What We Do to Survive

Even after a hot shower, a reasonable night’s sleep, and half-an-hour spent talking to and holding Lea, I still felt somewhat dirty as I headed to lunch the next day. Physically I was as clean as could be. I’d been both physically and mentally exhausted when I finally made it back to my room and Rea had cheerfully volunteered to scrub every inch of me so I didn’t have to exert myself. I’d taken her up on the offer, and the unscented soap and hot water helped, but I could still almost feel Brenda’s grubby little fingers pawing at my skin. Urgh.

I was pretty sure it wasn’t a magical effect either. I’d scoured myself with detection and cleansing spells just in case she’d tried something I hadn’t initially noticed, but that hadn’t helped either. It seemed to be a purely mental result of spending so much time in such close proximity with the annoying, grabby, entitled bitch.

Honestly that was somehow even worse than if she had managed to dose me with something or hit me with a spell. I could deal with those, but there wasn’t very much I could do about tricks played by my own mind. Magic that affected the mind directly was notoriously tricky and not something I focused on much outside of mental enhancements, and there was absolutely no way I was ever willingly letting someone else mess around with my head.

I made it to the cafeteria without running into any trouble. In fact, I didn’t run into anyone. Even the usually busy central hallways I passed through were completely deserted. At any other time of year, that would have been a cause for alarm all on its own. Such telegraphed ambushes weren’t common, but they did happen sometimes and I didn’t like my odds against an entire hallway worth of illusioned fourth-years.

However, it was still the first week of the month-long winter break––though the weather outside in Gulivine certainly didn’t feel particularly wintery––and that meant that a massive portion of the school’s population was currently gone. Avalon was all but empty, with only a handful of students from each year, those that had nowhere to go or projects they couldn’t leave behind, still present in the pocket dimension.

While the second half of the break was going to be packed with events––the official dueling challenges, the winter market, and the solstice festival to name a few––the first two weeks were always intentionally left completely open to give students a bit of a break. Motivated students took advantage of that time to progress personal projects that they couldn’t devote enough time to during the year. Most others simply went home if they had the means, or traveled in groups to explore whatever area the Avalon portal was currently located.

Even Brenda was gone now. She’d delayed her departure so we could have our ‘date’, but an unspecified relative of hers was supposed to have come to pick her up this morning. When she’d told me that, she’d been very apologetic that we wouldn’t be able to spend more time together in the coming week. I had been so glad I hadn’t decided to try anything that I’d nearly failed to come off as properly saddened by the news. I was pretty sure I could get some things past Brenda herself, but I had absolutely no confidence in my work evading the notice of whatever teleporting Archmage had come to pick her up.

It was honestly rather nice. The library was all but deserted, I could reserve training rooms for as long as I needed them, and it took way less effort to avoid people when there weren’t as many of them around. Also I wouldn’t have to see Brenda again for nearly two entire weeks. That wasn’t nearly long enough, particularly after spending nearly half a day together in such close proximity, but I would take what I could get.

Even though this was the fifth break since I’d joined the Academy, It was still rather jarring to see the cafeteria, typically the loudest and busiest part of the school, so empty. Usually at this time of day there would be nearly a thousand people here for lunch, but instead there were less than a dozen others and none that I recognized.

Despite the nearly empty hall, the buffet tables were still piled high with enough food to feed thousands, and I quickly grabbed a plate and loaded it with bread, fresh vegetables, and today’s main dish––some sort of pale grain cooked with meat, eggs, and finely-diced vegetables. It wasn’t something I’d had before, but it smelled good and I wasn’t exactly a particularly picky eater. Hungry nights spent picking through trash for scraps had ensured that much.

I also took the time to fill up a few transmuted metal containers I brought with me and packed them away in my bag. Most of the time I kept Rea fed with the same nutritious glop that I fed to my cows, but it was cheaper to sometimes bring her something from the cafeteria if I could manage it.

On my way to get some tea to go with my food, I noticed a small table surreptitiously positioned between the buffet and the back wall of the hall such that you could only see it from a few places in the hall. I paused for a moment. That…hadn’t been there yesterday, I was nearly certain of it.

I quickly set my plate down on the closest table, the magic of the cafeteria ensuring I wasn’t worried about someone poisoning my food, walked around the buffet, and approached the ‘hidden’ table. I was nearly certain I knew what it was, and I was rather glad I’d spotted it.

A moment later, I was proven right. There were a half-dozen booklets lying innocuously on the table, each one simply labeled ‘Avalon Academy––Spring Classes’. I quickly scooped one up and hurried back to my food, my mood greatly improved.

As in most things, class selection was another area where Avalon rewarded students putting in the required work. Each class had to be registered for separately by dropping an appropriately filled out form in a box set out by the professor, as well as filing a matching document with the Headmaster’s staff.

In theory, class registration started the last week of the break, when every student would receive a booklet like the one in my hands at their door. In practice, every professor had their boxes out as soon as the previous semester ended, class booklets could be found scattered around the Academy throughout the break, and forms were readily available year-round. I actually had an entire stack of them in my room that I’d picked up during my first year and hadn’t run out of yet.

For most classes, registering early didn’t matter much. Particularly in the first few years, most students took nearly the same standardized classes with plenty of room and even-tempered professors. Signing up for classes like Evocation Fundamentals, Mana Studies, and Fundamentals of Potionology was made intentionally easy since everyone was required to take them.

However there were plenty of electives with only a handful of seats and some Professors made it intentionally difficult to find or use their registration box. It was also very nice to have several extra weeks to decide on a schedule for the spring and look up all the interesting-sounding classes. The booklets only contained the name of the class, who was teaching it, and what time the class was offered. For more information on what the class was actually about, you had to reference the library's enormous class catalogs and those were always very contested during the end of the break.

It was a good find. I had planned to go out looking for one sometime this week, but this saved me from having to comb the shelves in the library for the handful of copies that would inevitably be ‘hidden’ there. I really didn’t fancy competing with hundreds of my classmates for the catalogs again this year, so I wanted to at least choose all of my classes before people started coming back.

Barely paying attention to my food, I flipped the booklet open and started to read. Despite not really having that many students, Avalon offered a truly enormous number of classes each semester. Though I didn’t know the specifics, I knew that every Professor was required to offer a certain number of classes each decade and it counted for their quota even if no one signed up. Every proposed class had to be approved ahead of time and Professors who had offered the course previously had priority in teaching that class in the future. Professors also had to offer some mix of upper and lower level classes, and there were a number of classes that had to be offered each semester even if no one specifically wanted to teach them.

The system was arcane in the extreme––a good half of my past Professors had complained about it at one time or another––but it seemed to be working so far. It also meant that there were a ton of options every term, many of which would have at most a scant few students taking them, particularly in the case of upper-level classes. Just in the first few pages I’d already found twenty-six classes only available for seventh-years…of whom there were currently twenty-five left alive.

My eyes moved swiftly down the page. I really wished they had at least alphabetized everything, but ultimately that wouldn’t have helped much. Demonic Summoning for Beginners – Professor Axleu – Fifth-Circle, Dragons and How Not to be Eaten By Them – Professor Duchendwarn – First-Circle, Stopping the Tides and Stilling the Earth – Professor Shatterglass – Seventh-Circle, Mana Stabilization for Barrier Rituals and Associated Spellcasting – Professor Williams – Third-Circle.

I paused and read the previous line over again, then marked the page. Looking back, I was almost certain I hadn’t seen this particular class in any of the previous class catalogs. I would have to check when I got back to my room, but I was nearly certain this was the class Professor Williams had all but ordered me to take.

I checked the time; ten to twelve on Mondays and Wednesdays. Hopefully it wouldn’t cut me off from any of the other classes I wanted to take. I had been looking forward to my very first semester with no mandatory classes I had to take, but I had a feeling this was a class I would have wanted to choose even without Professor Williams’ words.

Without looking away from the booklet, I stood up, fetched a new cup of tea, and continued to read, occasionally noting down a class name that sounded interesting. It was impossible to know if you managed to find everything you wanted––some class names were completely opaque and it would take far too long to look into each and every one––but choosing from a few dozen was well within my means.

Micro Precision and Runic Structors with Alchemical Transmutations sounded fascinating, though I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to take a third class with Professor Meadows. Professor Yana was offering the second class of her four-part Advanced Body Alteration sequence, but I hadn’t been nearly as impressed by the class as I’d hoped to be so I might pass on that one. Professor Zim, one of my favorites from my first year at Avalon, was offering a fourth-circle class simply labeled ‘Spheres’ in the booklet––I would need to check the catalog for what it was actually about.

I also marked down a few classes I thought Miranda and my other bound servants would be interested in. I had a vested interest in their education now, and if that meant a little extra time spent helping them choose their classes then so be it. I’d definitely be passing this booklet along to them once I was done with it, but noting some things down now would just save time later.

Lighting People on Fire with Professor Shrike sounded like it might be good for Briella, and with her bloodline she’d probably be fine in the third-circle class. That Which Cannot Be Destroyed was a class I knew Miranda had been considering last semester, and this time it was being taught by a Professor I’d heard good things about. There were also a half-dozen rune-related classes that I thought might be of interest to Camille.

Two-thirds of the way through the booklet, I felt a familiar mana signature sit down in the chair across from me. I slowly finished reading the page, marked down another class name––Circulatory Systems, hopefully a class about circulations and not anatomy––and only then closed the book and looked up.

“Good afternoon, Clarient,” I said politely.

Clarient scowled at me, but it still felt like a more positive reaction than the ice-cold menace of our previous interactions. She didn’t like me, but she wasn’t necessarily an enemy. Well, not for nine more semesters at least, and hopefully not ever.

“Orion,” she greeted back after a moment, dipping her head a fraction of an inch. She paused, then sighed heavily and slowly brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “One of your classmates, Delphin Oratorio, is going to be challenging you this year. He’s an idiot, but he owes me money and he apparently put in the challenge before our oath and didn’t bother telling me until recently.”

I raised an eyebrow and she sighed again. “I’ve already talked to him. You’re going to destroy him. Try not to hurt him too much. Please.” She almost choked on the last word. It sounded like a trick, but something told me that this was a request made in good faith. “I’ll owe you one.”

Huh. Well, I didn’t like it, but a favor from Clarient Valorous was not something to scoff at. “I’m listening.”