Doom Valley Prep School

When magic class finally ended, I headed off to subterfuge, the one class I actually wanted to attend. I didn't want to become a trained liar, but it had my favourite teacher Bob, and I wasn't likely to get burned or horribly maimed in it. That had never really been a concern of mine before coming to Doom Valley Prep, now it was at the top of my list.

When I reached the classroom, I saw Clarice already had a seat along with Gold her boyfriend, Antoine, the white haired boy Naomi liked, and Honey Creeper, the elf who almost had his legs broken by Calci. They waved me over, and I gladly took a seat with them. This class was already better than my Magic one, I had some safety in numbers, and the room actually looked like a regular classroom with normal fairy lights, proper desks and chairs, and a typical mirror board.

“What happened to your dress?” Clarice asked, looking at my burnt clothes.

“A fireball went out of control in magic class. I got a bit singed,” I lied, getting in some early practice for the class.

Everyone looked a little scared at that.

“So what were your first classes like?”

“Gold, Antoine and I all had Controlling Minions for Fun and Profit. Ella was in it too, she seemed to know every answer. It was interesting, Professor Bloody Knife is a really good teacher,” Clarice said.

Honey Creeper's eyes went wide. “Bloody Knife!”

“He's a goblin,” Gold said. “It's a common name for them.”

“What about your magic class, Petra?” Clarice asked.

“Well when I wasn't getting burned, it was... OK. A tentacle monster attacked a girl, but the teacher made it let her go,” I said. “How about you Honey Creeper? You're focusing on subterfuge aren't you?”

The elf nodded. “Yeah, but I just had math. It was math.”

The bell rang signalling the start of class, but Bob still hadn't shown up. We started looking around for the Dwarf instructor, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Turning around, a small girl with bright purple pig tails I hadn't seen before, was smiling at me and holding out a pencil.

“Excuse me, do you think this pencil is sharp enough?” she asked.

Curious, I almost poked my finger against the extremely sharp looking lead, then I remembered where I was. Taking a piece of paper from my notebook I gently pushed it against the pencil, the paper seemed to disintegrate forming a perfect hole around the tip.

“Yeah. I think it's sharp enough you could actually kill someone with it,” I said. For some mysterious reason my back suddenly felt itchy, and I was very nervous about having this girl sitting directly behind me. My worry increased when she started to grin.

“Thank you!”

The small girl drew her hand back and threw the pencil as hard as she could against the wall. There was a scream, followed by a thud as a person was suddenly nailed to the wall, with the pencil embedded in their shoulder. A moment later a dagger fell from the mans hand, clattering on the floor.

There was dead silence in the room, except for the groaning of the masked man who was wearing a, now ruined, invisibility suit, and the giggling of the little girl.

We could only watch in shock as the girl skipped from her desk up to the man, who was trying to free his shoulder.

“Hi, mister assassin!” the girl said. “Who sent you?”

The man didn't answer. Instead he tried to kick the girl in the face.

That didn't go very well. Instead of getting knocked down, the girl grabbed his foot in her hand. Then she began to shimmer. Where a cute young girl had been, Bob the Dwarf now stood holding the assassins foot in one enormous hand.

Letting go of the foot, Bob frowned in disgust. “Don't try that again, the pencil is enchanted so you have all the strength of a newborn fairy. I was expecting you an hour ago.”

The lying instructor scratched his long beard. “Let's see you've got an invisibility suit, blessed by the Demon Lord of Secrecy. The dagger is from the forge of the Dead God, so a single nick of the blade will kill anyone, even lower gods and demons. Judging by the orichalcum and blood iron ring on your right hand, it's been crafted by some underling of the Demon Lord of Stealth and the Goddess of Secrecy. You're from the Hidden Path Assassin Guild, you guys always rely too much on your toys.”

I couldn't see much thanks to the assassins mask, but his eyes narrowed and it seemed like he was trying to kill Bob with his mind. The Dwarf ignored this, and kept talking.

“The Kingdom of Hiodiola has a contract with your guild. So you must be here to assassinate me because of the evening I spent with Queen Hyacinth, or the picnic I had with Princess Hilda while she should have been at her twentieth birthday party.” He grinned as the assassin tried to free himself.

“Well if you'd be so kind as to tell those two lovely ladies I'll be visiting again in a few months, I'd appreciate it. And let King Ethelred know that I'm taking very good care of his crown jewels. Ta-ta,” Bob said, snapping his fingers which made the assassin vanish.

While we all watched in shock, Bob picked up the assassins dagger, sighed in disgust and threw it into the garbage can beside the door. The garbage inside caught fire and moaning green smoke rose up to the ceiling. Ignoring the fire, Bob climbed a set of stairs to stand behind the podium. “Sorry about that. The assassin had been wandering around the school all morning, and I was too busy to deal with him until now.

“In this class you'll learn how to lie and tell when someone is lying to you. As you saw, having magical disguises can help, but without the right attitude you'll be discovered. If that assassin had been paying close attention, he might have been able to spot me and slit my throat, but he was cocky and thought I'd look like my usual handsome self.”

He looked straight at me. “Petra when you tricked Reginald, how did you do it?”

Standing up, sweat erupted from my forehead. All eyes were on me, and my tongue felt too large for my mouth. Forcing myself to take a breath, I somehow opened my mouth and began to speak. “Well, I mostly just acted helpless and let him talk. Since I'd been caught by goblins, it was pretty easy pretending I needed help.”

“Very good. You used your looks and defencelessness to get a capable meat shield that just had to save the damsel in distress. Doing the test in your nightgown was a daring risk, but it paid off in the end.” He turned to the class, “How many of you would suspect something suspicious about a tiny, weak and helpless girl in a nightgown?”

I frowned at his 'tiny, weak and helpless' comment, but I honestly couldn't say anything to defend myself.

He pointed at one student who had his hand raised. “You'd suspect her?”

“Yeah. Why would a girl in a nightgown be wandering around in a cave?” the boy said.

“Excellent. Petra got lucky being captured by goblins. If she'd been discovered just wandering around the cave, it would have taken a bit more talking to gain the dupes trust.”

Seeing that the attention was off of me, I took my seat. I wasn't sure if Bob knew I'd been caught by surprise when I'd been teleported for the test or not, the way he was talking made me seem daring and clever. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but it was nicer than having everyone know I was an idiot.

**

When class ended, I said goodbye to my friends and made my way all alone to history class.

The secret passage to that part of the school was deserted. The crumbling stones looked ancient, dripping with condensation, and covered in mushrooms and moss. The air was humid and the lights flickered feebly, leaving everything in a scary twilight with lots of shadows.

“You seem to have gotten smarter since I turned you into a girl.”

I jumped and screamed in fright as Micheal stepped out of the shadows. My hands tightened into fists and I brought them up to punch him if he came too close to me. Part of me wished he'd try something so I could break his nose, but I realized he wouldn't be doing this if he wasn't prepared.

“What do you want, freak?” I demanded.

“I just wanted to say hi. Where's the harm in that?” He held out a piece of candy. “Want some candy? This is really good stuff.”

“Just how stupid do you think I am,” I demanded.

“I'm just being friendly,” he said, grinning way too broadly.

“If you don't get out of my way, I'll beat you up again and I won't stop until I've broken every bone in your body.”

Putting his hands up, still grinning, he said, “OK, OK. I can see there's still some bad blood between us. I've got to get to class, so have a nice day.”

I was about to say something nasty, when he dropped the candy. It exploded into a pink cloud, blinding me. I heard him running away and followed the noise, putting my hand over my mouth and nose while holding my breath. I didn't really want to fight him, I just needed to get to class and I really wanted to get out of the cloud before it did something horrible to me.

When I got free of the cloud, Micheal was long gone. Looking down I was still in one piece and it looked like I was still human. Same pale skin, same long hair, same burnt dress, same breasts. I wasn't sure if I should be happy to still be a girl, or if I should be unhappy that I was still a girl.

Stupid Micheal, making me feel confused.

Jogging down the corridor, I reached my class just as the bell rang. Sitting in the closest free seat, I tried to put the creep out of my mind and focus on the class.

The teacher was a woman with parchment for skin. Actual parchment, pages were plastered all over her, and covered in words from many different languages. Her eyes looked like pools of ink, and her robe was a single, massive piece of paper. I realized almost immediately that she was a goddess.

“Greetings students. I am the Goddess of Written History, you may call me Ms. Parch,” she said. Her voice sounded like a quill scraping against paper.

“This class will not be easy,” she said. “There will be many tests, quiz's and papers, feel free to pray to me. The more creative prayers and offerings may receive a little divine help.”

I tried not to groan, I hated writing papers. I'd have to ask my friends for some help coming up with a way to get her divine help.

“Now, who can tell me what was the most important historical event that shaped our entire modern world?” she asked.

Looking around, most students were like me, not wanting to answer. A few hands were raised however, and I recognized one of them.

“Yes, Princess Ella,” Ms. Parch said, pointing at my friend.

“The most important event was The Pub Crawl of Chaos, four-hundred and sixty years ago. It marks the divide between Before the Party and After the Party,” Ella said.

“Very good. Now what exactly was The Pub Crawl and why was it so important?”

“The Goddess of Travel and the Demon Lord of Parties, met up at one of the regular discussion groups between the Gods and Demons. They were attracted to each other and began to... party.”

Ella paused for a moment in embarrassment, before continuing. “They spent the next four weeks going from one party to another, all across the world. They were enjoying themselves so much that they lost control of their powers. This caused portals to open up transporting people, buildings, cities, lakes, islands and mountains, all over the world, while causing mortals to have the largest party in known history. It took four weeks for the demons, gods, spirit and the Immortal Emperor of Arp to find them and separate them. Daddy said they needed the largest bucket of cold water ever, along with an unbreakable blessed crowbar made of specially prepared soul steel, to get them away from each other.”

“Correct,” Ms. Parch said. “When everyone recovered from the chaos, the world was forever changed. And that lead to...”

“The Hangover Agreement. All demons, gods, greater spirits and the Immortal Emperor of Arp, will ensure that the Goddess of Travel and the Demon Lord of Parties, are never in the same area together, without at least two chaperones, and a bucket of water.”

The goddess frowned. “I never liked that name, but your father insisted on it. And yes, that's correct, you may sit now.”

My pen raced over my notebook, writing all of the info down. Once again I was glad I had Ella for a roommate. Sharing notes with her would make this class a lot easier.