- Location
- New Jersey
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ouch I forgot about that part. Still pretty impressive for 1 years worth of life and a piece of old electronics you can lolnope an attack from a god.
Dairine was overpowered as hell early on.
A Wizard's Word [Young Wizards]
- Thread starter Bozwevial
- Start date
-
- Tags
- young wizards
Ouch I forgot about that part. Still pretty impressive for 1 years worth of life and a piece of old electronics you can lolnope an attack from a god.
Dairine was overpowered as hell early on.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Your tally is off. Dylan/Desert had the most votes, 5, compared to Meredith/Desert, 3. Odd that you put mine separate from the other four...
The creator of entropy is no mere god.
Sorry, still getting used to this vote tally program. Protagonist and location are considered separately, since otherwise you get weird results. A better tally would look more like this:
Vote tally:
##### 3.17
[X] Dylan Trow
No. of votes: 6
Riggnarock, Ridiculously Average Guy, drasky, Berserkslash, Lance, Dummy045
[X] The desert town.
No. of votes: 10
Riggnarock, Berserkslash, Lance, Happerry, Shadowward, Yun, JkaDestiny, drake_azathoth, Finagle007, Dummy045
[X] The sprawling city.
No. of votes: 5
Ridiculously Average Guy, drasky, Dark Lord Bob, SystemicHatter, Wzd_JA
[X] Adrienne Lamont.
No. of votes: 3
Happerry, Dark Lord Bob, Shadowward
[X] Meredith Toskey
No. of votes: 8
Yun, HidCyan, SystemicHatter, JkaDestiny, Wzd_JA, drake_azathoth, Lunaryon, wingstrike96
[X] The seaport.
No. of votes: 3
HidCyan, Lunaryon, wingstrike96
[X] Dylan Trow -The screen door bangs as the boy slips out, whistling just loud enough to hear himself. He's half a block away before his cousin shouts a muffled question, cheerfully headed down the least familiar path he can find. In minutes, he's happily lost, letting his footsteps trace the pulse of the land.
No. of votes: 1
Finagle007
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Why did you put mine separate again?
Because you voted in a different manner to everyone else, so the tallybot doesn't consider it the same vote.
For the tenth time in as many minutes, Meredith Toskey wished that her lunch would catch on fire.
And not for the usual reasons, she thought wryly. On most days, the best you could say about the cafeteria's food was that it probably was food, even if it wasn't trying very hard to look like it. Fridays were pizza days, though, and to a pack of hungry middle-school kids, the reheated pizza with its tiny cubes of what was probably pepperoni were the best thing they'd ever put into their mouths. That was her one stroke of luck right now. Everyone was too busy filling their faces to gossip about how Meredith hadn't had enough lunch money, how she'd been too poor to pay and Mrs. Fulbright had still let her through the line.
A small, traitorous voice in the back of her head pointed out that none of the other kids had ever said anything about how much money she didn't have. Even when Meredith had come to school for a week in the same pair of jeans patched at both knees with big, goofy sunflowers her father had sewn over the holes not one of the insults she'd been dreading came. What she got instead was worse: That week, she'd caught every single one of her teachers giving her the look she'd come to expect from every adult. It was sad, it was pitying, and in Meredith's opinion it only ought to be used on a lost dog you'd found in the rain.
That look was also probably the reason she was at a quiet table by herself. As nice as the other kids had been, she'd never gotten very close to any of them. The constant worry about what would happen if they invited her over - or worse, if her father found out and invited them over - had made her invent excuses until no one tried to sit at her table anymore. Meredith knew her reputation at the school could practically be written on a post-it note by now. Nice. Quiet. Loner. Poor.
The worst part of it was that she had left the house that morning with enough money for lunch. She had carefully counted out two dollars' worth of change from the jar her father liked to call her college fund, an old glass jar that used to hold spaghetti sauce but now held every stray penny and dime the two of them found. When she was younger, filling the jar had been a kind of game for her. She would crow with delight every time she spotted an abandoned coin, scurrying to pick it up and eagerly waiting to get home and listen to it clink as it joined its brothers and sisters in the jar. These days, her college fund was more depressing than anything, and she felt guilty every time things were bad enough that she had to dip her hand in and take some back. And then the seam in her wallet had ripped and let all the change trickle out, probably somewhere along her walk to school.
It went to waste after all. I might as well have thrown it out the window. Meredith didn't feel like eating any more. She quietly got up from her empty table, emptied her tray into the trash, and left the cafeteria, trying very hard not to break into a run. The hallways were completely empty, and she felt a little calmer once she couldn't hear the chatter from the other kids. She only had to sit through two more classes before going home, and then there would be an entire weekend for everyone to forget.
One of those two classes, happily, was art. Emerald Valley Middle School was small, but a lot of people in town who'd gone there when they were kids gave plenty of money to make sure it was good for their children. Anything you could ever want for one of your projects was probably sitting on one of the shelves in the art studio, whose walls were barely visible behind all the colorful paintings and drawings students had hung over several years. When Meredith opened the door, Mr. Rash, the art teacher, was stretching up to stack an armful of paint bottles on top of the watercolor sets. He turned to look at her and beamed, dropping several bottles as he did.
"Meredith! You're here early! Oh--" He swore cheerfully at the small blue explosion that now coated his pants and most of the surrounding floor. "Would you grab the mop?"
Smiling in spite of herself, Meredith opened the closet door and took the mop out of its bucket. She handed it to her teacher, who immediately set about covering even more of the floor in blue paint as he tried to wipe it up. Mr. Rash was a round man who refused to wear anything that he didn't think was happy, which today meant a duck egg blue suit and a tie so yellow she could practically see it with her eyes shut.
"Hi, Mr. Rash," she said, stepping around the paint puddle to grab some wire and modeling clay. "I was going to get some more work done on the arch."
"What, skipping lunch for art today, of all days? Now that takes dedication!" It was a dumb joke, but a fresh wave of embarrassment hit Meredith all the same. Some of it must have shown on her face, because Mr. Rash's permanent smile disappeared. "Meredith? Are you alright?"
She nodded, not trusting herself to say something casual that would satisfy him. Painfully aware that she wasn't acting at all natural, she crossed the room to get the half-finished wire frame out of her cubby and sank into one of the desk chairs. Meredith had been working on a model of the town for several months now, building it piece by piece in Mr. Rash's class and carefully assembling it at home. The latest piece a tiny version of the natural stone archway that sat just outside the city limits had been bothering her for a week straight. She would set up what felt like the right framework, but when she started to add the clay and sculpt it into the smooth, weathered shape everyone knew by heart, it would always be just a little bit off.
Just by looking at the wire frame, she could already tell that this one wasn't going to work either. The base is too thin and the shape of the archway isn't as round as it needs to be. Scowling, she started taking it apart and reassembling the wire into another pattern, but this one quickly turned out to be even worse. It needs to sit differently, but I'm not sure how. Maybe if I -
Mr. Rash cleared his throat from behind her. Meredith jumped, nearly sending the growing pile of wire flying. Guiltily, she looked over her shoulder. Her teacher had the look she'd been dreading on his face, the one that meant someone was about to take pity on the kid whose father never had any money. "Meredith," he said carefully, "are you avoiding the other students? Are they giving you trouble?"
She might have laughed at that if she wasn't so upset. I wish they would! she thought. No one ever says anything mean, they just coddle me like there's nothing I can do about being poor. And the worst part is, they're right... "No," she said after a second's hesitation. "I just didn't feel like eating lunch today."
It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it before she'd gotten three words into the lie. Worry clouded Mr. Rash's expression, and she hastily tried to change the subject. "Do you have another picture of the arch? I think a different angle might help me put it together."
He nodded, and went to rummage through one of his desk drawers. Meredith stared at the unfinished frame, as wrong as her day was suddenly going, and experimentally wrapped more wire around the base. Nope. Still won't look right from the side.
Mr. Rash came back with one of the guidebooks sold to tourists, offering it to her. She reached out to take it, but he held onto it for a moment. "Listen, Meredith," he began. "We...well, your teachers - know about your situation. They've talked it over before, but I think we could probably put together a...a way to help you out."
She didn't say anything, and he hurried on. "Think of it as an art scholarship, if you like. You're a phenomenal student, and I just know there are going to be schools fighting each other over you in five years. We're very proud of you and your dad, and if there's anything we can do to make things easier for the two of you..." He trailed off, expectantly.
Meredith hadn't thought it was possible to feel any worse, but the mention of her father hurt like she'd been slapped in the face. If anyone on Earth deserved better than to be poor, he did. She blinked back tears furiously as fresh guilt rose up, trying not to think of the money he'd saved for her that she'd lost because of a torn wallet. Why did Mr. Rash have to bring this up now? And what was she going to tell him?
Respond to Mr. Rash's offer. (Choose one.)
[ ] (1.2x) Politely decline. Maybe you can find a job after school or sell some of your art. You'd even set up a lemonade stand like you did when you were eight as long as it meant you were earning money by yourself. You'll do something, you're just not sure exactly what.
[ ] (1.2x) You don't need it. Maybe there is something you can do after all, now that you're thinking about it. Pressure's a wonderful thing for creativity.
-[ ] Write-In: ...but what exactly is it? (Remember, Meredith is thirteen and not remotely wealthy.)
[ ] (1.0x) Turn him down and lie. Tell him your father just got a better job and you won't be needing anyone else's money now. You're not sure if that will convince him if you don't find a way to make money soon, but it'll mean people will stop treating you like something pathetic, at least for a little while.
[ ] (1.0x) Leave school. Say you're sick, pretend you forgot something in your locker, run out of the studio if you have to, but skip class and go home early. It won't solve anything, but maybe you're not ready to make this choice so quickly.
[ ] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
And not for the usual reasons, she thought wryly. On most days, the best you could say about the cafeteria's food was that it probably was food, even if it wasn't trying very hard to look like it. Fridays were pizza days, though, and to a pack of hungry middle-school kids, the reheated pizza with its tiny cubes of what was probably pepperoni were the best thing they'd ever put into their mouths. That was her one stroke of luck right now. Everyone was too busy filling their faces to gossip about how Meredith hadn't had enough lunch money, how she'd been too poor to pay and Mrs. Fulbright had still let her through the line.
A small, traitorous voice in the back of her head pointed out that none of the other kids had ever said anything about how much money she didn't have. Even when Meredith had come to school for a week in the same pair of jeans patched at both knees with big, goofy sunflowers her father had sewn over the holes not one of the insults she'd been dreading came. What she got instead was worse: That week, she'd caught every single one of her teachers giving her the look she'd come to expect from every adult. It was sad, it was pitying, and in Meredith's opinion it only ought to be used on a lost dog you'd found in the rain.
That look was also probably the reason she was at a quiet table by herself. As nice as the other kids had been, she'd never gotten very close to any of them. The constant worry about what would happen if they invited her over - or worse, if her father found out and invited them over - had made her invent excuses until no one tried to sit at her table anymore. Meredith knew her reputation at the school could practically be written on a post-it note by now. Nice. Quiet. Loner. Poor.
The worst part of it was that she had left the house that morning with enough money for lunch. She had carefully counted out two dollars' worth of change from the jar her father liked to call her college fund, an old glass jar that used to hold spaghetti sauce but now held every stray penny and dime the two of them found. When she was younger, filling the jar had been a kind of game for her. She would crow with delight every time she spotted an abandoned coin, scurrying to pick it up and eagerly waiting to get home and listen to it clink as it joined its brothers and sisters in the jar. These days, her college fund was more depressing than anything, and she felt guilty every time things were bad enough that she had to dip her hand in and take some back. And then the seam in her wallet had ripped and let all the change trickle out, probably somewhere along her walk to school.
It went to waste after all. I might as well have thrown it out the window. Meredith didn't feel like eating any more. She quietly got up from her empty table, emptied her tray into the trash, and left the cafeteria, trying very hard not to break into a run. The hallways were completely empty, and she felt a little calmer once she couldn't hear the chatter from the other kids. She only had to sit through two more classes before going home, and then there would be an entire weekend for everyone to forget.
One of those two classes, happily, was art. Emerald Valley Middle School was small, but a lot of people in town who'd gone there when they were kids gave plenty of money to make sure it was good for their children. Anything you could ever want for one of your projects was probably sitting on one of the shelves in the art studio, whose walls were barely visible behind all the colorful paintings and drawings students had hung over several years. When Meredith opened the door, Mr. Rash, the art teacher, was stretching up to stack an armful of paint bottles on top of the watercolor sets. He turned to look at her and beamed, dropping several bottles as he did.
"Meredith! You're here early! Oh--" He swore cheerfully at the small blue explosion that now coated his pants and most of the surrounding floor. "Would you grab the mop?"
Smiling in spite of herself, Meredith opened the closet door and took the mop out of its bucket. She handed it to her teacher, who immediately set about covering even more of the floor in blue paint as he tried to wipe it up. Mr. Rash was a round man who refused to wear anything that he didn't think was happy, which today meant a duck egg blue suit and a tie so yellow she could practically see it with her eyes shut.
"Hi, Mr. Rash," she said, stepping around the paint puddle to grab some wire and modeling clay. "I was going to get some more work done on the arch."
"What, skipping lunch for art today, of all days? Now that takes dedication!" It was a dumb joke, but a fresh wave of embarrassment hit Meredith all the same. Some of it must have shown on her face, because Mr. Rash's permanent smile disappeared. "Meredith? Are you alright?"
She nodded, not trusting herself to say something casual that would satisfy him. Painfully aware that she wasn't acting at all natural, she crossed the room to get the half-finished wire frame out of her cubby and sank into one of the desk chairs. Meredith had been working on a model of the town for several months now, building it piece by piece in Mr. Rash's class and carefully assembling it at home. The latest piece a tiny version of the natural stone archway that sat just outside the city limits had been bothering her for a week straight. She would set up what felt like the right framework, but when she started to add the clay and sculpt it into the smooth, weathered shape everyone knew by heart, it would always be just a little bit off.
Just by looking at the wire frame, she could already tell that this one wasn't going to work either. The base is too thin and the shape of the archway isn't as round as it needs to be. Scowling, she started taking it apart and reassembling the wire into another pattern, but this one quickly turned out to be even worse. It needs to sit differently, but I'm not sure how. Maybe if I -
Mr. Rash cleared his throat from behind her. Meredith jumped, nearly sending the growing pile of wire flying. Guiltily, she looked over her shoulder. Her teacher had the look she'd been dreading on his face, the one that meant someone was about to take pity on the kid whose father never had any money. "Meredith," he said carefully, "are you avoiding the other students? Are they giving you trouble?"
She might have laughed at that if she wasn't so upset. I wish they would! she thought. No one ever says anything mean, they just coddle me like there's nothing I can do about being poor. And the worst part is, they're right... "No," she said after a second's hesitation. "I just didn't feel like eating lunch today."
It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it before she'd gotten three words into the lie. Worry clouded Mr. Rash's expression, and she hastily tried to change the subject. "Do you have another picture of the arch? I think a different angle might help me put it together."
He nodded, and went to rummage through one of his desk drawers. Meredith stared at the unfinished frame, as wrong as her day was suddenly going, and experimentally wrapped more wire around the base. Nope. Still won't look right from the side.
Mr. Rash came back with one of the guidebooks sold to tourists, offering it to her. She reached out to take it, but he held onto it for a moment. "Listen, Meredith," he began. "We...well, your teachers - know about your situation. They've talked it over before, but I think we could probably put together a...a way to help you out."
She didn't say anything, and he hurried on. "Think of it as an art scholarship, if you like. You're a phenomenal student, and I just know there are going to be schools fighting each other over you in five years. We're very proud of you and your dad, and if there's anything we can do to make things easier for the two of you..." He trailed off, expectantly.
Meredith hadn't thought it was possible to feel any worse, but the mention of her father hurt like she'd been slapped in the face. If anyone on Earth deserved better than to be poor, he did. She blinked back tears furiously as fresh guilt rose up, trying not to think of the money he'd saved for her that she'd lost because of a torn wallet. Why did Mr. Rash have to bring this up now? And what was she going to tell him?
Respond to Mr. Rash's offer. (Choose one.)
[ ] (1.2x) Politely decline. Maybe you can find a job after school or sell some of your art. You'd even set up a lemonade stand like you did when you were eight as long as it meant you were earning money by yourself. You'll do something, you're just not sure exactly what.
[ ] (1.2x) You don't need it. Maybe there is something you can do after all, now that you're thinking about it. Pressure's a wonderful thing for creativity.
-[ ] Write-In: ...but what exactly is it? (Remember, Meredith is thirteen and not remotely wealthy.)
[ ] (1.0x) Turn him down and lie. Tell him your father just got a better job and you won't be needing anyone else's money now. You're not sure if that will convince him if you don't find a way to make money soon, but it'll mean people will stop treating you like something pathetic, at least for a little while.
[ ] (1.0x) Leave school. Say you're sick, pretend you forgot something in your locker, run out of the studio if you have to, but skip class and go home early. It won't solve anything, but maybe you're not ready to make this choice so quickly.
[ ] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
That's based on the vote multipliers on Ravana quest and Panopticon quest(e.g. vote totals are multiplied by the number before determining what won). They are based on Meredith's personality and aspects, she's inherently biased towards some approaches.
I'm helping with the beta-ing here, so wouldn't be voting of course..
I'm helping with the beta-ing here, so wouldn't be voting of course..
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
Oh, this situation again. Being poor sucks and is embarrassing, but sucking it up and getting help is one of the only ways out of that hole.
------
So, what do you guys think our desire for Wizardry will be? I'm thinking a desire for cash.
Oh, this situation again. Being poor sucks and is embarrassing, but sucking it up and getting help is one of the only ways out of that hole.
They're how IC something is.
------
So, what do you guys think our desire for Wizardry will be? I'm thinking a desire for cash.
Last edited:
- Location
- New Jersey
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
Pride is one of the lone power's favorite tools for manipulating wizards and civilizations we should work on getting it under control ASAP.
Pride is one of the lone power's favorite tools for manipulating wizards and civilizations we should work on getting it under control ASAP.
[X] (1.2x) You don't need it. Maybe there is something you can do after all, now that you're thinking about it. Pressure's a wonderful thing for creativity.
-[X] Make scrap art to sell
-[X] Make scrap art to sell
Vote tally:
##### 3.17
[X] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
No. of votes: 4
Ridiculously Average Guy, Wzd_JA, Happerry, ;_;
[X] (1.2x) You don't need it. Maybe there is something you can do after all, now that you're thinking about it. Pressure's a wonderful thing for creativity.
No. of votes: 1
wingstrike96
-[X] Make scrap art to sell
No. of votes: 1
wingstrike96
##### 3.17
[X] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
No. of votes: 4
Ridiculously Average Guy, Wzd_JA, Happerry, ;_;
[X] (1.2x) You don't need it. Maybe there is something you can do after all, now that you're thinking about it. Pressure's a wonderful thing for creativity.
No. of votes: 1
wingstrike96
-[X] Make scrap art to sell
No. of votes: 1
wingstrike96
Now I am not sure what to do. I like both these options:
[X] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
-[X] You don't feel accepting his help is all right if you don't also try. He said I have good art skills, maybe I can make some to sell?
[X] (1.2x) You don't need it. Maybe there is something you can do after all, now that you're thinking about it. Pressure's a wonderful thing for creativity.
-[X] Make scrap art to sell
The first because turning away help when offered in situations like this tends to degenerate the situation, and the later for the creativity or skill she could gain. Bah, I'll try mixing and matching even though I doubt it'll win.
Edit - And the vote closed several days ago and this is meaningless.
[X] (0.8x) Swallow your pride and accept. It'll mean admitting you need help, and if word gets out that you're taking charity the pitying will get even more unbearable, but it's the only way you can think of to help your father.
-[X] You don't feel accepting his help is all right if you don't also try. He said I have good art skills, maybe I can make some to sell?
-[X] Make scrap art to sell
The first because turning away help when offered in situations like this tends to degenerate the situation, and the later for the creativity or skill she could gain. Bah, I'll try mixing and matching even though I doubt it'll win.
Edit - And the vote closed several days ago and this is meaningless.
Not quite as meaningless as you might think! I do appreciate all your votes, even if they're after the time lock. I closed fairly early that time because a 4 to 1 vote seemed a little...one-sided, and I figured I could get an early update out for you. Tutoring and a blood drive kind of put that to rest, though, so...bleh? On the bright side, having less blood seems to be great for writing! Next update I'll try bleeding into a bucket to see if it makes me go any faster.
Trying to resist the growing urge to throw up all over her desk, Meredith met Mr. Rash's eyes and nodded. "...Okay." She didn't trust herself to say more without the floodgates opening up, but it was oddly relieving to have managed just the one word.
Thankfully, Mr. Rash didn't push it any further. He just patted her shoulder clumsily, set the guidebook on her desk, and went back to cleaning up the paint. Meredith hunched over the wire frame again, but by the time the lunch bell rang, she still hadn't made it look any more like the picture on the book's cover. Furious beyond belief with herself, she glared down at her hands and saw that they were actually trembling. Can't I do anything right today?
As the other kids started to file into the room, she snatched up all her art supplies, carried them over to her cubby, and stuffed them inside without caring much about hurting the frame. I'm probably going to have to start over again anyway. Leaning her head against the shelves, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stop herself from shaking all over.
The sound of footsteps behind her prompted Meredith to look up. Mr. Rash was standing behind her, alarm written all over his face. "Are you feeling alright, Meredith?"
She couldn't remember a time when she'd felt worse, but she nodded mutely all the same. That didn't seem to satisfy him, though. "If you need to go to the nurse," he said, "or maybe just leave early, I can write you a note."
Meredith's stomach knotted at the thought. Then I'd be the welfare kid with nervous breakdowns. No thank you! She shook her head and forced a small smile. "I'll be okay," she lied. "I'm just going to work on something else today."
Mr. Rash looked like he wanted to insist on it, but a commotion across the room between two boys fighting over an easel dragged his attention away, and she ducked by before he could say anything else. She took a sketch pad and some of the less beaten-up pencils, then collapsed into her chair and started drawing. Without a clear goal in mind, she just doodled whatever patterns and shapes came easily to her.
It was more relaxing than she'd thought, and soon her anxiety had melted away except for a small kernel that occasionally bit into her. Experimentally, she tried more complex sketches, and soon she'd progressed from basic shapes to more complicated tessellations and fractals. The first page quickly filled up, and she flipped to the next while tapping the pencil against her chin thoughtfully. After spending so long on trying to make something conform to the shape it was supposed to have, breaking a few of the rules was incredibly tempting. Grinning, she drew a set of Penrose stairs that went downward or upward forever, depending on how you looked at it, but that always brought you back to the same place you'd started. Impossible shapes filled her head, shapes that couldn't exist in a mere three dimensions...
The bell rang, jolting Meredith out of her trance. She blinked in mild confusion before standing up and starting to clear up her desk. She hesitated for a moment over the sketch pad, then stuffed it into her bag along with the rest. Mr. Rash wouldn't mind if she took it, and she wanted to keep working on some of the patterns she'd been making. It felt good to work on something new after so long. And it came so easily! She practically felt like skipping to Ms. Jacobs' math class, even with the few concerned looks she was getting in the hallway.
Her new good spirits lasted exactly as long as it took to see the pile of papers stacked on her desk when she arrived. Confused, she set her bookbag down and started flipping through them. Family demographics...income bracket... Her heart sank. Mr. Rash must have been planning this for a long time if he got these together this quickly... Worse still, most of the hefty stack of forms had space at the bottom for a parent or guardian's signature.
She swept the mass of papers off her desk and into the bag without bothering to check the rest. It was one thing to have all of her teachers know, but if her dad knew she'd gone behind his back...
It's not that he'd be angry, she thought glumly as Ms. Jacobs turned on the overhead projector. Meredith had only ever seen her father angry once in her life, when he'd only worked one job and they had been even less well-off than they were now. A social services worker had come by and told him that he had a month to improve their living situation before she terminated his custody rights. She could vividly remember him nodding gravely, thanking her for her time, and closing the door behind her before sinking into a chair. Helpless rage burned on his face, until she had cried without really knowing what was wrong, just that her father was the most upset she'd ever seen him, and he'd swept her into a crushing hug. He'd told her gruffly not to worry about him, that he'd manage to work extra hours and earn the money they needed. "You're not leaving, I promise," he'd sworn as she sniffled into his work jacket.
For the first time, she thought she understood how he must have felt. Except I didn't actually do anything to help. It wasn't a comforting idea, but none of the excuses springing up felt like anything more than a band-aid. If she really was even a little bit as phenomenal as Mr. Rash thought, her help ought to accomplish things, ought to mean something more real and tangible than fetching someone else who could solve the problem. She smiled bitterly. Just this once, she wouldn't mind being an adult if it meant people came to her for help instead of the other way around.
***
Math sped by nearly as quickly as art had, although much less pleasantly without any drawing to keep Meredith occupied. She deliberately hung back, pretending to get stuff out of her locker while all the other kids rushed out so she'd be alone on her walk back. It probably wasn't necessary, since most of them had given her up as a lost cause a long time ago, but after the last few periods she didn't want to take any chances.
Emerald Valley was small enough that most parents just let their children walk to school, although in Meredith's case she didn't have any real choice. It wasn't a bad trip at all, especially if you walked the way she did, detouring down side streets and hopping from patch to patch of shade so you didn't bake under an Arizona sun. She'd wave hello to the Winslows, who she'd never seen leave their well-stretched lawn chairs, pass by Mr. McHale's dog so it could bark sleepily once or twice and feel satisfied it had done its duty to chase off intruders, watch her reflection in the music shop windows before setting out on the final stretch. Her house was further from school than anyone else's, a half mile of road shimmering in the afternoon heat haze without any company other than the rare car speeding past. She never quite felt lonely out here, as though the wide, cloudless sky and pristine sands were old childhood friends she had all but forgotten. It was always a bit of a surprise when her house finally loomed in front of her.
The screen door squeaked loudly as it slammed shut, the sound piercing through the tiny one-story house. I'll have to oil that later, Meredith thought tiredly before sinking onto the couch that was the oldest piece of furniture they owned, tucked into a corner to save space. She patted its ugly plaid cushions affectionately, mumbling "Hey, buddy" into its arm. After a couple of minutes doing nothing but vegetating, the fatigue that had been building all day receded enough to let her climb out of the squishy couch with a groan and think about doing something useful.
Meredith's father liked to joke that one day he'd buy a bunch of Legos and build them a bigger house with fewer leaks, and sometimes it was hard to believe he wasn't serious. The living room had just about enough space for four, if one of them sat on a chair and didn't mind being very close to the couch, and the kitchen was only a few strides away. Her father's bedroom and her own were at opposite ends of the house, his door still decorated with drawings she'd given him when she was little. Occasionally she'd beg him to take them down and he'd protest. "What, tear down this?" he'd say, pointing to one yellowed drawing that was barely recognizable as a scribble. "I think it's the best thing you've ever done!" Then he would swoop her up onto his shoulders, shrieking with laughter as she ducked to keep from hitting the ceiling.
She trailed a finger over the windowsills before remembering she'd dusted a few days ago, although worryingly a few flecks of paint cracked loose. I should really paint over that sometime next month. The dishes, likewise, were already scoured as clean as they could get without taking a belt sander to them and stacked neatly in the cabinet. The more she looked, the more it seemed like there wasn't any housework she could throw herself at to eat up the time until her father came home.
Pulling a sour face, she ambled back over to the couch. Maybe I could get a head start on my homework? ...Yeah, that's not going to happen. She idly kicked her bookbag a few times before remembering the sketch pad she'd borrowed. Well, why not mark up a few more pages? She fished around inside the mass of forms, trying not to think about the inevitable talk she'd be having about those soon enough. The leather spine of a book met her probing fingers instead of the pad of paper she'd been looking for. Meredith blinked in mild surprise. None of her textbooks were bound in anything nearly this nice. Had she grabbed someone else's book along with the forms? Curious, she tugged the stray out of her backpack, spilling a few papers along the way.
The book that fell into her lap was a small, thick volume bound in white leather. The Art was stamped large across the cover in no-nonsense black ink, and underneath that ran the words Fundamental Paradigms and Applications of Wizardry. Nothing else was printed on the outside – no author, no bar code, not so much as a dust jacket review. Meredith turned the book over in her hands, deeply confused. Did I accidentally steal Mr. Rash's library book?
Flipping the book open, she started to thumb through the pages, expecting to find something about dragon eggs. The first page the book fell open to was headed "Eversion of 3-Manifolds" and littered with eye-watering technical diagrams. Reading through the page took her a fair bit of time, as whoever had written it had used enough unfamiliar words that she had to pick them out from context. It's about turning things inside-out, but...it sounds more like they're talking about doing it to bits of the universe! As casually as if they were telling you to turn a shirt inside-out before washing it! Fascinated, she kept turning pages, and the book kept presenting her with more and more esoteric topics. Whole sections here and there were written in a gracefully curved language she didn't recognize, elegant lines of script and formulas set in neat blocks interspersed with English words.
Who would make a book like this? There's no plot or characters or anything, it just reads like an instruction booklet. She glanced up, guiltily eying the backpack stuffed full of forms she still needed to work on. Having those done might make it a little easier on her father, but something about the book's utmost sincerity was urging her to read as much as she could before starting dinner...
Pick an afternoon activity. (Choose one.)
[ ] (1.5x) Keep reading the book. You've got all weekend to fill out those forms, and if you dig a little deeper you might find answers to all the questions your sneak peek's already raised. Besides, you think you're getting the hang of the way the author explains things...
[ ] (1.3x) Take the book back to school. This definitely isn't part of the forms you were supposed to have, and from the looks of it someone is going to miss their weekend fiction, weird as it seems.
[ ] (1.0x) Fill out the papers. Your father's got enough on his plate without having to tackle those, and you think he'd be more likely to agree to the idea if you finished them first.
[ ] (0.7x) Do your homework. There's not much, but why not get it out of the way early so you have a clear weekend ahead? Dad would be happy about it, too.
Decide how you're going to tell your father about the papers. (Choose one.)
[ ] (1.5x) Don't, at least not tonight. Wait until you're sure he's in a good mood, and more importantly, until you're sure there's barely anything that still has to be done.
[ ] (1.3x) Bend the truth a little. Your involvement is embarrassing, and honestly, you're not sure you can bring yourself to admit that you agreed to the plan. If you make it sound as though you didn't take the papers willingly, he probably won't be upset.
[ ] (1.3x) Leave the papers on a table. Pretending you thought they were school forms he needed to sign would absolve you of any guilt in the matter, but how likely is he to sign them in that case?
[ ] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
[ ] (0.7x) Don't ever tell him. You'll handle things on your own. Forge his signature, cash checks yourself, lie about where the extra money is coming from, just don't admit you took charity. You don't know if you can pull it off, but it would let him keep his dignity, at least.
Thankfully, Mr. Rash didn't push it any further. He just patted her shoulder clumsily, set the guidebook on her desk, and went back to cleaning up the paint. Meredith hunched over the wire frame again, but by the time the lunch bell rang, she still hadn't made it look any more like the picture on the book's cover. Furious beyond belief with herself, she glared down at her hands and saw that they were actually trembling. Can't I do anything right today?
As the other kids started to file into the room, she snatched up all her art supplies, carried them over to her cubby, and stuffed them inside without caring much about hurting the frame. I'm probably going to have to start over again anyway. Leaning her head against the shelves, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stop herself from shaking all over.
The sound of footsteps behind her prompted Meredith to look up. Mr. Rash was standing behind her, alarm written all over his face. "Are you feeling alright, Meredith?"
She couldn't remember a time when she'd felt worse, but she nodded mutely all the same. That didn't seem to satisfy him, though. "If you need to go to the nurse," he said, "or maybe just leave early, I can write you a note."
Meredith's stomach knotted at the thought. Then I'd be the welfare kid with nervous breakdowns. No thank you! She shook her head and forced a small smile. "I'll be okay," she lied. "I'm just going to work on something else today."
Mr. Rash looked like he wanted to insist on it, but a commotion across the room between two boys fighting over an easel dragged his attention away, and she ducked by before he could say anything else. She took a sketch pad and some of the less beaten-up pencils, then collapsed into her chair and started drawing. Without a clear goal in mind, she just doodled whatever patterns and shapes came easily to her.
It was more relaxing than she'd thought, and soon her anxiety had melted away except for a small kernel that occasionally bit into her. Experimentally, she tried more complex sketches, and soon she'd progressed from basic shapes to more complicated tessellations and fractals. The first page quickly filled up, and she flipped to the next while tapping the pencil against her chin thoughtfully. After spending so long on trying to make something conform to the shape it was supposed to have, breaking a few of the rules was incredibly tempting. Grinning, she drew a set of Penrose stairs that went downward or upward forever, depending on how you looked at it, but that always brought you back to the same place you'd started. Impossible shapes filled her head, shapes that couldn't exist in a mere three dimensions...
The bell rang, jolting Meredith out of her trance. She blinked in mild confusion before standing up and starting to clear up her desk. She hesitated for a moment over the sketch pad, then stuffed it into her bag along with the rest. Mr. Rash wouldn't mind if she took it, and she wanted to keep working on some of the patterns she'd been making. It felt good to work on something new after so long. And it came so easily! She practically felt like skipping to Ms. Jacobs' math class, even with the few concerned looks she was getting in the hallway.
Her new good spirits lasted exactly as long as it took to see the pile of papers stacked on her desk when she arrived. Confused, she set her bookbag down and started flipping through them. Family demographics...income bracket... Her heart sank. Mr. Rash must have been planning this for a long time if he got these together this quickly... Worse still, most of the hefty stack of forms had space at the bottom for a parent or guardian's signature.
She swept the mass of papers off her desk and into the bag without bothering to check the rest. It was one thing to have all of her teachers know, but if her dad knew she'd gone behind his back...
It's not that he'd be angry, she thought glumly as Ms. Jacobs turned on the overhead projector. Meredith had only ever seen her father angry once in her life, when he'd only worked one job and they had been even less well-off than they were now. A social services worker had come by and told him that he had a month to improve their living situation before she terminated his custody rights. She could vividly remember him nodding gravely, thanking her for her time, and closing the door behind her before sinking into a chair. Helpless rage burned on his face, until she had cried without really knowing what was wrong, just that her father was the most upset she'd ever seen him, and he'd swept her into a crushing hug. He'd told her gruffly not to worry about him, that he'd manage to work extra hours and earn the money they needed. "You're not leaving, I promise," he'd sworn as she sniffled into his work jacket.
For the first time, she thought she understood how he must have felt. Except I didn't actually do anything to help. It wasn't a comforting idea, but none of the excuses springing up felt like anything more than a band-aid. If she really was even a little bit as phenomenal as Mr. Rash thought, her help ought to accomplish things, ought to mean something more real and tangible than fetching someone else who could solve the problem. She smiled bitterly. Just this once, she wouldn't mind being an adult if it meant people came to her for help instead of the other way around.
***
Math sped by nearly as quickly as art had, although much less pleasantly without any drawing to keep Meredith occupied. She deliberately hung back, pretending to get stuff out of her locker while all the other kids rushed out so she'd be alone on her walk back. It probably wasn't necessary, since most of them had given her up as a lost cause a long time ago, but after the last few periods she didn't want to take any chances.
Emerald Valley was small enough that most parents just let their children walk to school, although in Meredith's case she didn't have any real choice. It wasn't a bad trip at all, especially if you walked the way she did, detouring down side streets and hopping from patch to patch of shade so you didn't bake under an Arizona sun. She'd wave hello to the Winslows, who she'd never seen leave their well-stretched lawn chairs, pass by Mr. McHale's dog so it could bark sleepily once or twice and feel satisfied it had done its duty to chase off intruders, watch her reflection in the music shop windows before setting out on the final stretch. Her house was further from school than anyone else's, a half mile of road shimmering in the afternoon heat haze without any company other than the rare car speeding past. She never quite felt lonely out here, as though the wide, cloudless sky and pristine sands were old childhood friends she had all but forgotten. It was always a bit of a surprise when her house finally loomed in front of her.
The screen door squeaked loudly as it slammed shut, the sound piercing through the tiny one-story house. I'll have to oil that later, Meredith thought tiredly before sinking onto the couch that was the oldest piece of furniture they owned, tucked into a corner to save space. She patted its ugly plaid cushions affectionately, mumbling "Hey, buddy" into its arm. After a couple of minutes doing nothing but vegetating, the fatigue that had been building all day receded enough to let her climb out of the squishy couch with a groan and think about doing something useful.
Meredith's father liked to joke that one day he'd buy a bunch of Legos and build them a bigger house with fewer leaks, and sometimes it was hard to believe he wasn't serious. The living room had just about enough space for four, if one of them sat on a chair and didn't mind being very close to the couch, and the kitchen was only a few strides away. Her father's bedroom and her own were at opposite ends of the house, his door still decorated with drawings she'd given him when she was little. Occasionally she'd beg him to take them down and he'd protest. "What, tear down this?" he'd say, pointing to one yellowed drawing that was barely recognizable as a scribble. "I think it's the best thing you've ever done!" Then he would swoop her up onto his shoulders, shrieking with laughter as she ducked to keep from hitting the ceiling.
She trailed a finger over the windowsills before remembering she'd dusted a few days ago, although worryingly a few flecks of paint cracked loose. I should really paint over that sometime next month. The dishes, likewise, were already scoured as clean as they could get without taking a belt sander to them and stacked neatly in the cabinet. The more she looked, the more it seemed like there wasn't any housework she could throw herself at to eat up the time until her father came home.
Pulling a sour face, she ambled back over to the couch. Maybe I could get a head start on my homework? ...Yeah, that's not going to happen. She idly kicked her bookbag a few times before remembering the sketch pad she'd borrowed. Well, why not mark up a few more pages? She fished around inside the mass of forms, trying not to think about the inevitable talk she'd be having about those soon enough. The leather spine of a book met her probing fingers instead of the pad of paper she'd been looking for. Meredith blinked in mild surprise. None of her textbooks were bound in anything nearly this nice. Had she grabbed someone else's book along with the forms? Curious, she tugged the stray out of her backpack, spilling a few papers along the way.
The book that fell into her lap was a small, thick volume bound in white leather. The Art was stamped large across the cover in no-nonsense black ink, and underneath that ran the words Fundamental Paradigms and Applications of Wizardry. Nothing else was printed on the outside – no author, no bar code, not so much as a dust jacket review. Meredith turned the book over in her hands, deeply confused. Did I accidentally steal Mr. Rash's library book?
Flipping the book open, she started to thumb through the pages, expecting to find something about dragon eggs. The first page the book fell open to was headed "Eversion of 3-Manifolds" and littered with eye-watering technical diagrams. Reading through the page took her a fair bit of time, as whoever had written it had used enough unfamiliar words that she had to pick them out from context. It's about turning things inside-out, but...it sounds more like they're talking about doing it to bits of the universe! As casually as if they were telling you to turn a shirt inside-out before washing it! Fascinated, she kept turning pages, and the book kept presenting her with more and more esoteric topics. Whole sections here and there were written in a gracefully curved language she didn't recognize, elegant lines of script and formulas set in neat blocks interspersed with English words.
Who would make a book like this? There's no plot or characters or anything, it just reads like an instruction booklet. She glanced up, guiltily eying the backpack stuffed full of forms she still needed to work on. Having those done might make it a little easier on her father, but something about the book's utmost sincerity was urging her to read as much as she could before starting dinner...
Pick an afternoon activity. (Choose one.)
[ ] (1.5x) Keep reading the book. You've got all weekend to fill out those forms, and if you dig a little deeper you might find answers to all the questions your sneak peek's already raised. Besides, you think you're getting the hang of the way the author explains things...
[ ] (1.3x) Take the book back to school. This definitely isn't part of the forms you were supposed to have, and from the looks of it someone is going to miss their weekend fiction, weird as it seems.
[ ] (1.0x) Fill out the papers. Your father's got enough on his plate without having to tackle those, and you think he'd be more likely to agree to the idea if you finished them first.
[ ] (0.7x) Do your homework. There's not much, but why not get it out of the way early so you have a clear weekend ahead? Dad would be happy about it, too.
Decide how you're going to tell your father about the papers. (Choose one.)
[ ] (1.5x) Don't, at least not tonight. Wait until you're sure he's in a good mood, and more importantly, until you're sure there's barely anything that still has to be done.
[ ] (1.3x) Bend the truth a little. Your involvement is embarrassing, and honestly, you're not sure you can bring yourself to admit that you agreed to the plan. If you make it sound as though you didn't take the papers willingly, he probably won't be upset.
[ ] (1.3x) Leave the papers on a table. Pretending you thought they were school forms he needed to sign would absolve you of any guilt in the matter, but how likely is he to sign them in that case?
[ ] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
[ ] (0.7x) Don't ever tell him. You'll handle things on your own. Forge his signature, cash checks yourself, lie about where the extra money is coming from, just don't admit you took charity. You don't know if you can pull it off, but it would let him keep his dignity, at least.
Also, a few changes to the character sheet!
New Skills: Fair (+2) Will, Fair (+2) Crafts, Average (+1) Resources
New Trouble: Seeking Worth
And since we've now got a couple of skills at +2, now would be a good time to think about what sort of stunts you'd like to see on those two. No voting quite yet, just general discussion. Don't forget that you could eventually pick up magical stunts on either of those as well.
New Skills: Fair (+2) Will, Fair (+2) Crafts, Average (+1) Resources
New Trouble: Seeking Worth
And since we've now got a couple of skills at +2, now would be a good time to think about what sort of stunts you'd like to see on those two. No voting quite yet, just general discussion. Don't forget that you could eventually pick up magical stunts on either of those as well.
[X] (1.0x) Fill out the papers. Your father's got enough on his plate without having to tackle those, and you think he'd be more likely to agree to the idea if you finished them first.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
Great chapter, you can empathize well with the character you've created and the situation she is in. I'll look into your system to give some feedback and discussion later, because as of now it is an unknown for me.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
Great chapter, you can empathize well with the character you've created and the situation she is in. I'll look into your system to give some feedback and discussion later, because as of now it is an unknown for me.
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[X] (1.0x) Fill out the papers. Your father's got enough on his plate without having to tackle those, and you think he'd be more likely to agree to the idea if you finished them first.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
- Location
- New Jersey
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] (1.5x) Keep reading the book. You've got all weekend to fill out those forms, and if you dig a little deeper you might find answers to all the questions your sneak peek's already raised. Besides, you think you're getting the hang of the way the author explains things...
[x] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
Is it bad that I just want to get our wizardry already. For the second a wizards power is based, at least in part, on their spoken word and you want to be as honest as possible.
Edit: oops thanks veekie
[x] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
Is it bad that I just want to get our wizardry already. For the second a wizards power is based, at least in part, on their spoken word and you want to be as honest as possible.
Edit: oops thanks veekie
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Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
[X] (1.0x) Fill out the papers. Your father's got enough on his plate without having to tackle those, and you think he'd be more likely to agree to the idea if you finished them first.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] (1.0x) Fill out the papers. Your father's got enough on his plate without having to tackle those, and you think he'd be more likely to agree to the idea if you finished them first.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.
[X] (1.0x) Be as honest as possible. It's going to be tough – you barely managed to hold yourself together in front of Mr. Rash – but you owe your father that much.