Part 38: Underwhelming Twists

Nivelos 22-27



Nothing to see here, just prepping for the holiday.



You’re in town, looking through the merchandise in Pau-Pau’s Wand Shoppe, when you see something interesting. It’s here! The mahogany finish, twisted hand, glazed with violet Freyra shards, and a ruby pearl finish! You’ve seen this wand a thousand times in your dreams. It is an antique, valued by collectors everywhere, and for some reason it’s been left to gather dust in a dark corner of the shop. Even better, someone marked it with a bargain price. You have to have it!

You snatch the wand up before someone else spots it and head to the counter. The clerk is a seedy-seeming individual with sunken eyes and the hint of wrinkles around his mouth that mark out his eternal frown. This guy looks nothing like Pau-Pau—and he’s almost always behind the counter himself. Still, you hand over the wand and count your coins out, stacking them on the counter one by one. When you’ve placed the full amount, you grab your new wand and start towards the door when the clerk stops you.

Hey! You didn’t pay me enough!

Huh? You walk back to the counter and the clerk points to the stack of coins. Sure enough, it looks like you’re two pims short. But you’re certain you counted correctly! Something’s not right here. You refuse to pay any more and the clerk immediately calls for a guard. This situation might turn ugly.



Perhaps the clerk thought the guard would believe the adult more than the annoying school kid. He obviously hasn’t heard of Iliana.

It’s not long before a guard shows up and asks what the problem is. The clerk launches into a long tirade about you and your thieving ways, making a few unflattering personal observations in the process. Once he finishes, it’s your turn to tell your side of the story. You calmly explain to the guard that you paid the full amount for the wand and the clerk must be mistaken.

With just your word against his, it’s unclear which of you is telling the truth, but the guard surmises that if you did indeed pay the full amount, the rest of the money should be in the store somewhere. He checks around the counter and finds nothing, but then he asks the clerk to raise his arms over his head. The clerk does so, but his expression betrays his nervousness.

The guard pats down the clerk and checks all his pockets, quickly coming across the two coins. The guard immediately holds the shopkeeper for further questioning, and after a lengthy interrogation it is revealed that many of the store’s items—your prized wand among them—are fake.

Still, your innocence is proven, and the guard even hands you the full amount you paid for on top of a refund as your reward. You shake your head sadly as you leave. All that time spent creating and selling fake merchandise and it all came crashing down because he wanted just two pims more. You promise to yourself to never get so greedy.





Iasos has finally rolled around, which means it’s role-reversal day at Academagia. Yes, the teachers are students and the students are teachers. You’ve had the good luck of being assigned a fairly non-magical topic for the day: history. However, that also means that Professor Viada will be your pupil. You’d like to impress the teacher but also have some fun, so you decide to insert a bit of magic into the class and begin with an Incantation. Unfortunately, this causes the pages in the teacher’s edition of the codex to fall out of order, mixing up historical events and figures. What do you do?



It’s okay! It’s all right! I can totally fix this!

Ever so quietly, so the class and your star “pupil” can’t hear, you cast a Revision spell to hopefully undo the mess you made. Sure enough, after another few moments of stalling, the battles, kings, and seasons of exile rearrange themselves into their proper order. You can return now to the lesson at hand, an in-depth study of today’s holiday.



The neatly printed note on your bed simply says, “Tonight’s the night,” but it’s clear enough who it’s from. Getting out of the school using your own methods is much easier, and when your clique joins the circle around Carmine, a few of his crew smile and nod when they see you.

Now we’re ready for the real mission. We’re getting right to it, so you need to be ready. We can delay the plans if we have to, but it’ll take forever to remake them if you screw things up for us.
Don’t you worry about us, Carmine. I’m more worried about your band of merry men.

Carmine smirks in response before leading you and his crew into the surrounding forest. If he’s following a path as he twists and turns through the forest, you can’t see it. Finally, you come out of the trees and into a secluded and broken-down docking station. Docked in the port is a huge pirate ship, and waiting on the dock is an equally huge crew of pirates—there must be about two or three hundred of them!

This must be how Carmine gets his seemingly miraculous—and endless—supply of goods! It’s no wonder he had to make certain you were trustworthy; as you know yourself, dealing with pirates is against the law, not to mention the rules of the Academagia. Carmine turns to you.

There’ve been some rumors about you guys and pirates for a while now. That’s the only reason I even considered an alliance, but you know how rumors are. Now it’s time to prove it: go talk to the supply group and bully—excuse me, persuade—them into giving you what their captain promised us. Think you can handle it?



“Can she handle it?” he asks.

At least you understand now why Carmine was being so careful. Still, he needn’t have bothered. Leaving Carmine’s crew behind, as well as your own, you square your shoulders and march alone onto the deck and up to the supply room. The door slams against the wall as you throw it open and stomp into the dimply lit room. Four large pirates are smoking and playing cards.

My name’s Iliana Ot’Matar. If you haven’t heard it before, then you have now! Captain says to get this stuff out on the dock, so let’s go!

The closest pirate sets down his cards, stands up slowly, and moves directly in front of you. You barely come up to his belly, and he’s at least three times your width.

Please?

The pirate breaks into a deep, booming laugh and reaches down to tousle your hair.

Aye, lass, I’ve heard of you. Asad the Lion’s own protégé or some such, eh? My own tyke’s about your size. Maybe both of you can join the crew when you put a bit more muscle on. You heard the kid, lads. Let’s get this stuff onto the dock.

The other pirates grudgingly get to their feet and grab boxes. The big pirate tosses you the smallest box from the pile.

Pitchin’ in is pirate-like.

It’s hard work, but before long you and the pirates have a pile of boxes on the dock.

Carmine smiles as he looks over the stash. He waves at the largest pile:

Store these in the bank. The rest we bring in tonight.

Carmine’s crew rapidly stows the boxes he indicated in a makeshift cave hidden in the riverbank by the dock. The rest is divided up into carrying loads between everyone, and finally Carmine himself opens a magically concealed hatch into an underground byway. The tunnel is dimly lit, but the ground is packed and smooth from use. After some twists and turns, your party stops in front of an old wooden door. Carmine chants softly under his breath and the door swings open, revealing an amazing sight. The room is filled with treasures, supplies, wands, statues, and a million little knickknacks you can’t even start to identify.

Now comes the real test: none of you can tell anyone about this room or the means we use to fill it.
So long as we get a fair share of what’s in here, you’ve got nothing to worry about.





While Carmine assured you that the matter was now settled, you have the sneaking suspicion that he still intends to test you at least one more time. With that in mind, you went to the Library of Longshade to read up a bit on traps of various sorts. There certainly is a lot of craftsmanship that goes into a good trap…



The Sphinx maintains a respectful silence as you describe how you found the cave with Fenris’ spirit and what it said about the history of werewolves. She remains silent for a moment after you finish, until finally speaking:

I am indeed familiar with this story already, as you must have suspected. It has been a very, very long time since I last heard it, however. The knowledge that this history has been uncovered will be sufficient payment.
So what happened to the werewolves? How come they aren’t still around? …Or are they?
The history of the werewolf tribes is as troubled as that of mankind’s, though the ending was not nearly so pleasant to them as it was to you. As to where they are now, they remain, here and there. Among those who know of it, some consider it a curse, while others a disease. Lycanthropy is not as understood as it once was when werewolves lived in separate tribes, and experiments with Gates and Revision magic have only muddied the distinction further. In fact, you may be surprised to know werewolves attend the Academagia to this day…but that is enough of them for now. Please, tell me the lesson you have come to learn today.
Well, my friend Carmine—no, I think I’ll save that for another lesson. Let’s just say I don’t trust him completely right now, so I wanted to learn about traps.
Traps? Very well, but there are other things you might wish to know to be prepared. How to Drive a Carriage, for instance; do you know how many ambushes occur on the road? And if you cannot replace the driver if he is killed, you may as well surrender immediately. Next, you should learn how to defend against Mastery Spells.
You’ll teach me Mastery? I thought you hated it.
Hate? No. I simply believe it must be taught only to responsible wizards, ones who have first felt its intrusion upon themselves. Now Mastery texts tend to be quite old, so I will need to teach you a bit of old Elumian before we begin…





You’re just minding your own business, reading from a borrowed book in the common room. Two other students have been arguing, but you pay it no heed, at least until you hear one of them shout, “All right, let’s have it out right now!”

You turn and see them with swords (taken from a display on the wall, it seems) dramatically pointed at one another.

Now this just won’t do at all.



So…what is this all about?

Neither swordsman will answer you. They are simply too involved with their duel to talk.

Ah well. Option B.

Before things get too out of hand, you step in between the two students and explain that they shouldn’t settle their differences with a duel in the common room.

“Fine, we’ll do this outside!” one of them shouts. With that, the two storm out of the room. You didn’t break up their duel, but you did get them out of the common room, which is all you really wanted anyhow.





Sifting through the book stacks in the Venalicium Library, you accidentally trip into a bookcase. Before you realize what’s happening, the bookcase gives way and flips you into a secret room.

A flash of light blinds you for a few seconds, and when you regain your vision, you find yourself in a small, empty room, barren aside from a square-shaped hole in the center of the floor. Within moments, the ground starts to rumble as a stone pillar rises out of the ground, stopping only when it has reached waist height. A deep voice booms out:

ONCE EVERY HUNDRED YEARS, THE PILLAR OF KELUGONE APPEARS AND BRINGS LIGHT TO THE DARKNESS. OPEN THE PILLAR, MORTAL, AND SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME.

You walk hesitantly around the “Pillar of Kelugone,” searching for traps or locks. You don’t see anything that looks like a trap, but you do at least see a lock. Or at least you think it’s a lock. On top of the pillar is a square metal panel no larger than your hand, and in the center of the panel is a thin hole. One corner of the panel is slightly upturned, and you might be able to get something in under there to pry the panel off. But then again, it might not work.



Guess there’s only one reasonable option.

You know, there’s something strange about that lock. It doesn’t look like you can pick it, and it doesn’t look like you can pry it open. Leaning in close, you see a tiny speck of light at the bottom of the mechanism. Thinking back, the voice did say something about bringing light to darkness, plus there was that strange flash of light when it appeared. Perhaps there’s something to do with light and this lock?



Indeed there is!

You pull out your wand and aim it directly into the lock as you call up the necessary phemes. Wondering what the pillar holds, you release the energy and wait. The sides of the pillar split open, rotating as the pillar spins on its base and revealing a glowing crystal sphere floating in the center.

YOU HAVE DONE WELL. YOUR REWARD IS GREATER KNOWLEDGE. USE IT WISELY AND USE IT WELL.

The sphere pulses several times, then gives off a great light. When you regain your sight, the pillar is gone, but you do feel a little smarter than you were before.

A rather unnecessarily epic way of gaining +1 step in Reason.



…And I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but you already know about me and the pirates, so I figured—
You figured I would neither care nor report his connections to any authority. You were correct, of course, though I must admit it has been quite some time since a First Year at the Academagia was involved in a smuggling operation of quite the scale you describe. I shall explain more of Traps to you today, and perhaps a bit of Manipulation will help keep the situation stable.
Hold on, Carmine isn’t the first student to barter with pirates?
Oh, no, especially when the last emperors were still sending their children there. It was back during the Calamities, as you call them, and one particular emperor’s child did not like taking his Trigonometry lessons…





“Hello there, ladies, my name is Cyrus Dawes and I must confess, I am absolutely and completely and irrevocably in love with you. And also you. You too there, sweetcheeks!”
Ha, ha! Wow, that is spot on!
Don’t you think that’s just a bit too mean-spirited?
“Olivia! My darling, my love, my passion, how could I have ever been so blind as to ignore the truth that stands between us! My pretty, my sweet, don’t you know that I’m in love with you?!”
I—that’s—well—
“Iliana! My darling, my love, my passion, how is it that only now I see your beauty for what it truly is?! How can—“ Stop laughing, you’re making me break character! “How can I make up for all the lost time I spent blind without your light to guide me?”
“Gwendy! My darling, my love, my passion…



The Edge of Nowhere? Well, yes, I’ve heard of it, but only ever in passing, or in reference to things just as poorly explained. I’ve certainly never managed to find my way myself. Tell me exactly what you experienced and what was said.

You do so, taking care to mention the odd things the lights spoke of, such as the “Unfettering” and the “Fulcrum.” However, when you get to the point where the entity (entities?) describe the nature of Light, you find yourself entirely unequal to the task. Eventually, the Sphinx simply waves you to silence.

Don’t trouble yourself further, I can see these are revelations that must be imparted directly. If you can bring me your directions to Nowhere, that will be worth an additional lesson.
But couldn’t you just ask for it now and call it part of this fee?
Ah, but knowledge of a place and the tools to get there are two entirely different things. Advanced warning is significant payment, as many a general knows well. Speaking of which, I believe in addition to Traps I shall show you something of Tactics, and the Courage needed to use them well.





You’re running late to Revision class, and as you scurry through the door you see Philippe Marchant snickering. Professor Aventyrare doesn’t look happy! She calls you to the front of the class next to Philippe and instructs you both to prove you did your homework by successfully drawing a Corporeal pheme on your palette. The loser will be humiliated in front of the entire class and will surely earn extra homework for it later!



Occasionally random events tied to classes will pop up, and since they can’t distinguish between weekdays and weekends, it’ll happen sometimes that an event regarding school will trigger during the weekend. I’ve been doing my best to move the venue to something more appropriate when possible, but this one is just way too tied in with the classroom experience to reconfigure. So just pretend like this is a flashback to Friday or something.

Right, Iliana has all but mastered Revision at this point (3 more Revision Spell ranks before everything is maxed), so let’s go and prove it.

As Professor Aventyrare taps her foot impatiently, the instructions you diligently studied come to you in a flash. You whisk your wand elegantly through the air and draw a perfect Corporeal. The professor smiles and your classmates break into a light applause. Philippe, meanwhile, is absolutely stumped, and is given a detention to do the studying he should have completed the night before.



As you walk through the hallway, you pass Professor Ringraeyer’s office door. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that her door is ajar, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is inside. Although you try to resist, the temptation is just too overwhelming, and you cannot stop yourself from backing up and peeking inside. Before you even realize it, you are pushing the door open and hurrying to the other side before anyone in the hallway notices you.

You take a deep breath, marveling at what you have just done. Although you have sneaked into the professors’ lounge plenty of times, you have never before infiltrated a professor’s office! This is that sacred space where she plans lessons, writes tests, and plots the torment of the general student body. And yet the professor herself is nowhere to be seen! Your mind reels with the possibilities: you could play a tremendous prank, or hunt for upcoming pop quizzes, or…anything, really. Your only limit is time; whatever you choose to do you’ll need to finish before Professor Ringraeyer returns and catches you.

Just as you’re about to start rifling through her desk, you notice a picture hanging on the wall to your right. You had assumed at first the painting was simply decorative, but something about it feels oddly familiar. The landscape you recognize as the Academagia grounds and the Imperial Reserve behind it, but the real subject is an old airship with tattered sails and battered decks tugging a small flying island behind it. Somehow the milieu has taken a recognizable shape in your memory, but it pulls out of reach as you try to think of when or where you remember it from. Perhaps it’s triggering some memory of your explorations with the pirates, but it seems too directly familiar. Maybe you saw it one day on the grounds, or else you heard a story about it somewhere in the halls.

As you try to puzzle out exactly where you’ve seen this image before, you jump slightly as you hear footsteps approaching and Professor Ringraeyer’s voice drifting down the hallway. Oh, no! If she catches you here in her office, you’ll be in some serious trouble.



This is another recent one-off adventure which starts with “The Painting.” It has an…interesting ending, let’s just say that. And until then, we’ll Lie.

It’s too late to hide or run away now. Your only chance is to come up with a convincing lie and hope the professor falls for it. Your heart is pounding away in your chest, but you do your absolute best to keep calm and not look guilty.

Iliana? What in heaven’s name are you doing here?
Professor Ringraeyer? Oh, I’m sorry! Professor Sido asked me to meet him in his office, but I must have mixed up his directions. I have a horrible memory for things like that, and I figured since the door was open this must be the right room…

You let your voice trail off, and for one horrible moment you think the instructor can see right through you lie. To your relief, however, she merely nods and drops the papers she was carrying onto her desk.

Fair enough. It was careless for me to leave the door open, anyway.

You hurry out of her office, eager to leave before she thinks to question your story.

And tell Professor Sido to give better directions next time!

You mumble something in agreement over your shoulder as you hurry down the hallway. Still, any professor’s office you can walk away from…



Perhaps the painting in the office has sharpened your mind around it, but you seem to keep hearing about a small flying island dragged across the sky by a battered old airship as the day progresses. At first it only seems like vague rumors, or possibly an old legend repeated as recent news (more common than you’d think in a school this old). You overhear an older student telling a friend about pirates supposedly crewing the ship, while some college mates whisper about the magical beasts hidden away on the tiny island for safety reasons.

However, as time passes, the number of stories just keeps increasing, each one tantalizingly rich with detail. Some rumors describe the ship passing over the school and casting it into shadow while those outside whispered and wondered where it came from. The one rumor that particularly interests you—sadly the one least likely to be true, in your estimation—is the one that states the old airship crash-landed just outside of the Academagia. Though few students swear it to be true, at least it’s something you could confirm on your own.

You Send to the rest of the Five-Handed Tree, then contemplate how to get off the campus. You may take long enough that curfew will be an issue, so it’s best if the guards don’t even see you leave.



How many times and in how many different ways must Iliana have sneaked out of school by now? Those poor gate guards.

The guards can’t catch you if they can’t see you. You pull out your wand and cast a Glamour spell on the guards standing by the Great Gate. If it works—and you don’t see why it wouldn’t—the guards should think that the area around them is blissfully empty, even as your Clique walks right by them.

You move hesitantly at first, then with rising confidence as the guards don’t react to your presence. You knew it would work! Not wanting to risk the spell wearing off, you rush the rest of the way out, leaving the confines of the school behind you.



Perhaps it’s the excitement of the adventures that await you, or maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of risking detention for getting caught, but you never feel more alive than when you’re outside the confining borders of the Academagia. Just imagining all the things you can do (and have done) gives you a private thrill, but you shake it off for now; you have an airship to find.

Come to think of it, you had sort of expected a crashed airship towing an island would be hard to miss, or at least be the talk of the town, but no one near you seems to have any clue what you’re talking about when you bring it up. You’ll have to figure something out if you want to have any hope of getting to the bottom of this.



A few pretty good options here. The rewards seem to be the same regardless of which action is taken, so sticking with the green is always the best idea with this adventure line. Illustration seems more handy than Observation, so draw we shall.

Em, you’re the best artist out of all of us. Can you sketch a picture of an airship for us?
Sure.

You describe the airship and its island to Emilia the way it appeared on the painting, which you now realize the Glamour professor must have enchanted to show nearby items of interest. You include a few embellishments just to draw people’s attention, like a waving flag you heard about from an older student, and you describe the aging sails and wood in great detail. You also insist the island look extravagant and exciting so those who see it will want a closer look.

Emilia delivers on all counts, and you hurry into upper Mineta to show to anyone who will take the time to look. Although many praise the drawing, only a handful of people claim to recognize it. A good twenty minutes of asking (and a quick stop by the ice cream stand) later, you find a boy who overheard his parents complaining about a “blasted flying airship” that crashed in a mountain valley on the far side of the Academagia.

It’s at least more information than you had before, and though the walk sounds worrisome, it would be entirely worth it to see the airship up close. Perhaps if you’re lucky, you’ll even be able to climb aboard!



At last, you’ve found the rumored airship! It’s smaller than the monumental ship your imagination built it into, but it’s still a fairly impressive sight. The island behind it, however, is even more magnificent than you had expected. It’s quite small—smaller even than the island you explored months ago with the pirates—but it still easily outsizes the airship it is attached to. The island is lush and green with an impossible variety of foliage, and the edges end in ragged cliffs. It looks to be attached to the vessel with—of all things—a countless number of heavy ropes as thick around as your entire body.

Hey, get away from that!

You nearly jump out of your skin with surprise. Turning around, you see the man who shouted at you. He appears quite tall, with broad, muscular shoulders, and you feel positive that he could easily win a fight against any one of you. Fortunately, you didn’t come alone, but from the wand sticking out of his pocket, you suspect rendering him helpless with spells won’t be so simple, either.

Before you have time to respond to the man’s outburst, a woman appears from behind him and lays a hand on his arm.

Leave them alone. They’re just kids.

The woman speaks calmly, but firmly.

We don’t need kids messing around with our ship. What’s your name, kid?

Instead of answering, you decide to cut straight to the chase.

We weren’t doing anything! We heard rumors about a crashed airship pulling an island, so we decided to—
Get curious? Well, get lost. We don’t need to deal with kids like you running around.

You’re about to protest again when another man climbs down from the ship, swinging to the ground and trotting over in a hurry.

The thing’s completely grounded! The gears are all jammed and the sails won’t lift properly, so we’re stuck until I figure out what’s wrong.

The newcomer lets out a big breath and wipes his forehead with an oily cloth, the gesture adding more soot and grime than it removes. Abruptly, he stops and looks at your group.

What’s with the kids? Picking up recruits, are we?
Shut it, Tobias. What’s wrong with the ship?
Not sure, exactly. It was fine when we landed! Stupid Lachance and his little adventures. I told him we could’ve made it to a proper dock! That smug little…he never listens to me, you know?
We know.

You’re not exactly interested in getting involved in the argument between these crewmembers, so you slowly start to back out, but a strong hand grabs your shoulder and pulls you back in.

Hang on. I bet these kids had something to do with it. Kids are always breaking things.
What do you even know about children, Gus?
We’re not child—ow!

You elbow Vrenelle to make her shut up. You’d rather not offend the only person who seems to be defending you.

Look, we only just got here, we’ve never even been on the ship! We haven’t even touched it!
Don’t need to touch things to do all kinds of damage, ‘specially with those.

Gus pulls out his wand and uses it to gesture at your own.

I say we teach these kids a valuable life lesson about messing with things that aren’t theirs.
Don’t pick on the kid. We should just report her to the school and be done with it.

To you, that doesn’t sound like a significantly better option than Gus hexing you.



Hate to leave on a cliffhanger, but this is a really long adventure and I’m doing it all at once. See you next time!

Gains of the Week

Famous Dilemmas increased by 1.
Famous Speeches increased by 1.
--Famous Speeches skill maxed!
--Relationship with Finus Piaxenza increased to 1.
Cast Intense Focus.
--Plus 5 to Confidence.
--Plus 1 to Insight.
--Minus 2 to Tease and Observation.
Successful event!
--Money increased by 15.

Cast Intense Focus.
--Plus 5 to Confidence.
--Plus 1 to Insight.
--Minus 2 to Command and Weaponsmith.
Handled Familiar.
--Bond of Iron increased by 1 step.
--Bond of Silver increased by 2 separate steps.
--Bond of Stars increased by 1 step.
Successful adventure!
--Intimidation increased by 1 step.
----Loom (as in loom over someone) pheme learned.
Successful holiday!
--Revision Spells increased by 1 step.
----Familiar Education spell learned.
Aveline used Compete; Aranaz merit now at 273.

Theory of Revision increased by 1.
--Theory of Revision skill maxed!
--Alteration of Inhuman Matter spell learned.
--Revision increased by 1.
----Revision skill maxed!
----Revision Mastery ability learned.
Studied at Longshade.
--Traps increased by 1 step.
----Hindsight pheme learned.
--Artisan increased by 1 step.
----Learned about Earth Sprite Nest.
Matched Wits with the Emperor’s Sphinx.
--Drive Carriage increased by 1 step.
--Traps increased by 1 step.
----Ensnare pheme learned.
--Mastery Spells increased by 1 step.
--Elumian increased by 1 step.
----Learned about Professor Sido’s Office.

Logic increased by 1.
Studied at the Mantle of Stars.
--Traps increased by 1 step.
--Theory of Astrology increased by 2 steps.
----Fabricate pheme learned.
----Astrology increased by 1.
------Sky pheme learned.
Successful event!
--Persuasion cannot be increased.

Matched Wits with the Emperor’s Sphinx.
--Manipulation increased by 1 step.
----Improve Relationship spell learned.
--Traps increased by 1 step.
----Scattering pheme learned.
--The Calamities increased by 1 step.
----The Calamities skill maxed!
----Maelstrom spell learned.
--Trigonometry Research Level increased by 1.
Successful event!
--Reason increased by 1 step.

Observation increased by 1.
--Learned about the Vault of the Voices. Again.
Matched Wits with the Emperor’s Sphinx.
--Traps increased by 1 step.
----Release pheme learned.
--Tactics increased by 1 step.
----Air pheme learned (8 times and counting).
----Raid increased by 1.
------Attack pheme learned.
--Courage increased by 1 step.
----Surety pheme learned.
Jere Niemela used Casual Mimicry.
--Relationship with Jere Niemela temporarily increased to 4 for 1 week.

Cast Intense Focus.
--Plus 5 to Negotiate.
--Plus 1 to Insight.
--Minus 2 to Piety and Orthography.
Successful adventure! …so far.
--Deceit increased by 1 step.
----Shivek Rendithal, Merchant available.
--Composure increased by 1 step.
----Learned about Privateer Feng’s Gentle Parlor.
--Interrogation increased by 1 step.
----Control pheme learned.
----Bully increased by 1.
------Extract Protection action learned.

New Abilities

Familiar Education (Spell): No roll; +1 to Familiar Kinship and chosen Familiar skill and +2 to a second Familiar skill for 5 days.
Alteration of Inhuman Matter (Spell): Intelligence/Revision v13; +2 Durability and +1 to random Action type for chosen item; permanent.
Revision Mastery (Permanent): +2 Revision.
Earth Sprite Nest: +1 step in Artisan and Pure Luck.
Attend a Tutoring Session with Professor Sido: +1 step in 2 random Language skills and +1 Relationship with Sido.
Improve Relationship (Spell): Charm/Persuasion v4; +2 Charm for 2 days and +1 Relationship with chosen student.
Maelstrom (Spell): Intelligence/Incantation v8 and Intelligence/Incantation Methods v12; -2 Vitality and +1 Range vs target, and -1 Vitality and Stun on target for higher check.
Study High Stakes Players (Privateer Feng’s): +3 Composure, +2 Bluff, and +1 Negotiate for 2 days.
Dine at the Privateer: -30 pims, -1 Stress, +3 Vitality Max for 6 days, and +1 step in Gambling.
Extract Protection: Intimidation/Charm v target’s Insight/Courage+1; take random item from target.

Why hello, Familiar buffing spell, I almost didn’t see you there. What’s that? You say you can speed up the Familiar adventure by lowering the highest base skill requirement to 6, meaning Bond only has to reach 5 instead of 7? Well I’ve already got Bond 6, but thanks so much for the help.