Illandrios, the center for magical learning outside the Midlian Empire, created a great dome around their city, able to hold back the seas.

-A Brief History of the Flood by Albert Moonsuckle

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“Bah!” Rakin shouted as soon as they appeared. “Ye guys took all the fun parts.”

Some attendants waiting in the room for them checked them over but then left as soon as they realized they were completely unharmed.

“It wasn’t really all that fun,” Kole said, thinking back over the events.

“Yeah,” Doug agreed. “They were kind of...”

“Bad?" Kole suggested, earning a nod from Doug, exaggerated by his antlers.

“That’s not very nice,” Zale chastised the boys. “They were perfectly adequate.”

“Didn’t ye kick two of their butts alone?” Rakin asked.

“Me being spectacular doesn’t detract from their abilities,” Zale said.

“Careful, yer mom’s showing,” Rakin teased, causing Zale to blush.

“But really,” Kole said, “They weren’t very good, right?”

Zale chewed her lip in indecision, before sighing.

“No, they weren’t very good,” she conceded. “Their grades in the class weren't bad last semester, but... I think we might be well above the curve.”

“Didn’t we already know that?” Rakin asked. “We did come in first place last semester.”

“Well, maybe I should say, the curve is a lot flatter than we realized,” Zale amended “Us, the Ice Picks, and the Risen Dahn are probably a good deal ahead of the rest.”

“What about that insufferable hag Shalin?” Rakin asked, “That Parrotsong could take a beating—from what I remember at least.”

“It’s hard to say,” Zale said. “Their score didn’t account for Shalin after she went missing. Any Bonded Iron Vein like Parrotsong is going to be a force of nature, and I hear she has a Blessing as well."

Doug nodded, “Yeah. I see her around the Grove sometimes. She has a strong affinity for animals, birds in particular, but also has a lot of control over wood.”

“And the wizard?” Rakin asked, turning to Kole.

“I don’t know,” Kole said. “I don’t have any classes with him, but he was better than this last guy for certain.”

“How long have you been able to swim through sand?” Doug asked, turning to Rakin.

“I don’t know, half an hour? An hour?” Rakin said, looking up as if checking the position of the sun despite being indoors. “I’ve never been around that much sand before. It was so easy to manipulate, I just had a hunch. But I wouldn’t call it swimming. More like, crawling through sludge that’s kinda smooshing ya onward. It definitely gave me some ideas to try.”

“Poetic,” Zale said flatting, face turned up in disgust at the description.

“Are we supposed to be sitting here?” Kole asked, looking around the empty ready room.

“Maybe we were supposed to follow those healers out?” Doug said.

The four looked between each other and ran out of the room in search of some sort of adult.

And some sort of adult is what they found. Professor Underbrook was waiting for them in a central chamber that branched out to various other ready rooms.

"How’d you all like my sand bowl?" he asked eagerly as they greeted him.

”Your sand bowl?” Kole asked.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

At the same time, Rakin said, “It was great.”

“Yes, my sand bowl. I devised all of the match environs for this year's tournament. I think you’ll find a bit of my own personal flare with each one.”

Kole and Zale let out a shared groan.

“The decoy balls were your idea then too?” Kole asked, earning a proud grin.

“I tried to get a sandworm, but it would have stretched the budget,” Underbrook said.

Aside from a congratulations on their performance and a “see you Monday” from their professor, the team was a little underwhelmed at their welcome as they left. There would be a monetary prize for the finalists, but the first round rated nothing more than words.

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Later that night, the four teammates plus Amara walked into the Griffin’s Roost with a round of applause and teasing cat-calling whistles. Before meeting at the tavern for dinner, they’d all gone back to their home to get the sand out of their—well—everywhere.

Rakin, despite having literally swam through the stuff, was the least grimy due to his ability to will the dust off himself, but even he was still pretty grimy.

Kole had learned there were many, many, many, perks to having one’s bedroom attached to an actual home as opposed to a dark and forgotten corner of a library. Some of these were simple pleasures, such as not having to sneak in and out, not needing to hide one’s food from time-traveling rats and being able to go to a dedicated room to relieve oneself and forgo the use of a chamber pot. But of all these benefits, the pinnacle was the access to a shower.

While not generally one to waste time on trivialities when that time could be better used for things like studying, Kole had made an effort to find the time each day to shower in Zale’s home if he didn’t already do so after morning training.

His regular bathing had even attracted the attention of a certain sand-loving dwarf.

“Are ye showering so much ‘cause of Zale?” he’d asked Kole with a conspiratorial smile.

“What? No?” Kole said, a little too defensively. “Why? Did she say something?”

At the Roost, the freshly bathed team entered to a roar of applause, and many, many offers of food and drink on the tab of the resident adventurers.

“This is great!” Zale said to Kole. “You should go ask around for a mentor!”

There were few things Kole could think of that seemed less appealing at that moment then walking up to strange wizards and asking them to take him on as an apprentice.

“Maybe we just celebrate tonight, and I’ll try to get a feel for who’s interested today?” Kole asked more than suggested.

Zale looked around, and then back at Kole. Noticing his reluctance she said, “Good idea.”

"Why was the other team so bad?" Amara asked, once they’d been seated and Zale had fended off two groups of adventurers who had given their congratulations on the win and their condolences on her missing mother.

“They weren’t terrible,” Zale began, only to be interrupted by Rakin.

“We’re just great.”

“Yeah,” Zale agreed reluctantly. “Pretty much.”

Amara then asked a bunch of questions about the nature of the runes used in the arena’s magic, earning looks of confusion from everyone.

“There were runes?” Kole asked her, trying to recall if he’d seen any.

Amara looked at them all stricken, at a loss for words.

“Wait!” Kole said before Amara passed out in utter shock.

He pulled out his spellbook and began to write about his experience in the ready room. Immediately, the ensouled artifact's magic went to work enhancing his memory, and he began to sketch out a few simple runes he suddenly remembered seeing.

Amara moved to snatch the book from him, but Kole pulled it back just in time.

“I think you could probably just go to the room yourself and study them,” Kole suggested. “There wasn’t any security.”

The ready rooms for the arena had been set up in an empty building on the outskirts of campus, and no efforts had been made to secure the building, so Kole didn’t think they were secret.

Amara’s eyes lit up at the possibility.

“Tomorrow,” Zale said, reading the expression on her face.

“Of course, you’re studying in a bar,” a very disappointed Runt called, suddenly appearing beside their table, a stack of paper in hand.

“What?” Kole asked, then realized what she meant, and put his spellbook away. “No, this was about the hardball match.”

“Sure it was. You’re a nerd. That’s fine. Look, I really don’t care. I got the schedule of that psycho,” Runt said, handing Kole a stack of sheets. “And I got his entrance exam.”

“Really?” Kole asked, taking the papers.

“Yeah. He did okay. Above average, but no genius,” Runt said.

Kole took her word for it, and didn’t go through the stack, only looking at the schedule on top. He was a little disappointed that Corbyn wasn’t a complete failure, but he’d already known the boy to be at least competent back home.

“Thanks!” He said.

“I still need to tail him to get his actual schedule, but this should help you avoid him this week.”

“This is perfect, thanks! You did it so fast too. You don’t have to do any more.”

Runt held up a hand to stop him.

“It's nothing, really. The security at that school is a joke.”

“You only say that because my mother whitelisted you on half the school's defensive measures because you kept triggering them!” Zale said, already aggravated by this brief encounter with Runt.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Kole asked, “I thought you said the nightlife here was terrible.”

Runt looked around the tavern and wrinkled her nose.

“I’ll manage,” she said, “And besides... I think it’s best if I stay around the Dahn. I’ve heard reports of those weird animals popping up in other cities, but the occurrences have died down here. I’d like to avoid a repeat of…”

Runt trailed off, looking at Amara meaningfully, who was engrossed in the runes in Kole’s spellbook and ignoring the conversation.

That statement drew everyone’s full attention.

“Weird animals?” Kole and Zale asked in unison.

Runt sighed and rubbed her forehead and muttered under her breath, “Adventurers.”