Avalon Academy IC

[Llyarden]

"Oh, cool, we're together again!" Adrien couldn't help but smile at Claire's enthusiasm. How was it possible to be so bouncy and enthusiastic about everything all the time? Whatever the secret that Kelly and Claire shared, Adrien wished he knew it. "Uh, I may not be very good at this, by the way," he admitted, with a kinda embarrassed smile. "But it'll be fun at least!"

Spoiler: OOC

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Team Slow, roll out!

Initiative: (1d20)[1]

[Thokk_Smash]

With a sigh Marcus deposits his duster and staves against the wall. With an effort of will, he conjures a shimmering ball of force around his hand--weaker than it would've been with his staff. Oh, well--just gotta deal with it.

He returns Kelly's high five and begins to do some quick stretches. Once done, he settles into a slight crouch, ready to spring into action once Miss Diamond says 'go'.

Spoiler

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Initiative: (1d20+16)[21]

[Dodgeson]

One by one the active teams each lined up facing their opponents, Anthony, Adrien and Claire found themselves opposite a very serious and athletic looking girl who was eyeing the three balls that were lined up between them like she was ready to pounce along with a boy who whilst looking for more relaxed didn't look like any stranger to a sports field either and also Tansy, who just looked like, so excited you guys.

"Good luck you guys!" She said enthusiastically to basically everyone.

"May the best team win." The boy added, the third member of their little trio choosing to stay silent.

Colin, Kelly and Marcus on the other hand found themselves facing two incredibly nervous looking people, the German boy felt practically naked without his harness and Sheree was about as confident in her ability to play dodgeball as she was about chess. Between them a girl with vibrant red hair was trying to raise there spirits.

"Come on you guys! It's a game, not a wake!"

And then Miss Diamon blew on her whistle and the game was on!

Spoiler: OOC

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Just to answer Quell's question, there are three in each game, they begin play in the middle of the court, first come first served. Picking them up is the same as picking up any other unresisting object, which the SRD tells me a Move Action.

Team 2
Initiative: (1d20+7)[18]
Team 2 are on turn!

Team 4
Initiative: (1d20+2)[9]
Team 3 are on turn!

[Quellian-dyrae]

WHOOSH!

Trailing a streamer of rainbow light, Kelly darted across the field, sweeping up the three balls as she went and passing two of them to her teammates. The third...well.

Kelly...kinda felt bad, seeing how nervous two-thirds of their opponents were. The poor guy had given up a boatload of gear, and she remembered Sheree's evidently consistent lack of confidence from paying attention to everything in home room. Dodgeball could kinda suck if you weren't very athletic just in the general sense. Being pit against a flipping speedster was just kinda unfair.

The tactical play would have been to go immediately for the red-haired girl. A hasted throw would have a good chance of tagging even a superhumanly skilled defender, and the opposing team was still flat-footed. If she could crush that opponent immediately, she could break the morale of the other two, giving her team a dominant edge.

Great strategy for fighting villains. Not for a friendly dodgeball game. Kelly rounded on Sheree, drawing one arm back and taking aim...in a way that kinda badly telegraphed that the throw was coming. And she started moving again as she threw, making herself a harder target for sure, but kinda throwing off her aim. Still, her sheer speed propelled the ball fast - hopefully if she did dodge it she'd feel a bit more confident, having avoided a speedster's throw!

Assuming the throw did miss, Kelly would crinkle her eyes at her. "Darn it! I'll get you next time!" she challenged, but with a laugh to show it was all in good fun.

Spoiler

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Free: Reconfigure Streaming to Flight 6 (Platform, Quirk), Quickness 6, Feature 1 (Pick up and drop off unresisting targets as a free action).

Move+Free: Move to the dodgeballs, sweep them all up as free actions, move to allies, pass two of the dodgeballs off.

Standard: Throw a dodgeball at Sheree, intentionally taking -5 on the attack roll by telegraphing her throw and Defensive Attacking for 2, at (1d20+5)[19]. Intentionally penalizing Damage bonus to that of mundane human strength. Dang, still rolled pretty high. Maybe she's Defense-shifted?

I'll do Aid/Deflect stuff next round assuming these guys like...present enough of a challenge on their turn that I don't feel bad about it.

Current Status: +2 Defense this turn.

[Dodgeson]

The whistle went and all three of Team 2 were of the mark, rushing (or flying Tansy's case) forward to grab the balls, whilst Tansy obviously had a little metahuman help in that department the other two just seemed to be that good and they quickly had all three of them in their possession.

"Man, being able to control foam or something would be really sweet right about now." The Irish boy mused as he tossed the ball between his hands.

"Ooo yeah!" Tansy agreed a few feet off the ground "Or like being able to turn in to a ghost, wait would it count as hitting you even if it went through you? Miss Dia..."

"Just throw them!" The other girl gruffly cut them off and they quickly complied, raining foam-y death down on their enemies.

Spoiler: OOC

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Liam
Move: Move to the ball
Standard: Grab the ball
EE: Attack Anthony (1d20+8)[16] Hit

Samantha
Move: Move to the ball
Standard: Grab the ball
EE: Attack Anthony (1d20+8)[10] Miss

Tansy
Move: Move to the ball
Standard: Grab the ball
EE: Attack Adrien (1d20+6)[18] Hit

[OutOfThyme]

As Colin caught the ball tossed by Kelly, he glanced at the other three on the opposite side of the court. He felt a little bad for Sheree, given her apparent lack of confidence, but given how good she actually was in chess, she could be just as good in dodgeball.

Instead, Colin turned his attention to the one person that he knew would be on an even playing field as he was: the German classmate who'd given up some sort of electrical harness. Colin tossed his dodgeball up in the air, and grabbed it back in his left hand, before chucking it at Wolfgang's direction.

Spoiler

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Standard Action: Attack(?) Wolfgang! (1d20)[11]

[zzzzzzzz414]

Claire waved enthusiastically to Tansy as they got in position, then focused. Alright. Game time! They were with their friends, they had taken on a big scary Eldeff thing together so this was definitely going to be a fun and exciting and heart-pounding and oh her teammates had been immediately eliminated.

"O-oh jeez," they muttered as the other team's dodgeballs hit their marks.

Panicking just a little (the fact that the other team now had no means of attacking had temporarily slipped their mind), Claire grabbed at the closest dodgeball and hurled it at their closest target (The tall boy with the brown hair) as quickly as they could.

Spoiler: OOC

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Move Action: pick up a dodgeball within reach. (I assume there is at least one as I don't think we were super spread out but if not I'll change the post.)

Standard Action: All out Attacking for +2/-2.

Ranged Dodgeball attack against Liam: (1d20+2)[9]

[Thokk_Smash]

Marcus winced as the two least-confident players on the other team got conked and bonked and summarily knocked out without a chance to throw. ~"Boy, it's gonna be embarrassing when you're the only one to miss your throw, Boss,"~ Barty remarks cheerfully.

~"A.) shut up, and B.) stop taking my lines,"~ Marcus mutters in his own head as he spins the foam dodgeball between his hands. Juking one way and going the other, he gathers force around his palm and tosses the ball a bit into the air. "Forzare," he says, smacking his palm and the magical energy into the ball. He gives far more focus on aim than power so that the foam ball doesn't actually hurt if it hits.

Spoiler

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Taking a -2 to the attack roll because Marcus doesn't have any magical foci, attacking Gwen: (1d20+6)[15]

[Dodgeson]

Despite their bickering it seemed that Team 2 weren't exactly slouches when it came to dodgeball, with a merciless flurry of foam Claire was suddenly the last girl standing and to make things worse Liam didn't seem to be one of those unfortunate students who relied on some kind of gizmo or trinket to help protect them and the Irish boy easily managed to avoid the ball.

Of course this did leave them with a single ball that was quickly scooped up by Samantha whilst the other two readied themselves for a potential counterattack.

Spoiler: OOC

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Liam
Standard: Ready an action to Catch at (1d20+8)[14]

Samantha
Move: Move to pick up Ball

Tansy
Standard: Ready an action to Catch at (1d20+8)[18]

In contrast to their friends Team 3 were having a much better time of things, they were ones with the 3/1 advantage here. Just like with her chess game earlier, despite her nerves she seemed to know what she was doing as she tried to avoid Kelly's throw, at the very least she'd had training but unfortunately training only meant so much against a speedster and the foam ball bounced off her face.

Her teammate didn't do much better, while it was true that both Colin and Wolfgang were at a disadvantage when denied the use of their equipment but this was dodgeball and in the eternal battle between jock and nerd the German boy was never going to comes off better. Even though she managed to survive the bombardment Gwen wasn't looking particularly confident, she had planned to bring her particular powerset to bear but without any allies it was pretty pointless.

Instead she went for the more mundane option and just scooped up one of the balls, hurling it at Marcus.

Spoiler: OOC

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Gwen
Move: Pick up a ball
Standard: 'Attack' Marcus (1d20)[6]

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly bit her lip as her throw hit despite how badly she telegraphed it. Oops. And Gwen's return throw wasn't...exactly impressive. At this point, drawing the match out would just be painful.

Casting their lone remaining opponent an apologetic look, Kelly zipped over to the ball she had thrown and hurled it back with minimal force, but incredible speed. You'd think the two would be mutually exclusive, but the relationship between supers in general and speedsters in particular with the laws of physics could best be summed up as a sustained belly laugh and a condescending pat on the head. She took the time to actually aim rather than throwing on the run, leaving her a bit more open but...it wasn't super-likely to matter, even if she did miss.

Spoiler

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Move+Free: Zip over and pick up the ball.

Standard: Throw at Gwen, again diminishing the Enhanced Damage rank. All Out Attack for 2. (1d20+14)[34]. ...I...I think we win.

[zzzzzzzz414]

Spoiler: Status

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HP: 1
Current Status: -2 to Defense

Claire bit her lip as the irish boy dodged their throw almost effortlessly. They...were probably not winning this match. Still, they were not out yet, and if there was one thing a hero was supposed to have, it was determination! Well, um, better aim was probably higher on the list, but determination was still very important from what they could tell.

Claire quickly scooped up the other ball within reach, tossing it as hard and fast as possible in Samantha's direction and throwing themselves just a tad off balance in the process.

Spoiler: OOC

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Move Action: Pick up the dodgeball.

Standard Action: All out Attacking for +2/-2.

Ranged Dodgeball attack against Samantha: (1d20+2)[20]

[Dodgeson]

It wasn't particularly dramatic, how could it be with foam balls, but Kelly's throw burst through whatever defences the red haired girl possessed and bounced off of her signalling the end of the match.

"Good game." she congratulated her opponents before she headed off the field to join her teammates, obviously not taking the game as seriously as some people were "Now you guys have got to win, if we only lose to the winners then we won't look as bad."

Team 3 wins!

She might have been outnumbered but Claire obviously wasn't going down without a fight, despite the best efforts of Liam and Tansy to intercept her throw the ball hit her target and Samantha slunk off to the edge of the playing area grumbling to herself but consoled by the fact that the other two members of her team were still standing.

"Wow! You're doing great!" Tansy cheered on her friend, even if they were on different teams she felt a little bad that she was the only one left on her side. Snatching up the two balls that were now on their side of the pitch the two remaining players launched them at Claire.

Spoiler: OOC

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Liam
Standard: 'Attack' Claire (1d20+8)[25]

Tansy
Standard: 'Attack' Claire (1d20+6)[26]

[Dodgeson]

It didn't take much longer for the first round of matches to come to an end with a shrill blast from Miss Diamond's whistle and the players shuffled around to their next game. What followed wasn't exactly as flashy as you might expect from a series of dodgeball games between children with superpowers but bar William's telekinesis not many of them seemed to have powers that were exactly applicable.

"Good game everybody!" Miss Diamond said as the last game came to a conclusion, and she started to gather up the balls that were scattered around the gym.

"Now I promised afterwards I'd have some exciting news for you and here it is! Now we're still working out all of the details but this year Avalon is going to be hosting the first ever inter-school sports competition alongside the St Ambrose School for the Extraordinary! Now taking part isn't going to be mandatory but I think that it'd be really great if everybody could get involved."

Miss Diamond would wait to see if anybody had any questions before sending everybody off to get changed back in to their uniforms, a fairly uneventful process for almost everybody...

Spoiler: Marcus

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Somebody's left a note in your shoe "We need to talk" you recognised Morgan's hand writing immediately and a small enchantment on the paper imprinted a location of your mind, it was a train station in the town not far from the school.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"You too!" Kelly called back cheerily, high-fiving her teammates again.

Once the games were all over, Kelly got a big grin on her face. Inter-school sporting competition with St. Ambrose sounded super fun! She was totally down for that!

It was with a little sigh that Kelly went to change back into her uniform. One might notice she did not do so at super-speed.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Oh! Thank-"

And then Claire was pelted with two foam dodgeballs at once before they could finish their reply to Tansy's encouragement.

"-oof. Um, well, congratulations!" And they walked back to rejoin their teammates and get ready for the next match, giving the other team two thumbs-up.

The other games went...similarly, for them at least. Pretend strength powers weren't really that applicable to the dodging or throwing of balls, as it turned out, and messing people up with psychic powers was unnecessarily risky and also like, very impolite probably. Still, this was fun! Well, except for the match against William. Claire spent most of that one trying to figure out if he was attempting to mind-read them again, and consequently was eliminated within the first seven seconds.

Claire's eyes lit up when Miss Diamond mentioned the inter-school competition. "Oh! Um! When will it be? How many students will be coming over? And um what sort of events will there be, will there be uhm, American sports or only British ones or completely new ones?"

Once Claire got their answers (if any), they proceeded back to the dorms, once again only lowering their mental defenses once they were well away from William. They still didn't know quite what was going on with him but they didn't like it.

[Thokk_Smash]

Marcus grimaces when his throw misses its mark. Granted, they still win the match, but no thanks to him. Still, he grins and high-fives Katie and Colin and roots on the others when they play.

At the lockers, he noticeably stiffens up for a moment when bending down to get his shoes. He takes a bit longer to change back into his uniform than before, and by the end he's leaving the locker room gripping his stomach and scowling. To Ms Diamond, he says, "I'm not feeling well; could I stop by the nurse's office?" It's fairly apparent that he's not truly ill, but also apparent that there is something bothering him greatly--it could be his stomach, it could be something else.

[Dodgeson]

"Well we're still working out some of the details but hopefully it's going to be a mix of good old-fashioned athletics and some brand-new events that wouldn't be possible with normal athletes. Won't that be exciting?" Miss Diamond explained cheerily to Claire before turning her attention to Marcus. It was difficult to tell whether she was buying his claims of illness or not, diamond wasn't exactly the most expressive of materials but still it was only his first day, and she didn't want to discount the effects that home sickness could have on a new student so she was willing to let it slide this time.

"If you're not feeling well you can go see one of the matrons and we'll see what they say okay? Everybody else we're going to the library to get you all signed up."

Leaving Marcus behind Miss Diamond ushered the students across campus and to the school's library, a grand looking apart from the others with large stone steps guarded by regal looking stone lions leading up to heavy wooden doors.

"Did that just blink?" Samantha asked warily as she passed one of the statues, instinctively reaching for something inside her blazer before she caught herself and decided better of it.

Inside row after row of tall bookcases were spread out across three floors (height wasn't so much of a concern when most of your student body had some kind of movement power) with tables scattered about for study along with a number of rooms off to the sides that could be used for study. At a desk at the front a shiny metal figure in a tailcoat and bowler stood behind a desk.

"Good morning Miss." It said in a tinny voice, pausing for a second, its gears audibly ticking over as it searched its databanks for the teacher's identity "Diamond. How may I be of service today?"

"This is the Brass Librarian, he runs things around here around. Pretty cool right? If you're ever having trouble finding something you can just ask him. Before we get going again we're going to make sure each of you has a student card and give you a little bit of time to have a look around and familiarise yourself with the library, so if you'd each like to come up one at a time."

As each student approached the librarian stared at them for a moment, gears inside its head casing whirring and ticking over, before extending one arm and producing a small plastic card that had their name and a long barcode on from on slot in its arm.

"If you lose that you wont be able to take out anything from library so be careful with it." Miss Diamond reminded the class "Now feel free to have a look around, the Board Game Society meets here on Wednesdays too."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly cast Marcus a concerned look, but he didn't seem to be making a big deal of the matter so she let it lie. Although it kinda sucked that the wizard was going to miss the trip to the library. Well, whatever, it wasn't like he wouldn't have the opportunity to go there plenty during the year.

She glanced at the allegedly-blinking statue when Samantha pointed it out. It wasn't blinking now but...she kept an eye on the statuary afterwards nonetheless. She gave a little laugh when Miss Diamond introduced them to the Brass Librarian. That was cool.

Kelly filed into line with the other students (she didn't use super-speed to hard-dibs the front, that would be rude). Once she had her card, off she went with rainbows trailing behind her. Truth was Kelly wasn't the most avid reader, but she was pretty disciplined about her studies. She didn't really go looking for anything in particular - rather, she was just using her super-speed to browse the book titles. All of the book titles. It'd be potentially useful for future research.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Um...feel better soon!" Claire called back to Marcus as the rest of the class continued onwards to the library. They turned away with a small frown; he...didn't seem sick? But he definitely didn't seem okay either. Had something gone wrong?

It was hard for them to stay worried when they got to the library, though. Claire's head swiveled rapidly back and forth as they tried to take everything in. So many books! So much stuff to know! Possible solutions to their problem and maybe some kind of explanation about those weird memories from before and maybe a way to learn magic! This was...well when you got right to it, the whole reason they'd stayed here instead of just failing the entry exam on purpose.

Claire eagerly accepted the card and was about to delve headfirst into the labyrinth of books when they heard Miss Diamond mention a Board Game Society and pulled a U-Turn right up to her. "Wait there is a board game society? Um, when do they meet, and how do you sign up and do they have any membership requirements and can you bring your own games?"

Once she'd answered, Claire turned her sights on the metal librarian, zipping over to the desk and leaning over it. "Excuse me! Um, hello, thank you veryvery much for the card um Miss Diamond said that you could help us find things and um I do not really know how the library is laid out yet so um," they pulled their phone out of their pocket, preparing to take notes, "I was wondering if you could tell me where the books on magic are located? Oh and also, um, psychic powers? Oh, and fairies, if there are any books on them! And um, "echomancy" if there is a book about that, and America, and the dungeon underneath the school and the creature who is at the bottom of it and, uhm,"

Claire hesitated for a moment, biting their lip as the unsettling and alien memories surfaced once again. "...parallel universes?"

They noted down whatever answers the librarian was able to give before zipping off into the forest of shelves, starting their quest for knowledge with the arcane arts by pulling and skimming the...less threatening-looking books on magic (and especially any about how to tell if you *were* magical, if Claire could find any).

[OutOfThyme]

Colin was excited and nervous at the idea that there was going to be a competition between Avalon and St. Ambrose. On the one hand, it meant that he'd get to see more powers, but on the other hand...

Well, he'd be under a lot of pressure to perform well. There was no way that Gramps wouldn't be invited to the sports competition.

--

Colin raised an eyebrow when Samantha pointed out the apparently-blinking stone cat. He was a little curious about the stone guardian, and gave the one on the left a quick pat as he walked in.

Hopefully, it was a friendly magical stone cat. Or just a regular stone cat. Any kind of stone cat that wouldn't take out his hand, really.

--

Once inside the library, and after accepting his card, Colin began to dig around the library, looking for books that might work for his "Artifacts" class. Maybe an Artifice for Dummies or Hooked On Artifacts.

He was a little curious about the Brass Librarian - he'd probably be a good person to know, especially since Colin would spend a lot of time in here.

[Llyarden]

"Cool!" Adrien beamed happily when they were introduced to the Brass Librarian. He couldn't help but chuckle slightly at Claire's long list of topics. He had no idea why she wanted to know about psychic powers or magic, but, y'know, points for enthusiasm.

"Board Game Society definitely sounds cool," he nodded, in agreement with Claire, before his expression turned a little more serious as he turned back to face Miss Diamond once everyone else had scattered. "Um, Miss Diamond? I was actually wanting to ask someone about the dungeon - or the goblin market in it, specifically. Is there a...Head of Dungeon Department or something? Mr John -" he assumed that 'John' was the administrator's surname, because when all was said and done he was still a staff member and addressing a staff member by their first name would have been rude "- just said that all the rules about the dungeon were being followed just because they always had been, which doesn't really explain much."

[Dorni]

Anthony paid no mind to Marcus. He was a wizard - he was probably one of those wizards that spent all their time practicing magic and didn't exercise. Although if his health was that bad that the dungeon trip had gotten him sick... well, the school nurse should be able to fix him up.

Anthony waited patiently in line to receive his card. Although, why issue them cards at all? ID cards could be lost or faked. From the way he'd heard this place talked up, Anthony had half expected some kind of id scanner or maybe the Merlin had set up a system for magically identifying students. Maybe that was the point? Like in one of those stories where you were supposed to defend your card while everyone kept trying to steal it? No, that couldn't be. That would be silly.

Once he had his card he started to walk the stacks, but after recognizing the 5th book title that his pod had seen fit to cram into his head he gave up. Sure, there were plenty of books here that his creators hadn't seen fit to cram into him, but he could have done without the constant reminders as he roamed. Instead, he made for a different section of the library. His 'bedtime stories' had been extremely light on fiction stories.

[Thokk_Smash]

Marcus shoots Miss Diamond a grateful smile. He gives Claire an apologetic smile-grimace, and then beats a hasty retreat out of the area. About halfway to the dorms, he forces himself to stop and think. "We need to talk"? He isn't her damn errand boy. He isn't some dog she can call to heel. She's the one who abandoned him, so why is he--

Marcus reins in his spiraling emotions with an effort. The Blackstaff, always eager to tap into Marcus' darker feelings, is already in his hand, and he glares at it with petulance. He jams it back into its slot on his backpack and takes a few moments to center himself. Later. Morgan can wait a few hours longer if she really wants to talk.

Spoiler: Dodgeson

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Sorry for the anticlimax, but I realized Marcus would still be a tad pissed at Morgan and not want to go right away.

Taking a few more minutes, Marcus turns and hurries to catch up to the others at the library. The stone lions give him a slight pause. He tentatively reaches out to touch one, and checks it for magic if it doesn't attempt to bite his hand off.

Once in the library, he puts on his best sheepish smile (it gets a lot of mileage with how much his foot goes in his mouth) and informs Miss Diamond that his stomach settled down. He gets his library card and looks around the room with an eager smile. He begins to simply walk down the aisles, running his fingers along the spines of the books, both reading the titles and feeling for any magic.

Spoiler

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In both the case of the stone lion and the books, Marcus is Routining a 26 for Expertise (Magic) in his Acute Detect Magic sense.

[Dodgeson]

The stone lions stoically receive their patting from the two curious boys and graciously decided to leave them with all of their hands intact, maybe Samantha was just imagining things? Of course she wasn't, to Marcus' arcane senses it was obvious that the two statues were inhabited by a pair of guardian spirits, most likely if any serious trouble went down in the library they'd spring in to action but until then they were just happy to troll the occasional student and receive pats.

"You can just turn up after class and I'm sure they'd love to play whatever game you brought." Miss Diamond explained to Claire brightly "Though you do have to be upfront with them if you're a probability manipulator just to keep it fair for everyone else. Oh and if you're playing one of those roleplaying games, magic users aren't allowed to play magic users, apparently it just causes arguments."

And then the girl was off bombarding the Brass Librarian with questions which the mechanical man took in his stride, it was his job after all "Ground floor shelves 6 to 9. First floor shelves 12-13. Ground floor shelves 10-12. [SUBJECT UNKNOWN]. Ground floor shelf 2. Restricted request please consult a member of staff. Second floor shelf 13."

"The dungeon?" Miss Diamond turned her attention to Adrien, she'd been down their once as part of her orientation when she'd taken the job and as far as she was concerned that was one time too many "Well that's really the Magic Department's area of expertise, which I guess means that Mr Merlin would be in charge but I know he's not exactly a...people person, I'm sure there's somebody else in the department you could talk to."

Wandering through the library Marcus would find that the books themselves were all mundane, not that there wasn't any magic to be found, even if you discounted Gwen and Helena wandering aimlessly between the shelves there was a locked door at the back of the room positively layered with magical wards and protection.

Colin would find a shelf dedicated to Artifacts right next to where Anthony would find his fiction books, when you were dealing with things like Fragarach the line between a bedtime story and a historical reference could be razor thin and whoever had decided the libraries layout evidently thought they were being funny.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly came zipping back to the front desk once her perusal of the book titles was complete. She definitely wasn't being driven mildly twitchy by the fact that there was a locked door barring her way from not just an entire section of the library, but what was presumably the most interesting section of the library. Nope. No sir. Why would she or really any hypothetical student that may or may not bear any particular degree of resemblance to her be bothered at all by that?

An-y-wayyy...

Kelly went over to the Brass Librarian (waiting in line if there were still other students talking to him or waiting to talk to him) and when she reached him said, "Hey! Okay, so, question. Do you just know the locations of various books here or like do you know their contents? Like could you tell me what was the fifth sentence on page 247 of The Illuminated Treatise On Metagenetics? And if you do know the contents," waiting for the answer to the question before asking the dependent follow-up? What's that? "Can you like answer specific questions from the books without having to actually look them up? And would those questions strictly be about the content of the books or can you come to independent conclusions based on the information within?Oh and if you can do any or all of that, is it like something you would be happy to do or would it be annoying?"

Granted in Kelly's particular case (and especially considering the brief processing delay there had been retrieving Miss Diamond's name) it would probably be faster to just look up the answers herself. Really she was just curious about how advanced the Brass Librarian's systems were. She probably could have just asked Miss Diamond that, but the Brass Librarian's answers to her questions would, themselves, convey useful information on the subject beyond the content of the answers. So it was worth asking him directly.

[zzzzzzzz414]

As the class was preparing to leave the library, Claire walked up to Miss Diamond again. "Um, excuse me, Miss Diamond? So uh I asked Mr. Brass Librarian if there were any books about the dungeon or the big weird creature we found at the bottom of it during the entry exam and he said it was a 'restricted topic' and to ask a teacher so I was wondering if you knew about it or knew where I could read about it or knew who I should talk to to get permission to read about it?"

[Dodgeson]

The librarian looked at Kelly for a few long moments (that were probably even longer if you were a speedster), inner mechanisms ticking over as it tried to find an appropriate answer to the girl's question "I have a comprehensive knowledge of all books contained within the library and the archives, and I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have Miss." There was another pause as he quite literally shifted gears and accessed the student files "Albion."

"I guess the Dungeon really caught you kid's imagination huh?" Miss Diamond replied brightly to Claire whilst Kelly interrogated the librarian "If it's restricted then I can get you permission for a trip down to the archives, I think we have paperwork for that anyway."

Miss Diamond gave everybody a little bit longer to explore the library before continuing the tour around the school making sure that nobody would have any excuse for being late to lessons, even taking a detour to the far end of the site for a quick introduction the technology centre, a large warehouse style building that housed the more technologically inclined students.

In fact the only place the tour skipped was the magic classrooms, quickly explained away by the fact that Miss Diamond didn't actually know where they were, but she assured everybody that apparently if you were supposed to be there then you would have no problem finding them. Once the tour was over the students were pretty much left to their own devices to settle in and get used to the place they were going to be spending their time from now on.

All in all not bad for a first day.

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For a lot of people Saturday mornings meant long lazy lie-ins or a laid back day of relaxing but for the budding heroes of Avalon Academy it meant one thing, lessons! It wasn't all bad though, they were hero lessons which meant that they were going to be interesting if nothing else and once they were done the new students would be taken in to the nearby town and if everything weant to plan then they'd be able to visit when they weren't studying.

Advanced Phys Ed (Anthony, Claire & Kelly)

The Advanced Phys Ed building wasn't actually too far away from room F which made sense, it was a small squat building which turned out to have a much higher ceiling than it appeared to from the outside that was stocked with far more advanced looking athletic equipment than the other room had. Waiting inside for them was an older looking gentleman hoisted off of the ground by a quartet of spindly mechanical limbs.

"Good morning class." He began addressing the handful in students in front of him "I am Professor Henderson and I will be your teacher for Advanced Physical Education, today will mostly be given over to providing me with a baseline of your abilities which I can then use to create your plan. Now if you can please split yourself in to groups based on powerset, speedsters on one side and bricks on the other.

Whilst the students were splitting up (Tansy and a boy with red hair moved to one side of the room while a girl in a blue leotard emblazoned with a lightning bolt and a boy in a domino mask and a baseball cap with rabbit ears moved to the other) Claire would feel a tap on her shoulder, it was Michelle!

"Long time no see, heard you aced the entrance exam." She said with a grin.

On the brick side of the room the red haired boy took notice of Anthony "You're that guy who topped the entrance exam right?"

Intro to Magic (Marcus)

True to what Miss Diamond had said Marcus had no problem finding the entrance to the Magic Department and it looked exactly how you would imagine it, a heavy wooden door set inside a stone archway covered in swirling arcane symbols that glimmered and danced along the surface with a thick black ring in the centre that acted as a knocker, a knocker that was currently being hammered up and down by a familiar face.

"Come on! Let me in! I'm going to be late for class!" Sheree pleaded with the door as furiously worked the handle in a futile attempted to get it open.

Artifacts (Colin)

For a gathering of wielders of legendary weapons the Artifacts class room was surprisingly plain, it's only real distinguishing feature being a series of blue mats laid out on the floor set out in a square pattern, at the front of the room stood a man with close cut black hair and a girl wearing chainmail.

"Listen up!" The man barked "I'm sure you've heard by now that rooms where combat training takes place are warded to reduce injury, well this isn't one of them! Saint here..." He nodded towards the blonde girl who gave a small wave to the assembled students "...is part of the school's Auxiliary Medical Support so I don't expect to see any holding back!"

Suddenly the door to the door to the room slammed open and an enormous mountain of a girl, at least seven feet tall and covered in stitches, rushed in to the room with a cello case on her back "Sorry I'm late!"

"And who are you?" The teacher glared at the newcomer.

"I'm Conny, I got a transfer her from Advanced Phys Ed? My dad said I could cut loose with my baby in here and nobody would get mad." She replied, patting her case.

"Alright everybody pair up and let's see what you've got!"

The gathered student's started to look around the room and size up their potential opponents, there were two boys with sheathed swords, one tall and stocky and the other short and skinny, the mace wielding Alex who Colin had already met and of course the newcomer and her cello.

Psi Studies (Adrien)

"Settle down class" A woman in a labcoat said in front of the handful of students who had gathered together for their first lesson "Now" She continued, turning around to write the word 'Psionics on the whiteboard behind her "When you see this word what's the first thing that comes to mind?"

Several hands went up and as each one of them spoke the teacher wrote their answers on the board, soon 'Telepathy', 'Telekinesis' & 'Clairvoyance' had joined Psionics. "Now yes those are some of the more obvious applications of those of us with a more active mind but can anyone think of the anything a little more creative?"

[zzzzzzzz414]

Spoiler: Status

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Status: Fatigued+Impaired
Hero Points: 2

Claire strode into the Advanced Phys Ed building with their usual enthusiastic demeanor, though their cheery expression was somewhat undercut by the visible bags under their eyes.

Over the past couple of days, they had joined...practically every student club and organization they could cram into their schedule. And then spent more or less every scrap of remaining time between that, eating, and classes either reading books from the library or exploring the school or trying (quite unsuccessfully) to meet with Merlin. Look, there was just so MUCH to do and find out here and there hadn't been a whole lot of time left over for this "sleeping" thing! Eight hours was SO MUCH TIME, you didn't neeeed to spend ALL of it just lying down, surely? They may have nearly dozed off into a plate of waffles one morning, but now they knew what a "Mount Rushmore" was and most things about it, and that was, by their estimation, a very agreeable tradeoff.

They...WERE beginning to see why this sleep stuff was held in such high regard, though. Claire stifled a yawn as they waved to Anthony, Kelly and Tansy.

The idea of having to give a "baseline of your abilities" (How? Was there a test? What kind? Would he be able to tell they were "faking"?) made them a little nervous, but before they had time to really freak out about that too much, Claire felt a tap on the shoulder, turned around, and a mess of elation and anxiety and dread and guilt flooded their system. It was Michelle! Their best friend! Well, specifically Claire's best friend! The one that she probably had a very deep bond and a bunch of shared experiences with, and that THEY could really only remember little bits of!

"Claire" grinned broadly, masking their nervousness. "Oh! Michelle! Hi! How have you been doing?" Should...should they try to hug her? Was hugging a thing she and Claire did? Or a handshake? Was that too formal? Well I mean from what they could remember of Claire's personality she was kind of formal so maybe that was good? But this was their best friend though so maybe that was weird?

They settled, after a second of hesitation, on offering a high five. It had...worked well so far, after all?

"Oh, um yeah we did pretty well on it I guess, we got to the very bottom through a shortcut some fairies showed us and fought a monster so I guess that was the um highest-value thing it was possible to get? At least I think it was the bottom I mean there was a bunch of it we didn't even see, uhm my roommate said there was apparently a whole magical forest in there! How far down did you go when you applied to the academy, or did you even go down into the dungeon like is there a different entrance exam every year or something, I um didn't do a lot of research beforehand, oh um ahh sorry if you've, um, already told me this before, or something, I'm still having trouble with, remembering some things because of the amnesia from the accident..." "Claire" rubbed the back of their head, a sheepish expression on their face.

Spoiler: OOC

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A Deception roll for the last bit about the amnesia, if it's necessary: (1d20+14)[34]

EDIT: Invoking "What's This?" Complication, taking 1HP and Fatigued+Impaired for curiosity-driven sleep deprivation. Which also means that the 34 Deception roll is now a 32, if that's relevant.

[Quellian-dyrae]

The first week of school went pretty much swimmingly for Kelly. With her super-speed homework and studying were a breeze, so she had plenty of time when classes were done to hang out, meet other students, and take part in various extra-curriculars. She joined a few of the clubs that caught her interest (Gaming, International Society, and Music), made some friends, and chattered, chattered, chattered.

Her reflexive disgust at the blasphemous notion of school on a Saturday was quickly beaten down by the fact that it was a hero class. Specifically, Advanced Phys Ed. She zipped into the APE building a few minutes early, and of course the first thing she did was run up the walls and along the ceiling and back down and outside and up the outer walls and across the roof and back down and inside and then she stopped kinda near the middle of the room and looked around blinking. "...Trippy."

She gave a cheery wave to her two roommates and Anthony when they arrived, and when they were instructed to split up, she went over to the speedster side of the room. "Hey guys!" she greeted the other two speedsters with friendly familiarity (since not everybody can do homework at super-speed naturally Kelly had had a chance to hang out with the other speedsters who could).

Spoiler

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Assuming I have enough, gonna spend some of those shiny new Everybody's Pal successes to declare Kelly's already friends with the other two speedsters.

[OutOfThyme]

Today was finally Saturday. Colin had looked forward to today ever since he'd gotten his schedule. Oh, sure, being in the Academy was a blast, but having a day to cover heroics and finally have the opportunity to go into town?

That was way more than he could ask for. Between schoolwork and joining the Gaming and Art clubs, he'd managed to fill up basically most of his day. He wasn't entirely sure how Claire was managing it, since she'd apparently joined every club.

Still, he was finally excited to meet more Empowered students, besides Alex, who he'd already met. And, as he found out after getting to his Artifacts class, there were two others. Swordsmen, like him, from the looks of things.

Colin was a little excited that he was allowed to go all-out here. He didn't plan on it, but that was definitely welcome. He'd not really had that opportunity since the entrance exam, even considering the Phys Ed classes that were on his schedule.

When the five of them were tasked with splitting into pairs, Colin waved over to Alex. "Alex, do you want to spar?" he asked, not really needing to introduce himself since they'd met earlier.

Once the two of them made their way to one of the blue mats, Colin settled into a two-handed sword stance, with Fragarach flashing into existence only then.

Spoiler: OOC

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Going to make an Assessment on Alex before they start their fight.

Airgetlam, the Silver Arm is currently set to Tuatha Grace, giving Colin Regeneration 5 and Platform Flight 4.

Status: Fine
Hero Points: 1