Necromancers Guide to the Undead, Thursday, Period 1

[deathsmajesty]

Today, class met in the Danger Shop, and when they opened the door, they found themselves walking into a small village. The buildings of the village were adorned with the pointed arches and half-timbered houses that students of Earth history might associate with medieval Germany, and the large church at one end of the town featured the stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, ribbed vaults, and spires that any fans of Gothic architecture would recognize at once. Next to the church was a forebidding-looking graveyard, with surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Around the village were peaceful-looking pastures that gave way to deep, forbidding forests full of a dense fog that glowed chromatic colors of dark green, purple, and gray. Further out in the distance were indigo and black mountains with peaks tall enough to disappear in the clouds. Those with particularly keen eyes might notice a large manor house on the horizon, beyond a sinister-looking swamp, a purple banner blowing in the wind.

"Welcome to Wollebank, a shepherding village located in Stensia, a province on the plane of Innistrad," Liliana said with a large grin. "The other week, we discussed the creation of ghosts and spirits. This week--" finally "--we're getting down to the details, that is, the specific kinds of ghosts and spirits there are. Now, there are, of course, numerous types of ghosts when we look at spirits in aggregate over the various planes of the Multiverse, but Innistrad is based on Gothic horror tropes especially prone to the creation of undead, both naturally and not." She gestured above her head and the clouds parted, revealing a large moon hanging on the horizon. "Innistrad's moon, often called Heron Moon, dominates life on Innistra. The moon is a vast desert made ​​of pure silver and its cycle drives the seasons, the hunting patterns of the monsters, the strength of various ghosts and spirits, harvests of the humans, the lycanthropic curse, and the vampiric frenzies."

She gestured again, and this time the night sky parted like a curtain at the theater, revealing a roiling, chaotic mass of energies and colors, like the inside of a hurricane made of pure magic. "And this is the Æther, which, for the purposes of this class, will be given the accurate-enough-I-suppose definition of 'the magical and spiritual essence of the plane.' After death, spirits are intended to rise up and rejoin the Æther, becoming part of part of it once again. The humans on this plane refer to this rejoining as 'the Blessed Sleep,' as they don't really have a concept of the Æther unless they are a high-ranking member of the Church, a powerful enough magic user, or a Planeswalker. They believe once they have obtained this Blessed Sleep, their souls will be forever safe from necromancy. This belief is mistaken, as a powerful enough necromancer can reach into the Æther with their will and collect enough of a person's soul to be a reasonable facsimile of the person they were in life, but we generally don't go advertising that, as Innistradi peasants can sometimes be agitated into picking up torches and pitchforks, and dealing with mobs is hardly anyone's idea of a good time."

Was your teacher speaking from experience? Who knew?

"While many planes, departed spirits are inclined to seek out and rejoin the Æther naturally, more often than not, Innistradi spirits cling to the world of the living, unable or unwilling to depart. Many necromancers theorize that it's the moon's influence that keep all but the strongest spirits earthbound, almost like a spiritual tidal lock, but it's a difficult theory to prove without being able to affect the moon." Remember that sentence, class! It was going to turn out to be a helpful example of dramatic irony! "Therefore, one of the responsibilities of the hordes of angels that infest this plane is to escort the willing souls of the departed up to rejoin the Æther. However, even when they're not too sad to do their damn job--" cue much eyerolling from your teacher "--there are plenty of souls that make the transition to ghosts anyway. Most mortals cannot see the various kinds of ghosts and spectres that exist around them, but I've programmed it so that you can."

A snap of her fingers and the clouds rolled back over the sky, obscuring the Æther, once more, and instead of the class standing in an empty landscape, now there were ghosts in a variety of appearances drifting about. "On most planes, spirits primarily draw upon either white mana, for your friendly, helpful types, or black mana, for your inimical, hungry ghosts. Innistrad also sees ghosts that draw upon blue mana, which are more the trickster types, and red mana, that are the bloodthirsty, vengeful types. Today, you're going to explore this section of Stensia and see what you can learn about ghosts and ghost lore."

This was much kinder than Liliana's own early lessons in necromancy, where she had done this exact type of thing, but for real.

Photography Through the Ages; Thursday, Third Period [02/08].

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Hey, guys," Prompto greeted the class with a little wave, looking a little more tired and reserved than his usual bouncy self, but he'd get there, don't worry about it, especially once he actually got to teaching them about today's topic, "sorry about last week, but I'm sure if any of you were also surprise ponies, you'll start to understand why this lesson was definitely not going to work in that state once we really start getting into it. We'll be doing a lot with our hands today, because today, we're learning about how to actually develop the film in those camera you borrowed a couple of weeks ago.

"So, hopefully," he chuckled a little, "you remembered to bring those with you and to try and take some pictures with them. If not, you can probably shoot off a few real quick while I'm explaining, and then develop that film. Now, photographic processing is basically a chemical treatment on the film that takes the film's negative image and brings it out to make a photo as we're used to seeing. It can be a little intimidating at first, but the process can actually be pretty simple once you're used to it, so we'll go over it, talk a little bit about science behind it, and then we'll process those photos and see what you took!

"And, side note, you don't even need a dark room specifically to process photos, although it does make it a lot easier, and we've got one at the Photo Hut, so if you ever have some film you wanna develop in your spare time, you're always welcome to swing by. Okay! So, before we get into it, let's talk safety, too...."

Battle Tactics and Strategy; Thursday, Fourth Period [02/08].

[chef_chocobro]

"Well, then," said Ignis, not one to waste time, especially when there was plenty to go over in a class and only so much time to do it in, "now that we're all hopefully feeling a bit more like ourselves again, we can get back to our lessons as planned," way to make being a horse for a day sound like a personal and direct insult there, Igs, "and discuss terrain, and specifically....how it can influence a battle, how you can use it to your advantage, and how it might be used against you."

And, if anyone was surprised by the rather lengthy dicsection of the concepts of terrain in battle and how they should be considered....one that someone definitely did not have the time to actually write out at the moment so there will be many waving of hands, and not just because Ignis was the type to gesture for emphasis when speaking....then where have you even been in this class? But, as he came out of breaking down various different types of terrain, as well as structures and other strategic methods of creating a terrain for the benefit of battle, he finally came around to his conclusion, and gestured at the reason why they were in the danger shop for this week's lesson, which involved several holographic 3D models or maps and terrain.

"So what we'll be doing today," he said, "is considering various ways in which terrain can be used. I'd like everyone to partner up and find a map to consider. Together, you can discuss various different ideas on how to best use the terrain to your advantage. Try to think of ways to counter the other person's suggestions or offer options that might improve upon them, until you feel you've come up with a strategy worth pursuing, examined from all angles and consideration. The goal is to think about how terrain can be just as crucial, helpful, or perhaps detrimental as your weapons or troops themselves, and, hopefully, to be able to open your strategy up to new perspectives and considerations. Any further questions before we begin?"

Conversational Japanese; THURSDAY????, Fourth Period [02/08].

[id_kill_him]

Yukari had been standing at her desk at the front of the classroom with her stack of vocabulary lists and worksheets for a while now, getting increasingly more irritated and annoyed that none of her students were showing up.

"Where are they?" she murmured,peevishly checking her watch, and confirming with the clock on the wall, a hand on her hip and her foot tapping on the floor impatiently.

Had she missed something? Was it a holiday she didn't know about?

After about fifteen minutes, she finally threw up her hands with frustration. "Fine, then!" she announced to no one but the squirrels in the empty room. "I guess no one's coming to class today! Fine by me!"

The squirrels in the room exchanged a confused look and a chittering discussion before scurrying up to Yukari as she left, holding up one of their notebooks with something scribbled on it.

"Eh?" she asked, blinking down at the squirrels, and reaching for the notebook to read.

"Eh??!?" This one was much more shocked, surprised, and offended, and the squirrels went scattering as she angrily threw the notebook right back at them. "Whaddya mean, it's Thursday?? And you didn't even tell me THIS WHOLE TIME???"

But that did explain why no one was showing up! She was sort of wondering what did happen to her Wednesday now.

Dice and Danger! [Thurs, 2nd Period]

[needsacatchphrase]

The tavern was set up with pillows and what looked to be sleeping bags. They could have been bedrolls, but the programming just went with what it went with.

And one teacher was clutching a mug of tea and looking sheepish. "Apparently Mjolnir doesn't protect from sore throats,"" Jane croaked.

"And if you don't have access to a handy wizard." Or you didn't trust the vile concoctions Zedd insisted on using instead of magic. "The best way of healing is a 'long rest'."

Jane nodded encouragingly at that, not able to agree out loud without coughing at the moment. But she hoped she was impressing the importance of rest in combination with both the class and, well, life in general.

Mostly it just looked like nodding.

"Which is why today we're going to be roleplaying taking a long rest." Or 'roleplaying' as the case might be.r