Mission 1 - On Campus

Not everybody has arrived on time for the first mission. They can either choose to sit it out or they can request the help of one of the chairman to meet up with their team.

Currently on Campus:

((If your character is currently on campus, feel free to post and you will be added to the list.))

Kachina walked lightly out of the forest, her shoeless footfalls just over the sound of a cat's. She had checked the perimeter of the Academy making sure there were no monsters around, all was clear now. A breeze blew in her direction, blowing her wild black and green hair around tickling her face, she paused to listen to the whispers of the wind. Sometimes if you listen carefully you can hear them, natures children speaking to anyone who will listen. Though, even Kachina could not hear them over the crash of a tree not too far away. She walked toward the noise, already clenching her fist at the thought of a great tree, one of the forest elders or children, being slaughtered. She rounded the corner and her enraged, almost black eyes, falling upon Rhea taking out her anger on a small child of a tree. Her eyes narrowed at Rhea as small stream of black smoke started to swirl out of her leather pouch attached to a bone buckle at her hip, "The trees don't appreciate that, I'll have you know." trying as hard as she could to dilute the malice in her voice. Desah made his full appearance from the pouch and wafted up to Kachina's shoulder and morphed into a small black caterpillar with electric blue soft hairs poking out of it everywhere. This particular form Kachina had created herself (like all of Des's forms), this one could make an annoying high pitched screech, but that was all, it was one of the first she came up with when she was a child. She slightly cringed at Desah being so close to her ear. Desah whispered, "Rhea..." with dozen or so different voices, man, woman, and child, in a unified tone of annoyance. Des didn't particularly like Rhea, her overbearing headstrong nature was what vexed Des the most. Des thought above all she was arrogant. Kachina was usually neutral to Rhea, but not to this, not to killing trees.

Kachina noticed how unkindly Rhea was being to her, and she as simmering with anger, but unlike Rhea she kept her cool, even her expression remained neutral. On the other hand Desah was not so placid. In it's many voices it growled, a threatening primeval rumbling. It sounded strange in Des's voice, one of woman, children and men all at the same time growling in unison. Kachina took a calming breath and told the blue caterpiller, "Peace, Desah." she commanded. All at once the voices ceased though she still could feel it's anger like a weight on her shoulder. Then she turned to Rhea and spoke in a serene manner, hoping inside that her composure would almost mock her, "Perhaps, if you we're to be able to express your anger in other more productive ways, that may even spare Amos the chore of having to amend for your irrational actions." her eyes then narrowed as she addressed the matter of her magic, "That may be true, and every time I use my gift I have a sense of remorse of what I have done. Though I keep in mind, even though I may take energy one day, eventually we all must give it back in the end. I also am one to use it for good not bad." every word she said was true, every day she took life from a tree she would pray to nature to use it for good and to forgive her. Though this was still a matter that made her feel guilty when she sees the greenery wilt and die around her. Rhea certainly new how to hit her well.

Kachina, despite how she had trained herself to be calm on the outside, had in fact a large temper. She really wanted to say a thing or two outside her restricted vocabulary, give Rhea a peace of her mind, show her that Kachina wasn't a push over like all the others. She couldn't stop herself from clenching her fists. Rage started to gain inside her and it felt like a pressure cooker about to explode. She had never really talked to Rhea that much, but now she did she realized Rhea had all of the qualities that Kachina truly hated. It turned out Desah was right about her. In fact Des had now turned back into it's smoke form again, ready to shift into anything. She spoke up and said, "I know it wont change anything, because so darn bullheaded!" she yelled sternly. She ground her teeth and waited for the reply.

Kachina sighed, the fight was out of her now, it wasn't really because of a lack in anger, it was just she ran out of things to say to her. It was the realization that if Kachina got past how dreadfully rude Rhea was then the two could easily become friends and it seemed that they already had quite a good amount of things in common, stubbornness. She also believed in what Rhea said after that, she really thought people shouldn't judge others based on what they believe because that so often happened to her, a voodoo tree hugging chairmen. It was just, Kachina always wanted to be heard so she simply said, "I agree." and walked toward Rhea casually as if she was an acquaintance, not an enemy and asked, "So what got you angry in the first place?" she truly wanted to know. Desah, absolutely appalled by the calm resolution, slipped back into its pouch.

Kachina was pleased with the calming nature of Amos, she hardly new him, but he made you feel like you had known him forever. In truth she had only been hired that year, and once the mission started it seemed like everyone had something to do, so she hardly got to meet anyone properly, she knew that it was going to be easy to befriend Amos. She smiled, "So that was what was bothering her, well I guess it is comforting that they are all safe. You mentioned deaths, has there ever been any." she asked curiously. For an Academy such as this she was almost sure the answer was yes, no matter how saddening it was.

Her hand flew to her mouth in surprise and a gesture that made her want to take back her words. She looked in the direction of where Rhea had disappeared, for an impulsive moment she wanted to run after her and apologize for her words. She spoke in a soft whisper, "I'm so sorry Amos, and to Rhea too. It was wrong of me to ask." she was curious and she really wanted to do so, but it seemed inappropriate and she feared that she would ask yet another wrong question so instead she said, "I wish I could apologize to Rhea." she too had lost someone, her sister.

Saqui was the first born in her family, her parents adored her. She was always perfect, best singer, best cook, obedient, and above all beautiful. Not like Kachina, who was impulsive, rebellious, secretive, and not nearly as enchanting as Saqui. When the Outlanders came back from across the great ocean after such along time, they were legend from long ago, they brought with them torment and disease, and one day Saqui fell sick. Like many others she died, to the sadness of the entire tribe. Everyone, though they didn't admit it, thought that Kachina should have fallen sick, not the beloved Saqui. Her parents disowned her, said that being so disobedient upset the Great Mother and so she took the most cherished member of the tribe. The only person who did not shun her was an old woman named Maiara who was Spirit Speaker and new the ways of Soul Magic and taught the same to her. Despite all that happened to her, she still grieved and missed Saqui in those days, and asked Maiara to teacher the ways of talking to Saqui, to speak to her again, but the Great Mother chose to take the old woman then before she could learn. To this day she still missed both of them.

Kachina hated bad moods, especially when it came to death, it all brought memories of her past rushing back. She wanted to walk away like Rhea did, but she knew she wasn't like that, her sadness was over, or was it? She didn't cry about her past anymore, unless she really thought about it, but most of the time she didn't, crushed it down as she did now. Trying to get away from the sad conversation for the moment she said, "Yeah... So, your Amos? The head magician here? This is was a poor first conversation, but I feel we've now been properly acquainted, it's an honor to meet you." she said in a happy business manner. With a thin trail of black smoke Desah came out and said in it's dozen voices, "So, you are the great Amos? You seem okay, not nearly as rude as that.. Rhea." Desah said frankly. She mentally wanted to stop him from speaking, but that was simply the way Des was, frank and never afraid to speak it's mind.
Kachina cleared her throat, "This is Desah. My.." she almost said pet, but that would of outraged Des, they really were hardly friends, but she guessed that was what Des was, as much as she hated it's personality, "friend." she concluded.

The man could sense a hint of negative feelings in the woman’s tone. It stated that she was a bit unnerved, uneasy, and not wanted to speak about it. The topic of death was not usually something a lot of people like to talk about. But he was there when they needed it. He greeted the woman’s tone with his usual smile. “Yes Miss Kachina. I am Amos the head magician. It is an honor to meet you as well. A bit nice to have another magician running around the campus. It has gotten a bit rare, it seems.”

Desah’s remark had caused him to frown slightly. “You will have to excuse Miss Rhea. I am sure you will find that she is not as rude as you make her out to be. She really is worried about the students well being. Never one to deal with stress well.” He nodded his head at the dark spirit at Kachina’s statement of it being her friend. While he could summon a spirit of his own, Desah had much more personality than his. Plus, it seemed to be more than a simple summon spirit.

(Tell me if that is too hard for you to read)

Instead of expressions it seemed Des could always tend to project his feeling whether it wanted to or not just like expressions. Unfortunately Desah simply wasn't the happy type, and so often you could feel the depression rolling off the spirit like now, but the 'expression' was of deep annoyance and negativity as it said, "Well, at least she isn't here now, and I dearly hope it stays that way, at least until she better attitude." it said sounding quite snobby and presided into Kachina's leather pouch to take a nap, the negativity flowing out of the space with it. Kachina closed the pouch tightly to were it couldn't hear or escape without some effort.

Kachina sighed with relief that Des was gone, "You'll have to excuse it, Des is not exactly a happy spirit, I don't know why, it's supposed to be a spirit resembling my ancestors, I guess the majority of them weren't too cheerful." she smiled a little though, "But, it is happy sometimes, it even laughs on the rare occasion." she turned the conversation to something else.

"I and another elder in our village were the only ones in our tribe to use magic, so I must agree. I practice Soul Magic, what type of magic do you practice?" she asked with a polite smile and tone in her voice.

ooc: Perhaps a little bigger font would be nice.

"Well," she said as if to give a long speech, "I learned my magic from an old Spirit Speaker named Maiara. She used her Soul Magic to tap into the life force of a tree and she said she could travel along some sort of network of life force in the surrounding trees, she called it a Soul Web. Sometimes she could latch on to different life forces and see what they were seeing in their eyes. But, the biggest extent of her power that got her position was if she followed the right paths and went deep enough into the web eventually she could find herself in a place where she could talk to the people who had gone from life." she sat down on the soft grass realizing the conversation may take awhile and motioned for Amos to do the same, "I tried to do it too, she told me to focus on trees and nature, and it would happen, and, well.. It happened a bit.. differently. After doing that for a few days I eventually latched on to what she was talking about and focused on it, and around me the trees started to die. Maiara told me to stop that instant, and I did, but the life force was already with me. My hands were covered in green flames, I call them Energy Flames, and my eyes were bright green too. Pretty much all I can do is suck the life out of plants and can throw it's energy out in what ever form I choose, recently though I can make it in the form of a bone axe." she blushed out how intense Amos looked listening to her, she laughed, "Nothing too special!"

Kachina felt awkward sitting down while Amos towered above her, it was not the best position to have a conversation. She stood up, brushing the soft fur of her animal skins, dusting them off. She shrugged and said, "Well, I'm just beginning to work with it, it's not easy at all. I can't manage to get in the right form. Once it even turned into a flaming Soul Pie of Doom!" she laughed. But, it was true, in one of her most resent attempts she managed to turn it into a Soul Pie, but it was probably because she was hungry. Another time she was only able to summon the handle. Her voice went a slightly serious, "I can also take life force from animals and humans too, but, it's not good, it can hurt someone mentally and death is always a risk. I never do it myself as a deep moral taught by Maiara. It's an evil, it is like a sin." she said darkly.