Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[brewer bob]

1

[Yellow Pixel]

1

[Enemy post]

Tiebreaker:We power one of the flying trays.

"Some automation magic should be able to power one of these flying trays," you say, thumbing through the automation tome you picked up in the library to find the right spell. You leave the book open to the relevant page, raise one hand, and point the other at a tray near the cryovault. "Servus rebus, anathallo!"

Lightning arcs from the ceiling to your hand, encircles you and fills you with a buzzing sensation, then leaps to the tray, and finally leaps back into the ceiling near the alchemy set itself, forming a loop. You feel every hair on your body stand on end.

Some lightning arcs to nearby objects. One arc leaps to a nearby wooden barrel on top of the cryovault, puncturing it and leaving a charred hole. Green liquid begins to ooze from the barrel.

"Stop!" Tal shouts, and you call off the spell. Luckily, the tray has absorbed enough power already to come back to life. Its feathery wings begin to flap faster and faster, until it hovers next to the cryovault. (Gained Automation.)

"Go fetch that alchemy set for me, please," you instruct, and the tray goes to do you ask, its metal hands placing the vials and beakers on itself one by one.

Meanwhile, the green liquid eats away at the other barrels, combining with the purple liquid it finds within.

The platter flies down to serve you the complete alchemy set. It conveys the impression of a bow with a slight dip.

"Just hold that and keep following me," you say to the tray.

The serving tray dips slightly again and falls in line behind you.

The chemicals mixing atop the cryovault have created a glowing purple-and-green sludge that is aggressively dissolving the other barrels, the walls, and the ceiling.

"We should probably get out of here," you suggest.

You consider how best to evacuate the academy. It's probably too soon after your last divination to cast another one.

"I think I saw a map of the academy on the wall in my vision of the golem," you say to Tal. "Let's head toward the steam tunnels."

You see a trapdoor in the corner and throw it open to reveal stairs leading down.

"Perfect," you say. "This probably leads to the service tunnels. Let's go."

Tal gamely follows you into the service tunnels. Your new serving tray flutters along behind you two.

Dust-dimmed magical orbs on the ceiling glow to illuminate the grimy service tunnels. Two-thousand-year-old graffiti has been burned into the wood of the tunnels with negation magic: initials of long-dead students, declarations of relationships, identities of cheaters, unkind words for bad professors. You wonder what the vandals would think if they knew the graffiti would be their only lasting legacy. They'd probably be pretty excited to have a legacy at all.

"You said the Neighbors pulled academies like this underground so they could be looted later," Tal says. "So why didn't they loot this one?"

"I guess the Negative Sea must have appeared between us first," you say. "It stopped the Great War cold."

"But then what about the Neighbor spies the queen is said to sometimes find?" Tal says. "Why didn't they dig this up?"

"I guess if there are spies, there can't be that many of them," you say. "But you can't trust all those stories. Neighbors kidnapping babies for no reason, Neighbor shapeshifters taking the place of the royal family…I think they're just that: stories. Because if the Neighbors really could cross the Negative Sea, we'd already be conquered. They probably never had to give up magic in the first place."

You quickly find the station where the golem in your vision was manning controls. You have little idea what any of the levers, dials, and buttons in this alcove mean, but there is a helpful map on the wall.

According to the map, there are three large rooms in this tower that stretch nearly to the top: the laboratory, the auditorium, and the arena. From your knowledge of ancient history, you can surmise a little about each one.

The laboratory is marked with three symbols: a tree for vivomancy, a dark sun for negation, and a gear for automation. The magical laboratories of the ancients typically specialized in one school of magic, but this one apparently combined three.

The auditorium would have been a place for school plays, with the actors glamor-enhanced to make the performance more exciting.

The arena would have been a place for harpyiabala, or harpyball. The ancients had a conflicted attitude about the place of violence in sport, which they resolved by having monsters play for them, manipulated by magicians on the sidelines. Perhaps if you went there, you would find something left behind by those sideline magicians. But you'll almost certainly find harpies too.

You look to Tal. "What do you think?"

Tal shakes her head. "It's your call. You know much more about the ancients than I do."

It seems any of the three paths would be equally good for getting to the roof aerie—not counting their unknown dangers.

1.Let's head to the laboratory.
2.Let's head to the auditorium.
3.Let's head to the arena.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Foo Orison

Appearance

A bookish, spectacled man wearing a shimmering cloak and a noble duelist's uniform.

Magic
  Negation:2
  Automation:2
  Glamor:0
  Divination:1
  Vivomancy:2

Skills
Ancient History: 2 (Decent)
Fighting: 1 (Bad)
Subtlety: 2 (Decent)
Charisma: 3 (Decent)

Personality
Optimism:48%/Caution:52%   
Humor:52%/Solemnity:48%   
Empathy:34%/Calculation:66%   

Relationships
Romances (Interested romantically, but not sexually, in men and women)
None

Tal: 55 (Good)
Church: 40 (Bad)
Undiscovered relationships: 4

Kingdom
Adoration: 50%/Vilification: 50%

Inventory
Gold: 100 gold
Sword
Alchemy Set
Flying Serving Tray
Golem Manual

Students
None

Pets
None

The Dead
The Academy Inquisitor

Plot Points

Chapter 1

You and Tal stumbled on an ancient magic academy.
You discovered a book of vivomancy, and an inquisitor chased you.
You found an ancient dueling ground.
You killed the inquisitor with negation magic.
You explored the academy library.
A divination revealed a potential ally in the form of a golem, so you took a manual on the operation of golems from the library.
You animated a serving tray to retrieve an alchemy set, but in the process, you released some dangerous chemicals.

[Knightwing64]

2

The laboratory is useless with without good glamour.

[Enemy post]

2

The laboratory is useless with without good glamour.

Please try to keep the outright spoilers to a minimum, alright?

[Glass]

1

Given that there's no indication of glamour for the lab, while there is for the auditorium, I don't believe you. I want to do more vivomancy.

[brewer bob]

1

[King Zultan]

1

[Enemy post]

The laboratory.

"Let's go through the laboratory," you say. "There are bound to be some toys left over we could use."

Tal nods. "Makes sense."

You chart a path to the laboratory and set off through the service tunnels.

Distantly, you hear a crackling, squelching sound, intermittently interrupted with a crash—you think this is the sound of those chemicals eating away at the wood of the academy, occasionally causing cave-ins. You quicken your step. If you can get to the roof, you should be able to dig your way to safety somehow.

You realize belatedly that you might have tried flying up to the roof by growing wings with vivomancy, before the cave-ins blocked your retreat. Are you stubbornly insisting on exploring as much as you can before you have to leave? Probably.

When you reach the end of the corridor where the door to the laboratory should be, you find that the academy has turned it into a dead end, with its symbol depicting the five magics painted above the message "Caveat Scholasticus."

"Beware, student," you translate.

"Thanks, very helpful," Tal says.

The barrier, grown from the tree, could be parted with vivomancy. But it seems something dangerous was walled off here.

1.Let's part the barrier.
2.Something's not right here—let's try the auditorium instead.
3.Something's not right here—let's try the arena instead.

Spoiler: Stats (click to show/hide)

Foo Orison

Appearance

A bookish, spectacled man wearing a shimmering cloak and a noble duelist's uniform.

Magic
  Negation:2
  Automation:2
  Glamor:0
  Divination:1
  Vivomancy:2

Skills
Ancient History: 2 (Decent)
Fighting: 1 (Bad)
Subtlety: 2 (Decent)
Charisma: 3 (Decent)

Personality
Optimism:48%/Caution:52%   
Humor:52%/Solemnity:48%   
Empathy:34%/Calculation:66%   

Relationships
Romances (Interested romantically, but not sexually, in men and women)
None

Tal: 55 (Good)
Church: 40 (Bad)
Undiscovered relationships: 4

Kingdom
Adoration: 50%/Vilification: 50%

Inventory
Gold: 100 gold
Sword
Alchemy Set
Flying Serving Tray
Golem Manual

Students
None

Pets
None

The Dead
The Academy Inquisitor

Plot Points

Chapter 1

You and Tal stumbled on an ancient magic academy.
You discovered a book of vivomancy, and an inquisitor chased you.
You found an ancient dueling ground.
You killed the inquisitor with negation magic.
You explored the academy library.
A divination revealed a potential ally in the form of a golem, so you took a manual on the operation of golems from the library.
You animated a serving tray to retrieve an alchemy set, but in the process, you released some dangerous chemicals.

[brewer bob]

1

[Knightwing64]

1

Well, I tried to tell y’all.

[King Zultan]

1

[Enemy post]

We part the barrier.

You cast a vivomancy spell, and light swarming with tiny living motes streams between your hands and the barrier. You smell sweet resin, halfway between maple and pine, as you force the wood to part along its grain. (Gained Vivomancy.) The act of parting the wood leaves you physically exhausted. (Lost Temporary Fighting.)

Behind the barrier is the original door, a steel door that stands in contrast to the wood of the rest of the academy. You open the latch, and a shimmering curtain of light separates you from whatever lies beyond.

You break off a piece of wood from the retracted barrier and stick the long splinter into the curtain of light. You pull back the stick: no damage.

"I think this field is keeping something in, not out," you say. "It shouldn't harm us."

"Great," Tal says. "You can go first."

You plunge through the curtain of light.

A polished metal cylinder stands in the center of a tall room, the walls of which have been covered with equations burnt into the white paint. In the center of the cylinder is a skeleton reclining on a leather chair, sealed behind closed glass doors. The metal cylinder is covered in automation runes, as well as some symbols you have seen in vivomancy and negation tomes. It seems clear that whatever this cylinder was intended to do, it was the subject's final experiment.

A metal scaffolding surrounds the cylinder, with ladders leading up to different landings. On each landing of the scaffolding are piles of automation-related metal parts and tools, some still in good condition. On the landing five floors up is a door out.

With the academy being slowly dissolved by chemicals, you should make your way up to that catwalk quickly.

"Well," Tal begins to say, and she gives a start as her voice echoes through the chamber: well well well well. "I don't see—"

A specter made of writhing negative energy bursts through the cylinder, its glowing blue eyes trained on you. The roiling darkness coalesces into a skull around the blue eyes, and its jaw opens to emit an excited screech that reverberates through the chamber, causing Tal to put a finger to one ear.

The chamber turns cold as the specter draws near.

It points a finger of roiling darkness at you. "Liberize mau," it says. "Liberize mau, ou-t-au mange vo pneuma!"

Free me or I eat your soul.

Well, that sounds bad.

1.Cast a glamor and try to befriend the specter.
2.Quickly cast a spell to dissipate negative energy.
3.Negate the light curtain on the door.
4.Destroy the physical skeleton with negation magic.
5.I sprout wings and carry Tal to the exit.
6.Cast a divination to find out more about the specter.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Foo Orison

Appearance

A bookish, spectacled man wearing a shimmering cloak and a noble duelist's uniform.

Magic
  Negation:2
  Automation:2
  Glamor:0
  Divination:1
  Vivomancy:3

Skills
Ancient History: 2 (Decent)
Fighting: 1 (Bad)
Subtlety: 2 (Decent)
Charisma: 3 (Decent)

Personality
Optimism:48%/Caution:52%   
Humor:52%/Solemnity:48%   
Empathy:34%/Calculation:66%   

Relationships
Romances (Interested romantically, but not sexually, in men and women)
None

Tal: 55 (Good)
Church: 40 (Bad)
Undiscovered relationships: 4

Kingdom
Adoration: 50%/Vilification: 50%

Inventory
Gold: 100 gold
Sword
Alchemy Set
Flying Serving Tray
Golem Manual

Students
None

Pets
None

The Dead
The Academy Inquisitor

Plot Points

Chapter 1

You and Tal stumbled on an ancient magic academy.
You discovered a book of vivomancy, and an inquisitor chased you.
You found an ancient dueling ground.
You killed the inquisitor with negation magic.
You explored the academy library.
A divination revealed a potential ally in the form of a golem, so you took a manual on the operation of golems from the library.
You animated a serving tray to retrieve an alchemy set, but in the process, you released some dangerous chemicals.
You found a laboratory with a trapped specter.

[Glass]

Let’s try 2

[Yellow Pixel]

3