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Season 1 Summary[]
A military man to his core, Kneller quickly established himself as a figure of authority amongst the professors. However Kneller struggled with teaching. He was used to dealing with soldiers, not students - and he quickly found that his military approach to training didn't quite yield the results he would usually expect. Despite their age, a lot of these students hadn't half the skills he would expect given their disparate backgrounds and the gaps in their development left by growing up in a global crisis. He rejected the term of professor and asked instead to simply be known as "Mr. Kneller". Kneller was first alerted to something being wrong with the abandoned castle in which the Rosewood Institution had been established when he was prying through the library for plans of the castle's construction. It was routine for one such as he to survey such things to formulate defensive operational procedures, and given the expense of a castle's construction - plans are usually easily found so that lords and ladies can brag about their affluence. However none were to be found. Not for the grounds, the castle itself, or the foundations beneath it.
Then the rat-men came. A tribe of beast men had moved in to the tunnels and sewers beneath the castle in the previous owner's absence. And now that a magical barrier had been erected to protect the school, none of them were able to venture out in to the country side to hunt and gather food for the colony. Out of desperation, they instead turned to the students to steal what they could - eventually even attacking one of them in the kitchen. Such an affront could not stand, the institution's work was too important to risk and the castle ground had to be secured. Kneller recognized the potential cost of a war of attrition with the rats and so instead formulated a plan to take the fight to the core of the rat-men nest.
The plan was daring, but necessary. The shorter members of the student body were to sneak down in to the sewer system beneath the castle and open an old service hatch that was used in the foundation's construction - long since sealed to prevent it being used by anyone assailing the castle. After the stealth team had unlocked the hatch, a strike force waiting the other side would burst through and fight their way to the core of the nest. The plan was to eradicate the rats if possible, but otherwise land a substantial enough blow that the Institution would have enough time to come up with a more permanent measure of dealing with the problem.
Kneller was unable to attend this mission himself. He told the students this was because of his height, but the truth of the matter was relayed only to the professors. At this time it was important that he kept up a certain visage.
Additionally at this time, Professor Lupae Bellicosa - daughter of the great Sphinx had also departed to her homeland in Droza temporarily to take care of other matters. Leaving the school perilously short on staff. It was agreed that Kneller would remain above ground to secure the castle against counter attack - whilst Professor Takuya, a criminal of great renown, would spearhead the strike team.
The students were not prepared, and despite their great and earnest efforts the mission was not to end as planned. Whilst the stealth team successfully opened the hatch and the strike team was deployed, eventually the still fresh students allowed themselves to become surrounded deep within the rat-men's caves. (edited)
It was here that the quick thinking Takuya came in to contact with an entity known as "The Rat King", a rat-man of clearly unnatural intelligence who acted as chieftain of the colony. Accepting that they were defeated, Takuya leveraged the destruction he and his force had enacted so far to wager that the Rat King stood to gain more from establishing a treatise with the Institution above, rather than continuing the conflict. In exchange for a ceasefire on the students, Takuya promised continued teethe of food supplies to the rat-man colony.
The Rat-King accepted, and so the students were able to recover to the surface with the less than exceptional news. (edited)
Kneller soon found himself in an infirmary filled with kids screaming from the venom coursing through their veins from the rat-men's cruel knives. Team mates were crying in fear that they might lose their friends. Emotions were high. Far higher than what one who was used to the soldiery had come to expect.
This had been the first military foray of the Rosewood Institution, and it had ended in what was very nearly a crushing defeat.
But that isn't what bothered Kneller. Such a thing was to be expected from the untrained. He knew that it was a daring plan to begin with and counted it as remarkable that Takuya had managed to bring them all back in one piece.
What's more, he knew that despite how things looked, they still had the barrier as leverage over the rat-men. This was a war for the surface, and thanks to the student's sacrifice - for now the surface remained under the Institution's command.
He knew that all he needed to do was supply the rats with the food they needed by hunting the ample wildlife available on the island. He just needed to stall until either the students had sufficiently recovered, he was able to complete a virus bomb combining the skills of the doctor, Takuya, and himself, or the Sphinx Bellicosa returned.
He wasn't worried, now that the rats number had been depleted, that he wouldn't be able to defend the surface. Now that the threat level had decreased he could personally regain more of his strength and cease the constant mana expenditure of his 24 hour guard.
And it was not as if this was his first time in a room filled with the screaming innocent. Nor was it the first time that the screaming and pain was his fault. Not by a long shot
No what was different about this room was that he felt bad about it. And he didn't know what that meant.
In part to honour their obligations to the rat-king. In part to act as training. In part to simply de-stress. Kneller proposed a hunting expedition in to the nearby hills.
The students had been hurt now, and so he reasoned, were sure to act more cautious.
Additionally Kneller, Takuya and the Doctor had become aware of a particularly venomous "Dreadworm" that was native to the island. Between them all they hoped to find some sign of it and hunt it down for kill or capture, then to extract its venom for use in virus bombing the rat-men.
However all did not go as planned.
Kneller had been made aware of a potential fey influence around the school grounds for some time. Most prominently as a result of the student Elenora, who had claimed that she had seen and spoken to spirits about the school grounds. However Elenora was not taken to the hunting expedition, and nor were hallucinations uncommon in one not yet trained in their magical potential. There had been other sightings about the school of course, including one particularly troubling case involving the diary of a young girl who previously inhabited the castle. The signs were very much there.
But none of that changed the fact they had to gather food to prevent further loss of life.
The forest did not take kindly to being hunted in. Fae voices coaxed students towards roaming dire bears, a mist descended obscuring view, and the forest teamed with far more dangerous life than one would reasonably expect in any given area.
Among this dangerous life was Kneller's prey, the dreadworm. Though sadly he would not be the first to encounter it.
Emboldened by the thrill of the hunt, and perhaps eager for a violent catharsis following the injury of their comrades, teams of students descended on the armoured worm in waves - each time falling victim to the terrible venomous spray. Each time opting to try and defend against and antagonize the beast, floundering in their attempts to extract their fallen friends.
By the time Kneller arrived on the scene it was already too late. The carcasses already collected had to be discarded. They would be returning, not with a cart full of freshly hunted meat, but with a cart full of paralyzed screaming students.
That night, 3 of the students died. The next day Kneller watched from the back as the kids buried their friends.
And once again, despite everything he had done, Kneller found himself feeling something.
That day whilst the funeral was still in process, he left through the gate of the institution without a word to anybody to spend some time drifting amongst the forest. Thinking long and hard about what he had felt and what he had seen.
Two things were clear. He had failed as a teacher, like he expected he would. These students were not ready to be considered soldiers, and in considering them so regardless his actions had lead them only to suffering.
And secondly, that he was compromised. His goals were too important to be swayed by whatever was happening to him. He needed to refocus, re-align, remember who and what he was. If he was ever to fulfil his promise to Alea Rosewood he would need to be stronger than this. And so the space where his eyes should be turned North, and the air where his legs once were walked onwards, and to the earth where he left himself he returned.
Relations[]
Wife: Karla Schwietzer (deceased)
Son: Ludwig Kneller
Family: The Kneller Estate (estranged)
Skills and Abilities[]
Kneller has attained both an Ice and Wind affinity and excels in the use of both schools. He is otherwise trained in defensive magics from many other schools as was required for his aetheric research, which has since assisted his development of scrying magics. Kneller's extenuating circumstances have developed his abilities in many ways beyond the norm for a human.
Trivia[]
- Kneller has revealed that the rapier he uses was originally intended as a gift for his son.
Links[]
Social Links[]
- Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/leocercops
Episodes[]
Clips[]
Gallery[]
