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[color=7bcdc8]Usually, they dispelled the rain for events like this, but whispers traveled about the student body and city at large that not only had they failed to dispel it this time, the Arch-Zenos had [i]created[/i] it. Youths gathered by the dozens beneath awnings and overhangs. They clustered in the shelter of kinetic barriers and enhanced their hearing to listen to the Zenith's closing address over the deluge. A fraction of them were rich with spoils and winnings. Porters handles great pallets of goods, soon to pass through one portal or another. Some had made or rekindled friendships, alliances, and affairs of love. Others left embittered, present only out of obligation. The city of magic, with its white walls and sparkling towers, had proven a false dream for the second time. They were left indelibly disillusioned. 

There were some, however, for whom Ersand'Enise yet held immense promise. Some would stay. Some would fight for it, or perhaps against it. Some had become rich in the span of a week, literally, figuratively, or both. After the drama of Mano e Mano, the scramble of Right or Spite, and the high stakes of prize selection, there were winners just as certainly as there were losers.[/color] 

[hider=The Trials: Final Results][center][h3][url=https://keepthescore.com/board/dwtqbjlhqymte/]Final Standings[/url]
[url=https://challonge.com/Mano_e_Mano]Mano e Mano Results[/url]
[url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q7_FVV_RXj1eUng4VFXb7A4OPC8-51V9BD1ob84HcJo/edit?usp=sharing]Prizes Table[/url]
[url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16WjuBWtX3kmcj-uONo8Pq3nzGAardCsBXvM2X6fL6Uo/edit?usp=sharing]Prize Selections[/url][/h3][/center][/hider]
[color=00a99d]Some went back through the portals offered by the Zenos, eager to return home. Others lingered a bit longer and scooped up the unclaimed prizes at an auction later that day. The masquerade ball to conclude the Trials had been canceled due to a convergence of unrest outside the city and within though, officially, it was due to the sudden and untimely passing of Arch-Zeno Joshe Intaba, who had disappeared during his intervention in that disastrous Mano e Mano quarterfinal. Word came down that the school was in mourning but, curiously, while campus events had been suspended, classes had not. 

The students would not be denied. While some, angry and majority - though not exclusively - Perrench and allied, took to protesting their unfair treatment which could no longer be ignored, others flocked, during the night of Victendes the ninth, to a large house on the Godsroad, just beyond the city's formal boundaries. This was the 'Soirée', to which they'd all been invited, regardless of nationality or popularity. If it was not an official event, then much was riding on it nonetheless, for few would dispute that the school was a powder keg and the city at large was scarcely better off. Still, great powers built up their forces and prepared their battle plans. Still, Belleville pursued ties with the City of the Bells. Still, desperate and disowned, refugees piled up by the gates in their hundreds and even their thousands. 

By the time Eshiran's hours slipped into Dami's, musicians were playing, food and drink were served, and the midsized property was crowded with dozens of teens. Soon, it would be hundreds. They laughed. They danced. They socialized. Certainly, there were flashes of tension. Oraff does not craft all the same, Dami does not shape all alike, and Ipte will not force kinship upon them. By and large, however, the night was an immense success: evidence, perhaps, that the Zenith's words about the future and its promise maybe have held truth. Whatever other failings of her administration had since been exposed, at least she had been prophetic on one account, or so it appeared. 

And yet... that very same night, in Balthazar Square and Dami's Cross, groups of drunken Perrench, Belzaggic, and Virangish students waved flags and chanted before being chased off by Academy Guardsmen and Lamplighters. Yet, what they missed were the others who slipped into the Courtyard of Exemplars at Arc-en-Ciel Hall and transformed the statue of Alassa Tojarra into the likeness of a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig-faced_women]pig-faced[/url] woman, replete with slurs and epithets describing her. That of the Zenith was marked with the demonic symbols of Zagnath, for greed, and Iptacht, for treachery.[/color] 

[color=00746b]The response was immediate. Penny Pellerin, who had been unfortunate enough to ingest the aberration earlier, was collected from the party as it wound down without incident and brought in for questioning. Roslyn Wicke, who'd intervened as a spectator to put an end to the match, found a letter with the seal of the school treasurer in her mailbox informing her that her THESIS funding had been reassessed and she was no longer eligible. When those students not playing hooky arrived on campus, they found notices on the door of every building that a curfew would be enforced 'until such time as it no longer proves necessary'. None were to be out past 1:00 HD upon pain of suspension from classes. 

There was no stopping the news from spreading, however. Penny Pellerin had been taken into custody and not yet released. Eloise Desrochers, who had lost an arm in the violence following the quarterfinal; Jean-Marc Savard, the young Marquis d'Arouains; and Yvette Larocque, Comtesse de Chamonix had been arrested for their part in the acts of vandalism. The others had escaped, for now, but the academy offered substantial reward for their capture. The result was a second act of vandalism, right under the nose of the authorities. 

For a second night, Penny was held in custody, and those closest to her would no longer remain silent. The verdict came down from above that the vandals would be summarily expelled without refund of their tuition, declared Anto, and blacklisted from the school registry. The reward for the remaining vandals was increased: A large medallion of the rare metal veldolm for each credibly brought in with supporting evidence. Curfew was extended into the hours of Eshiran so that, effectively, students could go only from class to home and the reverse. Local businesses complained of lost revenue and part-time employees. The people of Belleville made common cause with this new ally of convenience, decrying the tyranny of the mages in their ivory towers. Still, the great powers sharpened their swords. Still, the people of Tanso, Parmoy, and Oiyac camped outside of the city gates.[/color] 

[color=00a99d]Then, a memorial to the fallen Arch-Zeno Intaba went up. It was an impromptu thing, formed hastily by a group of binders in Balthazar Square before they could be roughly hauled away. Yet, there was an imperfect beauty to it and the academy was loath to erase a memorial honouring one of their own fallen. On the third day of the unrest, students began to leave flowers, candles, and notes beside it. This, the academy's and city's administrators decided, was a healthy release of tension. This, they allowed in a limited capacity. The famously fair but firm arbiter of Ersand'Enise's justice stood there in Balthazar Square, ferrous and lumpen and, unbeknownst to his erstwhile peers, a symbol of what the school should have been, in contrast to what it was.

They began to stay, after curfew, in a vigil about the statue. At first, guards removed them, but then there were too many. The third night came and Miss Pellerin remained locked up in the Violet Enclave. Messengers had been dispatched to Perrence. Among them, symbolically, was Leike van de Hoek, who had lost a leg in the initial bout of unrest during the Trials. Dozens more gathered overnight, and they numbered well into the hundreds by the morning. Some Zenos refused to teach their half-empty classes. Some stood in solidarity with their students. Then, word got out that Arch-Zeno Tojarra, who had been suspended from academic duties, with pay, had been asked to withdraw her charges against those who had been involved in the quarterfinal incident.[/color] 

[color=00746b]She refused.

Now, the peaceful vigil began to turn angry. Some demanded that she be fired. Others stepped up to defend her, saying that it was her duty to ensure that the academy's laws were not ignored, no matter how perfunctory the case. These were few, however, and far between. Now came a letter from King Rouis himself, demanding the immediate release of his daughter and certifying the mobilization of the Legion de la Flamme Sacrée should she not walk out of the Violet Enclave unharmed, within twenty-five hours. The Dukes of Tojarra and five allied families of Torragon and Revidia sent similar notices urging the school to reinstate their kinswoman. King Sancho's missive stated only that he was certain that Dami's divine judgement would hold firm and that the guilty party would be held accountable. While some interpreted this as a carte blanche to encourage his countrymen, it was not lost upon others that the Arch-Zeno had struck his niece in anger. In response, the school began calling its Zenos from their primary duties as instructors and researches to their secondary duties as defenders of the school's integrity. Some heeded the call. Others interpreted it differently. It was the administrators who threatened the school's integrity, in fact, and not those who protested against them. 

So it was that the hornet's nest had been kicked. The powder keg had been lit. Whatever idioms one might apply, they held true here. Lepdes the 13th arrived. Streets were largely empty. Classes were suspended.[/color] [color=000000]Ersand'Enise stood at the very precipice of a deep black abyss.[/color]
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