A soft chime rang through the small stone chamber Snorri called home. Reluctantly, the gnome opened his eyes and pulled himself out from underneath the blankets. As he dressed in his standard issue academy uniform, he pondered what the day would bring. He fastened his belt, pulled up the hood of his cloak, and left his chamber, exiting into the vast maze of tunnels that the gnomes had carved beneath Grey Hold Mountain. Snorri made his way along the smooth stone tunnels of the residential district, having left himself plenty of time to make his long familiar journey to the academy in the very bowels of the mountain.
Snorri reached the end of the tunnel and joined a much busier and larger tunnel, with most of the gnomes making their way towards the lift station, dressed in the same uniform as Snorri. As the lift station came into view, Snorri felt the pace of the crowd quicken slightly, eager not to miss the platform as it was lowered from the upper levels on a great chain. The students pushed into the now crowded station. A wizened old station guard was shouting at the crowd, trying to maintain some order among the gnomish students.
After a minute or so of waiting, the slow-moving metal platform descended into the lift station. The students pushed forward onto the platform. Snorri was carried along with the crowd as they flowed into the now packed lift platform. Once the students had all crammed their way in, the platform began to descend once again. A slow clinking of huge chains could be heard echoing down from high above them. Eventually, the platform came to a stop. “Lower Deeps: exit here for Gnomeland Academy.” Snorri and the rest of the students poured from the platform into the lift station and pushed toward the exit for the academy.
Snorri held back to allow the younger students to make their way to their classrooms first. He followed the crowd in through the ornate archway leading into yet more smooth gnomish tunnels and chambers. Snorri made his way through the academy. Snorri sighed as he reached his small workroom in the very lowest of the academy’s many floors. A small brass sign hung over the door:
DEPARTMENT OF LEVEL CAPACITRY
Snorri turned the door handle and swung open the door into the small round table. The walls were mostly taken up by a jumble of sprawling charts and notes. One large desk sat in the center of the room, a gray-haired gnome with a beard so long it could make a dwarf blush was snoozing peacefully in a comfortable chair behind it. “Good morning, professor,” Snorri called as he made his way to a small desk set to one side of the larger desk. The old gnome behind the desk started awake. “Ah, Snorri, made it in at last,” the professor said, cleaning his glasses. Snorri ignored him, knowing full well that he had, in fact, been on time this morning.
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Snorri began tidying the jumble of papers on his desk. The professor had been one of the greatest minds in the academy in his younger days. He was the first gnome to theorize that all of the sentient races of the world shared a similar system for gaining experience and knowledge. His research had proved successful and had led to entire fields of science being discovered. However, after three centuries of research, the gnomish academic had finally come to terms with a dark truth. Although the gnomes did share similarities with the other sentient races' experience leveling system, the gnomes' level seemed to only be able to reach level 5, and only then after decades of practice and study.
The professor had dedicated centuries of research to trying to understand the problem and find a solution. After a while, the rest of the academia had shifted their gaze onto other interests, and slowly over time, the professor had become somewhat of a hermit, barely leaving this tiny office chamber. Snorri had been sent to the department as somewhat of a joke. The other teachers apparently had been taking bets on how long he would last, but Snorri found the professor amusing and forgave his eccentricities.
“Well, Snorri, today we have a very important job to do, very important indeed,” the professor said in a wheezy, slightly excited voice. “Today we are going to visit one of the lower school classes for a special presentation from the Archivist Guild.” Snorri rolled his eyes. The lower school consisted of the gnomes aged 11 to 15, yet to gain the required intelligence levels to be able to think properly. They were by far the worst students in the school. “Why are we going?” asked Snorri, hoping to find some way to get out of it. “We are going to oversee the safety of the presentation. The archivists are going to be showing an artifact from the dwarves. We believe the artifact may hold a significantly powerful curse, and thus it has been decided supervision is needed,” the professor said, standing up from his chair.
“Cursed? How cursed?” asked Snorri, slightly panicking for the well-being of the younger students. “It's killed maybe seventeen gnomes since it was brought to the mountain. However, as long as the artifact remains inside its glass case, it will be inert,” the professor hesitated for a moment before adding, “So obviously you will not at any point be opening the case. We are going to make sure that nobody will, and every gnome in this academy will remain curse-free.”
Snorri got up from behind his desk and hastily followed the professor from the room.