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

[It took him a minute to realize what had just happened, but Roxas could have leapt out of his skin (fur?) when he realized what had happened. He had turned into a cat!! But he read the spell right!!]

[As he fretted about how to change back, he looked up as a familiar voice caught his ears.]

Meow!!

[Thank goodness, a familiar face! The cat stood up, looking right at the familiar redhead and meowing at him.]

[Lea chuckled.]

Alright, nice to see you too, kitty, but maybe keep it down a bit? Don't want the teacher noticing I snuck in late... again.

[He puts his stuff down on the table, then turns back to the cat.]

You know, you look kinda familiar... Have I seen you around the school before?

[He supposed it was possible; a lot of people had cat familiars, after all.]

[His ear flicked and his tail swished in annoyance. It's great that he was found by a familiar face, but it wasn't going to help if he couldn't get Lea to understand...]

[Aiming carefully, he hopped into Lea's lap as he sat down, before pawing at the front of Lea's shirt. How to get him to understand..?]

[Lea was somewhat surprised when the cat jumped into his lap and began pawing at his shirt. He wasn't sure what it wanted, but he did rest a gentle hand on its back to steady it, as it had seemed a little uncertain with that jump.]

Um... Sorry, but I don't have any food or anything on me, if that's what you're after. Or did you want something else?

[It was then that Lea looked at both the statuette on the table and the spell written on the board. Could it be...?]

You're... not actually supposed to be a cat are you?

[And how were they supposed to tell you that, genius?]

Meow twice for yes, and once for no.

[The hand on his back caused him to pause, and on instinct his back arched into the hand; unbidden, a purr rumbled in his throat. What the heck... being a cat was very weird!]

[Lea's words, however, caused Roxas's ears to perk up, and his tail to swish.]

Meow, meow!!

[Yes, indeed! He wasn't supposed to be a cat at all! And he needed help changing back.]

OK, not really a cat, gotcha. Guessing you had a bit of a spell backfire, but I'm not really sure what to do about it. I don't think just casting the same spell again would work...

[Lea considered a moment.]

Mind if I put you back on the other chair? I'm gonna check the textbook; see if there's anything in there that might help.

[At least they're on the same page now! Roxas purrs happily, his tail swishing. Sure, Lea might not know it's him, but at least he knows he's not just a regular cat.]

[Rather than meow and draw more attention to them, Roxas turns in Lea's lap and hops to the other chair, circling and sitting down while looking up at the redhead.]

[Lea smiles a little when the not-cat hops helpfully back over to the other chair.]

Thanks.

[He pulls out the course textbook and starts to flip through it.]

Let's see... there's the 'B's.... and, ah here we go. OK, here's the spell that's on the board. Don't see a specific counterspell... but maybe... Ah, here we go. General purpose cut off spell. Probably wouldn't work if one of us was a lot stronger magically than the other, but since we're in the same class, I figure it should work.

[Lea studied it for a long moment, then pulled out his own wand.]

Alright; ready to give this a shot?

[Roxas listens carefully as Lea flips through the textbook, his ear flicking as he watched intently. He's as patient as he can be, but he can't help but be relieved once Lea finally pulls his wand out.]

Meow!!

[At the signal that the not-cat was ready, Lea cleared his throat, then waved the wand according to the diagram in the book and said the magic word ending with the wand pointed at the not-cat.]

Inrita!

[A puff of purple smoke surrounded the not-cat which would have ended any attempt at stealth if not for the various other spell misfires that had begun happening around the room, distracting the instructor's attention. still, with all the smoke, it wasn't immediately clear if the counter spell had worked.]

[The puff of smoke envelops the cat, and quickly expands to the size of a person. The chair slides out from under it, and there's a heavy thud as something hits the ground.]

Ow!

[It's a less than graceful landing, but as the fog clears it reveals Roxas, rubbing his lower back but at least in human form again!]

Test Drive #3

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