diatuooc | Test Drive Reloaded! #1

Test Drive #1

Welcome to Diatu (I Like Swords)

The Arrival Hall is all aflurry with activity! No one had expected so many Sundered to suddenly pop up, the staff find themselves desperately scrambling to keep up with the influx, and a bunch of new arrivals find themselves hanging out in the Hall lobby, waiting to be seen, sent home if possible, or counseled and prepared for student life if not. Rumors run like wildfire: some people believe they've been kidnapped by aliens, a worryingly persistent suggestion that this is a setup for a murder-tournament keeps circulating, and one or two nutcases insist that a dragon tinkered with the rules of magic and now they have to study at a magic school to survive. Pie stocks are grievously low, and thought Headmaster Birony herself appeared and began violating the rules of space and time to summon pies from the future, a second Headmaster Birony with an eyepatch, several war scars, and a wild hairdo appeared and promptly yelled at the first Headmaster for stealing her pies. A pie fight erupted. Pie stocks are even more grievously low now.

Still, here's your chance to talk to your fellow arrivals. Or aggressively attack the nearest target in an outrage (they set up a target dummy and labeled it VENT AGGRESSION HERE, and are trusting you guys on the honor system). Staff don't have time to talk, but they promise they'll get to you soon!

A Day In The Life

The sun is bright, the air is warm, a cool breeze blows across Anastara, clouds keep drifting directly through the island and engulfing people... it's summer on Ascelion, and the day is ripe for learning. Or as ripe as Diatu Magicademy ever can be -- though no one would trade the character and charm of the lively campus for some stodgy, regimented school more interested in forcing students into the mold than encouraging them to be their best, sometimes conditions in the Magicademy are a little inconvenient.

A toilet in Kedrigan Hall keeps clamping onto the butts of those who attempt to use it. Thus far, half a dozen students have been freed from its clutches by their friends, while reports of singed buttocks have increased twofold. (Yes, only twofold. Think about that for a minute.) Staff are on the lookout for a prankster rather than a commode, so as of yet the treacherous toilet has gone unpunished...

Not far away, a group of cleaning golems has occupied the promenade as part of an ongoing strike. As they possess only rudimentary intelligence, they believe this involves seizing objects from anyone who passes nearby and hurling them at a set of bowling pins. Meliandre Tomekin, Head of Groundskeeping, has set up shop across the Promenade; any student who wanders too close gets a big block of ice shoved into their hands, along with instructions to hold it still while she shows those reprobates what-for...

In the Great Hall proper, school clubs and activities have, as was inevitable, escalated competition for new students to yet another level which only isn't a war crime because it isn't part of a treaty yet: they've conscripted geese. Horrible geese, to be precise, who dispense flyers for various clubs with less subtlety than a nuclear holocaust. Some of them fight for dominance, others have teamed up to pin down innocent students and stuff leaflets down their throat, and one has a wand and is somehow casting Discovery spells?!

A Forgery!

"I tried a mass-Forging technique," the older student says, showing off the briefcase full of identical wands and a sign that says 'FOR $ALE CHEAP'. "Some of them are exactly what I intended, they self-correct runes, but the rest, well.. . I don't know, I can't tell, and I'm not really interested in finding out one by one, so... you buying?"

All sales final. No refunds. Caveat emptor. As for what the wands do, well... there's a reason he answered with an ellipsis when asked. On the other hand, maybe the effect isn't too terrible? Maybe it's even beneficial! Maybe the wand shoots out rainbows and muffins! Or maybe it just animates and strikes you vigorously about the head and shoulders...

Three Dragon War

Someone, we're not naming names, canons, or the color of eyes and the dragon to which they belong that forms said person's obsession, may or may not be indirectly responsible for the latest game craze sweeping Anastara: Three Dragon War, a collectible card game that features players as dragons, deploying spells, creatures, and Sundered against each other to destroy each and avoid the machinations of the Third Dragon. The awesome thing about the game is that the Third Dragon comes in all different forms: classic bundled-with-the-starter-pack Ire, super-rare Anastara Diatu, suspiciously-rare Cam Birony, ultra-common Large Eagull, and more. The concept of an outside force adding randomness to the battle and being manipulated in turn by cards means Three Dragon War is the hottest card game that's come along since the last card game that was the hottest that had come along came along.

Face-to-face, you find yourself in a duel over these cards and the magical images they summon. Can this untested deck come through if you believe in it? Or are statistics and probability actual things that actually happen? Dragon Battle! Jiao Long Fu!

There's One in Every Test Drive

Not every magical disaster is caused by some wayward student you don't know. Many of them are caused by you instead. To wit: you're on the spot in one of the magical labs, being called on to demonstrate a technique more advanced than others you've mastered so far. Failure is expected, and the wards should prevent any injury to others from a miscast spell. But will the sparks of your magic just sputter out and die? Or will you inadvertently mispronounce, misform, misshape, or miscalculate in a way that brings chaos to you and your lab partner?

(You could also manage to succeed in casting the spell, but that isn't very fun.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Arrival

June wasn't entirely sure how to react when she suddenly found herself in this strange place. She had heard some theories about what was happening, but no one really seemed to be sure what was true and what were just rumors.

And though she kept a listen for any kind of information that would be useful, it didn't stop her from approaching people with a bright smile. "Hi there!" she chirped happily. "My name's June! What's your name?"

A Day in the Life

June was excited by all the different clubs, and had quite a collection of flyers stacked together so she could try to decide which one she wanted to join.

"Oh, they all look so fun!" she said, holding up two different flyers and looking between them. She doesn't notice the geese that are fighting nearby, both wrestling to try to offer her another one.

"I don't know which one to choose!"

Three Dragon War

She hadn't heard much past "Three Dragon War" and "card games", but she was already in.

"I've never played a card game before!" she said as she opened up a starter deck. "How do you play?"

There's One in Every Test Drive

There's a loud explosion that comes from one of the magical labs, and people who look will see a cloud of colorful smoke escaping the room as the door opens to let out the students who were inside.

When the smoke slowly cleared, it revealed the lab room covered in rainbow glitter, and June standing at the front of the room with a sheepish smile on her face.

"Oops..." she said, rubbing the back of her head. "Sorry!"

Wildcard

((Want to do something different? Feel free, or ping me at

usamichan13 if you want to plan something!))

"Wait... you've never played any kind of card game before?"

Yugi was honestly shocked. Sure, he didn't know much about this game just yet but at the same time he had never heard of anyone not having played some kind of card game even if it was solitaire.

"Nope!" June replied cheerfully, looking through the cards in the starter deck. "The only kinds of games my sister May and I got to play were training simulations to help us practice combat, and some language games."

That... was not something he was honestly expecting to hear. Why would children need to pratice stuff like that of all things? Language at least he could understand.

"You spent time instead learning to fight instead of being able to have fun?"

June hesitated slightly, fiddling with the cards in her hands. "I guess you could say that," she finally answered, her voice carrying less of the exuberance she held just moments before. "My sister and I weren't really meant to be like...regular kids."

"What...were you meant to be then?" He was honestly showing a lot of concern about what her life must have been like before and why couldn't she be just like a normal kid.

She fiddled with the edge of her skirt. She didn't really want to be talking about this. Would it be bad if people knew? What if they didn't like her once they found out?

But...would hiding it be bad? Being honest with people was supposed to be a good thing, right?

"...we're clones," she finally answered, her voice barely above a whisper. "We were...meant to be tools. Nothing more."

Yugi paused on what she just said. Clones. He never would have guessed. But in his mind she is still a kid reguardless of that.

"Clone or not I still think you should just be a kid instead of a tool and at least here, maybe you'll get that chance. We can always play games."

She glanced up at him, a little surprised. But she managed a faint smile and nodded. "Y-Yeah...And now I get to learn a bunch of new things and get to be like a regular kid. So I'm gonna learn all I can."

She looked at her cards again, then back at him. "Do you know how to play this game?"

Explosions were interesting, which is why it caught Loki's attention. Moving past the escaping students, waving away the smoke, as he came to see just what had happened. And he blinked, then slowly smiled.

Oh this, this was interesting. "Now how did you make that happen?"

June was trying to brush some of the glitter off her clothes, for all the good it would do since she was completely covered in the stuff. "I dunno!" she replied, equal parts puzzled and amused. "We were trying to create beams of light, and I thought I drew the sigil correctly. But then BOOM!" She threw her hands out dramatically. "Glitter bomb!"

Test Drive Reloaded! #1

June (Mc)Duck | DuckTales 2017

Three Dragon War

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There's one in every test drive

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