There was no stopping that porcupine-headed diva once she set her course. Cinrak straightened the hem of her tailored suit jacket and eyed Loquolchi's riding garb: a batwing dress straight out of the Rat-oyal costume department, all white froof and flop. Surely a tripping hazard.

She glanced up at the miniature maze her creation would have to navigate, a spherical cityscape of shell and chrome-colored fossil levitating above the table. A pressure-headache hum of whispering thoughts brushed against her mind. She usually didn't get headaches and she was already struggling with one. The judges' thoughts made her nauseous to go along with it all, but it wasn't like she could tell them to stop.