Osvaldo Alamilla
November 20, 2020 4:32 PM
Chasing ghosts [Professor Wright] by Osvaldo Alamilla
The strange image he had seen in the gardens swam in Osvaldo's memory as he made his way towards the Mirage Chamber. He still wasn't sure what it had been, and by the sounds of things no one else did either. Confound it, he had more important things to investigate. Chasing ghosts was not high on his list of things to do. No, he knew they weren't actually ghosts, he didn't know what that was that he'd seen. He sighed. Still the deputy-headmistress had requested him to look into it, and it was part of his job. So, here he was. Maybe they'd find out something interesting, and perhaps even useful.As he stood outside the Mirage Chamber, he tried to think of how magic could be leaking from here and affecting the gardens. Unfortunately charms and the flow of magic were never really his strong suit. If the apparition had been alchemical in nature, then he would be in his element. As such he assumed that is why Deputy-headmistress Skies was having Professor Wright assist him. Then again, if this problem was alchemical, she probably would have had the potions Professor tag along. He'd already let to much slip, it was better this way. Thankfully Skies had enough sense not to ask that new Divination professor, still nearly a child herself, to direct them. They'd be waiting for the second full moon after a flock of nine geese showed them the answer or some such nonsense.
Osvaldo turned from the entryway and his thoughts at the sound of approaching footsteps. "Professor Wright," Osvaldo stated with a nod of salutation. "Shall we begin? I of the opinion that someone was casting some form of illusion based on what I saw, however there wasn't anyone around that appeared to be doing any such thing at the time." He gave the professor a look of curiosity, "Do you have any thoughts?"
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Osvaldo Alamilla
Chasing ghosts [Professor Wright]
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Grayson Wright
November 29, 2020 5:44 PM
Gathering information about them first could help. by Grayson Wright
Gray had been surprised by the initial notification that a ‘strange manifestation’ had been seen on campus, but he had been less surprised by the follow-up note explaining that he was to be part of the investigation into MARS and the Mirage Chamber. If, after all, someone was going to know things about strange manifestations – at least, if they were of varieties that didn’t make sense to the Transfiguration teacher – he was one of the three most likely candidates, along with the Defense teacher and perhaps the Divination teacher. He and the Defense department particularly were in charge of parts of the curriculum which involved teaching students parts of the arts of illusion-making, and at the moment, the Defense department was…in a state. Therefore, the probable candidates for an internal investigation were the Charms master and, of course, the groundskeeper.There were probably people who would have looked down on a wizard with the second title; Gray Wright was not one of them. Managing the grounds of any place large enough to require a groundskeeper was no mean task. Magic helped, of course (how many times had he heard his mother sigh under her breath during the endless rounds of mending and washing and cooking which had punctuated or even been done during the lessons she’d given him in reading and writing and figuring and the outlines of magical history? Even with just a small household of quiet people, she’d had so many things on her plate that a witch would have never thought of, would have merely flicked a wand to get going on their own), but magic could also cause problems, especially in an environment like Sonora. Much of the day was given over to students constantly casting spells, or trying to do so, filling the very air with loose magic, and the site happened to be one which required a fair bit of standing magic just to keep it habitable. In this environment, the groundskeeper did not only need the planning and personnel management skills necessary to keep the gardens in order and their magical creatures in check and the facility in good repair – the man was also one of the first lines of defense against failures in the system. Gray nodded politely to Osvaldo Alamilla, therefore, as an equal.
“Mr. Alamilla,” he returned, mirroring his company’s formality because that was usually the best way to get on with people. “Suppose we should – though I should warn you up front that – well, I was good at some kinds of image magic, sure, but I doubt I could ever re-create something like this,” he said matter-of-factly about the Mirage Chamber. Indeed, he thought that most of the people who could even approximate it were probably under contractual agreements involving intellectual property, as it was, for those not brilliant enough to figure it out on their own (most people, in other words), the sort of thing that a company would charge an exorbitant sum to have done. “But broadly speaking….” He struggled for words. “Normally, illusory charms require an object – charms don’t create, they alter. On the basic level anyway. But there are more advanced charms that don’t require a physical object you can see, of course – charms that are cast on words, or certain pieces of information, or that are trigged by motions or touch without anyone directly casting a spell at that moment. I’ve heard about someone patenting daydreaming charms, imagine they’re rich now – “
His voice had started to raise slightly in tone with enthusiasm, but he broke off as something else Osvaldo had said caught up with him. “Wait. That you saw? So you saw this manifestation? What was it you saw?” he asked curiously.
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Grayson Wright
Gathering information about them first could help.
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Osvaldo Alamilla
November 29, 2020 6:28 PM
Sounds logical by Osvaldo Alamilla
Osvaldo nodded along as Professor Wright spoke. It was probably a good thing the man was here it sounded like he might have some grasp on what they might be looking for. Assuming he could stay focused on the task at hand, the man's thought processes seemed to wander a bit as he talked. That was rather inefficient. Perhaps that would be more of his task here than anything else, keeping the Professor on track."I did see it." he answered. "It was out in the gardens, by the fountain. I was.. accompanying one of the students and it seemed to appear out of the air. It was a silver shade, much like the ghosts, however it was no ghost." He paused a moment, "It took the form of the DeMatteo girl, as a very young child. She spoke to someone who wasn't there and didn't react at all to anything I did. Then it vanished." He hadn't reported it to the Deputy-Headmistress as it had been an isolate incident, and most likely one of the children's ideas of a prank. It must have been the child that had been with him that had reported it.
"Could the fountain have been charmed to give off the image?" Osvaldo was ready to accept the man's ideas on possibilities. It was outside his own field of study. "The Deputy-Headmistress wants us to investigate the chamber here for 'leaks'. Could any such magic in here have gotten out and attached it self to the fountain in the garden? Then reacted to one of the.. students." He had to pause for the correction, for some reason it was frowned upon actually referring to the children here as 'children'.
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Osvaldo Alamilla
Sounds logical
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Grayson Wright
November 29, 2020 8:10 PM
I was an Aladren, I suppose. by Grayson Wright
An image of Leonor De Matteo, which had looked almost but not quite like a ghost (and was definitely not a ghost no matter what it had looked like, as Leonor was demonstrably still among the living) and which had spoken to air…and had been younger than the real thing. There was something there, it was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite remember it. Something….He was distracted by the questions. “It’s…not impossible, I don’t think,” he responded, glancing at Professor Mims’ portrait. “Magic…does exist separately from what we do with it – chizpurfles, you know, they prove that.” At least, for most practical purposes that didn’t get into Neo-Scholastic levels of nitpickery over the definitions of words. Gray loved words, but he had never inclined toward that school of thought; it created knots for itself just for the sake of it, in his mind. It rapidly stopped working on theory and devolved into philosophy, and while philosophy could be interesting enough, he preferred his concretized into a narrative, not discussed in its pure form. “To specifically look like Leonor, though…perhaps something from a photograph? It would involve a lot of steps to get from here to a photograph that may or may not exist to a fountain to you and a student, but it isn’t impossible.”
He took out his wand, but did not immediately do anything with it, instead staring more or less through the table on which Tavarius kept the log-books of the House points, his eyebrows nearly touching as he tried to figure out what it was that had been on the tip of his tongue before. Finally, he shook his head. “Emma,” he remarked, to no-one in particular, “gave me too much credit for paying attention in class. I know there’s something that might be an explanation, but I can’t remember what it is.” He shook his head again. “Well. I’m not an expert in building charms – though I may write to someone I know – but magic always leaves traces. Something…escaping, and going out of the building, that would have to show up as something abnormal, don’t you think?” he asked. “Let me think, I know the incantation….”
He traced the outline of the entrance with his wand and began trying incantations. Twice the wall glowed, once gold and once white, but this didn't establish what he was looking for. Neither did repeating those incantations, followed by sweeping motions along the different directions the corridor took combined with a third incantation, one that should have resulted in a sort of 'echo' had the same magic been present somewhere else. He frowned at the painting again. “As far as I can tell, the enchantments are…smooth,” he said. "For lack of a better word...There’s spells there, and they’re overlapping, some of them compounding, but there’s nothing clashing, no gaps that I can see...nothing reacting to anything. Unless you know anything else about standing enchantments in the building?” he asked, figuring this did fall within Osvaldo’s field.
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Grayson Wright
I was an Aladren, I suppose.
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Osvaldo Alamilla
December 02, 2020 6:59 PM
So was... nevermind by Osvaldo Alamilla
Osvaldo nodded along with the professor's rambling. This was not his field of expertise, but it was interesting and could prove useful at some point. "The MARS rooms," he began his next question, "They shape themselves to what the wizard wishes before opening the door. They align themselves with whatever thoughts or mental influences can be brought to them." He looked back at the entrance to the Mirage chamber. "This room functions similarly, does it not? If it's magical energies are escaping some how, could they still be formed into shape by the thoughts of those around them?"The thought process should be simple enough, somehow magic escaped the room drifted out to the fountain and there ran into the De Matteo girl, or... she had a sibling here, didn't she? They were thinking about their younger childhood and then poof. The magic formed itself into that form as best it was able.
Professor Wright was waving his wand around the door and the hallway. The man did not seem to be getting a response he liked. Then he asked about Osvaldo's knowledge of the building's enchantments. Hmm... did he know anything that might help or explain things? He thought for a moment. "The chamber is anchored to the school at the entrance here," he began thinking out loud slowly. He hated doing it, but it was a habit that cropped up once in a while when he wasn't paying attention. "The enchantments that make it what it is push ordinary reality out of the way so that it can do it's job. However, that reality is still there. Despite all of that magic, the chamber is still a room in the school. As such, those enchantments touch anywhere else in the school that touches that room." He gave Professor Wright a questioning look, "There are many containment and shielding enchantments that are meant to prevent the room's magic from affecting anything other than the room itself. But... if something there has failed, there could be a leak from another direction."
He recalled the schools layout from the plans he had memorized. With his wand, he quickly sketched the immediate floor plan out on the wall in glowing lines and invited the professor to examine it with him. "The chamber is here," he indicated a room with his wand. "We should check all of these rooms around it, as well as the ones above and below."
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Osvaldo Alamilla
So was... nevermind
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Grayson Wright
December 09, 2020 5:00 PM
...I"m nosy, who? by Grayson Wright
Gray nodded to the speculation Osvaldo made. “It’s possible, I think,” he said, careful to add a word of qualification to his statement. “This room…it has some of the same properties of the MARS complex, but it’s not identical. In my day – “ oh dear Merlin, he sounded like an old man, which was even worse when he was speaking to someone who looked old enough to be his father; that added an element of the absurd to the whole thing – “it was used for rewards for the winners of the House Cup, too. It had a sort of…interactive copy? Almost like an artificial ghost of Clurican, it led the students through scenarios, but the props couldn’t be removed the way things can be from MARS. It’s also more…stable than MARS, in some ways. I’d think this room would be more likely to play out its own previous scenarios, and MARS more likely to respond to thoughts, but anything’s possible.”He nodded when the room’s…unique…relationship to physics was pointed out. “Hm, good point,” he agreed. “It’s certainly got enough spells around it for something to go wrong sooner or later, and even if it’s not a leak as such…” He shrugged. “We’ll need to check around MARS as well. I know a newer annex like that isn’t as likely to have a problem, but it’s flexible enough for any of the students to use it, and the art room lets items it presents go out, so that’s introducing even more magical objects to the school artificially than would be here anyway.” Which was rather a lot, between all the items students charmed and put defensive enchantments on and removed defensive enchantments from and conjured in Transfiguration. “I suppose we can go ahead and start checking all these rooms we’ve listed, and think of anything else along the way.”
He had no idea how valid of a concern this was, and supposed it really was, at this point, more Selina’s subject area than it was his, but he had been assigned the duty of investigating and he was going to investigate to the best of his ability. Anne had told him before about the time the weather charms had gone haywire in her first year, and he recalled her fretting and pacing over the kids she knew who’d been present at Sonora that year the school had accidentally locked itself down. If they could spare themselves something like those incidents, if those incidents were even a possibility, it would be worth no small amount of trouble now.
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Grayson Wright
...I"m nosy, who?
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