Terra from her 5 foot high perch scanning the tengu's for an open attack. then with a stomp of her foot she sends forth a a small stone toward the back tengu.
the small pebble flies toward the back one hitting and exploding causing shards of stones to fly in all directions.
The injured tengu starts to laugh, albeit somewhat feebly since Vash has stomped it pretty good already.
The stone zings the Tengu in the back,
And the other one dances merrily out of the way of the shrapnel.
There is now one laughing Tengu, one dead one, and two still up. One of them clambors over his dead comrade to swipe at Vash with its sword.
His sword swipes right past the warrior.
And the other hops around its companion to swipe at Syndey again.
After weaving away from the attack aimed at him, Vash again steps in the way of the attack meant for Sydney. This time he parries it with a condescending backhanded slap of the blade and then a wrist grab that yanks the tengu off balance and into a brutal knee-stomp combination as the feathered clown falls.
"Keep your feathers to yourself."
Stomp stomp stomp. Poor Tengus.
Arim focused his gaze on the nearest Tengu and held his hand out, fingers spread, towards the birdman. His hand glowed for a second before four bolts of pure magic sprang from his fingertips.
That Tengu staggers around and doesn't quite fall.
Dert nods in appreciation at Vash. The man certainly knows how to take advantage of a fallin' baddie...
Dert circles around the eastern most tengu and throws a meaty fist into his kidney. He looks to Vash, What'd yous do to the bird brains?
Terra still on her perch. shifts her stance into a new form she drops her knee to the ground causing a rock to fly straight up the she leaps in a spin kick sending the rock hurling toward the closest Tengu.
Dareon steps up beside Vash and Sydney, drawing a thin, well-forged steel blade from his cane. Whipping it up to face the tengu Vash had been beating on, Dareon stabs at it several times in quick succession.
Sydney moves to the side of the injured cook and attempts to discern if the man is injured.
If the man is injured, Sydney will cast cure light wounds (subbing shield of faith).
Three of the Tengus are dead - the only one left is the laughing one, and the sleeping Lion, which remains asleep.
The chef is staggered - healing him helps considerably, and he just lays down on the ground, breathing a bit easier.
Vash shifts his weight again and the cobra-hood shield on his arm closes along his arm His movements suddenly roll forward to short, blindingly fast motions. He kicks the bird's weapon out of his hand and steps to end up with a foot on the bird's chest.
"It's time for some answers..."
With no immediate threats remaining, Dareon will walk to the side of the magically slumbering lion and line up the point of his rapier to a fleshy and soft point on the lion.
Arim took a step forward, and his hands grew into claws and his facial features distorted to allow his mouth to grow into the maw of a dragon.
He then sunk his claws into the helpless, sleeping lion.
After sinking a claw into the lion, Arim's hands and face returned to normal.
Vash pauses a moment in his abuse of the Tengu and stares at the man near him's sudden transformation into a frightening dragon-man-thing that disembowels the sleeping cartoon lion. He shakes his head in amazement.
Note to self: Do not piss off that guy...
Then he turns back to the pathetic pile of feathers under his foot.
The Lion dies without rolling. Poor thing.
Anyway, we'll just say that Vash can manhandle that Tengu however he likes at this point, and we're out of rounds.
The Chef gasps and sits up, looking about at the strange live-action people around him, and squeaks, "Who ... who are you?"
To the injured chef on the ground, "We're...Well, I'm Sydney. We're people from the real world. Would you mind telling me why they beating on you?"
Sydney pulls out his holy symbol and asks the man, "Are you going to be okay, or would more healing energies help you?"
Dareon takes a moment to clean his blade on the ground below him and put it back in its cane-sheath. Leaning on it once again, Dareon seems to slump down a little bit.
Approaching the armored clown-figure on top of the tengu. "For what its worth, I'm glad I let you out of there. You fight like a demon, and not in a hyperbolic sense. Remind me not to get on your bad side."
Glancing down to the injured tengu on the ground, he says "Anything I can do to help out with this thing?"
Terra lowers her earthen perch back to level ground once more. (the spell expireing)
she then begins to look around checking things out seeing Sydney has things in hand with the injured guy.
terra checks out a couple of tents nearby
"I'm glad you let me out too. Thanks." Vash said. Pausing a moment he reached out and touched the man he was speaking with, prodding him in the chest.
"Hmm. Guess you're real after all."
Picking up the Tengu, he looked into it's beady eyes. "I don't think so. This conversation is going to be short." Giving it a shake, he said "I'm going to ask it where my client is, and it's going to answer. If it doesn't, I'm going to pound it into a pile of squawking pain, and then ask again when it wakes up."
Giving it a little shake to make sure he had it's attention, he continued. "I'm willing to repeat the process for as long as it takes to get some answers, so you might just want to tell me what I want to know right now. It'll save me the time it takes to pound you."
"So where is he? What did you do with him?"
"Anytime at all." Dareon says, sweeping one arm up and bringing the other to his chest in a bow. Rising, he extends his hand, but sees that Vash is quite occupied and hastily withdraws it. "Dareon Whittlesay at your service."
"With all due respect, though," Dareon begins, crossing his arms and making a grimace, "Don't you think it would be easier to simply magically compel him into the truth rather than have to beat him? Not to mention more humanitarian. My accomplice can force him to tell the truth or nothing at all, and I can read his thoughts to glean what's on his mind. If that fails, people rarely withhold secrets from close friends, and I can make him such. "
"Hey, that works too. I didn't know those tricks were an option. Shame. This little bastard really deserves a few good beatings." he says, glaring at the tengu.
Walking towards Vash and the tengu, Dareon uncrosses his arms and smiles. "I'm glad you agree. Torture is distasteful to me."
Dareon lays a hand on the tengu's head. "Now, why don't you tell us, friend, what we're asking for. surely you wouldn't withhold secrets from someone you like as much as me."
Not quite realizing a spell was even cast, Vash nods. "Considering what he just saved you from, he's probably the closest thing to a friend you got right now, bird."
Arim wiped his hands off on the lion. "Blech. Now I know why gloves were invented.“ Arim then turned to the group gathered around the tengu. "Are you sure we shouldn't use Vash's idea? Leaving it alive may harm us later. I'm Arim by the way, a pleasure to meet you all."
That poor Tengu.
It shivers a bit, a few feathers falling out, and croaks, "I don't know who you're looking for!" The bird squawks helplessly.
---
The Chef says, "I'm okay ... listen. I need your help...they caught me because they wanted to know about our master's castle ... but that's not important. They're just circus patsies -- you're in far greater danger if you come from the outside world. You should get the other two real folk and get out of here!"
The tents are old and dilapidated. Terra doesn't find too much of interest in them; she can hear music and noise that sounds like a crowd from the big tent though.
"If you don't know who we're looking for, can you tell me why my friend here was locked up in that cage? And where his companions may have gone?"
The tengu squirms and loses some more feathers. "The Ringmaster thought he was funny, is all! But he wouldn't stay if he wasn't in the cage...I don't know why he does anything, honestly!"
Sydney helps the Chef to his feet.
"I'm more than willing to help you out, of course, but I'm gonna need you to explain more than that. We have no idea how we even got here, let alone how to leave. Where is your master? And where are the other two real folk?"
"Besides," he says, "From the look of these people, and knowing my teacher and myself, we're more than capable of handling danger."
"Ringmaster?" Dareon looks at Vash. "Who is this ringmaster? Anyone you know? More importantly, where can we find him?"
Terra arrives back at the group
the ringmaster is probably in the center ring that way. that's where I heard the circus
Terra point toward the large circus type tent.
The tengu shivers some more and just squawks, "He's the Ringmaster!"
Its quickly becoming apparent that the Chef is honestly the better source of information.
"The Master's name is Zassiron. He has the pointy woman and the lady with the books in the castle...but he needs to be stopped ... I ... I ... " He gulps down some air to calm himself.
Then he seems to catch on to the other conversation, eying the Tengu.
"The Ringmaster is probably Mister Bernaditi. He lives in there." He points into the grand tent.
"The Ringmaster is probably Mister Bernaditi. He lives in there." He points into the grand tent.
woah, deja vu, where have I heard that before, oh yeah me, whatever..
Terra makes the offhand comment kind of to herself.
Dareon crosses his arms again at the Chef's explanation. "So you're saying there are more people from the outside here? And that they're being held by one of the people from this world. What is he doing that needs stopping?"
He looks at Vash at the mention of a "Mister Bernaditi". "You're probably going to want a word with this Ringmaster, no?"
"Ohyeah, I know that bastard. He seemed all nice at first, invited us to the show, called us down for the whole audience participation thing. Fun stuff. Everything went to hell when I asked him why his hands were on backwards though. It was like a dream that turns into a nightmare. All of a sudden he was all lizard-headed with this big long face full of teeth and... things get... cloudy after that. I remember thinking it would be a really good idea to put on a clown costume and be a part of the show for some reasons that don't make a lick of sense now. Then he wanted me to be a lion-tamer, but everything was backwards. That damn lion spent the whole time taming me. After the show they locked me up in the lion's cage. Those damn birds have been tormenting me when they got bored ever since, and I got no idea what happened to Mel."
Dareon attempts to recognize the creature Vash is describing.
"It looks like that fellow is deserving of a well-forged blade" and looking at Vash, makes an additional allowance, "Or perhaps a strong fist or foot somewhere fatal. Perhaps we ought to find him?"
Yeah, it sounds like Vash is describing a Rakshasa to Dareon.
The chef trembles, "I dunno who the people are ... but there's people. Its just, I think that if the Master uses them ... well, it'll be bad for everyone! I, um, I'm not really sure what he's doing, but people from the outside ... they're in big demand here all the time. I think some things think that parts will help them get out. If that's what the Master wants, your whole world is in danger too!"
Mijndert cracks his knuckles when Dareon brings up a strong fist. I ken help wit dat.
He looks to the others and settles on vash, So are we stayin' here and gettin' yous some revenge or are we's headin' to meet the Master?
Arim tried to picture the creature Vash had described.
"Whether we get him revenge or not... What are we going to do with the bird?"