The College of Jewels (Magical Academy Quest)

[Broken25]

[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

 

[zup]

[X] No
[X] Enter a real part of the college and hole up until whatever the Archmage's test is is finished. The three of you together should be enough to stand up to whatever the Archmage has planned.

Can't hide, there's xp to be gained by killing elementals and stuff.

 

[Malaquez]

[X] No
[X] Search the college for anyone else trapped like Ruby was. You don't want to break the Archmage's rules by helping for the sake of helping, but if you see anyone strong enough to be useful, it would be justifiable under the Archmage's rules.

Networking. Fun.

 

[Pyran]

[X] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

 

[Spectrum]

Spectrum I have only one word for you, LEWD.

Click to shrink...

I didn't even mention handholding!

[X] No
[X] Enter a real part of the college and hole up until whatever the Archmage's test is is finished. The three of you together should be enough to stand up to whatever the Archmage has planned.

 

[notgreat]

[X] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

Unless I missed something, we don't get any benefits from battle unless we dedicate it first, and this doesn't seem like the kind of battle where that would work. Going around rescuing people might be nice, but risking the Archmage's wrath for helping others doesn't seem worth it to me- and anyone strong enough to be useful shouldn't be having any problems with this considering what we've seen thus far.

edit: Also, this might make Lusca into another friend for us and Ruby. Both of whom could really use more friends.

edit2: Oh yeah, also, this line from the update: "I want to get this over with." I think that going around trying to save people doesn't really fit with that.

 

[Lexica]

Vote Tally : Original - The College of Jewels (Magical Academy Quest) | Page 58 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.5
[X] No
No. of Votes: 11
Ct613hulu
Dirk93
Malaquez
notgreat
Pyran
Spectrum
SystemicHatter
TurtleDucks
UberJJK
veekie
zup
[X] Search the college for anyone else trapped like Ruby was. You don't want to break the Archmage's rules by helping for the sake of helping, but if you see anyone strong enough to be useful, it would be justifiable under the Archmage's rules.
No. of Votes: 6
fictionfan
Malaquez
Nevill
SystemicHatter
TurtleDucks
veekie
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.
No. of Votes: 5
Ct613hulu
Broken25
Dirk93
notgreat
Pyran
[X] Enter a real part of the college and hole up until whatever the Archmage's test is is finished. The three of you together should be enough to stand up to whatever the Archmage has planned.
No. of Votes: 3
UberJJK
Spectrum
zup
[x] Yes
No. of Votes: 1
Nevill
-[x] Henry and friends
No. of Votes: 1
Nevill
Total No. of Voters: 14

Very close actually. And I'm not feeling well right now, so ETA on closing the vote is up in the air, but not for at least a couple of hours.

 

[Unseelie]

[X] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

 

[Ephemeral_Dreamer]

[X] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

 

[SoothingCoffee]

[X] No
[X] Enter a real part of the college and hole up until whatever the Archmage's test is is finished. The three of you together should be enough to stand up to whatever the Archmage has planned.

 

[PayKey]

[X] No
[X] Search the college for anyone else trapped like Ruby was. You don't want to break the Archmage's rules by helping for the sake of helping, but if you see anyone strong enough to be useful, it would be justifiable under the Archmage's rules.

 

[ChildishChimera]

[x] Yes
-[x] Henry and friends
[X] Search the college for anyone else trapped like Ruby was. You don't want to break the Archmage's rules by helping for the sake of helping, but if you see anyone strong enough to be useful, it would be justifiable under the Archmage's rules.

 

[shlok]

[X] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

 

[Lexica]

Vote Tally : Original - The College of Jewels (Magical Academy Quest) | Page 58 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.5
[X] No
No. of Votes: 16
Ct613hulu
Dirk93
Ephemeral_Dreamer
Malaquez
notgreat
PayKey
Pyran
shlok
SoothingCoffee
Spectrum
SystemicHatter
TurtleDucks
UberJJK
Unseelie
veekie
zup
[X] Search the college for anyone else trapped like Ruby was. You don't want to break the Archmage's rules by helping for the sake of helping, but if you see anyone strong enough to be useful, it would be justifiable under the Archmage's rules.
No. of Votes: 8
fictionfan
ChildishChimera
Malaquez
Nevill
PayKey
SystemicHatter
TurtleDucks
veekie
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.
No. of Votes: 8
Ct613hulu
Broken25
Dirk93
Ephemeral_Dreamer
notgreat
Pyran
shlok
Unseelie
[X] Enter a real part of the college and hole up until whatever the Archmage's test is is finished. The three of you together should be enough to stand up to whatever the Archmage has planned.
No. of Votes: 4
UberJJK
SoothingCoffee
Spectrum
zup
[x] Yes
No. of Votes: 2
Nevill
ChildishChimera
-[x] Henry and friends
No. of Votes: 2
Nevill
ChildishChimera
Total No. of Voters: 20


Tallying again mainly because the vote is tied and I want to make sure I trigger the alert. Vote is closed immediately after the tie is broken.

 

[reborn214]

[x] no
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a whileto see if things are over.

 

[DeepWaters]

[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

[x] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a whileto see if things are over.

 

[Lexica]

[x] No
[X] Now that you've found Ruby, the plan to wait this out Somewhere is looking much more attractive. You, Ruby, and Lusca can play cards or something for a few hours and check every once in a while to see if things are over.

It takes a bit of deliberation, and you almost decide to look for more students trapped like Ruby was to help, but ultimately your more cautious nature wins out. Helping other students in order to help yourself was probably within the spirit of the rules the Archmage had outlined, but it was definitely skirting the edges. And with someone like him, it was much better to be safe than not have a chance to be sorry.

With a wave of your hand, a portal to Somewhere opens and you gesture to Ruby and Lusca.

"The way I see it, there's no point sticking around and fighting these elementals when we can just wait it out and not do anything at all." You say, by way of explanation. Ruby gives only a grateful nod, but Lusca surprises you by actually forming a noticeable expression for once. A small smirk.

"We will call it a draw then." She says as she steps through the portal.

You call after her. "I believe I was the one winning as of the last count." Lusca apparently doesn't care to reply.

---​

You are bored. Very bored. Lusca is not much for long conversations it appears and has instead opted to go swimming in the large volume of water you have stored here. Normally you wouldn't be particularly bothered by this as you and Ruby could pass time through small talk pretty easily, but she had taken it upon herself to critique your small extraplanar hide-away. Sure, it was composed of featureless walls and floors, and you had pits full of water, ash, sand, boulders, and other random crap scattered throughout it, but it was perfectly functional!

Regardless, you had opted to get out of that conversation particular by making the excuse of wanting to check on what was happening in the college. And it turned out? Not terribly much at all. More weak elementals, more people trapped, nothing very exciting. You hoped this would end some time soon.
​

---​

It did not end some time soon. At least Ruby had given it a rest. Lusca was lying on her back in one of your pools of water. You were pretty sure she was sleeping.
​

---​

Hours and hours later and it still wasn't over. You think you see what the Archmage is doing though. The elementals were laughably easy to defeat, yes. And the traps sealing students in pocket dimensions were, while incredibly irritating, not dangerous in and of themselves. Both of these things continuing for so long though... It was wearing the students out, and half of them were trapped by themselves or in tiny groups of two or three. It seemed... Odd then that simply hiding Somewhere got you out of it. Some favoritism by the Archmage, punishing students who relied too much on purely 'conventional' magic? Maybe, but you weren't so sure.
​

---​

Finally, at some time in what must be the early morning of the next day given how tired you are, the steady stream of elementals ends and the spatial distortions abruptly sort themselves out, returning the corridors of the college to normal. The Archmage gives his announcement:

"Those of you still alive have passed. That is all."
​

Well, that was-

"Also, classes are cancelled until the end of the week."

Charming.

---

And we're back to updates covering a larger period of time for the moment. The next update will cover the next two weeks.


Same as for the last timeskip, we'll be doing a system where you pick a number of choices from three categories to vote on. With this vote, because it covers two weeks, you may choose four options from each category instead of three. On formatting, I believe the way to do it so that the tallybot will recognize it is to format it like so:

[1] [Whatever] aaaa
[2] [Whatever] bbbb
[1] [Everwhat] cccc
[2] [Everwhat] dddd

Magic

[] [Magic] Dimensional Science
[] [Magic] Elemental
[] [Magic] Spiritual
[] [Magic] Countermagic
[] [Magic] Enchanting

Social

[] [Social] Ruby
[] [Social] Henry
[] [Social] The TA
[] [Social] Sammy
[] [Social] Adam
[] [Social] Lusca

Special (Only three choices available)

[X] [Special] Listen.
[] [Special] Get a sense of things in the college after the Archmage's 'lesson.'
[] [Special] Get into a fight and dedicate it to the Lady of War
[] [Special] Join a Club
-[] Writein Club
[] [Special] Make a new friend
[] [Special] Try and get to know some of the upperclassmen in the college.
[] [Special] Find out what's going on outside the college
[] [Special] Attempt to talk to someone important at the college
-[] Finius
-[] Dishevel Vino
-[] The Burning Earth

On an unrelated note, the Archmage actually did have something in place for students hiding out Somewhere during his lesson, but he didn't put enough effort into it to overcome Methodology like his spells normally would.

 

[SpeckofStardust]

It takes a bit of deliberation, and you almost decide to look for more students trapped like Ruby was to help, but ultimately your more cautious nature wins out. Helping other students in order to help yourself was probably within the spirit of the rules the Archmage had outlined, but it was definitely skirting the edges. And with someone like him, it was much better to be safe than not have a chance to be sorry.

With a wave of your hand, a portal to Somewhere opens and you gesture to Ruby and Lusca.

"The way I see it, there's no point sticking around and fighting these elementals when we can just wait it out and not do anything at all." You say, by way of explanation. Ruby gives only a grateful nod, but Lusca surprises you by actually forming a noticeable expression for once. A small smirk.

"We will call it a draw then." She says as she steps through the portal.

You call after her. "I believe I was the one winning as of the last count." Lusca apparently doesn't care to reply.

Click to shrink...

The start of a friendship based on one-upmanship.

You are bored. Very bored. Lusca is not much for long conversations it appears and has instead opted to go swimming in the large volume of water you have stored here. Normally you wouldn't be particularly bothered by this as you and Ruby could pass time through small talk pretty easily, but she had taken it upon herself to critique your small extraplanar hide-away. Sure, it was composed of featureless walls and floors, and you had pits full of water, ash, sand, boulders, and other random crap scattered throughout it, but it was perfectly functional!

Regardless, you had opted to get out of that conversation particular by making the excuse of wanting to check on what was happening in the college. And it turned out? Not terribly much at all. More weak elementals, more people trapped, nothing very exciting. You hoped this would end some time soon.
​

---​

It did not end some time soon. At least Ruby had given it a rest. Lusca was lying on her back in one of your pools of water. You were pretty sure she was sleeping.
​

---​

Hours and hours later and it still wasn't over. You think you see what the Archmage is doing though. The elementals were laughably easy to defeat, yes. And the traps sealing students in pocket dimensions were, while incredibly irritating, not dangerous in and of themselves. Both of these things continuing for so long though... It was wearing the students out, and half of them were trapped by themselves or in tiny group of two or three. It seemed... Odd then that simply hiding Somewhere got you out of it. Some favoritism by the Archmage, punishing students who relied too much on purely 'conventional' magic? Maybe, but you weren't so sure.
​

Click to shrink...

I guessing the Archmage simply is to busy to do more then what is happening.

Finally, at some time in what must be the early morning of the next day given how tired you are, the steady stream of elementals ends and the spatial distortions abruptly sort themselves out, returning the corridors of the college to normal. The Archmage gives his announcement:

"Those of you still alive have passed. That is all."
​

Well, that was-

"Also, classes are cancelled until the end of the week."

Charming.

Click to shrink...

That. Is a bad sign.
Have no clue on what to do for the plan though at this time.

 

[PhDEevee]

Well, Methodology seems to have been an effective tactic for being lazy. Amazing. Though I'm very worried about the other students...

For magic I'm thinking Dimensional Science (bread and butter), and Enchanting (to see what options become available). As a tertiary we could do some Elemental to throw it into Elemental Protection. Any extra stuff can be thrown into the General Magic section for multicasting, etc.

For social, I'm thinking TA (she'll be worried), Lusca (new friend), Ruby (main friend) and Adam (because Saphira owes him one).

Still thinking about the special options.

@Wander: For the magic section, is it required to pick from all four options? I'm a bit unclear on that, and how the points work for that.

 

[Lexica]

@Wander: For the magic section, is it required to pick from all four options? I'm a bit unclear on that, and how the points work for that.

Click to shrink...

Yes, you are required to vote for four different magic options. I considered letting you double up, but it's both probably more in character for Saphira as established to spread her study around even if she has a main focus, and I'm also kind of doing you a favor because I know how the pricing on Dimensional Science scales, and it's really super inefficient to dump all of your points into that when you have low hanging fruit available.

 

[PhDEevee]

Okay, thank you! Oh, @Wander, you also really need to remove Redundancy from available skills, as Saphira already has that.

[1] [Magic] Dimensional Science
[2] [Magic] Countermagic
[3] [Magic] Enchanting
[4] [Magic] Elemental

[1] [Social] The TA
[2] [Social] Lusca
[3] [Social] Ruby
[4] [Social] Adam

[1] [Special] Listen.
[2] [Special] Get a sense of things in the college after the Archmage's 'lesson.'
[3] [Special] Try and get to know some of the upperclassmen in the college.
[4] [Special] Attempt to talk to someone important at the college
-[X] Dishevel Vino

Okay, so I'm thinking we can pick up Minor Disruption and possibly Disruption, which are going to be helpful with dealing with a few things. Elemental is many for the protection when using Elemental Portals, and Enchanting is mainly for getting a look at the available options, and stored spells. Though we could probably take a few more ranks in Elemental if Saphira wants to create jewels for Enchantment later.

On social: It's a combination of old and new friends. I also want to see what precisely "Listening" does before Saphira goes to see the previous "Listener" again. AND WE REALLY NEED TO TALK TO ADAM. Saphira was a tremendous dick to him (even if it was hilarious) and really needs to actually talk to him again. Yes, I was the one who wrote the vote, but I did it with the expectation that we'd actually talk to him again, and we haven't in weeks.

The last options are a combination of survival and various other interesting things. I'll also note that getting to know the upperclassmen doesn't necessarily preclude making friends with them. Also, we've never seen Dishevel Vino, and he was allegedly the person who signed Saphira's scholarship off. It might be advisable to check what's going on with that.

 

[TurtleDucks]

[2] [Magic] Dimensional Science
[1] [Magic] Spiritual
[3] [Magic] Countermagic
[4] [Magic] Enchanting

[2] [Social] Ruby
[3] [Social] The TA
[4] [Social] Adam
[1] [Social] Lusca

[1] [Special] Try and get to know some of the upperclassmen in the college.
[2] [Special] Find out what's going on outside the college
[3] [Special] Attempt to talk to someone important at the college
-[X] Dishevel Vino

 

[fictionfan]

[1] [Magic] Dimensional Science
[2] [Magic] Enchanting
[3] [Magic] Elemental
[4] [Magic] Spiritual

[1] [Social] The TA
[2] [Social] Ruby
[3] [Social] Henry
[4] [Social] Lusca

[1] [Special] Get a sense of things in the college after the Archmage's 'lesson.'
[2] [Special] Find out what's going on outside the college
[3] [Special] Join a Club
-[3] Interdimensional Creatures Club

 

[PhDEevee]

Hey, @TurtleDucks, can you tell me why you're going for Spiritual Magic? Not a criticism - just want to get a feel as to why you're going for it, over, say, Elemental.