The Dragons Den

[Danikat]

((This could be interesting. I've just re-discovered the first RP I ever wrote (well, first one I completed) and now I'm going to try over-hauling it into Blackstar stylee and inflicting it on you lot.

It was originally written as a cross between Fighting Fantasy books and DnD, so the storyline was pretty short and restrictive, but something tells me that will go out the window pretty quickly. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of it translates though.

Oh, I'm also going to have to change all the character names since they were all ripped off from Anne McCafferys books.))

It was a quiet, sunny day. Most days were quiet here and quite a lot of them were sunny. Occasionally it rained, but only water unlike in that terrible, chaotic city on the far side of the western woods ((known to us as the Evergreen Glades, and of course in the east)). Psychotopia they say its called. Terrible strange place ruled by some sort of insane god.
At least here they had good, sensible men ruling them, men like.....
Yes, exactly like that fellow who just went running down the street screaming.

Farmer Testiapple frowned and went to see what could possibly be serious enough for Lord Delarte to have disturbed their peaceful morning. He followed a trail of other confused villages down to the fountain in the square where he found the young Lord repeatedly dousing his head with water and mumbling "Burns...it burns so much...burns..."

"My....my Lord? Are you...um....alright?" he asked, careful to keep a respectful, and above all safe distance from his Lord.

"What? Am I? I don't really know, the burning, oh why won't it stop burning?"

Farmer Testiapple fromwned, completely at a loss and looked around at the large crowd gathering. It appeared people were already being attracted in even from the edges of the woodlands to see what had happened to the poor man.

[Swix]

((Danikat, would you mind if I used Lykaios?))

[Danikat]

((No thats fine, you can use whoever you want.

I was going to keep my own characters out of this but hopefully it might just get the ball rolling.))

Danielle had been watching the simple peasant farmers go about their buisness from the safety of the forest. She never let them see her but she liked to come and watch them when she could, it reminded her of home. But all of a sudden her peace was ruined as the farmers began running back towards the town.

Within a few moments curiosity got the better of her and Danielle broke cover to follow them into the center of town whereshe found a large crowd gathered around the fountain.
Pushing gently past the locals she discovered a man in expensive looking clothes repeatedly soaking his head with water from the fountain.

"Excuse me sir," she asked gently "Are you alright?"

[Leporidae]

((I might introduce Annoyance later on when the occasion calls for it. Would you mind if I used two characters then?))

Offa wasn't one to mingle with the humans. He was deathly afraid of them, aware of the advanced technology they made and possessed. The sudden crowd did, however, attract his attention. He went ahead and did his best to ignore it, attending to his garden. Noticing Danielle approach the crowd despite her obvious differences gave him some courage. Eventually, he gave in to his curiosity and limped over to the insane noble.

Still, he was worried that the humans would try to hurt him. He hid behind Danielle, his big green eyes glancing over everything in paranoia. He passed a whisper to the Danielle hoping she would clue him in. "What's going on?"

[Swix]

((Ah, excellent. Just wanted to make sure ^_^))

The next stranger to show himself, or rather itself, was what appeared to be a large white wolf. Of all things the villagers may have expected, even with the appearance of Danielle and Offa, a wolf was the last thing they expected to see deliberately walking into the village. After all, a normal lupine wouldn't dare come this close to a place full of humans unless it was starving, and this creature was certainly in no danger of that. It had lean musculature and soft, silky fur surrounding it. It was also rather large, at four foot tall from paw to ear tip and had bright, intelligent eyes. There was one other thing, the one thing that most obviously separated it from those creatures it shared its shape with. This wolf was fully surrounded by an ethereal white glow, and it was this rather than the creature itself that was causing the large gap to form in front of and around it.

This being was known as Lykaios, and until now had been dwelling in the Wolves realm, learning about the creatures his design was so familiar with. He had also found himself adopting the male gender when he was around them, it seemed easier to introduce himself as that rather than an 'it' all the time. He had been lurking around this area since he'd came back not so long ago, and now it looked as if something interesting was finally happening.

Lykaios had both ears pricked forwards as he approached them in order to hear what they were saying. He stopped a little way away, and the crowd around got as close as they could without touchhing the glow, making Lykaios roll his eyes. 'Humans... ' he thought, without a trace of sympathy.

[The Swodahs]

((I'm going to be using two characters, although in a different way.))

A group of shadows that seemingly had no owners weaved in and out of the crowd, watching the lord of the town with extreme interest. Why shadows, which normally had no emotion whatsoever and didn't even seem to be alive, even knew there was something going on was beyond the crowd's knowledge.

That was because these shadows weren't ordinary shadows-they were the 7 souls of ancient warriors that were collectively known as the Swodahs. The reason they were here was because they somehow found out the village lord was in distress. And they loved seeing humans in pain.

If they had faces in the forms they were currently in, they would have been grinning evilly. But underlying their current feelings of ectasy, they were curious-what had gotten into the brain of this lord?

[Danikat]

((Sorry I haven't posted here for a bit, I've been sort of away and haven't had time.

Also just need to clear one thing up: Danielle isn't Danikat. She's a half-eleven cleric from a DnD world, so she looks pretty much human. I've probably still forgotten to do a profile for her.))

All the "outsiders" appearing in the crowd was causing quite a stir amongst the locals, there was some quiet shuffling, some loud shuffling in the vicinity of the wolf and a lot of muttering. Could these strange beings from beyond the forest have something to do with Lord Delarte's condition?

Danielle frowned, unimpressed with the rabble around her and the lack of response from the prone lord in front of her. "I don't know whats happened, I just got here myself." She replied to Offa.
"Who is in charge here?" She asked the crowd around her.

There was some more shuffling and some more muttering before eventually the crowd parted and a man, in clothing only slightly less ornate than Lord Delarte's appeared. "I am. I am his lordships mage, Allasan." ((They might not like all the strangeness of Psychotopia but they do share a realm with the Dojo afterall.)) "I suppose with his lordship, ah....incapacitated I am in charge of this township."

[Swix]

((Okay then, she'd probably smell different))

Lykaios turned his attention from the man who appeared to be trying to drown himself, to the man who'd introduced himself as Allasan the mage. The wolf soon decided the Lord was far more interesting to watch and so walked over to him. He hadn't had any fun for a while, being in the wolves realm had been a constant struggle for survival for the lupines he'd been with.

Lykaios raised himself by his back legs so his forepaws rested on the edge of the fountain, with a wolfish grin plastered on his face as he waited for the human to raise his head out again so he could breathe.

"Boo"

He said, when the human did, bright yellow eyes looking directly at him.

[Iman al-Rashid ibn Aali]

Iman had seen it all from the rooftop of a building around 10 feet away. As he had no home, he spent his time wandering around the Dojo trying to make sense of the place. When he was tired he'd find a safe place to sleep.
In built up areas, this was simple. Roofs were quite safe for two reasons. The first was that people rarely look up unless they have to, and the second is because even if someone did notice he was up there most people would have a difficult time getting to him. By the time they'd struggled to the top, he'd be away and they'd -hopefully - never see him again... or at least not know it was him when they did.
The previous night, he had found this pleasant, surprisingly comfortable spot on the roof and laid down to sleep. The pleasant weather in this area meant that this could have been the best sleep that Iman had had for quite some time.
That was of course, until he was awoken by the sound of screaming. Having woke with a start, Iman came to his senses just in time to see a wealthy-looking man dipping his head in the square's fountain.
Another man... a clergyman by the looks of things was asking if he was ok, but all he got in return was incomprehensible gibberish.
Then another person arrived, pushing her way through the crowd that had gathered. A female human, all of this time trying to find normal people, and this place seems to be full of them.

"Excuse me sir," she asked gently "Are you alright?"

Next up, following close behind this human female was a... a... thing. Iman had never seen one before - there was so much he'd never seen before appearing here. It was extremely timid looking and appeared to be hiding behind the human. Yes. That's exactly what he was doing. I wonder what he's whispering to her., Iman thought.
Looking around at the crowd, Iman also noticed a wolf approaching, with what appeared to be an ethereal glow. Nothing should surprise Iman any more, but sometimes it seemed like a deeply appropriate reaction to what he saw.

Then the female was speaking again. "Who is in charge here?". This seemed to prompt one of the previously anonymous members of the crowd to speak, ""I am. I am his lordships mage, Allasan," he began, "I suppose with his lordship, ah....incapacitated I am in charge of this township."

This prompted a smile from Iman. This Allasan seemed to be completely unprepared for this eventuality. He's a politician, he thought, He must've made plans for when he was in charge. Iman had been following this particular politician for the past few days... and if there was one thing for sure, this man was far from innocent.

The wolf seemed to be having fun, attempting to frighten the already petrified Lord of the village, but Iman put that out of his mind as he quietly made his descent to the ground before casually walking up to join the growing crowd. When he was close enough to Danielle and Allasan to hear their conversation more clearly he stopped, all the while keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the Lord who was still dipping his head in and out of the fountain. Inside Iman was smiling, No one here knows who is in their midst, he was thinking, No one will ever know who I am... I who will save them from tyranny.

[Tokugawa II]

Tokugawa was bent over over the roof, his shadow looming over a few peasants. He too, was watching Iman, although in a friendly way. He watched closely. Soon, when he melded in the crowd and slowly pushed through, Tokugawa flipped to a rooftop, then to the next, than the wall, then skidded down and at a sharp right angle to the cobblestone.

[Danikat]

((Sorry for the delay in continuing this everyone, Swix esspecially, I kind of forgot to reply to it. ))

[The Swodahs]

The Swodahs had a decent laugh amongst themselves at the Lord's distress of seeing Lykaios.

We're sadistic. mindspoke one to the other 6.

That's true, but in this case we enjoy watching other sentient's problems. responded another.

[Swix]

Lykaios watched the human lord fall over with great amusement, his yellow eyes sparkling as he followed the humans backwards path with them.

"Dark realms? Ha! Not quite" he said, taking his forepaws off the fountains walls, turning to point his muzzle at Allasan "Fine, I'd much rather find out what caused this anyway, it'd be more interesting than scaring this trembling heap of flesh again"

The white wolf then walked over towards the terrified Lord, though his nose did notice the two slightly different smells of the newcomers he paid them no heed. He once again rested his yellow eyes on Lord Delartes face.

"So, why don't you tell us just what happened to you to cause all these wonderful distractions?"

((I didn't edit anything, honest *whistles*

Also, no need to apologise Danikat, I pretty much figured everyone was too busy with the bomb and DP's death anyway ))

[Iman al-Rashid ibn Aali]

The wolf's attempts to scare the already petrified Lord had evidently worked, as he fell backwards and began crawling away backwards. This caused a huge surge backwards, and a lot of screaming in the crowd that Iman was hiding among. The noise was almost enough for the sound of Allasan admonishing the wolf to be drowned out, but not quite.

And whilst this was happening, people towards the back of the crowd seemed to be distracted by something completely different. Iman began looking around to find what had caused people to take their eyes off of a delirious leader of their realm, and found it as he saw a man who appeared to be from Earth - the land to the east of his homeland known as Japan to be precise - skidding down a wall and landing amongst them.

He could only have been following me, Iman thought, luckily for me, though, he has a thing or two to learn about stealth.

Using the series of distractions to his advantage, Iman walked through where the hysterical crowd were heaviest, making sure to keep out of the man's line of sight, simultaneously moving through the crowd closer to him. When he'd gotten level to the Japanese man, Iman simply held one of his throwing daggers to his side at his hip and pushed it hard enough for him to feel it, but not enough to draw blood.

Speaking calmly, in a conversational but hushed tone, Iman said, "That, my friend is how to sneak up on someone. Please don't cause a scene... these people are frightened enough as it is. I just thought I'd let you know I noticed you... so as you seem to be following me, why not tell me how I may help you".

[Danikat]

Lord Delartes didn't even seem to be seeing the wolf anymore. "Fire, fire burning me, scales and fire!"

"If you'll pardon me m'lord," Allasan said more out of habit than any need, he doubted his lord would care, if he even noticed the man speaking. "My Lord Delarte was bitten by a poisonous snake we believe. A fire viper they're commonly called in these parts. It's poison is slow acting but dramatic, as you can see for yourself. Clearly this was a deliberate attack on m'lord as fire vipers are not found in these parts. However whilst the person, or persons responsible must of course be found it is more important to find a cure. Something you and your strange friends might be able to help me with."