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

[outofyourshadow]

Lena just happened to be brushing back the hair still sticking to her face when she spoke again, and this time she gave her a flat look.

"Sorry, you know about me how?" The response came out more snappish than she had intended, but with everything that had happened to her back home, along with being soaked and freezing after being dragged here left her in a less-than-stellar mood.

[bridge_princess]

Parsee smirked and then shrugged. "I don't, though I know I wish I had feathers right about now." Really, she could always find a reason to wish she was someone else. "All I know is I'm soaked and want to get warm again. Might as well use this place for what it's worth." She wasn't really the apologetic sort, not naturally. Still, she'd stop poking fun. She was never very good at it.

"There's probably a fireplace in here somewhere." God, she hoped there was.

[outofyourshadow]

If anything, her frown tightened. "FYI, I'm still dripping wet and cold too. Whatever help you think my feathers are, you'd be wrong."

Especially since all she had on was a thin sweater and a shirt.

"If this place is so magic, why can't they just poof us dry or something?"

That wasn't really how it worked and she knew it, but she was going to complain anyway.

[bridge_princess]

She snorted, which was basically an acknowledgment that Lena was clearly right, about both things. She didn't feel like admitting more than that. "You would think they could. But we're probably not important enough for that. I know I'm not, so let's find a fireplace." She was already starting to move figuring Lena'd join her, or she'd come to her senses and head somewhere else to warm up. Either worked for her.

[outofyourshadow]

She responded with a scoff of her own, following her to find someplace to warm up. "Yeah. I'm not exactly high-class society myself."

[bridge_princess]

"Well, I guess that makes two of us. Couple gutter trash in their pretty little halls," Parsee said, making her way straight for where she heard the crackling of fire. It didn't take long to find the place, thankfully bereft of other people. One person was almost always enough for her to handle.

"It's almost nice to know I'm not the only one who won't fit in this perfect little world of theirs."

[outofyourshadow]

She took a seat in front of the fire, the warmth spreading over her already doing wonders for her mood.

"No kidding. I guess this school doesn't mind riffraff."

[bridge_princess]

The warmth wasn't really improving Parsee's mood, but it also wasn't dampening it further. It took a lot for her to be in a good mood, after all. She did, however, chuckle. "They're going to regret it. But before they do, at least there's supposed to be a cafeteria, right?"

Three square meals a day didn't sound awful.

[outofyourshadow]

"There better be. If not, I'm issuing a lot of complaints."

[bridge_princess]

"Hah, as if complaints ever did much good. I live my life giving them," she said, her lips pulled back in a tired old smile. Her whole life was a string of complaints for as long as she could remember. "But who knows? We'll probably come up with something to complain about eventually. Maybe they'll even listen to you. Wouldn't hold my breath."

Oddly, having other things to focus her constant bitterness on made it easier to almost be a normal conversationalist. She watched the flames quietly. They really were soothing for contemplation.

[outofyourshadow]

She shrugged. "If they don't listen, we just gotta complain louder."

Honestly, she knew that complaining wouldn't really help anything. But even joking around about it made her feel a bit better.

[bridge_princess]

"Or make them listen. There's always a way, heh," she said oh so casually. She was all talk without her powers, so in her mind was the youkai equivalent of leaving a flaming bag of crap on someone's doorstep but it warmed the dark depths of her heart a little bit as she smirked and stared into the flames.

"So, I'm curious. Most people ducks where you come from?" Most of them looked more or less like her back home, so she was admittedly a little interested. Lena was definitely different by her standards.

[outofyourshadow]

She snickered a little. "Definitely. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding what the higher-ups will listen to."

With a sigh, she stretched out her legs to get more comfortable.

"Pretty much, especially the place I was living. There are others, like dog people and cat people, but in a place called Duckburg, you'd figure most of the inhabitants are ducks."

[bridge_princess]

"Duckburg? That's one hell of a name for a town." She idly wondered if anyone'd ever actually called a town 'Human Villag...' Oh right. They totally did that back home, didn't they? She actually chuckled and shook her head. "It's better sounding than 'That Human Village.' But I never actually went over there. Yukari didn't need bad influences getting into town."

Neither did Keine, who protected the village from people like her. She didn't fault them, though sometimes she just wanted to make that whole town seethingly jealous and watch it explode.

[outofyourshadow]

She glanced at her companion, then back towards the fire.

"We don't really have humans where I'm from. I mean, we have people, which is why I'm different than a duck you'd feed breadcrumbs to. But nothing like what you look like."

[bridge_princess]

"Ah, I guess that sort of explains it. You're basically the different sorts of people in your world," she said. "Most of the folks in mine are humans, not youkai like me. They look a little like us, but nothing like the ears and such."

As an explanation, she reached up and brushed aside a lock of dirty blonde hair, showing the short, pointed ears. "I... used to be one, but that was a long time ago."

[outofyourshadow]

She tilted her head curiously. "Youkai? Like, Japanese demon youkai?"

She was more curious than anything, familiar with the word from what she had access of Magica's magical knowledge.

"So you're...not anymore?"

[bridge_princess]

Blink blink. Wait? She'd heard of youkai? Almost nobody even believed in them other than old stories anymore. A lot hadn't even heard of them in the first place. That lack of belief had been why the youkai had fled into Gensokyo and the valley had been sealed away. It was safer that way.

"Yeah... I'm a Hashihime," she said, cocking her head. If Magica's stuff had been thorough about the types of japanese demons, she might know that it translated to 'bridge princess,' a guardian spirit of long bridges over water known for vicious jealousy. "I stopped being human ... I've lost track of how long ago. So, you know about us eh?"

[outofyourshadow]

She wasn't as familiar with the term Hashihime as she was with Youkai, but she figured it still meant something more than ordinary person.

"Well...yeah, I mean a little bit. I've heard about them here and there."

She didn't want to admit that she only knew about them thanks to being involved with dark magic.

[bridge_princess]

Who was she to judge? Other than finding excuses to be envious in the process that is. "There's a lot of different sorts. The worst of the worst stayed down where I used to live. The sort that didn't fit in above ground anymore. Perfect place to just forget us while we bug each other heh."