41st of Summer, 519
They heard Madeira before they saw her. The alumni class of the Dusk Tower exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably in chairs made for much younger students. Down the hall, beneath the patter of the rain against the tall classroom windows, was the unmistakable sound of an angry, yowling animal. The sound grew nearer, punctuated by a violent crackling, ripping sound like all the tinder in the world gone up in flames. The man nearest the door started to edge away.
The ruckus was nearly on top of the nervous class before their professors voice could be heard, breathing hard and mumbling disjointedly.
"...of all the... calm the petch down... Jomi...more behaved..."
Seemingly summoning some last bit of energy, the heavy plodding pace of her step picked up and became a run. The man nearest the door had just enough time to leap out his chair and out of the way when a dainty slippered foot kicked the door in with a bang that shook the very roots of the Tower.
"Wake up it's EXAM TIME!"
A much abused whicker basket slid across the floor, hissing furiously. The lid had been secured on with a belt of precious akalite, but whatever was inside had nearly chewed through. It thrashed and screamed, rocking on the tile floor as Madeira stepped inside.
Six pairs of startled eyes watched as their professor beat out her drenched satin skirts and hung her dripping cloak on a peg by the door. A well worn rucksack was thrown onto the chair behind her desk with a mysterious jangling noise. Dabbing at her forehead and pushing back the fraying strands of her chignon, Madeira beamed at her
students.
"Good afternoon! Great, you're all here. Return to your seat Royce, we haven't started yet. Now", she clapped her hands together, her eyes shining with excitement. "I've got something special planned!"
A murmuring of greetings and polite nods answered her, but nobody seemed to be able look away from the basket for long. The ear shattering yowling had simmered down, replaced by a frantic, snarling chewing.
"Professor", a tired looking old man in the back row raised his hand. "I think your 'something special' is about to escape"
"Don't worry about it", Madeira beamed, waving him off. She lifted herself to sit on the edge of her desk and twisted around to root
around in the rucksack behind her. "You've been my students for half a year now, and you've all made marvellous progress in that time. You’re the best and the brightest of the Dusk family. It's an honour to teach you the Craven arts, and to be instructed in the Dusk ways in turn.” She turned back and inclined her head in reverence to Aldgare Dusk, the patriarch, who gave her a small enigmatic smile in return.
From her bag she had pulled a strange ghostly feather, a fine brush, a sketchbook and a pot of ink. Arranging these items neatly around her she opened the book to a blank page and dipped the brush into the ink pot.
"You've proved yourselves capable in soulmist production, the Lie and strategies for exorcism. I think the time is ripe to see all this knowledge and training in action in a
true test of your skills."
From the basket came an explosive popping sound and a skinny black paw ripped through a hole in the lid of the basket. Screaming in triumph, a little pink nose and a flash of fangs poked through and ripped into the fraying sides of its escape route.
"...Is that a cat?" the old man spoke again into the stunned silence.
"Yes!" Madeira agreed heartily with the observation. "Well, yes and no. That's not just a cat."
"It's a possessed cat?"
"Exactly."
The cat, frothing at the mouth, had worked a leg and most of it's head out of the hole it had chewed through. It was a sleek black thing, much smaller than the sounds it was making would suggest. A thin vertical pupil whipped madly in its enormous orange eyes.
"This here will be your exam! Your goal is to exorcise that cat using everything you've been taught. I have every faith your will do your name proud."
A shoulder and second leg had been forced through the hole. Its claws were sunk deep into the basket as it tried to drag its body free.
"Do be careful. That is my cat and I've got a little girl at home that would be devastated if he died. But with that, your exam begins... now!"
With a scream the cat's hind quarters burst free of the battered whicker basket, and the classroom was filled with the clatter of toppled chairs as the creature lunged.
WC: 814