If the mechanics for final exams are realistic, and if the test results don't involve something like "Serenity's ghost whispers answers in Usagi's ear," then there are probably actually quite a few people who did better than Usagi by the expedient of having spent more than 4-6 weeks actually making a serious attempt to keep their academics up. If they had an action economy like our quest's, they were spending one or more actions per turn on prepping for the exam starting in like, Turn -8 or something, so their banked successes would likely overwhelm Usagi's rolls on the tests themselves.
I can't imagine everyone gets quest action economy. A lot of it seems to be covered by the Senshi's supernatural teamwork and cohesion, giving Usagi so many extra actions. That, and I'd guess that very few people have the same kind of bonuses we do. It's hard to tell what a base line Learning score is for the students (or how much it adds to their rolls to spend what time they do have on prep), but I'd imagine with our rolls and how high Usagi's effective Learning has become, there might well be only a couple of students that got better than her overall. Not the absolute top (or even second place after Ami), but high enough to surprise people, even with her steady rise in grades.
Well this was meant as a joke, which i thought would have been clear from the "go mad with revelation" bit (you know, because of the Azatoth in a miniskirt thing).
That said, while unlikely, it is not impossible.
Have other students do better than usual, couple other expected failures making through, and then Usagi does mindblowingly well.
While unlikely, there is a potential causal chain leading to investigation here.
And if the Crystal Seminar link is noticed, then you could even get MCAT and TMPD involved.
Unlikely to happen, but it would be interesting if it did.
Yes, well, without the enhancements from the other Senshi, Moon's Learning is only a mediocre 12. One must not stagnate and cease improving themselves, so as the girls of Cackle's Academy would say, onward, ever striving onward.
12 is pretty good for someone with a middle school education. Given that Ami is at least competitive with adults in intellectual fields they specialize in, I suspect that practical Learning scores for all but the most outstanding individuals cap out around 15-20... And I bet that a lot of adults are leaning heavily on Education traits (like Michiru and Haruka's "High School Senior" trait only conferring more than +1 Learning) to get them up there.
Yeah, the more parsimonious explanation is simply "yeah, one of our worst students buckled down and actually studied this semester, surprise surprise." While they're at it, they can probably point to multiple other students at such a large public high school whose grades rose or plummeted during the same time period for a variety of different reasons.
The Crystal Seminar connection also breaks down because the Crystal Seminar has a reputation for disappearing children, not for somehow magically enabling children to cheat.
I can't imagine everyone gets quest action economy. A lot of it seems to be covered by the Senshi's supernatural teamwork and cohesion, giving Usagi so many extra actions.
Yeah, but most people aren't using like 90% of their actions to study magic and hunt monsters.
I don't know what, say, Yuuji Quest would look like, and I'm pretty sure she only gets one action per category. But her Learning and Stewardship actions would have been some variation on the theme of "[] Study" for the great majority of weeks since we started the quest.
So they'd be (from our perspective) abusing the banked success mechanic to the point where they hardly needed to pass the exam DCs.
Also, the exam DCs are probably a bit lower if you've been studying habitually and doing your homework for all your life, instead of only just having the revolutionary breakthrough of actually doing those things within the past month or two.
That, and I'd guess that very few people have the same kind of bonuses we do. It's hard to tell what a base line Learning score is for the students (or how much it adds to their rolls to spend what time they do have on prep)...
Well, the Learning scores the Senshi had near game start are probably a good sign, unfortunately it's a bit tricky to go back and find out what those were because we've had boosts, especially for (for instance) Naru. It seems like Learning 10 is 'good' but not amazing, and Stewardship 10 is likewise, and notably math seems to hinge on Stewardship checks, at least at our level.
...
With that said, if I recall correctly we did roll multiple Natural 10s in this process, and if so then that indicates a level of surprising good performance for someone familiar with our recent record. After all, no one expects people to crit regularly.
Well, the Learning scores the Senshi had near game start are probably a good sign, unfortunately it's a bit tricky to go back and find out what those were because we've had boosts, especially for (for instance) Naru. It seems like Learning 10 is 'good' but not amazing, and Stewardship 10 is likewise, and notably math seems to hinge on Stewardship checks, at least at our level.
Possibly, though that seems a little off with Ami's only being 12 base, though her Genius boost does help alot. The big weird ones are Alice only having Base 10s in Learning and Stewardship (which I assume you'd need a lot of both to run a company, and while she has insane boosts to Stewardship, no bonuses to Learning), and Luna only having 6 base, while generally seeming quite intelligent.
Realisticly, children should have a fairly low Learning score, but a relatively high bonus to actually, you know, learning stuff, both from being in dedicated educational institution (bonus from teachers) and just by the fact that children have usually easier time learning new things than adults.
But that gets kinda more nitty gritty than the fairly abstract system we are using can handle without lot of work.
Given that Japanese final exams tend to be very memorization-heavy, the most likely explanation is that Usagi's been studying intensely to try to perform adequately and make up for not really having done, well... anything... to prepare prior to the month of March.
And that the combination of:
1) Stress from all the Sailor Mooning, including but not limited to the Night Market,
2) Stress from the unfamiliar strain of trying to memorize large amounts of information,
3) Stress from, potentially, overcompensating and spending too much time trying to study without a break because our Usagi can drive herself like that but doesn't know when not to drive herself from experience...
Well, it finally hits her on the last of the finals and she just... locks up. Like she always used to. Hit some kind of limit.
Or she studied the wrong material somehow. Also a possibility.
Given that 'Genius' is about as built-in to Ami as 'Junoesque' physical stature is for Makoto, even though both are modeled as stat bonuses... I'd say it's a bit misleading to focus on base stats in cases like theirs.
The big weird ones are Alice only having Base 10s in Learning and Stewardship (which I assume you'd need a lot of both to run a company, and while she has insane boosts to Stewardship, no bonuses to Learning)...
The vast majority of skill checks you'd make while running a corporation are going to be Intrigue/Stewardship/Diplomacy, not Learning. Since Alice is the zaibatsu's heir, she probably has lower Diplomacy DCs than many would in her position.
and Luna only having 6 base, while generally seeming quite intelligent.
Luna's a weird case all around; given that she seems to manage to work with magic with fair proficiency I'd tend to model her Learning as higher personally. Though Learning is clearly not a proxy for intelligence.
Realisticly, children should have a fairly low Learning score, but a relatively high bonus to actually, you know, learning stuff, both from being in dedicated educational institution (bonus from teachers) and just by the fact that children have usually easier time learning new things than adults.
But that gets kinda more nitty gritty than the fairly abstract system we are using can handle without lot of work.
Also, it's worth bearing in mind that the system is intentionally calibrated for us in a magical girl setting.
That is, the great majority of relevant main characters are adolescents, with adults showing up in supporting cast roles most of the time. And fundamental plot conventions of the setting enable adolescents to keep up with or outperform adults in a lot of roles, including things like "combat tactics" and even "basic common sense." Things you normally wouldn't expect adolescents to win at in real life.
In short, a lot of the advantages adults have over children are nerfed or do not exist within the context of the setting.
Well, lot of the advantages are kinda diminished either by anime bullshit or literal magic as it is.
Senshi draw on inherited memories and training, Pretty cures have magic armor, Inuyasha is actually several decades old and a powerful demon, Nerima crew are just nuts (in more ways than one) and have all the martial arts shonen bullshit going on.
I would not say the system nerfs adults, necessarily, it just largely has the main characters be absurdly above average in almost every way.
If MCAT and the cops notice the link between the Usagi identity and the Crystal Seminar, we can just report the sensory effects of that computer cram machine. They might be able to figure out that the Crystal Seminar's corruption worked by magically cramming knowledge into students' brains using life energy. I see no reason to not have Usagi just act like an actual ordinary student exposed to DK fuckery would in the cases where it affected her civilian life.
Hmm, considering the way we banked successes by studying, I don't think she failed a test, just didn't get as much overflow as was possible. And with 12 out of 8 thanks to 3 criticals, I'd say she probably did extremely well overall.
On the other hand, it provides a ready-made narrative for why the girl who in February was expected to fail most of her tests (again) instead got, like, B's on everything. Namely, that she buckled the fuck down and applied herself for the first time in her life, which in our case is even kind of true.
Accusations of cheating may be an issue, but I'll be surprised if Usagi's grades are so great that it's an issue anyone really has an incentive to pursue. Besides which, at Diplomacy 22, Usagi's teachers may not have a lot of faith in her brains (though they've seen her improve over time by now)... But they're damn sure going to like her and want to believe she can do better.
"How did she do this? Is she cheating?"
"Didn't you hear? She befriended that arrogant girl, Ami, who's always top of the exams, who's been tutoring her."
"...Oh. That makes a lot sense."
Befriending and receiving tutoring from Ami, aka a top ranker in the national exams, is probably explanation enough.
Well I went and checked. So as for them storing successes it should be noted that they can actually fail study actions occasionally(not very often since a single subject like math is dc10 and a general action is dc12) since the human average for stats is 8. Also while I didn't find the quote unlike the 8 one I remember 16 being the level where you can be hired as a true expert in that field(I think 16 diplomacy was compared to an ambassador, but that part is hazy). So yeah 12 is higher then you would expect from a teenager without the power of anime. More like an adult who had training in their field, but not like a specialist.
After leaving, both Senshi are near at the ends of their ropes, ready to just... do... something. And, maybe it the girls had managed to actually get inside of the great manor near one end of the Market, they might have seen something that would have pushed them over that edge. Or maybe not, all together, the girls have no idea what is in there.
What they do know is that not even Usagi's skill with words was enough to get them allowed into the Manor without a letter of recommendation. Thankfully, that is the last of the places in this horrible, horrible place that they need to check out, and with that, Usagi and Naru finally leave that den of scum and villainy.
Surely they didn't need a letter of recommendation just to ask whoever was there to block the way things like "Whose manor is that?" or "Do a lot of people visit?" or "What's with [insert interesting visible-from-a-distance detail unique to this place]?"
After a very long night, one filled with tossing and turning, unable to find a position that is even slightly comfortable and her mind never coming anything to a close, that a still conscious Usagi finds herself sitting up and greeting the morning sun.
The only noise to come from the girl's lips is a long, soft drawn out keening sound of frustration. It just wasn't fair. first she had to see all those horrible things, and second she couldn't just go and do something about it without potentially making things worse, and now the thoughts won't even leave her alone for long enough for the girl to be able to sleep. And if that weren't problem enough, today is the last day of Exams. If there was ever a day that Usagi needed to be able to keep her mind sharp, today was the day for that.
With a groan, Usagi stumbles over to her closet, trying to find something that... that...
Usagi pauses, trying to remember what it is that she is looking for, what it is that she came over here for. With an exhausted groan, the girl yawns, hand stretching up before rolling outward. tack. With a blink, the girl slowly glances over, trying to see what it was that her hand ran up against.
The Disguise Pen.
All at once, there are two trains of thought running up against one another in the girl's head, but for a girl as tired as Usagi, even she has to admit that the darker parts of her were speaking in sweeter tones. Taking hold of the Pen, Usagi yawns, before she slowly closes the door to the closest, making it sure that not a single person would be able to see her.
"Moon Power! Transform me into a fully awake version of myself!"
There is a blinding flash of light, one made all the brighter for the fact that Usagi is standing in the center of the closet, and with a smile, Usagi steps out of the closet. "Morning Luna!" The girl says with a laugh, hopping on one foot as she quickly grabs a sock, sliding it up her free leg. "How are you doing this morning?"
With a yawn, the cat grumbles a little, but there is a smile on Usagi's friend's face. "Ugggh... Five more minutes." the cat says and Usagi is struck by how the situation was entirely backwards. Luna is supposed to be the morning person who gets up early and Usagi is supposed to be the one who can't get out of bed without something pulling and pushing her.
And maybe that hasn't been who the girl has been in the time since she first discovered her powers, but just shy of two months isn't quite able to balance out who the girl has been over the last fourteen odd years. Making her way down to the Kitchen, Usagi pauses for a moment, watching as her mother slowly sits there at the table, a look of deep focus on her face, as the woman slowly spins her finger through the air. In front of Ikuko is a cup of tea, with a spoon in it, and slowly the spoon rattles quietly along the edge of the cup, pushed by the winds that the blue haired woman is able to conjure.
"Morning Mom!" Usagi says, watching as her mother's focus shatters, the winds dying away. Ikuko pouts for a moment, before looking up at her daughter.
"Morning Usagi, how are you doing?" She asks.
"Good! Full of energy for the Tests today!" The girl says with a laugh, all but ready to do a cartwheel where she stands. "How about you? Doing the exercises that Luna suggested?" she asks, and her mother gives a nod.
"Yep." The woman pops the last syllable of the word, "I'm getting to the point where I can make things move without getting too tired."
The two continue to talk for a while as Ikuko quickly makes Usagi something to eat before the girl heads out for the morning. Just like the rest of the world, school seems to be continuing on all the same without even a hint of an idea of the things that Usagi saw the day before. There is a part of the girl that is frustrated with this, but there is also a part of her that is happy to see that all of her classmates have no idea of what it going on in the Night Market. On the one hand, seeing school continue as it always has is comforting, the fact that other people aren't struggling with these things is something that Usagi is oddly proud of.
That is what she and the rest of the Senshi are fighting for after all. The right for ordinary people to have ordinary lives.
But at the same time... There really isn't anyone at school that she can sit down and talk to about these things. Sure, there's Naru and Ami and Makoto, but only Naru is actually in Usagi's class. Even then... It's not like the girl can talk about these things while other people are around. Sliding the door of the classroom open, Usagi pauses. The girl looks into the room, then ever so quietly, she slides the door back shut.
That couldn't have just happened. She didn't see that.
There is no way that the girl say Gurio Umino passed out at his desk, one entire side of the boy's face splattered with puffy brown and yellow bruises. She had to be imagining things. There is no way that was what she saw.
No way at all.
Opening the door again, the girl blinks again, before she sighs before forced to accept the reality for what it is.
And it's actually even worse than she originally thought at a single glance - The bruises aren't just on one side of the boy's face, but they clearly run up onto his scalp and down all the way under his collar. There is a brace on the boy's wrist, and another around his right knee. It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to say that it looked like Umino got into a fight with a boxer and lost. Not that there was any chance of any other outcome given that Umino is... well, Umino.
But that's just the half of it. The other half that really throws Usagi for a loop? Mei, the girl from the Cinderella Caravan is over by Umino's desk, a wet towel in her hands as she carefully dabs it on Umino's forehead. Even more surprisingly is the fact that her face is bright red the entire time she does so.
Usagi isn't thinking this to be mean or anything like that. Umino's a smart kid, he is best in the class and fifth best in their grade over all, just behind Ami and a couple of other people. He's nice and he has a decent sense of humor, even if his sense of timing is a bit off, but still...
Umino has never been popular. He's never had a girl swooning over him in all the years that Usagi has known him, and given that she met him when they were both six years old that is actually saying something. Honestly, more power to him, and more power to Mei as well, because Usagi does have to admit that the girl doting on the exhausted Umino is more than a little adorable.
Unfortunately, the adorable isn't allowed to last, as it is only a couple of minutes before Umino perks up, giving a soft smile to the girl, "You should get back to your seat, Mei." Umino grumbles out, "Miss Haruna's on her way."
Almost as if summoned by the boy's words, Usagi can just barely hear the soft sound of their teacher's new cane. Could... Could Umino have somehow heard that? Usagi could barely hear it, and all of her senses have only grown stronger in the time that she's been a Senshi. That has to be some kind of coincidence, it has to be.
Soon enough, the rest of the class are able to hear the sounds of the soft clicking of Miss Haruna's cane, quickly making their way to their seats to prepare for the day. And what a Day it is. Usagi isn't sure if it is because she used the Disguise Pen, or if it is just a matter of how the sun is up and the day is warm that Usagi is completely and totally awake, which means that she is ready for the testing.
Oh, it started well enough, Math was the first test of the day, and Usagi was just running through the questions with ease, answering everything set before her without a second thought, and even at a few points going a little further than needed, expanding on a handful of the worse worded questions in order to answer them better.
But that wasn't too last, and as the questions continued Usagi was slowly starting to feel... off in a way that she really doesn't have words for. It was a fuzziness to the girl's thoughts, the kind of thing that she normally only has to worry about when she isn't getting enough to eat or drink. Still, she managed to push through the first test, making it to the break before things got too bad.
Papers were taken up, and the test was over. There was still time before the next test began, and Usagi takes the opportunity to lean forward, resting on the table, just until the next test begins.
That was a mistake, and one that Usagi really should have known better before doing. The moment that her head met the table, the moment that her eyes closed, the disguise silently and softly unwove itself. Usagi had been feeling on top of the world throughout the whole of the morning, and that was very much because the disguise pen had been tapping into her own stores of magic to keep herself awake. For short periods of time that was fine, not a problem... but just under six hours of keeping her mind running and awake as sleep deprivation kept trying to settle in, that took more power than one would expect. Sleep is an important thing, and going without it is not easy.
As the break came to an end, and the next round of testing began, Usagi finds herself being shaken awake by Naru. With a groan, Usagi pushes herself up to a sitting position, and it takes a long second for the to realize that the magic keeping her awake was gone. "Ohh..." Usagi groans. "Oh no. This is not good." She mutters to herself, before the tests were passed out.
Oh... Oh no.
English.
Even with how much better Usagi had been doing in her classes... English was hands down the class that Usagi had always struggled the most with, and if anything the changes that the girl has gone through since awakening to her powers have actually made things worse for her. Occasionally, the girl's understanding of the three languages will become a little jumbled up in her head, and so sometimes when she starts to write it won't be in the language that she means to, but instead one of the others that she knows.
That is less of a problem when she ends up writing in Japanese instead of English, as the teachers at the very least recognize that language, but writing in High Lunar is something else. And this problem only gets worse when the girl ends up as tired as she is today. In the end, what that means is that Usagi has to very slowly work her way through the test, commonly backing up, erasing an rewriting her words over and over and over and over. In the end, Usagi does make sure that she's written everything in English, but all together this test felt so much worse than the last test she did.
In the end however, the test are done. And with a groan, Usagi returns home, collapsing into bed with so little energy that the girl doesn't even manage to get undressed before she succumbs to her exhaustion.
TEST 1 == DC 15 == 3 + 17 = 20
TEST 2 == DC 17 == 1 + 17 = 18
TEST 3 == DC 17 == 10 + 17 = 27
TEST 4 == DC 19 == 3 + 17 = 20
TEST 5 == DC 19 == 7 + 17 = 24
TEST 6 == DC 21 == 5 + 17 = 22
TEST 7 == DC 21 == 10 + 17 = 27
TEST 8 == DC 23 == 1 + 17 = 18
[TWELVE TOTAL SUCCESSES!]
[GAINED ??? - To be Revealed Monday, May 18th, 1992]
Friday, May 15th, 1992
Thankfully for Usagi, the girl wakes up an hour or so after she first collapses, if only for long enough to get undressed before returning to bed and sleeping the night away.
As the next morning rolls around, Usagi wakes up with the rising sun, far more rested and awake than she managed the day before. Rolling up into a sitting position with a bit of a groan. "Okay." The girl mutters to herself, as she rubs at an eye. "That was a terrible idea, and I should have known that." Usagi mutters, shaking her head. "Let's not that do that again."
The morning passes quickly with a far more awake Usagi rather than a near unconscious Usagi. The girl pauses as she goes, giving her brother a hint about how to help increase the strength of his gravity magics, and a hug to her Dad before he goes out the door, infusing the man with a pulse of magic to try and help him awaken to his own abilities. Then, the day begins.
School is school, but now that the tests are done, that means that classes start to go back to normal. That doesn't mean that everything is going back to normal. Umino shows up in class, the bruises covering one side of his face having already started to fade, but at the same time there are clear new bruises, and the young man has a hint of a limp in his walk. Mei is there again, doting on the young man with a smile and a blush on her face. Umino is quiet as he watches the girl dote on him, an absolutely confused look on his face. Was he so far out of it yesterday that he didn't notice the girl paying attention to him?
Overall, other than the oddity of Umino aside, the rest of the school day passes as normal, and once the day is over, it is time for Usagi to head down to Nerima to meet with Ranma Saotome and heal that girl who was with him at the Cinderella Caravan, Akane Tendou. Which leads to the one question that Usagi has left.
She's going to be arriving as Sailor Moon, and acting in that roll, so... should she grab anyone else to come along? Naru is busy today helping her mom with something, and from the sounds of it possibly going to be telling her mom about magic too... But all the other Senshi are available.
[ ][Nerima] Go it alone
- It's not like there is anything in Nerima that is a threat to her
[ ][Nerima] Grab one other Senshi
- [ ] Which Senshi
[ ][Nerima] Grab Two other Senshi
- [ ] Which Senshi
- [ ] Which Senshi
[ ][Nerima] There's no need to grab more than three
- [ ] Which Senshi
- [ ] Which Senshi
- [ ] Which Senshi
[X][Nerima] There's no need to grab more than three
- [X] Sailor Mercury
- [X] Sailor Mars
- [X] Sailor Jupiter
Eh, why not. Well, besides being kind of intimidating and that the fact that so many new girls around Ranma will likely result in some conflict, but I think we'll be fine.
It is best to be safe, as there is no such thing as too much security for the garbage dump that is Nerima. Besides, with 4 Senshi present, it would be an even more exquisite pleasure than usual to watch Genma suffer.
[X][Nerima] There's no need to grab more than three
- [X] Sailor Mercury
- [X] Sailor Mars
- [X] Sailor Jupiter
Hopefully, having them all here will make it more likely we can help with the tangle of curses on Ranma. Sailor Mars due to being a shrine maiden and already getting along with Ranma, Sailor Mercury because of being a genius and having her computer means we might finally get an answer to what is going on with the Neko-ken, and Sailor Jupiter because there will be trouble happening(it's Nerima, so that's a given), so we should have the powerhouse Senshi as backup. Tempting to bring Uranus instead of Jupiter for both her powers over wind being closer to the Neko-Ken's ability, and to socialize more with her, but I think Jupiter would be a better choice for a potentially dangerous situation. For all we know, trying to deal with the Neko-Ken will cause it to manifest physically and attack (I think I saw some fanfics where that happened). Curses are dangerous.
Incidentally, @Lunaryon, I believe the bonus for Stewardship from the Royal Scion trait for Usagi should be +4, not +3.
[x][Nerima] Grab one other Senshi
- [x] Sailor Jupiter
Nerima is chaotic, but has proven not to need a full squad before. Now is a good time to get one Senshi personalized screen time, and Jupiter makes the most sense contextually. (Putting context aside, I'd probably prefer Mercury. She's not featured in any of the upcoming events except the ones requiring the full squad, and it's been a while since we saw her and Usagi get time alone.)
