Trent stepped out of the wagon one last time, his companions following shortly after. Noah had everyone following, even if it meant Cedrick and Trent be near each other. Clearly Cedrick wasn't happy with the arrangement either, shooting him death glares whenever he could catch his eyes. Trent ignored it in favor of taking in scenery of Vantall.
After paying a toll at the gate, they walked down a market street. Various shops lined each side, all selling things Trent had never heard of before. To his left was a pet store that sold exclusively elementals. To the right was a very scorched shopfront labelled "Bont's Boom Bakery". While he appreciated the alliteration, Trent was slightly concerned with the ingredients of the goods. The group slowly made their way down the street, occasionally stopping to check some store that stuck out to them. Cedrick stuck his nose up at the items, citing them as "quaint" and "beneath someone of my stature".
An hour of walking and window shopping later, the group arrived at a large building. It had three distinct separations, with gardens in between and hallways between the different sections. Noah stopped in front of the large double doors, turning with a flourish.
"Welcome to Vantall Magic College, your home away from for the next 4 years. The dorms got sent into a pocket dimension a few years back when a senior's experiment went poorly. The school tolerated it because it meant they had more space. The view from the rooms is wonderful. Get settled, I'll get you guys a tour tomorrow. Classes don't actually start up for about 2 weeks, so you'll have time to pick your courses." He explained, leading us to a door to seemingly nowhere off to the side of the entrance hall. Swinging it open revealed a stretch of blue and purple astral matter, speckled with stars.
Noah gave them a moment to pick their jaws up off the floor before drawing attention to the side of the door. Right on the inside of the doorway was a little machine, with a sensor and a little slot underneath it. "Swipe your ISD on the sensor, it'll give you access to your room." Noah said, demonstrating with his own metal band. Joan was the first to break out of the shock, hurriedly swiping her armband along the machine.
"Room 182 F, huh? Where is that exactly?" She asked, holding up the little card the machine had ejected for her.
"Female dorms on the left, Male on the right. Rooms start from 1 and go up to 100 before moving up a floor. You are on the second floor, 82nd room." Noah explained as the rest of the group swiped their cards. Trent got 134 M, while Terrance got 135.
"Oooh, you guys are neighbours. Lucky, my neighbour was a fire mage my first year. You could play a fire alarm at my funeral and I'd stand straight up to put it out." Noah complained before ushering the group to their rooms. No one saw which room Cedrick got, as he had waited until they left before swiping his ISD.
Trent and Terrance swung open the door to their rooms, revealing a large bed, a desk, a drawer, and even a fully furnished bathroom in each room, identical to each other. Trent stepped into his room, rifling through the drawers to find a week's worth of plain blue robes, magically fitted to his frame. He hung up his sword, aiming to decompress from his rather arduous journey through the forest.
"Well, want to go look for a library?" Terrance popped his head into Trent's open room, walking ahead when he saw Trent agree. It took them the better part of an hour to find it, but they didn't want to wait for the official tour. When their search bore fruit, they found themselves in front of, yet again, a large set of ornately carved double doors. Pushing them open revealed a large hall, with books lining wall to wall, two floors high. Stone tablets carved to look like books floated in midair to be used as stepping stones, glowing lanterns keeping the room lit up constantly. Even before the school year began, the place was crawling with students looking to get ahead on their classwork, or their next experiment.
Once the wonder of the place wore off, the boys noticed a reception desk near the door, a steady stream of books flowing around the desk, underneath a scanner, and then of to regain their places in the shelves. The duo decided to ask for help with the organization system, a little overwhelmed by the veritable hoard of knowledge in front of them. Upon request, the librarian directed them to their respective areas of study, Trent's main focus now on Biomancy.
Finding the section, Trent pulled out the first book he could see, and immediately realized that he might have to keep the tendrils for a while. Basic Biomancy, changing ones natural hair colour, for example, required in-depth knowledge of human anatomy, prodigious mana control in order to make such miniscule changes, and a healthy knowledge of the laws. Not to mention the mana costs. According to the book, one of the first big changes Biomancy mages make to themselves is some way to draw mana from outside themselves.
Realizing the difficulty of the task ahead of him, Trent dispelled any notions of removing his tentacles without a teachers assistance. At the very least, he would wait until the winter break before even attempting it. He still tried to grasp as much as he could, but was left wanting. Slightly discouraged, he went to find a way to talk to his family.
There was an entire section dedicated to communication magic, but a lot of it was very complicated magic designed to send important messages long distances safely. There was also a lot of short distance spells, made by students to talk to each other in class. Eventually, Trent found one that was perfect for his needs. The book was simply labelled, Message, and was only a few pages long.
Trent brought it to the librarian to check it out, bringing it to his dorm room to read. It was a fairly complicated spell, not least because he still didn't know how to cast. He spent the rest of the day memorizing the information in the book even so, wanting to be able to send a message the very second he knew how. It was a very complicated spell, needing to form an image and send it to a specified person a number of days out, meaning Trent would have had to spend a number of days working on it, if not for his blessing.
Rote memorization felt much easier. He was able to recall information he had only seen once or twice, and he remembered it until the next day. Once he believed he had it down, he worked on finding an effective training method. He settled on simple pushups and the like, switching between his natural limbs and his tendrils. He continued like this until curfew, wanting to bleed off some of his lingering excitement over the tour he would be having the next day.
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Trent woke up to someone banging on his door, rattling it in its frame. Trent groaned, pulling himself up by his tendrils before letting out a bone-quaking stretch. He threw on one of the supplied robes before opening his door, revealing Noah, Terrance, Joan, Cedrick, and a woman with long black hair that Trent had never seen before.
"Good morning Sunshine, it's time for the tour." Noah said, already turning back down the hallway. Trent followed the group, sticking his hand towards the new arrival.
"Hey there, I'm Trent, who are you?" He asked as she shook his hand.
"I'm Isabella de'Gentire, it's a pleasure to meet you Trent." She responded smoothly.
"Hurry up back there, we've got a schedule." Noah called from the front.
They hurried to catch up, taking in the classrooms filled with strange magical experiments. They passed the evocation lecture halls, noting the brightly glowing wards, marred by scorch marks all around the room. They saw the alchemy labs, noticing evidence of explosions once again. When they got to the battle magic hall, Trent decided to speak up.
"How many rooms in this place have been blown up? There's been scorch marks in every room so far!" He exclaimed, causing Noah to turn around.
"All of them. at least 75% of the schools magical protections are against explosions from inside the building." Noah said, entirely serious.
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"Maybe the Biomancy labs will have less notable scars." Trent said hopefully.
"Oh, the Biomancy labs have something much worse. We're going there last, because it's awful and I hate it." Noah said, shivering. Once he had recovered he continued with the tour, showing of the summoning, conjuring, flight, Spatial, and Artificing rooms, before turning to a door at the very end of the hall.
"This, is the last room of the tour. You can find any places I haven't taken you on your own, you'll just need to know where your classes are for the first week. Speaking of, here is objectively the worst class. Biomancy." Noah said, swinging the door open and slamming his eyes shut. Trent and Isabella both surged forward with interest, before noticing the other was there. They then calmly peeked in, and promptly regretted it. The room was covered in random bits of animals. There were shelves containing a number of different animal organs in jars. The chairs scuttled around, the legs replaced with those of a beetle. The lights were held up by horse legs grafted to the ceiling.
"At the end of the year, the graduates are allowed to just cast whatever they want, resulting in a whole lot of disgusting shit in the biomancy room. Your first test of the year is to try and return the classroom to normal. Hope you two enjoy learning in that abomination for a month." Noah said, slamming the door closed as fast as possible. "Now, if you'll excuse me, my therapist told me to book an appointment with him every time I visit this room, so I'll see you later." He ran off, leaving the group to find their way back to their dorms.
"So, I take it you are also interested in Biomancy?" Trent turned to Isabella, attempting to fill the sudden silence.
"Absolutely! Imagine how much you could help people with just a basic level of Biomancy! You could do what even healers can't fix! I'm definitely taking that as soon as we get our course selections. Why are you interested?" She blurted rapidly, becoming visibly more excited the longer she talked.
"I've had some... unfortunate... additions to my body, and I was hoping I could figure out how to remove them. Not only that, being able to change your body to fit any circumstance seems super useful if I can cast it fast enough." He explained, purposefully leaving out the details of his tentacles. For some reason, he was suddenly feeling self-conscious about them. He didn't want to scare Isabella off, seeing as she would apparently share at least one class with him. She looked at him curiously, but didn't press the issue, instead choosing to start discussing her tentative course choices based off of the tour. Trent looked back to see Joan and Terrance emphatically discussing earth magic before turning to pay full attention to Isabella.
Eventually they arrived at the dorms, meaning they had to part ways.
"Would you like to meet at the library to discuss our course options tomorrow?" Trent asked hopefully.
"I'd love to." Isabella confirmed before leaving for her room. Trent walked to his dorm, replaying the days events in his head. He was so lost in his thoughts, he only realized that he had prepared himself for bed entirely with his tentacles, sending a spike of worry through his recollections. Was he accepting these tentacles too easily? They hadn't done anything to hurt him, but, as best he could tell, they had come from the Servant. Atharrachadh had provided him a blessing specifically to fight the creature, so should he be more cautious of these new appendages? He realized thinking himself in circles would accomplish little, so he chose to worry about it tomorrow. He would be at the library, maybe he could pass off his search as pure academic interest.
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Trent opened his eyes in a familiar grove.
"Is this gonna be a regular thing now?" He said, not expecting to be able to speak. His last appearance in the grove had removed his ability to speak, forcing him to hear the god's pitch. Apparently, said god had seen fit to return his speech this time around.
"It very well might be, Trent." Atharrachadh responded, looking amused. His tone carried much less weight, simply drawing authority, as opposed to the almost painful pressure he had exuded before. This was not the only change the god had taken, having seemingly found a comfortable form. He was a tall man, about 25 if Trent had to guess. His hair was a light brown, but his eyes shifted through every colour Trent new, and a number he couldn't put a name to. He wore a well tailored suit, his underclothes matching his eyes in their inconsistency.
"That's a little alarming, but I can work with it. Did you have something you needed, or would you just like to chat." Trent said, throwing up a bravado he didn't really feel. He had already accepted that the being in front of him could kill him in an instant, and he had decided that treating him as he would anyone else was better than blatant worship.
The deity chuckled, clearly appreciating the levity. "As much as I would like to exchange pleasantries, I have drawn you here for a purpose. I assumed you would be apprehensive of your new...attachments. I'm here to assuage your doubts, as well as provide you with some tentative direction. Your tentacles, as you so tactfully describe them, are now a part of you, the same as if you were born with them. The Creature has no more control over them than he does your own arms. Should you choose to take full advantage of them, they may even provide you some very important insights into Biomancy. After all, they were made by the Great Shifter of Retal himself.
In addition, do not worry about gaining any more unwanted appendages. Your new limbs were, anomalies, to say the least. Any interactions with future Servants, should you survive them, are likely to provide you with great insights into shifting. Lastly, my blessing was not a static gift. The more spawn of The Creature that are slain by your hand, the more efficient your Biomancy spells will be. This is no more of a shortcut to power than a standard adventure. However, it will help you achieve great heights of Biomancy, should you choose to take up the sword." The being finished his lecture, waiting for Trent's response.
"You want me to go on adventure, risking death at every turn, in order to better prepare for an even deadlier adventure? Well, that was already the plan, this way I actually know what I'm fighting beforehand. Though, I would like to confirm something. Are you a god? The power you demonstrated last time was certainly fitting of the name, and I've never heard of anything but the gods providing blessings, yet I've never heard of you before. What are you?" Trent asked something that had been weighing on his mind since his first encounter with Atharrachadh. While he wasn't an avid temple-goer, he was familiar with all of the commonly worshipped deities in Retal. There were quite a few, practically one for every facet of one's daily life. He had never before heard of a god fitting the description of the man he saw before him.
"Unfortunately, I never made it that far. I'm as human as you are, at least, I was born that way. I dedicated my life to the pursuit of practical Biomancy. In my time, it was simply a way to enhance warriors before going out to battle. I wanted a more active way to use the power, and so I developed a method to use Biomancy in combat. It took years, and I had to enhance my lifespan with Biomancy in order to complete it. In the end though, I managed to get my Biomancy efficient enough to be used in combat, regardless of my modifications.
Then I was almost killed by The Creature, only escaping by shaping myself into a series of different animals, most of which were destroyed. By the time I got out, I was a single sparrow. I've spent years recovering, but I still retain no more body mass than a child. That is why I turn to champions such as yourself, who might defeat The Creature in my stead. To address your concerns about blessings, they are just giving away a portion of your power. The gods are the only beings that really give blessings, because the gods are the only ones with enough power that giving blessings away regularly doesn't really affect them. Simply a drop from their wellspring. It takes significant effort for me to provide blessings, but I have no more tangible ways to cause the Creature's downfall, so I do what I can."
Trent let out a deep breath, thinking deeply on the implications of Atharrachadh's statement. Eventually, he came to a decision, and asked one final question.
"Do you have a nickname? Atharrachadh is quite hard to remember."
The Biomancer chuckled "You may call me Atha if you so desire."
"It has been a pleasure to meet you, Atha." Trent said, "If you don't mind, I think I'll try and get some rest. I have to choose my courses tomorrow, and I don't want to regret my decisions."
"Very well Trent. Choose wisely." Atha said, before waving his hand. Trent's eyes followed it, before his vision went black and he knew no more.
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Trent spent the morning choosing classes with Isabella, finding a surprising amount of common interests. He chose Swordplay, Biomancy, Combat Magic, Flight, and, at Isabella's suggestion, Basic Spatial Magic. She said that having access to spatial pockets would save money for any aspiring adventurer, and the ability to create spatial bags would be a great money-maker in a pinch. She did elect to choose Elemental Casting in lieu of Flight, citing a fear of heights. Trent's weekly schedule would consist of the five classes he had chosen, one each weekday, and one mandatory class.
Trent spent the rest of the time before school started exploring the school with Isabella, Joan, and Terrance. As they got accustomed to their new surroundings, the started exploring the city outside of the college, learning of the best places to get meals. Surprisingly, Bont's Boom Bakery was a group favorite, despite the dubious name. They stalked the streets, for lack of anything else to do, but eventually, school had to start.