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diatuooc2019-01-16 09:53 am
magicademymods) wrote in diatuooc2019-01-16 09:53 am
Entry tags:
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.
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[Which may go to show just how much they fill her with rage.]
And that much I am entirely in agreement with; since I do not know this spell well. [Yotsuyu pauses for a moment.] Curious. I do not particularly want to cause anyone harm, so yes. I shall decline for now. Perhaps you ought to try? Though I should hope you have more success than I...though this is nothing a dye vial cannot cure.
[She lifts a hank of white hair, then drops it, chuckling ruefully.]
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Sense Magic.
[Nothing seemed to happen until a blue butterfly floated down and landed on her wand. Followed by another. And another... and another. A small swarm of them fluttered in the air around the two.
Eleanor sighed and let out a puff of air to blow one away.]
This keeps happening. I don't think it's the wand movement but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with the words.
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[Her eyes widen in wonder, at least for a moment. Yotsuyu would easily call herself jaded, but not enough to find a modicum of delight in pretty butterflies. Not that it lasts, as yellow eyes narrow and she leans past Eleanor to stare daggers at Professor Loshakle.]
I doubt the old coot would trouble himself to help anyone, either. At least, none of us. I have heard the rumors that he cares little for Sundered.
[She purses her lips, then.] Should we keep trying and failing, or make plans to leave this particular class as soon as we're allowed?
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[Eleanor waved her hands to shoo the butterflies away. Any she managed to touch disappeared in a puff of blue smoke that faded from existence while the rest fluttered about as if they were real and annoyed with the sudden movement.]
If my powers worked here, I'd already be gone. Sneaking out of a door is much more difficult when you can't just Houdini to the other side or fit through the cracks.
[Her father had managed, and she had, too, once a long time ago. But Mother had changed all that for her. She'd gotten a little used to being able to just pop in and out as needed. Now she was back to square one.]
Perhaps we could just move toward the door or window and... slip out while he's not looking?
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[Is that a hint of jealousy in Yotsuyu's voice? Perhaps, but she makes no attempt to hinder Eleanor's escape, either. If anything she shoos the remaining butterflies up towards the Professor, clearly in the hopes of obfuscating their exit.]
Perhaps you take the window, and I take the door? I do not think a kimono much help in slipping out a window. That said, I think if he catches either of us, I will try to...take the heat, I think it is?
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[She reaches out to take Yotsuyu's hand and tug her toward the door.]
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Who are you, anyway? Yotsuyu goe Brutus, once of Doma. [Because they're suddenly on the run together, and, trust issues? Those are the least of Yotsuyu's problems. There's...a lot. She isn't balking, at least. No, she isn't going to admit to any former horrors she's committed, either. Not yet.]
If we're going to get in trouble--kami, I hope not--we ought to at least know each other's names.
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[Eleanor notices her hesitation and pauses to turn and face her. She glanced a moment at the professor to make sure he wasn't looking their way before answering.]
Eleanor Lamb. Once of Rapture.
[Doma meant nothing to her, so Rapture would likely mean nothing to Yotsuyu. Then she frowns.]
Yotsuyu. Kami. Those are Japanese words are they not? Brutus has it's origins in Latin. Doma... I am uncertain of.
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Eleanor Lamb sounds properly Hyuran, though I know nothing of Rapture. [As Eleanor had already guessed.] Is that somewhere in Eorzea? Or Rad-atz-Han? That does not sound particularly Hannish, though...
Does it matter? [Then again, once they were out the door, they were home free. Thankfully, the classroom wasn't that large, but Yotsuyu didn't pause in the hall, moving swiftly towards a door at the end of it, one framed by windows. It looked safe!]
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No. None of those. Rapture was a city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We don't have any of those other places in my world. Likely it is only a oddity of multiple worlds having multiple uses of the same languages under different names. With the near infinite possibility of universes parallel to each other, it's not difficult to believe. Though it was not something I thought much on prior to my arrival here.
[She had a lot of other things to worry about.]
This is my first time in... or on, I suppose, a flying city. Are yours more what I assume are the traditional sort? On land and not under the water or among the clouds?
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[Or, perhaps, the other places that had been dominated by Garlemald, but there was another thing that Yotsuyu was not about to admit, yet.]
They are. I have heard that the beastmen--the Blue Kojin, I should say--have a city under water, but I have only heard such, and never seen it. Namai is quite properly on land, as is Castrum Fluminis, though that is a Garlean outpost, not a city, I suppose.
[The day outside is mild and sunny, trees much like a willow shading the door from a few healthy steps away. Some unfamiliar flower is perfuming the air, and as the door shuts behind them with a click, Yotsuyu allows herself to slide down into a seated position, throwing her head back and laughing--a witchy cackle.]
We made it!
heading to bed. will tag in the morning. Having a lot of fun!
[She knelt down, tucking her shift under her knees. It was a thin sheef of cloth. Just enough to cover her properly and that was about it. She was also barefoot as she worked her way into a more comfortable seated position with her legs not quite under her and bent to the side. She didn't seem to mind it, though. It served it's purpose.]
A much easier escape than my last one. Not from here, of course. This is my first escape from a classroom.
May I ask what you did before? Your world sounds very different than mine on the whole. I'm curious.
All right! Hope you app, this has been great! Have a good night!
My first, as well, but the escape was much easier than when I escaped the collapse of Doma Castle...
[Really, she probably had Gosetsu to thank for that. Not that she was certain she could, after what had happened at Fluminis. At Eleanor's next question, though, Yotsuyu stiffened slightly. But it was only herself, and the girl.]
I'll tell you, if you tell no one else. [But it feels wrong to demand a promise from her. Would it really mean anything to Eleanor? It meant much to her, though...]
I was the Acting Viceroy of Doma for the Garlean Empire. It sounds lofty and important, but...now I feel as if it might have been more trouble than it was worth. Certainly it is one of the reasons why I ended up here...
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[She shrugged and said by way of agreement. She didn't see how it would matter if she did tell or not, nor to who, but if that was the price of learning something at the moment, then so be it.
Viceroy. A ruler who exercises authority on a city or colony on the behalf of a sovereign. Or a butterfly similar to a monarch, but smaller. Obviously from context the former, though she'd be delighted if it had been the latter and Yotsuyu had somehow turned herself human. The only butterflies she'd ever seen, personally and not embedded in memories, had been the fake ones made by the Family and the ones that appeared when she got that stupid spell wrong.]
I was under the impression we ended up here because of a quirk in the make up of the universe that pulled us here indiscriminately.
[A pause and then a tentative offering:]
I was the intended messiah of a fallen city. It was a role forced on me, that I rejected, but it has left it's marks.
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[One can rest assured that she plans to ferret it out, though, if there's any way possible that Yotsuyu can do so...
Eleanor's next statement gives Yotsuyu some pause. She does give a look of something like concern at the girl.]
A messiah. That sounds uncomfortable, even if you had been willing. [Everyone on Hydaelyn had heard of the Warrior of Light, after all, and the things she'd done to them hadn't been comfortable. Well, not for them, at least. ]
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[And that was all she wished to say on the matter for the moment. The telling had been one made as sort of an exchange in return for the Viceroy bit Yotsuyu had been reluctant to speak of. If there was more to say, there'd need to be a reason to do so.
However that other comment did merit further questioning.]
Cheat death? Are you certain you were dead or just on the cusp of it?
[If it could cheat death than perhaps there was a chance for her Father to come here. Or be brought here. But would he want that? He'd chosen to die, but his body was failing him. If it had not been, would he have done the same?]
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[At least to judge by her tone of voice, she's convinced of that. But there isn't a great deal of sorrow at the thought. She knew she had done things that folk considered horrible. And only because of some desire to get back at them...]
I do hope I was on the cusp, though, as you say. There are people I know are dead, whom I would honestly not like to see here. They do not deserve a second chance, any of them! If there is a hell, I hope they are there!
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Still, I have wondered if that was a thing that might be real. I'm certain I'm likely to go as well if there is.
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[Eleanor just earns a small, puzzled look at the clearly properly named Family, though she doesn't inquire further.
I was an orphan, and those who took me in were little better than slave masters, so harsh it may be, but I cannot pity them.
As I've said, I'm uncertain the tales of hell or hells are real...but I suppose if they are, I shall be in good company.
[ Eleanor earns herself a small smile, and Yotsuyu brushes her shoulder briefly with her own.] Though I shall hope they are only tales!