While many took to the seas and thrived for decades, a slow decline in the quality of life set in as resources such as metals became scarcer and scarcer. With each shipwreck, or floating mat sunken to incurable disease, countless irreplaceable treasures were lost. Trade with the seafolk was not enough to combat the loss. The often aloof people had little need for the metals so vital to life above the waves.

-A Brief History of the Flood by Albert Moonsuckle

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The next morning, Kole sat silently and took the scolding from Zale for his late night.

“Even Amara went to bed at a reasonable time!” she said, pointing to the quarter elf girl who was busy pushing crumbs around the table with small blasts of wind from a tiny blasting rod.

“I still finished my history paper,” Kole defended, “I hadn’t realized how awful the Midlian Empire really was. And now, after writing that paper in my spellbook, it's difficult to forget.”

Kole rubbed his head as he spoke. His spellbook helped him recall perfectly anything he’d read when trying to write about it, but he hadn’t realized until writing about the horrors of the Midlian Empire that enhanced memory could be a double-edged sword when one wished to forget the finer details of morally ethical research methods.

“And I learned a new spell,” Kole said, casually dropping that in the end.

“Well, that’s no excuse—” Zale began, but then stopped herself. “You did?”

“Bah hah!” Rakin laughed at his cousin’s sudden turn about.

Kole nodded.

“Radiant Bolt,” Kole said proudly.

Zale quickly finished her breakfast, courting the bounds of what was proper and ladylike while trying to finish so they’d have time to see the spell before PREVENT began. Having no such similar qualms as hammered in by an occasionally sadistic mother, Doug, Kole, and Rakin simply ate quickly, made a mess, and ran off.

Looking up from her prototype, Amara realized she’d been left alone, but on seeing the mess her friends had left behind, she smiled and began to attempt to clean it up. Hiding inside her shirt, Gus watched in horror as Amara blew another plate off the table.

“Oops!” she said, and then wished she had Kole’s ability to turn invisible.

“Hmmm,” she hummed, before pushing the idea away.

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“Are you sure?” Kole asked Rakin, who was standing in front of him, arms wide.

“Aye,” Rakin affirmed, “Hit me.”

“I don’t think it's a fiery burn though,” Kole said. “It might hurt.”

“I can take it,” Rakin said.

Kole looked to Zale, who gave a shrug.

“Alright,” Kole said, pointing his finger at the dwarf. “Get ready.”

A beam of light shot out of Kole’s hand, striking Rakin in the chest, who was only a dozen feet away. The glow intensified as it hit him, swirling around him like a nebula, illuminating the space.

“Krool eating weasel” Rakin cursed, as the gold light suffused him.

“Not. Fiery.” he gasped as the light faded.

“What was it like?” Kole asked, eagerly.

“Pain.”

Rakin sat down; some amount of pride lost from the experience.

Seeing her cousin’s mood, Zale raised her hand.

“Me next,” she said.

Kole looked from Zale to Rakin, panic in his eyes. “I... um. I’d rather not.”

“Why?” Zale demanded, mock offense in her voice. “Because I’m a girl?”

“Well...” Kole began, “Kind of? It looks like it really hurt.”

“That’s sweet,” Zale said smithing. “But, we both know I’m tougher than you,“ Zale added, no malice in her tone.

“I know. I just... It was kind of fun hitting Rakin...” Kole said, gesturing at the defeated dwarf.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Think of it as magical study,” Zale said. “I could almost sense a connection to the Font of Light when you cast it on him. Maybe if you hit me with it, I can get a better sense of it.”

Kole looked at her face, trying to see if she was lying, but gave up. Zale never really lied about anything, though she selectively omitted details the truth and when she did that it was painfully obvious.

“Fine,” Kole said, “But only once.”

Zale nodded and got herself in a ready stance with hands balled into fists.

Kole pointed his finger, built the construct for the spell in his mind, double checked it to make sure it was right—which it was because he was simply copying the template he’d just created, giving it no time to degrade. Then checked her surroundings to make sure—

“Do it!” Zale commanded.

Kole sighed and pushed the spell out into the Arcane Realm.

The light appeared from his finger and struck Zale in the stomach.

“Waas!” Zale gasped, closing her eyes and invoking the name of her goddess.

She took a step back, and the glow of golden light began to spread around her, but then stopped, receding back to the point of origin in her belly where it vanished.

Zale opened her eyes, huge smile across her face.

“I did it!” she said. “I found the Font of Light. Hit me again!”

“Bah!” Rakin shouted, now in a worse mood.

“Are you sure?” Kole asked.

Despite her claim, the spell had definitely harmed her, and she was unsteady on her feet.

She nodded, and then in answer, she disappeared, replaced by a Zale sized void of absolute darkness.

“See?” she said, voice coming out of the void.

The darkness aura seemed larger than Kole remembered the silence aura being, though that had been hard to quantify, only discernable if one put your head near her until the sound vanished. The bubble seemed to expand from her nearly a foot in all directions.

“That’s really spooky,” Doug said, chiming in for the first time.

Around them in the green behind the lecture hall where they had PREVENT lectures, their antics had already started gaining attention, but the replacement of Zale with a black void finally drawn the eyes of everyone around them.

“Alright,” Kole said, giving up. “Ready?”

The black void wavered slightly at the top.

“Did you just nod?” Kole asked. “You know we can’t see you. Right?”

“Sorry! Yes. Ready.”

Kole fired another beam of light at her, and it struck the black void, where it completely vanished.

Zale then reappeared, smile wider on her face. All the apprehension about firing a spell at her vanished as Kole saw how happy it had made her.

“Do it again!” she demanded.

Kole complied, and this time, as he sent the spell into the Arcane Realm, he felt it being sucked into the void as the power tried to manifest into the world.

He felt that he could try to fight against the sensation, pitting his Will against Zale’s to see if he could force the spell into being, but held back, not wanting to hit her with the effect again.

Returning his full awareness to the world around him, he saw Zale, somehow smiling even wider than before.

PREVENT that day was split into two parts. The first was reviewing the recordings of the Hardball matches, just as they would with the dungeon delves the semester before. This time however, nothing was done to preserve privacy, as the whole match had already been broadcasted far and wide.

Kole’s team was shown as an example of how important the environment can be when planning for an encounter.

“Rakin here, as a primal of Earth, was uniquely suited for the arena, and had he not waited for his teammate, could have single handedly won the match,” Professor Underbrook explained.

“That’s not fair,” a student said in class.

Underbrook smiled maliciously.

“I know I’ve told you all this before, but life isn’t fair. Get used to it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” another student said. “The Forsaken destroyed Tobolt’s Rangers.”

Murmurs broke out over that comment, and Kole risked a glance at the other team, all sitting together on the opposite side of the room. They’d look mollified at Underbrook’s initial statement that one member could single-handedly turn the tide of a battle if they were specifically suited for the task, but whatever face that statement had let them save was lost when called out on their defeat.

“Thank you for your deft and critical analysis Darvin,” Underbrook said dryly. “Yes, the Forsaken did win, not due to a single member’s ability, but through superior skill. In fact, Rakin didn’t even assist in the fighting, and Zale took down two combatants while Kole and Doug each took down one. I hope the class is as gracious and caring with their analysis of your match this coming weekend.”

The statement seemed to help divert the attention from Tolbot’s Rangers towards the rude student, and Underbrook continued with the lecture.

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“We should go talk to them,” Zale said, after class.

“Who?” Rakin asked. “Looking around.”

Zale only swatted him on the back of the head as she looked at Kole.

“Fine,” Kole said, resigned.

They made their way through the departing students to the other team who were huddled.

Zale, in her non-voidy guise, approached them first.

“Hi Valspin,” she said, approaching the male of the team who’d wielded a sword and shield.

She extended a hand.

“Good match.” she said.

Valspin looked at her hand, then at Zale’s earnest face, and smiled.

“You don’t have to be modest,” he said, taking the hand. “You destroyed us.”

The comment broke the tension, and the archer broke in.

“Yeah, I don’t know how you fired that fast,” she said, turning to Doug. “I’m Savil, by the way.”

The rest introduced themselves. The wizard, Devin, was a second year as Kole had suspected, while Kalin the mace wielder was Blessed by some god of combat Kole hadn’t ever heard of.

“No hard feelings,” Valspin said, after a round of introduction. “You four placed top of the class last semester. There was some grumbling about it, but we can see it wasn’t favoritism. You earned it.”

“Thanks,” Zale said.

“But you four better win it all, or it's going to mess up our rankings,” Kalin said.

“We'll try not to disappoint,” Zale said, as the groups parted.

"And don’t worry,” Valsin said as a parting word. “We don’t believe any of the nonsense Shalin is spreading.”

The four stopped dead in their tracks.

“What sort of nonsense?” Zale asked cautiously.

“Oh, you know, that your friend’s twin sister was behind all the abductions, and that Rakin here is a Fire primal,” Valspin said, laughing at the idea of it. “Giant teleporting spiders? It’s absurd.”

Zale put a hand on Rakin’s shoulder, as the dwarf began to tense in rage.

“Well,” Zale began. “There might be some truth to that.”