[Deleted]

On a nice and warm night like Brightwing Lane, Paula Polestar decided to hold a study session for students of Hylia Grace Academy to prepare for exams they could face in the future, such as the one in Paula's collage class that she's about to take in a week's time. To Paula's surprise, she didn't expect that a lot of people from school would attend her gathering but she was never the less happy that it was going to be a calm and relaxing party.

That reminded Paula. Arle Nadja was supposed to be coming to this gathering at all, while the two got off on the wrong foot in the last mission she was in. Paula hoped that she can make it up to Arle tonight and turned and watched as students started to walk in through the door of her apartment. "Hi, good evening. Thank you for coming just find a spot to study in my apartment, but not my bedroom." Paula told the guests, one of them, a girl noticed a book that she was holding.

"Oh, is that your book?" She asked as Paula looked down at the book she was holding, it was the great grandfather's diary. Of course, she had to move it to somewhere else that was safe because the previous spot she put it in broke, she shook her head. "Oh no. I was about to put this book away." She told the girl as she walked towards a mantle atop of the fireplace in her apartment. She placed the diary on top of it.

"Perfect, hopefully nobody is going to touch it." Paula thought to herself as she went to a spot in her apartment to study, not noticing that the diary was slightly tilting.

But nothing will go wrong...

Right?

MISSION START!

[Mari]

Arle arrives a bit late with a peculiar, ancient-looking book nestled against her breastplate. Did she ever take that thing off? ...Probably not, knowing just how unsafe everything proved to be for her. Who knew when the bath would come alive and try to take a bite out of her? Jokes aside, she looked around and took a deep breath before stepping in and immersing herself amongst the gathered students. She walked around looking a bit lost before finally catch sight of a book lilting to its side rather precariously!

. . .

Yup. That's a book alright. Figuring someone must have put it away incorrectly, she gave it a little push with her finger to keep it from falling off before moving off to find Paula. They had studying to do, after all, and she was intent upon using her time on the academy well. She'd toured the world in search new schools to study at back in the madou world, moving and making new friends just for the privilege of learning something new. Having one show up right here in the Life Sphere was pretty easy in comparison! ...Hold on, how had she attended all those different schools before her seventeenth birthday? Didn't semesters take up half a year?

. . .

How had she gone where before her what now? Weird. Arle could've sworn she was thinking about something. Oh well! She thought she saw someone familiar. How exciting! Moving forward, it turned out to be Paula. "Hi Paula! Sorry I'm late." Arle would greet, moving to sit with the other and place her book in her lap.

[Deleted]

As Arle moved to where Paula was, who was about to get ready to study for the night but was still waiting for Arle, mumbling could be heard by the crowd of student, some even looked at Arle and even mentioned her name. Paula meanwhile took notice on Arle and waved towards the girl. "Over here Arle!" She called on the girl as she watched her sit down beside her. "Thanks for coming to this session Arle. It seem's to be already popular so far, this is like the first time I ever hosted a party, since, well, ever." Paula beamed to Arle, holding a book on her lap about the history of some company that Paula was studying about called Aperture Science.

Wanting to have a good start tonight. Paula wanted to ask Arle a question before she started studying. "So Arle, what are you currently studying at the academy? Also is there any exam's that your about to take yet, i'm excited for mine!" Paula wiggled her hands, before turning towards everyone else in the room, who were looking at the two girls, Paula was confused. "Umm, why are you all looking at us?" She asked everyone in the room as they quickly went back to there studying. Paula turned back towards Arle.

"Odd, don't you think?" She affirmed, meanwhile back at the mantle of her fireplace...The Great Grandfather's diary was starting to slip towards the ground for some reason...As if some invisible force was pushing it off of it.

Nobody in the room has yet to take notice.

[Mari]

"Yeah~! I guess you must be pretty popular now." Arle observed in response to how successful the meeting was going. She paused for a moment. Hold on--had she brought this crowd? The thought momentarily soured her disposition. She was well aware of the unwanted attention that had brought her and the stalkers that gave that attention, but she quietly reasoned that if that were the case she would've been mobbed when she entered and quickly dismissed that thought almost as quickly as it had arrived. "I'm studying magic! I want to learn everything I can--" Arle eagerly began to explain. It would be quite easy to see she had a passion for her learning, but before she could really finish that thought Paula pointed something eerie out to her. She suddenly became aware of a lot of staring eyes. Oh man. That was weird. Had she done something inappropriate to upset the group? She couldn't quite think of what she might've done, but surely so many people couldn't be staring without just cause, right?

...And then they looked away. That right there was what shifted the blame for Arle. If they had a reason for staring ...why weren't they coming forward with it? It felt like they were being left out of the loop on purpose. ...Like they were being tricked. Huh. A hand reached up to her tiara and gingerly ran through her hair. Leaning in a bit closer to Paula, she spoke softly to the other to avoid being overheard. "Mmhm. Something feels wrong." Arle replied. Count her as extremely suspicious.

[Deleted]

"Well let's just ignore them. They need to do there own studying anyway and we should focus on ours." Paula tried to change the topic before smiling. "I hope you do well on learning every bit of magic that you can Arle. I know you can go on to do great things." She cajoled to Arle, looking down at her book. "But let's stu---Suddenly Paula heard a large thump nearby coming from the fire place, causing her to turn towards it. "Uh oh. Hang on, let me see what happened over there." Paula told Arle, placing the book on the table and walking towards her fireplace and looking down at it.



The diary fell from the fireplace and swung open to a certain page in the book, revealing an unknown party ritual that George must of wrote a long while ago. "A party ritual? To make things such as study sessions, parties or sleepovers a blast, say these magical words to make it all happen." Paula looked down at said words which reads.

"Dekka Um Pancake."

She picked up the book and looked at it. There's no way nobody is going to say those words tonight, it's just going to be a normal study session with no repercussions.

[Mari]

"Heehee, thanks~! Arle replied, flashing Paula an affectionately warm smile. That was one happy Arle. One might get the impression that, if she were that type of person, she would have hugged Paula. Sadly, she was not. But a look that nice was meaningful in its own way--right? She had a nice smile! A moment's hesitance occurred as something hit the ground nearby. Her attention snapped to focus in that direction. Following Paula to investigate, she curiously peered past Paula's shoulders at the words on the page. 'Dekka um'? "...What sort of pancake is that?" Arle asked in mild bewilderment. It sounded like some kind of fruit! ...But certainly not any she'd heard of. Honestly, she was kind of tempted to incant the spell and summon some up! The food situation in the life sphere was less than spectacular after all. Something new might be fun! The only problem with that idea was that she wasn't the host. Ordering food for someone else's party was definitely on the ruder side of things.  "Do you know what a Dekka um is..?" Arle asked, trying to get some input from Paula. She'd known of a lot of weird things she didn't recognize from her own world. Maybe this was one of them!

[Deleted]

Just then upon Arle jinxing the situation, the entire apartment began to shake wildly as Paula held the book close to her, making sure it wouldn't fall out of her sights. "I have a feeling you saying pancake, dekka and um just caused the ritual to happen either way. We have to get out of here so we can fix this from the outside and that nobody in this party get's hurt!" Paula told Arle as she tried to run towards the door. All of the other party guests have already flee once the apartment began to shake, leaving Paula and Arle the only inhabitants of the apartment.

As Paula tried to reach the front door, it was suddenly blocked off, preventing her or Arle from escaping. The windows quickly vanished as well, preventing the girls from jumping out there either. Paula touched the walls that the windows once stood. "Oh fuzzy pickles, were stuck unless we break through the walls of this apartment." The apartment began to detach itself from the complex and once it did, it floated into the sky. Inside the apartment, a white glow appeared in the middle of the room and consumed Paula and Arle. The former gasping in shock.







When the glow vanished, Paula and Arle were on the floor, the cold stone floor, unlike the wooden floor of Paula's apartment, the great grandfather's diary was missing as Paula sat up and looked around. "Where's the diary? And what happened to my apartment?" Paula didn't seem that panicked with the fact that her apartment just transformed into a med evil like dungeon and losing a powerful item, because she was sure her and Arle were going to get it back and restore the apartment back to normal.

A sign lit up in front of the girls and a deep voice soon spoke to the girls out loud. 

The sign reads: TRUTH OR DARE: SOLVE THREE ROOMS AND YOU WIN!

"Greetings, I am Truth Seeker. My favourite thing is people telling the truth, but I hate it when people tell lies. Tell a truth in the three rooms of this dungeon and you will be given back the diary, as well as this apartment being restored back to normal, however tell a single lie and you two will be punished unless the truth is spoken...Good luck."



A door soon appeared in front of the duo, Paula walked towards it before turning towards Arle. "Come on Arle, as long as we tell the truth, this dungeon will be breeze!" Paula told her partner before resuming walking towards the door.

[Mari]

"I think we've been kidnapped. S-Sorry..." a very bewildered Arle lamented. She sounded so so defeated. Man, she wasn't even expecting a trap! Between being brought to the sky and being locked in a room and ... whatever this place was now, this was a bit of a big deal. She was kind of scared to imagine what might happen if whatever force was moving them just ... put them somewhere awful. However, she quickly banished that thought from her mind. Maybe it would all turn out alright! ...She'd just have to hope, anyway. Before she could really start thinking of a way to get down without bringing the room down around them, though, a strange voice gave her a choice. "Truth, or... dare?" the mage mused aloud. Arle's chest tightened with anticipation. She recognized this game! ...She'd decided never to play it again after a group of boys tried to dare her to kiss them. Gross! Glancing over at Paula, though, she had to second guess herself. There were no boys to creep on them here! She trusted Paula not to go there, but what about that voice? Normally she'd be thrilled to be in such a familiar place, but this was a bit unexpected. "I guess we don't have a choice... Hopefully they don't ask us anything too embarrassing." Arle relented with mild distaste, hanging back for just a moment before lurching forward to catch up with Paula.

[Deleted]

"Or something that will ruin friendships." Paula laughed nervously to her new friend...Before entering the first room out of three.





Upon entering the first room, Paula and Arle would be amazed to find that they were in a large kitchen area with black and white floor patterns and nicely polished silver wear lying around on a large red and white squared table. It basically looked like a stereotypical posh kitchen. The kitchen must of been Paula's kitchen in her apartment, just evolved to match the new dungeon like setting that was accidentally created. "Wow, I seen this type of kitchen before. My mom used to show it to me on Twoson's kitchen set up monthly and when me and my parents visit the hardware store and we go into the dream room section." Paula was amazed, she looked back at Arle.

"I...Never expected to actually be in an actual posh kitchen really. I wonder how the diary even made this room happen?" She began to wonder as she heard the mysterious voice behind the truth or dare game speak out to the girls. "Welcome to the first room of the dungeon, minus the room you ended up in...

Paula Polestar

Arle Nadja

TRUTH

OR DARE!

Paula began to think on which option, she asked the voice a question. "If we pick dare do we have to do a deadly kitchen dare, like cut off one of our fingers or juggle knives?" She asked the voice, who thought for a minute before replying. "I never really thought of something like that. BUT NOW THAT YOU MENTIONED IT, maybe I should do something like that...I mean should you choose to pi---Truth!"


The voice just needed Arle's choice to pick out the challenges the girls must do to escape the room and enter the second room of the dungeon.

[Mari]

" . . . Wow. " Arle just kinda awkwardly remarked after witnessing that scene. "Well, at least we know he's not going to dare us to play poker with him." Arle remarked rather light-heartedly, poking fun at the way the voice revealed his hand so easily. She supposed she should be thankful! However, it really wasn't much of a victory. "I think I'm gonna go with truth too." Arle added in a somewhat matter-o-fact tone. However, while she was confident in her choice that didn't really tell her much about what awaited her behind door number truth. It only told her about the choice she hadn't made. Honestly, she wasn't so sure what he could possibly ask It filled her with a bit of anxiety, but at the same time she had to question how evil being forced to tell the truth could be.

[Deleted]

As soon as Arle answered that she was going to pick truth like Paula, the lights in the room suddenly went off. "Oh fuzzy pickles, this isn't good, let's hope nothing bad happens to us." Paula sounded worried in the darkness. She was about to light up her thumb so she can look around the darkened kitchen when two spotlights aimed at Paula and Arle respectfully. It was so bright, so bright in fact that Paula had trouble seeing the light itself.

"Since you two are picking truth, you will both be answering the same question." The voice explained, Paula looked forward. "And that question is?" Paula asked the voice as the sound of drum's beating was heard in the darkness.



-

-

-

"What is your favourite thing?"

Paula smirked. "Simple, my ribbon." Paula tugged on her goddess ribbon that she fought hell for. Yes, it was definitely her favourite thing, nothing else, nothing like a picture of someone or anything. Paula turned towards Arle. "Uhh, what's your favourite thing Arle?" She asked her new friend as she let go of her ribbon.

[Mari]

. . . Man, either that was one special ribbon or they were about to get screwed. Arle couldn't help but be a little concerned with a response like that, but she'd just have to trust Paula had her reasons. As for her, though, she had to think for a moment. Arle was not a very materialistic person. Her friends were what she treasured most, but her friends also weren't 'things', they were people. She'd been asked a specifically material question. What was her favorite thing? A nice plate of beef curry? That would've been her answer back before Li. She simply hadn't owned much. Perhaps a nice warm soak? "Gosh, that's a tough one." Arle replied in thought. "...My armor." Arle softly replied after a long moment. "It's one of the only things I have to remember some of the people I miss most by." Arle went on to explain. It had been a tough choice between that and the locket Rulue had given her. The thing about that was that she had all the Rulue she could ever ask for. Whereas, her armor had been a gift from her kindergarten teacher. Her mantle had been, in a way, a gift from that mysterious friend who'd weirdly gone out of their way not to tell her their name. Her tiara--Every piece had its history.

[Deleted]

As the girls answered the first out of three possible questions, the voice waited to see if both answers were truthful. After a few seconds, Paula stared at Arle in confusion before looking back up at the voice. "So, did we answer truthfully and you can let us pass into the next room?" She asked the voice, who growled in his voice.

"Grr...No, one of you girls lied!" 




And just like that a red light lit up the kitchen. The sinks in the room quickly shot out lava which started to flood the kitchen and surround the girls, stopping when it reached the two spots of floor that Paula and Arle were standing on, the door to the next room meanwhile lit up with a huge arrow pointing down to it. "If you girls reach the next door, and avoid the lava, you will reach the second room of the dungeon!" The voice gleefully revealed, Paula looked down at the lava that was slowly moving inches to her legs she floated upwards and flew towards Arle.

She knew this was her fault, but she knows that they can get out of this room alive thanks to her flight abilty.

Paula floated over to Arle and extended her hand for her to grab. "Arle, quick, grab my hand. I can fly us into the next room!"

(Roll a strength 15 to grab Paula's hand, if one of the rolls fail then one of the girls will be burnt by lava. If both rolls fail then both girls will be burnt by lava, but will otherwise reach the door to the next room, albeit wounded because of the lava, the damage from the lava will be 30%.)

p|Ub|595p_1d20+1(Paula will surely deliver Arle and herself to safety if she grabs her hand now.)1d20+1

[Mari]

2VKJemS5p_1d20-3 (...Hah.)

Hey, remember how Arle likes to carry around a pretty golden staff? Turns out she doesn't get to have both hands free while doing that. And... her grip slips. She grabbed for Paula's hand, but just kinda fell through the motion. Paula could just see the panic in her eyes as she realized things were about to go very, very wrong for her. Arle found herself being cooked, which was oddly enough a new experience for her. She'd certainly experienced burning alive before, but at the hands of acid, not fire. It was decidedly a close enough approximation for her standards. Thankfully she didn't sink into the lava, but the agonizing pain shot up her legs and into her body as it melted the soles of her shoes. A shuddering gasp escaped her and her lungs filled with burning hot, toxic hair. It was all a bit too much for Arle, and tears quickly spilled over her cheeks.

But... Arle was tougher than she looked. She couldn't cry out for help or scream, not when she was struggling to breathe, but she did manage to focus enough to make another jump. This time she leaped high into the air and clung to Paula's waist for dear sweet life instead of going for her hand, hanging there like a morbidly toasty wrapped sweater. She had no comment. Not until her head stopped swimming and she got some proper fresh air, anyway.

Arle Nadja 150 / 180 HP 55 / 55 Shield Status: Normal

1d20-3

[Deleted]

Paula didn't act that all surprised when Arle fell into the lava and tried to float over towards the door into the next room. "I guess we should get going to the ne---Woah!" Paula was suddenly grabbed when Arle leap up and grabbed her, causing her to steer right into the door to the next room which she burst through and landed into it. Upon entering the next room, the door closed preventing any lava from getting into the room. To make sure that the girls were safe in the new room, four other doors were summoned in front of the now locked door to the lava filled kitchen and a lot of chains and locks were applied all over those doors.





Meanwhile the room itself was a bathroom, a smallish regular bathroom compared to the posh kitchen the two were in. Paula smiled. "At least were in a place with water instead of a lava." Paula reassured Arle, the voice was soon heard again.

"You know the drill you two...Truth, or dare?" The voice asked, seeing as how there was nothing that could go wrong in this bathroom. Paula decided to change her next answer. "Ok, dare." She wondered what the voice was going to dare Paula to do.