The So-Called Prodigal Son

[Mikka]

I missed your thieves guild comment, Legate. Heh, interesting! I have an Aranaz character coming up eventually that'll probably be quite interested in their comings and doings... I hope it does make it back in for year two.

 

 

I admit I was looking forward to getting this done, but now that it’s actually done, I feel sad. Sniff. I’ll miss him. Well, he'll certainly be one of the first I run through year two, though Kay (and a few practice tests) will come first.

 

Ceyn’s awesomeness of last week got him Elation, and after a bit of debate with myself, I raised Prudence a bit so he also got Affection. He’s still carrying around Peaceful Heart, Bon Vivant, Calm. How fall we’ve fallen, from the days of Anger and Hatred.

 

Oh, and for the record? I don't think CD is her type, but hey, you never know.

 

Coming after this will probably be a post describing a few weird decisions made during this play, along with likely a long, bemusing ramble that doesn't make all that much sense. I'm good at those.

 

Thanks for the read, cats and dogs, boys and girls, friends and people I haven't met yet. Tis appreciated.

 

 

Week Fourty-One

Random Event Homework 8, success (Magical Appraisal/Negation Spells)

Random Event Lake 2, success (Observation/Running)

Random Event Thief 5, success (Enchant/Ambush)

Random Event Spellcasting 5, success (Sleuthing/Arithmetic)

Random Event – Singing Contest, success (Voice)

Gained Sketch Out Problem (+1 Practical Jokes, Planning, Infiltration Increase)

Gained +1 Luck from Successful Adventuring

Gained +1 Vitality from Successful Adventuring

 

 

22 Kaliri, evening

Magsa and I snuck in to the Imperial Palace’s War Room for some strategizing, and then went out singing (…apparently, hours in libraries has improved my voice to the point where I can win singing contests: it’s incredible what studying can do). It amazingly actually worked, getting two students rather then a small army lof ghouls like we were practicing Gates magic (…I wonder what happened to them?). I’m pretty sure Magsa’s music exam was more then a week ago, but hopefully his professor will accept it all the same.

 

That’s all the classes he takes, right? I don’t have to do this again? I truly hope so.

 

Visiting the War Room got us both detention for trespassing, but Magsa doesn’t care, neither do I. I’ve been wanting to see the War Room since I heard about it from my grandfather when I was only five: finally getting the chance to wander it was worth all the lectures about how we need signed permission writs to be able to explore the Imperial Palace so freely. I keep trying to figure out if I could just hide out of my vacation in the Imperial Palace rather then heading home.

 

The Sphinx likes me, I give it new riddles to use on other passer-bys and some insults from Prudence to use on failures. I’m sure it would vouch for me.

 

Well, sort of sure.

 

…I’m just dreaming, now. The plan of hiding in the Hidden Hallways is probably more reasonable.

 

 

23 Karli, just after classes

140 for Arithmetic. That’s more like it.

 

Then there was a pop-quiz. Right after the exam. I’m trying not to think about that one too much.

 

Found a meteorite by the lake. Pocketed it before it could fall in, then hightailed it out before the Lady had any chance of appearing. They say she shows up when the moon hits the lake, but after continuing with my budding career of kicking all trash along the shore in to the lake and other ills, I don’t want to take chances.

 

This is one of those things I have to keep quiet about, because if it did get out that I keep kicking trash in to her lake, I think half of Morvidus collage would line up to punch me for running the habitat of the fish. I’m already walking a fine line with them thanks to Joana and Philippe.

 

Maybe I should throw them in the lake. Another idea for next year.

 

 

The Contenda Karli, late afternoon

Of course that wasn’t the end of it. Of course.

 

Despite that I swear we already did Negation extra credit, this time Magsa was turned, well, in to a woman by Professor Briardi, who is more disturbed then I credited her for. After some long discussion, Magsa gave permission for me to get Prudence for support.

 

Then I analyzed and appraised the spell, before deciding the best way to fix the problem was to beat Magsa up.

 

I’m not kidding. Apparently, brusing and pain would force his natural shape to return. Repeatedly hitting a girl while she could not hit back (as the point was to cause her-him harm, not have a fight) just… it didn’t seem right. If it was one of my sisters or Joana, it would be one thing, but even as Magsa taunted me, I left it to Prudence. Gave him a few punches once he was back in his own form, though.

 

So yes, it did work. I’m not sure why it did, but it did. Professor Briardi, as I said, is quite a bit more disturbed then I thought.

 

Yet for some reason, I respect her even more now.

 

Magsa agreed not to hug me this time (or Prudence), and also will be buying her some wand or something she wanted and will not come to me next year for extra-credit problems in return for neither of us telling anyone what exactly happened.

 

I imagine in six year he’ll be over it so that I can publish this with a clean conscience.

 

I was gifted with a library card. Something about ghosts and books. Pamela keeps mentioning it, but the Contenda took most of my attention and it doesn’t seem all that important. I lucked out today by being a commenter rather then having to partner with Lambert (who seems to be at least somewhat aware of what and who happened to his pixie-sprite-thing and gives me some really bitter looks when he thinks I’m not watching him) and play with ice, but the whole thing was still… I think the only word that describes it correctly is ‘lame’.

 

As well as a bit confusing.

 

 

24 Karli, late night

Emilia wanted help with a telescope. I thus helped. I remain in her good graces and perhaps under the label of a very close friend’ (who she occasionally, bewilderingly, flirts with), but I still keep a certain respectable distance for my own peace of mind. I’ll send her nice, polite letters throughout the summer, and greet her happily at the beginning of next year, but I don’t think I’ll seek out her company or a way to meet up during the vacation.

 

My last exam was botany: highest in class again, with 110. No complaints.

 

Save for that it’s all over…

 

I’m even going to miss learning about worms and seeds. Depressing.

 

 

27 Kaliri, evening

Hug count so far: eight.

 

The figure seems to be growing at an alarming rate. As most students seem to be planning on leaving on the first (if not the second or third or even later), I have a feeling that it will likely hit the twenties before the week is over. Maybe the thirties. Obviously, this can’t be allowed to continue, but people keep grabbing my hand or wrist when I try to move away and pulling me towards them.

 

I thought I would escape from the horror by inviting the others- Prudence, Catherine, Emilia, Aymeri, Honors, and Magsa- for a game of the proving ground. We uncaringly played on the top of the bell-tower, just because we shouldn’t (well, that was my reason for suggesting it, anyway), and we all did that sappy “I’m going to miss you so much it’s going to be so hard I’ll write letters everyday” babble, but that was all it was: talk. Perfectly acceptable.

 

Then Prudence of all people had to ruin it. After the game and we were all ready to climb down, she stopped me and hugged me. She said I was her best friend, swore it would be the same next year, and wanted me to promise that we wouldn’t let any of that ‘stupid boy an’ girl stuff’ come between us.

 

I told her I’d remind her of that in two years when she'll inevitably try to get me to pump Cyrus Dawes or whoever catches her interest for information on whether they had a crush back on her or not, just to get her to start punching me and laughing rather then hugging and looking like she might cry.

 

Then I said something stupid and sappy, too. Peh.

 

 

28 Kaliri, early morning

(Written on a page ripped out of the bound journal.)

To my family,

 

I have packed my bags and am prepared to return home sometime next week. I do not at the moment know the exact date when I will be departing: I will send an status update as soon as I have the information through a paid messenger.

 

I will be bringing home my familiar, but she will not require any sort of special care: do not worry about buying any sort of food or ‘toys’ for her. However, I believe it would be best for her and myself to be moved to the room my elder brother used to reside in, if Ciri has finally gotten herself a job and left the house: she can be a bit difficult to people she does not know well, and I would hate to for her presence to cause Cendric and his stupid toad any harm or distraction.

 

I do not intend on bringing home any friends, or inviting any over this summer. Please do not worry about needing to do any extra cleaning; if anything comes up, I will take care of it.

 

Your son and brother,

Ceyn

 

Post Script: If there are any signs of any sort of ‘welcome home’ party, I am turning around, slamming the door and getting back on the next ship to Mineta immediately. Don’t think I won’t. I’m not kidding!

 

 

28 Kaliri, morning

Count has upped itself to thirteen, and I’ve barely finished breakfast.

 

Still considering the plan of hiding in one of the hidden rooms for the summer. I really don’t want to leave.

 

Will definitely miss the Academagia.

 

[Legate of Mineta]

And so Ceyn rides off into the sunset...for now.

[Mikka]

So. Ceyn.

 

We end the game with strength 1, finesse 2, and fitness 2: exactly where we started. However, charm had a tiny raise to 3 (then +3 from Emilia to six, and then +2 from emotions for the usual of 8), insight to 7 (with a +1 bonus from emotion for 8), and luck to 6 (with a +1 bonus from emotion for 7). Intelligence is a very lovely 9. His VIT and Stress maxes are only 6, but spells and botany easily get him around the first. The second, well, with Joana out of the way, he usually didn’t have all that many stressors.

 

Most of his skills are pretty standard: he maxed out all of his class skills (save for History), and then picked up the standard suit that almost all my characters end up maxing: the Befriend skills, Competition and Running, Planning and Wit (he didn’t quite finish with Manipulation, tsk), Transport, Concentration, Reason (all of his Plot skills are quite high), Playfulness, Piety, Familiar Kinship and Schoolyard Education, all of Research but Decipher Handwriting, Awareness and Persuasion, and then Comets and Moons maxed from the ever lovely Library of the Stars. He also maxed out Art Appreciation, Infiltration (at a nice little 13- thanks, Aymeri), Bluff, and most of the War skillset (but not Manner of a Champion).

 

More bemusingly, he has high (five to nine) skills in Courtly Fashion (I have absolutely no idea where that one came from: the others I can figure out, but that?), Architecture, Acting, Famous Geometry Problems, Voice, Revisions Methods (all of his Revision is quite high, actually). Oh, and the worms.

 

He did not max out Courage, Acrobatics, Puzzles, Confidence or Endurance- all which I usually see maxed on almost any play through. Most of them were high, at least, but Acrobatics managed to stick at a stubborn 2. I suppose he doesn’t tumble around that much.

 

His bond with Pamela only made it up to four, sadly. He’ll want to be raising that over the summer and early next year.

 

Amusingly, perhaps just to taunt him, he managed to unlock all the Gates skills, but only managed to get Mastery Methods for Mastery. Poor sap.

 

 

As you can see, he turned out nothing like my first post stated he was going to be. Most of it was my poor planning: low fitness and the heroes background with a random Morvidus enemy is not the recipe for a game about a lay-about. So I sort of went in the opposite direction (Ceyn’s a lot of things, but truly lazy probably isn’t one of them), while still trying to keep the blantant disregard and disrespect for others the parable relies on. Ceyn was ridiculous paranoid, prone to dramatic overreaction, was convinced he knew everything, and dealt badly with two his core desires clashing: his want to prove himself the very darn best there ever was and show-off against his want to pretend he was so above it all and remain completely unaffected by everything that happened.

 

To keep with that, the only people I had him interact with throughout the year are the ones in his clique (and Mhadi, who was planned to be a part of it), Joana for a few hostile actions, and then a few Deflect attempts aimed at Sheary (who ends at 10 despite Ceyn never speaking to him, I think, sigh). Despite that, he has 25 relationships with other students of 4 and above (I believe he went off listing them somewhere back), and five Professors (plus another Professor at 3). For all that he’s a bossy jerk, he attracts attention, I’ll give him that: and Joana was the only -10, Phillipe was at -4, and then five students at -1. That’s… pretty friendly, for my characters.

 

I managed to complete all three Durand only adventures and also Pamela’s full chain, which were my big two goals. Honors adventure ending early disappointed me, but I got all the others done, too. I considered trying to do the main quest with him, but it took a while for his luck to raise to be a constant four on its own (rather then boosted by Prudence’s protective sphere), and I could not imagine him doing it anyway but for the Legate or the other kids, so, eh, I let it go.

 

I did click the library adventure twice: not the someone-is-dead one (poor Piccolot got subbed in, as he seemed to fit), but the other one, with the ghosts. Both times were by accident, which seemed a good enough excuse for Ceyn having absolutely no idea what was going on and ignoring it.

 

Despite all that, I like to think he had some good points. I’m just unable to name any. Hee.

 

(No, he does seem to have a fantastic sense of loyalty once you poke under his skin: the comment about Catherine he made was supposed to hit the ‘….kettle, pot’ button, as he’s the same way. Defensive exterior, but for all he calls you stupid and complains about you, he will, in fact, do all your extra-credit for you, break in to the Legate’s house for you, and apparently live with a pixie.

 

That was another bad plan. If I was going to have Aymeri cliqued, he shouldn’t have been living with Lambert, though I wasn’t aware I was going to be adding Aymeri at the time… bah.)

 

 

Writing in Ceyn’s ‘voice’ was easy, though I freely admit I became more lazy as time went by. At the beginning, I tried to keep one thing in mine- formal and moderately eloquent (save for his catch ‘peh’), but incredibly haphazard. Ceyn forgets pronouns, abuses tenses, and occasionally he just randomly seems to put words in orders that they should never be put in. It was fun to write: one of the characters I’m working on for the modding (…which is actually going well, I just need to figure out those confusing courage/confidence stats /bugs the Legate) was thus giving a similar way of speaking because it’s entertaining, although they’re much more laconic and have a very different personality.

 

Unlike the two musical and the few video game injokes for Kay, I don’t think Ceyn’s had that many outside references. Save for of course the inspiration and naming. Ceyn is random fantasy blather (though I could probably connected it to Shawn through Sean if I read enough baby-name sites: they put any name on some of those), but Kahtac is simply Cathak spelled backwards (his father’s unmarried name, Nomme, is meant to symbolize house Mnemon). House Cathak is a fire-aspected overly disciplined house with a tendency for striving to military expansion in White Wolf’s tabletop RPG, Exalted: they are, for maximum irony, one of the Dragon-blooded houses and of all houses, the one with the greatest hatred for sorcerers. A Tempestuous Knife is a sobriquet for an Air Aspected Dragon-blooded by people who are apparently feeling too dramatic to just say ‘Oh, hey, it’s an Air Aspect’.

 

(Kay’s clique name, the Fivefold Fellowship, also comes from the setting, but it’s used by a different group of Exalted. I’ll likely continue naming cliques and occasionally characters after groups from there, as it amuses me so much, and I’m not above borrowing inspiration from my favorite tabletop RPG.)

 

Uh, what else did I want to say? My original plan was for this to be half journal, and half letters- specifically sent to Ceyn’s nearest sibling, the sister only a few years older who did not go the Academagia (directly apprenticing to their father instead due to her skill in Enchantment). Instead, she never got mentioned, I don’t think. Oh well. The half letters and half journal idea will be used by my Hedi character, instead.

 

Who will be coming! Soon! Maybe even tonight! Yay! Kinda.

 

 

Never got suspended before, never had an immediate duel before, never hit many of the emotions he hit before, never skipped Oan’s cool free skills before and never actually finished Pamela’s adventure chain before despite having used her as a familiar with basically all my characters that don’t take Zoology. Ceyn was a character for some new starts.

 

But now, as said, he rides (or more likely, sails) in to the sunset. At least for now. I assume he spends at least two more days curled up at the Academagia begging not to have to go home before some teacher rolls their eyes and scolds him about it.

 

Looking forward to year two and the summer. Woo!

 

And, again, thanks for reading, all. My next playthrough should be more entertaining and less bitter. I... think. ._o

[CremePudding]

*giggle* And on his way home, Joana somehow stole candy off Ceyn.

 

And Emilia Strolin.