A loud barrage of knocks on the door echoed through Lumios' room; Lumios heavily rested his face on his desk as his head was covered in a mountain of books. He rose his head, letting the books slide off his head, and he staggered to his feet. Lumios murmured that, given the tempo and intensity of the knocking, it must be Destiny at the door. Lumios opened the door and lo and behold the short person before him was none other than an antsy Destiny.
"Come on if you don't hurry you're going to miss the final round of the Maxicannion Tournament," Destiny stated as she crossed her arms. Lumios rolled his eyes and mentioned he was busy with his alchemy research; Lumios added that he wasn't even interested in those kinds of events before his sliding door closed. Lumios turned to walk back to his desk, only to be greeted by an angry Destiny.
"You've been doing whatever magic doodahs for too long and you should take a break; I mean what would your g-" Destiny managed to say before a piece of highly detailed paper landed on her face. Lumios and his mikuru tendril sighed and he reluctantly relented. Destiny gleefully cheered and proudly raised her arms in the air before the siblings suddenly appeared in the flying airship carrier's clubroom.
"My-my, if it isn't my rival in the art of spending unhealthy amounts of time on our work in a single sitting," Callie jokingly remarked.
“To summarise, the remaining eight participants will form two teams and will participate in multiple challenges to reach the ‘’bosses’’ of the dungeon; once reaching the boss area the participants must reach and destroy the trinket to win?” Kiki contemplatively asked with Kikou nodding in response.
“Along with assistance and cooperation from the adventures guild; we were able to acquire three mana cores to be able to form a temporary magic dungeon for the purposes of the tournament,” Kikou explained; he further explained that the area in the sinkhole in the arena is the dungeon and once the last part of the final challenge begins the dungeon will fully manifest.
In one of the hallways that led to the fighting arena, Ruby excitedly pounded her fists together at hearing the prospects of the final challenge. Sophia quietly nodded her head before mentioning something under her breath that caught Ruby’s attention.
“Wait you’re right, Zalroth took out that Terrorizer dude so wouldn’t there be only seven people?” Ruby remarked as the sound of fluttering drew near.
“That is where I come in,” Luna stated as she flew past the duo.
“So, you’re the replacement fighter the Kikou-man alluded to earlier,” Kai remarked as she was squatting on the ceiling like a gangster while being covered herself in disruptive pulse mana. The group heard Kikou announce that the dungeon challenge was about to begin. Kai dropped from the ceiling and landed in front of the trio before she raced off; Ruby frantically raced after Kai while Sophia and Luna just shook their heads as they slowly walked in the direction of Ruby and Kai.
The group exited the hallway and were basked in the adoring roars from the spectators, as Trikore, Storm, Olivia(/w Hex on her back) and Xinia exited from the hallway on the opposite side of the coliseum.
"To not delay any further there will be three challenges that each team has to complete before they are able to reach the boss room," Kiki happily stated as Kikou leaned closer to his mic.
"So, let the final round begin in-" Kikou managed to say before Kiki cut him off and bombastically shouted go; almost all the young participants lept into the air and dived bombed into the revamped cavern while Trikore, Sophia and Luna followed after the others in less sporadic ways: Sophia teleporting, Luna simply flying down and Trikore standing on one of his neon energy shields before it floated him downwards.
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Kikou sighed and Kiki smugly grinned as Kikou tapped on the large mana core behind him which activated it. As everyone was descending through the cavern, magic runes formed all over the surface of the cavern before it morphed into castle walls, with a myriad of tall stone walls jetting out from the ground and forming a mini labyrinth.
Sophia appeared in the spherical area below the group before Kai landed in front of her followed by Ruby and eventually Luna. The group inspected their surroundings before three small pillars, in a row, and one a few meters away from the centre row pillar.
"For the first challenge, the combatants must solve the puzzle to unlock the next area, and note if after ten minutes and either of the teams hasn't figured out what the puzzle is; you've got yours truly here to tell you," Kiki proudly stated, before her proud demeanour faded when Kikou remarked that that won't be necessary since both teams have a super intelligent person on them.
As Kai was climbing up the lone stone pillar the area became furnished with medieval furniture along with three outlines forming on the wall, behind the row of stone pillars. Kai and Ruby peered inquisitively like house cats at the outlines of a bird, boat, and skull.
"So it's one of those puzzles," Sophia muttered, making Ruby and Kai hurry back to her; the two feline-like demi-humans asked what Sophia meant and Luna explained in simple terms that it was one of those shadow-puppet-making puzzles that game developers put in horror games. Ruby affirmly nodded her head while Kai seemed even more puzzled by Luna's explanation.
"Wait do you not know what video games are?" Ruby asked; with Kai shaking her head and stating she didn't. Ruby asked how that was even possible given how much she'd seen Lola paying on her handle-held gaming device.
"But it's not my fault I don't know a lot of stuff, after only being formed five months ago," Kai stated which made Ruby confusedly look at Kai.
"You're only five months old?! Geez, and I thought kobolds aged fast," Luna remarked as she half-heartedly glanced around the area. The older girls decided they'd search the area for the items related to the shadow puzzle; the girls hurried off in different directions, leaving Kai by herself sitting on the lone stone pillar as a large sphere-shaped lantern rose from the top of the pillar and lifted Kai.
Meanwhile, Trikore picked up a weird-shaped object made of metal from inside of a barrel. He tossed the object over his head and was caught by Hex as she sat on Olivia's shoulders.
"How'd you manage to find two of these things already?" Hex perplexedly asked as she passed the metal object to Storm, who was also holding another differently shaped metal object.
"When you have a kid that's a horror and puzzle game fanatic you'll pick up on common patterns; like how common they put important items in the barrel closest to the eastern side," Trikore explained as he rose to his feet. Trikore told the other to go solve the first two puzzles while he looks for the last puzzle piece; the trio agreed before they hurried over to the stone pillars while Trikore continued to search for the last puzzle piece.
"I can't believe, as a forty-six-year-old, I'm using my son's gaming knowledge in the tournament dedicated to the original god of death/destruction and their incarnations," Trikore muttered; he jokingly mentioned he wasn't sure which was worse: him using the gaming knowledge or that his son will probably ask him to try speed running that residenville village game. Hex commented that she's pretty sure Trikore said the name of the game he mentioned wrong; Storm and Olivia mentioned that it's not surprising given it's a video game from earth.
Lola angrily pounded her fists into her tails; she curled into her ball mode and let out a muffled scream.
"How can he not know what Resident Evil is?" Lola frustrated yelled as she popped her head out from her tails and glared at the TV displaying the arena; Chronia peered over at Lola, which made her flinch.
"And how do you know what it is?" Chronia asked in an oppressively concerned tone; Lola nervously sweated as she darted behind Zalroth's head before saying she overheard Minia and Nola talking about how boring it was. Chronia relievedly exhaled, which made Nola and Minia quietly exhale in relief.
Chronia commented that now that she thinks about it even if Lola had played the game it probably would be considered PG compared to what adventurers of even D rank experience on a daily basis. Lola slowly sunk into her tails while mentally remarking she probably shouldn't mention the time she managed to beat a magic dungeon on her own.