Okay, Christa's definitely going to try to find a tarp or something to keep her scent mostly contained, there should be something like that in a military palace that large, the only issue is finding it. She's usually a fan of the fact that their uniforms are somewhat breathable, but now it's a handicap. Have any of the other girls done something clever and brought along different clothes to change into, in retrospect she probably should have done something like that; red is a color that's very hard to hide.

She doesn't want to rely on Aire too much to help her plan here, although she will want Aire to, like, keep Lavich's illusion in mind and feed Christa an ongoing mental map of the area, Christa can have a bit of trouble with stuff like that.

Yes yes, she can do that just fine.

Changing into different clothes is not allowed. That would be advance preparation and not in the spirit of the exercise. Lucky for Christa, one of the other girls has the same idea and Lavich shoots her down.

Lavich leads the class out of the studio, out of the castle, and across the parkland of Library Gemini. At the entrance, they're met by Ser Kalar, who does a manful job of not looking intimidated by Lavich even though he is totally intimidated by Lavich.

The knight escorts them through the city to the carriages.

Knights! Carriages! A military palace and a dangerous delivery mission and a dragon. This is all so exciting!

After a short ride, the class arrives at their destination.

It is an older military palace complex, with squat roofs and a labyrinthine interior. It doesn't appear to actually be currently in use by any active operations, but there is a skeleton crew of Guardian Dolls to let them in and to pose as the quartermaster. Anything of value was cleared out, though the rooms and yards aren't bare; they still contain old equipment, furniture, and various surplus that got left behind.

The main building is several stories high, with a spacious balcony the rest class can use to observe each turn with the dragon.

Speaking of the dragon.

A shape of leathery wings and dark red scales soars over head. It banks, circling around them before gliding down to land on that very balcony. It's huge, up close, but still smaller than expected, not being quite full-grown yet. The flesh beneath the scales is white, and the leathery membranes of its wings are pink.

It sniffs curiously at the class, pausing on 'Christa' for a moment with narrowed reptilian eyes, before sitting itself upright on its haunches to look down at them majestically.

The dragon's neck twists, as it plucks a human boy off its back and sets him down on the balcony in front of it.

It's the same boy who was playing the cello yesterday. He's wearing the form-fitting red and silver Dragoon-trainee uniform, this time, though, rather than the musician variant. He glances up at them, briefly, before letting his eyes fall back to the floor.

He doesn't say anything, but he reaches up to pat his dragon's jaw.

This continues to be incredibly awesome! A dragon stared at her! A boy is patting a dragon right in front of her. The cello boy who was very good at not being distracted by all the pretty girls, even. She’d already thought he was impressive just for that and his cello skills, but apparently, he also rides a dragon!

But! She must focus on more things that just that! Does the various discarded surplus happen to include tarps? She rather hopes it includes tarps! At the moment she has no other viable plans!

There might be a tarp in one of those storage lockers, but there do not appear to be any tarps out and visible from the balcony.

Christa's fellow Sisters are pretty evenly split between assessing the arena and cooing at the dragon. (Most are doing both.)

"Yes, go on, pet the dragon. Take a moment to indulge yourselves and let it learn who you are."

Lavich waits a decorous length of time to allow the girls to get it out of their system, then begins weaving an Illusion.

The boy's blood-dragon bulks up as she weaves additional heft onto its body. Its coloration shifts to become pallid and engorged. Illusory tentacles sprout from its eyes. And, with a subtle Sex spell, its genuine draconic cock spurts out of its sheath and bobbles firmly in the air.

A couple of the girls who are closest yelp and jump back, giggling nervously.

"You'll be going one at a time, my dears. Gather 'round and we'll draw lots to determine when you'll get your turn."

She got to pet a dragon!

No, focused, determined Christa is what is required here, not happy giddy Christa!

She really hopes there are tarps in those storage lockers. Maybe if there are old uniforms she could try layering a few of them to keep her scent trapped within?

She steps forward to draw lots.

It turns out to be pretty boring, waiting for her turn.

Lavich uses illusions to obscure the details of each attempt, so the Sisters can't cheat off of each other.

Some attempts are over very quickly. Other attempts drag-on for a while. One girl gets very quietly scolded by Alard for injuring his dragon. Thankfully, blood dragons have natural regeneration. Another girl comes back blushing and flustered and mortified, with Alard quietly scolding the dragon, for getting a little carried away. (Lavich smirks to herself, even if it was only a close-call.)

Christa's turn comes up.

Christa is directed down to one of the open yards, instructed to stand in front of the Guardian Doll posing as the quartermaster, holding this crate of empty bottles. She is to wait and do nothing until the dragon dives at her.

Her plan is to use Aire's mental map of the palace to immediately dash for the entrance to the palace closest to a door smaller than it can fit through, not all of them can be dragon size, lose it as best she can, and then see if any of those lockers contain tarps, or anything else usable for blocking her scent if that isn't enough.

She waits patiently for the dragon to dive.

Shortly, a tentacle-infected dragon comes swooping down out of the sky.

It pounces from mid-air, reaching out with its claws as it descends in an attempt to knock Christa over!

Christa dodges as best she can!

Her abilities there are entirely unenhanced by natural skill, mutation, or practice, so she's not the best at it, but she was prepared.

It may be a surprise rape-dragon but it is not itself a stealthy surprise rape-dragon.

It hits the ground, bending its legs before hopping forward a few times to bleed off momentum, its claws scraping and its wings flailing as it struggles to turn around. Christa has plenty of time to pick a direction and start running.

There's guaranteed to be a shortest path to a door too small for a dragon, and she has Aire's strong memorization skills to guide her on the matter of what exactly that path is. She starts running and follows it.

The dragon bounds and flaps after her.

It's fast!

Running in a straight line, she can't keep out of reach long enough to reach the door in the next yard over that's too small for a dragon. She'll have to dodge again if she doesn't want to get pounced-on.

She can hear it behind her. She dodges to the left. Maybe she can zig and zag around enough to keep going generally doorward without being caught?

She makes it to the door!

The dragon skids to a stop, making a whining sound as it looks around. It peers into the interior space through the slats and windows on the next wall over.

Christa is now in a barracks, with several rusty bedframes and a couple of moldy old footlockers.

The dragon can't follow her in through the side door, but at the other end there's a pair of large double-doors that the dragon could fit through pretty easily. The small side door and the large double-doors at the end are the only ways in or out of the barracks. She can hear the dragon already heading in the direction of the end with the large double doors.

No time to scout out the footlockers! Probably nothing she could actually use to disguise her scent anyway.

She's listening closely for the sound of the dragon. She'll wait until it's around a corner from the smaller door and then duck back through it. If it responds with confusedly searching through the room, she can try to quietly sneak away. If it instantly realizes what's up, she can run.

The dragon bursts into the barracks through the double doors just as she hoped!

It knocks a bedframe or two over as it skids to a stop again and makes a confused sound. It sniffs around for a few seconds, but there isn't really anywhere to hide. It makes a frustrated sound and knocks another bedframe over on its way out.

The dragon jumps and flaps and pulls itself onto the roof of the barracks, stalking forward toward the other side where it can look down into the yard and spot Christa if she's still visible.

And back inside she goes! Hopefully she can discourage the dragon and make it think she's gotten away somehow. She's sort of worried it'll just about instantly realize what she's doing, dragons are supposed to be smart.