Athalia Academy: Season Four - Back on Track

Athalia Academy: Season Four - Back on Track is the name of the fourth "season" of the Athalia Academy roleplaying game, and the third main arc of the Athalia universe canon. It occurs in the Oasarian town of Pavella, where a new Academy is built following its destruction by Marcus Cross at the end of Season Three.

Inception

Before Season Four, there was already a Season Four - Legends of Lavanya. This season was meant to be the Athalia reboot, begun in spring 2015 and intended to revitalize the roleplay after Season Three slowed to a death crawl. To help accomplish this, new players were allowed to join, and for a while it worked. However, before 2015 was over the roleplay ground to a halt, and even a Christmas Special meant to again rekindle the spark didn't get the roleplay of the ditch it was in.

As a result of this, on the night of Valentine's Day 2016, HylianRose, Driving Park, and NarayanK decided that it might be best to reboot the reboot - to start where Legends of Lavanya started, but go somewhere different with it plot-wise. Thus, the events Legends of Lavanya were relegated to alternate timeline status.

Like Season Three and Legends of Lavanya before it, Season Four did not actually finish, grinding to a halt before being succeeded by Chronicles of Sarastrea.

Player/Character Appearances

• HylianRose (GM): Maria Cross, Criston Cross, Lily Brightendale, Eric Penwright, Fate, Ayane, Jason Karst
• Driving Park (co-GM): Carmen Calandra, Kali Rana
• NarayanK: Ryuu Yamauchi, Aurelia Triniel, Apophis, Tai Norel
• Nevix: Edric Karst, Azamor, Aileen
• Theobromine: Katherine Argall, Ara Glaisyer
• FaithsRose: Caleb Waterfront, Rain
• Animelover_princess: Oliver Cohen, Andromeda Barker
• chukklehed: Illasriel Atavernei

Brief Summary of Events

• Athalia reopens in a new location.
• A few students from the original seasons are now teachers.
• The welcome assembly is held, followed by a party in the school's ballroom.
• Edric and Lily discover that Lily is actually Edric's father, but Lily doesn't remember any of it.
• Apophis gets a haircut.

Detailed Summary of Events

At the end of a long period of absence after the events in Season Three, a new Academy was finally completed in the Oasarian mountain town of Pavella. On July 22, 2023, the new Academy was officially opened and this is where the season began. Some of the students from the original two seasons were now teachers at the Academy. However, most of the students from the first Academy were no longer there, having been killed in Marcus' attack five years ago.

Lily Brightendale was the school nurse, and she ran into Edric, one of the new students. Edric had a hard time in this first encounter when he realized Lily looked exactly like his mother. Meanwhile, in a cryptic scene, the Kali Rana freed Illasriel, who had been imprisoned for hundreds of years, and put her in Pavella. Andromeda (still a student) tripped down a set of stairs, crashing directly into Ryuu (now a teacher), while Oliver and Maria chatted in Maria's office. Kathy and Edric ran into Illasriel, while Eric and Carmen came across the aftermath of Ryuu and Andromeda's collision. Aurelia then ran into Rain, both new arrivals, before being joined by Ara. Lily chatted with Crash as Kathy and Edric began helping Illasriel to the infirmary.

After some more talking (and Crash causing a couple of calamities, as per usual), Edric ran into Lily again after Azamor, his demon, told him that Lily was, in fact, his mother. After a mixture of crying, laughing, and vomiting upon seeing her again and realizing she didn't remember any of it, Edric told Lily before running off. Outside the infirmary, Crash reunited with Kathy, before Lily took him into the infirmary to treat his wounds. Lily was completely emotionless after the interaction with Edric, and Crash and Kathy tried to find out what was wrong. Lily walked away, trying to find Carmen. Once she did, she went into Carmen's office with her and explained her situation through tears. Meanwhile, Crash and Kathy picked up the slack in the infirmary and helped Andro before leaving Eric to tend to her. Lily and Carmen (who were now officially together as of the Christmas Special) talked through the situation before Maria walked in and beckoned them to come with her to set up the assembly.

The assembly consisted of Maria and Brako giving their usual welcome speeches, followed by Criston and all the new professors (Carmen, Oliver, Ryuu) introducing themselves. Finally, in an echo of Season One, Criston ended the assembly by announcing a party for everyone to attend, this time in the Academy's ballroom. Being in a ballroom was very exciting for Carmen, who got there first after changing into a ball gown. As other students and faculty filed in, Carmen got angry for the first time ever when Criston took over the DJ booth and replaced Carmen's Strauss waltzes with trashy EDM. She stormed out of the party but would eventually return after Lily convinced her that drinking lots of wine would make it bearable. Meanwhile, Ayane (Criston's new arranged fiance) accidentally launched Criston across the room straight into Ryuu, which resulted in the two casually catching up. Crash and Kathy arrived at the party and were about to dance as Jason, Edric's father, was about to enter the ballroom to confront Lily (after having entered Athalia through a window and greatly surprising Andromeda and Eric).

Unfortunately, the results of this confrontation (or Crash and Kathy's dance, the more important thing) were never found because the season abruptly ended there.

Notes

• The original thread began on February 15, 2016, and ended on November 24 of that same year after 140 in-character posts. Taking almost a full year for 1/8 the posts of Season One (which was done in a single month), Season Four had a significantly slower pace than the first two seasons. This massive activity slowdown began in Season Three and is the primary reason why Season Three, Legends of Lavanya, and Season Four were ended prematurely to be replaced by reboots meant to bring life back into the roleplay. However, the average post quality in Season Four was significantly higher than it was in the early seasons.
• Although Season Four did not even last one full day in-universe, it did introduce Edric, who would become an important character moving forward, and the concept that Lily was his father in another life she did not remember (and never would). Additionally, after the Legends of Lavanya reboot that was relegated to alternate timeline status, it validated Carlily as a canon pairing and also strengthened Crash and Kathy's relationship.
• Several characters were posted in the season's Characters tab (at the time a new feature on the Guild) and intended to appear but never did, including Scillia Cohen, Cid, Mizuki, Vikki Miller, Irene Halina, and Britnia Humanborn.
• The player count had significantly dwindled from previous seasons (even Legends of Lavanya had many more players), the result being fewer posts but with a much higher average post quality. However, one reason for the very slow pace was that most (if not all) of the players were in very busy times of their lives, leading to much less time to post than before. In the extremely active early seasons, most of the players would be posting and chatting for most of the day.