Test Drive #3

[magicademymods]

Test Drive #3



Lightning Crash

The weather over the floating island of Ascelion during spring months is best described as "hellacious"; its elevation puts it right among the worst of stormclouds and fuels their thunderous fire as they sweep past it and electrically scrape against its sides. Rain is frequent, but lightning is almost constant, along with thunderous rumbles that roll across the city and the open spaces of the Magicademy like waves.

But today is particularly bad. Webs of electricity crackle through the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud or grounding themselves on towers of the Magicademy angrily. None of them seem to endanger the students, but there's a first time for everything, isn't there? As titanic fury threatens to tear the sky in half, do you risk stepping into the outside? Does the infrasonic rumbling trigger fear or terror in your gut, as such deep waves are known to do? Perhaps you've learned a spell that will protect you. Or perhaps you've poorly learned a spell that may or may not protect you...

Wand Wrong Way

The rumors around campus speak of a small and musty store deep in the Merchant District, on a side road to a side road, where only those in-know go to find items that would surely draw too much notice if displayed publicly. Powdered dragon tail, eye of sphinx, swords Forged with magic-cutting spells, and most valuable of all, the Gateway Wand. Surely this legendary wand, in which the full power of Sundering hums, could get you and your friends back home.

Rumors are pretty lousy with directions, though. The Merchant District offers ample chance to get lost, to get distracted, or to stumble down the wrong alley and find hoodlums all too eager to extract "tolls" from the lost and seemingly helpless. Does your adventure become disaster? Does this rumored shop even exist?

Pantalones Giganticus

At its heart, Modification seems like the most simple of schools. What could be more simple than arithmetic? Therefore, Modification also has the steepest and most shocking learning curve of all, as it rapidly balloons to more complicated mathematical expressions, more variables in the formulae, and above all more chance for error.

So really, the mistake is an honest one. Any hurried student, probably in their third or fourth year of study, could accidentally introduce an unnecessary factor into their equation. That is probably why your pants are now sized for someone four times large than you. (Not four sizes. Four times.) Worse, this has happened to EVERYONE -- the entire population of the Magicademy, student and staff and faculty alike, are trundling around in blown-up bloomers, too-large trousers, not-conveniently-sized knickers... you get the idea.

Now the bad news: to fix the error in formula and restore your pants to normal size, someone else has to get in them with you.

Labwork

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.)

Comments

[treno_nobleman]

It takes an effort and then some not to groan, but not just from hearing a voice he hadn't expected. No, there is confrontation in the words, a silent challenge, and Kuja knows why. They've been staring each other down on the battlefield longer than he wishes to recall, though by now the memories are firmly rooted in his being.

Without moving from his post, Kuja spares the nameless warrior a glance, then gazes back out the window, watching after another flash of lightning off in the distance. "That god? Oh, I'm quite done with his bidding. The last thing I want is to become a puppet for another reckless deity concerned only with dragging fighters from every corner of the universes to battle on their behalf. It's such a shame they can't lift a finger to help themselves, no?"

[knightofcosmos]

Having just left Materia's side with a truce, Warrior of Light hadn't expected to run into a new place, let alone Kuja. But with the planesgorger threatening Materia and Spiritus' world and now he was here (wherever here was> he had wondered if Kuja was on a similar quest.

Apparently not but that didn't sway him from asking his next question.

"Were you not there for the agreement between Spiritus and Materia?"

[treno_nobleman]

Thoughts slide back to their last battle on that world. It had been something alright, too grand for what it was, but he had been fueled then not only by the chance to bring an end to the war, for once, but by the thought that after it all, when their powers were no longer needed, he might get to go home.

"Yes. One final, glorious battle to lure out and destroy Shinryu and save their crumbling world. I was there; I even participated willingly that time. And then, I thought I was to be sent home. No need to fight anymore if the planesgorgers are gone." And yet, here he is, in this place. This certainly isn't home, and if he's completely honest with himself, he doesn't even know what home is anymore.

[knightofcosmos]

He hadn't gotten to that point, but that was something that was going to happen. And try as he might, the warrior cannot recall that battle. He had been enroute certainly, but hadn't gotten there.

So he looks at Kuja for long moments, pondering. If he had gone to the battle, wouldn't it be right that they would be sent home?

His thoughts were interrupted by an almost blinding flash of lightning outside that lit up the library. And for just a moment, Warrior of Light had seen the books in endless shelves here.

Could he have been sent here mistakenly then instead of participating in the battle? Or had he been there and forgotten? No, that could not be. He would most certainly remember a glorious battle such as Kuja described.

"So you ended up here in a library instead."

[treno_nobleman]

Outside, the storm continues on, oblivious to their conversation, but with the Warrior here, Kuja finds his mood suffering. He would like to enjoy the moment a little longer, just between him and mother nature beyond, but suddenly, he would rather be elsewhere, avoiding the scuffle the two of them may end up in, if out of nothing more than pure habit. Such a waste of an otherwise soothing evening.

"Where I ended up was through no direction of my own. How tragic that I should seek so determinedly to master my own fate when in the end, I have so little control over it at all, no matter what I do." He turns his gaze back on the agent of Materia, or whatever deity the Warrior of Light plays slave to now. Time to deflect. "What about you? Are you pulling your own strings here, or has some new or old god of unknown origin given you your orders?"