File - The Black Dragon Incident [First Arc Recap]

[Jennalaia]

Exploring the library, you find a sheaf of papers tucked deep in one of the shelves, as if they're trying to stay hidden. Noting the date, you take a look at the contents and realize it's a strangely detailed account of the full Black Dragon Incident a couple years back. Now how did this person get all this information?

Curiosity piqued, you begin to read.

(Hi! New member, or old member looking to refresh their memory? This is a detailed recap of the first arc of the school. If you're looking to catch up or just want to check to make sure you didn't remember something wrong, this is the place to be.)

 

[Jennalaia]

Part One
The year started innocently enough. The opening ceremony had Headmaster Soulstone warning the students about a Blood Pact unit that had been last seen fleeing near the school. The unit hadn't been apprehended, so until there was news students were advised to be cautious in the forest.

Meanwhile, the unit in question, specifically Unit 13, was in horrific shape. Somehow, their ultra-secret mission had been leaked and they had been ambushed. Lara the Shield lost her left eye, Andrew the Buff received a massive scar on his face, and Peter the Infiltrator lost his life. Without their Infiltrator, the unit could not complete their mission: infiltrate the school and take over, securing several new young Pact recruits as well as the incredibly powerful Merlin's Oak at the center of the campus. Melanie the Scout found a cottage deep in the woods, which Lara covered with a barrier and they made this their base.

Several weeks later, with no new information about the Pact, the hype had calmed down at the school and the house event was underway. Ekaterina hosted a scavenger hunt in the forest, which resulted in two girl's disappearances: the Tomas rep, Aerykah, and a Tomas first year, Vivian. Aerykah got lost, but Vivian ran into Melanie deeper in the forest. Melanie, panicking, knocked Vivian out and took her back to the cottage to discuss what was to be done with her.

It was then the Leader, Ezrael, realized they had a golden opportunity. With a little bit of training and some silvery speech on their end, they could bring Vivian to their side and replace the Infiltrator they had lost. Lara was vehemently against this, but the rest of the unit seemed to like the idea. It would certainly get them out of their current predicament. Vivian woke, and Ezrael talked until she agreed to help them. That was the beginning of everything.

 

[Jennalaia]

Part Two
Vivian reappeared the night before the death deadline, when the school would be forced to declare her dead. Strangely, she seemed completely unharmed despite spending two weeks in the forest. A few students stayed suspicious, but the rest were unbothered. Vivian lay low for several weeks, though some students noted her strange behavior and questionable morals.

Regardless, little occurred until Halloween. The week before, several arrests were made in Justus and the day before Halloween there was a strange mass breakout where those arrested disappeared without ever opening the doors. Those arrested were, of course, Unit 13, who, on Vivian's intel, got arrested on purpose to access the Catacombs entrances built into the back of the jail cells.

Halloween night, while the students celebrated in the Great Hall, the Headmaster received word from Carrmin that there was a dark power in the Catacombs. Concerned for the students' safety, the Headmaster sent the professors into the Catacombs to guard their entrances. At the same time, Vivian slipped out of the party and used extensive dark magic to close and lock all the entrances at the same time, trapping the professors in the Catacombs. The effort brought taint onto her fingers, but she hid it under gloves.

Unit 13 entered through another entrance under the main staircase and dashed up the stairs. The students inside spotted them as they started making their way up. One student beat them to the Headmaster's Office to warn him of the impending doom and also to voice their concerns for Vivian. The Headmaster agreed to allow this theory to be tested and they rushed down to do so.

The Headmaster and the student ran into the Blood Pact, where the student bluffed the others had already found out about Vivian and were torturing her now. Lara believed her, not wanting to lose another Infiltrator, and dashed back the way they'd come. Most of the rest of the Unit followed, with the Headmaster and the student in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile, downstairs the students were arguing whether to chase after the Unit or not. They were interrupted by Unit 13 suddenly appearing at the top of the stairs. Lara realized immediately that Vivian was unharmed, and they'd been had. Before the Unit could do damage control, however, the student with the Headmaster forced Vivian to show her hand by casting Break towards Lara.

Vivian sprung into action immediately, negating the spell with the dark magic she'd learned. Her role revealed, the Unit had no choice but to flee with Vivian in tow, and they disappeared into the forest once again.

Despite the clear threat to the school, the Council did not act.

 

[Jennalaia]

Part Three
The Headmaster decided to give the students a means to protect themselves and had offensive spells introduced to the curriculum. It seemed at first they would be unnecessary, since, while Vivian appeared in town frequently to do shopping for the Unit, she didn't seem interested in fighting. In fact, she seemed to be getting weaker and more unsure of her choice as the days continued. She took to wearing gloves regularly to conceal her blackening hands.

One day, Vivian was finally convinced to leave. However, speaking to Ezrael did not prove fruitful. Ezrael was not about to let Vivian go, with her power and potential, so he destroyed the part of her mind that wanted to leave, driving Vivian to insanity in the process.

From then on, whenever Vivian appeared in town, it spelled trouble. She had become exceedingly powerful, using dark magic without a care. Her signature move, which also should have killed her multiple times, became known as the death pulse - a wave of magic that killed any living thing that was unfortunate enough to be caught in in. The Shield, Lara, was often responsible for bringing her back but rarely succeeded before Vivian attacked a student. Lara was also the only one that could heal Vivian, with her knowledge of the fundaments and how careful adjustment could erase taint from a body. Lara became more and more sympathetic towards the students and leaned further and further from Ezrael's ideals.

This rift between the Leader and the Shield came to a head when Lara finally snapped at Ezrael, calling him a demon (which he was) and threatening to walk out just like Peter had tried to months ago. In response, Ezrael attacked Lara and gave her a heavy dose of demon venom, which causes one to bleed terminally.

Eventually, the Unit formulated a plan to drive the Headmaster from the school by freeing the Black Dragon, which had been sealed for nearly four centuries. Lara, in her weakened state, freed the dragon once and for all and Vivian commanded it on the surface, burning most of Justus and destroying much of the school. Two of the house reps, the only mage students on campus, put out the fire by channeling through Merlin's Oak and borrowing his power to use interelement magic to put out the flames.

The school managed through this crisis, but another loomed very close on the horizon.

 

[Jennalaia]

Part Four
While Justus was being rebuilt, the Council finally sprang into action, fully investigating matters around the town and the school involving Unit 13. The investigation concluded and the Council announced they were pulling the Headmaster for further questioning. Taking him from the campus had the effect of disintegrating the language debarrier.

Before the Headmaster was taken, Vivian ventured out a few more times. Lara continued chasing after her, despite constantly bleeding, and suffered more blows from Vivian until an agent from a secret organization, Marianne, stepped in. Marianne took Lara to headquarters and managed to get her an antidote for the venom that Ezrael had administered. Lara returned just in time to stop Vivian from attacking again, but Vivian's own attack left her closer to death than she'd ever been. Lara quickly did what she could and left with Vivian to the Unit's base.

At the base, Lara and Ezrael got into a fight. Ezrael revealed he had been the leak that resulted in Peter's death and the mess they were in, because Peter had been trying to leave the Pact. Lara got furious, driving Ezrael out of the cottage and catching him. Ezrael ripped a hole in space and returned to his own dimension, abandoning the Unit.

Lara only had limited time to come up with a plan. She needed to get her Unit to safety, and she herself needed to buy time to heal Vivian enough so she was well enough to travel and hide until Vivian was properly healed. The Unit couldn't return to Blood Pact headquarters - not without suffering some serious, and possibly lethal, consequences. Lara quickly concluded that the lesser of two evils was designing a situation to have the whole Unit captured where they would inevitably end up behind bars, which, while not favorable, was better than being killed by their superiors.

With this in mind, Lara sent the remaining three members, James, Melanie, and Andrew, into a gauntlet formation. The formation both separated them so they would be at their weakest and bought Lara the time she needed to heal Vivian in case anyone came this way.

Unbeknownst to Lara, someone was coming her way. Just before the Headmaster left, Carrmin contacted him to let him know that a cottage had suddenly popped up out of seemingly nowhere, when in reality Lara had dropped the barrier surrounding it. The Headmaster left instructions for the students to investigate this, since he trusted the students far more than the Council, in a secret message in his final notice. The group of students gathered in the Forest and set off towards the cottage.

The students encountered the Pact members, and each of them lost the battle. James was tied down with vines thanks to Carrmin so he was unable to continue, Andrew was dragged into the forest by a tree, and Melanie dissolved herself by accident. Weakened and wounded, the students made their way to the cottage at last.

Earlier, a few students had flown over the gauntlet and touched down at the cottage directly. They discussed matters with Lara as Vivian slept inside... or so they thought.

As all the students converged on the clearing, without warning the door opened and Vivian punched through Lara's ribcage, killing the elf instantly. A sort of odd battle ensued; Vivian fought to cause her own doom, and the students simply fought to stay alive. Vivian threw one student into the trees and stabbed another before advancing on a group. An older student tried to reach them in time but realized that her efforts were in vain.

However, all was not lost. Earlier one student, Naomi, had opened a hole to the Catacombs and fell down to discover that, deep below, there ran an underground river. Naomi, being a waterwielder, used all her strength to bring the water back to the surface and drenched Vivian in it. Another student, Casimir Jaunius, electrocuted the water with her element shocking both Naomi and Vivian. All three of them collapsed. (They survived are now fine.)

And yet that was still not enough to bring Vivian down. Her patience finally spent, the former student summed a black aura to perform her most deadly (both to her and her peers) attack: a death pulse, an attack that sent a wave of black energy in all directions and killed anything in its path. The oldest student, fortunately, had the skill to cast a sphere of influence over Vivian to keep her death pulse from reaching the wounded students.

Vivian finally released her death pulse, only to regain a bit of her sanity at the same time and realizing she did not really wish to die. But the deed was done, and soon after Vivian fell and crumbled into taint dust. The students, shaken and exhausted, returned to the school to be healed and make a deal with the Council.

Thanks to some students' superior debating skills, they swapped the two Blood Pact members they had captured (James and Andrew) for the Headmaster's reinstatement. However, it was not exactly as it was before. The Council insisted on keeping a presence in the school to avoid another Black Dragon incident, or at least, that was the reason they gave. Thus the Committee of Education Enforcement was created, and a whole year passed without exciting incident.

As the Council adds more and more rules and strengthens the oppressive atmosphere in the school, one can only wonder what the new year holds in store for the Academy...