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Chapter 3: Sand
🕑 Added 2024-08-23 10:00:04 +0000 UTCThe dragons’ forces regrouped for a follow-up assault. And, on Riloth 19th, just over a month later all their plans met mostly failure. On this day, the few remaining Hardune members exhibited extraordinary success, with small groups of dwarves and gnomes defeating much larger groups of forsaken. Nearly all the Hardune outposts keeping the forsaken out of Basin were recaptured, the rest taken shortly after.
- Day the Heroes by Erol Vondermin
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The five ate their food on a sandy beach on the river bank, as they watched groups of children fighting to build boats out of random assorted materials and tools they were provided. The children ranged from six years old to people Kole’s own age, but age didn’t necessarily correspond to performance.
After he’d finished eating, Rakin lay back down into the sand, closed his eyes, and spread his arms and legs wide, in a way that reminded Kole of the starfish that occasionally made their way through the dome of his home.
“Ahhh,” Rakin said, after taking a deep breath. “I love sand.”
“You’re going to get sand all over my house!!” Zale yelled at him.
She and everyone else were sitting on a blanket Zale had brought.
Kole had noticed previously that Zale’s home had noticeably been exempt from the magical force that seemed to keep everything else in the Dahn clean, but he’d never asked why. If it had been like the rest of the magical building, Amara’s recent crumb obsession would have likely fallen on something else.
“It’ll be fine,” Rakin reassured her.
As he spoke, the sand rippled around him under his control, as if it were only a thin latter of sand on a vibrating surface.
“Why is your house always dirty?” Kole asked.
“Excuse me?” Zale asked, snapping her head in Kole’s direction, “My home is immaculate.” She said, and then quickly amended, “—outside my room. Are you also concerned about the foraging behaviors of ants?”
Kole, who’d immediately regretted his choice of words, chose to collect his thoughts before uttering a defense. He was learning.
“Sorry,” he began, “I misspoke. Why doesn’t the magical cleaning force of the Dahn clean your house as well?”
”Forgiven,” Zale said, nodding approvingly at the apology.” My mom turned it off—everywhere but her rooms that is. She said children needed to learn to do chores so they can learn self-discipline. So I have to clean everything.”
“That doesn’t sound like your mom,” Kole said.
Zale sighed.
“She was very much not herself when I was little. She’s not great with little kids. She read a bunch of books on parenting when I was little to make sure I didn’t grow up to be ‘an entitled kobold.’”
“Well, she must have figured it out at some point then,“ Kole said. “I would say you’re probably not a kobold.”
“Thanks,” Zale said, smiling. “She got some help from Dagmar, she’s a great mom, but even the best moms can raise a Rakin.”
Suddenly, a spray of sand flew over them, covering them everywhere in the coarse, rough irritating grains.
They all jumped to their feet, yelling at Rakin.
“What was that for?” Doug demanded. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I don’t know what yer talking about, it musta been the wind,” Rakin said, still laying down, but unable to hide a smile.
Eventually, Zale convinced Rakin to clean them off using his Earth magic, and they had a fun time watching children slowly sink beneath the river’s surface, only to be rescued by sea folk waiting below. Zale explained that the boat race was supposed to be in remembrance of the chaos of the Flood as everyone struggled to build ships.
As Kole watched the children play and the spectators gawk, he didn’t think very much remembrance was going on.
They spent the rest of the night walking around the city, receiving many strange looks whenever anyone noticed Zale’s skin, but less than usual due to all the costumes. One person came up to Doug and complimented him on his deer costume before they noticed his tail and ran away at the realization he was a demonkin.
“It’s always nice to have one’s antlers compliments,” Doug had said when asked if he was upset.
As the festivities began to wind down, the five headed back to campus and their temporarily shared living space.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
“Wake up!” a muffled voice shouted through the door.
Kole rolled over lazily and checked the time.
5:00 AM
What? he thought groggily before his wits returned to him.
“If this is another Landing tradition, I’ll pass!” Kole yelled through the door.
“It’s not! I promise!” Kole heard Zale’s shouted reply.
Kole got himself out of bed and trudged over to the door. He opened it to reveal Zale, dressed in her armor, and holding a sword.
“It’s time we started training again!” she said cheerily.
Kole let out a groan, and for the first time in a the week since his room had been relocated, missed his old rat roommate.
Zale went ‘easy’ on their training that day, or so she claimed. They began with an ‘easy’ two-mile run around the training yard, before they went on a trek through the forest wearing backpacks full of rocks, and finished it up with some ‘light’ sparring.
Kole had decided that Zale maybe might be a little out of touch with the state of a normal person’s physical limits. Either that or Kole was really out of shape.
“So,” Zale said over breakfast. “today there’s the Landing’s Eve dance festival, and the Landing’s Eve nature walk, and then the lantern lighting.”
“Is it a participating dance, or a watching dance?” Kole asked.
“Participating!” Zale said, misreading the intent of Kole’s inquiry.
“I... think I am going to pass,” Kole said.
“What? Why?”
“Oh good, I didn’t want to go either. I’m out too,” Rakin said.
“No, you’re not,” Zale said, turning to Rakin. “Kole? Why?”
“I’m exhausted,” Kole said, realizing that Doug and Rakin didn’t seem to be. “How about I go to the other stuff? The nature walk. No, the lantern thing.”
Zale bit the inside of her cheek a little disappointed, but then took in Kole’s condition.
“Fine,” she conceded. “But don’t be late for the lantern festival. We’ll do it on the Griffin’s Roost’s roof. Be there at seven.”
Kole found that he had more energy than he thought when he began walking back to his room to renew his studies. He reflected that maybe he could push himself further in training if he focused better on the goal of it all.
He was eager to get back to his room so that he could finalize his work on Thunderwave. In hindsight, at the end of the semester, he hadn’t been as close to his breakthrough of a 10 Will version of the spell as he’d hoped and expected. In between their games and deciphering over the last week, Kole had made time to continue his work. In the end, it needed another week of work, and if it hadn’t been for the surprise increase in his Will capacity as an after-effect of the Will poisoning, he wouldn't have had any hope of passing WIZ 102
So, with this in mind, Kole returned to his room and got to pathing the spell.
Eleven hours later, Kole had it—or at least he thought he did. He’d long ago decided that it wouldn’t be wise to test spells out in his room in the Dahn. He ran out of his room, into Zale’s home, and then out through the door to the foyer of the Dahn, which on the eve of Landing Day, was deserted as everyone was preparing for the lantern show with their families.
For the first time in a while, Kole thought of his uncle, and a pang of regret went through him. He’d always meant to write him, but something always seemed to get in the way.
Well... studying got in the way, he admitted to himself, vowing to write to him that night.
He was halfway through the green of campus when the bell rang for seven
Flood, he cursed internally and then changed his direction.
While he knew he’d been running late to see Zale, he hadn’t thought he’d been that late, and he’d been planning to stop by the spell range for just a quick moment.
As he turned toward the Roost, he took in the deserted campus.
“Hmmm.”
Before he could second guess his poor choices, Kole traced the new spell template in his mind and sent it into the Arcane Realm.
The power came through him immediately, and a loud crack echoed off the buildings and trees around him as thunder roared, through all the loose grass clipping up into the air.
“What are you doing!?” a male voice shouted.
Kole spun around to see two armed adventurers running at him with weapons raised.
“Sorry!” Kole shouted, hands held in the air. “I was just testing a spell.”
The two men stopped and shook their heads in frustration.
“Wizards,” the man said under his breath. “Don’t cast spells on campus! You know we are on high alert, right?”
Oh yeah... Kole said, realizing belatedly that the deserted campus was probably not as empty as it appeared.
