This RP will take place in Fiore: http://fairytail.wikia.com/wiki/Fiore

In the year X785, a guild was started in Balsam Village (http://fairytail.wikia.com/wiki/Balsam_Village). The founder, a little fox named Emerald. The guild name: Hero Voice. That was over six years ago and the guild has become a decent size, though still nowhere near being one of the top 10 guilds in Fiore. Still, they have a reputation all their own, that they tend to go out of their way to rescue people from either evil plots or natural disasters. They are the "heroes among guilds".

The news is all a buzz about the return of the heavy hitters of the once powerful Fairy Tail guild. These powerful mages, the guild's master included, had been gone for 7 years. And now that they are back, people are talking about whether Fairy Tail will re-earn its place in the top guilds of Fiore... or stay fading into obscurity as it has for years now.

Fairy Tail is located in Magnolia, a neighboring city just west of Balsam.

 Compromise can be weird sometimes.  Your dad wants you to have a 'proper working mans' job like construction, your mother wants you to do something more intellectual.  Kyle supposed it was at least true that he put up walls on a regular basis, even if the sledgehammer slung across his back (hey, proper warhammers are expensive) gave the opposite suggestion as he sat by a table in the Hero's Voice guild with a drink.

Like any guild, the Hero's Voice guild has a bulletin board for the jobs to be put on. Currently, there's about a dozen jobs, 4 of which are currently assigned to various mages from the guild. Being a small guild, the guild is only about the size of an inn (and has rooms which it charges to stay in). So everybody can see everybody in the same room, really.

Emerald spots that Kyle is alone and goes to him. "How did the last job go?"

  "A constant reminder that I hate giant spiders." Okay, so they were only the size of large dogs. CLOSE ENOUGH.

  "Still, work is work.  How are things on the end of running this nuthouse?"

Emerald says, "Could be a lot worse. I heard another guild got in trouble with the Council, so I'm grateful we still have a record of no trouble with the council. So you looking to do another job? Or just gonna relax for now?"

On one hand, Kyle has expenses. Which he now has paid thanks to squashing giant spiders. On the other hand, that's all it paid. He still has "quality of life" expenses to fulfill that his pockets only offer moths for.

  "Yeah, legal issues you can't generally solve by hitting them."  As much as one would like to at times.  "I wouldn't say I'm always looking for work, but I should at the moment.  I don't suppose you have a good feeling about something currently available Boss Lady?"

  Emerald was both easy and difficult to look up to.  Unless she had appropriately elevated seating.

Emerald looks around the room at various people. "How about you team up with Maverick and one other, and go on that recon mission the Council sent us?" some missions the council can't be bothered to go on themselves, after all, and it would just plain be cheaper to ask a guild to check out.

  "Sounds good, he is a tiny little professional."  Plus while he doubted they'd be particularly thankful, the Council would probably be annoyed if they didn't get their job done right away.

  "Faster if I just read the details on the board, or for you to fill me in on just what they want looked at?"

Emerald waves a hand dismissively. "Just a disturbance in the southern forest causing questions to arise. Go there and find out what's going on. Nothing more detailed than that."

  "I suppose if it wasn't vague, they wouldn't need somebody to find out what was going on."  Kyle starts looking for Maverick...  Then stops, and puts up 'Maverick, want to work with you for Forest Recon.  Kyle' on the Board instead.

  Kyle has been somewhat self conscious since walking past the kid a few times despite looking for them before.

Maverick materializes. His magic is that he can vanish, along with all traces of his existence (such as scent, heat signature, you name it). He looks up at Kyle.

Emerald looks around, as if looking for the next person who should go with Kyle. Bethany is spotted.

 Kyle thought Maverick's signature magical skill was causing perpetual paranoia... Wait, no, that's just Maverick.  "Hey Maverick, want in on the professional government funded snooping?"  He looks over to Bethany and waves her over.  Kyle also wonders if the personalities of Maverick and Bethany will either cancel eachother out, or cause something to explode.

Bethany wanders over to the two and smiles brightly. "Yes?"

Jury's still out on what will happen. But Maverick doesn't seem bugged by her existence. Actually, he cracks a smile. But then, Beth is good in anyone's book, unless their definition of bad includes childlike innocence. Which is admittedly the case for some people.

  Kyle finds the TERM childlike innocence overrated (most kids know how to fire and load a crossbow at a moving target, right?), even if what it is intended to mean is pretty decent.  "Hey Bethany, want in on professional government funded snooping?"  You just said that Kyle.  "Forest is involved." better.

Still smiling, Bethany says, "Sure!"

Her own magic is relatively different from everyone else's in that it's completely random. Though if there were two things consistent about her magic, they would be conjuration (summoning) and the fact she can cause light to happen at will.

  Considering the frequency of dark caves or similar, free light sources are a pleasant thing to have along.  Even if there is that worry of a cross franchise Voltorb summon exploding in the middle of a hallway or something.  "We can head off now, or I can give you two a bit to get ready if you need to."

  The metaphorical finger is ready to hit the scene transition button, it's still up in the air where between 'right outside the guild' to 'oh hey there is the forest' it would go, because it is hard to be accurate with an imaginary button.

The button is pushed! SCENE TRANSITION!

The trio arrive at the forest. After all, it's not far from Balsam at all. Literally walking distance. But the forest itself is huge and can't be simply explored in a day. Then again, the disturbances are likely coming from areas near civilization or else the disturbances would likely go un-noticed anyway... so chances are a simple stroll will eventually bring up at least something ODD... right?
Well... aside from the trio, that is.

Bethany is humming "A hunting we will go" as the trio walk. "Let's check all the popular spots first!" Bethany suggests.

  Ah yes, the joys of ignoring inconveniences that do not inconvenience you.  He nods to Bethany, saying "A good idea, though I wish I had any idea what the popular spots were."  He looks around, wondering if a particular nearby spot looked more suited to picnics than others.

  That's how forest spot popularity was measured right?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:40, Wed 08 May 2013.

There is a forest trail, a couple parks, and a scenic waterfall. The group is currently on the forest trail because it connects the popular spots. Once the group makes it to the waterfall, Bethany looks around curiously as if someone were calling her.

  Scenic Waterfall would totally have been Kyle's second choice over prime picnic locations.  He notices Bethany's look, then turns to Maverick, "You say something Maverick?"  May as well check if the obvious had happened first, before expecting things like 'the waterfall is talking to Bethany' or assorted things.

  Even if talking waterfalls were probably more likely than the kid starting a conversation.

Maverick shakes his head. However, the waterfall does open as Bethany gets closer. Some distant singing can be heard coming from inside.

Unless stopped, Bethany goes inside. Maverick turns invisible.

  Kyle's common sense is giving him conflicting info.  It's telling him going in there is dumb, and that not going in there means they won't be getting the job done anytime soon.  So he follows along with Bethany so at least she wont be alone.

  Sure, Maverick would probably go with her too but it's not like you can tell right now.  "Well, at least so far this isn't anything I'd file under 'disturbance'."  Unless it was bad singing from the waterfall.

Bethany smiles. "It's rather pretty. I wanna be able to sing like that." The waterfall closes behind them and Bethany lights up the cave. Soon the group comes across a group of mages, who have the insignia of the dark guild "Dark Unicorn" on them.

They stop singing and one of the mages turns to look at Bethany and Kyle. "Well well... what have we here? Mages?"

(Note: Dark Guilds are guilds not recognized by the magic council, therefor effectively illegal.)

  "Oh, hello there.  I'd just like to compliment your lovely singing voice which I assume isn't hurting anyone."  At least it wasn't Razor Butterfly, those guys were a bit odd.

  Just the mere existence of non exorbitant government bills paying groups didn't bother Kyle as much as it probably should.  But these things did tend to get out of hand, imagine that.

The mage who spoke takes a bow. "Thank you. Hero Voice guild, eh? How you liking that guild?"

Bethany smiles brightly. "I love it! The people there are really nice and we have a cute, fluffy little fox for a guild master!"

The mages chuckle.

  "Less dramatic, but it's street address does make stepping out for groceries convenient."  Got the bread!... Had to carry it through the waterfall, but I got it.

  "So, why here in particular?  It's a big forest and a lot of it doesn't have a public path leading to your front door."  Let's make a secret lair where everyone walks past and it attracts attention!... wait.

The mage says, "Because we want people to come."

The pathway behind the group closes, the rocks magically "growing" into place in a split-second! "Today, you're lucky. We only want one of you. So you choose which one and the other can go."

One of the mages objects, "But boss, if we let one go, they'll tell people."

He laughs. "Let them. By the time anyone comes after us, we'll be long gone, our goal achieved! Consider it my way of gloating and letting the council know how little power they wield."

Bethany says, "It's not nice to imprison people. Would YOU like being imprisoned?"

Kyle can see the enemies' shoelaces are getting tied together.

  "You guys are really not helping your stereotype right now, you know."  Bethany is mostly right, which is one of the reasons why he hasn't returned the favor and walled in the Dark Unicorn's side of the tunnel, Maverick (or the friendly shoelaces tying ghost) would be stuck back there.

  The other reason would be the fact both directions would be blocked to them once he did that.

Kyle can feel Maverick gently tugging on him. The bad guys chuckle. "Well have you made your choice yet?"

  Kyle nods, "At the very least, I agree to go with one of your ideas."   That idea is a second rock wall between the Dark Unicorn types and themselves.  "I really, really hope you summon a wrecking ball Beth, or a rock biter, or a rockbiter riding a wrecking ball."

  Kyle's good at putting up walls and shields.  This, unfortunately, has not yet lended itself to taking DOWN walls that were already there.

The enemy looks annoyed. "Attack!"

Magic battle! The "leader" of the bunch slams his hand onto the ground and the entire ground turns into quicksand. One of his henchmen holds his hands to either side of himself and wind can be felt going away from Kyle/Bethany/Maverick and towards the bad guys.

Bethany holds her hands together and summons a pico-pico hammer, which squeaks the moment it appears.

  Kyle looks to Bethany's adorable hammer, then considers his more boring (but manly) sledge hammer.  "...Let's try yours on the blocked exit first."  Kyle has seen enough shenanigans to consider trying to cutesy magic hammer before attempting to break through a pile of boulders with a hunk of normal metal on a handle.

  Okay, so, the jerks want to try and drown and suffocate them at the same time.  Thorough.  The quicksand at least can be worked around as he summons a more boring thin wooden wall to knock over for raft material.

Bethany hits the wall with the hammer! *squeak* Nothing happens.

The air on Kyle's side of the cave is becoming thinner very fast. One of the other henchmen makes a magic bow and arrow and fires an arrow right into Bethany! ...she blinks a few times and the arrow disappears, seeming to have had no effect on her.

The guy who fired it looks a little confused.

The boss' pants suddenly fall off of him and he meeps, trying to pull the pants back up.

  "Right, that's it.  Bad adventure story time."  Kyle alas, is not so far gone and cruel as to try and goosh the Dark unicorns between two walls.  He sure as hell can start the one he's already summoned moving at them at a brisk jog's pace though.

  He considers the pile of rocks blocking their way out still.  "Any smart suggestions before I start just hitting the rocks with things?"

Bethany jogs in place, trying to figure out what to do. She holds her hand palm-up and a worm materializes with a glow. She gently offers the worm a crevice in the rock wall. "Maybe wormy can help?" she asks with a helpless grin.

The badguys can be heard panicking. The worm wriggles its way through the cracks and eventually vanishes from sight.

  The glow worm will find the Smurfs and then everything will work out, until the Snorks kill them all.

  In the meantime, Kyle is trying to pry one of the smaller rocks by the ceiling out with a floating shield just for the sake of a bit more air, even if multitasking a shield as a chisel/drill is somewhat awkward.  Still, at least the area is widening as his own wall moves, leaving more air (hopefully) on their side.

The first rock wall starts to crack. Then suddenly, the whole wall just shatters! In its place is a gigantic worm! Which then starts crawling out of the cave.

"Are the mean people going to be OK?" Bethany asks Kyle as she heads for the original entrance/exit.

  "You are now my favorite worm."  It's an easy favoritism to reach, not much competition.  He looks to Bethany, and says "I think at most would be some heavy bruising if they tripped running away from the wall."  He stopped it before there was nowhere else to turn.  He thinks.  Kyle is reasonably sure the Dark Unicorn mages are still alive and plotting revenge.

  He glances around, and says "Maverick, you still with us?"

Maverick reappears. "They were right about one thing... by the time we report them, they'll be gone. Suppose you can capture them somehow?"

  Technically, they could go home and still complete their job because they were hired for recon.  Unfortunately, Kyle was well aware of how much of a cop-out that mindset was. "That depends on how many exits they have from that cave, not counting just melting their way out by turning enough of it into quicksand."

Bethany casts some magic and the three have butterfly wings, antennae, and pixie-looking outfits. "....kinda figured flying would get us home quicker? If we're fast, maybe the report will get where it needs to go in time."

Maverick doesn't argue and quickly starts flying to base. Kyle's point about the enemy's ability to escape was a good one.

  Kyle isn't in a setting where he has to be completely paranoid about mentioning things evil could try outside of Evil's earshot, but within the GM's.  Just moderately paranoid.

  "Uh, thanks Bethany."  Kyle if a hulking robot can confidently sport pink, hearts, and fairy wings on a regular basis you can deal with it for a trip home.

The group makes it back to the guild quickly enough. As soon as they do, the wings, antennae and pixie outfits vanish.

  Sudden anime slapstick rules demand Kyle's wears off slightly before landing, thud.  Landing on your keys is also a constant.  "I'm okay. "  Kyle comments as he gets back up,  "Now let's fill in Emerald. " And get paid  "And maybe end up trying to catch them."

When Emerald hears about the report, she calls the council via crystal ball and informs them. "Dark Unicorn trying to kidnap mages and according to the reports I got, they only need one more to accomplish whatever they are using those mages for."

The council guy on the other end says, "Thanks. We'll send you your payment. Leave the rest to us. Take care."

Emerald turns to the successful recon team. "Good work, you three! I'll give you the payment right away if you want, or you can wait for when it comes from the council. Either way, I'm offering to treat you three to some ice cream."

Maverick smiles brightly.
Bethany jumps up and down, clapping her hands.

  "I'd rather not wait until the council 'remembers' to pay us, thanks."  What kind of professional magical mercenary gets excited about icecream anyways?"  "Icecream would be great, thanks Emerald."  Well, that kind we guess.