isleofavalon | March Catch-All [OTA]

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March Catch-All [OTA]

WHO: Chris Lightfellow, and others. Open!
⚔️️ WHAT: Chris continues to struggle to learn magic, does some questing, and decides to learn more of the myths and legends of Camelot.
🕒 WHEN: Throughout March
🗺️ WHERE: Camelot, Red Springs, and the Archivist's Home
⚠️ WARNINGS: None that I can think of

Training

In the training yard, there's a WHOMP sound, like accompanies an outburst of fire, a brief cry, followed by a clanging noise, of metal hitting stone. Going to investigate, you find Chris a short ways away from an entirely unburnt training dummy where her familiar, the Holly Elf (just call her Holly) sits on top of its head, head in hands, watching boredly. The Silver Maiden of Zexen is clutching her right hand to her breastplate, a few feet away, a gauntlet lies discarded. What you can see of her hand suggests it's been burnt; the skin is red and angry-looking. Chris' expression is pained, but looks more frustrated with herself than anything else.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn. Agh." She sees you approaching and attempts to wave you off. "Ah, forgive me, I didn't mean to cause an alarm." She'd been trying to replicate a Flaming Arrows spell, or something similar and..obviously it hadn't worked out.

"I thought fire magic was supposed to be your entire deal. Isn't that why you've got that funny little tattoo on your hand?" Holly observes, kicking her legs against the face of the dummy.

Chris shoots her an annoyed glance. "That's not helpful, Holly." Back to you, she tries to assuage any concerns you have. "Don't worry, I've had worse in my time. It's not quite as painful as it looks." That may be, but a healer might still be advised. Or at least an icepack.

A Bit of Thief-Taking (RUN SNAGGLEFOOT RUN)
This was more familiar to her. This was something Chris knew she was capable of. Thief-taking wasn't normally in the purview of the Zexen Knights, and certainly not their commander, but a nation founded on mercantile and run by merchants and traders tended to take an especially dim view of thievery. Besides, it felt closer to the duties Chris was normally used to than all this magic nonsense. Especially when the thief was so incompetent to let his destination be known.

Said thief is now currently backing out of the stables as Chris comes out of them, hand on her sword, but not having drawn the weapon yet. "Hand over the stolen merchandise and submit yourself to arrest, Mr. Miffen." She says sternly. "This farce has gone on quite long enough, wouldn't you agree?"

Snagglefoot Miffen balks, and his eyes noticeable look down the street. "Don't do something you'll regret, Mr. Miffen." Chris warns. "It will go more poorly for you if you run."

"Not as poorly as it will for you love in all them clanking armour bits." He points out with a cheeky grin, and then books it.

"He's running!" Chris calls after him. "Cut him off!" Hopefully the assistance she positioned at the end of the street while she cut him off at the stables is keeping their ears open. She starts after him, but he was right about one thing; in all her armour Chris isn't exactly mobile right now.

Myths of Camelot
Chris is wary of coming this close to the Forest of the Fisher King. She doesn't know much about the place other than it sits at the edges of the Land of Rot, and that everyone has been advised not to go too far in. Fortunately, her destination is on the edges of the forest, so she doesn't expect too much trouble. Still, she would go with company if at all possible.

Chris gives the steamcar the Archivist calls home the once over as she and whatever company decided to tag along with her approach. "Strange choice of domicile." She notes. "I gather the actual archive is below ground." Her familiar, the Holly Elf is perched sitting on one of her pauldrons (Chris has long since given up trying to shoo her away) and already looks bored.

"Oh boy, hours trapped underground in a dusty old library so you can read a few myths and legends. This is fun for you?"

Chris closes her eyes and sighs. "Holly, please. You're welcome to stay out here or return to Camelot if you like."

"All that way by myself? No thank you! My wings get tired." She grumbles some more, but doesn't move off the pauldron.

"Well then, do you suppose we knock, or can we just let ourselves in? I don't wish to be rude."

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"All right, all right, you've made yer point!" Snagglefoot whimpers as he passes Chris the bag of stolen gems. "Just don't go turnin' me into anythin' unnatural." There's a look in Hawk's eyes he clearly doesn't like, and with Chris' sword at the back of his neck, he's not inclined to fight too much as Hawk restrains him.

Once Chris has secured the bag and Hawk has secured the would-be thief, Chris sheathes her sword. "All right, on your feet. We've got a ride ahead of us back to Camelot and I want to make the most of the daylight." She hauls him up by the back of his collar, and then pushes him firmly. "Start walking, and behave yourself." Once they reach the edge of the Springs they can toss him into the wagon Chris procured for the trip back. With her driving and Hawk to watch, there's little chance he'll try and escape. A bit messy, but all in all she feels refreshed; this is the sort of work she understands better. Does Camelot have a watch? She might have to consider signing up.

"That was well-done, Hawk." Chris tells him as they make their way down the street, the watching crowd mostly parting to let them go. "Two missions under our belt together; so far I'd say our cooperation shows promise." It's useful to her to have someone she can rely on, deprived of Salome, Borus and the other knights. Building a replacement stable of allies for her time here will be a necessity, and while Hawk seems a bit too combat hungry at times, he also displays sensible judgment in when to hold back. She can work with that.

Snagglefoot will definitely find his restraints put on a bit too tight for the comment about being unnatural. Whoops. But he otherwise is behaving and not doing any needless harm. At least being threatening seems to have worked well. Plus it gave a reward for the time spent and this lady knight seemed like an interesting sort. Definitely nothing like the pompous fools he's met.

It was a bit of a pain having to escort the thief to the authorities. He was more used to the ruckus involved grabbing the attention of the garrison soldiers and using the captured thief as a distraction to make their getaway. Being complimented for something so pathetically easy just always feels weird.

"He was barely worth the time spent. Nothing like the wild goose chases I'd lead the garrison soldiers on."

"Ow! 'Ey, watch it!" For her part, Chris doesn't pay too much attention to Snagglefoot's discomfort as she marches him down the street, keeping one hand firmly on his shoulder in case he tries anything. With her hand clamped down hard and Hawk's proximity, Snagglefoot appears to have given up any hope of getting away, though his scowl remains.

"I suppose not, but after my own recent circumstances I suppose I was in the mood for something simple." Catching one incompetent jewel thief was a lot lower stakes than preventing more than half the continent from being destroyed in a firey doom, and put a great fewer people at risk. For the Silver Maiden of Zexen and newly-minted Flame Champion, this counted as relaxation for her. "Yes, you mentioned prison-breaks before." She replies dryly, shooting him a glance. "I take it you have something of a storied history." Which, fine. The Fire Bringers took in all sorts, given who they were up against. She might have objected once, but now as long as he minds his manners here, she sees no sense raising a fuss over it. Besides, they do seem to work well together.

"...Is that why you have those wings of yours?" She asks after a moment. They could be natural, after all even in her own world the Winghorde exists, but she does wonder, given what he's let slip (almost certainly intentionally, to test her reaction, she assumes) of his past.

"Oi, you tellin' me I'm gettin' arrested by another crook?" Snagglefoot shoots Hawk an annoyed glare. "I ask you, 'ow is that fair, hey?"

Hawk will get to Chris' questions in a moment, but first he feels a need to put the incompetent jewel thief in his place. Seriously, the mere idea such an incompetent thief could even be in the same class as a Monstrum is laughable and Hawk is laughing at it. "Oh shut your yap Snagglebutt. The price on my head back home makes a mockery of the reward we were offered for you."

He decides though to let her hear some of the things. Maybe not his past but at least explain a bit more on why they broke people out of prison. "The wings were a little gift in exchange for being shot by a magic bullet and given a curse. The prison break ins were because we were told to investigate the prison to learn the truth. While doing so, we also broke out a few people who were falsely arrested. We've also caught a few criminals and ran once the garrison soldiers arrived. It's all quite fun, we make fools of them and do their jobs and even hide right under their noses."

While it's the nice version of the tale and doesn't begin to explain why Hawk has a reward of over nine million gold pieces for his capture, it covers the basics though. No need to mention yet that his bad reputation was earned fairly even if it's far overblown by now.

Snagglefoot is looking quite alarmed, all this talk of curses and being shot by magic. "Bloody 'ell, no job's worth this." He wails. "If I come out of this some bird monster, you'll be hearin' from my barrister, you mark my words. Curses and dark magic, I may be a crook but I got my rights not t'be cursed, you hear me?"

"Mr. Miffen, no wizard worth their salt would ever bother wasting a curse on you." Chris snaps at him. "Now be silent, please." Well, rescuing the unjustly imprisoned is a noble act." The story Hawk gives her is a good one, though she's certain there's plenty he's leaving out. But it's not as though she's entitled to hear his entire life story, nor he hers. In the here and now they're working together and working together well, so she'll take it. She doesn't enquire as to the exact amount of Hawk's own bounty. "Well, saving the unjustly-imprisoned is a noble act." She concedes, though one of the terms he uses catches her attention. "Garrison soldiers? Was there a war going on?"

Hawk will go ahead and deal with the issue of Snagglefoot's complaints. Without asking Chris if she'd be okay with it, he digs into the pack on his waist and finds a strip of cloth. In a very fast motion which causes Snagglefoot to protest loudly, Hawk wraps the cloth around his mouth forming a gag. There is still some muffled protesting to tell Chris that the obnoxious thief is still alive.

"Loudmouth problem solved." Stupid thief, as if someone like Aprilis would waste a magic bullet on someone who would't last more than a minute in the Grimwald Nox if she even could curse anyone besides them. "Just shows how much of a coward he is if he can't appreciate how fun it is to fly."

But then Chris asks an interesting question. The whole situation with the military in Balduq and Gillia as a whole is complicated and it's clear her world has some major differences from his even if she picked up on the recent war. "No current war. The Romun Empire invaded Gillia and eight years ago we became their territory. The garrison soldiers are sent by the empire to keep peace and guard the prison." Of course there is the unspoken duty of preventing rebellion since eight years definitely isn't long enough for all thoughts of rebellion to vanish.

"'ey! 'ey, you can't just—mmmmfgh!" Snagglefoot's protestations are cut off as Hawk slips the cloth across his mouth. Grumbling from behind the gag, he glares sullenly at the two of them as they approach the edge of the Springs.

Chris ignores him and nods gratefully at Hawk. "Thank you, that should make for an easier trip back to Camelot."

She takes the information about this conflict from eight years back in, and recognizes there's a lot about it that is going unsaid as well, and she picks up the most obvious subtext, or what kind of prisoners the Romuns are keeping. "I imagine they likely have a different idea of what "peace" means than you and your kin." She points out. "You have my sympathies for your home, as well." Gillia's fate had almost been that of Grassland and Zexen, though things had gone a little pear-shaped for Harmonia by the end and they were briefly on the same side as the people they'd been trying to conquer only days before when Luc made his move.

Leading Snaggletooth off the road, they reach the wagon, where they'd left it. Holly is sitting atop it boredly, but perks up as she hears them approaching and in a flash has zipped over to Chris.

"There you are! Took you long enough. I was booooooooooored and horses smell!"

"We were barely gone an hour Holly." Chris huffs, then turns to Hawk. "If you'll ride in the back with our guest, I'll get us underway." With Hawk watching him like Dominguez Jr., Snaggletooth will think twice before trying to jump out.

Snagglefoot just should be glad their instructions specified that he was to stand for trial or else he'd be contending with far worse than just a gag.

"Eh, things could be worse. The most recent guy they sent to be in charge is much better than the last one. Besides, the Romuns are too busy with trying to capture us Monstrums. It's almost to the point of being a game to all of us and they ain't even really trying now."

He definitely raises an eyebrow upon seeing Holly. On one hand, kind of nice to have a useful familiar. On the other hand, his familiar is so obnoxious that he's probably better off that it doesn't talk. The two o them likely would argue endlessly because they are far too alike. But he'll get in the back and glare at Snagglefoot.

With Snagglefoot and Hawk secure in the back, Chris pulls herself onto the driver's seat of the cart. With a command she kicks the waiting horses into a forward trot, pulling it onto the road, turning it towards Camelot.

She glances up at the sky. The sun is starting to hang a bit low in the sky. "Not to worry, Mr. Miffen. We shall have you safely into your cell by supper, I should think." She says jovially.

Not a bad start to things all told.

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March Catch-All [OTA]

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