As soon as they got to the cafeteria Kress went and grabbed so food and then ran off to his room. Kat had to assu it was to plan the final task. *I still don't know how he can be so confident in his knowledge of what the task is. Even I'm starting to think he knows what it is. Though… I wonder what makes him excited to participate in it. Knowing the answer is just one half of the equation.*
Gareth was standing off to the side while Green tornted a blushing Blue with Nixilei helping occasionally. Kat of course, decided she didn't want anything to do with that nonsense. Stan had picked up his food and wandered off, possibly to sulk, possibly just to emulate Kress. Both were equally likely in Kat's mind.
Vanya was berating Marigold for riling Blue up enough to win that final match instead of failing part way through or, even better, just having them take the loss. This… seed to be completely ineffective. If anything Marigold was enjoying the current punishnt. Vanya using her as a chair did seem a bit extre… but yeah… with a smile on Marigold's face it was hard to argue it was a real punishnt. She didn't even seem to mind the fact she had to eat off the floor. Well, the plate that was on the floor. Marigold was a masochist not an idiot, and getting dirt in your food is not tasty.
Midnight and Mauve were just… casually eating on the other side of the table. They seed to treat the whole thing those two were doing as completely normal… which does raise so questions. *Wait… is Marigold trying to win at all? Or is she just looking for creative reasons to get punished. If this is so common that Midnight and Mauve are just… treating this as normal, and Marigold is clearly enjoying this 'punishnt' does that an sothing like this is a common occurrence.*
[I don't like the fact I think you're on the right track. Sure Marigold is trying her hardest to win… but seemingly only when it suits her. She probably tries properly to win because not doing so isn't sothing Vanya would punish her for. Heck, Vanya would probably try to coddle Marigold, perhaps thinking sothing was wrong, or perhaps as a real punishnt. Which… is just weird to think about.]
Over at another table, Nabras was being bullied, mostly by Nell and Bonas about his poor performance in the log splitting event. Ellenell would chi in occasionally to add fuel to the fire, but seed pretty content to munch on what looked to be a salad rather than directly bully Nabras himself. Kat wasn't sure if this was fairly typical sibling stuff, or if they were actually annoyed with him… probably a mix of both. Probably why Ellenell was mostly staying on the edge of the conversation.
Stan being missing didn't seem to affect the dynamic of his group much. They'd all grabbed a table together and were eating without problems. They certainly weren't bullying March like Nabras' team was bullying him. Kat herself was sowhat tempted to go over and hang out, what with everyone from her own team being busy… but Burnice was standing around as well, so getting a table with her was probably more interesting. Perhaps inviting Mint over as well would be good.
Romilda's team was packed away in the back corner. Kat could hear them if she wanted, but considering they were leaned in close whispering to each other in the far back corner of the room they probably wanted whatever they were saying to remain a secret. Sure it would be nearly impossible for Kat to be caught… but realistically? If the information was actually sensitive, they could've gone up to one of their rooms. They were magically soundproofed after all. Eavesdropping prevention back by Thy. Seed like the safest thod to Kat.
Whatever the case, Kat took one of the spare tables after waving over Burnice and Mint. Kat decided to go for the salad like Ellenell, because he seed to be really enjoying it. Lily picked a chunk of at. Possibly not the healthiest thing for a normal human, but Lily wasn't anymore so it was probably fine. Burnice grabbed a salad of her own, though it was a different one to Kat's. Mint made her way over and sat down.
Kat held her questions until everyone had gotten a bit of food in them. She knew that she'd be fine despite the late al, but not everyone would be so lucky. So Kat kept her silence for the first fifteen minutes. Burnice tore through that salad and then went back for a second one. *Right… everyone is hungry. Perhaps the salad isn't THAT good… it's just that everyone is starving.*
Kat had been wondering if it was just an elf thing, but she found the salad a bit bland. Sure she'd not realised there should be dressing on it, but that was hardly her fault right? Mint, not knowing much about food, didn't say anything. Lily obviously didn't know, and Burnice just assud Kat didn't want dressing for whatever reason. The elf had quite a few weird preferences when it ca to food, and leaving the dressing off a salad probably didn't even crack top ten, so it wasn't comnted on. Thus, Kat had a bland salad, and decided to pick sothing else next ti.
Once Burnice started to slow down a bit with her eating, Kat felt the need to ask, "So… what did you think of the volleyball matches?"
Burnice finished off a mouthful of not-lettuce that was orange instead of green before saying, "It was… boring. Well, no, that's a bit rude of to say. It started out interesting, and that first round without Blue in it was super tense. Once Blue got going though… it got real dull real fast. True Gareth and Burgandy nearly managed to snatch a win from Blue but I didn't think they could do it till right at the end, so there was like… five minutes of excitent there max.
"I think Thy should've ruled that you can't touch the ball with magic for more than a few seconds. Which might've been fine? I do understand why Thy was so restrictive about using the ground, because if they weren't I could see things getting really silly really quickly. Like, imagine if they just set a big wall to bounce the ball back. Basically what Blue did, but packed stone would be a lot harder to get through, plus the harder you hit the harder it hits back.
"Though if they were earth mages they could lift the wall and then have a face off against Blue, but that would've been rather mana intensive. If it was just a wall attached to the ground you could set and forget it. At least Blue had to concentrate for her strategy. Though… ultimately I'm just not sure the ruleset was right for the ga. I think a ti limit on spells would've really helped,"
"I'll bring it up with Thy later," said Mint. "These gas, at least in their current form, are very unrefined. Thy is hoping to find so standouts to beco main attractions at the resorts here to encourage more people to have fun… but it was mostly tested by Thy in a bunch of different bodies trying to work out the kinks. So… sotis we have major issues like water mages destroying the balance that can get missed. Though I promise the gas have co a long way,"
"Oh? In what ways?" asked Burnice.
Mint frowned for a few monts then nodded before saying, "So I can't tell you so of the really funny monts because so of them involve gas that you guys haven't seen yet, but there are quite a few notable monts for the Volleyball matches. The first one that cos to mind is court sizes. Originally they were much smaller but the issue was… a single 'person' could cover the entire court no problem. Defending was ridiculously easy. So Thy doubled the size of the court… then increased it so more.
"Um what else… originally there was actually a no magic rule, but Thy felt like that would be really unfun for the mages, and Thy had so high hopes for the ga to be played by a wide variety of people, unlike say the log chopping which is ant to be a test of strength and dexterity not magic. Um… there was a version that Thy tested of only magic… but it got ssy really quickly.
"The optimal strategy for that version was not to focus on the ball but to try to disrupt your opponents casting which Thy felt went against the spirit of what they were trying to do. Hmm… what else… oh right at the start there wasn't a rule stopping you from casting spells on your opponent's side. That had similar problems. The best strategy there was to create pit traps that you would then close up to keep your opponents from moving. Bit nasty that iteration,"
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