Chronicla/3/4 (Lorica)

=Instruction block=

Chapter 4.1: The Channeling Academy
Qura wakes up; It's the next day. Andar tells the girls that Intael's party has left for Aeutaril; they are finally free. Qura, remembering why she had left Aeutaril in the first place, registers for the Academy along with Andar, who wants to learn magic of his own, and Tyl, who wants to see what channeling is like. The Channeling Academy has 12 teachers and each takes on 10-20 students once they've paid; tuition is 0.5 m. silver a day. Students register throughout the year and stay for an indeterminate period; they get one teacher per element and every day students attend each of them; however the order in which they have their teachers randomly changes. During registration, they are given a quiz which determines which element they have a focus in; this is a test about personality and how one thinks, rather than ability. They take courses in and practice in the House (school building) of their focus; a student with a focus in air channeling is known informally as an air focuser. the teachers for their focus element will be their House supervisors. Qura finds that her focus is air. They start with water lessons, where they try to lift a ball of water out of a cup; however, Andar and Qura can't control themselves as well as necessary so it just spills right back, even after 3/2 hours of practice (during which the teacher, Reici, gives them advice based on their actions). Then it's lunch, followed by fire lessons; the teacher Darya Eterdyn has them work on producing flame; not only is Qura no good at it, but she ends up burning herself. Andar, meanwhile, is able to create a substantial amount, and Qura cheers for him, though this causes several others (who had been there longer) become a bit upset. Third is air channeling with Ariel Nayfal; Qura hopes that she can actually excel in some area. The class practices wind dances, which involves creating wind in the vicinity (not any wind; but in a specific direction, from a specific direction). As it turns out, Qura has talent for this kind of magic, and in the first period has excelled students who had been there for a week. There Qura makes friends with other air focus students such as Seria. Finally, they have earth class with Triya, where Andar makes progress raising sand out of the ground but Qura doesn't manage to do anything; she lacks the force of will to do so. That afternoon Qura decides to practice more with her air magic, as she is starting to get the hang of it, learning from Seria. A fight breaks out in House Air when rowdy fire focus channelers led by upperclassman Eseudu come in; she identifies these bullies as enemies, however, she is too weak to fight them, and the air channelers are defeated with significant injuries (since air magic isn't that good for offense). The fighting ends when Ariel comes into the room (since they all know that Ariel's way better at channeling than they are). As the others rest and are quickly healed through the use of liquor (water magic), Qura leaves to return back to White Wolf's hideout. Along the way she comes to see Tyl challenging Ariel to prove the versatility of air magic; Ariel makes examples of moves, but Tyl keeps returning to the topic of buffeting another person, which Ariel can't address; Tyl walks away disappointed. When Qura asks Tyl what's going on, Tyl just says that it would be nice to be able to use air magic to buffet another person (and doesn't reveal her real reason for asking about this). Tyl then tells her that channeling isn't at all what she's looking forward to and so she's decided to drop out.

Chapter 4.2: The Princess's First Probe
Qura goes back to dreamscape. The fire bullies, led by Eseudu, take on the air and water channelers out in the courtyard at the evening, while the teachers are at a staff meeting. Everyone gets involved and the place soon turns into a disaster; Qura is in the midst of it all, doing her best to keep herself out of harm's way while the bullies beat up everyone else. However, when Qura becomes their next target, she wills it to all stop out of fear and suddenly, to her awe, everyone is frozen in time. She quickly flees the scene, though she concludes that Reginylgynae was responsible for this magic. The next morning the fire channelers launch a sneak attack and Qura wakes up to find herself sedated and unable to fight them; she realizes that they had unfrozen to find her suddenly gone are all afraid of her magic. Then she is saved as Ariel enters the scene and with some liquor is cured. Qura then storms into House Fire (home to the fire focusers), halting their attacks in midair and freezes them in time, ties them up while they're immobile, then lifts the spell and proceeds to interrogate them one by one. At lunch Darya treats the class to some wine; suspecting attempted poisoning, Qura spills hers and ends up getting to drink from Darya's goblet; however, halfway through their next class Qura collapses from poison, whereupon Andar rushes to get her an antidote wine. Qura recovers and thinks that either someone targeted Darya or Darya had a magic poison specifically targeting Qura; Darya appears too shocked to do anything. In secret, Archmage Nuba Myrmidum meets with Qura and Andar, voicing his suspicion that Darya is up to something more dire than just killing Qura. Andar, Qura and Nuba meet up with the air focusers (which are her and Seria's friends), devising a plot that would reveal Darya. The plan is for Darya to stumble upon a captive, alone Qura, whereupon she would try to kill her; but then the air focusers would intercept, with the principal bearing witness. The team gets to work, binding and gagging Qura in the hall; however, the water focusers entrap and defeat the air focusers, thinking they're the bad guys. Darya also happens upon them at roughly the same time, and starts fighting the water focusers, who she says appears to be binding her. With superior magic, Darya defeats them, then proceeds to free Qura in others' plain sight. Qura takes the occasion to tell Darya that the fire focusers had done it, not the water focusers. Upon hearing this, Darya calls out all the fire focusers and roundly berates them for attacking Qura (the fire focusers of course are dumbfounded by the entire event); Qura and Andar no longer know who to trust. Later, Qura goes to House Water, telling the water focusers that the fire focusers were to blame; however, they call her BS and drag out an air channeler, Olynna, who had evidently spilled the beans on Qura's plan to them because she believed it was too risky for Qura to do this; Qura flees with the water focusers in pursuit until Ariel tells them to stop it. Qura then angrily stalks the courtyard until Olynna comes by. When Olynna arrives, Qura lambasts her, accusing her of having a very bad plan; ultimately Qura unintentionally zaps Olynna with lightning, killing her, in plain sight of Ariel.

Chapter 4.3: Rogue Mage of Syrragil
Shocked, Qura lets herself be bound and taken to see the Archmage, who is by law in charge of crime proceedings within the Academy. Nuba and Darya argue over her punishment; Aria wants her executed for witchcraft but Nuba wants to spare her. Qura is put in the Academy dungeon. After a short while Darya comes in and laments that Qura had committed so many crimes (including many she never committed); this convinces her that someone has been feeding Darya lies. She doesn't have long to think about this, however, as Darya decides to take the law into her own hands by turning Qura's cell into a prison of ice, preventing Qura from breathing. Remembering what Altair had told her, Qura is able to blink and teleport, suddenly finding herself naked in Altair's hotel room. Qura quickly gets dressed and reveals what had happened, with Altair providing comfort and seeking to reconcile himself with her. She also asks about the spells she's been using, and Altair confirms his suspicions that they and many others are made possible by Reginylgynae. The next day, Qura returns to school, while Altair registers for the Academy (incognito, once again). Qura tells everyone she's looking for Darya; Darya of course wouldn't show up because she believes Qura is out for revenge. When Darya fails to show up, she is convinced that Darya is indeed trying to kill her. Meeting up with Nuba, Qura finds Darya and tells Nuba about what Darya had tried to do. Darya and Nuba fight each other in a spectacular channeling battle in which both demonstrate their mastery over all four elements. Here air channeling is used to knock enemies off their feet, avoid or parry attacks, and leap into the air; water channeling is used to block out fire, make enemies slip and freeze water; fire channeling is used to destroy and harm; and earth channeling is used to imprison, smash and block. Ultimately Nuba defeats and kills Darya, promising Qura that everything will now return to normal and that she can feel relieved. Qura waves bye to Nuba, then sneaks into Darya's room, using a lightning bolt to blast her way through the locked doors. There she looks for stuff a rogue mage would take (remembering her training back in Nairu's Revenge), but doesn’t see them. Suspicious, Qura rushes into Nuba's room and finds the Archmage entirely petrified. She screams out in fear, but then Altair, who is right next to her, tells her to calm down and congratulates her on being smart enough to figure out the real culprit. Altair tells Qura his story: After having heard Qura's story in the hotel, he wasn't convinced. He fights Nuba in a duel, using Reginylandrae and forcing the principal to "slip" and use true magic to protect himself from Altair's creae darta spell, which only experienced magi would know to be deadly. Altair then captured him and uses a golden scroll to bring his verdict: death. (The golden scroll is a hacked version of the gold magic from Religiae, in that it is unilateral, not bilateral like all contracts are.) Altair further explains that Nuba knew what face to watch out for (Altair's) and would thus cease his work, which is why Altair sent in Qura first, allowing Nuba to let slip his desire to capture Qura for knowledge as to the secrets of her Reginylgynae.

Chapter 4.4: Modes of Learning
It's over a week later; neither Qura nor Tyl has felt any more hot flashes, indicating that Intael's expedition is no longer after them; Elysian has seemingly disappeared since that one day. It's fourth period (air class), and Qura and Seria practice together on simple levitation (which they've learned several days ago) and are getting okay at it, honing their air channeling skills. After school, Ariel (who favors Qura above her other students) tutors her on a variety of moves for her to practice on, though Qura can't get good at any of them that quickly. When she mentions it to Seria, Seria is jealous of her likeability and challenges her to a match to see whose channeling is better (Seria using her weakest element, earth, and Qura using her strongest). Convinced into going through with it, Qura is defeated, and the two sides smilingly agree that it was a good match. Qura is quite surprised by Seria's abilities and she explains that she perfected and modified a few earth moves based on what she learned from a book. Then Seria explains that these books aren't available for the public and that if Qura wants to get one for air channeling, she would have to steal it. Qura agrees to go together with Seria to steal a book, even though they could be expelled if they were to be discovered. Lake that night they sneak into the Academy's library and manage to take one out with them. The next day they start performing the modified techniques they learned from that book, even into class, but then they get noticed by Ariel, who wants to know how they learned these moves. Ariel sets them up in a prisoner's dilemma situation, questioning them separately and saying she will get the one who doesn't spill into trouble. Qura ends up spilling, while Seria trusted that she wouldn't, so Seria is expelled and as she leaves she tells Qura that she's very disappointed in her. Qura then eavesdrops on Ariel and Janissa talking about the recent trespass into the library and what they were going to do about it; they decide on setting up traps to catch thieves. Qura thinks it highly strange that the Academy would try to block out this kind of information.

Chapter 4.5: Master of the Elements
Qura and Andar had by now been attending the academy for two weeks, doing poorly in earth and fire channeling, moderate in water channeling and excellent in air channeling; she has only mastered a few moves (fire sprays, molding earth, moving water, condensing steam, blasting air, levitating, wind dances). At the end of their first period class (water), the newest student here, Elysian, says he knows all this stuff and wants a commendation from Reici. Reici accepts the challenge, and soon she is testing what Elysian is capable of, while the others watch. Elysian only does the most basic actions, and when Reici asks "is that it?", Elysian asks for Reici to show what moves she wants him to show her. As Reici channels water in various ways, Elysian copies those same actions flawlessly and performs them perfectly right afterward.