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Try out Alchemical Concoctions

---

The last visit to the Smokestack had been somewhat negative. Now, with half the year milling around the front, and the various Alchemy students essentially hawking their wares, Ulos felt a little safer.

One of the students grabbed him.

"Hey, come try my Philter of Awareness!"

"Uh, sure."

Ulos walked over. On the table sat tiny doses of a green liquid, each one in a tiny glass.

"It's a small dose, it'll only last for a few minutes. No lingering effects, promise. It's been okayed by the teaching staff."

Ulos shrugged, and downed the glass quickly. Ugh. It tasted vile, like cough medicine mixed with fish guts.

A few moments later the world changed. Not physically, his perception of colours was the same. Every little movement gained his attention, every flash of light and every noise called his attention over to it. Things he had not heard previously became impossible to block out, and the relentless flood of sensation chewed through his mind. His head swivelled, looking left to right, trying to identify every bit of noise, every sound and every movement. A few blessed minutes later it wore off.

"That was... unpleasant."

"Haha, yeah. It's not great in crowds. If you're being hunted, though, nothing like it. Or hunting, I guess. It's pretty potent, but being able to notice any noise is useful in some circumstances."

"So... how is it made?"

"You doing Alchemy?"

"Not yet. Might in future, though."

"Well, it'll probably go a bit over your head, but..."

(Alchemy Roll - 84 + 25 = 109 vs 40 DC. Spectacular success! Gain + 15 on your next Alchemy roll. Gain partial knowledge of Recipe.)

"So a rabbit's ear, an alyssum grown in magical soil, and a human ear hair?"

"Sure, if you transfer the awareness you want to transfer it to a sympathetic awareness organ, and you're not going to get better than ear to ear. It's not that potent, so you can use a weaker reagant like alyssum."

"What about the process?"

"Really interested in Alchemy, huh? Well, you could get it out of the Library eventually, so it's not like I'm telling you a secret."

(Alchemy Roll - 91 + 25 (Int) + 15 (prior roll) = 131 vs 90 DC. Critical success! Gain full knowledge of Recipe. Gain 2 Variations on Recipe.)

"... so the main thing is to keep the heat variable. It's not really time-dependent, so if you have some way of cooling the recipe rapidly - without direct application of magic - you can churn it out really quickly. It is important that you use copper, though. Bronze will make it one-fifth as powerful, which can be ok if you just want a general awareness booster for everyday stuff, and iron will potentiate it, making the entire effect happen much more rapidly. You'll gain so much awareness you'll have trouble differentiating anything from anything, but I guess it could be useful if you needed a way to spy on someone, or something. I mean, it's a bad way to go about it, but whatever. I mean, it's a really simple recipe, it's just that you've got to be careful with the heat. Just before boiling, not boiling. Ninety-nine point two will work. If you can get ninety-nine point five you'll get a better result, but that can be tough. If you go over just once you'll ruin the entire thing, and if you cool it below twenty-seven degrees it'll be ruined as well. You need to cool it to at least thirty, though."

Ulos nodded, committing all this to memory. Probably not something he would use all that often, but useful. At the very least, he knew rabbit's ears had some value now. Magical soil, though... no idea where to find that. But if plants growing in magical soil made good reagants, it might be a good thing to look into.

---

Explain the Situation

Next was the Library. He walked in confidently.

"Um, excuse me?"

(Library Roll: 45 + 10 (Cha) = 55 vs 25 DC. Success!)

The librarian on duty looked up. A stern-looking woman, at least it wasn't the one Ulos had seen yesterday.

"Yes?"

"Um, well... yesterday I got chased out of here. One of the librarians thought I was someone called Josh? Figgerian?"

She looked him up and down, sternly.

"Yes, I see the resemblance. Figgerian is a menace. But you look like a good boy, even I can see that. I'll let the other librarians know."

"Thanks. I'd really appreciate it."

Lost Trait - Banned Doppelganger

---

See the Binding -

It was amazing. He hadn't been able to sense the first part, of course, where they'd coaxed the Spirit out of the Primordial Ether and into the real world. Even looking at it now, Ulos couldn't quite look at it. When he saw it out of the corner of his eye, it was a whorl of colours, reds and whites and greens all mixed together. But when he looked at it straight-on, his mind just slipped away. It was definitely there, his mind just refused to grapple with whatever it saw.

"To Bind a Spirit is not easy. Many prefer to bargain with a Spirit, and to be honest, this is preferable. A Spirit serving willingly will always be superior to one Bound. This particular Spirit is a rock Spirit, one that prefers to take the form of a rock or a boulder in the corporeal world. I am going to Bind it into the form of a great statue. The amount of magic we have spent has given us enough power to command this Spirit to take the form of a great swordsman, towering twenty metres above us all in height!"

The students surrounding the Spirit began to weave their spells, sketching diagrams in the air, all of which joined together to form a great combined diagram surrounding the Spirit.

(Binding Impressiveness Roll: 4 vs DC 60. Critical failure!)

The Spirit flashed, tremendous in its light as it began to take shape in the world. For a moment Ulos thought he saw something watching him behind the lights, but that moment passed and the thought was gone.

A great crack like thunder pealed through the grounds, and a rock fell to the ground.

Not a particularly big one. Just... a rock. About the size of a fist, maybe big enough to hurl at someone's head if you were angry enough.

Ulos didn't start the laughter, but he joined in. That was... the least impressive thing he'd seen since he'd come here. The students were looking at the rock, some flushed, and was one... crying? It almost looked like he was. Poor upperclassmen, Ulos thought. Imagine being picked as the best in your class to come impress the new students and having that happen.

(Learning Roll: Souls and Spirits - 57 + 25 (Int) = 82 vs DC 50. Solid success. Gained +1 Lore: Souls and Spirits).

He'd learned something, though. Even with all the preparation in the world, the top of your class, a Spirit didn't always do what you wanted. Ulos saw the other first-years making fun of the upperclassmen, but he thought it wasn't incompetence. You didn't get picked like that if you were just incompetent. No, that had to be on the Spirit's end. Maybe all the power and study in the world wouldn't work if the Spirit really didn't like you.

---

Study Group (Willpower)

Ulos met the two there. Sunette and Abraham had arranged to come with him to study, and they'd decided to get an early start on Magical Theory at first. Sunette looked at him and nodded.

"Let's get to work. Let's all read through Chapter 1 of the book, and come back to each other with our thoughts. Ask questions, strengthen each other. Alright, let's get to it."

Ulos read through the first chapter of Elementary Magic Theory. Most of it was just magic and why it needed to be shaped into two-dimensional sigils. Not really any answers, just questions. Why didn't magic work as a three-dimensional construct? Why were runes and sigils different? Why did Alchemy even work? Why did it require temperature differences and movement when all other magic was solely a two-dimensional glyph, whether drawn in the air or on iron. Why did runes differentiate between the materials they were drawn on, but sigils did not? It didn't really teach him anything, just give him a lot of questions.

(Training Roll 1 (Lore: Magical Theory) - 2x5 Int. Next level is 5 steps away! Gained + 2 Lore: Magical Theory (0/5 next level).)


The three sat down.

"Well, I think we've learned we don't really know much."

Sunette laughed, a short bark.

"You're not wrong. I didn't even know a rune to do the same thing as a sigil was drawn completely differently. And Alchemy doesn't even fit! It's like the universe has two really similar branches of magic and a third one that operates on completely different rules!"

(Sunette Relationship roll - 4 vs 80 DC. No failure penalty for this sort of roll.)

"Yeah, it's interesting, what do you think, Abraham?"

(Abraham Relationship roll - 46 vs 80 DC. No failure penalty for this sort of roll.)

"It's... way too complicated for me. No way I ace this."

Ulos shrugged.

A few hours later, they'd exhausted the subject, and any questions they had they definitely didn't have any answers to.

Sunette spoke.

"We ready to pack up? I mean, we're not learning anything."

Ulos frowned.

"Two days ago, you were there to dominate this subject. We were going to take the whole year by storm. Are we giving up because we're not getting anywhere? No. Let's turn to History."

"Ok, sure. Damn, Ulos, you're into this."

"Yeah. Only way to get ahead is work harder than everyone else."

(Training Roll 1 (Lore: History) - 1x5 Int. Next level is 5 steps away! Gained + 1 Lore: History (0/5 next level).)

They sat down, learning about the history of the Saint's Archipelago. Nobody really knew how it had happened. The Saint turned up one day at the gates of Vorstal, and threatened to sink the city unless all the people in the expanse north of Vorstal were given their freedom to go with the Saint. The Undying laughed at her of course, and sent assassins to remove her. They never heard from the assassins again, and a few months later, the Saint's Bay was created. She sank the old city of Vorstal and all the lands north of it to create a path to sea, and everyone who wasn't a flit in that part of the northern expanse died with the city. Modern-day Vorstal, as it turns out, was built on the coast - right next to the sunken ruins of Old Vorstal.

The capital was destroyed, though the Liches all lived.

A month after that, the Saint brought a fleet to the coast north of the eastern end of the Empire, and raised the Saint's Archipelago from the sea. That was five hundred years ago. A few hundred years after that, the Saint disappeared, and nobody had seen her since.

"Wow."

Ulos spoke. Abraham looked at him as well.

"Yeah, wow. I mean, everyone knows the story of the Saint, but to hear it so clinically put out... not even the King of Bones could do that, and he's the most powerful mage in the world by far."

"Yeah. Crazy. Do you think she called a Spirit?"

Sunette shook her head.

"No. Nobody knows how she did it. That's why the Islanders call her the Saint. They think she was a conduit for the divine."

They looked out the window. The sun had gone down some time ago.

"Anyway, we better get to sleep. I mean, we don't have to, but it's our first full weekend, right? We should be able to do something cool."

---

Story post is up, though I'm really tired. Voting post will either be up in a few minutes, or in eight hours or so.

Weekend Actions (Character will take 4)

[ ] Start Studying (Write-In Subject) - You have Textbook Chits now. You can go borrow the books and start hitting them. Sort of nerdy, but hey, aren't you here to learn? Gain a Training Roll associated with the subject you choose. Willpower upgrade - spend 1 point to gain 2 Training Rolls.

[ ] Scout out the Library - Go figure out where the books that might help with your Curse are. I mean, they're almost certainly in the Restricted Sections, but if you can get a good idea of how the Library works and what sort of filing system it uses, you might be able to track down the knowledge a bit easier. No stat improvements. May gain a better idea of what books are helpful for your subjects, and which sorts of books might help with your curse. Gain +2 from prior failed roll to next roll. (DC: Very High)

[ ] Go Exploring - It's a big campus, and you haven't seen the half of it. Who knows what you could find? Roll 1D100 vs ???. Success offers ???, failure offers ???.

[ ] Meet and Greet - Madavian might not be there to help you, but you can still meet people, right? Right? Offers 2 Diplomacy rolls for meeting people. No help from Madavian. (DC: Variable. Depends on who you meet) Willpower upgrade - spend 1 point to gain 3 Diplomacy Rolls.

[ ] Hang Out With A Friend (Write-in Friend) - It's good to spend time with people you know. Maybe take a break, and hang with one of your friends. Available options include Madavian Junotrin, Abraham Quincey and Sunette Kerek. Increase Relationship by one step. Roll against DC (Variable, depending on friendship level). On success, increase Relationship by another step.

[ ] Study Group - The Study Group needs to get going if you're going to dominate your subjects. Get your books, get your bag, and head on over to the Library to get the librarians to let you into a study room. Gain a Training Roll for Lore: History or Lore: Theory of Magic (50% chance each). Possibly gain a step in relationship with Sunotrin or Abraham (20% chance each). Cannot be taken while Trait: Banned Doppelganger is active. Willpower upgrade - spend 1 point to gain a Training Roll in both subjects. Can only be taken twice per Week max.

[ ] Gather Mushrooms - Unlocked by your knowledge of the Secret Mushroom Colony. Self-explanatory. Roll against DC ??? using either Lore: Alchemy or Lore: Magical Plants. On success, gain ???.

[ ] Search for Ingredients - You don't know about a whole lot of Alchemical Ingredients, but you can go looking. Even if you don't find exactly what you're looking for, you can scout out good places. Roll against DC ???. On success, find Ingredients. On critical success find a Location with Ingredients.

[ ] Prepare for Class (Write-in) - Skim over the text, ask what the teacher is like, go look at the classroom so you know how to go there and don't get lost. No skill gains. Strongly improves your chance of making a good first impression in that class. Continental History, Theory of Souls and Spirits, Magical Theory and Magical Practice and Awareness are all valid here.

[ ] Map out the Dorms - Knowing who is where, asking your friends about who has which room and how to get to places quickly. Sort of creepy, but also might come in handy. No skill gains. Roll against DC 65, on success gain Item: Map of Dorms (Unfinished). +10 bonus to pranks and similar actions taken within the Dorms.

[ ] Relax, Chill Out - You've worked hard enough. Why not kick back, have a nap and look out the window at the other students and the trees? Recovers 1 Willpower point.

Feel free to vote for as many options as you like. I strongly prefer people being able to vote for more options as it lessens strategic voting and allows people to vote their true preferences.