diatu | [Adventure] Geese! (OTA)

[Adventure] Geese! (OTA)

They were only geese, right? How difficult could it be?

Although he'd been warned the flock had learned to use wands, foci, and Forged items, Cliff was pretty sure that this was hyperbole dreamed up by magic-addled minds. The cocky teenager might regret this later, certainly.

He'd been given a map of campus with the pond the flock had claimed as their own marked in red. Nor was it difficult to figure out which pond it was, even in the physical world--the pond itself had big "KEEP OUT" signs posted around it--with one goose avidly pecking at it, because clearly the sign had offended it somehow.

At least this part, he'd just meant to be a recon mission. Mostly. He had a half a loaf of bread and a bag of grapes, and he was going to try to put one over on the honking nuisances by feeding them. Yeah, that should make him an okay guy in their book, right?

Cliff wasn't actually betting on that, but he could hope to appeal to gluttony.

He wasn't incredibly subtle, either, as he hid behind a tree, trying to keep out of the sight of the flock's watchers. At least if the rumors about their theft of wands and other such sundries were true, he didn't have anything to lose to the reprobates.

He might have to try and get a hold of their treasure trove, if he could, though. But that was a thought for later. For now, he settled in to watch the flock, relatively quiescent, to try and see how they moved. He'd probably have to take a break from class later, too, to see how they accosted students during the day. Best to be prepared, he thought. As if he could be prepared for spellcasting geese.

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Hendrik nodded as Orisa showed up and helped out. What he wouldn't give for a good spell of sleep right about now, but that wasn't ever a spell he'd ever had in his spell arsenal.

"These geese know magic and trying to subdue one does not seem to work. And you offered to take one of them in for research. I have to wonder if they take bribes."

And to the knight's own ears it sounded ridiculous, but force didn't seem to be working.

What a pity that the majority of her systems were offline! They would be particularly handy here.

Orisa dropped her hand to the mud beside the lake, and with artificial precision traced out an equation as she verbalized it. Her eyes snapped down to mere pinpoints as she focused, and the Modification spell quadrupled the amount of functional cloth Cliff was holding.

"Our best stratagem is to render one unconscious."

"I can see that," Cliff sounded snarky--no, what he really sounded was tired. He hadn't expected this to turn out as difficult as it had turned out!

"I just haven't had a whole lot of luck so far, and we need to weed one out of the flock to do that, I think...and I'm kind of out of ideas."

It didn't make him proud to admit, but there it was. There was just a small part of him that wanted to run home and cry for his mom. Not that he was about to do that. Rounder, who had regrouped with the trio, just reached out and patted Cliff on the leg, attempting to be reassuring.

"I take it that you have tried food." Hendrik said, after looking at Orisa and then to Cliff. "And I must wonder if spells would be of no use since they are magic in and of themselves or so it would seem." He'd seen enough magic from Jasper to know that sometimes magic and magic canceled each other out.

"This is why I continue to attempt physical force," Orisa mused. So many tools not available to her. "Perhaps instead of the geese, we can target their environment. A goose trapped in ice cannot cast a spell."

"Yeah, I...sort of did." He'd had the bread and grapes, but Cliff didn't want to put Orisa out by letting her know she'd foiled his plans. She'd done it innocently, after all--she'd been trying to help! Besides, ratting out someone wasn't what a Gekronus Maius wizard did, right? Not proper. Just wasn't done.

"But I got startled when the geese started getting rowdy and I sort of...threw it everywhere. It's probably in the flock's gullets right now."

Or trampled under a number of feet, avian, human, and Omnic, but that was neither here nor there, really.

"I like the ice idea, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about it...make an ice trap, seal one in there? Lure it in with food? I could probably Discover more food..." He at least understood enough about something like grapes or berries and how they grew to Discover something like that, at least...

Hendrik looked over at the geese. "Chasing them has availed nothing. But I do not know if drawing one out would work." For all of his tactical knowledge and experience on the battlefield. this was definitely more of a challenge.

But he then looked up at Orisa and nodded. "That may work. Control the environment in order to control what it contains."

"I have learned a spell that Modifies temperature!" Orisa said brightly, eyes in carats and one finger uplifted with pride. "I can employ that if a goose remains in the same spot long enough."

"Okay, so I can try giving them more food as a distraction, hope one is greedy, and then you'll try to Modify it frozen?" He gave a rather uncertain glance at Orisa, but it sounded good.

Cliff didn't believe in gods, really, but at this point, even he was willing to send a hopeful prayer to his mother's goddess, in the hopes that he'd just get this over with.

"Sounds good enough to me, I just hope it works." With that, he crouched down, bringing his wand out to concentrate on doing as he'd said and Discovering another healthy bunch of green grapes.

"If this situation goes awry, I shall be there to back you up." Hendrik said this to Cliff as he searched and had found the grapes. He felt pretty useless here, but he would definitely offer what support he could.

Should the geese get out of hand or one somehow prove to be too much, the knight would step in and back Cliff up as much as he could. It was really all he could do to help in this sort of a situation.

"I believe I can accomplish this. My analysis puts odds at 71%." Which was no guarantee, but better than even odds by a long shot, right? Orisa dropped the barrel of her fusion driver to the ground, not scrupling to use the weapon as a writing implement at need.

"Worth a shot." And hey, it was better than 50/50, by Orisa's calculations. Having judged that he's got enough bread and grapes--and hoping that the birds were both avaricious and gluttonous--Cliff stood back up, bounty in one arm and Rounder at his side.

Instead of calling too much attention to himself, he just started plucking grapes off the bunches and scattering them around in the hopes that greed would get the better of the malicious magic-abusing menaces.

The knight looked from Orisa to Cliff and nodded. It was nerve-wracking to sit and do nothing, but tactics were a thing for a reason. So Hendrik tensed, sword drawn and held low in front of him.

He was just the backup, but he could pack quite a damn wallop if the situation called for it.

Orisa began drawing a figure in the mud, simply a pattern of subtraction. As one of the geese began gorging itself, the temperature around it slowly decreased... till Orisa could make one big jump, and the water around the goose froze as she completed her spell.

Hopefully that cracked the ice enough so that he could get a hold of the frozen goose and do what he'd intended to do all along.

Cliff ran like hell!

"Cover me and get the heck out of here yourselves if you can!" He figured if he was scarpering away, and they all split up? There'd be a lot more opportunity for them all to get away from the geese, both before they realized what had happened, and before they could either free their comrade or trap the three of them by the use of magic.

As for him? Cliff ran for the Research Offices. Surely even at this time of night, someone would be there, burning the proverbial midnight oil...

Hendrik didn't run, except to make sure that Cliff's ass was covered the entire way. He'd had to dodge more than a few spells from the geese and had turned to face one of them at one point, but then for some reason, it had gotten distracted and took off in another direction.

The knight wasn't waiting around for it, but his eyes watched Cliff get away before turning to get away.

Orisa, whose primary purpose is to keep others safe, had to wait and make sure Hendrik was out of danger in turn! Stubborn group, aren't they... but as soon as he turned, she began backing up, her four legs making that much safer for her than a human.

Well, hopefully Hendrik and Orisa took his advice, because Cliff wasn't going to take the chance of this goose waking up. No, he banked up short once he got to the building the Research Offices were contained in, and banged on the door.

He owed those guys, and he'd try to make good for the pair of them...somehow.

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[Adventure] Geese! (OTA)

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longest adventure ever, orz