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Chapter Text

Auralie is the sole reason we will graduate

6:55 PM

Auralie

Does everybody have their schedules for the year?

Marda

Yes 

Luvanz

Yes, mom 

Zana

No Shit

Are any of you in Prof Widogast's class?

Marda 

Professor who?

Idk I think he’s new

Luvanz

What class do you have him for 

Transmutation 310

Marda

That would be why none of us have him 

Zana

Did you really forget that you’re the only transmutation one here

Zana you are literally taking a transmutation course this year

Zana

No I’m not, I flipped to dunamancy 

Nerd

Auralie

Tell us about widogast though okay? 

Fine

Auralie

And Zana I’m looking forward to being in Dunamancy with you

Zana

Why? 

Marda

Its almost like we’re friends dipshit

Zana

This is bullying

Oh my god, they’re all trans?

7:15 PM

Meena

Fuck I got prof Bettina for Methods

Arin

Rip

Meena

Rip

Dina

Rip

Thea

Hey does anyone else have a class with Widogast?

I do!

Thea

Which class

310 9 am

Dorala

You’re taking a 9am on purpose?

Some of us can actually wake up

Thea

Fuck im in his 310 11 am

Damn

Arin

Wait I have him for 300 

Meena

I will pay you to switch with me

Arin

You cannot pay me enough 

Meena

Please

Arin 

Meen you are literally poor

Thea

Wait they’re letting the new guy teach methods 2

Meena

I guess 

I mean he is teaching 310

Dorala

Which class is that again

Transmutation and evocation

I think

Arin

Do you not know what class you are in

Never

Ingrid sits down at a desk towards the front and near the center to make sure she can see the board. She’s a bit nervous about the new professor. There are rarely new professors at Solstryce, and ever since the debacle last year, a new faculty member usually now means that whoever they are replacing committed horrific war crimes. 

Other students trickle in around her. Primarily humans, with some halflings and Half-elves sprinkled in. There’s even one student that might be an Aasimar. Slowly the classroom starts to fill up with about 20 other students. 5 minutes before class is due to start, a man wearing a long brown with wild red hair and freckles comes striding in, followed by a cat, no two cats, three cats? And starts to set up his belongings at the podium.

A Drow Girl comes breezing into the class. Which is new. (Drow only started being accepted into the academy soon after the peace talks), She has beautiful purple skin and white freckles. She’s wearing a high collared, long-sleeved black prairie dress covered in blue and purple flowers that reaches her mid-calf, revealing brown boots and dark tights. She also wears a floppy straw hat, leaving her white hair flowing down her back. She’s made her aversion to the sun fit so well into her aesthetic that it’s intoxicating. She has never wanted to be so simultaneously seen and unseen ever before.

“Hallo all, I am Professor Widogast, but you may call me Caleb, and I will be your transmutation teacher for this semester. This,” he says, gesturing to the cat curled up on the podium, “Is my teaching assistant, Professor Frumpkin, who also happens to be my familiar and emotional support animal. If you have any accommodations yourself that you need, including emotional support animals or familiars, please come talk to me after class.” He seems to slide a paper across the desk before looking up, 

“The other two cats we will learn more about later in this class, ja?” he smiles to himself. “Now, before I end this beginning spiel, I want to make one thing very clear. If a teacher or authority figure, like an archmage, is acting in any way towards you that is strange or makes you uncomfortable, please let me or some other authority figure know right away.”  Ingrid feels a bolt of uncertainty and fear jolt through her stomach as memories climb up the back of her mind. There is vague murmuring around the room as the students are surprised by this statement. But he doesn’t let this stop him from continuing, 

“Now today, our first lesson. The importance of ethics in magical practice.” 

Oh my god, they’re all trans?

10:13 AM

Prof Widogast is… Crazy

I love him

Thea 

What is he like?

He has an emotional support cat that he brought into class?

He also said that we are allowed to have familiars in class

Meena

Arin I will give you my soul to switch with me

Arin

And miss this? Hell no

Dorala 

Ya I’ve heard some wild rumors about him 

Is it true that your lesson was on rebelling against authority 

No thats next time. 

Today was the ethics of magic (and how solstryce has taught us not to wonder about it)

Meena

What?

Yall we have literally been conditioned to not think about the implications of our magic

Like especially in transmutation, we are changing the form of something

When we get to a big enough scale that has all sorts of implications

Dorala

Hon you’re info dumping

Just send us your frantic notes 

310 Notes

First day shit 

Very good scarf 

There are CATS

• Three cats 
• The white and orange one is frumpkin 
• Apparently his familiar?? 
• That he let go but RETURNED TO HIM 
• The grey one is Thaddeus (big fan) 
• Name seems to be an inside joke
• IMPORTANT: this Thaddeus comes back? 
• The Black one is Kiri (favorite) 
• Very good cat 

O fuck he’s talking 

Tell him if an authority figure makes you uncomfortable in any manner

• Uh what the fuck is up with that??????
  • Did he just reference Archmage Becke
  •  Oh no just all Archmages
    • Fair enough they all scare me 

Importance of ethics 

• • Fuck I hate ethics 
    • Magic is altering reality, and what gives us the right
      • He knew that would make us uncomfortable? 
        • Ya no shit its an uncomfy question 
    • “Or have you been made uncomfortable to think about the power you hold and the consequences of the rash actions you have been encouraged to take???????”
      • “Solstryce is first an academy of propaganda and second an institution of thought????”
        • I take it back I’m starting to love this
        • He has some BALLS 
    • For example, the disintegrate spell has the ability to be used as a horrific tool of death and destruction 
      • Who are we to be the jury judge and executioner of whatever we so please
    • Time stop is dunamancy treated as transmutation to bypass rascism and excuse teaching of magical ethics
      • They actually teach that shit in the Dynasty 
    • Who/ What do we have the right to experiment on 
      • Hint only people who freely give fully informed consent 
        • And even then we need to think about the implications of these experiments before performing them. We should have a good idea of the results and a clear goal before we start experimenting
      • Maybe a plant or two
        • Thats debatable?
    •  “I can’t make you be good, I can only tell you that it is never too late to turn from evil.”
      • “Bad deeds do not an irredeemable person make” 

Thea

Holy shit

I know

Thea

First an academy of propaganda???

Dorala

Bad deeds do not an irredeemable person make??????

Arin

This dude has some GUTS 

Meena 

Forget that what was that experimentation thing about

Idk seemed personal

Thea

But also the tell him if authority figures make you uncomfortable

Especially Archmages?? Thats dangerous 

I mean its fair, remember when DeRogna kept trying to get me to change to Illusion

Meena

Oh ya that was so creepy 

Dorala

Didn’t she like forcibly teach you a spell beyond your level and force you to cast it 

Ya

Thea

What spell was it 

I don’t wanna talk about it

Arin

Well if he’s still fucking employed by my 300 class today I’m gonna have a great time

Dorala what else did you hear

Dorala

Oh there’s a rumour going around that he was part of the mighty nein

You know the group of adventurers that stopped the fucking war and saved the world

Meena

Well they did have a redheaded wizard 

Thea

That is so statistically unlikely 

Dorala

Also there’s a rumour that he was one of Ikithons prodigies and that he helped put him in jail

That would explain his whole doubt authority thing

Dorala

Doesn’t explain the rumour that he was in a throuple with Archmage Becke

Arin

I don’t think that woman could have a threesome  if she tried

Meena

She’s hot enough to have had several

Arin

Do you think she’s capable of doing anything but rigid stillness and intense stares

Try having sex with that

Thea

I don’t want to 

Auralie is the sole reason we will graduate

3:37

Yall I made a M I S T A K E

Luvanz

Very in character

Prof Theylass is a total hardass

We spent like 5 minutes on the syllabus, most of which was him telling us to read it

And then he started *lecturing* On the First Day!

Auralie

It’s almost like its a hard class 

Ingrid

Widogast gave us a lesson today

Though he said it wouldn’t be on any tests or anything

Auralie

Oh, what was he like?

Ingrid

He brought three cats to class and had a great scarf 

Oh also, he told us that solstryce is a morally dubious place that is primarily 

“an academy of propaganda”

Marda

What the fuck?

Ingrid

Next class is on doubting authority

Oh god i’d so much rather be in that class

Auralie 

Zana is forgetting to mention that Professor Thelyss is Kryn

He’s been studying dunamancy for over 100 years now! he’s an actual professional 

Marda

He’s drow?

And a hot one at that

Auralie 

ZANA

Ingrid

There was actually a drow girl in my transmutation class earlier

Marda

Well we started admitting them last year

Luvanz 

It doesn’t mean they were attending. I mean why would they?

The point is that I am going to fail the class 

I didn’t start note-taking until like 15 minutes in and by then I had missed so much that my notes

are a mess

Auralie

I’ll send you mine 

199 Notes

Intro to Dunamatic studies 

• Dunamancy is one of the most volatile schools of magic 
• Messing with the fabric of time and space, as well as playing with incredibly fundamental forces like Gravity can be catastrophic 
• What is Dunamancy? 
• Usually defined as the study of dunamis, but what is dunamis? 
• The magical energy of probability, potentiality, and actuality. 
• Dunamancy has three main elements Time, Gravity, and Fate
• While it is not advisable to try to think of the tree as separate and instead view all dunamatic spells as a holistic mixture of all three, we don’t have the time for that
• We will be focusing on Chronurgy and Graviturgy. 
• We will not be touching fate 

The  two main questions of the class 

• What is time (next unit) 
• What is gravity: Basic definition: gravity is the force that holds us all down,
• But when it comes to magic, the definition is more contested 
• Partially because gravity is viewed differently in the dynasty and in the empire 
• The difference is much like the difference between transmutation and evocation (reminder, ask Ingrid about this) (wait he just said to ask Prof widogast about this?) 
• The empire views gravity like transmutation, something extant to be manipulated and changed
• The dynasty views gravity as a force that can be created, constructed  
• Gravity is a force that through dunamancy we make into an arcane force, it isn’t already an arcane force, like illusion magic, which was turned into an arcane force by the fae? What?
• Are we not gonna address that?
• Dunamancy is about teaching yourself how to make gravity an arcane force that can be manipulated through spells and rituals
• The gravity that holds us on exandria is not the gravity we are trying to make into an arcane force as that could have incredible repercussions in the instance of a mistake.
• Dunamancy is about creation. but said creation involves messing with and creating the building blocks of the fabric of reality 
• We will only get to learn very basic spells 
• And that's only if we’ve been good
• Time is even more complicated which is why we’re learning about it next unit 

Thanks Aura you’re a life saver

Auralie

I know

Ingrid

I mean it makes sense he said to ask Prof Widogast

He is the one teaching the evocation and transmutation course

Marda

Ya but prof Grieve was teaching that last year

Ingrid

I mean he probably wouldn’t know that

Marda

I guess 

It takes Zana 5 minutes to compose herself in front of Professor Thelyss’s office. Well, it’s more like it takes her 5 minutes to get her breathing under control enough to even consider going in, and another 3 to calm her heartbeat down enough that she can go to knock without shaking, which is unusual. 

Zana’s never nervous; she’s the kid who walks into exams without studying with a shrug. She’s the one that never panics and stays calm under pressure, she might not make the best choices, but at least she can make a choice when it's down to the wire. 

She knocks

“Come in.” Fuck. 

I mean, what had she been hoping would happen? He wouldn’t be in? She opens the door to reveal his office, which is… dark. That’s the main way she would describe it, she can begin to make things out with the lighting of the hallway, but it is just dark. 

“Please close the door behind you.” so she does. She can’t see anything. There isn’t even a lamp or candle or anything lit. “you may sit.” the same commanding voice says. She doesn’t know why, but her mouth doesn’t cooperate to let her say anything, so she tries to do as she’s told. Predictably she crashes into a piece of furniture almost instantly. 

“What are- Oh.  I am very sorry; you don’t have dark vision, do you?”

“Why would I? I’m a halfling, not a gnome!” 

Suddenly, the office curtains are pulled aside, letting the light come streaming in; well, partially, there’s still a set of semi-translucent curtains that filter some of the light, but at least she can see. 

“My apologies. You’d think I’d be better about this, having been out of the dynasty for almost two years. But that isn’t why you’ve come to my office. Which of my classes are you in?” Is he teaching multiple classes? 

“199, intro to dunamancy?” 

“I see, and why are you here? Did you lose your syllabus?” 

“No. I want to drop the class.” 

“What?”

“In class, you said there’s no shame in dropping out. So I’m here to drop out without shame.” 

“On the first day?”

“Yes!” 

“Are you sure?”

“Why are you being such a dick about this?”

“A dick?”

“Yes!”

“Well, if you want to know, I said there’s no shame in dropping out, not that there’s no shame in quitting. In fact, I think there’s a lot of shame in quitting.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense; they’re the same thing.” 

“But they aren’t. The difference is the amount of effort put in. dropping out is making an executive decision to put your energy elsewhere after giving whatever you were attempting to do a significant effort. Quitting is dropping whatever you were attempting as soon as you get scared.” 

“I’m sorry. Did you just say that I’m scared?”

“Are you not running away from my class at the first sign that it will be difficult? Are you really that scared of failure, of not being good at something at the first try that you run at the first sign of trouble?” 

“I need you to understand that I would have decked you if you weren’t a professor by now.”

“Good. Use that anger, use that fury to prove me wrong. Use that to set the fire in your soul to make you learn. Because maybe you can’t do it. Maybe you are too scared.” 

Auralie is the sole reason we will graduate

5:15

Yall will not believe the bullshit Thelyss pulled

Luvanz 

Hoo boy 

Marda

What happened

He said that I wanted to drop his class because I was scared

That I didn’t want to try

He said I was a quitter

Auralie 

I mean we had our first class today It makes a little sense 

But he didn’t have to be that rude I’m sorry. 

Idk im just pissed

5:47

Auralie

The plan as usual for dinner?

Works for me

Marda

Works for me

Groupchat with Luvanz Marda and Auralie

Luvanz

You guys aren’t gonna believe what i just saw 

Ingridhavingdinnerwithmysterydrowgirl.jpg

Marda

Holy shit

Auralie

That must be the girl she was talking about from her 310 right?

God damn she’s hot

Marda

Mostly I can’t belive she’s eating without us

Auralie

She sometimes eats with her transmutation friends

Luvanz

No, that’s always lunch. She does lunch with them, dinner with us.

We must tease her into oblivion about this

But not yet

We wait

Auralie

You are devious

It’s why you keep me around