Q4: Explain in a few sentences what you would do in this situation:

You walk into a café on a busy street corner. The barista is being held at spellpoint by an unknown mage. There are three other patrons in the room cowering beneath their tables.

Jacob twirled his pen through his fingers absentmindedly. He flipped the page of the test over, but this was the last question. He supposed he should have expected something like this on the tournament ranking test, but how did you study for a question like this?

You didn't.

He grunted and looked around the room. A few people had left already but most of the class was still there. No, the only way to prepare for a question like this was to go through real life situations. Still, it should have been more specific. The academy would combine the students' tournament ranking test scores with their Strength Charts and release the rankings later this week. Doing well on this test would be critical in not getting a super hard match first round.

The encounters with the rogue mage came back to him. The way Sheriff Hueller and Jimmy had acted. The way things had played out. The way they could have played out differently. He knew that in a situation like this everything would depend on the details, the orientation of those involved, the abilities of the unknown mage. Sitting there, thinking, he realized that a situation like that, a hostage situation, a battle, any encounter, really, was just like an ecosystem. You had the living, biotic components: the predators, prey. You also had the abiotic components: the environment, setting. In an ecosystem, the more you knew, the better you understood it, the way it worked, all the different little ways interactions between various components could play out. Were battles like that too? A certain number of ways things could play out given the parties involved?

Jacob sat there, lost in thought, until the girl sitting behind him sneezed and snapped him out of it.

He scribbled his answer:

I would prefer to have more information on the layout of the room, the attitude and demeanour of the unknown mage, and the orientation of everyone inside. With the given information, I would pretend I am just a normal citizen and cower over next to the others. Once the unknown mage no longer considered me an immediate threat, I would strike him with a fast projectile, then move in and disable him as quickly as possible. Then, if possible, I would call in backup.

Jacob scanned through his other answers quickly, then folded the test up and jogged down the aisle to the front of the room. He handed the test to Ms Sterling, grabbed his backpack from where it lay against the front of the room with everyone else's bags, and left.

Blake had left a couple minutes before him, and Camilla and Archie both a little while before that. They'd agreed to meet up in the cafeteria afterward to talk about the test and get started on the readings for Production Basics tomorrow, though Jacob doubted they actually would. Blake and Archie were obsessed with the tournament to a point of near frenzy, and even Camilla, who was cool and aloof about almost everything on campus from the search for the master control room to the clubs, seemed excited.

The cafeteria, however, was eerily empty. The lunch window wasn't for another half hour so it wouldn't have been packed, but there were only two other people in there besides him.

Jacob tossed his backpack on one of the round, off-white tables covered in marks and old, stubborn stains and plopped down in his chair. He texted Blake and sat there, waiting for a response. Had he missed something? Was there a campus event that had slipped his mind beneath the hectic prep for the tournament ranking test?

Just as he was about to get up the cafeteria doors burst open. Blake, Camilla, Archie, and a handful of other people entered in a rush. Jacob tensed. They all looked scared. Blake's eyes were wide, his face a mask of shock. The trio saw him and came over to the table. A low dread rumbled in Jacob's bowels.

"What is it? Did something happen?" He asked.

"The vampire struck again."

----------------------------------------

It was like an old wound ripping open again. The undercurrents of campus terror resurfaced. Jacob wondered how he could have been so foolish as to ignore it all, to actively forget and pretend like nothing was wrong. All the times he'd walked to class or the library by himself, ignoring the 'rule' that you had to always move in twos or groups seemed like sheer idiocy. All the contrarian students complaining about the Orwellian security and restrictions seemed like embarrassing shortsightedness. Moments after Blake informed him President Russell came on over the intercom and informed the campus of what had happened. The curfew was reinforced. The rule of two was reinforced. Spare Rangers were being brought in for security, and it was expected that students would comply with them. Breaking these rules would be punished severely. It was a nightmarish episode of deja vu.

They were shortly joined by Grace, after which the cafeteria started filling to capacity. Even though it was nearly high noon, no one wanted to be alone. They talked about it in whispers, much as they had after the first incident. But quickly it became apparent that just as before there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it themselves. The others talked about whether they'd suspend classes or not, whether they'd even go to classes or not, when they could expect another strike. That maybe if it was only going to strike once a month they'd be safe for the next few weeks. The tournament ranking test, which only hours ago had seemed like the only thing in the world, had fallen into irrelevancy.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

After a while they lapsed into collective stunned silence. Once the initial shock wore off, Jacob found himself a little surprised the vampire hadn't been dealt with already. Suddenly he was miffed with himself for not taking this more seriously. Sure he'd read small parts of a couple texts on vampire that first week, but there had been such an overwhelming amount of it to choose from, and most of it irrelevant, he hadn't made much headway. He was a little angry with himself that he hadn't read more. But, no, wait a minute. He didn't have hours every day to dedicate to reading dusty tomes on vampires. But then again, this was a murderous creature on campus they were talking about. He'd just assumed that the faculty would take care of the problem.

But that clearly wasn't happening. Almost a month had passed and the vampire was still out there. It shocked him a little. They were the ones that should have been doing something. It shouldn't have to fall to him.

Right?

Christ, it was the same as when he'd been lost in the magical world. He just assumed that someone would come take care of the problem. Nope, he was not going to make that mistake again. It had almost gotten him killed last time.

He sighed. Well, he'd have to do it himself.

But wouldn't the faculty know best? They were almost certainly taking measures to capture or kill the vampire, Jacob just didn't know about them. Blake had said something a while back about them keeping things quiet because they didn't want to create more panic. Maybe Jacob was just being paranoid like his parents? He didn't see any other kids asking about this.

No, this whole situation was crazy. It had to be. Maybe he wasn't the crazy one. After all, he had experience with this type of situation the other students didn't have. This vampire was no different from the rogue mage: a powerful magical entity preying on borderline helpless students. He knew the danger they were all in, and he would not wait around and rely on the Academy to keep him safe. He'd promised himself he wasn't going to be helpless and now it was time to keep that promise.

But where to start? Digging deeper into the vampire lore at the library could take months. No, he needed someone like him. Someone with experience specific to vampires.

It was time to find Ishaan.

Jacob scanned the cafeteria, which had started to empty out. He saw the quiet boy sitting by himself in the corner table away from the windows. He was eating a sandwich and scanning a textbook that lay spread open on the table.

"I'll be back in a second," Jacob said. Ishaan was a quiet kid, but Jacob had noted he'd been one of the first to leave the test. Something told him that approaching the other boy with a big group would scare him off.

Jacob wove his way through the tables, working through what to say. Ishaan didn't look up as he approached.

"I was wondering if you could tell me about vampires," Jacob said.

Ishaan blinked, then looked up at him, frowning. "The library has books on them." He went back to reading.

Jacob took a deep breath. "I know. But I wanted to hear from someone who has experience with them."

Ishaan closed the book gently and placed his sandwich down on his plate and sat back in his chair. He looked wary.

"How did you know I have experience with vampires?"

"You said you were uh... orphaned by one when that girl's body was found."

Ishaan looked troubled.

Jacob shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry. If you're not comfortable talking about it that's okay."

"No. I'm fine." Ishaan said. "Why do you want to know?"

"Well, because there's a vampire on campus and the Academy isn't teaching us how to defend ourselves."

"What do you plan on doing with the information?"

"Learning how to defend myself."

"Okay," Ishaan grunted. "You have to understand that I had only the single encounter and it was when I was very small."

"That's alright. Anything helps."

"We will start at the beginning, then. My parents and I lived here in Chicago. My father had been a Ranger here. When I was six years old, a vampire attacked us in our apartment and killed both of my parents. Officially it was ruled a murder-suicide. I don't know how the vampire found us, or why. My guess is that it was seeking revenge for a past wronging my father committed as a Ranger. The Order opened an investigation, but they never found the vampire. It disappeared. I've looked myself, but despite much research, I have never found another. They are very elusive creatures that can blend in very easily."

Jacob stood there, stunned. He hadn't been expecting Ishaan to gush out his entire traumatic backstory like that. Well, that's kind of what he had asked for, wasn't it?

Ishaan, however, looked fairly calm about the whole thing. "As I said, my experience was limited. However, I have done plenty of research over the years. The Magical and Mundane Physiology of the Vampire by Richard Westlake is a good read for general abilities of vampires and countermeasures. Bloodsuckers collected by Tia Garcia is an annotated collection of encounters with vampires, mostly from firsthand accounts in South and Central America. It might give you an idea of what to expect in an encounter, though they are faster and stronger than you could ever expect simply by reading about them. Both books are here at the library."

"Okay, thanks. Jesus, man, I'm sorry about your parents."

"It is okay. It happened a very long time ago. Now, If you would excuse me, I have a tournament to prepare for."

"Alright, see you around." Jacob turned to leave, and hesitated. Ishaan's story whirled in his head. Gruesome. He flicked a glance back at Ishaan as he walked away. The guy was a little weird, but Christ, who was Jacob to judge? He couldn't imagine going through something like that.

In his mind's eye he could see the rogue mage's fist tearing through Jimmy's body. He shuddered and hurried back over to his table. Grace, Camilla, and Archie had disappeared, probably headed back to dorms. Blake sat with his legs up on the table, reading a book.

"Where'd they go?" Jacob asked. He'd been hoping to maybe get Camilla to come look at those books with him. She knew a lot about vampires. That reminded him, he still had to ask her for her number. He hadn't really had a good opportunity in the past few weeks, and school had been so busy it kept slipping his mind.

"Off to study somewhere," Blake said. "What were you talking to Ishaan about?"

"Vampires." Jacob plopped himself down in his chair.

"What's he like?" Blake asked. "I've heard he's a little 'off'"

"Yeah, he is. Seemed like a decent guy, though. He did end up giving me the names of a couple books they have at the library."

"You gonna go look at them?"

"Yeah, you wanna come with?"

"I'll walk over with you. But I gotta brush up on combat magics." Blake tapped his book against the table. "Tournament's only a week away. Let me know what you find out, though."

Jacob didn't know how Blake could think about the tournament right now, but he nodded anyway and they headed over to the library together.