Category: DigiChip Academy
-
VS Data Professor
Binary rain streams around the digital radar dish that we are using as an arena. Enter the HoloNet. Professor Eleizer has modded an old chatroom into this, and modded his avatar into an angelic cyber, far beyond human recognition. His Prime Character, Hexadecimeleon, lizards out from a portal of artifacting glitch-textures, packet data sliced up…
-
Midnight Plasma Pipeline
An enormous pipeline twins out from the back of DigiChip Monastery. I hadn’t had time to discover it the first time I was here. I had just met another student, Telon, who has insomnia more chronic than my own, and we decided that midnight exploring was better than not-sleeping. Thick monitoring windows forged into huge…
-
Data Lab
In the game of DigiChip, Data is the element of everything digital. A converted planetarium on the rocky Western Beach houses the Data Lab. Its interior dome no longer dotted with stars of night sky. These days, digital beings and structures manifold – entire worlds transform across in holofield curvature. I slow my way through…
-
The Grassworks
The Grassworks is a lush green plain, populated with the mossy silhouttes of mech-frame ruins. Weather Drones sail about the sky, weaving atmospheric rain for most of the year. Wading the field is a breath of respite from a strange past. Originally called the Robotworks Lab, a decades-former student created the Weather Drone experiment, planning…
-
VS Thunderbolt Professor
Professor Hildr Raystrom welcomes me to her pitch dark arena. My eyes trace the dimly lit outline of her outstretched hand, up brace-wrapped arm, and to the huge thundercoil looming behind her. With a sudden snap of her fingers, blue and fuchsia lightning bolts scream out from the coil and into electrogenerators, previously cloaked in…
-
DigiChip Duel
Nothing else matches the feeling. DigiChip duelists spend their lives forging and reforging their Decks – as expressions of their personality, and as tools of the trade in the world’s biggest sport. Elemental synergies. Metagame strategies. Diffusion, diversion, and disarmament techniques. We study for years outside of the game, but we learn most on the…
-
Roadtrip
Henry was my best friend growing up. He’s the one who pushed me to come to DigiChip Academy to develop my craft. I remember our last roadtrip, cutting through the mountains cradling our town, magcycling out to Menna Coast. Along the long road, we chatted. I wanted to run away from the family shop. It…
-
Thunderbolt Lab
White-plate walls and pulsing neon lightlines frame the interconnected rooms of the Thunderbolt Lab. Students here are specialized in the Electric Element, which is reflected in the way they jolt between tapping experiments into computer consoles and observing results arc outward from desk-bolted coils. Thunderbolt students duel with Decks that start slow and charge up…
-
DigiChip Monastery
There are eight railrider lines in eight elemental biome directions. I happen upon a lonely ninth line: north-north-west goes to DigiChip Monastery. Lining the hall of the monastery are huge statues of history’s DigiChip Champions, bathed in sunset that streams through circular skylights. Monks of all ages and body types dot the hall, silently cleaning…
-
Component Workshop
Phalde must be in his late fifties, is built like brick wall, and has a streak dyed of turquoise through his graying hair and beard. I’m told he can be seen hammering away at many of the machinations throughout Academy Island, but in the Component Workshop he is most happy. Funnily enough, customizing the Components…
-
Starter Deck
“Welcome to DigiChip Academy!” I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited as I am now, being welcomed by the hologram of the Academy’s virtual raccoon mascot, RC-0N. I can’t hide my smile. DigiChips have been my life, and my mother’s before me. We run a small DigiChip shop on the edge of our town,…