“What are you doing!?”
Hayz Calx stepped into the clearing. She hadn’t been fast enough to stop the other three students from running away. Maybe if she hadn’t been preoccupied with keeping two of her students alive, she might have been able to stop the first years from leaving.
The brown-haired, brown-eyed green-skinned Healer had realized what her new students had planned to do too late. Because Mister Vowler had locked the first-floor gate, she’d had to warp to the second floor and go through the boss room to get there. She was level thirty-four and had sub-classed as a Caster, so she’d been able to destroy the Bramble Snake fairly quickly, but it had delayed her almost too much.
She looked at the black-haired man. "Explain yourself!”
“We were just wanting to scare them a bit.” He confessed. "We didn’t think they’d take it…” He felt his neck. "This far.”
She glared at her students. She knew they were upset at having their teacher changed, but that wasn’t an excuse to do something stupid like this.
“You are going to stay here, while I go after them…”
“Let’s not do that.” Trent Vowler shimmered into view.
Hayz wasn’t surprised that her former teacher was there. She had a feeling that he may have even nudged what just happened into being.
“How long have you been there?”
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The older man smiled but didn’t answer the question. "How about we turn this into a teachable moment?” He looked at his former students. "Part of their training right now is survival, but what happens if another party decides to steal from them and leave them for dead?”
“Seriously?” Hayz shook her head. "Your firecracker almost killed two of them!” She pointed at the younger healer. "Flaer wouldn’t have been able to save them! If I hadn’t gotten here..!”
The crafty old man pointed at the ground. She hadn’t noticed it before because she’d been so focused on going after her rogue students.
“A Recovery Field” The ground in a fifty-foot radius around the old Caster shone.
He nodded. "I assure you, it was under control.”
“Fine." Hayz threw up her hands. "What do you want to do?”
Trent Vowler pointed at Wrye. "Track those three down and bring them to the door of the dungeon boss.” He stroked his chin. "Take one of them, the blonde will probably motivate them enough. Tell the other two that you’re going to torture her until they beat the floor boss and meet you on the second floor.”
“That’s crazy!” Hayz slashed her hands. "You can’t be serious.”
“You know what can happen in the dungeon.” Her former teacher glared at her. "If they learn how to fend for themselves early, then maybe we won’t have teams that are easy to PK and we won’t see so many promising Adventurers die because they fall down a few floors!”
“That’s…” Hayz knew he was right. This could be turned into a teachable moment for the first years. "What about the Yellow team?” She motioned at her students. "What punishment do you propose to give them a ‘teachable’ moment.”
“They wanted me back as their teacher?” His eyes promised mischief. "I have a few days that I’m not going to be doing much…” he looked at the other teacher. "Oh, I’ve got an idea for you too.”
She swallowed. It’d been over a decade since she’d graduated and yet somehow he made her feel like a student again. Hayz sighed. "What do you want me to do?”