Alastair vs. Cadence
Cadence pulls out a large, old book and flips thoughtfully through the pages. Grinning he shouts out a loud animal like call. A strong wind picks up throughout the amphitheatre, causing everyone to close their eyes for protection. When the wind dies down the amphitheatre has been transformed into a large jungle. Trees and animals surround the area, small and large eyes peering out in curiosity. After a few moments a sinister tiger strolls into view, eyeing Al with bared teeth. Cunning and strong, the tiger prepares to attack. As the tiger leaps out with claws and teeth ready to shred flesh, a large singing bear comes strolling along, and for some reason seems to think that you are a danger to his friend, and is followed shortly after by a sleek black panther that is under the same impression. To make matters worse, a large green snake drops from a tree, trying to hypnotize the poor victim of this fantastic story gone awry.
Alastair blinks curiously at his new surroundings, hardly noticing the horde of animal's until it is nearly too late. With some quick thinking, he manages to erect a circus like Ring O' Flame, before the tiger can lay it's paw's into him. The mesmerized feline instead decides to try its hand at jumping through this mystical circle. Of course the panther decides to do this as well, since all cat's really want nothing more in life then to jump through hoops. When he is satisfied that he won't be mauled by either, the magii turns his attention toward the bear and python. Holding his hand in front of his eyes (of course he suspect's hypnosis, why wouldn't he) Al throw's a ball of flame on the deadly snake, which turns instantly into shish kabob. The bear smells the tenderly cooked animal, and panter's off to get a much quicker meal. With this all done, Al conjures forth a pool of flame on the ground. In seconds, fire midgets are born from this inferno, like hundreds of burning candles. The squiggle, the dance, they laugh and giggle, as each of the fiery little bugger's make's its way toward Cadence, in an effort to surround and burn the mage to ashes.
Cadence smiles and watches the pretty fiery creatures. Once the first one gives his leg a nice singe, he realizes he should probably do something to prevent his impending doom. Knowing that water is, of course, one of the best things to use to defeat fire...with the exception of removing all the oxygen from the air, which isn't something he likes doing...given the whole need for oxygen, he decides on a course of action. Grinning, he flips a few pages in his book and listens to the rush of water coming nearer. A large river flows into view and slithers its way right past where Cadence is standing, flooding the area and washing away the little fiery buggers. Grabbing his magic purple crayon, Cadence draws himself up a nice little anchored raft and sits back to watch his creation. A large crocodile leaps out of the water of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River, intent on grabbing Alastair's nose and showing him first hand what it has for dinner. Meanwhile an ostrich, a giraffe, a hippopotamus, a baboon, and a bi-colored-python-rock-snake run after Alastair trying to spank him for his 'satiable curiosity.
Alastair decides upon the best course of action when one is confronted by a hungry croc, which is obviously just to let it happen. The hungry reptile swallow's the mage whole, and lick's its toothy mouth in a very impossible way. After a couple moment's, you notice smoke bellowing out of the creature's mouth, it almost look's like its choking on a very hot pepper, and suddenly spit's a very disheveled looking albino from its mouth. Alastair find's a nice log to float on, and retrieves a book from his robes entitled Defying the Laws of Probability. He reads a few pages, almost as if he doesn't notice the small army of angry animal's swimming out to him. Al seems to find what he was looking for, and closes the book. With a wave of his hand, a winged arm chair pop's into existence. He hops up onto the chair and throws down a morsel's to each animal to keep them busy. "Muwahaha" laughs the magii from his flying furniture, and suddenly dozen's of flaming couch cushion appear in the air. They quickly dive toward Cadence at improbable speeds, trying to send him toward his extremely comfortable doom.
Cadence yelps and summons a flash flood. Swimming as fast as he can, he manages to avoid the worst of the fiery doom approaching him long enough for the flash flood to push him quickly out of the area. As the flood dies down, you find that the surroundings have completely changed. The river and forest is gone, and you are in a hot, fairly dry area that has recently been flooded. A small mongoose is collapsed on the ground in the middle of the path. Looking around, you realize you are in a large garden, and a house is not too far away. By the time you get your bearings, the mongoose seems to have dried out and recovered, and is now staring up a tree talking to a bird named Darzee and his wife. A few seconds later a hissing voice speaks behind Alastair, "I am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark upon all our people when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!" Meanwhile, Nagaina approaches silently from the other side hissing to herself, "If you move I strike, and if you do not move I strike," readying herself to strike in secret. To make matters worse, the mongoose decides to go after the cobras at the same time the man from the house runs out with his gun and aims to shoot the deadly serpents. Neither seem to notice Alastair's presence, and don't seem to care if they catch him in a missing attack instead of the snakes.
Alastair dissolves into a puddle of fire as the eruption of snake's, old men and mongooses goes into full swing. He bides his time, waiting for the dust to settle and the outcome to be sure. When it finally does, the snake's are tangled together in knots around the old man and the mongoose, each other them fighting desperately to get free of the knotted mess. The mage then returns to his original form for one last spell. A fiery staff appears in his hand, and with it he invokes a giant crystal that quickly surround's Cadence. He then creates a furnace under the trapped mage, the ground under him growing hotter and hotter until you could fry and egg on it, or your feet. Al watches curiously to see if Cadence can free himself from the fire mage’s chamber of molten death.
Cadence grabs his magic purple crayon and draws a funny looking, relatively fire resistant, tree. He quickly climbs up it until he reaches the top where there's a house on one of the branches. Looking inside the window he sees a cat with a tall hat, a fish, and a couple of terrified looking kids. Thinking he's climbed too far, he scurries back down a ways until he can feel the heat from the furnace reach the upper end of his comfort level. At that moment, a funny looking creature comes running at him, carrying a frying pan and sizzling eggs. Without knowing what he's saying, Cadence quickly yells at the creature, "I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them one bit!" He then scurries off as far as he can go up until he runs into the top of the crystal. The little creature comes running after him, refusing to give up until poor Cadence eats the oddly colored eggs. Figuring he doesn't have time to deal with this if he wishes to prevent his too quickly upcoming death, Cadence gobbles up the eggs, thoroughly appreciating their oddly colored taste. The little creature, being satisfied, scampers off and turns off the giant stove Cadence is stuck on top of. The crystal explodes into a million pieces from the drastic temperature changes, leaving countless tiny beautiful crystal pieces covering the floor of the amphitheatre, which now otherwise looks perfectly normal.
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