diatuooc | Test Drive #1

Test Drive #1

The Airship There

By carriage or coach, spellwagon or ship, perhaps even on the wings of magic, the Sundered heed the call to gather at the Tenzin High Dock of Vulbaria. On this, the appointed day, a great passenger airship sits in the dock, the seals of the six Houses fluttering from flagpoles along her length and her wooden planks atremble as if it is eager to be off. At last, the gangplank descends, and the Hand of Diatu opens her doors to the Sundered so they can take their first step on the path towards protection and salvation.

Inside, you may choose from long comfortable couches, broad circular tables surrounded by straight-backed, cushioned chairs, or viewing seats at the glass front of the ship. Sundered who need special accommodations are quickly provided for, ensuring everyone travels in comfort. Trays drift through the air periodically, offering snacks and drinks to the passengers.

This may be the first chance you've had to truly relax since being swept to this strange world. Certainly it is the first chance you've had to meet your fellow Sundered. As the airship lifts gracefully off from the High Dock, your journey to Diatu begins. Excited? Nervous? Simply angry? Or perhaps searching among the crowd here for a familiar face or some sign of hope?

Rain, Rain...

Welcome to Diatu Magicademy. It's raining.

Seriously raining. One of those downpours that feels like a curtain has dropped on you, that soaks to the bone within a second of stepping into it. Obviously, this won't do, and a civic-minded cluster of Purifeul students has taken it upon themselves to solve this problem. No sooner do you step through the gates then you practically run into a giant and complex runic diagram being drawn out with long staffs by several students, all of them speaking seeming nonsense about derivatives, limits, and equations. Magic! In action right before your eyes!

And yet, just as their mathemagics wind towards the center of the diagram and they all make their final stroke -- one student slashes his line off on a weird tangent, speaking an equation that sounds nothing at all like what his fellows utter. The spell completes... weirdly, as the students look in horror at each other. The temperature abruptly drops seventy degrees, and a cold wind begins to blow.

Welcome to Diatu Magicademy. Please get out of the blizzard before you freeze.

Thaumaturgy 101

After some fifteen minutes of grumbling from Professor Loshakle, followed by half an hour of theory and basics, the grouchy old man finally gets to drawing a magical symbol on the board. "This is straight out of Fundamental Principles of Wizarding," he says, writing Sense Magic next to the symbol. "As is everything you'll learn here. I'll emphasize yet again, you MUST know the name of the spell and the proper gestures. You can't simply wave your wand in any old pattern and say any old words. That isn't how it works," he says, glaring around the class as if daring someone to question him.

But he gives no one the opportunity, instead producing a wand and making the gesture to trace the symbol he'd drawn in midair. "Sense Magic," he intones, and the air and his wand both shimmer.

"Now. You all try." Just like that. What the Professor doesn't mention is that this spell can produce some very interesting results if the symbol is off, or the timing...

Bala-inlota Practice

Bala-inlota is the main interaction the Magicademies have with each other -- the sport of wizards! Two teams take the field, with the goal of heaving a ball through their opponent's hoop. The rules primarily revolve around not inflicting lethal injury, because bala-inlota is a free-for-all at best, where each team relies on both physical and magical might to win the day.

You kind of wish someone had told you this BEFORE you got hauled onto the field so the coach could see if you've got what it takes.

Now half a dozen players are charging down the field at your ragtag group of semi-willing recruits, while another half-dozen are preparing spells that you've been absolutely assured aren't as nasty as the ones deployed in actual play. On your side: the ball, your wits, your physical ability, and maybe three classes's worth of magical education.

On the upside, magic is pretty good at healing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rain Rain

Thena had been studying what the students were doing, trying to learn the spell herself when one of them drew a line oddly. That couldn't be righ.....

The next thing she knew, a suit of armor had barreled into her to defend her. She blinked startled, then nodded at his question. "Yes, thank you. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one from Hogwarts here." He had to be one of the suits of armor from the great hall, right? There was one set of three, and she knew the middle of that set was always moving, because half the time she looked he'd swapped what he was holding with the one next to him. And Penny said she heard a rumor that the suits of armor were spelled to protect the students.

"Oh, um... I'm not actually..." The voice that comes from inside the armor is young, and embarrassed. Luckily he doesn't seem to be offended or upset by the misunderstanding. Instead, he's trying to usher her inside, it's still very wet and she looks like she could catch a cold if she isn't warmed up and dried off.

"I've never heard of Hogwarts, miss." He finally says, offering a small uncertain laugh afterwards. Hopefully that news wouldn't be too upsetting.

She blinked a few times, startled, then smiled a bit. He did sound young for Hogwarts. but with ghosts and enchanter armor, she supposed it could be hard to tell. She let him guide her inside though, as she thought.

"Well, when we find a way home, I am certain I could ask the teachers to let you enroll. I know some of the other schools are supposed to be quite good as well, but as far as I know, Hogwarts is the best wizarding school there is."

Wait. He pauses, tilting his head to the side a little. There's more than one? He wonders for a moment just how many places have wizarding schools, magical academies... it's all so much. He laughs a little.

"Oh, um. We might be from really different places. There's no such thing as magic where I come from. Just science." But that isn't as important as guiding her to the infirmary, where people seem to be gathered with towels ready—apparently news of magical accidents travels fast here.

She looked up at him, confusion in her green eyes. "You're a muggle?" she asked, startled. Nothing wrong with being a muggle, of course. Some of the best people at school were muggle born, after all. But... how did he explain himself without magic? She knew some science thanks to sneaking a look at some of the Muggle Studies textbooks in the Common Room, but she was pretty sure that a small child in a huge suit of armor had to break the statute of secrecy...

And if it didn't... well she was about to be in far worse trouble than when she had been caught dueling in the halls...

"Um.. I'm human? I don't know what a muggle is."

This line of questioning is making him feel slightly uncomfortable, judging from the mechanical way he hands her a towel to dry off her hair. He'll even help if she lets him. It gives him a moment to think of possible ways to change the subject that is slowly drifting ever closer to 'what are you anyway' territory.

She winced. "And I am in so much trouble..." she said, then shook her head. In for a knut in for a sickle. "Muggle is the term Wizarding folk use for non-magical folk, usually ones who know nothing about magic. I never said you weren't human," she said, trying to be less insulting. She hadn't meant to be insulting. She had been relieved thinking this was someone else from home.

A friend.

She missed her friends so much that it hurt. At least over the summer she could send them owls. Here she couldn't.

Was this what had happened to her brother? Was he trapped in some other place like she was now? Would Rowan and Ben and Penny ever find her?

Wait... could her brother... be here? That.... That would be.... She would give nearly anything to find her brother. If she vanished the way he had... he might be here!

Test Drive #1

Re: Alphonse Elric | Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

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I appologize for the lack of icons, I am still taking screenshots of the game

no worries :)

Thank you.