[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/72bEcUi.png[/img][/center]


Lily smiled back to Connie, and then turned to cheer Alex on as he disappeared into the tunnel. 
[color=fff200]”Good luck out there! And do try to find a way for us too!”[/color]
Afterwards, she waited, her hands behind her back as she lifted her heels intermittently, her usual happy mask starting to crack and give into anxiety.
Then, after a moment, she lifted her hands to her mouth as if about to yell, only to lower them in realization.
[color=fff200]”Right, stealth mission. Almost forgot.”[/color] Branch Nose, still sitting on Gaia’s shoulder, simply shrugged.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Alex had successfully navigated through the tunnel: though he moved slower due to his bigger size making it more difficult to squeeze through, his barriers proved more effective, letting him also get through with only a single casting before he was out. His clone had touched the doorknob on the magically sealed door, and immediately discovered the consequences of such an action: the lock symbol on the door rune glowed, followed by a blast of magical energy that disintegrated the clone. That was when the suits of armor turned their helmets towards the three, then a second later their torsos, and finally they stepped out of their stands with heavy steps, brandishing their halberds with rigid yet menacing movement.

However, while the twins were immediately alarmed by the animation of the deadly decorations, Alex was preoccupied with the Carpenter’s hammer, and the enchantment to it: he discovered that it had the ability to convert inanimate objects into small cubes by hitting and storing them with the material in some kind of pocket space, and summon those same cubes too by hitting empty space and thinking of building something, as if he was in a game about crafting in a mine. At the same time, he also realized the hammer stuck to his grip, unable to be released.

[hr]
MDP’s group of colorful friends all cheered as she whimsically led the charge, the various chess robots, winged lions, and wacky cacti following her into battle aboard a wildly speeding truck, the chess robots already beginning to throw projectiles, and the cacti shooting tiny needles in rapid-fire barrages. Mac also joined the fray, and the two magical girls found themselves in a battle between denizens of the sea and the royal army.

Up above, Gryphon smiled in a sinister fashion as her opponent claimed she would be fighting unconstrained. “GOOD! SHOW ME A GOOD TIME, WYRM!” And thus, as Mayra split from the scene both literally and figuratively, Gryphon began shooting at an ever greater rate of fire as she kept circle-strafing, trying to keep the group of Mayra clones in view. As she made her shots, some of them ended up hitting the castle walls, causing parts of it to shake and crumble, something even the infiltrators inside would feel as a sign of warfare. Mayra would slither from shadow to shadow, getting closer and closer…When she saw Rachel flanking the oblivious Gryphon, about to deliver a mighty blow with her hammer, and stealing Mayra’s chance at revenge.


[hr]
The queen held a firm hand before Mariette as she took a hesitating step, and her eyes glanced down at her “daughter”. She raised an eyebrow as the intruders, instead of showing hostility, asked about a birthday. To this, the queen smiled, even as right to the side various formerly obedient servants of a Horror had come to a horrifying realization, reeling and coiling in fear and loathing.

“As a matter of fact, it is Alice’s unbirthday today,” the Queen answered in a creepily jovial fashion, and raised the stopping hand up to caress Mariette’s cheek, her own eyes still transfixed on the strangers. “I remember you two from the story…You are Alice’s friends, are you not? Well, as much as I would love to let you spend some playtime, we have much more important things to do, don’t we Alice?” She raised a hand to open a portal to the location of the next mirror, followed by lowering the caressing hand to her shoulder. “Let us be off. Oh, and before I forget,” she turned towards the pained servants of Asengav. “If you wish to be truly free, then follow me. Together, we can bring the truth to this despicable story, with no Powers, and no Grand Magistrate to stop us.”

[hr]
Just as Chloe had suspected, strange magical flowers began to bloom all around Penrose, seemingly congregating on locations where Grief Seeds have been abandoned or buried. The flowers grew up from bare earth or even cracks in the concrete, and had eerie humanoid shapes, faces surrounded by petals, and limbs tipped with leaves. They seemed to chit-chat among themselves, sometimes to an agitated degree, all the while letting out glittering spores that began to fill the air, street by street…