Long Game 96: KKC in the Modern Age

[The Unknown Ajah]

Sorry Kas! 

Was scrambling to figure out a vote and you were basically the only name to come to mind /shrug. Don't actually particularly suspect you.

[Kasimir]

[OOC: Soddit not posting RP until later, accessing my stash is murder on mobile and conference is tiring. Siiigh.]

6 hours ago, The Known Novel said:

Sorry Kas! 

Was scrambling to figure out a vote and you were basically the only name to come to mind /shrug. Don't actually particularly suspect you.

[OOC: Wasn't particularly fussed, kind of figured you were scrambling for time and the reduction.]

Edited August 1, 2023 by Kasimir

[Mat]

He started with salt.

It was, in his mind, the base of every dish. Francis recalled his little siblings in past years claiming they didn't like salt, not realizing it was the very thing that brought out the flavor in their favorite meal-- and in every other meal. While some cooks sprinkled it on the top of a completed dish as an afterthought, Francis treated it with the respect proportional to its importance by dusting his pan with a thin layer of fine white crystal before adding anything else.

Most who tasted his food found it overly salty. Francis countered that all the food they'd ever had was underseasoned. In his cooking, you could taste the salt, but it wasn't bad by any means. It was there, supporting the other flavors, an unsung culinary hero. Every time he considered the nuance of salt, he tried, and failed, to turn it into a metaphor on life. He was sure it worked, somehow. He just hadn't found the words yet.

Of course, every supporter needs support of its own-- salt on its own was, unfortunately, disgusting. He saw cooking as a balancing act where he had to lean each support according to its weight on each other support so that none fell, but constructed something amazing.

And so Francis scooped in his assorted vegetables, a pinch of water, and set it over the flame to begin its simmer.

---

[I am not a chef. Or anything close to a chef. Take all culinary advice/statements in my RPs with a grain of salt.]

[wink wink]

...l need money so badly you guys xD Functionally missing a term was not good for my savings. No idea how all the inactive people will continue attending the University. I guess they just won't :P. As for me, I'll probably have to just RP a bunch unless people start talking because I can only write so many 200 word analysis posts on the same 4 pages >>

Question stemming from curiosity and laziness: Is there a way to place a contract on the Black Market and have the tuition reduction be greater than the amount put in limbo from your own bank account?

[The Unknown Ajah]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

[OOC: Soddit not posting RP until later, accessing my stash is murder on mobile and conference is tiring. Siiigh.]

[OOC: Wasn't particularly fussed, kind of figured you were scrambling for time and the reduction.]

Yeah, just wanted to make it clear. And speaking of reduction:

Cavothee snarled. Why would this sygaldry never work? Cavothee had always had a gift when it came to making runes and crafting shapes, but when it came to creativity, he was lost. 

He was trying to make a device that would allow the holly to sit on his head without poking him.

Join Teh to Gea, he frowned. It wasn't quite enough. Well, then Teh to Gea again. Ule, no Doch would be better. Fehr for iron padding, Sah for the holly, Doch again, the Ule. 

Cavothee lifted the cap up, looked at it in the light, then set it on his head.

He started when it didn't poke. It worked? It worked! "Yes! Hurra! Est iz furtig." He was finally done.

He stood up, sliding his chair back, almost knocking it over. He slipped his little hat cover, then looked at himself in the mirror. It looked like a pretty standard fedora, though bulkier than would be typical. It looked absolutely stunning.

He ran out the door of his room, then all the way out of the inn. He had to show Rinth. Cavothee ran down the street over the cobbles.

He walked into the Windy Tower, running two steps at a time, but then at the first landing, his hat slipped off.

[Kasimir]

[OOC: @Matrim's Dice We're not supposed to reuse old PMs. Can't legally reply in there and cba to remake Drake’s monstrosity.

Vaguely remember a weird BM hack but too tired to retrieve details.]

Edited August 1, 2023 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer]

Issal wondered about things too often.

He had proved that his lack of knowledge of the area wasn't a detriment, that wasn't it - he was already one of two Re'lar in the newer batch of students. Issal still wasn't entirely sure what a Re'lar meant, but he was one, and that meant the Masters gave him a few more nods or paid more attention to what he said. That was good, usually. The cries of teacher's pet hadn't started yet, but Issal also felt the green eyes of some other students.

Then was the matter of Percyl. 

At first combining forces in the search for a mythical stone sounded like the start of some of Issal's old stories. A perfect start. And then Percyl... he'd been asking about money, a lot. Issal thought he was trying to make a profit selling alchemical creations. Which was fine, he'd done that for a long time too. They'd gotten further apart as Issal climbed. And then Percyl cracked. Or... crocked, they called it here?

Issal could feel the pressure. Even doing well, you were supposed to excel and the higher you got the more you could fall. Alchemy was one of the hardest falls besides maybe Naming. But... not Percyl. Whatever his motivations, that wasn't right.

Issal knew fae trickery from his home. Had been on the receiving end of it once or twice. This was different. It was time to find out just how different this place was.

[Kasimir]

[TAG: RP, 1392 words]

5 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

...l need money so badly you guys xD Functionally missing a term was not good for my savings. No idea how all the inactive people will continue attending the University. I guess they just won't :P. As for me, I'll probably have to just RP a bunch unless people start talking because I can only write so many 200 word analysis posts on the same 4 pages >>

Question stemming from curiosity and laziness: Is there a way to place a contract on the Black Market and have the tuition reduction be greater than the amount put in limbo from your own bank account?

[OOC: @Matrim's Dice Think you should ask the GM. Hael apparently put up a contract to hug another student for a drab and got a 0.5 tuition reduction but I'm not sure if it's still legal. FYI.

Yes yes RP party in the thread, join me! I just broke the 25k mark guys xD Handwriting on paper during conference breaks has been such a pain holy chull.

As much as I am really enjoying this break, I never want to try to 50k a game again holy chull. As I told Drake, I did in fact once clear a NaNoWriMo in a week; that is, I wrote a 50k novel in a week, but I was pretty much very sleep-deprived, out of it, and having psychedelic moments where I imagined writing chapters that weren't real and that I never did by the end. Still! I am determined to meet this challenge!

@DrakeMarshall: Now that I'm on a PC and can't legally message you without at least knowing the Name of Wind, just gonna have to drop this in thread. Sorry I'm not doing it. Low key kind of really want to swear kanly on your behalf and go on a rampage to rival the one I embarked on when the Elims killed STINK, but I really, really want to get to chill for one game and not have Village depend on me, and I guess that won out. Sorry bro. No vengeance oath this time  ]

xxviii. duel

In one of the many travelogues in the Archives, sometimes a little more akin to wander-tales than true accounts, prone to exaggerations and hearsay, Hannes Vahasin wrote of duels between the Adem taking no more than three blows to determine a victor.

With sympathy, it was less straightforward. 

Kevan had taken the Advanced Sympathy class out of a sense of duty and obligation; not because he found Sympathy fascinating but because it was required to graduate. Sometimes, he wondered how Master Sympathist felt, teaching a class of students who were at least partially indifferent to his specialisation. You got all sorts of students, after all, even once they’d made their way into the lofty ranks of the Arcanum. You always took some classes because you had to, because the Chancellor’s Office told you or your sponsoring Master that you would not be allowed to graduate without them.

Sympathy was considered the backbone of the University: you graduated with either Alchemy or Advanced Sympathy. Kevan’d taken one look at the Alchemy curriculum, with all its talk of principles and reguluses and had given right up and gone for Advanced Sympathy, which at least also freed him up for Siaru classes conducted by Master Isaak.

To tell the truth, he’d dreaded Advanced Sympathy. His grades in Advanced Sympathy the first time around had been indifferent, but then, it had been difficult juggling his failing career as an artificer and also trying to do well in Advanced Sympathy. This time, he had enough time to put into his studies in Advanced Sympathy, even with all the studying he’d had to do to make sure his foundations were actually strong.

Part of Advanced Sympathy, however, involved Master Sympathist pitting students against each other, telling them curtly that learning how to defend themselves against another sympathist was crucial. (Why, he didn’t say. But whispers of malfeasance crawled about the classroom: the University was always teeming with stories of sympathists gone rogue, and if you thought about it, they were a threat University students understood. They heard about those all the time. Skindancers were elusive, the stuff of fairy tales. And privately, Kevan had his doubts that a skindancer would ever be so polite as to challenge him to a sympathist’s duel, in order to allow him to die on his feet.)

At this point, he was doggedly trying to juggle the two conflicting and inconsistent beliefs in his head: that the wick he was holding wasn’t the same as the piece of wick that Feemor was holding. It was harder work than Kevan had believed. There were logicians who were working to develop systems of paraconsistent logics, but reasoning yourself into a belief was more difficult than you’d expect. Holding on to it with the stone-steady solidity of your Alar was another.

They’d both been allowed to draw from candles. Some of the more advanced students in the class were using lesser heat sources—one had tried straw, as in Kvothe’s legendary bout with Fenton. Master Sympathist had shut that down quickly. He didn’t want heroics in his class, he’d said.

How long had it been? Kevan didn’t know. He was certain his foot had gone to sleep. To and fro they went, glaring at each other, stubbornly holding on to their wicks with their Alar while trying to draw enough heat in the binding to overwhelm the other’s defence.

Abruptly, he felt the flash of warmth in his hand. He let go just as a puff of smoke went up from the wick he was holding in his hand. Nothing from Feemor’s.

Feemor accepted the congratulations of their classmates, and some coin exchanged hands, surreptitiously, though Kevan expected that Master Sympathist really knew everything that was going on in his classroom. Simply another aspect of University tradition. 

Kevan let out a tired sigh. At least he’d held Feemor off for over an hour. It felt…frustrating, being one of the few students in the class still working with candles while the others were allowed more inefficient, more creative linkages and sources. He hadn’t refined his Alar, Master Sympathist had cautioned him, and the part of Kevan that needed to be a good student had worked on it, doggedly practising the mental exercises that Master Sympathist had set them. At the same time, he found he couldn’t have cared less. He was studying Advanced Sympathy not because he wanted to, not because it truly interested him, but because the Chancellor’s Office had decreed it was necessary to earn his guilder.

As the students filed out of the class at the end, the master held out his hand in a forestalling gesture. Obediently, Kevan hung back.

“Sir?” he asked, cautiously.

“I’ve been watching your progress,” Master Sympathist said, without preamble. “You’ve improved quite a bit since your first set of classes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“The readmission seems to be agreeing with you.”

He hesitated. “It is a relief,” Kevan said carefully, “To be able to devote more time to Advanced Sympathy rather than dividing it between the Fishery and Advanced Sympathy.”

“But not between Rhetoric and Logic and Advanced Sympathy?” Master Sympathist asked, shrewdly.

Kevan spread his hands out in a wordless shrug. “We have our interests and our skills, Master. With all due respect to Master Artificer, I recognise now that I was as cut out for Artificery as a crow is for winning talent pipes at the Eolian.”

Now that was a mental image. Master Sympathist must’ve thought so too as he hid a chuckle behind a cough. “So I can tell. Well, keep on working hard, E’lir, and I imagine you’ll do fine in your classes.”

Except Kevan didn’t know if ‘fine’ was enough. He didn’t say that, though. He thanked Master Sympathist, and when it was clear the man had nothing else to say, he turned to leave.

The master’s question made him draw to a halt in the doorway of the classroom.

“You don’t care very much for sympathy, do you, E’lir?” A beat later, Master Sympathist added, “I read your appeal essay.”

Kevan turned about. “No, sir,” he said. There was no concealment, not on this. “I don’t.”

Explanations drifted through his mind. The way it felt as though it mattered, flipping through books and articles, knowing that people who had lived, loved, and died decades, even centuries before you were born had agonised over the same beautiful, crucial questions. The sense that you were asking something which, one way or another, tapped into the most primal, elemental questions of how to be human: what was the good, really and truly, how you ought to behave towards one another, and layered on top of that like sediment, questions of what the good life was and where new technologies fit into it, and what knowledge was, what this entity was that students at the University ostensibly sought and craved and chased after like a man dying of thirst in a desert seeking water.

More than sympathy, practised by a small tenth of a tenth of the population. Sympathy looked inwards. But reading those books, arguing with Master Anders and the gillers and his classmates, he’d learned that people were wrong, when they said Rhetoric and Logic looked inwards. It looked outwards: you didn’t pursue these questions for their own sake (though you could, and some did.) You asked them, because the asking was part of what it meant to be human, and the asking was part of the pursuit of the betterment of humanity.

And what could possibly be better, be more crucial, be more worth devoting his time at the University to than that?

He could have said all of that, of course: thoughts teeming in his head, but it didn’t feel right, dismissing Master Sympathist’s subject before him, and what did it matter? He knew the University regarded Rhetoric and Logic, and pretty much all the non-Arcanum subjects as idle pursuits: that your life, in their eyes, only truly began when you entered the Arcanum.

All of these thoughts sounded only like mere justifications, and he was beginning to learn there were points when there was no argument to be made, by rhetoric or by logic. There was, in fact, no argument necessary at all.

So instead, “I don’t, sir,” he repeated, simply, and he left the classroom, closing the door behind him.

[Archer]

Kinda digging the 12 hour waiting period. Some thoughts:
-TJ said Drake has been claim baity in PMs. I don't think Drake goes after me for phishing if evil. It draws attention to their evil strategy and leads to allegations of hypocrisy.
-(@ Drake that's on you for posting RP without analysis then. I went looking for content to engage with and found very little, so I was forced to read into analysis packaged as RP. Hence my annoyance when you, who had only RPed, seemed to be complaining people weren't introducing themselves and their thoughts enough - which seemed to turn into votes on just people who made an effort to do more than RP. My theoretical elim profile would be the opposite, I'm looking for people who say a lot to get the mechanical edge, but otherwise avoid contraversy. I consider putting myself out there with wild OOC suggestions like role claiming to be vote baiting in a round where the smart thing would be to safely focus on saying nothing through RP.)
-JNV was C2edin MR64. Mat placed that kill so I don't think he, and less certain but probably his teammate TJ, would take the JNV shot early in this game if they were evil.
-Genuinely confused why people are splitting their votes. Thought it was e!cautiousness but everybody is doing it

 

Edit: just ignore half of that. he got attacked, he's village 

Also I've been roleblocked by the exe, in case you're wondering why we're bothering to vote for people 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Archer

[Kasimir]

[TAG: RP, 650 words, ANALYSIS, 807 words]

2 minutes ago, Archer said:

-TJ said Drake has been claim baity in PMs. I don't think Drake goes after me for phishing if evil. It draws attention to their evil strategy and leads to allegations of hypocrisy.

[OOC: Given that Drake functionally had to be Elim attacked, and the Elims have no incentive to WGG this given that escaping is a d20 roll, this is a pointless statement. Tempted to V read but also cautious given Crocodile and history of deliberate 'slips'.]

3 minutes ago, Archer said:

-(@ Drake that's on you for posting RP without analysis then. I went looking for content to engage with and found very little, so I was forced to read into analysis packaged as RP. Hence my annoyance when you, who had only RPed, seemed to be complaining people weren't introducing themselves and their thoughts enough - which seemed to turn into votes on just people who made an effort to do more than RP. 

[OOC: I don't understand why you would, on seeing little content, therefore assume that all RP must be packaging analysis. That's just ridiculous on so many levels, and blast it, it's your sort of kayana yeah okay fine.]

4 minutes ago, Archer said:

My theoretical elim profile would be the opposite, I'm looking for people who say a lot to get the mechanical edge, but otherwise avoid contraversy. I consider putting myself out there with wild OOC suggestions like role claiming to be vote baiting in a round where the smart thing would be to safely focus on saying nothing through RP.)

[OOC: Drake's suspicions on you, which he volunteered to me early on in our PM and was the basis of my V read on him, were because he felt you essentially were role phishing and it was a step too far to....eh honestly I'm just gonna summarise our thoughts even if it's putting more effort visibly into the game than I'd wanted to because might as well. It'll also summarise my going back and forth about you:

Well actually I can legally just put mine down, I believe I have to summarise Drake's, but mine is legal:

Drake solicited my view of you pretty early into the game. This was more or less my line of thought, edited for clarity/length:

First level thought: typical Archer, V him is a bit more inclined to big/grand plans than E him, so I would lean a bit V just off that basis, plus he has to know that looks pretty bad.

Second level thought: not a strong V inclination all things-

Ok, anyway, second level thought: I could see a slightly V angle depending on what he does because I feel it's at the very least some form of reaction test. SDs guaranteed to want sight of that PM group. He's provoked a reaction. Even if they don't jockey to join, we'll probably see some paggro in the thread + assumptions they are being excluded, which would be indicative of a clear perspective here (think Mat, Fifth et al automatically assuming Roshar was a strong trust rather than chaotic conclave - Elims tend to assume Village circles are more solid or organised than they are if they have no sight of them.) That's something I would keep an eye out for. Village points if Archer really is trying to assess and weigh reactions, but then he has to put up, so as to speak, and anyway that's none of my business.

Third level thought: I could see it as an E!Archer play to infomax but I'm not necessarily sure E!him would open with such a bold gambit. I feel it's more a you thing, so maybe plausible on a you/Archer team but also feel you would've just done it yourself rather than delegating to Archer. But I can't rule it out.

Overall: very slight V lean, as usual, will revise, but also

So my initial V lean was predicated on the thought you were doing a reaction test, but then I felt like I didn't see much analysis coming from that end, so I wasn't sure I could offer the V read, or at least keep justifying it. I chose not to flesh that out further in thread, both because chill RPful game, and because highlighting it would taint the test. It wasn't helped by the Steel defense vote, especially since M1 me thought Steel was Evil. (I'm not so sure anymore given utter inactivity.)

Drake's sus was essentially based off three grounds: the AA move looked phishy and he didn't feel it was V!phishy, he felt you were too defensive, and he didn't like your Steel defense.

I will say I am just very confused about you right now and want to know what you got out of the reaction test. Because I think an intuitive read of the Drake shot is that Drake was the main guy pushing you, but the other intuitive read is that it's meant to frame you. I think my bottom line is that I could and my reflex is to ascribe a weak V read on the basis of the reaction test, but that's predicated on my read being correct, and as Drake pointed out, it's easily countered by arguing you were E!phishing. I don't disagree about avoiding controversy but I note that bold plays are your wheelhouse, E or V. 

I am not sure where I stand right now on you. I do feel like you're genuinely trying to solve and I could see you v. Drake as a V/V barfight but then there are unpleasant implications that quite honestly I'm not sure I signed up for >> ]

14 minutes ago, Archer said:

-Genuinely confused why people are splitting their votes. Thought it was e!cautiousness but everybody is doing it

[OOC: Mostly being ok with most of the main trains, at least on my part. I wasn't okay with the Drake train but wasn't sure there was anything much I could do about it, so just shrugged and moved on.]

xxix. party

Kevan was packing his books and his notes back into his bag at the end of Siaru class when one of his classmates, another Yllish by the name of Eamen called out to him. “Hey, Kevan,” Eamen said, drifting over to Kevan’s desk. A few of their classmates tended to mistake dark-haired Eamen for someone from the Commonwealth: his Aturan was flawless, and lacked any trace of the typical Yllish accent.

“Hey,” Kevan said, wondering what Eamen was up to. 

“Are you going for the party?”

Kevan was tired enough—at least that was what he would tell himself; it was midterms season, after all—that it took him several long moments to register the question. He blinked.

“The what?” he found himself asking.

Eamen smiled. Some of their classmates seemed to find it disarming. Kevan allowed himself to concede they had a point. There were rumours that Rethis was asking Eamen to tutor her in Siaru, only those sessions involved a lot more than mere tutoring. “Master Isaak is holding a party for his new E’lir, but students in his Siaru classes are invited to join. You didn’t hear of it?”

Kevan hadn’t. He supposed that the Siaru class was small enough, though he wondered briefly what had happened to the rest of the classes that the Master Linguist taught.

“It’s midterms,” he said, for want of something to say. “You all have time to attend a party?”

Great, Kevan thought, dispiritedly, but it was too late to take those words back. Now he just sounded judgemental as all hell. 

Eamen laughed, and slung a friendly arm about Kevan’s shoulder. “C’mon, live a little. There’re rumours that the class is haunted by the ghost of an E’lir who died at some point during the term. Shows up for class and for none of the class dinners, goes on about the midterms…”

He—it was tempting, Kevan had to admit. Part of him wanted to. Maybe it was the friendly warmth in Eamen’s voice, the half-invitation there. Maybe it was because he was tired, and it’d been a long day, and he only had his rooms at the Gyre and Wade to go back to, with Soren and Owyn tied up with that scriv class, and Valerra spending extra hours on her end-of-term project in the labs, and Jarvik was occupied for that evening.

Perhaps it was because Eamen’s words had made him realise how very lonely he felt, sometimes. He had friends, of course, but Kevan had never deluded himself: they’d probably drift apart the moment they stopped sharing classes. Something in him hated that thought, but a part of him was resigned to it. They were friends because they drifted in the same circles, took the same classes, were caught in the same currents at the University. When the currents pulled them elsewhere, they would go with it, caught in its wake like paper boats on the Omethi.

You could want the warmth of that fire, brief flickers of human warmth, something to hold against the coldness of the world.

But there were the midterms, and his tongue seemed to catch in his mouth, and he didn’t even want to consider hours of having to deal with Master Isaak outside a classroom, or classmates he barely knew, in a setting where they weren’t trying to conjugate Siaru verbs or decline them, or—

His jaw firmed. Easier to deal with people in classes. And he had midterms. And he’d sworn he wouldn’t disappoint the Masters. Master Anders had gone out on a limb for him, after all. The way Kevan saw it, the least he could do was to keep his promise, and that meant studying hard.

He shook his head, and slipped away, politely. “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” he said, lightly. “Give my regards to the others. I’m drowning in papers and deadlines right now, unfortunately. It’s one of those terms.”

[STINK]

I can and will be sus of Araris for instantly voting me twice for a pyramid scheme that I wasn't even a part of and ruining my uni career smh

[Mat]

His food was fine. Mediocre, really. As Francis chewed on the carrots and asparagus he’d made, he tried to tell himself how good it was, but he could see the self-delusion in that without too much trouble. It was… just a pile of vegetables he hadn’t even grown himself.

Did warming them up even count as cooking?

Rationally, he knew he’d done more than simply warm them. The char on the edges was flawless, and they had the perfect amount of seasoning. But those things seemed small when paired with a starting ingredient as cheap as money could buy. Every time he cooked in this little room, Francis felt as if he could be doing and learning so much more. It was why he’d come to the University in the first place. But, of course, the Masters didn’t care how good your asparagus was.

At least he’d doubled down on his studies recently, even earning some of their approval. But there was something hollow in even that. University life taught him much, yes, but it wasn’t fulfilling. He was born to be a cook— no, a chef. You didn’t just have the ability to grow a perfect curly mustache for no reason.

Francis sighed, his eyes being drawn to the outside. It was the final month of the term, which meant that stress levels were at an all-time high as he frantically tried to earn enough money to stay at the University. He thought he’d be able to stay. But you could never be sure until it was over.

As if the end of term 1 was ‘over’. Francis chuckled at that, then caved into the pull he felt and left to explore the surrounding towns, because he might not get another chance.

[Kasimir]

[TAG: RP, 756 words]

xxx. stone

It was early in the morning, a few hours prior to his first class of the day, and Kevan’s feet had brought him here, not to the Stonebridge, but beyond it, to the banks of the Omethi as it surged on past the Stonebridge. 

He picked up a stone. It wasn’t flat, not the sort you used for skipping. It was light, however, and he discarded it and picked up another one, brushing the dust off of it. He was seven again, and his father wasn’t teaching him to skip stones, was telling him instead, “You have to find a stone that’s nice and weighty, the proper sort that sits heavy in your hand.” He went through the stones that Kevan had gathered.

“See, this one’s no good,” Jair said, and flung it far out, so it skipped several times before sinking into the lake. “That’s a skipping stone, not the proper sort.”

“What’s the proper sort though, Pa?” Kevan had asked, at that time.

“Heavy,” Jair said. “It’s the sort of stone that carries a burden of its own.” He went on through the pile of stones that Kevan had gathered, weighting them. He flung one or two more away, small pale rocks that glittered with inclusions in the light as being too pretty, too insignificant. “Ah, there we go.” It was a rough chunk of dark rock, almost-black in the light. “Feel it.” Kevan took it in his hand and hefted it. It felt like the sort of rock you flung away from you; it was heavy in a way the other rocks hadn’t felt, and it wasn’t proper for skipping at all.

“Well, if we aren’t skipping it, then what are we doing?”

“Thing is,” said Jair, “Sometimes, there’s too many thoughts in our head. Sometimes they’re weighing you down.”

Kevan considered that. “Like when you’ve done a whole amazing day, but you come home and you’re tired and everything’s tired, all the way in your bones,” he said, thoughtfully. “It’s sinking, and you’re sinking. It’s weird I guess.”

Jair was silent for a long moment, his back to Kevan.

“Yeah,” his father said, at last, very slowly. “Like that, I guess. Well, anyway. I’m going to teach you a trick, okay? Something to make all of that noise disappear. I want you to give those thoughts and worries to the stone.”

“What?” 

“Talk to it,” Jair instructed. “Or write it down. Give it to the stone.”

It felt different from those mental exercises the schoolmaster had, Kevan thought. It wasn’t like holding Spinning Leaf, or the Heart of Stone. It wasn’t playing Seek the Stone. He felt the roughness of the stone rasping against his skin, the weight of it, balanced against his palm. He imagined inscribing those wordless worries on it: the tiredness in his bones, the voices that told him he wouldn’t amount to anything, that he was wasting his time.

One by one, he gave them to his stone.

And then, when he was ready, he looked up at his father.

“Throw it into the lake,” Jair instructed.

Kevan flung it, a smooth underarm throw. Watched as the stone arced into the lake, sinking through the clear waters.

“Imagine the water cleansing your mind,” his father said. “Sorting it all out, taking the stone and everything you’ve written on it.”

He was older now, and he hefted the stone he’d picked. He didn’t know how to put it all in: that jumble of fear and inadequacy and guilt and the creeping knowledge he wasn’t good enough, had never been good enough, felt like an imposter, like everyone else was working with a set of rules he didn’t know, how he’d always said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, didn’t know, wasn’t enough—

They threatened to overwhelm him, at first. But he’d picked a big stone, a solid stone, weighty enough to carry it all, and one by one, he inscribed them onto the stone. When he was ready, he flung it into the Omethi.

Imagined the river accepting the stone, washing him clean in its waters. Understood, as he listened to the song of the river, that there was a rhythm to life, as there was a rhythm to the Omethi, to the tides, to the passage of students over the Stonebridge, and onto the University grounds.

He breathed it in, and let the Omethi wash his mind clean.

Then he headed back to the Archives, to get in a bit of study before Siaru class could begin.

[Archer]

2 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Did warming them up even count as cooking?

I feel attacked rn

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

 

[OOC: Given that Drake functionally had to be Elim attacked, and the Elims have no incentive to WGG this given that escaping is a d20 roll, this is a pointless statement. Tempted to V read but also cautious given Crocodile and history of deliberate 'slips'.]

 

Yeah ignore that part of the pre write. Surprised you didn't call me out for potentially killing off my biggest adversary. Worth noting that Drake and JNV are very different kill choices - can't think of the pattern. 

3 hours ago, STINK said:

I can and will be sus of Araris for instantly voting me twice for a pyramid scheme that I wasn't even a part of and ruining my uni career smh

I'm leaning village on people who have double voted a single target. It's shows conviction. But it's does seem like him doing C2 is a little odd, that's more of what I consider a C1 Araris vote. You gonna vote for him? 

How'd people erase votes? 

*

Reads list rn

Yeah: Mat, Kas, TKN, JNV, Drake, TJ

Nah: Steel, Wonko, Ash, Araris, Szeth, Stink, Sart

Ash + Araris 

[STINK]

39 minutes ago, Archer said:

You gonna vote for him? 

You know what sure Araris wouldn't wanna not put my red where my black test was. 

Also looking at your reads list it just kinda looks to me like if you're name starts with an S or an A then there's a heavy bias to overcome you should work on that

[Araris Valerian]

6 hours ago, STINK said:

I can and will be sus of Araris for instantly voting me twice for a pyramid scheme that I wasn't even a part of and ruining my uni career smh

I can and will be sus of you proposing said pyramid scheme. 

A quick PSA: Don't forget to send in orders for your lodging by the end of the cycle, unless you're a skindancer

I'm currently most suspicious of Wonko and STINK right now. Nothing's changed about STINK, except that he's since placed a retaliatory complaint. Suspicion of Wonko is based on his interactions with Kas last month.

3 hours ago, Archer said:

How'd people erase votes? 

Staying at the Golden Pony cancels up to 2 complaints. You can probably do something with Naming to a similar effect, but otherwise I don't know any other ways to cancel complaints. Keeping that in mind, anyone voting on Ash or Kas should be prepared to get other people to follow suit.

---

Aralor peered at the directions he'd written himself as he walked the streets outside the University. He'd heard of a strange creature someone was keeping as a pet, and thought that perhaps an odd companion would be a conversation starter as he tried to ease further into the University life. Rounding a corner, he spied a cloth-covered box or cage, roughly a foot cube, that was where he'd arranged to make the pickup. Whoever had dropped off the creature apparently hadn't stuck around. Reaching a hand tentatively out, Aralor lifted the cloth to examine his new companion. Curled on the floor of the cage was some kind of bird, and as soon as it saw Aralor it raked at his hand with a talon. He withdrew quickly, marveling at the speed of the animal, and feeling sorry for it's condition at the same time. Its feathers had been ragged and dull, and a wound on it left leg seemed to be healing slowly. Aralor hefted the cage and began retracing his steps.

Later, back in his rooms, Aralor took some scraps of meat and fed his new friend. His first instinct that it was a bird didn't seem quite right. It had the feathers, but it wasn't proportioned quite right to fly. It's long tail seemed more for balancing while running, and each "wing" was rather stubby. It's mouth, talons, and appetite clearly indicated it was a predator, though one currently in no condition to hunt. Aralor resolved to pay the Medica a visit to inquire about the care of large predatory birds. Who knew, maybe he'd meet someone with similar interests. He covered the cage again and headed to bed for the night, his last thought before sleeping was of a name for his new pet. A fast running birdlike creature. Velocity seems like an appropriate name.

[Archer]

I'm sorry you're idiots.
Jincs quickly erased half the sentence from the blackboard before anyone noticed. It wasn't worth getting extra detention over.
I'm sorry for shredding complaints.
Had they really been shredding them? Chopping might be more accurate. Or mincing. Dicing. Using as toilet paper because they committed to a poop before they checked if the stall had any left and they didn't want to waddle over to the next stall and risk getting caught with their pants down.
I'm sorry for evicerating complaints.
Was that how it was spelled? It didn't look right. Maybe they should change that word.
I'm sorry for destroying complaints.
Perfect. One down, only nine hundred and ninety-nine lines left to write.
I'm sorry for destroying my pants.
Sheesh that trauma kept creeping back. Maybe they were the idiot. You always check before you poop, it's rule one of public washrooms.
I'm sorry for destroying complaints.
Wasn't there a way to magically write stuff on the chalk board? Or did it only work for writing names. They should have paid more attention in naming class.
I'm sorry for
They snapped the chalk. "Master, I need another one. Oh, all of the chalk in this room has mysteriously been stolen? Wonder when that happened, oh well! Guess I can't finish this assignment today, byeeee." 

*

57 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

 

Staying at the Golden Pony cancels up to 2 complaints. You can probably do something with Naming to a similar effect, but otherwise I don't know any other ways to cancel complaints. Keeping that in mind, anyone voting on Ash or Kas should be prepared to get other people to follow suit

Kinda like the perseverance on the STINK vote.

And I guess I need to try twice as hard to murder Ash then. Araris Ash

Edited August 1, 2023 by Archer

[Kasimir]

[TAG: DISCUSSION, 187 words so it shouldn't count]

[OOC: Shard seems to have eaten post. Argh. Love mobile.

@Archer

1. That post was more aggressive to you but mid-writing, you sent me a PM soliciting my views on TKN and lobbying for E!TKN. That's not really a thing I see E!Archer doing. I think you'd let me keep staying out of things. Although I am still grumpy y'all can't respect the desire to stay out and chill >>

I didn’t really want to delete the post so posted it anyway just to solicit thoughts but watered down the attack as I don't really feel as sold on E!you as I had been.

Some value also of self-interest. If you're E and killed Drake for pushing you, you'd probably kill me too and then I wouldn’t hit 50k. So do I want to be pushing E!you? Hmmmmm.

2. Commoners can start at the Golden Pony. It removes up to two complaints on you.

3. @Araris Valerian What about that exchange with Wonko? 

Will fix for formatting later. Mobile is awful. And putting my RP here from my stash on mobile isn't something I'm looking forward to.]

Edited August 2, 2023 by Kasimir

[Mat]

Why has not everyone posted. Why are there only 18 posts? It’s KKC. Semi serious question here disregarding the fact that I know there isn’t an answer.

Araris Sart

Really don’t have a lot to go off of here but I don’t feel that’s my fault lol

Fake page break on mobile lesgo (also note that, like the writeups, Francis’ whereabouts are not necessarily accurate to my own :P. And again I’ll stress that I haven’t read KKC so expect inaccuracies lol)

_____________________________________

At certain places, Imre felt like another world. Francis passed musicians such as himself, shops advertising extravagant outfits and costumes, and inns where an alien warmth spilled from within, all things that he just hadn’t seen while attending the University.

The occasional seedy alleyway and ramshackled bar, however, did a fine job of destroying the illusion of utopia. No doubt the Black Market was in full swing, and no one seemed to care. Francis wasn’t even sure he cared. At the very least, it was a reminder that even his poor living conditions were preferable to a life on the streets. His anxieties regarding money grew, and he did his best Tom push them aside.

Right about then he passed the Loaded Dice, and considered going in to toss a throw. He’d had some luck as a youth, and it could be a way to earn some swift money. Or lose all he had. No, he wasn’t quite that desperate.

It would be a much better use of his time to just get a drink at a bar of good report. Yes, he could get a drink at his own inn, but he preferred a beverage that tasted pleasant once in awhile. If only he’d trained himself as a bartender.

[Kasimir]

[TAG: RP, 596 words]

[OOC: Because this is different from say how much the Village has been into things in recent games... /s I am a bitter old man I get it. As I said, why I'm done with hardKasing.

Tbh slight V to Mat. Idc if cheap E!Mat takes the easy win and moves on.]

xxxi. practice

“Master Isaak?” Kevan asked, approaching the master as he set up for the upcoming lesson. Master Isaak was scrawling the main Siaru verb conjugations on the chalkboard, using the simple example of the verb for studying. Which was an uncomfortable reflection of the state of affairs at the University near midterms, but so was partying. Despite the ever present skindancer threat hanging over them as a dark stormcloud, life at the University went on. Students went to classes (or skipped out on them), fretted over midterms, locked themselves into study carrels in the Archives to study, held parties, caroused, played corners…

Master Isaak looked up from his book. “Yes?”

“Where would you recommend I look for more exercises on Siaru grammar?” Kevan wanted to know. “Is there a text in the Archives you could recommend? I’ve done what I could, but I’m still fairly weak in it and I’m quite concerned about that.”

“Do the exercises in the folio,” the Master Linguist said.

The folio had been distributed to the students, and copied via the sympathy press. Sometimes, Kevan wondered how the University had functioned prior to the invention of the sympathy press, which made possible the swift and flawless copying of documents, where once, Masters had to rely on paid student scribes who could be tired, who could lose interest or run out of focus, who could make mistakes or leave blotches on the paper…

Most of the exercises in the folio, however, had been fairly straightforward, though one or two of them had left him scratching his head and consulting his annotated copy of Hammer’s Guide to Siaru Grammar. Some of them were odd things: you had to simply commit to memory the conjugation of the word for existence, because it inflected differently, as did the word for making, which made Kevan wonder if the Cealdim had any special regard for making. He wondered, as well, if anyone had ever thought to read into the meaningless ‘do’ in Aturan: theoretically inherited from contact with Yllish (again, reciprocity, Yllish grammar written into relations: you could not own, not without ownership transforming both the owner and the owned. The Yllish had changed their Aturan masters, just as much as the Aturans had transformed Yll.)

Laughed at his own folly. Of course they had: students were wont to read into anything and everything.

“The textbook?” Master Isaak suggested. “Do the textbook.”

Which he’d gone through even before going into the folio, on the reasoning that working through the Siaru 1 textbook was bound to be more foundational than the folio.

“...You’ve done the textbook already, haven’t you?”

“Regrettably, yes sir,” Kevan said.

“How about Foundational Siaru, by Tehim Rakis?” Master Isaak offered, after some thought. “Any scriv in the Archives should be able to locate you a copy—Rakis’s text is actually a bit dated and I’m not really sure I’d consider it as good an introduction to Siaru as the text we’re using, but all things considered, you’re only interested in the grammatical exercises, rather than the text itself.”

Kevan nodded. “I’ll look for it, sir.”

“Don’t forget to work on your written and spoken Siaru as well,” Master Isaak cautioned. “Grammar is foundational, but without vocabulary or practice in actually communicating in Siaru, it is of limited use. Get a classmate and practise with them, as much as you can.”

Kevan’s thoughts wandered briefly to Eamen, and then he shook his head ruefully. Most of the class was preoccupied with midterms, or among other things, with the usual student pursuits.

“I will, Master,” he said, simply.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Kasimir

[Archer]

"You didn't have to apologize," the Master whose name Jincs had forgotten intoned. "No one told you to write lines. Who let you in here anyway? And what happened to my chalk!"
"You mean this chalk?" Jincs threw the pile of crushed chalk into the air. As the Master fell into a fit of coughing, Jincs tucked and rolled out the doorway.
"You'll never take me alive!" They ran through the halls, only pausing for a moment to rip down a disgusting paper poster. 
They made it outside and started heading home. 
"Seriously, what was his name..." Jincs tried to remember the names of everyone, anyone they knew. But they couldn't. "I should get some more sleep. What's the point of living in a nice hotel if I never use it."
The Horse and Four was a good place to crash for the evening. Unfortunately, the house band wasn't very talented. The Hoarse Four were as good singers as their names implied, and Jincs was almost certain the talent pipes they wore were fake.
"Maybe that's why I'm so tired..." Jincs checked at the bar for death threats, but the only mail they'd been sent that day was a tuition bill. They chose to ignore it. "See ya in the morning, whoever you are. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day."

51 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

[OOC: Shard seems to have eaten post. Argh. Love mobile.

@Archer

1. That post was more aggressive to you but mid-writing, you sent me a PM soliciting my views on TKN and lobbying for E!TKN. That's not really a thing I see E!Archer doing. I think you'd let me keep staying out of things. Although I am still grumpy y'all can't respect the desire to stay out and chill >>

I didn’t really want to delete the post so posted it anyway just to solicit thoughts but watered down the attack as I don't really feel as sold on E!you as I had been.

Some value also of self-interest. If you're E and killed Drake for pushing you, you'd probably kill me too and then I wouldn’t hit 50k. So do I want to be pushing E!you? Hmmmmm.

2. Commoners can start at the Golden Pony. It removes up to two complaints on you.

 

1.Shh I wasn't gonna tell TKN I ever suspected them. If you're reading this, TKN, don't believe these outrageous falsehoods. 

2. Not a fan. Rich people should get all the perks

15 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

 

Araris Sart

Really don’t have a lot to go off of here but I don’t feel that’s my fault lol

 

So, opposite read as mine on Araris? 

[Mat]

5 minutes ago, Archer said:

So, opposite read as mine on Araris?

What if I said no here? :thinking:

[Kasimir]

[TAG: RP, 967 words]

[OOC: @Archer Sorry, kind of mentioned as much to TKN to get his side of things. Didn't have mental bandwidth to think through high level deception plays and wasn't interested but since he also PMed me about you and I was worried you guys were trying the same sort of play E!Araris and E!TJ used on me in LG93...

It's the basis for some value of positive read on both of you, so. 

Once again y'all cannot respecc a guy's chill RPful game smhhhhh let me just hit 50k in peace :sob:]

xxxii. lannis massacre

Soren, Valerra, and Jarvik were arguing about something that had come up in the Fae Lore class being conducted by Master Alys. In light of the skindancer threat, Kevan’d expected the class to also have been oversubscribed, and from what Valerra’d said, he was proven correct.

“We don’t have very good records from the last time the University dealt with a skindancer incursion,” Valerra was saying, “And it’s easy to understand why. The Lannis Massacre—”

“—For those of us who aren’t taking Fae Lore, do you think you could explain what the Lannis Massacre is?” Kevan interjected.

“It happened on Lannis, years ago,” Jarvik explained. “Master Namer Solon attacked all the other Masters with Naming. Accounts of what happened that day are incoherent, partly because no one survived, so everything is just everyone else trying to piece things together.”

“Well, how do we know what we do about the Lannis Massacre then?” Kevan wanted to know. Something about it felt like—felt like Eithne’s one-Re’lar crusade to restore the fragments of lost Yll, the way you had to piece practices together from ten different tracts, seven of which were written by Aturans who exoticised practices they’d heard about from hearsay, and made even wilder by gossip, and three of which were translated poorly from story knots, and then lost because Yll had never had a written tradition: anything important was captured in story knots and sometimes you lost nuance, or depending on your point of view, gained far too much nuance. You used story knots for the big things, for tradition, for history, for accounts, rather than the small things like recipes for flatbread, though part of Kevan wondered if they were mistaken even in that. So much of how to read the story knots was lost, after all.

“Malcalum Devare was supposed to be brought on the Horns, an hour after Rath was brought before the Masters,” Soren said. “He wrote an account of his discovery, and then some of the senior El’the had to take charge,” he glared at Valerra, “But the account speculates a lot about what went on that day, and people get over-excited about the fact that Devare is theoretically a primary source and ignore the fact that he was speculating about what went on in that room. We don’t know. In fact, we don’t even know that Master Solon killed them all.”

“Don’t we?” Valerra countered. “Their blood boiled in their veins, Soren! The room was barred, and every single Master who wore a gram—they found the grams, warped into uselessness. That took Mastery of several Names at once, and I don’t care if you are a Master, the use of multiple Names points to Master Solon.”

Soren sighed. “Look,” he said, “I don’t really disagree it had to be Master Solon. I’m just pointing out how little we know about the state of events, if even Devare, who’s taken as the premier source on the matter is just—speculating.”

Jarvik said, surprisingly harsh, “He was basking in the notoriety. Being the E’lir to walk away from the disaster because Master Solon struck then and not an hour later.”

“I think he would have felt shaken,” Kevan said. He tried to imagine it, to put himself in the shoes of an E’lir who had just discovered a massacre. Aware of how close death had come. Aware of the fact he had walked away from it, for the moment, by the whim of the then-Master Namer, or by the grace of God. 

“Probably,” agreed Jarvik. “After all, he’s only human. But he still made an entire publishing career out of it.”

“And why exactly…” Kevan cast about for the words he was trying for. “Why did this come up?”

“We’re discussing the Lannis Massacre in class,” Soren explained. “Part of it is Master Alys trying to explain the difficulty of piecing together what happened when there’s an event for which there’s no living witnesses.”

“But they did have physical evidence,” Valerra objected. “And while I really don’t disagree with both of you about Devare—he still made observations about the condition of the bodies and the room. The El’the and gillers who took over weren’t in any condition to be doing too much forensics, they were too busy trying to keep the University from falling apart. This means that even if Devare exaggerated at times, there’s kernels of truth there to be found. No reasonable reconstruction of the Lannis Massacre can simply ignore Devare.”

“You’re forgetting Egert’s records,” Soren objected. To Kevan, he said, “He was a senior giller in Archives, who took up the task of writing about the events several months later.”

“The problem is that Egert focuses on everything that happens after the Lannis Massacre,” Valerra pointed out. “In fact, he has exactly two pages where he records the disposal of the bodies and the need to convene new Masters. He doesn’t even mention the condition of the corpses because they weren’t of interest to him.”

“But if it’s Master Solon,” Kevan said, sensing they’d go on if he didn’t, and this was one question that had troubled him, “Why did he do it?”

“The University was in danger,” Jarvik shrugged. “Who wouldn’t act?”

“But…” Kevan stumbled, struggled for the words. “Those were Masters. Colleagues he’d worked with, for months if not years. And he called Names and burned them all alive. Destroyed their grams, and made sure they couldn’t escape.” And in doing so, he’d trapped himself in that same room. Master Namer Solon, Kevan figured, hadn’t intended to survive: he’d intended to kill every last one of them. The implacability of it all, the harshness it took to make such a decision, to write himself off…

Kevan struggled to grasp it. Part of him, however, understood it only too well.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Kasimir

[Sart]

Sarenrae examined her fellow students in order to see what they had to offer.

• Francis (Matrim's Dice) was a terrible cook. Salt was meant to be used as a preservative, or a component in alchemy. It was not meant to drown out all other flavors, and lead to a desperate desire for water. She glared at him. "Are you trying to poison us?" she accused. Matrim's Dice.
• Cavothee (The Known Novel) had decided to invent unique headware. The idea seemed promising, although the fashion was a bit lacking. A holly hat was a glowing bright sign to the skindancers, saying "Remove me first!" If the technology was converted into an amulet, or some other method of concealment, that could potentially save a life.
• Issal (Ashbringer) had found a field that accommodated them well. A Re'lar could be a useful ally. Sarenrae had to admit she was slightly jealous. Now if only Issal would get his head out of the clouds. Then they could actually tackle the problem at hand.
• Aralor (Araris Valerian) had found some sort of hunting bird. Sarenrae would love to study such an exotic creature. She hadn't studied falconry at all, but knew such creatures could be used for reconnaissance. It was an intriguing proposition.
• Jincs (Archer) was struggling to apologize. She hadn't paid much attention to the arguments surrounding him, but they felt slightly overblown. Still, his conniving attitude rubbed her the wrong way. However, it wasn't the stench of a skindancer. It was more the stench of an arrogant prick.
• Kevan (Kasimir) had re-enrolled after getting expelled from the university. Why in the world did the professor's agree to that? If she heard correctly, he nearly burned down the school. She debated whether a skindancer would do an act of sabotage so publicly. Probably not, but during his abscence and hiatus, he could have been replaced.

After examining the complaints from the previous cycle, she also decided to lodge a complaint against TJ. The two votes he did seemed opportunistic, and something about them made her hair stand on end.

[Kasimir]

[TAG: RP, 1183 words]

xxxiii. elevation 

“Congratulations, Re’lar Kevan,” Master Anders said, the moment Kevan stepped into the classroom.

Kevan had dreaded this moment, a little: dreaded he might catch a flash, a glimpse of disappointment in Master Anders’s eyes, had in fact come to class early, perhaps because of that, perhaps in spite of that. He found himself flinching, as though expecting a blow to fall.

But all he saw was Master Anders’s good-humoured smile, and warmth in his pale eyes.

“I…Thank you, sir,” he said, numbly. Felt as though he had left himself, or become a ghost, watching himself speak with Master Anders.

In a way, he’d always expected to be raised by Master Anders, at a more seemly time. (Always the shadow of Kvothe lingered, if you moved too quickly, broke too many things. Whispers abounded, of him and Issal, a quiet student from Latria who’d taken some Alchemy alongside Percyl, or so Kevan had heard. Moved too quickly. Advanced too fast.)

(You’re advancing too quickly, said the voice, the one he knew too well, too intimately. Kevan had learned by now that rising too quickly, or even good fortune, was begging for the world to smite you for pride. You didn’t crave good things, or wish they’d happen to you. You didn’t deserve good things, not really, not truly; believing otherwise was pride and if you were proud, the world went out of its way to trip you up and grind your face in the dust, and he only wondered what hell there’d be to pay for it later on.)

What could he really say?

“I’d expected it to be you, sir”? That seemed to demand, to articulate expectations he never would have had, in a thousand years. Master Anders was the judge of whether he was ready, not Kevan, and in Kevan’s own, sincerely-held opinion, he wasn’t. 

At the same time, who was he to argue with Master Bob?

He’d been enough of a coward, the words caught in his mouth, the patient’s blood still drying on his hands, but oh, he’d saved him, and part of Kevan wasn’t even sure how, wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing at all, but the Omethi was singing in his veins, in his blood, and his head was calm and somehow he wasn’t throwing up or being violently sick and the patient lived, and Master Bob was suitably impressed, and apparently short enough of Re’lar (he wouldn’t allow himself this, not the slightest: you did not make Re’lar within the same bloody term at the University, that was the stuff of legends, of Kvothe the Bloodless, of delusion and arrogance, not of fallible human beings, the quintessence of dust.)

He didn’t know he wanted this. He liked the Medica, after all. Liked learning to save lives. Liked the feeling of bone-deep exhaustion, the sort of good tiredness (not the bad one, he pushed away that thought, the way he’d learned to force away the emptiness and the tiredness that crept in late at night, and the memory of the last time he’d seen his father, because he’d never known, and sometimes he’d ask and ask and in his dreams he was chasing after Jair, but there was never any answers, and there would never be any anymore.) It was a small way of making a difference, and he’d fought through the nausea, braved through the discomfort and learned it told him something important.

“I think,” Percyl had said, before everything went to hell in a handbasket, “A Kevan that cares about people is better than a Kevan that doesn’t care.” 

He had to believe it. Master Bob spoke a lot about the physicker’s distance: the need to care, but the need to keep a clear head. Another connection in his head: Sophocles and the piece of ice held tightly in the fist by children. You could not hold on to it too tightly, for the cold bit at you. And you could not let it go.

A songbird, perhaps. The Adem would have likened it to a songbird.

He felt woefully unready. He knew too little, was still struggling to meet expectations in Advanced Sympathy, for all that Master Sympathist was kind. He’d given his word not to let the Masters down, as you did when you met supreme, unexpected grace—kindness extended—that you were most certainly unprepared for. And yet. 

Even now, the world could surprise you. People could surprise you.

Master Anders said, “I presume you’ll be continuing your studies with this department.”

No hint of a question. Kevan had wondered. Sometimes, in the face of such events, he wouldn’t have blamed Master Anders for questioning his commitment to his studies. He’d submitted his re-application with Master Anders’s support, after all. The Master Rhetorician had championed him, had fought for his readmission. Walking away felt like poor repayment.

Even now.

“Sir, of course,” Kevan said. The words caught in his throat: he couldn’t find the right words for what he wanted to say. That taking to his studies in Rhetoric and Logic felt like a bird taking to the skies, or a wild salmon leaping upstream, returning to the spawning grounds. It felt like what he was born to do.

There was the Medica, and the bone-deep satisfaction of lives saved. What you set against the dark and the yawning void in the core of your being at night.

And there were the texts he studied, often with Master Anders’s guidance. Questions you asked, and sought to answer, if you were at all human. Perhaps precisely because they were human, because this was them, this was the human condition.

“Do you remember the third chapter of the Precepts, E–Re’lar? The first line?” Master Anders had stumbled on the word, just a little.

“If I am not for myself,” Kevan recited, “Who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”

“Self-obligation,” Master Anders said, softly. “Duties to the self. Kehant Duhen, writing in the eighth century, saw this as the unwavering heart of all ethics. Indeed, as the most fundamental question of ethics in the first place: what duties do we owe to the self?” He looked at Kevan, setting aside his dog-eared copy of the assigned reading for the lesson. “Kevan,” he said. “Whatever it is you study, I think you will be a credit to the University. And I think you should pursue what you choose to. No more, no less.”

If not now, when?

Kevan said, fumbling for the words, “Master…I like Rhetoric and Logic.” Wholly inadequate, but since when weren’t words? Experience, desires; these were often larger than the words you used to try to structure it, to impose some sort of formal limits on it. Some way of conveying it.

“Well, then,” said Master Anders, and Kevan understood that too, that it was a blessing, that, perhaps, he would have had the Master’s blessing, one way or another, and the immensity of that trust and regard staggered him, made him feel unworthy. 

You did not expect kindness. But you received it, regardless.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Kasimir

[Araris Valerian]

Aralor struggled to keep his grip in Velocity's cage as he was jostled by some students on his way to the Medica. Sorry girl, he thought, pausing for a moment to get a firmer grasp and letting several students who looked to be late for class run by. The cage was still covered, since he didn't want to draw any unwanted attention from any of the passersby, and he wanted the bird's future encounters to be controlled, in the hopes of overcoming any bad experiences she'd already had.

Aralor's attempts at socializing had begun to pay off, and he'd mentioned Velocity to the few students he'd begun to start talking with more regularly. One of them, a girl named Sarenrae, had expressed some interest in meeting his "pet", despite his insistence that the bird was injured and not ready to be out and about. Instead, Sarenrae had offered her services as a student in the Medica, and given Velocity's current state that seemed for the best. He suspected that her mistreatment had gone beyond malnurishment and into more direct, physical harm. 

Eventually Aralor reached the Medica, and he set about searching for the table that Sarenrae had mentioned was available.