"He talks like he thinks he is in the theater" Cailyn says to the feathered woman next to her "Is he any good?" she doesn't respond to his lines, spending her moment to aim into his blurred image, thinking she had it but as her bolt fires she realizes "DarNation" she grumbles as it went wide, but quickly starts to reload.
Cailyn's quarrel goes wide without even a casual notice from the blurred target.
"Kikonu imagines himself a playwright and all the world a stage for his amusement. Too bad his talent doesn't match his ego." Zaiobe's voice echoes in Cailyn's mind, but then the echoes vanish as the harpy pulls her hand away to tend to the task at hand - a spell upon herself.
Orchid has no time for rambling, especially not from this... thing. So she jumps on him!
Shunsen surges forward, running around to get behind the eloquent bird-man....
Seeing Kikonu protecting himself from magic Flori decides to get around it in her favored way - summoning her friends to help. Friendship is magic after-all.
So she moves through the familiar gestures of summoning and feels something more tugging at the edges of her spell...
Orchid and Shunsen flank the man and keep him occupied with ineffective attacks while Flori begins summoning ... something.
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Round 2
"Oh, you'll make a perfect match for the other yellow-hair!" Kikonu exclaims as he twirls around Vigny. "I've already got ideas for a play that revolves around two sisters competing for the same man. Can you dance? Please tell me you can dance!" The sickle on the end of the chain in his hand lashes out and draws a red line along Vigny's leg.
"He speaks well at least, though his ideas are tired at best." the mega reader says as she aims slowly before launching a steel tipped bolt into the speaker's thigh.
Vigny takes the hit without a flinch or comment except for a rebuttal to Cailyn as she pivots, tracking Kikonu's movements.
"Nah, not so fancy. Just another rapey so-called man trying to play off his sick mind as complicated and interesting."
She finishes with a quick phrase in another language, "onnellisempi sinä!", and turns it up on Kikonu, slashing at him again.
Between their banter, both Cailyn and Vigny draw copious amounts of blood from the man who seems to grow even angrier. Zaiobe pulls an arrow from her quiver and nocks it to the bow. As she releases it, the arrow bursts into flames. The arrow misses and she immediately draws and fires a second one that also misses.
"Hmmm" Cailyn muses as she cranks her crossbow back to reload "Good points, Vigny. His pompous words, detestable actions, and inflated ego presumably are acts to hide a shameful deficiency in... well his lower anatomy."
Shunsen smirks as her friends verbally take down the obsequious bird-man. She resets after her initial miss, then dances in declaring, "I can dance..."
Orchid lashes out with her claws and seems interested in testing Cailyn's theory - based on where she's aiming at least.
Flori finishes her chant and is as surprised as anyone else when, rather than her normal pony, a sleek cobalt shape stalks out of the ether and leaps onto the bird-man. It's lupine movements match Orchid's perfectly, a blue brother to Flori's angry little sister.
Flori herself tries to identify Kokoru, hoping to uncover a weakness.
While able to dance, Shunsen still manages to miss with her falchion as does Flori's summoned pony. Orchid rakes him with her claws. Flori attempts to wrack her brain, but something about this figure puts it outside anything she's familiar with.
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Round 2
"Oh, no, no, No!" Kikonu protests, turning to Flori. "There will be no more walk-ons! You will follow the script!" With that he spins away from Shunsen and closes on the young mage. Thrusting himself into her personal space, his teeth snap at her arm. The bite is superficial, but when Flore attempts to shout in protest, she finds that she has no voice.
"Now you sit and be a good girl and play your part," the man orders ... in Flori's voice. He's stolen her voice!
Vigny chases down Kikonu, delivering another sword blow when she catches up.
"You don't just prance off away from me! We're not close to finished demon!"
Cailyn reads SO Much quite often she forgets what exactly applies to a current situation until something like taking the voice from one of her best friends happens and Then... ???
unfortunately, that eureka moment happened just as she pulled her trigger and the bolt that could end the feathered flop missed AGAIN.
As the nature of their enemy reveals itself to the studious Miss Vanderale, Vigny's blade brings an apparent end to the would-be playwright.
Zaiobe spins around in what seems to Cailyn to be a victory celebration before turning towards her and drawing and firing a flaming arrow directly at the occultist. The arrow slams into her side filling her with fiery pain. The harpy then leaps into the air, her wings spreading as she flaps for the top of the tower.
"Oh!" Cailyn's seemingly favorite word comes from her lips as she recognizes Kikonu to be an oni. Her mind connects his fall with his wounds, and is about it say something really important. But Zaiobe moves, drawing blue eyes to shifting feathers, then to the flaming arrow "Yes, fire!" but her announcement of why that is a good thing is utterly lost to the sudden punch in her side... which makes no sense, no one punched... her...
Her thoughts grew slower rather quickly, followed by the dull thud of her face hitting the fortifications.
"Betrayal!" Shunsen hisses, knocking an arrow an letting fly at the traitorous bird-lady..
Vigny is too focused on killing Kikonu to realize a betrayal is afoot until Shunsen says the word. She groans in an 'of course' kind of way and jams her longsword into the ground beside her so she can rapidly switch to her bow and get off a shot at that damn harpy.
Shunsen's arrow misses, but Vigny's manages to clip the harpy before she vanishes around the other side of the tower's roof.
She has no immediate spells of fire, but assuming acid would be just as effective and finding her voice having returned to her, Flori proceeds to splash Kikonu with gouts of acid.
Combat Ends!
A quick check by those below of the tengu's body produces a leather pouch with several vials of ink, five shiny pearls , and a darkwood-and-silver disc decorated with an intricate etching of Brinewall under the noonday sun which radiates a faint aura of transmutation magic. The weapon he was wielding is magical as well - Dancing Wasp
The grisly business below having been dealt with, the majority of the group begins trudging back up to where Cailyn lingers, staggered, on the castle wall.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Cailyn hears a high pitched voice mutter as she leans dizzily against the parapet. She's not sure if she's now hallucinating because appearing from behind one of the cut stone merlons is a tiny figure with butterfly wings. At most, a foot tall, the diminutive woman has pointed ears and long green hair.
"Why are big folk so stupid?" she repeats as she closes on the confused occultist. The woman reaches out a hand and Cailyn feels warmth spread from the touch. "Smart enough to kill nasty bird beasts, but stupid, stupid, stupid, to trust feathered firebowwielding ...." The voice grows faster and higher pitched until Cailyn can no longer understand what the tiny woman is saying. The trilling quickly finishes and the woman flutters in the air staring at Cailyn.
"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
The pain and confusion causes Cailyn to answer before she thinks. "she... was pretty "
"And are you always stupid, stupid when faced with a pretty face?" the woman queries, her hands on her hips. She turns as the others arrive and flits through the air to put the occultist between her and the rest of the group.
"You big folk need to be more careful. There are more bird beasts inside and if you wish to defeat them all, you need to be smart like Spivey and not go all stupid, stupid for a pretty face."
Cailyn knows it isn't just the pretty face that made her believe Zaiobe without question, but she cannot find the words to defend herself. As her reason gets announced so loudly, she turns bright red. She doesn't look away at least. Her mother drilled in the need to face one's mistakes. "How would... Spivey... suggest being smart?"
Vigny arrives still amped up from her fight with Kikonu, and also very annoyed by Zaiobe's heel turn. When she sees the small woman floating by Cailyn, she cocks her head slightly and narrows her eyes in suspicion.
"More flying and more advice on what exactly we should be doing here. Let's cut straight to it; how are you going to f@~$ us over when the time is right?"
"Spivey doesn't make suggestions about what the big folk should do. Big folk never listen to us anyways. Big folk are always yell, yell, yell, stab, stab, stab, shoot, shoot, shoot. They never appreciate what's around them. And they easily fall for pretty faces. But Spivey knows that pretty faces don't mean pretty insides." She turns to glare up a the tower and sparkles of light shimmer from her wings. Turning back, she looks up at Vigny defiantly. "Spivey's only suggestion is don't be like all the other stupid big folk."
She places her hands on her hips again.
Cailyn realizes that Spivey is a lyrakien azata. Lyrakien are divine musicians and messengers, mainly in the employ of deities of travel and natural wonders. They love to explore and visit beautiful places, especially locations with excellent views of rainbows, moonlight, and the stars.
"Oh... you are a Lyrakien azata, are you not? A divine musician." Caiyln's face brightens through the pallidness being in pain is causing and her embarresement at being played.
After a moment's pause, her lips purse then open to say "Thank you for your wise words, melodious one. If possible, may we hear what the advice would have given, if you hadn't decided we would simply ignore it based on sizeism?"
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"We've given what advice we have," Spivey replies, her stern face softening somewhat. "Our way is not conquest or battle and we know almost nothing of it. But we've seen many come here and be cut to pieces ... stabbed and ... "
She turns away, hiding her small face. A moment later, her emotions mastered, she turns back. "You have skill with sharp and pointy things and you've managed to cut down the nastiest of the bird folk, so perhaps you have what it takes to finish the job." She meets Cailyn's eyes and her lip curls up into a smirk. "As long as you don't fall for any more pretty faces."
Cailyn loses Vigny within about two syllables.
"A lykrak... anian... whatsit?
She glances at Spivey after botching the words.
"No disrespect, I've never heard of any of this before."
"We're from Elysium," Spivey explains. "It's no surprise that you haven't heard of it or us. Most big folk haven't. We were summoned here by ... a friend." The pained look returns to the small woman's face and she quickly shakes it off. "But our story is for another time once the evil nasty viciousfeatheredsharpcutting...." her voice trails off again growing higher and higher pitched.
When she finally concludes her stream of invective, she crosses her arms and looks from Cailyn to Vigny and then to the others.
"Why are you standing around talking to me? Go slash slash stab stab!"
Vigny uses her final spell on Cailyn.
"I think we'll need a break first. I'm all but used up after the fight with the 'theater director'".
Cailyn keeps her mouth shut at the mention of pretty faces, which she worries she might never live down. She does properly thank the little azata for healing with a curtsey and a promise to attempt to stay out of the path of flaming arrows in the future.
Orchid shakes her muzzle and reverts back to her normal face shape. "Kill sneaky bird." She declares before approaching the azata with a smile - a genuine expression without teeth that makes her look a lot younger. "Hello little cousin. Blessing dream mother for you. Always welcome in caravan. You think right about birds. Be friends?"
That might be the longest speech Orchid has ever managed and she seems far more friendly to this tiny fairy than she normally is to anything with less than four legs (apart from Flori of course!).
"Will help with birds, little cousin?" She asks. "Go inside, find vault. Make Ameiko better. Then kill birds! Come with us?"
Flori is totally nonplussed by the new comer to the situation and remains quiet for a moment, hoping the others handle the situation whilst allowing her voice to recover further.
As Orchid suggests that they continue suddenly, with their new companion, she snaps out of her silence, knowing she has to call a break; Cailyn just took a nasty hit and the others have been strong for so long now.
"Orchid, we are stopping here for a break." She says, as authoritatively as she can manage right now, hoping her sister will listen before looking around at everyone else, quietly pleading with someone else to back her up.
"We will not be able to fight at our best if we continue and we cannot risk that we lose. Ameiko wouldn't get better if we lose."
Cailyn's mouth had dropped several feet toward the floor as Orchid (ORCHID!) suddenly spoke actual sentences. It was only when Flori stepped in for a scolding that her jaw managed to find its proper place.
On instinct she was going to say, she was fine now, thanks to the wonderful healing provided, but the pleading in her friend's voice was enough to make her stop. "Oh, yes, arrow wounds, broken pride, less magical Umpf, agreed, a rest would be beneficial."
"Spivey wouldn't be much help against nasty vile vicious bird-folk," the small woman responds to Orchid's suggestion. "But ... maybe."
With the group wanting to take a moment out to rest, Spivey suggests that she has a place she can offer.
"It might be a little crowded with all you big folks, though," she warns.
Heading back to the gatehouse, down the ladders, and out the main door of the castle, Spivey leads you back down the overgrown road into the village, muttering all the while about how noisy big folk are. The rain has picked up and you're all looking forward to finding shelter, so you're a little surprised when she leads you to the partially open gate to the quiet little graveyard.
Flitting through it, she chuckles. "Nasty bird-folk don't come here. They think it has ghosts." She laughs again. "Stupid stupid. Don't know why they'd think that."
Leading you through the neatly tended graves, she takes a moment to point out a marble statue of Desna that holds a copper bowl in its hands. Flitting up, she indicates the collected rainwater in the bowl. "Mother Moon blesses the water in this bowl once a day. You're welcome to use it if you think it will be helpful."
Next to the statue is a small wooden marker. Unlike the other gravestones in the cemetery, this one is fashioned crudely of wood and looks to be fairly recently placed. It's also leaning slightly. Fluttering down to the marker and muttering to herself, Spivey carefully straightens the marker and bows her head whispering a quiet prayer.
Once she's finished, she leads up the hill at the rear of the cemetery to a stone crypt. The door is partially ajar and with a little force, it's easily pushed open enough to allow the more normal-sized members of the group entry. It's not a large space inside, but it's dry and while cramped, there's enough space for you all.
Only one of the niches is occupied and the plaque reads Admiral Mercatio Kiameleu, Founder.
"You can rest here," Spivey declares, fluttering up to an empty niche where she's made an apparent home.
Cailyn settles on the floor under Spivey's home, after spreading out a bedroom. "Was... the person you prayed for close to you?" she asks the azata softly.
"She was ... my friend," Spivey responds after a moment. "And her name was Lady Jilia Rosetti." She doesn't say anything for a bit and the silence stretches out. "And we would rather tell her story at another time," she concludes, her voice softer than normal.
As the rain continues to fall outside, music echoes out from Spivey's niche. It seems the small woman has produced a small harp and is singing a somber melody. Cailyn recognizes the language as Celestial. Spivey serenades you until the light begins to fail as the sun sets.
"Rest well, big folk," she says finally. "Much stabbing and slashing ahead of you tomorrow."
Orchid always enjoys music and there's something about Spivey's particular song that resonates with her. She doesn't understand it but... she does... sort of. Once the song ends she doesn't move, simply focusing on the tiny sprite and silently begging for more.
Sleeping in the small space, surrounded by warm bodies is pleasantly familiar - just like sleeping in the den with her pack. Before. Orchid gets the best night's sleep she has had in ages and wakes early and full of energy. Slipping out is a simple matter - humans sleep deeply, much more so than wolves and Orchid was slipping out of the den as a pup, this is no challenge.
Outside in the damp, grey morning air she looks to the west and the fading stars on the horizon.
"Hello, little cousin." She says, not needing her eyes to notice Spivey's approach. "Why here? Why stay? Wander like stars, not sit like tree."
Spivey doesn't respond immediately. Sitting on a stone gravemarker, she ponders. "Spivey made a promise," she finally says. "We promised Lady Rosetti that we would stay. Stay to see it finished." She looks up towards the castle. "Stay to see nasty vicious bitey bird folk be cleansed from this place."
There's silence again, but for the dripping of water from the leaves of trees. The rain having stopped sometime during the night.
"Oh, OH!, " the small woman exclaims and flitters up into the air. "Look. Look!" Pointing to the east, amid the breaking clouds and the rising sun is the tiniest arc of a rainbow. "See? See?!" She flutters higher up into the air and seems to bask in the presence of the aerial phenomenon.
"The big folk must wake!" she declares. "It's a sign! Time to stab stab bite bite slash slash!"
Flori stirs suddenly from her sleep as she hears a voice calling out. She tries to make sense of her surroundings before she remembers where she was and who she was surrounded by.
She sits up and looks around, rubbing her eyes blearily, everyone is sound asleep which was very much needed. But where is her sister?
A sudden thought strikes her - she hasn't gone back on her own, has she? She scrambles up and out of the crypt without much effort to be quiet, accidently stepping on Shunsen's feet as she goes.
"Sorry! Sorry!" She says, whilst continuing to head outside.
Fortunately as she gets outside into the damp morning air, her eyes immediately fall upon her sister and Spivey staring out into the distance.
Letting out a sigh of relief, she heads over to them to find what they are both looking at so intently.
Cailyn sleeps like a lump. Curled up in a semi sitting ball, wrapped in a blanket and head against a feather pillow she seems to have packed in her pack.
The high pitched declaration wakes her (slowly) accompanied with yawning stretches and a "What?"
Moonday, 5th of Sarenith, 4711 AR (day 20)
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The others make their way out to where Spivey is explaining the signs as she sees them.
"Mother Moon has given us a sign today," she exclaims excitedly. "Not only is today Moonday, up there is her blessing on the day's task." She waves her hand across the scattered morning clouds towards the faint coloring of a rainbow.
What small rations of food you have are shared and preparations are quickly made at the impatient prompting of the extra-planer woman.
She leads you back up through the scattered trees along the road to the castle. Peering out beneath the wet leaves, Shunsen and Vigny quickly notice that the wall carries more activity than it did yesterday. They note three of the large bird-folk walking along the wall of the castle over the gatehouse. It would be surprising if killing four of the residents and the reputed castle commander wouldn't have some effect on the remaining residents sense of self-preservation.
"If you're planning on going through the gatehouse, Spivey can make a distraction somewhere else," the small woman offers with a pensive look towards the wary defenders. "Either over there," she points to the eastern side of the castle. "If you're going back up on the wall and through the upstairs tower door. Or over there," she indicates the western wall. "If the big doors in the courtyard are preferrable." She shrugs her small shoulders. "If you big folk could fly this wouldn't be anywhere near as complicated," she mutters in a tiny voice.
"Why couldn't they all just flee, worried that the horribly violent raiders would return to cut them all down as they screamed..." Cailyn sighs, feeling a little put out that they didn't. She's read too many stories it seems.
"The tower is where Zaiobe went, so that is where we should go." she rubs her side where the arrow had hit, remembering the pain since it was all healed away.
Orchid nods.
"Yes. Promise kill bird."
She seems cheerful about the prospect rather than sad.
Spivey nods her head and then considers for a moment. "Okay, be ready. You'll know when to go," she says finally. The outsider then flutters off in a sparkle of colored lights towards the eastern wall.
It's less then five minutes later and the group hears the sound of breaking glass and over the top of the eastern wall you see flashes of colored lights. The black-feathered figures that were leisurely pacing along the wall stop for a moment before racing towards the sound.
Seeing your opportunity, you race up to the gatehouse doors. It only takes a moment to open them and slip inside. Thankfully, there are no corbies guarding the gatehouse from inside. You ascend the stairs and then make your way quickly around to the northern guardhouse topped by the gaining catapult. You find the tower door unlocked and slip inside.
The room is mostly as you left it before. Although the papers that were spread across the central table have been torn into tiny shreds. Stairs go up to the room where you met Zaiobe previously. Stairs also descend from here and there's a door in the southern wall.
Orchid sniffs the air, trying to determine where the bird is on scent.
The harpy's scent is strong from above, but Orchid is unable to determine if the scent is recent.
When Orchid's nose fails her, Cailyn says "Let me try something..." she lets her blue eyes unfocus as she clutches her divination implement (the fan with the crude map) and asks the future "Will we find Zaiobe upstairs if we go up there now?"