[center][h3]Esaka, the Tiered City - the Pools[/h3]
[b]Setting:[/b] Drizzly Friday Morning
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (272/150) Level 11 Big Band (214/110)
Amaterasu’s [@DracoLunaris] Roland’s [@Archmage MC] Pit’s [@Yankee] Sakura & Juri’s [@Zoey Boey] Captain Falcon’s [@Double] Yayama’s [@Chevaleresse] Grima’s [@Goggy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1069[/center]

Primrose was right on the money about detective work: back in the day, on any given case, waiting was usually a majority of what he ended up doing. Waiting for someone to show up somewhere, waiting for someone to slip up, waiting for pieces to fall into place, waiting to hear back from someone, waiting, waiting, waiting. It was the part of the job that Band probably liked the least, but after so much time, he was damn good at it. [i]Patience is a virtue,[/i] as they say, and [i]all things come to those who wait.[/i]

Unfortunately, as he stared into the pool, he wasn’t quite sure what he was waiting for. His elegant associate had presumed that there must be some kind of infrastructure in place in Esaka to support such fast resurrections, allowing the city’s waste to feed back into itself. Esaka did, after all, present an interesting conundrum. As far as the Seekers knew, the World of Light worked because everyone housed lifelight within them, allotted by the Flame Clocks, and in order to fuel their own flames they needed to steal the flames of others. Thus, different factions existed in a state of constant war, pitted against one another by the Consuls who ruled them. Yet Esaka seemed to have no challengers, and nor did it send forth its many fighters to knock on the doors of its neighbors like Shinjuku or Meridi-at-han. Instead the people here preyed upon another, like a serpent devouring its own tail.

The place’s strangeness definitely warranted investigation, but Band couldn’t help but wonder if he and Primrose might be barking up the wrong tree. If there was something in the water supply, checking the city’s sewer grates would only tell them there was a problem; in order to figure out its source, they’d need to inspect the water treatment plant. Plus, this place was highly public. Maybe he was being too presumptuous, but Band would have expected Moebius to hide Esaka’s secrets somewhere with fewer prying eyes. Somewhere close to the lynchpin of their whole operation here, maybe.

After a couple minutes, the prismatic mote of the fallen fighter’s spirit faded away. Band blinked, double-checking to make sure he was seeing it right, but there was no mistaking it. Both he and Primrose had been watching diligently, and neither saw any kind of collector come to recover the spirit. It seemed as though that the people of Esaka treated them no more reverently than they did the ashes of the dead, which was to say, not at all. Band let out a sigh and shook water from his hat. “Well, it wasn’t what we wanted, but we got our answer.” He turned his gaze from the water of the Pools Tier up to the skyscrapers of the Top Tier. “If what we’re lookin’ for ain’t at the end of the line, it might just be at the start. I wanna lay eyes on the city’s Flame Clock.” It went without saying, though, that finding it, or even getting to a likely place to find it, would not be easy.

Before Band and Primrose could come to a conclusion, though, someone put in an unexpected appearance. Roland’s voice alerted them to the Fixer’s presence, and Band looked over his shoulder to find the quiet man beside him. He asked what the others were doing here even as Band wondered the same about him, although Roland’s first question potentially gave the game away. “Roland. You’re a long way from Tekken, eh?” Band would not have put it past such a jaded fellow to be down here to collect the spirits of the dead, but that wasn’t what he or Primrose were doing. “We’re tryin to figure out how Esaka respawns folks so fast. So far, all we gleaned is that it don’t got much to do with the dead spirits. Seems like they fade away here just like everywhere else.”

He tilted his head upward, toward the city’s upper reaches. “I was thinkin’ we oughta try an’ track down Esaka’s Flame Clock next. Even if we don’t get any answers from it, we can’t afford to not know if we end up tanglin’ with a consul.” He narrowed his eyes. “In Edinburgh, the Flame Clock was way up high, atop the highest point in the city. That’s where Moebius fled to heal ‘emselves up with the flames of the fallen, so that’s where we had our final showdown. If we don’t get a bead on it, ain’t no consul goin’ down for good.”

Although he could see the wisdom in that, Roland floated an idea of his own: what if the city’s Flame Clock were right beneath them, its face buried beneath the ashes so that the dead fighter’s lifelight could be absorbed directly? Band wasn’t sure about that, since it would have to be a truly mammoth Flame Clock to form the bottom of the entire Pool Tier, but he couldn’t point out any evidence to contradict him. Thus, Primrose and Band ended up waiting while Roland took a brief dive, swimming down to the pool’s sandy bottom to shovel aside the ash and see what lay beneath. It took a while, but in the end the Fixer came up short. Beneath the ash was only white tile, same as the pool’s inner and outer walls. Once he reunited with the other two, the three could get moving, although it seemed prudent to stop on the way somewhere in the Mid Tier so that Roland could get dry.

As they departed, Nadia watched from afar. She appreciated Roland for not selling her out. Somewhat curious about what they were up to, she considered following them, but in the light of day and across multiple tiers of Esaka it would be much harder to hide her presence, especially from Band. Still, she didn’t want to stay in the Pools, at least not in the grisly Mortal Kombat section. Maybe the World Warrior section would offer more sportsmanlike competition and less dismemberment. Or maybe she could trade places with Roland and traipse all the way over to the Tekken section to cheer Beowulf on. That sounded like a decent plan, so she got moving. And if the feral saw any compelling World Warrior matches on the way through, well, she had plenty of time before her next match.

[center][h3]Winterhold College - Dice Room[/h3]
[b]Setting:[/b] Labyrinthine Friday Morning
Lvl 10 Sandalphon (22/100) Level 7 Heismay (56/70)
Edward’s [@DracoLunaris] Blazermate & Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC] Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee] Roxas & Ganondorf’s [@Double] Ramattra and Tenna’s [@XoXKieroBombXoX] Mokou’s [@Goggy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1244[/center]

Sandalphon’s pupil became a targeting reticle. “You have it?” She extended her hand imploringly as Ramattra produced a tiny, pale, shimmering sliver of unalloyed gold, intricate but fragile-looking. “Providential timing.” As his mechanical manipulator placed it in the palm of her gloved hand, she raised her voice as much as she could. “Byleth, come back!” A moment later and the cursed instructor returned. Her condition had worsened over just a handful of moments, her eyes widening vertically, her body beginning to distend in weird ways.

Recognizing one of the artifacts the aphid brothers mentioned, she desperately reached out a clawed hand. With no idea how to use the needle, Sandalphon pricked Byleth’s palm. For a split second the blackened flesh seemed to brighten, but the next moment the effect dwindled. This was no time for half-measures, the archangel decided. Before Byleth or anyone else could offer advice on what to do, Sandalphon took the needle between two proximal phalanges and punched it straight into the instructor’s chest.

Byleth gasped, which was significant in itself as her mouth had been sealed shut a second ago. In an instant she began to change, the mutations rapidly reverting as her usual skin tone swept back over her body. Her eyes turned from bloodshot yellow to blue, and as she squeezed them shut tears began to flow. Her lost hair and damaged clothing remained, but with remarkable quickness, she was human again.

Sandalphon’s pupil, momentarily a stress mark, became a capital T. “It worked. Thank Ilia.”

“Byleth!” Primm rushed to her friend and embraced her, teary-eyes. Thops joined them a moment later, a little more gingerly but no less wholeheartedly. Tipp and Pill bounced up and down in excitement, congratulating Ramattra on his lucky find. A chorus of relieved and happy meows issued from the nearby cats intelligent enough to dread a second horrific transformation. 

As the tension in the room lessened, the bitter aftertaste of Satori’s fate watered down by the elation of a timely save, Sandalphon turned her eyes toward the other item the Omnic managed to retrieve: a huge die, held fast within an ornate wrought-iron frame. She’d noticed the instant he brought it in, of course, but saving Byleth had been her priority at the moment. Now, though, she could really marvel at the Seeker’s turn of fortune. “This must be it,” she pointed out, glancing at Edward. “The missing piece to the puzzle. We should be able to activate this room.” She furrowed her brow. “Of course, we don’t intend to leave everyone behind. One moment.”

The archangel activated her sigil in order to contact every team member scattered throughout the maze. “Attention, all Seekers. We have obtained the die and stand ready to activate the Dice Room. I am issuing the evacuation order: make your way to the Dice Room ASAP. I recommend opening doors until you see another door held open by one of Edward’s golems, at which point it and its fellows can direct you to our location. Bring all possible innocents. And if you should find an observatory, do NOT, I repeat NOT, look through the telescope. Copy?”

With her announcement made, Sandalphon took a deep breath. One of Edward’s golems had helped move the die to the giant game board on the chamber’s floor. She approached, reached past the frame, and laid one hand on the die itself in order to try and activate it.

To her surprise, it reacted on the first try. An electric jolt startled her as green lightning arced from the die and into the air. Fog filled the Dice Room’s upper reaches, pierced a moment later by ghostly green light as a giant floating skull began to emerge, followed by peals of sinister laughter.

[color=#73ffa9]”Heh heh heh heh heh…y’all are boned now,”[/color] the skull taunted everyone in a venomous southern drawl. [color=#73ffa9]”Allow me to offer ya a belated welcome to this here institute of higher larnin’. Gotta say, it’s been ages since anyone made it this far. So, ya made it to ma exit and ya wanna play ma game, huh? Alrighty then, partners, let’s play!”[/color] A bolt of green lightning struck the die and it fell apart, becoming six smaller dice instead. At the same time, a ghostly copy of Sandalphon appeared on the game board’s first spot. [color=#73ffa9]”One hundred spaces on the board, thirty-six rooms, six six-sided dice, and one chance to reach the end. Course, I reckon you’ll die tryin’ long before then!”[/color]

[i]So[/i] Sandalphon thought. [i]The master of this place finally shows himself.[/i] There had been an evil entity ruling Winterhold College, after all, yet she doubted that he’d been actively orchestrating everything. When someone tried to shoot him (Sandalphon didn’t exactly see who) the projectile passed straight through the skeleton, prompting a vile cackle. [color=#73ffa9]“Aww, you got me! I’m done for…not! Heh heh heh, this Cryptic Overseer ain’t exactly whatcha call ‘corporeal’, but nice try. There’s no gettin’ outta this now, and by ‘this’, I mean your grave.”

“Here’s how this works, varmints: when you roll a total, I’m gonna collapse that room and dump whatever’s in it right here, mind-wiped and chompin’ at the bit to kill ya. No time limits, but if ya take too long tidyin’ up, I’m liable to get bored and start collapsin’ extra rooms anyway, heh heh!”[/color] The Cryptic Overseer leered at Sandalphon. [color=#73ffa9]”Well, you heard the rules. Better roll them dice, ‘fore I start rolling for ya!”[/color]

Sandalphon did not need any more time to understand the situation facing her team. This would be a race to reach the end of the game board as quickly as possible, without putting her team members at risk or accumulating too many enemies for those gathered here to defeat. She did not at all like the sound of college rooms being ‘collapsed’. Rather than the ceiling falling down, she pictured the chambers being erased, along with everyone inside them. That meant each roll could be someone’s death, even if she could theoretically win in as little as three rolls. Everything hinged on everyone getting here as fast as possible, and on luck. But she couldn’t delay the game’s start any longer. She took a deep breath. “Ilia, protect us.”

She shot one of the dice, which threw it into the others and sent them all rolling. A bell rang, and after a momentary cacophony of loud clatters, the dice came to rest, showing six, five, three, three, two, and six.

[color=#73ffa9]”Twenty-five?”[/color] The Cryptic Overseer sounded annoyed, but his dismay quickly turned to delight. [color=#73ffa9]”That’s the Pool, which just so happens to have a secret underwater area none of y’all found. Including a handsome devil a reckon y’all don’t wanna miss. Say howdy…[/color] The labyrinth shook, and a second later, a rift opened over the spot Sandalphon’s avatar had moved to. A towering, [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/bcb801d4f393.png]monstrous amalgam[/url] of limbs and faces appeared, the eyes and mouth of its main head stretched across enormous rainbow wings. [color=#73ffa9]”To Godhead Fred!”[/color]

A suitably imposing challenger, Sandalphon thought. But there were plenty of allies present, and she was already one-quarter of the way across the board. If her forces divided and conquered, they could definitely do this, even if time wasn’t on the Seekers’ side.

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zu2VARVsb8[/youtube][/center]