Session 7a: The Great Magical Tournament

(Disclaimer: My apologies for taking so long to update, I haven't been playing Sierra much, she was mainly just gardening. Now that Amy is c-blocked on Twin Giants, I can get to working on my neglected wizards. As I will be gainfully employed, I won't be able to play Wizard101 as often, so forgive me if I don't update as often. I do plan on advertising this blog to official sites.)

(I was planning on just telling Wysteria like it was, but after watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, I came up with a fiendish idea. It did require the use of the PvP arena in Unicorn Way and is artistic license. In reality both Grace and Sierra battled all of the people, but this is a dramatic retelling so it's got some ALTERATIONS. I apologize to KingsIsle in advance for mauling their story for fictional innovation. Wysteria is my favorite side world. ^_^)

(Also, I was playing these two when I wanted to advance Chris's storyline because I promised to help a friend but he never logged on. Oh well... at least we got the Balance tri-blades trained for these two, woot!)

Merle Ambrose called us away from Krokotopia and our investigation of the Krokonomicon and Malistaire. "What is it, Rra Ambrose?" asked Grace, a bit annoyed that the investigation was halted.

Ambrose told us that he had registered our names in a magical tournament being held in a rival magic school called Pigswick Academy. We visited Mr. Lincoln, who gave us rings with the image of the Great Tree on it to symbolize our school as well as Spiral Keys to the world where Pigswick was built on, the vine-covered world of Wysteria.

"We don't have time for games," snorted Grace's pet mermaid. "We have an investigation to do."

"True," said Grace, rubbing her chin. "But if Rra Ambrose asked us to participate, it would be rude to refuse him. Besides, it seems that the situation will not worsen in Krokotopia and we could use some time to train our skills if we are to defeat the Tuts."

The mermaid crossed her arm and snorted. "You'll see, our absence will make things worse."

I was still trying to get over the mermaid talking.

We were met by a pig-lady called Ms. Dowager, who told us that we needed to go to the tournament hall to register and take some sort of application test. We entered the hall and saw a beautiful model of the Spiral before us, encased in a golden casing. We met Benedict, the battle trainer of Pigswick and rival to Diego, who I assumed was in one of the paintings on the wall.

"Look," said Grace, pointing to other pictures. "Do you think those could be younger versions of Rra Ambrose and Malistaire?"

"Indeed," mused the mermaid. "I wonder... did they participate in the tournament here long ago?"

Benedict snorted. "If you two have time to talk, you have time to duel. You will be taking your registration tests in different halls. You, Sierra, you will be dueling Bleys Flamerender in the Hall of the Baslisk. Your friend will be dueling Danetta Sunscroll in the Hall of the Specter."

We were escorted into the halls and the gate closed behind me. Someone whispered into my ear. "Watch out, wizard! Pigswick folk are certified cheaters!"

"Thanks for the advice," I whispered back as we began the duel.

Right off the start he cast a spell I had never seen before! It didn't match any of the known schools. I guessed that was his cheating, and it bolstered his defenses...

But it didn't stand a chance against a buffed up vomiting toad. ^_^

Grace told me that her duel was just as tough. Danetta had used a similar spell to cloak her spells so she couldn't tell what they were until they resolved their effects and she had spells that we knew weren't available to normal wizards - Balanceblade, Ash Bats, and such not. We suspected she was using Treasure Cards. "We must be careful," warned Grace. "If Pigswick won the Spiral Cup many times before, I think it was not by fair combat."

(The battle against Bleys was not hard at all for either girl, though Sierra had a harder time as she was hit with a Weakness which I had to wand off and then a Banshee and Ash Bats. I had both of them buff up with traps [each had an amulet that gave school traps, so they got two myth and storm traps that stacked] and hit with their strongest spells. Grace doesn't have Elemental Blade at the beginning but she got all three Krakens. ^_^)

(I also had Grace farm Bleys again and again as Sierra got a really nice athame drop from him called Point of the Pegasus. It gives 132 HP, 99 MP and 2% outgoing heal. It's stronger than anything you get in the Krokosphinx and outstrips what Grace and Sierra had been equipped with as athames by far - Grace had on a weak Athame of the Skies that only gave her 40 to her HP and MP, which was not going to be suitable now. The fact that you can easily make the level requirement, which is oddly two levels less than the required level you need to farm for it, is just a bonus. ^_^)

We met with the other students participating, who we were bunking with. Most of them were polite, but a Pigswick student, Randolph Spellshine, was rude and mean and we immediately disliked him.

Zeke was around and asked us to look for some wallflowers, even though he was still hoping for those scarabs in Krokotopia. I was about to ask why he was here instead of Krok-T, but I realized that he knew we would be here. He DOES travel the Spiral, you know. How he does it without Spiral Keys is a mystery that Grace is eager to solve. *grin*

I found the first behind a shop door in the academy.

We also met the headmaster, er, mistress Belladonna Crisp. Well, her name reflected her personality - she was ten times as rude and belittled our school as idiotic and foolish.

"It seems she's the foolish one, Mma," said the mermaid pet. (I have to find out her name.) "And we are the smart ones. It's obvious when you see their magical fountain is normal as can be and the schools aren't even real schools of magic! I mean, who employed a nasty GOBBLER to teach!?!"

"Maybe they are just trying to compensate for their own lack of knowledge by making myths," said Grace. "But it would be impolite to say that honestly. We don't want to get expelled from the tournament for being blunt." I agreed. Even if I didn't like their teachings here, at least we would be courteous until the tournament was over. And we would win the Spiral Cup despite all their cheating ways and show the Spiral that Ravenwood was an honorable institution of magic study, not this pathetic wannabe place. How did it get created anyways?

(For those wondering:

• Chester Droors, the Earth Professor, is a druid (his body model is replicated in various enemies in Dragonspyre)
• Heironius Bunch, the Chaos Professor, is a civilized yeti (his model is based off of the Forest Lord and various yeti bosses which I won't spoil here, but one of them is in the Winterbane dungeon instance)
• Quentin Burble, the Frost Professor is a Gobbler, which makes sense since you only fight Gobblers in Colossus Boulevard, a snowy place
• Velma Pepper, the Equilibrium Professor, is obviously from Marleybone
• Edna Fuligin, the Spirit Professor, is a Raven witch from Grizzleheim
• Ankhu is a Mander who is descended from the Order of Fire in Krokotopia, which is why he teaches the Ember school of magic
•  Finally, Thaddeus Prince, the Tempest Professor, is a Riverclaw, which makes since as Riverclaws are underwater creatures and Storm is usually associated with oceans ^_^)

Belladonna sent us to the guard at the gate to Pegasus Place and we offered to help - an army of goblins was swarming out of some place and invading the streets and we were tasked with fighting some off. We agreed to help, but found the task difficult - the goblins were tough and did a lot of fire-based attacks that chipped away at our health.

(This is a rude awakening for anyone who thought Krok was too easy. The goblins and hobgoblins has more health than a buffed up Vampire can take out and use a lot of four-pip attacks. I'll go on about it as this is the end of the first part. I'll try to get the next part out ASAP. Ciao!)

[To be continued...]