diatuooc | Test Drive #3

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.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh. Oh!"

Link brightened and flashed him a big grin. "Sorry, it looks a lot like something people would make back home to hide something important! So, if that's what you were going for, it's really good art, Mister."

"Thanks." He thinks... "I'll be adding you to my classes then?" Maybe he could make a good reaper...

"Probably."

Link's previous educational history had been spotty at best. Saria had taught him to write his name and read and spell phonetically. So, while he was capable of reading signs and notices, actual books had not been a part of his schooling.

Technically...there hadn't been any schooling, just spending time with Saria.

He nodded. "Math, art, and phys ed. SOH CAH TOA."

Math and art, he could figure out. Phys ed, on the other hand, got a blank look.

"What's phys ed?"

Link may find his favorite class rather quickly.

"Physical education. Add some knowledge here. Running, sports, fighting." Someone might have a warped sense off the class he teaches. "Activities. A chance to feel alive." Even though they aren't. "For the short time till you're erased, anyhow. Adding some exercise to minus some fat and multiply some muscle."

Running, sports, and fighting all sounded just fine to Link. "I wouldn't mind some time to practice with my sword."

He scrunched his face at the word erased, unsure of what exactly it meant. It sounded vaguely like a threat, but, Link figured he was still on edge from fighting Ganon.

"Erased?"

He nodded. "happens to us all at some point, kid. Just gotta find your beauty till then." He considered. "Sword, huh? Guess I could add that to the plans."

"...uh...riiiight." Link was starting to wonder if this fellow were a few trees short of a forest.

"Oh, yeah, I'm pretty good with a sword. And bombs. And arrows."

"I prefer using the Noise myself. Adds to my arts and crafts time."

"Noise?"

Was this guy even speaking Hylian still?

"Noise. Best thing for Reaper Sports."

"Uh. Okay, so what the heck are Reaper Sports?"

"Games between Reapers and Players. Reaper sport 1 - Russian Roulette. Add one is hide and seek. Three is Player hunt, for subtracting players. And four is tag. More can be added, and we've subtracted some, but we don;t do that much cause it tends to divide us. And for some reason, some zeros see that as a minus."

"Sounds...um....interesting?"

"Tell ya what, kid. Since you're less of a zero then some of the other yoctograms around here. You help me become composer of this UG, and I'll make you a Game Master. You can make your own games for players, set up bomb traps and hidden treasures..."

Test Drive #3

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard

Re: Wildcard