promittere: (Default)
lunae calamitas mods ([personal profile] promittere) wrote in [community profile] lunaecalamitas2024-04-04 11:33 pm

if you say it's magic, then you're my wizard

WANING GIBBOUS OVERTURE
The seconds tick by, the elevator rattles. There's a soft, musical chime announcing your arrival before the elevator doors creak open, leaving you and a number of others in the courtyard of a stone manor. The manor is large, looming over the trees surrounding it, and the gardens are well maintained, rows of hedges and beds of blooming flowers as far as you can see. The doors linger open until you clear the threshold, as if waiting patiently for you. Dawdle too long and you’ll feel a gentle push, nudging you out into the yard. The doors shut with more rattles and a cheerful ding!, and if you turn to look at it there's nothing to be seen behind you but the milling strangers.

Then there's a sting, mild at first. But soon, the spot where your sage's crest is starts to burn. It's as though you have been branded, and the searing heat clings to your skin. Should you look at your crest, you'll find it glows a faint red, like the dying embers of a fire, but given enough time it will cool to black and no longer hurt.

Once the pain fades, you notice is that the air around you feels distinctly different. It's hard to say exactly what makes it different, or how. It feels brittle, but malleable. That perhaps if you said or did the right thing, you could command reality to your liking—

The wind blows, stirring leaves and flowers, and that's when you notice there are two people in the courtyard that did not emerge from the elevator like everyone else. The taller of the two looks briefly shocked, before a warm smile blots it out, while the shorter of the two looks remarkably unimpressed—for as much as you can make out his expression under the large hat he wears. He glances at the taller man, the charms that hang from his hat clinking, and crosses his arm over his chest.

The taller man nods, turns to the group, and says, "Sorry. I know you were probably in the middle of something important. But...I need you. My name is Tatara Totsuka. I'm your sage, and you are my witches and wizards."

He looks up to the moon hanging in the sky, still pale and visible despite the light of day, and lays it all out for you: a wizard under the sage's guidance is supposed to fight off the Great Calamity—the moon—when it nears. But you are not meant to carry out this task. The original sage and twenty-one wizards suddenly vanished not long ago. No one knows what happened to them, or where they are. They aren't dead. They are gone.

That you are here, that there are so many of you, that you came from different worlds, means that this is a mistake. Something, somewhere, isn't right. Yet the world has decided to claim you in a frantic attempt to keep itself together.

This world is breaking. If you don't fix this, then you'll be stuck here fighting the Calamity yourselves.

When Tatara looks back down to the rest of you, there's a smile on his face, tinged with apology. "But I think it'll be okay. We'll figure this out... Right?"

The golden light of sunset is oddly cold. It settles over you not in a welcoming embrace, but in a possessive hold. There is a sinking feeling in your gut: whatever your home was before matters no longer. Welcome to a world on the brink of destruction—let's hope it's not for good.


The day begins to draw to a close. You're given the rest of the day to process Tatara's words and to familiarize yourselves with the manor. There are plenty of empty spaces in the manor with sparse furniture where you can rest and try to unwind, and hopefully get some sleep. Everything about today might be a lot to unpack, but surely you can at least relax and prepare for the next day.

The morning starts with the sound of bells. A cacophonous racket of them, ringing in your rooms, in your head, jolting you from whatever slumber you can grasp. The source seems to be a note, unassuming if not for the way it shakes with each toll of the bells, and the noise only stops when you read it.

"Go to the courtyard," it says, and if you try to ignore it the noise returns, growing louder and louder until your vision swims and you find yourself standing in the courtyard with everyone else—and the shorter of the two men from yesterday.

"Practice starts right now," he says, looking bored and just as unimpressed as he did yesterday. The sun has barely started over the horizon—it's early, almost absurdly so. "You need to learn magic sooner instead of later, unless you want to die like miserable worms. If you do, just quit now so we can replace you with someone useful."

His explanation on magic is brief—he explains that magic is a deal struck between caster and the spirits of the world, using a meaningful word or phrase to communicate your will to the as-of-yet unseen spirits of the world, who will respond to your desires and power your magic. A focus, an object of significant meaning, will help strengthen your ties to the land and direct the magic for your spells. If you have nothing that would work as a focus right now, he says, chances are the perfect thing will find you anyways.

While he looks unhappy to do so, he emphasizes that magic—as it works here—is all tied to your emotions and your convictions, and then he assigns you a challenge for the week. He wants you to come up with your incantation—the words you'll use to cast all of your magic—as well as find or draw forward your focus, with the final task being summoning a magic broom you'll use for transportation.
Threading out magic practice and ICly discovering your characters' magic words, manifesting their foci, and summoning their broom will count as three different jobs, and will be eligible for a set of rewards each. While not technically classified as a job this time around, this is a special circumstance. When you've accomplished any of these things, please submit them to the rewards page as a job submission.

If you're having trouble coming up with a focus or incantation, think about your answers for the first and third mandatory questions on your app! Your focus of choice does not have to be in your character's inventory—if what works best for them as a focus did not come with them, then they can focus and reach across universes to bring it here with them.

JOB BOARD
You may have just gotten here, but people across the continent still need the sage's wizards to do things for them. The job board will typically have 2 - 3 requests each event that can be turned in for rewards when completed.
Sugar delivery. Confectionery shops and pharmacies put in regular orders for wizard sugar to the manor, and despite the unusual circumstances, now is no different. Wizard sugar—sugar spontaneously created through a wizard's magic—is said to have restorative properties and said to bless those that consume it, so it's no wonder it's in high demand. It also happens to be one of the first things young wizards learn to do. So once you've perfected your sugar, go deliver it to the shops in Central capital and to the Southern merchants waiting for shipment near the Central tower.

The Southern merchants, in particular, seem rather anxious to receive as much sugar as possible, as soon as possible.

WANDERER TASKS
The wizards' new mentor knows that this must be an incredibly overwhelming experience, so he has a list of things that should help break down the process of learning and understanding magic. Or that's what he says, at least, but it feels like he's trying to make things more difficult...
Nobody is going to hold your hands for you, and the best way to learn is to understand the root cause of an issue. Use that paper being left around for something actually useful and do some research on the spirits of the countries you've been tasked to represent. I'll be expecting some actual thought out papers within the week.

For the idiots who can't research to save their lives, prove you can actually manage the bare minimum. There's a spot you can't reach without magic within the manor grounds—bring me one of the trinkets you find there.

For the even bigger idiots who are overconfident, come find me and we can spar. I won't go easy on you.

TATARA ACTIVITIES
Tatara knows things are tense and uncomfortable for his new wizards, so he'll offer up a few activities each event post to help them relax if things get too tough.
We're all new here, but we'll be friends before long, I know it! There's a table in the dining room with paper, pens, markers, glitter, and pins so we can all make name tags and get to know each other better. We'll go from strangers to neighbors to besties before you know it!

Oh, you should probably get a feel of the manor, too. This IS your new home, after all! And what better way than...hide and seek?! Sounds fun, right? I'd tell you MY favorite spot to hide, but then that wouldn't be fair!

I don't know how long we're going to be here, so it probably wouldn't hurt to settle in. Grab a friend or two and head to the market in the Central capital to stock up on whatever food you like and stuff for your room. May as well get comfortable!

OOC NOTES
🌙 Welcome to Lunae Calamitas's first event post! Yer a wizard, whether you like it or not.
🌙 While not technically jobs, ICly working out your character's focus, incantation, and broom are all separately eligible for rewards. Good luck on your basics, little wizards! You'll need them...
🌙 Your OOC plotting post is here! Please keep all your plotting on the plotting post, since not everyone uses discord or plurk.
🌙 The South will be going on their mission next week to get this party started. Keep an eye out, Southies!
fellheart: (one вlacĸ crow)

[personal profile] fellheart 2024-04-20 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Then you will be hardly any different from many of the others who walk this realm, now will you?

[ What Ginger makes of this is up to him. ]
jokey: (45 - FOKuSOR)

[personal profile] jokey 2024-04-20 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[This Akira shot god in the face. He's bold, if nothing else. The fact that Robin isn't the least bit charmed with his admittedly half-assed pickup line just means Akira has to try harder, obviously.]

I'll do you one better, fair stranger. I'll cook you dinner myself. Hope you like curry.

[It is the singular thing he can cook, but rest assured, Akira is learning the fine art of the aspic. Soon enough, he'll be able to cook two whole things.

Akira sticks out his hand and wiggles his fingers. Give him some sugar, white-haired anime man. If Robin doesn't hand it over, Akira will audaciously try to nab it himself.]


I can't confirm or deny anything. You'll just have to use that big brain of yours to deduce the correct answer.
lustro: (102)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 09:49 pm (UTC)(link)
revengier: (30)

[personal profile] revengier 2024-04-20 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
As long as moderation is at the forefront of your mind...

[ Because he agrees with that—moderation here is key. ]

He shouldn't have to starve himself, not if there are people here wiling to help him.
revengier: (07)

[personal profile] revengier 2024-04-20 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[ NO THAT'S SO CUTE.......

He'll actually be hanging this one up. ]
1145pm: (pic#17103102)

[personal profile] 1145pm 2024-04-20 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
The Red King. I was his clansman.

[ And also, definitely the latter.

He smiles at Akira again, bright and beaming and innocent. ]


But he was a king to me before he got his powers. Just watching him walk was like seeing a lion march through the streets of Shibuya...

[ He closes his eyes at the memory...

He misses him. ]
lustro: (046)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Don't do that and then sacrifice himself immediately after because then Ginger will actually have to kill him. ]

Is that one special?

[ He just looks away when Tatara grins at him. ]
troublereduction: (day22)

[personal profile] troublereduction 2024-04-20 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He is beginning to get that sense, yeah. He can already see it even in that short conversation with Mika, and the way Ginger is carrying himself right now and asking this question makes him wonder if that applies to Ginger too.

(Like how Sunrise had asked him once to please put her down if she was ever no longer herself, but she had stated it so matter-of-factly that Day doesn't know if it was so much hating herself as it was plainly saying what she understood as truth.) ]


Sorta? [ It's related, at least. ] It's more...that's what my job basically is.
lustro: (054)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah.

[ What else can he say? He agrees wholeheartedly, even if he understands Mika's feelings too. But he's selfish. He still needs to apologize. ]

I don't think he'll ever feel good about it, but...

[ He shakes his head. ]
fellheart: (gιve мe yoυr claw)

[personal profile] fellheart 2024-04-20 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmm.

[ Yeah, that's it, that's all Akira gets in response to the offer of cooking. An extended, weighing noise, not particularly confidence inducing. ]

Keep that up and I'll soon suspect that you outsource everything to strangers. An incantation, this sugar; what next?

[ Akira can extend a hand and act as much a fool as he wants, but Robin is not handing the sugar over freely. Akira is free to attempt to grab at it, like an impertinent cat playing the stupidest game of keep away. ]
1145pm: (pic#17103096)

[personal profile] 1145pm 2024-04-20 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah.

[ That's all he says, though.

With every other candle supposedly deposited and the both of them empty-handed otherwise, Tatara strides towards Ginger and smiles up at him, mildly, politely. ]


Thanks for coming with me, Ginger.
lustro: (060)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Oh, but he's very different, he thinks. Too different in some ways. ]

Hmm. If I trust that you can do something, I think it would be a disservice to both myself and you if I'm not honest about what I want - why I'm asking. It's like saying I'm only trusting you because I need a favor - and that's. Kind of. Gross.
troublereduction: (day39)

[personal profile] troublereduction 2024-04-20 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
She's our youngest, more like a kid than not. Terrible at expressin' herself 'cause I ain't sure she knows how to make faces, but she's a sweetheart. She's got a condition [ read: is undead ], so you'd think she oughta be a little more cautious 'round fire. Instead, we have to keep tellin' her not to solve problems with fire all the time. First person to ask me what sweetness is supposed taste like too.

[ Despite some of the content, he speaks of her fondly, like she's a little sister. ]
lustro: (051)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Okay, okay, normal so far. ]

So your world had a magic system, too?
meanspirited: (Default)

[personal profile] meanspirited 2024-04-20 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
There's always a choice. It's whether the other option is worth taking or not that varies.

[Giving up is always an option! It's a bad option, and thousands of people will likely die if he does, but it is an option.]

So, you've no familiarity with magic at all, or are you familiar and just unskilled?

[Shinjiro wouldn't be alone with either scenario, at least, but does he really want to be in the same school as Malice? He can't even make sugar right... He doesn't even know what sugar tastes like...]
meanspirited: (71)

[personal profile] meanspirited 2024-04-20 10:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Don't try to undo what's already been done.

[So, you know, don't fuck with the past. Gazes at Solomon. Gazes at Barbatos. Gazes at Solmare (disdainfully).]
lustro: (091)

end?

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Looks at the smile; looks away. ]

If I can help with anything else, just let me know later.

[ Not you're welcome. ]

You know where I'm at.
fellheart: (now lιѕтen careғυlly)

[personal profile] fellheart 2024-04-20 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)
How am I to know what is and isn't expected of the artisans of this world? Perhaps you'd already had them ready, and it was merely a matter of requesting the appropriate alterations...

[ though that too is no quick feat without magic, he's aware; which presumably hints at a lack of mundane application of magic among the commonfolk here. given that he's heard the whole spiel about how humans distrust wizards (at best) from Tatara, that follows, and since he's more or less gotten the information he wants, he lets the subject drop. ]

But little matter. So is the implication then that whatever that tragedy was, it could not be solved by means native to this world?

[ his lips purse. a realm that cannot save itself without outside intervention; now, where oh where has he heard that before? and— all things considered, the makeup of their group considered— what benefit is there in bringing as motley a group as this here, even in desperation?

the irony of the lot of them apparently being this place's last hope (?) isn't lost on him. ]


When you and our Sage say that all the wizards here previous vanished without explanation... does that simply mean whoever was working with the Sage at that time, or does it encompass all magic users within this realm? Or are the two one and the same?
shortleash: (pic#17103468)

[personal profile] shortleash 2024-04-20 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
( A car... bigthink... )

That might be possible, a little later on. I'd prefer a car to this, too.

( Aerial travel is probably faster, but also, more dangerous? You're just a lone little dude up there...

Anyway, it's true Akira's answer isn't 1:1 to his needs, but him pointing out that it's not gonna be that comfortable anyway is, surprisingly, helpful. It's gonna be uncomfortable and kind of stupid-looking regardless, so whatever. If he's going only based on practicality, then... he guesses he can define the base components and let his feelings (of which he definitely has nearly none) fill in the details. If no details manifest... then whatever. )


... Okay. I think I have an idea.

( He puts out his hand as a Broom Perch, and begins to focus... channel magic? It's weird and foreign to him, and feels just as odd. He's looking for iron with black bristles, and that's a firm enough image in his mind. )

... Donec moraire.

( The magic manifests red in his palm, like a well of blood bubbling out - it twists and warps into a long shape with a faint glow, the red giving way to an iron base and black, steel bristles. So far so good.

But then the iron begins to twist into a spiraling pattern, and thorned vines begin to grow...

The broom eventually settles into his hand with a bit of heft, and he seems puzzled by the manifestation. This is what you get when you ignore the finer details - of brooms and your own heart, )


... Weird. But... usable, I guess.
fellheart: (now lιѕтen careғυlly)

[personal profile] fellheart 2024-04-20 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[ still in that same sharp tone: ] I am neither a messenger boy nor a hound playing fetch. But if you and he are determined to be fools then perhaps it's better for you to do so together.

[ maybe tatara can convince mika further towards not doing stupid and pointless self-flagellating things, and maybe mika can convince tatara to not be an idiot with his health. a fool's hope, right. ]

Stay here. If you overexert yourself I am not healing you again.

[ he'll get up and sweep away to gather up their wayward vampire. pspsps mikaela. calling local catboy in spirit, idiot 1 is looking for idiot 2 and he has no patience to be herding them. ]
shortleash: (pic#17121573)

[personal profile] shortleash 2024-04-20 10:43 pm (UTC)(link)
( Having gathered much of the manor by now, Mika has settled into his corner of shame, the blood toweled off his face thanks to Day's firm application of Logic. He doesn't look any less miserable, however.

He glances at Robin as he approaches. He probably saw Robin get Tatara up, and he definitely heard Tatara ask for him even from this distance, and he's definitely avoiding the call. )


... If he just wants to tell me it's fine, I don't want to hear it.
Edited 2024-04-20 22:44 (UTC)
lustro: (066)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[ 'Regardless of what it makes you feel.' Ah, but he's a demon. His own feelings are everything. ]

You sound like you're speaking from personal experience, Solomon.
impacter: (092)

[personal profile] impacter 2024-04-20 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
It does, though I wouldn't call it common knowledge with humans. Not many people have the capability. Even less of them ever find out about it.

[In other realms, though? That's a different story entirely.]
lustro: (092)

[personal profile] lustro 2024-04-20 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Are you scared all the time by it? Is there anything that scares you so much, it eats at you?

[ In his thoughts, invading his dreams, painting his future. ]

Constantly.
impacter: (094)

[personal profile] impacter 2024-04-20 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[For a moment, his smile falters. His eyes flick down towards Tatara.

A breath out, a breath in.]


Life is, unfortunately, a very good teacher. And, to most, a very big blessing.

[Not always pleasant. Not always permanent. Not always good, unless you look for it.]