Poa: Aster'S Adventures Chapter 3
Poa: Aster'S Adventures Chapter 3
PoA: Aster's Adventures Chapter 3
PoA: Aster's Adventures Chapter 3
Aster looked at herself in the mirror and twisted her head back and forth before dropping the fist full of white hair to her shoulders. An updo just didn't feel right for today, but a completely down style seemed too informal for what she wanted.
Twisting her hair, she created a small crown, but dropped that option as well for being too formal.
It did look good with her fox ears, though.
Pouting, she called Kelly for help. Kelly, I need help picking my hairstyle!
The sound of her neighbor's door opening up told Aster that her call for aid had been heard, and her shorter roommate came in, bundled up in a puffy winter coat.
Even after countless times seeing it, Aster still needed to resist the urge to laugh at the girls mocha face surrounded by fur.
Aster, it's stupid cold in here. Cant we do this in my room? She pleaded.
Aster ruthlessly crushed that hope. Your room makes my ice highlights take forever to set. Just help me for five minutes.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.
Grumbling, Kelly waddled in deeper to where Aster had her vanity and popped up behind her.
Mittened hands grabbed a handful of her hair, and together, they decided on a half-up and half-relaxed style, with one lock of hair going around her brow, matched by a deep purple ribbon weaved through her tail.
As Aster got the hair set and used a bit of magic to put in some cosmetic icicles, she went to Kellys room and helped her do her hair. A much easier task with her feathers, but together, they managed to fluff them out in just the right way to accentuate her face.
With that done they chatted and talked about the latest happenings in the academy until Juan knocked and asked what color shirt he should pair with his skin tone, currently an earthy pink. He changed skin tones like Aster changed hairstyles, and still hadn't found something he really liked. While usually he was happy to just wear whatever today was a big day, after all, and everyone wanted to look their best.
Even Roody was trimming his beard and hair, if the sound of the clippers was to be trusted. Or at least, Aster hoped it was his hair and beard being tended to.
Today would be the first day their AI was unblocked and they were able to send messages to the outside world, and Aster couldnt wait to talk to Matt and Liz again. So much had happened in the last year, and she needed to share all of it.
After she and Kelly were convinced the juniper-colored shirt matched best, they finished accessorizing Kellys feathers before waiting on Roody, who finally came out of his room, where all three of them immediately pulled him back in.
You put a dent in your beard, you idiot. Why didnt you ask for help?
Aster pulled on his ear even as Kelly fluffed his beard back out so they could see the damage.
Juan helpfully held the struggling lion firmly in his chair despite his protests. It's not a dent. It's an illusion of the light. Really. Nooooooooo! Dont cut my beard any shorter! I worked hard on it.
After his beard was symmetrical, though slightly shorter, the four of them exited their room to enter the bustling common room.
Everyone had a frantic energy as they rushed around, preparing for the final assembly before the information embargo was lifted, and none of them could wait.
Aster thought back on the last year and sighed.
Things had been pretty good, but not perfect. Despite how easily shed picked up switching forms, she had struggled actually modifying her body into human form. She was barely above average, if she was being honest, and it didnt feel great.
Beyond that slight blemish, things were great. She had excelled in all of her classes as the undisputed best fox in the realm, but that was only to be expected.
The headmasters speech was painfully boring, and the irritation from everyone was palpable. Theyd waited so long to get access to the net, and they wanted to hear from their humans, not the stuffy old administrator!
Though Aster had mostly gotten over her homesickness after a few weeks, she still dearly missed Matt and Liz. No matter how good of friends she had made, they werent family.
Within an instant of the headmaster saying his final words- which Aster didnt even hear- her AI was instantly bombarded by messages from basically everyone she knew. Matt and Liz were the most frequent senders, but Susanne, Melinda, Mathew, Sam, Vinnie, Kyle, Tara, Conor, Emily, Annie, Mara and Leon, all of Lizs siblings, Dena and Eric, Luna, Kurt, and April had all sent her messages, and she had to use a touch of wind magic to dry her eyes as she started to tear up.
Quickly skimming through the ones Matt and Liz sent, she caught up on their official lives and tried to read between the lines of what Quill and Torch were doing, or rather, how they were faring in the masks almost full time.
Things seemed to be going well for them, but apparently, there was news of a Quill movie on the horizon, and Matt was not happy about it.
Their first movie!
She hoped it would be as bad as the worst Duke Waters movies, and couldn't wait to see it.
Liz, on the other hand, had even found a vault of goods, which seemed frankly unfair. Aster wanted to explore old vaults and loot them. She could really use the adventure after having to spend most of her time in classes.
After skimming everyone else's messages for anything that needed her direct attention, Aster immediately used a nearby camera booth to take a video of herself in human form to send to Matt and Liz.
She had a speech planned out, and had even practiced it, but all of that went out the window the moment she started speaking. She rambled for close to ten minutes about her life and new friends before catching herself and focusing on the important bits.
Things are really nice here. Im very much enjoying myself. I cant wait to be able to talk to you guys again.
Turning to her friends, she found all of them still chattering away, and used that time to start watching the videos Matt and Liz had sent her.
She was only able to get through a few of them before her friends came out of their AI fugues and returned to the real world. All of them were brimming with excitement as they agreed to find somewhere a touch more secluded, where they could view the messages they had received and send their own in peace, rather than in a stadium with a few thousand others.
Circling back around to size, making your body too large or small introduces numerous problems that an inexperienced individual may not be prepared to deal with. Essence of the physical core may bolster your physicality, making you stronger as you increase your muscle mass, but not as quickly as the increased mass slows you down. This is one of many reasons why most humanoid malleable forms stay approximately human-sized. If you do harbor dreams of eating planets someday, I advise altering your bloodline and bloodline form instead. Increasing its size is substantially easier for a multitude of reasons we will address later in the class, particularly for creatures such as dragons, leviathans, and elephants whose bloodline form is already large.
The professor seemed like he intended to utilize every second of their allotted time for the class filling them in on the proper fundamentals of body modification, which earned him a measure of admiration in Asters mind. Cameron was still sitting beside her, writing up a storm, as Aster worked solely on absorbing the information the professor was teaching.
Aster was then shocked that Cameron was able to answer the first of the professors questions to the class about altering the malleable form while in the bloodline form, while still writing, and earned herself a tenth of a Feather for the correct answer. The girl had never even looked up while she raised her hand, which felt like cheating to Aster.
When the second question came around, asking about the differences between sapient and monster biology, Aster thought she was about to earn her own portion of a Feather, but Cameron was somehow even faster, answering the question in half the words Aster had planned.
Promising herself she would be faster than her deskmate on the next question, she paid rapt attention to Professor Kilrins lecture, but was still too slow to get her hand up in time to answer any of the questions. As a result, she didnt earn even a fraction of a Feather. While not every question was answered by Cameron, the majority were, and that irritated Aster as she was being defeated by a heat-based bloodline. That simply could not be allowed.
Ice was better than fire, and therefore, she needed to be better than all the fire users to prove that point.
Was it a slightly childish desire? Yes.
But it was also a fun little internal motivator that kept her competitive and added some variety to her classes.
When the lecture ended, Cameron waved goodbye as they went their separate ways, not knowing Aster had already decided to bury the women in a metaphorical hunk of snow.
Crafting for Beginners was actually a lot of fun, as instead of being told to do one type of crafting for the day, they were given free rein inside a giant room that contained every kind of crafting imaginable and was staffed by a few of the professors or their clones. The formal classes would apparently start in a few days, when everyone had at least one class they were willing to sit through for six months.
Aster, like most others, bounced around from one craft to another, trying to see if she resonated with any of them. Smithing was too hot and repetitive, while leather making felt more like busy work than something shed enjoy; enchanting and alchemy both were discarded, as she had seen Matt and Liz do those respectively, and neither looked appealing.
Eventually, she found and settled on pottery.
It was fun seeing things take the shape she desired, and it was artistic enough that she rather enjoyed it. Sure, the professor behind the desk talked about how it could be mixed with enchantments and alchemy to further refine the craft into something more profitable, but Aster was happy to just squish her fingers in the soft clay.
Aster liked the downtime of a non combat hobby, and happily put her name down for the pottery lessons.
Her final class of the day almost seemed like a good one. Social Norms and Expectations seemed like an interesting look into beast and human behavior, but the presence of a smiling Magma Otter proved to test her patience.
Cameron, as in Intermediate Body Modification, was ruthless in accumulating all the Feathers she possibly could, but this time, it wasnt such a one-sided fight, with Aster earning two-tenths of a Feather more than the otter by the end of the class.
Her life in Minkalla helped a ton, as it gave her close to six thousand more years of experience than the otter, but that had the side effect of setting their rivalry in stone.
Cameron, it seemed, had a backbone, and was perfectly willing to throw down with Aster in their battle of knowledge. It led to them having a titanic battle of wits while Professor Peach served as their pseudo referee, giving Feathers to the winner of each bout.
Parting once more, Aster went to her first elective, Confection and Pastry, with Juan, who joined her in their class's first attempt on making a fluffy pastry. Theirs were only slightly better than the others, not burnt or having collapsed in on itself, but they still had fun in making and then sharing the delectable treat, which made the entire class worth it.
Getting to eat your experiments was the best reward, even if they werent perfect.
Melee Fighting for Mages was another surprisingly fun class, as all of them were Tier 15, and when using blunted Tier 13 weapons, they were unable to truly get hurt. The class eventually devolved into everyone trying out the moves they had seen their humans do, or ones seen in movies.
Some of them even pulled off some impressive stunts until the professor called everyone to order.
After that, Professor Latar had them go through each weapon to see what felt best for them, as that would be their main weapon going forward, barring any last second desired changes.
Aster first went for a longsword, like Matt, but quickly found that despite making herself tall and graceful, she didnt really like swinging around that large of a sword. Next, she tried a spear, but also found it not to her taste, then proceeded to go through almost every other weapon in the armory until she settled on a cutlass.
A slightly shorter and curved weapon, she found the sweeping patterns that it took to properly use the blade both enticing and enchanting. It was almost like the blade made its own illusion, and she found that an irresistible idea.
While Professor Latar gave each weapon type their own little exercises to get used to the weapon they had chosen, Aster paid attention properly, and carefully made the correct gestures, knowing how important repetition and becoming natural with a blade was from being around Matt for so long.
She didn't end the class as a master swordswoman, but she did end the class using some of her Feathers to purchase a customized cutlass for herself going forward, on the recommendation of Professor Latar.
After having dinner with her friends and shooting a glare at Cameron, who was in the objective worst house, the bathtub house, Aster went to her club, Hand Drawing.
It being an official club, there was still a professor, but they were more relaxed, and most of the actual work was handled by the older students who were also part of the club. Those same students took Asters and others' pestering questions in a good-natured manner at least, and even managed to answer most of them.
One of which stood out to Aster.
Nononono, the best job is to be a janitor, nya? See, most of em, they trick you into enjoying just sitting at a desk for a few hours or whatever, but being a janitor is so much better, nya. Your job is just to keep a certain section clean, nya, and after a week or two youll be good enough that itll take ya like twenty minutes to get the whole thing done, and then youre just done! So much better than sitting in the library for hours, nya the girls white cat ears fell flat against her head towards the end, but they sprang back up again as the conversation moved on.
Aster wouldnt have thought cleaning would be a coveted task, but put it on her list of possible jobs, alongside delver chaperone, mage private lesson coach, and ice trainer. The latter three were recommended by the Coaches due to her exceptional combat prowess. While she wasn't as good of a trainer as Luna or Kurt, she was still pretty good at passing on to others the trips and tricks she had learned over the decades under their tutelage. And they paid well.
Returning to her dorms common room, Aster flopped onto the couch, laying across Roody and Kelly, who were already there, just to be shoved to the floor by both of them.
Go shower first, smelly pants. Kelly was not nice with her words, and Aster pouted as she went to her room's bathroom.
She didnt even work up a sweat today. She was sure of that. In fact, it was almost impossible to work up a sweat being a Winter Fox. She was perpetually cold, so clearly Kelly was just being mean.
Seeing Juan exiting the room, she asked him if she smelled, to which he shook his head, proving they were just being jerks.
Still, a shower felt nice, and with her ice cold feet jammed into Kellys side, she settled in with a bag of treats as a large portion of the Roc house settled in to watch a recording of a play she hadnt seen before.
Things were looking up.
PoA: Aster's Adventures Chapter 3
Aster looked at herself in the mirror and twisted her head back and forth before dropping the fist full of white hair to her shoulders. An updo just didn't feel right for today, but a completely down style seemed too informal for what she wanted.
Twisting her hair, she created a small crown, but dropped that option as well for being too formal.
It did look good with her fox ears, though.
Pouting, she called Kelly for help. Kelly, I need help picking my hairstyle!
The sound of her neighbor's door opening up told Aster that her call for aid had been heard, and her shorter roommate came in, bundled up in a puffy winter coat.
Even after countless times seeing it, Aster still needed to resist the urge to laugh at the girls mocha face surrounded by fur.
Aster, it's stupid cold in here. Cant we do this in my room? She pleaded.
Aster ruthlessly crushed that hope. Your room makes my ice highlights take forever to set. Just help me for five minutes.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.
Grumbling, Kelly waddled in deeper to where Aster had her vanity and popped up behind her.
Mittened hands grabbed a handful of her hair, and together, they decided on a half-up and half-relaxed style, with one lock of hair going around her brow, matched by a deep purple ribbon weaved through her tail.
As Aster got the hair set and used a bit of magic to put in some cosmetic icicles, she went to Kellys room and helped her do her hair. A much easier task with her feathers, but together, they managed to fluff them out in just the right way to accentuate her face.
With that done they chatted and talked about the latest happenings in the academy until Juan knocked and asked what color shirt he should pair with his skin tone, currently an earthy pink. He changed skin tones like Aster changed hairstyles, and still hadn't found something he really liked. While usually he was happy to just wear whatever today was a big day, after all, and everyone wanted to look their best.
Even Roody was trimming his beard and hair, if the sound of the clippers was to be trusted. Or at least, Aster hoped it was his hair and beard being tended to.
Today would be the first day their AI was unblocked and they were able to send messages to the outside world, and Aster couldnt wait to talk to Matt and Liz again. So much had happened in the last year, and she needed to share all of it.
After she and Kelly were convinced the juniper-colored shirt matched best, they finished accessorizing Kellys feathers before waiting on Roody, who finally came out of his room, where all three of them immediately pulled him back in.
You put a dent in your beard, you idiot. Why didnt you ask for help?
Aster pulled on his ear even as Kelly fluffed his beard back out so they could see the damage.
Juan helpfully held the struggling lion firmly in his chair despite his protests. It's not a dent. It's an illusion of the light. Really. Nooooooooo! Dont cut my beard any shorter! I worked hard on it.
After his beard was symmetrical, though slightly shorter, the four of them exited their room to enter the bustling common room.
Everyone had a frantic energy as they rushed around, preparing for the final assembly before the information embargo was lifted, and none of them could wait.
Aster thought back on the last year and sighed.
Things had been pretty good, but not perfect. Despite how easily shed picked up switching forms, she had struggled actually modifying her body into human form. She was barely above average, if she was being honest, and it didnt feel great.
Beyond that slight blemish, things were great. She had excelled in all of her classes as the undisputed best fox in the realm, but that was only to be expected.
The headmasters speech was painfully boring, and the irritation from everyone was palpable. Theyd waited so long to get access to the net, and they wanted to hear from their humans, not the stuffy old administrator!
Though Aster had mostly gotten over her homesickness after a few weeks, she still dearly missed Matt and Liz. No matter how good of friends she had made, they werent family.
Within an instant of the headmaster saying his final words- which Aster didnt even hear- her AI was instantly bombarded by messages from basically everyone she knew. Matt and Liz were the most frequent senders, but Susanne, Melinda, Mathew, Sam, Vinnie, Kyle, Tara, Conor, Emily, Annie, Mara and Leon, all of Lizs siblings, Dena and Eric, Luna, Kurt, and April had all sent her messages, and she had to use a touch of wind magic to dry her eyes as she started to tear up.
Quickly skimming through the ones Matt and Liz sent, she caught up on their official lives and tried to read between the lines of what Quill and Torch were doing, or rather, how they were faring in the masks almost full time.
Things seemed to be going well for them, but apparently, there was news of a Quill movie on the horizon, and Matt was not happy about it.
Their first movie!
She hoped it would be as bad as the worst Duke Waters movies, and couldn't wait to see it.
Liz, on the other hand, had even found a vault of goods, which seemed frankly unfair. Aster wanted to explore old vaults and loot them. She could really use the adventure after having to spend most of her time in classes.
After skimming everyone else's messages for anything that needed her direct attention, Aster immediately used a nearby camera booth to take a video of herself in human form to send to Matt and Liz.
She had a speech planned out, and had even practiced it, but all of that went out the window the moment she started speaking. She rambled for close to ten minutes about her life and new friends before catching herself and focusing on the important bits.
Things are really nice here. Im very much enjoying myself. I cant wait to be able to talk to you guys again.
Turning to her friends, she found all of them still chattering away, and used that time to start watching the videos Matt and Liz had sent her.
She was only able to get through a few of them before her friends came out of their AI fugues and returned to the real world. All of them were brimming with excitement as they agreed to find somewhere a touch more secluded, where they could view the messages they had received and send their own in peace, rather than in a stadium with a few thousand others.
Circling back around to size, making your body too large or small introduces numerous problems that an inexperienced individual may not be prepared to deal with. Essence of the physical core may bolster your physicality, making you stronger as you increase your muscle mass, but not as quickly as the increased mass slows you down. This is one of many reasons why most humanoid malleable forms stay approximately human-sized. If you do harbor dreams of eating planets someday, I advise altering your bloodline and bloodline form instead. Increasing its size is substantially easier for a multitude of reasons we will address later in the class, particularly for creatures such as dragons, leviathans, and elephants whose bloodline form is already large.
The professor seemed like he intended to utilize every second of their allotted time for the class filling them in on the proper fundamentals of body modification, which earned him a measure of admiration in Asters mind. Cameron was still sitting beside her, writing up a storm, as Aster worked solely on absorbing the information the professor was teaching.
Aster was then shocked that Cameron was able to answer the first of the professors questions to the class about altering the malleable form while in the bloodline form, while still writing, and earned herself a tenth of a Feather for the correct answer. The girl had never even looked up while she raised her hand, which felt like cheating to Aster.
When the second question came around, asking about the differences between sapient and monster biology, Aster thought she was about to earn her own portion of a Feather, but Cameron was somehow even faster, answering the question in half the words Aster had planned.
Promising herself she would be faster than her deskmate on the next question, she paid rapt attention to Professor Kilrins lecture, but was still too slow to get her hand up in time to answer any of the questions. As a result, she didnt earn even a fraction of a Feather. While not every question was answered by Cameron, the majority were, and that irritated Aster as she was being defeated by a heat-based bloodline. That simply could not be allowed.
Ice was better than fire, and therefore, she needed to be better than all the fire users to prove that point.
Was it a slightly childish desire? Yes.
But it was also a fun little internal motivator that kept her competitive and added some variety to her classes.
When the lecture ended, Cameron waved goodbye as they went their separate ways, not knowing Aster had already decided to bury the women in a metaphorical hunk of snow.
Crafting for Beginners was actually a lot of fun, as instead of being told to do one type of crafting for the day, they were given free rein inside a giant room that contained every kind of crafting imaginable and was staffed by a few of the professors or their clones. The formal classes would apparently start in a few days, when everyone had at least one class they were willing to sit through for six months.
Aster, like most others, bounced around from one craft to another, trying to see if she resonated with any of them. Smithing was too hot and repetitive, while leather making felt more like busy work than something shed enjoy; enchanting and alchemy both were discarded, as she had seen Matt and Liz do those respectively, and neither looked appealing.
Eventually, she found and settled on pottery.
It was fun seeing things take the shape she desired, and it was artistic enough that she rather enjoyed it. Sure, the professor behind the desk talked about how it could be mixed with enchantments and alchemy to further refine the craft into something more profitable, but Aster was happy to just squish her fingers in the soft clay.
Aster liked the downtime of a non combat hobby, and happily put her name down for the pottery lessons.
Her final class of the day almost seemed like a good one. Social Norms and Expectations seemed like an interesting look into beast and human behavior, but the presence of a smiling Magma Otter proved to test her patience.
Cameron, as in Intermediate Body Modification, was ruthless in accumulating all the Feathers she possibly could, but this time, it wasnt such a one-sided fight, with Aster earning two-tenths of a Feather more than the otter by the end of the class.
Her life in Minkalla helped a ton, as it gave her close to six thousand more years of experience than the otter, but that had the side effect of setting their rivalry in stone.
Cameron, it seemed, had a backbone, and was perfectly willing to throw down with Aster in their battle of knowledge. It led to them having a titanic battle of wits while Professor Peach served as their pseudo referee, giving Feathers to the winner of each bout.
Parting once more, Aster went to her first elective, Confection and Pastry, with Juan, who joined her in their class's first attempt on making a fluffy pastry. Theirs were only slightly better than the others, not burnt or having collapsed in on itself, but they still had fun in making and then sharing the delectable treat, which made the entire class worth it.
Getting to eat your experiments was the best reward, even if they werent perfect.
Melee Fighting for Mages was another surprisingly fun class, as all of them were Tier 15, and when using blunted Tier 13 weapons, they were unable to truly get hurt. The class eventually devolved into everyone trying out the moves they had seen their humans do, or ones seen in movies.
Some of them even pulled off some impressive stunts until the professor called everyone to order.
After that, Professor Latar had them go through each weapon to see what felt best for them, as that would be their main weapon going forward, barring any last second desired changes.
Aster first went for a longsword, like Matt, but quickly found that despite making herself tall and graceful, she didnt really like swinging around that large of a sword. Next, she tried a spear, but also found it not to her taste, then proceeded to go through almost every other weapon in the armory until she settled on a cutlass.
A slightly shorter and curved weapon, she found the sweeping patterns that it took to properly use the blade both enticing and enchanting. It was almost like the blade made its own illusion, and she found that an irresistible idea.
While Professor Latar gave each weapon type their own little exercises to get used to the weapon they had chosen, Aster paid attention properly, and carefully made the correct gestures, knowing how important repetition and becoming natural with a blade was from being around Matt for so long.
She didn't end the class as a master swordswoman, but she did end the class using some of her Feathers to purchase a customized cutlass for herself going forward, on the recommendation of Professor Latar.
After having dinner with her friends and shooting a glare at Cameron, who was in the objective worst house, the bathtub house, Aster went to her club, Hand Drawing.
It being an official club, there was still a professor, but they were more relaxed, and most of the actual work was handled by the older students who were also part of the club. Those same students took Asters and others' pestering questions in a good-natured manner at least, and even managed to answer most of them.
One of which stood out to Aster.
Nononono, the best job is to be a janitor, nya? See, most of em, they trick you into enjoying just sitting at a desk for a few hours or whatever, but being a janitor is so much better, nya. Your job is just to keep a certain section clean, nya, and after a week or two youll be good enough that itll take ya like twenty minutes to get the whole thing done, and then youre just done! So much better than sitting in the library for hours, nya the girls white cat ears fell flat against her head towards the end, but they sprang back up again as the conversation moved on.
Aster wouldnt have thought cleaning would be a coveted task, but put it on her list of possible jobs, alongside delver chaperone, mage private lesson coach, and ice trainer. The latter three were recommended by the Coaches due to her exceptional combat prowess. While she wasn't as good of a trainer as Luna or Kurt, she was still pretty good at passing on to others the trips and tricks she had learned over the decades under their tutelage. And they paid well.
Returning to her dorms common room, Aster flopped onto the couch, laying across Roody and Kelly, who were already there, just to be shoved to the floor by both of them.
Go shower first, smelly pants. Kelly was not nice with her words, and Aster pouted as she went to her room's bathroom.
She didnt even work up a sweat today. She was sure of that. In fact, it was almost impossible to work up a sweat being a Winter Fox. She was perpetually cold, so clearly Kelly was just being mean.
Seeing Juan exiting the room, she asked him if she smelled, to which he shook his head, proving they were just being jerks.
Still, a shower felt nice, and with her ice cold feet jammed into Kellys side, she settled in with a bag of treats as a large portion of the Roc house settled in to watch a recording of a play she hadnt seen before.
Things were looking up.