Azubah stops when he sees ilKhan throw the hammer at the lion head.
This might be it he thinks.
Gareth makes his way over to the tent dedicated to Jerizhana the Sphinx. Depending on what happens there, he may or may not make his way over to the 'Lovely Madame Masque'. All the while, he keeps an eye out for pickpockets and tries to avoid getting too close to people.
"Can't believe they put me this close to those beasts. Don't they know who I a...Hello," she says with a smile, her voice changing as she hears you come in, becoming deep, sultry, and mysterious. "I see many things. What is it I can do for you?"
"No, no my good man, not like that," the Ulfen man says as he picks up the mallet and brings it over. "Take a swing at this lever here, and see if you can make the puck hit the lion's head."
The crowd is watching her intently, seemingly studying her garb and comparing notes on what she is wearing.
Azubah is disappointed in the way that Ulfen reacts to ilKhan's provocation. I though the Ulfen were violent people. Maybe he is not actually Ulfen. Surely he would have taken such an act as provocation if he were.
With a tinge of disappointment Azubah makes his way to the tent of the harrower. But he makes a mental note of ilKhan's appearance before he turns away. Certainly something will happen in this brute's presence.
When he reaches the harrow-reader's tent he enters just as Denessrael addresses Hajeck.
Denessrael smiled at the woman. The animals were a bit close. She wrinkled her nose. She could smell them from here. She could also here them.
Could please you tell me what is in store for me? she asked politely
It's always nice to see how others go about the fortune telling business, she thought.
A surge seems to rise up from Gareth's feet, running all the way through him until it detonates in his brain. Residual tingles seem to crawl throughout his spine. His eyes drink in the beautiful woman's appearance as she moves across her stage.
'There were strong women in the monastery, but none so fine,' he catches himself thinking.
Gareth lowers his face, hopefully before anyone can get too close a look at them, but tries to keep the beautiful woman in sight.
'I'll not harm her, and there's no harm in looking,' he tells himself. 'Just to remember her, her beauty, I mean, for when I'm alone in the wilderness again. A thing of beauty is a great treasure.'
ilKhan, with no look of contrition or embarrassment at not understanding so simple a game, accepts the mallet from the Ulfen. Grabbing the worn wooden handle with both hands, ilKhan swings at the lever with all his might.
"Well, by the gods," the Ulfen man says with true amazement. He shakes he head to clear it, and smiles once more. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think we've found our 'King of the Carnival'!"
He hands ilKhan a paper crown which reads "King of the Carnival."
"A real fire giant? And a choker?" Durnim rhetorically asks. He hands a silver to the Carny.
The barbarian watches as the puck shoots up the pole and a hint of a smile creeps across his face at the spectacle. The noise and the attention of the crowd seems to make the barbarian uneasy as the Ulfen man hands ilKhan the crown. Staring at the paper bobble, ilKhan accepts it and puts it on his head as if he's unsure where it goes. After a moment of positioning it, the barbarian continues on, mindful of those who get too close.
Gareth finds himself smiling, and quickly rubs his chin, thus covering his mouth.
'Well now,' he thinks. 'Regardless which one it is, I've gotten to see one beauty turn into three. I'm ending the day on a profit, no matter what happens.'
"'Scuse me, Miss," Gareth calls up to the woman in question, and tugs at his hat's brim. "Do I have the pleasure of addressing the unique Madame Masque? Yer top left earring looks familiar, for the blue sparkle."
Wow. A short but real fire giant. Durnim wanders around the tent checking out the wonders from all angles.
Azubah addresses Hajeck "A real harrower would not need to ask so many questions about our dreams and past. You are nothing but a trickster."
To Denessrael he says "Save your coin, madam." And then he turns to leave.
"Thank you for your time" Denessrael says to Hajeck. As soon as the man (Azubah) leaves, Denessral passes Hajeck a silver coin. She then slips away, smiling at the fortune teller and hurries after the Azubah. Dennie still wants to see about a job but Azubah might prove to be either a colleague or competition or possibly both. In any event she wants to know more about him.
Azubah walks a few paces towards the biggest tent in the carnival. But he abruptly stops just short of walking into ilKhan. The sight of the big man spurs his sense of caution and he does his best to smile. "Congratulations" he says while looking up at ilKhan's crown. "It must have been an impressive blow that won you that." With a sideways glance Azubah looks for the Ulfen to see if he still stands. The winning hammer blow might just have met the Ulfen's head as the base of the pole.
"Wow a real baby dragon!"
It's going to be hard to spread a rumor that these are just harmless actors with that around.
Talgil hands a silver to the nearest handler and asks, "Is the carnival strapped for cash?"
Out of the corner of your eye, you see something crawling on the ground away from you. When you turn around, you see a large lizard crawling to the center of the midway.
"The baby dragon is loose!" you hear someone scream.
Suddenly, you hear a scream from outside the tent, back in the direction of the midway.
While looking around at the other creatures in the room, you hear a cage swing open and a a woman scream. You turn just quickly enough to see the baby dragon crawling from the tent.
"The baby dragon is loose!" you hear someone scream.
(Knowledge roll)
"Yikes, a lizard on the loose!"
Denny has no animal handling skill, so she will try to stay calm, get as close as she can to the lizard without scaring it.
Knowledge
Azubah looks around for escape routes. "How did that get loose?" he asks, no one in particular. Then an idle thought occurs to him. What if they released to kill the patrons so they could loot the bodies?
Hearing the scream outside the tent, Durnim hustles toward the exit of the tent nearest the scream. Once outside, he surveys the situation.
for initiative
Initiative
Azubah seems rooted to the spot for an instant but something unseen appears to jerk him out of him out of the beast's path.
"Everyone, try to stay calm!" Gareth shouts at the top of his voice. "Just get out of the creature's way, and don't trample each other!"
The lizard looks around, obviously confused and agitated. It hisses at the carnival-goers to stay back, though no one seems to have any inclination to be anywhere near it.
Suddenly, a man rushes onto the scene from the direction of the zoo, but stops suddenly when he sees the lizard. He looks around, panicked.
"Please, don't kill the baby dragon!" he yells with obvious worry in his voice.
"I got no desire to kill a baby anything, man! I don't even like to eat veal or lamb! But do you have something to calm it down with?" Gareth calls back.
I do not have a clue what to do. That nice mysterious man seems to have an idea.
Denessrael casts 'Guidance' on Gareth. +1 to almost any action he does. It's a touch spell and that's about it.
Even though it's really a lizard, Denny tries to calm it.
She speaks in as a low soothing tone as the language permits.
"Oh, you are serious" Azubah replies to the man in a surprised manner. "Hmm" he murmurs for a moment of apparent distraction. Then his eyes focus again and he looks at the man again. "Yes, why not?"
The odd man takes a few steps until he is in the path of the creature. When he faces it he holds his arms down and slightly away from his body with his palms turned up in a grasping motion. His skin seems to grow drier and more cracked as if it were about to start flaking off in large pieces. All the Azubah stares into the lizard's eyes.
Intimidate to change attitude
If possible, he will try to cow it into passivity.
Durnim holds up his empty hands to the dragon and says load enough to carry over the din. "Woah, big fella'. What's going on? Where are YOU going?" He moves and stops when it is 45-feet from him.
Talgil pulls the silk rope from his backpack and
runs outside making sure to keep about 15 feet back from the dragon.
"Hey dwarf! You look stout enough, hold the dragon so I can make use of this." Talgil gestures with the silk rope.
Init
K Nature (untrained so can't beat a DC 100 [
Kujo moves toward the creature, drawing his greatsword and in a fit of rage and strikes it with the flat of his sword
The lizard crawls around confused, hissing in the newly-formed circle of people around it. The lizard backs down from Azubah when he stares at it, but continues to hiss if anyone else comes close. When ilKhan steps up and swings his sword, it dodges out of the way and turns its attention on him.
It lunges out, snapping is jaws to try to bite ilKhan.
ilKhan also jumps out of the way, avoiding the bite, though the lizard's focus remains on the large man wearing the crown.
Rage 2/6
"Could we all please stay calm and do less hitting. You're upsetting the poor thing."
Guidance on Durnim if he looks like he's about to hold the lizard. Otherwise, Denny will hold people back and bar passage to the creature.
Damn! I might have had this beast under control.
Azubah attempts to cow the lizard again. He calls upon the power of Outer Darkness to augment his effort. This time his eyes darken almost to the point where they are not visible any longer and his lips pull back impossibly far to reveal a seemingly unnatural number of teeth.
Intimidate to demoralize
Durnim approaches the lizard to flank it with the King. "Over here, big guy! Stay away from the bystanders." Durnim says trying to distract the lizard.
"OK I guess we'll bop the thing to sleep."
I do not want to go toe to toe with a dragon. Hopefully he'll keep his attention over there."
Keeping the rope slung over his left arm, he draws his sap out with his right and moves to flank the dragon.
Denessrael casts Guidance on Talgil. Just because.
ilKhan, with Durnim's help, swings mightily down upon the lizard, who takes the blow and immediately submits.
A man arrives, winded and flushed, and begins giving orders.
"You two," he says to two nearby carnival workers. "Take the baby dragon back to his cage. Carefully now."
Other workers go to console the panicked man from before, who you now notice has exceedingly large ears.
The man giving orders approaches the six of you. As you look around, you see that everyone else had backed away, but you all stayed to help recapture the lizard.
"I can't thank you enough for your help today. You were all very brave, tackling a baby dragon like that. I'd like to give you a reward."
He hands each of you 10 gold pieces.
"Again, thank you."
"Harumph. Most obliged." Durnim replies to the man and tucks the gold away.
Looking up and up and up at IlKhan and his crown, Durnim says to him, "So you're the king?"
"If it is a dragon why doesn't it breathe fire?"
ilKhan cooly takes the reward offered by the man with large ears. Durnim's question is met with a look of confusion and then the barbarian's eyes rest on is paper crown.
"<Grunt> "
The barbarian takes the crown off his head and tosses it to the dwarf.
"Nice flanking."
"Glad to be of service." as he pockets the gold.
Turning to Azubah, "Maybe they grow into it, like birds and flying?"
"There's dragons what don't breathe fire, or so I've heard tell," Gareth says as she slowly comes closer. "Never heard of a dragon that couldn't talk, though. No matter. Maybe this one's a dullard."
Gareth shrugs, then extends his hand to Talgil, ilKhan and Durnim. "Well done, there. Gareth's the name."