No one was awake to see the group of robed figures that appeared in front of the Mess Hall. In its glory day it had been called the Great Hall, and used for gatherings and ceremonies as well as meals. Back then, it had been a grand room, lined with colorful tapestries and packed with hormone filled cadets and a signature drink called Berry Madness.

The group of intruders moved swiftly. Most were tall but the hoods covered their faces.

The campus was still and silent except for some loud snoring coming from the direction of Iolaus Hall.

One figure strode forward and with a wave of a hand, the doors opened by themselves. Creaking in protest, the leading figure forced the open all the way. The rest followed.

"Well," a cool female voice came from the leading figure. "This is in sorry shape. It appers we've been gone much longer than originally thought."

She turned towards her companions. "You know what to do."

The cadets slept soundly as the black robed figures swept over the campus, peeking in rooms, scribbling notes and eventually, they returned to the archery field.

Silently, they vanished.

As the morning bells rang the cadets sleepily awoke,looked around them and all said "What happened here?"

The cadets noticed other than a coating of golden dust on the archery field, nothing was amiss.

Bryn woke up in the Lecture Hall, a pile of scrolls serving as her pillow. She'd been working late into the night, and since she hadn't had time to move into her own room yet, she'd just made camp where she was. Muffling a yawn, she gathered up the slightly crumple scrolls as she go to her feet. She remembered that before she fell asleep, one of the scrolls had rolled off of her pillow pile and rolled across the room to come to a stop at the base of the door.

Bryn frowned as she realized that the scroll that had been at the base of the door last night was now against the wall, as if someone had opened the door during the night. Bryn shrugged; it was probably one of the other cadets exploring and wandering around. Picking up the scroll, she exited the hall, walking down the hallway and taking a short-cut through the infirmary to drop off the scrolls in the Library.

On her way to Lilith Hall to catch a few more minutes of sleep, she happened to glance at the archery field and stopped in her tracks when it registered in her tired brain that the field looked glittery. Bryn investigated, and realized that there was a coating of golden dust on the archery field!

~Weird~. Bryn thought to herself. She had no idea where the dust had come from, or what could have left it behind. It didn't look like a side effect of a hoolie... It was times like this, Bryn thought, that she really wished one of the olden-oldies were around to explain the weird phenomenons.

Bryn wondered what the other cadets thought of this weird gold dust...

As the cadets looked around,Alex sneezed as she breathed up some of the gold dust."Achoo.I hope this isn't a repeat of the cloning dust or lust dust episodes we just went through" Alex said with a sniff.

"Let's hope not," Eily said, a few paces behind Alex. She was afraid to get too close to the shimmering, golden stuff. The girl rubbed a bruise on her arm she'd gotten during the cloning dust adventure, after taking a nasty fall from a bird with an attitude onto one of the then many Iolauses. He'd broken her fall quite nicely, but falling from that height there was bound to be an injury. She was glad it wasn't any worse than a bruise. She was also glad she had landed on one of the clone Iolauses, since the real thing would still be giving her a hard time about it. "It looks like it's only on the archery field," Eily said, scanning the rest of the area. "What do you think it is?"

"...I don't remember seeing this kind of dust before..." Bryn said, sniffing a pinch of it. "But it's almost familiar... I can't put my finger on just why."

"Seems familiar?"asked Alex as she hoolied Bryn with a fresh coconut cream pie."I hope it's good..."Alex trailed off as she noticed something odd happening to her.

Bryn shrieked in surprise, and a key lime pie with lots of meraingue had no more materialized in her hands than it was air-born at Alex.

Alex ducked quickly and the pie went sailing over her head to land in the face of another cadet approaching the archery field. "Hey,Celest,"Bryn asked,as the other cadet wiped her face off,"What do you make of this gold dust? And why is Alex starting to glow?"

As the cadets slept that night,a figure suddenly appeared in a silent burst of glowing light.
checking the writing on a scroll,the figure nodded with satisfaction it was time to start phase two.The figure tiptoed around the hoolies the cadets had planted to hit the oters with in the morning,tacked the scroll to Bryn's door,sent spark of godly power to the Archery field to begin the spell,and disapeared in another silent burst of light.

Bryn couldn't sleep. Oh, how she wanted to though, wanted to lose herself in Morpheus' embrace (a figurative embrace, that is! Not literal!), but her head kept spinning with everything she still needed to do around the YHU. She'd finally gotten almost all the tapestries back up, although several still needed some mending. There was a slight problem with the dorms that she had refused to worry about today, but now she just couldn't get it out of her head. Tossing and turning in the cot that was one of the few things she'd bothered to put in her room, Bryn tried to drift into sleep but only winded up sweaty and groggy.

A quick, cold shiver ran down her spine as she delt a discharge of Godly energy nearby. Frowning, Bryn hauled herself to her feet and stumbled towards her door through her darkened room. She hadn't bothered lighting a candle, and as a reward for her dinar-saving, she rammed her toe into a box of scrolls and stone tablets on the way to her door. Bryn yelped, hopping on one foot until the initial shock and pain faded, leaving her toes sore but much more awake. She opened her door slowly, looking out to make sure the act didn't trigger a hoolie. A whisper of paper against wood caught her attention, and she gently plucked the scroll off of her door and read it.

Bryn wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. Ty lay sprawled upside down in bed, feet on the pillow and her head at the foot of the bed. Nightmares had struck that night. She'd had them ever since she returned to the Academy.

Not only that, but the animals were restless tonight. She could hear quite a commotion in the stables below; it was noisy even in her own room where Leyton, her wolf, and Theo, her bird, slept.

"Leyt, shush," she groaned as the wolf prowled around the room, growling, hackles raised.

Something feels strange here... Leyton's mind-voice responded. It was just one of the many voices-in-her-head that Ty had been hearing that night. Can you not feel it?

"Of course I feel it. It's making me itchy...and it's making both the four-leggers and the two-leggers nervous."

When the noise downstairs got to be too much, Ty crawled out of bed and trudgeoned to the stables. Someone had to get the horses calm, and she was the only one who could speak Horse.

"Looks like it's up to me," she thought aloud.

Bryn frowned again as the read the scroll over for the third time. "What is going on here?" she worried as a thought struck her. Disappearing, she reappeared in the Library, and began to dig through one of the many piles of scrolls on her desk. Pulling one out, she compared the handwriting. It was a perfect match. "Alex, what are you getting yourself into?" Bryn wondered aloud. This was getting more confusing by the moment. She could tell that Alex had been the power she'd felt earlier, and the scroll had definitely been written by her. And yet Bryn also was convinced that Alex had nothing to do with the gold dust that had appeared on the archery field. Alex had genuinely been as suprised and confused as the rest of them.

Bryn sighed, dropping into the chair behind her desk. She had enough work to do without worrying about mysterious dust and new cadets sneaking around. "Curiouser and curiouser," she murmured to herself as she pulled more scrolls towards her to go though.

"Godly powers?" Alex asked confused "Me? I'm just mortal"
Alex pondered where her new found powers might have come from as she worked in the kitchen preparing her next hoolie.
"There's orange slices,pineapple,coconut,but what is this odd fruit here?" Alex wondered."Tastes wonderful though" Alex thought as she took a bite while she worked.
"I wonder if that gold dust has anything to do with me getting these godly powers so suddenly?"she thought"I'll just have to ask Bryn or Celeste I guess"

"Boy do I feel strange" thought Alex as she worked on her hoolie "Guess I have to watch what I eat and stop all this grazing."
Alex stopped working on her hoolie and went back to the dorm."I'll just stop and ask Bryn about this godly power I seem to have aquired."
Knocking on Bryn's door,Alex looked in as it swung open and was surprised to see no one was in.Walking in a looking around Alex saw food lying on the table "Hmm.Must be her hoolie for next month" she thought "Let's see what's in it-Chicken,fruit,and mmm my favorite feta cheese."
Taking a bite,Alex suddenly doubled over again as another burst of godly power eminated from her."Maybe that wasn't such a good idea" she thought as she felt a strange tingling all over her body.
"Ohhh" Alex moaned "OHH-Baaa"
Alex suddenly froze."Baa" This wasn't good.