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Doctor Strange	LAST TIME...      "You -have- toner. Idiot."      "When was the last--"      "Like, last week. C'mon. Dick. Okay, there we--"      "Here," says another Strange, appearing with the printed-out regimen from Kale.      "Wow, that bad, huh. Okay. Well." Strange hands the stack of papers over to Loki. "Okay, go ahead and get started on this now, get used to doing it. When the others get here in a few days, we're gonna ramp it up." THE TRAINING MONTAGE IN KAMAR-TAJ      Strange has called you all not to the Sanctum Sanctorum, but to the beating heart of his organization--the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Kamar-Taj is tucked away in a pocket of space, a specialty of the Masters. This pocket's earthly gateway lies in Kathmandu, an unassuming door down an overlooked alley in an otherwise bustling city.      Stepping through to the other side has you stepping on a stone path. There is a courtyard where dozens of fledgling sorcerers train under the watchful eye of a Master in roughspun golden-orange robes. You've evidently arrived just in time for the practice in the courtyard to adjourn, all of the students dispersing after a fist-in-palm bow, to pursue personal studies in small groups of twos and threes.      Firs and maples of various species encircle the outer edge of the city, forming a downward emerald slope that opens up at its lowest point to reveal a misty mountain range for miles. The air here is clean, crisp, and ever so slightly thin. As could be imagined, the buildings are heavily Nepali-influenced, with roofs in the tiered pagoda style, gleaming mounded hemispheres, and elaborately carved stone walls dominating much of the city skyline. Communal fountains offer drinking water, set within open-air shelters clearly meant to be social gathering places. Lectures are held in these places, as are one-on-one matches between students.      You, however, have use of the courtyard. It's strategically placed between what appears to be a dormitory of some sort to the west, and (Strange informs) a library to the east. "So," says Strange. "This is gonna be a significant time investment. In terms of 'how many days have passed on the calendar,' we're looking at maybe a week."      "Well, that doesn't sound too bad! I'm... honestly flattered you have that much faith in me, Strange."      Strange holds up a gnarled finger and wags it, frowning and shaking his head. "Nah, no no. I said a week on the calendar. We're looking at a /lot/ more than that, in terms of 'the time your conscious mind will experience.'"      Loki takes a step back. Strange has managed to convince him to wear the robes of an apprentice, and he's looking as though he has second thoughts. "How -much- more?"      "Well, it took me about a year to master it. Once you learn how to read in your sleep it goes by a lot faster. For you... eh, I'd say a year and some change. Now," he says, clasping both hands together, over Loki's put-upon groan and turning to face the rest of you, "Same goes for all of you, since you kinda sorta signed up for this. But don't worry, it'll be fun squeezing a year and change into a week. When you guys find out how quickly you can get a full night's sleep, it's gonna blow your minds."      "Excuse me, what?"      "Yep," says Strange unhelpfully. "So let's get any questions out of the way now, because, despite the fact that I can stretch time out to a ridiculous degree, that actually makes it more precious, not the other way around. Questions?" He glances between each of you. "Questions?" Deadpan tone. Really not respecting how big an ask this is. "...Bueller?"
Kale Hearthward	Kale raises a hand. In recent days, he's taken to using his newly learned Inventory Tetris magic to keep his swords and belt in 'tokenized' form - but here he's gone ahead and is openly wearing his full kit. It feels appropriate for the setting. "Yeah - I'm not sure I understand. A calendar week, but a year of our lives?" "I understand this is really important, protection of this world from vile outsider forces bent on its invasion and the balance of the Compound Proper Noun arcane things and all of that, but I just want to confirm that. A year. Three hundred and sixty five days. As in when we're done and I come back out I'll be physically but not technically older than my boyfriend." It occurs to Kale, also, that it'll mean spending a whole year away from Zephyr, when he's already not spending nearly as much time with him as he'd like to, but he pauses before he voices that. He's not the only one here with a significant other who they'd be missing, right? "So I just... really want to confirm all of this before I get into it. Maybe go grab some books and download some shows before we start in on this."
Tamamo	Unassuming, practically, but not literally, hidden doors that are secretly entrances to larger, mystical pocket spaces are exactly Tamamo's style. That said, few of them tend to be this large or well-populated, and the interest with which she looks about on passing through to Kamar-Taj is genuine. "My, my. I suppose such places as this are not so unknown to some in modernized form, but it is nice to see familiar traditions maintained, now and then, should I give my own opinion on such matters. Would you not say so, Lilian? Or would you prefer paper and wood, rather than stone, as my former homeland preferred? Or, perhaps, glass and metal, after all?"     Arriving arm-in-arm as she does, there is the suggestion -- or rather, it would be more difficult to avoid noticing, even without having long known either her or her knight, in her present incarnation -- that even though Kale's objection is perfectly valid, the circumstances aren't uniform, and none of the obvious issues apply for this specific case of Tamamo no Mae.     That's not to say she can't empathize. "Oh, how awful! But then, he should not know you shall be gone for such a time, and so, perhaps a 'fare thee well, for now' would only visit confusion. Still," Tamamo visits a look of reproach on Strange, somehow managing a manner and tone that is stern without being unfriendly, as one would for those accidental transgressions that occur outside of one's expertise, which she assumes 'romance' to be, for some. "You might have mentioned such a requirement to those assembling, beforehand. It is quite the surprise, even having seen your work, beforehand."     Tamamo trails off into a tone of curiosity, "Rather, I do believe this is the first I have seen of you providing such an effect to others." Though she has no objections, for herself. She doesn't have to worry about 'aging,' for one.
Lilian Rook	>>He's not the only one here with a significant other who they'd be missing, right?<<     Yes. As the old folks would say: lol, and I repeat, lmao.     Lilian, knowing the ultimate importance of what Strange is up too here, and especially having been enlightened with his personal stake, has committed to the mission in force. A solid backpack of books, containers, and weird occultic odds and ends comes with her, accompanied by a full messenger bag of sheafs, tablets, and stoppered bottles, and even then, a roll along suitcase suitable for a business vacation, which is full of strictly her own things. She retains one arm free for Obvious Reasons(tm).     Her first impression is, of course, of Kamar-Taj. It is favourable in the direction of making eyes at 'gushingly touristy'. "Oh my! This is adorable! A whole village hidden away in the Himalayas inside a localized field; it looks just like all those old stories! Oh this is so *classic*! Pristine, even! Ahh, this kind of thing was totally before my time, so it's so nice to see it for myself! Oh look at those buildings! The students even do the little bow! Cute!"     Her impression on being told a lot of sorcerous wibbly wobbly timey wimey bullshit haha gotcha is also positive. It is also a total mode switch, where all the starry-eyed tourism flickers away in favour of nakedly gleaming ambition, so concisely that one can practically hear a click. "You say that as if it's some sort of terrible thing to apologize for, Strange. But what you're telling me is that, just for helping you out, I get fifty one additional weeks *for free*?" She begins chuckling, on the edge of unnerving, and takes a while to stop.     "Oh that's perfect. Not only will I not have to cut as many corners as I thought, but training Loki should be so much less time intensive than my daily schedule. I'll catch up on everything for a week in advance, and then get so far ahead nobody will ever catch up. My entire reading backlog, my Black Blade certification, my Paladins dossiers, my portfolios, and I can get into my advanced algorithm side project, and my masters material for space conjugating otherworld geometry and leyline manipulation study. Plus an entire year of physical training and magical cultivation. What an absolute steal! I suppose my only question is, in a technical sense, how difficult is it going to be to step in and out? Yes I'm aware that an hour outside would be missing two days. I can get home and bring back more material as needed inside of fifteen minutes if that's possible."     If she felt meaningful antipathy towards Kale, this would be the time to be *extra* smug, but Lilian's normal amount right now is mainly incidental. "Well, disappearing for a week is a business trip, right? Or are you worried you're going to fall out of love if you have a year to yourself?" She herself is now all over the opposite prospect, talking to Tamamo. "Oh isn't it *just*? That lacquered wood style has really grown on me after all those months stationed in Japan, but this kind of thing is really nice too, don't you think? There's no need for the steel jungle at a size as cozy as this; it lets you breathe the air instead. It's basically a mountain vacation at this point, right? Ahh, I'll have to figure out extra changes of clothes though." A pause. "Oh, second question, Strange. Is there at least a lake with a beach?"
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry passes through to Kamar-Taj with a visible startle and alarmed glance around- abrupt transitions like that still catch her by surprise. Fortunately, the surroundings don't take long to soothe her nerves again: she lets out a little shoulder-slumping sigh, adjusts the carrying case on her back, and heads towards the courtyard.      She's dressed in her typical comfy casual: a neat button-up shirt, a long-sleeved surplus jacket, and sturdy-practical dark jeans. It is a little out-of-place among hand-spun robes and full magical regalia, but wouldn't her pastel costume have been even moreso?      Strange's casual announcement stops her dead in her tracks, the photo negative of Lilian. She looks quietly terrified. "A whole year? But that's..."      A year is something precious. I used to think my life would be five years long: twelve through seventeen. They're still precious now, but for a different reason- not a timer, but rolling dice. One way or another, I know it won't be old age that kills me. ... It is smart, isn't it, to fit one more in before that sudden stop?      A grimace crosses her face as she considers it, finding fewer and fewer reasons not to take the offer. "But the people outside-" Isn't there someone I'd miss? Blueberry, Blackberry- no, not anymore. Director Velt? ... I look up to her, but I wouldn't miss her like that. But Lilian, for sure-      Strawberry glances over and flinches slightly at the realization, one more objection crumbling in her throat. Oh, right. Lilian's *here*.      Her eyes wander from Lilian to the other Paladins, and her emotions are easy to read from her unguarded expression. Tamamo's always been a mystifying acquaintance; maybe a year together could help them better connect? Kale, she really doesn't know, but that could change.      Strawberry Princess rubs her arm uncomfortably at the end, her eyes downcast. This feels weighty and terrible somehow, but she can't think of any good reason to say no. And if I let Lilian do this without me, would we drift apart?      "I'll need to get my medicine," she says as a final, feeble half-objection. "A whole year's worth." But that's no real obstacle at all.
Archer EMIYA	Being Strange's cool gaming night partner means, that rather unfortunately for him, he is also easily accessible by the sorcerer for requests. There's also no reasonable way he can turn down in helping with a training montage. He just can't. If you're asked, you're legally obligated to help, and also it means he is now justified in bitching whenever the person in question fucks up. He'll be like a cooler, younger, more handsome Mr. Miyagi.      So here he is now. In all his bastard-y glory. He takes a moment to appreciate the sight of Strange bossing around the bean pole of a man that is Lok, before finally speaking up.      "So, I see that you've reached the end state of being a wizard. Once you get some random schmuck to boss around and torment while disguising it as 'training', you know there's no going back, right?"
Doctor Strange	>A year? Like really actually a year?      "Yeah. No, you've got it, Kale. That's right. Hundred percent." He nods once, briskly. About downloading shows and bringing books: "G'head. Wifi password's garshasp, all lower case. We had to change it 'cause Dr. Voodoo kept connecting to the printer and printing memes." He holds up an image of himself, depicted in balding cartoon form, using a sling-ring portal to retrieve a white-label energy drink. "This one's pretty good, though." Strange can even open one of those hissing rings of sparks for Kale to step through and grab some books from his place. >You might have told us about that beforehand.      Normally Strange is... well, perhaps 'cool' isn't the right word. But usually he's fine to deal with, when the subject isn't his secrets or something that brushes up against his info. Tamamo gets an exaggerated New Jersey accented 'ah-hah' of acknowledgment, as if to say, 'yes, I might have.' In exactly as annoying and nasal as you might expect. He's at least up front about one thing. "You're right, though. This is the first time I've done this for other people. I don't wanna frighten you, but there's a prophesied cosmic war going on out in space right now, and Loki's the kind of guy that'll make himself a pest if he's not indulged--"     "Excuse me?!" Loki huffs indignantly.      An annoyed glance from Strange towards Loki is all the acknowledgment the God of Chaos gets. "...so I figured we ought to handle the Challenge now rather than later. Besides," he turns to Loki fully. "You're a clawer. People don't give you chances, you claw your way to them. Wouldn't a change of pace be nice? I'm giving you a chance. And so are all of these nice people." Sweeping scarred hand to everyone present.      "Yes," says Loki with the tone and expression of someone who's just been told they have to swallow a toad. "Thank you... for that." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Well... I suppose if nothing else, Lilian's enthusiasm is reassuring... >Is there a lake with a beach?      "Yep. So from the courtyard you're gonna head down to the south wall, take a right. Dirt path out the gate, about a fifteen minute walk, right fork." >I need to get my medicine.      "Sure thing, Strawberry." He nods. Another hissing portal--either to her place, or to a pharmacy of her choice. If she does go to a pharmacy, the portal's hue changes to an emerald green. He's pinpointed the exact moment in time at which the prescription would be ready, if so. >You know there's no going back, right?      "Yeah, of course, dude. This is the big leagues. Every wizard's dream."
Strawberry Princess	Through the emerald portal, Strawberry can be seen timidly arguing with the person at the pharmacy counter for a good minute or two. Finally she rummages around in her wallet, pulls out some kind of documentation, and convinces them to give her twelve whole months' supply.      She comes out holding a generously large cardboard box in both arms, struggling just a little with it. "Okay! That's... that should be everything. I think." It clatters when she puts it down; she looks glad to be temporarily rid of the burden.      When Strawberry straightens up, she's in a convenient position to offer Loki a handshake and a bright, sincere smile. That name sounds familiar somehow, but... I just can't place it. It was history class, wasn't it? I bet he's somebody important!      "It's so nice to meet you, Mr. Loki," she says, only looming a little bit. From her slightly halting tone to her awkwardly sincere smile, every part of Strawberry seems perfectly crafted to make it hard to be unkind towards her. Where would you find the heart? "I'm Strawberry Princess! Oh, but just Strawberry is fine. We'll be spending a lot of time together, I guess, so I hope we can be friends."      Unrelatedly, she gives a nervous little nod to Lilian at mention of the lake for reasons shared only between them.
Doctor Strange	Loki blinks. What a good-natured mortal! Accepting her handshake, "Hello! I'm Loki Laufeyson, Asgardian God of Chaos. It's very nice to meet you, too." There's a pause, and a quiet aside to Strange. "Are they all this nice?"      "No. Me and Archer are massive dicks." Without a pause, "So here's what we're looking at," says Strange, once everyone has made the necessary arrangements. "Mornings with Kale. Fundamentals, two hours every day. We want you familiar with mortal systems of magic, so after that, it's gonna be study time with me and Lilian. No knowledge is forbidden here--only certain practices--so Lilian, you'll have free range of the library. Just keep in mind the warnings come -after- the instructions, 'kay? So it's usually a good idea to flip to the back of any given book you're gonna find. Master Wong's our librarian."      "By the way, Loki, sorcery doesn't have any 2koma spells so you're actually gonna have to do work," says Strange flatly.      "What's a--"      "Ask Archer. Speaking of, Archer. Afternoons. Sorcery relies heavily on creation. It's actually a lot like your trace trick, only sorcery involves tricking the World into thinking that it's your magic circuit. I'm gonna be teaching the whole day, but new students typically struggle with that, and I know with your help we can get over that roadbump quickly. Also..." Strange leans over to Archer and whispers something in his ear. "Just to make sure the lessons are sticking," he says. "So don't have too much fun."      Beat. "I'll fill the rest of you guys in on that later." He does--it's Archer's job to randomly try and beat the shit out of Loki. Sorcery is a martial art, and you don't fully learn those without having to use them.      "Strawberry. Sundown. Three dimensional thinking. You've seen my gravity crap, I've seen your flying, plus peeking corners around the lips of doorways and cheeky stuff like that. There's one other thing, too." Another Strange appears with a note for her. Essentially, she's one of the nicest people in the Paladins and Strange is hoping she'll be able to keep Loki motivated when things turn out to be harder than he expects.      "And, Tamamo, you and I are gonna spend evenings working on warding. Sorcery was developed as a way to put mortals on even playing ground with things that go bump in the night. You're the best around when it comes to that. If you can help with the other subtle stuff, too, then we've just put together a pretty comprehensive development plan."      "We'll start bright and early at eight, finish up around seven... time for lunch in the early afternoon and general breeze-shooting nights. We can rotate shifts, too, plus, what do you say, wwwweeekends off?" A testing glance around. He really doubts anyone is going to object to that particular part, although 'weekends' within 'a year within a week' may be an abstract concept for people who previously had no experience with this.
Kale Hearthward	"I'm not worried about the week - I've had missions longer than that, both before and after unification," says Kale. "It's more the *entire contiguous* year apart without getting to see him, and only getting to message him - and if we're on different timescales, I'm gonna end up blowing up his phone if I message him as much as I used to," he says, since the topic of missing significant others has come up. "Any chance I can expense a couples' vacation once this year apart is over? It'd help give me something to look forward to." Lilian's take, on getting weeks for free, is one he hadn't considered before - he's still a little unsure about it. "Then - why not just set up more things like what we have going here, let people stay in there all day and train, or..." "..." He trails off into silence. Then he pinches the bridge of his <s>nose</s> beak. "My head hurts, trying to think through how it'd all work out. I'll just - roll with it." Kale takes the option to go make a quick trip out to grab stuff before it all starts up. He returns with a shoebox. The shoebox appears to contain nothing but Tokens. "I figured - might as well just grab everything I have," He says, setting the box down for the moment. "Better that than lose out on a few days because I had to go looking for something." He looks over at Strawberry's large box - thinking that she's also having the same issue of overpacking. "Oh - just... lemme give you a hand with that." He puts a hand on the side of the giant box, and with a *pomf* noise it turns into what looks like a small plastic model of a large cardboard box, which he puts in her hand. "Just drop that on the floor of whatever room you're staying in - make sure there's enough floor space first." "... So, anyway, yes! I'll be handling fundamentals training. Magical endurance and strength - thank you for printing that out for me, Doctor, by the way. I don't know the book stuff, but magic's basically a muscle, and if you keep working at it in the right way you'll get better at it."
Tamamo	"When one stands amidst the forest, one marks a space by raising walls of wood. When one stands upon a mountain, one marks a space by carving away the stone. In either case does one make only those smallest changes to the nature of the land, and so, one finds the more appropriate technique. Though, as to whether this shall be a vacation, we did come here for matters more, if not most, grave, is it not so? I shall hope we do find such time, within that granted for this task, as to enjoy calm, lakeside weather. Will it be a year's worth of Autumn, I wonder?" Tamamo wouldn't mind that. If this is 'a mountain,' at least it's not the snow-capped kind. How unfair is it that being closer to the sun makes one colder (her own proximity excepted)?     "Well, now," she says to the printed out meme, "the whimsy of this art may escape me, yet I somehow see how you may find humor in it." Strange doesn't actually give a reason for not giving any warning, but Kale's managed to accept the circumstances, Lilian's enthusiasm is at least slightly infectious, and so, Tamamo makes the positive assumption that Strange's claim to be a massive -- ly unkind person is the lie, and lets it pass.     Maybe not the bit about Archer, but Tamamo is letting that pass, too. She's almost certain that his words are part of that sphere of culture most mysterious to Tamamo, herself, that of 'male bonding rituals.' Her previous life, in feudal East Asia, never gave her much of a chance to see those, and she clearly remembers Lilian telling her that 'gamers' were something dirty she should avoid.     And yet, her curiosity remains. Such is always the result of being warned away.     Loki is... actually unknown to Tamamo, despite her familiarity with the name. Though she has very little to go on that's visibly obvious, she's immediately certain that, even if she may have some hidden memories of meeting with Artemis or Heracles, Ishtar or Quetzalcoatl, amazons or valkyries -- she hasn't met, nor could she have met, this man called Loki. That being the case, she affords him such a well-cultivated smile that it would be impossible to think it given for politeness sake, and introduces herself, "I am Tamamo no Mae, though to call me 'Tamamo' is quite acceptable. I expect that we shall have generously ample time to get to know one another, beyond the summaries of names, titles," which she hasn't actually given, "and expertise."     Tamamo gives Strange a nod. "I shall be delighted to pass on such knowledge as I may, and glad for your guidance in putting it to use. I am well-versed in some styles as were used by mortal hands, but I am not so used to teaching, as yet, I fear."     Tamamo doesn't need to go and grab things. She has things with her, even if they're hidden where they can't be found, and even if she'd only expected to be away a week or so. She eyes Strawberry's crate of medicine, commenting, "I do have skill in making remedies, but, ah... it seems you have such handled, and that is well."
Lilian Rook	Lilian idly thinks to herself if she could handle what Strawberry brings up on her own, her brain already in motion recalling historical texts and putting together esoteric quasi-chemical relations and formulas. In the end, she just says "If I'm going to spend a year here, then I'm glad you're here too." with a smile. She reserves for Archer, instead "I could do without that one, but I guess someone needs to do the housework." Her grin turning just a little sly at Loki, she says "How could I not be enthusiastic for an event like this? Aren't you?"     §Fuck yes. Beach time too.§     Lilian uses the last minute setup time to leave some notes behind at home, have a little discussion with Strawberry about how she manages to always stay so maniacally busy, and acquire *many* more clothes and personal effects, briefly forget and then remember a charger and backup, some additional curriculum on more than just the bare basics of the craft she intends to teach Loki, all the portable pieces of her preferred alchemical setup for comfort's sake, a trip to the Atrium for components she won't find here, and to her 'locker' for regular training equipment. It takes her about as long as it takes to feign the travel time, plus five minutes to search engine '2koma' and puzzle it out.     "That schedule sounds perfectly agreeable to me." Lilian says upon returning just in time. "I'll have extra credit ready if he gets either motivated or bored enough. Or if you decide to punish him. A year still isn't nearly enough time to teach him the full repertoire of what I could, but, you know, being Norse and all, I assume he must be familiar with all the particulars of ancient Norse contextual and cultural associations and occult concepts. I've cut the Gaelic material completely, and aimed for a lean and focused intermediate-level course in Nordic tribe focus based on the presumption of someone having already absorbed the terms and culture well into adulthood." A pause. "I suppose missing out on a week of day trading will be a little annoying, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy time with money."     "Let's see. That leaves me early mornings for my own physical training and meditation, post-class afternoons for study catchup and thesis, and then once those are wrapped up, arrays practice and design, evening to get in directed externalization every odd day and flight and combatives every even, and then all night to work on my current circle projects, midnight for divinations of course, and maybe even cleasa or magnum opus development, since I can't quite pop home. Since I can't do anything like officer school on weekends, I'll have to make it up."     She is quite literally already typing it up for later. "I suppose I'll be replacing the weekly deployment and weekly resistance training with a brand new opportunity to dive ahead into the hermiticism curriculum content Then three days out of five on the weekday have time to tour about do whatever. Perfect. Maybe I'll even pop in on everyone else's work too! I think it'd be interesting to finally have a chance to sit down and see some fellow Paladins really get into their area of expertise." Something suddenly occurs to her. The sound of her voice suddenly cuts in freakishly clear. "Ah, and Loki, if the mood for mischief strikes, bother one of the boys. I won't forgive you if you give Tamamo a hard time."     All of the sparkle comes back when Strange says 'free range of the library'. "Don't go regretting that promise~" she says. "Warnings in the back though; am I meant to read right to left or what? Oh well. First I'd like to see where we're staying, and set up my own private quarters; and a separate atelier if it isn't very large. Also I'd suggest not expecting to put any doorway that belongs to Tamamo near a high-traffic area you know. I'm just sort of presuming things will . . . show up again."
Strawberry Princess	"Mr. Laufeyson!" Strawberry repeats, smilng a little wider. She squeezes his hand as firmly as she can, which really isn't that firm. She gives Strange a dutiful nod, accepting the charge of 'teaching Loki to fly' with a specialist's relish.      "Oh! Thanks, Mr. Hearthward," she says, jolted out of her scheming by the abrupt transformation of her stuff into a tiny model of itself. She holds it in her palm reverently, then stuffs it into her pocket for safekeeping- evidently Very Important. "I could just tell I was gonna hurt my back with that, you know," she adds with a rueful-grateful look.      "Oh, but Tamamo- I don't think it's that kind of..." Strawberry stops herself mid-sentence, thinks, and corrects: "No, I bet you probably could make it. If any of it goes bad before the year ends, I'll ask you to help me make more, okay? But I think it'll be alright."      She glances down at the note Strange has discreetly slipped into her hand, gives the clone a little wink the moment before it disappears, and then finds a place to sit down and start scribbling a lesson plan down in her journal. Lilian breaks her silence; she looks up with a warm smile, laughs a little, and says: "Yeah. I'm really glad to be spending it with you, too. Otherwise, I... I don't think I could've."      When she lets the journal drop into her lap, it's possible to catch a peek:
Strawberry Princess	LESSON ONE: THE GROUND IS A WALL AND YOU'RE PINNED TO IT      If you're hugging dirt, you've nearly halved your movement options. Being in the open is a positional advantage; forcing someone against a surface makes them predictable. Unless...      LESSON TWO: A WALL IS THE GROUND, TOO      Take cover behind anything and everything. Stick to the ceiling and shoot 'over' the tops of doorways. Stand sideways on a low block so it can shield your whole body while you shoot 'down'. Peek the edges of a building- all the edges, especially the high ones. Control line-of-sight to take on multiple opponents. Twist yourself around to minimize enemy-facing profile, unless...      LESSON TWO: DON'T LEAVE YOUR BLOOD BEHIND      G-forces are killer. There's only so hard you can defy momentum and live. Twist your body so you're always accelerating "forwards" or "backwards", compromising with minimizing visible profile. Never hard accelerate "upwards" or "downwards" relative to your body; all the blood will rush to your head or feet and you'll go splat. Unless...      ...      LESSON THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE: THE TRAJECTORY SPHERE      All possible non-G-suicidal trajectories of an opponent at a given future moment are described by an approximate sphere, which is a distance ahead of them dependent on their velocity, and a size dependent on their maneuverability. The front of this sphere is where they could be in X seconds if they accelerated at maximum Gs, the back is where they could be in X seconds if they braked at maximum Gs, and so on. Learn to accurately visualize this sphere, accounting for the travel time of your own attacks, and you can avoid wasting effort attacking places they couldn't be. Unless...
Archer EMIYA	"Loki... Loki? Ah, that's right, the one with the horse fursona. Anyway, I'll be your conceptual teacher for the foreseeable future, glad to make your acquaintance."      It took Archer a bit, but he finally remembered. Or he actually knew all along and just wanted to go for the really low hanging fruit.      "Anyway, we'll have plenty of time to talk about and experience 2komas later, and I suppose actual wizardry. So, don't worry about it."      With the schedule all lined up by the Sorcerer Supreme, Archer pulls out his phone, opening up a scheduling app as he starts filling it in.      "Do I look like I'm the kind of guy who has fun?"      He shoots his quip back at Strange, before pocketing his cellular device. "Don't answer that."
Doctor Strange	>Can I expense some time off?      "Yeah, sure, no problem," says Strange to Kale. "Just give me some dates and I'll greenlight it." >Am I meant to read right to left?      "No, it's stupid. Apparently the idea was that people would skip the warnings anyway so you put them at the back to trick people into reading them thinking that there's more spell on the next page."      Accomodations are handled in the dormitories. Both those and the library face the courtyard, allowing the Masters and their students to get a good chunk of the early day routines out of the way. The decor is about what you would expect, but there is wifi, and middle-range laptops are provided.
Doctor Strange	MONTAGE - BEGIN Day 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE      Welcome to Strange's world. Every day begins with the courtyard, the sun moving by inches with the each recursive trip back to the moment where you all gathered. This would be the fourth such trip. It's the first day that Loki has begun to show any resistance. Archer will probably be the first to realize it, as Loki has indeed decided to indulge in a little mischief the previous night--by stealing a bucket of fish innards and leaving it in Archer's room. Specifically, the old 'on top of the door so it falls out when you open it' trick. In Loki's room:      "Wake /up./ Unless you wanna fall for another thirty minutes." "I'm up! I'm up!"      "No you are so totally not. I know Asgardian illusion magic when I see it. Out. Now. Or I'm calling your dad." "Even if you tried, he wouldn't answer."     "He will for Midgard's Sorcerer Supreme. Does he know you're here, by the way?" KALE: FUNDAMENTALS      "I've practiced magic for longer than most of you have been alive. These exercises are ridiculous," Loki's still cranky about being woken up. Strange takes on the burden of browbeating him into going along. But Kale's challenge is this: Loki has an incredible degree of fine control, but is somewhat lackluster in terms of brute strength and endurance. The first question is whether to play into his strengths, or try and shore up his weaknesses. LILIAN: STUDY TIME     Lilian's ability to put esoteric arcane texts into terms that Loki can understand wins her some points. He's actually willing to engage with this in good faith, but there is still a problem. He's fidgety, anxious, and picks up the basics just quickly enough to get impatient and start making grabby hands for the stuff that she and Strange both know is too advanced for him to safely use, heeding warnings or not. This is someone who's simultaneously afraid of failing and impatient for success. How will she handle it? ARCHER: CREATION      "Nope. Still illusion." The courtyard has a few Masters watching. "How would you know?"      "I'm glad you asked. Archer?" An inviting open-palm sweep. "Dealer's choice." Perhaps after the fish incident (successful or otherwise) Archer just might have fun.      Loki's mandalas (once Archer actually forces him to start making them with good old fashioned Servant ultraviolence) are slipshod and flimsy. This is the magic of someone whose knowledge is decent, but whose will is lacking. Archer's swords can shatter them easily. The problem becomes clear easily enough--he doesn't trust his own magic, and is focusing too much on 'oh god what if he hits me.' How will he approach that? STRAWBERRY: THREE-DIMENSIONAL THINKING      By sundown, Loki is exhausted--Strange has given him time to rest after training with Archer, but this is clearly harder than he was expecting, and Strawberry can see in his eyes that he's already thinking about giving up. This morning it was 'I've studied magic since before you were thought of,' but right now... "You mastered this in a year? I can barely keep a mandala glowing." He's very, very used to the ground, very unused to thinking of other surfaces as anything other than springboards to get angles for jumping. That's a problem, but his biggest right now is that even Strange's most softball gravity manipulation has him turning green at the gills. In Strange's words,      "C'mon, Loki. We can't have Tamamo keep making you dramamine."
Doctor Strange	TAMAMO: WARDS AND SUBTLETY      Loki hasn't struck completely out. Here's something that he handles well. He is, however, showing a keen interest in curses. Tamamo's first extensive stint as a teacher, and already, her first test. Strange had said no knowledge was forbidden here. Does she feel Loki's interest a red flag, or will she encourage his engagement with the lessons and tailor them towards something he shows interest in?
Doctor Strange	NIGHT: JUST VIBING      Kamar-Taj actually has a kind of bumping night life. Strange got an arcade up and running, one of the Masters makes wine. Wong likes to do movie nights (and does take suggestions), the lake has enchanted lanterns for late-night swims, and those social-gathering open-walled pagodas make for great vibing spots.
Kale Hearthward	"Alright, let's start this year off right..." @Loki: ""Yeah - and I know a heck of a lot of people older than I am that can't cast nearly as well," says Kale, on initial resistance. "If you just sit at a piano and poke at keys randomly for a hundred years, you'll still be shit at piano a hundred years later. Just be glad you're doing this and not having to turn windmills like I did." Still - Kale feels the need to find some new way to motivate Loki, since 'endurance' isn't just something you can sit and passively absorb like a lesson (whether physical or magical). So he gets on the wifi, asks for a consult from his mentor, and thankfully it only takes a few hours (Sanctum-Time) to get a response. "This," says Kale, setting up a contraption at the edge of the training area. "Is your EXP meter." "Every time you do these exercises, it'll go up, and then when it gets high enough we'll unlock more content - er, I mean, add some more interesting exercises. You'll also earn premium currency that you can use for a gacha pull-" which turns out to be an opaque fishbowl full of colored marbles - "for special prizes like help with pranks or an extra morning off." @Strawberry Kale shows up at her room with the makeup kit after one of her training sessions. "So - um." "... You ever do this thing called a 'sleepover'?" he asks, somewhat awkwardly. @Lilian: If not stopped, Kale starts hanging out at the periphery of the sessions, trying to listen in and absorb some of what's being taught. It's unclear if he is or not, but he's trying.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry, at the start of her lessons, is sitting on a rooftop dramatically. Loki gets a sympathetic, halfway-sheepish smile from her as he arrives. "It is hard, Mr. Laufeyson. The younger you start, the easier it is, I think. Your brain's still small, so it gets a chance to grow around the magic. Instead of being big already, and having to find a place for the magic to fit."      "I started when I was twelve, you know," she says, turning to stare out at the peaceful sunset. "Dr. Strange, I think he was in his thirties. But you've been around a lot longer than thirty years, haven't you? It really must be tough for you."      "But, you know, since you have it harder than Dr. Strange did... isn't it more impressive if you can do it in a year too? I think that'd be really cool."      For the actual lesson, she has a simple solution: "That queasy feeling you're getting, it's because your eyes and your sense of balance don't agree. So put on this blindfold, okay?"      Once he's flying blind- with Strawberry's hand to guide him, of course- she takes him through an easier exercise. The gravity manipulation scrambles the inner ear's idea of up and down; blindfolded, there are no visual cues. She has him "walk" along various surfaces- the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the trunk of a tree- and try to guess which way he's oriented.      The point is that, though he can guess the right answer by relying on context clues, there is no inherent nature to any of them; no "upside-downness" or "rightside-upness". Flying like this, "up" and "down" are arbitrary and symmetrical, just like "left" and "right".
Strawberry Princess	@Kale      "Never with boys," Strawberry says with a little smile, switching off her PlayBrick and sitting near the mirror. "How'd you learn, anyway? To do makeup."      She's got nice, clear skin, but that awful scar that curves from below her cheekbone, across her temple, and deep into her scalp is the main obstacle. It has texture too, so there's no good way to hide it- at least, not easy enough that she can readily learn.      ----      @Lilian      Strawberry finds a moment when they're both free to accost her friend. She's got her hair tied back in a ponytail, unusually, and is wearing a black sports bra and loose black exercise pants with some practical running shoes- the same outfit she'd worn for the physical portion of the House of Seven Worthies.      "Hey," she says with a sheepish smile. "Um. I was just about to head out for a run, but... do you think you could give me some tips? Just, on the sorts of exercises I ought to be doing. You're... well, I thought you'd know best."      ----      Night Life:      Down at the lake, Strawberry's got a cute pink-patterned swimsuit that perfectly matches the hues of her costume courtesy of Lilian, completed with a waist-tied strawberry sarong that looks rather like a skirt with a leg slit.      She seems a little anxious to go into the water for some reason- if interrogated, she'll reveal that it's been ages since she's gone swimming, and almost isn't sure if she remembers how!- but takes simple delight in building sand castles and staring up at the stars, anyway.
Tamamo	I'll ask you to help me make more, okay?     "I shall be glad to, of course. How could I not? I am well-versed in matters of health, illness and remedy, both the immediate and the lasting, if not to all techniques, I trust you will find."     I'm just sort of presuming things will . . . show up again.     "I would hardly presume to place an expansive, bounded field within another's field," Tamamo says, followed almost immediately by a pondering, "and yet... smoothing over the rougher portions of such a technique would make for good practice if I am to devote my daily time to the study of wards, now that I think upon it." She doesn't mention the simple point of warding her room. Of course she's going to do that. No sensible person goes to sleep somewhere without taking various, sensible, almost entirely nonlethal precautions against uninvited entry. A room:     In fact, the number of talismans placed over the door to Tamamo's room increase every day, not stopping by the fourth. Somewhere there's an upper limit of 'Korean horror flick' they're likely to reach. They don't really cause a problem for foot traffic, apart from that people passing by instinctively do so quietly, and receive the feeling that they 'shouldn't' knock, let alone enter, regardless of how they would normally react to the sight of seemingly haphazardly placed, ink-scrawled papers. There are several whitelisted exceptions, for whom the ward is all the more difficult to notice at all, without its effects. It would, after all, be rude to not permit her host to call for her attention, in Tamamo's opinion.
Tamamo	Loki's lessons:     In teaching Loki, Tamamo has prepared as well as she's able, but the span of time hadn't allowed much through the first day or two. They were as much a learning experience for her, finding what could or couldn't be well communicated or accomplished by another. She's a consummate expert in her field, but that only makes it more difficult for her to guess how someone else will take to it.     It's a welcome realization that Loki, (foreign) God of Chaos, has some affinity for at least part of what she's teaching, and rather than bar those lessons until later, Tamamo decides to incorporate them into the present plan. That fits well with her own strengths, as well.     "Though there are many methods of hiding that which one wishes not to be found, as with the entrance to this place being as a tree hidden within a forest, circumstances are not always so convenient, and it remains that one must consider that some shall stumble over a door set within a floor, no matter how like a floor it looks. If one considers the inconspicuous illusion as the first layer of defense, the second layer is a subtle curse upon the mind, as if to insist, 'no, there is nothing here that you may find,' in its most basic form. Only when such fails does one rely upon the subsequent layers, which may lack in subtlety."     Tamamo's magic, if she's keeping to her specialties and attempting to be practically useful, comes in two forms. 'Divine bullshit' being forbidden for these exercises, the remaining choice is the construction of talismans, which means that even if Loki is enthused about learning curses, he first has to learn how the delivery mechanisms work in the first place. If anything, encouraging the possibility of using these for curses, illusions and misdirection may be necessary to get over that hurdle.     "One may be more elaborate in the idea that is enforced by the curse, and one may be more dramatic with its effects, but this should be saved for when subtlety has failed, in such a layered response as I have recommended. To curse an opponent with weariness allows greater freedom for further work, whereas a curse of suffocation allows none such. Furthermore, this becomes far more difficult without the time to prepare, or without an understanding of the target. To strike a balance between the broad and the focused, consider what you know of who may stumble upon your path, and look to these characters as I have drawn. We shall need memorize their meanings, before we also see how each may be molded and integrated with another."     Not so much waxing poetic as describing a necessary underpinning of her magic in totality, "All is associative, a melding of meaning with meaning, and by weaving your own chosen meaning into that of another, you change their own existence, their place in relation to all other things, to be closer to that for which you wish."     Working through these same things with Lilian at the same time is hardly any greater difficulty, though Tamamo considers it an act of professionalism to focus on any difficulty Loki experiences, first. She can catch up and work through much more with Lilian in their off time, without affecting Strange's schedule.
Archer EMIYA	"Alright..."      Archer just rubs his temple in annoyance. Annoyance directed more at himself than at Loki. He can easily identify the problem, it's one he used to have to an extent. Ignoring the fact that the second bigger problem was just that he was also just taught magecraft wrong, as a joke. But it's also been so long since he experienced it that he kind of just has to mentally walk himself through the solution again step by step.      "Maybe reversing your priorities will help a bit. You're afraid of getting hit, so you make your wizard shields because swords are scary and all that..."      The servant pauses as he thinks. Pep talks really aren't his strong suit, at best he has like very brief tender moments before reverting to being an asshole. Still, the man needs confidence...      "So just turn your brain off. Focus on what you're making, and repeat the words 'I would simply not get hit' in your head rather than 'I don't want to get hit'. Faith in what you're putting out there is going to keep you safer than peeing your pants. You understand?"      What he comes up with is little better than drivel that amounts to little more than 'just don't get hit bro', as far as he's concerned. But what's drivel to some, might actually mean something to someone else. At least, that's what Archer's banking on.      For all he knows though, Loki will just magically get worse, and he's going to be spending his night crying into his sake cup.
Lilian Rook	Lilian's line about 'not sleeping in on the work week' said all that time ago, finally, turns out to be pretty much correct. Outside of the weekends, whereupon something approximating a normal human being schedule emerges, it is in fact difficult to pin when she sleeps at all.     DAWN:     Lilian is awake and ready before the crack of dawn every weekday, doing stretches, running, lifts, and quickly scrounging access to the inevitable supply of martial arts grade training equipment on a Himalayan secret sanctum, in the twilight morning hours, much of it actually used for martial arts forms. She vanishes for a while at each sunrise to make use of the green mountainside proper, and then returns by the time Kale's lessons begin with a new satchel of something or other and her proper daywear.     MORNING:     Lilian spends a little time peoplewatching the students each time she finishes the meditation and katas impressed on her by multinational training, and surveys their own magical practice from afar and works to maintain a diary of it to push her senses. Ironically, Kale's lesson time is something she passes performing her own particular cultivation routines, and in fact, eventually stops by to begin offering the use of its paraphernalia, both in the form of creating her own western-style mandalas for his exercise space once he has the bare basics pounded in, and 'traditional aids' which amount to essentially doing magic creatine with a host of unpleasant side effects later on.     NOON:     Lilian spends a half hour before each lesson optimizing away the host of tiny timewasters inherent in these kinds of lessons, pre-drawing everything she needs, marking every page she expects to use, and putting away every distracting reagent she expects no use of. When Loki's particular 'learning style' comes out, she begins--     STUDY TIME:     Lilian has spent her whole life Being Taught. The way she knows best how to curb Loki's excessive reach for the top shelf after doing the gifted kid thing and acing the preliminaries is multifold, but mostly relies on the insidious method of grading and scores, tilted to require going over yesterday's middle material and the day before's basic material, until Friday is a full test of each stage of the concept, so that Loki can see number go up from repeating the things he impatiently believes he already knows, and she can set an 'objective' criteria for 'you get to the spicy shit at this threshold and its yours to get there.     Her focus is enormously on 'operating systems and substrates' of magic, doing him the dignity of just saying his godhood is a completely legitimate way into the game and an advantage he should take full use of, and so she won't force him to start from the mortal square. It's a course on 'things that are magic because they are magic'. The long-remembered and hard-won knowledge of endless generations of the universe's mystical 'reality hacks', prized from trial and effort and study and wild mishaps over centuries. How certain shapes and signs, certain materials and arrangements, why specific words or drawings have power and others don't, and how a lump of wood or a blob of mercury is useless or powerful by the finest criteria.     Soon enough, she begins to attach 'how anyone figured this out' in the form of oral storytelling to each one, lensing it a little as more of a wild caper or clever trick each time to appeal to Loki's mindset. And, most importantly, every so often she lets him jump right to the advanced material, fuck something up, and always somehow seems to be able to subtly defuse it just in time, taking a 'well, impress me if you can' approach where 'no just trust me you can't' would become tiresome.
Lilian Rook	Once she is able to get him to apply himself to the use of 'putting magic over there to use on someone later', she lowkey encourages him to use it for the rest of the day and show off to the rest of his tutors. From there, she tries to save Tamamo some work by going over basic and rote kinds of personal barriers and wards as hands-on speefeel, and then get into tricks of nature, shaping, and the eventual metaphorical force lightning.     AFTERNOON:     Once Lilian has recorded all of Loki's results for the day, she immerses herself in piles of arcane texts that are very obviously excruciatingly difficult, allowing him to peer over her shoulder and ask any questions until he has to go meet Archer, to validate that spirit. The subject of her studies changes from month to month, as she burns through advanced reading, then writing papers, then using training quarters for increasingly large and elaborate arrays and dry run rituals, and finally painstakingly detailing her own in new pages of a tome.     LATE AFTERNOON:     Lilian shows up for Strawberry's tutoring every other day. She shows her own brand of interest in absorbing what Strawberry has to put down, and shows ample respect for the subject in front of Loki. She claims that this is a better use of her time than a solo flight drill anyways. Her own way of flying works on ostensibly pretty different physics than Strawberry's, but she adapts all of the lessons that apply, and eventually starts pressing for a joint exercise game or ten that she remembers from Arx Zenith's fare, inviting Strange and Kale to round out teams every so often. The other days, she spends time down by the lake, conjuring rather dangerous looking light shows of magic, and flexing the high level runework she's teaching Loki (where he can see it and set goals).          EVENING: Lilian pops in and out of Tamamo's lessons mostly to keep an eye on Loki, and to spend more time with her during the day. The business of 'fortune' and 'fate' is something she hangs around for to absorb the bunrei's craft and insight on, and diligently takes her own notes, applies focused rigor in practice, and asks exactly as many questions as appropriate, for an hour here or there, to also let Loki see his teacher in the context of someone learning something else as well, to take an example from. The rest of the time though, she spends at least two visible hours every day relentlessly training with her sword. Twice weekly, she goes looking for other students to spar with hand to hand.     NIGHT:     A segment of the forest itself, across the lake, is something Lilian reserves for herself, and asks for Tamamo's aid in cordoning off. Here, she does all kinds of experiments of the advanced kind, regarding the 'seelie and unseelie arts' she'd talked about, and frequently doesn't even allow Strange near, mostly leaving innocuously quirky, yet unnervingly uncanny, changes to the grove's landscape each time. She seems to start a fire every midnight and a solid hour alternating between trance and frenetic writing.     PRE-DAWN:     Lilian has to take care of the limited quantity of things she brought, or so she says. However, one could easily suspect that the amount of Things she has keeps growing over time, and probably couldn't fit in those bags anymore.
Lilian Rook	LOKI:     Lilian doesn't just do her part and fuck off. She finds him throughout the day to make sure he's paying as much attention to everyone as he should be. She is reserved with her praise but unfailing where it is due, impressively tactful and diplomatic with her criticisms and won't insist on anything without showing she can do it first, and prone to using ample physical props, from the humble to the intricate work of art, over making him write on sheets of paper. She occasionally 'surprises' him with inconveniences that are too fair and obvious to be called pranks, at random times of day, to keep him on his toes with forced puzzle solving. Complaints are met with permutations of 'welcome to the real world'.     STRAWBERRY:     Lilian is delighted to include her as an exercise buddy. She refuses to merely 'give tips', but insists on having Strawberry participate in at least hikes, climbs, runs, and warmups, before divorcing into being her spotter when their physical capabilities diverge too much. She becomes a meticulous hassle about doing it every day, and enforcing strict 'eat real food' policy. Most salient however, she quickly begins supporting Strawberry's lessons, at first, with her early prototypes of her artificial leyline experiments being derived from faerie circles and the Otherworld paradigm, and as they become more reliable, extending them into more convenient timeframes, so that Strawberry can eventually have more or less free run of flying around during the day.     KALE:     Lilian has no objections to him sitting in. It presents an air of legitimate authority, and besides, she seems to fully believe in collaborative and cross-disciplinary education. For all her proper received pronunciation bullshit, she frequently, silently and invisibly, reminds anyone that the environment she was raised in, and continues to live in, is completely different from the world of one hour pencils down no peeking SATs with answers in the back of the book.     TAMAMO:     Lilian spends the majority of her free social hours with Tamamo, to probably nobody's surprise. Tourism, sightseeing, showing off her ongoing work, elaborate boardgames, taking sketches, nature trips, beach trips eventually evolving into beach sports, dancing, drinking, and stargazing. She seems especially familiar with the k-horror mess of talismans around the bunrei's abode.     WEEKENDS AND MISC:     Lilian also uses spare time to ask Strange to show her around, and fully intends to make some friends and valuable connections in Kamar-Taj itself. She mostly lends her talents in alchemy here and there where it will help, 'tips' fairly lavishly for basic services and small helps in the ways that can actually matter, occasionally entertains groups of inconvenient children, and uses her time in the library absorbing the local lore to help with the librarian work as well. She is enraptured enough with the Himalaya life that the charisma beams she passively fires in all directions are even mostly genuine. However, her use of the wifi is strictly through a proxy. On the weekends especially, she hits town with Strawberry as well, and occasionally concocts girls nights on some weeks, and forces everyone to participate in 'group bonding exercises' ranging from 'volleyball' to 'now you all have to learn a strategy game I just found'.
Doctor Strange	Day 203     A little over halfway done. KALE: FUNDAMENTALS     Who could have guessed that Loki would take so well to gamifying his basic morning exercises? Not Strange, and certainly not Loki.     "Y'know," says Strange, watching Loki patiently hovering two heavy jugs of water above glowing orange mandalas, "I bet that mentor of yours is capable of some pretty insidious stuff." A glance towards Kale is hard at first to discern, because of Strange's perpetual stony deadpan. "I'm impressed."     Granted, Loki did try once or twice to fake pulls, but Strange ratted him out, and he's engaging in the game in good faith by this point. Little does Strange know, Loki has earned a pull today, and will be spending it on help with a prank. The Sorcerer Supreme will be victim. The classic 'snake in a peanut brittle tube.' Loki will be the snake.     In other words, he's plenty motivated now, and his endurance is developed enough for the kind of sustained casting that a combat-focused school like sorcery will demand. The question now is not how to keep him interested, but where to focus. This will determine how Loki's talents contribute to the Masters (assuming he wins the challenge and/or sticks around, of course). Will he be a specialist focusing in long-fight scenarios, a master of subtle fine-tuned magics, or a generalist? STRAWBERRY: THREE-DIMENSIONAL THINKING     It took Loki a long time, before he was able to do it without the blindfold. But Strawberry's approach was ultimately what got him out of his own head. There -is- no fundamental, essential 'up-ness,' rightside or otherwise.     Now, the challenge is different. "So, Strawberry," says Strange. "I think it's time he learned how to manipulate space." He further explains that this is one of the more difficult things for sorcerers to learn, because it tests their ability to command gravity, their fear of heights, and their creativity all at once.     She's given an a training artifact--a wand that will launch adhesive, glowy balls of light. The idea is for Loki to get stuck as few times as possible, by shifting terrain, manipulating the direction in which gravity pulls him, and evading with leaps of faith. Strange will be shifting the terrain as well, to work with Strawberry and create the feel of fighting a highly mobile adversary.     She's talked him into trying, but now he's trying too hard. Forgetting rule 3, making himself lightheaded with too many Gs, and eating shit on Strange's tesselated copypasted un-Kamar-Taj. It continues, until Strange asks. Why? Loki is quiet for an uncomfortable moment, and can't look either of them in the eyes. "I don't feel like I deserve this. All of this effort. I've put a lot of hurt into this world for selfish reasons, and I... came here for selfish reasons, too. But those of you who are mortal are giving up a year of your mayfly lives," he adds with a wan smile. "If you haven't walked out, then neither can I. And I have to make that worth something. So, please... can we go again?"
Doctor Strange	TAMAMO: WARDS AND SUBTLETY     Tamamo's way of putting it--framing a curse in the context of an illusion--has proven time and again to be a wise decision.     Loki now knows the meanings of each character--both of hers, and of Strange's glyphs, which appear to be the work of several centuries' worth of hands from cultures across the planet, as if, in this place, a language was born in secret. Moreover, he's begun to piece together the syntax of that language, and of Tamamo's--to put together sentences, as it were.     "That's good work, Loki." Strange watches as a newt on open earth struggles to find which direction to go--thanks to a series of talismans and burning orange glyphs in the air above it. Loki dismisses one of the burning glyphs, which ends up coaxing the newt into a complex and circuitous path made by subtle inscriptions and even the suggestions thereof, via illusion.     "You've clearly taken what Tamamo told you that first week to heart." Strange nods his approval as the sigils all vanish and the newt is freed. "Sometimes, a bit of subtlety can save your life, but you need to be calm enough to work something like that. You also need to be aware enough of what your opponents are doing. Y'know. So you don't get hit like Archer warned you. Speaking of..."
Doctor Strange	ARCHER AND TAMAMO: SUBTLETY UNDER STRESS      In the first week, Loki's response had been 'that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.' But Strange, perhaps surprisingly to Archer, had stood by it. "No, it isn't. Because if you're inviting the possibility of being hit, then your will isn't completely on the sorcery. Your mind and your body are instruments. If you're too worried about your instrument getting scratched to play any music, then... well, you're a poser. You don't wanna be a poser, do you? Didn't think so." NOW: The goal is simple. He can adequately fight off both Strange's bag of tricks and Archer's brute magical strength, while also staying ahead of Tamamo's illusions, dispelling them where he can and avoiding the worst of it. The last thing that Strange, Archer and Tamamo can impart on Loki will probably be noticeed by Tamamo first.      Loki is overly focusing on misdirection. He's very well suited to it, but he's too hesitant to go for a finishing blow. Instead, he's trying to leave that to the techniques Strange taught, which are certainly powerful, but too obvious to comprise the entirety of a Master's arsenal. How will she get through to him?      There's also the issue of pacing, which Archer will notice. Loki is good at finding openings, and he's no longer too scared to maintain his shields, or to fight back. But in the past few weeks he's started trying to end things with haymakers--totally contrary to his ability to sustain them. It's... actually a lot like when Archer was a young man, come to think of it.
Doctor Strange	LILIAN: STUDY TIME      It turns out that when you encourage people, invite them to succeed and give them the tools for success instead of treating them like they couldn't possibly, they do indeed impress.      Strange stops by in the morning to check in. "Already learning the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, huh. Good stuff. Remember those people Lilian told you about--the people too big and/or dumb to manipulate? Yeah--that's your way of slowing those people down. The harder they fight, the more painful the restraints. Some people are strong enough to, y'know... -arrgh- their way out of it. But it's really, really useful, and a pretty advanced spell to be picking up this early. Lilian, you're an excellent teacher."      Her focus on 'things that are magic because they are magic' to start out with has a chance to come back for a second, more pressing application. It's at this stage in a sorcerer's development that they are shown artifacts. It is a big responsibility, as artifacts, owing to the amount of magic put into them, have wills of their own. But it is also an honor to be chosen by one.      When there's a moment in private, Strange tells Lilian as much. "If you can think of some kinda knack that'd be useful for what we've worked on, I guarantee there's something here or in the Sanctum that can do it, as long as it speaks to him. Think on it for a while and get back to me. Maybe even something that reminds him of home. Yeah?" NIGHTS      "It's my goddamn forest," grouses Strange. "It's our forest," corrects Wong, mashing out a combo as Strange's character is trapped against the wall.      "Yeah. You're right. Guess I forgot what it was like to be on the receiving end of 'no,' huh." "I guess so. That's game, by the way."      Strange is in the arcade, as one might have guessed. There's a tournament of some bootleg game that crashes every third startup.
Kale Hearthward	DR. STRANGE "... Yeah. He's - I mean from what I've gotten to know of him, he's a force for good, but he's..." "... Well. Let's just say that I can't argue with the results he gets, but the methods he uses are... sometimes..." Kale trails off for a second time as he tries to think of a good, diplomatic way to describe him, and then gives up. "He's a bastard of a tanuki and if you ever see his eyes glint, drop everything and run like hell." GENERAL Kale's discovered the joy of 4X games and won't shut up about them now, during mealtimes or just idle conversation. "So - it's this crazy setup, I'm trying to get it naturally - you need to have an American archeologist unearth an Egyptian artifact - while there's a German archeologist right nearby. I think it's a reference to something, I'm not sure, I think most people just cheat or play the hotseat multiplayer but I'm going to load up the game later and-" LOKI Kale has to think on this for a while - he's a sorceror who's gotten fine-tuned skill and staying power all in one package (at the tradeoff of being mostly only good at one specific class of spells) but opts to steer Loki towards fine-tuning. "One well placed action can screw up someone else's plan, right?" He starts employing his own magic as a sort of focusing-training-weights for Loki, in the form of bringing forth or simulating inclement conditions, or making him practice inside the walk-in freezer or with heat lamps on him or in the lake with a snorkel. If he can produce intricate, fined-tune spells while Kale's doing everything he can to distract and irritate him, doing so in normal conditions should be a breeze. LILIAN In private, Kale pitches an idea. "Make him start teaching me the advanced stuff you're teaching him," he says. "Teaching people is part of the job, right? He needs to start learning that stuff too." "Besides - if he can teach *me*, he can teach anyone." STRAWBERRY PRINCESS After giving it some thought that first night, Kale just opts to give Strawberry the same makeup that he'd have given her if she hadn't had that scar. It's part of her - no need to cover it up. (Then again, no need to draw attention to it, either.) The sleepover sessions include comprehensive makeup tutorials... and halfway through the year, she ends up getting a practical test on it. "I'm taking the next weekend off to go back to realtime and meet Zephyr for dinner," he says. "And I need you to help me with *my* makeup for it." ARCHER "So - you wanna grab a beer sometime?" Kale hasn't interacted much with him before - but no time like the time-dilated present. TAMAMO "So... do you like the theater?" Kale's making a slightly more awkward attempt here. NIGHTLIFE Kale shows up to watch one of the arcade game sessions, once. He doesn't come back, and keeps his opinion to himself.
Tamamo	Morning:     Progressing further in her own learning of the art of teaching, Tamamo builds up a comfortable buffer of material, kept straight in her mind and in the stacks of prepared talismans that are her usual, physical material, and then finds that her own 'free time' has substantially increased. Even rising in lazy mornings, there's plenty of time before the evening lessons to fill with other matters.     Rarely is she about early enough for Lilian's exercise, but more often does her wakefulness overlap with the students of Kamar-Taj. Naturally curious, she just occasionally observes Kale's lessons with Loki from afar, the particulars of their combat largely beyond her, and more often does she take the time to meet with the many other students and their masters in idle moments.     Practical martial lessons as such may be somewhat beyond her, but if it's only the theoretical space of Shinto-Buddhist enlightenment and the relation between people and the pursuit of personal and social fulfillment, those are subjects she's more prepared to discuss at length, and consistently interested in the 'why' of people's high-commitment goals. Afternoon:     Over the course of the three following lessons -- Lilian's, Archer's, and Strawberry's -- Tamamo again shows herself only rarely, and then to make sure that those involved are perfectly aware of the utility of having, on hand, someone with the kind of healing expertise that Tamamo no Mae possesses. The ability to 'keep going,' and the very broad array of effects implicated by that sphere of blessings, is especially useful for those working under such time constraints as allow for only sparing periods of rest and recovery. More often, Tamamo leaves well enough alone, if not called upon, taking the time to meet anyone of interest she hasn't already, and check on Lilian's commandeered forest space while she has the aid of daylight. Night:     Contrary to what one would naturally suspect of a Sun Goddess, but perhaps in keeping with how slowly she rouses in the morning, Tamamo doesn't feel any need to lay down at sunset. On the contrary, she takes special consideration in meeting with the one of the Masters specializing in wine, trading some of her personal supply of rare and reasonably powerful (or merely tasty) drinks with him, discussing the cultural differences of brewing processes, and then taking significant amounts back with her to share with others.     On more than one occasion, Tamamo invites Lilian to get to that specific level of tipsiness when things that would seem annoyingly poorly made are instead hilarious, which makes for the perfect condition in which to watch bad movies or play old arcade games, in both of which she partakes, though only ever in company. If Lilian hadn't already been on top of arranging it, she'd make sure Strawberry was invited to the same. Having seen very few movies and played very few games made within the last few centuries, a year of scattered nights is hardly enough time to run out of new content to experience.
Tamamo	Kale:     "Oh, the modern sorts," Tamamo answers his question, using a term that would be far less vague if used by someone from more recent than a rough millenium ago, "have such variety I have yet to experience. Perhaps that is the result of actors from one land having traveled to another, and so, many having arrived in one place. The traditions are quite clashing, often, would you not say so? And yet, one may enjoy each as if taking samples within a feast, should one have such time available, in some cities of especially multicultural persuasions." Getting her talking isn't really hard at all, when it comes to things she's only been recently learning about. Group activities:     The same proves true in other settings. Tamamo doesn't seem to have quite the right mindset for games that involve trading wood for sheep, but if it's a group setting, whatever the game is, she tries, and keeps her interactions 'fair.' It's only purely natural persuasion and misdirection that results in her suddenly dominating half the board, when people let her.     She brought her own swimsuit, as it turns out, and is actually pretty good at beach volleyball. Maybe it's the practically unlimited jump height and keen understanding of throwing her weight into a spike. You wouldn't think shoes that tall were good for anything but breaking your ankles on the sand, yet she always makes the landing. She doesn't need magic for that, either, at least of any kind that's possible for even the particularly perceptive to notice. Loki's lessons:     Things have gone better than she expected, really, and Tamamo echoes Strange's praise. "Oh, very good. Learning a language, or more than one, in such a time, and to such fluency, is no small feat."     She still has plenty of advice to give, of course. "One must have an awareness of both what is, and what may be. One who wishes to control the perceptions of others must see most keenly, for themselves, to see what others see, and how this may be changed. Such is not an easy task, and oft impractical to know with certainty, yet still we must guess. The greater your understanding of their situation, that understanding of 'what is,' the more able you shall be in subtly influencing them toward 'what may be.' The same is true of your own self, for one cannot change that which one has yet to recognize."     This progression ends up leading naturally to a new array of lessons intended to help him overcome his weaknesses in Archer's practical lessons. After one particular case of seeing Loki overextend himself in trying to quickly pull out a win, that Tamamo's magic misdirects and -- to use the vocabulary she's been learning in the arcade -- subsequently punishes, Tamamo says, "There is still much to learn, but, perhaps, you would be most helped, at this point, in learning to help yourself. Tomorrow, we shall shift our focus from curses to blessings."     True to her word, the next day's lesson focuses wholly on establishing the common points between the two. "You have learned the characters, and the way they must relate, and how one may define both target and effect. Now, let us focus inward. As I have said, to create an illusion is to control perception, and to control another's perception, one must see better than others can. Now, consider what of yourself you may wish to target, a weakness of arm or health or sight, a slowness of hand or foot or mind, and then consider 'what may be,' a representation of the strength for which you wish. Every mortal who prays for a blessing sees something lacking as they reach for some goal, no? To be aware of that lack should not be any more difficult for we who are gods."     She's putting aside the question of whether Asgardians are divine. They aren't, as far as she can tell (which is quite well), but it would be rude to bring up.
Strawberry Princess	Under Lilian's firm instruction, Strawberry is gradually shaping up; she's become noticeably less twig-like, and although she'll never reach the level of an Immune's enhanced physicality, the point where their exercises have to diverge is just a tiny bit later each day. One might even conjecture that's why she's become so disciplined about it.      "Eating real food", at first something she did only begrudgingly, has stopped being something Lilian has to badger her into. As her body's come out of starvation mode, she's naturally graduated up to three meals a day, and nobody can tolerate eating shitty microwaveable ramen three times in twenty-four hours.      (Lilian was right. This does go better with her scars.)      She only brought the one fuel core for her wand, and thanks to those artificial leyline experiments, it still hasn't been spent. The first time she takes to the air without having to turn it on, she cries up high where nobody can see, a few raindrops hitting the courtyard below as the only evidence. Pretty soon she's a fixture in the sky above Kamar-Taj, turning lazy nostalgic maneuvers, keeping herself rust-free, or just enjoying the view.      ----      "Look at me, Mr. Laufeyson," Strawberry admonishes gently. Her voice hasn't become any less hoarse, but it is just a bit less halting. Time heals some things, but not all: sitting on his left, her scar predominates his view of her face. "The things I do back home, they're really not safe. Every year I'm out there, I know it might be the last one."      "I was never going to get old, Mr. Laufeyson. When I was twelve, I didn't- didn't even think I'd see eighteen. When I was eighteen, didn't think I'd see twenty-four." She exhales in a soft sigh, staring out at the sunset with a bittersweet smile. Those button-up shirts hang differently on her, now.      "You gave me another year. You didn't take it away. I can't thank you enough."      She picks up the wand, standing up once more. "So. Try your best, okay? This is the only year we'll have together, like this. But... please don't push too hard, feeling like you need to make this 'worth it'. It already is."
Strawberry Princess	It becomes obvious pretty quickly that Kale's made the right choice: the first time she looks in the mirror after he does her face up like that, she almost ruins it by crying again.      The scar is Okay. It'd feel wrong not to have it, now. Strawberry Princess got injured like that, so not having the scar... it would make me less Strawberry, wouldn't it? ... But it isn't ugly, either. I can be pretty even so.      Kale's final exam is something she's not entirely prepared for. She's been learning how to put makeup on skin, not feathers! What even are the beauty standards for birds?      Eventually she settles on something artfully humble, taking care to accentuate the beauty of the underlying features rather than smother them, with just a couple of discerning flourishes. "It'll be his first time seeing you in... no, it'll just have been a few days for him, won't it?" She frowns behind him in the mirror. "So I guess- reminding him what you look like at your best, isn't as important. ... But you'll be gone for a week or two in here. I'll keep up with your lessons, I promise!"      ----      Strawberry's natural inclination is to spend her free time aimlessly existing near her friends, or else tapping away at her chunky vintage Gameboy-esque handheld. Tamamo does manage to rescue her from that milquetoast fate.      She has absolutely no stomach for even the comically bad kind of horror movies, her friends will quickly discover- any kind of sudden spook makes her nearly jump out of her seat, and even the clumsiest kind of slow-building dread makes her clutch the armrests and nearly stop breathing. Other genres, though, are perfectly fine- except for cringe comedy, which frequently elicits an eyes-covering "I can't watch" response.      Strawberry already spends a sizeable fraction of each day near Lilian, one way or another, so when it comes to sharing a couch for movies she often very deliberately chooses to sit on the opposite side of Tamamo instead. If Lilian were between us, it'd feel sort of like a competition, wouldn't it? I don't want that at all.      One night, before their entertainment's started, Strawberry asks her: "Do you still do cooking, here? I know Lilian's talked a lot about how good your food is before. If you do, do you think I could... watch you, sometime? I don't know if- you'd have time to really teach me. But I'd like to learn."
Archer EMIYA	LOKI TRAINING MONTAGE:      "Just stick to the basics until you've mastered them, horse boy. It may be disappointing, but you'll win more fights by being a boring utilitarian then you will for going for a flashy finisher. The only time you should try that is if you're already losing and nothing else is working.."      Archer's advice is simple. Keep your flashy hissatsu power in your pocket for when it's needed, rather than pulling it out at every given chance. The one thing his young self got right is that pulling things out of your ass really does turn the tides of battle. But it's sometimes food, a treat, if you will.      To help hammer in his point, his fancier footwork during the next few sparring is replaced with a more standard type of sword fighting. The kind you'd see on those Youtube channels where guys teach you stuff like Mordhau techniques. Unfortunately for Loki, even though it's visually less impressive, Archer is still a sword idiot, which means he's still just as capable of exploiting the poor Asgardian.      OFF TIME:      Archer's time not spent bullying Loki is spent doing his hobbies. Cooking and cleaning. A lot less of the cleaning though, because it is a known fact that wizards hate their stuff being moved around, even if the result is a messy place. Better to just let them live in their filth then put up with the nagging.      He also, predictably, plays the jank ass Church fighting game. He mains Judas, predictably.      KALE:      "Yeah, sure."      Though he agrees, Kale will probably be quick to realize he doesn't really drink. He spends a lot more time nursing his cold one. Either because he actually doesn't like inferior baka gaijin beverages, or because he simply wants to see Kale get drunk before him. It's hard to tell.
Lilian Rook	STUDY:     Lilian takes Loki's excellent progress to mean that she is an excellent teacher, which is good, because him reflecting well on her means that she has begun to invest her ego in it, and that means increasingly improbable quantities of effort are funneled into making each week build more on the last. The worst thing that can be said about being her student at this point is that one would graduate without having once ever seen an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy.     The sense that his progress is paying off in this way is so completely unhidden that it might be toxic under other circumstances and with someone else. Despite being an actual zero or two younger than Loki, she glows with a specific kind of pride about his best results that can only be attributed to rich moms. The fact that this is because of her thoughtless acceptance of conditional and transactional support both remains thoughtless and unaddressed. It's Loki. Someone who has never managed to impress dad in his life. Trying something really advanced, failing three times, succeeding once, and being praised for it, *has* to be a spicy new experience.     HOBBY:     Thanks to some rather heavy drinking sessions with Tamamo --specifically the kind that go out the door-- Lilian has somehow, against all godforsaken odds, obtained an interest in videogames. Enough to actually sit down and listen to Kale prattle through his latest findings, with the confused but polite interest of The One Cool Babysitter. She is reluctant to actually try them at first, but is eventually tempted by the arcade enough times to start, whereupon someone gets to see Lilian be shockingly mediocre at something for the first time.     For some weird reason, she seems to have a special fascination with the concept, rather than any one particular game activating dopamine, which draws her back over and over again. Eventually, she corners Strawberry playing on her game brick, and amidst a wide variety of questions, asks two in particular that feel like they stand out.     But what do you do if you get stuck and can't win?     What's an NPC?     WORK:     Lilian's diligent schedule is impressive in its own right, but even with how fast she works and how packed it is, the level of her productivity feels implausible in a vague gut sense, only really impossible to argue with because how the hell would anyone else know how much they'd get done if they swapped to some special productivity-focused sleep schedule with a fancy German name, never mind the rest of her 'life tips'?     However, a few months in, cracks do begin to appear. Signs of special wear and erosion, not on the moving parts, but adjacent to them. Inconsistencies in the times she stops to sleep or eat, or for how long. Getting confused about which clothes she's worn already, and favouring somehow acquiring more than sorting out the pile starting to form. Losing track of odds and ends or things like battery charge. The least essential of her effects enter a state of organized chaos.     There's a sense of a check engine light blinking somewhere, but it takes until the point where she mentions the name 'Cecilia' six times in one conversation for it to really click that Lilian has laid out all of her time *with the presumption of a full support staff of family help*. A slow motion overheat is in progress without an onslaught of maids and butlers and chefs and librarians and accountants and chauffers to sweat the small stuff. Kamar-Taj has its 'staff', but they don't work for her. Her method of compensating is leaning on Tamamo's blessings like lethal quantities of energy drinks and adderall, which makes it a good thing they don't have side effects.
Lilian Rook	SOCIAL:     One of the things Lilian picks up again, between the increased volume of constant diagrams, ciphers, runes, and mandalas she has to work with, and the increase in time around unfamiliar settings without the need to move, is resurrecting a past hobby she'd mentioned a few times, acquiring and carrying around a sketchbook. Though initially rough, her pencil work has a kind of stylized photorealism to it that's difficult to compare, extremely detailed, but abstracted in minor ways to bring to mind what a subject looks like in motion rather than what it'd really look like in a static photograph. Approximately a quarter of it ends up filled with varying physical jpgs of Tamamo in different outfits and settings and amid different activities.     She also goes and forcefully enlists Strawberry in team sports, specifically to play with and against the locals, rather than purely amongst themselves. Swimming becomes a permanent part of the exercise routine. Apparently approving of the local vintages Tamamo gets into, Lilian eventually makes efforts to host a proper party for Loki's 'midterm exams', which are actually midterm exams, but she really didn't need to call it that.     MAGIC:     When Kale makes his request, Lilian stares at him with a cascading sequence of facial expressions that register, in order, surprise, disbelief, vague scorn, contemplation, optimism, and then a kind of approval that feels, at the same time, exhilarating and yet slightly dirty to be on the opposite end of. "That's a great idea." she concludes, giving him a little speech about how teaching someone else is how you really master a lesson. She absolutely knows that he is playing the situation for free magic tutoring under plausible deniability, and frankly she is pretty down for Kale's first attempts at savvy manipulation.     When Strawberry's reaps the rewards of Lilian's experiments paying off, the result seems to embolden her to redouble her efforts. Eventually, she's sketched up an entire 'firing range' based on the prima material arrays. The amount of energy required for Strawberry to shoot even small beams is considerable enough that Lilian has to concentrate it into specific 'stand here' points, but everything else is a non-issue as she synthesizes and re-synthesizes targets from anything necessary. Occasionally, she joins in to start replicating some of Strawberry's trickshot tech with her goldblack mystery beams, and shares some of her own.     When Doctor Strange asks for her recommendation, Lilian contemplates several things that might reinforce Loki's strengths, and then instead settles on something Strange might feel is so perverse it might even be considered ironic punishment, but should plainly see the utility in . . .     ARTIFACTS:     As a prelude to Strange bequeathing Loki jack shit, Lilian spends an entire lesson period instead revealing the Killer in the Night Mist to him, retelling the family history surrounding it, and sharing her personal takes, in more aesthetic and intuitive senses than rational or academic, about how she resonates with it; what it makes her feel, how they connect, what she imagines it as, and how she thinks of it. The idea is to have Loki think about his own personal history, and what he would, if he were to lean on even an inanimate companion, want them to recognize as his most important need.     24:00-24:00:     Lilian's bonfires at midnight have stopped. Instead, she returns from the forest and goes straight to Tamamo's room without answering questions. At one point, in her slightly burnt out, gradually more disorganized state, she manages to leave a face cloth out, partially soaked through with blood.
Doctor Strange	QUALITY TIME      Yeah," says Strange, on one of those 4X discussions with Kale. "Yeah, actually, I think we have an Ark like that around here somewhere. You should open it up and look inside." Master Zinn fixes Kale with a grave look from across the mess hall and shakes her head. Do not do this. When it comes to games involving the trading of wood for sheep, Strange is a knight-hoarding fuck and revels in it, but Master Wong can be trusted as long as you don't fuck with him. This makes it all the better to team up with Wong and take Strange down a peg.      Tamamo's meetings with students in their idle moments finds a very diverse range of people. There are former athletes, mechanics, librarians, you name it--from all across the world. There are also, she finds, two categories of students.      Kamar-Taj is a place of healing as well as enlightenment. People with nowhere else to go are let in, taught the mystic arts, healed in body and spirit--and then they are given the choice either to return to the mundane world, or stay and pursue higher callings. Those who do remain must dedicate themselves to the defense of Earth, but do so knowing that they aren't alone. Community is very important here, whether one is healing or staying to learn more and become a defender.      Now is a time of relative peace, where high-commitment goals may be pursued, although there is a certain melancholy, as if that peace is soon to end. Strange did mention the onset of a prophesied war. For many of the students, however, the long-term goals are similar. If sorcery has a specialty, it's travel.      Astral projection, the use of the sling ring, and the Mirror Dimension allow Masters to travel to places most average humans couldn't conceive of; dimensions where the laws of reality are altered or in some cases nonexistent. Understanding these strange realms grants not only a calming sense of scale in the greater Multiverse, but in times of struggle, insight into Earth's traditonal foes.      The wizened Master Hassan is the wine expert--and he has two specialities, having been a vintner before he came to Kamar-Taj. He is among the older Masters by far and may be one of the last living experts on wine from his home country, due to a prohibition some fifty years ago. There are two varieties: a dry white, meant to be drank young, and a very sweet nutty red typically aged for five years at a time. The other is a local variety he learned of when he came to Kamar-Taj in the nineties, uniquely suited to the altitude simulated by its pocket dimension. He is eager to learn what Tamamo knows, as he so rarely gets the chance to speak with enthusiasts. He'll even send her a few bottles of her choosing to take home, if she likes.
Doctor Strange	Strawberry finds that, after her pep talk, Loki is doing it right. That night, he's actually spending time with the other Masters instead of going off on his own like he usually does. Strange had mentioned, as had Loki himself, that Asgardians are very long-lived. This Loki is the same Loki that was spoken of, by the Norse of old. Countless years have come and gone, but physically he looks younger than Strange. She might have, however, convinced him how precious one year can be. "Who suggested that one?" "Who do you think?" asks Wong, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's one of the only Masters left in the room, the rest having filtered out. "Everyone who's still in here is stronger for having seen it," says Strange. "Robot in the Family is a kind of spiritual suffering." "And these people still found work as actors after this was released?" Loki asks perplexedly. "Oh, totally. One of them was in the Matrix and the other was in Lord of the Rings. Hugely successful."      Archer's Judas is hard fought, but Strange mains Elisha and loves to spam the bears, giving him close to a fifty percent win rate from sheer totsugeki related cheese. After one of those matches ends in a win for Archer due to sheer hitbox jank, Strange gives him the winner's fistbump. "Dude. Last Supper is busted." ... "Thanks for being here, man. You're my best friend." Then he does something that he hasn't done before. Ever. Strange comes in for a hug, and awkward though it might be, gets in there. As long as they've known each other, he's never done that. He's seldom even gone for a fistbump. The tight-lipped Sorcerer Supreme doesn't say anything, but his eyes speak volumes to Archer. He's going away, soon, and he doesn't expect to be back. He doesn't seem quite ready to talk about it now.
Doctor Strange	DAY 378: ONE YEAR AND CHANGE...      ...has come and gone. There's a celebration being held, for Loki completing his training. There's a lot to celebrate!      Thanks to Kale, Loki has the fine control of a specialist with the concentration to support it even in heavy inclement weather. Loki has also taught him a bit of sorcery, by the end of it--and it even gels with Kale's comfort zone, too! The Plane of Eternal Gales is a massive, windswept grassland, constantly wracked with storms. Those mandalas the Masters always make are basically doing arbitrary code execution with reality, the interlocking of different symbols allowing for various mystic feats. In Kale's case, he can now form one, both to act as a target shield, and to deflect attacks or bowl over attackers with gusts pulled from the Plane of Eternal Gales.      Both he and Lilian have managed to curb Loki's ambition and render it into something productive. Moreover, Strange liked her idea so much that he didn't even bother with a sorcerous homage or imitation, of which there are a few. He made good on his promise, and called dear old dad direct. More on that shortly.      Archer, through continued pressure, has finally managed to beat into Loki's head that sorcery is as much martial as it is magic. It was difficult--because the Asgardian certainly wasn't used to straight-up confrontations. But he is now a capable fighter in more than just the devious, deceptive sense, with enough practical experience to have broken several bad habits.      Strawberry has managed to get him thinking like a sorcerer. There is no longer any difference, to him, between up or down, and he alters his gravity as easily as that around him, in training. More than that, though, her motivation seems to have changed his outlook for the better. She gets a brief aside from him, in the quiet before everyone has had a chance to gather. "Strawberry... I haven't felt like I belonged anywhere. Until now. I wanted you to know that even if I can't beat Strange, I'm staying. Thank you."      Tamamo's final lesson, blessings, have crystallized Loki's grasp of sorcery and made him into a highly versatile support specialist. If, after the preparations for the War of Seven Spheres, he should defeat Strange, then Loki will make a formidable Sorcerer Supreme. And if not, he will be an invaluable member of the Masters, able to swing fights with mastery of fine manipulations of the strings of chance and perception. His grasp of illusions in particular, Strange notes, likely exceed that of the current Sorcerer Supreme.      Strange comes out of the dormitories and down the stone steps with a tray of pizza rolls, as Master Hassan shakes his head and begins pouring wine for the celebration. "So, Lilian and I talked it over, Loki, and we both agree there's no better artifact for you than a certain something. It should be here--oh, shit--"      A shimmering spear with a cherry haft and a sharp, simple tip crashes into the steps bathed in multichromatic light. Strange falls down the stairs, pizza rolls going everywhere, some splattering upon his green Jets sweatshirt. As the tray clatters to the ground, he wipes off piping-hot roll-sauce. "Ow."      "Is that..."      "Yup. He wanted me to tell you how proud he was. Your dad's... got a hell of a throwing arm for a guy his age."      "That he does."
Kale Hearthward	DINNER OUT "Perfect," says Kale, to Strawberry. Kale gets Strange (or someone else who can) to open a portal at the appointed hour (well, day)... ... And he returns two hours (or two days) later, a stack of take-out containers in hand, and his makeup a bit smudged. "Thank you," he says to Strange, and hands him a handwritten thank-you note from Zephyr with an attached gift card to the restaurant they were at. STRAWBERRY PRINCESS "- And I got him to agree, *finally*, to take that vacation... I'm thinking a nice cruise somewhere, give us finally just some alone time, and keep him away from his tools." The date went swimmingly, apparently. It's all Kale can talk about, during their next makeup tutorial session. (It's a journey, not a destination.) "... So how about your relationship situation? I don't think I've heard how well you're doing on the dating scene." LILIAN Being on the business end of Lilian's approval is terrifying, and Kale avoids her for about a day after that. Still, it ends up working out.
Strawberry Princess	Strawberry looks up from her personalized PlayBrick at Lilian. Her mouth opens; for a moment it looks like she's about to answer instinctively, but somehow she recognizes the unspoken weight those questions have, and her lips shut again in a thoughtful smile. She pats the couch next to her, signaling for Lilian to sit down.      "A good game will always give you a way to keep going," Strawberry says. "But sometimes the game isn't designed right, or it's unfair, and there just isn't a way through. Sometimes to keep playing, you have to cheat."      "If you cheat when things are just really hard, you'll never grow. Because doing hard things is what makes you better. But if you're sure that it's really, actually impossible- I don't think there's anything wrong with cheating then."      In response to the second question, Strawberry tilts the PlayBrick towards Lilian, letting her see the screen. It's some kind of farming simulator game, like a Harvest Moon.      "An NPC is..." How did I explain this to Blueberry? "... someone who can't do all the things we can do. Who has to live in that world we just visit, and can't just press buttons to do things like we can."      Strawberry's character stands in front of a tree. She presses the A button, and her character climbs the tree with a simple animation and throws down a kite. A purple-haired NPC picks it up and emotes with a heart.          "Thank you, STRAWBERRY! My son got that          KITE from his father, you know..."      "... But they still have their own stories. You know? Even if those stories are sometimes really small. So I like- you know, getting to be nice to them. If you treat them like they don't matter, the game stops meaning anything."
Tamamo	Strawberry (and Archer):     "Oh, of course," Tamamo says to Strawberry, when asked. "I had wondered, on the first day, what tools they might have, and though there is nothing quite so convenient as Lilian's kitchen," there is a slight hesitation, as if it took a quarter-moment to remember whose kitchen it was, "everything wholly necessary is present, and I can recall making do with far less, in that previous era. There is something calming in 'creation,' no? To construct something with your own hands, especially a thing of value." Cheerfully, "Cinnamon rolls, for example."     Though another bad movie -- nay, a truly, bafflingly atrocious movie -- is already beginning while she keeps talking, Tamamo adds, "I shall be glad to have your company. You may borrow my spare apron, if you wish. I may, on occasion, wish I had more than only the two hands. To take on some useful craft is worthy of consideration for all, and who does not find good food to be of use? By this I mean, it is good of you to think of it."     She may or may not seek out Archer, Strawberry in tow, depending on how open the former is about his kitchen time.
Tamamo	Movie night:     Though perhaps not terribly important to many, some things about Tamamo's character might be guessed from these times, or at least, of her tastes. She's easily impressed by martial artists and practical stunts, but hardly ever by visual effects. She'll continue talking long afterward about characters who behaved nobly under tragedy or were beset by a cruelly undeserved fate, but she's almost impatient for casts of terrible people to receive their come-uppance. Mixed-genre flicks like romantic-dramedies confuse her, as she expects to take either all of a story seriously, or none of it, and lead her to question, at one point, "Was it written by several storytellers, in turn, and then stitched together, perhaps?" Lilian:     Japanese foxes are known for their disguises. This seems to manifest in Tamamo only in her impressively varied wardrobe, but that's still something to keep Lilian's artistic pursuit one with nothing approaching a shortage of material, even excepting her focus on 'motion,' and that Tamamo does spare effort to try many different things over the course of the year.     What happens just at midnight, and what exactly it is that Lilian is putting herself through will remain a secret. It's clear, to anyone sufficiently nosy so as to notice any deterioration in health, that Lilian is as well as can be when she next leaves. Tamamo's power over health and remedy are surpassing powerful, though they can't prevent a sufficiently determined mage from putting herself back into a state from which she again needs support.     How Tamamo reacts to this, beyond fulfilling every request given her, may be questionable. With no army of maids, she takes it upon herself to start picking up after Lilian, to ask only for minimal direction and then to sort her things, to come to her with fresh-cooked food and so, naturally, prod her for when she's eaten. Taking things upon herself is somehow easier than reminding another that they should be done. In short, Tamamo increasingly aggressively moms at Lilian as time progresses, not appearing to mind how much time this takes up.     Given what Lilian's own mother is like, that may not at all be the connection she makes with the shift in behavior.
Tamamo	Master Hassan:     She's hardly, herself, a vintner, but Tamamo knows plenty about the older history and use of sake, and is happy to talk about it at length. "It was, in my prior life, the temples that made the most drink, did you know? Oh, the priests thought it well-suited to their ceremony, but it is a curious thing, to ask whether it could be sacred, if it is the same drink use in ceremony at the shrines, in ceremony of the emperor's court, and by the man stumbling down the street, loud in the night."     She doesn't have many stories about drunkards on the street, but it turns out, if one cares to listen, that she has plenty of stories of court nobles who drank more than strict adherence to ceremony would require of them. She can talk, further, about the sorts of barrels used, the sort of rice, which differ from the kinds used for eating, the broad strokes differences of preparation, the desired styles of appearance, a comparison of the tasting palate against wine and beer, and basically anything else a discerning consumer would like to know.     What she does trade or leave with him comes, exclusively, from the Japan of Lilian's world, wherein some people are very proud of having maintained their traditional methods. Graduation:     "It seems strange," Tamamo asides to Lilian, "to think of having raised one already so aged, and in such a short time, does it not? And yet, I feel some pride in what we have accomplished. Certainly, Dr. Strange appears pleased with the results of our lessons, and I should expect him to most know of whether one has become a proper sorcerer."     To Loki, Tamamo affords a warm smile. Her affinities make her very good at beaming warmly. "You have done much, and deserve pride in that accomplishment. Other tests remain for you, but that is the way of all who live, is it not? I shall give you my own blessing, this day, that you find success in what shall be set before you. I did enjoy my time, here in Kamar-Taj. You shall not want for allies, I think."     She does mean a 'blessing' in the more than well-wishing sense. A tug onto the strings of Fate by Tamamo no Mae is no trivial matter, though by Strange's dire, if ambiguous, warnings, it could be no trivial thing that had called them all here, for that matter.
Strawberry Princess	Kale's giddy energy fills Strawberry with a similar glow, even if he's a nonstop chatterbox. She knows exactly how to feed his enthusiasm and keep him talking, too: "You think he likes the work that much? Or he just does it because... he doesn't know how to take a break?"      She grimaces and freezes in response to his question, but tries to pass it off as tensing her face for the makeup.      "I... there are a couple of people I like," she admits after a moment to gather herself. "That I like a lot, actually. But... I don't think I'm ready for it yet. For the emotional part. You know?" Not again. "That can't... it wouldn't be fair to them. And it scares me, too."      ----      Strawberry and Loki once again, maybe for the last time, share a rooftop. The sunsets here have always been pretty, but this one feels symbolic: the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another. She gives him a warm, bittersweet smile, habitually touching her temple's scar.      When was the last time I felt at home somewhere? ... The Reignition Project headquarters is close, but not exactly the same.      "Kamar-Taj is a really good place to call home, Mr. Laufeyson," she says softly. "I don't... I wouldn't know the whole story. And I'm not gonna ask. But your family- you had some problems with them, didn't you?"      "People like you... deserve to belong somewhere more than anybody. So that really warms my heart."      Her hand rests on his shoulder as the stars come out.
Strawberry Princess	Over the course of the last year, she's gotten somewhat better at decoding Tamamo's manner of speech, but there's still a noticeable gap between when Tamamo stops talking and when comprehension flashes in Strawberry's eyes. "Yeah. I've never... none of my hobbies have really been about making things. It seems- fulfilling? So I want to try it. ... And I like seeing people happy because of my work, too."      Strawberry is, naturally, especially good for fetching things off high shelves. Tamamo will quickly notice that her main deficiency is an inability to intuit what things will taste good or bad- she's quick, industrious, and good at following directions, but can't improvise or tweak for the life of her.      The main reason for that is just shallow experience- Strawberry's so used to meager, sad foods that she has trouble thinking in terms of more complex flavors, let alone knowing what spices contribute which notes. It'll be hard to expand her awareness, but doable.      ----      Right after helping Tamamo with one meal, she ducks out to practice on Lilian's shooting range. The novelty of getting to use her beam- even in limited fashion- without the looming threat of a monster or the strict confines of a testing environment is something novel to Strawberry, and she starts eagerly playing around (and showing off) with that pencil-thin beam of near- blinding pink-white light.      Before she fires for a trick shot, her eyes quickly scan the path where it'll go, obviously visualizing its future path. In the process of firing it, she twists her arm or flicks her wrist in some way that vaguely suggests the trick being performed, although this is more likely a kinesthetic aid than a true necessity- the movements are too coarse to directly produce such a fine result.      With a moment's focus, she's able to twist the beam into four right-angled turns, weaving around an imaginary obstacle before returning to its original trajectory and striking the target. Another technique involves diffracting the beam like a shotgun blast, only for each mini-laser to converge back on the target from different angles, making evasion near-impossible.      "It's perfect," she says offhandedly to Lilian, still- of course- absentmindedly wearing Tamamo's spare apron. "My hands aren't even sunburned. I don't... you're amazing. And you're not allowed to say anything like 'I know~'! I really, really mean it."
Lilian Rook	AWAY:     In order to thank those who have made her stay the most pleasant, and being unable to outsource said thanks through prodigious quantities of shopping, Lilian spends her free time during the last couple of weeks of subjective stay on people around Kamar-Taj.     Near the forest, Lilian has successfully transplanted a number of rare and slow-growing flowering plants of the variety that get used in a lot of magic --which she probably was-- or get used for things Master Wong will have to put in a medicine cabinet for.     She also goes through a lot of very traditional hallowing procedures for a sub-yard for Hassan to try growing for Tamamo's recommendation, leaves a proper copy of her own notes, theorems, and one completely decoded cipher from That One Book In The Back with the library, now that she's done scouring their resource, and also says they can just keep the microwave relay she'd gone and installed for her own use along with a less shitty router at one point from the back of a Global Village manual, in one particular fit of entitled first world frustration.     FOREST:     There is also the matter of that extremely spooky grove. Most of it is now very pretty. A trio of perfect circle clearings connected in twisted triangular fashion, split by a natural arch and filled with pretty flowers and butterflies and strange energies that induce or intensify prophecy. Significantly deeper in, off even the barely beaten path she'd created, she also regretfully informs that there is a circle of standing stones that everyone should leave alone and forget about. Just don't touch them. When asked why she left them there, Lilian says that she tried and 'can't get rid of them' and leaves it chillingly at that.
Lilian Rook	STRAWBERRY:     Lilian had certainly asked those questions casually; as someone who has never grown up in the culture of kids at school playing with gameboys or smart phones, her amateurish unfamiliarity is entirely honest, and she is reluctant to directly engage with people over anything she isn't great at. However, upon sitting down, she absorbs Strawberry's earnest, if somewhat abstract, explanation with the air of someone decoding the plot of an especially complex play before them.     Leaning over the screen, Lilian's eyes fall on the NPC's purple coded sprite, and she makes a strange, distracted smile. "I wonder if she has a son by now too." she thinks out loud, without elaborating.     But her take on Strawberry's magic practice is the same as before: "You're more than welcome to it. It's yours by right; you always deserved it."     TAMAMO:     Outside of collecting an entire mobage's worth of Tamamo artwork, Lilian eventually, miraculously, comes to the independent realization that, four months after Tamamo was already doing it, she is being intensely looked after in a way that she'd rather overlooked, and promises her a `special thanks` later. She has also become significantly more adept at what Tamamo had first shown her a while ago, just by following what she's been teaching Loki as well.     Thankfully, Tamamo is spared any associations with Alison Rook, because she has never spent more than four hours around Lilian at a time, never mind bring her food or look after the house. In a private moment, Lilian even admits that it's going to be hard to go back to normal after.     LOKI:     Lilian saves her graduating speech for his very well-earned last day, and then as is apparently traditional, leaves him with a hand-carved token of `north iron` with a triskelion on one side and the jera rune on the reverse, hole bored for a thread or chain. She also promises that if Strange 'somehow lucks out' and wins, that she can probably find him an 'even cushier' position, easily. This is rather well-timed with the deployment of her perfectly arranged gift, like a punctuation mark to her bold claim. Her heartfelt words are that, even if the Challenge has to be fair, she's personally done her best in hopes that he makes it.