Academy Anthology: Tales of Home

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
**Narrator**: We open to a voidship landing on a remote shard, shaped in a way that seemingly defies comprehension. An endless strip of land in a twisted O shape, looping around and through itself. Covered in sparse grass and some rocky outcrops, this borderline desolate landscape is empty, besides the group of you. The Founding Voyagers all stand in front of you, ready for battle, as are all of you. Guinevere Fraoch (FREE-uh) grips her trident, her raptor Saoirse (SIR-sha) standing at her side as her magic arm flickers, brow furrowed and trademark scowl on her face. Steve McSword stands beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder and whispering in her ear, something that makes her roll her eyes, then smile, as he smiles too. Isaiah Stormsong shuffles nervously in place, looking between the other Founders and Chartreuse Grismain, seemingly for reassurance, which he gets in droves before stepping forward.

**Isaiah**: Everyone, hi, hello, can we get your attention please? Thanks, and thanks for coming out today so last minute. This is incredibly important and we need all of the help we can get.

**Guinevere**: We got some intel, Cyric wants his book back and he’s planning on launching an attack to grab it. Obviously, we can’t let that happen, but we also couldn’t be sure when he’d be trying to make a move for it. Predicting when the fecker does anything is near impossible, even with eyes and ears in all sorts of places feedin’ us as much information as possible. 

**Steve**: So I, in my infinite and immense genius- no need to applaud guys it’s okay -have been planting fake rumors about us moving the book at this exact date and time. I even had people start acting like they were gonna be moving it and everything, really making this shit look legit. That’s why we waited until the last minute to round you guys up, didn’t want this to accidentally get out to Cyric before we were ready for him.

**Guinevere**: Don’t worry, it’s not actually here. It’s safe and sound with Valdis and Letharr in the deepest parts of Rianglas right now. Probably about the safest place it can be, honestly. I swam it down to a meetin’ place, but the two of ‘em went elsewhere after I left. Not a mortal soul knows where that book is now, which is for the best, in case anything goes wrong. They won’t be finding it without expendin’ a lot of resources first.

**Isaiah**: It’s actually all really great timing. So, confession; Chartreuse and I have been secretly working on a ritual that’s designed to get Cyric out of Mac and Caelus’s bodies. We’ve got it figured out the best we can, but we couldn’t exactly test it, really. It also requires a bit of an… untraditional approach to casting. We’ll be attempting to layer spells on top of each other, including spells like Sleep, Magic Jar, Dominate Person, and Banishment. Captain Myriad’s journals had a lot of very interesting ideas about how to do it, including some of her own musings on how to solve this problem, which is great. What’s… tricky is that, well, in order to actually do that, we need to, um-

**Guinevere**: Gods, this is so stupid.

**Isaiah**: It is not stupid!

**Steve**: C’mon man, it’s a little stupid.

**Isaiah**: This is a very elaborate, highly nuanced ritual. Nothing like this has ever been done before! Laying spells together is an incredibly complex process, tapping into all kinds of magical theory in order to do something-

**Guinevere**: Stupid. You want us to beat Cyric with the fuckin’ power of love and friendship!

**Isaiah**: No, no, you are drastically oversimplifying. Tapping into the Positive Energy Plane requires-

**Steve**: Dude, c’mon man, be so for real right now. 

**Guinevere**: Yeah, so, how would you summarize what we’re gonna be tryin’ to do here today?

**Isaiah**: I- We- [long sigh, annoyed monotone] we’re going to be using the power of love and friendship to beat Cyric.

**Guinevere**: Yeah, uh-huh, right. Stupid.

**Isaiah**: I- Valdis help me. Chartreuse, love, can you please explain to everyone how the ritual actually works, please?

**Chartreuse**: But of course. 

**Narrator**: Isaiah and Guinevere begin to bicker in the background while Steve laughs very unhelpfully.

**Chartreuse**: I have been working with dear Isaiah on ways to get rid of Cyric, and we believe we can rid our hands of him permanently. The tricky part is that it will require a lot of power, and we have to weaken Mac and Caelus' physical forms until they cannot fight back. This will need an extraordinary amount of concentration to cast these spells at such a powerful entity. Even more power than all of us combined could conjure. Especially without bringing harm to Mac and Caelus. In order to achieve such an incredible feat, we must access the Positive Energy plane to get the power we need, but to be honest it will still be quite risky. Especially since this magic is brand new and… a bit untested. But it is either this or nothing. We have to pull the energy into our bodies and make sure it flows back out of us correctly, by using our own positive memories and emotions to channel the positive energy back out of us.

**Guinevere**: See! The power of fucking friendship!

**Isaiah**: Gwen, please!

**Steve**: Alright, alright, I’ve had my fun. [clears throat] Basically, don’t get too worked up or pissed off because Cyric is definitely gonna be ragebaiting us for sure, since it might make the ritual backfire or hurt people involved. If you’re in the ritual, keep your cool and focus on the good stuff. If you’re not, you’ll be helping to keep Cyric’s cronies far away from the ritual.

**Isaiah**: Look, I know this might seem silly, but I promise, this is the best shot we have. I really do believe it’ll work. It has to, because… this is it. The final chance to save our friends. Our…

**Guinevere**: I might have my reservations about this whole thing, but you lot know I wouldn’t be here if I thought this was a waste of time. So get ready to kick ass and cast some spells. I know I’m looking forward to giving Cyric a piece of my mind, and bringing the two of them home. So, let’s see if we can’t bait Cyric into coming out and fighting us, ey? If there’s one thing we’re all good at, it’s pissing off powerful people.

**Steve**: Alright guys, hostiles inbound. Get ready for a fight. Don’t hold back, even against Caelus and Mac. I know it’s hard, knowing they can both feel everything that’s going on, but… we have to do this. If 
we want our friends back, we gotta fight like hell. 

**Isaiah**: I believe in you. Believe in us, in this, and everything else will fall into place. It has to.

**Guinevere**: For Mac and Caelus!