RP: Just a bit of trolling

Part of the A Few Fox Tales Arc

This is a Mage's Guild RP.

Summary: Ina wants to go hunting for trolls. Lanlan does not. Unfortunately for the archmage- betting on anything but Ina's a bad idea- and he soon finds himself elbow deep in a curious bit of business.

A Spot In Venturil I'm too lazy to research

Lanlan would never be out here in this jungle looking for trolls. He shouldn't be, the whole thing is ridiculous. "I'm the arch mage," he told her. "Leader of Xalious. I can't go hunting trolls for your weird little project. Not unless it's mages guild business." As luck would have it, Cynica dropped off a missive just then. Urgent, the elf told him, from Venturil. Aya saw it come in.

Now they're in the mud. Coming into the wet season in Venturil, the bug season. Trolls aren't a very uncommon threat, and normally they don't need any kind of specialists, and the warriors guild is right there. No, these are different. The early reports from the lumber camp were dismissed, but as the outrageous reports of these super trolls grew more numerous, demands to do something about it became louder and louder.

Their carriage came to the logging camp early in the evening, the sun was still out, shining in the pools collecting in the deeper footprints. Lanlan wore a wide brimmed hat and sun glasses to keep it manageable, and long boots that stopped just under his knee. His clothes are blessed to keep stains out anyway, but you can never be too careful when it comes to mud. The man who met them didn't seem impressed when he saw them. He thought two wasn't enough, and definitely didn't warrant a horse drawn carriage. A dozen Lanlan's surrounded the man then, at least eleven of them were illusions. "We'll need half the fee up front," Lanlan told him twelve times in unison, to make sure he got the message. If he couldn't bother finishing the mission, a big fat bag of gold was worth a carriage ride.

"We'll start the search in earnest later, when it's dark."

Ina had been in the process of preparing her best pout when the missive had come in, but as luck would have it . . .

So, they'd gotten a carriage- one which had done an adequately good job of getting them to the location, seeing as the excess of suitcases she'd brought along hadn't spilled open during the ride. That said, whilst she certainly felt prepared for however long this project might last (and it should definitely be ignored as to why she's so well prepared for this endeavour)- there are some key issues here.

Namely, Ina isn't doing much to dissuade the camp managers initial opinion of the pair as being far too little, given Ina's accoutrement is even more awkward than Lanlan's- since she's traipsing through the logging camp in sandals, blue floral skirt, and an overshirt that's an even gaudier arrangement of patterns. Really, she looks as though she'd prepared for Chartsends beaches, then whatever it is they're actually supposed to be doing. Well, beyond the substantially more pallid than normal complexion she was sporting- making her look more at home in Vailkrin, than the more humid climates they were exploring.

In any case, Lanlan's actually taking this somewhat more seriously then her, given that he was still engaged in some back and forth over their fee, and most importantly, the upfront portion. She observes this process for a few moments, and the manner in which the hope slowly drains from the managers' eyes, before her attention flickers to one of the suitcases she'd unloaded. From it's depth, she procures' an umbrella- In some small part because it's an excellent means of fending off the sun, but mostly because negotiations tend to be helped along by a subtle dose of spontaneously produced pixie dust mingling into the breeze. "Make sure tha' lodgin' is covered, aye? Gonna need some space ta' set up the things we need. N' privacy. Alchemys' finicky bidness, and Troll huntin's serious bidness. Ch'yeah." Lan had a plan, right? Because the contents of her bags were likely along the lines of 'Hazardous materials', especially for something as combustible as a lumber camp.

Lanlan is already getting back into the carriage. “Lodging? Here?” He gestures around the logger’s camp, it was a ramshackle place in disrepair. Not enough people to create anything worth living in. For him at least. “I’m not getting out of the carriage again until I have to,” he said with a snort. He stays there, but as he does, he considers that this might take longer than a day. In a little time, he comes up with something to remedy the lack.

By taking what magic he normally uses to condense large things into impossibly small and portable ones, he makes something different entirely. Or attempts to. He again steps out of the carriage, and throws a purple and white-striped piece of cardstock into the mud. Then he slides his fissured xalious wood staff from his sleeve, and concentrates for several moments. At the end of his pensive stare, he abruptly whips the staff this way and that, leaving trembling globes of energy in thin air. Then he grasps the staff by the end, whips the vibrating spheres of energy into a swirling mesh of glowing strings, and casts them out magically toward the mudstained card.

They pull on the ends of it, unfolding parts of the card that formerly did not exist. Further and further they unfold, until he’s created a length of material even taller than him, and longer by far. It circles them once, joining at the ends. Now they’re enclosed in a circular room the size of a Cenrilian Store. Like a composer would, he flicks his staff end, calling the mesh of strings upward, straight above them. The ceiling of this circus-inspired tent unrolls from several points, all of them unraveling toward a single point above them.

By the end, they’re safe from the elements. It’s woefully unfurnished however, and if he were more attentive, he would’ve picked a place that was unsoiled by any patches of mud, as this one now was. “Hm,” he says, not fully satisfied. It was cotton and it should’ve been silk damask. “Lodgings.”

Ina lounges- seemingly heedless of his distaste with the area, if only because the nearest lodgings would likely strike him as equally contemptable, albeit in different and creative ways. Chartsend? The distasteful scent of fish would be hard to escape. Venturil? Backwards Barbarians which had eschewed most forms of advancement over the course of whatever lackluster leadership had left them to rot. Frankly, their best option would have been to burn down a small clearing- but that seemed counter-productive to the well-being of the logger camp. And more pressingly, with being paid.

So, it's probably a good thing that Lanlan actually provides a solution before Ina can contemplate more 'troubleshooting' options- his theatrical construction of a tent serving as a marvelous diversion. That, and the natural endpoint for all of her baggage- as it's promptly drawn within the tent interior, and stacked into a weird ramshackle fascmile of a desk. That's far from her only contribution, though- as a few moments later, she shuffles over to one of the smaller bags, and retrieves a few oddly colored cubes from it's interior, alongside a vial of liquid, and a bag of powder.

The purpose of the Turkish Delight Adjacent items is made almost immediately apparent- as a few droplets of some D-I-Y growth serum serves to rehydrate and enlarge each of the flavoured gelatinous cube to a suitably cushion-y size. At about which point, the foxkin tosses some of the powder over top of them. A sort of alchemically treated confectioners sugar meant to keep them docile, and soak up the excess growth serum. (The latter in large part because- while it's effects are certainly solid in the short term, it's woefully ineffective on vascular systems.). Hence sorted, Ina paces for a moment -just- to be sure the cube is dry, before she bounces on top of the nearest one- a lemon scented cloud of sugar puffing up as it molds to her contours. "S'works. So! What's the plan in tha' meanwhile, now that we got ourselves some privacy?"

Lanlan dubiously prods the strange and most likely tasty furniture with the ferrule of his staff, testing its reaction timidly before allowing himself to trust Ina's cooking and upholstering combo. He's probably somewhat heavier than her after all. He does sit though. "Now it's a home," he says approvingly, but with all the mocking it deserves. A joke he'd share with her of course, the absurdity was apparent to them both. "My plan?" He thought she was going to come up with a plan. "I'm not trekking through these woods if that's what you're thinking," he says. He knows a little more about the 'nature' of what lies in those woods than he lets on, but doesn't bother to divulge at this moment. "Something has been resisting Venturil's expansion for quite a while now. When they see what we've built here, they'll feel offended. I say we wait."

And they do. But a troll isn't the first thing to barge into their 'home'. The foreman, probably recently promoted, peels open the flap and lets himself in. "You guys starting a circus or somethin'," he says with a jest. Lanlan becomes immediately offended. "We arrive to help you, accepting a pittance in payment, providing for our own lodging and meals, and you have the gaul to insult our traveling home? Say what you have to say and go." The man, utterly stunned, makes his way over to Ina, who seems much more docile than Lanlan, and offers her a bag of coins. It wasn't a pittance. In fact it was likely everything scraped together from all the dead loggers' wages. Then he leaves without a word. Lanlan bounced jovially on his silly seat. "I think that was meaner and less funny than I wanted it to be," he says carelessly with a shrug.

Ina actually looks rather pleased that Lanlan wasn't dissuaded from taking a seat- especially since his choice of cushion means she can offhandedly wave him over, with the seat gradually wiggling it's way across the floor at her beckoning. "Just missin' minions ta' boss around." When Lanlan expresses an expectation for a solution on her end, she just stares blankly, before offering an appreciative look as he further clarifies both their situation, and effective itenerary. That said, before she can offer a counter-point, or further suggestion, they no longer find themselves alone.

"If we are, tha' first clown jus' rolled right in." Swish. That said, the fox manages to suppres the urge to fist pump, settling for what she hopes is a suitably pleasent, welcoming expression as the man finishes meandering in her direction. With Gold. Her smile just brightens up as she accepts the bag, to the point that she actually resists the impulse to shake the mans hand, instead offering a grateful pat to his upper arm, before she shoos him away, "Thanks! We'll get right on wit' fixin' ya' problem." Lanlan's comment earns a sort of shrug from the Fox- even as she firmly stuffs the bag of coins into her cube, so it's floating in the midst of the protoplasm, "I mean- if ja want, we can get into like, an insult contest ta' pass tha' time. Get some good funny barbs in, if ja actually bothered."

Her head shifts to one side, her eyes narrowing slightly in concentration, "Though, we -could- maybe do somethin' better with our time. I actually wanted ta talk wit' ya, and since they seem ta be sorted. We could just...set up a nice lil fire, stick a roast over it- if anyone asks, we say it's trollbait. It'll be a nice lil' vaycay."

Lanlan might not notice that his strange cube is shimmying closer to hers, or at least he doesn't complain. It seems natural for it to happen. "I didn't even know you have minions," he says without pursuing. Needless to say, he approves of her joining in on the bullying. But then she turns her aggression on him. "An insult contest? I was probably going to sleep until the sun goes down but by all means, start us off! You must have one ready." Is Lanlan actually ready to invite insults to himself? "I don't really cook," he says, as if he didn't win a trophy (that escaped of it's own volition) naming him the best chef ever. "But be at ease, Trish. Say whatever it is you wish to say." He leaned back in his cube, squashing it flatter and flatter until it's more like a slab. With a slight movement from his sleeve, he finds a night mask made from white silk and cushiony stuffing, and slides it over his eyes.

Ina is snagging that bag of powder she'd used to treat the cube, if only so she can take a good handful and clap it over the parts of her skin that had effectively stuck inside the skin. Whilst a little bit of the old burning tingles was -probably- good for dead skin, she really shouldn't let herself just -cook- from the cubes digestive juices. "Didn't one prepared, but!" She pauses, waits for his admission about being unable to cook, and then chirps up, "Thank god yer pretty, at least."

Whether or not it lands the way she wants it too, the foxkin flops back down onto her seat- with a half-hearted wiggle of her arm to shed some of the excess sugar. "If it's jus' us, you can- " Her ears crop up, making sure that there's noone lurking near the tent, or pattering towards them. And perhaps, just to stall things out, in no small part due to an awkward sense of trepidation, "call me Ina." It almost sounds awkward to actually hear her own name, nor is she overly looking forward on the possibility of clarifying. In fact, she can't help but begin to double back on that small admission, "Ja don't have to, if ya don't want to."

Lanlan began to grow a little concerned about the blobs, only because he noticed Ina was. She's anointing herself with further clouds of the dust in an effort to preserve a barrier. Like flour on dough. Now was as good a time to ask as any. "So what did you make these with anyways," he says, as an impossibly thin layer of something stretches to cover him transparently. Like he just put on the skin of a bubble over his own, it adds a swirling sheen to his skin and clothes. Notably it doesn't cover his mouth or ears or nostrils. He hesitates to give her the same silky shield, perhaps until he hears what her insult might be. He bends his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow when he hears it. "What else would I be," he says with a smug look, and then if she agrees with the forces, and settles in comfortably.

"Another name," he says. "Ina." Even if he doesn't completely understand the power of knowing it, he understands there's a weight attached to it, and can feel it when he echoes her. She gives it to him when they're alone, absent disguise. "I think I'll keep it just for us," he says. His eyes close, but for a long time he doesn't sleep. "Doesn't seem fair that you would tell me something like that when it's supposed to be my turn to insult you. But I know you only stopped telling people that name because your ears hurt from them yelling it at you all the time."

He's pleased with himself, if the slight smile he fails to suppress means anything. Whether he sleeps or not, he dreams, and in the absence of any purpose they start to escape him. Gradually the space within the tent glows with the light of innumerous blossoming figments. They fade and return in a different place, little wisps, occasionally bending toward becoming something more. Some even seem to hum. They might want to whisper.

An eyebrow facing the woods trembles, tickling his brow. The glows escape an instant before Lanlan leans up, fully awake. "I hoped they'd wait until night," he whines. He faces the woods, even through the striped canvas of the tent, and the weft wall seems to grow distressed and faded, enough for them to see through. It's there at the edge of the woods, though they may not see it with their eye. It resonates powerfully, innately. A vicious and ever-hungering monster of legendary resilience. Lanlan sneers with contempt for the 'flavor' of their magic.

"They've done something disgusting to themselves," he says, as a twisted and wiry limb stretches from the shade and grips the side of a tree in filthy fingers. Another hand sprouting from the same limb grips a place just above the first.

Ina can sound off the ingredients like they were written on the back of her hand, "Rice Flour, sugar, that bakin' dust, Salamander eggs, goat milk, Sweetened alchemical sentience extract, butter, n' then vanilla. N' maybe somethin' else if I want- like this one is lime flavoured." ..Maybe? She hadn't actually color coded them according to flavour, but what was funny at the time. "Anyways-"

That he doesn't hold it against her for deceiving him about her name is an unfathomable weight of her chest- and one that lightens further with his newest retort, "Maybe if people weren't so easy ta' mess with." Still, while the temptation to continue the game remains- there's something altogether comfortable with things as they are. The slowly growing silence gives way to soft murmurs, as phantom constellations bloom into life- doing their best to try and lull the foxkin to sleep. And yet, she resists- hugging the cusp of rest, but clinging onto a vestige of awareness. After all, Lanlan's slumber provided a rare opportunity to see the archmage freed from conscious concerns, whether they be the duties of office, or the inadequacies of his entourage.

Unfortunately, this rare view does not linger anywhere near long enough- because something rouses Lan. Ina's hardpressed to tell what at first, even with the Maguses prodding, and the 'window' into the woods. And yet, he's not wrong- because as she focuse, her whiskers start to tingle. A distant sense of something otherly permeating the air with a sense of wrongness. One which makes even the multipronged limb emerging from the brush seem tame.

That sense of revulsion only worsens when the rest of it's form emerges from the brush, and the true extent of the change becomes visible- as spare limbs sprout from the body like fungal growths, supported by other fleshy structures which defy it's specifies- as though they had been grafted in place.

Ina genuinely needs a moment to consider if perhaps she -ought- to be terrified of spiders, even as she starts to scuttle over towards her bag. The far-too-close crackle of wood only intensifies her sudden desire to search her pack for a little something-something. "Nah...." A pickaxe is flung off to the side, imbedding into a tent wall.

The first troll rushes them, apparently expecting to have no resistance in claiming what could be there's, because there's a look of surprise as the bag the troll reaches for fights back. Lanlan holds a symbol of horns on his hands and pulls back on some invisible elastic tether. He releases it with some ethereal elastic twang, and the satchel comes to life, born hungry. First meal: troll hand. It hardly affects the monster, that hand was only one of many. The curioser part was how it looked at Lanlan afterwards. It turned on him vengefully, flailing an almost fluid arm at him. Lanlan is able to avoid it pretty smoothly, pirouetting out of the way as a plum colored scarf stretches out of his sleeve to slap the grubby gripper away. The rebound is what he doesn't expect. The tension in the trolls arm seems to fall slack for a moment, one of the hands grabs a handful of the earth to anchor it, and then it snaps back, boneless, stretching half again the size it was to hit Lanlan in the belly and smack him off his feet. He doesn't find them again. Levitation brings him out of the mud (which slides off like water off a duck's back) and his plum colored scarf slides out of his sleeve completely. The way it maneuvers around and through and between the trolls limbs is nothing short of intelligent, and it finds the beasts eyes. Suddenly it's gone. Invisible, so it seems. Horror for the troll though, as it seems to have a frightful hallucination. It throws itself onto the ground, twisting and slapping it's body on all the different parts, dragging up heaps of mud to toss onto itself in a manic frenzy. The satchel by now, has escaped with it's snack. The other two trolls want theirs, however, and they rush from the trees now. A trolltaur gallops with great speed around the tent, dragging some kind of scythe made from a stegosaurs thagomizers, and reveals the scene to it's comrade. Whereas the first troll looked dexterous and spidery, the next one runs at great speed. The last looks nothing short of a hulk.

Ina 's actually somewhat oblivious to the proceedings. She can -hear- the conflict, but Lanlan seems to have things well in hand, given he's not yelling at her, asking for help, or signaling that they need to leave imminently. Which is a good thing, too- since she's by this point up to her elbows in unstable decoctions. "Aha!" Two potions are procured from the bag- their vessels looking a little scuffed due to their altogether haphazard storage. Not that it matters, given that Ina proceeds to pull an action that every potion professor in the mage's guild would probably lambast- namely, making a complete travesty of potion mixology, and downing the two in short order. That said, Ina is perhaps the luckiest soul on the continent- which no doubt goes a long way to explaining why she doesn't spontaneously explode, petrify, disintegrate, or otherwise keel over instantly.

Which also means she's granted ample time to look over her shoulder at the thundering noises which are still happening. "Oh, Uh- these guys 'r sorta aggressive, yeah?" She's truly observant. Though, to her credit- she is at least paying enough attention to hit the ground when the trollotaur hefts up it's scythe, and proceeds to swipe it into the tent, seemingly intent on shredding it in an effort to entangle those present- before it can trample through them. A development that has the foxkin scrabbling with all due haste for the exit, and only -just- avoiding being trampled. Really, the only silver lining here, is the fact that the behemoth troll seems less interested in them, and more interested in 'Oh.' The camp. That's a problem.

Lanlan can make a potion to turn himself into opal and a recipe for making a wonderfully strong adhesive, and he doesn't recognize either of those going down Ina's gullet. To him she seems like an expert, confidently choosing the exact two potions she needs just by the shape of the bottle and color of the liquid. It's the trolltaur who's earning most of his focus, and vandalism will not be tolerated. In no time at all, the monster has circled them, decapitating the circus tent and causing it to deflate like a balloon, the roof collapsing in on Lanlan and Ina. But Ina was escaping, so now it was only Lanlan. The trolltaur gallops above the fallen roof, stomping it flat toward the lone 6' tall and obviously bewildered lump that must be Lanlan. The brute, meanwhile, is sprinting toward Ina, literally pulling itself along the ground with it's massively muscled and elongated arms along with it's steps. It almost nonchalantly heaves a hundred pound wedge of earth and mud out of the ground, and hurls it at her. And then another, and another, softening her up in its final approach. It would love to pick up and hurl her just the same way, or pick her up by her ankles and slam her once her twice; that's all it'd take.

Lanlan perishes, sliced into nonexistence. The trolltaur cuts through the person shaped pillar of tent fabric, and rather than blood, a sharp and blinding flash of light bursts through it. It appears white at first, but it quickly turns through each color of the rainbow before dimming. Miraculously, as the shadows return to the world, Lanlan is unharmed, as if the blade passed clean through him. Above his head is what seems to be the source, an incandescent ring, or even a halo. As it cools, it settles into an almost metallic, almost scaled, circlet. It hovers just above his head, too magnificent to touch someone something as earthly as skin. You're a lighthouse, Lanlan. Show them the way. He suddenly knows how. Light from all sources seems to grow dimmer. Aside from one place: the brutish troll. The brutish troll involuntarily disguised as a handsome gray elf, with a nice new circlet (even Lanlan is surprised by this). The trolltaur can't explain how his quarry would be over there, but knows how tricky these magic users were. 'Lanlan ' stops throwing the ground at Ina momentarily, as if sensing the impending violence. Its arm falls off as the trolltaur rides by. Like a hydra, two new ones grow in it's place.

Ina's attempts at an evasive maneuver would have gone well if she'd perhaps run to the tree line. As it was, the foxkin is stuck flat-footed in the muck- an underwhelming barrier between the behemoth and the camp. And one that is promptly bowled over by the first heap of dirt to sail through the air, violently bouncing against the ground as it careens into her. "You-" And then another one crashers into her, sending her into a skittering roll- like she was a child's ball. "Stupid-" Another one crashes down, and this time she sails upwards- her body seeming to elongate in the aftermath of the impact . . . something which provides the behemoth an easy target to latch onto, as it slams her around like a child with a toy. Still, if Lanlan had been at her tourney match against Lita- he might recognize the distinct manner in which her body seems to elongate after impact, before snapping back to a semblance of normalcy. A fact that isn't missed by the troll- though it's solution is simple enough. Specifically, it loses -interest- in her, and proceeds to hurl her face first through the window of a rundown logging cabin. "...Brute."Her body ricochets off the cabin floor, before sending her splatting against the wall- to slide down in a flattened, and ultimately undignified, manner. The cabin creaks in response, though less as some absurdist form of agreement, and more due to it's overall stability having been compromised. Thankfully, it holds together for the moment, providing the trickster enough time to scuttle over towards the window and heave herself over- so she can better witness...It's Lanlan, but if she squints, it looks like a sort of off-brand variant of the man. The details are just slightly askew, and as she stares harder- as she tries to recall the lessons he's imparted on her, such as the moments they spent rifling through the archmages studio- there's a brief something. Just for a blink, there was something like a sheen- though, when she blinks, it's gone. Which, is neat, and perhaps she'll have to mention it to him- but for now, she's got no clue where he is, so she just sits in the busted window sill, and does her best not to clap and cheer as the Behemoth has- it's hips shattered in a grievous blow. Except, well, cheering -isn't- what's warranted, because from the gory mess, a -series- of legs begin to emerge, giving an almost spiderlike quality to the behemoth. That, and an unnatural alacrity which enables it to quickly close the distance between itself and the trolltaur, intercepting what would have been the next swing with a three armed grasp. It's..not a good sight, and the sort of thing that leaves Ina feeling a fair bit colder than she was before.

The sight of Ina getting knocked airborn and wrapped in that grubby abominations gnarled hands creates a sudden vacuum in Lanlan’s chest, causing him to suck in the air around him sharply and he has to cover his mouth with the palm of his hand to stop it. ‘She’s dead’, he thinks. Once he sees her utilize the ancient art of clown physiology , though, he understands otherwise and breathes again. Hopefully she isn’t too concussed by the experience of having her brains jostled and bounced, but her death is less certain. Still, he has to see. Not quite invisible, but having shifted to what is essentially the background, he skirts past the warring trolls unnoticed. He melds into view from the window gradually, a stinging light like a sunset over his head; a herald, and then appears bodily. “Good,” he says with relief when she appears looking out the window as well. “I thought…” he doesn’t speak it. Instead he asks, “are you okay?”

Then he turns to the stars of the grindhouse combat theater, light shining on them from the stars like spotlights, and quickly amends his focus and illusion to adapt to the circumstances. The false Lan seems to shed his lower half and sprout eight enormous twice-elbowed, bristly haired legs. A drider. Lanlan winces at his own creation. It tears limbs and limbs and limbs brutally away from the trolltaur, shredding and discarding them as easily as one tears giftwrap from a present. It’s a solemn sight to behold, and profoundly horrible, but the trolltaur’s enhanced regeneration seems only slightly slower than its running speed. To cause such a thing to happen, or even to have a part in it, made him feel as though he erred. On the ground, Lanlan looks up, and through a series of complicated gestures and an investiture of his will, the lights begin to change further. Above the trolls, multiple circles of distortion appear, warping the appearance of the sky behind them. They swoop into the light that seems to darken the rest, and the effect is gradual at first. Small wisps of smoke begin to slither away from the trolltaur as it absorbs the newly focused light, and though it begins to struggle under the pain of such a burn, the brute holds it fast in its overmuscled grip. It begins to sizzle as the light turns blinding, its flesh bubbles. And then as a final invisible lens slides into place, the bright light turns into a solid beam, bubbles popping, flesh crackling and turning into napalm. In only a few seconds, the creature’s flesh immolates. The accomplice, the Lanlan drider, is lucky to have been spared the violence, but not lucky enough. Scorching mounds of burning flesh adhere to its body as it stumbles away, but it sticks like napalm. He tears away chunks of burning flesh, spreading the conflagration to the very hand he used to save himself. Then he’s tearing his own flesh part, trying to free himself from the flames. Soon he’s surrounded himself with smoldering parts, imprisoned in a zugzwang of sticky, tarlike, burning flesh. “How does it keep getting worse?”

Ina is seemingly indifferent to what she'd just gone, given that the only thing she can think to say in response to Lanlan's 'I thought' was a lighthearted, "Do that fer tha' both of us." The status check gets a slightly more serious response, "I'll letcha know when the world stops spinning." Slightly. She doesn't dwell though, a foggy puff of air escaping her as she redirects her attention to the fray once more.

Her attention can only be described as morbid fascination- as she fixates upon each fresh limb ripped away from the whole, and the way that some seem to twitch, or even scuttle for prodigious periods of time, before the life finally escapes from them. Even Vailkrin's Arena would be hardpressed to compete with the horror that's occuring, especially as Lanlan descends the frantic melee into brand new levels of grotesque suffering. The scent of burnt flesh tinges the air, granting the camp the pervasive stench of a crematorium- which grows all the more intense as the the trolltaur disengages from it's melting compatriot, oozing puddles of itself filling it's footprints. "Oh. Oh no." Perhaps Lanlan might interpret the words as horror at the sight, or agreement at the sheer atrocity they were witness to. And yet, that wouldn't explain the manner in which the foxkin abruptly vaults forward, hitting the ground on all fours, before gathering herself into a mad dash straight towards the living conflagration- seeming to smoulder and smoke from the simple act of proximity. And yet, despite the steam rippling off her form as she draws closer, her expression is coldblooded - a queer, singleminded focus that might not be wholly unfamiliar to the drow. At the very least, she doesn't seem to notice the heat- even as the behemoth collapses into molten flesh, blackened bones splashing out from it's ruined form.

It's only when her frantic steps leave her face to face with the trolltaur, and she seems on the very verge of catching aflame herself- that she finally breathes a sigh of relief. A sigh which carries with it that coldness she'd been holding onto since she'd first drunk deep of that bottled winter. Streams of fog rupture into existence around her, the air turning sharp with countless ice crystals as the internal snow squall is loosed. And yet, that glacial air is no balm for the suffering troll, for with it's touch comes fresh troubles. It's already sloughing flesh, stretched thin as it is, begins to shudder and crack- as all the moisture within it's body swells all at once. Where once there'd been screaming, there is only the sound of a ice snapping, a brittle symphony as it collapses into a fractured ruin- leaving Ina to stand in the aftermath, her clothes accentuated by glittering rime, her lips painted a frigid shade of blue. Perhaps there'd be a quiet dignity there, were it not for her chattering teeth, and the awkward steps of her feet as she tries to generate warmth.

Lanlan is content to merely watch as the abomination burns, cataloging the events in his mind as they unfold. No doubt the vision of burning flesh is something he'd seen before, but the images, the screams, the colors, the smells... They'd all be useful reinforcement should he desire to subject another to them. It wasn't something he liked to see, it was off putting and grotesque. From this distance, the danger to himself dissipated and he could appreciate the work. He noted the globs of flesh like shadows in the flame, hearing the subtle squelch as they touched the ground below. The crackling flesh, the flailing movement, it was all notable. When Ina flew toward the creature, it wasn't with curiosity that he sat idle. The beast was finished--or would be in a matter of seconds. Then the expected end to the creature is put off, as the telltale signs of cryomancy are matched against the still burning mass. For a better look, he slides out his kaleidoscope and tips it to his eye, just to see the abstract vision of this catastrophe. Like this, he could see the two forces colliding, and then melding together as the frigid winds penetrated the molten flesh. And then the finale! What was a horror to see with his own eye became a picture of brilliance through his divining lens. What must've been an eternity for the troll seems too brief for Lanlan. And it's over.

"Expertly done," says Lanlan to Ina as he peels off his orange gloves and hands them to her. A gift from Lump and her in fact, they'd help her feel warm again. "That frost was from the potion you drunk earlier was it not? What a good bit of foresight to anticipate I'd use fire against those things." Now that it was over, he'd begun to take stock of the event. "That isn't the first of the mutants I've had the misfortune to encounter in this area," he says, curiously, about a thing that he can happily observe isn't his problem (though a problem it may well continue to be). The newly formed halo above his head was something he pretended not to notice, being altogether too proud of its being there to question it. "Payment now, I suppose. And maybe a sample or two of what might be salvageable from these grotesqueries. Do you think you might bottle one up for me?" Then he moves toward the lumber camp proper to let the men know that those particular trolls are not going to be an issue ever again, until it's time to clean them up.

Ina wants to smile in response to Lanlan's praise, but her frigid coat puts in a considerable amount of work towards curbing her ability to emote. A fact which makes his ensuing offer of gloves thoroughly appreciated. With some degree of effort, she's able to slip stiff fingers into the Salamander leathers- a wave of warmth spreading through her in the interim. She flexes her hands, waiting a few more moments for the lingering frost to escape from her lungs- before she finally offers a perky, "Right tools, right job, ch'yeah?" Admittedly, her gaze does linger on Lanlan for a moment- but, that's less due to the Halo, and more to do traditional Ina things. Though, his announcement of collecting payment does serve to get her back on track, "Right, right. Payment n' parts. Got this." It's not like she didn't have some freshly emptied bottles to scoop up some troll syrup with. And the frozen globules of flesh would serve admirably as samples too. ...And maybe they could get some tooth and bone, just in case.

Thank goodness there wasn't customs on portable spaces, or she'd have to answer a -lot- of awkward questions.