DearSpellbook
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Chapter 62: Back to Reality
🕑 Added 2024-01-29 13:44:17 +0000 UTCWhile ensouled artifacts can no longer be created, soul stones can be used to enhance and empower enchantments, but the secret to this process is closely guarded by enchanters, and this author will not risk their ire by publicizing their secrets.
-Deckard’s Compendium of Ensouled Artifacts
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With Doug’s help, Zale dragged the unconscious Rakin through the tunnel up to the inn. A crowd had formed there, people cowered in fear in the corner furthest from the stairs to the tunnels.
Sighs of relief, and one noticeable groan, broke out through the huddled mass as the four young adventurers climbed the steps.
“Is it gone?” a woman asked, desperation clear in her tone as she clung to the man next to her—the man whose room had held a captive elemental.
He squirmed under the glare Zale and the other shot him.
“Yes,” Zale said curtly.
The man looked from Zale to the woman next to him and back, hope growing in his eyes that he might have escaped.
“Phillip stole a baby ice elemental,” Zale said with a small evil smile.
Everyone’s eyes snapped to the man.
“I… uh…” he stammered. “No! She’s lying!”
The door to the inn suddenly shifted. Where previously it had been a the simple wood door, covered in wool tapestries to add insulation, now the black stone door of the Dahn took its place.
“Looks like we can leave,” Kole said, but none of them moved to the door.
Zale sighed, and shook her head.
“One second.”
She walked to the crowd that was in the process of forming a mob around the man.
“Don’t kill him!” Zale shouted, drawing everyone’s attention. “We’ll take him out of town, exile him.”
Phillip, who was beginning to calm down at Zale’s pronouncement blanched at the end
“But the storm!” he protested.
“It’ll be fine,” Zale said, dismissing his very legitimate concerns. “You stole that fox through the storm. You’ll manage. Lets go.”
“My coat!” he shouted, as the crowd pushed him to the door.
Zale grabbed the stumbling man by his collar and dragged him out the inn. Someone threw a thick coat at the man and they disappeared into the Dahn. Kole and Doug followed, dragging Rakin behind them.
When they entered the Dahn, the door closed behind them.
Kole looked around the room, seeing that their belongings from their room had been transferred out into this ready area.
“Where’d the guy go?” Kole asked.
“He.. Uh…” Zale began, not making eye contact. “He vanished as I dragged him through the door…”
“Oh…”
“I thought I should save him from the mob, but… did I just kill him?” She asked.
“I… don’t know,” Kole answered. “Was he even real?”
“They have to be!” Doug asserted, but then less certainly asked. “Right?”
They sat, talking over their experiences with the people inside the dungeon, mostly Doug and Zale, since Kole had just studied the whole time. After a short while, Rakin stirred.
“Rakin?” Zale whispered.
“Aye,” he moaned. “It’s me.”
“I think the flaming murdery guy before was you too,” Kole observed, earning a weak swat from the dwarf.
“Let’s get the Fauell out of here,” Rakin said.
“Wait!” Kole said, remembering something.
He pulled a potion from his bag and drank it, only wincing slightly at the taste.
“Those won’t work outside.” He said. “Do you want to change?”
All eyes turned to Rakin, whose gray monk robes were stained red with blood. His beard, which was normally neatly combed and trimmed, was a mess, and he was covered in bruises.
“Nah,” he said.
They limped out of the room, not sure what to expect. They’d been gone a month.
Could time really have passed so differently? Kole thought.
Professor Underbrook stood outside the door waiting, all the students beyond turning over to look at their exit.
“Shhh,” the halfling teacher said, holding a finger to his lips. “Let’s go talk about your experience.”
He led them to one of the side rooms, while Tigereye let another group of students in. Kole didn’t know any of the students, but he recognized one of the girls in the group as being a primal from the first session.
The room they were led to was a small comfortable sitting room, furnished with a few large, overstuffed leather couches. A small colored glass sphere sat on the coffee table in the center.
“There are refreshments over there if you’d like. I’m sure you’re all a bit chilled,” Underbrook said, gesturing to a cart of rune-heated carafes.
Doug ran right over and made himself a cup of tea, while everyone else made themselves comfortable.
“We have about ten minutes to discuss your results, but before we do. Do you have any questions for me?”
“Lots,” Kole said, getting a chuckle from the professor. “Did you watch us somehow?”
“In a way. When you return to the ready room, the Dahn produces a crystal. Anyone with a bit of training and a mental vault can quickly review the events in a matter of moments.”
The friends looked uncomfortably at each other, each trying to recall if they’d done anything they wouldn’t have wanted seen. Rakin had told Kole that all of his professors were aware of his particular magical affliction, so they were not worried about that secret. But, privacy is a blessing for the impulse-driven teenager, prone to rash decisions as they are.
“Don’t look like that,” the professor said, “The Dahn only shows us the bits relevant to your education. Trust me, we don’t want to watch everything a bunch of teenagers do for a month.”
The awkward energy vanished, and Kole felt that maybe he’d save any further questions for later.
“No more questions? Great. Let’s move on to your performance. You all scored a four out of five,” he held up his hand to forestall any protests. “Before you protest, a four is a great score. Fives are reserved for only the most spectacular performances. We didn’t grade the goblin cave, but if we had, no one would have earned it in either attempt. A five really requires a team to go above and beyond, for instance, convincing the goblins to release the captives freely, and then getting them to move out of the region.”
“Has something like that happened?” Zale asked.
“That specific example? No, the Dahn never repeats dungeons. But, you all did quite well. You used your downtime productively while staying vigilant—for the most part.”
Underbrook stared at Kole at the last statement.
“Sometimes one can focus too much on their studies,” he continued. “You also handled the conflict with the elemental well. Save for Rakin’s, ahem, hidden talents, your group was poorly suited for this particular foes, but you all did well in investigating the falsehood. Great job Zale at getting to know the locals. That’s an invaluable skill. Never underestimate the locals. Just because they need your help, doesn’t mean they can’t help you.”
Zale beamed at the praise.
“Doug, you did good to help in the greenhouses, had that been a real situation, your aid would have left them with great surpluses in the coming harvest.
“Rakin, you did well, especially in such a hostile environment. I know you lost control in the end, but sometimes its necessary to go all out when other’s lives are on the line.
Rakin only gave a nod, acknowledging the praise, but he didn’t seem to believe it. Underbrook turned to Kole last.
“And you, I must say, I’m impressed. I confess I didn’t truly understand the full weight of your condition. May I see your spellbook?”
Kole handed his spellbook over, reluctantly, as if the professor intended to steal it.
He flipped through the worn journal, looking at the items Kole had copied over from his old book and his new additions. The professor only seemed concerned with the book’s contents, not the book itself and Kole judged he hadn’t seen the revelation that it was an ensouled artifact.
“Such work! I know Lonin hates adventurers, but how could he pass you up? How many spells have you reconstructed and learned these past three weeks?”
Kole didn’t know how to react to such outward praise. He counted on his fingers as he thought through the weeks.
“Five? Six? It’s hard to say since I don’t finish them all.”
“Six!? Thats wonderful. The most we expect to learn in the first semester in WIZ 105 is two, but it’s usually only one since they enter with two. You really have a gift for spellforms and spell theory.”
Could this be it? Kole thought but didn’t dare to hope.
“You have a real uphill battle, but I think you might just get there.”
He stopped the praise there, and abruptly changed the topic, crushing Kole’s burgeoning hopes of a mentor.
“So what did you do wrong?” he asked.
The students looked from him to each other, unsure.
He proceeded to outline where they could have done better, such as helping evacuate the townspeople more before fleeing the elemental. He also told Rakin that he ought to have investigated his odd sensation more when the fox elemental had appeared.
“Your magical senses shouldn’t be ignored. If you see smoke, there's probably fire. Always investigate anything out of the norm.”
They discussed minor things for the few remaining minutes before Underbrook had to leave to get the next group. Each group would be inside for 5 minutes, and the professors would alternate their debriefs, giving a small window to talk over each student’s performance in the immediate aftermath.
The class had twenty groups, of four to five members for a class total of ninety. After leaving, they went over to the showers to get cleaned up. They weren’t as dirty as after the goblin adventure and its sewer tunnel jaunt, but they were very sweaty and covered in cuts from the ice. The wounds had already begun to heal, leaving only the crusted blood and sweat.
After getting cleaned up, they sat in one of the clusters of desks in the room and waited for others to join them. Gray’s group had followed them, and by the time Kole’s group had showered, they saw them leaving Tigereye’s debrief. Zale and Harold exchanged shy waves, while Gray and Kole avoided eye contact. After twenty minutes, the desks had begun to fill up with students who both had and hadn’t had their dungeon run, and an older student came in to begin a discussion. The student looked to be around eighteen, and he already bore scars on his face from some clawed creature. The discussion was interesting and unstructured. Many people were still exhausted from their dungeon run—the wizards and primals most of all as bodies rapidly recovered stamina after the dungeon while Will did not.
The student teaching the session posed situations to the class, outlining combat situations and asking what tactics would be best to handle them. Zale was one of the primary contributors to the discussion, and she seemed to be competing with Harold to get the best answers.
When Kole realized that no one was enforcing engagement with the lesson, he put his head down on his desk and fell asleep. He was exhausted and really didn’t want to consider the best way to light trolls on fire when in a wet swamp.
Though, as he fell asleep, he realized the information would probably be useful someday.
Comments
TK523
A troll and its pet donkey?
Nimps
Please make him fight a troll in a swamp lol
