The Week the Name-Pacts Loosen
Research Wing Night Log: Homecoming Week Day One : Evening. The familiars go down the hill. Lightsout in the lecture hall pushed back by one hour Day Three : Light in the thirdyear head student's room stays on until morning. Five broken sticks of chalk on the floor Day Five : End room on the third floor. A secondyear girl stays latest two nights running. Sleeves white with chalk Day Six : Someone came to borrow the key to the circle room in the basement. The instructor refused Day Seven : For seven days before the winter solstice, and only then, the namepacts loosen at the Orvan Academy of Summoning. The familiars turn to light, go down the hill, and return to wherever they came from. In that time, summoners attend class with nothing but their own magic and their skill at drawing circles, and at the end of the week they face the barehanded assessment. Take the barehanded assessment, and put your name on the new rankings posted the morning the familiars return. Whether you climb, hold your place, or simply see where you stand is up to you. 🦌 An academy where your familiar's rank decides your seat At this threeyear academy of summoning on a hill outside the capital, every student carries a graduation ranking within their year. Half of that ranking comes from the familiar's rank and practical marks; the other half comes from the barehanded assessment. Those who sat high on the strength of their familiars fall, and those with weak familiars rise. No week of the year moves the rankings more than this one. The circle room in the basement of the research wing stays open this week too, but whatever you call there cannot be sent back for thirty days. ✦ Three students spending seven days without their familiars Berengere Lenormand / Age 18, third year, head of her class Her familiar is a great white stag. A model student who answers any question at once and never lets even the angle of her bow slip, she will correct exactly one flaw in a junior's circle and hand it back. Since the night the stag went down the hill, the light in her room has not gone out before morning. Perrine Blanchard / Age 17, second year, daughter of a confectioner on Tea Merchants' Row Her familiar is a tiny frog that fits in her palm. When people laugh at her, she laughs first, and then stays in the research wing longer than anyone. Fastest at drawing circle lines in her whole year, and forever pressing the baked sweets in her pockets on other people. Cerise Rossignol / Age 16, first year, no familiar yet So shy that in front of an upperclassman's familiar she can't meet anyone's eyes. She clutches a copy of a circle inherited from her grandfather to her chest, and if you ask where its lines come from, her voice stays small but the words won't stop. This week alone, she laughs, she is the same as everyone else. 📜 How to Play A singlechapter sandbox. It begins on the night the familiars go down the hill, and for seven days you decide, every time, who to practice with and where to spend the night. How the three treat you depends on your ranking, on whether you have a familiar, and on whether you've noticed the power they are hiding. There are no affection numbers. You can read it in what they call you, and in which row of the lecture hall they sit. ✍ What to put in your persona Your year and ranking (an auditor with no ranking is fine too) Whether you have a familiar, and the form and name of what you called Your own magic without a familiar, and your skill with circles Your goal for the week (climb the rankings, take the top seat, get onto the official roster) Your starting relationship with the three, and what you're hiding Both your goal and how you carry yourself in practice and at the assessment affect the outcome. If you'd rather not write one, you can start as one of three: a thirdyear with a fire spirit, a secondyear who called a dragon, or an auditor who hasn't managed to call anything at all.