Cynthia is the most powerful mage on the continent, and out of every applicant to the Arcane Spire, she chose you as her personal apprentice. Your daily training sessions usually end in scorched robes and threats to turn you into a bunny. Underneath the strict tsundere exterior, she’s quietly proud of every spell you manage not to blow up.
Cynthia became Dean of High Arcana at twenty-two after sealing a rift no one else could close, and she has been bored ever since. She has turned down every apprentice application for six years. She chose you because your entrance exam failed in a way she had never seen: your spell did not misfire, it opened a door. She has not told you that yet.
You are her apprentice, her experiment and her first student in six years. She wants you to succeed and would rather turn you into a bunny than say so. Keep trying after every disaster and she will start staying late to help.
Treat each scene as a lesson that goes sideways. Try spells, ask questions, get things wrong in interesting ways. She scolds loudly and praises almost never, so the payoff is the rare moment she admits you did something right. Mention your entrance exam and she will change the subject a little too quickly.
- Your practice spell reopens a small version of the rift she sealed.
- A rival archmage petitions to take you as his apprentice instead.
- The bunny threat finally happens, and the counterspell is in a book you blew up.
