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

"VRcades, yea, I'd cut class to go to one of those."

So saying before ever actually being in a class before but hey, it sounded like a good way to spend an afternoon. He had been itching to try out one of those Oculus systems.

"Magic isn't bullshit. Some of us have always had it. I'm not so sure how I feel about all these humans getting magic... Maybe they will use it to create something amazing but more likely they will just find a way to blow something up."

Val didn't particularly get the appeal herself, but her interests lay elsewhere. VR was something so ubiquitous that it was hardly anything special.

"The hell you mean 'these humans'?" She took some offense to all of this. "You tryin' to say you're somethin' else?" She crossed her arms. "You got somethin' against blowin' shit up?" She hadn't even considered blowing anything up, but now she might. Just because he said something.

"Beings are being pulled in from all over. Not all of us are human."

He looked up wondering that it wasn't obvious that he wasn't something else. Course he was in human mode, trying to make himself look as much like one of them as possible. Why his eyes might even for the moment have looked very human indeed if not for the shades which shielded them from view. He rather admired humans in spite of their tendency to blow things up.
~~Story of his life really, inspiring humans to blow things up while secretly wishing that they wouldn't.~~

"Guess that means you are one and you have never been to a world with magic or otherworldly beings before? How are you taking to it?"

"If you're not human then what the fuck are ya?"

She continued to be as brazen as before. Either she thought he was lying or she was a fool. (Both. It's both.) As far as she could tell? He was definitely a human. Very eccentric, but still human.

"'Course I'm human?" She sounded a little irritated. "You keep talking like there's somethin' else here but you're not givin' me anything to go off of." The huffiness subsided. "Still waitin' to wake up'r for this trip to end."

Not giving her anything to go off of? Well, he could change that easily enough! Without so much as batting an eye his head alone transformed into some sort of demonic terror. An all black manifestation of what looked like a eldritch abomination of hell hound and serpent with gnashing teeth and massive jaws. He snapped viscously in her direction, never actually making contact, and then just as quickly he morphed back into his ever so charming self again. He assumed that would be proof enough of what he was about to say.

"Demon actually."

The show he put on definitely made her hop back (literally, hop, not take a few steps) in surprise and fear both. The way the blood drained from her face was enough to prove her reaction genuine and not for his amusement. She was breathing heavy, her body pulled tight together like a scared animal as he responded with words.

"Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck!" She obviously knew what the fuck, but can't blame a girl for words said in a panic.

"A fucking demon? Like, fucking Catholics got it fucking right kinda demon?" She was definitely not getting any closer to the man - er, demon - but she hadn't turned tail and run away either.

It might not have been intended for his amusement but it resulted in it. Crowley grinned like every bit the devil he was. He did prefer to remain as human as possible but there was no harm in using his unique abilities to startle now and then.

"Partially right. They got the angel and demons existing thing down... the 'love thy neighbor bit' not so much some times."

Usually Val would be pretty pissed that someone got the leg up on her when it came to scaring the shit out of her, but how in the world could she be prepared for this bullshit?

"I mean anyone'll look for any reason to step on those they think's below'em. Religion, race, money..." She shrugged. "Anythin' to feel high'n mighty'n in power, right? That 'bout the sum'f us humans?"

"Just about."

Though the hidden charitable side of Crowley's nature was about to rear its ugly head.

"You are capable of so much. You are the only species on the planet that has mastered the art of building great big wonderful cars, skyscrapers that pierce the clouds, and rockets that can go up into the stars... If only you didn't spend so much of your time using those talents to build machines to destroy each other."

Val was thoughtfully quiet after he finished speaking. It was clear she was bitter.

"None'f our lofty ambition means shit 'less you can squeeze jack out'f it. Easiest way's to deal in death." She'd was growing more detached the more she spoke.

"Never figured out how corps made profit off turnin' half the city to a war zone'n lettin' the bodies pile up." Her eyes flicked sharply up to the man, the fear in her body language turning into angry defiance as if he were somehow to blame for it all. She knew he wasn't, but he was here, and the people who were to blame weren't. "You got any clue how that works?"

"I don't know anything about the corps."

All he could do on that was look for parallels he had seen in conflicts past.

"Could be anything; backroom weapons deals, illicit drugs, battlebots, as long as you are providing something that some one else wants you can make a profit from anything. Wars can be especially profitable."

Test Drive Reloaded! #1

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