“Welcome to core class. I am professor Sandroot, and I will be your lecturer for the year, ” a tall, slender, almost palm-tree-esque treefolk said from where she was rooted down in the front of the class. Her tree-skirt had an indigo seal with violet accents, indicating she was a sixth circle caster who could stretch to cast seventh circle.

The class, myself included, was packed into a large auditorium, with close to a hundred seats that were largely filled.

“I’m sure some of you are wondering what the purpose of a core class is, and why it is required for at least two years in a wizidrical college.”

There was a smattering of nods and mumbled agreements from the students, and professor Sandroot smiled sharply, her wooden face looking almost like a theater mask.

“This class is about more than polishing your skill in reading, arithmetic, and history,” she said. “Politics. Economics. Law to an extent, though that is more for your ethics course.”

“Why should I care about politics or economics?” a young woman called out.

“Because wizards have power, and that makes all of them a tool of economics and politics alike,” professor Sandroot said. “If you graduate, you will be a solid and true fifth circle caster. In most holds – or states or provinces or whatever your home nation uses – that will place you among the top few dozen of the most powerful people in that hold. Even if you don’t want to join in, establishing that apolitical stance in and of itself requires political acumen.”

I started to snort, then paused.

While a fifth circle mage might not be able to kill my mother or most of her older children, like Gerhard or Claire, they’d be more than strong enough to take on many of the lesser children. Someone like Greta wouldn’t even stand a chance.

In the eastern province, where my family’s palace was, they might not rank so high. But in the western province, where our farming was done? Few enough powers lived there.

“What about somewhere like the Golden City?” a man from Shen-Long with a mediocre solar bear bloodline asked.

“I did say most for a reason,” professor Sandroot said, though her voice was delighted to have a question. “The Golden City of Shen-Long, the Coral Island of Nasie, the Elden Court of Hydref, and the very Panath Hold we’re in now are some, but not all, of the exceptions.”

The bark of her face transformed to look at us seriously.

“If you are to live in any of these places, you will have to deal with the political and economic impacts. In Red Earth, there might be one or two other wizards who are your equal, and who need components imported. Even the lauded apoliticals will influence the importation of trade goods. If you live here, your words will suddenly lack weight, and you will have to accept being far down on the list of those who get rare resources, as your economic and political pull vanishes.”

She shifted back onto her roots.

“That is why the core class is so important as to be required. Now, my teacher aides will start passing out a syllabus to each of you…”

In contrast to core class, ethics was a small class of only ten people, set in an old room near the top of one of the brass towers. Out its windows I could see the spires and the vast ocean stretching out, seemingly endlessly. Four tables that could each hold four people were scattered around the room.

Jackson, Salem, and Wesley were in the classroom, as was Yushin, a pink haired elven woman, a blue haired elf who looked to be her twin brother, a minotaur, bonsai treefolk, and a naiad.

I sat with Salem, Jackson, and Yushin, while Wesley dominated a table to himself. The elven twins took the third table, and the naiad, minotaur, and treefolk took the final table.

We glanced around, waiting for our professor, and a moment later he strode in.

He was a tall man with a bit of giant’s blood, enough to stand at almost eight feet, and was covered in corded muscle. Dark hair, skin, and eyes all burned with an intensity that reminded me of Jackson.

“Nine tenths of you will have to repeat your first year, and even more repeat the second. Why?”

He didn’t even introduce himself, just asked the question. He didn’t shout it, but his calm tone carried more weight than a roar. I glanced at the seal on his uniform. It was a bright blue, with indigo accents, but more interestingly, there was the High King’s medal of combat valor included in the design.

“Because of the spellcasting barriers?” the naiad asked. “To get into second year, you need to be able to cast a fourth circle spell. To get into third year, you need to be able to stretch to cast a fifth circle spell.”

I hadn’t known that, and I quickly jotted that into my notes.

“That is part of it. Many can’t master the more advanced spells. Others simply came to learn a single thing for their guild or hall or clan or sect. Others can’t handle it after their first delve in the library, or take an injury in applied mage combat and give up, or blow themselves up with their own potions,” the professor said, sweeping his eyes over the room. “But when it comes to falling behind because of grades? More people fail this course and are held back than any other course, including applied mage combat. Can anyone guess why?”

“The Creep,” Wesley said. “This course is mandatory, and if we fall victim to the Creep, we’ll have to retake it. Even early onset of it can be dangerous.”

A smile twitched at the corner of the professor’s mouth.

“Correct. Combating the Creep is something that this class works very hard to ensure you have the skills to do. How many of you have heard of the Creep?”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Salem put his hand up, as did the bonsai and Wesley, but nobody else. At least I wasn’t alone.

“Before we begin…”

The giant man turned and wrote his name on the board – Emir Blackflame.

“You can call me Emir, professor Emir, or professor Blackflame. And I fell to the Creep during my time in the north, fighting the demons. I was only pulled back because of my husband, sir Jekoska.”

The minotaur let out a puff of amazement at the name.

“When you say that, do you mean THE sir Jekoska? The Seven Sword Knight?”

“Yes,” Emir said. “As I was saying. I have fallen to the creep, which makes me uniquely suited to teaching you lot about ethics. What is the Creep?”

“The Creep is a kind of sickness that infects the soul,” Wesley said, somehow managing to sound both bored and arrogant. “Much like regular sickness hurts the body, the Creep hurts the spirit. It makes you more irrational, more prone to abuse of power, less able to think about other people as people and instead only as tools.”

“It can also cut off your long term thinking,” Emir said, nodding his agreement. “Now the interesting thing about the Creep is that unlike a physical illness, strength makes you more prone to fall victim, not less.”

He flicked out a wand and muttered a word of power, and a spinning ball of void-black fire appeared in the air.

“Power of any sort – psychic, spellcraft, life enforcement, bloodline, and more… Hells, even money! They all make it easier for the Creep to get into your head. My affinity for blackflame lets me conjure flames enhanced with the magic of Etherius’ infinite shadow planes. It burns the mind and body, and can cut through other types of attack with ease. It allowed me to become a powerful warrior in the demon wastes. It also was what led to me becoming infected with the Creep.”

Most of the class had leaned forwards to get a better look at the blackflame, myself included. Only Salem, Jackson, and Wesley seemed unaffected.

“There are generally considered to be five stages to the Creep, though these are hardly firm categories. Much like any disease, the Creep’s symptoms vary from person to person. I knew one woman, Arianna Castilia, who showed only a few minor signs, until one day, she snapped and killed a dozen soldiers.”

He held up his hand.

“I say this, not to tell you that the stages are meaningless, but that they are not absolute. The first stage is known as indulgence. At this stage, you’re safe enough, though you can still be stupid. You overindulge in your power without a meaning or reason.”

“I use magic to do my laundry,” the naiad said nervously. “Is that stage one of the Creep?”

“No, probably not,” Emir said. “Making your life easier and better is rarely due to infection. No, the Creep happens when it begins to become wasteful or hurt others. For me, I began abusing my position of power to go out and hunt the demons, even when I had no hunts scheduled. For others, they push their status as a powerful mage to demand service first at a tavern or other preferential treatment. It slowly becomes a habit, then a lifestyle. Lifestyle is stage two.”

I narrowed my eyes. That sounded a lot like my family.

“In the lifestyle stage, overindulgence becomes the new normal, and then it keeps growing. It’s not enough to fight the demons more than you should, or to be the first on the tailor’s list. You have to be the best demon killer in the squad. The platoon. The entire army. You have to have the tailor’s best work. The best tailor. You need to drape yourself in the exotic imported fur of the rare spatial minx.”

“Meaning no disrespect, professor, but this just sounds like what rich and powerful people are like,” Salem said, raising his hand despite the fact he had already spoken.

“Indeed. That’s a part of what makes the Creep so dangerous. It’s very similar to plain old power addiction, especially in the first two or three stages.”

That seemed to settle Salem, so Emir continued.

“Once you stop regarding others in favor of getting what you want, you’ve moved on to the third stage: disregard. This, too, starts easy. Of course stealing that lightstar-gem from some rude merchant who tried to scam you was worth it. Adding it to your staff will improve your skill and do more for the world than having it sitting around in a merchant’s house would. Of course killing the corrupt noble and his guards is worth it, it’s cleansing corruption. Of course challenging that woman who has a better wand than you to a duel and killing her for it was worth it. You can do more than she could.”

He looked over all of us seriously.

“Of course killing the man who disrespected you at a bar was justified. Didn’t he know who you were? Of course conquering a kingdom is worth it. The means justify the ends. That becomes the danger of the Creep at this stage. The end you want will eventually always become justifiable, until you become mindless.”

“Is that the fourth stage?” Jackson asked. “Mindlessness?”

“It is indeed,” Emir said. “You start losing memories. Emotions. You stop thinking. But your power grows faster than ever before. You kill and take and do whatever you want. This is the last stage anyone has ever been pulled back from. They were like a beast, and it took years of being jailed and undergoing intense rehabilitative therapy to help return their sapiance and humanity.”

His voice was dark and sad then.

“But if you don’t get pulled back, then you snap. That’s the final stage. The aberrant transformation. The Creep hits the core of your soul and twists and warps your powers and body. Your affinity becomes a parody of what it was, and the rules of magic fall away. Beings from the darkest corners of Etherius begin to slip into the world around you without conscious thought. You even physically change. Sometimes only a little, sometimes a lot. You become nearly impossible to kill, and your power jumps by an incredible amount.”

I sucked in a slow breath.

“The demons that wander the wastes?” Emir continued. “Most often, they’re being conjured accidentally by an aberrant. Cleansing all the demons in the area without killing the aberrant that called them only means that more demons will come. This is one reason that the war against the demon wastes seems so endless.”

“Does that mean there are people out there, in the wastes?” the bonsai asked.

“No,” Yushin said. Emir nodded, then explained.

“The one mercy of an aberrant is that they fear and hate humanity. They will kill, yes, but they will also run away to the wilds. That is how the demon wastes began, supposedly, though they’ve existed for at least three thousand years, during the age of sunder. Pre-sundering records are rare, but they do mention demon wastes and aberrants.”

“My people tell of the demon wastes existing during the age of wilds, when Etherius returned to the world, and the first elf, dwarf, human, and other races were born,” the blue haired elf said. “The first demon was the first elf, who turned to sorrow after his first child died by the hand of his second, and became the demon lord Zkarai.”

“Again, I’m meaning no disrespect, but that’s just not true,” Salem said. “Aye, sure, an elf can live to be two hundred, even three hundred. You’ve got longer memories than most of the mortal races.”

The way he said three was almost like the word tree, and it was kind of adorable.

“But Etherius existed before even the age of the wilds. Before even the age of the dark or the age of fire. And t’ere are a few demons, fae, angelus, and more who remember that time. Demons are just beings from the worse planes of Etherius, nothin’ more.”

“Why you,” the elf spluttered, and the pink haired twin began spitting words of power. I tensed, starting to shape a shield within my spirit.

Emir coughed, and the twin stopped.

“The elvish religion is a delicate subject for many who study here,” Emir said. “And it isn’t the purpose of this class. It doesn’t matter HOW the first demon wastes appeared. The aberrants can summon them just fine. Now, let’s get down to brass tacks: this class doesn’t have any required reading, but I have a list of recommendations for some books about combating the Creep you can find in the free sections of most of the libraries in the city, or in ours if you’re brave enough…”