Nameless [ZnT/?] Quest.

[Chibi-Reaper]

Louise

Willpower: Massive
Effective Willpower: Miniscule

Pentacle Elemental Magic: Minor, Dot Air.
Fire: Weak.
Earth: Pathetic.
Water: Weak.
Air: Well Below Average.
Pentacle Non-Elemental Magic: Weak.

Pentacle Elemental Magic Theory: Excellent.
Fire: High.
Earth: Acceptable.
Water: Above average.
Air: High.
Pentacle Non-Elemental Magic Theory: Excellent.

[Self Bound]- You have bound yourself as a familiar. Good work. This was definitely a good idea and not horrific stupidity at all.
[Bleak Parasite]- Something has been feeding upon and warping your magic to uselessness, as you have discovered.
[Cast from HP]- Even so, you have found that, now at least, you can force your magic to avoid the parasite and work anyway. Not much of it, though, and there are consequences...

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

"I cannot even imagine a world without my friends. That's just how much all of you mean to me. If doing this can save you all, then I have no regrets. I leave the others to you. And I'll always be there, right beside you all."

---

It's not unexpected that everything ended in an explosion. Despite your hopes, the reality....

The boom and shockwave even knocked you off your feet, with a feeling of force slamming into you powerfully enough to lift you, just for a moment, off of the ground. That usually doesn't happen, when you mis-cast. It'll scatter everything else, but you're left standing.

It's just a monument to the scope of this failure.

You're a little desperate, as the dust cloud clears and you stagger to your feet.

Nothing. Not a thing. You'd have been happy for a mouse. You'd have been delighted for just a bug. It couldn't be an accident, the grounds are maintained to prevent anything right up to a worm crawling up out of the dirt when it isn't supposed to be.

Nothing.

Professor Colbert's hand on your shoulder is probably meant to be comforting and soothing. But for you, it is like the icy grip of inevitability and defeat, a grim reaper peering curiously over your shoulder, then turning to check an hourglass.

Somethiing happens, when you use magic. You aren't a commoner. Just... it's never the right thing, and always the same thing.

Defective. Flawed. Incompetent.

"Miss Valliere, if you would be so good as to step aside, there are other students..." Colbert murmurs, his voice droning into incomprehensibility.

You have just failed to summon a familiar, and prove yourself any kind of mage.

---

[ ] What now?

 

[Creticus]

[X] Step aside with head held high.

Louise shall face the inevitable in a manner befitting her status.

 

[Torgamous]

[X] Step aside. There are other students.
[X] When there are no longer other students, step back and keep trying again until you either summon something or pass out.

 

[Biigoh]

.....

Chibi does ZnT... oh dear lord... @_@

[X] You present a stiff chin and a firm upper lip. You are NOBILITY, no matter what others might say... and so you don't cry or run off.
- - [X] You will step aside and watch... and try again LATER.

 

[GoC]

[X] Your rage explodes. How is it that your peers can use magic and you can't?! It's not fair! You hate them! You hate them all!
[X] Kill them all. Starting with a quick blow up of Colbert.

 

[Vindictus]

[X] No... This can't be right! Try again!

 

[EnderofWorlds]

[X] Your rage explodes. How is it that your peers can use magic and you can't?! It's not fair! You hate them! You hate them all!
[X] Kill them all. Starting with a quick blow up of Colbert.
[X] Pride...something your whole life has been based on it seems. Pride as a noble, as a Valliere, as a mage. And look what pride has done for you...

Nothing. Even now, your pride is worthless. Just a...silly little idea to help people sleep at night, to make people feel better about themselves regardless of what the truth says.

Pride is worthless.

So you will throw it away.

 

[Felius]

[X] Powers or not, titles or not, wealth or not, even if we are disinherited and banished, we have our pride. Our pride as a noble. Our pride as a Valliere. We will act in a manner befitting who we are. The rule of steel allows nothing else. Today is too important for us to let go of our temper. To fall into despair. Step aside, do not make a scene. After everyone else is done, we shall try again. And again. And again. Until our willpower runs empty, until our arms are too tired to be raised, until our very voice fails. Or succeed, either or, really.

 

[EnderofWorlds]

[X] Powers or not, titles or not, wealth or not, even if we are disinherited and banished, we have our pride. Our pride as a noble. Our pride as a Valliere. We will act in a manner befitting who we are. The rule of steel allows nothing else. Today is too important for us to let go of our temper. To fall into despair. Step aside, do not make a scene. After everyone else is done, we shall try again. And again. And again. Until our willpower runs empty, until our arms are too tired to be raised, until our very voice fails. Or succeed, either or, really.

Click to shrink...

Add on to my vote:
[X] Pride...something your whole life has been based on it seems. Pride as a noble, as a Valliere, as a mage. And look what pride has done for you...

Nothing. Even now, your pride is worthless. Just a...silly little idea to help people sleep at night, to make people feel better about themselves regardless of what the truth says.

Pride is worthless.

So you will throw it away.

 

[Lilithium]

OHGAWD

q-q not sure if want to make try again, go crazy and murder everything, or orororororor

aaaaaaaaaaa

 

[EnderofWorlds]

OHGAWD

q-q not sure if want to make try again, go crazy and murder everything, or orororororor

aaaaaaaaaaa

Click to shrink...

Please support my plan, Imouto? I wanna see where a Louise who abandons pride will lead...

 

[Torgamous]

Just about the only way to keep Louise's pride somewhat intact at this point is to go with Creticus. I fully expect my, Biigoh's, Vindictus', Felius', and GoC's votes to end with Louise's pride thoroughly crushed. That route is more interesting to me than just voting to stop being prideful.

 

[R.A.G.]

[x] EnderofWorlds

disgonnabegood

 

[Lilithium]

I want us to summon not a familiar, but a partner.

We crush our pride, and beseech someone or something to answer our call. Not as a familiar, not as a slave... But as someone equal to us. A companion.

At the dead of night, during the Witch Hour as the clock strikes 12~ KEKEKEKEKEKEKKEKE

 

[Biigoh]

>_>

<_<

We need summon Rumia~

 

[Vindictus]

Isn't that a thing already?

Let's summon... Hmm.

Zer0, from Borderlands 2. For irony.

 

[Lilithium]

We need to summon a Warrior Therapist.

or you know, Charlotte and headless Mami C=

or something idk but

FRIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEENNNNDDDSS

 

[EnderofWorlds]

Truthfully? I kinda don't want us to get a familiar; I wanna see where the story'll go without one.

 

[Vindictus]

Truthfully? I kinda don't want us to get a familiar; I wanna see where the story'll go without one.

Click to shrink...

That would also be okay, I suppose.

 

[Lilithium]

Truthfully? I kinda don't want us to get a familiar; I wanna see where the story'll go without one.

Click to shrink...

In that case... Cat-nee has a bunch of pets/beasties that love her right?


Let's be Monster/Beast Tamer Louise!


IMAGINE HORDES OF MONSTERS AND BEASTS AND ANIMALS AT OUR COMMAND! INDEED, OUR NAKAMA SHALL BLOT OUT THE SUN! YOUR ARMIES SHALL TREMBLE IN FEAR AS NATURE ITSELF LOOMS DOWN UPON YOU!


Maybe even druidic magic? Kekeke, the lands in which we concur sprout with life! Unending, nature retakes what has been lost. All obey the call of the wild.

 

[Torgamous]

Let's summon... Hmm.

Zer0, from Borderlands 2. For irony.

Click to shrink...

Also acceptable: Zero from Code Geass, Zero from Shugo Chara, Zero from Gundam, Unit 0 from Evangelion, Zero from Familiar of Zero, and any of the innumerable Reis.

 

[Felius]

Maybe, but if snap and start trying to kill everyone, it's likely to lead to a bad end, or at least locked up in some tower in the Valliere Lands, where we are safe while not presenting a risk to anyone.

So, ranked vote:
If we are not to step aside and try again later, I'd go with plan Creticus of just stepping aside.

 

[Lilithium]

Also acceptable: Zero from Code Geass, Zero from Shugo Chara, Zero from Gundam, Unit 0 from Evangelion, Zero from Familiar of Zero, and any of the innumerable Reis.

Click to shrink...

Let's summon an Angel.

 

[EnderofWorlds]

In that case... Cat-nee has a bunch of pets/beasties that love her right?


Let's be Monster/Beast Tamer Louise!


IMAGINE HORDES OF MONSTERS AND BEASTS AND ANIMALS AT OUR COMMAND! INDEED, OUR NAKAMA SHALL BLOT OUT THE SUN! YOUR ARMIES SHALL TREMBLE IN FEAR AS NATURE ITSELF LOOMS DOWN UPON YOU!


Maybe even druidic magic? Kekeke, the lands in which we concur sprout with life! Unending, nature retakes what has been lost. All obey the call of the wild.

Click to shrink...

All wonderful ideas; just so long as we do something new. And different. We've done the desperate familiar summoning thing already, let's try something new. I'm bored with same old, tsundere, prideful Louise. That's why I want to see her throw away her pride.

 

[Torgamous]

Let's summon an Angel.

Click to shrink...

That works. An Ophanim is basically a bunch of zeroes stuck together at odd angles. Leliel would also be thematically appropriate.

 

[Chibi-Reaper]

=>> Repetition leads to?

Your knuckles are white around the grip of your wand.

But you turn and walk stoically away.

There aren't so many names which come, alphabetically, after Valliere, but you watch patiently as they succeed, effortlessly and without thought, and... you do everything perfectly, so why do you still fail?

You step up to the ritual proceedings, as the other students fly away, chattering amongst themselves with no more than the occasional back-handed snide comment for the Zero.

You'll show them. You'll show them all. You must have made a mistake somewhere with the ritual, and if you just do it again, then-!

The magic fizzles.

This is new. But just as jaw-droppingly terrible as the explosions. Always before, something had happened when you tried to cast magic. Loud and flashy somethings.

Even this ritual, earlier, and now nothing at all?

"Strange." Colbert muses, rubbing his chin. "The summoning rite is a sacred ritual, but there is room for repetition in case of failure, rare as it might be, or the death of the familiar...."

Frantic, you repeat the ritual. No response, once more.

The magic isn't responding, it's not just failing, it's utterly denying...-!

Desperate, you turn your wand away and attempt to cast a fireball.

This, at least, results in a flash and boom, like normal botched castings.

So the problem, at least with the ritual, is not with you. You haven't just suddenly and spontaneously become a commoner or anything, helplessly waving a stick about. You do still have magic.

It just doesn't work.

"I'm afraid that I do have classes, miss Valliere." Colbert says, eying the sun. "I'm really not sure what to make of all this, but interesting as it is, I have prior obligations. I trust you can see yourself about unchaperoned? .... I believe that the Headmaster will most likely request a meeting with you tomorrow."

... No.

No no no no no no, they can't just... they can just expel you. You were fully aware that this was something like the last chance you had to prove yourself to have any sort of magical talent, someone attending classes to teach magic that they will never, no, can never use, it's just beyond pointless.

There is a little bit of a tremble in your knees as you perform the chant once more, as the professor makes his way to the classroom.

Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even so much as a puff of air, from the ritual.

---

[ ] What do you do now?

 

[Felius]

All wonderful ideas; just so long as we do something new. And different. We've done the desperate familiar summoning thing already, let's try something new. I'm bored with same old, tsundere, prideful Louise. That's why I want to see her throw away her pride.

Click to shrink...

I was thinking more of the "rule of steel" kind of pride, that is, self control, dignity, not losing control over one's temper, etc. Not the whole "HOW DARE YOU VAGUELY INSULT ME!". Rule of Steel, Will of Steel, Soul of Steel. I don't even mind her thinking herself unworthy of anything since she's a failure, but the kind of pride that would make her hold herself to the highest standards, even if she doesn't hold anyone else to, or anyone else holds her to them.

Edit for ninja update: (see below since there were ninja posts as well. )

 

[GoC]

Felius: And that could well lead to a reverse summon or something similar, depending on how Chibi rolls with it.

Torg: Wow. An Ophanim would be a very cool summon.

I want us to summon not a familiar, but a partner.

Click to shrink...

Almost all ZnT stories do this. The ones that summon actual familiars are more the exception than the rule.

For summons I'd like something non-sapient... A symbiont of some sort perhaps?

 

[EnderofWorlds]

[X] Your rage explodes. How is it that your peers can use magic and you can't?! It's not fair! You hate them! You hate them all!
[X] Kill them all. Starting with a quick blow up of Colbert.
[X] Pride...something your whole life has been based on it seems. Pride as a noble, as a Valliere, as a mage. And look what pride has done for you...

Nothing. Even now, your pride is worthless. Just a...silly little idea to help people sleep at night, to make people feel better about themselves regardless of what the truth says.

Pride is worthless.

So you will throw it away.
[X] Realize that no, you can't kill them all and get away with it; then blow open the wall and escape. Where? You don't know; just....away. Away from the jeers, the failures, the pressure of the Rule of Steel. All of it.