Let The Games Begin

[magicademymods]

February Event and Intro Log Orientation Week/Magic Mayhem The campus of Diatu Magicademy stretches out before you, confused and chaotic and surging with energy. Where are you headed? To your dorm or suite, to get settled? Maybe you need some food now? Wherever you head off to as your first stop, you have to deal with the snow. Helpful or proud students are passing out various magical remedies to get you where you need to be -- umbrellas with a nasty tendency to dump snow directly onto other people nearby, an iron tube that projects fire but appears to have no off switch, snowshoes that keep you slightly too high off the snow and thus provide no friction for stopping... Familiar Follies Familiars do not harass or harm each other as a rule -- but that doesn't mean they have no pecking order, and the week of Orientation finds them all jockeying for status and position as suits them. This can take the form of pranks, displays, competitions, or simple physical assertiveness towards each other. The goal is simply to be seen as superior by the student body. New wizards especially may find themselves surprised at this behavior of their familiars... 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 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.) Furthermore, they request to perform a few spells on you for testing purposes. It is, quite regrettably, possible that if you consent to this testing, you will come away with a temporary side effect -- a slight change of hair color, traveling two steps for every one you take, one hand moving about a second behind the arm it should be attached to, or being ridden by a penguin. No need to worry, these changes won't last more than a day! Wonders Await Diatu Magicademy is open to you in all its glory. Have fun!

Comments

[stillnewatthis]

Certainly! I will learn how to study efficiently from observation! Please deploy your studying tactics and I will devote my learning processes to analyzing them.

[Probably too many words for a 'yes', but who can fault her enthusiasm!]

[bearshermark]

[Eleven colors a bit, but cracks open his book on Intimation]

I might not be the best example. I've never been to school before, but I like reading and learning.

[Granted it's not the most interesting introduction, but he's been forced to read drier texts before. The bit of self-consciousness doesn't help terribly much, but he does eventually make it a few pages in. Then it's time for a break]

It's giving me a brief history of the subject, a little on the gods and getting into the basic.. components of Intimation spells.

[stillnewatthis]

I did not ever imagine that I would go to school. This is really quite interesting!

[Orisa reaches out to take the book for her turn on it.] Please allow me to conduct my own input.

[bearshermark]

Of course.

[He helps push the book toward her and golds his hands on the table, curious to see how she does himself]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's new to all of this.

[stillnewatthis]

[Accepting the book, Orisa lays it on the table to focus on it. No, she isn't going to do some "flip through it at speed, commit all contents to memory" robot trick. To the contrary, her scan speed is quite delayed by her need for caution. Her hand is heavy and quite inflexible, unlike biological hands, and though her precision and perception are nonetheless exceptional she still must turn the pages carefully.]

To school? Did you not attend one before?

[bearshermark]

[She seems to be doing well, though it's a little hard to tell]

No, I'm from a small village in the mountains, so I only know what my mum and the church taught me. [His hands twist] ..Do omnics have a school?

[stillnewatthis]

Most of what we learn comes from our initial programming. But for omnics who wish to learn afterwards, school is an option! [Orisa relies on updates... or did. But not all omnics had a trustworthy outside node to exchange information with.]

[bearshermark]

That's good.

[He nods, then hesitates after a moment. The game might be up. Now is finally the moment he has to admit to his ignorance]

But if I may ask, what is 'programming'?

[stillnewatthis]

Programming is the instructions that tell me how to complete my tasks! It is like what goes on in your brain.

[That should be simple enough, right?]

[bearshermark]

Oh.

[He has virtually no education in the neurology department, so that doesn't immediately make sense. He guesses programming is like thoughts]

Do you know a lot, then?

[stillnewatthis]

Not at all. I was created for battle, not for programming!

[Orisa is okay with this.]