“This is the Art Department.” Victor shows us a building boasting far too many windows, and walls painted in all colors of the rainbow. “I know the definition of art is pretty broad but they don’t consider combat, technical crafting, magical studies, or the act of roasting each other art. More conventional things like dancing, painting, or singing are what they do here with fashion designing and, “He spreads his hands and holds the nonexistent tension. “Your favorite, cuisine.”

‘Wow!’ is probably the reaction he expects and I kinda want to bash his face in for implying I’m a glutton. I only care about practical and enjoyable things so this; beauty can satiate the soul, wish-wash doesn’t interest me all that much.

August’s sneer tells me he shares my view, which somehow irks me a little. We can’t stand each other and that’s a hostility of three years, yet our mindsets are probably even more comparable than Val and I.

Looks like I’m walking a fine line between genius and prick.

We get ready to leave after taking a quick glance at the colorful building when the shy Adele opens her mouth. “Uhm, I think I’d like to take a closer look.” She shrinks under our combined gaze as we look at her questioningly. “I do… things like that.” Her voice basically disappears before she can explain.

“That’s right, we never asked.” I facepalm. “What do you do? I mean why the Academy? It’s not hard to guess you’re here to improve your blacksmithing talent, Rona, after the earlier comment.”

Man, now I feel like a jerk. We’ve almost completely ignored her and just assumed she’s your slightly above-average girl who’ll get bullied into the ground and thought nothing more of it.

“I sing.” Adele’s face turns red wherever the feathers don’t cover the skin. “I- My mom always told me I have a beautiful voice and I somehow ended up here after more and more people came to listen to my performances.”

That’s… nice actually. I hope she will respect my sleeping schedule back in the dorm but other than that I’m a bit curious to hear her voice. Listening to people sing has been one of my favorite pastimes for as long as I can remember.

“Yeah, me too.” Valka mutters to leave us flabbergasted for good.

“You sing?” I gape at her as I’ve never heard her be used for anything but shouting and yapping.

“No, you moron, I’m curious.” She shakes her head and lifts her arms defensively. “I don’t have a great voice anyway,” I think you do but saying that would be embarrassing. “what I want to check out is the-”

“The kitchen?” I finish the sentence. Nobody knows my best friend better than me.

Ever since we first got our hands on some money and the opportunity to buy ingredients… I still regret it to this day. It’s certainly one of her callings in life and I can respect that, but can’t exactly approve.

Sometimes her inventions were weirdly delicious actually. Most of them, however, would make even dogs shed tears while they force the bites down their throats. All in all, I like food, she likes it more.

“Oh, oh then we should check out the-” Kayla starts bouncing as the idea leaks out of her head before someone quickly stops her.

“Or we could make a round trip to see everything before splitting up and going our own way.” Comes the most logical argument from the person I want to hear the least.

How can someone as fucked up as August think the same way as me?

“No~o, c’mon we have all the time and so many things to see.” Kayla whines.

Haven’t you already been through this a year before? And get a Skill already that can share some of your otherworldly energy or something, otherwise, leave me out of this.

“Let’s vote!” Comes the proposition from Victor, clearly exercising his semi-squad leader privileges.

I really don’t feel like checking each and every building out. The food art thing does sound mildly engaging, especially if there’s tasting, but I’d avoid pottery and other alibi activities if it means I get back to my room faster. Then again, there are quite a few places I want to check out …

“Thumbs up for together, thumbs down for August’s proposal.” Victor decides on a tricky yet fair method of voting.” Go!”

The idea behind this procedure is simple, everyone votes at once so nobody can dilly dally and allow others to influence their opinion. Well, I don’t follow these rules and regret it as soon as everyone casts their vote. August and my two new roommates cast their vote in favor of going our own ways. The other three it seems, would like to stick together.

Every eye counting the votes lands on me at the end and an uncomfortable silence descends.

“You were meant to vote there, you know?” Victor chides with a flat look.

“Make me!” I huff. Although I only abstained because I can’t really decide.

My position is both quite beneficial due to the power that comes with my vote and really dumb at the same time. No matter what I pick people will be dissatisfied with me even though I don’t represent either side alone.

We could visit any of these places later, right? It’s not like joining a department has a time limit or an entrance quota or something.

I’m about to become a party pooper when someone pinches my side and I nearly squeal. There’s only one person who’d dare do this without fearing the retribution… Lightning magic starts running through my body as my head slowly turns towards Valka. I bit by bit increase the output and watch her eyes narrow and her hair get all fuzzy yet she doesn’t let go, as a matter of fact, she grips the skin even stronger.

“You’ll regret this!” I warn her in a cold tone, no longer worried about the vote all too much.

“That’s my line.” She doesn't back down. Of course she doesn’t… “Just suck it up and sleep at night or I’ll take your bracelet in your sleep and throw you out on the gangway.”

“You don’t have the balls.” I crank the power up but she still holds on.

She’s resilient as hell and that second, lightning-attributed Class of hers does help her shrug off my magic. I really should start looking for other ways to stay in our little back-and-forth game.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Yeah, I don’t.” She tilts her head.

“It means ‘I dare you’ in a weird way.” Kayla adds quietly.

The standoff persists until I come up with an acceptable outcome just as my side starts to ache like it's about to fall off.

“I get the fluffier towel.” I offer a compromise.

“No way, we were supposed to leave that to Luxandra’s luck! They only had a single purple one.” Her grip weakens.

“One or the other.” I try to keep my facade from breaking this close to victory.

The stakes are high but Valka makes her pick. “Fine, but we’ll go back in a week to see if they have another.”

“Deal.” I squeal as we stop the bickering and I show a thumbs up.

“The votes have been cast. The motion passes.” Victor declares, giggling at our little charade.

I rub my side and Valka shakes the stiffness out of her limbs while the other waits with unparalleled patience.

“Are they always like this?” Rona asks openly.

“Usually.” Kayla smiles defeatedly. “They are a bit too special for their own good and like to be dominant.”

“Don’t put it weirdly!” I snap at her as we walk towards the building vomited on by a rainbow.

***

It was fucking awful. These people had no idea what a meal was and had us wait for half an hour to serve a bite-sized bit of meal and call it a day. Don’t get me wrong it was some of the finest damn food I’ve ever tasted but after it went down the slide I craved for more even though it was all gone.

A damn scam is what I call that. Valka was still excited like… like me when I found a new book about how to make things go boom with some weird symbols. Anyway, we stuck around a little before dragging her away even as she tried to explain her idea of a grilled turtle neck stuffed with marmalade and boiled potatoes…

I think I saw them release a sigh of relief as we left.

Oh yeah, and Adele disappeared singing somewhere. She just scampered off without notifying any of us and we have enough conscience to not force unwanted audience onto her. She’ll open up when she feels ready. Probably.

However, this begs the question… How did she ever perform when she can hardly talk without stuttering? It’s just weird.

The roundtour continued and we spent hours walking around the island campus. Plants, beasts, oceans, the skies, politics, history… there’s a department for everything.

Since most of us are already part of the Combat troupe we skipped that one right away – just like anything talking or money-related – and went straight for a juicy one. The Artisan Department.

Fascinating only because Inscriptions fall under the umbrella of crafting, alongside blacksmithing and other brutish methods of creating things. Our group of seven arrived at the arguably most functional-looking building on the entire island.

Neat brick walls with relatively minor makeup and plain windows. Yet I would not call the building aesthetically an eyesore, quite the opposite really. Even with the massive chimneys puffing smoke and the sinister glow of magic seeping through some windows. Among the myriad of white and dazzling structures sits this one exemption, proud and uncaring.

“Do we have to go in there? It looks evil.” Kayla speaks the words probably all of us had on our minds.

“Not evil, just dwarven style.” Rona corrects her, already marching on.

“You voted for moving together, no backing out now!” I shrug and follow the shortie. “Who knows, they might have some magical gadget in here that helps your animals fly.” I lie through my teeth.

I see Kayla’s eyes sparkle at my simple bait and she joins me only after a moment of contemplation, soon followed by the whole procession amidst quiet grumbling. Walking through the simple yet massive door we find ourselves in a spacious entrance hall. A student sits at what should be a reception desk buried beneath heaps of paper.

Unlike the previous places where paintings, plants, or other subtle decorations filled every corridor, here we see… everything. Weird boxes with gears and inscriptions on shelves, swords shaped like antlers on the wall, a suit of armor so big even a full-grow Valka would find it loose, and countless other gadgets and tools on display. On the two sides of the desk and the paper mountain are two reinforced doors, seemingly to keep something out… or in.

“What can I do for you?” Asks the halfling without raising his head from the papers.

“Uhm, I’d like to see… stuff?” I ask.

“I’m here to see the equipment and apply for membership.” Rona answers with purpose.

The student wordlessly nods to his left and so in we go. And, well… here I was thinking I am disorganized.

Despite being the first day of the Academy or maybe not even that, the people here buzz around their workstations with tools ranging from the size of toothpicks to even massive war hammers. Fires of different colors blaze in one corner along with complex structures of pipes, gears, rods, and whatever fucked up shapes those might be are being assembled amidst heated arguing.

Gadgets of unimaginable purpose litter the floor like pebbles on a road and the air is rich with all kinds of smell. All this heated work on one side gives a stark contrast to the students and adults quietly tinkering on their tables with gentle flashes of magic and occasional curses across the massive workshop.

There’s one unifying element though that shows this place truly is one big organism instead of different professions lumped into one room; the wall. They are plastered with paper upon paper, plans upon drawings of tools, Runes, mechanical designs, metallurgical instructions, and meshes of the Grand String…

It’s the most beautiful nightmare I’ve ever seen.

While I let my eyes roam free Rona already gets down to business and the others… I hear them back out where we came from in silent unison.

Cowards. So what if something explodes, it’s just part of the process.

I’m drawn to the corner where Inscriptions adorn the walls in the dozens, scuttling to the people carving or building the lines of magical order on the different parts.

It becomes instantly apparent that any simple function like structural reinforcement is solved using dwarven Runes while the more complicated parts… I think this blows wind in a cone with adjustable output… maybe… so complex stuff requires either the Grand String for fine-tuning or the Flow for a direct outcome.

A good example would be this formation of fire that should fly spirally and be shaped like… a bird?

The Flow is weird because it’s like a painting without all the freedom one would expect from the art of drawing.

“Hmm, a curious mind you are.” An older gnome speaks up from behind my back. “The art of inscriptions you like, join you must!” He nods as if it is already decided.

And what’s wrong with him? Why is he talking like that?

“I’m just looking around.” I try to give myself a bit more wiggle room.

“Much more than looking you do, studying, hmmm.” He waves for me to follow and for some reason I do. “Some people, all do, no desire. You, much desire but… conflicted. Why?”

You no speak normal, why?

“I don’t want to make any rash decisions.” I answer half truthfully.

I know too little for now to make important decisions. I like inscriptions and almost everyone has encouraged me to pursue this calling… but I’m nearly certain I’ll regret it in the future in the heat of battle.

“Stupid.” The gnome says without a hint of malice or mockery. “All the time you have, no danger, only opportunity.”

I’d like to argue about the danger part but also… This is the least gnomeish gnome I’ve ever seen. He’s wasting his time giving me weird advice and being philosophical instead of productive.

[Labourer lvl ??]

Oh yeah.

So I voice my concern. “Why waste your time on me? I’m sure it’s worth much more than to give life lessons to someone like me. Isn’t that the gnomish way?”

The decrepit man chuckles. “Something valuable I do, finding not talent but a spark of curiosity, yes. Others of my kind, too young, they understand not. Very productive teaching is. My time for three students… work multiplies, time multiplies, innovation multiplies.” He explains to me the art of sharing knowledge using math and his strange way of speaking.

It is true though, if he spends his entire life helping hundreds if not thousands of student master their craft then all their achievements are in part also his achievements. All their success is also his success even if no one acknowledges that.

“Now sit, show!” He points to a desk and orders me to work.

And I do. Despite my usual reluctance to do as told and try to preserve my dignity, I just plop down and save his time so he can multiply it.