Readjusting to Academia (solo)

[Mila]

Mila lay in her little corner of the room. It was the seventh day of the week. A day of rest for the students and the teachers. She had her journal in her hand and several scattered pages around her. She learned a whole lot in the few months since she had been employed by Veritas Magical Academy. She waited until a days ago before writing up letters to some of her companions. About where she was and what she was doing. And what they should do if they wanted to meet up with her here in Ryerde.

She was a bit slow to make friends with her new room mates. They all seemed to be the type who were focused on their own work. That was until Mila got so frustrated with figuring out how to write up a basic lesson plan. That day she yelled it into sky and then older of the two moment started to help her. Eventually, this act earned the trust of the other one, and now the three of them liked to grab a lunch together every Thursday. Her classes were a mix mash of both children and adult students. Now, while she knew those people to all be intellectuals she still needed to devise a way to make things fair to all her students. The green haired sage was grateful to her two bunk-mates, both of whom were other professors in the school. Mila also find it difficult to get used to the idea of people calling her a professor. She knew she wasn't one. She lacked the proper documentation to become one. But, the students and staff seemed to be comfortable calling her that anyway.

Her lesson's were simple at first. She decided to start of the class with a basic introduction to herself, her profession, and what she had seen. She gave brief exploits about each monster they were going to cover in her lessons. She started the semester off with a lesson in some of the more common monster in the world, the undead. She spoke on what the current theory was on how they were re-animated and where they had come from. Everything, at least when it comes to the undead, started in the few months after the fall of Osita. Details as to how are currently unknown. She then moved on to teach basic anatomy of the human body, common armors, weapons, behavior patterns, and the best way to beat them. Their "mid term", if she could call it that would consist of a written test, a verbal test, and a field test with some clay dummies. Writing and designing these tests proved to be a headache and a half for the young sage. She knew she needed to make sure all her students knew what to do and what not to do when confronted by a horde of undead. But, again, she needed to figure out a way to make it fair for all age groups. The various pages scattered around her were full of questions, crossed out questions, personal notes, and some doodles. She knew not everyone was going to pass her test either and that was something she'd have to brace herself for. She'd have to prepare for the bribes and possible threats to her life. Since, no one likes to fail. She'd also have to prepare for the emotional toll this would cost her since, she has to write up various progress notes to the higher ups about the statues of her students. She'd was spending the better portion of her night's writing up ways on how to figure all this stuff out. She liked to give her students a small quiz every week just to make sure they were actually paying attention to the material and not just looking at her. The sage shook her head, sometimes, she forgets that she's actually attractive in the eyes of some other people. And that's led to it's own set of problems in the class room. She nearly punched three of the students for their crass remarks until she realized she had the authority to boot them out of her class. She wanted to be an educator to these inquiring minds not some sort of sex symbol.

Mila changed a good portion of her clothes to reflect her newfound profession. She still wore the leather vest to guard her chest but it had been upgraded a bit. She could undo the belts to her top have to give her as much breathing room as she needed. Plus she could take it off easier then her last one. The leather was harder then the older one so it gave her a bit more protection. Her boots had been replaced completely. She liked that these new boots had the same sort of belt motif as her leather guard. Not all the belts on her boots were for keeping the boot on her foot. But, the two or three used to keep her shoes firmly secured were most welcome. They did a good job at keeping the mud and muck out of her toes. And the little platform to her heel made her feel just a tad bit taller. She was grateful that they didn't force her into a dress. But, she had to wear a long sleeved shirt. She opted for the men's style of it that did away with the overly big sleeves. She liked the little cuff-link like buttons that kept the simple cotton fabric close to her wrists. Her pants were the same pair of slacks she always had but sooner or later she could afford to at least get new versions of them.

Now, she was sitting around in her room trying to figure out what would be the next best monster to tie into. She knew she couldn't do baels since that's a pretty huge leap into species. Plus they weren't so common, YET. Certain parts of Lycia were infested with the eight legged monstrosities. And their numbers were expanding. She'd have to figure out a way to educate her students about them sooner or later. The most she gave her students when it came to questions about Baels was to "find a way to get away". Since, she had seen their destructive capabilities first hand.

"Perhaps.. doogs should be the next lesson." A monster man's best friend? That.. sounds like an ok leap of logic. She shook her head slightly.

"I need a break." She spoke to herself and quietly gathered her pages. She crammed them all into her journal and sighed. She grabbed the leather guard off of the chair and started to put it on. The day was mild so she grabbed her cloak too as well as this knitted shoulder cover thing that the school provided her. She was mystified at how such a small thing could keep her warm. But, it kept her neck and shoulders covered and that helped to keep her comfy in the night. She wore the shoulder thing under her long cloak. She grabbed her floral tome and headed outside.

[Mila]

She made her way down the steps and out towards one of the training grounds. The day was cool and foggy. She wasn't very good with Flora yet. The most she managed to grow on her own with the floral tome was a tiny little pepper plant she named Petey. Petey was sitting on her windowsill, being a plant, and doing plant things. But, Petey, was a tiny thing. Barely half a finger's worth of plant and just a small mess of little itty bitty leaves. She wanted to grow a full-scale plant in a matter of moments. But, the botanist she was sith explained that this was a normal phenomenon with newcomers to flora. Mila sighed a bit. She wanted to make plants grow like hers. Then again the botanist was busy trying to figure out why certain pea-plants possessed what sort of colors and why they have certain seed patterns. She and the math mathematician were trying to make that their thesis based on the notes left behind by an old monk.

Mila called up upon the Flora tome. There wasn't much of a diversity in plant life on this particular patch of school grounds. But, that didn't stop her. The blades of grasses on the lawn could be molded into something. Mila kicked up a small patch of ground with her foot and started to manipulate the little blades of grass with the tome. Today's exercise was to cover the exposed dirt and mud patch with fresh new blades of grass. Manipulating plants to your will was a lot more difficult than she originally anticipated. Manipulating little Petey's seed was the magical equivalent of trying to thread a needle and simultaneously trying to pluck a hair out with tweezers. And she had to do it with small bursts of her own magic, as a matter of fact, she went through several different "Petey's" before getting one that not only survived her magical manipulation, but it didn't end up into a muddy smear on the ceiling walls.

Magic is not without its difficulties. She remembered her dad's words. What works for me might not work for you. Try to find your own way with it. She wondered what sort of frustrations her dad would have had with this new magic. He was a pretty decent gardener if her memory served. He was in charge of growing the delicate little spices indoors when it came to the winter time. So maybe he'd be really good at it. She shook her head lightly. In her head, she considered her dad to be a magic genius, even though he was a pretty standard sage.

"Focus on the task at hand." She muttered to herself. She couldn't get herself lost in nostalgia. She could feel the cool damp mist of the fig starting to seep into her hair. And she knew that would give her a serious case of frizz. She sat down on the cold wet ground. She let her cape act as a sort of barrier between her and the wet grass. Sitting down let her get a better view of her little dirt mount so she could accurately gauge how much grass was growing on the mound. She focused her magic towards the ground below her. She recited the words from the flora tome and tried really hard to imagine what she wanted to do with the flora.

Trying to get the grass to grow en-mass on a relatively small surface area felt really odd. She couldn't quite describe the feeling of trying to manipulate a bunch of tiny little grass blades to spring up from the ground. If she could describe it it was something akin to like trying to pull the hair out of a waxy mass using only the power of your mind. She gently moved her fingers upwards and a few grass shoots shot out of the mound. She repeated the process until the entire little mud mound was completely covered in what looked like a combination of grass blades and moss.

Mila felt herself getting another headache. So she tilted her head back and the rest of her body followed. She let out a hard sigh and quietly let the pain in her head subside.

[Mila]

She spent a solid fifteen minutes out in the open air before her back and head became too wet for her liking. She pulled herself up off the ground and made her way back inside. The sage grabbed a quick bite to eat in the kitchen and returned to her room. There was still so much more she had to do.

A few weeks later

So the next set of lessons had gone as well as she hoped. The class sort of effectively moved from understanding skeletons and undead. She gave her students a fairly standard set of exams and wrote up her reports to her superiors. And they moved on to Mauthe Doogs and Gwyllgi. The sage explained the sort of behavior seen in the doogs. How it resembled wolf packs. There was usually a set of alpha's and the doogs have the ability to breed. She also explained the differences between the variant of Doogs on Elibe and Vinland. She also went ahead to explain that both variants were incredibly dangerous to people and must be approached with caution. Doogs and Gwyllgi are extremely territorial and very vicious. She explained how both monsters were incredibly fast and their fangs and claws can easily rip through flesh. Bites and scratches tend to become easily infected and must be treated quickly.

She explained standard hunting patterns and that these monsters are perfectly happy making a nest anywhere. Their fur was pretty resistant to cold and could reasonably adapt to harsh desert conditions. She also explained that weapons and magic were fairly effective against them but they were often to nimble to be hit. Their field test included Mila making accurately sized Mauthe Doogs and Gwyllgi out of clay and mud. She used the powers of the Flora tome to make an accurate color pallet of the monsters she had seen so far. She did express that these colors weren't permanent and were subject to change depending on the environment.

The students seemed to get that these monsters were not pets. The sizes these things can get seemed to leave a few of her students impressed. Especially, when she told them all the story of how she and group of her companions had to go up against a small horde of them in Sacae. She spoke of the time she met one in Vinland and molded a clay version of it. That one was of a considerable size compared to the other two. She'd have to sit and prepare another set of tests and then figure out what other monsters to go to next. She decided her next lesson would be on Gargoyles. Since they seem to be an issue in Bern. And that seemed to be a good segway to head into the battle on the city of heroes and then into cyclopses and finally the baels.

What free time she had was spent in the library researching all manner of things. She really wanted to find out how they made those little jars of portable magic. Her botanist roommate had one in her corner of the room and used a light one to act as an artificial sun. She liked the idea of a portable light that didn't involve a fire tome. She decided she'd make a project of obtaining one of her own. And according to the research, it was possible for a sage of her level to make one. There was a specific formula for it and it seemed some parts of it mimicked how to enchant a weapon with magic. She could do that.. in theory. She never actually enchanted anything with magic before so this was going to be a series of firsts.

[Mila]

Weeks later
--

The weather was starting to warm up. The trees were starting to bud and bloom. Which meant it was time for her to start sneezing and feeling miserable as plant pollen overtook the air. Her lessons had shifted a bit, in order to help compensate for the fact that she was a driveling mess in the early spring, she wrote up a good portion of her lectures and had an aide read them out loud. Her student numbers had thinned out a bit since she first started. Students who couldn't keep up with her lectures were removed from the class. Those who offered bribes were given a stern warning. And those who threatened or had family who threatened were promptly removed.

This week's lessons were devoted to monsters that could fly. This mostly included gargoyles and their suped-up counterparts deathgoyles. Mila's lectures explained several key things, their agility, ability to use weapons, the strength of their hide, their toxic claws, and potential to turn other human beings into zombies. As far as she knew these were the only types of monsters with the ability to do so. The only other exception was Hargus, but he was something else altogether. She explained Goyle habitats and how they tended to move in groups. They prefer to nest in areas with high altitudes like mountains but it isn't uncommon for them to roost in high buildings or on the ground. They were carnivorous. And possessed mild intelligence and have been known to coordinate attacks. They are incredibly territorial. The preferred tactic of killing involves clawing, stabbing with their preferred weapon, or merely picking someone up high into the air and letting go. Strong enough to pick up horses and their riders. She drew pictures on the board to illustrate the various parts of a goyle and deathgoyle. Her outdoor trip included making goyles out of the earth and having her students take shots at it. Speed was key in order to survive a gargoyle.

Her exams at this point had gotten harder. They included monsters from her previous lectures as a means to force her students to revisit the older material so they do not forget it. She made this exam a big one since there were holy days coming up and the school would be closed. She'd have to use those days to grade over her student test scores. She wasn't particularly religious herself so she chose to exclude herself from the holy activities. Another set of letters were written up and sent out. She wanted to let her friends know how she was doing and where were they.

A steady income helped to fuel her little side project. She gathered all of the necessary materials and figured she used this downtime to make herself a mini-elemental. Her roommates were away for the holiday which meant that Mila was left all alone for her side project. She wasn't fully alone though, there was still some staff, and students around. A good chunk of students was from other areas outside of Ryerde.

So, she set herself up to make a mini elemental. She had an item to infuse the element of her choice in. A piece of pyrite stone. She had a small glass bottle to house the elemental. A big cork to keep it from escaping. She made a spell circle on a piece of parchment. The runes and style mimicked that of a light rune but there were some key differences. She was going to try to enchant a lightning elemental to the pyrite. She picked lightning as a means to help her get over her own fear of the element. And because she could see it has many different uses in her travels. She could already generate basic fire and wind on her own. Water elemental did cross her mind. That might be a test for another day.

She set the pyrite into the center of the spell circle. She grabbed the lightning section of her trinity tome and tried to focus. The spell rune glowed slightly. The piece of pyrite glowed. Then, it exploded. The piece of pyrite burst everywhere and one of them smacked them right into her forehead. She put her hand on her forehead and cursed. The piece of parchment that the spell rune was on burst into flames and Mila had to put it out. She dumped a vase of water over the paper and stomped the rest of it out. She let out a large sigh, got up, and went around to clean her mess.

[Mila]

Some more weeks later
--

Her lessons had been going extremely well. The mid-terms were over and her students had shown remarkable progress. She figured that now would be a good point to get into the monsters seen in the City of Heroes. They had finished the lessons on Gargoyles. And now it was time for her to move on to the biggest monster of the bunch. At least the biggest one she had come across at the moment. She prayed that there weren't any monsters bigger than a cyclops. She spent three days crafting the cyclops statue with Gaea's tome. She could not make it as tall as she liked, lest she sacrificed the structural integrity of the statue itself. But, half of a cyclops height was still pretty damn big.

Mila's lecture explained the basic fundamentals of a cyclops. Their thick skin. The various weapons that they could be used. Although Mila could only list "club" and "axes" as weapons. She did not rule out large swords, big boulders, and tree trunks as potential weapons. Not to mention that their entire bodies could be seen as a weapon of death and destruction. Their punches alone could fell buildings. She explained that it is unknown what causes a cyclops to be spawned. But, with the only (public) case that she could mention was that Hargus spawned one with large amounts of dark magic. And that Hargus was a special exception.

She also had to explain her statue was only half the height of an actual cyclops. And when she was questioned how she actually knew all this information about the giant of legends. Mila told them that this was a compilation of all the research she had gathered from the survivors of the siege of the City of Heroes. She could not tell them about the Cyclops that appeared in the distant island of Eturia. Although most of her information came from THAT one experience rather than the other.

With the lecture on massive giants over and done with. She now had to focus on the other common type of monster out there. Her personal favorite. Baels. She would need to divide that lecture into three. Since Baels was one of the monsters she had extensive knowledge about. She had fought her fair share of them and lived. She had seen their nests. Their behavior patterns.. so on and so forth. Yep, that sounded like a logical plan. The green-clad sage quietly returned the giant cyclops statue to the earth. She'd gotten a bit better with the Flora tome. The sage coaxed the grasses to return atop the giant bare patch of dirt that the statue was comprised of.
--

The seventh day fell upon her again. And this time she decided to try and revisit her little side project. This was the third time she'd try to summon her own little elemental. The first one exploded in her face upon spell transfer. And the second one sparked around the room causing multiple little fires before turning into ash. She followed the steps in the book about elementals once more. She drew out the spell circle and placed the piece of pyrite in the middle. Per the request of her roommates, she had an enchanted but empty glass jar next to her. And a cork to keep the contents inside. Lightning elementals are unpredictable in their ways, especially when first summoned. Mila also learned she needed to add a drop of her own blood. If this elemental was to be commanded by her. Mila tried to spawn her own little elemental once again. She had a bucket of water next to her this time in case of any more accidental fires. Mila focused on the thunder part of her trinity tome and gradually guided the spell towards the stone.

The spell took to the stone. Mila kept her focus on the rock. The rock glowed and crackled with various colors. Please don't explode! Mila still carried the scab on her forehead from the last time she tried to make an elemental. The rock of pyrite exploded but the blast wasn't large. Little bolts of lightning held the bits of pyrite together in its own space. Slowly the rock of pyrite reattached itself. There was some more violent sparking and then it appeared.

A tiny floating spark. Probably as big as a whole chestnut. The color it emitted was a faint bluish green. Mila quickly grabbed the glass jar and slammed it onto the floating elemental. The action of putting the glass roof over the elemental caused it to freak out. The floating spark flailed and discharged electricity wildly within its glass confines. Mila quickly corked the glass jar. She put the jar on the floor and let the little critter keep on sparking.

And spark it did. The elemental kept sparking and hissing within its glass prison all through the day and a good portion of the night. By the next day, the sparking elemental had reverted to its pyrite stone state. However, Mila was quick to note that the pyrite now had a green sort of sheen to it. Does this mean it was successful? She'd find that out later, right now she had a class to go teach.

[Mila]

In the span of a few days, Mila began to realize just how unruly the little spark was. In the three days that it had come into existence, the spark had successfully managed to escape its glassy prison. Set a few piles of paper on fire. Nearly set Mila's bed on fire. Shocked the hell out of anyone that tried to touch it. And it just caused Mila all sorts of misery and rage. Much to the amusement and dismay of her roommates and students. But, the sage persevered. She wouldn't let the little troublemaker ruin her employment here in the academy. Mila reinforced the wards on the glass bottle and brought the elemental to class with her. She continued her lessons on Baels until the end of the semester. She went over all of the do's and don'ts. She listed some of the Bael's little tricks and tools of the trade. She spoke about their behavior patterns and to exercise extreme caution when approaching any bael.

She explained what an elder bael was. There were rumors of something worse than an elder bael. But, so far she couldn't take those rumors at face value. Her information about elder baels was through interviews with people. And she explicitly told her students to avoid them at all costs. No one wants to deal with a toxic bael that was the size of a cathedral. And if dragged into a fight with one in a group, one should best hope that this group was full of experienced fighters. These things were full of power on par with Hargus and his cyclops. And that took almost a whole city's worth of people to take it down in a series of attacks.

With that lesson over she decided to go ahead and do a discussion on the Vinland variants of monsters. She couldn't discuss any more things about Elibe's monsters at the moment as she needed to do more of her own research on the field. Vinland itself was a different land. With different history and customs. It's people were different. It's wildlife was different. Monsters were different. They appeared to look, act, and feel like natural animals more than their Eliban versions. But, each monster was larger and stronger. And Vinland's people work together and cooperate in group hunts to take down the Vinland versions of monsters. They can be used as food. But, at the same time the inhabitants can be food for them. Her next few lectures were dedicated to review. The final exams for the semester were coming up. And she'd have to figure out what sort of exam to give her students. Mila also requested a special holster to keep the bottle near her.

Two weeks later

Mila delivered her final. She graded the students and assessed them based on the whole semester she had spent with them. Her results were given to her "bosses" and the students were left to their own fates. Mila was glad the semester was over for now. The academy seemed to like her enough to hire her for the next semester. This effectively gave the sage a few months time to go back out into the field and do some more research. It also gave her an opportunity to make friends with the little electric sprite she brought to life.

END thread