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Owner Pose
Lilian Rook     This is not so much a 'mission'. It is not something Lilian passed off, is coordinating, or people were reached out to through her, for being one of a handful of important people who spare time for networking in Multiversal circles like these. It is something like a personal favour(and money is thrown about anyways because who doesn't pay their friends?) and it comes with the very deadly serious warning. 'If you won't dress presentably then I'll strip you naked and dress you myself'. This is, apparently, the part she is most severely concerned with, when the matter at hand is 'a very credible threat to a personal friend'.

    This is either the first, or the third or fourth, occasion where people get to experience the pleasant sensation of huffing pure ozone from a ventilator mask while simultaneously someone is playing white noise on some enormous subwoofer somewhere just below their range of hearing. Unless someone is naturally 'very magic' at which point there's more of a synaesthetic feeling of invigorating fresh air. Even though it's indoors. There's also, yet again, the growingly tiresome 'formality' of not being told where exactly 'here' is, but it's something Lilian assures people will change if tonight goes well.

    'Tonight' appears to be the operative word, as this gathering doesn't even start until 10, apparently being too difficult to get all the people who should be there in the same room at the same time otherwise. It is perfectly sunset-going-on-midnight outside, which is only visible from tall, vaulted windows on the second floor. One can look through them from the ground floor because the bulk appears to be taking place in something that is either an ivory tower reception hall or a very antiquated ballroom and it's not quite possible to decisively tell which.

    The double front doors lead straight into rectangular space (albeit rectangular in that it is wider than it is long) laid with dense carpet and flanked by marble pillars which demarcate the bounds of hardwood alleys flaking each side. It then leads into a far larger and more open space, with burnished patterned floors, a second and third level to it that wraps around the entire room, accessible only by curving jacknife staircases near the entrance, an excessively grandiose vaulted ceiling, and a stage that appears to be curtained up in disuse for the night. There are two doors on either side of it that lead to hallways further in, ostensibly inaccessible at this time, as is the same with two larger sets that are at the arbitrary easy and west of the room, beneath the balconies and their pillars -- matching ones appear to align just outside along the same wall.
Lilian Rook     The doors are 'ostensibly inaccessible' because of preexisting security, as much as that may matter. Though there are big surly looking toughs flanking each exit and entrance, nobody present seems to mind them. There are fewer people than there really should be for the size of the room, but the acoustics are bizarrely perfect, given over to more precise, geometric shapes, than baroque carvings, and hanging chandeliers and light fixtures that, on closer example, appears to be elaborately placed arrangements of floating orbs of light. Darkly varnished tables and chairs have been pulled out to the sides in significant number, over rolled out rugs, making for the only really privately shady place in the room. Otherwise, any furniture out on the floor is either being used for food, piles of unopened gifts, and concessions to projected displays for people's ease of access to things you'd want a smart device for.

    There are, all told, probably just a hair over a hundred people, not counting security patrolling around, concierges, and whoever the pleasant lady is at the front, which probably round it out to a good half as much again. Despite what Lilian had said about this being related to her class, though, there are a grand total of eight people in the room who appear to be roughly her age, easily outnumbered by adults, ranging from 'too young to be their parents' to 'to young to be the preceding's parents', and slightly outnumbered by a handful of younger children that are the best behaved nine year olds anyone here has ever seen.

    There is no mistaking that this is one of those high society things. It is, at least, more visually interesting than a bunch of men and ladies in tuxes and cocktail dresses though. There is, apparently, little collective arbiter of appropriate fashion here, leading to some significant range, about maybe a quarter of which appears to be properly 'corporate formal', another quarter about sixty to a hundred years outdated and simply polished up to standard, and the other half being about fifty too many people all thinking that whatever they're wearing will be the next fashion trend, and being three steps short of an avant garde runway piece.

    It makes for a lot of empty space, yet poor sight lines. Private places to move around largely unnoticed, yet not enough to sit around and scope the place out without being a creep. Multiple entrances and exits, and an obnoxious number of windows up on floors two and three, but no way of getting through them unnoticed. There's plenty of security, yet none of them appear to be armed, and people generally ignore them. It's also definitely not up to code in the event of a fire or something. That's the layout. Despite your ostensible purpose here, security is, at least initially, very uncooperative about anyone wanting to visit anywhere else in the building.
Gawain The air is fresh and pleasant. Being fully made out of spiritrons and magical bullshit, Gawain enjoys the aura, as he's dressed in a black suit with a golden tie, a pair of gloves, and as always, a smile on his face. The suit has been tailored specifically to him, and is a cross between 'what someone attending would actually wear' and 'bodyguard chic', the gloves supposed to scream the latter, since Gawain's not actually a standard guest. He's here as a favor for Lilian, to help her protect her class, and hopefully open up rights for Multiversals. The suit is tailored to Gawain, and makes him look rather dashing.

The knight is patrolling the floor, passing by the pillars and at times up the stairs, briefly nodding to the other security. He knows not to disturb them - they're likely in full professional mode and not very chatty. It's unlikely any of the guests will come up to chat to him, being the 'help', but if they do, he's warm and open with them, willing to talk.

Instead, Gawain opens his senses as he walks. He's looking for the feel of magic. Yes, it's in the air, and likely on the guests. He's specifically looking for an aura or emanation that seems 'off' from what he should be expecting here, something that's not standard magic.
Tony Stark There is no need to fit Anthony Stark with 'something fancy'. His outfit - black collared shirt, two-tone vest with a intricate blue-primarily paisley design at he fore and a royal blue backing, charcoal grey dress pants with a black belt and silver clasp - has the subtle tailoring of a man who does not buy clothes made for people, but owns clothes made specifically for him.

The top button of his collar is conservatively fastened, and a thin silver tie runs down the centerline to hide the buttons of his shirt. A gunmetal-silver wristwatch - full band, with a large face that certainly isn't necessary for a timekeeping instrument - sits on his left wrist.

Under his left arm is a ludicrously down-costed 'extra christmas wrapping paper' wrapped shoebox that he enters with, the present and overbearing Toughs of the security detailed ignored so hard that they'd have to physically stop him to get the time of day.

Stark beelines for the gift table, setting his own offering atop the pile, conversationally leaning towards one of the hovering adults. "This is Dame Rook's pile, yes? I'd rather not give the wrong gift to the right girl - they get so terribly flustered when you do."

Tony has no visible problems breathing, even being painfully nonmagical. Perhaps he ate his Kelogg's (R) Wheaties (TM) Brand Breakfast Cereal (C) this morning.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Dress presentably

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|    Arthur successfully alchemized MAGE OF SPACE ROBES || MOROCCO BURNS     |
|           (COLLECTOR'S EDITION) && MIDNIGHT CREW VOL 8: THE FELT           |
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|                              20 INK, 5 BUILD                               |
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|                    THREE AM THREADS (STARGAZER EDITION)                    |
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    There's that good feeling again. It's about the only thing that's making Arthur tremendously comfortable in this monkeysuit, but black tie means black tie and Arthur will get his cosmetic equips together if he /has/ to. If there's one thing he can't stand to be, it's embarrassed.

>Arthur: Attend party

    Swaggering in at some point was Arthur Lowell in his snazzy near-all-black suit. He looks alright when he tries. Didn't exactly control that hair at all, but whatever, you can't have everything, you know? He has been messing about with the food, the drinks, et-cetera. He's been his usual obnoxious self, but with a particular twist, strangely.

    He keeps doing his usual shenanigans -- picking people out to hassle and barraging them with his usual blustery greetings and bullying suchlike -- and seeing who responds exactly how. Lilian said someone schemes an attack. That means that it might be someone /here/, which means that if it is, Arthur can gather just a few clues by seeing who's so wrapped up in their act that they're slow on keeping up with the natural flow of chaos when Arthur injects it socially. Finding people to critique, to hassle, or to inconvenience should do the trick.

    Not that this is even slightly different from Arthur's /usual/ approach to this sort of environment. He'd be doing this normally. Like, all the time.
Shyra     Shyra looks a little stunned and self-conscious as she fidgets a bit in the area. Part of that is possibly because the Holy Healer, when informed of the need to dress properly, immediately went to Lilian and informed her of the need for assistance, as Shyra has absolutely no fashion sense of her own.

    This is probably why she is in a white dress with layered ruffles down the skirt area trimmed with lace. There is a splash of silver and crimson in a necklace to contrast with her natural pink hair. Still, being highly magical in her own way she does find the environment refreshing... Though perhaps refreshing more in the sense of 'good central air' than a 'refreshing breeze'. Despite her clear discomfort in being in something so fancy and non-adventury, the Holy Healer still takes her work seriously enough to not just stand in the background.

    She putters about, poking curiously at the architecture and giving anyone she looks at and passes by a happy, earnest smile, though she only engages verbally if engaged herself at the moment, alternating between staring at the sights in fascination (like some rube) or curiously examining the way the area fits together and what seems to go where.
Ben d'Tarkanan      Ben is dressed more than presentably. He might have overdone it, in that ostentatious way that new-money often does. He's come on that very unsubtle white horse of his, even if it means inconveniencing his hosts by having it hitched somewhere out of the way.

     His mustache is groomed and waxed, his clothes... His clothes are meant more to communicate wealth than anything, though they don't look bad, per se, just... slightly noticeable, to those with an eye for it, as Lilian probably has. Specifically, it's black with gold trim and a vibrant red cloak and baldric, in a way that calls to mind something vaguely early 19th century. It's all very flashy, but it can't quite hide that one of his arms is paler, longer, the hand differently shaped and proportioned than the other.

     As a wizard with a prosthetic of dubious origin, Ben is quite magical, and appears to be enjoying the 'fresh air.' He strides confidently between the pillars as if he were meant to be here. His sword, sheathed in a simple but well-made scabbard, bounces at his hip, situated to facilitate a cross draw. Under one arm he carries a gift; something contained within a small lacquered chest. He makes no show of leaving it with the others, but leaves it nonetheless. Afterwards, he takes to mingling with those patrons whose clothes seem to match his, or at least, match it most closely.

     It isn't just making connections, though. Through idle chitchat and schmoozing, he's trying to wring little tidbits of information from the guests, attempting to learn about rivalries and enmities between them in that casual, gossip-y kind of way, letting them take the lead, acting like their disputes are the most interesting thing he's heard, smiling that friendly smile at them, believing them only as much as they seem to want to be believed.

     Eventually, he bumps into Arthur, who appears to be doing the same thing. Ben offers an (unusually firm) handshake to Arthur, with his right hand. He makes with the pleasantries, but slips in a question under his breath. "Here at Dame Rook's request, old chap?" If he answers in the affirmative, Ben's next question is what he's learned, since the wizard has mostly been sticking to the old-world crowd.
Tamamo     Tamamo no Mae is attending a party, and is to wear appropriate attire. This leaves so many, /many/ choices. She's of half a mind to choose the worst possible one on purpose, just to dare Lilian to make good on her threat, if only to see which choice she would have made in Tamamo's place.

    Unfortunately, for any expecting a good show, her final choice is quite safe. It's hardly different from her usual, black and blue with trimmings in white and gold, flowing silks like a cross between some ancient high priestess and some (less conservative) empress. The gold and jade jewelry is all a matter of course. It makes it sufficiently clear who she is, without trying to make any statement otherwise, notable only in how utterly it ignores the fashions of this hemisphere and, to a not-quite-so utter degree, this century. Her sort of flaunted wealth can only be easily find in the most low-brow nouveau riche, or else those past peoples who would have instead found a clean, trim tux bafflingly dull no matter how well it fit.

    If she intends to conduct some sort of security procedure, she isn't giving the slightest sign of it. She is cordial at a minimum, and warmly friendly otherwise, finding plenty of topics old and well-to-do magical lineages might care to discuss in a comfortable environment of their own making. She definitely notices but doesn't call out to those who do engage themselves in more purposeful 'securing the premises' activities, instead choosing to subtly aim her social butterfly-walk across the floor to take her close enough to ask, "Oh, Shyra, it has been quite some time. This is a new dress, yes?" and shortly after, "You are still cooking, yes? And how has your baking progressed? Are you yet experimenting with your recipes?" She has not, unfortunately, brought any cookies herself, unless they are in some secret inventory slot.
Lilian Rook     Whomever the classmate in question all this is for isn't difficult to figure out. There are, in fact, little bits and pieces of signage scattered here and there naming them, at about forty percent of the power level of a bridal shower. 'Eleanor Rose', in that way that seems like the parents picked out the first name based on how nice it'll sound when they're twenty five and introducing themselves by the family name.

    Going by the amount of people gathered around-but-not-really-gathered, it'd have to be the pretty blonde two thirds to the back of the room and off to one side, who has absolutely spent four hours getting ready but-you'd-never-know. Maybe two inches shorter than Lilian, blue eyes, hair done up to look a little shorter than it really is, currently kind of obviously flirting with one of the five boys in the room her age, who is fairly significantly taller and has that dark and brooding virtuoso to be look around him, despite an animated chat. The two adults who obviously look most like her are elsewhere in the room, though strangely not together, buddied up in circles of people who are probably very important with drinks all around.

    She is also closely attached to another girl her exact height, who'd managed to dress just a step short of trying too hard to upstage (the bride), who is more the straight and neat brunette type, albeit also with the blue eyes, when they look at someone at the same time it feels like a choreographed twin kind of thing. She is largely not doing anything but looking out the windows, like she's waiting for the moon to come out or something.

    Both of them react very strongly to Lilian arriving, Eleanor *borderline* pushing her subject of affection out of the way to wave her down and call out her name. Lilian did *not*, by the way, dress 'not to upstage', arriving at 'exactly the limits of what can be considered a tasteful accident of naturally looking so good', by contrast, with her hair all the way down to her lower back, albeit limiting herself to one (1) piece of Tamamo-made hairpiece and one (1) ring. Said boy apparently knows not to take it personally the minute he looks, swerve-stepping back to allow them some space.

    "Lily! You made it!" half-yells Eleanor. "I always make everything, don't I, Elly?" replies Lilian. The brunette adds "Yes, yes, at exactly the time you mean to and never a moment before, nor a moment after. Is that what you call cutting it close?" Lilian waves and says "Oh no, it looks like Sabrina got all pent up having to stand around without being the center of attention. Whatever would you do without me?" Sabrina makes a vague sound. "I had enough of it when I had my Silver shower last month." "Gosh, and you still won't shut up about it!" bickers Eleanor. "Excuse me if you're tired of it!"
Lilian Rook     Tall dark and brooding from earlier tries to get into it, seizing the opportunity of boys-just-don't-understand arguments. He steps in just enough to be heard, smoothly adding in "In both regards, it's no mean feat for either of you. Why quibble over the timing? You're the same year as-" Lilian turns around. "Either of you? Are you trying to say something, Gabriel?" Hitching on the spot, he says "Of course. The only thing I'd be trying to say is-" but is cut off again by Lilian. "Did you somehow think neither of them could do it? Would that be what you're implying? I'd certainly hope not, coming from someone who only hit the Chalice last year."

    Beginning to look flustered over Lilian suddenly needling him for no good reason, he replies "Forgive me if that's how I came across. What I was attempting to communicate that the mere fact that the two ladies would find a need to argue over it speaks to how talented the both of them are. It's as if they'd never even conceive-" Lilian goes at him again. "Conceive of how *hard* you're working? I certainly can't. I'm not sure how you sleep at night, just barely scraping over the bar as you are. I know that a hard limit has to be drawn somewhere when it comes to allowing people to continue studying, and it can't be bent up or down, but you really should have taken the hint by now, don't you think?"

    Now Eleanor and Sabrina are giggling. Maliciously. They are standing on either side of Lilian. Three steps behind and two to the side. In formation. Both slightly shorter, neither quite as assertive, but rather orbiting and expanding her presence. Any place and any time, as long as there are more than three girls in one class, this particular type of squadron will arise. He gives up and backs off quickly when one of the adults (who does not seem to be his father) claps him on the shoulder in an old-fashioned way and congratulates him on "being such a ladykiller".

    At this point, Lilian finally puts her own gift down on the table. The box jingles quite conspicuously. Eleanor looks at her with an immense degree of vibrating excitement, but just nods when Lilian puts her finger to her lips with a shushing motion.
Lilian Rook     Gawain is, as a big built golden blonde magical Chad, unfortunately immensely popular. He is, in fact, accosted by no less than two women who are either single or across the room from their husbands and looking to get his attention in the smoothest way they can. They begin sniping at each other over him, blocking his way, until one of the girls from the class comes up looking infatuated and asks him if he's one of Lilian's friends, causing both women to blanch and excuse themselves. Trying for the sense of magic is a complicated business, though. Outside of the feel of magic simply permeating the air, and the trivial things like the slights, all of the windows and doors are heavily reinforced with multiple layers of invisible wards, probably done by a team of specialists hired by the building, rather than an individual person. There's a strong, difficult to place emanation coming from the room (or rooms) behind the stage, guarded by a pair of toughs at each door.

    Tony is, conversely, fortunate enough to pick someone who is not an immediate relative of Eleanor's, or an associate of that relative. One of the oldest men in the room (that is, perhaps forty five), looks at him in slightly open-mouthed disbelief over his glass for a second, before deciding to laugh quite loudly at it, in the very specific way that people who don't see anything original very often do. "I had been wondering who would be showing fresh faces at this little gathering, and here I see at least one of them is perfectly interesting! Good, good! That's how things should be! I take it you have daughters of your own? How old are they? Did you bring the mistress, or is it not that sort of night?" He is, however, less fortunately, immediately in the combined cone of view of about eight different women in his proximity, almost all of which are looking him up and down in a way that could be equally interpreted as 'assessing for status', 'undressing with eyes', and 'checking for potential weapons or cameras'.

    Arthur going around harassing everyone with his coolkid hustle does not, however, have any wanton stares thrown his way. Mostly the adults in suits appear to think him sort of youthfully amusing, and the ones without suit vaguely quaint at best, making it difficult to ascertain if any of them are lukewarm on him in particular, or the whole party. Nobody he flings fist daps at seem (more than the usual amount) caught too much off guard, though attempting the same on a merely passing same-class boy about his height (and with nearly as unruly hair that someone spent an hour battling with a wet comb) causes him to startle quite severely. Overall, the most interesting thing that strikes him is the increasing realization of how much geometry within geometry within geometry the seemingly simple place is incorporating -- so much that it has to be on purpose, even going through the floor and to a lower level.
Lilian Rook     Ben does not stand out *quite* as much as he might fear. He is out of place, but in a 'national' sort of way, rather than 'egregiously terrible'. A couple of people ask if he might be German. An older gentleman asks what war he served in, and for himself, starts telling him all about his time during some rebellion wherein he fought 'Chinese boxers'. It's apt to give him the sense that the people here are not only excessively secure and trusting in being here, that nobody is here who shouldn't be, but that there are all excessively eager to meet new people. In fact, it'd seem like two thirds of the point of this celebration of . . . currently vague premise, is for a bunch of important relations and partners to come together and network a bunch -- and, very crucially, to network their children with the powerful relatives of other families. As any kind of noble, he recognizes some of those one-sided conversations and rehearsed responses straight away. It is exclusively Eleanor (her parents busy) and Lilian (who showed up without hers) who are spared that.

    Tamamo is having a perfectly notable time, in that it seems nobody here has any more significant resistance to her charms than a regular person. More often than not, people simply get out of her way, turning and staring in equal parts shock that anyone would show up like that, awe at the effect, jealousy at how gorgeous she is, and a burning need to know what a 'youkai' is here for. Nobody has the actual guts to ask, though she attracts, somehow, a few unpleasant stares from a trio of boys under the shade of a balcony at a distance.

    Shyra is the one who mostly gets off free. She's so perfectly sweet and perfectly innocuous and perfectly just the cutest that she mostly gets passing adults asking her where she's from and who she's here with, and being waylaid by the same concierge three different times who red-facedly insists she take something. Getting up on the stairs in her poking about, she can see that the balcony is essentially 'split in half' by the wall and runs around outside, with many pretty places set with tables for daytime views, but the doors in the east and west sides don't go out onto the courtyard, but rather interior halls with glass roofs angled at forty-five degrees in the general direction of the stage side of the room and its own flanking passages, indicating there are some other places attached to this one.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Pester Ben

    "I'm seein' some folks real goddamn dead inside." Arthur explains, nursing some water. "So if anyone wanna start some shit, it'll only be a few steps down for some of these dudes. Geometry here is /wild/ though. You ain't knowin' how much urge I'm fightin' to, like, rotate all the rooms until a treasure chest appears, 'cause I know security would rumble my ass over it. Hard to get my mind off the geometry and pick up much else though..."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Examine startled boy

    Arthur examines the one who seemed startled by the contact. Is that tension insecure anxiety of the sort he's more familiar with? Or something more? Does he slip easily back into a routine, or is that tense anxiousness long-term? Perhaps anything that magical analysis would be worth poking at?

>Arthur: Examine bullied boy

    That was an absolute massacre. Three on one beatdown. Jesus. This academic triple-threat is ruthless. Arthur was homeschooled and even he resonates on some level with the understanding that these three girls are one Heather short of a political force that starts building in fifteen years and actualizes into an Overton Window shift or some shit in thirty and change. Wait, weren't we examining the boy himself? Right, it looks like there's probably no threat from him if he's barely over the bar and the trio of terror over there already has eyes on him.

>Arthur: HINT

    There's some folks who can always look anywhere, even here. Arthur decides to check in with Old Friends. Any whispers, burbles, glubs, or ancient withering echoes beyond the Furthest Ring from the Noble Horrorterrors about upcoming events? They'll have particular insight if any potential attacks involve calling on old gods or old magics, since they're a key part of that general ecosystem, so Arthur might be able to catch a lead or two on that angle as well.
Tony Stark Tony has the conspiratorial grin of a doting father. "Just the one. A middle child, between the heir and the little brother. She's..." Mental math, and then a smile and a helpless shrug. "Not here today. I'd rather not drag the whole lot of them to a formal event. It's not that sort of night." He agrees, extending a hand to shake.

"Tony Stark." He introduces, without title or position. His entire bearing is his calling card.

As he clasps hands with the man, he leans in, his voice low yet warm. "If I brought the whole family, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the party quite as much, would I?" He chuckles, the shared inside joke of powerful men in social situations.

Undressed with the combined female gaze of the converged site lines, Tony makes a small show of returning the gaze in the vague order of reception, quite clearly showing off his awareness as he adjusts his stance to stand besides the mystery gentleman and watch Lilian squad up with the Populars.

"So what business are you in? Should I have brought my shaded glasses for the afterparty card tables, or will I have time to change?"
Shyra     The quite divine (ha ha) appearance of Tamamo never fails to cause Shyra to look upon her with a mix of wonder and delight. When she nears Shyra and asks her question, the healer blushes for a moment as she looks down at her dress. "I... Um, well, Miss Rook helped me pick it out when I asked her for her help. I'm not all that familiar with formal occasions like this." She admits, looking around at the others present. "There are an amazing number of people here! And they have such wonderful clothing!"

    She does look back to the divine, however, and smiles to Tamamo. "I am still working on learning new recipes. They seem to come a lot more easily since... The world changed. I am not sure if that means anything or not." She replies, shaking her head. "Maybe I will have some new things for you later!" She beams happily to Tamamo.

    Shyra, meanwhile, might just be the most honest person in the room. She has no care or desire for status, nothing to prove, no one to impress, and simply seems to be genuinely happy and pleasant. Nothing in the area seems to evoke any kind of displeasure and unpleasantness in her, and as such things are wont to do, providing other people with happiness gains happiness in return. She happily tells those who inquire where she is from and who she's with, of course. Shyra of Finaria, here with Miss Lilian Rook. She's here to help. Everything is going to be fine. The concierge, of course, gets a pleasant, happy smile, and she takes something from him, only for it to have seemingly vanished the moment he turns away, without a crumb or spot of grease to mark her actually having consumed anything.

    Her examination of the architecture gets some curious looks from the Holy Healer, and she ponders this for a moment, her expression screwed up in thought as she tries to exercise mental muscles that she never really used before. She doesn't seem to reach any kind of eureka moment, but then there isn't really one to be found. The place is designed for several specific purposes and it is a mark of the quality of the architectural ability of those who built the place that they have been able to do so in such a way without really needing to sacrifice anything for it.

    But interior halls with glass roofs... Beautiful, but glass means you can look down into them. Curiously, she tries to get a look down into whichever hall she happens to have a line of sight on. This place is really complicated...
Gawain Gawain is not new to ladies sniping over him, having been a knight in the era of courtly romance and fair maidens trying to all win the heart of the tournament champion. He's not /interested/, but he's as polite as he can be, especially to the classmate who steps up to him, who he affirms himself to as a friend of Lilian's. He introduces himself as 'Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun' as he extends his senses again - this time his hearing, as magic has been covered.

What are people talking about? Anything suspicious, or useful to hear? Whispers, loud mutterances, or even someone stepping somewhere they shouldn't? Taxing himself, he also tries to hear if there's anyone or anything in the room beyond the stage, though he'll be able to hear much less of that, thanks to distance and ambient chatter in the way.

That room's going to be trouble, he thinks, but doesn't have an excuse to go there yet. If interlopers are threatening the party, they're likely to sabotage the demonstration. But he can't say that yet. It's all hearsay right now.
Ben d'Tarkanan      Just based off of the people he's been able to talk with, it doesn't seem like anyone here would necessarily want to ruin things--or if they do, they're very good at hiding it.

     There's no harm, then, in getting to know these people better. In fact, he might stand to benefit from some new connections, just as they would. As such, Ben shares war stories with the older gentleman. He leaves out the details he's not proud of, but he manages to speak with authenticity nonetheless. His eyes occasionally drift off, in that distant kind of way which speaks to experience on the front lines--and a rather harrowing one at that. It was a war only recently over, with no clear winner, allegiances which changed like the winds, over a backdrop time of great technological advancement.

     The veteran of the Boxer Rebellion might easily draw comparison between that and the first world war. Ben smiles wanly at him, and exchanges personal information with the older gentleman. With a spark of kindness flickering in his eyes, he introduces himself. The members of Great Houses, in formal occasions, offer their given name, their family name, then the name of their House. House Tarkanan is a deliberate mockery of those houses, but Ben has ambitions to make it an imitation so perfect that none could deny it. He gives his name as Lord Ben Argland d'Tarkanan. His handshake is a calculated kind of firm, his eyes making contact in an effort to see the older man truly--not just peer through him.

     "Ah, but there's a friend of mine now, with that look in his eye," he says jokingly, apologetically. "Excuse us a moment, old chap." With a nod of his head, he moves to speak with Arthur, speaking the aforementioned questions...

     A little apart from the crowd, he nods. "None of the people to which I've spoken seem to harbor any ill-will for this gathering. If anything, they seem excited to meet me," he says, leaving off the unspoken 'not that I can blame them' with a sly smirk. He gently claps Arthur on the shoulder. "Chin up!"

     He excuses himself. Under the guise of getting a drink, Ben cases the joint as if he were going to steal from it. He looks up, because no one ever does. If he were a thief in the night, from where would he make his entrance?
Lilian Rook     The boy that Arthur hassles shakily laughs off the initial startlement and introduces himself as Noah, Marshall. He manages to hold his social spaghetti for about thirty seconds of contact, before glancing over at Lilian several times, and hesitantly asking him if they're friends. Gabriel seems to be fed up and to have gone to mope across the room where there's champagne, albeit anyone in a boring city would at least ID him.

    The social nuances regarding the situation itself are hopelessly human and thus convoluted bullshit to a space god. They tell him that he will need to be in three places at once, somehow. Some shit about the water, the earth, and the air, the last probably referring to the outside, the second, maybe the basement level he's sensing? The first is who knows what.

    Tony's name is not yet instantly recognizable in these particular social circles, but the man shakes his hand with gusto all the same, saying "Stark! I like that name. A real *man's* name. Sharp." He introduces himself as Leopold, Grant, but says Tony can call him Leo or Grant because the full first name is stuffy. He laughs, for he too knows the advanced pre-irony humour of Wife Bad. A surprising number of the women staring at him have overheard. One looks away, the rest smile or give him a little wave. Leo leans in close enough to not be terrible suspicious, but enough that Tony can hear him when he lowers his voice just a hair, and says "Bold as it may be, I imagine a man such as *yourself* would more than welcome to come with the old boys to something more interesting than cards. Afterwards, of course, of course."

    He then more socially-obviously tells Tony that he is a business partner of Eleanor's father who owns some sort of alchemically-derived metallurgy foundation. It's sort of half-Greek, but Tony gets the idea that this guy both has a lot of pull in a very material way, and that he definitely knows his craft, but is personally less relevant than he'd perhaps have reason to suspect, albeit with only the sample size of 'Lilian and immediately family'.

    Gawain has attracted a girl who is now wowed by him and asking to know what it's like being a knight, capital and minor k. Straining his hearing over her fidgeting with her thumbs though, he can hear the gentle sloshing of water in the room beyond, and a brief, quiet splash.

    Shyra has eyes on the western hall. It is very difficult to make anything out, for the express reason of being inside with the lights on while it's dark outside; hard to see out, but easy to see in. The glass corridor is not lit. This would seem fairly normal, if it weren't for the fact that the eastern one still has all its glittery floating lights still on.

    Ben's new friend listens in, surprisingly, an amount of solemn respect, only chipping in here and there when it reminds him of one of numerous too-old wars, and telling him that he'd sworn off by 'the second World War', though he does give Ben the impression that he certainly hasn't outgrown all of his colonial jingoist attitude in a mere hundred and some years. Perhaps that's simply normal. He's never heard of the house, of course, but he recognizes the structure of nobility, and sees Ben off with a pat on the back, telling him to get back to him before the night is through, because he'd like him to meet his veteran 'friends'.

    A sneaky entrance, to his eyes, would be a coinflip no matter where. As Gawain could tell, there's considerable warding on all of the easy entrances, requiring an enormous degree of force, or meticulous magical know-how, to get through. There's also nowhere that has a good way to avoid line of sight from everyone at a party, never mind security, unless one were already in and disguised, or else entering from some way that isn't visibly part of the room.
Lilian Rook     Still socializing with Eleanor around her loaded table of presents, Lilian takes a moment here and there to elucidate people asking questions over the tactical radio. One is that the security 'aren't really people'. The idea is that this building is owned by a third party, reserved for occasions like these -- several at a time, if Shyra's scouting is any indication -- and nobody would come here if there were actual people allowed to surveill and eavesdrop with complete anonymity. Certainly not anyone with the personal girth and connections to be a tough here.

    Anyone sufficiently invested in testing this will find the big men in suits and shades very convincing, but, after a lot of needling, having an apparently limited selection of conversational responses, warnings, and a decided lack of opinion on anything going on.

    The other is that the room behind the stage is ostensibly for Eleanor's 'performance' later in the night, in that this is the traditional central event of these occasions, as opposed to everyone wearing stupid-ass hats and watching someone blow out candles on a cake. Since it's a practical occasion, marking a young adult's step one level up the rungs of the ladder of generally accepted mystical development. Considering the scale of the gathering, these can't happen all that often.

    Because it is a practical matter as well, the tradition is that the gathering is arranged one month in advance, in which the young adult in question has to prepare something to show, that represents their progress. Basically like a piano performance but about a hundred times more stressful and also less boring.
Gawain The girl has Gawain's full attention, at first, though when she starts losing it because of his suspicions of the room elsewhere, he doesn't let that affect the polite smile on his face. Gawain instead tells her briefly about what knights do, heroically fighting monsters and saving people, and about how he upholds chivalry, before excusing himself to head over to the double bodyguards.

"Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun, Warden of the Paladins, here on behalf of Dame Lilian Rook. I would like to investigate the room behind the stage - my senses have alerted me to something off, and I would like to make sure nothing is being sabotaged." He doesn't force his way in if refused, because he /will not/ make Lilian look bad, but his tone, if there's anyone human listening in, is clearly 'I'm not screwing about or trying to unveil the surprise, I'm actually doing security work.'

If Gawain is, however, let in there, he immediately moves to find the source of trickling water and the splash, and then spread his magical senses over it.
Shyra It could be nothing. It could also be something. Shyra was just audibly noting the discrepancy to the others when Gawain told her to investigate it. She ponders this, looking back out over the crowd below and nodding to herself.

    A minute or two later, she's stepping down to the door that leads out into that hallway, looking at the security not-people. "Excuse me." She says to them politely. "I was up above and I saw that the lights were out in the hallway." She points beyond the door to said hall. "That might be dangerous if someone needed to use the hall. Could you help turn the lights on?" She asks them.

    If she's rebuffed (and the security, being presumably soulless creations, might do so), she'll politely leave and seek out that nice concierge who kept offering her things and asks if they can help.
Ben d'Tarkanan      He's checked out (some of) the guests, and he's done a cursory examination of the premises. He could, of course, summon up some extra security, but he can't be sure of how it would be received--and that's very important, in places like this. It's all the moreso, for Ben. The allure of meeting more people from which to garner respect is too strong to keep his mind on the mission.

     Having done the bare minimum, and being concerned more with his own immediate gratification than the quality of his work, in this instance, he returns to the older gentleman.

     "I believe you had some friends you wanted me to meet?" His smile is casual and lopsided, making him seem quite approachable despite his ostentatious clothing. He nurses a glass of wine in one hand, secured from one of the waitstaff. Each of the old man's veteran buddies gets a firm handshake, given with the right hand. He spends some time getting to know them, asking their names and where they served, as well as which nations they each hail from. He's given to understand that the nations of this world are greatly changed from those of the average Earth, but the answers to such questions are telling, not just in and of themselves, but in the way they are uttered. Are these men happy to have served? Do they have reservations about the conduct of their nations?

     "I'm told that for a long time, magic on this world was something of a secret. Did you gents have much opportunity to use those talents, when you fought?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Be the other place

    Arthur can't be more than one place at once because he's not yet Ultimate Arthur Lowell. Instead, Arthur dismisses the HINT. It gives him some vague ideas to work with, but the Noble Horrorterrors don't understand what his situation is, or they understand it too much, or they just don't understand *what it's like, DAD*, and so Arthur mostly continues his usual shenanigans.

    "Yeah brah, it's 'cause I get that MAD FRIENDSHIP with basically EVERYONE. I do HELLA ADVENTURES, she HOOKS ME UP sometimes. What about YOU, you do some ADVENTURES, dawg?" Arthur barrages his hand with more weird coolkid nonsense throughout almost the entire thing. "You SCARED of her? I mean, she is basically fucking RUTHLESS like a SERIAL KILLER, but BRAVERY is super important shit. Being COOL is all about NOT FEELING LITERALLY ANY FEAR when you're approaching basically a VIOLENT ANIMAL WHO CAN KILL YOUR LIFE ON CHUMBOOK."

    "Why ya askin'? You lookin' to MAKE FRIENDS? I mean, NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE, but I can HELP OUT or somethin', probs."
Tamamo     Among Tamamo's talents, cultivated over a great span of time, is the ability to visibly be herself, even when others find it shocking. She's not putting that on display quite as much as she had the other night, and so her hosts and fellow guests are spared that invasive sincerity of the emotional divine. Instead, she keeps to that similarly well-cultivated elegance of the courtier, though not keeping to such historicity as to likewise hold her tongue. Oh, no, she can gossip with the best of them, and the first, best step to avoiding one's presence being questioned is to know, to thoroughly believe, that there could not possibly be anything questionable in one's presence.

    That said, she feels little need to stay so long with any particular guest as to fulfill that 'networking' function of the party. While nigh-impossible to discern from the outside, her question of baking may be the most sincerely interested thing she's uttered aloud in the past hour. "Oh, yes! I have only recently made Western bread, you see, after finding such a grand easement in discovering recipes. Why, it was rather more of a quest in some worlds, yet I would not complain of being unchallenged. The depths of the well of knowledge remain unfathomed." She's speaking of all those variables a recipe still lets you tweak.

    "Ah, oh, but please do pardon me." And with not too much more than that, Tamamo is away again. This time, she arrives a little more directly, though not much more quickly, and just liable to take Lilian from a blind spot, unless the younger knight feels like turning quickly just to show off her sharp senses. "And here you are, Lilian." Bright. Warm. "Oh, but I did overhear what seemed but half a conversation. Most strangely, it would lead me to ask after such as the necessity of these pointed words upon gentle festivity, yet, perhaps, it was in that unheard half that required your slaying of another guest, and it did seem as if the hosts enjoyed the entertainment. Would that be the custom, then, in place of the more physical gladiators? Perhaps I should express appreciation to the defeated." It is absolutely impossible to tell how much of that was sincere curiosity, misunderstanding, needling, indirect chastisement, or simple amusement.

    And then, to Eleanor Rose, a beautiful smile. Heartwarming, with just that shade of mystique, the hint of something put there, purposefully by the artist's hand, to let the viewer know that this was only an illusion of pure innocence, and then to say 'I know you know,' and so forth, 'but we'll still play the game.' Aloud, "I hope this evening finds you well. I have brought some... ah, but do pardon me, such a thing as the giving of gifts are kept for later in this area, no?"

    What she means by 'area' is intentionally unclear, and she's already changing topics. "I do appreciate this opportunity to observe, even should I do naught else tonight, such hospitality as is here offered. Though it has been some little while since my arrival, I have had few such chances, thus far." Looking a little from side to side, one of those hugely long sleeves partially hiding her face, a long ear giving one noticeable twitch, she sinks a careful notch and a half toward conspiratorial, before adding, "Yet there seem fewer of similar age and temperament than I had expected... or is it that more have thought to bring many of their elder relations? Ah, but Lilian, you know of those three, yes? I might almost think I felt /design/ in their distant gaze." She does not, explicitly, either point or look at the trio under the balcony. 'Those three' will have to serve as the larger clue.

    Brightening back up, "Oh, but how have I not yet heard of your preference for 'Lily?'"
Tony Stark "Why, I can't decide which fits you better. Leo is a fantastic name - strong, proud. But Grant?" Tony nods firmly, his Old Boys Club smirk on highly patented display. "Grant it is." He decides, giving a two-fingered touch-to-temple salute to a few of the prettier onlookers at seeming random - but he gets to them all, casting little grins and lingering glances towards each with a roughly equal level of acknowledgement. He's playing the room, certainly, but these sorts of occasions are close to the ones he's lived in since the age where he learned to knowingly smirk when confronted with things he didn't understand.

And then learn everything there is to know about those things either during or after the fact.

Reaching into his 'back pocket', he withdraws a single metal business card, a rounded-corner and etched affair that declares him as 'TONY STARK' of 'STARK UNLIMITED'. There's some sort of cipher on the bottom, next to a tiny blue dot set into the bottom-right, at the corner of the company logo.

"Afterwards." He offers the card, the barest hint of a deferring bow while handing it out. "Of course."

He seems to only have brought the one business card: visibly intending only to give out a single connection, and having deemed Leopold that subject.

There's a moment of concern that flashes, as Tony's eyes flick left to a meaningless spot in the air. "Grant, my apologies. We've chatted for so long, I forgot to introduce myself to the lady of the hour." He excuses, leaving Leopold with a pat on the shoulder to make his way towards Eleanore, maintaining a respective distance and going into queued hovering.

In his ear, he hears a voice. "Tactical Assessment: Overwatch suggested on VIP."
"Verify threats, active scan." He subvocalizes.
His ear pings in assent.

He's back, watching Tamamo smile to Eleanor, waiting for the data to stream in.

Most people aren't tuned to an active scanner bombardment, but whatever ghost Tony is muttering to sure isn't subtle as it probes both physical and intangible crevasses with direct and energetic scrutiny. It is, as they say in the business, a Faux Pas.
Lilian Rook     Ben schmoozing himself up with his last contact is received incredibly well. He gathers around a circle of four other gentleman of seemingly similar ages -- which are all outwardly far too young for the historical context of what they're talking about -- after which he introduces Ben and explains a little bit about him, in that way important people do without leaving a guest to introduce themselves first. They're very much unreserved about getting to know him. Apparently 'actual war veterans' are in a real minority here; few in this occasion are the type to fight for their country or anything like that.

    Three of them are from Britain, one from Northern Ireland, and one is a French immigrant, putting the ethnicity of this particular school -- as opposed to 'the Academy -- and its relations fairly sharply into context. All of them, in fact, served together with someone else at some point in the circle. They've all been in a few wars, as the contentious colonial powers are known to put out once or twice a decade.

    They begin reminiscing all about the masquerade the minute he asks, talking about a time when the man and an Enlightened martial artist had to cut off their brawl on a train every time the passengers chained, or that time another man bayonetted a sorcerer but then had to stagger all the way back to the embassy while pretending he was drunk and fiddling with the 'foreign police's brains. They're all slightly absurd or over the top stories, but aren't Old Man Embellished. They get to the point of one shaking his head and saying he'd "have liked to have had the Rook boy here this time. It'd do well to introduce him to you.", but then it moves to hassling Ben for all of his most interesting war stories. This is, incidentally, extremely good camouflage. Nobody is paying any attention to a bunch of middle-aged men telling war stories. Aggressively not paying attention.

    Arthur gets the impression that Noah is both relieved to see someone being a dumbass coolkid, due to being tense at keeping up the appearances everyone else is doing effortlessly, and also trying to exit the social situation as soon as possible the minute he says 'Yeah brah'. "Er, not really, no. I mean to say, nothing I'd call adventures?" he replies, trying to backpedal via boring and 'whoops wrong number' attitude. "No no it's fine! Really! We both know who each other are! No need!" he begins panicking. Then, his demeanor changes when Arthur starts making comparisons to serial killers. He looks to Arthur, deadly serious, glances back at the gathering, then looks back, lowering his voice. "So is it true? Did you find out for real? The upperclassmen were talking about it but I don't know if it's just a rumour to mess with people or . . ."

    Meanwhile, both of Lilian's squad appear to be delighted to see Tamamo, near-silent squeal from Eleanor and all. Sabrina halfway blurts out "Oh! I was hoping she'd bring you here! You *have* to be Lilian's--" The both of them stop and glance at each other, for just a second. "--Friend. My, you're more amazing in person than I imagined." "Seriously, how does she keep running into things this good by accident?! It's not fair!"

    Lilian does her best to just smugly smile it off, basking in approval, before very carefully finding her words to answer. "Please, don't mind him. I've told him a dozen times before to leave it alone. He seems to think he's being sneaky, showing up and talking to her like that. As if anyone couldn't tell he's flirting yet again. It's simply not going to happen." She stops to finish off the last little bit at the bottom of her glass. Eleanor behind her briefly glances at her hands, her smile faltering for just a split second before looking back up. "The only thing appreciable about him is his tenacity. Otherwise, he's entirely one of those 'I'll pay you back when I'm famous' sorts. You know the type."
Lilian Rook     Eleanor seems to recover her mood when Tamam directly addresses her. "Oh wow! You really didn't have to!" Then more quietly, almost gossipy, with Sabrina "Oh my god seriously?" "Isn't a gift from an important Japanese person supposed to have some kind of thing?" "Like, you refuse it three times or something?" "I think so." "No way! That's super rude! And besides, she's like a goddess or something right? What if she gets mad!" "Don't be a baby. Try and experience other cultures." They get distracted from the fact that they're trying to be quick and discreet and begin bickering again.

    Lilian replies to Tamamo, ignoring the fuss. "It's fairly normal. Nova Heliosanctus is built on some very old traditions. Every year has three classes of nine, which are themselves three groups of three, making for three upon three. It's a nine year course as well; three times three. I'm sure Sir Gawain might appreciate it." She glances over to the corner when Tamamo does. Her expression sours, slightly. "I recognize one of those as Noah's cousin. The other two, I don't know. Probably nobodies." She puts the glass down and shrugs. "There's not much point to having nine people get together in a room and do some tawdry little celebration. Half the point of a prestigious school is Knowing People, so anyone wise would attend all occasions where they can meet anyone they can." That last part sounds uncharacteristically hollow, in the sense that it's uncharacteristic of her to not hide it.

    Tony arrives just on the tail end. Both girls behind Lilian are distracted from their fussing by Tony Stark also showing up at the same time as Tamamo no Mae, making the group one Gawain or Eryl Fairfax short of some severe spilling of composure. "Stark is here too?" "Isn't he like--" "Yes! Shh!" Apparently they've learned enough about him after Lilian had exchanged a lot of time (and some amount of money) with dealings she only has mentioned half of. He is also, apparently, slightly more to Eleanor's preference, though Sabrina is still mostly preoccupied with Tamamo. While Eleanor is busy trying to get his business card too, because god damn if a metallurgy magnate gets one but not her, Lilian is engaged in some garbage with Tamamo going "You know perfectly well I enjoy lilies." and something else inane.
Lilian Rook     With Leo letting him go with a firm handshake and an exchange of cards, Tony gets the full tactical scan blasting into the room. This yields some unintentional information, information, in that Lilian turns to look his way instantly, Sabrina follows her gaze a moment later, and a bit less than a dozen people elsewhere in the room seem to notice to some varying degree, while the vast majority remain completely ignorant, pretty much instantly isolating the specific type of people who could be considered significant in the Stark way, if only barely for some.

    Meanwhile, Gawain has some barely-twenty girl, desperate to be away from her parents, hanging on his every word about the life of chivalry and adventure he has to talk about, up until he excuses himself to hassle security. The fact that they're still so lifelike up close definitely has to be because nobody like these people would tolerate a social occasion being surrounded by the uncanny valley. They warn him off with those big meaty open palm blocks one would expect to see, until he drops the 'Dame Rook' 'credentials'. There's a brief pause, wherein they even look at each other, perhaps verifying in some way, and then one nods and opens the door for him just wide enough to slip in.

    Shyra, meanwhile, is quite roundly rebuffed by hers, who are exactly zero percent as impressed by her cheerful cuteness as everyone else at the party. They quite plainly and staunchly tell her that it's not their department and that she isn't to leave the reserved hall. That is, until she flags down the boy playing double duty on staff, whose heart almost visibly skips a beat, and fumbles around for his ID, which he comes back with saying that he needs to pass for a call in the west end. They allow him through, and as if they don't even remember Shyra, allow her through as company as well.

    In her case, she finds the hallway so dark it's difficult not to trip over her own feet. Her particularly charmed member of staff a couple of years older than her decides to be chivalrous to hold out his hand so they don't get separated (and is possibly a little intimidated himself, as the sounds of the party immediately cut off when the door closes behind him).


Oddly enough, when looking up through the glass ceiling, she can clearly see the bright white disc of the moon, only a day off from being full, but there is so little moonlight anywhere that it seems to be exclusively the light of the stars that let her even see her hands in front of her face.

    When arriving at the end of the corridor, her new friend reaches out to grab the baroque brass handle, twisting it shallowly back and forth to test if it's locked. However, as soon as he starts, Shyra can hear a number of voices on the other side. It's dark under the door, and there are certainly no party-like sounds to be picked up on, so some muffled whispering and occasional words of confirmation between maybe half a dozen people means it isn't warded either.

    Tony's scan, once it is complete, yields the full details of the basement level, which seems to not have a physical entrance literally anywhere, but runs directly under both rooms -- this one and the one Gawain is investigating -- and beneath the corridors Shyra and her Scooby Friend are investigating. He does not get an intuitive sense of the significance of any geometry save it is Significant, but there is a strong degree of recently used ExoMojo under the rectangular hall before, and in five points directly below the current room. The room Gawain has gone to has a constant, crackling read, like a Geiger counter warning him of a mild radioactive threat.
Lilian Rook     Said room, when Gawain steps in, is pretty much dark, only lit by the blue glow diffused through the bottom of an exceptionally large, circular pool; it must be thirty feet deep and a hundred and fifty across, far larger than anyone would need to swim. Reserved and named seating, currently empty, has been arranged at the opposite end partway around it, ostensibly for the view of the thing in the middle.

    Lilian hadn't said *what* Eleanor's particular career path was (save, obviously, not the same as hers), but he can take an educated guess. In the center of the pool, something that looks uncannily like an overly large manta ray is managing to float almost completely still, partially exposed from the top of the water. It's hard to call it a creature, since its exterior is all like glass, exposing excessively, almost needlessly, intricate ribs of etched silver supporting its wings and enclosing its 'chest', long and segmented branches of gleaming 'vertebrae' through multiple tails, vast fans of gold filaments shot all throughout it, and then, a little more eerie, a slowly beating thing that is uncomfortably similar to a heart, partially encased in metal, covered in arcane designs, ostensibly pumping blood through its whole body. That'd be her month-long project, dormant and primed for some kind of recital-esque thing

    There is also someone who obviously isn't supposed to be there. A boy in baggy, concealing clothes, is stood precariously on the creature's back, wobbling despite its huge surface area, trying not to let the cuffs of his trousers get wet while he finangles with the lid on what looks like a paint bucket.
Arthur Lowell >==>

    Arthur shakes his head. "NAH, dawg. Actually I've seen that bitch specifically NOT KILL PEOPLE. I DID SEE her PUBLICLY BEAT A MAN pretty close to NEAR THE BOTTOM of the HEALTH VIAL. But near as I can tell, for a GIRL runnin' the SWORDKIND SHIT, she ain't done any MEGA-SERIOUS STABS on the HUMAN-TYPE. One'a those BACK OF THE BLADE kinda people, you know? Except for, like, SOCIALLY. SOCIALLY she's a GENGHIS KHAN WARLORD MOTHERFUCKER gonna TAKE YOUR ASS TO THE BLAST ZONE, but SOCIAL DEATH'S like, you know, WHATEVER." He shrugs. "I'm TOO COOL to worry about ever being SOCIALLY IMPERILED, since I'm HELLA REBELLIOUS and shit."
Shyra The healer was expecting them to rebuff her, really. Most guard-types are not all that amenable to simply letting people through when asked. After all, that's their job right? She can't expect them to not do their job!

    Still, there's always a way around things, and enlisting the help of a nice person like that on the local staff seems to be the key she needs to get through the door. She absconds into the darkness with her new friend, and not for what some might interpret to be an ill-advised romantic interlude under the moonlight, unfortunately for said concierge.

    It takes a little bit for her to adjust to the darkness from the bright lights of the hall. Slowly, as the moon and the stars shine down and provide the faint light needed to navigate the hall, she takes the concierge's hand, staying close. It's sweet, really.

    It's when he's about to open the door, however, that Shyra realizes she's hearing people talk in the next room over. In the dark room. Immediately, she squeezes his hand quietly to draw his attention and whispers to him, "Wait. Something is strange." She slips in close and puts her head to the door, trying to listen through it. If they opened the door, the light of the moon and stars might go through and give them away.

    Shyra isn't really normally this sneaky, but something about this situation is really frightening her... And if the concierge opens the door, they might end up getting hurt. And she really doesn't want that to happen.
Gawain As Gawain gets past security and steps into the dark, pool-lit room, he steps over and starts looking over the giant...manta ray. Some sort of lifecraft, according to Lilian. As he looks over it, he glances up, and sees the boy holding the paint can.

Ah.

Gawain's first reaction /should/ be to figure out what's in that paint can, and get it away from the pool. It's possibly poison, possibly hazardous radiation, possibly some sort of magical chemical weapon. But, it looks like paint, and it looks like just a boy. Gawain sighs, rubs the back of his head, and speaks up, deciding that this is probably a petty prank, if a bizarre one.

With a speedy step, Gawain is close enough that he could leap onto the creature, should he want to, and grab the boy. But he doesn't, which gives the youth plenty of time to do whatever he wants when Gawain speaks to him.

"My name is Sir Gawain, and I must ask you to slowly climb off the manta ray, with the paint can still closed. It isn't right to vandalize someone else's project, but I can understand frustration, jealousy, rivalry, whatever this may be." His voice is calm, a little serene, and infinitely patient.

"If you come with me, I'll make sure that any consequences you may receive are light. A petty prank never harmed anyone."

If the teenager somehow actually accepts, the knight moves to reach a hand to help him down off the manta. But there's an inkling to Gawain that he might not, even if he's hoping with all his might that he will.
Ben d'Tarkanan      Interesting--the Rook boy. A brother of Dame Lilian's? He nods.

     "I shall have to keep the best ones up my sleeve," says Ben of his war stories, with that easy smile. Because some of them deeply unsettle him. "Otherwise," he jokes, "I'll have positively /nothing/ interesting to say." He's in a Circle. One has formed around him. This is good--very good. Not because it affords him the opportunity to ask questions that otherwise might raise eyebrows, but because it's the kind of respect that he deserves.

     "I suppose," he says, savoring the moment, "I could share one more." The necromancer smiles. "Karrnath, my own nation, has never enjoyed good relations with the nation of Thrane. Individual Thranes are fine, I'm sure," he says, turning on the jingoism. He figures it can't hurt, since he's among other veterans. "But they have never known hardship or famine. To them, undead are evil which must be destroyed. To us, they are a tool, like any other. Needless to say, they took their fair share of opportunities to march on Karrn holdings, and justified it as you might imagine." He frowns.

     "I found myself called to reconnoiter a village they had taken, a short journey away from banks of the river which runs through the Five Kingdoms." He gestures with his hand. Frowning, he continues. "We arrived to find that their clerics had already 'purified' the village. My orders were to report back, and not to engage..." He smiles slyly. "But, I wasn't going to let those blaggards get away with marching on my people and putting them to the gallows. My men and I..." His skeletons, at this point, given that his Mark was known and his own people didn't trust him with anything but other undead and the occasional necromancer. "...watched from the foliage, until they took to their daily prayers. I knew I had to attack, but more than that, I had to make a statement. You understand," he says, nodding to the fellow who had bayonetted a sorcerer.

     "So, right in the middle of all that high-and-mighty praying, the corpse of one of the 'purified' rises up and gets a hold of the cleric's throat! They all look up just in time to see all of us coming over the hill with swords raised. You should have seen the look on that cleric's face..." He laughs, quite naturally for someone talking about the time he raised a corpse to choke a man of the cloth. "The paladins with them looked like they'd seen a ghost." He grins. "And... I might have... thrown one in, here and there," he says, tapping his temple.

     Coasting on the success (or failure) of that story, he asks, "You'd mentioned a relative of Dame Rook's?" He is utterly absorbed in the dance of socializing, and thus, utterly useless, at the moment, for anything but. But at least he's met some cool old guys.
Tony Stark Tony is all smiles for Sabrina and Eleanor. "Ladies! I'm charmed." He drops easily to a knee, taking Eleanor's hand gently and lifting the back of her hand for a peck of a kiss. He's very old-fashioned.

"I'm looking forward to your performance later. I've never seen lifecrafting for, so I'm already fairly impressed."

Her attempts to get a business card are rebuffed with a gentle 'that was my professional card' and producing a handkerchief and a fountain pen to scrawl a phone number and an email connection (and a little iron man helmet faceplate) before tucking the drawn-on cloth into Eleanor's hands and standing up. "Feel free to direct personal inquiries to my personals."

The Knight of the Sun is handling the radiation event. What could possibly go wrong?
Lilian Rook     Noah seems to be talking with Arthur still in some manner of dazed disbelief, but after he pieces together the words in a second, he sighs and says "Oh really? That's . . . No, I believe you. You sound like you couldn't lie about it. Ah, no offense! It's . . . because of being so heroic! Yeah." He flinches a little. "Still, it's kind of weird that . . . well it's hard to know how to act around someone who could do that to *you*." He says this while apparently having no idea that Lilian barely knows his name, according to how she's acting with Tamamo and her girls.

    Ben's brand new war buddies apparently find this hilarious. Despite the fact that it involves undead choking out priests, they love this story mostly for the fact that it's dicking on a crusade of People With the Wrong Religion. However 'people here' might feel about necromancy and the like is hard to discern, since his new friends don't seem the sort to inject modern public opinion, especially not right now.

    When prompted, he gets a little 'think nothing of it' wave and an "Ahhh, yes, the older brother. Served five years in that bloody awfulness." He doesn't deign to give it a name. The rest of the circle knows what he's talking about, and goes quiet. "That's not a war to tell stories about, I'm afraid. Too soon and too strange by half. The young man has that look about him they all do." His friend jabs him with an elbow and says "I think it'd be a treat if he were to hear more about the good days when we all just shot people for being born in the wrong country. Hah!" The mood picks up a little bit again, though he says, "Still, what degenerate times we must live in now for a young lady to pick up that thing. That's why it's important to stick around long enough to teach the new generations good values, after all."

    Tony gets the predictable result of schmoving all over a pair of twenty year old girls already infatuated with the Bigness of his reputation, doubly magnified through all the halfway gossip they get from Lilian and the press releases from his own world. Eleanor looks ready to melt, and clams up into nervous, head-nodding silence. Lilian picks up what he has to say privately, and smoothly excuses herself.
Tamamo     Ohhh no. Tamamo is listening to Lilian, but she notices Eleanor's momentary look down, the break in her smile, in that moment when no one should be looking. But Tamamo is, and she can't avoid it. If there's something that Tamamo no Mae is keenly sensitive toward, that will get that golden flash from her eyes, it's this very thing. Now, now, what to do? A heavy-handed approach is out of the question for romantic problems, even if it hadn't been her own Lilian causing trouble. This will require a delicate touch. She might not even be able to quite accomplish it tonight.

    Though her thoughts have turned to some mysterious matter, Tamamo maintains her appearance as the perfect foreign guest. She'd done nothing at all to look the part of a native, but as to customs, "There have been, as happens to be within my knowledge, groups whose traditions called for gifts and favors to be refused twice, or thrice, or even a fourth time. Consider, then, what occurred when those of one group lived among another. A reign of misunderstandings and frustration, one might say, is the inevitable result of entering into unknown societies. They could but rely upon the forgiving spirit of friendship." That might have meant no more than what was strictly said, and for Eleanor's and Sabrina's sake. Maybe.

    The actual gift will be simultaneously highly useful and very inconvenient, requiring either an embarrassing sacrifice or a good deal of effort. That is probably purposeful, but entirely deniable. After all, just looking at the silk-covered fox-woman would confirm that her own sensibilities differed from those here.
Arthur Lowell >==>

    "Oh, nah, I couldn't LIE ABOUT IT 'cause I'm an IDIOT. I'd spoof some WRONG SHIT that's SINK THE WHOLE THING." Arthur says, laughing. "Also the HEROISM STUFF though. ESPECIALLY!" Quick snap, double fingerguns, wink, the whole deal. His teeth glint. How DOES he do that? It's--

>Lowell: Wormhole to the basement level, if you would

    That little command window pops up and is just as quickly accepted. Got it! Arthur immediately immediately perks up. "Sorry bro, gotta cut this one short." WORMHOLE! Arthur makes a weird circular motion with his hands, and suddenly a GATE is summoned here, and then below. He recalls what the Noble Horrorterrors advised... he should be in three different places. Water, earth, air... He summons up a second pair! Something to the outside. "WHERE YA WANT ME?" He leans, popping a finger to the sunglasses that are suddenly over his eyes and conducting his pesterchum voice-chat.
Lilian Rook     On the opposite side of the door, Shyra can hear several people conversing. Most of them sound various states of nervous and agitated, one male voice sounding impatient and exasperated instead.

    "No, for the last time, they don't know you're coming. None of you can do magic for shit." "Yeah but what about you?" "It took you like ten minutes to crack this door and twenty on the way in mate." "And it'll take me five on the next one, asswipe. I already darked the lights and all the abjuration is in place. How hard is this?" "I don't know mate, how hard *is* it?" "Yeah you're the only one who knows jack about this. It's kinda sus." "It's a bunch of old men and their biddies in a room with a handful of-- of course I know, dipshit! That's the whole point! I know them and you don't! Do you want to get back at them or not? Because you've got an hour before yours wear off and you start choking to death. You want to dissolve from the inside out?" "Fuck you mate." "No, but, for real, what about your guy doing the thing with the big circle and all?" "Christ you're all clueless." "Eat me." "Yes, it'll be there. It's fine. You're not going to walk in and get pasted by a bunch of wizards and a technocrat. If you're going to puss out then turn around before you hit your time limit." "I don't think so." "No, not after the shit they pulled last time." "I can't forgive them." "Right, good, because I'm not about to forgive that particular cunt either. You ready? You're going to be on stage in two."

    On Gawain's end, things are both more sudden and more overt. The young man -- honestly just barely not a 'boy' -- on top of the comatose creature in its inactivity cycle looks up at him so fast he nearly loses his balance and slips off, swaying back and forth with the apparently extremely heavy bucket in his hands. Although muffled through his facemask, his reply is probably unexpected.

    "You're Gawain, right? One of those? Bandying about as she likes as usual, I see. Right. Good. That's how it should be. Glad you could be here for this. You gilded piece of shit."

    He taps the side of the crude plastic bucket twice, shakes it, and then hurls it as far as he can towards Gawain. It smacks on the edge of the pool, cracking its lid off and sending the broken plastic skittering over the damp tiles. Thick black fluid gushes out of it and into the water, looking very much like a failed attempt at hitting him with a bucket of black paint.

    Then, the water level in the pool starts to go down, and the black liquid becomes more of a blob, its contours 'clenching' into so many wet pseudopods. Perhaps sensing Gawain in some way as the closest thing, operating on some dumb, automatic reactions, the glistening mass raises a good ton of water contained within its bulk over the edge, and then slams itself down on Gawain. Specifically, the horrid thing immediately attempts to enter his nose and mouth, its surprising strength mostly for holding people still while smothering them, and then whatever comes later.

    The boy is already jumping off and sprinting to the opposite doors as fast as he can, seeming very much like he himself isn't immune to whatever he just chucked; it's certainly not any fancy creation, but more like a fire and forget grenade of some nasty arcane purpose.
Gawain Gawain underestimated the threat. He thought it'd just be a prank. But it was worse than that. "Wait, please-"

That's all Gawain gets out when the bucket is tossed at him. His reaction has him leaping back and summoning his armor as he realizes it's something magical, but he can't move in time to tackle the kid. Instead, the blob, which he wasn't expecting, bursts out, drains the water, and clamps to Gawain's face, the only unarmored part of him, starting to suffocate the knight. He reels backwards, trying to rip it off with extreme strength, and takes one hand and starts flicking his radio's push-to-talk over and over again, trying to signal for help.

If the creature won't come off with a hand, Gawain summons his sword and tries to flick it on fire, threatening to burn both the skin on his face and the creature to bits with holy sunfire.

He didn't get a face, or a name, or even really a voice. But he can't let this be it.
Shyra     Shyra should be telling her friends about what's about to happen in there. This is very unpleasant-sounding. She tugs on the concierge, however. "This is dangerous, you should go." She whispers. She gives a few seconds to get away...

    And then she simply opens the door and steps through on her own, closing the door behind her and smiling. "Hello!" She says to the assembled. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but would you please not actually do anything to cause problems at the party? People could get hurt!"

    Yes, it's stupid. Yes, she could get hurt. But she needs to try to disarm the problem. Everything will be fine.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: North-northwest a hundred or so meters

    Arthur slams his hands together and forms another Gate just as fast as the first pair, as close onto Tony's stated vector as he can get it! But now he's conflicted; Lilian's orders were for a wormhole in the basement but now the prophetic influence of the divine is already clear: He's got reason to be in two places at once!

>Arthur: THERE IS A SOLUTION
>Arthur: Focus

    Arthur shakes his head and focuses. Take this like a hero! Commit!! Time to choose, hero! Gate one or Gate two?
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Let the noble take Gate two, take Gate One

    Time to hit the road. Arthur breaks into a fast dash, rushing into the Gate and facing whatever there may be in the sealed, door-less basement head-on with all his irresponsible bluster!
Ben d'Tarkanan      Ben's smile fades slightly. That awfulness isn't a war to tell stories about. He has stories to tell, sure. Some of them are even true. But even those are flashes, within a great and dreary field of dark. That field was... angry, fearful, and sad. At times, it was somehow both boring and anxious. And later... lonely. That isn't the part that you tell stories about. There are lots of things you don't tell stories about.

     "I know what you mean," he says. Was it mist, or fog? Or was it dust, blown frome some great and cataclysmic explosion? He forces himself to think of something else, laughing a little too hard at the joke about good reasons to have wars. He then takes a large enough sip of wine as to betray to the old men that not all of his memories are fond ones. When the conversation immediately takes a more somber tone, he finds it a blessing.

     "Her sword, you mean?" Ben figures that might be what he means. But even if it isn't, well... Lilian was kind enough to invite him here. He can put in a good word for her with the old folks. "Do you know, gents, I fought by her side, recently. A minor engagement," he says, remembering Lilian's performance against the undead in the Dyrwood. "I could tell immediately it wasn't at all worthy of her talents. Say what you will about the times, but Dame Rook is a natural." He takes a more measured sip of wine, feeling better. Feeling... in control, again.

     He nearly spits it out when his radio gets going. Someone's in trouble, down below. There's no time. Well... maybe a little, for dramatic flair. "/I/ shall save Gawain!" He cries into the radio, loudly enough for the vets to hear it. "To arms, gents, there's treachery afoot!" He's always wanted to say something like that.

     He barrels, if necessary, through things not meant to be barreled through. For instance, walls or doors. His sword drawn, he brings it to bear and flings it in a wide arc, channeling a spell through it. The result is a wide crescent of freezing cold, flung without regard for the Sun Knight's safety--some of it inevitably freezes Gawain. Sorry!
Lilian Rook     Sabrina nods along with Tamamo's explanation in that 'Ah, I get it.' but doesn't really get it at all, kind of way. She is, at least, very much entranced by all the glamorous exotic foreign-ness of it all. Eleanor stares for a few seconds, glances away for a fraction of one, and then allows herself a little bit of a smile. "You're . . . actually really nice to talk to. About things like . . . Well, I guess it's no wonder you're close. Thanks." Lilian turns back from her private radio 'discussion' and then looks at the three with that silent 'What did I miss? You'd better not be talking shit.' stare.

    Arthur dropping the WORMHOLE exactly where he's asked has the result it's supposed to. As Lilian explained, the basement level is solely for very specific staff, and physically inaccessible; that is to say that it's only accessible by a specific translocation circle somewhere else that is also secure. That also means that there's no kind of specific warding that has anything to with teleportation down there.

    Anyone who takes the time to hop down will find that the sub-level isn't nearly as fancy and well-kept as the ground floor, as it has no need to be. It's fairly simple fare in terms of hard flooring, red-glow work lights, stepladders, bits of portable scaffolding, tools left from previous workers, a crawlspace further out, pipes and valves that obviously relate to the pool; and there is one extra person. Another dubious youth wearing as much obscuring black clothing as he can -- absolutely an amateur in terms of infiltration with how his clothing is completely the wrong colour to go unnoticed outside -- is fiddling with what looks like a dremel, only the subtlest of whines going with the gentle falling of stone shavings where he is carving out the last of a fairly complex circle into the underside of the ground floor, lying on his back atop a step platform to keep him off the mirrored chalk drawing on the polished concrete floor, and the set of five black candles.

    Shyra's new buddy reluctantly backs away, but he whispers to her "I'll get help!" before vanishing. When she walks her way through the door a few moments later, there is a soft bang as she hits someone on the other side, not very hard, and a lot of scuffling and swearing. There are two flashlights straight in her eyeballs at the same time, a young lady curses, an older boy says 'I've got it', and then she's choke-tackled from behind with something metal pressed to her neck. One more young man in matchingly ridiculous 'infiltrator' attire gets in front of her, shining a light to examine her more closely.

    "Recognize her?" "No." "Seriously?" "Must be a vanity invite. Or someone's girlfriend." "So what the fuck do we do?" "I don't care. Gag and dump her somewhere." "Seriously? What if she's not even--" "Yes, she is. I can tell. Besides, she wouldn't be here in the first place if she wasn't, idiots. She'd be choking to death like you lot are going to be in fifty five minutes. Tick tock." "Shit do we just . . . ?" "We don't have time for this." "I'm not killing her. You can do it." "Just cuff her to a radiator or something Jesus Christ. We'll be in and out."

    The young man stands up and starts walking. "Figure it out. The last door is still warded. There's going to be automata on either side; they look like people, but just fuck them up. Don't let it fool you. And don't leave Mattias hanging or I swear to god."
Lilian Rook     Ben's buddies seem to universally pick up on not only his tone, but the specific character of his silence, swishing their glasses around in a sort of silent reflection of the way he is chugging his own. "That thing, yes." his first friend replies, nodding sagely. "The older brother made use of it. Back then. Swore he'd never touch the thing afterwards, family heirloom or not. Doesn't like to be in the same room as it, if anything. That's why it's a shame he never shows up anymore. Since the last three years now. Such a shame."

    The group breaks into a lot of flabbergasted noise when Ben suddenly yells there is treachery, and lag behind considerably when he goes charging off. After weighing their options for a second, his old war buddies actually chuck their drinks and settle on charging after him, yelling their whole way across the ballroom floor while everyone around them ducks to the side and does their obligatory shrieks. They are considerably slower than he is, however.

    The shitty homebrew something-weapon tossed at Gawain, bought from some back alley somewhere, probably, is exceedingly nasty to feel all over, and seriously panic-inducing regardless of its immediate lethality, exerting so much pressure on the eyes and ears and windpipe, creating blind, breathless vertigo, with the grotesque sensation of sliding its way down the throat. It absolutely is a molotov some terrorist could chuck through a window and probably kill a lot of regular people with, or those with arts not given over to expedient use and little experience.

    It's not really up to snuff between Gawain and Ben though. Gawain finds that trying to pull at it with with his hands is essentially as useless as trying to grip and lift soup, but being frozen solid by Ben's magic -- probably due to being mostly water -- and then blown to steaming pieces by the thermal shock of Gawain exposing it to Galatine, deals with it neatly. The kid either couldn't afford the top shelf, or wouldn't know the difference -- or maybe brewed it up in his own garage, even. He is also charging down the exit hall, to which the door is somehow unlocked.
Shyra     The concierge rushes off to get help! Shyra might have tried to stop him, but there's no real time. She walks through the door and gets light in her eyes! Shyra brings up a hand, shielding her eyes against the brightness, which gives them lots of time in order to effectively take her captive. Her heart beats fast as she feels the thing at her neck, tackled down. "You... You don't have to do this." Shyra says. "Why would you want to hurt people like this? There has to be a better way to deal with this."

    The young man starts walking away, and Shyra turns her head in the direction he's going. She can't cast a spell, she's tackled to the ground.

    But she has more than spells. Quietly, she draws upon her other set of abilities.

                           DEV TOOLS > MAP EDITOR                          

The doorway promptly highlights in a blocky cursor designation as well as about three meters of the hallway beyond.... And there is a sudden THUMP as the doorway and that section of the hallway vanishes, replaced with an equivalent chunk of generic-looking granite stone, the same kind you'd see in a castle wall.

    The same begins happening to every other entrance to the room she resides within, effectively trapping them all in the room together.

    They can't leave the room... If there's no doors.

    "Can we sit down and talk now?" She asks.
Gawain Gawain's face gets frozen, and then melted off. It leaves him pretty fucked up, but he gives Ben a thumbs-up once he's had a chance to breathe again, and his skin begins to regenerate, making him look less 'awful'.

Gawain turns, now that the ooze is dead, and starts running in the direction of the jerk teenager. He speeds up to superhuman speeds, and then leaps, moving to just jump the distance between them and land on top of the guy.

His mouth now thawed and his lips regenerated enough to speak, Gawain dematerializes his armor, putting his knee briefly against the guy's back before loosening up, just to make sure he can't draw anything else.

"That really hurt my feelings - you were going to kill everyone here, weren't you? Don't worry, though, backup's coming." There's a sadness to it. This kid's probably going to jail, if not death row for 'trying to murder a whole lot of rich people'.

If only he would have given Gawain a chance. Maybe he can still get one, as he talks through his horrifying-looking face. "Talk to me. Why did you do this?"
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Accost the underfloor nerd

    "HEY!" Arthur shouts. Okay, now, do the hero approach: Leap first, look later. Arthur barrels forward out of the gate towards the kid. "You doin' nerd shit down here?! You better not be doing nerd shit!" Okay, what's next now that ypu've started it up? Analyze the magic /now/. What's that spellcircle doing? What's its purpose? Because Arthur's intent is to immediately just blast at it with gravity magic to disrupt whatever it before it's done, because it's nearly done! And the only reason he might not do it is if it's one of those things that explodes the moment it's disrupted.

    He might also broom-tackle and wrestle the infiltrator. We're going to kind of wing it here.
Tony Stark The room empties of extraversals, complete with a Ben-led charge after TREACHERY!!!

With just the girls, and potentially Tamamo if the divine spirit had decided to stick around, Tony gives a thin smile.

"A little bird--" He rolls his eyes at his own cliche reference. "That this place may not be quite as secure as advertised. Ladies, do you have a security detail on the premises, or shall I chaperone you?"

Tony extends a hand to Eleanor and her remaining friends. He looks very human, yet when one spends time squaring up worlds and camera frames there's always a heroic pose just a backtilt of the shoulders away.

In his ear, there's a buzz. "Correction: I am not a bird. The thirteenth generation flight arrays in the latest production line do not operate via generatig lift via--"

Tony sighs, to himself, incapable of gesturing or ordering his literalist jock son quiet.
Ben d'Tarkanan      Good, someone who's not made of paper. Thank fuck for that. He might have really blown things there. Ben breathes a sigh of relief.

     He approaches Gawain, sheathing his sword. The old vets will have an easier time catching up, because he's no longer in such a hurry. There is a subtle breeze of magic. Ben's eyes peer intensely at the would-be saboteur for a moment.

     Mind-altering magic touches upon their assailant's psyche, attempting to engender feelings of trust and camaraderie towards Ben. Having (hopefully) established himself, he then speaks of Gawain. "Sir Gawain is as honorable a man as you are likely to meet," says the man who has literally just met him and knows nothing about him other than the fact that he's apparently a knight. Ben smiles warmly, his hands clasped behind his back. "You can trust him."

     Should his new old friends arrive, Ben is quick to explain the situation. "Gawain caught him attempting to summon a black ooze," he says with a nod towards the body of water used. "A big one."
Lilian Rook     Shyra blocks in not only the corridor, but the entire western hall and its adjoining corridors, completely blacking out even the barest hint of light there is from outside. Doing so is immediately met with a lot of yelling and cursing and some screaming from a couple of girls. Someone drops a flashlight, which rolls away and comes to a rest at a distance that serves only to spotlight the gathering and be painful to look at.

    There are quite a few people here. None of them ostensibly younger than Shyra, none of them more than a handful of years older. More than it'd initially sounded like. They're all strapped up as well, with facemasks and gloves and body gear, but somehow far more 'professionally' than the ringleader. They look more like 'real guerillas', or something. Used to having to go around unnoticed. The majority of them are carrying a wide variety of shitty plastic jars, pails, capsules, and other such containers, as well as some with ropes carrying all sorts of important-looking metal bits and oversized ceramic beads, looking cobbled together out of a garage sale or alley dead end dealer. A couple do, however, actually have guns -- last century automatics, perfectly good for their presumed role.

    The 'boy' who looks out of place, in a tryhard tacticool kind of sense, has nothing in particular on his person. He stomps back straight away, crouching down and looking to grab Shyra in the most painfully uncomfortable way possible. She's being held down by the biggest one of the lot, probably five or six years older than her.

    Without a door in the way, or a whole lot of commotion, she can hear a very literal difference in accents between them. The young man kneeling down to seethe in her face "Don't go playing hero now. Open it up, or I'll put you down and figure out the rest myself. This is your one chance to do it easy." delivers it in a vaguely posh sort of way. The others going "Mate shut up seriously." "How long is this going to take?!" "Radio your man or something at least." "We're stuck in here! We don't have pickaxes or whatever old timey shit! We can't just pop her!" have more of an eclectic mix of street accents from all over the east side of the Isle's notoriously varied dialects.

    "Keep a fucking lid on it." says the even more out of place header. "We've got nothing to talk about. There's a bitch in there who thinks she can fuck with all of us, all of the family and friends who don't care, and some extraversal fuckbuddies all there chewing their horderves and talking about golf, and they'll pay you no mind the minute you go missing either. I don't know who you belong to, girl, but they aren't going to miss you one bit now that you've wandered off."

    He pushes his own radio bead, saying "Oi Mattias. Hold the phone a minute. We have a situation." There's a click, then evidently nothing. "Mattias you ass. Come in." He clicks it several more times. He then hisses "*Turn it off*." to Shyra even more loudly, assuming she is the source of radio jamming.
Lilian Rook     There is no jamming. It is Arthur tackling Mattias off his step stool with barely a half-syllable of a "What" out of his mouth, spilling the candles all over, scuffing up the chalk, and sending his power tool flying into a corner where it begins very slowly digging itself a tiny hole to slip into. Thankfully, the geometry on the 'ceiling' has to match that on the floor for anything to happen. It's always geometry with this. As far as Arthur can tell, it's nothing very good. It's the kind that achieves symmetry once the candles burn down to a certain point, and then does something very big and very explosive.

    "Ah Jesus I give I give!" yells the nerd immediately pinned under him. He's not very strong. "Get off get off get off! I know my rights, asshole! You don't have any- ow!" He keeps kicking and struggling anyways. His radio has fallen onto the floor, and is now broadcasting openly to Arthur about someone else having caught some girl, how he has to delay his work, and to come get them out of something or other, since they can't do it from their side, and if they need to 'kill the girl' first.
Lilian Rook     Gawain catches his particular criminal with little effort. Even more so than Arthur, save for his at least getting a running start, as if that matters. Taken straight to ground, the young man remains winded for a short while, then finally gasps out with his first breath of air "Nobody cares about your feelings. If I found that out already, how have you not? How stupid are you? Or is it just entitlement that drives you, 'knight'?"

    Ben starts laying on all the mind whammy charm though. Roughly around the same time his lagging veterans catch up with him. They take a look down at the puddle of black goop, still weakly writhing in places. One of them swishes his fingers and then sends a fierce puff of fire down into it, scorching it into a black mark, and the rest walk a wide circle around it. "Sloppy work, this. Sloppy work." One of them intones, while another claps Ben's shoulder as he walks past. "Good on you for finding out. I should've expected you'd handle something like this in no time at all." Another nods. "Half-baked it is. Some angry twenty-something looking to get even, trying not to leave a paper trail. Probably."

    The idea that the captured somebody can trust Gawain doesn't seem to change his attitude much. "That wasn't the point." he rebukes him only mildly. "Do you really think we'd need to kill someone to make it sink in? Don't you get it? That just makes them more popular. Ruin a month of work, though. Give them all a fright. Watch the old crust get the vapours. Make a spoiled little girl lose it. Then you'll see; they might as well be dead. That's all it takes. One ugly mistake like that, and you're a walking ghost. Taking a swing straight at them? Bad idea. Ruin a party . . ."
Lilian Rook     There is, of course, a considerable degree of fuss and panic for all that charging and yelling, but since two thirds of the problem are taken care of on the other side of a lot of solid stone, supposed to be there or not, and the third is at least in another room, there is not a general uproar. In fact, there is precisely zero of what one such as Tony, used to large crisis scenes, would expect, with half the people doing stupid shit in a panic and the other half standing around slack-jawed and useless. They *are* useless, of course, but not being they're paralyzed in a panic. It's just that only a couple are going to see what's actually up. Some of the seventh-years want to go, and get firmly held back for 'the proper help to handle it'. It's mostly the big, burly, automatic security toughs that start jogging into the room, spreading out around the pool, barring the exit out, and the entrance in, and then request that Gawain relinquish the suspect for them to cuff and drag off.

    Eleanor and Sabrina, with Tony, shake their heads a little, tight-lipped and a little nervous, but remarkably composed about it for being literally nineteen or twenty or something girls. They do not, in fact, have a security detail. Both of them glance towards Lilian, however, bossily on the radio as she is, and seem vaguely reluctant to leave her presence.

    She is fingering the magnetite celtic cross strung around her neck while she doesn't-yell. Eleanor eventually takes a deep breath and says "I would appreciate it, Mister Stark. That's . . . that must be part of why she invited you all here, right?" She looks like she's trying to be hopeful.

    This is about the point where the western doors swing open and an extremely flustered concierge comes running in. He points down the darkened hall and says that something is going on that way and he *suspects* that someone is there who isn't supposed to be. He won't say 'broke in' because that's bad for the place's image, no doubt. He also, less professionally, mentions Shyra by name, in that she went that way.
Gawain The kid says hurtful things to Gawain, but the knight attempts to shrug them off. As he learns that the kid wasn't trying to kill the guests, he actually...smiles a little more? He feels a lot better, now. This kid can be helped, for sure.

With a genuine, slightly sad tone, Gawain speaks simply. "I care about your feelings." Even if the boy may not believe that from anyone of this type, Gawain's not lying.

As the toughs come in, Gawain moves to hand him over. "I can help you. Feel free to request for me if you need my aid or consultation. If you think you're in a bleak place, somewhere where no one cares, where everyone around you is some sort of hateful upper class snob, it doesn't have to be that way. There's ways to change the world without hurting others."

And then, Gawain releases the kid. He'll probably never hear from him again. But that doesn't mean he won't try.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Strife!

    Arthur, despite his broom, is primarily engaging in this in a disused School Scrapper style. The result of this is that he's not doing things in a deft, graceful way. He's not even doing things in a ruthless, brutal way. He wrassles the infiltrator in the clumsy way of two students who challenged each other to their respective first fight in the parking lot and are being filmed while someone screams "WORLD STAR!!" But, while he is engaging in it with that paradigm, he's also, you know, a divinely overleveled hero, so he does manage to pin the guy. Albeit with some solid kicks. "Ow! Stop fuckin' kickin' me! Bitch, you're about to have a right to drink outta these fancy toilets if you don't knock it off!"

>Arthur: Pester punks

    Okay, time to interfere and buy time. Even though there's absolutely no clarity about who's at risk or who's going to be killed. Arthur snatches up the knocked-aside radio, takes a deep, breath, slams his thumb down on the transmit button, and nearly blows out local electromagnetics with his bullshit. "YOOOOOOOOOOOOU DON'T START FUCKIN' KILLIN' AND YOU DON'T TOUCH A HAIR ON HER HEAAAAAAD YOU SONS OF A BITCH'S BITCHES! I'VE WRASSLED YOUR CHUM AND IF YOU GET KILLY I'M GONNA RUMBLE AND TUMBLE YOUR ASSES STRAIGHT TO THE MOOOOON! CHALK IT DOWN, YOU BABIES, I'M A POWER-BARBARIAN AND I'M GONNA TUSSLE YOU STRAIGHT INTO NEXT YEEEEAEAAAR!!"

    The esoteric nature of Arthur's lingo has gone from "xbox live child" to "making shit up as he says it". Really this kind of bullshit is just designed to fuck up airwaves and make it impossible to think about what the next course of action is. Hopefully it'll give whoever's at risk a fighting chance!
Shyra     Shyra is grabbed and lifted, her dress too high quality to simply tear from being grabbed like that. Lilian doesn't tell her associates to get the cheap crap. Unfortunately, all it does in this case is make it hurt a little more as the healer yelps, twisting in the grip of the 'leader'.

    "Killing me won't open the path." Shyra simply replies, her voice shaking a little. She's faced death before, but this is... much more personal than most of her experiences. It's right now that she realizes just how alone she is, and her eyes widen a little more, the Holy Healer shivering under that pin and grasp. "Those walls are staying until they are removed. And I am the only one I know of who can remove them quickly." If nothing else, that is one card she has.

    The leader begins giving his spiel. "That's... not true. None of that is true. I do not belong..." She pauses, apparently coming to some kind of unintended realization as she speaks. "... to anyone." She says, shuddering there as she lies there pinned. "But you don't need to do this. If you give people a chance to care, they will. You're people. They're people. I don't know why you feel like you need to do what you are going to do to them..."

    She pauses, as she is told to turn it off. "Turn... what off?" She blinks, confused. "If you mean your communications device not working... I am not doing that..." She looks around. "Um..." She pauses. "Is... someone else... here?"
Ben d'Tarkanan      Ben chuckles, shaking his head. "You know the game, I'll give you that," he says under his breath, as security takes charge. "Listen, friend," he says more audibly. "Your magic could use some work," a brief nod towards the vets. "But you're too resourceful and too determined to be wasting your time on revenge when you could be successeful instead. Success, as we all know..." He smirks knowingly.

     "Lord Ben d'Tarkanan, of Sharn." The implication: look me up, if the slammer gets boring and you want to strike it rich. His smile fades as he hears something on the radio. A girl is being held somewhere, but where exactly isn't known. That's fine. He has something for that.

     "There's more," he announces. "They're holding a girl somewhere, but Arthur doesn't know where." Neither does he. But maybe he doesn't have to.

     "Sorry to bother, gents, but I don't suppose any of you have a knack for scrying?" He turns to the veterans. "I'm going to drudge up some help, but what's really needed is something more precise than ghosts."

     To say nothing of the likelihood of being able to find a ghost here. Even one seems unlikely, as secure as this place is. But, maybe, just maybe, there was someone, maybe even a few people, over the years, who were stupid enough to try? If he can manage to scrounge some up, he'll send them on an invisible, intangible patrol, scouring the place for wherever this hostage situation might be unfolding.

     But if he can't, he'll have to hope one of the old fogeys can whip up a decent scry.
Tony Stark Lilian's coordinating.
Gawain is knighting.
Shyra is -- in danger, probably, but she's not calling for help. And Tony made a promise. He gave his word, even if he didn't say it in such an absolute way.

"Eleanor, Dame Rook invited me to a party for her precious friends. For them to show off their accomplishments."

His smile is genuine, though. With a few steps to the table, he plucks his gift from the side of the pile, offering it to Elenor.

"But if you invite a superhero to a party, these sorts of things tend to happen. My apologies. Still..."

"It's nice that people think of you when they want their friends protected."

It's giving Lilian too much credit, perhaps, but Tony's priority is to be smooth and calming.

"Armor check." He subvocalizes. Elenore can probably read his lips even so.

His ear buzzes with a systems check. His eyes are locked 'at Elenore', but his gaze looks past her - or before her, in the air, tracking things only he can see.
Lilian Rook     The near-identical suited men pick up and carry off Gawain's captive in short order, hustling him out to the central ballroom. He shoots back his parting words "Is there really? Without hurting others? Is that what you did back at Camelot, brave sir knight?"

    This results in, immediately, a "That's quite enough out of you!" from Ben's veteran friend. When he asks for 'a scry', he picks on the gist with "No problem. It's just like a good old interrogation. Like we used to do to the (Ben gets the sense it's a racist word)." He motions the automated tough to stop on the way past and grips the young man by the head on the way past, causing him to begin spasming, but an almost literal 'thought bubble' to blurrily swim into existence overhead, clearing up over a few seconds to narrow down the dark western hall with sixteen or so people in it -- obviously not up to date, but recently imagined -- and the central room outlined along the floor by a fairly large magical circle.

    It is definitely not up to date because he cannot hear Arthur's loud nonsense hooligan yelling. Shyra is, on the other end just beforehand, is subject to "Don't need to do this? Maybe. But we should." from someone in the crowd, then "And I'm going to anyways." from the leader. "Nobody needs 'a chance' to care. People can decide to care any old time. But they don't. Not until they want something from you, or until you make them."

    "Though, right now, it doesn't matter one bit if they care about me. It matters that someone has it coming for what they did, and these gents and ladies know some other people in there who have it coming. And they *do* care about being cared about. So, drop it. Because the people in there? They don't care about *you*."

    The whole group is then immediately blasted by Arthur's bullshit yelling. People literally clap hands over their ears and yell to try and be heard over it. It's so loud, Tony can pick it up through several solid feet of generic granite. The area beneath the floor is Arthur's familiar signature and a bunch of exoenergetic smudges, petering out. Out in the pool area, there's the one mystery source on low, but since he can tell Gawain, Ben, and his buddies are there, it can't be severe; not more than there being mana particles still dissipating. It's just that direction, where tuning his sensors specifically gets him warm 'blobs' in his vision of a specific number of people currently throwing a radio to the ground and stomping on it.
Shyra     "I care about you."

    Shyra says that simply. Straightforwardly. "If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't be trying to talk to you, would I? I would not be right here, with you, with your weapon at my throat, where you could threaten to... kill me." She pauses, looking away for a moment. "You might feel better for a moment if you took my life. But it won't actually solve your problems. You will still be in the same place as before, but now with someone dead. I don't want you to go through that pain."

    She pauses. "It doesn't matter if they care about me or not. All that matters is that we are here, now. We can talk things out. We can make this work without any more trouble, or violence, or hurting anyone."

    She releases a long, shaking sigh. "My name... Is Shyra. What is yours?"
Ben d'Tarkanan      Nothing. Damn. He'd bring ghosts from home more often, if he could.

     But, thankfully, one of the vets manages to get a scry. Ben can see well enough through the darkness portrayed to notice Shyra's unusually patterned additions in the place of the doors. Those should be pretty easy to notice.

     "Couldn't have done it without you, old chap," says Ben.

     With a lead, he can work a little faster, though he still has to do the scouring himself. He cloaks himself with an invisibility spell, then calls upon his Mark. Immediately, the voices are upon him.

     The only people here who can relate to you are old and frail. How does it feel to be irrelevant? You should have told them about your arm, Ben. Should have told them about the fort. Remember the fort, Ben? Remember how my body wasn't even cold when you raised me? Those Thranes cut me apart, Ben.

     He enters the hall at just the wrong time. That is, just as Shyra appears to be making some headway. That's the way his mind works--narratives. He can't be the idiot that ruins the whole thing, just when the kind-hearted stranger truly reaches the hardened criminals.

     He can't drop the protection of his Mark. Even if he's invisible... what if they hear him? He'll just have to bear the voices.
Tamamo     "Oh, my, what a sweet thing to say." Tamamo gives Eleanor an appreciatively warm response. Lilian looks away from her conversation long enough for Tamamo to catch her eye, but a fox's close-lipped smile doesn't answer any questions particularly well, this time. Surely she'd never be found 'talking shit,' regardless.

    While a number of other things start happening, Tamamo gives a quiet "Ah, yes," and kneels down on the floor. "A few moments, if you please," and retrieves several blank strips of paper, an ink well, and a brush.

    It's only when Tony says something that sounds an awful lot like they're about to leave that she offers him a quartet of talismans. They don't particularly look like anything but slips of yellowed paper with ink scrawls, but she explains them with, "If you wish, these will establish bounded field. This would make for more reliable a defense against the unknown than flight." If he does elect to separate the four bits of paper, from each other and from himself, they'll immediately activate into a four-sided shield of whatever size, of the type that feels entirely solid to anything moving faster than a dramatically slow walk. If he doesn't--it's probably not necessary, anyway.

    Either way, and the reason Tamamo isn't doing something like that herself, she's busy drawing two brand new talismans, holding the brush in an upright grip. It's an apparently laborious process, for all that the precise strokes create something that seems as chaotic as orderly, all concentric swirls and vague impressions of words and something that looks like a pair of birds flying with one wing each while pushed together. The results are very nearly a mirror image of each other. The third bit of paper, more of a scrap, is finished more quickly, despite containing a lot of very tiny Chinese characters in a style too artful to be easily deciphered.

    The three of these are pressed together, rolled, stuffed into a small bag with a drawstring, and then handed to Eleanor. "Please, take this. And no, no questions, now. The answers are within."
Lilian Rook     The people gathered in the darkened west hall are quite busy for a moment with actively, dramatically curb stomping on the radio in turns, until it's fully and properly smashed. Arthur's yelling, plus electromagnetic interference, but mostly the yelling, is so damn loud and incomprehensible that nobody can hear anything while it's on. There is a lingering, bombshell-like tinnitus after the fact for a few seconds, distracting everyone quite roundly with "What the hell was that?" "Do you think they heard?" "No way. Look at that giant stone wall. Whatever calling for help that was trying to be . . ." "Yeah but they got the other guy, didn't they?" "What if they're just bluffing?" "Well then they *know he's there* which is just as bad."

    Shyra splits that commotion with four words like a knife. Rippling out from here is an intense sense of unease. The 'guerillas' all around her visibly and palpably shift back and forth uncomfortably, tapping on their surplus and garage made gear impatiently and nervously. It's the young man in black who is, once again, the most uncooperative, and the most angry. He spits out "Why the fuck would I tell you my name? Do you think I'm stupid? You think I'm wearing all of this for fun? You're stalling, aren't you? All that 'I care about you' shit -- nobody says that kind of load like this unless that's all they can think of. Right. Right, you're stalling. You have a wire on you somewhere, don't you?"

    He begins stepping towards Shyra, fast and aggressive, until the biggest one of the group shoves him back with one arm. "Cram it. We have to leave, bollocks for brains. You want to have a screaming fit while we're still stuck in here? Eh? If you aren't going to think of that, then what's to say we don't drag you out and say we caught you. It's all or nothing for us, if you'd be so kind as to remember." Shyra, being released from a grapple for a short while, has her wrists bound with shitty zip ties out of someone's bag, and that's about it. The angry one is just barely not shouting back. "What do I look like, a miner? I do *wards*, not fucking concrete. Just burn through it. We have enough stuff here between you." "Oh yeah, so we can walk right in and not get out. Smart. Fuck you. You don't care."

    It's a lovely conversation for Ben to get to hear from the opposite side of a granite block Shyra threw down with her map editing tools. Unfortunately, he's in the same situation from the other side.

    In the other hall, Eleanor takes the talismans from Tamamo with only the basics of comprehension, nodding in a kind of 'okay I get it' way, and then having to settle for tying the strings around a bracelet, given no pockets. Sabrina looks at her with barely hidden jealousy, while Eleanor bites her lower lip for a moment to stuff something down. "You're both far too kind." she replies, not at all in the way of people saying those words as a formality. Her voice is a little choked up. "And I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble."

    Lilian walks up closely, looks over, and asks in a purely declarative fashion. "Is this handled? Because if so, I can separate for the minute."
Shyra     Shyra gets the relief of not being pinned, only for it to be replaced with zip ties. She still can't use her magic, but... She can still use her other talents. One of them comes to mind. She could potentially solve this quickly.

    But the look on Arthur's face when she used it... No. Not like that. She has to trust. She has to believe. "I don't know what you mean about a wire." She says. "I came here because I saw that the lights were out. I wanted to turn them back on because I thought someone would get hurt fumbling around in the dark." A pause. "I guess that would just be me." She sighs at that, sadly, but she shakes her head and looks back up at the others.

    She doesn't even know Ben is basically right there on the other side of the wall. Or that the concierge had gone to go alert the others of what happened. All that matters is right here and right now. They're full of anger and high on adrenaline and are frustrated that their plans have gone wrong. She needs to find a way to reach these kids.

    "I think... The reason why you are wearing it doesn't really matter anymore." She says to the boy. "I don't think you're stupid. I want you to calm down and tell me why it is so important that you need to hurt these people." Even now, Shyra does nothing other than simply sit there and remain exactly where she is. "Maybe we can find another way to help deal with your anger and pain."
Tony Stark Tony is offered a fistful of talismans, an interested look crossing his face as he turns over the calligraph'ed paper.

"You know, I thought it was the paper or ink that was magic. It's a bit frustrating that it's not." Stark admits, lowering the grip of talismans to idle in his left hand. "It's good to have experts, either way."

"No trouble at all, ladies. It's handled, Rook."

"If nothing happens but a postponed party and nobody gets hurt, we call that a win." He asides, as a veteran of Parties Interrupted By Assholes With Laser Whips.
Ben d'Tarkanan      They aren't buying it.

     Ben steps through the wall, still invisible. He shivers as his intangible form passes through the granite bricks. Or maybe it's in response to the voices.

     Why'd you lie about the Thranes, hero? We know why. You lied because you wanted those old fools to like you. Does it hurt, knowing that the only people you come close to relating to are old and dying? You're afraid even an irrlevant relic would want nothing to do with you. Oh, Ben... the villagers were gone before the Flame ever got there. You wanted to hurt them, didn't you? Because you couldn't hurt who you really wanted to hurt.

     That's all he can stand.

     He deactivates the Mark. Shyra and the guerillas might know he's there, even though the invisibility is still up. His hand closes tightly around his sword, and he stealthily readies the weapon, preparing for the worst. They might still hear the breathing, heavy and labored, as the few moments following a waking nightmare.

     He knows this anger, this powerlessness. "Because these people hurt them," he finally says. It's a dead giveaway, though he keeps up the invisibility for the tactical advantage it provides. "Perhaps it wasn't even their intention, but that makes it all the more insulting, doesn't it? To be kicked in the head, as someone steps over you."

     He moves, as stealthily as he's able, to place himself next to Shyra. Then, he dispels the invisibility. There is a thin sheen of sweat upon his brow. He doesn't bother wiping it.

     "I know what that's like." He really sounds like he does. "I've felt that anger." With a nod to Shyra, "This woman believes what she says." He has no way of knowing that. But he might as well make her look good. "I believe it, too. If I didn't, I would have sprung my attack by now." That might have been smarter. "Accept this defeat," he says, isolated and alone--but his words carry magical weight. A charm spell, of course.

     "Accept it peacefully, and I will show you all ways to draw strength from..." From your anger. No... a peaceful soul like her, she probably wouldn't go for that. "From moments like this. You are too smart, too resourceful and too daring to let this failure define you."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Drag nerd out

    He wrassles the fellow youth back up and out through the Gate, if he can still keep a grip. No telling if he's scrawled anything else. Security people can take it from here, Arthur doesn't wanna be pinning this guy the whole night. And he wants to know what's going on back in the main areas! Gotta see the good shit.
Lilian Rook     Lilian orders Shyra to remove her wall. Being a good girl too pure for this world, Everyone, of course, she acquiesces to doing so, allowing Ben within, to stalk around invisibly, in that sense only alone with the voice in his head. Of course when he speaks, everyone in the room startles like crazy, having just seen the blockage open and having been about to surround it, waiting for someone to come through, incredibly tense.

    There is, audible from the whole way down the hall, a short spray of gunfire as one of the jumpy young adults turns and sprays from the hip with a fifty year old MP5k, strafing bullets wildly up the floor a good ten meters off from hitting ben, but stopping pretty quickly. "You don't know what jack *shit* is like!" yells one of them. It isn't even the leader. Others angrily mirror the sentiment immediately, hoisting their various improvised containers of who knows what. "Nobody cares if she believes anything! You're all scum! All of you! All of you taking advantage of . . ."

    But he puts the whammy on them. The group has even less resistance to it. Slowly lowering their weapons and implements, most of them give up on the spot, slumping on the floor or against the walls. "What's even the point?" "Seriously. How did we think this was a good idea." "We were fucked the moment we listened to this loser." The leader of the pack looks around in disbelief, muttering "No. No; you're kidding right? You've got to be joking. You must be joking! What was all that about getting back at them?! What was all that about *injustice* huh?! You're just giving up? Just like that? How *weak are you*?! Useless! *Useless!*"

    He, too, eventually gives up as well. The outburst drains the last of his willpower as the ward on himself erodes away. It'd been a half-minute of time that would have been better spent running for it, bought by a journeyman of the arts. He flops in a big strop too. The whole group of them have given up.

    Meanwhile, Arthur gets to bully grapple his chosen jackass out to the main ballroom hall. He does so just as the conga line of security are carrying out the second of three, dropping him roughly nearby, and pushed to his knees. They motion at Arthur to hand him off, whereupon they line him up as well.
Gawain Gawain's in the hall, watching the teenagers by now. He's been quiet - the jab about Camelot hit him hard. But he wants to see what happens to these kids next, as he quietly mulls it over.

Did he, in fact, actually live up to what he said? He doubted himself, a bit, but at the least, watching these kids get arrested was the least he could do for them.
Shyra     Lilian orders her to remove the wall, and Shyra, being Shyra, obeys with promptness. The wall to the Western hall vanishes with another THOOMP, being replaced back with the original door and hallway segment that was there before. She didn't give any warning.

    The sudden burst of gunfire makes Shyra stiffen up and emit a short little scream of surprise, expecting that this is the moment she's about to die.

    Fortunate for her, she doesn't. The way they all follow the leader like that keeps prompting Shyra in some way, but she just can't think of a way to unravel the social situation... Or perhaps she simply isn't analytical and ruthless enough to do so. The thought of the kind of influence and leverage that the aggressive leader might have over the others doesn't even occur to her even if the way they suddenly fall right into line behind his opinions and actions should be tipping her off.

    Ben doesn't have those problems. He's much more on the ball with this. As she's bracing for the piercing pain of bullets tearing through her... And finding that she is left intact, she blinks and looks over at Ben. "Wow... You're really persuasive!" She congratulates Ben, completely having missed the fact that Ben augmented his argument with a little bit of mental manipulation.

    But at this point, the situation seems to have been defused. She sits back and simply waits patiently for the others to arrive and cart out the guerillas, a little smile on her face. Everything is fine.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Deposit nerd, receive reward

    Later, you get the reward later. Arthur straightens out his tie and such to its more precisely disheveled look, rather than its more authentically disheveled one, and observes the wildness. "Jesus." He mutters. "How big was this shit? No wonder the fishsticks wanted me in three damn places at once." Outside, though, wasn't that one? Did someone...

    Never mind. Unless someone had a *lot* of forethought, this is probably all the security he needs to be doing right about now.

>Arthur: Fondly regard demonstration

    The demonstration is still on, isn't it? Arthur flicks his sunglasses, captchaloguing them into his sylladex, and heading towards whatever area has been designated for that show! If they're seriously going to say this is so important they should keep it going even with a near attack, Arthur's very much down to go see whatever it is.
Ben d'Tarkanan      Ben first cuts Shyra free, if those zipties are still there. Afterwards, he leads the young men out as Lilian requested, but not without making them the same offer he made their friends.

     "You chaps are too smart, too resourceful and too brave to waste your lives nipping at the heels of these people, when you could be the ones stepping over /them./ My name is Lord Ben d'Tarkanan. If you want to live like a king while these people huff and stamp their feet about the impropriety of it all, you'll remember my name, and write to me at my estate in the city of Sharn." He claps their leader on the shoulder. "In the mean time, I have a few calls to make."

     Those voices are wrong. He can relate to people. He can form a bond that isn't based on memories of bloodshed. He was like these kids, once. He'll prove to himself that he can do a good thing. He'll get these kids what they really want--power.

     He spends the rest of the evening schmoozing with the others. First, his vet buddies, where he tells a tall tale of Shyra appealing to their better nature, and he, the gallant hero, appearing at just the right moment to drive her point home. He segues into how fortunate it is the party was saved, and asks after the host of the event. He drifts from crowd to crowd, making idle chat, turning on the charm (but not the spell), gathering what he needs to know. If he's able to get a name, he can send the letter himself. If not, he'll have to make it a note, something less formal, less respectable, left with one of the guard-entities.

     Either way, the message is the same:

/No doubt by now you have heard tell of would-be saboteurs. As the host of this little get-together, you are, of course, entitled to deal with the matter as you see fit. I humbly request lenience--for I see in these young men a rare ambition. However you feel about their attempted caper, you cannot deny their resourcefulness, their organization, their daring. If you respect these things as I do, then let us come to an arrangement regarding the fate of these young men, and together ensure such potential does not go to waste.

Lord Ben d'Tarkanan/

     With any luck, he can arrange, through his means, and perhaps a good word from his vet buddies, for the kids to avoid any jail time for this, at the very least. With a lot of luck, and a little time, maybe one will take him up on that offer. He doesn't know. All he knows is that he knows that anger. He knows, more than likely, where and why it is directed. No one should have to put up with it, as he did. When the night is done, he takes his leave, graciously thanking the guests for their company, and the other 'versers for their efforts.
Lilian Rook     Shyra is cut free. The would-be interlopers are marched out of the corridor on Ben's 'suggestion', all looking thoroughly defeated and distraught. A few of them pay him some mind, many don't. The leader is the one who listens the most, but also appears to be the most overtly sullen about it. This time, when the third is moved into the room, there are plenty of scandalized gasps and murmurs at the company pulled out with him. Those ones are left alone for the time being, if shoved down by guards on their knees.

    A similar arrangement happens with the three identically dressed ringleaders. All three dragged before the court, the lifelike security simulacra pushing them to the ground, forced down in their overpriced internet-ordered tacticool gear. There's a great deal of staring and murmuring, but perhaps due to the fact that nothing exploded, it's of the gossipy, take-a-guess sort for the most part.

    It is Eleanor's parents, of course, who are the most unhappy about this, and so a tall blonde man with squared shoulders and a sharp blonde cut steps up with a nearly excessively pretty blonde woman with immaculately curled hair practically on his arm. "Well?" he barks, automatically oozing authority. "Off with them. I want to see how angry I should be." He already sounds multiple stern dads level of angry. He holds up his hand in that extremely stern Old Country Dad way of demanding nobody leave the room. They all have to be here for this. Ben can easily send off his letter to a concierge. Arthur is squared off by big burly 'guys' in suits again when he pluckily and perhaps correctly heads towards the auditorium.

    Obliging, the faux-toughs briefly grapple with the squirming and shouting young men until they pull off their face masks. All three of them are . . . fairly unremarkable. Probably eighteen or so. Generically kind of handsome. Ordinary popular boys in freshman year. This is immediately cause for a few scandalized gasps, some older students in the room -- including Noah -- to outwardly cringe, the others staring for several seconds before starting to make sounds of disbelieving amusement, for most of the room to just stare and whisper in a rather bland kind of 'who are they supposed to be?', and for Lilian, shortly followed by Eleanor and Sabrina, to start laughing. They're recognized, by everyone who goes to Nova Heliosanctus.

    "Oh, wow! Oh wow I *cannot* believe it! Of all the people -- it's *you* three! Ahaha! Oh god I'd forgotten you *existed* until now! And here I was thinking it was going to be some sort of *terrorist cell* or something!" Even Eleanor, who is obviously the one who was threatened, is now giggling profusely.

    Her father does, in fact, look steamingly pissed. He continues barking orders and questions that aren't questions. "Who are these three supposed to be? Why are these striplings interrupting me?" It's perhaps, if one really cares to notice, somewhat notable he didn't say 'my daughter' or 'my family'. "And who are the rest? Why are they here and how? Out with it! Now!"
Lilian Rook     The girl who had been practically hanging off Gawain's arm gets up enough courage to answer, with some surprising amount of contempt, "They were from year five. Gold class. Expelled, all of them. For good reason." She seems fairly firm on that. "I remember them. Adam, Mattias, and . . . Bartholomew." she says, pointing to each in turn. Adam is immediately outright furious, less so at being fingered, it seems, and more the bit about 'good reason'. "And what reason would that be, eh?! You with them? Or did you sincerely buy that steaming load? Or are you just pretending you did because you know what's best for you, huh? That how it is?"

    She only looks back on him with a thin twitch of disgust. One of the boys looks like he's trying to come to her defense. "You know perfectly well why, scumbag. Narcotics, electric recording equipment, that same dangerous stuff you're putting in the hands of the extras. Like some highschooler. One of their kind." It's not as if two of the would-be highschool graduates don't give off serious dealer, or even school shooter, vibes. "Fuck you too." spits Adam. "Fuck all of you. You all know that's dogshit. You're all looking for a reason."

    Sabrina seems to think this is distantly entertaining, openly musing "Ah, you did always spend a lot of time with 'those people'. No wonder they got to you. What absurd cause are you supporting? I wonder?" Eleanor is, also, taking some amount of pleasure in grilling the three that attempted to ruin her personal occasion. "Oh my. All three of you were on three different months, weren't you? I'm betting you sunk to their level straight away once you were kicked out for being three different nothings. Ran crying straight into their arms~"

    Batholomew looks disgusted himself. "Is that funny? Aren't they your victims too? Three of your own, just the same to you?" This is the point at where Lilian's laughter turns fake and nasty. She's the one who struts up close to them, bending halfway over. "Oh that's precious. Heartwarming. The minute you lost all your face for being degenerates, and you go running off to them, blubbering about 'oh how I understand your oppression; if only I'd known about your heartbreak earlier'" She pillows her clasped hands against her cheek. "'You and I are so much alike. Yes, now that I don't enjoy the same privileges, we are instantly comrades.' I can see it. Pathetic."

    Mattias spews back, in surly teen tones, "Eat shit. It's your fault. We all know you three did it." This is considered overwhelmingly more than unacceptable -- more than all the other things -- and Eleanor's father backhand cracks him across the face hard enough to send him sprawling to the floor. "I've heard all I need to hear. Your disrespect is unwelcome under this roof." Adam still decides to yell anyways "It's true you old bastard, whether you want to believe it because of your *precious daughter* being a star--" He also gets the backhand. Half of the rest of the students look awkward; the other half look astoundingly unconvinced.

    "Yes, yes, of course." Lilian replies, oozing sarcasm. "All those things just *magically* made their way into your private possessions, extremely heavily sealed down by the most stringent primary academy protocol in the country, inside a building that monitors all uses of magic at all times, and none of you noticed at all, despite being in plain sight the minute a professor uses a master key, for three months. Lashing out against the big bullies who were mean to their poor juniors, oh it's all their fault -- and this is the best you can do? How long were you planning it? And you scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel to do it." Adam looks just a hair trigger short of physically spitting, and then catches himself in the action. He has the look of someone who knows what happened when the last person did; or, he's heard what supposedly did. That's the limit of his bravado.
Lilian Rook     "Adam, Adam, Adam. Hasn't your family lost enough face already? You know they're going to disown you the second they hear of this, right? All you had to do was suck it up and apologize, then step down to a perfectly average public university, coast through four years on your perfectly good, perfectly *expensive* education, and find some reasonable employment at some mid-level foundation. Build some experience. Build some character. Put it all behind you, and maybe get your independence back in forty years. If you couldn't even handle that, you could at least sulk off to some administrative position in Urban Center finance or something. A perfectly respectable *contribution* for washouts. Even after only making it five years, that'd be more than enough to get it comfortable, no?"

    "But this is what you decided on instead. 'It's so *unfair*. It has to be someone's fault. It has to be the girl who ratted you out. If it weren't for her, everything would still be fine. You'd still be on track for everything you were prepared for. All the nice things you were promised. 'She has to pay. My life is ruined now, so I'm going to ruin things for her.' I'm surprised you even made it five, with that sort of attitude. That little *conviction*."

    She stands up and walks away. Grant sort of glides his way next to Mister Rose, gently, smoothly, prompting, "Well? What are we doing now? If it'd help smooth things over, of course I'll put down for the damage deposit. A few smudges and scratches; that's all it is. No reason to ruin the night, yeah?" The wife looks to Mister Rose in an utterly unmistakable 'remember what the therapist said' way, and he takes a deep, deep breath, squaring his shoulders, then releasing. "You're perfectly right. Things will continued as planned." He snaps his fingers twice again, drawing the attention of the security. "Drag them outside and hold them until the pertinent authorities arrive. I'll trust the owner to make the arrangements." He gets a 'yes sir' from the faux tough, and has a squad do exactly that, with two exiting through the east angled corridor to no doubt speak to an administrator.

    Mrs. Rose ventures to bring up "What about the extras?" Her husband just says "The usual." The gaggle of wannabe guerillas begin panicking. Squirming, kicking, yelling, trying to get free from the no doubt overwhelmingly strong 'staff'. The toughs begin yanking off masks in a row as well.

    All but two of them were there at the warehouse raid a month ago.

    While all of this is happening, shortly after the pronouncement of being 'dragged out and handed over', Bartholomew, of all people raises his voice. He begins twisting his neck, trying not to sound frantic, and yells "Gawain! Gawain. You said I should call on you if I needed your aid, right? Right? I need you right now Gawain! I need your help! Please!"
Gawain Gawain listens carefully to the back and forth. Something hits his ear - they insist they're innocent of previous crimes, having been framed for something. Narcotics, electronics, recording equipment, stuff like that.

The knight continues to listen, and then there's scary implications of what will happen to them. He takes a cold sigh, and then-

Bartholomew asks for his help.

They're criminals. They hurt him. Tried to hurt a lot of people and scare them. But...they might be innocent. This might all be because someone wronged them. He certainly doesn't think it was Lilian - but perhaps someone attemped to cause a rift. A mutual enemy.

And a desperate boy is begging for the aid of a knight who promised him such. Gawain begins moving, visibly aghast that they'd inflict violence on the boys. And soon, he's in front of the bodyguards - no, in front of the whole crowd. A hand goes out. The bodyguards likely can't bypass his sheer strength.

"One moment."

Gawain turns, speaking to the whole crowd. This is likely embarassing. He's likely ruining Lilian's attempts to help Multiversals in a single moment. And yet, he must do this.

"For a knight only speaks truth, I must advocate for this boy and his friends. Are you so sure they are liars? Mere psychopaths who commit violent crimes? I don't believe they're evil. When he encountered me, it wasn't the act of a hateful liar. It was the act of a righteous, angry young man - the type stories are written about - trying to avenge himself. He fears you. He hates you because you hate him, an endless vicious cycle. I believe they are correct, that they have been framed for some crime. By whom? I do not know, but we can find out. However, that is not my main concern."

He straightens his gloves, and his look is suddenly extremely serious. He would probably fight if interrupted.

"I do not know the methods of which you punish people in this world, but I expect harm to come to these boys, for what is a failed, righteous, prank. For their vengeance was wrong, they should be punished, yet this is not the way. For you, too, would be acting on vengeance, not justice."

Gawain's voice reaches a crescendo, as he likely continues to hold off the thugs.

"If a single hair on these boys' heads is harmed once again I will find out, and I will punish those who allowed it to happen. For that is the word of Sir Gawain, Knight of the Sun, Warden of the Paladins. I will keep my word and my oath, and advocate for them until this is settled. Should their parents disown them, they may call on me at any time, and I will be there. Remember this!"

And then, finally, he moves to let the toughs past, speaking to Bartholomew. "I cannot break you out of here, for such would be wrong. But if your rights are violated, let me know immediately, through any means that you can."
Tamamo     Tamamo is the picture of serene elegance in accepting Eleanor's gratitude. She'll find out what that gift is for once she manages to translate the note.

    Sadly, the circumstances of the party only really get worse from there. Tamamo has no particular words for the intruders, having made no attempt to reach any of them, herself. Instead, her focus, throughout the exchange, would seem to repeatedly return to Lilian. She doesn't even--visibly, at least--move when Mr. Rose hits one of them.

    She doesn't truly need to move, as Gawain does, perhaps more than anyone needed to, but that's only right. Yes, that's how a knight should be. Overly optimistic, perhaps, but she can count that as a point of charm.

    Also, perhaps, overly cautious, but this is a point she can determine by asking, "And what is the 'usual' manner?" She says it with sincere curiosity. "Nothing too dreadful, I should hope."
Shyra     Shyra is freed, and she happily lets Ben or the authorities do so. They came to her aid, and she favors them with a happy smile and a word of gratitude. She steps out into the main hall to observe the fallout, and she inches over towards the more familiar faces. Tony, perhaps. She doesn't get in the way of Lilian, and Gawain moves to make a speech for the people there, an appeal for clemency. Of a sort.

    Shyra looks completely confused, and shakes her head. She doesn't understand the massively complex social issues that are creating the situation at hand. Gawain does look very gallant, however, in his beseeching. She opens her mouth for a moment... But then she shrinks back, closing it as she looks upon the fallen with sadness, not contempt in her eyes. She might care, but that doesn't mean she has the right to interfere. Unlike Gawain, she has no code of honor demanding she act, just a roiling wellspring of conflicted emotions.
Lilian Rook     The corner of Lilian's lips twitch at Tamamo's question. "All of you, right now, are within the boundaries of the Hidden Continent. The space that exists outside Earth, originally a sort of last Ark of humanity, now a collaborative nation between all Lineages of the world. It isn't meant to be found or entered except by those strictly with the privilege. You've been here a couple of times before. But not where, specifically, or where in it, or how to get here."

    "Since Adam brought a gaggle of people who do not meet those criteria, who have nobody to claim them or pay meaningful restitution, the usual procedure is just to kill them. In essence, still treason against humanity. A death penalty." Eleanor and Sabrina look far too good at keeping their cool during this, forming a three point formation of 'ostensibly couldn't care less', though Lilian is far more elegant in remaining neutral about it. "I'd been anticipating that your good work here would do you the favour of obtaining that strict, specific privilege, in order to move more freely around the places that really matter."

    "Those three are connected to families important enough to something or other around here that they wouldn't get the same penalty for trying to destroy the occasion, though there are plenty of charges for all of those illegal, and dangerous, concoctions. The one who allowed them in here is in for a worse time. The rest, probably 'intent to', but it doesn't really matter. They're done now. There's no way their families will keep them. They're human garbage."
Lilian Rook     Then Gawain gets in the way -- of at least the three boys. Mr. Rose manages only barely to stifle something, judging by the frequent twitches of his mustache. His wife squeezes his arm, still in a sort of 'unless spoken to' state, until a certain amount of redness in his face fades.

    "You have a queer definition of righteous, good sir knight, unless you would mean 'self-righteous' or 'perceived to be righteous'. Still, it would be imprudent to act contrary to the wishes of someone who has with him personal wisdom and insight into the Round Table. Especially as some of our esteemed guests are associated with the Pendragon."

    "Very well, Sir Gawain. I welcome you to attempt to sway the hearts of their relations in the same way, but I urge you not carry high expectations. Most likely, they will be far less generous than I."
Tamamo     "Oh, I see." Tamamo doesn't sound particularly happy about that answer. "And they came here knowing that this was a likely fate, did they?" But she's not going to do anything to stop them. She's read enough of current world affairs to know that her own preferred, more merciful punishment would be considered, for whatever reason, less moral than death, by the contemporaries.
Tony Stark Having stayed rather silent the whole time, his face impassive as the situation is developed - and then Lilian lets the final few pieces drop into place - Tony offers some small consolation to Shyra.

"Hey. This is a bit below par for my usual party, as it turns out. You okay?"

Normally that'd be that. He would turn off his brain, let it happen, and it'd be resolved in the way of the world.

Did he have a right to tell them how to govern? Did he have cause to be incensed at the wasted potential of the lives that he himself had spared or saved weeks before?

What would be the behavior that Iron Man validated?

Not this. But then again, for all his technology and circumstance, Tony had come here as 'Tony Stark'. Outwardly, of course, but still. He came presenting as the man, not the ideal. And the man had opinions.

"I'd like to ask you to stop right there, Mister Rose." Stark raises his voice, cutting through the party like a bullhorn with the subtle increase of his projection. "On two matters."

He gestures to the boys that Lilian tore apart verbally. "While I have the utmost respect-" Words spoken by people who a hundred percent of the time do not have the utmost respect for anything. "-for your local customs and laws, these people were apprehended by Arthur Lowell, Sir Gawain, Shyra, and Sir d'Tarkanan. First you rely on the timely action of Warden Gawain to save your daughter's project and prevent a massive loss of face for your house, and then you *insult* him? He's a storybook knight - the sort of man that you should understand completely. That you show him such a lack of deference and respect doesn't look good, sir. It doesn't *hit the ear* well. Or are you taking advantage of the grace of five Paladins and two other heroes that made this potential terrorist attack a schoolyard prank in terms of seriousness?"

Tony takes a step forward, hands loose. He's smiling. "For your consideration, a counter proposal: Remand them all to Sir Gawain's care off-world. The Paladins have work-release programs for reformed criminals, and clearly you don't want them here."

He raises his arms in a broad all-encompassing shrug. "Or are you going to stand there and insult a Knight of Camelot's honor? That's a duelling offense, Master Rose. Are you to stand for your words, or are you naming a champion?"
Shyra     There is a nod to Tony, and a little smile. "Well, I hope we can find a way to make the party more interesting for you, Mister Stark." She says with a little tilt of her head. "Everything will be fine." She says in what has rapidly become something of a trademark saying with the healer. Whether it is true or not at any given time continues to be a coin toss.

    She turns to watch Tony, and her hands come up to her mouth. The exchange between Master Rose, Gawain and Tony continue to astound her, the clever repartee giving her, perhaps, a flash of insight into the ongoing negotiations and ways to percieve underlying motivations and how to address them. She smile a little as she hears the counterproposal.

    "I am sure everything will work out." She says with some small amount of hope. "Maybe I can help too." They might appreciate it now, but later on, who knows. They might have preferred the other resolution by the time Gawain and the others are done with them.
Ben d'Tarkanan      The night isn't done yet, however.

     Gawain seems concerned about these young men, in much the same way he is. Ben's flawed understanding of what constitutes decent behavior notwithstanding, this confrontation has put him in a difficult position. He had offered aid to several of those young men, so callously called 'extras' by Lilian's people. He doesn't know the precise meaning, but he knows enough.

     He also knows that they might rat him out, like Bartholomew just ratted Gawain out. He has to get in front of it--but he can't make a scene like Gawain, or else he'll upset Lilian. So, after taking a generous sip of wine, he sticks up for them, in his own way.

     He gently bows his head when Tony mentions him. Okay. So he has Gawain and Stark. This might not be so bad, especially if he can just angle it the right way...

     "If Master Stark's proposal should still leave a bitter taste, I humbly offer restitution on behalf of these young men."
Gawain Gawain feels his honor get besmirched. He doesn't like that, but Tony steps in, telling Mr. Rose that he done fucked up. Gawain smiles at everyone's support, and speaks firmly.

"I can ensure these men are rehabilitated, without a loss of life. They do not need to be discarded like animals simply because they committed a crime somewhere they weren't supposed to be. You're a reasonable man, Mr. Rose, you understand that, of course?"

Needling back. Does he want to seem unreasonable and dishonorable against a Knight of the Round Table?
Lilian Rook     Tony, who has kept out of the actual catching and bashing of culprits, finds that his 'stay at the party and schmooze' approach has paid off. A lot. Interjecting in that seamless power-duo way, flipping from Tamamo to Gawain in whom he is riffing off of. The big flip apparently catches everyone in the room off guard, especially many who, by their faces can be judged, felt that Mr. Rose was being almost too magnanimous. It'd be a glass-drop-drink-spit moment if any of these people were that foppish or uncoordinated. Grant comes centimeters short of prodding him in the side, making looks back and forth that read 'not in front of the guests'.

    There's really nothing to do about it. There is no wiggle or out or flashing QTE counterattack prompt. There are, in fact, people sprinkled throughout the crowd staring holes in the back of his skull. Waiting. Lilian had, indeed, told Tony once -- and even Gawain -- about the main three political blocks in the country of the most specific sort of importance. Even Eleanor, the one who should be offended, is staring at her father as if to say 'Well then?', taking Tony's side instantly.

    The man is far from stupid enough to engage in this. He stiffens his posture, gestures towards Gawain, quarter-way bows, and says "Indeed, please excuse my familiarty. I'm afraid the unsettling disruption to the night, in the heat of the moment, had clouded my better judgement. If you feel a personal responsibility for the fate of the lot, then I will by no means gainsay you in the affair." He glances to the lineup, all of them frozen stiff with anticipation. "Take them outside and watch them until the good knight finds time to address them at his convenience." There's a round of silent nods, and then even more silence from the bunch actually being dragged out, not daring to test their good fortune. Nobody will stop someone from chasing them outside.

    Rose checks his cuffs as if they need re-fastening, mulling something over for a minute, before looking to Ben and saying "No such thing will be necessary. I could hardly take such from someone who has nothing to gain by doing so but a strong moral standing and good character."

    He then claps his hands together very loudly. "Now then! Let us not be distracted any longer! We are here for a very good reason, after all!" The storm passed, the entire room seems glad to get right back to it, and they do so with a frightening lack of difficulty. Outside of the absence of a chunk of security, it already seems as if nothing had happened. Even Eleanor can't be bothered with it, instead occupied by translating kanji, followed by Sabrina dragging her out to an obligatory dance. The night goes on.