RP:The Misadventures of Ina & Set: "Series Premiere! Honey, I Killed The Pixies?!"

Part of the A Few Fox Tales Arc

Summary: Brave, stupid Ina faces calamitous trials when the very fabric of space-time seems to rip apart like so many sweaters. In reality, the foxkin's experiences are the result of a roving band of pixies hellbent on spreading chaos through the realm. It's up to Ina and Seteth of Sagittae to set things right -- or become murder suspects instead -- whatever works!

The Pass Through Xalious... et Sanity, Too

Arlyeon shouldn't be here, right now- but here we are. It's not that she's banned from Kelay- though there's a certain part of her that would certainly see that as an achievement if she could pull a funny enough prank to result in that. But rather, that she was -supposed- to be further into the mountains. She supposes she got turned around somewhere along the way, possibly when she ended up running away from the wolf she had clobbered in the face with a rock. It was looking at her funny, and deserved it. To be fair, given the fact that she's got a pair of swishing red and black tails, and some distinctly vulpine ears, it might actually be a little bit confusing for creatures looking for a meal. There's also the fact that despite Ina's pass-time/profession as a pilferer and purveyor of plunder - her current garb wouldn't really indicate it, given she's wearing a garish rainbow colored robe. I mean, sure, she borrowed it- but most people would definitely take a solid pass on that, especially when they're trying to hunt down a critter. Maybe it's meant to be disarming- it's not like she's carrying anything that'd even be useful as a weapon, other than a -very- ugly wrought iron lantern, which isn't even lit. "...He said take a right, right? Or was that turn left when ja could go right?"

Seteth wasn’t here yet. At present, the thief was half a kilometer to the east of the well-traveled trail. The clouds grew dark directly above Ina; curiously, it was still clear skies everywhere else in sight. Thunder rumbled high above the foxkin, and the air seemed suddenly stale. With a sound like a boom, it began to pour over Ina -- torrentially. Other bits of sky grew dark now, too, and nearby trees swayed with the wind. Strange animal sounds could be heard emanating with wild abandon from the clouds, and then the unthinkable happened. Animals -- cats and dogs to be exact -- fell from the heavens by the hundreds. Impossibly, they all landed on their paws without so much as a whimper before going about their day. Their day seemed to consist of recognizing the rain only after their odd tumble, at which time they scattered to seek refuge deeper into nearby segments of shrubbery. A llama bolted past Ina now, as fast as a horse, and as it passed her it briefly canted its head and said “You are an idiot.” After the llama vanished from sight, a horse trotted past the foxkin at the pace of an average llama. “This is a quantifiable element,” the horse seemed to say with a neigh. The rain continued.

Arlyeon’s first instinct when confronted with the rain is to try and cover herself, but the closest thing she has to an umbrella is the lantern. Sure, it has glass casing, so it actually manages to ward off the rain in a very localized area, but it's a pretty sad display, and only manages to add an extra degree of oomph to the scornful neigh she receives. "Back 'atcha. ...Whatever ja said." It's easier to rage at an equine than the heavens, obviously, even if she can't speak horse. "Er, W-wait up." She splashes along after, hoping that it might lead her to shelter- and maybe might not be completely adverse to having a passenger. Just as soon as she figures out how you're even supposed to hop on one of those things. During the entirety of this time, she also fails to notice the way in which a steady pool of water is accumulating inside the midst of her hood- which probably would have been the best choice to ward off the rain. "...Is it like, a running leap on, or?" Given that this was a do or die type situation (what with how miserable it's getting, and the price of failure being a face full of mud), Ina decides now is the best time to fully commit to this course of action, if it looks like it's going to shake her off, she can always point clawed digits to use in securing purchase on the horse. That'll -never- backfire on her.

Seteth wasn’t here yet. At present, the thief was two-fifths of a kilometer to the east of the well-traveled trail. As the slow-and-steady horse realized its imminent fate, it kicked mud up in Ina’s direction. “Mud-Slap!” The horse was proud of its achievement. Bolstered by boldness, it then wagged its tail. “Tail Whip!” By now, Ina would surely have given up, but just in case the foxkin were as persistent as she was damp, the horse opted to complete a triforce worth of terror. “Take Down,” it said with supreme menace, diving forward into the cold, wet dirt and injuring its chest in the process. The idea, as it had been explained to the horse, was that it could deal considerable damage to its opponent whilst suffering a certain degree of recoil. Unfortunately, the horse was a horse, of course, of course, As such, the horse failed to grasp the importance of diving forward in the correct direction. It landed with a thud ahead of Ina, who would have no trouble at all climbing aboard its back now if she were still on the hunt despite the mud and the intimidating wag of the horse’s tail. No sooner would Ina have mounted the horse than the rain stopped, and the clouds parted, but the air was thick with fog -- no, smoke and smog! -- and on both sides of the rider and the horse with no name were unfathomably tall buildings, some made of brick and others with an unknown form of… glue? Gravel? It was difficult to parse even for intelligent foxkin, let alone this one. “What are you, blind?” a man in a gigantic suit of armor shouted, pressing something from within that caused the entire plate of armor to honk not unlike a goose. No, wait -- this wasn’t armor. The man was seated inside the steel, with a window made of glass separating him from the outside world. Suddenly, there were many more men in bizarre steel contraptions, and everyone was wearing tophats, and people scurried about on both ends of -- wait, when was Ina standing in the center of a street? Other metal contraptions honked like geese. The rain returned.

Arlyeon is slopped in mud, which is a crying shame- as whilst these items are certainly of the 'borrowed indefinitely' variety, they actually -fit- her. It's probably why her response would have been something akin to a Glare, though it peters off a bit at the whimsical tail shake. "..Wha-oh." Nope. When it fiercely neighs at her, she's getting ready to dramatically dive off to the side- when it instead serves itself up as a mud sopped mount adjacent to her instead. "..kay." She slithers onto it , already prepared for things to get worse, but she's not quite prepared for what she's confronted with, nor for the altogether overwhelming situation that she finds herself thrust into the midst of. ...Admittedly, she's also not a fan of the giant steel contraption the mans wearing, but she's already decided to play stupid. This being a vast differently form of idiocy from her natural and reckless state of being, "Ooooh.' She intones, the words coming out with the right pitch of surprise, before they're followed up with a more challenging, and almost offended, "My Wooooord! Youth today." She sniffs, turning her head first to one side, then to the other, before finally turning to glance in the general direction of the man who spoke, albeit so that she'd be more speaking towards the hand of his golem-thing. "Is my infirmity a laughing matter to ja. is it? Or are ya a ruffian, here to hold up a lass on" Her brain nearly blanks for a moment, only to click back in when she recalls that one of her favourite local deities is -supposed- to have a cozy lil shack/shrine in the area. "a pilgrimage. Yes. Or is this the courtesy you show to all pilgrims." Yup, this is the tactic we're going with, at least until a few casual pokes of a clawed finger to the horses rump gets it in motion.

Seteth wasn’t here yet. At present, he was closeby, but out of visual range. Then again, ‘visual range’ had become a relative term the instant that Ina had found herself surrounded by the hustling and bustling machinations of the year 1927 in a faraway place called Earth which was in all likelihood nothing more than children’s fiction written into some kind of text-based roleplaying system twenty-one years ago. “You broads are all the same,” the man in the four-seated, four-wheeled golem shouted. Somehow he had managed to cause the window to the immediate left of his person to roll downward into the abyss as if by magic in order to raise his voice. “First you wear flappers, and now you’re demanding equal pilgrimages. Why, I oughta --” the man in his golem was suddenly silenced when a massive golem, one held upright by no fewer than eight wheels and as long as three barns built side-by-side-by-side, crashed into him at full speed. The monstrous thing would have crashed into poor Ina and her newfound horse, too, if it weren’t for the fact that the foxkin’s world abruptly transformed yet again -- this time, thankfully, she was back at the pass through Xalious. The rain had subsided, if only somewhat, and the horse was neighing anew. “That was wild,” it said, and then Ina would need to be quick on her foxy feet, because the horse rematerialized into a pixie with wings that flapped as briskly as any young male hummingbird. Several more pixies appeared from the eastern trail, with Seteth of Sagittae chasing them swiftly; the thief held a net attached to a brass pole, a tool designed for the catching of insects, not pixies, but he appeared to have already found a measure of success. Between Ina and the pixies and the stranger-lad, a thin mist of white powder filled the air, and wherever it was thickest, folks were most likely to hallucinate.

Arlyeon supposes a lot of what the man was saying would have been confusing, if she wasn't well versed in the art of tuning people out because there's more interesting things in the area. For instance, metallic wheel worms careening forward. That seemed of the most imminent and utmost importance, but as it stands she wasn't right in a position to do much about it- which is probably why it's a good thing she doesn't need to. "What?" She says, as houses give ways to tree. "What!" she repeats as what she thought was a well earned mount vanishes from beneath her, and leaves her sprawled on the ground. "What." is all she can say when she finally goes to lift up her hood, and promptly empties all the accumulated water onto her face. It actually takes her a good few moments to process what just happened, but the sum of it leaves her feeling red in the face and altogether hot under the collar, if only due to a singular important fact, "Ja Git. Sunnova moth. Ja friggin bamboozled meeee." It's that last cry that serves as impetus for her to get this show on the road and stagger up into an awkward flailing run, the lantern hefted up above her head. After all, whilst she'd come to try her hand at finding a phoenix- pixies were magical too, though her method of capture was liable to be a bit more permanent, given she's wholly intent on slapping one upside the skull with that lantern. After all, fae and iron don't mix, right?

Seteth blinked and almost lost his footing in the mud when a girl with fox ears came flailing in his direction with a skyward lantern. “What?” he said, and it was this momentary lapse which the pixie squadron had been banking on. “With me,” one squeaked, and the others flew around their leader in a protective circle. “Good,” the leader said, “because I don’t want to be caught or killed!” He laughed, and then all the others laughed, too, but even as they laughed they had each drawn tiny little knives and were stabbing the air with them menacingly close to Ina and Set. “Attack pattern delta,” one pixie shouted, and then four more pixies came swirling at the foxkin in a v-formation. The white powder in the air grew thicker in key spots, forcing Seteth to leap this way and that in order to avoid succumbing to the trollishly-deployed hallucinogens this pixie flock had frosted forth into clouds of indignity. “Lord Tranzier,” a pixie meeped, tapping their leader on the little pixie shoulder, which caused Tranzier to burp and fly up high. “I am Tranzier, and I pronounce you both dead! Why? Because it’s funny! Says who? Says me!” All the other pixies laughed, in on this joke which was in Seteth’s frank estimation not particularly funny. But whatever -- when in Kelay, do as the Kelay… ians? “Hah!” Seteth barked a laugh, taking up a fighter’s stance with his red dagger in his left hand and his green in his right. He stood beside Ina now; no time for introductions, only defense. Ina still had that lantern, though… what was she getting at here? Seteth had discarded his net and two pixies picked it up with impressive displays of strength and attempted to capture the lad and lass accordingly. But Seteth was fast -- fast enough to slice through the mesh and wound one of the pixies’ wings. Tranzier, in the meantime, was far from idle; the white powder appeared all around him, and as the strange fellow sniffed and sorted and sighed, a colossal boulder appeared from high above them all. “A doctor is treating a patient with a fatal case of brittle bone disease,” Tranzier said, as the boulder came hurling down apace. “The patient says, ‘How long have I got, doc?’ The doctor says, ‘death is only a stone’s throw away!’” Sadly for the pixie leader, Seteth ducked, pushing Ina out of harm’s way along with him, and the boulder landed on every single pixie instead.

Arlyeon is still trying to process what exactly she stumbled into, and it's devilishly difficult given that her sense of smell is betraying her. Which is to say, while she was almost certain she'd seen a boy with a bug catching net near her, she was currently adjacent to a diminuitive scarecrow, and being dive bombed by a surprisingly coordinated group of corvids, whose caws seemed to be acccompanied by dreamlike letters which hung in the air in their wake and translated their dread croakings. "Delta?" Oh, those beaks look so sharp. "Ditto." And then her form seems to twist, ripple and promptly lose height, as she begins the shift from humanoid to fox, albeit losing just the height, and putting herself well and below the onslaught of fae, "Dunno~" Watching Ina first lose and then regain height might be a bit distressing to Seteth, but it's not like she can really fathom who he is right now, if only because, "Whassall dis den?" Not that she really gets much of an answer, since she's promptly sent sprawling over not due to the machinations of the fair folks unfair kangaroo court, but from here heretofore unknown savio- "Wait. Weren't ja at that muckamuck party?" She blinks owlishly, trying to process the swimming form of the scarecrow, that is sometimes a boy, and currently looking like a walking pile of snausage. "Actually, hold that thought- ja lookin' like a snack, and dat's distractin'" She inhales, which for anyone else would be an altogether harmless act, but for her starts to expand her chest to a cartoonish degree- right before she exhales a rather concentrated gout of fox fire. It's not so much that she's -trying- to roast the survivors (she is, though), but that pixie dust is getting in the way. And hey, people smoke the stuff right, which means it's probably flammable. The big question is, was there any survivors prior to this little display, and are there any after. "H'okay. Pebble for ja thoughts?" The uncannily broad grin that slashes it's way across her face completely belies the fact that she's just lit her environs on fire. If anything, she suddenly seems right in her element. Which is probably a giant red flag.

Seteth had been evading a drow patrol team when he slipped past the pixies and caused a ruckus by pretending to accidentally fall down on his bum. The thief gambled on the fact that many pixies were tricksters by nature, and when the collective of little folk chortled and guffawed, he knew he was in the clear. The drow had recognized Seteth of Sagittae as a frequent guest of Lady Quintessa Dragana’s, and they intended to question him or worse; this was not acceptable for any number of reasons. Seteth had grabbed a bugcatcher’s net from outside Mesthak’s tavern and prayed to gods he did not believe in that he could hold his own against the increasingly diabolical trolling of the pixies. By the time Tranzier and his brood had decided to deploy what they ominously referred to as ‘Doozy Dust’, the thief had covered enough ground that the drow would have not only given up but started to drown their sorrows. The pixies hadn’t planned on attracting a foxkin -- who was now akin to a fox, and then a foxkin fresh -- and the attack from both sides might have caused a hassle. Instead, it was the pretense to their terrible deaths. “Whoops,” Seteth said with an accompanying whistle. “Youch, seafood soup! The hell are you going all ‘scorched earth’ for over here?” He flailed about like a monkey in order to save his pants from the embers. “I’m not a snack, I’m a person -- a person named Seteth!” Just then, Set’s magical cuffs, the shackles which imprisoned him to the will of his unseen captors, seared white-hot pain through his wrists. This had all been too much spectacle, and the cruel device always seemed to please itself with his pain at the least opportune moments. “Hey, listen. I’ve gotta get out of here before certain people come bumbling by.” A nearby pixie, the sole survivor, grasped the mud falsely. “You can have that one. Just don’t eat her, okay? I didn’t want these little buggers to die. Just to bug off.” Seteth wiped accumulating rain from his ear and shook his head, scanning the area with curious emerald eyes. “You’re one foxy lady. Let’s meet again sometime.” Melodramatically, Seteth handed Ina a tried and true calling card; it was a small bit of thick paper with his name written down on it next to a diamond. What exactly was Ina supposed to do with this? Seteth had no idea. He just thought that would make for a hip outro. He was gone.

Arlyeon has like some sort of business card, and since she can't eat the pixie (they were basically a cross between a bad batch of drugs and a gnat), she figures she can maybe just chew on it instead. As it turns out, this is also a terrible idea, so she just pockets it instead. "I'll catchya later- Set. Which I suppose would imply catching you, n' that was a pretty good vanishing act." With a shrug, she then refocuses on the task at hand- which is what to do with the sole survivor of this ever so tragic magic-wielder massacre. "Whaaaat have we heeeere." The foxkin's once more a fox , darting out from the ruined robes with enough haste to catch the lantern before it hits the ground in her maw- before she sidles up and around the surviving pixie. Setting the lantern onto the ground, she paws at the clasp to open it for a few long moments, before nosing the sullied soldier into it's newfound wrought iron prison, before she shuts it closed again and locks it, "Step into my parlour, mwa, ah, ah?" That needs work, Ina. "Ha hahaha Ah?" Getting there? "Fuh'geddabout it. This is dumb. You agree, right?" The pixie takes the decidely wise tact of not really answering, or doing anything, other than blurbling a bit and rolling onto their back to avoid drowning in the mud that get washed into the lantern along with them. "...You're no fun. Anyways- have no fear. I don't need ta kill ya. I apparently got some of ya under that rock, as it were. So, we're gonna go do somethin' productive. And By we, I mean me. Yer just my captive audience. Y'know, Emphasis on the captive part." She scoops up the latern into her mouth again, whatever other clever thought she had to add muffled by it's location, much to the pixies fortune in that moment.