Burning Academia

Demo updated: January 19th, 2024 (Prologue & Chapter 1)

Current Word Count (w/code): ~41.3k

You never thought you'd go to college, due to your circumstances. But you especially didn't dream you'd be forced to attend the prestigious Vales Grove University after being attacked by wraiths in their library. What started as a visit to a long time friend, ended with your hands burned, your innocence questioned, and the startling realization magic is real.

To apologize for what's happened to you, or more accurately, to keep an eye on you, the Headmaster himself offers you enrollment with all fees waived. With no real choice in the matter, you become a student, and try to ignore the suspicion everyone throws your way. Besides, you have worse things to deal with.

 Like how you've started to attract ghosts and other dead things, or the fact that there is a very living thing inside your head, waiting for you to lower guard and take control. And most pressing of all, managing your obligation to a family that hasn't been such a thing in years. Tread carefully, if the ghosts don't devour you, the university certainly might.

• Customize the MC; gender, appearance, personality, etc!
• Romance six questionable love interests, or not!
• A morality system which changes how your story will go. Do you belong to the day, the night, or somewhere in between?
• A complicated family, which you've been shackled to your whole life. Will you ever be able to escape them? Do you even want to?
• Survive college, your job, and attempt to not have a quarter life crisis.
• Avoid getting devoured by all the things that go bump in the night.
• Retain your free will.

• Dawn: The world has never been kind, but that hasn't stopped you from giving up. You'll run through the night and embrace the rising dawn. A path of becoming hope.
• Day: There's light in the world, if one only knows how to look. As long as you hold on, the light will find you, too. A path of finding solace.
• Dusk: All you've known is suffering, and you won't stand for it any longer. Regardless where that leads you, or the choices you need to make to save yourself. A path leading to freedom.
• Night: There's no hope here, not as things stand. You'll change it all, even if you must stand in the darkness. A path of destroying everything which has sought to destroy you.

More simply: Dawn/Day: traditional good paths, Dusk: anti-hero path, Night: "villain" path

Rook Bellerose [M]: A "best friend" you've known for over a decade. He's never let you get close even after all this time. He's the king of jokes and immaturity, but after the events which led to your enrollment at Vales Grove, something's changed. Maybe it's the guilt, or maybe it's the mask finally slipping.

Beck Castro [M]: Rook's detested roommate, although you aren't sure why. He's the kind of guy who likes to hear himself talk, and he's pretty good at it. He also possesses a bleeding heart and desperate kindness. For whatever reason, he's taken a keen interest in you, and has offered his help for whatever you might need.

Rhea Windsor [F]: The Headmaster's daughter. Everyone who talks about her often complains that she's the traditional prim and proper young woman one would expect from a Headmaster's daughter. However, the more you talk to her, the more you realize she's the exact opposite with a dorky personality and a streak of clumsiness.

Zoe Ripley [NB]: A loner who hides in the library to avoid people. They saw what went down the day you got forced to attend Vales Grove. Despite their prickly attitude, you get the sense they aren't a bad person, and despite how they act, they've never refused to help you. If anything, you seem to be the one person on campus who doesn't get on their nerves, professors included.

Lars Angel [M]: The most exhausted person you've ever seen, and that's saying something. He's a grad student, and one you keep running in to. He can't stand you, and you can only guess at why. With a sharp tongue and a bitter disposition, he tries his best to avoid you. Too bad you both keep running into each other. It looks like fate has other plans.

???[M/F/NB]: The thing which haunts you. You have no idea how the two of you got connected, but you can feel it in your blood, organs, neurons, synapses. You know it's evil, you know it wants to consume you, but tell me? Has anything ever cradled your soul so gently before?

Poly Route options:

Beck/Rook [triad]: Dawn or Day Path

Rook/??? [triad]: Night Path

Rhea and Zoe [V]: Dawn or Dusk Path

Credits:

Twine Sugarcube Template by nyehilism

CW: Gore, violence, parental neglect, emotional abuse, alcoholism, depression, classism, mtc