Illusory Empire: A Magic School Progression Fantasy, page 11
“Aye,” Rakin agreed, “but yer a broken one.”
I guess that was all the encouragement he had in him for the day, Kole reflected.
Doug took the comment in stride, smiling, and they all went through.
A small illusion filled one corner of the room, with a group of adults huddled around it. When the five got closer, they saw that it was displaying another hardball match. In it, the Ice Picks were completely dominating another team Kole didn’t know by name.
“Why are the matches so one-sided—ignoring terrain advantages?” Kole found himself asking.
“Seeded brackets based on the standing from last semester,” Tigereye said from behind, his booming voice causing Kole’s heart to skip a beat.
They all spun around to see the imposing form of their teacher, who’d snuck up on them despite his bulk.
“What bad news did you bring this time?” he asked their group.
“We don’t always bring bad news,” Zale defended. “Just… sometimes.”
“True,” Tigereye conceded. “Which is it today?”
“Medium news?” Kole tried, earning a small smile from the serious man.
They explained what they had done, starting with Runt’s intelligence on strange incursions with missing primals, and how they’d gone to the first incursion they had door access to.
Tigereye waited patiently, withholding judgment until they finished their explanation with Doug’s findings on the footprints.
“That matches what we have seen elsewhere,” Tigereye said.
Kole relaxed at the lack of reproach in his voice.
“There have been occurrences like this all over,” he said in his short halting sentences, pausing briefly before deciding to share more. “We have connections with the major city-states. Most are coordinating. These incursions are picking up in pace. Few have led to violence. Those that have seem to be mistakes. The enemy is not ready to attack.”
“Has anyone gone through?” Kole asked, then added hurriedly, “Besides us?”
Tigereye shook his head.
“Not yet. We are trying.”
Then he turned to Amara. “Does Professor Donglefore know about your continued work with your tracking?”
Amara, who had been holding the tracking device and nervously examining it, quickly stowed it as if she could hide the evidence they’d just confessed to having.
“No,” she said quietly.
“Tell him,” Tigereye commanded. “He should make more.”
Amara’s shame flipped to elation at the prospect her idea would be an innovation to her mentor, and she looked around the room eagerly.
“He is not here,” Tigereye added. “You can go find him now if you wish.”
She took off, not even saying goodbye.
In the end, they didn’t get off without a lecture. Tigereye cautioned them to be careful in chasing these leads.
“I will not demand you stop,” Tigereye said. “Shalia would not ask that of you. But I ask you be careful. Do not act rash because you think you are solely responsible for this.”
He gestured around at all the staff at work—those, at least, who weren’t watching the match.
“You are not.”
Chapter 17
Return to Roost
“The Storm Knight” is the name given to the bearer of Zyglin’s Blade. Arch Mage Zyglin was a master of the Font of Lightning. This knight gained the ability to use Lightning offensively, as well as teleport through bolts of lightning.
—Kysin the 195th High Librarian. Bladed Knights, 5th ed.
“I’m going to the Griffin’s Roost,” Doug said as soon as Tigereye dismissed them. “Mouse wanted me to meet her there for dinner to either celebrate or commiserate.”
“I’ll go with,” Zale said and then turned to Kole expectantly.
Kole’s natural inclination was to decline any social overtures when the alternative was studying, but he caught himself before doing so.
He quickly weighed his choices.
Go study and be alone, or spend more time with Zale?
Even with the prospect of Harold and Gray’s presence, he found the scales to be far more balanced than he would have expected.
In a moment on uncharacteristic self-reflection, Kole thought, Am I becoming less obsessed with my magic, are those two guys growing on me, or do I like Zale more than I think? Maybe all three? No, probably just the last two.
“I’ll go,” he decided.
He could always stay up really late another time, after all, and he vowed not to promise that he wouldn’t if Zale asked. Though he had his doubts about how well that condition would hold up if she threatened him.
She does take after her mom in that way, at least.
“I’m out,” Rakin said and walked away.
“No. Wait. Don’t go,” Zale said quietly with a straight face.
“Where does he even go when he’s alone?” Kole asked, long since wondering what the antisocial dwarf did in his free time.
“Rakin?” Zale said, surprised at the question. “He trains. That’s pretty much all he ever does.”
“Really?”
He knew his friend was talented, but he really had no frame of reference for the abilities of a student of the Order of the Resounding Silence. Nor did he know what their training entailed.
“Yeah,” Zale said. “He doesn’t really have any hobbies. He meditates a lot, works through his forms, practices his primal control, and ever since I pushed him to work on his mental vault last week, he’s dedicated an hour to that every day. A half hour in the morning and a half hour at night.”
“That… doesn’t seem in line with his general personality,” Kole said.
Zale shrugged.
“He likes being difficult, but mostly he just likes to rile people up. He needs to maintain control at all times, or he could go mad. I think he likes to poke at others so they lose their cool as some sort of revenge against the world—or he gets it from his mother. She’s as bad as mine. You saw what happens when he loses control. It’s been like that most of his life, and he used to have episodes weekly. It’s better now, but he wants to master it. He has to prove it to the dw—” Zale cut herself off and then said, “Those back home that he can.”
***
For the second time that day, Kole walked into an establishment called the Griffin’s Roost. This time, they were greeted kindly at the door and walked in to cheers as some of the patrons recognized them.
Ever since the PREVENT classes had begun competing in a hardball league, the adventurer patrons had taken to celebrating any who entered. It had started as a jest, the seasoned warriors acting as though the students were famous competitors from the real hardball circuit, but the act lost its joking air as some of the groups gave outstanding performances.
“The Forsaken!” a voice cheered as they walked in.
Zale smiled and let her illusion drop, regaining her natural white and black visage. Doug looked from Zale to the eyes on them, then waved.
Kole tried to draw upon his Fade ability, but found the attention on him so great, he couldn’t even attempt the magic, simply losing a chunk of Will for his efforts.
“Flood,” he cursed at the waste, ignoring that succeeding would have wasted equally as much for little actual gain.
The greetings were followed with offers of free drinks. Offers which Kole gladly accepted, his frugal nature overwhelming his desire to avoid social interactions.
As Kole drank a free ale, from some province he’d never heard of, bought for him by a gnome covered in rune-crafted gear, he reflected that free drinks tasted better.
Zale bought my drinks too, though, he considered, not able to recall the last time he’d paid for one.
Before he could delve too deeply into that, Zale dragged him away to go congratulate the Risen Dahn.
The other team chatted at a corner booth, with two older adventurers standing nearby to listen in. They were discussing the choices they’d made in the match, Harold and Gray doing most of the talking, while Esme was fixing her hair with a small compact mirror. Mouse was sitting in the corner, nibbling at her food and looking like she’d rather not be a part of the conversation.
“Doug!” Mouse exclaimed when she saw them approach.
Trapped in the corner, she looked to her left, then her right and then rapidly shrunk down, disappearing below the table. As a mouse, Mouse ran between the two amused adventurers and turned back into her human form just before reaching Doug. The two embraced.
“You did great!” he said, lifting her up and spinning.
Mouse let out a very mouselike squeak.
“Let’s go!” she insisted and began pulling Doug out of the tavern.
Doug looked back helplessly as his girlfriend dragged him away. When Kole waved bye with a smile, he seemed to relax and let Mouse take him.
“What do they actually do when they go off together?” Gray asked loudly.
Kole found himself answering without thinking.
“After the whole thing with the carrot, I decided not to try to dig too deep into that relationship,” Kole said.
“Same,” Zale agreed.
“What carrot?” Harold asked, looking between the two.
Kole had grown comfortable talking with Gray after the last two weeks of class, but he realized suddenly that this was the first time he’d ever spoken to Harold. Looking at the other boy, Kole found that all the dislike he’d felt for him was gone.
Ever since eavesdropping on his conversation with Gray, Kole’s disdain for Harold had lessened, as he finally understood his issues with Zale’s voidling nature. It hadn’t been him having a problem with Zale. He’d simply not been able to handle other people’s reactions to her in a way Zale appreciated. That revelation hadn’t made Kole like Harold any more—he’d still disliked the boy greatly, but even then Kole knew that to be jealousy.
Now he stood next to Zale as Harold looked at her hopefully, and he found he wasn’t jealous anymore. In fact, he felt nothing one way or the other toward Harold.
Gray turned out not being so bad, he thought. And Zale seemed to think Harold was a better guy.
On some level, Kole had decided to give Harold a chance when he’d agreed to come at all, but in that moment, he consciously chose to leave his past, Rakin-influenced biases behind.
“Let me tell you about the carrot,” Kole said before recounting Doug’s strange attempts to court Mouse.
The conversation flowed from that to the hardball match. Kole and Zale found themselves seated next to the three other students shortly after. The two adventurers that had been with them had excused themselves when the topic moved away from hardball toward weird teenage relationships.
“So…” Gray began during a lull, looking at Kole. “I heard you were having issues finding a mentor. Any luck after last week?”
Kole took a drink to buy time and think over his answer.
“Not really,” he said, wincing a little. “I was hopeful Zale’s uncle would take me on, but he’s gone. There’s not a whole lot of wizards specializing in traditional wizardry around looking to take on an apprentice.”
“Not a lot, or none?” Gray asked.
“I haven’t performed an exhaustive search, but there are at least two. One’s like nineteen, and they aren’t around very often,” Kole said, remembering Theral, who he’d not seen in weeks.
A man who he was explicitly forbidden to speak about by Zale’s terrifying mother.
Oops, Kole thought, silently wishing Gray wouldn’t press the topic.
“I’ll see if my mentor knows of anyone,” Gray offered, but there wasn’t a lot of confidence in his tone. He turned to Zale then, smiling maliciously. “But, speaking of your uncle, why have you never told us about him?”
“Good question,” Harold said, joining in.
Zale darkened as she blushed at the attention, and she copied Kole in taking a deep drink as she collected her thoughts.
“So, he’s not actually my uncle,” she began and then proceeded to speak around the truth as she described her eccentric but selectively present relative.
***
Kole had a surprisingly good time with Gray and his team. Most of it, he thought, was because he was also with Zale, and part of him even enjoyed morning conditioning just because she was there—a very, very small part.
Over the past two weeks he’d discovered he might get along well with Gray if they could both get over the awkwardness of their… rocky start. They had a similar dedication to learning wizardry and becoming adventurers. They even had similar motivations, both having lost their adventuring parents at a young age. There were a few other wizards in their PREVENT class, but Kole and Gray were the two with the most advanced theoretical understandings of the art and likely the top two when it came to combat.
Theory and practice went hand in hand when learning wizardry, but applying that practice to combat took more than just raw magical talent. It was difficult to keep one’s focus in the heat of battle, and some of the most gifted wizards couldn’t focus enough to even cast a Firebolt when faced with a charging troll.
Oftentimes, the best battle wizards were the most decisive and levelheaded, not the prodigies—though sheer magical power did help. Once you had the ability to blow up creatures with a thought, it really came down to controlling one’s mental state, and the massive Will pools and ingenious spell constructs of the prodigies gave no advantage if they used their brilliant minds to panic or their great talents to teleport away.
All that was to say, even in a school full of students learning to be every stripe of wizard, Kole and Gray were a very specific breed.
“I don’t feel so good,” Esme said, daintily holding her hand over her mouth as she rubbed her stomach.
“Harold, do the thing!” an inebriated Gray said as they swayed back towards campus.
“What thing?” an equally drunk Kole asked.
While Gray and Kole were both unique magical talents, they were also teenagers who’d been in a tavern full of patrons sending them free drinks without end. They’d gotten a little carried away.
“Yeah!” Zale said, joining in—also drunk. “Do it!”
“Do it! Do it!” Zale and Gray chanted together.
“Do what?!” Kole cried.
“Healing!” Gray shouted and then looked around embarrassed and covered his mouth, as if he could recall the shout. In a whisper he continued, “He can cure drunkenness.”
“No,” Harold said, firmly, though also slightly slurred. “I won’t.”
“Awww.” Zale was disappointed, but gave up.
“Why not?” Kole asked.
“Keev doesn’t appreciate that,” Harold said, referring to his demigod, one of the many who Blessed those who sought to do good as adventurers.
Demigods were beings with the blood of the gods in their veins, who went on to do great and or terrible things, gaining renown, fame, and/or infamy. This combination of recognition and divine heritage allowed them to ascend to godhood. Fortunately for the Illusian races, the vast majority of these descendants chose to pursue good and, after ascension, Bless those who did the same. Either that or it was far easier to ascend through fame than infamy. There were competing theories, but all they knew for certain was that the good- and neutral-aligned demigods greatly outnumbered the outright evil ones.
In their inebriation, the students took a shortcut back to campus their more sober selves would have avoided—or at least they would have created Lights before entering.
“Ow!” Gray said as he bumped into a crate in an alley. Then he began to laugh at himself.
“Here.” Kole opened his palm as he tried to cast the Glow cantrip.
He found that in his current state, manipulating his Will was quite difficult. Like trying to grab hold of a slimy and wriggling live fish.
On his third try he got it, and the white light flooded the alley, revealing that they weren’t alone.
“Oh! Hello there!” Zale said, cheerfully waving at the two men in front of her.
Kole stared at them confused for a moment and turned around to find two more behind them.
Harold put his hand on her shoulder, and it glowed gently for a moment. Zale’s face sobered, her smile fading into a determined expression as the drunkenness left her.
“Oh,” she said more seriously as she noticed the clubs in the hands of the four.
Harold quickly poked Kole and Gray, cleansing their minds with his Blessing before moving to Esme. Suddenly clearheaded, Kole took in his surroundings.
The four men had continued to close in as Harold sobered them up.
“Flood,” Kole cursed, turning to Zale. “Again?”
Zale was in her disguise now, having reactivated it when they left to avoid just this kind of situation.
“This isn’t my fault,” Zale said, spreading her arms and gesturing at her disguised self.
“It wasn’t your fault last time,” Kole said, though it wasn’t the time or place for him to bolster her self-esteem.
Harold gave Kole an appreciative nod despite the situation.
“Drop your stuff and run, and no one needs to get hurt,” one man said, the tip of his club stained a dark brown.
“This happened before?” Gray asked, looking between them.
“You don’t remember?” Kole asked, a little irritated. “You were really mad at me after. Said it was my fault.”
Gray’s face fell.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry about that.”
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
“Ahem,” the spokesman for the thugs said, tapping his club on the ground. “I don’t think you lot are taking this seriously enough. I’m going to count to five, and you can either drop everything you have on you, or we’ll take it from you.”
Zale moved to reach into her jacket and looked around.
“One!” the man said loudly.
“Try not to kill them this time,” Zale said.
“They didn’t die!” Kole said, affronted.
“No thanks to you!”
“Two!”
Zale vanished into a cloud of black motes, and Kole turned to face the speaker. The two men who had come up from behind were side by side, now only ten feet away. Zale and Kole were in the back, with Harold and Gray in front of them, and Esme in the very front. Beyond them were two more thugs who were blocking their exit.
