Lassara - Shards of Neril - Story Thread

Thomas froze, this girl seemed to believe what she was saying, and the little fey had some power, the illusion was proof of that. And his own wizard was incapacita-

He was unable to finish his thought as a figure rushed past him with unimaginable speed and a mailed fist came crashing down on the imp girl's temple. Thomas was shocked , and stood mouth agape along with the rest of the crew as Gilford was now standing over the prone girl with glowing green script criss-crossing his armour.

Gilford stooped over and held up the delirious alaria by the wrists with one hand pulled back his other one and gave Alaria a quick punch to the forehead, knocking her out cold. He then carefully laid her out on the deck and pointed his finger at the princess.
"She's your companion, clean her up then go with her to the wizard's quarters." Gilford said. He turned to the stunned audience "As for the rest of you, get back to your stations, show's over."

Alaria growled as she felt a presence behind her and turned invisible, leaving behind an illusionic decoy in her place. The nobleman mentioned a wizard... How troublesome. She placed additional care into the spell as not to be detected by them. After all, it fooled Morangul, at least for a while. At least not until he put in actual effort to locate her specifically.

She watched the drama unfold with mild interest and pulled out her dagger. They'll notice that they had been bewitched in few days or so... Unconscious girl wasn't that hard to maintain a decoy of. Someone could ask why she was unconscious for that long, but who understood how Feys operated anyways? So she had things to do... Favors to repay... Tricks to prepare... She let out a silent giggle as she began to climb up the mast.

Amalia Udine had not protested when ordered to heal the girl, she had taken an oath as a cleric to heal the sick that had overrided any indignation she felt over being ordered around. Alain however had no such oath and had entered into a heated argument with Gilford, which was not helping Amalia's concentration. She knelt over the prone body of the fey girl and raised her hands ahead of her.
"Cure moderate wounds"
Her hands started to glow with a faint blue light and she lowered them towards the fey to administer the magic by touch. She gasped in surprise as her hands went right through the girl.
Thomas had walked over from where he had been standing in shock and was attempting to break up the two solder's argument when he heard her gasp. He looked over to see the Princess' hands seemingly embedded in Alaria's torso.
"I'm guessing that's not normal." Thomas said.
The illusion started to disintergrate where the magic of Amalia's hands touched it and within seconds the girl was gone much to the amazement of all of them.
"Oh gods."
The implications of a psychotic fairy out for blood running around the ship unseen sent Gilford scrambling to the hold stairs, dragging his charge behind him.

"I trust you are well rested, Morangul," Alyssa sneered, "so how about we get moving? You know the way, I believe."

Alain was still arguing with Gilford when he noticed the commotion about Alarias body and heard Thomas' comments. He shook his head, shooting another glance at Gilford but before the captain could make up his mind about what to say, the knight grabbed Thomas and pulled him away.

The princess wasn't quite finished though. Quickly getting up she stormed after Thomas and Gilford, followed by Alain, who was now worried about his charge. Entering the hold, Amalia was already arguing aggressivly: "Sires, I will not accept this kind of behaviour. The choice as to with whom I... negotiate and who travels with me is not yours and the way you handled this situation was more than unhelpful."

She calmed down a bit, her gaze shifting from Thomas to Gilford and back again, before she drew a deep breath and gathered her thoughs.

"Alright, we need to plan now. Whatever we may want to think or feel about the 'monster' that Alaria projected onto your deck knew more than we do and right now we need all the information we can get."

Gilford had bolted the doors to the main deck shut and they were standing in the first deck the staircases. The group found themselves watched by several pairs of curious eyes; Up and down the ship sailors were caught in the middle of setting up hammocks and were staring at the only light source in the room brigter than the odd oil lantern: the green glow of Gilford's armour.

Before he replied Thomas turned to the closest sailor, "You, get Cid, Xandrax, and that neurotic man with the bottles to my quarters, now." the sailor nodded and set off down the ship to the guest quarters.

"Well, princess, right now we have an angry invisible pixie flying around above deck, looking for me shaped things to kill and sooner or later I expect she will decide the easiest way to do so is to set the ship on fire. I really don't have time to give you an update and- Wait I didnt mean-"

At the word 'Fire' a gasp spread through the onlookers and after afew seconds there was a great rush as 50 odd sailors rushed the staircase wielding sticks, buckets of what was presumably water* and whatever seemed to be around they could beat flames out with. Only Gilford's firm grip had kept Thomas from being trampled.

"Uh... oops."


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* Thomas didn't have an opportunity to inspect them. After a poorly timed breath he decided he didn't particually want to.

A scream and a loud murmur.

"What's going on?" one of the sailors said.

"The stairs up the deck," another sailor answered. "It's gone."

"What?"

The sailor burst though the row of other sailors in front. It was true, the stairs leading out the deck was gone, replaced by an imposing wall.

"Some kind of trick," a sailor muttered. "it's probably just invisible. If we search carefully."

"No, no, no," another sailor said. "Look!" Another sailor walked forward to touch the wall on the other side. "There's absolutely nothing here."

"You mean we are trapped? With a crazed Mage killer inside?"

"No, wait!" another sailor said. "We still have a few lad up there... Maybe we could..."

Kh-thuck. A trapdoor suddenly opened over them. Three men dropped through it, covered in slime and seaweed. The trapdoor above then quickly closed and disappeared.

"What happened?"

The slime-covered sailor rose up and grabbed the nearest sailor. "Squirrels!" he said. "Squirrels!!!" he collapsed.

"Fick," said one of the sailors.

"Worst part is that she's an illusionist. She could disguise as one of us."

The sailors all exchanged suspicious looks. Was the man in front of them really the same sailor that they've worked with for years? Didn't Jod said he was grabbing lunch? What was he doing here?

"Anyways, we are trapped here until we find her. That means there's only one thing to do..."

"Kill each other until we find the fae and kill her?"

"What? no, you idiot. We travel in groups. Don't let each other out of your sights! If you are vein bewitched, call somebody! And then we'll do a full body search."

"There is the princess, no?" said Alaria disguised as a sailor.

"What about her?"

"The moment she touched the fairy, the fairy disappeared! Who knows if it isn't just a mind trick? What if the fairy knocked her out and disguised as her? Then we would have an insane psychotic killer of a fairy disguised as the princess!" said Alaria.

"Are you suggesting..." the other sailors said. "That we do a full body search on he princess of the kingdom..."

"Yes."

"Who happens to be a 16 year old girl?"

"Yes?"

"I actually like that idea. It'll ensure that our superiors won't be a psycho fairy."

"Purely for security purposes, of course."

"But wait!" Alaria said. "You can't go in there unarmed. The fairy might have bewitched or tricked the princess's honor guards to serve her instead! You know what she did with the stairs... She mitt make us look like monsters tothe eyes of the honor guard! So we have to knock the honor guard out quickly and silently and then search the princess."

"For purely security reasons."

"Yes," Alaria rolled her eyes. "For purely security reasons."

"Alright man," one of the sailors said. "We got out plan. Quick! We should have some rope inthe hold. You! Grab a few cudgels from the armory!"

"Here, take this!" Alaria said, handing the sailors a pouch of crushed mushrooms.

"What's this?"

"It makes people really dizzy if they breathe it in."

"Thanks! Where did you get it?"

"From the herbalists? Duh?" Alaria said. "Quick! We don't have enough time... Who knows what evil that the fairy could be plotting? We have to go stop her!"

"Right. Man! Follow me! You, give this to the chef! Tell him to make some soups out of it! We'll give it to the princess, err, fairy's honor guard.

Rest of you, to the holds!"

The army of sailors quickly left the scene, leaving Alaria shaking her head.

"That was too easy."

"Yes," said a voice behind Alaria, "your performance wasn't very convincing."

Alaria spun round just as a sickly bald man behind her blew a silvery powder into her face. Before she could even think to avoid it a warm feeling spread through her body causing her muscles to relax and her mind to become heavy. She was paralyzed in an instant, it took all her concentration to keep her illusion from fading when her body crumpled to the floor.

"Heh, now that was too easy." Said the man, "Dont think I dont know what you are, fey," he tapped some sort of monacle that he had straped over his eye and grinned "I've been keeping an eye on you since you came aboard, in case you fell out of favour. It's a pity you havent done anything serious yet, your ingredients would make me alot of money in the guild. Still, never an opportunity wasted. I think the others will notice if I drag you in front of the lord missing a horn or a pint of blood." He pulled out an empty vial and moved it to alaria's mouth "But I doubt they will notice if I took some saliva, now, open wide..."
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