“So you want to get through this?,” asked Calliope. She touched the wall with her

  tattooed hand.

  “A magician created this when I discovered the goblins,” said Nick. He gestured at

  the dead bodies at their feet. “I saw the ping of the spell, but I couldn’t see him.”

  “This is a mess,” said Will. He smoked a cigarette while holding a light ball above

  them. “You killed all these goblins?”

  “Ambushed them in the dark,” said Nick. “I need a night vision spell to go with my

  normal spells. I was shooting blind down here.”

  “They say you might have forced a hiatus in their search,” said Crow. “This is the

  second party you have killed.”

  “We’ll have to tell Granny about this,” said Nick. “We can’t leave these bodies down

  here to rot.”

  “The faculty will probably want to take a look at this tunnel to see where it goes,”

  said Calliope.

  “Can you open the wall?,” asked Will.

  “I think so,” said Calliope. “I’ll have to be careful not to pull down the tunnel. The

  keep is sitting over us. One wrong move might drop the building down on top of us.”

  “That seems valuable to know,” said Will. He started edging toward the stairs.

  “Don’t,” said Crow. “We need the light. Go ahead, Calliope. We should at least look

  to see if the tunnel is still there. It might be filled in to stop anyone from following

  the goblins back outside the wall.”

  “Is that possible?,” asked Will.

  Crow nodded.

  Calliope drew back her hand. She wound up and punched. The tattoos on her arm and

  hand lit up as various runes summoned their powers. Her fist punched through the

  rock, melting it around her arm for a second before she drew it out of the stone.

  “That’s impressive,” said Will.

  “I barely reached through to the other side,” said Calliope. She flexed her fingers.

  “This obstruction is as thick as my arm is long.”

  “Master magician rating?,” said Crow.

  “At least,” said Calliope. “It will take me a minute to dig through to the other side.

  I didn’t expect it to be that big.”

  “Will,” said Nick. “Can you throw a light to the other side?”

  “Sure,” said the fire magician. He touched the end of his lit cigarette with a finger. He

  flicked his wrist. A ball of light flew into the tunnel and out the other side to float in

  the air.

  Nick peered through the opening. He might have been able to throw normal fire balls

  through the tunnel to the other side. The fire stick would just adhere to whatever it hit

  and burn until it went out.

  “I don’t see anything moving,” he said. “I don’t feel any magic in the air. I would like

  to look at the other side if Calliope can widen this hole enough. Then we’ll let Granny

  know what we found.”

  “We’ll have to tell her about the magician and that your name has to remain out of it,”

  said Crow. “Otherwise, the magician will try to get rid of you.”

  “Maybe we can use that to lure him into a trap,” said Nick. “That’s for later. Let’s

  open this up and walk down to the end.”

  “I’ll have to do a bigger blow and see how much I can move,” said Calliope. “It’s too

  bad Felix and his brother can’t move this for us.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that until we can adjust what they are doing with

  their spells,” said Crow.

  Nick didn’t really have a way to help with that. He wasn’t quite sure what the

  problem was for them, but his own skillset didn’t involve anything with traditional

  magic.

  Calliope picked a spot above the hole she had already carved out. She ran her arm

  into the stone and spun it in a circle. The section poured out and hardened at her feet

  as she stepped back. The result was a hole they could climb through with a little bit

  of work.

  “That’s good,” said Nick. He touched the inside of the tunnel and found it solid to the

  touch. He dove through to the other side, pointing at anything that might be a threat.

  The goblins hadn’t remained after the tunnel under the castle had been sealed.

  “It looks clear,” said Nick. “I’m going to go ahead to make sure it’s safe. Thanks,

  guys.”

  Nick stepped into the darkness, letting his vision adjust as he slowly made his way

  from the floating fireball. He had a fire stick, and two light bombs. The charges for

  both of his weapon spells were at full capacity. And his armor spell should let him

  take a few hits before he had to back up.

  Once he reached the end, he could look around for a market to get a bird to locate his

  enemies.

  He paused when he bumped into something solid. He placed a marker in his sphere

  of influence. He supposed the magician had shut this way down too, and he just

  hadn’t seen the ping of active spells moving. He looked at Crow’s marker. She was

  moving slowly down the tunnel toward him.

  Unless Calliope could punch through this end of the tunnel too, he was at a lull in his

  hunt. He would have to think of another approach.

  The glow of Will’s light cast Nick’s shadow in front of him. He turned to face his

  fellow students, shading his eyes with a hand.

  “I think this heads out of the city,” said Nick. “I think we should let Granny know and

  let the teachers fill everything in.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Calliope. “I could punch through this, but if there was

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  something left over this wall, we would be trapped in here like rats.”

  “So we’re going back?,” asked Will. He looked around at the tunnel. “There’s no way

  this is natural, is there?”

  “It’s smooth enough to be a construction,” said Calliope. “The question is is it

  trapped? If it is, we probably should not be standing here talking.”

  “They say the ground was removed and the hole hardened,” said Crow. She squatted

  to touch the ground with both hands. “It feels like the direction of movement was

  through the plug we found.”

  “I think we should head back to the school,” said Nick. “There might be other

  entrances the goblins can use to get inside the walls.”

  “And we don’t want to be caught by any spy who might see us come out of the tunnel

  inside the academy,” said Calliope.

  “I wonder why the goblins are going along with this,” said Will. “I thought they

  avoided humans where possible.”

  Nick felt a shrug before he could stop it. He started down the tunnel. He wasn’t trying

  to figure out why things were like they were. He was trying to figure out how many

  he would have to hurt before they stopped invading the school.

  And if the magician that sealed up the tunnel was someone on staff, that was another

  kettle of fish.

  He wondered if he would have to shoot the magician before things settled down.

  “That was a neat trick with the rock,” said Will. He walked beside Calliope. “How

  does that work?”

  “Rune smithing is done up north to create artifacts, or domains,” said Calliope.

  “When I was little, my grandfather worked magic into my arm with a needle and

  thread. It took me a while to get things under control.”

  “That sounds painful,” said Will.

  “It only hurt the first two years when he was doing it,” said Calliope. She shrugged

  at the look that got her. “Now, it’s like wearing armor on my arm all the time.”

  “Which one of us gets to tell Granny about this?,” asked Nick as he approached the

  barrier they had cut through.

  “Not me,” said Will. “She will steal my cigarette again. They are too valuable for

  that.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Crow. “When?”

  “Probably as soon as we get upstairs,” said Nick. “I’ll look out for you until you have

  your talk. I doubt you will need protection once Granny is up and about.”

  “I’ll take smelly boy back to the dorm,” said Calliope. “You two stay out of trouble.”

  “It’s just a talk with a teacher that is impressed with our number one student,” said

  Nick. “How much trouble can we get into just climbing up the tower to her room?”

  “Do you tempt fate on purpose?,” asked Calliope.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Nick. He opened the secret door and

  checked to see if anyone waited for them in the dungeon area. He stepped out,

  holding the door with his foot. Nothing moved. “All right. No one is here. Let’s go.”

  He stepped out of the way to let the others step out of the tunnel. He let the door

  close. Crow led the way to the main hall.

  “Don’t wait up,” said Crow. “We don’t know how long this will take.”

  “Madam Quince might want to know a teacher is involved,” said Calliope.

  “Madam Quince might be the teacher involved, and her one trick is a lie for what she

  can really do,” said Will.

  “No,” said Crow. “She is the only one we can trust here. And as a measure of that

  trust, we have to tell her about this so she can do what she can from the inside. It

  doesn’t matter if she knows a magician is involved. It might be better for us if she can

  pick out the right one.”

  Nick kept his own counsel. There was an equal chance that her knowing something

  was going on could get her hurt just like not knowing and talking to the wrong

  person.

  If they wanted her on their side, she had to know something was going on.

  “Let us know what she says,” said Calliope. “Come on, Will.”

  “Thank you for your help,” said Nick.

  Calliope frowned for a moment. She decided he wasn’t joking.

  “You’re welcome,” said Calliope. She tugged on Will’s arm. “Let’s go before we get

  caught breaking the curfew.”

  “Yes,” said Will. “We must avoid the seizure of our tools by the authority.”

  “You are never going to let that cigarette thing go?,” asked Calliope as she walked

  down the hall to the door leading to their building.

  “Never,” agreed Will.

  “They say we have to go this way,” said Crow. She pointed at a side hall. “Madam

  Quince is above us.”

  “All right,” said Nick. He gestured for her to lead the way. They could tell her when

  to hide a lot faster than he could without a bird.

  They trekked up a long series of stairs. Crow frowned at certain points, sometimes

  looking around for something in the walls. They arrived at a plain door among a line

  of similar doors. She knocked on the door.

  “Are you sure this is the right door?,” asked Nick.

  “Yes,” said Crow. She knocked again. “They have an eye on Madam Quince.”

  “I bet she will be glad to hear that,” said Nick.

  “I bet she won’t,” said Crow.

  A third knock revealed a puzzled elderly teacher looking at them. A blade of sizzling

  air rested in her hand.

  “Is there something I can do for you two?,” she said. She dismissed the blade until a

  later use.

  “Nick killed some more goblins,” said Crow. “They are under the main hall. There

  is a tunnel leading from the cells down there to a door we think is outside the walls.”

  “We don’t know where the exit is,” said Nick. “There looks to be a solid plug over

  that end of the tunnel and we didn’t want to try to open it from this side.”

  “That is more prudent than I thought you would be,” said Madam Quince. “Come in.

  I need to get dressed to look at this myself.”

  “Why goblins?,” said Nick as they stepped inside the apartment. He idly looked

  around without touching things. He didn’t quite trust Granny’s exhortation that she

  could only use one spell.

  “What do you mean?,” Madam Quince retreated to her bedroom.

  “Two groups of goblins invading the academy,” explained Nick. “I always heard that

  monsters and monster races avoid magicians like fire. So why would the goblins keep

  coming here where any teacher could rip them apart?”

  “That is a good question,” said Madam Quince. The sound of her bustling around

  came to them. “Expendable resources seems the obvious answer.”

  “We can use them up because we don’t care about them?,” asked Nick.

  “Essentially,” said Madam Quince. She had changed her night clothes for her black

  dress and coat. She gestured for them to lead the way. “Why use someone expensive

  when you can use partial monsters that no one but their tribes will miss?”

  “I guess I can see that,” said Nick.

  “You don’t approve, Master Sever?” asked Madam Quince.

  “Not really,” said Nick. “On the other hand, I don’t think I am a good judge of what’s

  expendable.”

  “Why send someone else to do the job when you are willing to do it yourself?,” said

  Crow.

  “I suppose,” said Nick. He started down the steps, eye out for anything that might try

  to ambush them under the lamp lights. He didn’t think of himself as responsible for

  either of his companions, but he was ready to shoot anything that jumped out of the

  dark ahead.

  They descended down to the main hall. Nick led the way down from there with a lot

  more caution. If the magician had put that wall up in a few seconds, he could do the

  reverse just as fast.

  And his sphere of influence would only warn him when the spell activated. If it was

  directed at him, a few seconds of warning might not be enough.

  They walked down to where the dead goblins had fallen. Madam Quince had secured

  a lamp for them, using an air blade to float it along beside them. She winced at the

  dead bodies.

  Nick wondered if he should take one of the lightning strikes still in the loot pile and

  use it at the exit at the other end of the tunnel. It wouldn’t go through the rock, but

  it might scour anything on the surface.

  “This wall?,” asked Madam Quince.

  “A magician made it before I could deal with him,” explained Nick. “He was down

  here in the dark with the goblins. I missed him.”

  “He probably had some kind of shield, or armored skin, if he was an earth magician,”

  said Madam Quince.

  Nick raised his hand from where they stood. He swept it back and forth without

  feeding a charge into it. He could see where some of the blasts from his spells had hit

  the walls at angles now that he was looking for them.

  “He might have been standing behind some of these goblins and they took the brunt

  of the attack in the dark,” said Nick. “And then he cut off the attack from what forces

  he had left before I could make sure.”

  “Let’s see where the other end of this tunnel goes,” said Madam Quince. “Then I will

  have to tell the Headmaster.”

  “We would like our names left out of this for obvious reasons,” said Crow.

  Madam Quince nodded.