Avalon Academy IC

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly beamed at the, uh, let's go with elemental as it moved aside, cheering their success with a little "Yay!" and heading further down the tunnel, calling "Bye!" over her shoulder.

When she reached the heavily-fortified door, Kelly regarded it with a bemused smirk for a moment, and then just casually stepped out of the way.

[Dorni]

Anthony just kinda nodded at the giant's retreating back. "Thanks, enjoy your nap."

As for the door... Anthony just looked disappointed more than anything. A barred door. Right. That would stop them. He traded glances with Kelly as she stepped aside. He took a deep, apologetic breath as he drew back his fist and put his whole body behind a tremendous blow!

Spoiler

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Pulverize the door with Mighty Blow! PA 5, Finishing Attack. DC 37 Toughness vs Damage and DC 32 vs Move Object

[Llyarden]

"A secret, huh?" Adrien repeated. Probably not the kind of thing we can take back to Merlin, but might be useful all the same. Then an idea came to him, inspired mostly by the slightly fangirl-y behaviour of the pixie that he'd been talking to. "Tell you what. If you guys tell me the secret you know, and show me and my friends where a way deeper into the dungeon is, then I'll play you a special song, written just for the three of you. How does that sound?"

He fully expected them to haggle him down to either the secret or the way down (it was a market, after all), but there was no sense in not trying for both.

Spoiler: OOC

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Persuasion for bargaining, this time with Attractive added in: (1d20+11)[17]

[Thokk_Smash]

Marcus opens his mouth to reply to Claire, but stops. There's something in her demeanor, her eyes, her voice...she's obviously desperate. For whatever reason, Marcus doesn't know. But he knows he doesn't like to see a friend looking like that, and a female friend even less so.

"Oh, don't give us that 'I know a guy who knows a guy' spiel," Marcus says with a dismissive wave of the hand. He gets closer to the peddler, coming up to his full height. "Although, I do think I have info to trade. When we were coming through the crowd, we heard all sorts of shouts for all kinds of wares. I know for a fact that one of your fellow peddlers is a dirty liar, and that is a good faith tidbit of information for you. If you want to know who said it, and what it is they lied about, well, that'll cost you whatever the little lady beside me wants to know. Do we have a deal, Miss Lethe?"

In his head, Barty chimes in, ~"Making deals with a Fae for Claire, eh, Boss? Figures stepping in for a pretty face would make you deal when finding your mom wouldn't."~ Marcus gives that comment the gravity it deserves by ignoring it.

[OutOfThyme]

Colin couldn't help but get increasingly annoyed at the pixie tugging at his clothing. He could use Fragarach to finally sate the pixie's curiosity - but it would give away his sword's identity, and probably attract more unnecessary attention to himself.

"Could you please stop?" Colin asked, hoping that diplomacy might work. After all, he didn't really want to draw a magical sword - that some of the Fae here may or may not recognize - in a magic marketplace.

Spoiler

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Persusasion untrained, ho!

(1d20)[17]

[Dodgeson]

Anthony & Kelly

BAM!

Whatever the door was made of it and its chains were no match for Anthony's formidable metahuman strength and his blow sent it noisily clattering down the stairs that it was guarding. At the bottom of the stairs the pair would find not only the dented remains of the previous lying on the floor but a series of six statues lining the room, each one was a stone knight in identical heavy armour holding a different weapon, a sword, spear, axe, bow, lance and staff and above each one of them was a hole in the wall leading steeply upwards into darkness.

At the far end of the room was yet another heavy black metal door, though instead of heavy chains or thick wooden planks this one had a strange looking contraption of mechanisms and gears with three empty sockets where a lock would be.


Adrien, Colin, Claire & Marcus

Luckily for Colin it seemed that even a pixie's rabid curiosity could be quelled by Adrien's musical talent as the three pixie's were utterly enthralled by his song. Unluckily for the sword wielder it wasn't just pixies that were attracted to his song and the pair quickly drew themselves a not insignificant audience.

"Deal!" One of the pixie's squealed, clapping her hands with glee and tugging on Adrien's sleeve to try to lead him through the crowd and between stalls and down the winding paths and ginnels of the goblin market. If he let himself be led the pixies would finally come to a halt hovering over what looked like a dark metal manhole cover in the ground.

"Ta-da!" They said in unison, pointing to the disc proudly "This goes way deep deep in to the dungeon!"

Back at the memory peddler's stall Miss Lethe cracked a smile that was just a little bit too wide for the face that she had chosen to wear as Marcus made his proposal, there were few things more valuable to the fey than knowledge and knowledge that they could use to best a rival was more valuable still. As she reached out a hand to the young mage he might just notice that the tips of her fingers looked far more like painted claws than fingernails.

"A bargain is a bargain."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly regarded Anthony's handiwork for a couple microseconds, and then headed on in. Beholding the room beyond, she cheerily asked, "So. Puzzle room, statues will animate and attack us, monsters or some manner of hazardous liquid will drop from the holes, or all of the above?"

Her suspicions didn't seem to in any way slow her down, though, as should be no surprise to anyone at this point. Trailing rainbow light with every movement, she went zipping through the room, searching around to see if she could find any clues as to how the puzzle might work or so on.

Spoiler

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Swapping to max speed, maxing Rainbow Race and Rainbow Rush, and basically spending eight subjective hours searching the place, including the holes in the wall if I can fit through them. Investigation: (1d20+8)[15].

[Dorni]

Anthony followed after Kelly, shaking his head as she zoomed around the room. "You seem rather excited for that last one."

Kelly would probably find anything worth finding, but he might as well try. Anthony rapped twice with his knuckle on the spear-wielding statue, testing if it was hollow, then gave it a light push to see if it was anchored to the ground, and tugged on the spear to test if it was locked into the statue's grasp.

That done, he strolled over to the barred door, examining the empty sockets. If this was a puzzle room, it almost certainly tied back to matching something to those sockets.

[Thokk_Smash]

Marcus hesitates just a moment at the incongruous sight of the peddler's too-stretched smile. Then he takes her hand in his and gives it a firm shake.

"And so it is," he says with a nod. Taking his hand back, he gestures vaguely in the direction of the magic trinket peddler. "So, there's a guy over there hawking 'genuine artifacts'. He even mentioned Merlin's staff! Now, I don't know about the rest of it, but I know for a fact that he does not have Merlin's staff. And if he's lying about that, what's to say he isn't lying about all of them, eh?"

With that, he nudges Claire and gestures for her to speak up.

[zzzzzzzz414]

Claire was disappointed to find that Ms. Lethe apparently didn't know much more than that. And there might not be a book or anything to learn this magic from either! They had a place to start, at least ("echomancy"?), but-

They jumped a bit in surprise as Marcus began to speak with the Fae woman, bargaining on her behalf. And he'd been so suspicious of her just a moment ago! Did he...really care that much? Maybe they were already friends! That would be amazing, they'd been a bit worried they wouldn't make any but they might already have one before they'd even gotten in!

For...a short time. Of course. Possibly even shorter of a time than they thought if they found out more about this echomancy thing.

Claire was jolted back to reality by Marcus' tap on the shoulder. "Oh, uh, um, right!" They'd...already sort of found out most of the really important things the woman seemed to know, at least about mind magic... "Ummm, hm, well I think the most important thing we really NEED right now is probably, um, information about the layout or a map of the dungeon, or some way to navigate it, or just the way down from here? Or if there was some really super rare secret treasure down here that you know about, or know someone who knows someone who knows about, that would be incredibly good also!"

They paused and looked down for a moment, brow furrowed in thought, then looked up again, eyes gleaming with inspiration. "Oh! Oh oh oh! And just one other thing, if it's not a lot of trouble! Your mum that you mentioned earlier, what is her name? Or um is there a place we could find her or something? She seemed interesting, I would like to meet her!"

If Marcus was paying close attention, he'd likely notice that the desperation he'd noticed a moment earlier was suddenly, strangely, gone, even before Claire had started asking their questions.

Spoiler: OOC

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If it's necessary, Persuasion Roll to try and get "Ms. Lethe" to answer the questions through earnest and charming bubbliness, on top of Marcus' information deal. If not necesssary, disregard.
(1d20+10)[12]

[Dodgeson]

Kelly & Anthony

Anthony's careful deliberation and Kelly's hyperspeed search of the room would come to more or less the same conclusion, the statues were solid and anchored to their bases, however the weapons they held would slip out of their grasp with little effort. It didn't take a genius to work out that they could act as keys to the three sockets if only the right combination could be divined...

Spoiler: DC20 INT or Relevant Expertise

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The combination is sword, lance, bow

Adrien, Colin, Claire & Marcus

"Alas" Ms Lethe said with a sigh as she retracted her hand "My mother passed away many years ago, very tragic." Claire had poked around in the faerie's head enough by now to know that 'passed away' in this instance meant 'I killed her'. "Still I suppose I should favour you with a little something after your friend was so generous..." As she spoke she trailed a hand lazily over her wares, causing the glasses to clink together as she looked for one in particular.

"Ah here we go, this little thing might have been a pest, but they do have a habit of getting in to places that they shouldn't." She said, scooping up the vial and holding it out for Claire "Remove the cork and breathe deep."

Spoiler: Memory

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You're a fluttering tiny thing, buzzing through the market with a gang of your sisters and having a lark of time, you just found an old dusty door that lead as deep as you'd ever seen! You weren't sure what you were going to do with that information but you were bursting with excitement just thinking about it!

Ooo hey what was that? A sparkle caught your eye and you veered away from your sisters, you just had to get closer, you just had to touch it.

Then there was darkness.

[Dorni]

Anthony ended his examination of the sockets with a smirk and walked back to the statues. He siezed the sword, lance, and bow from their caretakers and returned to the door, inserting them into the sockets one at a time.

Placing the final weapon, he did his best to keep a straight face and hide his smirk at his companion who had been zooming around the room, spending what must have felt like hours scouring the room for the slightest clue. His best wasn't very good.

[zzzzzzzz414]

Claire's disappointment at learning that the only other probable source of knowledge about this "echomancy" thing was gone was quickly washed away by horror as she realized the implication in the fae woman's words and tone.

Oh.

Their smile dropped and their face went a bit pale. "O-oh, uhm, I-I'm sorry, I had n-no idea." They had a nasty feeling that they were probably more upset than Ms. Lethe was, though. Claire was suddenly struck with a desire to leave.

Still, they couldn't help but perk up with excitement when the peddler brought out the memory bottle. They were getting an actual clue! Once the memory ended a few moments later, they immediately turned to Marcus, trying to hold every detail in their head as best as they could.

"Ok so um parts of it were sort of fuzzy but I am quite sure it was a memory of a fairy or uhm something like one? She found, uh, one of those, um, the metal circles on the ground that usually go down into sewers I think? I think it will lead further down from here and also there was a glint of something shiny and maybe treasure-like through there!" Claire clenched both fists in front of her chest and bounced on the balls of her feet, eyes gleaming. "So uh I think if we can find it in here we'll be able to move on and maybe find some sort of cool rare thing worth a lot of points! We should get Adrien and Colin and then go look for it!"

Scanning the area near the entrance, Claire spotted the two of them being led into another part of the market by, uh, fairies? Not wanting to lose them (and also more than a bit eager to find out what was going on!), they took off towards the two, pushing through the crowd as politely as they could and trying to call out to them. "HEY, - oof, sorry - HEY GUYS - oh, oops, excuse me - HEY, WAIT UP, WE - oh goodness i'm so sorry - WE FOUND OUT SOMETHING AMAZING!"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Spoiler

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Likewise Routining with Expertise (Gaming).

It was a fairly standard slot-puzzle at it went. A bit trickier than you'd see in your average video game maybe (where the slots would be kinda obviously in the shapes of specific weapons, or maybe just different sizes so only certain ones would fit). Still, it was like, come on. The lance, King Arthur. The sword, the Three Musketeers. The bow, Robin Hood. All classic European heroes, and also pretty much the poster children for the Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic Good alignments respectively (the Three Musketeers got less press for that, but seriously, you don't get a much better Neutral Good tagline than "All For One and One For All!") It seemed obvious enough to her.

Anthony seemed to come to more-or-less the same conclusion, so while he inserted the appropriate weapons, she took the spear out and started playing with it, twirling it around and making mock stabs and stuff. Kelly kinda got distracted easily, but fortunately she was also easily entertained. None of the statues had any whips though, more's the pity. "I wonder if these things are magical?" she speculated.

[Llyarden]

"You guys are awesome!" Adrien beamed at the three pixies, once they had led him and Colin to the...manhole? (He gave it a puzzled look for a moment before shrugging. Fae were weird.) "But I think you still owed me a secret?"

Having been somewhat distracted playing little riffs on his guitar, he'd...kinda forgotten that he had no idea where Marcus and Claire had gone. But then he heard Claire calling something out over the bustle of the crowd. "Oh, hey!" he greeted her with a smile, when she finally caught up to him. "What did you find out?"

[zzzzzzzz414]

Claire barely stopped themselves short of crashing right into Adrien. "Hello! Oh, ooh-" Taking notice of the three tittering, sort of insecty-looking humanoids floating near them, Claire sidled up, inspecting the floating trio closely. "Um, hi! Who are you, wow are you actual fairies? Or um pixies or sprites, I'm so sorry, I don't know the proper name, ooh are you flying with magic or-"

No! Bad! Focus!

Claire turned back to Adrien and Colin. "Oh, I'm soso sorry! I, we, um, uh-" They took a moment and re-gathered their thoughts, adjusting their glasses. "Um, we found a way down! Or we will. Kind of. We negotiated with one of the fae here, well really it was mostly Marcus haha but anyway we got a memory in a bottle that belonged to I think a fairy and it showed her finding this uh, one of those metal disc things over a tunnel leading further down and also a gleam of something that was maybe treasure! So uh if we can just find that same place around-"

Claire suddenly stopped and blinked. Taking in their surroundings for just a moment, they were overcome with a sense of deja vu. If this was...then...

Claire scanned the ground behind the pair of them, and, upon seeing the odd metal disc in the ground behind them, their eyes lit up. They rushed around them and pointed to it, practically bouncing with excitement. "Oh! Oh oh oh! That! Is it! The um! The metal sewer circle!" They spun around to face Colin and Adrein again, hands clasped. "How did you find it?!"

[OutOfThyme]

Colin was more than relieved that he wasn't being harrassed by a pixie. On top of that, Adrien's charm had managed to convince the pixies to lead them further down. That was good - they'd at least get... somewhere. Part of him had almost forgotten that this was all just the entrance exam.

Just how much was under Avalon Academy?

As Colin listened to Claire's recollection, he nodded along. "Wow, sounds like the two of you had quite an adventure. Hopefully this... manhole has something."

[Dodgeson]

Anthony & Kelly

With the correct weapons inserted in to the machine its gears and mechanisms began to grind and unlock as the heavy black door swung open leading in to pitch darkness...

(Unfortunately for Kelly she didn't really have any way to discern whether the spear was magical or mundane)

Spoiler: Click Now or Forever Hold Your Peace...

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It was slow going down the stairs (or maybe it wasn't) for the two young heroes, as even Kelly's own illumination seemed to not dare venture even slightly forward to light their path. Eventually they would reach the bottom and their foot steps would start to clang against some kind of metal floor.

And then suddenly they could see. There was no sudden flash of light or illumination (though they could now see glowing blue orbs lodged in the rooms curving walls) instead the darkness rushed away from them like water down a plug hole, vanishing between the gaps of the grate that made up the entirety of the floor. All around them the walls were covered in symbols and phrases, some of them were even in languages that Anthony could understand.

Abandon Hope read a smattering of Sanskrit daubed on to the wall.

Beware the Laughing Pitch, a sign driven in to the wall with iron nails warned in German

Run! A message carved directly in to the wall advised in Latin.

"What's this?" A laughing voice echoed up from somewhere deep below them as a black tendril sluiced up over the grate, an eye the size of a watermelon bursting in to existence to regard the pair.

"What little things have come to my larder?" Another tendril spoke, appearing next to the first with a row of toothy dagger-teeth.

Adrien, Colin, Claire & Marcus

"That is the secret!" One of the pixie's squeaked as she gestured emphatically down at the metal disc in the floor "It goes way way down! You can't go that far without bumping in to really scary stuff normally and nobody else even knows that this is here!"

Unfortunately for the diminutive fae her claim secrecy was somewhat undercut by Claire's sudden appearance and she quickly got up in the girls face to make her displeasure known.

"Who are you!? What are you doing here?! Who told you!?" She barked (which sounded a lot like her squeak).

"Yeah!" The two other pixies chorused, flanking their sister.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly took out her whips for at least a bit of illumination in the oddly-darkened corridor, but even they didn't seem to reveal much. With a shrug, she pressed on anyway. Kelly wasn't afraid of the dark.

When they got to the bottom, the lights suddenly returned...and they were greeted by a creature of pure, utter darkness, a tentacled horror that may or may not have existed beyond time and space, apparently manifesting tentacles, eyes, and toothy mouths at will. It was the iconic image of an Eldritch Horror. To the uninitiated, the mere appearance of such things could be a sanity-eroding shock. To one with a modest amount of nerd-cred, it still bespoke peril and horror every bit as effectively as the warning messages scrawled over its domain (or prison?) In every piece of fiction that mentioned them, creatures like this were utterly alien in their thoughts, purely destructive in their goals. You couldn't call them evil, because they were as far beyond it as ultraviolet light was beyond the visible spectrum. They existed entirely at odds with the very idea of life, the very notion of an orderly reality. They also tended to be unspeakably powerful.

Faced with such a thing, there could only be one reaction.

"Hi! I'm Kelly. What's your name?"

...Evidently Kelly would not judge any book by its cover. Not even the Necronomicon.

[Llyarden]

"Hey, easy, guys." Adrien shifted position so he was standing next to Claire, still smiling amiably. "Claire, this is Dixie, Paula and Joan." He indicated each pixie in turn. "Guys, this is my friend Claire. We're all on the same team, so I'd have shown Claire - and Marcus, wherever he went - this place anyway. There's no need for you guys to be upset."

He was curious (and slightly worried) what Claire and Marcus had traded for the memory of this place, but that was a question that could be asked once they were away from inquisitive pixies.

[zzzzzzzz414]

Claire visibly quailed under the pixies' admonishment, shrinking backwards from the angry-looking creatures and looking at the ground. They had done it now, they'd probably broken some sort of fairy code or secrets pact or maybe buying memories was actually really illegal or something and now they'd be-

They let out a little gasp at Adrien's words. He'd called them "friend"! They were friends! It was official, the first one! This was a wholly new experience for them. There...had been other ones, people like Michelle and a few other acquaintances who had visited them in the hospital. And they had all seemed very nice! But they weren't...their friends, truly. Those people were Claire's friends, that they, "Claire", Ix, had...mooched off of. Stolen.

But now they officially had a friend! That they had made themselves! Um, mostly, sort of. Using Claire's appearance. But...still!

Claire gathered their thoughts and faced the trio again, voice and body still quivering a bit. "Uh, uhm, h-hello! It's v-very very good to meet you all! U-um, I am very very very sorry, I did not know that this was a big se-secret of some kind that I was not supposed to f-find out! Um, I can try very hard to forget about it afterwards, if that would be helpful! Or, um, I could talk to the memory seller again and have her remove it perhaps, um she called herself Ms. Lethe and is the one who traded Marcus and I the memory showing us this place, so maybe she could just-"

Claire stopped for a moment and squinted closely at the three pixies before her. "Uhm! Wait! I-I recognize you, I think! Uh, you were in the memory I saw, all three of you! Uh, do you happen to have another friend, that may have sold some memories to a secret peddler woman?"

[Thokk_Smash]

Marcus pulls up the rear after Claire, silently (but obviously) stewing in irritation. That's what Claire ended up asking, when she had seemed so desperate for information before? And it looks like Adrien and Colin had already found the same thing through another means. So what even was the point of him making that deal with 'Miss Lethe'?

He comes up to the party just as the pixies make their demands, and silently glowers at them. He doesn't put as much bite into it as he could, and he's slouching so he's not necessarily as tall as he could be. But he still cuts an imposing figure to an inches-tall pixie. He begins to say something, but is cut off by Claire, so he bites his tongue with a small glare at Claire.

[Dorni]

Anthony took a wary step forward. He wasn't exactly putting himself directly between Kelly and the rising tentacles, but he was still in a prime position to intercept anything the thing tried. The writing was on the wall - this thing was bad news, made all the more apparent by the ridiculously overdecorated door they'd unlocked to get here. He split his attention, keeping one eye on the monster while while glancing around the room for other exits.

"Anthony. And you are?"

[Dodgeson]

Kelly & Anthony

This calm or in Kelly's case, downright enthusiastic, reaction from the two young heroes was not exactly what the creature in the pit was expecting and suddenly a bevy of extra eyes burst out from underneath the inky black surface of the tendrils to regard the pair as they swirled around them.

"You do not fear me? I am the Laughing Dark and the Endless Flame! WhY dO yOu NOt FeAR ME?! The thing replied in a cackling chorus of voices, the eyes bursting at random intervals like overripe fruits to be replaced by more grinning toothy maws.

Adrien, Colin, Claire & Marcus

"The secret peddler?!" One of the fairies squeaked, the indignation quickly vanishing from the trio's faces to be replaced by fear as they darted behind Adrien, peering nervously out from behind him as if they expected Ms Lethe to appear at any second.

"She took Georgie!" One of them squealed from behind Adrien's ear "Caught her and pinned her up and took her memories all for herself!"

[OutOfThyme]

"Huh. I knew that there was that one fake vendor, but this is..." Colin said, glancing to Adrien and the pixies behind him. "This is wrong. It might take us longer to head down, but I think we should get those memories and their friend back."

"What do you guys think?"

[Llyarden]

"This is a goblin market," Adrien replied, quietly. He didn't exactly sound surprised by the pixies' revelation, but he did give a kinda disappointed look at Marcus. Claire obviously had no idea what the goblin market was really like, but Marcus did - heck, he'd tried to warn the others about it. And while, from a logical standpoint, the fourth pixie had met her fate before the four of them had even arrived in the market...that didn't mean that he was okay with the idea that the group had helped this 'secret peddler' continue her trade. "You can't just charge in sword first. So," he continued, "if we're going to help, that means we need something to trade, because I don't think the random scraps from the library will cut it. So I guess we need to find two things from down there now." He gestured to the manhole.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Now look, I'm not saying there wasn't a momentary gut-level "you are facing a dangerous predator please select fight/flight" reaction at L-DEF's sudden anger. Buuuuuut she's also calling it L-DEF in her head now, so it kinda cancelled out.

But Kelly had been raised to be a hero. Now, this didn't mean she didn't get scared. It was entirely possible for her to feel fear. But if someone was trying to scare her, if someone wanted to make her afraid? She wasn't going to just cower before them. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

They got quips.

"I mean, are we supposed to be scared?" she asked, as chipper as ever. "I've never actually, you know, heard of you. Honestly you sound kinda more fun than scary. "Laughing Dark" and all. Did you get named that because of your sense of humor? Ooh, are you a comedian? Can you tell us a joke?"

"Actually, though, isn't it a bit weird to be called the Laughing Dark and the Endless Flame? I mean, aren't flames kinda, you know, bright? It'd make more sense if you could turn it off I guess, but it's like, endless, and all. Kinda says it right there in the name."

Spoiler: OOC

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Note to self: pick up Fascinate eventually so Kelly can completely dumbfound people with her cheerful irreverence.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"S-she what?!" Claire's trepidation immediately turned to concern. "That is awful, how could anyone do something like that? W-we have to help right?" they said, turning to the others. "Um...it wouldn't be very good to just, attack her, here, but there has to be SOMETHING we can do, right? If this place is like a maze, then I am not sure if we would even be able to find our way back here once we go deeper...if only we knew for sure if, um, Georgie was alright..."

Claire closed her eyes, sweeping through the crowd of minds in search of the peddler, hoping to find answers, but opened them again a scant few seconds later. They hadn't gotten so much as a foothold! Ugh, and right when they really needed it. But...that was odd. She wasn't at her stand, she was...moving. Was she going to use the bathroom or something? Did fae use the bathroom? Was there even a bathroom here? Or was she going to act on that information Marcus had given her, maybe...?

"Um, uh, I don't know if this changes anything, but uhm I was listening for her just now, and I think Ms. Lethe may have left her stand? I don't know where she's going, but we could maybe follow her or, um, investigate the stand while she's gone? We might find out something, or at least find the rest of Georgie's memories. Or maybe it's a waste of time and we should hurry up and go down, I don't know..." Claire said to the others, looking to them for some hint at what they should do.

Spoiler: OOC

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Deception check for the "listening" part: (1d20+14)[19]

As for Claire's next action, they're going to just go along with whatever the others decide.

[Dodgeson]

Anthony & Kelly

The thing from beneath the grate didn't seem to take the utter lack of gibbering fear in Kelly's reaction particularly well and black steam began to rise from the pair of tendrils as the gloopy black liquid that composed them began to boil.

"Such insolence! Those names are for your convenience!" Endlessly spawning and vanishing maws chorused as the tentacles whirled around the pair of young heroes "If you were to attempt to conceive even a single syllable of my true name you would unravel! You have crossed my threshold of your own free will and now you will be SLAUGHTERED!"

Spoiler: OOC

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Kelly Initiative (1d20+15)[21]
Anthony Initiative (1d20)[1]

Tentacles Initiative (1d20+12)[15]

Kelly is on turn!

Adrien, Colin, Claire & Marcus

The metal cover of the manhole moved with only a little bit of effort, revealing a steep drop down in to the dark, all having wings the fairies obviously didn't see this as much of an issue, but luckily for our heroes each one of them wasn't exactly a slouch in that department either. If they dared descend in to the dark they would eventually come out in a room lined by six statues of knights in armour, 3 were holding weapons whilst the rest were empty-handed.

At the other end of the room a large black door was already open, leading down some stairs in to yet more darkness, the four of them arriving just in time to hear "SLAUGHTERED!" echo out from somewhere beyond the door in a cacophony of mad cackling.

Spoiler: Claire

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Familiar cackling...

[Quellian-dyrae]

"and now you will be SL-"

Haha. Nope. Nope nope nope. Noping so hard! Rainbow light flared up around Kelly, and her whips came out, right hand a steady, vibrant orange, left a shimmering pink. She wasn't entirely sure what this guy's capabilities were, buuuuut she figured light and magic were a solid starting move. It worked for Disney, anyway!

"-AU-"

Off she went, zipping around the area, multicolored light streaming behind her. She came up at the first tentacle, right whip flashing across in a wide horizontal arc, left snapping forward in a serpent-like strike. The whips moved weirdly. There wasn't really a delay for her to pull them back into a ready position after striking. The pliable beams of light were just suddenly there as she brought her hands up, and down again, two hard overhand swings then flowing into a sweeping crossing strike.

"-GH-"

And she was gone! Coming up against the tentacle on the opposite side of the room and from the opposite direction. Back and forth, back and forth, her whips criss-crossed all up and down their lengths, blow after hasted blow discharging light and magic into them with every hit, leaving tiger-stripe-like after-images in the eyes of anyone looking directly at the attack.

"-TE-"

Her blurring speed carried her back to the first, bringing her whips around in a graceful twirl to - no! In a surprise twist, the whips lashed out across the way, striking for the second tentacle again in quick snapping moves!

"-RE-"

The next blows came from above, as Kelly sprang in a rainbow-trailing arc over the first tentacle, her body corkscrewing in midair to create a twirling banner of multicolored light, with orange and pink beams extending outward around and beneath her, for more blurring strikes against the top of the first tentacle. She came down, dropping head-first...

"-D!"

...And landing to handspring forward, kick off the wall, and come back around to center. Her whips changed color then, crackling yellow and twinkling blue, as she hurled herself into a tremendous spinning attack, arms waving up and down, the whips undulating around Anthony as she struck, creating the appearance of a wobbling spinning green dish as she hammered on the two tentacles with a barrage so fast her whips seemed a single, solid disk.

"Bring it, L-DEF!" she challenged in response. She hadn't stopped moving though. The rainbow light she had left as a trail showing her path of movement was fading, but she was still going, falling into a beautiful combat rhythm, a deadly dervish dance!

Spoiler

Show

Free: Configure Streaming to Flight 5 (Platform, Quirk), Enhanced Speed Attacks Array 8. Swap to Dervish Dance, activating two applications of the Enhanced Area with the Rainbow Rage points.

Move: Move throughout the area.

Standard: Dervish Dance covering a Selective 60' radius, should fill the room. Variable Descriptors [Light] and [Magic], Power Attacking for 2. On a hit, Toughness DC 21+Multiattack vs. Damage. As long as she keeps moving, the Cloud Area will repeat next round (and it'll also attack any other tentacles that may enter in the intervening time), and one round after the targets leave the cloud or it expires, as long as she keeps moving and ends up in reach of the target at some point during the round, a Secondary Effect will trigger.
Tentacle 1: (1d20+10)[17].
Tentacle 2: (1d20+10)[25].

Extra Effort - Additional Standard Action: DO IT AGAIN! This time Variable Descriptors are [Electricity] and [Cold] and I'll Power Attack for an additional 2, for DC 23+Multiattack.
Tentacle 1: (1d20+8)[20].
Tentacle 2: (1d20+8)[16].

Move-by Action: And yet, she ends up in the exact position where she started. Speedsters lol.

Current Status: Fatigued as of next turn.