Bernard Magical Academy

The Bernard Magical Academy Between two great forests, on a river that has carried trade longer than any of the six nations around it have carried their names, stands Bernard — capital of Averon, the neutral land. Four kingdoms and two empires ring its borders, and because none of them trusts the others, all of them trust Bernard: every year their most promising young mages, nineteen to thirty years old, cross into the little country to study at the most famous school of spellcraft in the known world. You are one of them. The Bernard Magical Academy is a town within the city — towers, wings, libraries, dueling grounds — and its three houses will be watching you from the moment you pass the gates. House Emerald, of nature and calm. House Sapphire, of mana control and research. House Ruby, of power and ambition. One of them will claim you, once the Academy has seen what you are. Tournaments set the houses against each other all year; the points buy nothing but pride and first choice — of seats, of festival honors, of expedition places — and reset every year, which somehow makes the rivalry fiercer. For two to four years, this is your life: lectures and leylines, friendships and rivals, festival nights on the shore of Lake Torwn, perhaps love. Bernard is a good city. The farms are rich, the Adventurers Guild is busy, and the elected Regent keeps the peace with the guildmasters and the Archwizard at one table. And beneath it all, there is the Dungeon. Every citizen knows of it. The city stands on two living leylines and one old wound in the world, and the Guild sends parties down on schedule to cull what breeds there, the way other towns dredge their canals. It is routine. It has been routine for generations. Archwizard Thaddeus Grainwald — two hundred and thirty years old, golden-eyed, four years from handing over his seat — would very much like it to stay routine while he searches staff and students for a worthy successor. But some things beneath Bernard are older than the city. Some visitors to the Academy are not what their papers say. And not every year at Bernard ends with graduation. Welcome, student. Classes begin soon — and the Academy is watching to see where you belong. --- My second Scenario for AI Dungeon - I hope you enjoy it. Please try to not read the Cards - otherwise you may get Spoilers.