PREP Highschool

[Earl of Purple]

Whispering Sea

The bushbaby tilts its head to one side and smiles in response, before disappearing. The prophetic vision should end now, as Ecbatana tries to end it. This may well result in Aikobaz getting a headache. It depends on if she's ever had to worry about something interfering with her augury and, in addition to interfering, attempting to block it whilst it's in use. Ecbatana isn't trying to hurt Aikobaz, but it's also not (yet?) invested in her enough to protect her from any backlash.

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

Cool people don't remember details just like how cool people don't look at explosions.

Khannie takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders. "Okay, I guess that's gunna have to be good enough."

Then, assuming the door is unlocked, Khannie will grab the handle and give it a twist before shoving it inward and-
-the door just kind of disconnects from the door frame and falls inward, expanding out into a metal floor that tessellates out in all directions as a foggy void consumes out heroes.

"Oh beans this is a big one," Khannie mutters, feeling on edge within the unnatural realm where the fabric of space is folded in on itself.

Off in the distance, visible through the grey haze, is a tiny black speck that looks almost like a hole in reality. It radiates gloom and despair, crackles of dark lightning licking around it. There's a sensation of movement at great speed as either the floor made of doors races toward it (or maybe the black object is racing toward them? It's hard to tell).

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Well, shit. This looks like the kind of Fate-snarls she's only heard of. Something the Getimian Exalted might do... not that she's met any yet. Which means she probably won't be able to pull punches. And that threatens her janitor disguise.

"Holy sh- I mean, heck." She can't swear around kids. "Do you know how to stop it?"

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

You can swear around kids.

But perhaps you ought not swear around kids.

As our heroes suddenly lurch to a halt in front of the crackling black hole in reality Khannie rights herself and eyes the offending object with disgust. "There's a Witch inside. Break the Witch and all the reality-twisting stuff stops. Her domain is a Labyrinth , which means every path leads to the center. There'll probably be more familiars in there like the ones we saw. Probably bigger ones, too. And the inside of the Labyrinth is really confusing. Uh... you probably won't get it until you see it. Get ready."

Then?

She takes a deep breath, ignites one hand with shadowy flames, and grabs the silver and black shard stabbed into the heart of reality.

As soon as Khannie touches it things get really weird.

Withering heat bearing down, heavy and humid like the breath of a beast
Eidolons watch, faceless, from the circles of towering tents reaching beyond the horizon
Lines of souls slouch toward their tepid fate of forgetfulness, all eyes upon the grand stage
Come forth, come forth, and behold hopelessness made manifest
Oh dear traveler, you seek to uphold destiny
Mercury are you, a swift messenger of the gods bearing the secrets of the stars from The ALL?
Everything dies here, even you
Duty rots between the jaws of this carnivorous carnival.

Terrible teeth all around, jagged fangs like mountains, like broken ribs, like grasping claws
Onward and onward and onward the circles of torment turn.

Hello lost child what are you doing here?
Everyone forgot you when you forgot yourself
Lie to yourself, child, lie to yourself again
Lie to yourself, child, and be welcomed to hell.

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Alright, what the hell. How does this thing know who she is? Or who Mercury is? Regardless of the answer, she can't hold back while a kid faces it. She has to go all out and worry about secrecy later. A yellow glow appears around her, concentrating on her fists and feet.

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

That's a pretty good summation of interactions with Witches in general. What the hell?

Khannie casts her eyes around at the looming shapes for a moment before snapping out arm out straight, her girl illusion turning inky black and launching away from her in a dead sprint. That leaves the fox-pokemon below revealed. And it also results in the shadow splatting against one of the looming tent things like a bucket full of black paint. The darkness binds the large familiar in place, gumming its mouth shut and slowly contracting to crush the creature.

"Don't try to think about any of this junk too hard," Khannie says, ears twitching this way and that. "You just gotta roll with it as you go. Remember everything in here is hostile. Even harmless looking stuff is dangerous."

She sets her eyes on the big ring of teeth in the distance and starts heading that way.

Enter in enter in, deeper and deeper
Now face the music
Tethered to violence the curtains rise on the sleeper
Every shadow's a performance on this toothsome stage
Ripe for picking and filled with rage.

The darkness bears down
Hell's full of clowns
Echoes of shoes and noses, armor and roses, greedy fingers to pay you your wage.

Gather round all you clowns!
Lay down your laughs and spin out your webs
Ashes and sackcloth will offer no help as the time for penance has passed
Dash all your dreams and rip at the seams for your smiling doom has come at last
Is this all you offer, this paltry meal?
A fool and a fox who yearns to be real?
Teach them the way of mirth, my merry men
Order their ways with stripes upon stripes
Rend them your jeers
Stage set, enter the gladiators

Oh heck.

Heading through the circle of teeth dumped them out into a big stage like the middle of a circus. Except the canvas is paintings? Or... ugh. Everything is moving around like always and it's hard to tell what's happening. The curtains rise and out comes a parade of jittering shapes like pictures come to life, their edges jagged like torn paper. Like circus tents, like clowns, like ambling toads with silly crowns. A whole bunch of big ones that splay open and begin vomiting out tons and tons and TONS of slightly smaller ones as if they were just the worst clown cars EVER.

With the familiars swarming toward our heroes from all sides Khannie moves straight into action. She drops low under a hurled picture(?) of a rubber ball and surges forward, fist raised. The familiar lurches sideways in a stomach churning motion to avoid the telegraphed punch only to get absolutely clobbered by the actual Khannie who was a few steps behind the illusion. The familiar is devoured by icyflames and bitter malice.

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Things are still unbelievably weird and creepy here, but at least Hiep has a fresh supply of targets, so she knows what to do. She rushes the nearest large clown, grabs it by the legs and swings it around, trying to knock the smaller ones every which way.

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

Seizing her foe by the legs, Hiep smashes the surrounding smaller foes and sending them toppling over in a cacophonous chorus of honks, trumpets, and what sounds suspiciously like bowling pins. In spite of her strength and speed there are a WHOLE BUNCH of these monsters crowding around her. Like Khannie had said before, they don't seem like the most dangerous things, but if these dark spirits were attacking someone who can't see them they would be far more dangerous.

Towering far above the middle ring draws near
Over every thought and breath the world trembles with fear
Ringing fills the ears and and screams fill up the minds
Memories of moment lost rotted to husks and rinds
Entice these heroes two and lay low their feeble hope
Now with every step deeper they only lengthen their own rope
Twisted mockeries of wishes cast like bread upon the waves
Still every dream you dream digs deeper your graves.

Dead!
Everyone is dead!
Silence
Confusion
Emptiness
Nothingness
Dropping from on high torments descend.

"Oh heck now what!?" Khannie complains in the midst of leaping from one of the bigtops to another, smashing her burning fists into them each in turn. Every time it seems like one has managed to smack her it only hits a swirl of mist that disperses like fog. Trying to pin her down is akin to boxing with shadows.

A tangle of ropes? Trapeze? Rolls of paper? come unfurling from above with grotesquely swollen figures dangling from the ends. Some hang on and begin a bumbling, trundling acrobatic display while others fall to the stage and explode in showers of chaotic magic. Now they're dealing with the bigtops AND the falling trapeze bombs!

Khannie decides to focus on avoidance for now thanks to the hail of bloated not-corpses with empty faces. Her form because a blur of white and crimson, a streak of motion zipping between the familiars.

[Keeper]

[Entryway]

"Hmmmm...."
Obsidian looks at the eggs and tries to decide which one to give. She could give this one or that one, but...to be honest, she still doesn't know what the eggs want. So giving one of those before she figures it out might be bad.

"Chocolate one's okay?" she asks.
She grabs the chocolate one, and puts it into his mouth.

Entryway

Eggs aren't good at speaking their minds.

Kol can't chew great with his dragon jaws but he does accept the treat.
"Thanks.
So what's with the eggs? You're just going around handing them out?" It's a bit of a weird activity for a school visit day.

[Thursday Violist]

[Entryway]

"Hm?"
Obsidian thinks for several whiles, then shakes her head. "No, it's because I'm trying to figure out what eggs like best," she says.
She glances around, leans in a little, and whispers like she's got a secret. "I'm pretty sure they don't like too much noise or movement."

"You don't seem too noisy, though, so I'm sure that one will like you."

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Hiep realizes that their current fight is pointless. There's no end of these creatures. They'll fight them off until they drop.

"Come on! We've got to get above them!"

She deflects a bomb in the middle of the crowd of creatures, then tries to simply punch two of the corpses off their ropes so she can Khannie can climb on.

[Keeper]

Entryway

"I'm pretty sure eggs don't usually have thoughts on the matter. Because they're eggs."
Kol leans forward, squinting at her.
"Unless...are you one of those Concept wizards who can talk to anything?"
He doesn't tell her that he has already eaten that egg she gave him.

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

Smacking the bloated things free isn't too hard. They tumble through the air and explode in the midst of the other familiars. Khannie gets the idea pretty quick, grabbing into the trapeze set along with Hiep as they're both hauled off to the center ring looming high above! There's a sensation of movement at great speed, their surroundings a blur of faces as the 'audience' in the stands whizz past them. A door opens and they careen through. Then another. And another. The fog grows deeper and the features more vague until they crash through one final door and find themselves standing-

Come one come all and watch the fall of two fools who hope to dance
Enticed by deeds to walk and boasting talk they've lost their only chance
Now give three cheers and gruesome jeers for the Master of the Ring!
Tight binds the lash and roaring comes the crash as her terrible voice begins to Sing!
Each rope holds fast and each ball rolls past and every grinning face has a tale to tell
Remember my friends you'll now meet your ends here in the final circle of hell.

Studded with faces
Tangled with ropes
A great mass of canvas and tent poles and hate
Gravid with clowns and surmounted with crowns
Enter center stage and behold the Witch of Dying Laughter

"Okay good we got to the center quick. That's her DON'T hold still!" Khannie yells as she's already moving, zipping to one side as a hail of brass-tipped tent poles like spidery legs come ripping out of the heart of the Witch and smash into the space she occupied moments earlier. All around the faceless audience cheers.

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Once, there was a maiden…
...made from a lump of iron, shaped by wind, sea, and fire.
Fearing how wood might shape her, she ran, and did not look back.
One day, she forgot what she ran from.
So she pulled out her heart to ask it.
“Why don’t you look back and see?” it said.
So, she sighed and threw her heart away.

“I have no use for beginnings,” said she.

Hiep's fists clench and her feet are planted firmly on the ground. When she sets out, golden stardust is kicked up by her sandals. She moves with purpose towards the center of the ring, plowing through any obstacles in her path, her goal clear and precise.

"If you know who I am, you know what I can do. Prepare to face Heaven's justice."

Having asserted her authority this way, in a whisper so Khannie might not hear it, her power flows through her words. Threads of fate will try to wrench the witch into a physical form, one that Hiep can strike.

[Thursday Violist]

Entryway

"I'm pretty sure eggs don't usually have thoughts on the matter. Because they're eggs."
Kol leans forward, squinting at her.
"Unless...are you one of those Concept wizards who can talk to anything?"
He doesn't tell her that he has already eaten that egg she gave him.

[Entryway]

It's okay, Obsidian doesn't need to be told that he's already eaten the egg.
It's pretty obvious.
She shakes her head, though. "Nope, not a wizard. Just a dragon," she says. She tosses her hair back.

She picks up the snake egg out of the basket and holds it up to the light. "I mean, it's alive. Look at it. It definitely is thinking something, I just don't know what."

[Keeper]

Entryway

"But like...don't things usually have to be out of the egg before they start thinking things?"
Kol would argue that most things don't start thinking anything coherent besides 'feed me' for quite a while.

This dragon is a pretty weird person.

[Thursday Violist]

Entryway

"But like...don't things usually have to be out of the egg before they start thinking things?"
Kol would argue that most things don't start thinking anything coherent besides 'feed me' for quite a while.

This dragon is a pretty weird person.

[Entryway]

Obsidian gets bewildered.
"It's alive, isn't it? So why wouldn't it be thinking things?" she says, as she holds out the snake egg.

She returns that egg to the basket.

Obsidian gestures at the two zombies who have wandered into the courtyard behind her. "I mean, they're not even alive and even they think things sometimes."
As if to try to support her point, one of the zombies moans and the other groans 'brains'.

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

The hulking, seething form of the Witch is yanked, a thing of spirit and dark emotion pulled awkwardly into a coherent form. The effect is strange to say the least. Where before the Witch was an almost abstract symbol of someone's pain and despair now it looks more like a physical object. Instead of that awful clashing existence that grates against reality it just looks like...

A thing.

A horrible jumbled thing.

But still a thing.

This causes the whole Labyrinth to stutter like some great machine that just had a wrench thrown into its gears. Where before everything was in a constant dizzying motion of jittering parts it now grinds to a twitching halt. It's really something to see. Of course, this also means that Hiep has the opportunity to plow straight through several 'clowns' disgorged by the Witch and get up in the malign spirit's business.

Khannie seems a little surprised by this. The last time she saw a Witch forced into physicality was when Fortuna inverted one. This isn't quite the same but the end result isn't too different. The Witch is now available to attack in more traditional ways.

Fair enough.

The Witch hoists itself on high with spidery tent-pole legs to loom out of reach but that isn't about to stop Khannie. In a blur of motion the zoroark launches herself at the Witch, grasping the thing in her paws before brutally body-slamming it straight into the middle of the ring. Its whole form creaks and groans, poles twitching spasmodically as ropes lash about blindly at our heroes.

Reality flutters within the twisted space like a butterfly with a wounded wing. The Witch is trying to control its domain but in this dubiously physical state it can't quite seem to manage.

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Hiep launches herself at the Witch, aiming an elbow-slam with much more force than her weight would suggest. Then she proceeds to punch it several times, her hands glowing yellow.

"One... last... chance... to surrender!"

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

There's no surrender.

There can't be.

There's only the sound of manic shrieking, somewhere between laughter and sobs.

Khannie doesn't even try to avoid the rope attacks herself. They're just too obvious to even bother. Lashes pass right through her, causing her body to twist like smoke before quickly taking back her natural shape. It does kinda mess with her school uniform a bit. One particularly vicious lash clips her top straight off.

Which seems to make Khannie mad.

It isn't as if there's anything to see under there. She's a vaguely human-shaped fox monster.

But none the less she flushes for but a moment before growling with anger. She plunges one paw blazing with bitter malice deep into the Witch, its unnatural form blackening with frostbite around the wound.

"You JERK you had better not have ripped my shirt!"

[Morty]

[New Staff]

Without any further commentary, Hiep straightens and brings her right foot down at the witch. There's a finality to it, boosted by a power that seems to slumber in her sandals. The resulting force would be enough to smash a human's head like a rotted squash.

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

The Witch shatters.

And with it, so does the world.

Ten thousand glittering fragments tumbling through the air, each reflecting a moment in the life of a girl that was deceived down the path to despair and ruination.

Then they're standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading to the school's boiler room. Because of course it has a boiler room.

Khannie picks up two things. The first is her school uniform shirt which she shrugs back on. The second is a black sphere covered in silver filigree coming to a sharp point at the bottom with a little silver ball charm at the top. Khannie looks at the trinket for what feels like a long time before closing the fingers of her paw around it. In a swirl of shadows her teen girl disguise has returned.

"Hey, thanks for the help," she says to the definitely normal janitor. "Whatever you did to the Witch really knocked her off balance. That fight wouldda been a lot harder otherwise."

[Ironsmith]

Detention
Mary goes back to her homework. Except...
That tapping.
That infernal tapping.
She squirms in her seat at first. She doesn't want to start a fight so soon after they called truce.
But she can't concentrate. She steels herself.
"Could you please stop with the..." she drums her own claws on her desk to indicate what she means.

[Detention]

"Hm?" Aiko looks up at Mary, her fingers coming to an abrupt halt. "Stop with the...?" She prompts, waiting for Mary to finish the sentence.

Of course, if Mary leaves it there, she's going right back to tapping.

She can't just sit and do nothing.

Parts Unknown

Kol can barely tell that she's there to be honest. He has very strong shoulders.
He glances at the assembled fiendlings. If the meal is wrapping up he may want to play nice long enough to get out of here. As long as he keeps Braeg at arms' length.
"Gathered fiendlings of Leastwood." he says after clearing his throat.
"I know you half again as much as I'd like, and I dislike you half as much as you deserve. Happy whatever this holiday is."
His coughs, sending a spray of seawater in Braeg's general direction.
"Thank you."

Crystal Dorms

Contrary to her opinions, Mac seems to be having plenty of fun simply with the game itself. She'll have to put up with his chatter, his offering of snacks every twenty minutes, and his general refusal of propriety on every sixth thing he says.
"So, is you dorm nice? Maybe we could alternate our little parties some time. But if that's private you're welcome to come back here. It's no problem. I like playing host."

[Parts Unknown]

The fox on Kol's back winces as spatters of seawater splash against Braeg's face, and she shrinks back behind his neck warily.

Braeg wipes his hand over his face and frowns. "...Master Kol." He begins, his voice eerily calm. "That was bloody disgraceful."

The fiendling claps a hand on Kol's shoulder and chuckles. "A roasting is a game of wit." He continues cheerily. "And while it seems almost unfair to pit you against anyone here, unfortunately, we don't have any rocks for you to go up against."

The assembled fiendlings howl with laughter, accompanied by much fist-pounding on the tables and jeering, urging Kol to retaliate.

[Crystal Dorms]

"I don't have a dorm." Aiko notes simply. "I live off-campus with my foster nana. And while I hesitate to call it nice, since ny basis for comparison is a crystal palace, I will say it has a certain rustic charm which is not to be underestimated." She wordlessly draws a card, flips it for Mac to see, and moves her pawn.

Whispering Sea

The bushbaby tilts its head to one side and smiles in response, before disappearing. The prophetic vision should end now, as Ecbatana tries to end it. This may well result in Aikobaz getting a headache. It depends on if she's ever had to worry about something interfering with her augury and, in addition to interfering, attempting to block it whilst it's in use. Ecbatana isn't trying to hurt Aikobaz, but it's also not (yet?) invested in her enough to protect her from any backlash.

[Whispering Sea]

Aiko's eyes snap open as she sits up straight, waking rather abruptly from her dream, followed by a loud bunk! as the top of her head bounces off the ceiling of the carriage. The empress lets out a rather unladylike curse as sne rubs at the sore spot, borrowing some vocabulary she'd overheard from Nana to make sure it's at least setting-appropriate.

...Though probably not appropriate in any other sense.

Anyway. Ecbatana didn't seem to have presented her with anything too helpful. Aiko's walking into a comparatively ordinary coronation situation. She's not who the Loremasters were looking for and she knows it, so she isn't likely to pass Ecbatana's test, whatever it is.

...So what should she do now?

[Keeper]

Entryway

"Well, like, are they fertilized? Is that basket warm enough to incubate them? Otherwise they might not be alive."
Eggs have very particular needs that he isn't sure Obsidian has been meeting. Or where she got them.

Parts Unknown

Kol makes a very noticeable point to step backwards to keep Braeg's hand from getting anywhere near him.
"Terribly sorry, but as my mother's son I have a connection to the ocean. And it decided its presence was necessary since it's the only known thing as vast as your ego."

Crystal Dorms

"Well, you're welcome to my little Crystal (dorm) Palace whenever you want. Can't do much about the walls, though." They're a rather boring color.
Mac makes his own move, just barely coming within one square of Aiko's pawn.

[bc56]

Detention
"You know... The tapping." Mary again taps her desk in an imitation of Aiko's nervous tic.
This isn't restarting their fight! Mary's being very polite about it!

[Thursday Violist]

Entryway

"Well, like, are they fertilized? Is that basket warm enough to incubate them? Otherwise they might not be alive."
Eggs have very particular needs that he isn't sure Obsidian has been meeting. Or where she got them.

[Entryway]

Obsidian nods, and shows off the snake egg. "This one's alive," she says.
She puts it back in the basket, then pulls out the bird egg. "This one's not fertilized but still edible."
She holds up the turtle egg. "Too soon to tell."
Then she takes a plastic easter egg from one of the zombies, and holds it up. "This one's dead, sadly. Has been for some time."
She hands it back to the zombie.
..
...
....
then finally notices something.
"Oh, shoot." There's two zombies here in the courtyard with them.
"I came here with three zombies."

She frantically looks around, trying to find where the other zombie has gone off to. "Did you see the other one come in here?"

Currently, the spare zombie is dragging its feet down some hallway.


[Some hallway]

A zombie holding a purse is limping down a hallway, groaning something about brains and how it can't find any brains.
It seems...hungry.

[Ironsmith]

[Detention]

"Oh. Right." Aiko's cheeks flush a light orange as she folds her hands under her arms, giving Mary an apologetic smile.

...Thirty seconds later, Mary will be greeted with the nervous staccato of shoes tapping against the floor.


[Parts Unknown]

The assembled fiendlings laugh uproariously at Kol's comment, and he'll here a few scattered "oooh"s among their members.

"My 'ego'. Is that the term we're using for it now?" Braeg asks, giving a furtive glance downward. "Well, I suppose you have that much right. As your mother can attest."

The laughter stops as the fiendlings all stare at Braeg warily. That one was not even borderline blasphemous.

Braeg makes a "come on, laugh" gesture with his hands, and there's a few scattered "eheheh"s among the crowd. Looks like Kol has the upper hand.

[Crystal Dorms]

"...I'll bear that in mind." Aiko replies, flashing a card bearing the titular interjection and sending Mac's pawn back to its starting position.

"...But there's one thing I want to make perfectly clear, here, from the beginning." She says, holding up her hand. "As much as this school seems to endlessly encourage every boy and every girl among its student body to pair off, that will not be happening between us. This goes no farther than host and guest. Understood?"

[Morty]

[New Staff]

"Having a trick or two up your sleeve helps a lot in this job. That was nasty. Could have ended really badly if we hadn't stepped in." Hiep is more shaken and disturbed by this experience than she lets on. She feels like this wasn't a simple monster, but something tormented and twisted. "What's this?" She points at the sphere.

[Keeper]

Entryway

Kol looks up, glancing around nervously.
"Uh, no I wasn't paying attention. You uh, probably want to go find him. You could get in trouble for unleashing a zombie into the school if it bites someone. They're not the infectious kind, are they?"
Because that would be really, really bad.

Parts Unknown

"Really? Because last I checked, she was last seen vanishing off the face of the planet. I've never heard of being such a bad date you made a goddess give up her position but I guess there's a first time for everything."
That one is a bit more of a growl. Kol was in middle school not that long ago. He's dealt with Your Mom jokes before. But he really thought Braeg would be above that level of petty.

Crystal Dorms

"Well, yeah. I figured you weren't really into ham." Mac snorts. He was going to use a different word but decided it would sound more inappropriate than the other option. He doesn't even flinch at the loss of his piece.
"I was hoping it would be a tiny bit more than that, though. Maybe a word starting with F, hmm?"

[Rebonack]

[New Staff]

"Witches are really bad new if you're not knowing what to expect. They don't make much sense, usually," Khannie admits. "There's a saying, 'A surprised Magical Girl is a dead Magical Girl'. If a Witch catches you off guard the CHOMP and it's all done. But whatever you did to her REALLY messed her up. She couldn't really fight back."

Which made their job way easier.

Khannie begins sniffing at the air, turning her nose this way and that before heading deeper into the boiler room.

"The grief seed? It's, uuhh..." Khannie begins, sounding somewhat uncomfortable. "It's what's left of the Witch. There's still a person's soul buried in it. I'm hoping her real body is down here somewhere since my friend's mom figured out how to fish someone out of these hells. They still need a body, though, otherwise they're just DEAD dead."