If there was anything that Professor Bill Weathers hated, it was being forgotten. He was an above average looking man. One may even say he was handsome, with the right lighting. Bill had one feature, though, that stood out on his face like a monument to memorability, his gigantic nose. For that reason, it was times like this that upset him so much.
"No, no, no. We met at Paul Jr's house warming. It was only last week," he said to the pretty blonde holding a coffee cup and wearing an expression of someone searching their memory, but coming up blank.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I remember the house warming, I just don’t remember meeting you there.”
The blonde flashed Professor Weathers an insincere apologetic expression before turning on her heel, and promptly making her way out of the building. Bill watched her go, sighed dramatically to himself, and scanned the room for a place to sit and attempt to salvage his lunch break. His usual table, the one by the little shop’s single window, was occupied by a pair of young people he didn’t recognize. The only unoccupied table was the two-seater closest to the counter, right next to the bustling line of people waiting to bark their orders at the staff.
I think I’ll just take my coffee on a walk.
And walk he did. The mountain city of Stormgate was known around the world for its perpetual layer of thick fog and, of course, the famous Storm Acres Academy. The streets were probably busy with people going to and fro, shopping and lunching, but Professor Weathers wouldn’t know it. As far as he could see, he was the only lonely soul in the entire city. The scuffling sounds of shoes against wet cement and muffled conversations overheard in passing let him know he wasn’t really alone as he moved through the streets. At one point a man hooded in a black cloak ran straight into him, but miraculously caught Professor Weathers’ coffee before it reached the ground. The man apologized, handed Weathers the coffee, and disappeared into the fog heading the other way. Only a handful of minutes later, just outside of the city proper, Professor Weathers reached his destination before his coffee had even cooled.
The tall black gates of Storm Acres Academy were always kept in the open position. Professor Weathers sipped his coffee as his wood soled shoes clicked and clacked on the cobblestone path that led between the open gates and onto the Academy’s campus. The gates, as foreboding as they looked with their pointed black posts and thick stone walls, were more for show than to keep anyone off of the property. Nobody in their right mind would enter the Storm Acres campus with less than noble intentions.
The day was ominous and grey, hardly unusual for Stormgate, and the typical lack of wind allowed the fog to gather and condense into a cloud-like layer rising thirty or so feet from the ground at any given time. The air was chill and smelled vaguely like pine. It felt to Professor Weathers that it may begin to rain any second, but then, it very nearly felt that way every day in this part of Kingsland. Students were coming and going to and from the many buildings within Storm Acres’ campus in small groups, talking and laughing as they went. Weathers smiled to himself, even after the travesty at the coffee shop, today might still be a good day.
In the background, behind the massively tall white brick tower of the entrance hall, Mount Storm stood to the north, a black obelisk wrapped at its base in thick evergreen forests and shrouded in a perpetual blanket of thick fog. Above the treeline, unlike so many other great mountains, Mount Storm was not tipped with white. Quite the opposite, at altitudes too high for most any kind of life to survive, the top third of Mount Storm was obsidian black - still heated by the flowing lava within, no amount of snowfall could land on the great mountain without melting immediately.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
The tallest known mountain on the planet, Mount Storm is thought to be the volcano that birthed the Great Plateau with its violent eruptions in the distant past. In its centuries long dormant period, the once-feared volcano is now, and has been since the first written records of the Great Plateau, the iconic image most commonly associated with magic around the world. While it was common knowledge that magic did not exist outside of the Great Plateau, it was still only theory that Mount Storm was the source of all magic. Professor Weathers didn’t believe that for a second, and had often argued that humans were, in fact, the source of all magic. When countered by the argument that humans could only perform magic on the plateau below Mount Storm, he would ask the skeptic if a fish could swim outside of the water - and then followed up by asking if the water itself, or if the fins and bones and musculature the fish had developed over thousands of years of natural selection was to have credit for the ability to swim.
The cobblestone path that led him onto Storm Acres Academy’s campus came to a T junction in front of the grand doors of the Academy’s entrance hall. If he were to turn left, Professor Weathers would end up in the west wing where the greenhouses and gymnasium and recreational buildings were located. Following the path to the right would take him to the lecture halls, classrooms, forges, laboratories, and his favorite location on campus, the library. But today his destination was his office, located in the main building just past the gates.
Once inside, the condensation that had gathered on Professor Weathers’ jacket began to drip onto the immaculately polished marble floor of Storm Acres Academy’s grand entrance hall. The high arched ceiling was supported by opulent white pillars on either side of a pathway leading to a flight of marble stairs. The world’s most efficient janitor, Will, waved a flippant greeting to Professor Weathers as he strode past.
“Morning Will,” the Professor said in passing, feeling his sense of guilt rising as the trail of water droplets in his wake dirtied the otherwise immaculate marble.
Professor Weathers marched up the stairs, through the grandiose archway, and then navigated his way through the quiet corridors to his office. He reached into his left pant pocket for the key, but his searching fingers found only a small ball of lint. Professor Weathers made a face, and then began fumbling through the many pockets in his jacket and suit vest.
“I could have sworn…” he muttered to himself. He had a distinct recollection of placing the key to his office in his left pant pocket that very morning before exiting his one bedroom apartment. It was a distinct recollection because, with the hazy state of mind of someone who had awoken earlier than he normally did, he had tried to lock the apartment door with the key to his office before placing it in his pocket. His memory had always been incredibly reliable, and he trusted it completely.
So, I’ve either dropped it on my way here or. . . he let the thought hang.
Keys, Professor Weathers thought, now that he had thoroughly checked every one of his pockets and was sure he hadn’t just misplaced the key, do not simply jump out of pockets.
He accepted, but nearly discounted, the possibility that someone had lifted the key from his pocket without catching his attention. He nearly discounted it because he couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone would want to sneak into his office. The humble, but well decorated, office held very little in the way of valuables, but there was a large amount of confidential information within his small army of filing cabinets. It wasn’t anything that would be dangerous in the wrong hands, but Professor Weathers took the privacy of his students very seriously. He sighed, made a mental note to have the lock changed later that afternoon, and then turned on his heel to go back the way he had come.
Before he had taken a single step, a small white mouse scurried across the stylish rug, only stopping when it was an inch in front of Professor Weathers’ still-wet wingtip shoes. The tiny creature was carrying a rolled piece of parchment in its front paws. Professor Weathers crouched and held out his hand with the palm upturned. The mouse placed the note there, cheeped a little sound that meant no more to Professor Weathers than it would to a brick, and then scurried off and disappeared around a corner. Weathers stood, cursing his lower back for having aged without his permission, and then unrolled the parchment to inspect its contents.
It was a message from the Academy’s Headmaster requesting his presence at an urgent meeting scheduled to take place after classes that very afternoon. Professor Weathers had only visited the Headmaster’s office a handful of times since he began teaching at the Academy nearly a decade before, and a few times before that when he had attended the Academy as a student in his youth. Whatever this ‘urgent’ meeting was concerning, Professor Weathers put the odds at five to one against it being something to celebrate about. He made a face, placed the note in his vest’s inner pocket, and started off in the direction of his lecture hall to prepare for afternoon classes.