The Senior Apprentice’s Field Trip
-
THE FIELD TRIP
With red-cloaked apprentices, an ambulatory archive and a flying office in attendance, Mount Orion’s Field Trip brings practical magical education to the wilds of Mildaark. Under the supervision of Senior Wrangler Belling, lecturers from all six Colleges introduce their students to the wonders and hazards of ArcWorlde. The expedition’s official brief is A Comparative Field Study of Thaumaturgical Practice Under Conditions of Uncontrolled Environmental Interference. Its participants generally call it the Field Trip.
The Expedition Roll
Osric Belling, Senior Wrangler and expedition overseer.
Clement Weatherby, Professor of the Sapphire College.
Cristan Blayney, Professor of the Ochre College.
Chalk, Professor of the Opal College.
Tobias Vell, Professor of the Crimson College.
Ada Brindle, Professor of the Bronze College.
Maribel Thorne, Professor of the Emerald College.
Bodley, Keeper of the Archives.
The Defence Bedel and Application Bedel, expedition Sentinels.
Senior Apprentices: Vivia Dee, Sofia Hather, Orin Weys, Galen Rooke, Nima Quill and Esmé Morrow.
Sprites and Ensorcelled Beasts complete the expedition’s complement.
Practical Thaumaturgy in the Field
Apprentices spend their first years at Mount Orion studying general thaumaturgy: the summoning, shaping and direction of magical power upon which the work of all six Colleges depends. On reaching the rank of senior apprentice, they become eligible for an expedition into ArcWorlde. Here they practise beyond the familiar surroundings of the lecture hall, among things which have seldom read the relevant textbooks.
The Field Trip draws its lecturers from every College. Each takes different apprentices out on different days, so that all the students encounter the six disciplines before choosing where to continue their studies. A talent discovered during one lesson may prove useful in another, and no decision is required until this stage of their training is complete. Back at Mount Orion, the eventual enrolment figures receive close attention from those responsible for research grants, library budgets and the maintenance of faculty lounges.
Mildaark offers more than enough material for the programme. Ancient enchantments, unusual creatures and deposits of Arcanite give the lecturers reason to explore, while the apprentices learn to work with whatever the forest puts before them. Routes and timetables may change when a promising discovery warrants investigation. The party’s regard for local boundaries is less dependable. Settlers have occasionally found themselves explaining that a professor’s proposed teaching resource is somebody else’s property.
Belling is responsible for the expedition’s conduct and arrangements. He divides the students between lessons, settles disputes over the timetable and ensures that everyone receives instruction across the Colleges. The apprentices wear red cloaks, capes or mantles as their common uniform, whatever their clothes beneath. Together with the magical gleam in the eyes of students and faculty alike, these make the expedition’s members readily recognisable.
Establishing Camp
At first, the apprentices establish ordinary camps. They learn to choose sound ground, put up a flysheet, prepare food and keep their belongings dry. Enchanted storage allows the equipment to be divided between their packs, but leaves the packs just awkward enough to remind their bearers how far they have travelled. A thin reed bedroll, a sleeping bag and cold beans are familiar comforts at the end of the day.
Once the students can put up a proper camp, Sprites take over its routine assembly. Work requiring particular knowledge stays with those who possess it, and the apprentices continue with tasks which have something to teach them. Every other weekend, a rotating group is responsible for sourcing and preparing the meals. The Bedels oversee the lifting and shifting, first ushering the students through their duties and later directing the conjurations which perform them.
The lecturers allow some inconvenience to persist. Eventually an apprentice begins to wonder why wet boots, cold suppers and an uncomfortable bed should remain unavoidable. While there is character to be built by carrying a cumbersome pack through Mildaark, an important lesson for the apprentices to internalise is that the character in question is supposed to be a Wizard.
Their first solutions draw upon ordinary fieldcraft: choosing a drier route, finding food in the surrounding forest and putting up a sound shelter. The faculty know, however, that the apprentices have truly taken their biggest step towards mastering arcane secrets once they begin applying the magic they have been practising to their everyday tasks. They learn to dry boots by spell, cross ground they cannot readily avoid with a summoned bridge, a great gust of wind or a short-range, visually targeted, site-to-site teleport, and make a shelter far more comfortable than its mundane materials would ordinarily permit. The same habit carries into their other lessons, from keeping themselves clean to defending the party and investigating Mildaark’s stranger phenomena.
Later lessons teach the creation and manipulation of mobile pockets of extradimensional space, which the apprentices can furnish for themselves. By the end of the trip, a seemingly modest entrance may admit its owner to a four-poster bed, a well-stocked dining table and rooms appointed in a manner befitting Mount Orion. They should also know how to keep the rooms in existence and, above all, understand the importance of remembering where they left the doorway.
The camp remains guarded throughout. The Bedels patrol its approaches, and the volumes containing Ensorcelled Beasts can be placed ready for an unwelcome arrival. Bodley’s shelves are available whenever a lesson calls for a reference, although borrowing a book may entail listening to its views on the matter.
Senior Wrangler Osric Belling
Belling brings his office wherever he goes. A substantial wooden desk travels upon an ensorcelled flying carpet, with the Senior Wrangler usually seated behind it, fingers steepled, regarding visitors over a pair of spectacles that are entirely metaphorical. An apprentice summoned beside a woodland stream has precisely the same impression of being called in to explain themselves as one standing before him at Mount Orion.
He speaks quietly and expects an answer. When one is slow to arrive, a raised eyebrow and a restrained “Well…?” usually produce one. His dry remarks are delivered with such solemnity that an apprentice may remain troubled by one for half an hour before realising it was a joke.
Belling keeps a close account of where his students are and what they are attempting. Orin’s name recurs frequently beside proposed demonstrations, and the Senior Wrangler has acquired a useful habit of asking which existing commitment he intends to finish first. When a timetable genuinely needs altering, Belling alters it. When someone merely wants it altered, they can explain why from the other side of the desk. His own College affiliation seldom enters the discussion.
Professor Clement Weatherby
Professor Weatherby would like his meals to arrive at their proper times and in their proper order. He plans journeys carefully, keeps necessary things where they can be found and sees little purpose in making a disturbance over a problem which can be settled quietly. Years of exploring rivers, uncharted waters and frozen country have done nothing to diminish his preference for a simple life.
Those who mistake his mild manner for a lack of resolve discover their error late. Weatherby has the patience of a river finding its course, and can bring a great deal of water to bear when an obstruction finally requires it. In ordinary circumstances, he is quite content to go around.
Professor Cristan Blayney
Professor Blayney of the Ochre College has spent much of his life beneath ArcWorlde, studying the stone and the things that dwell beyond the reach of daylight. He teaches his apprentices to test the ground, mind their footing and keep enough strength in reserve to get everyone home. Should a spell fail at a crucial moment and a more practical response be required, he is more than prepared to step forward and give the problem a stout thwack with his staff. As more than one Mountain Troll could attest.
Back at Mount Orion, Blayney coaches the student martial arts society and helps direct its musical theatre productions. Some apprentices assume that one of these appointments must have been made in error. Both were his idea. He cares as much about helping a nervous performer find their entrance as he does about teaching a student to stand firm in a cavern. He expects practice, pays close attention and is generous with encouragement when they get it right.
Professor Chalk
As a child, Chalk discovered that he could see the spirits of the dead. He was fascinated. His unseen acquaintances remembered places he had never visited and lives unlike anything he had known. He learned to ask questions, listen and return when someone had promised to finish a particularly interesting account.
That curiosity made him a travelling Wizard. Even in Cheesingham or Grandchester, many of the living have stories shaped by the same streets and rulers. The dead of a small village may remember another kingdom, a vanished forest or a river which no longer runs there. Chalk travels widely to find that variety among the living too, offering help along the way whenever his fine robes and knowledge of the arcane arts prove sufficient to the occasion.
Students drawn to the Opal College chiefly for its air of solemn mystery sometimes find his lessons surprising. A conversation with a ghost may begin with an introduction to the ghost’s surviving neighbours, and a fascinating apparition may have remarkably ordinary concerns. Chalk wants to hear them. He expects his apprentices to take an interest in the life behind the manifestation, and finds it difficult to understand anyone who wishes to study the dead without first being curious about the living.
Professor Tobias Vell
Vell can hold a party spellbound before he has cast anything. His accounts of journeys, discoveries and catastrophes draw students into the lesson, with questions and demonstrations arriving before the story has quite finished. He notices who is following from the edge of the group and knows when to ask for their opinion. An apprentice who expected to spend the afternoon taking notes may find themselves in the middle of an experiment.
His enjoyment of the performance does not excuse a lack of practice. One day, a Fireball may have to be cast while facing stampeding Bullox, steering the rampage of a newly mobile Bloodoak or avoiding the pointed ends of a Manticore. There are at least two such ends, and one is dripping venom. Vell considers the comparative peace of their little expedition a fine place to learn the necessary formae.
By the time a spell is needed, its workings should come more easily than breathing. After all, he reminds them, they are Wizards.
Professor Ada Brindle
Brindle travels within a metal construct large enough to tower over its Halfling pilot. A staff, heavy feet and an assortment of attachments give it considerable presence. New apprentices occasionally mistake her for a Sentinel which has acquired a teaching appointment. Their companions usually correct them before they address the suit instead of its pilot.
The suit is her mobility aid and a work of Bronze College engineering which she has revised over many years. Repairs, replacement parts and additions bear witness to its use. Brindle enjoys discussing what they do and how they might be improved, including the attachment which has performed faultlessly in her workshop and immediately become troublesome in Mildaark mud. She regards that as something worth investigating.
A student who finds a fault in one of her inventions can expect to be asked exactly how it occurred. Nima has learned to bring her notes, which Brindle usually reads with keen interest. So much so that she may be halfway through proposing an alteration before either remembers that the lesson was supposed to concern something else. Her explanations are generous, but do not extend to opening the suit for inspection. Its controls are her own affair.
Professor Maribel Thorne
Professor Thorne has the face, ears and tail of a cat. Whether she entered Mount Orion as one of ArcWorlde’s Beastfolk or acquired her feline appearance through some unknown magic has never been explained by the faculty. They address her respectfully, consult her about their work and offer no indication that they find the arrangement unusual. Apprentices are reluctant to suggest otherwise. Stranger things walk the College corridors, and besides, she is really quite nice.
Much of her life is spent among the creatures and plants of Mildaark. She knows where to look, when to wait and how much can be learned before anyone casts a spell. Students arriving in a clearing are asked to consider what was happening there before their arrival. If they declare it empty, she may suggest remaining for another five minutes.
Thorne is happy to hear that an apprentice has noticed something she missed. She will want to be shown where, and the rest of the afternoon may be spent there. Her lectures have been known to continue in whispers.
The Senior Apprentices
Between lessons, the apprentices share meals, camp duties and the work of practising what they have been shown. A failed attempt can produce an audience rather quickly; a useful discovery can travel through the group before the next lecturer arrives. Their studies remain common to all six Colleges, and none has yet chosen where to continue them.
Vivia Dee
Vivia practises a spell until she understands what each part contributes. She dislikes an explanation which skips a step and keeps questions ready for the person who skipped it. She is thorough enough to remain standing over a perfectly adequate preparation while she considers one more possibility.
Vell’s demonstrations give her plenty to examine afterwards. Weatherby sometimes settles one of the resulting questions with a small alteration which she had not thought to try. She is less certain about Belling’s remarks, some of which become much funnier once she is safely out of his hearing.
Sofia Hather
Sofia notices when someone has fallen behind. She can identify the point at which an explanation stopped making sense to a fellow apprentice, and will ask for it to be repeated even if the lecturer is already warming to the next demonstration. Her manner is composed enough that this seldom becomes an argument.
She is equally attentive to what a spell does once it reaches its target. An impressive result may leave practical difficulties which she is unwilling to overlook. Brindle has come to ask her what using a proposed invention would actually be like. Sofia sometimes remains occupied with another student’s problem after her own work is finished; Weatherby has begun asking which question she meant to bring him before she became involved.
Orin Weys
Orin came to Mount Orion on a scholarship earned by the spell he devised to create a magical prosthetic for his missing left arm. Maintaining it is part of his everyday magical practice. He approaches new work with the confidence of someone who has already solved a problem which others considered difficult, and is eager to discover what else he can do.
He volunteers readily, sometimes before hearing the whole proposal. Blayney has more than once found him preparing a second demonstration before the first was complete. Brindle, meanwhile, asks questions about his invention with the expectation that he will have considered the answers. Orin enjoys those conversations enough to prepare for them.
Galen Rooke
Galen watches closely. A creature turning away from something, a spell taking effect a moment late or a device making a different sound may catch his attention while everyone else is looking at the larger result.
Vell has learned to ask what he saw. Chalk occasionally sends him to ask someone else, which Galen finds a less predictable undertaking. Witnesses may disagree, forget the detail he needs or spend ten minutes explaining something he had not thought to ask about. He is beginning to discover how often that last account proves useful.
Nima Quill
Nima carries a large field pack, a bundle of scrolls and a wand which trails blue wisps of power when she uses it. She intends to bring back a record of what the expedition actually found. If a book describes something differently, she wants to know whether the book is mistaken or the circumstances have changed.
Her notes include the weather, ground conditions and anything else that might prove relevant. Thorne has suggested that some of the forest’s inhabitants will be easier to describe if Nima watches them for longer first. Belling raises no such objection to her accounts of incidents involving the apprentices. His first question is whether she recorded the time.
Esmé Morrow
Esmé travels in a magically powered wheelchair with books and scrolls close at hand. She likes to know how a plan fits together and what happens if one part of it fails. An open volume across her lap may contain the relevant spell, an earlier account of the route or a passage whose author has made an assumption she intends to question.
She is quite prepared to ask whether a proposed path will serve the whole party, a question Blayney answers before setting out. When Vell’s demonstration departs from the expected sequence, Esmé sometimes has to close the book and follow what is happening in front of her. She usually has questions about it afterwards.
Bodley, Keeper of the Archives
The enchantment animating Bodley has endured for so long, amid so many powerful tomes and scrolls, that the bookcase has developed opinions beyond the proper care of its contents. It styles itself Keeper of the Archives. No one can quite recall approving the title.
Its shelves connect to a much greater expanse of magical literature, allowing it to retrieve books and scrolls which could not possibly fit within the visible case. Apprentices come to it for their studies, lecturers consult obscure references and newly acquired volumes disappear into its care. Bodley knows where everything belongs and expects borrowers to take the same interest.
This certainty has spread into other parts of the expedition. The Bedels have received instructions from it, and Weatherby once reported that it had begun issuing commands to him as well.
“You have been accepting commands from the furniture, Professor Weatherby?”
Belling regarded him in silence for a moment, sucked his teeth and allowed the flying office to turn away. Weatherby had been about to explain that the box really was blocking the entrance.
The Bedels
A Sentinel equipped with a sword and shield holds the office of Bedel for Defence Against Extraplanar Entities, generally shortened to the Defence Bedel. A second, bearing a halberd, is the Bedel for the Application of Indeterminate Force, or Application Bedel. Both are enchanted suits of armour entrusted to Belling for the expedition.
Their duties include escorting apprentices, carrying awkward equipment and directing the Sprites at work about the camp. A student who has wandered away from an assigned task may find a silent metal figure standing beside them. A Sprite which has interpreted its instructions too freely is liable to find the same.
The Bedels also stand guard and accompany practical lessons when protection is required. In battle, the force under their administration becomes considerable. College Sentinels serve alongside them, animated through each College’s unique magic. Damaged armour is collected where possible and given time to pull itself together.
Sprites
A chicken in a miniature Wizard’s hat and a giant hand walking on its fingers are ordinary sights about the Field Trip’s camp. Sprites take whatever forms their summoners imagine, and the expedition offers ample evidence of that variety.
Giving a Sprite instructions is itself a practical exercise. The creatures are willing and obedient, but simple conjurations can be remarkably literal-minded. An instruction perfectly clear to its caster may leave a Sprite confused or confidently engaged in the wrong task. The Bedels keep them pointed in the intended direction, while their summoners learn to account for what they actually said.
When danger interrupts the work, the same creatures turn to defending the party. Once it has passed, the surviving conjurations can be directed back to whatever remains of the camp.
Ensorcelled Beasts
Ensorcelled Beasts accompany lessons where the lecturers expect trouble and guard the camp against threats requiring more force than the Bedels can readily apply. Their presence allows practical work to continue in places where an apprentice’s first attempt at a defensive spell would be an inadequate precaution.
The books into which they are bound can also serve as potent alarms. Positioned along the camp’s approaches and rigged to open when a trap is sprung, they release their occupants directly into the path of an intruder. Setting these traps is part of the evening preparations, as is making sure that everyone knows where they are before going out to collect firewood.
Sustaining the beasts away from Mount Orion requires considerable magical power. Sprites are summoned to feed them, restoring their strength and lending them qualities of the magic from which their meals were formed. Apprentices assigned to their care must account for these provisions alongside the party’s own.
End of Expedition Assessments
The following observations have been selected from the faculty’s end-of-expedition reports.
Vivia Dee
Professor Weatherby: A diligent and exacting student. Vivia is encouraged to remember that practical work must eventually pass beyond the preparatory stage.
Sofia Hather
Professor Brindle: Shows excellent judgement concerning the practical consequences of thaumaturgy and the needs of her fellow students. She should occasionally present her own question before solving everybody else’s.
Orin Weys
Professor Blayney: Original, capable and ambitious. One completed demonstration remains preferable to four promising proposals.
Galen Rooke
Professor Chalk: An observant student who notices details others overlook. He is encouraged to mention them before everyone else has finished being wrong.
Nima Quill
Professor Thorne: Her field notes are exemplary. She is reminded that the field itself must occasionally be observed without writing on it.
Esmé Morrow
Professor Vell: Plans thoroughly, identifies weaknesses early and asks the questions upon which safe expeditions depend. She should allow for the possibility that an unexpected result may still be a useful one.
Senior Wrangler’s Comment
All six apprentices have completed the practical requirements of the expedition and are eligible to continue their studies at Mount Orion. Their eventual Colleges remain to be decided. Senior Wrangler Belling expects the relevant decisions to be made after the students have unpacked, submitted their reports and explained the condition of the camp.
