rakuen | Round 3, Day 1 [all characters and round announcement]

The storm doesn't let up through the rest day, but by the next day the power is back, the staff are looking moderately less nervous, and the weather is light enough that the usual announcement rings over the speakers in the morning.

"The announcements will start at noon. Will all students please report to the lobby for that time."

Umbrellas are now scattered around the campus at useful points, including the dormitory common rooms and the entrance to the school buildings. Helpful, because the rain is as heavy as ever today. When you arrive in the lobby, the screens are all lit and the receptionists are back at their desk and smiling at old students and new arrivals both.

At twelve o'clock exactly, a woman appears on every screen, smiling so cheerfully that several of the audience probably have an allergic reaction.

"Good afternoon to our new students here at Utopia Academy! Thank you for choosing to enroll with us for this, our first semester of the new year. Our battle system is the best in the world, set up for you, our students! I hope that you all had a fun journey here, and that you've all made some new friends! You're going to need them soon, so keep them close, okay?

"Good afternoon to our current students, as well! You all worked hard last week, and we're really very proud of you.

"Now, normally I would explain the rules, but you've all had a day to read the manual, and I'm sure you've met some of our helpful students since you arrived. Let's skip that! Besides, this week is special. That's because... Well! It would be difficult to fight in this weather, right? We're going to give you a break from battles. Isn't that nice? You can still fight each other if you want, but this week it's ~totally optional~.

"This week is a scavenger hunt! We're gonna give you a clue in a moment. The clue will lead you to a treasure, which you should bring back to our sages," the receptionists wave from their desk, looking a little sheepish, "And they'll give you the next clue! If you collect six treasures, you'll win the round and get a great prize, so work hard!

"Ah, one more thing... Players! You can have as many Weapons as you want this week. Winning battles or collecting Weapons won't count as a victory again until the next round, so have fun!"

She disappears from the screens, but her voice doesn't. "The first clue is... I must be broken before I can be used. What am I?"

The Player list scrolls onto half of the screens; the other half show the clue in flowing red text.

Players for Round 3:
Enki
Fletcher Tringham
Kevin Smith
Koharu Izaki
Kotarou
Locke Cole
Marino You
Mei Chang
Mizuno You
Nunnally vi Britannia
Romeo
Sugata Shindo

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kallen turned away at the point where the woman said they didn't have to fight. That was okay by her. She did stop when she heard the riddle. She looked around and... did no one else hear that? Kallen figured that some people would have been saying something out of confusion, but weren't.

A handful of items had to be broken before they could be used. Riddles aren't good when there's multiple answers.

For a moment, the teenager looked around for anyone familiar.

Edited 2011-03-09 13:05 (UTC)

Miwako looked around in confusion. What sort of riddle was that? Not a single answer came to mind.

She caught Kallen's eye and looked away shyly. "Er... do you have any idea what it means?"

"Hm?" Kallen looked over in the girl's direction. "The riddle you mean?" The teenager walked over to the other girl. "I don't know that meaning is behind it, but riddles don't make a lot of sense when there's multiple answers involved."

"Multiple answers? You mean there's more than one thing you can use after breaking it?" Miwako looked sheepish. "I can't think of even one..."

"Yes. The most obvious answer is an egg," Kallen said looking at the girl. "I wouldn't know personally, but I've heard horses have to be 'broken' in order to ride them. Also glowsticks can't be used without breaking its inner core." A pause. "Although I don't know what any of those have to do with our situation here."

"Oh, huh... Then maybe we need to find all of those? Oh, there probably aren't any horses around here, though..."

"But we don't know what to bring since, well, there's too many options." To be honest, Kallen had no idea what to think about the situation.

"But if we bring all of them then at least something should be right! ...right?"

"It's not like we can leave. So where can we even get a glowstick from? On top of that, a horse." Wait...

"We should go with the most practical...which is an egg."

"You know what the answer is?" Kotarou sauntered over with his usual failed nonchalance, hands stuffed into the pockets of a new, starched blazer after his normal clothes had been wrecked in the storm. He had no idea what the answer was, and before he actually made the effort to try working it out, he'd try to ~~trick~~ ask other people.

"Easy, right?"

"I do, but it doesn't help when there's multiple answers," Kallen said, looking down at the boy. "But as long as we know what it is, we can go from there." Sorry Kotarou, you have to be sneakier than that to try and get an answer out of Kallen.