It took at least a days travel before they arrived at The MMM racetrack, and it was fairly safe to say you really couldn’t miss it. The damned thing was gigantic and vaguely cubic in formation. But used an excess of dimensional magic that made it quite clear that it was very much bigger on the inside. Also if that wasn’t trippy enough all by itself the damned thing was moving, and practically seemed to squirm like it was trying to defy observation. Every once in a while it seemed to decide it disliked a competitor who got too close, and a long vine tendril would whip out and launch the poor unfortunate soul as far as it could manage. (Much to the amusement of the people in the stands, which were carefully positioned out of range of the maze, and any resultant launches. But still close enough to maybe catch a souvenir if things got messy. Teeth were usually a popular outcome, and the occasional hawker could be seen selling them in the stands. Whether they were genuine or not? Did it matter? You got a tooth and a gory story, it really was win win. )

The area outside the maze where The Wand Prix was hosted was jam packed with a weird and wonderful array of magical, man powered, and mechanical attempts to get airborne by a huge array of different types of people.

Off to one side Mibbet noticed a bizarre as hell device that looked like a cross between a corkscrew and an umbrella, that Mibbet was absolutely positive would never in a month of Sundays get off the ground. She understood the theory, at least to an extent, a team of athletic humans would run on the track arrangement in order to power it. But even world class athletes would struggle to get that thing off the ground, and whatever else you could say about the team who were crewing that device world class athletes they were not. They looked like they had about a muscle between them on timeshare, and those shorts they all wore left far too little to the imagination (not that a single human being would want to imagine it....... well maybe one, there’s always one.)

Over to the right a young mage was affectionately petting a flying carpet, which given that Mibbet had heard that there weren’t really rules here, she really really hoped for his sake was treated with some kind of flameproofing magic.

There was another guy who was literally dressed in a feathered suit, (again there is always one.) Of course he could actually turn out to be a serious competitor for all she knew, after all magic does have a tendency to turn the laws of physics into mere guidelines, and sometimes it seemed the goofier the solution the more likely it was some twit with a pointy stick will have somehow turned it into a serious magic, it was like they saw it as a personal challenge to do the weirdest crap they could pull off.

There were also other competitors who seemed to have favoured physics over magic, one competitor had built a strange contraption powered by pedals, under the logic that if you want something to fly you slap wings on it. If you want it to fly well you add more wings. By that logic this guy really wanted his creation to fly, as the only magic in the entire device seemed to have been added with the intent of somehow defying the limits usually applied to a chassis in order to slap extra wings on. How the hell he expected the damned thing to get off the ground like that, much less somehow navigate a maze of narrow passages truly was a mystery for the ages.

One wizard was wearing a metal backpack, onto which he had added high output flame runes, Mibbet vowed to herself that when that one did whatever it was it was supposed to do she was going to be far, far, far away from it. (Like preferable three kingdoms over and still wearing a helmet, she really could not see it ending in a way that left the packs bearer intact and not a roughly wizard sized charcoal briquette.)

Of course in the grand old tradition of these sorts of events the multiverse over there were stands selling foodstuffs that if seen anywhere else but this sort of event nobody would touch. Made of mystery meats (best not to ask) and deep fried in enough grease to make your arteries scream for mercy. People selling t shirts, and visors that seemed to have misplaced the rest of the item of head-wear they were traditionally attached to, and the ever popular noise making toys the kids will love, but the parents will either hide, confiscate, “accidentally” break, or turn into a murder weapon as soon as they are utilised in a household environment. (Whistles, groan tubes, whifflers, weird trumpet things, clackers, rattles, whistles. If you are reading this and you are a parent you know exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about, and if you are a kid then you still know exactly what I’m talking about and may want to take it outside before your parents decide the murder weapon option is looking like a good plan. Alternatively if you wish to prolong your life expectancy maybe consider a foam finger, it’s cheaper, less noisy. But still provides hours of entertainment by pretending to pick your nose with it. Just remember not your siblings nose, they can take you down too, especially since they probably know where you hid that, and don’t mind grassing you up if they get mad enough.)

In short it felt like any other festival out there, even down to the teenagers with fake ID’s who seem to think that it’s fooling anybody, as opposed to the adults genuinely not giving a stuff so long as they don’t make too loud a fool of themselves. After all money is still money.

The Cacklers (plus Mibbet who still didn’t quite comprehend the meaning behind the whole one of us thing,) came in to land at a spot specially reserved for the race entrants for their team, and started to sort their gear.

Wormy had brought along a preponderance of potions in preparation, alongside a squirt bottle that apparently was filled to the brim with refined essence of stank-weed. At one point during the journey Rascal had made the bold, and decidedly unwise decision to sniff the bottle, nearly knocking themselves out in the process. Suffice to say they would not be repeating the experiment.

Hestia got to work straight away reinforcing everybodies boots to the best of her abilities.

“There’s no time outs in the maze, and no rules, so don’t be afraid to fight dirty, because trust me the other teams won’t.” She said as she added extra riveting to boots that already closer resembled something worn under greaves than regular footwear.

Song had a few nasty tricks of her own, but wisely played them close to the chest. The team needed a few surprises, and despite her talkative nature she was actually really bloody good at keeping secrets. While Hagatha had settled for getting as much information as she possibly could about the last known layout of the maze, knowing that before the race started it would have deliberately swapped to something even more confusing. It didn’t like the competitors getting complacent after all.

Mibbet of course needed no such trickery, as through the judicious use of flameproofing and dimensional space magic she had the ultimate weapon, RASCAL locked and loaded. If that didn’t deter her opponents from messing with her then realistically nothing would. But just in case she had also picked up a decent sized bag of marbles from one of the stalls, which she was fairly sure would come in handy even if the opponents weren’t touching the ground.

With all that sorted out there was noting to do but sit, and observe the competition. She quietly sat down and started to give Puppy a quick brush down.

Mibbet was dragged from her relaxation time by a laugh that more closely resembled something you would hear from a horse than anything that a human would emit. Mibbet glanced over at the approaching gaggle of guys, and found to her surprise that they were indeed human. There were four of them, and if not for their colour coded polo shirts and the fact one stood in front Mibbet was willing to swear that appearance wise they may as well have been the product of some kind of duplication spell.

“Oh Bradley, look at this, somebody brought a broomstick to The Wand Prix, how delightfully quaint.” The individual who had spoken made it quite clear in their tone that while they did indeed consider broomsticks to be quaint, they were definitely not delighted. The boy had a perpetual sneering grimace on his face, that somehow hid behind a smile. While heavily implying whoever he looked at was closer kin to something unpleasant he just stepped in wearing five hundred gold designer shoes that were hand wash only than human beings worthy of conversation.

“Something wrong with modernising the traditional?” Mibbet asked with the carefully set up facade she’d had painfully drilled into her brain by Mz Melchitt for dealing with nobles and the wannabe nobility.

“Why would you modernise something so ridiculous?” the stranger shot back, “flying on brooms is just so passe.”

“And you are?” Mibbet asked, she had learned this particular trick during class, it was fun to mess with them like this.

“He is Charles Jameson-Smythe, of the Toffington Smythes.” Replied the lackey formerly known as Bradley, Mibbet was genuinely impressed, it wasn’t every day you saw a human so conceited as to have a lackey just for introductions. She considered revealing her identity right there, then decided against it. Where would be the fun in that, it would be much more amusing for her to wait and see if they could in fact manage to cram their whole foot into their mouth. Right now the faux pas was small, and Rosalind was being the devil on her shoulder. She decided to defer to the Princesses considerable experience in spiting other human beings. She was a mere amateur compared to her host.

“I happen to like brooms,” Mibbet replied. “You can make them yourself, and the more heart you put into them the better they turn out. That and they can get through places a lot of other options will never be able to navigate.”

“Suit yourself” Charles (or maybe one of the trio of lackeys, it was somewhat hard to tell,) replied. “Personally I’ll stick to a real winning option.” He then reached back and pressed a button attached to his belt, and some kind of carefully crafted backpack unfolded fastening over his shoulders, then unfurled to reveal something that resembled the wings on the Pegasi. If they had been attacked with gold leaf that is.

“Really?” Mibbet asked raising an eyebrow sceptically, “that is what you want to show off? I suppose the overcompensation is impressive in a way. (Rosalind of course coached her through this response, as Mibbet would just have laughed at them. Which in all fairness would probably have achieved the same result, while at the same time painting a massive bullseye on her back, Mibbet did not need additional people targeting her right now.)

“As expected of a commoner” Charles sneered. “You demonstrate absolutely no sense of style or flair.”

Mibbet simply smiled at them blankly, she had never seen a more demonstrable display of the expression “give them enough rope they’ll hang themselves,” so rather than getting angry about it right now she bit back her responses. While carefully providing a plentiful supply of rope for their use. Oh when it came to time for the big reveal this was going to be so much fun. But for now she and the girls had a race to fly.