Palladium, 6th Century

[sasqaricious]

Sapphire nods in agreement not sure what to make of the entire situation.

[kurff]

Tesla after looking at the weapons returned to the group listening to them.

[albatross]

The pelican rubs its beak with one wing, "The only indication that he is vulnerable right now is the report from people who were looking for someone else. If they didn't try to kill him, or if he corrected his mistake after meeting them - then he might not be alone."

"Fortunately, this is a wonderful environment for finding out if he is truly vulnerable here. He won't be at all surprised if we try to kill him. Any advanced warning defenses he might have like a sixth sense will be useless, thousands of people are going to be expecting an attack. However, once he figures out that we are travellers from another time he could easily escape. If he recognizes any of you, then he can use magic to escape. And if he is protected here, killing him is going to backfire and make our jobs that much harder."

"Of course, there are other ways too. It seems he does like to play around in the arena, not really taking it seriously. We don't know if he is really vulnerable here or not. It could be better to try to draw him into a conversation during the fight - trash talk or something similiar- and see if we can extract some useful information. If we decide he truly is vulnerable here, we could always return to this time to fight him again."

The pelican shuffled a little, "The arena is known for one other thing. Victors and popular fighters frequently entertain the giantesses and ladies of the isle. We could send a spy, though it would almost certainly require loose morals and a significant amount of risk to the spy."

"Hmmmm. Maybe you should see my information before you decide, eh? Might make things easier."

"First, let me tell you about most of the battles we seen. The nuns are vicious, you don't want to cross them. Deadly knives and magic. When they fight Fakir's minions, none of the nuns die. The thief's minions use magic and martial arts - most of them seem to practice Aikido, though there are other arts among them. They are strong, fast, fierce fighters with powerful shields and amazing magic. But they do not kill the nuns. Oh, they might tackle them like a linebacker, or knock them out cold. They fight, but they don't stab them to death. In fact, if a nun is about to be hit by a third party, the thief's girls jump in front of the nuns to shield them. The nuns normally stab them in the back when that happens."

"Yet, they aren't pacifists. Fakir killed a giant today. And his minions kill as well. They just don't kill the nuns. Before I show you the second piece of information, so you can see what he is like when he goes all out, lets take a moment to ponder the first report. Why do you think they don't kill the nuns? Is that information useful to us?"

[Renekin Skywalker]

Allen cocked his head to the side. "Because he's using the nuns' records as a roadmap for all his activities?"

[albatross]

"Possibly. He could have infiltrated them of course. Any other guesses?

What seems most likely? Honor? Or perhaps because some of the nuns have some special fate? Could he be their deposed leader?

The trouble is, he doesn't seem all that honorable. And its hard to believe the nuns have some special fate that the nuns don't know about themselves - they are time travellers after all. And if he were their leader I'd rather expect him to start some rival order of nuns..."

The pelican shakes his head. "Any other ideas?"

[shiivster]

*Aki listens quietly and ponders a few things. she rubs her chin before standing up.

'how he see before up close? i up high, not sure he see face. i try attack but somehow i get night rest. that not happen here. night rest for attack not happen.

'his pack members act like nun's are alpha members. matriarch .. leader. not fight death match because not wish to become leader. protect instead. not natural. maybe they ... ' *pauses and thinks a bit more* 'not knowing how this time travel works, but follower acts like ... cub to nun when fighting. maybe they are offspring lost ?'

*she settles in a corner and stares at the wall and studies the bars before touching them. she leans close in to get a smell of them.

[dice=20] perc to get 'smell' of magic like an animal would
[dice=30] IQ check 18/11 LOL - massive fail. [no comment of thought then][rand=9579834127124451579366405170493856316259851047212009456960829329]

[dakota]

Dryzh listened to the other's logic, following as best he could. Much of it was making little sense to him. " What happens to fighters thief embarasses? They get punished?" He asked what was a perfectly logical question to him.

[albatross]

The Knight Unknown to King Talon and the Puzzle Piece

"Dunno," Darrell mused. "Hopefully they don't eat them or anything. Well, I'll show you what we recorded and maybe it will help."

Darrell waves a wing and vision appears on the wall.

A field mouse hides in the grass high atop a cliff overlooking a valley filled with summer hay. Towering over the mouse were several strange women and one man. One of the women has black feathered wings and is wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers cheerleader uniform, another had cats ears and a tail - she wears a back vinyl jumpsuit with a hood. the hood has little sections for the feline ears. One woman's eyes seemed to exactly match the color of the sky, changing color to shining silver when a cloud covered the sun. She wears millennium leaf armor and nothing else. One looks human, though looking closely one of her eyes is blue and the other green. She also wears a black vinyl jumpsuit, though her hood is kept down. There are two more strange women. One has four arms, the other has canine ears and a tail, and long fangs. These last two women seem to be wearing only body paint. Both wear dog designs. None of the women look to be more than five feet tall, though most of them appear quite curvy, with skinny waists highlighting amazingly beautiful hourglass figures.

The man is Fakir of course, and his face seems older and wiser from the perspective field mouse. He speaks. “Before he was Duke, the young boy Etienne journeyed far to the north. While he was there he took as his ward a child shrouded in prophecy: a boy who might bring peace to two warring peoples. Terrible enemies searched for the child but the young knight had powerful friends, and they defeated their enemies and brought the child south, to the Duke's land, where he might grow up in peace.”

“The child is going to die today, as barbarian raiders take this field. The prophecy is unfulfilled, and the Duke dies fighting the invaders.” Fakir pauses, sweeping his gaze over the women. They stare at him completely focused, waiting.

“The Duke is friends with a powerful diabolist. He has or can get a piece of information I need. But Etienne is a true knight.” Fakir sighs, “His name is written on the Knight's Scroll. He might not know us, but he could be summoned and turned against me.”

“We have to win him over. He must aid us openly, in accordance with his sacred honor. It must be strong enough that he will not change his mind.”

The girl with one green eye and one blue asks a question, “He is a true knight. We should abide by the oath.”

Fakir shakes his head, “No Brandy. The target is the barbarian horde.”

“Are any of them true?” The women in the cheerleader uniform asks.

“They killed every dog, man, woman and child in a village not five wheels from here. No. They are scum.”

Brandy responds: “But he'll see.”

“We must have this victory. We won't do it right if we hold back. Watch.” With that, the women and Fakir and the mouse peer into the fields. Hordes of orcs, ogres and giants are just entering the field. Orcish calvary charges across the field. In the distance a local woman and a small boy hear the battle drums and horns. They break into a run.

From the south, a mounted knight on curious bipedal lizard like nothing they've ever seen before sounds his own horn. “We'll answer that summons. We must be closest,” Fakir says. But no one moves. “What count.”

“One hundred forty one thousand, with two thousand outriders and scouts,” the woman with sky colored eyes intones. Thousands of orc and goblin cavalry thunder across the field towards the fleeing pair. Tens of thousands of giants follow at a run, backed up by archers and infantry.

The woman and the young boy are running as hard as they can towards the knight now, and the strange lizard puts on speed. The knight leans forward in the saddle, he sits up sword drawn, not even holding the reins yet sure in his seat. Aki can tell the animal and rider have benefited from incredible training. The Duke's riding is amazing. The creature increases its speed again, the pure sprint of adrenaline. Knight and rider hold nothing back. Blood runs from the lizard's nose. The knights screams of challenge carry up the cliffs.

It is too far. They aren't going to make it. The woman is carrying the child now. The knight roars and flings his sword. It flies from his arm in a sideways spin for hundreds of feet and cuts the closest orc in half. Other riders trip, but the cavalry rides down the woman and the boy.

Bare handed the knight jumps off the animal a full hundred feet before closing ranks with the orcs and goblins. He jumps off the helmet of one orc, lands at the point the woman and child went down. He checks the child, and determining he is dead he begins to attack the entire army barehanded. He dies, with dozens of orcs in a pile around him.

Fakir turns back to the women watching from the cliff. Some of them have tears in their eyes. “Will you save them with me? Can you kill?” Fakir asks.

“Bring us back, Captain.” The four armed one says after a moment.

Deja Vu

The scene on the field plays out again. But this time as the knight sounds his horn, Fakir takes out a small silver horn and lets out three short blasts. No one hears it over the din of the approaching cavalry and the raiders drums and horns. It is just a small horn, it does not sound strongly or impressively, merely a symbolic challenge. Fakir and his minions leap down the cliff hundreds of feet at a time.

Right at the point where the woman and the boy are about to be ridden down, after the knight threw his sword in despair, a wall of stone spring up from the cliff out into the field between the running woman and the cavalry. The riders smack into the wall with a sickening crunch. Their words of surprise half-finished. Behind them, the other riders try to check their mounts and many of them pitch over and are thrown. The following ranks trample the front runners unintentionally, with no way to slow sufficiently. The wall breaks where the main charge hit it, but the whole charge is stopped. Fakir and two of his minions land on the prairie.

The four armed woman scoops the fleeing woman up in one arm and the boy in the other and runs towards the knight on his biped. Fakir turns, and as orcs clamor over the bodies in front of the break in the wall, he takes out his spear and twirls it in an artful bow.

“Zanji Shinjinen Ryu,” Mutters Darrell, “Its a sword art, but they know their way around a spear too. Its a killing art, not something for leaving people alive.”

Each spear that Fakir throws strikes deep into his targets, finding chinks in their armor or else hammering right through it. When blocked, each spear continues attacking until the kill is made. Whenever a spear doesn't immediately return, a new one appears in Fakir's grasp and he hurls it into the fray. Those with quick eye can count up to eight spears at times.

The four armed one tosses the boy up behind the knight. At first the Duke looks like he wants to stay, but the four armed one pleads with him, “You must help me get them to safety. I don't know these woods and we are surrounded by scouts and outriders. If you stay these two will die!”

A flight of arrows comes over the wall, but Fakir leaps in front of the conversation and spins his spear, deflecting all the ones that would have hit. “Go!” he shouts, “We'll hold them off!”

The Duke cursed and the brave lizard he rides leaps away towards the forest. The woman with four arms outpaces them, until the lizard is going fast. Not the suicidal charge of speed seen the previous time, but faster than any normal human could run.

Orcs start to climb the wall and other women scamper along the other side. When the Orcs clear the wall, the women toss them back over as if they were pieces of trash, letting them fall among the pikes and spears of the Orcs on the other side.

Once the knight carries the boy into the forest, along with the minion carrying the girl, Fakir gives a shout. His minions retreat in all directions, some even traveling over and through the Orc host. Fakir mumbles something, then casts a Crimson Wall of Lictalon into the breach in the wall. The barbarian horde panics, and their shouting becomes even more confused, as if they are afraid of each other. The army flees, and Fakir and his minions disappear.

The vision ends.

“The Orcs regrouped later, but they didn't go back that way. They took a longer way around, and by that time the Duke's king had raised an army and drove them off. The Duke, the boy and the peasant made it back. The four armed minion died. She was wounded by arrows intended for the Duke in the forest, and when they got to the keep it was already besieged by a small force of outriders. The Duke's Gigante porter's attacked the besiegers, and the four armed woman and the lizard used their leaping skills to get over the keep walls. But she died inside.”

“Its likely that if the Duke met Fakir later, he would give him whatever it is he wants. So now you've seen him fight. His minions use Aikido, and he is a master spear-man. He uses magic to fight as well. His use of the wall of stone was clever. It could not have stopped the Orcs for long if he cast it far in front of them... they could have gone around easily. In front of their noses it was a different story.”

"Well, now that you've seen do you have any ideas how to beat him?"

[dakota]

Dryzh's confidence in his ability faded somewhat, then a thought occured to him. " Is he a prisoner just as we are? If yes, Dryzh think we befriend him to escape together. once away from this place, then we can face him once free."

[Renekin Skywalker]

Allen furrowed his brow. He had forgotten that the thief would have to exist unfettered throughout his timeline. "We simply need to convince him to end his criminal ways." He suggested. "Since killing him seems to be inappropriate.

[shiivster]

Aki stares at the wall where the vision had played. she listens to the others and then looks up at Sapphire. 'he like pretty ones with curves. i not have pretty curves. i have wild life body, not made to be pretty. he will hear you first before us.

*its clear she's pondering other things as well, then her head turns to study the area her traveling companion has moved off in and frowns. she says nothing but watches for a while, then turns to listen to the others again.

[still without a connection where i'm currently living]

[sasqaricious]

"You think he will. I am not sure if Master Tesla would like that though. But if he asks I shall comply!" Knowing she full well is a very attractive female to the people of the megaverse as she was designed to be!

[albatross]

Darrell looks to Aki for a moment, "Well, his minions are short. And he has fought Sapphire before. He might recognize her, now or later."

He nods at Dryzh, "Not a bad idea, maybe. We could break him out, but I would think he would be able to escape on his own. Worth investigating."

Then facing Allen, "If you plan to convince him do you have a particular angle in mind? We might need more background first - it will be hard to reason with him if we can't guess his motivations."

******

While the team discusses, Yumi explores the arena. All kinds of animals are in cages, not just gladiators. Tigers, lions, rhinos, even aquariums with giant flying turtles and pools filled with sharks. Huge spiders and snakes abound.

Yumi has difficulty finding Fakir. She thinks she knows which way he went, but the scent trail is smudged with the passage of wild bulls and the mongoose would have to cross the fire worm cage next to the waterbat aquarium to follow.

[shiivster]

'many animals. many non-lairs ... like this one, hold them. Yumi worries about .... fire and .. she worries she loose trail'

*the eyes half close as she looks about and then sniffs at the air. she seems more animal-like with the half open mouth sniffing the air than human trying to sniff something.

<Korean> 'go ahead. on your time. in your manner' *said to the air. she simply looks down at the floor now for all of 5 seconds then shakes the head.

[kurff]

Tesla listened and knew something needed to be done. Sapphire was right he opposed to killing as a first option. Thought if it had to be done. he was not let his conscience be bothered. With a very long time ahead of him he would likely have to many things he was no at ease with.

At present he was looking over the weapons and armor. When done he returned to the team..