Act 1: The Mysterious Occurrences

You were given an assignment to study in the library. You didn't find the head librarian, but an older student directed you to the right corner of the bookcases where you would find the relevant books.

You are sitting alone in the old library studying around one of the old wooden tables. The books smell old and the texture of the pager is familiar. But you also sense something else, it is very vivid, and you are pretty sure that it is not just your imagination.
Then you hear a noise and multiple strange creatures crawl out from under the table, on top of it, up the shelves and causing chaos in the library.


They kick over books as they scramble around and push vases and other artefacts on the floor. They hiss at each other and two of them are getting into a fight over a bunch of colourful feathers. There are between 6 and 12 of them in sizes between a large cat, to that of a pig.

Charlotte shrieks as she leaps onto a chair, ready to kick at any of the beasts if they were to come at her.

She cries out "Help!", hoping the librarian or some other adult is within earshot. Not seeing any adult coming to help, Charlotte dances from chair to chair until she gets to her backpack, distraught that one of the creatures was starting to nose its way inside the bag. "Give me that!" she exclaims as she snags away her backpack. Reaching inside she produces her wand.

Dot squeals when the little creatures appear. She topples over the large stack of books she was researching. They noisily cascade to the ground. She draws her wand, waves it and yells out Illusio Lepido"

At first Seraphine presumes this is a test but quickly it becomes apparent that it is not. Surely there is a reason for this intrusion, she surmises and decides to go the less violent route seeing as they are likely outnumbered.

"Please STOP! Is there something we can do that would make you go away?" she asks firmly but not threateningly yet.

"We mean you no harm and are merely trying to study." She then smiles sweetly with her radiant green eyes as she waits for a response, if any.

Bex rises, a bit more slowly than the others, and watches the creatures movements. He can't stop them all, but maybe a few. Drawing his Wand he tries to cast a beast spell of some sort, something to calm or control him--he has always been able to speak with creatures after all (Wild Speak)
"Go back where you came from, there is nothing here for you:

Dot has never heard about or seen creatures like these before

Seraphine Everhart uses her commanding voice but they act like they are not understanding her. Besides they are busy causing a fuss

Charlotte E. Ashwood waves her wand to summon a cage around the creatures. She does manage to form a cage, but it is made from tissue paper and the creatures walk through the cage as if it was not really there. The cage collapses under its own weight and is torn to shreds.

*rolling, he has a Brain Wand (haven't added it yet), so no other bonuses

Not a great show for a perfect prefect is it?

Not to be outdone, or at least she hopes not, especially since she comes from a long line of illustrious wizards and witches, she bites her bottom lip and thinks hard. Drawing her strength from years and years of rich history, she takes her wolf's tooth wand and proceeds to make continuous figures of eight, hoping to mesmerize the nasty creatures with her clever distraction attempt. Besides the wolf at the tip is very scary indeed!

Bex actually causes one of the creatures to stop running about. It stops to look at him, and then returns to under the table.

Seraphine Everhart tries to use logical thinking and knowledge gathering to distract a creature using magic.Her mind is flooded with information, mostly from the books around her. It is as if every page from every book is being read out loud, very loud, at her. All at once!
After a minute of three, all the voices ends. About 5000 pages have been read to her all at once. When she returns from her auditory bombardment she leans two things:
1) In magic one must be precise in knowing what effect one is trying to do
2) While her fellow students did their very best to contain the chaos, all of a sudden all the creatures reacted to a sound, and returned to under the table - and were gone.

You are sitting in a corner of the library that has been trashed. Students and other staff are arriving to see what the commotion was all about. You perhaps have a minute or two before someone senior arrives to take charge of the situation and remove you from the scene.

"Well done Bex!" Seraphine wasn't one to lick her wounds but then her brain felt like it might explode. When she finally made some sense of it all she realized her folly. It must have been the stress of the high expectations placed on her shoulders. She could almost see her ancestors bearing down upon her, frowns lining their faces in their disappointment.

Clearing her head and composing herself she scans the room, happily mystified, as she takes a deep breath of relief. "Looks like they are gone."

It is then that her eye catches Dot; 's butterfly flitting around the room which makes her smile and enables her to gain her center once again.

Thanks. I tend to have a way with animals and creatures he runs a hand through his hair.

Dot looks around the mess of the room and looks panicked. She starts scurrying around picking up fallen books and scattered papers.
Realizing this is going to take to long she flicks her wand and shouts. "Fragor Finis" to try and clean up this mess...

Don't force it, be gentle, i know you're upset madam prefect but calm when casting is important too...things have a place, put them back where they belong he pulls out his Wand and waves it gently. restituet ordo

Seraphine ignores Bex. He means well but he has made her feel foolish and she does not take well to that. Plus he's cute so she gives him a pass. At least this time, so she watches the butterfly fly around and Bex's attempt at spell casting.

Dot and Bex both try to clean up the mess the creatures left behind with magic. And it works - kind of... Their magic takes hold of the loose debris, paper, books, pens, chairs, candle holders, and desktops and pulls it towards them. Dot is the first to realise their mistake as a book zips towards her and hits her so hard that she takes a few steps backwards. Then another book strikes her from behind.
Bex also finds himself a magnet for the clutter, and right now he looks like a paper showman.

Dot has 5 books stuck to her and can hardly move and can only watch as a heavy chair as it picks up speed and heading for her. As the chair manages to get airborne a teacher arrives and ends the uncontrolled cleaning magic.Well.... what happened here? You are the new studens, yes? Day one and allready in trouble. I can't wait to hear about this.
The teacher looks expectant at you.

Seraphine takes some gleeful satisfaction at the backfired spells, then berates herself for acting so immaturely. But still, she can't help but find it amusing. At least no one is in danger of being badly injured.

Her attention is immediately drawn away when a handsome teacher fixes the badly delivered spells as he enters the room. His effervescent charisma takes over the room as if it is a tangible thing one can feel and it threatens to topple the prefect over. Her cheeks burn as she notices his perfectly arranged clothing. It's as though it is melded to the man's body, while his flowing gown is topped with a fur ermine collar that is to die for (well hopefully not).

When he speaks, the prefect is loss for words.

Bex turned to face the teacher. This was the teacher he had so looked forward to meeting, the teacher in charge of care and study of magical creatures and here he was blowing his introduction. Weird creatures attacked sir. Quadrapeds. Furry. Bat like ears. claws. very destructive. We scared them off. Sir. and then we tried to clean up...didn't work so well... he bows his head, looking thoroughly abashed.

After being struck by the first heavy tome that knocks her back a few steps she tries to steady herself. Another book flies striking her in the back Dot rubs her backside from the blow. Another three books smack her one by one sending her flat on her back.
She quickly stands back up right as the chair flies at her. Luckily Professor Abbott slows down the chair as it slides to a stop behind her.
Out of breath from the Onslaught of books Dot just plops down in the chair a little battered and bruised.
She sits rubbing her bruised back and thigh..

"Oh, Dot, you poor thing!" exclaims Charlotte, rushing over to help her recover from the beating. As she attends to Dot, she hears the baritone voice of the teacher, and turns to see who it is.

Wait, is that Thaddeus Blackwood? She'd heard of him, but seeing how dashing he is in person takes Charlotte aback. Her jaw drops as she stares in fixation at the handsome teacher. Charlotte turns red, fearful that others can hear her heart which feels like it is about to beat out of her chest. Charlotte picks up the biggest book she can find and holds it up, awkwardly trying to hide behind it while failing in an attempt to look normal.

The good-looking teacher in magical creatures, guides you out of the library. You see some older students move in to sort out the mess. You are escorted down through hallways and up some stairs. He touches a statue of a frog, while muttering something about being a Tuesday. This causes a hidden door to open witch he leads you through into another hallway. At the end of this darker hallway you find yourself in front of a big oak door that says "Headmaster"
In you go He gives the door a smart knock and then leaves.

Bex doesn't even notice the room, his eyes dart from his feet to the cluttered desk, never quite making eye contact with the headmistress. He was more nervous than ever now

Seraphine doesn't go in first. She needs time to compose herself. Bex going in before her gives her time to gauge whether the headmistress is angry, amused, or impassive, which was unlikely. She hoped none of the others mentioned her failed spell. The embarrassment would be hard to bear.

Her first impression as she enters the room is the messy desk. Seraphine, being of a very fastidious nature herself, is both shocked and disappointed, but perhaps there is a method behind it. She wouldn't jump to judgment just yet. Her eyes are drawn to the rows upon rows of bookshelves full of ancient tomes, bound books so fat they looked impossible to pull from the shelf let alone to hold and read. Perhaps a spell was the only way and in this fashion, the books might be protected. She wondered about all that as she waited for the others to file in.

Charlotte enters the room and tries to melt into the shadows and hide behind Seraphone. Charlotte swallows, her throat suddenly as dry as bones.

Dot walks in with the others amazed by all of the pink throughout the room. The amount of cute and cuddy animal pictures elegantly placed against the walls is staggering. Dot walks over to a wall and starts looking at all of the art. A lot of Ooos and aaawes start absent mindedly coming from Dot...

Charlotte looks intently around the room. Ever curious, the plethora of odd, scatters items captivates her.

Bex gulps and nods. We were working on our assignments when these strange creatures appeared.
quadrapeds. bat like ears. thin fuzzy fur. destructive

Dot starts rattling off repeating and explaining more to what Dex says.
"Yeah. We were working on papers in the Library. I had a large stack of books on my table because I was researching a lot of different stuff. Bex was sitting with Charlotte working together and Seraphine was working by herself. These 4 cute little bat like cat like things appeared from under a table. They started knocking down books and pulling scrolls of shelves. They scared me and I knocked over my stack of books. Charlotte tried to cage them but it was too small. I tried to distract them by filling the room with pretty floating butterflies but only a few appeared and they didn't react to them. Seraphine was able to distract the creatures and Bex starting chatting with them. Like the creatures could understand what he was saying. Then one scattered under the table. " She takes a breath and continues. "The creatures returned under the table and vanished. Bex and I tried to clean up the mess but our spells didn't work. We got attacked by all of the books and papers around... " Dot Rattle this all off in a few breathes talking rapidly and endlessly until she finishes.

Yes. Good. Let Bex and Dot speak for us.

The prefect stands tall and still as the headmistress circles the group. Then she realizes she is the prefect and should say ... something.

"Yes, Bex and Dot are entirely correct. We were attacked unexpectedly, headmistress."

Charlotte steps out from behind Seraphine and curtseyed awkwardly. "Yes ma'am, that's exactly what happened."

Portal headmistress? Bex tugs nervously at his robes.

Seraphine catches Charlotte looking at the drawing and makes a note to ask her afterward about it. But the headmistresse's reaction takes her completely by surprise. She had expected a severe admonishment and instead they got praise.

"Perhaps we can try and find out who is doing it and why they are doing it? Is it connected in anyway to the drawing?" Seraphine asks innocently.

She might have been overstepping. It seemed like the head was trying to hide it. Rather than wait to see what Charlotte saw, the direct approach might be better.

Charlotte's eyes grow wide on seeing the Croquis drawing. She looks around to see if anyone else had seen the drawing, which seemed scandalous to the innocent Charlotte.

Charlotte then turns her attention to the Headmistress's words.

"A portal," says Charlotte. "What could be causing that?"

Dot shakes her head. "I didn't notice anything portal like. What were those creatures call that came out of it? Where did they come from?"
Dot stands by the others a little jittery. All this excitement has her wanting to move. She is fiddling with her fingers as they talk.

You all try to recall what happened as you were studying. You were all sitting alone in the old library studying around one of the old wooden tables. The books smelled old and the texture of the pager was familiar. But you also sense something else, it was very vivid, and you were pretty sure that it is not just your imagination.

Charlotte listens to the conversation about the portals. She thought back to the event in the library, here memory triggering.

"This may sound weird, but I got the sense of rain on my soul. That's the best I can describe it. Fairly sure I didn't imagine that. Anyone else get that feeling?"

"I had the distinct smell of seagrass in my nose. Never mind that I've never actually smelled that. I just knew. Anyway, I dismissed it because of that.

And i heard the sound of a flame

Dot looks down and shivers across her body, you can see goosebumps appear on her arms. "Yeah.." She rubs her arms and squeezes her legs together. "I..Um remember the feeling of something crawling on my skin. It started with my legs, then it drifted up my to my chest, before floating away." Her face begins to flush she shakes her head trying to calm herself down. "It felt ...Um...smokey Like from a campfire

Charlotte gulped and looks around at her companions. This sounds important and maybe dangerous. But mostly, exciting.

Eager to impress the headmistress and more than a little curious about the portals, Charlotte exclaimed, "Yes ma'am, I am willing."

Fascinating! Yes I think Id like that he pulls out a parchment/notebook and scribbles this down

A real investigation of magical import!

The prefect is very excited, but being the reserved and proper girl that she is only says calmly, "I would like to help find this troublemaker that appears to be threat to the school."

Dot Blushes. "Umm this Vestigia I...We felt it only happens when they cast a certain spell? Why don't we feel others Vestigia or others feel ours?" She thinks for a little.
"But if you need help I will do my best... This is all just very.. umm distracting.."

Dot plops down in the middle of the chaise lounge. She bonces on it a few times before settling down and putting her hands on her lap. She fidgets a little bit more as the others join her.
Closing her eyes and slowly breathing she relaxes and focuses like the Headmistress told her.

"Umm. It doesn't feel the same as last time but it feels. She thinks and stays silent for a second. "Nice? A pleasant feeling like hugging a puppy."

Charlotte plops down next to Dot on the lounge and tries to concentrate and explore her senses.

After Dot's comment, Charlotte says, "Dot, that's what it feels like to me too! It feels nice, but not sure of anything beyond that."

Bex nods. Pride, determination. And for some reaon a bear eating fish.... he wrinkles his nose. Does it depend on the spell or the caster?

Ignoring Bex, the prefect closes her eyes and tries to concentrate but being in such close proximity to the other students makes it hard. She can hear them breathing and moving about. Eventually she manage to relax and free her mind, opening her senses fully.

"Oh! I have something." Serephine's eyes remain closed.

"I have the sense of a red banner fluttering gently in the wind. A fine silk drawn over ...." Suddenly the girl's cheeks redden. "Oh dear. The banner is ... well it's draped over naked skin, and ... and there's an engraved shield."

Wishing the couch might swallow her up is an exercise in futility so she grins and bears it. Finally, her cheeks no longer feel hot and she opens her eyes, looking straight ahead.

Dot not having seen the picture is confused... about a lot of stuff right now really. "Umm... Thank you Headmaster. I thought we were going to be in trouble or something... This is not what I " She looks to the others. ""We were expecting at all." She stands up and gives the Headmaster a hug. "Thank you!"

Seraphine did not have a chance to see the picture but her vision gave her a sense of what it was about along with the reactions of some of the students and the headmistress herself.

She simply says, "Thank you." Glad not to have been admonished she realizes she is tired and ready for her warm and hopefully comfy bed.

Nods. Yes thank you. I can't wait to learn more He takes a moment to look at the cute animals on the walls. What are our rules about familiars headmistress? My...other school allowed them in our classes

Ufh! Dots hug takes her by supprise and she akwardly pads her shoulder.

Trying to reestablish the professional relationship she addresses Bex's question. Mr Hedgerow, apart from predatorial familiars hurting other familiars, we have no reason to impose any rules. In the end, you are responsible for your familiars behavior as it is an extension of yourself. Thus "Any permanent alterations, transformations or modifications to yourself or fellow students are grounds for expulsion", applies. Killing a familiar is a permanent alteration.

Later, while drifting off to sleep, you sense that the castle is troubled by the events in the library.

The first week has passed and you are getting to grips with your classes. The material is hard but instructive and you are learning a ton.

Charlotte is sitting under a tree reading, lost in the book. Suddenly she feels a trickle at her foot, then at her ear, and then she sees an ant craw on her classes. Ants are crawling all over her!

One of the studens from The dears, appears to be very entertained by Charlottes misfortune. She waves a few of her girlfriends over to share in this afternoon's show.

Another student who always plays around with electricity, is quietly observing the prank in action.

A third student smiles in anticipation. How is the new girl going to handle this?

"Ack!" shrieks Charlotte, momentarily in shock at the prank. Charlotte gestures and begins a counter-spell, struggling to concentrate with the ants crawling all over her.

That Elysia, she and her friends are gloating over my misfortune!

As she blurts out the incantation to finish the counter-spell — "Contrarium formicae!" — she blushes in embarrassment, noticing Petrow staring fixedly at her. Charlotte has the beginnings of a crush on Petrow and is mortified at the spectacle of her situation right in front of Petrow!

Charlotte is fighting a long battle with the ants. They keep coming while she keeps brushing them off. But after a while the ants stop coming and Charlotte is free of the ants. Some kids are laughing, some are cheering and others are talking among themselves.
They are talking about how the grace period is over now, and ideas and tactics to prank their victim of choice.

The same afternoon a notice is place in the grate hall

Mystwoods
Signups are open for this years Mystwoods. Win honor, prestige and a daytrip to London by being the team that wins the most challanges in the woods.
Some challenges will be just you alone
Some challenges will be just your group
Some challenges will be just your group against another group
Do you dare? Do you have what it takes

The Wolfs, The Dears and the Hedgehogs
Or the unclaimed banner

After finding the note Dot finds the others "We were going to Group up for Mystwoods right? What should we call ourselves?" She jumps up and down in excitement while pointing at the notices.

Bex nods. Hadn't we talked about Phantom Foxes or something similar?

"Indeed we did. I suppose we better go get signed up."

Seraphine had ignored Charlotte's dilemma. She was curious to see how the group handled the situation. She also noted the sneers and snickers of the other students and wondered who among them caused the prank.

Bex hadn't been outside when the ant incident happened. If he had, he'd probably have ended up in the headmistress office and on a boat home. It was all he could do not to break some noses

After the ant incident, Charlotte was frustrated. Who decided to pull such a prank on her? She was sure she'd have nightmares for months. Charlotte took consolation in talking to her friends and noting their frustration over the event.

Later that afternoon, Charlotte sees the notice about the Mystwoods challenge. She finds her friends.

"Phantom Foxes sounds fine by me! Let's sign up. I'll keep my eyes open, maybe I can find that ant-prankster yet!"

Better not tell me if you. Bex runs a hand through his hair. When people hurt my friends i sometimes do things I regret

Is it a true free for all or are there rules as to what we can and cannot do?....asdide from death of course

With her wand out Dot starts skipping into the woods. "Come on! How hard can it be! Just a fun walk in the woods!" She stops to watch some ants march by and waits for the others to join her....

"Let's go see what that golden glow is. Anyone else see it glowing just there," she asks pointing in the direction of the light.

Of course not sir. But during competition sometimes things can become lax... He straightens. We will win ladies. Let's go

Charlotte stares out at the mysterious Mystwoods. The challenges sounded so exotic and exciting when discussing it in the school halls, but here on the edge of the woods, Charlotte feels creeping fear turn her stomach in knots.

"Um, aside from the challenges, are there any dangers of which we should be aware? And...," she gulps, "...is it safe to be in the woods after dark?"

Following the others to the glowing gold thing.
"As long as we stick together we will be fine. Stop being a worry wart have some fun! "

This could be terrifying. I mean...dark forests often end poorly