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

[pawper]

I kill them.

[Said with all the emotional gradient of "please pass the butter", empty of pride and rancor alike. To hate them was understandable — and she was definitely not above those feelings — but in a calm, rational discussion like this, far removed from the heat of battle or desperate circumstance? It was simply a duty to fulfill, a chore like any other.

She pauses on the verge of saying more, for once trying to think before she speaks, when the crystal flares red again and takes the decision out of her hands.]

They're called werewolves, and they don't stay down easily. There's a trick to it. [Lys gestures to Dust's weapons, looking suitably impressed.] Those look sharp enough to handle a challenge, though. Am I right?

[mithrarin]

[Dust nods, not in the slightest bit bothered by her lack of affect.]

Ahrah and I have done a fair bit. [He drops one hand to the hilt of the blue-runed sword, more like he's slapping a hand on the shoulder of a friend than reaching for a weapon. But before he can say more, a sharp female voice speaks out from the other sword, as the sigils on it glitter crimson.]

And I'm much better than Ahrah, so now Dust will do even more!

[pawper]

Woah!

[Casually absorbed in trying to puzzle out what felt....different, about the way Dust touched the hilt of the first sword, Lys nearly falls out of her chair when the crimson-marked one suddenly pipes up. Not frightened but surprised, startled like a dog abruptly woken from a deep sleep.]

Did....did it— [correcting herself automatically, mouth running ahead of her brain] she— just talk?

[mithrarin]

Well, if you're going to speak up.

[Dust curls his fingers around Ahrah's hilt and drops his other hand to the other sword to do the same, then eases them both free of the brackets he'd hung them from on his belt. First, he turns the blue-runed blade perpendicular to her.]

This is the Blade of Ahrah. He's been at my side for as long as I've existed.

Greetings, Lys. [The glowing runes flicker in time with the sword's words, seeming to trail smoke or mist -- or dust -- all the while.] My apologies for not greeting you properly before now. I had not intended to keep myself secret.

And this is Furae, the Second Sword. [The difference in how Dust wields the two weapons is crystal-clear as he lifts the other blade. Ahrah he'd moved fluidly, like an extension of his own body. Furae not so much, for she's a companion he's still coming to terms with.] She's my familiar here, I guess.

He guesses. The gratitude I get for from the guy I'm making the best warrior in the world! Hey, you use a sword too, Legs, you got an opening? I'm willing to switch!

Furae... [Where does he even begin?]

[pawper]

[Thoughts still in something of a freefall — yes, even though there were much stranger things in this world than a pair of talking swords — Lys seizes upon the first thing to break through the obscuring haze of astonishment, if only because it is at once so trivial and so absurd.]

Legs? [Had she heard that right? Nah, couldn't have. In some parts of her country, she'd be considered a runt!] Uh, well....

[A laugh, uncertain.]

I'm flattered, Furae, but I don't think familiar relationships are supposed to work that way. Besides, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it.

[Tilting her head towards Ahrah now, wanting to include him without excluding the other two. Juggling a threeway conversation wasn't exactly part of her wheelhouse, but Lys is willing to roll with it.]

And don't worry about it, Ahrah. What matters is that we're introduced now, right?

[mithrarin]

Furae, please. [Just -- just don't hit on Lys, please. That's awkward on a number of levels. Rather pointedly, he spins the Second Sword back around to hook her back onto his belt.]

Sorry about her. I'm not sure if she's testing me or just trying to be a pain... or doesn't even think about what she's saying.

[pawper]

[A small and hopelessly reflexive goodbye wave to Furae. Flirting? Was that some kind of exotic dessert?]

No problem! She's definitely got her own personality, huh?

[And because it suddenly seemed somehow awkward for her not to do so, Lys slowly draws her own sword, laying the flat of it across her hand for Dust to inspect. A simple one-handed blade of middle length: clean, polished, saved from a razor's edge by the need for a few more passes with a whetting stone. No runes, no glow, no sense of another being imbued within.]

Here's mine. It's just a sword, though — not a person. The only special thing about it, I guess, is that there's silver worked into the steel. Not sure how the smiths did it without compromising the final product, but [the crystal flares red in a peremptory, even pointed fashion] ...ah, it's also enchanted.

[mithrarin]

It's a lot more subtle about it than mine, when it's not in use. [No runes, no glowing, no talking, presumably no floating through the air under its own power. Still, it looks like a solid and suitable weapon; the soul inside him that likes such things assesses its balance and quality with approbation.]

[He'd like to try a few passes with it, but courtesy and respect keep him from even touching the blade. Come to think of it, would Ahrah or Furae ever allow themselves (despite the latter's airs) to be wielded by another so long as he still existed? He kind of hopes that he'll never need to find out.]

It looks really nice though. Does it have a name?