?" replies Kylen, speaking very hurriedly in some kind of appeasing tone. "Wouldn't that, er, make it difficult for her to do her, um, royal duties?"
"Umm." Lina scratches her temple, moving her bandanna slightly. "You've met Phil, right?"
"Well, I've seen him once or twice giving a public address," replies Kylen, shrugging. "He's very.. passionate about his kingdoms safety," he continues. "Though I always thought he'd have a blind spot when it came to his daughter."
"Ah, then you wouldn't know he's a muscle-bound freak of nature with the strength of a troll and a stupid devotion to dishing out 'Justice' everywhere, even if it means sending his annoying daughter to tag along." Pausing, Lina adds nonchalantly, "I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course."
"Well, I do remember he was a large man," replies Kylen, shrugging. "Though I am impressed he takes a more hands-on approach instead of working through a proxy."
"I think Amelia is probably a lot safer with us," Gourry says as he joins the conversation. "It seems nearly every member of her family wants to kill Phil to take the throne..." For a brief moment, there is an intense look on Gourry's face as he speaks.
The moment soon passes, and his usually dopey expression resurfaces.
Lina sighs. "He does. Oh, he does." She glanced at Gourry, her mouth opening in surprise, before she shrugs. "That works, too, I guess."
"Excuse me for a moment." Zelgadis steps outside with the magic marker. Shortly thereafter, the sound "FLARE ARROW" can be heard throughout the area. Wiping his face off with a marker, Zelgadis returns inside of what's left of the tavern, still muttering about "Jellyfish", "Bunnies", and "Why me..."
"Ara- is that so?" replies Kyren, turning to Gourry. "Tell me everything," he says, intently.
"Hm?" Gourry blinks at suddenly being the focus of events. "Well, when we first met Amelia, her uncle Randy was trying to kill Phil... and then a few weeks ago there was that big fuss in Saillune when Phil faked his death because there was an assasin, which turned out to be... uh..." he trails off, scratching his chin. "Hey, Lina, what happened in last time we were in Saillune? I forgot..." he trails off lamely.
"Hang on, Gourry," Lina says, holding her hand in front of the blond swordsman. "Just why is it that you're so interested in Saillune's royal family, Mr. Sara?" she asks, peering at Kylen.
"Hmm? Oh, I'm a distant relative," replies Kylen, shrugging. "I like to keep abreast on current affairs, in case I'm needed for some reason."
"Strange," Lina comments idly, while eyeing Kylen distrustfully. "Phil never meintioned any undead relatives."
"Phil didn't tell you about what happened to his brothers son, then," replies Kylen, flippantly.
Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit thinks Kylen to himself.
Zelgadis stares suspiciously. "A very distant relative, wouldn't you say..."
"The only nephew of Phil I had the pleasure of meeting conspired to kill him, Amelia and the rest of us," Lina says, raising an eyebrow. "You don't seem like dear, departed Alfred to me."
"Undead? Is he a ghost?!" Gourry asks, trying to see if he can move his hand through the allegedly undead person.
Kylen looks at Gourry's hand. It'd be amusing if he wasn't confronting a trigger-happy sorceress who he highly doubted had any reservations about leaving him a pile of ash.
"Hardly. A ghost has no physical form. You can tell you're confronting one by the way it walks," he replies. "They never get their feet in perfect alignment with the ground, so they'll either be hovering slightly above it or going into it by accident.
And I'd rather you didn't compare me to Alfred. We never got along," he finishes.
"That's a point for you, then," Lina allows. "I assume you're suppose to be Prince Randy's son, then?"
Gourry steps back and keeps quiet, deciding to let Lina handle the situation. She always does, after all...
"Hardly. My father, Robert, died when I was three," replies Kylen. "I barely knew Randy."
"The Saillune royal family has a lower life expectancy than I thought," Lina mutters to herself. "I don't suppose you have any proof of your claim?"
"I have a badge of the crest," replies Kylen, pulling a small emblem out of his cowl. "You can ask Amelia, if you want, and she'll tell you it's real."
Caelena hummed as she watched the interaction, stretching slightly. "We'll move out now. I've got a few ideas," she murmured, keeping her voice low.
Standing, she shrugged, kicking a piece of roof, before heading out the back, looking for another exit.
"Two can play that game!" Lina announces, taking Amelia's crest out of her pocket and holding it proudly.
Kylen raises an eyebrow. "How on earth did you get that? They're supposed to be restricted only to those who are actually part of the bloodline."
Raquel nodded, giving the rest of the assembled group a cursory glance, before following Cz from the demolished tavern.
"The same way you got yours, obviously!" Lina proclaims. "By--" She stops suddenly, and looks at her audience. "Never mind that!" the red-head exclaims, changing the topic. "This still doesn't explain why Philionel's nephew would be undead!"
"It's a sordid, self-righteous story which I doubt you would believe, anyway," replies Kylen, snorting. "Get Amelia. I can prove it. She knows things only a member of the family would know. She can question me. As much as I'd rather she didn't know I was here..
Or if you fear for her safety, have her a distance away, and relay the questions."
Lina mock-yawns. "Actually, I'm not interested." She turns away from Kylen, and heads towards the ex-bandit. "Treasure, treasure," she sings, "here I come!"
Kylen stares, open-mouthed, abashed at missing out on a chance to bitch and moan.
"Is she always like that?" he wonders aloud.
Gourry gives the vampire a wordless shrug that conveys the full depth of all the emotion he has experienced since becoming Lina's bodyguard. Then he heads on over to the bandit to find out what their next wacky adventure will entail.
Zelgadis interjects, "I'm interested. I'll go get Amelia. This way, you can prove your story. And you shouldn't be concerned about Amelia's safety. Rather your own, if you're lying to us." Zelgadis heads outside to get Amelia.
...And almost runs into her returning from the tasks she ran out to do.
"Mr Zelgadis, are you looking for something?"
"Yes, I was looking for you." Zelgadis says. Directing her to the table where Kylen, Lina, and Gourry were at, he says discreetly, "This man says he's a relative of yours, and has the royal crest."
"Family? Here?" Amelia takes a closer look.
"Ahh... yes, that's right," pipes up Kylen. "Havn't see you in a while, Amelia-chan."
Amelia blinks.
"Eh?"
She takes a closer look at the man. Closer, closer, until she pulls back in surprises! She points a shooked finger at the black clad man.
"You! Y-you're... you're... Um, who aho are you again?"
Kylen rubs the back of his head. "Er, Kylen. Elder cousin. Invited you to a ball when I was 13, 'cos my secluded life kept me away from.. eligible young women."
Amelia goes into the classic Thinker pose.
"Kylen, Kylen. Oh, I remember now! Cousin!" Amelia leaps toward Kylen with stars in her eyes...
... Before pulling a cross on him.
Kylen recoils from the cross only a few inches from his face, stuttering out something incomprehensible that sounds like a combination of frustration and pleading.
"It's so good to see you! How have you been? You don't call or write. I mean really, when where you planning to visit again?" Amelia says pleasently, keeping Kylen at bay with the cross.
"Couldn't-be-better," groans out Kylen. "Y'know, wandering the country, dodging angry mobs, lugging around a box the size of a horse around, great fun."
"Still haven't found a cure yet, huh?" Amelia states the obvious, tieing the cross around her neck. She holds out a hand to help him up.
Kylen accepts the hand. "No. It's hard to gain access to libraries. None seem to want to take on anyone with an overbite," he replies, dusting himself off.
Amelia nods sagaciously, helping him dust off his sleeves, back...
... and trying to wrap a wreath of garlic around his neck.
Kylen, holding his nose, manages to hope back just away from range. "I ain't gonna hurt you, cuz. Think I'd even try with her nearby?" he complains, jerking a finger at Lina.
Producing a steak (still dripping grease and smelling yummy) and a hammer from somewhere Amelia slowly stalks Kylen.
"Of course not. This is for our own good. The power of Justice compels you!"
Kylen looks at the steak. "Hey, how well is that cooked?" he asks, curiously.
Lina taps her foot, glaring at the ex-bandit and mumbling "~treasure~" to herself.
"Pretty well, and-Hey, don't try to change to subject! Yurr nnnt grrrawa tat eee!" The last was said with the steak in her mouth while threatening Kylen with the hammer, which turns out to be a meat tenderizer.
"Eh. Well. Nice seein' ya, Cuz. Anyone else tries to murder Phil, tell me, will you?" finishes Kylen. "Oh, yeah, know anyone who wants to lug my box to the capital, for me?" he asks, glancing at Gourry and Zel.
Amelia pauses her advance.
"You're going home?"
"Yes," replies Kylen. "If there's a cure, it should be found there. If it's not.. well, who knows?"
Amelia jumps to the tallest pillar and points to Saillune, striking a pose.
"Of course! If there's a cure anywhere it's in Saillune!"
She suddenly drops down to her cousin and starts throttling him.
"If you already knew this why didn't you go already!?"
Kylen dosn't really react to the throttling. "A week after I was free to roam as I pleased, I came to the capital."
He cricks his neck. "I don't think any human can appreciate just how bloody much a Ra Tilt can hurt."
"Daddy will be so happy to see you," Amelia gushed, continuing her stranglehold.
"Last time Phil saw me, he yelled 'PACIFIST PUNCH!' and impaled me with a tree," replies Kylen. "I was lucky he forgot to sharpen it first," he mutters. "It's probably better he dosn't know I come back."
Amelia is hunched over a notebook muttering.
"Sharpen first, then nail... to... tree. Right."
Kylen snatches the notebook and flips through it, eyes growing more aghast at each page.
"Some faith you have in me, cuz," he moans, taking out a ruby-red amulet. "Take a look at this," he says, showing it to her. "With this, I never need to kill to survive. So put away all that junk, I ain't gonna hurt you."
Amelia makes a grab for the notebook!
Kylen lets the girl take it back, lamenting that she probably didn't hear him.
Zelgadis ahems. "Well, Kylen, it seems you are who you say you are. Planning on heading to Saliune now?"
"Maybe," replies Kylen, rocking back on his heels. "I can hardly leave tonight. I'll work it out tomorrow. There's no rush, I've got forever to look for a cure."
"I've been looking for my own cure for my 'skin condition'. It's been a while since I've found anything new." Zelgadis says.
Kylen shrugs. "My consolations. Tell me, does your form extend to the nullification of the effects of alcohol? I can tell you, I've made more money from drinking games than I ever would as a sellsword."
Zelgadis smiles slightly and says, "No, alcohol still affects my body, though much less than normal. I'm partial to red wine in this form. "
Zelgadis looks over at Lina, who is still chanting "Treasure, treasure, oh goody" "You know, I've found many interesting items and spells while traveling with Lina. You might want to ask her about coming along." Zelgadis says idily.
'I'm not too sure on this 'cousin' of Amelia's. Best if I keep a eye on him. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' Zelgadis thinks.
"Eh. I don't think she'd want me along," replies Kylen, giving the redhead an edgy look. "That aside, I really must go to the capital. If I can get access to the Royal Library.."
Kizel blinks at the hungry look on Lina's face as her chants of treasure manage to drag his attention off the...oddities of the Saillune royal family.
"Well, I suppose we can go now, although it is dark. We might encounter other bandits during the night," Kizel warns before he remembers who he's talking to. "...or we can just go now and you can loot them on the way, I suppose."
"Is their camp far?" Lina asks Kizel.
"Well, I think I took something around 3-4 hours to get here, although I was injured and I didn't exactly get to check time while on the run..." Kizel states, scratching his head, trying to figure out a better estimate of the location. "If I remember correctly, this town was about 7 miles west from the forest where our hideout is, was, at."
Lina thinks this through very carefully. On the one hand, she doesn't want to go anywhere at night. On the other, someone might steal her treasure if she wai--
"Let's go!" Lina exclaims, grabbing Kizel's arm. "Gourry, Zel, Amelia, we're leaving!"
"What, now?" Amelia is baffled. "But Ms Lina, it's still night out."
"Night is the best time to do things!" replies Kylen. "Nobodies watching, those who are are half asleep, it's unexpected.."
"The treasure waits for no one!" Lina announces.
"R-right." Amelia raises a fist half heartedly. Even doers of Justice needed sleep every so often. Then again, there were more bandits to be defeated.
More strongly she calls out "Right!"
"Well.. have fun. Was nice to see you again, cousin, and an.. experiance to meet Miss Inverse, herself."
With that, Kylen excuses himself..
Kizel shrugs, "Okay, just remember to stay on the lookout. We might encounter a rival bandit gang or something else."
That said, he begins to walk out of the rubble at a leisurely pace, his hands behind his head, as he heads towards the east exit of the town. Once at the exit of the town, he pulls out a bottle of wine from within his jacket, and opens it, looking at his companions with a shrug and a chuckle. "Old habits die hard."
Taking a long drink from the bottle, some of the clear liquid dripping past his mouth, he smiles. "Ah, that hit the spot. So do you guys want to just walk over there, or break into a run?"
He didn't really care, he was still happy over the whole still-being-alive bit. Besides, did it matter? It wasn't like there was anyone to steal the treasure, he was the last remaining member. Ex-member anyhow.
OOC: regardless of answer, I'll timeskip to forest entrance unless you want to chat along the way *shrugs* Bean and Asrana, you guys can follow from behind if you want, catch up with them at a later date, or just split off and form your own little group in this adventure. If you want the latter, I'll form a new thread for you guys to work in.
"We'll walk," Lina says, frowning. "What kind of idiot runs in the night?"
Kizel wisely withholds from saying 'idiots with loot on their mind', lest the redheaded sorceress take it too personal. Instead shrugging, he leads them towards the east where the forest in question lays.
After about three hours of travel, they arrive at the entrance of the forest, where Kizel stops. Pausing, he looks back at those following him, and asks, "Anybody here can spare a Lighting spell? Moonlight isn't gonna do us much good once we're inside and the leaves cover up most traces of light."
Amelia casts a lighting spell.
Kizel gives a nod of thanks to the princess as he begins to wander in. "Be careful of what you do, and whatever you do, don't rush in, we set some traps to discourage other possible bandits. Just follow me, and we should all be fine."
Fifteen minutes later, they're standing in front of what looks to be the entrance to a cavern, the path leading in a downward direction. "Home sweet musky home," Kizel says, wincing a bit at the pungent dragon odor coming from within. "I really wish they could have made Roy clean up more often than he did."
Lina twitches, but then recites 'treasure' to herself.
Kizel continues to walk in, picking up one torch on the way in. "There aren't any traps from here on out. Cavern is pretty big, and has a few passages here and there, but mostly, we just want to follow the big one."
He keeps walking, ignoring the smaller man-sized passages, heading in deeper as he adds with a joking tone, "We kept the treasure with Roy. I mean really, even if someone got past the traps, would they really mess with a dragon? Present company excluded, of course."
A few minutes later, they reached the end of the cavern, and found something that would probably be making Lina drool. It was almost a miniature hill of gold and gems, just the right size to work as a dragon's bed. Along the cavern wall, numerous other random artifacts were littered, such as paintings and sculptures.
"Yay, treasure!" Lina exclaims, and takes off her cloak, piling the gold and gems on it. Once done, she checks the rest of the items for magical enchantments and the like.
Gourry grabs enough gold coins to fill his money pouch to its capacity, but doesn't take any more than that. Being burdened down with loot isn't much fun, and wealth isn't really a motivating factor in his life.
Once that's done, he looks around the treasure hoard to see if anything else catches his eye.
Using her keen eye for anything valuable and the rest of her trained senses, Lina seeks out the items that would fetch the largest price, and then points them out. "Zel-chan, it would be really nice if you carried those for me," she says in her sweetest voice, batting her eyelashes.
Amelia idly browses the area looking over trinkets, disapointed that there are no more bandits.
***
Gourry notices a portrait of the holy tree of Flagoon, which Sylphiel might like. Other than that, nothing really catches his eye. Amelia doesn't find anything of possible interest either.
Gourry smiles as he notices the painting. It looked like a nice thing to give Slyphiel, especially after her home had been blown up by Rezo, and then that nasty business with Hellmaster...
Humming cheerfully, he carefully removes the painting from its frame and rolls it up for easier storage in his pack.
After giving Lina a withering look, Zelgadis looks around the treasure for anything remotely related to a cure. Enchanted items, old books, scrolls, etc... Zelgadis also fills his belt pouch with treasure.
Lina gets distracted by Gourry picking up the depiction of Flagoon, and thus she completely misses Zel's reaction. Stalking over to Gourry, Lina says casually, "Nice picture of Flagoon you've got there."
Gourry smiles gormlessly at Lina. "Yeah, I think it'll make a nice present to give to Sylphiel next time we see her."
"You can't do that!" Lina protests. "What if it's valuable? Flagoon's gone now, so pictures of it should pitch more on the market!"
"But Lina, we don't really need the money. And if it's valuable, it makes a nicer present," Gourry replies.
"Then it's even worse!" Lina yells. "You shouldn't give expensive gifts to strange girls!"
Gourry frowns. "I know Sylphiel might seem a little bit strange at times, but I've known her for a long time, and she used to cook such great food..." Gourry trails off in rememberance, a bit of drool collecting at the side of his mouth before he collects himself. "Anyway, I think she deserves a nice present." He nods to himself, seemingly satisfied with that explanation.
"But Ms Sylphiel isn't strange," Amelia says, coming up behind them.
Gourry turns to Amelia. "You might think that, Amelia, but you don't know her like I do. Sometimes when she'd get out some of her toys she could be very strange," he says in a serious tone.
Yep, he could just remember the time Sylphiel had that set of toy dragons and soldiers, but instead of playing out a proper battle, she pretended they were all living peacefully and the dragons would give people rides... that was very strange, he thought. And the way she always insisted the blonde haired male doll was married to that black haired female one... she was always so insistent about that fact. Very strange indeed.
"You... played with her toys?" Lina asks slowly, her face turning redder with each word, as her imagination goes wild.
"Well, I didn't really have a choice," Gourry protests, "she insisted. I didn't really enjoy it, since she wouldn't let me play the way I wanted to. She always forced me to do it in her way... it made me uncomfortable, but how could I refuse?"
Amelia wisely decides to withdraw. Lina was wearing one of her looks.
"What do you mean, Mr Gourry?"
"That evil, wicked girl!" Lina exclaims, posing on the mountain of treasure. "I knew she wasn't right in the head since she was always after Jellyfish Brains, but I had no idea--" She lowers her head, shaking it sadly, before raising it to stare at the ceiling dramatically, tears flowing down her cheeks. "The beautiful female sorcery genius, Lina Inverse, will avenge the great injustice done to you, Gourry! Mark my words, Sylphiel... you'll get what's coming for you!"
Gourry starts to blush. Talking about how he had played with a girl's dolls was really embarrassing!
"Look, I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I did enjoy it a little, but it's still not something I'm proud of," he says defensively.
Then again, considering how often these girls forced him to cross-dress, playing with Sylphiel's dolls wasn't really that big a deal...
"Lina, you don't need to get so worked up, it's hardly worse than some of the things you've forced me to do!"
"Lies!" Lina cries out, looking around wildly. "I have never had any relations of that kind with Gourry! Ever!"
"Ms Lina, I never knew!" Amelia crys.
"Then again, Ms Lina and Mr. Gourry have been traveling together for a while now. And alone, at that." Amelia averts her eyes and blushes, poking her index fingers together.
Gourry looks between the two melodramatic girls and holds back a sigh. This was obviously another of those times when everyone else was having a different conversation to the one he thought was happening...
"What are you talking about, Amelia, you've forced me to do it just as much as Lina has!"
Not that Gourry ever learns from the experience...
"LIES!" Lina protests, her eyes darting wildly between Amelia, Zelgadis, Gourry and Kizel. Hearing Gourry's words, her gaze focuses on Amelia. "You pervert!" the red-head cries out angrily. "Fireball!"
"W-what?!" Amerlia sputters, stunned by the acusation.
Sadly, too stunned to dodge the fireball.
Kizel winces from where he stands staring at the group, a bit shocked at witnessing Amelia covered in soot and having frazzled, slightly burned hair. Her body remains prone in the ground, though her fingers seem to be twitching, her mouth gaping wide open, and her eyes ressembling swirling spirals.
'Maybe now's still not the best time to bring up an offer about the map...' he thinks, deciding to continue to wait for Lina to be in a more agreeable mood from continuing to pillage loot.
"Justice prevails!" Lina announces, posing the mountain of treasure. Then, Amelia's and Sylphiel's perversions forgotten, she points at the most valuable items around, and sweetly asks Gourry to carry them for her, as smoke still trails from her index finger.
"Okay," Gourry says agreeably, glad to be off the subject of his crossdressing and playing with toys, he does his best to gather the items Lina has picked out.
Lina nods happily, and skips over to Zelgadis, clasping her hands in front of her. "You'll help a needy girl, won't you?" she asks in an even sweeter tone of voice than before.
Zelgadis gives Lina another withering stare. "No, Lina, I do believe you can carry your own treasure." Zelgadis then moves to check on Amelia, while keeping an eye on the treasure-hungry Lina.
"Owie," Amelia mumbles, still out of it.
Zelgadis smiles at Lina. "You're right, Lina. I will help a needy girl." Zelgadis then casts Recovery on Amelia.
"Burst Rond!" Lina cries out, sending an impressive display of fireballs at Zelgadis's back and, completely by accident, at Amelia who is near him.
With a nasty tick in her eyebrow, Lina clenches her fists tightly, glaring at the chimera.
A slightly charred Amelia blink-blinks and falls over.
Realizing Amelia would get hit too, Zelgadis steps in front of Amelia and crosses his arms, taking the Burst Rond.
"Geez, Lina, it's just a joke." Zelgadis says.
The spell hits the chimera, charring his cloak and back impressively as the miniature fireballs explode. The force of impact, besides the burning, also pushes Zelgadis downward, landing on top of Amelia, his hand on her right breast. While he did succeed in protecting the young princess from the attack at least, whether that shall save him from retribution remains to be seen.
Zelgadis retracts his hand as though it was burned, then stands up quickly and acts as if nothing had happened, though it was pretty interesting to see a chimera blush.
Nobody really comments on Zel's incidental groping as Lina returns fuming to gathering up her treasure. The others soon join in helping.
After about an hour of gathering the variety of treasure in some large bags, Lina stares at her treasure pleased. Gourry is struggling under the weight of his bag, which contained what Lina considered the most valuable of the bunch. Zel and Amelia seem fine, if still feeling a bit burned and annoyed with Lina.
Before the subject of carrying the treasure comes up, Kizel moves towards Lina, figuring she's as happy as she's gonna get. Besides, better to start talking before the chimera and princess begin stating that they won't help carry Lina's "treasure" and ruin the mood he'd worked hard to set up.
"So was the treasure worthwhile?" Kizel starts asking, hoping to lead up conversation to the map and further treasure.
Lina smiles. "It wasn't bad for such a group of losers!" she replies cheerfully.
Kizel reigns in the temptation to twitch. He had been a member of those 'losers' after all. Managing to keep his sense of business, so to speak, he continues smoothly, "Well, then, if you thought this wasn't bad, would you be interested in a search for a treasure much more vast? I'm sure someone in your occupation has heard of the Condemned and the secret treasure?"
OOC: Okay, just making the name up, but consider the Condemned to be a notorious bandit gang from the past thought to have hoarded treasure enough to possibly fund an entire kingdom if they so desired, and the power to simply take over one as well. They chose not to of course, instead prefering the life of pillaging and being the strongest, as well as living off well from their treasure, which consisted not only of gold and jewels, but just about anything man ever dreamed of attaining.
Even some mazoku respected them, and it was thought that some of their members had in fact been mazoku. Though their leader was a great strategist, he was also a paranoid and selfish man. It's not certain how, but just before he died, the vast majority of their treasure disappeared as well as fifteen of his best members. Without the support of their leader and the power of those fifteen, the rest of the gang soon found themselves breaking apart, caught, and condemned to death.
Over the ages, one frequent rumor was the the treasure had been hidden and that a map existed that could lead one to it. Neither the map or treasure had apparently ever been found and the story lost to legend and myth.
"What do you mean by 'someone in your occupation'?" Lina asks suspiciously.
"I think he means because you're a Bandit Killer, Lina," Gourry pipes up helpfully.
"...And adventurer, of course," Kizel corrects smoothly after Gourry. "Because of what you do, I would imagine that you'd have heard of that gang of old and the treasure now thought to be merely a myth."
Kizel pauses, as he digs into his jacket to pull out a scroll. "This treasure truly exists however, and I hold part of the map that is the key to finding it."
'This was it,' he thinks as he stares at her in eyes, waiting for her reaction. He remains confident that even if she attempts to steal the map, she would still need him. He hadn't shared everything just yet after all.
"Come on, Gourry!" Lina calls out, turning away from Kizel. "Let's carry this stuff to town, where we could sell it!"
"Okay," Gourry says, falling in behind Lina. The sooner they sell it, the sooner he gets to stop carrying it, after all.
Kizel blinks, a bit shocked. Of all reactions, he hadn't expected her to turn -down- the thought of a treasure hunt.
'Think, man, think,' he thought, trying to figure out a way to convince her to partner up with him. He may have had knowledge to get there, but not the power for it. 'Hrmmm...'
"You know, it -was- rumored that besides gold and jewels, the treasure consisted of spellbooks, talismans, and various other items of power..." he mentions in an almost idle tone to hide any desperation. People of power sometimes had a desire to gain even more power, if Lina Inverse didn't, he'd have to go looking elsewhere.
"Too bad one part of the map is useless by itself..." Lina drawls out, making a show out of picking up one of the bags 'o loot.
'Score!' the ex-bandit thinks gleefully. She hadn't ripped out the map from his hands either, so it was safe to add at least a bit more information.
His tone grows more animated, and he states, "But what we do have -isn't- useless."
Opening up the scroll, he reveals it to be the top half of a scroll. Near the top is some written statement, and further down is a ripped map, showing a large X covering over most of a certain area. The desert of destruction.
Letting Lina look, he explains, "The map states that there are keys needed to get in. We can assume that the lower half probably shows the location of the keys, as well as maybe a more detailed map of the treasure's location in the desert of destruction, but we know the general location."
"I also hold one of the keys," he says with a smile.
"The Condemned... wasn't their leader Salazar Kloh?" Zelgadis chimes in.
"Yes, his home base was originally in Ralteague. It's where I found the key that I have, in fact," Kizel says with a nod to the chimera.
"I dunno." Lina looks at Gourry. "Do you want to go on a wild goose chase?"
"Me?" Gourry points at himself and blinks dumbly at Lina's question.
The blond swordsman holds himself in silent contemplation for a moment, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Well... isn't the Desert of Destruction really far away? I'd rather just... I dunno, travel around places where we can go to inns and eat good food every night." Suddenly stuck on that thought, Gourry jolts as if struck by lightning! "I just remembered something!" he exclaims, thumping a fist in his open palm, "Hey! Won't that Dragon Cuisine we wanted be finished cooking now? What was the name of that town..." he trails off, scratchin his head in thought.
"Sold!" Lina agrees readily, and picks up more bags of treasure. "Let's go, guys! We can't keep Mr. Ashford waiting!" After grabbing all that she can carry, Lina heads outside, whistling merrily.
"...but," Kizel starts, stretching his hand out, only to lower his head and sigh. Keeping the attention of these guys was harder than he'd expected it to be.
Gourry dutifully follows after Lina, his small brain stuck on the thought of Dragon cuisine, but Amelia and Zel take more time. The chimera seems to remain interested, even with the lack of clues.
At the same time, however, Zelgadis also wishes to avoid commiting himself to what could be potentially another dead end in his search for a cure. Lina herself had already dismissed it as a wild goose chase apparently, and he did trust her instincts when it came to treasure for the most part.
With a sigh, the partly-human man likewise leaves after his other two companions, leaving the princess alone with the ex-bandit and her thoughts.
Like with the chimera, Kizel can't make out quite what's keeping the princess, but as even the interested Zelgadis has departed, he can imagine the end result. "Won't you be leaving after your friends?" he asks with a dejected tone.
"Well, it does sound interesting. But..." Amelia hesitates.
"...But you'd rather eat Dragon Cuisine than chase after an ex-bandit's 'wild goose chase', despite his almost dying over a map for it. Yes, I understand perfectly," Kizel says depressedly before sighing, and sitting down on the rocky ground, looking upwards. "I guess all that's left for me to do is to continue to hunt more clues. If even the greediest of persons won't take a chance on this, why would anybody else?"
He figures he'll head back to the remains of ol' Salazar's base. He'd found one key there, he might find something else there to gain help with later on.
Amelia pats him on the back.
"That's the spirit! Never give up on your dreams Mr. Kizel! Even if it is hunting down some moldy old bandit's lair. You gotta believe!"
Amelia poses dramatically for a moment, head held high.
"I have a dream. That one day, the light of Justice will shine into every heart, everwhere. And though there's been hardship (Ms Lina) and danger (Ms Lina) and misunderstandings (Ms Lina too, come to think of it ^^;) I shall never give up! And I really want to try that Dragon Cuisine!" Amelia runs out of the cavern, yelling for the others to wait up.
Kizel shakes his head amusedly at the princess' speech, and shrugs. "Maybe I'll give that dragon cuisine a shot too before heading off clue hunting."
With that, he likewise leaves his ex-home, pondering on the thought.
Once outside, Lina puts her bags next to Gourry, and casts Boost. Then, using Levitation, she floats high in the air, hanging above the entrance to the treasure cave, and chants the Dragon Slave incantation during freefall.
Zel steps out in time to see Lina casting Boost. Looking around, he stands ready for attack, when he notices Lina levitate. Before he can ask what is going on, however, spellwords for the Dragon Slave begin to be chanted, and he yells into the cavern for Amelia.
Amelia and Kizel are not far from the exit, however, and start running at the sound of the chimera's words. They are just at the cavern mouth when the red-headed sorceress finishes her chant and the ball of power that was forming is launched from her out stretched arms.
An explosion follows as the cavern explodes upwards in a mushroom cloud of devastation from its inner depths outward. The explosion reaches right to the tip of the entrance, flinging Amelia and Kizel outwards.
Amelia flies into a tree, and begins crashing down, until her robes snag onto a branch. She is left dangling there, her eyes once more swirling, sticks and leaves sticking to her clothes and hair. She was far enough however to no be burned.
Kizel is not so lucky. While he does not travel quite as far, his back is exposed to the edge of the blast area, instantly charring his clothing and leaving a burned backside, as well as a bald spot in the back of his head, just before he is flung forward. He crashes into the blond swordsman, and the combined impact of the man and the winds caused by the spell, they both come crashing downward to the ground together, buried under the spilling bags of treasure atop them.
Zelgadis is luckier than the three, having readied himself better. Though pushed backwards a ways, he experiences no damage whatsoever.
And perhaps the luckiest of all is a grinning redhead as she lands lightly on her feet, the winds having never even touched her as she fell. She stares at her handiwork, even as Zel stares at her with a gaping expression.
Gourry digs himself out from under all the spilled loot. "Lina, what was that for?!" he asks, visibly agitated.
"If I can't take that treasure, no one else can!" she lectures her traveling companion. "Isn't that obvious, Gourry?" Walking towards her bags with that same grin on her face, she picks them up, and heads towards the awaiting Dragon Cuisine!
"But..." Gourry looks over at the Princess who was nearly buried alive, then hangs his head and sighs. Not like he could ever talk sense into Lina...
"Hey, are you okay?" He looks down at Kizel and removes some of the loot which is burying him.
Kizel just groaned, not bothering to get up. His whole body -hurt- right now.
Gourry bundles up all the loot, and, satisfied that Kizel's life isn't in immediate danger, hurries after Lina. It wouldn't do for her to eat all the Dragon Cuisine first, after all...
"~Dragon Cuisine~" Lina sings to herself, giggling at the thought of finally tasting it, as she walks.
Zelgadis heads over to Kizel. "Recovery!" Zelgadis then heads over to Amelia. "Recovery!" As the healing magic washes over the two, he shakes his head.
Amelia jumps to her feet striking various battle poses.
"Who? What? Where? When? Why?"
"Lina. Dragon Slave. Here. Just now. You don't want to know." Zelgadis replies.
Zelgadis then walks over to Kizel and gives him a hand to lift him on his feet. "Not all of us are crazy." Looking him over, Zel says "You might want to get a couple sets of clothes. You'll need it traveling with this group."
Kizel gives a brief nod, once more glad to be happy, but pondering on the safety of himself if he stuck around. Still, it would be somewhat of an experince being around Lina Inverse's group.
***
Three days later, the whole group is nearing the town where Ashford, the cook of dragon cuisine, resides. They have long since gotten rid of the bulk of the New Dragon Fang's treasure, and currently, Lina and Gourry are almost drooling in thought of the exquisite meat being in their belly. Amelia, Zelgadis and Kizel all walk behind the two, a bit disturbed by the hungry stares.
Once the lake is in view, Lina's and Gourry's desire grows to be too much for them, as they break into a sprint towards the lake and Ashford's restaurant. The others, not wanting to be left without anything to eat, soon follow.
The restaurant looks the same as always once they all arrive to the entrance, albeit a bit empty. Once they enter, a waiter quickly sits them at a table, and asks them what they wish to eat today. Lina proudly makes her request for dragon cuisine, Gourry nodding besides her, a thin trail of drool apparent at the edge of his mouth.
The waiter blinks, and starts to look sad as he reveals a startling situation. "I'm sorry, but we can't fill your order, even if you had dragon meat stored already. Recently, a very rich and influential man, Ralcyon, came by the area, hearing about our great dragon cuisine. However, he was too impatient to wait for the meat to cook and too selfish to part with his money. Learning that Mr. Ashford had some dragon meat stored and waiting for a customer, he had Mr. Ashford kidnapped. The dragon meat also disappereared along with him. We've asked for help, but because of Ralcyon's influence, we can't really do anything. Mr. Ashford probably won't be released until Ralcyon has finished off all the dragon cuisine either..."
Changing expressions, the waiter asks cheerfully, "Is there anything else we can have prepared for you in the meantime?"
OOC: Go save your meat and cook or something... >_>
Lina stands up abruptly, knocking her chain to the ground. A large fiery aura of pure menace burns around her, as she glares at the waiter. "Say what?!" she exclaims, reaching out and grabbing him by the front of his uniform.
"That fiend!" Amelia stands abruptly, slamming her fists on the table. "That was our dragon meat! How dare he!"
"Where is he? Where is he?!" Gourry demands, rising to his feet and clutching the hilt of his sword as he looks around frantically, almost expecting the Dragon Cuisine thief to reveal himself.
Zelgadis chimes in, "It's best if you tell them what you know. Otherwise I won't be responsible for the damages."
The waiter eeps as he drops his order pad, intimidated by the redhead grabbing him by his uniform, and bringing him closer and closer to her fiery aura.
"It happened two days ago! I swear we tried to get Mr. Ashford back!" he stated quickly, fearing for his life as he wildly swung his arms around. "Look, if you can get them both back, we'll gladly take your order! Ralcyon lives about fifteen miles due south from here! Just don't kill me, I only work here!"
At full speed, Gourry dashes out of the inn, knocking aside any foolish enough to get in his way. He then orients himself South, and begins running in that direction, salivating at the thought of finally getting to taste that exquisite Dragon Cuisine.
Zelgadis asks the waiter for detailed directions, just to make sure the group doesn't destroy the wrong mansion and person.
"You'll come and show us where it is, won't you?" Lina asks nicely, a twitch in her right eye.
The waiter was about to start to list as much information as he could at the chimera's request, when Lina made her own request. Noticing the twitch in her eye (hard to miss when he was still being held closely to her), he nods after a moment, albeit a bit glumly.
Some time later, the waiter is standing in front of a hill pointing towards a sole mansion, keeping to itself amongst countless territory. Littered through areas of the territory are various tents and shacks. All the territory is enclosed within gates.
As the gang watches, Zelgadis holding onto Gourry who keeps making a grabbing motion as he tries to get away and into the mansion, drool escaping his lips, the waiter asks, "Can...can I leave? I don't want to get involved with Ralcyon's men. He values his privacy and has hired some of the most notorious men he could find to protect his territory as well as generally act as his mercenaries."
"First, could you describe this Ralcyon guy?" Lina asks the terrified waiter. "He needs to be taught a lesson. No one messes with Lina Inverse's food!"
"Uh, I've never really seen him, I just know him by name..." the waiter answers nervously. "I think he's supposed to be fat and have a mustache and beard."
He wonders if that's good enough to be left off the hook.
"You hear that, Gourry?" Lina asks the swordsman, letting go of the waiter. Smiling evilly and cracking her knuckles, she raises her hands, crossing them slightly above her head, and calls out, "Raywing!"
Gourry nods eagerly to Lina. Not that he really cares what Ralcyon looks like. After all, aside from Mr Ashford, everyone inside the mansion will either be Ralcyon, or work for him. And he remembers what Mr Ashford looks like.
Zelgadis chants "Raywing!" as well, and follows Lina in. 'Sometimes the direct approach is the best one. This should be interesting.'
Once Zelgadis lets go of him, Gourry charges forward like a rocket, speeding towards the gate.
Once upon the gates, Gourry makes a dramatic leap to clear over them. Catching onto the top edge he makes a quick check to be sure that dropping is fine before doing so.
As he lands though, he hears someone shout, "Hey! Who do you think you are?" from the left side, his entry apparently noticed. Standing there, amongst some trees is a young armored man holding his sword at the ready.
Meanwhile, both Lina and Zelgadis fly higher over the territory, their entry unnoticed. That soon changes as Lina proceeds to throw a fireball towards the front yard, promptly toasting a group of mercenaries as she lands amongst their toasty and twitching bodies. Zel remains high above, seemingly an observer only of the action while various groups of men begin to cautiously approach the redheaded sorceress.
As this all happens, Amelia sends off the waiter, and Kizel who had been quietly following the group asks, "So aren't you joining your friends to avenge yourselves?"
He grasps for the back of his head, where there's still an obvious bald spot, his hair growing back too slowly for his taste. "I think I'll be sticking out of the action here where it's safe."
"I am Gourry Gabriev!" the blond swordsman declares, posturing dramatically. "And I won't allow anyone to deny me the Dragon Cuisine which I crave!"
He then draws his sword and furiously attacks the man!
"Nobody enters into Lord Ralcyon's territory unwelcome!" the man cries out as he barely manages to defend all of Gourry's attacks somehow.
Even he realizes he was totally lucky, though, under the strain of the blond swordsman attack. Knowing he's easily no match, he loudly calls for reinforcements that might have missed his earlier cry as he focuses totally on defending and keeping the intruder occupied.
Despite his focus on defense, Gourry defeats the young mercenary with his next wave of attacks. His progress is derailed however as more and more mercenaries begin to pop up from behind the trees.
With a cry of pure rage, symptomatic of one who has been denied the exquisite taste of Dragon Cuisine for far too long, Gourry meets the challenge of these new fighters.
Knowing he is outnumbered, Gourry holds back a little bit for defence, but the attacks he does make are focused, lethal slashes.
OOC: I'm attacking twice per round, and making called shot attacks with each (remember I have the Precise Stroke kensei attribute).
Not missing a beat, Lina drops to one knee, slamming her right palm against the ground as she cries out, "Dug Haut!" to summon huge spears of stone from the ground to impale the mercenaries surrounding her.
Gourry finds himself occupied by the mercenary as he slowly takes them on, two at a time. His skill with the sword, his choice to go for focused, lethal attacks, and greatly helped by his armor, result in minimal damage to him. Four of them run away, frightened by their inability to inflict heavy damage on their opponent.
At the end, eleven bodies are lying on the ground, as Gourry breathes hard. Taking the chance to catch his breath for a few seconds, he soon begins to move towards the mansion, motivated by the thoughts of Dragon Cuisine.
---
ooc: Gourry takes 17 damage over the course of seven rounds.
---
Lina's spell devastates her opponents, all of them taking heavy damage. At the end of the encounter, twenty-two men are downed and bleeding heavily. Ralcyon's forces were not all present however, having to run from their camps to the scene.
Seeing the carnage before them, they approach carefully. Six swordsmen begin to approach the sorceress, while everyone else keeps their distance. Amongst those at a distance, four make a grab for their bows and arrows.
Lina glares angrily at those who would keep her from her Dragon Cuisine, and chants, "Lord of the Darkness and the Four Worlds, I call upon you, grant me all the power that you possess!" while a dark smirk appears on her lips. "Source of all power, crimson fire buring bright! Gather together in my hand and become an inferno... BURST FLARE!"
Gourry runs straight towards the mansion, ignoring the explosions and screaming near where Lina is, and proceeds to kick the door down as he enters, looking for any targets within.
Despite their attempts to stay at a distance, they find themselves still within the fiery red-head's range, as they embrace burning and painful death, many of them turning to ash.
Gourry misses the fiery holocaust occuring behind him as he looks around the mansion. He is in a huge hall, and there are four ways he can currently head towards. To the left, the right, forward, and up the curving stairs to the sides of the room, heading towards a hall above.
After taking a quick second to make sure that Lina is ok, Zelgadis lands outside the front door, draws his sword, and charges in after Gourry.
Looking around frantically, Gourry sniffs the air to see if he can detect the Dragon Cuisine that way...
Zelgadis looks around... "Lets go, Gourry!" Figuring that the cook would be held on the second floor, Zelgadis charges up the stairs, sword at the ready.
With a helpful "Levitation", Lina makes her way to a random second floor window. Breaking it with her sword and clearing the sharp shards of glass out of the way, she opens it and enters the house through it.
Unfortunately, despite his hunger-driven senses, Gourry doesn't detect any of the tantalizing aroma of dragon cuisine. Zelgadis finds himself easily at the top of the stairs as he looks both ways of the hallway, and ponders which way to go. Towards both directions there are numerous doors.
Growling in frustration, Gourry randomly picks a direction and goes charging down the right hallway.
Nothing will stop him from getting that Dragon Cuisine. NOTHING!
The room that Lina has entered appears to have been guest quarters or some such. They are empty however. The bed is a mess, and there seems to be some clothing littering the ground, but nothing of interest appears in the room. There's a door to the side, and one ahead of Lina.
Zelgadis shouts out to Gourry, "Yell if you find them!", then proceeds to check out the left corridor, checking out each room quickly and moving on to the next.
Holding her sword in front of her, Lina kicks in the door on the side.
Gourry slams the doors to the right open, and steps into what seems to be a huge dining hall with a large table stretching from one end of the hall to the other. At the end of the hall sits one man with spiky brown hair, a beard, and black eyes. He has a bandana wrapped around his forehead, and a shiny red armor on. At his side is a sheathed blade, on his lips is a toothpick, and in front of him a plate full of bones.
"So are you my opponent, from those invading Lord Ralcyon's home?" he says as he makes a grab for his sword. "Oh well, you'll do."
***
The door falls forward from Lina's mighty kick, revealing a bathroom. In front of her lies another door, presumably leading to a connected room. Zelgadis who has been searching rooms hears the noise from the downed door further ahead of him, but is unaware of who it is caused by.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Lina calls out, before kicking in the door leading to the adjustent room.
Amelia shrugs, looking at the devistation.
"You know, I'd feel really bad about this if they weren't all bad guys. Come on, we're already behind." Amelia grabs the ex-bandit's arm and drags him toward the mansion.
Pointing his sword at the red-armoured man, Gourry yells, "You'd better not have eaten the Dragon Cuisine!"
He also tries to determine the man's skill as a potential opponent, since he is probably the captain of Ralcyon's guard judging from the attitude and the fancy armour.
The man snorted as he stood up, holding the hilt of the sheathed sword in one hand, and the sheath itself in the other. "Lord Ralcyion? Sharing his rarieties? No, us mercenaries have to settle for his more mundane riches."
A grin decorated his face as he pulled the sword out and calmly began to walk towards Gourry. "Not that I have any problems with that. So shall we dance?"
---
OOC: The man has an ACV of around 7-9. He seems very skilled as a swordsman, though you think not quite as you. He has Extra Attacks Lvl1.
---
Zelgadis, at first cautiously approaching the sound ahead, relaxes as he hears Lina's taunting voice. Lina in the meantime searches the next room, finding nothing of value and joins Zel in the hallway, checking the rooms. Eventually, they come to a large bedroom, separate from the others. It is much fancier and well kept room than the others. At the side of the room is a large wall-safe. Nobody is in the room however.
---
OOC: until R7 shows up, I'll NPC Zel if Lina wishes to talk to him.
---
Kizel presses his feet to the ground as the young Saillune princess drags him through the corpses, complaining, "Hey, I said I wanted to be where it's safe! What if that woman blows up the mansion like she did the cave! I barely survived that!"
Amelia seems ignorant to his pleas though, perhaps hoping to rehabilitate the ex-bandit into a hero of Justice through example. Because of Kizel's dragging feet though, they aren't making much progress in their direction.
"I'll deal with you and then get that Dragon Cuisine! We killed the dragon, and we're the ones who'll eat it!" Gourry declares before moving to attack the man!
OOC: I'm attacking twice, the second attack being a called shot to his neck, and saving one attack to defend twice with no penalty.
Marking the location of the room with the safe in her mind, Lina rushes downstairs with Zel, having checked the top floor of Ralcyon's mansion.
Gourry makes a lunge at the man, looking like a desperate wild animal. The man almost yawns as he lazily blocks the incomming strike with his sword, only to be rudely awakened by Gourry's follow-up attempt to decapitate him, only barely deflecting the attack upwards with his sheath, losing a few strands of hair.
He retaliates with an experimental stab, which Gourry easily avoids by moving backwards, holding his sword straight, his eyes still analyzing the red-armored swordsman for weaknesses.
"I must apologize, I seem to have understimated you," he said with a grin, dropping the sheath, and grabbing his sword with both hands. "This just might be fun after all. Ekanna L'haen. You?"
Gourry grins lopsidedly. "Gourry Gabriev," he replies easily before his expression becomes once more serious. "We'll still fight, but I'll spare you if you tell me where to find Mr Ashford and the Dragon Cuisine."
Lina runs downstairs, Zel running after her. Once both are downstairs, they look for a direction to go. Lina decides to go to the forward path, and slams the twin doors open as she heads down the hallway.
Zelgadis, figuring they might as well split up in their search, the enemies being a relatively simple matter to handle from what he saw, heads towards the left side.
Amelia enters the mansion just then to see both Zel and Lina vanish down their respective directions, even as Kizel continues to complain.
The man snorts at the thought of being spared. "How amusing, me being spared? Still, should you best me, you do deserve a prize, I suppose. The cook is in the basement, which you can get to by going down the hall in front of the entrance. The meat, however, is kept locked and safe in the kitchen behind me."
His grin returns as he states, "Not that you'll get past me, you understand."
With that, he makes a lunge at the blond swordsman.
Gourry attempts to parry the attack before counterattacking with two slashes followed by a third strike at Ekanna's throat!
"The Dragon Cuisine is in there, so Miss Lina wouldn't Dragon Slave the place like she did the cave, unless he's already eaten it. But then the Dragon Slave is so big being out here wouldn't help anyway," Amelia says cheerfully, pulling on the man harder. They go straight.
Gourry successfully parries the sword strike from Ekanna, and attempts to connect with two slashes. First slash misses, but the second one strikes against his armor, pushing him back from the force. Taking advantage of the situation, Gourry goes for a strike to the man's throat, which is blocked by the flat side of Ekanna's blade and deflected to the side.
"Tsk, what happened to sparing me, Mr. Gabriev?" He says with a raised eyebrow, before coughing a small bit of blood, his reddened lips turning into the grin Gourry was becoming accustomed to. "I suppose I'll have to ante up then."
"You don't seem like the type who would accept charity. But if you change your mind, just say so," Gourry grins before pressing the attack with a thrust followed by a wide horizontal slash, holding back a little so he can defend against any unexpected surprises Ekanna might have up his sleeve.
Kizel grumbles as he's stops dragging his feet and walks behind the princess. They were already in enemy territory, he might be relatively safer sticking by her side. Amelia greets Lina from behind with a shout, almost startling the sorceress into firing back at them.
After giving a quick yell at Amelia for almost startling her, the trio continue their search, as they come upon a downward stairway. Going down, they find themselves in a darkened cellar. They can barely make out a man resting on his chair next to a hand-fashioned cell, his eyes closed.
The man raises them up as his ears twitch, and he opens his eyes to stare at them. He calmly stands up to a towering height and Kizel begins to wonder if he might have been wrong in his figure. The man's face is inhuman, fangs jotting out of his mouth, and red empty eyes stare at them. "Ah...guests," he says, licking his lips.
OOC: The two sorceresses, thanks to their monster lore (even with Lina's focus on lesser Mazoku), recognize him as a vampire, although he seems to exhude a more powerful aura than what they're accustomed to from prior experience. Double damage received from fire magic.
"Vice Flare!" Lina greets the vampire, pointing at him with her sword.
"Flare Lance!" amelia yells, throwing her arms forward.
"I'll keep that in mind," Ekanna replies drolly as he parries the first attack which Gourry shifts into a wide horizontal swing. Jumping into the air above the swing as he releases one hand on the sword, he shouts "Bomb Split!" as a ball of energy fires from his palm and bursts onto Gourry's armor. Gourry grunts as he is pushed backwards from the impact but managing to keep himself from falling onto his back as Ekanna lands, diving his sword downward with both hands, shouting "Blade Haut!".
Having not lost his balance, Gourry manages to avoid most of the shockwave, his own armor absorbing the remaining damage, as he jumps for the table.
"Hmph, tough bugger, aren't you?" Ekanna mutters, not having expected Gourry to be standing after the set up attack.
Gourry frowns, having expected this to be a straightforward sword duel. Throwing magic around just seems to cheapen things. Still, he resolves not to use the Sword of Light, confident that he can handle Ekanna with trusty steel.
Not bothering to reply, he instead leaps from the table with an overhead slash aimed at bisecting Ekanna down the middle, ready to follow up with two more slashes as he lands.
"Well, someone looks like he thinks using magic's cheating," Ekanna says with his grin as he blocks the downward strike. Moving back as Gourry lands on the ripped up tile, he barely misses getting sliced as Gourry twists his blade to slash from the side, getting nicked by the third strike.
"Ow," he mouths with a small wince. "Flare Bit!"
Gourry coughs as bursts of flame pop up around him, and he finds himself a bit disoriented as a sharp pain shoots from his left side and he's pushed away, grabbing his side.
"Personally, I think outside of crotch shots, anything goes. Crotch shots are low blows, even for mercenaries."
----
OOC: Gourry takes 8 damage and is a bit disoriented for one round.
----
The vampire screams in agony as his attempt to dodge Lina's and Amelia's spell fails somewhat. While he escapes the burning touch of the spells, he is still caught in the area effect of Lina's Vice Flare as it bursts outward on impact.
The light from the fire make the dark cellar brighter for a moment, and the two sorceresses can see within the cell the body of Mr. Ashford, bleeding and slightly burned. As the fire dies out, unable to keep in the stale air and stone floor, they can also see the vampire's red eyes glowing with fury as he stretches, wings popping from his back, fanning the rest of the flames away and launching the room into darkness (save that from upstairs) once more.
The vampire grasps a sword from the sheath on his waist and launches himself towards the princess with a gutteral scream. The princess screams as blood spills from her side, unable to better defend against the strike. The vampire grins, drowning in the bloodlust as he raises his blade again and strikes at her again with a downward cut. Amelia however manages to roll away from the second strike, and she weakly stands up besides Lina.
The vampire's eyes continue to glow as he stares at the two and the scampering figure of Kizel running up the stairs in horror.
---
OOC: Amelia gets 30 damage. Vampire's heavily injured, but not gone yet.
---
Slightly disoriented, Gourry focuses entirely on defence until he can shake off the effects of the Flare Bit.
Lina pushes Amelia to the ground with one hand, before launching the Assha Dist spell at the vampire and moving to stand over the wounded girl, holding her sword defensively.
Gourry, focusing on total defense, manages to defend against both of Ekanna's attempts to slash at him.
"My, you -are- a worthwhile opponent, aren't you?" Ekanna says as he proceeds to take his distance after those two attacks.
---
OOC: Moving away was his next round move
---
The vampire laughs as he dodges the spell. "Assha Dist? Do I look like a common mongrel vampire? I was extraordinary as a human, and though I don't wish it, I am MORE now!"
He bares his fangs at the two women before charging, making a strong horizontal swing at the redhead that damaged him so, hoping to break through her sword, and her soft body. The redhead's sword held true however, despite Lina and Amelia both feeling the gust the swing brought up.
Snorting, he kicked at the crouched woman with his boot, picking Lina up and launching her against the stairs. Turning to the princess, he grins, deciding that kicking the two of you will make fine sport. "And here I was almost worried when you threw that Vice Flare. Hell, you almost toasted my 'charge' as well. Oh well, would have been fun if you did."
With that, he kicks Amelia next to Lina.
---
OOC: 10 damage for Amelia. Lina loses 10 EP using a defensive EP shield.
---
Shaking off the disorientation, Gourry charges at his foe, focusing his first attack, not on Ekanna, but on his sword, hoping to leave him open for the second attack, a called shot to his neck.
Amelia rolls with the kick, coming up in a crouch and releasing a Megido Flare, bathing the room in light.
The vampire roars, once more in pain, as he pants. "Fucking bitches..."
Driven by his agony and fury, he goes for the kill, hoping to take at least one of them with him. He focuses his entire attack on the princess of Saillune, who unable to really block the attacks or dodge around them in the limited space, takes all three strikes.
---
ooc: Amelia takes 10 damage from first strike, 11 from second, and 30 from third as her EP shield fails.
---
"Leave her alone!" Lina yells, and charges at the vampire, both hands holding onto the hilt of her sword as she intends to impale him. As she runs, she silently casts the Flare Arrow spell, making multiple arrows of fire appear behind the vampire, as soon as he turns to face her, when she would launch them at his unprotected back and sides.
Gourry's focus on the sword surprises Ekanna, who's hold on the sword is loosened while Gourry switches to go for a neck strike and the sword falls. Though unarmed, his opponent is far from helpless while ducking under the high focused swing.
Making a grab for his sword, he instead comes upon his discarded sheath in his quick attempt, which he throws at Gourry's face. The sheath is knocked aside as Ekanna stands, his sword held ready once more in his hands. He's still breathing easy, but his body betrays him with many beads of sweat, showing that he is growing tired.
Though Gourry is pressing his attack, he shouts, "Flare Lance!" as a lance of fire forms at his side. He misses with the attack as Gourry jumps to the side, landing on his side against the table. The spell stabs into the wall, which begins to slowly burn, while Ekanna waits for Gourry's next move.
-----
Lina's plan succeeds as the fury driven vampire focuses his attention on her, and away from Amelia's heavily injured body. Distracted by the redhead's shouts, Amelia's pained cries and his own fury, he ignores his heightened senses as six arrows of flames appear behind his form, quickly impacting on his back at Lina's command.
Lit on flame, he gives one last cry of agony as he catches completely on fire, and his body dissapates into gas mixing with the smoke from his burned clothes. As the smoke creeps through the stone cracks, his sword cracks down on the floor, and Lina and Amelia can breath easier.
Acting quickly, Gourry leaps to his feet and makes a stab to Ekanna's chest, followed by a spinning slash to his side. The final blow of this series of attacks is an upwards cut aiming for the weak spot in Ekanna's armour, under the shoulderguards.
Lina rushes towards Amelia, dropping her own sword on the ground. Noticing the other girl's state, she casts Boost quickly, and then puts her all into a continuous Recovery spell, until she sees that Amelia is in good shape once more.
Some time later, Amelia is breathing easier, having made a full recovery under Lina's healing care. She looks like crap, but at least she is healthy. Her body feels a bit lethargic though, from the lack of energy. Lina likewise feels tired despite being at full health due to low energy. Still, the enemy has been vanquished, and they're free to save Mr. Ashford now, and find the location of the dragon meat.
---
Ekanna nimbly dodges the stabbing motion, while blocking with his sword the next move. He is unprepared for the next move, however, resulting in an unfortunate situation for the man.
"You cut off my arm!" Ekanna screams incredulously as he stares at the bleeding stump and he moves to wrap some cloth around it and his shoulder, forgetting about his blond opponent.
Gourry scratches his head confused as the man moved around, looking for something to wrap around the wounds. Weren't they just in a fight?
"So you surrender?" Gourry asks dumbly, wondering how good Ekanna can fight with just one arm if he elects to continue the battle.
"I've been bloody disarmed, you idiot! What do you think?" he screams still looking incredulous. He grabs his dismembered arm and shakes it at Gourry, "What am I supposed to do, slap you with this?"
Gourry scratches his head. "You could try if you thought it might help..." he offers uncertainly. "Anyway, you should probably go see a healer or something."
Lina smiles at Amelia, and helps her up. Then, after leaning her against an adjustent wall, she heads towards her sword. Picking it up, the red-head moves towards the cell Ashford is held in, gathering the unnamed vampire's sword as she goes. Holding the two swords in both hands, she makes horizontal cuts on the bars, first at forehead-level, then much lower, allowing her passage into the cell. Moving inside, she checks on the unfortunate cook.
Ekanna twitches as he holds back the temptation to throw his limb at the head of the blond swordsman. After a few seconds of mental debate, he decides against it. "Just...go to the kitchen, you maniac..." he sighs as he drops the arm and casts Flare Bit on his bleeding shoulder, to cauterize the wound.
He coughs at the smoke, but is satisfied with the job. He picks up his arm and begins to walk towards the front door exit. Looking back, he glares at Gourry, "I'll figure out a way to repay you for the arm next time we meet, Mr. Gabriev. Count on it."
With that, he disappears past the burning wall where the Flare Lance had impacted.
---
OOC: To the kitchen, ye scurvy dog!
---
The old cook seems to be heavily injured with dry bleeding marks all over his body, perhaps having been tortured into making Dragon Cuisine, or perhaps just at the fun of the vampire. Some burns are also present, more than likely a result of Lina's and Amelia's earlier fire attacks. They're not heavy though, in part because of Ashford's toughness, as well as the vampire taking the brunt of those attacks. He bleerily cracks open his eyes as Lina enters, and he whispers, "...Daughter?"
His tired and injured eyes can't focus well on the image of his savior, but he resembles her so much that he pulls Lina into a strong hug, as he cries with joy, shouting, "DAUGHTER!"
Gourry shrugs, not overly bothered. Ekanna was pretty good, but nowhere near as troublesome as Zangelous had been...
Smiling at the thought of the duels they had fought, Gourry ambles into the kitchen to locate his well earned Dragon Cuisine.
Lina pats him on his back awkwardly. "Right. Anyway, Mr. Ashford, we came to set you free!"
Gourry enters through the door to find a huge but empty kitchen. At the end of the room appears to be a huge metal door, and as he approaches, from the cold feel behind it, he can guess that it's the fridge. As he is about to open it, his nose began to sense an aroma. Sniffing the air, he moves around the kitchen, slowly, searching for the source. Eventually coming to a stop in front of a trash can, Gourry stares. It is a plate of leftover dragon cuisine, half eaten.
------
Lina and Ashford support each other up as they leave the cell, and slowly walk towards Amelia. Ashford's mind and sight seem to clear as they walk, and he recalls that these two aren't his real family, though he is appreciative of the rescue nonetheless.
"Where is our Dragon Cuisine, Mr. Ashford?" Lina asks him, unable to curb her enthusiasm.
Gourry is utterly horrified that someone would leave leftover Dragon Cuisine. Especially after going through so much trouble to get it.
Not stopping to consider that more is likely in the fridge, he grabs the plate and stuffs the leftovers in his mouth, finally able to savour the exquisite taste of Dragon Cuisine.
Ashford blinks, and thinks before remembering, "Oh, I think the kitchen was to the right of the front entrance. It was kept there, in a huge vault refridgerator."
Lina and Amelia nod as they head up the stairs with Ashford. They slowly move towards the kitchen, the burnt wall in the dining hall and the ripped up tile garnering nothing more than raised eyebrows. Eventually, they arrive into the kitchen, and stare at Gourry rooting through the trash for more leftovers.
Lina ignores Gourry, and rushes to the fridge, throwing its door open and glancing inside.
Cold air rushes out as Lina finds with glee that the majority of her dragon meat is present, cooked and safe for consumption, if unprepared. Apparently Ralcyon wasn't a too heavy eater (at least in the sense of sorcerers and mercenaries being heavy eaters).
"Mr. Ashford, we're ready to taste your Dragon Cuisine!" Lina exclaims, pointing at the fridge. She takes a deep breath, shivering in anticipation. Frowning as the thought of a wounded Ashford messing up her food suddenly leaps into her mind, Lina walks over to him, casting Boost and then Recovery on the cook, just as she had done for Amelia previously.
Gourry finishes the leftover Dragon Cuisine, smacking his lips in satisfaction. If that was what leftovers tasted like, the freshly cooked stuff must be absoultely divine!
Seeing the open fridge, he gets up and takes a look inside himself, salivating at the prospect of getting to eat his well earned Dragon Cuisine.
As all the pain and aches of the cowboy-style dragon cook disappear under Lina's recovery spell, a glint fills Mr. Ashford's eyes as he grabs some large knives from the cabinets and heads towards the fridge. "Alright, you've got yourself a meal fit for the gods themselves, coming right up!" he promises. He pauses to stare at everyone still in the kitchen.
"Now everybody out of kitchen!" he barks out. "Customers are supposed to be sitting and waiting for the meal!"
Ten minutes later, Lina about to storm into the kitchen from the dining hall is stopped as a tray pushes through the kitchen doors.
"Appetizers ready!" he says as Lina sits back down, in the seat where Ekanna once say, and he begins setting the plates on the table. Pulling off the covers from the plates, he reveals a number of dishes of Dragon Wine Souffle, Dragon Fried Crackers, and Dragon Salad.
As Lina, Gourry and Amelia begin to dig in with a frenzy and Ashford heads back to the kitchen, nobody wonders about Kizel, Zelgadis, or Ralcyon.
Meanwhile...
Zelgadis continues to check out all the doors on the left hand side, searching for enemies, friends, or anything interesting.
"Uwooo!" Lina exclaims, digging into her food even faster. "This exquisite taste," she got out between bites, "the ethereal texture of the souffle--" She turns to Gourry, tears coming out of her eyes. "The wait was worth it!"
Reaching over the table, Gourry stuffs several Dragon Fried Crackers in his mouth, making loud noises of approval as he rapidly consumes them, then he grabs a plate of Dragon Wine Souffle which vanishes into his gaping maw with alarming alacrity.
"This was definitely worth the wait!" he grins through a mouthful of food back at Lina.
Mixing a generous portion of the salad with the fried crackers, Lina wolfs it down. "Just imagine," she chuckles, shivering as she tastes the wine souffle again. "We could've been on some wild goose chase in a desert right now!"
"That would have been awful," Gourry agrees, "That Ralcyon guy couldn't even finish off a single plate of Dragon Cuisine, it's an insult for this food to be wasted on him!"
Alelia says nothing, fighting off Gourry and lina for some Dragon Salad.
His search seems to remain as boring as the one upstairs until he encounters the first sign on life in the mansion he'd seen.
Hiding in a corner is a quivering mass of a man with his head down and a small dagger held between his fingers in front of himself. Raising his head at the sound of the chimera's stony approach, he shouts, "Stay back!"
As Zelgadis looks at the man expressionlessly, the man begins to fumble and get up over his robes, he almost waddles to Zelgadis, and stabs the dagger into his body. A clang is heard as Zel doesn't even bother to dodge and the man pulls back a broken dagger.
"EEEP!" he cries before falling to the ground and begin to beg. "Don'thurtmedon'thurtmed...!!!"
"Ralcyon, I presume." Without any hesitation, Zelgadis grabs him by the tunic and slams him up against the wall. "Where are you hiding Mr. Ashford!"
Ralcyon groans in pain as he's slammed into the wall. He looks unnerved by the inhuman stranger's tone more than his action. His chilling, yet expressionless look remaining as he orders him to give up the location of the cook. Loras was much like that until he got in that bloodlust of his and then he just wanted to bite your head off....
"He's in the basement!" he says with a nervous smile. Surely Loras could take care of this thing!
"Excellent. You're coming with me." Zelgadis slams the man forward toward the basement. "If you run, it will be the last thing you will ever do."
As they enter the basement, they find traces of a battle, including some blackened stone, and damaged stairs. Walking forward as their eyes adjust, they find a broken cell and a sword against the ground. It would seem to both of them that Ashford has already been rescued.
"Seems like someone already had all the fun." Knowing it was either Lina, Gourry, or Amelia, Zelgadis decides to go to the most logical place. The kitchen.
"Take me to the kitchen. Now." Zelgadis stares humorlessly at Ralcyon.
Ralcyon sputters confused and amazed that someone took out Loras as Zel begins to drag him back upstairs. A few slaps later, Ralcyon leads him towards the kitchen, only to freeze as they enter the dining hall. "MY DINING HALL!!!!" he screeches before Zel pushes him off to the side and stares at the group eating vigorously.
Gourry looks up at the new arrivals. "Hey, Zel! You have to try some of this, it was definitely worth the wait!" he waves over to the Chimera before resuming his feast.
Amelia stabs some dragon meat just ahead of Gourry, devouring it hungrily.
Zelgadis smiles jovially. "Lina, I brought a guest. Let me introduce Mr. Ralcyon, who had the unfortunate distinction to kidnap Chef Ashford and steal the dragon cuisine for himself. Why don't you have a seat, Mr. Ralcyon."
Zelgadis then sits down at a empty seat and proceeds to sample the heavenly dragon cuisine.
Gourry, feeling much more mellow now that he has some Dragon Cuisine in his belly, waves a fork filled with Dragon Salad reprovingly at Ralcyon. "Hey, I can understand that you really wanted Dragon Cuisine, this is pretty good stuff. But we killed that Dragon fair and square! You should kill your own Dragon if you want to eat it!"
Satisfied with chastising the Dragon Cuisine thief, he then resumes eating.
"It takes six months to cook that meat!" Ralcyon cried at Gourry's accusation. "When I smelled it getting cooked, I just couldn't wait. It just looked so divine!"
At that, Ashford comes in with the next tray of food, "Alright, on to the first part of the main course!"
With that, he sets the table, and begins to reveal dishes of Sukiyaki with marbled Dragon Meat, Shabu Shabu, and Thin slices of dragon meat over a plate of rice bathed in the meat's juices.
As Ashford leaves, and the aroma begins to get to Ralcyon, he stretches his arm forward as he begins to crawl towards them, a bit of drool escaping his mouth. "Please...share some more..."
Gourry nods sympathetically as Ralcyon relates his tale of not being able to wait, but doesn't speak since his mouth is currently occupied.
Then his eyes light up at the arrival of the main course, and the swordsmand commences eating with even more gusto, determined to enjoy every last morsel of the exquisite Dragon Cuisine!
Sharing with Ralcyon is not on the agenda, however, and he growls menacingly as the fat nobleman approaches the hard won Dragon Cuisine.
Amelia ignores the request, digging into the shaba shaba with gusto.
"So(munch) gooooood(gulp)!"
Zelgadis's eyes light up at the main course when he hears Ralcyon beg for some. Deciding to remind the man who was in charge, Zelgadis lets loose a quick Flare Arrow. "Consider this a small reminder."
Zelgadis then digs into the sukiyaki with marbled dragon meat, while sampling the dragon shaba shaba... Sublime...
"Eeeek!" the fat rich man screams with wide eyes as the weakened flare arrow impacts against him, turning him into a blackened mass with huge eyes. He coughs a bit of smoke, then falls to the ground unconscious as the others continue to enjoy the dragon cuisine.
Lina doesn't even register Ralcyon's arrival, as she devours generous portions of shabu shabu and sukiyaki before moving on to the other courses. She closes her eyes briefly in ecstasy, and then resumes eating happily.
An hour and 15 minutes later, Lina and the others pat their satisfied stomachs after the desserts. How you could make dessert out of meat was hard to understand, but the sugary Dragon Pie hit the spot to finish the cuisine off. They'd tasted every single dish that Ashford knew to make and could in the time they finished the whole dragon off.
Ashford smirks, happy to have such satisfied 'customers'. He'd outdone himself in this day even.
"Ah, that hit the spot," Lina drawls out, stretching in her chair. Finally noticing the charred Ralcyon, she asks, "Who's that guy?"
Zelgadis smirks. "That would be our host, Ralcyon. He's the one who kidnapped Mr. Ashford, and caused all this trouble."
"You couldn't wait for the food and cooked him, Zel-chan?" she asks coyly.
Amelia licks the last of the sauce from her plate, only turning to the man Lina indicated after there was nothing left.
"Um..."
Zelgadis grins and moves over to slap Ralcyon awake. "Lina, may I introduce Mr. Ralcyon. Mr. Ralcyon, Lina Inverse. Now, we were just discussing how you were going to compensate us for our troubles." Zelgadis turns to the crispy fat man and says in a threatening tone of voice, "Wouldn't you agree..."
Ralcyon groans as he is brought back to the land of the living by Zel's 'caring' treatment.
"You blew up my mercenaries and wrecked my home!" he cries out. "I don't see where you had any trouble at all!"
"We gave up on a very profitable quest just to rescue Mr. Ashford and our Dragon Cuisine," Lina says offhandedly. "But that's not important. What is important is that you stole my food." She frowns with disapproval. "That wasn't nice."
"I'm sure Mr Ashford would like to be compensated for the troubles you put him through, too," Amelia says, basking in the heavenly after glow of the Dragon Cuisine feast.
Zelgadis says offhandedly to Ralcyon, "I do believe you have no idea how much trouble you're in..." Zelgadis inwardly smirks at the beads of sweat appearing on the fat man's forehead.
"Fighting all your mercenaries was a fun way to build up an appetite before the meal, though," Gourry offers cheerfully.
"Besides, coming here to win back our Dragon Cuisine was much better than going to the desert for some bandit treasure. I don't think any treasure in the world could taste as good as Dragon Cuisine!" he says to Lina.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm threatening someone!" Lina snaps at Gourry, before returning her attention to Ralcyon. "Normally, I'd ask you for a small peace offering so that I wouldn't have to punish you." She sighs. "But we've already found your safe, so that won't do here." Lina pretends to think about this in depth.
Gourry shrinks away from Lina, suitably cowed by her yelling, and offers a pitying look towards Ralcyon.
"Um, aren't we missing someone?" Amelia asks languidly, looking around and visibly counting heads.
"My safe?!?" Ralcyon screeches. "Won't do?!?"
What was with this woman? For all her complaints about him robbing her, she wants to do the same and worse to him!
"Lina, I'll take care of the safe. It's been a while, but it shouldn't be a problem." Zelgadis says, with a smirk on his face.
"Have fun!" Amelia waves lazily, sliding down her chair.
Zelgadis walks to the main hall, up the stairs, and over to the wall safe that he and Lina found earlier. Inspecting it first, Zelgadis takes out a stethoscope, and puts it right on the lock, listening intently for the tumblers to change sound.
"Well, you see..." Lina says at length. "You have four choices. Be punished by me, be punished by Gourry, be punished by Zel, or be punished by Amelia." She shudders briefly at the last one.
"Actually, you have five options. Me, Gourry, Zel, Amelia or Mr. Ashford," Lina muses out loud. "Or is it six? That Kizel guy might want to punish you too, after spending all that time with Amelia."
The safe is a bit tricky, so Zelgadis finds himself entertained by a challenge as Lina gives Ralcyon a choice.
"Uh..." Ralcyon ponders before asking, "Who's who again?"
"I'm Gourry," the swordsman points to himself, helpfully.
"I'm Lina!" the red-head introduces herself. "Lina Inverse!" Waving a hand at the other girl, she adds, "That's Amelia, Champion of Justice."
Amelia nods, but adds, "You have to say it with more feeling though, Miss Lina!"
With that she raises a leg onto the table. Pointing her finger to the sky, she says, "I am Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune, crown princess of Saillune and defender of Justice!"
Ralcyon nods nervously and makes a note not to ask punishment from that girl as he asks, "So is the guy upstairs this Kizel or Zel? And where would the other one be?"
So far, he figures his best options are this Gourry guy or the guy he's not seen yet.
"Zel went upstairs," Gourry supplies before looking thoughtful, "I don't know what happened to Kizel, though..."
"Oh..." Ralcyon says with a nervous laughter as he tries to figure out who to pick from the two. Deciding that the last guy might be really scary, he says, "Uh, can the blond guy be the guy who comes up with the punishment?"
"Be my guest, Gourry!" Lina says, clapping the blonde swordsman on his shoulder before going to check on Zelgadis.
Gourry points at himself, "Me?" he asks, sounding surprised. "Well, I'm not really sure... we got the Dragon Cuisine in the end, so it turned out okay... but you shouldn't have stolen it after we worked so hard to get it in the first place..."
Stroking his chin and looking thoughtful for several minutes, Gourry suddenly lights up and smacks a fist into his open palm. "I've got it!" he declares cheerfully, "Why don't you help Mr Ashford kill another Dragon? If you can do that, it'll prove you really do deserve to eat Dragon Cuisine!"
Ralcyon pales at that. "Uh...can I hire some mercenaries to help?" he asks hopefully.
Gourry considers that for a moment. "Well... so long as everyone who helps to kill the dragon can get to eat a fair share, I suppose that would be okay..." he then waves a reproving finger at Ralcyon, "But you can't just let the mercenaries do everything! You have to earn your share as well!"
"B-b-but..." he begins to sputter, when Ashford pats him on the back with a large grin.
"Don't you worry, I'll make you into a professional Dragon hunter in no time at all, chubby!"
Ralcyon looks downward and sobs. Ashford looks like he's going to enjoy helping dish out Gourry's punishment.
Lina finds Zel hard at work, albeit starting to look annoyed at his lack of progress. Deciding not to bother waiting for him to finish, she heads back downstairs, and back towards the cellar.
Gourry nods to himself in satisfaction of solving yet another problem with his keen intellect and uncanny ability to cut right to the heart of any given situation.
Taking out an enchanted spoon that glows in the dark, Lina examines the basement, wanting to find out whether the relatively tough vampire she fought was gone for good, or one of those master vampires who were still three quarters hot air.
Lina finds nothing in the cellar other than what she had already expected, a broken cell and the vampire's discarded sword.
--
OOC: I would point out that the smoke and gaseous remains of the vampire went upwards through the cracks in the stone ceiling of the cellar, so there wouldn't be anything in there...
Lina picks up the vampire's sword again, and continues searching the rest of the house, starting from the room located directly above the cellar.
Zelgadis continues working on the safe. It's been a while since something challenged him so...
Under her more careful search, she eventually finds that stuffed into a closet is a coffin standing upright in a room some distance from the cellar in the main floor. Her search doesn't bring up any loot or knick knacks worth keeping otherwise.
From the coffin, she can make out some heavy snoring. It would seem the vampire was not totally vanquished, merely left completely lacking in energy and strenght.
The beautiful female sorcery genius uses another of her permanent magic markers to write, "Lina was here!" on the coffin in neon pink, and then runs the vampire's sword through the coffin randomly, burying it to the hilt. Pondering this for a moment, she takes another magic marker, this one bright yellow, and adds, "You forgot this," along with an arrow going towards the sword's hilt.
She stands back, admiring her handiwork, and then sets the bottom of the coffin on fire with a handy Burst Rond spell.
The sword seems to have no reaction on the vampire within, but once the fire start, Lina can hear a satisfying scream from within as the vampire pound on the coffin's front to push it outwards.
With it's innate strenght, even weakened, the vampire pushes the coffin's side forcefully open, sword and all, resulting in a sickening sound as the vampire drops to the ground and begins to roll around to set the fire out, not yet noticing Lina.
"Frawress Victoly!" Lina congratulates herself, smirking at the sight of the vampire's burning jewels.
While a burst rond does minimal damage, the fact that the vampire was locked inside a wooden coffin, has weakness to fire, and being weakened from his fight with Lina and Amelia meant that it hurt like hell. Still, being a weak spell as it is, he quickly manages to put the fire out, noticing Lina as she gloats.
"Great, you're one of those thorough types, aren't you?" he growls, knowing that he won't be able to do much being as weakened as he is.
Confident that she has his attention, Lina smiles sweetly at the vampire, and slams him with an Assha Dist spell.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did that hurt, Mr. Extraordinary-as-a-Human Vampire?" she asks innocently.
'Shit,' he thinks, kneeling in the ground, coughing from the effect of the spell. 'She -is- one of those thorough types.'
He can almost relate, he used to be the same sort when human. His past can't help though, and while he has no desire to die, not before he settles up with him, he can't see how to get out of this.
Having nothing else he can do, he simply growls at her, waiting for her either to say her piece or finish him off. He wasn't about to play her game and beg or the like.
"Now, you won't do something stupid like kidnapping poor Mr. Ashford and other people's Dragon Cuisine again, will you?" she asks sweetly, propping her chin on her fists.
"Heh," the vampire snorts. "Considering I died on the job, I'd imagine I'm also out of said job. So no, I won't be getting involved in kidnapping cooks and dragon cuisine anymore."
"That's great!" Lina exclaims, patting him on the shoulder. "Start over! Do goo-- scratch that. Be good!"
Tilting her head, she continues, "And since you won't be heading down the wrong path again, I'm sure you wouldn't mind telling little ol' me where your old boss is hiding his treasure, right? He must be punished for what he did, after all." She shakes her head. "Greed. How terrible it is to see it these days."
The vampire snorts at the girl's attitude. She -had- taken him down, rather easily too, to his annoyance, so he had some amount of respect for her and the other girl. Still, he couldn't be of real help on her last question.
"He keeps some of his wealth in a safe over at his room, but that's mostly for show. It'd be insane to keep all your money where mercenaries and monsters can see it, after all. Don't even think this is his main home really. You'd have to shake him up if you want more than what's there."
Lina nods. "I'll have to find out how Gourry punished him, anyway. Well, take care. And if you see Amelia, Ceipheed help you."
Lina heads back to the dining room to check up on Gourry and Ralcyon.
Loras shakes his head at the departing figure of the redhead. "Ah well, time to sleep again," he says, turning to go back at his coffin. A very burned coffin. "Dammit, I'm going to have to see about buying a new one somehow."
Putting off the remaining fire, he gets into the closet and shuts the door behind him.
---
Lina quickly returns to the dining hall to find a satisfied Gourry, a sobbing Ralcyon, a smirking Ashford, and Amelia being...well, Amelia-ish.
"...And if you keep these ideals close to heart, even the most evil man can be converted to the side of Good. You want to be Good, right Mr Ralcyon?" Amelia finishes her speech just as Lina enters again.
Lina heads straight to Ralcyon. "Have you been punished?" she asks expectantly.
Ralcyon sobs, "He's making me take on a dragon!"
Ashford adds for the man, "And I'll train and train him until we've got the fat out of him. I'll make a decent dragon hunter out of him!"
Ralcyon's sobbing grew at that, as his thoughts begin to focus on all the work he'll have to do.
Lina nods to that. "Sounds quite a task. You'll need someone to watch over your real main house, right?" she asks casually.
Ralcyon sniffles out, "I already have people to do th..."
He pauses and looks up and asks, "Wait, how do you know about that?" with tears still in his eyes.
"I am psychic," she responds with a straight face. "Sometimes, I get visions of the future." Suddenly, she grabs her forehead. "Wait! I'm getting one now! It's your main house, and it's--"
"What! What! What's happening to my house?" the man pleads nervously.
"It's on fire!" Lina exclaims, removing her hand from her forehead in a sharp motion, and waving it in the air. "A beautiful red-haired sorcery genius blows it up!"
"Oh no! How do I stop h....her," Ralcyon begins to ask fearfully before realizing who he's talking to. "Eeep!"
"You guys said I was already being punished!" he cries out.
"He's right, Lina," Gourry says with some reproach, "We got the Dragon Cuisine, and Mr Ralcyon now knows that if he ever wants to eat it again, he'll have to earn it. And I'm sure he will earn it with Mr Ashford's help!"
"Oh, I'm sure he will," Lina responds to Gourry, smiling. "Or that little vision will come to pass!"
As Lina continues to harrass the defeated opponent, Zelgadis feels he's almost got it. This feeling proves true as a clicking sound is heard and the safe becomes unlocked.
Zelgadis smiles and puts his tools away, enjoying the feeling of a challenge overcome. Without magic.
"Well, let's see what the fat fool has to compensate us for our time." Zelgadis says, as he sifts through the safe.
OOC: Finish Ralcyon mini-arc later. Fast forward to some time later in new thread.