Alice asks the mushroom fellows might they have a sort of kit she can use to tend to the wounds of her larger friends.
After accepting this, she takes some cloth and wraps a sort of diaper about herself while in private, and her bare legs, and her hair.
A casting of Restyle transforms the articles into a pair of bloomers, striped stockings and a tiara. Alice immediately disrobes and gazes in awe at the sheer size of the tub.
(And the privy. No wonder the mushrooms wear diapers.)
She imagines herself a princess with a royal bath that is so ludicrously large, the masses would die of thirst and crops would dry so she could fill her tub, and the sun would grow smaller from heating the water.
She dives into the water, warming it with Prestidigitation magic. She imagines a mushroom fellow walking in to announce Prince Leopold requesting to ‘get laid’ (as her American friends put it) with the lovely Princess Alice, to which she says, “Tell Leopold, thank you, but his princess is in another castle.” She then imagines Leopold rides off to the castle of Princess Edith.
This thought saddens Alice. I was able to save myself from the foolish affair, but without me, my sister…
Alice senses herself drowning in her tears, but of course it is simply the oversized bath. After a good cleaning and a good cry, Alice dries and dresses.
She asks the way to Siobhan’s room and knocks upon her door.
“Siobhan. When you have a moment, could you kindly let me in?”
She is not a Liddell, but she is a sister.
Siobhan answers the door dressed in her hide bikini, her hair soaked wet and a towel wrapped around her. "Aye?"
Alice holds up her new healing kit.
“I was the fourth of ten children, Siobhan. I shall dearly miss my brothers and sisters.” She almost adds, Edith most of all, but dares not. Instead she says, “But I have two brothers and two sisters here.
“If you would kindly lay down on the bed, I will do something about those wounds, as best I’m able.”
Once Siobhan is in position, Alice gets to work. The fur bikini is convenient for this task, should the warrior woman prefer to remain fully clothed.
Alice finds the mushroom-person-sized tools compatible with her new size.
It only takes ten minutes to dress the wound. She hopes Siobhan is no longer in pain.
“For all the education with which I’ve been privileged, I’m afraid I lack formal training in this sort of thing. That said… how do you feel?” Wincing a bit, she says, “Please say ‘better.’”
The Celt lays down on the bed and allows Alice to work. There's a bit of pain, but considering what she's recently endured it's barely even noticeable.
"...better." She says once Alice is done.
“That’s a relief.”
She’s about to bid Siobhan goodnight, but Alice notes the mold on the bed.
“Oh… this will not do, especially not after a bath.”
She uses Prestidigitation to gradually clean the bed for Siobhan. “This magic is quite fun. I was warming my bathwater. I could do the same for the sheets after I clean them, if you’d like. And… I was thinking maybe I can help Jedediah with his outfit. Do you like mine?” She points out great tiara and striped stockings… but she does not mention the bloomers. “The fur suits you, but if you ever need me to alter your outfit stylishly, simply ask.
“The magic cannot adjust for modesty, so you know, not that I think it a concern.” If I had muscles like her, I’d flaunt them.
Siobhan blinks as she watches Alice tidy up her bed and sheets. When she asks about her outfit, the Celt nods. "It suits ya."
"It's... it's kind of ya to offer. I like showing off my markings and power to the world--lets folk know they can't stop me." She grimly chuckles.
Unless of course they're Roman.
Alice agrees, “I don’t think your outfit should change either. I just didn’t want to use my magic on Jedediah without having offered to you.
“But I suppose it can wait. It seems we’re meant to turn in for the night, so off I go.”
Alice then heads to the door. It is just now that it occurs to her, a mushroom fellow had answered her call for directions to Siobhan’s room. Siobhan let her in. Therefore…
Alice stares up at the door. Without explaining herself, Alice jumps up in the air—
—and hits the floor, and lands on her bottom. She leaps no higher on the second attempt, and lands as gracelessly. Third time’s a charm, Alice makes the jump and grabs onto the doorknob.
And now she’s dangling from it.
The painted warrior watches as Alice hops up and down a couple of times before finally managing to grab the doorknob and dangle from it.
"...d'you, er, need some help there?"
“Yes.”
Alice somehow manages to pull herself up onto the knob and sit on it.
“I was going to ask you to get the door, but what would be the point? I can’t open my own door either. The mushroom fellow opened it for me when I asked to be led to your room.”
She just sits there on the doorknob, striped legs dangling.
The Celt nods and gets up to open the door for Alice.
"I'll get your room door for ya, too."
Alice hops down from the doorknob.
Once at her own room, Alice says, “Thanks for that, Siobhan. I suppose you’re looking forward to having a bed to yourself, so I’ll not detain you from it.”
Alice flits onto her own bed and starts Prestidigitally removing the mold, starting with the pillow she’s seated cross-legged on. She smiles brightly at Siobhan as if all is right with the world.
The Gael nods at Alice and goes back to her room, trying to fall asleep in her bed.
As soon as the door closes Alice falls back on her pillow. “Oh, that was so humiliating!”
She goes from self pity to giggles in a very short amount of time, then she removes her dress and tiara, and decides the bloomers and the stockings make for comfortable sleepwear.
“Or…!”
Alice cuts more of the fabric and uses her Restyle spell to make a nightgown. She then disrobes everything and cuts two more strips of cloth and Restyles that. Shen then cuts more cloth and finds she cannot cast the spell, for this magic is limited, unlike the fire.
Of the two new outfits, Alice puts one aside and wears the other to sleep.
Over the next week or so, Zedoran spends most of your waking hours with you. He questions you each extensively about your life on Earth, focusing largely on peoplea and events of historical significance and the technological advances of your time periods. He also works to train you in your newfound martial and magical prowess, utilizing his myceloid minions as sparring partners and targets for you to test your abilities. The dragon seems unconcerned with the fungal creatures' welfare.
One morning, Zedoran gathers you all before him. "I have a task for you," the mighty dragon rumbles. "The Fangwood is an ancient place, first settled by the elves millenia ago. Some of their elven magic lingers still, sometimes causing the forest's geography to shift, move, emerge, or vanish. My orcs have reported the sudden appearance of an elven structure nearby. I want you to travel there and explore the building. Bring back anything you find their of value. Do this, and I will be pleased, indeed."
Alice had at one point spent a full day training in a faux fur bikini, but for the rest of the week, she wore her blue dress and striped stockings.
Alice offered to restyle outfits for anyone interested:
• a Wild West outfit for Jedediah?
• a fashionable party dress of the Victorian era for Felitcia?
• and what a true gentleman would wear at one of Prince Leopold’s parties for the good doctor?
…and yes, Alice would take requests and re-cast if she didn’t quite get the outfit right the first time!
Alice is certainly not going to say no. If no one else speaks up, Alice nods and gives Zendoran two thumbs up!
Felitcia found the first week of their stay to be bearable. It wasn't great but she came to the conclusion that it could have been far worse too. Their draconic host seemed most fascinated about her time period and she didn't mind talking to him and telling him what she could, it did make her the center of his attention and Felitcia loved being the center of attention.
The progress of her powers came along as well as could be expected since there was no one who really knew much about them. It took a lot more work on her part, and convining her companions to let her try them out since Felitcia wasn't about to try and use them on the dragon and the myceloid minds, such as they were, were just too strange and alien for her to want to try anything on.
Felitcia did take Alice up on her offer of altering her clothing, though she mostly had her make small adjustments to what she already. She asked Alice to shorten the skirt, open up the neckline a bit more so the dress just hung onto her shoulders and add an opening that let some small amount of her cleavage show, just enough to be tastefully suggestive of the rest.
When the day came that the dragon said he had a task for them Felitcia considered it carefully. She was not some errand girl who would do just whatever was asked of her but she also didn't ant to make their host angry by refusing lest he eat her or something. Finally she nodded in agreement with Alice and said, "Sure, why not."
Though flattered by Alice's offer, Richard keeps the orcish-styled hide armor. These new acquaintances had been good to him, and in a way, he was one of them after all.
To Zedoran, Richard says, "I must admit, I know very little about what you expect us to find there. Do you know much of these ancient elves? Any information you have that could help us would be greatly appreciated."
Siobhan's week is filled with relentless axe-swinging, starting at first with the goal of getting her used to her newfound strength but rapidly turning into an excuse for her to vent her anger.
The myceloids would present her with a series of straw dummies for her to strike with her axe; the wisest of them would then leave the room. The red haze settling across her vision caused everyone she saw to look just a little bit more Roman, and while she didn't know if her draconic host cared overmuch about his fungal servants, it would be terribly inconvenient if her axe found more stalk than straw to cut.
The exercise does get Siobhan thinking, however. This wasn't especially different from how she was trained to fight back in the Isles--at least she didn't have to adapt to having an entirely new body or eerie magic powers. Come to think of it, why hadn't she changed when she was brought across?
Well, perhaps that was not entirely true. Her tattoos seemed to be utterly indelible now; neither baths nor blood nor plant excretions were able to mar them for long.
---------------------------
Siobhan raises no objection to the idea of exploring an elven ruin.
"Like you, the elves are not native to this world," Zedoran says. "They came here millenia ago through a portal called the Sovyrian Stone. When Earthfall threatened to ravage the world, they fled in droves back to their planet of origin. They only returned about two thousand years ago to prevent a nascent demon lord from corrupting the Sovyrian Stone into a portal to the Abyss.
"The greatest of the ancient elves were archmages of unimaginable power. They wrought spells beyond anything most mortals are capable of these days. And fragments of that power still linger here in the Fangwood.
"Now, go! Be about your task, and try not to die!"
***
When you are ready, you set out east from Zedoran's Pit, venturing once more in to the tangled, shadowy reaches of the Fangwood. The autumn air is crisp and cool, and patches of fog drift through the eerie forest.
After a couple of hours, you reach the first impediment to your progress. The terrain must have shifted recently, as a 15-foot-wide chasm blocks your path. It drops down about 20 feet into a fast-moving stream.
Alice stands at the edge, noting the distance across the gap. It is fifteen feet, which converts to fifty Alices.
Siobhan could doubtlessly make that jump, but opts to find a way around that everyone else could follow.
It doesn't take her too long to find one!
Felitcia took a look at the distance and knew it was going to be tough to jump that distance. Still she knew that it had to be done and she was not going to risk angering the dragon by going back so soon, even she wasn't that foolish. Instead Felitcia decided to do something else foolish, try and jump across to gorge.
Felitcia moved back to get a running start and, after a moment of worry, took off in a sprint. When she reached the edge she pushed off...
...but suddenly realized something was very wrong when the ground beneath her foot gave way and killed her momentum. She was five feet from the far edge when she felt herself begin to fall.
Fortunately Felitcia slipped back to reality at that point as she realized that Siobhan had a nice path right over there and, while that would make for a dramatic death scene it would be such a waste for one as pretty as her to fall to her death. Instead she went to Alice and offered her a palm as she said, "It seems Siobhan found a nice path, need a lift?"
After just ten minutes, Siobhan returns to announce she's found another way around! And not only has she discovered the trail in record time, she also spots a glittering crystal lying amid the undergrowth. Richard identifies it as a potency crystal.
Siobhan picks up the crystal.
"...huh."
Richard studies the crystal for a moment before saying, "Not quite sure how I know it, but that crystal will make your strikes hit much harder for a brief moment if you focus on it. It'll be useless afterwards though."
Alice smiles. “Yes, thank you.” She could walk, however slowly. But in the interest of accepting hospitality and not making her striped stockings dirtier than necessary, she happily steps onto Felitcia’s offered hand.
Alice offered to restyle outfits for anyone interested:
• a Wild West outfit for Jedediah?
Alice very quickly becomes Jedediah's favorite person. He emerges with a new outfit, black with gold trim, a long coat with a high collar and a wide-brimmed hat with a golden trim of spikes on it. It was a testimony to Alice's skill that she made such a goofy unhinged creature look...so damn sleak.
Jedediah has been uncharacteristically quiet, cowed by the dragon and the others and the situation as a whole. As the dragon gives them a task he does nothing but nod grimly. He shifts in anticipating, clearly wanting to get moving.
You continue on. The trail Siobhan discovered winds among the trees and though it is off the beaten path, you find it rather easy to travel along it. Additionally, no wandering creatures seem to be aware of it.
As night falls, you come upon the ruined elven structure. It is clear that it used to be a beautiful building, with graceful, sweeping architecture, but now it is a crumbling ruin. Most of the roof has collapsed, but one wing of the building is still intact. Double doors of stone provide an entrance to the building.
[quoet=Jedediah]Jedediah has been uncharacteristically quiet, cowed by the dragon and the others and the situation as a whole. As the dragon gives them a task he does nothing but nod grimly. He shifts in anticipating, clearly wanting to get moving.
With Alice safely in her palm Felitcia lifted her hand up so the tiny woman could move to her shoulder before she started to walk. Felitcia paused briefly and looked over the edge only to feel a great pall of fear as she looked down. That little image she had in her mind, of falling to her death, felt far more real than it should have for an idol fancy. Felitcia shuddered before moving away and following Siobhan along the trail. She'd never been afraid of heights before but, for some reason, Felitcia flet terror at the though of that fall.
When they reached the ruins Felitcia looked around her wuth disdain. She could agree it was a beautiful place at one time but it seems quitre rundow and seemingly deserted. "Greeeaatt," she said, "This place loooks like it should be haunted."
"...well, no sense standing about." Siobhan steps up to the doors and opens them.
Unfortunately, when Siobhan reaches out to grasp the door latch, an invisible rune inscribed upon it releases a powerful electric discharge into her body!
Siobhan manages to yank her hand back before she gets too badly shocked.
"ACK!"
Alice indignantly paces a hand on each hip.
“A dead bolt. Guard dogs. Soldiers in redcoats and fuzzy black hats. These are how you protect an interior. Why, the elves probably did not leave but died by their own perilous home.
“Ab – surd.”
She turns to Siobhan.
“Shall I tend to your wound? It’ll take time, but I expect other dangers lurk within, and not all of us can take a jolt as well as you can.”
It only takes Alice 10 minutes and Siobhan is good as new!
Siobhan doesn't object to her injury being tended to.
"...thanks."
Once Siobhan’s injury is taken care of, you proceed through the doors. A long entry hall leads into the building’s interior. Large murals adorn the walls, depicting elves in gray robes, but the paint is faded and the subjects are difficult to make out.
Two suits of silvery metal armor stand in the middle of the hall, holding crossed glaives. When you get close, however, the armor suddenly animates, rattling as they bring their glaives into defensive poses!
The empty suits of armor move forward, slicing at Richard and Siobhan!
Siobhan drinks down one of her healing potions...
...then steps up and swings her axe!
“Hey! I just healed her you, you, you…”
Alice hurls fire at the one that hit Siobhan!
“…you…”
“…empty SUIT!”
Felitcia saw the empty suits of armor start moving and realized very quickly her magic won't work on them. Instead she pulled out her crossbow, loaded a bolt into it, and fired it at the suit that attacked Siobhan since it seemed the most dangerous.
"Sure, living armor, why not."
Richard allows the knowledge to flow through him. He’s not quite able to recall what these things are, but he begins to formulate a plan how to destroy them.
He advances, blade drawn, ready to fight.
Jedediah fires two bullets into one of the animated suits of armor, but they plink off its plates without doing much damage. Siobhan's attack comes up short. Felitcia takes aim with her crossbow and fires a bolt directly into the armor's central mass! The armor plates crack and shatter, leaving the creature badly damaged and most of its armor destroyed!
Taking advantage of the opening, Alice hurls fire into the damaged construct, causing it to fall to pieces! Richard moves up, trying his best to understand the weaknesses of the armor's design. Finding none, he resolves to make his own, wrapping a few spikes around the end of his blade for extra puncturing power!
The remaining animated armor swings its glaive at the approaching orc, managing one hit.
Siobhan turns her axe on the last armour suit standing!
Jedediah frowns down at his gun. "Thought these were supposed to be good against armor?" He shrugs, drawing his second and firing it!
Siobhans' second strike tears into the armor, shattering its defenses and leaving it barely standing. Jed's bullet finds its mark, finishing off the construct!
Siobhan grimaces as the final suit of armour goes down. She stares at the ruined metal, her eye twitching slightly.
"Not of their make. Not of their make. Not of their make. Not of their make." She mumbles to herself, the red haze creeping back into the corners of her vision.
Jedediah steps away from Siobhan, slowly reloading his second pistol. "Uh, howdy there Siob, you doing alright there?"
Alice says, “Alas, she is too vulnerable to treat now. I will work on you later, Siobhan.
“Richard, if you would kindly let me take a look at you…”
"Huh?"
Jedediah's question manages to chase the haze--and its accompanying memories--from Siobhan's mind.
"...I'll be alright. Just caught a bit off-guard there."
"Thank you, Alice."
He places a hand on Siobhan's shoulder, "You fight well. There is much I can learn from you."
Jedediah tucks his guns away with a sour expression. Then he hocks a loud loogie onto the ground. "Alright, I'll say it. This is as batty as a cross-eyed horse." He folds his arm with a frown. "We're all brought into this other world, half of us not even in our right bodies, and now we're bowing to these 'orcs' and dragons." He shakes his head in annoyance. "Back in a world where there was law I didn't feel the need to kowtow to anybody, and in this wild frontier I'm sure as hell not going to sign over my allegiance to the first big ugly bastard that I run across. We can do whatever the hell we want to. I mean s~~&!" He gestures pointedly back towards the general direction of the dragon. "Did you see those rough-riding bastards? Soon as it pleases them they'll slit our throats and leave us for the pigs. No sir, not me. I say we strike out on our own. There has to be some semblance of civilization somewhere in these parts." He narrows his eyes and looks out towards the horizon. "And I reckon with how strange and dangerous this new world is we outta do it together."