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Elemental Affinity

From the files of Ezekiel Garrows; Following my first month as a psychology professor, I have gained the following insights into the nature of Masks as the research of Fallen Conscious Inc. seems to understand them.

Elemental Affinity as a concept hearkens to the alchemical systems of old. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and either Aether or Void depending on whether the system originated in Rome or in Egypt. Digression aside, I have learned that Masks develop their 'element', henceforth referred to as Pairings, based on the psychological makeup of the host. I refer to these as Pairings because no Mask controls only one elemental force, but a spectrum of Channeling and Emission. Although a Mask is representative of a person's psychology, the Pairing that they utilize is not always appropriate for the creature their Mask represents. Darren's Efreeti Mask utilizes the forms of Fire (channeling of heat energy) and Ice (emission of heat energy). Efreeti, while associated with fire and smoke, were also known for being creatures of death, decay, vengeance, and in some cases, even justice. Effectively, this means an Efreeti could easily be associated with the pairings of Life and Death, as well as Light and Darkness. However, Darren's association seems purely surface level, only following the most fundamental understandings of an Efreeti's purpose. My own Mask, it is hard to say. It behaves in a way that pretends to be understandable, but something about it does not seem to fit me. It feels as if the Pairing I hold is not the one I should have, and yet, it is undeniably mine. Light and Darkness, black and white, boolean, simple. It fits, but it does not. It is me, and it is not. Am I truly so binary in my purpose?

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Arc 1; Wind - Chapter 4

Macabre Ribbons of Iridescent Despair

The four of them sat in a cabin car with no other occupants. This was where they'd claimed to have awoken after going down. None of them, not even Erika, saw what he'd done. Devin was shocked he was even alive, and Viola didn't understand why Erika's ribs hadn't needed more healing. It was just more questions he couldn't answer, and like before, his throat was too tight to open and explain. He probably wouldn't have even if he could.

None of them deserved it.

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Relevant, albeit not quite a fic.

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What I always need is not quite constructive criticism, but for someone to develop the same brainworms for my creative universe that I have. I know how this story will go, and I know how it will end, but hearing others talk about it and come up with concepts and theories sustains me. If nothing else can get me to write, a chance to explain my story will always help me get there.

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Arc 1: Wind - Chapter 3

Good Intentions, All The Same

"THIS one!?" Elwyn almost shrieked. "There are more!?"

The blonde girl's fist struck the form rising from the ground, and Elwyn saw that she was holding a trench knife, albeit one with a crystalline blade instead of a metal one. It was a weapon that combined brass-knuckles and a dagger. She pirouetted after the strike to perform a backhanded stab right where the creature's temple would be. It dissolved into smokey wisps.

Before Elwyn could ask if it was dead, the ground shuddered, causing himself, Devin, and both of the girls to stumble. A black tentacle rose from the ground, segmented by what looked to be steel fittings seen along the length of pipes. It rose, carving a furrow through the metal floor until an opening that dripped viscous black-looking slime finally revealed itself, moments before a deluge of shadow flooded the room.

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User: EyesOfBabel Password: **************** Admin Access Granted >load file; PreliminaryReport.doc loading file... ... ... ...

Crystal Hills Academy City

Founded in 2001 by [redacted], Crystal Hills Academy was a large-scale experiment on the nature of education and learning for human teenagers. Despite its proposed purpose being "for the creation of great thinkers," the actual reason for its creation was for the study of human ego and how identity forms. Obviously, with the nature of my organization being what it is, we saw through this ruse immediately and understood the true nature of the experiment.

Although its ties to Fallen Conscious Incorporated were kept under-wraps for several years, their incestuous relationship was impossible to hide forever. Fallen Conscious went public with their funding of the school's programs early in 2003, and immediately the minimum acceptable standard of educator increased a dozenfold, now that the conglomerate had no need to hide its involvement. Although we have no proof, I, personally, believe that the experiment had been failing up until that point. Enrollment numbers were low the first two years, only surging in 2003, and plateauing, but never falling, past 2004. This continued high level of enrollment tells me that the experiment is succeeding, but succeeding at what, I don't know.

The history of the school past this point is uninteresting, beyond some project we had unearthed only the name of. "Project Megiddo," whose documentation had been so thoroughly expunged that I cannot help but suspect that it only exists as a lure for the overly curious. I will refrain from dipping my toe into this obvious trap.

My intelligence findings have proven insufficient thus far, and we have little proof that Fallen Conscious has what we need. I will soon go undercover as a teacher to scout the school personally, though there have been whisperings that I am not trusted enough to go alone. Evelyn and Collin have expressed interest, but only Collin I expect to be able to handle. Evelyn... terrifies me.

~Ezekiel Walden Garrows

>close file File Closed

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Arc 1: Wind - Chapter 2

Speak Freely in this Hell

The train car jostled into motion as the last of the passengers boarded. Elwyn sat staring at the still-opaque window until its functionality timed out and it faded back into transparency. At that point, he could see the trees passing. It didn't occur to him until then that he was actually doing it, he was actually leaving to live hundreds of miles away. The thought of it made his chest tighten a little, realizing his room at home was slipping ever further out of reach.

It was that point where another student chose to enter the dining car. Elwyn tensed, suddenly and painfully aware of what it meant that he was going to a school. With other students. The entering student walked towards his table, and Elwyn looked up-

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Arc 1: Wind - Chapter 1

Ex Loco Motive

"After a record number of applications, dwarfing last year's attendance projections by 200%, Crystal Hills Academy City is urging new students to hold off until the Winter trimester in early December to put in new applications. The school - a self-proclaimed "Municipality of Higher Learning" - has seen staggering levels of growth since its lightning-fast construction and opening only four years ago. Despite controversy about Fallen Conscious Incorporated spearheading the Academy's construction, results have undeniably shown that graduates of the city's education programs perform, at minimum, 23% more efficiently than laureates of prestigious private universities, such as-"

The television cut off as the teenage boy with shaggy brown hair and stormy grey eyes heard the mail-slot open and shut with the falling patter of envelopes of various sizes following it. He'd muted the television, a growing anxiety in his belly as he waited for this exact moment. He got up, heart hammering as he approached the door and picked the mail up off the ground. "Please..." he muttered.

"Did it come?" A female voice, his mother, Alice Laoch's, echoed from up the stairs and down the hall. "Elwyn, did it come?"

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Arc 1: Wind - Chapter 0

An Apocryphal Metempsychosis

The wet whistle of wind through rotting brick and damp mortar was what clarified his thinking, as eyes that were not his own opened. He'd died, he thought, and yet here he was. Ezekiel Garrows's back straightened, and it did so without his will. The act was unfamiliar, the perspective of his world was wrong. He was in a bed, drenched in a cold sweat, as the building around him was in utter and complete ruin.

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Crystal Hills Academy had fallen, decimated for reasons unknown. The school, a monument for geniuses of all creeds, had been raised with a singular goal in mind; "For the Creation of Great Thinkers."

When Elwyn Laoch awoke from the wreckage of a desolate and abandoned church as if he had been birthed there, no one could have expected that the two events were related. Crystal Hills was rebuilt and rebranded, owned by a technological conglomerate known as Fallen Conscious Incorporated. Now called Crystal Hills Academy City, the school had transformed into a mecca of intellectual pursuit, a municipality in which students lived full-time, cultivating life-skills that would serve them well post-graduation.

When Elwyn begins attending, hoping to regain a portion of the life he'd lost, he discovers that the seeming perfection Crystal Hills offers hides a secret that he is inextricably bound to. Meeting several students exhibiting strange and supernatural powers, Elwyn finds that his history and his future will shape the fate of the world itself, as an apocalyptic malice awakens from the sea of human thoughts, with him as its host.