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

[bearshermark]

"No," he said, smile fading but making an effort to maintain it. "My world is called Erdrea. Yggdrasil is our World Tree and the source of all life. It's important."

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea nodded his understanding. "Ah, OK," he said. "So it's kinda like Kingdom Hearts is where I'm from then." And it also sounded like the problems in their worlds might be a bit similar too, if he was reading things right.

But seeing that Eleven was uncomfortable with that topic, he shifted away from it to something more mundane. "So what was your hometown like then?", he asked.

[bearshermark]

Eleven relaxed, more at ease with this topic than he might have been a few weeks ago.

"Quiet. Cobblestone was a peaceful village in the southern mountains. We lived simple lives- fishing, farming, foraging.." A nostalgic smile crossed his face. "I used to think it was a bit boring, but I miss that kind of life, now."

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea smiled a bit himself, nodding. "Sounds nice," he said. "My hometown is a world called Radiant Garden, and it was just as nice a place to grow up as it sounds. Lots of impressive stonework, fountains, and of course gardens. My dad ran the accessory shop. Might be part of why I' so into Forging here, to be honest; he used to make a lot of his own stuff, and started to let me help out a little when he thought I was old enough."

"I don't know if that really qualifies as a 'simple' life," he said. "But it was definitely way less complicated and more peaceful than what my life is now. So I'm with you on missing it."

[bearshermark]

He could almost imagine it- might be able to even, if he closed his eyes.

A quiet life, he decided, was exactly what he wanted. Maybe he'd retire to Lonalulu after all, when his journey was over and the world was at peace again. No one knew what he was there. Just spend all day fishing, worried about nothing further than dinner.

But the mention of forging brightened him considerably. "I love it. I feel like Forging is something.. something I do just because I want to. ..Maybe we should collaborate sometime."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Hmm... Not counting the little I did with my dad, I've never really worked with someone on that sort of thing," Lea said, considering. "But yeah, why not? Might be fun. We should probably get a little more individual practice done before we start into that though."

"Another nice thing about Forging is that almost all the lessons are practical, and you can see the results right away," he said. "There's not much need to learn a bunch of theory that you probably won't be using if you don't plan to make a career out of wizardry. You just learn what to do, and then do it. And you usually get something usable as a result too."

[bearshermark]

Eleven nodded his agreement. It only made sense to become individually skilled before they worked together.

"Yes," he said, grinning. "I actually look forward to the homework. What specializations are you taking?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Mostly things with protective enchantments at the moment," Lea said. "Eventually, I'd like to move on to making weapons and maybe see if I can replicate what I had back home. I mean, I don't figure making something that looked like my Keyblade or chakrams would be that hard, but they both had some unique properties that I'm not sure could be replicated here. Especially the Keyblade."