I was excited to see what magic school was all about so I’d trotted off ahead. I could feel through the familiar link how upset Seth was at being separated from Saben. He’d had some big losses recently and his brother had been his lifeline. I think the kid idolized his big bro a bit too much personally. I didn’t want the kid to mope about so I was going to inject some energy into his day.

Chase me Gandalf!

I had a vague idea where we were going. I didn’t have room numbers or anything, but I’d been on the post Gauntlet tour, and Saben had given directions.

We were on an upper floor of the wall that surrounded the Academy grounds. The hallway had arrow slits overlooking the city on one side, and dorm rooms on the other. I thought it was weird, but hey. Magic nonsense.

“Where are you going?” Seth called out to me.

I looked back and saw he’d stopped. Were we at the room already?

“We’re on the wrong floor.”

Whoops.

On the right floor Seth checked the room number against the paper in his hand. “This is it. I wonder how it opens, there’s no handle.”

And there wasn’t. The door was a solid slab of metal, flush with the stone wall. There was no handle, no hinges, or anything that I could see. Was this a one way door? Were we supposed to enter from the other side or something? Either way it was creepy, like it was a prison door or something.

Seth put his hand on the wall beside the door. Nothing happened. Then he tried on the door itself. Nothing happened. He looked at his wrist, looked at the door with symbols on it, and looked at his paper again. “Maybe this isn’t the right one?”

I watched him mess with the door for a few minutes. I thought it funny that he was having such difficulty, and that Saben hadn’t warned him about it. There was a magic trick to it, I was sure of it.

I looked around, but there weren’t many people in the area. Certainly none I could watch for how they got into their rooms. I didn’t think we were late, maybe all the dorm students were off at breakfast or something?

“Ah! Got it,” he said as the door finally swung open. “I needed to put power into the key ring.”

So I’d need to have magic to get in and have a magic key. Sucks to be me I guess. This isn’t a door I can open on my own. Again. Dammit.

The room was small.

The room was a mess.

Our roommate had clearly moved in well before us, and taken over the whole space. There were two beds with trunks at the foot, and a single desk between the two. It’ll be fun sharing that, I’m sure. There was no other furniture, not even a side table or bookcase. The roommate had used the second bed as a table/dresser/storage unit. Clean sheets that had formerly been folded and waiting to be used were on the floor next to the bed. A single narrow window was carved into the thick wall and lit the room from above the desk. You’d have to stand on the desk to see out the window.

Seth stood in the doorway of the small room looking around. Finally he sighed. “It’s not bad,” he said. I got the feeling he was trying to convince himself because it was clear his roommate sucked. “I can work with this.” You’ve more patience than I do then, Gandalf.

He used the same trick on the trunk that he used on the door. Seth unpacked his spare uniform and other clothes, what looked like a messenger tube, and a long wooden box–he handled this item very carefully, almost reverently. I was instantly curious. There were also several small things like a knife and a wallet and such. He could put the satchel of school books in there too and still have room to spare. Seth simultaneously traveled light and with everything he owned. I had nothing to add either, being all naked and stuff.

Funny that. Maybe I wasn’t a modest person in my past life? I would think running around in my birthday suit would be embarrassing, or at least make me feel exposed or something. But nope, I was totally fine with it. I chalked it up to magic nonsense.

Seth picked up the sheets, and threw a bunch of the random things on his bed to the other one so he could make the bed. Some of the stuff was weird. There was a big hammer, a sword, a bucket, a shovel, rope, and various other shit. It looked like a barbarian’s garden shed in here and the guy was a bit of a hoarder.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Crazy college roommate, check!

We headed out to the courtyard. On the far side of the tower courtyard was a grassy common that functioned the same as a college quad. There were trees in this area, and small pillars with symbols on them. By this point I knew they served some magic purpose, I just had no idea what.

I didn’t run ahead this time as I was far more interested in looking around. There were students and what I presume were teachers in the quad, and there was a crowd outside the building Seth was heading straight towards. It looked like all the new students would be taking this class together.

And all the new students were having a grand time blowing each other up.

“Watch this!” a boy yelled and whipped a flaming ball straight into the air. Before it had gone more than a dozen feet another student, one I couldn’t see, had struck the flaming ball with some kind of dark energy and the field was bathed in glowing sparks.

Right. Magic fire showers for everyone, I guess. Welcome to wizard school. I forgot my umbrella.

Another student, a big guy that looked like a bodybuilder, laughed and swung his arms in a big clap that caused thunder to boom through the quad and scattered all the glowing sparks.

When chaos like this is going on, you can participate, spectate, or vacate. The most dangerous thing to do is participate. The most fun is spectate, and naturally that's what I chose to do since I had no crazy powers to participate with. Seth, the practical stick-in-the-mud, had other ideas though, and snatched me up.

As Seth was retreating I noticed that most of the action was just a handful of students, maybe five or six out of the nearly fifty present. Either that meant that only this small group had extravagant powers, or that group were the only ones interested in showboating. I did notice some other cool powers in evidence, like shadow animals and sparks and stuff.

Thunder clapper boy had gotten someone’s attention. The little pillars with symbols on them suddenly started to glow, and everyone’s powers just fizzled out. All the fire was snuffed too, including the burning grass. Seth had managed to get to the outside of the crowd before this happened.

I didn’t see the teacher until he was standing amongst the students. I thought that was a neat trick, because I was watching for someone to show up, and he was successfully sneaky.

“That is quite enough,” the professor said softly. Every single student heard him though. “Unsupervised magical contests will result in demerits for all participants.” He eyed the showboating students. “Some of you are not first year students and do not need to be told this.” He stared particularly at a skinny guy on the edge of the group. He drew a symbol in the air that glowed as he drew it, and then he put his hand on it and it changed color. “Demerits have been assigned. Class shall begin momentarily. Take your seats.” The professor stared down the crowd for another moment then abruptly vanished like smoke dispersing.

That was a fucking cool trick. Mad respect for this guy. He got all the student’s attention, their respect, and a bit of fear too all at once. I bet letting the students go a little wild like that was on purpose.

Seth had shuffled into the auditorium with the crowd of other students. It was a big room, with tiers of what looked like pews with shallow tables in front of each as desks. There was ample room to walk in front of each desk and stairs along the sides and in the center. Seth was scanning the crowd. I’m guessing he was looking for his buddy Owen, but we didn’t see him before taking a seat.

Tsunami girl was there too. She still looked like she’d just gotten out of the shower. Her hair was dripping, and her clothes stuck to her like they were wet. She carried two large bags, one was much fuller than the other. As she got to her seat she pulled a fluffy towel out of one of the large bags and folded neatly to fit on the seat and sat down on it. She pulled a second towel out and put it under her feet, and then had a hand towel on her desk.

Thunderclap guy sat in the front row. I also saw a sizable bird made of shadows on the desk of a girl with long black hair. I bet her name is Raven, or something original like that. Most of the other students looked like ordinary teenagers, and all of them wore the gray school uniform. I did see some other familiars too. One was the most adorable tiny deer I’d ever seen. The wee thing hid the moment it spotted me looking at it.

Seth put me on the floor beside him. So I jumped back up on the desk. He put me back down on the floor. This time when I jumped up I made sure everything on the desk landed on the floor. I then sat and glared at him. The girl beside him started snickering.

He stared back at me as our battle of wills clashed and the heavens shook. Not really, the kid caved in no time. He did have a good idea though when this time he plunked me down on the empty desk next to him and went about cleaning up what I’d dumped on the floor.

I ignored Seth’s mutterings and checked out the display boards behind the podium.

None of it was in English.

Well fuck, how did I not notice this? Were people not speaking English? Wait, I knew other languages too, didn’t I? I wracked my brain, but came up empty. I remember thinking about languages before though. And the language that Seth spoke wasn’t actually English either, but I understood it like it was. Magic bullshit. That’s what this was.

Seth could read, judging from his books and shit. I’ll have him teach me later, if I could figure out how to make him understand that’s what I wanted.

The professor appeared in the classroom in the same way he’d disappeared from the quad: he materialized out of smoke. All of the students quieted and gave the professor their undivided attention, including me.

I was eager for my first lesson in magic.