Fire and Magia

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

We all head to the unlabeled building, to see what we can find out. Inside is an ornate lobby, and steps up to several doors. The boys check out the sides, and find other doors that lead to spiral staircases. Heading up one side, we find another hallway and small lounge. The hallway has several red curtained alcoves, and when we investigate, we discover that we’re in a large theatre. This top level has private boxes behind the curtains.

Looking down, we notice that the stage has a large chalk circle and an
large empty metal basin. Remy takes a look and says it is for wizard duels. The boys look around the other booths as I head down to the stage for a closer look. The chalk circle is really runes, and Dalish says they’re for binding, containing, uniting.

Backstage is pretty standard theatre stuff. Nat and Dalish find stairs down to changing rooms and prep areas for the stage. I head up to the main balcony while they look downstairs. When Nat leaves the stage we all hear a voice. “Hello. Make me laugh.”

The boys take turns telling jokes and getting boo-ed off the stage. The stage doesn’t respond to me, no surprise, so I head downstairs and use the make-up to leave silly messages on the mirrors. By the time I make it back upstairs, Nat has gotten a new spell. Something about Hideous Laughter. The rest of them give up.

As we start to head out, Professor Weest and the Groundskeeper come inside. They say they have to get ready for tonight. The boys all have questions about how they get all that mana here, and they remind us about our lesson in mana physics. Then they tell us we are allowed, but should not come to the duel tonight.

We hurry back to dinner and I warn Maribeth that adult wizards are coming to campus tonight. Remy and Gerhardt decide to go to the duel.

Nat and I head outside of campus to look around again. Dalish heads up to the observatory. Nat and I check the area we think they send the mana over the wall to, it’s full of run-down and abandoned buildings. The opposite side is populated and full of people. There doesn’t seem to be an area where mana could fly over unseen, so we head back around.

Nat and I find a nice tall building where we can watch unseen. It’s not a great building, but it should be safe. I climb up to the 3rd floor pretty easily, but Nat falls a few times. We find a front window to watch the wall. Klyce shows up around midnight, and I send him a message to tell him where we are. He acknowledges and stays at street level.

Eventually, three men walk by and slip into a building just a few doors down. I let Klyce know and he heads over to investigate. Unfortunately, something catches his foot and he falls noisily to the ground right in front of their hiding place. A man comes out and Klyce pretends to be crazy, rolling around in garbage. The man yells at him and pulls out a gun! Klyce charges him and gets shot! Oh NO! I have to help! I have to… throw a rock… I…

Another shot, and a fog bank appears. There is shouting and running, but we stay put. I stare at… BOOM!!! Nat is shouting at me, there’s fire, we have to go. Nat tells me to jump out the window, with a small push, I do. He follows and we float down to the ground like a dream. Am I flying? Am I dead? Why is everything on fire? What happened?

Nat pulls me away and we go to the school gate. There’s blood here. Klyce. Klyce was bleeding. Klyce got shot, but he made it back inside. He’ll be alright. Nat rings the bell next to the gate and a servire arrives.

“No. Nope. I don’t want in that bad.” I tell Nat and turn to walk away.

“Sorry, wrong door.” Nat tells the creepy little thing and follows me.

I take Nat back to my home and up to the loft in the stable again. The stableboy is sleeping and doesn’t notice us. Nat shares a secret before we both go to sleep.

The next morning we head back to school. Finding Dalish, Remy, and Gerhardt, we tell them what happened. Nat says one of the men had an M tattoo. The fire spread wide on that side of the school, and 50 people died! The news thanks the professors and the fire brigade for stopping it from going even further. They don’t know what caused it yet. The boys go looking for news of the M, and I go up to the dorm to study.

Maribeth actually comes over and sits with me in the common room. I message her about last night. The fire and the dead. Maybe they’ll stop now. We sit and study together for the rest of the day.

At breakfast, Monday morning, Dalish and Klyce tell everyone about the Maggia – a crime syndicate. We all decide to stop investigating. This is way more than we should be dealing with. We have to protect our families. But if Malden asks for help, inside the school, some of us still might. Maybe.

Ghosts, Corpses, and Maribeth

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

On Saturday, we get up early again, and I help a few of the gang out with the obstacle course so a few more of them can get the Jump spell. Nat manages to run it fast enough to get Expeditious Retreat, as well. Then he and I go check the Lost and Found. There are a lot less notices, now. Looks like Malden found the stuff in the tunnels and gave it back.

Nat, Dalish, and I go down to check on the secret room in the tunnels, but it’s gone. Dalish notices some trace magic around the area that lead to it, but nothing left. Nat wants to start mapping the tunnels, so I suggest we find the entrances to all the other buildings so we can get around without getting caught by the groundskeeper. We find our way to the Main Hall and come out in that weird hall of doors by the kitchen.

That evening, we decide to stake out the deal. Nat, Remy, and I wait in the foyer, while Dalish goes up to the Astronomy tower. When three hooded figures come down, Remy tries to ‘bump’ into them, and they put him to sleep. Nat gets mad and starts yelling at them, trying to yank one of their hoods down, but his hand goes right through. Then we both fall asleep, too. Dalish is there when we wake up. He says they went out and came back, just like before, but from the tower he couldn’t see more than that. We convince Nat to talk to Malden in Philosophy, since he’s the only one in the class.

We take a trip to the infirmary. Then things got really strange. Everyone started talking to mirrors name Nurse Honey, and Maribeth handed coins to nothing. I go look in the mirror and see a strange statue, too weird! Remy then started talking to a ghost named Barry, who answered him back, but was very sad. This is so boring! So I start making strange noises around the room and flickering the torches. Then Maribeth turns herself into a sexy nurse lady! If that wasn’t strange enough, Dalish starts casting sickness spells at people, and this ghost nurse heals them and gives them spells. Remy starts thinking about casting Shocking Grasp on people to see what they could learn, and Raltus kicks us out for the day.

We decide to go to the Library to look for history books. Dalish wants to know about Nurse Honey, I want to know about Grumpkins. All the books here are boring and dry though. Nothing about the history of the school, and fairies are just stories. We give up after a while and go back to studying for the week to come.

Nat fills us in his meeting with Malden in Philosophy. He told him everything, and Malden believed him! Malden thinks we’re in danger and we should be careful, but keep looking. Nat says they might have been followed when he took him out to the trade spot, so we decide to all stick together.

Malden starts teaching the others Detect Magic. Maribeth hasn’t spoken to me since Thursday night. I cast Message and ask what’s wrong, but she won’t say. Just that she can’t be around us anymore. In P.E., Remy says he snuck into Maribeth’s room, but doesn’t find anything. He says he got a letter from home with ashes in it. Whoever is behind this burned down their outhouse. Nat offers to go talk to Maribeth, and I tell him to be nice. He, however, turns and runs straight at her, and she falls down and goes limping off to the infirmary instead of talking. NAT!!! I message her an apology.

We decide to take Remy’s letter to Professor Alleria, the divination teacher. She says an Unseen Servant wrote it, so there’s nothing else she can tell. She instructs Nat to practice using his unseen eye.

Worried that the thieves have changed their plans because of last weekend, we decide to keep watch on Friday, just in case. Nat dresses me in some of his old clothes, so I’ll fit in outside the school wall. Then he and I go around the houses and taverns near the school to look for any suspicious activity. When it gets pretty late, we try to get back in, but the gates are closed, so we sneak off to my house and sleep in the stables’ hayloft.

When we get back in the morning, Dalish says he and Malden watched from the tower, and Remy from the lobby, but no one saw anything. We’ll have to try again tonight.

Mana Smuggling

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

That was crazy and we are all hurt and exhausted. Several of the guys have overcharged repeatedly. We take turns watching the tunnel and sleep for what we hope is the night. Gerhardt sets up an alarm spell to warn us, but nothing comes. Eventually we all, including James, wake up.

He doesn’t remember anything, though. Not getting kidnapped, not being down here, nothing. Some of the guys take things from the piles and piles of stolen objects. Dalish checks his drawings, to try to show one to James, but the pages are blank. So, from memory, he redraws the creature and the circle. James still doesn’t remember, and we head out, it’s almost breakfast time.

Nothing attacks us as we make our way up to Professor Raltis in the Nursing station. Raltis asks what happened and we try to explain, but he doesn’t believe us one bit. Especially when he calls some Survyers and they go look and don’t find the tunnel. I don’t trust those things one bit.

At Fundaments class, Dalish tries again with Professor Malten. He has to redraw the creature, again, and Malten says it’s a Grumpkin, a fairytale creature. He keeps explaining and has to draw the circle again, too. When he tells him about the mist monsters, and I speak the language to him, he starts to really believe us. He says they were probably manifestations of mana with a conjuration spell. He says it is highly unusual and we shouldn’t talk about it with other people. Nat draws him a map to the place we found and we move on.

Today, we learn more about the properties of mana. Turns out it only has the mass you expect it to – mana is entirely reactive to the mages near it or in possession of it. Mana subscribes to consensus reality, its only qualities are change and impermanence. Today, I learn that I can, in fact, take control of mana, even though I can’t use it. That could come in very handy.

<time passes> We keep working on spells. I practice Catapulting sanctuary balls. Klyce organizes spell scavenger hunts. I convince Nat and Maribeth to come out to a nice lunch on the first weekend. Nat has a minor meltdown about betraying his family for magic. Seems he’s being pulled away from their traditional necormancy into divination type spells. Not sure why this is Our fault, he’s the one with the talent. </time passes>

One afternoon, we head to a lavatory to look for spells as a group. First we try turning on all the hot faucets, which fogs up the mirrors. Dalish really wants to learn Fog Cloud, and notices the fogged up mirrors say we should go to the obstacle course before dawn. The boys all decide to flush all the toilets at once to see what happens. Dalish casts detect magic and sees a spell trying to happen, but it’s incomplete. One of them passes gas, and it helps, but not enough. So Klyce orders everyone to go eat beans for dinner and come back.

This increase in gas does make Stinking Cloud appear on the stall doors. Luckily, I’ve stayed at the door as lookout while they do this since I can’t learn spells this way. Then they all use the toilets and flush and get an even stranger reaction. The bottom of the toilets became black holes. Nat drops a light down his and sees nothing. Klyce sticks his hand in, and it just feels cold and empty, so he jumps in. They all get Rope Trick and Deep Pockets. So unfair! I wanted to be a mage more than most of them. I got magic, but not the right kind!

The next morning we all get up with Klyce and head out to the obstacle course and start looking around. Dalish looks for magic and noticing it following Klyce as he actually runs the course. When he finishes he sees spells and tells everyone else to run it, too. We all do, and they all get Fog Cloud. Those that run it fast get Jump, as well. I already have that one, at least, though I fall repeatedly and see no spells when I get to the end.

A few days later, Dalish gathers the group and tells us that James heard rumors about ilicit dealings and Upperclassmen and Philomena and Garrett. He says the next drop is Saturday. We discuss following them and staking out the deal. Some are worried about getting caught. Would they attack us? This doesn’t seem a place that would care if a couple first years got killed.

Wait, what? Remy says he’s okay with killing people in self-defense. WHAT? No! I’m Not Killing anyone! Klyce cuts him off and says we’re not killing anyone, if we are spotted, we run. Maribeth says she won’t be involved, she can’t be involved. I’m okay with that, I’m not sure I want to be, only I really don’t like Philomena. Klyce and Remy, however, keep pushing and won’t let it drop. Maribeth says that her family has business dealing with their families, so she can’t be involved in anything that might get them in trouble. They finally leave her alone.

On Saturday, we stake out locations and wait. I watch them leave the main building and call everyone else. We follow them down the forest line and watch from a distance while they wait at the wall. Remy sends his little lizard to sneak up on them and listen in. It is quite a while before some larger figures approach. Three students? and two survyers. The people give over a vial to the creepy things and they go away. A signpost suddenly appears on the lawn where the students stop, then four jugs, which get catapulted over the wall. A crossbow bolt then hits the sign with something wrapped around it. They take it and go back to the school. Philomena and Garrett wait a bit then sneak back, too. We wait a bit longer and then head back ourselves.

Now what?? Do we tell someone? Professor Malten? We have no proof, we don’t even know who they are. What if we watch the fountain for someone taking large amounts? I wonder if there’s a safer place to spy from, but none of the school buildings have a view of where the jugs are tossed from. Remy wants to ask hypothetical questions about stealing and selling mana, but most of us think it’ll make us look guilty. We all agree to keep an eye on Philomena, Garrett, and the people they talk to, as well as the mana pool.

Finding James

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

The night finished up with everyone attempting their overcharge homework. Well, almost everyone. A couple of the boys go down to Lost and Found to learn the Locate spell Dalish had picked up, but I just go to bed so I can get up early the next morning to look for Daffodils around campus.

Classes, so exciting on the first day, have somehow become routine in just a few days. Everyone but me gets to practice taking control of Mana in Fundaments class while I take notes to see how to distract a Wizard trying to do so. Math is something I can at least learn and understand.

At lunch, we discuss James some more and decide to go looking for Daffodils in the forest. Dalish finds a dead one before we have to hurry back for afternoon classes. History continues to be strange, and I just keep my head down. In P.E. we take a break from the Game, and do the obstacle course and then run laps. I actually come in 2nd of our class at 13 minutes 30 seconds – only Klyce beats me, and not by much.

We’ve got some time before dinner, so the guys start overcharging to cast Locate Object on the notebook Dalish gave to James. They fall unconscious a lot, but keep at it, heading out to the Fountain whenever they wake up. Seems Remy and Dalish can’t cast this type of spell. But Gerhardt and Nat lead us out into the courtyard and say it’s down below us. So, Nat runs back to his room for a shovel and we start digging until the Serviers show up and scold us for digging up the courtyard.

Nat manages to get them talking. They say it smells of Daffodils, but it goes deep, too deep for boys and girls. (Why are they SO Creepy???) They mention the Undercroft and Catacombs are off-limits to underclassmen. And then get stuck on that and won’t tell us more.

So we head off to the library to look for maps and histories of this place. The only maps we find don’t have the underground areas, and the only history we find was that this used to be tenements. Nat tries an overcharge on other missing items, and it still points to the same spot. So we start searching around and MaryBeth and I find a secret door in the Library that goes downstairs.

We all head down together. Nat and Dalish hear Serviers whispering ahead. They’re talking about James, they’ve actually been sent to find him. (Oh, Good, can we go now? No? Alright.) They’re coming our way so we have to hide. Somehow they don’t see us and we keep going.

There is tapping on the pipes, so MaryBeth taps back (hoping it’s James?). I start hearing voices talking about fun. Then mist creatures jump out and attack us. I shout at them that this is Not Fun, but they don’t listen. We disperse two and one runs, but the last to disperse calls for help. So we run, and Nat tries another Locate Object to guide us. More mist monsters come running after us, so we hide again. (MaryBeth is really good at illusions.) Two stay to investigate the area we’re hiding in, so we have to smash them and dive down a small tunnel Nat found.

Eventually we get to the end of the tunnel, and I hear something ahead. He’s talking about blood and shiny things and being trapped. When we finally make it out of the tunnel, we find a room full of huge piles of stuff. This guy must have been stealing stuff for a Very Long Time. We sneak forward together, and find James in the center of a Ritual Circle with a small purple-grey, slimy creature.

We attack. I push James out of the circle while Nat tries to mess up the symbols. The weird creature disappears. MaryBeth and I try to take care of James while everyone else pairs off to search the piles for the creature or another way out so we don’t have to go back through the mist monsters. There’s a lot of sticky goo and slippery spots around the room and the slimy creature keeps popping out of the piles and attacking us. Until Klyce manages to grab him and they all bombard him with spells. He melts away and the Ritual Circle fades.

What Was That? What are we doing? We’re just kids, why are we fighting strange monsters in the sewers? This is not at All what I thought magic school would be like! Did we just Kill something??? Lots of somethings?? We’re killing things now??? What IS this Place? And why am I now an even bigger freak because I could understand them all? How do I understand them??

Breathe, Tristia, we still have to get out of here.

James is Missing

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

At dinner, Dalish notices that his shadow, James isn’t there anymore. That’s weird, he’s Always around Dalish. So, we decide to go look for him. He isn’t in the dorm, or anywhere between class and the dining hall. We head out to the lake where he and Dalish had been studying the night before, but no one is there.

I suggest we go ask a teacher, and we find a staircase by the dining hall that has a sign for the Teacher’s Lounge. We all head up, and Professor Malden answers the door. He says that students often get overwhelmed here, and that the staff doesn’t go looking for two or three days! But if we’re worried we should go check the Lost and Found.

Our class never did get a tour of the grounds, so we don’t know where that is. Nat, MaryBeth, Remmy, and I decide that we should go try and get lost, so we can be found. This is a weird school, maybe it will work, or maybe James got lost and we’ll find him. Dalish and Gerhardt decide to look around the buildings for a sign that says Lost and Found, how boring.

We go walk deep into the woods for awhile. MaryBeth is worried about being late to Astronomy class, so we turn back around. Nat says he knows the way, so we all follow him. Before we make it out though, Remmy starts seeing things, shadows or fairies or something. Who believes in Fairies? Nat, apparently.

The groundskeeper finds us though, before Remmy can start chasing things that don’t exist. I guess we’re not allowed to be out on the grounds after dark, so he takes us all back towards dorms. Dalish and Gerhardt tell us they found the Lost and Found, and a lot of things have gone missing, and they might have found a spell that could help. The others all have class, so I study a bit and go to bed.

Fundaments of Magic class is late again. This time Professor Malden brings in a cart and several jugs of mana. Mana, he tells us, is the essential material needed to cast Magic, but I don’t need it. He calls me to the front of the class and tells me to drink one of the jugs. This seems wasteful to me, but I do it anyway. My classmates’ eyes all bug out watching me. Then Professor Malden tells them how dangerous I am and that I’m in danger, too. Wait, what??

People I don’t even know, people I’ve never me, he says, will come after me. Will want to take me and study me. They’ll want to know what makes my magic work, and they might even want to Use me! Nonono, I just… I just wanted to do magic. Back at my seat, I notice he’s talking again.

Mana puts a limiter on Magicians. You have to think carefully about how you use it. Then he talks about possessing the mana. How a lot of people drink it, but that isn’t necessary. Ownership is all they need.

He calls Remmy and Dalish to the front and tells them to take ownership of, without touching, the mana. Dalish manages it pretty easily, but Remmy gets frustrated and sets it all on Fire! Dalish wills the fire to go out, and it does! How am I the dangerous one? Mana is volatile, Malden warns us, and doesn’t like being disrupted.

MaryBeth asks about using emotions, rather than Will to control mana. Or using mana as a weapon. Professor Malden says both of these are possible, but inefficient. He demonstrates manipulating the mana itself, turning it into a gas, a solid, and a liquid.

He has everyone else work on taking ownership of the mana until they are all out of spells. Then he talks about Overcharging, which is, I guess, what everyone thought he was having me do at the start of class. Taking in too much mana. This is dangerous, too, and makes you pass out after a minute, if not immediately. This is their homework, Overcharge, without killing themselves, to see how well they can handle it. I’m supposed to see how much magic I can do in a day, test my limits.

The rest of classes go as expected, but James never does turn up. Klyce banters with the professor in History. MaryBeth has strange questions about efficiency of magic and mana, so I send her to Professor Mast. Then I finally get to go to P.E. but I don’t get to see Oliver. We make a plan about digging foxholes to protect against ranged magic, but when I run out to grab the ball, I get knocked down immediately and am unconscious for the rest of class.

Afterwards, we go looking for James again. I go to the Philosophy classroom and ask everyone coming out if they’ve seen James since class ended yesterday, but no one has. MaryBeth, Klyce and I go talk to the stablehands. Well, Klyce talks to them mostly, and they suggest the kitchens. So we go find the Kitchens. The weird servitors here aren’t Quite as freaky as the ones in the stables. They say food has gone missing, and there are strange smells of Daffodils and Slime.

We gather up again and go talk to Triplehorn, the Transmutation professor. Dalish tried to do Locate Object, but it didn’t work for him. Triplehorn wants to help us, but the Dean says he’s not allowed for a couple more days. Then he tells us you Can memorize spells you aren’t strong enough to cast, but that very few wizards can manage Divination spells. So, we go off to Dinner to plan what to do next.