[Dazadi]

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Daz did easily dodge the cogs Kiril threw back, using her wings to extend her jumps so she could flip and roll through the air. She was making more of a show of the dodging than she needed to and would normally have a go for people who show-boated like this, but she was bored and damned if she wasn't going to have fun in here since Xanth had defeated their cake attack. She was censored, too; she hated being trapped like this. If she couldn't get over it enough to save her marriage, she sure as hell wasn't going to play nice for Xanth.

Most of the cogs hit the black-and-white tiled floor without doing too much damage to the machine, but one or two of the smaller ones were lodging in to the gaps. Daz was only vaguely aware of this as she ripped more from the machine to throw at Kiril. It didn't bother her any if Xanth's stupid machine broke anyway, so when an entire section collapsed against the wall, Daz only paused in her cog-fight long enough to give a triumphant hoot. “Take that, Purple Head! Teach you to trap me in a cage!”

Giggling maniacally, she wrenched a particularly large golden wheel from the wall. “Catch this, Kiki!”

[Kiril]

Each gear that Kiril threw clanked unsuccessfully against the walls. Some of them lodged into gaps in the wall, while most simply clattered to the floor. Meanwhile, Daz flipped, twirled, and dodged from all of them as if this was merely a dance--the show-off.

But then, Kiril was a show-off too. As Daz ripped off the first cog and threw it at him, Kiril planted his foot on the ground and tilted his head to the side so it missed him. He continued side-stepping each attack, until an entire section of the wall to the left of him suddenly broke apart. His eyes widened in surprise. And here he'd been worried that their attack was bust.

“Whoops,” he smirked. He didn't know what this room was for, but if Xanth had trapped them in it, then it couldn't have been important. Without a shred of remorse for the crumbled panel, Kiril dove toward the fallen cogs and started to gather them into an arm. As he did so, he heard a shout from Dazadi and looked up to see a large golden disc fly toward him. Hugging the gears toward his torso, Kiril somersaulted forward to duck under the flying missile. “You have terrible aim,” he drawled, though both of them knew that Daz had excellent marksmanship--Kiril was just good at dodging. With his left arm full of gears, he grinned wickedly at Dazadi and threw all eight in succession.

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[Xanth]

[d=purple]((lol, Daz does actually have dreadful aim. ))[/d]

Xanth had been prepared for their utter lack of respect for her property but she had counted on their curiosity and Kiril's intelligence far more than she apparently should. Dazadi's reaction could be expected, but Xanth had thought Kiril would be more interested in solving the puzzle, and had imagined there would be more time before the pair regressed into their childhood.

Xanth had even been prepared to "rescue" them after a short time if they could not solve the puzzle, before they lost their tempers and descended into chaos.

She had not imagined they would rip apart her machine and use the parts to play a game of Frisbee-Dodge'Ems. Not for another hour, at least.

“Like children, I cannot leave them unattended for two seconds,” she complained, deciding that now was the best opportunity to release them while allowing them to think their own handiwork was responsible. They had destroyed several parts of the machine, after all, and an entire section against one wall had collapsed. Let them imagine the puzzle was so simple.

Behind Dazadi, a section of the wall slid away to reveal a door-sized opening that led out onto a terrace overlooking the temple's gardens. Here, night had descended but the sky was completely clear so the full moon and stars shone brightly enough to light the gardens as if it was late evening rather than full darkness. Not far off in the distance a large lily pond reflected the moon in ripples as a yellow winged toad hopped from pad to pad, and the bright colours of a strutting phoenix could just be seen through the leaves of a nearby weeping willow. Overhanging the terrace itself, a chiolen tree gave shelter to a dark little creature with mischievous eyes, plotting to leap out at whichever of the Aides stepped through first.

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[Dazadi]

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Dazadi would sooner admit she wore fluffy slippers with bunny ears (even though she didn't) than let Kiril think he was right - about her aim or anything. Admitting she couldn't hit a brick building two feet in front of her would be conceding defeat in what had become a wannabe-lifelong battle of wills, so naturally her response was going to be, “Who said I missed?”

Actually, it seemed like several parts of machinery had collapsed now so she could easily claim that was her intention all along, and so she did - with normal Dazadi cockiness and a wicked grin that only fled when she saw just how many cogs were headed her way.

She managed to dodge most of them, showing off her aerial acrobatics while giving Kiril the finger, but then two hit her in rapid succession. In order to avoid the first, she put herself smack dead centre in the path of the second, and before she knew it, BAM!

Hit full force in the chest, Daz would swear the smelly demon had thrown a fully grown dragon at her and she loosed a string of vicious Anyeli curses (in which she questioned not only Kiril's ability to father children but also his own lineage) as she was sent flying.

She tucked her wings in quick-sharp, assuming she was about to be squished between a cog and a hard place, but instead went sailing through an opening and out into the night. The cog, too big to fit through, stopped with a horrendous clang of metal on stone, but Dazadi's momentum sent her crashing to the ground on a stone terrace. Rather than risk damaging her wings, she rolled and came up in a crouch, glaring at Kiril through the gap that had reopened now the cog had fallen on its butt.

She'd no sooner stood up than she caught a glimpse of feral movement in a violet chiolen tree, and as she turned, reaching for her dagger, something leaped out towards her face. Since she'd already been drawing her dagger out of its sheathe and in a follow-up arc, the great jaws fixed around her forearm instead, and Daz stood there, staring dumb-founded at some sort of cross between a cheefle, imp, monkey and probably a shadow elemental. “What the hell is that?! And why the hell is it chowing down on my arm?”

It wasn't actually biting her, just had its jaws clamped around her. Its teeth looked more designed for plant eaters than carnivores, so it was really only gumming her arm to death in some kind of weird and ineffective attack, but she still wanted the damn thing off. “Xanth has some weird, crazy Doctor Moreau complex. Shoo, shoo.” Before she smacked it senseless against what was left of the wall.

[Kiril]

He wouldn't have been surprised if Dazadi could avoid all of the cogs, given her supposedly elite training. But then again, she was just as normal as he was, and he blew out a long whistle as he watched her fly toward the wall. Almost as if it were expecting her, the wall parted to reveal the next stage in this course, and she disappeared into the night.

Kiril didn't feel at all remorseful, because he'd seen Daz take harder hits than that. Strolling toward her, he smirked at the crouching anyeli's language and shouted, “Right back atcha, sweetheart!”

The anyeli reached for her dagger and stood, and before Kiril could figure what was happening, something had latched onto his colleague's arm. Sensing that it wasn't anything serious, Kiril strolled leisurely into the garden.

“Xanth has some weird, crazy Doctor Moreau complex. Shoo, shoo.” The thing smacked into the wall and slid to the ground. It seemed to have had its senses knocked out, so Kiril lowered his senses and bent his knees into a crouch beside the dazed critter.

Resting his arms against his knees, he examined the cheefle-like monkey and replied, “She does, doesn't she?” Kiril had no clue who Doctor Moreau was, but hearing the doctor paired with 'weird' and 'crazy' was enough of an explanation.

He poked at the creature's face and muttered, “Damn it's ugly...” And yet, he felt a tad sorry for it. It was cute in an ugly way (but he wouldn't ever admit it), and it had only wanted an arm to gnaw on. As he started to scratch its head, he said conversationally to Daz, “So what now? Seems like Xanth's been trailing us at every turn.” He smirked. “Let's call her out.”

((OOC: Sorry for the godmodding the critter, but I couldn't think of anything else. Tell me to edit anything and I will. ^__^)

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[Dazadi]

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“' say that again,” Daz agreed, giving the strange creature an odd look. She wasn't getting any closer, though; who knew what Xanth had mixed it with? Sure it looked harmless enough, if ugly as sin, there was a cloud of shadow rippling around its bushy tail so clearly it had some kind of ability. Shadow may not seem like much more than a cloaking ability, but there was more to it than that. Daz simply chose not to use the other things she knew, since she felt better with a knife or a sword in her hand than whacking people over the head with a shadow club, but she knew better than to think the critter was harmless.

“Ew, maybe it has fleas.” Snorting at the thought of Kiril catching them, and smiling a little at the sudden image in her head of him scratching like a maniac, Daz turned away to look out across the temple gardens. Even Daz had to admit, Xanth had an eye for beauty, but there were plenty of things - creatures and plants alike - she'd never seen and it annoyed her. Xanth was like some sort of life collector, gathering only the pretty things, messing with nature. Like Dante; Xanth never had explained what happened to his parents, but Daz could imagine it was Xanth's fault somehow.

“Let's call her out.” Daz grunted non-committally as she considered their options. Xanth apparently wanted them outside, which suggested there was something out here waiting for them, which made Daz want back inside. She didn't want to call Xanth out just yet, either way. Purple Head had declared war on them and Daz was determined to find a way to take her by surprise. She just wasn't sure how, yet.

Turning to face the room they'd popped out of, Daz leaned against the stone balustrade that edged the terrace, straining to get a good look at the wall. This section of the temple had a second storey with a couple of balconies that Dazadi could easily open. “If this was a castle, we'd fly up and sneak in from the top.” Xanth probably expected them to think two-dimensionally, since most humanoids did, and had led them out here to make them find a way back in from the garden. That, or she knew better and wanted them on the upper floor, but then wouldn't she just have teleported them up there instead of down here? No, to Dazadi's mind, the way they'd burst out into the garden made it seem like that's where they were supposed to be, and Daz wanted to be as far from where they were supposed to be as she could get without actually leaving.

Of course, Kiril couldn't fly like she could, and she couldn't lift him by herself, and that's another reason she figured Xanth didn't expect them to enter the upper floor. They fought like cat and dog; Xanth wouldn't expect them to put their baloney aside to work together. But Daz could be bigger than that.

“Gimme your arms, I'll lift you,” she commanded as she held out her arms and spread her wings, ready to take off and grab his hands. “Put those stubby wings of yours to work and help.”

[d=black]((OOC:[/d] You can GM them up to the balcony above if Kiril goes along with it. ^^[d=black]))[/d]

[Kiril]

Gut instincts told Kiril that many things could go wrong with Daz's idea, but he considered it regardless. It was much more fun than merely calling Xanth out and throwing the cheefle-monkey at her, assuming that she did appear. And besides, Daz didn't offer help like this everyday.

Following the anyeli's gaze, Kiril eyeballed the distance between the ground and the balcony. It was tall enough that if they fell, Kiril could glide his way down (or teleport, but only as last resort because if he 'ported out then he'd be admitting defeat to Xanth, and we wouldn't want that would we?). His mind pretty much decided then to fly to the balcony, but Kiril made a show of raising his eyebrow at Dazadi and her outstretched hand. But that was a very brief show, and he clasped his arms around hers. “Very well,” he conceded, and unfurled his wings.

One of the Djinn's favorite maneuvers during war was to propel themselves upward via catapult and then use their element to breeze their way over fortresses. Eventually, all the other demons, including Kiril, learned to mimick the trick over shorter distances. The force of their flight to the balcony was equal to that of a catapult, but Kiril barely needed to glide before they reached the balcony's rails.

“Whoahoah,” he exhaled as their feet touched marble floor. After steadying himself and Daz, Kiril let go of the anyeli to stalk toward the doors. Naturally, he felt the need to examine and fix his hair in the reflection off of the silver doors. Once done, he rubbed his hands together and smirked over his shoulder. “Let's see what mischief we can make over here...” Flinging the doors open, he flattened himself against the frame superspy-style, and peered inside.

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[Xanth]

This room stretched the entire length of this wing, so large it was difficult to see the far wall, a feat made all the more difficult by the fact that the walls and ceiling looked exactly like the sky's horizon with only the balcony doors to mar the illusion. Here, the two Aides would find themselves standing in a scale model of the world where the trees of the Fae reached only to their knees and scaling the mountains would take mere minutes instead of days. Tiny figures were scattered across the landscape, moving about in their daily lives, but only the larger creatures could be seen. All else was too small for the naked eye, though there were a few avatars that seemed more representative of a general population than of any individuals, including a static imp hovering over the Fae Tree.

Curled around the rocky spear atop Griffin's Peak, a female nagrim was licking a paw, seemingly oblivious to the pair, and a vibrantly bearded indigo dragon could be seen bathing in the lake near Evgenia only a short hop away. It was even possible to see the minute movement of the Ceracen Islands at this scale, as the leviathan inched towards the coast of Dardanos.

Xanth herself was in here somewhere, having sensed their new location and reacted swiftly. She was in disguise, naturally, and watching their movements with care and a mischievous glint in her eyes.

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[Dazadi]

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Daz had rolled her eyes at Kiril's reluctance. Did he think she was going to drop him in a pit of naga or something? Well, admittedly, the chance would be a fine thing, but no. Even she could behave herself sometimes.

Their flight up wasn't the smoothest she'd ever conducted, but it wasn't the roughest either, and Kiril probably wasn't as critical as another Anyeli would have been. He better not be, at any rate.

“Save your preening for later,” she groused, rolling her eyes again. Gods, he could be so vain sometimes. What did he think, that they were on a cosmetics safari? It made her want to punch him, but she restrained herself, dragging a swirl of shadows around herself as a cloak, and then stood with her arms akimbo staring at him. “How about you stick to the firecasting and I'll do the sneaky stuff?” Hip cocked, she lifted an eyebrow and switched to telepathy. “I'd actually like to sneak up on her.”

The second she saw what was in the room, though, all thought of hiding her movements was forgotten and she burst into the room, her mind boggling almost completely. “I'm hallucinating, I have to be.” Everywhere she looked, the room was a giant model of familiar landscapes. She'd recognise Griffin's Peak and the surrounding mountains in her sleep, and the distinctive look of the Fae Forest.

“No way...” Bending to poke one of the tiny hydra figures, Daz gaped around in awe, clutching at her head. She really was losing it, or was this all some elaborate, animated three-dimensional map?

“... Is it me or do we have company?”

[Kiril]

Whatever snide comments Daz directed at him, he forgot about them as soon as he caught sight of what was inside the room. “Holy...is this for real?” Skies stretched across the expansive room and melded together in the ceilings and walls. On the floor, the world lay open to the two Aides. Kiril was in awe of what he saw. Discarding any intention of stealthiness, Kiril simply stepped into the room to see the landscape better and circled from the Fae Forest to the Yondollar Rainforest.

The mind boggles. Jaws slack, Kiril lightly brushed his hands over the canopy of the Yondollar. With that motion, trees swayed and leaves rustled. The closest thing he'd ever seen to this was the model of Zanarya in the Naharar's Temple, but that was nothing compared to this. This thing was dynamic, with each geographical feature shown in detail. Heck...living, moving, tiny creatures lived on this thing. This was not something you could see any random day, let alone in centuries, or a lifetime. The model was so realistic and so grand that for the first time in many many years, Kiril remembered just how powerful Elysia's goddess was.

““... Is it me or do we have company?””

“Probably...we've had company everywhere we've gone in the temple,” he commented idly, more fascinated about looking and poking at everything than watching for the next predator to appear. “Though it would be a shame if we had to fend ourselves from something in here...” Giving up to temptation, he reached for a nagrim that had been resting along the cliffs. It reacted almost comically as he pet its back, jumping up as if it didn't notice Kiril until now. “oh hey isn't this the Cloud Palace?” He left the nagrim alone to peer over the collection of towers. “I wonder if she's made a mini-you to live inside of it.” The smirk he sent to Daz was almost impish. “If there is a mini-you, I bet it's all pouty and scowly.”

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[Xanth]

“It is, indeed,” confirmed Xanth's voice, “but Dazadi's avatar is not within the palace walls, nor Elysia at all.” Deliberately leaving them to wonder what that meant, Xanth decided to reveal herself. She did not know exactly when, but somehow the undertone of this battle of wills had changed slightly. No one was fooling anyone, herself too powerful to be tricked and them too stubborn to call it a day. It had been a great deal of fun, and she must own to garnering certain enjoyment from their reaction to seeing her map, but wisdom was telling her to end this now before anyone (namely Dazadi) got too vindictive and turned this escapade from a harmless adventure into something dangerous or infuriating.

The female nagrim curled around the peak of the mountain stood and stretched, looking directly at the pair as its jaws opened wide in a yawn and a stretch rolled down its spine to flick the twin tails. Enlarging as she hopped down off the mountain, until she was knee high, she wound herself around Kiril's leg, chuckling.

“I do hope you know you will be cleaning up the mess you have made of my temple, yes?” They had destroyed her clockwork puzzle, knocked out one of her poor pets, and were now trampling her three-dimensional representation of the world she had created. Fortunately for the Elysians who lived in that world, the connection that made actions and inhabitants from the real world display on the avatar map did not work in reverse, else Dazadi's boots would have had quite a shocking impact on the Fae Forest and Kiril's petting the nagrim (had it been a real one) would have created great confusion in the poor beast.

“I think I should make you lick the cake from my throne.” This was said with a peal of wicked laughter as, still in miniature nagrim form, she nipped at Kiril's ankle, flicking her tails at Dazadi to be sure the Anyelos knew she would be suffering the same punishment.

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[Dazadi]

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Not really cognizant of the fact that she was only confirming Kiril's suspicions, Dazadi scowled at him. She hadn't meant company like Midnight; there was a distinct buzz, like the one she felt whenever Xanth was close, but if he hadn't felt it then maybe she was imagining things. Still, she really didn't think they were alone in here, and she glared at the lake-bathing dragon suspiciously, half expecting it to morph into a life-sized Xanth any second.

She wasn't surprised, then, when she did start hearing Xanth's voice, but the direction was off. Daz could only scowl at the nagrim that swanned down from the mountain top - the same mountain she'd grunted at in affirmation when Kiril asked if it was Cloud Palace - to wind around Kiril's leg. Probably leaving purple-black fur on his pants to, which only served him right, really.

“I do hope you know you will be cleaning up the mess you have made of my temple, yes?”

Dazadi's immediate and unflinching response was, “It wasn't me”, even though she had caused quite a bit of damage with those cog-frisbees. Still, Kiril was the one who'd made the smiley face out of cake, so she didn't see why she was being told to clean up after him.

“I think I should make you lick the cake from my throne.”

Daz snorted, waving dismissively at the tail flick. “You can try, I suppose.”