"Bad dog," Ozzy growls as one of the beastpeople comes at him. His instincts scream at him to just pop the thing in the throat and move onto the next one, but Ozzy fights the bloodlust and tries to grab the creature instead, choking it into unconsciousness while trying to keep away from the others' claws and fangs.
Anton weilds the Kneecapper more like bunting in streeball back in the day, using it to shove beastmen away and out of the fray, clearing a path for the rest of the group.
Valorous Sword policy when it comes to dealing with panicked crowds of near-incoherent individuals is to stand firm, raise shields, and call for the crowd to please calm down and disperse. The standard procedure for Oswald von Bruckenheimer when dealing with panicked crowds of any sort - especially beast-people - is to start tossin' folks what get in his way. Valorous Sword squads often are overrun by panicked crowds. Ozzy is not.
Ozzy and Anata lead the way, Anata deftly redirecting the frantic momentum of the beast-people charging her way while Ozzy just throws them the fuck out of his way. The rest of the team follows close behind, fending off freaks. One possum-man gets through the group and climbs up Anton's face for a moment, but the enforcer's time as a...club of ill-repute's bouncer goes to good use as he punches and punts the possum-man off his face and into the crowd.
Once at the barricades, Ozzy reaches up to start to climb while Anata...tries to jump for a handhold, but then resigns herself to getting a boost from Lucius. Not a second goes by before both Ozzy and Anata get a rap on the knuckles from what feels like a broom stick. "Go on! Git! Try that again and you'll be missin' digits!" a female voice shouts from the other side.
"Ma'am!" Martin shouts. "The hostilities seem to be abating with the beastman in full rout, so if you would briefly refrain from visiting violence upon my friends, we would have words with you!"
"Well Hell!" the female voice says from the other side, and a log gets pulled down from the other side - revealing a very tall woman holding the log in her arms. She must be at least seven feet tall, and built like the log she's carrying single-handedly. "Why didn't you say -" But before anything else can be said, she spots Martin, tail flicking as he nervously looks around for any further attackers. "Nope!" she says, and moves to put the log back in place.
"Ma'am!" Martin calls out, "I implore you to put aside your preconceived notions and such! Ill-suited as my current visage is to the circumstances, I assure you that it is the result of a tryst with a Rakasta and in no way related to the dark bargain the Descoteaux struck with the forces of darkness! Ask yourself, do my words ring of the beastmen and their animal instincts, or do you recognize the reasoning mind behind them?"
The log pauses, then moves back away from the gap. The woman looks down through the hole she's made at Martin. "Ain't no Descoteaux ever said something that elaborate in their entire consarn'd lives, beast-man or not."
"Thank you, Ma'am," Martin says, not being able to quite help himself just staring up at her. "My name is Martin, these are my friends Anata, Renard, Oswald, Lucius and Anton. With your leave, we would like to join you on the other side of the barricade and engage in further constructive dialogue on current matters and events from behind the safety of said fortification."
"Yeah, yeah, come on, then," the woman says, and steps aside.
----
Beyond the barricades, it looks like nearly every other small farming community, if it was dropped into the middle of a war. Huge log barricades surround the settlement, with the few families that live and work here wearing ramshackle armor and running about, dealing with small fires and repairing the barriers. Four houses aside from the main barn and work structures imply four families, with one house in particular noticeably taller than the others, complete with huge doors and windows. It seemed odd from the outside that the villagers could erect such strong barricades so quickly, but now that you see the woman that, if her barked orders are any indication, is the leader of this little community, it makes a lot more sense. Those of you with a good amount of life experience outside the city (everyone but Martin and Anton, then) know a half-giantess when you see one, but Red just knows her as "Auntie Cia", the huge woman that brought him and Beau back to the manor house more than once by the scruff of their necks after their latest misadventure.
Anton may not have seen a leader among the beastmen, but it's instantly clear who's in charge on the other side of the barricade. A few months before, a woman as large as her would have been the strangest thing Anton had seen in a week. Now...he shrugs to himself. More important things.
"Couple hours," the half-giantess says, dropping the log back into place and dusting her hands off. "Ain't nothing we couldn't handle for a little bit, but then there was more and more and they just kept comin'...it was gonna get bad until you folks magic'd up that illusion and put the fear in 'em."
"Fear's the word o' the day and make no mistake," Ozzy cuts in. "Somethin' dessicated their old house out there, and it's taken hold... somehow. That's as best as I can put it. I don't think these beastmen are mucking about entirely of their own choice. You know anything about that?"
The half-giantess nods. "Makes sense now that you mention it. Lots of screamin' and cryin' for folks that want to tear us apart - but I didn't recognize any of 'em as Descoteaux, either." She closes her eyes and sighs. "Recognize a fair few as locals, though. Farmers, traders, folks from Placerville. Folks that went missing in Descoteaux raids."
"You got any live ones?" Ozzy asks. "I been outta school for a while, but mebbe there's somethin' we can look at, run your thing" - Ozzy points to Martin - "up against their thing and see what's different and what's the same, if anything is. Mebbe it gives us somewhere to look."
"Maybe," the half-giantess says.
"Maybe you have one?" Lucius asks.
"Oh, we got one, flapped his way over the wall," she says, then gestures to a roughly person-shaped hole in the barn. "I punched him pretty hard, though."
"And I'm sure that is quite hard indeed," Martin offers. "Still, whatever his current health may be, a close look might be educational if we are to find out what happened to these people and how to revert the changes."
"Alright, Martin, take someone with you, in case the guy's still standing," Red says, nodding. "Rest of us should see to keeping that barricade up - reinforcing sections, putting out fires..." His brow furrows. "How did the fires start, Auntie? One would think it'd be the beastmen, but they don't seem to like it much, even if they had the patience to start one."
Admiral Duck Sauce
