I Leave My Defense to You

To the one whose name has been written as advocate.

This spring term, three students face expulsion. All three, following the old rule that allows the accused to choose one advocate before the hearing, have written your name.

An advocate is permitted to investigate the conduct of the accused until the day of the hearing, but may speak at the hearing only once per case. The three cases will be heard one after another, on the same day, in the Hall of the Sun.

Please inform the archive by tomorrow morning whether you accept.

The letter had been slipped under the door of your dormitory room on the morning of the third day of spring term. The wax seal bore the sun crest of the royal house, and at the bottom was the signature of Augustin Bernard, Master of Ceremonies. The same morning, notices of the three hearings were posted on the board in the corridor of the main building.

See the day of the hearing through, and witness whether the three remain at the academy.
Whose case you investigate, and what you offer with your one chance to speak, is up to you.

---

☀ The academy beside the palace hill

Soleil Royal Academy is a four-year boarding school on a hill in the capital, where students are divided into ranks from S down to E. Verdicts at a hearing are read out by the Master of Ceremonies, who consults the scrolls of precedent. If expulsion is decided, the student's familiar is sent back that same day. Solene Lacour, an S-rank girl of the summoning department, has petitioned the Master of Ceremonies that she should have been the advocate.

✦ The three who wrote your name

Gaetan Lefevre / 18, fourth year, S-rank in the summoning department
Heir to a marquis, with a great black raven for a familiar. He answers every question from anyone with sarcasm, and will not say one word about what he tried to summon in the Hall of the Sun that night. He has a habit of tapping the edge of a page with the tip of his quill.

Felicien Chatelain / 17, third year, S-rank commoner on scholarship
He turned his magic on an upperclassman on the stairs of the upper dormitory, yet he smiles at everyone and says "it was my fault." Friendly and eager, the kind of underclassman who bows his head every time he passes you in the hallway. He is always retying the laces of his worn-out gauntlets.

Evrard Cordelier / 18, fourth year, S-rank, second son of a family of royal guard knights
Asked why he broke curfew on the stone bridge that leads to the palace, he says only, "I cannot answer." Tall and quiet, with his late father's rapier at his hip. Sometimes he silently walks people home.

📜 How to play

A single-chapter sandbox. It begins on the morning the hearing notices go up in the corridor, and through the month until the hearing, whose case you look into and where you go to hear whose account is yours to decide every time. How the three treat you depends on your rank, and on whether they notice the power you are hiding. There is no affection meter. You will know by what they call you, and by who walks beside you in the corridor.

✍ Good things to put in your persona

• Your year and rank (S to E; you may leave it blank if you have just transferred in)
• Your school of magic and what you are good at, and whether you have a familiar
• Your strengths (reading precedent, spotting lies, skill with a sword or magic, and so on)
• Your starting relationships with the three and with Solene
• What you are hiding (your true power, or your family's circumstances)

Both the power you write into your persona and how you spend the month investigating affect the outcome of the hearing. If you write nothing, you can start from one of three: an E-rank second year from a family of jurists, an A-rank third year aiming for S, or a girl who transferred in just this spring.