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

:)

[hyperdrivemonalisa]

Oh, ask her a whopper, why don't you? Still, she'd give it the thought she'd given any of his other questions. Serious thought.

"I do. Subtle, mostly, but as myriad as stars in the sky, with the way it can be performed. It's a pretty long story. Made abysmally short, if you're not subtle, reality reasserts itself and you basically get smacked down to size for your hubris." Isabel chuckled wryly at that, but it wasn't as if she'd never gotten a face full of Paradox in the past. It was almost...comforting, really, to not have to deal with it here.

Still, it was no reason to let herself get complacent.

"A lot of what I could do at home was elicit magical effects by basically being conscious of the way energy flowed through my body as I moved it." She figured that was easier to understand than her mother's--her grandfather's paradigm, really. Mad Science wasn't for everyone, after all.

[treno_nobleman]

To him, it sounds as if her way of magic is more for show than for actual effect. He might be wrong about that, but her description has not left him wanting, so he puts it to the side for now and glances back out through the window at whatever lay beyond. He can't control what the magic of her world is good for - for all he knows, that's as good as it gets, and in that case, no wonder she was impressed with his simply lighting a candle - but he shuts it aside for for now as intended. There isn't anything he can do about that for the moment. Some magic just can't be taught.

"That sounds like our own magic, but not quite the same. Like magic meant to conceal and not to damage. My own magic has been meant to cause harm, so I'm afraid I'm not all that familiar with cosmetics." Because that's what he understood her magic to be.

[hyperdrivemonalisa]

Hmm. That wasn't quite right--but it wasn't his fault, but Isabel's own shortcomings in explanation. How to do it better?

"I'm not being clear, I guess. That was just the way I called it into being?" That sounded a bit better. "By doing martial arts katas, channeling my ki. I did certain things to produce certain types of magic. Like being able to sense where a person was, or calling down a lightning bolt. Two entirely different effects, which means two entirely different ways of evoking them. Does that make sense? Which isn't to say I couldn't produce cosmetic effects if I wanted to as well, changing the color of my hair or clothes, stuff like that."

She'd get up and show him a kata or two, but the lab was kind of crowded, and the actual magic wouldn't go off anyway. It was disappointing, but that was the way things were, at the moment.

[treno_nobleman]

He can't lie and say that the thought doesn't appeal to him. Maybe this is something he can question her about later, have her show him, if they're ever able to use their own native talents. As it is, he won't press. They do have more important matters to concern themselves with here.

He nods, lifting a hand as if he could summon one of the cores he had often used as a weapon in the previous worlds he had been dragged into. "It could only be half a performance if the props and the actors looked terrible, and therefore a miserable production. I see your meaning."

[hyperdrivemonalisa]

"Okay." She at least hoped so, because she wasn't entirely certain she understood what he meant, at that point. But Isabel could tell he liked to be a little melodramatic. That was okay. Took all kinds, in life.

"So, have you got a name?" Offering him a smile. "I'm Isabel. Isabel Knight, not that that really means a lot here." It was meant playfully, and hopefully her ignorance of what he really was wouldn't upset him. It certainly wasn't her intent. She wasn't mocking him, for example, not that she would anyway.

[treno_nobleman]

If or not he ever saw her magic in action, they were here now and he had mastered a basic of their new world. At the very least, he supposed he would have light when the storms came rolling in, as he assumed this land had changing weather patterns. He looked forward to it, and the thought lightened his mood. Her call for introductions lightened them further, something he had been wondering about and near about to ask himself, but it put him back into one of his elements.

"Kuja." He took a step back to lower himself into a sweeping, graceful bow. "A pleasure."

He might not take well to being made to study to save his life, but he was still quite familiar with the nobility of Gaia and weaving his way in and out of their society as easily as taking a breath of air.

[hyperdrivemonalisa]

A warm little chuckle tickles her throat, more amusement than mockery, as Kuja bows. Though she's not wearing a dress, just robes at the moment, she drops him a practiced courtesy in return. Isabel has managed to learn something in the way of manners, after all.

"Likewise, sir." It wasn't nobility for her, but stodgy old Order of Hermes mages who'd been alive during her world's Dark Ages and were still cranky about being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern day. They demanded manners, and anyone who wanted to be taught by them, or even speak to some of the old farts, had best learn to deal with them on their own terms. So she had.

"So, are there things you want to learn about besides magic? We are expected to take electives, after all." And really, sometimes Isabel was as curious as a dozen cats. Kuja had piqued her interest.

[treno_nobleman]

There's a soft hum, pleased to see she has a bit of decorum herself. This place isn't home to him and he'll stubbornly refuse to call it that, he thinks, but not everyone here is terrible. He inclines his head, acknowledging her manners and considering her query. Behind him, his tail shifts to one side as he takes a seat in one of the chairs near him.

"You mean besides what it was that brought us here and how to get us back?" He tilts his head, watching her. "I suppose I must, if I am to remain here and control the magic in me. It seems a waste of good time though. Why learn something I don't need in this world if their goal and ours is to get us home?"

[hyperdrivemonalisa]

"There's always personal amusement. I mean, I for one enjoy music, so why not take that?" Isabel shrugged at that statement. She certainly intended to practice magic as much as she could, in the hopes of getting back home that much sooner...but with how disorganized people--mages seemed here, it made the Traditions back home seem almost...coherent.

That was scary. Really scary.

"I'm not sure what else I'd consider taking besides magic--" and they'd tossed her into magic classes first, while she was still trying to figure out what else to do--"but I'm sure there's got to be some interesting things to poke my nose into, here."

Beyond just wandering around in town, as an example.

[treno_nobleman]

"'Personal amusement.'" He sniffs and shakes his head. Perish the thought. His ideas for persona amusement and hers apparently were quite different. "If that is to your liking, then by all means. The counsel of this school encourages it, but I have no need for it. Efforts here could be better spent toward helping those of us brought here to learn what they know that pulled us into this world. Perhaps we could even help speed the process along, but no. They guard that magic as if their lives depend upon it."

Could he blame them? He might. He of all people understood pride far better than some, and yet he didn't appreciate having it brought to bear against him like this, not when it meant the difference between his returning home and not. But then, what did he have to return to? What really mattered? Whether or not their lives depended upon this magic, he would return to Gaia and... what? The entire world had been turned against him by his own doing. He would no longer be welcome in Treno, he was sure. His palace was all that was left to him, protected by a desert few to none dared to venture to.

That was, if he lived long enough to see it again.

Did he want to go home to that? Could he go home to that? Given the alternative, in his mind, he knew there was no choice at all. Die in isolation or die surrounded by a world of potential he had yet to explore. Habit and his own stubbornness wanted him to struggle against it. He wouldn't be told what to do. But...

"They have a study of the stars, I have heard. That might be of some interest."