The military of Illandrios always had a strong basis in magic, While no successful military on Kaltis could protect their home long without magical support, Illandrios formed their armed forces around their magical units, while most nations used their magic to support their larger mundane armies

  -Bladed Knights by Kysin, the 195th High Librarian

  ---

  Kole gave Professor Underbrook an abbreviated summary and then the professor excused himself to go update those actually in charge. It seemed that the halfling professor wasn’t in command when it came to things such as establishing a defensive perimeter and determining how to seal up a dimensional rift.

  “Let me go tell the egg heads,” Underbrook had said, after getting Kole’s summary. “Wait here, they’ll want to talk to you when things settle down.”

  Kole sat on some rubble waiting and watched as the defense formed around the rift. He felt the need to do something to help, but aside from having no Will left with which to do anything, he also was fairly certain he’d fall down if he tried to stand.

  It had been a very long day. A long week in fact.

  Rakin found them all and judging by the charred remnants of green ichor all over him, he’d done his own share of fighting.

  After sitting for what felt like hours, a portal in space opened in front of them, and two familiar professors stepped out.

  Ah, eggheads means smart people, Kole thought, finally placing the unfamiliar term that Underbook had used.

  Professors Donglefore and Lonin stepped out, moving from the command center in the Dahn to the front of the battle with the air of Professor Tailor’s Spatial magic. To Kole's surprise, Professor Tailor stepped out as well, looking around at the destruction with a sad expression on his face—the only expression other than mild boredom Kole had ever seen on that face.

  Professor Tailor noticed Doug and did a double take, before pausing to take in the demon-kin Spatial primal. Doug for his part was doing his best to remain unnoticed.

  Does he not know about Doug? Kole wondered, vowing to follow up on that later.

  “Ah, Kole,” Professor Lonin said, giving Kole a warm greeting despite his evident weariness. “I should have expected it was you when Professor Underbrook didn’t give me the name of the student in question who provided the intelligence.”

  “Why would he hide that?” Kole asked.

  “We were in...” Lonin began, and looked around to make sure the portal was closed before continuing. “Mixed company. We try not to let those outside the school know too much about any individual student, lest they become a target of intrigue upon graduation. It’s one of the Chancellor’s policies I agree with whole heartedly.”

  Kole didn’t miss the unspoken acknowledgment that Professor Lonin disagreed with many of Zale’s mother’s rules.

  “Now, tell us in greater detail what occurred,” Professor Lonin said, and they all listened intently as Kole began the tale again.

  When Kole mentioned the impetus of their adventure—namely, Amara running off headlong into a field of grass—Professor Donglefore chuckled quietly to himself and shook his head, looking at Amara with no small amount of mentorly affection.

  So, he really does get her I guess, Kole thought.

  He’d always wondered how any mentor could put up with Amara’s... Amara-ness, but it appeared the master runesmith was familiar with eccentric students with varying levels of selective hyper-focus.

  Kole explained their journey, removing any mention of Doug’s aid with the animals, as both he didn’t think it relevant to the issue, and he sensed his friend didn’t want the spotlight at that moment. He did however mention that Doug had been the one to determine that the Font of Space had been blocked. This caused all the professors to focus on Doug briefly, but they didn’t interrupt.

  Kole explained what he saw in the camp, both from above with the river restructuring and what the maps depicted.

  “How did you sneak past an army of bipedal ants?” Donglefore asked, interrupting.

  Kole had hoping no one would ask, but in hindsight, it was a rather impressive feat to simply skip over.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I can turn invisible,” Kole said.

  He wanted to keep that ability a secret, but there was no stopping it from sharing it here. He trusted the professors to not spread it around after the precaution they took at naming him a part of all of this. But he also knew it wouldn’t remain a secret forever. If keeping it a secret meant they’d lose a hardball match, he’d already decided he’d use the spell. The decision to not reveal the ability was made when that was largely all he could do, but now his arsenal had greatly expanded.

  As willing as he was to let that ability slip, he still vowed to keep the specifics of his primal nature as secret as possible. No one would believe him at this point since he very clearly was a wizard, and as everyone knew primals couldn’t be wizards. A lot of students had known that he was a primal but hadn’t known the Font. But these students had stopped believing him to be one at all once he’d started demonstrating access to multiple Font.

  The knowledge being public would only put scrutiny and distrust on him, as Mirage Knights didn’t have the best reputation, being equal parts spy and soldier.

  “That shouldn’t be enough to fool ants,” Donglefore insisted, then added, “unless they lacked the enhanced sense of smell typical to ants.”

  “They don’t,” Amara added, and Kole had to restrain a giving her a reproachful look.

  Kole sighed. Professor Lonin already knew he was a primal of Illusions, so he supposed it couldn’t hurt to tell these other two professors.

  “I was able to link my primal ability to the spell, enhancing it. It makes me invisible, and harder to detect by all other senses—I don’t think it would work on creatures that didn’t rely on sight at all.”

  “Fascinating!” Lonin said, and Kole could tell he had a lot of questions he wanted to ask but was restraining himself due to the important matters at hand.

  “You’ll want to hear the rest,” Kole said, taking the opportunity to get back on topic.

  Kole realized as he spoke that he’d never told Zale about what he’d seen inside that tent. She gasped in horror at the description of the hybrid spider voidling, and Kole stopped speaking to see that she alright. When she gave him a nod to continue, he did.

  Professor Tailor became extremely interested in the details of the spider body, asking questions Kole couldn’t answer without the aid of his spellbook.

  “One second,” Kole said as he entered his vault.

  He went to the icon within and thought back to the hybrid voidling spider. A pang of guilt went through him as he saw the man he’d killed once more.

  “It’s covered in brown hairs,” Kole said, eyes closed. “Is it hair if it's on a spider—never mind. There’s two darker brown lines running down its body.”

  He heard Professor Tailor curse, and Kole opened his eyes to see something had lit a fire within the normally bored looking professor.

  “They’ve been stealing the phase spiders,” Professor Tailor said, clenching his hand in a fist. “I’ll be right back.”

  Professor Tailor vanished, without even a portal, and they stood around for nearly a minute in awkward silence until he suddenly reappeared.

  “Sorry,” he said, much calmer now. “I had to report that news back to the Hollow Peak. Continue.”

  How far is that? he wondered.

  He knew the Hollow Peak to be at least as far away as Illandrios. A powerful teleportation spell of that caliber should have registered on his arcane senses.

  Shouldn’t it? I can sense Theral’s teleportation. How much further could he be going?

  Kole saw the professors waiting and finished his tale.

  “Oh, so we just need to break the Spatial congruency,” Donglefore said after Kole had finished his summary.

  “It’s unlike any Spatial congruency I’ve ever heard of,” Professor Tailor said. “The simple physical similarities shouldn’t be enough to produce a congruency.”

  The two professors argued for a while, Lonin chiming in occasionally, and Kole was proud that he followed a large portion of what they were discussing.

  “We either need to destroy their replica on the other side, or break it some other way on our side,” Lonin said, trying to end the discussion that had become a bit of a circular argument between two children.

  As Kole had suspected, Professors Tailor and Underbrook did not get along.

  In the end they decided to do the latter, as the majority of the enemy army was busy fortifying their camp even further just on the other side of the rift. Breaching that defense would be hard enough, let alone altering the course of the rivers beyond.

  “Are we in trouble?” Rakin said, catching the professor's attention for the first time. “Or can we go?”

  Donglefore and Tailor turned to Lonin who stroked his beard considering.

  “I’ll leave that up to your mentors to decide,” he said, “But as you do not have one Kole, we’re overdue for another talk.”

  “Great,” Kole said, dread rising in him.

  He knew when they spoke, he’d have to tell Lonin about his spellbook if he wanted help in finding a mentor. This would reinvigorate his motivation to get Kole to change his plans.

  “You’re not in trouble Amara,” Donglefore said, “But I’d like your help with something now if you feel up for some experimental rune craft.”

  “I do!” Amara said, jumping to her feet from the rubble she’d been sitting on—clearly exhausted—a moment before.

  With energy Kole knew he couldn’t have mustered after that battle, Amara ran off to work with her mentor.

  Tailor left as well, opening a portal to an area closer to the rift. The professor gave Doug a stiff, almost uncertain, nod before closing the portal behind him. And Lonin simply walked away, though Kole suspected he was more than capable of teleporting away in the manner typical of professor Underbrook.

  “So,” Zale said once they were alone, “Anyone up for breakfast?”

  “Aye,” Rakin said. “I’m sick o’ eating weird animals.”

  “I need to find Mouse and make sure she's okay,” Doug said, “And also apologize for being gone for a week.”

  Kole was filled with a mix of conflicting emotions. First and foremost, he wanted to go and study more spells. After that he really wanted to bathe.

  When he looked up to Zale to say he would pass, he found his other desires crumble away, easily forgotten at the sight of the hopeful look on her face.

  “I could eat,” Kole said, “But... maybe we go get washed up first?”

  They all looked over each other and their varying levels of gore stains and broke out in laughter at the idea of doing anything but bathing.

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