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

[talkyourwayout]

Oh, no. She'd just been zapped by Magica? That meant she didn't know - Great. How did he break something like this to someone? Huey should be the one having this conversation, or - duh - Webby. Definitely Webby.

Man...

"Yeah... That was really brave of you."

[outofyourshadow]

Another shrug, and this time she was resolutely not looking at him.

"Figured it was the least I could do for helping her get that far in the first place."

Especially since Magica had been aiming to hurt the one person who actually cared about her.

[talkyourwayout]

Louie hesitated. Lena wasn't wrong, exactly. She'd messed up, but things had ended up okay, and she'd saved Webby's life.

Besides, if Webby could (more than) forgive her friend? Louie figured he had no right to hold anything against her.

"I guess. Still, can't really imagine if I'd been in your place."

[outofyourshadow]

She snorted, and despite her best efforts it still sounded slightly bitter. "Just be glad you'll probably never have to."

Unless he was also the shadow of one of Scrooge's greatest enemies.

[talkyourwayout]

"...Yeah."

This was going just great. God, he'd probably be better off handing this conversation over to Uncle Donald, if he could.

"So, is Magica still with you here, or like...?"

[outofyourshadow]

She shook her head.

"Nah. Seems like whatever was connecting me to her was severed by coming here...so there's that, at least."

So on the one hand, she was at least away from Magica, free like she'd always wanted to be. On the other...

"...Is Webby okay?"

[talkyourwayout]

"Oh! That's good."

And, if he was being honest, a huge relief. He didn't need to go through another Shadow War. But her question gave him pause. Webby was okay, yes - safe and moved past the War in so many ways... But she missed Lena. So even though he'd had no real choice in being here instead of her, he found himself feeling kind of guilty about it.

Guilt was not something a conman usually let himself feel. The sensation was totally gross, really.

"Yeah," he finally answered, nodding just once. "Webby's okay."

[outofyourshadow]

She released a breath that she didn't know she was holding. "That's...That's good," she replied, and despite feeling a bit conflicted, that did bring a small smile to her face.

She knew when she tried to stop Magica that she wouldn't be able to overpower her in the slightest. What she had done had just been enough to buy Webby and the others some time. So the fact that she had been able to make a difference at all, and that Webby was safe in the end, helped her feel a bit better.

...a bit.

[talkyourwayout]

Louie nodded again, and then fell silent for another long moment. As awful and uncomfortable as the conversation - the situation itself - was, it was good to see her with a smile, even such a little one.

He'd liked Lena. He'd found her kind of weird, at first, sure. He was fairly comfortable saying his brothers had, too. But she'd turned out to be really cool. And - to his surprise - every bit as noble as Webby had always called her. She was a better friend to Webs than he was able to be, he figured.

The silence was driving him nuts; giving him too much room to think.

"So, being forced to learn magic. That's a pain, right?"

[outofyourshadow]

He was rewarded with a more genuine laugh. This, at least, gave her something easier to talk about.

As long as they stayed clear of where her original magic came from.

"Oh, you have no idea. I can't believe there's actually a school for something like that."

[talkyourwayout]

"I know, it's so weird," Louie said. "I wonder if the whole 'magic build-up' thing wasn't an accident at all. I mean, can you imagine anyone wanting to learn extra stuff?" A beat, and then he added, "Besides Huey. Huey would love this."

[outofyourshadow]

"No kidding. It was probably programmed in the spell to make sure that no one used it, to keep it all forbidden."

And yet, here they were.

She snickered again. "Dewey too, at least until the first day of class."

[talkyourwayout]

“Yeah, you’re right - he’d be so excited to become a great magician, or whatever, until he realized it required studying,” Louie laughed, shaking his head. “Not that I want to spend a bunch of time in a classroom. You know, Uncle Scrooge writes notes to get us out of class for adventures all the time. It’s the second-best thing about adventuring.”

Besides treasure, of course.

“Not that Uncle Donald knows that, though. Man, he would be angrier than usual if he did.”

[outofyourshadow]

"Oh yeah? I'm kinda surprise he doesn't just hire you guys tutors or something that can travel with you on those trips."

Except she's not really, given what she knew of Scrooge.

[talkyourwayout]

Louie smirked. “There are times when his cheapness is actually a good thing,” he admitted.

Louie was smart, but he wasn’t the best student. Sure, he tested pretty well - even though his only studying often came in the form of Huey forcing him and Dewey into short-lived and halfhearted review sessions - but he rarely did homework. Classwork was a coin toss, too. He just always got so bored.

[outofyourshadow]

She snickered again. "I bet. And I'm guessing Beakley isn't up for tutoring all three of you, either."

Webby had been pretty much home-schooled all her life, so it wasn't like Beakley couldn't tech them.

[talkyourwayout]

"Yeah, she is 'a housekeeper, not a schoolteacher!'," Louie explains, complete with an awful attempt at an English accent. He chuckles, then shrugs.

"And I mean, I love Webby, but I'm sure she's already a handful to teach, you know?"

[outofyourshadow]

She laughed softly. "It probably helped that Webby most likely ate up all that stuff. Beakley probably wouldn't have a problem tutoring Huey or something."

[talkyourwayout]

"You're probably right," Louie admitted. "Also, I think Huey can find a way to learn from anything. I think, like, a twig could teach him."

[outofyourshadow]

She snickered. "I know they say you can learn from anywhere, but that might be pushing it."

[talkyourwayout]

"You are underestimating my brother," Louie said, deciding that he could be a little proud and boastful. It wasn't like Huey was here to know what he was saying, after all. "Seriously, sometimes he just licks stuff and can figure things out about it."