The New Chronicle of the Academica Septima Superior

The Covenant

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Even among the Order of Hermes, the Academica Septima Superior was a fantastical tale - an entire hillside, torn free from the Harz mountains during the conquests of Charlemagne to sail across the skies of Christendom . The names of its founding magi have become legends: Aosgar Tree-Feller, Xinophedes of Tytalus, Mena the Benificent and great Primus Ulixis Argentus, and many others in the course of its history.

For hundreds of years, the Academica was a feature of Christendom's magical landscape. Beneath its shadow passed Saracen invaders, Magyar horsemen and Norse raiders. Emperors and Popes alike attempted to dominate it, for what man of power could resist the prize of flying land upon which to build a castle or palace? When fear of the Order was overcome by greed, though, the might of the Academica's magi was inevitably sufficient to ensure it remained as it always had been: glorious and proud without lord or master.

Then, in the 1001st year of our Lord, it departed from Gascony and vanished over the western horizon.

The Legend

Not even the wisest of the Order's magi could say why the Academica had departed, for its members had grown secretive in its final years, and rarely mixed with any but their own. Some whispered of awe-inspiring new magics, hidden away until the Order was wise enough to be trusted with them. Others speculated of a magocracy in lost Atlantis that had invited the Academica as representatives of Christendom. Still others declaimed, as some are always wont to do, that the Academica had become a den of iniquity and Devil-worship, and that Christendom was richer for its loss. Rumours were many. The truth was nowhere.

The Return

Now, more than two centuries years after its disappearance, it has been seen again. Hunters in the Galloway Hills reported seeing a complex of peculiar ruins, deep in the forests on the slopes of the Merrick. No communication came forth, however, and the Loch Leglean Tribunal was loathe to disturb the privacy of such strange and fearsome magi without an exceptionally good reason.

Ultimately, the decision was not theirs to make. Invitations have been issued to young magi at the end of their apprenticeships throughout the Order of Hermes. In the year of our Lord 1220, a handful of magi made the arduous journey, through trackless wilderness, to this most mysterious of destinations.

What awaits them? Do the Academica's magi still inhabit the cracked and crumbling ruins? What could their agenda be, that it would make them forsake the known world for so long and return so mysteriously? Will the newcomers become the latest in the long line of thaumaturgical giants to hail from the Academica, or will they be among the few witnesses to the end of a legend?

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