Enola Gay's B-Rank Examination

Job List:

• The Hunter - 875 Experience
  
• The King of Beasts - 500 Experience

Total 1375 experience. I have more jobs completed but I figure showing the minimum is good enough.

Approved, Exam will begin my next post

It was morning in Hargeon, early morning, as in so early no one was awake except for those who stayed up or planned to be up, thankfully for Kihia this allowed him to put his plans into action for the next test he had in store for Enola.

When she awoke she would have found herself in the one house of Hargeon’s residence the owner of which had never cleaned since it was built. There was a layer of dust on the floor one inch thick, everything was covered in dust and cobwebs. However the desk Enola was now sitting in, after being magically teleported to it. She would find a note on the desk next to a wooden block with three poles sticking out from it equal in length, and the left most pole had five wooden rings each varying in length, On the note it would say this,

“Good morning Enola,

I have come aware of your various exploits and have deemed that you are ready for another test, but don’t worry this won’t be like the last one. This test has two rules, One, and the most important thing, Do not clean the house you are in at all, not even a speck of dust can be displaced… and Yes I have a way of watching what you are doing and will appear when the time is right.

Two, You will have to focus on completing numerous logic puzzles, this will be your exam, Your first puzzle is called the towers of Hanoi, you must get the wooden rings to the right peg, moving one ring at a time without placing a larger peg over the top of a smaller one, when you complete this a new puzzle will appear. Good luck, and stay calm,

Sincerely, Kihia”

---

Alright posting Guidelines, for this first puzzle you have to do five posts of 300 words per post, I will be monitering your progress good luck and keep a lid on that OCD xD

Enola groaned with a tender soreness as the day was unwinding and reaching its end. In the last few days, the maid had been preoccupied by traveling all across the nation. With her friends – Hakumi Nazu and Anguis Pisa – she had tackled a myriad of tasks, some more daunting than others. She had fought vulcans and cutthroat treasure hunters. The possibility of death lingered constantly as the jobs she took had begun to get more and more dangerous. It was a feeling that started to burden the maid more than it probably should have and it the toll it took had made Enola rather apathetic as of late. The sun was down though, and she could finally receive a break, knowing the day afterwards was scheduled to be an uneventful one. Even Anguis, perhaps the most annoying person the maid had the dissatisfaction of knowing, was to be away for a week. Relaxation was afoot.

After having slipped out of her housemaid uniform and into her green night robe, Enola retired to her bedchamber after finishing the day's chores. The clock rang nine in the evening, a tad later than the maid was used to going to bed. With her bedroom window open, a cool breeze penetrated into her room and gave her a subtle chill. After a short moment of contemplation, Enola lied down in her rather humble bed, with the last noise of the night coming from the creaking of the wooden floorboards as the the maid shifted her position in the bed. The maid stared out the window to her side and squinted at the peaceful starlight, her lack of glasses making it difficult to distinguish the different stars. So silent was the night and so tired was the maid, that she drifted off to sleep in the matter of mere minutes.

A strange shift of gravity affected Enola; her eyes were still closed, but she could tell that her body was bent much differently than it had been when she had fallen asleep. The maid forced her groggy eyes open, fighting the clutches of drowsiness with a weakened willpower. Her hazily lifted her forehead off the wooden desk her head had claimed as pillow and her eyes finally peeled open. As her sight slowly adjusted, Enola felt familiar substance resting on her forehead: dust. With her un-gloved hand, she wiped the substance on her head to confirm her suspicion that her head had been sleeping on a pile of dust. Her face soured as she looked down on the perplexing bit of dust in her hand before slinging her wrist to whip the bits of dust from her body. A messy forehead would prove to be the least vexing part of her situation though. Her bare feet felt the wooden floorboards, also covered from dust (a feeling which gave off a fuzzy sensation as the heel of her foot rubbed against the pile of dust.)

She looked down on the wooden desk in front of her, staring boldly at the hideous amount of dust that covered the wooden platform. The strangest part of the wooden desk were the three pegs that jutted out. One of the pegs on the far left was surrounded by a series of five discs, each becoming large as they neared the bottom. The other two pegs, however, were completely bare. The three pegs were particularly strange in that they were bare and free of any dust. The three pegs had obviously been placed their recently, contrasting against the dry and dirty desk which must have been there for ages. It did not matter though; Enola wanted to leave wherever.

With a quick resolve to leave, Enola pressed her feet against the dust-covered floorboards and slide back in her wooden chair. A great creak filled the room as her chair legs rubbed against the floor (and painfully against the woman's ears). She stepped up and what she saw might as well been the worst abominations to ever come to Fiore: the entire room was covered in dust and cobwebs. There did not seem to be a single spotless region in the room, everything encroached by cringe-worthy amounts of dust. As the maid took a better look, she began to hyperventilate but found that the air itself had dust. The maid was standing inside a room that quite literally should have been condemned a longtime ago. Just to make sure that she was not hallucinating or having the worst nightmare that even a devil could not cook up, Enola walked over to the wooden wall and pressed her palm against its surface. It was completely covered in dust.

She backed away and would have screamed at what she felt but it probably would have been a high note to rival the frequency of a dog whistle at that point. The first instinct she had was to get the Hell out of that mad house, but it was not as simple as that; she looked around but could not find any opening. Where a window should have been, there were instead a barricade of wooden planks that prevented even the slightest bit of light from penetrating into the dark room. The door was in the exact same situation, covered in wooden boards that made it impossible for anyone to get in or get out. It made Enola wonder how in the world she had even gotten herself into the dusty, wooden prison.

Given that escaping was not an option, Enola's next instinct was to do what any good maid would do in that situation: clean. There was just one problem and was the clear lacking of cleaning supplies. The maid did not have her feather duster nor anything in her arsenal of dust bunny death kit. It was like being trapped in a room of flooding water but not having any breathing apparatus. In this situation, however, the maid was drowning in her own discomfort within a sea of dust. Her fragile mind was practically shattering like a glass window that could not comprehend the force of a gliding, destructive rock. It was tempting to just let her psych take over and allow herself to pass out right there and hope for mercy from her mysterious captor, but Enola was well aware that entire floor was covered in dust and falling would surely mean getting herself dirtier than she already had been.

The defeated maid retreated to the chair she had been sitting when she first awoke and slumped in it. Thankfully, the chair was one of the few objects in the room not claimed by the terrible dust plague. Her eyes drifted down in a daze, completely over whelmed by the situation, and caught a strange piece of paper in the corner of her eye. She looked down farther and saw that a note had been left for her, prompting her to snatch it and read its contents in search of some sort of helpful information that might get her out of the room, or at least hint at a way of cleaning it. The paper did not make her feel any better. Apparently, her own guild master, Kihia Avoa, had placed her within the Hellish room and tasked her with solving the puzzle... while not cleaning the room at all. She could not even scoop up any of the dust or cobwebs without failing her test. The maid was beginning to wonder if her guild master was evil incarnate.

In a panic to get out the room, Enola got to the puzzle immediately, pulling discs off the pegs and placing them accordingly until she ultimately failed and had to start over... again and again and again. The presence of such a dirty room bogged down Enola's mind and made it difficult to utilize problem-solving skills. The maid was breathing roughly as she continuously had to backtrack where she placed the pegs until she nearly picked up all the discs and threw them at the wall. Seeing as she was going to be there for quite some time, the maid let her mind wonder, searching for any bit of wisdom form her past that might prove some assistance in this situation.

The first thing she thought about was Aquitane himself, the first user of dust phantom magic. He had been in a somewhat similar situation, forced to sit in a small room covered completely in dust until he learned to utilized the dust to escape his prison. The maid did not have that option though; she either had to solve the puzzle or simply fail the test at hand. The dust would not help her in this situation, but rather it would be her bane... until the silent light bulb dinged in her head. With the greatest reluctance in the world. the maid bent down and began using her finger to play with the dust; she was not cleaning but rather writing a message down in the dust. She spent a good ten minutes writing a message in the dust (just as well, she had been in the room for a good hour and a half at that point) before she bent back up and stared at the pegs. Keeping the special message she had written in the dust in mind, Enola began to play with the discs until the puzzle was solved in less than a minute.

Enola bent her head down and smiled at the message in the dust: a long list of possible solutions and failures to the puzzle, each worked out on the dust. Much like with Aquitane, the dust had proved to be of some assistance.

The maid looked around and, with a bit of a quiver in her tone, shouted out, "Mr. Avoa! I've solved the puzzle! Please, may I leave now!?"

Kihia was impressed with how fast Enola managed to regain her composure and took onto the task of trying to complete the towers of Hanoi. After numerous failed attempts she took a moment to draw in the dust numerous possible solutions for the logic puzzle before evidently becoming satisfied and rapidly finishing the puzzle within a minute. Kihia smiled as she then asked for permission to be let out, instead of answering he nodded at the hired mage who then worked his magic.

The top of the desk began to glow as suddenly the pegs and rings and the letter disappeared and in their place was another note next to a unique board with four figurines on it,

“Hello Enola,

Good job on the first puzzle, moving on right to the next one. This Logic puzzle is simple, you have a figure that is that of a farmer, he is on one side of a might river with a barge on his shore. With him on the same shore was a large crate of assorted fruit, a large hungry Vulcan, a hungry Wyvern. You have to cross the river on the barge and get all three things to the other side with you, however, your barge can only manage one thing alongside yourself at a time, so you will have to make multiple trips back and forth to get everything across. A few other things of note, if you leave the Vulcan alone with the Fruit, he will eat the fruit and you will fail that attempt, and if you leave the wyvern alone with the Vulcan, the Wyvern will eat the Vulcan also failing your attempt…

Good luck,

Kihia”

---

Post reqs, 3 posts, 300 words per post.

Like any rational person would, Enola freaked out a bit as the three pegs and adjoining discs simply teleported away and were replaced by a new puzzle: a board with four pieces, including a farmer, a box of fruit, a vulcan, and a wyvern. The puzzle also came with a note but, somehow, the maid was certain she would not like its contents. She held up the little slip of paper to her eyes and stared in disbelief as her guild master was forcing her to solve yet another brain game. After letting the moment of panic pass, Enola carefully read the rules over and then once more because, you know, it's kind of hard to think when your adrenaline is pumping with pure anxiety.

"Oh well, I'm sure this is the last puzzle..."

The maid peaked over to her side and looked at the messages she had written earlier. Suddenly, at the foot of yet another puzzle, her confidence was shot again and she could not help but cringe at message. Before she could even begin to concentrate she decided to reach down and at least clear the message to get a sense of peace until... she knew she would fail if she touched that dust for cleaning purposes. Enola was beginning to grind her teeth as she attempted to just not stare at anything but the board on the desk.

"Alright, Master Avoa, this puzzle is simple to follow, as you said."

The lack of belief in her sentence was utterly real but her flimsy hand picked up the farmer figure as well as the vulcan and dragged them to the other side of the board, across the river.

"Easy enough. That's one of the things across."

Her hand took the farmer figure and took him back to the wyvern and the box of fruit. She thought for a short moment before reaching for the box of fruit and dragging over to the vulcan. There was now a conundrum at hand: how was she to get the wyvern over to the other side? She could not send the farmer to the other side or else the vulcan would devour the fruit, leaving the maid to do little else than fail her test. The frustrated maid simply decided to retrace her steps and drag the fruit back over to the wyvern.

"Is this even solvable?" Enola mumbled to herself. The maid shook her head and assumed that she was simply missing something, but it was difficult to grasp at complex puzzles such as that one when the entire room needed to be tended to; on that thought train, Enola's mind began to wonder and focus more on the room than she did on the puzzle. She could not imagine how any respectable person could allow the room to turn into the trash heap it was at present. That room did not just need a maid, it needed an entire team of maids to fix the room into something more inhabitable.

Enola bit her lip as she realized she had been letting her mind drift away from the task at hand, prompting her to force her attention back where it was needed. The maid was simply to frustrated though; she ended up sliding the farmer figurine back and forth as she desperately tried to find the solution. Time seemed to pass at a rate of five minutes at a time as she searched for the solution in her own head. Writing down solutions in the dust would not work a second time given that a jumbled mind wa not the problem.

"Master Avoa, I fail to see how this test proves anything."

At that point, the maid was simply barking at her teacher like an frustrated dog would but with a more dignified tone. Sensing that she needed a break, the maid stepped off her seat and wandered toward the plank-covered window. She gripped the edge of the boards with her fingers to try and open them up a little. Enola had hoped to at least cause the boards to move a little and allow some fresh air in, but her endeavor proved fruitless.

The caged bird walked back and forth in her dust prison, switching between an escape plan and a solution to the puzzle. The irony in that moment might rested in the fact her prison was somewhat of an eternal one. Even if she got out of the room somehow, she would still go home that evening and simply become the prisoner of another. That was how it had always been; she was forcibly locked away in another's house and deal with messes. It's what maids, or any obedient servant really, did.

"Ugh, enough of that thinking... I need to figure out this puzzle."

Enola retreated back to her wooden chair and looked down on the board. For just a few short moments, she put away her anxiety over the mess and considered possible solutions in her mind. The vulcan was still by itself while the wyvern and the box of fruit were sadly on the other side. That's when it hit her: Enola took the farmer figurine along with the wyvern and dragged it over to the other side. She replaced it with the vulcan and then dragged it back where she then replaced that figurine with the box of fruit. The box of fruit then went over to the wyvern and then, to finish it all off, Enola grabbed the vulcan placed it with all three. The puzzle was solved.

The mentally exhausted maid leaned back in her chair, rubbed her brow, and talked aloud, "The task is done, Master Avoa. If you have another one of these "puzzles" for me, then I would appreciate it if I could at least do it outside of this place."

Agitated, Enola tried to speak with as much respect in her tone as she could muster, butit was proving more and more difficult by each passing moment that she was forced to stay in that room.

Kihia smiled as Enola was pulling off her exam without a hitch so far, she was handling the puzzels well despite the mental strain she was under from being held in the room. Two of the Logic puzzles were completed, and was managing to hold her cool and composure, “its time for the final test…” Kihia then nodded once again at the hired mage who waved his hand at the last few items on the table.

In the room the top of the desk started to glow once more, suddenly the last puzzle was gone and in its place were three containers, one filled to the brim with water and the others were a container built to hold five cups of water, and the other three, in the midst of all of these was yet another note,

“Dear Enola,

You have done well so far, and now it is time for your final test. For this puzzle you must obtain four cups worth of water in one of the containers, using the containers before you, That is all there is to it, when you finish all things will become clear…”

(OOC, two posts, 400 words per post)

The oak wood desk radiated luminously and lit up the somber room with a brilliant light that forced Enola's anxious mood to seep out for just a moment before the puzzling board vanish from existence. A series of transparent containers, one holding a massive amount of water, took the place of the board, the transition so smooth that the water did not ripple nor shake. The maid anxious maid cocked her head forward and squinted at the containers of liquid before cautiously jutting out her finger to tap the container with her finger. The container filled with water was much larger than the other two, prompting the woman to turn her gaze and read their measurements. The second largest one was large enough to hold five cups of water while the smallest was just big enough to contain a mere three cups of water. Enola reeled her head back in surprise, expecting Kihia to ask her to prepare soup.

Repetitively, this puzzle came along with another flimsy note, and the maid did what her implicit directions ordered her to red said note. after adjusting her glasses with the brim of her finger, Enola squinted her eyes and read over the very small but powerful sentences that informed her of the task at hand. The task, on the outside, seemed as simple as the first one. Having misjudged the first two tests, the maid was now about to foolishly make the same mistake. She was hesitant at first, knowing that putting too much thought into it would surely throw her back into a frenzy; the same the could be said for if she did not focus completely on it. After all, the dirty room did not exactly bring her comfort. Either way, it seemed her guild master was tightening his grip around her sanity.

Enola, still garbed in her nightwear attire, which consisted of a simple green night robe, leaned her head back and adjusted her robe. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead as the pressure subtly increased with each passing moment, the intensity of being surrounded by such an awful room growing with her panic. As she forced her mind to think of something other than the puzzle itself, the maid could almost feel the dust that needed swept looking at her and begging her to clean. Her mental fortitude began to thaw like a block of ice in a heated oven, forcing her to wonder if simply giving up would be better than dealing with the cluster of messes presented to her at that moment. She could almost state the sweet release of simply saying she lost and asking her rather devious guild master to just teleport her out of the mess as had done with the puzzles.

"I suppose there is no point in giving up now..." she sighed, clearly exhausted from the entire fiasco she was forced into. She still did not know the meaning of the test, nor did she really care. She could only guess it to be a dramatic tug at Enola's patience. She surrended the thought of giving up though and finally leaned forward to better examine the containers.

"A big container of water, a five-cup container, and a three-cup container. Hmm... I need four cups' worth." The maid sat back and guessed at how she was to solve the darn puzzle. She thought for a moment that it would be as simple as pouring water until she had enough, but that seemed far too easy, especially when one considered the difficult puzzles Kihia had tasked her with previously. To confirm her suspicions, Enola started pouring water into the five-cup container but found it impossible to determine if she had exactly four cups within the container.

The maid leaned back again and rubbed her head in frustration before the idea hit her: Addition and subtraction. That's all it is. I can do this. Enola immediately set to work on adding and subtracting within her head. She mentally poured water into the five-cup container and then poured what she could into the three cup container. That gave her two cups of water in the five-cup container and a full three cups' worth in the smallest container. The maid paused there, her confidence wading. She had no idea where to go with it next. Her nervousness tempted her to take a drink of the water and put hermind at ease, but she resisted in fear that it would jeopardize her success.

The terribly annoyed woman closed her eyes for a minute, as if she were resting from the mental obstacle, before reaching the final realization of what she was to do. She leaned forward and did as she had thought out by first scooping five cups of water and pouring three cups into the smaller container. Afterward, she tossed the three cups of water back into the large container of water and pouring the remaining two cups into the three-cup container. Enola lit up with a smile as she neared the finish by filling up the five-cup container once more and pouring one cup out of it into the three-cup container. She now had four cups of water in the five-cup container.

"Master Avoa! I do believe I've passed your test. This... this was the last puzzle, yes?"

Enola almost trembled as she was certain she'd lose her mind if she had to go through anymore torture.

Kihia had been watching Enola the entire time as she complete puzzle after puzzle, going throw the toughest test anyone would have to endure. As the trick was, ignoring your worst nightmare and complete a task that you set out upon, something standard for a mage to be able to do, yet something not often tested. Kihia then nodded and clapped his hand which then caused the entire room Enola was in to start to glow and then dissolve, slowly revealing stark marble walls and tiles, a Old wooden desk stood infront of her with paper work in neat stacks on its sides, a bookshelve was covering the entire back wall, lined with so many books many names just seemingly blended together. In the middle of the simple office sat Kihia, right at his desk, the same place he had been sitting this entire time, right in front of Enola as the entire office was masked bya powerful Illusion.

The desk Enola had used was still there, but not a single speck of dust could be seen anywhere, after a moment Kihia waved at a mage standing at the door who then promptly left, “Good Work Enola… You did very well on your test…”

The shifting of the room startled Enola as the entire area seemed to change as if it were pulled out of thin air. The old, wooden chair she sat on suddenly felt of marble, the same substance found in the Lamia Scale guild hall. Her hands jerked down to clasp the chair to ensure herself what she felt was a true physical sensation. Her eyes marveled at the wooden desk, which did not seem so decrepit anymore and instead shelved a mass of paperwork scattered about rather than the containers of water. The retched scent of dust did not torment her nostrils anylong, but rather the smell of sea salt from the seas around Hargeon town filled the air. Darkness no longer reigned in the room, the light of the open windows having taken the place of the boarded up windows.

Finally, there sat Kihia Avoa sitting at the opposite side of the desk, staring right across at Enola. The maid did nt bother to stare at him long though; she creaked her head back to look and see if she wasn't hallucinating. Not a speck of dust stood filled the area. Her spiraling gaze was rocked in confusion but creaked back toward her guild master.

"I-what-but-don't...!"

The baffled maid mumbled an incomprehensible sentence as she tried to understand what had just happened.

"I don't understand, Mr. Avoa, what kind of test was that? Was I dreaming or was... Oh my goodness."

If Enola had not been sitting down, she might have fallen over at that moment. Her hands felt clammy and her lips quivered as if she had just come out from a tornado.

Kihia watched as Enola almost entered into another panic attack and gently smiled and poured a cup of tea that was still steaming hot, and placed it in front of Enola as well as the cup of sugar, “Have Some tea…” Kihia would then poured himself a cup of tea and added three cubes of sugar and stirred mixing his tea before nodding. He then picked up the cup blew gently on it and took a sip. Kihia then placed the cup of tea onto his desk and looked at Enola, “To Answer one of your questions… depends on your perspective… It was a mere illusion in life but to the mind it was real… a harmless test in truth…” Kihia then took another sip of his tea and placed back onto his desk. He then picked up one of the papers from one of the stacks and read it briefly, before sighing and signing his name at the bottom and stamping it before placing it onto another pile. He then turned back to Enola, “However, before I answer your other question… I must ask what do you think the test was meant for?”

Enola's somewhat shaky hand inched forward and grasped the tea cup, smelling the warm scent as she neared it toward her mouth. She took a long but careful sip and allowed the calming effects of the tea to sooth her worried mind. Her worrisome self calmed for a moment and allowed her to placed the tea back and tackle the question of her guild master. With more levelheadedness, the maid looked less out of place in front of her overly calm and collected friend. Regardless, Enola had to put quite a bit of thought into her answer. Her head searched for patterns in the puzzles but it was difficult to grasp anything they shared in common save for difficulty. What the point of the dust was remained an even bigger mystery.

"It was... a test of how well I can think under pressure?" Her tone was entirely awkward; she was obviously unsure of her answer and felt certain she was wrong. Her already exhausted eyes only seemed more tired after brainstorming for the whole point of the torture.

Kihia smiled at Enola’s swift and accurate response, he took another sip of his tea and placed it back down onto his desk with a quiet nod, “Indeed… To see how well you can think under pressure… To see if even in the worst possible environment for you, you can push aside all anxiety and focus on the task at hand… but not just that… but to also be able to think critically…” Kihia then picked up another piece of paper and started to read it before fully continuing, “As a mage… you might one day be faced with the most trying of circumstances… having to think of the best solution during a critical moment… is a valuable ability to have…” Kihia then signed off on the paper and stamped it, and handed it to Enola, “Enola, I here by grant you the official classification of a B class mage… It is has been an honor to see your growth this far, and I look forward to see your growth in the future…”