RP Involerra Academy of the Adventuring Arts

[ShoddyProduct]

For seven hundred long, proud years, the Involerra Academy has stood as a testament to the good people can bring about in the world through their actions. The school was recreated in the image of five brave heroes from centuries ago, who battled evil not out of the desire for reward, but to protect the world and the people who lived in it. Countless times their acts of selfless bravery fought back the creeping dark, and kept people safe. It was a difficult job, and one that nearly led to their demise countless times, but each time they prevailed, and they grew stronger.

In the wake of their success, others rose, hoping to take up the mantle of adventurer, and by the guiding hand of Queen Alessiandre Yistrand, the school changed itself to accommodate them. For seven hundred years, Involerra has worked tirelessly to train and guide the next generation, so that they too might live up to the expectations they hold for themselves. Heroes are not born, after all. It is only through work, determination, and strength of will that they are made.

A new year begins at Involerra, bringing about a fresh batch of students of all kinds. Drestel wakes along with them, and as the professors arrive at Involerra, so to do the students.

-----

Victoria woke to an empty house, on the second floor to an alarm that she had only had in her phone for about three days. Her parents had insisted that, since the school year was set to start in just a few days, that she should make the effort to try and acclimate herself to a new schedule of getting up on time for classes. She, of course, wanted anything else, but she was outvoted in the matter, so it was with deep regret that she woke to harsh noise and harsher sunlight. She forced herself up to get dressed, dreading the day ahead.

The sun had only just risen over Drestel, and the first day of school was supposed to start in a few hours. The only reason she had to be up so early was because her parents had decided that it was time to unretire, which meant while they were off traveling and trying to solve the worlds issues, she was left to fend for herself. Possible, but it also meant she had to walk across town to get to school, which meant getting an early start.

Breakfast was meager and rushed, just enough to get her out the door and on her way, just in time to be right on time, so long as there weren't any distractions on the way.

 

[Nëril]

Drestel, Nëril thought cheerlessly.

The High Elf had duly arrived in the capital city of Arcanis a week afore the day his third education in the Art would begin. The scholarly beacon of Involerra loomed in his immediate future. In the present was the whine of engine, the whiff of whale oil, and the endless racket of the city. Motor carriages swung through crowded streets with reckless abandon - here they were a common sight, swift on four wheels, but gaudy and graceless, creaking over cobbled stone streets. Even in the early dawn, activity buzzed. It was without the slightest charm.

The young High Elf had scant seen so many people. Endless droves of fog-eyed denizens choked the streets, most wearing clothes in the more modern style: rivet-wrapped blue trousers and loose-fitting cotton shirts, some emblazoned with standards, logos, and words; others wore pocketed jumpsuits with a resin treatment that made them rain resistant. Of course, the city had a degree of economic prosperity to it - a cosmopolitan hive of twisting streets had an innumerable number of odd inhabitants of every color and species.

In contrast, Nëril wore a black sable cloak which flowed down around a dark doublet emblazoned in silver with the symbol of Argoloth, his home. The fur collar was pulled tight to keep him warm, though he did not go hooded today, as the sun struggled to peek between the monolithic buildings. His pale, unblemished skin drank in its rays. Dark Elven eyes scanned the horizon.

An eclectic mix of architecture greeted him also; gable-ended buildings felt haphazardly pressed up against taller, concrete structures. Each buzzed with activity. Technology had run wild here. It was in the pockets of the people who walked all around him. It was in their carriages and in their walls. Nëril had begun to wonder if it was in their heads.

Even standing outside his apartment for but a minute, he wrinkled his nose. The Ringed City was high end for humans, perhaps. He did not desire to walk it.

On the hour, his footman arrived, a twisted fool with a hunched back. He was human or human-ish, with ugly features hidden behind a half-mask. He had small, misshapen legs, and wore black motley and cap-and-bells. A failed jester who had been begging in a gutter when Nëril crossed him; now he had graduated to manservant, and a loyal enough one at that. He carried the Elf's things and drove his carriage. He could perform jokes, too, but not very well.

The stout fool had come up to him now with a horse-drawn carriage, cap-and-bells ringing slightly. He smiled grotesquely at his charge.

Nëril raised a hand in greeting.

"Mott."

"Master!"

"Let us away."

For his timeliness, Mott would earn an extra gold, to spend along with his daily allowance of silvers. He had a reliable way about him - better suited to the life of a retainer than an entertainer. He was horribly uncharismatic.

Nëril boarded the closed carriage and took the rest of the trip in wordless contemplation. A small bag with his books and materials had been prepared. Once Mott delivered him to the school, he would begin the next stage of his training, and not a moment too soon.

 

[UmbraSight]

For all it was worth, Shuye had been to a large (ish) town (ish again) before. Now, some might argue that ruins weren’t a town but it was certainly the shape of a town wasn’t it? Ambling streets which turned themselves in odd curves between the tattered skeletons of once-buildings that had been long ago picked clean by need or simply time. She hadn’t really known the name of the town, port something or other though at that time she also didn’t really know what the sea was outside of its mention in the tales. All of this is quite a lot to say that Shuye wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the essence of a large town, and also to say that there was no way in heaven, hell, or within the confines of any Tale that the girl would have had any chance at not being completely blown away by a living breathing town.

What chance did the girl ever have growing up in a world made small by the ire of a storm that was old before even her grandparents were a dream. It was a minor miracle perhaps that she didn’t make an utter fool of herself in the plaza of the first major city she found herself in. It was a long ride from the deserts of her homeland and it only became less believable the further she got from the first few dusty settlements she passed through the borders of Arcanis. She hardly had the words to explain the constructs she saw in those wonderful places.

The temperature too wasn’t what she had expected. It was cooler here and with such consistency that Shuye found herself often needing to supplement her airy day robes, which were excellent at keeping one cool and away from the gaze of the sun with her much heavier night wear. Her horse, mild tempered as it was, didn’t seem to mind the temperatures as much as Shuye did, or maybe it was simply more content with the abundance of green things for it to graze upon on their journey, all of which Shuye found to be a separate sort of strange far different than the one offered by the cities.

Drestel itself was its own sort of shock for the girl. Carriages moving under their own power were mundane by midday, she hadn’t a single guess as to what the odd devices she saw half the city walking around with were, and it was fairly certain there had been more water within the bathhouse she used once she arrived than filled the entire spring that those who lived within the northern crags relied upon. Also in all of her wandering of the city, Shuye got herself lost.

In her defense, it was a large city and people kept giving her unhelpful directions. This was also what found her on the corner of a crossroads asking for a new set of directions from a rather gruff and stocky man unloading boxes from the back of his carriage, which if luck held, would likely see her heading the wrong direction again.

 

[illirica]

The sun rose over Arcanis, and Visca uncoiled herself from where she lay half-propped against the garden shed. She had a room - the Academy had insisted upon it. Visca simply didn't see the point of it - there were hardly enough windows, and there was a roof over the whole building. Why would anyone want to sleep somewhere that they wouldn't get rained on?

In one of those irritating moments of perfect sensibility, her mother had suggested she use it for storing her things. It was, Visca was aware, an eminently reasonable suggestion and there was nothing arguable about it at all, and no reason not to take it.

Her mother was good at that.

At least the floors were wood, she thought as she made her way back inside. A warm oak, not yet too beaten down. Someone had been in here to mop it, though, again. Visca had been unable to convince anyone that a little dirt was healthy. The landlady was determined that her boarding house be clean, but Visca had at least gotten her to agree to let Visca sleep out back by the garden shed. She'd seemed skeptical of the idea at first, but become less so when the weeds stopped poking up among her pole-beans and the mint had stopped trying to take over half the herb garden and decided it was fine with just a small area, after all. Mint was like that - good in small doses, even beneficial, and if not watched carefully it would take over as much as it could get. It reminded Visca, rather adroitly, of her mother.

She reminded herself that her mother was not here, and that other than a diet of heavily edited letters plus whatever information she was getting from the landlady, the school, and half of the neighbors of both places and probably eight other people in town, her mother didn't know what Visca was doing, either. It was not as comforting a thought as Visca wanted it to be, but it was what she had.

She gave herself a wash from the cistern, finding it as always amusing that people went through so much trouble to keep the rain out, and then put it in a basin so that they could put it on themselves later. She didn't really need to wash, not like that - she could have just gone into her sword and then come out again, but it felt a little like rain, and Visca liked it.

The sword, of course, was a whole thing. She should have been attached to a lovely plant, high up in some oak branches out in a forest somewhere, with the sun and the rain and no landladies complaining about dirt. Instead, she was attached to a cold bit of metal - beautifully wrought, to be fair, with little leaves woven in through the basket guard that people thought were artistic. That, too, had been one of her mother's eminently reasonable suggestions. Visca buckled it on, over her clothing - not too much clothing, because it got in the way of things. An airy linen dress, not much longer than a tunic, one-shouldered so that the leaves growing out of her other shoulder wouldn't be disturbed - she was used to it, it was fine. Visca had learned that one could get used to a great many things.

She added a small sack with her school things - deep walnut ink, sharpened wooden sticks for writing, some of the paper her mother had given her as a gift, made of carefully pulped and pressed plant fiber. Visca wondered who it had been, before her mother had gotten involved - but she didn't turn it down. It was, of course, a perfectly reasonable gift for a daughter going away to school.

Visca supposed there would be no avoiding writing home, after her first day. She'd have to worry about that later - hopefully there would be some suitably bland occurrences that she could reasonably include without giving anything away. Perhaps she would meet someone incredibly boring, or attend a lecture that contained only publicly available details. If nothing else, she could always comment on the weather.

It remained sunny. She would need more paragraphs than that. Visca put it out of her mind, starting off towards the school, slipping her shoes on at the last possible moment when there was no longer any dirt or grass to walk on, only road-brick with a few scraggly weeds growing up between the stones. Visca gave a sow-thistle a bit of encouragement along the way. Its prickliness suited her, this morning. Involerra loomed ahead, prominent in her thoughts. Visca shook off the last of the melancholy and moved forward. She could deal with her mother later.

That was the whole plan, after all.

 

[Orange]

Arvyn loved the feeling of flight well; he couldn't so much as feel it as he merely saw through his raven familiar. On these opportunities when, he could take control of his raven Darkwing and fly through the city, learning every nook and cranny. Drestel had stores and culture he never would've considered possible, but as he continued exploring, he realized that he would need money. Work very much unlike that in the village. He laughed at himself for a moment all the experiences that he had back home were now worthless except one or two—mostly related to his learning magic from the book.

He had arrived in Drestel only a few days ago, guided partly by his familiar and the road. With the clothes on his back, his book Beginners Guide to Magic, his pack holding the few effects he ever owned himself, and some food. When Arvyn had first reached the city and he had sought out Involerra, most people had looked at him as if he was hopelessly lost and didn't belong. But the few directions he was able to get and Darkwing was able to explore the city from above had led him to Involerra just in time to complete his registration.

The good news was that apartments were available in the Third Ring to students studying at Involerra. So Arvyn had managed to avoid having to sleep out in the streets at all. But that first night had been hell as he adapted to the sounds of the city, and while he had intended to explore the city in the morning, he only really managed to explore his more immediate surroundings in the Third Ring. As expected, his apartment was rather spartan, as he had never had this much space to himself. While for a moment this seemed like a luxury, he soon understood that this only meant it was empty.

By the end of the next day, he understood just how much he needed money. He was to begin classes tomorrow: books, restaurants, coffee houses, and everything in between. The worst part of it was he could take part in none of that out in the village he may have been able to trade away something to get something else he wanted. But that had never needed to happen with the total lack of any other service besides a single tavern before.

The next day, he sat on a public bench, using the remaining time before class to start exploring through Darkwings eyes the border between the Second and Third Ring. Arvyn still marveled, looking at the automatic carriages that somehow someone could completely replace or not even need a horse, which still sounded crazy to him. But for now, he retracted his sight from his familiar and collected his book, waiting for his raven to return. Darkwing landed on his shoulder a moment later, flapping its wings to slow itself before latching onto him. He quickly fished out a piece of bread and fed it to the bird.

Arvyn had a medium build, with brown hair and blue eyes. He had a farmer's tan from having to work on a farm for most of his life and was still dressed in peasant garb. The only clothes he owned at this time. He held his book in his right hand as his left reached to pet Darkwing for the great work done today. He had started to laugh at the surname he had given himself in the rush of leaving his village behind, but he had kept it. Arvyn Ravenwalker finished petting his familiar and began to walk, "Involerra will start soon it's not good to be late on the first day," he said mostly to himself and his raven.

 

[Fang]

”Hey, wake up!”



Kaji groaned in protestation to the demanding voice, a groggy swipe from his hand as though attempting to bat away a fly accentuating his displeasure. It had been a hard road to the Academy; a great number of steps with a small number of sales leading the boy to an exhaustion that swallowed him once his journey had been completed. Without the convenience of cart or horse he was forced to carry a mammoth pack filled to the brim with tools and wares, a considerable weight added to the harrowing trek.



At the walls of the Academy he had slept, though disturbances like the one he was desperately trying to ignore had made his rest fitful. An armored boot kicked against the sole of his own, steel clinking together like small bells and forcing Kaji to open a single eye and peer at his assailant.



”You can’t sleep here!”



Kaji sighed and considered treating this guard as he had the previous, and the one before that. Those had given up on their quest to remove him, their own fatigue from the night winning over their duties. The guard now, however, seemed quite full of energy. Judging from the light breaking over the horizon, barely visible through the space between buildings, Kaji had made it to dawn.



”Fine, fine.” As he stood Kaji brushed at his clothes halfheartedly, a little dust hardly worth concern among the various holes and singes. It had crossed his mind to buy new clothes for his first day, but in the end he had hardly found enough business to pay for his needs on the journey. A lighter pack and a heavier pocket would have been a preferable way to introduce himself to the Academy, and a breathy sigh accompanied the thought as he lifted his belongings from the ground.



”Think I have time for breakfast?” Though the city boasted many unfamiliarities the commonality of inns and taverns was universal, and Kaji had spied more than a few on his entrance though most were shuttered for the night. His stomach rumbled at the idea of a hot meal, though the coins he carried seemed to shift in his pocket from anxiety. His hand was sure to linger when they parted ways.



The guard had been forgotten as Kaji walked away with clanking steps and a focus on filling his belly. Whether the man knew the hours of the Academy was moot anyway; there would surely be an influx of students in that direction when the time came. Kaji just had to pay attention. Luckily that was currency he had in spades.

 

[Delfi]

Thalia had barely slept the previous night, and the bags under her eyes showed it. She just couldn't help her excitement over starting her schooling at Involerra, the lessons she would learn, the heroes she would meet, the friends she'd make... The brunette sighed and smiled, daydreaming about the accomplishments she’d achieve during that school year.

Perhaps she’d slay a giant beast during her first week of classes and all her classmates would be impressed. How long would it take for the first bard to write a song about her? She wondered while looking up at the bright sky, spotting a raven that flew over her head.

Now, that was a lucky sign.

It took her some time to untangle the bow attached to her backpack, and by the time she did, the bird was nowhere to be seen. It was a good thing that she was a ranger-to-be and had already started practicing her tracking skills years prior to taking her admission test.

“Where are you, now?” She muttered to herself, ignoring the concerned glances as she prepared her arrow, jogging in the direction she’d seen the bird fly towards.

She found it eventually, but not in the way she had expected. The raven’s claws were clenched tightly on a boy’s shoulder - its owner, she assumed. Thalia put the bow down, a mix of disappointment and relief that she didn't kill it at first sight.

 

[Orange]

Thalia had barely slept the previous night, and the bags under her eyes showed it. She just couldn't help her excitement over starting her schooling at Involerra, the lessons she would learn, the heroes she would meet, the friends she'd make... The brunette sighed and smiled, daydreaming about the accomplishments she’d achieve during that school year.

Perhaps she’d slay a giant beast during her first week of classes and all her classmates would be impressed. How long would it take for the first bard to write a song about her? She wondered while looking up at the bright sky, spotting a raven that flew over her head.

Now, that was a lucky sign.

It took her some time to untangle the bow attached to her backpack, and by the time she did, the bird was nowhere to be seen. It was a good thing that she was a ranger-to-be and had already started practicing her tracking skills years prior to taking her admission test.

“Where are you, now?” She muttered to herself, ignoring the concerned glances as she prepared her arrow, jogging in the direction she’d seen the bird fly towards.

She found it eventually, but not in the way she had expected. The raven’s claws were clenched tightly on a boy’s shoulder - its owner, she assumed. Thalia put the bow down, a mix of disappointment and relief that she didn't kill it at first sight.

Suddenly, Darkwing extended his wings and cawed back toward the way he had come. Arvyn curious about this sudden change in behavior turned his head and saw a girl with her bow in hand. She seemed to not but staring at him but at his raven. Why?

The realization hit him a moment later, “you were hunting Darkwing!??!?” He didn't wait as anger took over for a moment as he spat into his hands lacing his fingers together. When he separated his fingers a moment later a thin, pointed icicle now hovered in front of him. He hadn't succeeded in casting ice knife before and for the moment Arvyn didn't take notice.

He stopped for a moment retaking control over himself. “Are we cool?”

 

[UmbraSight]

As Shuye lifted her hand to wave goodbye to the man and his collection of boxes, which in her retreat left her with the sinking feeling that she had already attempted the suggested road and that it had not taken her to Involerra. Still, the street he told her to turn onto didn’t have a name that sounded familiar to her ear, so perhaps there was hope. That also said, the direction he had pointed her also didn’t align with the mental map she had formed in her head, so not a lot of hope but it was still a direction. Her horse did give a rather sharp snort as she angled them up the street, and Shuye couldn’t help but take that a touch personally.

The street she turned onto was, much to her own surprise as it was anyone else’s, not a street she had been on before. That she could easily tell because there was a rather ornate siding on a building she certainly did not know. And, here again was another sort of obstacle, when the man had said the first right after the second left had he meant the major artery of a road down the ways or had he meant the thinner one that did not run perfectly across the road but rather found itself detached in a crooked line from its other half. She could go back again and ask but Shuye had half a mind that if she did turn back she would find that the man was gone or perhaps that the buildings themselves had exchanged places or taken on a new face.

Instead, though it might have been far too early to admit defeat in such a way, Shuye pulled back on her reins slowing her horse to a trot as she came alongside a young woman. A girl? An older girl? Doing her best at it Shuye had such an awful time trying to guess ages based on appearances, a task made ever harder has she had only ever known most of these different peoples based on their story within the Tales which always made them seem like such ageless ethereal beings and not gruffly men stacking boxes in a carriage.

Not vocalizing any of this, Shuye instead smiled. “’secuse me, would you happen to know the way to Involerra?” Oh, maybe she’s young enough to also be going? That would make things easier, wouldn’t it? As if reading her thoughts, the horse gave a rather wry snort.