The docks were bustling with activity. Workers loading and unloading cargo from the ships, shop owners out trying to attract customers to buy their wares, pedestrians trying to make their way down the street. Among all the activity, a rather conspicuous pair walked along.

A tall knight in a full suit of heavy metal plate armor clanked along. The armor was large and bulky, clearly fitted for a person with a broad build. The gauntlets were large and heavy looking with a stone plate on the back of the forearm, like they were designed to be weapons, which made sense since no sword or polearm were visible anywhere on the knight's person. The whole suit looked like it was made of very small plates fitted together overtop chainmail. A skirt made of smooth black fur went around the back of the knight's waist down to the knees, two tentacles that could only have belonged to a displacer beast dangling in front. A small pair of metal horns poked out of either side of the helmet. A similarly smooth, black furred cape flowed down their back.

Even with the helmet hiding their face, the knight seemed oddly excited, almost vibrating with energy both literally and figuratively. They looked down at the other half of the pair, a blonde haired girl with her own armor and a pair of real horns atop her head.

"This new armor feels awesome! It's perfect! It's even better than my old suit. This is my armor! It was made for me! I love it!" Blue raved, extremely happy with how amazingly the new suit Astrid had made for them turned out. They couldn't stop praising it or her the entire way into the city. They practically forgot all about the reason they were even here, too distracted by the excitement they felt in such a custom suit of armor specially made just for them by their best friend. They would have cried tears of joy if the ooze had tear ducts.

Right, the two were actually here for a reason! A special mission for the Mage's Guild about some important dead bodies going missing or something. Blue swore they had nothing to do with it, but they actually weren't being accused, they were being assigned to go find them along with Astrid.

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: Highest Bidder
Chapter: One
Description: Underground black market auction houses across Charon are known for selling illegal and stolen goods, and is the best place to locate something of this rarity. We need you to attend one of these auctions, determine if the body is being sold there, recover it anyway possible and return it to the Academy.

Requirements:
- Requires at least two people (All participants must be in the Mage's guild)
- You must make at least 6 post to complete the mission with each post being at least 200 words
- Locate a stolen body and recover it any way possible
- Auctions are guarded by 6 guards, each with a imp in their control
- Once you complete this mission you have completed this quest chain and may turn in the mission.

The last place Astrid wants to ever go is Sol City. Unfortunately, it’s a common destination for folks in the guilds since most ships from the mainland sail into The Gold Port. The journey, however, has been a delight beside Blue Raspberry as they have been absolutely buzzing the whole time with excitement for their new suit of armor. Seeing it in the bright spring sun of Sol City certainly makes the half-dwarf appreciate what good lighting can really do for something’s aesthetics.

“Aye, ya wear it well! Fits ya perfectly if I do say so meself,” she says with a bright smile mirroring the ooze’s own smile even behind their helmet. The whole project was quite an effort, but Astrid got to use a lot of what she learned about building the helmet for Veliky for making an even better suit of armor for Blue. She’s proud of it, and it makes her happy to hear them raving about it constantly.

Given that a group of individuals was responsible for stealing the body, and the guild described it as “an underground black market,” Astrid figures the best place for them to look is the sewers. After all, from what Blue could recall, there were walkways down there, and they had scared someone away from the body that was wearing the armor that the ooze.

Honestly, the whole situation around someone hiring Cyran of all people to kill Blue Raspberry of all people quickly became concerning in and of itself, and if Blue took on the persona of the person they ate, albeit accidentally, then it’s possible the two groups are connected in some way. At least now they have a new suit of armor and won’t look as familiar to the shady group, especially since Cyran took the armor and turned it over to the people who hired him to cover their trail. It still hasn’t exactly registered in Astrid’s mind that Cyran is an assassin.

With their credentials tied to the Mage’s Guild, it isn’t too difficult for Astrid and Blue to get into a proper sewer entrance, even if she’s not happy to rely on the guard’s help to get down there. It’s pretty dark down below the street with a few stray beams of light coming from drains built into the cobbled road above.

“So, do ya remember exactly where ya found that body ya ate?” she asks. "The one that I s'pose belonged ta that knight?" There’s still a lot about the ooze she doesn’t quite know yet, but she figures she’ll learn more about them as they feel comfortable telling her.

"Hmmmm..." Blue looked around, trying to remember. All of the sewer tunnels pretty much looked exactly the same, so it was difficult for them to really place where they were at the moment and where they'd found the corpse so long ago. They hadn't exactly taken very detailed note of the location at the time. They were just an ooze that had found a meal and a disguise and had no idea they'd ever be coming back here one day or that they'd have even told someone they had eaten a corpse.

"It all looks the same. And it was a while ago. Maybe if we keep walking, I'll remember." Blue suggested with a shrug and a hint of embarrassment. Finding where it had happened was their responsibility and they felt bad they were failing at it immediately.

Blue took the lead, walking through the tunnels and glancing around to try and see anything that jogged their memory that might help lead them where they needed to go. It was starting to seem a bit hopeless. All the tunnels just blended together, the only things that were different were what they could see through the drains leading to the street above. Ah, that was it!

"Wait, I remember this one!" Blue happily announced as they peered through one of the drains at a street filled with food stalls. One confused bystander on the street heard the voice suddenly come from the sewer drain and looked around in confusion. "This one was close to where I found the body. I think, uhhhh, this way!" Blue began to lead them down another tunnel, this time a bit more confidently.

Astrid can tell by the way that Blue sets their shoulders that they feel a bit ashamed by not being able to remember, but even still, the ooze leads the way. She pats their back, gauntlets clanking lightly against their armor, in a comforting manner. "It ain't a huge deal, if ya can't remember," she says. "We've gotta look all around the sewers anyway fer this underground market. If we find some clues, great! If not, it's alright. Ya just ate the guy, not killed him. But if he was dead already... Well, whoever ya scared off killed him... I wonder if they're connected?" 

They seem to go in circles, taking turn after turn and seemingly ending up in the same place. Sometimes they can look up through the drain grates above and get some idea of where in the city they are. It's no surprise when Blue mentions they recognize an area, and it just so happens to be under the food market. It makes Astrid chuckle a little at the thought. 

"Course it's near the food!" she giggles. "Bet ya were lookin' fer snacks or scraps and when ya found the guy ya just thought he was a main course." It might be a little weird that she's joking about the tragedy of someone dying, but they might find the people responsible while they're looking for the missing bodies from the guild's tomb. 

Blue nodded, looking a little down at Astrid's jokes.

"Actually, I was listening to people talk. I used to live down here just trying to learn how to speak and eating whatever I could find. I was way too scared to go out of the drain and get any of the food out there. When I found the body and the armor it was like a dream come true. It was a great meal that made me big enough to wear the armor and then a perfect disguise to leave the sewers and go walk out on the street." Blue explained, remembering the days they'd spent down there after escaping from the boat. They didn't even know how many days or weeks or maybe even months they'd been down there. They didn't count the times the light stopped coming in from the drains above. Whether they were fond memories or horrible memories they weren't quite sure. It wasn't exactly a happy time.

"You know... walking on two legs was way harder than I thought it would be! It took forever to get the hang of! But I'm really good at it now. I can even run! I bet I'm the only ooze you know that can do that!" Blue claimed with a joking confidence as they became cheerful again, their attitude turning from downcast to their usual upbeat one.

They continued to walk along for a while, leading the way through the sewer tunnels until they suddenly felt something odd in the air. The feeling of a spark of magic energy nearby. They stopped and looked at an inconspicuous spot in the wall, placing a hand on it.

"Hm? That's weird. I thought I just felt someone cast a spell right here, behind this wall."

It's a tight squeeze for Astrid to walk beside Blue Raspberry on the walkway, but she's happy to stay by their side and listen to them. Though, her attitude shifts as she listens to the ooze talk about their time spent down here. It's occurred to her before, but Blue Raspberry isn't exactly something she would describe as an average ooze. 

"How'd ya come ta live down here?" she asks, looking up at them. "Were ya born down here? Er..." Astrid recalls learning how oozes reproduce after doing some field work for that Lloyd guy. "...Oozes make more oozes by buddin', so did ya first bud down here?" Her face becomes a little downcast as she watches the pathway moving below her feet. "Sounds kinda lonely, really. It sucks that the guy died, but I'm glad ya found a way ta get outta the sewers. We got ta meet because of it!" 

Matching her friend's energy, she grins and giggles. "Aye! Yer the only ooze I know that can walk an' talk! That first time we met, properly, I mean, ya were a bit wobbly, weren't ya? Toddlin' round like a babe tryna figure out yer way in the world!" Once again, she raps her knuckles against their cuirass as she laughs. "Ya do pretty well with it now. Don't worry, human babes can't walk at first neither!" 

Then Blue stops walking and notes that they noticed some magic. "Huh? Yeah, that's a bit weird, ain't it..?" Astrid walks ahead, looking for anything of note and notices she can hear voices. She immediately slows her pace and quiets down until she finds a small grate at the bottom of the wall for overflow that seems to be the source of the voices. Crouching down, she peers through the grate carefully and sees a small group of people talking over a crate they're using as a table to play cards. It's hard to see them because of all the other crates, barrels, and sacks stacked up. Must be a storeroom of some sort. 

Blue wasn't sure how much they should tell Astrid. They didn't really want to hide things from her, but this might not be something she'd like to hear. They remembered now that they had been born on a boat that was probably Veliky's boat because it had a bunch of similar robots on it to the ones she had sent with them in the desert. Not only that, but those robots had been trying to kill Blue Raspberry the entire time until they'd managed to escape the boat and hide down in these sewers. What would Astrid think knowing someone she cared so much about had tried to kill them when they were first born? Well, when they first came to? They didn't even know if they were actually born on that boat knowing how oozes reproduced. What happened before they woke up was still as much a mystery to them as to anyone else.

"No, I came off of a boat and hid down here. I don't really know where I first budded, but it wasn't here." They explained, trying to be honest as possible without including the killer robots part.

Blue chuckled. "I learned a lot faster than a human babe, right? I got it down in like... uhhhh.... how long has it been? I kind of lost track, but way less time than a babe, I bet!"

Blue looked at Astrid and quietly put a finger in front of their helmet to signal to be quiet. Quickly, ooze flowed from between all of the metal plates and engulfed it much more efficiently than their old armor would have. In a short moment, the knight was replaced with a blue-haired tarantula that silently crawled through the grate into the room. They knew Astrid would be able to follow them in with her teleporting ability from her cloak, so didn't hesitate to make their way closer to the people at the table so they could be ready to attack as soon as Astrid appeared.

---

Shapeshifter Plate

"Came off a boat, huh?" she echoes thoughtfully. "Well, maybe ya'll figure out what happened before the boat one day." Astrid is cheery about it, not considering that Blue purposely omitted anything. The ooze can be forgetful, but that doesn't make her love them any less. 

"Ya sure did learn quick," she agrees with a grin. "Probably faster than me!" 

But hearing the voices, they both go quiet as they start to sneak. Astrid doesn't exactly expect Blue Raspberry to just shapeshift and go right in, but they do. Teleporting isn't completely silent, so she pops the cork of a potion then manifests the magic of her cape to teleport inside behind a bunch of crates. She looks down at the little tarantula scurrying along the moist stone floors then peeks around the crates. The three men at the table don't seem to have noticed them at all. 

Creeping around the room, Astrid manages to get a glimpse at the door. It's heavy metal with a slotted window, and she can't see any moving shadows on the other side, but there is warm light. If they're quick, they can take out the group and find some clues. She motions to Blue Spiderberry that she's gonna go punch their lights out and creeps over to the table. Any sounds she makes while the potion is active will be completely silent, and that's exactly what she needs! 

Astrid waits for Blue Raspberry to get into a position while she listens to the idle conversation. One man in particular is talking about someone he scammed out of solars last time he played cards. He regales the others with the tale of this sucker being in debt to the boss and being forced to do some crummy acts to cover for their group. Threatened his family and everything! They all laugh but then the laughs turn into groans as someone's hand wins the round. Coins clink as the winner laughs over his prize. 

The conversation shifts another man asks about the weird new cargo for the boss, and another laughs about how easy it was to steal it right from under the "prestigious" Mage's Guild's nose. The group chuckles and muses about how much money they're going to get for it all.

Oh yeah, they definitely need to take these guys out. They're definitely bad. 

As Blue peers out from their hiding place, they recognize one of the men at the table, albeit vaguely: it's the same man the ooze scared away from Sir Umpticious' body all those months ago. There's no time to think about that though because Astrid bursts into action! 

---

Potion of Shadows [post 1/2]

Blue Spiderberry crawled along the ground and over to the wall, scurrying up it and onto the ceiling. When they were directly above the unsuspecting trio playing cards and gambling their wages with each other. One was oddly familiar, but they were hard to place. Had they seen that man a long time ago? It was a bit fuzzy.

Before they could dwell on the man for very long, Astrid leapt into action and Blue had to follow suit. Transforming while still clinging to the ceiling, the spider changed back into the armored knight. The three guards all stood in surprise and prepared themselves to take on the sudden intruder in the room. They grabbed their weapons and faced the charging Half-Dwarf, but one suddenly crumpled to the ground as the heavy ooze knight dropped directly on top of them, their feet landing squarely on his shoulders.

Now the remaining two guards were in even more of a state of panic as there were two intruders and one of their own was already on the ground, twitching. As Blue had crushed the man beneath them, they'd also delivered an electric shock that left him paralyzed for the moment. The familiar-looking man pulled out two daggers and face Blue while the remaining man grabbed a shield and a longsword and faced Astrid, holding his shield up in front of him in preparation for her incoming attack.

---

Static Stature

Once it registers in the shield guy's mind that he's face to face with a fearsome child, he looks even more surprised. The most terrifying part of this is that the child appears to be screaming but there is absolutely no sound coming out. He's not fighting a kid, no way! That goes against his-

Whack!

Astrid's hammer slams into the man's shield, knocking it away, and her other hammer follows up with a knock to the chest. There's no sound from the impact because of her potion, and without any breath, he can't even scream in pain. Lightning crackles across his body, and Astrid grabs him by the shoulder. More lightning courses from her hand into him, dealing an even more powerful holy and paralyzing him. The man's eyes roll back in his head, and he collapses.

With that guy dispatched thanks to his hesitation, Astrid looks over to see Blue has crushed one guy and is probably gonna take out the other one. Her eyes glance to all the coins on the table, and it's tempting to take them, but she starts to think that it might be good to make it look like the three men got into a fight over carts when they're done with them. She darts over to the door and tries to peek out the window, but she's too short, so she hops up, stepping on the very air itself, and peeks out.

She sees the shadow of someone moving down the hall and looks over at Blue Raspberry. "Let's make it look like they got mad at each other!"

Except the potion hasn't worn off, and her words are silent.

---

Potion of shadows [post 2/2]
Extended charge
Storm lord
Step of the wind

The assassin stayed wary of the knight, holding their daggers in a defensive stance and sidestepping to try and find a better spot to attack from that didn't have tables or chairs in the way. Blue didn't make a move immediately, still trying to place where they'd seen the man before. It felt like it was on the tip of their tongue! Why did he look familiar?

Finally moving into a clear spot, the assassin dove forth and lunged one dagger straight for the eye slit in the front of Blue's helmet. A plate on their pauldron shifted and a tendril of blue ooze shot out and smacked the dagger to the side before retracting back into the opening. The dagger missed completely, not even hitting the helmet. With the assassin's arm extended over their shoulder, Blue reached one hand up and grabbed it, holding the man in place firmly. He tried to swing the dagger in his other hand, but an electric jolt shot through his body from the knight and made him twitch, dropping the dagger to the ground.

Blue looked over to see Astrid was already finished with her opponent and was trying to say something to them, but she wasn't actually speaking out loud. Was she trying to be quiet? Was someone right outside the door or something?

As quietly as they could, Blue punched the guy in the head to knock him out and then quietly lowered him to the ground, laying him on his front. Then, seeing the man's back, Blue finally placed where he'd seen him before. Oh, of course! They'd seen the man right here in the sewers, running away from them! No wonder they couldn't fully recognize him from the front!

---

Dancing Chain
Crackling Structure

Finally, Astrid hears her movements clinking, and she knows the potion has worn off. "Ah, geez," she huffs, watching Blue knock out the man. Then she continues in a hushed tone. "I was tryna say we should make it look like they all beat each other up, like they got mad at each other playin' card or somethin'! Someone's comin'!" Scurrying over to the knocked-out men, Astrid starts setting them up with toppled chairs and scatters the cards and coins across the table. 

"Why were ya just starin' at that guy?" she asks quietly as she sets the scene. Footsteps echo down the hall. Shoot, shoot. She takes a step back and looks at what they've done. Eh, ehhhh... It's good enough. Astrid quickly ducks behind the crates, getting herself situated in a position to blink out through the grate if she needs to. If they're lucky, whoever comes in will just think a fight broke out. This is probably dumb, it'd just be easier to ambush the guy probably. It's fine. It's fine. 

In hiding behind the crates, she sees that they're painted with the logo of a snake eating its own tail. She's heard of that before. What's it called? An... auraboorus? Ouroboros! That's right, she's seen that in alchemy books. Did they steal things from the Consortium too or maybe- 

The door creaks open, and she freezes, praying that Blue is out of sight.

"Ah, I think-" Blue started to explain why they'd been staring at the man, but someone really was about to come through the door. Astrid ducked behind some of the crates in the room and hid. Blue hesitated, not knowing where to go. They wouldn't fit behind the same stack of crates as Astrid and the others weren't as close or as tall. The knight was a much bigger thing to try to hide than the small child. In a moment of panic, they hid the first way they could think of.

Their armor was engulfed again just as it had been when they'd changed their form into that of a spider, but this time they morphed and twisted not into an animal, but into... a chair. Yeah, the best way they could think to hide was to just pretend to be a chair. There were other chairs in the room, so it wasn't too out of place, was it? They stayed completely still, tryint to act as chair-like as possible.

The door opened and a woman in a fancy outfit walked in. A black dress with a form fitting shirt that flared out at the bottom with black lace. The skirt almost brushed the ground, hiding her feet entirely from sight but the click of high heels was audible on the stone floor. The same black lace flared out at the ends of her skintight sleeves just before her black gloved hands. Her neck was covered entirely by the velvet black fabric. Her skin was incredibly pale, and her eyes were silvery grey. Her slightly curly white hair flowed down to her mid back.

"It's time to move the-" She began speaking as soon as she barely cracked the door open, but her words were cut off as she saw the three on the ground. She let out an annoyed "Ugh. Really?"

---

Mimic Markings

"Ma'am?" a male voice calls out from behind the woman in the hall. 

"Ridiculous. Insolent. All of them." There's the clack of a heel on stone as she turns and exits, her silver hair following her like a cool breeze. "Wake them. Have them move the goods, and dock their pay for sleeping on the job." 

The guard behind her steps in to see what's happened. "Ah, ma'am, I fink they've gotten into a bit of a brawl, yea?"

"Brawling over coin is for patrons, not my men," she says sharply. "If they don't wake, kill them. I don't need anyone useless in our ranks."

"Ah, um-" the guard starts to question but thinks better of it with the giggling of a little demonic imp on his shoulder. It seems his own neck is on the line. "Yes ma'am. 'Course, ma'am" Another man comes in and the two of them start to shake the others, trying to wake them up while the woman's footsteps fade as she continues down the corridor. 

Astrid decides this is as good a chance as any to take someone out, so she creeps around the crates at the back of the room until she reaches the ones nearest to the door. She peeks out then very carefully closes the door. When it latches, it makes a noise, and one of the men turns to look at her.

"Eh? What the-"

CRACK!

Before he gets the words out, they're slapped clean from his mouth as Astrid grabs the chair and flings it at him. 

---

Boss ass bitch code a8a8ad

The guard wasn't expecting to suddenly have a chair thrown at their face, and they really weren't expecting a chair that suddenly grew spikes and had electricity arcing across it to be thrown at their face.

"Agh" The man grunted as he fell to the ground from the impact of the chair leg to his tempol. Suddenly, the chair grew spikes and crackled with electricity! The man screamed and started spasming and twitching on the ground from the shock delivered by the electric chair, one of the spikes stabbing into his arm and another one into his cheek like some chair-shaped, electrified sea urchin intent on ruining this guy's day in particular.

The imp on his shoulder flapped its wings and flew off to look down at the strange scene in confusion for a moment before looking angrily at the only person it could blame for this mess, Astrid. With a quick gesture of its hands and some muttered incantations, a ball of fire formed in its palm and it threw it at Astrid with a snarl.

The man on the ground began questioning his life choices. How had it come to this? Lying on the ground with a chair stabbing and electrifying him? Did he deserve this? Maybe. He was a member of the mob. He'd done some bad things. But, how the hell was this happening? Was the girl doing this? He tried to think of how to explain this to the boss as he passed out.

---

Sprout
Lightning Armor
Charged Particles