Legends of Lavanya (Athalia Academy Season Four)

Legends of Lavanya is the name of the Athalia Academy roleplay's Spring 2015 reboot, introduced after a brief hiatus and (at the time) functioning as the fourth season in the Athalia universe canon. It introduced a number of changes, chief of which being the move back to the much improved Roleplayer Guild from the Athalia Academy Forums and the inclusion of new players.

After nearly a year of activity, the reboot season was all but dead, with missing players causing an insurmountable post block. The Christmas Special was an attempt to revitalize the season, but that too ground to a halt due to a missing player. As a result, HylianRose, Driving Park, and NarayanK decided to reboot the reboot, starting fresh from after Marcus Cross destroyed the Academy and the survivors fled to Pavella. The result was a new canon Season Four, which relegated Legends of Lavanya and the events within to alternate timeline status.

Summary of Changes from Season Three

• The roleplay was now back on the Roleplayer Guild instead of the Yuku forums.
• The roleplay was opened to new players that weren't veterans or part of the core twelve players of the roleplay up to that point.
• The roleplay now took place in the codified Athalia Extended Universe, the precursor to Efini. The fictional continent that Athalia Academy was on was called Lavanya (which became Sarastrea), which was the source of this "season"'s title.
• The roleplay's co-GM was now Driving Park.
• The roleplay introduced a new rule mandating that players must have as few characters "on-screen" at a time, to better facilitate dialogue, pacing and not getting lost in the many player characters that exist in the Athalia universe.
• The roleplay got a fresh Etherpad for chatting and brainstorming.

Player/Character Appearances

• HylianRose (GM): Maria Cross, Criston Cross, Lily Brightendale, Alvin the Innkeeper, Jonathan, Maruki, Kailani, Lauren Cross
• Driving Park (co-GM): Carmen Calandra, Mizuki, Vikki Miller
• NarayanK: Ryuu Yamauchi, Margaret Clementine
• Animelover_princess: Oliver Cohen, Andromeda Barker
• FaithsRose: Caleb Waterfront, Rain
• Theobromine: Katherine Argall
• Destinyfailhorror17: Zonon Borshenk
• liferusher: Drow Winterfield, Save
• Nero: Bael (1 post)
• Animal: Kiwi (1 post)
• Raijinslayer: Grimm, Caelus Infernum
• Nytem4re: Joseph
• chukklehed: Scillia Cohen, Sharon, Prometheus
• c3p-0h: Tsai
• Masaki Haruna: Rika Fueguchi
• TheHangedMan: Remliel Maion
• HeartlessNobody: Axel Black
• Unfortunately: Artavi'e Mosceredanu

Brief Summary of Events

• Maria Cross hires Vikki Miller to help her launch a campaign against Marcus.
• Vikki splits up the large group, made up of both former Athalia students and new faces, into a large group and a smaller group. The small group, made up of just three people (Prometheus, Caleb Waterfront, and Mizuki), would travel by boat to Europe (outside of Lavanya's pocket dimension) and retrieve a special elemental sword from a museum. The larger group would also travel by boat to the eastern shore of Elaniel and traverse the Marcus-controlled mainland to reach Xiuhcoatl, where Maria was waiting with dragon reinforcements. Meanwhile, Carmen Calandra would retrieve another elemental sword on her own from an Oasarian mountain temple.
• While Carmen successfully retrieves the sword from the temple, the other two groups encounter problems. The smaller group is made aware of a stowaway on their vessel - an agent working for Marcus named Caelus Infernum. He is found by Mizuki, who starts burning the ship down in response. Meanwhile, the larger group encounters a huge sea monster that they eventually tame by shooting off a gemstone from its back, which turns out to be a mind control device. The creature and its merwoman guardian reveal themselves to be from the underwater city of New Atlantis, and ask for help to defeat an evil underneath the waves. Andromeda, Rain, and Vikki are mermified an anticipation of the underwater mission ahead, and go down with the Atlantians.

Detailed Summary of Events

It was had been five years since Athalia Academy was destroyed by Marcus Cross and his army. Unlike the first attack, this time many students lost their lives, and the ones that were left were still feeling the repercussions. They had all taken refuge in Carmen's hometown of Pavella in the country of Oasari, as Oasari seemed to be the one place Marcus kept his hands away from. The students had occupied themselves by living and working in the town while the Academy was being rebuilt above the town.

The season started with Athalia students and unaffiliated people alike who wanted to join the cause against Marcus meeting at the town's inn at Criston's request. The new people (as well as Mizuki) were not feeling of a kind disposition, and the room was mostly hostile to each other. In the midst of all of the commotion, Criston found the time to get everyone's attention and explain the situation - that they were going after Marcus and needed volunteers to split into groups and begin the campaign.

The next morning, everyone who wanted to go met back at the inn to strategize, and Vikki Miller (who was to lead the expedition until Maria rejoined them) arrived and explained her plan of attack. The group would attempt to retrieve six elemental swords scattered around the world that would greatly improve their chances against Marcus' forces. Once they had the swords, they would rendezvous with Brako at the dragon nation and await further instructions. Carmen was already on her way to collect the sword located in Oasari, Lily already possessed one of the swords, a team of three would head to Europe to collect the one in a museum, and the other three swords would be collected on the way to the dragon nation by the large group.

Both groups had to cross oceans so they left on boats, and eventually the large group's boat was attacked by a giant sea serpent. In the calamity they discovered that the sea serpent was being controlled by Marcus via a crystal on its tail. While the Athalians were occupied saving Ryuu (who was in the water), a merwoman named Kailani successfully used a spell on the serpent's tail to break it free of Marcus' control. At this point the merwoman asked the group if they could help her, the serpent, and their city of New Atlantis to find their guardians and quell the evil that had infected their people. This would involved being temporarily transformed into mermaids. Just before they left Carmen suddenly arrived with elemental sword in hand. Vikki told Carmen to run ahead, scout for them, and deliver the sword to Vikki (rather than staying with them to help), so the skylark left as quickly as she arrived. Andromeda, Rain, and Vikki agreed to be transformed into mermaids, and they went down to the ruins of New Atlantis with the merwoman and sea serpent, eventually arriving in front of the only intact door remaining. Beyond it lie one of the elemental swords.

Meanwhile, on the boat to Europe, a stowaway working for Marcus named Caelus was hiding near the bottom of the boat and coughed when he inhaled some salt water. Unfortunately for the boat's chances of survival, Mizuki witnessed this and found the insurgent, threatening to burn down the ship if he didn't state his intentions immediately. Caelus ran away, dropping ethereal flames behind him to slow Mizuki down. He ended up hiding in a bathroom where Crash also happened to be. Deciding to turn and face Mizuki, he became more demon-like and walked back out, at which point Mizuki burned the boat between them to prove a point. Crash ran out to try to stop the two of them from destroying the boat.

Neither of these two cliffhanger moments were resolved as the season ground to a halt, was replaced by a new Season Four, and was relegated to alternate timeline status.

Other Information

• The original thread began on May 12, 2015, concluding on January 30, 2016 after 154 in-character posts.

See Also

• Legends of Lavanya: Christmas Special