At the Dahn, all were welcome to learn wizardry, and even sorcery if they had the stomach for it. The sorcerers quickly showed what the Tower had sought to hide, that sorcerers make the best wizards. These sorcerous wizards rebelled against the titles and ranks of the former Tower, and simply referred to themselves as mages. And so, thousands of years after the word lost its meaning, the sorcerous wizards finally reclaimed it.

-Tallen Elmheart, On Mages

—

Professor Underbrook outlined the task that would follow.

“A prepared adventurer is a living adventurer. Some of you may think that simply means acquiring the proper combat skills, but preparation comes in many forms. This class will hammer that home.

“Today, each of your groups will delve into the dungeon. Once you’ve all embarrassed yourselves, you’ll have until next week to prepare for your next attempt. Established parties will enter first. Parties with new members will go next, followed by the groups that have formed today. Once you have completed your attempt, you must leave the classroom. No sharing any details! Remember, there is no shame in retreat. As an adventurer, if you face a foe you cannot beat, falling back is often an option. But, beware, for your foes won’t stay idle in your absence.”

He went on to further explain the rules and then called Gray’s team into the dungeon first. He directed them to the supply racks, and they were allowed to outfit themselves however they thought best.

The room was furnished with all the mundane gear an adventuring team could need, along with some magical equipment. Students were allowed to bring in anything they owned, but they could only borrow a set budget worth of equipment. Simple mundane gear such as ropes and torches hardly cost anything, but items like blasting rods, armor, runic devices, and the like, quickly ate into a team's budget.

Gray’s team collected some rope, and torches, but took little else—save for Mouse, who shoved her bag full of whatever trinkets and food she could get her hands on before Esme pulled her away.

The party of four was led through a very mundane-looking door, and Underbrook returned a moment later alone.

Kole and his team examined the gear.

“I need a blasting rod,” Kole said, putting his cards on the table. “I can cast Magic Missile or Shield once and…” he looked around nervously, contemplating revealing his secret. “Something else we can talk about through the door.

Underbrook explained at least as much to tell them they wouldn’t be immediately ambushed once they went through. Kole vowed to reveal his primal talents once they had the privacy of the dungeon. It wasn’t that it was the biggest secret, but the nature of the Font of Illusions was that the more people knew about what you could do, the less effective it was. Originally on his arrival, he’d feared he’d need to sneak around to get the knowledge he needed—he still thought he might, he just didn’t think Zale or Rakin would stop him.

“I could use a few throwing darts, but I’m good.” Rakin put in.

Zale held her sword and looked over the other equipment.

“The blasting rod costs all 500 points. What do you have in your bag?”

Kole looked through it and saw his light orb, his new-to-him journal, some quills, ink, one of his clarity potions, and some pilfered food.

“I have a light source—which might be stolen from the library, I’m actually not sure if I was allowed to keep it—and clarity potion, but nothing else of use.”

Rakin let out an impressed whistle.

“What?” Kole asked.

In response, the dwarf pointed to the price list, where the same potion was listed for 50 points.

“Why so much?” Kole asked, confused. Back home clarity potions were the cheapest potions around.

"Giant crab shits expens—ow!"

Zale slapped Rakin's thigh with the flat of her sword, interrupting him.

"Language," she said, disapproving. "Don't waste that potion today. Did you bring that from home? Do you have more?"

Kole nodded to both. He hadn't realized they were expensive away from his home, but it made sense. They only exported the excrement of the deep whales in large quantities during the migrations and it took a lot of work to keep it fresh, but they always had some from the farms supplying the alchemists and the students in turn. Access to cheap clarity potions explained why the Will capacity of his peers here seemed lower than those at home.

It also explained why Illandrios still had a reputation for creating powerful wizards even after falling behind the rest of the world during their sub-aquatic isolation. Will capacity increased as Will was spent. Recovering it faster meant you could grow faster. Kole had been taking multiple clarity potions a week, and so had many of his old classmates, which could drastically increase the rate of growth. His own Will capacity was around 40, which was obscene for someone his age, but Corbyn's had been 15, and he wasn't even a sorcerer. The average new wizard student at the Academy had maybe 12, while a sorcerer or primal could have up to twenty. When reconnected to the surface world, Illandrios discovered their isolation—and outsider psychic overlords—had caused their magical development to stagnate, but they had done an amazing job the last hundred years catching up.

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"I have more," Kole answered.

"Good. Save them... or consider selling them if you need the money. You can use them in the dungeon, but today's test won't count."

In the end, they decided to get the blasting rod for Kole. The device likely cost hundreds of gold, something he'd never afford on his own, but without it he'd be pretty useless. It was a rod, a foot long and less than an inch in diameter, covered in intricate runes all radiating out from its inset gemstone.

Kole practiced, imbuing the gem and Willing a bolt to fly. At a thought—and a drain of 4 Will—a bolt of purple energy shot towards his target. His first shot missed, crashing harmlessly into the magical stone of the Dahn, but after two more shots, Kole had the trick of it.

"I'm ready," Kole decided, choosing that further practice wouldn't be worth the Will.

Kole's large Will capacity would give him an advantage for now, since being able to shoot 10 bolts would be more useful than the two or three spells his classmates could manage, even if they had larger variety.

❖

After they’d collected all their gear, the door burst open, and a haggard group of students tumbled out.

“They failed already?” Kole said in surprise, with more than a little joy.

Zale shook her head and whispered, “Time doesn’t work the same in the dungeon. They could have been in there for a minute, or a week.”

Gray’s party was ushered out of the room by Underbrook while Tigereye stared down the other students, daring them to try to ask a question.

Obviously, no one did.

***

Kole stood in front of the door, nervous. They were the first of the newly formed parties, and the last group that had exited had been rushed to the healers with broken limbs. One had even smelled distinctly of the latrine.

He braced himself as Underbrook opened the door, and stepped into… a room. A door sat at the other end of the room. A large stone emerald sat on a pedestal on the side, and a piece of paper sat on a lectern opposite it.

Zale approached the page and read it aloud, “Goblins have taken two children from a nearby village. You have tracked them to their cave. Rescue the children.”

“That seems simple enough,” Rakin observed.

“Good luck,” Underbrook said, ducking back out the door.

After he’d left, Rakin turned to Kole.

“So, what's the big secret before we go in?”

In response, Kole turned invisible—he knew it to be a waste of Will, but it wasn’t every day he got to surprise people with the ability.

Rakin stepped back warily, but kept his eyes on Kole’s location, while Zale’s brows rose in surprise, but she too stared at him. Experimentally, he took a step back, and both Zale’s and Rakin’s eyes tracked him.

He waved, and Zale waved back with a big smile.

“Fauell,” Kole cursed. “That's no fun. How can you see me?”

“I can sense your steps on the stone, faintly. If you stepped back any further I’d lose you.” Rakin answered.

Zale looked embarrassed, looking away from his eyes—which she shouldn’t have been able to see.

“I have the Willsight of the voidlings.”

“Wow. That’s… useful.”

Kole hadn’t known much about the voidlings before meeting Zale, but he had spent some time researching them since then. Their Willsight was very powerful. As beings from the void between realms, they didn’t interact with Will the same as the denizens of Kaltis did. They could manipulate Will, but couldn’t wield it. They had no Will capacity, but they could harness and control Will external to them, something the natives of the Material Ream couldn’t.

Part of this ability to interact with Will allowed them to see it. They don’t see light—or even heat as the subterranean races can—but Will. While a human eye sees the colors of refracted and reflected light off of an object, voidlings see the Will that makes up that object and the Will of the light reflecting off of it.

“I can see light like normal,” Zale explained, “But I can also see an overlay of Will over everything.

With nothing left to share, they gathered around the door. Kole stayed Invisible and Zale drew her weapon.

“Ready?” Rakin asked.

The others nodded, and he pulled the door open to reveal a forest clearing.

Zale jumped out first, scanning the surroundings for threats. Kole followed after and jumped to the side and Rakin followed after.

The door they’d come through sat in the middle of a field of grass, which in turn was surrounded by trees. The doorway was a freestanding black stone door frame, through which they could see the room they’d just left. When nothing came out after them, they all relaxed.

“Flood!” Rakin cursed, putting Kole on guard, scanning the trees once more.

“What? Where?”

“He hates the forest,” Zale explained.

“You say that like it’s unjustified,” Rakin shot back defensively.

“So I guess he’s not going to serve as our scout,” Kole said. He turned to Zale. “How’s your woodcraft? I grew up in a sub-aquatic bubble city with like, 8 trees.”

“Not good.”

Together they looked around the clearing and Zale found a path beaten through the woods.

“So… what do we do?” Kole asked.

After a moment of silence, each looking at the others for guidance, Zale spoke up.

“We all seem to be equally poorly suited for the task, so Kole should scout ahead Invisible. If something hears him, at least they won’t see him. Rakin and I will follow. If you stay within thirty feet or so I’ll be able to keep track of you.”

Plan settled, Kole turned invisible and went ahead. Kole quickly found that his well-honed ability to walk silently through a city or building didn’t translate to the forest. He’d learned early on the importance of a soft step to avoid detection, but in the forest, it took more than simple grace to be silent.

Branches smacked him in the face, twigs broke beneath his feet, and birds flew loudly away from his approach as he pushed through the woods.

Distantly behind him, he heard Rakin’s constant stream of curses and Zale's insistent shushings.

After a few minutes, Kole saw the trees begin to thin ahead, and he signaled back to Zale with an upraised fist. The worn path widened, and Kole could now move with some semblance of stealth. As the trees cleared, he spied a rock face beyond the forest’s edge. He slowed his approach further and hardly daring to breathe, he finally caught sight of their target.

A cave opening sat a dozen yards back from where the path met the clearing. Two goblins with bows sat lazily atop two large boulders that straddled its entrance. While they sat in a relaxed position, their eyes continually scanned the forest around them.

Carefully, Kole crept back down the path to report his findings to the group.

“Goblins.”