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

[shiningkindness]

It's...interesting. The magic kind of flows through us and fill us with energy, and we gain pony ears and pony tails. Twilight, my friend Rainbow Dash, and I also get Pegasus wings.

There...were some Sirens that used their magic to feed off the negative emotions of people. And some people end up consumed and overwhelmed by the magic and do some...bad things.

[goingbythebook]

Hmm... So it's not all sunshine and pureness of heart, then. I suppose magic has dual sides, just like everything else.

[He tapped the pen like a weighing seesaw, looking at the paper.]

In my world, I never really knew magic existed until I met Uncle Scrooge. Even then, most of it was bad. Demons, kelpies, money sharks, and shadows coming to life to try and tear my family apart...

[Weak, barely-humorous chuckle.]

Not much that's endeared me to the idea. So it's nice to see good magic for a change, in the school and what it sounds like you're familiar with, Fluttershy.

[shiningkindness]

[She nodded a bit.]

I know what you mean. Even when we were first introduced to magic, it was because someone was trying to use Princess Twilight's Element to use its magic and enslave the students at school, so they could then use them as an army to take over the other world.

[She's still very careful not to mention who that was.]

And even after all that, I kind of miss being "normal", and not having to worry about magic. But it can also be kind of fun. Besides, someone has to make sure that magic doesn't get out of hand.

[goingbythebook]

[Huey, not being privy to the knowledge of who that person was and that she was here, didn't really think much of it about the dodge of the name. Succinctness of explanation was always a good thing, right? If the name's not important, leave it aside.

...What. He can be succinct when he wants. He just never wants to.]

I could see that. Kinda missing the life you used to have, but being better energized about the new life you lead..

[He fell silent, thinking on that some.]

I had a chance to go back to what I used to know, once. Living on a houseboat with Uncle Donald and my brothers. But we all decided we'd much rather have the new life, one of adventure. Getting to solve mysteries and rewrite history.

[shiningkindness]

Mm, I could understand that too. Sometimes it seems nice to have that old life again, but you could never really go back.

Not when so much has changed.

[goingbythebook]

Exactly! That's why we- my brother, my brother, and me anyway -decided to go back. We thought we knew what we wanted.

We were wrong. What we wanted was what we had, so we went back to Uncle Scrooge. [Beat] Sure that meant embroiling ourselves in Magica's shadow war, but together we were all able to handle it alright.

[shiningkindness]

Shadow war?

[goingbythebook]

[He paused a little, trying to figure out what angle to come at this from.]

So, sometime in the past Uncle Scrooge had a battle with a witch named Magica de Spell, and he trapped her in his Number One Dime, a symbol of his hard work and drive, which Magica wanted for her own gains to try and pull apart Clan McDuck. He kept it on him for years until she, through the machinations of a shadow agent- [Also carefully avoiding names here] -was able to break free and trap Uncle Scrooge in the Dime instead.

She used a dark magic artifact of her own to bring to life the shadows of everyone in Duckburg and gather them together into her own massive force. She would've likely taken over the world, or worse, if we hadn't all interevened. Using our own individual skills we were able to trick Magica, retrieve the Dime, restore Uncle Scrooge, and destroy her artifact in the end, thus returning everything to normal.

[shiningkindness]

Oh goodness...that sounds like it was pretty harrowing. I'm glad you were able to get through it all right in the end.

[goingbythebook]

It was pretty scary. [His expression saddened at that, then he smiled as he looked back up.] But working as a unit, we all saved the day.

[shiningkindness]

That's good.

[She'd noticed the slight fall in his expression, but wasn't sure whether to ask about it.]

But...I can see what you mean about not knowing about good magic.

[goingbythebook]

[He nodded some.]

Yeah, which is one thing I definitely want to look into here.

[shiningkindness]

Well, there's definitely plenty of magic to learn here.

But good luck all the same.

[goingbythebook]

Thank you! I'm definitely looking forward to learning as much as I can here.

[shiningkindness]

[She nodded.]

If you need any help, let me know.

[goingbythebook]

I'll be sure to, especially since we're in the same house! No one I know from home is in the same house as me, so this'll be really handy.

[shiningkindness]

Right. My friend Sunset Shimmer is also in the same house, and I know she'd be happy to help out too.

[goingbythebook]

Oh, your friend's in Eiather too? That's really cool- [He's not jealous at all shut up NO YOU SHUT UP] -I'll have to look out for her!

[shiningkindness]

Oh yes. She's really great. She's smart too, and she knows a lot about magic.

[goingbythebook]

She does? But she's from the same world you are, right? Has she done more Ponying Up than you have?

[shiningkindness]

Er...well, we technically came from the same world. But she's actually from the other world, and came to our world.

[goingbythebook]

Oh!

Wwait wait, how is she from the other other world, and your world?

[shiningkindness]

I mean...she came from the other world, but now lives in our world. So she's as much a part of it as I am.

[goingbythebook]

Well no, that's not what I meant.

How did she come from her world to your world? I thought magic didn't used to exist, but interdimensional travel seems pretty magical to me.

[shiningkindness]

Well, our worlds are connected. And I guess there was a portal in that world that leads to our world.

It...probably is magical in nature, but since their world had magic, it makes sense that the portal had opened on their side.