Enrolled (pt. 2)
After returning, and directing Ms. Parker to sit back down in her chair, the Educator stood in front of the blackboard and clapped his hands peppily. "Alright, Class. I hope you've finished reading. If so, let's assemble everything you've read into a nice and proper body of work. I wish to see a real brainstorm here, everyone getting involved in a discussion."
He intently shifted his gaze around. "Ideas?"
"Death's, like, uh, good at killing? And has a scythe I guess?" said Ethan in a throwaway fashion, without raising a hand. He seemed to have adapted well to the strangeness, already taking the concept of inventing superpowers with a level of detached relaxation.
"A decent start, Mr. Hartwell. Let's add it to our board," answered the Educator, as the chalk stick automatically drew out an assembly of bullet points under the role, 'Death.' Surreally, they were, 'experienced killer,' and 'scythe weapon' respectively. It seemed the Educator wasn't lying. Their own interpretations would decide the aspects of a Role.
A hand shot up, before more ideas could be thrown in. Solomon noticed it was Zoe's, and his face immediately distorted into chagrin.
She's always been the Teacher's Pet, he recanted. I should've known entering Narnia won't change that.
"Ms. Stone?"
"Won't the board run out of space, sir?"
"Don't worry. We'll add more space as necessary," the Educator answered, refusing to elaborate on how exactly he planned to add more space. "Other ideas?"
After a couple of hesitant seconds, Penelope raised her own hand, and offered, "For the Magician, sir, I think, we can say it is a Role concerned with the subtle and unseen, setting beginnings into motion, inspiring events, often in a way that isn't easily seen..." Her voice blurred away in Solomon's mind as he sucked in a breath and sighed.
I'd better start involving myself. I'm not sure what I actually want to achieve here, though. There's far too much to consider...
He attempted to re-center himself. An opportunity for magical powers stood in front of him. He needed to consider what he most desired out of a potential package of such abilities. Marginally more optimistic, now that he'd figured out in which direction to think, Solomon began to contemplate.
Well, for starters, something easy and pleasant. Hmm. The Hermit? It'd fit me, although that's a depressing thought. And I'm not a nerd or particularly hard worker, so is Magician even something I want to consider? There must be other things I can think of...
As he descended into a meditabund introspection, soul-searching and deep, he rather ironically failed to discern the swiftness of the Class in coming up with ideas. They went on, even the sorts of Thompson and Langley collaborating and creating new ideas - an assortment of concepts half-baked and well-refined alike, thrown around and written down on the blackboard with no bias, the dimensions of which appeared to conveniently expand as needed, the writing becoming more condensed yet remaining clear.
And in the meantime, Solomon considered himself on a fundamental level. He didn't want much. Just to be content, not unlike anyone else. There were a lot of paths to achieving that, some far worse than others. Transforming himself into a less demotivated human being sounded extremely troublesome. An effortless system of advancement leading to eventual apotheosis seemed nice, though. Alternatively, something to either hack away his uncanny predictive ability or make people listen to him...
In several minutes, a crisp list of ideas for the entire deck was transcribed on the blackboard, and Solomon was snapped out of his reverie because of Damien's muttered complaints about the bitter unfairness of the World. It didn't seem as though he'd lost much, as even now, halfway through the process, interjections could be made to argue up or down a Role's particular capabilities. He considered that aspect of it as well, although he didn't come up with anything thrilling.
And then, once the Educator reminded them everyone would choose a Role, came the narrowing of eyes, and cold looks, and amendments: the World's influence needed to have limits, and Death couldn't simply kill everyone it knew with a casual thought, and the Devil, even if it could dabble in forbidden arts, couldn't simply erase timelines.
Predictable.
It developed into an argument of scales and balances, everyone having picked out a mental favorite they wished most for, and attempting to argue up its power, and argue down everyone else's without being entirely submerged in the cesspool of disapproval. Predictably even for a peon, social factions developed, promising to aid each other and bring down the competition, and soon the Class was locked in a silent war. In front of Solomon's eyes, old friendships were tested, and ancient rivalries came to bear.
Damien was most fortunate that he didn't state an outright preference for any particular Role, as it'd have been immediately buried with anchors hoping to drag it underwater. It'd ensure that at least one decently promising candidate would be left for him at the end.
Aside from that, it seemed Josh was angling for the World and Francis for Judgement, much to a lot of people's crossness. Solomon didn't even want to think what they could do with that kind of power and considered whether he should attempt to snatch either of the Roles himself simply to prevent them from becoming too entrenched in influence. It seemed like the sort of troublesome that'd return to bite his ass. He could also technically call in Josh's debt, but arguing with that would be its own sort of pain.
Nonetheless, the conflict of debates sparking continued on, unabated, like a cart slowly rolling downhill in the direction of a pit leading to a nuclear core.
The Educator acted as the final executioner of the untrammeled cultch. However, he also offered, more than anything else, a steady input of wise and creative counsel, reshaping ideas that started half-formed into complete and frankly inspired ones, only proceeding if there was agreement from their originators. As if borrowing or loaning his superior cogitation to students, rounding out what they couldn't articulate themselves but found instinctively desirable.
And from that, soon, started to emerge the first glimmers of brilliant truth, the Roles starting to settle into more concrete shapes, and as this happened, Solomon felt a strange electric brush running rampant across his mind, a proprioceptive discord that seemed to tangle throughout his nerves and brain, as overwhelming as it was strangely invigorating. It was like a static power running through the air, slowly filling his lungs and veins, igniting them pleasantly like sublime lightning.
After it was over, he shuddered, and then exhaled shakily, seeing a thin icy mist emerge from his breath, smelling of nothing distinct. He pondered its existence and then whipped around to look at his classmates and see their reactions.
No one else seemed to notice, or at least, didn't comment on it. He didn't observe any signs that anyone was bothered. Looking at the Educator, it seemed the man hadn't seen it either, too occupied with the blackboard's contents, studying them for a couple of seconds.
"Alright, Class," the Educator said cheerfully, clapping hands as he turned around. "I can see a lot of potential here that I can work with... Let's do a final pass, roll over any mistakes, flatten out the wrinkles. Five minutes for you all to consider and finalize the current roster. Let's not add new ones, though, I think we've accumulated a decent packet, and I don't want to unbalance this precious set too much. You've delivered on my brainstorming request. I commend you."
Delving into his mind for one last confirmation of what he wanted, Solomon made his choice - the ideal Role, the one he wanted, that'd deliver him onward to tomorrow.
---
Here's the list of possessions you ultimately decided to take with you:
Contraband Items
Survival Handbook To Educational Enrollment
Tarot Deck
Comfy Pillow
Baton
Solar Charger
Phone + USB of Calibrated "Educational Videos"
Cigarettes
Lighter
Coffee Jello (x7)
And now, you must make a very important choice - namely, what is the most desirable Role for you? A number of the following are based, at least partially, on ideas displayed in the thread during this section, and others shall not be.
The Role you select is the one you'll succeed in claiming; due to your predictive ability, this is entirely assured, as if you predict a Role cannot be selected or argued for eloquently, you'll simply dismiss the choice from possibility space. However, certain more excellent or powerful options will demand an input of determination and true effort from you, things which are in short reserve. Arguments made in the thread can lower the costs, although not any more than 20% of Will and 25% of the Credit cost.
Due to your innate proclivities, a certain space of Roles has been prioritized in your prime consideration. All capabilities displayed beneath the names are projections of power you'll gain in time, not immediately granted faculties:
290 Will
6.3 Credit
[ ] The Magician: The Mystic - The mystery of Magic has limitless manifestations and governing laws, almost none of which universally apply. All except one: everything has a cost. Humanity is ascending, perhaps all the way to godhood. And what price will be asked of us for this? And what will happen when we can't afford to pay it?
Find out the truth of this dilemma, before your species does.
*As above, so below - thus is the ethos of the Arcanist, and the foundational principle of magic. The universe is a strict equilibrium, all actions counterweighed by all other actions and the potential of future action; an equation, its outputs and inputs changing in relation to each other. Manipulating one, you can enforce change on the other.
*Effects are simple and crude to start with: form an effigy of a room made of carven rock, and control its furniture; create a voodoo doll of an individual and torture it to cast curses upon the real being; draw a situational chart corresponding to a chessboard's states, and see as the opposition plays based on real events, making your own counters to manipulate reality into obeying your moves, eventually winning a political election by toppling the enemy king with a dramatic checkmate.
*The Arcanist may eventually formulate and access new laws of magic, in order to create and control new effects: repetition as the basis of ritual, appeasement of the world as the foundation of good karma, and assigning an inherent form of meaning and deep value to sacrifice to receive something desired in exchange.
[ ] The Magician: The Arcanist [100 Will, 7 Credit] - If an ideal doesn't match the world, it's not the ideal that must change. A long time ago, men feared to ascend the skies, dreading the wrath of divinities. Now, through sheer grit, we've moved past that - and in time - every other limitation.
*A simple phenomenon: impose your will and enact change, commensurate with the level of will you're inputting. Mental focus alone is the channel for this, although deeper levels of intricate and complex mechanisms can be formed within your mind to allow grander effects. At baseline, you can only bend minor probabilities with extreme focus, or create telekinetic effects that bend spoons or lift pebbles. In the future, your reserves may slowly deepen.
*For a number of more immediately-accessible gross and material invocations, you can stake control over the four Minor Arcana: Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles. Each bestows authority over a certain element, as well as a certain methodology of magic: (Air, Reason), (Fire, Creativity), (Water, Emotion), (Earth, Material). Focus on a single one that appeals to you the most, prioritize each in equal measure, or swap out your pick on the basis of need.
*Eventually, most probably after calcification of your Role has occurred, you'll be able to induct new sorcerers into one of the Four Arcana, forming distinct schools of magic. Arcanists of the Sword cleaving through issues via an orderly system of wizardry, Arcanists of the Earth creating artifacts to channel their will, and so on.
[ ] The Magician: King of Magi [200 Will, 14 Credit] - There is nothing mere about excellence, and yet that insufficient word falls well shy of describing what you are. Become the King of Magi, mantling the originator of every supernal and arcane art, your own namesake.
*Even from the start, you excel beyond words, the mere dross of your Role enabling the potentiality of full magical transcendence, predictions of magical workings forming the coherent baseline from which to cast: spells developing in fast progression like falling stars, empowered as they blossom into supernovae. No secret is beyond you, no art above being learned or mastered; no mere threefold greatness is this, but a universe-encompassing genius to blot out the galactic phosphor and replace it with your designs. Abnormally, even before your first lesson with the Educator, start out with a number of coherent spells, comparable only to cantrips but still useful.
*In a short time, you may start to design more powerful invocations. Among the ones that come easiest to you are spiritual calls, summoning and binding a number of loyal entities to serve you; not unlike a fisherman casting a hook with a particular sort of bait to attract a certain form of catch. However, nothing is beyond you: automated workshops, alchemical wonders, divinatory seeing-stones, and other marvels untangling from your fingertips and reassembling at your behest.
*However, even a King mustn't contest the winds of fate. Against their prevailing touch, your plots may collapse like a house of cards. It is easier to move with them at your back and in your sail, letting them spur you onwards and then altering course only as you are about to land, within the circumscribed region of permissible outcomes. Even then, preferably you should only do so on another man's ship.
*Furthermore, your power is constrained outside of a particular sanctum that you must designate - outside, you can only cast so many spells in a day, command and control only so many spirits, stabilize only so many wonders and emplace only so many wards. Within it, your will is uncontested, and even fate is constrained to an obedient breeze.
[ ] Wheel of Fortune: Denial of Predestination - Fate is beyond everything. It does not regard you with hatred, but ultimately, fate is not your ally. Its designs are its own to decide, your destiny a mere grain on its desert tapestry. Men do not have any control over their fate.
And yet, for the Wheel of Fortune, nothing is predestined. For your entire life, you've been a slave to the whims of destiny. Time to make your own.
*The main focus of your initial lessons will be the crystallization of your predictions and channeling them into a new form of ability. Your eyes shall become a frightening green, capable of peering into the strands of fate, perusing strings, and even picking them out for advanced study. Given contemplation and learning, you'll learn to manipulate the strings: snipping out the ones you do not like, and shifting others into more positive alignment as you desire. A maligned foe may be slain forever by ripping out his entire cord, in a fashion that is almost impossible to defend against without mystical protections. Even weaving new strands isn't beyond you, in time.
*A more physical and earthly route involves directly using strings of fate, materialized, to intervene in mortal affairs, controlling them as implements: directed in a thrust, they can pierce supernal flesh; formed into a net they may ensnare a foe or intercept a missile; and directed by your endless sloth, made into a comfy hammock.
*The ultimate move of the Wheel of Fortune is the aforementioned Denial of Predestination, an invocation by which nations may be crumbled, high deities overthrown from their marble thrones, and even axiomatically undefeatable foes see the chance of being unmade. Even an entity on the level of a true demon encompassing every element of the full spectrum and subservient domains of life could, potentially, be affected by the touch of your strings; a fateless being yanked down from its flowerbed authority.
[ ] Wheel of Fortune: Gambler's Den [10 Will, 1 Credit] - A desire for control stems of absence, but you've never lacked for control: perhaps what you need most is the stark opposite, a surprise to render your life exciting?
*A power as terrifyingly addictive as it can be potent. Manifest a real Wheel of Fortune, pay an appropriate price in order to purchase a ticket, and then pray for luck as you spin the Wheel. Its potential results are endless and varied: anything from a pebble with an interesting color to a loyal companion from another universe to bottled divinity.
*There's nothing more to this. Just a wheel and an eternity of gachapon degeneracy. However, further Education does constrain cheap, bad, or undesirable results, and expands the range and upper limit of that which is desirable.
[ ] The Hermit: The Enlightener - A simple creed: dwell in darkness and emanate light, showing others the way, a lantern wrapped in shadow. Lead others to treasures you cannot possess, and in doing so, enrich the world.
*A fundamentally kindness-oriented Role, it focuses your predictions, making them less common, but also dazzlingly and terrifyingly brilliant whenever they do occur, flashes of ingenious discovery that can turn around seemingly hopeless situations. Even in the darkest pits of despair, you may find a distant and promising shimmer of light. However, most of them are now predilected to aiding others, rather than advancing your own interests, requiring you to support another rather than stand on your own.
*Has the capability to manifest an artifact Beacon, a brilliant tool of mystical enlightenment sealed within an iron-framed lantern. Passively, its light can serve as a fuel to empower mental lucubrations, making studying by its nightly shine an emboldened and augmented effort. Actively, it can show clairvoyant paths and divine truths, expending its brightness to reveal secrets or the vulnerabilities of foes. Furthermore, those curiously gazing into its depths can become subtly transfixed by the signs of a potential future. Its light can be unsparing in this capacity to both allies and foes, but you hold a degree of innate resistance.
*Almost no corporeal enhancements: a pivot and lever, rather than a rock or strongman; mentor rather than hero. On your own, your field of accomplishments is limited. With a capable ally, your combined range of possibilities is expanded geometrically. Form a cabal of loyalists or lead a callow youth, and you'll excel. Do not, and you'll stall.
[ ] The Hermit: The Cultivator [290 Will, 25 Credit] - In order to cultivate wisdom, one must comprehend the inner and outer worlds. Through comprehension, master them. Through mastery, control them. And through control, utterly and ruthlessly transcend them.
*Advancement is made through meditation and isolation. The inherent distractions of within and without are bothersome, plagues of material trapping to be ignored and eventually transcended. Through rigorous discipline, you cultivate not mere willpower, but a severance from temporal circumstance that lets you bypass your limits. Discard sloth, and become eternally sleepless; throw away attachment to life, and become eternally living; disrobe from greed and acquire matter limitless. For every temptation you refuse, you grow an ironic faculty related to its aspect. Begin with your inherent despair, and you'll find having motivation does not matter anymore.
*In doing so, you also cultivate reserves of inner wisdom and external strength, in a cycle that seems almost endless. A hardened and swifter body; mind sharper and more responsive than ever, and even the soul swelling with its primacy spilling out to reinforce the former facets.
*Inherent danger of callously shearing off too many parts of yourself. In a distant era from now, you may be a wise elder meditating in a sublime spatial grove, finding that you do not have or feel the need to do anything for the rest of eternity; having cloven away your attachment even to the Earth, and those you called friends and family. No more malevolence dreaming in your heart, but neither also the benevolence to do anything about evil. Nothing but a simple eternity of no attachments awaiting you...
[ ] The Devil: Paganism - Arts forbidden unfold at the fingertips of those who dare to raise them up, magics and evils revealed to a deity that doesn't care about moral impositions and society. Mind over matter, and matter over spirit: all drawn in a circle that binds. Do as thou wilt.
*In many of its aspects, the Pagan Devil is not dissimilar to the Arcanist, as simple infusions of willpower can alter reality. However, in our case, willpower is further enhanced by desire, and in turn constrained by ethics: attempt to coax the universe into you something you truly wish for above all, and you'll find your willpower acting with tenfold influence; fuss and blame, and you'll find your influence cut horridly short, not capable of stoking even a flame to harm someone. As long as you act within your conventions of morality, this won't be an issue. How long, however, before you start to alter your definition of what's moral to achieve what you desire?
*As a result of passively wishing to continue living a happy (?) life, you gain supernal longevity; potentially even immortality. For some reason, time manipulation comes to you with surprising ease as well, compounding to ensure you'll always have more of it.
*Additionally, you can enter binding pacts with mortals, conferring upon them similar capacities to yourself, or granting them wishes by your own power. The contents of the contracts are binding, although they don't have to know that. All that is needed to seal a contract is a verbal agreement made in truth, using no unnatural coercion.
[ ] The Devil: Demon King [10 Will, 1 Credit] - For every transgression, a reward. A Demon King arises when the rewards outweigh the consequences; the miracles rise above the screams; the wonders outscale any potential concern of the suffering caused. Apply care or embrace it, the Demon King cares not.
*Essentially, through the absorption of negative emotions such as fear, discord, hate, or shame, you gain power. This is a background feature, a process that occurs without any need for guidance or activation: simply by staying in the catchbasins of human emotion, you can accumulate endless might and magic. Negativity directed towards you, however, is especially potent: by styling yourself as an adversary and giving humanity reasons to despise you, you might become truly undefeatable, a patrician of godhood to rival even the likes of the Olympian or Once and Future King, and possibly even stronger than them.
*Even annoyance is sufficient to coax out some trickle of power; a hundred especially irritating pranks on a susceptible individual may equal weeks of training, and unlock minor supernatural capabilities, such as arm-range telekinesis, color alteration within your field of view, or facial shapeshifting. Often, the powers developed are related to the emotions you incited and the associations you created with them. Naturally, the strength swells in tune with the strength of the emotions.
*For all its stellar potential, the cost is truncated, as this synergizes extremely with your own desires and is therefore easier to argue for: a method of advancement that requires almost no activity from you, but potentially allows for sudden scaling in a case of dire exigence. Others do not see the use of this as easily as you do.
[ ] The Chariot: Gilded Path [100 Will, 7 Credit] - A Chariot must drive along a gilded path, away from the curses of the earth, and onward: through opposition, to achieve bright victory. It's not in your nature to go beyond, but if you have a vehicle to carry you, then you may still learn.
*The Chariot moves swiftly, no longer bothered by the vagaries of distance, only caring for the strength of its wheels, and the necessity carrying it onward. Distance no longer matters, as you can reach anywhere you wish to be within a reasonable amount of time, scaling with your own desire and need to be there, as well as the distance: reach a building one kilometer away in a similar timeframe to reaching a city on another continent, if you feel an urgent need to be there. As you move, you emanate a golden light that you can learn to channel even outside of travel. Anything the light touches too keenly is repulsed out of the path of your journey: in due time, you may learn to channel this effect for offense.
*In order to achieve victory, you can establish a clear and concise goal in the form of a short sentence. The goal must be attainable within a day's timeframe from when the decision is made. Once you select a goal and activate this power, your body and mind will be guided along the most direct and effortless path to accomplish it. You are unable to deviate from this path until you successfully achieve the designated goal. The path chosen will always be the one with the least resistance and simplest execution. Never can you deviate from your path, and in light of new discoveries, this may spell your doom.
[ ] The High Priestess: Keeper of Secrets [140 Will, 7 Credit] - The High Priestess is the matron of mystery. The connection between the supernatural and the normal and its deeper, hidden sides are something that is intrinsically known to her.
*Secrets come to you like moths attracted to an open flame, only to be consumed and grow the fire. By mere proximity hidden knowledge starts to stream into your mind, at first personal details about a person, and then with time and advancement the secrets of the world. The Metaphysicist's deepest confidential matters, maybe even the nature of the Educator will begin to be known to you. After all, what is a man, if not a miserable little pile of secrets?
*You are the bridge between the white pillar of Establishment and the black pillar of Strength. You understand that you can only be whole once the binary becomes the duality of the whole. You can form connections between people, ideas, and concepts with you as the chain holding them together. Two lovers only stay together because you are there to advise them, the sun and the moon give the earth day and night because you are on it, and so on.
*You are in the know and people seek you out, the other nincompoops in the class are your sycophants and they must be ones one worth your time, not the other way around. As such, you have a tendency to be relatively impassive and must really get off your ass if you want something done the right way. As such you aren't really the really the nuclear go-getter, but that's alright you have other people for that.
*People like you because know more than them, so it only makes sense that actively telling them the information you would know would only be detrimental. If the world was built on fair and clear communication then it would really be bad. The more you reveal about what you know to others, the weaker you actually get in terms of your power.
[ ] Write-in [250 Will, 25 Credit]
