A Cordial Invitation

In the depths of the universe lies a kingdom ruled by a mighty queen. Her heart is gold, her fist is iron, and her rule is fair and just. Under her rule, her kingdom prospers.

Her kingdom is no ordinary kingdom, for her citizens are no ordinary citizens. As it was, most- if not all- of the citizens were given the finest gift the universe could give them. The gift of magic. Everyone of them was given a certain branch of magic at birth. Magic that could be simple or extraordinary! It was up to fate to decide their branch.

You are one of the many citizens of this kingdom. As a babe, the universe smiled upon you. The fate rolled their dice to determine your life.

Fate has rolled a 20 and a 9 on a 20-sided die.

The gift you owned was the finest you could have! Your magic was extremely potent. When others struggled to reach the hardest forms of magic, you flourished. A branch of magic that was difficult to others came naturally to you.

Despite your talents, however, you were nothing more than another face in the crowd. A simple ordinary life was one you lead.

Fate has rolled a 17 and a 20 on a 20-sided die.

The above was perhaps ironic- considering you were about to meet with the queen, alongside several others. Getting an invitation to meet with someone noble was quite lucky. Meeting with the queen was perhaps the luckiest of all! She cordially invited you to her castle to meet with her, saying she has heard of your talents.

With that, you hastened to send a letter telling her how honoured you were, and that you accepted to meet with her. She sent a letter back, telling you that the pleasure was all hers. The letter made you think she already held you in high regards. It seemed you had her favour for now.

At the moment, you are currently preparing to meet with her. You've straightened out your outfit and tried to look your very best. An escort, sent by the queen, is waiting for you outside. From the looks of it, they don't seem too patient.

You take one last look at the mirror and try to assure yourself you'll be fine. You repeat your introduction of yourself in your head. You already know you'll be asked about the kind of magic that you did and your name, so you try to commit the words you'll say to heart.

With that said, what branch of magic was given to you, and what is your name?

Due to fate being kind, you can pick magic that sounds more difficult or powerful than the rest. (Accurate) divination, necromancy, physics and psychics can be chosen, to give an example. You can choose a branch not said here, though.

>Hole-related Branch!
>Catherine Terer.

>Gemmancer branch

tubermancy

BEEMANCY

Name: Doot

Leximancy (Word Magic)
Name: Dorothy Wright

>[] Terer.

Leximancy (Word Magic)
Name: Dorothy []

>Seconding
>The word magic is a step or two away from that of 'power words' or Heka. Speaking with order in such a way that may bend the world around you.

>Animation
>Spark

Yours is the way of animation, the carving of wood, the sculpting of stone, the forging of metal.

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Spoiler
And at one time, the working of meat and bone, muscle and sinew.
You burned that creation and never looked back.

These are your chosen mediums for the art, and you work them well.
You have taken trees and made them dance, given earth a voice that it might sing.
But, the greatest gift of your art eludes you: Life, though not for lack of effort.

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Spoiler
Your best effort was an accident you never managed to recreate. Two little wooden assistants, a butler and maid. By some fluke, you managed to give them personality. Not much, but enough for them to add a certain flair to their work.

Perhaps, yes, perhaps the Queen might have something to assist you in this endeavor.

time control

Fate looks at the possibilities you've presented and rolls their humble die to determine your fate.

Fate has rolled an 8 on a 8-sided die.

The universe frowns. The mere idea of a mortal changing the fabric of time makes them shiver. They ask Fate to roll again.

Fate has rolled an 8 on a 8-sided die.

The universe accuses Fate of tampering with the die. For surely even they know someone like you cannot be handed such great power.

Fate only shrugs. "The dice have chosen it. I cannot change their mind."

They move on, and roll the dice again to determine your nickname, and your name.

Fate has rolled a 2 and a 1 on a 5-sided die.

And this is here where we go back to our story, dear reader. Your story, that is.

You look at yourself in the mirror. You are Catherine Terrer, also known as "Noot" to your friends. Your magic, when the universe chose to give it to you, was the ability to bend time in certain ways.

From a very young age, you've been warned against using your powers. Though your magic was powerful, and this branch came easy to you, all magic came with a price. If you push yourself too hard, you could mutate or worse. You've since learned to be careful with what you do.

You clear your throat. "I am Catherine Terrer, also known as 'Doot'. When I was born, the universe saw it fit to give me power over time. I've been careful to use it wisely. It's my pleasure for me to meet you all."

You lock eyes with yourself and nod. You've practiced your speech enough. You'd have to trust yourself to act well around nobles. Hopefully they won't want your head.

You look around your room. Do you want to search for something to bring first, or should you meet the guard outside now?

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Author's NoteFirst off, since the dice say time related powers, I just wanted to say: please don't time travel!! Both for in-universe and out of universe reasons.
In-universe, the stress of going back in time will kill you unless you get a nat20.
Out of universe, I doubt I'd be able to write a good story that isn't meant to be centered around time travel. And it gets realllllly messy too.

I'm sorry if this seems unfair to anyone! I didn't expect anyone to choose time powers, or the dice to pick it, which might play by slightly different rules than the ones I already made.

Just to clarify several other things:

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Clarification1. Anything we do, time magic related, will automatically force us into a roll. If this was anything other than time magic [except divination or future seeing, which is kind of like time magic if you think about it enough], small tasks would automatically be a succses.

Most of the time however, you'll be forced into a roll, unless whatever magic you're doing won't really affect the plot or a character. [Like using your magic to hold something for example]

2. When rolling for succses [magic wise],
20 = Best possible outcome
15-19 = Great outcome
11-14 = Good
10 = Ok
6-9 = Backfire, may cause whatever we were doing to break
2-5 = Mutation will begin
1 = Basically death.

3. To other people, trying to do time magic would require them to get a 20 or they'd automatically mutate or die. In case if it looks like we're too nerfed! No one else can do what we do.

If this sounds super unfair, you're free to tell me! Or if time magic sounds constrictive and everyone agrees on that, I have no problem retconning this and rerolling again.

Things we can do with time magic that isn't time travel by the way: stopping time in a certain area [like pausing time on a object falling is fine], reversal [You could possibly turn bread back into dough, then into the ingridients, or a chicken into an egg] anddd other stuff you can think of! We can also use it to check the time without a watch but I mean that's kind of dull. But that is an option.

Oh and Arcanuse, I like the prose you did for this!!! It's really nice and well thought-out ^o^!! Would've been real neat to see!

>Greet the guard and invite them in. You need some light help finding your bearings.
>Cast a spell to slow the time relative to your home. Hard to be late when you've had a lot of time to prepare

>Your art is temporal, correct?
>Bring a pot filled with fresh soil and a seed.
>If they wish for a demonstration, you will be prepared.

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Spoiler
Thanks. Time's not quite my specialty, but I'll see what I can do for later.

Stop time while you finish getting ready, then walk up to the guard and restart time so it'll look like you suddenly appear. That'll make him believe you're the real deal

>Wear your finest garments; your finest blue coat. Your finest black shoes, etc. Make yourself presentable.
>Don't dilly-dally. This is a very important moment in your life. You can't be late. You must make a good impression.
>Bring props and visual aids, if we plan to show off. Does the queen or any noble you're supposed to meet have any allergies? Perhaps you can bring flower seeds and use your time magic to make grow in your hand (and hope it does not wither midway). Actually, practice some of it.

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SpoilerI've been thinking of timey-whimey effects lately, so I may have some idea on what to do.

So with time magic, it probably encompasses speed, since its just the amount of distance something travels in a span of time. By increasing or decreasing the time it takes, we can slow and quicken. We can also possibly make eternal youth and immortality by delaying old age and death. Can we make someone slow by slowing their reaction time? Or make someone attentive by extending their attention span?

+1 to retcon time powers in case it gets through. It's a... plain power.

I know from experience that handling time related powers in a story is a major pain, and strongly recommend that you retcon it lest you peter out. Maybe keep one specific use of time power and pick a magic type that has idiom related to it?

> Retcon time, that stuff is complex!
> Look for some sort of weapon or communication device.

>Bring a egg. That's it, that's your gift, a egg.
>Retconning it sounds great!

>check the time...without a watch

>Bring a egg. That's it, that's your gift, a egg.
>Retconning it sounds great!

I agree, lets bring an egg! Maybe we can make it hatch faster as a neat part trick

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Author's Note / Please read! ^o^Oookay, I made a decision!!
I'll probably retcon the magic bit. I honestly wasn't sure about allowing it since it could mess up quite a dang bit, but.. it might be for the best.
I'm really sorry if this upsets anyone at all! I'll be rewriting the post at some point this week [not right now though].

If anyone wants to know, our new magic will be Word Magic. I'll probably try to think of ways it can work, but if you have any suggestions, or would like to resuggest something, feel free to! ^u^ I'm just far too exauhsted to do so at the moment.

Thank you for reading this!

Fate looks upon their threads that wove your life. One shivers, flickers, and dies. Thread cannot die, like a mortal, but it died all the same. And dead threads could not weave a hero's tapestry. Certainly not a hero like you.

They pull the dead thread, and weave in another instead.

Retcon'ed: Fate has given you a different branch of magic instead.

You sit in their bedroom, feeling rather frazzled. Did something change and you didn't know it? It's hard to tell. But introductions must be made.

You stare at your mirror with a smile you hope doesn't seem off. You are Catherine Terrer, also known as "Noot". Your branch of magic involves words. A versatile magic, if you think hard enough. Whenever you speak, it's almost as if your words have a certain charm to them. It's up to you wether you use this to charm people, to enchant or perform spells, or to tell something as simple as stories. You have a lot of other choices than this too- written words are still words, after all.

Just remember not to push yourself, or the magic in your body might overtake you.

You nod to yourself. It's time to stop thinking about this. Your magic is most likely able to charm the Queen, practice or not.

You look around your room, filled with paper and books you've used your magic with. Your bed's not too awfully tidy at the moment, but you can fix it later. There might be other stuff here too under the clutter.

Do you want to look for something or meet the guard already?

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SpoilerRetconn'ed! I hope this doesn't bother anyone! It felt scary to deal with time travel and I.. didn't want to deal with that, especially since this isn't meant to be meta at all. Everyone in the universe abides by the don't stress yourself out with magic or you'll die rule, but Noot is not as likely to fall prey to it.

I hope you all still enjoy the story, regardless! ^^

>Dig under clutter. If there's nothing there, at least you cleaned up a bit!

>Look for your trusty THESAURUS
>Find the saurus instead

>pick your bedsheet
>it's time
>it's *time*
>use the bedsheet as a cape
>god you're fabulous, it's time to meet the guard

You sigh and force yourself to organize the clutter. It's a great big mess, really. You doubt anything interesting could be underneath this thing.

Fate has rolled a 17 on a 20-sided die.

Huh. What you find is better than expected.

You find an unenchanted amulet. It looks awfully fancy, actually. With your skills, you could possibly enchant this amulet into giving you or anyone else some sort of passive effect, tilting Fate's rolls to be better. That, or you can enchant it to make the wearer happy, contain a spirit, or contain energy in general.

You shrug and put it in your bag.

You search for a thesaurus amidst your clutter. Shuffling around, you do not find your book, but instead, your plush animal named Saurus. What a cute toy! You tuck it in your bag as well. You won't need it, but it's good to remember he's by your side.

Taking off your bedsheet and tying it around as a cape, you don a big grin.

You're ready to make your entrance.

You leave your house, striding up to the guard as confidently as you can, and greet her.

Fate has rolled a 17 on a 20-sided die.

The guard looks at you for about half a second, before she laughs. "Are you-" She giggles. "Are you really going to go in wearing that?"

You huff and puff up your cape, making sure it looks as if it was billowing in the wind. "Of course I am!" The guard doubles over in laughter. "With all due respect, Mx...."

"Catherine," you say. "But you can call me 'Noot'."

"Mx. Noot," she continues. "But you wouldn't want to make a bad impression on these nobles, least of all the queen. Mind you, the queen's nice, but her friends? The ones she invited?" She shakes her head. "Could be better."

You grumble, but concede. She does have a point, after all. You take off your bedsheet and fold it in your hands. "I'll leave it inside my bag, then."

"Your house is right there, though." The guard points to your home, which wasn't very far away at all.

"Maybe I'll need it?" You suggest. You shrug. "I just wanna go there already, it feels like I've been waiting an entire month to go here."

The guard grins and offers you her arm. "Whatever you say. Come along; this scene was worth the wait, at least."

You take her arm, giving her a little huff. "I still think I looked good."

"Of course, Mx. Noot." She laughs. "I like you already. You should come look for me later if you have any trouble in the castle; I'd be glad to assist."

You've gained a new friend: Castle Guard.

The two of you walk together to the castle. Many of the villagers- some you know, and some you don't- seem to stand and gawk at you. It's obvious already by your clothing you were no noble, so seeing you being escorted by a guard was surprising.

The guard, for her part, looks rather stoic about the affair, choosing to pretend they aren't there. Her eyes dart everywhere, making sure that none of them sought you any harm. "Do you know them?" She asks you after a little while.

"Some of them," you admit. "I see them when I need to do errands."

The guard nods, but her eyes dart around the area anyway. "I hope you're used to the stares, then. I don't think the nobles will be much different, seeing as you're a lower class compared to them."

You nod. Anything less from them would be surprising.

"Do you know about the nobles you're meeting with, anyway? I'm sure the invitation said you'd be meeting with 'others', even if she meant, well." She waves her hand. "Any questions at all?"