Mena and May were drenched to the bone as they ate their breakfast. They were both wetter than the freshly caught pink kippers caught from the Brain Sea by Lollypop Cafeteria staff. "Miserable Magicaps, May," Mena muttered. "Dont you know any drying spells?"

"Janus did," May said, looking at her skeleton friend pretend to eat brain caviar with her new high class friends.

"I wouldn't trust that bonehead with anything nowadays!" Mena pouted as she nibbled and winced over the kipper. "She'd probably dry us out to the bones!"

Mena shivered and sneezed from being so cold.

"Don't catch your death!" Janus said sweetly from above.

"You'd love that now wouldn't you!" Mena said, glaring hostile daggers at her boney nemesis.

"C'mon May," she ordered her friend. "After we eat we can finally start auditioning our new best friend. Hopefully someone who isn't a cold dead lying snake."

There was a loud crackle and a wave of heat that warmed the room (including Mena and May's soaked outfits, much to their relief) and Stellaris appeared atop a cloud in a crimson phoenix burst.

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Despite her sunny aura energy, she did not wear a smile. In fact, she looked quite sordid, like she had to be the bearer of bad news. In a moment, Mena realized she was.

"Attention students and especially my dearest groundborns!" she said in her kindly voice.

She paused for a second. "It took me all night to decide how I could break this to you...but we are no longer requiring anyone to find the dreamfish."

Mena expected cheering since no one would endanger themselves but instead there were girls in groundborn cloaks asking why?

"Because..." Stellaris said. "We are no longer looking for the sages. We are going to continue our lessons as always...just without looking for them."

"But..." one of the younger students asked. "How will we go back home?"

"The school will be your new home," Stellaris said. "I am so sorry, my dears."

The room was suddenly filled with tons of crying and sniffling. "I promise," Stellaris said. "I swear to my burning core I will protect you all!"

But the crying and sniffling only got louder until Stellaris herself started crying. "Wow..." Laetitia muttered. "Even zee fire hippie is turning up the water works. At least we can go home afta zis semester."

All the while, Mena was burying her face in her kippers. She was feeling so guilty that she had robbed so many groundborns of the chance of going back to Aleatore. But for her, her utmost fear and terror outweighed everything else. She prayed for nothing but the bell to chime. And when it did, and everyone started heading towards their classes, she took a deep breath in relief.

She brushed the oily kipper off her face and got up to go. But she knew one thing, Stellaris had made it so the whole school would dislike her and it would be much harder to replace Janus once and for all.