Uwaaah... what kind of entrance was that? Falling out of the bushes and landing on her face?! Lila wanted to bury her face in her arms from sheer embarrassment, her tail waving back and forth even faster as she felt nothing but humiliation. She'd just fallen flat on her face in front of all the new champions when she had been so desperate to give a good first impression. And... hold on what was happening was someone touching her sides oh no that kind of tickled if she got tickled right now what was she supposed to do and why did this girl sound so lewd-

Thankfully, she was rescued from an even more embarrassing circumstance by the vines beneath her rising up, lifting her to her feet... only to be suddenly very nearly pressed against her rescuer from behind.

"Ah... I...er... I-I'm... fine...?"

Lila's back was adorned with white scales, contrasting her darker skintone. For a few moments, having totally forgotten what she was actually meant to be doing from the sheer embarrassment of the situation.

"... W-w-wait hold on!"

She stepped forward, tail swishing back and forth as she thrust her hand into the air, pointing skywards.

"Hold it hold it! All of you... all of you got a note, right?! Of course!" Lila began, trying to save face and move on as quickly as possible, "In that case..."

She had to get on topic!

"I am Lila Loren Lolla-pffft!"

Gaah she almost bit her tongue! She stumbled on saying her own name! How did someone screw up saying their own name!? Was it the pressure?! Was it the pressure?!

"L-Lovelace! Lila Loren Lovelace!" Lila cried, desperate to put that mistake behind her, "And welcome to Nova Terra! Behold, the world of challenges where anyone, absolutely anyone, can achieve greatness!"

There! Yes! Focus on the introduction!

"You wanted to get away from your worlds for whatever reason, and so you have come to Nova Terra! Never again will you experience a dull day! Endless challenges await you, champions from other worlds!"

Now on a roll, Lila's fall seemed like a distant memory to the dragonblood, her tail wagging back and forth.

"Would you like to hear about the challenges of Nova Terra?! You do, don't you?!"

@Raineh Daze@Rin@Styrgwyr@RolePlayerRoxas@TheFake@Pyromania99@Crimson Paladin@ghastlyInc@Rune_Alchemist@1Charak2

Shiro pouted as the object of her interest was pulled away. That was... no fair! She just wanted to keep admiring that smooth belly some more, and the plants had gotten all uppity for some reason and pulled her away. Nevertheless, this forced the girl to brush herself off and stand up in time to listen to Lila's introduction... although she was only half paying attention. The dragongirl's navel was very distracting, and one of the other summoned champions had an equally bare stomach... this was definitely a heavenly place...

With their summoner's introduction over, Shiro made her own... this was very distracting after all, one couldn't leave it too long. "Well, challenges sound interesting... I am Shiro, of no family or clan of note. We are also the Yamata no Orochi... do you think these challenges might have something bigger than us? I haven't met something like the Daidarabotchi for eras."

This strange, scaled girl was certainly making quite an impression to Kamiko, who had already written her off as someone unfit for sparring against. Unfortunate, but considering the kind of people that rained from the sky alongside her, she probably didn't have to worry too much about worthy partners. Even as the sword saint lamented Lila's presumed weakness, she at least had to admit that Lila was cute in her eagerness to impress. If the snake girl's actions were any indication though, Lila was unlikely to remain pure by the end of the day, so she might as well sneak her question in before that happened.

"I would be interested in these challenges," Kamiko replied with a small smile. Her hand came to rest on the hilt of her standard katana, drumming her fingers against it, "if there's someone strong enough to withstand my blade... do I have your word that such a person exists in this world?"

It would be a terrible shame to visit a completely foreign world, only to find she was just as unmatched here, after all.

Leith listened in silence as his captor of choice voiced her explanation, attempting to put some logical frame work into all of this.He found scarcely little worked. The 'shoggoth' as she called herself seemed friendly enough, and he was not one to not accept the hospitality of a good servant. Even one as squishy and semi-transparent as this."...While I did hit my head on the way down...I received no such missive. Mine was merely an invitation to a new world. I agreed only because I assumed it some sort of japery." He grumbled from his place on the ground before Lila broke into her own explanation.

"While that is all well an good Miss Lolla-pffft Lovelace..." He said, idly wondering if blowing raspberries was common in this new worlds surnames. "What is it that you are getting out of this? One hardly expends what must be a considerable effort in bring forth other worldly beings and furnishing them with servants..." He says, gesturing to Vel who....he supposed he needed to start paying now? He was unsure if he'd just gotten an employee or been taken hostage and the girls word choice hardly cleared such matters up. "Not even to mention the probably considerable cost of trans-dimensional postage for the sake of charity. Whilst I'm without a doubt as to my ability to thrive in yours or any other world, I'm afraid I must ask what your catch is."

Velktlthrih

@ghastlyInc

---

"So mean, Master Augis." The shoggoth sighed, holding her hands together in front of her. "I am but a humble servant. I would never seriously injure my masters." Vel slithered up next to Leith, letting everyone else introduce themselves. A number of interesting new other worlders certainly had been pulled here. Some sort of...snake person that seemed far too overly interested in Lila. How crude. It was a good thing she didn't salivate over just anyone, no-sirree.

"To answer your question young master, Miss Lovelace called everyone here for a simple reason - we are in dire need of help, lest our little community cease to exist. My clinic was even taken." Her body deflated a bit at the mention of her childhood home and the place she had hoped to come back and run one day. "But I'll save any in depth explanation to miss Lovelace here, though perhaps it would be best to show everyone to what remains of Silver Sun first?"

"The catch is that this is not without risk. Partaking in a challenge can result in injury, death, or, being claimed as part of the victor's winnings," Augis answered, stepping forward and turning his head to Vel's plaything. It seemed somewhat disrespectful to undermine Lila like this, but as a warlock, Augis was uncomfortable with the thought of anyone committing to an arrangement- especially the perilous life of a champion- without an understanding of the risks and dangers involved. Besides, it would be very unwise to deceive those whose hands they were going to place their fates in.

"And I agree with Vel that we should would be most effective to show them our community first," he continued, now turning to Lila. "The ways and laws of our world may be sufficiently alien to the arrivals that a solely verbal explanation may not be enough to grant them a proper understanding." They seemed similar enough at first glance, but Augis was not one to assume that an otherworldly being's similarities ran any deeper than what he discerned on the surface. For all he knew, they could be more alien in nature and mind than the shoggoth.

@ghastlyInc
@VitaVitaAR

Yes! It was going well! It looked like her new recruits were highly receptive to the idea of the challenges that she was putting forth! Aaah, Lila was so excited she almost wanted to start bouncing up and down! Except that wasn't exactly a good move in terms of giving out the right impression, so the dragonblood restrained herself and did her best to try and make her intro count!

"There's all kinds of people in Nova Terra!" she declared, eagerly. "Amazing warriors, giants of incredible size, I'm certain the both of you can find just what you're looking for!"

Yes, yes yes, she was roping them in! Now all she-

... She...

...

Velktlthrih and Augis has just revealed a great deal more then she had ever wanted the champions to learn about right now.

"..."

Lila's entire body seemed to sag in an instant, her tail drooping. No... she wanted to get them wrapped up in things before clarifying! It wasn't as if these people would be turned off by the danger in challenges, right? And they definitely didn't need to know her personal motivation yet! What if they thought Silver Sun was too pathetic?

"... Whyyyyyy..." she practically moaned, her body drooping forward, "L-let me at least show them what a challenge is like before thaaaaaat..."

@Raineh Daze@Rin@Styrgwyr@RolePlayerRoxas@TheFake@Pyromania99@Crimson Paladin@ghastlyInc@Rune_Alchemist@1Charak2

Rook absentmindedly pulled a deck of cards from his pocket, shuffling through the pack. Two of them he tucked back into his pocket and the rest he pulled out one by one and snapped in half. Lord of Red, White King, Queen in Chains, Castle of Four Waters... and many others, none of which he would be needing again.

He felt slightly bad for the scaled girl, she seemed to be putting in a lot of effort here. He watched her as he snapped the rest of the useless cards and dropped them around his feet. He laid and hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword and inclined his head.

"A challenge? I accept, if only for the sake of demonstration."

Dorothy observed the people around her. Based on how they're behaving, it seems that she truly wasn't the only one who got the invitation and whisked away to this... place.

Taking a thinking posture, she mused over the words of the masked man and the draconian girl. Challenges...

"Wait, 'World' of Challenges?" Her eyes widened in realization.

"H-Hold on a second!" Dorothy yelled as she walked closer to the newly introduced lady Lovelace.

"Y-you can't possibly expect us to believe that we're on an entirely different world!" She pointed an accusing finger at the draconian girl. All the while in the back of her mind, the words of the letter she had so hastily read began to haunt her.

"Moreover, what are these challenges? Who gives them? You? And what are they for?" Almost as a reflex, Dorothy continued to demand questions to distract herself from her earlier conclusion.

@VitaVitaAR

Shiro, meanwhile, had fixed on the most obvious and appealing fact revealed. With the challenges, you could win anything. She didn't feel too threatened about the possibility of losing, and certainly not of any damage to her form--there were much worse things of a much greater threat to herself.

"You can win anything? Pretty girls? Drink? Miss Lovelace's adorable stomach for use as a pillow?" the serpent asked excitedly, moving a step closer sentence by sentence. Clearly, unlike Dorothy, she had no problem accepting being on a different world even when it was pointed out that this was rather strange.

Great danger? Powerful warriors? A dire situation? The young Sword Saint closed her eyes, pondering what she had been told by these otherworldly inhabitants. From Lila's reaction, it seemed she had wanted to hide just how precarious their current situation was. As the draconian girl was bombarded with questions from the others, Kamiko made her decision. Or rather, her decision had not changed with what she had heard. It didn't really matter how weak Lila or her allies were. If anything, being summoned into a land facing overwhelming disadvantages suited her best. She answered the call for one reason, after all.

"I shall pledge my sword to aid your plight, then," Kamiko answered with a small smile, opening her eyes, "it doesn't matter if you tried to fool us all into helping without the full details. As long as you can guarantee I'll find what I want, I can overlook that."

In the worst-case scenario, if Lila's promises were false, the sword saint could let the little snake girl handle the punishment. She had the strangest feeling that Shiro would be more than happy to oblige.

"Er... yes yes... er... wait my stomach? Why... er..."

Lila trailed off for a few moments. That was an awful lot of questions at once, and while the answer to most of them was an affirmative, it was still a bit difficult to keep up with. Besides, she had a demonstration to conduct!

Rather then going through every point in detail, the dragongirl decided that was a better avenue.

"So... so I'll demonstrate a game for you!" declared Lila, taking a deep breath. "To begin with..."

In a somewhat comical puff of smoke, a sheet of paper seemed to appear. On it, somehow in a language every single present indificual could understand, was the basic terms laid out for a game.

"Normally, all participants would put something up for their opponents to win as a prize," she continued, her tail swishing back and forth as she did, "But since this is a demonstration there won't be any wagers!"

She presented the contract to all present, before waiting for them to sign via a pen that had appeared with the sheet of paper. The terms were very simple, to abide by the game's rules as dictated and laying out disqualification criteria, which were in this case any violations of the rules.

"Once everyone has signed..."

A deck of cards appeared in the dragongirl's hands. She tossed them back and forth to herself, a table seeming to rise from the earth in front of her as well.

"Everyone, draw a card from this deck, and memorize it. Once you have, I'll lay the cards out face down, and you'll have to pick out which one was yours."

The tan-skinned girl winked.

"No peeking~!"

@Raineh Daze@Rin@Styrgwyr@RolePlayerRoxas@TheFake@Pyromania99@Crimson Paladin@ghastlyInc@Rune_Alchemist@1Charak2

Rook listened carefully to the rules. He had been hoping for a more open ended contest that might allow him to win some concessions from the dragon-girl but this would have to do.

"This sounds straightforward enough. I was hoping you would offer something up to the victor."

He stepped out quickly and took a card at random and then grabbed a brush and ink from his bag. He turned the card over and signed his name across the back, fanning it dry before handing it back. He gave her a wink.