Where There's Smoke There's Fire

Where's Wondercute when you need them?

I really enjoyed this story. Sure there wasn't a big battle or even a little one, but it is a much more normal view of Whateley, and what the students are doing. A story about stressing over grades, clothes, relationships, etc can be just as good as blowing up a Sindicate base.

Keep up the good work.

Dreamer, as always thanks for the comments.
A few comments on the comments

Gravedigger is a classic example of someone fixated on what he wants the outcome to be, and determined to wrangle to data accordingly. He'd probably de well in the Spy Kids

Shades and Beatdown aren't nearly as smart as they think they are. Also, they are teenage boys. Why do you expect them to understand girls?

The big advantage of something like a belt buckle as a limited-use holdout is that its easy and inconspicuous. It there for those 'oh shit!' moments when you get attacked unexpectedly.

'Air drawing' of spells is comment enough its oen of the methods taught, although it more often combined with verbalisation. However its pretty rare for combat mages, as it takes a little time to cast, and some unfriendly person might be trying to shoot you at the time. Its big advantage is the flexibility of spell availability, of course.

So, no surprise at me finally admitting what Thulia really is?

"What have you done, Morgana? If she finds out about the coffee in the workshop she will want to visit a lot more often."
Why would Morgana see that as a problem?

"Makes perfect sense to me, I can't imagine how much energy it will take to manifest wings."
It's not exactly (or only partially) to do with the amount of energy. Morgana has to learn how to channel that effectively, and her energy channels got seriously damaged not that long ago. So Thulia wants to take things carefully.

"Just how much smaller is the population where she is from compared to Earth?"

A lot smaller; also, the inhabitants tend to have much longer lifespans (so less children, for example).

Oh, Thulia did go home at the end of this story. Continuations in Morgana's and Thulia's next stories... (yes, I haven't nearly finished yet!)

CPrime, a few clarifications.

Olrun is fairly soon going to find out what happened to his missing channeller. At which point things will get interesting, depending on how much the Cult knows (or believes) about Whateley...

It's assumed now that Bianca has a privacy spell running when she's at the table unless specified otherwise.

The necklace isnt a faux pas, Thulia bought a number of dragons t-shirts, so Morgana assumed she was OK with dragon-themed accessories. Her family would probably find the idea of her wearing dragon items on Earth amusing.

Unintended consequences?? Would I set our two adorably cute teenage dragongirls up for stuff like that?

Valentine wrote:

Where's Wondercute when you need them?

I really enjoyed this story. Sure there wasn't a big battle or even a little one, but it is a much more normal view of Whateley, and what the students are doing. A story about stressing over grades, clothes, relationships, etc can be just as good as blowing up a Sindicate base.

Keep up the good work.

Wondercute is, fortunately, nowhere close.

Well, the recet Morgana and Thulia stories have had a lot of combat and dangerous situations, so I thought a change in this story would be fun. It wont last...

On population of the Fire Plane, dragons are VERY long lived, and likely require a lot of food, however because they are long lived, they likely don't enter relationships lightly, as the pain from a relationship falling apart will be equally as long lived, and to add to matters, as seen with how Thulia "cheated" to help save Morgana, and what she originally thought she'd have to do, their bonds are a little more permanent than human marriages. It wouldn't surprise me if the convention was generally raising only 1 or sometimes 2 children at a time, and not raising any more until the current ones are counted as adults, keeping birth rates very close to rate of replacement.

edit seems the author ninja'd my speculation

Gravedigger's codename seems appropriate, though I dont think he realizes he's digging his own

Astrodragon wrote:

Dreamer, as always thanks for the comments.
A few comments on the comments

Gravedigger is a classic example of someone fixated on what he wants the outcome to be, and determined to wrangle to data accordingly. He'd probably de well in the Spy Kids

Shades and Beatdown aren't nearly as smart as they think they are. Also, they are teenage boys. Why do you expect them to understand girls?

The big advantage of something like a belt buckle as a limited-use holdout is that its easy and inconspicuous. It there for those 'oh shit!' moments when you get attacked unexpectedly.

'Air drawing' of spells is comment enough its oen of the methods taught, although it more often combined with verbalisation. However its pretty rare for combat mages, as it takes a little time to cast, and some unfriendly person might be trying to shoot you at the time. Its big advantage is the flexibility of spell availability, of course.

So, no surprise at me finally admitting what Thulia really is?

"What have you done, Morgana? If she finds out about the coffee in the workshop she will want to visit a lot more often."
Why would Morgana see that as a problem?

"Makes perfect sense to me, I can't imagine how much energy it will take to manifest wings."
It's not exactly (or only partially) to do with the amount of energy. Morgana has to learn how to channel that effectively, and her energy channels got seriously damaged not that long ago. So Thulia wants to take things carefully.

"Just how much smaller is the population where she is from compared to Earth?"

A lot smaller; also, the inhabitants tend to have much longer lifespans (so less children, for example).

Oh, Thulia did go home at the end of this story. Continuations in Morgana's and Thulia's next stories... (yes, I haven't nearly finished yet!)

I'm more surprised she was embarrassed about what she is. As for wings, I'm sure Thulia is overlooking a little detail, that Caitlin probably wouldn't, Morgana likely lacks any instincts that would be key to flying, or even just using the extra pair of limbs.

Astrodragon wrote: The big advantage of something like a belt buckle as a limited-use holdout is that its easy and inconspicuous. It there for those 'oh shit!' moments when you get attacked unexpectedly.

Also, if the belt is made along the lines of a standard Shop project, a limited-use enchanted buckle can be swapped out in minutes for flexibility or replacement.

A thought occurred to me, if Thulia ends up hanging out in the Workshops, we might get an answer to if her human bits came with MGC and she's a devisor or gadgeteer.

mhalpern wrote:

A thought occurred to me, if Thulia ends up hanging out in the Workshops, we might get an answer to if her human bits came with MGC and she's a devisor or gadgeteer.

She had to start as a human not just have human DNA as part of her genes (I could be wrong) .

FallenHawk wrote:

mhalpern wrote:

A thought occurred to me, if Thulia ends up hanging out in the Workshops, we might get an answer to if her human bits came with MGC and she's a devisor or gadgeteer.

She had to start as a human not just have human DNA as part of her genes (I could be wrong) .

there hasn't been anything definitive that says that, all that means is that you can't compare her against human baseline

I'm more surprised she was embarrassed about what she is. As for wings, I'm sure Thulia is overlooking a little detail, that Caitlin probably wouldn't, Morgana likely lacks any instincts that would be key to flying, or even just using the extra pair of limbs.

Its not so much shes ashamed of what she is; shes had a lot of flak from the other kids abou 'not being a REAL dragon', having a mixed heritage and so on. What worries her is that Morgana might feel that way (silly, of course, for a number of reasons, but shes a somewhat insecure teenager about this matter)

I'm more surprised she was embarrassed about what she is. As for wings, I'm sure Thulia is overlooking a little detail, that Caitlin probably wouldn't, Morgana likely lacks any instincts that would be key to flying, or even just using the extra pair of limbs.

Oh, Thulia doesn't have that much in the way of instinct either, she had to learn to fly. While there a a few little things with the body that will help (balance, for example), when she finally manifests her wings Morgana will need training

null0trooper wrote:

Astrodragon wrote: The big advantage of something like a belt buckle as a limited-use holdout is that its easy and inconspicuous. It there for those 'oh shit!' moments when you get attacked unexpectedly.

Also, if the belt is made along the lines of a standard Shop project, a limited-use enchanted buckle can be swapped out in minutes for flexibility or replacement.

It can also (in an emergency) be lent to a squishy teammate

mhalpern wrote:

FallenHawk wrote:

mhalpern wrote:

A thought occurred to me, if Thulia ends up hanging out in the Workshops, we might get an answer to if her human bits came with MGC and she's a devisor or gadgeteer.

She had to start as a human not just have human DNA as part of her genes (I could be wrong) .

there hasn't been anything definitive that says that, all that means is that you can't compare her against human baseline

Thulia's heritage makes her DNA very messy (although given the amount of junk code in the human genome, maybe we shouldn't talk...). There will be more on that in the future...and what effects the human parts of it have