The second and last lecture of the day had a similar theme to the previous one in that it covered how to help prevent Shade attacks but with a more kingdom-by-kingdom, systemic point of view. Dr.Keter was the teacher heading the talk.
Keter stood at the front drinking what looked like a mug full of pure expresso. Somehow, within the time he had waited for the class to arrive, he had drunk at least three mugs of coffee as evident by the three novelty mugs on his desk, which had the remains of a drink left in them. He had a fourth in his hand that he was sipping from. Why he couldn’t have used the same mug each time was beyond me.
“We used to joke it was some kind of higher level aura control method that we weren’t expert enough to understand.” Edward commentated, amused by the familiar sight.
His face seemed to be a permanent expression of tiredness, and unlike when I met him in his office, his aura had a slight expression of boredom and an almost longing to get back to his research.
To Alex's relief, Keter managed to set up the projector with minimal fanfare. He then presented graphs and references to help illustrate his points.
“Right, ok,” Keter started in a flat voice, leaning against his desk, clearly much rather being somewhere else, “Economics, whoooo. I know it’s everyone’s favourite topic, but it’s on the syllabus, so deal with it. You guys need to have at least some sort of idea of what the people in charge of you are attempting to do to make your job easier. Plus, they’re the ones writing your paycheck, at least in this kingdom.”
He clicked the clicker in his hand, changing the screen.
“First of all, how do we measure how the economy is doing?” A few hands went up to answer, which Keter saw but ignored them in preference of getting through as quickly as possible, “Well, in old money, that is, before Vercult fell, it was the gross domestic product, also known as GDP.”
As I looked around the room I noticed more and more eyes get glassed over with every word. This was probably going to be a long lecture.
Dr.Keter continued with the basics, “Basically, we just counted up everything made and bought each year in terms of cost, then adjusted it with inflation, and if each year the number was bigger, job’s a good’un.” He moved his hands as if to mimic a scale, “ On the one hand, GDP was easy to calculate, easy to compare between Kingdoms, and good when we were warring more often.”
My mind wondered as he went on, surprisingly the rest of my team were actually concentrating and seemed to actually be invested in the subject, especially Alex and Oliver. Which did make sense as they might actually need to know this stuff due to both their dads’ work. Maybe interest increased when you had more money.
Dr.Keter moved on to the cons, this hand sinking lower than the pros hand, “But on the other hand, it only really gave us a vague idea of how the people were actually doing, and that idea was distorted by what you actually could count as increasing the amount of stuff bought, so getting more profit by polluting or underpaying your workers was good, making stuff that doesn’t break quickly and actually lasts was bad. See the issue?”
Keter started pacing while taking a couple of sips from his mug, which had a cute coffee creature on the front with coffee beans for eyes.
He continued sarcastically, “But it was soooo easy to calculate, and the companies loved only having to deal with just getting more money from their workers, which was supposedly great for the economy, like the economy was its own separate thing from the people.” He paused a moment for that idea to sink in, then scoffed, “Drakonsbane still thinks like that, and they wonder why they need those massive upgrades to their walls and have to invest more heavily in their army than the other kingdoms.”
He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I apologise for that rant; it was unprofessional. I just get passionate when I disagree with something. And when it’s stupid. And when there’s an obviously better method.”
He put on a cheerier expression that didn’t reach his eyes and carried on with false enthusiasm, “Anyway! Onto the better system that the non prideful stubborn kingdoms use, the national happiness index or the NHI.” While his enthusiasm was still fake, there was less disdain seeming into his tone as he explained the other system he clearly preferred. “While it certainly also has its flaws, like being more difficult to measure and compare, it at least gives governments a better perspective of a goal than endless growth on a finite planet.”
While he spoke my eyes drifted, even though I was still concentrating on what he was saying as it may come up later in a test, I couldn’t help but notice the ever-increasing amount of mugs cluttering his desk. Where were they even appearing from?
He took a sip from another mug of coffee, as he continued to explain the current system, “The NHI is typically measured with survey information of the general population, which while difficult to keep reliable, does give a general idea of how a population feels, this is combined with mortality rates, average leisure type, education level and, unofficially, rates of Shade attacks.”
He changed the screen to two new graphs of three intersecting lines, with a triangle shaped region shaded in the middle.
“With the new metric in which to measure came new policy. We focused more closely on aspects of policy such as externalities, both positive and negative, which are mostly the effects of an exchange that impacts a third party. We introduced a universal income, which meant it wasn’t mandatory to work to live. That probably was the largest decrease in Shade attacks we saw, as it seemed to decrease the average amount of stress for people, which we think was an aspect we previously missed. We’ve also just made it easier to form a union.”
He sighed, “There were, of course, pushbacks for these policies by those who despise ‘freebees’ as they called it. The main argument was almost a moral one of ‘if I didn’t get this and had to work, why should they?’ but our isolated experiments showed largely positive results even in efficiency and somehow employment, which felt contradictory but multiple control, the difference in difference tests between neighbouring areas showed similar results.”
Keter flipped to a screen with his references listed. “Well, that’s all I’ve got on this topic. You can read the studies if you want. Do you have any questions? No? Good.”
He finished before anyone could ask questions.
“Oh yeah, Dr Jacq wanted me to get two first year teams to help deal with a shade that has come up from the lower dungeon as they think it would be ‘good experience’”. Keter scanned the room and spotted me, “I recognise you, so your team will do, and you also.” He pointed to Cassie. “Meet at the dungeon entrance. It is located at the same place the entrance exam finishes. If you have trouble finding it you can ask someone else on the way there, try to go as soon as you are able.”
Dr Keter sighed sleepily as the students left the lecture theatre, looking sadly at his final empty mug, “I need another coffee.”
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***
Edward criticised Keters’ drinking habit after we were generally out of earshot: “He is one of the best researchers here, but I don’t think I heard a single instance of him sleeping in my time. Plus, I heard he has his coffee with seven shots of espresso. That man is the backbone of the coffee economy.”
“Hey, do you think Dr Keter’s bloodstream is half caffeine with the amount of coffee he drinks?” I replied out loud, then stole Edwards’ joke, “That man is the backbone of the coffee industry.”
Mathew replied in an amused tone, “Ha, yeah. We don’t really need to prepare for this, do we? At most, grab our weapons and meet Dr Jacq and the Legends at the entrance.”
“Sounds about right. Plus, we can meet the Legends on the way there, their room is near ours. We can also get snacks.”
“Huh.” Alex interjected with a sly grin, “How do you know where the Legend’s room is? You don’t know where anything is?”
“Cassie helped me find our room after my first black out after the fight, she was just nearby,” I replied flatly, ignoring what was being implied.
“How did Cassie know where our room was?” Alex sang mockingly at me.
“Because I said when she asked to help.” I ignored the fact she was actually helping because I lost my key.
“I didn’t realise you were into enemies to lovers.” He said unsubtly.
Oliver sighed and interjected, “I'm sorry about him. He enjoys being annoying; it’s fun for him.”
“Don’t we all? It’s probably just revenge for the bad puns I’ve made with his name.” I replied dismissively, “Anyway, let’s get our weapons. Mathew lead the way!”
***
We got our weapons and made our way to the dungeon entrance, which still smelt cold and damp.
As I walked into view, Dr Jacq, who was currently female, sighed. “He picked you because he recognised you, I’m guessing?”
“Yup.” I dryly replied.
“I shouldn’t have expected anything less.” She rolled her eyes and then after a moment concluded, “I guess it doesn’t really matter who he picked, anyway.”
She waited for the rest of the two teams to enter the room.
“I’ll give you the rundown.” Dr Jacq began once everyone was seated, “Tatum was built upon these dungeons after Vercult fell to Shades as a school and an allegiance to stop the fighting as previously while each of the Kingdoms fought none thought that it would escalate to the point that one of humanity’s last havens would fall. I did warn them, but unfortunately, a more practical example was apparently needed to really call home the impact.”
She hand waved this history lesson. “All of that is just to say that these dungeons were mostly used in cases of Kingdoms fighting on our home turf; it’s basically a maze that was meant to confuse foreign Mthyics. We only rely on the top part, but sometimes the lower levels spawn Shades, and sometimes they get to the top. I just thought that first year teams would appreciate fighting a new type of Shade, it’s called a Man’s Laughter.”
I raised my hand, slightly confused, “Do you mean a Manslaughter?”
She facepalmed and held the bridge of her nose, “No, I don’t mean a Manslaughter. That’s a typo that never gets fixed. But yes, in the textbook, it is written down as Manslaughter, much to my annoyance. Every time I try and get it fixed it always goes back to the wrong name eventually. Though with that, good luck.”
She disappeared out of existence. Everyone turned to me to explain what a Man’s Laughter was, as I clearly knew.
“Uh, a Man’s Laughter is a Shade that looks like an off putting fusion between a fox and a hyena, its face is stretched into a permanent smile and it can throw its voice. It likes hiding in shadows and typically hunts in a pack like a Beowolf. I’m guessing because Jacq asked for two teams to deal with it, it’s likely Beta level on average with maybe an Alpha.”
Another Jacq appeared out of nowhere, “Correct, Mr Lightning here knows at least a slight bit of what he’s talking about. I should threaten exams on more people. If you’re not competent enough to succeed, there is backup, but it would be embarrassing for you, so again, good luck.”
They disappeared a second time.
I took the lead, “Ok, is everyone ready?”
Looking around the room I could see that Lily was covered in bark armour, Cassie had Granite on, Star and Emily had their regular armour, Alex had a couple of small drones flying behind him, Oliver had his quill full and a small crossbow attached to his side and Matthew was muttering spells.
“Oh yeah, Mathew, could you set up your communication spell? I think it’d be useful.”
“Sure, though, everyone be warned, Tom has weird taste in music,” Mathew responded, then started muttering some more of his weird backward music spells.
Emily pulled a face, “What relevance does Tom’s weird music taste have to do with– Oh.” She turned to me, “Why do you have the bard core version of that song from Dogs stuck in your head?”
“It’s not my fault that it’s catchy,” I replied. “Anyway, let’s go kill that Shade.”
***
The dungeon was just as maze-like as it was when we were doing the entrance test. I chose to search for the Man’s Laughter in small groups that kept relatively close to avoid us fully splitting up but still gaining some speed in the search. The areas that had clearly been used recently had a weird smell to them as the lingering scent of a Shade's demise still lingered.
We even passed the room that Matthew and I fought the Nope in, with the marks on the floor that Mathew made still visible.
It took about half an hour till I heard soft giggling right behind my shoulder. Instinctively, I looked over to see nothing.
“Guys, it’s near me.”
There was a shuffling near the door as Mathew came in. The giggling got louder, and more voices were added to the chorus. It felt like the room got colder.
“Hey, I know I’m funny, but I’m not that funny,” I said out loud to alleviate the tension.
The giggling became snickers, and more of them arrived. It sounded like they were right by my ears, almost like they were breathing down my neck.
Then I saw one. In the shadow of the room, I saw its face, stretched across like too little skin for the amount of area, slightly off-white, and its teeth slightly too white, grinning at me in the darkness. Its red eyes were wide and hyena-like, and its equivalent to fur was black and matted. It reminded me of a week-old corpse. Its bony legs looked malnourished, like a fox you’d see eating out of a bit after it hadn’t had anything for weeks, feral.
I shot it with my gauntlets before I looked at it too long. The chorus of laughter was one less after three well-aimed shots, but the intensity became more manic.
“Got one, would appreciate help.”
“On our way.”
The rest of the team arrived, which made spotting things far easier as the dungeons were mostly dimly lit, and the Shades seemed to expertly dissolve into the shadows. We couldn’t use our ears to guess where they were due to them being able to throw their voice and always sounding like they were right next to us. Star’s flames and Alex’s torches were incredibly useful in finding out where to shoot. Despite being Beta’s they had little in regards to actual defences other than their uncanny ability to just dodge by distorting their bodies, they evaporated in a couple of shots and we were able to deal with the majority of them quickly.
As we killed more of them, the laughter became more frantic, and more voices were cut until we got it down to one. The alpha was similar to the beta Man’s Laughters but seemingly more defined in its bone armour. Its stretched face had almost helmet plating and was larger. We managed to kill it right as a bony leg was peacing through its stomach into reality. It was quiet.
“Is that all of them?” Lilly asked, her armour covered in the black gunk, which made the wood look almost sickly.
“I hope so.”