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[hops]

[X] No, you can do this. You just didn't think hard enough, that's all. Try again. Cast Conjure Smoke.

[crazyabe]

[X] No, you can do this. You just didn't think hard enough, that's all. Try again. Cast Conjure Smoke.

+1.

[Sl4cker]

You stretch your fingers out, gently at first, then slowly increasing in intensity as it remains devoid of smoke. Eventually, you contract your fingers so rigidly and painfully your entire arm begins to shiver - and you're not sure about the reason for that.

Engrossed in your encore act as you are, mind so vehemently, so violently set on doing anything at all other than make you look like a desperate fool, you don't notice or resist when you suddenly find yourself dangling from the ceiling, suspended by your foot. You've been ensnared in a softly glowing rope. You stare at the goose lady, finding her wing stretched out and holding a tarot card inscribed with an image - a man hanging from a tree. Unlike you, however, the person in the picture seems quite fine with his current state of affairs.

"I told you, that's enough," comes Solissi's firm reprimand, the image on her tarot card slowly fading from view until it's nothing more than a blank piece of cardboard. The avian shuffles it back into her deck all the same, however. "As much as you may try, you cannot pursue illusionism. It's simply impossible." She turns away, eyes closing. "Granted," she speaks a little softer this time, "if you were to continue to attempt to cast, you'd eventually cast from your own lifespan, albeit accidentally." She places the deck of tarot back into her dress. "But throwing your life away for a cheap party trick? You wouldn't dare, would you?"

You make an attempt to reply, but you find that your tongue seems to be frozen in your mouth.

"Ah," she says, "The Hanged Man also mutes the target. Just shake your head."

You shake your head no.

"Good." The goose lady seems satisfied, if still carrying that look of pity. She waggles a pinion in your direction and you suddenly fall on the ground with a quiet yelp of pain. At least your blood isn't flowing into your brain now.

"Just... " Solissi sighs. "You're really passionate, and to be honest it's a real shame you don't have the capability. But..."

"But...?" you ask, moving into a fetal position on the floor and staring up at Solissi. Please don't kick me out, you think.

"... You have to face reality. Find a new interest. Illusionism isn't the only trick up your sleeve, right? I'm sure you can make it work, Bakkla."

"Also, even with your situation, it's Tori's job as your tutor to take care for you financially until you can find a stable living. If she can't teach you, she'll be your guardian." She begins walking back into the kitchen to finish up her sorting. "Which means I'll be your guardian too. And don't worry about being a bother - she took up the job and I bought the ring, so."

You gulp, hands firmly on your knees and clenching on your pants so that you don't try to cast again. Using your lifespan as magic fuel sounds scary. You muse a little about what she could mean about illusionism not being your only trick. You blink as you hear the sound of Solissi's shoes tapping up the spiral staircase. "It was nice meeting you, Bakkla."

[ ] Wait for Torielle to come back. You ought to wait until your situation stabilizes before making any decisions.
[ ] Maybe try casting from life just once. Something as small as Conjure Smoke shouldn't be too hard on your health.
[ ] You could try to find a bookshelf again, maybe start formulating ideas.
- [ ] You could search for a specific genre, as well. (Write-in)
[ ] Cry.
[ ] Do something else. (Write-in)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)

2x bottle of water
Empty mug of ale
Half-finished cup of tea
Dirty clothes (Worn)
Cheap backpack (Worn)

[FallacyofUrist]

[X] Introspect. She had to mean something by that, you just don't know what yet. Try to figure it out by understanding yourself.

[VoidSlayer]

Cry

We can sort out the rest later.

[hops]

Cry

We can sort out the rest later.

+1 So long as there's some privacy of course.

[Sl4cker]

You take a moment to cry.

You set yourself down on the bench that feels more like a soft couch than a bench and move into a sideways fetal position. Your dirty clothes look out of place in this seemingly immaculate house. You look out of place in this seemingly immaculate house, a young adult with a hazy future and a web of tears dancing down his cheeks like wet paint.

You were always a silent crier in your childhood. You only cried loudly once, and when that happened you were beat by your matron and had your meagre lunch of stale soup taken away. After that, crying silently was a necessity to survival.

John wasn't a silent crier. Not really. You never saw him intentionally sob in front of you, but on quiet evenings, when you were on the other side of the city for once (mail or whatever), you could find him staring over the wall of the city. His hair, long and flowing, would always be disheveled. He combed it only once every morning, and by night, when it was only illuminated by torchlight and magic lamps, would be mussed up and covered in dirt, filth, and, rarely, blood.

He would rarely be crying seated on his orphanage's front porch like this. But when he was, the scene seemingly struck your chest like an arrow. He let the tears flow freely, not like how you're doing now. He wailed and sniveled and squeaked like an injured rat nursing it's wounds.

You still don't know the reason for it. But you never pried, and were never caught.

"Erm?"

You scramble to sit up, blinking away the last few rivulets of tears from your eyelids. Solissi is back, this time with a much more casual dress than before. Still, the frills seem a little much for simply lounging around the house. She takes a few quiet steps towards you.

"Were you crying?"

You look away, ashamed. It was obvious you're crying. There's a puddle of tears on the floor. You hear the soft sound of the couch creasing and the touch of a feathered wing on your shoulder. You're both silent.

[ ] "... I'm scared."
[ ] "... I want to be an illusionist."
[ ] "... I'll be okay."
[ ] Don't break the silence. Just wait for Torielle.
[ ] Don't break the silence. Cry time is over. Start formulating ideas for the future.
[ ] Something else? (Write-in)

[hops]

[X] "... I'll be okay."

[Sl4cker]

"I'll be okay," you sniffle. "I'll be okay."

You sit like that for a while, hands on your lap and turned away from your new... what did she call herself again? Guardian? You can hear her softly coo to herself, as if attempting to figure out what to do or say.

"Look, I... I understand." She strokes your hair gently. You shiver away from her touch, and you can tell she reels back like you're a hot coal because she pauses for a long time after that. "... What did Torielle say to you?"

"She told me to take a rat-catching job."

There's a sharp exhale from her direction. "Yeaaah. That sounds like something she would have said."

You nod, leaning onto the armrest as if it was a pillow.

The house is silent again. You don't realize it when you start to drift thinking of all manner of things, falling asleep on the bench you suspect is actually a couch.
Your name is Torielle. Most of the time you have a feisty, cheerful yet kind disposition, but on the flipside you are easily annoyed and not one to try to hold that annoyance back very far. You may also be a bit of a Social Darwinist, which also may explain why you live in the middle of nowhere with a charm over your house.

But it's not like you're a crazy psycho who wants everyone below an arbitrary standard to die! You just think that certain people without talent in something should stop bloody pursuing that thing. And the fact that someone like that managed to snag an apprenticeship from the IIII under your belt, while drunk, after two years of nothing... Well, to you, that speaks volumes about how much the Ignoramus Institute respects you.

You sigh as you walk over to a lone tree in the grasslands. You dismiss your invisibility charm (may as well be polite about "filing a complaint") and start knocking on the trunk in 5/8 time. "Little bird, little bird," you whisper into the tree, "get your ass out here and sing me a song."

You keep knocking for a few seconds before you grumble. "I know you're supposed to be here. Keeping lookout is hard and all, but wake up for fuck's sake."

A distinctly reptilian lilt sounds from the other side of the tree. To people foreign to this area, they'd be surprised by this. But you know nagas, and you know they start hissing even more when they're not paying attention. "Are you part of the inssstitution?"

You groan with barely-constrained frustration. "Yes. Torielle, honorary MoD. Last visit was about two years ago. I'm here to file a goddamned complaint."

There's silence for a few more infuriating seconds, before you start getting hissed at again. "I'm not finding your name in the recordsss, missssss..."

"I'm on page eleven!" You throw your hands up in the air. "Listen, you overgrown mouse eater, I'm a damned Master of Deception. I didn't maintain an invisibility charm for ten miles to realize your cushioned cloud-addled brains forgot about your most recent assigned tutor!" You rub your hands a little, gripping the hot pink blackjack hidden in your belt. "Let me in right now," you say, glaring at the tree so hard you could feel you could burn it down with just your ire.

The trunk shimmers blue for a minute, and you release your breath. "Good to see the fear charm still works." You take the newly-created portal and find yourself face-to-face with a naga behind a desk whose expression reads somewhere between "completely out of it" and "pretty uncomfortable".

"Unlawful ussse of the fear charm isss a criminal action, you know." Slitted eyes stare at you, the effect of the charm warming from magical anxiety to natural irateness.

"Yeah, yeah, not the first time you lot couldn't take a harmless empathic spell."

The Naga merely turns away from you and shuffles a few papers to look busy. You sigh, crossing your arms. The lobby room is about the same as the last time you were here; marble walls, obviously fake golden furniture, plastic plants on each corner, regularly placed miniature portals to feed breathable oxyen into the room, giant wooden door.

[ ] Find the High Illusionist yourself. You've much to say to her and you do NOT want to waste any time with it. 
[ ] Ask the snake where the High Illusionist is. You're not in the mood to navigate the sprawling maze that is the Institution's main headquarters.
[ ] Take a moment to calm down, explore the place a bit. You're not usually one to be nostalgic, but it HAS been a long time since you've visited. Maybe they took down those gaudy statues.
[ ] Write a note, make sure the High Illusionist will read the note at some point, leave.

Spoiler: Inventory (Torielle) (click to show/hide)

Cat-ear headband (Worn)
Pink cat clothes (Worn)
Pink enchanted cat tail (Worn)
Torielle's Blackjack (Worn)

[hops]

[X] Take a moment to calm down, explore the place a bit. You're not usually one to be nostalgic, but it HAS been a long time since you've visited. Maybe they took down those gaudy statues.

[VoidSlayer]

[X] Take a moment to calm down, explore the place a bit. You're not usually one to be nostalgic, but it HAS been a long time since you've visited. Maybe they took down those gaudy statues.

+1  We can start out calm and then work our way up to angry and upset.

[FallacyofUrist]

[X] Take a moment to calm down, explore the place a bit. You're not usually one to be nostalgic, but it HAS been a long time since you've visited. Maybe they took down those gaudy statues.

[Sl4cker]

You take a deep breath. It's fine, you're fine - you're just a little angry, and that's okay. This is nothing to you. You sigh, leaving the Naga to pretend to tend to paperwork as you enter the Institution for the first time in two years. You breathe in the scene before you with a whistle of begrudging respect.

Around you, beings of all shapes and sizes walk about busily. From the slithering nagas, to the sly elves, the tall, furred beastmen and the graceful avians - all of them, you imagine, have some form of skill in illusionism. Despite the formal-sounding name of "Institution Headquarters," this place is less a building of business and more like a giant underground public space, filled with anything an illusionist could need. You can even see a few dormitories where the less financially secure (or more important in position) live right there in the HQ. You can see the one you lived in when you were an apprentice yourself, even.

You make an attempt to slide relaxedly past the squawking (this use of the verb is literal) tarotists and the vendors selling parts for magic puppeteers, but your garish clothes obviously draw attention, albeit by people that don't recognize you.

"Hey!" comes the excited call of a blond elf girl. "Are you a rookie? Would you like me to show you around?"  She holds out your hand in greeting, and you twitch in order to stop yourself from casting Mute Speech on reflex. You've already pissed off one person with your spellslinging today.

"No, actually. I'm an MoD. I'm just visiting the headquarters, meow." You attempt to walk past her, maybe look to see what the stores have for sale nowadays, brushing off your half-truth before she can analyze it.

"Oh really, huh? Why haven't I seen you around more often, huh?" She doesn't miss a beat, walking right behind you in what seems to be the perfect angle to blare her voice into your ears. "And why are you wandering around all lost like that, huh? It's okay if you're a rookie, ya know. I could give your a tour around the place! My name is Caron, nice to meetcha!"

"I'm," you start, breathily, "I'm really fine."

"Are you sure? Do you wanna see some of the stalls? If you see a book that you like, you could tell me and I could buy it for you! You know, as a gift!"

You bite your lip. Annoyance levels are steadily rising. You're a cheery person, sure, but you barely know this girl and you already wanna go back home.

[ ] "Hey Caron, meow! My name is Torielle, meow! Do you like KITTIES, MEOW?!" Match saccharine with saccharine.
[ ] Say nothing and lose her in the crowd. Hide in one of the illusionist stores. Maybe buy a new book, try to relax.
[ ] Walk away and cast an invisibility charm on yourself. Run to the other side of the goddamn HQ.
[ ] You know, there's a reason they invented Mute Speech.
[ ] Just... Just bear it, Tori. It's fine, Tori.
[ ] Some other clever tactic. (Write-in)

Spoiler: Inventory (Torielle) (click to show/hide)

Cat-ear headband (Worn)
Pink cat clothes (Worn)
Pink enchanted cat tail (Worn)
Torielle's Blackjack (Worn)

[hops]

[X] Walk away and cast an invisibility charm on yourself. Run to the other side of the goddamn HQ.

[VoidSlayer]

Could we make it so every other word she speaks comes out as meow until we remove it?