Only one person clearly didn't mistake him. And that was far more confusing.

A far too spindly almost inhuman clown dressed in white and black stripes with gold duct tape belt and collar, leapt up to Dennis, shouting, "Dennis! Dennis! Quick, before it's too late! You need some of this duct tape to stop up that leak before you burst!"

The fact that burstbarians are not public knowledge didn't seem to matter to her, but who would pay attention to two clowns at a county fair, anyhow?

In reply to Writer (msg # 1):

Startled and confused, Dennis eyes this stranger trying to figure out what was going on. He didn't know what kind of a clown... or witch... she was, as that outfit didn't match the only witch his sorcery teacher had introduced him to. Maybe this person was of a magic-using class he hadn't learned about yet. And the possibility that he might burst was a terrifying one.

Accepting the duct tape, the reporter looks it over, then pats himself down trying to figure out where the leak was to apply it to.

Dennis doesn't find any leaks anywhere.

Seeing his confusion, the clown laughs and grabs the tape back, strapping it around his head to cover his ears as she giggles, "It seems your smarts are leaking out of your ears! HA!!" she does a circle of somersaults around Dennis and then claps her hands.

The moment of silence highlights the visible area around him. Multiple dingy but exciting booths are being erected to sell a bazaar's worth of street-food, crafts and produce. One fisherman was even filling about 32 glass bowls with water and tiny fish.

The only sound that makes it through is a distraught elephant in the next tent over.

Thoughts race in Dennis' head over the sudden silence. A spell? Enchanted tape? Seemed likely, but why silence him? Hmm...

Pantomiming mock surprise and pawing at the tape without trying to actually budge it, Dennis says to the lady clown in a low voice, "I need my hearing for work," noting whether he can hear himself speak or not past the tape, and trying to watch her lips if he could not to read what she was saying.

Some part of his mind fixates momentarily on one fish in their bowl, then ignores it.

The spindly clown waves her hands in front of Dennis' eyes and pulls a mirror out from behind her hand. This wasn't too surprising until Dennis noticed that it was a full length mirror. His hearing returns as he is speaking, and not only can he hear himself, the tape also seems to have absorbed into his rubber flesh and disappeared.

The clown tilts her head upward and cups her ear as if listening, then she asks, "Where is your body? Also, can you survive without it?" As she finishes this last question, she is putting rubber gloves on and pulling out a bloody hacksaw from beneath the glove.


>((It would help if you could fill in your character sheet with skills, and rank them in power from 1 (least powerful) to the highest number for the most powerful. Ordinarily 1 is initiate, 2 is novice, 3 is professional, 4 is skilled, 5 is talented, 6 is top for ordinary humans, superhuman would be above 6))

Dennis was moderately surprised by the mirror, but had at least heard of a few spells that could store stuff in otherworldly pockets or places.

The questions about his body caught him entirely off-guard, though, and he took several steps back away from her before she even pulled out the hacksaw. Fear for his own safety rushed through his mind and into one of his pain stomachs. "What? Hey, that's not funny!"

Forgetting his video camera, notepad, and other reporting gear, the burstbarian turned and tried to run away from the presumed maniac with a bloody, sharp weapon, regardless of whether it was real or a prop. Only to trip on something and fall to the ground. His rubber body bounced a little without any control over it.

((A character sheet is uploaded. Any additional info or non-magical data I should add to it?))

Mid-bounce, Dennis saw that the clown had caught up to him, and placed the mirror in his path. But instead of bouncing off of the mirror, he slid into it. He slid out of a ceiling mirror onto a ground mirror inside a Hall of Mirrors. The other clown loomed over him in a distorted image that filled the background.

Then her face suddenly juts down into his field of vision from above, and from inches away, she raises a bloody scalpel and says, "Seriously, how does it work? If you die, what is this purgatory I hear the spirits chatting about, and what happens to your body?"

Confused by his continued discomfort, she adds, "What?"

"How am I supposed to know how it works?!? I'm an apprentice, not whoever it is who makes the spells," Dennis protested, trying to crawl backwards away from the seeming lunatic of a lady. "Other than being inflated until I pop, I haven't the foggiest what happens to a sorcerer's body when we die... it's not the kind of thing I ask Evan, and my orc is too busy being as dumb of an orc as he can when I summon him."

His stomachs churned.

Having been standing on the ceiling with her head hanging in front of Dennis, the clown drops to the ground, but continues falling into and through the mirror on the ground. The mirror below Dennis also suddenly allows him through.

He finds himself flying out of the same mirror he had just bounced into, and continuing in the same direction he started bouncing toward. As he looks back to where he had been first assaulted and taped up, he sees a raging elephant trample through the tent and right over the spot he had been standing in. The elephant's spiked collar and ankle chains wouldn't have felt nice.

Just then, the camera crew arrived and began setting up. Two assistants came over to Dennis, the first started touching up his makeup, and the second said, "Is there anything you need before recording the segment? Mel said to remind you he's looking for about 4 pre-recorded minutes for this segment, plus spontaneous live questions from the station in about an hour."

The odd spindly clown is nowhere to be seen.

EDIT: Meanwhile, the elephant's trainers desperately work to keep it contained and calm it down.

EDIT 2: ((If you need a suggestion for a news topic, you could always pick "Enraged Elephant nearly massacres masses!"))
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:26, Sun 09 Oct 2022.