Seth glared at his familiar. She’d flopped over and was completely ignoring him now. He didn’t think he’d ever understand her. She could be so smart and could figure things out so quickly, and then she just… he didn’t know. Stopped? Like her brain disconnected and she became a cat again. Well, she was a magical beast. Maybe this was normal for them. Once he got to class he’d find someone else with a magic beast familiar and ask about it.
He sighed and gave her a scratch on her horn nubs where she liked it. Apparently that was the right thing to do because she was paying attention again.
“Flying would be the easiest, but my power isn’t strong enough.” Seth looked at the grappling hook he held and then back up at the upper floor window. “I don’t think my rope is long enough to reach that.”
“It’d be in the stuck space anyway,” Owen said. “You’d never climb it.”
Seth didn’t know what to do. He looked at his familiar. She sat calmly, looking at him expectantly, her head cocked slightly. He was certain she already had an answer, but this time she wasn’t showing him.
Well, he could do this. He looked through his knapsack, looking for anything that could be useful here. Nothing. He looked around. The wall nearby had balconies on it.
“Owen, do you think we could grapple the window from the balcony there?”
Owen eyeballed the distance. “That’s too far and not high enough. You’re not strong enough to fly, right? Not even a distance like that?”
“No.”
Owen’s gaze flicked to the banners on the wall beside the balconies. “Could we use those?”
Seth considered this idea. “It depends. The big one looks like it might work if we could just glide, but I don’t think I can produce enough lift. My wind isn’t that strong.”
“The balcony is still too low then. We won’t reach the window.”
Seth’s familiar put her paw on his leg and he immediately pulled away. “You don’t need to claw me to get my attention.” He told her. “What’s your idea?”
It took Seth a moment to figure out what his familiar was trying to point out to him. “What about the Wind tower? We aren’t working on that one right now.”
“Did you get that key already?” Owen asked.
“No. I had trouble with the– oh, I get it. My power isn’t strong enough for lift, but the Wind tower is plenty strong enough. Could you help me get this banner down?”
They quickly had the largest banner down and knotted the rope onto either end. Owen gathered up the banner and turned to the Wind Tower.
It was tempting to just charge ahead and just wing the wind control while they were in the air. Seth was sure Saben could do it.
Think it through, Seth told himself. You need to be clear minded in what you are going to do here or we’ll get smashed into the ground. When Seth first got his power, Saben had taken him to fly a kite. Manipulating the kite and making it dance in the sky was the first thing he’d learned to do. This wasn’t very different. The biggest difference would be there was no string to keep it steady. Twisting or spinning would result in a loss of control and falling.
“Hold on a sec,” Seth said. “We should practice a minute first.”
Owen looked surprised, like he hadn’t thought about that. “Oh. Right. What do you need me to do?”
“Hold it up and let me see how to catch it with the wind.”
Owen complied.
The banner was big enough and caught the air well. It was also more stable than he thought it would be. Moving air was the one thing he was good at. Seth couldn’t lift Owen at all, but he could keep the banner deployed and steady. “This will work. You go first,” Seth said. “I’ll be better able to see what’s going on and guide you where you need to go. At the window, throw the banner in the air so I can get the wind to bring it back to me.”
“How high will this send me?” Owen asked.
“I’ll have you go as high as the tower, or the top of the air column if it’s lower. If it’s lower, we might not make it to the window. I don’t know if we’d get stuck in the dimensional boundary or not.”
Owen looked up at the Wind Tower then back to Seth. “I trust you. When you say go, I go.”
No pressure. Seth nodded to Owen who stepped up to the Wind Tower and let the banner catch the updraft. It was difficult controlling Owen’s flight, and Seth needed to make quick adjustments to keep Owen balanced. Owen landed lightly on the window ledge, as easily as stepping down a stair. Yes! I can do this. Things really are going to get better.
Seth was glad to have the practice from sending Owen first. It was just enough that he could manage to keep himself steady while holding onto the banner himself. He misjudged his own trajectory slightly and Owen had to grab him and help him into the window.
It didn’t dull his mood though. Seth wasn’t even annoyed that the cat used his head to jump into the window before Owen had pulled him all the way up. He did it, and used his power to do it. This is going to be a great year.
“My window is not a door.”
Seth and Owen turned to see an upperclassman sitting at a desk in a bathroom. He was dressed in pajamas and looked bemused. There was something unseen splashing in the bathtub and piles of wet towels on the floor.
“It’s the Gauntlet today. We’re after the key in the foyer,” Seth explained.
“Huh. Elevating platforms are that way. Just don’t go up, you might not come down.”
“Thanks,” Seth said. “Sorry for intruding.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Both Owen and Seth retrieved a strangely heavy key from the foyer. Seth had a brief moment of panic that they wouldn’t be able to leave the tower, but the dimensional forces that prevented entry effectively pushed them out.
Owen clutched the key. “Thank you for this.”
“You don’t need to thank me for this, you helped out too.”
“Five minute warning!” Professor Sammes shouted.
“Dammit, I still gotta get the Wind Tower. Good luck, Owen.”
Seth stood outside the Wind tower at a loss again. He looked around, at the neighboring towers, at the ground, at the air. He had no ideas and no time to experiment. He looked at his familiar. She’d solved all the puzzles so far, maybe she could solve this one too.
Or maybe she was the solution?
She was small. The wind started above the ground so she might be able to slide under it.
“If I can block the wind for you, do you think you could crawl in and get a key?” he asked her.
She considered a moment, her head cocked, then she nodded.
With her flat on the ground he formed turbulence in the air so that she could scoot under the updraft, and then he used all the power he could to push her through the downdraft on the other side. In no time she was sitting in the foyer with a key in her mouth. She didn’t try to leave. Instead she waited for time to run out and the tower defense to gutter out.
Seth had four keys. The obsidian key to Fire, the bone key to Circle, the heavy key to Celestial, and the Wind key that felt like it was made of a combination of clouds and sand.
Owen had three keys, Metal, Stone, and Celestial. Seth considered asking how’d he’d gotten into those, but decided it didn’t matter. He’d ask about it next year if he needed to.
The students collected near the gatehouse where they were met by Professor Sammes. He gave them a brief, and very rudimentary, tour of the school grounds before leaving them at the Administration building.
Seth wished Owen good luck as the students were divided for their assessment results.
Seth entered a small booth and sat at the interview desk. A paunchy older man seated across from him didn’t look up. The administrator's side of the desk opened to a larger room with more desks that connected to other booths. It sounded like a half dozen students were going through the interview now. Seth held his cat on his lap as he waited for the administrator.
“Seth of Selford. You’ve got a wind power?” the administrator asked as he shuffled through a couple sheaves of paper.
“Yes, sir. It’s just a minor wind power.”
“Don’t knock the power, kid. I knew a student last year who had a wind power. The things he could do with his power, absolutely astounding.” The administrator finally looked at Seth and his brows knit together,
“My brother tried to teach me a few things. I’m not as good as he was.”
“You have a familiar look to you. Did your brother attend here?”
“Yeah, he did. My brother is Saben, also of Selford.”
“Saben! Of course! Hands down the best combat mage I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching.” The administrator’s excitement dimmed abruptly. “Sorry business last spring. How is your brother doing? We really missed him.”
“He’s applying to the Combat Academy here in Rosia.”
“Ah, good choice. He’s a real talent, and should get top marks. Pity the program here didn’t work out.” He frowned a moment then brightened. “We need to get you into my Combat Basics course. I’m Professor Mick, they call me Mick the Mighty! My course is the best combat course anywhere in Rosia, the Combat Academy included! If you’ve got even half your brother’s talent we’ll have a killer team this year. I can get you signed up right now!”
Without waiting for Seth’s answer he hustled into the room behind him and came back with a bunch more papers.
The cat in Seth’s lap started squirming. He lost his grip on her when Professor Mick sat back down. She darted into the room behind the administrator.
“This is going to be a great year! I can feel it in my bones!” Professor Mick rapidly started filling out the paperwork. “Oh, right, your assessment.” With his free hand Professor Mick moved what looked like a scale in front of Seth, and instructed him to put his hand on the left side of the scale and state his name. Symbols on the bottom of the scale lit up and colored liquid poured from the right scale arm into a bottle. Professor Mick continued to scribble quickly over several forms and then corked the bottle, put a label on it, and put it in a box.
As this was going on he talked non stop about Saben’s performance in combat class. The professor was clearly a big fan. Seth was pretty sure that the professor was going to be severely disappointed in his own performance. He couldn’t hold a candle to Saben. No. Be confident. I can do this. I got four keys today, and could have had five. I almost had all three tier three towers. Saben didn’t do that.
Then the time came to show Professor Mick his keys. He frowned as he studied the keys.
“Why did you choose these towers? I’d expect earth or water for the elemental set, or lightning and thunder for the storm set?”
“My goal is to help Saben get his power back. The Celestial Tower will teach me to understand magic sources and the Circle Tower will teach magic’s interaction with the body and stuff.”
Professor Mick nodded. “A worthy goal. There has been some study on that since your brother’s incident. There’s been a couple others who’ve lost their power unexpectedly too. Professor Marjorie is leading the focus there. Perhaps talk to her about it.”
“More people lost their power?” Seth asked. He thought Saben was the only one it had happened to.
“Oh yeah, a few. One of them, a healer, got his talent back just a few weeks later. He is also working with Professor Marjorie. He’s the only one I know of to get his power back. The name escapes me at the moment. Not much of a fighter, you know.”
Professor Mick plunked a few papers in front of Seth. “Your schedule. Now, left wrist please.”
Seth dutifully pulled his sleeve up and extended his wrist.
Professor Mick paused at the bracelet already on his wrist. “That have power in it? You’ll want to move it to the other hand, or take it off altogether. You know, interference and all that. Ah, almost forgot, what weapon do you favor?” Even as he kept talking Professor Mick wrapped a colored cord around Seth’s wrist that had his keys strung on it. As soon as the cord touched his skin it transformed itself into a magic script with each key becoming a symbol circling his wrist like a ritual circle tattoo.
“Uh, I don’t—what is this? How do I take it off?”
The professor chuckled. “You don’t. Not today anyway. This is your entry to the Academy grounds, administration, the classrooms you qualify for including their towers, and to your dorm room. One of the first exams is to be able to add or remove keys from your keyring. You’ll be learning this stuff in class.”
Seth wasn’t comfortable with this. “So if I leave early, I can’t take it off?”
Professor Mick scoffed. “No one wants to leave early. And if you do, it’ll fade on its own after a couple months away from the grounds. Affinity magic, you know. You’ll learn it, not to worry. Now, off you go!”
Seth had started to leave before remembering his cat. “Oh, I had a question about familiars,” he said, and tried to peek past the professor.
“Oh, you want a familiar? Don’t see the appeal myself. Too high maintenance.” He produced another packet of papers. “The familiar rules, should you get one. Anything larger than a dog must be housed in the familiar housing, and anything bigger than a horse needs a permit. All actions by your familiar are as if you did it. It does damage to property or people, it's on you. ‘I can’t help my fire lizard burning stuff’ isn’t an excuse. As I said, too much hassle. You’re better off leaving that until you’re out of school.”
“Ah, okay. Um, I already have one though.”
And of course the cat chose that moment to jump up on the desk, startling the professor. Fortunately, the professor didn’t notice she’d come from behind him. Unfortunately, she scattered his papers as she landed.
“No! Bad cat!” the professor yelled as he tried to catch the pile.
“I’m sorry,” Seth scooped up the cat and held her under one arm as he helped pick up the other papers. Once the papers were up off the floor Seth apologized again, scooped up his packet and retreated as the professor continued grouching about high maintenance animals.