[center][h1][b][color=gold]Lillianna[/color][/b][/h1][/center]

This woman certainly seemed like she stood out from even among her peers, at least in terms of clothing. Yet what rank it all meant was still a mystery to the lightning-casting mage, though it felt similar enough to academia back home in some sense. Like how differences in the robe and garb would show differences between graduating students and what they were graduating with. Whatever the case, they were being escorted into the office as the woman grabbed up the cube and tried to tinker with it using tools. Lillianna would look closely at whatever she seemed to be trying to use to pry it open, though the woman seemed even more absorbed in the object than she had initially been back on the road...at least for the moment being. Though she did raise an eyebrow at the little light lighting up the cube as the woman seemed to cast a spell, though both seemed to move differently from each other? One pointed at the cuve for the light, but the other didn't seem to point at it in this case. Hmm.

[quote=An Agent of 'Shields']"Any theories as to what it might be?"[/quote]

Well, at least after that maybe she could say something about the cube now and- 

[quote=Clarie The Warie/Wary]"Were you born with red eyes?" she asked, then looked up from the cube at Adam.  In addition to the intrusive question, she gave an unwanted comment.  "Not normal in the slightest."[/quote]

-then the woman had a sudden a shift in attention span, directed right at Adam with a sudden question about his eye color specifically. Hmm. Suspicious. It was enough to get the mage's brows to furrow for a moment, though perhaps she was thinking too hard as she was observing the other woman? Did red eyes mean something peculiar in this world?  

[quote="I Summon Red-Eyes Demon Druid In Attack Mode!"]"Yes, I've had my eyes my whole life. The cube is more important though, so any help you can provide with that would be appreciated."[/quote]

[quote=Frighteningly Fast Momma Fenna]She turned to Lillianna. 

"Didn't you say you thought you knew what it was and who made it when we were on our way to the Mazy Hillocks?"[/quote]

[quote=The 'Mac'-N-Cheese Ranger]Like Fenna, MacKensie immediately looked at Lillianna, who had warned them early on that The Witch Queen was after them.[/quote]

Eh...EH?! W-Why was everyone suddenly looking at her like this?! It was enough to catch the focused younger woman off-guard, leaving Lillianna blinking back in silent surprise for a moment. 

Yes, she'd said something like that back there. She could remember it even now in clear detail, just as much as she could the rest of what she'd been able to clearly percieve back there in the Mazy Hillocks. Even the memories of that sweat-inducing red-eyed stare at her in her dreams was still fresh enough in her mind that it sent a small chill down her spine, though that gaze had indeed felt the same as that far-away presence tied to the cube she had percieved as she'd tried to prod the stupid thing with magic. 

Ah. Wait. This was her time to say her thing, the thing she'd been waiting to say. The thing about the cube. Her thing. The thing to tell the people at the Academy.

Shaking herself out of the surprise with the sudden realization that she could give her theory, the white-haired woman gave a nod to Fenna and a glance at MacKensie before looking back at Ms. Shields proper. She would try to speak as an academic, to give a proper hypothesis to a potential peer and then treat it as such. Not that she wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't get laughed out or dismissed, but data was data dangit! So she had to at least try her best here, success or not in convincing this person of anything she was going to say.  

[color=gold]"Yes, I do have a working hypothesis about what that cube is after some attempting to tinker with it myself. Not that it was all rather pleasant for us in the end...."[/color]

The mage's facial features would briefly shift as she trailed off a little bit. She hated that cyborg water ninja so much she had to avoid thinking much about it. Stabbing her, party members dying after he came along, the whole stupid mess. Sure it wasn't all his fault, but if nothing else her distaste for him was very much [i]personal[/i] in the aftermath. And she'd see him fried into a puddle of cripsy parts and components next time she saw him!!!

But back to the cube. Yes. 

[quote=???][i]When Lillianna ran her fingers over the cubes surface, with magical intent in her mind, the cube shimmered for a split-second. That same Thrum she felt when she first held her staff, she felt again, but this was a very different type of Thrum.

It was a distant vibration, almost imperceptible, as if so very far away.  And yet, in spite of the quietness of it, in her magically-proficient mind, she sensed immense power. But that was the only reaction from the cube she could earn.[/i][/quote]

[quote=???][i]A giant pair of eyes, staring down at her from the blackness of a void. A woman's eyes, judging by the shape...deep red were their hue.  

They stared at her, dwarfing her. They marked her. They inspired fear. They radiated power. 

...And then Lillianna would wake.[/i][/quote]

[color=gold]"While admittedly a novice of magic at my current standing, I tried pushing or engaing with it in some kind of magical sense, or such was my intent. The cube visibly shimmered, and I felt a thrum of magic run through it....but it was distant. Far away, even, nigh imperceptible. Yet at the same time, I felt immense power lying on the other end of it all. 

Later, as I slept with the cube in my arms, I could see a pair of eyes in my dreams. Deep red eyes, dwarfing me and radiating terrifying power such that it woke me up in an instant. 

This cube was inside of the center of a stronger undead leading a force of undead that my party members here fought before I arrived. Upon the defeat of this greater undead, and the cube falling out of it, the rest of the undead fled outright. Combined with what little I had been able to discern about the cube, the fact someone came after us shortly after these events and venturing into the Mazy Hillocks and outright attacked us for the cube, and what I experienced in my dreams while sleeping and holding the thing, I've come to a tentative conclusion...

...that this object is a means of extreme long-distance magical remote control over the undead. In particular I beleive it is a receptor of sorts, channeling the maker's magic from far away and using the host undead it is paced in as a conduit to both power it and make it woork in exerting control over a larger mass of lesser undead. This would explain the phenomenon of placing it in a stronger creation, to keep it safe and properly powered, but also why the lesser undead stopped and fled after the host of the cube was slain and dropped the cube. The magic directing them vanished at that time.

And with the obvious threat behind the masses of attacking undead being the Witch Queen, I postulate it was she who created it...in part due to her reputation and the sheer level of terrifying power I felt on the other end of the cube's 'connection' when I probed it and slept with it respectively."[/color] 

It was a long-winded ramble with an attempted educational and professional tone and manner behind it, but she wanted to ensure eveything she knew was said about it and with proper information and context to boot. Better to be thought 'wordy' than saying too little! It was still a gamble to her, though, to see if any of these things stuck as 'proper evidence' to sway the woman. Or, well, at worst the Academy could toy with the blasted thing and get impaled by a cyborg water ninja themselves. Let them find it all out as she had. Blargh...though, well, she didn't wish bad on the place. Just the whole cube fiasco had left a bad taste in her mouth somewhat, alongside a new burning hatred for cyborg water ninjas....

...Had she mentioned that new hatred of cyborg water ninjas? Because she had one now, and it was certainly a matter most personal and which rightfully demanded the use of [i]even more lightning[/i] than last time.