Welcome to Gaia! ::

She hadn't actually slept that night. In fact, she had been pacing around outside the dorms, wearing off the natural high she'd received from swimming amongst all those lotus flowers. She wondered if they would let her have some lotus blossoms in her room... Maybe even just a basin. It would make life a lot nicer. In fact, her mood had improved significantly since her swim.

However, by class she was extremely tired and much more like her old self. The mirror-blank, expressionless Amarus that seemed bland until further inspection revealed that she was merely very calm, and often very bored. "I feel like I'm going to die... again," Amarus mumbled to herself, staring at Invictus and listening to his instructions.

Where was Faustus? Maybe she could harass him and ask how things worked, provided she had only really understood half the instructions. Whatever. Or Willow...? She was hopeful, part of her. She had not really spoken with Zar, despite seeing him around, and Auri and JD seemed to be spending most of the trip together. Which meant that really, Amarus only talked to Faustus. Where the hell had Willow gone, anyway? Amarus saw her at the dorms, trying to disentangle Valentino from the curtains, but not again after that.

At least it involved fire. Amarus typically disliked water, and favoured fire, except when there were lotus blossoms involved. In any case, she hoped her awful incense would hold up.

She never actually got to find out, because she knocked the flame over. And into the screen. Which ... promptly caught fire. She did the only thing she could think of, which was attempt to summon the only fire-related boil she knew.

"Faustus?" she tried, kind of normally, as if he was actually in the room. And then, louder, because she assumed Faustus would be somewhere in the class, "FAUSTUS, I THINK I DID SOMETHING VERY WRONG, PLEASE HELP--" Oh, Jack.

xoxomenai

demon_pachabel

Nuru found himself navigating the same room as the day before. Only there seemed to be something different... something... he couldn't quite put his finger on. Even as he took his mat and was surrounded by it on both his sides.

Invi interrupted his distant train of thought as he started to instruct them. Nuru took a moment or two to figure out how Invi set up the incense in the stand and mirror it correctly.

Then there were sticks and fire and lighting sticks on fire. He inhaled verrrry slowly through his nose but exhaled with a high-pitched throaty whining sound. It looked like fun. He was so eager to try it... but of course he had to wait for the demo to end before "rushing the stage" to get his punk lit.

He returned back to his mat with punk in hand, orange warmth giving way to black ash slowly in his hand - faster with each breath he blew on it to emulate Invi's own gestures. It was there though he found himself uncertain. He didn't need luck, he already felt like the luckiest boil in the world. Success wasn't the sort of thing he longed for. Money he could certainly use, but he wasn't one for worldly goods. No.. this boil was simpler than that. He smiled slightly.

Was popularity the best way to put it? He wanted to see people. Lots of people. So many people socializing and carrying out their lives. It'd just be nice if he knew everything about them and how they worked and lived. He closed his eyes and idly wondered how that might feel. Loved? Never alone? Yes. He was certain this was what he wanted.

He opened his eyes again to guide his hand and hold the punk to his incense, blowing on both until the fiery glow spread. Commooonnn wishstick, make this boil's dreams come true. It seemed to light without any issue and so he closed his eyes again.

His nostrils flared lightly as the strong earthy scent wafted about his space. It smelled like... woodsy... dirt under his nails... pine. It was a scent he almost wished he could take home with him but-- damnit Nuru, focus! He shook his head slightly as he re-directed his thoughts. Imagining that crowd again; people actually happy to see him, people who knew his name, people who were happy to be around him, and happy to have him be a part of their lives. It was fantastic and so sooo much better than luck or money ever could be.

He didn't realize it but his tail was wagging so widely it was brushing past the paper walls and causing a soft crinkling noise.

When it came time to light everything Chuppi was...nervous? She'd done her best, sure, but that didn't stop her from panicking when she saw a few others setting the walls on fire with their incense. Was there a proper protocol on how to apologize for burning someone's house down? She honestly didn't think so and therefore just looked at the things she made with a face full of fear. They had to be lit though, she needed to know what her work was, and she carefully set the tip on fire.

Apparently her lack of use of charcoal made it, well, burn really quickly. She must have actually used to much which would be a relief but none the less the scent was in the air and going quickly. She wasn't coughing, she hadn't set anything on fire, her incense was still going - it just was going much faster than she would have liked. Leaning over it carefully she tried to get as much of a scent in as possible before it went out, closing her eyes and trying to visualize something, anything.

The scent, for all that it mattered and all that she could smell, reminded her of home. She could smell what felt like the grasses her family would sleep in, smell the night air and the dirt. With her eyes closed she could almost see everyone running through the grounds, the sounds of their feet contacting after a heavy jumping ranging like phantoms in her ears. The scent reminded her of home and she smiled faintly, accepting the thoughts and wondering if it could remind her of anything else. It was burning so quickly though there wasn't much left to it by the time she settled in to get a second sniff.

Auri followed the other students up to Invictus to retrieve her punk. She went back to he same spot as yesterday and removed the incense she had made the previous day.

"Time to test for success!" she chanted. It was something Mr. King always used to tell one, one of the many lame sayings you might hear in a class room.

She lit her stick and waited. All the while trying to keep her distance and let the scent come to her. First she was hit by a piney citrus like scent. She wasnt sure if it was from the berries or that oil but it was certainly pleasant. The next thing she could smell was the cumin. She recognized it from the Indian restaurants Mr. King liked to frequent on his business trips. It smelled good to Auri, like the smell of a closing a deal.

As she took in deep breaths she drew closer and closer to the stick. There was another smell. She couldn't remember what it was from the list. She barely looked at the list anyway. She took deeper breaths trying to figure it out. Which each sniff her throat began to burn more, and her eyes began to itch. She just took that to be from the cumin. What was it she wondered. Fennel? Fish scales? Frankenberry?... Frankincense! It dawned on her, "frankincen..se...."

"Wait," she thought as she took a huge breath of the smoke. "Isn't this the stuff they use for..."

"EXORCISMS!?" she yelped as her eyes became completely bloodshot. Her throat was on fire.

"ACK-AK-KAK!" she coughed and coughed. Slowly Auri pulled herself away from her compartment. She rolled to her back, out away from the circle of mats, and tried desperately to catch her breath.

"Why-kA didn't I *cough* read the Jack dang *wheeze* ingredients closer!" she sputtered to herself.

Auri remained sprawled out on the floor. She looked across the room through her teary eyes and saw Zar standing there half shirtless.

"Is-HACK is this he*wheeze* heaven?" she coughed out. She hadn't even noticed that several fires had broken out around the room.

"Sputter will you?" Valentino was barely able to choke off the rage he was feeling at the stick of incense that refused to work. it had to have been the fates playing another terrible joke upon him. Maybe, just maybe there would be a way to salvage this yet though. It just needed more fire.

fortuitously, there was plenty of fire around, students seemed to relish the chance to set everything ablaze, and there were small fires just waiting to be exploited. Sticking the incense into the nearest open flame, the stick came back to life and promptly began to burn.

The scents mixed together and it was not unpleasant, it reminded Valentino of the cool nights that he would take extraneous parts of old experiments and leave them in a shallow ditch. During those nights he could relax as he dug, he was completing the circle of life, giving back nutrients to the soil that gave up it's inhabitants to simply.

Paper walls today, it was obviously the first thing Olivia noticed when she stepped in the room with the others; just as so many of the others observed themselves. The need for separation was curious to her, she was used to the thin sheets by now seeing them in the dorms and a few different locations upon the island. These weren't full of holes though.

But there was a candle, and the undead ghoul stared at it worried. She didn't get very close to it, to the point of nearly not even being in her own little cubicle. They were using the fire already? She looked up at their instructor with sad eyes, trying very hard to pay attention while the deadly item danced upon the wick like it was nothing at all. Stupid fire, taunting her so.

The pale ghoul was very close to asking one of her neighbors to do her task for her, but held her request in. She needed to do this on her own, it seemed. Opening up her box with shaky hands and a whimper, she pulled out one of the sticks that she put together the day before and did as Invictus instructed the class to do. It took her a few tries, her reach not close enough at first before the very tip finally caught and began to smoke.

Even with the blunder of the last step, it didn't turn out terrible. The incense seemed to be burning slowly at least, a nice mixture even if the smell of the scent was ... weird.

Desperately she tried to calm herself, giving her thoughts into the kind of woodsy fragrance wafting in the air, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. What did she want to gain? Well, knowledge and understanding of course. Maybe some friends... perhaps a few things here and there. Visualize.. visualize, Olivia attempted to close her eyes to focus on what she wanted.

But that wasn't going to do with all the fires being created by various students. Oh jumping Jack on a pogo stick, there were fires! Olivia's eyes snapped open, her mouth fell open at the sheer idea that there were flames in the area. Nothing came out but another pathetic whimper. Her mind was just not supplying any sort of thoughts anymore, especially not the obvious 'run you idiot! RUN!' No, the undead ghoul simply froze with terror.

After their success with Kumiko game earlier today, Wylfenne came into classroom with a self-assured smirk. Incenses! Very well. After having guessed the right combination of scents presented by the horseman, they felt almost sure today they would do better and earn a smile of approval from that almost almighty Invictus..

((OOCLY: Wylfenne yet has no idea Invictus never smiles!))

..they positioned themselves in the corner hidden from other students by thin paper walls. Not exactly hidden, Wylfenne would argue, because shapes of all sizes and density kept flickering around. Thy sort of wondered what would happen, if anyone manages to burn the walls down... would the whole classroom turn into a battlefield of frightened creatures seeking for shelter, or would the student keep their possible grains of self-control and stick to classwork. At least, they were determined to excel in the work whatever happens.

The mixture so painfully obtained yesterday brought to Wylfenne reminiscences of her previous humiliation. But at least, now it stuck and was ready to be lit. There was just one small problem to that: wasn't is supposed to signify something they had to visualize... oh, here's the nuisance: they couldn't think of anything. Gold? Oh, their father has enough of that. And anyway, they just don't care. Beauty? They were brought up in believing this was one of the most dangerous powers of their kind, and one must work hard to obtain it, but both their male and female forms were quite... equipped with the power people call beauty... Success? Oh, that was surely a thing, but hard as they believed in self-perfection, they would never accept success that came undeserved. Wylfenne thought the most practical thing would be to desire for self confidence, a that was definitely the thing that caused them most trouble, especially entrusted with an important mission in public. But, at the same time, it was certainly evident that monsters feeding on fear shouldn't be making incense to obtain such a thing. They wondered, if Invictus, if he had ever caught a glimpse of their thoughts, would mock them till the end of their studies on the island.

So, they better stick to the safe thing. What do all the creatures want? Sure, - divine insanity, might on the battlefield.

Wylfenne lit the mixture and having inhaled a small breath imagined themselves standing on a battlefield lit by the rays of victory, glaring with contempt over the bodies of the fallen foes they fought.

Something was going not exactly right. The incense shouldn't be burning that fast, should it? The Fae remembered they appeared to put too much of charcoal powder to their incense yesterday. Oh well.

And there was something else... The smell of burning paper, paper wall. Should that thing be burning?.. One of her neighbours, they were not too close, has definitely set their space on fire. Wylfenne could tell it from cries and murmur and a distinct flavour of burning spreading across the classroom.