The twenty-two doors wreathing the outer wall of the auditorium simultaneously closed of their own accord precisely as the clock struck the designated time, the sudden gloom betrothed upon the chamber quickly distilled by the ignition of candles circling the parameter. If, for whatever reason, a selected pupil was too inept to arrive before the elected commencement, they would find the doors sealed, with no means of entry possible.

Four dozen rows formed a tapered ring around the center stage, offering those who occupied the massive room an excellent vantage point to witness the teachings and lectures that often took place thereupon. Seats were plush and covered with burgundy velvet, the rows spaced with enough room to accommodate even those students who had numerous appendages. Apart from for the dim linger of the surrounding candlelight the room was bathed in shadow throughout its bowl shaped construction, though the central dais was illuminated by a lavender luminosity that descended from an untraceable spot up high.

It was ominously fascinating.

A low tumble of whispers and murmurs wafted along the assembled body, the natural unease born of the grave chamber opposed by nervous chatter. Such pointless prattle ended as the robed figure ascended the steps of the stage and took his place upon it, and though his features may have been hidden by the shroud of wizardly vestments that enveloped his body and concealed his face, there was no denying the power that exuded from the Mastema of the Institute, Arkon Daraul.

Once silence had strangled out the volume of the anxious crowd, the Dark Mage lifted his hands waist high and expelled a dose of magic, beginning a staid drift upward. He levitated easily, offering no other movement save for the mindless drift of his robes as he floated through the air, and hung suspended without aid more than thirty feet off the ground, his fixture as the centerpiece of the assembly suddenly timeless and undeniable.

"Students." He began, his antiquated tone magically amplified to ensure that his even volume was heard by all in attendance. "You have been chosen to participate in this semesters opening Excavation Challenge. Through the course of the year there shall be several competitions that you are encouraged to participate in, this being the preliminary one. I wish you luck and success.

"The pamphlets you received at the door breakdown the rules and regulations involved in this particular challenge, ranging from base equipment to more advanced items if they are available. I highly recommend you study this literature as you may find a number of its suggestions immensely helpful. If you have any questions, I would urge you to seek out your unit overseer and request assistance. As with all magic, knowledge and understanding are the keys to power and success.

"Students have been divided into units, or squadrons, and these units have been broken into teams. As you can see, there are more than a dozen different units that encompass the challenge, so make sure that you are aware of which team you are a part of. There is also a breakdown of both units and teams near the back of the pamphlet. I advise you to remember that while you are separated into teams, it is the unit's success that will determine your triumph. For example, the members of the Viper Fang unit may wish to pit themselves against one another naturally, but that needs to subside for this challenge, as the team members of Shatter Stone, Storm Sabre, and Gorgon Horn will only benefit from their infighting."

Arkon paused and let the droll permeate lightly through the crowd, feeling the excitement starting to simmer within all of those gathered. He permitted their energized murmurs momentarily before raising his hand and silencing them once more.

"As I call each unit's name, Overseers shall proceed to the dais so that they may acquire their observation Orb. These orbs are to be embedded near or around one of the populated structures you find along the way. They will activate automatically. All that is required of you is to bury them."

Names were called, and one by one those who were the Overseers of their respective units descended to acquire their Observation Orbs; each team making up the unit awarded one.

Storm Sabres' Overseer, Fleur Rousseau, was one of them.

Tiatari - Team Leader
Albion - Second in Command
Quillyan
Vliss
Blizzard

Like everything else in her life, Tiatari had studied. Not only had she spent hours determining all that she could about the location of her team's assignment, but she had also spent as much time analyzing her team. It had not escaped her notice that she had been given the two students wrestling with the dubious title of Student Most Likely to Wash Out. Nor had she overlooked the addition of her lover's ex-girlfriend.

She was being tested.

But for Tiatari Blayne, Marchioness of Kincardine, being tested was simply a way of life.

She might not have participated in many of Fleur Rousseau's planned "Get to know one another" events but that had not stalled her own research into her team's strengths and weaknesses.

"No Lights." She hissed once through the gates, "As this will only draw unwanted attention to us."

A whispered incantation, drawn from transmutation, and her team would feel the odd tingle of arcane energies drift across their eyes...seconds later they would be able to penetrate the gloom with their newly granted darkvision.

"Blizzard your job is protection. As an abjurist you are responsible for maintaining a shield at all times. Vliss you're our connection to the lands. Find a way, be able to tell me what we're heading into. Quillyan, you possess the orb. And Albion." She nodded, he knew his role, she'd come to him the night before their departure. He was her Ace. Second in command in more than just title. It was his job to keep her informed, to advise, to step up and take over should she fall.

She sent one last glance over her assembled team: Giving Quillyan the orb had been a gamble, but she wasn't known for gambling.

No. Everything she did had a purpose. And this test would withstand she was certain.

Despite her chaotic personality, Quillyan considered herself quite adept at managing one thing: expectations.

Set the precious assumptions of others? rightly, and you never disappointed - instead, every success bestowed a pleasant surprise, and every deficit merely fulfilled a prediction. The ire of others, upon the inevitable failure, was doubtlessly lessened by the self-congratulatory acknowledgement of their own correct presumptions.

In short, everyone liked to be right.

So when Tiatari gave her the orb, Quilly?s shock was doubled. Not only had the Primorus Discipulus acted contrarily to her carefully-crafted facade of haphazard, but Quilly?s own tidy expectations had been quite readily disrupted by the trust of the senior student.

Her bewildered reply to the assignment, a desperate ?are-you-certain,? died from lack of breath and never passed her lips. She merely nodded.

And now, the ebon nothingness of Krangath.

With the stillness, the sharpness, and the deathly darkness, her emotions swelled unpredictably: fear, excitement, and resolve. Surely something - anything - would be better than this nothing. The arcane sight and the silence, while welcome, only served to intensify her anticipation.

She was ready.

Ablion?s hesitant smile offered a renewed resolve, and reflexively, she returned the brief expression. Above all else, she trusted her roommate: not only his vast and carefully-collected knowledge, but also his instinct. If he could smile, then so could she.

As she retraced his line of vision to the pinpricks of light in the distance, the levity drained from her countenance. ?Melif,? she echoed, recalling a sparse assortment of vague facts obtained from the texts he had left in their shared room. She was suddenly aware of the weight of the orb, tucked in the pouch at her hip, it?s figurative burden pressing heavily at the strap that passed diagonally across her torso.

Her gaze cut to Vliss and Blizzard, assessing their resolve. Both persons she had quietly admired for strength of personality, but now the concern gnawed at her psyche: would the team?s forceful wills morph into division?

She drew a deep breath and steeled herself. Team Alpha was lead by some of the best minds in the school, and if they weren?t successful...

?Ready,? said she.

He came through with the others, the dread of the land instantly felt upon his shoulders. Never had he been to a place so completely infected with lifelessness. It seemed that the very air was dead.

"Got it." He answered Tiatari, a series of different protection spells spinning through his mind. Though still a neophyte he felt confident in what he had mastered up to that point, thanks mostly to Fleur Rousseau, who had taken time away from her grueling schedule to assist in his learning struggles.

Still, amongst all those incantations that flowed through his mind he couldn't help but glance down at his hands, adorned with the fingerless gloves of a fighter. He would rely on them and his other instincts if push came to shove, though he wasn't sure how useful they would be against the monstrous Yugoloths who occupied Gehenna.

Focused, he moved forward, passing Vliss and dropping his hand to her shoulder as he heard her stricken voice convey the influence of the bleak realm, if for nothing else than to inspire in her a sense of strength in their numbers. The hand slipped away and he took a spot just behind Tiatari's left shoulder.

"Protection spells are ready."

Her eyes, a soft dove-grey, turned warm and delicate upon her companions. And for a moment it seemed as if the Primorus Discipulus was about to give them sweet words of encouragement and then the pools turned silver, electricity crackling dangerously within the depths of her gaze and warning of the power that she held in check.

"Vliss. Focus." A sharp snap that brooked no argument. "You're allowing the undead to overcome you. The creature that we search for is living and breathing."

Impatience was fierce and she turned toward Blizzard, "Your primary focus is Quillyan. She is the bearer of the Orb and if she falls you have failed, Abjurist." The bestowal of the title rang with almost a ceremonial finality.

"While we wait for Vliss to get the lock on the creature we journey toward the tower to place the orb."

"Albion take point. Blizzard you take the rear. Quillyan stay in the middle of the group at all times."

In the complex tapestry of interaction, where threads of others? emotions often affect the color and character of our own, Vliss?s distress unpredictably afforded Quillyan a reinforced calm and a surging confidence: at the very least, she wasn?t the most nervous of the group. As the others offered the Elementalist varying degrees of encouragement, an ambiguous smile tugged the corner of her lips, for it was easier to focus on Vliss? concerns than her own.

Until, of course, the impact of Tiatari?s terse instructions melted past her momentary preoccupation. The others were moving; they were taking their positions, and so should she, though it was only a step or two that put her squarely in the center of the team.

A deep breath of dead air rejuvenated her sense of honed anticipation, though her focus, shifting within the ridiculous tempest of teenage emotion, broke upon Albion?s transformation.

?Oh my gosh, Alb, that spell rocks!? she exclaimed, followed with a valiant attempt to repress a giggle at her own wordplay. ?Sorry, I?m just cracking myself up here.? More giggles, less adeptly repressed, doubtlessly earning her a well-deserved sharp look or two.

Deep breath, focus. Start reviewing those spells.

She glanced back at Blizzard, catching his eye at muttering wryly: ?You heard what the team leader said, Bliz. Don?t let me di ---? The word strangled in her throat as her guilty gaze turned toward Vliss.

It was really time to shut up.

Oh, and while you're at it, could you balance the weight of the world and the success of our mission on your shoulders? Thanks.

That was what he heard along with Tiatari's order to oversee the Orbwielder. Luckily for him - well, for them all really - that Fleur was a phenomenal teacher and had instructed him in a variety of different defensive spells. As he moved around the members of the group to assume his post, he recounted those castings. Some he was very good at, others he struggled with immensely. He had to stay focused if this was going to work. The last thing he wanted was to be the guy who let the girl holding the Orb die. The return home wouldn't exactly be joyful.

He shot Quilly a lavender glance from beneath the raven hue of razored bangs, a small grin and a nod following just a moment later. He couldn't show her he was unnerved. He was suppose to protect her. The last thing he needed was her worried about him.

Speaking of worried, Blizzard was worried about Vliss. He didn't know her well, but knew her. Everyone did. She seemed so bothered just by being upon that dark plane, and in return he felt helpless, unable to offer any support. She had died and returned, and now here she was facing mortal peril again. He couldn't compete with that. Hell, he didn't even let the thought of dying into his mind, and yet there she stood, a very real example of how such things could go very wrong.

He cleared his throat and recited a soft spell, hoping the Earth Elementalist didn't mind as a thin and intangible coating of Mage Armor covered her.

"Keep moving people!" Her voice strained with the power it took to shout through the maelstrom she had summoned. The electrically charged storm was lashing the landscape like a temperamental toddler angry with its toys. Bodies flung in all directions and screams rent the sky.

Ozone seared the eyes and the noses with its acridness as the Primorus Discipulus forcefully drove the lightning about wildly. "We're almost to the tower!" She tried to be overheard through the noise.

"I need that orb placed" Her hair whipped in static induced charge all about her and she somehow managed to keep running while she cast, though it was more of a stumble backwards. A few of the creatures were getting through and she hoped her companions were ready for she concentrated on keeping the majority at bay. "NOW!"

Jests were a distant memory at the first sight of the unearthly warriors. The marks of her personality, usually so evident in the pleasant set of animated features, wasted into the blankness of her fixation. Nothing. No her, just there: The Tower.

Steady, focused, and progressing: her goal loomed beyond the pandemonium, eerily illuminated in the shocking flashes of lightening. Stealth was her ally as she raced though the bouts of sparring bodies that slipped through Tia?s defenses. Quillyan endeavored to fight none; she needed to arrive at the Tower with enough time to bury to orb without attracting the attention of the denizens of Krangath.

And it seemed to be working: Tiatari?s tempest and Albion?s offense were producing a spectacular show, and the creatures flocked.

Above all, she needed the ground to surrender itself to the orb, and as lean legs propelled her through the chaotic darkness, she initiated the spell to draw the earth upwards, her eyes fixed deliberately on an exposed edge of the tower.

All she would need to do is drop the orb into the waiting hole, cast the spell to reverse the upheaval of soil, circle the tower, and return to her companions. Unnoticed.

A ferocious howl split the air nearby, and she prayed Blizzard was close.

He had been caught up in the horde when Quillyan slipped away, a lifetime of physical prowess suddenly futile in regards to the ferocious Daemons. Spells were expended in rapid succession, peppering the oncoming mass with balls of lightning and frost just moments before Vliss' s earth wave rocked them and swallowed them up.

With a victorious smile he turned to Earth Elementalist and shot her a wink, though this merriment quickly faded as he realized the Orb Wielder was no longer among them. He turned and started around the base of the complex, spells at the ready in case he came across anything determined to stop him.

All was clear, almost.

As Quillyan came into view he could see that not fifteen feet from her a rampaging combatant was racing at her back, steel mask contorted in demonic glory as growls and grunts expelled in excited glee at spilling her blood. He wouldn't make it in time, and knew that if he were to shout at her the best he could hope to do was get the Novitiate's attention before the beast slashed her in half with his cruelly edged sword.

He couldn't make it to Quillyan, but he could see her, which meant that he had options. Reciting the first spell that came to mind, he encircled her in a transparent sphere that would defend against most physical attacks, absorbing the damage intending to harm her, up to a point. It would break when the impact became too severe, but it would at least offer her protection.

He looked around wanting something to hurl to get the creatures attention, but all he found was stones and chunks of rock on the ground. What he wouldn't give for one of Albion's magic stones.

And it was that thought that opened up the doorway to a series of considerations. He didn't have one of Albion's stones, but that didn't mean the same principle couldn't be applied. He scooped up one of the rocks and with everything he could muster launched it at the warrior, hoping that his aim was true as magic expelled from his lips, the breath used to cast the magic suddenly igniting with the strength of a raging tempest, adding a violent speed to the travel of the rock.

With a sickening DONG!! it struck the Daemon in the head and dented its facemask, tripping it up to send it crashing forward. It rolled a few times before flattening out upon the ground, where it laid for a moment as it gathered its bearings. It wasn't dead, but much easier to finish off.

Maybe he was learning a thing or two.

He arrived just as the adversary was pushing up to its knees and Blizzard took up its own sword and drove it into the creature's chest. It roared from behind that iron veil and spasmed violently before crumbling back to writhe and die.

Gasping, the strong width of his chest rising and falling , he looked over his shoulder at Quillyan. "Hurry up. We gotta get out of here."

It was chaos and a part of her thrilled to the challenge. She was wielding a multitude of spells and was weaving together a masterpiece of casting.

The grin that curved her lips at the frightening sight of the Nycaloth would later be recounted as a glimmer of insanity. She shouted a ringing condemnation for her incantation, writhing her body in a shield of electricity that protected her from touch. Her hair floated above her shoulders as the charge carried it into a hazy cloud of metallic hued silk and her eyes, her eyes bled silver.

Lightning bolts slammed into the ground before the two beasts that had split from their master. Hard enough to explode the terrain into a splattering of dust and dirt. The heat and light alone were enough to kill mortal creatures where they stood.

But her attention remained on the one in the center.

A hand lashed out and the explosion of mana poured from her spread fingers, a dark inky blast of shadowy substance. A gift from the Mastema. A spell so potent that it tarnished the soul to use it.

It was a purr of excitement that left her lips at the malevolent aura that the spell created as she sought to crush the very essence of life from the yugoloth in the middle.

Far worse than any of the casting she summoned was her laugh. A cackling sound of pure glee it answered the baying yell of her charging foe.