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

[The offer of help catches him by surprise -- mostly because he's used to doing everything by himself, or rather, himself with Ahrah and Fidget as his companions. But here...]

[What is he even doing here? He must be here for a purpose, but what is it?]

I'd appreciate that. A lot. Thank you.

[Offering help comes naturally; like Dust, accepting it is less familiar. But she doesn't have to worry about that particular inner struggle right now, only seeing her promise through.]

Mm, no problem! [An easy smile for her fellow Sundered, if perhaps not quite for Dust the Fluffy Bipedal of Unknown Origin.] Us students gotta look out for each other, you know? One sec...

[The spellcasting that follows is undeniably clumsy: slow gestures, hesitant invocation of a spell newly learned, her smile fading fast into a look of intense concentration. But like many times before, sheer willpower seems to make up for the lack of finesse, a shimmering wave of translucent magic spreading out from her fingertips. Guided by word and gesture, it surrounds them like a bubble, muffling the din of thunder and lightning.]

[She's just as weird to Dust. Worse, though, is how this entire world is composed of people like her. Some of the other Sundered aren't == 'human', is the word -- but there are no other Warmbloods here.]

[Never mind how awkward the casting itself is. The results count more than anything, and Dust lifts one hand slightly in surprise when the bubble erupts over them.]

That's incredible. I can't manage anything like this.

Eh?

[Even if it's not directly meant as such, the compliment catches her more off-guard than any sudden sword thrust or dagger stab ever could. The magic around them flickers, guttering with her concentration; wisps of outside air come swirling in, ruffling hair and fur alike.]

This is just— I've been practicing a lot, that's all.

[She takes a deep breath and concentrates anew, until the bubble is once more intact.]

But I have to focus to keep it going, so I definitely haven't mastered it. [Hmm...] After we get your books, maybe I could show you my notes? If you want, I mean.

[Dust is almost always on the other side of this sort of exchange -- helping because it's the right thing to do, without any expectation of reward or recompense. The thought brings a smile to his face.]

I'd like that. Most of my skills revolve around hitting things with a sword, so I'm not sure I can offer something in exchange, but I'll owe you a couple of big favors.

[Whatever shadow of a threat his appearance stirs up in the back of her mind, that place where instinct dwelled and she thought with her skin, that look goes a long way toward lessening its power. Werewolves — the murderous ones, full of feral hunger and hate — never smiled like that.]

You don't have to! [A polite "after you" gesture; they could talk along the way, she reasons.] ....But if it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd actually appreciate anything, uh, sword-y you could show me. I used to hit things with one too, before ending up here, and I'm kinda worried about getting rusty.

[A wand, a feather, her bare hands.....it's not the same thing at all.]

[Dust takes a step forward, and if he has any doubts about the shield's efficacy, they don't show. Hiding his eyes comes in handy sometimes.]

Yeah, I can do that. I'd like to. It'd feel good to stretch and get some real exercise in. [He doesn't stay idle by any means, but the regime of classes and study and homework are downright sedentary compared to a life of action and danger.] It's nice to meet someone else who has some skill there.

[She's careful to match her stride to his as she follows along, so as not to outpace him.]

I know what you mean. Learning magic is hard work, but it's just not the same. [There's the thought to protest any expectation of skill; her partner used to lay her out flat in three moves. Then again, said partner believed violence could keep the world from her throat and strove to master it, so practice fights inevitably became rather lopsided.] Ehehe, well.....my guild taught me some things! And I've practiced a lot, so usually I can at least hold my own.

But I'm sure you've got a lot more experience than that, huh?

[Dust matches pace well enough; aside from being generally light on his feet and quick to begin with, Warmbloods have a great more variation in body types than humans do. Her height doesn't register as unusual to him, even if it is quite unusual among humans.]

It's -- my story is a little complicated. But I'm pretty good. Though I'm used to having a friend along with me to back me up.

[She doesn't pry any further — doesn't really think to just yet, despite the lingering curiosity about his.....well, his everything. For now it's simply relief enough to have her hopes confirmed.]

Oh, me too! [Another rolling crash of thunder, and Lys takes a moment to pour a little more concentration into her spell, muffling the surrounding storm by a few extra degrees.] It's weird not having that person around, isn't it? I keep half-expecting mine to show up whenever I turn around, we've been together so long.

[Ah.]

—My name's Lys, by the way!

I'm Dust. [Is it redundant to say he doesn't look up or at her or anything like that? But he does turn his head her way again, thinking. She'd summed up his relationship with Fidget pretty well. Life.. is so strange, without her hovering just over his shoulder.]

It's nice to meet you, Lys. [And, despite everything going on, there's real warmth in his voice.]

[The brim of his hat covers his eyes too well for her to get any kind of proper look at them, even if he didn't have to glance up and she didn't have to glance down. But the warmth to his tone rings true enough and she's too trusting by half anyway, especially now that her initial apprehension has faded into a vague, distant shapes.]

And it's nice to meet you, Dust! [Of course, now that introductions have been made, there's simply no force on heaven or earth that can stop her from stating the obvious.] That's an interesting name you've got.

[The silence, for that moment, is portentous. And when he speaks -- well, Dust is always a little intense, but his quiet voice practically hums with it now.]

He Who Is Born From the Dust. The Sen-Mithrarin. That's me. That's where my name comes from.

....Oh! I see.

[So said after a pause that's more thoughtful than awkward, processing his answer the best that she can. It seems more like a title than a proper name, bestowed rather than given. But that would be rude to say, right? Besides, the intensity of his tone makes her wonder just how comfortable he was with it.]

I guess that's why you go by Dust, huh? It'd be a bit of a mouthful otherwise. [In a stupid attempt to nudge things back towards levity:] There was a guy in my village once — Albertus Jorgen Christoffersen. Everyone ended up just calling him Al, even his wife!

I go by Dust because my name is Dust. [And whether because of her comment or his, Dust is smiling again.] The title is just where it comes from. And I'm pretty sure you can't shorten 'Dust' effectively.

Test Drive #3

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