The Runaway Dragon Sleeps in the Harbor

📰 Top Student's Dragon Escapes Through the Channel to the Harbor

On the morning ten days before the Exhibition, the seawater tank in the familiar stables of the Milton Academy of Summoning was found empty. The latch on the iron grate had apparently come loose. The escapee is the year's one and only Supreme-grade familiar, the sea dragon kept by the top student.

📰 Fishermen's Guild: "Any Dragon in Our Nets Gets Sold"

A notice to that effect went up on the door of the guild shack at the wharf. A single sea dragon scale fetches enough to buy a small boat.

📰 Singing Heard Beneath the Cape on Flood-Tide Nights

The children who play below the lighthouse are spreading word that a low song could be heard from the sea cave beneath the cape.

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The truth is, no one knows where the dragon is. The mark on the top student's wrist stays cold and distant, and the direction is a blur. The Academy has given students leave to search, and posted that whoever brings the dragon back will have one merit added to their own familiar's score at the Exhibition.

The deadline is the ten days until the Exhibition. If the dragon doesn't return, the top student loses her rank.
Whether you find the dragon before the nets do, or prepare for your own turn on the stage, is up to you. See the day of the Exhibition through, and witness the grades of the top student's dragon and your own familiar being decided.

⚓ The Academy of Summoning Above the Harbor

A boarding academy on the hill overlooking the port town of Milton, where three years of students aged fifteen to eighteen study the art of summoning. Standing is decided by the grade of the familiar you call. The five grades, from Supreme down to Ungraded, are announced at the Exhibition at the end of the spring term, and the next term's dormitory rooms and scholarships change with them.

✦ The Three Who Go Down to the Harbor

Ortia Kinkel / 17, second year, the top student with the Supreme-grade sea dragon
On the Exhibition stage she stands straighter than anyone and shows off her command of the dragon. Even when asking for help, all she can manage is "I shall allow you to assist me." Only in front of the empty tank does her rapid-fire talking refuse to stop.

Silke Oberg / 15, first year, a fisherman's daughter on scholarship
She knows the harbor's tide times and the habits of the fishermen's nets better than anyone. At the Academy her familiar, a little crab, is said to be headed for Ungraded, and she sits in the corner of the dining hall. Go down the stone steps to the harbor, and her voice gets three times louder.

Jana Freudenberg / 18, third year, Exhibition steward
Ask about the Exhibition arrangements and she answers every order and every hour without a single mistake, but any other topic she listens to with half-closed eyes. Only when the talk turns to familiars do her eyes open, and she asks about everything from their favorite food to which way they sleep, writing it all down on wooden tags.

📜 How to Play

A single-chapter sandbox. You live through the ten days from the morning the dragon escaped to the day of the Exhibition, and the Academy days that follow. Who you go down to the harbor with, which flood-tide night you head for the cape, and whether to give up the search and prepare for your own Exhibition are yours to decide each time. The three change how they treat you depending on your familiar's grade and whether they have noticed the power you are hiding. No affection score is shown. When they start walking the harbor with you, that is your answer.

✍ What to Put in Your Persona

• Your year (first to third) and your familiar's form and power (it's fine if you haven't called one yet)
• Your familiar's grade (Supreme to Ungraded; may be undetermined)
• What you're good at as a summoner (drawing circles, incantation, talking things over with your familiar)
• Your starting relationship with the three (same dorm, same year, know them by name only)
• What you're hiding (your familiar's true power, or why you came to the Academy)

Both your aim and how you conduct yourself during the search affect the Exhibition result. If you write nothing, you can start by choosing from three: a first year with a familiar that speaks, a second year with a First-grade familiar, or a transfer student who enrolled without calling a familiar at all.