Forihr stood still in the doorway. He had already prepared himself to finding things stolen or broken, but neither seemed to be the case. Instead only the boy was missing. Forihr checked to see if the notes from his research were still there, and found that they were. The man walked towards the door leading outside and opened it. He was met with a cold wind and the sound of birds in the distance.

Moments passed but the boy didn’t show up. Forihr thought about calling out for the boy, but decided not to. After al he only knew the boy for less than a day. With him gone he didn’t have to worry about having to take care of a second person. The man waited for just a bit longer, as if to give the boy one last chance to show up. When that didn’t happen he returned to the warmth of his house, closing the door behind him.

“Why were you standing in that door letting all the cold come in?”

There he was, sitting on the chair he had sat the day before, looking as if he hadn’t gone away at all. “It almost seemed if you were looking for someone. Expecting more guests?” Nelrim couldn’t help but show a smile on his face.

Forihr had half expected it but was still surprised. “No need to be so taken aback by it. Come sit down and eat something proper with me.” Nelrim took something out of his pockets. It looked like a package to Forihr.

“You really should learn how to knock sometime soon because this isn’t doing any good to my health” The man walked to the opposite side of the table and sat down. “So what did you bring that is so much better than my food?”

The boy kept silent and instead dramatically removed the cover of the package. What was revealed was a royal sandwich; a bread with pickles, cabbage, cheese and ham. Forihr was surprised that the boy could acquire such a luxury meal.

Before the man could open his mouth to give a suiting response to the reveal, Nelrim had already opened his. “I figured that as a repayment for your generosity yesterday I should provide you with a bit of generosity myself. What you see before you is part of the modern cuisine.” What the boy didn’t say was that this part of the modern cuisine was still a rarity amongst the common folk.

The man and the boy both went silent as they ate their share of the meal. It didn’t take long for them to finish eating, since there wasn’t much in the package to begin with. “It was not something I have eaten before, though it did taste quite good. Though I don’t think it has repaid the honour of being the first to see being the first to see my finished research.”

Nelrim opened his mouth, trying to complain, but he couldn’t. It was as if something was wrong. Perhaps it was how quiet the birds had become, or maybe he had a sixth sense for trouble. He would never know. What he did know was that shortly after he turned his head to face the window a high-pitched sound could be heard. Forihr jumped up from his seat and quickly grabbed some books and other objects that had no meaning to the boy.

“What was that? Why are you packing your stuff like that? Are we in danger?” The boy asked, now also standing. “That was an alarm I had set up a while ago. It makes that sound when a large group of armed people get within a certain radius of this house. I don’t know about you, but I rather flee now and be proven a coward, than to wait for them and be dead.”

The man didn’t stand still for even one bit, not even when he was talking to Nelrim. Not even ten seconds had passed or the man had already gathered most of his belongings into a few bags that were now on his back.

“Quick! Come stand next to me. Don’t look so surprised, we don’t have much time.” Forihr was standing on a differently coloured. Nelrim didn’t know what the use was of listening to the old man, but did so anyway. The moment he stepped next to the man a loud explosion reached his ears. The explosion was caused by a failure in the runes carved into the wood. Forihr had tested the teleportation runes a few times before, but never with a test subject larger than a small rabbit. The runes happened to work just well enough as to fulfil their purpose, but not good enough to stay stable for long after the act. Because of that they exploded and with the explosion part of the house was damaged. Most of the interior was torn to pieces though not much of value was left after Forihr stuffed most of it in his bags.

The world was spinning. He didn’t know if he was falling or if he was already on the ground. He tried stretching out a hand, but felt only something hard. It took him a while to realize that it was one of the bags that Forihr packed. Slowly regaining his sense of balance Nelrim tried to stand. He succeeded, albeit a bit slow and wobbly. Next to him Forihr also stood up and both were amazed by what they saw.

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“I- It worked!” said the man with joy.

“We teleported!” exclaimed the boy with surprise.

They both looked at what seemed to have been the house. They were standing on a nearby hill, not too far from their original position. “You know, it took a few tries to get the runes to work together on the destination.”

Meanwhile Nelrim was still shaking all over after suddenly getting teleported. Until a moment ago he only knew of teleportation requiring a group of ten mages. To think this took even less than half of that was just too much of a revelation for him to process. Not that Forihr minded any of this, instead he continued about how his earlier experiments had ended up in tiny bits.

“Weren’t we in a hurry to get away from the house?” Asked Nelrim after he got back to his senses. Forihr, who was just saying something about the mess those tiny bits made, stopped talking. “Ah, right. Though the most important thing was that we got away from the house. I actually hoped to catch a glimpse of the group of people who were coming to the house. Therefore, I suggest we sit down and wait for a bit. Not only will that make us less visible it will also cost us less energy.” The man following his own advise sat down and looked for any clues of persons near the house.

“But why the hurry if we were just going to sit and wait here anyway? Doesn’t that defy the need to hurry in the first place?” Nelrim didn’t like the thought of just sitting and waiting for something to happen, but he didn’t feel like walking away without the man either. He eventually decided to sit down with the man for a while.

“You would be right in that aspect, yet it is always good to stay sharp. That’s why I hurried so much, besides a little action won’t do any harm.” The man had a crooked smile on his face. Nelrim didn’t quite get the humour of the man, but didn’t respond. Instead he silently watched the surroundings of the house.

Half an hour passed and the boy was starting to get restless. “Are you sure that sound of yours wasn’t just triggered by a swarm of birds flying low?” Nelrim was just about to stand up when the man grabbed his arm and pointed towards the opposite side of the house.

“Look, right there. It seems we have found our swarm of birds.” Nelrim turned to look where the man was pointing. At first he couldn’t make out anything except for trees, but one by one figures appeared from the forest.

The men who had now increased in number all wore blue clothing with a red line across the chest. It was a long time since Forihr had seen such clothing. This didn’t go for Nelrim, who had seen it rather recent. “What are the guards of the third academy doing here?” The man whispered.

“Perhaps they got lost as well” Suggested the boy. Though he himself didn’t even believe in that.

“Say, from what academy did you steal again? I don’t think I heard the first time you told me.”

“Well it was hmphs” The boy lowered his tone at the last part, making it hard for the man to hear. But the man wasn’t stupid. “I already thought so, you stole from the third.”

The five academia each had a field in which it was better than the others. This specialization wasn’t the main goal of each academy, it mostly served as a way for each academy to provide something different. The first academy that was founded went in the direction of storing information. The second focused more on agriculture. The third and fourth were founded at around the same time and decided to choose opposing fields of specialization. The third went with attack magic whereas the forth went with defence magic. The fifth choose the path of politics and influencing people.

As time had passed the academia became more popular because of the specializations instead of the general course. Because of this the academia responded with making their field of expertise more important. This in turn led to a widening in the gap between each academy. In the end they could hardly be called a single organization.

Nelrim didn’t like it, but he had to agree with the man. “Yes I stole from them, but there is no reason for them to chase me with such a large force!” There were now about thirty people gathered in front of the house, most of which Nelrim guessed to be a mage.

“Now that we have an idea of what took such an interest in my house I suggest we move on.” Forihr slowly stood up, grabbed his bags and walked away. Just like that. Nelrim once again thought to himself that he was lucky to have found this man.