14 Suns

--- Jon ---

Most people would frown upon the idea of trying to stab and cut a member of their family with a particularly sharp knife.

The Whitakers are not most people.

“I’ll be, I think forms actually improved a bit over the summer.” His ma admitted with some surprise as she deflected a slash that would’ve cut her throat otherwise.

(Yeah, that tends to happen after the fifth or sixth fight to the death.) He thought with a wince. “Like I was telling you, a friend of mine asked for a couple of lessons over the summer. I guess I picked up what not to do from watching her?”

“Possible.” His ma hedged, though from her tone of voice -and complementary strike- she was clearly skeptical to those who knew her.

“Well, there was a thing too…” He grimaced, figuring it was best to cover up his more dangerous activities with one of the lesser ones.

“What kind of thing?” His ma immediately pressed with a narrowed gaze.

“There was an incident at camp,” (or twenty) “this… crazy guy came onto the campgrounds threatening the kids, and I kind of, sort of, maybe, got into a fight with him.” He confessed to the one incident with the Corrupted that the police actually knew about. (Not that they know why they never found the guy…)

His ma gave him a hard stare for a moment. “Isn’t that the kind of thing they send a notice to all the parents about?”

“They did.” He agreed with a bit of confusion, since he’d spent a good portion of that week panicking over his ma finding out. “And I honestly thought you knew about it, minus me chasing the guy off at least.”

“Figured Edna would’ve called me over that kind of thing.” His ma grumbled.

(Unless she was covering for me…) He thought, remembering the fact that she’d been against his involvement with the Corrupted until the Quartermaster had talked her into it somehow. “Maybe she meant to call you herself but with the police around and taking care of the kids she got sidetracked until she let it go? I mean, it was rough but not as bad as it could be,” (or would be.)

“Maybe…” His ma conceded, clearly unhappy with the idea before shaking her head and giving him a different -if a bit prouder- look. “You said you ran this guy off?”

“Yeah, all your training came in handy.” He admitted more than thankful to have known how to handle him in all of the fights he’d been in over the summer. “Though I didn’t feel right chasing him down when the kids were clearly scared over all of his shouting and rambling.”

“Probably the right call.” His ma agreed with a nod as she took another stance. “Still, why don’t tell me how you played hero, kid?”

Scene Consequences

-For training with Ma gained 1XP to Combat and Knives*.

--Currently: Combat Lv. 5 (8/12) and Knives Lv. 3 (1/8)

A/N: Just letting you know, I’ve added Knives, Throwing, and Psych to the training rolls.

---

His talk with his ma reminded him about how he was starting to get involved with the city’s magical side -even if just the Witch’s Wares- and how that side of things liked to keep itself hidden even if publicly known.

Which is why he felt he should take a little time to actually look into the more occult side of the world. Something he hadn’t seen the need to do back in Blackwell due to the fact that he was technically apprenticed to the two biggest magical players in the county. Well, that and the fact that he didn’t really have much contact with magic users outside of the two and their more immediate circles, (whereas here I have no idea who I can run into.)

His first enquiry into this subject brought him to the Arcane Association, an educational group that essentially represented magic to the country and had spread to some of its closer allies. This was something he’d known beforehand but given his new perspective on the subject he decided to dive a little deeper than he had in passive hearing.

Given the relatively transparent practices of the Arcane Association, it didn’t take him too much effort to dig up an autobiography for the organization.

The Association got its start in the mid-seventies as a game company producing tabletop RPGs. This was of course a cover developed by the organization’s founders as a way to subtly send out early spell books by hiding them within the original game series aptly named ‘the Arcane Arcanum’. An effort that was largely viable due to placing a few enchantments on the books that would passively draw the attention of any Arcane born after the resurgence of magic.

Once the Association had established itself as a powerful game company, they took things a step further by applying themselves as an educational organization at the urging of one of its founders, a person only listed as ‘Memento’ in the autobiography. An endeavor they accomplished by funneling the majority of their funds into creating a college that at the time was considered as something as a gimmick or tax dodge.

Something that actually worked to the Association’s advantage was through the use of full scholarships to Arcane students they functionally created ‘magic school’ hidden under the audacious name of ‘the Arcane Academy’. An operating system that they maintained as they opened several colleges both up to and well into the Rift Riots.

With the public outing of Deviants as well as their eventual placement in society the Arcane Association began to spread out its hooks by offering its scholarships to people off all Deviancies and non, as it worked to create a place of acceptance, respect, and equality for all.

From there the organization began to hit something of a draught in funds given the reluctance of non-scholarship students attending their schools. So instead they doubled down on their roots and unleashed a revamped version of their original game now including all Deviancies as well as builds for non-Deviants in the game Deviant’s Masquerade.

A brand that through a partnership with the newly forming Hero’s Guild went on to generate a toy line, card game, books following their heroic exploits, and a number of best-selling video games. The funds from which were split between the guild, maintaining the Association’s various academies’ and their scholarships, investing further into its game and book industry, and somehow still finding money to divert to numerous public charities.

(Whoever runs the organization’s finances has to have ‘Business’ as one of their affinities.) It was the only way he could think of for someone to spread an educational organization’s influence that far into the business sector.

Despite how much information he’d found on the Arcane Association and how it became so influential, it didn’t really tell him much about the less official ‘street’ side of things, where he was more likely to be involved for the next couple of years.

So, closing all of the tabs and reports he had on the Arcane association, he instead shifted his attention to the smaller town and city based magical groups. And while he was fully aware that the situation would vary a bit city to city on that front, the majority of what he managed to find wasn’t exactly… good.

From what he could discover most magical communities since Deviants were outed were depicted as something resembling cults by the media, which given the actual activities of said cults wasn’t too far off the bat.

Given how magic was a teachable skill, and Arcane themselves had a natural and inherent talent for it that was beyond what most Practitioners could perform, some of the more charismatic Arcane had in fact set up cults here and there.

(And not just the Arcane it looks like a handful of Psychics, Wonderlanders, and Deadmen all had the same idea.) Which given the fact that one could read minds, the other had their own pocket dimensions, and the last was literally the dead brought back to life… it wasn’t exactly an unexpected situation all things considered.

Still, based on what he could find on these cults, most of them weren’t the kind of things he wanted to get involved with given their tendencies to isolate members and steal their livelihood.

On the opposite side of the coin were a number of -semi- secret societies, who while on the surface looked like cults, were focused more on gathering together as many magic users as they could and helping them in exchange for mutual discretion.

In fact, these secret societies seemed to be less social movements and more carryovers from the seventies when magic started to reawaken without public knowledge, and the Rift Riots when you didn’t want Asylum to know you were a Deviant.

(I guess with how bad Asylum was, some people still want to keep under the radar even if Sanctuary is doing a better job at keeping the peace.) It was a sad fact, but an understandable one.

Scene Consequences

-For researching how magical society has developed and maintained itself gained 3XP to Occult.

--Currently: Lv. 5 (7/12)

---

Feeling a bit of a migraine coming on from all of his reading, he closed his laptop before pawing at his eyes in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure building behind them.

As he sat there letting his mind cool off, Pix’s colorful flitting around the garden drew his attention, as the little fairy did everything she could to spruce up and aid the development of the garden seedlings. Even if at a much more subdued rate than what she could pull off in the forest he’d taken her to a few days prior.

(I really should do something to help out with that.)

Course decided he stood up and began pulling out his enchanting supplies as well as one of the books Miss Edna had given him. Admittedly even after drawing the basics of his enchanting circuit, it still took him a fair bit to find the specific section he was looking for. Namely the section where Miss Edna -knowing about Pix- had left a detailed description on how to work with another magic user to borrow their mystical affinities.

Something that made a lot more sense now that he’d picked up Contracting. Though between Miss Edna’s notes and what little he knew about Contracting magic, he was on the fence about whether he it’d be better to have Pix assist in using the circuit physically or to try and run it through their Contract indirectly.

(Might as well make use of our Contract.)

With that decided he moved the plants and soil from their containers into a more temporary holding, before taking the garden pots over to the enchanting circle and waving Pix over.

“Okay, Pix we’re going to try something a little different today.”

The little fairy gave him a curious tilt of her head as he began finishing out the last few symbols to this particular spell circuit.

“Well, what this should do is accelerate the growth rate of our little garden here.” He explained, before listening to her as she trilled out a response. “I don’t have a plant affinity, but you do.”

Pix blinked before pointing at herself and the circuit as he set one of the pots into the circuit.

“Yep, you are going to be enchanting today.” He nodded drawing a line between the main circuit and a smaller circle. “Don’t worry, I’ve already got everything set up. All you’ve got to do is feed your Nature affinity into this smaller circle, and I’ll handle the rest.”

Trusting him the little fairy flew over to the little circle and began to feed her magic into the circle. Unable to keep from smiling at the sentiment he put his hands near the circle and began feeding his own magic into it as well, sending a familiar sparking light dancing through the circuit and into the pots he’d set up.

Though, he couldn’t help but frown as the light died down, because while the enchantment had settled the way he wanted it to, the sheer amount of Nature magic he could feel it wasting during the process was something he’d need to fix the next time he did one of these joint enchantments.

“Just something I’m going to have to work on then.” He decided, before letting his eyes drift to the remaining pots. “Then again, this might make it easier to enchant the lot of them at once…” (After all, there’s always something to learn, even in failure.)

-Garden Pots gained Enchantment: Nature’s Aid (E Rank): Plant’s grown in this container grow a little faster and have slightly bigger harvests.

--This enchantment cost 2 MP. (From Jon, regardless of the scene choice.)

-Gained 1XP to Enchanting.

--Currently: Lv. 4 (3/10)

-Pix’s Magical Assistant Skill has leveled up.