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ADAMAR
I glance up from my studying as there is a knock on the door. It’s post curfew, but someone has obviously taken the risk, despite the late hour. Strange. I haven’t done anything of note lately, and nobody but Folas, Valkallyn, and I should know I’ve found the final exam HeadMaster’s key yet. In fact, I’m not quite sure this is even the real answer key to all the subjects. Last year, there had been multiple decoys, and numerous people had gotten into trouble for memorizing one and using it. HeadMaster Haulding had happily explained in disgusting detail the only-legal-since-they-had-already-graduated-and-were-now-technically-trespassing-on-school-grounds punishments those student’s had faced. So before I allow myself or anybody I care about to even think of using them, I need to be extremely sure these are the real ones.
The knock comes again. “Come in!” I call out. It can’t be my roommates– Grem and Kai– they never knock, and they should technically still be in night classes with Master Cellica. But perhaps they had passed out again due to over-inhalation of certain pollens in the greenhouse? It had happened once. I hadn’t been there, but apparently someone had to carry them back. It could be that the student carrying them is just trying to be polite. Extremely unlikely though. Kai wouldn’t let Grem make the same mistake twice. I frown. The knock comes yet again.
Thoroughly annoyed now, I get up from my desk, stalk over to the door, and wrench it open. “What the blazes–” My eyes widen as they fall on two familiar faces. “Folas, Valkallyn, what are you doing out here? Quickly, come in! You should know better than to be out in the open like this. You don’t have passes to be out after curfew!” I know, I have the list of students with that pass, and they certainly aren’t on it.
“Thanks!” Folas says, coming in immediately. “Your roommates aren’t here right now, right?” He glances over at the two messy beds and the one neat one.
“Still out for their night lesson on Crossbreeding Parasitical Nocturnal Angiosperms.” I confirm shrugging. “Part of their Capstone Course in Magical Botanicals. You probably know the one I speak of, Folas, it’s likely you have something similar. Nevermind that though, what brings you here at this hour?”
“We need to find something.” Folas says, Valkallyn elbows him, and he amends his statement. “Or rather, I need you to find something.” From his slightly ashamed face, it looks like it was serious and something he definitely procrastinated on until his twin forced him to face up to it.
Chuckling slightly at their dynamic, I offer them space to sit on my bed.
“You know I’m under scrutiny.” I gesture towards the papers on my desk. Last time we’d worked together, I’d gotten my hands on the probable answer key, but some of the Masters had noticed that something was up and… well. There are now multiple new and interesting traps around the school and a few dead magic zones where my particular talents don’t work properly. All in all, it was quite impressive work on the Masters’ parts. They probably had to bring HeadMaster Haulding in on it himself. But it is too close to the day of the finals for the Masters to rewrite the questions. And I’m set to graduate right after that. So all-in-all I think it was worth the risk.
But now that means “ –I’m afraid I won’t be of much use if you need anything in the Masters’ Tower.” I say, referring to the large floating tower in the center of the school that is practically impossible to get into for normal students, and thus where all the interesting things are kept.
“No, it’s likely in a student dorm.” Folas admits.
“Oh?” My interest is piqued. “What happened?”
“He was an idiot, and someone who is before him on the presenting list copied his Capstone Project.” Valkallyn breaks in, glaring daggers at her twin. “He tried to take care of it himself and broke his leg in the process instead of bothering to mention it to either of us.”
“The thief broke your leg?!” I exclaim.
“I didn’t think it would go that far!” Folas replies defensively. “And besides, the Infirmary Matrons fixed me right up. Nobody even noticed the limp!”
“Still… that sort of escalation without fear of consequences…” I frown. “They’re either desperate, have someone backing them, or both.”
“You see now why I insisted we all work on it together?” Valkallyn says, leaning back on my bed. “You can’t take this on alone, Folas. We’re stronger as a team.”
Folas sighs and rolls his eyes. “Trust me, I figured that out once my leg broke. It hurt like blazes, I just–”
“Didn’t have the courage to admit you lost your project to Ryo Faera?”
“It was Faera?” I ask, not liking this situation the more I hear about it. “This could get bad.”
“So you don’t have any blackmail that would allow us to get it back easily?” Folas asks, dejectedly.
“He’s trying to be squeaky clean– His family is also going into politics, and so he’s been keeping out of trouble for the most part. My parents already asked me to get as much as I could on him, but it isn’t much. To do something like this…” I shake my head. “It doesn’t make any sense, the penalty for academic dishonesty is automatic expulsion. It would tarnish everything his parents are working so hard to build. I just can’t understand. He’s not the sort of person to throw all that out the window.”
“Makes sense to me.” Valkallyn says, “Dude won’t graduate unless he has a project, he’s not thinking about his family, he’s thinking about his personal situation. Perhaps he procrastinated, or didn’t have any good ideas, both Folas and he are Capstoning in Magical Biology, and the hard deadline for the Project Description is in two days. He needed to have something, or he wouldn’t graduate anyways, and he would get in trouble with his parents. Better to risk it all for success than mildly accept your own failure and take responsibility.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better still to not risk anything and just stay up for the next sixty hours to prep something?” The answer seems obvious to me, but Valkallyn just shakes her head.
“Not everyone can survive on your sleep schedule Adamar.” Folas chimes in, “And, stealing is easier than coming up with something, that much I can understand. Also, dude’s arrogant. I doubt he thinks we’ll be able to prove he stole it in time to prevent him from using it.”
“I still think we should go to the Masters.” Valkallyn says. “They can at least give us a temporary leave to investigate and delay the Project Description deadline.”
Her twin contradicts her, “And what, lose both morally and pointwise? You know the point of this project is to prove our mettle without the Master’s getting involved, Val.”
“Don’t call me–!” His twin starts but he cuts her off.
“Points will be docked if we have to go to them, not to mention this is supposed to prove that we are individually able to take on challenging research projects. No Masters are allowed to advise– on subject, resources, anything! Going to one ruins the whole concept behind this project!”
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“But what’s the point of having the moral high ground if we don’t have the time to do anything?” Valkallyn protests, and then turns to me, begging me to get her twin to listen. I sigh, knowing my answer will disappoint.
“I think he’s right, Valkallyn.” She opens her mouth, but I hurry to explain. “Academic Dishonesty is a major problem out in the world beyond the borders of this school, so it fits well within the spirit of the task. The Master’s can’t provide much help, and we’ll appear weak and unprepared just by going to them. If HeadMaster Haulding gets involved– which he probably will since Capstone Projects are tied so closely to graduation– going to them will only have hurt us. No, I think we have to take this on ourselves.”
“But what can we do in two days?” Valkallyn asks dejectedly. “If we don’t do anything, he’ll just present Folas’s idea first, and then it will all be over with. Folas will have nothing!”
The elf in question doesn’t look nearly as hopeless as his twin. He grins at me, confident. “Any suggestions, Adamar?” He asks, already anticipating an answer. I smile back at him, ideas buzzing around my head. I love being the plotter for this group. Folas is a do-first, think later; and Valkallyn acts as our voice of reason; but I think I have the best job by far.
“First I need to know a few things that will help me analyze his mental state. What was your project exactly, what did you plan on submitting for your description? And why do you think he targeted you specifically?”
“My project was on Magical Botanicals, obviously.” He says, shrugging as he easily recites the details. “I had a healing focus, I was testing three different types of plants I thought might have a beneficial effect on speeding up the metabolism, muscle growth, and healing of wounds. Not in elves or dwarves yet, of course, just in rodents.” He shrugs again, “As for the reason why me specifically, well, I don’t rightly know. We share a lot of classes, he might have overheard me discussing my topic with Valkallyn at some point. I don’t have any animosity with him that I know of.”
“Interesting.” I frown, random chance isn’t normally something I’d like to rely on for a motivator, but if that is really all that Folas can think of, I suppose it makes this easier. “You should plan for a change in that animosity level. It’s likely he’ll hate you even after you graduate if we pull this off right.”
“What do you have in mind?” Valkallyn asks, eyes widening.
“Don’t look so apprehensive, Valkallyn,” I grin at her, “You should like this one. My thought is: we’re going to create doubles of ourselves, so no one will notice our absence in class. Then our real selves will sneak into his room and lab, and destroy everything. All his samples, all his notes, anything that could be related to the project.” The twins' eyes gleam with excitement, already craving vengeance on the unsuspecting Ryo Faera.
“We’ll destroy a bit more besides.” Folas grins evilly. “That will teach the brat to steal from folks.”
“And in the meantime, we’ll have airtight alibis! He can’t go to anyone, although he’ll probably know it’s us. He’ll be furious!” Valkallyn laughs. “Just one problem, Adamar, how are we going to make the decoys? Enchanting is my Capstone Course, and, take it from me, creating lifelike figurines that move and respond as a person would is impossible.”
“Perhaps it is. Perhaps we simply don’t know how yet.” I walk over to the papers I was studying before they disturbed me. “It’s one of the theoretical free response questions on the Enchanting final. ‘Propose a method of solving the quandary– How to imitate life?’” I read off the paper directly, taping my finger on the question, and the diagram below it. “Now, you come over here and tell me this example answer doesn’t look viable.”
She comes and stands next to me, I hand the papers to her so she doesn’t have to read over my shoulder. I’m actually a bit nervous. Enchanting isn’t one of my best subjects. But I think it works. I think…
“An enchanted base that follows a preprogrammed routine inside a giant illusion circle?” She says, startled. Her eyes rove the runes and spells carefully drawn on the paper, that directly illustrate how someone would go about doing such a thing. “This is brilliant! The illusions take care of the facial expressions, and can mimic natural responses in real time and from all angles. Of course, the base can never go outside the illusion circle, or the whole thing will break, and it really shouldn’t be touched by anyone nearby, but it just might work!”
Folas comes over to look at the paper, and says, “Sounds like a lot of work, where would we be putting the illusion?”
“It would have to be carved into the ground just outside the school, the strand outside the wall but before the moat should do nicely.” I determine, finalizing my plan on the spot. “I can take care of that, I’ve been studying up on the basics of illusions to better check their Final’s portion of this dratted HeadMaster’s key.” I say, “You guys will have to build the enchantments and the bases so that our movements are controlled and responses are immediate.”
“We only have two days to get this done.” Valkallyn suddenly protests, probably daunted by the scale of our attempt.
I grin at her, “Two days, and three nights.” I say. “So let's get started!”
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It takes me all night to finish half of the designs around the school. I decided not to do it on the ground, too much of a chance of people noticing. So instead I did it at the base of the walls, almost half covered by dirt. Most of the work was in figuring out how best to work the designs onto a vertical surface at a very low height. It only takes the last four hours to get halfway around the school, although, I might have to check my work tonight, to make sure that my rushing to finish didn’t smudge any of the spellwork. I walk into my Advanced Magical Artifacts class with Master Gennixia dirty, tired, but very pleased. From Master Gennixia’s look, I surmise that she isn’t nearly as pleased. But I pay her no mind, she isn’t seeing all the intricate, repetitive spellwork I painted last night, she only sees my muddy shoes this morning as I walk into her strictly tidy classroom. I don’t give her any explanation. Although I’m her best student by far, we each have good reason to dislike each other– she nearly dissected me once without realizing it was me, and I know a secret that could end her career. We had a confrontation about it a year ago, which ended in a nice little truce, but I still don’t trust her. So I don’t feel like I owe her an explanation as to what I spent my early morning doing. Let her wonder.
I don’t see Folas and Valkallyn till lunch, but when I do see them, Folas is carrying two mugs of coffee in one hand, and a plate of pasta in the other. Valkallyn has the same, but with more cheese on her pasta. The two have very similar tastes.
“So,” I say, sipping a mug of my steaming Oolong tea. “How did it go?” From the bags under their eyes and their dissatisfied faces, not well. But it’s always polite to ask.
“We got the base done,” Valkallyn says, “Not much else. We’ve decided to skip our afternoon classes to work on it.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, “Valkallyn, you have a test final like me, not a Capstone Project. You really should be attending the last month of classes.”
“This is more important.” Valkallyn says, “Besides, if I call in sick, I can just make up the work. Nobody will try and refute me when I’ve been going around all morning like this.” She waves at her snarly, bushy hair, grumpy face, and yesterday’s wrinkled outfit that all bear testament to her sleepless night of work. I suppose one could see those symptoms and draw the conclusion ‘sick’ so I nod my agreement.
I attend all my afternoon classes diligently, but instead of hanging out with Grem and Kai for boardgame night, I call off saying I have a robbery to finish preparing.
Kai nods, this is in the realm of normal for us after all.
“Can we help?” Grem asks eagerly. Kai nods to this as well. He may be less talkative than Grem, but inside, he’s no less chaotic.
“Unless you want to be painting spellwork onto the base of the outer wall with me all night, probably not.” I say, and then reconsider. “Wait, how much do you know about enchanting?”
“Our Capstones are both Magical Botanicals.” Grem points out. “Are you alright Adamar? Normally you wouldn’t forget a thing like that. Especially since you helped us finally settle on a project.”
I nod, “Oh I’m fine, just thinking Kai might have had some knowledge because of his older siblings really.” His eldest brother had Capstoned in Enchanting weapons– he’d graduated before Faladel and Briareth had managed that peace treaty between elves and dwarves. Kai might have learned some things from him.
“I know a bit, but not anything serious.” Kai confirms quietly. “Is it related?”
“Folas and Valkallyn need help, they’re working on the other part of our plan.”
“Valkallyn doesn’t seem like the type to instigate a robbery.” Kai murmurs, and then blushes. Lately, he’s had quite the crush on Valkallyn.
“Neither she nor Folas really are,” I shrug, “It was my idea, and the guy robbed Folas first, so really it's all quite fair.”
Grem notices the small flush that still permeates Kai’s cheeks, and starts yet another round of teasing him mercilessly on his crush. He doesn’t even stop as they’re on their way out the door and towards Folas’s lab space where he and his twin are hard at work.
Hopefully, I’ve sent them a source of help instead of a distraction.