Magical Theory and Practice, Friday, Period 3

[tellmehowstuffworks]

Today's workshop was being held in a classroom. There was a hot Renaissance Faire goth standing at the front of the classroom when the students arrived, and when they sat down they would notice that each of them had a flower and a rock sitting on their desk. "Good afternoon," Yennefer said to her students. "I am Yennefer of Vengerberg, and this is..." She glanced at her notes, and then looked again. "Magical Theory and Practice. Bit of a joke in the class description, I see." Or was it? "Well, we might get to that. We'll see how it goes. For now, I will tell you that while I am new to instruction, I am a sorceress trained in the school of Aretuza, and have been an advisor to the king of Aedirn for thirty years." Yep, she was older than she looked.

"Being as we all come from different realities here, I expect we also come from different magical traditions, and that sticking too closely to what I was taught might be completely useless to you, but I believe that in broad strokes much of that information continues to be true, based on the fact that I have been able to do magic since I got here, so I will teach you starting from that foundation. First, I would like to know what I am working with. Everyone will please tell me their name, so I can check them off this list, and what their experience level is with magic, and a little of how they know it to work, and then we're going to do a little exercise. Any questions so far? No? Good."

Comments

Sign In

[tellmehowstuffworks]

Magically!

Re: Sign In

[thishouseishaunted]

Mae Borowski

Re: Sign In

[nicedragonsfinishlast]

Julius Heartstriker Quetz

During the Lecture

[tellmehowstuffworks]

Were you hoping for magic weed?

Re: During the Lecture

[thishouseishaunted]

Mae looked around, wondering if she'd made a mistake signing up for this class. (Yes, she'd maybe been hoping for magic weed.) Was she supposed to know something about magic? Wasn't that what classes were for?

Maybe this was a dream. Was she wearing pants? She tried to surreptitiously check.

. . . Yep, pants on. Probably not a dream.

Re: During the Lecture

[nicedragonsfinishlast]

Uh. Not really? Not that Julius had picked out his courses at all. He was putting the blame on this squarely on Bob's shoulders, thanks.

Introductions!

[tellmehowstuffworks]

"I'll start. I have already told you my name and experience level, and where I come from magic comes from harnessing chaos, which is the life energy of the universe. Some living things have a lot of chaos and some things have a little, but all of them can be used for magic. A mage can use their own inborn chaos to power a spell, or they can use a substitute: someone else's chaos, or the energy of an animal or a plant. Now who'd like to go next?"

Re: Introductions!

[thishouseishaunted]

Well, inborn chaos was promising. Mae had tons of that!

"I'm Mae Borowski," she said. "Um. I have . . . no experience? Is that okay? But I like chaos!"

She had a connection to an elder god living under her hometown that occasionally drove her crazy, but she didn't know about any of that just yet.

Re: Introductions!

[nicedragonsfinishlast]

Oh god oh god. Julius had no idea how he was going to get through today without letting anyone know who - or, more specifically what - he really was.

"I'm Julius," he said, skipping his last name because he was pretty sure he was going to stumble over the fake one right now. His eyes were pretty steady on his desk. "Uh. I've had magic training for years now. Not super-great at it."

Mostly because he never wanted to give his more magically-inclined siblings a reason to think of him as a threat. Or competition. Murder of siblings was forbidden, but opening a portal to another dimension and leaving him there for a few hours? Totally fine.

"Uh, different, umm, people access magic in different ways where I come from. It wells up from the earth and certain people can access it and shape it? I guess? To make them do what they want. Other people, like, uh, me. Have a reservoir of magic that we're just born with. We can do stuff to make it bigger and stronger, and it increases as we get older," he mumbled.

Magical creatures all had that in common.

"Uh, there are other - entities? Out there. That do magic differently, like spirits and stuff. But I don't really know all of that."

Re: Introductions!

[legionqueen]

"I'm Juillenne Milone, and this," she tilted her head to indicate the mountain cat sprawled under her desk. "Is Camden. She's my familiar."

"Where I'm from, most- but not all- people are born with a single gift. For example, I am a naturalist- I can control plants and animals. This type of gift is innate to who you are and runs in families. Low magic can be practiced by anyone and is done with blood and runes. It is forbidden on Fennbirn."

Not that that actually stopped anyone, they just had to be sneaky about it.

Re: Introductions!

[sith_happened]

"I'm Anakin Skywalker," Anakin said, smiling faintly, "and I've been a Jedi since I was nine. We refer to the lifeforce powering the universe as the Force, which is neither good nor evil. The intentions of the user decide if you are using the Dark Side or the Light."

Re: Introductions!

[dauntlessdragoon]

To be fair, being in a class called Magical Theory and Practice wasn't the most confusing thing Freya had been sidled with since arriving here, but it did cause a decent amount of bewilderment in her.

"My name Freya," she eventually offered. "Freya Crescent. I am a dragon knight of Burmecia."

Spoken as though everyone should clearly know what that meant, although she sort of figured, by now, that no one actually did.

"So although certain aspects of my skillset are derived from magical energy and are similar to magical abilities, they aren't really magic...Though I suppose maybe an understanding of magic will assist in improving them?"

She certainly hoped so, otherwise this whole thing was just going to be a bit of a waste...

Re: Introductions!

[special_rabbit]

"I'm Amaya Blackstone," Amaya offered, in the cheery tone of someone who had no idea what she was doing here, but, would you look at that, there she was anyway. "And I haven't got a magical bone in my whole body! And, before anyone asks," and she didn't even mean this in the dirty way, "no, I don't particularly want one."

Sorry 'bout that, Yennifer. A bit too many evil witches and wizards around Amaya's way for her to have too high opinion of the stuff, even with a few people around Fandom to help sway her mind a little.

Re: Introductions!

[magnusrushesin]

"My name is Magnus Burnsides," he said, slipping into that gruff, Errol Flynn voice again to get back into character. "I have magic weapons, do those count?"

Somewhere... Taako was so annoyed with him for even asking that dumb question.

Lift the Rock!

[tellmehowstuffworks]

After everyone had introduced themselves, Yennefer said, "Now, my instructor just gave me the rock and the flower and told me to lift the rock without touching it, and then I had to figure it out from there on my own. I've already given you more information than that. A hint, if you will. If you think yourself capable, using whatever magical method you are familiar with, lift the rock without touching it. Even if you do not think yourself capable, try. You might surprise yourself.

Re: Lift the Rock!

[thishouseishaunted]

Mae looked at the rock. She looked at the flower. She looked at her neighbor's desk as though she could copy their answer.

She was pretty sure 'lifting' the rock by kicking the desk hard enough to make it bounce a little wouldn't count.

Re: Lift the Rock!

[nicedragonsfinishlast]

Oh this! Okay, even Julius could do this. It was a pretty simple spell, one of the first things they were taught.

He lifted the rock - harder than it should have been since he hadn't practiced magic since his official training was over - and the flower both, setting them to move about in a circle in the air.

And then basically forgot about them, waiting to hear what to do next.

Re: Lift the Rock!

[legionqueen]

Juillenne frowned down at the rock and the flower, trying to puzzle out what to do.

Lifting the rock would be simple, with the war-gift. But Jules had literally just shared how people from her world only had a single gift, so how to explain...?

Oh!

She grinned as inspiration struck. Then used the war-gift to levitate the rock, while simultaneously reaching out towards the flower with the naturalist gift, causing it to shrivel and crumble in to dust.

There. It wasn't as if anyone here really knew what being a naturalist implied, after all. So that was totally feasible!

Re: Lift the Rock!

[sith_happened]

Anakin was an expert at rock lifting.

He sent it rocketing into the air like a giant, giant showoff, then let it do looping figure 8's above his head.

Re: Lift the Rock!

[dauntlessdragoon]

Frowning as she ducked her head, thinking deeply on this problem, Freya's tail swished behind her as she contemplated the rock.

All of her non-magic magic-based abilities were meant for combat, and so the idea of using them merely to lift a rock proved quite the conundrum. If she were fighting the rock, this problem would hardly be a problem at all! But to merely lift it?

Well. Yennifer did not seem to say anything about how long it needed to be lifted, and so, nodding to herself in conclusion, Freya summoned up a little of her power to cast Reis's Wind, which created a small swirl of green-blue energy around the rock just enough to lift it up for a moment...

...and give it the ability to regenerate health on a consistent basis for the remainder of the class.

Re: Lift the Rock!

[special_rabbit]

Amaya had a flower. There was a rock. She was supposed to use that flower to lift said rock.

She blinked at the rock a moment, actually did try squinting at it a little to see if she really could just move it with her mind (which she could not and would deny having even tried, thank you), and then sighed, tucking the flower behind her ear for now as she looked around.

"So," she asked, "anyone got a string? Or maybe a good plank and we can just lever the thing up?"

SCIENCE!

Re: Lift the Rock!

[magnusrushesin]

Magnus poked it with a pencil. Because he was a rules lawyering little shit.

"Did it!"

Talk to Your Teacher

[tellmehowstuffworks]

She's here, if slightly intimidating.

Re: Talk to Your Teacher

[nicedragonsfinishlast]

Slightly?

Julius remained after the rest of the class left, standing in front of her desk. "You wanted to see me?" he asked.

OOC

[tellmehowstuffworks]

The 'correct' method for lifting the rock: use the flower's life energy to power the spell. The flower will wither and die, and the rock will levitate several inches off the desk. Or whatever other method works for your character's magic.

The 'incorrect' method: use your own inborn chaos without knowing what you're doing and like, wither your arm or something else Yennefer will then have to fix.