daybreakacademy | Memory Sharicus

About 8 am on July 15th, Rex does something stupid in his usual genius way. It was meant to be a small, simple test run of a method to scan a person and instantly gain all the data he needed to produce a Phantom.

The small field the spell was meant to spread just kept growing, until popping like a bubble with the most counterintuitive sound of all- two seconds of white noise, sounding as if it was coming from inches away. Not everyone heard it. But everyone who did...

It's a painless process, almost ticklish and instantaneous as numerous coloured orbs fly out from their chest, taking wild curving trajectories that launch them all over the academy and some of Soleil, coming to a sudden stop and hovering silently for just a few seconds.

That's when they start to slowly float towards the nearest possible recipient of the memory they contain, accelerating as they get closer as if thought and mind have a unique sort of magnetism.

It's sort of beautiful to see, really, not that Rex will notice because 60% of his mind is consumed with fear he will get into trouble and the Phantom project will be compromised. On the other hand, the Phantom project could provide the perfect scapegoat. So about six hours after the initial event, he released his latest creation- the Phantom mischief-maker, Waggery!

What a disaster.

(( ooc: The planning post is here! Be careful to warn for the nastier memories! If you already have memories planned to share, feel free to write them as a top level or just put up your character and link to the planning/make it a free for all. There'll be a post below for Waggery shenanigans and random NPC memories up for grabs. ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have a hard time imagining you as wanting to be a hero, but I guess people change.

[She thought back to the memory. It kind of jumbled, but she had figured out some of it].

It was a lie, though. Wasn't it? Those men were taking...something from you.

Yeah.

[It's an answer to both questions, really. Yes, it was a lie- and yes. She changed a lot.]

My magic. Least, they were planning to.

There's a kinda daemon called a thaumivore- their little quirk is that they can basically eat magic. Some sneaky fuckers figured out they could summon young, new thaumivores and bind 'em to serve, then use them as, like... living containers, to steal other people's magic and bring it back to them. All they gotta do is find someone with high magical potential dumb enough to make a Contract- and they don't gotta tell you that you're making one.

The thaumivore goes out, find some clueless kid, tells 'em that they're "granting them ancient power" or whatever, that they got chosen and it's their destiny to be a hero. Then they use their abilities to jump-start the magic you were gonna have anyway and pretend they gave it to you, and that they're just... taking it back when your time's up, so they can give it to the next kid.

Then they send you out to go fight any daemons or other weird shit that gets attracted to a powerful new mage in the area, to sell the whole hero thing and see if they can develop your power more, and just wait 'til you either get too old and pass the age deadline on the Contract- they're supposed to take your power away at eighteen, that's what you agree to- or die fighting.

Pretty efficient, as scams go. It just, y'know. Kinda falls apart if you outlive your "familiar".

[The little twist to the way she says the word familiar isn't exactly bitter, per se, but it's notable. She knows it was a lie, yes. That doesn't mean she doesn't still care about him, in an odd way.]

[It's not like either of them was really at fault, in the end.]

Tricking young daemons into exploiting young mages. That's a real sneaky plan but I've heard others like it.

Why are mages LIKE this? They just love crawling over others in mad grabs for power.

[She's beaten up a lot of mages. She knew, intellectually, that not ALL mages were greedy power hungry monsters (She was leaning comfortably on a mage right now!), but she'd seen a lot of bad from them as a whole and not a lot of good.

Not no good, though.]

...Also I'm sorry. That's a horrible thing to have to go through as a kid.

[Jail shrugs.]

Think it's really just "why are people like this", when you get down to it. We can put on all the airs we wanna, but at the end of the day a mage is just a person with some extra power. And when you give somebody power... let's just say it doesn't always go real well.

[Jail might object- she's definitely greedy. It's just that power by itself isn't all that interesting, to her.]

Eh. Not gonna say it wasn't shitty, or that it was okay for 'em to do it... but I'm doing okay now. Might not like how I got here, but I'm happy where I am.

I think most people are basically good, deep down. The world is kind of messed up, though, so sometimes people get confused and forget it.

I guess that's probably true about mages too, isn't it? You turned out okay, I think. In a weird sort of way.

[Jail snorts.] Let's not get too crazy, here. [But she doesn't sound upset about being complimented, either. The object's more for the sake of habit than anything else.]

The world's a real weird place. Think that's true here and over in the Outlands, too.

You're tellin' me! No matter how weird the Outlands gets, it doesn't have The Internet.

[She grins, an expression Lin probably last saw right before she set something on fire, mostly on purpose.]

Not yet.

[Lin bopped Jail on the head, lightly.]

Jail, no. Do not give the outlands internet access. Can you imagine how insufferable elves would be on Twitter?

[She pouts, giving her best puppy eyes.]

But just think of the possibilities. If they had Twitter, I could troll them! I could troll actual, literal trolls, Lin.

[Would you really deny her such a perfect pun?]

Memory Sharicus - Oh No, not again!

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