NOTES:

Warning!! This chap will have some gruesome descriptions of the mines, since I wanted to portray what we do and don't see in game because of censorship (atleast in the story).

Again, confusing build up and me mixing my
plot potions for later, but HERE WE GO!

Thank you to my 5 readers of the last chapter
you the real ones for that

—————————————

"YOU . THREE. AGAIN"

Ophelia shirked to the side, trying to avoid the loudness of the crowmans voice.

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒎𝒚 𝑵𝒐𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒈 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎

"Was burning a Statue of the Seven not enough for you? Now you've gone and destroyed a Chandelier?"

𝑰𝒇 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔, 𝒚𝒆𝒔, 𝒚𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒅

"Consider yourselves expelled. I recommend you go pack your things now-"

Her eyes turned to Deuce, who was near vibrating out of pure fear, how his pupils managed to shake too, she would never know.
She scratched behind Grims ears, recieving a swat to the hand, then a few purrs.

As she waiting for Deuce to speak up, she noticed this felt like a director observing a play he's seen before.

"WAIT!! Headmage, please give me a second chance! I can't get expelled from this school!"

"Then perhaps you should of -"

"Thought about that before you destroyed a million dollar chandelier, which happens to be historic artifact you thought the school would never lose, that contains some fancy magic
do-dat we have to find a brand new version of so you can fix it so we don't get expelled, right?"

A brief silence wafted through the room as all eyes turned on her, even Grim looked up from his spot in her arms. Tired or not, she didn't think she should of speedran the conversation like that.

𝑾𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒑𝒔.

Crowley was the first to speak up, unsurprisingly

"Er- Yes. If by "dollar" you mean Thaulmark, then you have perfectly summarized the situation, Ms.Avillion. The Magic "do-dat" would be called a Magestone, a rare ore almost completely unattainable by average means."

"Something tells me theres got to be a mine for it atleast somewhere in this world right? Or atleast a ore museum we could rob?" 

"As robbing is heavily illegal in most countries,
I would recommend heading to the Great Mines, its an abandoned mine nobody has set foot in for years, therefore your best chance to find a Magestone there. You have until sundown to-"

"Great, thanks. See ya Birdman."

Grabbing the tablet off the table, she packed it away as Grim climbed his way to her shoulder. Dragging the 2 other members of the group out of the door by the wrist, she got about 6 feet before Ace started resisting.

"Whoa, hold up! What the hell was that??"

"What the hell was what?"

"That entire conversation with the Headmage! You acted like you knew what he was going to say the whole time, and got tired of waiting!
How did you do that?!"

"Eh....Intuition?"

"Intuition my ass! The same thing happened when I tried to ditch in the first place, and you stopped me!"

"You seemed like the type to ditch!!"

"But how did you know I would go to my dorm, huh? For all you knew, I could of been in the gym or the library!"

"What is this, Clue? You're new here, jackass! You don't know the schools map, so you'd get lost going anywhere BUT your dorm!"

"You're newer then I am! Besides, How did you even know which dorm mirror to stake out next to if your cat doesn't even know the Great Seven?!"

"The crest is on your sleeve!"

——————

Deuce looked back and forth between the squabbling duo, biting his lip anxiously

I can't get expelled today, I can't disappoint her again. We have to hurry!

"Psst, Human!"

Looking to Grim, he leaned over to hear him better, Grims' choice to lounge on Ophelias shoulder made him end up awkwardly close to her.

"Is there a spell you could use to get my henchman and that heart guy moving? My henchman said we need to get this over with so I, the Great Grim, can become a student."

"Uh...Do you thing they'll notice if I start pulling them to the Mirror Chamber? Would she be mad at me for moving her without asking?"

"Meh, I doubt it. The Cat King clings to her like glue when he's around, so it ain't much compared to that."

"Ok...if you're sure about this..."

Grabbing her hood lightly, the bluette was offput by the feeling of a decent weight in the hood, only for it to vanish two seconds later.

Peeking in, large keychain with a smiling purple and magenta striped cat lay inside, a small scroll attached to it. Not sure exactly what to do about it, he passed it to Grim to hold on to, who promptly placed it in her pocket.

———————————

Neither of the two realized that Deuce had started dragging them both forward whilst they bickered, obviously as anxious to get going as Ophelia was before getting into a debate to hide her slip-up behind the "Intuition" facade.

They only noticed they had been transported
VIA Spade Express when they were blinded by a sharp white light, and nearly thrust onto the ground. Deuce seemingly had opted to catch Ophelia, while Ace crashed into a large stone, and ate the dust.

Shaking her head a few times to get the purple and black light spots away, she took in her surroundings.

The place was much gloomier then it had seemed ingame, small ores and trinkets lie forgotten next to pickaxes of varying sizes. Bones of all kinds seemed to litter the ground, some violently cracked and thrown, others still resembling the skeleton of their owner.

Makeshift graves had been partially hidden by the overgrowth of vines and plants, a ripped up picnic set with a dark stain seemed to be left in panic.

Large oaks gave an undesirable shade to it all. Willow, Mountain Laurel and Rudou trees twisted within grapevines and briars.

A musty, metallic scent filled the air, along with with rot from who knows where. Not a great sign.

Returning her focus to the group, she crouched next to where Ace had crashlanded, checking him for injuries while Deuce and Grim looked around to see if they could find anything important, mostly for any sign of a magestone.

"Hey, are you conscious?"

"I wish I wasn't."

"Understandable, it's annoying to say this, but you need to get up quickly."

"Ugh."

"I hate to break it to you, but I think you're lying next to a dead guys femur."

She had never seen a human being stand up so quickly. Considering the large amount of possible concussions and brain damage he had gone through in the last 4 hours, she was honestly surprised he could move at all.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU START WITH THAT?!"

"I was more focused on checking you for injuries."

"So, me nearly passing out next to a dead body is less important to you?"

"Meh, I've had to bike around a ton of fresh bird corpses once, probably 50 or more of them lining the sidewalk. So I'd honestly prefer the femur."

Turning to face the ginger after her commentary, she was met with a horrified reaction, something that she was accustomed too when telling stories about her life. Brushing it off, she started walking in the direction of the mine's entrance.

"Anyway, we need to keep moving. Lets go find the others."

————————————-

"Henchhuman!! Look what we found!!"

As she approached the worn down cabin, she began to feel a tad bit worried about what they'd find inside.
Censorship is a powerful thing, especially in a game that shows only a small portion of each place for the background, and given the morbidity of what they saw upon arrival, her hopes for the cabin were less then high, but she needed to shake Ace's suspicions off somehow.

𝑨𝒍𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒄𝒕, 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒅

"This cabins oddly close to the mine entrance.
Its possible they used it as both living quarters and a place to store ore deposits. I'd wager if someone was looking for those magestone things, this would be their first stop."

Looking over, she saw a very defeated looking Spade.

"Oh...."

Deuce's reaction was equivalent to kicked puppy, making her feel pretty bad for trying to speed through everything.

The obvious solution? Sacrifice Ace to Solo the cabin exploration.

Besides, Deuce had seemed very.... out of character since they arrived, and it worried her a bit, so this might be her chance to talk to him
1 on 1 while still keeping pace with the original story. Unlike Ace, he was alot easier to predict and lie to.

Having a friend who wholeheartedly believes her facade is her true self would, if nothing else, ease her anxieties just a bit.

If she had to guess, It was only around 4 o'clock, since she managed to speed past Crowleys lecture, she might have time to spare.

"Don't worry! It's totally possible we could find something of value! Theres likely a map or guidebook in there. Ace, Grim, how about you two go check it out?"

"Myeh? Why me?"

The eyebrow raise and snort from the formerly mentioned came just as fast as she expected it, but unexpectedly, it was much closer by, since she had assumed the ginger had moved from directly behind her after they met up with the other half.

"Whats the point of a map? You probably already know where it is, Ms "I'm totally not a seer". So do you have something to give me to make it worth wasting time with the fire-weasel? Like, oh I don't know, answering a few questions?"

Before she could get a word out, Deuce had his counterpart held up by his shirt with a near-violent grasp. Grim scrambling up to her shoulder to avoid getting bulldozed.

"Shes the only reason our ass is not getting expelled, so show some fucking respect to her instead of asking for shit!

Ophelia blinked silently in surprise.

𝑯𝒆'𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒕, 𝑰 𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑴𝒐𝒅𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒊'𝒎 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒇 𝒊𝒕 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈.

"What the hell happened to you? Do you really want to be left alone with her that bad?"

"The fuck are you implying jackass?!?"

"Man, how slow are at figuring things out? It's called an innuendo, dumbass."

𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅, 𝑰 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒖𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒐 𝒆𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆.

"You little-"

Noticing Deuces clench on the redheads shirt getting tighter, she knew this wouldn't end well.

"Knock it off, the both of you. Deuce, thank you for defending me, and Ace, stop being cocky and pull your weight, if you do, I promise to answer
2 questions you have, okay? Lets skip the cabin and go straight to the mines, our chances are better there anyway.

Also, Grim, remember what Che—-uh, the Cat King told you? You have to work with us for it to happen."

Surprisingly, the trio actually listened to her common sense, something she knew would become rare occurrence in the future.

——————————————-

"Sorry...."

"About what? You haven't done anything wrong."

Picking up another shining ore she knew nothing about, she placed it in her handbag with the rest of the random shiny objects she had snatched up, purely for being shiny.

"I kinda lost my cool back there and-"

Peacock teal irises wilted with self loathing from their owners place turned to mild shock as he tried leaning against a large oak shed,
which he then promptly fell into, to Aces and Grims amusement, as she went to help him up.

Continuing forward, the group was nearly in the mine by the time Ace had stopped teasing him for it, but Grim still carried on.

"MYAHAHA! You looked so shocked too!"

"How was I supposed to know the lock had rusted off!?"

"Guys, we're here."

To say the entrance was dark was an understatement. Roots took hold of carts and trolleys, near green with rust. Significantly less bones could be seen then before, which she wasn't sure if she should count that as a curse or blessing in this scenario.

Sounds from within circulated like an echo, falling stones and creaking metal. She swore she also heard the ghost's giggling.

"Alright you three, when we go in there, I have a plan if the spectral phenomenon try to bother us, so listen up.

If they try to scare us, pretend to act insanely interested in them, even to a creepy extent, like think... Roo- um,  Stalker style, but platonic stalking, not the other kind.  

The term for this is Reverse Psychology, because they are so used to successfully scaring people, having someone act both unfazed and overly-interested will probably make them uncomfortable, so they'll leave us alone."

She may or may not have forgotten the collective intellectual levels of the other 3 rapidly lower when in the same room. as portrayed by the reactions she received.

"I don't really understand anything you just said, at all. Sorry, but could you simplify it for me?"

"Surprisingly, I'm with Loosey Deucey over here, Dumb it down for us guys,  would you?"

"Yea, and what the heck is a "phenom-e-nom? 
Is it like a Mine Buffet or somethin?"

Internally banging her head against a wall, Ophelia inhaled deeply, praying she would not receive second-hand stupidity from these 3.

"If you see a ghost, don't be scared and don't run.  If I remember correctly, its not close enough to Halloween in this world yet, so they can't touch you.  Instead, pretend to act creepily interested in them, so they'll be freaked out and scatter. Ok?"

"So, we're going to gaslight literal ghosts?"

"Uh, yea, pretty much."

"Wait, gas is pretty expensive, are you sure thats a good idea? Where would we even find a gas station around here?"

"Holy shit, you are the dumbest person I've ever met."

"Excuse me!!?"

"Ace, stop provoking him and get moving, and Grim, don't eat that, that plant is next to a what I think is a ribcage, and It might be poisonous."

————————————————

Trudging through the caverns, the little group of teens and a hellcat carefully turned the corner, where all light was lost from the outside, now covered by the earth around them.

The boys beside her each pulled out their pens, casting some form of a light spell she didn't know anything about. Grim's natural flames gave a blue hue, but something about the light seemed off. A lilac smile was brightly projected onto the wall from her direction.

"Hey, your pocket!"

Deuce then pointed to her hoodie, where a Plum and magenta light shone.

Moving her bag string aside, she shoved her hand into her hoodie pocket, and came out holding a Large Keychain like item, the design was that of a simplistic version of the Cheshire cat, the ears decorated with the same earrings the items gifter wore.

"When did he—huh?"

A small scroll of paper fell onto her hand, tied with something akin to silly string mixed with a blue pipe cleaner.

Peeping over her shoulder, Ace attempted to get a look at the scroll, obviously anticipating her trying to open it discreetly.

"Whatcha got there?"

"A note from a friend. Lets keep moving, we're getting low on time, and I'm surprised no ghosts have jumped us yet."

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒐𝒇𝒇, 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.

𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆..

"Why were you so sure they would jump us in the first place? A prophetic vision?"

"I—Shut up!"

To her surprise, Deuce piped up after being oddly quiet the majority of the time, looking toward the odd gift still in her hand, currently being swatted at by Grim like a cat toy.

"I think might be a Fae charm. My mom used to tell me stories about humans being gifted magical talismans and charms after saving fae, usually ones for protection."

Rounding the corner, she listened with intrigue, pleasantly surprised by the Bluettes knowledge, not to mention his voice was somewhat soothing with the way he spoke of what he knew.

"Apparently, the more powerful they were, the more obvious they wanted it to be that it was a gift from them specifically.
I think it had to do wanting the enemy to know what they would be messing with if they harmed that person....
Either way, that weird smile it casted on the wall and ghosts not attacking us made me think it might be something like that...
but I only ever heard of them in fairytales, so
I could be wrong."

"Hey, ya gonna tell my henchman how you found in her hood? You're the one who made me put it in her pocket after ya found it."

"Oh! I totally forgot-"

"St....oonnness"

Turning on her heel, she bumped straight into Deuce, and them was bumped into by Ace, who had also stopped in confusion.
Grims ears flicked around in response to it, and she felt him slowly being his baking career on her shoulder.

"What was that?"

"Oh no, I'm not mentally ready for this."

"Mentally ready for WHAT?"

𝑶𝒉, 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘, 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒂 𝑾𝑯𝑶𝑳𝑬 𝑨𝑺𝑺 𝑬𝑳𝑫𝑹𝑰𝑻𝑪𝑯 𝑨𝑩𝑶𝑴𝑰𝑵𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵?!

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒖𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒘 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒔 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎!

𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒇 𝑰 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒅𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔, 𝑰𝒕𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏.

A eerie light began emanating around them, followed by wet, heavy footsteps.

"Don't to..uch..my.... stonn..eeess"

The quad huddled together against the wall, Ophelia's small figure smushed between the two mages, while Grim had climbed onto her head for air.

As the light fully illuminated more and more of their location, she was terrified that she was unknowingly walking through it.

Rotting dwarf like corpses, some slashed and covered with dry ink, others obviously struck with its large pickaxe, littered the room. Some lacked certain limbs, others were completely dismembered.

A large oozing pile of different limbs sunk into inky sludge in the corner.
From the angle she could see the positions of those most intact, most had been killed while either running away or protecting someone.

No wonder they had censored the backgrounds so much. Geez.

An overturned minecart in the corner gleamed in the corner of her eye, a bright pink light, giving the tell-tale sign of the Magestones location as the dreaded being finally made it's entrance.

The thing was HUGE. The forest green robe it wore was tattered beyond repair, long clawed hands that dripped with ink obviously partially to blame for it. Its pickaxe seemed almost the same size of her, the inky bulb of its head sloshing around with every step, the crack on its side dripping ever so slightly.

𝑾𝒂𝒊𝒕....𝑰𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒍𝒃, 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒓𝒖𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒏𝒌, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕!

Since she already stood at their shoulders, she whispered her idea to her current blockades.

"Listen, the magestone is in that minecart. Deuce, Grim, you two are the fastest, so Ace and I will keep it busy while you snatch the thing, ok?"

Passing her satchel to Deuce, she tried to wiggle out of the barricade that was her new companions, but Ace refused to budge.

"You're magicless! Theres no way you can defend yourself!! Are you fucking crazy??!"

Tying the charm to her hoodie string and
pushing her hand to reach behind Deuce, she lodged a small stone out of of the wall, and prepared herself mentally as best she could for the on coming fight.

"Yup."

——————————-

END NOTES :

This was going to be an extra long chapter containing the whole fight and everything, but I didn't want