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

Link carefully added the first ingredient and then the second before going back to the book.

"Mm-hm. I think it's going okay..."

"Good. A simple health potion may seem like not much to some, but it can be crucial in combat and after if there is no cleric present. Additionally, potion making takes no innate power, just focus and meticulous attention, so even with ourselves cut off from our spell slots in this rather odd place, we can still make and imbibe potions. The larger concern then becomes component cost, which is usually why one does not craft their own potions. EXP cost also, to be honest, but we are not creating epic level potions, so there is no cause for concern over that at present. As to the fiscal cost, one should take advantage of class work as much as possible, as the school is providing the material components."

TL;DNR? you're making a red potion, Link.

Link's eyes almost glazed over. "Uh. Well. Back home I'd normally just buy a potion, but, I guess making them is pretty useful?"

"As would I," V said with a small nod. "I am usually far too busy to craft my own low level potions, when generally the money earned from dungeons and destroying foes is more than sufficient. However, there is an advantage to the knowledge. If I may give an example?"

"Uh. Yeah, go ahead...."

"The party with whom I adventure, The Order Of The Stick had stopped between towns to restock supplies. I came upon a shop that was selling potions at a cheaper rate than I had ever seen. I spoke with the shopkeepers, asking to know how it was that they could sell potions this cheap, as they were selling them for last than the cost of the material components. Because I knew how the potion is crafted, I knew the general costs associated with it. So I knew that their prices were impossibly low unless they had some new source for one of the ingredients. That, of course, could change quite a number of calculations. So I was of course interested. Sadly, this was not the case. The shopkeepers were under the delusion that they could make up the lost profits in volume. I tried many times to explain their error. They decided that the answer was a sale. As they were no longer going to listen I concluded that my conscience was appeased and my obligation was abated. I bought twenty seven potions of heroism for less than half of the material costs. Had I not known what went into making such potions, I would not have been aware of what a deal it was that I was getting, and I might have squandered a precious opportunity. Do you understand the lesson of this story?"

"I...what?"

Why would someone try to pay more for something?

"The lesson of the story."

"Don't try to convince a shopkeep to take more money than they're asking?"

V sighed. "If you know the way a thing is made, you can tell when a deal on it is too good to pass up."

"But...you can always just do some work and get more rupees?"

V gave a small sigh.

"I see. This is generally more Miss Starshine's area of expertise, but I shall give this a try nonetheless." V dragged over a rolling chalkboard and began to write, speaking the whole time.

"Treasure has a strict level encounter ratio, this is based on your level, the level of anyone else who might be in your party, the number of creatures you are fighting, and their respective levels." V stopped, considered, then glanced back. "By work you do mean random encounters and seemingly pointless side quests that apparently have no value other than monetary gain and or perhaps helping some hapless NPC on the off chance you might accidentally fall face first onto a plot hook, yes?"

Test Drive #3

Naaaah

Uh huh. Suuuuuuure.

Re: Uh huh. Suuuuuuure.

Re: Uh huh. Suuuuuuure.

no subject

I need to check the canon point, but for TDM this is fine.

rolf I'm getting mileage out of this icon

ROFL.

Re: ROFL.

Re: ROFL.

Re: ROFL.

Re: ROFL.