Ray

Ray wanted to argue a bit more when he felt someone slapping his face lightly. "Ray, Ray, are you awake."

The Dean. What was he doing here- or was he back in the Treasury? Yes, that seemed likely.

"Anita?" Ray asked, sitting up suddenly. The Dean looked at him with a judgmental look in his eyes. "Anita, will live, I got the vial you were clutching, and am already preparing the potion. Now, can you tell me what happened? Why did you faint?

"Can we do that later? Doesn't Anita have only hours to live?" Ray said.

"Hmm, no. The potion is brewing, and it won't be ready for a while. I have time to listen to your excuses." the Dean said as Torrin popped his head into the room. Wait, room, where were they? The Treasury had rooms?

"The potion is boiling, I think something's wrong with it." Torrin said as the Dean turned towards him, the judgmental expression still on his face.

"I suppose we don't have time then. But don't you think you're off the hook, Mr faint-a-lot." The Dean said as he headed out. Ray got up to follow, but then realized something as he felt the blanket slip away.

The blanket was touching way too much of his body…panicking as he realized what this meant, Ray held the blanket to his face, protecting his decency while looking around to make sure that no one saw him.

Why the heck would you leave someone there with no clothes?

Ray looked around awkwardly while lying on the bed. The room was sparsely furnished, with only one bed in the middle of the room with a pink table in one corner, but sadly no clothes. Not even a shirt. So Ray lay there, under a blanket, as he waited for the Dean to come back while worrying about Anita.

The Dean wasn't the one that came first. No, it was Nora. Ray slipped deeper into the blankets, stuffing it below him to make sure that none of his body was visible. Was this some kind of strange torture?

To leave the door open with you naked on the bed with only a blanket covering you? And then ask a friend to step in? Was the Dean really that angry at him? What did he do to attract so much of his ire?

"Why are you sleeping like that?" Nora asked.

"Oh, ugh, nothing." Ray said, speaking so fast that he barely got all his words out. "Could you maybe get a hat from the Treasury? The one near the Fae illusion stone?"

Ray smiled widely while looking at Nora, hoping she wouldn’t question it much.

"Ok…are you sure that is ok, though? I am a guest here, couldn't you just get up and take it?" Nora asked before horror dawned on her face, "Wait, are you disabled? Are your legs working properly? Can you walk?"

Nora approached him, much to Ray's displeasure, ready to check his body. No, he couldn't have that…ugh, he was going to kill the Dean. Or at least make him suffer.

"Nora, I am, umm, not wearing clothes." Ray said, awkwardly looking at Nora.

Nora's hand froze midair. "I see. And you want a hat because?"

"The hat makes clothes…" Ray said, awkwardly, trying, and failing to hide his embarrassment. "And it would have meant not telling you that I was naked."

Nora actually giggled, apparently finding it cute or something. Ray found it horrifying.

"I'll get you some clothes, naked guy." Nora left, giggling the entire way as Ray's face turned red. What did he do to deserve this?

Nora returned a few minutes later, carrying a shirt and pants, giggling as she looked at Ray.

"Here, have your clothes," Nora said, winking as she walked out, thankfully closing the door behind her.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Ray got dressed as fast as he could, too embarrassed to stick around for long. The clothes were a size too big, and Nora had forgotten underwear to boot. But at least he now had clothes, uncomfortable ones, but clothes.

Ray headed out of the room, emerging into a white hallway. The Treasury was thankfully quite easy to find, the large doors easy to spot.

The mood inside it, however, was not quite as pleasant as Ray would have hoped.

"What happened? " he asked, looking towards Aunty Ariana's gloomy face.

"The Xnarthan have banned the Salazar group and its members from Afrieal as a precautionary measure during the Elven invasion. The College members have been asked to restrict themselves to the College too…

And that's not all, we've been asked to hand over our workplaces to Xnarthan sponsored dealers from the Human continent so that they can take over the Alchemic business. The Emperor has founded the Alchemic guild, a state-run Alchemic business that will operate in the Elven continent.

The only business that can sell Alchemic products in the Elven continent. Afrieal's Alchemists are flocking there to get a piece of the profit before it evaporates into thin air, and they're left without jobs.”

What? Wouldn't the Alchemists get angry - right, why would the Xnarthan care about that? Alchemy was a non-combat profession, Alchemists were very weak without their money and potion driven leverage.

Not to mention vulnerable without a livelihood. Alchemists had families too, they would be forced to work for the Xnarthan or risk not having enough money to feed their children.

"What about Ariana?" Ray asked, worried.

"The Satyr Elder is preparing a potion for us now. The Dean is helping." Aunty Ariana said. "The Xnarthan lieutenant's been delivering threats to my house, he's warned that if we don't meet him in fifteen minutes, he'll start killing people.

"What is the rebellion doing? I am sure they are involved with the Xnarthan acting so quickly.?" Ray asked, his brows furrowing as he looked at Uncle Trevor clean his sword for the hundredth time in the last few minutes.

The Xnarthan were acting way too fast for this to not be planned. Just getting the Alchemists from the Human continent would take a long time.

"The rebellion has far too much on their plate right now. The commoners aren't doing too well either. The Emperor has instituted a three class system to help him invade the Elven continent. The nobles, the mages, and the commoners.

The mages are just commoners that swore, in front of the Xnarthan under truth potion, that they were loyal to the Emperor. But there's a catch. The military rank the mage is given depends on how many rebellion members he can reveal to the Xnarthan. The more there are, the higher the rank." Aunty Ariana said.

Ray could see why she was depressed, this was some good planning on the side of the Xnarthan. The rebellion would be forced to run damage control on this, trying to save their members from getting killed. And it would divide the commoners, make them suspicious of each other.

"I am sure the Rebel Queen will be able to do something, she's very intelligent." Ray consoled her. "What about Nora, I saw her just a few moments ago, does she know about this?"

"Yes, though she won't tell us what her mother has planned." Aunty Ariana said. Ray froze, this was a bit shocking. Nora hadn't seemed too worried either, he would have thought that there weren’t so many things going wrong. What plan did the rebel Queen have? And why wasn't she sharing it with them?

"The potion's ready." the Dean yelled from deeper inside the Treasury, pausing their conversation.

"So fast?" Aunty Ariana asked, getting up to follow the Dean. "Are you sure you were careful, a bad potion would kill or maim-"

"The potion was easy to make, there are only two ingredients, and it was prepared by Alchemists that have been doing Alchemy for centuries. The boiling was just…an unexpected reaction." the Dean said, his monotone voice betraying how upset he was with the situation. Had he not helped Ray, it was unlikely the College would have gotten mixed up in this. Now they were on the chopping block too.

But the want of the day was Anita, not, he could deal with the Dean later.

The Satyr Elder was dripping the contents of a flask into Anita's mouth, drop by drop, as the potion spread across Anita's body.

"The process will take a few minutes, Anita is quite injured, she won't be healed so quickly." the Satyr Elder said as the drops fell. Ray watched eagerly as the potion worked, watching with his Fae sight.

The potion surrounded the poison, forming something like a circle as it suppressed the poison's effect. The weakened ricocheting mana system fragmented, treads returning to the normal system as the poison fragment contracted. But the blood wasn't even close.

The blood began oscillating, trying to undo the contraction as it dispersed the mana system. Anita's condition worsened as her mana fluctuated, her body functions weakening as mana flow was disturbed.

Ray's heart leapt into his throat as he saw her breath slow down, the lack of mana forcing her body to shut down. And then the potion struck. The slowly constricting circle suddenly contracted into the poison, nullifying it in a minor explosion of mana that restarted Anita's body.

"Blurbburrburbluk." Anita said as water bubbled out of her mouth. Mana began running through her body at high speeds as she returned to consciousness, her eyes fluttering open as she returned to health.

Anita tried to get up before she fell down again, puking onto the floor. Ray felt alarm bells ring as her face suddenly paled, and her mana got a blood-red tinge. The mana flow slowed, almost halting as Anita's body started going limp.

Ray knew what had happened in a glance. The leftover potion after curing Anita had turned into an even more deadly poison.

-----------------------------------------------------------

'blurb burr bulb uk' is apparently an actual word according to google docs...