"Oh, it'll get done alright," Lucas mused as he sorted another pile of dust, "We have to. Otherwise, we'll end up with explosive powder scattered all over the place. I don't know how allergenic the rest of you are, but one good sneeze in a volatile area and--" Lucas accentuated his point with his own self-made explosion sound effect, nearly spilling the dust he was working with in the process.

After making sure that none of the particulate scattered on the floor, Lucas continued, "Still though, we're definitely consuming way more dust than other teams. Might be worth it to consider cutting back on how much we use, see if we can put that lien to other things, like weapon improvements or things like that."

"Yeah, I figured it was something like that. It's pretty much the same thing for me," Lucas admitted, before adding," "Not that I'm getting much done. Pretty sure my mind wants to do anything but work, right now. Picking up his drink, he waits by the door and holds it for Prism as they enter the study room.

Taking the very first seat available, Lucas sits down unceremoniously and holds his book out in front of him, continuing trying to convince himself that he's actually reading, and responds to Prism's comments about the team, "Ya know, you say that, but I didn't think it was possible to say 'good morning' every morning until I met Cloe. Like seriously, how is that girl so full of energy from minute one? And as far as Juno's concerned, I can ignore the stink eye. It's when he decides to be 'direct' about solving his problems. Remember that time in the cafeteria when they got his order wrong?" It seems Lucas has no qualms bad-mouthing his teammates. Perhaps it was because he was speaking to Prism, who was also a member of his team. Or perhaps he was just too tired to really care.

Leaning back in his chair, Lucas changed the subject, asking, "Anyways, you said something about being productive, right? What're you working on this late?"

"Bwa?" came the familiar response as Cloe made her offer. "A-are you sure? It's a lot of dust, ya know? I mean, I know I said it was cheaper, but--" she did realize that he wasn't just picking up his own dust right? This was supposed to be a restock for the entire team! And it was supposed to last them for quite a while (it won't, obviously, because Juno--and, yeah, probably Lucas, too--will go through it like an addict on a snow day).

His mind distracted by Cloe's apparent boundless ability to short circuit Lucas's thoughts, his hand pushed the door open, causing the bell to ring and shaking Lucas from trying to talk Cloe down from spending all of her money. Inside, as expected, is a dust shop. But rather than glass display cases and dispensary tubes, there are crates of crystals and barrels of powder, with sacks and scoops tacked to the side for easy packaging. At the back of the store, there was a door with a sign that said "Employees Only", but the windows revealed a warehouse full of even more crates and barrels. Perhaps dust shop was a bit too generous; this place looks more like the retail side of a distribution center.

Off to the side, there was a raised wooden counter and behind it was a man sitting on a stool, black hair covering every inch of his face except his big red nose and his bald white head. Turning towards the sound of the bell, the shop keeper let's out a grunt of acknowledgement, though his eyebrows were so thick it was hard to tell if he was looking at the pair of students or just the door in general. Taking one last look at Cloe, Lucas stepped inside, announcing, "Excuse me, I had an order under 'Meridiem'?"

The question earned another grunt from the shop keeper, who then hopped off his stool to waddle to edge of the counter and retrieve a large sack filled to the brim with dust products (all of it safely packaged, which he confirmed by hand by retrieving each item from the sack and displaying for both Lucas and Cloe to see). The purchase was clearly not just for Lucas, who turned to Cloe as the man rang up the total price. "You sure you still want to pay for all this?"

Lucas sighed as Cloe used literally every name for dust but its proper one, but made no further effort to correct her. Instead, he started leaving the landing deck, with a quiet "this way" to his teammate to indicate she should follow him.

"It isn't far," he continued, turning down an alley instead of heading down the main road, "Most people wouldn't know about it unless they did some digging first, though. It's a real hole-in-the-wall. The sign on the door's practically scratched out, but I promise he's got the best deals."

"See, most of the more popular stores cater to a wider audience," Lucas continued explaining, noticeably without prompting, "which is why you can get pre-made dust ammo in most places. Their 'premium' items are just expensive toys for 'trophy hunters' with too much money. Trust me, anyone tries to sell you on their 'highest quality dust', it's because they think you're a mark."

Lucas turns down another corner, either unaware or unconcerned with how grimy his path is becoming, and continues talking, whether Cloe is listening or not. "Not to mention, most places don't offer custom jobs for storage, and if they do, they want to keep it in-house. Normally, the service is pretty good, so it's not really a rip-off, but if you go through a lot of dust like I do, it's better to find a guy that lets you do it yourself. Cheaper in the long run.

Suddenly, Lucas stops, seemingly staring at a wall. Upon closer inspection, however, he's staring at a red door that practically blends in with the brick surrounding it. A faded placard reads "Particular Particulates: For the Discerning Connoisseur".

"This is the place," Lucas says, turning to Cloe, "It'll only take about five minutes to wrap everything up, if you want to wait outside." Not that he expected Cloe to take the offer, of course.

Cloe, Prism, and Juno; Cloe, Prism, and Juno; Cloe, Prism, and Juno. Lucas repeated their names like a mantra in his head, making sure to memorize them as best he can. If he forgot them, he'd have to go with the nicknames he came up for them, which were "Blondie", "Birdie", and "Bozo", respectively. Something told him those names would not be appreciated.

Nevertheless, the team has officially made their introductions, and, not wanting to spend any longer in a Grimm-infested forest than he had to, Lucas piped back up. "'Cakewalk' or not, we still gotta move our legs," he started, trying to put a little bit of tension back into the situation. "If it's all the same to you guys, we should probably get on the road. I don't hear any Grimm right now, but we did cause a pretty big commotion. It's probably a matter of 'when', not 'if', something else comes by, and I want to be a long ways away when it does."

He took a look around, regaining his bearings, before turning back to the group. "Anyone get a look at these 'ruins' on the way down? I saw a couple of clearings, but nothing that really stood out," he said. He wasn't particularly hopeful, but one of their group had literal wings, and they had four sets of eyes to work with now. Maybe between the lot of them, they could pick a proper direction to go.

Dust is an incredibly powerful and invaluable resource. The sheer variety of dust alone can reshape battlefields, allowing the forces of civilization to fight on even ground against the Grimm. The energy dust provides is used in almost all the technology of the kingdoms, including everything from cutting-edge weapons to the lights in the dorm room.

With all that in mind, it makes perfect sense for why team CLVS uses so much dust. When combined with their semblances, the versatility of dust makes them an unpredictable force, able to adapt to pretty much any situation. Thanks to all their dust, entire packs of Grimm have been wiped out, sometimes even in a matter of seconds! Yet, there is still one downside to this amazing resource.

"Why do we have so much dust?" Lucas sighed as he picked up another vial. Because the entire team uses an extensive amount of dust, there is an extensive amount of dust scattered about the dorm room. This isn't even necessarily the result of carelessness, the everyday use of it just lends itself to becoming disorganized. Because of that, Lucas had originally only resolved to keep his dust in his specific area, but the scattering about of dust crystals and particulate had blurred the boundaries, and now Lucas has taken on the unenviable task of trying to organize everything.

And that means scattering the dust even further, just so he can have space to gather his thoughts and properly classify all the scattered crystals. Thus, the CLVS dorm room is currently covered in different colored piles of dust, spaced out by strips of paper, with Lucas at the center with a notebook and a case full of vials. This is definitely going to take a lot of work.

Lucas was staring at his screen, doing his best to resist the urge to drum his fingers on his desk. It was already past midnight, and his room was already filled with the sounds of his sleeping teammates. He was sure the glare from the backlight of his monitor was already enough to disturb their sleep, seeing as how it was enough to keep his own night vision from coming into focus. Anything beyond that and the typing of his keyboard was sure to earn a pillow thrown at him...or perhaps even a fist. Yeah, it was probably best to keep extraneous noise to a minimum.

Still, he was getting nowhere on his assignment, and the more he stared at the screen, the more he wanted to shout at himself for not getting started on it sooner. Sure, he has until the next evening to finish, but he had entire week to do it. Despite that, he's only managed to write a single word:

"The"

It's not that he has writer's block, per se. He knows what he wants to write, to the point that he knows the direction his entire assignment will take, including which citations he'll need. Unfortunately, since the work is done already in his head, his body is refusing to take the next step and put the words to paper. Hence, Lucas isn't staring at a blank screen because he doesn't know what to write, but because he's too bored to actually write. And yet, if he doesn't, his grade will tank, and that's something he can't afford to have happen. Thus, Lucas chains himself to his seat in a vain effort to sit down and actually do the thing he's supposed to have done ages ago.

The drive to procrastinate is strong, though, and in a matter of minutes Lucas is back up, grabbing a book out of his bag to "review" (at this point, he's practically memorized the passage that he needs, save for the page number, and he's really just trying to get his mind to focus). He steps towards the room door to "study" in peace when he spies an empty bed. Since he's up and about still, it would be practical to assume it's his, but it's not. Lucas's bed sheets are tossed all about, almost as disheveled as he currently is. This bed belongs to Prism, the crisp, tucked-in bed sheets almost as strong a tell as the nameplate.

Where could she be at such a late hour? Well, it's not really any of Lucas's business what she did in her free time. So long as she kept up her part of the team's assignments, he had no complaints. With that in mind, Lucas stepped out of his team's dormitory and started wondering down the halls, trying to force his mind to focus on more important things.