Second voyage

"It most certainly does not." Vethalia says as a brilliant luminance forms between her fingers and launches itself across the room towards the snake threatening closest to herself and her companions. The masters can, after all, take care of themselves.

Guesclinbert isn't a big fan of sumptuous parties, feeling distinctly out of place, so he hovers (not literally) near Vethalia for a while, keeping to himself, until she finds some of her old school friends, and disappears off with them, chattering inanely about whatever it is these students chatter about, no doubt. When that happens, he mills around, occasionally smiling, and trying to keep his wings folded and not knocking anyone or anything over, while also being small enough himself that others might not notice him and bump into him. All in all, this party is quite a miserable affair for the goblin seraph.

He avoids the weird, magic-laced drinks and food, thinking to himself isn't there anything normal here that normal people would want to eat? and feeling sorry for Vethalia that she had to suffer this stuff when she was here before realising that she probably enjoyed it. Shaking his head and muttering to himself (which doesn't further endear him to the other guests), Guesclinbert eventually finds a wall to hug and stay out of the way, just observing the other guests enjoying themselves. That new ranger is probably already laying drunk under a tale somewhere, he thinks. Wonder where Talin's got to? he thinks, not able to spot the man in the crowd. He'll be laying low too if he's got any sense.

When, suddenly, serpents appear, Guesclinert assumes this is more of the magical entertainment and doesn't pay much attention, until he realises that the screams of the crowd of partygoers are not with delight, but with fright. Immediately, he springs into the air, unfurling his wings in the high-ceilinged hall, looking in the crowd for Vethalia.

Spotting her in the shadow of some man, he quickly flies to where she is, hovering (this time literally) above her, checkign to make sure this interloper means her no harm, and looking for an opportunity to attack one of the serpents if one comes close.

"Talin!" Vethalia calls out waving for her flying friend to come close.

"We need to keep an eye on the Prince and the syndicate crew." She says when everyone is close, "Something about this is not right and the Prince and his people are the most likely source of that."

Talin does not come when called (unless his shadow step doesn't get past the barrier) because he is already keeping an eye on the Prince.

A lot happens as the snake appears. First, a mass panic, some students cast spells at them, but the magic passed through them as if the snakes were not there.

Talin jumps into the shadow realm. Its realm that he has learned to navigate, and his target is under the high table. Unlike the other times, he shadow stepped. This time, he could not reach the desired shadow; it was blocked off in some strange way. He could feel the attention of the other creatures in the shadow realm; this was not good!
When he learned this skill, the warning was repeated over and over again. Don't get lost in the shadow realm! Don't bring anything back from the shadow realm! He found himself a nearby shadow exit, and reappeared under the table, not the high table as he had intended, but the table nearest to the high table.
Talin can see a lot of busy feet and a snake slithering after a panicked student. He can also see the larger serpent raising its head in front of the prince and the senior staff.Vethalia launches her bolt of magical light at a nearby serpent. She knows it's a hit, right to the centre mass of the slick body, but still the magic didn't take effect. The flagstone that got hit glows brightly, but that is it.

Guesclinbert Hangs in the air over Vethalia and while he can't get an exact number, his best guess is that the snakes count in the thirties or forties.

Over in the other end of the great hall, a wizard unleashes a hail of magical blasts, hitting everything around their table. Students fall to the blast, but the snakes are unharmed.

The warrior watched the snakes as he smoothly drew his long blade. Immediately he felt better with it in is hand, although the shear number of snakes was overwhelming. He spun the blade and adjusted his footing.

"Are they illusions? Magic passed right through them."

Picking the closest snake, Zandor stepped forward and slashed at it with his sword.

"Watch out!" She shouts as the other student releases a torrent of arcane energy.

Seeing her magics slip right through the serpent Vethalia switches to her staff. "This isn't working." She shouts above the cacophony in the hall. "If they're illusions they're good, really good."

The diminutive Goblin wizard hops atop a table, pushes her hair back from her face and looks about. Andariel is a sorceress, she can spot magics a mile away, of course there are rather a lot of magics going on in this room at the moment. Where is she?

Talin watches all the students and teachers failing to harm the snakes and thinks about all the presences hovering in the Shadows. Something is off here he thinks to himself. He focuses his eyes on the high table and considers his options as he watches the strongest in the room deal with each other.

Talin does spot something interesting with the prince. At first, he shows a lack of fear when the snakes drop through the field. Surprise, yes, but not fear. But when the prince sees his advisors flinch, the prince adopts a fearful demeanour.

Zandor swings his sword and strikes a snake, cleaving it in two. Moments after it's gone without a trace.

There is some yelling and screaming, but mostly it is about now throwing magic indoors. The snakes are gone. Everyone who was hurt was hurt because of the panic and side effects of the spells cast.

The excitement is over.

Talin quietly extricates himself from under the table and nonchalantly heads over to Vethalia.

"Someone take a prank to far? I don't know much about that magic but it seemed to come from the runes on the wall and nobody thought twice about them before the snakes happened so I assume there's always runes and stuff going on."

Vethalia shakes her head, "Distraction." She says looking about, "Something else is up."

The diminutive goblin makes a face, "Where did Kassie go?" She asks, "She said something before running off."

If it were a prank, you would expect someone to start laughing, but no. It's a sombre mood in the dining hall, and every mage in the room is discussing all kinds of theories, like illusion, evil spirits, trixters gods, animal totems.
There are questions about the Flagship if they have experienced anything like it on their journeys, but it seems like their answers are in negative.

"Does anyone know about the runes they came out of? If we can isolate the ones for the snakes maybe we can figure something out."

Falka watching the snakes he looks to see if he can figure out where they came from

The warrior kept his sword at the ready after the snakes had disappeared. "I know nothing of magic but there must have been some purpose."

"Master Thargrim is the rune and glyph master." Vethalia says looking about to find the old dwarf.