Young Writers Society

Lumi was lain back against a meadowesque hillside on the outskirts of YWS City. It was a warm, balmy day--since Nate had programmed the YWS Weather machine to never, ever includes any adjectives besides warm and balmy--and thought to himself:



The rectangle seated on his belly, his yPhone 6, began to ding-dah-ding-dah-dah-ding-dah as yPhone 6s do. You know, the kind like


Yeah, that took a while to figure out for him, too. Dubstep regardless, he picked up the excellent rectangle and scanned the message on the screen.

Lumi's yPhone or Something wrote:@Rydia: I was just walking by the Font Color Market in the chat district and the ground shook.
@AstralHunter: T'wasn't me, Captain. We all know that all earthquakes have to be admin-approved by at least a 3/5 vote!
@Holofernes: guys it is literally four in the morning why am I even in this group message
@TheClockworkConjurer: Who added Holofernes to our group text?
@Omni: WHO DO YOU THINK I MEAN PLS
@Omni: Sorry, capslock.
@Auxiira: It was probably Lupus
@Auxiira: Luscious
@Auxiira: Lumber
@Auxiira: L U M I

He squinted in the bright sunlight and sat up, staring off into the city where, at the center, the chat room stood as the prized fruit basket in the middle of the whole YWS table.

The most logical answer was that Nate was attempting an overhaul of the chat client. But, if Lumi thought on it, he hadn't done that in over a year...so why start now? He stood and brushed the blades of grass from his leather jacket--and then stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the city. He would start an investigation.

No!

An adventure.

A Chat Room Adventure.

Sunglasses on his face and SPF 600 Sunblock on his nose, he took to his hovering skateboard and whooshed down the hill towards the city. He would start with @Chibibo and @Rosendorn. When he'd left them, they'd been dabbling with the balance between jokes and drama in a good novel. There had to be some kind of action there.

He held up his excellent rectangle and texted the group:

Lumi's yPhone or Something wrote:@Lumi: I'm launching an adventigation. All of you should do the same.

To which @MagnificentBastard replied:

Lumi's yPhone or Something wrote:@MagnificentBastard: Sounds like a chance for a redemption story for characters with so many flaws that the reader feels bad for not empathizing with them! Well, I mean it's not like those people are the first to blame because of their flaws; because they're not. What's important is to remember that every character has a certain set of flaws and redeeming qualities, and it's the balance on the three-dimensional spectrum that makes them lovable and relevant. So yes, I'll start my investigation with them, but don't you think for one second that it's because they're lesser characters just because they're on the dark side. Twincest can be forgiven if it's backed by true love, and not one of you can argue against that! Not that you would, I mean. I hold the keys to your powers, and I could take them away at a moment's notice. See? Even though I have a character flaw, you still love me. Anyway, I'll start with @Verser and @15253. They have to know something.

@Auxiira: I didn't read that because WOW, but I'll grab @Craz and start looking for leads.

@SpiritedWolfe: Remind me later to talk to you about character excess, Aria. In the meantime, I'll check with newer storybookers. Maybe they've seen something and haven't spoken up.

@ReisePiecey: I haven't had a single line of dialogue in this post yet, and frankly I find that VERY on fence dive.

@ReisePiecey: Offensive, even.

Lumi closed his messages and flicked on his music player, then scrolled to the only song appropriate to start an adventure on a skateboard.

Three, two, one.

Holofernes rolled out of bed at a point in time definitely after four am.

He checked his phone blearily. 868 notifications. He didn't bother to read them. He noticed @BiscuitsBatchAvoy sent him a message too. It said

Lou Lou have you been reading the chat group? Lumi headed out earlier to investigate an earthquake, but he's vanished. Hasn't posted in hours.

Holofernes rolled around until he could even.

Dressed and ready to venture out into the beautiful outside world, he spent more time staring at his phone's screen. Something had to be done. Church assemblies everyone needed Lumi's crazy piano modulations.

He wrote:

@BiscuitsBatchAvoy and @GavintheLawyerCat, we've got to find Lumi. Head over to the Cloak and Quill Cafe asap. I know @AdrianMoon and their friends work there. They're quite knowledgeable about the inner workings of Chat.

Holofernes determined he needed a hipster hat before venturing to the Cloak and Quill. He hoped this would allow him to obtain information reserved for trusted clientele more easily.

"Hum hum your adventure begins brass section friendship bravery something".

BiscuitsBatchAvoy raised her eyebrow at @Holofernes' hat. It looked like something Robin Hood would wear. And not the brave, strong Robin Hood -- the French, stereotypically camp Robin Hood from the original Shrek movie.

you're such a hipster, Lou ¬_¬

and you're a social justice warrior. unsheathe the sword of justice and let's go find Lumi

Biscuits sighed and ambled through to the cloakroom side of the cafe. She found @DeeDemesne sitting at a table with a Dungeonmaster manual and a couple of character figures.

hey dd, you up for a quest?

sure! what's up?

We can't find Lumi. Any ideas?

Well, if you can't find him, maybe he doesn't want to be found. If that's the case, I'd suggest SD&D, since nobody ever goes there unless they wish to cry endlessly for the rest of the day.

Biscuits frowned. Why wouldn't Lumi want to be found? There was probably some thought that should be put to this, but she had some more mocking planned for Lou's hat, and she wanted to get back to it soon ... meh, it'd be fine.

Cheers, DD, see ya later!

DD rolled a d20, glanced at his manual, then looked up and said -- good luck!

Biscuits nipped back through to find Lou.

DD suggested SD&D

Lou shuddered. fiiine >.>

As they set off, Biscuits yanked @GavintheLawyerCat out of his basket and dragged him along with them. Lou spotted @carbonCore and flicked him on the back of the head, but kept walking.

if he can be bothered, he'll follow eventually. if not,
shrug.

I feel like we're off to see the Wizard, the Lawyercat mused.

the Wizard would have a less stupid hat than Lou...

All was Bright when the blindfold was yanked from Lumi's eyes. But it wasn't sunlight-bright. No. This was Advanced Brightness. The light moved, retracted, turned. Lumi found himself staring at his feet, restricted back in a dentist's chair, wrists and ankles bound as per trope decree.

"It's so nice to find you awake, Young Padawan."

Lumi narrowed his eyelids. "@Jolt?"

The shadowy, looming figure froze and coughed, and then resumed his monologue. "You ventured into my spider web, an insect searching for sweet nectar." A low cackle rolled in what was definitely @Jolt's throat. "But what you didn't know is that Danny deVito has already cleaned out the nectar buffet...and what is left, you ask?"

He turned, and the gust of his movement made his sleeves fan out like a cloak behind him. It was admittedly pretty gosh darn awesome.

"What is left is the decaying corpse of the movie business, Lumi. The cold, shambling zombie that was once Fast and Furious, but now is neither! Mike isn't so Magic now, wouldn't you say?"

Again, Lumi narrowed his gaze. "Who is Mike?"

"Silence!" Jolt shoved an extra spicy Dorito in Lumi's mouth and folded his hands behind his back as sweat droplets pooled on his face. "We're going to tear down the establishment...and you're going to help us."

Lumi swallowed the Dorito and really, really wanted some Mountain Dew. But then he remembered that he had hit a soda detox and thought of how disappointed @StellaThomas would be in him if he caved. But the malicious dentist was still monologuing. When Lumi zoned back in, he was almost finished.

"And only then will the Academy truly come to appreciate the gold-value of di Caprio and Back To The Future!" His fist was shaking.

"So you just want to break the chatroom, yeah?"

Jolt shrugged. "More or less, yes."

"Fine, fine. But I'll need my partner."

"Your partner? And who would that be?"

The camera zoomed in on Lumi's face a bit too closely so that it was centered on his nose instead of mouth, but then the director pointed this out and the cameraman moved the pan so that the viewer could read his lips, covered in Dorito dust. "Oh, I think you know who that is."

"Dude, look, if you're trying to rope Lou further into the plot, I think he already has a pretty decent arc going for him as the unexpected demi-hero of your anti-hero narrative. You know it, I know it, we all know it."

"Oh no," Lumi said as he shook his head, "my partner is @chibibo."

Silence fell on the dentist's office as @Jolt considered his proposal. "Oh. Yeah, sure. I wasn't really thinking of objections to your suggestion, but really about our weird lack of female representation in the narrative so far. I mean here, on page three, you have a good thing going with @BiscuitsBatchAvoy and @AdrianMoon, so I think that set of characters will be decently portrayed...but what we need is a woman of power. A woman of Agency."

"Oh. Your BBCode on the last word gave me an idea."

"What's that?"

"Let's just grab @Rydia, m8."

15253 sprawled sleepily on the sidewalk, cardboard boxes stacked to the point of toppling sat on all sides of him. He'd always liked boxes, he didn't know why, they always seemed to mysterious, like how cats found grocery bags mysterious. Maybe he was a cat? Maybe he wa-

The boxes tumbled to the ground, 15253 sat up, wildly trying to restack his prized possessions, then he saw the cause of his problem.

Yooo! Y u do dis! \o3o/

Please speak English. I don't want to waste time deciphering you.

15253 bit his tongue, then found the word he wanted to say,

So uh, what's up?

There was an earthquake today. @Lumi started an adventigation and it just so happens I thought you would know something about this earthquake.

15253 sat for a minute, thinking.

Who's Lumi?

fortis fell out of bed.

She woke up on the floor of a deserted chat room, wrinkling her nose at the small pool of drool she had landed in. I suppose this is what I get for routinely falling asleep in chat, she thought. That is of course why she had decided to bring a bed into chat. Why not just live there, she had thought. She could pretend to be the omnipresent moderator and make the newbs jealous of her sweet comfortable-ness at the same time!

fortis rolled her shoulder where she had fallen on it. It dripped a bit with drool. She normally wasn't one to let gravity win, even in the realms of sleep, so what had caused her to fall out of bed? She glanced around. Apparently she wasn't as alone as she had suspected. fortis noticed @Rydia sitting over by the font color market, looking surprised. It seemed as if she had fallen too!

"Rydia!" fortis called. The Admin looked over and raised her eyebrows as if to say, what? "What just happened?"

Rydia shrugged, an exagerated motion meant to be seen from across the room. "Earthquake?" she yelled back, then whipped out her phone and started texting away. Probably to the group chat fortis was never invited to, but didn't want to make a big deal out of it. It's not like she had a yPhone anyway.

fortis stood up, trying not to notice that she was drenched in drool. An earthquake in chat? That hardly seemed like a possibility. Perhaps she would go visit resources and see if @Arkhaion or @LadySpark had any knowledge on the fault lines in the area.

Arkhaion was, of course, a dragon.

Being a dragon, albeit one that looked startlingly like a teenager, she was naturally attracted to high places—they paused and thought about his pronouns, then settled on "she" for the time being—and the highest place was, of course, on top of the Logo where everything was calm and she could look down on all she owned.

Well, all she owned was a speck of pocket lint, some neat-o gel pens, and a forged deed to @Pompadour's soul, but no one else needed to know that. Especially not @ScarlettFire; that might make the King re-think her position as chat's resident dragon.

At the moment, though, she had no time for worrying about her job stability.

Usually, nothing reached her spire on top of the pencil, but there had been a rather worrying tremor just a minute before, and she could almost swear—the ground wobbled a little again, and she shifted her weight. Yes, the Logo was coming loose; another earthquake, she thought in a rather calculated manner, was sure to bring it crashing down on everything else.

In a rather uncalculated manner, she dropped down from the Logo and landed on the huge bag of sekrit!mini-marshmallows she kept in the very back dusty corner of Resources, along with her old questions. (She couldn't risk her special hot cocoa ingredient being found too easily, after all.)

She rubbed her eyes and yawned, and realized she'd left her yPhone on top of the Logo.

"Ah, drat."

There were Earthquakes happening off schedule (and who in their right mind would want an Earthquake on schedule?) and the air smelled of tingling computer parts and slightly burned tropes.

After shooting off a message to the group chat, it looked like the members were doing what they did best: blowing everything into proportion and setting off on adventigations so that they could say they stood at the center of the trouble and watched.

"Can you smell that?" Rydia asked @fortis as the other moderator turned in the direction of resources. That wasn't where the smell was coming from so Rydia could only assume that Fortis had skipped ahead to the planning stage.

"I'm going to resources, there might be something helpful there."

"Good idea. I'm going to check on the Story Source and make sure nobody's tampered with it."

The two moderators bid each other farewell and set about their very important tasks. Rydia had a long journey ahead of her and began to travel deeply into the heart of YWS, her yPhone clutched lightly into her hand as she tried to track the advancements of the other adventurers.

@Holofernes: Still no contact from Lumi, what do you suppose happened to him?
@Verser: Maybe he found out someone in the group's a double agent and had to go off the grid.
@Tortwag: Why would you even say that? It sounds like something a double agent would say.
@Verser: Does not.
@TinyJarStoredDreams: Does too. Besides, if Lumi was going off the grid surely he would have told us first.

Rydia sighed and slipped her yPhone into her pocket as she reached for the first hand hold of the Mountain of Legends. She was worried about her crew mate but Lumi was a fighter and she knew that wherever he was, he'd be getting to the bottom of these mysterious events.

The Mountain of Legends was a masterpiece of craggy rainbows and scaly dragon tails pouring out of half open books. You had to be careful where you chose to place your feet or you might step on a unicorn's tail or worse... a leprechaun.

Rydia launched herself off the back of a gargoyle and swung herself up onto a ledge with the aid of a narwhal's tusk. As her hand pressed against the bone, the narwhal flickered to life and tried to shake her off, but quickly she swung her legs onto the ledge and released the fearful beast which immediately returned to stone. Thus was the power of the Mountain of Legends, a seemingly well carved mountain which could prove deadly if you touched the wrong legendary beast.

The ledge was a harmless closed book and a good place to stop for a breather. Rydia pulled her yPhone out of her pocket and started to catch up on the messages when her heart gave a quick leap of delight.

@Lumi: I can't tell you where I am or who has me but please, if anyone knows where Rydia is, you've got to tell me.
@Holofernes: Lumi, you're alright! Don't worry, bud, we're coming to rescue you.
@Kyllorac: I just saw @fortis at resources and I think she said Rydia was heading for the Story Source. If you're quick, you should be able to cut her off at the Mountain of Legends.
@Holofernes: Wait... does this mean you don't need rescuing?

There were more messages but none of them were from Lumi and the group seemed to have concluded that his captor had taken his phone away and was even now torturing him for information. Rydia hoped that wasn't actually the case. @Carina had written that she was worried the bad guys might get Rydia's location out of their brave crew mate and said she was heading toward the Story Source in the hope of helping out. Rydia smiled at that - she'd be grateful for the backup.

Sliding the yPhone away once more, Rydia prepared to scale the next part of the mountain when a dark shadow dropped onto the ledge beside her.

"I'm sorry." The voice was familiar and Rydia's heart leapt in delight.

"About what?"

Then Lumi's hand closed over her mouth and with it a pungent cloth. Rydia's eyes widened in disbelief as her world went dark.

Verser Sat in the story source debating whether to spam it to death or to wait until an admin came and kicked him out. Another earthquake shook the ground and verser raised a fist to the sky and said

Make up your mind God \>3</ the checked if anyone had heard him, sure enough a click-clacking sounded in the halls, but as it neared the story source room, it stopped, a second later something hit the ground, @Tortwag walked into the room.

Twagsicles, what choo doin here \o3o/

'' I was just about to spam the story source.'' He replied. Verser cocked his head.

Wut? Tortwag sighed, then spoke again.

''Versey! am gun spam da rooms an do da tings. U go naow /O3O/'' The ''idiot chat speak'' was indeed hard and tortwag stumbled through each word, his face growing redder by the minute. Fortunately, Verser got the gist and turned to leave. Outside, another earthquake shook the room and verser found himself in a crevice. Today, Verser decided, was not going to be a warm balmy day as Lumi had put it a few hours earlier while verser was fourth walling the living hell out of this storybook. And hey, as long as we're fourth walling, Arky! Its time to melt some twagsicles! Get at him \>w</

15253 trundled down the lonely roads heading towards the Chatroom. The blue guy, MagnificentBastard had told him something about this Lumi guy and 15253 was determined to find out, or about as determined as the word "trundled" implied.

Probably should have changed that adjective he thought. But it was to late! What was done was done and he'd have to go all the way to the editing outpost to change what he'd said.

Outside the Chatroom was the usual clamor of people. There was @DeeDemesne who was sitting dormant in a corner as he usually did, @ScarlettFire, and of course @Verser, the resident crapmedian at Chat who was always with his trusty trumpet.

Choo guyz duin .3./

Everyone looked at 15253 like he was insane while Verser waved back.

hai numberz! Thar be erfquakes!

15253 lol'd and trned to da otherz foar confrmationz. Then he realized that no one else spoke idiot and, with an effort, switched to normal English.

So uuhh, anyone know about a guy named Lumi?

Yeah, he's a moderator! You should know this 15!

15253 looked surprised as it was DeeDemesne that had spoken and usually that guy was doing more important things or writing award winning SB's that everyone should check out I think it's called We Walk Alone but yeah.

Last I heard he was around Resources. Maybe he's still there.

Gud Luck Bud!

Shameless promotions aside, 15253 turned and trundled off to Resources, hoping to end this and return to his beloved boxes.

There was, again, light when Lumi removed the blindfold from @Rydia's eyes, revealing her personalized dungeon in a cakeless bakery kitchen sporting portraits of--no, it couldn't be!--ninjas prevailing over pirates in cataclysmic scale. Comparable only to the mural was the shadow of Corrupted Lumi, who seemed to loom more, and had suddenly grown a rather evil goatee.

"It's nice to see you in the waking world, Dungeon Master."

Rydia turned her head to avert her eyes from the mural and stared, instead, at a shelf containing only a rolling pin and three grains of rice. "Never in my years of swashbuckling would I ever have suspected you of treason." Her eyes narrowed. "To think I pranked you so many times." She spat on the floor.

Lumi shook his head and moved to meet her gaze, kneeling down and pulling down the shoulder of his cloak to reveal a new fruit-candy tattoo. One any fan of ancient YWS lore would recognize.

It was the insignia of the Atlantian god.

Rydia's eyes went wide at the sight, and she met Lumi's gaze with shock.

"Please don't judge so quickly." He wasn't being evil. He was soft-gazed. Earnest. Covering his shoulder once more, he buttoned his cloak, which seemed to flow in a way that bespoke a breeze that didn't exist in the stuffy bakery. "This plot is going to get thicker and thicker the further we go in." Lumi shook his head. "I'm talking M. Night Shyamalan levels of ridiculous, unnecessary twists. Turncoats. Resurrected evils." He narrowed his eyes. "Retcons."

Rydia spat. "@Alteran would do no such thing! He...he hated the Last Airbender film!"

Lumi nodded. "It's true. He would never ask us to twist a plot so ridiculously."

Lumi flipped a light switch and caused Rydia to blink as they appeared on the surface of the moon orbiting the YWS planet. Off in the distance, @Griffinkeeper's flagship could be seen approaching internal gravity. "Alteran is just a cog in this big, greasy wheel of chaos. The true villain is someone you would never expect."

Rydia furrowed her brow. "Why don't you just tell me who the villain is so we can wrap things up?"

"I would if I could, but my contract dictates that this Inception-style plot layering goes at least five levels deep."

"Which level is this?"

"Level two."

"Bugger," mumbled Rydia.

Lumi blinked them back onto the warm, balmy planet, into the deserted assembly hall of the Knights of the Green Room.

"If your goal is to turn @Hannah, I can go ahead and tell you she won't--"

"Nope," said Lumi as he crouched on the support beam on which they stood. He held a finger to his lips and nodded to down below where, in the sprawling archives, @Kyllorac sat in a meditative state, absorbing all the knowledge mortally possible.

"Right," groaned Rydia. "If we're going to dive into YWS History, we're going to need an actual historian."

Lumi held out his hand, and in his palm was a fruit snack tattoo in the form of Alteran's insignia. "I would force this on you, but it kinda breaks character for me to do so."

Rydia shrugged and licked the stamp, plopping it down on her tongue. "At first I wasn't going to buy into this mess of a story you have going on, but if we're diving into the lore of Captain Alteran, then consider me on-board."

"Then I suggest we proceed to filming the next scene, which is a katana fight between the two of us and Kyllorac."

"What about the others?"

"@Holofernes and the others have heroic filler missions to complete. It'll take a scene or two."

Rydia nodded. "Then so be it." She nodded to the cameraman, and the two of them leaped from the rafters into a flash of combat, a la Final Fantasy VII.

THERE WAS A GRAY AREA in the Forums section.

It lay between the colorful anarchy of Randomosity Village, where Word Wars of a particular kind were held, unspoken and unacknowledged, but fiercer than anything in Chat; and the festering tar pit that was SD&D, where only the brave or stupid ventured, seeking unlimited glory in combat, but constantly bested by the high level religious nuts and conspiracy theorists.

Holofernes trudged along with @BiscuitsBatchAvoy, who still held @GavintheLawyerCat, more as a lucky charm than anything, now that SD&D loomed.

They passed in silence beneath the obsidian statue of Karzkin, depicted as the Supreme Almighty Defender Champion and Sole Voice of the LGBTQ+-*/. Holofernes looked away as he saw the faces of the hapless bystanders crushed beneath the statue's spiked boots. The look of dismay and confusion on their faces was always too much for him. @BiscuitsBatchAvoy was wide eyed in reverie.

"My sword of justice is tingling," she said.

"Make it go away," Holofernes said. "This storybook is PG-13."

@GavintheLawyerCat yawned.

Soon they reached their destination. It was a hovel surrounded by an arbor of twisted, skeletal trees. In the distance, the fun and laughter of Randomosity could be heard, but it did not reach here. Here was Business.

"What is this place?" @BiscuitsBatchAvoy asked.

"It's where the storybook crew receives visitors," Holofernes replied. "It's a bit dead lately. Wonder why."

"Why would they know about the Wizard?"

"Their mastery over the first stage of mold confers them more knowledge than most. Plus, I know them all. They're cool."

They knocked.

@TheClockworkConjurer opened the door.

"Hi Wizard," Holofernes said, "we're looking for the Wizard."

"Why, you've found one!" he said, adjusting his robes. A frog hopped out of his sleeve. "Or, a former one. I'm more precise now."

"Not you. The other wizard." Holofernes waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Ohhhh. Well, come on in." @TheClockworkConjurer opened the door and motioned Holofernes through.

@BiscuitsBatchAvoy went to follow, but was stopped @TheClockworkConjurer muttered something about clearances and coughed. @BiscuitsBatchAvoy raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

A short while later, Holofernes emerged from the dingy little shack. Chest inflated, he pointed his finger skywards and said:

"Ah, drat." @Arkhaion spat. She was holding a huge bag of mini marshmallows.

"Um, excuse me, Anci," fortis said, not wanting to get between a dragon and her snacks. "Could you help me with something?"

The dragon's head snapped around. She had obviously not noticed fortis's approach. "Uh, yeah sure. What?"

"Well there was a... an earthquake maybe in chat just a little while ago. I was wondering, since you're in resources and all, and have the resources and knowledge to know or find out these kinds of things, if you could tell me if there are any fault lines beneath chat?" fortis gave Anci her best smile. Totally not wavering at all. Not nervous in the slightest that Anci might decide she'd prefer human flesh over the marshmallow-y victims she had curled in her claws. Haha nope.

"Oh yeah, sure," said Anci. "Let me consult the tomes of knowledge I have at my disposal." Anci rolled her eyes back in her head. fortis was vaguely disgusted, but tried not to show it.

Silence.

"That must be a good icebreaker a parties," fortis said, giving an only slightly forced laugh.

"Shh, I'm reading here," said the dragon.

fortis hushed her face.

Soon after, Anci unrolled her eyes. "It took me a while to make sure, but I can find no mention that chat is anywhere near a fault line. It looks like the nearest one is in the FAQ. Which is nowhere near chat."

"Then what was the earthquake I felt?" asked fortis.

"I dunno man," said Anci. "I need to go now. I left my yPhone atop my perch." She looked anxiously up at the logo.

"Okay, I get it," fortis said. "Thanks for the help."

"No problem." Arkhaion took off.

fortis sighed and wondered what she would do next. There was a mystery afoot, and she vowed she would get to the bottom of it. fortis donned her deerstalker hat and whipped out her magnifying glass. She set her computer's color settings to monochrome and decided to go all-out Film Noir!

Verser sat in a crevice at the front of chat as 15253, the only person who spoke his language, walked away. It reminded him of Lord of the Rings except 15253 was a lot dumber and would probably get the job done faster. Verser then took a step back and wondered how many yws'ers he'd just offended, then he shrugged, you couldn't really get worse than crapmedian. On second thought, you could be a treasonous admin. That thought made Verser want to go out and find Lumi for the purpose of laughing like an idiot, then getting kicked by Rydia because.....rules.

Verser climbed out of the crevice and ran after 15253 and the big important looking blue guy.

Hey gais, wait for me! I wanna solve the mysteries an eat the cheerios an stuffs \^3^/ big blue guy rolled his eyes, but 15 threw up his hands.

Bud, les go beat da bad gais! Verser blew a quick note on his trumpet, big blue guy widened his eyes.

Was it that bad? Big blue guy shook his head.

Are you kidding me? That sounded like a wet fart! Verser shared a knowing nod with 15, he was the only one in all the land who could make a trumpet sound like a fart. It was a testament to his skill and he was proud of it, as was no one else. With an effort, Verser switched to proper English.

where are we going? 15 nodded to a big spooky clusterfridge of colors that was the entrance to the forums.

We're going to see the most analytical dissecting knowledgeable powerful keen viable magical....astraly...- 15 was cut off by big blue guy,

Cut to the chase please 15 and verser looked at him blankly

whar da chase o3o? but 15 finally understood.

We're going to see @AstralHunter

All was quiet in the Archives. At least, it was before the pair in the rafters dropped down, causing the battle music to start up as a wild @Rydia and @Lumi appeared wielding extremely photogenic katana.

Kyll was only briefly distracted by the shininess of the blades (because wow were they shiny) before smiling a beatific smile that one only acquires through working with children and leaping into a standing position.

"Excellent!" Kyll beamed even more brightly. "More volunteers!"

With a snap of Kyll's fingers, the battlefield shifted, melting into the curated confines of the Knowledge Base. In the background, glued to their desks, sat @LadySpark, @Hattable, @Lylas, and @AdrianMoon.

Hattable shook a fist at the (not actually engaged in battle yet) battlers. "I unvolunteered for this!"

Kyll smiled more sweetly. "'Unvolunteering' is not a proper word, and proper English is important if you wish to be taken seriously in the professional world."

"But I unvolunteered!"

"Shhh!" said Lylas, making the zip-your-lips motion.

"Don't make Kyll give us even more work," AdrianMoon moaned, head resting on a stack of papers. "I can't math any more."

"Neither can I. I have an itch somewhere I can't scratch that's sooo distracting."

"Did you really have to glue us to the seats?" asked LadySpark. "I volunteered."

"But I unvolunteered!"

"As I already explained, 'unvolunteered' is no--"

"Um." Rydia interrupted. "Excuse me, but aren't we supposed to be fighting a battle?"

"Oh right. I almost forgot." Kyll shifted into a proper fighting stance. "Now where were we?"

"You said something about volunteers," volunteered Lumi.

"That's right!" Kyll cackled. "Excellent! More volunteers! See if you can withstand THIS!"

At "THIS", Kyll's arms flung wide open, revealing voluminous sleeves filled with volumes of volume problems. Indeed, those sleeves of curious geometry were a portal to a dimension of dimensional factoids and calculations, whole and fractional, rational and irrational. And out of this onslaught of shapes and subdivisions materialized text, and that text was inscribed upon white fibers neatly arranged and then stapled in the left-hand corner at a perfect 45-degree angle, and the inscribed text was thus gently placed in front of a very bemused Lumi and Rydia.

"What is this?"

"Your assignment is to read over this handout and provide suggestions for how to improve it. Comments are acceptable, and I am curious to discover if it improves your understanding of fractions and the various calculations with them. Do keep in mind that the target audience is fifth-graders; technical terms are not preferable over less precise language, in this case."

"...what?"

"Oh yes! I almost forgot! I had initiative, so you can't attack me until you complete this assignment since completing said assignment is necessary for my attack to complete."

"How did you get initiative?!"

"You weren't exactly quiet while discussing your plans in the rafters of an otherwise silent room. Plus that hall has great acoustics. Now, to work with the both of you!"

Kyll pointed to two unoccupied desks and looked as only a teacher can look at disobedient students.

"Well?"