Although a window and a sports field separated her from the deer, she still whispered, “Woozle.”
Woozle pried his nose from the ground and looked up at her. He turned his head, giving Jennifer a tilted head look. She patted her shoulder, inviting him to come and see the creatures. With a small burst from his engines, he was able to leap onto her shoulder.
The herd of slow-moving deer had compact torsos, long legs, small tails, and graceful necks. Their fur was dark blue, like a night sky with a full moon, with dark forest green swirls on their sides. All four deer had obsidian black antlers. The one leading the group was much larger. Its antlers had many more points than the three following.
The trio watched the deer walking along the tree line. A black and white cow in sunglasses followed the path of the deer.
Neither of the pair spoke until after the deer turned and walked back into the forest, on what she assumed was a path only the deer knew, with the cow following not far behind.
“Do you want to hunt them and use one as your skeleton?” asked Woozle.
Jennifer tilted her head. “I haven’t thought about it, those were beautiful.” They were magnificent beasts. Having one at her summons would be useful, but she was no hunter. She did not know how even if she wanted to. “Back on task,” Jennifer stated, not letting herself get more distracted.
Two more turns and a few empty classrooms later, she knew she was letting herself get distracted. While exploring the school would be helpful and allow her to take classes in Magic and Ninjas, but now, she was just getting frustrated. This new classroom was different. There were large metal barrels with spouts and an area for a small fire under the barrels. It seemed that a small fire would be lit under one of these metal barrels, the vapor or gas would be pushed up to the spout, then condense back into liquid to be collected in another metal barrel.
She was staring wide eyed at the setup, remembering she needed to blink every once in a while, “Is this what I think it is?”
Woozle seemed to be as stunned as she was. She explored the setup and while moving behind one of the drums, “The sign reads, ‘The end product cannot end up being collected in a bathtub. - Drew.’”
She decided to look around for any signs of what they could teach in this classroom. Finding nothing of interest and not knowing what else to do, she decided to open up her mini map and put a marker on this room. Turning to Woozle, it was clear he had found nothing either.
She brought up her mini map and looked to see where the dean’s office was. It was forward and to the right. She was so close. Jennifer turned to the door that was between her and her desired destination. With a wide Cheshire smile across her face, she opened the door. And walked into the library.
“What the . . . How?”
Woozle walked past her and plopped down in the center of a sunbeam. “That’s what happens when you don’t take a navigation trait.”
Jennifer sat in a chair, feeling defeated as the turtle librarian handed her another cucumber and seaweed sandwich. Remembering her manners, she thanked the turtle.
She pulled up her menu. Looking through the traits, the options that came with them, it seemed simple. A trait was unlockable and she received one trait per level. She had a species trait that was currently unlocked. She had two race traits that were currently locked.
She found a list showing the effect that her traits had on her. Her size was listed as half giant and “descended from giants” with an illegible signature next to it.
With a quick search through the trait options, she found she had unlocked a few options. Due to getting lost, basic navigation was a selectable option for a trait. Focusing on the word trait, “Most traits have passive effectors that are always on.” There was a list of attributes listed as standard. The list was uncountable to Jennifer, with a mental twist she was able to simplify it to the point where the list had three items, Body, Mind, Spirit. Focusing on each item she saw the words standard. Focusing more on Body came a large list of what that attribute affected, the first three on the list was Strength, Health, and Endurance. Seeing each line listed as Standard, made her lose interest in attributes and return to the traits section.
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She selected navigation, not wanting to do any more reading in her menus. The bottom right of the menu screen in her trait options had a random button. Jennifer did not want to lose control of her mental landscape leading her to end up with something random, but seeing a button labeled Random made her curious. She pushed the random button just to see what would happen. Four traits came up.
Solar Powered, Advanced Ant Farming, Imperial Tea Tester, Tourism & Hospitality II.
Maybe she was just getting tired and grumpy, but none of those looked good. According to the trait descriptions, solar power had a tiny positive boost to her body and mind during the day, ant farming seemed completely useless, tea tester let her taste tea like an expert, and tourism helped her mind in making a good host or to get guests. The only one not useful was ant farming. After the explanations, there was the fine print.
You must choose a trait from this list, or the traits will be locked for the next five levels. You may hit random again, but by doing so, one trait will be assigned to you and other traits will remain unlocked and be available later.
Jennifer did not like any of the traits, so she decided to hit random.
Imperial Tea Tester. You now have the Imperial tea tester trait. Does this taste like poison?
Trait level 3: You have unlocked a free trait. “This does taste like poison.” You can now ignore the first poisoning of each day. Note, this does not stack.
Knowing that the next trait would need to be, she mentally searched for navigation. A diagram with overlapping circles came up. In the center of each was Land, Air, and Sea. To the left of the diagram was other, however it was grayed out. No matter how much she focused on other, nothing came up. With a mental shrug she went to her choices. Thinking briefly on choosing Sea, she pictured herself on the deck of a ship. Of course the ship's flag had the jolliest of rogers. Dismissing the idea she went to the center of the diagram for general navigation.
General Navigation 1: Who needs a roadmap?
With her new traits chosen, Jennifer got up and headed for the dean’s office. After walking outside, entering the next building over, going up some stairs, and turning left, she found herself knocking on the administrator’s door. If she had known why it was important to take a navigating trait, she would have listened to Woozle sooner. He was right, but she did not want to admit it.
A moment after knocking, she heard something like a computer booting up. “Please come in, unless you are a vampire.” Hesitating, she took a breath and went into the dean’s office.
The dean’s office was what she expected. The square room had bookshelves on every wall filled with books three layers thick, and piles of books scattered around. The desk, that was carved out of a single piece of dark wood. By the look of it, an elephant could step on it and the desk would not even creek. Under the desk was a vibrant red carpet. The dean, she noted, was glowing blue, and transparent.
Almost everything was what Jennifer was expecting.
“How can I be of assistance?” The dean’s light faded out for a moment. When he returned, he was looking at his hand with his brows forming a glare. Looking back up at Jennifer he added, “Fragment?”
“I enrolled here before coming here. Now that I am here, I still want to be enrolled here. Can you let me be enrolled here again? I would be a good student if you let me in. You should let me in, can you let me in?” She wanted to keep talking but forced her mouth shut with a smile.
The hologram faded out again.
Jennifer was shifting her weight from one foot to another. It was taking longer than she expected.
After far too long for her liking, the dean appeared looking at his wiggling fingers, “You wish to re-enroll in Bishop’s University, fragment?”
“Yes.” The word came out loud and slow to make sure the dean understood.
“I will send you a quest to start off the entrance tests.”
Three quest options appeared in her display. Rich, Famous, and Standard. Since she was not rich or famous, she focused on standard. The description explained that she would need a letter of recommendation from someone who held a public office, a business owner, and a parallel.
Seeing the list of things she would need, she realized it was going to take more than just asking to be let in. Her shoulder moved forward ever so much; her head turned to look out the window, the sky was entering twilight, a yawn escaped her mouth. It was time to find a place to sleep for the night. Just under the dean’s window was a couch large enough for her to lie on.
“Mr. Dean, are you, or are there others, plugged in somewhere?” she asked as innocently as possible as a plan formed in her mind.
“Why yes, thank you for asking. The plug is right here under my desk. Do you need to charge a device?”
Jennifer made her way over to get a better view of the outlet. She stepped on a cord.
“While it does pow—”
She cut him off with an, “Oops,” and accidentally knocked out the wire with her other foot. Roger jumped onto the Dean's desk. She gave him a few good pets, “why don’t you find a nice place to sleep in this room?”
She turned back to look at the couch. Woozle was already curled up on the middle cushion. “I think we should all just sleep in this room.” Jennifer walked over, picked up her small familiar, and moved herself into a sleeping position. She put the lynx shark on her chest. “This does seem like a good place to rest for the night. Too bad the dean got taken offline.” But she was out before she could hear his response.