<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Lustiel sang, and things worked gloriously, at least at first.  She stood at one end of the common room singing and the succubus danced at the other end, each attracting audiences of their own.  Her music soothed the hearts and minds of her little group of fans, while the sight of the rival performer's body was enough to inspire her group to a frenzy.  Peace and Passion, Harmony and Dissonance, Chaos and Order...  Two opposite sides of the scale were nonetheless fit together into a single room, a true act of incredible performance which would see both singer and dancer talked about for years to come by those who were in the common room on that night.<br/><br/>And then, abruptly, things... shifted.  The delicate balance that had been maintained between demon and devil was suddenly tipped strongly towards the succubus, and the gylou couldn't help but have her voice falter as she scanned through the crowd that was deserting her, seeking urgently to find out what had gone wrong, how the scales could have so drastically tipped out of her favor.<br/><br/>Discovering the Enchantment effect at work upon the crowd was child's play.  Similarly, the devil had no difficulty at all in identifying the specific spell that had the crowd so enthralled with the demon, as she knew quite well how the Enthrall spell worked.  She had missed seeing the succubus cast it, of course, but considering whom everyone was suddenly paying attention to now, could there be any doubt as to who the caster was?  The gylou's faltering voice stopped as her face twisted into an open expression of rage for a few moments, anger flaring up white-hot within her before suddenly going ice-cold.  This was how she was going to play it, then?  Outright theft of the audience via mind-affecting spells?  Very well then, so be it.<br/><br/>"Ladies and Gentlemen, please excuse the interruption,"  Lustiel spoke up, her expression perfectly calm once more as she bowed apologetically to the small handful of people that had managed to resist the demon's charms.  "I'll be back shortly, but at the moment, I need to go knock some sense into someone."<br/><br/>And with that, she briefly stepped away from the table, walked over to the nearest member of the audience that the succubus was holding in rapt attention towards herself, and hit that person in the back of the head with one of her tentacles.  Then, turning back around, she headed back to her previous spot and spent a few moments observing her handiwork.<br/><br/>Enthrall was a powerful and far-reaching effect, but the hold it established upon its captive audience was a tenuous one, at best.  The spell was broken if even a single member of the audience was attacked or otherwise treated in a hostile manner, and after that, realizing quite thoroughly how their minds had been manipulated, the audience thus gathered tended to turn ugly.<br/><br/>Returning to her own singing, Lustiel saw no problem in allowing Astarotte to enjoy the full attention of the hostile mob that she had gathered around herself.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">OOC<br/><br/>DC 25 Sense Motive to notice that the crowd is under an Enchantment effect, auto-succeeded.  DC 22 Knowledge (Arcana) check to notice that the effect they're under is an Enthrall spell, also auto-succeeded.  One attack and damage roll to hit an opponent who was probably not expecting an attack, and was thus flatfooted. (1d20+27=36, 1d6+8=11)<br/><br/>One Perform (Sing) check. (1d20+28=41)</div></div></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>Though one might have expected the Bearded Reaver to be furious at being snubbed, though one might think that the other bidders might be inclined to glare daggers (and throwing axes and javelins and other implements of grisly violence), in fact, in this, it seems letting go of the spell seems to have worked to Astarotte's advantage as her audience turns to one another, discussing her performance with open admiration, awe, and, of course, lust.<br/><br/>Left to work her magic on the scholar, the young man looks like he's on the verge of making a rather embarrassing mess of himself the closer Astarotte draws to him, his wits utterly scattered. It takes him a moment to find his voice as he fusses unnecessarily with his glasses, blinking up at her as if this must have been a dream, as if she were a wet dream incarnate.<br/><br/>"I- ah- I think I'd be able to say better if you let me have a feel-" he manages, surprisingly- so surprisingly, in fact, even he looks a little startled that he managed to find the words to say.<br/><br/>But before the conversation can go any farther, across the room, a certain devil lashes out, laying low the unfortunate that happened to be closest within her reach: the kobold. For better or for worse, the blow knocks him insensate, leaving him on the floor, toppled as blood pools from the wound. He's not on death's door, but he's certainly down (though there's no doubt that the positive energy that infuses the plane will soon leave him whole again).<br/><br/>Before Kallian can really start to dig into even the surface thoughts around her, only beginning to detect the intelligence of those around her, something seems to ripple through the crowd again, the harm dealt to the kobold jolting them to realization as the last of Astarotte's enchant shatters violently, rather than fades.<br/><br/>The first sign that something has gone wrong for Astarotte is the look in the young man's face changing, shifting slowly from something very like worship to confusion... then to hurt and hostility. "You - you cast a spell on me, didn't you?"<br/><br/>He isn't the only one. Suddenly, though the succubus still commands the majority of the patrons' attentions, it's no longer quite such a positive thing as it was only a moment ago. It's going to take some fast talking or some quick thinking to get out of this one...<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide</div><div class="spoiler_body">Dracorion, feel free to let me know which NPCs you want to know the intelligence scores of.</div></div>