A satellite of the prestigious Viden Academy, this collaborative effort has truly been successful on Scalvoris and many great inventions and discoveries are made on a regular basis!
On the 10th of Saun, Devin Thorn, thief, conman extraordinaire and not entirely clueless incredibly skilled, powerful and experienced Becomer was standing in his bedroom in nothing but a pair of purple shorts and pulling outfit after outfit out of his sizeable wardrobe only in order to throw it on the floor almost immediately afterwards, a look of utter frustration and disgust on his face.
“I don’t have anything to wear”, he complained to his roommate and friend with occasional benefits Aidan who was leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and watching him with amusement.
“I’m not going to put this on!” he muttered, grabbed a midnight black cloak that was embroidered with a trio of very realistic rainbow-colored poodles and tossed it onto the steadily growing pile of clothes that were made of luxurious fabrics and of high quality.
“Why not?” Aidan asked, came a little closer and picked the poodle cloak up in order to eye it appraisingly. “It looks very nice. You will definitely attract a lot of attention if you wear it!”
“Yeah, but rainbow-colored poodles were in fashion a cycle ago! I’m not going to wear something that was in fashion a cycle ago”, Devin told him in no uncertain terms, grabbed a frilly white shirt and proceeded to hurl it across the room so that it ended up right on top of the lamp on his nightstand (fortunately, the lamp was not lit, otherwise a catastrophe might have occurred).
“I don’t think that anybody apart from you will notice that it was in fashion a cycle ago”, Aidan pointed out before he wanted to know, “Is there a reason why you have created such a mess here, by the way?” He had to admit, he was curious about that.
“I have to teach a class for my Diploma in Arcana today, my first arcana class ever, in fact”, Devin replied and momentarily stopped the madness in order to turn to look at the older man. “And I want to look my absolute best. On the other hand, maybe I should just go as is so that the students can see my witchmark. I’m going to teach a class on mutations, magical ones as well as others, you know?”
“Your witchmark looks very nice”, Aidan admitted and glanced at the colorful markings that were on both sides of Devin’s torso. “You might get in trouble for indecent behaviour if you walk through Scalvoris in nothing but a pair of shorts though, and I don’t think that teaching a class half-naked is much better either. I know that you don’t care about indecent behaviour, but Kura definitely does!”
Kura was the Albarech and more or less the political leader of Scalvoris, and Devin was a member of her council (mostly because his rival, the late Kalortah, had been one, and he’d wanted to prove that he was better than him). As such, she likely had the power to fire him!
“How about you just put this here and a pair of pants on, and we’ll go shopping for clothes right now?” Aidan suggested and retrieved the frilly shirt from Devin’s lamp. In his opinion, Devin already owned more than enough clothes and had a lot to wear, but he knew that the Mortalborn wouldn’t listen to him if he tried to point that out, but just get mad at him. Considering that, going to a clothes shop so that he could buy even more clothes was the best alternative!
Last edited by Devin on Tue Sep 22, 2020 7:01 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 605
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“Seriously? A magic outfit?” Aidan asked incredulously when they left the very upscale shop in the center of Scalvoris Town again and just stared at his roommate who was next to him.
Devin was wearing a perfectly fitting and utterly fashionable two-piece suit that looked as if it were made of an exceedingly expensive fabric and of pure, deep and dark shadows – because it was a Duplicity Suit that could turn into whatever the wearer wanted.
Twice a trial, at least.
It matched the color of the young Mortalborn’s hair and the color of his grafted nails perfectly.
“Yes!” Devin replied brightly. “Isn’t it great? Now, I don’t have to go home anymore when I want to change my outfit or carry an extra set of clothes with me. And besides, it’s perfect for disguising myself. If I don’t want someone to recognize me, I can just change the look of my suit!” he proclaimed.
“I assume that owning such a versatile and magical suit won’t lead to you reducing your clothing collection and getting rid of some of the things you don't wear anymore anyway?” Aidan tentatively asked and raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“Of course not!” Devin replied and did a little twirl so that the older man could admire him from all angles. “It’s magical, but it’s still just a single outfit, and it won’t fill my wardrobe. I like having a full wardrobe and owning a lot of stuff”, he pointed out.
“I should have guessed that”, Aidan remarked in a dry tone of voice and offered Devin his arm. He occasionally thought that Devin was a bit too greedy and wasteful. On the other hand, the younger man just looked so excited about his new magical suit, and besides, you only lived once.
Maybe he should stop being so reasonable all the time and follow Devin’s example instead!
They had the money, so why not spend it?
Last edited by Devin on Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:29 am, edited 2 times in total. word count: 333
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“Bah”, Devin muttered approximately a break later as he stepped onto the chair that stood in front of the blackboard in the lecture hall that he had been given for his class and tried to attach a poster to said blackboard. It depicted a very mutated looking man with green skin and a pair of antennae. “Why won’t this stupid thing be straight? I need a ruler!” he decided, jumped down and marched over to the desk in order to root through the large drawer in the middle. Finally, he triumphantly pulled a long ruler out of it.
A lot of fiddling and grumbling later, the poster with the antenna-man as well as three other posters with equally mutated people were finally where they were supposed to be, and Devin sat down on the chair behind the desk and put his feet on the desk, just as the first couple of students arrived.
Among them was a very nice and proper human girl with brown hair who had already been in one of Devin’s Certificate classes, back when he had just been a student rather than a pseudo-professor. When she saw him, she instantly grew pale and stared at him in shock.
“You!” she blurted out. “I was so excited about learning about Awakenings and corruptions and such, but I had no idea that you would be the teacher. You are Devin Thorn, the famous councilor and doctor?” she asked and looked at him utterly incredulously.
“Yup!” Devin confirmed and grinned before he removed his feet from the desk, mostly not because it was bad behavior and such, but because that position started to be a bit uncomfortable. “And I know a lot about mutated people. I even mutated myself!” he told her and wiggled his eyebrows in order to draw her attention to his mutated violet eyes.
The brown-haired girl looked at him doubtfully. In her opinion, being a mutant didn’t automatically make you good at teaching a class about mutations, and she was just about to take her leave as she was convinced that this class would be a waste of time, when she realized something, and she let out a deep sigh before she told the Mortalborn in no uncertain terms,
“I’m only staying here because I need this class in order to finish my Certificate!”
word count: 396
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“So”, Devin began, readied his book, grabbed his notes that were filled with his messy handwriting and looked at his students that looked back at him with a mixture of apprehension, confusion and something akin to admiration (he was not only wearing a magical suit, but also a set of Grave Gold accessories that complemented said magical suit quite nicely).
“There are a couple of different kinds of mutations”, he explained, stood up and positioned himself in front of his desk for a while before he just sat down on it. He was almost lounging on it in fact, like some sort of slightly spoiled noble lord.
“And not all of them are due to a person having one or more sparks”, he continued. “Entities, unusual phenomena and even cursed objects can be the cause of mutations as well. My eyes turned violet due to an encounter with a magical tree, for example.”
“They were brown before. I like them much better now though! Violet is a nice color, don’t you think?” he asked the students most of whom did not do or say anything, but just stared at him.
The brown-haired and proper girl on the other hand harumphed loudly and looked at him – haughtily.
He met her gaze for a moment before he jumped off his “throne”, clapped his hands and smiled brightly, because he was just so excited about this particular topic and because having an audience that couldn’t simply leave (unless they wanted to fail the class) was great before he proclaimed,
“Let’s continue – with more mutations!”
word count: 265
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“So, magic mutations”, he told the students most of whom were around his own age which didn’t exactly help when it came to respect and such (which he didn’t want anyway; respect was for old people; he just wanted to be admired). “There are witchmarks which you get after your initiation and Awakenings that only happen later. And then there are mutations that are the result of Overstepping. They are really ugly and unpleasant, and you should try to avoid them because they don’t go away anymore. Meditation helps though! You can ask Doctor Chanter if you don't believe me!"
The brown-haired and proper girl just rolled her eyes when she heard that and then she began to …
… file her nails!
“Graft Overstepping!” Devin remarked and pointed at one of the posters that showed a man whose fingers had fused completely so that he had a lump instead of a proper hand. “The green guy next to him had normal Awakenings though. Sometimes, they are hard to tell apart. In general, Awakenings make you less ugly and stupid though and can actually be kind of fun sometimes!” he explained in a very enthusiastic tone of voice because he definitely considered his Awakenings to be a lot of fun.
He was in fact so enthusiastic about his Awakenings that he didn’t notice that the brown-haired and proper girl was still filing her nails. He did kind of notice the boy in the third row that was drawing something rather than paying attention like a certain part of the rest (for various reasons; some of them were interested - in Devin or the class, and having fun, some were simply kind of weirded out, and some had just give up), but he didn’t mind at all. He was a huge supporter of the arts.
The arts were very important as well!
Last edited by Devin on Sat Sep 26, 2020 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 316
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“Back to the magical tree”, Devin continued because he found it increasingly hard to not share that adventure with the students (it was just such a great adventure, and he needed to grasp the opportunity), despite the plan that he had made for his lecture. “It had a door! I’m not sure how common trees with doors in them are on Scalvoris, but when someone opened it all those colourful energy things came out and mutated people! Oh, and there were bunnies as well, and I put a hat on one of them!”
He grinned at the students before he marched back to the blackboard in order to explain the remaining posters to the students. It was just then that one of them, a young man with tanned skin, red hair, pointed ears and pretty color-changing eyes that he kind of wished he were able to make a totem of raised an arm and asked, “Uhh, Doctor Thorn, isn’t that supposed to be a lecture on mutations? I kind of understand the tree thing because the tree mutated people if your story is true, but what do bunnies have to do with it?”
“Maybe they were mutated bunnies!” Devin retorted, still grinning because he was just having so much fun. “Normal bunnies don’t like hats, do they?”
“I guess?” the pointy-eared student replied somewhat doubtfully before he asked, “Can you give as a few more examples of normal magical mutations though, please? Most of us are focusing on domain magic rather than onmagical plants and animals”, he pointed out and blushed slightly as if he were worried about Devin’s reaction.
Devin didn’t mind that slight criticism of his lecture at all though. On the contrary, he appreciated it – because he had wanted to talk about magic mutations some more anyway. They were soo fascinating!
word count: 311
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“I mentioned Graft Overstepping before”, Devin reminded his students. “Have you ever seen an actual Graft mutation though? I have! I met a Grafter – twice! He had a tentacle instead of an arm, and his tentacle had a maw on it that could talk!”
“You are pulling our leg!” the brown-haired and proper girl insisted. “Mutations can’t talk!”
“They can!” Devin shot back. “I have seen it with my own eyes, and if you want me to, I’ll swallow a truth serum – or swear it! I’m very good at swearing!” he pointed out.
He looked incredibly proud when he said that.
“I saw a Becomer with wings once”, another student, an Eidisi with completely white eyes that Devin found really cool (he had a totem like that!) chimed in, defending the Mortalborn. “Mutations can do some pretty weird stuff!”
“Are there any other kinds of mutations, Doctor Thorn?” the pointy-eared guy wanted to know before he added, “Are you really a doctor and a professor and such, by the way? You look awfully young!”
“I’m twenty-three. Or twenty-four. Something like that”, Devin replied so that they would know just how young a doctor he was. “And really talented”, he added which was actually kind of true. The arc before, he had just been a conman impersonating a doctor so that he would be able to rob a hospital and steal their stuff more easily. While doing so, he had learned so much that he became a real doctor though – and ended up enjoying it!
“And potions can make you mutate as well!” he continued, barely pausing in order to take a breath because he was just so excited about this particular topic. “I drank a potion once that turned my hair blue! Oh – and there’s Immortal stuff! That can change you as well, sometimes even permanently! Blessings are nice though and much better than corruptions and such. Edasha’s blessing makes you really pretty, for example!” he told them with a hint of envy. He had met a Blessed of Edasha once and really wanted to have that blessing, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get it.
“Perfection In A Bottle is quite good if you can’t get Edasha’s Blessing and want to be more beautiful regardless though”, he proceeded to tell them because he loved that potion. “It only changes you for a season though. Some mutations and such aren’t permanent, you know?” he asked which was mostly a rhetorical question.
word count: 428
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“You are not a very good teacher, and your lecture was weirdly structured!” the proper brown-haired girl told Devin once the class was over and she was walking past his desk and towards the door. “I still don’t believe that you actually met a Grafter with a mutated talking tentacle instead of an arm.”
“I thought that it was totally awesome”, the Eidisi who was behind her disagreed. “I liked the posters. The guy who had antennae as a mutation was great! I want to mutate like that as well one trial! Do you think I should get initiated into Graft or Becoming?”
“Do you know where I can buy Perfection In A Bottle?” the pointy-eared guy who approached Devin’s desk next wanted to know. “I like your suit, by the way! Was it made with alchemy?”
“No, with magic!” Devin retorted, smiling brightly because he really liked getting compliments about his outfits before he wrote the address of the shop where he had bought Perfection In A Bottle down on a piece of paper and handed it to the pointy-eared guy. “I might actually teach a lesson on magical clothes sometime! You are free to attend! Oh, and before I forget!” he added as that might make his students more inclined to tell everybody what an absolutely fantastic and utterly likeable teacher he was. “There is no homework! You can just enjoy the afternoon and have some fun!”
“That’s not right”, the brown-haired girl who had just reached the door muttered and briefly turned around. “Homework is a very important part of the learning process.”
“I like that we won’t get any homework today”, the Eidisi retorted (the pointy-eared guy nodded in agreement) before he left the classroom together with the rest of the students which allowed Devin to relax and reflect on the class. In the beginning, he hadn't been sure sure if he liked teaching at all, but talking about magic and mutations was so much fun that he was actually thinking about getting a Charter. In Arcana or Medicine – or maybe both, so that he would be able to talk about twice as many mutations!
Maybe he should have shown his students his witchmark after all though – and his grafted nails as well! He had gotten carried away a bit, so he had totally forgotten to mention those!
word count: 402
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
Comments: The opening was very much on theme for Devin, as he tried to find an outfit that was just right for his first teaching gig. I thought it was interesting that he picked up a duplicity suit from the tailor, and went with that, eventually going shirtless wearing shorts to the classroom!
The actual lesson/lecture was a fun story, and the npcs reacted in realistic ways I felt to Devin's showmanship. His style if teaching is certainly interesting, even if it isn't all that informative, it certainly is entertaining, and that fits with his skill set and levels.
I appreciated the mention of a grafter with a tentacle arm that talks. What a strange mutation to find though!
I liked the brown-haired girl's reaction, as she stated she was only staying because she needed to graduate. It was amusing that Devin saw his students as a sort of captive audience. I wonder how many more classes he'll teach?
Great writing and enjoy the rewards.
If you have any concerns about this review, please PM me about them.
