August Event Log

[magicademymods]

August Event Log Performance of a Lifetime Valhudor, ever eager for a chance to take the stage, has launched a flash-theater campaign across the campus. Wherever students might gather, be it the Great Hall or the Promenade or the Library of Starchime or whatever, there a play will erupt, acting out the tumultuous events of the Three Dragon War. The director-ringleaders, with all the ethics of Captain Lominia, don't hesitate to shanghai students into the feature itself. Usually, these roles are that of Cowering Student #1, Useless Faculty Member With One Shoe, or Comedy Relief Pratfall Victim, and you're expected to mostly just sit there, ad-lib a little, and generally make the actors playing the Three Dragons look good. Do you behave just to get it over with, or take your role into your own hands for a little revenge? Or perhaps you're determined to take the role of a dragon and make this play your own! Alternatively, you might be looking to cash in on the bounty for the safe return of their performing surface to Brindavil Theater. These students, unfortunately... took the stage. The Great Familiar Audition With finals coming to a close for many students and graduation (or flunking) at hand for many, the cycle of academic life comes full circle once again. Airships discharge students into Anastara, the local schools send their best and brightest up the street, and the constabulary once again has to stop that creepy guy who keeps trying to kidnap school-bound students with a 'magic' train on an alleged, misnumbered 'platform' made of paper mache. And with these students come beasts of all shape and size, eager to audition for the role of familiar. Consequently, the campus is absolutely flooded with owls, cats, snakes, rats, and more, all looking for their in with a wizard. Unfortunately, they're just animals, so sometimes this results in unintended hilarity results. There's nothing quite like opening your dresser only for an unexpected snake to pop up and offer you your underwear, unless it's two snakes each offering you half of your underwear after a furious territory dispute ended in a tie. Owls deafen everyone with incessant hooting. Swarms of rats establish packs and engage in dance-fights, probably to catch the eyes of Valhudor students. The cats are oddly the most tolerable potential familiars, since they just wander around pushing stuff off of surfaces and demanding food and attention, the same as they always do. Familiar-cuckoos appear, making every effort to rub out the competition and take their places in order to get fat and lazy off the hard work of their 'master'. Also for some reason a corgi has a shiv and knows how to use it, so you better give him your sausages right now, huh? No, no one will ever believe you. The Food Cartening Though Anastara's restaurants get most of the culinary glory, a true Anastaran will tell you that the food carts of the city are as fundamental to the city as the island of Ascelion itself. When pressed, said Anastaran will reluctantly admit that no, if you take the food carts away the city won't engage in unsupported freefall, but the truth is that as a city of trade, commerce, and tourism, the food carts really are quite amazing here. But which one is the best? Famous chef Rodden Grimmslay wants to know the answer, and has issued a challenge to ever food cart: register for Cartfest, where the offerings will be put to the taste-tests of both the chef and the city at large! So welcome to the celebration, where food styles from across the Tenscore Kingdoms fill the air with competing, delicious scents and merriment abides. (The breweries are probably the real financial winners here.) Hailfight When you ask a wizard if they are capable of controlling the weather, they will engage in a long, rambling explanation of wind currents, tides, cloud albedo, size and effort, the breakdown of order, and any number of other factors that complicate the issue. When you ask a student if they can control the weather, they say, "sure," and with a wave of their wand cause the falling hail to focus directly on you. When, aggrieved, you point out that you hadn't meant it like that, another wave of their wand sends the hailstones that had just hit you back into the air to pelt you again. With a fierce hailstorm rolling across Ascelion, battle rages across the campus. From mean-spirited surprise attacks to hailstone chicken to almost literal war zones complete with bunkers, artillery support, and the occasional gas attack depending on what was for lunch, most students just can't resist playing with the hailstones and their magic. Whether you're in a duel, hunkered down in the trenches, a victim of a cheap shot, or an active instigator... you can probably get away, but only with skill and panache can you seize victory! (Many years later, linguists will identify this as the root derivation of the otherwise nonsense phrase 'hail, seizer'. Little Tenscore Kingdoms etymology lesson for you all there. Free of charge. Don't say the mod team never did anything for you.)

Comments

Hailfight

[scotch_egg]

"Here, come on. Step back here." He tugs on her sleeve to get her behind a low wall and out of the pelting hailstones. The wall seems hastily constructed of shoddy magic and in places it ripples, but it should hold for a little while anyway. There is also a dog shaped whip behind it, happily munching on hailstones.

"Are you alright? You looked swamped."

[travelpants]

"Besides from a few bruises, I'm mostly fine," Lena sighs heavily to the older man while Marly is feeling rather tired from swatting hailstones away from her and her master, "I was not expecting to see this many hailstones to rain down on the campus like crazy."

The young lady is still recovering from the ordeal outside that she's pretty convinced that the whole school must gone upside down quicker than she was hoping. That leaves a good question: does the school have moments like this a lot?

[scotch_egg]

"It could be worse. It could be frogs or lizards or something." He was always on edge for something bizarre to happen. He was a long way from Broadchurch or New York even. At least he was almost used to it by now. At least it didn't make his heart twitch.

"Holding up alright? Here I mean."

[travelpants]

"I'm holding up fine in this school for the most part," she admits to him, "Still trying to get my head around magic though. My name's Lena Kaligaris of Gekronus Maius, nice to met you."

[scotch_egg]

That is a name. "Hardy." He didn't want to give her anything else. "It's strange here. Bizarre anyway, but here it's...not the same as I'm used to." What was his life. That was the question.

"No magic where you're from?"

[travelpants]

"Yeah, there is no real magic back in my world, whether it's in Bethesda or Santorini," Lena replies to Hardy's question, "For the most part, magic was only found in myths, fairy tales, and other works of fiction. Um, do you have magic back in where you're from, Hardy?"

Arriving at Anastara is a big wake up call for her, so she assumes that Hardy must have some experience with it in the past. Marly is still slowly recovering from her hailstone swatting with her paws being a tad sore at the moment as she meows softly.

[scotch_egg]

"No... well, I don't know. Maybe." He didn't know anything these days. "That seems like the normal world to me. Do you hope to go back to it?"

[travelpants]

"Right now, I'm not so sure," she has admitted, "As much as I wanted to go back home, I still have a lot of things to learn from this school and I do want to make the most of my time here."

[scotch_egg]

He didn't blame her. There was a lot of opportunity for the young, a lot of adventure, plenty of danger.

"Be careful. You don't know what this place could bring. You could get hurt, or worse."

[travelpants]

"Oh yeah, that's true. I haven't come across that much danger back home, so this is all new to me," she admits to Hardy, "How much crazy does this place could bring in?"

Marly meows in concern while she shakes her paws from the annoying soreness.

[scotch_egg]

"Hell if I know." He picks up the cat and begins to pet her absently. "Heard something about a sleeping dragon-- and all sorts of other things. Predict the worst, hope for the best-- but don't expect to get it."

[travelpants]

"Um, right. I understand, not try to expect anything too much," she nods in return while Marly happily purrs as Hardy pets her head while everyone else is panicking for their lives amidst a hailstorm outside.