[center][h3]Winterhold College - Postulant’s Parlor[/h3]
[color=salmon][b]Ace[/b] - [u]Level[/u]: [b]9[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 522/90[/color]
Level 7 Heismay (70/70) Sectonia, Blazermate
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2492 (+3)[/center]

The layout of this new room made giving each individual alcove a once over for anything that stood out (loose items lying around, out of place levers or switches, etc) pretty easy for the Seekers that trailed behind their eugief scout. There were no items that they could find, but the rooms did contain an assortment of [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/cf68cf282da9.png]white stone statues[/url], twenty in number and more than a little menacing, but seemingly inert. After a look through -and a brief catch up with Blazermate who Ace was glad to see- the Cadet joined Heismay in the central room, glancing at the statue and the game on the table as Heismay made his observation. The game was unfamiliar to him, but moving around the table for a different perspective let him see that the small swordsman was right about the doors matching up. In a different situation it might have just been a coincidence, but as part of this labyrinth? No way.

[color=salmon]"But each door just goes to a random room, right? Why lock any in the first place?"[/color] Ace wondered. [color=salmon]"If we had a way to keep them stuck open, and then open a few at once, unlocking the others would make sense, but..."[/color]

He wasn't exactly seeing how the puzzle fit into this yet, but maybe one of the ladies had an idea. Ace himself was then distracted by the large windows when he turned to look at the rest of the room. His eyes widened and he made a beeline for the wall, made more literal by his new pet bee's wings buzzing from where it perched on his shoulder. 

[color=salmon]"Oh, whoa."[/color] He pressed his hand to the glass, peering outside. Not once did he assume they were stuck in an alternate dimension, so the first place his mind went was to wonder if the weather outside had suddenly cleared up, however unlikely it was. The second was whether they could get out using the window, so he slid his fingers along the edges to see if they featured any sort of latch. He found no such thing, though, and the more Ace examined the window, the less sure he became. While it certainly looked like a window, albeit one so frosted that he couldn’t see a thing out there, it could instead conceivably be a sheer slab of glowing crystal, or one behind a layer of glass, meant to create the illusion of radiant daylight. Either way, it didn’t feel quite right.

Eventually he trusted his instincts and turned away from it, hiding his disappointment with a shrug. [color=salmon]"Guess escaping wouldn't be as easy as climbing out a window, huh?"[/color] With that ruled out, Ace summoned a smile as he regarded the others. [color=salmon]"So we got statues and playing pieces. Anyone game to figure this room out or should we just tackle the next one?"[/color]

“Tis worth looking into, methinks,” Heismay recommended.

[color=0072bc]”Is this like, some kind of chess game? But I don’t see the other pieces.”[/color] Blazermate said, scratching her head. [color=0072bc]”I’m… not good at chess…”[/color]

[color=92278f]”Hm…”[/color] Sectonia said, looking over things. That didn’t seem quite right, and she couldn’t recognize the game. Maybe it was something from another world.

Heismay shook his head, surprised that this seemed to be a blind spot for the others. “No, not chess. An aristocrat’s game would be fitting, given our opulent surroundings, but this looks like three men’s morris. A simple game played by commoners on the ground, usually with sticks and rocks.” He pointed out the six pieces. “Each player takes turns moving one piece to an unoccupied adjacent spot. The goal is to be the first to line up all three in a row.” After a moment, he looked up from the board at the statue opposite him, permanently bent over the board in quiet contemplation. Heismay wondered if the others were waiting for him to make the first move, but he still felt indecisive, not sure what consequences that he might invite on the Seekers by playing this statue’s game.

[color=0072bc]”NEVER heard of that game.”[/color] Blazermate said, emphasizing the never. She was familiar with maybe marbles, pai sho, checkers, but not this game. Sectonia nodded, but in her case being a ruler, she wouldn’t be familiar with things like this in general. [color=92278f]”Does anyone else recognize this game?”[/color] she said.

Ace was the next to shake his head. Of course it was possible that this or a similar game existed in the world he came from, he hadn't seen it - though he never played many of those to begin with. [color=salmon]"Doesn't seem hard to grasp based on Heismay's explanation though. One of you ladies wanna give it a try?"[/color]

Since Blazermate didn't seem very inclined to, he glanced at Sectonia and Mokou who seemed more cultured. He could easily imagine the queen's temperament translating into a refusal to lose such a game once she started playing it.

Sectonia noticed that Ace was staring at her, then looking at the statues, then glancing at her again. Almost wondering what she’d do about this game looking to her for guidance, or so she figured. [color=92278f]”Hm? I do not know that game. Dreamland barely has chess.”[/color] Sectonia said, saying in no uncertain terms she wasn’t interested either, but for the same reason as Blazermate, unfamiliarity with the game.

That earned the two a look from Heismay. His expression seemed to say [i]it’s not that hard of a concept to grasp, is it?[/i] The Cadet himself could have volunteered, and maybe would have too even with the weird feeling still clinging to his back, but after a few moment's thoughts he had another idea.

[color=salmon]"Oh, maybe we [i]can[/i] keep some of these doors open if someone unlocks them,"[/color] he said, trotting over to the closest outer room that was open. Those statues, while a little ominous, might be useful for something like that. After examining the doorway to be sure of where the gate would come down, Ace dragged a statue beneath it. As he did he said, [color=salmon]"this might work, right? Keeping them propped open with these! And for the actual doors too..."[/color]

He pushed open the door that would take them into another random room and shoved another statue against it to act as a makeshift stopper just before actually looking to see where the new path led. As for the room he opened, it appeared to be a rather small, drafty [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/18e29916947c.jpg]attic room[/url] with a pale blue color palette and a glass ceiling that offered a peek at a strangely clear daylight sky, barely big enough to house a couple desks. The largest among them featured a large blueprint, covered with different shapes labelled things like ‘Undercroft’, ‘Pool’, and ‘Observatory’. Some of these were already connected into a [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/9ca042f48cda.png]network[/url], while others floated free. This studio featured two other things: another door on the far end, and a melty, multi-armed [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/d7543c20fbee.png]painter[/url] with a bottomless pit where his face should be.

Now this was an interesting room, the hunter thought. Though he suspected these windows would be about the same as the ones in the room the other Seekers were in, they were still intriguing enough to pull his eyes towards them. The blueprints were especially compelling, what with the map-like drawing attached. He would be sure to look at that more in depth, but first was the most eye-catching thing, which was of course...

[color=salmon]"Hole-y Jhen!"[/color]

The faceless man, who had taken Ace by surprise. The humbee with the Cadet tilted its head curiously. Neither hunter nor coromon sensed hostility from the man, but Ace made sure not to drop his guard entirely when he called out to the guy a moment later, noting that the man still had ears. [color=salmon]"Uh, hey there. Can you hear me? I'm hoping you're friendly."[/color]

Eerily silent, the painter gave an emphatic nod, keen to make sure his gesture was well understood.

As Ace busied himself, Heismay climbed up onto the chair opposite the winged statue again. None of the ladies seemed interested in the game, so with Ace gone, there was only one option, and he’d hesitated long enough. Before he could reach his tentative claws out, however, an angelic sigil appeared by his head and Sandalphon’s voice rang out through the Postulant’s Parlor.

“Attention, all team members. Edward, Ramattra, and I have found what appears to be an exit from this structure, situated in the Dice Room. However, we believe that unlocking the exit requires satisfying a condition for an arcane device, and to do that, some kind of die seems necessary. Please keep an eye out for any dice in your path, particularly one of remarkable size. If you do find one, report to me, then attempt to obtain it. Thank you all, and please contact me if trouble should arise. Sandalphon out.”

Having recoiled in fright initially, Heismay sighed. “Chess, dice, and three man’s morris. I’m beginning to think someone’s playing games with us.” Sadly, as eager as he was to get out of here, he had nothing to offer to the Seekers’ leader. Truth be told, he’d forgotten that he could call Sandalphon for help during any of the fights he’d encountered so far, in addition to forgetting about his new striker. Such was the price of being a middle-aged man, stuck in his ways for decades, he supposed. It all worked out in the end, at least.

[color=0072bc]”Wait… I saw something that was a giant dice. ”[/color] Blazermate said. She then told Sandalphon [color=0072bc]”I found one in a room. It was like some demonic looking room and the dice looked really dangerous. I wasn’t a magic user and it looked magic so it does exist. I don’t know how to get there though.”[/color]

It wasn't very long after Sandalphon's announcement before Ace came back to the others in a more genuine, better mood than before, a notable ardor on his face. He'd heard the archangel's words of course, and the prospect of getting out of the labyrinthian college lit a fire under him that had the hunter thinking about the best way to go about helping out. So back in the parlor he just barely contained himself from waving his arms in the direction of the drafting studio that was now open to them.

[color=salmon]"You guys! Come look at this!"[/color] He urged. [color=salmon]"I think this room has a clue about how we can meet up with the others!"[/color]

Sandalphon had mentioned the Dice Room, which was one of the places on the rough map the Cadet had found. If all of the rooms on the blueprint were already connected, it stood to reason that finding one of them meant that their group of five could just follow the path left by the other Seekers. Ace explained these thoughts aloud as he pointed out the drafting board. 

[color=salmon]"So if we open a couple more rooms to see if we can find some dice, then we can go right for one of these connected rooms! We gotta be near the end, so get hypeceros!"[/color]

He grinned, and made mention of the last glaring thing in the room to the others by patting a friendly hand on one of the faceless artist's shoulders. [color=salmon]"We also have to keep an eye out for this guy's face - I'm pretty sure it got stolen and I think we should help him."[/color]

The way Ace so casually said something as grim as someone's face being ripped from them probably said something about his mental state at the moment, but that was neither here nor there. The one sided conversation he'd had with the man a few minutes ago involved a lot of miming on the artist's part, specifically the stranger using his four arms to gesture painting and then lifting a hand to his face hole and making a grabbing and snatching motion when Ace had asked what happened. It was hard to imagine anything else that the charades were meant to imply.

Now, even without fooling around the game board, there were two more doors the Seekers could try - and could prop open with the heavy white statues if they needed to.

To be honest, the hunter’s discoveries intrigued Heismay a lot more than the mystical statue’s game. Of course, he’d been much more alarmed -and subsequently wary- of the ghastly artist who’d been lurking in the Drafting Studio, but when Ace both explained the painter’s plight and demonstrated his harmlessness with a friendly gesture, Heismay felt a lot more sympathy. Although it was hard to tell without a face, the painter seemed touched by the hunter’s kindness and lack of fear when confronted with his unnaturally twisted form. The eugief released his grip on his scythe’s hilt and crossed his arms. “Something stole his face, you say? Tis not what Sandalphon asked for, but perhaps we should alert the others and put out a request of our own.” Of course, Heismay did not take his own suggestion right away; by now, the others were probably getting more used to his indecisive nature and preference for others to choose for him.

With the matter of the artist out of the way, Heismay turned his attention toward the other elephant in the room. The drafting table with the blueprint seemed more significant to him than anything else he’d seen so far. Poring over the different room tiles, he identified several free-floating rooms that matched the layouts of ones he’d already been to, such as the ‘Aurelian Nexus’ and the ‘Forgotten Commune’. What interested him even more were the ones that seemed to be connected. Maybe the other Seekers in the maze were finding ways to keep the doors in here open, like Ace was?

He lifted up a careful finger, extending it toward the blueprint. “So, this controls the labyrinth? Mayhaps we attempt a proof of concept.” He identified an unconnected room that seemed interesting, the Altar of Horton. After placing his claw on the tile, he dragged it to the large Postulant’s Parlor tile and snapped it to the room’s only other unlocked door, the one through which the five entered. He couldn’t hear anything, or feel any rumbles of movement, so the only way to see if it actually worked would be to open the door and check inside.