May Event and Intro Log

[magicademymods]

May Event and Intro Log DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY May I Have This Dance? Though Diatu Magicademy has its share of social events, few capture the attention of the student body quite like the Twilight Ball -- that magical once-a-year dance that crosses the change of day into night and is given over entirely to the dance itself. The focus is not on political visitors, rival schools, local government, or hitting up alumni for money; it is entirely about the pleasure that comes from accompanying a charming and attractive person onto the dance floor and cutting the proverbial rug. 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?) Love Is In The Water Love potions are absolutely, positively, one hundred percent forbidden, on the grounds they tread far too close to the supremely black Curriculum of Dictation. This ultimate and unforgiving ban is every bit as effective as Anastara's rules limiting the speed of carts in the street to a horse's walk. 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. Special Delivery (aka the Least Embarrassing Prompt, which is a sad state of affairs) A quick, easy, profitable way to make some money this time of year is by delivering messages, packages, parcels, and treats to students who've caught the eye of another. Whether anonymous or gloriously identified, small token of esteem or bristling bundles of roses and chocolates, the population of the Magicademy takes particular delight in letting others know their feelings. Not always positive feelings, either -- glitter-bomb rejections have only recently begun to diminish in popularity, being replaced by Pie-To-The-Face spells. 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? Research On the Sundered With the arrival of the Sundered come those wizards engaged in research on their presence here, now set to investigate what brought them here and how to get them home. All newly-arrived Sundered students are asked to meet with representatives of the research team, to introduce themselves and relate what they will of their homes. In addition, the team requests samples of blood, hair, and skin -- carefully magically collected, and the researchers will sign in the presence of the Sundered a Glyphed contract that forbids them from using the samples for a purpose they know will be harmful. (They quite understand your reasons to be suspicious of this collection! And they will not compel anyone who refuses even given these conditions.) 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... DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY Welp, This Happened A quiet weekend morning is abruptly quiet no longer. 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. Wonders Await? Diatu Magicademy is open to you in all its glory. But maybe you should deal with that mess first? We're just saying.

Comments

[treno_nobleman]

[A soft sigh.]

Yes, that. I was only ever witness to it twice myself, but it was a dreadfully boring event. Some people like it for the danger and the very real possibility of injury. I suppose I am a bit jaded, having fought and killed worse than the creatures they captured for all of this. Mindless slaughter.

[He shakes his head and turns the question around, even though he finds no real intrugue in it.] You spoke of blitzball. What is this?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Best damn sport there is, is what. [Leaning back in his chair, Jecht cocks an elbow over the back as he gets into a subject he's real comfortable with.] Get a sphere of water, float it in midair. Two teams of five and one ball go in. The team that scores the most goals wins. Pretty simple to describe, but it's one hell of a game.

[treno_nobleman]

[Well, Jecht seemed to enjoy it, at least. Kuja tilted his head and hummed softly, a bit distracted not by the conversation, but that they were having this conversation at all. He'd always taken the man for the physical, brutish type, and that seemed no less true now than it ever had been.]

[Still, he'd had to go back to the side he would frequently show nobility to get through this - a lot of patience and a lot of discussion he was sure not to like. Not that he'd liked any of this from the start after finding the researchers needed information from them.]

It sounds simple enough. My understanding is that most games of sport do. All things, really. The definition almost always betrays the truth of the thing.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Hey, yeah! Finally someone gets it! [Jecht grins all the more broadly as the guy makes a point he'd been trying to get through to a couple other people.] It might look like one big brawl from the outside, but it's a hell of a lot more complicated. Gotta think fast, know when to stick to plans and when to wing it, react to other people really fast.

[treno_nobleman]

[He blinks, surprised that they've come to an understanding about something, and more that it was about something that Kuja doesn't care for. 'Finally, someone gets it,' indeed.]

The very same could be said of a battle. Soldiers on a field play their parts, but it only looks basic from a distance. The closer into it one is, the more intricate the flow of it all becomes.

[But the research isn't about discussing plans. He glances over at the crystal, dull as it well should be, and considers his next question.] That in mind, has your world always had this blitzball, or was it something more recent? I can't imagine it would be, but it isn't something our worlds seem to have in common.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Tricky question, but in Spira, blitz has been around for a real long time. [Same as in his Zanarkand, but that's just a dream. So they can point to it being there since before Sin first awoke... a real long time.]

[treno_nobleman]

[There still is no glow from the crystal yet, and with something like this, he isn't sure that he should worry about one. He certainly has nothing to lie about here. It isn't getting them any closer to understanding what they are here to try and understand, but it does share common ground.]

So another long-standing custom, as it were. What others do you have in your world?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Guess that question really needs another one answered... whether ya mean the world I grew up in, or the world I came from. It's complicated. [As if Kuja's own situation wasn't, but Jecht didn't know that!]

[treno_nobleman]

[Two worlds? Well, now it seemed like they were on to something, but he proceeded with caution all the same.]

That does merit a bit of clarification. I will leave that up to your discretion to choose which you would like to speak of, one or both.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Spira was... mostly built on what Sin could do to it, and what people were told would keep Sin away. So one'a the big traditions there was not using machines for anything. Except Blitzball, they got a special pass for that. [That's just how big it was, that even the big guys of the church would be okay with that doctrinal violation just to keep it going. Of course, they'd also known the ban was crap.]

[treno_nobleman]

[He doesn't understand that "Sin" is different than "sin," and so the significance eludes him, leaving him to draw his own conclusions. Were Jecht's world's people really so baseless?]

Your people let themselves go, and machinery was not permitted as a result? [The question that followed he truly couldn't help but ask, not for lecherous wont, as he had no desires of that variety, but out of genuine morbid curiosity.] What, pray tell, prompted such a custom?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

[Man. He doesn't even really understand it all himself, and he's gotta explain it? Jecht slumps in his chair, fingers pressing into his forehead.]

So long ago there was a war. Basically machines versus summons. One summoner created Sin to win the fight, and then set up a religion that basically said the damn thing was people's fault for being arrogant. And forbid machines so nothing could challenge his monster.

[treno_nobleman]

[If this is as far as they get, this is as far as they get. He'll find it no less interesting that they're both from two worlds, and if nothing else, that much is relevant. And now he knows there is a difference between "sin" and "Sin." Summoners - in his mind - generally do not call acts of moral or religious atrocity.]

A fitting name, then. Very little in my own world will relate to that, but it might be in our case that we are not looking hard enough or we have, and they mean to find what sets us apart. [A quick glance at the researchers shows they're just as enthralled as he is. Another gestures for them to keep going. Kuja sighs and looks back to Jecht, tail tip curling.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Guess one question is... was your world heading to crap?

[A pretty loaded question at that, but Spira sure as hell had been. Isn't now, but that'd been a journey from start to finish. Not his journey either.]

[treno_nobleman]

[A crass term, but he'll forgive it as a quirk of the man's nature. And that question. It was only a matter of time before they came to something like that.]

It had been, before Chaos summoned me to his world. But I'm sure that has all been resolved by now. Events were set in motion as I left that seemed to turn things toward the better.

[Not a lie, not a partial truth. The crystal stayed dull.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Huh. Now there's something. [Jecht straightens up a little, turning to look at the reaction of the researchers.] 'Cuz you could say the same about Spira. Things had just turned around about when I, uh, left it.

[treno_nobleman]

[That's a note of interest, to be certain, and not the first time he has heard it in these interviews. If the researchers aren't taking note, he is.]

Seems we have another common grounds for this world's rather selective displacement magic. How it will help get anyone back is still in the air, but we may be on to something. Do you think?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

I wonder about everyone else though. But yeah, this seems like something. Worlds that're being fixed.

...Kinda makes ya wonder about this one, though. [Did it need fixing too?]

[treno_nobleman]

[He couldn't help a smile and a soft sound of amusement for that.]

Oh, this world has its problems. You only need to know how we got here to see that. Look at this. [He lifts a hand to gesture at the room and the researchers around them.] Would we be here, questioning each other about our own worlds in an attempt to find out how we got here and how to get us back if it did not?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Yeah, exactly. That's my point! [Jecht jams a finger down on the table, thumping it for emphasis.] They're looking for worlds that are getting fixed 'cuz we have experience!

[treno_nobleman]

[It makes sense. It would make perfect sense, but for one thing.]

I would be inclined to believe that, but given a motive, we have few conclusions one can deduct. Either those who cast the spell knew what they were doing and intended to bring us here for that purpose, as you said, or they were truly waving their wands around in the dark and somehow the magic knew what they wanted and did their bidding as it saw fit. That is, of course, assuming that those who were brought here are willing to hear their woes and lend a helping hand.

[Given that he was forced into an academy to learn magic to prevent it from destroying him, he'd say not.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Yeah, it's just a theory. [Jecht shrugs, settling back down from his momentary burst of energy. Truth is, if that was it, he'd help out without needing to be asked. It's the right thing to do.] That's what we're looking for, right? Some guess as to what's up.

[treno_nobleman]

[Just a theory, and that was all anyone ever had here. Theories and little else, frustrating as all, but it worked for a distraction at least, with him.]

Oh, I wouldn't know about that. Our reasons for being here and the locals' differ greatly, but I see no progress for us. I don't think they're looking in the right place. They've been doing research on we Sundered for months and still nothing.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

A few months ain't nothing. Years... maybe centuries, who knows. Stuff like this ain't easy, ain't simple. Might be we're just layin' the groundwork for the future.

[Jecht might be thinking a little bit too hard about his own experiences, his own history.]

[treno_nobleman]

[That's a bothersome thought on its own, not one he had intended to return to.]

We just don't know, do we? Even if the locals do find out, would you trust them to tell you? [In truth, he doesn't think they will, and he isn't going to hold his breath on that one.]