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Post by Atticus Daegal on Feb 10, 2015 18:41:00 GMT
How strange to be comforted by one who might inspire discomfort! When Lord Rail spoke and stood, Atticus' immediate reaction was to sit right back down. After all, he didn't want to appear rude. Suddenly, the Grand Necromancer was hovering just above the hooded wizard's head, smiling and whispering as though sharing a happy secret. Then WOOSH! Spinning in place to face the man directly! But where most people might have gotten a terrifying lecture or an instruction in necrotic magic, Atticus received instead a point of similarity with the strange and distant man.
It was sometimes easy to forget that there was something the Necromancer carried as well, and when he displayed his skeletal hand to Atticus, it was made clear once again. The Fallen was not the only one who bore a heavy cross in this room. Lord Rail's closeness to the very power and essence of Death itself probably meant he had seen and experienced a great deal of very PERSONAL travels from the mortal coil. It was a small secret amongst the students that the Grand Necromancer had been close to the former Archmage. Atticus could only imagine what it might be like for someone who could see death in a great, wider spectrum than any other to experience a friend's passing.
Rail went on still further, encouraging Atticus to look upon this quest not as a task of necessity but as a great learning opportunity. In fact, Atticus did prefer it greatly that way. He did like to learn, even if he had no real delusions of ever becoming a GREAT Wizard. Honestly, he had never REALLY intended to become even a mediocre one. It just so happened that the things he was learning MADE him a wizard. Power had no interest for Atticus, just knowledge. But that did bring him back to the original point. How would he KNOW about different cultures if he never allowed himself one-on-one interaction with them? Now that he was being asked by the Rainbow Tower itself to leave the safety of its walls (where before he was something of a prisoner of house arrest), it would be a great and terrible crime to not take the chance.
"Thank you, Lord Rail..." Atticus said, a slightly more confident tone in his voice than he had had before. Maybe he did have to make choices regarding the fate of the... well... WORLD. With this new outlook in mind, the Fallen was absolutely determined to make sure it was an EDUCATED decision.
The Necromancer left the room, leaving Atticus to his thoughts with the Empress behind him and Aebra somewhere off to his right. He considered his appointment and the time of day it was. One hour before student dinner... the Circle's private dining hall. Atticus knew students who would happily amputate themselves for a chance to even see that. He hoped it did not make him an object of yet further disdain amongst his peers. He was about to allow himself to become further distracted when the chime of a grandfather clock nearby alerted him to the time. While THEY had just had lunch, it was already approaching mid-afternoon, which meant that the Empress' supper would be held in roughly three hours. This prompted Atticus to nearly leap out of his seat once more.
Three hours! He should be DOING so much! He needed to get back down to the library and study court dining manner. He needed to research appropriate questions to ask during his interview with the pirate tomorrow morning. He needed to get his materials ready to copy the spell the Brass Duke had given him into his spellbook. He needed to at the very least prepare a list of provisions he would need for his journey. For that matter, he needed to formulate some sort of PLAN once he was ready to begin!
Spinning on the spot, he bowed low before the Empress. "My apologies, your grace!" he said, all these thoughts flying through his head in the span of half a second. "The time is getting late and I have MUCH to do! I am greatly honored for your invitation and will be delighted to attend. By your leave, my lady..." he said, backing up as he did. Of course, this was a foolish thing to do since he backed right into the doorjamb instead of out the actual door. Correcting himself, he bowed out of the room and turned to run down the hall.
Atticus had never been the type to take unnecessary risks. However, with the amount of time he had and the amount of work he had to do, there simply was no other option but to leap onto the hand rail of the spiraling steps of the grand double-helix staircase and let gravity do the work for him. It was certainly a hell of a ride, a multi-story slide of epic proportions, but it was EFFICIENT. As he passed Lord Rail on the way down, he offered a very fast greeting that would most likely not be caught as he rocketed past. Lucky for him when he got to the bottom that he was light enough to not be thrown too hard to the ground! He did land hard, no doubt, but was able to get back up and take off at a run regardless. Students moved out of his way on instinct, still whispering nasty little rumors and curses for the "freak" as he passed. Today, however, he didn't care.
Three hours. He first went to the library to grab as many books has he could. It would take him thirty minutes to collect a copy of instructions on Courtly and Royal Etiquette, a Field Guide to Exotic Fauna and Flora, the Encyclopedia of Potions, Herbs, and Healing Salves, the Monster Manual, and a basic Survival Guide. Five books might not sound like much, but it was incredibly heavy for him. He managed to carry them to the check out counter and out the door toward the dormitories.
His room, however, was not there.
His room was located in a sort of makeshift bunker on the other side of the building for student housing. The idea was that if something were to happen, this would minimize the danger to the other students. Atticus had never minded. It meant that he was away from the accusing glances and harsh words of his fellow students. It also came with the added benefit of having much more space to work, since most students shared a single room with three others. HE, on the other hand, had what amounted to a bomb shelter fit for a family of five. The door was a heavy, oaken thing built into the side of the grassy hill that had grown over the whole thing, just on the edge of the wooded area reserved for nature walks and the like. Beyond that, a single flight of stone steps showing the first signs of grass growth with two brick walls leading down roughly twelve feet. At the end, another oak door lead into his room.
The room was roughly twenty by twenty feet. Large though it may sound, the entire space was being used. Formerly, this had been a toolshed for the groundskeepers, so a corner still served that purpose, covered with racks of gardening tools and piles of fertilizer in burlap sacks. The rest of the room however was an organizer's nightmare. Nearly everywhere there was a pile of books or a table with several glass vials bubbling away or steeping or glowing under unknown power. Here and there one would find charts pinned to the walls outlining different magical theories and a spare chalkboard or two with long, complicated equations written on both sides that were either incomplete or being completely re-written through experimentation. On the earthen ceiling hung several models of different magical creatures ranging from a stuffed dire rat to a miniature model of a dragon's skeleton. Scrolls sat opened nearly everywhere, many of which next to completely separate vials of ink and quills. Along the walls, the shelves were stacked with eclectic combinations of books, unused scroll paper, bottles of various ingredients all labelled accordingly, strange tools for measurement and observation, and several discarded writings with grades on them. Even the bed looked barely used, stacked high with whatever was in Atticus' pockets that day: ingredients to be sorted, half-scribbled notes, bits of salvaged crystal... the usual.
Not all of this was Atticus' personal property. The school still hadn't suspected he had smuggled a great deal of materials down here in distracted pursuit of study.
Still, he only had about two hours remaining to do his work. Digging through his collection of horded magical bits and bobs, Atticus was able to produce the only chair in the entire room, which he had personally customized with wheels on the bottom so that he may dart from one table to the next as his mind allowed him. For now, he was at one of this many writing stations, jotting down questions to ask TONIGHT at dinner.
Two hours and about thirty-five little tasks later and the dark wizard would find himself somewhere between putting the finishing touches on a drip for his long overdue potions project and copying information from the books he'd borrowed into a more easily carried format (a scroll filled with his personal form of shorthand). He glanced to the tilted cuckoo clock on the wall for the time and patted himself off. A quick look into a bubbling vile of mercury would serve as the only mirror he had to make sure he was... at least partially presentable. Not like he had many options for clothing.
Confident that he had done all he could do in the past amount of time, Atticus Daegal picked up his head and walked up the stairs from his little bunker hideaway, to have a private supper with the Empress of his homeland in the Circle's special dining hall...
"What a strange day today has been..." Atticus noted to himself as he made his way toward the Rainbow Tower's buildings...
((Off to Rainbow Towers > Dinner with the Empress))
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