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

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Uh. Maybe, yeah. [He doesn't even know what time it is himself, so he's just gonna -- run with it. After all, there's always time to practice, right?]

[darkenedmoon]

Oh, dear gods...[She rolled her eyes and made to catch him by the arm. Yotsuyu is positive that she can make things smooth with both sets of teachers if she and Jecht end up missing classes because of this--it was not as if Professor King was not manning this part of the Sundering research herself!]

You are coming with me. Now. [Her tone brooks no argument, but in truth, if she saw any she called friend looking this bad? The treatment would be the same. Even if he jerks free, she starts off towards the living quarters, looking over her shoulder as if she expects Jecht to follow.]

You had best come with me. We shall get to the bottom of this!

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

[Follow Jecht does, or really, he gets dragged along by the force of her personality. Right now he's easy to lead, hand on the arm or not.]

Bottom of what? Just -- not sleeping? That can happen, can't it?

[darkenedmoon]

It can, but I have never seen you cringe before. [Yotsuyu might not admit it out loud, but that one had hurt. Jecht is a big dolt, but she feels a sort of proprietary air to him--he's hers, somehow. She'd probably treat Hendrik the same way. She'd definitely treat Eleven the same way and mother him aggressively. But Jecht might know he's caught, by that statement alone. The big man does not normally cringe. Ever.]

I am going to get you some food and a sleeping draught and you are going to sleep. In my quarters, if need be.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

I didn't... [It's not much of a protest, done entirely for form. He's too ground down to put up much of a pretense, even to help his poor ego out. And he still doesn't fight the way she's tugging him along, though he does try to put up another front.]

Oh, sleepin' in your quarters, huh?

[darkenedmoon]

Yours are close enough, you may sleep there, if you so desire. [Of course he is. She's not buying it for a moment. Yotsuyu has more than an idea of what might be happening, considering some of the things that Jecht has told her in the past, and the not-so-sudden reappearance of her darling brother for a few days, recently.]

I take it you volunteered for research as well? [She has every intent of asking him what he's seeing or feeling, but Yotsuyu is canny enough to realize he probably won't want to respond. At all. However, chances are better that Jecht might if they were in more of a private place, and thus, she herds him in that direction.]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Yeah, I told ya I always do. [And she knows why, as well. Goes to show just how out of sorts he is that she has no trouble herding him -- no goofing around, no protests for the sake of pride, nothing. He's just tromping along with her, not even making more cracks about sleeping in her room or anything.]

[darkenedmoon]

[And he--well, Jecht is probably too out of it to wonder why Yotsuyu is concerned; this is rather unlike him, entirely. Is he too tired to realize? Perhaps.]

So what...what are you seeing, then? You do not cringe...ever. [It is not easy for her, to ask that of him, but they've discussed both of their pasts a few times, and she does wonder...]

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Ain't seein' a damn thing. It's... a feeling. Like a thing we had back home is just trying to... [He shakes his head, not sure how to explain, especially not when his mind is foggy.] Doom, is what it feels like.

[darkenedmoon]

'A thing'? I do believe I know exactly what you are trying to reference, Jecht. [Still dry as a desert; but she can't blame him for not wanting to come right out and say it. Her supplies are in her room, so that is where she leads him, practically waving him into a seat somewhere as she putters about, digging through her simples box.]

Doom, however, I quite understand. [It was probably much like the leadup to the events at Doma Castle. Yotsuyu had quite felt like panicking; she knew the Warrior of Light and the Doman rebels were coming, but she could hardly run--that promised death more than fighting had...but that sickening feeling of inevitability certainly had not had her in her right mind, at the time.]

Sit. Drink this. [She handed him a vial filled with yellow liquid. It was a bit thick and sweet, smelling of herbed apples. Chamomile, really.] It should help you rest.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

[The heck is he drinking? Well, whatever -- she ain't gonna steer him wrong. Jecht tips back a large gulp, leaning his head back when he finishes and trying to let it soothe him.]

Sin. That's what. A monster the size of this building. Bigger. Nothing could stop it, and only an incredible journey could slow it down...

[darkenedmoon]

[Yotsuyu is many things, but malicious? Now? It is no longer a thing she is. She is, however, very good at alchemy, so the potion should do its work.]

As I thought. You have mentioned it before. [Among other things about his life, but not so much the journey he just mentioned. Still, Yotsuyu was a bit loathe to ask him to divulge it in meticulous detail. Sin was a touchy subject with him at the best of times--quite an understandable thing. And she wanted Jecht to be calm, not upset...perhaps a distraction?]

Here, I've made you a thing. [Plucking something from the array of books, notes, and discarded crockery on her desk, Yotsuyu comes to sit next to him, draping the pendant around his neck. It is a piece of weathered scarlet sea-glass on a chain, with the symbol of the Zanarkand Abes etched into it--considering he had that etched into his very skin, Yotsuyu figured it meant a good deal to Jecht.]

Considering how active you are normally, I shan't be angry if you decide to simply keep it as a memento, however.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Huh? [He sits up as she says she made him something, which only makes it easier for her to plop it on him. Propped up on one elbow, he grabs the pendant to turn it around and look at it.]

[He doesn't get many little gifts like this in his life. 'Course they aren't ordinarily his style anyway, but it'd be a heck of a thoughtful gesture in any circumstance. Coming from Yotsuyu... that's double if not triply so.]

[Which means for a moment he has no words, just toying with the pendant between his fingers.]

Thanks. That's.. thanks.

[darkenedmoon]

[That makes her chuckle. Being Yotsuyu, it is slightly mocking, but there's a real smile curving her lips, and her eyes twinkle just a bit.]

Well, a hit, a veritable hit, to make you speechless! Good. I had hoped you would like it. 'Tis a memento of the beach, as well--that was where I found the glass.

[She gave a slight sigh, then.] And with that, I should likely leave you to actually rest, eh? Since you are not like to do so with me here.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Maybe not, yeah. [But, with a slight chuckle, Jecht lets himself -- or forces himself -- to relax, his body sinking into the bed slightly more.] Feel closer to it than I have in a while, though.

...Thanks.

[darkenedmoon]

[Yotsuyu just nods to him, unwilling to break the silence by speaking. She stands, pats Jecht on the cheek and gives him another one of her enigmatic smiles, and swoops out the door with dramatic silence. Gosetsu slithers silently behind, both of them leaving him to the quiet.