The ship ploughed through a large mess of petals, taller and wider than the ship itself. It was an explosion of colour that masked the transition back to real space. Thyme even got to work, twisting and bending that space to show a kaleidoscope of colours as space was bent to Thyme’s will. Fix ships exploded from portals, flowers floating down in their wake. Nobody knew where to look, there was action happening on all sides and in front of them…

Was an explosion of fireworks, one of which was a large arrow that pointed downwards to a small island with a medium sized building on it. The fireworks were a bit hard to say during the daytime for Kat, but perhaps they had illusions on them to help everyone else. The building was sturdy and made from, well wood. Out the front was a series of three piers for the five boats to land at, and a small garden of roses lining the path to the building.

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Thyme let the anchors fall, causing the boats to rapidly lose speed as they got closer and closer to the piers, slowing down perfectly so line up where they needed to be. The middle pier just had the one boat, while Kat’s team’s boat pulled up on the right side of the left pier, sharing it with at least one other team.

"How much practice did that take?" wonder Nixilei to the air as they were all directed to the gangplank with a copy of Thyme in the lead. Kat wasn’t surprised when she first look over to the other ship, they also had a Thyme in the lead, looking the exact same strange mix of butler, maid and pirate. Then Kat saw the team that was being led down the ramp.

It was the Wild Ones! Nell, the bear beastkin Bonas, and Nabras Margund the two wolf siblings. Their emerald eyes, black hair and similar faces still betraying their similar heritage despite the differing animal appendages. Lily actually felt the desire to bat at the wolf siblings’ tails or Nell’s ears. Nell still carried her familiar gauntlets, but it looked like the wolf siblings had updated their armour. Where before they had redish, or blueish leather armour, they now had scale armour, possibly made from real scales, and a red and blue sash across their shoulders. Sharing in each other’s colours.

Ellenell followed behind, still standing tall in flowing robes that looked like they hadn’t changed a bit. Though his long blonde hair was no longer long, nor blonde. Now it looked to be dyed silver, and cut short to sit around the bottom of his chin. His five foot height was currently being offset by the gangplank, making him seem taller then he was, but a close inspection when his robes were shifted by his steps revealed he was now wearing boots with a thick sole to give him a touch of extra height.

Blue was last in line, looking around at the surroundings in amazement. The water of the ocean seemed to crash just a little higher in her presence, as if it was reaching for her. Blue’s outfit had transitioned to a padded shirt and pants, with a small skirt over the top made of thick cotton like substance. It wasn’t proper armour exactly… but it was closer then most mages would get, and likely the best she could manage from the materials gathered.

Kat’s eyes lit up at seeing Blue happy and healthy. After working with her so closely in their ’escape’ from the mansion, it had been tough fighting her head on in the next rounds. It had left a bit of a sour taste in her mouth, and also bringing up memories of Grace from the very first tournament. Thoughts of Skye and her team flittered in afterwards, but Kat dismissed those memories for now.

Kat waited until everyone was on the pier then she used her super speed to dash around and grab Blue in a big hug. Nell had reacted first, spinning to punch towards Kat, who was now at Rank 3 and beyond their speed by a considerable margin. Ellenell simply flinched, but the wolf siblings had looked to Thyme, and seeing Thyme keep walking as if nothing was wrong did the same.

Blue let out an "Eeeep" of surprise as Kat twirled the fey around in a hug. Nell watched this and lowered her gauntleted hands, returning to their march.

"Don’t crush her spine Kat!" said Nell with a laugh as she continued walking. Kat kept pace with them using her wings so that she could hug Blue properly. *I didn’t realise how much I missed Blue. We had a scary adventure together and she was got so injured during out escape… I didn’t realise that had bugged me so much. It’s extra weird because I’ve killed people now… and I care more that I didn’t get to chat with Blue after she was a little injured. Man are my priorities fucked.*

"Hey Kat, I wasn’t expecting such a warm welcome," said Blue with a giggle.

"Well… I wasn’t exactly expecting to see you again, and I never properly thanked you last time. You got so hurt because of me," said Kat.ƒ𝐫𝒆e𝓌𝒆𝚋𝗻૦𝘷𝑒𝙡. 𝑐𝘰𝐦

"Bah, it’s not your fault you have regeneration. I’m pretty sure without that you’d have taken just as much if not more damage then I would’ve. I know you’re more powerful than me, so you probably had better hearing at the time as well. That creepy ass banshee thing would’ve done us both in if you didn’t have it," said Blue as she leaned into the hug.

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Lily, deciding she didn’t want to be left out popped off Kat’s shoulder and transformed, hugging Blue as well. "Nah, Kat is way too prone to getting herself injured. I’m glad you were around to help her,"

"Um… thanks but who are you? I thought you were just a familiar?" said Blue.

"I’m Kat’s girlfriend," said Lily with a smile, "Though technically I am also a familiar, according to the rules,"

"Oh, congratulations!" said Blue with a smile, "Wait… you weren’t originally like… a cat or something right? Because, while I do respect Kat, I don’t respect bestiality, even if you give them sentience,"

Lily rapidly shook her head, "Nonono, I was in love with Kat long before the familiar thing, and I couldn’t transform into one either,"

"Hey you three!" shouted Nixilei, "We’ve got other people to meet,"

Kat let go of Blue and gave a short bow, "Sorry, I guess I got carried away, and Nixilei is correct, we do have a contest… but tell me, was it hard to make it back in?"

Blue nodded, "That’s fine, I can understand getting carried away. As for making it back in…" Blue started walking on her own again, skipping a touch to catch up to everyone else. Sure Kat had been keeping up, but Kat had stopped to let Blue down. "Right so… Thyme ended up making the contest this big free-for-all mountain climb. There were ten starting positions, twenty routes, and your team had to start at different ones.

"You didn’t have to follow the routes, but Thyme assured us that stepping off of them would make things more difficult for that contestant, but that sneaky bastard didn’t explain why that was at the time,"

"I will have you know, that despite growing up in the wilderness my parents were happily married thank you very much," said both of the Thymes.

Blue rolled her eyes, "Right anyway. Teams were split, and we had to decide were we wanted to start. We were given a map, and kept away from the other teams so we couldn’t like… team up with a full other team. Because there were five spots being given away. So like, obviously we all wanted one, but it wouldn’t have been a big ask to share two spots of the five, or even three.

"Anyway, with that prevented we needed to work out which routes we wanted. Thyme made it so that all the routes did cross over eventually… at least, according to the maps, but we didn’t think it would be so easy. Most of the routes even had paths that took you through the damned mountain. Oh, and it wasn’t first to the top, it was first to get all five members to the top,"

"Ah, that does sound like a very Thyme thing to do," said Lily. "Encouraging people to work together… without actually allowing whole teams to work together. I imagine you guys all chose to work together with someone in some way?"

Blue nodded, "Yeah we did. Oh, and we all agreed not to step off the path. We didn’t know why at the time, but of course, Thyme is well known for being tricky, but meaning what they say. Good thing we did as well, because it turns out Thyme managed to enchant the entire fucking mountain. Every step you took that was off the path? It increased the gravity by one percent, well no it was actually every metre you travelled off it… which isn’t much… but it’s every single metre and it adds up fast."

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