Anarion

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia didn't much care for the naming scheme, but she did think she had lucked out. First off, she wasn't with any of her evil sisters who might consider sabotaging her just for the laughs. On top of that it seemed like this second Eupheria was actually pretty competent if she could get her mind in the game, and Dandy was full of tricks, even if she was kind of a horse right now. It would be good if they won, that would give them a head start into the rest of the maze. Despite Eupheria's arbitrary spacing, they still had to be moving towards the center, Eupheria wouldn't find it fun if they weren't advancing, and what she found fun was the important thing.

So, let's talk about Princess Battle Chess! You start with a giant chessboard of animated, person-sized pieces set in a vast garden (note that the typical king and queen of traditional chess are replaced by a Queen you capture to win and a Princess who moves like the queen of a traditional chess set). The board, unlike a typical flat chessboard, had some obstacles, including typically some hedges that blocked line of sight for certain pieces. The player, or players, could take a bird's eye view of the board at the start, but once you selected a piece to move, you took its place, and if it encountered an opposing piece, the other side had the choice of taking its place too. Pieces had to be quite literally captured, and any encounter could turn into a princess duel, pitting the individual skill and cunning of the sides against each other.

The strategy was important too though: a princess only got her full powers if she was substituting in for the Princess piece. Any other piece placed limitations. For example, if you were replacing a pawn, you would receive only a simple fighting weapon and none of your other magic or abilities would work. Knights could have tricks applied to them, while bishops generally allowed the princess to select one magic item or ongoing effect and Rooks permitted two. The Queen allowed for all short range magic, but nothing long-range. It was possible to substitute something cunning, like a rook gambit with a one use only powerful trap, but if it didn't work you'd be slightly weaker for the rest of the match. Victory in a duel would either capture the piece or literally capture the defending princess if they subbed in for it. If you lost a duel on offense, you passed your turn, which could cause a dangerous turnaround. Princesses could also be freed as part of promoting a pawn that crossed the board.

As there were typically fewer princesses than pieces, one had to select carefully when to replace a piece for a defensive duel: if your side ran out of active, uncaptured princesses, you would lose even if you had a winning board.

The game as a whole was a cunning combination of intellect and maneuvering along with individual skill and trickery.

Kathelia straightened her glasses, which gleamed in anticipation. She was completely ready for this!

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

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Annalee is having some weird feelings right now. She did her thing and the hypnotism is wearing off. But she's still got a lot of complex feelings. Okay she got Timmy here. Samael manipulated her. Samael hurt her earlier. She flinches when the finger touches her jawline. Just for an instant, she can't help it, okay?! But then his touch is soft, and delicate. He gave her his shirt, too. That's very kind of him. It felt warm, protecting her from the chilly air of the library, cool to preserve all those dusty old books. That was nice, wasn't it? Maybe he'd just reacted badly before, maybe...

Her head swam and she leaned into him. "A werewolf flung me out of a school tower and I had to leave my shirt with the sphinx at the entrance to get everyone here. And Elly-belly very nearly dragged Timmy right past the library to the Angel's room instead, which is why I had to practically tackle them in here."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia's mind vaguely registered that Eupheria had just done a creepy magical thing. She had even looked at the operations manual at one point, trying back in Jedad to understand Adila better and so she felt the vaguest sense of connection to what was happening. That piece of Kathelia's mind thought that she ought to do something about this, maybe talk at Eupheria a bunch and explain why she should leave Adila alone, and also try and explain the metaphysics of what had just happened because it was seriously fascinating.

HOWEVER! That tiny part of Kazelia's mind was currently being drowned out by the extremely loud thudding of her heart and the blood thundering in her ears. There are pom-p-pom-poms right in her face! Very loud! Fox pompoms! And...and even if the pigtails aren't flattering...exactly, Kyouko and Kathelia are matching! Matching! Oh goodness, oh dear, Kathelia just cleaned her classes and they appear to be steaming up again. Oh no, oh, oh, this is really quite...goodness is she jumping again?! Oh goodness, and her skirt is v-very s-short. Kathelia is quite certain that is a shorter than regulation cheerleader skirt, which she would have to be sure to tell Kyouko except that, oh no...oh no she has matching magenta panties which is extremely unfair.

Kathelia appears to start falling backwards, those pom-poms must really be making her uncomfortable, yes that's got to be it, but she'll need someone who isn't distracted to catch her, otherwise she'll roll herself into a very gangly fall and probably lose her glasses in the process, and that will make everyone have to stop what they're doing while she searches for them.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia falls on her butt on the grass and stares at Azora with accusatory eyes. She looks like she's split between wanting to cry and getting mad. But then there's Rita helping her up. Alina's telling her that the others are with her too, and now she wants to cry again, but it's because she's happy instead of angry. On top of all that, Rita is oh so close to her, a-and she's swaying a-and she's wearing some very pretty s-silks. Goodness, Kathelia's glasses seem to be steaming up, and she takes them off to polish them and finds herself staring right at Rita's silky thighs as the cat girl offers her a hand to stand up and um...goodness oh goodness. She's v-very grateful, yes, that's why she's babbling right now as she stands up. Grateful and upset at mean-meanie Azora. And that is it, definitely.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

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Annalee just cocks an eyebrow at Elodie for a moment. For this, she covers Timmy's eyes. And after such a wonderful night they had together. Quite the hypocrite. Well, never mind that, they were going the right way and, ugh, stupid bitch was going to run Timothy right past where they were supposed to go. Annalee raced to catch up, and when they got to the library area, she simply went for the fastest, most expedient possible approach. She shoved Elodie out of the way, grabbed Timmy and pulled him into Samael's waiting space, regardless of who else might be watching.

[Lashing out physically: 5+1-1=5. We should probably wait for Thanqol now]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia finishes tucking her pretty pegasus underwear back into its proper location and pulls up the straps on her overalls. It occurs to her that she and Dandy could match, except for the horse thing. But! That is unimportant right now. What is important is that Eupheria has made the classic villain blunder of allowing the suffering protagonists to get together and plan just so she can delight in their communal misery. Well, Kathelia won't have it.

"Everyone!" She says. Stops because Alina is saying something to King Isolde and that's important and oh void are they all staring at her now? She blushes fiercely and tries to cover it up by pushing her glasses up on her nose. "Um, everyone! I want to thspeak to you!" Oh god, the lisp, it's too late, no backing down now Kathelia, even if you look like some kind of blushing eggplant up here and Azora is probably using some kind of magic spell to capture this moment for all eternity. "We need to work together to get through the mathze. I know we have our differentheth" Pointed glance at Azora and Eska, "but Eupheria is trying to separate all of uth and make uth into her playthingth. I think, the way her contetht is sthet up, the winner really doeth get a wish. That meanth we all have to sthtick together so we can keep each other focuthed and moving through the labyrinth until we beat it."

There, see, she's an awesome leader and public speaker. Kathelia reaches over and scratches the ear of the nearby fluffy Adiladog for reassurance without really thinking about it. Then thinks about it and keeps going, since she can see it's making Alina nervous and it will be better for everyone is Adila is enjoying scratchies and not leaping onto the table at the cats.

See, totally got everything covered. Kathelia is the smartest.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Take the condition CRYBABY, Timmy.

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"Please. I made you look a little off, big baby. And I am entirely confident that you would do the same thing at Samael's request if our positions were switched. One does not simply refuse him. Now, let's be off to the library and we'll easily sort out the matter of this dark curse of yours, I am confident."

Annalee seems full of energy all of a sudden. The pent-up frustration is all gone. Perhaps that's the hypnotism rewarding a success? Perhaps she's just happy to be doing something that she wants to be doing! Regardless, she waves a hand and speaks some words that make the room seem darker, then looks at the sphinx with no small amount of frustration. Does it again, taps her own shirt this time and [5+3+2=10 to act staying cool] manages to slip out of it leaving her wearing only her bra covering her ample chest. The dark red shirt seems to merge with the Sphinx and she looks at the thing. "It looks horrific on you and I'll expect it back presently, pressed and folded. We'll be going now."

[Rolling to turn on...everyone I guess. Definitely Elodie, I can do multiples if necessary. 1+2-1=2. Marking experience.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia thought she would actually die. She wasn't sure she had ever blushed this hard, not in all the terrible jokes and tricks that all her siblings had played. It wasn't fair! The spriggans were laughing and Eupheria was laughing, and it felt like she hadn't reached the princess at all. Besides, how was it funny that she had color coordinated her undies and her overalls, anyway?! She'd have matching heart pins for her hair too if she restyled it anyway. Hearts were cool, glitter was cool, the spriggans obviously had no taste! And neither did Eupheria. She was so...so far gone. It made Kathelia's heart hurt. Eupheria really couldn't hear her, or wouldn't show it at least. And Kathelia was convinced that their pain was comparable. They had shared it through the ages and loneliness was...well, it was lonely and the only way to get through that was to find the connections between people. Little tears formed at the edge of Kazelia's eyes, and got caught on the rims of her thick, dark-rimmed glasses before beading into little droplets that fell off. With all the blushing, Eupheria probably just thought Kazelia was crying from the shame and discomfort. Just as well for now.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia, or Kathelia, the princess standing here has learned something since coming to Hyperborea. She's learned to be less sharp, to feel empathy for others and the pain that they have. If you've been watching, the nightmares she admitted to Eupheria earlier are old nightmares and her pains old pains. They still haunt her, but with people like Alina, Adila, Kyouko, Rita, Tashana, Dandy, even Brill teaching her about the world, she'll figure out that she doesn't need to be too afraid of them. All that is to say that Kathelia doesn't start this out by gloating (no, not even as a know it all) or by making accusations and demands. Instead, she starts out with something about herself.

"When I firtht got here, I got to find out that my father wath mortal. and then I learned that he could never love me, and he wasn't even thorry." She sighs. "That really hurtth. It might never sthtop hurting. I've heard sthories about you and I know you got hurt too, really really bad."

Kathelia looks at her own hands. Eupheria probably wouldn't give her much time with this, it wasn't going to be nice to listen to, but she figured Eupheria also wouldn't interrupt her mid-speech because she was from Hyperborea and a princess (or a queen) just wouldn't be that rude. "I think itsth okay that you're mad now and you want to play gameth with uth. I don't really mind. But I hope you know that you're really hurting people too. And I want to ask you to put Hyperborea back the way it wath after a while. I really, really love it. And I think you wouldn't really like being itsth queen anyway. You can still make sthome changeth too, we're all going to need to clean up after Oberon, even if he never getsth your sthaff. But, pleathe, think over what you really want."

[Kazelia is rolling to speak softly with Eupheria. 3+2+1=6. Her questions are
What can Eupheria tell us about what she plans to do with Hyperborea?
What should I be wary of when dealing with her?
What does she want, and how could I help her get it?]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

I'm looking for a reply here from Amish before proceeding. Say yes, Timmy, and Annalee will kick it into high gear.