Having spent roughly an hour looking over the class Xander had concluded that they were doing well, and that was with the bare minimum, once they'd had some proper lessons and a chance to ask for help he could see things going very well.

He sighed to himself, depending on Maisie's lessons things could get very interesting, before he could get lost in thought the door opened as Crank and Selk returned, Selk wandered back to their group looking like he was in deep thought, while Crank marched straight over to Xander, before withdrawing first one lunchbox then another and handing them to Xander.

"The bottom one is yours, the other is for Miss Maisie."

Xander took the lunchboxes, placed Maisie's off to the side and turned back to Crank.

"Thank you Crank, I trust you can manage handing the rest out."

Crank gave what Xander now fhought of as, his signature salute, before starting on his task with a clipped "yes, sir."

Xander had just finished eating when Maisie stumbled through the door with a massive stack of boxes swaying back and forth in her arms, jumping to his feet Xander dashed over and took the most precarious part of the stack before it could topple to the ground.

"You've missed your chance to eat lunch, you know."

Maisie gave him a greatful but tired smile, and started pulling various objects from the boxes.

"Thanks Xan, but I can eat while you lot do the work. Now take these and go back to your seat."

"Yes, Miss."

Receiving a light-hearted eye roll he took the offered items and looked them over, a small ink pot filled with clear liquid, a pen with three dials breaking up the sleek form, a large peice of parchment, and a blank stone tablet, while Maisie handed them out to the students

Sitting down he placed the tablet, parchment, ink pot, and pen on the table, and waited for Maisie to start the lesson.

With a loud cough to draw the students attention back from the supplies, she began.

"Right, first I guess I'll have to find out how much you guys know about runecraft so, first question, who can tell me the most important rule when it comes to inscribing runes?"

Looking around the room Xander couldn't hold back a chuckle, school kids were the same, most seemed unwilling to volunteeran answer, a couple of them strained to put their hand up the highest, while the last few tried to shrink into the shadows, and just like the teachers Xander had in his childhood Maisie went straight for them, with a snap of her fingers she pointed at one of them, a mousy looking girl with a cloak held tight around her shoulders.

"Any idea..., sorry I'll get names down soon."

Maisie gave a slight embarrassed cough.

"I...I'm Bonnet, I'm not s...sure but I thought i...it was 'Don't draw a rune you d...don't know' maybe?"

A large smile spread across Maisie's face.

"Well done, the exact rule is 'Never inscribe a rune you don't understand' but I'll still give you a point, thank you Bonnet. I bet a lot of you are now asking 'but how can we learn runes if we can't try them?'" Picking up an ink well she continued. "This is inert crystal ink, as the name suggests it won't trigger but will allow you to practice..."

Xander spent the next hour listening to Maisie explain exactly how to use the pen and ink, though if he were honest he hadn't really been focusing until she mentioned the pens had a habit of bursting quite dramatically if set wrong.

"Now that we've covered all that I guess I should show you a rune then?"

That woke everyone up after the boring technical talk, as the entire class turned to face Maisie as she pinned a sheet of paper to the wall behind her, before pulling a much more ornate pen from her pocket, set the dials and dipped it in the clear liquid as she did the ink changed from clear to a reddish violet.

"When you first fill your pens you'll feel a slight pull anf the ink should go pure red, but for those of us who don't quite fit it won't be quite as uniform."

Interested to see what would happen with his ink Xander carefully set the dials and dipped the pen gingerly into the ink, Maisie had mentioned a 'slight' pull, but what Xander felt was anything but slight, he gasped in pain and pulled the pen out of the ink stopping the pull, breathing heavily Xander examined the ink well, there was no visible change, unsatisfied he held it up to the nearest light to see if it would reveal anything. The room vanished in a rainbow of light causing Xander to drop the ink well to the ground, before hearing it roll to a stop.

The room erupted into chaos. Once his vision returned Xander found Maisie staring at him.

"Xan, what did you do?"

Rubbing his eyes Xander tried to think of a response, with a slightly forced chuckle he started.

"No idea, I just did what you said, I..."

Before he could continue Maisie picked up the ink well and held out her other hand.

"Pen"

Still trying to work out what happened he hand over the pen without a thought.

After examining both the pen and ink Masise grabbed a fresh pen set the dials, dipped it in the ink well, and quickly scrawed a rune on to the tablet on the desk, as she finished the rune flashed with the same rainbow of light and the tablet split in two, causing Maisie to freeze in shock, after quickly regaining her composure she slipped the ink well into a pocket.

Xander Gave her a concerned look.

"Anything I need to know?"

"I'll tell you when I know, for now though it's probably better if you stick to theory, just try to memorise the runes."

Maisie clapped her hand and headed back to her makeshift whiteboard.

"Right, now that the excitement is over lets get back to runecraft."

Xander focused on every line she drew excited to learn exactly how they were made, as Maisie drew the final line Xander squeezed his eyes closed as a stab of pain pierced his head, it faded after a few seconds and he slowly opened his eyes, but the moment the rune came back into focus the pain returned. Giving an exasperated sigh Xander stood up and made for the door.

"Xan, what's going on?"

Turning to face Maisie, he started to reply only for the words to die in his throat upon seeing genuine concern on her face.

"I...I need to grab some equipment from my lodgings. Meet me at Mrs. Walton's for dinner?"

Maisie gave a confused nod as he left the room.