The restriction on spellforms was meant to level the playing field against the dragons that remained. Any dragon could enter a village and leave with an army of sorcerers. An army that could become wizards in the course of a year if given access to spellforms. The Tower took on the role as stewards of this magical knowledge and fought valiantly to keep it from the enemy's claws.

-Tallen Elmheart, On Mages

—

The next morning, Kole used some of his limited funds to eat at one of the campus' many cafeterias. Today was what he'd mentally dubbed his “practical day.” Mondays and Wednesdays he had his history and alchemy classes, while Tuesdays and Thursdays he had “WAR 101 Martial Combat” and “WIZ 105 Advanced First Tier Combat Wizardry.” Friday would be reserved for his class with the lengthy title “AV 101 Pre-Adventuring Track Battle Training”, and he had no idea what to expect from that.

With a full belly and stuffed pockets, he arrived at the green of the martial college uncertain what to expect. Of the two outfits he owned after discarding the soiled one on the ship, he wore the one more suited for physical exertions. His father had continued to dress in the style of the stormcallers long after his departure from the clans. Kole wore this now. A loose-fitting tunic and pants tied tight at the wrist and ankles to keep it from interfering with magic or shipborne tasks.

Calling the outside area of the martial college’s quarter a ’green’ really stretched the meaning of the word. Where the other colleges had nice park areas for study and leisure, the martial college had instead turned theirs into a training ground. Absent were the pleasant grassy fields and shade-giving trees, replaced with hard-packed dirt, sand pits, an obstacle course, and more tools for training warriors and soldiers.

Kole walked past the areas of older—clearly-trained students until he came to a mass of people he deemed his peers. They stood around, loosely grouped and chatting idly, all equally unsure of what to do. He even recognized a few faces from his previous classes. Part of him was tempted to insert himself into one of the gatherings and get to know his peers, but a larger—much, much, larger—part remembered all the peer interactions from back home, and he decided to stay at the periphery.

“Hey! You’re the tardy boy!” a cheery female voice called from behind.

Kole fought the urge to turn invisible and realized his instincts to do so may be on a little bit of a hair trigger.

I need to work on resolving issues without turning invisible and running away.

Marshaling his embarrassment, he turned towards the voice, prepared to face whatever torment he was about to endure.

The face he saw didn’t match the voice he’d heard. The loud voice had painted a picture in Kole’s mind of a tall girl, with a cruel face that took joy in tormenting others.

The face was certainly joyful, a sincere and friendly smile that made Kole reevaluate his initial interpretation of the greetings. The overall appearance of the stranger, though, said anything but ’joyful’.

At first glance, he took the girl to be a voidling, one of the strange other-realmly creatures that had entered Kaltis during the Last Dragon War. She stood just under six feet tall and wore padded armor that looked to belong under plate. Like a voidling, she had pale white skin. But where the voidling’s skin seemed like a foggy window into a void of nothingness, hers was mundane flesh, complete with beads of sweat from the early morning sun. Her hair was pitch black, again like the voidling's, but where theirs floated around their heads in a chaotic swirl, fading in and out of existence, hers sat still, tied into a braid and subject to the whims of gravity.

The hair of the voidings wasn't really hair, but some strange distortion field that gave a glimpse into the space between realms. This girl's hair was just hair, though it drank in the light more than any material Kole had ever seen.

“I’m Zale,” the girl said, sticking her hand out to greet the frozen Kole.

While there hadn’t exactly been a crowd around Kole before, the few that had been nearby had fled at the arrival of this strange girl.

“I... ummm. Are you a voidling?” Kole couldn’t help but blurt out.

“Only a little bit,” the girl answered, hand still outstretched and voice still cheery but now with a hint of remorse in tone, as if her heritage was something she thought she needed to apologize for.

Kole reached out and shook her hand, surprised to find it felt like any other. His people had a bad history with denizens from beyond the known realms, but the Voidlings specifically had not been a part of it and they generally lacked the prejudice present in Basin.

“I’m Kole. Sorry about—”

“Oh no, don’t worry about it,” Zale interrupted, waving away Kole’s apology. “I get it all the time, and I probably could have gotten your attention in a nicer way.”

Kole looked from the girl to the crowd that had given them a wide berth.

“Can I help you with something?”

“Oh, no. I just wanted to introduce myself. I recognized you from Professor Gromck’s class and thought you looked a bit… alone.’”

At the mention of the orcish professor, Kole asked, “Do you think I’m in trouble, being late like that?”

“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “He doesn’t care. He may be an academic orc, but he’s still an orc. Just don’t insult him and you’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? You seem pretty knowledgeable. Are you a first-year student like me?”

“Technically yes, but my mother...” she paused looking anywhere but Kole’s eyes as she sought words, “works here in the... art department. So, I grew up on campus.”

Kole was confident that even Amara could tell this girl was being evasive with that answer.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Before Kole could ask more, a whistle blew, silencing the mingling students.

“Form up!” a voice boomed in the distinct cadence and accent of the Iron Vein Tribe.

Kole turned to the voice, and then back to Zale, but found her pushing her way to the front of the crowd. Unsure of what to do, he followed her confident strides.

Around him, the students bumbled about trying to figure out how to “form up.” Some older students, dressed in uniforms of the martial wing of the school, began directing the younger ones into lines, and Kole lost sight of Zale as he was put into a rank.

“Miserable performance,” the same voice shouted. “But, you are here to learn. Tomorrow you will form up before I arrive.”

Kole could now see the man speaking. He was at least seven feet tall, and covered in black swirling tattoos reminiscent of spellforms, that poked out from the sleeves of his uniform, and covered his neck and shaved scalp. He had a single stone ax on his belt, that seemed like a great ax to Kole, but was probably nothing more than a hatchet in the giant’s hand.

“I am Tigereye,” he continued. “I am not ’professor’ or ’master’ or ’general.’ Most of you are here because you want to be adventurers. In this class, we will assess your martial skills and determine which path best suits you. All of you will learn at least one weapon through the course of this class. No matter your skill set, you will never regret finding a weapon that suits you. As adventurers, you will find yourself in situations beyond imagining and every edge can save your life. Battles are more often won by a hair's breadth than by Fireballs."

He paused to let the words sink in and then shouted, "Now run twenty laps around the yard!"

The crowd of students looked at each other in bewilderment until the older students prodded them all into a jog.

Thirty minutes later Kole lay in the grass gasping for breath alongside a hundred others.

"It's best if you stay standing," a still cheery and definitely not out of breath voice called to him. "Keep your hands on your head and it will prevent cramping."

"Too late," Kole moaned from the ground where he clutched his sides.

Kole wasn’t in the worst condition—some people had shown up wearing armor and others were fairly overweight—but he was confidently in the lower half of the physical fitness curve. His skinny frame was a result of neglected meals, not regular physical activity.

Zale helped Kole to his feet and he took a water skin from a station that had been set up.

“Small sips,” Zale advised.

“Why... are you... so... in shape?” Kole asked between pants.

“I exercise. Don’t worry, Tigereye will have you whipped into shape in no time.”

“Great,” Kole deadpanned.

“Form up!” Tigereye shouted again, ending the short reprieve.

In a very slightly improved manner, the students formed into ranks, and Kole lost sight of his new pale friend once more.

“We will start each class with conditioning. I recommend each of you practice the same on the off days. You will not be able to pass this class if you do not put in work outside of it. Those of you with prior weapon experience, go to the left, find your preferred weapon, and prepare to be evaluated. Those without, or who wish to be advised, go to the right and form a line in front of each of my assistants.”

Over half the class moved to the left, towards racks of practice weapons supervised by older students in uniform. Kole moved to the right with the other less than physically impressive students. As they sorted into five lines in front of racks of practice weapons, Kale caught sight of Zale again, sitting at one rack alongside the other student aids. Her line had no one in front of it. The students in the other lines all tried to look as if they weren't sneaking glances at the strange girl who was “only a little bit” of a voidling.

Kole ditched the line he'd been herded into by the mass of the crowd and went over to hers.

“You’re an assistant in the class?” he asked.

She looked away from the weapon rack she’d been busying herself with, and Kole saw a flicker of sadness vanish as she saw him.

“No. I’m technically enrolled, but I tested out. You can’t test out of this class though, so I was assigned as an assistant. The teaching assistants are all older students in the martial college.”

Neither acknowledged the lack of other students in her line and when the other groups started to work, Zale remembered herself.

“Let me guess. You’re studying to be a wizard.”

Kole nodded.

“Any experience at all with a weapon?”

Kole shook his head.

“Best we go with a staff then,” she said, grabbing one from the rack.

“Why a staff?” Kole asked, surprising himself with the disappointment he felt.

He explicitly didn’t want to be a Mirage Knight or a warrior, but... he’d been a child and as all children did he'd pretended to be a valiant swordsman before the others had started to shun him. Swords were the adventurer’s weapon. Kilroth the Troll Blight, Tal of Storms, Halkin of the Bridge, and every other famous wizard he could recall offhand all used swords in some capacity. Though in all three cases those adventuring wizards had magic swords that could fly, shoot fire, or otherwise devastate a battlefield without actually being held on a hand by their wielders.

“Staffs are great!” Zale said, back to her happy self. “Perfect for the general caster. If you aren’t planning on dedicating yourself to the training, it’s a great option that will prevent you from harming yourself or others. You can develop a basic proficiency with a lot less effort than with a sword. A sword is more dangerous to yourself than a foe if you don’t know how to wield it. Plus, staffs can be runed and enchanted to cast spells much easier than swords or other weapons.”

“That... makes a lot of sense,” Kole admitted, taking the staff.

Zale instructed Kole in performing a few practice swings against a wooden dummy. After a couple minutes of this Kole turned to Zale, who was failing to hide the amusement on her face.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm sorry, you're just really bad at this."

"I've never done this before!"

"I know. I said I was sorry. Today was supposed to just have everyone select a weapon but... you're going to need the head start."

Kole's face grew red, but he fought back the urge to say something out of anger. She'd been helpful and friendly, and he probably was terrible. Unable to say anything without further embarrassment, he just nodded.

While the rest of the class waited their turn to be evaluated for a weapon before being dismissed, Kole performed repetitive swings with his staff under Zale's close supervision. He was used to throwing himself into his work to reach his goal of becoming an adventurer, but these last few days were revealing his focus had been too narrow. Yes, wizardry would be his most powerful tool, but it shouldn't be his only tool

Long after the rest of the class had departed, Zale and Kole continued to train.

"Alright, we should stop," Zale said, about an hour after Kole's stomach had begun to say the same thing. "I have a private lesson I need to go to."

"Thank the gods. I'm exhausted," Kole said, dropping the staff.

"Why didn't you call it earlier? We could have stopped whenever."

"I..." He paused, thinking why he hadn't stopped.

He was used to working long hours into the night on his wizardry or his dabbling research into pocket realms. He thought that he simply got carried away with his studies but this exercise had elicited that same tunnel vision in him. He hadn't even considered stopping as an option.

How long would I have kept that up for?

He'd never been good at time management, and he'd always chalked it up to a lack of self-control when doing something he enjoyed. But, he'd been miserable this entire session and still pushed out.

"I don't know," he finished. "But thanks for all the help, and for not making fun of my incompetence."

"It's the least I can do for you since you saved me from being all alone over here. Seriously, thank you. It means a lot."

"Don't mention it," Kole said, becoming a little uncomfortable with the shift in conversation.

"I'll be here tomorrow at six to get in some morning exercise. Want to join me?"

"I'll pass," Kole answered, unable to think of something he'd want to do less than that. "But I'll save you a seat tomorrow in Gromck's class."

Zale began putting away the weapons they'd used. "I think it's more likely I'll be saving you a seat."

The two new friends parted and Kole sniffed himself. He smelled. He started to do some math in his head.

How am I going to afford daily baths?