Placeing one huge foot tentatively before the other the red scaled giant slowly makes his way to Jastery?s outskirts. The ancient ogre is hunched from many years of servitude, new and old whip marks cross his back and the cloth that he wears barely covers him. The blood from his most recent wounds is dry and caked around the spots on his back and face where it was allowed to pool. He walks with a limp and a worn tree limb acts as a crutch.
As he passes the first few homes and sees no one inside, he stands bolt upright and summons the strength that his old bones had forgotten that he had in his youth. Raising his fists to the sky he bellows a mighty scream of rage. The ground of Jastery shakes and the clouds overhead are pushed away from the ancient?s force.
The ancient collapses in a heap.
Ripper (on the way to pay with her sister) freezes at the loud noise, initially thinking it to be thunder she dives for the ground, covering her head with her shield. Peeping up, she watches Kirell blow past and scrambles up to her feet. The pixie looks toward Arie briefly, big eyed, and shrugs, then slowly makes her way over to the behemoth. She paces around him carefully, eyebrows raised, and then places her sword and shield on the ground. The fae leans down and gently (well, gently to Ripper, which was probably just touch more than gentle) shakes his shoulder.
"Mister? Are you okies? Do you need a bandage?"
She straightens up, fiddling around with her things and produces a small tin of sticky bandages (with cats drawn all over them) and a lump of hard candy, extending them toward the ancient. Her voice is honest, but her eyes show a touch of hesitance at parting with the precious sugar.
"It's not verreh big, not nearly as big as you Mister, but I gots some candy too. You can has it if you really want it."
The giant reaches out and grabs Kirell. Lifting him off of the ground the giant sits up. With great labor in his breathing the giant speaks in angori.
((Message sent to any angori within earshot))
The giant then grabs at his chest and flings Kirell half way down the street. *Repel 40*
Then the giant lays still and his breath stops. The giant dies.
Wreynn hobbles down the street, clearly favoring his right leg, trying to investigate the noise from a safe distance. Noticing Astrum attending to Kirell in the middle of the street, Wreynn gingerly approaches.
"What's going on here, and can anyone explain the meaning of that horrific scream? It sounded as if something rather enormous and disgusting just died around here. Oh, and Astrum, have you seen Gareth about, I waited in the lab for days for him to come back. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he forgot about that too."
"Herkroph"
Kirell scrambles to his feet.
"Grot oukdri routk froku? Grot oukdri?"
Kirell realizes he is speaking Angori.
"It is as I feared. This is not going to go well!"
Kirell bellows at the top of his lungs.
"Dalgoon you old fool!"
"Friends come and go, but enemies gather at my feet in a heap!"
Wreynn twitches nervously when asked about Dalgoon, "Dalgoon is a bit of a twit and a nuisance, though from what I've heard, an accomplished mage in his own right. I didn't see it myself but I hear the man talks to spoons, and has been the instrument to Kirell's demise here more times than I care to count. He also had no love for Urdek's or candy. Wrap all that up together, and if you can't remember him, you may be better off. As to this sort of thing, I haven't been in Jastrey long, but it seems that giants of some sort seem to be a near monthly occurence, along with giant burrowing ants that like to feast on the flesh of mages - though, I really do think that was more Jeb's doing than anything else."
Wreynn begins to count on his fingers methodically recounting the recent incidents, "And then there was the werewolf dance party, and the talking fang that killed half the town. There was the attack of the rampaging elementals, and the ifrit that promised me choice loot from a dragons treasure as payment for selling Stiers and the fairies into slavery. Obviously that transaction didn't happen as they're still here in Jastrey and not the elemental plane of fire. There were the giant oozes the other week from the alchemical recipe that you and Corvax flubbed almost a month ago, and of course, we can't forget to mention Atrius Bloodbrand. Just don't say that I didn't warn you if you start hearing a ship bell late into the evening." Letting out a sigh of relief, Wreynn finishes, "Yes, I do believe that about covers about what I know about what has threatened the town recently."
Arie looks up wide-eyed from the giant's corpse and watches everyone run off, forgetting the poor creature. "He's deaded, Ripper" she says in a loud, somewhat shocked whisper. "He wasn't hurt... just -old-..."
There's a long, contemplative silence as she stares at the ruined features on the ancient giant's face. "D'you think Uncle Wyrenn's gonna get old?"
Stares after the group, especially Wryenn before she finally turns back to her sister. The faerie puts away her candy and band-aid, hitching up her skirts a bit before she moves toward the giant's face. It's very clear from the way she moves that she's mimicking something she's seen before.
The pixie leans down and (tho she has to use both hands for each one) lowers the giant's eyelids, then reaches over to pluck the nearest flower and place it on his massive chest. That done, she paces the length of his body, counting her strides out loud.
"One..tree...flower...five...six...sevenses...eight...ninesies. Ninesies...by..tree I think"
She moves off to the side and marks of a space seven paces by three, then kneels down in the middle and starts digging with her hands. Without stopping, she looks up to Arie, dumping the loose dirt off to the side of the place marked for hte gigantic grave.
"Not 'less he wants to I guess...and I don't think Uncle Wryenn wants to get old. I mean...I haven't seen him collectin' flowers for a cocoon. Have you?"
"Nooo... But I thought it was different for humans... But, I guess, it can't be that different!" The blue fairy brightens up a little and joins her sister, marking off the paces in the dirt with her sword. She digs through her pockets until she comes up with a spoon and then starts digging.
"This is gonna take forever, Ripper... Maybe we should just use fire."
Looks up, two handfulls of dirt at the ready. She glances back down, nodding a little and dusts her hands off. The faerie tromps to the wood-edge, using her sword when necessary (but mostly her hands) to break down small trees and fetch the wood back. She bundles the wood 'round the giant, periodically calling upon her savage strength to lift his limbs so that she can get bits of tinder or wood under it. [Ferocious Strength] Finally she takes a step back, dusting her hands off with her skirts.
"Well it's not 'xactly a pyre...but I think it'll burn long 'nuff to do the job. Are...are we a'posed to say somethin? Like how he was a nice giant man or how he yelled real good?"
"Umm.. yeah." The pixie clears her throat and looks up at the sky. "He was a good giant... real big. And he yelled real loud. And he was really, really old. We hope he'll sleep real good and then find the right coccoon that's real pretty and real comfy to wake up in." She sucks on a lolly for a moment and then starts searching through her pockets again... and then again with more enthusiasm, pulling out shiny bits here and then and piling candies up on the ground.
"Uh.. Ripper? D'you have a flint? Uncle Wyrenn took mine away."
Ripper had busied herself all this time, tying the stems of leaves together to make a bit of a wreath. It was sort of like a flower crown but much more...well...Ripper. She settles the thing on the giant's head and then joins her sister, fishing through her own pockets until she finds her auto-tinder and holds it out toward the other fairy.
"Gotta keep one for my sticks."
Looking at the Giant, she clears her throat a little.
"An happy birthing day too."
Kirell turns to Astrum.
"Yes I'm ok, but I'm afraid i won't be for long. The giant delivered dire news. I fear the Dragon Cult has the intention to kill me, and the wizened Dalgoon wasn't able to tell me."
The Angori shakes his head in disgust.
"I'm not so sure about old age sisters. Did you not notice his wounds. They appear to be lash marks. This fellow has taken more than his share of beatings. A slave of some sort I'm afraid."
Friends come and go, but enemies gather at my feet in a heap.?
Ripper gapes, picking up one of the swirling red orbs and holding it above her head. One can almost imagine feline ears cocking sidelong on her head.
"Hot candy!!"
With naught much more than that the faery pops the orb into her mouth (or as much of it as she can fit) and bites down. Intending to either eat the chunk (if it's solid) or suck out the contents should they prove to be liquid.
The pixie chomps down the clear candy shell and then sucks the powdery delicious candy out of the centre. The whole time making gleeful 'om om om' noises. She buries her head within the clear globe, licking the powder up as though her life just might depend on it, and then takes to consuming the rest of the globe itself with feverish delight.
By the time it's done, her hair sticks up at strange angles from sugary saliva and her face is coated with more of the sticky. She stares at Arie and the last piece of candy with large dilated pupils. For a moment she lurches forward, as if she might be compelled to take it, but then remembers Wryenn's talk of sha-ring.
"Eeeeeeats it! Oh emm bob! It's the bestest thing ever ever EVER!"
Ripper's mouth starts glowing faintly at first then brighter as the seconds fly by. Then with a loud bang she is thrown back and off of her feet *Repel 5*. As she sits up a loug belch is accompanied by a ball of fire jetting from her mouth. The fire strikes the twigs and ignites them.
Kirell hurries to the faries side.
"Hot candy indeed."
Careful to stand to one side of Ripper Kirell gently pats her on the back.
"Are you OK, or are there more of those deadly belches bottled up in there?"
"You should be careful taking candy from strangers."
The Angori reaches out to stop Arie from devouring her combustible confection.
"If you let Uncle Wreynn and Garith take a look at it they might be able to make you more."
"If the river was whisky, and I was a duck, I'd swim to the bottom and never come up."
Wreynn staggers to the fairies unable to resist laughing a little bit as Ripper erupts. "Arie, if you don't mind, can I take a look at that 'candy' you have? It has some rather intriguing properties that I wouldn't mind trying to engineer. Besides, it would be quite enjoyable to watch Ripper erupt more often. Assuming she's not around any of my things of course, the two of you have destroyed enough of them without me giving you a new way to do it."
Wreynn takes a quick look at the orb and ponders what he could do with it back at the lab. {Identification/Appraisal}.
The pixie blinks blankly a few times, then reaches up to pat at her now-ragged eyebrows. She goes cross-eyed, looking up, then shrieks and pats out one of the wild hair's that'd been lit by the fire. Wrinkling her nose over the smell of smoke she looks up to the two men, then points at the fire.
"We burnified the giant-man, the hole would'a been -huuuuuge-," broad gesticulation with this, "that's what not-faeries do. It's re-spek-table."
Kirell stops short of the hulk laying in the street.
"Corvax come quickly."
"What do you make of this."
Kirell steps closer as he reaches out to apply a healing salve to the wounds of the giant.
(Applying salve - Heal 30)
"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints. The sinners are much more fun."