Kersar Academy of Magical Arts

The date is August 19th, 1489. A new class of graduate students has arrived at the Academy for the new year. These students will live in a separate building from the rest of the student population as they learn more difficult topics. This is a transcript of their tour.

Hello and good morning, everyone! I'm your guide, Amber Joyce, and this is my fellow student and tour guide, Mercus Rhine. Just so you know, we are recording this to transcribe later. Your questions and comments will not be added to the transcript, so try to keep them relevant to the tour. Mercus's words will apparently be designated by a box in the transcript. Well, I think we're good to start!

by Lilliana Casper

Some quick history as we set off: the Academy as an organization was created before most of the buildings on its campus were! The only building here that predates the school is the library, which has been merged into the main building. That's why there's only one entrance to it. The Academy of Magical Arts was born from the combined efforts of several mages, magic experts, and other masters who wanted to teach an overall method of magic to their students. I'm not sure exactly what year the Academy was created, but the campus was built over seven hundred years ago!

We started our tour in the front garden of the Academy and now we're inside! This is the entrance hall of the school, where all the hallways eventually lead. If you weren't graduate students, you would receive your schedules and room assignments here the day you arrive. What's that? Oh, yes. Graduate students are attendees who have already graduated from grade school. That's why you arrive earlier, live in separate dorms, and have different classes. Grade school students are simply known as the main student body.

Yeah, the Academy is basically a combined highschool and college, you're right. The main student body is much bigger though, since there are six years supported for grade schoolers and only four for graduates. And no, surprisingly few people stay past the initial six years, but a decent amount of people come just for a few courses.

Okay, on with the tour info. To my right are corridors leading to classrooms on basic subjects. Classes for the student body are grouped randomly and each teacher has a specific subject they teach to everyone, at different levels. To my left are more classrooms, as well as the hallways that lead upstairs to the dorms. Students are bunked in rooms of two to three people, with roommates chosen randomly. While it is possible to apply for a private room, it is very rare to have it granted. One or two students will get a private room each year, but that's it. Teachers have their own rooms, of course.

by Lilliana Casper

If you'll follow us now, we'll head through this doorway and into a new corridor. This leads to the dining hall, which can fit most of the students all at one time. This is of course referring to the main student body and doesn't include graduate students like yourselves, but mealtimes are open for two hours every day. Breakfast starts at seven and ends at nine, lunch starts at eleven and ends at one, and dinner starts at five and ends at seven-thirty. As you can see, there are long tables perpetually set up. The dishes are magically set and cleaned and food appears on your plate according to whatever you want. There are a few times when a specific meal is designated, but usually, it's whatever you want.

Try to keep the questions relevant to the Academy, please. It's okay. I'll answer anyway. The plates are enchanted by the teachers with very careful wish magic. Wish magic is a sort of sub-genre of magic if that makes sense. It's usually referred to by mages as "desire spells" because it figures out what you want most.

Heading through this door now, we find ourselves in the extracurriculars hallway. This is where extra clubs like the arts and crafts group meet. Students can sign up for these at the beginning of term and they are open to graduate students. Most classrooms are on the ground floor, and dorms begin upstairs and cover the other floors, with a few classrooms, meeting rooms, and offices located on each floor.

by Lilliana Casper

We're going outside now, and crossing to some of the other buildings, most notably the sports hall and graduate dorms. As we walk, I have a random question for all of you: did anyone meet the gatekeeper while they were arriving? I see a few hands raised here and there, but it looks like most of you didn't. You'll meet him eventually, he's almost always at his post, but if you arrive during rush hours, the guards check papers instead of him. He's very old, been here almost fifty years or something. No one knows if he has magic, but he has a very good memory. Also, he talks like a pirate. Just so you know.
Mercus is shuddering over here. The gatekeeper creeps him out. Why? I don't know. He's very funny when you get to know him. Oh, look at that. We're at the sports center. Now, we don't have any official sports teams or anything, since our focus is on magic, but for those students who have a propensity towards more physical magic or fighting, we have several martial arts clubs, fencing, and track events. All of those meet in this building. If you'd like to join, go

ahead and sign up after the tour, there's no age limit. The instructors pick partners carefully and train personally with older members.
Moving on to the dorms for graduate students! Most of you already know this building. There are six floors, everyone gets one roommate unless there's an odd number, and then someone gets a room to themself. The top three floors are boys dorms and the bottom three are girls. Don't ask me why, I don't make the rules.

The headmaster who had them built assigned it that way because, I quote "the boys can walk longer. They'll have fun racing down the stairs and impressing the girls." Yes, it's an actual quote, you can look it up. That headmaster, ah, he was fun. They've got his portrait up in the honors hall and you can almost see the smirk.

Thank you, Mercus, we...really didn't need to know that detail. I agree, he did have an interesting sense of humor, but that's not the topic right now. These dorms are about two hundred years old or so, I'm not really sure. They might be younger. But anyway, this is where you'll be staying while you're here. I'm not going over how they work, it's pretty much a normal college process. Talk to your dorm managers for more.

We're going to head back to the main building now, crossing through the garden. This garden was planted twenty years ago by the Elemental Magic professor at the time. She and her students crafted it and grew all the plants themselves. To this day, the garden is maintained by the Elemental Magic classes. It's a popular place for students to take breaks, study, and meet up with each other.
Now that we're back inside, we're going to duck into this side hallway and head over to the honors hall. The first room is dedicated to past and present headmasters, such as the first headmaster; the headmaster who built the main building; and of course, Headmaster Devon, who commissioned the graduate student dorms. The library has six biographies about him, he was very popular. Yes, six, apparently for the number of floors in the dorms he commissioned.

by Lilliana Casper

The second room has all the current teachers and faculty. Over here is Professor Winifred Morgan, the teacher of Basic Spellcasting in the grade school courses. She also teaches Advanced Spellcasting and Spellcasting Theory. This is Mrs. Pauline Szkardza, who teaches four different History of Magical Arts courses, in both the graduate student and grade school student paths. Professor George Sarsand teaches History of Celestials, which is a rather niche but well-loved course about the mysterious beings everyone likes to debate the existence of.
Professor Yeliah Grange is Mercus's favorite teacher. She teaches Magical Theory, including the basic course General Magical Theory, which

Professor Yeliah's slides (cropped) by Lilliana Casper

all of you will be taking, and more advanced courses. She does lots of extracurricular courses as well, which you can take for extra credit. I think she's great, of course, but Mercus practically worships her.

I do not! I missed General Magical Theory last year, so I have to take it in the spring this year, but she explains things so well! And she knows so much about Celestials too, I really wish she had a class about them.

Sure, sure. Oh, sorry, you over there, did you have a question? Hmm. Yeah, the current headmaster is in the first room of the honors hall. Sorry for the confusion. He's new, I think he became the headmaster last year or something. Most of us like him, he's very friendly. Headmaster Reed was wonderful, but we could all tell he was starting to get stressed. Headmaster Daniel is much calmer, if a little strict. He's very easy to talk to once you get to know his though!
Whew, that was kind of a whirlwind. I'm sorry if there wasn't more information, or if there was too much. I'm on a bit of a time restriction and so is Mercus. There also isn't that much to the campus...ah frick, I forgot the lecture halls. Those are reserved for the graduate students, they're on the other side of the main building. There are nine lecture halls, which is a weird number, but they're laid out pretty easily and numbered. And if you forget anything about the layout, just ask someone for help. You should know your way around by the third week and definitely by the third month.
And that's it for the tour, everyone! Thanks for showing up, walking around, and listening. Also, thank you for actually listening. The last group kept taking pictures of themselves and giggling. So thanks for being great listeners. Enjoy the rest of your day, everyone!