Chapter 93: Student Affairs

[A picture of a coffin propped up against a wall, opened to reveal a clown.]

V is for vampires but have you no fear, for these creatures are myth, not real, it’s clear. They may sound scary and ready to bite, but they should not cause you to fear the night.

-Sally Rider’s ABCs of Magic

—

On the way back to campus, everyone explained their own methods of trying to gain entry. Kole left out the part about going to will call though. He didn’t actually know if Harold had ordered his tickets ahead or not, and he had only caught a half a glance at the person he thought might have been him. Neither were enough to make the sort of accusation that would hurt Zale

He did, however, plan to look into it, resolving to get Rakin’s help.

Amara’s attempt to gain entry into the theater had been, as Kole had guessed, the source of the loud noise. She’d found a back door, and Gus had snuck inside through a crack and found a key. Then he’d left an alarm device by the door and used it as a distraction as Gus scouted ahead. From the way she told it, the only reason she’d been caught was because of the alarm.

Zale had used her disguise bracelet to hide her voidy complexion, and walked in through a backstage door with an air of confidence, using her vanishing ability to pass through a wall to get into the spectator section.

“This complexion does not go with this outfit though,” she’d complained. “I don’t know how I didn’t draw any attention.”

Rakin had found a stone chimney and climbed it using his earth magic, and then snuck in through an upper window. His problem had been finding an unlocked one. The one he did find eventually was a dressing room, and he had to wait for the actor to get called to the stage before he could sneak in.

“So, what do I win?” Zale asked after they’d all finished their stories.

“Bragging right?” Kole suggested.

“No,” she said firmly. “I get to pick the next thing we do as a group.”

“Ye already do that!” Rakin complained.

“Great! So you agree that’s my job,” Zale said triumphantly.

When they got near the main tower of the Dahn in the center of campus, Kole parted ways with his friends to go inside.

“Where’re ye goin?” Rakin asked Kole.

“My room..” Kole said, confused at first before suddenly remembering that Rakin and Amara didn’t know he lived in the library.

“Kole lives in a secret room in the library!” Zale burst out as if she’d wanted to spill the secret for months—which Kole now suspected she had very much wanted to do.

“Bah, ye would,” Rakin said, not even bothering to tease him about it.

“That’s smart!” Amara added. “That must save a lot of time. I recently moved into my workshop for similar reasons.”

All eyes turned to Amara at that.

“You’re living in your workshop?!” Zale asked, aghast.

“Yes…” Amara answered, not seeing the problem.

“Next to all your dangerous experiments?”

“They aren’t that dangerous,” Amara defended weakly.

“You’re moving back into your room tonight, or I’m telling Professor Donglefore.

“Please don’t!” Amara begged. “Maybe you’re right.”

Gus on her shoulder seemed relieved at getting to leave the dangerous room.

How does a rat look relieved? Kole reflected on the thought.

He examined Gus closely, but couldn’t really identify anything to his posture that gave off the impression.

Is this some aspect of Understanding? Kole wondered but stopped himself from asking.

Conversations with Amara about her font rarely ended with fewer questions than they started.

So, Kole excused himself as Zale went off with Amara to help her move back into her old room.

As he walked away he heard Amara say, “It’s okay, only moved two sets of clothes, I didn’t need more than that anyway.”

“Waas save me,” Zale muttered to herself. “You’re worse than Kole.”

***

Kole returned to his room and found it empty, surprised at his disappointment. Now that he could cast Thunderwave, he was eager to show the ability to Theral… though he’d be unable to do so in their room and the other boy strangely refused to leave it.

He checked the time.

Maybe just a little… he thought, eyeing a book on spell path optimization theory on Theral’s shelf.

But, as he reached for the book his sore muscles from the morning’s excursion stopped him, reminding him of what was to come.

“Maybe I just go to sleep,” he told himself.

***

Three miles into the five-mile “warm-up” the next morning, Kole was beginning to regret many of his life choices, but going to bed early was not one of them.

The five-mile warm-up was followed by an hour of sparring, which after a short break to stretch, was followed by agility training.

“Why are we running through the holes in a ladder?” Kole asked after he’d tripped for the third time.

“Because ye keep tripping!” Rakin chided him. “If this were a trip wire ye’d be dead.”

“Oh,” Kole said from the ground. “I guess it’s not just torture then.”

Next, they moved on to something Zale called “bear crawls,” where they loped across the training yard on all fours, without touching the ground with their knees.

“What… is… this… supposed… to… help… with?” Kole asked between gasping for breath after.

Rakin spat, his spit brown from the inhaled dust churned up from the exercise.

“Nothing, this is just torture.”

They trained from their normal 6 AM start time through the end of when their Martial 101 class would have ended. The tournament was in its final week, so many of the training fields were left open as the other students crowded around the remaining competitions.

Breakfast was a silent affair, as everyone was too exhausted to do anything other than eat, and once they were done, they made their way over to the student services offices on the edge of campus to go get their assigned tutors for their makeup curriculum.

“Let’s see here,” the elderly gnome behind the counter said, looking through a box of tabbed cards in front of him. “Doug Peak, Azalea Wood, Rakin Tokar, and Kole Highridge… Here we are!”

He found the cards, read a number off of each, and then copied those numbers onto a blank sheet of paper. After each number was written, text appeared, written rapidly as is by an invisible quill, filling out the pages with information.

“Here you are,” the gnome said, passing them each a sheet.

A quick read told them all they’d received each other’s sheets, and they waited until they were out of earshot of the kindly old gnome before switching.

“Do they use this magic paper for everything here?” Kole asked.

“As much as they can,” Zale said. “They Dahn produces a lot each day. Mom hates paperwork. Her assistant Kelina pretty much does all the administration work for her now but before she had her she used it to reduce her workload. Once the school at large learned about it, every department was clamoring for their share. There’s a whole department dedicated to distributing and administering it.”

“As fascinating as this paper talk is,” Rakin said dryly. “Can we figure out what we need to do?”

Kole looked through his paper and got a bit of a surprise.

Next to Martial 101, Rakin and Amara’s names were written as his tutor, which he expected. A Korin Kalis was listed next to his history class along with a time and place to meet. Next to Alchemy 101, Doug and Amara’s names were listed along with Pale Oak. While the last one was a bit of a surprise, the real shock was the names written besides WIZ 105

Professor Underbrook and Grand Master Cyril Lonin.

We looked over his friend’s sheets and saw that each of them had direct one-on-one tutoring for their own focuses as well. Doug had a session with the Arch Druid—something he was visibly sweating nerves over. Zale had lessons with Tigereye and Rakin had his with his mentor, Master Ahm. In that context, Professor Underbrook’s name was no surprise, but Lonin’s presence on the list made him both nervous and excited.

“That’s good. Right?” Zale asked after Kole showed them his list.

“I don’t know,” Kole said. “Do you think he might have changed his stance on adventuring students?”

His friends looked at each other, none knowing the wizard well enough to make a guess.

“I guess I’ll find out Saturday,” Kole said, looking over the schedule.

Professor Lonin had scheduled him in for Saturday morning lessons, in place of the study group. The rest had nothing scheduled for that time, and Kole wondered if the timing was a coincidence.

“I got ta go,” Rakin said, looking at his schedule. “Master Ahm doesn’t approve of tardyness.”

“Aren’t monks all about patience,” Kole asked.

“Ye try tellin him that. See how it goes.”

Rakin left, and Doug and Zale also excused themselves, having to go meet with their tutors.

“See you at 3,” Zale said to Kole.

They both had the same tutor for history and would be meeting then.

Kole then stood alone, with the next few hours free for the first time in what felt like months, and he grew a bit excited

Time to study! He thought excitedly and then grew embarrassed even for himself at the thought.