[CENTER][h1]Zavakri[/h1]
[h2]& The Dungeon Master[/h2][/CENTER]

Zavakri easily makes her way to the Snail Races. There, she sees the grandstands next to this racecourse are filled with cheering fairgoers ringing bells, swinging rattles, and waving flags. On the starting line, eight giant snails are having their shells scrubbed by pixies.

Above the circular course, a wooden gantry hangs from the branches of a central tree, where two goblins officiate the proceedings.

As she enters the area, she would notice signs posted in the stands and along the racetrack warning that neither jockeys nor spectators may influence the outcome of a race by using magic or by harming other jockeys or snails.

She would also notice that if she wanted to, she could participate in the Snail Races as a racer, or she can watch from the stands.

Zavakri approaches the racing track with a mild amount of amusement apparent on her features. She observes the spectacle of the cleaning of the snails and surveys the excitement of the cheering fans, and lets herself have a giggle over the whole thing.

Snails. Racing. Now that is [i]Just Right[/i][sup]TM[/sup].

And she reads the rules.

"[i]Fiiiiiiiiiiinally[/i]" she groans in appreciation. "Somewhere with rules!"

She rubs her hands together. Nobody said anything about using Math. Nobody ever said anything about using Math. People always underestimated The Math.

But before she could formulate a proper plan on just [i]how[/i] to apply math to this, she found herself ushered into the stands where she cajoled herself into a seat.

It was time to collect data. It was time to watch snails race.

After some light analysis, simple mathematics, a brief moment of getting too swept up in the crowd- Zavakri had a plan. She would try to take the already existing happiness, and make it greater! The method? Surely few others in the area could keep up with the high octane simultaneous actions in the same way she could! She looked about briefly, couldn't locate a being of authority in her haste, then attempted to climb the Gantry.

Zavakri feels that she's using all of her strength to climb the tree. Surely she's making progress upwards! She's even starting to feel dizzy.

When she looks down however...
She sees that she is only a few inches off the ground. 

She groans and drops back down to the ground, swaying on her feet and falling backwards onto her buttocks. She grimaces, hair falling over her face, and huffs her cheeks in indignation. Exhaling heavily to dislodge the misplaced locks of hair, she pushed herself to her feet and grit her teeth.

"Alright. I'll let the universe balance that out later. No sense wasting time with that. Let's see if anyone's jonesing to ride Quickleaf..."

And with that plan shelved, she turned and marched with some haste. If she couldn't muster the strength to climb a Gantry, she could at the [i]very[/i] least try to be entertaining while jockeying a snail.

"...Let's just allow ourselves to forget that I can't even ride a horse, let alone a...er...snail..." She whispered to herself. "...It's all to beat the goblinoids."

The final phrase was pure self assurance. She needed the reminder.

..."Ello Quickleaf." She began hesitantly, patting the snail's shell with a measure of reproach. "Time for a proper pep talk and whatnot, eh? Now I saw your performance last race, and I must say that you were positively stellar. Last in the race, but first among equals and all that. I appreciated how you deviated from the norm in excess of delays. It truly made you shine as an outlier amongst these other snails- and that, my friend, is why you are my chosen one. I'm not looking to win this race. I'm not even really looking to compete, my slimed compatriot. I'm looking to entertain. That means all I expect from you is for you to be yourself. I'm going to be the least worrisome, least stressful, least taxing, jockey of your career. Which, as far as I'm aware for snails, can likely have exceeded my own expected lifespan manifold. Now that we've got the unpleasantness of talking business out the way, we can get on to the part where I make a complete and utter fool of myself."

Zavakri idly produces a leaf of lettuce and waves it in front of Quickleaf enticingly, before permitting the snail to eat the delicacy. Ultimately Quickleaf seemed rather nonplussed by her dialogue, but so be it. As the other jockeys all began to mount and familiarize themselves with their respective snails, Zavakri made a show of things;

[i]Oi, why is that lady doing cartwheels?
I'unno chum, seems a tad fishy to me
She's really wearing herself out ain't she?
Almost race time, innit? If she doesn't take this seriously...
[/i]

By now, Zavakri was red in the face and wheezing as she rested, leaned down upon her knees. Numbers swam in her vision- the calculations merely causing her to frown and bite her lip.

"....That just doesn't add up, I always loved seeing carthweels. It was always exciting to see the circumference being rotated along a particular set of velocities and trying to math out the appropriately different speeds of the varying lengths of spokes and imagining the forces at particular points." She grumbled to herself, now quite haughty and red in the face for entirely different reasons as she fumed and dusted her hands off. "Fine!"

And so she turned, her cloak billowing around her with some quite undesired melodrama, and she leapt up onto the saddle. Quickleaf rocked forward steadily as Zavakri struggled to mount the creature, scrambling up to the saddle. Finally in position- and just in time, too, the other Jockeys were beginning to get annoyed at the brief holdup of the race start- Zavakri grabbed the reigns and realized that she was well and truly hopeless.

The race started. Quickleaf, surprisingly accurate to his name, took off like appropriate-in-relativity-lightning. Zavakri let out a shriek as the reigns slipped from her hands, and as the snail surged forth she gripped the horn of the saddle with both hands- her feet splaying into the stirrupts- her mind racing and wondering just what stirrups even do for a snail- the saddle straps snapping-

And as she tumbled backwards, the math seemed to click in her head and the formulae before her eyes finally balanced.

...[i]They're all just fools who like to see people get hurt![/i] she thought to herself, this brief flash of brilliance lightening her countenance from stormy to cautiously optimistic as she plunged onto the ground. True to calculation, the crowd perked up at the apparent failure of someone they up to now had perceived as a buffoon for all the right reasons. Zavakri threw herself to her feet and, with the fervor of a woman riding a sudden wave, threw herself into the task of trying to run down and re-mount Quickleaf.

If Zavakri didn't know any better, she'd almost think the snail was outrunning and outmaneuvering her on purpose. But, in the end, at least she was keeping the crowd pleased!

The crowd continues laughing as Zavakri chases after Quickleaf. Many of the other riders who fell off the snails gave up on the race after taking the fall. To no one's surprise, the snails finish the race long before Zavakri manages to catch up to Quickleaf. 

She might not have won the race, but everyone left the snail race in a better mood than before.