[b][u]Personal Information[/u][/b]
Name: Vanda Melo

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Height/Weight: 5 feet, 7 inches. 130 lbs. 

Hobbies: His time as an apprentice with the Clocksmith's Guild has given Vanda an appreciation for tinkering. He enjoys writing, and his assistance writing peer-reviewed treatises in collaboration with Avalice faculty demonstrates that he is fairly adept.

Appearance: [WIP]

History: During his first two years at Avalice, Vanda was presumed by much of the faculty and student body to be a future member of the Seven: those most gifted and prestigious of the great arcane university at Genealogia. The savant junior underclassman was writing peer-reviewed treatises at age 14. At 15, he was teaching classes - technically in the capacity of a professor's-aide, though his pupils would confess that his lectures were more edifying than those of tenured instructors. Vanda's genius was unprecedented and his graduation seemed assured.

But when Headmaster Augustine moved Vanda from Class Wisteria to Class Camellia in an effort to provide some leadership to Avalice's struggling pupils, everything about Vanda changed. It would seem that the so called "Curse of Class C" would not be so easily broken. It would seem the Class Camellia's misfortune had rubbed off on even Avalice's most prestigious young student.

Vanda had always been moody and capricious, and rumor had it that Vanda had a falling out with his wealthy parents. Nobody was quite sure what caused the row between the noble couple and their son; Vanda was something of a loner and never confided much to his few acquaintances. Whatever caused the disagreement, it resulted in Vanda needing to pay his own way through Avalice's substantial tuition and board expenses.

During the break between semesters, Vanda became an apprentice of the Clocksmiths' Guild. The meticulousness and precision demanded by the craft suited Vanda well. Vanda became a valuable apprentice to the guild, helping not only to build the namesake clocks of the guild, but also arcanometers: high-precision tools used to detect and quantify the presence of mana. In the process of building and studying these advanced devices, Vanda became preoccupied with the belief that living beings were clockwork devices of a different - more complicated sort.

As Vanda began his junior upperclassman semester, the academy's librarian's noticed a worrying pattern to their pupil's new reading habits. Vanda borrowed translations of ancient tomes detailing strange magics, books of the dead, and scrolls written in the untranslated calligraphy of the devils. Some of Vanda's requests were forbidden texts containing hidden knowledge deemed hazardous and unfit for the virgin eyes of unprepared pupils.

And while members of the faculty began to fret over Vanda's reading habits, disquieting rumors about Vanda's studies circulated among the pupils. Whispers told of Vanda drowning mice in a pitcher of water, and then using electrodes tethered to power crystals to galvanize them back to life.

Vanda went to fewer and fewer of his classes in the middle of that semester, until one day late in the fall when Vanda completely left. The faculty still contest that Vanda dropped out, but rumor among the students holds that Vanda was actually expelled. The exact cause for the expulsion varies from storyteller to storyteller, but many rumors hold necromancy and a missing girl from Class Iris in common.

Nearly a year has passed since Vanda abruptly left Avalice last semester. Rumor holds that an investigation by the faculty found that Vanda committed no wrong, and that the disgraced pupil is soon to return to the academy. As the start of the semester draws near, the professors have little to say regarding Vanda's purported return for his final semester. Whether or not Vanda is to return this year remains to be seen. Some students protest his purported return, and a few vow to exact justice for what they claim Vanda did to the Iris girl.

[b][u]Combat Information[/u][/b]

Magic Class: Alteration

Mana Color: Sickly green

Mana Characteristic: Akin to a wasp's sting: faint and almost imperceptible at first. Gradually builds into a lingering sharpness.

Equipment:

Arcanometer - The Clocksmith's Guild, in addition to clocks, constructs and designs high-precision clockwork technology used in the more developed parts of the world. One such piece of technology is the arcanometer - a device used to detect and measure mana. As an apprentice to the guild, Vanda was able to construct his own arcanometer. Superficially, the arcanometer looks very similar to a noble's pocketwatch or compass. A dial hand fashioned from an exotic manaphilic metal, such as aztjalum, points toward the nearest mana-bearing body or the highest concentration if there are multiple in the vicinity. A second dial hand points to various graduations on the dial of the arcanometer, which show how much mana is present. In a combat situation, arcanometers are reliable means of knowing if the opponent is a powerful sorcerer or if they might be concealing some powerful enchanted device.

Spells:

-Fibrillate: In ancient times, it was thought that the heart was the vessel of the soul. In Vanda's studies, he has learned that it is nothing more than a pump coordinated by electrical impulses. Throw these electrical impulses off, and the heart of even the strongest warrior will begin to spasm ineffectively. It takes very little mana to achieve a lethal fibrillation, and few healers in this day and age can recognize the cause until it is too late. Vanda needs to be able to place his palm on the foe's chest to cast this spell. Metal armor or thick clothing diminishes its efficacy.

-Thunderbolt: A crackling lance of green thunder magic erupts from Vanda's fingertips. A flashy, loud spell that is capable of electrocuting foes and igniting clothing and other flammable objects. Air is not exceptionally conductive, and so launching a bolt of lightning through the air at an opponent is mana-intensive. Electric energy courses to ground through the path of least resistance, which in many combat situations might be through a foe's sword or plate armor. Its efficacy is highly variable. Not Vanda's favorite combat spell, though it has its uses.

-Resuscitate: Just as electrical mana can be used to paralyze a heart, it can also be used to restart a heart that has recently stopped beating. In some more primitive parts of the world, such magic may be mistaken for necromancy.