Anarion

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia had a pretty good plan. Everyone said the knight was useless, but if you ran two knights and one princess, your knights could serve as a sort of cover. Follow around the key scorers on the other teams and immediately fight them and take away the treasure they stole, then your princess could use the protection of your knight as an escort. Nothing stopped the second knight from playing defense during that time, and they could switch off. It was like, maybe 1.5 queens instead of two, but with the bonus of a safe escort for a single princess into a kingdom. A slow, careful, meticulous strategy. It would have worked absolutely perfectly, too, if Adila had played normally!

But nooooooo. Some dragon had to be a total party pooper and ruin it for everyone. With just one princess on her team (Dandy, obviously) and basically a billion knights running around, the game ground to a complete halt. No treasure was ever changing hands and it looked like the crowd of sprites, spriggans, and assorted animated objects was going to start booing and throwing things at having their entertainment ruined. And then fluffy poochy Adila had to go and make an offer to Alina to break the tie.

Kathelia pouted, but she couldn't really be that mad. Alina deserved a win, and Kathelia was still riding high on the cake and battle chess, so she figured her team could endure a little bit in the loser's box too. But her strategy had totally been good and she wouldn't let anybody tell her otherwise!

[3+5+2=10. Good, but not quite as good as Adila.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia tries to look cool. When the last Queen goes down, she tries to lower her head and push her glasses up so the light reflects off them just so and she gets that perfect chessmaster look. But, seriously, she can't hold it, she's so giddy. Her little Pegasus-clad butt bounces in her seat, and before she can help herself she's pulling in her elbows and lifting her arms up to cover face and jiggling her legs as she giggles and just...just being giddy all over. She won! She won!

A-and, Kyouko is cheering and waving pom-poms and l-looking right at her aaaaaaaaah! She pulls into herself and shrinks to cover her face entirely with her hands and before you know it, she's in the winner's tent, what?! She tentatively uncovers one eye, then the other, and there's cake in front of her. And oooh, it's that chocolate with a little layer of raspberry jam cake that is just so decadent and delicious. This is extremely exciting, although maybe not as exciting as winning and having Kyouko cheering for her. She starts to blush again and hurriedly hides it by taking a bite of the cake. Heavenly.

Okay, okay, safely amped up on sugar and succes, Kathelia has the option to take stock. In some ways, she's a little disappointed. They all moved into a tent, but she can't see the former battleground or get a sense of the overall maze. She was hoping that Eupheria would escalate the stakes by moving them closer and closer to the center. It just made sense to her that as the games got bigger and closer to the finals, they'd progressively move somewhere more important and draw a larger crowd until eventually they got to center court, or whatever it was called here. That's just...that's how these things were supposed to work. She couldn't tell for sure though. If they weren't gaining ground from this, she'd need to rethink her strategy, maybe use the next game as a way to try and get under Eupheria's skin instead of focusing on winning.

One thing that was good though, Dandy looked a little more together. Smug, sure, but committed and back into saving them too. "Dandy..." Kathelia said, walking over to her with her plate of cake. "You were thuper good out there. Like, theriously awethome!" She gives her a braces-filled grin. "I know today hath been like, inthanely weird but...we're gonna get through thith. Together." She turns, looks at Isolde. "You too, King Itholde, right? We haven't really had the chanthe to talk, but I really look up to your daughter, sthe's one of my betht frienth."

[I'd like to use the time in the tent to take a relatively safe speak softly with Dandy and Isolde. 5+1+1=7.
To Dandy: what can she tell us based on her experience about how to get through to Eupheria?
To Isolde: What does Isolde want and how can I help her get it?
To Isolde: What can she tell us about Eupheria and her motivations?]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

CREEP
WHIPPED
TRUANT

Annalee looks at Timothy, and at Samael. Her head is starting to clear, and she sees the way that Timothy is looking at her. Anger. Hurt. He was so easy to hurt, it hardly mattered, right? But she hadn't wanted to do that. She hadn't wanted to bring him here at all, had she? It was confusing. And now Samael was tormenting Elodie, looking at her with those eyes. What had she done? She...needed to think. She needed to get out of here. This wasn't who she wanted to be. Wasn't what she wanted to do. She was a witch! A master and lord of monstrous dealings. Not a slave. Not a servant! Timmy was right to be disappointed. She owed him better than that.

Samael, you're not looking at her right now, you're focused on Elodie, but you can feel the difference as Annalee stands up on her own feet and walks away from you, over to where Timmy is standing. Though we'll certainly hear from Elodie first before anyone else can move further than that.

[string acted upon, XP marked.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia's team probably had the easiest time working together in battle chess. Isolde and Dandy weren't trying to disagree with her strategy, and they all wanted the same outcome of Eupheria's games, so it made sense to work together. Since Kathelia knew that there was randomness added by Eupheria and that each of the other teams had one of her sisters, she expected them to fight a lot, and to fall back on their strengths. That made things easy because they were predictable. Eska would settle on a bishop early to strike across the board, Azora would use her princess aggressively. Kathelia didn't like the idea of fighting Alina or Adila (or other Adila, she wasn't really sure about that one), but she had Dandy stay in reserve for when fluffy Adila showed up because that was a good matchup. There was also something to using a horse as a knight that did actually have the right feel, though she didn't push Dandy too hard on that front. Isolde would be a good match for Alina, especially on a smaller piece if they could defend a simple pawn when Alina came out so none of her lights would be in play.

Really, with both of Kathelia's teammates, it was mainly a question of motivation, rather than strategy. Isolde was obviously depressed and Dandy seemed like she was dealing with some things (in fairness to her, it seemed like what fluffy Adila had said had really been a big deal) so Kathelia had to do a lot of work to get them to pay attention and give the game their focus. A lot of "we're the team thatth betht pothithioned to wisth everyone elth out of here!" and some pats and hugs.

But at the end of the day, it was a simple strategy that was best here. Play to their strengths, look for good matchups. In a complex game with many sides and lots of randomness, simple was often the best strategy. This wasn't a pair of expert chess masters trying to out-think and out-gambit one another, it was a scattered group of teams who probably weren't going to agree and would fall back on their own first order strategies. Kathelia was ready!

[Sense with Despair: 5, 5, 5, +0=10]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Not planning to go for the shut down there, Amish? Just Timmy's silent (and currently entirely unnoticed) disapproval?

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia didn't much care for the naming scheme, but she did think she had lucked out. First off, she wasn't with any of her evil sisters who might consider sabotaging her just for the laughs. On top of that it seemed like this second Eupheria was actually pretty competent if she could get her mind in the game, and Dandy was full of tricks, even if she was kind of a horse right now. It would be good if they won, that would give them a head start into the rest of the maze. Despite Eupheria's arbitrary spacing, they still had to be moving towards the center, Eupheria wouldn't find it fun if they weren't advancing, and what she found fun was the important thing.

So, let's talk about Princess Battle Chess! You start with a giant chessboard of animated, person-sized pieces set in a vast garden (note that the typical king and queen of traditional chess are replaced by a Queen you capture to win and a Princess who moves like the queen of a traditional chess set). The board, unlike a typical flat chessboard, had some obstacles, including typically some hedges that blocked line of sight for certain pieces. The player, or players, could take a bird's eye view of the board at the start, but once you selected a piece to move, you took its place, and if it encountered an opposing piece, the other side had the choice of taking its place too. Pieces had to be quite literally captured, and any encounter could turn into a princess duel, pitting the individual skill and cunning of the sides against each other.

The strategy was important too though: a princess only got her full powers if she was substituting in for the Princess piece. Any other piece placed limitations. For example, if you were replacing a pawn, you would receive only a simple fighting weapon and none of your other magic or abilities would work. Knights could have tricks applied to them, while bishops generally allowed the princess to select one magic item or ongoing effect and Rooks permitted two. The Queen allowed for all short range magic, but nothing long-range. It was possible to substitute something cunning, like a rook gambit with a one use only powerful trap, but if it didn't work you'd be slightly weaker for the rest of the match. Victory in a duel would either capture the piece or literally capture the defending princess if they subbed in for it. If you lost a duel on offense, you passed your turn, which could cause a dangerous turnaround. Princesses could also be freed as part of promoting a pawn that crossed the board.

As there were typically fewer princesses than pieces, one had to select carefully when to replace a piece for a defensive duel: if your side ran out of active, uncaptured princesses, you would lose even if you had a winning board.

The game as a whole was a cunning combination of intellect and maneuvering along with individual skill and trickery.

Kathelia straightened her glasses, which gleamed in anticipation. She was completely ready for this!

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

CREEP
WHIPPED
TRUANT

Annalee is having some weird feelings right now. She did her thing and the hypnotism is wearing off. But she's still got a lot of complex feelings. Okay she got Timmy here. Samael manipulated her. Samael hurt her earlier. She flinches when the finger touches her jawline. Just for an instant, she can't help it, okay?! But then his touch is soft, and delicate. He gave her his shirt, too. That's very kind of him. It felt warm, protecting her from the chilly air of the library, cool to preserve all those dusty old books. That was nice, wasn't it? Maybe he'd just reacted badly before, maybe...

Her head swam and she leaned into him. "A werewolf flung me out of a school tower and I had to leave my shirt with the sphinx at the entrance to get everyone here. And Elly-belly very nearly dragged Timmy right past the library to the Angel's room instead, which is why I had to practically tackle them in here."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia's mind vaguely registered that Eupheria had just done a creepy magical thing. She had even looked at the operations manual at one point, trying back in Jedad to understand Adila better and so she felt the vaguest sense of connection to what was happening. That piece of Kathelia's mind thought that she ought to do something about this, maybe talk at Eupheria a bunch and explain why she should leave Adila alone, and also try and explain the metaphysics of what had just happened because it was seriously fascinating.

HOWEVER! That tiny part of Kazelia's mind was currently being drowned out by the extremely loud thudding of her heart and the blood thundering in her ears. There are pom-p-pom-poms right in her face! Very loud! Fox pompoms! And...and even if the pigtails aren't flattering...exactly, Kyouko and Kathelia are matching! Matching! Oh goodness, oh dear, Kathelia just cleaned her classes and they appear to be steaming up again. Oh no, oh, oh, this is really quite...goodness is she jumping again?! Oh goodness, and her skirt is v-very s-short. Kathelia is quite certain that is a shorter than regulation cheerleader skirt, which she would have to be sure to tell Kyouko except that, oh no...oh no she has matching magenta panties which is extremely unfair.

Kathelia appears to start falling backwards, those pom-poms must really be making her uncomfortable, yes that's got to be it, but she'll need someone who isn't distracted to catch her, otherwise she'll roll herself into a very gangly fall and probably lose her glasses in the process, and that will make everyone have to stop what they're doing while she searches for them.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kathelia falls on her butt on the grass and stares at Azora with accusatory eyes. She looks like she's split between wanting to cry and getting mad. But then there's Rita helping her up. Alina's telling her that the others are with her too, and now she wants to cry again, but it's because she's happy instead of angry. On top of all that, Rita is oh so close to her, a-and she's swaying a-and she's wearing some very pretty s-silks. Goodness, Kathelia's glasses seem to be steaming up, and she takes them off to polish them and finds herself staring right at Rita's silky thighs as the cat girl offers her a hand to stand up and um...goodness oh goodness. She's v-very grateful, yes, that's why she's babbling right now as she stands up. Grateful and upset at mean-meanie Azora. And that is it, definitely.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

CREEP
WHIPPED
TRUANT

Annalee just cocks an eyebrow at Elodie for a moment. For this, she covers Timmy's eyes. And after such a wonderful night they had together. Quite the hypocrite. Well, never mind that, they were going the right way and, ugh, stupid bitch was going to run Timothy right past where they were supposed to go. Annalee raced to catch up, and when they got to the library area, she simply went for the fastest, most expedient possible approach. She shoved Elodie out of the way, grabbed Timmy and pulled him into Samael's waiting space, regardless of who else might be watching.

[Lashing out physically: 5+1-1=5. We should probably wait for Thanqol now]