Scene #7286: Nova Heliosanctus - Right to Challenge

Owner	Pose
Lilian Rook	Even given recent access to the west European and Japanese controlled parts of the Hidden Continent, this is enough of a special occasion that you'd be strictly barred from coming here anyways at any other time. Though there's been an opportunity once before to see Arx Zenith, Lilian's career academy, where the Immunes are forged from the vanishing few who can withstand the program, there'd been none to see her actual school. Her collegiate. Her everything prior to her sudden shift in priorities two years ago. A place of learning for youth who will be introduced in adult society by the end of its run; one that Lilian apparently somehow doubles up. There's normally never a good reason to let a bunch of random people take a tour around a school they can't even go to, after all. You're still not let on a tour, but being let around at all is special. Outside of the increasingly less-unfamiliar sight of sun's fractal corona and the feeling of the air being like a medicinal stimulant to the magical (and lethally choking to those without (nobody is provided any kind of breathing mask)), what is most striking is the age of the place compared to the previous one. Though it exists in a realm that is, by all accounts, very modern, the campus was clearly built before steel construction was ever invented. Walls of gold granite, worn by wind and colonized by climbing ivy, build upwards to a surprising height, mostly arranged in rounded turrets that intersect a circular wall around star-shaped and steepled central building, encircling a considerable amount of land given over to cultivated outdoors and littered with constructions like small chapels and towers. Black tiles, armatured windows, and a total lack of banners or signage make it a mystery to navigate even from the outside, and easy to get lost around without memorizing arcane designs on intersections of pathways. You're shown in by, at a best guest, someone who could only be definitively called 'staff'. There are a lot of those around; the grounds outside mostly seem to be 'people in uniforms' who are too old to be students, but definitely not professors either, given over to manual tasks over most other things. There aren't even name tags, so it's presumable that they're considered 'beneath notice', and present in such large number due to some labour demand. It can't be due to a huge number of students, though, because the inside is both grandiosely cavernous, and as crowded and loud as an art museum. Given over to warm light from glowing fixtures rather than the outdoors, dark furnishings, incomprehensible 'art' pieces and curios, commemorative items sealed in glass cases or built on plinths, and an ostentatious onyx statue of a mystery man and two mystery women at the center, the reception hall even kind of looks like one. It's evidently meant more as something that takes advantage of a nexus of corridors that daily travel would frequently go through, than as a place to welcome people; a collection of history and heritage as both a daily reminder of where one is, and what they're expected to live up to, next to the baroque benches and a number of boards covered with actually useful information. A couple of them appear to be dedicated to the act of displaying the grading of every student in every aspect of every course, in an extremely public place where everyone can see. That's the kind of atmosphere it has. Even a cursory examination shows exactly how few students there are here; less than three hundred across nine grades, with a few name plaques taken off, their rows left blank midway. Three of them in the same year and class shouldn't be hard to guess.
Lilian Rook	It's definitely a fact that nobody comes here to 'visit'. Nobody even gets to 'look around' except parents intending to send children here, and even then, it's not the kind of school that advertises; it's the kind the parents apply for a slot at with an interview in advance. From there, you're guided around old and gothic architecture in that warm gold and black palette that is actually Gothic -- literally several centuries old -- interspersed exclusively with analogue fixtures, until you're lead into one particular set of doors which would be at home in a privileged courtroom, opening into a circular chamber big enough to play basketball in, were one a complete pedestrian. The ostensible importance of circles continues.The floor space is one, as are the rows of seating that are raised up around it, a panel balcony opposite the door in, with stairs down in all cardinal directions. The very center of the floor is cut away with a circular depression perhaps five meters across, and natural light streams through the ceiling in a vertical god ray from a circular skylight. This is where you're meant to be. 'Permitted' to be, perhaps, but not quite begrudgingly. As far as you've heard, this is a 'family, friends, guardians, and et cetera' occasion, and you've been named to fill the attache limit to its maximum space. Possibly because god damned if Lilian doesn't project having a waiting list to attend something so showy and self-centered. Possibly because she wants to squeeze in as many people as she knows can make use of the opportunity during the brief chance there is. You're not shown to specific seating, allowed to choose it on your own, though those choices are limited, as a significant number of people have turned out; most appear to be students who have the obvious privilege, but a surprising number are instructors who probably have better things to be doing, and a few have no uniform wear. Depending on one's memory, there are 'enough' recognizable faces from that party, though most recognizable are probably Sabrina and Eleanor sat together in a small island of clear space, nearish to a female member of faculty who looks 'less-than middle aged' despite fully silvered-through shoulder-length hair, a stern-looking black-haired young man, perhaps thirty, in a charcoal blazer and a watch he keeps checking, a twenty-something redhead girl with a prodigious ponytail and extremely green eyes, who seems far more interested, albeit with a thick book on her lap, and the seated titan of a man that is Gerart from Arx Zenith, who has put a tie on over his shirt and left the sleeves rolled up anyways. The panel is obviously host to three members of higher instruction, all of whom actually appear to be at least middle-aged, at exactly the ratio of the statue in the entrance hall. It's always threes -- threes and circles -- but it's extremely typical otherwise as far as communicating 'this is a review bench'. Lilian is, of course, already present before people are finished filing in. It's almost odd to see her wearing a uniform instead of 'something nicer than everyone else in the room', though it takes a certain kind to pull off dark red over, black bottom, and white under look anyways, as well as an obviously grade-denominating brooch and ribbon. There's also a little gold badge that only one other student in the whole room has a copy of. She is on ground level, by the depression in the tawny tile of the floor, surrounded by a number of black plates with extremely mundane-appearing objects on them, and a hefty chunk of bluestone sat in the dip, under the skylight, probably weighing a good hundred pounds. She does not have a radio with her, or her smart device.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Attend Today's one hell of an important day for Lilian. Two years in advance, in fact, which has Arthur's attention. Lilian does exactly nothing at all without motivation and drive, and pushing for something this early means one of two important things: Someone needs to be demonstrated to, or something needs to be accessed in a time-sensitive way. This means he's interested, whether this be a way of addressing social needs, or a way of addressing access needs. He's attended in his best mage ensemble, with the flowing robe-stuff that suits any professional mage event that respects /tradition/. He's picked a seat further up, because his mage senses should be enough to take in the real meat of things. >Arthur: Catch a seat >Arthur: Try to identify the most uncomfortable person in the room Let's keep eyes out. Arthur knows better than anyone what someone looks like when they have significant discomfort and are trying to play it cool. He, too, is perpetually in that state. Of the attendees, are there anyone -- especially among those Arthur recognizes -- who look potentially somewhat threatened by this effort? Whose judgments or positions might be being challenged by a tremendously spectacular two-years-early certification? >Arthur: Watch the show, too Of course, best to see how this exam works. It's always good to get a few more bits of insight about this world and how it works. The exams help to embody years worth of understanding about the threats faced by people with heroic intent here.
Tony Stark	Anthony Edward Stark has been invited to be an Accessory Chad at Dame Lilian Rook's magical dick measuring recital. Absolutely certain that Lilian is possessed of the metaphorical 'big dick', Tony is here anyway: because he was invited. The note that invited him did not specify formal dress, nor seating arrangements, so Tony girds himself only in the finest and most respectful clothes: Under an unbuttoned vest, he fills out a silkscreened T-shirt that loudly declares in black block letters: LILIAN ROOK PROVES HER SUPERIORITY AGAIN and then a commemorative date stamped 8/2/2020 in the bottom right corner largely hidden by his vest. In his hands is a bag of Burger King whoppers, which he begins to unpack and eat after finding seating Because he is a gracious lord, he offers Arthur Lowell (who he coincidentally sits next to) the paper crown. Tony Stark may be the least uncomfortable person in the room.
Tamamo	Tamamo no Mae is attending more for moral support than any other reason, but her immediate offer having been warned against, she is left at the mercy of her larger ignorance as to the specifics of how much 'cheering' is permitted at this particular social function. Are signs appropriate? Pom-poms? Discarding these dangerous options, she opts to wear that same sort of rich, archaically formal wear as she had at the party, and simply arrive as she is, differing the coloration only enough to not, quite apparently and technically, be wearing the same dress twice. And there's Tony, providing a valuable reference point. "Oh, good evening, Mr. Stark. I see, so this is the customary method of cheering for these quieter affairs, is it?" Tamamo will remember this. Though she could sit there, school-unrelated people together, her eyes first catch Sabrina, Eleanor, and some third, yet-unknown figure. Having received no instruction otherwise, she heads that way with a smile. There are certain things to catch up on.
Strawberry Princess	Today, thank god, Strawberry has let her transformation sequence dress her- she wouldn't want to tarnish Lilian's reputation by showing up with un-combed hair and a depression hoodie again. Her cute costume is a very different kind of 'magical' than these old stones and this cracklingly elven atmosphere, but it is a sort of 'magical' nonetheless, and so she hopes it isn't quite a total disconnect. The wand on her back, a monstrosity of plutonium and pastels, is thoroughly bolted down and cold- but even with the control rods sunken in, the magical atmosphere makes its power display flicker like a faulty lightbulb, toggling between 00:00 and 00:01. She's one of the last to arrive; the hallways and relics of the school captivate her attention for too long. Logically, she knows that this isn't What Schools Are Like- not normal ones. Even so, this place with its grandeur and its ceremony feels like the external shape of an internal myth; a child's distorted memory of school made reality. Finally, she arrives at the designated hall and ascends to the balcony with clacking footsteps. Strawberry Princess is capable of assuming a kind of intimidating nobility when she needs to; spine straightened, shoulders squared, gracefully slipping through the crowd that she stands head-and-shoulders above. This is softly ruined when she seats herself behind Tony and Arthur, and leans forward to whisper: "I slept through breakfast. Do you- is that enough burgers to share?"
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Regard the Bezosoid The crown stands easily fixed atop Arthur's gloriously messy locks. He turns to regard Tony Stark. "Wait, 2020? Isn't it..." He starts, before he freezes for a moment. >Arthur: Say "It's 2564, ain't it?" >Arthur: Knowledge (History) DC 0 check >Arthur: IT IS 2020 >Arthur: It's after 2050 He blinks several times, and then shakes his head, wincing weirdly. "Wait, never mind, I'm FUCKIN' DUMB." He mutters under his breath. "Hey, aren't you one'a those SCIENCE GUY kinda dudes? What're you doin' here for a MAGECRAFT THING? Figured this would be BORING HOCUS POCUS for a dude like you."
Tony Stark	Tony laughs, lifting the whole bag towards Strawberry. "Help yourself." There's one thing of curly fries and three more Whoppers. Tamamo questions his attire at the 'quieter affairs', causing the laughter to continue in genuinely jovial attitude. "Of course, of course. It's a show of confidence, that's all. For Lilian, and for myself." Arthur questions his temporality. "No, it's..." Yes, 2020 comes after 2050. 2020 The Second. It keeps coming back. It's forever, Arthur Lowell, you're not a Time character, accept Time's stupidity. "It's all data points, Lowell. Also, I've got something in the oven, so I'm pencils down for the moment. You'll like it." He smirks. "I could come here like everyone else, dress up or dress normal, and nobody would pay attention. Dressing down is how you stand out." He taps his temple twice.
Lilian Rook	Arthur's scanning the room for fake cool is a bit of a crackling geiger counter effect. Most of the students in the room are, in fact, just a little bit insecure about the whole thing to varying degrees. Most are in attendance anyways for the spectacle; most of those for some sense of the 'historical' importance of it, some hoping to learn something from it, a few hoping for a choke. The silver-haired woman is the most genuinely uncomfortable, despite obviously being a professor, but not in a 'threatened' way exactly. More like 'someone who just heard the first three numbers of the lottery and they match the ticket she's holding, then the cable went out'. It's a specific feeling. Eleanor, especially, waves down Tamamo in excitement pretty much immediately, patting down empty seating in front, apparently not so presumptuous as to indicate beside. Sabrina finds it amusing enough. She also finds Tony bringing in fast food hilarious, as do several other snickering students. Tony gets a stink eye from several faculty across the room, but what are they going to do? It's Gerart who slaps a nearby seat and gestures him over, semi-sarcastically saying "I hope you brought enough for the class." in a way that is just slightly mocking of formal schooling, being the man whose teaching motto is 'welcome to the real world!' and all. The redhead points at his shirt and elbows the perhaps-30 man next to her, grinning and trying to get his attention. He looks extremely affectively bored by it. It's also Gerart who identifies the chunk of reactor on a stick strapped to Strawberry, raising a big fuzzy slug of an eyebrow and adding "Does that really count?" without elaborating. The two girls point and titter immediately, trying to get her to sit on their side of Tony, obviously knowing of her by proxy through Lilian. The older woman somehow looks faintly strained, then looks away. When people are settled in and the room is quiet, the senior-looking gentleman in the middle of the three-panel flips a page in a book opened before him back and forth, and begins what are ostensibly the formalities. "Speaking to Lilian Isabelle Rook, seventh year in Crimson class, prefect, with high honours. Is this who is in attendance?" Obviously, a few meters below, Lilian answers "Correct and present." "The following ascertainment trial is designed for the purpose of accreditation of the third tier, in conclusion of ninth-year studies, and this institution's guarantee of individual quality of personage and completeness of learning. Is this what you intend to challenge?" Another affirmative response, "Correct and intent." "The following ascertainment will last for a period of no more than precisely sixty six minutes. It will involve only the materials seen before you. It will prohibit exiting the circle in which they are placed. The object at its locus will be your subject. Have you inspected these attributes and found them acceptable." A formal "Correct and accepted". "The certification of advanced learning to be ascertained will be a correct performance of the Magnum Opus, via the Twelve Gates, utilizing your major studies in esoteric hermeticism and ogham-futhorc primordialism. Have you made sufficient preparation to perform the task appointed to you?" There is one, final, very confident "Correct and prepared." from Lilian. "Very well then. You may begin." The fact that a clock somewhere strikes exactly at the hour is probably not actually coincidence.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Regard Strawberry Princess Arthur says, "Damn, homie, barely recognized you with that soldier strut going on. Where'd you pick up a posture like that?" The thought crosses his mind that the answer to this question probably involves profoundly and intensely terrible stress placed on a young essentially-soldier, so he moves on from that pretty quick. "Damn girl, this shit EVENING. You SLEEP THROUGH LUNCH too? Hey, if I-DOG ain't got nothin' for you, I could, uhhh..." >Arthur: Use Doritos Bag on Strawaberry Princess He roots around in his Sylladex to acquire DORITOS, which have a name that begins sufficiently early in the alphabet that it is statistically likely to wind up on a leaf card in his Tree Modus. Unfortunately 'cell phone' and 'game boy' are leaves of its branch, which means Arthur needs to quickly captchalogue the BURGER KING HEADWEAR to force the tree to visibly rebalance because B<C<D, causing the BURGER KING HEADWEAR and the DORITOS (FAMILY SIZE BAG) to become leaves of the CELL PHONE branch, which will cause problems in the future but whatever. In any case, he hands her the card, from which she can consume delicious nacho cheese chips. >==> Something is happening, and Arthur sets his focus on the room...
Strawberry Princess	Strawb immediately plunders one of the Whoppers and tears into it, in that extremely particular fashion of "someone who hasn't always had enough to eat". A little bit of ketchup gets on the yellow portion of her costume's chest, but she doesn't seem to notice or mind. It almost looks like one of the little patterned strawberries if you don't look too close. "I'm not- sure that works," she tells Tony around a bit of lettuce, still leaning forwards with her arms crossed over the back of the chair in front. "Whenever I dress like that, nobody likes it. Is it just a guy thing? ... Oh, thanks for the burger, too." She graciously accepts the DORITOS (FAMILY SIZE BAG) from her favorite stellar ruffian and pops it open, dirtying her strawberry-pink gloves with the nacho dust. "The 'strut' is just- it's a mindset thing, you know? I think it's a little like your 'swagger'; knowing who I'm supposed to be, and letting other people know it." Crunch, munch, crunch. Through orange-dusted gremlin lips: "I was- up late, with medical things. Putting ice on stuff. You're getting enough sleep too, aren't you, Arthur? It's- important for teens, I know." Her visor hides the upper half of her face, but you can just barely see the edges of dark eye-bags underneath it when she tilts her head back.
Strawberry Princess	With the Garbage Feast largely done, she neatly wipes off her lips and gloves and steps directly over the row of chairs in front to sit next to the two mystery girls. She puts on her best Friendly-With-Youngsters smile (even though they're probably about her age) and gives them a little wave as she leans back and crosses her legs, DORITOS still tucked under one arm. "Nice to meet you! I'm Strawberry Princess. You're- you must know Lilian, right?" Gerart she remembers for sure- the 'we don't spend people anymore' guy. She gives him a slightly different smile, more familiar and less affectedly soft, and tilts her head a little. "Sorry- count for what?"
Tony Stark	"Oh, I have to explain the scale. Hold on." Lilian's process begins, but Tony seems entirely fine in schmoozing with The Girls, as they arrive, and explaining things to Strawberry turned-around. "The less important and powerful you are, the more you can pull off slob chic. I've got frontpage covers of Times Magazine with me in twenty thousand dollar outfits I've worn once. I don't have anything to prove. Thus, rather than showing up in some effort piece trying to look like I'm not trying, or my casual, which is nice enough you can't tell whether or not I'm trying, I'm actively 'doing the opposite of trying'." Tony thumbs the edge of his vest to reveal the entirety of his shirt. "I'm untouchable. And it shows I have absolute confidence in Rook's ability. It also allows me to use the greatest line in the english lexicon:" He clears his throat, setting the tone. "I believe you're asking questions answered sufficiently by the shirt."
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Run the numbers. Let's build the cast of characters "SORRY," He asides to Strawberry. "BEST I GOT." Alright, sure, let's get that cast. Silver-hair over there is looking the excited kind of tense. She's rooting /for/ Lilian but doesn't have the confidence necessary to know this is going to work. She stands to gain if this works. The students are here for academic politics purposes. The friends are here for friendship, of course, though Arthur only knows of them loosely. Lilian Rook is all maneuvers, though. She wouldn't take needless risks, and she wouldn't spend time on anything that didn't accomplish a goal. Maybe the one this is against isn't present? Or isn't present yet? Or maybe he's looking in the wrong place. The review panel? No, too overt. What's the angle? >Arthur: Wait, is that weird puzzle bullshit down there? Well, maybe there's not enough pieces for that puzzle here. Now, though, Arthur can examine the content of the process here. There were several mundane-seeming objects on the plates, and some bluestone. He leans forward, peering, focusing. Between the circle, the bluestone, and the objects, is there enough here to enact an instance of a major type of magic? Arthur leverages both his tremendous analytical and scholarly understanding of magic, and his deep understanding of Weird Puzzle Shit, to get a solid look at the nature of the challenge here.
Arthur Lowell	>==> "Yeah, guess if you're matchin' your SWAG with the LOCAL SHIT." Arthur says, nodding to Strawberry Princess. "The outfit shit is cuz BEING COOL for DUDES means finding LESS AND LESS WAYS to CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE while also trying to STILL LOOK GOOD. That JUST ROLLED OUT OF BED LOOK and shit, right?" Uh oh. "Aw shit, you get in some FIGHTS? Uhhhhh..." Sleep? Arthur rubs the back of his head. "SLEEP is... shit's COMPLICATED. On account of I'm HALF DEAD, my SLEEP is when I do the DEAD part, and..." He waves vaguely. "DOESN'T MATTER. IMPORTANT THING is, I get enough SLEEP to do my REAL COOL SHIT." He catches a glance under that visor. "Don't you got, like, PEOPLE to do ICE SHIT while you KNOCK OUT? DAMN, GIRL."
Tamamo	Others are in attendance, and seats may be shuffled a bit. This is fine, and Tamamo gives quiet acknowledgment to those of her acquaintance--the space god, the magical girl and, lastly, the instructor she had met the once, at another school, no concern given to that acquaintanceship's slightness. Gerart is far more known to Lilian, which is enough reason. She does not, however, concern herself with Doritos, whether because she isn't hungry or because the dust would get everywhere, including her genuine fur. She instead has the seat offered by Eleanor to take, which she does, after addressing both girls by name, "Eleanor, Sabrina, I am pleased to see you once more. You may tell me of such matters as I may have missed, yes?" The peculiarity of her phrasing for 'we have catching up to do' should be entirely expected by this point, as an artifact of her actual manner of speech. Pointedly, she is very curious on one particular matter, but it does no good to bring that up by name. Eleanor should know exactly what she was gifted, by now. Lilian is beginning. This is a matter of interest, even if Lilian shouldn't be sparing attention for her, in return. There was that time at the other school, when she might have been 'distracting'... Yes, best not to repeat that. She'll content herself to keeping to an attentive look, for now.
Strawberry Princess	"'Doing the opposite of trying'," Strawberry muses quietly, with her bag of Doritos(tm) still tucked under her arm. She shakes her head slowly, utterly oblivious. "You're probably right. I don't think- I could ever do that. Because I feel like I have to try, you know? To be the person I'm supposed to be. But if you're... already settled, with who you are, I bet it's really good." She laughs a little, silently, at Arthur. "I guess so. But it feels wrong not to do things for myself, you know? Having 'people' to do things for me is... it feels arrogant, somehow. Besides, have you ever tried to sleep while being iced down?"
Lilian Rook	Right Hand and Left Hand are still excited to meet Strawberry even if she doesn't know them. The blonde introduces herself as "Eleanor Rose!" and the brunette as "Sabrina Elaine. And of course we do." Eleanor adds "We're only her best friends." That might be true for all anyone knows. Or maybe they're just allowed to believe that. It is a mystery. "You're Strawberry Princess, right? I mean, it's obvious, but still polite to ask! You're English too right?" "I like your outfit." Eleanor looks at Tamamo with a shifty, unblinking, side-eye manner that can only be described as 'conspiratorial'. Her smile is slightly strained, but sincere. "Oh, you know, only a little bit. Things have gone well so far. But you know how it is. Sometimes you'll spend a lot of time waiting for the right opportunity. I've been keeping up, though. Especially since Lilian has been busy." Sabrina glances back and forth between the two in knowing fashion, suppressing a smirk and keeping her mouth shut. The objects Arthur examines are not innately magical in any sense. They're fairly ordinary things like chalk, wood ash, mercury, iron filings, oil, et cetera. They're Project Materials rather than designed to help. The architecture of the room is magic-adjacent. He can tell that the floor, especially, is still tingling with the magic equivalent of a fresh bleach smell, having been excessively purified and layered in a single mild enchantment that feels like a sort of 'room temperature conductor' concept. It looks like the bare tiles have even been freshly replaced. There is no magic down there outside of Lilian herself. Her own presence, however, outstrips everyone else in the room save the panel, Gerart, and the nameless man, roughly equaling the redhead and silver-hair. He already knows what Gerart is like and the basic nature of whatever magic he does. The former two strangers are most similar to Lilian in 'feel' by far, even though one seems excited and the other professionally bored and expectant. The latter is, surprisingly for not sitting in the panel, probably more 'charged up' than they are. As for Lilian, it's going to be all her own magic or nothing. Running out or overtaxing is definitely part of the whole exam. Gerart replies to Strawberry Princess without keeping his voice down at all. "Count as a focus, obviously! Uranium as a catalyst? Or maybe plutonium. Thorium? I'm not about to crack it open, but you're really walking around with a hundred pound health hazard on a stick just like that. You're familiar with it. Familiar like a veteran with his old service rifle. That has to be why nobody asked. You look like you're supposed to be carrying it, and people who look like they're meant to be doing what they're doing are above questions." He thumb jerks at Tony. "Case in point, girl. I'd like to say I'm surprised he isn't here to harass someone in particular." Down below, Lilian begins moving around the perimeter of the circle with exactly the kind of smooth and purposeful gait that suggests she's already planned out her entire route. Skipping over some of the plates, what she begins with is scattering what appear to be ashes, then iron filings, and a splash of some kind of oil over the bluestone. Arriving back at where she'd started, she puts a fingertip to the face of the stone, and with several quick, purposeful slashing motions, she draws several characters up and down its surface in several columns, using precisely zero curves in any of them. This is where the actual running commentary starts from the stands, people spectating it like a golf match. The redhead makes a noise of intrigue, only to say "That's a really standard start.", but the charcoal-clad man next to her actually leans forward. Eleanor and Sabrina are saying "Oh just you wait." "Give it a moment." to Tamamo and Strawberry, as if they'd even get the significance of it. Silver-hair lady crosses her fingers in her lap. Gerart just kind of stares. The panel is muttering and scribbling as panels are wont to do.
Lilian Rook	Then, backing away, Lilian begins walking the innermost band of gold granite, polished but extremely bare. She skips the plate bearing chalk and charcoal entirely, instead picking up an opaque vial that drizzles some viscous black ink when tipped, which is the first thing that's met with some considerable murmuring of appreciation. Apparently this is to skip having to crouch down and draw over and over again, so long as Lilian continues to perform the mildly surreal feat of controlling the thin stream so smoothly that it paints sharp lines where her fingers move, which has the two girls looking insufferably smug. Eleanor makes a rude gesture at a boy on the opposite end of the room with the subtlety of a woman signaling a lover with her fan in a theatre. Mystery man says "That's better." out loud. Runes of Tinne Ruis and Tir Rad. Ifin Nion and Ior Nyd. New combinations at each cardinal direction, and smaller strings between. She completes the circle without stopping or backtracking, moving slowly as needed, counterclockwise, until it closes. She speaks out loud in definitely not English "The Gate of Calcination", and the ink smokes and burns itself off, leaving a dry stencil. White-hot flame surges up from the solid tile beneath the bluestone chunk, as if straight from a crucible flame. The rock heats to incandescence extremely quickly, the iron on its surface melting, the ash falling away into the pit, and the oil sizzling, creating a vapour bubble around it that pushes back the air. Stepping back a couple of feet, she continues in the same direction, in a slightly wider orbit, drawing a second layer surrounding the first. Completing this one, she finishes with "The Gate of Solution." The stone abruptly begins crumbling away, falling apart in molten wax chunks, and engulfing the molten iron all over it, forming an incandescent pool that steams as she upends a vase full of water on it. She steps back again. Another trip around the circle. The water level rises in the shallow pit, rather than diminishing, as she draws Uilleann Sail and Uris Sigel. Oil floats to the top, molten stone a layer beneath, sat atop a thin plate of iron, with a thick layer of white carbonized powder perfectly smooth on top. "The Gate of Separation." A fourth circle, progressively wider, longer, further testing just how far she can keep pacing around like that without making an error, or having to slow down, stop, or double back, to finish something complex. Sharp little flicks of ink work wonders for such angular characters, burning away on the square footage thoroughly pre-prepared for magic circles. The ash sinks into the water, turning dark and thick, and then beginning to freeze. The stone cracks and fissures. The soupy ashen mixture flows into the cracks, forming striations with bands of fine iron dust, meshed together in circles of white, grey, and black. "The Gate of Conjunction." The whole process has taken her a little less than ten minutes. The concentric and conjoined circles are now four feet thick at least. The 'taste' of magic in the room has actively intensified quite a bit. Even without flashy glowy special effects, there's a lot of capital M Magic being Used, somewhere in the chain, in that fashion which is mysterious and invisible to the astonished and fearful serf of old, though to the sensitive practitioner in the room, seems to come from Lilian, into the vial, diffused into the liquid, and then runs through the geometries stained onto the floor, where it collects in the center. "Damn, look at her go!" Redhead bothers her adjacent with more elbow nudges. The lady checks an honest to god silver pocketwatch, then her palm, then the watch again. The tone from the panel is shifting to that of 'pleasant surprise'. Sabrina elaborates for Strawberry's benefit "She's a quarter done already, even though the materials are a blind reveal. Normally you'd at least stop and think."
Tamamo	"Oh, yes, one can find great value in patience," Tamamo agrees with Eleanor, "though also in decisiveness. The wisdom to distinguish the times appropriate to one or another is hard-won for any noble warrior. Regrettably, it is likewise difficult to teach from any save 'experience.' I expect you will have a great deal of time to learn. That is the advantage of a student, no? Ah, but I may ramble on. Please pardon me." Tamamo is, as one might expect, not well-versed in rune magic. It's simply outside of anything she'd looked into from close-up. The process is, therefore, entirely new, even if many aspects of it are appreciably familiar. The running commentary proves useful, and she manages to look suitably impressed while also visibly only partially comprehending, a layered reaction perfectly fitting her role as a foreign, but polite, guest. Quietly, "Now, who would those two be, not yet of my acquaintance?" She gestures, entirely without pointing, toward the several close-ish, but unidentified figures, including the silver-haired woman and the red-haired with the book.
Arthur Lowell	>==> "Yeah." Arthur says, leaning to one side to reply. "All the time. CARAPACIANS were fucking DESPERATE to find some way to feel like they were GIVING BACK. People have this REAL INTENSE HUNGER for feeling like they're HELPING." A long pause. "Also, if you do a FUCKTON OF FIGHTS for SIXTEEN HOURS, you can FALL ASLEEP hella EASY." He spends some time watching... "PUNCHCARD ALCHEMY. This REMINDS me of that, kinda." He says, shifting forward to give this all more attention. "All manual, though. Damn WILD, for real." He closes his eyes and considers what's underway, and when he opens them... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ \| LILIAN ALCHEMIZED ø§»«¿Þ \| \| COST: ??? BUILD GRIST, ??? METAL, ??? RUST, ??? HEAT, ??? RIDE, ??? THORN, \| \| ??? WAVE, ??? HARVEST, ??? NEED... \| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The visible tally in front of him is rising as he comprehends a little more of what's afoot, in his own unique way. Arthur sees it as grist costs and interlocking punchcard systems, but this is more literal than it seems: His understanding of punchcard alchemy is the lens through which he can see this in the literal sense, the UI aspects in front of him quite literally display the \|\| and && and \|\|-ALCHMOD and &&-ALCHMOD operations performed in their equivalent sense... albeit with far less fine detail. Sure does look fancy to have those cards and grist icons swooshing around in front of him though.
Lilian Rook	Eleanor bites her knuckle to hold in a surreptitious giggle at trading inside speak with Tamamo. "I should be thanking you too, though. For more than just the lovely present. You've been making things plenty busy yourself, you know. You're good at getting people's attention, and keeping it. I've appreciated some quiet time here, for some reasons. This and that." When Tamamo gestures and asks, Sabrina starts replying to her without actually looking at anything but the alignment of her arm to know who she's indicating in what order. "Those two are Bryce and Katrina Rook. I'm a bit surprised you haven't met. Or not. Maybe it would be awkward? Or maybe it wouldn't. It's usually only Katrina who ever shows up to things like this, but then this is a bigger occasion than usual." Eleanor says "And that lady is Instructor Reid. She teaches a lot of things. With the academy for . . . gosh, two and a half centuries now? She's vintage faculty. We have her for Traditional history and Enlightened ethics, and Lilian has her as part of the divination subclass as well, since that's up her alley too. She's kind of her favourite instructor. I think?" Arthur is definitely looking at Alchemy. There are some nested meanings in the combinations of runes that aren't apparent to someone without the specific background, buried under layers of allusions, but they're certainly related to the basic sets, of which there appear to be two different ones, related in some fashion. However, rather than pursuing a specific object or item, it seems more like a transformative action. The circle being worked on is Her Territory in a few senses, which is being refined and evolving into some end state through cycles and cycles of roundabout processes and combinations. It is to Punchcard Alchemy what Assembly is to Python. Her goal isn't to turn something into something, but to turn a place into another place. On the grand floor, Lilian is simultaneously rapt in her attentions and serene in her confidence. Despite the apparently extreme importance of the occasion, and the obviously significant challenge that is holding her focus, her heart rate could be a metronome for all the difference it makes. Luis Onn Beith Ailm Dair. "The Gate of Putrefaction" she announces, this time followed by "Beginning the Nigredo." The steady trickle of invisible aether that gathers in the auspicious symbols, flows to its destination, and circles of liquid ash begin to rot away at speed, adding a slightly sharp and unpleasant note to the faint scent of burnt frying pan and hot sand. Layers of freshly purified and hardened bluestone degrade, crumbling into desiccated fine sand. Iron dust becomes Martian red dust. Sixth around the circle. It becomes obvious that each main cluster of runes, larger than the ones along the perimeter, have shifted by slight degrees from each cardinal direction, creating half of a spirographic pattern. Anyone who has ever tried to draw anything and run up against the edge of the page should know how precise that has to be when they all have to fit evenly along precisely one quarter of a circle. Fresh runes slowly intensify the aura of magic by a few more degrees. "The Gate of Congelation." The shimmering heat from the pit begins to die down, dissipating the hazy mirage over it. The contents turn very slowly with the clockwise twist of her progress, forming a spiral of cooling and decaying matter that blends together into a rich red-brown.
Lilian Rook	Only then does she stoop down to put down the vial and pick up a replacement, gathering the same elements she'd begun with and casting them into the depression as well at each step, slowly spreading a new layer. When she declares "Beginning the Albedo. The Gate of Cibation." the fresh material combusts of its own accord, repeating the original Calcination in fast forward, exponentially better supplied by the compounded circle. "The Gate of Sublimation." The brilliant white heat, now without so much as a tint of orange or gold, bleeds all the way through to the bottom of the pit, until it looks like a pool of liquid light. However, instead of literally, physically sublimating into a cloud of vapour, it remains in that configuration. A heat mirage doesn't reappear above it. Rather, motes of colourless light, like specs of dust caught in the solar god rays concentrate on the pool, drift upwards and gather above it in a scintillating cloud, being the most overtly supernatural part of the process so far. Multiple reviewers are checking timepieces now, only listing the progress of the event at sixteen minutes, outright accelerating in pace as Lilian builds whatever she's aiming towards more and more completely. There are a real number of students scribbling things down now, though nobody is filming, or even appears to possess a phone; likely, they aren't allowed in the room, for a number of good reasons. Gerart smiles, folding his arms and kicking up a heel to say "Good, I'll be out in time to make happy hour." As soon as he says that though, the silver-haired lady turns his way, and he looks back. Rather than expressing some kind of disgust or disdain towards that statement, she gives him a small and relieved, if slightly exhausted, smile, just as easily missed as his nod back. The other man leans back, relaxing his posture slightly and folding his fingers together atop his knee, saying "It looks like she's genuinely serious about this." Redhead makes a miffed little noise at him, fiddling with her ponytail while saying "What, you thought she wasn't? When does that girl ever do anything on a whim?" "All the time." "Okay, but when does she abandon it?" "That's not the same thing. Though, I'm pleased with what I'm seeing. Why does it matter?" "Because you should have some confidence in her! That's like your job!" "Looking after ourselves is our job. Besides, were you not at all surprised when she suddenly showed this much interest in her original studies? After all that distraction with Arx Zenith and wanting to be an Immune." "She's serious about that too." "Enough that it'd been worrisome." "Worried that she was going to run off and do something stupid, or worried that she wouldn't be making use of the name like you hoped?" "Pick any and all." "So you're relieved she's gone back to being what I wasn't, huh?" "I'm satisfied that she still intends to be here. With all of us. Nobody lasts long out 'there' without something to come back to, Katrina. It's important. And it's not about you." ". . . Sorry." "You know I hate the apologizing. It sounds like embarrassment. Or pity." "Yeah yeah, you're a big boy and I should be proud, got it. Sorry for having a little consideration for your feelings for a moment there." "Don't let it happen again". They're not talking loud enough to be overheard unless one is actively paying attention and listening, but they're not being quiet and conspiratorial about it either, like they do this every so often. They're basically ignored by Eleanor and Sabrina, as if they're almost used to it.
Tony Stark	"You're... surprised?" Tony turns in his seat, crossing his legs and propping his chin up on his palm as he fully engages Gerart. "I'm here to support Lilian. Part of that is wearing the shirt and eating crappy American hamburgers while watching her cut magic runes. The larger part of that is being seen." Tony's smile is cheshire. "The point of me being here is to harass everyone."
Tamamo	Tamamo's smile to Eleanor is at least 50% conspiratorial by volume. "Oh, yes, I would say that my domain lends itself well to the centering of attention, no? It is the," she thinks, "ah, the 'heliocentric model.'" At hearing 'Rook,' the pair have a greater portion of her attention. Why hasn't she met them? "It is no more than a matter of overlooked scheduling, I am sure." That's probably wrong. Should she go and meet them now? She knows at least something about Katrina, while Bryce looks 'difficult.' Perhaps after there's a moment. They're quite focused, and more apparently familiar, with what's going on down at center stage. "'Something to come back to.' An interesting thought." Tony then says something about harassment. "Why, Mr. Stark. Do you mean to say that your manner is... inappropriate? Being an ignorant foreigner, what if this caused me to pick up poor habits?" She is almost certainly joking. It has just that edge of staged shock.
Strawberry Princess	Gerart distracts her from the Magical Kid Camaraderie momentarily. Her smile tugs outwards at the edges, pulled between emotions without a clear winner, and she unslings the wand from her back to hold it out towards him carefully. It's an ugly chimera; half pink cherrywood and wings and crystal, half black metal and control rods and coolant tubing. "Not a focus," she says a little quietly. "A crutch. I can't- make my own magic, anymore; just direct it. So this is... a reactor, to make it for me. So I can still be Strawberry, you know?" There's a wistful, vulnerable smile- a little flinching that he might disapprove; hopeful that he'd understand. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. After Gerart's had a good look and rendered his opinion, she turns her attention to the actual test. Strawberry's lips move silently as she glances down to watch the process; with the visor, it's hard to tell exactly where her eyes are resting. Thoughts bounce around in her head, finding no clear connection. Divination teacher -- blind reveal -- a quarter done already -- ... It's so hard to think nowadays. Everything gets fuzzy; the pathways twist and turn. After a couple seconds' fugue, she snaps back to the girls' conversation. "Nice to meet you, Eleanor, Sabrina. Yeah- I'm Strawberry on a good day," she says with a little polite-icebreaking laugh. "I'm- expatriate. The UK is... bad things happened to it, in my world, when I was a kid. You know? But I'm from there." The Child-Friendly Smile takes on a slightly pained open-mouthed tension, but it's still there. She latches onto the change of topic as soon as it comes along: "Thanks! I made it myself, as a kid. It's- just had minor changes, since then. When you do your own outfits, don't get locked into pink like I did, okay?" Laughter, again. Talking to other magical ~teenagers is a Comfort Zone, and it visibly does her good.
Lilian Rook	Gerart looks up from the process below. The cast of his eyes, for a split second, seems more analytical than it should be. He's examining more than he lets on that he actually knows. He says to Tony "Well, you didn't exactly choose a dark horse. But I'd have a tough time arguing that I'm not doing almost the same thing. Someone has to make an appearance from my end, no? Otherwise they end up thinking they have 'em all to themselves again." He makes an odd little quirk with the corner of his mouth. "Plus I think it's important to see what they're doing on their own time. Not all of them; just the ones I've got my eye on. Gives you a better idea of character. And a more well-rounded approach than you get if they're just the year and rank and score. Not usually worth it until semifinal year, when the gems are all sorted from the crap." He jerks his thumb in the opposite direction. "Plus Miss Reid over there nagged me to show yp anyways." His reaction to Strawberry is a little more serious. There is still no period of silence though. Not a second of contemplation. He flicks the reactor portion with a broad fingernail, making a dull, metallic ping, nods his head shallowly, strokes the chin of his beard with the other hand, and says "Going twice means you don't regret the first time. Not just now, but when it really matters, thirty years down the line. One tour's a formative experience, two tours is a life lived." Eleanor takes to Strawberry just fine. With a little smile, she says "Bad things happened here when I wasn't even born. I don't think that changes the spirit of the thing." Sabrina lofts an eyebrow in faux-surprise, saying "Isn't pink an important part of the 'strawberry' though?" "Strawberries are red." says Eleanor. "Nobody thinks of just one literal strawberry. It's like strawberry cake and strawberry ice cream." says Sabrina. "Do you want to get cake after this?" "Actually, I sort of do." They both look to Strawberry. "Do you want to go for dessert later?" It's that easy. It's Sabrina's turn to be a bit conspiratorial with Tamamo, now (while Eleanor is busy sniggering over the joke). "I already know the brother refuses to live at home, and the sister is always running around over the continent and can't sit still, so maybe that's not a surprise." She only adds after a moment of consideration, "According to Lilian" without sincerity.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Listen to something important Something drifts over the air and gently comes to a sort of rest in Arthur's brain. Something seems missed by this, and after a few distant-eyed blinking seconds of silence, Arthur seems to arrive at a particular conclusion. There's a good chance that this has nothing at all to do with any sort of maneuver in the first place. There's as good a chance as any that Lilian is doing an act of self-manipulation not unlike Arthur himself does; she may be exposing herself to something designed, specifically, to adjust her own cognition and motivation. Like how Arthur exposes himself to the more difficult solutions to retain a connection to humanity, this might be Lilian assuring certain connections by subsuming herself in equally daunting academia challenges. Is she preserving some part of herself this way? Arthur was never ever going to be able to tell, Lilian Rook is fucking unreadable, but for some reason this conclusion feels vaguely right to him. She seems so intent on perfection in herself that he knows she'd probably put herself under a chisel of exactly that sort. >Arthur: Discuss openly "Yeah, SOMETHING TO COME BACK TO." Arthur says, speaking up to Tamamo -- and incidentally being audible to the pair probably. "You know THAT SHIT I do with the HUMAN CONNECTION? I fuckin' REALLY BET that LILIAN would DO THAT SHIT to HERSELF. Get herself all LINKED UP. Half of SELF-IMPROVEMENT is SELF-MANIPULATION. PRINCESS HIGH-HORSE down there got hella PERFECTION ASPIRATIONS and hella RUTHLESSNESS on EXECUTING THEM."
Lilian Rook	The more overtly magical nature of the increasingly elaborate compound process intensifies at this point, rather than bleeding off. "Beginning the Citrinas. The Gate of Fermentation." Lilian still sounds focused, but as if the hard part is already over. The remaining whiffs of chemical and natural processes fade entirely at the peak of the glow's intensity, no longer seeming to involve actual fire, or even heat. Instead, as the circle grows yet wider, its spirals of interconnected characters linking in ever more complex ways, the white fulgor starts to turn gold, then tawny, then break apart, losing its almost radioactive glare and unveiling the tangible substance involved. The scent is of freshly rain-washed loam, and that appears to be exactly what it is. A plot of red dust is at its center, and circular bands of yellow soil have formed in it. Water condenses out of the air above it, in the column of sunbeams, diffusing its light through a white mist that drips crystal clear into grooves in the pit. Sail Ailm Onn Luis Sigel Aesc Os Lagu. Greenery sprouts from the ground. Life literally comes into existence from the base elements. Refined from stone and iron and ash, into the humble and elegant seeds of simple plant life. Grass blades turn up to face the sun, soaking it up from the skylight, bounded by the yellow circles that take in the water. A singular shoot rises from the red plot at its center, taller than the rest. The reaction at this point is one of real, genuine surprise. Not just at her progress, though people are still checking timepieces and students are still struggling to draw diagrams and copy down designs fast enough, but at the particulars of what she'd chosen. It's really hard to read a room like this, but it very much seems like the expectation had been something fancy and expensive. Something to show off. Flex. Flaunt. Natural life seems to be a surprise for everyone in the room. Katrina scratches her cheek and checks her book several times. Bryce leans back with an "Oh?" Reid is now actually beaming, the tension bleeding out of her posture. She glances at Tamamo. Gerart glances at Tamamo. The panelists are barely blinking at this point. Even if grass is conventionally humbler than gold by a great deal, Arthur can easily read that it just happens to be a much more complicated thing to do as well. If Tony is doing any language processing, (Arthur scrutinizing it is a givn), it's the eastern direction of the room where the runes being used all align into an unbroken string of natural themes. Even from the very stair 'air' opposite of 'void' for the calcination was set up to align with water, sun, and others, planned from stage one and hidden in plain sight.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry nods slowly as she takes her wand back, fastening it over her shoulder with delicate care. Her eyes are locked on Gerart's from behind her visor; reaching out for some kind of mutual understanding. "There are- a lot of things to regret. Always. Good things you should've done. Bad things you couldn't stop. But I couldn't... find any peace, or meaning, in not being Strawberry. Once you've done something this meaningful, nothing else seems real." He'd know. He has to. --- "Strawberries are pink on the inside, I think! But I might've gone for something less pastel, or more... the more recent additions are a little redder, right? Or dusty magenta?" The conversation with Eleanor and Sabrina is... refreshing, somehow. Or rekindling. It's healing over something in her heart she didn't quite know needed to be fixed. When they offer her dessert, she lets her mouth hang half-open; lets out a ragged exhalation that isn't quite a laugh. She's visibly groping for any reason not to- this is foreign; almost scary. But finally, she nods. "Yeah," Strawberry says, a little hoarsely. "I'm- I like ice cream. I haven't had in a long time." Hasn't had it properly in a long time, as opposed to eating it out of a carton on her couch. "What sorts of things do you two like?" The 'thank you' is obvious, but she doesn't have the presence of mind to say it.
Tamamo	"Oh, but I wonder why? There are such pleasant spirits to the place," Tamamo says in response to Sabrina, choosing a fairly unusual, if wholly accurate, compliment for a residence. "Strawberries are, indeed, white in the middle, with the fading of red to white being the color pink, itself. Cream being white, as well, this should explain matters of strawberry desserts, yes?" Culinary asides stated, something she had not expected, but immediately understands, happens down on stage. A fan appears in Tamamo's hand, unfolding to replace vision of her lower face with an inked forest rising up a mountainside, but the smile reaches her eyes, regardless. "Oh, my." And her voice. "My, but is that not interesting?" She doesn't return the glances, though she might have easily noticed them. "Of course, those more ancient alchemists had little need of putting such effort to the creation of greenery, but the world they lived in has since been lost. In that sense, one might say that her choice is the more modern of the two, no?" Whatever its relative value, it obviously has her approval.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Fondly regard creation Arthur whistles in an impressed way. Making some real, raw life out of nothing alive at all is certainly one of those things that was beyond even his own expertise. Even his fellow God of Life didn't create it so much as steal the information for it from within. Seeing it made raw in a short timespan is certainly an impressive turn of events. "Daaaaamn, dawg." He mutters. "If I didn't know better I'd call that shit some straight up Life-Aspected shit. She's got that broad-ass stuff. I ain't seen runic stuff like this from her before. Was it 'cause she wasn't certified or whatever?" He leads back, grin broadening. "We gonna see more'a this runic shit now that she's blowin' this certification outta the fuckin' water here? I mean, better be, with this kinda maneuver. More modern pick... I mean, yeah, kinda. Gotta do a whole lot of re-terraforming these days. Terraforming..." For a moment, his mind drifts. He stares at the Martian soil. >Arthur: CONSIDER WHAT YOU COULD DO FOR THE WORLD Something coalesces in his brain... "Wonder what colonizing Mars would look like as a fix for this Antegent shit." He whispers, softly. It occurs to him to check, sometime, what the state of the red planet is here in this solar system, and to know it hosts no Antegent itself. What if...?
Lilian Rook	Arthur can hear Katrina make a pseudo-raspberry kind of noise at 'princess high-horse'. She clearly knows it isn't directly address at her, but she looks down towards him anyways, and should their eyes meet at all, she gives him a little finger wiggle wave. Bryce slowly stares sideways at her. "Is he wrong?" "Don't be reductionist." "I didn't say any of it was a bad thing. 'Self'-manipulation would be a change of pace." "You just don't understand women. Leave it at that." "I have a fiance." "Give her my condolences." "Don't be a gremlin." "See, this is why we never talk!" Gerart is too busy Not Caring about those two. He looks at Strawberry like looking at a painfully vulnerable child. He doesn't need to say anything at all for her to tell that. He doesn't need to say anything, either, to do so without any trace of sorrow, guilt, pity, or conflicted gladness. It isn't even really all that sympathetic, in the classical sense. His eyes are ones that've seen pained and vulnerable children a lot. Probably while he was telling most of them the same thing. Or from afar, too distant to say anything. "Regretting the consequences isn't the same as regretting doing it at all." he says instead of any of those things. "'You've done more than enough. More than almost anyone might ever do again.' 'Go home. Feel proud.' 'Nobody can tell you anything. You were there. You know more than they would.' 'Nobody would ask you to do it again.' 'It's over. Be here, now. Not there.'" He repeats a lot of phrases in a flat affect that makes him briefly sound tired of being here. "People tend to act like you're wounded just because you came home at the end. 'You must have been at some point'. Better to assume than assume not. Society should have sympathy. Be grateful and understanding." "If you don't act wounded, you have to be wounded on the inside, and struggling along anyways. Brave and noble. Painful and sad. Let them know you're there for them. They don't have to keep carrying that burden. They should put aside that damage and be 'them' again." He clasps his big old meaty hands together. He knuckles turn pale. "Just because you were injured doesn't mean you're wounded. Having a scar doesn't mean you're in pain. Really, it's your job, not theirs, to be understanding. Understand that they're trying their best, and it's hard for them to get it; that you're 'there' because that's just where you are, and you're not doing it for them." "You don't need to recover from it. You don't need a hospital. It ain't consideration or being noble. You came home because it was over. That's all there was to it. You're going back because you can, and that's all there is to it. Because you don't intend to feel bad for being there. Getting hurt's just a risk you take, and you get over it; it not something you do on purpose, and not really for a purpose either. You don't feel like a sacrifice. You feel like yourself. And that's hard for people to get." Gerart finally stops talking to the middle distance, leans back, and puts his hands behind his head. "That's what I have to go over with my wife every couple of years anyways. Take it as you will." Eleanor and Sabrina are amazing at somehow not looking the slightest bit awkward or impatient or confused about complicated sad adult people talking about complicated sad adult things. They are, quite probably, excruciatingly well-trained in either ignoring it or letting it flow around them with a presentable smile. "So, somewhere with ice cream. I know a place!" says Eleanor. Sabrina says "Everybody likes ice cream. People who can't eat dairy should just disappear from the gene pool." Eleanor goes with "I like strawberries~" and then is poked in the side by Sabrina. "Black forest. That's what I'm getting." "Those are cherries." "What, are we trying to coordinate a theme now? Are we matching desserts?"
Lilian Rook	Tamamo can feel the ominous presence of the redhead trying to look over her shoulder from a distance, wiggling this way and that to surreptitiously try and read her expression. She is still on the same page of her book from six minutes ago. It is a presence filled with powerful meddlesome energy. Surprisingly, it's the otherwise silent woman with the silvered hair who responds out loud to her, like a stranger she'd met at a gallery who'd just contemplated something profound out loud. "That's not the kind of thinking you'd pick up here." she admits in a way that has that upward tilted note of feeling proud, but not proud of that fact. "Especially not from the top percent we graduate. I doubt anyone was expecting it. I'd had some hopes for something similar. She'd been showing interest again, a few months ago." She continues just for Arthur's sake. "I might have unintentionally played some part in that. It was her major focus before. It still is on paper, of course. I always say that particular age is about figuring out who you want to be, more than it is about grades or training to be an adult. I won't be so presumptuous as to ponder aloud what brought her back here as of late, but you surmise correctly I believe. I would assume you'd see little of it for being a purely academic pursuit at the time, just something to finish, not something to be. She's typically very serious about official recognition and approval, so, if she decided that, rather than later, she wanted to finish it right now, I can only assume she has some intended use for it. One that she'd feel best pursuing with full blessings, not off the books." "She doesn't look to be done yet, though." Indeed, by now Lilian is a good ways from the plot now, to the point that the plates are completely stranded by the distance now, leaving her to finish up with what she has, but she seems to think it must be more than enough. "The Gate of Exaltation." she declares in confidence, more ink sizzling away, not so much adding to the grand design, as it feels now like it's merely revealing the full scope of a mandala that was already there, or perhaps destined to be there. The moment it completes, it's as if two ends of a circuit are closed. The green brought into being at the central pit explodes in a frenzy of growth. The sunlight coming through the skylight actually appears to intensify, as if secretly a stage light that someone had just turned off the dimmer switch on and quickly ramped to full. Though some perfectly beautiful flowers spring up in the rounded plot, the shoot in the middle is the one that grows most dramatically, erupting into a time lapse of fresh white bark, lush green leaves, and dappled sun-shade. Curiously, the red soil bubbles under the spread of roots, and coagulates into pinched spires, extruding long, curling vines of black iron that climb up the tree's lower trunk to its midway, those themselves developing steely 'leaves'.
Lilian Rook	Twenty four minutes. Lilian finishes drawing two additional circles, skipping the declaration between them, but standing inside of the twelfth, before the border of the eleventh, raising her arms. She looks to the panelists. They're already staring at her. She looks at Arthur. Then she looks to Tamamo. "Beginning the Rubedo." she says, finally lowering herself to touch the boundary with her fingers. "The Gate of Multiplication." The beautiful and painstakingly crafted display bursts into flames. The heat is tenfold greater this time, dissolving it almost instantly. The water turns to steam, condenses, and rains back down, making a muddy solution a shade paler than before. It separates into swirls of colour, smokes and decays, congeals into a soft solid, begins smouldering again, glows, turns golden, fallows, and grows all over again, all within the space of a minute and a half. The soil this time possesses, true to its name, a slightly redder quality. More importantly is that the plant growth returns with a blueish, rather than vividly green, hue, which appears to be actually startling to people in some especially avant garde way. Even Bryce actually puts his hands together and says "Clever." in approval, without explaining jack shit to anyone. The iron is plastered to the bark of the blue-flowering tree, with a glassy, grey, leaden look. This stage repeats itself several times. The sheer amount of magic trapped within the circle now is considerable enough that Lilian only has to hold her hands to it to pulse its reactivation over and over again, saving what must be an enormous amount of time. The complete destruction and rebirth of the plot continues, this time with the vegetation coming back pale and partially see-through, the metal having been consumed entirely by the roots, and flowers of gold blooming from its branches and stems. It burns down and resurrects, and the garden increases in size again, the vegetation more translucent, more clear, with a faintly purplish hue, this time with the leaves gold and the flowers a bright red, dripping some kind of clear liquid which is reabsorbed. One more time, and the tree looks like it's made of living diamond, bearing bright red leaves and flowers of some hazy, insubstantial, red-purple substance. It's done by the thirty minute mark. At last, Lilian steps all the way back to the twelfth border. The runes adjusted by sixteen and change degrees now form a complete spirograph, looping back in on themselves. Pressing her fingertip to the northern cardinal, she adds one last considerable pulse of magic to the whole thing, firing a proverbial neutron into the atom, actually visible as a faint red glow that multiplies at each split angle. "The Gate of Projection." she says, exactly the way someone delivers the closing line of their speech. The red in the tree's leaves drains away, leaving behind glittering, opaque white foliage like frosted glass, sucking the red from the surrounding glass as well, such that the intricate spiral routes the fluid(?) takes is visible through the thick trunk, redistributed through the branches. It collects in the directions of the first and twelfth quartets of runes aligned with the cardinals, and extrudes in a very literal expression of 'fruiting'. Golf ball-sized spheres bead like condensation, then harden as the white frost crawls over their outside in swirling patterns, becoming solid objects. The flowers catch fire. Or they transmute into fire. Some kind of red-white-gold burning energy that eludes a direct stare, like a star. They're lilies, though that seems to be pure showmanship.
Lilian Rook	It feels like applause time, but also not, because this isn't an applauding occasion. Instead there is a whole lot of nearly involuntary, hushed noise, both of the talkative time and the meaningless 'ooh' kind. After a good twenty seconds of confusion that the whole thing is ostensibly finished already, there finally comes that round of 'indoor ovation'. Lilian has walked away and curtsied to the overseers, who themselves join in. The three of them descend from the balcony via the stairs adjacent, coming to the northern edge of the plot, and taking a lot of time to examine the tree, without stepping on the grass. It seems to bend and rustle in an entirely organic manner, though it makes a sound like windchimes for doing so. There's a lot of poking and scoping with instruments, and then one brings a beaker of clear fluid from off the balcony desk, dumps grey powder into it, swirls it around, the removes a portion of the red 'fruit' with a knife, dropping it into the beaker and agitating it until it's filled with swirling gold flakes. They look inordinately pleased. They look exactly like people who had high but cautious expectations, and were not only impressed, but actually surprised;they're obviously old enough that they're surprised extremely rarely by now. It takes them only a minute or two of discussion to reach the obvious conclusion. "A successful execution of the Magnum Opus is confirmed." says the lead. "Yliaster and alkahest of the highest quality, and extensive demonstration of primordialist principles of the earthly and heavenly living bond. With a considerable understanding and exaltation of heritage, and flair no less. I need say little else. We're all more than happy for your interest and continued investment in this highest of institutions, and believe you will bear the Heliosanctus legacy in a way we may add to our rolls with pride." These old as heck people have old as heck signet rings, which are used in the actual way signet rings are used to stamp analogue documents that are no doubt for submission to something modern and then hanging up on a wall as a preserved trophy for the next rest-of-a-lifetime. "Your third tier seal is hereby granted, and with it, we confer the privileges of the invested knowledge and ability to be used at your disposal for so long as you should remain a practitioner of upstanding character and great calibre."
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry draws her shoulders in; angles her posture away, subtly deflecting Gerart's regard. Being viewed like a child feels wrong. Nobody's ever treated her like a child- not even, or especially not even when she really was one. Her body shudders just a little with a slow exhalation. Her mouth turns into a smiling wince. There are a dozen subtleties she could go into; turn his point, contextualize it in her own experiences. But this isn't some academic search for truth. It's a human search for feeling. And so she says: "It's just being who you are. I know. Mr. Gerart, I think 'what you are' is something beautiful. And I want to be something beautiful, too, for as long as I can. A long time ago, I thought- I'd 'die with my costume on'." (She emphasizes those words, to mark them as an aphorism.) "And now I don't know. I have more time to be myself, and to be good. And I think you understand- why that's important." The visor still hides her eyes, but her hands ball up real tight in her lap. --- "Try fruit preserves on top of vanilla," Strawberry says to the two girls, speaking with an uncharacteristically authoritative air. "Marble it in a little bit, while the ice cream's soft. The sweet dairy- it blends in, in a way it doesn't with the 'real' solid flavors. It's like peaches and cream. When I was having a bad day, that'd always make me feel better." As the exam-turned-performance grows more and more elaborate, it draws her attention further and further away from the conversations around her. Finally she's fixed on the arcane procedures, rapt and silent. When they finish, she stands up (if that wouldn't be out-of-place) and tries her best to applaud too. After two or three 'indoor claps', she winces and stops- hands are still sore after fighting the weather; they don't agree with that. After a moment's thought, she taps her foot to approximate the sound instead.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Ponder aloud what brought her back "I mean, I'M pretty PRESUMPTUOUS." Arthur says, plastering that dumb grin across his obnoxious face again. "I'll do that PONDERING if you want." Then he tilts his head, thinking. "What's the CERTIFICATION actually GET YOU? She gonna STEP UP somewhere?" His thoughts drift back to what this could be for. A sufficiently intense understanding of matter and its control... Of places and structure... Hmmm. Maybe that great, awful needle? That's something Arthur shouldn't fall behind on, no matter what. That glance, though. She wants Arthur to see something. He looks close. Eyes narrow and flash white. He purses his lips and tries to identify what's going on here. Where has he seen this before? It reminds him of... it reminds him of Antegent environments. The strange vegetation, the tree-like structuring with materials that ought not be trees, strongly composed of traditional patterns and non-traditional material and color. Everything has been leading up, not to the life, but to what the life produced. What was produced? Ior Nyd -- Need Grist and Harvest Grist. the Need Grist should have demanded and needed something, right? Drawn something out? The Harvest Grist was paired with it. Something specifically needed to be grown and extracted, straight from the start. What, though? What are the runes nearer and connected with those? What is the substance itself? Arthur may be an obnoxious piece of shit, but when it comes to what he needs to be shown and needs to know, his curiosity and focus lock on hard.