Ensouled rings may greatly enhance the wizardry of their creator, but that same ring may never find a bearer to awaken its magic once its creator dies. Weapons and armor however have clear purposes, and are far more likely to Bond new wielders after the passing of their creators. Once this fact was discovered, the archmages of Illandrios became more intentional with their artifacts.
-Bladed Knights by Kysin, the 195th High Librarian
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“Good morning class,” Professor Underbrook said to the gathered PREVENT students.
They were all gathered on a roof of a large warehouse in the harbor district, looking at the rift in the distance.
“Last week’s hardball tournament has been postponed for obvious reasons,” Professor Underbrook announced. “Until the rift has been sealed, all the league hardball competitors have been drafted to man the defenses. While you are all not technically part of the league, we have decided this would be a good opportunity to broaden your education. While for the most part, adventurers travel the world, taking jobs as they please, there will come times when you have no choice. Sometimes your morals will compel you to abandon your plan to aid a small village in the path of a troll rampage, other times the fine print on a hardball league contract you signed without reading will do the same.”
The class laughed at the last comment.
“That wasn’t a joke,” Underbrook said, a malicious smile growing on his face. “Those of you who advance to the full Adventuring Track will have to take multiple classes on contract law.”
The laughing died away, replaced with groans.
“Each of you will be assigned a rotation on the walls that have been formed around the rift. You will be in the company of an adventuring team or members of the school staff. Use the opportunity to learn from a seasoned adventurer. We don’t expect another incursion, since this one was clearly an accident, but if one does come, do your best to stay alive. Now, let's talk about the invasion,”
“How do we know it was an accident?” A voice Kole recognized as the gnome wizard from Shalin’s team asked.
Isem something, Kole thought, trying to remember the name. Bomblebum? No... Gods, I can’t remember gnomish names for the life of me.
“Good question, Mr Bobbledun” Underbrook said.
I was close. Kole reflected, and then grew nervous as his mind caught up to words of the question.
He looked at Underbrook, wondering if his part in the disaster would be revealed.
“We know the mechanism of the incursion,” Underbrook said, neglecting to mention the source of that knowledge. “The soldier ants, as we have come to call them, were preparing to invade by means of a ‘spacial congruency.’”
He spoke the last two words with disdain.
“If you want to be bored to death with the details of that, go talk to Professor Tailor. The important bit is this, they didn’t mean for it to open now, and their safeguard against it opening failed early due to the heroic actions of agents of the Academy.”
“Someone opened it on purpose?” Shalin shouted. “Who?!”
Kole began to grow red.
Does she know? He thought. How could she? No. She might suspect though.
To avoid drawing attention from his blushing, Kole activated his Fade ability, lest anyone pay attention to him. He felt barely any attention on him and was relieved to see being a single face in a crowd counted as being hidden to the ability’s parameters.
If Kole had more self-awareness, he would have taken note the lack of attention on himself. He often thought his peers were thinking of him, when in reality, unless he made a spectacle of himself, they were all too busy worrying about the same thing for whatever their own individual insecurities were.
“Would you have preferred the enemy army got to continue on with their plans and sprung their attack after preparing for a few more weeks?”
Underbrook asked the leading question as he would have any other genuine question to the class.
“No?” Shalin said, thrown off by the question.
“So, what should they have done?” Underbrook asked, but then continued, turning this into a teachable moment. “There will be times you must make difficult decisions in this line of work. Often, no matter what you choose, people will die. You can’t let the fact that your actions will result in the death of innocents stop you from doing the right thing if your inaction will result in even more death.”
Underbrook let that sink in, before projecting an illusion of the battle above the class.
"With the hardball matches canceled, I took it upon myself to record the battle using some of the equipment loaned to us by the league,” he said.
He went over the battle in detail, showing both the mistakes and impressive feats that had occurred throughout. Any mention of Kole and his friend’s involvement was thankfully omitted. Throughout the viewing, he pointed out various ways the enemy army suffered by the sudden appearance of the portal, notably that most of the soldiers that had fallen through in the first wave bore no weapons.
Watching the overview now, Kole saw that they’d been lucky. None of the enemies they’d faced had borne any sort of ranged weapons. He remembered seeing bows and crossbows in the camp, but none had been with the first wave forced through the rift. By the time the enemy had organized enough to send troops through intentionally, the perimeter had been established and all the surviving civilians had been evacuated.
Professor Underbrook even deigned to show a few short moments of Professor Tailor saving people and turned it into a teachable moment.
“Now this is something I want you to all take to heart,” he said, as he showed a portal opening, saving a family before closing immediately. "See that wooden expression?"
He paused the illusion, showing a close of Professor Tailor’s face, set in its natural resting bored expression.
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“When people are in danger, you need to make them feel safe, even if they aren’t. It’s always important to keep morale up. Look at this face,” he said, causing the illusion to zoom in. “Would this make you feel safe?”
“Flirt, crack a joke, or casually chat up the people you are saving. Scared panicked people are far less likely to survive than calm ones. And if none of those are your style, nothing cuts through tension like a well-timed fart. Stressed people can’t fart. You need to relax to let one loose.”
The rest of the class went over more practical means, but Underbrook seemed dedicated to ensuring his students learned the value of flare in adventuring, and he continued to make digs at the other professor throughout.
When the class was dismissed, Kole caught Underbrook’s attention before he could teleport away.
“What can I help you with?” Professor Underbrook said, once everyone had left but a few other students with questions, plus Kole’s friends.
“I was wondering if I could test a spell on you,” Kole said.
“Oh, well,” Underbrook said, surprised. “That’s not what I was expecting. Which is it?”
“Mind Spike,” Kole said
“And when did you start learning Mind Spike?” Professor Underbrook asked, single eyebrow raised.
“Yesterday,” Kole said.
Professor Underbrook’s second eyebrow shot up to join the first, the inquisitive expression turning to shock.
He collected himself and muttered, “Stupid magic books.”
Then louder he said, “Go ahead.”
Kole built the spell and sent it out into the Arcane Realm. He watched the halfling’s face carefully for any sign that it worked, and saw as he winced slightly, closing one eye and squinching his face. The wince passed, and he tilted his head side to side, stretching his neck.
“Good job,” Professor Underbrook said, “You’ve gone from a freak of nature that can't cast any spells, to one that learns them far, far too quickly. Has Lonin found out about this yet?”
“Sort of...” Kole said, “Some of it came out when I gave him a report of the... incident. He wanted to meet with me once all this rift stuff settled down.”
Underbrook laughed, and then gave Kole a sympathetic look, “Good luck refusing his offer this time.”
“Thanks,” Kole said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Kole and Zale found that their absence from their history class and all other classes to have been excused with a note from the school administration. While they wouldn’t be punished, they would have to catch up on the work they missed.
They’d been handed a stack of required readings and notes they’d need to catch up on, as details of the missed assignments.
In WIZ 205, Kole had missed an assignment to start work on a defensive spell, but as Kole had already learned his required defensive spell for the year, he was still ahead. He was, however, behind a whole session of mental defense training and would have to make that up at some point through the week.
“Where were you guys?” Gray whispered to Kole as he sat down next to him.
Kole was surprised by the question, as he was going through his history readings, trying to get them down so he could focus on his wizardry, but also feeling the strong need to read them due to the recent relevance of the Midlian Empire.
“You don’t have to say if you don’t want to,” Gray said, misinterpreting Kole’s surprised silence as hesitance.
Kole briefly considered not telling Gray, but his recent run in with Corbyn served as a great contrast by which to judge Gray’s behavior. Part of him had still been uncertain about his budding friendship with this person who had once tormented him, but Gray had had a legitimate—if misplaced—reason for his concerns, and on being proven wrong had shown genuine remorse. His actions too had never gone beyond words of warning to people he thought Kole might put in danger by his incompetence.
Corbyn had no good reason to dislike Kole and had literally tried to kill him. Then, when confronted with Kole, had shown little remorse or self-awareness about the severity of his actions, and then demanded Kole hand over the only thing he had left of his parents.
They were not the same.
“We were looking for Amintha,” Kole said after looking around to ensure no one was listening in. “Amara ran ahead and entered that other realm again, and the rift we entered through closed behind us. We were trapped there all week until... yesterday.”
Gray’s eyes lit up as he understood the implications.
“You guys were the agents?”
Kole nodded.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Kole confirmed.
Before they could talk more, Professor Underbrook started the class.
“Time for some mental defense training!” he said with sadistic glee, and everyone let out a collective groan.
Kole was tempted to ask Gray if he could use Mind Spike on him during the training, but decided it wouldn’t be good to knock him unconscious if the spell’s full force struck him. He also didn’t particularly want to explain how he suddenly knew the spell after being stranded in another realm without access to spellbooks for a whole week.
My life sure has gotten strange, Kole reflected.
After a full hour of mind aching defense training performed while Underbrook lectured about the ways to identify creatures with mental offensive capabilities, class was dismissed.
As Kole walked out, Professor Underbrook intercepted him and handed him a note.
“Good luck,” he said, and then teleported away.
Kole unfolded the note.
Kole Teak,
You have been summoned to meet with the Headmaster of the Wizarding College at 2:15, on the 3rd day of Waas, in the year 821 A.F.
-Timon Toonivus, assistant to Grand Master Cyril Lonin, Headmaster of the Academy of Illunia’s College of Wizardry.
Kole read the note over, laughing that the signature was longer than the note itself, even with the addition of the full date. He tried to recall meeting Lonin’s assistant, but he couldn’t recall ever meeting the man.
With wizard college classes no longer taking place in the Dahn itself with the reduction of use on extra planer spaces, Kole had to jog to get to the office in time.
As he ran, he was pleased to note that the light jog wasn’t even winding him, as it would have been at this point the previous semester. He stilled long to learn the spell Teleport. Even with the cost increase due to his primal nature, travelling great distances in an instant would be very useful.
Someday, he vowed, knowing third-tier spells were a way off.
Kole got up to Lonin’s office, surprised to see that the building had been rearranged. Before his office door had opened to a hall filled with other doors, but now there was a reception area set into the hall, with a desk beside the door manned by a middle-aged male gnome.
“Can I help you?” the gnome said, after Kole had stood there for a few moments decided what to do.
“I have an appointment,” Kole said, handing over the note.
The gnome, presumably Tomin, inspected the note, reading it carefully, as if checking if it were authentic.
After he was satisfied with it, by whatever criteria under which he was scrutinizing it, he admitted Kole.
“He’s ready for you,” he said, gesturing to the door.
Kole let himself in to find Professor Lonin looking out a window through which the harbor rift was still visible. Kole didn’t recall looking out the window the last time he’d been here, but he was pretty sure the mountains had been in the background, not the harbor.
The idea of a moving window intrigued him, and he quickly entered his vault to review the memory there using his spellbook. Doing so he found that the window had in fact faced north towards the mountains, and now faced southeast toward the harbor.
In hindsight, a moving window was one of the less impressive magical feats he’d seen the Dahn do.
“-for coming on such short notice,” Lonin said, as Kole brought his awareness back to reality.
“No problem,” Kole said, taking the safe bet he’d not missed much of the introduction. “I’m sure you’re busy with—well—that.”
Kole gestured out the window.
“Not just that,” Professor Lonin said with a heavy sigh. “You don’t realize how much work someone does until they suddenly disappear. Miss Woods’ mother, as flighty as she might appear, was doing a lot to keep this ship afloat. Kelina does much to cover for the absence, but I’ve had to take on an assistant just to keep up on everything.”
Kole nodded in understanding. Zale’s mother didn’t seem to be the type suited for the role of chancellor, but in hindsight her air of flippancy was likely an affectation. She was, after all, a world-famous adventurer over a hundred years old. While it appeared she delegated everything to those around her, more likely she was dealing with larger issues behind the scenes, assigning the more mundane tasks to her subordinates.
“But you didn’t come here to hear an old man complain,” Lonin said, clapping his hands together once. “Let’s discuss you and your recent developments. Have a seat.”
Here goes nothing, Kole thought, deciding to lay everything out and pray that the professor chose to aid him and not convince him to leave his chosen path.
Kole complied, and he began to tell the Grand Master wizard all about his new developments involving his spellbook.
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