Mod Account for Diatu Magicademy (
magicademymods) wrote in
diatu2019-05-03 01:19 pm
May Event and Intro Log
It is entirely possible the Twilight Ball is beloved because the general student body is aggressively amorous, but no one admits that out loud. With the dance on the horizon, the mission of the day becomes finding a partner -- or asking the prettiest or nicest or most tsundere to the ball before anyone else does. The Sundered are particularly popular by virtue of being new, so students may find themselves fending off invitations or even crowds of people interested in being seen on their arms. Even the younger Sundered have a few people in their age group who'd like to pretend they're just as adult as the older students. To avoid the mob, one strategy is to find someone else in dire straits and agree to be their date, thus giving both of you protection now and then. Another, stranger, vastly more unorthodox strategy is to actually ask someone out legitimately... if you've got the guts. (The third strategy is to go with Headmaster Birony, who has been occasionally heard to bemoan loudly and publicly that she has nobody, HINT HINT. But who could possibly be THAT desperate?)
So, yes, there's love potion in the water. Someone spilled an entire bucket in the river. These things happen. Luckily, as diluted as it is, the potion doesn't reach the levels of obsessive compulsion that the worst of them can; a person drinking a unfortunate draught instead simply finds themselves attracted in a weird and sharp sort of way to the first person they lay their eyes on, for a period of about thirty minutes. Diatu Magicademy is an inclusive and progressive institution, and consequently these potions affect and can target all manner of beings, from ducks and wolf-shifters to robots and dragons. They are pretty convenient about failing to bring about really skeevy pairings, though, so don't worry about being Hot For Professor.
An enterprising student who adds their own spin to this hallowed ceremony of delivery can make bank; singing and performance are popular ways to enhance a message among Valhudor students, and a recent trend finds quartets delivering acapella harmonies to the recipients of love notes. But simple note hauling can still be worth your while... so long as you don't find yourself delivering a creepy confession from a weirdo to one of your dear friends. What are the odds of that happening, though?
This month, however, the research team informs its applicants that there is no magic being performed. Instead, they ask you to participate in partnered interviews, in which two Sundered compare their worlds and ask each other questions while the researchers take notes. They explain that they wish to find commonalities and differences between worlds, in the hopes that this will help them identify a larger pattern in how the Sundered were brought here. How is this bad enough to merit earning a reward this month? As it happens, the researchers who sit with the pair have an Intimation Crystal, which shines red every time someone speaks to deceive in its presence. Lie or omit information or cover with half-truths and the interviewer will ask you to go back and try again -- and they encourage you to speak on everything you can. You might end up venturing into dark or unpleasant territory in these interviews...
With a tumultuous shuddering and an eerie, whistling roar, the first tendril of a far mightier being surges out of a wall on campus, venturing into the cloud-shadowed outdoors for the first time in its existence in this plane. Then, like a cloak shrugged off, the outbuilding it emerged from rises up only to crash to the ground as the Sundered creature rises up to claim it glory. It is a nightmare, a horror. A terrible, indescribable thing as large as a small building —a shapeless agglutination of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of light. For some inexplicable reason, it is colored in bands of purple, black, and gold, and several parts of it sprout white feathers. That's the bad news. The bad news is that this existential threat to reality does not go unnoticed, nor unchallenged. Mere moment after the Sundered creature makes it presence known, a cold wind begins to blow. The temperature abruptly drops thirty degrees, leaving those around in a clammy and miserable chill that feels like they've passed their whole body through one of the ghosts of Makerion Keep. This estimation is not too far wrong, for the pale off-white dragon that emerges from the clouds above is translucent and ethereal, save for the shining eyes of coldest blue that fix on the beast like pinpoints of fire. What a ghost dragon is doing here is anyone's guess, but when it opens its jaw to unleash a withering cone of necrotic energy at the Sundered creature, it demonstrates plainly that it will not brook this interloper on its domain. In other words, Diatu Magicademy is now home to a kaiju fight. That's the bad news. The BAD news is that both these creatures are, by their very nature, incredibly resistant to magic. So even as the professors spill out and split duties of getting students to safety and fending them off, the two beasts barely notice the arcane energy flashing through the air as they begin vigorously brawling. Thank goodness this is a weekend, or else you'd all have some serious trouble getting to class on time.
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Isa frowns.]
Or I could just tell them the truth, that I'm not interested in being anyone's date.
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...
And besides, Lea, do you really think people will pester me as much as they pester you? I don't have your... [He pauses, looking for the right term] magnetic charisma.
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OK, man; have it your way. But I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' later.
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[He just shakes his head.]
Are you going to want me to also go to the dance so I can save you from your date if it goes wrong? Assuming you get a date with the headmaster, of course.
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[Let it be known that Isa wouldn't have been against the idea of being Lea's "date", despite the deadpan delivery implying otherwise.]
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I'd have considered Xion too, but given our ages it might look weird, and besides, it doesn't seem like something she'd enjoy anyway.
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[You can be her best friend in the world, Lea, but the generation gap would make things hard even if Xion was a normal teenager.]
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[He paused slightly.]
Don't know how good a job I'm actually doing though. Everything's still kind of a mess.
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[He hesitates]
I think you're doing the best you're capable of... but I also don't think it's something that should be done alone.
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Xion's situation isn't any stranger than anything else going on in this school. I doubt she's the only one here who isn't...
...normal.
So I'm sure you can find someone who'd understand.
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Look, all I'm saying is that there must be someone you're friends with that might be able to help.
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[Lea sighs too.]
I guess part of me wants to keep my friends here from getting caught up in our world's messes, you know? Since a lot of them probably have their own stuff to deal with and all.
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I'm sure I'll end up talking to them eventually; just gotta get myself to stop being stubborn about it first.
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