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

“Yeah, it does feel like I was going back to my old school again,” he tells her, “I’ve been used to magic for a long time now, although I did have to learn new things when I came to Avalon: I ended up getting kinetic magic when I first arrived and got elemental magic months later.”

By this time, Harry has been used to seeing people from other worlds while living in Avalon that seeing a duck wasn’t that shocking from him these days.

She can't help an eager gasp. "Oh wow, you've learned how to do magic before?" she asks, hopping up and down a bit. "That's so cool!"

“Yes, that is really cool since magic exists in my world and in the previous world I went to. Oh by the way, I happen to be a wizard myself,” Harry candidly tells the little duck girl, “My school teaches us to use magic properly and it is also one of the best wizarding schools around.”

"A wizard!" she exclaims. "And you go to a whole school for wizards? That's amazing! What's it like being a wizard? What kind of stuff do you do with your magic? Do you have magic words or incantations you have to say? What's your favorite one? Can I see a bit of magic now?"

She has so many questions!

June, he’s glad that you asked a lot of questions for him to answer. This honestly gave him a wide smile of relief as he gives her a good and long and question.

“We use a lot of spells and incantations, many of them are written in Latin, to get the results we want to see, and we do use wands to assist to channel our magic. It’s very rare for many to master wandless magic since it is a little uncontrollable to master sometimes and it’s connected to our emotions. There is also non-verbal spells as well, though as frequently used for some wizards,” he replies to her, “I do have the mastery of the Disarming Charm which is meant to diffuse the situation and not to harm people.”

When someone was able to throw a pie at him, Harry immediately gets the spell to good use, first time in months: brining out his wand and he then says the word, ‘Expelliarmus! while pointing at the pie and said pie soon flies away from their hands and splats onto the wall nearby.

Harry has her undivided attention, as she listens intently to his explanation. But when he whips his wand out and uses a spell to send the pie flying, her eyes grown even wider and she's practically vibrating with excitement.

"That was awesome! You did it so fast and effortlessly! You're so cool! Is that your wand? How does it help channel magic? What's it made out of? Why are the spells in Latin?"

“Why yes, that’s my wand of course,” he happily answers in turn, although he technically owns two wands right now, though he doesn’t want to mention the Elder Wand since he was hoping to dispose of it for some time.

“Usually wands in my world pick the user rather than the other way, and sometimes if mismatched, a wizard or witch will have a hard time casting magic with a wand. This one is made from holly with a phoenix tail feather core, I heard that’s a rare combination in wandmaking. As for the spells, I have no idea why but I suppose it’s to make spellcasting easier in my country and world.”

"The wand chooses the wizard?" she repeats, that answer sticking out to her the most. "How do they do that? Are they sentient? What do they look for when choosing someone? Has a wand ever made a wrong choice?"

“So far, no one knows why exactly, but it’s pretty clear that they want to be matched with wizards or witches who they feel is worthy to hold onto them. Otherwise, things gets really messy if there is a personality mismatch between wand and wizard,” he explains to June.

“Part sentient: they can’t talk or think like we all do, but they can perform certain actions on their own sometimes.”

"Oh wow! What kinds of things can they do? What happens if a witch or wizard uses a wand that isn't theirs? Does the wand get mad?"

“Plenty of things, usually to cast spells and perform magic,” Harry answers further, “Well, if they try to use a wand that doesn’t fit them, it would cause an assortment of chaos. Very few wizards and witches can use various wands without worrying about them backfiring in them.”

He knows that very well since he had to rely using different wands to cast spells when his old wand broke for a good while and he manages to survive using said different wands without them backfiring on him.

"Oh wow. So wands are kinda picky, huh? That's kind of neat. Do you think the wands here are gonna be like that too?"

“We’ll have to find out soon enough: I haven’t checked out the wands of this world just yet,” he tells her when he notices another pie flying at their direction.

This time though, he immediately uses his kinetic magic to redirect the pie to fly towards the lady who was attempting to throw it at.

She claps her hands. "Wow, you're so good! I bet learning magic here will be easy for you."

“Oh, why thank you, June,” he blushes at the compliment she has told him, “I do hope for the best in learning magic from the school and I also wish you the best as well.”

"Thanks! I'm gonna do my best to learn everything!" She's definitely excited about the idea. "Good luck with your studies too!"

Test Drive Reloaded! #1

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