NOTES:
————

God I love writing Ace thinking he knows whats going on but doesn't.

Please don't be fooled though, he doesn't know EVERYTHING. Just somethings.

—————————
——-

Early the next morning, after some convincing, Trey and Cater got Riddle to not wake up the trio at 7 am.

Just incase, however, the clover and diamond snuck into A103 just to check on them, considering last nights interaction.

The trio was all snuggled, Ace koalaing Ophelia, while Deuce had some strange starfish pose above them both, but one of Ophelias arms subconsciously wrapped around his. In all honesty, it was very sweet to see.

Cater was taking photos before he could even get a word out, gushing about "How cute the iconic freshie trio" looked, or something.

Awkwardly as they turned to leave, they ran into Lilia, who seemed to have come to return Ophelias tablet, or so he claimed. 

Trey did not miss the sleeping Che'nya he had hidden in his coat, however, and he had a good feeling Lilia had actually beat them there, and had some other reason for coming back.

He didn't really mention the Che'nya abduction he was obviously bearing witness to, and neither did Cater, but Cater did tell Lilia about taking photos of the freshman, which he apparently sent to him on Magicam.

They brought Lilia back to see Riddle and get the basics of what had happened together when they were separated. 

He explained they had made it here thanks to Jack, a freshman who apparently can turn into a massive, practically elephant sized wolf, and Lilia contacted Kalim after seeing a request from Jamil to ensure he was safe, and luckily enough, the friend Kalim was staying with gave the green light for the group to stay over.

By sheer coincidence, that same friend's personal knight happened to be Vyrs sister, Cassidy, who had driven a motorcycle up to Night Raven after Vyr sent a vague letter about the Heartstabyl Incident that left her concerned, that letter itself being the reason she and Hazel had come all the way from Sollune in the first place.

Thankfully, Lilia abstained from mentioning the whole "Makab was illegally necromancing some corpses to protect the freshman in the Labyrinth" part during the first bits of the timeline, to which Trey breathed a rare sigh of relief.

Speaking of Makab, they found him trying to quietly shuffle back into the room that group was staying in, carrying some form of handmade wooden cane, likely for Lonnie.

When confronted, he simply said "Beeves is the plural of Beef" and left, to everyone's confusion.

If he was trying to stun them with a random fact, it worked.

With cleverly placed words of persuasion, Elephys managed to convince most of the group to go get breakfast while they waited for the three musketeers to wake up.

The rosette somehow to get Cassidy to go along with it too. It wasn't a nefarious plan at all, but still, considering how dead set focused she was on getting information about "𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓", wow. He even got Vyr off the hook until after breakfast.

Even of it was just simple stuff, sweet talking the Head Knight of Sollune , a kingdom thats guards are known for heavy training in protection, investigation, and safety, into postponing a personal investigation was totally a flex, as Cater would say.

—————-

"Mmmnh"

Ophelia woke up to, as usual, Ace koalaing her, and Deuce doing his weird starfish thing. A new thing was she had subconsciously wrapped one arm around the bluettes, so that was something.

It took awhile, but she managed to aggressively wiggle herself out, half waking up Ace in the process in his reluctance to lose "the heater".

Somewhat alone, she waddled around the hotel room (Limping. Thanks, broken leg) , which was concerningly massive, and found the several shopping bags left by Sharla the day previous, each with a little scribble of what it was, and a heart on every dot of an I.

Luckily, her wrist must of healed quick, because it didn't hurt much when she shuffled through the bags to find one labeled "Clothes", and given the sizes for the ones she guessed were hers were one larger then her usual, she assumed Sharla estimated and went one larger just incase.

She also discovered a holy entity known as a monthly period removal potion, a pack of twelve located in the bag.

When she had mentioned "buying her time", it seemed this had been quite literal.

After some shuffling, she found a simplistic outfit for the day, changed, and then spaced out in the bathroom for twenty minutes contemplating if she wanted to go to the breakfast buffet she was guessing they had at the hotel alone and feel antsy,  or wait for the idiots to wake up and feel more safe.

She got violently pulled out of her mind by the lights flashing on and off, and a voice coming from somewhere in the room.

"Ophelia Avillion, Its the Lord of the Underworld. Your time has come."

𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒄𝒆!

With a glare at her tablet, she sat down, shaking off the adrenaline before berating the person behind the prank.

"Idia! You scared the shit out of me!"

Something she could only describe as two sets of gremlin laughter followed, one more robotic, so it gave away Ortho had been in on it too.

After waiting for a little, she noticed a blue button just below the bathroom mirror, and it clicked.

"Did you call me through the MIRROR?!"

"It's a HawkWave Mirror, pretty neat, right? Wanna see something else it can do?"

Like any sane person, Ophelia was not mentally prepared to see Ortho and Idia in the mirrors reflection, especially since they were several miles away at the moment.

Che'nya deciding to pop into existence behind her in his cat form was no help to her panic, which Idia seemed to revel in as he grinned.

"Is this really so high tech to you it's an instant parahax?"

"A little bit, yeah! You're in my fricken mirror!"

" You're still a total noob to this worlds tech then. This is light work for even a total normie."

Sufficiently annoyed, Ophelia glared at the others reflection.

"Did you call me just to flex?"

"I mean, kinda. Plus, I get to see Shire."

Idias hand seemed to ghost over where Che'nya was curled on the counter, as if he was attempting to pet him through the screen while Ortho took the chance to say his piece.

"Nii-san and I also wanted to make sure you guys got to the hotel safe and sound!"

"Well, I have a broken leg, which is a first for me, but other than that, yup."

"Thats great news! I mean, the broken leg isn't. I'll send you some general information and research on efficient recovery methods!"

Suddenly, his usual cheery expression went stern, which admittedly made her slightly nervous.

"Make sure you stay off it, and get some rest! You're only four days out of a coma, and Cater Diamond told us you faced a major injury, so you're lucky it's only a broken leg.

I know you're probably going to try and find a solution to the lockout to help everyone, but we're going to handle it from our side, ok?"

"Yeah, take a filler episode or two from your main character stuff to regenerate your HP, and let the techies handle this."

The genuine concern and kindness from the two surprised her, and she tried not to feel sappy about it.

"Thanks, Ortho. And I'll try to make the filler episode entertaining , Hadestown."

"After this quest is over, we're having a Crowley Barbecue, cause he's definitely cooked for this."

Part of her hoped she didn't wake up the others with the cackle she let out.

After the sound of a bit of keyboard tapping, while Ortho happily waved in the background,  Idia grinned again.

"GTG, See ya, Meg."

As he faded out of the mirror, she was left dumbstruck and reeling, quickly forced to pretend she was not having a heart attack when she heard a knock at the door.

"Ophelia? Are you talking to someone in there?"

𝒀𝒆𝒂. 𝑴𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔.

"Uh, a friend just called, Deuce, nothing to worry about!"

——————-

It took a grueling thirty minutes to successfully get going, Deuce insisting on redoing the splint on her leg while Ace complained about something or other, then screamed as he took his turn of discovering the mirror after trying to use Mira and the Mirror responding instead.

Admittedly, it was hilarious to see Ace attempting to weaponize the hair dryer in a panic when they rushed in.

Che'nya seemed intent on trying to get them upstairs as soon as possible, at one point aggressively playing the miniature piano to annoy Ace out of taking his sweet time, and also accidentally (?) knocking him out of a closet when he tried to grab a robe.

Her favorite moment of the mornings agenda against Ace was when they were finally leaving.

For somewhat good reason, the redhead was now hangry, grumbling as stared down at Ophelias feet.

"You took the one pair of slippers? Seriously?"

"It's better for her leg, I told her she should."

"I literally have zero clue on having broken limbs, so I'm just yes-manning Deuce at this point, he's the expert on this out of us three."

Ace raised an eyebrow, then simply sighed in annoyance.

"Whatever."

"Not much of a morning person, are you, Little Red Fox?"

They all collectively freaked out, Ophelia making more of a squeaking noise and freezing up, Ace jumping back screaming "Holy SHIT" , while Deuce stumbled straight into a lamp and then a wall.

Lilia chuckled at their momentary unbridled terror, swiftly moving from the ceiling to floor with a smile.

"Khee hee, Mornings Blessings, you three. Missed little o'l me?"

Regaining himself, Ace gritted his teeth.

"Not one fucking bit!"

𝑨𝑹𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑻𝑹𝒀𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑻𝑶 𝑫𝑰𝑬?!

In an attempt to salvage the possibility of not accidentally letting Ace start beef with a 600 year old war veteran, the brunette winced as she moved to stand infront of him, forgetting her leg was broken for the second time today.

"Ignore him. He's had a terrible, no good, very bad morning."

"Ah, I see."

Lilia said absolutely nothing after that for a solid three seconds, staring straight at her, which admittedly scared the shit out of her, then just skipped out the door.

"Don't keep us all waiting now! And remember, a buffet is like an inventory siege. The earlier you are, the less chance people can gather all the goods before you arrive! Time is Ticking!"

𝑼𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍?!? 𝑾𝒉𝒐'𝒔 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍?!

—————————-

The buffet was insane. Better than the schools, obviously, but to a crazy extent.

Deuce also seemed strangely intent on helping her carry things, so it took a good five to ten minutes of convincing for him to go and get his own things, as she'd seen him eyeing the egg selection.

Her and Ace did a pretty much beeline to the pastry and griddle area, like the sweet addicts they were, but this also left her in the first solo conversation with him since the mountain.

So, like a sane being, she attempted to avoid him.

He, on the other hand, was intent on the opposite.

"The fruity pastries are over there."

"What if I want pancakes?"

"Theres literally mini cherry pies over there. Why the fuck would you want pancakes?"

"Oh, so it's illegal to want pancakes now? Besides-"

Moving around her to snatch the entire plate of pancakes she had carefully stacked up, only to have them swiped back, he shuffled to the other side to open the waffle...uh..whatever it's called, grabbed a few, then loaded cherries onto his plate, and drowned his poor waffle in cherry syrup.

"-I can improvise."

"Thats not even a pancake, dipshit."

She made the mistake of looking away from her plate for two seconds, only to see Ace about to pour the godforsaken cherry syrup on her pancakes, or so she thought.

When she instinctively snatched the plate away, he snatched it back, and held up the bottle. It was chocolate. The same one she had been about to use before he ambushed her.

"Would it kill you to let someone do something nice to help you?"

"Hey, you're the one who tried to mess with a woman's food."

He rolled his eyes as he poured the sweet condiment on, passing it back to her and looking off.

"Yea, sure. Thats definitely your issue here."

Like a blessing, Deuce came bounding over with his immensely stacked plate of eggs and bacon.
Both her and the redhead beside her immediately tried to steal said bacon, but Ace was swatted away, Ophelia was not.

"Do you want me to show you where the bacon is? Actually, I can go back and get you some if you want. It might be better, with your leg and all..."

"I'm fi-"

Before she could turn him down, Ace shoved a random piece of french toast in her mouth like a cartoon character before interrupting.

"I think thats a great idea, actually. Even better, how about I do it while you guys find a table?"

"Uh...You're being suspicious."

"Me? Suspicious? Never."

Ace had just skirted around him, grabbing two small plates and moving towards the meat and eggs area.

"What are you two waiting for? Get us some good seats already!"

Ophelia and Deuce shared a look.

"Thats really suspicious."

"Totally Suspicious."

"Its also Ace..."

"Fair point."

——————-

He'd been trying to find a set of three seats with Ophelia for awhile now, who had taken to eating as she stood, and every so often he asked if she needed to rest her leg. Unsurprisingly, she refused, claiming she was ok.

Deuce didn't want to push it, but he knew she wasn't.  Mentally or Physically. But right now, he didn't think telling her that would help.

She seemed to get antsy as the area grew louder, which reminded him about how her crazy good hearing probably stresses her out, which is why she usually wore headphones at loud places.

Maybe he'd been staring at her by accident for too long, because she tried waving her hand infront of his face.

"Deuce? Earth to Deuce?"

Earth? Right, that was her home planet. That was strange to think about.

He didn't have the time to reply, as out of the blue, the same woman from yesterday, dressed in a bright pink sundress and a round hat with a pink bow, came and hugged Ophelia from the side with one arm, then pulled back at waved at him with the same arm, as the other was carrying 3 massive baskets of beignets.

"Mornin' Sugars! Did y'all sleep well?"

Ophelia just nodded, cheeks slightly pink, as she fidgeted with her necklace.

"Yes, Miss Sharla, and um..Thanks for the clothes!"

Very softly, the blonde pinched her cheeks, then patted her head.

"Awww, ain't you just as sweet as pie!"

She cocked her head, and whispered to Ophelia, loud enough for Deuce to hear.

"You feelin' alright, sugar?"

"Oh, I'm fine, it's just kinda loud, y'know?"

"Don'r worry about it, hun! Tia used to a little overstimulated in real loud places too when we were small. Say, why don't you's three eat in your room?"

The two students shared a look of dumbfounded idiocy that screamed "Why the hell didn't we think of that?"

Sharla put her hat on Ophelias head, angling it so it covered her ears a bit as she returned to her normal volume.

"I'll even walk y'all there! Grab that redhead fella and let's git goin' !"

—————

After making it back, Sharla gave them one of her three baskets, and after she left, they ate in pretty much silence til now, which Deuce didn't mind all too much. He wasn't exactly sure if he was ready to discuss what had happened last night yet.

Silence didn't last long.

—————-

"So....What do we do now?"

The trio had retreated to the bed, each lying or sitting in different positions.

Ophelia stared at the ceiling, then glanced to Deuce.

"Exist, I guess?"

With a thump, the bluette lied down aswell.

"I don't know, I feel like...isn't there something we should be doing?"

Ace sat up just to give Deuce a sneer, prodding his forehead.

"We're literally trapped out of the school, dumbass."

Slapping away the others hand, Deuce groaned, rolling on his side.

"I know that! I read the text! But shouldn't we atleast be trying to find a way back?"

After shoving her face in the pillow, the brunette of the trio mumbled.

"I literally just got yelled at this morning not to do that. Besides....I could use a break from all the crazy magic nonsense."

"Nonsense?"

She rolled over, tugging on a loose thread.

"You two are used to all this stuff...Magic, Alchemy,and Merfolk, Fae, Magical Beasts, etc, yadda yadda yee haw, you get the point. For me, right now is the closest thing to normalcy i've had since I got here. Kinda like back in that weird dark pit. It was nice, y'know?"

The two boys glanced at eachother, both respectively surprised by the bout of honesty, and resisting the urge to tell her what that dark pit actually was.

—————-

Sharla had reappeared around 12, a sweet smile as they opened the door.

"Say, y'all don't happen to know a lil' sweetie named Kalim, do ya?"

That name struck a chord, reminding Deuce of what he'd seen the night before. For a moment, he could tell Ophelia got spooked, and luckily (or maybe not), Ace slid in to the conversation, resting his head on hers.

"The Housewarden of Scarabia, Kalim Al Asim, right? What about him?"

"Oh, his group is lookin' for y'all! Follow me!"

———————

Did he practically have to drag Ophelia there? Yes.

Was he mercifully enough not to mention how damn suspicious that was? Just this once. Only because he already knew the answer.

They followed Sharla to an elevator, the trio looking at eachother in confusion on where the hell they were being taken, until the door binged, and Sharla led them to a set of double doors, which she swung open gleefully.

"I found em' !"

Lounging around a table filled with snacks, each in a comfortable area, be it couches, beanbags, plush chairs, or the floor, was a good portion of people Ace knew, and a solid 6 he didn't.

One of the guys had medium length white hair, dark coffee tone skin, and sharp red eyes, but seemed pretty short compared to the guy next to him, who had long fluffy volumes of wine red hair, with small striped strings of plum and lavender tied in. How it didn't get tangled in his librarian like glasses and the chain attached to them was a miracle.

Vyr was sat next to (and seemingly being lectured by) a woman with an light almond complexion, short black hair, silver streaks hidden here and there, with olive green eyes.
The woman beside her had emerald eyes and long golden hair, that even tied up, it reached the floor. Ace was also half sure he saw a gecko (?) or a chameleon, some sort of reptile in her hair.

A guy he barely recognized as Deuces friend Jack sat beside Epel, who, in the darkness of the maze,
Ace had not noticed the lavendette's deep farmers tan that went with the freckles.

On the other side was a guy that somehow managed to tower over Jack, and like Jack, also happened to be a walking gunshow in the muscles department, but was a little more lean.

Two long navy braids, streaked with thin white lines, the braid itself starting at the hair just above the forehead, framed face with sharp blood red eyes, shark like teeth, and a Tan, yet almost greying complexion....wait...those