July Event Log

[magicademymods]

July Event Log A Reading Rainbow Though the publication is ordinarily drier than dry toast Modified to be drier than dried toast, this quarter's issue of Thaumaturgy Today is all the rage around campus. The reason: a series of advances in motile spells! Easier and more powerful than those found in your standard book of spells (any grade), these spells achieve their power by specificity. One spell for lifting fruit, one for lifting laundry, one for lifting books, the list goes on. Though Professor Loshakle is deep at work writing a blistering reply criticizing every nuance of these spells, outside of his wrathful gaze the spells flourish as people practice them on everything they can. Copies of the issue are easy to get your hands on, if you want to give these new spells a whirl. On the other hand, your stuff or you yourself might fall victim to the spells of other students, whether by mistake or cruel jest. And woe betide those not human -- since no spell explains how to lift an anthropomorphic duck or a robot, for example, enterprising students are particularly eager to come up with one on their own, and there's only one way to test such things... It's Raw, You Donkey! There was an incident. Mistakes were made. Rice balls were detonated. Puddings were animated and sent on rampages. A cheesebread was found lodged in Makerion Keep, sunk to a depth of three feet in the walls. Whatever happened, and no one seems to have details... the Great Hall is closed and no food is being served. So... what're you going to eat? Several pop-up stands have emerged, as enterprising students try to cash in, but that costs money and who knows how the quality is. Headmaster Birony keeps showing up with pies, having made several savory ones that taste really good, actually, but can you really live on pie alone? (And do you really trust Headmaster Birony?) Some students have taken to the ultimate last resort: cooking. As it happens, the skills of the chef and of the aspiring mage are not exclusive in principle, but generally learning the one means little time to devote to the other. Faced with an oven or a grill, can you muster up the capability to make something edible? Or will you burn the water and turn bread back into grain, and thus have no choice but to avail yourself of pricey booth cooking or Cam-pies? Of course, the Great Hall will PROBABLY be open again soon, you might be able to last until then... The Defense Association In light of certain recent activities, like horrible monster attacks, Professors Trammel and Kith have teamed up to provide self-defense lessons to students who so desire. Purely optional, this extra class at the end of the school day promises study in shields, wards, basic attack spells, and mobility spells (because sometimes the best thing is to run like heck). Needless to say, these classes are quite the adventure! Students find themselves in dueling circles quite frequently, expected to carefully deflect each other's spells. Hopefully you've got the knack of it; the practice spells they have taught you don't cause any harm, but they sting like the dickens! Research on the Sundered Conflict. Conflict seems to be key. As near as the researchers can tell, all the Sundered lead lives that are simply not ordinary, and their experiments in conflict from last month produced results they didn't expect (as you all have learned) but that are most promising. Professor King herself has taken the lead on this experiment, and she warns anyone who volunteers that it is likely to be very dangerous, and they will be taking this very slow. They are, she explains, going to try to bridge the gap between you and the world you came from. A SMALL bridge, a proof of concept, no portal home and celebrations yet. But they hope it will work, and be the first step towards getting you back where you belong. If you agree, they get to work. Any student who undergoes this process immediately regains a power of their choice. It does not have to be on their application, and you do not have to provide proof during AC. It's here now. Only if you do not have a power to regain, you may regain an item instead. The price? For the next three days, you will be haunted by visions of your greatest enemy, your most hated foe, or the person you least wish to see in the world. Perhaps you hear their laughter in the darkness of your room at night. Perhaps you see a fellow student as them. Perhaps they are taunting you from just behind your shoulder... Whatever form it takes, for three days, you will be at their mercy. Or the mercy of your own mind's imagining them. Or perhaps a combination of the two. Who can say...?

Comments

Cooking

[unswervingcompanion]

Hendrik had been wandering around, brain fried from exams. He'd doubled down on studying because he wasn't half as smart as Jasper, so it took him extra time. To his surprise, he'd been called a nerd and wasn't quite sure what that meant.

But as he wandered around, he turned the corner and saw Yotsuyu standing there cooking. So the knight moved over and looked everything over. She had quite the spread which reminded him of the night he had taught her to dance.

Looking back at her, he nodded. "I had not expected to find you here, but is there something that I might be of assistance with to help prepare?"

Helpful, this man is it.

[darkenedmoon]

"Not at the moment, but perhaps in the evening, after you spar with Eleven? I do need to study sometimes..." Eventually she'd be able to close the stall down, once the Great Hall reopened, but until that fateful day, she planned to stay open--mostly to feed the hungry or the down-on-their-luck students who really couldn't afford their peers' prices.

For some, she might ask a favor or two, but Hendrik? Not at the moment. Though she might ask his help to clean up, later. He was easy. Not only was he helpful, he'd probably do whatever she'd ask, if Yotsuyu didn't go overboard.

[unswervingcompanion]

He nodded. "Of course." Studying was important and he had done quite a bit of that himself lately. And even Hendrik realized that he needed a break.

"Sometime I would like you to tutor me in the culinary arts." He said this as he looked over all of the things she'd made. But then looked up at her briefly. "That is when you have the time of course. I would not wish to take you away from your studies."

They'd spoken of this before, but again the knight was trying to be careful though he was more than sure he was being clumsy as he'd been labeled.

[darkenedmoon]

"Oh, I am hardly studying at the moment. What do you wish to know? Most of this is very like the yakitori you had at the street festival, you know. The chicken is that, precisely, but for simplicity's sake I have been marinating it all in the same mixture--not in the same pans, however, that's asking for the flux!" Yotsuyu shook her head at that.

"The rice is like what I was making at the beach. Very simple, though here I've more than saltwater for flavoring. We use rice vinegar, where I am from. Or rice wine vinegar for a deeper flavor."

[unswervingcompanion]

That explanation just went over his head. So here the knight has to just stay confused for the moment. "I am afraid I do not even understand what you are talking about regarding using different pans and flux."

Oh Yotusyu, you have such a simple boy in front of you.

"Rice..vinegar?" Yeah, that doesn't compute either though he does understand the seawater for flavoring and the rice parts. Those things he completely understands. "I have not heard of such a thing."

[darkenedmoon]

"Mixing meats before they cook is not a good thing. People get sick and can even die, though usually there are effective treatments where I am from. We just call the sickness the flux--it is stomach troubles, of all sorts." Not that Yotsuyu was going to go into detail. She's certain Hendrik can figure it out.

She blames this on her penchant for reading anything she could get her hands on, both in the pleasure-house and out of it. Her parents decided not to educate her, so she did her best to take it for herself.

"Rice vinegar," she agreed. "You ferment rice to make rice wine, and then let it sour to make vinegar. I suppose rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar are mostly one and the same, though I wonder now if the latter has a bit of new wine added to it for flavor...It is popular in Doma and Hingashi, on my world." Possibly other places as well, but she's certain of those two lands.

[unswervingcompanion]

Hendrik wished he could take notes right now. But he was pretty sure he could remember not to mix raw meats. And he couldn't help but wince a little because stomach troubles weren't great to have. That went double for if it went through the ranks of his men, he'd had that happen once. The battle they were to fight that day went unfought because they had been indisposed and sickly. And now the knight wondered if that was part of the problem.

Nodding to the bit about how to make rice vinegar, he finally spoke those words. "I have a feeling I should be taking notes or I can only hope I can recall these important instructions you are giving me."

[darkenedmoon]

Yotsuyu couldn't speculate on Hendrik's thoughts. For the moment, she just watched him, brows arched curiously. But she chuckled, then, on his desire to take notes.

"You needn't, unless it is recipes you want straight from me. They have things called cookbooks that give you the recipes in written form, and measurements for the spices and such that the recipes therein call for. It makes things much simpler, I dare say."

Then again, she wasn't likely to test him, either. Though perhaps she'd see about what he might be able to cook, some day. He needed more practice, first.

[unswervingcompanion]

He was wise enough not to comment about wanting recipes straight from her. And he was wiser still not to say anything about simpler.

"I shall endeavor to check the library." But it still wasn't going to be Yotsuyu's cooking. Yes he was biased. No he wasn't saying anything. "So by your words, I take it that you do not measure your..ingredients, correct?"

Hendrik was just trying to do some clarifying here, this wasn't him trying to poke fun at her in any way shape or form.

[darkenedmoon]

"Normally? 'Tis true, I do not, but with you learning, I shall. You need to see these things--it is much like alchemy, I suppose, in its way. Though cooking will usually not do things like explode in your face if you err." Make one sick if too much of a certain ingredient was added, however? That was entirely possible, but Yotsuyu was fairly certain Hendrik was at least somewhat aware of such things--he'd been a knight, and she presumed that he'd attended certain functions with the nobility of his world...

But that was neither here nor there, really. Nor had Hendrik ever been given to teasing, so she was taking his words at face value.

[unswervingcompanion]

He's not good in alchemy either, but cooking might be simpler. And here he was about two steps away from going back to his dorm room and procuring a way to write everything down. "I suppose there is a certain freedom to cooking if one does not completely follow a recipe." And it made him think a little more.

"Perhaps it is something like swordplay. You have the weapon, but how you use it becomes your own style. Basics can be applied, but ultimately it is up to the wielder's will how it turns out."

[darkenedmoon]

"Very much like, yes. And I know that look--and how your fingers twitch!" Yotsuyu was well enough acquainted with Hendrik to know his penchant for writing things down. He liked to recall things, and it was never so easy with him--she didn't tease him about it much because she worried about hurting his feelings. That was something she did not want to do.

"That is why I suggested cookbooks to you." She laid a hand on his arm gently for a moment. "You need not worry about writing things down, then. And again, yes--if you decide, after trying a recipe a few times, that you do not like an onze or so of sage within it, but prefer rosemary--then by all means, replace it!"

It might just alter the flavor. Unlike in alchemy, as she'd said once already. It was still true, nonetheless.

[unswervingcompanion]

It somehow always was a surprise when Yotsuyu touched him because he was so careful not to touch her in case it was unwanted. He smiled though at her analysis of him, and even here he was careful not to look at her directly.

To her suggestion though he nodded. "Then I shall look at the cookbooks in the library if they can be found there." The knight didn't know what an onze was but he could find out.

And what had caused her to touch him?

[darkenedmoon]

"Yes, there are some there--not many, but I know of a Noan one. I paged through it a few times, myself." Mostly to see how close to Doman cuisine it was. There were quite a few similarities, it turned out.

"'Tis not as if we could not peruse the shops in the city some time, you do not spend every moment training--yourself, or Eleven." Yotsuyu felt more comfortable teasing Hendrik about training. That was something practically ingrained into the man, not something new and tentative and fragile.

"Perhaps we could have lunch, then, as well. Mayhap when we haven't got classes." There was always the weekend, after all.

[unswervingcompanion]

He had no idea how he was going to find that particular book, and there usually wasn't anyone attending there, but he didn't want to bother Yotsuyu and ask. He couldn't seem too eager here.

Once she teased him about training though, Hendrik did smile. He liked when she teased him, because he realized it wasn't ever meant in a personally offensive way. "No, we do not." The knight couldn't tell her that he spent nights alone wondering what she was doing and then went training to give himself something else to focus on.

The lunch thing had him freeze again. Yotsuyu couldn't be asking him out, correct? No, she had said she would hurt him and was ready for nothing. Thinking on that, he nodded. "I will agree to your terms provided you allow me to pay."

He was a knight, and that particular type of chivalry was just who he was. And he would make sure he brought along extra in case there was something that she wanted.

[darkenedmoon]

"Oh, very well, if you must." Yotsuyu wasn't terribly happy about Hendrik's offer to pay--after all, she had asked, and that meant she should pay, by rights. But he'd offered, and she figured he'd be upset if she demanded she be allowed, so...

"Well, we ought to make it a sort of shopping trip, and then mayhap you can find some interesting cookbooks for you, or at least stop by the library and look for books?" That way, if the little flitter-headed librarians were there or off hiding in the stacks from the scary Sundered, she herself could help Hendrik find what he needed. It should be an enjoyable outing. Shouldn't it?

[unswervingcompanion]

Hendrik listened and could see that she wasn't happy about his decision. Allowing a lady to pay went against every grain of decency he had and what he'd been raised with, but seeing it making her unhappy, well he'd seen plenty of that here.

"The shopping trip is fine, I will need..help to acquire new books or ingredients." Admitting he needed help sometimes grated on his nerves.

His hands were clenched into fists, much like they had been when the Luminary was standing beside him before a battle, and the knight knew he would have to yield here.

"If.." He shook his head, because he couldn't believe he was going against himself so his words came out slowly. "If paying..would make you happier, then I..accept."

[darkenedmoon]

"A compromise, then. You shall buy lunch, and I shall gift you a cookbook. Because I wish to." Because if they ever got sent back to their homes, as an example, and they could take things from their adventures here, but she could not come with? He'd have something to remember her by, then, at least.

Not that she didn't have plans for another gift, soon, but the more the better, or so Yotsuyu thought. It certainly did not seem as if the knight had gotten many gifts in his life, after all.

Even though this was definitely a struggle of wills, after all, she was at least attempting to make the outcome palatable to them both. Yotsuyu had her pride, after all!

[unswervingcompanion]

He nodded. "That will indeed work." A cookbook from her meant more than him purhasing any for himself. He might challenge her at times, but he was only trying to treat her well and not override her pride. Hendrik wanted to protect Yotsuyu and shower her with gifts and do nice things because she deserved them.

But in the end, he would bend to her will every single time unless it came to her safety. Yes she could protect herself but if any of the ones that hurt her back home showed themselves here, Hendrik would deal with them personally swiftly and without any mercy.