Scene #9762: Trídéag Special Training Retreat-2

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	. . . . . . . . Your 'scavanger hunt' concludes late into the evening; battered, sweaty, sore, exhausted, and mostly triumphant. Despite being turned loose in the fantastically beautiful wilderness, returning to camp once again feels like a stunning juxtaposition after half a day defined by the tension of pursuit and uncertainty, harrowed by unsimulated threats of dangerous creatures, forgotten site-bound magic, and potentially even your fellow trainees. The reality of providing for yourselves is best experienced in the midst of the exercise, where little pearls of cruel wisdom had been laid before you without saying so. To boil water or cook food requires a fire, which makes smoke, which tells everyone and everything where you are. The magnetite runes pull only in the direction a stone is, and don't care whatsoever for if someone else has already taken it, and is moving. The fewer stones remaining, the fewer places are pointed to, and the more people are forced to congregate as the day wears on. Your training weapons are required if you want to fight each other, but some of the nastier beasts outright cannot be harmed without using your service weapon instead. Under unfamiliar stars, the best landmark to navigate by is the river, which is also the only source of running freshwater throughout most of the field. Every bump, bruise, and pulled muscle from morning training is still stubbornly your problem towards sunset. Without the ability to return to base and receive Elite medical treatment, every cost incurred by pushing yourself earlier is one you have no choice but to pay, now and for the rest of training. Tasks like clambering up cliffs or fighting off water hounds are practically the iconic sort of danger that your jobs are all about, yet they take on an ominous unfamiliarity when no backing, no team, no escape route, nowhere to go back to, and no protection but your weapon. The theme of your lives from noon to sunset is 'how much is it worth?', in every sense. Is it worth stopping to eat here, or can you deal with hunger and fatigue long enough to get somewhere safer, or forage for something familiar? Is it worth hunting unfamiliar animals hoping to sidestep other risks? Is it sane to push your fresh injuries to retrieve a particularly inaccessible stone, or is it better to quickly find another while you have time? Is it stupid to assume everyone else is a threat, or idiocy to think they can be trusted? What does that magic circle do? What does that inscription read? Is it cursed? Is it home to spirits? Is that an exotic animal or a terrible monster? And what will you do when you have to pay the cost of all this tomorrow? It feels not unlike being a twenty-year old suburbanite having to gut, skin, and clean a rabbit, to refamiliarize themselves with the fact that meat comes from animals. If it is to be translated into the context of being forcibly refamiliarized with what 'being a warrior' is, outside of a somewhat controlled, factional context, then you can only consider that you yourselves are the rabbit, and your sword is the tool by which you are processing yourself, trying to extract victory. . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	The pattern holds in a funny way. There are many more stones than necessary for every team to come back even, but they simply will not all be retrieved. Three is such a doable task that even the middle of the pack trainees would have time to wind down and rest after; which is a strong temptation when it still counts as the bare minimum of success, conserves your energy, and relieves accumulated suffering. More is costly, and you'll pay for it later. Less is costly, and turns heroes into opportunistic bandits or detestable nemeses into situationally useful allies. . . . . . . . . The torches leading from the camp take you up a long, curving route, up through a narrow pass that is deceptively camouflaged by forest, that eventually surmounts the cliffside without bringing you any closer to your tents. Here, a fork of the same river feeds a smaller waterfall than the one you're familiar with; faster-moving, with a short drop and a deep basin. At its top, your assembly is a round island in the middle of the narrow river, ringed with red-burning braziers smelling heavily of herbs. You're received with effusive praise by Lilian (especially those who scored highly throughout the day), who is tending to a central bonfire that is too hot for a small island and exposed skin. The final task of the night is 'ritual purification', which is a 'rite that entreats the natural powers' in order to 'fully rid the body and soul of lingering impurities for the trials ahead', defined in loose terms as a sort of residue left after the trappings of civilization are peeled away, to be cleaned away and prevent 'wavering.' The nighttime ritual itself is simple. It's preceded by your being arranged in order of the day's point total, made to sit and wait while Lilian applies an array to your arms using an unusual kind of bottleglass blue-green pigment, then being coached through rehearsing an old ritualistic incantation until she's satisfied with your pronunciation. It is accomplished by speaking that incantation before walking straight through the bonfire, wading out to the waterfall and landing in the basin, then finally adding a drop of your blood to an age-stained standing stone at the end of a path directly ahead, under a grand and dark natural arch. If properly executed, the fire turns the pigment into grey ash instead of your skin, the cold water washes it off, and the standing stone absorbs blood like sand. Lilian kindly advises against cutting the inside of your palm like on television. The actual arcane significance is modest, but extant. The layered boon is an immediate and lingering protection against infection, stomach complaint, nightmares, homesickness, and ill-fortune. Lilian goes on about arcane concepts of 'threeness' that are difficult to grasp, but mainly get across that it's traditionally a rite of passage, to become 'workable material'. She absentmindedly dropping the fact that she herself wound up doing the entire thing alone, long before her better known apprenticeship, as a prerequisite to bombarding you with wistful-nostalgic praise. She leads the group back only after revealing that today's designated fuckup has to clear up the entire ritual site themself. Because she 'feels like going easy today'. . . . . . . . .
Kale Hearthward	Kale had used one of his three power activations to fly himself and Finn up out over the area again, getting a quick aerial view of things, before putting both of them down at the far end of the three kiometer range, instead of starting with everyone else. From there, he uses his search and rescue training to establish a search pattern, and his sense of direction to never have to worry about getting turned around. Even accounting for having to stop and trade for knowledge of how to start a fire, he cleans up. He doesn't even bother going after other teams - it's far more worth it for him to focus that time and energy on his own efficient searching. It helps, also, in case of any confrontations: he's hidden his team's stones inside a bag of food. You know, the food that you can't steal without instantly disqualifying yourself from the entire training exercise. Good luck with that. - - - It does not help, for anyone who didn't get enough to eat: as Kale walks through the bonfire, it smells faintly of roasting poultry. More seriously: he takes the ritual seriously. His magical traditions don't involve incantations, so it takes him just as long as anyone else to get the pronunciation right. "I'm not sure about washing off the trappings of civilization," mutters Kale, who hasn't yet met a scenic vista that he feels couldn't be improved with a couple high-rises. Still, this is Lillian's show, so he doesn't comment further than that, and attempts to buy in to the rest of what she's saying. He hesitates a moment before walking through the bonfire (especially since if he's first in the rankings, he'd be the first to try it) but steels himself and goes through, before proceeding with the rest of the ritual. And he returns, feeling really good. It's not just the tangible effects - maybe there is something to what Lilian's saying. Maybe the impurities really have been washed away. Maybe at this moment he's more than he was when he came here.
Team Timekeeper	The combination of Sonetto and Matilda turns out to be remarkably effective. The physicality of the events earlier in the day had strained Sonetto past her limits, but this sort of thing is what she's best at. Gameified, arcane, military; Sonetto has trained to identify dangerous rituals from components and comb the wilderness for arcane objects while conserving resources in unfamiliar terrority for the majority of her life. With Matilda by her side, not only does her divination pick out their targets a hundred times faster than Sonetto could alone, but after a day of brutally opportunistic competition, it's nice to have an ally by her side. A friend, even! Or a coworker and schoolmate, at least, to not be presumptuous. Matilda's status as Junior Investigator hasn't yet privileged her to education on topics mostly irrelevant in the 20th century, such as survival hunting. It does, however, justify Sonetto teaching her what she knows, so before long, they've cooperatively secured a small animal from a trap and a collection of recognizeable fruits and herbs. Sonetto digs out a pit while Matilda cleans the animal, and then they quickly swap once Sonetto realizes Matilda can't do that. Eventually, they have a skewered carcass hanging over the fire hole, and a bunch of purple-husked nuts to shell while waiting. Sonetto sighs, clumsily running the blade along the husk to get it open. "Hah.... I was not grateful enough for lunch when we had the time. It seems like our meals for the rest of the exercise will be much simpler." She's uncharacteristically talkative once they're not focused on the task at hand, restless but seemingly not sure what she wants to talk about in the first place. "... It is a little embarrassing. Without having a cookbook at hand, I'm not sure I could even come up with a recipe more complex than this. So if this is what we do tomorrow again, I apologize in advance if you become tired of my cooking." . . . The two of them come back having done very well. The huge swing of ten-points-per bonus rock, and all of Matilda's arcane skill usages being saved for the scavenger hunt, skyrockets Sonetto up in the rankings, with Matilda characteristically just behind her. . . . The heat of the bonfire puts Sonetto's state of undressedness at issue again for the first time in half a day. She's too obedient to squirm, but the dry prickling on her skin makes it flush and crawl uncomfortably, overpowered through sheer force of interest in Lilian's tradition. Sublimated through ritual suffering, her attitude changes over the course of the explanation until she inches a bit closer to the fire on purpose just to make sure she doesn't miss the point. Echoed under her breath is the phrase, "'The trappings of civilization'...." How she feels about it, she doesn't know. Despite being against the rules of the Field Agent Administration to participate in cult initiation rituals, this is precisely what the SPDM has prepared her for the best. When told to walk into the flame, Sonetto does so without hesitation. Drenched in the water that comes after, she cuts her forearm and drips blood onto the stone, staring at the way it's absorbed unblinkingly.
Sarracenia	Before The Scavenger Hunt 'And Sundew? If you tried to swing Night Mist into a hardwood, you'd regret it in a heartbeat.' Sarra seems skeptical about what Lilian says, but as Lilian does know substantially more about swords, swordplay, and arcane swordsmanship, Sarra just lets out a soft little 'mmph' and crosses her arms. "I suppose I will take your word for it. Though, my hands and wrists and elbows already feel quite terrible after those trees." she says, then pauses. "...you...use a weapon that is...unoptimized? I am a bit surprised. It must have more sentimental value than I realized. And I already thought it had quite a bit, though I do not recall exactly what." '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.' Sarra practically perks like a cat that has heard someone open the treats. "Oh! The hotspring! I had almost forgotten! A hotspring sounds simply divine right now!" Sarra says happily, stopped before she went and bathed in the waterfall like Lilian explicitly said not to. Thirty minutes isn't a lot of time for a princess used to luxurious baths, but once again Liu training has prepared her for such a situation. She still gets into the water in her clothes, wincing as the warm water stings her many cuts for a moment. But, once submerged enough she disrobes of all but her crown and hairpin, and uses a rock to try and washboard her leotard, gloves, and leggings. There is still going to be a problem of trying to get to her towel without anyone seeing her...and if she isn't fast enough the guys may discover her still bathing. Sarra shivers at the very thought, and decides that the other women seeing her is acceptable. She still emerges very carefully, grabbing the towel she placed at the very edge of the spring and pulling it quickly to her chest before even properly emerging. But, she has -only- a towel until her outfit dries. After The Scavenger Hunt While the task wasn't as simple as Sarra hoped, it was still not as bad as a Lilian task -could- be. Sarra is quite stubborn though, and when a stone shows up somewhere that is hard to reach Sarra takes it as some sort of challenge and tries to retrieve them. This earns her many more scrapes and bruises. Being an aspiring heroine, Sarra does not attempt to rob anyone of their stones...but is almost paranoid in her protection of her's and Xion's stones. Anytime another camper gets close, they find her peering at them suspiciously with her one blue and one green eye. But, one good thing about all this...she isn't trying to fight every creature that approaches them. All wildlife is left alone unless it attacks her directly. She even tries to talk to a few, though none talk back as far as she can tell. She sees no reason to try and stock up provisions except for water. And when she does need water she looks for a waterfall because all those books of heroic adventurers say to fill from a waterfall or other sources of falling water. Whether that actually means the water is safe...well, she'll find out one way or the other. She'll need plenty of water no doubt, because she is intent on bringing back extra stones. She is certain that she must have many of these 'fuckup points' and doesn't want to give Kale any more hot air for his head. This might mean she returns to camp and that trail of torches an hour or two after everyone else, though.
Sarracenia	The Ritual ...Lilian...is painting on her skin. This leads to rather complicated feelings for Sarracenia. No one has done something that requires such a long time spent in such closeness. Closeness that feels rather intimate. The princess is trying very hard not to stare, or to let too many little sounds escape her, or to blush too much from the brush touching her skin, or to blush from the fact that she did have to fully expose her arms and the royally pristine skin. Of course, she may be able to pass it off as heat exhaustion from the VERY HOT FIRE they are for some reason sitting very close to! It takes Sarra a bit of time to get the pronunciation down. She doesn't have much if any experience speaking other languages. The actual trial though...Sarra faces it with the same steely determination and stubbornness she faces all trials put to her by Lilian. Sarra has fought in a week long war where she died dozens of times. She has been seared by the orbital weapon of one of her best friends. She is quite certain she will be fine here. The cutting gives her pause, but after considering how cut up she already is thanks to the wilderness another cut on her forearm is nothing. Though...between that and the carving of the beast...Sarra finds her mind drifting uneasily to a comparison of when she helped carve Carmen in Ayin's dream world. It makes her quite queasy. Hearing all the benefits the ritual offers leaves Sarra a bit stunned. Lilian really is being nice to them in as far as Lilian is nice to people. At least, that is how Sarra sees it. Of course, Sarra is still certain she is the designated fuckup. Because why would Lilian choose anyone else? So, without being actually told one way or the other, Sarra just starts cleaning the ritual site until told differently.
Odette Raskins	Although surviving in a natural wilderness is something Odette's read plenty about, her actual experience with it can easily be described as jack and shit. Her practical survival experience in space doesn't amount to much here where there aren't floating wrecks to scavenge in, and it especially doesn't help her in the context of having an ever-present beacon of danger on her person the entire time. At least her and Lenny probably won't be huge targets, right? Just because they're both primarily medical personnel and generally worse at direct combat than everyone else here the training camp... "We're going to have to gamble a bit if we don't want to end up dead last." She concludes, crawling underneath a colorful bush while watching a roving beast. If not for her stones pulling her this way, she wouldn't even be looking at that thing. "Especially if we want to greab any that're still... Um. Loose before sunset." She adds, squinting a little longer at the creature before looking over at Lenny again with another dreadful realization coming to her. "Do you know how to start a fire without a lighter?" . . . . . . Odette's return comes a while after, partially from misjudging how quickly it would become dark, and partially from having to skulk back to camp so as to not draw the attention of even more beasts than necessary. Why she's out so late, meanwhile, comes from a whole bunch of things: A drive to overcome her image as a weakling, a desire to push herself and not let her friends down, and just a bit of a growing chip on her shoulder. Her paranoia is as ramped up as ever up on the way back, too, eyes darting around warily at every shake of the stones that might hint someone else is nearby and ready to come after her or Lenny. She's not nearly desperate enough to ambush someone else, at least, although that might quickly change in the coming days after she sees the initial rankings. She can only hope someone else got targetted enough that her and Lenny don't end up dead last. Upon returning, she looks like she's been through the wringer, bruised and scraped up all over. "Got.. .The.. We're baaack." She utters in an exhausted haze, dropping to her knees a short distance away from the bonfire. Even making coherent sentences is an effort and a half, and even cleaning off her wounds is a distant concern compared to just down by the bonfire until it's time to undergo the purification rite. Lilian's praise does help bolster her spirits some, but physical fatigue still keeps her on the ground until the last minute. In any other circumstances, she'd be oohing and aahing at the arrays being applied to everyone, and laughing from the ticklishness of getting the pigments applied to herself. Worn dorn as she is now, she's still a little giggly, but the oohs and aahs aren't forthcoming. Owing to her upbringing on the colony and training with the Company in communicating with plenty of non-human tongues, however, she's actually quite good at pronouncing the incantations! It takes a couple of tries, of course, but feeling her way through the words is a hell of a lot easier than having to write them down. Walking through the fire is way harder, but her fatigue-addled brain actually helps her for once! With thoughts of taking this training deathly seriously and trusting in the process to see her through, she moves right on through before reasoning can stop her and only starts screaming a little at the end when her fear catches up with her focus. By then, it's just a wade and a drop into the basin, and- Well, she struggles a little in the water. That's embarrassing. At least the blood drop part is easy, because she's collected blood samples from hard to notice spots plenty of times!
Angela	''Do you know how to start a fire without a lighter?'' "No, but I can tell if a plant or berry is poisonous or not." Lenny admits to Odette. She's like the twenty year old suburbanite here. There's a reason she was the surgeon and not the leader of Pete's group. Solace and Ceri are, at least, not disposed to outright ambushing their fellow trainees due to the latter's sense of honor and the former not wanting to make true enemies here, but at least one time Knifty placed one of the needed rocks on a well hidden net trap in an attempt to seize their rocks for herself--Knifty loves all of you certainly but she is so eager to show off what she's learned in her training as a Butler. During the scavenger hunt, Finn used teamwork with Kale to make out like a bandit in the stone department--even Solace can't catch Kale in the air. Lenny tried to make use of their monopoly on medicine to gather up herbs and other material to help treat aches, pains, injuries and the like--trying to plan a comeback on the upcoming days. She expects Odette and her's knowledge will only grow more beneficial in following days, especially if any overachievers manage to injure themselves. Her goal isn't to be the best, she'll be content with not being at the bottom of the pack. Solace had caught food for herself during her free time and doesn't seem to need to eat it before she's back, considering she can forage from the plantlife, but even she needs more water than she can realistically prepare in advance. This resulted in a quick skirmish with Ceri who has taken it upon herself to be a little added difficult for those at the front of the pack though even she can't get to Kale while he's flying. She CAN get to Finn which might end up slowing Kale down if he elects to help but either way, Ceri doesn't linger. Her goal is to push, not defeat. ... Lilian's praise is highly sought after amongst your local friends in Trídéag. The Hana Association's representative that deals with Trídéag most, Olivier, has given Lilian a lot of leeway in deciding who gets to be promoted and who needs more time at a certain Grade. Solace herself hopes to reach Grade 3 after her earlier conversation with Lilian but it's not like Finn and Knifty don't dream of their own growth even as Lenny's dreams are a bit apart from the Fixer Grade structure. At some point Knifty skinned a beastie and has brought back its pelt, no doubt intent on making use of it as a blanket or something more disquieting. The line up is a little predictable. Ceri, who while a participant is also intent on putting some weight on the scales of those who are doing well, ends up in the middle of the pack as a result but Solace and Finn (largely thanks to Kale) end up earlier in the lineup, Knifty's somewhere in the bottom half of the middle, and Lenny is near or at the bottom. Solace being one of the people at the front of the pack means that people have to wait for her to struggle through pronouncing the incantation. It takes her longer than any of the others to get it right, sometimes stuttering through it and sometimes being interrupted by a cough or a throat seizing up. But eventually she gets it. Lenny gets it her first try because she hears so many people before her say it, she had to manage at least that.
Angela	It's a sad truth that Lilian-as-an-arcanist is something that your friends are basically not all that accustomed to which means the whole mystery of all these little ceremonies and rituals gets a hushed and awed reception by people, who as far as they know, live in a magicless world. The closest to a magician they can think of is Weather Report whose nature as a Distortion seems like she might as well be, but even that strange power is nothing quite like what Lilian is doing here. "Do you two...have 'arcane skills' like this?" Finn asks Sonetto and Matilda, Purely by gradual osmosis thanks to working with them the most, he has the most curiousity as to their world and arcanum. "You two did great during the hunt. Congratulations!" He is pleased to see Matilda and Sonetto are doing well! Solace walking through the flame without complaint helps encourage the rest of the locals to do the same so while there is some hesitation amongst Finn and Lenny (Knifty just bolted through and exclaiming 'fire!' happily), it doesn't really stop them.
Riku Asakura	Riku searches for his stones with his group manageably well. Sadly, getting large isn't a huge advantage for finding stones, nor is just becoming a small version of an Ultraman helpful for this. So he spends his first day without using any of his powers to actually help him. Thinking about it, he could have probably used them for the tree-cutting exercise... As far as getting stones is, Riku settles for the three, though he does spend a LITTLE time getting a fourth. A little advantage for a little effort and energy. Things in moderation, he thinks. He also hides his stones on his person, so that he'd know if anyone came to steal them! He is sure nobody in the group, save maybe Knifty, is good enough at sleight of hand to pocket their stones. Knifty being on his team means it's a long shot. As far as providing for himself, Riku knows how to fish. He asked Knifty if she wanted to clean the fish while he caught them. This means food for both of them, and it's time he can dedicate to one thing, while she handles the other. Riku is both cautious about the wildlife and lucky he hasn't run into anything too serious yet. As for the ritual, he goes along with it, though he feels more than a little silly. He has a tough time with the words, but to his benefit, he does make a good effort at trying to pronounce them as best as he can until Lilian is satisfied. Now painted blue and told to walk into the fire, behind someone else, presumably... He walks through the fire and makes the sacrifice of blood from a prick to his finger. Thankfully, he is not the day's fuck up and manages to walk back with the rest of the group.
Foundation Scions	Knowing in-advance where many of the marbles are to be found, is no small advantage, and it comes with a few additional correlated boons; firstly, that a goal is a weight off the shoulders to have, compared to just a direction, and secondly, that getting to use her arcanum at all, and the shape of it, helps re-fortify Matilda's reserves to be able to convince herself (and hopefully others) that she's confident and capable! She can go into this with the confidence of a student with the test's answer-sheet! She still has to go into it, though! Confidence helps with exhaustion, pain, and hunger, but it also makes it easy to overexpend on activity level, and afforded confrontations! It's on her teammate to set responsible pace (and Matilda's threshold for responsible expenditures of effort, is lower than Sonetto's!) Tomorrow will be harder, surely, because of it, and by no small amount. Matilda Bouanich, however, really wants to collect a lot of marbles! If this means, hours-in, half-deliriously arguing with a tree nesting spirit that she'd very much like to stick her arm into the nook it's within, to fish up a little marker she's sure is in there, and get frustrated to the point of very silly gestures and expressions, ruckuses, and thrown stones, then so be it! Actual fights, also, so be it! Over-cautious sneaking, and further arcane skill expenditure, in order to disguise her own footsteps for competing fixers, so be it! It's all for the goal of being less of a 'fuckup' by point-totals! She's accumulated enough that she'd really like to un-accumulate! The Matilda Bouanich of tomorrow, will not be very happy with her! But, the Matilda Bouanich of every day, won't be happy without biting off more than she can chew. . . . 'Without having a cookbook at hand, I'm not sure I could even come up with a recipe more complex than this.' "I will not at all become tired of your cooking," Is a rushed statement, fueled by the momentary energy-burst of imagining (more than she had, while assisting in the preparations) some fantasy of domestic existence with Sonetto, "In fact, many principles of French cuisine, are about the maintaining of quality in simplistic measures! Ah, si seulement nous avions du beurre..." Her stomach grumbles, loud, and painful. Matilda insists on putting some of the husked (and unhusked) nuts by the fire, because, "Roasting nuts, in early-autumn, is quite nostalgic! They are supposed to be quite fortifying! I used to like gathering chestnuts in the country-side to cook up!" With a little giggle, as she debates doing the same for old-time's sake, "I would reach for them before they had cooled down, and burn the tips of my fingers! A chestnut should know better than to burn me! Hm-hm..."
Foundation Scions	. . . Walking stiff-legged up the torch-lined path, as other light but the Moon and stars has dimmed itself away, with the hazy buzz under the skin of layer after layer of soreness, in wide-eyed tiredness, in this air so rich with pneuma, makes the group's emergence around the ritual site feel to Matilda like the transition of wakefulness to a bright, vivid dream. The whole way up, it's impossible to tell if Matilda notices just how much she's vocalizing little excited exhales, 'oohhh's and 'ah!'s, and little wheezy yelps of un-tender motions flaring tender muscles. There, in the heat, and the incensed smoke, the noise and the sky above, shadows and paint cast on skin, is the dissociative emotional transition from 'dreamlike' to ritual, to miracle, to trance- familiar and new, rich, so bursting with right-behind-the-eyes intensity, skin-shivery, it's magic, even before the coaching of incantation lines, even while just sitting down patiently! It's exactly what she wanted it to be! Overall, it may be a modest affair- but (and definitely, if the day's context is to be considered part of it) it's one of the largest, and most significant-feeling rituals that Matilda herself has gotten to be involved-with! It's the sort to read of in books, with the footnote that exact elements of it are lost information, or that the practice has been obsoleted by more standardized measures. That leaves her moon-eyed, etching as much of it all as she can into sensory memory, no-doubt something to reminisce and write-out, in detail, what she can, in diaries soon, and in autobiographies decades down the line, perhaps- in the gaps where she isn't too-fascinated, in awe, she's sure to ask as many questions as to components and function, when not-already explained. When it's actually Matilda's go, with the spell past her lips, the fire's glow behind her, the drop-off of the short falls directly below her, the world simultaneously both there at the edge of her skin and a thousand thousand miles away, the night sky opening wide, up, up above, she could just howl.
Xion	'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.' Far earlier, Xion had hung there, spear to shoulder, a look across her both distant and present in character. Her head dipped, before her work began. The thought rolled behind her eyes like a marble on a run, and then her lips parted and without refreshing breath or looking up, shifted her shoulders. "Here, probably. But there's a lot of places with people." Quieter, her eyes on the neat rows of trees, steady in her stare, she adds more. "Forty years to call an oak mature. How many to call a man?" Then, she took her position. "We'll use it later." She murmurs, now to herself, and carries on. During the sparring, Xion begins near the lead and maintains pace, prowling and primarily defensive as she circles and stabs. Reach thanks to her weapon combined with resilience and damnable speed means to anyone trying to score points she's a terrible matchup even when not chasing them down and force the issue. The problems for her come not in determined triers like Sonetto, whom she dissuades firmly, nor in Kale, who is clearly attempting to sprint ahead... but in Ceri, who actively tries to attack those in high position. Xion's prowl-and-pounce style works based on the psychology that she reinforces with action, that she's a Bad Idea to attack and that she should be let do whatever she wants by anyone not getting focused on by her. With Ceri, Xion cannot dissuade the determined Fixer nor can she simply force the fight's issue by outpacing and outoptioning Ceri with her usual bag of tricks. Instead, the Nobody fights to standstill and reset, guiding Ceri back towards Kale when she can and letting the avian achiever deal with Ceri for a while. Xion isn't fighting to build an insurmountable advantage or force anyone down, but... She gets a little vicious when her gains and efforts are cut at, and after the first pass Ceri gives her Xion reads the Fixer for such and remains sour in the thirty-or-so minutes after, sat crosslegged and with weapons down after her own towelling. Rest is welcome, despite her loose connection with physical exhaustion - the mental tax remains upon her, and the time to process becomes welcome. Lilian returns after a bit with her slaughter, and Xion looks with dim interest until Kale begins reading out the lore of each entrail and people begin to engage with her. --- '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?' Xion's pan towards Sonetto gives the checkerboard girl a look as considering becomes memory, then shifts into construction, and finally an answer escapes her while she still looks off and to the side of Sonetto. "I remember Lilian being there, constantly, for years. I'd say we're close?" The hedge of uncertainty isn't one she lingers on. There's a more direct question. "What I'm getting out of this -- beyond a special moment in time, something entirely mine -- is a... game? Rules, limits. Things that make you think, things that make you grow." Looking around, at Sarracenia and everyone else, in different and apparent states of bruising and battering, her not excepted. "Peel away all of the 'I can do', and what are you left with? Is it even a name? Bare, who am I?" Xion looks on Sonetto at that, head lolled just-so, looking into and through and past Sonetto all at once. She addresses the room, her opposite, herself. "I didn't know. I didn't have a memory that answered it."
Xion	'Though...not completely considerate, as she did still butcher it within view.' Xion laughs, shifting off Sonetto to smirk at Sarracenia. "Would you rather she do so out of sight? Do you want her to produce mystery steaks? Just take it as her showing us one thing we could eat here." Xion reasons, calmly smirking while Lilian cooks. "If you let her hear you say that, and no praise for her cooking, you probably won't leave here alive." She advises, quiet again, a bright-eyed honesty turned to an uncanny truth's purpose. '...are you alright, Xion? You seem...a bit different from when we first met. Lilian mentioned you have many struggles.' Immediately the amusement and faint talking ease that took Xion dies with a slow lidding-narrow of her eyes. "I'm fine?" She states, the question entirely placed upon Sarracenia. Why was she asking? Was she sure? Doubt rose in her tone without call to explain further formally spoken. "People change." Xion adds, but that's not everything Sarracenia asks. "But I'll think about dinner." She compromises. 'I'll convince them ... to rely on me more.' Xion is quiet for a little bit. Eventually, she settles on... "Isn't saying 'I'm relying on you' the same as saying 'I expect you to hurt for me'? I'd say... be comfortable taking on what you can." She reasons through, her odd look cured for now. Lilian wishing for praise is easy to please as Xion doesn't do the effusive praise so much as she has a food anime 'mmmmwoww!!' taste-explosion live on scene, loving every bite of the meat and having to audibly coach herself to slow down by praising Lilian. "I've heard fresh ingredients 'makes it', but this is really good!" Comes only after, while she's pacing herself and flush-faced. --- The scavenger hunt is a simpler plan, as while it's explained Xion is already formulating up a sub-plot of her own. Once Lilian explains some are underwater, Xion finds her advantage and her master plan is only slightly frustrated... by it being a Team activity and Sarracenia being her responsibili-buddy. Given one stone between them both, though, she has to modify. Low voiced, she briefs the Sundew princess. "Okay. If you want to hold it - let's do this: We'll cover more ground if we split up, and I've got a real advantage in the water. So we'll find our first together, and then split up from there and I'll scrape the water features. This should give us at least two more, and I'd like to end comfortably plus-two - ten for each of us." A carrot for the stick of departure. "If you get jumped, radio me and I'll pop over and deal with the problem." She works out, and then gets to it. If Xion really went at it, she might have found all the water-based stones. Upon getting a good number of them, though, she wanders up back onto land to poach a few near-waterway hidden tokens as well, feeling something different and following the gripping impulse deeper. Finding the tunnel at the outskirts of the exploration area, she stares into the mouth of the cave for a minute or two all alone and dries in the air. Taking a step forward, her bare ankle brushes the rope and she pauses again, looking down at the barrier. She stands and thinks about the hole for another short while, and then 'spends a use of her abilities' for the day generating a blank black-glass Medallion in hand and tosses it into the mouth of the cave. Again, she stands. Again, she waits. Again, she listens. After a while, the character of the sky in its overvibrant way signals the time to go, and Xion turns and heads back through the forest. There was dinner to get!
Xion	Eventually winding her way back to Sarracenia, as victorious as a quartet of still-dripping prey fish set into her spear could be to share two and two over a simple fire -- and immediately regrets her almost romantic movie choice of edibles when it's easier to slide the flesh off with an edge carefully from the ribbing of bones through it. --- Walking up to the ritual site, a certain sort of proud for her efforts, Xion takes her spot and watches with still interest in Lilian spreading the drawings across skin. Up close, it's easier to tell that it's not exactly green in her eyes, but an infiltration of yellow among the blue that passes for green at a distance. "Pretty cool ritual." She underbreaths while being applied to. "Nice of you to share better than you got." She adds, before learning words in a new language to repeat! Returned all the way down, it's the prick of blood that takes her a moment despite having plenty of edges. She stares at the blood, the same as everyone else, and knows she is no different here and now... So her pricking is light, to the finger, pinched and welled up given a little time, and dribbled dark onto the stone. By the end, she's smiling again, confident in something else quietly.
Lilian Rook	'...you...use a weapon that is...unoptimized?' "You may have noticed but all of your swords are a little shorter on you than they are on me." Lilian says, planting the point down and drawing her flat hand from the pommel to her throat for emphasis. "The man who made it was a good four or five inches taller than I am. It didn't look exactly like this back then, but it was a sword before anyone had made steel out of iron." She leans her weight on the grip, elbow up on the hilt, like someone tilts back in a chair. "Unlike a proper sword, it doesn't bend at all when you hit something. It's like mining rocks." 'Forty years to call an oak mature. How many to call a man?' "You wound me with your correctness." Lilian says, half-facetious, rolling the thought around for a while before really answering. "That's the thing though, isn't it? An oak will always get to be majestic as long as it's got what it needs. Sometimes a person mature thrice as fast, and oftentimes they never mature at all. Looking at them like practice doesn't give anyone time to tell." 'the trappings of civilization' -- repeated "Civilization built your swords, but it didn't discover how to use them. The martial arts are 'arts' because the world contains no formula, no template or equation, for battle. When you pick up your blade to defend the innocent, you step away from everything that 'is the way it is' because it emerged in the greater order, and become something temporarily apart from it. Regardless of whoever you represent, until you sheathe your sword again, you are one person, with one will, contradicting 'the way things will go', and correcting them for the good of everyone. If you can't mantle your own self, then you can't save anyone who wasn't destined to be saved already; you'll never go any further than being a part of humanity's reactive self-defense." "At least, that's how I've interpreted how it was explained to me." 'Nice of you to share better than you got.' That makes Lilian smile. "Despite what I say sometimes, on most days I want everyone to get better than I got." she says. "The City more than most. It matters a lot to me that I can revive this tradition through you, but it means even more that I can revive the belief in the City's heart-of-hearts that life is supposed to be better than this." . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	And then, as Lilian has said a million times before, the next day happens at the same time as always, and you have to get up on your feet again. While she did tell you that sleeping is an unscheduled activity, your 'warm up' is the same time as before, so every minute you cut is a minute you have to run to the hotspring, bathe, run off, find food, run back, prepare and eat it, and ideally even wash your clothes, maintain your weapons, and limber up. It's difficult, though not impossible, to sleep in past the crack of dawn anyways. Your alarm clock is a series of distantly loud noises coming from somewhere well over the clifftop, which persist for the better part of an hour. Lilian is up before you, and factually speaking, though her tent certainly is up on the cliff, no one can claim to have actually seen her sleep in it. Breakfast is your own problem, as a group or individuals, to solve. Your various minor injuries have had plenty of time to stiffen, bruise, or scab up, and unfailingly remind you of everything you did yesterday. Which is, ultimately, very helpful, because when Lilian returns to the beautiful waterfall basin level of the camp, she warmly informs you that you will all be doing the exact same exercises all over again. . . . . . . . . There are new lessons to be learned all over again from exactly the same thing. Because the run is the same, you're being tested on how well you observed, memorized, and reflected on the route; or 'encouraged' to in future by how difficult it is to do now that you're no longer fresh out of the Warpgate. Because the pillars are the same, everyone knows which are the good ones already, and there are no dibs. Because the horrid slabs and ropes are the same, you already know exactly how your pace made you feel last time, and what everyone else's pace is; provided you studied their stamina, speed, strength, and so on, at the time. And so it goes on. It's a brutal lesson in paying attention to things that are seemingly unnecessary to know. It requires a frank assessment of your condition and capabilities after yesterday and adjusting how you do everything the second time around to compensate for knowing the steps better while being in worse shape. It benefits tremendously from familiarity with each other, as your sparring partners are rotated and your starting positions are re-randomized. Because it is something permanent, persistent, and repeated, it harshly punishes every bad habit that grows from the delineation of 'work, where I fight', and 'home, where I'm normal again'; especially 'And I'll never come back here and deal with this again'. It's also an equally brutal capstone to your many instructions on pace, costs, consequences, and permanence, because your 'fuckup points' from the previous day are not reset. Lilian's entire explanation of why is only a sagely-smug look and a euphoric recitation of "Welcome to the real world." . . . . . . . . There's a certain emptiness in not having a lovely lunch and all the free time it entails afterwards, but yesterday's you already feels like a much more pampered person. Your afternoon exercise begins only as a long march along the river and to the distant other side of the canyon, where the face has crumbled away with age and become something closer to the first third of a mountain slope.
Lilian Rook	Once again, you're arranged in tent-buddy pairs, cementing that the pattern here is that of chaos from dawn until noon before returning to a single steadfast ally from noon until dusk; whether you like them or not. Each pair is spaced apart quite far, with the leading pair (by highest scorer, not averaged score) given the longest to wait, and the last place pair (still by highest, actually) has to walk the most of the way. The instructions you've given are very simple; to wait for Lilian's signal, using a green-coloured magical flare, and then reach the top as quickly as possible. . . . . . . . . This is the first third of a mountain. At this point, you can feel secure in knowing that if you had all day, Lilian would have found a real one. The entire thing is covered in dense old-growth forest over jagged step-stair terrain, shot through with hundreds of inconvenient creeks, winding tunnels, and scarily well-hidden crevices and chasms. The point you're supposed to reach at the top was where the green flare was fired; so you had one chance to see it, and you have to somehow keep going in that direction from there. Once again, the expectation is that you'll take long enough to need to eat at least once, and hydrate multiple times. This time, it's very unlikely that you'd need your practice weapon, as clashing with another pair would cost you both time just to spite one of you, but keeping your SN-13 handy is an absolute requirement. Elites of your calibre could conquer this terrain in a couple of hours, even excusing flight or teleportation, but the terrain itself is just the arena, not the opponent. The 'mountainside' is crawling with enemies. It's very likely that Lilian started from the top so that she could keep a watchful eye out for your safety as much as anything. You aren't being waved in a general direction and being told that some of you might have incidental scuffles with dangerous beasts; you're trespassing into the darkened domain of that which lies dormant only until the early sunset arrives over the east-facing cliff. You're isolated and underequipped, facing a retreat nearly as daunting as ascent, and under constant stochastic attack; from skinless things that slither from the water, equine shadows that stalk you in the dark and watch your fires with hungry eyes, slavering black hounds that follow the scent of your blood, gnarled humanoid shapes of rotwood and intangible mist that strike or scream or bite down or call out hexes. Even the Corridors of Darkness are a tangled mess, here, with barrows and nameless graves as thick as dead leaves. Flying attracts the attention of what you think might have been a giant crow, which leaves uneventfully if the passing shadow is taken as a hint; otherwise, it attracts the dense flocks that began to congregate overhead as you proceed, visible as skeletal half-man shapes with black wings only when an opportunity presents itself to swoop down in droves and carry someone far away. Were you fully armed, equipped, and rested, it'd be just enough to keep your on your toes. But you aren't. There is one checkpoint. It doesn't seem to be related to the exercise, but was obviously set up by Lilian. The standing markers, dense two-language runes, and incense mix are all associated with her nature wardings and divinations. You can find it halfway up if you mostly follow the smell on the lateral wind, but it contains nothing but an unlit campfire (wood cut, array inscribed), three shoebox-sized containers of supplies, and a replacement radio unit, surrounded in layers upon layers of wards. One of the boxes contains nothing but blindfolds and earplugs. . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	Thankfully, the ritual is to take place exactly where the green flare marked. You wouldn't have time to go anywhere otherwise. After a brief examination of injuries, you're lead as a full group, guided by Lilian through an increasingly nonsensible series of forking paths through the woods on the top of the canyon plateau that feel as if they must be going in circles, but come to a different pair of bent trees each time. Each time, you are watched by a larger number of birds in their branches than before. The second site was clearly not assembled by Lilian. The clearing is formed by the face of a massive stone disc embedded in the ground, or perhaps merely overgrown in the course of centuries, covered in moss-filled designs from end to end. Its breadth is just enough to walk across it under the hazy cloud-filtered light of the full moon, past where the rainwater has gathered in its central depression and become host to frogs, and to the foot of the gargantuan elm tree at its edge, in the hollow of which someone has built a shrine. Each of you are fussily spaced out in an exacting arc along the circle's edge, instructed to kneel or sit (though allegedly 'kneeling is best', close your eyes, and wait there. Lilian's instructions are abundantly clear; which they should be, because no more come afterwards. "Keep your eyes closed and your head low. Listen to the leaves. Take note of the scent of the wind. Taste the energy on your tongue and pay close attention to its shifting. When you're certain, absolutely, that there is 'someone' or 'something' with you, repeat 'Níl dada le ceilt agam', and only open your eyes if you hear a response." "If you say it three times and are wrong, or get no response at all, get up, turn around, and hurry back to the entrance, keeping your eyes low. I mean it." There is no need to mix ritual pigment, nor draw arcane designs, nor create a sanctified fire. Even those of you with the dullest of arcane senses can tell that the air here is simply 'different'. In silent vigil, discarding sight, you gradually begin to faintly feel something like a pulse moving through the earth beneath you, and shifting coldness like rolling fog, with two days for your skin to have sensitized to. The synaesthetic soundscape of man-made design creates a strange effect when you can't see for long enough; like there is an ambient 'pressure' all around you, as if shallowly underwater, the motion of which is gradually attributable to the swaying branches all around you. 'When you're certain' is far from vague. It's easy to imagine anything like this, and prematurely call out, but when it's really your turn, you know. Your strangely enmeshed senses perceive fluctuations in the magic-saturated air as sound, like quiet hoofbeats, and when the gestalt sensation of cold fog turns hot, it feels like breath. Your 'response' for the phrase is an animalistic snort by your ear. Your opened eyes find that your visitor is an enormous stag, whiter than the moon, with a strangely intense interest in examining you. Despite its size, it is only ever perceived by one person at a time; including Lilian. Waiting at the entrance, she can easily tell what's going on just by watching you, but she motions for nothing but to stay very still, until the stag is eventually satisfied enough to turn and leave into the woods. You're permitted to watch the surreality of others going through the same thing after you, but when you're all back together, what Lilian says is "I'm glad this one is of a permissive sort. I wasn't entirely certain that just two full days would be enough for you to belong here, but since things have gone this smoothly, I suppose I'll be taking you to the ocean tomorrow."
Lilian Rook	'Last place has to sleep on the mountainside' lasts as long as it takes for someone to get really scared and Lilian to laugh herself to tears about it. Last place actually has to stay up filling in the disposal pit and digging a new one. Which is maybe worse actually?
Kale Hearthward	> "If you can't mantle your own self, then you can't save anyone who wasn't destined to be saved already; you'll never go any further than being a part of humanity's reactive self-defense." " ", Kale says, or rather doesn't say, opening his beak to respond and not having a response to that. He's a lot more thoughtful the rest of the evening. Or at least a lot more quiet. - - - Morning. Breakfast, or lack thereof. Leftovers, then foraging and scavenging for the rest. Kale burns a power usage to fly out and get food for breakfast from one of the better forage spots. He'll burn another one to get lunch, and a third accidentally during the free sparring. But using up all three of them isn't going to cause him any problems later, right? - - - If someone's feeling competitive, the morning routine is where they can gain some ground on Kale Hearthward - because he certainly wasn't paying too much attention to anyone else's performance, meaning that strategic avenue is off the table for him, but also because the motivation that was driving him onward is lessening a little bit. He's taking more frequent breaks, and getting going just a bit slower than before. He's no less a bastard than he was yesterday when it comes to sparring or the chaotic melee, though. - - - It's a mountain. You need to reach the top. Simple traversal. All he needs to do is fly him and Finn up to the top. It's the perfect way to use one of his three power activations, of which he has remaining- "... Stale winds." Kale Hearthward has a bad time. - - - He goes off prematurely twice during the ritual, before he finally locks in and really really casts out with his senses. And even once he gets the true ping, he overcompensates the other way, waiting for a few seconds with eyes screwed shut as he doubts himself before finally giving the incantation. Kale stares with wide eyes at the stag. "Oh," escapes his beak, before he manages to remember to stay still and silent. He stares longer when it trots off. "Thank you," he says softly to Lilian, once he rejoins her at the entrance. "For arranging this. All of it."
Riku Asakura	'If you can't mantle your own self, then you can't save anyone who wasn't destined to be saved already; you'll never go any further than being a part of humanity's reactive self-defense.' These words stick with Riku, because there is truth in them. It's hard for him to sometimes remember that the other half he is is just as much a part of him as the human half. Eventually, he's going to have to come to terms with this... especially given where his other half came from. Fate isn't going to let him keep playing superhero when it suits him. -------------- Riku made sure to wash his clothes and take a bath before bed the previous night. While a bit damp, he has fewer things he needs to worry about in the morning. Not that he can sleep in anyway; thanks, Lilian, it does let him focus on catching breakfast for both him and Knifty, assuming Knifty is still down to clean fish. He also boils water and cools it down for his water bottles before the morning exercises. He takes a similar pace to the run that he took before, but because he knows where the runes are, he can make better time. He keeps to his similar plans for the sword exercises, finding a way out of the way of the platform and exercising without worrying about someone jumping onto his platform. When it comes to cutting down trees, he actually transforms for this one, using the blade with his Ultraman strength to easily pace himself for cutting down regrown trees, but immediately cutting the transformation so he can conserve time. Who knows if he'll need it later! When it comes to the sparring, he takes a familiar tactic... avoiding Kale and Xion, and instead fighting defensively. ------------ While they're assembling for their trip up the mountain, Riku waves to Knifty. He's at least nice to the girl, despite her overeagerness. When the green flare fires, he tries to spot where it fires from and to try to plot a course based on that. It's not easy, because he's neither an experienced wayfarer nor a woodsman, but he tries his best! "This is going to be more of a trek, so let's try to conserve our strength up the mountain." It's not fun, because it's so wooded and thick with foliage that it makes it harder to travel through. Eventually, however, they come across their first monster, and he presses Knifty's head down. "Careful," he whispers, "We're going to need to be careful about fighting these things... so I'll go out and grab its attention, and you sneak around to get it from behind. You're good at that, right?" Riku knows the answer, especially when she went Rambo on a gang of people by herself that one time. Riku does his best to direct Knifty's... eagerness. He also legitimately looks out for her, placing himself in danger to make sure she's alright, and also makes sure she doesn't get lost in the woods either. If a strong enough monster appears, he does use another activation of Ultraman to help beat it. At the checkpoint, the odd assortment of blindfolds and earplugs causes Riku to shake his head. "Maybe grab a pair? Maybe she's messing with us, but maybe she's also providing us with something to defend ourselves?" Too bad it turns out it was a red herring. They do at least secure one of the boxes of supplies! Yay!
Riku Asakura	---------- At the second ritual site, Riku's a bit bewildered by the place itself. It FEELS different. There is an energy he's not sure about, and he feels this is some sort of 'sacred' place. Japan has its fill of places like this, but this also feels different than those somehow. Not different bad, just... different. The instructions are clear, though Riku isn't sure what he should be listening for. Maybe it's more of a feeling? Of course, Riku gets one false start because he hears some leaves rustle. He sighs and shakes his head... no, there has to be something specific he should hear, right? This wasn't a response... The second time, he is more patient, eventually hearing the quiet hoofbeats. This time, he says the phrase and is rewarded with the snort by his ear. When he opens his eyes, he almost doesn't move... the animal is majestic. He lets the stag examine him until he eventually fades and looks at Lilian with a somewhat awed expression. When the others have had their own experiences, he turns to Lilian. "White stags have a significance, right? What do they represent or mean?" he asks, actually curious. "Also permissive? Was that a local god?" ---------------- Riku isn't last, but when Lilian says the loser has to sleep on the mountain, Riku looks actually frightened for them. Fortunately, her laughing means it was a joke! Though, uh... the actual punishment is definitely worse...
Angela	Ceri is impressed with Xion's skill but, frankly, at this point Xion being a tough foe to overcome is something she's come to expect. Diverting her off to Kale involves being able to catch him when he's landed. At least she doesn't seem to mind when Xion gets a little vicious in protecting her gains, it's to be expected, but she's not going to allow this to be a cakewalk for anyone if she can help it. ''The world contains no formula.'' "Growing too accustomed to the forms like a Cinq amateur is how you get gutted by a desperate novice." Is Ceri's agreement with the DIrector. "A real master will be able to adapt to any strange circumstance they find themselves in and find a solution--or at least change the circumstances into one suited for them." ''The City more than most ... revive the belief in the City's heart-of-hearts that life is supposed to be better than this.'' Strangely, it's Knifty who is the one with a question about this. #-1 FUNCTION (ANS) NOT FOUND Knifty asks. "You've been so nice to me, and nice to everybody..." At the end of the day, she's still someone who was raised in this world to be wary of people offering heaven on earth. "Is it personal, Miss Director?" "Gotta admit, I feel like The City's been nothing but trouble to you. We think the world of you, ma'am, because you gave us a chance when everyone else had given up on us but ... wouldn't it have been easier for you to fill the Association up with big shots like the Vice Director? I get why you maybe didn't to start with, but I bet you could pick out from the best of the best." "You even made Joanna wait, even ... if she's lost her position, she was a legend once." Finn adds. They're always so amazed and surprised and grateful. The Following Day Riku wakes up to Knifty smiling at him staring right at his face from above. She grins widely as she says, "Wakey wakey, Big Guy!!" Did she even sleep??
Odette Raskins	"No, but I can tell if a plant or berry is poisonous or not." Sadly, this means Odette's going to have to go meatless until it's time to return to the bonfire. For someone with her appetite, that means she'll really have to pick her battles over the remaining days! And also having to take yet more risks hunting something down or sitting around and fishing just before returning when she's already tired and it's already dark. It won't be until the end of the first day (or Lenny telling her) that she'll realize she could just put the ingredients somewhere safe early in the afternoon and pick it up later. . . . . . . "If you can't mantle your own self . . . " With time to listen and rest, Odette's primed to take in some mental lessons she wouldn't have otherwise understood. Does she understand them now? Certainly not entirely, but it does give her plenty to think about while pressing a hand into her forearm to help the blood clot faster. "So by contradicting the way the world's trying to be with my own will, my sword needs to... No, the arm uising the-uh. The me using the sword has to be doing more than just reacting? But if what I would be drawing the sword for is something that's already there, then wouldn't that be... Uhm. Reactive already? Or... No." It's going to take her a while to figure that one out. ". . .it means even more that I can revive the belief . . . that life is supposed to be better than this." "It's way easier to see now than before, that's for sure. Not just the City being better because of everything you've started, but..." Cupping her hands around a handful of roasted berries, Odette visibly resists the urge to smush them up like some kind of animal and pops one into her mouth and a less-than satisfying squish. "Before I started branching out from working with the Company to working with... Er. With the Watch and everyone here, in Trideag, I thought things were fine even when they really... Really weren't. Things being the way they were was just how things would be forever, because it'd be too hard to change anything being someone as... Like me. But..." She looks up at Lilian, then at Xion, at Riku, at Sarracenia, at Kale, at Sonetto, at Matilda, and even at Knifty and Lenny and Ceri. "But none of you told me to go away, or just leave things to the professionals. You let me stick around, and keep trying to do more even though it really would've probably made things easier for you to. A-and now, being included in all of this is like... Um. It's..." She feels her nose getting stuffier, and her eyes getting foggier. Odette takes her glasses off to wipe at her eyes with her forearm, then stops because doing that just makes the burning feeling on her face and eyes hurt more from getting leftover ash into her scrapes. "... I-I don't know if I could've ever done half this stuff without all of you. S-so thanks for the... Ugh. E-everythi-hiiing!" She keeps tearing up despite her efforts, partly from getting hit with too many emotions to try and hold back at once, and partly because her face really really hurts from rubbing her arm on it.
Xion	'The City more than most.' Xion considers that fully, and turning to look at the small knot of the City that had stuck with Lilian -- that had given her much more than many gave themselves at all within the City, blatant and apparent. "You can call an oak mature in forty, as long as it had what it needed to grow. As for people, you have to figure out yourself." And so followed, perhaps, everything else. Why this was a Trideag situation, and who got to go. She, entering wearing the Trideag colors, had also come 'for Trideag'. That it was 'Lilian' to all her memories didn't change that new meaning now to her. --- Xion is enough of a sound sleeper that she does not rise to the bumps and bellows of the nighttime, set to sleeping early enough that her routine is well started with or without Sarracenia -- she lets her partner sleep in while she prepares, as long as it's not too deep. The training repeating in the morning gives Xion no questions and little problems not caused by lingering injury. Tough enough she hadn't really been worn town by the terrain, it was the sparring sessions and the efforts at chasing down dinner that left her sore. Remembering the route meant her second run was more optimized, less exploratory and much more executory. She doesn't take breaks and she doesn't take detours, having measured the run the first time she had to go up (and down and up and down) the mountain carrying things. Working on form and pace keeps her occupied and moving through the morning, relying on forage for a lunch unless Sarracenia has a better idea. Having remembered the local plants Lilian had grabbed, and having taken her measure of the waterways, easy food is better than complex food to maintain strength, and spending a little time washing and then fire-cooking some tubers gives little snacks for later - not especially flavorful but certainly useful trail snacks. On the second evening challenge, Xion remains with Sarracenia as she clearly wants, not needing to make up extra points after sweeping out the waterways. The local creatures are aggressive, and Xion has little and less patience for being attacked even if it's by messed up boar or other beasties. Tight in, Xion tunes in automatically to relying on Sarracenia's strength on the rise up the mountain, and perhaps silently gives Sarracenia exactly what she wants: Open-backed trust without condition beyond circumstance. They were, for a stretch, comrades. --- The second ritual is different, though Xion is once again kneeling at her appointed place in the circle. Drifting into the receptive state, eyes closed, she reaches out with her senses carefully and tries to walk the knife's edge of receptive but not drawingly-receiving, draining of the world around her to answer for her empathy. Without demanding the air justify itself, Xion waits, hearing the world warp around the humanoid leavings and sensing something prowling the edge as she had on the first day. She waits, almost speaking once with a shiver, but slowly calming, and then, finally, answers and opens her eyes and sees-- Head. The white body close enough to touch her and be breathed upon, to be touched by the curl of warm air at the head of something living... Xion sits, staring, blinking, stressed and odd-exultant, vibrating at the truth of being accepted into this place and the lingering glow of Lilian's explanation after. "It's one thing for you to say it, and another to the forest to agree. There's 'knowing', and there's 'certain'." Xion admits, arms loosely crossed and wearing a lingering smile.
Foundation Scions	Limbering up, is so important! Matilda often keeps this in mind, and it's often mentioned and reinforced in the sorts of lifestyle magazines she reads on occasion, as it is in the numerous physical-education, and training, program environments she's been in! In the morning, she's dreadfully upset at yesterday's Matilda, for obviously having not limbered up enough (despite doing so quite a lot!) Getting knees and arms to feel as if they can move, takes much longer of her morning-time than she would like! Even if she started the morning off waking up next to Sonetto- it is not a good way to wake up. She's an early riser, at least, while the sky is almost-night, still. Despite exhaustion, sorenesses that hot springs don't quite melt out, and the drone of the waterfall, Matilda can't at all shake a pressing restlessness, at the tail-end of night. She uses the (not spare, but still necessary to spend) energy she has in that hour, to idle out in woods- she convinces herself it's to gather food, like yesterday's nuts, for herself (and Sonetto), and she does do that, but it's a hazy morning impulse more than anything else. . . . The re-hash of the exercises, is, when you think about it, a pop-up quiz! Perhaps Matilda Bouanich (who likes to be so good at pop-up quizzes, and likes to (perhaps against their spirit) know early when they will pop-up) spent the days before coming to this outing, not only preparing the paperwork to allow such an absence, but consulting fortunes and futures, because she had been committing the route to memory, via (still fallible) mnemomics, muttered in out-of-breath blurbles as she runs, climbs, hikes- her pace is necessarily one that expends less, but she isn't going to let herself be caught having not studied! . . . She still accumulates fuckup points! Comparatively fewer, for the preparedness, but more overall, per the trend of tiredness- and it has her hoping again for a challenge in the evening in which she can un-accumulate them, beyond just the sparring! She did so well in the scavenger hunt! There should be scavenger hunt again! She has to get a good grade in everything that's graded, or she'll pout and fluster silly-style! . . . It's such a relief, when the morning shifts to afternoon, and the next activity, she's coming back to Sonetto's alliance. That shift from competition, to cooperation, with her, but also just with someone, puts a light back into poor, exhausted, bruised-and-scraped Matilda! She smiles so wide her shoulders rise with it, at being back on a team! They'll work hard, succeed, hunt, cook, eat, and go home to a tent, together! Every circumstance of this outing paints that more and more significant in her mind, and it's so significant in a vacuum! "I saved-up my arcane skills, again! To spend them here, or perhaps in hunting something larger-tasting," What does that mean? She's talking from her stomach, a little, and quickly corrects, "Er, perhaps in making sure we are well fed, I mean! Since there is much less to find, otherwise!" With another little huddle, that she's reluctant to pull away from, a bout of crystal divination (of course, not until they're allowed to start) is conducted, to provide Matilda and her teammate with fore-knowledge of moments of danger and possible mistake, so that they can precisely be avoided. It's really quite handy to know a bit of the future. . . .
Sarracenia	'I'm fine? People change' Sarra raises her hands in a 'take it easy' kind of way as Xion's mood quickly changes. She lets out a nervous laugh, feeling like she crossed some sort of line. "I did not mean to pry too much. I just...I mean as friends we..." She trails off, then with a cough into a fist lets the subject drop. But, at least Xion is thinking about the dinner! Sarra of course follows Xion's plan when it comes to the stone gathering. She realizes she isn't a burden to Xion because...Xion is just too powerful. When Xion returns with enough stones for each of them plus two, Sarra isn't as happy as she should be. "Oh...you found so many." Sarra says, managing a smile by the end. "Thank you." 'Unlike a proper sword, it doesn't bend at all when you hit something. It's like mining rocks.' Sarra gives Lilian a confused, somewhat awed look. "You...do all the things you do...with a blade like that?" The new day comes far too quickly for Sarracenia. She does not oversleep thanks to the loud noises, but is thankful for Xion letting her sleep. She hasn't been this sore in this way...possibly ever. The Liu training was intense, but not this intense. The training she does herself is not nearly this intense. And pushing past her limits is something that Sarra has rarely had to do. But, the one time she has...she really had to. There might be tears in her eyes at how badly everything hurts and new scratches being added atop old ones. The tasks are easier in that she knows them (except for the run because she is not good at remembering), but are harder because she has to do them tired and without mushroom healing. She does pay more attention today since it seems like they will have to do this again tomorrow. And she rations her sword charge since they learned that yesterday. Her fighting is much more guarded, though. Sarra is definitely not good at finding food. She doesn't know what is safe to eat other than the giant cow thing and...wait, they saw weird fruits and veggies! Are those around? Sarra gathers any she can find, at least until it becomes difficult to carry more. And of course she sticks close to Xion the entire time and happily shares whatever she has found. Sarra is not expecting the second half of the second day. "You -cannot- be -serious-!!!" she exclaims in a high, screechy tone when she realizes how many enemies there are around. Without her healing, something that Sarra has become very dependent on over the years, she loses steam fast. She is much too stubborn to give up, but she is starting to feel like she did during Meltdowns. Like there is a very real chance she might not make it out. And finding blindfolds and earplugs at the checkpoint is very confusing and a bit frustrating. Sarra takes some anyway. Having Xion there is definitely a boon. Xion depending on her allows Sarra to find depths of strength and fortitude she didn't realize she had just so she can protect her friend in the hopes of not letting her down. The second ritual feels more dangerous as well thanks to Lilian's warnings. Sarra follows her instructions to the letter, and when the time comes...she speaks the words and waits. Despite how ominous everything feels, the princess is confident. She hears a response. She opens her eyes. And gets the brightest happy smile that she has perhaps ever had. It is a great stag! Very much like the one from the storybook world! She only barely contains the urge to leap and hug it, and only because Lilian is there to warn her. 'Last place has to sleep on the mountainside' Sarra's horrified expression is surely enough to provide Lilian with plenty of laughter, which in turn causes Sarra's face to redden and cheeks to puff as she pouts and crosses her arms at being teased so. The actual punishment is just as bad in her eyes though...
Angela	Finn is groggiest when he wakes up, Lenny has ingested something that is helping her focus up despite not getting any more sleep than him. Solace is as inscrutable as ever and Ceri seems warm but tired. ''You will all be doing the same exercises all over again.'' "Oh fuck." Lenny manages. The general order of completion is about the same as last time, but at least everybody's faster on the run even if Lenny's the last as usual. Solace actually takes two trips down this time rather than one as does Ceri rather than trying to do the full slate all at once again. They know they're gonna have a third day of this after all, better to pace themselves. Lenny has accepted that she's going to be near or at the bottom of the pack the entire time, especially if 'fuck up points' aren't being erased, because as it turns out some people are just better athletes than you and all of them are on this adventure. Well, at least maybe the training is helping? The dichotomy between telling everybody that the world can be better and also that it still is the real world so maybe not quite such a magical improvement is not lost on Lenny. Her saving grace is that while she flinches at every new horrible thing she has to do, at least she buckles down and does her best to do the job. Lenny does tell Odett about the idea of hiding ingredients--largely because she doubts most people are gonna go after what they've put away, but also it's just a typical Rat survival tactic. She'll help Odette wiht this if she asks. ''But none of you told me to go away'' "What? You're one of the best medics we've got." Lenny seems surprised at Odette being surprised at being welcome in the Association. She does, awkwardly, give Odette a bit of a one armed hug and and a murmured, "Hey, it's fine, you've pulled your weight plenty of times, I didn't pick you out of pity." Even if maybe she'd have been better off teaming up with someone who could handle the physical activities better but at least she doesn't say she regrets her choices. Knifty waves excitedly at Riku. She is nothing if not friendly. And violent! But friendly. While she's the most uneasy about the kind neighborhood built up, an uneasiness that has faded but not entirely vanished. She basically thinks she's been isekaied into a world where she has been given a cheat skill (access to Lilian Rook) and so naturally worries she'll wake up one day and be back in the real world. ''The first third.'' Solace is a little slower during this part, the terrain has all the pieces of what Solace is used to but the arrangement is unusual so she's being extra cautious. Lenny uses materials she gathered the previous day to try to deter the monsters, rubbing some foul smelling herbs together to discourage any predators from seeing her and Odette as an easy meal, butthat won't work for everything especially since they are invading territories here. Still, when she has to fight, Lenny hasn't been skipping practice sessions even if every battle feels harrowing. Finn has the bad fortune of stepping in a hidden crevice and twisting his foot painfully. He grimaces and recovers but his walking is slowed considerably as a result. Solace is especially tense, these are new monsters to her, and she's ready to start fighting at a moment's notice. Since she doesn't have a partner, any battle she engages in will have to be on her own unless someone drops by to lend her a hand. As per a promise to everyone she won't teach anybody how to light a fire until the evening, but she does light one for herself so she can finish off the fish she caught the prior day and along with a portion of whatever is left behind in those containers.
Team Timekeeper	"You may have noticed but all of your swords are a little shorter on you than they are on me." Sonetto considers, for a little while, what it means for Lilian to wield Night Mist. Even if Sonetto didn't already know her personality from before this excursion, the training design here clearly communicates that Lilian values self-cultivation in the form of cleaving away inefficiencies and weakness, and she's very thorough about making sure their own tools suit them. She's not a hypocrite, and neither is she blind to her own difficulties, which means that Night Mist must actually be what's best for her. That man she mentioned, her ancestor, imbued the sword with a quality that intensified as the generations stretched on beyond him, until Lilian touched it for the first time, a form of time travel more complete than the Storm itself. By wielding it, Lilian not only attains mastery of the blade itself, but is bolstered by an additional, intangible thing, inaccessible to her by any other means, the conversation of her existence with its past. With Night Mist, enabled by nothing else, Lilian becomes 'more' than she would be otherwise, a knight with a heritage in her hand. By the inverse property, to not have that is to be 'less'. Sonetto knows that already; it's a non-trivial part of why she's here, but it makes her question the future too. She imagines what a thousand years of descendents from herself could possibly take from her own, current existence, but everything she has is something that was given to her to serve a function, even her precious glasfeder. The only thing she can envision as her inheritance, besides her glasfeder, is the checkered ribbon she ties into her hair. Imagining that symbol of the Foundation passed on to anyone else, she can only think of a field agent, rather than a 'descendent'. Adrift with her lack of parents before her, and incapable of sincerely imagining progeny after her, Sonetto is listless in time, cocooned only in the quintessence of the Foundation itself. It's a full hour later, when the topic is not relevanton anyone's minds at all, and they're hiking up to the ritual site, that Sonetto finally decides to voice a thought about it. She does so with zero lead up or explanation. "... I really do think your crystal ball is beautiful, Matilda." "If you can't mantle your own self, then you can't save anyone who wasn't destined to be saved already; you'll never go any further than being a part of humanity's reactive self-defense." Is that so bad? It should be the case that, in society's ideal state, everyone is destined to be saved, and each failure is due to inefficiencies and bad actors. Sonetto is born and bred to be the vehicle of society's efficiency, enabling its maximum extent of salvation through her own hands. And yet, the Storm of 1929 still happened as it did. But who could she have turned her weapon against that she didn't? Maybe if they had roundly defeated the Manus Vindictae, they could have used their safehouse themselves for Schneider, or if they were weaker they wouldn't have been able to take advantage of Schneider's betrayal by the Foundation, or if the Chicago branch hadn't turned her away in the first place at all, but... Sonetto can't find any solution, turning it over and over in her head. Maybe it's the odd sense of vulnerability brought on by the physical activity and state of undress that makes her blurt out, softly, "... But what would that mean? To have saved Schneider?"
Team Timekeeper	. . . The next day. Sonetto is nothing if not an excellent student, and repeating the exercises changes them from 'activities' into 'drills'. She is not particularly inventive about using her foreknowledge to counteract the others or change her successful strategies, but knowing what to expect makes her lean into every challenge without a hint of hesitation, even as bruised-up as she is. . . . As Sonetto had indicated the day before, she may have the technical skills to trap, forage, and prepare food from the wilderness, but she isn't an inventive chef. Without Matilda's input, she'll just end up cooking the same survivalist scraps each time for pure sustenance. For lunch, at least, it's the entire group together. Coming right off of the sparring exercise, where Sonetto and at least a few others were just as merciless in their indiscriminate violence, she seems to not only not hold grudges, but be incapable of understanding why anyone else would. Thus, she suggests all working together for lunch, so that she and most of the others can go gather food, while the rest save time setting up the fires into coals and preparing the cookware they have access to. . . . In the afternoon, climbing a mountain. With a full day to adapt to the rules conditions, Sonetto shifted into the mindset that all of her arcane skill uses should be budgeted for the evening, and never relied on for convenience. One's used a short way up into the scramble up the cliff, to secure her and Matilda in a glowing circular ward that travels with them. The arcane creatures in Lilian's Otherworld are remarkably similar to the critters Sonetto is familiar with too. She's not well-prepared to deal with them by any means besides violence, but Terra all'Amore dispenses plenty of it. While they're engaged in combat, Sonetto is on a focused twitchy trigger to lash out at the things lurking in the dark and ward them away. It's once the sun sets, and the shadows of the alien wood elongate into night, when their march up the slope is quiet except for the rustling and crowing of unseen monsters... ... That Sonetto starts to get kind of terrified. Matilda can see the goosebumps prickling all over Sonetto's bare arms, well before the heat of the afternoon's faded away. She checks the charge-indicating glow of her SN-13's fuller anxiously, and inches closer to Matilda when it's low. "... Um, I've still got one more arcane skill use allowed today." The other being used to incapacitate a black dog that leapt out at Matilda earlier. Stuffy-nosed, "Could you please divine whether there will be such acute danger in our future that I should save it for something besides a new ward?" . . . "Keep your eyes closed and your head low. Listen to the leaves." It's a little bit like-- and probably sort of is-- prayer. Sonetto's sense of accomplishment in her efforts over the past two days makes this feel almost like a reward, being invited into something sacred. Thinking about that, kneeling in her position with her eyes closed, she considers that it's more that the entire process is 'sacred', and that makes it that much easier for her to open herself up to the sensations of her surroundings. When she opens her eyes, her breath is taken away. Meeting the stag's gaze, Sonetto murmurs softly, "... You're beautiful." . . . "I wasn't entirely certain that just two full days would be enough for you to belong here," "What is it... exactly, that we belong to?"
Kale Hearthward	> "What is it... exactly, that we belong to?" "Well! Obviously we belong to-" Kale pauses. "Say. Yeah. What do we belong to?"
Sarracenia	Sarra, feeling like she knows things from her storybooks, both read and exprienced, hmphs haughtily at Kale and says, "Obviously it is the land itself and the spirits that dwell within. Did you not see the deer? Such a creature is one of the purest of forest spirits, second only to the unicorn."
Riku Asakura	Riku, upon hearing everyone's theory on what the stag was, slowly looks towards Lilian. This clearly says, 'I'm waiting for you to inform us because I don't think anyone actually fucking knows.' "Or we could listen to the expert."
Kale Hearthward	"So do we belong to the... big deer spirit, is what you're saying? Like family, I'm assuming?" Kale glances back at the ritual site. "What do you even get something like that for Christmas?" Riku talks sense and thus is ignored. "Deer treats? Or would that be insulting?"
Sarracenia	Sarra scoffs again at Kale. "Do not be ridiculous! Such a magnificent stag has no time for his own presents during Christmas! He is out helping pull the sleigh!" Sarra says confidently. Then, after a pause. "...but I think fruits would be best. Something natural for the nature spirit."
Team Timekeeper	"Obviously it is the land itself and the spirits that dwell within." "But belonging to the land... that means something too, doesn't it? Something specific?" Sonetto is weirdly insistent on this, in a way that no answer so far satisfies. "Do we only know that we belong because of being told, or is there something we've earned, or felt?"
Team Timekeeper	Oh, but now the bit's gone far enough that even Sonetto's been caught up in it. Dizzy-eyed, Sonetto repeats, "... The sleigh?"
Riku Asakura	Riku, ignored, sighs and shrugs his shoulders. What can he do? They're going to argue until they're blue in the face, or Lilian actually tells them. He does make a face, however. At both Kale AND Sarracenia.
Angela	Knifty's approval of Riku soars when he 'looks after her'. It's actually probably necessary. Knifty wasn't trained to fight monsters she was trained to kill people. Butler Training doesn't include a lot of monster fighting because, generally, the enemies they are about to battle tend to be other humans. Or at least humanoids. Still, at a certain point Riku can be fairly certain that Knifty is ''relying'' on his protection a little more than she needs. She likes feeling protected and, clearly, Riku likes protecting. It's win win. ''Thank you for arranging this. All of it.'' He probably got there before Lenny did but the Fixers who made it by then amiably agree with the sentiment. Despite this being physically demanding and kind of awful in some ways, even Lenny knows this to be akin to a once in a lifetime opportunity. Just being out in nature is a miraculous gift for all but Solace and Ceri, and they're ... kind of just digging it? It's nice. Even with the danger, pain, and torment--it's different. And that might do more to convince these locals that The City can be better than a thousand good deeds back at The City. People are made to be out in nature, sometimes, and for these folk that's just something they've never truly experienced in their lives. There's a growing appreciation with every passing day just to get to be around so many trees, and rocks, and mountains, and creeks. Knifty has played around in one like it's her first time seeing one. ''The Ritual'' The local Fixers are cautious about this one. Gradually, they say the phrase and gradually open their eyes. Slowly, gradually, each of them is treated to the mystical wonder of the enormous stag. Finn and Lenny are the most wowed by it's presence. Lenny also murmurs a "You're beautiful..." and she thinks about how unbeautiful she feels about herself, even after being cleaned up by the Association. She wonders what it would be like to be majestic. She feels wetness of tears in her eyes, like she didn't think she was still someone who could see such miracles. She thinks of all the people she had torn organs out from and broken sob escapes her throat. She doesn't even complain about filling in the disposal pit when the time comes. Solace is visibly curious about what 'belong to' means too. "I have never heard of this method. Perhaps there are ways we could make life easier out there in the Outskirts..." She shakes her head. "I too, am curious, Director."
Kale Hearthward	"Oh no, not on the sleigh. That's just Rudolph and I think... six reindeer? Not this one." Kale thumbs at his chest. "Trust me on this, I'm a Santa expert. I've had a ton of interactions with the big red guy." Don't inquire about what sort of reactions. Please don't inquire about what sort of interactions.
Riku Asakura	"What sort of interactions have you had with Santa?" Riku immediately asks.
Kale Hearthward	"Look, he didn't have an IFF on!" exclaims Kale at a volume that probably sends freaky spirit birds flying from the trees. He crosses his arms. "It wasn't my fault and I'm not saying anything more than that."
Riku Asakura	Riku has to take this in for a minute. He didn't have his IFF on..? "No... you didn't..." he pauses... "You're lucky. In my world, Father of Ultra is Santa, apparently. He's really strong, or that's what Zero says."
Sarracenia	Sarra smiles brightly at Sonetto's question, though returns Riku's look with one of her own. "Do not tell me neither of you have heard of...Santa?! The great winter spirit and guardian?! Why, he needs such majestic deer to pull his magical sleigh! It soars through the sky, and he uses time magic to deliver presents to everyone in the..." She pauses. "...actually I never was sure if he delivers to everyone in the multiverse or just to his native world." 'Look, he didn't have an IIF on!' Sarra stares for a moment, then points dramatically and gasps loudly. "You! You shot down Santa! I had forgotten! You...you grinch!" Sarra blinks a few times at Riku. "...wait, so...Santa is your...grandfather?"
Riku Asakura	Riku blinks... "No! Father of Ultra isn't related to me, and it's actually a title, I think. In fact, he and my father are, uh... not very good friends anymore. Pretty bitter enemies."
Odette Raskins	. . . . . . The next morning feels like it comes way too soon. Odette's physically awake, but mentally not even clsoe to ready even when she normally would on a regular work day. She has to go through a brief mental calculus to figure out how much she values more sleep over literally everything else (including bathing and eating), and the non-sleep needs eventually win out when all the noises make it impossible to go back to sleep anyway. She's moving like a geriatric at first when she's finally on her feet, too, but her usual routine of doing the rounds to check on everyone's injuries is strong enough even now to help gher get back some amount of physical mobility. Even with the previous day's and upcoming contests fresh in her mind, sticking to her routine helps center her for planning out the rest of the morning and ease her mind at the same time. Besides, she can't just NOT check on everyone. The desire to eat something more than goddamn berries does have her hurrying to look for something to hunt, though, and she stops just short of heading out to turn to the tent grounds. "Oh! Does anyone want to come grab something to eat? It'll be easier to carry it all back if we get some more hands, and we won't have to waste any of it!" She saves extra time for resting up in the hot spring, too. The heat really helps with the everything, and she's fully awake by the time she finishes bathing and cleaning herself up. . . . . . . With the first day serving as the trial run, it's now time to put what she drilled into her body into practice! Except, having been on the higher end of the fuckup points tally, Odette has to figure out how to actually get that score down without making herself a target for everyone else, or burning herself out so much that she's crapping out on easier tasks later. That means biding her time before lunch. Rather than trying to outdo her pace from yesterday or comparing her own pace to anyone else's and working herself up too much, Odette focuses on trying to match her own pace instead. With the benefit of yesterday's experience, she can do so while not burning herself out nearly as much just trying to figure out what to do. It's still grueling as all hell physically with how worn down she still is, of course, but the mentals aren't nearly as draining now that she's seen it all once before. She's still going to be making the same terrified noises in the cave. . . . . . . Lunch being acquired rather than provided like yesterday is considerably more of a bummer, but a decent breakfast earlier and knowing that Lenny's got an eye for berries means Odette can focus on fishing up enough food for lunch and dinner all in one go! Ideally. Luck's not quite on her side today, but they can probably make do with a couple of smaller fish between them. It's more fish than yesterday, at least, and they're clearly on the same page about hiding their food. With any luck, there'll something to grab on the way back for dinner even if they're here all afternoon
Odette Raskins	. . . . . . In retrospect, leaving the fish instead of just carrying them might not have been Odette's best idea. Climbing the mountain is a familiar-enough feeling for the EMT that's used to just moving around at high altitudes even with someone on her back, albeit at lower gravities. Having to do it for ao long while having to worry about so many enemies crawling about the mountain is what really ramps up her stress meters. Knowing that a fight here would be actually a suicide risk, Odette's more than willing to let others head up first if they're eager to do so. It's not just polite, it's strategic! Seeing how others handle the terrifying shadows (that definitely aren't ghosts) and skinless things would be invaluable, and she's not shy about letting someone else draw their attention so she can try to slip on through afterwards while making sure Lenny doesn't get caught up by creatures in the process. It's important for medics to stick together, especially since Lenny knows more about foul-smelling poultices than she does! The SN-13 still ends up being invaluable in warding off the enemies, and warding off truly is the focus for Odette here. Her primary focus is making sure she gets through the climb safely enough, and that means not losing sight of the green flare or getting into fights with creatures she doesn't need to. She's more concerned with that than anything else, even compared to getting a good time on the exercise. The boxes at the checkpoint, meanwhile, have Odette falling for the trick utterly. "Maybe these'll help us with... Um. Keeping the noises out? Or the bugs, if they're the type to crawl into someone's head." She wonders, hastily pocketing an earplug afterwards. She can use it to sleep more soundly, if nothing else! . . . . . . After regrouping with Lilian and everyone, Odette thanks whatever space-god she believes in that there's another moment to just breathe and walk without having to strategize how to optimize her movements for something or another. The sight of all those birds is still mildly terrifyting, but safety in numbers is... Something! "Mister Hearthward. Can you... Er. Are you able to tell them to go?" She whispers to Kale, briefly wondering if that might be racist to ask after she already did. Kneeling as directed upon reaching the second site, Odette once again finds past experiences invaluable: Meditation's practically her middle name! It doesn't take long for her to empty her mind of anything beyond what Lilian tells the group, her breathing slowing down slightly and her mouth hanging just a little open in that moment of calm. She can feel the tingle of the pneuma already, but she waits. There's a breeze, but that's not it. She feels a low rumble along the ground, but that's not enough. She waits patiently, eyes closed and mouth continuing to hang open while waiting for that certainty to hit her. She hears other people saying the words distantly, but her patience keeps her from calling out too soon more than once. On the second attempt, Odette repeats the words more carefully, and she shivers when she feels that noise by her ear. She opens her eyes, and she sees the stag. It's a little terrifying to see the creature up close, but being in that meditative state already helps her keep her cool as Lilian directs her to. She's even able to watch it with relative ease herself after the first few seconds pass. She resists the urge to reach out to the majestic spirit, having to content herself with just watching it silently until it's gone. "We... Belong here. I belong here." Odette's lip quivers again, and she really has to fight not to cry again.
Team Timekeeper	"Look, he didn't have an IFF on!" "In my world, Father of Ultra is Santa, apparently." "The great winter spirit and guardian?!" Surely not. Surely they're all having a really nice and spiritually fulfilling time here up on top of this mountain, after encountering a mysterious and breathtaking guardian of the Otherworld, who appraised the progress of their journey through all of their grueling trials over the past few days. That's what they're doing right now, not this. Sonetto, still dizzy-eyed but very patient, haltingly explains, "No, Santa Claus is a myth told to children to encourage discipline through surveillance in cases where they have not cultivated sufficient respect for God and family in his place. I do not think that's important right now. That was a stag spirit, and not a reindeer, and also, it was real."
Foundation Scions	After the danger on the hike has made itself clear, with forewarned (and surprise) tense encounters with the roaming threats, though, unrelated to the fact she isn't coming away unharmed, Matilda ends uncharacteristically quiet on the hike up. Being in proximity to Sonetto, strangely, doesn't change this. Something about the primeval environments, the always-being-watched feeling (that happens to be true), the prickles on the back of necks and arms, makes 'talking' feel like a secondarily-useful communication technique, compared just to seen glances, or alerting touches on the shoulder, or just little expressions of the face. Wide-eyed wariness, almost jumpy, isn't Matilda's usual at all, but it's her default for this segment! In addtion to her divinations, another of her three arcane skill uses goes to an illusion to distract-away the scary equine critters, to avoid a fate her divinations warned her she ought- but after, she's blindsided by a scary run-in with a black hound, for Sonetto to save the day- in panicked blurbling, she breaks the trend she'd unconsciously been on, and in hushed conversation, retells of her own encounter, with a fake black hound. . . . As the sun sets, for Matilda, she gets calmer. Her divinations work better, by moonlight, and she's easily able to reassure Sonetto, "No, a ward seems-to be the correct usage. Fais-moi confiance, distant noises will stay distant, for long-enough." Sonetto's inching-closer, just as an instinctive comfort-gesture, has Matilda, seemingly only half-noticing, just lean or rub her shoulder up against her, in some sort of 'I'm right here' indication. . . . By the time Matilda and Sonetto are at the ritual site, Matilda is clearly the one of them who's lagging more, as-expected. Trips, evasive maneuvering, and crumbling roots and rocks, add to a decent number of times even one as good at good-old clambering as herself, has fallen and banged up her legs and arms- they were already stiff to begin with! Unfair! Wandering foes don't have to land blows for encounters to accumulate hurt, even, if the terrain itself is this much of a hazard, so it's for the best that trying to avoid them, as they both attempted, is a sensible gameplan! . . . 'When you're certain, absolutely,' Kneeled down, head low, eyes closed, Matilda can't quite stay still, leaning side to side, mouth slightly open, for some reason, to smile or breathe easier in the chill-fog, or, just, to taste the air, as said- a ritual, again, by full moonlight, has her a little bit lost in the romance. The response over her shoulder, to the ritual's phrase, has her gasp. The white, ghostly stag is magnificent, and she blurts out after, hush-excited, "As-tu grandi à partir des rayons mêmes de la Lune?" . . . 'I'm glad this one is of a permissive sort.' "Does he have a name?" is a curious, immediate, fascinated-reverent, and exhausted-impulsive question from Matilda, amazed at it all. 'Last place has to sleep on the mountainside' "That would almost be nice," murmurs Matilda, gazing skyward, rather than remembering at all the beasts that lurk, and lunge- she'll remember them when she once-more sees tangled trees, but she's up high, outside, and the moments stretch on, to feel the 'now' too strongly. "Er, I did say only 'almost'," she corrects, before that punishent idea is thrown out altogether.
Angela	''No, Santa Claus is a myth told to children--'' "Christmas is dangerous." Solace says. This doesn't seem to be a City specific attitude, because even the other Cityfolk give her a strange look over this. She is uncertain if Santa is real or not, but if he is he must be a deadly enemy. "Er, what do you mean, Solace?" Finn asks. "The gnomes like to strike then." Solace explains. Another period of strange silence between them because this basically doesn't explain anything.
Odette Raskins	"I've had a ton of interactions with the big red guy." "What." Odette goes wide-eyed, ready to believe just about anything in generaly, but especially now. "More than once? What's he like? Did he really have a never-ending gift bag, or move at supersonic speeds? Or was it like a..." "It wasn't my fault and I'm not saying anything more than that." "... Kale. Did you hit Santa with your shuttle?" "You shot down Santa!" "YOU WHAT. E-even without an IFF, firing on an unidentified... W-was he okay?!" "In fact, he and my father are, uh... not very good friends anymore. " "Riku... D-did your dad shoot down Santa, too?!" "Last place has to sleep on the mountainside" "That would almost be nice," "Right...? Just find a nice hiding spot, maybe dig out a burrow, and watch the stars while dozing off?" Odette murmurs with a light sigh after Matilda, not even getting as far as saying 'almost' herself.
Lilian Rook	'You...do all the things you do...with a blade like that?' "We don't get to choose the blades wen're born to wield." Lilian says, probably still too heavy in metaphor she's familiarized herself blind-to. "If I tried to ignore it and pick out one I liked better, I'd just be 'a girl who wants to swing a sword'." 'Growing too accustomed to the forms like a Cinq amateur is how you get gutted by a desperate novice.' "The best Fixer in the City doesn't worry about the second-best, but the worst." Lilian chuckles. "Do you have a saying like that there? I'm paraphrasing one I know." '... wouldn't it have been easier for you to fill the Association up with big shots like the Vice Director?' 'You even made Joanna wait, even ... if she's lost her position, she was a legend once.' "How many of those bigshots could you imagine stripping down to their spats and running through the woods because I told them to? Mm?" 'I thought things were fine even when they really... Really weren't. Things being the way they were was just how things would be forever' "Mastery of the sword is mastery of power. Familiarizing yourself with power is the foundational structure of choice. 'The pen' is only ever mightier in hindsight; things are decided by people while they're alive." Despite the subject, Lilian pats Odette on the back until she stops crying. '... But what would that mean? To have saved Schneider?' Lilian hesitates too long to answer Sonetto. It isn't thoughtfulness, or indecision; she's thinking of something that's an acceptable approximation of what she really wants to say. She does this when she's like that. "It's what Vertin is doing now." is her heavy compromise. 'Is it personal, Miss Director?' "Yeah. I've made sure it is." 'Thank you. For arranging this. All of it.' "You're the one toughing it out." Lilian says, in hush-lowered tones. "And the stag gets to decide whether you've got the right heart to be here. I can only hope you do, and try to get you to show it.." 'It's one thing for you to say it, and another to the forest to agree. There's 'knowing', and there's 'certain'.' "God is it ever." Lilian says, then has to forcibly suppress the urge to laugh. 'White stags have a significance, right?' "Stags are messengers of the Otherworld. White is an arbitration of the divide." Lilian says. "You see a white stag as a warning when you're about to break a secret rule or transgress an ancient boundary. They're a favoured manifestation when telling kings to turn around and go home." She shakes her head on 'god', but only says "It's difficult to explain." 'What is it... exactly, that we belong to?' "More difficult questions." Lilian subvocalizes a laugh. "To magic. To fate. To the path that extends on from here. It means that you're not profaning the land with anything insincere, and that your spirit is in the right place to learn from it instead. Or should I just be over-literal and say you belong to me?" She laughs at her own joke too.
Lilian Rook	The third day is only one of many thirds by now. The only thing that comes in twos is your sleeping arrangement and the only thing that comes in fours is the delineations of your training time. Once again, no one has seen Lilian sleep, nor can anyone be certain if she's eaten, and once again the distant-echoing sounds (perhaps a rockslide?) wake light sleepers up even earlier than Lilian actually arrives at camp (though once again the morning sweat says she's been awake longer). As with many things that come in threes, the third is the closing statement. Your morning run results in each of you being shown to your places with a single 'took you long enough' to be heard. Your fundamentals involve Lilian moving from place to place in order to provide a few helpful tips on how to better keep your balance without tensing up compensatory muscles, explaining in the process that the ones you're relaxing are the ones you're actually overengaging all the time as a rough edge of habit. She actively encourages you during the cliffside segment, and rotates sparring couples such that everyone faces everyone shortly thereafter. The ridiculous swim is marked by the river-creatures having learned to ignore you. Practicing strikes for the third time on the same plot, Lilian slows down her process to show the idealized flow of 'two steps and one motion' on each tree, emphasizing that the continuation of motion and momentum is the critical resource here, and your blade charge is a means by which you can preserve it. In 'free-sparring', she organizes three teams out of the tent pairs before letting the usual bedlam happen, seemingly just for fun. . . . . . . . . The evening assignment is premised on the 'messenger' having given you the 'right' to pursue it. You're gathered onto a simple wooden boat (likely concealed with magic for at least a day) a ways down the river, where Lilian assigns a pair at a time to steer it in the current whilst she goes one by one through each of your swords. Refusing to explain what the purpose of her carefully applying oil and sealant to every blade is, or even what kind each of the two layers are, she instead fills the time commenting on small nuances of the corresponding wielder's grip, balance, and striking form, based on worn-in finger impressions on the dust of days and where the tiny abrasions of impact are clustered along the edge; things you normally never see, given Trídéag's excellent maintenance staff. Once she's done, each of the blades is moved to the portable charging dock before it's returned to you; no doubt incredibly unsafe if the boat suddenly filled with water. Matching her words from the night before, the river eventually empties out into an ocean, invisible past the curve of the canyon wall from camp, now rendered as an ocean-facing cliff, and certainly pushing the borders of 'safe pneuma exposure' at its distance from camp. She grounds the boat before much travel from there, because the web of crumbling white spires jutting out from the water's surface are so close to the cliff edge that you could easily imagine there was once a bridge leading to whatever mighty tower might once have stood where there are only sea-speckled ruins now. Lilian moors the boat to the broadest platform of level stone still above the water, which requires a short jump to reach at high tide. . . . . . . . .
Lilian Rook	Your goal is to retrieve a twin to what Lilian shows you; a flat coin made of silver with a different design on each face, neither of which is readable as anything save a tree-like cluster of branching lines and a snowflake-like cluster of radiating lines, distinguished as jittering like a vibrating pebble when directly exposed to magic. The place you will find them is 'The treasury.' below you. In the deeply waterlogged ruins. Lilian simply waits out at the boat, and assures you the emergency beacons will work through a stone ceiling. . . . . . . . . Being issued no diving gear whatsoever is deeply unnerving, but the reason for it is apparent before long. Despite the actual water level being fifty feet deep, most of the inside is only flooded up to the knee or the waist. Many rooms are more or less dry, and allow air to circulate through the unusually twisting halls. Some fully flooded passages are short enough to be usable. Others, actually or seemingly much longer, ward you away on an instinctive level, urging you back with the sense of physicality you've cultivated over three days. The 'theme' of the first evening had been built on risks, decisions, costs, and uncertain pressure in the field. The 'theme' of the second had been something of the opposite; a mechanism to strip away any sense that you had much of a choice at all and force you to find a center of focus that could sustainably maintain a high alert through hours of oppressive, even demoralizingly unfavourable, circumstances, enduring until dawn. So the 'theme' of this one must be what comes to you naturally from trying to explore a half-underwater maze with inconsistent access to sunlight. A sword is sort of the last thing you'd want to have here. Low ceilings make most of the swings you're used to practically impossible, while close walls at other times make even drawing it cumbersome at best. Narrow squeezes or rough climbs need both hands, meaning you can't carry your sword at the ready all the time, yet there's no particular guarantee when you can have it back in your grip. The frequent darkness raises tension considerably, hyperengaging your senses even while obscuring your aim and situational awareness. The resistance of the water constantly hampers your fast, reflexive, and delicate motions, meaning you can rely on thrusts in only a handful of places. Using your SN-13's active function is instantly deleterious to anything that could attack you; as well as painful to your eyes and scalding to your own skin. In situations where you genuinely have no feasible way to use your sword as you need to, the burn becomes a recurring companion with your last line of defense being a mere trigger pull away. Being paired up is almost a nuisance now, as it's nearly impossible to fight around each other with long weapons; yet the two of you can watch each side, so long as you maintain focus. Your hostile opposition is nothing compared to last night, limited to bloodthirsty sea-beasts no more threatening than a very large crocodile or snake, and in rare rooms, the-- as Lilian named them-- 'Unforgiven dead.', easily identified as spirits by those with the senses to do so, but seeming very much like armed strangers until the moment your blade strikes rotted logs and coral and their spectral shapes dissipate, leaving just their spears and seaxes behind, less skilled by far than they were in life. Objectively speaking, your little quest is less dangerous, even with three days of stinging injuries and battered exhaustion built up.
Lilian Rook	But it's terribly difficult to be objective about this. The difference between holding your sword and having it sheathed is utterly nerve wracking in its intensity. Every motion that should effortlessly cut down these clumsy and unarmoured foes is throttled by the terrain, which smothers your natural responses. Knowing that Lilian can teleport you out with the flick of a switch doesn't help at all. The result is that the cramped quarters, stagnant air, heavy darkness, frequent flooding, and the constant, aggravating bumping and scraping of your weapon against the surfaces around you, temporarily rewires your brain to focus overwhelmingly on space and distance, instinctively mapping out each room around you in terms of sword-lengths and arm-spans. By the time you locate the (tarnished black) coins in the center, heaped in the side of a room littered with sea creatures' bones, you've become intimately, unpleasantly familiar with the arrogance of 'I'm armed' and the proprioceptive necessity of knowing where you literally stand, taught by the sharp alternations of relative safety and twitchy improvisation. The fact that there are stairs that lead up to the surface again is almost worthy of laughing for relief. . . . . . . . . The final ritual, on the final night, occurs as the wind picks up and the temperature starts to drop, exposing Lilian's promise as one that holds true for camp and certainly not the coast. A rough hike up to the clifftop is far from pleasant, but soothing to your frayed nerves, and all the scrabbling and crawling from before was less exhausting than you'd imagine, given the unavoidable boat rides between to rest, and the wait until total sunset whilst Lilian performs what isn't quite alchemy with things taken straight from the windswept plateau, as if she knew them already. She quietly sings to herself while she works. Even the clustered shards keep time to the rhythm, though the arcane significance of "Ó cad é sin do'n té sin nach mbaineann sin dó . . ." is very unclear. Before she bring each of you a small wooden cup filled with strongly herbal-smelling, astringent tea(?), you've practically had time to stargaze. This time, Lilian settles in with you, holding her own cup and says "I want you all to know that seeing you all come this far at all has been like a dream for me. Whether or not you can do this, know that you've done in three days what an experienced apprentice would ordinarily do in three months. Pass or fail, I'm proud of all of you, and grateful for your trust." . . . . . . . .
Angela	''Do you have a saying like that there?'' "Yeah, in a few different forms." Ceri admits. "The Director before me would beat that into my head every chance she had, even when I ended up her second." She rubs at her eyes. "It's true though. I couldn't name all the Grade Ones and Twos who ended their lives on easy jobs because they got too comfortable." ''How many of those bigshots could you imagine stripping down to their spats and running through the woods because I told them too?'' Lenny laughs. "Well, not many I admit." ''Yeah. I've made sure it is.'' Knifty stares at Lilian. It being personal is something she understands but she doesn't know how to articulate her understanding beyond saying, "Stab..." ''It means that you're not profaning the land with anything insincere.'' Lenny wipes at her eyes, sniffling still. Knifty exclaims, "We belong to you!" Oh she might not have realized it was a joke.
Riku Asakura	'They're a favoured manifestation when telling kings to turn around and go home.' Riku thinks about this for a while... and then nods. That makes sense to him; he is trying to remember if there is such a thing in his culture, but gives up after a bit... he isn't the best of students. Too much time watching Don Shine, apparently. "Well... given what I know of those stories, they always seem to ignore the sign, right?" he asks Lilian, because he's sure nobody ever listens to the sign to go home from what they're about to do and are destroyed for it. 'It means that you're not profaning the land with anything insincere, and that your spirit is in the right place to learn from it instead.' Riku nods at this, actually seemingly understanding what this conveys. It's enough to bring a tired smile to his lips. Though he does fight back a yawn... he is pretty tired. ------------ Day three ends up with Knifty waking him up by being too close to his personal space. "I'm up, I'm up..." he complains. Once more, he helps catch enough fish for both their breakfast and food for the rest of the day. Assuming Knifty is still down to help clean fish so they can both benefit. This run gets him a 'took you long enough,' but Riku doesn't complain about being tired because it wouldn't get him any sympathy anyway! Though this does turn into a good lesson from Lilian about his positioning and actually helps correct some of his posture mistakes. He does burn one of his Ultraman uses on the trees again, because he really needs that push to burn through them without running his blade's charge out. He also seems to avoid the same people in the mass melee, once more conserving his energy by playing it defensively. He also, to everyone's probable relief, does NOT use a charge of Ultraman during the melee. He's not that mean or tryhardy like Kale is! Though in a team, Riku does actually go out of his way to help his team members and protect them. This probably gets him a few bruises for his efforts!
Riku Asakura	-------------- In the evening, Riku isn't sure what the treating and working of his blade is about, but he also doesn't complain either. Riku's blade is worn because he keeps too tight a grip on it. Possibly afraid of dropping the blade if he got too careless, but that might also be his undoing if hit in the right way. So this makes sure he attempts a firm, but not overly tight grip going forward. Riku helps move his boat through the water, though when it dips into the ocean, he's a bit awed by it. He's not unfamiliar with the ocean, but this is a different one, and such places are always inspiring. Once they get to where they're going, he jumps off onto the stone platform. Now this is new... ------------ The ruins below are... hellish to say the least. Small corridors, stale air where there is air at all. Having to navigate this when there are monsters also there. While the monsters might be LESS dangerous, the tight corridors and water make using his full strength dangerous. Riku, again, opts to pace himself rather than overly exert himself. This has come from various lessons of being an Ultraman too; pushing himself too far, or going all out too early, has led him to being on the back foot far more than he'd like. This terrain is /very/ unfavorable to him, and worse, partnered up with Knifty, who is likely to rush headlong into danger, forces him to watch her as much as he's watching himself... At a particularly dangerous intersection and blind spot, he's forced to use one of his Ultraman charges. He forces himself through the fight brutally, and then is forced to rush towards the next pocket of air with Knifty before she runs out of air... It does lead them to the treasure room to get their coins to complete the challenge! ------------- Riku is sure glad he gets to spend some time at night looking up at the stars and relaxing. Despite everything, he feels... excessively tired, but also a bit relaxed at managing to sustain himself during these trials. He is sure he wouldn't have been when he first got to the Multiverse, and even less sure when he first joined Trideag. He's not sure what Lilian is about to feed them, but he pushes himself up to sit up right. 'Pass or fail, I'm proud of all of you, and grateful for your trust.' Riku can only give her a soft smile, glad she did at least put them through this because it was important to her, and it was a journey for them too. "Well, I'm happy to hear you say it. I'm glad to have come here, either way. And if I fail, well, it just means I have to try harder to pass next time." Assuming there is a next time.
Lilian Rook	. . . . . . . . You're not really sure what the criteria are; it may, in fact, just be intuition; but Lilian splits you up and leads you to four different sites in the immediate vicinity while you all still have your grace period. Matilda, Kale, and Ceri, are directed to where a broad stream spills over the cliff, shining white with the reflected moon and stars, where the rising winds drive the waves higher and higher until they crash over the edge and fall back down over them. Sonetto, Xion, and Riku, are the closest from there, on higher ground, where the wind has gouged holes through the rock and exposed glittering geodes of massive proportions between crumbling limestone. Sarracenia, Knifty, and Lenny, are the next after, taken closer to the shore, where the air is hot and humid from the exchange with an underground cave, and the skeleton of some enormous sea monster lies half-buried in the mud beneath the white gravel. Solace, Finn, and Odette, are taken deeper back, where a grove of massive, ancient, black-barked trees blot out the moonlight and envelop their senses in the intensity of their silver blooms. You might have guessed by the scarring on the streambed, crystals, petrified bones, and iron bark, but Lilian tells each of you, individually, with hypnotic repetition, what it is before you that you need to cut. She reminds you that the firing mechanisms of your weapons are fully depleted, but tells you to try using the triggers anyways, because for you, they've built up a year of muscle-memory-visualization that she had chosen very intentionally when she first commissioned them. The energy that runs through the sword's thermal core, drawn from the battery under your hands, gathered at the edge, released along the exact plane of your strike; she's taught you a thousand times before how to focus it, from the timing of the trigger to the kinetic dynamics of speed and angle to the little tips and tricks of how to make that heat blade narrower, faster, hotter, and stronger. It's the technical gimmick of the weapon. The Association's iconic arms. 'Do that'. That's the advice you're given, in more words. Find the energy somewhere, move it into the weapon, and release it in the same way. The ritual is cutting all the way through something 'to clearly see the stars', be it a formless wave, a structured crystal, a rugged bone, or a living branch. . . . . . . . . She warned you earlier, but the hot drink is really powerful stuff. The pressure to knock it back in one go on the synchronized count of three was pretty strong at the time, and seemed to have no real consequence besides symbolic companionship, but once you're on your own, focused on the monotonous rhythm of a seemingly impossible task, rendered acutely aware of every inch of your body through differentiating combinations of injury and exposure, and left breathing in strong pneuma at high altitudes for hours . . . Your sense of distance softens and goes strangely plastic. Your perception of relative size feels fluffy and strangely unreal. Despite how beat up you are, you feel strangely weightless, as if walking on the moon. Your own motions seem strangely slow to your eyes, which you might wish you could get away with closing when you start hallucinating.
Lilian Rook	Perhaps it's not whatever you drank that's doing it. The first thing it did was make you feel so sensitive to the ambient energy here that its normally invisible movements feel like vertigo. It could literally be that you're seeing 'arcane fluctuations' with your naked eyes and interpreting them as strange colours, then with your other senses as well. You can even feel your own, placed exactly within yourself, thudding along with your heartbeat, fanned bright when you breathe in and constricting evenly when you breathe out. It's just strange that it's the same hallucination for all of. You. A crow, a stag, and a wolf, watching you bang away like a silent trinity of judges. In bits of pieces; in fragments of visions and snatches of sound, brief and jumbled yet viscerally real, you receive glimpses of what must be your own bloody death, and just as many of yourself as exactly who you wish you were, taking hold of exactly what you always think about. The fleeting distractions are often mutually exclusive with one another, and sometimes co-occur and overlap, ruinous to any attempt at examining your own progress and deducing a better approach, and highly receptive to your own psychic state. Your sense of time goes too, even when you can see the moon slowly moving across the sky. The knowledge of your time and place, your ranking and goals and where you're going to be tomorrow; all of it is dimmed down to a pilot flame so that the air inside your mind can feed the rushing heat that you feel circulating through your body as if it's always been there; one that sets you bare skin so feverishly hot that you can feel the shape of the colder world around you by phantom touch. Everything but the wolf, whose breat reeks of blood, the stag, whose stare makes your heart ache with longing, and the crow, which is always perched between them, just beyond the reach of your sword. They exist only to plague your focus back and forth until even the shape of your emotional continuity feels strangely definite, measured in hot and cold. . . . . . . . . Under a very particular hallucinogenic trance, respiring air densely saturated with available magic, with your body worn to your sword like a glove and your mind set only to the ritual, the heat that your sword no longer has is easy to find, and, strangely, somehow possible to direct. What you're really doing comes more intuitively to some than others, but your ultimate goal is the same, and you only need to succeed once. Grasp the substrate of energy within you, propel it from your extremities and into your arms with the sequential motions you already know by heart, focus it through your hands and into the blade by perfected and unobstructed momentum, and then 'pull the trigger', your mnemonic visualization, at the exact timing and angle you remember. The explosive release is sharper and faster than your weapon could ever manage on its own. It's loud and violent, both to the ear and to arcane senses, yet strangely physical, feeling like an enormous snap-release of build-up tension, with an aftertaste of strangely cathartic relief. It's impossible not to be shocked back to your senses when it occurs. The distant boom of someone else succeeding sounds oddly familiar. Coming back down away from the cliff, to where the wind isn't so harsh and cold, the first thing Lilian says to each of you to arrive at the cooking fire is "I've brought back your clothes. Grab your bag from over there and put them on." The second thing she says to each of you is "So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one."
Sarracenia	'We don't get to choose the blades wen're born to wield. If I tried to ignore it and pick out one I liked better, I'd just be 'a girl who wants to swing a sword.' Sarra is taken aback at this. "I...see..." she says softly. She bites her lip lightly, sadly, looking off into the distance. "...if you lose the weapon you were born to wield...what do you do after that?" The princess is very likely thinking of the hammer that was broken. The Third Day Sarra is barely able to rise at all. Without her power-ups she is only a few tiers above being an average human. She is once again awakened by the rumbling, and this day makes sure to spend time in the hot spring as well as time limbering up even if she only ends up having time to scarf some barely cooked veggies. She has by now done away with her long gloves and leggings, which were torn to shreds anyway, and is in only her red leotard, which is only slightly better off. Enough to keep her decent and not much else. It is not lost on Sarra that Lilian is being helpful this day rather than simply watching them. Sarra's balance has certainly started to suffer due to her fatigue, and her usually impeccable form atop the spires is shaky. The princess, too tired to be snarky, is thankful for the advice there as well as the encouragement on the cliffside. Being given a few more tools to use against the trees, the third day is Sarra's best showing yet. Sparring goes much as it did before, though the swim beforehand is almost relaxing in a way since it is just the water she has to fight. In spite of her tiredness, Sarra almost enjoys the sparring. Then ponders her possible lack of sanity. Is this why people think she is insane to go swinging her hammer wildly in battle, taking hits that could be avoided? Surely not. Lilian had mentioned something about the ocean, and so the ride out on the boat is not too unexpected. The time in the half-underwater maze...is pushing Sarra's anger management to the limits. There are several times where with a growl she bashes the pommel of her sword into a wall to try and get more room or stabs forward with the same goal. It doesn't work of course. It is here that Sarra finally uses her one item. Her Silver hairpin. The Silver flows over her into a form-fitting armor, turning her to metal for all intents and purposes. Water buffeting and restricting her is reduced, her footsteps are more sure, and she doesn't mind taking the lead for Xion and others. She fires her Silver fletchettes once, but then wonders if doing so again would count as her third arcane usage. So, she just keeps the armor for the rest of the time. They may have had time to stargaze, but Sarra found herself watching those shards instead. It took her until the third day at the end of the trianing, but after watching them while listing to Lilian sing and watching her prepare, Sarra asks, "...just what are those floating things that have been formed around you since we arrived, anyway?" Handed the cup of tea, Sarra is sniffing of it and working up the nerve to try it when Lilian speaks. Sarra's eyes widen. She is frozen for a few moments, then...tears just start streaming down her face. A few sniffles and one or two sobs escape despite herself. The thing that Sarra had wanted for so long...Lilian has given it to her. The only thing Sarra ever really wanted from Lilian. To be recognized, to be accepted in some way. To be respected. To be thanked for her efforts. Without all the venom and hatred. And for taking such a risk as showing trust in Lilian to be rewarded. Sarracenia's tears flow quietly for a long while, tears of happiness and relief and hope that maybe things will actually be better. She manages to keep from any more real sobs, but sniffles escape her every now and then for just as long.
Team Timekeeper	"They're a favoured manifestation when telling kings to turn around and go home." Sonetto wants to write that down, but notebooks weren't one of the approved things to bring, and she wouldn't have been able to bring it up the mountain regardless. Is that intentional, or practical? Maybe there's some kind of value to be had in memorizing the lessons Lilian is trying to teach by heart, rather than rotely copying down information as its passed to her. Or, like, maybe they're roughing it in the woods and not in a classroom. "To magic. To fate. To the path that extends on from here." Sonetto nods. It's weird that she has similar feelings to Odette about this, though she's not nearly so expressive with them. Sonetto is an arcanist through and through, immersed since childhood in the best arcane training her world has to offer, but the SPDM doesn't teach magic. "Or should I just be over-literal and say you belong to me?" "Okay. I understand better now. Thank you." . . . Sonetto's up especially early on the third day. Even if she expended her entire two hour break on haircare, it wouldn't be enough to properly wash and dry it with the resources she has available, but just touching it up without washing it forces her to wake up before dawn. It could wait until tomorrow, once they've left-- it's not like anyone else is perfectly manicured either-- but the encounter with the stag leaves Sonetto feeling weirdly sentimental in a way that compels her to put her best face forwards into the final day, rather than becoming complacent. She washes her athletic wear and leaves it to dry by the side of the hot springs, working with her hair by lanternlight. Combing it out and then brushing it to remove all the small accumulated detritus is an arm workout after out exerted her muscles have been over the past two days. She brought two different kinds of hair oils, one dotted onto her scalp while methodically parting the bulk of her coppery hair, left to rest while she lightly spreads the second oil down the ends of her hair to smooth it out. Dry shampoo at the base, then a third round of brushing, as the stars rotate overhead. This way, she's seated at the edge of the hot spring when dawn breaks. The elaborate braids of her hair take another fifteen minutes even with all of her prep, during which time she watches the sun rise minute by minute, silently meditative. It'll be ruined by the end of the day, of course, but that doesn't really matter. When Sonetto comes down from the hot springs to join everyone in figuring out breakfast, she's oddly upbeat even with having lost an hour of her already limited sleep. . . . The morning drills go as they go. Despite the intensity, there's no sense of desperation around them anymore, though Sonetto still really wants to minimize her fuckup points. Around lunch break, while everyone including her is bruised and exhausted, Sonetto remarks to Lilian that she's looking forwards to her organized morning runs in the Suitcase. . . . It's her and Matilda again, for the sunken ruins. This time neither of them really bring any advantages to the table, so it's a slog in multiple senses. By this point, especially after the events of last night, Matilda's been upgraded from 'useful escorted asset' to 'companion' in Sonetto's unconscious assessment, so she does a lot less automatic lead-taking. Damp, enclosed rooms are especially nerve-wracking to ignite the SN-13 in. With the stale air, Sonetto can't feel certain that the fire won't drain the oxygen in the room below safe levels, and sometimes the only way out is to swim. It's stressful, and electrifying, and Sonetto's hair is absolutely ruined by it, in a way that doesn't worry her at all.
Team Timekeeper	. . . "Pass or fail, I'm proud of all of you, and grateful for your trust." Sonetto sways side to side while Lilian sings to herself, entranced by the atmosphere. She's slow to respond, but immediate in how she feels, opening her eyes and taking the cup with both hands. "Thank you so much for the opportunity. I hope I can demonstrate what I've learned even after we go back, and... I'm happy to have done this." . . . It takes a while to purge the thought of 'this is impossible' from her mind, but when she does, everything else slides away with it. Lilian gave her instructions, so Sonetto will follow through on them, and in the process, every sense unravels into the caress of the environment. The visions of death and success pass through her equally, accepted with as much validity as her senses. The chilly air, the prickle of magic, the burning of saltwater air in broken skin, the audience of spirits, the glowing stroke of the moon's path across the sky, glittering in outcroppings of crystal, blur into a hypersensate haze, without a thought to ascribe to any individual feature. Her muscles only ache in the lulls between swings, focused singularly on the edge of her sword as the tip of a pen, until a circuit of energy sparks from her into the blade. Sonetto slowly lowers her sword, standing in front of the split geode. Staring at it, she seems stunned, and her lips move in a nearly-inaudible resolution of words she hadn't been saying. "... And here is a mill and there is a river; Each a glimpse and gone for ever..." . . . "So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one." "That's what that was?" Sonetto is halfway hugging Terra all'Amore when traveling back to the campsite, quietly glowing from the success. "I had a feeling, actually. It was... magical."
Foundation Scions	. . . In the morning, before the third day's trials, it is of pivotal importance to Matilda Bouanich, by a pre-divined vision, before she set out on this outing, that she seek Sonetto out and tell her, "You've done your hair so nicely," since she has- that, or Matilda's default stance is to fire off statements like that. She adds after, "Ah! Perhaps I could help you clean it, when this all is done?" because she's a pervert, but also she's been struggling with her own hair, and Sonetto just has so much more! . . . Within the ruins, Sonetto's change in attitude on Matilda is noticed enough that Matilda prompts and pokes her out of worry, because her shift in attitude is easier interpreted by Matilda as a sign of an unwellness, rather than the social promotion that it actually is. She comes around to the thought eventually, because it feels a bit like a promotion, to have less of the lead taken for you, anyways- tiny fragments of deference means importance, and trust! Yay! Everything else about that mission, is just difficult. Navigation is easier, with moments to divine direction, but it's far less so, with so limited chances to use arcane skills at all. How often they have to be back to back for the combat is a silver lining, but it, too, is so difficult. Wet, cold, claustrophobic, muddy- to boot, coral is so sharp! She's even more thankful that it's moonlight and starlight they come up into at the end. . . . Matilda Bouanich does take time to stargaze. That's inevitable, and she'd try to do so, were Lilian much faster than she is with the concoctions. She can't help but even sit, and lay back on the ground, an idle wobbly-sore arm raised almost unfeeling, up at the sky, to mime reaching, or a little spyglass to squint through. Perhaps it's an intuited little clue, as something good to keep in mind for not-long later. 'I want you all to know that seeing you all come this far at all has been like a dream for me.' "It is quite a bit like a dream," Matilda replies, blinking her eyes back into focus and wakefulness, from placid wondrous fixation on the lights twinkling distant in the nighttime sky. "Perhaps the most vivid one can be? But, even the air itself, it is so..." She's too bleary to say anything else but "Dreamlike." ' Pass or fail, I'm proud of all of you, and grateful for your trust.' This far into it, and nested inside a point of high praise, 'pass or fail' almost goes undetected- but that's kind of so scary! She's shivering, holding onto the cup, from the chill air on bare skin, and from the anticipatory nervousness, "So, this last rite, it is to be a test..?" That would be fitting, with endings! That, or she's just misunderstanding three days into all of this exhaustion. Still, either way, she doesn't want to fail! Not now! In fact, she really, really wants to pass! She doesn't know yet what she'll have to do, but she's telling herself, she'll do it, and do it well!
Foundation Scions	. . . Well. Standing there by the intimidating, crashing waves, Matilda is both a bit daunted by the 'what' she'll have to do, and, after only a brief (few, she's tired) moment(s), sparkly-eyed from it dawning on her what this test is. With Connaître les Papillons' (recently, very familiar) grip to fidget slightly with, everything of the moment soaking in, her hands feel ever so slightly lighter, one of the end-points of the Ritual that is this entire journey now more visible. Watching the wind roar and pull waves along with it, so high as for the foamy crest to be an obstacle, it's hard to not pause and watch how it falls and fades to droplets, and mist, blurring the horizon with glitter and refraction. Washed-out moonlight, bright, casts frigid cool-tone flatness on everything. She's hardly aware of the moment she starts going through the motions of swings, at the rumble of the waves below, before they're even visible to try to cut- in the softness preceding the hallucinations, summoned up in motivation towards that 'clear view of the stars', at the same time that she's grasping and still failing to find that energy, she's idly wondering about far-off, tiny planets, and the delicate roses planted there, tended to by lonely, lonely figures, and what sorts of caterpillars there are to abide; and what they will grow to be. It's a bit of a funny thing, for her to have named her SN-13 sword after a line in a children's book, because holding onto it with any frequency, it calls her memory back to it far more than she otherwise would dwell on it, and that lonely little prince- never mind that he's lonely -that she saw such sense and sympathy in, hearing at bedtime-tales, or read off of shelves, about his comings and goings, collecting up shared secrets of life and love, and finding disappointing incompatibility with the rules of how things are, when made from anything but the heart. The sword's name, specifically- a shortening of 'to become acquainted with butterflies, one must tolerate the presence a few caterpillars' -is one of many of its many shared secrets, on the prices paid in-advance for hopes and futures. Another, sadder lesson, said in half-meanings, along the route the book takes towards its endings, is that the earth is far too big, to not be weighed down in many ways, that make returning to far-off, tiny planets, and the innocent wonder their perfect, lonely little vantages offer, impossible save for drastic measures. She's better at understanding the words of books and stories now, than when she was a small child sitting on her grand-père's bed and could not quite grasp at it, that more or less, it is a one-way matter to stray away from childlike wonder and adoration. The Little Prince's solution to the matter made, and still makes her sad to read; that a body is too heavy to wear to fly back home, to delicate roses that may-or-may not have caterpillars eating leaves, or cocoons, or butterfly imagos- and that to that end, a viper should bite him, and cut him loose from that heaviness. Despite the author's pleading, that one must imagine otherwise, she's most often found herself understanding the prince's fate exactly as it sounded to be. However, as the very-potent concoction takes hold, and her senses begin to alter, sharpen and fuzz, for just that moment, that poetry on the shedding-of-heaviness, begins slightly to make more sense to her- in, at least, as much as it lends a further point of understanding as to what a lightening of the heart, freer than the weight of standing here, and reaching out for the wonder of magic and magic of wonder, might feel like, and why he yearned so. . . .
Foundation Scions	Within the haze of the hallucinations, unpleasant, visceral, watched-but-lonely- it's tremendously distracting, it's haunting, it's momentarily inspiring- where she's looking isn't clear to her, but the Moon keeps her company all the while, the texture of 'time passing, and a time limit on the assignment' deliriously reduced to knowing a nearby friend, at some point, will have to leave her alone and go home; the pressure is the same, if not sharper. Omens, visions, dreams, spirit visitations, their message and purpose, in this trance, comes across quite quickly to Matilda- delineations of heat and cold as the new prism to slot in, for the ritual. The rise and crash of waves might as well be breathing, or a hum, alongside it the so-sore-it's-past-thought swings, trying to grasp at something light and hot, not-yet found, but each spray of mist, in the dazzle-filled air, lights the night ever-slightly with the refracted promise of far-off glittering, candlelight and ice, filling that distant, obscured goal. Dancing somewhere within that misty haze, and the fever-feeling hallucinatory visions, hidden, is a sense to find, a back-of-the-eye murmur of revelation, like when one finds and crosses the divide to start seeing the shapes asterisms rather than single stars, or castles in the clouds above, textured the same as staring into the depths of an orbuculum's visions and glimmer, or felt in the moment of waking after dreaming. The instant it's felt, it clicks together- the trigger clicks, as it has each of her repeated motions, but it feels at it matters this time that it does, and the Cleasa fires. A part of Matilda that's remained lost in the moment's haze watches it, as one would a close-falling shooting star; and startles a moment after, with enough of a jolt she actually just falls over, clutching at Papillon so it doesn't hit the ground with her. That wouldn't be right, after all of this. . . . Sore-shivery, exhausted, exhilarated, moon-eyed, Matilda is as quick as rattling limbs can be to put proper clothes on, which, at first, feel almost unbearably demanding of her senses, and too warm. It settles quickly, but leaves her with a strange, achey little longing, immediately, for moments just-past. When she breathes in and out, it's with too much emotion of various categories, to not tear up a little. 'So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one.' "Was your first time also so memorable?" is a really funnily poor choice of words, that Matilda, usually pretty good at catching and snickering at such, doesn't notice until way longer, and then her snicker becomes a sneeze rather than a clear emotive noise. Quieter, hugging her jacket around herself now, and unconsciously tapping the sword, her eyes fix more on the distance, and the Moon, having crossed most of the sky on her nightly journey, rather than anything else. "C'est presque difficile de croire que c'était réel." After a little breath, an important-feeling follow-up, redundant but still necessary to cement, "Je ne pense pas pouvoir l'oublier."
Angela	The City does have parks and trees and even forests and lakes that aren't the Great Lake. But nothing like this, not within the City limits. And even for Solace, there are ruins and buildings and debris and a nature as grand as this is a rare site and a rarer sight. Even Lenny is invigorated on the dawn of the third day. The idea of this as a 'competition' is slowly fading away into this being 'An Experience', something that they're sharing together and the idea of earning 'fuckup points' is something to strive against but also an opportunity when earned. Frustration gives way to determination and even Solace and Ceri's advantage over the other locals in Trídéag lags when Lilian starts teaching more granular examinations of the flow of movement. Lenny even gets a strike in on Ceri so you know something is happening. The swim is more enjoyable than a test at this point. They've all made this and Ceri has given Knifty some extra lessons in not-drowning so while she struggles, she doesn't need the Vice-Director watching her any more. It's hard to tell if Knifty appreciates it considering her general attitude, but Ceri certainly feels a sense of satisfaction in passing on a skill. Solace offers to help anybody with making their own campfires if they haven't figured it out on their own once there is time to do so and she doesn't even charge. In the treasure, Knifty ironically is probably gonna have the easiest time using her sword because she's so so tiny, but all the same the local Trídéag fixers largely do their best to avoid battles and when come to it adapt quickly to remove problems. Finn struggles the most with adapting to the strange environment due to being, sort of, the 'Cinq Fixer who grew too accustomed to forms' but he adjusts quickly. Lilian's efforts are paying off, not one of them sees this as anything but an incredible opportunity even if they don't always understand Lilian's reasons. Training like this is something whispered in rumors about what make the 'heroes' of the City, the true great contract workers who receive only the grandest and most frightful assignments... and come out through the other end. Whether 'the undead' exist in The City is largely a matter of impression--but again, Finn is the one most hesitant to strike a seeming stranger, but in the end they'll all push forward because it is their task to do so. And boy do their bodies ache and strain. Lenny will wrap and treat wounds when she comes upon the others but two days of pain linger all the same. When they finally reach the coins, it's Ceri who laughs upon seeing the design. Big Trees all the way up and down, a bittersweet reminder of an old life. The others celebrate because surely this is one of the last tasks to do. They made it through, they cheer, even Solace gives some comradely pats on the shoulders. There is a moment of relaxation-- --that is smashed apart when Lilian reveals there are yet more tasks to do. There's no audible complaining. It's just another task on Lilian's Amazing Journey. They've come too far to whine.
Angela	''I'm proud of you all and grateful for your trust'' Sarracenia isn't the only one who cries. Even Solace is a little teary-eyed at the sentiment, but Finn pats Sarracenia on the arm and Lenny rests an arm on her shoulder, offering smiles to the princess over their shared hopes. "Hey, c'mon Sarra, you've been one of us for a while now. You put in the work and didn't even complain too much." "Yeah pretty sure I whined more. First rule remember? It's probably first for a reason. We're Otherworld mates now." Then Lenny punches her in the arm because this is how Rats show affection. "You're a little silly but who isn't eheh... come on, don't leak..." Knifty adds, patting at Sarracenia's face due to a lack of tissues. Strangely, it's always the people who were at or near the bottom of the City's food chain who are most sympathetic and caring for Sarracenia's pain and suffering in Trídéag. The paupers can still have empathy for the princesses but, then again, she isn't really one in their eyes after two years of bleeding alongside them. They drink, in unison. Lenny reflects on the stag. Did its acceptance of her mean that her bloodstained hands are still worthy of being more than a charity case? Her dream had been to earn a cushy job only to quickly learn she didn't have what it takes for that, but perhaps her time with Odette has taught her that maybe it's just enough to save lives. And perhaps if she continues to save lives, her time stealing organs from strangers will no longer weigh so heavily on her heart. Maybe she can be magical too. She sees a vision of her corpse in the Backstreets, in the Library... She sees a breakthrough surgeon who can treat all those left behind by the Wings with miraculous techniques, thanked graciously and bashfully accepting them while never forgetting her past. Knifty reflects on the wolf. She has been kicked down her whole life and she showed up at Lilian's doorstep because the worst that would happen was that she'd be laughed at and beaten. Instead, she was given an education, a warm bed, friends, and understanding of her strange variety of coping mechanisms. Can someone as small as her be fierce and have fangs that shine? She sees her corpse in so many ways they are endless. What sort of person does Knifty wish she could be? She can't imagine being anything other than what she is now. Isn't she already her ideal self? But still, can she see the shadows of an ideal self that she can't even imagine? Ceri reflects on the crow. She sees herself dead at Lobotomy Corp, she sees herself killed by the Leviathan Queen--that one nearly became reality. She thinks about her past with Lilian Rook. Petra might have saved her life, but Lilian Rook restored her soul. Out of everybody who found devotion to Lilian Rook, she was the one who works for her directly still. And ironically, one of the people she fought for her honor for is with her today. She thinks about the fractal possibilities that she has left before her, and the singular path forward before her. She sees her ideal self, so close to who she is today, but there is still one thing she selfishly desires: A return to her home, an acceptance of how far she's come, appreciation from the family she once fled so she could live her dreams. Finn reflects on the stag. He sees himself dead at the Library, betrayed by the very man in this reality he saved, dead from falling out of a tree chasing after a cat--a real possibility as silly as it might seem. As ever, the ideal self he imagines is a great Fixer who helps the needy, a true hero that is rare in the City but less rare thanks to the efforts of Lilian Rook and the Elites from outside their world. He sees his sister, ever his guiding star, and he smiles. He feels closer to her than ever before in this moment.
Angela	Solace reflects on the wolf. She's always been a bit solitary by nature of her occupation, always a little distant from the others. It isn't that she didn't appreciate them, she cares so deeply for her comrades but she has always stood a bit apart from them. She was the one who couldn't find a partner, but this is the life of a Hunter. Back there, she was the single thin line between her village's survival and its utter destruction. She sees many quiet deaths, never noticed by anyone else in the world, even the ones that take place in The City. She sees a future much like the present, where she protects the community that Lilian had created well into the future. A small inkling dream that the City can be better for everyone else too, but a neighborhood like Lilian's encourages others to follow in kind. They have to swing their swords in order to see the stars. The stars are precious to the people of the City, they even name their freest individuals 'Star of the City' and the City always endeavours to make those Stars fall back down to earth, one way or another. As unusual as this experience has been for them, cutting through the remains of the world itself while clenching a trigger that should no longer work in the hope of a miracle that will cleave through all obstacles to reveal the sky is as natural a dream as breathing tomorrow. And somehow the fire comes anyway even though it shouldn't and the miraculous somehow becomes unifying. Much like this training camp. Perhaps it's her altered senses, perhaps it's everything, but Solace feels like she could reach up and take hold of one of those stars. She swings, flame bursting out of the blade and around her hand.The distant light is blinding. She squints her eyes and they water as impossibly hard wood tumbles around her. Lilian's influence is plainly seen on the EGO growing out of the SN-13. Antlers are growing out of the guard, feathers along the blade, burning teeth clamping around the sharp tip. Solace doesn't know what an EGO is though for a moment she feels it lays perfectly in her grip, she feels a gentle heat pulsing along the grip like a heart or a distant furnace before she looks down and wonders aloud, "Did I mess up?" to herself and the rest of her group. The EGO vanishes, though an engraving of the crow lingers along the blade. It's still there.
Angela	''So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one'' There is a satisfied exhaustion when it's finally time to put back on their Trídéag uniforms. "Thank you for sharing this with us, Director." Ceri says, breathlessly. "You said you did this for months? I can see how it gets easier and harder." "Man, I don't even know where to begin." Finn admits. "I've never felt so much pressure before, yet--so encouraged at the same time? How do I even talk about it??" "I'm glad I came!" Knifty chirps, but despite the energy seems quieter and more thoughtful than usual. "I..." Lenny stammers. "I thought I lost this ages ago, I thought it was gone forever. Thank you, Director, thank you!" Solace stares at the engraving of the crow for a long moment, not immediately answering. Eventually, though, she feels like for the first time she has to say something, ''has'' to rather than choose to. "You shared so much..." She sounds strangely sheepish. "I barely understand these rituals but... Your gift revealed myself to me. And you're a part of that now. I suppose I've known that for a long time." They'll never be able to really explain it to those that did not make it to this trip... Which will naturally encourage whispers and rumors. Should Lilian do another like it some day, well, she'll get plenty of volunteers. And if not, they'll be ever more desperate to seek out the next priceless moments that cannot be replicated.
Kale Hearthward	> "Mister Hearthward. Can you... Er. Are you able to tell them to go?" Kale waves his hands at the birds. "Go away," he says, in multiversal common, technically answering Odette's question without actually understanding what it is she's asking about. "Yes, but doesn't seem like they listen to me. - - - Another day, another set of morning exercises. A little bit slower, a little less of the wild motivation and energy that Kale displayed on that first day. But also, more care, and more intentional movements. Absent any declarations of fuckup points this time, he actually fights fair in the melee this time. Well, okay, relatively fights fair. Kale's style involves a lot of feints, trickery, big dramatic movements, and capitalizing on opportunistic strikes, only so much of which is part of traditional sparring. At least he's not hitting so hard this time? - - - Examining Kale's sword can turn into a full on murder mystery forensic investigation if Lilian looks too closely. Over the last few days he's used his sword for several distinctly un-sword things - as a shovel, as a hiking stick, as a butchery carving blade, as a kitchen knife (ew), and at least once as a woodcutting implement. Come to think of it... how many times have Kale's allies seen him break, drop, lose, or simply throw away Periactus and Gobo over the years? He can get new ones made, and he packs spares, and he's been writing new ones on Paladins Budget Form 37B Line 4Cii as 'combat consumables' for years without any Commonwealth office workers making the connection that these are swords and not single-use magical items. Maybe this is a problem that needs to be addressed, albeit one for later. - - - "You know I don't do underwater, right?" Even after assurances (or being forced to go find out himself) that diving isn't required, this is one of Kale's worst tasks, lacking open skies or even room (and footing) to properly maneuver. Finn might have to carry on this one, for a change. It doesn't help that his natural inclination is to keep his sword drawn, and only puts it away with reluctance. The fancy X-holster on his back is also not a help - the dramatic over-the-shoulder sword draws require more space than a simple hip-holster unsheathing would. Once he staggers out - despite everything he's made decent time, perhaps just out of a sheer bloody-minded desire to be free of the place - he collapses on his back and stares up at the sky. "Don't talk to me right now," he says as he lays there, regardless of whether or not anyone's made a motion towards doing so. His asocial declaration lasts all of five minutes before he sits up, propping himself up on his elbows, and looks around. "Does anyone have any food?" - - - > "Pass or fail, I'm proud of all of you, and grateful for your trust." "Rook..." "I'm not the most observant person. I have a hard time grasping some things. I'm strong and I'm smart and I'm fast and I work hard, but there's some stuff that might be beyond me to really understand." Maybe give Kale some grace here, even with the self-compliment sandwich he's speaking frankly as he holds his tea. "But I think, whatever you're trying to show us, I think my body understands it? I think you've gotten that message across." "So... pass or fail, thank you. I think, at least for your part, you've succeeded."
Kale Hearthward	- - - "Cut through the wave, to see the stars. Simple." His mind unhelpfully supplies a definition of what a wave actually is - a circular motion of water as energy passes through it, be it from wind or moon or earthquake. He'd had to memorize it for his disaster response training; that fact seemed unhelpful for actually saving lives, it seems just as unhelpful now. He gets his position lined up, waits for a wave to approach, and slices through to see the stars. The idea is easy enough. But attacking a wave of water with a sword is like, well, attacking a wave of water with a sword. The concept self-similezes with its futility. He lines up again, waits for a wave, and swings, pulling the trigger this time. As expected, nothing happens, the weapon's energy long since spent. He lines up again, waits for a wave, and swings, pulling the trigger. He should find the energy from somewhere, where? Lifebreath? That can't be the answer. He lines up again, waits for a wave, and swings, pulling the trigger. He lines up again, waits for a wave, and swings, pulling the trigger. He lines up again, waits for a wave, and swings... - - - "This is the end for you! I've cut down your minions, I've broken through your defenses, I've overcome your obstacles!" Kale Hearthward, master swordsman, holds his sword out and upwards, pointing it up at the throne, where P S sits. "All of my minions, you say? Are you sure you haven't missed one?" She smiles, cruelly, and gestures towards the floor-length mirror beside her throne. Too late, Kale realizes his mistake - she's not reflected in it. He spins around to see- - - - "Three... no, four chevaliers to that sector. We need to assume Watch activity will cause complications." Grandmaster Hearthward turns from the tactical table, seeing his most capable lieutenant approaching. "Director L R . Are your Trídéag agents ready to deploy?" Before she can speak, he holds up a hand. "No, no, this is wrong. I'm not- I'm at a cliffside, practicing a move, not- this is a hallucination. I need to focus, I need to-" - - - "Take a break, will you dear? You've been swinging that thing around for an hour now." Kale removes the blindfold, smiling over his shoulder at the person approaching. "Sorry, you know how I get with training. How are the kids doing?" Then he frowns. "Wait-"
Kale Hearthward	- - - "Three days off, while I go do this camping thing. Go relax, or not, it's not my business what you do with your time." Kale nods to his team, and shoulders his pack as he prepares to dismiss them. "Oh you're going to hate this.", he says, with a voice not his own. He frowns. "Last place has to sleep on the mountainside." He claps both hands over his beak. "So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one." - - - He's back at the cliff. Sword in hand. Slicing at waves. Is this reality? Is this another hallucination? Is he about to die? Is he making any progress? Is this task impossible? "What are you laughing at!" he yells at the stag, the wolf, and the crow. "You're not even the right bird! You're supposed to be a raven!" He lines up again, waits for a wave, and swings, pulling the trigger. - - - "Rook..." "I'm not the most observant person. I have a hard time grasping some things. I'm strong and I'm smart and I'm fast and I work hard, but there's some stuff that might be beyond me to really understand." Maybe give Kale some grace here, even with the self-compliment sandwich he's speaking frankly as he holds his sword. "But I think, whatever you're trying to show us, I think my body understands it? I think you've gotten that message across." "So... pass or fail, thank you. I think, at least for your part, you've succeeded." He pulls the energy from within himself, and he cuts open a path to the stars.
Kale Hearthward	- - - > "I've brought back your clothes. Grab your bag from over there and put them on."] Kale dumbly nods, clearly still a little dazed. "Yes. Yes, right. Clothes. I'll save my final thoughts for later. Maybe on Paladins radio, if not privately. But, thank you again. This was incredible." He turns away to start doing just that. > "So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one." Kale stumbles. "Ah- sorry," he says, standing back up. "It was... it was something. I want to practice it again, if you're willing to help me with it. Try to do it more... reliably." "Ideally with less... drugs. And much less nature. I think I need a burger, a milkshake, and a shopping trip as a cleanse after all of this," he says as he walks away.
Odette Raskins	"How many of those bigshots could you imagine... because I told them to?" " I guess it really does say a lot that so many of us are. It's not the sort of thing we'd do for just anybody, either." "Mastery of the sword is mastery of power... things are decided by people while they're alive." It takes her a while to stop shaking, but Lilian's patting does help Odette settle down before long even though her face still hurts. "Yeah... And with everything here, making things better than how they've always been feels more... Mmhn. D-doable now, even for me." "Or should I just be over-literal and say you belong to me?" "I mean..." Laughing finally, Odette gestures around broadly at everyone that's here. "You kind of are paying us, got us uniforms, and convinced everyone to stay out here half-naked for days. That's more than even the Company could get out of me." It takes her a little while longer to realize what else Lilian's joke could imply, and the Multiverse suddenly makes a little more sense. . . . . . . Odette's morale and movement confidence on the third day is at an all time high. Even with her body feeling even heavier than the second day, she's giving each obstacle her all, pushing herself to do better than both days to see how far she can take herself, even if it's just by a little bit. It's not as though she's taking more risks, either, but she's gotten a better feel for herself and what she's able to do since the first day. Her muscles will have time to scream at her later, but right now? Right now, she wants to put on her very best performance. Lilian's encouragement and tips helps a lot in that regard, as well as having seen her companions struggle through those same obstacles twice now, and she's ready to finally try incorporating their moves into her own. She even manages to do the entire mountain in one go rather than just taking half of her stack at once! She'll just need to burn a staff usage on healing herself after the fact. What's particularly strange, however, is that there's a distinct lack of terrified yelping with this third round of sparring. Having stared down the other end of a training sword this many times already, it might even look like she's having fun with after so long. At the very least, she's intensely engaged with the work rather than hoping for it to be over. At this rate? She might even give Xion, Sonetto, and Kale a run for their money during the team fights. . . . . . . After getting soundly thrashed by Sonetto, Kale, and Xion, Odette's spirits are still high coming into the third day's big exercise even though she has never rowed a boat before. She's seen pictures of oars on the ships of space pirates before, and she's seen ships in Elibe with massive oars pushing through the water, but this is the first time she's ever gotten her hands on one. "So pushing this smaller end is enough to get that part moving, and then... Oh! Through the water..." She murmurs to herself as she watches the oars in action, preparing herself ahead of time for whenever it's going to be her turn to get on it. Once that turn comes, she'll be extra excited, but still a little pale from fighting back some seasickness. By now, she's become well accustomed to just knowing that whatever Lilian's doing to prepare everyone will work, and she doesn't think to actually ask what it's for. Besides, she's busy listening to what's actually being said, and also on applying what Lilian told everyone about bad habits earlier to her rowing now. . . . . . . A new task is given, and Odette hesitates. She waits, glancing around briefly like she's waiting for something, and she even looks confused as though something she was waiting for just hasn't come. "... Huh. Coins, okay!" Sounding pleasantly surprised, Odette checks her SN-13 to make sure it's firmly attached to her hip, and then she begins the descent without so much as a worried whimper.
Odette Raskins	. . . . . . Maybe she should've been a little more worried coming in. The dampness is kind of gross, but what's really unsettling the EMT is the persistent feeling of being way too cramped. Not being able to reliably swing her sword or even pull it out wears on her nerves, and not being able to wield the SN-13's burning edge properly without risk to herself or Lenny reminds her of just how much power she's been entrusted with. More importantly, it reminds her of how disastrous using it incorrectly could be. With just the slightest bad tilt of the blade, a slip of the finger against the trigger, or even a bump against a wall during either of the other two things, she could get maimed, someone could get killed, possibly even worse... Roy's reservations suddenly make a lot more sense now. Still, that just makes communication all the more important, and Odette's already pretty well-tuned for calling out threats. The longer the trial goes on, the more accurate she gets at gauging distances and even calling out whether said threats arein spear range or sword range to indicate if she's going to be stepping in (and leaving a back uncovered) or staying in place. One particular pack gives her enough trouble, though, that she has to resort to burning another staff use on firing a burst of light magic through a small crowd of the undead. After collecting the coin and seeing the stairs, ODette gives the offending architecture a long stare before settling for a low "heh". . . . . . . After pushing herself to her absolute limits for far longer than she ever though possible, Odette's survived to witness the final ritual. She looks like utter hell even after exhausting what's left of her first aid kit, but there's some small relief in having a slightly lighter pack. The night air's crispness is welcome against bare and battered skin, and even the rough hike is a welcome change in having actual space to spread her arms out without scraping it against something nearby. Before long, she even finds herself humming along to Lilian's singing to keep herself from drifting off to sleep right where she stands. It helps that the sky is still as breathtaking as ever, and a small part of her briefly considers figuring out how hard it would be to find any one of those stars in a shuttle someday. "I want you all to know that seeing you all come this far at all has been like a dream for me." Odette promised herself she wouldn't cry again today. Her jaw locks up as she looks into her cup, taking a deep whiff of it to keep herself from crying. She can totally hear Sarracenia crying, though, and seeing Solace and Lenny getting teary-eyed has her scrunching up to hold it in. "Uu... Th... Thank you. For trusting in us to... Guh. To do all this. To let us try, to let us push ourselves, and to experience all of this. Whatever happens next, it's... I-I don't think I'm ever going to forget these past few days. E-ever." There! She managed to get through all of that without crying at all. Her nose is getting extra snotty, but she's not crying! She's even drinking her tea steadily to prove it, trying to match the pace of everyone else so she can distract herself from how wet her eyes are getting. . . . . . . Heading into the grove alongside Solace and Finn, Odette takes a deep breath to remind herself of where she is, and to steady herself for whatever's to come next. "We've... We made it. We got this." Before today, it'd sound like a lie that even she wouldn't believe hearing from herself. Now, Odette sounds like she has no doubts about what's going to happen. Placing her hand around that familiar grip, she steps forwards to look up at the silver foliage blocking the sky, and she takes another deep breath to feel the pneuma on her tongue and around herself.
Odette Raskins	Two hands, holding the ever-familiar sword in a position that's become almost as natural as walking. She knows how and when to press the trigger, to activate the heating element, to cut through anything far more easily than she could with pure steel alone. She knows the charge is depleted. It doesn't matter. 'Do that'. She does. It doesn't matter how many times it takes, so long as her arms can keep swinging. She sees something moving, changing, swirling around her, and that means something's working. She can taste it, figuratively and literally dancing on her tongue. She keeps swinging. She sees animals, but where are they? How close are they? Should she be aiming at them, away from them? It doesn't matter. 'Do that'. That's all that matters. She keeps swinging, even when she sees herself crushed in a singularity, vaporized by an exploding reactor, launched into space, and many other sorts of ignoble deaths that she could meet just in her day to day with the Company. She sees herself being run through by a dragon's talons, sliced in half by a terrible blade, skeletonized by a bomb, and yet more ways that could occur with how often she's danced with death by getting in over her head time and time again trying to save someone. 'Do that'. Her arms have not stopped moving for more than a few seconds between swings. She sees herself as a success. A taller person with grace, a seasoned warrior with an intimidating eyepatch, a respected doctor in a lab full of underlings hanging onto her every word. She even sees herself living a quiet life, exploring the stars with her lovers, drifting along in a ship held together by nothing more but a shared dream and enough duct tape to blot out the sky. 'Do that'. There's nothing else to do but that. Lilian told her to, so she keeps at it. Her body creaks with pain, but she can ignore it. She has to ignore it. . . . . . . 'Do that'. She does. The haze lifts out of her eyes once the tree in front of Odette gives way to the open sky, and she forgets to blink for several seconds as her mind struggles to process just what has happened. Her fingers are bleeding. Her wrist aches, as though she might have dislocated something without knowing when or how it even happened. She's sweating intensely, and her breathing is shaky while shuffling back towards the cooking fire with her mouth still slightly agape the whole way. "So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one." "Man, I don't even know where to begin." "It was... magical." "Was your first time also so memorable?" "I... Ah. That... Um." Odette's struggling to find words to even describe what she's feeling, looking down at her raw hands and the sword that should have been long drained before she even started swinging. She chuckles a little at Finn's admission, mirroring that sentiment for a while until she hears Sonetto's and Matilda's responses. She nods at the two, chuckling lightly at thinking about how truly magical that moment was. "I-it really was. It's... It's a good kind of pain in here." It's actually not, but she's feeling elated enough right now that the pain in her wrist is becoming a precious memory rather than a worrying medical matter. "I want to practice it again, if you're willing to help me with it." Odette inhales lightly as she looks over at Kale, then at Lilian, then starts laughing and crying at the same time. "I... I don't know if I could ever get this kind of feeling again, but I think I understand where that's coming from." She clears her throat, a bashful smile crossing her face before she nods along slowly and starts looking back towards that grove one more time. ".. I think I really like swords now."
Riku Asakura	On the windswept ground, where glittering geodes that are massive in scale await them, Riku remembers Lilian's words. They need to cut with a depleted blade to gather the energy from somewhere else... but to try to use the trigger anyway. Do this: cut through the structured crystal to see the stars above... It also does not help that the drug in the cup they were given to drink slowly kicks in. He feels his body act weird, slower... the distortion of his senses makes things harder to control, but also easier in some ways. It takes him a moment to adjust to this new paradigm. His world is like he were walking on the moon right now... Now aware of energy flows... for the first time, he sees them flow around him. Unlike others he might know, he is not a mage, but he is also sometimes a being made of energy. Right now, it seems to be mixing in with the nature around him... but he can also see what appears to be non-human hands superimposed over his own. The hands he recognizes as the hands of an Ultraman. Whether he knows it or not, sometimes he is both human and Ultra... and the more he comes to terms with this, the better. It's here he sees what he probably feels as the creation of himself... the DNA in a lab created by a monster who wanted a means to gain greater power, but also the desire for an uncorrupted inheritor. He sees himself at his greatest heights, the image of an Ultraman with red lines and a silver body, wielding a staff that isn't too far removed from Belial's own battleizer. But also at his death, the possible future of being devoured by a beastly Belial, falling into his body and slowly being devoured of his energy... losing all sense of self and meaning. It's about this time he notices the spirit animals. The bloody wolf, the heart-aching stag, and the crow that sits between them. It's a distraction, because Riku sits somewhere between wolf and stag, but not quite like the crow. These feelings finally start to gather in his body and mind, mixing with his own energy... swirling around inside of him, slowly rising like a wave. Finally, he feels the need to swing the blade at the crystal... and when he pulls the trigger, the energy he didn't know about releases at the same time. It leaves him broken from the effects of the drug and his own hallucination, completely surprised to see the crystal with a massive cut straight through it, released from the sword that was empty a minute ago. He looks dumbfounded, surprised he could draw on that energy to actually pull off something approaching a move like Lilian's. 'Grab your bag from over there and put them on.' Riku breaks from his trance-like amazement and shakes his head. "Uh, right, thank you, Mrs. Rook." Riku walks over to grab his bag and starts putting his real clothes on. However, the second question... 'So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one.' "I... didn't know I had it in me. It was... actually really amazing. I'm not sure how I'm going to repay you for the experience..." he pauses. "Well, if I ever get a form that actually uses a sword, I can think of one thing, but..."
Sarracenia	But, they are supposed to cut a path to the stars. Not wanting to hurt the animals...or spirits. With a determined and rather loud cry, Sarra directs her slash upward, aiming to annihilate the spine of that sea monster skeleton. She is staggered by the explosion of her own sword's power, she is snapped back to reality by it. She blinks a few times, then laughs out loud. 'So how was it? An Cleas? Your very first one?" Sarra is still looking upward when asked, and laughs again. "I cannot believe I did it! That was truly spectacular! Thank you, Lilian!" she exclaims, all smiles and cheer despite how hard the three days has been. She pauses after that, then blinks in surprise. "Did you say we belong to...you?" Sarra's first impulse is to be incredulous, but at this time in this place, when Lilian is being like this, it doesn't seem that bad. Sarra shrugs and her smile returns with a slight giggle. 'I've brought back your clothes. Grab your bag from over there and put them on.' Sarra blinks in surprise. "...clothes?" The simple-minded princess had basically forgotten that she was running around in just her red leotard. She looks over at her bag, then...actually hesitates. She is right now in the midst of true freedom. Away from civilization, from responsibility, just enjoying nature that while perhaps more dangerous than even her home doesn't feel stifling. Putting clothes on means...it is over. Back to stifling responsibility and modesty and civilization with...ugh...people. Not to mention, will the magic break when they return? Will things just go back to how they were before they came here? And no one (except maybe Kale) has made fun of her for three whole days. Will that also end? Eventually, Sarra walks over and starts putting her camo outfit back on. She is very slow about it though, and only partially because of how painful everything is right now.
Sarracenia	'Hey, c'mon Sarra, you've been one of us for a while now. You put in the work and didn't even complain too much. 'Yeah pretty sure I whined more. First rule remember? It's probably first for a reason. We're Otherworld mates now.' 'You're a little silly but who isn't eheh... come on, don't leak...' It is a blessing in some ways that Sarracenia does not actually think herself above the paupers. She smiles appreciatively at Finn, Lenny, and Knifty as they offer their sympathy. And Knifty, the cute little weirdo who introduced Sarra to the Trideag code, earns a slight giggle at the patting to Sarra's face. "Knifty." she giggles, batting at her hand gently before catching it and giving it a light, affectionate squeeze. "They are good tears, I promise." she says to the three. And if Sarra knew of Lenny's internal struggle, she would so support her. Sarra dated a manslayer, after all. Finn is just a good boy who deserves happiness. After receiving their tea and drinking, they are guided to several spots. Sarra ponders the implications of her being grouped up with Knifty and Lenny. She doesn't mind of course, but she is fairly certain the three of them probably have plenty of those so-called 'fuckup points'. Why they were placed beneath a giant sea monster skeleton is a complete mystery to her. Is there some significance? It is Lilian, so it seems like there must be but...what is it? Or, is there actually none and Sarra is overthinking it? At least they are warm. They are told what to do with their swords, yet another thing that doesn't make sense. Use the trigger even though the swords are depleted? Well, Sarra has trusted Lilian this far in this journey, so while skeptical she will do as instructed. Then, the tea hits. Despite using mushrooms all the time, Sarra has never been on a 'trip'. It sort of reminds her of when she was momentarily cursed with Angela's perception of time. And much like then, she is more awed by the experience than anything. The aurora borealis of arcane fluctuations is lovely, and Sarra plays with the colors flowing off of her from her own heartbeat and breathing. The visions are a bit overwhelming, and even though she sees glimpses of her perfect future, the visions of her bloody death weigh much more on Sarra than the bright future visions lift her. And of course there are plenty of visions about just growing old and ugly and helpless. She does glimpse several good futures though. Her leading the Sundew Kingdom to its greatest prosperity, being recognized over Peach. Finding her perfect hero(ine) and building a life with them. Being granted eternal beauty and immortality. When the three animals appear, Sarra is once again drawn to the stag. She reaches out toward it. "Majestic, great stag...do you perhaps have a friend in a storybook world?" she asks, then looks to the other animals. A wolf could easily be a storybook animal as well, but stories of the big bad wolf do not inspire a desire to hug it. Crows are of course present in many books, but Sarra doesn't know any offhand where they are a starring role. She does however know that Lilian loves crows. She wonders if the crow is actually Lilian, and if she is being mocked in some way since it stays out of reach. That or it is reminding her she may never truly catch up to Lilian.