PM to join Catching Up [Class Thread]

[Tsaba]

Tsaba didn't have any immediately relevant questions, so she didn't speak up. Besides, she was trying hard not to stare at the other Nuit. She'd watched the first two strangers enter and noted their names, said hi to Malvora and returned Castor's smile, but most of her attention was taken up by carefully not paying more than a perfectly natural amount of attention to the first other Nuit she'd seen in Zeltiva. And he had none of the lingering humanity about him that always seemed to annoy her Sahovan colleagues, not that that meant much; most lost it long before she had. That, or committed suicide. And she'd never met a mainland Nuit, except for her guardian. But randomly cornering someone in class to talk about their race when they were both there to learn might be a bit rude, so she kept to herself and tried to concentrate on Dr Marin. Not that that was going to be hard. If Dr Marin's actions so far were any indication of her general teaching style, the lesson was going to require her complete focus.

[Chembalo]

Chembalos eyes widened when he basically got told off for eating in class. He had not thought people would be offended by that. He quickly swallowed the remainder and got to his seat.

When their teacher, Professor Marin, opened the session and introduced her assisstant, Chembalo finally recognised Ingvar Dalanos. He had been so kind as to help Chembalo after he got lost during his first days in Zeltiva. Someone with such a good nature as Ingvar could probably be a great support for learning as well.

Chembalo cast a swift look through the rest of is classmates and didn't recognise anyone else. But then again, there might as well have been a lord of council present and he wouldn't have known the difference. A few of them looked oddly sick though.
When asked for any questions or concerns Chembalo couldn't come up with anything. He had learned the simplest basics of Glyphing before. Now he was eager for more and for the class to properly start.

[Avind Coolwater]

Avind was a little taken aback by the professor apparent coldness but he continued to smile and firmly shook her hand back. He then excused himself and bowed a little bit before he turned and walked back to his seat. On the way, he threw some glances around, looking at the fellow students. The man and his leaves seemed somewhat curious but Avind simply wondered what kind of... upbringing would make someone eat leaves. The two other men didn't quite have the same quirks although one of them was oddly pale, as if he was sick. Actually, looking at him made the Vantha feel odd too. When did he get in the class anyways? As for the older woman, he smiled, still amused by the personal library she had brought with her. The only student that really stood out to Avind was the dark skinned woman. Her hair and skin colour an odd mix to his eyes. He looked a her with curiosity, trying to think of a race or mix of races that could give birth to such an odd combination. He stared long enough to realize that he was being quite rude and, a bit embarrassed, he hurried back to his seat. Trying to take his mind away from the woman, he started to move some of his things around on his desk, readying a few parchments, his ink and quill. But, in the end, it was only absentmindedly that he listened to the professor as she introduced herself and her assistant. When she asked them whether they had questions or not, he threw another glance to the odd looking woman, still wondering about what she was. Maybe he would try and ask her at some point.

[Malvora]

When Ignotus entered the room, Malvora felt a distinct feeling of disturbance which she quickly shook off. The man appeared human, but he was so gaunt that she wondered if he was malnourished in some way. Though his strength seemed to be about him, his physical appearance suggested weakness. Altogether, it was quite odd. It was then that she felt eyes on her. She turned and caught the eyes of Avind, though she still was not 100% certain, the eyes appeared to be right. A Vantha indeed. She would have to try and catch up with him after class. Once she had established that, though she could still feel his eyes prickling on her, she returned her attention to Professor Marin, taking note of a man who had arrived without her knowledge. He seemed to know Tsaba and she deduced he was probably one of the original students.

Professor Marin asked if they had any questions and Malvora searched her mind. Of course she wanted to know if they should know how to successfully make a Focus Glyph by now, but she knew the answer to that fairly well already. The ones she had made thus far were awkward and smudged at times, but she had progressed. She had the impression that if that was the glyph they had learned last time, the other students would likely know it already. And the strange man who had walked in appeared to know what glyphing was with a few decorating him.

She reclined against her chair, dark eyes absorbing the scene. Avind's eyes had returned to her, she noted, and she wondered for a moment if he might be a Zith hunter. After all, who else would pay such attention to her. Or perhaps, she was an object of some curiosity for him. She could understand that, being that her features were a color that no occur naturally in the human population. Nor, she thought reflectively, were the stubs on her back, but those were well hidden by her shirt.

[Castor Riley]

Castor felt a bit relieved that Tsaba hadn't noticed anything. In fact, she seemed rather preoccupied though he couldn't figure out what with. At that point, Dr. Marin began making her introductions though, and Castor found his attention drawn by her annoyance at the man named Chembalo's leaf. Castor felt a bit bad for the guy; it had seemed entirely natural for him to chew on his leaf, and had been the cause of a smile for Castor -- something which had been in short supply for the past week. The man took the seat in front of Castor, so all he could see from the man was his short, red hair; a peculiar mismatch with his black goatee. Just then, Castor watched as the second student who'd been waiting to introduce himself returned to his seat, behind him. As he passed, Castor thought he saw a peculiar blue shimmer go through the man's hair, but that didn't seem logical. He surreptitiously followed the man as he walked with his eyes. Eyes which then landed on the black-skinned woman in the back. Giving her a proper look, he saw that her hair was actually a deep red, rather than the black he had thought it had been. Perhaps color-changing hair was not as illogical as he'd thought. When he turned back in front of him, he was prepared to calmly listen to the lesson, perhaps make some apologies, if, or rather when they were needed. However, he realised there was one person more than he'd previously thought in the class. The truly shocking thing was that he felt the man had been there all along, on the edge of his vision, yet he hadn't actually seen him till chimes had passed since his arrival. The man looked very pale, though he could only see his profile, as he sat diagonally ahead of him. Still, he thought he recognised the tell-tale characteristics of a Nuit: his pale skin and the black circle under his left eye were clearly visible from where Castor sat. He was surely an interesting person, to appear so insidiously with such a distinctive appearance. Dr. Marin's voice brought him out of the contemplation of this mysterious Nuit, as she introduced the man he'd seen standing by the door: Ingvar Dalanos, the professor's assistant. He seemed to be silently surveying the class, blue eyes making the rounds of the small room. He seemed very young, even though Anna seemed younger; to Castor, it was impressive to have gained such position in the University at such a young age. He hoped he'd have something as noteworthy as that under his belt by the time he was 30. Not that the man looked thirty, but Castor wanted to give himself time to achieve such far-flung dreams. As the professor asked for questions, Castor remained silent; he hadn't any concerns that he'd want to share with the whole class. So he remained silent, waiting to see how things would progress, absently touching the handle of his dagger through his shirt.

[Ignotus Everto]

The reactions of those around Ignotus elicited a small smile- some might call it immature, but he did enjoy messing with people on occasion. Not to mention it was good practice, and built up a little mystique. It wasn't particularly complicated- he simply lowered his profile using a bit of light Hypnotism, and dropped it when he wanted to be "seen." It didn't actually vanish him, of course. Simply made him appear insignificant. Akin to serving staff. Thus, they knew when he was and wasn't there- his existence just wasn't very noteworthy until he had sat.

He briefly regretting not sitting near the other Nuit- it was always so nice to see another!.. When they weren't trying to kill or take advantage of him.- but of course the new professor had begun to introduce herself then. Calm, professional, and a touch steely. This pleased him. The Nuit was silent. He didn't want to delay the interesting bits, after all.

[Annalisa Marin]

Anna looked around at her students, noting that none had any questions to start things off so she decided now would be the best time for a light review. She had no idea how much these new comers knew in regards to Glyphing or how much her previous students had studied so a little refresher was in order. The young wizard started to pace slightly, as she taught better when she was doing something to occupy herself.

"Well then, lets not delay any longer. Last class, which the majority of you were not here for dealt with the properties of Djed itself and the place of the correct usage of a focus Glyph. I'm not going to reteach the whole lesson so pay attention, otherwise I'll leave you behind without a second thought." Anna said tersely.

"Djed, as some of you may know, is required energy for every action taken and is the fuel of magic itself. Without Djed we could not function and when too much is used personal mages go into overgiving. This is a basic rule and truth of magic. A wizard can only cast as long as he has Djed to call upon." Anna continued, becoming wrapped up in the lecture.

"Glyphing allows one to bend the rules a little, if you will. One can make casting easier and faster by placing glyphs on certain parts of the body. When a person gains enough knowledge in glyphing they can even craft scrolls, which can store magic and thus can potentially increase casting potential. The Focus is the first Glyph one must learn to take advantage of Glyphing. A Focus is, on the surface, a large sigil either made up of many smaller runes or one large rune." The young professor said, nodding slightly.

She looked to both Tsaba and Castor and gestured to them, they knew the lesson well enough. Tsaba appeared to still have her example scroll, which would speed this whole thing up considerably.

"Before I move on to the bulk of today's lesson, I want Tsaba to pass around the example focus. After that, I want everyone to find a sheet of parchment and copy it down to the best of your abilities. I look for quality so draw it with care." She finished, returning to learn against her desk.

This was probably the quickest lesson on basic glyphing she had ever taught and it annoyed her. Professor Stonemiller was going to regret daring to cross her if she had any say in the matter. This was the beginning of opening moves in a political struggle, he might have more experience but Anna had the blessings of Rhysol and sheer cunning on her side. This class was as much a time for her to teach as it was for her to plot her retaliation against the good professor.

[Ingvar Dalanos]

OOC Note :

Now, if there isn't any interaction with Ingvar, you guys can go ahead and skip me! Apologies for the short post - not really much to write about.

Well... This is awkward.

Annalisa had taken charge of the class rather promptly, and was starting things off with the Focus glyph. Ingvar sat down in a chair at the corner of the room, looking out to see if anyone needed help when Annalisa was busy helping another - if drawing - nay, copying - required assistance.

What does the professor believe Glyphing to be? My style can be said unstructured, subject to change almost every time I draw a sigil or glyph. After all, we change with time. But a structured system of Glyphs would help too - I could potentially memorise large arrays of sigils that achieve complex purposes without having to actually design my own, working through all that ambiguity and - Yes, I can see the benefits.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba gave a single nod and passed the example behind her to Malvora, whom she knew had copied from it before and would probably be faster than the other newcomers. She had enough copies of her own that looked near-identical to her eyes, although Dr Marin would probably find disastrous mistakes in each one that Tsaba couldn't see. However, seeing no point in staying idle while the new students caught up, Tsaba took out what she thought to be her best copy of the glyph and began to copy it, for the practice. She carved lines of ink along the paper that were, while amateurish, at least more decisive than the marks she'd made the last time that she was in the classroom.

[Chembalo]

Chembalo listened to their professors introduction. It was nothing overly new to him. Still, he wished he had been present at the last class. As of now, the whole concept of 'Djed' was still very confusing to him. "But the Professor doesn't want to repeat the lesson. I guess that means it can't be that vital to know", he thought. "It's probably more important how we can practically use it anyway."
When the example sheet was passed to him, he was a little suprised. For the most part he had thought of the focus glyph as a single, large rune. But the drawing on the parchment before him was compromised of many small runes. Someone who had studied mathematics would have called it geometrical.
Nevertheless he did his best in copying it down, hoping he would not miss any of the many parts. Though their professor seemed really strict, he was hopeful. He had some prior experience after all.