daybreakacademy | [Open] Lost and Found

Entry tags:

[Open] Lost and Found

Who: Jail, her students, her lovely volunteers, and YOU.
What: Scavenger hunts are fun, right?
When: Middle of June.
Where: That's what you'll have to figure out...
Warnings: Tracking techniques, PVP-enabled classroom assignments, and Jailbreak.

I. Come gather 'round

[It begins as, frankly, a mildly worrying amount of Jail's classes do:]

[Some new diagrams on the board, some new tools over on the workbenches, and the same familiar expression that says that Jail is Up To Something.]

So, here's the thing about magic items: they're real handy, but if you lose 'em? Kind of a problem. Most artifact are only gonna work if you have 'em with you, and even the ones that can do the job long-distance can still get lost or- [An expression of exaggerated fake innocence.] - even stolen.

Which is bad enough when it means some archaeologist trips over an enchanted nose-hair trimmer a couple centuries down the line, but can get real nasty when you add weapons or cursed shit into the mix. And sure, it's a little flattering to found out that old project you lost track of is some legendary mythical sword now, but do you really wanna have to go on a whole quest just to find your own damn property? Half the time it ends up in the hoard of an unspeakable beast or something, and that gets old fast.

But you know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. [She winks, and gestures to the board.] Up there, we got instructions for two basic tracking spells, and the diagram for a couple different kinds of locator rune. You can pick whichever one you want, but you're gonna use at least one of them this week. Pick any artifact you got- it can be one you made already, or one you make up special for this assignment- and apply whatever method you learned.

[She grins.]

And then we get to see how well you did, 'cause at the end of the week you're all gonna turn in the artifacts you chose to me, and we're gonna have a little game. I'll be hiding all your artifacts that night, then starting at sunrise the next day, you're all gonna have to find 'em.

Use whatever tricks you like, but you gotta find your artifact and get it back to me by midnight. [Her grin widens.] And I wouldn't wait too long on that, 'cause you're allowed to team up... and sabotage each other. Help your classmates find their artifacts, or find 'em first and keep 'em for yourself, either way it'll get you a couple bonus points when it comes time to turn 'em in.

I'm gonna put a hard ban on causing any injuries or major property damage, and you're not allowed to screw with each other until the hunt actually starts, but once it does? Anything goes. [Within the rules, of course. Don't make her turn this class around, etc.]

Any questions?

II. Night's still good

[It's dark, the middle of the night, and most of the campus is peacefully at rest now.]

[...So why can you hear some very faint noises?]

[It might be hard to figure out, until you look up.]

[Standing on the ceiling in casual defiance of gravity, a bag of items to be hidden slung over one shoulder like some kind of terrible mage crime Santa Claus, is Jail. Slowly, quietly, she raises a finger to her lips- or where they presumably are, under the mask- and winks.]

Shhhhhhhh.

[She's still got a few more of these to hide. You wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, would you?]

III. Let's go have some fun

[Normally, Jail's not too much of a morning person. But getting to mess with people like this can put a spring in your step even at this ridiculous hour.]

Gooooooood morning~.

[She's perched on top of her desk in the Alchemy and Artifice classroom, eating a bowl of cereal and grinning shamelessly at any "lucky contestants" who file in. Hope you're all ready to hunt, because it's gonna be a fun day.]

[OOC note: As mentioned in the Discord chat, Jail is happy to recruit fellow staff and various students to help her hide items in increasingly bizarre places. Feel free to have your character be a volunteer hiding something in their room or office, or just a bystander caught up in all this. I'm willing to assign you a hiding spot if you want the mystery of trying to figure it out both in and out of character, otherwise you're welcome to decide on one yourself. Happy hunting, everyone. :D]

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Excellent~!

[He hands her his notebook, open to this lecture's notes. He points to his copied locator rune diagrams and tracking instructions.]

Before I do anything, I want to make sure these are right, because we don't need any more hell portals...

Fair point, yeah.

[She smiles as she looks through the notes, inwardly a little pleased to see Toki coming to class again- and apparently paying attention to the lesson, too. She wasn't going to track him down, if he didn't want to be here- unlike the Seer tutoring sessions, this class is about what he wants to learn, not what he needs to.]

[But she's unexpectedly happy at the possibility that the portal incident might not have put him off for good.]

Looks good to me. You can make your array a little more efficient by drawing a line between these two runes here- [She demonstrates, running one finger across the paper to indicate the path of the line in question.] -but it'll still work just fine as-is, just might take a little more energy to get it working.

[This is the class he tries to go to, if he can only handle one in a given week, although he's been down to zero for the majority of the end of May and beginning of June. A passing grade on the April project may not save his entire class grade from failure if any attendance is factored in. He's still here though, because he likes the subject of Jail's classes and he does want to to learn things.]

Okay! It can't hurt to be more efficient!

[It's encouraging to see he's not completely inept with copying them down anymore, or at least not today. He draws the line between the runes and adds an asterisk note that says "not necessary but less energy required."]

[Aww, that's nice. ...Fortunately for him, Jail absolutely does not grade based on attendance. It's more a practical class, her grades are based pretty much entirely on 'did you accomplish the assignment you were given, yes or no'. If you can do it without ever setting foot in the classroom, somehow, then you still pass as long as the thing gets done.]

[...A lot of these assignments would probably be a bad idea to try and pull off without any instruction, though.]

Yeah, always a good idea to save extra power, in case you need it later. [A pause, and then she adds:] That one's usually true for non-magic engineering too, actually. The more energy-efficient the better.

[Toki makes a note on energy efficiency too, but he's unlikely to ever get back to that.]

I'll keep that in mind!

[Timeskip: He's returned at the end of the week with his rune project to hand in. It's a pin. It doesn't do much on the magical side of things; just sparkles when the letters are touched. Anything that's more complicated tends to be unpredictable for him.]

And so I just... track it later?

[Jail chuckles appreciatively at the pin- she can appreciate the message.]

Yep, starting at sunrise tomorrow. You can try to track it earlier, but- [She grins.] -I got a few ways to shut that down.

[Anyone who actually can cheat well enough to get past Jail's anti-tracking measures without her noticing, she figures, deserves the A.]

[A little after sunrise, which is an arbitrary time really, Toki arrives for the tracking portion. He's practiced both tracking spells with a couple different objects, pretty sure he's gotten them right by now. He never went to sleep and spent all night redrawing the tracking runes. He's totally ready for this, but still prepared to fail.]

Good morning~!

[He's also had massive amounts of coffee.]

[It may be an arbitrary time, but it's an arbitrary time of potential mystical significance due to the symbolism that comes from the natural return of the Sun.]

[Which is going to be Jail's excuse if anyone asks, because she literally just picked the first time she thought of. It's fine.]

Nice to see you all bright and shiny, kid. Good luck with your hunting, you're free to start anytime.

[Judging by the smell, Jail herself has filled her cereal bowl with coffee. And Reese's Puffs. The combination of caffeine and sugar probably explains why she's so cheery this early today.]

[If and when Toki activates his tracking runes, assuming they're working as intended, they should indicate that his pin is somewhere in the next building over, on the second floor. He'll have to get closer to get more specific.]

[The first locator rune he tries gives him several locations for mere seconds, then nothing. Trying to activate it again proves impossible. This is why he has two.

The second one... works? He almost drops it in surprise. He did work hard, but still expected it to be defective somehow. Yet here it is, indicating the next building. It's so close. There will be no problem with this assignment.

Toki gets a little distracted by the way the sun glints off a rock near the entrance and he stares at it for a couple minutes before entering the building. The tracking rune is either telling him the pin is on the second floor or in the basement. He can't tell if he's holding it right, but he'll try the second floor first.]

[Toki seems to be lucky, here- the signal strengthens as he gets closer to the source, and the pin does seem to be on the second floor. Not even too far away, at that.]

[But as he approaches, the signal seems to be... moving?]

[It darts briefly from side to side, then makes a brisk beeline right down the hallway. The heck?]

[Toki thinks he's almost got it, but the signal becomes erratic and he just stands there for a minute. He almost quits, under the assumption the tracking rune failed like the first one. But then, a thought occurs. It's a pin. Maybe someone's wearing it? He doesn't see anyone, but he's going to follow the signal anyway. He has enough motivation and too much caffeine in his bloodstream to quit right now.]

[Good instincts, Toki- the signal doesn't appear to be wavering in and out of visibility, or suddenly appearing in wildly different areas, like Jail's lessons said a malfunctioning tracker might. It's just moving through the building at what seems like a reasonable walking speed. Given that it seems to stop whenever it reaches a wall, it's presumably going through the hallways like normal, not phasing through objects or using hidden passages.]

[Overall, it definitely seems like the pin is being worn by someone. The only weird part is... whoever it is really doesn't seem to have a recognizable goal? They're just meandering around the building, walking or running or doubling back apparently at random.]

[You'd think it would be pretty easy to find someone who just keeps wandering back and forth- especially since there's almost no one in the building at this hour. ...Although there's still a few, we do have college students here.]

[But even if he can't see anyone holding onto the pin at first glance, Toki might still be able to catch a hint of what's going on whenever he gets close to the signal. How good is his hearing?]

[After following the signal for a little longer, Toki can only assume it's someone invisible. Getting close to it, he creeps along in an attempt to be more stealthy. He stops; he heard something for a second, but it's gone again.

If the invisibility theory falls through, he's defaulting to "someone in the vents".]

[Invisibility isn't the case here, thankfully- Jail might have considered it, but it looks like she decided not to be quite that mean.]

[The sound is distinct, though. And probably familiar. It's the faint clink of metal on metal, like some bracelets, or a ring of keys, or...]

[A pet's collar.]

[...Was that something small and fluffy that just went around that corner up ahead?]

[Because the signal's heading right there, too.]

[It's a very familiar sound, once he places it. He's been looking for a person, and not watching the floor, where an animal would be. Something just in his line of sight flashes by the hallway up ahead.

The tracking rune is indicating the same direction. It's a cat maybe. He likes cats, so this isn't turning out to be too much of terrible assignment thus far. He peers around the corner, looking at the floor instead of eye level.]

[Good call, Toki. By moving carefully and lowering his line of sight a bit, he'll be able to see a cat that appears to consist of eighty percent light brown fluff by volume, doing the late-night-and-early-morning zoomies routine of housecats everywhere.]

[It pounces on a scrap of paper, bats it aside, and bounds up to wall-jump off the side of a pillar and go racing on down the hall.]

[The source of the jingling noise is obvious, once the cat's in sight- there's a thin beaded metal chain around its' neck, like the kind you'd use for a lanyard. And hanging from it, like the tag on a collar... is Toki's pin.]

[Follow that kitty!]

[When he catches sight of the cat, there's a loud echoing squeel through the hallway.]

It's adorable~!

[The cat's gone, rounding another corner, the metal clinking rapidly. Now that he knows what it is, he just zooms over to pick up the cat. He's not wasting another twenty minutes trying to catch the fluffball at normal speed. He removes the pin from the chain and puts it in his pocket.

Toki keeps the cat with him as he returns to the classroom. It's so fluffy and cute and he can't stop petting it.]

[The cat is a sneaky little bastard, but it's no match for Toki's literal, actual superspeed. It seems kind of confused and disgruntled at being suddenly scooped up, but after the initial flailing and hissing it calms down and accepts the pettings as its' due, curiously sniffing at Toki's pockets.]

[Are you food, sir? No? Well why aren't you carrying cat treats right now, clearly you should be feeding it. Kitty is not amused.]

[In addition to the pin, there also seems to be a small folded piece of paper attached to the chain. Toki's seen Jail's handwriting before, when she left him that bracelet from the first ill-fated orichalcum experiment, so hopefully he won't have too much trouble identifying and deciphering it.]

[The note reads:]

Took a snack break in the middle of hiding all your shit last night and this little guy tried to eat my sandwich, so now he's part of the test. Congrats on catching the slippery fucker.

P.S. 20 extra credit points if you take him to the vet and find out if he's microchipped or whatever, 'cause he wasn't wearing a collar when I found him and I have no fucking clue where he came from.

[Toki will absolutely find out where this cat came from, and apparently that's how he's going to spend his afternoon. Finding a vet in Soleil.

Later in the day, Jail will receive a text message. It's a photo of the cat, with a collar. It's white and sparkly.]

there's no microchip
i got him a collar
should i leave him in your office?

well shit, ain't he stylish.
extra credit added.
but nah, my apprentice already has a cat, don't really need another one.
...sort of a cat, it's complicated.

[Zelnothoglys is... well, he sure is.]

if you dunno anyone looking for a pet, i can put up a notice asking if anyone does.
or you could just keep him if you wanna.
i'm sure as fuck not gonna stop you.

[Toki never met the daemon "cat".]

i think i'll keep him!
for now!
see if he gets along with kuroko!

[Which is a little unfortunate, because Zel was much more of a responsible adult.]

cool, lemme know if you need helping coming up with a name.

[Do not let her name the cat.]

[He will absolutely let her name the cat.]

you should name him!
you found him!
(^-人-^)

his name is homework.
that way, whenever you wanna get out of something, you can say "sorry, i gotta take care of homework, bye" and then go pet the cat.

[Jail is a cunning master of deception.]

that's perfect!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Open] Lost and Found

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guess this is III now

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