[X] Finius. The spirit had no name except that, but he was in charge of spiritual studies at the college and was rumored to be older than half of the city council, which was definitely an impressive feat. Certain cautious whispers had it that the only reason he didn't have a seat was because the Chairman himself had a personal grudge.
[X] The Dimensional Science TA. She hadn't actually given her name, and the signature on the form approving your scholarship had been a stamp that said 'Dishevel Vino' which you knew to be the name of the head of the Dimensional Science Department. You weren't really sure she technically had the authority to authorize a scholarship like that, but no one seemed to have questioned it.
[X] Saphira
[X] Female
[X] Finius. The spirit had no name except that, but he was in charge of spiritual studies at the college and was rumored to be older than half of the city council, which was definitely an impressive feat. Certain cautious whispers had it that the only reason he didn't have a seat was because the Chairman himself had a personal grudge.
[X] The Dimensional Science TA. She hadn't actually given her name, and the signature on the form approving your scholarship had been a stamp that said 'Dishevel Vino' which you knew to be the name of the head of the Dimensional Science Department. You weren't really sure she technically had the authority to authorize a scholarship like that, but no one seemed to have questioned it.
[X] Ayako Rin
[X] Female
[X] The Dimensional Science TA. She hadn't actually given her name, and the signature on the form approving your scholarship had been a stamp that said 'Dishevel Vino' which you knew to be the name of the head of the Dimensional Science Department. You weren't really sure she technically had the authority to authorize a scholarship like that, but no one seemed to have questioned it.
[X] Ayako Rin
[X] Female
[X] The Dimensional Science TA. She hadn't actually given her name, and the signature on the form approving your scholarship had been a stamp that said 'Dishevel Vino' which you knew to be the name of the head of the Dimensional Science Department. You weren't really sure she technically had the authority to authorize a scholarship like that, but no one seemed to have questioned it.
[X] Saphira
[X] Female
Honestly you're kind of surprised they bothered with the waiver. It probably had something to do with the fact that almost every other student in the auditorium had clothes that you were pretty sure cost more than your parents made in a year. Looking around you don't see many other people who are hesitant about the form. Heh. It's almost funny actually, seeing so many of the children of the supposedly rich and powerful meekly going along with a form that basically meant the archmage could murder them whenever he wanted to as long as it was in any way related to their studies.
Still, there were some exceptions. The most standout among them were the two in the fanciest clothes of course. The first, a boy with short red hair and clothes that you were pretty sure were made out of threads of precious metals going by how they glinted in the light had stood on top of a chair and torn his form to shreds then marched down to the TA's booth, the crowd of other complainers and angry voices having parted easily before him as he went confront her. The second, a girl in a high necked dress that you were pretty sure competed with the archmage's for gems per square inch and long black hair braided in such a complicated pattern that you suspect an entire team of servants would be required to get it done in under three hours. She was hovering on the edge of the same crowd looking surprisingly nervous for someone whose dress could almost certainly buy a significant percentage of a city that didn't have the sheer concentrated wealth of Diadem.
The question now was what you were going to do. Sign the form? It probably wouldn't matter either way. The archmage could murder you in broad daylight even if you didn't sign and the lawkeepers wouldn't so much as raise an eyebrow unless he made a particularly large mess. Your parents couldn't do anything about it, and neither could anyone else you knew. Well, maybe the Dimensional Science TA? But you weren't sure what a TA could do to stop the archmage of the whole college.
[] Sign
[] Don't Sign
-[] Talk to the TA to see if she'll let you leave without signing.
Interact with anyone?
[] The nervous girl in the dress
[] The confident boy confronting the TA
[] Don't.
If anyone of you want to find a picture for the main character, we can hold a vote on that next update as well. Also, I'm amused by the name you chose for reasons that may or may not soon become clear.
[X] Try to avoid interacting with anyone from a ridiculously powerful and wealthy family.
I hope that writing in a option isn't against the rules. I think that our protagonist should display some common sense and avoid interacting with people who could trivially arrange her death when said interaction does not come with any clear benefits. Our protagonist is thus far appearing to be a realist and it seems in character for her to realize that interacting with either of the people on the listed options could easily go horribly wrong with very little chance of significant gain.
Sure, let's calm her down, have her sign with us, and make her our best friend. We could make a fortune pawning her gems when she inevitably gets murdered.
[X] Try to avoid interacting with anyone from a ridiculously powerful and wealthy family.
I hope that writing in a option isn't against the rules. I think that our protagonist should display some common sense and avoid interacting with people who could trivially arrange her death when said interaction does not come with any clear benefits. Our protagonist is thus far appearing to be a realist and it seems in character for her to realize that interacting with either of the people on the listed options could easily go horribly wrong with very little chance of significant gain.
Really, for a name like Saphira....I certainly don't think of blue or dragons, not at all.
I don't know what age Saphira is, or the general aesthetic of the city, or if there's a uniform, or what sort of effects magic can have (let alone Saphira's magic), so some of these may be more or less useful. I tried to avoid anything too 'marked.'
Five suggestions for image.
I don't know what age Saphira is, or the general aesthetic of the city, or if there's a uniform, or what sort of effects magic can have (let alone Saphira's magic), so some of these may be more or less useful. I tried to avoid anything too 'marked.'
Although this is a college, I'm having the average age for first years be 16 sort of on general principle and because I feel like entitled brats are more common at that age.
No uniform, because the archmage really could care less, Dishevel never interacts with the students 99% of the time and so doesn't care, Finius's idea of a dress code is several centuries out of date, and the Burning Earth has trouble understanding humans die when they're set on fire, let alone the idea of clothes.
The aesthetic of the city and college is 'decadence' taken to an absurd level, though in the college you'll see people wearing simpler robes if they do a lot of unstable experiments (See the Dimensional Science TA). Your character could plausibly be wearing any combination of colors or styles, but unlike the rich kids, her clothes won't be say, magically enchanted to stay clean/turn aside blades/detect poison/whatever or covered in gems and/or precious metals.
Yes, but it's very uncommon in Diadem because it's a magic associated with the wild- I.E. the exact opposite of Diadem and the college. The archmage is a master of enchanting (Which in this setting is basically making an object that either constantly casts or can be activated to cast a spell you know) and theoretically teaches a class on it. In practice, the Dimensional Science TA teaches that class on the very few occasions when she is not busy doing everything Dishevel should be doing.
"In this college, there is only one thing that matters and that is your ability. I'm not saying this because I want to give anyone any particular hope of overcoming whatever pathetic background they've come from. You probably won't- the wealthier students have a thousand advantages over you, and I'll admit that I've occasionally been paid enough to look the other way when some brat throws a temper tantrum and begs mommy and daddy to have another student killed. Of course," and here you can hear pure amusement enter his voice, "I would caution you against throwing a tantrum that leads to you biting off more than you can chew."
From the corner of your eye you see one of his hands make a vague motion, before a wall of light appears in the air above him.
"But I digress. Ability is the only thing that will let you graduate from this college. I don't care if the Dragon of Wealth herself offers to open up the city's vaults for me. I don't care if the Chairman makes a motion to sanction me. Not a single one of the whole pathetic lot of you will ever graduate unless you can beat this."
The wall of light resolves into colors and shapes, displaying a huge number of milestones and criteria and a frankly dizzying array of small sections and subsections.
"This is the average graduate from Solemn Vale." The archmage's voice darkens for a moment. "You will be better than them. I will not be shown up by that simpleton they call an archmage. If any of you get to the end of your final year here without beating this, you will drop out for personal reasons entirely unrelated to the fact that I will have you tortured to death if you do not. That is all."
With that, he vanishes again, the wall of light remaining behind him.
I like him. Like I really like him. I mean would probably end up killing him but I like him. I mean hell this is the sort of speech I would give to a magic school if I was it's head.
[X] Sign
[X] Don't.
The signing most likely lets us be able to kill in self defense if we are attacked.
And while I want to keep an eye on the Girl and help her if she really needs it both of thous kids are top of food chain and I don't want to be seen as an target, yet.
In the end, you don't see the point in refusing to sign the waiver. It would just be pointless to try to make an issue of it when the simple reality was that right now, no one who mattered cared if you lived or died. Someday you'll change that, but for the moment you just have to deal with it as best you can and not draw attention to yourself before you're ready to deal with it.
With that thought in mind, you put aside your momentary consideration of talking to the nervous looking rich girl. You might be able to get some advantage if you help her out with whatever problem she's having, but for all you know she could just be offended at the idea that she could ever possibly need help from someone of your relative social standing. So you sign the waiver and settle down to wait.
....
Whatever argument the red haired boy is having with the TA is clearly taking a long time.
....
Finally, after at least ten minutes the crowd around the TA's booth parts again. The boy looks unhappy as he walks out, but you do notice that he's now carrying a thick packet of paper instead of the simple waiver, and the crowd around him as he walks through clearly look envious of whatever concessions his status has gotten him. A few even look positively murderous as he sits down to carefully go through what he's been given, and once he's left the crowd the volume increases enough that even from your distance you can hear snippets of whining at the TA about them not getting whatever special treatment he's gotten.
The nervous looking girl is still standing on the edge of the crowd around the booth. You look on in some interest as her fidgeting progresses from simple awkward standing to a short step forward followed by awkwardly turning around as if that was what she meant to do in the first place, and now to crumpling the unsigned waiver up into a ball in her hands. You don't think she's actually aware she's doing it honestly. On closer inspection, you're not actually sure she's nervous exactly. More... intensely uncomfortable. The way she's standing and fidgeting, you don't actually think she's worn a dress like the one she's wearing before. The difference is clear when you look at the other rich girls in fancy dresses; they might be nervous, or angry, but their clothes never seem to be part of that. With the nervous girl, she has these twitches where her hands move to tug her dress one way or another. There's another odd twitch among the collection too, one that you can't quite place. Sometimes when she looks at her unsigned waiver one of her hands moves up to the high collar of the dress and tugs at it. The more you look at her actually, the more inconsistencies and weirdness you spot. Her posture is more of a slouch than anything proper, and looking closer, you're pretty sure you see a small scar under one of her eyes.
Before you can examine her more however, the TA has apparently lost all of her patience. She appears in front of the girl with no fanfare and holds out her hand expectantly. She shrinks back for a moment before leaning closer and saying something to the TA. At this point you're downright intrigued, so you idly sidle forward to try and hear whatever is going on. Given the sheer number of other people you see doing the same thing, you can at least be confident that you won't be singled out for doing it.
Even closer up you can barely hear the girl, she's speaking in almost a whisper.
"-so I can't sign it," you manage to get close enough to hear before she stops speaking.
The TA doesn't respond immediately, her head tilting as she considers whatever the girl said. After a moment, she replies.
"And if I got the archmage in here, would you be willing to tell him that?"
The girl swallows, but replies. "Yes."
You, along with the rest of the nosy crowd suddenly feel the urge to no longer be standing quite so close as the TA says "As you wish," and vanishes again.
The nervous girl is left standing in an increasingly widening circle.
A surprisingly short minute later, the TA appears again with the archmage next to her. This time, you're a bit more practiced at looking at him past the brilliance of the gems covering his robes. His facial expression is definitely irritated, and it only sours as his eyes fix on the girl. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but the archmage just waves a hand in her general direction. A gem near his wrist flares up to a blinding red glow before shattering into shards. He doesn't look surprised, but rather slightly disappointed. Then what little you can see of his expression brightens.
"You know," he begins in a positively cheery conversational tone, "I think that this just might be a teachable moment!"
You and, from what you can feel of the rest of the room's mood, are very much unnerved by how happy the archmage sounds at this prospect.
"You see, you've all just seen what happens in this college to people who matter. Why, they can do anything they want with no consequences! Isn't that just wonderful?" Behind the archmage, you see the Dimensional Science TA's eyes, now illuminated by the glow from the archmage, scanning the room worriedly. Finally, they settle on you. After a flick to the archmage's back, they meet yours and she mouths 'Don't Move'.
"Now, I wonder what the corollary of this rule is when applied to people who don't matter? I think an experiment is in order. Oh, I do so love to demonstrate the scientific process to young minds such as yours. Any volunteers?"
The archmage's voice is so filled with false cheer that it's taken on a slightly manic edge. Everyone in the room is trying their level best to blend into the rest of the crowd as much as possible.
What do you do?
[] Nothing
[] Volunteer
[] Something Else (Write-in)
Appearance Vote:
[] 1
Really, for a name like Saphira....I certainly don't think of blue or dragons, not at all.
[X] Something Else (Write-in)
-[X] Don't Move, at all. Except to breath. Fainting would probably be bad. But try to breath with as little noise and movement as possible.
