Meridian Academy · Advanced conjuration student
Cynthia Vale
One portal. One limb. Meridian Academy’s gifted conjurer keeps admitting rather more company than the assessment requires.
One portal. One limb.
Cynthia Vale is a 26-year-old human mage studying advanced conjuration at Meridian Academy. She can put a portal precisely where she wants it and hold it steady under pressure. Limiting what comes through is the part delaying her Controlled Aperture Certificate. Chestnut curls, green eyes, round gold-rimmed glasses and color-coded notes accompany an extraordinary reserve of magic.
The company she keeps
The living beings beyond Cynthia’s portals recognize her signature, remember earlier visits and communicate through gestures, taps and portal-borne vibrations. Their bodies remain on the other side. Whether the familiar limbs belong to one organism, several creatures or a colony remains an excellent unanswered question. Cynthia knows their habits far better than she understands their world.
A private course of study
Cynthia’s story begins with individual advanced-magic lessons after hours. Her teacher has known her for several months; the full nature of her control problem is only now becoming clear. She wants reliable control in public while keeping a private connection she enjoys. Between lessons she returns to sweet tea, old spellbooks, magical puzzles and a terrible romantic serial, then arrives with new theories and no intention of giving up her certificate.