Alessandria and Wispil take the stage, alongside three other competitors:
* Huegrus, an enormous toad with an almost impossibly deep, resonant voice. Dozens of cat-sized froglets are embedded and incubating in the skin of his back, and they periodically cheer on their dad.
* Snapgabble, a nonbinary flytrap leshy. Snapgabble likes to befuddle opponents with a disorienting rapid-fire flyting technique that alternates back and forth between the mouth on their face and the two additional mouths serving as their hands.
* Zylryndroth, a female will-o'-wisp. Zylryndroth mesmerizes others with flashing lights and colors as she flytes. When her foes least expect it, she transforms to display a fearsome visage.
Delgindergrim grins and waves to the cheering crowd. "Alright, alright, alright! Let's get this flyting contest underway! Huegrus, you're up first! Hit 'em with your best shot!"
Huegrus turns to Snapgabble and bellows, "A lesser leshy there never was; Your clumsiness is all the buzz; You stumble, stagger, all about; You're nothing but a clumsy lout!"
"Yay! Go dad!" cheer the froglets.
"Clumsy? That's a laugh! From a toad that needs a bath! Your swamp-stink is offensive. Now it's you on the defensive!" Snapgabble quips back, earning some applause.
The flytrap leshy turns to Wispil
"A goose is loose! With a large caboose! His rump's the size of a pregnant moose! Beware to stand downwind, my friend, lest a mighty wind blow from his huge rear end!"
The crowd erupts into jeers and laughter!
"Some silly whispers from a weed, whose flyting taunts have gone to seed. Put your roots back in the muck, before your foul mouths get you plucked."
Higgins gathers his dignity and calls out Zylryndroth.
Spying a weakness, he considers his flyte.
"Is that a bug or fire fly? Do I barely see a gleaming eye? With the sun up now, I hardly notice, such a display that seems so hopeless!"
”Abandon all hope, you big feathered dope. It’s clear to me you’re at the end of your rope,” Zylryndroth retorts.
The wisp regards Alessandria, then speaks. ”Are those weeds on your head? You wear horseshoes of lead! You look like a mare and a shambling mound wed!” she proclaims, her lights flashing in a dazzling display.
Barely paying attention, Kilitsi starts weaving some flowers to make a garland for herself.
"That's your best shot, Wisp, miscegenation? I don't know who finds that shocking, but not my generation." Despite the wordplay, Alessandria can feel that the crowd didn't exactly warm to her. Whoa girl. Keep the heat down. Don't look like you're taking this too seriously.
Whirling on Huegrus, she tries to do what she does best and spit fire. "Gotta take on the alpha dog; I gotta go for broke.
The words might not come too easy, but I'm sure not gonna choke.
You ribbit and you strut, but let's face it you're a joke.
Make this fight real and its over; your kids would watch you croak."
That... wasn't turning the heat down.
Alessandria's insults fall flat, and Huegrus doesn't even bother to quip back.
The toad turns to Zylryndroth. "I think that I shall never see; Someone as insecure as thee; You crave to feast on others' fear; But you should look within, my dear; Your need for prey to scream and flee; Stems from your inadequacy!"
The wisp flares angrily. "Big words, big toad! But I'll bite back! When you least expect it, I'll attack!" Her quip isn't that clever, and the audience lets her know.
Zylryndroth turns to Wispil. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. But this foul-tempered fowl has a brain full of mush! He's worth nothing! He's lame! You all just take a look! But I bet he tastes great. Yes, this goose I will cook!" Her glowing form changes into a grinning skull that crackles with electricity!
"You'd hold me in hand and roast me to ash? I'd be shaking in fear, but you're just swamp gas."
Holding off the attack, he turns to Huegrus.
"Are you here to babysit or to flyte? Hundreds of kids and they'll all disappoint. You sit under their weight like a lump, the only toad that can't high jump. "
"I'd rather be prodigious in size than prodigious in lies!" Huegrus quips, though it's not very effective.
The toad turns to Snapgabble. "You and I share certain traits; we both eat bugs at rapid rates; But large maw can catch more flies; Your mouths will just eat humble pie!"
Snapgabble recovers somewhat from the delightful insult. "Your mouth is big but your rhymes are weak! I'll gladly turn the other cheek."
The leshy then tries to come up with a good insult for Alessandria. "You're a silly filly who eats rotten lilies! If you were half-goat, then I will call you...uh, Billy!"
The crowd is not impressed.
Alessandria just rolls her eyes at Snapgabble's attempt, dismissing them with a flick of her tail.
"The only lilies that are rotten
are the ones beneath the misbegotten
bulk of this sulk-ridden hulk,
'cause far from hopping,
this old amphibian can't stop his stopping."
"Another size joke? Uninspired. Of such cracks, the crowd is tired," says Huegrus, but Alessandria's insult still stings.
"The time has now come to extinguish your light; Douse you with swamp water, it's no use to fight; I wonder what wonders will be revealed there; Robbed of your luster, you're naught but hot air!" the toad says to Zylryndoth.
"Hot air? You're full of it, bloated blowhard! How does it feel, hoisted by your own petard?" the wisp snaps back, rocking Huegrus back on his heels as the crowd goes wild.
She turns to Snapgabble. "And as for you, you make me laugh. You're harmless as a baby calf. A mooing, mewling, potted plant. Think you can beat me? Ha! You can't!"
The flyte isn't very effective, and so Snapgabble turns to Wispil.
"You honking quack of feathered prattle. A goose with wit as sharp as cattle. Your words waddle, your thoughts bizarre. Your intellect is quite subpar!"
"I've come to ignore such refrains, when they come from a creature with three mouths, but no brains."
The rude little bird turns to Huegus, "Your taunts are so weak you had to bring your own cheering squad. If you're a flyte king, then I'm a flyte god!"
"My cheer squad is my family; You spit out rhymes so clammily!" Huegrus says, failing to mount an effective counter-quip.
"A wisp with a lisp; Watch her burn to a crisp; As she melts from the heat; Of the rhymes I excrete!" Huegrus says to Zylryndoth.
"You speak of excretion, but it should be deletion. With your size, you must always be wracked with repletion!" the wisp counters.
"You think you’re fierce with jaws that snap, But your flytes are bores--the crowd, they nap! So close your maws and take a rest. You're just a weed, you're not the best!" she says to Snapgabble.
"Buzz off, glorified torch! Go brighten someone's torch!" the leshy counters, ineffectively.
Snapgabble seems to have been thrown off as they consider Alessandria. "A horse is a horse... Of course, of course?" The crowd laughs and boos!
Alessandria raises an eyebrow in mock pity. "Cause we're family, I can tell you that that was pretty weak cuz.
So shut your mouths, take a seat, don't make us hear your food buzz."
Snapgabble tries their best to come back, but it's not enough to overcome Alessandria's savage insult! The leshy is eliminated from the competition!
"You think you're scary
You're just airy
And you think that we'll let it pass
When you try to make us wary
And you're just a puff of swamp gas."
Alessandria recalls will-o-wisps' dislike for being mistake as undead. Unfortunately, it's not enough to help her flyte this time.
Zyrlyndroth targets Huegrus. "You can catch more flies with honey than with your long sticky tongue. Now go run for your money; your winning chances are far-flung!"
"Don't worry I'll be winning; My rhymes will keep your head spinning!" Huegrus tries to quip back, to little success.
The giant toad turns back to Alessandria. "You want to match rhymes, but you'll find my flytes charmed; In a battle of wits, I'm afraid you're unarmed!"
Kilitsi wanders a slight distance away as she loses interest in the contest.
"Like, this could go on for hours," she murmurs to herself, [smaller]"So long I could grow some flowers. Like, all they do is talk, maybe I'll go for a walk, try to rest in a bower."
Alessandria sneers dismissively at Huegrus's attempt to demean her.
"Unarmed? Mercy me, well I'd still make you beg;
Don't need to flex my forearms when I've got four legs!"
Trotting in a quick circle she displays her powerful physique before refocusing herself on Zylryndoth.
"So Zyl, what's your deal, since you're jabbering the most?
All checked out, floating by, do you wish you were the host?
Cause up here next to me, you just can't avoid the roast?
So level with me girl, you're getting pale, are you a ghost?"
"I'm not a ghost, how dare you! But my rhymes are sure to scare you!" Zylryndoth counters.
She turns to Wispil. "Do you know what happens to a goose struck by lightning? Mess with me and find out; you're sure to find it frightening!" The flyte isn't so great.
Wispil ignores the wisp's weak flyte and turns toward Huegrus:
"You're no more interesting than a bump on a log, we'd all be happier if you drowned in a bog!"
"I will not drown, you feathered clown!"
"I'll snuff you like a candle. Your loss will be a scandal!"
"A candle in the wind... still burns bright..."
"You're all honk and no bite. You have wings but lack flyte!"
"At least I can fight, you're insubstantial as a wight."
The crack about flightlessness lands! The bird keeps his attention on the toad, imitating short hops as he taunts in a sarcastic tone:
"Look at me, I'm Huegrus, a pile of horse plop. I must be manure cause I can't even hop!"
The crowd goes wild at Wispil's savage quip! Even the host leans forward and grins. The giant toad sputters and stammers, the children on his back momentarily stunned to silence. He tries to come up with an insult for Alessandria, but his incoherent response results in his elimination!
"Well at least the frog is gone now, good riddance what a joke.
He's off to watch the kids again, no need to hear him croak.
And now you're in my way? Please, you'd vanish at a poke
Unimportant, insubstantial, you're just a wisp of smoke."
"Where there's smoke, there's fire. Don't attract my ire!"
The wisp turns to Wispil. "You're not a goose, you're a turkey. Your rhymes are herky-jerky! Your feathers are frayed. Your flyting is staid. And your eyesight is murky!"
"I fight, fly by night, you know my flytes are are tight."
"Alessandre the centaur is full of horse sense; too bad those that meet her only notice her horse scents!"
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Gentle storm was enjoying the flyt competition, but as he looked around he noticed not everyone was as engaged. He decides to disengage from the stafe for a bit and seek out Kilitsi.
"Kilitsi dear, not enjoying the riveting back and forth of the competition? I must say it's quite a bit wordier than most years I've seen. Perhaps a walk to clear your mind? If you'd allow me to join you that is."
Kilitsi looks up with a start. "Oh, sure, I guess we could go for a walk. Like, I think I've seen monks come more heavily armed to a battle of wits than some of these contestants, but as long as other people are having fun..."
She happily departs with Gentle Storm, perhaps to see if she can find something to eat.
"Let's finish this quick;
go on back to the swamp.
Your rhymes just make me sick
while the crowd goes womp-womp."
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His face twists slightly at that as if pondering something. "Why did you not join them upon the stage then, you've quite the whet tongue for one sp young?"
He begins to stride with his walking spear in hand, "I've done well my own time at the competition in the past, but I've never much liked the potential glory or the verbose retorts. I much prefer the soft spoken words of the brooks and trees. You'd be shocked what what many secrets their leaves have seen."
He seems plenty content to walk with her, having already had that fruit, berry, and nut packed breakfast earlier that he'd brought to the group.
The flyting goes on for a few more minutes, but in the end, it is Alessandria who emerges victorious! As the crowd cheers for the centaur, the host Delgindergrim awards her with a lesser sapling shield engraved with a laughing face that slowly shifts to a frown as the shield takes damage, quipping that she'll need it to ward off the rhymes of all the flyters who will come for her at the next gala!
"Well, at least it was you who won, Alessandria. Those other jokers had no flyte skills," Higgins compliments his crewmate.
Kilitsi pauses to think about it, but finally answering.
"Like, why do we have to be mean to each other. I mean, sure, it's all in fun, but it's still mean. So whatever. I don't need to insult people," she says with a shrug. "If I want to hurt someone, I have an ax."
Alessandria nods at Kilitsi's wisdom.
"Insult someone well and you hurt them for as long as they remember;
Set someone on fire and you hurt them for the rest of their life."
With the flyting contest concluded, you resume your patrol of the Greenwood Gala. It isn't long before something requires your attention.
You spot a male orc and a female goblin sweeping shards of glass from teh floor of a tent near the exhibition stages. Visible just inside this tent is a complex device composed of numerous wheels and belts. A thick bundle of copper wires leads from the heart of the device to a plain metal plate embedded in the bottom of what must once have been a glass cube, now shattered into pieces. A ragged tear runs the full height of the back wall of the tent, as though something had ripped its own tent flap rather than using the existing one.
When he notices you, the orc flags you down. "Hey! WE could use some help here. I'm Delg Logsplitter, and this my partner, Frangelica." The goblin nods in greeting. "She's a brilliant inventor from Kortos, here to demonstrate her latest invention: a complex mechanical device powered entirely by bioelectricity. Normally, the glass chamber would contain my elemental companion Tumbo, a spark bat trained to generate powerful electric shocks at the ringing of a special bell, with each jolt producing enough power to run the attached device for over an hour. But somebody's stolen both Tumbo and his bell! The device can't work without him."
"If you can help us find Tumbo, we'll give you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in our endeavor!" Frangelica says with a grin. "This thing's gonna be huge. You'll be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams!"
"Who stole the bat? Can you give us a description?" Higgins looks over the devise with curiosity. "Also, what's this thing meant to do when it's working?"
"Making it work is my job; giving it a purpose is someone else's," Frangelina replies coyly.
"We don't know who took Tumbo, but we know how," Delg says, pointing to the hole in the tent. The back of the tent has been forcibly ripped open, and a series of large tracks are clearly visible in the soft earth outside.
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Gentle Storm nods to that, "That may be one way of looking at things, but not everyone can hurt or be hurt by an axe. Sometimes it take's just the right action to really cut deep and leave a lasting pain. It happens with people all the time in fact, wounds that take centuries to heal all because of some mispoken words."
Gentle storm approaches the tear in the tent picking up small buts and examining the footpath. Tilting his head to the side, causing his roiling mane of hair to shift as well.
"Seems to be a stormdrinker, I don't know if I can follow this scent though too much foot traffic and smells clouding it over."
He looks to his companions, "Though perhaps one of you can pick it up for now?"
"I don't have nose, you great tabby," Higgins offers, helpfully.
"Scents are fragile, fickle things," Alessandria stoops to indicate where the stormdrinker's passage has torn and bent the edges of undergrowth, "You would do well not to rely only on them."
"That's hobbled! You can't just let other people hurt you," Kilitsi says. She's too focused on her conversation with Gentle Storm to really pay attention to the stormdrinker. "You need to be, like, totally sure of yourself and not let other people's words affect you."
She bounces the axe lightly in one palm as she starts to wander the wrong way, with her usual lack of a sense of direction.
"So what else do we know about this stormdrinker? Think we're, like, totally going to have to fight it to get the spark bat back?"
You follow the tracks for about an hour or so. Soon, you can hear the distinct chime of a bell coming from a thicket ahead of you.
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"You have quite the bill though."
He chortles to Wispil's comment.
He does frown a bit at Kilitsi missing some of the point.
"Tell me dear, what do you know of the Wildwoods pact? Do you know how much influence a simple jumble of words has had on the world? What terrible atrocities they could wrought if unbound? Well placed words can do or prevent just as much damage as any blade, but more often than not on a scale that no single sword or axe could ever accomplish."
While Alessandria takes up the lead on tracking the stormdrinker Gentle Storm muses. "Isn't that the beauty of it though. The fleeting fragility, makes them all the more captivating I'd say. Best to enjoy them while you can... smell the roses if you will." He laughs.
"Stormdrinkers are intelligent, but I'm unsure if it will be willing to part with such a valuable prize. As the name implies do not strike it with electricity if it comes to blows. And given the spark bat's nature it may be wise to steal away the creature if it does as well."
Once they approach the bell tolls Gentle Storm seems to slink through the brush and disappear into it.
Higgins waddles after Gentle Storm, as quiet as he can manage.
"Words can, like, totally help make things better, but you shouldn't let them hurt you. Just like you can use an axe to clear a path, but you're not going to let someone cut you with one. Well, like, maybe unless you're a Kuthite?"
Despite her impressive size, Kilitsi is almost as quiet as Gentle Storm and Wispil.
Alessandria tosses her head in agitation, but tries to sneak after the disappearing cat. Her armored bulk though is more used to shock and awe than stealth...
The thicket clears to reveal a hulking mound of vegetation, vines curled around a large bell. The tiny spark bat Tumbo, an elemental being of electricity, clings to the plant. The plant rings the bell, and the bat bites it, causing the stormdrinker to shudder with euphoria as lightning courses through its body.
For the most part, you are able to stay quiet as you approach the clearing. At the last moment, though, Alessandria's clomping hooves alert the creature ahead to your presence! It looks up at you, a pair of beady red eyes nestled within its "face."