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Post by raventhefree on Jul 11, 2018 20:50:49 GMT
After a night of rest, our three intrepid students made their final preparations for leaving on their contract. Grimoires were double, triple checked after being stuffed in satchels, medicine and bandages were tucked away, and a map of the area was undoubtedly stuck into the cracks between pairs of clothes for this trip from Varien to Hemme. With tensions as high as they are, you're not sure how you'll be received when you go there, but still, the prospect of completing your first contract of a summoner fills you with excitement, whether you show it or not.
The academy is quiet this morning, with people still slumbering in their dormitories. A few more ambitious students are already up and practicing, or perhaps sitting with their nose stuffed into books in the library. You still can't help but feel that you have a purpose above that today. It's not often that students are hand-selected for contracts. Still, it's too early to wander and braggadociously discuss your mission with other students or your friends.
The grounds are covered with a thin layer of frost. Despite the warm temperatures during the day, the grass is decorated in delicate white, your footfalls behind you stark green in contrast as you break the illusion of cold. When you make your way to the stables, you're greeted by one of the men who works there, who wrangles three well-behaved horses towards you when you arrive. "Good morning!" he says brightly as if the fact that the sun had hardly risen didn't phase him at all. "I got you Breakneck Blitz, Rested Laurels, and Carrack. They're pleasant enough--nothing as stubborn as a Rapidash or anything, so they'll be easy for summoners like you to handle. Don't ride 'em too hard, now. I'd like 'em back." He smiles and lets each of you pick your horses from the mix, standing back and watching proudly as his horses handle well.
"If you just follow that road, it'll get you on your way," he says, pointing at a road that winds into the forest. "Safe travels."
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Apr 22, 2019 22:15:31 GMT
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Post by eltrou on Jul 19, 2018 10:08:01 GMT
Alduin was up first thing in the morning. He was excited to get up and at 'em at travelling through these Northern Kingdoms, even if the morning was filled with an unpleasant, almost biting cold here in the academy. It just meant that he had to get up at this time to get the blood pumping with a little warm-up - get his joints limber and not stiff from this numbing cold - before he took a quick wash, got his stuff and went to the stables. He even made sure to double check that he had a map and his money, just in case they would need it on the road considering how long the trip would be.
"A good mornin' to you too!" Alduin greeted, a big smile on his face as he waved over the man. A part of him wondered if the man was just used to waking up this early or perhaps the cold of this spring helped keep him awake. Granted, he wasn't sure if this was even cold to a Northener like it was for him, but still.
He looked over to the others, waving at them if they've arrived, before moving over to pet the horse's snout first - the one called Breakneck Blitz. It's a good name, for sure. "I'll be sure to do that, and I'm sure my companions will too." He remarked with a chuckle as he let his spirit nudge at the horse to soothe it and to familiarize each other with it.
He didn't slip into its skin however -there was no need to- as he mounted the horse after making sure that it was familiar enough with him. "Thanks, we'll keep safe!" He said with a nod and a grin as he waited for the others to mount up.
"You two got everythin' ready? Checked the map and it's gonna be a while to get there even on horseback."
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Post by carnackiArdent on Jul 20, 2018 18:44:21 GMT
Mina has always been a little bit cautious around normal animals, even more so than around people. Some of them aren't fond of her scent - presumably she smells too much like plants they know are poisonous - and in any case Beasts tend to be more resilient against her toxic nature. She may have her poison touch completely under control, but she's always watching herself, and she's going to be in prolonged contact with this horse. At least she has the saddle and all the tack between her and it, so it's not like she's making skin contact all that time.
Rested Laurels, at least, is well-trained enough to control her reaction if she has one - zoology of non-poisonous animals isn't her strong suit, but Mina's pretty sure Rested Laurels is a mare. She strokes the horse's mane with a gloved hand tentatively, but she doesn't seem to shy away. (Unsurprisingly, Mina went right for the one with the botanical name.) Her movements are a bit languid - Mina isn't a morning person, but she's at least tried to be alert for this. She stifles a yawn with the back of her hand as Alduin and the stable keeper banter.
"Mmn... of course, we'll be careful with them. We wouldn't want to hurt such lovely horses." Mina is actually wearing trousers this morning - which probably comes as a bit of a shock to anyone who knows her usual habits of dress, but she wasn't sure how accommodating the horses would be about her riding sidesaddle, so she played it safe. Her baggage looks rather likely to contain her usual frilly dresses, though. A fortunate side-effect of Mina's tendency to expose as little skin as possible is that it helps keep her nice and warm even on a morning with a late frost like this.
Truth be told, she's nervous about more than the horses. This will be the longest time she's spent outside of the Academy since she arrived, and the most time spent dealing with people who aren't summoners or those who've spent their lives around them. But she needs to at least try, doesn't she? Whether these people are wary of her or not, they need her help, and she can't very well hide inside the Academy forever. She was eager when Professor Olleon asked them to work on this task, but she's had an evening of packing and fretting to bring up everything that could go wrong in her mind, and she'll need a little time to fight her nerves down to a sensible level of caution.
"I think I'm ready when you are." Or at least, time is not going to make her any more ready. She glances toward Veles, waiting for him to confirm that they're ready to go.
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Oct 27, 2020 20:42:28 GMT
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Post by haybalebarn on Jul 20, 2018 21:09:26 GMT
Veles arrived at the stables a full ten minutes before it was time to depart, something that might surprise those used to his typical habit of only arriving exactly at or after the agreed upon meeting time, but today wasn't a day for that. If he didn't have such a phlegmatic personality, he would look positively bushy-tailed and bright-eyed, but instead he just looked like he had finished an early morning meeting and was on his way to address the next item on his busy schedule. He only has a single, small pack slung over his shoulder, perhaps surprising for someone who obviously cares about his appearance, but the inside of the bag is meticulously packed with everything he needs, plus a few luxuries like books and papers.
As the stable keeper hands over the reins, Veles gives him a polite nod, immediately drawn to the one named Carrick. It was the only name out of the three horses of any interest, after all. He hesitates for a long moment before getting on the horse, and if anyone was paying attention to him they might notice he seems reticent to mount. However, eventually he mounts, smoothly enough, but to a practiced eye, it would be obvious he's only ridden a horse a few times before, or perhaps only extensively read about it. He doesn't let any of this show in his facial expression though, and when he's ready, he looks to the other two with a light smile. "Well then, let's be off." He doesn't wait for them after, immediately kicking his horse into motion.
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Apr 22, 2019 22:15:31 GMT
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Post by eltrou on Jul 29, 2018 7:21:37 GMT
Alduin was surprised that Veles decided to just head off already, jumping the gun before either him or Mina could. However, he wasn't about to question eagerness as he nudged his horse with an amused smile on his face. "See ya!" He nodded goodbye to the stablehands as he followed after Veles on horseback.
He wasn't going to run the poor horse into the ground on the very first day -he was excited for this mystery but not that excited, plus he wanted to relish being on a horse again- so with a brief nudge from his feet he had the horse set a brisk trotting pace. As he did so, he looked over at Veles and at Mina thoughtfully, brown eyes gleaming with curiosity.
"Hey. Either of you ever camped out before?" Alduin couldn't help but ask. "Or are we just going to depend on possible inns we can hit up in the maps?" He figured that with Mina's supposed fascination with plants, it was a possible maybe. But with Veles? Who knew? He didn't know much about proper Northeners to really discern their behavior, and he wasn't about to do something crazy like skinchange into a human to try and figure out their motives. There were words for that sort, and none of them were flattering or even good.
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Post by carnackiArdent on Aug 2, 2018 7:22:15 GMT
Mina looked a little embarrassed when Alduin brought up the issue of camping out. "Not... really, no. My father -"
She stopped herself cold, then took a breath and started again. "Well, I never spent much time away from home before I came to the Academy, and I haven't spent much time away from the Academy since. I've read about it, but I've never really spent the night out of doors anywhere more dangerous than a garden." She patted one of her larger pieces of baggage. "I did bring a tent. I'm afraid it's not really big enough for two, though."
She watched the other two curiously. It was just her luck that both of them seemed to be morning people. Which meant it was probably going to be like this every day. There wasn't much help for it, though, and at least she was a little more awake now. She was curious about just what her companions specialized in - she didn't really know either of them at all. Veles was... around, was about the extent of her impression of him, and Alduin she mostly recognized as one of the handful of southerners who'd all turned up at the Academy more or less together, as far as she was aware. Being an introvert was not very good for keeping tabs on fellow students she might suddenly need to know more about.
Well, there was one way to find out. "So, ah, what have you two been studying at the Academy?" she asked tentatively. She had to raise her voice a little higher than she was usually comfortable with even to be heard over their horses' moderate pace. "I've mostly been focusing on botany and medicine. There are so many beautiful flowers in the world, and in the Beastrealm, too. And so many of them seem to be useful for helping people, even ones you might not expect."
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Post by haybalebarn on Aug 20, 2018 6:20:49 GMT
Veles keeps quiet for the first part of their ride, mainly focusing on controlling his horse and not much on the surrounding countryside. As he begins to get his bearings though, he starts to enjoy the ride, smiling lightly.
It isn't long before he's snapped out of his enjoyment by the conversation of his travel mates, his face settling back to its typical neutral expression. He very quickly narrows in on Mina's uncomfortability with talking about her father, but beyond narrowing his eyes for a few moments, he doesn't point it out. "Haven't done much camping, no. Was raised in a big city, never had any chances to leave it. I wouldn't be opposed to it though."
He continues to pay keen attention as Mina talks a bit more about her skills, filing the information away for later. It was mostly as expected, but it was still important to know the capabilities of your companions. "My main area of study is tactics, but I've loaded up on as wide of a variety of classes as I can. Leads to a full schedule, but," he shrugs, "If I'm going to be spending my time and money at the Academy, I'm going to take advantage of it."
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Apr 22, 2019 22:15:31 GMT
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Post by eltrou on Aug 28, 2018 7:39:12 GMT
Read about it. Alduin had to resist mouthing out that sentiment in a bit of disbelief. He'd had thought that a budding botanist or whatever the northeners called 'em nowadays would have spent more time in the true wilds, but... apparently not.
Well, this just meant that she got to learn. And so would he, if he was hearin' it right. Bunch of city-slicker Northeners he was stuck with, then. But at least they seemed like a right okay bunch.
"It'll be fun, then." He quipped lightly as he nudged his horse along, a small smile on his face still as the topic changed.
He listened as to what the the others had said, humming thoughtfully. "Plants and battlefield stuff, huh. Those are both some real interesting stuff there." He nodded sagely. "As for me... I'm studyin' magic. We're not as up-to-date as we'd like to be where I live, and I figure that I might as well help fill in the gaps when I get back."
Whenever that was. The urge to come back dwindled by the day, but he knew his duties. "Speakin' of which, any of you know any sorta magic 'side from the summonin' we all gotta learn?"
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Post by carnackiArdent on Aug 29, 2018 4:49:14 GMT
In her defense, Mina looked pretty embarrassed about not having more direct experience with camping out away from civilization. At least she would hopefully prove tougher than she looked. She shot Alduin a wry smile. "To be honest, camping might be easier for me than the first time I had to negotiate a room at an inn for myself. I didn't have a lot of... experience dealing with people."
She crossed her hands on the reins, letting her gloved fingers rest on top of each other. "Hm... I have a talent for a couple of kinds of magic. It's why I picked the other fields of study that I did. I know a bit of plant-based magic and..." She paused abruptly, and her voice dropped a little lower. "A little more poison magic."
Her pale cheeks didn't quite flush, but it was obvious she wasn't quite looking at either of her companions at that point. She swallowed hard and raised her voice back up to a normal volume. She could at least let her companions know what she was capable of. It might be important, later, and in any case telling them directly would be better than letting them find out by seeing her use them. "I'm mostly interested in how you can derive medicines from toxins, but I know enough of both kinds of magic to handle myself, if we find ourselves in trouble. It... runs in my family, you could say. Unfortunately, certain kinds of poison magic are not terribly discriminating, so you may wish to avoid being directly in front of me if that happens."
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Post by haybalebarn on Sept 5, 2018 18:41:47 GMT
Veles quirks an eyebrow at Mina listing off her magical prowess. He understood how she was persecuted well enough, but having her ashamed of her magic was less than useful to him in situations where she needed to use it. "Two different branches of magic at once? Impressive. As for myself, no other magic here, unless there's some hidden ability inside me waiting to be unlocked, which is doubtful, at this stage. I'd prefer to stick back and not directly engage anyways. How about you, Alduin, what exactly can you do?"
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Apr 22, 2019 22:15:31 GMT
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Post by eltrou on Sept 10, 2018 11:00:20 GMT
Alduin listened quietly, wishing for a moment that he had his notebook out to note these down for later. It couldn't hurt to have a record of generalizations of what his companions said they could do. However, he couldn't quite multitask that well. It turned out that trying to write on horseback was far more difficult than shooting on horseback - the constant motion is hell on legibility. So instead he just hoped that he'll remember... probably by demonstration, but still.
While thinking, he still had the presence of mind to respond. "That's pretty cool, actually! I know a couple of people who would've loved to be able to do even one of those types of magic. Granted, it's hard to do anything with plants in the desert... but they're creative!" He said with a light grin.
He then turned over to Veles when he answered, but before he could ask anything Veles beat him to the punch, asking him his kind of magic was. Welp. He should have expected that question sooner or later. It's not like he could hide it or lie about it either - he sucked ass at lying.
"Hm... I'm not sure how to phrase it in a way that can be easily understood, but I'll try." He hummed as he straightened himself on his horse. "I'm not sure if you've heard the words skinwalker or warg about me and the tribesfolk who came with me, but that is the type of magic that I wield. It's basically a type of magics that deals with souls, minds and magical cores, which in a skinwalker's case is my slipping our minds into that of our beasts and resonating our souls and cores with them."
At this point he began to look sheepish. "I'm not quite like other skinwalkers though. Professors have commented that I had an unusually-adaptive magical core or something, and it leads to... interesting side effects. One of the reasons why I'm in the academy is to get help to figure out my magic and how to develop it further, since it's a large deviation from the normal skinchanger magic. Does that make sense?"
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Post by carnackiArdent on Sept 15, 2018 7:45:52 GMT
"Really? So you can see through the beasts' eyes? That must be quite an experience." Mina didn't have to try to look fascinated - she leaned over the pommel of her horse for a moment, before an awkward step set her swaying and she had to scramble to regain her balance. "I mean, imagine what a healer could do with that type of magic! It's so hard to communicate with beasts - I practically grew up with Beatrice and I still don't always know what she's thinking - but you could ask them where things hurt or how they feel and they could really answer!"
She gave Alduin a crooked, slightly ironic smile when he got shyer about his own unusual spin on his magic. Apparently this conversation really was helping her feel bolder around her companions already. "I know about unusual magical deviations, a little. My magic has a few... uncommon traits, too. It can be kind of isolating." Mostly the isolation was self-imposed in her case, but still. "I'm afraid I don't know as much about the theory behind magic as I'd like to; I've been too focused on the practical side. But if there's ever any way I can help, I'd love to."
She pulls herself up short. "I'm sorry, I guess that was a little forward of me."
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Apr 22, 2019 22:15:31 GMT
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Post by eltrou on Sept 21, 2018 10:55:33 GMT
Alduin's smile became more genuine once more at her exclamation, though it had slipped for a moment as a look of concern flitted through his features upon her nearly falling off her horse. He had been almost tempted to slip into her horse's mind for a moment there so that he could right the horse, but at least she was fine.
Yeah, definitely sheltered Northerner types, the lot of them. At least she didn't seem nervous about his ability to delve into beast minds or the other things he implied.
"It is definitely an experience. It's definitely handy to not have to phatomime, though some of their senses... well, it's something else." He admitted with a small hum once she had finished, not looking at all offended.
"Some of the shamans I've met and trained with also dabbled or even specialized in healing, especially if there were few dedicated healers in the tribe." He remarked with a wry chuckle. "Comes with this type of magic needing some understanding into the different states of mind, y'know?"
He then glanced over at her and gave her a small grin. "And I always welcome help. Another head's always useful in thinking up of solutions to problems or other avenues to take my magic in." He said with a nod. "I don't mind the forwardness at all~ In fact, I'm alright with the underlying theory of magic and its workings, so if you need help on that end I could possibly offer some assistance back."
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Post by carnackiArdent on Sept 22, 2018 0:32:55 GMT
Mina glanced down for a moment, but made herself look back up. Right, she was trying not to just fall back into getting shy. With her experience of how people reacted to her own oddities, it was rather hard to get overly worked up about what seemed to be a much more benign talent, even one that was strange to her.
"My... issues aren't really about the nature of my magic, exactly. Having someone to talk to about it would be nice, sometimes." She brushed a hand back through her hair. "It might be better for explaining to wait for another time, though."
She was utterly chickening out of explaining how her father factored into things - or maybe, since it involved magic, she was Torchic-ing out. But going into her emotional issues would probably be better done when it wasn't literally the second day she'd spoken to Alduin and she wasn't sitting on top of a perfectly innocent animal.
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Post by eltrou on Sept 22, 2018 0:40:17 GMT
"I'll hold you to that one day." Alduin replied with another small nod as he adjusted himself on his horse slightly. It looked like she didn't look comfortable with the topic and in fact was more at ease with the horse than said topic. Best to leave it alone till another time. "Some talks aren't meant to be on horseback."
He offered her one last smile before looking back forward and continuing to ride. Every so often, he checked his map just to see that they were going the right way. This may be a dirt road and a place easier to navigate than the endless dunes of his home, but it never hurt to be careful.
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Post by Trixander on Sept 22, 2018 13:08:19 GMT
After a day of mostly-pleasant traveling, the group of three arrives at an inn nestled at the edge of a tiny, nameless town in Varien. Ramshackle huts surround pens with pigs, sheep, and cows, and a lumber mill can be seen off in the distance, decorated on the outside with a pile of logs. The river bubbles off down the road, but the impending darkness drives you to the fire-lit inn. A boy--maybe fourteen or fifteen years old--hurries out and takes your horses, leading them carefully into a stable behind the inn. He talks to them gently as he takes them back, making sure they are as calm and comfortable in their stay as you are.
Inside, round tables are surrounded by chairs of varying quality: some are little more than hay bales, some are barrels, and others look to be large, round logs cut from the lumber mill. The few nice chairs the inn has a crammed around tables nearer to the bar, with the bar itself having proper stools made out of untreated lumber. Only a few other travelers are staying here, but a number of townsfolk are puttering around a hearth, playing cards and talking raucously about Levitus-knows what. The innkeeper is standing by them, talking and laughing along. When he sees you, he smiles and walks back over to the bar, as if to take care of you there.
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Post by carnackiArdent on Sept 30, 2018 7:16:17 GMT
Mina gives the stable boy a small smile. She's glad he seems to know his work; Rested Laurels has been so good for her nervous rider that Mina wouldn't like to see her off with someone pressed into the task. That, and she's secretly a little relieved not to be, ah, saddled with the job of caring for the horses herself. She's going to have to get used to it eventually if they ever hit a night where there isn't a convenient inn, of course, but having time to ease into it would be nice.
Of course, there's another task she's a little anxious about approaching. When the innkeeper walks over to the bar, Mina looks that way and takes a deep breath. Okay, she can do this. She did it once before, after all, and she's had four years of experience talking to strangers since then.
"Let's go settle on some rooms, first of all. Two, or three, do you think?" Three would be ideal, she guesses, unless one of the men is nervous about sleeping alone for some reason, but she has no idea how much space this inn has, and they only have so much money for the trip. Of course, Mina has reasons besides just modesty to be reluctant to share her room with the men, or indeed anyone.
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