A satellite of the prestigious Viden Academy, this collaborative effort has truly been successful on Scalvoris and many great inventions and discoveries are made on a regular basis!
“You are one ugly bastard, do you know that?” Devin decided and looked at what would be the subject of the class that he would be teaching that trial appraisingly, arms on his hips, before he made a face and shook his head. Herbie who stood opposite of him didn’t say anything, of course. He was a skeleton that was made of plaster or a similar substance whose bones were held together by bits of wire and not a human being after all. “Why are all the skeletons here so ugly – and look so boring?” he complained.
“No matter”, he remarked, smiled brightly as he had just had a most excellent idea and rooted through his bag. A few moments later, he produced his makeup kit, letting out a triumphant little sound as he did so – and began to paint Herbie’s artificial skull. Of course, he didn’t know if Herbie was the skeleton’s real name. The university assistant had looked at him quite strangely when he had asked her if the skeleton that he had requested for his lesson had a name, so he had just decided to make one up – and a background story to go with it.
“You also need a few accessories though”, he said once he had given Herbie bright red lips and purple eyeshadow – and put his hat that sported a black Avriel feather on his head before he wrapped his cloak around his bony shoulders. “That’s better”, he finally decided, positioned Herbie in the center of the classroom and went to take a seat – on the desk because the chair was extremely uncomfortable, as he had found out during a previous class.
A moment later, the first students already arrived.
word count: 295
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“Meet our newest guest”, Devin proclaimed, smiling brightly, as if he hadn’t noticed that the students were staring at the skeleton somewhat uneasily. “This is Herbert Adolphus Arianus Andaris, the lost heir of House Andaris and, quite possibly, the rightful king of Rynmere. He has a little medical problem, and he hopes that you will be able to help him. He will reward you appropriately, of course. He has …” he told them, making a dramatic little pause, before he continued, “… a problem with his bones!”
Having said that, Devin jumped off the desk, marched over to Herbie – and detached Herbie’s right hand, looking at it for a moment before he tossed it towards one of the students, a red-haired human girl that almost dropped it, her eyes wide, before she held it at arm’s length.
“His bones are vanishing!” Devin revealed and continued, because the students were looking at him somewhat doubtfully, “There really is a disease where bones are destroyed and absorbed – and what more, an alchemist can probably concoct something that dissolves your bones as well. So, be careful when you visit an alchemist the next time. There are a lot of questionable alchemists. Petyr’s supposed hair growth serum gave me a terrible allergic reaction rather than even nicer hair, for example!”
“Anyway”, he continued, still smiling because he was having so much fun. He’d always thought teaching was the most boring and frustrating job ever; but really, it was just one big show – with an audience that had to listen and couldn’t leave and that he could tell about zombies and weird magical accidents and similar topics. How great was that?!
“Your task to-trial is to gather in groups of three and try to name all of the bones in Lord Andaris’ hands and feet – because it’s hard to tell which bones are vanishing if you don’t know what they are called. The group who has managed to name all of the bones first gets – no homework to-trial because homework is mostly unncessary in my opinion anyway if you already know everything!”
The students looked at him for a moment. Some of them didn't seem to be sure about what he had said. Some of them thought that Herbie looked stupid, while others thought he was cool. One student wondered how Herbie's bones could be vanishing when they were clearly all there (Devin told him to use his imagination.) Other students were simply excited about the prospect of no homework and didn't care about the rest.
It was just as Devin was about to return to his desk, mentally congratulating himself on his great idea for that lesson and the fantastic story that he had come up with (he stil thought so, in spite of the somewhat mixed reactions!), that one of the students, a chubby girl with lots of freckles pointed out, “You said that we are supposed to gather in groups of three. We are twenty-one students, and Lord Herbert only has four limbs. What are the rest of us supposed to do in the meantime?”
Devin furrowed his brow for a moment as he had not considered that Herbie might not have enough limbs for every student in the room before he smiled brightly at them and proclaimed, “I’ll be right back, with more hands and feet! I’ll even bring you a few spare ones!”
Last edited by Devin on Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 578
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
True to his word, Devin returned approximately five bits later with a couple of fake skeleton hands and feet – in what looked like some sort of breadbasket, with a piece of red and white checkered cloth inside of it, for a bit of extra weirdness. When he entered the classroom, he noticed that the students most of whom were approximately his own age had not been patiently waiting for him to come back. They were doing all kinds of things that didn’t have anything to do with studying medicine.
A young man with long brown hair had his lunchbox on the desk in front of him and was munching on a sandwich that contained lettuce and ham quite happily. Two boys in the last row were kissing. A girl was standing in front of the window and looking at the courtyard below, and another girl was doing her makeup, and her lipstick …
“This is not the right lipstick for you”, Devin who was quite a masterful cosmetologist pointed out to the girl who had pale skin, blue eyes and light blonde hair and smiled brightly at her. “Pink would suit you much better, maybe a bright pink or a vibrant red, considering you are so pale. That would in fact look great on you!”
The girl lowered the lipstick that was almost purple and looked at him in confusion, her mouth forming a small ‘o’. Following that, she blinked a couple of times before she replied, “Thank you, I guess? I’ve never gotten makeup advice from a teacher before”, she added before she pocketed her lipstick, having come to the decision that his advice had been good and looked at him as if she expected more from him.
Devin wouldn’t chide her for doing her makeup in class though because looking good was important in his opinion, and he also approved of romance with a classmate. He had engaged in all kinds of activities in class when he had been a mere student as well after all.
In his opinion, you didn't have to sit still and be quiet in order to learn something!
So, instead of lecturing the students on the proper kind of behaviour in the classroom (which was stupid anyway in his opinion), he removed a nice fake hand from his breadbasket and placed it on her desk before he moved on to the next group of students that were still lacking hands or feet – and then he just decided to distribute the spare hands and feet as well.
His initial plan for the class had involved each trio of students sharing a hand and a foot, or maybe a hand or a foot (and taking turns), but it would probably be better if they students had more stuff to work with, right?
More was always better in his opinion!
word count: 477
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“Doctor Thorn?” one of the students, an Eidisi with completely white eyes asked Devin who was sitting behind his desk reading a book that had a lot of pictures of mutants and such in it. “What are we supposed to do once we have figured out what the bones in the hands and feet are called? Are we supposed to write the names down somewhere?”
Devin scrunched up his face for a moment as he thought about it before he grinned and decided, “No, that won’t be necessary. You can just come to my desk and tell me what you think, and if you were right, you win! And if you got one or more of the names wrong, the second group gets their chance and so on, until someone has gotten everything right.”
“Sounds fair”, the Eidisi decided after he had given the matter some thought before he focused on the fake skeleton hand that he shared with his two partners again.
Devin smiled all over his face when he heard that. He was glad that the student was okay with the rule that he had just come up with more or less on the fly. Contrary to popular belief, he cared about fairness and giving everybody the same chance and such a great deal.
Why, when he had still been a conventional criminal rather than a politician and such, he had made sure to take advantage of rich and poor people as well as people of all races, ages, genders and sexual orientations equally because he hadn’t wanted anybody to feel disadvantaged our left out!
word count: 269
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
“Finished!” the chubby girl with the freckles suddenly cried out triumphantly and rushed forward to Devin’s desk in order to slam her fake skeleton parts on it with a loud sound.
Her teammates followed behind her.
Devin who had just been passing the time by working on a most wonderful drawing of a hand with seven fingers instead of five because art didn’t have to imitate nature in his opinion (in reality, it was huge mess and barely recognizable as a hand because Devin was not the worst ever when it came to drawing and such) raised his head.
“Are you sure?” he wanted to know.
The girl didn’t answer his question, but just started rattling off the list of bones in the hands and feet at an astonishing speed, pointing at the fake skeleton parts on Devin’s desk excitedly as she did so just as a second group of students arrived and did the same – and even faster, so that they would be finished first.
Devin looked kind of stunned for a few moments because he had not considered that two groups might be finished at the roughly same time and get everything right (and because he struggled to keep up with them), and then he just grinned at them and decided to go along with it and cheer them on because it was actually quite entertaining.
“Sesamoid bone!” the chubby girl finally exclaimed, sounding rather breathless.
“Scaphoid!” a member of the second group, a biqaj man whose face looked rather red as if this had been quite exhausting, finished approximately a trill later.
The chubby girl glared at him.
He glared back at her.
A moment later, both of them turned to look at Devin expectantly.
“Both of your groups win!” he decided without giving the matter barely any thought at all. Theoretically, the chubby girl had been a trill or two faster, but nitpicking was an unnecessary and stupid behaviour in his opinion; besides he also didn’t want to be a strict teacher who was disliked by his students.
He wanted to be a fun teacher!
~~~
“Doctor Thorn?” the Eidisi who was a bit disappointed that his group hadn't won asked Devin after the class was over, and the Mortalborn was just packing his things. “What is the vanishing bone disease that you mentioned called?”
“Oh”, Devin replied and stopped trying to stuff one of his books into his bag that was already quite full. “It’s simply called Vanishing Bone Disease. Really”, he added upon noticing the doubtful look on the student’s face. Did he look as if he might be a liar?
“Who will our next guest be, by the way?” the long-haired young man that had been munching on his sandwich so happily wanted to know. He was one of the students that had actually liked Herbie rather than complaining that he looked stupid and that the contest was childish.
“Ethel”, Devin told him because that was actually something that he had already planned (unlike certain aspects of the lesson that he had come up with on the fly because he hadn’t thought of them beforehand). “Lady Ethel Endor. She has a detachable abdominal wall.”
“That’s not a real disease, but there is a condition where the organs are in a sack outside the body!” he revealed. That was all that he said before he bade them farewell.
He didn’t want to reveal too much in order to keep up the suspense!
Now, he just needed to clean Herbie before he could go home.
How was he supposed to get all the makeup off his skull though?!
word count: 614
Appearance
Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.
Items
Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.
Renown: 5, for a delightfully dirty and memorable pedagogical approach!
Skill Review: All Skills used appropriate to level
Notes:
Cool, brisk, and creative little story, dude! Could have easily been an example from a teaching training manual, but also told an engaging story. Nice work with the NPCs, too, you gave them enough life to make them a fun part of the story. That poor girl...
If you have any questions, comments or concerns in regards to this review, feel free to PM.
word count: 97
Common Speech | Thoughts | Ith'ession Speech | Speech of Others
