Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ground rules:
1. This is walk-in, inclusive RP. No narrative breaking changes please [see next section].
2. When interacting, do not decide how other players react or change in status (like if your character uses a smoke screen, the responding player can respond in a way that makes you visible yet).
3. Be cool and don't be weird or mean.

Narrative Structure
Each year Barton hosts a secret society of scholars attending the school of witchcraft and wizardry. Students are taught by 3 magus experts (they are NPCs who can die or leave). Players contributing shall not kill other players or the NPC experts without prior approval. PM the OP (me) for major plot consideration. There are classes or lectures you can attend. But as any college, you may not attend any or all. Each narration cycle ends with a final exam period.

Introduction

Sage had never been the kind of person to believe in fate. She believed in late nights at the library, black coffee, and the slow, dull ache that came with final exams. With her violet eyes — a strange inheritance from a grandmother no one spoke about — she watched the world with a quiet detachment. Magic wasn’t real. Miracles didn’t happen. And if they did, they weren’t for people like her.

So when the email arrived, she almost laughed.

Congratulations! Your application to Greywick College has been received. An admissions advisor will contact you shortly.

Greywick College? Sage scrolled through the message, expecting to find a phishing link or some too-good-to-be-true scholarship scam. She hadn’t applied anywhere. She was barely surviving her final papers at the university she already attended. She deleted the email without a second thought, shoved her phone into her backpack, and went back to her notes.

But the messages didn’t stop.

Her inbox filled, first slowly, then in a flood: “Your Greywick application is under review.” “Reminder: Submit your enrollment confirmation.” “Class schedules are filling fast!” Texts began to light up her phone at odd hours: “We await your decision, Sage.” “The term approaches.”

She blocked the numbers. She changed her email address. When that didn’t work, she deleted her accounts altogether. But somehow, the messages found her anyway — on new phones, new emails, even scribbled on the back of a receipt once, in handwriting she didn’t recognize.

She tried to ignore it. She told herself it was some elaborate prank. Until the day the man appeared.

It was just after dusk, the sky still flushed pink at the edges, when Sage stepped out of her apartment building and saw him. He was enormous — broad as a doorframe, with a beard that looked as if it could have its own postal code. His clothes were worn, dust clinging to the heavy boots on his feet. He smelled of earth and something older, like books that hadn’t been opened in a hundred years.

“You’re Sage,” he said. His voice rumbled, thick with an accent she couldn’t place.

She froze, gripping the strap of her bag.

“I’m Hogar,” the man went on, as if that explained anything. “Been sent to find you. You’re late deciding.”

“Deciding what?” Sage managed.

Hogar raised a bushy brow. “Greywick, of course. The school. Hidden in Barton. You’ve been invited. Don’t tell me you’re not coming.”

Something about the way he said it — like it wasn’t a question at all — made Sage bristle. “Maybe I will,” she said, out of sheer stubbornness.

Hogar grinned, wide and gap-toothed. He held out a massive hand. “Come on, then.”

And before she could think better of it, Sage placed her hand in his. The world around her seemed to peel away — the street, the buildings, the tired glow of the city — until she stood somewhere else entirely.

Greywick College.

Towers rose above her, crooked and strange, their stones dark with age. Courtyards hummed with students in robes of every color, wands flickering in the dimming light, voices rising in spells and laughter. The air crackled with the energy of it all — of magic, real magic, in a way Sage had never dared to imagine.

“This way,” Hogar said, leading her toward three figures waiting near a great archway.

First was Alexander, tall and sharp-eyed, his black robes swirling as if stirred by an unseen wind. He nodded, and the air seemed colder where he stood. “Elemental manipulation,” Hogar whispered, as if that explained the shadows that clung to the man’s heels.

Beside him stood Ginger, her copper hair a wild halo, the scent of herbs and smoke drifting from her sleeves. She smiled warmly. “Alchemy and healing,” Hogar said. “She can fix what most wouldn’t bother trying.”

And then there was Kipp, smaller, quiet, his gaze fixed on Sage’s shoes as if judging their potential. He wore plain clothes, but there was something in the way he held himself — as if even the threads of his coat might spring to life at any moment. Hogar lowered his voice. “Enchanter. World-famous. Can turn rags into things that’ll walk on their own.”

Sage took it all in — the College, the professors, the impossible. And for the first time in a long time, she wondered if maybe the messages hadn’t been a mistake after all.

Maybe they’d been waiting for her.