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 Research: +0 Sorcery: +1 Charisma: +2 Bureaucracy: -1 Burnout: 0 Harm: 0 Well, explaining why I'm here early and how I know about the meeting requires explaining why I know about our present... predicament. You see, Professor Highsmith is a drinker. Not often, but when she does, she does. And so when she decided to purchase then entire contents of the 5th Street Crematorium, and then when they called back the next morning when she was hung over... Well, let's just say they aren't getting nearly the check that they thought they were, but they're still delivering everything in full. And, like most dangerous people, there's a particular side of them that you want to stay on, so you don't become a corpse yourself. So I may have figured out where she drinks ("J.R.'s"), when ("Thursdays, after 7, before line dancing begins at 11"), and what ("Gin." No, seriously. No chaser, no water, no tonic, just straight gin. She goes through all the different varieties they have behind the bar until they stop serving her or until the Brooks & Dunn starts), made myself a semi-regular there, and used it as a pretense to get closer, and also on the side that the fire isn't. It stopped being fun around the fifth shot she made me do, and things get a little hazy after that, but I do remember her yelling with the mortician on her cellphone while Billy Ray Cyrus played in the background, and then us staggering down the street into an uber. The purchase wasn't my idea, I feel I should make clear. It was the result of two guys hitting on us, and making a joke about how I was out with my daughter. I understand that my mode of dress isn't the most modern, but it's a classical fashion that defies all these so called trends, and my hair is white only due to an accident during my graduate studies. But Professor Highsmith, well, she doesn't like being mistaken for younger than she is. So there are now two rats scurrying about that will hopefully transform back into young men by Thursday at the latest, and she had an excuse for another drink, and an irresponsible yet "adult" decision to make her feel like she was in charge of things. And now here we are. I'm a morning person, by nature, but even this is a little early for me. But with an extra mug of tea before leaving the apartment, and another ready before the meeting began (skeletons make surprisingly good tea once you teach them how long to steep), I'm looking awake and chipper while the rest of my colleagues are bleary-eyed and grumbly. And speaking of grumbly, there's Dr. Karla Scantone, who I haven't seen since last semester, when I helped her with grading her student's stitchwork and grafting on their compository reanimation finals. Due to a computer error, "Frankensteining" allowed 50 students into the class, rather than 5, so she had her work cut out for her. There was no way she would finish her student's "tests" in time for the cut-off, so I stepped up and did at least half of them. They're good kids, and they do deserve to have their work looked at so they can see what they're doing right and wrong. But ever since then, she's gone out of her way to dodge me. I can't say why, exactly. But, come to think of it... I raise a hand. "How about more hands on work this semester? They've been a bit stingy in the past. Like, right now, I've only been assigned a single body to last me all through Necro 101. Semester before, I could barely get enough chickens, and you really can't have students doubling up with those. We've got it. Why not use it? And, if we're using it to enrich the student learning experience, well, that's what the dean is all about, right? Win-win."
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Mar 25, 2017 05:24
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Research: +0 Sorcery: +1 Charisma: +2 Bureaucracy: -1 Burnout: 0 Harm: 0 "You know, Selene, I love your idea, and I don't think these are mutually exclusive. What say we work in your departmental occupation plan as a side effect of the classwork? Say, make sure the kids in reanimation parade their bodies through Gellar Hall, or, because as we all know, serpent based entrail reading works much better in the sunlight, we just start having class out on the quad in front of the doors to the Plantain Building so they can't actually leave their offices without walking through ankle deep piles of gore. Because we all know how terrible frosh are at making incisions, am I right?" Schmooze and Work the L&D Faculty Room: 2d6+2 9
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Apr 4, 2017 16:05
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Research: +0 Sorcery: +1 Charisma: +2 Bureaucracy: -1 Burnout: 0 Harm: 0 Ah, my my my. More paperwork. Well, a few extra numbers added to each column on the syllabus should take care of that. The way some folks are reacting, you'd think they didn't want free things. Such strange priorities, my fellow professors. And if anything can keep Lina, err, Professor Highsmith from killing her way through our comrades in arms, all the better. So, class. Necro 101. Good kids. Have to remind them not to stare into the portal. Which they always do. No matter how entertaining I try to be, there's always a few who doze off and end up staring at the big, spinning, hypnotic pattern. And then they get salty when they're made an example of when they find their bodies used for demonstrations of puppetry, because they've put themselves out of body, and can't find a way back in. It's all in good fun, and, honestly, I'm not sure how much clearer it can be. It says in 16 pt bold font, right across the top of the syllabus, even before it starts talking about the class overview: "Do Not Stare Into The Portal. This Is Not A Joke. Permanent Harm And Death May Result." so, honestly, I don't think I'm at fault here. It's a good lesson in why you need to pay attention to the rules and your surroundings before any work. Teach!: 2d6+2 14 1 Hold, +1 XP And, since I'm the greatest teacher to have ever graced these halls, everything goes swimmingly this lecture. They even laughed at my jokes! That never happens. --------------- But, such good moods just aren't meant to last. I'm, of course, placed next to the quite boisterous Dr. Jones, Annie, who keeps knocking me in the side of the head with her ostentatiously large hat, and who's pile of ribs it's quite tempting to make dance. It's not that I don't like her, it's just that when one is trying to enjoy a simple tuna steak, braised vegetables, a mug of ginger root tea, and a glass of port, having an excitable cowgirl shoveling beans into her maw with a runcible spoon while extolling her own virtues, and elbowing you hard enough to make your hair fall out of its bun... I don't know whether I want to slug her or kiss her. Confusing, mixed feelings, there. It's nice of the Dean to mention my work on the Telossian roots of Neo-Pergamatorianal Cyclopean Rituals of Thellosanese and its Application to Modern Day Skelto-muscular Animatory Regulation. Almost no one gets the title right, and just call it "That Bone Thing You Published Last Year". It was a bit more complicated than that, and it's why my skeleton army looks much nicer than my colleagues'. "Oh, they were a bit restless, but as usual, the Portal taught them not to daydream incautiously. I think Quentin Robb is going to be stocking up on very strong coffee from now on, lest Mildred Verts turn him into the centerpiece for her turbofolk choreography a second time." A discrete bite. A sip. "What are you working on, Anne?" A smile. My full attention. Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 17:28
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Research: +0 Sorcery: +1 Charisma: +2 Bureaucracy: -1 Burnout: 0 Harm: 0 XP: 1/5 Research: 0/6 "Oh, sounds fascinating," I reply at her vague answer, delicately forking a carrot into my mouth. "Budget constraints are always a bit of a downer, aren't they? It always seemed like we had more than we knew what to do with back when you were on the other side, eh?" It's nice to see she hasn't lost any of the enthusiasm she had back when she was in my class. Even back before the cowboy thing she was always the one who couldn't keep her hand down, and who you'd end up discussing things that weren't in the assigned reading because she'd done not only that, but also the counter reading, the counter counter arguments to that, and the counter counter counter arguments, synthesized with her own theories. A fun kid, but terrible for 101 classes. And she always thought I was a woman, which was a source of no little hilarity. Why correct her? I could care less about pronoun usage, to be honest. Transgression of norms just makes the magic work better, as Dr. Poppins used to say. But it's fun to see her enthusiasm, even if comes packaged alongside her ego. "Infinity engines? Rather up my alley. You should tell me all about it over a pint sometime. I've had a skeleton turning a crank in the basement for a couple years now and it's showing no signs of slowing down. It's just running a pinball machine right now, but, hey? Wouldn't want to lose my high score. Perpetual motion? Well, it's close enough for government work."
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Apr 24, 2017 17:20
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Research: +0 Sorcery: +1 Charisma: +2 Bureaucracy: -1 Burnout: 0 Harm: 0 XP: 1/5 Research: 0/6 Oh yes, this truly is paradise. Access to anyone and everyone, free to mill about as I please... I really can't understand why most folks don't enjoy this. Who I'm mainly looking for is Dr. Wears-the-Blood-of-Men, but instead it seems that Professor Lovelace is eager to talk. I wanted to see if Freydis had a spare moment sometime to chat about skeletal bonding, because on some of the newer ones I've animated there's an annoying creek in the knee couplings that I haven't quite been able to work out -- it isn't in any of my older ones, but it's also on more than one frame, so I don't think it's just one skeleton having weird knee bones. And it's great that we have so much in common. I always thought she was a bit scary, but now that I know we're both pretty similar when you really get down to it, I've been looking forward to getting to know her better. But, then there's Vivian. She's... Well, you know that I don't like saying things about people, but she's a snob. Yes, both my parents and my grandparents going far far back were all practitioners of the arts. But that's rather like being a police officer in a family of cops, or an accountant in a family of accountants, isn't it? My brother is a dentist, and not a magical one either. Just the regular picks and mirrors and drills type. But it's important to not be mean to people, especially those who've been here longer than you, because who knows what they might be able to do for you down the line? No sense in burning any bridges unless they set themselves on fire. And she might not be bad to get closer to either, given her knowledge of revivification. See, the weird thing is that necromancy gets this rep as being all spooky and impractical. Like, "Ohh, I'm going to build a big chair out of skulls and wear a dark hood and speak in a husky Batman voice all the time! And all I'm going to do is continue to fail to take over one stupid little village because I'm no good at fighting and my skeletons are totally uncoordinated because I think they don't need any work after being pulled right out the ground!" Maybe that was all well and good a couple hundred years ago when you were trying to scare a farmer into giving you a goat or something, but, you know, I've got ideas that go a little further than that. You know that skeleton turning the crank that I mentioned earlier? Well, skeletons are stupid, no one is disputing that. But they're clean. And once you get them trained in what they need to do, they do it pretty well. Forever. Without pay. Without complaint. Without breaking down. So, why not use them to do all the dumb dangerous or messy jobs around that no one else wants to do? Skeleton garbagemen, skeleton crop pickers, skeleton bomb disposal units... The possibilities are as endless as the supplies for making them! Heck, if I can find a way to hook that crank into a battery, maybe get it powering an entire room or house or something? A skeleton in every basement. Literal fossil fuel! Ha, I crack myself up sometimes.
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May 8, 2017 04:11
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