S: 11 Tales From the Blazing Chariot Part 1

The sound of the ocean being displaced and splashing back into the wood of a long Merian Trireme with a massive Silver Sea Islea theme resonated through and enhanced the atmosphere for story telling. The soft light of hundreds of candles littered the deck and containers close to the bow of what is known as the Blazing Chariot, illuminating the small group of friends, officers, and assorted crew. Crates and make shift seating scattered in a circle surrounding a passionate young woman belting out a tale of conquest, her brilliant crimson coat waving with enthusiasm at her every dramatic move. The glint of metal of little satyrs wearing pirate hats in gold flashes as her horns reach the candle and moonlight, a decorative gift of molded metal around them from the Scarlet Web's forger. The vibrant coloured captain leapt onto an unoccupied crate, "Her mighty blade crashed down onto the hide of the hulking shark god, but not god...thing, and the shield she carried blocking it's blows..." Morrigan had been going on like this for roughly five minutes while Anaxa sat there with an eye brow raised and exuding a slight impatience. Orri mimicked the motion of sword play, "Now returned from her new yet old snake form and back to her hoplite vicount frame...vicount? vivasi....." From behind the crowd on a higher seat was Zephyra watching this display with affectionate enthusiasm, "Visage Orri!" she says with a helpful condensation. "RIGHT!" the martial artists yells pointing at her elf friend, "Visage, and performing wild feats..." Anaxa finally pipes up, maybe encouraged by Zephyra's interruption, "Orri...." Her eye twitches slightly, "..I asked what happened BEFORE I arrived to help you all. Remember? It was barely six minutes ago." She waits, looking into Orri's eyes to see if something clicks, catching the eye of Artemis who returns a "careful now" look, back at the hoplite. The Captain of the Blazing Chariot lets the wheels turn for a second, "Yes, you are right, you did ask that." Her crew and dear friends all share a sigh and a giggle at the antics of The Queen of Hearts. She straightens herself up and restarts her tale. Picking up a candle as if telling an old tale of the sea, much like those told to her by the fire back in the Silver Seas.
 
The demi human places the flame by her chest, clears her throat and starts a new, "We got no word from the Viper's Scale...no ooops." She falters slightly and quickly rights herself, "Python's Scale, the light of the Authabooopalootus compass formed into a tight beam and pointed straight down to the water!" Zephyra's hand made it's way to her face in exasperation as Orri attempted to say the compass's name. "The water was littered with old stuff, Calliope said." At the time Orri was not paying attention at all. "It was discovered that those fishy weird people that Anaxa fought were down there somewhere. NOW it was my time to see if they were strong. I was excited to face them and see!" Every few words Orri turned and made eye contact with a new listener. "We donned our fish cloaks, the Admiral and I jumped high off the ship right away, She became that huge alligator dinosaur and splashed into the ocean, right before I hit the water after a few flips. It is my favorite part about underwater exploration!" Filthy sat there listening with intent and nodded that it indeed sounded like fun to be able to flip nearly four times and hit the water with no splash. Yelling above the noise of her band mates Edea yelled out, "BALLISTA BOLT!" The phrase she yelled before jumping in herself. "Below us as we hit the water was an entire city! WHO KNEW?! It must have sunk or something, I grabbed onto the Admiral and we made a speedy approach to it and suddenly there were fish people coming out of the buildings!" Calliope patted Ifegena's shoulder as they realized Orri had forgotten about the city's history again. "It took time to get used to fighting in the water again, but it was a great challenge as these huge huge sharks swam toward us along with the ShwayingGains. They must have been the size of our ships!" Morrigan suddenly remembered that the pirates of her homeland taught her to really exaggerate the size of things in stories, "Maybe even bigger!! The Admiral and I swam right for the close one and I let loose a "Volcanic Rush Combo!" She performed the motions of her style for an example. "Now that our lightning twins were reunited because Calliope returned to her terran form, she let out a massive and deva...bad...yeah a huge crazy big amount of powerful lightning across this big area. It shot out and looked like it hit and fried everybody, my eyes were filled with light." She puts her arms up and poorly depicted how much of the lightning filled the area and latched onto a large group of sahuagin and a massive shark. "The fish guys and their giant shark pet didn't even have a chance to react when.." Orri swiftly vanished and appeared behind Zephyra, "WHEN Zephy raised her hand and an explosion of super soft pink stuff that looked like cotton candy covered all those guys that me and the Admiral were not fighting. When the big ball of soft stuff erupted I got surprised and used all my force to kick the other giant shark in half." She jumps up about fifteen feet and does a rainbow kick mid air and lands back to center stage, "They tried running but the Admiral swam to one of them and chomped him right in half...it was pretty hard core. To finish it off Eddy yelled something weird about balls and the other shark looked over at her and just dropped dead out of nowhere!!" The concept still doesn't lock in her mind as she tries to remember, she is then surprised as Edea belts out "LIG LIG LIGMA BALLS!" The entire group on the Blazing Chariot erupts in raucous laughter. From the center Orri brings back their attention as she lets out a huge blast of energy into the sky, "That's what I did to the champion guy, right in his face, but he took it like a champ....oh, that makes sense. He stood their confident and I got so excited that out battle would continue. Until Zephy shot a bunch of candies that moved on their own and it killed him." A giggle from Zephyra's seat fills the air and she says apologetically, "Sorry kiddo." The crew laughs at the interaction between the two. After seeing the healing act performed by Orri, her crew has been much nicer and seen her in a more favorable light. She was growing on them, and it was finally showing.
 
"The Admiral swam under me and became a mighty dinosaur mount, it was so awesome and fun!" She completely gushes at how cool the form Squeenifer took and how fun it was to fight along side it. The teeth and the scales, the claws and attacks, she went on for a little while and saw people were waiting for the real meat of the story, "Did you guys know dinosaurs aren't just skeletons?! Because I didn't!" An odd Segway, but everyone was not too surprised that their sweet martial artists didn't know something. Her attention goes to Anaxa, "Anyway! We swam into this amazing temple with a gorgeous ..well once gorgeous statue of that water lady who told us to do all this stuff." Orri nearly goes into a tirade of art talk and how amazing the statue's form and folds were until she saw Anaxa's face changing, "Um yeah, the Admiral and I took that thing you always say, at the front." She snaps her fingers attempting to remember when Anaxa chimes in, "Point?" Orri looks over to her quizzically, "At what? Nevermind it doesn't matter, so we searched and scoped out the temple finding little statues and Calliope did this stuff with tools and we got a bunch of these!" She reaches down and pulls out a very water logged gilded chest, not very ornate but well crafted. "Then there was more hallway, some even had explosion damage! From the fish guys trying to open the chests, but Calliope was way better than them and opened all the traps and locks. After that we came to a larger room full of these guys!" She mimics walking slowly down a hallway and stands proudly as if still in the moment of finding the room, "They seemed to be training which meant they must have been strong!" Morrigan's excitement was evident her eyes turning to stars as she looked to Anaxa. Anaxa had seen this look far too many times and knew exactly how the story was about to progress. "I was about to ask if we could join them....but remembered we couldn't talk under the water and they pointed to us and charged. I was excited to start, and saw one of them had this huge sword! Deadshot! Hold it up for Anaxa!" Sitting on a crate was the thin bosun, her arms and hips shaking a little as she struggled to hold up an odd wavy designed great sword, "He held that up and it looked really cool, he reminded me of Mother." She laughed pretty hard to herself, then immediately returned to the stern "serious" story teller.
 
"I took a flowing stance and put myself right in front of him and.." She reached out to Calliope's hand and brought her to a standing position as if to start an elaborate waltz. Spinning the sorcerer gently, "..I sensed his life energy and found a cluster of ki at his core!" She reenacted the action on poor Calliope and in the action actually made contact with her skin and proceeded to disrupt the poor mage's ki. "I spun our energies together and I messed up his abilities, he was stunned!" Calliope stands motionless apart from the very slow descent toward the deck of the ship, with a graceful and caring motion Orri spun and caught the stunned sorceress like a princess and sat her back next to her husband, "Ooops, sorry Calli!" Morrigan slunk back to center stage and recounted the rest of the battle. "I was weaving back and forth when the rest of the fish guys surrounded me. Suddenly out of nowhere four crocodiles appeared in the room, and it got really cramped." Orri then takes a stance that looks a little like Zephyra casting a spell, "Then Zephy appeared in the door way and suddenly a whole lot of candy came flying into the room and struck the fishes!" She then touched her abs, "Oh man I'm hungry again, so the candy hit the guy I stunned and his armor went all wobbly and cracked!! One of the crocs grabbed an enemy that was in the other hallway that I didn't see." Morrigan jumps and uses her arms to imitate the croc grabbing him and surprised her crew. She then does the same motion upward quickly, "THEN A SHARK CAME FROM UNDER THE CROC AND BIT INTO IT!" She then winks over at Edea and Calliope, who has just recovered from her ki being disrupted, "Then Calli switched places with Zephy and the room ERUPTED!!" The lightning twins combine their mana and the sky bursts with brilliant light causing the audience the look up in awe. Morrigan looks up as well completely astonished by their beautiful magic, she looks at them with uncharacteristically smug smile. Proud of the silly theatrics they concocted. "The bolts of lightning came right for me in the water, dozens of bolts traveling right for me, they reached right to my face and suddenly changed direction and went everywhere to the enemies. It was awesome!" Anaxa listened intently to this tale with a quite impressed look and admiration, there may have even been a small tear of joy forming in the corner of her eye.
 
"Then Zephy returned to the hallway and did...something, not really sure to be honest. The sharks swam right for me and tried to bite, but I dodged and weaved away, I was really really surrounded so I had to summon my power and transform!" She stands in the center of her audience and the air becomes static and much warmer, the waves of heat could be seen as they formed around her and she suddenly burst with a blinding red and blue aura. Her muscles showing a significant tone and her hair going to a much more brilliant crimson, "Crimson Ignition Drive! The sharks kept swimming around me while the Admiral tried to stab a fish guy...she tried really hard." Morrigan's voice increased in volume as her aura let out the sound of a blazing bonfire, "The shark to my left was hit by her weapon and recoiled, when it did I kicked it upward and swam above it to knock it back down!" She put her hands together and threw them down like a hammer, acting out every motion was the best part for her. Like image training going over the motions over and over, Anaxa sees this in her eyes and motions and smiles with a chuckle, "Oh Orri." She mumbles to herself. Knowing this is more for Orri than anyone, almost like training. "After taking down that shark I swiftly spun around and placed a Dynamite Kick on the fishy behind me taking him down! It seemed to be going well, I started to feel a little bad that these guys might not be as strong as they acted.." She thought for a moment and caught Edea's eyes, "OH and Edea! She played some kind of song, when she did the thing with her strings it created waves in the water and one of the fish guys started laughing like mad.....their laughs are horrifying..." The energy left the story for a moment as the laughter haunted her once more. "Anyway, Calli and Zephy shot it down with candy and more mana energy spells! I then struck it in the back and nicely put it out of it's misery, I then tried the same with the other guy who the Admiral was attacking and just as I struck him the gator bit him in half!" Anaxa heard this and erupted with applause toward the Admiral.
 
Morrigan waits for the applause to go down and she stands there remembering, "Poor guy, They were all taken down and I stared at the sword. It was so cool that I forgot I couldn't pick it up and it fell nearly hitting Calliope's foot. Sorry again Calli." She scratched the back of her head in embarrassment. "Hmmm let's see, then what happened.." She ponders for a moment while Zephyra, Edea, Calliope, and the Admiral all jumped in to add and or correct the things Orri forgot and couldn't understand.
 
"Oh yes! Then we started down the hallway and Anaxa started....oh that's when you sho..." Orri started saying when Anaxa interrupted, "Yep, these are the parts I was there for...but why don't you keep going Big Sis." She warmly smiled at Orri and with the joy of a child the demi human beamed and started the second half of the tale.....