Re: NorthernCross Test Thread
After the last of her students for today's lessons had filed out of the stuffy, windowless, constrained, uncomfortable classroom, closing the door behind them, Alicia took off her glasses and placed them on the table. Massaging her fingers into her temples to alleviate the tension caused by teaching such a dull subject (to be lectured on at least, she had actually come to enjoy her personal studies into the nature of magic and the elements that wizards used to represent it) to a room full of up-and-coming magic users was incredibly frustrating. Every time she turned her back, someone had cast a spell on someone, and it had taken until the fifth time that it had happened to find out who was summoning the gusts of wind that had kept lifting her dress up. She had given that particular student a very good reason NOT to repeat those particular antics with her, in the form of a night helping her tend to the captive hunters. She'd let him move on to the less dangerous creatures after needing to clean his pants for the second time, and the lesson had been learned.
Letting out a sigh that took some of her frustrations out of her body, she concentrated on one of the many bright sides: For once, she had the afternoon all to herself. Odd. It wasn't a blue moon. Of course, that just meant that she'd be able to pick which of her many responsibilities that she would see to in her down time, as there was no chance at all that she'd be able to enjoy some leisure time that wasn't stolen. The universe might implode, or something.
She could go over the upcoming expedition again, but she'd done that about a thousand times already and the repetition was giving her a headache. Making sure that none of her more advanced students weren't about to blow up the Academy was similarly unappealing given her current free time, though she figured that she could go and do that any time that she wanted. That left her with adding some open office hours to her schedule. Doing so this late would likely mean a lot of time sitting in her office waiting for people that weren't likely to show up, and that simply wasn't an acceptable use of her time.
However, she could see about nipping the problem with the.... Well, the problem student about whom her colleagues were beginning to complain despite his excellent performance in her own testing. Sighing, she rose from the low desk that was located in her own classroom and, as soon as she found one, flagged down a page and told him to locate the boy in question and tell him to meet her in her office in twenty minutes. If she could get this done quickly, maybe she could go for a walk before proceeding into the dungeons in order to oversee her minions. Thinking that always caused her to grin, and occasionally to produce a fairly maniacal laugh for no apparent reason, which was exactly what Alicia did just as she passed by a group of new students from the class she had just finished.
Sometimes, it was the little things that provided for the most enjoyment in life.
A minute or two later, Alicia arrived at her office and unlocked the door, checking her little mailbox afterwards for any notes from her associates or colleagues before leaving the door cracked open and wandering in. She had a fairly small room, but the range of personal effects and the comfortable, heavily cushioned furniture made it feel fairly homey, at least to her. There was a single window position behind her desk that overlooked the chapel that sat in the corner of the Academy, and she was just high enough to see Buttersville and the long stretch of well-groomed grass between the Academy and the village that fed it. That ground was currently occupied by a series of camps containing a sizable group of Crolian militia, elven fighters, and groups of mercenaries. They didn't do much for the decorum, to say the least.
Turning from her window, Alicia conjured a little ball of light over her head, the office fairly gloomy without it. She liked to change her color from day to day, and this time her magical light came out as a very pretty mix of green and blue... Cyan she thought it was called. She'd always been terrible with colors. Maybe that was why she persisted in that particular ritual rather than just making a plain white light like most everyone else did? Regardless, the magic teacher busied herself reading her mail if she had any and glancing over the reports for the upcoming expedition if she didn't, trying to remember the name and nature of the place that they would be investigating. Of course, now that she was going to see him within a few minutes, she'd have to remember the name of her troubled student soon too...