Zafflebrod's College and Preparatory School for the Magically Inclined

[5a Violista]

[Hedge Maze]

"But I did tell you to r- " Red is cut off and falls to the ground.

The beast had leaped out of the hedges and bit down onto her leg. It begins to drag her back to the mists, away from the rainbow portal.

If Charlotte managed to touch the swirling rainbow lights, she is immediately carried off to the waiting room, where she'll see the professor, everyone who finished (just Freddie and two or three other people) and everyone who failed and either cried or screamed.

[Hyperbolic sine]

Spoiler

Show

"Because you'll get kicked out faster than a malicious mastermind if you burnt down an entire building, idiot. There are people in this building, hiding in their dorm rooms, they'd all die if they were trapped there by a fire." The volleyball team member reaches out to swat Harold on the head for being an idiot, but the deflecting shield makes her decide it's not worth the effort.

"Just don't do anything dumb. If this is anything about the burrowing mole-pigs, we just have to find the queen and squish her, and the rest will be mop up. We can have someone enchant a few sewing machines to remake everyone's clothes out of this stuff." She picks up her shoulders, stands up straight, and begins marching after Peter determinedly, the rest of them following after her more cautiously.

Meanwhile, within the bowels of the hive, Peter isn't having any luck finding a sprinkler system, and has instead found many wrapped up pouches pulsating in time with the swells and dips of the constant, unending hum the hive is emitting. It seems like every spool-moth in the school is returning to the hive based on the rising volume of the vibrations and extra prevalence of the flying nuisances in the air around him. They don't go after his boxers, instead avoiding him completely.

"What? There's still someone inside? And I'm the idiot?" Harold facepalms himself. He is still clothed, so going into the bulding probably isn't wise, and he has no intention of undressing...seems like this time he can't do anything but spectate. Wait, maybe there is something he can do...

"Take this with you" he says, pulling out from his pocket what does seems to be a coin, with runes inscribed and weakly pulsing with magic, and throwing it to one of the volleyballers. "When you find someone rub this with your hands, and I'll get them out of there. Just don't lose it.". "Same if you are in dire straits and need a way out" he adds, winking. He then watches the girls vanish into the gym.

The coin is nothing more than a beacon: when rubbed, it emits a sort of magic pulse that reaches Harold, letting him know where to open the portal (providing a way out of the building).

[Arkhosia]

[Hedge Maze]

"But I did tell you to r- " Red is cut off and falls to the ground.

The beast had leaped out of the hedges and bit down onto her leg. It begins to drag her back to the mists, away from the rainbow portal.

If Charlotte managed to touch the swirling rainbow lights, she is immediately carried off to the waiting room, where she'll see the professor, everyone who finished (just Freddie and two or three other people) and everyone who failed and either cried or screamed.

Charlotte skids to a stop, glaring in anger.
She stands there, concentrating hard, and raising a hand, then swiftly swinging it downward.
4 silver spears materialize and fling themselves at the beast with amazing speed, about 93 mph, as she darts towards the creature with a titanium spear in her hands.

[Ionbound]

[Dormitories]

Melina looks up and blinks, and her ears fold back briefly in embarrassment

Huh? Oh! No, it's my Mom... her first reply was "what did you do?". I'm just really sick of being blamed for every catastrophe that happens, you know? That's why they sent me here.

She is actually making pretty swift progress: there wasn't all that much to be distributed

Besides, this gives me something to keep busy while waiting for them to get something together and arrange an inter-dimensional... teleport...

she trails off at the end due to a glowing, sparkling, deep-green anomaly that appears and deposits a box on the floor beside her. She looks over at the letter on top of the box

Here's your leather dress, and one for your friend. We'll send the rest later.

P.S. Uncle Max says to tell her she's quite pretty

Adrian looks at the anomaly and says, "Heh...Cool. Let me go find something to wear. I'll be right back," as she starts running down the hall towards her room.

[Fenric]

[Dormitories]

Melina holds up the second dress as Adrian runs off

But... eh... whatever.

and she gets dressed in the soft suede dress from the box, frowning as she does.

I really hate the smell of leather.

[5a Violista]

[Hedge Maze]

The silver spears hit the beast hard enough to apparently cause it pain. It makes an angry noise and releases its biting grip on Red (who has, as of yet, refused to cry out). As Charlotte approaches it with the titanium spear, it backs off and retreats back into the mists and bushes, where it can't be seen.

Red's leg and dress might be pretty torn up. The lighting here is bad enough to be unable to tell the extent of the injury. However, possibly surprisingly, there's no blood pooling on the ground (or even any blood visible on her leg: just clear saliva). "Okay, good job," she says, pushing herself up on her arms, then trying to force herself standing. "It's gone now; go into the finish."

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker

"I appreciate this, Tabby," Jill says. The inside of the school lockers are big enough to fit two people, even if only for an hour or two. Tabitha chose to sit out this particular disaster, and Jill managed to talk her into sharing it since Jill's locker is elsewhere.

Tabitha nods. "Yeah, after the last incident, I'm not in the mood to risk another clothing set. Hopefully those bugs don't get into my dorm..."

"I hear that. You lucked out, though! Wings!"

"This is after the faculty removed the extra eyes, the horns and bony crest, and shrunk me back down to normal size!"

"...At least you didn't need to get new pants, huh?"

[Shadowcaller]

Tabitha's Locker

In a flash of bight light a tiny purple d6 appears on the floor. It looks innocent enough but appears to be carrying a rather complex enchantment, so complex it's impossible to tell what exactly it is.

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker

"Uh... is that common?"

"...more so than you would think, but not in my locker."

Jill reaches down and picks up the dice. "Don't you play games that use this kind of thing?"

"You mean ones that use d6es at all, or ones based on d6es, or just dice in general?"

"...the games club really has a lot of variety, huh?" Jill states idly, rolling the dice onto the floor.

43.

"That's a lot of dots... I't probably enchante-AUGH" the dice streaks up Jill's nose, and she tumbles back in surprise and pain.

[Deathkeeper]

Tabitha's Locker

Tab and Jill ended up waiting quite a while after the incident subsided, so there is a plot-clone available for Isaac. A knock knocks at Tabitha's locker door.
"Hey, Tab you in there? Haven't seen you for hours, you okay?"

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker

"Are the bugs gone?"

"THIS HURTS!"

"I didn't hear the PA go off."

[Deathkeeper]

Tabitha's Locker

There's a sigh.
"Tabitha, the school didn't actually ever tell anyone about the bugs, and only said anything at all by the time they'd built a nest and gotten into most of the campus. Do you think they'll get to announcing the end of it within three days of it actually happening?"

[Slii Arhem]

[Teachers' Bunker]

"Very well. The main objective would be trying to discover exactly what it is. What we know is that it's a magical power source of great power, but it is also unstable. Attempts to channel its power for destructive ends frequently result in disaster and unforeseen consequences...and it's potentially linked to a deity from which Commander Vyrn Altaran may or may not be descended from, to hear his theory on the matter. It did seem to react to him once, and what we have managed to glean says it is somehow incomplete," N'alae explains as she retrieves the artifact in question from that pouch at her side.

It's your cliche magic crystal, really, except rough and uncut-looking, none of that brilliant nice-looking gem nonsense, black in coloration. If any of the mages about decide to do some detect magic type thing on it, it does indeed have an immense amount of power within. Meanwhile keen observers may note that that armor doesn't seem to be hampering manual dexterity very much. ...Or at all.

"I suppose you could try to probe for metaphysical connections? A secondary objective would be discovering how to tap into it safely, but discovering its true nature is the priority here."

Teacher's Bunker

"We'll have our best pair of resonance experts on it, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to work with something this powerful and dangerous." The teacher coughs into their hand discreetly, "Bit of a death wish on both of them, you know. Not a week goes by where we don't have to hold a funeral for at least one, while the other's always going to claim time to mourn their lost partner. S'lazy is what it is." They shake their head in disapproval.

"Anyway, resonance is a dangerous field, so it only makes sense to attract fellows like that. But they'll have it done no matter how often it kills them." The professor gives a shrug and reaches up for the crystal gently, waiting for N'alae to deposit it in their hand.

Dorms

Isaac sighs and pulls a standard plastic shopping bag out from his emergency stash. He darts forward in an attempt to catch the large beetle inside of it. And then smash it unless Merissa tries to stop him. Smash puny bugs!

Dorms

The bug avoids the bag, but takes the hint to fly off and join the others downstairs in the gym. Annoying things, but they've recently evolved enough of a sense of survival to know when to quit.

Merissa breaks down, quickly collapsing into Isaac and attempting to wrap him up rather thoroughly in her arms, "Oh geeze..." She laughs in hysterical relief, "People are going to talk if you keep having to rescue me like this." The kitten patch will try to do a congratulatory loop around Isaac's clothing, since Merissa has none for it to snuggle into at the moment.

Gymnasium:

Peter's reason for not stopping is much simpler than the Volleyball captain's. "Can't stop! Already running!" It should also go without saying he's making no promises on that "don't do anything stupid" remark.

He does eventually slow down as he realizes more and more how hard it's going to be to find a fire alarm. Can he even reach the wall through all this silk? Testing it himself he picks a spot of the wall without what is likely huge bulging larval pods about to hatch and and scratches away at the silk to see if he can even peel enough away to reach the wall.

Either way when he finishes, he continues to search through the cocoon at a quick pace. Until he finds something he can actually do, or something else presents itself, it's best to keep moving and look for a new angle than to wait for one come to you.

In the Hive

Well, unless Peter is known for being able to punch through well woven silk bedsheets, touching the wall is going to be a problem. The fabric is springy and stretchy, but doesn't come apart under his fingers.

Though, as he's gotten further in, the buzzing has faded away enough to something bearable, and there is a deep, steady thrumb of something larger moving. All of the bugs he can see are scuttling along on the floor and the silk walls they've made instead of flying, all heading towards the same place.

"What? There's still someone inside? And I'm the idiot?" Harold facepalms himself. He is still clothed, so going into the bulding probably isn't wise, and he has no intention of undressing...seems like this time he can't do anything but spectate. Wait, maybe there is something he can do...

"Take this with you" he says, pulling out from his pocket what does seems to be a coin, with runes inscribed and weakly pulsing with magic, and throwing it to one of the volleyballers. "When you find someone rub this with your hands, and I'll get them out of there. Just don't lose it.". "Same if you are in dire straits and need a way out" he adds, winking. He then watches the girls vanish into the gym.

The coin is nothing more than a beacon: when rubbed, it emits a sort of magic pulse that reaches Harold, letting him know where to open the portal (providing a way out of the building).

Gymnasium -Outside Hive

((I should clarify, the rooms are above the gymnasium in the building, on the upper floors. There's likely no one hiding in the gym/hive itself, but fire does tend to travel upwards.))

The girl he gives the coin to throws it back as soon as he winks, covering herself with her hands more thoroughly and looking at him accusingly. It's clear that she thinks he was being perverted with that last gesture.

"Look, you came this far, if you're that scared of losing your clothes even though you've got some kind of protection, then just go on and hide in some other building. It's not so strange for people who don't want to be involved to hide in their rooms you know. Geeze." She stomps off, following the rest of her team.

Tabitha's Locker

Merissa, suspiciously straightening her hair and applying a layer of lipstick as she leaves her own locker (out of habit, she keeps her's close to wherever Isaac and Tabitha are currently using theirs) and looks over at Isaac from down the hall with a knowing look, "Did you find her then?"

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker

Tabitha comes out of the locker, followed by Jill. "I've only been here less than a year, give me a break."

Jill, for her part, stumbles out of her locker, takes a deep breath, and ejects the dice out of her nose. It's bleeding, of course, but more importantly, the dice comes up with 34 little dots.

Tabitha's clothes turn to gold.

"Eeevil dice," Jill says, pulling a handkerchief out and stuffing it up her nose. Tabitha is simply shocked.

[Deathkeeper]

Tabitha's Locker

Isaac waves to Merissa as she comes over.
"Yeah, I did and- Poof! What just happened? And what is that?" he says, pointing at the little bloody cube.

Dorms

Isaac is quiet and lets her cry, taking a plastic rain-coat of of his emergency stash and wrapping it around her.
"Well, you know I'll keep doing it, rumors or not. You want to sit tight, or are we taking the fight to them again?"

[Slii Arhem]

Tabitha's Locker

Merissa's eyes go buggy and wide when she sees the effect and the apparent cause, "Oh crap, how did you two manage to stumble across an Artifact while the whole school was in a panic?" Artifacts are covered in most of the beginning courses, and what to do with one if you find it is very clear. Avoid it, handle it carefully if necessary, and give it to a teacher to catalog and possibly destroy.

Naturally, most students ignore these instructions and instead hoard artifacts like they're collectible trading cards (sometimes they are) and pick apart until the faculty inevitably finds them.

"Think we should mess with it? That's a lot of gold Tabby just scored there." Enough to pay for a hundred outfits like the one that just got engoldened.

Dorms

Merissa sniffs, but smiles through it, "No, let someone else handle it this time. This is only embarrassing, not a real threat. I just want to get to my locker and get some new clothes on." She pulls back and accepts the rain coat, donning it for whatever good it'll do to cover her.

"Can you come with me? I'd kind of like the company, and you're pretty handy in a pinch too." She giggles again, her smile letting him know she's not trying to tease.

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker


Tabitha quickly winds up on her hands and knees.

"Yeah, agreed, help me back into the locker, I need new clothes."

Jill looks at Tabitha and blinks. "Is that-that's g- I mean that's interesting." She reaches down and picks up the dice again.

[Deathkeeper]

Tabitha's Locker

Isaac chuckles and helps either Tabitha up or drag her into her locker, depending on is she can move at all.
"If you're nervous Jill we can handle it. My bloody noses don't last as long." he says good-naturedly. After all, it's made gold and all it costed so far was a bloody nose? Seems pretty uneven for the positive so far.

Dorms

Isaac puts an arm over Merissa's shoulder.
"Of course. Let's go, the closest locker is only a few doors down." he says comfortingly.

[Slii Arhem]

Tabitha's Locker

Grinning, Merissa takes the opportunity to showcase both her ridiculous strength and added leverage that her quartet of arms affords her, picking up Tabitha nearly entirely on her own, but still leaving Isaac a bit of room to help her out. Being physically powerful has helped her gain a lot of respect lately, on top of her involvement with the virus mess, and she'll definitely be trying out for volleyball come the fall team rotation.

"Mm, we should probably take turns, and maybe divide up the spoils if that's okay with everyone. Could be some risk to all of us, but if we can figure it out the rewards should be plenty." Plenty more than a bunch of gold thread? Now Merissa's just getting greedy.

Dorms

She stares at him oddly before remembering that he's very new to the school, even though he seems to have adapted so well, "Uh, all the lockers are in the class building, Isaac. But the skyway's on this floor, so I guess you're kind of right." She points down the hall towards the skyway, though it's off around a corner from them.

[Darkcomet]

[Teachers' Bunker]

N'alae tilts her helmeted head to the side as if something seemed confusing to her, but hands over the artifact anyway. "We'll send a check. Any further questions? I should probably take my leave before something else happens in here."

Like if a bunch of students with a weird artifact caused some other random improbable catastrophe.

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker

Tabitha is hauled back into the locker. It's fairly standard, if with less clothes than is normal in lockers. Mainly just emergency changes, and gaming books.

Girl likes RPGs.

There's also a minifridge, a smaller locker, a bedroll, and an alarm clock... It's almost like Tabitha could live out of here if she really wanted to.

...You know, last time finals rolled around, no one saw her in the dorms for a while...

Tabitha looks at Merissa. "This is awkard, but... could you help me get these off? They're heavy."

Jill sits down on the floor. "Someone get out a notebook! I'm going to roll it again!"

81. The four present are suddenly stricken with a compulsion to partake in a choreographed dance scene.

...in Tabitha's locker.

[Deathkeeper]

Dorms

Isaac shakes his head. "Close enough. C'mon, let's go." he says, starting to lead her in that direction...

Tabitha's Locker

The Die settles quietly onto the floor. A mighty chord reverberates through the locker!
DUN!
Isaac's head snaps up! Everyone's does! Music, still from nowhere swells! Everyone will, for a mighty, triumphant moment, know the words and moves to the single greatest dance routine in the history of magic-related dance routines!
With fiery passion, they take the first step-
And Isaac trips over the Die, falling flat on his face next to Tabitha, who probably didn't move much if she wasn't out of her heavy clothes by now.
The die lands on a 63, growing a bright yellow sunflower next to it, as if in mockery of the botched dance, which suddenly is gone from the air and their minds...

[Slii Arhem]

Dorms

Merissa and he will make it there, the halls being completely clear of bugs and people now. Everyone is either hiding somewhere, heading to fight the gym-hive for their clothes back, or taking advantage of the mandatory nudity to try to get in some people-watching.

Once they make it to the nearest unoccupied locker, Merissa will look at Isaac calculatingly, as if trying to judge something or get her courage up. Finally, she unlocks the portal to her lockerspace and swings it wide open, stepping back and raising an eyebrow.

"This is probably really blunt and forward of me, but you're pretty attractive, really brave, and a better guy than I ever thought would hang out with me. It feels pretty stupid to be saying this now, but do you want to head inside and maybe make out until all this is over?" Yup, blunt and forward describes that perfectly Merissa. Have fun digging yourself that hole!

Tabitha's Locker

After the aborted dancing is done, Merissa plucks the growing flower from the floor and tosses it aside, "Okay, no one toss this thing until Tabby is in new clothes. In fact." She leans over again and plucks it up, holding it tightly in one hand.

"Isaac, mind going to the washroom real quick? Jill and I can get Tabby undressed, and then we'll start this up again once she's decent." Assuming this is all done, they should be ready to roll again, and it'll be Merissa's turn this time.

She'll roll vaguely in Isaac's direction, since she's eager to keep trying it out and is facing the adjoining bathroom when she rolls.

((Lost, you can roll for her and describe the result in your post, if everything goes as described in my post.))

[Ionbound]

[Dormitories]

Melina holds up the second dress as Adrian runs off

But... eh... whatever.

and she gets dressed in the soft suede dress from the box, frowning as she does.

I really hate the smell of leather.

Adrian stops when she sees Melina hold up the dress, and asks, "Did your family send that for me? Did they...See me? Naked?"

[Fenric]

[Dormitories]

Melina shakes her head

No: just Uncle Max, by the looks of it. And he is...

expletives fail the young girl

He's the sort of uncle people tend to try to avoid admitting being related to. The sort of "That's my crazy Uncle Max" while looking out the window and wishing you could die. Or wishing he would die... or whatever.

[Lost_Deep]

Tabitha's Locker

Assuming that Isaac cooperates...

"Ugh, so embarrassing..."

"Come on, you could look good if you tried! Get some makeup and some clothes that are a bit flattering-"

"Ooor I could spend that on game books."

"It feels good to look good, trust me."

Tabitha is not convinced.

When the group settles down, Merissa rolls the dice, it looks like it's about to roll a 1... and then flops over to 93. The Dice shifts, bubbles, and stands up. A three-inch-tall fairy-like creature, wearing some kind of tabbard and a kilt, with small round insect wings. She looks at the four around her and crosses her arms over her chest.

"An' what are you oafs lookin' at?"

"We're never going to get gold, are we?"

[Deathkeeper]

Dorms

Isaac looks shocked! Completely and utterly shocked! So shocked th-
and now he's moving to kiss Merissa. Whoops. That was fast. Hope she lets that happen.
"That was really forward and blunt of me, but yes. Shall we?" he says after pulling away.

Tabitha's Locker

Isaac sighs at the creature.
"So, you still have artifact powers or do you not know what you were fifteen seconds ago?" he asks the weird fairy thing.

[Slii Arhem]

Not-Dorms-Anymore

And then they'll head into the locker and occupy themselves until one or both of them decides they should probably try to find and help Tabitha a few hours later!

And we'll leave it up to privacy what actually went on back there.

Tabby's Locker

Trying to expand on that a bit more, "We were trying to get a pattern from an artifact with a lot of seemingly random effects, and one of them managed to turn it into you. Since we were all watching the artifact, we're now looking at you." Curious, she looks for any sign of the die on the tabard, where an emblem would usually be placed.

[Lost_Deep]

Tabby's Locker

"Well now, let's check!" The little fairy snaps her fingers, and 47 little dots appear on the tabbard, before the wearer grows out of it. At the same time, Tabitha all but shrinks out of her clothes... while what was a fairy until a second ago turns into Tabitha. "Theory confirmed! You lot are terrible researchers, by the by, no one writing anything down."

A three-inch Tabitha fights her way out of her clothes. "What did you do?"

"Snap."

"...What?"

"Snap, girl. You'll see."

Tabitha snaps. Nothing happens.

"...'at's a fluke."

[Deathkeeper]

Tabitha's Locker

Isaac pales. "Uh, crap. I dunno how much is going on here and whether or not we can fix it. I think you got the die powers now? Uh, maybe you should keep trying until we get something more helpful?" this thing is all over the place!