Magical Happenings at Astorius Academy [IC, Pathfinder]

[Steel Mirror]

https://s9.postimg.io/ovlzkrshr/Astorius.jpg

Day 1 at Astorius Academy!
Midmorning, 3 days before the beginning of Autumn
The skies above Lundt

“Move out of the way, you useless cow,” demanded the student standing next in line to walk down the gangplank. “If you don’t move your gigantic rear end and stop blocking the exit, we’ll be be late. If we’re late, we’ll miss the sorting ceremony. If we can’t be sorted, they’ll send us straight back home to wait for next year. And if I, Sianna of the Four Ways, get sent from Astorius Academy in disgrace because of a cowardly, horse-brained child who can’t even manage to walk downhill, then I will have to kill you!

Behind that impatient student waiting at the doorway off the airship, a few dozen children milled in a nervous mass as they waited for their turn to disembark and finally set foot on the legendary floating island. Most of them couldn’t see what was happening, but they could all hear it. The hubbub of excited conversation quickly died down to a murmur of hushed questions and confused answers as everyone craned their necks to see what all the fuss was about.

Everyone likes a show.

From your position next in line, you could see everything. The yelling student in front of you, standing proudly with her arms crossed at the open hatch and staring down the forty foot long wooden gangplank. On either side of the steeply angled plank was nothing but open air, giving you a disorienting but admittedly impressive view of the thousand meter drop to the earth below. Beyond the plank, the dozens of students who had already gone ashore were trickling off the pier and up the winding path towards the walls of the Academy, which were just visible peeking over the nearby hills.

The target of the angry student’s ire was standing frozen in the middle of the gangplank, hands gripped tightly around each of the rails so that he blocked the entirety of the path off the ship. He was a centaur, about the same age as you from the look of him, but taking up a lot more space by virtue both of his quadrupedal lower half as well as the baker’s dozen of suitcases, sacks, and knicknacks strapped to his back like saddlebags.

There was no getting around him, at least not unless you had a fly speed. He’d been standing there silently for the last minute or so, petrified, taking neither a step forward nor back and not responding when anyone spoke to him.

And people were getting impatient. Especially, apparently, Sianna of the Four Ways. You didn’t know her, though she’d been one of the loudest and most flamboyant presences on the trip up to the floating island from the city below.

As you stood there, cold wind tugging at your cloak and curious students slowly pressing up behind you to get off the ship (or at least get a look at all the fuss), you could see the annoyance growing in this Sianna person’s body language. She raised one arm, and instantly you could feel the thrum of magic in the air. Her skin glowed softly and her clothing, richly embroidered robes, rose and fluttered slightly as though no longer subject to gravity.

“Fine, then,” she yelled down the gangplank. “If you're not going to move, I’ll just force you out of my way. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to think over your mistakes on the trip back down to the ground!”
https://s11.postimg.io/widbquupf/Sianna_Of_The_Four_Ways.jpg

Welcome to the IC thread! I'll post a bit more info over in the OOC thread, where you can ask me OOC questions and stuff until we're all situated and ready to start. Let's have fun with this, guys!

[Nettlekid]

At or below waist height, often at eye-level with the lock of a trunk or suitcase, a lump of cloak scurries through the crowd to get a glance at the spectacle. A nictitating membrane flicks across his bright red eyes to shield from the dryness of these high-altitude winds, but those eyes are darting back and forth to take in these new developments. Truthfully, Anura hasn't yet become accustomed to this airship or the concept of a floating island either, and can understand the centaur's reluctance to trust his own footing. He's not quite as paralyzed by fear - a childhood of leaping through jungle canopies and a body equipped with aerodynamic webbing makes him less afraid of heights than any reasonable entity without such equipment. Nonetheless, he taps his rounded toes against the wooden gunwale and is relieved by the resistance the tiny suckers exert. They can hold him against walls and on ceilings; he's not about to be blown off the ship by a breeze.

Although he could sympathize in a sense with Sianna's impatience, as he too was anxious to step onto land and familiarize himself with what would be the setting for an undoubtedly defining time in his life, Anura felt himself stiffen with shock as the girl threatened the centaur with violence, and then even more so as it looked like she was going to make good on her threat! She wouldn't really do that, would she? There must be laws against such things! His mind raced, but in this short amount of time he wouldn't be able to persuade the centaur to find bravery and move along. Weren't there meant to be adults about, staff that could aid in this kind of thing? Zip-zoop and magic up some flighty wings to carry the centaur ashore?

Anura's hand went to his sleeve and withdrew his "wand," which was less of a true wand than a tapered stick taken from...well, he couldn't actually remember where the stick had come from or what kind of tree, but he knew that his magic worked far better with it in hand than not. For a moment he considered creating a protective bubble around the centaur to guard it, but that wouldn't actually solve any predicament. The centaur would still be stuck on the ramp. However, that did give him an idea. He readied his wand, prepared to wave it in an instant. If Sianna was as foolhardy as she seemed and was about to knock the centaur over the edge, Anura would create a bubble around the centaur as soon as it had left the gangplank. His bubbles were not tremendously sturdy, but they ought to withstand the centaur's weight and they were fixed in space where they were created. The centaur wouldn't fall if it was inside one. Then someone could fetch a responsible adult to fix the situation.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that, of course, and that Sianna was bluffing, and that he wouldn't have to step in at all. The less done, the better.

[AmberVael]

The all too familiar phrase, 'patience is a virtue' floated through Azalea's mind as she waited and grew less virtuous with each second that passed. Maybe patience is a virtue, but dawdling should be a sin, She thought, crossing her arms. Getting stuck behind someone else was infuriating, and she struggled to be understanding of the obviously petrified student.

So Sianna's outburst, unmeasured and ridiculous as it was, got sympathy from Azalea. She did, however, take a step closer to Sianna. "Don't bother, you can just take the stylish way down instead. Walking is so pedestrian, after all." Azalea delivered her wordplay with perfect innocence, then offered Sianna her hand. "Allow me?" If Sianna was as haughty and aristocratic as she seemed, perhaps she would be more inclined to favor Azalea, who was dressed in her finest in honor of the day; her gleaming blonde hair and shining golden eyes were matched by polished jewelry set with amethysts, while a long, carefully embroidered purple dress and a saffron garment halfway between cape and shawl draped over one arm and shoulder completed her attire. The flowing, folded cloths fluttered in the wind, but Azalea stood tall and elegant, her brilliant gaze focused on Sianna.

[Steel Mirror]

As Azalea spoke, Sianna's spell came to completion with a quick gust of wind that blasted out from her, rustling hair and flapping robes among the watching students. Any other effect of her magic wasn't immediately apparent. The centaur boy was still standing halfway down the plank, still rigid with fear and indecision, still blocking the entire pathway off the ship.

Sianna turned briskly toward Azalea, then paused and blinked a few times as she looked the other girl over. Sianna wasn't a tall girl, though she wasn't anything like as short as Anura, who stood a half step to the side of Azalea. She was a human, probably (though there were any number of other races who looked close enough that it was hard to be sure, especially for Anura to whom many of the humanoid races probably looked quite similar). She was just a short human. So she looked a little diminished standing next to the proud, resplendent Azalea.

She found her voice quickly. "That's a very generous offer I'm sure, but there is also the principle to be concerned with. This student is blocking the path for all of his fellow students, not just you and me. We may not have officially begun at the Academy, but that does not mean that we can't teach a few...early lessons."

As she spoke, something floated up from behind her left shoulder and hovered there. A mask, no bigger than two fists together and made of sticks, was floating only inches away from Sianna's left cheek. It looked like a fox. A second later, another fox mask, this one made of fiery red and glossy white porcelain, floated up from behind her to take position over her right shoulder. Though they were disembodied and had only gaps where the eyes would be, Azalea and Anura got the distinct impression that the masks were looking at them.

A scratchy voice came from the one on her left, oddly modulated as though it were being heard after echoing down a long metal pipe. After a moment, the one on her right spoke as well.

Made of sticks: "This one is very pretty! May we get to know her?"

Made of porcelain: "Ignore Autumn, I still want to push the mule child off the ledge. Pleeeeease, sister? You haven't let us play for days upon days!"
Sianna aimed half a frown at the floating masks but said nothing in return. When she did speak, it was still addressed to Azalea and still in lightly accented common. "It is for his good as much as our need. If he cannot overcome this simple fear, he will never become a great mage. He will only pull down whichever House is burdened with him."

Try as Anura might, no adults were visible who might bring order to this situation. Well, there was one adult, a dwarf, standing behind the wheel of the ship a few dozen feet away and apparently not caring a single whit for anything the students were doing. He was smoking an old filthy pipe and reading some tattered magazine, a magazine which looked to be entirely unsuitable to young eyes if one was to judge by its faded, racy cover.

https://s9.postimg.io/ev9h315kf/autumnfox.jpghttps://s11.postimg.io/95umlme1v/summerfox.jpg

[Grek]

Frantically hopping up and down at the back of the crowd, Melwyn von Wingwood stood aghast at the proceedings. "How incredibly and senselessly rude! Can't she see how utterly terrified he is? And with good reason, being this high up on such a rickety bridge." Drawing her wand (seven spiraling inches of willow wood with a leather wrist strap), she began to prod her fellow students in the backs of the legs, squeaking, "You there - budge over, will you please? I need to just get within sight for a moment!" as she shuffled toward the edge of the cliff, completely ignoring the gangplank.

Once within sight of the edge, she took a brief gulp of air and tried to center herself. 'I'm not going to fall.' Melwyn thought to herself as she took the final step out of the crowd and toward the incredibly dangerous edge of the island. 'This isn't going to be like the riding lesson. I can do this. It'll be fine. Nobody needs to get hurt.' With that thought and an underarm sweep leading into an upward brandish, Melwyn cast her spells. "Xylokaikleua! Metaxi!" In a puff of mist, a duplicate of the existing gangplank appeared five feet beside it, arced at the same downward angle. Six seconds later, a silken hammock twenty feet across extended beneath both bridges, ready to catch anyone who might accidentally fall off.


Spell Points: 4/8
Spells Cast:
Xylokaikleua (Create Wood and Rope; Distant, Lengthened) -2 Spell Points
[roll0] to Craft (if necessary)
Metaxi (Create Silk; Distant, Lengthened, Expanded Materials) -2 Spell Points
[roll1] to Craft (if necessary)

[Steel Mirror]

"Ooof!"

"Hey!"

"Oh hello there little lady, allow me to introdu-"

"Ack! Watch the tail!"

Melwyn pressed and squeezed herself past her classmates to the front of the scrum, emerging onto the vertigo-inducing edge of the ship just behind Azalea and Anura. A few people gasped and someone even applauded as her first creation coalesced from the mist.

The new gangplank settled with a dull "THUNK" directly next to the old one, sending a barely perceptible shudder through the ship's deck. Melwyn was already shaping her thoughts and the words to call her next creation into existence when the centaur student, surprised by the appearance and the sound of the settling gangplank, flinched.

"I can't do this. Can't do this. Please, I can't do this," he muttered to himself as his legs began to tremble. He tried to shuffle back, but one of his back hooves slipped and he squeaked in alarm, grabbing the rope rails even more tightly in fear.

Silk spread into being beneath him and the plank beside him, though he hardly seemed to notice it. It was a pretty substantial safety net; Melwyn would probably want to double check how it was secured before trusting it to catch anyone who fell (or was flung) off the plank, but it was a solid creation to be proud of. Several of the watching students certainly seemed to think so.

"What? I can barely manage to make a biscuit! Who made that, I can't see - was that really a student?"

The creation rolls were excellent, so your magical constructs are quite solidly crafted and even pleasant to look at! I think that the hammock to catch them probably needs som solid anchor points though if you want to actually support anyone's weight with it, especially a centaur with a heavy load. But you can come up with a way to do that if you like, or explain how you were planning on it being attached if I'm missing something. Cool spell though, and nice rolls!

[jamieth]

Izumi

A short, thin, pale girl visibly struggling under the weight of her - not particularly heavy-looking - bag kept to the back of the group, stoically enduring both the encumbrance and the delay. Her mind, however, was racing, trying to think of a way to resolve the situation. She briefly considered lifting the terrified student and carrying him down, but... no, he was too large for that. That rude girl, Sianna, she probably could, barely - but that would do nothing to help others.

When the second plank appeared, Izumi - on the occasion of not trying to get closer to the first one previously - happened to be closest to it... and, after tapping it with her foot briefly to make sure it wasn't an illusion (who would make an illusion of a plank in a situation like that was beyond her, but just in case), strolled forward without hesitation, ignoring the rope rails as she held her bag in both hands.

But, however sturdy and fancy-looking the new plank was, it could, at best, solve the problem for every student except one.

Leaving her bags on the pier-side, she stepped onto the plank - the original one - again and soon faced the centaur, silently extending the hand to him in an offer to help him down.
Aid another on Acrobatics - autosucceed. If needed, Diplomacy: [roll0]

[Steel Mirror]

As soon as Izumi made it safely across, a slow trickle of other students began walking down, hesitantly at first but with more confidence as it became clear that nobody was plunging screaming to their doom. As they walked by the centaur, a few of them laughed and pointed. The centaur kept his eyes tightly shut, still shaking as he inched slowly backward.

Izumi made her way silently up the original gangplank, feeling it bounce slightly under her feet with each stride. When she reached the centaur, he opened his eyes long enough to see her, but he immediately made the mistake of looking down. Long stretches of expensive looking silk swayed in the wind beneath their feet, but the ground beyond was still visible. The centaur closed his eyes tightly again with a panicked squeak.

"D-d-d-d-don't worry about me," he stuttered, eyes still shut. "Th-th-the other girl is right, I'll slow you down too much. Just go on without me, I'll...figure this out." He didn't sound very certain of that. In fact, he sounded like he was about to throw up.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, Sianna was watching the rest of their class make use of Melwyn's ingenuity with a sour expression on her face.

The masks spoke again, their scratchy almost childlike voices again distorted and somehow unaccountably distant. The one made of sticks flipped upside down as it spoke, wiggling back and forth and making a keening noise that communicated disappointment even to those who couldn't understand the words it was speaking.

"Awwwww, why are they trying to spoil our fun? Haven't we behaved like you asked us? Haven't we been good? I don't care if they are pretty little things, it's rude to interrupt someone else's jape."

"So what if there is another path? We can still push him, right? He's so top heavy he'll flip right over!"
Again, Sianna seemed to ignore the masks. "Impressive," she remarked to Melwyn. "I suppose I should have expected as much from Astorius students. Although if that is any sort of indication..." She motioned vaguely in the direction of the terrified centaur.

Then she turned back to look into Azalea's eyes. "Though I must admit, I am still intrigued by your offer. What is the 'stylish' way down?"

[jamieth]

Izumi

"Ceremony starts once we get to the school", Izumi stated flatly, "meaning, it won't start until we get there." It was a somewhat faulty logic, admittedly, but good enough for now. "Give me your luggage; it would be easier without it." Granted, anyone who saw her struggling with her own, much smaller, bag, might be puzzled as to how did she expect to be able to help the centaur with his...

[Hella Lugosi]

Columbus had done his best to ignore the proceedings. A terrified centaur stuck on the gangplank, that was annoying. But there was nothing he could do about it - nothing that didn't involve making things considerably worse anyway - and so had tried to let it slide. The arrogant student too, he could cope with as she shouted endlessly during the flight over, albeit by continually squeezing a tennis ball in his fist to relieve his stress.

But the two of them combined was something else.

Finally rising from his seat, he pushed his way to the head of the mob, effortlessly towering over the other students. By the time he arrived at the front, he noticed another student create a new gangplank - maybe he could just take the easy way out, wait for the centaur to fix his own problems.

Nah.

He took to the centaur's gangplank, moving slowly along it so as not to startle him too much as he was distracted by another student offering to help him down. He waited before he was just behind him before speaking, lowering his voice to a threatening tone. "If you don't get yourself off this gangplank right now, I'll do it for you."

Intimidate: [roll0]

[Steel Mirror]

Izumi, Columbus

The kid Izumi was talking to looked younger than she was. He winced yet again at her offer, but then moved one hand, slowly, to take one of his bags off his back. "I'm gonna die," he whined. "I'm going to die before my first day at school! I never even got to make a friend."

And then Columbus spoke, his deep voice and threatening tone enough to make even Izumi take notice. The centaur's eyes snapped wide open, and he stiffened once more in fright. The bag that was in his hand slipped, then fell through his fingers and off the side of the plank. Fortunately, it landed in the silk hammock below, and was stopped. For now. It looked like the place where the hammock was attached to the far end of the pier was starting to give way, though. It didn't seem all that likely that it would support a whole centaur's worth of weight by itself.

The gangplank creaked softly in the wind. "Is there...some kind of ogre behind me?" the kid whispered in a frightened rasp. He didn't look behind himself. "Oh stars, my brothers told me that there were ogres living up here! Don't let him eat me!"

At least he seemed to have forgotten about the fall.

[jamieth]

"No, just another student who thinks he's more important than everyone else", Izumi replied just as flatly as before. "It's OK, I'll fetch it for you..." she took the step back, closed her eyes for a moment, spread her arms and started spinning in place, wide sleeves of her ornamental kimono tracing wavy patterns in the air.
Using Sustained Force to telekinetically move the dropped bag to the pier. Skilled casting check: [roll0], vs. DC 19. update: passed, so TK works at CL 4; with Powerful TK talent, enough to lift Small object without spending SP. Writing the following assuming that'll be enough; would edit otherwise.
With another swing of Izumi's arm, the bag, perilously laying in the hammock, slowly rose into the air and floated to the level of her eyes. Not interupting the dance, girl slowly moved down the plank, bag following her, and gently lowered it on the pier next to her own bag.

"Next one!" she called out, her cheeks turning slightly red clearly visible against her pale skin and a thin smile the first expression of emotion on her face since the start of the incident.

[Nettlekid]

Anura shrinks even further into the folds of his cloak, made anxious by the quick-paced flow of student traffic bustling around him. He's pleased that the situation seems to be somewhat calmed, but even if students can exit the ship on the second gangplank there's still the issue of the centaur to deal with. Despite the kindly efforts of some students and less kindly efforts of others, it still seemed unwilling to move. A concern of poor footing, perhaps?

To get a slightly better vantage point, Anura hops to the siding of the ship, elevated so that he can see the flat of the wood plank ahead of the centaur. Anura begins to trace just the tip of his stick through the air, hoping to remain unnoticed by the crowd. In front of the centaur's feet to about ten feet along the plank, silver-traced and faintly shimmering symbols materialize. They're hoofprints, numbered 1 through 4 repeating. An ethereal leg overlays the centaur's own right foreleg, lifting up and slowly descending to step squarely in the outline of the hoof marked 1. The phantom leg vanishes and reappears overlaying the centaur's leg, and repeats the slow motion.

Anura's just using a Trick, so it's obviously identifiable as an Illusion, no spell point being expended. He's showing the centaur exactly where to step, and showing him the first step to make. If the centaur manages to make that step, Anura will continue with the illusion to then show how the second leg should step into the second hoofprint, and if the centaur gets far enough Anura will slide the whole illusion down to keep going.

If the centaur hesitates for a round before moving, Anura will keep concentration on the Trick with his move actions and ready his standard to cast the Barrier ward bubble like before, in case the centaur falls or the bridge breaks. If the centaur moves right away and falls, I'll expend a Hero Point to act out of turn to cast the Barrier anyway.

And if pertinent, Sleight of Hand check to avoid drawing attention to myself as I cast the Trick. [roll0]

[Grek]

Melwyn winced as she saw the bag hit her hammock. There's no way that would hold. "Ah, excuse me, need to double check the other end. Don't worry, don't worry! I'm sure it'll be fine. Excuse me, though!" she hastened to the other side of the platform, very pointedly not looking at the centaur, the fight or (particularly) the ground. There was nothing she could do there, and it looked like two other people had already volunteered to help. Once on the other side, Melwyn cast a few further spells, pointing her wand with one hand to the other. "Metaxi. Xylo."

First, a length of silk rope around her waist, to tie her to the bridge. No sense falling off, after all. Next, a wooden shepherds hook, to reach down under the bridge and get at this side of the safety net. Adjusting it should be simple enough, but what change to make? Clearly, it needed attached somewhere else. But where?


Spell Points: 4/8
Create Gear Uses: 6/8 (ten feet of knotted silk rope; a hooked quarterstaff)
[roll0]Climb (if needed)
[roll1]Perception (to find other places I might be able to tie the hammock)

[AmberVael]

"I mean, yeah, but I don't think making him more terrified is going to teach him anything." Azalea pointed out, before smiling at the masks. She spoke in kind, addressing the one of sticks while keeping a measuring eye on the other.

"Why thank you! I'm Azalea. And who are the two of you?" Her words were delivered naturally, clearly, and without hesitation, though they were marked by a distinctive accent and her word choice was a bit peculiar. Nothing she said was wrong, but it was a bit... archaic, perhaps.
She watched with mild interest as the gangplank and the centaur were swarmed with people attempting to help one way or another. The creation of the bridge was greeted with an approving nod and a grin, and she soon set the matter out of her mind; her attention returned to Sianna, whose expressed curiosity received a reply and a bit of twinkling satisfaction in Azalea's eyes. "The Way is the stylish way down." She answered, dipping her hand into the folds of a belt-like cloth about her waist and drawing out a calligraphy brush with a flourish. With great finesse she wove the tool through the air, leaving behind a diagram of silver circles connected by thick double lines, each circle adorned with a single celestial letter.

"Open the Way!" She declared with confidence, setting her hand to the diagram. It blazed with light in response to her touch and then dissolved, falling like sand to her feet where it formed a shining path. The silver path led through a corridor of darkened mist, and then exited out onto the island below them, completely disregarding the intervening space. Satisfied with her work, Azalea turned and again offered Sianna her hand to help her onto the path. "After you."

This is simply a flavorful teleport using the Warp sphere. Since the distance to the island is a bit longer than Azalea's default range, she'll spend a spell point to increase her range to Medium, which should definitely let her teleport Sianna down to an open spot on the island below. She can only teleport one person at a time though, so she'll only be teleporting Sianna and Sianna's luggage here. (Though she'll follow up shortly).

[Steel Mirror]

As the students passed by on their new bridge, several of them continued to laugh at the centaur. They seemed to be amused by the scene on display: Melwyn racing through the crowd and along the pier, conjuring up even more gear from nothingness. Izumi trying to coax the centaur down while Columbus loomed behind. And now the appearance of phantom hoofprints, though most in the crowd didn't have the observational skill to notice that the source of that spell was the froggy student stuck to the side of the ship.

Which didn't mean that nobody noticed Anura. "Wow, look at the size of that frog!" An elf was looking at him from the gangplank, pointing at him for the benefit of her human friend. "And it's even dressed in it's own tiny, adorable little robes! My parents bought me a toad for my familiar but I have no idea what to do with it, all it does is croak and poop."

--------------------------

Meanwhile, back down in the middle of the attempt to talk the centaur down from the gangplank, things seemed to be at last be moving along. Izumi's graceful performance drew its own share of appreciative (and a few confused) comments, but at least it was progress. Her happy request for the 'next one!' went unanswered by the centaur however, as he seemed to be more concerned at the moment with whatever was behind him. The centaur turned, slowly, to face Columbus, gulping fretfully when the muscular physique and piercing green eyes finally came into view. "S-s-s-s-so sorry sir! Am I in your w-w-w-way?" Even as he spoke, he took an uncertain and perhaps involuntary step forward, placing a hoof precisely into the illusory outline marked "1". Then, he took another step.

Slow progress, but progress.

-------------------

At the pier, Melwyn was in luck. In addition to lamp posts spaced every thirty feet or so, there were a number of benches placed around to provide places for travellers to sit. At one spot about twenty feet away from where the gangplank reached the pier, there was a pile of supplies and crates and, oddly, two large statues of what looked like pandas made of clay. Right nearby was a small hut, maybe some kind of storage shed. Finally, the edges of the pier were all lined with sturdy-looking iron poles, with rope netting stretched between them to act as a railing.

Between all of that, something was bound to work as an anchor point.

--------------------

And back at the top of the ship, Azalea was showing off her magic, and her language skills.

"Fear can be a very good teacher," Sianna replied to Azalea. "If he chooses not to learn anything then there's no...helping..." She trailed off as Azalea's magic opened the Way.

Meanwhile, the mask made of porcelain responded to Azalea's words, bobbing up in down in excitement as it floated towards her.

Porcelain: "She knows how to talk! What fun! I didn't think we'd have anyone to talk to but sister, gods of other places are always so stupid."
The other mask, by contrast, slunk lower towards Sianna's shoulder and then half-hid behind the fabric of her head scarf.

Porcelain: "What, are you being serious? Why are you hiding now?"

Twigs: "I'm not hiding! Her magic just smells funny."

Porcelain: "Stop being a liar, you're just embarrassed that she heard you say she was pretty. Now come out from there and stop being rude. Good day to you, Azalea, my name is Summer (in Sylvan it's pronounced Huette) and this is my brother, Autumn (Roché). Very pleased to meet you!"
Once more Sianna seemed to ignore her two little companions, though this time more because she was entranced by the display of spellcraft than as a measured choice. She gasped ever so slightly as the Way resolved fully, allowing her hard expression to soften. "Is it safe?" she asked, taking a step forward. Absently, she placed one hand lightly onto Azalea's offered hand.

[Grek]

"Atsali."

With the net in hand, Melwyn tossed her newly conjured staff off the side of the platform and conjured a long steel knife, serrated on one side and dull on the other, to replace it. "Snip me fee, snip the net open, no, all the way through. And wrap around the pole." The benches wouldn't do, they didn't seem like they could hold a whole centaur. The statues might work, but they were far enough away that they'd need yet another conjured rope, and Melwyn simply didn't have enough magic in her for that and whatever the Sorting would require. The hut had a similar problem. No, the railing would simply have to hold out. Melwyn could keep an eye on them (like she'd have to do with the bridge, she realized - it wasn't safe to leave an unmarked conjured bridge over such a big drop) and fix them if they started to strain.

"Diorthono. Diorthono." With a twirl of her wand, the cut she'd made in the net repaired itself as if it had never been, leaving the rope wrapped around the railing without even having to untie anything. "Another snip here, and drag and wrap and... Diorthono. Diorthono!" Hopefully, the safety net would hold now. Her conjured tools had already run out and began fading back into vapour. First the rope, then her knife.

"Net should be fixed now! Just... try not to need it, alright?"


Spell Points: 4/8
Create Gear: 5/8
Atsali - Create Steel (Create Gear again)
[roll0] Rope Cutting Roll, if needed.
[roll1] Rope Cutting Roll, if needed.
[roll2] Rope Cutting Roll, if needed.
Diorthono - Repair
[roll3] Repair Roll, if needed.
[roll4] Repair Roll, if needed.
[roll5] Repair Roll, if needed.
[roll6] Repair Roll, if needed.
Diapththeiro - Destroy (not used, but I figured I'd specify it now)

[Hella Lugosi]

Columbus does his best to hide his grin as he sees the centaur's reaction, not wanting to ruin the impression he's made. He becomes vaguely aware of the other students trying to help him and others across, impressed at some of their ingenuity. But he decided to press on regardless. The carrot hadn't worked so far, so he might as keep on using the stick. Besides, he had just gotten into character.

"Yes, you are. I suggest you keep on moving." He lets himself break eye contact for a split second, and notices the glowing footprints that seem to be setting the centaur's new pace. He has no idea where they came from, and doesn't quite care right now, but they'll certainly help. "One step at a time." He tries to match the pace of the footprints as he slowly advanced towards the centaur, hoping he'll at least make a little more progress before seizing up entirely.

[AmberVael]

"Absolutely. The paths are made for sure, swift travel so that messengers can go wherever they are needed." With a firm hand and gentle push, Azalea showed Sianna through the opened pathway and to the pier below, placing her coincidentally a bit close to Melwyn. The path begin to fade then, but Azalea quickly skipped through after Sianna and hopped off of it before it vanished, coming out on the far end of the gangplank and past the frightened centaur. She skipped the rest of the way down and rejoined Sianna, a bit of puzzlement on her face as she looked towards the masks. After a moment's consideration, she spoke to them again.

"Am I misunderstanding you, or did you imply that you consider us gods?" She really didn't know how to put it more delicately than that, and as odd as it seemed, it was the best explanation she could think of for Summer's comment.
She looked towards Sianna with a little uncertainty, looking for disapproval or other subtle signs the other girl might want to pass along to her, then kept on with their conversation. "It can get a bit more unstable when you use it for really long distances, but I'm not good enough to make a path that far yet. Something like that is one of the Way's high mysteries, and I'm just an initiate. But hey, what about you? You definitely look like you've got some talent too; what's the story behind your... siblings?"

Azalea took just a moment to give a wave and a thumbs up to Melwyn. After all, that magical bridge was pretty cool, and neatly solved the problem of the centaur blocking the gangplank.


Azalea uses her own teleport after teleporting Sianna. However, she'll just use a normal teleport instead of spending a spell point to increase range, so she can't make it all the way down to the pier. She'll just teleport near to the end of the gangplank and walk the rest of the way down it.

[Steel Mirror]

"S-so sorry for the inconvenience, my friend," said the centaur as he took another couple of unsteady steps forward. "It's just that I'm not really used to heights, you see. N-n-n-never been in an airship before. Never even climbed a t-t-t-tree! I 'm sure you can imagine how difficult it would be for me to get much higher off the ground than my own four legs can lift me. The g-g-g-gods surely never intended for centaurs to be aeronauts!"

As he stammered and apologized and babbled, the trio of Columbus, Izumi, and the centaur were nonetheless making steady progress down the ramp and towards solid ground. Each step hit another of the illusory footprints, and with the centaur's terrified eyes locked firmly on the muscular kid with the tennis ball locked in a death grip, he no longer had any time to look down.

Azalea stepped out of her Way and skipped over to chat with Sianna, who was still looking with wonder at the fading remnants of Azalea's spell. The two masks were left behind by the two girl's sudden relocation, as Azalea's spell only opened a Way for one individual at a time (for now), but the masks quickly seemed to notice where the girls had reappeared. They yelped and leaped with excitement, then sped through the open air above the other students' heads to rejoin Azalea and Sianna on the pier.

Or rather, the porcelain mask that called itself Summer did. Autumn slowed down half way over, hovering in the air a few feet from the timorous centaur and cocking it's head back and forth as though inspecting him. Izumi and Columbus couldn't help but notice it, as well, though it didn't seem to spare a glance for either of them.

Summer ignored his tardy companion and answered Azalea's question.

"No, silly, you're no god!" He seemed quite amused by her question. "Don't worry though, I don't hold it against you. Even our esteemed sister isn't any sort of god, though she did marry-"
Sianna finally reacted to her companion, and cut in with an impatient tone.

"Quiet, Summer! You shouldn't talk about these things. Don't make me put you back to sleep." Then Sianna raised her voice, still speaking in Sylvan, but calling out to Autumn who was still floating around near the centaur and his gaggle of good Samaritans. "Get down here, Autumn! There is no time for you to play!"
It wasn't clear if it was Azalea's question or something that her mask companion had said, but the chilly demeanor that Sianna had displayed since the beginning of the encounter, and which Azalea had just begun to defrost, returned. Her face settled into a mask of mild disapproval.

"Thank you for your assistance, Azalea. Your magic is very impressive." She looked around at the other displays of magic currently being demonstrated, and Azalea thought she saw a trace of another emotion pass for a split second. "I don't really have time to chat right now, though. That fool has made us late enough already. I don't want to make a bad impression on my first day."

Back up on the gangplank with Izumi and Columbus, things were moving as slowly as ever. Then, as the centaur took another hesitant step forward in time with Columbus' stalking, the fox mask slid a foot closer and giggled. Without further warning, it darted directly at the centaur's face, impacting against him and trying to knock him over the rail!

The mask creature is making a trip attempt against the centaur.

[roll0]

This technically provokes an attack of opportunity from each of Izumi and Columbus, though I don't think either of you is armed. You may, however, roll some kind of check to react, probably by trying to hold the centaur to stop him from tipping over the edge or something similar. Other players may attempt to react if you wish, but you won't be able to do anything until the trip attempt is resolved one way or the other. If the trip attempt succeeds the centaur will go over the edge, though the safety net beneath him is now pretty solidly tied.
The centaur boy screamed as he took the tackle gracelessly, instantly tipping towards the rope. All of his bags and packs clinked and jangled as they tipped as well, throwing his weight off balance even worse. In a split second, he was about to fall overboard!

[Hella Lugosi]

Columbus kept up the fearsome act as the three of them slowly moved across the gangplank. The centaur's ramblings, while not particularly interesting, did serve to be at least somewhat endearing. Columbus was almost sorry for the act he was putting up. Maybe once they all got to the other side, he'd have time to explain himself and apologise for hiFOX MASK.

Columbus cursed under his breath as the creature (construct? thing? whatever) hurtled towards the centaur with worrying determination. If anyone thought he was gonna let his performance go to waste, they'd have another thing coming. With no mutagen in his blood and not enough time to shift form, he had no weapons to hand. Well, no particularly effective ones, anyway. In an instant, he hurled the tennis ball at the mask, aiming straight between the eyes.

Attack Roll: [roll0]
If that doesn't work, Reflex Save: [roll1]
Strength Check: [roll2]

[jamieth]

Izumi

It all happened so fast. The mask's sudden attack, the rude boy's interruption, centaur almost toppling over the rails... Izumi just had no chance to react. What she could do, though, was to try and prevent something like that from happening again... maybe? Was worth trying, at least. She pulled the clasps of her bag and stepped away, breaking into dance immediately. half a second later, two fancy, metal-trimmed fans floated out of the bag and raced bast Izumi, towards where the mask, the centaur and the rude-but-apparently-not-really-that-bad boy were stuck together.

Swift action to draw two fans via Whirlwind Assembly; Standart action to move them into the mask'ssquare (since the Mask is likely no larger than Tiny, that should be possible, right?
Note, strictly speaking, I can't AoO with telekinetically wielded weapons anyway.

[Steel Mirror]

Columbus threw the tennis ball with all his might, sending it hurtling towards the mask. Unfortunately, the mask twisted aside at the last second. The ball flew by right above it, bouncing with a thwack off the back of the centaur's head, even as the impact of the mask sent him tumbling towards the edge of the ramp.

"Oww-ahhhhh!!"

Columbus wasn't done, though. With a speed and assurance that might be surprising considering his size, he grabbed a firm hold of the falling student and hauled him back from the brink. A few more of the kid's bags weren't as lucky, and they came loose from his back and plunged off the side.

The mask was still giggling with its oddly hollow-sounding voice. It continued the momentum it had gotten from bouncing off the centaur's face and arced back a few feet through the air, shaking with apparent amusement. As it did, something seemed to take form beneath the mask. Ragged, brown and gray fur, a long sinuous body, a bushy but somewhat sparse tail, and two oversized ears. The shape quickly swam into existence as though coming into focus through a spyglass. A flying fox, wearing the mask, with two bright yellow eyes twinkling with mischief visible through the pair of eyeholes.

It's amused celebration was cut short by Izumi's two fans, which cut through the air and came to a stop on either side of the newly visible creature's head. Their metal surfaces glinted in the afternoon sunlight, and the fox's eyes flicked over to to where Izumi was still going through dance movements. It spoke.

"Wow! That was fast, for a mortal."
Meanwhile, the centaur child was offering his own contribution to the chaotic situation. "I'm falling! I knew it I'm falling!" He hugged the platform with his arms and had his legs tucked up beneath his body in what might pass for a centaur fetal position. "I knew I should have gone to Moresby! At least they built their school on SOLID GROUND!"

Meanwhile, the dozen or so remaining students reacted like you'd expect a batch of fellow schoolmates to react-they yelled with excitement and crowded closer to the action so they could get a look. A few of them starting chanting, "Duel! Duel! Duel! Duel!"

https://s13.postimg.io/wcv07q7ev/varien_kitsune_commission_by_sarah_grey_d4gtu2.jpg
Anyone who has an action can take it. For the moment, it doesn't look like anyone is in immediate danger of falling, though some of the centaur's bags are stuck in the net again and a gust of wind might conceivably shake one free. Izumi has the floating spirit mask fox thing's attention, but Sianna hasn't had the time to react yet either.

EDIT: the floating fox is also only a few feet away, within melee reach of Columbus should that end up being important.

[Hella Lugosi]

"Well, this could have gone better." Columbus thinks to himself as the tennis ball rebounds off the centaur's face and drops onto the hammock. He grits his teeth, and braces the centaur, stopping him from falling off the edge. "Sorry about that, mate." He says, dropping the threatening act in an instant. He was never the best at making first impressions. Lord knows what the centaur thinks of him now.

He shifts his attention to the giggling fox-thing as it reveals it's new form. Unimpressed, and more than a little irritated, Columbus does his best to keep up a tough demeanour as the two fans appear on either side of his head. Columbus shifts his form, revealing two glinting tusks, but does nothing else to try and start a fight. It was only the first day after all. Instead, he points to the pile of luggage collected in the hammock below, topped with a leather tennis ball. "You owe me a new ball."

[AmberVael]

Hm... Azalea wondered at Sianna's suddenly chilly response and thought back over what she had said and when exactly Sianna had reacted. Maybe there was some clue there. "True enough! Lets get inside, its too windy up here anyway." After giving a glance at the gangplank just to make sure everything was turning out alright (and it looked like it was, though not with a certain amount of mess), she looked around for a sign or some indication of where she was supposed to go now.

Her eyes fell on Melwyn again, and she decided to make one more attempt to get her attention. "Hey, we're going to be late! C'mon!" The tone of her words made them as much an invitation to join her as a friendly warning.


Azalea is going to use Sense Motive to get a better idea of what is bothering Sianna.
[roll0]

[Steel Mirror]

In response to Columbus' request, the masked creature simply quirked its head to the side interrogatively. When somebody spoke it wasn't the creature itself, but rather the girl who seemed to own it, Sianna, standing down below.

"Why should I owe you anything? It was your choice to get involved. Maybe now you'll all get the lesson," and she gestured to include all of them on the scene, Melwyn, Izumi, and Columbus himself. Anura she didn't point to, but he was a little further away and set off to the side. Maybe she simply hadn't noticed where the illusory footprints had been coming from. "Helping a fool who won't even help himself is pointless. It costs too much and he'll end up disappointing you anyway."

Then she glanced aside at Azalea and said, more quietly, "I apologize, you are right. This will only take a few moments. I will...catch up."

The flash of emotion that crossed her face when she was watching everyone cooperate to talk the centaur down the ramp was jealousy, tinged with something like regret. The thing that dragged her back to putting some emotional distance between herself and Azalea was almost certainly what Summer was starting to say about her. Also, Azalea can tell that Summer was goading Sianna on purpose with the comment, and that in general Sianna doesn't have the best control over these two. She also doesn't want anyone to know about her lack of control, and so she's a little embarrassed that Azalea can speak and understand Sylvan.

But with all those emotions going on, one thing Sianna does seem to be so far is sincere. The centaur kid really does annoy her, and she really does think that the students trying to help him are just wasting their time. She also doesn't seem to actually harbor any dangerous intent, despite what she threatened and blustered. Maybe she was just planning on scaring the kid? It doesn't seem like she was worked up enough to actually be capable of attempted murder, at any rate.

[jamieth]

Columbus shifts his form, revealing two glinting tusks, but does nothing else to try and start a fight. It was only the first day after all. Instead, he points to the pile of luggage collected in the hammock below, topped with a leather tennis ball. "You owe me a new ball."

"There's no need", as Sianna and her... sojouners apparently cease hostility, Izumi calls the fans back and hangs them on the belt of her kimono, "I said I'll help with the luggage."

Not waiting for anyone to reply to her statement, she stasts lifing the bags from the hammock, bringing them onto the pier one by one - except for the ball, that she floats, and leaves hanging, half a meter in front of Columbus, "Here."

I'll roll a bunch of checks, though since we're not in combat time, i assume she can reroll freely? Anyway, DCs should work like that: Izumi's CL for TK is 4th, and base DC 19. For every 2 less, I suffer -1 penalty on CL.

So, with Powertful TK, I need to hit DC 17 (CL 3rd) to lift Small object, and DC 13 (CL 1st) for Tiny one.

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]

[Grek]

Finally letting out her held breath, Melwyn sighs with relief. Nobody had falling to their death on the very first day of school. Only then does she notice Azalea, having been too panicked prior. "Oh! Coming, just let me leave a note!" as she waved back at her unusually shiny fellow student. A flourish of ink on rice paper later, she had a simple message stuck to the conjured gangplank's post.


VANISHING BRIDGE DO NOT USE
-Melwyn von Wingwood

"I'm Melwyn. Pleased to meet you! I really admire how you tried to talk Sianna of the Four Crazies down. Terribly brave."

[Hella Lugosi]

Columbus smirks as the ball floats into view. "Cheers. Finding another one of these was gonna be a pain. Nice job with the luggage and the, uh, fan things." He plucks it from the air and begins idly tossing it in one hand, before reverting to his more human-looking form, the tusks retracting back into his gums. "I'm Columbus, by the way." He returns the ball to a slot on the bandoliers wrapped around his chest.

He takes an absent-minded step forward along the gangplank, bumping into the centaur's prone form. "Oh yeah, right." He crouches down to his level, tries to speak more gently than normal. "Hey. Sorry about all that, but, uh you wanna move? I mean fair enough if you just want to stay here, but I've got places to be." A pause. "And sorry about the head again, by the way."

Diplomacy (if needed): [roll0]

[Steel Mirror]

The centaur paled once again as he saw Columbus transform back to human in front of his eyes. "Oh, my head? Don't worry about it! I'm always sticking that thing where it doesn't belong, haha, my brothers always say..." As he spoke, he scrambled to his feet (a lot easier without so many bags) and took a few more faltering steps down the ramp. He was still clearly more scared by Columbus' presence than comforted, but maybe, for the moment, that was okay. It was helping him make progress anyway.

It only took a few more seconds, during which the kid continued to babble, and then all of a sudden he was on solid land. He blinked as he noticed that he was no longer standing on an incline, then finally looked around and noticed his surroundings. Melwyn was just catching up to Azalea, Izumi was stacking the last of the bags on the solid wooden planking nearby, and Sianna was frowning at all of them.

"Hey! I'm off! I made it!" He shook his legs a bit and then stomped a hoof experimentally, verifying that the ground was as solid as it looked. Then, he noticed Izumi's handiwork. "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for helping with those. I owe you so big." He rushed over and hefted one of the bags, then immediately began rifling through the contents. There was the gentle tinkling sound of glass on glass. "I hope nothing is broken..."

Meanwhile, the mob of kids interested in seeing a duel dispersed with mild disappointment. As they filed past on the pier, they gave Sianna and her masked companion a wide berth.

[Nettlekid]

Anura exhales, making a peeping noise and relaxing concentration on the faint footprints. Ended up not really getting involved. Good, don't get involved, he told himself. Leave people to themselves and their own. Such weren't the morals impressed upon him by his elders of the communal jungle village, but he was coming here to learn what they didn't know.

Hopping back down off of the siding and shuffling along as little more than a lump of robe, Anura finally makes his own way down the non-conjured gangplank along with the last few students still on the ship. Like the others he stays well away from Sianna and more importantly the hovering masks. Something about them was making his skin crawl. He had been able to understand the words they spoke as much as the meaning of the sounds was in his mind, but he didn't remember having learned a language like that. He'd been taught traditional Elven, which felt not dissimilar? Maybe that was it.

Pushing it from his mind he hurried to catch the tail end of the throng heading to the end of the dock, eager to see the school properly for the first time.

[AmberVael]

Azalea lingered for a moment, watching the interaction between Sianna and the others, looked at Sianna for a moment, then nodded to her. "Alright. Meet you there." She took off after that, joining with Melwyn on the way to the castle.

"I'm Azalea. I really liked that bridge you made to get everyone else across. That's some cool stuff! She didn't linger on the subject of Sianna and her own part, but the attention she gave to Melwyn was sincere; her bright eyes danced with her interest for the magic Melwyn had displayed. "How does it work?"

[Grek]

"It's magically created wood and rope. I keep wanting to say conjured, but apparently that's only used for living things? Created wood and created hemp. Since they're both from plants, it was actually really easy. Just a wee bit tiring to make so much stuff all at once." Melwyn was pleased to have made a friend already. Or, she hoped she had made a friend. Azalea seemed friendly, at the very least. "It'll be good to sit down once we get to the school. Want to stick together till the sorting? I'm hoping for Estis, myself!"

[Steel Mirror]

As Melwyn and Azalea turned to walk down the pier and to the Academy, a the final gaggle of fellow new students kept pace with them. Including, as it happened, the small froglike boy Anura, safely wrapped in plenty of robes and having successfully avoided any notice by the moody Sianna girl as he passed by her.

They walked past a few more of those benches, as well as another seemingly random clay statue of a panda. Now that they had time to appreciate the view, it was a doozy. Far below, the lands stretched out in all directions, farms cutting it up into hundreds of irregular patches of variously colored green, yellow, and even blue hues. Below the pier they were standing on and to the sides, there were more piers built into the cliff-side that formed the bottom part of the floating island, as well as several hangars and aeries for more esoteric kinds of flying vehicles as well as flying creatures. A pair of griffons cavorted through the sky beneath them, watched lazily by the rest of their pack who were sunning themselves on an exposed spar of rock nearby.

It was a beautiful sight, but ahead of them there was the promise of an even more anticipated view: their first glimpse of the Academy itself. Most of it was still hidden behind a series of small hills and trees that started right where the pier stopped, but in the distance they could see the massive central spire of the Academy's main tower rising above everything to pierce the clouds themselves. Most of the class was already along the path through those hills and trees. Theirs was the last group to make it this far-well, the second last, if you counted the centaur and the others still behind them.

----------------

Speaking of the centaur, he finished checking over his belongings with a relieved sigh. "Thank all the gods and spirits, nothing got lost or broken. If anything had happened to this stuff, I'd be a goner. Seriously," and he turned to Izumi with a smile. "You saved my life! Thank you so much!"

Then, remembering Columbus and everything that had just happened, his smile became a little more forced, his body language a bit more uncertain. "Or, I guess, you both saved my life. Quite literally, as a matter of fact. Um, thanks. I'm really sorry I was in your way, mister...sir...boar man. My name is, uh, Cecil. I promise, I'll repay you! Both of you."

Seemingly no longer concerned with them now that they were all on solid ground, the floating fox glided through the air back to Sianna's side. As it did it disappeared, leaving once more only the floating mask to mark its location. She whispered sternly at it as Cecil made his halting apology/introduction/thanks.

[Hella Lugosi]

"That's alright, Cecil. Just remember next time, one foot in front of the other." Noticing how worried the kid still was, Columbus decides it would be best to leave him be, and sets off to follow where the crowd was going. It would be hard enough to blend into the crowd at his size, especially now that it was starting to grow thin, but he might as well try. Drawing any more attention to himself might be more trouble than it's worth. "Good luck with your bags, and life I guess."

He turns back to the girl with telekinesis as he heads off. "As much as it pains me to admit it, the loud one may be right about missing the ceremony, so I'm gonna try and catch up. See you around."

[AmberVael]

"But... how do you make it? Where does it come from?" Azalea's intensely curious tone revealed just how little the short explanation had satisfied her. Her gaze constantly shifted from the path ahead to Melwyn. distracted from the sight of the Academy in the distance. "Sure, lets stick together. So... why Estis? Is there something different about it?"

[Grek]

Melwyn paused for a moment, unsure of how to answer. "Well, they have the best delving team I'm told? Plus, their mascot's a bird! So there's that. As far as created objects, they're not from anywhere. They're a, what's it called..." The halfling begins to quote something from memory, taking on an airier tone: "non-endelecheic allopoiesis of a jointly specified form via teleorhetoric invocation." She rolls her eyes at this. "Which is a very complicated way of saying that I make certain wand motions, say certain words and think certain thoughts all at once in order to specify exactly what I want to make, and then it appears out of nothing and then vanishes once the universe notices that there's no logical way for it to have existed in the first place."

[jamieth]

Repay... that wasn't a word Izumi wanted to hear. She certainly didn't expect compensation for something that cost her nothing. That would only make things awkward... then she had an idea. An idea that had the potential to turn awkward itself, but that didn't appear to her. Picking her own bag, she turned to Cecil and, with visible effort, raised to to the level of his chest, staring unblinkingly into his eyes.

[AmberVael]

"You're faking out the universe?" Azalea looked still more baffled, but now with an element of apprehension. "I'm going to have to go look this up later, I can tell."

Azalea bit her lip and looked aside, then spoke with a bit of uncertainty. "So I thought the houses were just, um, houses. Like places for the students to sleep? My great grandmother mentioned them, but didn't say much about them, she mostly talked about the academy in general. They have mascots and teams?"

[Grek]

"Yep! There's Estis has a bird, Usok has a fire lizard, Adagni has a giant eyeball and Epanouir has a flower. Each has its own dormitory and alumni too! And there's a competition every year to see which house does the best. Best grades, least time spent in detention, that sort of thing." Melwyn gives Azalea an appraising look. "Any idea how we're sorted into houses? I couldn't get anyone to tell me."

[Steel Mirror]

Cecil looked at Izumi's bag blankly for a moment. Then realization dawned. "Oh! Right! Yes. No problem." He did a little half-shuffle around and then pointed over his shoulder to his back. "Just throw it on with the rest of the stuff, I'm already basically a pack mule anyway. I've got three brothers here already and our mom sent me with about a thousand pounds of goodies from home. I probably won't even notice your bag, haha!" He waited for Izumi to add her bag on to the pile. "By the way, I don't think I caught your name. Is it uh, okay to ask what it is?"

It was a short jog for Columbus to catch up with the small crowd of students, and as he did they were all finally walking off the last part of the pier and onto the pale cobblestones that lined the path to the Academy. As soon as they crossed over to this new ground, they were all assaulted with the scent of blooming flowers, wet grass, and fresh pine. Trees and bushes grew up in a riot of life on all sides of the winding path, as dense and full of life as a forest but with a sense of order and care that suggested that it was being tended by someone like a garden. Some of the other kids starting commenting on how beautiful the forest was. One of them started sneezing uncontrollably.

"I've heard that the sorting starts the moment you set foot on the island," said a female voice from behind Melwyn's shoulder. A voice coming from much closer than she thought anyone was to her. In fact, neither Melwyn nor Azalea had noticed anyone walking that close, though it seemed to be answering her question.

[jamieth]

"...Thank you", Izumi nods, suddenly feeling a little bad about forcing her bag on Cecil. "I helped you with your luggage, you helped me with mine. Even. Nothing to repay. And... Kuroda Izumi. Just 'izumi' is fine. Eh, that's a first name. We say family names first back home. Eh, lets' go?" The last words - as well as an introduction, for that matter - are addressed to Sianna as much as they are to Cecil. "I don't think they'll start without us, but being late would be rude."

[Steel Mirror]

Sianna finished her whispered conversation with the two floating masks, then reached up to grab the wicker mask delicately between two fingers. There was another rush of power and blast of wind, just like when she originally summoned them, and the mask fell into her hand, no longer magically floating. She did the same with the porcelain mask. "That's what I've been saying this whole time," she said with a hint of annoyance. "I'm going to the castle, but I'm not going with you." Her last comment was given more to Cecil than to Izumi. Then, she turned and began walking away quickly.

Cecil shrugged. "Wow she really doesn't like me. I hope we don't end up in the same house...but then I somehow don't think she's destined for Epanouir." He began to walk as well, maintaining the distance behind Sianna as he did, even as the rest of the group in front of them vanished into the trees and hills in front of the Academy.

[Grek]

Melwyn jumps straight up into the air with a strangled shriek and whirls around with her wand drawn to see what had been sneaking up on her.


[roll0]Perception, if needed.
[roll1]Spellcraft, if needed.

[Steel Mirror]

Melwyn spun to find a sinister figure cloaked in a full-body robe standing only a foot behind her. The hood was up, and something about the shadows it cast over the face was unnatural. Rather, the shadows were so deep she couldn't even tell if there was a face underneath. There were only two points of glowing light where the eyes would be.

"Eeek! Sorry! I naturally sneak up on people sometimes!" The figure held up its hands in a motion of surrender. It was then that Melwyn realized that, despite its appearance, the figure was almost as short as she was. Also, it sounded like a little girl. "I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation, but I heard you talking about the sorting! I've heard things about it from my parents, they both kind of teach here." The voice sounded apologetic, and she kept her hands up as she spoke.

With the flood of adrenaline coursing through her body, Melwyn's senses felt heightened. It was because of that that she noticed something odd about their surroundings. Shapes were flitting back and forth beneath the foliage all around them, shapes moving too quickly and cunningly to clearly see-but they looked an awful lot like tiny little people with dragonfly wings. Now that she had caught a few glimpses of them, she fancied she could hear them snickering and chattering to each other from the bushes, like hyperactive chipmunks. She barely had time to adjust to that when she noticed that something felt off about her footing. Looking down, she could only see the worn, reliable cobbles that they'd been on since they first walked into the woods. But under her foot, she could swear she felt like she was standing on something uneven and loose, like a branch or a rock on the path. But all she could see was smooth, paved path.

What was up with that?

[Grek]

"Half scared me to death there! Only half way, though, so no lasting harm. I suppose I should introduce myself properly. I'm Melwyn and this is Azalea!" Melwyn gestured with her wand to the taller girl next to her as she pattered on. "Are you in our year as well? And your parents really do teach here?"

Despite her talkativity, Melwyn did not yet mention the oddness of the path, nor the sprites in the distance. Having been tutored by a fey spirit had a few advantages, chief of which was that she knew how troublesome sprites could be. While she suspected they were in for a prank, pointing it out now would only earn the ire of the sprites for having spoiled the joke. Best to dodge it herself (and maybe nudge Azalea out of the way?) and let the little fey beasties have their fun on this spooky child who scared her. Fair's fair, right? A scare for a scare?

With a cheery grin, she offered her place on the 'cobbles' to her new companion and made a point to continue walking off to the side and in the grass.


[roll0] Bluff check, if needed.

[Steel Mirror]

"Very nice to meet you! My name is Jennifer." As she spoke, Melwyn, Azalea, and Anura noticed that she tended to gesture with her hands a lot. It made for an interesting sort of experience, almost like watching a very large puppet show with exaggerated motions to make up for the fact that it was impossible to read any emotion on her face...or indeed, to see her face at all. She moved forward to take up the place that Melwyn had just been occupying, and as she did so she seemed to glide forward instead of walking normally. Her cloak concealed her legs as well, so it was hard to tell what exactly was going on. It did explain why nobody had noticed her before she spoke, though. She was completely silent.

"Yeah, I'm a first year too, and yeah, my parents work here. They met here, actually. And they told me that nobody was allowed to spoil what the sorting is, but I gathered that it's meant to be this big surprise and that they're actually watching you from the moment you arrive on the ship. Actually," and now her voice got a little sheepish and her body language and hand gestures reinforced that impression, "I am sort of worried that the whole thing with that centaur kid and that angry girl was part of the test. If it was, I bet you two passed with much better marks than I did. I couldn't think of anything in time, and I ended up just going with the flow."

[AmberVael]

Azalea had been about to reply when Jennifer spoke up beside them, causing her to jerk away in surprise, her head snapping in Jennifer's direction far too quickly to be comfortable. As Melwyn began the conversation she watched the new girl curiously, giving herself time to calm down and let her pulse settle. "Do you think they were in on it, or did the teachers set it up?" She asked, finally speaking up.

While Melwyn examined their surroundings, Azalea paid attention to Jennifer and her peculiarities, how she hovered and gestured, the darkness of her hood and the brightness of her eyes. It all seemed rather curious, and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

Knowledge (Arcane), mostly to figure out what might be pulling off this floaty business. [roll0]
Knowledge (Local) What kind of race around here would fit her description? [roll1]

[jamieth]

Izumi

"You're so sure you'll get sorted in Epanouir?" Izumi asked, walking besides Cecil - hopefully he won't run forward; he was certainly more than capable of that physically... but he wasn't that kind of person, as far as Izumi could tell. "I heard sorting method is a carefully guarded mystery."

[Hella Lugosi]

Columbus decides to slow down as he reachs the path to the academy. The whole place was fresh. Too fresh. Columbus has spent most of his life among carefully tended gardens and untamed wild life, so was used to a little greenery. This was something else.

Sticking as best as he could to the path, his attention was drawn by one of his fellow student's sneezing fits. Wishing not to traumatise anyone else today, he decided to take a gentler approach. "Allergies?"

[Nettlekid]

Anura keeps close to the nondescript group of students ahead of him, more than a few paces ahead of the more lively group of Centaurs and mask ghosts but keeping aware of them in case anyone started another disruption. Though he mostly just wanted a heads up to stay out of the way. He's unable to resist glancing around wide-eyed, the peaks of the castle's crenelations breaking over the farther hills. The unfamiliarity of the area is getting to him, since this is so thoroughly unlike the swamps he's called home all his life. He's less worried about what he can see is visibly different and more worried about what he's sure he's missing.

He takes a few steps off the path, preferring the grassy earth to the cobblestone path, though he doesn't stray far. Something has him on edge, but he can't place exactly what he's feeling. What he does know is that the anxiety and his little frog metabolism is making him hungry. His red eyes pick out the flitting movement of gossamer wings, and without a thought he lashes out with a whip-quick pink tongue.


[roll0]
Not sure what "tongue" counts as for a weapon. So -2 if it counts as a melee weapon (like a whip would technically), or +3 if it's Dex-based (which in my mind makes more sense for a tongue).

[Steel Mirror]

Cecil answered Izumi's question glumly as they both walked along the path at a sedate pace. Every once in a while they lost sight of the kids ahead of them around a bend in the path or a patch of undergrowth, but mostly they stayed within sight. "Yeah, all three of my brothers are Epanouir. I don't really know what the deal with the sorting is, they told me all sorts of stories but I don't believe them. But one way or the other, my path is pretty much set. 'A centaur is his community, and his community makes him a centaur,'" he said, voice inflected like he was quoting someone else. "Centaurs are always Epanouir."

----------

Jennifer answered Azalea's question as Azalea pondered this new student's strange appearance. "Could be either one, I guess? I don't know. I guess we could have asked him, but he seemed sort of...distracted. And that other girl," Jennifer glanced around to make sure that Sianna wasn't around. Sianna was far enough behind them that she wasn't visible from their location at the moment. "That other girl seemed kind of volatile. I know that the mythal would have saved him from falling over the side of the island, but it still seemed like kind of a mean thing to do. I thought both of you were really amazing, though. I've studied some spells to create stuff, but nothing like that! And teleportation is waaaay too tough for me. I feel like I'm behind already."

As they walked (or glided as the case might be), Melwyn continued to walk off to the side, just off the path itself. She still couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong with the picture of things around her, but she swore that, every once in a while, out of the corner of her eye, the path seemed to waver and blur like an illusion in the distance on a hot day.
The source of whatever magic is allowing her to glide around isn't clear, though Azalea has heard of a few things it could be. There are lots of spells that give flight of course, but she doesn't seem like she is casting that kind of magic. Or, if you trust her evaluation of her own abilities, that she is necessarily capable of it. Despite a lot of starting mage's fondest desires and many hours spent trying to make it happen, Azalea knows it isn't a floating disc, at least. Those don't let you fly no matter how many times apprentices set their hearts on making it work. :smallbiggrin:

Could be something like whatever was letting Autumn and Summer fly; some kind of inherent magical ability. Without knowing what Jennifer is exactly that one is a possibility but Azalea can't really narrow it down any better. A detect magic type ability would probably give a lot more information about this and narrow it down considerably.

As for what Jennifer is, Azalea doesn't know of any race that matches her description. For some reason, the apparently magical darkness, full cloak exposing no skin, and floating puts Azalea in mind of a wraith or other spirit. The darkness could protect from daylight, and of course they don't need to walk anywhere. But wraiths are malevolent and surrounded by a terrible aura, so it doesn't quite fit.

She can't quite shake the thought completely, though.
Only a few paces away, the sneezing kid answered Columbus through a runny nose, pushing his glasses up as he squinted up at Columbus' face. "Yeah, really baaaaaCHOO!" He sniffed again. "If I had known we would be walking near this many magical plants, I would have mixed up a remedy befoaaaaCHOO!" Then, even as he continued sneezing, one of the boys in this little gaggle pushed him aside and grinned at Columbus.

"Never mind him, man, he's just gonna keep sneezing like that," he said. This new kid was a tall, athletic looking young elf with facial features much more youthful than his frame and height would suggest. To anyone with experience of how elves aged, he looked about 17 years old, but tall for his age. "Lanky" was the word that suggested itself. He also, unusually, had a bow strapped to his bag and a quiver of arrows hanging at his side. "Not worth the effort. I, on the other hand, am well worth the time it will take to introduce ourselves to each other! My name is Walfaril Lethunelas, though my friends call me Riley. Now was I suffering from altitude sickness, or did you really turn into a boar and throw a tennis ball at the back of that kid's head?!" He was smiling widely the whole time.

Anura, meanwhile, reflexively snapped out his tongue at one of the darting presences that he couldn't quite see. It was hard, though, and despite aiming pretty well all he got was a mouthful of leaves and the sight of multiple lines of shaking leaves and trembling branches radiating out from the spot where he had aimed his tongue. A few of the kids noticed him, but they only looked curious.

Whatever was hiding in the bushes also seemed to notice him. After fleeing him initially, the plants starting rustling even more vigorously than before, and the murmurs of half-heard words and chitters increased until even a few of the other students looked around in curiosity. Whatever the things were, insects or spirits of the forest or something else, were on the move.

And they seemed to moving towards Anura...
If you want to roll a perception check to notice this going on, you may, though Anura and Melwyn are already aware of the movement. Izumi is too far away to see what is going on, but not so far that you won't catch a glimpse of things in the next round or so if stuff starts happening. Those two can also roll knowledge checks or anything else if you want to try and gather some clues about what's going on in the forest around you.

[Nettlekid]

Anura chews the mouthful of leaves halfheartedly, then lets them fall from his mouth. He can hear skittering, and starts to worry about the implications of trying to establish a trophic level in so unknown an environment. Hearing something in the bushes approaching he sidles back onto the cobblestone path and picks up his pace to merge a bit deeper into the group of students directly ahead of him. As he does so he slips out his magic twig from his robe sleeve and grips it halfway down, prepared to whip out one of his Barriers if need be. But he didn't want to do that until he actually got a proper look at what he had just foolishly antagonized.


Perception check to hear and hopefully understand what's being said in the bushes: [roll0]
Perception check to see anything that comes out of the bushes, if anything does. I'm not really trying to see into the bushes, but knowing that they're fast I want to get an eye on them if they emerge. [roll1]
And readying a standard action to cast Barrier, either on myself (and the surrounding group of the students that I've just pushed into) or around whatever emerges to encase it.

[jamieth]

Izumi

"I see", Izumi nods, and continues on silently, because, well, what else is there to say? Sorting will do as sorting does... apparently.

[Hella Lugosi]

Columbus raises his hands in mock surrender."Yeah, that was me. That last part was unintentional, I was aiming at some fox mask thing and his noggin got in the way." Catching sight of the bow, his curiosity was piqued. "I'm Columbus, by the way. Planning on getting much archery done here?"

[Steel Mirror]

"Nice to meet you, Columbus!" Riley reached out and shook Columbus' hand vigorously. He smiled even wider at the question about his archery. "Aha, I see you've seen my humble little bow." He unhooked it with a deft movement, twirled it around his back and tossed it in the air, then caught it in front of him, balanced, on the tips of two extended fingers with his other hand. "I might make some time to get some practice in with the ol' branch and string. Frankly whichever House gets me is about to have their lucky day. I'm basically a lock for every archery tournament the school will have for the next five years!"

The sneezy student sniffed again. "Oh, so basically you're a scholarship student?"

"Hey! I'll have you know that arcane archery is a respected magical tradition which stretches back in elven society for like, a million years. I'm a wizard. I'm just also fantastically talented at archery, as well."

While they were talking, Anura was slowly catching up and angling himself to walk right among Columbus and Riley and the other couple of boys in their group. They didn't give him too much notice. Anura's senses were trained on whatever was happening in the trees around them, and he started overhearing snatches of what the little things were saying. They were speaking common, oddly enough, in voices as high pitched and as hard to focus on as the whining buzz of a mosquito's wings.
"Tried to eat me!"

"Grab more Pikli fruit! This child shall learn its folly before the day is out!"

"No, you two can't come along, someone has to keep the seemings tended or the ice cream lady will be angry. Doy!

"That is. The biggest. Frog. EVER."

[Grek]

Melwyn shrugged. Was creation really that impressive? Just because it was big and flashy didn't make it difficult. But it'd be rude to refuse the compliment, so... "The island has a mythal to prevent people from falling off? I should have known, but some how I never put two and two together. Really, it's us that are behind. You know so much about the school already. Speaking of, do you know what's with those sprites? Do they, ah, work here by any chance?" Melwyn gestured furtively to the increasingly obvious movements in the trees.

[Steel Mirror]

Jennifer put both palms up in an exaggerated 'who knows?' sort of gesture. "Sorry, I actually don't know much about anything outside the castle. Uh, I mean, my parents work in the castle, so they never really told me anything about the forest." She looked around the trees nearby, interested. "Where are the sprites? I always wanted to see some wild fey!"

The trails of rustling leaves had converged on a place just above the boys, about a dozen feet behind Azalea, Melwyn, and Jennifer. Melwyn could just overhear one of the little voices fake whispering from the branches there. "Ready!....Set!...."

[AmberVael]

"If there was protection magic, that explains why no one else really reacted... and um, I know Sianna was mean, but I think she was trying to help, kind of." Azalea looked to one side as she spoke, her arms folded behind her back and twisting a bit restlessly. The compliment to her magical skills only seemed to make her more restive, and she shook her head.

"I was always told that magic is only as good as the magician. Using it right matters more than how powerful it is. I think it would have gone better if I had just helped him rather than leaving him to everyone else." She glanced towards Melwyn as she spoke, then was somewhat distracted by the mention of sprites. She looked off into the trees with a start, trying to make out what Melwyn had obviously spotted already.

Perception: [roll0]

Also, how about some knowledge on sprites, just so she knows what she's looking for, and what is up with them.
Knowledge (nature): [roll1]

Also, since she's thinking about wraiths, rolling the appropriate skill for undead might be helpful.
Knowledge (religion): [roll2]

[Steel Mirror]

"Scrolls and Sigils save me from that kind of help," muttered Jennifer in response to Azalea's comments on Sianna. She was still looking for whatever Melwyn had seen in the trees. "Hey is that what you were talking about?" She pointed towards the tree above the boys, where the branches were bent as though under some kind of unseen weight. Atop those branches and among the leaves, the girls could make out some sort of distortion in the air, something that their eyes kept sliding across without focusing properly. They knew something was there, and yet it was so hard to describe exactly what it might be...

And then, there was a cry from the trees, a chorus of words shouted in tiny voices all in unison. "FOR THE THIRD BRICK BRIGADE!" A dozen tiny projectiles launched from the branches, and as they did so the distortions blurred and bobbed but remained in place, still making it impossible to determine what was underneath. Anura saw a glimpse of tiny arms and clothing made of leaves and spiderwebs. Melwyn saw dragonfly wings and something wearing a snail shell like a helmet. Following the initial cry there was a small scream clearly audible, "Take that frogface!"

And the projectiles rained down, a dozen strawberry sized fruits with mottled green and yellow surfaces that plummeted straight for the group of boys chatting around Anura and Columbus. The boys had no time to respond as the tiny meteors of fruity death descended toward them from the sky.


[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]
And then they splattered in midair, a few feet above their heads, splattering in overripe neon pink juices all over a transparent barrier that shimmered into existence just in time to intercept them. Looking down, Riley spotted Anura holding his wand out and completing the last of the gestures needed to call the barrier into existence. "Woah," he said. "What the crap?"

The fruits and their splatterings didn't make it to the boys, but the smell certainly did. It smelled foul and septic but somehow fungal and musty at the same time, with an almost sour note so overwhelming it was like someone taking a spike made of lemon vinegar and putting it right up your nose. It stank, and trying to breathe through the mouth only made it so that you could taste it, too. It was fortunate that Anura had intercepted the first barrage with his barrier; it looked like that stuff probably stained.

There was a chorus of dismay from the invisible attackers, immediately followed by a voice ringing out with the clear tones of command. "Lose not your heart, troops! Spread out and accost their flanks! We have them on the defensive!"

Azalea and Melwyn had enough information to piece together that these were obviously fey of some kind, probably some variety of pixie, though there were so many varieties of those that they'd need more to know exactly how to deal with them. Pixies were known to be territorial, and mischievous, and to have extreme skill with illusions. Some subspecies could be placated with milk and honey, others with salt, and in still others with musical performances or physical comedy. They were said to hate and fear cats, or to hate high pitched loud noises, or to be so confused when you spoke sentences backwards that they're heads would hurt and they'd leave you alone.

Basically, there was a lot of variety. Getting a good look at one without its veil of illusion would go a long way to learning which subspecies they were dealing with.

Behind them, Izumi and Cecil turned the corner just in time to see the beginnings of the skirmish, about 100 feet down the path. Oddly, Sianna was nowhere to be seen. She had been just in front of them before they turned the corner.

[Grek]

Melwyn had heard of a variety of things that pixies might like. Food was the most common - eggs, milk, honey, salt, sugar, cookies, cakes and cheeses. And she had never been one for half measures. Why give one present when you can make three, after all? Given this information, what came next should only be a modest surprise: "You foul little fairies! Take this! Galamelikaihalas!" Melwyn swung her arm overhead, tracing out a quarter arc. In response, the sky began to rain some horrible sticky mess over the assembled students only adding to the growing chaos. "Make me cast another and I'm making it rain rotten eggs!" she threatened, already a bit dizzy.


Spell Points: 3/8

Galamelikaihalas - Create milk, honey and salt. In this case, a thin sheet of it 40 feet by 60 feet above the path. Overcharged (to CL 6), but not Lengthened, so it'll last as long as Melwyn concentrates (to a maximum of 6 minutes), plus an additional 1 round byond that. -1 SP, Melwyn becomes Fatigued.

[AmberVael]

"Stars! Ew ew ewww!" Azalea exclaimed, all decorum and curiosity lost as she desperately backpedaled from the horrible stench. After gaining a bit more distance she slowed and brought her hands together cupped, whispering softly as she called on her magic again. For a brief instant phantasmal golden gates appeared behind her and creaked open just a hair; light streamed through the crack in the doorway and poured between her hands, pooling there strangely. When the gateway shut again that fragment of light remained in Azalea's grasp. Eyeing the pixies (and for that matter, the boys they were attacking) warily, she began to shape the light in her hand. Despite the grandeur of her magic's casting, the effect seemed remarkably tame, bright without being blinded, light without being hot.

But then, maybe she wasn't Sianna to threaten people with death over annoyance and inconvenience. Still, she was holding the orb of light in her hands as if she was ready to use it on anything that displeased her, so maybe it didn't bode anyone well. At least, anyone who tried something on her.

Azalea will retreat from the splattered fruit for 30 feet with her move action, then use her Light sphere to summon a Dancing Light glow. Its glowing brightly right now, but not really doing anything else.

Don't make her glow at you! She'll do it!

[Nettlekid]

Anura's throat quivered with a warble, twig in hand and a translucent field covering the greater area. He had been nervous to do anything, and had hoped not to have to use his magic, but in the face of the unknown the go-to response was to throw up a shield and assess the situation. Of course, there wasn't too much he could figure out from this. He watched the fruit's juices spread and drip over his shield and tilted his head as the smell permeated the hemisphere. Unpleasant, but only a little more so than swamp gases. He'd prefer to avoid exposure, but if this was the worst that faced him then he could relax. Part of survival is figuring out what threats to expend effort on, and which not to.

That said, he couldn't be certain this was all that was about to happen, and that there wasn't some second assault waiting in the proverbial wings. He also didn't want to drop his Barrier just yet, while the juice was still fresh and runny enough to splash down if he did. So he did the opposite of drop his Barrier - he kept focus on the one in existence, and conjured a second with a radius a foot or two less than the first. If something should happen to shatter the outer wall then this second would protect him. While he waits for the juice to dry enough not to run so much (and for the commotion outside his walls to settle,) he plots as to how he can progress while shielded. Tactical placement and replacement would do it, probably, if he determined that the double-layer wasn't necessary.

[Steel Mirror]

There was a chorus of shrieks and tiny cries of alarm as the sheet of glistening honey, frothy fresh milk, and soaking piles of salt gooped and glopped onto the half-dome of protection surrounding the boys. Inside of it Anura, Columbus, and the other three kids had renewed reason to be thankful for the frog boy's quick thinking. Not all of them were reacting with such grace under this unexpected assault.

"Aaaaaaaah! What the stars! WHAT THEAAAACHOOO!"

"Satyr's balls, what is that smell??"

The sneezing kid grabbed Riley's arm and managed to get out a whole two sentences. "What are you waiting for! Shoot them!"

"Shoot what? I can't even see them through whatever this is! Besides," he added, waving his bow in front of him to show that it wasn't ready for battle. "I don't just walk around with the bow strung!"

"THEN WHAT GOOD ARE YOU?"

Meanwhile, the three girls outside the dome saw the attacking fey as blurry, wavering almost-images that danced and weaved confusingly through the air, avoiding getting entangled in the falling conjured sticky mess. From above, they heard a sound like someone inhaling through a rusty kazoo, followed by another veritable bellow from the tiny-voiced leader of this ambush.

"Blue regiment, flank on the left! Fox regiment, the right! Powder blue socks regiment, hold off those girls who are attacking us with their pocus! Beware the shiny bits they wield, those always hurt the most. We shall carry the day yet!"

There was an angry sound like the buzzing of a horde of angry, very large bees, and various cries of excitement. A few more of those noxious smelling berries impacted on the outside of the magical barrier.

Then, nothing. The girls, who might have expected some kind of assault based on the thing shouting orders, didn't notice any angry fey throwing fruit at them, or even see rustling leaves or hear wings moving toward them. Instead, a dozen tiny hand and footprints started appearing by themselves in the honey stuck to the barrier. In a couple of places, they could almost see the outline of tiny humanoid creatures crawling all over it.

"What is this treason? Troops, return to your battle stations! I'm giving you a direct order!"

"I'm sorry captain! Perfidy! Dishonor! The troops have been are distracted by the sweet honey of a witch's deceit!"

The voices were coming from much closer to the girls than before. It was hard to tell an exact direction in all the chaos, but it seemed that the leader was somewhere nearby.

Izumi saw everything from where she was walking almost a hundred feet back, though perhaps mercifully she hadn't smelled anything yet. Next to her, Cecil reared up in surprise when the path ahead of them exploded in magic. Magic and salty honey. "Gaaaaah! What is it this time? What did I do?"

[jamieth]

"Nothing as far as I could tell", Izumi replied seriously as she hurried towards the place of havok, raising her fans - with her hands, for now; she was too much in a hurry to afford even a couple dance steps.

Double move 60 ft. towards the battle; draw fans as part of movement

[Hella Lugosi]

Relief floods through Columbus as he saw the strange goo splash harmlessly off the barrier (although it does die down a bit when he realises that it hasn't affected the smell at all). He reaches for his hip flask and, after briefly considering how bad it tastes, downs it in one.

He feels it's effects take hold on him and, not knowing his attackers, decides to make an impression. At least he got some practice being scary today. "Right! All together or one at a time, it's all the same to me!"

[AmberVael]

Azalea wrinkled her nose at the storm of food, but in the end she guessed it wasn't quite as nasty as what the pixies were already throwing out everywhere. That said, the mix of the two... she had been looking forward to eating something, but now she felt that she could wait a while.

Seeing that most of the pixies had seemingly abandoned the fight in favor of food, she decided to do her best to attract the remainder to it. With a flick of her hand and brush she sent a rainbow of colors swirling through the light she had gathered, then sent it spinning towards the pixies. The glowing sphere pulsed and shifted colors hypnotically as it soared around the path, leisurely swinging around where she thought the remaining pixies were lingering, then came to rest just above Melwyn's conjured pixie bait. Once there it continued to spin and began to shine even brighter, quite an eye catching sight.

Azalea first customizes her light with the Style talent, making it a glowing rainbow, then sends it to dance around the 'battlefield,' hopefully attracting the attention of the fey. She wants it to stop right in the middle of Melwyn's conjured food and a good distance away from Anura's barrier, then she'll start concentrating on it to make it glow with bright light.

She'll effectively be painting her rainbow pattern on with her brush, so I figure a calligraphy roll to make it look as pleasing, eye-catching, and hypnotic as possible won't hurt.
Craft (Calligraphy): [roll0]

[Steel Mirror]

As Izumi ran down the path, fans flashing with reflected sunlight as she passed under the dappled shadows of the forest canopy, a sudden flash of movement caught her attention in the corner of her eye. In the bushes nearby, she could see something disturbing the underbrush as it moved, slower than her but about the speed of a brisk jog, through the forest and towards the gaggle of students in front of her. Giving it a second glance, she realized that it wasn't just one creature moving; it was a whole swarm. Hundreds of centipedes as big around as her thumb writhed and clicked, carpeting the forest floor in ten foot wide mass. It took her a moment to realize that there were other figures, too, a pair of tiny humanoid figures about eight inches high flitting back and forth behind the centipede swarm, shooting out handfuls of magical sparks at lagging bugs and making little clicking noises of their own as they drove the creatures behind the students on the path in order to flank them.

As far as she could tell, none of the students ahead knew that the creatures were coming, and the little pixies didn't seem to be paying much attention to Izumi, either.

Meanwhile, Azalea's display of multicolored magic was impressive, and it also had the unexpected side effect of helping to illuminate the outlines of a few of the invisible attackers. Whenever a mote of colored magic flew through the sky behind one of the fey, the illusion which made them so hard to spot took a moment to adapt, giving the impression of looking at the colored lights through a few inches of thick glass or water. It wasn't enough to see clearly where they all were or to easily target them, but it was enough to confirm that the foe the students were facing were, in fact, small humanoid figures, about a dozen in number. Several of them were already gravitating towards Azalea's light show, though the rest seemed to be still attacking the honey with a will. If someone wished to target one or more of the little nuisances, though, there were several at the center of Azalea's magic that provided the most easy targets.

"Good idea!" Jennifer shouted from Azalea's side. "I'm not failing the test this time! Looks like it's my time to shine!" She lifted up her arms and even seemed to grow an inch or two taller, then recited a few words in some strange language. "Amarech! Vusta'ib nilaya! Kezzet falhoor abed Daya!" There was a flickering of shadows, as though the various shadows cast by the trees and bushes around them were lengthening and trying to reach out toward the girl, as power built between her outstretched (gloved) hands and reached a crescendo-

Melwyn, Azalea, even Anura and Columbus nearby could tell when the spell faltered. Jennifer stopped speaking in the strange language, then said in her normal voice, "Wait did I say Kezzet? I really meant Ligali. Umm, can I have a do-over?" The spell fell to pieces, the energy escaping in a rush of unfocused spell power that quickly streaked across the path and just inches away from Anura's protective dome, catching fire as it went. A second later it detonated in the forest with a massively loud WHUMP, shaking leaves from trees and exploding with such heat that it could be felt even where the students were standing, about a hundred feet from the blast center. The light from the fireball cast new shadows for a moment, and a column of thick white smoke was already rising from the forest where it had exploded.

Jennifer scrunched up her shoulders and hid her eyes behind her sleeve. She peeked out timidly, then hid again as the sound of a burgeoning forest fire could be heard. "Ohhhhhhh ****, that was my bad."

Jennifer's spellcasting language is Infernal, though she basically spouts over-wrought formal sounding poetic gibberish, which is more or less par for the course when using certain casting traditions. Notably in this case she apparently got a word wrong, replacing "light" with "inferno", thus leading to this mess.Jennifer was attempting to cast Glitterdust, but her failure (read, she bungled her spellcraft check) led me to roll on the wild magic nee Rod of Wonder chart, which gave us a 6d6 damage fireball (!) which exploded in the woods nearby. Oops!

Inside the dome, Columbus' boast seemed to have gotten some attention. A few of the pixies switched from scampering around in pursuit of the honey to employing their tiny weapons against Anura's shield. Spectral cracks spiderwebbed out like fractures in a glass window each place where they bashed against the barrier, though they had yet to muster up enough force to break through. Unfortunately, their comrades inside with them were not thinking clearly enough to be much help.

"That's right!" called out the sneezing kid shrilly, pulling out a wand from his belt. "We can take you!" He flicked his wrist and sent a silvery orb of force zipping through the air and right at the place where a pair of tiny footprints indicated that an invisibly pixie was standing. Unfortunately, while the aim was unerring, the barrier was in the way. Instead of a web of delicate cracks, this assault created a three-foot wide mass of fractures. The barrier still held, but it was a close thing.
Magic missile, of course!
There is still time for a post from Anura and Melwyn, after which I'll post again for the pixies. All the NPCs have done what they're going to do this round, though so far they've been a lot more trouble than they are worth, apparently!

[Grek]

Cackling maniacally and coated in conjured goop, Melwyn continued her assault upon the hygiene and dignity of those around her. A clockwise turn of her wand, and an incanted "Ptisi!" were followed by a sudden yank and the levitation of a goodly amount of muddy, sticky, honey-milk muck into the air. With a flourishing sweep, she swung her new projectile through the air in hopes of hitting more pixies. "Don't worry, there's plenty for everyone!"

[spoiler=Mechanics]
[roll0]Spellcraft DC 17
[roll1]Spellcraft DC 16
Ptisi - A levitation spell. In this case, a cantrip from the Cantrips feat. Levitates up to a pound at 10ft per round. Melwyn will attempt to levitate it into the invisible pixies as well as she's able.
[roll2]Perception, if needed. Hopefully the parallax off the flights is enough to find one?
[roll3]Attack roll, if needed. Subtract one if levitating honey into someone is a melee attack rather than a ranged.
[/spoilers]

[Steel Mirror]

Melwyn's mucusy missile streaked through the air with impressive precision, smacking with a wet SLAP into two of them that were entranced by Azalea's multi-hued display. Both of them were glancing blows, but enough of the frothy, sticky mess stuck to them that it was easy to make out their locations, even without the mad display of energy lighting them up. Apparently their magic was not good enough to completely conceal them when they got dirty!

Melwyn wasn't done with the gob of goo yet, though, and she brought it arcing up into the space above her where she thought she'd heard the leader of these things yelling. There it impacted solidly, splattering out droplets of the stuff while clearly entrapping something. "Eeeeeek!" The gob landed on the ground a few feet away from Melwyn and Azalea, and the half-outlined figure of one of the pixies landed right in the middle of it, thrashing around and yelping and trying to clear enough of the sticky mess off its wings to allow it to take flight once more.

"Troops! New plan!" the tiny thrashing figure yelled. "SAVE ME!"

There was a buzzing noise like a whole hive of bees suddenly taking issue with a nearby interloper, and then suddenly the air in front of the three girls was alive with flickering distortions. The pixies were coming for them!
Three attacks on each of Melwyn and Azalea by little invisible furious faeries.
Against Melwyn:
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

And Damage against Melwyn (only apply the total number of hits, of course, and minimum is 1):
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]

Total damage against Melwyn: 4

Against Azalea:
[roll6]
[roll7]
[roll8]

And Damage against Azalea (only apply the total number of hits, of course, and minimum is 1):
[roll9]
[roll10]
[roll11]

Total damage against Azalea: 3

Also, three faeries are attacking Jennifer, but I won't bother rolling those here because they will just clutter up the post. But she is under attack, as well.

Meanwhile, the cracks appearing in Anura's outer shield quickly vanished as his will solidified and reinforced it, even as he diverted the other part of his attention towards making a smaller bubble around only himself. The few remaining faeries seemed to give up on their assault as they saw that, and the tiny blows against the surface quickly stopped.

"Haha!" cried Riley, pumping his fist as he stopped trying to string his bow. "We drove them off!" Behind him, the display of light and sorcery that the girls were putting on even as they were mobbed by tiny stabby invisible people completely escaped his notice. "Of course they don't want to mess with me! I'd stick 'em one by one and make kebabs!"

Then, each of the boys inside the shield felt something pressing against their minds. Something wild and unpredictable and insidious, like the feeling you got when you were standing on the side of an airship and something told you to just jump. And it was really tempting in the moment for them to give in...
Anura and Columbus need to make a will save, DC 14. If you succeed, you can also attempt a spellcraft or Knowledge:nature check to figure out what this effect is, both DC 16.

Saves for the NPCs:
Riley: [roll12]
Sneezy: [roll13]
Other dude: [roll14]

Annnnd that is 3 failures. I'll roll some stuff in the OOC and then post again for their antics. <insert evil GM grin here>

Izumi was still running down the path, but the pixies driving the swarm of bugs hadn't noticed her yet. They didn't seem to have great control over those bugs they were herding, either. It was possible that she could distract them for long enough that they could lose control over them completely.

[Steel Mirror]

Inside the barrier, Riley and the sneezing kid weren't enjoying themselves. "Does anybody taste cheese? I'm tasting cheese," complained sneezy. "Oh this is weird. Something's wrong with my head."

"Ow, my brain," agreed Riley. He gritted his teeth and went back to trying to string his bow. "I should have known that faeries wouldn't play fair. I HATE mind magic."

If they were having a bad time though, it was nothing compared to the other boy. With a scream, he grabbed one of the heavy books out of his own bag and starting bashing his own face with it. Immediately his nose started bleeding, but he kept at it, ignoring the damage he was doing to himself as well as the other boys' startled cries.
damage: [roll0]

[jamieth]

Izumi, while worried about the pixies' intentions, just didn't have it in her to start a fight - not with something that small, certainly. But she had to stop them anyway... and with what she had on her, as well, since her bag was, of course, left with Cecil. That left the girl with precious little options... dropping the fans, she started dancing, extending her hands towards the pixies and into the sky, in much the same way as she did when levitating the fans...
Using Hostile Lift with Divided Mind to lift two creatures, creatures being, naturally, pixies.
Casting check: [roll0].
My CL is 4 on result of 19, -1 for every 2 points less on the roll. To lift 2 creatures totalling no more than Tiny size, I need CL1, so a result of 13. So, basically, anything but nat-1 :-) But CL Affects the Save DCs, so...
Yep, easily made it, so CL4, and Will DC19 for pixies to resist. If spell works, I'll move them to right in front of me.

[Steel Mirror]

The faeries let out surprised "Eeeps!" as an invisible force plucked them out of flight and pulled them out of the embrace of the forest and into the path.
Will saves:
[roll0]
[roll1]
The nearest one was pulled easily out to dangle in front of Izumi as she danced, but the other one managed to resist her pull. Unfortunately, it still meant that there was only one faerie trying to corral a swarm of angry bugs that two faeries had been finding difficult to steer. The swarm's forward momentum immediately stalled, and a few of the centipedes turned around and started snapping towards the lone faerie, launching themselves up at it to try and get a taste.

"No fair!" squeaked the tiny faerie that Izumi held in her magical grip. "You can't ambush our ambush! Big folk aren't supposed to be sneaky, that's breaking the rules!"

[jamieth]

It's not that Izumi couldn't be sneaky when she wanted, but in this particular case, she certainly wasn't trying. So, the pixie's question was met with some confusion, forcing the girl to stop and stand completely still (not that stillness didn't have a place in the dance... it didn't break her magic by itself, not immediately; just made it more difficult to control).

"Not sneaky", she said, blinking, "Just curious. What are you trying to do? And why? And what's the rules?"

Using Sustained Force to keep the TK for up to 4 minutes without concentration; pixie still allowed a save each round, and breaks the spell on first success. Just want to talk for now.

[Steel Mirror]

"What are we trying to do? We're just leading you away from the path so you can get lost in the forest and be humiliated forever because you missed your feast! Duh." The faerie continued to struggle, but for the moment Izumi's hold was keeping strong. "And the rules are just the rules. Like, 'don't try to put anything in your mouth that's bigger than your head', or 'don't taunt the grinning cat unless you can fly faster than your friends', or 'don't kill any of the students this year or I swear none of you are getting any cheese, I'm serious'." She listed off each rule in a singsong voice, as if quoting something told to her by an exasperating authority figure. "You know. Just, the rules."

[Grek]

"Ow! You stabbed me! You actually stabbed me! This means war! Pyrexia!" Melwyn brandished her wand at her invisible assailants, summoning forth a gust of feverish air and following it with her levitated glob of honey, pulled roughly from their splattered general with a sickening squelch.

[spoiler=Mechanics]
Health: 17/21
Spell Points: 3/8
Create Gear: 5/8
[roll0] Concentration, to maintain the goo. It fades at the end of the pixie's next turn if I fail this. DC 14.
[roll1] Concentration, to maintain the goo. It fades at the end of the pixie's next turn if I fail this. DC 14.

Pyrexia - An attack cantrip, causing feverishness to the tune of 1d3 fire damage. Also see Rigos, Kayupa and Ismos for shivering, heartburn and convulsions respectively.
[roll2] Attack roll for Fever Cantrip.
[roll3] Damage.
[roll4] Concentration check, if required. DC 16.

[roll5] Attack roll with levitated goo.
Note: Spheres of Power levitation cantrips, unlike the Mage Hand spell, do not require concentration. This is because they cost a feat to get instead of coming free with the class.
[spoiler]

[AmberVael]

The sharp, sudden stabs prompted a shriek from Azalea, who apparently hadn't expected an outright attack. She instinctively jumped back from the source of the pain and then took a few steps further away, gaining some distance. She briefly cast her eyes over the entire scene, from the mix of stink and food, her own gleaming sphere of light partially illuminating the invisible pixies, and Jennifer's unfortunate fire, and then turned away from it. "Open the way!" She commanded, sweeping her brush through the air in a hurried flourish, the gleaming silver symbols once more dissolving into a long pathway for her, which she quickly stepped onto. In the space of a few seconds she had moved quite some distance away, apparently retreating from the fight.

Azalea will take a 5 foot step away from the apparent direction of her assailants, and then will teleport as far away as possible - namely, 130 feet directly away, spending a spell point to accomplish the increased distance.

If possible, she'll try and hide a bit in the forest to help her escape the pixies.
Stealth: [roll0]

Hit Points: 19/21
Spell pool: 8/10

[jamieth]

"What are we trying to do? We're just leading you away from the path so you can get lost in the forest and be humiliated forever because you missed your feast! Duh." The faerie continued to struggle, but for the moment Izumi's hold was keeping strong. "And the rules are just the rules. Like, 'don't try to put anything in your mouth that's bigger than your head', or 'don't taunt the grinning cat unless you can fly faster than your friends', or 'don't kill any of the students this year or I swear none of you are getting any cheese, I'm serious'." She listed off each rule in a singsong voice, as if quoting something told to her by an exasperating authority figure. "You know. Just, the rules."
"Oh, I see", Izumi replied with the deadpan expression. "Well, you see, we aren't really students here until we get to the feast and the Sorting, so the rules don't really apply to us. yet. So, you have a choice. Let us pass, so we could eventually learn the rules, or..." she wasn't sure or what herself, admittedly.

[Hella Lugosi]

The whispers are a lot more numerous than Columbus was expecting. And a lot louder, for that matter. They pour into his mind like a swarm of bats, numerous and incomprehensible and everywhere. And painful. He begins to clutch his skull, trying to do anything to sooth the noise, to make them stop.

He spot one of his classmates succuming to the voices, drawing blood with a heavy spellbook. "Blood." He thinks. "Blood might do the trick." He eyes the rest of the students trapped in here with him, trying to pick out the nearest target. The frog's a little hard to get to, the kid with the book might be distracted, but-

He spots something by the edge of the bubble. A group of faires, the cause of his suffering. "Oh, they're gonna pay." He moves closer, eyes his target. And the whispers cease as a smile crosses his lips. "You'll do."

Columbus is gonna wait until the shield is down then bite the nearest one he can see (assuming he's not close enough to get a full attack on it).
To hit: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1]

[Nettlekid]

Anura's head is a whirlwind, and he's unsure of what to make of the situation. For a moment he feels hazy, but shakes off an intrusive thought. Casting a glance to Columbus however, the other boy looks less composed. It quickly dawns on Anura that this other stranger may be as harsh and hostile as the girl trying to push the centaur from the boat, and maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to get in the way of that kind of hostility. Twig in hand, he makes a brief cutting motion as he lapses concentration on the large outer shield surrounding all the young boys. However, in the same moment, he recreates that very same shield around the group clustered a few steps away. Riley and Sneezy and the others. There wasn't anything he could do to aid the one self-harming, but he'd seen a Displacer Beast close enough to know that he shouldn't feel comfortable within the aggressive aura that Columbus was giving off.

[Steel Mirror]

Columbus had no trouble finding a gaggle of the little creatures that were tormenting them. They were gathered in a gaggle in one of the clear spots in the frog boy's magical hemisphere. As he got closer to them, their magical invisibility fell and they began making ugly faces at him, sticking out their tongues and smearing their noses up against the clear surface of the force shield. They were laughing at him through the protective shield, even as the student behind Columbus continued hitting himself with his book.

Boy, were the fairies surprised when the shield disappeared. A half-hearted rain of sticky, stinky muck fell all around Columbus as the shield vanished, much of it also dissolving into magical mist as it fell. The smell was horrible, but Columbus was already in motion.

"I'm dead!" shrieked one of the tiny faeries as his jaws closed upon it with a satisfying SCRUNCH. It was like biting into a tough piece of dried jerky, albeit on that tasted like unripe strawberries. "Avenge me, my sisters! I'm dead!"

"Wow!" cried another one of the fairies as it buzzed a few feet away. "I've never had revenge before! This will be fun!"

"No!" another one cried. "She's not dead yet! Stop! We have to save her!" The three fairies wavered, then hovered in midair all around Columbus. Instead of attacking they simply stayed there, looking uncertain. He wasn't sure how long that would last.

The creature that he'd bitten simply laid in his jaws, hooked by one of his tooth-tusks. Instead of trying to escape, it had its arm thrown back tragically against its forehead, and kept squeaking "Dead! Dead! I'm dead!"

Meanwhile, Anura's shield had reformed and was keeping the four boys safe. Riley finished stringing his bow, then took a step toward the kid who was hitting himself. "Damn! Are you crazy, kid? Hey Kel, help me with this!" Riley and Sneezy quickly took the heavy book away from the kid who had been hurting himself with it. He fell onto the ground, moaning in pain but no longer harming himself. Riley looked over at Anura.

"This shield is yours? Damn. Keep it up, I didn't even notice those things before you had already protected us. Now isn't really the time for introductions, so I'll get straight to the point. Can I shoot through this thing, or is there some way you can let me through?"

[Steel Mirror]

Izumi's dialogue with her prisoner continued. The faerie was still struggling, but the combination of Izumi's magic and the thing's apparent interest in what she was saying meant that it didn't make any progress, for now.

"No, I can smell the mythal on you. You're student enough to be under the school's protection, otherwise the kaolin never would have left you off the docks. If you want to pass you have to take our keys, and we won't never let you have them, in the name of the cheese!" Right as she spoke, her wriggling and squirming caused a small metal object, about the size and shape of an antique key, to fall from where she had been wearing it on her back like a two-handed sword.

"Rattlerats and scumble!" she cursed.

[Steel Mirror]

Melwyn's Pyrexia flew straight and true, but the half-invisible flying jerks looped around and avoided it easily, letting the prjectile woosh off down the path creating tiny vortices in the air which caught up Azalea's conjured magical lights in intriguing swirls and patterns.

Her levitated gob of honey-goo, on the other hand, proved much more successful. It smacked straight into another one of the flying, invisible figures as it evaded her projectile, eliciting a tiny squeal as it plopped to the ground a few feet away from the previously-imprisoned lead faerie.

The two remaining fairies in the sky looped around and flew back at Melwyn. They still were hard to see, but not so bad that she couldn't attempt to dodge them as they swooped in.

Faeries struggle to escape their sticky prisons:
[roll0]
[roll1]

Faeries attack Melwyn with their tiny little sticks.
[roll2]
[roll3]

Damage, if any hit.
[roll4]
[roll5]

Damage to Melwyin this round: 0
The faerie that Melwyn had just trapped in goo managed to extricate itself, becoming fully visible as it did. It was a small humanoid figure, dressed in leaves and a tiny little helmet made out of a massive acorn cap. It flicked it's dragonfly wings a few times, clearing the filth, and then took to the air again, slowly.

Behind it, the leader of the fairies remained stuck. "Help me out you pollywogs!" it cried in a tiny, irate voice. "This is my battle! That means I'm the general, and you have to follow my orde-oooooof" Its voice cut off as it fell over into the goo face first, once again failing to win its freedom.

[Grek]

Rather than let the pixie general escape yet again, Melwyn lunges for her tiny foe, hoping to take him prisoner and ransom the class's safe passage for his release.


[roll0]Grapple! This provokes an attack of opportunity from the Pixie General, if he's capable of making it.

[jamieth]

Izumi's dialogue with her prisoner continued. The faerie was still struggling, but the combination of Izumi's magic and the thing's apparent interest in what she was saying meant that it didn't make any progress, for now.

"No, I can smell the mythal on you. You're student enough to be under the school's protection, otherwise the kaolin never would have left you off the docks. If you want to pass you have to take our keys, and we won't never let you have them, in the name of the cheese!" Right as she spoke, her wriggling and squirming caused a small metal object, about the size and shape of an antique key, to fall from where she had been wearing it on her back like a two-handed sword.

"Rattlerats and scumble!" she cursed.

"Sorry", Izumi said flatly, releasing the hold of her magic on the pixie and waving her fan, beckoning the key to fly towards her, "and thank you."

No [point to roll for something that small I believe; also, I kinda suspect it might be a trap OOC, but even if so, it's a trap I'll gladly walk in :-)

[Nettlekid]

Anura chirrups slightly, a little shy of the situation he's been put in and recognizing that the strife the growing group is going through is largely his fault. Not finding the words he wants to say, he shrugs and gives a small shake of his head. He suspects there could be some way to make an opening in his barrier, but he hasn't used it enough to figure out its nuances. He'll just keep them both up, while the other students take care of the faeries.