DPrP: Tarienball!

It's a bright sunny day here in Alexandria. A perfect day for a game of Tarienball! What is Tarienball, one may ask? Good question. Aside from the fact that it's some sort of celebratory contest being put on by the Temple of Tarien, nobody really seems to know. Some curious folks have begun assembling near the temple, while others might just be unfortunate enough to have other business in the Temple District around the appointed time.

Out of the Temple comes a golden-eyed halfling who may be familiar to some, dragging a burlap sack that's almost as big as he is. He drops it to wave at the crowd, addressing them as loudly as he can. "Good people of Alexandria! Thank you all for joining us for a celebration of mirth and laughter. I hope you'll all agree that our community could use a little levity right now! Those interested in participating in or watching the birth of a new sporting event, gather close!"

Gorthrax shakes his head "I'm skilled in its use, along with riding. However I'm a regimented individual due to upbringing, still I didn't get your name, or what it is you do, with that large weapon"

Albrecht emerges from the Temple of Althea just as the announcement is starting, though dressed simply today in a blue shirt and dark trousers with his boots, and not his customary armor. He steps through the crowd toward where the halfling is making the call, slipping between bodies to approach closer.

Angrid is sitting on one of the steps of the Temple of Daeus, dressed in his usual woolen tunic and trousers, brawny arms resting on his knees as he watches what will mostly likely make for /excellent/ story fodder. His long stemmed pipe juts from his bushy beard, and he puffs on it with a slight grin. "This should be good."

Gragnar can be found whenever someone's pitting their body against another's in good natured contest, though his definition of good natured often has a rather yrchish bias. He scratches at his stubbled cheek, the other arm crossed across his broad chest, resting on his slight gut as he looks over the crowd towards the halfling, standing out above all but the tallest in the gathering, green skin and broken tusk recognizeable even at a distance. Some folks with bruises from his last sporting outing take a couple steps back from him as carefully as they can, as not to offend.

Sonja says, "Oh, Sorry about that. Sunblade Sonja Brynhildr, at your service." She says as she continues to walk with Gorthrax. "This is just one of the weapons of the trade. Of course, I preferred this to the larger blades I've seen.""

Jibbom grins as he watches the crowd assemble. "Thank you all. I'm Jibbom Taribree. I'll be your referee, umpire, master of ceremonies, judge, and any other sort of authority figure that becomes necessary during the game. We can only hope it won't be. Now then, let me explain the basics of the game. The rules are subject to change at any time. If a new rule would make the game more fun, or an old rule is making it less fun, they can be altered via loud announcement. There are only two rules that are unchangeable in Tarienball."

He clears his throat. "Rule one. No hurting anyone. If you intentionally do something that causes injury or pain to a player or spectator, you forfeit all points and are ejected from the game. Rule two: you always receive points for doing anything funny. The exact quantity of points is to be determined by whim of the referee, but you should receive more reward for making more people laugh." He opens his burlap bag and begins rooting around in it. "We'll be starting with a few basic rules other than those, but those are the only two rules gauranteed not to change. Now, while we finish setting up, can I have volunteers for team captains?" His eyes scan the crowd while he digs through the bag. The items within rattle.

Crowds are a horrible place to be in summer. Not to mention that, when one isn't particularly gifted in height, they might block the view. This must be why Sharna seems to have found herself a perch upon the Holy Mother's temple walls, arm around an angel statue's folded wing for safety as she observes the gathering crowd.

"If you fall and injure yourself, I will -not- spare you any pain relief herbs, you hear me?!" a matronly Althean shouts from a window at the mulblood's back, as befittingly stern as Althea's beloved ever are.

"I'll be careful." Sharna promises, without looking back - after all, the festivities seem to be getting started.

Younger looks around suspiciously, eyes narrowed. He mutters to himself quietly, grumbling about this or that.

Albrecht crosses his arms as he reaches the front of the huddle and grins at the rules, though doesn't step up when captains are called for, instead looking side to side and around to see what brave souls will appear, curious.

Angrid shakes his head at the call for team captains. "Oh my. This is going to be worth a drink or six." He blows a smoke ring, hoisting himself up onto the plinth of a pillar for a better view of the proceedings. Catching sight of someone -- an elf? doing something similar at the Althean temple, he chuckles, and tosses Sharna a one-handed salute.

Sonja definitely doesn't step up when captains are called for. She doesn't even seem willing to play at the moment, but she doe look willing to watch.

Gragnar frowns a little at the idea of changable rules, scratching some more at his chin with the appearance of deep thought. He looks at the crowd around him for a moment, and stands, watching to see what transpires.

Garrin is a tarienite and *he* has no idea what Tarienball is, but he's here to find out! He's sjhowed up right next to Myrana, actually, whereever Myrana has actually turned up and he says, "Hi, Myrana!" Loudly. Far too loudly. Deliberately, of course.

Gorthrax turns to watch whats being said. having no idea of what Tarienball is,ilent for a moment, a slight shake of his head. as his and the Sunblade's conversation go

Gorthrax turns to watch whats being said. having no idea of what Tarienball is,ilent for a moment, a slight shake of his head. as his and the Sunblade's conversation goes silent.

The tips of Myra's ears turn red where they peek out of her hair. She unclenches from the full-body wince and says "Hello /Garrin/."

Jibbom looks up from the bag in time to catch Angrid saluting Sharna, which he mistakes for an expression of interest. Perhaps he mistakes it deliberately, it's hard to tell. "You there! You'll be captain of Team Merriment." He grabs a somewhat garish mauve cap from the burlap bag, tossing it in the 'volunteer's direction. Finding a second volunteer proves more challenging, but he seems willing to intepret Garrin's loudness about anything as enthusiasm. "And you! You'll be captain of Team Ridiculous." An equally hideous chartreuse cap is pitched in his direction. "Go ahead and find team members from the crowd." He tosses a few more caps in each direction. "Put a cap with your team color on someone's head, and they're on it. Teams can be any size, but try to make your teams more or less equal numbers. It's more fun that way. Folks, don't feel like you need to wait to get picked. Grab a cap if you want to play." The ugly caps are now being pitched randomly throughout the crowd.

Albrecht grins at the manner in which the captains are selected, and he looks to the left as people are attempting to dodge a mauve cap flying toward them like it's a ball of burning pitch. So he catches it and chuckles, examining it briefly before pulling it on. This ought to be interesting.

Oh god.

Myrana is suddenly moving, shouting: "HOT PIES!" And she is indeed carrying a bigass platter with a strap over her shoulders to help support it, upon which there are several dozen small meat pies steaming. "THREE COPPER!" And she gets the hell away from Garrin.

Sharna blinks once, twice - looking for all the world like she wants to glance around and check if anyone else is sharing her perch and might be the one being greeted by Angrid. Aware she's alone (or rather, that nobody else was crazy enough to crawl up onto the temple), she lifts the hand that isn't being used to aid her balance in brief, neutral return of the greeting.

"Okay!" And then Myrana is promptly picked by Garrin, "I'll take Myrana on my team." Too late. Just... too late. That's his first selection, of course. Too late for poor Myrana. Then he's lookijg back and forth, with the cap on his head on *top* of the outragelously floppy hat he already wears.

While caps are being moved about, Jibbom takes a couple pieces of colored chalk in the same hideous colors from his bag, hopping down into the crowd. "Back in a minute, folks! Keep picking teams!" A large mauve circle is drawn at the far end of the square. He scurries to the opposite side to make a roughly equal chartreuse circle. With those drawn, he dashes back to the front of the Temple. "Alright people! We'll keep the rules simple to begin." He rummages through the bag for another moment, this time retrieving a ball about the size of his head. It's ugly, lumpy, and covered in patches of fabric in the same two hideous colors used for the teams. "This is the Tarienball! When I say 'go', each team has to try to grab the Tarienball and bring it to the circle in their team colors. If you do that, you get a point and the ball returns here. But remember! You get a lot more points if you play with /style/." He grins. "We'll start as soon as we have our two teams ready."

Something flies to Angrid, and he reaches out to catch it by reflex; a... cap? He blinks, then gives Jibbom an amused look, puffing on his pipe. "Oh, laddie, you're just looking for trouble..." He puts the cap on his head at a cockeyed angle, and approaches to collect some caps... and promptly begins randomly tossing them into the crowd. "Don't be shy, lads and lasses, just remember the old dwarven maxim: we all put our boots on the same way."

Gorthrax looks towards Sonja "We should try to play, on the same team, just to see how we could work together, interested?"

An elderly Luckbringer snatches one of the chartreuse caps out of the air with a dexterity belying his apparent age. However, instead of putting it on himself, he perches it on Aenyn's head instead. Aenyn blinks and whirls on the priest before narrowing his eyes, "Gee, thanks, Fussan." The priest only smiles and gives Aenyn a gentle push towards the play area, "Go, have fun!" Aenyn stumbles for a moment before straightening and looking around for the rest of his team.

Sonja Shakes her head to Gorthrax. "With what I've seen with Jibbom, he'll go for the incredibly silly, plus that ball is tiny. I'm probably not a good choice to win this. You can join if you wish."

Albrecht picks his way toward Angrid and the assembling team of the indomitable Team Merriment. He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and dusts off his hands on his pants in preparation, the plainclothes sentinel looking to be enjoying the festive air, in spite of his atrocious headwear.

Some brave, brave individual actually scurried up Gragnar and shoved the chartreuse cap on his head. Perhaps out of an effort to guarantee the boisterous and increasingly infamous Yrch doesn't hurt anyone. The cap clashes violently with his green skin, and he looks up at it with that confused, cross-eyed look of someone attempting to view something at the top of one's head and utterly baffled about what it might be. As he realizes, he gives a resigned sort of sigh and looks out over the crowd, finding the other green-capped folks.

Gorthrax hhmms and holds up a hand for a cap, doesn't matter the team, though he looks back at Sonja "Jibbom? who is that? The announcer?" Though not one for fun, does like figuring out things from a strategic standpoint.

Sonja says, "Yes. Jibbom is the halfling announcer. He's quite a.....strange one at times, but he's reliable.""

Myrana's head snaps round to pin Garrin with a blue-eyed look that could freeze hard liqour, then reaches up and takes the cap off of her head, planting it firmly on an excited little boy next to her before hustling off again.

Angrid makes a deliberate point to point at Sharna. "Oi! Lass!" He jogs over to her as quickly as he can. "Hold onto this for me, eh? Feel free to have a puff though." And he promptly shoves his pipe into the girl's hand before heading back to the throng, handing out a couple more caps.

Jibbom is still tossing caps at random throughout the crowd. A few particularly unfortunate souls might end up having one fall directly onto their head. "Come on! Plenty of caps for everyone! Don't be shy!"

"That Myrana. My plan for terrific discussions of toe eating fish have been dashed. DASHED." Myrana is glared at by Garrin, of course. He seems happy about Sharna getting picked by Angrin, though, actually. Then he looks around again. "Okay. So far, I have Gragnar. Hi there, Gragnar! And hello," he says to Aenyn, happily.

DEAR GODS WHAT IS-- Oh. It's a dwarven pipe. Sharna holds it well away from herself as she eyes it, pinched between index finger and thumb as if it were something deeply unsavory and possibly dripping with ooze. Her nose scrunches and mouth skews from the smell of the tobacco - clearly, she's not a fan. After a few moments, the girl silently 'hands' the pipe to the stone angel, wedging it firmly between its chiselled fingers. Charming. At least the pipe is quite safe?

Gorthrax grabs a cap for team 'Merriment', and walks over towards those with the same cap, offering a nod to them, and stands along side of them. With so many different types of folks, this should be a good experiment in his mind.

Sonja smiles towards Gorthrax and makes off for the sidelines, so she doesn't get trampled by the participants. Like that'll happen.

Aenyn gives a little wave to Garrin, "Well met and all that." He gives Fussan the Luckbringer one more brief glare, but the old man just smiles and waves. Aenyn sighs softly and then manages a smile to the rest of his team, "So, let's get Rediculous."

Now that his pipe is in safe hands, Angrid jogs back, collecting a couple NPCs if nobody else is masochistic enough to join the fun. Meeting up with Albrecht, he offers the human his hand. "Fair skies to ye," he says, a flash of teeth as he grins through his beard, seeing Gorthrax approach as well. "I'm Angrid -- and ye two?"

Albrecht looks at Angrid and is about to speak, when Gorthrax comes and becomes mighty in mauve. "Ah, excellent." When Angrid introduces himself, he responds in kind, "Albrecht, good to meet you. We have a plan?" Not that anyone could.

Jibbom watches the teams assemble once he has finally run out of colored caps to chuck at people. They are scattered all over the square at this point. "Well. Looks like both teams have enough people to get started. If you can recruit new people or if others want to join in once the game's in progress, that's great. Okay... everyone clear on the rules?" He looks out at the crowd. "No? Eh, that's alright. They'll probably change soon enough. TARIENBALL, BEGIN!" And with that, he chucks the ugly ball straight towards the temple fountain. Someone might want to try to catch it.

"I'm Gorthrax, not sure of the fun concept, but I do understand working as a team, and thus why I have joined to see how others work here together"

"Laddie, I think I got volunteered because I was waving at someone I thought I recognized," Angrid says in an amused voice. He tugs on his beard absently, before seeing the ball go flying. "Ach, this is going to get stranger and stranger... OI! I got an idea! Quick, let's get the ball!"

Gragnar nods to his teammates, looking them over, but then there's a ball in motion, and instincts kick in, and get over-ridden about halfway through when he realizes that his normal approach of 'take shortest path to ball, ignore anything in way, be it man, child, or small man-made structure' conflicts with one of the rules, which results in a last second and utterly artless tumble to avoid trampling one such child (or maybe it's a halfling, whatever, it's short, he's not, and the last second tumble directly over their head is a lot less agile than the oruch would normally be capable of.

"...PERFECT," is what Garrin says as Gragnar does that, bursting out laughing and waving his hands back and forth. To be fair, though, him overhearing wht Gorhtrax said *also* had him laughing quite a bit as well. "Oh, this is going to be great, I can tell. Okay!" He bounces towards Gragnar, casting a glance towards the ball.

Albrecht laughs and is about to take off after the dwarf, when he pauses and grins, stuffing a couple of hats into the pocket of his trousers, but then it's off to the races as the paladin plants a hand to keep his hat on as it tries to slip loose and he tugs it back down.

"Oh, by the way, I'm Aenyn," he offers to his team at large. Then suddenly he's in motion as the ball goes into play. He races after it, dodging past children and other players in his quest for the ball. He manages to grab it out of the air before it lands in the fountain, unfortunately his boot gets caught on a loose paving stone and he goes flying forward. With a very unmanly yelp, he hurls the ball behind him, not even looking to see if it's flying towards friend or foe, just before he lands in the fountain with a resounding SPLASH!

Jibbom laughs approvingly at Aenyn's comical pratfall into the fountain. "FIVE POINTS FOR TEAM RIDICULOUS!" He calls out over the sound of the crowd.

Gorthrax moves towards the ball, but as his teammates take off, he pauses, studing the ball, and whats happening.

Angrid has a surprisingly easy time slipping through the people, despite his short stature and stride. "Heads up, lads!" he yells as the ball comes towards him. He squats suddenly, then just as the ball reaches him he 'heads' it with his skull, sending it straight upwards. Comically, he rolls his eyes around before falling backwards for a moment.

Myrana meanwhile makes her way through the growing crowd of spectators, cheerfully selling hot meat pies of flakey crusts and savoury filling, slipping the coppers into her apron and tousling the hair of little children and any Gnomes she might mistake for children (directly prior to apologizing profusely).

Jibbom appears equally pleased with Angrid's eyerolling and stumbling. "FIVE POINTS FOR MERRIMENT!" He eyes the woman trying to sell meat pies for a moment, pondering additional twists the game can take. "RULES CHANGE. ANY POINTS EARNED WHILE CARRYING A PIE ARE NOW DOUBLED."

So Garrin, of course, suddenly appears by Myrana, hands her a copper, and takes a pie. He has the pie, now, *somehow* and he's running back out towards teh ball with PIE IN HAND!

Not as funny as the attempts of some of the others, Gragnar's stuttering switch between charging like a maddened bull and stopping to avoid trampling anything has a certain humor to it. It kind of brings to mind a bull that's had explained to it just how expensive china is, and informed of the relative cost of beef. A child in a similarly colored hat crawls up his thick braid even as Gragnar's rising to his feet. Why? Partly because it looked like fun, partly because it makes the already titanic oruch just that much taller. "Interception machine!" the child declares, laughing, then quickly adding. "We need a pie!" pounding small hands on Gragnar's head.

Albrecht's eyes follow the arc of the ball as Angrid propels it up into the air, and he tries to angle his stride toward where he thinks that arc is going. He isn't going to make it though, and he makes a gambit, diving forward after withdrawing one of the spare Team Merriment hats from his pocket, and slides it forward underneath the ball in front of me right before running into a lampstand, but feebly shouting "Ball's on our team now! No hurting it!"

Angrid gets to his feet, mock-wobbling a bit. "Oi, this'd be better after a pint..." He hears Jibbom's shout, and roars, "Lads and lasses! Ye know the drill! PIES FOR EVERYONE! And someone pass me one too!" Unfortunately, a younger teammate takes this a bit too literally and excitedly pitches a meatpie... right into Angrid's face. Splat. Splutter, splutter.

Myrana just freezes up, eyes wide and shoulders hunched up as a horde descends on her pies.

Aenyn crawls out of the fountain and shakes himself off. Sitting on the edge, he pulls off his boots and pours water out of them back into the fountain. With boots back on his feet where they belong, he hurriedly joins the horde to acquire a pie before they're all gone. Pie in hand, he goes in search of the ball that "disappeared" while he was taking a swim.

Jibbom laughs at Albrecht's sprint into the lamppost. "FIVE POINTS FOR TEAM MERRIMENT." Then comes Angrid's classic pie in the face take. "FIVE MORE POINTS FOR MERRIMENT! PLUS FIVE BONUS PIE POINTS. IT COUNTS IF YOU ARE CARRYING THE PIE WITH YOUR FACE."

Garrin has *multiple* pies now, of course, and he's attempting to stack them upon Gragnar, "You, grab the ball -- and RUN WITH IT." The pies are staying balanced on Gragnar's head. Somehow.

No doubt Garrin is cheating in some fashion to make this happen with magic, given the way he's holding his hand.

Ot course, this simply means that the pies will fly off hilariously when the right moment comes!

The pie in the face gag gets a broad grin from Gragnar, and a frightened look from a nearby person in a mauve hat that recognizes the look from more full contact sports with the oruch. He charges the pie stand, and begins passing up pies to his rider. "How many can you carry?" he asks in his heavy accent, and then there's already a pile of pies up there, with the child helping to keep them from tumbling. Pie dispenser in place, Gragnar moves for the ball, natural agility back as he snatches it up, and reaches up to the pie dispenser, taking one in his hand. A mauve hatted figure that comes for the pie gets a totally non-threatening, non harmful and won't hurt a soul pie to the face.

And it's time. Time for Garrin's trump card.

A woman emerges from the crowd as Gragnar gets the ball. She strides towards him and SLAPS GARRIN ACROSS THE FACE. WHAM!

The doublehatted rogue falls to the ground with a hand print on his face and he looks on ins shock -- SHOCK!! -- at this.

"You NEVER WROTE," she tells him, primly, and flounces off.

Incidentally, this is when the formerly stacked pies fall all over.

"But I worked so hard on these pies," Myrana can be heard to whimper. Of course, they're still going into people's faces. Possibly. As a side effect. And she's getting paid.

"Gmph gurrmph." Angrid likes pies, but this was a little unexpected. He's also temporarily blinded by meatpie bits in his eyebrows, and so of course he stumbles into the fountain. Fortunately, he doesn't fall in and instead just shoves his face into the water to clean the worst of it off -- rules about baths be damned! "Oi! Right! Now, where's that blasted ball!" he bellows, face streaming water and beard now soaking wet and sticking out.

Jibbom seems quite approving of the pie-related antics of Garrin and Gragnar, particularly when the flouncing woman brings the pies to their inevitable tumbling doom. "TENPOINTS FOR TEAM RIDICULOUS. TEN BONUS PIE POINTS FOR TEAM RIDICULOUS." A brief pause. "NEW RULE. ANYONE RECEIVING POINTS MUST NOW RECITE A SHORT POEM OR RHYME ABOUT TARIENBALL. BONUS POINTS FOR PARTICULARLY GOOD POEMS OR POEMS WHICH INVOLVE PIE. MORE BONUS POINTS IF YOU CAN CONVINCE A PIE TO JOIN YOUR TEAM AND RECITE YOUR POEMS."

Albrecht shakes the birdies from his head as he gets unsteadily to his feet and sees that the bizarre duo of Team Ridiculous has taken his newest teammate, the ball, as well as a sizable number of pies, and sets off in pursuit. As he's running near the sidelines, such as they are, a figure holds out a half-eaten meat pie, purchased earlier, and a tankard of ale. With a word of thanks, the paladin takes them and takes a huge bite of the pie - you can carry a pie in ytour stomach. He labors to catch up to the runners with a head start, and in the manner of marathon runners pouring water over his face, as if in slow motion, so too the ale.

"Go team!" Sharna supplies from the stands - or, as it were, the top of the temple wall... it counts! - as she tries, futilely, to keep an eye on the absolute mayhem unfolding below as the match revs into speed and the players into objects, each other, and pie. Which team, one might ask? Does it even matter at this point?

Carrying his pie, Aenyn spots Gragnar with the ball and moves after him, attempting to run interference and keep others away from the ball. Those that don't get hit by Gragnar's pie-launcher anyway. The new rules change raises Aenyn's brows, but he gets an idea. Snatching a discarded chartreuse hat from the ground, he sits it on top of his pie and starts talking out of the corner of his mouth while moving the pie so that it appears to be speaking, "Tarienball, Tarienball...you are all...we need to have a ball." The pie is certainly no bard.

Gragnar, not wanting to break the rules, recites something quick and dirty in Yrch about Tarienball. Emphasis on the dirty. The kid's oblivious, attempting to save the tumbling pies. What else will Gragnar disable attackers with?!

"FIVE BONUS POINTS TO TEAM RIDICULOUS FOR PIE POETRY." Jibbom declares between bouts of laughter.

Achala arrives late, because that's how he rolls. Without really looking at anything or anyone, he grabs a mauve hat. "It goes with my skin!" he exclaims to the nearest mauver united member, and then looks around. "Oh, are there rules?!"

"Bloody hell, lads, tickle him! I hear greenskins are ticklish around the ears, myself!" Angrid then starts in on the two hundred verse Khazadunala saga (widely reputed to be possibly one of the most agonizing experiences a non-dwarf can endure, as it involves a great deal of reciting ancestry and lineage). Except anyone who's even HEARD of it will notice some incongruities as all the major characters are now being replaced by 'Tarienball'. As he runs past a fruit vendor, he stops, thrusts a silver coin into the man's hand and snatches a bushel of bananas. "Change later, lad!" Then he hurls the whole bunch to Albrecht. "Albrecht, lad! Think fast!"

"ACTIVITIES DESIST!" Regal and quite impressive in his mauve cat balanced precariously atop both his helm's antenna, Donk sits high.... or well, he sits with his back straight, in the saddle of his steed, lance as upright as his spine. The gnome looks around the area with a look of utter indignation. "You street rats and squabblers are about to be schooled. For the 5-year running CHAMPION of Tarienball has arrived: The Great and Powerful Donk Yauti!"

His impressive entrance given, Donk just...sits there for a bit, trying to make sense of all of this. Are those...pies?

Albrecht's eyes widen and he drops the tankard, stuffing the other half of the pie in his mouth as he catches the banana bushel. Seeing Achala put on a mauve cap matching his, he says something that MIGHT be "Don't hurt anyone, have pies, do poerty." or more properly "Dohohuryon pihh pahoror!" And so he begins launching into equally muffled poetry and song as he begins lobbing bananas, one at a time, in the path of the charging ball carrier with his pie throwing jockey, taking time to get a few of them half peeled first!

"FIVE POINTS TO TEAM MERRIMENT FOR EPIC TARIENBALL POETRY. FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR BANANA MAYHEM. TEAMS ARE NOW TIED AT THIRTY." The halfling calls out. "NEW RULE. POINTS EARNED BY PASSERBY WHO HAVE NOT HAD THE RULES EXPLAINED TO THEM ARE DOUBLED."

Gragnar actually does stop at the exclamation, then sees it's the little-kin with the wolf. Getting a bit into the spirit of things, he takes the last of the pies from his arsenal, a nice creme number, and chucks it with a rather impressive spin, heading straight for Donk's face before he's once more in motion. The need for quick thought means Gragnar's poems aren't coming out in anything close to the common tongue, his native language flowing quickly and easily off his tongue as he tells a story not too disimilar from Angrid's, except with more--well, it started off more violent, but now all the gore's being replaced with pies. It gets a tad weird at the point where a pie is beaten to death with it's own crust.

Aenyn continues following after Gragnar for as long as oruch has the ball. He also continues his poetry, though now it seems like he and the pie are alternating lines. "Team Ridiculous and Team Merriment..." "Are the teams meant..." "To bring joy and fun..." "To all the little ones!" Aenyn shakes his head and promptly begins to argue with the pie on how "fun" and "ones" don't *really* rhyme.

"Waugh!," Donk yells when he sees a pie coming right for his gorgeous face. "Destroyer..." Donk's steed's ears perk, even as he stares at all those pies hungrily. "Fetch!"

With an impressive leap, Destroyer jumps up and snatches that pie out of the air with his mouth. Donk gracefully snatches his cat off his head, hugs it against his side...and starts playing it like a pair of bagpipes. Horrible, horrible, yowling bagpipes.

"Oh kitty, me kitty, she said, she said," Donk wails in a singing voice almost worse than the cat's. Did you know when you pull on a cat's tail, its pitch changes? "Why oh why do you eat all the pies? Me lover me lover, she said she said... Why oh why are there stars in the skies?"

"DONK! YOU MUST SEIZE THE BALL AT ONCE. IT IS THE RIGHT OF EVERY DONK." Donk has this explained to him by Garrin immediately, a finger pointed. "In fact, you'll get an extra point if you manage to smack the ball out of the air with a pie." He nods, solemnly, trying not to burst out laughing.

Achala looks over towards Donk, and beams. "Hey! You must be the ball! Are you the mauve ball?" There may have been pre-drinking involved. May. He looks over at Garrin. "What happens if Donk hits the ball in mid-air?" Blinkblink.

"FIVE POINTS TO TEAM RIDICULOUS FOR GRATUITOUS PIE VIOLENCE. FIVE POINTS TO TEAM MERRIMENT FOR ATTEMPTED RHYMING. FIVE BONUS PIE POINTS TO BOTH TEAMS. TEAMS NOW TIED AT FORTY." Jibbom declares. "NEW RULE. BANANA POINTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE. SAME RULES AS PIE POINTS. ONLY WITH BANANAS."

Albrecht has many bananas, and seeing as how nobody has slipped on the ones he's thrown yet, he begins plucking them off, with the bunch tucked under an arm and lobbing them to his teammates one at a time. "Flying through the air, a banana to spare, catch me, oh catch me, Angrid my friend!" A pivot and a backhanded toss sends one toward Achala as well, and then in Donk's direction. "Heads up, lads!"

"NO!" Donk yells to Garrin, spurring his mount into action, "They'll be EXPECTING THAT!" Shooting off through the square at Warp-Wolf 5, Donk swings the cat around by its tail...and lets it fly at wherever that ball might be! Doesn't matter, threw cat!

The banana doesn't get to Donk, because Destroyer just leaps up, snatching it out of the air in a yellow explosion of banana foam between his teeth.

"VICTORY!" Donk squeals, stabbing a banana on the ground and swinging it about wildly, hitting other objects out of the air with it. "I can see this game has a-peel!"

"FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR BANANA STABBING AND BAD PUNS. FIVE BONUS BANANA POINTS. FIVE BONUS POINTS FOR PARTICIPANT WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THE RULES."

"And Tarienball seized the troll's wrist, and the troll knew its doom had come, for Tarienball's strength was without equal." It's all very stirring even if it doesn't make a lick of sense. Angrid advances inexorably on Gragnar, catching the banana and miming cocking it as if it were a crossbow. "Oi there, stop right there or you're getting this one right in the ghabarz!"

"I don't care what you say! It *doesn't* rhyme!" Aenyn yells at the pie before hurling it away from him. Right at Angrid.

Aenyn keeps the pie's hat, though.

"FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR VERBALLY ABUSING PASTRY. FIVE BONUS PIE POINTS."

Achala reaches out to grab the banana, let's it bounce off of his palm, then reaches down, "Banana-anna-fo-fanna!" He hefts the banana, cocks it. "You're not the critic of meeeeeee!!!!" He hurls the banana at Aenyn. And well, its true. Aenyn isn't, but don't tell that to Achala. He fist-to-chest bumps towards Angrid. "Your poetry is better than your chili!"

Either Angrid's throwing him off, or it actually is the same story, because the lines that follow are, roughtly translated. 'The pie knew it's doom had come, for (gutteral name)'s strength was without equal.' "What's a ghabarz?" the child up on his shoulders asks. "Ya like bananas?" the yrch asks, advancing on Angrid and, giving a laugh, slips the ball from it's mauve hat and sticks it UNDER his chartreuse one. Assuming the banana's still being pointed threateningly at that, it joins the Mauve team.

"Oi, I didn't see the light of day yesterday, you-- GMPPH!" Suddenly Angrid is hit in the face with a pie AGAIN, dropping the banana. Spluttering, he tries to wipe it out of his face, steps on the banana -- and slips, falling backward with a thud. "Oof! Mind that first step, lads!"

If only the players knew what all this looks like from above. After the... was that a pie? A cat? A banana? Gods know... gracefully spins past at eye level, arcing through the air like a... a very unaerodynamic, mutated bird with no sense of direction... Sharna sidesteps BEHIND the angel statue's wing, just in case any of the bizarre projectiles come flying at her, unintentionally or otherwise. Pie stains are hard to get out of clothing.

A moment passes, before the elfkin darts a hand to claim the pipe. She'd been asked to hold onto it, and it wouldn't do if it were carried off by flying objects. It finds a new, safer place in the corner of a windowsill.

"THE TARIENBALL HAS DEFECTED TO TEAM RIDICULOUS. FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS. TEAMS NOW TIED AT FIFTY FIVE." Jibbom bellows between bouts of laughter. "NEW RULE. PARTICIPANTS MUST SING ALL WORDS SPOKEN, AND MUST DANCE WHEREVER THEY MOVE. BONUS POINTS AVAILABLE FOR EXCEPTIONAL SINGING AND DANCING."

Albrecht comes dashing up from an angle behind Angrid and doesn't slow down as he rushes the ball carrier with accompanying pie hurler but then he LEAPS, catching NBA style air with something in his hand, and... Did he just plant a mauve hat on top of the kid wielding the pies?!

Donk charges with Destroyer willy-nilly around the square, laughing maniacally and taking no prisoners. "Vote Donk for king, and there will be a pie in every banana! A cat in every face! A whoop-ass in every can!"

After he completes his circuit, he comes to a stop near the center of hte square, a good 10 bananas skewered down his lance. "Destroyer! Whirling tornaod attack!" The wolf starts spinning like its chasing his tail, and steed and rider turn into a whirling blue of orange and yellow. Bananas shoot outwards in all directions, like food from a blender with its top off.

"FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR CONSCRIPTING PASTRY-WIELDING CHILDREN. FIVE BONUS PIE POINTS. FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR EXCEPTIONAL SINGING ENTHUSIASM. FIVE BONUS BANANA POINTS."

GAME: Achala rolls perform/dance: (6)+1: 7

GAME: Gragnar rolls perform/dance: (7)+0: 7

Aenyn takes a banana right between the eyes and, due either to the shock of being hit in the face with a banana or an innate sense of comedic timing, he goes falling backwards onto his back. As he attempts to stand, he gets smacked with another banana flung from Donk's lance and goes down again. He just lies there for a moment, wiping banana goo from his face while waiting for the bananas to stop flying in his general direction before getting back to his feet. Then with a clap of his hands, he begins to DANCE.

GAME: Aenyn rolls perform/dance: (10)+7: 17

GAME: Albrecht rolls perform/dance: (19)+3: 22

GAME: Angrid rolls perform/dance: (1)+0: 1

GAME: Donk rolls Perform/Disco: (2)+Perform/Disco: 2

"FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR BANANADANCE. FIVE BONUS BANANA POINTS."

Angrid is now lying down on the ground. He manages to wipe enough meat pie out of his face to see Donk do the fruit and vegetable equivalent of a 'death blossom'. Philosophically, he comments to no one in particular, "See, lads and lasses, this is why it's good to be a dwarf. Sometimes things just fly over your head and they never trouble ye one bit."

The child looks momentarily confused, looks up, and, with a laugh, pies Gragnar in the face and steels back the ball for team mauve, but, in his enthusiasm, just chucks the ball as hard as he can towards what looked like mauve. Alternatively, one of the pies was some sort of berry. Yrch singing's a tad odd, being less melody and more chanting. When Gragnar begins to berate the child, each emphasized syllable hits like a drum-beat. "WHY you 'ITle." The former teammate is snatched from his shoulders and, gentler than the treatment of a miscolored cat, put on the ground. He's not much for dancing but he's agile enough and, without the extra weight, he does something of an acrobatic routine towards where the ball went, with lots of tumbles and twists. The tale of Blitznack the pie-slayer gains a bass-beat.

Achala dances. Truly. It is probably culturally specific. He hops from foot to foot, glaring at bystanders. "What? This is my /culture/." He raises his voice to the sky: "All our father's backs are broken / And our prophets are insane / There is no one left to guide us / No catalyst for change!" His singing is as good as his dancing.

Albrecht moves in a bizarrely fluid poppint and locking motion, stepping backward to give the kid a high five, before he makes a forward summersault over a low obstacle and does a spin on his back and shoulders to land back on his feet, going after the stray ball with a grin.

"FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR INDESCRIBABLE CULTURAL DANCING."

Aenyn's dancing is actually rather gracefull as he makes his way across the playfield in pursuit of the stray ball. A leap into the air brings the ball back into his hands, but this time, he doesn't trip. Instead, he pivots on one foot and begins to dance his way towards the chartreuse circle. Along the way, he scoops up a discarded banana and uses it as a prop in his dancing, pretending it's a dagger as he parries and thrusts through his dance routine.

"FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR BANANAFIGHTING. FIVE BONUS BANANA POINTS. RIDICULOUS IS NEARING THE GOAL CIRCLE."

So Garrin has been, well... He's been quiet. Mostly because he's been gathering up the pie crust. He's been arranging it into the shape of a bannana on the ground.

That's right. It's a bannana pie crust symbol. "Someone spike the ball here," he calls, firmly, "in the Bannana Crust of POWER."

"The Donk does not dance! However..." Standing up in his saddle, he snaps over his wolf's head. "Up!" The wolf hops up on two legs, hopping about and clapping wiht his paws, while Donk sings, "Go Destroyer! It's your birthday! Gonna party like, it's your birthday!"

Shrewdly, he eyes the crowd, and guides his steed to start hopping in the direction of the ball.

Achala bellows, "ITS NOT YOUR BIRTHDAY!" Thanks, Fiddy. He goes back to his culturally-specific song of celebration: "We are too young to know better / But frailty comes with age / So we run towards Armageddon / While our legs still have the strength!" A pie crust symbol! He bounces in that direction.

"FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR DOGDANCING. FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR BANANAPIE."

Albrecht begins a rapid bolt forward, trying to overtake Aenyn, but with the dancing restriction he is given to interpretive cartwheels and dervish type movements as he moves up and down like a manic top. He pulls himself up on top of a merchant's stall and uses it for a leaping bound toward the goal circle, landing with a heavy roll and coming up, arms wide. Goalie time!

"... Where IS the ball?" Sharna asks nobody in particular from her perch and shelter, idly picking the banana peel that is all that remains of a Donk-flung projectile off the unfortunate statue, which is now a good bit yellower than a holy monument rightly should be. Whether or not it being down on the street is a better place for it than hanging off the angel's nose, however, is debatable. Really, there's simply so many things happening that the actual game is impossible to keep track of.

Dance dance dance da--PIE! Donk's chanting is interrupted in a loud YELP as Destroyer suddenly bolts towards that pie sculpture. "No! Down! Heel! Retreat! WAUGH!" The wolf leaps mouth-first on that pile of pie crusts, rolling around with his rider still wailing on his back, like it were the most glorious garbage anywhere.

"NEW RULE. ANYTHING SUFFICIENTLY FUNNY WHICH IS SHOUTED OUT IN THE NEXT TEN SECONDS BECOMES A NEW RULE."

Achala stops, yells: "STOP! DIAPER TIME!"

"DESTROYER! STOP! The Donk is your rider, not a pile of garbage! AUGH! Pie in my nose AUGH!

"SWITCH TEAMS!" Gragnar declares.

Aenyn continues his dance-fighting towards the goal and doesn't even slow as he sees Albrecht take up position in front of the goal. He shouts, "CLOSE YOUR EYES!" before flinging the banana at Albrecht as if it were a dagger. He then drops into a slide between Albrecht's legs while the human is (hopefully) distracted.

"TEN SECONDS ARE UP. NEW RULES! DIAPER POINTS NOW AVAILABLE. SAME RULES AS PIE AND BANANA POINTS. SWITCHING TEAMS IN HILARIOUS WAYS IS NOW WORTH POINTS. TEAM GOALS ARE NOW REVERSED. DOING THINGS WITH PIE IN YOUR NOSE IS NOW WORTH POINTS. KEEPING YOUR EYES CLOSED IS WORTH BONUS POINTS."

Albrecht has taken a wide stance, and as the banana sails toward his face, he can't move aside, frozen despite his warrior training, and clenches his eyes as it strikes him dead center between them and he loses his balance, falling backward dramatically in an uncontrolled fall just as an onlooker plays a sad trombone sound, sending him crashing down onto Aenyn beneath him. Did he successfuly tangle

Or was the slide too far?!

Gragnar closes his eyes, and continues to weave through the crowd. He's not leaping anymore, but he's regularly reaching out, seeming to have a pretty good idea of his surroundings even with his eyes completely shut. Must be a monk thing. That, or he got blinded once, got shanked in the side while blinded, and dedicated a couple months to learning this trick so it wouldn't happen again.

Unfortunately, the slide was not far enough and Aenyn ends up with an Albrecht collapsed on top of him. The ball goes rolling off away from the fallen pair while Aenyn sing-songs in a pained, high-pitched voice, "I didn't think that through!"

"FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR SAD TROMBONE PRATFALL. FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR ILL-ADVISING SLIDING. THE TARIENBALL HAS GONE ROGUE."

Donk eventually wiggles out from under his euphoric mount, and has started using his lance to try and lever him upright. But Destroyer has ate too much, and is refusing to roll over. "Up up up, you corpulent canine!'

Albrecht groans and rolls off of the man beneath him, and as he turns his head, sees the ball skidding off to the side, and he flops and scrambles after it, pulling off his cap and using it to scoop the ball toward him and pull it back toward his head and hold it there with both hands and clenching his eyes, charging heedless toward the near goal, which is now his.

Gragnar resumes the singing, the gutteral heavily rhythmic chant. Blitznack the pie-slayer is now wielding his trusty banana. Diapers seem a bit disrespectful of a folkhero. There's lots of banana-stabbing in this verse. Those are some juicy, juicy pies. He opens his eyes up at the announcement of the rogue ball and, seeing it, he takes the cap from his head, scoops up the ball in the other hand and, in a masculine version of a pirouette, swaps hats with a mauve along the way, knocking it off someone's head with the ball, catching it with the ball, completing the turn, dropping his old hat on their head, then the ball and hat both get placed on his own head. Diapers are still absent, but the song becomes about an army slipping and sliding on the pie-fillings and banana-scabbards. This verse is rougher, not seeming to have the same sort of 'swap out words' feel as the rest, and the structure's loser. Iambic pentameter's still in full force though.

Achala closes his eyes and howls out -- "And like a blind hammer / That destroys what it can't see / Tear down the walls of progress / And spit on our ancestry / Indiscriminate / And full of empty rage / Running down the fields of fear / We're unable to assuage!" He keeps going, mostly because he's totally lost track of the ball.

"Oh come now. They're just having fun." Sharna asides to the matronly Althean with the tiniest bit of a grin, who is now standing at the nearest window with her jaw hanging a little loose at what the Temple Square has become as result of the festivities.

"It's over there!" the elfkin shouts helpfully, pointing at the half-hidden, behatted ball. Maybe she's just trying to cause a dogpile. Maybe she's trying to help. "No, the other way! No, that's a melon from the fruit cart, not the ball!"

"Melons aren't fruit!" someone in the crowd shouts.

"Yes they are!" someone else contests. The age-old arguement continues.

Aenyn, eyes closed tightly, gropes around for his lost hat. Finding it, he plops it on his head as he gets back to his feet. Unbeknownst to him, he has grabbed a mauve hat instead of a chartreuse one. Uh-oh. Eyes still closed, he heads off in the direction he last saw the ball. He doesn't realize that there are other people near the ball as well...

"FIVE POINTS TO MERRIMENT FOR WANTON HILARIOUS RECKLESSNESS. FIVE BONUS POINTS FOR BONUS REASONS. FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR TEAM-SWITCHERY. FIVE POINTS TO RIDICULOUS FOR EXCELLENT DANCING. FIVE BONUS POINTS FOR BANANAS AND PIES." Jibbom beams ear to ear. "BOTH TEAMS HAVE ACHIEVED ONE HUNDRED POINTS. AAAAAANNNNDD..." He reaches into his bag, emptying it. It contains a dozen identical Tarienballs. These are chucked into the crowd with reckless abandon, with a number ending up in each goal circle. "GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAL! EVERYONE WINS TARIENBALL! EVERYONE WINS TARIENBALL!" He bursts into applause, motivating some of the stunned onlookers to do the same.

Donk doesn't have time to stop it. He can barely react before the Fury is unleashed.

Balls!

So many balls!

BALLS EVERYWHERE!

And they're all for DESTROYER!

The wolf starts barking like mad, shooting around the whole square and snatching up ball after ball in his mouth. It doesn't matter how many he has, or how big they are, he just tries to grab more and more and more and more... Better be careful people, or you could lose a hand if you get in his way.

Albrecht looks up at the shouted announcement, eyes coming open in surprise, since he thought he had the only ball, but seeing what is happening, he grins, letting his own ball out from under the hat and passing it to team-defector kid, just as he steps on the banana thrown at him earier by Aenyn and says "Wh.. whaaaaaaaaaaaa--!!" and with one leg extended and trying to balance, he slides comically off sides of the field and crashes over an assortment of crates by a pretzel vendor's stall and collapses in a comical heap.

Gragnar looks around, and gives a sort of 'not bad' nod of his head. He reaches down, and gives the kid a masculine pat on the shoulder and moves towards the edges of the crowd, putting the newest hat on the first head to pass by. Already have a hat. You have two now, the start of your own towering pillar of hats.

With the announcement that the game is over, Aenyn opens his eyes. He lets out a long sigh and tumbles forward into a roll that ends with him lying sprawled on his back. He thrusts one fist into the air above him. His other hand fishes a Tarien holy symbol from within his tunic and he gives it a light kiss before tucking it away again.

Sharna gives a clap at the prompt - and is then ushered inside by the Althean. Through the window. The pair vanish from sight, the priestess wailing about all the clean-up work that'll need to be done, but thanking the heavens for lack of serious injury.

A few moments pass before Sharna dashes to the window and grabs the discarded pipe from the windowsill, and then vanishes inside again. Hopefully, its owner will come by the temple to reclaim it at SOME point.