diatuooc | Test Drive #3

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test drive

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.)

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"Most people aren't me," he said with a grin, putting his hands in his pockets and heading over. "You added this art to this zero of a square?"

"My math is always correct, which it is," replied Tony, checking the arc reactor over before the next lightning strike. "Three more lightning strikes should do it. Normally I'd use 1.5 grams of palladilum to make this but we're fresh out in this world, so we'll have to improvise."

Retreating into the alcove to let mother nature do its work, he said, "Mother nature's on my side tonight. What's your take on this?"

He grinned. "Reaaaaaly. Want to help me with something....?"

He shouldn't have to suffer his punishment alone.

"Give me a while to finish this if that's all right with you," replied Tony, checking the skies for another lightning strike. "This is delicate work. I'm basically using nature to forge something that shouldn't exist in this world."

"No kidding?" Someone after his own shriveled heart. "Yeah, sure, I'll subtract the distraction for a bit."

He could be quiet and wait.

"Yeah so just sit still for a moment," said Tony as lightning flashed and struck the tower once again, charging it. Checking the output he nodded. "A little more should do it. C'mon..."

He stood back, waiting and watching, amusing himself by silently running through some of his favorite numerical sequences.

Four strikes. And five. And retrieving the device, Tony lifted his goggles as he unhooked the tower as he brought the shimmering device down and held up the triangular shaped element.

"You've done it again Stark," said Tony with a little smirk as he opened up the case of the Arc Reactor and placed it inside. Switching it on, it hummed to life. "Gentlemen, audience, I give you the new arc reactor... powered... by badassium. Patent Pending Stark Industries."

"Now I just need some slender hands to replace the one in my chest and we'll be good to go," said Tony. "So, what'd you need help with?"

He snorted then fished a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. "You able to calculate this?" he asked with a grin. So good to find a like minded soul. Shame he wasn't any good at dealing with people in a reasonable way.

The paper... had a circle for whom the ratio of the circumference to its diameter was exactly three. And apparently whenever he tried to make sense of it, he heard crying and his clothes wound up wet. this guy seemed to have science going for him as well as math, so maybe he could see what Sho was missing.

Sho didn't like to admit there was a math thing he couldn't solve himself. But on the other hand, learning a new math thing ws worth any face he might lose.

Tony took the paper, looking it over for a few moments. Reading it over, he did some calculations in his head, going over the math. On cue the weeping and the splashing of water could be heard but he just stood his ground. This was barely an annoyance.

"It's 3 kid," replied Tony, handing it back. "It calculates the diameter to 3. Normally I'd be more worried that my shoes would be getting wet. But seeing how we're in a lighting storm already, I'l let that slide."

Sobbing intensifies.

"Well no. Couldn't get that," he said, flatly, shoving it into his pocket. "But it shouldn't be. apparently this is some sort of punishment for actually doing my job." Um.... well......

"Some punishment," replied Tony, feeling his socks squish in his shoes. "But sometimes punishment is supposed to let you reflect on your actions."

"So zetta lame. I did zero that needs reflection. The headmaster is just a factoring hectopascal. Doesn't appreciate flawless calculations."

"I dunno, sometimes a punishment means more than just looking on the surface of things. Ever think about that?" asked Tony, tossing the strip back to him.

He snorted. "Any yoctograms all upset at my yelling at a bunch of zeros needs to be subtracted anyway. I only allow two things in my classes. Flawless calculations and beauty."

"And that sort of arrogance got me a handful of shrapnel in my heart," retorted Tony as he scooped up his tower and tucked it into a bag. "But you didn't hear that from me."

Huh. That was actually almost interesting. "That's how you died, huh?" Better death than most. He's almost impressed. Okay, fine. When he becomes composer, this guy can be Conductor. He's less of a pain to deal with than most, and Konishi's already been erased, so his promise to her was invalid anyway.

"I actually haven't died YET," replied Tony. "That's what this is for. It's a powerful electromagnet that'll pull the shrapnel away from my heart. Don't plan on dying any time soon. Got too much at stake."

"Oh come on, we're all dead here. Zero shame in it."

Tony looked at him. "That's not what my own heartbeat tells me. At least, that's what I'm pretty sure of."

"Ah, this is just a UG. Players always feel like they're still alive here. Have to say, this one is far more impressive than Sibuya. Looking forward to taking my place as Composer." He eyed him, then decided... why not. "Not generally much for adding people to my life, but I could use a Conductor, you know...."

"Don't know what this Conductor and UG thing is, kid, but I'm pretty sure I'm not dead. We'll have to disagree on that part." replied Tony. "Don't know what a Conductor is either. Other than the director of an orchestra."

"UG, the place where us dead ones hang out. Reapers, Players...." a smirk. "the last chance before erasure to cling to existence. Each area has its own UG,. subtracted from the RG but existing in the same space, like a subset. And each UG has its own Hierarchy. Soh Cah Toa. Composer it at the top and can do whatever he wants, so long as no one challenges him. Conductor is minus one step from the composer, and a good zetta place for someone already playing with lightning." Science puns were close enough to math puns to be okay sometimes."

"Minus one from there are the Game masters. One game = one game master, though there can be others at that rank. They just get the week off. Then minus from that are the harriers. Their job is to support the Game Master, and erase excess players. And then the Support are minus from that and handle the small challenges the Game Master puts together. Support are the only reapers who can't handle the Noise themselves, of course. I've been developing some new Noise here for maximum erasure."

"Kid, that's a load of gobby gook to me. One that I'm not subscribing to. I'm pretty alive right now, and I'm sure you are too, just in the non-weird sense." said Tony, gesturing to the world around them. "But go ahead, play your games. We'll see what happens later."

Gathering up his things, he said, "We'll make due, things always do."

"Of course I'm going to play my games. That's what being Composer is all about. So, am I adding you to the plans?"

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Test Drive #3

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