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

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"Do you feel that I am mistaken?"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"About my intelligence? Yeah, I do."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"About insults being clear and obvious!"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link just stared.

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"What? Did I use words that were too large?"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"You're just really unpleasant. Must be pretty lonely...."

Re: Research on the Sundered (Oh look, it's Me. But not.)

[gender_neutral]

"Lonely implies that I have any intrinsic desire for company. Which I do not."

Re: Research on the Sundered (rofl)

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Do you want people to actively hate you?"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"I would settle for being listened to when I have important information to distribute, being included when there is a thing I need to learn and otherwise being left on my own to research without interruption. I have few friends, I seek no additional ones. Though there are som e people that yes, I would choose to have them hate me for the alternative is utterly unthinkable."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"....people liking you is unthinkable?"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"There are some people who have exactly two modes when it comes to other people. One of them travels in my party. He either hates someone or wishes to mate with them. That is what is unthinkable, and thus ever since I made the mistake of saving his life I have been taking great pains to remain in the category of people he hates."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"...your world sound weird."

Although, that sort of sounded like Ruto, if he thought about it.

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"It is. But that horrid bit of nastiness is all purely his own, I assure you. He is in no way shape or form representative of my world."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Okay, uh, who would be a good representation of your world?"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

V actually seemed to give that some thought. The first person who came to mind, disturbingly was Lord Shojo of Azure City. Which was... disturbing to say the least. A leader of Paladins who lied to them all in order to protect the world, who broke vows he never made but was presumed to have kept, who fixed trials to insure the guilty were proclaimed innocent for his own needs, who played senile to play the political factions against each other. And in doing all that... kept Azure City and the Sapphire Gate safe until the day he was killed by one of his own who was so wrapped in her own little egotistical fantasy world that she decided she alone was fit to judge and execute him for his crimes.

But that was hardly the way anyone wanted their world to be seen.

Sadly, the Bard might also be a fair choice as a representation. then again, Miss Starshine. V stopped and considered exactly what the question was and realized what the issues with all of the choices so far had been. The other person asked for a GOOD representation. Shojo, Haley, and the Bard were all strictly Neutral.

Ah semantics. Not necessarily someone who properly represents the world, but a good representation. And for that... Sir Greenhilt was probably the best choice. Well, there was always one of the Paladins, anyone beside Miko, but really V did not know them well. But their party leader? An open book.

V leaned back.

"I suppose for a good representation, one would want Sir Greenhilt, perhaps. Leader of the Order Of The Stick. He is Good aligned, but leads a party of mostly Neutral party members with one who is decidedly evil, the Halfling. While Sir Greenhilt's original motivations began somewhat selfishly, doing a good act because of an onus on his family rather than because it was a good act, his motivations have since evolved. Where at the first he gave orders because we had all signed contracts that he was our leader, he destroyed those contracts and convinced us to join him to see the mission through, now that it had expanded, to stay a party because it was the right thing to do or because we wanted to. Even when he was dead he was a leader, and he took less time to adjust to being alive again than one might expect. though much of that might have been the presence of his extra-planar girlfriend who had been with Miss Starshine when we reunited in Greysky City. What began as his quest to destroy a lich his father had sworn a blood oath against so that his father's soul could rest in peace became a mission to save the very fabric of all reality, not simply from the Lich, but from other threats such as the Linear Guild and from the forces of misbegotten creation itself. I would say that he is a good representation of the world."

"Someone for whom Experience Points are not just numbers, but are lessons learned and hard earned. Someone who grew in more than just stats and skills, but in leadership and compassion. Someone who can lead a party with an evil member without letting the party fall into evil deeds. Someone who has been a good influence on Miss Starshine and who can put up with the incessant blatherings of the Bard. Someone who has realized how foolish his initial attraction to Miko Miyazaki was and stood up to her for the sake of the Party finally. Someone who is not perfect, but is trying. What better good representation could there be?"

V considered, then those mismatched eyes narrowed. "If you ever tell him I said any of that, of course, I will end you."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link's eyes glazed over at some point in the middle of all of that, but, the threat at the end caught his full attention.

"You could try."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"I could succeed." Really, not a doubt in V's mind.

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Hey, can I get a new partner? This one is rude and threatening to kill me."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

“I would very much like to request the same, mine is rude and unable to succeed on a basic check of identify humor.”

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"See? He thinks murder is funny."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

“More than anything the utter failure to understand basic humor sets this world apart from all others, clearly.”

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"So, killing students is basic humor?"

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"There is a difference between threatening and doing."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Threatening is generally what comes before the doing."

Re: Research on the Sundered

[gender_neutral]

"Yes, you are right, different partners might be the best choice."