She hadn't got very far before she found something concerning. About halfway between the pavilion and the city she found a guard with a knife in his back and Ehos's data pad on the ground beside him, screen cracked.
She swore, and whipped around so fast that the weight of the demon she was dragging around nearly pulled her over. She stumbled and then picked up the semi-broken data pad.
"Guys? I've got a problem here," she says, using the communication app and hoping the others pick it up. "A dead guard and Ehos's data pad in less than pristine condition. He wouldn't have left this behind if he had a choice. I can try tracking him by scent, but I'm dragging around a little extra weight right now. I can't shift, so that's going to hamper my efforts. I'll let you know what I find."
As Fei replies to Jaiye, he opens the encrypted comm channel so Ghalen can also speak with them.
"Ghalen and Tyrrin were just ambushed as well. Tyrrin was taken with teleportation magic by the turncoat guardsmen. And the Laerenites may have adopted some form of jamming technology - there is something at the city's border that is blocking my nanites from communicating with me while I was trying to track the Chancellor's location. I suspect his hand in this matter now."
"I am trying to find Tyrrin in a....different manner now. Hold your position for a moment and I will try to locate Ehos as well."
The Champion of Courage broadens his 'search' to now include Ehos' unique courage signature, as well as those of the Chancellor and the High Seer. While Tyrrin will still be the easiest for him to locate, he realizes now that he needs to cast a wider net to find his friends before something worse happens...
Jaiye made a face and then said a long string of curses, not over the comm channel. The demon smiled at her. "I could arrange all of that, you know," she purred and then laughed as Jaiye glared at her.
Ace looks to Fei, "So, the siblings were taken, and the Chancellor is 'missing' and possibly maybe the High Seer too? Do you think we need help? I can teleport back to school and try to get somebody to help us? What do you need me to do?" The young man hates feeling this indecisive and somewhat helpless, and it shows, as he begins to pace a bit.
Once she had the drone in place, and figured out what was going on, Raelle flitted back and forth between the display and doing what she'd came here for, which was inspecting the mechs. Sighru finally got impatient with this and set up a portable screen for her so she could keep track of both at the same time. Or more accurately so Ardiente could keep track of the screen and tell her what she'd missed while she was making lists of what adjustments the mechs needed before they were fit for use.
It is difficult to narrow in on their signatures. They seem to be coming from everywhere at once.
** spoiler omitted **...
Ace looks to Fei, "So, the siblings were taken, and the Chancellor is 'missing' and possibly maybe the High Seer too? Do you think we need help? I can teleport back to school and try to get somebody to help us? What do you need me to do?" The young man hates feeling this indecisive and somewhat helpless, and it shows, as he begins to pace a bit.
The young monk places the fingers of his left hand on his temple, his brow furrowing slightly at the unexpected...diffusion of the Denulia siblings' signatures. He takes a centering breath and focuses back on the immediate vicinity.
"The Chancellor is currently near the northern border of the city, and I know where the High Seer is as well" Fei says in reply to Casilkasheyith's first question.
"And we do need help, after a fashion. Laeren came to the aid of the firebirds when they lost their homeland not too long ago....and it is now our turn to answer that call for Laeren. Can you go back to Avalon and petition Doctor Zeppler at the Infirmary to send a medical team to aid me in treating the wounded that are still here? If so, I will find the High Seer and make her aware of what is happening, then see if I can enter the city and pinpoint where Tyrrin and Ehos are."
"Ghalen, Jaiye - my search for the siblings has not been as fruitful as I anticipated. Continue to reconnoiter, and I will try to search again from within the city in a few moments. Casilkasheyith is returning to Avalon to bring medical aid for the injured here. Keep the channel open in case you need one of us to back you up."
Ace nods "Absolutely. Before I go, however, is there anyone we're aware of that needs immediate attention? I can provide some healing to those who can't wait for a team to arrive."
Ace nods "Absolutely. Before I go, however, is there anyone we're aware of that needs immediate attention? I can provide some healing to those who can't wait for a team to arrive."
"I will find out."
A portion of Fei's remaining nanite cloud moves and disperses over the area around the pavilions where the wounded have been gathered, scanning for any who need immediate healing.
Fei's nanites identify half a dozen badly wounded in need of immediate healing.
Meanwhile, Jaiye tries to follow her nose, but comes to a dead end.
"Guys, I've hit a wall here. They teleported or dimension doored or something. Whatever they did the scent ends here. I'm heading towards the north since that's where Fei says the chancellor is. Ghalen, meet up with me? Or do you have another angle to pursue?" she said over the comm channel. "Also, somebody needs to tell the High Seer what's going on. She doesn't know yet, does she? She might be able to help scry for them or something."
Ace stars to swear, in about six different languages, "Well s$#+. I can track teleportation with a spell I know, but only if the jump occurred within the last hour. However, we have around six people who are in need of healing, now, plus I need to go back to Avalon. Too bad I can't clone myself." He says a bit ruefully.
Shaking his head at his own forgetfulness, Fei quickly sends an encoded transmission from his neural lace back to Doctor Zeppler at the Avalon Infirmary summarizing the situation (as well as what guardsman to trust), and requesting a medical team to come here as soon as possible.
"I am trying to get to the High Seer to apprise her of the situation, Jaiye."
"Casilkasheyith - you and I will treat those six injured people now. I just contacted Avalon, and we should have assistance here in a few minutes."
Diverting course only briefly to inform the guardsmen they aided earlier about the incoming aid from Avalon, the young monk then races to the pavilions to begin healing the critically injured there. As he does so, he uses the nanites he sent to monitor the High Seer's condition to send her a brief message:
Jeran literally wolfed down the rest of his food hungrily and then looked up sheepishly prepared to apologize until he saw how quickly Kevin had eaten too. He grinned. "Dessert? They make a really good chocolate cake. Please no comments about how chocolate is bad for dogs," he joked.
"And since we're in the middle of awkward questions day, I've got one last one. What about your family? Do you have one? I know you were pretty isolated at school, but what about before that? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. I just figured I'd get the question out of the way now so there aren't any more weird conversational pitfalls waiting in the future. I mean, no obvious ones," he said with a shrug.
Ace will drag, bodily if he must, magically if possible, the dark elf commander that he captured and interrogated, along with them.
Upon the High Seer's arrival and subsequent request for information, Ace will shove the commander towards her, "I captured him attempting to flee. It didn't go so well. Apparently, someone fond of 'ostentatious dress' helped them with this attack. Fei seems to have an idea who that is."
"Sounds good to me. I kinda assumed you wouldn't be since it seems like Lycans developed as a humanoid race and diverged into different groups. Would chocolate still hurt you if you ate it in your wolf form, do you think? Or are you just immune to poisons in general, and that's why it's fine in either?"
He leans back after destroying his meal likewise. He'd at least gotten used to doing that in front of judgy teenagers, so in outer public didn't bother him too much.
"Not really much to talk about there for me. We lived way out in the middle of nowhere on our own. Dad hunts game and sells pelts to buy the stuff we needed, mom tended house and gardened. No siblings, so I guess I just got used to being on my own. We weren't like isolationists or anything, but they didn't really like that mom was elvish and dad wasn't. Always had to wear a hat when I went into town to cover my ears. It wasn't like pitchfork and torch bad, but it was just easier to stay on our own."
"Ghalen, Jaiye - my search for the siblings has not been as fruitful as I anticipated. Continue to reconnoiter, and I will try to search again from within the city in a few moments. Casilkasheyith is returning to Avalon to bring medical aid for the injured here. Keep the channel open in case you need one of us to back you up."
"Alright." Ghalen heads toward the palace, cutting down any drow or traitor guardsmen he runs across with extreme prejudice.
Fei is in the process of using his healing energies on the wounded they came to assist, the silver-white light casting a somewhat clinical illumination over the area. At the sound of the High Seer's voice, he bows as respectfully as possible without interrupting the work on his patients.
Before he speaks, he scans the guards' uniforms to see if any bear the leaf pin of the traitorous faction.
"Sounds good to me. I kinda assumed you wouldn't be since it seems like Lycans developed as a humanoid race and diverged into different groups. Would chocolate still hurt you if you ate it in your wolf form, do you think? Or are you just immune to poisons in general, and that's why it's fine in either?"
He leans back after destroying his meal likewise. He'd at least gotten used to doing that in front of judgy teenagers, so in outer public didn't bother him too much.
"Not really much to talk about there for me. We lived way out in the middle of nowhere on our own. Dad hunts game and sells pelts to buy the stuff we needed, mom tended house and gardened. No siblings, so I guess I just got used to being on my own. We weren't like isolationists or anything, but they didn't really like that mom was elvish and dad wasn't. Always had to wear a hat when I went into town to cover my ears. It wasn't like pitchfork and torch bad, but it was just easier to stay on our own."
"Definitely not immune to poison. I don't eat much when I'm in my wolf form. I did when I was a kid, but I was on my own in the wilderness then. Not a whole lot of options."
He nodded when Kevin described his past. "So caught in the middle, not belonging anywhere in particular. I can understand that. Do your parents know about the whole goo dragon thing?"
As the conversation with the High Seer continues Ace will actually focus his minor telepathy(for once!) and scans her guards surface thoughts, to make sure they aren't traitors. He leaves her out, of course.
Fei makes sure he has enough of his nanite 'cloud' nearby in case any of these guardsmen turn out to be a threat as he replies to the High Seer.
"As Casilkasheyith said, someone from Laeren helped coordinate this attack. Most of the drow have been captured, and the rest routed, so the grounds are safe for the moment."
"A sizable portion of the guardsmen fled their posts at the precise moment of the attack, so this could be a person of influence in your government. Those guardsmen were bearing a unique pin that identified them at the time of the attack - I can provide a likeness of it for you if you wish."
Fei pauses briefly to give a smile and a reassuring nod to the elf he just healed, then stands up to deliver the worst of their news.
"We were just informed that two groups of these guards ambushed and kidnapped Tyrrin and Ehos. They used magic to evade pursuit, and my own abilities to track them from this distance are being....confounded. I will need to enter the city to have any better chance of doing so."
"Jaiye is pursuing a....person of interest right now, and Ghalen may be en-route to assist her as we speak."
Listening to Fei give his recap of events, Ace suddenly perks up, as an idea just struck him. "Fei! Are your nanites able to find and communicate with other technology, even if it might not be made of nanites as well? and what's the range on them? Like, how far away from you are they able to travel completely on their own?"
Listening to Fei give his recap of events, Ace suddenly perks up, as an idea just struck him. "Fei! Are your nanites able to find and communicate with other technology, even if it might not be made of nanites as well? and what's the range on them? Like, how far away from you are they able to travel completely on their own?"
The young monk nods.
"They can if I instruct them to do so, yes. And their range depends upon power availability - in this case, about 2 or 3 miles without further augmentation."
"I have functioning nanites near the edge of the city right now, for example, but I cannot directly communicate with them due to some kind of jamming technology in place."
He looks back over to the High Seer.
"I was going to ask if you knew about this technology as well, High Seer."
"You said you're having trouble locating Ehos' personal signature, right? Well, why not look for the signature of his wrist() device that helps contain his vocal problems?" Ace suggests, hoping this workaround will succeed in finding their missing friend.
"You said you're having trouble locating Ehos' personal signature, right? Well, why not look for the signature of his wrist() device that helps contain his vocal problems?" Ace suggests, hoping this workaround will succeed in finding their missing friend.
"Until I can enter the city and ascertain the nature of whatever is jamming technological communications there, I will not be able to find Ehos with my nanites. Though I do believe he and Tyrrin are somewhere in the city."
"Definitely not immune to poison. I don't eat much when I'm in my wolf form. I did when I was a kid, but I was on my own in the wilderness then. Not a whole lot of options."
He nodded when Kevin described his past. "So caught in the middle, not belonging anywhere in particular. I can understand that. Do your parents know about the whole goo dragon thing?"
"Guess we both kinda grew up in the woods in the middle of nowhere, huh? Not that it really compares. Just... Similar. In some ways."
He circles his finger on the table in an embarrassed sort of way at the last question.
"Yeah, not really. It kinda takes a month or two to get a letter back home. But I also haven't exactly written one yet..."
"I did not authorize the installations of any kind of jamming devices," Faelwen says, frowning. "This is very concerning. It suggests that this attempted coup has been going on for quite a long time and involves more people than I would have thought possible. I shudder to think of the casualties we might have faced today if not for your timely help. You have my gratitude," she says, nodding to them both. "That said, my first priority is finding my children," she says grimly. "Does Jaiye still have the demon she captured? The demon might be able to locate Ehos, although getting it to cooperate will not be easy. The wretched creature has caused enough trouble already, that it ought to at least be a little bit useful to make up for the trouble," she said, making a frustrated face."Will the prisoners remain restrained if you leave to go after Ehos and Tyrrin?" she asks Fei, concerned that the fight with the drow might resume if she sends him away. "If so, then you should both hurry and do what you can to find them before it's too late. I will see what I can See and send word to you once I have anything useful." She sighed, just for a moment looking very, very tired before snapping back to command mode. "I suppose I will have to try and ransom them back to their commanders," she muttered, looking at the drow prisoners, hands on hips as she considered the logistics of what to do with them. "I can't possibly keep them."
Fei bows respectfully, and tries to answer the High Seer's concerns as best he can:
"Jaiye still has the demon with her, yes."
"The...restraints I created are now 'set'. They will not change their shape again unless I instruct them to do so. That being said, arranging secondary confines for them would be a sound precaution. I am sure assistance with that could be arranged from Avalon, if needed."
"With your permission, I can leave you with a small communicator that will be able to reach us directly when you have news, assuming we can deactivate the signal jamming over the city."
The young monk looks slightly embarrassed at the High Seer's last comment.
"Um...I apologize, High Seer. I thought it would be unwise to let any of the commanders of the attacking force escape. The rest of them are over there," he says, gesturing to the smaller group of restrained drow isolated from the main group.
"Only one squad of their troops was allowed to escape. They will hopefully inform their fellows of the....inadvisability of coming back here." (=^-^=)
Eventually Arthur arrives at the library at Adon's table "I'm looking for a Mr Adon?
"He's over there," Sadie said absent-mindedly surrounded by a whole pile of scrolls and pointing behind a large pile of books obscuring the other person sitting at the table. She paused and looked up. "Who are you?"
"Definitely not immune to poison. I don't eat much when I'm in my wolf form. I did when I was a kid, but I was on my own in the wilderness then. Not a whole lot of options."
He nodded when Kevin described his past. "So caught in the middle, not belonging anywhere in particular. I can understand that. Do your parents know about the whole goo dragon thing?"
"Guess we both kinda grew up in the woods in the middle of nowhere, huh? Not that it really compares. Just... Similar. In some ways."
He circles his finger on the table in an embarrassed sort of way at the last question.
"Yeah, not really. It kinda takes a month or two to get a letter back home. But I also haven't exactly written one yet..."
"Still trying to figure out how to tell them? Or trying to figure out how to never ever tell them?" he asked mildly, keeping any personal opinion on the matter to himself. He doesn't even fidget. He is remarkably good at being still, to the point that it's almost eerie.
"On that note, I'm going to assist in tracking down your son. I have a way I am hoping can trace his assailants. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go meet up with Jaiye. She's around the spot he was taken from."
Once he is given leave, he'll contact Jai "Hey, I need some sort of location of where you are. Not sure I'll be able to teleport to you, but I'm sure I can reach you soon, regardless"
"On that note, I'm going to assist in tracking down your son. I have a way I am hoping can trace his assailants. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go meet up with Jaiye. She's around the spot he was taken from."
Once he is given leave, he'll contact Jai "Hey, I need some sort of location of where you are. Not sure I'll be able to teleport to you, but I'm sure I can reach you soon, regardless"
The High Seer nods a dismissal before turning away to deal with the matters at hand.
Jaiye responded to his message sounding a little out of breath. "I'm on my way to the north side of the city. You can't miss the spot where they took Ehos. There's signs of a struggle and a dead body. It's about twenty feet away from that. I left a marker on the spot. One of my earrings. Should be easy enough to find."
She nods. "A communicator is good. Presuming we can get the jamming field down quickly enough. Don't worry, I will deal with the prisoners. I thank you again for your help, and ask for continued assistance. Please find my children. Before those who have taken them do anything...drastic," she said tightly, keeping control by a supreme force of will. It's obvious where Tyrrin learned the skill of keeping her emotions in check.
Forgetting himself for only a few seconds, Fei's features soften in empathy at Faelwen's amazing stoicism in the midst of all of these crises. Even if he could somehow ignore the fact that these were his friends that had been taken, he knew he could not fail in returning this mother's children to her.
Failing to hide this from her with a nod to her approval, the young monk calls down some of his nanites and has them form another brooch-type communicator. Shaped as a simple sunburst, he politely offers the device to the High Seer.
"If you need to reach me, just press the center disk - I will do my best to end whatever is causing the interference. And we will do everything we can to find them."
With one last bow he steps back, and nods to Casilkasheyith as he prepares to join Jaiye.
"Good luck - may we have good news very soon."
Fei then recalls some of the nanoswarm back to him, then uses his Champion abilities to teleport to an open, high point in the center of the city. From there, he tries to sense the siblings Courage signatures again, and also verify whether or not the jamming field was just along the perimeter of the city.
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"He's over there," Sadie said absent-mindedly surrounded by a whole pile of scrolls and pointing behind a large pile of books obscuring the other person sitting at the table. She paused and looked up. "Who are you?"Eventually Arthur arrives at the library at Adon's table "I'm looking for a Mr Adon?
Arthur offers his hand "Arthur Barren. I build things" After the hand shakes are either accepted or refused he looks to Adon "so... what seems to be the issue?"
adon glances up from a book.
"ah, I um, need a map of the school. I disrupt magic around the school with my presence, so the arrows don't work properly."
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Arthur nods and looks deeply in thought "right and given the shifting nature of the school you'd need a navigational device that would be continually updating.... hmm we could make some kind of radar type device to tell what hallways and staircases lead where.... but without some sort of beacon to each possible destination it wouldn't be able to distinguish many of the possible targets from one another. Most of the classrooms would have rather similar geometries and acoustics to radar. I mean you could tell places like the cafeteria that way and maybe the sim rooms but not say light blades from heavy blades"
he begins to pace slightly as he babbles on "next, we could manufacture a variety of RFID tags and place them in various places you are likely to go to, and combine that system with the radar method but you'd still be missing out in functionality with regards to finding someone as opposed to something and in not being able to find things we didn't think ahead in tagging, and we'd need to be sure to input some kind of system to check for damage to the tags, but you'd at least be able to get to your classes, infirmary and your room and the cafeteria and any of the exits to the school. "
he doesn't seem to like this method, finding it distasteful to only offer a partial solution so he moves on to a harder but one more interesting to build and test "But there are other options, my favorite would either be to find some way to get around your issue and have some device interface directly with whatever system the school already uses to produce it's arrows, I'm honestly not sure how I'd do that yet, or I could take a wack at fixing whatever the route cause of the problem is.... not sure how I'd do that either."
"I.....don't know? I thought maybe you could ask permission to let whatever you make access the nanite cloud inside the school? I mean, it's there for security, so they might not let you....I don't really understand half of the rest of what you're talking about," Sadie said, shaking her head.
The jamming field does indeed seem to be around the city, not in it. The nanites are pointing him to a location on the north side of the city. That is definitely where the chancellor is. Finding the courage signatures is a little more complicated. Tyrrin's is faint, and there is something terribly wrong with Ehos's. They are near the chancellor, but there is some distance between them.
Unsure of what exactly he is sensing with Ehos, Fei decides that time is no longer a luxury in this rescue and commits to action.
Abandoning any more pretense of this being a peaceful outing from his duties, he removes his overcoat and lets it slide off of his body, separating into more nanites as it falls to bolster those already floating around him. The rest of his outfit converts to its more 'tactical' mode, covering the young monk's entire body to conceal his identity.
While he slips into something more confrontational, Fei instructs two of the nanites on the Chancellor to detach from him and make their way to the floor underneath his robes to begin quietly replicating, staying with the elf as he moves. The rest remain where they are in case they need to perform the same trick they did earlier at the festival.
Half of the cluster of nanites around Fei quickly organize themselves into a sort of communications array: A microscopic pair of nano-transponders, one near him and the other high above the city enough to be outside the jamming 'barrier', both directly connected by a nanometers-wide chain of hardened nanites to (hopefully) conduct the signal between them without being blocked so Fei can once again communicate with his comrades.
As soon as they are in position, he tests the secured connection.
"Casilkasheyith, Ghalen, Jaiye - can you hear me?"
Ace quickly makes his way to the spot Jai said Ehos was taken from, and casts his tracking spell.
He also scans the area mundanely, just in case.
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"I.....don't know? I thought maybe you could ask permission to let whatever you make access the nanite cloud inside the school? I mean, it's there for security, so they might not let you....I don't really understand half of the rest of what you're talking about," Sadie said, shaking her head.
"last time I tried to directly access the nanites here I ended up with a coating of dead nanites all over me, and while I could probably reactivate then, they'd be my nanites at that point and wouldn't have any more access than if I had built them myself in the first place... hmm, although, if I deaigned then to attempt to access the other nanites and took advantage of their self destruction defense protocols I could probably take down and then maybe take over the whole system! I hadn't thought of that before!"
"Still trying to figure out how to tell them? Or trying to figure out how to never ever tell them?" he asked mildly, keeping any personal opinion on the matter to himself. He doesn't even fidget. He is remarkably good at being still, to the point that it's almost eerie.
"I just... I don't think this is the kind of thing I can explain in a letter. But just showing up at home like this would be kinda bad too. It's not that I don't want them to know. I guess I'm kind of afraid of what would happen, yeah, but it's not that I want to hide it from them. I'm still kind of getting used to it, I can't even imagine what it would be like for them. I just thought I'd only ever have to come out to them once."
Kevin on the other hand fidgets quite a lot. It's not to the point of being detrimental or annoying, he just needs to keep something in his hands.
As soon as they are in position, he tests the secured connection."Casilkasheyith, Ghalen, Jaiye - can you hear me?"
"...Yes."
adon chucks a wadded up peice of paper at Arthur's forehead.
"I'm enough of a threat on my own, thank you. I don't need you tearing down the school on my behalf."
for just a moment, adon's voice had an echo, of sorts.
"You seem to be complicating the issue. All I need is directions from the wall, and I can't touch or directly communicate with it. I simply need a proxy between me and the wall. So, it should be a relatively simple matter to set up a machine that can interact with the school and get directions at a distance from me, where my interference makes things difficult, and send it back. It's... Just radio waves. The hardest part would be gauging my intent, as I don't know a way to make something recognize speech without Magic. With something that would allow me to simply ask a question of a remote device that could recive instructions from the school, it would be somewhat simple. To solve the problem of it's distance from my location changing input location for the school to give direction, all you would have to is provide a way to spoof locations. If you're talking on the scale of Nanites, a single nanite on each hallway wall would be able to issue the request to the school."
adon stops, a moment, and pats the wall.
"Or, perhaps, take the simpler option.
you could simply ask the school for input on my behalf via proxy. After all, it makes decisions on it's own constantly. It should be able to recognize a request for information, feed that information to a simple machine that records the response and sends it to me. All that would be needed would be a way for my request to be heard by the school outside the area of my interference, and the information it gives me in turn to be returned to me."
adon's expression is flat and kind of aloof. His eyes widen, a bit, after a moment, the static somehow seeming... Deeper, as he does.
do remember, this man is here to aid you. This behavior will likely result in you not getting what you desire. I reccomend you adjust.
"... Ah, but perhaps you already thought of that, and have a reason it won't work?" he says, aloofness seemingly vanishing. "I mean, my major skill lies in magical analysis, not engeneering. Perhaps I'm missing something."
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He doesn't even seem to notice the paper thrown at him
"My first thought was indeed to just build a drone and use that to interface for you, but Hermes, my personal robot is incapable of summoning the arrows, and he gets around using an RFID tag on both myself and our room, so any drone I build for you would be incapable of doing likewise without a more direct access that my previous attempts caused the previously mentioned dead nanites, my working theory is that without a soul or will to exert that can be picked up by whatever divination enchantment the nanite security system acts as a carrier for, the system doesn't register them as anything other than an object.... I hadn't thought of just asking... huh..... I guess I could ask the head of security for access, the device itself could take any one of dozens of options from a spinal tap implant to a little flying saucer with arms and voice recognition, which is plenary easy to make, it just needs a rudimentary AI, to a fancy gauntlet, it's just that I'd need access to the school if we went with this method."