Return of the Emblem Chapter Twelve: Divergent Paths

[Mercakete]

Cecelia arched an eyebrow when she heard that he'd worked for this woman specifically and that it was she who actually worked for the professor. Hm. I guess I should have expected that he wouldn't be entirely upfront. Or perhaps he is just incapable of being that specific. It's a wonder she isn't traumatized if she was forced to work with him, though. At least there are no immediately visible signs of any abuse she might have undergone, but then again, she reacted normally when she heard the name. Hmm... He mentioned the leader of his particular group tried to keep him from leaving, too, and even tried to make him think better of himself. The stories seem to be matching up...amazing as that may be. In addition, I suppose he was telling the truth with regard to his payment. That does not make him innocent of the crimes he has committed, however.

"To jail, most likely," Cecelia answered, giving Raquel a somewhat sympathetic look, "I found him in town earlier today, uncertified for pegasus combat with a pegasus outfitted for physical conflict. He also admitted to bringing her into battle without certification and when his temper got out of control, he assaulted me. I arrested him and helped other officers to take him and his dangerous pegasus to Fort Dailey for processing. ... I'm sorry; this must all be a bit shocking for you. Not many get along very well with Bert the Crusher, but he did speak well of a few of the members he'd traveled with, though he didn't mention any names. He also cast the leader of the band he was in in a compassionate light, saying that she had cared about how he viewed himself and that she even didn't want him to leave. To be perfectly honest, that is an astonishing position to take. I certainly cannot think of a single, good trait my bother has, at any rate. Are you a Mercinic devout by any chance?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Norbert's earlier wonderings returned as he began to ponder somewhat where he'd be assigned. At the same time, however, the information about the estate its self was something he was ready to take in. He already figured out the route between the dining hall and the stables, but he was bound to need to know more than that.

[Snike]

"Is that a guess, or did you look into her group, I wonder..." Blake said, before answering the question. "Well, initially I started with the group because I heard they tended to fight strong opponents, which was entirely true, and is still one of the reasons I am still with the group now. Then, well, I heard about why she needed to be fighting, I suppose I committed to working for her. Her father was taken by the organization, and given that he was a bit of a hometown hero back in Urcenter, I feel obligated to help rescue him. Besides, it is the just thing to do. Is that not enough?"

***

"Fair enough," Axel said, as the topic moved to the estate. He'd may as well stick around, in case he had new orders, or whatnot after the briefing.

[Balcerzak]

OOC: Not my proudest entry, but... here's some flapping right back at ya

"Heh, I'd like to know where you might have gotten the idea that only extravagant or exotic picks should have a shot," Theodore said, almost in a mutter, to Simon. "The fact that you're seemingly dismissive of a dance because it was 'well performed, but well known' rankles, frankly." He made a bit of a sour face and shook his head, letting Steinn's reply about how the Prince's dance might also fall prey to just the same objections as Simon had for the Princess's do the rest of the work.

"As for you, good sir," the pock-marked man turned his attention to Shadrak. "Since this is all meant in sport, I don't see why you shouldn't be up here with the rest of us, casting your votes. It's not like you've got a vested interest in seeing anyone declared the winner or anything, is it? Then just trust that everything was already taken into account during the selection process, accept your right to be here, and stand firm, my fellow."

Switching gears, and bringing up a mostly untouched and unrelated matter, Theodore continued. "There is one unresolved thing that has set my curiousity ablaze, though. Just what the story behind that solo dance performed by the gentleman was all about. Does the object of his affections accept them and reciprocate, or is that flame merely burning out alone?" The performer didn't really have a short of winning, and he certainly wasn't trying to push for that, but on the other hand, there wasn't anything restricting their conversation to the most direct route of reaching a final decision, and he'd have felt remiss if he hadn't taken the opportunity to learn what the others had felt on certain subjects.

[Phoenix]

Le Hallway

"Perhaps she's found her true calling, a balance between civility and violence," Chie chimed in.

"Well I wouldn't go as far as all that, but she takes this very seriously and for that I'm glad," Weyland quickly noted. "I know her uncivilized leanings are a grave disappointment, Seris, but you did raise a strong young woman."

Ballroom

"That's good," the nobleman said before going into some elaboration of his own. "Now, we were thinking that it would be wonderful if we could get a large portrait of the dance competition's victors. Now, you'll most likely be painting the Princess and Lady Wyght, but I would recommend preparing for anything, even a five person group portrait," he explained, though by this point, he was getting into preparatory instructions rather than just making the suggestions. That made some sense, given that Alex was on commission and not being hired by individual people for individual paintings.

On the first floor, Blake and Clover's conversation continued. "It isn't wise to fight just any strong opponent," Clover said, hinting at the Order of Wrath. She knew Blake understood that, but felt the need to say it anyway. As it turned out, she wasn't completely put off by Blake's answer, but she was somewhat suspicious of it. "It ... is enough, I suppose ... but please do not do anything reckless just for her sake."

Over by the judge's table, deliberation continued, and Theodore made note of a few things. "Granted, but I believe that is why Sir Bartholomeo picked those of us that he did," Simon began a reply. "There are types of dances that I, as an individual, cannot fully appreciate. I'd like to thank both you and Sir Devlinos for pointing out the errors in my judgment. I am rather new at this sort of thing."

Sir 'Devlinos' ... he used his REAL NAME?! Do Ursians know that little about the fallen; so little in fact, that one of the royal heirs can walk around pretending to be an avian while using his real name? By Truth, this is so asinine .... Shadrak thought to himself, becoming distracted from the proceedings for a moment. He almost missed Theodore's remarks to him as a result, but managed to quickly figure it out the gist of it. "I ... I'll try, then. I just don't want to make a fool of myself up here. It's true I wanted to be a judge, but I wanted to be a good judge, and I'm not sure if my scores are living up to that."

"That man was on fire out there, so I do hope his feelings are returned," Steinn noted with a smirk when Theodore mentioned Joshua's dance. Joshua was indeed very unlikely to actually win, so at least reciprocated feelings would make all that effort worth something more than just a little daring or fun.

"The woman he was dancing for appeared to be Carmen Illia. She too signed up to become a judge with us and I got a good look at the entries, once I had a moment," Simon explained. "We could send someone over to inquire about that."

"Don't embarrass the poor girl with questions like that," Charis chimed in. "Regardless, we should definitely see to determining the winning dance before looking into other matters. Since this is all in good fun, there's nothing preventing us from remaining right here after the winner is decided and going over more about the other dances," she suggested. In summary, priorities.

"It was a good attempt, but I don't believe it is the winning dance overall," Steinn decided to state for the record.

Main Entrance

Raquel wasn't sure if Cecelia was serious at first, but as she went on to explain the situation in more detail, her expression changed from confusion to horror. "Why would you arrest your own brother instead of trying to help him?!" She forgot about the mercinic question and as soon as she finished her question, she turned to head back inside, figuring Bert had been in prison at this Fort Dailey place nearly since she last saw him. She didn't really have a plan, only to go back inside and let someone know that she was leaving the party relatively early and why.

"You found time to arrest and haul someone off to jail while escorting the colonel? Go figure. Did you have to bring that up here, though? She's going to go straight to that jailhouse, now," Nadine said to Cecelia.

"Do you think she's planning to go down there at this time of night?" Amber chimed in.

"Oh I know she is, fancy dress and all ..."

Dining Hall

"To start, there are six completed buildings on this property: the main building, which we're in right now; the stables, attached seamlessly to the main building; the silos, technically all one building thanks to the way they were built; the workshop, where the Recusant models and the Dauntless were initially built, also attached to the side of the main building; the mill, and the storage building. There are a few other small structures and a guest house that's about a quarter finished. For now, don't go anywhere but the area around the main building. It can get a little dangerous when the engineers are testing concepts. That said, not every explosion is an attack or a failed experiment ..." With that stuff out of the way, she could move on to the main building itself, the mansion.

Suzume blinked a couple of times while imagining all sorts of war mongering devices being tested right outside. What had she gotten herself into this time?

"Now this place has all the necessities and then some. First and most important is the basement. It's kind of a second storage facility, but only Weylands, numbers, and those actually working on projects being stored there can go down there. Don't even approach the stairway without a good reason. The guest wing, or the 'left wing'--assuming you're looking out the main entrance--is almost nothing but rooms and a few, usually vacant, studies and offices. The first floor doesn't have any guest rooms, just the offices, and a third kitchen we'll finally be able to finish putting together if we can go just one more month without being attacked. It's not terribly high on the priority list. The second floor has all of the guest rooms, but that's not where you two will be staying. The third floor is a bit of an odd floor, since Weyland decided to let the staff do whatever they wanted with it. On both wings, the third floor's halls and rooms are constantly repurposed and refurnished to accommodate whatever shenanigans project leaders are up to at the time. To keep things civil up there, Ernesta has the final say on who gets what, for what purpose, and for how long. If you'd like a room up there for something, she's the person to go to about that."

"Now, the second floor of the right wing is where you two will be spending much of your time. The employee rooms are there--and no, the employee rooms are actually better than the guest rooms, at least until people start changing things around to suit them. The maids and other staff have their rooms on this floor too, so try not to be too loud. Each room is initially meant for just one person but we let couples move in together since it frees up a room and usually makes them happier. The first floor of the right wing has most of the other things you need, and the halls usually have heavy traffic during the daytime. There's the dining hall, where we are currently, the kitchen, right past that archway, smithing areas, training rooms, some other storage rooms, and so on. The central area has the bathing area. the main library, the conference room, a second kitchen, and so on."

Suzume looked a little amused and was trying to hide it once she began to think about what must be going through Bert's head right about now. To learn that he would be staying on the same floor, in the same area, in the same set of rooms as the maids ... that probably wasn't going to be his favorite thing about this place. "I have a question," she spoke up.

"Ask away."

"If this woman, Ernesta? ... if she let's employees use rooms on the third floor, would she be willing to let people use one of them as their living quarters?"

"The rooms are shared, so permanent, or at least indefinite use, is not very likely, no, but if someone can convince her, then that's pretty much the end of the discussion."

[Snowy_One]

"That's good," the nobleman said before going into some elaboration of his own. "Now, we were thinking that it would be wonderful if we could get a large portrait of the dance competition's victors. Now, you'll most likely be painting the Princess and Lady Wyght, but I would recommend preparing for anything, even a five person group portrait," he explained, though by this point, he was getting into preparatory instructions rather than just making the suggestions. That made some sense, given that Alex was on commission and not being hired by individual people for individual paintings.

"Five people in one painting? Alas, good sir, but that can totally be done." said Alex, a depressed, almost remorseful tone in his voice. "Such a thing would be only too easy and, for such nice people, I am afraid that I would have to charge no extra cost. Now, if you will excuse me, I must prepare my paints for such a task."

[Mercakete]

Cecelia would have answered Raquel given the opportunity, but she hurried off before she could. Any gentleness she'd held in her face disappeared and her tone returned to its typical iciness, though with a hint that she was a bit offended. "The Colonel told me to take some time to myself while she was at her meeting and I happened to find that troublemaker as I was riding Snowshard around," she clarified for Nadine before moving on, "As for bringing it up here, I had no reason to think that she would react so terribly to the news; I was trying to be courteous. If something had befallen a recent companion of mine and the one I was conversing with knew about it, I know I would want to hear it."

The captain sighed and pondered an idea for a moment before deciding aloud, "If she does go out there without any form of armed escort at this hour in that dress, she is just asking for trouble. We are to keep the guests at this ball safe, so Warrant Officer, I want you to go with her and make sure she makes it back either to the ball or wherever she is staying unharmed if she does decide to make such a rash decision and will not listen to reason as a last resort. If you can, however, try to talk her out of it first; perhaps she will listen to you." If this is something normal for her, then I suppose she and that idiot do share at least one commonality...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As he listened, Norbert tried to think of all the main sections of this place in relation to the ones he already knew the locations of. The description was becoming a little overwhelming, though. Merz, this place sounds like it's own, little country or town... There's even a mill! With the information about the layout of the building, Norbert went over it a couple times in his head to make sure he had at least a sense of where everything was. The third floors sounded interesting and made this place seem a bit homier than before, but when he heard that Ernesta was in charge of that, he made up his mind to avoid it altogether if he could help it. Apparently their rooms were going to be on the same floor in the other wing, but their neighbors could potentially be maids. At first, the thought was rather intimidating, but he felt roughly half of his unease leave when he reminded himself that now that they were all working for the same person, it was less likely that he'd be offed in his sleep or when he wasn't paying close attention.

Something interesting to note was that apparently work here wasn't strictly professional as they had some employees that were actually couples. Yeah, this is seeming more and more like a full-blown community, just like Anna said before. Yeesh, no wonder Weyland doesn't seem to care about Ursian laws much... He treats it more like another country he has trade with... The description of the first floor was particularly interesting to Norbert as it basically had all the facilities he'd need: a place for gear maintenance, a place for training, a place for bathing and a place for eating. The stables and his own place to sleep were elsewhere, but as far as he was concerned, all his needs were met and listed already.

Suzume, though, had an interesting question -- one he certainly never would've asked. It sounded like she wanted a room on the third floor. To be honest, Norbert thought that idea was crazy. That floor was overseen by the matriarch of the maids, not to mention you never knew just what would be going on up there from the sound of things. For all he knew, one day you could be waking up to a series of small explosions just outside your door, if a door even remained. That did get him thinking, though.

"Is there any chance that whatever goes on on the third floor would wind up falling through to the second?" he asked. He wasn't too keen on the idea of having some crazy experiment gone wrong falling through the ceiling and onto him. Maybe I should just stay in the stables with Riz... That sounds like the safest plan so far...

[Snike]

"I am aware of that," Blake responded, simply. "And given that I am already accompanying them, reckless is the least of my worries. Nevertheless, I'll be careful."

He paused, as if unsure what to say, before continuing. "I'm... sorry about your father. Had I been in the country, I would have been here immediately."

[scorri]

Lumi turned back to the ice statue she'd made. Reaching out to it, she shook her head. Checking her canteens to make sure they were full of water, she stalked over to the man she had rescued earlier that night. "You. Jericho, right? Do you want to spar? I... need to do something to distract myself and this ice sculpting isn't working. There are courtyards outside we can use."

[ReformBlade]

Well this is sudden, but she brings a good suggestion. "I can do that, though I might not be in tip top shape though..." And it is kind of getting late, but eh, I can light the place up. Jericho thought, a grin on his face for a moment before he went on with his interrogation, "Are you talking right now? I can do that if you want."

[scorri]

"Yes. Please." With a sigh, she shook her head. "I just, yeah. Need to do something constructive, and if that's sparring, so be it." With a gesture to follow, she headed out into a courtyard, before settling into her offensive stance. Pulling out her sword, she grabbed the side grip and swung it back against her arm. With another quick motion, she poured out the water in one of her canteens and froze it. Molding it into a rough tonfa shape, she settled that into her left hand against her forearm. With a grin, she motioned to her sparring partner. "After you."

Lumi: HP: 18 MT: 5/5 HIT: 8.75 AS: 6 AVO: 10 DEF: 2.5 RES: 6

Defending Sword equipped

Edited November 28, 2013 by scorri

[Phoenix]

Main Entrance

"Yes, captain," Nadine listlessly replied before passing her tome and pistol off to Amber. She made a mental note to retrieve them on the way out if she couldn't convince Raquel to stay put, and then followed her into the estate.

Ballroom

"I wish he could have stayed with us just a little while longer ... at least until Lord Wrath's coming. I've shed enough tears, though. At least Desmond can carry on his work and beliefs."

Not terribly far away, Raquel entered the ballroom, followed by Nadine, who was quickly catching up. She didn't actually catch Raquel until she had reached the judge's table. Raquel went to the judge's table to see the party members who were there, mainly Shadrak, but Gabbie or Mushirah sufficed too. She was only trying to let people know that she was heading out.

"Raquel, I'm under orders to talk you down," Nadine said after putting her hand on the merchant's shoulder to get her attention.

"Well that's not happening. Bert's been in jail this whole time and it's not like this is my kind of party to begin with. I need to go make sure he's alright and try to help him," Raquel argued.

Shadrak overheard all of that and slowly turned to see what was going on. It was Raquel arguing with an ursian mage who whose skirt was way too short. Bert's in jail? Again? Well, should have seen that coming. "Where's Blake? Isn't he supposed to be your date right now?" When he noticed he was being ignored, he just sighed and watched for a moment.

"If you won't stay put then I'm under orders to escort you, so make sure whatever you're taking seats two," Nadine noted.

"Fine. Shadrak, Gabbie, I'm going to go see if Bert's alright. Let everyone else know when you can, okay?"

"Sure, whatever," Gabbie dismissively replied. She didn't even look in Raquel's direction.

Shadrak mumbled, "Fine ... sure thing, Raquel," and looked away, noticeably more irritated than before.

Dining Hall

"We've had things coming down through the ceiling before, but that was Sardis and his friends for the most part. No one's allowed to do anything that would threaten the integrity of any part of the main building, so if it does happen, rest assured ... those responsible are going to pay for it," Anna explained, glancing off irritably in another direction for a second.

[Ether]

"Be that as it may, I've no wish to welcome back some ruffian. I suppose for her sake it's good you find use in her, if she wants to return then she'll need to clean her act up." Seris replied, his grin leaving, this time seemingly for good.

[Snike]

"I suppose," Blake said, unconvinced of Desmond's capability. Before he could try to change the subject, however, he spotted Raquel, followed by Nadine rushing towards the judges' table.

"... What is she doing there? They were talking outside, then... Sorry, Clover, I probably have to go," the Ursian said, as he rose from the table. "It was nice seeing you again."

***

"Good thing there are designated areas for the explosives work," Axel remarked, "Otherwise things would get boring around here."

[ReformBlade]

"You sure? I can pack quite a mean punch." Jericho said, readying himself, taking a moment to gather his thoughts and enough time to cast his own spells. He decided to start off simple, throwing out a ball of flame, in an arc so as to be ever so slightly fancy. It turned out to be somewhat effective, too.

Jericho: 15/15

Lumi: 8/18

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4319225/

Meanwhile, Mushirah was somewhat surprised at what was going on. There wasn't much for her to do beyond acknowledge that, yes, Raquel had made something of a demand. "Um, yeah, we'll do that." It would've sounded better if she didn't say it so meekly and quietly but hey, she was fairly nervous.

Edited November 28, 2013 by ReformBlade

[scorri]

Lumi barely managed to get her weapons up before the ball of flame slammed into her. Sadly, she was too far away to launch an effective counter attack, so she charged forward instead. Sliding close into the man's range, Lumi whipped her ice tonfa to the side, knocking the man's arm up and to the side. Bringing around her sword, she flipped the grip so she was holding the main grip and laid the blade across the man's throat. "My win," she said with a grin. Backing up, she bowed and offered a hand. "That was exactly what I needed. You weren't kidding about being able to pack a punch though. That was some solid magic."

[spoiler=combat]

Lumi shifts all magic to str, MT is 10 now

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4319270/

8+6-10=hit

10+6-0=16 damage

Jericho: -1/15 HP

Lumi: 8/18 HP

[Mercakete]

"Hmm," Norbert hummed, as he thought about the information he was receiving. From the sound of things, it was just plain safer in the stables: no maids, very little if anything falling on you in the dead of the night, no risk of falling through the floor in case of an attack... He could even stick near Rizen and probably avoid most of the numbers if not most of the other Weyland employees altogether. The best way to avoid a conflict, he'd found, was to avoid people, after all, and he didn't want to get on most anyone around here's bad sides.

He couldn't help but find what Axel said a bit funny, though, and so asked off-handedly, "What is it with you and explosives?"

Edited November 28, 2013 by Mercakete

[ReformBlade]

"Holy sh-" Jericho got in before Lumi got her checkmate in. "You don't mess around, do you? Talk about stress..." He accepted her hand, admiring the lady's decisive victory, even if he was fuming on the inside and cursing luck and some form of gods for his loss. "Care for a rematch?" He asked on impulse more than an actual desire for a fight or anything, though after saying it he was completely behind his mind's decision.

[scorri]

"Uhm, ok. Give me a second? Your fire ball did a bit more damage to my tonfa than I would have admitted during the battle." Taking a step back, she poured some more water over the tonfa before quickly freezing it. Concentrating, she shaped the ice back into the desired shape. "Right. Should I start this time?"

[ReformBlade]

"Yeah, you start." Doing a swift twirl backwards with all the grace of a hungry and probably bruised person, Jericho motioned fer her to attack, "Come on, be swift about it!" Maybe he was making a mistake, but there wasn't a reason for him to back down.

[scorri]

Lumi grinned. This time she approached slightly slower. As she started to twist her grip on the sword, she suddenly darted forward, resulting in both her sword and her ice tonfa crossed over the man's throat. She grinned. "You're just not expecting the close in. That's all." Backing up, she placed her sword back on her belt. Glancing at the ice tonfa, she frowned, unsure exactly what to do with it. With a shrug, she hung it from her belt on the other side from her sword. If you'd managed to avoid that attack though, you would have had me for sure. That's the problem with it. I close in too quickly and if I don't finish the attack, I leave myself open."

[spoiler=combat]

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4319499/

hits, crits, battle over

[Balcerzak]

"Well now, differences in opinion are not necessarily errors in judgement," Theodore attempted to mollify Simon somewhat. "I mean, look at the famed opera reviewers, Cecil and Albert. It's not always 2 thumbs up, or 2 thumbs down, you know? Sometimes it's one of each thumb."

"Anyway, I suppose Charis has the right idea, we shouldn't let the crowd stew in suspense for too long," he added, trying to segue past the side topics he'd brought up, but not without an agreeing nod to Steinn. "Despite my initial reservations of voting for the Princess at her own party, I couldn't find a flaw in her performance, nor indeed any reason to vote against her. Instead, only solid accolades of accomplishment. Since it seems like the only other strong contender, though not my personal pick of choice, as you can tell from my set of numbers, is the Prince's, let me just say that while praise-worthy in its own right, it was highly unorthodox, even among sword dances, and some of the near misses had me questioning if it was actually scripted, or if he was simply that skilled in recovering from mistakes."

After he finished, an interesting thought did occur to him. "I know at this point we're ironing out who is taking home the gold, so to speak, but was there any mention of provisions for a runner-up in the directions? I'm trying to remember back to Sir Bartholomeo's instructions and I honestly cannot recall. Perhaps that might be some small measure to achieve a compromise?"

Edited November 28, 2013 by Balcerzak

[ReformBlade]

Her consolation rubbed him the wrong way, and he wanted to attack her again but he wasn't going to let that get to him. "I see I've met my match..." Being bested, even in a simple sparring match such as that, was a bitter pill to swallow, made even more bitter by the fact that reaching his goal would be many times harder than winning a match with the girl in front of him. So, instead he smiled, swallowed some of that bitterness though he didn't exactly hide that he was bitter in his tone as he spoke to her, "Well if we're done here, I'd rather not catch a cold when I could be inside being comfortable." He didn't acknowledge what she said to him verbally but he knew what she was talking about and it only made him angrier as a whole as he walked away. First that fucking fallen wench is just sitting there taunting me, now I can't even best a simple girl? This night's just getting lovelier and lovelier, isn't it?

Edited November 29, 2013 by ReformBlade

[scorri]

Watching him walk off, Lumi sighed. She's hurt him, somehow. And he was upset. Starting to go after him, she shook her head. Wandering around, she eventually made her way to the stables. Finding Star Hunter, she saddled him and hopped on. Flying out of the stables, she made her way to the roof of the mansion where she had Star land. Dismounting, she sat down and stared up at the stars. It'd be so easy to go home. Maybe Eli was right. Maybe she should...

[Phoenix]

Le Hallway

"Fair enough," Weyland replied. "Walk with us, Seris. We're taking a tour of the place."

"Though let us hope we don't run into a dead end along the way. That always seems to happen to me at parties out in the west," Darius said.

"The westerners simply keep too many skeletons around for one to be allowed wander very far in their homes, hmhm." Daniel joked, though it was the kind of morbid humor only men like these or killers could fully appreciate.

Ballroom

"Likewise," Clover replied, resisting a frown. "... take care of yourself, Blake."

With some of the group informed about her objectives, Raquel headed straight for Blake, hoping to take him along too. At the very least, he might be able to help Bert out again, though she couldn't help but wonder if Weyland might be the person to go to about getting Bert released. As she drew closer, she recognized Clover very close by and squinted. What's she doing here? Is she up to something?

There wasn't much time to think about that, though, and Clover turned around to walk away as soon as she got there. "Blake, we have to go; Cecelia arrested Bert earlier," she hurriedly explained.

"Can we please not make a big scene out of this? It's not like he's going anywhere," Nadine chimed in.

"The longer he's in there, the more likely he is to make things worse for himself. That's why we need to hurry."

Over by the judge's table, things quickly returned to some semblance of normalcy as Theodore steered the conversation again. "I don't remember anything about second place winners," Shadrak affirmed. "There should be a prize or something too come to think of it, but there wasn't any mention of that, either."

"It may be a surprise the princess has cooked up," Steinn noted before sidestepping back into the other topic. "Either way, I agree that the princess and her partner had a flawless performance and should by all rights be declared the winners. We could also declare a runner up; I see no issue with that, personally."

"Kinda sounds like an 'almost but not quite; thanks for trying, though', if you ask me," Shadrak noted, which got a chuckle from Charis.

Dining Hall

"Bombs are fun, Bert, you just have to be really careful," Anna commented. "Anyway, I should probably cover one of the really important things now ... the schedule. It's prone to change at the drop of a hat, but when that happens, word spreads fast. We also hold official assemblies in the conference room once every two weeks on the last day of the week to explain any relevant changes to the schedule or upcoming relevant events or projects."

Suzume nodded to that without quite realizing it. She felt with so many people living and working together, handling things like they did was a good idea as a whole.

"Now, if you want to get something to eat and not have to make it yourself, get to this dining hall or the other one after six and before nine in the morning. For lunch, you'll have to be here between eleven in the morning and two in the afternoon. Dinner is between six and nine in the evening. So if you can't cook, don't bother hanging around here at other times unless you like the way the chairs feel or something. One other thing about the eating schedule; if you want to have something that's not traditionally a breakfast meal, you can. Just be specific when you're ordering. It won't come as quickly because the chefs tend to cook in bulk to accommodate everyone here, but you'll at least get it. If you're really hungry, though, it's probably better to just get what everyone else is getting until the chefs know you really well. After that, they'll just make you whatever you want ahead of time~"

"This place is incredible," Suzume blurted out by accident. She quickly covered her mouth, but the damage was done, or rather the compliment was done. "... well, it's true," she added, nervously, prompting a grin from Anna. Maybe she would get over this fallen thing after all ....

Roof

"Hello?" came a voice from nearby. It was just one of the guardsmen keeping watch from the roof. There were only a handful of others up there, but they were way too far off for a conversation and the guard who was speaking, had traveled a ways himself. "It's been awhile since a flier came up here to think. If I'm disturbing you, I'm sorry. I just needed to make sure we didn't have a situation up here," he explained to Lumi.

[Snike]

Aand Bert was in prison, again. He was awfully fond of cells, it seemed.

"Alright," Blake said, as he joined Raquel and her friend. "Do you want to drop by the manse first, to change and so I can grab a weapon and a few things, or just head straight to the prison?"

***

"They're the ultimate problem solvers, though the collateral damage is regrettable," Axel explained, just before scheduling was brought up. "And yes, they are, fun."