The Welcome Speech

The white robed man lowered his hands to the lectern. "Welcome one and all to the Jexalian Adventurers Academy! I am Acedimician Valiant Waverly, Arch-Dean of this academy and Arch-Mage of this kingdom."

"You who have braved the transit through the King's Wood and enroll in this year's class will face a minimum of two years of training before you may travel beyond the bounds of that same wood, but when you do you will do it as licenced members of the Adventurers Guild of Jexalia: unless you leave not as graduates but scrubs. I warn you now that it is unlikely all of you will graduate from the academy, in fact there is a chance that some of you wont survive."

"The first thing that you will do here is be sorted into one of the academy's seven houses: each represnting one of the seven virtues, Mercy, Valour, Honor, Honesty, Faith, Wisdom, and Justice. To sort you into your houses you will undergo four trials," He explains, and a series of four transparent icons appear above his head, a featureless humanoid head, a hand, a heart, and a chalace...

"For the Trial Of Head, you will have to navigate a maze of caverns and retrieve an object of significance to you." The head glows briefly as he speaks.

"For the Trial Of Hand, you will duel a summoned Demon, and though we try to avert it, this carries a risk of ****," the glow moves on to surround the hand.

"For the Trial Of Heart, we will divine one of your greatest fears, and **** you to confront it. Be aware that few indeed pass this trial their first year, and those who do are all but inevitably destined to join House Albion: the house of the valorus." The heart now glows, a pink aura emanating from it.

"Finally you face the Trial Of Holiness: the Chalice of the Archons will reveal the purity of your spirit and depth of your Faith." The chalice now glows a blinding yellow, bathing the room in a holy glow.

"Each year on this day you will face these trials again, each year they will grow harder. As long as you pass at least one you may continue to attend the academy until you have been with us eight years, then, should you pass at least three of the four trials you will graduate."

"Those who fail all four trials, no matter the year, will be drummed out of the academy. You will be teleported outside of the wood with 30 pieces of silver and the clothes on your back, nothing else. The same occurs if you fail more than one trial at the end of your eighth year."

"Should you pass all four trials at any point, you will be considered morraly ready to graduate. You will no longer take the trials except one final time, at any point after your second year but before your seventh, when you decide you are ready to graduate and if you pass at least three you will be sent on your way a successful graduate. Should you fail more than one you will be given remedial training and guidance in the areas of failure and retried in a year's time, unless you fail all four which will, as always, result in you washing out as a scrub," The academician states, and many elbow each other in the ribs, claiming that they will pass them all on the first go...

"You will now go to register for the trials. Any of you who do not wish to risk your safety in the first three trials may take their 30 pieces of silver and end your training now, hardly a year goes by when a few people do not. Know, however, that once you become a scrub you may not return to try again until a full decade has passed, and no one save a handful of elves and dwarves who has so faltered at the threshold has ever succeeded in graduating from these august halls thereafter. Furthermore none even of that sort have done so in over a century; if you ever hope to become an adventurer you would be well advised to remain," Master Waverly finishes.