Avalon Academy IC

[OutOfThyme]

"If we're going to mock L-DEF, what about Laughing Dork and Endless Fails?" Colin said, raising his blade up to twist the wind in the room into swirling vortices to strike each of the two tentacles.

"It's a little childish for me, though."

Spoiler: OOC

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Move Action: None
Free Action: Set Fragarach to Tuatha Whirlwind Strike
Standard Action: Attack with Tuatha Whirlwind Strike; C 18 vs. Toughness for Half Effect; DC 23/19 Damage - Affects Insubstantial 2, Incurable, Dimensional 2 (Mythic Dimensions)

Current Swordsmanship Chain: [Combo]
[Starter]: Dreams of Iron (1 turn ago)
[Combo]: Tuatha Whirlwind Strike
[Finisher]: Ultimate Flurry (2 turns ago)

Current Status: -

[Dorni]

"If we're doing this, how about 恥ずかしい?" Anthony offered, sounding out 'hazu•ka•shī', a word for 'embarrassment'. The meaning was reasonably appropriate, but the bigger insult was that the word would sound cutsy to english ears and the strong 'shī' syllable was nearly impossible to pronounce without a smile. He wasn't sure there was anything that could spite an eldrich abomination more than having a name bringing smiles to anyone who repeated it.

The powerhouse delivered another chop to the tentacle with a rueful glance toward the preceding room. "I'm kinda regretting not bringing that axe with me. It would have made this so much easier."

Spoiler

Show

Move: Really need to find a use for these things.
Standard: Attack Tentacle 3 with Powerful Blow, AoA 5. (1d20+9)[26]. On hit, DC 27/22 Toughness vs Damage / Weaken [Toughness].

If Tentacle 3 is knocked out by Kelly, attack Tentacle 2 instead. Use move to move to Close range with Tentacle 3 if required.

[Llyarden]

You don't seem fine. Adrien didn't press the issue with Claire, though, instead focusing on the oncoming tentacle, which smashed through the box he'd been hiding in and went sweeping away with the disintegrating wood...leaving him completely untouched on the grate.

"Nice try!" he called over to the tentacles. "But for my next trick..."

With another dramatic flourish he clicked his fingers - and vanished. But another dozen boxes popped into existence, skittering around the room, making it even harder for L-DEF to figure out where any of the heroes were. And since L-DEF obviously didn't like the decor of the last ones, the new set of boxes were even more brightly-coloured and glittery.

And then he...basically completely ignored L-DEF, as if the eldritch monstrosity wasn't even worth his time to pay any more attention to. "No giants for us," he told Anthony. "We met a rather unpleasant fae, though. We need to find something to give her..." he mused, directing the boxes with one hand like an absent-minded conductor.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Reaction (start of turn): Teleport over to tentacles 2 & 3.
Standard: Use Magic Boxes again. This time everyone has actual Concealment so their positions are hidden too.
Move: Taunt Tentacle 2, because let's be honest I've been doing that the entire time anyway and I might as well try to get some mechanical use out of it (-5 for move action, +5 for Centre Stage): (1d20+8)[10]

Status: Fatigued, Deflected at 1d10+16, Total Visual Concealment.

[Dodgeson]

If things were looking bad before for the monster imprisoned beneath the grate before they were looking downright disastrous now, all that flailing at Adrien's boxes had done was leave it wide open for yet more lashes from Kelly's brilliant whips, the brightly glowing whips reducing the boiling darkness of one the tendrils to nothing once more.

For a brief instant the final appendage's howling was drowned out by Fragarach's razor wind before it was silenced forever by a final mighty blow, sending one eye flying against the far wall whilst the rest of its mass simply lost shape and dropped back through the grate like water emptied from a bucket.

For the moment everything was still and calm again, the battle was over and the young heroes had been victorious.

[Quellian-dyrae]

The streamer of rainbow light that had been racing around the room, tying itself in knots in elaborate patterns, finally slowed down and resolved back into the shape of Kelly. "Rock on team! So, let's see, I think we're probably about as deep in the dungeon as we can get, and as it happens there are six weapon-keys in the prior room. I bet we'll get tons of points if we bring those up! ...Also I mean just as a matter of practical security it's probably not super-safe to leave the keys to the room where you're sealing an Eldritch Horror right outside the door. Gonna be honest, not entirely sure what Merlin was-"

Kelly's mouth may have moved faster than her brain, but to be fair, her brain did still move pretty fast, "Oh wait! What if...I mean, it wasn't like super hard to get down here if you found the shortcuts. You've got to figure in every new crop of students, there's probably going to be at least a few who do it.
I wonder if this is, like, L-DEF's punishment or something. Every year a few untrained super-kids come down here and he acts all big and bad and then they beat him up! And because he's an Eldritch Horror he probably doesn't experience time's passage linearly so he doesn't even learn from his experience so every year he does it again thinking he can win and then stuff like this happens! ...I almost feel bad for making fun of him now. Note to self: do not get detention from Merlin!"

[Llyarden]

"Awesome!" Adrien beamed, as the colourful boxes turned into celebratory fireworks that sparkled and glittered in the roof of the room. "This fight went so much better! And...I mean, Merlin had that whole 'the things deep in the dungeon get hungry' speech, sure, but I don't think they'd let us anywhere seriously dangerous. Not when we aren't even students yet. I bet this is more of a test of, like, are you brave enough to stand up to a terrifying...ish...okay, moderately unpleasant...eldritch abomination."

He gave a small shrug when Kelly brought up the topic of the 'looting the dungeon' requirement. "Well, Merlin said we only needed one thing for the whole team, remember? I don't think we can hand in more than one." He glanced over to Colin and Marcus. "Do you guys think we could take some shavings from the grate or something to prove we were in here, rather than just, like, outside? Without letting our buddy down there out, I mean." He tapped on the floor with one foot - and then happened to notice the stray eye. "Uh, did you mean to leave this up here, L-DEF, or did you want your eye back?" he called down into the grate. "I know you have a lot of them, but I feel like eyes are kinda useful, even for an eldritch abomination." L-DEF had certainly seemed to have issues when it couldn't see where they all were.

[zzzzzzzz414]

For just a moment, they weren't satisfied, they wanted to break through the grating, to keep going, to make it pay. But with the tentacles gone, those thoughts and the sudden flood of anger seemed to ebb along with the adrenaline of the fight, leaving Claire tired sore, and more than a bit confused and afraid at what had just happened.

That...hadn't felt right.

"Uhm," they said, taking notice of the conversation, "well, it is true that we probably don't need the keys if we have the, um, eye. Or maybe just a piece of stone or something, taking someone's eye seems a bit rude even if they are very terrible. But, um, they still could be very valuable I think if they came from this far down! So, if we could find our way back to the goblin market maybe we could find some way to trade them for information about Miss Georgie? Or her memories, at least. Um, if we can find the other three that is, I thought they had maybe come down behind us..."

They turned to Kelly and Anthony. "Um, would either of you happened to have seen three pixies and maybe also possibly a fourth pixie that has amnesia? It is very impor-wait."

They finally got a good look at Kelly's face, and several pieces suddenly snapped together. Their eyes widened, and a grin began to spread across their face.

"Wait. Wait! Waitwaitwaitwaitwait! Um! I! Think I recognize you! You're, um, um, you're one of the ALBIONS! Uhm, Kelly, right?!"

Without waiting for an answer, they displayed a profound lack of understanding of the concept of personal space and bounced over to Kelly, practically vibrating with excitement. "Oh wow this is SO COOL I didn't think I would meet one of the Albions here um since you live in America I think and you're so amazing with how you do the rainbow thing and the speed and the whips and I'm not sure how it took me until now to put it together! This is very cool! Uh um do you have like a maximum speed and what is it? How do your whips work are they magic um I know your family has a lot of magic inventions and things! What is the rest of your family like? What is America like and um is California a different thing from that or are they two different names for the same thing? Is a "deep-fried hamburger" real and can you make one? Do you know how to do that thing where um you go around the earth so fast that the rotation reverses and you go back in time? Or um is that not how time travel works im very sorry there was a lot of conflicting information. Can you time travel? What are all of your powers? What kind of superhero things have you done? Do you-"

Claire took a breath.

"-travel a lot, well um I guess you have because you are here and not in America but uhm i was thinking more of like what other places you have gone because I think I read somewhere that you do that sometimes and WOW that must be incredibly interesting! Oh um uh jeez I hope you are actually Kelly Albion because otherwise this is very awkward but um there are not a lot of other people with rainbow and speed powers that I can think of so this feels like a very safe assumption, um I am Claire by the way I'm very sorry I probably should have started with that or maybe done it earlier when everyone else was also introducing themselves but uh I am doing it now and it would be very good if we could be friends maybe?!"

They offered Kelly a high-five.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Most people would have been befuddled. Most people would have tried to disengage.

But this was Kelly Albion, and she had two advantages that most people lacked.

One, she was a speedster. It gave her time to process.

And two, well...

"It's like watching my life, but from the outside..." Hey, may she who wasn't literally wearing an Adrien Zhay t-shirt right this moment cast the first stone.

As before (albeit kinda faster this time, since you know she had already thought about it at this point), Kelly decided there was no point in trying to hide who she was. She was kinda surprised that her family's reputation evidently extended this far, and a little worried about it, but she wasn't going to stress. Even if people knew their reputation, it wasn't the same thing as being in a school where like every teacher knew all of your siblings, and the upper-classmen had all been like a year or two below you brother, and stuff like that. It was actually kinda nice, being looked at as one of the Albions, rather than just as the Albions kid sister or something. That was the distinction that made all the difference.

Besides, how could she not respond to Claire's enthusiasm?

"Ahem! Um, yeah, that's me. So far I've managed to hit about a hundred-twenty-five-thousand mi- err, I mean, around two-hundred thousand kilometers per hour. But I think I can do better, I just have to practice more! My whips are magic, yeah, they produce energy beams that basically only listen to the laws of physics when it's helpful for them to do so, with the different colors each being a different energy type. My Mom's an artificer, she makes all our gear and stuff. My family's super-cool, I could tell you stories. America is a country...well wait actually America is a contin- well technically it's like two continents and then the United States of America is a country in North America but then we usually just use America for short, and California is one of the states." Now look I'm not saying there wasn't a part of Kelly that wasn't asking "How do you not know what America is we're kinda big?" but you know whatever she may have known tons about geography because she loved to travel but it was like ask an average American how many countries they could name. She wasn't gonna judge.

"I haven't personally experienced the existence of a deep-fried hamburger, but it sounds like something we'd do. I could probably guess how to make one though. That's not how time travel works but I think I heard somewhere that the closer you get to moving at the speed of light the slower time gets and if you go past it it might go backwards so in theory if you can fly faster than light in a vacuum and go fly around the planet to hit that speed I suppose it's possible time might go backwards maybe? But I don't know if it would actually work. I've never time travelled before and time travel gets like super complicated so it's not really something I plan to try any time soon. Besides I think Anthony would probably have a better chance than I would at that, since he's a Personal Destiny Manipulator and time travel seems like a good thematic fit for that power set."

"My only power is 'Streaming', or that's what I call it. It's kind of a light-based super-speed I guess? So you'd think I would be able to go at least as fast as light, but I can't yet at least. I mean, I guess maybe it's possible that I could in a vacuum, but I haven't tried because I can't actually survive in space so yeah. I can sometimes manipulate the light a bit to do some cool things, like make a sort of "bridge" that I can run on and carry people on, that's the one I'm best at. But yeah other than that it's all just being really fast. What about you? You're like some kind of paragon or powerhouse or something right? I wasn't like super paying attention to what everyone was doing during the fight but I thought I saw you punching? I...haven't really done much superhero stuff myself yet. Just some little things. Popcorn heroics, my brother calls them."

"Yeah I love travelling, that is like the best part of my power! I can just WHOOSH go wherever I want, it's great! I haven't had it for too long, this is actually my first trip that's both overseas and to another country. But I've been to all fifty states, and all over Canada and Mexico. But there's like a thousand places still on my list!"

"It's great to meet you Claire. Yeah I'd love to be friends!" And Kelly returned the high-five, just fast enough that some rainbow light shot out when she did.

[OutOfThyme]

As Kelly and Claire were apparently catching up, Colin approached the eye that flew from one of the tentacles. "I think that we can probably take it," Colin got on one knee, and gently prodded the eye with the base of Fragarach's pommel, trying to see if the eye did anything.

"I'm down with taking the keys, too. We should probably cover up the eye, just in case, too."

[zzzzzzzz414]

Oh! A high-five! She had given them a real high five! And she wanted to be friends! This was quickly shaping up to be the best day of their life.

After they had exchanged the high-five, Claire continued breathlessly, "Oh! Um! Thank you so much! This is incredible! I would very much like to hear all of the stories yes, that sounds like it would be very amazing! And also all about Mexico and Canada and all of the states as well! Um, once we are in a place that is not the bottom of a magic dungeon maybe, after we finish the competition and get in to the school, uhm if we get in that is? If this is really the very absolute lowest part of the dungeon then uh I think it is probably mathematically impossible for us to NOT get in, if we are not attacked by some other sort of monster as we are going back up?"

"And um yes paragon things are the sort of thing I can do. Flight, super-strength, increased durability and some enhanced senses. It's um not really all that impressive, haha. Your powers are so amazing and they look so cool! Um what other sort of things can you make with the light besides the bridge? Um not that it is NOT okay if it is just the bridge, that sounds incredible and very helpful and I would maybe like to try riding it sometime if that would not be a large inconvenience for you!"

Once Kelly had finished talking, Claire let out a little gasp, said "Oh! Um, and one more thing, sorry!" and turned (or yelled over to, depending on his current location) to Anthony. "Um, hello, your name is Anthony right? Um I am very sorry for not introducing myself to you earlier, I did not intend to be rude and it is very nice to meet you! I had no idea that you could also manipulate personal destinies in addition to punching and chopping things very well! Um, what does manipulating a destiny mean and what sort of things does it include? Is it related to the strength and punching that you did during the fight or um are they two separate things? Can you time travel? What was that other language you spoke at the end of the fight, I thought that was very cool even though I did not understand what you said! I only know the one language so being able to speak another one seems very impressive, um if it IS only one, I have no idea how many you speak actually, how many do you speak?"

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Rolling to Bluff Kelly about their powers: (1d20+14)[19]

[Dorni]

Anthony scratched the back of his head as he walked back to the group. "Oh, that was Japanese." Avalon was a gathering place for students with exceptional abilities - was speaking multiple languages really that impressive? Anthony wasn't sure, but it seemed like a good idea to downplay it until he knew more. "And yeah, I speak a couple languages. Its not that impressive though, I had an excellent teacher."

"But I think Kelly might be giving you the wrong idea. I can't actually control anyone's destiny or do super-chopping. At least, not due to an ability of mine. My power is a pure physical enhancement - I'm super-super strong and nearly indestructible. But you're the first person I've met here who called themselves a paragon."

As he continued, he widened out his stance and put one hand forward, somewhere between offering a hand and preparing to shove something. "If its alright with you, would you mind a test?" The words carried curiosity and anticipation, but no ill-will.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Oh!" Claire said, not letting their mild disappointment show in their voice. Manipulating a destiny sounded so cool! "Um, sorry. But super strength and being invulnerable are still really amazing to have! You, um, really haven't met anyone else with my sort of powers though? I had thought they were pretty common..." Their smile dropped just a hair at that idea. They had hoped to not attract too much attention. Had they made a mistake? Were the "powers" they'd gone with actually fairly rare? Were they going to attract attention or suspicion or-

Before they had a chance to spiral too much, Anthony suddenly caught them off guard. "A-a test?" Claire hesitated for a moment. They...did not have half of the actual abilities they claimed to any degree, and someone somehow discovering that would lead to many, many problems and probably death. On the other hand...well, there wasn't any actual practical application of strength or durability that could not be imitated with psychic power, right?

It seemed rude to refuse, anyway. And he was taking a POSE! I mean he'd said his powers were just super-strength and near invulnerability but maybe he was about to show off some super-secret ability!?

"Uh, um. S-sure! What sort of test will it be?"

[Dorni]

"Its nothing elaborate - just push me. I'd like to see how my strength compares to someone scouted by Avalon."

"I'm sure there are others, but I didn't get much chance to talk to the other early arrivals. They kinda kept us on a bit of a short leash since we hadn't officially enrolled yet." Which was technically true; there had been a few others like him who'd been allowed into the school before the entrance exam, but he hadn't gotten a chance to meet them yet.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Yeah I mean, I'm pretty sure we'll get in after this. ...Honestly, I don't think it'd matter overmuch if we got attacked by more monsters on the way back up!" She was going by what she's seen so far. "Hey don't sell yourself short! Paragon powers are a classic for a reason! Ooh, what kind of super-senses? Like can you see really far? Or hear super-precisely? Or see through walls?"

She considered the other question. "I made a...kinda wall once. But it took a lot of energy to keep it up, kinda wore me out. The bridge thing is the most reliable one. It still takes effort, I can't use it and go full-speed, but it's not nearly as hard as the wall was. I think I could probably like shoot it as a beam sort of thing, but I haven't actually tried since my whips kinda have that covered."

When Anthony corrected her, she said, "Oh! Sorry, I thought... Uh, never mind." And then she stepped back with a kinda eager look on her face to watch as he proposed a test.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Oh, you arrived early? So, um, wait, have you already been here and seen the campus and things? Cool! What is it like? Um, what are the buildings like? How many are there? Is there-"

Claire managed to stop themselves before they launched into another tangent. "Oh, uhm, sorry. Um. Pushing! Yes. I can do that. Um, get ready, I guess!"

For a moment, they briefly considered that pushing Anthony at full strength was maybe not a good idea? Getting someone more hurt than they already were from the fight seemed bad, especially at the bottom of this dungeon. On the other hand, he was another superpowered individual, and from what they had seen of him in the fight he WAS very strong, so it was probably ok to go all-out?

Claire took a breath, stepped forward, and gave him a solid push, simultaneously attempting to shove him backwards with a burst of telekinesis.

If Anthony was paying particularly close attention, he'd notice that the push felt...off. It was stronger than it seemed like it should have been, considering Claire's rather amateurish stance and follow-through; and, oddly, the vast majority of the force wasn't focused through their hands and into his chest, but rather distributed evenly across his torso; more like an extraordinarily strong, focused wind rather than a normal shove.

Spoiler: OOC

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Her Strength with "Super-Strength" on is 10.

[Dorni]

At Claire's push, Anthony wore a kinda quizzical look. While it might look so on the outside, it wasn't how much strength he'd expected from Claire. It was that he could tell right away something was off. The paragon's push wasn't just her hands, it was like she was pushing on him with a giant hand that covered his entire upper body. The mismatch took him aback for a second - was Claire hiding another ability?

What he didn't do was budge. He just held that look for a second or two, standing steady under her force. Then took Claire by the shoulder and pushed, taking one step forward then another and another, steadily moving the paragon back. He stopped after the third step, clearly the victor.

Rather than look satisfied, he looked kinda unsure for a moment. On one hand, he'd quite handily won the contest. On the other, something about Claire just seemed off. Maybe what he'd felt had just been his imagination. Or maybe not. But if so, she probably had a reason to keep whatever that ability was a secret. The clone could respect that.

A grin split his face as he dropped his hands and disengaged. "Thanks for the match! I'll take that as a win unless you want to go again."

"But yeah, I've been here for a bit. They let me spend the last few days in a guest room while waiting for the entrance exam. They didn't let me see the whole school what with me not actually being a student yet, so there's really only so much for me to tell. Am I the only early arrival here?"

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Anthony is on Full Power for this contest; he has STR 12 and effective lifting capacity of rank 16. He's plenty able to overpower Claire.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Oh no, I'm, um, good, thanks!" Claire was mostly just glad that it hadn't been "chop this wood plank in half like a kung-fu master" or something like that. It wasn't like you could PUSH a wood plank in half. Not that Anthony had a plank, or appeared to have any wood-based powers? Look, you never know.

"Um, well I didn't arrive early, I didn't actually know that that was a thing you could do but uhm there is a lot I do not really know abut this school hahaha. I, um, do not actually know about anyone else...?" Claire turned to look around at the others, noticing as Adrien and Colin observed the creature's discarded eye. "Oh, right, um, that. And! Um! Oh! That other stuff!"

They turned back to Anthony, hands clasped and with a worried expression on their face. "Um, so, I suppose you did not see a pixie on the way down here? We do not know how long ago it was, but she had her memories stolen by a very terrible fae memory saleswoman in this big market a few floors up, and it is very possible that something terrible has happened to her. That is, um, why I suggested we take the stone weapon things Kelly mentioned, since they might be helpful in trading for some information about her."

[Dorni]

"Sorry, we didn't meet a pixie, but we did rescue a fairy princess. Could you be mistaking the two?"

[Llyarden]

In the absence of a reply from L-DEF, Adrien had turned around to watch the little contest between Claire and Anthony with a kinda eager expression. The eagerness only dropped minutely when he remembered that superhuman strength didn't come with sparkles and flashy lights and they basically just looked like they were shoving each other.

His happy smile dropped a bit when Claire brought up the topic of the pixies. "Unfortunately, I doubt it," he answered Anthony. "Pixies are pretty much at the bottom of the fae totem pole. Not the kind of people that introduce themselves as faerie princesses." He clicked his fingers and a semitransparent copy of the three pixies from the goblin market popped into existence for a few moments, as a rather simpler way of confirming whether the 'fairy princess' that Anthony and Kelly had rescued was one of their kind. "And, uh...well, I never met this 'Ms Lethe' woman, but from what I've heard about her I'm not sure she's someone we want to have the keys that were...sealing?" - he kinda trailed off for a moment, not entirely sure what keys Kelly had been talking about or how they'd been sealing L-DEF within its prison (his own journey through the room of statues had been kinda interrupted by L-DEF's shouting echoing down the corridor) - "...an eldritch horror somewhere. Even if it is a basically harmless, magically neutralised eldritch horror."

[Dodgeson]

The only reply that Adrien received for his trouble was a deep rumbling from down below the grate, enough to make the ground shake noticeably for a brief moment before it went still again, if it was at all concerned with the loss of one of its many eyes the creature certainly didn't show. While the others were talking the eye that the monster had left behind twitched when Colin nudged at it with Fragarach, shifting its position to get a better look at him as it blinked several times in quick succession.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Um. Hm. Yes that does not seem as though it would be a very great idea." Claire said as Adrien voiced his concerns about giving up the stone key things.

They stared at the ground for a few moments, deep in thought, before looking up again, a look of realization spreading across their face as a plan began to take form. "Uhm. Maybe...we could give her something else from the bottom of the dungeon? Uh, Marcus," they said, turing in his direction "um, do you still have that bottle we got from the furniture? She does not know that we have it, I don't think, so um, maybe it would be possible to convince her that it came from further down than it really did?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Are you certain she stole the memories, and didn't just...I dunno, trade for them, I guess? Because I mean full disclosure I'm not exactly an expert on magical dungeon markets or anything, but it seems to me that a market implies some sort of regulatory rules, and presumably an authority to enforce them. If this woman is stealing memories, we can probably bring it to them. Or, you know, kindly and generously inform her that we won't have to do so if she helps us find the fairy and returns her memories. One of those two for sure!" Kelly chimed in with a cheery grin.

[Thokk_Smash]

"Yeah, I've still got it," Marcus says, fishing the bottle of water from a pocket. "It's blessed water, so it has that going for it. If we're gonna sell that it came from further down, I probably shouldn't be the one to pitch it, though. A poker face, mine is not."

He thinks of something, then sighs in resignation. "If worst comes to worst, there's something I could barter with for the info," he says, and he unconsciously moves his free hand to grip the Blackstaff in his belt loop. "Keep in mind that she accepts information as currency, too. But it's something I'd rather Miss Lethe not know, given my druthers. I'm also fairly certain whatever 'laws' govern a goblin market are not concerned with fairness, at least as we think of it."

He shakes off his sudden melancholy (literally) and nods in turn to Anthony and Kelly. "Said it before, but a pleasure to meet you both," he says, and his brain kicks back in and reminds him what Kelly was saying. "Oh, could I, uh, look at your whips?" he asks, and he seems to be trying to make himself smaller as he asks--perhaps as a way of diminishing the full foot difference in their respective heights. Definitely not because of his social awkwardness. Totally not both of those things at the same time.

Marcus hears snickering in the back of his mind. He slams the door shut once more on Barty for the moment. There is magic he can examine! "I'm a, ah, wizard, mage, whatever so, y'know...magic is cool," he mumbles and trails off.

[zzzzzzzz414]

"Oh, good! Um, I think I could probably convince her, if that would not be a problem. We have already met and talked, so she may be more likely to trust what I am saying."

If there is one thing I am good at after all, it is probably lying. Claire thought ruefully.

Claire tilted their head slightly at Marcus' "something to barter with", and his sudden gripping of the staff did not escape their attention. Something to do with his magic? Or the Black Staff itself? (Marcus' brain friend had implied it was...hard to use, or something?) Whatever it was, though, it seemed like he wasn't going to tell them right now, at least. If it was a secret big enough for Ms. Lethe to be interested, well, Claire could appreciate wanting to keep it quiet.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"You're a wizard? Sweet!" Kelly said, taking out her whips and passing them over with what was if I'm honest a rather casual attitude when you're talking about handing powerful magic weapons over to a more-or-less complete stranger.

[OutOfThyme]

Colin flinches as the eye blinks and swivels to look at him. He wasn't exactly sure why - that was the kind of thing that eyes are supposed to do, but having it happen with a lone eye was just weird. Still, this was some proof of what they'd done. Gingerly, Colin picked it up, holding it with just his index finger and thumb.

"Does anyone have something we can keep this eye in?" Colin asked, returning to join the group. "I'm not sure if we want it all squashed by the time we get back up there."

[Llyarden]

"Yeah, if we need to I have a 'secret' I can barter with too," Adrien added. Behind him, apparently without any conscious direction on his part, the familiar cartoon tiger popped into existence, kinda hiding behind his legs, and raised its forepaws to its mouth in an exaggerated expression of surprise. "But first we should probably ask Ms Lethe how much she wants us to pay to get Georgie back. Because I mean she might just go 'oh yeah I don't actually want her at all you can have it for your most recent memory of an apple' or something."

At Colin's question he started to shake his head, but then paused and pulled his guitar case off his back. "This is pretty snug, but we might be able to fit it in here." If he was creeped out by the idea of keeping the eye of an eldritch entity in his guitar case he didn't show it.

[Dodgeson]

With Kelly's amazing speed (and perhaps a little help from Adrien) it would take our heroes almost no time at all to leave LDEF's prison and hurry back through the giant's cave in to the spider's lair, back up the almost bottomless pit and around the bridge and its ponderous swinging traps to leave them exactly back where they started in front of the heavy doors of the dungeon.

The waiting area that had been bustling with eager students the last time they saw it seemed to be almost deserted, they were certainly the only students there, waiting patiently at a desk in front of a set of stairs (that certainly hadn't been there before) was a brown haired man in a shirt and tie who was watching them with a dull expression.

"Please deposit you relic on the table and make your way up the stairs to the waiting area. Your score will be determined once all able applicants have returned." He explained, seemingly not at all phased by the six applicants, sudden and rainbow-y arrival.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Kelly had picked up the sword-key-thing on the way out, kinda just in case the eldritch abomination eye didn't quite count as a relic (also because the sword was shiny and the eye was kinda gross). She went over and placed it on the table. "Um...I mean, I imagine it's probably the sort of thing where like the door is literally the least important part of the whole thing, but on the off chance it's not Dean Merlin may want to consider upgrading his Eldritch Abomination security system. It's kinda easy to penetrate from the outside as it stands." She managed to say it all with a straight face, give-or-take a friendly smile.

"Actually, is it okay if we go back into the dungeon for a bit instead of to the waiting area?
There was something else we wanted to check out. We won't interfere with or assist any of the other applicants. ...I mean, like, unless it looks like someone's really in danger or something, I guess. But not, you know, test-wise."

Spoiler

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Persuasion: (1d20+16)[27]. +5 if Attractive applies.

[Llyarden]

Considering that Kelly's rainbow road was several orders of magnitude faster than Adrien could move at his fastest, he got used to the superspeed travel very quickly, and by the time they were travelling back up the not-quite-bottomless pit he'd started to get a little more flamboyant, hopping and sliding around the group on momentarily-appearing light constructs of his own - though making sure to not get too far away from Kelly, figuring that she was probably at the centre of the effect.

He'd already opened his guitar case to retrieve L-DEF's eye when his brain caught up with the second part of the man's sentence, and he paused. While he was fairly confident about their chances of being accepted given that they seemed to have found the bottom of the dungeon, and presumably the goblin market wasn't only there for the application 'event' so they'd able able to come back and help the pixies later, the idea of abandoning them - especially after promising to help - didn't sit well with him.

Kelly - as perhaps might be expected of a speedster - got to asking the man whether they could go back down before Adrien could do the same. "We had until the end of the day, didn't we?" he added - but after a moment, a slightly more important question occurred to him. "Uh, actually, how much time is left?" His phone was still off, so it wasn't like he could check the time on it.