Test Drive #1

[magicademymods]

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.

Comments

[darkenedmoon]

Perhaps, but considering where I at least had thought I was before I was pulled here...interesting that this quirk can even cheat death its due. If that is what truly happened. And I have heard that their magick had something to do with it...though not precisely what.

[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. ]

[utopiae]

It was.

[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?]

[darkenedmoon]

I remember the events at Castrum Fluminis, and then darkness. I am fairly sure I was dead, though there is a chance I was not, because I am fairly certain I deserved to go to hell. And there was no hell I knew of, there.

[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!

[utopiae]

Does your world have a hell? In mine, people have spoken of it, but it's considered much the same as a fairy tale or myth. At least by most of the Family. Some used to believe in a God, but their worship turned to another.

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.

[darkenedmoon]

As with yours, there are tales of hell. Plural. Seven hells, though why the kami felt the need for more than one, I could not tell you. I have not seen or heard of proper demons, and with those they call voidsent, one would presume they are sent from the void, yes?

[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!