Stables Day II

[Thorgas Ironforge]

Mallayn

Fighting? Are they going to fight? Mallayn shuddered. What If she was caught in it? Although the threat of combat hangs heavily in the air, Mallayn found herself slowly growing serene. It's as if there is nothing in this world that could absolutely go wrong.

"Can you tell us what's happened here, what you've heard? It'd help us out a lot."

"I -- I don't know what happened. But I heard something about assassins. And uhm.. assassins..." Her voice trailed off and the words almost became a blur as the spell took its toll on her. She felt like walking towards the bales of hay in the stables and just lie there. Maybe even count the straws. This feeling of having no concern whatsoever is great.

Then without due regard to the tension in the room, Mallayn calmly walked over to one of the hay bales and lay down on it, unconsciously twirling a stalk of dried grass.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

"I -- I don't know what happened. But I heard something about assassins. And uhm.. assassins..." the seemingly confused Mallayn said, and... proceeded to... relax.

This was a rather interesting turn of events. It was time to do something either completely stupid or completely unexpected, or both.

"Okay, before I start, I want to assure you all that I am by no means hostile. That strange feeling of safeness and/or serenity you felt earlier? I did that. And I should apologise for doing so, because, apparently, it just made you angrier. I'm pretty sure I made a mistake in there somewhere," the elf said with a laugh. "Right, my intentions? To figure out what happened here before I came. I saw the girl in a state of panic and you, madam elf, radiating anger, and decided that you all should calm down a bit more. Which is why you all experienced the feeling you just did. Now what I actually meant to do, was this."

After that statement, Ridgen increased the level of influence that serenity had in the water Ounia present in Thorgas and Kareesh. This time, though, the increase was smaller, and he also increased the influence of clarity - this should result in the two people feeling calmer and thinking clearer than before.

[James Seabird]

James watched as the elf he had accused turned and focused his attention on the girl and calmly spoke a midst all the chaos and shouting. Then the girl slowly seemed to lose all grasp of the world around her. Had he drugged her? Pricked her with some needle? The elf went on to explain that he had calmed her down to the point of oblivion. "What I actually meant to do, was this."

"Not likely!" At this James quickly took of his Hrkje Whip and launched one end towards Ridgens legs and the other towards his arms, in order to stop him from attacking anyone else.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

The words "Not likely!" and a whip... well, whipped through the air to find their way towards Ridgen. Rather un-instinctively, the elf stood still and let the rope do its work, deciding to instead just keep focusing on the spell.

He visibly blinked and opened his mouth to speak again. "Did you not hear me when I said 'I'm not hostile'? Seriously. If I was trying to hurt you, James, you would have lost all sense of sanity by now. I can cast magic, remember? Now uhm... if you could please get this thing off me, that'd be great."

[Salena smith]

  As Salena stands gripping the hndle of her sword she listens to Rigen tell his side of thing but as soon as he's done speaking she notice James charge his whip at the man.

  "James, that is enough! There doesn't seem to be violence except for whoever threw the dagger in the post. And as for that no one has tried to claim it. Now please unravel your whip from the man before you start something you can not finish." Salena states while walking to James. She seems to be looking at only James but she has marked in her mind where everyone is.

[Thorgas Ironforge]

"Aye, not bloody likely!" Thorgas growled at the hydromancer. He nodded thank you to James for his timely intervention. As one of the keepers of this establishment, he and the others would never allow anyone to hurt the patrons or even act aggressively, even though Ridgen claims he is not hostile. It's absurd, Thorgas thought. Why claim neutrality with an act of hostility? And with magic, nonetheless! Either he is ignorant of the dwarves' distrust against magic or he really is too ogre-brained to grasp the obvious.

It also occurred to him that the caster is apparently not getting the subliminal messages being sent to him by all the activities in the stables, or at least that is what he thought. Seriously, how dense can this elf get? Why meddle in affairs that he is not part of in the first place and why use magic to control people's minds? Even Thorgas, whose original intent was to just feed his pet pig, became entangled in this dispute, and now his patience is slowly being strained. It took nearly all his self control not to hurl a flaming bolt of death towards the caster and then beat the charred remains afterwards for sheer obstinacy.

"Ye claim to be neutral but act in a manner not consistent with yer words, knife-ear. The use o' magic in diplomacy is not a sign o' peace an' it's frowned upon by the dwarves in this city." Thorgas' voice hinted a little sorrow at the last few words, but held his aggressive demeanor. I damn well know.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

"Ye claim to be neutral but act in a manner not consistent with yer words, knife-ear. The use o' magic in diplomacy is not a sign o' peace an' is frowned upon by the dwarves of the city."

Aww, shizzles, the spell fizzled. Then again, most of the many different fizzle cases for Ridgen ended up in catastrophe - mainly catastrophe for the target, but that's not important. This dwarf looks angry.

"Okay first of all, these ears are not sharp. I know they look sharp but they aren't, and it gets pretty annoying when people say that, even if it is said figuratively. Second of all, let me get out of this rope-thing and I'll explain the situation here," the elf said. The dwarf clearly didn't like him, was obviously a mage (the sparks at the end of his resistance to Ridgen's spells were a big giveaway) and seems to find comfort in his staff/stick thingy (well, he IS gripping it pretty harshly. Ridgy wonders why it hasn't broken yet). So then, Ridgen's next course of action should be equally stupid - just for kicks. To James, he said, "Sorry 'bout this, boy. I'll buy you a new one later," before switching his concentration onto the physical properties of water in the air around him. He picked out the property of coldness, and increased its influence within the water ounia in the air around him - this effectively weakens the rope.

"Lesson in reality 1: What happens to rope and other elastics when it gets cold? Care to take a guess?

"It weakens."
And with that, Ridgen snapped the rope binding him, and danced over to where Thorgas was standing - who was still visibly holding that stick. Or staff. Or whatever. And began to uhm... circle him in a flamboyant manner.
"Okay, I know you want to just kill me off with your fire right now, but please, just hear me out - nice stick thingy you've got there, by the way, looks really fancy. Just uhm... try not to grip it so tightly, I'm afraid it might break, and that'd be a waste of valuable wood," the elf remarked. "Okay where was I? Oh, right. Explaining myself. Call it naivety or whatever, but I'm rather ignorant of your ways - and those of the humans... and the hobbits... the elves... the rest of the sentient beings, that sort of stuff. I apologise for that, as it may have been the source of all our problems here. No, I didn't know that dwarves distrusted magic - especially not since you are a magician yourself, master dwarf. I guess you must be an exception or something. Or not.

"As I said, my ignorance is to blame for my actions. My apologies." Ridgen poked Thorgas's staff once before dancing off in James's direction. "Sorry about your rope-thing, boy. Here's a little something extra to pay what I owe," and the elf dropped five haks into the boy's hand, as compensation. "Hope that's enough. So uhm... Mr. Dwarf? Is there anything else you wish to clear up?"
The last two sentences, of course, were said rather loudly. Annoyingly. And surprisingly, friendly-ly.

[James Seabird]

James looked from the money forced into his hands to the crazy little mage who had just ruined his Hrkje whip and done some bizarre little jig around the dwarf words pouring from his mouth like a breached hull.

"He's gone insane." James muttered to himself. 'Or he's setting up for some other sort of devilry.' He thought. James didn't mind mages on the whole, just so long as they didn't use their abilities to hurt or steal from people. It wasn't fair that way. With normal thieves or bandits you can protect yourself but how are you supposed to deflect a concentrated beam of light from going through your skull?

James quickly stepped in front of Selena hoping to protect as many people as possible from being hurt by the elf's crazy spells. He whispered over his shoulder while keeping his eyes on Ridgen. "Get back behind one of the stall walls and take cover, I'll be right behind you." He looked around searching for something to use to knock out the crazed wizard quickly.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

At this point, Ridgen withdrew a cookie from his pocket - one of the ones he's bought from the Kann earlier. Then proceeded to address the crowd that seems to be staring at him in bewliderness. "What? I'm hungry. By the way, James, you might want to stop looking around for a weapon. Something might get knocked over and bring one of your fears to life." Ridgen pointed at the torch hanging from a wall, burning brightly. He's seen James subconsciously avoid that. This aversion normally means fear - which is what he can take advantage of. Although he is reluctant to use that. "I'm not trying to hurt you. Look, I'm going to sit down, but I will not hesitate to retaliate if you attack me."

Ridgen, as he said, proceeded to sit down, his eyes alight with amusement - and bit into the cookie.

[Kareesh Valendar]

There was that calming sea again. It annoyed Kareesh. She didn't want to be calmed down. In fact, more than anything, she wanted to cut something with her dagger. She wanted a job. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, strands of hair falling into her face, concealing her expression. When she looked up again, a face appearing to be of stone appeared. Her expression was terribly hard to read, but the anger and annoyance in her eyes was easier to discern.

Kareesh couldn't tell if the dancing Elf was actually crazy or not. She had seen many people in her profession feign madness to get close to a target. Slowly, with the attention of the others fixed upon the events happening on the other side of the stables, Kareesh stepped forward and wrenched her dagger out of the wooden post.

Her eyes still focused on the others, she lightly ran a finger across the blade, making sure that it wasn't damaged by the hard wood. Nothing major caught her attention, and she was satisfied that it would do her well in a fight, should it come to it.

Oh how she wanted to silence the silly fool, but that would not look good. Also, what money could be made off killing an annoying mage. Her sognastheen eyes narrowed as she pondered what to do. Her patience was running out and she feared she would do something rash if the situation didn't resolve itself soon.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the dagger, preparing herself for anything that would come next. Her main concern was the Elf. He didn't seem to care about the danger he was putting himself into. She wearily kept an eye on the Dwarf. To her eyes, it seemed as though he was willing to risk life and limb to protect the stables and the tavern. She knew almost nothing about the two new-comers, but they both seemed able to hold themselves in a fight.

Not wanting to attract any attention to herself, Kareesh stayed quiet, wondering if after the mage was taken care of if she could slip out of the stables unnoticed. Perhaps hide in one of the stalls for a while. All the options ran through her head as she assessed the situation.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

Ridgen surveyed the room - and smiled. He liked what he saw - now that almost everyone bought his crazy, homicidal magician act, fun was ensured to follow. The elf let out a barely audible sigh at this prospect, though. The things that boredom can make him do. Risking his life for fun - Belle and Lina would shake their heads at this prospect - they would never approve. Then again, it WAS fun. At his expense. Maybe next time he should try a different act. Oh, and the elfess had taken her dagger out of one of the pillars.

"Something, something sat on a wall.
Something random had a great fall.
All the king's somethings and all the king's... men?
Couldn't put anything together again.

"I'm bored. How about we play a game?"

[James Seabird]

James flinched at the reference Ridgen made and took note of the shifting positions around the room. 'Does this man read minds as well as ruin equipment?' James unconsciously adjusted the gloves on his hands, further covering the tattoo on his hands. Then James watched as the nut sat down, threatened him, and began singing bizarre little rhymes.

Then he offered to play a game.

James head began to buzz with even more adrenaline. To play a game with a crazed mage? Probably foolish, but what other way was there out of this situation. No sane person would step forward, but he was just crazy enough to try. A plan started to form in his mind. He stepped forward and called out loudly and clearly "I'll play your game. However if I win, you will let everyone here go. Without using anymore of your magic." James looked directly into the elf's eyes trying to find any signs of sanity, honesty, or fair play. After being raised by Pirates, James was excellent at finding a tell, and now he would use his skills from the disreputable to help these people.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

"I'll play your game. However if I win, you will let everyone here go. Without using anymore of your magic."

Well, this was going to be interesting. Ridgen, taking another bite out of the cookie in his hand, decided on a peculiar course of action - just for kicks, of course. Putting on an act of being possessed, Ridgen cackled, and said in a demonic voice, "Oh, I won't just let you ALL go. I'll be nice for once and let this idiot go as well," pointing straight at himself. Then, he proceeded to put on a look of surprise, and said, "Don't look at me like that, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. This guy..." he points at himself again, "is possessed. Stupid little fool didn't know what he was getting into when he met me. Naturally, I took over his body. So if you win this game, I'll let this guy go, and the rest of you, too. Capeesh?" Ridgen said, his irises now so white they're invisible. Of course, this was just an act - but no-one's going to know that. "Although... If I win... I'll take over YOUR body instead. Will you take your chances, boy?"

Now THIS is going to be very interesting. The elf popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth and pondered what sort of game could be played right here, right now. Of course, it should be able to simulate danger - that's what makes it fun - but it should stay along the lines of the golden rule of having fun this way: No-one but Ridgen is to be harmed during the proceedings - otherwise it'd be not-fun and... well, that's not what he's looking for here. As the seconds ticked by, one last hysterical thought went through the (amused) elf's mind: Hey... Thorgas's staff is made of iron, not wood >.>

[Thorgas Ironforge]

First the insane dancing, and now a game? It's official, Thorgas decided. That elf is crazy and should be kept away from the the patrons, the tavern, and most especially his pig. He considered throwing him out of the establishment, with force if it needed be. But his coin is as good as anyone else's. And he paid five haks to the other weird tallfolk as well. Generous people like that are a good source of income, provided one can ignore their eccentricity.

"I doon't know what ye got on yer mind, knife-ear," he preferred to ignore Ridgen's lecture on the nickname. "But I have 'nuff o' yer antics. Come, Buri!" The dwarf called to his pig. "Methinks this place not safe fer ye anymore."

A rather large woolly boar emerged from the hay bale where Mallayn was lying and promptly shoved the woman to the ground. The pig shook his flanks to rid himself of the straw caught on his legs, and snorting loudly at the woman, followed the dwarf. Now at last he can feed his pet in peace behind the tavern, and he can help the others prepare for Brokden. He'd wasted enough time playing with the people here.

"And fer the record, elf, I'm no magicker. Hmph, whatever gave you that idea.." Thorgas said as he and his pig made their way towards the stable doors. Blasted elf shaming him in front of other people. Good thing no dwarves were nearby to hear that one.

[Buri]

"Come, Buri. Methinks this place not safe fer ye anymore."

Although the pig did not understand every word that the dwarf said, the word 'Buri' was enough to jerk him from his comfortable sleep. The hay had been rather heavy today, and he was having a hard time in getting out from underneath his makeshift blanket. The caves are not to his liking, what with the dim light and musky smell, but the comfortable sound of Thorgas' voice was enough to make him delve into the dwarven city. It was the only voice he trust, it and no other.

Little by little he managed to get out from under the straws, only to see that there was a human lying down on top of him. She must have enjoyed the soft fat that serves as a cushion. She wasn't making any effort to at least get off of him, and Buri was quickly losing patience.

"SNORT"

The boar used his brute strength and lifted Mallayn a few nailsbreadths off the floor before tossing her to the side, next to the pile of horse dung. Then without due regard to the people around him, he followed Thorgas towards the door, but stopped short near James and Selena. He sniffed their clothing, trying to locate something. Usually when he does this ,there is, or was, food nearby. And he wasn't going until he got some of it.

Advanced search

[Members]

Members Total Members: 2850 Latest: thediscountcodes Stats Total Posts: 214570 Total Topics: 8053 Online Today: 31 Online Ever: 216 (November 30, 2006, 09:08:03 AM) Users Online Users: 0 Guests: 34 Total: 34

[Artimidor]

	Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2005, Simple Machines TinyPortal v0.9.8 © Bloc
Theme based on Cerberus with Risen adjustments by Bloc and Krelia Modified By Artimidor for The Santharian Dream