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

II

[gender_neutral]

Have an odd looking stick figure elf with what looks like a parrot masquerading as a raven on one shoulder. Snow was not a thing one dealt with much in a stick figure comic, except in backstory. Still, it beat the plane of ranch dressing.

An odd three fingered hand was offered down to aid the odd strange creature.

V was still new to this teamwork thing, but hey, someone was trying.

[talkyourwayout]

Humans - or people who looked like they probably were human to him - were still something Louie was kind of getting used to. But V? V took the cake, so far. Still, Louie took their hand to help pull himself up.

"Thanks for that." He paused, trying to think of a good way to keep the conversation-ball rolling, and eventually asked, "So... Which House are you in?"

[gender_neutral]

V had been perfectly ready to just walk away and was mildly irritated at the attempt to verbally engage. "In such as these things matter, and I assure you that they do not actually matter as much as we are clearly meant to believe that they do, I have been assigned to Aet et Calculum, which I presume to be some badly mangled attempt to imitate Latin in the hopes of sounding both more arcane and more academic. In this the creators have failed miserably, of course."

[talkyourwayout]

"So... Aet et Calculum, then." Louie said, less than impressed by V's verbosity. "I'm in Valhudor, but I guess you're kind of right about it not mattering. We're all just working to get home, right?"

[gender_neutral]

"It has thus far seemed rare to find another who understands, as I do, the import of returning home sooner rather than later. Yes, we should all be focusing on our mutual concern of returning home. As of yet, however, I seem to be rather the odd elf out in actually attempting to discern a way to do just that. If you have some theory or method we could further investigate I would be pleased to add my boundless stores of arcane knowledge to the task, and hopefully we can wrap up this pointless side plot and be back with our respective parties by the end of the book."

[talkyourwayout]

Louie just stared for a moment. This was for real, then? Okay. He shrugged. "Nope. No theories here."

He wasn't going to ask about the side plot or book stuff - if V was crazy, he didn't need to hear all about it. However, there was one thing that he felt earned further question. "Elf, huh?"

Nope, can't type that with a straight face. Can't do it.

[gender_neutral]

"Well yes, is it not obvious from my pointed ears," V gestured to one such pointed ear, "And my slender elven neck?"

Ha, I wonder why that is. ;)

[talkyourwayout]

Louie stifled a snort of amusement. "Sure, I guess," he offered. He was humoring them, but there was no need to be a jerk. "I've never actually met an elf before. Wait, I don't think so, anyway?" He's quiet for a moment, mumbling inaudibly as he goes over past adventures back home. "...Yeah, no. No elves."

Sadly all things said in canon more or less...

[gender_neutral]

"Well unlike humans, Elves are not as prone to randomly deciding to venture forth to every part of existence. Though I will say, as one who has had cause to venture across multiple planes now, until I arrived here I had never met sentient clothed ducks. I have now met multiple. It just goes to prove, I suppose, that we are all an entry in some Monster Manual or other, even if some are from more obscure sources than others."

[talkyourwayout]

Louie laughed at that. V may seem weird, but it was an amusing kind of weird.

"Monster Manual. Yeah, okay - I'll try to remember that." He would, of course, do no such thing. "You met Webby and Lena, then?"

[gender_neutral]

"Webby yes, I do not believe that I have met anyone named Lena, however. At least not to my recollection. Should they have given me a false name, or should I have simply forgotten, I cannot easily say with any defree of certainty for what I should believe to be obvious reasons."

[talkyourwayout]

Okay, now it was getting less amusing.

"Do you always talk like this?" he asked, not giving how rude the question sounded any thought. "Like, you can just say you met Webby and don't think you met Lena, you know."

[gender_neutral]

"That... is precisely what I did say, though," V replied, very confused. "Is it not? Have I somehow slipped without being aware of it into Elven perhaps? I do not think that I have. I am fairly certain in fact, that I expressed myself quite clearly, as illustrated by the fact that you just repeated back to me the very thing which I had said."

In other words, yes.

[talkyourwayout]

"Yeah, got it," Louie said with an eyeroll. "I bet you're glad to be at a school, right?"

[gender_neutral]

"Not in the least, I was interrupted in the middle of a rather crucial quest upon which the fate of all the planes depends. I do not see how my party could succeed without a non-clerical primary spellcaster."

[talkyourwayout]

"Huh... So you're a wizard back home, too?" Louie asked. Had V mentioned that already? He wasn't sure, because they were awfully easy to tune out, he had to admit.

"But yeah, it is pretty inconvenient, isn't it?" A shrug. "You just seem like the kind who's into all this scholarly stuff."

[gender_neutral]

"Well yes, obviously I am. And I rather do enjoy a school environment, however there is a time and a place for higher education, and while I would certainly rather be here than endure another filler sketch where we answer reader questions, saving the world simply has to take priority over my own personal educational endeavors."

[talkyourwayout]

"How is that obvious, exactly?" he asked. He wasn't sure, exactly, why he was asking, because he knew he was most likely going to get too many words, half of which didn't quite make sense, again. But there was something entertaining about that, honestly. "I mean, I'll give you the elf thing, because of the ears."

[gender_neutral]

"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO MADE THE OBSERVATION IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!"

[talkyourwayout]

"Okay, chill." Louie raised his hands in a placating gesture, and also to hide how hard he had to try not to laugh. "I just thought you meant it was obvious before you said the thing about magic."

[gender_neutral]

"IT WAS! I DID! But how did you see it before and yet have somehow in the mere moments we have been talking with no visible befuddlement spell in play suddenly lose the knowledge gained by your initial successful spot check!?"

[talkyourwayout]

And there went his ability not to laugh...

"Wow, you're way too intense," he snorted, shaking his head. "That was pretty great, though."

[gender_neutral]

"In what way is any of this great?!"

And why did he remind one so very much of the idiot bard, despite being dressed like the halfling?

[talkyourwayout]

"Because it's always funny to watch people freak out for no good reason," Louie explained with a little shrug.

[gender_neutral]

"No. It actually is not."

But if he wanted to be that way.... perhaps it was time to get back to some pranking roots.....