By the time that Jeb had gone through the list of Professors that Dean Aquam had suggested he meet, his stomach was growling. He took the hint and the Academy led him to the cafeteria. Jeb noted that it was still far less crowded than he would have expected. Even though the room was more filled than he had seen at any point during his day with the Dean, there were still more empty tables than tables with someone at them.
He considered the fact that the term had yet to start. Maybe a number of students only come in once classes start? Jeb thought. It seemed plausible, so he shrugged and went to get a plate of food. After dinner, he went back to practice the Ephemeral Song and went to sleep.
The next day, Jeb ate a quick breakfast and returned to practicing his Song. By the end of the day, he was able to make it smell of an apple while it looked and felt like one, but only for a brief moment. The morning after, he woke to another note hanging in his door frame. Unsurprisingly, it was a list of courses. Jeb took the list, and after a short stop in the cafeteria, brought it to the Library.
Kaitlyn was waiting for him when he arrived. She took his course schedule and let out a small noise of confusion.
“Is something wrong?” Jeb asked.
She shrugged. “I’m just a little surprised that you were enrolled in so many classes. I have never known Dean Aquam to encourage over-enrollment, especially given all of his complaints about students doing so.”
“What do you mean by over-enrollment?”
“It is the practice of signing up for more courses than you actually plan to take. Students will often attend the first day or days of each, then drop the ones they enjoy the least.”
“While I don’t think that’s what Dean Aquam intended, what’s wrong with it?”
She shrugged. “It makes planning harder for Professors. If there are twenty students enrolled in a course, the sorts of activities a Professor will plan are different than if there are three. According to him, at least, it also makes it harder to know when there are Professors who need to be trained or reprimanded.” Seeing Jeb’s look of confusion, she continued, “one metric that the Academy uses to gauge Professor’s teaching ability is in the percent of students enrolled in a course at the start of the term who end up completing the course. Students dropping the course because they intentionally over-enrolled themselves then penalizes Professors who did nothing wrong, all while making it easier for the Professors who are actually a problem to hide.” After giving the answer, the Librarian seemed to realize that Jeb had said he had not been over-enrolled. Frowning, she continued again, “if you are not over-enrolled, why are you signed up for so many courses?”
“Dean Aquam and I thought this was a reasonable schedule?” Jeb replied. “Is there something in it that doesn’t make sense?”
“You have at least two courses scheduled for every single day of the week,” she replied. “Most students take at least a day off every week. You are also enrolled in four full courses and five half courses. The Academy generally recommends no more than four total courses, and fewer your first few terms.”
“Why?” Jeb asked. “It isn’t like I have anything else to work on.”
Kaitlyn shrugged and ran a hand through her lavendar hair, quickly tying it above her head. “If Dean Aquam approved the schedule, I suppose there is nothing wrong with it. I will start gathering the books you will need. It looks like you have at least an hour of free time scheduled after every course, at least in the first week. Please come by after the first session of each course to make sure that the reading lists are the same between what I have been told and what you are told.”
“Will do!” Jeb said. As he turned to leave, he ran into Margaret as she walked by with a stack of books. “Sorry!” Jeb said, bending over to help her pick them up.
“Thank you,” she said when they had gathered the tablet. As both stood up, Jeb realized just how short the Librarian was. The realization shocked him, and he stared at her. She met his gaze for a few moments then shook her head, pushing her curly brown hair off of her eyes. “Well, I should probably shelve these,” she said, stuttering a little.
“Sorry again,” Jeb said, moving towards the exit. Margaret gave a small wave from behind the stack of books and Jeb returned it.
Just as he reached the door, Kaitlyn called out to him. “Jeb, can you come back here for a moment?” Jeb turned around.
“Your Enchanting Professor would like students to have read the first chapter of this book by the first day of classes,” she explained, handing Jeb a thick book.
“Thank you!” Jeb said, moving again to the exit. Even though no one stopped him the second time around, he paused before opening the door. I haven’t seen anyone else speaking where they want to go, he thought. Directing his thoughts outward, he focused on telling the Academy that he would like to go somewhere to read.
When he opened the door, Jeb was hit with a wave of vertigo. He knew even without stepping through that the door out of the Library was opening to somewhere else within the Academy Library. Shrugging, Jeb stepped through. As the door closed behind him, the sense of vertigo faded. Note to self, Jeb thought, “using a door to lead you somewhere else in the same room is disorienting.” He knew that he would need to explore the limits of that sooner or later, but he had other priorities. Jeb picked up the book and began to read.
By the time he had finished the first paragraph, he was already lost. Unlike the Enchanting books the Librarian had given him, this book was focused not at all on how to actually draw and power an Enchantment. This book was allegedly a theoretical introduction to Enchanting, though it presupposed a lot of background information that Jeb did not have. Jeb shook his head and tried to focus on the next paragraph.
By the end of the page, Jeb was nodding. “Ok,” he said, hardly noticing that he was speaking out loud, “that settles it. I have no idea what is happening in this book. Maybe the Librarian will have a book I can read?” Lacking any better options, Jeb looked around for an exit. When he didn’t see one where he entered, he frowned.
“Well,” he thought, “I guess there’s nothing else to do but wander.” Jeb picked a direction at random and started walking. “If you can hear me, Academy, I would like to go back to the reception part of the Library to ask the Librarian a question.” In the dimly lit hallway covered in books, Jeb wasn’t sure if the Academy had heard him or if it responded. Still, when the hallway came to an end after a few minutes of walking, Jeb took the only path available, turning left.
As he kept walking, the hallway steadily began to brighten. Jeb kept time by the steady beating of his heart. Even without his Athletics Skill, he was still in good enough shape that a casual walk like this did nothing to raise his heart rate. After the countless hours he’d spent working on music, he had come to an innate sense of how long each heart beat lasted, at least while he was paying attention. Ten minutes into the walk, he saw another person.
“Margaret?” Jeb asked, mostly noticing the cloud of curly brown hair at his chest height.
“Jeb, what are you doing in the Stacks?” though she asked her question calmly, Jeb had the distinct impression that there was a wrong answer to it.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he responded honestly. “I asked the Academy to take me somewhere where I could study this,” he raised the book, “and I think it took me somewhere else in the Library. I can’t make sense of anything in this book, though, so I was hoping to get some book that’s even more remedial than this one. There wasn’t an exit near me, so I started walking and trusted that the Academy wouldn’t let me get too lost.”
Margaret had been nodding along with Jeb’s story until the last sentence. When he finished, he realized that she was staring at him in horror. “Did I do something wrong?” Jeb asked, feeling his heart rate rise.
She waved her ink stained hands in front of her, clearly trying to calm him down. “No, not at all. It has just been a while since I met a new student so willing to immediately believe that the Academy was sentient and benevolent. If you would come with me, I can take you to Librarian Kaitlyn. I am sure that she can help you find whatever book you would be looking for.”
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The two walked in amiable silence. Something about the space felt opposed to mindless chatter, so Jeb let his thoughts wander instead. The first page of the Enchanting textbook had talked about how energy was fundamentally discrete, despite how it might seem in common usage. Or, at least, it assumed that the reader was already familiar with what it called a “thaum,” which Jeb was fairly certain had some connection to a Spell.
When they got back to the Lobby, Kaitlyn came rushing over. “I understand now why your Librarian liked you so much,” she said. Something about her tone made it incredibly clear to Jeb that the comment was not a compliment.
“I’m a little confused by the book,” Jeb admitted. “It seems to assume that I would know that energy comes in discrete packets. I have always thought of energy as being not that.”
Kaitlyn stared at him from behind her dark lenses. Jeb looked back, unsure if he’d done something wrong. After a few moments, she shook her head. “Are you not planning to tell me why you were in the stacks?”
“Oh!” Jeb replied, “I hadn’t been, but there’s no reason that I couldn’t.” He repeated the story that he had told Margaret, and Kaitlyn nodded along.
“I will admit to being a touch surprised that you ended up in the Stacks,” she said, “though from what I’ve gathered about your history, I suppose it should not be too surprising. This book should serve as a good primer for what the textbook is speaking about in terms of energy.”
“I’m also confused about-” Kaitlyn raised a hand to stop him.
“Let me guess, you want to know how the author came to the equations that she presented, right?”
Jeb nodded.
“Truthfully, those derivations are all a few hundred years old at the youngest. If you are really interested in the fundamental math to derive them yourself, I think that there is a course which covers it. It is generally reserved for doctoral work, though I will admit to being unsure if that is due to content or the nature of what students are interested in. For the purposes of the course you are enrolled in, learning how the equations work is even more than is expected. If you read a little further in the book, you will see that it calls most of the first chapter ‘a pleasant diversion,’ rather than the explicit focus of the text.”
Jeb took the book on energy and thanked the Librarian. As he opened the door, he realized that he did have one more request. “Do you know where I can find paper for notes?”
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Humdrum Human Age: 16 Class: Wizard Level: 3 Experience: 775/204
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Total Statistic Load: 623 Physical Load: 228 Strength: 52 Dexterity: 53 Endurance: 54 Vitality: 55 Presence: 14
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Mental Load: 395 Intelligence: 78 Willpower: 85 Magic Affinity: 84 Mana Depth: 74 Charisma: 74
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Mana: 1755
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Glyph Attunement: 31 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Water (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Meditation Spell Glyphing Gift of Gab Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Glassblowing Magic
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic Glyph Specializer
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)