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Theoretical Thrones (Open, PM to join) | Wyrdwood Academy

Started by Hope, May 10, 2020, 02:11:20 PM

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Hope

"You have to get into the right angle, but when you look up, can you see how those gold ceiling beams cross each other? It looks... kind of like a letter or something, but I'm not sure. Can you see it?" Jax moved out of the way and pointed at the beams he was talking abut.

Eckhart_Von_Musel

*click*

The trapdoor had pushed itself open once more, and a bespectacled young woman peeked her head above the frame. "Oh! Ƿes hāl!" she exclaimed excitedly. Her voice had a very noticable accent- a sort of rural twang that was difficult to place. "Not used to seeing faces up here! Hello!"

The upperclassman gingerly pulled herself up, pulling her thigh-length green hair out of the way before closing the trapdoor behind her. She smiled cheerfully at the younger students slinging her book bag off her shoulder. "This place is usually quiet. Good place to be studying." she said, placing the bag on the bench before taking a seat herself. "You lot here to carve your names on the wall?"

Hope

Jax was momentarily shocked, but he recovered quickly and smiled. "Yeah, nice place, isn't it? We were just showing the school around to Laeni here." He tilted his head in Laeni's direction. "Although... I thought I noticed something on the ceiling, like a word or character of some sort. Care to give it a look, see if you can read it?"

Eckhart_Von_Musel

Dominique nodded her head wistfully. The carvings on the walls were a time capsule of not only memories, but language as well. The oldest visible markings were centuries old, and you could follow along as the letters and spelling gradually evolved from the Pre-Di'Veeran alphabet to modern, standerized characters. To Dominique, things like this were more valuable than even gold- though, she seemed to be the one of the few to truly appreciate it...

"Eh? Oh, that?"

The human boy's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and Dominique glanced up to where he was pointing. "It is just Old Serenian character. First Era alphabet." she said matter-of-factly, pulling an ancient looking tome out of her bag. "I noticed it too, a few years back. It represents, ah, how you say..." The student rolled her hand in midair, as if trying to flip through an invisible dictionary. "...Well, there's no easy translation. The concept it's meant to describe is too outdated for that. Simplest answer is "the space outside", but this does not quite do it justice..."

Hope

"I knew it," Jax whispered. "They built that word into this tower, then, literally built it in with the beams and tower structures in the original blueprint. That's... incredible."

Eckhart_Von_Musel

Dominique smiled, and began to thumb through her book. "You know, that symbol is hidden in a lot of different places. I've seen it in the main stairwell too, and the courtyard fountain-which is weird, because it fell out of use long before the school was constructed..."

She stopped herself, looking up at Laeni sheepishly. "Ah, but there I go forgetting to introduce myself again. My name is Dominique, I'm here studying arcane linguistics." She tilted her head slightly. "You mentioned being shown around, are you visiting?"

DragonSong

Laeni, who appeared to have been doing her best to shrink back and blend into the wall behind her, started slightly at being addressed. "Oh, ah...n-no? I mean, they are showing me around but..."

"She's a transfer," Brahgo cut in when she trailed off, looking awkward and lost. "Her classes start tomorrow. Some kind of healer?"

He glanced at Laeni for confirmation, but she only shrugged noncommittally while Rey flopped down across her feet and started purring.

Hope

"I suppose we ought to check out the symbol," Jax mused, running his hand through his hair. "A tour of the campus will do us all good, anyhow. I could stretch my legs a bit. What do you guys think?" He turned to the others. "Brahgo? Laeni? Rey?"

DragonSong

Brahgo shrugged, giving a vague affirmative, and Laeni's eyes went a little wider before she nodded quickly.

"Um, sure." It wasn't like she had any other idea about what to do next--if she was being perfectly honest, she wasn't even sure she could get back to her dorm without their guidance. At least not quickly or easily.


Eckhart_Von_Musel

"Aha. I see..."

Dominique felt her heart harden. The newcomer would have a difficult road ahead of her- Wyrdwood's competitive culture was unforgiving to normal students, never mind transfers who still had catching up to do. In all likelyhood, the girl would drop out by the end of the year...

"Here, I'll help you lot out." Dominique said, pulling a parchment and quill out of her bag. "I'll make a list of everywhere in the school I've seen that character..." After a few moments of scribbling, she handed the parchment to the transfer student.


Dominique beamed. "Those are the ones I know about. There might be more hidden somewhere, who knows..."

Hope

Jax flashed a thrilled grin at Dominique, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of a mystery. "My thanks. Let me know if you ever need anything." He turned to take a quick glance at the paper in Laeni's hands, then shot an excited look at Brahgo. "All ready? Let's go exploring, shall we?"

DragonSong

The shapeshfiter chuckled a bit, shaking his head at the other boy's blatant enthusiasm, but there was a spark of curiosity in his own eyes. "Sure, sure. Need help down?"

The last was directed at Rey, who yowled an affirmative before leaping up to cling to the half-orc's back like a vastly over sized kitten. Brahgo staggered under the sudden weight, cursing in his native tongue.

Laeni giggled, pressing her palm to her mouth in an effort to muffle the sound. She really couldn't help it. "Um, yeah. Alright. Right behind you," she managed after a moment, the hint of a smile still playing at the edges of her lips.

Hope

Jax followed them, making sure to shut the trapdoor properly before climbing down. He jumped the last few feet to the ground, his eyes aglow in the dimness. "Where to first, Laeni?"

DragonSong

"Wha--me?"

The girl looked back and forth between the other two, once again wide-eyed and lost. "I, um, I mean...I don't r-really know where any of that stuff is?" She gestured to the paper Dominique had given Jax as Brahgo clambered down the last few rungs of the ladder and Rey jumped to the ground, grumbling and shaking out his fur.

"Yeah, well, it's not my fault you don't have opposable thumbs," the taller boy grunted at the panther.

Hope

((Sorry! Eckhart wrote that Dominique handed the paper "to the transfer student" so I assumed Laeni had it, haha.))

Jax glanced down at the map, biting on his lower lip as he tried to decide where to go first. "The fountain sounds nice. Pretty view, too. And it has a bunch of carvings on the base. Maybe we can figure out what 'the space outside' actually means." 

DragonSong

[Oh no, my bad! I misread, sorry. Thanks for going with it!!]




"Fountain it is then," Brahgo agreed with an easy shrug. Laeni just nodded, clearly either without her own opinion or unwilling to offer it if she had one. He peered over Jax's shoulder, then snorted softly. "Good thing we've got Kitten," he muttered, pointing out "girl's washroom" on the list.

Rey made a chuffing sound deep in his throat that almost sounded like a laugh, but Laeni herself didn't seem to have noticed, hovering at the door to the base of the clock tower and peering out into the courtyard.

Hope

Jax chuckled quietly. "I figured we'd check that one out later."

They began walking towards the fountain that loomed over one side of the courtyard. It rained ribbons of water in spiraling patterns, and at night, the entire thing lit up in a bunch of different colors. "Laeni, you should check out this place during one of our spirit nights. Sometimes the students with water magic will put on a show with the fountain water. It's absolutely gorgeous."

DragonSong

The girl blinked at the fountain, clearly enchanted. Then she started at the sound of Jax's voice and snapped her attention to him. "Spirit...nights?" she questioned after a moment, looking between Jax and Brahgo in confusion.

"You explain," Brahgo passed the question off immediately to his friend with an arched eyebrow and a slight smirk.

It was kind of entertaining, watching his roommate play tour guide.

Hope

"Ah..." Jax stuttered, catching the smirk on Brahgo's face, before he remembered his train of thought. "Spirit nights. They're a way to show school spirit, and something different happens each time, but usually there's competitions, food, and shows. They act as a showcase of what each student has learned in their time at school. Winning competitions isn't easy, either; people flex their wins for years. We have them like twice a semester."

DragonSong

Chuckling quietly under his breath, Brahgo rocked back on one heel as he watched the exchange.

Laeni blinked, looking like she was starting to edge toward "overwhelmed" again. "Wow, that's, um...wow." Another blink, then she shook her head and turned her attention back to the fountain. "So people...magic can really...be like that? People want to do that? Use it?"

She almost seemed to be talking to herself. Brahgo blinked, then glanced at Jax, unsure what exactly she was getting at or how to respond.