Lunch was a rather eye opening event, when I had gone to other schools there were of course friend groups, but a lot of them started off because the children lived close to one another and already knew of each other, or maybe friends of the family.

In less than a full day already there were groups of young men and women huddled in circular tables, chatting happily. Some were seemingly grouped by gender, others seemed to flock to the honor students.

The boy, Marollo, had a handful of others near him, but he didn’t seem comfortable with all the attention.

While the other girl, Heidi Brightstrike, who must’ve been a noble based on how the principle had called her Lady, had a whole crowd around her. She seemed not necessarily comfortable of the group surrounding her, but happy.

I looked at the final honor student and saw that her table was empty, not for lack of trying it seemed. The redhead girl that sat behind me was walking away huffing a breath of frustration after a brief conversation with the Skulker girl. Cystella sat at a table in the corner, her back to where the two walls met so she could keep her eyes on everyone else.

Her clothing was extremely well kept, as though she disdained dirt or disorder, which I appreciated. Her hair and skin however was a contrast to that. Her unreasonably long black hair wasn’t messy per say but it covered a lot of her face in a way that I was sure was inconvenient to see by.

The skin and scars were much more eye-catching though. Stygoscript was the name for the runic patterns that could harness energy to produce certain effects based on patterns themselves. It was also the curse that turned the Children of the Sun into Skulkers to begin with.

A researcher and Dreamer named Aisha Zereth of the Coal Empire had created the curse to help quell the leaders of the rebellion against the Empire. He had single handedly wiped out an entire race, turning them to mindless monsters that did nothing but feed on the living.

Now I was going to learn to harness a similar power, not too similar hopefully. I may have dissected my dog like a lab experiment but I didn’t want to be responsible for genocide.

The Stygoscript not only caused them to go mad, it also utilized the energy in their bodies to make them stronger, faster, and heal quicker. That of course meant the Skulkers had a shorter lifespan than The Children of the Sun had due to that.

I knew that there had been trials to cure the curse of the Skulkers, but all had ended in failure. Apparently the Dreamer’s abilities made the curse go deeper than just the Stygoscript on the skin. I suppressed a shiver, it reminded me of the time I had first seen the clock on the wall, and wondered why it ticked.

My hand rested on the watch on my wrist, the ticks didn’t calm me though, they only excited me. I had customized this watch to use Stygoscript as well. Like the card that was the key to my room it drew on my stamina to function. Not nearly to the extent as the lock and especially nowhere near the way the Stygoscript on the Skulkers worked. It used such an imperceptible amount of energy that I never noticed the difference.

A watch that ran on Sun Stones would have to rely on an outside source, and I could have done it with a mainspring like most other watches, but I had put a lot of work into this one for it to function with Stygoscript so I usually wore it instead of one of my others.

I sat at one of the tables near the wall. Most of the tables in the first floor cafeteria had at least one person already so I couldn’t get my own table. I debated sitting with the Skulker girl, but if I was being honest with myself I had absolutely no idea how to start up a conversation, and even if we didn’t speak I was sure that I would just end up staring at her in the way other people had called me weird for doing before.

So I sat at a table with the redhead girl from my class, I didn’t speak with her either, but I was ever so slightly more comfortable around her due to the few hours of class time than I was with anyone else. I might have sat with the ratty boy who sat next to me during class but he was at the same table as Brax, and Brax was an asshole.

At least all reason pointed to him being an asshole, perhaps there was a good person underneath the asshole surface.

“Hello,” the redhead said to me.

“Hello,” I replied.

A small silence fell between us, and the girl raised an eyebrow.

“I’m Elina, what’s your name?”

“Monty…”

Again a silence.

“It’s nice to meet you Monty,” she said a bit oddly, but still smiled, then went back to eating her lunch.

I nodded and ate my own lunch. That had been a good conversation. I had never been the best with names of people that didn’t particularly interest me, but I tried to remember hers. I studied her face and body, forming a connection in my mind to her name.

The first word that came to mind when seeing Elina was mature, but that felt a bit off. Everyone here was only fourteen, so it took me a few moments to understand why I got that feeling. Instead of thinking of her as a girl I instead thought of her as a watch. I didn’t understand her mental inner workings but I knew anatomy, still that was irrelevant as well. It was the design that stood out.

She was fashionable, we all wore the same base uniform but Elina had done some simple modifications to look more pleasing. The purple skirt was a bit longer, up to her waist instead of just her hips so it cut up the clothing into a third for the white top and two thirds for the skirt. Her purple and green coat was also cut quite a bit shorter so that it was almost level with the top of her skirt. She had makeup on, enough so it was obvious, but not so much that it retracted from her appearance like younger women sometimes did. Her boots had slightly larger soles to increase her height and she had white stockings on, probably half for the cold weather and half to help bring attention to her legs by making them contrast from the dark skirt and boots.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

As someone who could be considered a type of artist themselves I appreciated the attention to detail, from the earrings to the laces of the boots.

“Excuse me?” Elina said.

“Hmm? I apologize, did you ask me a question?”

“Yeah, why are you staring at me like that?”

There was anger in her voice that I hadn’t noticed, then I realized I had zoned out again. This scenario was just like yesterday with Brax. Another person thought I was a creepy weirdo because I liked to think silently. Still she hadn’t pushed me or something of the sort so perhaps there was a way for her not to start talking about me behind my back, or to my face, I also wouldn’t prefer that.

“I was admiring your sense of fashion. The simple ways you altered your clothing had much more effect than I would have thought, and you did it in a way that all the altered parts fit together like a puzzle. It is better than what we are initially given, which is no doubt not to be fashionable but to fit well enough.”

Elina’s eyes widened in surprise, then she did her own thorough analysis of my clothing. It only took a moment for disappointment to fill her eyes.

“Do you also like… fashion?” She asked, skepticism already in her voice.

All of a sudden I wished I was, this could have been the thread that led to friendship.

“Sorry no…”

Her shoulders sagged a bit, but she smiled.

“Ah it’s all good. Not a lot of guys are.”

“I’m a watchmaker,” I hurried to add. “I like putting together and taking apart machinery, especially watches. I actually made this watch.”

I showed her the watch on my wrist. It was made of wood and silvery steel and a quarter of the face was cut out so you could see the inner workings of the gears. Instead of being more disappointed or dismissive she brightened.

“That’s awesome, you made this?”

“I had some help when making some of the parts but I designed the whole thing and put it together.”

“Cool, I like that it doesn’t have Sun Stones shining out of it. A watch should be an ascetic piece not take up the entire picture you know? I don’t even know how someone would be able to see the numbers if there is sunlight shining in their eyes.”

I agreed, it was inefficient and too flashy.

“Well there are plenty of ways to see the numbers even with the sunlight, but yes. Something doesn’t need to be shoved in your face for you to appreciate it.”

She smiled and I tried to return one. I wasn’t good at smiling apparently because hers faltered and she raised an eyebrow as if to ask if I was making a joke. I don’t understand how a smile could be a joke so my own slipped off my face.

A wouldn’t call her a friend, we only had one conversation, but friendly was a good step in the right direction.

—

After lunch we all gathered in the back of the school house, we got a brief view of the second years of the Academy as we had started to come together. The second years were gathering further back, towards the forest that was nested between the two cliff faces the dominated both sides of the school.

There were more than a hundred first years, but I could only count about forty second years. Had so many failed out already? Or had they died?

There was a bit of fear in my heart, but there was more excitement. These second years walked with a sort of self assuredness that I wanted. Their silver second year pins seemed like they were worth more than my own weight in gold at that moment.

I wondered what power’s they had, all accounts I could find about Dreamers had conflicting stories. Professor Pure had said we would craft our power, so that made a bit more sense now. Already I was putting together a hypothesis on how a Dreamer actually did Dreamer things, and hopefully this next class would push us further to do so.

Mr. Rider, for some reason apparently the teacher refused to be called professor, stood in front of all one hundred plus students.

“Welcome to my class, for the first two weeks you all will be with me every other day. Now can any of you tell me why Dreamers are so important?”

A student raised their hand and Mr. Rider nodded to them to speak.

“Because Dreamers can use magic?” the girl said, almost as a question.

“Yes!” The girl brightened. “And no,” the girl’s shoulders hunched. “History shows that during the past in times of peace Dreamers were constantly mistrusted and restricted by the common people or even the government. The Coal Empire was a bit of an exception. Their entire royal bloodline were Dreamers so Dreamers often were unrestricted in their powers. So the magic itself wouldn’t be good to most people, unless it was needed.”

Mr. Rider pointed downwards to the ground.

"Nightmares, we do not call them that for no reason. Like Dreamers they use indescribably power and abilities, humans worst nightmare. They are a constant threat even if most of them do not stray from their home Layers. The Core Layer, or the First Layer as some call it, is our safe haven, but it is also the weakest of the Layers, and the smallest. If all the Nightmares from the Second Layer were to come up, then we would all die. Even the ones that make their home here or the few that come up from below are sometimes too much for people. That is why Dreamers are necessary, we are the best force against the monsters that surround the Core Layer.”

That reminded me of an excerpt from the First Emperor of the Coal Empire, he had said that we were stuck in a hamster ball with Nightmares surrounding us from all sides, and I agreed. We were wrapped in the earth of the First Layer like a cocoon to protect us from what waited below, no not just below.

I looked up at the sky, past the sun that sat in the center of our world to the other side. It was a hazy blue, but patches of light and darkness showed the landmasses on the other side. We were surrounded on all sides.

“What about the Forged Order?” another kid asked.

“Very true. For those of you that don’t know the Forged Order is something that started during the rebellion against the Coal Empire. Because some regions had pushed away the Coal Empires forces they no longer had the Dreamers of the Empire to defend them from the monsters coming up from below. While the rebellion did have Dreamers almost all of them were focused on the fight against the Empire. In response a normal human leader of the rebellion started a group now called the Forged Order. They use Sun Stone powered weapons and armor that allow them to fight almost on even footing with a lot of monsters that come from below.”

One of my grandparents' neighbors had been a part of the Forged Order and I had seen the wicked scars that had forced him into retirement. He had also been allowed to keep the hammer from his time in service. It had been a masterpiece of bronze, silver, steel and Stygoscript.

“It has actually been discussed in Dreamer circles that if the Forged Order grows in both popularity and power then we will begin to see that discrimination I talked about earlier. That is why some Dreamers have begun working closely with the Order, in order to make it apparent that both groups are working for a common goal.”

That seemed logical, and I was interested in looking at the schematics of the Forged Orders armor and weapons. So if I did become a Dreamer then I could have a chance at working with them to get some.

Mr. Rider clapped his hands once loudly.

“Okay now that we’ve got that out of the way it is time for what I will be doing with you all.”

He took on a pose, flexing his back and arms.

“We will be shedding that weak shell in which you currently live in and instead take a path of power and health!”

Nobody said anything or moved.

“We’ll be working out,” he simplified.

I didn’t need him to simplify what he said, I needed him to say he was just joking.