13: After class.
When class was over, the four friends left, amazed and horrified. Amazed at the knowledge they had gained, and horrified at the knowledge itself.
They could see that many students were trying to repress it in their minds, and others were contemplating things with a more critical eye. Some were starting to have breakdowns. They had to admit that it was impressive for the first day!
On the school grounds a few stalls had been set up for people trying to rally students for different causes, like petitions for things, or forming clubs.
The stall with the sign “Overthrow Felinia!” had a lot of people around it, and signing up!
There was a bunch of stall that all ended up near each other, promoting things like “Women’s Rights, Black Power, Migrant Rights, Healthy at Every Size, M.A.P.s, LGBTQI+ movement and more. Which is odd because it was next to one promoting just LGB rights.
Garion went over and asked about the difference. It seemed the LGB movement, which was the origin of the LGBTQI+ movement, wanted to separate themselves from it due to different views. The LGB just wanted people to be able to love whoever they wanted. The other bit was trying to push their views down people’s throats. Final straw was them allowing M.A.P.s into it as part of the movement. Minor Attracted People. Pedos. The LGB groups hated that, expressly since people used to say being homo or bi sexual was just as bad as being a pedo! They could not abide that!
Garion was disgusted and said “Wait? Children? That is sick. Consenting adults is one thing, but kids can’t! What’s next, they want to make doing animals acceptable?”
Someone called out in protest against him being against doing animals.
Garion told the LGB stand people, “Listen, I support people being able to love who they want to. If they can and want to change genders, I’m fine with that, but I have no idea about how to handle things that will relate to it, like sports and laws. But there are some things I can’t support, and child fuckers are one.”
The LGBTQI+ stand was pissed.
Garion looked at the stands. The Anarchist Club stand was interesting, and he smiled “How can you organize a club, which require rules, if you are against rules?”
The woman there snarled at him “We are against government oppression!”
Garion leaned on the counter smiling. “What government? What oppression? The only government here is Felinia and Gallen, and the rules are pretty lax.”
“We should be able to do as we want!”
Jane chimed in, “Ooh, I know this. First law of Wicca: If it does no harm, then do as you will shall be the whole of the law.”
The anarchist smiled. “Exactly.”
Jane frowned. “You forget the condition: If it does no harm. The laws are simple and for our protection. Students would be killing, raping and eating each other by now if not for those rules.” She leaned in and whispered to the anarchist woman “Actually, there is no rule against rape, just no killing. They can capture, torture and rape you as much as they like. Do you really want to announce that to everyone?””
The woman got a look of horror on her face. Jane looked her straight in the eyes. “So, do you really want there to be no laws protecting you? It’s just that next week, there will be no such protection against killing each other.”
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They moved on.
There were some groups based on racial supremacy, but they were not getting many members due to the fact that no-one knew what race, or even species they would get as a following.
The magic club was getting well, as was the fight club.
There were a couple of pissed off students looking at different thing, and Garion asked one “Dude, you seem upset. What’s wrong?”
Garion guided him to a seat under a tree.
The guy told him “I have a Domain I hate! I can’t stand it! I came here to try to change it! It makes me want to kill my family for leaving it to me!”
Garion and the others were shocked.
Drenak asked him, “What domain could be that bad?”
The guy was silent and finally growled out “My followers are Idiots! Total fucking morons!”
Jane frowned. “So they are not that smart, but what is the Domain?”
The guy spun to face her. “You don’t get it! My Domain is idiots!”
Drenak leaned back at that. “That is fucked up!”
The guy nodded. “I know! I hate stupidity! I can’t stand it, and now I have to look out over them!”
“How did you get that Domain?”
“My father, a God of booze and partying married a Goddess of floozies. I have a lot of siblings. After a prank put me in a coma for a couple of centuries I woke up and all the Domains had been handed out, leaving Idiots to me! They considered it right laugh! They probably set the coma up just to give me that!”
Jane told him “The classes should have something about changing Domains.”
He sighed. “That’s my hope. If not, I am so going to use those fuckwits that follow me as pawns to kill my family! I still might do it anyway!”
He got up and left. Garion asked the others “Is that normal?”
Drenak nodded. Harlen told him sadly “Not the prank, but the rest. Many Deities get minor sub-domains no-one wants and yet some have so many kids they have to pass those ones out.”
Jane thought for a bit. “Norse legends from my world have Thor effectively being the God of Hangovers. He could pass that on to a child if he had too many of them, from what I can make out.”
She looked around and said “I think we need to learn more. Felinia mentioned a game to study, so I think we should. She gave us a clue to help us.”
The library was also busy, but the arguments here were quieter and the conflict more subtle. There were two main reasons; One was the books that people feared, and the second was the librarian who looked formidable enough to keep them in line, or at least feed you to them.
Jane went over to her, and whispered “We are after books on the game Dungeons and Dragons. Where would we find them?”
The librarian whispered back “All the ones focusing on Deities are already being used.”
“What about other ones. They will give us information we can use.”
The librarian gave them directions.
Following the directions they walked carefully. Other students were reading different books and in one case they spotted a book mugging a student for his notebook, pens and other supplies, and devouring them. Two others appeared to high five each other.
They managed to get a players hand book and borrow it. It was 5th edition, so it should be one Felinia used, unless it came from another reality.
The read it, but there was not much that they could use.. However, they did find a whole bunch of stories based in a world using that system.
The problem was just how many books there were!
They each borrowed one, but knew they had no chance to fully read them, and the books might not help at all!
At differ, there was a lot of noise as people discussed things.
On a hunch the group checked out the Hall. Fortunately there were no more gems.
Going towards their dorms they heard some yelling between some other students.
From what they could gather they knew each other from before going there, and had some problems.
There were all minor, very minor, Deities with extremely narrow sub-domains.
One was a Deity of Doors, and another of Windows, who were arguing with a God of Locks, a God of Secret Entrances and finally one of Gates.
Garion cleared his throat and everyone looked of his group.
“We would love to listen to you bicker, but you are in our way.”
The God of Gates glared at him “This doesn’t concern you.”
“You are in our way.”
Jane interrupted them. “Listen, how about tomorrow after class we sit down and we can try to find out how to sort things out, if possible.”
The God of Gates snarled. “I know what the problem is. This bastard keeps stealing our followers!”
“Your followers! They are mine! I’m just trying to survive!”
“You think we aren’t?”
Drenak spoke up in a deep voice “SILENCE! This is an entire fucking new world! Go far away from each other, expand your domains so they don’t conflict! But stop acting like petty fools! I’ve seen this kind of thing thousands of times before and it never results in anything good!
“Now get out of our way!”
With that he strode down the path to the stairs and the group parted. Drenak’s group quickly followed him.