Cliff’s mind swirled with that age old problem, the same one that every housebound person had to deal with, since time immemorial: to do something productive, or to lie in bed for another hour? From the angle of the sun outside his window, he judged it to be mid-afternoon, so it was still another couple hours until his dinner was delivered. He’d already caught up on his reading for his history classes, and he’d finished the joke of an engineering assignment as soon as they got back from the Hands-on, so he wasn’t sure what he could even do. He supposed that he could attempt to actually get ahead on his work – at least, that’s probably what Loria and Nym were doing – but that just wasn’t him. Or at least, that’s the excuse he was telling himself to avoid the work.

He glanced across his room towards Thalos’s bed, empty since their return from Clearspring. His confinement would have been a lot more bearable if his roommate had been there – Loria and Nym at least had Jenna and Penny around to complain to about their boredom. He did not have that luxury. Frown on his face, he thought of his roommate. It was tough for him to decide which was worse, being trapped in his room or in the infirmary. Thalos probably had people visiting him, unlike Cliff, but there was something to be said about being able to sleep in your own bed. Both were pretty miserable, he finally decided.

With a grunt and a sigh, he threw his legs over the side of his bed, forcing himself to sit up and letting out a fierce yawn as he did so. He walked over to his desk, trying to stretch some of the tiredness out of his limbs – there was not much he could do in the half dozen steps it took to get there, but it was about the only physical activity he’d done all day, so it would have to do.

His encyclopedia of node designs was open on his desk – he’d entertained himself for the first day and a half by flipping through its pages, deciding which nodes he would work on next, but he’d eventually gotten bored of even that. Flipping on his desk lamp, he frowned down at the page, trying to remember what he’d been doing before the boredom set in. It was open to the schematic of a node used to ventilate large spaces, sucking and filtering particulate matter out of air. It was probably useful in mines and for fire extinguishing, but for him – useless. He flipped the page, tracing the next schematic with a finger before he actually read the function of the node. There was a section dedicated to space filaments and something more specialized. He glanced at the components list. The filament noted with a pair of little stars was – he blinked. Spider silk? That was awfully specific. Curiosity piqued, he read the node’s description. The book called it a trail tracing node, and apparently it was used to track your exact route – about the only situation he could imagine that being useful is if you found yourself stuck in some kind of maze. According to the little blurb, it was used in mining rescue operations.

He shook his head, marveling at some of the absurd specificity in the book’s nodes. His sound cannon and buzz saw had proven useful on the Hands-on, but most of the schematics in the book were so niche that he could hardly imagine when he’d ever actually use them.

A knock on his door interrupted his thoughts. “No visitors,” he called without looking up, “I’m a prisoner.” One of the rules for his confinement, unfortunately, or he might have been graced with the presence of Percy, Deb, or even Jenna – he felt a wistful moment of longing. Thalos was out of the room, so there was so much they could have done. It was a crying shame.

The knock came again. “It’s your warden.” Cliff’s eyes widened slightly as he recognized Roose’s muffled voice through the door. He glanced at the clock on his desk – was it already time for dinner? But no, that wouldn’t make sense either – Ralph, the dorm’s cook, delivered his meals, not Roose. He hummed a moment before replying, wondering whether this was some kind of reckoning, a punishment being sent down from on high for his great crime of saving his roommates life.

“Door’s unlocked,” Cliff called, and after an instant the latch clicked, the door swinging open to reveal Roose with an easy smile and tired eyes. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Is it finally time for my execution?” He smiled, scratching at his days-unshaven chin. “You’ll have to forgive the rasp in my voice, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to speak.”

Roose sighed, smiling slightly wider as he stepped into the room. “Cliff, you’ve been in here for two days.” He gestured a hand towards Thalos’s desk. “May I?” Cliff nodded and he pulled the chair out, turning it towards Cliff and taking a seat. The two stared at each other for a moment before Roose spoke again. “You look rather – ah – unkempt. You realize you’re allowed to visit the bathroom, right?”

Cliff’s eyebrows went up in feigned surprise. “Oh really? I suppose I shouldn’t have relieved myself in the bottom drawer of my desk, then.” He made a halfhearted kick backwards, knocking the drawer with a heel.

For a split-second, Roose’s eyes widened, then he realized that Cliff was joking. “I’m glad to see your, ah – imprisonment hasn’t dulled your sense of humor.”

Cliff clicked his tongue. “Sharpened it, really. I’ve heard that lengthy time locked up is good for the mind – burns away the chaff and leaves only the important stuff behind.” He tilted his head, tapping a finger on his temple. “Not much unessential stuff to get rid of up here, so two days was about right.”

Roose sighed. “I’m slightly less glad to see that you continue to make light of your punishment from the academy.” Cliff shrugged. His teacher had warned him that he should expect some kind of punishment to be divvied out for breaking procedure in his cobbling together of the healing node on the trail, but house arrest while the old folks up top dragged their feet deciding what to do with him and the rest of team B? That was a little farcical for him to accept, especially when their action had done nothing but prevent an unmitigated disaster, saving Thalos’s life. Roose had a pile of papers in his hands, and he took off the top one, handing it over to Cliff. “I spoke to the headmistress – the powers that be are getting close to completing the first step of the disciplinary review. But they want you to redo your statement on the incident.” He pointed a finger down at the paper, Cliff’s submitted statement. It was full of lines and not much writing. “You just submitted the schematic of your hacked-together healing node, which, while fascinating, is not really the point of the statement.”

Cliff frowned down at the paper, absentmindedly dragging his finger along the paths of the node. “Well, that’s the crux of the whole issue, right? If the node is sound, we’re not going to get punished?”

Shaking his head, Roose crossed one leg over the other – it was a rather awkward pose in his cassock. “Not quite.” He paused a moment to think. “You’ve dealt with children before, right?”

“Yeah.” Cliff’s oldest siblings each had a few little ones running around, and he’d spent a good amount of time babying his younger sister when he still lived on the farm.

His teacher held up a finger. “Well – say your mother had a particular ceramic cup she adored, something treasured and special. Now imagine two situations: In the first, a young child joyfully smashes the cup, relishing the moment and not appreciating, in any way, the gravity of what he’s just done.” A second finger came up. “In the other, a clumsy boy is getting his mother a cup of tea after a long day of work, and accidentally drops the cup, breaking it. Immediately, he’s in tears and crying to his mother that he didn’t mean to, knowing that she loved the cup dearly.” He paused, wiggling his fingers. “Now, would it be fair if they were punished equally?”

Cliff nodded to himself, mouth pinching to the side. “Well, Momma would be pissed either way, but – of course, all else equal, you should punish the one who doesn’t appreciate the crime. Momma always said the worst kind of sinner is the unrepentant one.”

Roose’s hand went down, and his smile widened. “Yes, you’ve said your mother is the pious one of the family, haven’t you?” He nodded. “Well, as you may expect, we’re simply trying to ascertain your state of mind when you broke Momma’s favorite cup.” He raised his eyebrows significantly, and Cliff understood there was some deeper meaning to the words – he had a couple of hunches, but he didn’t have enough context to determine what, exactly, Roose was talking about.

“I suppose that’s fair enough.” Cliff grinned. “Which do you reckon it is, then? The joyful smasher, or the clumsy, tear-in-the-eyes fumbler?”

Roose took another paper from the stack – it was a blank copy of the incident statement – and handed it over to Cliff. “Rewrite the statement, and I’ll be able to decide.” Cliff nodded, dropping the two statements, old and new, on the desk behind him. “As it is, though, you’ve apparently convinced enough of the disciplinary committee that you weren’t flaunting the rules purely for chaos’s sake, so you’ve been cleared to attend classes and clubs on a probationary basis from tomorrow – that means straight to class and back, no social visits between. Understood?”

Cliff nodded. “I’m a free man,” he said sarcastically. Snark aside, though, he was quite looking forward to getting back into the swing of things at the academy – staring at the wall in his room was duller than even the most boring of history lectures from Sister Aster. “I’ll hand the completed statement off to Ralph whenever he drops by with my dinner.”

“Good,” Roose said with a satisfied slap to his thigh. He started to rise, but paused, remembering something. “Ah – I’ve been too busy to really think on it, but exams are coming up, and I’m in charge of the practical part of your PMT Basics class – just yours I mean, not the whole class. I haven’t taken the time to think up a proper test of your skills. Any ideas?”

Frowning at the question, Cliff hummed in thought. After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder, where the two statements were next to his node encyclopedia, and his eyes widened. He turned back to Roose, thinking of favorite cups, and gluing little pieces of ceramic back into shape. “I’ve got an idea.”

It was Roose’s turn to hum thoughtfully after Cliff explained. “It might be difficult to swing the materials, but-” He nodded, smiling widely. “It’s a good test of your abilities, I think, and admirable. I’ll run it by Lieutenant Ulster and get back to you.” With a final reminder to get the statement done that evening, Roose waved a jovial farewell at Cliff and left the room. After his teacher was gone, it took two minutes for Cliff’s boredom to set back in. Idly, he wondered if he couldn’t spend a couple of hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling before he got around to re-writing his statement.

***

The smack on his arm knocked the net of sensors from Cliff’s finger, and he frowned, turning to Iona. “There you are,” she said, her expression a mix of frustration and eagerness. She rapped her fingers on his desk, one of the little workstations set up in the engineering club’s workshop. “When you didn’t show up to club over the last few days, I was worried, but – is it true?” She’d gotten her face uncomfortably close to his, and her breath smelled of her lunch, something fishy.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Cliff blinked, reaching up and pushing her shoulder away to give him a little space. “Is what true?” He carefully slipped his finger back between the web of sensors, adjusting the magetool’s filaments until they fit snugly on his digit. He’d finished a rough schematic of his ‘Remote Hand’ – that was the least silly name he could think of – and he was starting on actually building the thing. It would be a long, arduous process, especially considering he was doing it solo. And that was just for the first prototype – to add some of the more specific features he wanted, it would take a while.

Iona scoffed. “You know, making a healing node from three others!” Cliff glanced up at her, mildly surprised that she’d heard about it. Roose hadn’t exactly forbidden them from talking about the incident during the Hands-on, but he’d explained to them that bragging about it would not do well to make them seem regretful. His eyes had been glued on Cliff the entire time. “My PMT Node Engineering professor, he’s on the disciplinary committee, and he projected some hush-hush schematic on the board, talking in vague terms about a madman of a first year who had smashed together some nodes to make a healing node – successfully. He wanted us to break down the changes the first year had made and whether they would achieve the desired result.” She leaned forward again. “I thought, ‘that’s got to be Cliff – no one else would be that cocky.” While she was rambling, Cliff twitched his finger, tracking the output of the motion sensors on the series of little dials in front of him. He nodded with satisfaction – now he just had to turn that output into an input with a series of articulated parts of a finger, and- “Well?”

Cliff sighed, setting aside the web of sensors – Iona wasn’t going to give him enough space to get any work done until she was satisfied. “Yeah, more or less. I didn’t exactly smash the nodes together, though. It was a deliberate process.”

Noticing she finally had his full attention, the seminarian took a step back, giving him some much-appreciated space. “And it worked? Really?” Cliff nodded, and she pursed her lips in thought. “How did you manage to put it together on the trail? Did you bring your own node-assembly tools?”

Cliff smiled sheepishly – leave it to a fellow engineer to immediately identify the biggest risk he’d taken. “I used the snippers that come with a trail trolley repair kit to cut the filaments, and tape and spit in place of fasteners – it’s an old trick when you need to fix a shoddy connection.”

Her eyes widened. “And that worked?”

Cliff raised a hand in front of him, wriggling it side to side. “So-so. It sealed one wound up and half of the next before it failed – spectacularly.” Her expression went quizzical, and Cliff stuck both his hands in front of him, spreading his fingers out and mimicking the noise of an explosion.

She gasped. “Is it – was anyone hurt? Is that why you’re having a disciplinary review?”

Cliff shook his head. “We were a little shaken, but no injuries. My commander’s a fiend with a PMT, and she was able to spot that it was starting to fail almost immediately. Thankfully, she got it off in time – would have done hell to her hand.” He swallowed to himself as he recalled Loria’s explanation of the moment. According to her, as soon as the impromptu medical node had started to fail, it felt something like a slightly overstretched muscle, just on the brink of straining. It had been a good thing they’d let her be the one to heal Thalos – Cliff wasn’t even sure he would have noticed something like that. “We’re under review because they’re trying to decide if our actions were more reckless or lifesaving.” It was clear they were both, but that balance was the key, he figured.

“Well, yeah, they were reckless – I’m not even sure I could have-” She cut off, perhaps realizing she was about to concede some amount of skill to Cliff. “But still – you must have been thinking of a back-up plan if your healer went down for a while. That’s a lot more cautious than I would have expected of you.”

Cliff barked a little laugh. “Not really, no. It was a spontaneous thing – thought of it when I saw my roommate bleeding out and we needed to help him out somehow.” He shrugged. “Most of it was my Gift, of course, though the spit was something I picked up from an old farmer who refuses to get his magetool hay baler fixed.” The longest and most difficult part of making the healing node had been actually assembling the damn thing.

Iona’s jaw opened for a moment, then clicked closed. She shook her head, growling a frustrated noise. “The murders I would commit to swap Gifts with you.”

This time, Cliff’s eyes widened. “You have a Gift?”

She blinked, nodding and holding up her hand. “Yeah, I never told you? I call it Steelskin.” Nothing happened for a few seconds, then the skin on her hand started to noticeably darken in color – a few seconds more and her flesh had been completely covered in a dark gray substance. He raised a finger, glancing at her for permission. When she nodded, he dragged it along her palm, frowning at the texture, somewhere between a lizard’s scales and an insect’s chitin.

Immediately, a dozen questions popped into his mind, but when he was about to start asking, she waved her hand, preempting him. “Yes, it conducts magic, but no, it can’t be harvested – it evaporates when I end use of my Gift. I primarily use it when I need to do particularly rough work with my hands and in combat, though it is actually often a disadvantage, because it is less flexible than normal skin and leaves me more susceptible to blunt attacks.” She paused to think. “Oh – I call it Steelskin, but I believe it’s actually pure iron, though I’ve never had it tested – trying to peel it off is like peeling off my skin, and any kind of test requires me to keep it manifested for a longer time than I’m capable.” She looked at him, the corners of her mouth raised in a smile. “Anything else?”

Cliff grinned, dropping his finger from her palm as her skin returned to normal. “No, that about covers it.” He appreciated that Iona’s mind worked in the same way his did. It made her easy to talk to about things like this, though whenever she got up in his face, caught in a fervor, he felt a pang of sympathy for his own victims of curiosity. On the topic of engineers, a thought occurred to him. “Actually, yes – but it’s not about your Gift. Whereabouts is Paolo?” The club’s advisor hadn’t showed up yet that day, and Cliff had a couple questions about the logistics of the Remote Hand – supplies he was hoping he could get approved on Paolo’s signature.

Iona shrugged. “Beats me. Haven’t seen him in a few days, actually.” She frowned. “Shouldn’t you know better than me? You’re his research assistant, after all.”

Cliff swallowed. “I – ah – well, with the Hands-on training and everything else, I’ve been busy, and…” He trailed off.

“Well, you should go check up on him – last I talked to him, he was all kinds of stressed. I think he’s supposed to present some of his research at the harvest festival.” She grunted. “Speaking of that, I should probably get back to work on our presentation – it is my namesake, after all.” The engineering club was going to do a demonstration of the Iona Cart as well as a handful of students’ individual projects, including Iona’s sewing machine, apparently.

He waved a hand after her as she walked away. “Let me know if you need my help with anything.” She made a noise of acknowledgment and he frowned, turning back to his sensor array. He promised himself he would go to visit Paolo’s workshop after dinner that day – that wouldn’t conflict with his probation, would it?

***

The inside of the infirmary was much colder than the outside, and a little shiver ran down Cliff’s back as they stepped into the lobby. Beside him, Nym rubbed at her exposed forearms, frowning at the cold, though Loria seemed unperturbed by the sudden change in temperature.

“I should have worn a jacket,” Nym said idly. Cliff grunted his agreement, silently lamenting the end of summer. “Aren’t you cold, Loria?”

Their commander glanced at them, shrugging a shoulder, eyebrows coming down. “Yeah, but my father was always pretty particular about us not ‘making a scene’, which, at times, included complaining about the cold.” She absently grabbed at one of her wrists, tugging at the skin. “I guess I got used to stuff like this.”

“Your poppa sounds like he was a right ox to deal with as a kid,” Cliff said as they signed in at the infirmary desk. Loria glared at him, and he rushed to clarify. “Not necessarily a bad thing – just a strong presence, you know? Stubborn and collected.” It wasn’t necessarily a good thing, either, though he wasn’t about to tell Loria that with the affronted look in her eye. He flashed a smile at the woman behind the desk, and they were through to the recovery rooms. There weren’t too many, and most of them seemed to be empty, so they came to Thalos’s in only a few moments.

Nym raised a hand, knocking on the door a few times. They waited a moment until a muffled voice called them inside, and Cliff opened the door, gesturing for the two women to go in before him. Thalos was seated upright in a wide medical cot, perched on top of the blankets with his legs crossed. He had a flimsy-looking matching set of white shirt and pants, and his feet were bare. Cliff breathed a sigh of relief to see that he looked hale. Thalos grinned at them. “I see they let you out of the dungeon.”

Nym just about sprinted to his bedside, wrapping him in a hug that he awkwardly returned, eyes wide with shock. After a moment she squeaked a little noise, pulling away from him to an arms length. “Sorry! Are you healthy enough – I mean, how are you feeling?”

“I’m, uh – I’m fine,” Thalos said, and Cliff felt himself smiling. The last time he’d seen his roommate, Thalos’s face had lost some of the color from his cheeks, but now it was back. Honestly, he looked more put out by Nym’s hug than anything else – he’d never really seemed like the hugging type. Nym nodded, going back in for another hug that he returned much more comfortably. “Are you guys home free, then?”

“Not quite,” Loria explained, “We’re technically on probation, though Roose has given us approval for visits to you as a group.” She sidled up to his bedside, and though she didn’t hug him, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder affectionately. “How are you feeling?”

“They’ve been feeding me nothing but chicken liver and spinach for days – something about those being good foods for getting my blood levels back up,” he whined, “honestly, it’s burning a worse hole in my stomach than the Spike Spitter ever did.” Loria grimaced at the joke, but Cliff couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m fine,” he continued, “how are you guys?”

Plopping himself down on the edge of Thalos’s bed, Cliff reached a hand out to smack his roommate’s knee. “Better, now that I’m not cooped up in our room. It was lonely up there, you know? Only person I really got to talk to was Ralph, and he always begged off after five minutes of conversation – something about having a kitchen to get back to.” His complaints covered his relief at seeing Thalos looking so healthy. They’d only had a few minutes to talk to him after arriving back at Clearspring before a high-speed trail trolley was hired to get him back to the academy for rest and recovery. This was the first time they could talk when he wasn’t about to pass out from the long-term effects of blood loss.

“That bad, huh?” Thalos asked with a smirk.

Cliff took on a tone of mock severity. “I nearly started reading ahead for history, Thalos.”

“Good Goddess,” his roommate said breathlessly, and they both laughed. When the laughter subsided, Thalos winced. “Honestly, though, I don’t appreciate the reminder of the exams next week. I’ve done a little studying, yeah, but-” He shrugged. “Well, lose a third of the blood in your body, and you run out of energy quickly for the next few days.”

The other three shared a look – Cliff had no doubt each was flashing back to the scene of their fight with the Spike Spitter and the hole through Thalos’s stomach. Loria looked back at Thalos. “I’ll help you catch up, if you want – we all will.”

“Right,” Nym said with a nod, “though I’m not too sure if I’ll be at all helpful compared to Loria.”

Thalos shook his head. “Nonsense – you guys have to prepare for the harvest festival, right?” He turned to Loria. “I know Cliff has his engineering club stuff, but the dueling club is having a tournament or something, right? Don’t you want to practice for that?”

Loria scoffed. “Please – with Jenna and Percy in the club, there’s no chance I’ll be even close to winning, and that’s just among the first years.” She didn’t sound too put off by it, but there was something troubled about her expression that Cliff couldn’t place. “We’ll help you, Thalos – for our sake, as much as yours. One great way to assess your familiarity with material is to teach it to someone else.” She paused. “Does your club have anything going on, Thalos?”

Thalos shook his head. Cliff knew his roommate was a member of the magic theory club, which, as far as Thalos explained it, was an excuse for its dozen-or-so members to spend their requisite club time in the library, studying or researching or doing whatever they really wanted to. “One of our guys will do a research presentation, but that burden falls on the third year students, so I’m safe on that front.”

Nym groaned a noise. “I’m jealous – the monster research club is having all members profile a monster they find interesting. I thought it would be pretty easy until I saw some of the others practicing – one girl has combed over thirty years of encounter logs to assemble a drawing of a monster that half the world thinks isn’t real.” She sighed. “I’m planning on pulling a few all-nighters once exams are over with.

“A few people have asked me to help me with their stuff, but I’ll only be working during club hours,” Cliff added.

“Well, how about this then,” Loria said, “we’ll come by for an hour every day – pending Roose’s approval, of course – and we’ll bring study materials. We can rotate who leads the study session, though we should remain in the core curriculum – not much benefit to focusing on an elective only one of us is taking, right?”

“Sounds good to me,” Thalos said, “but only if you really have the time.”

Nym nodded, and Cliff found himself grinning. “Look at us, making a plan and working together – it’s almost like another Hands-on training, right?”

“Except this time, I’d rather not be the person who ends up half dead and in the infirmary,” Thalos said, “well – at least not until I’ve checked out for the last time.” This time, his joke managed to coax a laugh out of even Loria.