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Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	It has been a long, long time coming, but Lilian's master plan to finally set up a situation where the two of--     Where Trídéag recruits with promising futures can gain just a little taste of the Traditional Ritual Training that made Lilian as hypercompetent and cool as she is, and in that tiny crucible at medium heat, forge lifelong bonds, and perhaps even be eligible for Grade Four promotion one day!     As disclosed to Matilda all of one day in advance of everyone else, the ominous conditions for the three day retreat revolve entirely around what the Fixers are allowed to pack: Their SN-13, their training weapon from the 12th floor, their radio, a single change of clothes, single layer athletic innerwear, a first aid kit, and a towel. Special exceptions are only made for prescriptions, cosmetics (for some reason?), and any 'arcane implements' to declare, of which one is the maximum. The pedantic are swiftly answered with the rule of thumb: 'if you can't buy something just like it here then it's an implement'.     . . . . . . . .     It'd be more worrying if you were lead into an boreal forest in the Himalayan mountains, but after assembling with a strangely bubbly energy reminiscent of a school trip on the fifth floor and matching down the private fixer lifts to the VIP warpgate in the west wing, the place you end up is almost absurdly beautiful. You have to maintain marching order behind Lilian the whole way after that (who does insist on a double-column, actually) amounting to roughly forty-five minutes of travel, but the scenery is so lovely that it has the atmosphere of taking a cheeky vacation.     It'd be more reassuring if there was any way whatsoever to tell where you are. Someone disobedient enough to sneak in a compass finds it spinning uselessly. The sun in the bright blue sky seems oddly large and strangely pale, as if the two factors balance to create the usual amount of light. The forested valley looks more like a canyon, leading you on a winding 'path' that might just be vegetation that Lilian cut down herself, but that would make it a truly massive one if so. The overflowing vegetation blooms in riotous colours and fruits in lurid shades, turning the air dense and honey-sweet at dips and turns and strangely acidically sour at others. The bird calls are so loud you can't imagine civilization within a hundred miles.     Lilian chatters most of the way, but is intentionally coy about the subject of 'where?' the entire time. It's obvious to literally anyone that getting out of the building and fucking off into the middle of nowhere is exceptionally positive for her spirits and energy, but it may have something to do with the slight, ozonic tingle you get on your tongue from breathing the air in just the right place too.     . . . . . . . .     The time is mid-morning. The weather is warm and clear. The destination (announced with an unnecessarily effusive 'Tada!' is a cozy clearing in the forest where a concave undulation in the red canyon wall pours a crystal clear waterfall two hundred feet into a wide and shallow basin at the head of a slow-moving river. The greenery peels down to bushes, shrubs, and wildflowers, then to creepers and grass as it approaches the water, giving you an unobstructed view around the sunlit pool, save only for the odd bit of crumbled white stonework. Lilian's preexisting planning has only gone so far (in this regard) as assembling a small pile of supplies on a single transport pallet by the water. The topmost row is a small handful of zip-up duffel bags which she proudly proclaims to be "Tents! Two-per! Buddy up and get assembling them now! No dawdling! I'll explain everything you need to know while you do it!"
Riku Asakura	Riku makes an exception for his greebles because he DOES need them to turn into Ultraman.  He also questions why there's no water bottle on the list of things they're allowed.  How are they going to take in water?  That's weird! Assuming he can take his greebles, because, well, they are his arcane implements, he will take them with him on the trip.  His training weapon is a short sword he keeps on site and practices with.  Though he doesn't use a sword in most of his Ultraman forms, he uses a claw weapon! Riku asks 'where' exactly once, but when it's avoided, he just accepts that he's not going to get an answer and decides to just go with the flow.  He marches along with the group towards their objective.  It's at least very vibrant and full of clean air.   When they finally get to the waterfall and the sunlit pool, Riku looks amazed at it.  It's so pretty!  He grabs a duffel with a tent in it and looks around for someone to assist him with the tent.  Then goes about trying to set the tent up!  "So how did you find this place, Mrs. Rook?"
Team Timekeeper	This is a field trip for Sonetto too! Even better, it's a field trip that's both academic and practical in its intent, and gives her an opportunity to get good marks from a different position than her usual, *and* potentially opens up further advancement! If Lilian's plan was to make them march nonstop for forty-eight hours, then Sonetto would still consider this to be the best use of her days away from the Foundation.     And she's allowed to bring her glasfeder too? *And* cosmetics? This is practically a vacation!     Because of these comparatively gentle rules, Sonetto takes it upon herself to be as diligent as possible, so that no execess relaxation may infect her education. She's already been spoiled by Lilian allowing her to bring her hair oils, brushes, and sleep bonnet-- things that she sorely misses on field excursions, but solemnly accepted as an operational necessity-- and so she can't take advantage of that kindness by relaxing at all.     She's prepped in her Trideag uniform, with a compact Field Agent Administration pack neatly filled with everything she needs. Once they're on the way, though, her professional diligence is gradually eroded away by the hum of magic in the air, and she's inexhaustibly enthusiastic along the walk.     "Ah! Is this the Otherworld that you mentioned before, Director? The air here smells different. It's so beautiful. Ah, do you intend to have us occupied for all waking hours of the exercise, or will there be a period of individual activity?"     Arriving at the camping spot, Sonetto looks around like there's going to be people leaping out of the bushes to inform her that's she's on Jackass or something. She uncertainly ambles towards the duffel bags, then glances back at Lilian.     "Director? Did you bring these here yourself?" She sounds like she's about to inform the teacher that she forgot to ask the class to turn in their homework. "Um, I believe on the way back, we should be tasked with carrying all of the supplies we used on the trip. We are the ones learning from you."     She forgot to buddy up with anyone, though. It might just be the case that she always expects someone else to gravitate towards her, whenever she's not around Vertin to glue herself to. Without establishing a pair, she begins efficiently and quickly setting up her tent, with the speed of having done so as a military drill and only being unfamiliar with this specific tent.
Kale Hearthward	Kale's gotten used to packing very very very very not light. Between having subordinates to carry his stuff, having a flying ship with an entire outpost's worth of storage space, and being able to simply fly off and back if he needs to pick up something, he's never really had to worry about packing space at all.     So therefore he bristles at pretty much every restriction placed:     "Spare batteries and parts for the radio are okay, right?"     "Now when you say a single change of clothes..."     "How big of a first aid kit are we talking?"     "Now when you say a single change of clothes..."     "I've been deciding between a couple different training weapons, actually."     "So I have this thing, it's technically a towel-"     "Now when you say a single change of clothes..."     The thing that he raises the biggest fuss about are his swords. "They're all arcane implements! They channel my magic!" Any argument about taking two extra swords (plus spares of each) is reluctantly abandoned when someone points out the further limitation on 'just one'.     In the end (and with some assistance) he actually does show up with a pack that meets the rules. His swords stay at home, the SN-13 and training sword taking their usual crossed spots on his back. His 'arcane implement' is Tabtrack, his pair of jet boots, though to show conformity with the whole camping idea (and because he doesn't put it past Lilian to swipe them  if he tries cheating that brazenly) they are currently attached to his pack, while a fresh pair of premium hiking boots are what's actually worn.     - - -     "Ugh, actually hiking."     In theory, Kale gets his required cardio in along with every other Paladin. In practice, being able to fly everywhere means walking is a thing for other people to do.     "Aren't we there yet?" It's been literally six minutes.     - - -     "Finally. That took hours."     Kale goes to grab a tent for himself. He is presuming, or perhaps just hoping, that he'll be the odd man out and will have a solo tent all to himself.     "Right, we're getting to the actual training part next? All this pretty nature stuff was just a prerequisite we're done with, I'm assuming."
Odette Raskins	It's time for a training retreat! With her non-Trideag duties actually covered fully for once, Odette's able to show up with ease of mind and plenty of time to pack what few things she's been given permission to bring. Knowing that this is training retreat and not life-or-death struggles (probably), she's packed most of her stuff into an older duffel bag that's even smaller than the one she used to use for work. She's wearing her Trideag fit at the moment with an older set of clothes neatly tucked away with her first aid kit, innerwear, and towel. Only her SN-13, the training sword from before she was given the SN-13 to actually use, and a metal staff as her arcane implement are held outside of it, tied together and held in place behind her shoulder by a long strap. She really wanted to bring snacks, but she's behaving on that front. There's only two little snack packs of chips from the vending machines in her bag! Odette's mind is, thankfully, far off from that once she sees everyone else gathered on the fifth floor, and she's all but forgotten her snacks by the time everyone heads through the warpgate. "Whoa... What is that out there? I-is that the sun?" "All these plants on this path... I wonder how long they've been here for." "How far have we gotten already? I don't even hear the city anymore." The long walk doesn't bug Odette much, and her initial misgivings are quickly shoved away by awe at the beauty of all that nature around her. She could stand to be a little more scared about all the unfamiliar plantlife around her, but the newness of it all keeps that at bay for now. THe tingling on her tongue is the only thing that has her quieting down to look around, but even that concern doesn't last for long thanks to the power of SICK VISTAS. Oohing predictably at the waterfall, she leaaans forward with her butt sticking backwards to keep her balance while she looks down at where all that water's going. "Gosh, I wonder how that water tastes... O-oh, wait, I didn't bring a filter. Unless we're... Boiling it with firewood and filtering it with stuff we find on the land?" She looks over at Lilian eagerly, surprisingly herself with how excited she's getting over the idea of roughing it out here. SEeing some tents already being claimed, she too picks an unclaimed tent that's closer to the center (or whatever amounts to a center here), then circles around the tent to try and figure out what parts she's even looking at.
Foundation Scions	Finally! It's the day-of the big training outing! Never mind that her superiors at the SPDM are frankly quite upset at the further time-off she's spending, in quick conjunction to an extended hospital stay- the great and talented Matilda Bouanich, would not miss this occasion, to see a fraction of a matter of traditional magical training and rite, to train herself, for her future-beterment, and to see Sonetto in such circumstances! Ah...     It's truly unfortunate that Matilda Bouanich's arcane implements, are all rocks! But she's innovated, a bit, on the matters of weight and bulk- the same slightly-more convenient chain of smaller polished quartzes, that she assembled during the period of turmoil in the months after the storm of 1929, is much easier to pack away, or to hold in busy arms! Sure, it doesn't have the same flair of a crystal orbuculum, but that's truly to heavy for her to be bringing out and about so much, alongside everything else!     Matilda, as-fitting for the outing, is in her Trídéag uniform! It's simply so correct, that of the outfit-options it allows, she's wearing shorts! You've gotta wear shorts out and about! It's good for running, and jumping! And fitting her style! This time, even, she's sure to have brought gloves, too! No more finger-pricking! . . .     "Ah? Stonework, here? Was this a sight of habitation, at some point?" With a pack of stuff to hold onto, she can't raise her hand to ask the question like is her impulse! "It is so pretty out, and the water so clear! If it were to be, I would most highly understand! How long ago was it, if it was at all..?" At the sight of the clearing, Matilda is so enthused- staring up and up at the falls, the sky, the cliffs- even more enthused, than the vistas just on the other side of the warpgate! She's all smiles, spinning around (precarious, with gear!) to see the whole sight in a 360 degree panorama! "Quelle endroit pittoresque!" 'The air here smells different.'     "Yes! So fresh and tingly... Comme c'est super..." She takes a big breath in, and out. She's here to have a good time, first and foremost! Matilda Bouanich often is motivated by that!     "Sonetto! We should be buddies for the tents!" Never fear! If Sonetto forgets to buddy-up with anyone, Matilda, she will never, ever, ever forget to do this! If there is the opportunity to spend the camping-trip with the comparative intimacy of tenting alongside Sonetto, Matilda would hike to the ends of the Earth in order to make that dream realized! The appeal of an undersized tense and the brushing-up that entails, of sore muscles from training, of late-night chatter- well. This is Sonetto. Don't get your hopes *so* up, Matilda.     To that end, Matilda rushes to her side (with a quick pit stop to hand a tent she'd already grabbed off, in anyone elses' hands) to help with the assembly!     "The waterfall, if we are camping here, its noise will continue into the night..." She lets out a dreamy little sigh, while kneeling down to poke at the parts of the tent, "And the pool of water, surely, it will reflect all manner of light from up-above, if the sky stays clear! Oh, I almost cannot-wait to see it- ah-hem, not to discard how much there is to look forwards to, first!"
Angela	Trídéag's membership, at least amongst the locals, is incredibly loyal and, at this point, well trained. Lapses in discipline tend to happen because of over enthusiasm more than any other reasons. For most of them, this is their first time seeing a forest. And most of them are eager to participate in Lilian's special training, no doubt imagining to themselves that it will be their next step towards their heroic journey, their growth as a Fixer, or they'll at least get to earn some brownie points in participating enthusiastically. Amongst those chosen to join in today are... Ceri who was feeling cooped up in her office and felt coming along would assist her in being a better aide to Lilian. She has taken advantage of the special exemption for cosmetics but is otherwise sticking strictly to the rules. Finn is also sticking to the rules, but also no cosmetics. He is happy to be here and eager to do his very best and so on and so forth as is his nature. Solace and Knifty are also present. Solace is maybe the most experienced of the Trídéag locals with roughing it, and Knifty is already cozing up to Riku and says, with wide eyes, "Let's be tentmates, Big Guy!" with a big, discomfitting smile. And finally there's Lenny who is carrying everyone's prescriptions. There are others here but we're focusing on these people today. Lenny says, "Speaking of, maybe we should be tentmates, I've got a lot to ask you about medicine and techniques of other worlds." As the local street surgeon of The Rats, Lenny figures she could learn a lot from Odette. Most of the Trídéag members have never seen a forest before in their lives. They are in quiet awe, Lenny remarks that "The air here is different from any I've breathed in before." with a quiet awe and there's some murmured agreement amongst the rest, except for Solace whose expression is as unreadable as ever. "Losing track of our path." Solace admits and if Solace is losing track of where everybody is, the same can probably be said for the rest of the Trídéag locals. They're more worried about it, Solace seems to find the wilderness being varying levels of hostile to you as completely normal. "Appreciate you letting me tag along. I've been going stir crazy being stuck in that office." Ceri tells Lilian. "I won't get in the way of training." ''Tada!'' "Oh..! This is quite a beautiful place you picked out." Ceri says. "I'll handle the tent, you gonna 'room' with me?" She gets to work expertly setting up the tent. Out of the people setting up tents, Lenny seems to struggle the most with it and Solace moves over to help her after she finishes her own, as Solace also seems pretty accustomed to setting up tents. "Hey Kale, let's be tentmates!" Finn says, as if he knew exactly what Kale was planning. That leaves Solace as someone who hasn't picked anybody out. "Sonetto," She also says. "Would you like to share a tent?" Solace wants to be tentmates with Sonetto since she believes she and Sonetto have matching temperments.
Foundation Scions	'Sonetto, would you like to share a tent?'     Stage whispering, "Pardonnez-moi, but she and I are already tent-buddies." She waits for a moment for Solace to move along, and will Glare a little about it, and do the finger wave-off.
Riku Asakura	When Knifty approaches Riku about being tentmates, Riku doesn't think much about it because Knifty is always doing her best.  Even if that is, uh... being a little stabby with her knives to people who are their enemies or just awful, she's doing her best!  Riku remembers how hard she was trying to be a maid. "Sure, Knifty!  Have you ever set up a tent before?  I did a few times, but not as many as I had wanted to."
Xion	Xion had been making light jokes and noise about 'still being' Grade Nine or Grade Eight as a Fixer as a joke for a while, and so perhaps it was a little odd that she was in attendance for a training operation. At the same time, it's something that Lilian clearly was deeply passionate about. Xion wouldn't possibly miss this! Xion had been working on her spear work, of all things, in Trideag, moving through forms and motions in the practice rooms sometimes, and so she wore a training spear against her soft sturdy-canvas bag. Her pack had a few hoops and carabiners attached to it, but the restrictions means she's travelling extra light. Her few items are gathered up loose into the pack, a colorful beach towel corner visible from the cinched top of her bag, with a black keychain with primordial red-containing glass sphere charm cinching the top rather than a rope. --- The walk into the overvibrant surrounds is met with wide-eyed wonder, her blue-green eyes glittering as they take in the expanse of color and lurid vibrancy, a near-drooling distance to her expression as her horizon expanded, and then with a sleeve to wipe her mouth, heading on into the jungle with her thumbs tucked up under the straps of her pack. "Is this allowed?" Xion asks, to the people she marches near, eyes off them and upon the world (the Otherworld?) as it is, finding the very texture of the world a certain sort of constantly captivating. Eventually, though, she gets to marching, and eventually, camping. When 'Tada!' comes, Xion once again is left staring at a space so gorgeously bright it stops her in her tracks just to stare into a form of beauty she drank down like a desert survivor being shown water. "You had something like this and you ever left it?" Xion asks, meandering into the clear and unslinging pack off of one shoulder as the others engage in their own reverie before moving inexorably towards the packs. Solace seems to be shoved aside so Xion smoothly settles in besides as if she had been there the whole time in the dead zone created by the turn of peripheral vision, not-smiling with her hands into the tentbag already. "It's two to a tent." She explains, rather than even a 'let's be together, then', almost the same sort of she-would-do-it-herself that Kale began with in her motions but also without trying to keep Solace away from things.
Lilian Rook	The remainder of the pallet contains not very much. Lilian starts divvying it up the second people have their tents, making rounds between groups with "Your care package, madame." and "It's for you, sir." Each of the secondary bags contain three towels, two (metal) water bottles, a utility knife, a coil of nylon rope, and a thumb-sized six-sized doodad like a crystalline tube of lipstick that Lilian informs is "For emegencies only. Each of these only works once, and you only get the one. Twist the top half four notches and slide it upwards with your thumb while thinking as hard as you can about a colour, and it'll fire off an emergency signal for me to see. Point up."     The last bag is for herself, which means the backpack she brought is irrelevant and filled with surprise tricks for later. Once the bags are dispenses, Lilian gravitates to a strip of fine white gravel near the water's edge, and begins assembling the basic pieces necessary for a large fire; enough for everyone to sit around at once, though it's all of the stonework and none of the fuel. When that's done, she walks off into the woods, and returns a very short time later with a line of stumps-- or rather, even slices of a dark red-brown tree trunk-- strung behind her with her own rope through a triangle punctured through the center of them. She fussily sets them up to a circle bordering on geometric perfection, then hammers what looks like railroad spikes (hey why is there a pile of them on the pallet?) through the center hole of each to keep them from moving.     'Ah! Is this the Otherworld that you mentioned before, Director?'     "Oh goodness. Got it in one!" Lilian says, already delighted. The 'triangles', now conglomerated into roughly two-dozen elongated shards that unavoidably hover in the general space around her head and upper back, make a strangely interpretable 'pleased flutter' motion out to the sides. "I'll be describing the itinerary shortly, so please be patient until then."     'Director? Did you bring these here yourself?'     "Mm? Obviously. Who else?" Lilian looks up, curious. "That's a great idea, but I think you'll change your tune when the final day rolls around."     'Finally. That took hours.'     "Oh you're going to hate this." Lilian giggles, borderline maniacal, eased by her positive mood. "Naturally. I chose a beautiful spot because I'm going to be staying with you all for three days, so I want it to be somewhere I like."     'Gosh, I wonder how that water tastes... O-oh, wait, I didn't bring a filter. Unless we're... Boiling it with firewood and filtering it with stuff we find on the land?'     "Another great guess!" Lilian says, pointing enthusiastically in Odette's direction. "No rewards, but congratulations!"     'Ah? Stonework, here? Was this a sight of habitation, at some point?'     "There are bits of this and that all over the place here." Lilian says. "Old circles, shrines, ritual places; that sort of thing. You'll be making good use of them, trust me."     'The air here smells different.'     'Yes! So fresh and tingly... Comme c'est super...'     "That'd be ambient 'pneuma'. If we were to go ten or so miles, it'd start getting mildly toxic to humans, but here is a great spot for it."
Sarracenia	Princess Sarracenia Sundew, Ruler of the Sundew Kingdom...does not like all these conditions being imposed. Weapons she has trained with but isn't masterful with? -ONE- change of clothes?! Sarra tries to weasel her way into two implements, trying to argue that something like her purse of holding -could- be purchased in the City somewhere. But, if forced to chose she takes her Silver hairpin instead.      Since this is some sort of outdoor military training retreat, Sarra actually forgoes her usual dress and instead has had a special outfit made. One that Lilian is sure to love.      A stylish outfit made of a durable camo-print material. And the camo isn't a simple splotched or pixelated design. It is fairly realistic print of leaves and sticks and such. While it is still a dress, the skirt is quite short and the sleeves are long, matched with long gloves of the style she usually wears but also in camo. Leggings of a similar material along with heeled, lace-up, knee-high boots complete the outfit.      And despite all of that, she still has her golden crown in addition to her Silver hairpin. Since she doesn't have her purse, she is carrying a large backpack with all of the things she is allowed to bring including a back scabbard for the training sword. Wearing it on her hip seems like it would get in the way. Her long shimmering copper hair has been carefully braided into a thick braid that is both stylish and appropriate.      It is perhaps no surprise that the princess is rather nervous. She's been enduring Liu training sure, but...being on some sort of three day training mission with Lilian leading it sounds like it will be very unpleasant. So, she is wearing a constantly suspicious look the entire time that Lilian is chattering and being coy and seeming positive. Though, to her credit, she complains relatively little on their hiking trip.      Relative for Sarra, anyway.      "Are we there yet?" she says at almost exactly the same time as Kale...and proceeding to glare at him after.      'Tada!'      Sarra looks around, waiting for some training task or monsters or something, but...nothing happens. It is a nice little clearing, and even Sarracenia can appreciate it's beauty. The forest feels friendly instead of stifling and hungry like her home. Her eyes widen slowly as she takes in the scenery and her suspicion starts to ebb.      'Tents! Two-per! Buddy up and get assembling them now! No dawdling! I'll explain everything you need to know while you do it!'      "...buddy up...?" Sarra says quietly to herself. She looks around at those gathered, wondering who would be a good buddy. Someone who doesn't hate her, is unlikely to try to knife her in her sleep...hmm. Riku seems a good choice, but Knifty has claimed him. Of course there is Odette...wait no it seems she has already been asked. Others are also quickly asked to be tentmates. Who is even left? Oh god...      Sarra slowly turns just enough that she can see Kale. He isn't the only one left...right? Please say there is -someone- else. ANYONE else!      Xion! The noirette angel is here! Sarra practically sprints to Xion once the direction to pair up is given! "Xion~!" she says excitedly. "We simply -must- be tentmates!" Sarra feels like it has been years since she has seen Xion, so getting to spend a camping trip with someone who probably counts as her best friend would be amazing!
Lilian Rook	'Appreciate you letting me tag along. I've been going stir crazy being stuck in that office.'     "Please. I've been delagating everything to you for weeks. It's the least I could do." Lilian laughs. Surely she isn't rejecting Knifty and Riku sleeping together because she just didn't notice, right?     'You had something like this and you ever left it?'     "If you'd believe it, I only found this place less than a year ago. And it was a bitch and a half to find a Warpgate too." Still. "I grew up practically a stone's throw from Tír na nÓg. Beauty is essential, but I was born with a sword in my hand, not a paintbrush."     With the early questions and speculation out of the way, only then does she whistle (ear-splittingly loud) for attention, and motion her Fixers "At attention!" around the circle. Once you're up close, if you look down, you can see intricate linework under the loose gravel still in the firepit, tracing a flat, level plane of weather-blemished stone beneath the sandbar.     "Welcome to day one of your mission!" Lilian crows with obvious, near-giddy enthusiasm. "Traditionally, this would be a three month total break from society, but we're all busy people, so! Three days is the time you will be here. You will not leave. I've already booby-trapped the Warpgate to ensure you won't." Hey wait what-- "You will not have access to your electronic devices, save your radio communicators, which you may use however you wish. You will not perform clerical work of any kind. Any unrelated pursuits are to be kept to your rest periods, and must be physical in some nature. That means no reading, which includes your manuals!"     She takes the brief pause to pick up the entire pallet, single-handedly, and fingersnap vanish it with an unnecessarily showoffy "Tá mo Seal." This leaves two of the plastic-polymer relief crates that she's always dragging to the Dragon's Garden. "These are community resources. They contain charging equipment for your weapons, miniature safes for overnight storage of arcane implements, emergency medical gear in case it becomes absolutely necessary, and emergency food for the same eventuality. I have documented everything, and will simply divine whoever's taken something they shouldn't; which will result in immediate disqualification and demotion of rank."     They're just. Right there. In the open. "Oh and fishing gear." Lilian says, before moving right along without explaining. "If you're holding onto any watches, phones, compasses, lighters, snacks, or anything not on the list, throw it here now, and you'll get off free. If I find it when I search you, there'll be punishment detail, and you won't like it. Not even cigarettes."     Lilian finally claims the last spot for herset, automatically putting her back to the waterfall across the basin, dropping her hefty backpack exactly in place, and finally saying "At ease." only after any offending items are surrendered. "The itinerary for now is that you'll be performing guided physical exercise each morning until noon, split into four segments, interspersed with stance and motion practice, live steel strike practice, structured sparring, and free sparring, in that order."
Lilian Rook	"There will be a two hour rest period to eat and recover, and then you will be given individualized assignments by me, which you will follow absolutely until I give you complete them. Your second rest period will not begin until you do. At the commencement of sunset, you will follow the trail I have marked for you to one of the major sites around this area, and everyone at the destination by nightfall will participate in one of the three major rituals necessary to complete the initiation. Anyone who doesn't make it will take on additional punitive duties. You can sleep whenever you want, and eat whenever you like, so long as you complete all of your tasks."     And then her true colours finally start to show. "I will be providing for the meal period in a few hours, but after that, you're completely on your own. I will not be explaining what is safe to eat. Stealing food from your comrades will result in immediate failure, except from those who have failed to complete their tasks. All injuries are to be treated with the first aid kits you have. The emergency gear is for life-threatening injuries only."     She holds up three fingers long enough to be menacing before continuing, and only after showing them around twice. "All arcane skills or superhuman abilities are limited to three uses per day, defined by sunrise. I have already installed the necessary arrays to know. Crystal divinations, green mushrooms, lifebreath; all of it. For those without the like," Lilian opens up her own bag, and produces from the innermost structural rack, a small handful of Trídéag's standard issue sidearm. "One magazine. That's it."     "Now!" Hand clap! "You may have guessed, but you are currently in a chosen location on the borders of the Otherside in my own world! The further you stray from here, the less familiar things will become. Warmly assume that everything you don't recognize is dangerous, because there are all sorts of Critters and entities here that love aspiring little heroes like you for breakfast. Whatever happens, consider it a learning experience. The goal here isn't to increase your technical proficiency, but to apply your skills to real life situations, with real stakes. And, finally, speaking of which." "And with apologies to Sundew for taking it upon herself to prepare an appropriate outfit for a change," AAAA WHY IS LILIAN TAKING HER TOP OFF!! SHE'S JUST WHIPPING IT OFF AND LEAVING HERSELF IN A SPORTS BRA!! "Traditionally, you'd complete this period entirely naked. I'm a woman of reason, however, so I told you to bring innerwear instead. This isn't optional, by the way. There will be no meaningful barrier between your bare skin and every little bramble scratch and gravel scuff, much less teeth and blades. Increasing your awareness of your own body and its connection to your surroundings is half the point of this retreat, and you will be reprimanded for cheating it. The weather will warm for all three days."
Lilian Rook	Finally, she points in a handful of directions. "There's a geothermal spring just past that bend in the canyon wall and up the path. Bathe in that and not in the waterfall. Don't be a psychopath. Hang up your spare clothes after washing them on that tree line there. If you stink, I'll kick your ass. Throw out any food scraps and what-have-you in the pit that you'll find behind those trees, three minutes in that direction; don't keep any at camp or you'll attract wild animals. I myself will be setting up at the top of the cliff, where I can keep an eye on you. It's no Bridge of Leaps, but it's the next best thing; if you want something from me, get up there yourself; I'll totally ignore anyone yelling from down here."     Like an afterthought, "Oh and obviously don't do any crimes or whatever. Respect people's personal belongings, space, boundaries; don't be a creep or a thug or a thief. Ask your questions now because I'm putting you to work in fifteen minutes."
Team Timekeeper	"Sonetto, Would you like to share a tent?"     "Hm?"     Despite clearly having set herself up to be approached for tent partnership, Sonetto still seems mildly surprised when someone approaches her. She looks up from where she's affixing a tent spike into the ground, then over at Matilda, who's already here apparently. "Pardonnez-moi, but she and I are already tent-buddies."     "Ah, it seems I'm already partnered with Matilda. My apologies, Miss Solace." Matilda sweep!!! She even said partnered! "The waterfall, if we are camping here, its noise will continue into the night..."     "It is such a gentle-feeling location..." Sonetto sighs, similarly appreciative. Wordlessly, she points for Matilda to hold down the pole on the other side of the tent so that Sonetto can steadily thread it through the hoops.     "But beautiful locations such as this frequently hide extreme danger. It is a common tactic of the arcane wilderness to do so. I'm sure Director Rook will not let us relax until it is very late." "Your care package, madame."     "Thank you." Sonetto begins to wonder, as the pack is placed in her hands, whether Lilian has been misinformed about something. This feels like the kind of outing they would do at the SPDM! "That's a great idea, but I think you'll change your tune when the final day rolls around."     "Oh, I see." Sonetto sounds incredibly relieved by this. "Thank you for the information." It felt like Lilian had been tricked somehow! Her having Plans is much better. "I chose a beautiful spot because I'm going to be staying with you all for three days, so I want it to be somewhere I like."     With the tent set up, Sonetto places all of her irrelevant personal items inside of it, and leaves her stripped-down pack leaning against the outside for easy access. She swipes her hands against each other to brush off the small amount of dirt they accumulated. "Yes. I believe the location for a training activity reflects the instructor's values and attributes." "That'd be ambient 'pneuma'."     "Is that a trait of this location? I have heard of such areas of active arcanum, but because I am not part of the History Guard, I have never been deployed to one! Is it known to have any special effects on arcane skills, or will we discover that over the course of interfacing with the traditional practices and structures here?"
Team Timekeeper	"Sonetto, Would you like to share a tent?"     "Hm?"     Despite clearly having set herself up to be approached for tent partnership, Sonetto still seems mildly surprised when someone approaches her. She looks up from where she's affixing a tent spike into the ground, then over at Matilda, who's already here apparently. "Pardonnez-moi, but she and I are already tent-buddies."     "Ah, it seems I'm already partnered with Matilda. My apologies, Miss Solace." Matilda sweep!!! She even said partnered! "The waterfall, if we are camping here, its noise will continue into the night..."     "It is such a gentle-feeling location..." Sonetto sighs, similarly appreciative. Wordlessly, she points for Matilda to hold down the pole on the other side of the tent so that Sonetto can steadily thread it through the hoops.     "But beautiful locations such as this frequently hide extreme danger. It is a common tactic of the arcane wilderness to do so. I'm sure Director Rook will not let us relax until it is very late." "Your care package, madame."     "Thank you." Sonetto begins to wonder, as the pack is placed in her hands, whether Lilian has been misinformed about something. This feels like the kind of outing they would do at the SPDM! "That's a great idea, but I think you'll change your tune when the final day rolls around."     "Oh, I see." Sonetto sounds incredibly relieved by this. "Thank you for the information." It felt like Lilian had been tricked somehow! Her having Plans is much better. "I chose a beautiful spot because I'm going to be staying with you all for three days, so I want it to be somewhere I like."     With the tent set up, Sonetto places all of her irrelevant personal items inside of it, and leaves her stripped-down pack leaning against the outside for easy access. She swipes her hands against each other to brush off the small amount of dirt they accumulated. "Yes. I believe the location for a training activity reflects the instructor's values and attributes." "That'd be ambient 'pneuma'."     "Is that a trait of this location? I have heard of such areas of active arcanum, but because I am not part of the History Guard, I have never been deployed to one! Is it known to have any special effects on arcane skills, or will we discover that over the course of interfacing with the traditional practices and structures here?" "Sure, Knifty! Have you ever set up a tent before?"     Riku is given a look, but when Sonetto's hand goes up to catch Lilian's attention, she's angelically not looking in his direction at all, as if it's unrelated. "Director, should we enforce same-sex pairings for sleeping arrangements?"
Riku Asakura	Riku takes the care package from Lilian with great care.  Opening it up makes a lot more sense regarding the light supplies they were allowed to bring with them.  "Oh, neat, I could always use new water bottles..." he says, upbeat.  He was also lacking a utility knife, so that's good!  Rope is going to be good for camping, so that's a good find!  The tube gets his attention, though. "Oh, so it's like a flare... You also mentioned something about a ritual... are we going to be splitting up eventually?" he asks, curious about what they were actually here to do.  Rituals and magic are outside his expertise and all! 'Otherworld.' "Wait, was this where you trained with Scáthach?  Or was that a different land?" Also, she mentions the land being toxic for humans ten or so miles out... this makes him a bit more nervous.   "Oh, so we're going to have to treat the water ourselves... I wish we could have brought those pills that purify water.  Oh well!  Uh... I guess we have to get things to make campfires?" 'At attention!' Riku makes sure to wake the heck up and pay attention to what Lilian is saying.  Which turns out to be a lot... Thankfully, he did bring inner athletic wear in the form of a tank top and a pair of shorts.  So he pulls off his jeans and shirt to be in that wear because they're supposed to be in athletic wear, right?  Riku just has his greebles, which he was allowed to bring because he needs them to turn into Ultraman.  Though the limit placed on him with that isn't a huge deal... he isn't sure if he could manage more than three if he managed his time carefully. "So we're only allowed to hunt and fish for ourselves, right?" he asks, wanting to make sure.  "Or I guess forage?  Shit, I don't know enough about wild plants to know what's safe to eat..." he realizes.  They also don't have books to check!  This is going to make things very lean if they can't hunt effectively.
Kale Hearthward	> "Hey Kale, let's be tentmates!"     Kale hides his sigh at his plan not working, and smiles. "Sure, why not," he says.     > "Oh you're going to hate this."     "Yeah, I believe you." He crosses his arms.     Kale is about to start working on the tent, trusting himself to work on it more than Finn, when Lilian whistles for attention. He's still kind of grouchy as he listens.     > "Three days is the time you will be here. You will not leave. I've already booby-trapped the Warpgate to ensure you won't."     There is an immediate and near total 180 degree change in Kale's mood. To make that statement a bit more clear: he's gone from being grouchy to being happy, actually grinning a little bit, as he listens a lot more intently.     Big beaky grin.     He listens intently, taking mental notes. Three uses, that'll mean three pressure bombs or probably just three short flights with Tabtrack. Food's going to be a problem, maybe there's something to hunt? Otherwise it'll have to be foraging, he has no idea how to fish.     When it comes to surrendering contraband, he surrenders a bag of trail mix and a bag of beef jerky that were hidden in a side pocket, and doesn't seem to have anything to surrender besides that.     > "So we're only allowed to hunt and fish for ourselves, right?"     "I don't think I heard anything about helping each other out, or trading, if it comes down to that. Speaking of."     He raises a hand. "Permission to leave for about thirty seconds?" he asks Lilian.
Angela	Knifty IS always doing her best. And she has engaged in INTENSE TRAINING to not be OVERTLY A CREEP so she'll only be a creep at Riku subtly instead of be staring at him inches from his face when he wakes up. But her smile sort of inherently looks a little off no matter how hard she tries because it's always just a touch manic. And sometimes more than a touch manic. "Eheh...Yay! Rooming with the big guy!" Then she realizes she's never set up a tent before. "No... I never set up a tent before. I would just dig a hole and bury myself and hope the Sweepers didn't get inside." She probably did cheat the system by bringing a knife that's hidden SOMEWHERE on her person but is otherwise totally obeying the rules. It wouldn't have occured to her to thin kthat knives are against the rules despite not being officially listed as 'allowed'. If Riku lets Knifty help, she'll probably slow down the construction of the tent by at least fifteen minutes, but it does mean she'll get some practice in trying at least. And isn't that what truly matters. Everybody collects their Emergency Only Lipstick Flares. ''Xion offers to room with Solace and Matilda glares at Solace.'' Solace stares unflinchingly back at Matilda, invincible in the face of being the only person in Trídéag who is apparently willing to get in Matilda's way. But then Sonetto confirms that she is partnered with Matilda. Solace accepts defeat and gives a little nod. "Okay." She looks to Xion. "May we?" Oh no, now there's two people who want to partner with Xion!! Solace will probably be totally fine being by herself, she's usually a pretty solitary person, but that doesn't mean she WANTS to be alone. Ceri works on setting up the tent, smiling and giving Lilian a nod. "It's honestly been a bit strange doing Fixer work again. Actually, I should tell you, while you were gone I received a message from my home asking me to return. I haven't sent back a response yet and I don't particularly know what's going on, since I doubt they wish me to return permanently, but I intend to refuse." ''At attention!'' REgardless of whether Xion accepts her offer or not, the FIxers move in and move in around the circle. "No reading..." Lenny says. "Guess I have to pick up a new hobby." ''Oh and fishing gear.'' Solace brightens. "Fishing? We can fish? I can show the others how to fish." ''If you're holding onto any...'' "Ohh....is knife okay? Should I throw knife in?" A number of Trídéag officers throw in their packs of cigarettes and lighters. Fewer than might be expected but notable. Most of Trídéag doesn't have superhuman abilities, though they're assuming that augmentations they've picked up with their Trídéag salaries counts so they'll just have to try not to overuse those. There's some murmured whisperings of awe about being in Lilian's world, and also in some sort of 'Otherside' that is, like, special even to Lilian's world. It dies down quickly because they're still supposed to be paying attention here. "How's this compare to Liu training, Sarracenia?" Finn asks the Princess, curiously.
Angela	''WHIPPING IT OFF'' Slowly the Trídéag Fixers follow Lilian's lead, some more reluctantly than others. Knifty removed her clothes as soon as she saw Lilian was doing it, Solace is next. Both their bodies are covered in scars from the hard lives they've led, though Knifty's seems to be smaller and less pronounced than Solace's, the most predominant of which is a claw swipe across her atomach that has faded but is still pronounced. It looks like it's a miracle Solace survived it. Finn and Lenny are the most reluctant to strip, Finn is wearing boxers and an undershirt and seems worried he'll be asked to remove the latter anyway. Lenny is blushing fiercely and trying to use Odette as some sort of cover. "What's the Bridge of Leaps?" Solace asks. ''Sure, why not'' Finn gives a sheepish smile at Kale, sheepish because he is a little uneasy about being stripped down this much. "Don't worry, we'll make a great team." He promises.
Xion	'We simply -must- be tentmates!' Xion turns her head, quarter of the way through setting up a tent and gives an uncomprehendingly blindsided reaction to Sarracenia, blank-faced for a moment before nodding slowly. "Okay, sure." Xion replies, just going with it without an argument at all. It was, apparently, required. There's a moment of checking if Sarracenia means she also is going to help with the tent before continuing to quite directly continue with or without any help. There's a sort of distant-eyed completing progress bar effect Xion works with, quietly moving through task after task and accepting help but not directing it and not apparently needing it. Eventually, the tent is set up, and her bag is tossed into it, and she's back to idling, though the keychain-draw of her bag has transferred to her wrist for loose wrapping-about and the dangling of the orb off her arm sways with a quiet scrape as she stands at loose attention. 'If you'd believe it, I only found this place less than a year ago.' "Should I not believe it?" Xion asks back, the empty-believing genuine of someone probing the very substance of the question before seamlessly carrying into: "If you found it recently, leaving to be here now is clear." Onto day one!! The warpgate is booby-trapped, the way is shut, and there was no possibility of contamination. A locked room for three days with limited supplies in an alternate layer of the world, more real than real. 'If I find it when I search you, there'll be punishment detail, and you won't like it. Not even cigarettes.' Xion raises her hands, open palmed. "I was born with quite a lot in my hands. It sounds like you expect me to follow all the same rules." She half-asks, half-assumes, her eyes watching where the pallet ceased to be in the air as if she could just imagine it back. Still, would it be a challenge at all if Xion used her usual tricks? 'All arcane skills or superhuman abilities are limited to three uses per day, defined by sunrise.' Xion tilts her head. "All?" She asks, and then looks to her wrist, and then looks back to Lilian. Her lips repeat the motion. All? Was a sword a limb or an 'arcane skill'? Was there an exception for swords? A niche? Xion seems offput by this rule, or at least reconsidering. She reconsiders all the way until Lilian starts taking her clothes off! Then, as if discussing the weather (as she took her shirt off), Xion asks: "For the whole time? Then why bring two sets of clothes but only one set of athletic wear?"
Xion	THE GREAT SOLACE / SARRA WAR: Xion seems utterly unmanaging of the intersection between Solace and Sarracenia. There was a tent, it was set up, and she would be sleeping in it essentially naked with SOMEONE and apparently had absolutely no input on with who!! Apparently it was time to duel to the death, or something.
Foundation Scions	Matilda, in high-focus, is happy to be hard at work assembling the tent! Poles, spikes, clips, it's a bit restlessness-causing to collaborate on a tent, so many actions that lead into one! "I know how to do it," is an assuring boast, founded on just how intuitive tents seem like they will be. 'But beautiful locations such as this frequently hide extreme danger.'     "And it is quite-tempting to let oneself become distracted, in locations such as these!" She says, while momentarily distracted by how the light catches and limns Sonetto's hair. Her dreamy sigh is about that, and the surroundings! She can't not be a romantic. 'For emergencies only.'     It's exciting to be given a pack of new items! "Who made flares such as these? The design, it is quite pretty!" Of course she'd go for being interested in the magical doo-dad, that's crystalline, to boot. 'Oh and fishing gear.'     "Ah! I used to go fishing with mon grand-père! This will bring back memories..." Of when you were like six, Matilda! Still, foggy ponds and streams, in the French countryside, are good memories to have brought back. "Surely it will be handy, to have had some experience in!" Sure. 'At attention!'     Matilda is so good at standing at proud-attention! She only fidgets a lot, and only looks around at the surroundings a normal amount! But she looks so proud while doing it! 'Anyone who doesn't make it will take on additional punitive duties.'     No! Nooo! Under-breath, "I must make it to all of them," is said with urgent conviction! The true punishment, would be to be left out, and especially to be left out of rituals! Anything on top is an embarrassment! She came here for the rituals, and for Sonetto, and for the rituals! If that means attending hungry, or what-not, for lack of time to do other things, so be it! 'This isn't optional, by the way.'     Matilda makes an itty-bitty grimace, that her clever technique, in remembering how useful it is to have gloves, happened in tandem with forgetting (in some ways) the nature of this outing! "Zut. Bonjour à nouveau, doigts piqués..." No matter! Think of the upside, Matilda! Think about Sonetto, in excersize innerwear! And how that is now to become a reality! The world is beautiful, and pricked fingers are a small, small price to pay!     Oh well! Matilda looks just as proud to follow instructions! "Perhaps, I will get quite a fashionable tan!" is a little blurbled-out phrase of tense-giddy excitement, that will no doubt get worn down into soggy exhaustion- but it's excitement right now! Yayyyy! "Oh, oh! Director, I do have one important question, the three uses of arcane skills, is that to be overall, or per matter?" A tiny bit more reluctant, "And, er, for vaguer matters, such as crystal divination, are the uses considered on the activity itself, or the occasions in which its assistance are to apply?" She needs to get a good grade in wilderness training retreat! But she really really hopes it's the former!
Kale Hearthward	Kale also strips down.     He has absolutely zero shame in doing so, right in front of everyone, down to just his underwear.     He's also - well, one's taste may vary, obviously, especially when it comes to anthropomorphic bird people. But, aversion to walking aside, he takes care of himself, he watches what he eats, he has an intense feathercare routine, and there's more than a few pieces of unlicensed fanart going around the After Dark sections of Elitecon.     > Xion tilts her head. "All?"     "It's fine," he tells Xion. "I've got this. You just - well, still follow the rules and get something out of the training, but otherwise you and everyone else won't need to worry about this."     He starts doing some warmup stretches. "You just sit back and I'll take care of everyone, alright?"
Team Timekeeper	"Welcome to day one of your mission!"     Sonetto locks into formation with her polite but ironclad attentiveness. As Lilian goes on, though, the shape of the actual experience of the exercise forms in her mind, and she gets a little bit more excited. The Field Agent Administration, while many aspects of its trainings were arcane in nature, they were *specifically* designed to not evoke any particular arcane heritage! This is *personal*! "You will not leave. I've already booby-trapped the Warpgate to ensure you won't."     "Understood, Director. I will do my part in discouraging doubts as well." "That means no reading, which includes your manuals!"     "Ah, yes. I had assumed." She's a little downcast at that. She'd floated the idea to herself, when packing, that maybe she should take a book along, but decided to stick to the letter of the law instead.     It's alright, though. It's for a ritualistic purpose, and it's only for a few days. This physical indulgence with the world will make returning to reading more rewarding once she can. ". . . and everyone at the destination by nightfall will participate in one of the three major rituals necessary to complete the initiation."     Sonetto makes a mental note to immediately bring her report on this to her superiors and make her case about adapting the rule about Foundation personnel not engaging in 'major rituals' for 'initiations' to better suit the multiverse. That rule's about, like, cults! This is Lilian, who's literally a liason for the Foundation! "I will be providing for the meal period in a few hours, but after that, you're completely on your own."     This part actually surprises Sonetto slightly, because she hadn't thought to consider the lack of food until now. "It has been several years since I have done such a field exercise. I'm not sure how much I remember... but duress will assist with my recall." Normal thing to say! "Traditionally, you'd complete this period entirely naked."     Sonetto... is actually blushing and looking away as Lilian strips?! Is she capable of sin after all?! "O-oh, yes, I remember you discussing this traditional practice once before. Yes, that does make sense."     Totally naked would be so scary. Even being so relatively, 'unequipped', is kind of unnerving, not only for the company, but also because these *are* unfamiliar arcane woods! The bodily hyperawareness that this is meant to train is already taking effect just as Sonetto thinks about it, and it isn't helped at all by Kale stripping so easily!     Sonetto raises her hand meekly. "May I step into my tent briefly to put on my athletic wear?"     She takes an unusually long time changing, once she does. The result, when she emerges, isn't actually all that revealing-- sports bra and bicycle shorts, a lot of skin for Sonetto to show, but not an unusual amount for a *person* to show. She's also tied her hair into a thick braid, similarly to Sarracenia.     "Um, does this dress code include shoes?"
Odette Raskins	". . . I've got a lot to ask you about medicine and techniques of other worlds." It's Lenny! Grateful that someone's come to her instead of her having to awkwardly shuffle over to someone, Odette greets her with a quick wave and a welcome gesture towards the tent. "Sure! Oh, we'll have plenty of time to figure that out, yeah. I-I've been practicing with other world's methods, too, but... Oh. Er. Do you know anything about setting up a tent?" Lilian coming by with the 'Your care package, madame' gets a confused and oddly high-pitched giggle out of Odette. If she's the one to take it, she straightens up a little to take the package of extra supplies with another giggle, a little curtsey-like dip, and a "Th-thank you, Missus Rook!". "Another great guess!" "Ooh! That's so pe-mm. Cool!" Odette's eyes light up at the positive reinforcement, only briefly slowed down by remembering not to use outdated internet slang. That's something only for her online chat friends. Once she recovers, it's time to look at the stuff with Lenny! "Plenty of towels, the metal bottles for boiling in that big... Er. Fire pit? And a knife, rope, a..." Odette trails off and stares at the strange lipstick thingamajig, then aahs in understanding once Lilian explains what that's all about and nods quickly at Matilda commenting on it being pretty. "Right?! I'm more used to flares being more red or orange and just.. Like. Being super bright rather than fashionable." She'll be watching a lot of what Lilian's doing and moving around while setting up everything, feeling a little guilty after seeing her coming back with the stump slices. Seeing how focused she is on setting them up, however, makes Odette shy about actually approaching or stepping over any lines. "The air here is different from any I've breathed in before." "That'd be ambient 'pneuma'." "So it's not just me..." Odette's concerns start flaring up when Lenny confirms that she's not just imagining things. Luckily for her, Lilian clarifies what it is, and that gets a heavy sigh of relief from the EMT. That's the last vestiges of her work-hazard concerns, now fully cleared! After chatting some more, Odette's attention is once again grabbed by the big whistling and Lilian calling everyone to attention. She takes a position at the circle obediently, settling into a stance that's well-practiced by now that's neither too relaxed nor too rigid. She does spare a quick glance at the linework, but her attention is otherwise focused entirely on Lilian and what she's directing everyone towards. Despite the discplined reaction, however, she's still giggling a little at seeing that enthusiasm. There is a nervous glance sideways when she hears that the Warpgate's been booby-trapped, but that settles down once Odette reminds herself that she had already put in time for a week of uninterrupted not-thinking-about-Company-time. She's even made sure to set her earpiece to local-only just to make sure she doesn't hear about emergency calls at work! The disappearing pallet maneuver, perhaps also predictably, gets a wide-eyed 'ooooh' out of Odette, but hearing that even phones and snacks are out of the question for this trip gets more of a slumping 'ohhh' out of her. Still, she's a little too quick to follow orders, and she double-checks her PDA's screen locks before forking that device (gaming stickers and all) and her emergency snacks (edamame and honey butter potato chips) over.
Odette Raskins	The training itinerary, meanwhile, has Odette looking enthused again! "Scary... But this is sounding more and more just like the stuff warriors from ancient dynasties used to use to get strong." She comments, none the wiser of how brutal this all could end up being until- ". . . after that, you're completely on your own." -Lilian says that, and lays out the ground rules for superhuman abilities and magic powers. The EMT can already feel the pressure on her and everyone else intensifying from the rules being laid out. Immediately, her mind goes straight to all the medical complications that could arise with so many people being let loose in what's basically magical wilderness, but what really surprises Odette is- AAAA WHY IS LILIAN TAKING HER TOP OFF!! -not that, although she does go a little red in the face, unable to help but stare for a few seconds. No, what's truly surprising to her is how she doesn't feel as scared as she probably should or would. She can't really figure out why she's feeling so calm about such an unfamiliar and likely-dangerous scenario, and she turns to Lenny while pulling her arms and a sports bra into her shirt like a human turtle or something. "M-Miss Lenny? Are you okay?" Odette asks, suddenly feeling a little more self-conscious even though she's worn a sports bra and compression leggings around Trideag HQ plenty of times already. "This is just part of the training, too! I-if we get flustered by something like this, we won't stand a chance in real world situations." She tries to reassure her, pulling her shirt up a bit so her head's hidden while she continues fiddling around inside the shirt. A few seconds later, Odette's regular bra comes out, and then she shoves the rest of the shirt over her head with sports bra and compression leggings fully on!
Lilian Rook	'It is such a gentle-feeling location...'     "A gentle location is a necessary contrast." Lilian says. "The purpose of this exercise isn't to torture you to your limits to 'toughen you up'. It's meant to work on your awareness, intution, understanding of physicality, and your warrior's mindset. Without stillness and calm with which to define motion and struggle, it's all pointless. You can't drill your response to tension if it's never relieved."     "So you'll use your time here to absorb your new experiences, reflect on your thoughts and feelings, and sharpen your resolve and focus by cyclical exposure to both facets. It's like treating steel."     'Yes. I believe the location for a training activity reflects the instructor's values and attributes.'     "My my, someone is already ahead of the curve." Lilian is so vulnerable to the teacher's pet. 5t'Is that a trait of this location? I have heard of such areas of active arcanum, but because I am not part of the History Guard, I have never been deployed to one!'     "It's a common trait of practically all of the Otherworld, in fact. Human exploration has always been drastically limited by the well-known toxicity of high ambient saturation of 'free radical' pneuma. Even this much should make your arcane skills more sustainable and reliable, but you'll hardly be using them."     'Director, should we enforce same-sex pairings for sleeping arrangements?'     "That won't be necessary." Lilian says, patiently. "You're all adults. It's really not my business."     'You also mentioned something about a ritual... are we going to be splitting up eventually?'     "On and off. I'm not about to herd you around like sheep you know."     'Wait, was this where you trained with Scáthach? Or was that a different land?'     "Academically speaking, it was a different location within the Otherworld; somewhere geographically 'on the Otherside'." Yay! It's a topic she likes! "Dunscaith houses a natural entrance to it. It's a much harsher land than this location. There's no way I could bring you there even if I wanted to though; getting so far as to knock on her door is a trial of heroic prowess. She'd go ballistic if I just teleported you."     'So we're only allowed to hunt and fish for ourselves, right?'     'I don't think I heard anything about helping each other out, or trading, if it comes down to that. Speaking of.'     "If you want to team up for gathering reasons, I won't stop you, but I encourage you to give absolutely nothing to anyone not carrying their weight if you do. Hunger is a traditional motivator."     'It's honestly been a bit strange doing Fixer work again. Actually, I should tell you, while you were gone I received a message from my home asking me to return.'     "I see." says Lilian, eyebrows raised, fragments slowly revolving. "I'll have to ask you about it once we have the time."     'Guess I have to pick up a new hobby.'     "There's a guitar and a few odds and ends in the pile. Take your pick."
Lilian Rook	'Fishing? We can fish? I can show the others how to fish.'     "Only on your rest periods. Don't go catching everyone fish unless they've earned it."     'Ohh....is knife okay? Should I throw knife in?'     Lilian sighs. "If you think it'd be more useful than the provided utility knife, you may keep it, but you only get to have one knife."     'What's the Bridge of Leaps?'     "The last of the three trials needed to reach Scáthach's door, after the Glen of Peril and the Field of Blades. It's, like--" Lilian makes a weirdly mundane gesture by spreading her hands apart. "Stupidly long and swingy. It's off a cliff and over the ocean and there's always storm-winds and spray. So many people tried and failed to get across it that sea monsters just live underneath it for free food." Helpfully she adds, "She showed me her bone collection."     'Should I not believe it?'     "You may always choose to believe that I'm an omniscient purveyor of all natural beauty."     'I was born with quite a lot in my hands. It sounds like you expect me to follow all the same rules.'     "I can't imagine why you'd come if you didn't intend to respect them. But let's say that each retrieval is a use of an arcane skill, and that the item can't be electronic or larger than could fit in this backpack by nature. I'd rather people understand the spirit of the rule rather than look to adhere only to its absolute letter."     'For the whole time? Then why bring two sets of clothes but only one set of athletic wear?'     "Because you'll need to wear a second set at the end. You'll see."     'Who made flares such as these? The design, it is quite pretty!'     "Hm? I did." Lilian says. Several shards squinch together into a radial pattern, which ratchets in little ticks, expressive as her blinking. "They're just modifications of Tamamo's trigram design so I could use runestone cores."     'Oh, oh! Director, I do have one important question, the three uses of arcane skills, is that to be overall, or per matter?'     "Per day, sunrise-sunset, period. I'm not going to deny people any use of their natural gifts, but you'll have to seriously consider how you ration them out. A single continuous divination on a single subject is one use." Lilian says. "That rule will be the only one I myself don't follow. I'll be using a great many more to keep tabs on you."     'May I step into my tent briefly to put on my athletic wear?'     Lilian sighs. "You may. And before you ask"     'Um, does this dress code include shoes?'     "Yes, you can keep your uniform's shoes. Nobody here has spent their lives walking barefoot; you'd all get a million punctures."     'This is just part of the training, too! I-if we get flustered by something like this, we won't stand a chance in real world situations.'     "At least someone gets it." says Lilian, who would do well to remember when she used to dress like a doll and didn't have well-defined abs.
Sarracenia	'Xion offers to room with Solace'      'Xion gives a blindsided, blank-faced reaction'      Sarra, eternally sure people don't want her around and with Xion already apparently asking Solace...suddenly looks very uncertain after that reaction. But, when it seems like Xion is asking for help with the tent Sarra quickly starts helping. As much as a princess with no survival skills can help in putting up a tent. She still isn't entirely sure that Xion accepted her over Solace, but there was that 'okay, sure' to work with. "Ah...you do not mind, do you Miss Solace? I am sure Miss Ceri would be happy to have you." The number of times Sarra has interacted with Solace can probably be counted on one hand. And Finn seems to have asked Kale so there is that worry gone. At worst Sarra ends up alone in her tent. Which would actually not be that bad...would it?      'Oh you're going to hate this.'      Though not aimed at her, Sarra feels like this might apply to her as well. Her unnerved look increases somewhat. A bit overwhelmed by all of this, and the fact that Lilian is being cheerful and bubbly, Sarra ends up staying quiet with a bit of a deer in the headlights look throughout the explanations. After wincing at the very loud whistle and moving into the circle around the firepit. She snaps to a proper attention stance (along with a little surprised squeak) at the 'At attention!' without realizing it, then blinks and mmphs in annoyance. Did your training have to be so good, Director Xiao?!      'I've already booby-trapped the Warpgate to ensure you won't.'      Sarra stares for a few moments in disbelief, then huffs softly and rolls her eyes but holds her comments. Of course, that is nothing compared to...      'Traditionally, you'd complete this period entirely naked. I'm a woman of reason, however, so I told you to bring innerwear instead.'      Not only has Lilian just removed her top, but she is ordering them all to do the same! Sarra turns as red as her usual outfit almost as soon as this happens. "Oh god...this is...that trip?!" She recalls Lilian talking about taking such a training trip before, but she didn't think -this- was the reenactment of that trip! She of course did wear proper inner wear, but just because she did doesn't mean she wants to get nearly naked in front of a bunch of people! She's a princess, you know! She does at least fight down the urge to turn away, because that would be even more embarrassing and possibly insulting. But she can't look at Lilian either because then she'd get accused of leering or something! So, she stares directly at Lilian's forehead until the last of the explanation is done. While stiffly unmoving. And also not undressing. She can't just undress in front of everyone even if they will see her eventually! Riku doesn't help her situation by also pulling off his outerwear right then and there!      'How's this compare to Liu training, Sarracenia?'      Sarra blinks in surprise at Finn, her mind still reeling a bit. "Oh..uh...well, it is hard to compare them. The Liu had a training camp focusing on martial arts and battle preparedness. This seems to be survival training. So..." She shrugs lightly. "It will probably be worse in some ways and not as bad in others?" she says uncertainly.      As they are told to relinquish all contraband, Sarra hesitates, then huffs. "Okay, is this allowed or is it not?" She pulls her bottomless purse out of the larger bag. She has no access to any of her items or power-ups without it, so she would really rather have it. And Lilian mentioned mushrooms. Lilian surely knows that Sarra can't just pull those out of thin air, so Sarra is hoping Lilian meant she could keep the purse. But, she has spent all of her time at the Liu without it, so she can probably get by without it.
Sarracenia	All around her, the rest of the Fixers get down to their inner wear. Sarra winces a bit each time another starts, until finally peer pressure hits its peak. She huffs in embarrassment and pulls her camo outfit off. Beneath, she is in a bright red leotard and black leggings, much thinner than the camo ones she pulled off. And some might find it surprising that the princess is actually in quite good shape. Her body is lithe and toned like that of a dancer or perhaps gymnast, though her musculature is a bit more well-defined than either typically would be. And her body does actually have a graceful curve to it. It apparently isn't just the dresses. She still has gloves on as well, but much thinner black ones now instead of camo.
Lilian Rook	'Oh god...this is...that trip?!'     "This is that trip." Lilian says, puffing out her chest. "You did consider that possibility, didn't you?"     'Okay, is this allowed or is it not?'     "Since you're being so brave, I'll mercifully advise you not to take that purse with you. Otherwise, same rules as Xion. Now, we're just about out of time. Get ready!"     Ten minutes later, reality sinks in. Lovely, gentle, cruel and smilingly merciless reality.     . . . . . . . .     "See that marker on the tree trunk there? That's 'one'. You'll follow those markings until they count up to thirty, where you'll end up at the top of the cliff. Each marking is a rune that will capture the arcane signature of everyone that passes it; you'll have to come within arm's reach of each one to qualify."     Not far from the clearing, Lilian points at a rough 'I bracket' mark engraved with a single knife-slash across. It's completely unpainted, and smaller than your head. "You have one hour! For every ten minutes you take past the hour, you will accrue one fuckup point! Whoever comes in last place will double their fuckup point total and add one! Whoever has the most fuckup points by the end of the day gets to find out why they don't want to have them! There are no rules! Now go!"     And an hour is not generous. Because the path goes up hills, through the woods, across fast-moving streams, into places almost too dark to see, with brambles and rocks and every single thing you'd really prefer to be wearing rugged bush clothes to scrape past all along the way. The reality is that you're on a run; the marks are too far-spaced to be unmissable, and going off the trail is costly and vaguely defined. To complete the entire thing in under an hour, a reasonably fit, ordinary person would have to sprint flat out the entire time, knowing exactly where to go; while carrying their sword the whole way. Thus, it is more or less guaranteed to be a competition for ranking. And. There are no rules.     . . . . . . . .     "Finally! Took you long enough!" Lilian says, to everyone who can't make the hour cut, already waiting at the dizzying edge of the cliff, far too close to be comfortable to watch. Getting here first was sort of inevitable if she knew the trail, but she's acting like didn't run it at all. "Pick a spot. I want to see all seven strokes from each of the five fundamental guards and seven transitional guards. Go in the order I taught you. Repeat until I say stop." Which would be a basic warmup exercise, but . . .     At the top of the cliff, the ground fractures apart again before long. The 'spots' Lilian points to are rocky pillars, stranded from the main mass by ancient running water that no longer flows, such that your footing is barely any wider than your shoulders at the best of them, and there are surely not enough of those to go around. All of them include a forty-foot drop that becomes raggedly too narrow to hit the bottom by thirty. The sole mercy is that Lilian herself is a reference point, if you've forgotten the order. She hops between cracked-earth pillars with her fingers laced behind her back until she finds one that seems suitably suicidal before starting.     . . . . . . . .
Angela	"I do not mind." Solace tells Sarracenia, though it sort of sounds like she minds? Or at least her eyes are glaring at her. But that's normal? She always is kind of looking like that. Solace can't really war against Sarracenia over Xion when Xion explicitely said she would team up with Sarracenia and didn't explicitely say she would team up with her and, indeed, didn't even answer her! This does mean that Solace is now without a partner. Which may be a shame or perfect depending because she was amongst the fastest to set up a tent, decidedly so amongst non-Elites. She seems totally fine with it, but Sarracenia will occassionally catch Solace staring at her. Solace stares at people unsettlingly a lot of the time and surely this is normal staring not as part of some newly developed animosity for leaving Solace to book it alone. Everything is just fine. Sarracenia will survive. ''You just sit back and I'll take care of everyone, alright?'' "Um, we're here for training so it wouldn't be ... very polite to do everything for everyone?" Finn tells Kale. Oh no, he's a STICKLER. "If we can lend another a hand, it should be in a way that we can perform the actions ourselves after so we're all better off." Meanwhile... "Yeah, that's why I picked you out. You're a much better medic than me. I can learn a lot from you. So I'm counting on you." Lenny tells Odette. "...But we gotta keep it physical and to our personal time, it sounds like." ''M-Miss Lenny? Are you okay?'' Lenny is basically accustomed to 'being one of the guys' for most of her life and her schooling life was desperately struggling to not flunk out so this is taking a toll on her. "L-look who's talking! Stop staring! You're the flustered one and--I'm not staring. It's whatever, it's whatever. It's fine. And--" She looks like she's about to protest that there's pretty much no way that she'd be expected to fight in her underwear and instead says, "Fuck it's cold, whatever, we'll be like the most badass warriors in Trídéag after and it's just for three days I'm not going easy on you." ''Hunger is a traditional motivator'' ''Don't go catching everyone fish unless they've earned it'' "Then today I will teach how to fish and clean fish during my rest period. Then tomorrow they can see if they learned how properly." Solace decides. Knifty is already looking around for bugs that are safe to eat and she bobs her head happily at Lilian's answer. ''There's a guitar and a few odds and ends in the pile.'' "Learning guitar counts? I guess Pete is always talking about Rock Festival..." ''She showed me her bone collection.'' "Ooooh! Do you have a bone collection?" Knifty asks, hopeful. ''Yes, you can keep your uniform's shoes.'' Finn puts his shoes back on, redfaced.
Lilian Rook	"You'll notice a number of ropes equaling your lot has already been nailed into the cliff edge. These piles?" Lilian says, kicking a heap of actual head-sized granite bricks, rough-hewn. "You'll be transporting all of it down. Then all of it back up. You can take as many at a time as you like, but everyone gets fuckup points equaling their place minus one. Second place gets one, third place gets two, and so on." The ropes are, again, nylon. You aren't given bags or harnesses for the slabs; just a strip of tarp. Lilian waits until you start before loading all of hers at once.     . . . . . . . .     "Strikes! Steel out! You remember your array-stands from HQ? With the bamboo? You don't get that! You get this!" A field of perfect rows of planted trees, five different sorts, likely grown via magic to steadily increase in height and maturity, thirty in all. "Fuckup point rules are the same as the last, but I'm adding one point for every strike you take after the first on the same tree!"     The horridly mean-spirited trick here is that the black-barked trees at the end-- the one your seat-stumps are made of-- feel like trying to cut solid iron, and the dark red ones before that are at least like rocks. Your blades are charged, but they don't have enough for every single tree. Using them up early makes the latter rows a nightmare, as they get as thick as the entire length of your sword. Lilian says "Like so." and advances through an entire row with sixty steps, two to a tree, and thirty swings of Night Mist, over the course of a six second continuous motion.     If Scáthach was like this, then truly many things are easy to understand now. She's testing, and not teaching, in the slightest, showing off the exercises she has already mastered through endless repetition to demonstrate that the mastery itself is plausible and unconsciously make you measure yourself against her execution without questioning its plausibility.     After the long and fretful run has run up your heart rate, the stances have tensed up your legs and ankles from balancing and everything else from nervous clenching, and the weighted climb has turned your hands raw and made your arms feel like jelly, swinging a sword is something completely different than in training; numb prickling and stabbing nerves fight you as much as cold sluggishness and stiffened limbs, making the action feel so much clumsier and more difficult, not to mention the feedback of frantically hacking into a magical tree completely agonizing on your arms and shoulders.     It's not just gruelling brutality for the point of being 'hardcore'; each step is carefully set up to render swordsmanship itself into a progressively more alien form, pushing you into meditative and strenuous repetition that forces you to review everything you've learned all over again and adapt yourself to the primal physicality of using a blade.     . . . . . . . .     After the strikes comes equally demanding swimming upstream back towards camp, where various unnervingly large fish and eels that should belong in the deep ocean are very curious about you and occasionally what you taste like. Once your skin is freezing and your core is burning up, you have to spar using your practice weapons, which Lilian retrieves for you, which incidentally simulates fighting an opponent as exhausted as yourself; clumsy, erratic, desperate, unpredictable, and ideally very resourceful. Each hit taken is another 'fuckup point', but the bruise feels worse, knowing it'll linger for days.     . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	. . . . . . . .     The last 'warmup exercise' is really just a prelude to 'free sparring'. A short race down a nerve-wrackingly perilous highland incline, in terms of time rather than actual distance, where slipping and rolling could break your arm if you're unlucky. Once again, there are no rules, and before you get far, Lilian starts kicking logs down from the top to scare the everloving shit out of you.     It's the state of adrenaline she wants for when she says "Every hit you land on someone who is holding their sword is a fuckup point you transfer from yourself to them. If they're not on their feet, one hit is worth two and you have to wait for them to stand again."     In which case 'free sparring' means a totally disorganized skirmish in the midst of an open field where every punch you pull is a potenitally washed opportunity, and the people with the most points have the most to lose and vice versa, creating a gradient that perfectly resembles something Lilian has said many times before: Nobody wants to get killed in a battle they're already winning.     The war here is as psychological as physical; little taps don't count, but painful wallops invite bitter resentment and retaliation for the remaining two and a half days. It's exactly the sort of situation where hesitating-- because you're ahead, because you don't want to make enemies, because you're afraid, because you're sore and sweaty and tired and want to coast-- means instant, obliterative regret. She does everyone the mercy of not participating herself, but Lilian counts points with uncanny perfection.     . . . . . . . .     "Not a bad warmup! I saw some real motivation there by the end!" Lilian says, many hours after beginning. It is, in fact, slightly after noon, which means stragglers get less of their two hours. All she has to do to start up the fire (used the logs pushed to the bottom earlier, hacked up into perfect firewood with her greatsword) is crouch to touch her fingers to the earth and fill the arcane lines with a tiny pules of energy, igniting the big pit with a single orange flash.     "Hydrate, refill your bottles, towel off, and relax a little. I'll be back with your single complimentary breakfast." It's exactly noon. Like freakishly exact, if you make a sundial out of it before she wanders off.
Angela	''Now go!'' Solace, out of the Trídéag locals, quickly proves that she is going to dominate any challenge like this. It's probably predictable to Lilian too, considering what she knows of Solace's past, as the only person in Trídéag (aside from Cheer and Soothe) who is literally from the Outskirts and a trained Hunter, the equivalent to a Fixer but for the Outskirts and trained against monsters and wilderness survival. Her training in Trídéag has only made her more bullshit in this category. She is consistently the first person at each marker and, before long, is a few markers ahead of even Ceri. She just seems to have a vibe for the shortest, safest routes to take, an instinct for shortcuts, and the uncomplaining physicality to make use of it. She doesn't even seem to care about being in her underwear. At one point she slows only to drink some water from a stream before rushing on ahead again. Sarracenia will notice her, periodically, always a significant distance ahead of her, staring at the Princess with her usual stoic glare, but it's only for a moment before she moves on. It's so ominous, and yet she doesn't do anything but stare. Ceri is the second fastest, less accustomed to wilderness survival than Solace but decidedly the most trained out of any of the locals. Knifty is third, occassionally speeding up ahead of Ceri but typically falling behind whenever they have to go uphill and she tires out. Ceri's also a little slower because she does pause periodically to keep an eye on everybody moving forward, occassionally giving words of encouragement to people like Lenny who seem to be falling behind. Phrases like "You aren't too far behind." and "You don't want to be the first person to get fuck-up points, do you?" She's doing the training with you, but she's obviously here more to help Lilian with the training than being victim to it. And she's not going to let herself be the last to the site, but if anybody is late--Ceri will ask Lilian if she can go check on anybody just to make sure they didn't trip in a stream, bonk their head, and drown. Knifty and Finn arrive approximately at the same time, barely making it before the hour is up. Knifty because she kept running off to look for bugs to eat, Finn because the test's parameters are set that way. Lenny misses the hour by five minutes and her eyes widen at Lilian's chiding. "No... Please tell me I didn't miss the hour... Please tell me I'm not last place." She didn't have a watch or anything to tell her how long it had been so she doesn't actually know for sure she's missed it. She looks around wildly to see if anybody else is missing in hope that even if she missed the cut she isn't in LAST PLACE.
Riku Asakura	Earlier, with the tent! Riku is patient and lets Knifty help, even if it takes longer.  He does his best to help instruct her on each part, even if it goes slowly.  At least next time she'll be ready! Later, as in now! 'I'm not about to herd you around like sheep you know.' Riku nods, based on his understanding of Lilian... this makes a lot of sense.  She tends to hate micromanaging people, so... it's still going to be some exploring in small groups at least so be ready for anything, Riku! 'There's no way I could bring you there even if I wanted to though; getting so far as to knock on her door is a trial of heroic prowess.' Riku rubs the underside of his chin... "I mean... I'd probably like the chance to try it someday.  I do need to be stronger to be a better Ultraman." This is probably one of the FIRST times that Riku had gotten into relishing a challenge, but lately he's grown comfortable with the idea of getting stronger to protect more.  Just a stop on his journey to becoming a better hero... even if Lilian might not appreciate the source of the drive. 'Hunger is a traditional motivator.' Alright, so no doing anything for Kale if he starts to get lazy.  He looks towards Knifty. "If I can catch fish, can you filet them for cooking?" he's already getting ready to work with his partner!  He also looks towards Solace. "You can fish too?  Want to team up to make sure we get enough calories?  I have a feeling we're going to need all we can get." As far as Riku's look, he's actually gained definition in the time people might have last seen him without much clothing.  Defined arm muscles, more defined abs, and his legs are looking good.  Seems he does a bit more jogging.   The first challenge... Riku listens as best as he can.  Tree trunk, mark... make sure you pass it within a close distance.  An hour... Which means this isn't a careful walk.  Riku makes sure to stretch before she starts them off, and once he's fully stretched, he gets ready to both run and jog between each mark.  Thankfully, his time in Triedeag and training with Laiha has prepared him for such a trek.  He's also slightly above human averages without being in Ultraman form, so he does have that to his advantage.   Worse, there seems to be a ranking and punishment... and Riku doesn't want to be on punishment duty at all!  So he paces himself, sprinting where he can, and turning it into a jog when he has to.  Between the bushes that cause some minor scratches and carrying his sword... and also the dark areas where it's hard to find the runes, he clocks in just barely under an hour and is left a touch breathless at the top of the hill. Then come the sword exercises.  There are rocky pillars to stand on, which means he should probably find a pillar farther away so he doesn't have to worry about others jumping on his to get to theirs.  Once he finds one he figures is far enough away, he goes through the various sword exercises in the order she had taught him.  He's also thankful for the time he's spent with Laiha, who is also a master of the blade. Now it's roap and granet.  Riku is pretty strong compared to a normal human, but without his power of Ultraman, he's not THAT strong.  So he paces himself.  He doesn't wrap all of them at once, but instead takes a manageable amount of them at a time, making sure to carefully rope them down and then back up.  Before swapping to the next set... this is terrible on his arms, and he wants to give up, but he pushes through. Now it's cutting down trees with his blade... this one he's going to struggle with.
Riku Asakura	He's not at all a trained swordsman like Kale or Lilian are... and given the trees farther back, he expects some sort of trick to them.  He does his best to conserve charge on the weapons, instead relying on what training he has had and his natural strength to do the work until things become too difficult with those, and he uses the blade's charge to do the work.  Needless to say, he gains a few fuck up points here.   The swimming upstream back is... well, not comfortable.  The fish and eels trying to take bites out of them cause Riku to struggle back against them.  Lightly smacking anything that gets in his way.  This leads into a sparring match, which, of course, he trades blows with his partner, but seems to get as good as he gives because of the exhaustion.  Yay, more fuck up points! Then it turns into an outright 'battle' where they have to fight each other to remove fuck up points.  Riku does his best to work defensively, as he has not as many as others, he assumes, and works not to either overextend or overexhaust himself.  It works similarly to fighting dangerous kaiju.  He might take a few blows, but he will knock someone over, given the difference in strength he does have over most of the combatants.  Though he does his best to avoid both Kale and Xion, the ones who are most experienced with a weapon that he is not.   At the end of it, Riku's pushed quite a bit and is kneeling over and drinking from his water bottle, trying to recover hydration.  He's thankful for the coming food... because he's already got an appetite from all of this training!
Xion	Partnerships... Xion takes more of a passive stance to the discussion between Sarracenia and Solace, though in the passing moments with Solace having been excluded, Xion seems a certain sort of guilty. There was only one spot for her, and if she ceased to be extant as someone making decisions the world could slip past her smoothly... But there is a lingering. Still, there wasn't much need to talk about bunk assignments when there was hours of grueling physical trials to await! 'You may always choose to believe that I'm an omniscient purveyor of all natural beauty.' "Okay, sure." Xion repeats, something close to a catty humor in the non-motion into going-along-with-it. Xion was regularly simply accepting Lilian as she was, of course, and had been since as far back as when they first encountered each other, but there's a strange newness now to the faint humor like a joke struck for the first time and well-liked by the speaker. 'I can't imagine why you'd come if you didn't intend to respect them.' Xion shrugs, not breaking attention more than that, wearing the same new-humor smile. "I'm here," And brought a backpack with stuff in it, even. "But I also had my own reasons for coming." She adds, cryptically. "So if you were following the rule, using Night Mist would be 'one'?" She refines, finally closing in on the answer she was seeking. Every game had rules to matter. 'Ah...you do not mind, do you Miss Solace?' "She does." Xion answers, sotto voice primarily just-to-Sarra at the question she posits rhetorically. Without pausing for explanation - they're setting out! - Xion just leaves that there for Sarra to stew on and think about deeply as she moves through the world. Even Solace answering that she doesn't, doesn't dissuade or turn aside Xion's blatant empath answer. Was that one?     She didn't need to be special to know. --- The run is something Xion gets up to pace and just pounds out with an absolutely relentless pace. There's nothing but terrain to traverse before her and in a straightaway through mixed foliage she is absolutely in her element. Without the drape of dark coat and the obscuring wrap of her usual outfits its made all the more clearer that her running form - while a little cartooncore - is extremely good and her easy pace would put her far at the front of the pack unless someone was absolutely blitzing themselves to be first. She doesn't try to be first or blaze out of her way, but she is a machine that turns unexplored terrain into firmly fucked map and looks good doing it. Given only one cord and all the wood, she eyeballs the whole of it a few times, tests gathering for a minute or so, and then 'gets' it and does the whole set in one go, lassoing her pile carefully more to prevent simply gripping it all with gravity magic as would be her automatic impulse and hefting it up on raw strength and wobbly balance. A tight pack and good fitting means that she can do it all at once, and she actually beams when Lilian does the same as she figures out, though of course Lilian makes it look like she had practiced for weeks after Xion sweated figuring it all out. --- Xion sees the field of trees all planted in neat rows while holding practice spear over shoulder, frowning and sucking on a tooth. "Seems like a waste of trees." She squints, unlimbering weapon to take her own spot. Lilian carving through all the trees with one swing of Night Mist makes Xion do the same considering faint draw and recontextualize the challenges before her. She could, clearly, use her 'usual' swords to cleave through. It was no sadistic-seeming trick for Lilian to do all that with her arcane tool after the pinching earlier, but still... Did Xion come to practice her sword?
Xion	Her own little moment comes as Xion works through the trees with her practice spear, the sidearm blade charged and left idle as she works through the line of trees. With the first few trees, the density of the wood lets her work out how best to carve knotted lumber with spearblade, holding higher and working more with her body progressively more and more. At the end, it's wobble she doesn't account for, needing a second swing - a cleaving split-yaw, really - to get her weapon free of the iron-bark and breathing while perspiring from focus at the series of tasks. Red in the cheeks, she huffs and puffs and rights and decides a swim might be nice right now. --- So Xion gets her swim, though in this there's no separating natural ability from supernatural nature. Xion just moves different in water, hovering where she really should float and inspected far more as a strange friend by all the weird rivercreatures. Slipping off, unburdened by the coat she usually wears, Xion can stroke through the water, not coming up for air as she cuts through the busy waters and leaving a trail of confused aquatic beasts in her wake. It's cold, certainly, and wet, definitely, but that just doesn't bother Xion. Revived after her pleasant swim and with her hair slicked back and antenna'ing up just a skosh, Xion moves from that into sparring. "Oh, nice. Struggle, after a swim." She murmurs, and goes right back to being a freakish demon, because after a messed up trial of carving trees with a spear, she gets to teach everyone else about the truth and the way of having reach.
Kale Hearthward	> ...but I encourage you to give absolutely nothing to anyone not carrying their weight if you do. Hunger is a traditional motivator."     > "Um, we're here for training so it wouldn't be ... very polite to do everything for everyone?"     "Noted, but..." He makes a face. "Well, we'll just see how well everyone's doing, I guess. I don't really like the thought of people starving. We're all on the same team, after all."     Please watch carefully for just how long that sentiment lasts.     THE RUN     "Three uses, right?"     While everyone else heads off, Kale swaps his hiking boots for Tabtrack, and takes off into the air briefly - before coming back down, less than half a minute later, swapping back in, and heading off with the rest of the pack.     He's used one of his three magical activations to get a literal bird's eye view, combined with his naturally sharp eyesight - wait would that count for two uses instead of just one, it's not like he can turn his eyes off - to get a decent idea of the layout of the path. He can't see into tunnels, he's reliant on the relatively small rune markings being in an orientation he can see (ex: not facing away from where he is now), and it's dependent on his accuracy in remembering everything he's seen... but Kale now has a map of sorts.     Kale, also, was a soldier. In an actual army. The Gale Empire leaned more heavily on it's magictechnological might and its airship fleet than on the physical fitness of any given soldier, but he was still put through basic training and conditioning less than a decade ago. This sort of thing isn't entirely unfamiliar ground.     But his real advantage, the real true edge he has, doesn't come till a few minutes into the run. It's not even something that's a result of conscious decisions he's made - it's just something that comes to him as he's passing marker number three.     "Wait. Points. A ranking. Punishment for whoever's in last."     "This is a competition."     It's entirely probable that Kale gets there before anyone, panting and winded and probably bleeding a little bit, but grinning as widely as Lilian's ever seen him grin.     SWORD FORMS     Actually impeccable form, with perfect balance. If anything the threat of the sudden drop seems to make him feel more alive.
Kale Hearthward	BRICK CARRY     Not so hot. Kale lacks upper body strength, and he's had specifically no ongoing climbing training. Why would he? He can fly.     He's hustling, and still motivated, but possibly middle of the pack or worse.     SWORD STRIKES     Motivation's also not a substitute for stopping to think things through. Kale burns through his charges on the first few trees, and realizes far too late that they increase in difficulty.     This is also when he starts to flag a bit. Just like with the charges, there's been no amount of pacing himself.     SWIMMING     Ongoing swimming training is mandatory to be cleared for over-ocean personal flight, but- well. Not a strong showing either.     He's worn down. He's worried about his standing. He's focused on the ranking, a ranking for a challenge issued and adjudicated by Lilian Rook of all people.     So when it comes time for the...     FREE SPARRING     Kale at his core is a absolute goddamn bastard and everyone here is seeing the worst of it right now. Years of Commonwealth service has softened his edges, but the situation has stripped all that away like an acid rain strips away paint.     If there's an opening to score a point, he takes it. If that means striking an unaware opponent, that's fine. If that means hitting someone harder than necessary to make sure he secures the point, that's fine.     All of his talk earlier about taking care of everyone has evaporated like rain in the desert. Right now everyone else is nothing more than walking talking pinata's full of precious delicious points, and he's the goddamn fiesta boy.
Angela	EARLIER "I will help today during personal time. After that, people can handle themselves." Solace says, no doubt taking Lilian's response to her originally asking as a suggestion to not coddle the others by handling too much for them. Or maybne Xion's right and she is harboring a grudge. Time will tell if she'll commit to that or if she'll allow her Love For The Village to take over. ''SECOND EVENT'' This is more a test of agility than swordsmanship. Ceri quickly follows after Lilian, hopping from pillar to pillar, until she picks one near the back to allow the others room. She performs her techniques flawlessly as usual. Solace and Knifty also have no issue getting to their pillars. Knifty is light on her feet and so small that the pillars don't really test her as much as they would others. Knifty and Solace's swordsmanship has improved tremendously. While Solace is a bit of a natural, she was more accustomed to the axe, but she's probably about as capable with either or at this point. Finn and Lenny are the slowest to make it to their pillar. Finn, because he was checking to see if there were enough pillars for everyone, realizes there aren't, and then hurriedly takes one of the last available ones, and Lenny because she's TERRIFIED OF CRASHING TO THE FLOOR AND DYING. She takes a few moments to convince herself that Lilian won't let her fall to her death before she makes her hop, breathes a sigh of relief, and shakily performs the forms. Then grimaces and does them again until she feels she's performed them decently, doing her very best to not think of the drop. ''THIRD EVENT'' Ceri and Solace load all the bricks at once, Finn decides two trips is safest, Knifty's butler training involved some strength training but she also needs at least two trips, Lenny desperately tries to do two trips too, but even though she manages it she still only manages to be the last of the Trídéag people to manage the event. She just can't match the others for physicality but considering how everybody else is doing, that might not mean she's last and she's very motivated not to be.
Team Timekeeper	"Ah! I used to go fishing with mon grand-pere!"     "I have not before...." Sonetto trails off thoughtfully. There's a quicktime event to suggest learning to fish together here! "It's like treating steel."     "Like treating steel...." Can she become fond of that metaphor? It feels important, but something about it burns her when she tries to touch it. Maybe this is the kind of reflection she can only achieve once meeting the necessary preconditions of stillness. "You're all adults. It's really not my business."     Knifty is an adult? Sonetto hadn't considered this. She glances over to double check. "There's a guitar and a few odds and ends in the pile."     "That's an option?" Sonetto looks surprised, and looks over towards Lenny when they say the same thing. She brushes her hand down her shoulder, skimming over bare skin. Aimlessly sentimental, "I attempted to learn viola once." "Nobody here has spent their lives walking barefoot; you'd all get a million punctures."     Sonetto tilts her head, big braid swinging to the side. That sounds like a compromise for inability, which is bad. "Would that be a useful skill to train?" . . . "See that marker on the tree trunk there? That's 'one'."     Ah, so, the marking is there, which is quite clear when pointed out, but the twenty nine others may not be. The distance from here to the top of the cliff... it will likely not be a direct route, but even the shortest route is considerable. Which means....     If Sonetto gets a fuckup point, then she will restore her honor by stepping straight off of the cliff. She can't possibly tolerate such a thing. Not with that name! If it was a penalty, then perhaps she would need some time to settle in, but she won't be a *fuckup*!     It is as if all of the uncertainty of the day evaporates away the moment Lilian uses that word. Sonetto adjusts her braid and glares at the I marker, to engrave its context and positioning into her mind to better spot the rest. When given the signal, she takes off without pacing herself, registering from arcane tangibility how close she has to get for the rune to notice her, and keeping that in mind for the rest of the trek. . . . "Finally! Took you long enough!"     Sonetto arrives only barely before the hour mark, but critically, before Matilda. She is struck silent by muffling her heaving breaths, chest spasming as she refuses to gasp and thereby suffer the indignity of trying so hard and still not blazing far ahead of the fuckup bar. Her legs, previously untouched, are now already covered in lightly bleeding scratches, but she doesn't pay them any mind.     Having to *jump* onto small platforms at this height transparently freaks her the fuck out. She goes pale underneath the flush of physical activity, and shivers when looking over the edge of the cliff. Her hand goes to the glasfeder in the holster tightly wrapped around her thigh, then flinches away, to not rely on her arcane skill as a handicap. Her saving grace is, at least, that she's spent as long as anyone has practicing the stances and guards, and if she can just forget about falling to her death, she's great at that. . . .
Team Timekeeper	"You'll notice a number of ropes equaling your lot has already been nailed into the cliff edge."     What?! But that means that any place short of first is guaranteed to accrue fuckup points?! No!!!! That means she has to get first! Not even out of competitive spirit, but because of a different, worse thing!     But using her arcane skill would be cheating, still.... And there's no way she can take every brick in one go. Sonetto grits her teeth and doubles down, taking a catastropic *half* of the bricks at once, and hurrying down the rope. Even with all of that, she's not first, but she's close. . . . "Strikes! Steel out! You remember your array-stands from HQ?"     "Mmmmh...."     Sonetto makes a small noise of acknowledgement that comes out a little bit like a whine. Chest heaving, she places a hand just below the hollow of her neck, where a cross might hang if she wasn't mostly undressed. She takes a moment to focus, and then despite not recovering any of her energy, begins acting like she's not exhausted or in pain at all.     She's still sluggish and winded when hacking her way through the trees, failing to mimic Lilian's steps and then trying to repeat them much more slowly. She just doesn't look frustrated anymore! . . .     Her first incantation of the day is to repel a monstrous eel that tries to get to her. By the time they're sparring with practice weapons, it's become impossible to avoid accumulating fuckup points, something that Sonetto will unfortunately remember for the rest of her natural lifespan. . . .     Once things escalate to a haphazard sprint downhill while outrunning *logs*, Sonetto hits a point where she feels like she's about to cry. When she's actually clipped by one, she tumbles, bruised and bleeding, and gets up and keeps running in the same motion. It's fine, actually. It's traditional. She just has to lock in. "Every hit you land on someone who is holding their sword is a fuckup point you transfer from yourself to them."     "Understood."     A chance for redemption. If she can finish the day with zero fuckup points, then it means that she's earned not being a fuckup! Sonetto, to her credit or detriment, does not have one single thought in her mind as to whether it would be kind or even useful to avoid fostering resentment. She will strike anyone and everyone she has a chance, whether it's Matilda, Sarracenia, Finn, Odette....     She does still reach breaktime with a small amount of fuckup points, but despite being beaten up, is glowing about reducing her total accumulation more than she increased it during the sparring. It would be nice if all they did all day was attack each other in a sort of berserker rage, because then she could have zero bad marks. "I'll be back with your single complimentary breakfast."     Incredibly frustratingly, once Sonetto picks out the detritus and brushes out her hair from its braid, her long orange hair is right back to looking flawless. She is, quite literally a model, and so when she's able to muster an angelic smile again, it's in perfect combination with her (scraped and bruised) long legs and (sweat-stained) glossy hair and (yellow-purple) glassy skin.     "Thank you, Director. I will appreciate it."
Sarracenia	'You did consider that possibility, didn't you?'      Sarra whines softly. "I...knew it was a possibility, but..." Knowing it -could- happen and finding out it -is- happening are very different things. She could happily pretend it was never going to happen before today.      'Since you're being so brave, I'll mercifully advise you not to take that purse with you. Otherwise, same rules as Xion.'      Sarra lets out a soft, annoyed 'mmph' at first, but then perks up despite being told not to take it. "...you think I am being brave?" she asks quietly as she hands over the purse. Which feels like it has an iron in it.      'I do not mind.'      'She does.'      Sarra lets out a slightly uncomfortable laugh at the answers and the glare. "W-well, thank you for your generosity! I will try and make it up to you!" she says, trying to smile brightly.      'You have one hour!'      This is sure to take Sarracenia longer than an hour. Possibly far long if she is alone. But...they are in a group, right? So, she tries to follow whoever seems like they know where they are going. Which is Xion! Sarra herself is never going to spot such simple marks in the woods. Even with her new artificial eye. And it is always surprising to Sarra how much scrapes and thorns and such hurt after having been hit with most kinds of weapons and powers in the multiverse. Her yelps and tchs and whines can be heard echoing up the mountain. When she finally reaches the top, her outfit has plenty of little knicks and cuts, and the skin beneath even more. And without her mushrooms they aren't closing up like she is used to. The snerky 'took you long enough' from Lilian just draws an annoyed deadpan from Sarra.      'Pick a spot!'      Sarra pulls her training sword and prepares to perform the guards. Unlike the last task, this one is an intrinsic part of her skillset! Leaping with skill and grace, she is quite easily able to land on the precarious pillars and keep her balance through the guards. Seeing that there are not a lot of the shoulder-wide ones, Sarra shows off a bit...by picking one she has to balance on with one foot. Even if she does happen to fall, she is able to maneuver herself where she can wall-kick her way back up and resume the exercise.      The possibly death glares from Solace continue to be unnerving, but Sarra just offers a grateful smile each time she spots one. She can't be upset with Solace for being upset at not being Xion's partner. Sarra would physically fight for the chance if needed!      'You'll be transporting all of it down. Then all of it back up.'      Sarra is a bit winded by this point. She doesn't usually do actual endurance training. As Lilian explains about carrying the bricks, Sarra ponders. "...do we have to actually carry them down...?" she says quietly, and moves to pick up a few then holds them over the edge. But, she gets the feeling this would be cheating, so...she loads all of hers up. Surely this is nothing compared to her hammer. It doesn't occur to her that this might be a superhuman feat since...she lifts heavy things all the time and most everyone she knows can lift heavy things. Still, she doesn't have super speed, so she probably won't be first? And she burns her hands on the rope as she rappels down faster than she really should. She takes it easier on the way back up.
Sarracenia	'Strikes! Steel out! You remember your array-stands from HQ? With the bamboo? You don't get that! You get this!'      Sarra stares at her row of trees, then at Lilian after the display. "...are you serious..." she growls under her breath. "...and sure, you get a mystical sword while we have these..." she adds just as under her breath. Of the sections, this might be the one Sarra struggles with the most. She has no real sense of how she needs to ration her sword's energy and precision strikes are still not her strong suit (though she is better at them). Her only saving grace is that she has been diligently practicing the sword when training at the Liu or at Trideag. So, she at least knows the proper forms not to tire herself out too quickly. Of course, that is kind of moot when she gets to the final tree and has nearly spent all her sword's charge.      Then, the swim. Sarra is used to swimming. She likes swimming, even. She is also used to creatures that should be in deep ocean being in her swimming water. She is not, however, used to swimming properly. She uses frog suits and such! Nips from curious creatures earn a squeak and a swing of her training sword. Why did she bring a training sword anyway? She uses a hammer!      By the time she reaches the guided sparring, Sarra is securely in the worst day of her life that didn't involve she or someone she cared about dying. While she isn't completely exhausted yet, she is running out of energy as surely as her sword is.      So, when they reach the free sparring phase, Sarra is in full on berserker princess mode. Already in plenty of pain, freezing so much she can hardly feel her limbs, Sarra is all offense and no defense. And while only Xion is not directly targeted, there is one person here who Sarra -really- doesn't like and is just a jerk.      Kale finds himself targeted by much more than his fair share of Sarracenia attacks. Especially when she realizes he is taking unsportsmanlike openings. Sure, it may be what would happen in an open battlefield. But, they aren't in one of those, even if they are perhaps supposed to be acting like it.
Angela	It's genuinely hard to tell that Knifty is an adult, she's so fucking tiny. ''FOURTH EVENT'' Once again, this event seems to be built for Solace. She is slowest to start, but the fastest to get going once she does--she must have spent the time examining and understanding the trees before her to get a feel for just how sturdy they are. The rest, even Ceri, haven't thought that through. Knifty, naturally, blows all her charges on the first trees, originally looking like she's going to lead the pack, and then steadily falls behind to last place as everybody who realized the gimmick after the first one or two trees conserve the rest of their charges to avoid falling behind too much. "You're doing really well." Ceri tells Solace. "...This is the sort of training my old master would put me through. It's normal." She is a spoiler here to make everybody else's lives harder!! Fuck!!! Knifty is starting to visibly flag by the end of it, Lenny's arms are shaking and she looks like she might collapse into jelly. Finn looks tired. Solace and Ceri look fine. It's so unfair. ''FIFTH EVENT'' Knifty doesn't know how to swim. And she doesn't tell anybody she doesn't know how to swim. Maybe she doesn't even know she doesn't know how to swim and she tries swimming anyway and after Ceri has to rush out and dive in to stop Knifty from drowning, she returns to Lilian and says, "I'm going to try and teach her how to swim up the current. I'll make sure we're back in time." This means that Ceri and Knifty are the last ones back this time, though Lenny is wheezing and dying on the floor, Solace is as stoic as ever, and even Finn is panting heavily after all that. "Didn't...think I'd make it..." He manages with a wheezing laugh. "But I made it!! Ha!!" He then flops onto his back and lies on the floor there. ''LAST EVENT'' Ceri arrives last with Knifty, looking tired. She probably had to drag Knifty through the stream. SOmething they'll have to work on later, but this one was just too much for her. KNIFTY'S STRATEGY: Knifty clearly odesn't know about restraint and goes for the hardest hits that she can against anybody she can reach and she's weirdly good at hitting people while they're distracted with other problems. She'll also hit people while they're down but will obey the rule to let them stand back up after. LENNY'S STRATEGY: Lenny mostly goes for people she doesn't think will hold a grudge and also people she won't share a tent with later. Which means: Matilda, Sonetto, and Finn are her primary targets. CERI'S STRATEGY: Ceri primarily goes after people she thinks are doing really well. So she goes after Xion, Kale, and Solace. She does not strike people when they are down, but her technique is flawless. Her goal is clearly to make things harder for the people who are leading the pack so they get more out of the training. SOLACE'S Strategy: She primrily goes after Sarracenia. Her technique is not as flawless as Ceri's, but she hits hard when she comes in and, like Knifty, isn't above hitting people when they're down and isn't above going in for sneak attacks. Sarracenia is saved sometimes by Ceri also going after Solace. FINN: He calls out to anybody he is going after and tries to honorably and friendly get his hits on them. His technique is also very good, even if his strength is about average for the group.
Lilian Rook	'No... Please tell me I didn't miss the hour... Please tell me I'm not last place. '     "Oops! You're going to have to keep track of that yourself darling!"     '...you think I am being brave?'     "You have your moments. Though, a word to the wise: That camo would be fantastic at hiding you from a rescue helicopter. Food for thought."     "In one day. That's right."     'Would that be a useful skill to train?'     "Not really, no. Besides, you'd never get the chance."     'Seems like a waste of trees'     "Oh we'll be making use of them later. But I think you know as well as I do that people are even less renewable."     'Three uses, right?'     'Thank you, Director. I will appreciate it.'     "Oh, cutie, it's the least I can do to show my gratitude for you all coming out here."     . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	. . . . . . . .     In retrospect, the clothes-off thing was less and more of a big deal than you'd assume. When you were put through all that harrowing exercise, you didn't have any spare energy or focus besides protecting the thin skin you're in. Other people's bodies were quickly reduced to abstract configurations of intent by the psychological nature of it; being able to see each other's skin draws your attention to shifting weight and preparatory muscle twitches more than anything when blunt swings are being thrown at your head. Lilian doesn't give anyone the breath to think about too much else.     At rest, though, it's a little different. Now you've all been sweating and scrambling and yelling at and alongside one another for long enough that it's impossible to go back to being anxiously hesitant about it, but the strange reality of having 'Elite coworkers', who most of you know the majority of only through missions and banter, rendered down to just the barest essentials of 'a person, living, physical, like you, persistently extant' and made to show feelings that are simply too mundane for high-and-mighty Multiversal adventure; little moments of cooperative triumph, hot-blooded competition, hungry-eyed maneuvers to get out of last place, and undignified stumbles and scrapes. To say nothing of the fact that 'you're all in this together' while the Irish Warrioress Trope is away for a while after making you all deal with her ridiculous premise.     Lilian is no Scáthach, but she remembers her many arcs of training under just as many masters to have a certain indescribable romantic fixation on the concept that bleeds through in the scenic beauty of water-noise peace of your lovely little camp. Though you'd arrived here as silly little vacationers, it's hard not to come back to the place that seemed too good to be true and suddenly find it a stunning juxtaposition to be deeply grateful for, shared amongst your tiny number and you alone.     Two hours is an awkward length of time to just eat or to eat and seriously rest. It's a length of time that's been chosen to force everyone to talk to each other and find something to do. There's no clear delineation of 'after' or 'done', because everyone is still gym-dressed at most and carrying a sword; it flows as a single continuous extension from your baptism of the sword and it will flow right back into it later. It's time chosen to maximize how easy it is to look at people with fresh eyes and grasp a greater whole of their human tangibility.     Though that's hardly to say that anything about it feels 'pure' or 'sacred'. Being surrounded by half-dressed physically fit and attractive warriors isn't even Lilian's 'personal taste'; that's just every single myth in the Ulster cycle. It 'fortifies the blood'. It also makes it really easy to feel like you belong to an exclusive club of hot badasses, which is confidence-building to say the least. Nothing like the radio.     . . . . . . . .     Lilian returns in thirty minutes. Or rather, she returns in twenty-two and spends eight minutes with the carcass of a bovine animal that is roughly the size of a schoolbus. She stays far enough that you don't have to smell anything (but is secretly not out of earshot), and it is perhaps even out of kindness to Sarracenia that the beast's spine faces the camp and not its belly, so you don't have to hear what is splashing after each throw into the river, but you can clearly see from any angle that it was cleanly decapitated with a single blow.
Lilian Rook	When she return returns, Lilian has a wicker basket loaded with extremely bright fruits and still-dirty tubers, and another dripping with steaks that roughly amount to tenderloins and tomahawks. "Hope you've been keeping each other company~" Are her first words back, warmly said, before she immediately goes to . . . cooking.     It's a setup so she can cook! She wants to try her cooking on people! It's all food nobody is familiar with so she can't feel any judgy stares about it! Sure, like, quietly implicit is the fact that the weird purple mushrooms and the heavy nectar-streaked peach-apple-things brought back with her are safe to eat and the better you memorize the basket the better, but really it's so she can get out all the cookware from one of the communal crates and chop things up to make stews and fry steaks and mix salads and plate snack boards! She sings to herself the entire time!     It is, unfortunately for you, very good. Unfortunate because none of you have the childhood familiarity with these ingredients (though studious Sonetto and Matilda might recognize many uncannily close resemblances to arcane fruits and herbs they may have read about in the SPDM) to reach the same level. Her actual cooking skills themselves are 'pretty good' apart from that fact, but demonstrating the process is her way of quietly teaching the attentive and observant how to not render their finds inedibly astringent or chewy. Of course, since only some people will memorize much of it, therein lies a demand for different roles when it comes dinnertime, and thus her devious plan achieves fruition.     Lilian is vulnerable to teacher's pets. Anyone complimenting her cooking makes her struggle to sit still, and causes triangular formations of shards to precipitate a little. "Take care of yourselves properly. Wash off, eat up, bandage and ice anything that needs to be. You and your tent partner are going to be splitting off on a little scavenger hunt after this."     . . . . . . . .     The 'scavenger hunt' is, of course, Lilian's cute little name for something that sucks ass. Each pair is given a runestone, marble-sized, in Lilian's obviously hand-carved ogham script all over, but each one is made of unusually well-polished (and obviously lightly arcane) magnetite. When allowed to rest in your palm, you can feel a very slight pull.     "There are twenty-eight cousins to these stones. I know because I found each of them myself and carved all of these to resonate with them. You'll find them within three klometers of here, strewn in ruins and tree hollows, at the bottoms of rivers, up in the cliffs, in mounds and tunnels; you get the idea." she says, gesturing the implicit 180 arc to travel in, seeing as you've already meandered through the entire other hemisphere so far. "The ones you'll find out there are white, though. Don't come back here until you have three of them between you. Simple, isn't it?"     It is, which means it'll be absolutely godawfu! But look at her glowing smile!
Odette Raskins	"I can learn a lot from you. So I'm counting on you." Chest swelling with pride, Odette has discovered a new mission: Don't let her junior down! "Ah.. Of course, Miss Lenny. I'll teach you as much as I can when we're not busy going through the training and all our other tasks and things. And if you know any tricks or what to use when you don't have all the tools you need, that could help me plenty, too." "we'll be like the most badass warriors in Tr^éag after and it's just for three days I'm not going easy on you." "I-I'm not looking! I mean, I'm used to looking! A-and.. Yeah!" Feeling pumped up again, Odette shakes her fists excitedly even though she's still feeling a little self-conscious the more Lenny tells her to stop staring. "R.. Right! Everyone back home won't know who's walking in those doors by the time we're done here." "getting so far as to knock on her door is a trial of heroic prowess." "Is that going to be something we'll be training for these next couple of days? Or is that something to aim for in a couple of years... Decades?" Somehow, this is only serving to get Odette more fired up, although- "The last of the three trials needed to reach Sc#-1 FUNCTION (C) NOT FOUNDthach's door, after the Glen of Peril and the Field of Blades." -hearing about what the Bridge of Leaps consists of does help her settle down a little. Her imagination isn't quite ready to accept her being able to go over something like that fearlessly just yet. "At least someone gets it." Odette's tail would be wagging SO HARD if she actually had one right about now. Sure, the locker rooms might have just been conditioning for this, but will it be enough to help her survive the actual days coming forward? She'll find out soon enough, in just ten minutes or less! . . . . . . Hiking was the easy part. The climb? Not so much. Racing everyone to not accumulate more fuckup points? Doubly hard. Without any magic powers that don't stop and end at 'healing magic' and 'light blasts', Odette knows right away that she'll be cutting it close! Still, even with as high-strung as she often is, she's far more worried about what'll happen if she gets the most points (bad), so she's rushing herself through the first course. By the twenty minute mark, she's already sweating. How's anyone supposed to reach thirty of these markers even with powers?! She's drenched after taking an untimely tumble down a stream, too, but at least she hasn't had to dip into her first aid supplies yet. By the sixty minute mark, she's barely even scraped the halfway mark, and a lot of that extra time was definitely wasted in that dark cave. At least she got to whimper and whine in there without anyone seeing her, albeit at the cost of making it sounded haunted as shit in there. . . . . . . After finally hitting all thirty points, Odette's looking much worse than she did starting out. The cry in the cave helped to settle her down for the rest of the run, at least, even if the time waste's earned her a whole stack of fuckup points (not to mention having to double back for a couple of others). "S-sorry, Missus Rook! Fiding the last one took way too long..." She admits, groaning a little before trying to psyche herself back up for the guard training. To her credit, Odette's gotten quite good at going through each of the strokes and guards in a routine sense, flowing from one to the other with relatively little wasted movement! Her flow suffers visibly as the ground splits, however, and unless anyone's really been slacking with their own sword training and isn't using powers to compensate? More likely than not, she'll be wrapping herself around a pillar instead of staying atop a pillar.
Lilian Rook	"For each stone more than three you bring back, ten fuckup points are deducted. This works in reverse too; ten for each stone you are short before sunset. There are more than three stones per two pairs, so there's no need to fight over them, but of course, it's not against the rules." Yet again. Camaraderie is war.     "Anyone ending the day with zero points gets a special surprise. Whoever ends the day with the most . . . well, this is your last chance. So make sure you have everything, including your emergency beacon." Lilian says, casually unsheathing her sword and somehow resting the naked edge over her equally naked shoulder. "I'll be patrolling the area in case anything I deem too dangerous wanders into the field." HEY HELLO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!     . . . . . . . .     What Lilian didn't outright say is that dinner is your own problem. So is water. You have two bottles, but you can't come back to camp to use the nice cookware until you cash in your mysterious rocks. And this is the point where you notice that what you were given to eat is, actually, supernaturally invigorating, in a way that restores all the strength you depleted earlier, but not supernaturally filling.     Perhaps it didn't seem relevant at the time, because she didn't really state how difficult it would be, but wandering around in the wilderness all day and finding nothing is a distinct possibility without a plan in mind.     Because once you leave your pretty little camp, you are thoroughly in a storybook. Not a cute one, though it is breathtakingly gorgeous, from the glittering whitewater to the windy plateaus to the densely perfumed forests; even the dark caves glow with beautiful arcane crystals. It's a storybook in the sense that your easter eggs are in ruins (with still-active arrays that are older than the English language and half-functioning curses for robbers), tree hollows and caves (which are the nests of folkloric beasts and monsters, from crawling, wingless wyrms to intelligent and sadistically malicious horse spirits), and up in cliffs or underwater (dangling over hundred meter drops and deep enough to contend with diving sickness).     If you don't find adventuresome scrambling and petite storybook heroism appealing in twos, nothing technically prevents you from going in fours, or sixes, if you can find that many; but you probably won't. If the whimsy of deadly adventure isn't your style, beating the shit out of another pair and stealing their stones to go home early and just pig out and sleep is very appealing; but first you have to find another group, then confirm they actually have stones, then overpower them without being able to ambush them, with less-than-three uses of your special abilities, and then you have to make it all the way back without them robbing you right back. It'll be a great way to stay busy all the way until sunset, where Lilian has set out flickering torches to follow up a faraway hill in the distance      . . . There is one spot that Lilian has already marked before that. You might come across it in your wandering. You probably won't. It's a place where the soil turns black, then to bloody red mud, and then bristles with translucent geometric flora and fungus as it descends into the mouth of a downhill cave, growing from all surfaces as of the coraline blooms were the ripples of an esophagus. A battered old sword that is too old and too small for Lilian is stuck in the ground outside, supporting the rope that crosses the entrance, and card-sized wooden plaque that has the words 'Be thankful and leave well enough alone' burnt into it, first in English, then in old Irish. The magnetite markers don't pull in that direction anyways.
Kale Hearthward	"Yep, that'd be the guts coming out." Kale is still feeling like a bit of a bastard, and gives running commentary about what he hears from Lilian's carcass preparations. "That'd be - the stomach being thrown out? No, the intestines by the sound of it. Did you know that it's basically one big rope full of poop that you have to pull out?"     He takes a sip of water.     "This is why I stayed vegetarian my first couple of years. Oh!" He tilts his head. "Yeah that sound would be her pulling apart the ribcage. You can hear the cracks of bone breaking apart if you listen carefully. Neat."
Team Timekeeper	FREE SPARRING     So it seems that this is a bloodbath. Sonetto, unlike Kale and Xion, is not a *supernaturally* good swordsman. She's had a year, by now, of training with this specific sword, and she's been a soldier practically since birth, but this is only worth so much measured against Elites. Her tactic of dogged mercilessness is put up against several others, but especially Kale, with the same mindset, forced into competitiveness by circumstance.     So, in direct contest, Sonetto isn't an easy target for Kale to take unawares. Instead, she is locked in, and completely outclassed.     The sparring ends with Sonetto having been roundly bruised by all the more experienced combatants of Sector Zero, bloodying Sarracenia and Finn and Lenny in return. She definitely comes out worse for it, but seems satisfied regardless, even with how painful her broken skin must be. . . . > Though you'd arrived here as silly little vacationers, it's hard not to come back to the place that seemed too good to be true and suddenly find it a stunning juxtaposition to be deeply grateful for, shared amongst your tiny number and you alone.     Sonetto is... weird about this. After toweling off and diligently treating all of her wounds, she seems perfectly capable of sitting still like a stone statue and staring vacantly at the waterfall for two entire hours. It's the sting of injuries that jolts her out of actually doing that, and then once she's disturbed from her trance, she gets weird and needy about interacting with people.     She ends up sitting near Sarracenia and Xion. In the (much less than, after cleaning up) thirty minutes while Lilian is gone, Sonetto vibrates around awkwardly to attempt to produce a conversation, like a bee slamming itself against a window repeatedly.     "You are both... long time acquaintances of the Director, aren't you? What is it you are getting out of this training? Is it new or... familiar?" "Hope you've been keeping each other company~"     Rather than the waterfall, it's Lilian that receives Sonetto's stare now. If it were someone other than her, the unblinking intensity with which her eyes lock onto Lilian's chest area might feel indecent, but that's also the region she must look to watch Lilian's cooking, and she's *very* hungry.     "I had thought that Mrs. Tamamo was primarily the cook in your household, but I suppose it is no wonder that you are excellent at it as well." This, of course, comes effortlessly to Sonetto, and isn't intentional simping so much as it is her default attitude towards superiors. "I am only a rudimentary and survivalist cook at best, but Miss Bunny Bunny has taken it upon herself to improve my baking skills."
Odette Raskins	Odette looks almost relieved when she sees the ropes and the piles of bricks. Surely, that task isn't something she has to worry about getting sabotaged in or having to actively fight someone else for space with, right? RIGHT? Good thing she's good at hauling heavy loads. She's not all-of-them-at-once good, but half is good. Half is stable, and it means not burning herself out too much by the time she's done! . . . . . . It's the tree cutting exercise! Getting used to cutting through bamboo purely with a sword's cutting edge is one thing, but getting through the trees is something else especially in the context of 'everything feels like lead after carrying all those goddamn bricks'. With Lilian providing a clue on getting through several at once and also seeing the later trees, however, Odette's already picked up on the strategy for this exercise: Save some charge for the later parts! There's still a few wasted swings on the first tree to drill the direction of the cuts into her arms and fight through the existing fatigue. Once she finds the angle, though, Odette gets through several of the youngest trees at once before bouncing off a later tree with a painful impact that leaves her arms shaking. Undeterred, she keeps taking her swings after long breaths to build up enough strength just to take those swings. That stubborness does at least mean she's got plenty of charge to power through the latter half of the exercise and actually get her through the last trees at all. Her arms still feel like lead by the end of that exercise, but it's the first one she doesn't do terribly in! . . . . . . Maybe becoming a river monster's meal wouldn't be so bad, considering how much everything hurts. The river water doesn't even feel that refreshing, either, with all the scrapes and bruises Odette's already accumulated. She even resorts to staying near the sides of the river and pulling herself along with her hands, even if they are raw and bloody in several spots by the time she finally makes it to the sparring stage with everyone else. Odette's practice weapon sparring right after that is, predictably, less sword-fighting and more exhausted-flicking more anything else. She does a lot better once she resorts to aiming for the legs and staying low to the ground herself, although she does leave her head open a lot. . . . . . . "Tr... Truce, everyone?" Odette pleads as she sees the incline, content to lean back and slowly buttslide down that hill. The last thing she wants is to deal with everyone else's magical bullshit or just getting bumped off the hill outright, and she's already burnt through some of her first aid kit on the prior sparring session. And then fucking logs come down and she's running screaming down the incline both figuratively and literally. Odette's faster than ever during that whole bit, and it's a miracle she doesn't break anything by the time she reaches the bottom, rolling head over ass several times with her arms covering her head before she finally rolls to a stop. And then Lilian reveals that the next challenge after that is a whole ass battle. Who has how many points by now? Does it matter? She knows full well she's got more than probably half the people here and possibly even The Most, so she's sufficiently motivated to just get rid of the points as fast as possible! Unfortunately... That probably means everyone else knows she's in a bad place, too, and they'll be watching out for her. But if she can just land plenty of hits on everyone while they're distracted by someone else, she might be able to break into the top half of the group!
Angela	''Take care of yourselves properly'' Lenny is quick to eat and look after her wounds. She's so bloody exhausted that she's not even feeling talkative. Maybe at night time, she decides, because if she tries to talk to someone right now she'll die. Finn and Lenny took at least one hit from Sonetto. Ceri took at least one hit from Xion which earned her a faint impressed whistle. She gets at least one hit Kale. Solace failed to get a strike in on Sarracenia despite her attempts but she does get some hits on some of the Trídéag local allies. She's determined to get through this with zero. Ceri and Finn are more relaxed about it since Ceri would rather one of the rank and file get the surprises than her and she sees her job as more making it tougher for the leaders of the pack. Lenny is just desperately trying not to be in last place and will do whatever it takes to not be in last place. She can't even imagine getting down to zero fuckup points. Solace, continuing to seem like she isn't holding a grudge but also continuing to seem like maybe she's holding a grudge, but after eating, about an hour inn, she indicates she's going to take some time to fish and offers to instruct anyone who wishes on how to fish. Even Sarracenia! This is about thirty minutes of fishing, fifteen minutes of cleaning, and then fifteen minutes to return back to the rest of the group. Most of Trídéag minus Ceri and Knifty join her on the lesson. ''Lilian is vulnerable to teacher's pets'' Everybody gushes over Lilian's cooking in their own way. Ceri politely says it's very delicious, Knifty says 'OOH SO JUICY' over the fruit, Finn goes 'Yum! Wow! I don't know what this is but I love it!', Lenny doesn't gush because she's so fucking BEAT but she hungrilly devours down the stew within moments so she must have enjoyed it. Solace takes her time and doesn't say anything but gives Lilian a quiet nod of approval. They all have successfully avoided asking about the triangles so far but they've been seeing them for a while now. ''Scavenger hunt'' "Odette, listen to me." Lenny says. "I have NOT been able to keep track of points but we're gonna need to get as many of these rocks as we can so we're not in last place. That's our goal, okay? There's two of us and only one Solace, so we have a chance here." Finn meanwhile approaches Kale with a plan. "Hey, you want to win right? How about we do this, you take things high, I take things low. That way we can cover more ground. we can use our radios to keep tabs on each other and where the rocks are. We'll get as many as we can, okay?" Because Ceri also doesn't have a partner (since her 'partner' is arguably Lilian here), well, that means there's two people here without partners and a chance to catch up. ''Don't come back here until you have three of them between you. Simple, isn't it?'' "So we have as much time as we want, but we might run out of stones to find." Solace murmurs. "Alright. I may be by myself, but I will retrieve enough to hit zero." She's off like a BOLT when given the signal. She might be alone, but it's utterly possible she'll get away with more than three. She's aiming for four to ensure a zero point total for her and Finn has his plans, and Lenny her desperation, but Lenny will at most be able to find one stone. How good Finn does will largely be dependent on how well Kale can cooperate with him. And Ceri just collects three to make it so there's three fewer for everyone else to deal with. Good luck!
Odette Raskins	. . . . . . "Sonettooo... I already had so many..." Odette whines painfully, having accumulated far more bruises than she dished out. She had certainly been an easy dumping ground for the more opportunistic members, but just scrambly enough to unload a few onto less attentive trainees that she couldn't possibly end up with ALL of the points and be too easy to avoid outright. Unbeknownst to her, being able to really internalize the muscles she's used to seeing in a more treatment-based context really does help her in that sense. Seeing who's about to tense up in anticipation during a skirmish on one angle means she can target the exposed side, and seeing someone tense up or starting to turn towards her meant she could veer away from them. Still, she probably ended up with way more fuckup points than she did starting out. Just trying to sit up hurts, but laying on the ground means laying on her bruises, so she can't really get comfortable no matter which way she's lying down. At least there's food to look forward to, and Lilian's words of encouragement do help perk Odette up just enough to drag herself to the fire and lay down next to that instead. Despite being sick of water already from the river, she still drinks plenty of water before laying right back down and exhaling hard. "Two and a hhhh... Half more days. Once we're done, we'll be extra... Extra badass." She just needs to keep reminding herself of that. . . . . . . Despite all the scrambling and the pain and resentment during the exercises earlier, Odette can't bring herself to hold onto any of that during meal time. Food is a great way to get her to decompress, especially when it's some of the most delectable smelling and looking stuff she's seen in ages. Being exhausted certainly helps motivate her stomach, and the unfamiliarity of the ingreidents only serves to intensify all of that! Hearing Lilian singing the whole time also has her awwing, and it's super tempeting to just drift off to sleep right then and there. She nearly does, too, until she realizes that her and Lenny might have to do this same prep for their own meals in the coming days. Luckily, Odette's got some decent cooking skills of her own, so she's able to keep up even with that lapse in consciousness! By the time she's done eating (with plenty of complements for Lilian's cooking and questions about the names of animals that were featured), Odette's even feeling good enough to offer help to anyone that needs aid with their first aid kits! She still doesn't look nearly as put-together as Sonetto does after all that, of course, but she does make sure her hands (bruised and bandaged) are well-cleaned before she treats anyone's wounds. Being surrounded by so many hot people does actually help Odette feel better about herself, too. Even without being as strong or as cool, she's still good enough to hang in there and survive to tell the tale! It's almost making her feel normal about where her attention's been drifting ever since showing up in the Multiverse. Almost.
Lilian Rook	'I had thought that Mrs. Tamamo was primarily the cook in your household, but I suppose it is no wonder that you are excellent at it as well.'     That briefly stuns Lilian on initial implication alone, but then makes her smile like she just never does around the office; Trídéag, Laplace, or the Foundation. "I used to have all my meals cooked for me even before getting with her, you know. It took me a while to learn to tolerate the sorts of foods that normal people would eat." she says, fondly reminiscing over absurdly delicious smoke, steam condensing on her from proximity. "I started learning last year. I wanted to get a head start on the wedding, you know? Being married isn't all swords and adventure. I want to be able to do nice things for her at home as well."     'I am only a rudimentary and survivalist cook at best, but Miss Bunny Bunny has taken it upon herself to improve my baking skills.'     "She's wise." Lilian laughs. "You should listen to that woman when you can." Sonetto, surely coincidentally, gets served first.     Once everything is plated and dispensed, Lilian gravitates over to Solace, sitting down by her fishing spot and maintaining idle chitchat about the hobby. Her interest is exclusively because of Nika, but it's the quiet sort of idle interest that goes hand in hand with being open to the esoteric hobbyist details.     "You know, Hearthward, I'm glad I get to see you like this." she says. "Is it just my assumption, or was this a sort of nutrient you've been missing?" It isn't even a rhetorical question. "It happens to our type, you know. I've been thinking about it since Langya and Wudang." The fact that nobody has commented on the metallic shards all day has rendered them oddly expressive over time. Even with her back turned so she can watch the pond, the pendulum-row momentum of them clicking off each other is oddly 'bouncy' and 'engaged'. "I hope you weren't being an asshole about meal prep, though. It'll be your job from here, you know." Ah.     "And Sundew?" Oh she overheard a #-1 FUNCTION (ANIS) NOT FOUND huh. "If you tried to swing Night Mist into a hardwood, you'd regret it in a heartbeat. Compared to the SN-13, it's heavy, stiff, unforgiving, archaic, and underdesign. Its merits are in its compatibility with arcane swordsmanship; your hands would go numb and your wrists and elbows would swell up just from the feedback if we swapped blades."
Odette Raskins	. . . . . . "A scavenger hunt..." Odette murmurs, doing a bit of mental math at first and breathing another sigh of relief when it comes down to 'enough for everyone'. Lenny works the possibility of snagging more than the required three to bring their FUPs down, though, and the EMT... Does not recoil at the suggestion for once. "I don't think I've got an accurate read of mine, either, but... Yeah, being in last place is a real risk already. Solace, though?" She murmurs, sounding a little wary about going after her already. It doesn't take much convincing for her to actually nod, though, clapping her hands on her knees before biting back a whine because her knees hurt like hell. "... I-it'd be more insulting to her not to take this seriously. And to everyone else, if we don't give this our all, too. Still, if we can just find a bunch of them first, maybe we won't even need to go that far?" Although Odette's still wary of getting into more fights than necessary, Lilian's warning to keep the emergency beacon on her at all times barely even registers as a potential danger at this point. THe training itself has been hellish enough, so the signal device tucked aweay in her sports bra barely gets a passing thought before it's time to start scrambling around for the stones! Thankfully, the gorgeous locale takes a lot of that edge off, and she almost forgets that this whole thing is a competition to begin with. Odette's far more eager to do a lot of scrambling and exploring rather than stealing or ambushing someone else, anyway. It's only now that she gets around to using her staff, too, tending to her own and Lenny's wounds so they can really go all out looking for the stones or getting into a fight if they're caught!
Sarracenia	'SOLACE'S Strategy: She primrily goes after Sarracenia.'      Sarra is a little surprised when Solace comes after her so often. Though, once again she can't be mad at Solace being mad about Xion. But, Sarra isn't going to back down when it comes to Xion! She fights for her friends, even if she hasn't been in the Fire Emblem plot!      By the time they are back at camp, Sarra's thin leggings and gloves are covered in cuts and holes and runs. She wasn't expecting she'd need armored undies!      It is definitely an odd feeling, sitting around the fire in almost nothing, still covered in cuts and bruises. Sarra's cheeks still burn a bit with embarrassment. Even the Liu training doesn't help her here, because she made sure to take her baths after the rest of the camp had taken theirs, usually resulting in a loss of sleep. She finds herself looking around at the others, awed that the rest seem so unphased. Until she realizes that she is sitting here unphased enough to look at them, without worrying much about her own modesty. She is worrying about all the cuts and scrapes though. Will those leave scars?      Sarra doesn't realize it is on purpose, but she is exceedingly grateful that the beast being cleaned has its spine facing them. Still, she looks away from the sounds and winces a bit with the louder ones.      And she strongly contemplates throwing a rock at Kale's head as he starts up. She even looks at the ground, sizing up possible choices, and ends up picking up a nice fist-sized, very smooth river rock. She hefts it in her hand a few times, then...sighs heavily and lets it roll out of her hand and back onto the ground. "...you are a worm, Kale Hearthward." she says.      'You are both... long time acquaintances of the Director, aren't you? What is it you are getting out of this training? Is it new or... familiar?'      Sarra blinks in surprise when Sonetto joins her and Xion (whom Sarra would definitely have sat beside). She smiles though, at least until the question is asked. She looks uncertain about the answer. "...I suppose I am getting...a chance to force her to recognize that I have improved. There is little else I can hope for with her, I am afraid. As for if it is new or familiar, this feels...familiar to me. Oh, I have never been on such a training trip with her or anyone else, but Li-...the Director does not teach 'gentle' lessons. She seems to believe that the harder the time, the sharper the sword. But, she has been more considerate than I expected after learning just what we were doing here. She allowed us our shoes and our small amount of modesty, and cleaned the beast in such a way that we are spared the more horrible parts. Though...not completely considerate, as she did still butcher it within view. That would be too soft, I suspect."      Starting conversations is not something Sarra excels at, but she at least tries with Xion. "...are you alright, Xion? You seem...a bit different from when we first met. Lilian mentioned you have many struggles. If there are any I can help you with, even just by listening, then..." She hesitates. That is kind of heavy. Something lighter! "...o-or if there are foods you particularly like, perhaps after we get back from this trip we could find a good place and have dinner!" She smiles...then pauses. Did she just ask Xion on a date accidentally? She tries to ignore the implication with an uneasy smile.      Lilian cooks for them. Sarra is guaranteed to not get any of the information Lilian is trying to share. But, she does at least offhandedly say, "Oh! It is quite good, actually!" After eating a decent amount (though not too much because a lot of food and a lot of exertion do not mix), Sarra goes to find somewhere to bathe. Somewhere hopefully private. But just to be safe, she bathes in her clothes. That might come back to bite her later, but for now it seems the most sensible thing.
Sarracenia	Scavenger Hunt      Sarra insists on holding the magnetite stone. She doesn't want to be a burden to Xion, and helping to guide should ensure she is not. "This should not be TOO difficult...right? It pulls you toward the nearest cousin stone. That does not sound...that bad..." Sarra sounds more uncertain the more she says. It is a very big area. Dinner is the last thing on her mind after a lunch of giant steak and mystery produce.
Angela	''EARLIER'' Solace isn't very chatty naturally, which might be why she had trouble finding a partner. It isn't as if she DIDN'T try. She is happy to talk about fishing, about her master who taught her the ins and outs of surviving in the Outskirts. "I... was lucky to have him. I wouldn't have survived ... without him. But in The City, these skills ... don't come up much. It is nice ... that I haven't forgotten to live with the land. Thank you, Director, for bringing me here." And then, a little awkwardly. "I am ... sorry I could not find a partner. I wanted to pass on, a little..." This might explain why she is upset at Sarracenia for snagging Xion away despite saying otherwise. "I'll convince them ... to rely on me more." And explains why she is so determined to dominate the day. "Cheer and Soothe are... getting older. They're special children. Soothe is too gentle to fight, but Cheer is ready. She'll be a greater Fixer than I but she can't learn this in The City. May I bring her, here? Or to a place like this? I want her to learn how to fish, to hunt..." Lenny will at least help Odette with her wounds. She DIDN'T go after Odette, if only because they're sharing a tent. Odette might need to help Lenny with hers. ''Shortly before Scavenger Hunt'' "I'm not saying we fight her for them, I'm just saying maybe we got a chance." Lenny really doesn't want to be in last place and she's probably amongst the biggest contenders for it shrimply by virtue of being one of the least athletic relative to Elites and some of the most skilled Trídéag has to offer. Their big advantage at least is they're probably the best at treating one another's wounds, at least. Maybe it'll help!
Lilian Rook	'Oh! It is quite good, actually!'     "I'm glad you like it. You'll need the energy too." Wait. That was normal? "A reminder if you've forgotten; the hotspring is off that way around the bend. I'll tell the guys to wait for a half-hour." Which wasn't an established ground rule, actually.     'I... was lucky to have him. I wouldn't have survived ... without him. But in The City, these skills ... don't come up much. It is nice ... that I haven't forgotten to live with the land. Thank you, Director, for bringing me here.'     "The City isn't a place people are really meant to live. It simulates life, but it's a sick sort of facsimile. You're blessed to know that instinctively and cursed to have to live with it anyways. So, I try to make Trídéag more like this and less like that." It sounds oddly personal, the way Lilian says it. Like she could have said the name of a different city. Or any city.     'She'll be a greater Fixer than I but she can't learn this in The City. May I bring her, here? Or to a place like this? I want her to learn how to fish, to hunt...'     "Of course, Solace. I'll have children of my own before long. I'd love to get a peek at how you do it." Lilian laughs. "If I leave this place accessible on a permanent basis, I'm afraid it'll have to be for Rank Three and up only. So work hard, okay? I'd love to see you around."
Foundation Scions	>Scavenger Hunt     As she is the first to always say, Matilda Bouanich, is a diviner of quite some skill. A scavenger hunt, for small orbs, scattered god-knows-where in a gorgeous, expansive zone of wilderness, is perhaps the perfect reason by which to expend a valuable usage of an arcane skill- and even more valuable, the energy that performing it costs. Hush-conspiratorial, and hurried, once people have started dashing off, or planning themselves, "Sonetto! We have no reason, to be anything but the best, at this challenge! Come, lean close!"     Matilda's boastfulness must come from such a deep place, to still be out in force this late in the day- but the day drawing on longer, and fuckup points accumulating, is excellent motivation to try and make good on her claim! Punishments, they are no good! "The stone, it wants to find its others! Comme c'est utile!"     Matilda wraps the much-more-convenient little rosary-cord of quartz around the bead, and once Sonetto's gazing in, at the various facets of the various rocks, Matilda incants "Oh chapelet de cristals, montrez-nous les cousins ??de cette petite perle..." Each of the stones in the chain glows, showning snapshot visions of locations, responding to the magnetite bead's movements! The locations are far from perfectly revelatory just by the shown images, only having close-up contexts, but that's the most difficult matter of the seeking! The bead itself, allows for triangulation! It's surely, especially useful for chief investigator Sonetto to see!     "Oui! Yes! It's working! Allons-y, Sonetto! We have many beads to find! And points, to make go-away!" Which matters a lot more for Matilda than it does Sonetto! "If I watch more-so to the bead, will you watch more to whether we are being followed, for ambush and theft? And in-turn switching when the time matters? I would hate to be finding the stones for someone-else!" Not to mention, that that would likely involve more running, seeking, and scuffling! She's already scruffly-scuffled-up and bruised! It'd be so heartbreaking for Matilda Bouanich to have little rocks robbed off of her! How tragic!
Angela	''You're blessed to know that instinctively and cursed to have to live with it anyways.'' "It's difficult. The Outskirts are more dangerous in some ways, children there wish they could live in The City because living in the Outskirts--it is hard. Sometimes you lose everything for no reason. The monsters hate you, the Wings see you as a resource. We were lucky ... that a Fixer from the City with connections wished to save us once the village was gone. There are good people there, who try. I think they long for the stars and breeze, too, they have to learn to survive in The City much like I had to learn how to survive in the Outskirts." Solace's throat healing up over time means that she is better at talking, and her comfort level growing helps too, but she is still quiet. She wouldn't say this to most people in the Association because she usually keeps her feelings to herself. ''I'd love to get a peek at how you do it.'' Solace thinks about what advice she can give Lilian now. She has something, but it is complicated to articulate. Eventually she says, "I did not raise them while they were young, they had parents, I just took over. They already knew what they wanted, I just ... try not to get in their way while keeping them safe." But this isn't really advice so she does add, at least, "You can give them everything they could want, but they will be very sensitive to your moods. And they'll know them better than anyone else." ''If I leave this place accessible on a permanent basis, I'm afraid it'll have to be for Rank Three and up only.'' "Then I have my next goal. Thank you, Director."