2023-05-31: Filgaia's Worst Double Date
- Log: Filgaia's Worst Double Date
- Cast: Margaret, Magilou, Riley Arwell, Xander Lovell
- Where: Under Traffic
- Date: May 31, 2023
- Summary: Desperate for sacrifices, Xander and Riley attack exactly the wrong wagon carrying exactly the wrong people.
==============================<* Under Traffic *>===============================
Under Traffic is the name given to a large cavern that runs north-south in Meria Boule. It connects the Merian Plains to the Damzen Marches, and in the kingdom's past, it served both as a way for rebels to escape and a path that Merian armies took to conquer the north. Now, it is a well-traveled underground path.
The central path is relatively safe. It is large enough to fit a wagon, and many caravans do the cooler caverns than risk the worst of the Damzena Desert and treacherous mountain passes. A few waystations provide food and supplies.
However, countless smaller pathways lead off from Under Traffic's main route. These can offer shortcuts into either region -- but also pose dangers, as criminal elements and monsters alike will often hide down here.
BGM: Wild Arms 2 - Dungeon ~ Ruins Type 1
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<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
You know what's great, after a harrowing trip into the screaming sacreligious void lurking in the depths of your cradle faith? Crime.
Actually, the Hounds of Hell have an economic enterprise now, and wonder of wonders, IT IS NOT ILLEGAL! Technically. Fun* little games have been appearing in inns, taverns, souks, coffee-shops, milk bars, mid-rent brothels, and a range of other establishments where the sub-elite meet to eat meaty treats of various kinds. These games are variations on bagatelle - a classical game, one which was not proscribed quite as hard due to being technically skill.
Think pachinko, but with wood and tiny steel pins. Also, the innkeeper is the one who sells you the cunningly shaped balls.
"And that's the brilliant part of it," says a woman in the back of the wagon, currently stacked high with reasonably nice lumber and casks, of, like, parts and stuff. "The balls are only made from one factory in Guild Galad. They'd actually been struggling. Apparently they made a range of machines for making these little balls for some damn mechanical thing or other, but that size was unpopular-- so we're buying them cheap! I'm thinking of buying the machine from her, frankly."
The wagon? Yes: The wagon! Covered over with fabric declaring it to be HOUNDSTOOTH AMUSEMENTS & GAMES ETC., it is currently riding through Under Traffic, pulled by two inexpensive horses at a relatively moderate pace. The way is lit by a lantern; the driver is a shrouded person of uncertain origin.
And the passangers? Well, they're in the back. Margaret is not dangling her legs, because she actually has her boots off in order to put salve on her feet.
But there may be another.
Given the hour - they are travelling at an off-peak time - they just might be the only waggon in Under Traffic's entire extent right now.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Marvellous little games! Which Magilou is entirely invested in, never mind all the horrors which were just wrought. Her response to an old friend becoming a dragon and then dead and all that business with Althena and Margaret's hand was just to say, "I can cook eggs too, you know!!"
She can't. She really, truly, DEEPLY can't. But she's figured out a work-around --
Instead of just making normal eggs, Magilou has embarked on creating a series of ever-more improbable egg-based unique creations. Mysteriously, all of those rule, despite her habitual inability to recreate Falkewin toast.
Luckily, that's not the only scheme they have going.
Magilou, as it happens, is dangling her legs, all perched on one of those casks. "So what happens if the factory goes under? Or blows up? Or goes under by blowing up?!" She gasps, tugging her hat down over her pointy ears, which are NOT smaller than average, shut UP. "Egads! This entire operation is balanced on tenterhooks!"
There's no sign of her presence outside the wagon, regretfully. You'd think they'd advertise having one of the most grievous evil witches of Lunar inside, but they don't.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
The Fangs are on the hunt for prey!! Unfortunately for them, the curse has already progressed to a serious degree, and Riley's lungs are currently full of thorns, which makes for a lot of coughing and extremely poor stealth. But he can't leave Xander to start fights with strangers on his own, so he is attempting instead to be bait, sprawled out as conspicuously near to the road as he dares without getting run over. The hope is to draw somebody over to either try to help a poor collapsed traveler or to rob him, while Xander lies in wait to attack.
The sound of the approaching wagon at first seems promising, but there's definitely several people in there... that's risky for several reasons. Better not...
And so, the poor, collapsed traveler... while very much in plain sight... pushes himself up and crawls behind a rock. "Never mind!" A cough. "Don't mind me!" He tries to wave the wagon past.
"Well... this is STILL a very strange and distracting sight, but hopefully Xander gets the message that they ought to hold out for another passerby... ...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander has his own position among the caverns, shrouded in darkness and obscured by stone. But potential sacrifices have been meager, and when someone finally approaches, it's a caravan. Not ideal, but with Riley's cough worsening, and Xander's own thorns growing back in after the effort he took to surgically remove them, Xander is not in the mood to gamble with time.
He'd be a lot more in the mood if he knew that wagon contained one (1) Mazhigigika Miludin do Din Nolurun Dou.
Unfortunately, Riley is beginning to abandon the plan. Xander growls under his breath, too far away to be heard by anyone -- which is good for the (failing) plan and bad for getting Riley to obey it. It's not like Xander hasn't fought off groups before, come on! (Yeah and how did that go for you, Xander.)
So, as it happens, Xander does not get the message, because he is electing to ignore the message, vaulting over stone and weaving through the darkened paths to lurk closer to the traveling wagon. Such is his approach that even Riley may not be aware he's making it.
It only has to be one, and the lack of mortal life through the caverns now makes any source of blood and heartbeats pull in his awareness. Valmar's starving, and they'll be on the menu if Xander doesn't find someone. That someone? The driver, Xander hopes: visible and isolated from the others by the barest definition of it. If he's quick enough about it, maybe he can steal a life, chaos a stir, and get him and Riley out before they have to face more consequences than they already have.
His presence becomes known via a large scythe tinged with an aura of death appearing in his grasp and suddenly sweeping down, hoping to reap one unlucky driver. Provided a number of other factors do not make his grim task rather difficult.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret had been, quietly, discreetly, and really obviously, Wrought when Magilou had cooked the eggs. There was weeping. She has eaten the Falkewin toast, every time, all of it.
She has had some comments and advice. They were not useful. Apparently she learned to fry an egg at some point and just kind of internalized it. Do you ever think about how you tie your shoe?
"I mean it's a factory in Guild Galad. It's a thousand feet below ground. What could go wrong? But that is why I want to buy the machine," Margaret explains to Magilou as the driver looks up at the waving Riley for a moment, as if baffled, and then a few moments later --
"BY THE HEAVENS!" shouts VEREN, the BEASTMASTER (no relation to LOREN -- we presume) as Xander descends upon him. Veren, for all his dudgeon and relatively advanced age, is a fairly canny customer; but so is Xander. The end result is that Veren throws himself towards the back of the wagon once his instincts tell him death comes from above, leading to a bloody gash being carved in his rather skinny, almost dog-like thigh and calf! Unfortunately for Xander, it's more towards the outside and the inside. He might have been able to score the goal there!
From Margaret and Magilou's perspective, of course, Veren screams and throws himself into the back of the wagon.
"I AM WOUNDED! ASSAILED!" Veren editorializes. Margaret leans forwards and is sprayed in the face with a generous freshet of blood as Veren struggles to apply pressure to the wound.
"I can see that," says Margaret, eyebrow twitching. She reaches for one of the swords on her sword-belt (which had been hanging on a nail in the wagon side) and crawls forwards past where Veren is sprawled, getting blood all over the lumber.
And as Margaret crawls into the wagon seat, she stares forwards.
"What?! What in - Are you - don't tell me you're - SWEET HEAVENS ABOVE! Aren't you Fiends supposed to be in Spira?!"
margaret thought he was a fiend
to be fair, she has a case
GS: Margaret has attacked Magilou with Shout! Choreography In The Field! GS: Margaret has attacked Margaret with Shout! Choreography In The Field! GS: Margaret has gained 2 Combo! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Margaret accepts Margaret's Shout! Choreography In The Field for 0 hit points! GS: Margaret's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Blitz and Cripple applied to Margaret! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: Magilou accepts Margaret's Shout! Choreography In The Field for 0 hit points! GS: Blitz and Cripple applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Oh, if only Xander were starting a fight with a stranger. But there's no stranger, inside the wagon. Only --
Magilou hasn't killed Margaret with her Falkewin toast, at least. It's just been... decidedly mediocre. But she whipped up a triple-egg souffle the other day, and that was amazing. How does that work?
DON'T SAY MAGIC, MAGILOU
In much the same way, Magilou clutches at her heart, all too dramatically, to hear of Guild Galad. "But doesn't that make explosions exponentially worse?! Earthquakes! Water table pollution! Widespread devastation! Ooooh, you know, that could be fun," she chirps, all too brightly. "But operating heavy machinery sounds fun, too. Heyyy, Bienfu --"
Before Magilou can suggest getting her Normin partner crushed by a steel press, though, Veren bursts in.
"By all the Gods," Magilou remarks, more surprised than shocked, "it seems you have. Bienfu, change in plans -- help Veren put some bandages on before he bleeds out figuring out whether this counts as breaking a leg, would you?"
"Biennnn!!" Bienfu wails, but be fair: if he has to be Out, he'd rather be in the wagon than climbing out of it, like Magilou is. His little pawsies are great at applying band-aids, so surely he'll be able to handle this.
(Well, Veren won't die, anyway.)
Magilou, of course, somersaults right on out. "It is I!!" She declares, and there's a literal sparkle as she lands. A dove flutters into the tunnel. And then she lowers her hands from their grand uplifting gesture, and --
They fly to her mouth. "Whaaat?! It's YOU!" Point, point! "What are you -- ahhh, ask a stupid question, obviously you're hungry. But you can't eat him! He's a thespian!" Magilou leans forward, peering through the tunnel gloom. "Looks like you've got some nasty growths there, though... I'm going out on a limb and guessing you're a touch desperate, at the nonce."
Magilou glances to Margaret, and frowns, briefly. Whether they'd take the opportunity... she can't guarantee they wouldn't.
"Hope this works," she says, as she flings an orb of water into Xander's poor, thorny face. "Aqua Split!"
GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Xander Lovell with Aqua Split! GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo! GS: Magilou's stances have changed from Counter to Avenger and Counter! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Xander Lovell counterattacks Magilou with Desperate Struggle! GS: Gamble: Highest! Xander Lovell partially guards Magilou's Aqua Split for 136 hit points! GS: Hex applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! (That's 20 more than usual!) GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! ===== +health readout for Xander Lovell ======================================== ____________________________| Form Unlucky Reaper |_____________________________
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Oh no, Xander is going for it!! And oh no again, the victim is being ENDEARING -- 'BY THE HEAVENS, I AM WOUNDED AND ASSAILED' how are they supposed to kill someone who says things like that!? Now he wants this stranger to survive, thrive, live his best melodramatic life... ... wait, no he can't root AGAINST Xander!! They need this guy's life for their own survival!! Please stop being cute, wagon driver!!
"Xander!! Remember!! Just one!!" he shouts, still punctuating his words with coughing as he scrambles up and after, making his own way up to the wagon just as Margaret is emerging.
She accuses them of being on the wrong world. Oh, shit-- yes, they've met her before... the woman with the mercenary company who they briefly befriended and then betrayed... that was so horrible... and now it's going to be horrible again ...
"What are YOU doing here!" And then... Magilou!
"N-no!! Not allowed!! What are any of us doing here, let's all be somewhere else!!!"
Are they going to run or try to finish it...??? He casts a harried glance toward Xander to try to catch his feelings on the matter before looking back to Magilou.
He grits his teeth against the twitching in his lungs and draws his bow -- it's hard to keep his aim steady under these conditions, but Valmar is always willing to help him cheat a little -- and looses an arrow at Magilou's face. It will burst into sticky darkness, should it make contact.
"Can you please just... look the other way this time! Or don't look at us at all, actually!"
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Magilou with Blinding Arrow! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander bites out a curse under his breath, knowing he did not make his mark because the pain of everything still stings, settled in his joints and threatening to spread through his veins. Also the shouting. This man is shouting an awful lot for someone Xander wanted to kill. And has launched himself into the wagon, which is a fantastic alarm system for the rest of the caravan.
This could still be salvagable, although Riley is certainly not going to like it if Xander goes off killing an entire wagonful of people -- or even this one man, apparently -- but Riley lost his right to complain when he started coughing up bloo -- GOD DAMMIT IS THAT MAGILOU?!
That's Magilou, and Xander only has time to seethe in exasperation (such a divide of expressions to wear at once!) before Aqua Split smashes Xander in the face. It's enough to hurl him from the wagon and onto the ground, but not before a desperate whirl of his too-large scythe, which, really, he should not be doing, but very much is because instinct for violence is winning out over sense.
So is his mounting frustration.
He yanks himself up off the ground, coughing up water and his clothing now stuck against his skin. With his white shirt turned more translucent, the thick, bruised splotches of his skin are more obvious. That'd be internal bleeding, no doubt thanks to the thorns growing in deeper than the surface sprouts of blossoms imply.
"Not a Fiend," Xander growls. "But better you keep thinking of us that way." Because, unfortunately, that determined, stormy spark is already in Xander's eye, despite the party they now find themselves up against.
Isn't he always telling Riley this is why they can't be making friends?
"You already know why I'm here and what I need, so imagine whatever retort you want!" he snaps, lifting up without his scythe and instead... a gun?! Where did he get that, who let him have that. It's silver and as death tinged as the scythe, though not in a Valmar way. There is no flourish in the way he lifts it and blatantly opens fire on the wagon.
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Margaret with Unfriendly Fire! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell's stances have changed to Hero! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Margaret partially evades Xander Lovell's Unfriendly Fire for 74 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Evade bonus activated! GS: Magilou takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's SERIOUSLY?! for 52 hit points! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Magilou partially guards Riley Arwell's Blinding Arrow for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Blind and Delay applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! <Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret endured the Lovey Dovey Eggy Weggy Toast of Doom, thanks to syrup and a robust constitution. But the souffle, though...
s o u f f l e
The delectable and delicate flavor fills Margaret with determination. She does not know the prospect of Bienfu being subjected to industrial machinery, at least, not yet. There is a much more perilous threat at hand. Namely,
"BANDITS!" Veren screeches. "Worry not for me, Lady Magilou! I will endure... I *MUST* endure..." He is already digging out a healing nut and munching it with violent enthusiasm. That said, he has lost - wow, that's a LOT of blood! - and as such, he will not be participating further. His long experience as a battle-mage bought him the ability to crawl away -- had there been no aid, he would have simply made Xander swing twice! Now, however, with Bienfu's bien fu, he will surely live. ("Thank you, Brother Bien...!!")
WILL THE REST OF THEM?
"Eh?" Margaret says to Magilou, baffled by what she says. This isn't exactly completely novel to her, but she looks back to Xander then even as a burst of water is sent towards him and Margaret brandishes her blade.
"Yes! Shoo! Skedaddle! Skidoo thirty-two!"
THEY ARE NOT SKIDOOING. One shoots an arrow at Magilou and Margaret points her blade at Riley but soon enough Xander is pointing a gun. A gun!? Unfair! A round smashes into Margaret's shoulder before she erupts in a nebular light and then vaults forwards, swinging her blade round while holding her right hand behind her back!
The goal is not simply, of course, to bring stabbity to Xander, but to overbear him -- she's leading with a knee for the follow-up! And she really wishes she'd put her boots back on, because that would mean it wasn't JUST her knee!
Cloak and Dagger
GS: Margaret spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Blitz! Margaret has attacked Xander Lovell with Coiling Impale! GS: Margaret has gained 3 Combo! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Coiling Impale for 85 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Cripple and Poison applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Mighty applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Biennn... don't worry, Brother Veren!!! I'll nurse you back to health...!!" He might not even be weird about it, given it's Brother Veren.
Oh, Bienfu.
Magilou, meanwhile, gets A FACE FULL OF SCYTHE. She quick-steps back from it, looking deeply offended. "Seriously?!" She yelps, face whipping back to look at it. Her hair, of course, gets right in the way. There's a lot of hair. Magilou picks up the horror scythe, and throws it back at Xander, which -- we're not going to dignify that with an attack. It just kind of thuds into the ground without a hope of hitting him, between the hair in her face and her noodle arms. She was NOT the star of PE class. (Actually, Magilou never went to school--)
'pfeh, pfeh,' she spits out her bangs, as she looks back to Riley. "We were GOING somewhere else and then your two-bit -- what is this, an act?! This is a terrible act, two stars, see me after class -- anyway, you're both --" ARROW!!
Magilou throws up one of her paper dolls, extending it out into a shield to catch the bow. Tragically, the sticky blackness kind of gloops everywhere, and given a nice flat surface to splatter on, splatters over her face anyway. "EW," Magilou yelps, pulling the most magnificent dismayed face. "Does this wash off?! Your weird Valmar gloop had BETTER WASH OFF!"
Magilou turns and turns as she scrubs at her face, but -- it was all a ruse! Because in the end, she grabs one of her shikigami, and twirls that around, with a note of, "Spin, spin~!", and she's spinning RIGHT FOR RILEY. She doesn't have to see him to be able to whallop him with a giant paper doll!
GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Riley Arwell with Great Cycle! GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Cripple and Delay expired! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Delay! Attack greatly weakened! GS: CRITICAL! Riley Arwell takes a solid hit from Magilou's Great Cycle for 86 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley's face falls with regret as he continues to overhear Veren's exclamations.
"Xander, could we... could we kill somebody else--...? ...nevermind..." It's too late, they're committed. Xander has started shooting at people with a gun, which suggests they will not be skidoo-ing. Which means Riley needs to get serious, too. Okay. They just need to break past the witches, kill the (delightful...) guy Xander started on, and THEN skidoo. Maybe that would work...? Or maybe it will be too unforgivable and they'll be chased down and set on fire, or they won't even get to FIND OUT what happens after they kill the guy because one more life will turn out to be too many after all and they'll fulfill their sacrifice quota and the witches will get to watch them turn into flower puppets or whatever happens when Valmar eats their souls.
Uh... FOCUS, RILEY!!
He isn't focused enough to avoid getting smashed in the face by a giant paper doll, which sends him spinning, too. "Aagh! Hey, I didn't even DO the act--" he sputters with coughing. "I was gonna let you go, but... we need this! Just one...!! It's Xander's birthday....!!" Is this an act or not...? It sounds like it would be a little more coherent if he weren't struggling to breathe.
These struggles seem to inspire him that maybe the Fangs would have an easier time of it if nobody could breathe, and he extends a hand to grip the side of the wagon, vines bursting from his skin and beginning to grow at an unnatural rate, burrowing into the woodwork before large red flowers unfurl, puffing noxious clouds of poison into the air. One thorny tendril tangles for Magilou, and the poison it issues is thick enough to sear her lungs if she should breathe too much of it, but his real aim is to taint the air inside the wagon and flush their quarry back out where Xander can get at him (well, Riley will help too if he can bear it).
GS: Riley Arwell spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Magilou with Gift from the Blood Garden! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
And now Bienfu is in there being sad about the violence. Don't think about it, just shoot somebody! Shoot them better than that. Ugh, why does it always always ALWAYS turn out this way?!
Magilou's incredibly impressive throw results in that gloriously impressive thud before the scythe squirms like living vines and slithers back into the ground. The pieces that do not translate back into horrific flesh plant wilt into deathly ashes instead.
They are NOT skidooing. Xander would not know the meaning of skidoo if it stabbed him, which it is, currently, trying to do. "Thirty-two, what?!" he snaps on contrarian instinct. Xander twists, the blade only catching the slighest bit of flesh and severing a wayward petal in half. But it's really the knee that gets him, winding him and sending him stumbling back as he breathes through his clenched teeth.
Red clouds his vision, one darkening pulse at a time. This whole situation, this whole bit of bad luck, not deserving the 'good' luck, and who could even call it that anyway when they're here to kill? But he's tired and he needs more time. Too many broken promises. Too many failures. This isn't allowed to be another one, and if Valmar could get out of his head for two seconds maybe he could think clearly enough to get done the very thing Valmar needs him to do.
Fangs bared and an animal look in his eye, Xander's motions become bestial. He does not charge Margaret so much as he pounces, springing from the ground on all fours in what seems a blindly savage, bare handed assault, recklessly driven by the curse gripping his soul.
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Margaret with Bloodfrenzy! GS: Xander Lovell takes 25 damage from Poison! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Margaret takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Surgical Precision for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Margaret gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Guard bonus activated! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
...But Xander, even at his most feral, keeps the awareness of vulnerable points on the body close to heart. And he isn't so feral now that he doesn't have a hidden knife at the ready. Margaret isn't beset upon by claws and teeth, but by a blade.
There's a little too much lucidity still in his gaze as he drives it down... and when he snaps his attention to Riley incredulously. That is the worst argument so far!
"Why would that -- we already missed my birthday!"
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Magilou takes a solid hit from Riley Arwell's Gift from the Blood Garden for 137 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Veren's pecs pulsate, palely. But they do pulsate, palely; they do not perish, padroitly. "Hnnngh..."
Margaret glances momentarily towards Magilou as she returns the scythe, with interest.
"Looks like a skin mask at this remove, honestly," Margaret says to Magilou, though she doesn't do more than snap her head around to take a quick glance. "Maybe let it dry and then peel?" But will her feminine vanity allow her to risk pulling out eyelashes?? Wait, that's the wrong sort of ladies' action-adventure saga.
She might just be sparing Magilou's feelings.
"Is it?" Margaret says. "Happy birthday! Go assault someone else or it's going to be your last!" How cruel of Margaret-- but then, Veren is an old friend and dear to her, even if he is, in fact, an asshole. Vines begin to unfurl from Riley in a wholly unnatural way and Margaret goggles at him with concern, even as he lunges towards Magilou with one --
And that's when Xander snarls and attacks.
Margaret turns to face him and her attention draws all the more focused as she brings up her left hand to smash away one of Xander's hands -- not with the blade but with the hilt-guard. Perhaps she's intuiting some of Magilou's feelings, or perhaps she simply remembers her own bandit days. But then there's another blade, which comes out with cunning swiftness.
Margaret only *sees* it thanks to the Starlight Express and even then she doesn't have a good way to DO anything about it. She can't even quite roll away from it. All she would do is end up with a sliced-open breast or neck, neither of which are much better than amateur cardiac surgery. The ring on her left hand twinkles --
-- and Margaret disappears and swishes backwards in a burst of wind and a sudden glitter of green afterlights. "Not very funloving of you, I suppose," Margaret mutters. Then she swings around into a sharp swift high kick --
-- which would be a lot more impactful if she wasn't barefoot!! (Her nails are painted purple.)
GS: Blitz! Margaret has attacked Xander Lovell with make your own tarantino joke! GS: Margaret has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cripple expired! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Margaret's make your own tarantino joke for 104 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"You have GOT to start doing background checks before you get to the murdering," Magilou suggests, witheringly, as Riley protests their choice of murderees. "How many times have you bitten off more than you can chew, now?!"
And then she snaps her fingers, and exclaims: "YEAH! THIRTY-TWO TIMES! THANK YOU, XANDER!" That's not what he meant. That's not what he meant, right?
"Ugh, if this is a skin mask, it's probably going to turn my complexion the wrong shade of evil..." Magilou whines and moans, scrub scrub scrub. As she rubs, she starts humming, "Happy birthday to you~"
She scrubs at her eyes enough to get a little vision back, just in time to see -- "Margaret!" Magilou exclaims, at Xander's trickery. But Margaret has plenty enough tricks up her sleeve, including: kicking Xander, despite her lack of footwear. "She is SO hot," Magilou exclaims. "You know, I really ought to thank you two, the two of us only really corresponded academically before you tried to kill us -- and now things are great! I make great toast!"
A muffled yell, from the wagon: "IT'S MEDIOCRE, MISS MAGILOU"
"It's great!" Magilou stomps her foot. "Tell them, Margaret!"
But tangle tangle tangle, Magilou has to throw up another of those shikigami to avoid making an intimate acquaintance with a vine, instead. "Biennn!!" Bienfu biens, as he has to steal a little of their magic power to try and blow the bad air out of the wagon, instead. Meanwhile, Magilou coughs. "Ahhhh, gross! Gross gross gross! I'm out of here!"
Any hopes Riley might have had of that meaning Magilou is absconding from the fight are surely dashed when she hops on her shikigami -- and wind-surfs right into his personal space instead. "Have a nice trip!" She crows, as she blows past him in a way which is definitely meant to send him tumbling.
GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Riley Arwell with Gliding Blast! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou takes 31 damage from Poison! GS: Blind expired! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: Riley Arwell solidly guards Magilou's Gliding Blast for 33 hit points! GS: Weaken applied to Riley Arwell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Guard bonus, and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"It's ALREADY Xander's last birthday," Riley says, so full of tragedy that you'd think he was kidding, but he isn't. There is probably a reason he took a shine to Veren purely based on overhearing his dramatic lamentations. As for Xander's interjection, Riley's eyes are already shining with woe, so he just aims them Xanderwards. "No!! It isn't over until we can get rid of the curse! We can't just SKIP your LAST BIRTHDAY...!" Here he has to interrupt himself to cough yet again, red spattering from his lips.
How many times have you bitten off more than you can chew, now?!
"It feels like every time..." Riley responds, sounding almost chastened, or at least deeply discouraged. Why is their luck so cruel?
Magilou is also an expert at lamentations, and continues to express dismay at her evil face mask. Does it wash off...? "I've only ever put it on other people," he admits.
But then, as Margaret is elegantly kicking the stuffing out of Xander, Magilou reveals something unexpected! "Ow..." he says first, in sympathy for Xander on the other side of that exchange.
But then realization dawns. "--Did you...! Bond from fighting us!? Did we bring you together?! Our murder attempt... sparked new love into the world!?" These distracted reveries are a major reason Riley keeps getting decked with a shikigami. KAPOW!! The impact detaches him from the wagon, while the fact that he was attached to it in the first place minimizes the distance he is tossed while maximizing the bruises. But unplugging him from the evil flowers at least seems to take some of the steam out of his poison garden.
He's almost relieved at that--he just heard Bienfu shouting in there. "I'm sorry...!"
Why are they bringing harm to sort-of-friends and their sort-of-friends' cute friends?! Today is so awful!
He has to take another moment to cough and try to get his breath back. He grasps his hand out, and the ground stirs, a polearm rising up out of the earth to meet it, revealing the Shovel of Valmar and its aura of death. Riley just leans on it for a while, till he rallies enough to swing it after the flying Magilou. Though the shovel itself does not make contact, its ghastly aura reaches out ahead of it to meet her, with energies that sap at vitality and lifeforce.
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Magilou with Brush with Death! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action. GS: Magilou takes a solid hit from Riley Arwell's Brush with Death for 144 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Magilou gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"NINE!" Xander snaps at Magilou. "NINE TIMES!" Is he actually counting? He stops. "Eight if you don't count the time Riley tipped everyone off!"
Yeah, he's counting, and it's clearly not the only thing he's counting.
"Happy nothing, shut up!" And then Magilou joins in the well wishing, Xander bristling further. "If you start singing, I swear--" There is no threat Xander can possibly finish this off with. He's already here stabbing and shooting at people. What else can he add to the misery? Everyone here is far more an expert at that than he is, and that's the whole problem.
There are countless knives when it comes to Xander. Knock one away and another takes its place. His blade should sink into flesh and tear it, giving way to the flow of blood.
This does not happen.
He strikes only glitter, cleaving uselessly through breezy stardust. By now, Riley is mournfully going off about how it is Xander's last birthday, and Xander... falters. He stops, forgetting the swing of his dagger without a body for it to sink into, and all that anger and violence is gone for a broken moment.
It is mercifully interrupted by Margaret squarely kicking him with her purple pedicure and sending him landing face first into the dirt. Yes, the blade acted with precision, but not so much the rest of him. Luckily, it's really more a blood to his dignity than his body, but Xander doesn't have a lot of that left either. Maybe none.
Riley's going on about love now, so Xander groans very loudly into the dirt. Definitely none dignity.
Xander holds out his arm, the earth roiling to grow another horrible scythe from, presumably, hell or some sort as it blossoms with red flowers anew for him to spin in a deadly whirlwind as he surges back toward Margaret. It's not really her he's trying to murder so much as blender past her to the wagon, but she's still in the way. Riley's babbling and Magilou's shouting isn't really getting to him, is it? (It is.)
"Someone has to die, and it's not going to be us!"
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Margaret with Enduring Will! GS: Recover! Hex removed from Xander Lovell! GS: Xander Lovell takes 28 damage from Poison! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Margaret solidly guards Xander Lovell's Enduring Will for 68 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell drains Margaret! Xander Lovell gains 37 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"How do you know that?" Margaret asks Magilou, which is, ironically, entry #32 in Times Margaret Has Asked Magilou Questions To Which She Does Not, Necessarily, Wish To Know The Answer To.
"It's true," Margaret tells Magilou, before looking at the foes, all two of them, "although I suppose this is sort of a backhanded compliment. I don't suppose it deters you?"
And then she's put on the spot even as Bienfu busts out the, well, we already made that joke this episode. Margaret swallows once before saying, "They're immensely delicate and she's shockingly skilled with them. I'm always delighted at the latest discovery, even if sometimes I can hardly tell it's egg at all. There, now, do you really want to kill us or our driver" ("DRIVER OF BEAST AND FIEND ALIKE") "so badly now?"
Margaret proves her Evil Sorceress chops by adding, "Wait for the next one! I'm really quite sorry about this! It's not just a matter of blood itself, is it?"
She gazes at Riley with complicated emotions, for a moment. It's pitiful. She almost owes them a debt, given everything. Given what brought forth from the written page and became a sweet, egg-preparation-based bond. But...
-- Xander is many things, but he isn't pitiful.
He dashes forwards in a roiling burst, his scythe blooming with blood as Margaret sees him going TOWARDS the wagon. Margaret seems to sort of -- side-step, not towards him or to attack him but to just interject her body, slamming her right fist forwards to crook at the corner of his arm -
"You may be desperate," Margaret tells him, "and I don't blame you, but if you're after Veren, you're going to have to go through me. I have known Veren for nine years --"
From here Margaret goes for another throw -- well, 'another,' it was Magilou who did one. She lunges forwards, aiming to twist round and leverage superior (?) height and superior (definitely) speed to throw Xander back and away from the wagon. "AND! I have lost FIFTY-TWO TOO MANY FRIENDS IN THIS LIFE, I THANK YOU VERY MUCH!"
Her eyes widen as she brings up her sword, tucking her right arm behind her back again.
GS: Blitz! Margaret has attacked Xander Lovell with Swift Retribution! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Swift Retribution for 101 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Margaret! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Because I know things," is Magilou's infuriating response, to Margaret, before the Fangs immediately prove her wrong. Magilou stomps a foot. "Every time, nine times, those are two different time scales! Unless --" Magilou pauses, and turns, to Riley. "Unless."
Beat.
"Riley, Xander, are you cats?"
Nine times... nine lives...
"BUT THE CAT CAME BACK! THE VERY NEXT DAY! THE CAT CAME BACK, WE THOUGHT HE WAS A GONER! BUT THE CAT CAME BACK, IT JUST COULDN'T STAY AWAY~ o/`" Is this... /worse/ than a birthday song?!
Magilou pauses in her caterwauling to add, with a wink and double finger-guns to Riley, "you're Spira's favourite matchmakers, you are!" Are they? Are they even Spiran?! Well, that's where she first met them, so they're branded for life.
But -- well, the unfortunate thing about treating this so lightly is that, for all Magilou is deeply fond of Riley and Xander, they're not exactly lightweight threats. Magilou throws up her shikigami to guard against the shovel, but perhaps Riley intuited that much -- because the aura floods past that minor spirit, into her own chest, the heart that's somehow still beating through all the tape holding it together. "Gh," Magilou's quips are interrupted, as she staggers back. She grits her teeth, and she's more serious, as she addresses Xander: "I know."
It's life or death for them, this whole murder act.
"I don't want you to die," she straightens up, filling her lungs with a deep sigh of air. ("Ugh," she grumbles, parenthetically. The remnants of Gross Miasma still linger.) "And I'm glad to see you're both still kicking. But as I've just told you, this wagon is all full of my business, so I'm not about to let you kill anyone here, either. Sorry, but I'm cutting this reunion short --"
A green Seraphic circle alights, beneath her feet. "Is it hot, or is it just me?" She incants, before she unleashes: "Crown Fire!" And a swirling tornado of flame cuts into the tunnel -- the one thing she's quite sure Riley won't be eager to dive into, and Xander, well, Xander will hopefully be occupied with Riley just the same. To Margaret, she calls: "Load up, we're leaving!!"
Even though their DRIVER OF MAN AND BEAST ALIKE is wounded in the back?!
It's okay, guys.
In 1000 years, Magilou definitely learned how to drive a wagon.
And yet, as she leaps into the driver's seat, and guns it down the tunnel...
"I definitely don't know how to drive this thing--!!"
They'll be fine. They'll -- probably be fine.
"BIENNNN-ENNNN-ENNNNNN..."
GS: Magilou has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Riley Arwell with Crown Fire! GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Xander Lovell with Crown Fire! GS: Magilou has gained 3 Combo! GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Magilou takes 32 damage from Poison! GS: Blitz expired! GS: Magilou has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Very High! Riley Arwell fully evades Magilou's Crown Fire for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Riley Arwell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mighty applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Gamble: Highest! Xander Lovell takes a glancing hit from Magilou's Crown Fire for 110 hit points! GS: Mighty applied to Magilou! GS: FP up! Evade bonus and Sufferer activated!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"You've been counting...?!" Counting disasters... counting Riley's crimes... a chilling thing to realize. "Nine times," he echoes morosely. That's a lot of vicious luck.%r here is a strange accusation from Magilou, and some singing. Magilou also... calls them good matchmakers! Riley briefly forgets everything and smiles like a cat, potentially adding dangerous fuel to the Cat Theory.
Margaret makes a case for not taking the life of her friend, and with Riley, at least, it resonates, his eyes shining as his imagination runs with 52 dead friends and one more in peril, one who endearingly laments the violence the Fangs have brought. Riley and Xander are falling apart and a life would save them, but... is this really going to end in any kind of way that they want??
"Xander..." he tries to approach him and touch his arm, should Margaret manage to still his murderous whirl for a moment.
"This is going wrong... We should save our strength and try again. I don't want to kill any of them..." He stifles a cough, worried it will do more to motivate murder than to underscore his emotional appeal.
Whether he gets through to Xander or not... Magilou knows how to bring things to a more decisive conclusion, calling forth a swirling flame tornado.
Riley very much does not want to make any kind of contact with that at all, and with a surge of adrenaline and his heart leaping into his throat, he scoops up the entire Xander into his arms and starts to run for it. His lungs will just have to figure something out!!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"She doesn't know that, she's making up numbers!" Thirty-two is simply twenty-three too many. Possibly twenty-four too many, depending on whether or not the whole Lindow incident counts -- which Xander rather thinks it might as well. Xander is, for the record, not counting the scenario with a certain masked super hero either, because they were not looking for anyone to kill, or to start a fight, or anything, and the whole thing was mortifying.
He is counting the time he was set on fire while reading in a church, even though Riley was not present, because as far as Xander is concerned trying to kill someone was the next step and the Drifters would have interfered anyway.
So. Nine.
"Do not start with that -- what are you --" Magilou sings, and the sound Xander makes next cannot be put to words.
But there's other things to shout about.
"It's not about wanting," Xander sighs, then shakes his head. "What does it matter? Explanations don't change anything!" He snaps to Riley: "Stop trying to explain anything!" Especially with that cough, he's going to choke on his own blood the more he tries to talk anyone up or down or at all.
Margaret seizes hold of him, chucking Xander away from the wagon he so desperately wants while Xander snarls and gnashes and, well, tries to bite her. Like a cat being pulled away from a delicious snack it so desperately desires. Or into a bucket of water. More to the Cat Theory. Even more to that, he lands on his feet, pivoting and poised to leap right back in like he as never thrown at all. The only reason he hesitates is because Riley's touch lands on him.
"Riley..." Xander barely looks back. "It's always going to be wrong! Just -- I told you. You don't have to fight. Get back and let me handle this."
Let Xander handle this, who has been kicked and tossed and drenched in water. Xander, who is right now paler than death, badly bruised from an affliction before this fight ever started and looking a little blue in the lips, actually. Despite all of those things, Xander is still full of fight and death and the will to cause considerable bloodshed.
Right into fire.
Right through fire, if he has to. "No! This isn't over!" Xander lunges, reaching the flames and scortching his arm before Riley seizes hold. Again, Xander gnashes, growling out his rage as he's dragged -- carried away. "Let go, let me go! Riley!"
But what the Hounds and Bienfu must suffer instead might be a more horrific ordeal than the Fangs...