Welcome to the Real World[Class][2B][Irie]

[Funai Ikko]

Whether she understood why or how she got the right answer wasn't especially relevant, the fact that she got the right answer was however. As soon as she carved the word into the boat, through a mechanism that is as wonderful as it is unexplained, seemed to realize that the girl carved the correct answer into the wood and the water around Irie churned to life. Bubbling and frothing as if the plug was pulled in the bath, the water level started dropping around her, the boat sliding down atop the now descending pillar of water. Down the makeshift, giant well Irie would sail, provided she didn't decide to abandon ship as soon as she accomplished her trial, until the water emptied out entirely and the wooded dinghy smacked against the cold, stone floor beneath them.

As Irie would look around, she would find herself emptied out in to a large, cavern, seemingly straight out of a spelunking brochure. There was a stream passing along near where her vessel ran aground trailing through the cavern, snaking toward what looked like a large, arched stone entrance. All around it were large patches of what looked like glowing, luminous moss that were strewn entirely around the cavern, but seemed to specifically congregate around the glowing archway. Clearly distinct around the frame of the entryway however were small carvings, stark in contrast to the faint green glow around her. Etched into the stone were symbols depicting a bear, a snake, and tortoise, none of which were especially friendly looking.

Outside of the bear being flanked on either side by the Serpent and the Tortoise and none of them looking especially pleased to be there, no further indication for what these symbols were supposed to mean was present, but outside of attempting to climb back up the well she came down, there seemed to be no other exit from this place other than the soft green glow of the corridor leading past that archway.

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WC: 330
TWC: 330
PC: 1/5

 

[Yamamoto Airi]

As she hacked and carved into the wood of the boat she was getting nervous. What if her answers was sneaky or childish? She was not trying to be a smarty pants but that was how she felt as her etching was wrapping up. When she finished she put down the knife and placed her hands in a prayer. “Please do not have Sensei get mad at me over this…” As she was leaning down she noticed that eventually the water started to churn. Normally you would think that getting out of the boat would be the smartest thing to do but Airi was so scared about falling into the water and get sucked away that she held onto the boat for dear life.

Even half a minute after the boat stopped she felt herself clinging like a kitten to the boat. Her eyes blinked open and she looked around. Was she safe? Was she correct? She stood up in the boat and looked around more closely. “I appear…to be in a large cave…or maybe a cavern?” Talking out loud was not a very shinobi like thing to do but as Airi had been able to show off so far…she really did not act very shinobi like.

Her eyes followed the stream and she noticed the large stone entryway. “I really hope my team mates are doing okay…” She was so worried about them, she really should have been more adamant about sticking together to cover each other’s weakness’ Then again…maybe it was just because she was insecure. The others all looked to have confidence and she felt like they only really kept her along because she mentioned she could heal. She still had her bag which surprised her. She felt no need with the light glow from the moss to use her torch. She figured there might be something really necessary in the future for one of her items.

As she made it to the archway she noticed some carvings along the wall, one depicting a Bear, another a snake, and finally a tortoise or maybe a turtle. She felt like the pictures made them look scary but she really liked turtles so she felt like they would never be scary.

As nervous as she felt and as worried as she was for her friends she held herself firm and processed to try and make her way forward. She knew that eventually she would come up to something tough and it was only a matter of time before she would fail to meet expectations. “Sensei…I hope we are working as you wish us to…” She gritted her teeth and pressed forward.

WC: 442

 

[Funai Ikko]

Whether it was divine providence, karma intervening, or perhaps just the cruel indifference of fate, it couldn't be sure, but Irie's trial seemed rather determined to subvert her expectations. As she pushed through the moss coated walkway, she would eventually be deposited into a massive, ornate chamber. If Irie were an especially studious individual with an obsessively capable eye for eyeballing dimensions of a room, she'd be able to determine it was roughly a hundred feet long and wide and about seventy feet tall. In the middle of the giant room was a decidedly not innocent looking, massive turtle. The majority of the space in the room was taken up by the massive, stone effigy. Its eyes were fixed aggressively on the entrance of the room and it's noticeably sharp beak looked like it was more than capable of relieving Irie's top half from her bottom half.

However, for now, the massive monster seemed to be completely immobile. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be two ramps on either side of the beast, walkways designed to allow someone to climb atop the creature's shell to where, presumably, Irie's next trial was meant to take place. This became more obvious when, upon further inspection, the rest of the room seemed completely empty outside of the glowing moss illuminating it and a few lumps scattered around in the soft earth that looked more and more humanoid in shape the more they were looked at.

On top of the turtle, Irie would find that along it's shell was carved a distinct grid, five even squares by five even squares scrawled across the monster. Most of these squares were empty, nothing but the shell beneath it, but a fair bit of them were etched with large depictions of the Ancient Kumogakuran Alphabet, letters ascribed in the squares. If looked down upon from the ceilings, it would appear as such:

If she moved along the back of the turtle toward the head, Irie would see a smaller square carved into the back of the head, however, unlike the larger version on the back, this smaller version was completely filled in with the Ancient Kumogakuran Alphabet. Irie would notice that Ancient letters in the grid appeared exactly once in each row, column and main diagonals. Unfortunately, the letters placed on the small grid did not match the depictions on the larger grid, so Irie would not be able to use it as a direct reference, but it should be a good sign of what she needed to do. Erected directly beside the smaller grid was a large calligraphy brush jutting up out of the turtle's shell that was large enough to be difficult, but not enough to be impossible for Irie to wield efficiently. A seemingly infinite inkwell existed in the brush's holder if Irie decided to pull it out. However, like the knife before, there was only so much she could do to take back a stroke of the brush and unlike the boat...there were a few cautionary tales of what failure might mean scattered around the room.

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WC: 513
TWC: 843
PC: 2/5

 

[Yamamoto Airi]

Walking deeper into the caverns Airi slowly made her way forward.Eventually she found the moss lead her to a rather large ornate room. Considering that Airir was not very detailed oriented she just knew that it was in fact a large room. As she looked she saw a giant...massive turtle...so many emotions passed her by as she wanted to sqwee in delight and then she saw its face and just thought about how she watched snapping turtles destroy things in their mouths...and she looked like she would fit…

She needed to focus. Despite the scary drawings she had a cause for worry as she walked. “Would they be okay against the bear and the snake?” Airi felt like if she hurried and got through he trails...maybe she could go and help her friends. She wondered if the teacher would allow her to do that. At this moment she ran upwards instead of being cautious like she normally was.

She made her way up the ramp on the left side and as she came up to the top she noticed something bizarre. “What are these strange symbols…?” She had no idea but she felt like she had seen them before somewhere. As she looked around she already figured what what it was she was supposed to do. She pouted heavily and as she looked to the giant brush she sighed and reached into her back pouch for ink and a pen and a piece of paper.

“First of all no scratch paper? Secondarily no wonder this guy is so upset! You are literally drawing graffiti on his poor shell!” As she sat down and leaned on the neck of the turtle she said, “Don’t worry Turtle-sama I would be upset to. I’ll make sure to give Sensei a piece of mind or at least allow us to come down and make sure this place is worthy of you.”

It took her seven tries before she finally found a combination that worked. This puzzle was impossible unless you were a super genius there was no way you could just do this at a glance. As she walked over and picked up the brush she looked pissed. She was angry to have to do this but if she messed up she was worried what would happen and she was not about to go all the way back. What if there was a key of something at the end of this she needed.

She wiped her answer onto the board. If the top row read as A,B,C,D, E then she placed it as such.

A, B, C, D, E
E, D, B, C, A
C, E, D, A, B
D, A, E, B, C
B,C, A, E, D

As she finished she wiped her head. Her arms were tired and she was sweating at this point but hopefully this was right. She had no idea if this was what it wanted but what else could it be?

As she put the brush back where it was she turned and prayed to the large turtle statue. “I am sorry for your fate up to now but I will try and change it for you and the other two.” Now all that was left was to see if she was right. She waited where she thought she should be standing to see what would happen next.

 

[Yamamoto Airi]

Airi watched as the ground began to shake and tremble. At firsts he thought she had messed up the puzzle, goodness knows she was not perfect. When the whole room stopped moving however she picked herself up off the back of the turtle. A doorway seemed to open up on the end of the turtle’s tail and she looked around warily.

“So…that’s it?” She thought it was weird considering the ship had sunk and everything was really theatrical. As she made her way through the door she walked nervously. Things just did not feel right. As she made her way out through the caves eventually she came upon a note that said something along the lines of an emergency came up and the class was being put on hold until further notice. While none of the traps would go off she still needed to make her way out of the basement.

“I hope everything is okay…”

She made her way through the twists and turns and tried to figure out what sort of puzzles or traps she might have been put into. Whatever he wanted to teach…she wanted to still figure it out. Hopefully there would someday be a retake of this so she could see what the lesson really would have been.

[Topic left due to inactivity]