All dorm rooms in Lord Vargon's School for Talented Magic Users and Animal Handlers (Disaffected Young Adults Branch) are the same size so that there is no clear display of favoritism toward certain students. That is shown in other ways. So each floor has the same number of rooms as the ones below it. But, by the time students get to their final year, the number of people needing rooms is so much lower that each student gets a room to themselves. (Students do have the nasty habit of getting blown up or eaten with regularity.)

In Maury's room, this means that instead of bunk beds she has just a single bed sitting up against the front wall next to the door, and instead of two desks she has one worktable and a big empty area where the other would be. It is still not spacious, by any account, but it is comfortable just because it is a space that only has one person most of the time. This is, quite unexpectedly, NOT one of those times.

Maury slowly stands up from her stool, tucking her wings tight against her back. Close enough that she could touch, if she felt like washing her hands REALLY well afterward, a lump of human is unfurling to a standing position directly in front of her amazing mirror. The disturbing thing, though, is that contrary to its programming, the mirror had only destroyed the top layer of this human. Mainly the clothing it wore. The skin is still intact, and that means most likely all of its insides are still clinging to its bones and trapping that juicy soul inside.

She eyes it up and down, frowning as she tries to determine how she is going to get all the yucky outer stuff off so she can get to its soul. Maybe she can borrow something sharp from the dining hall and poke it until it stops moving. That seems easier than trying to bludgeon it with-

"Where am I?"

"In your skin, which is very rude,"she answers before thinking about it. There is no rule against talking to humans, but they are devious, so it is not recommended. She steps back as it steps forward, parts of it dangling and swaying as it walks. They look about the same as things she has seen before on Sidney when she walked into his room while he was getting dressed. She assumes that means the human is a male. She pushes her hands out in front of her to stop it from advancing, shouting, "You will not mate with me!"

It, he, stops abruptly and looks at her with obvious confusion. "What are you talking about? Where am I?"

"You are naked, and your little thing is waving at me."

"Little- wait, where are my clothes?"

Maury slaps her hands over her ears, grimacing at his volume. "Are all humans so shrill? Your clothes were torn apart like the rest of you was supposed to be when you came through my mirror. Now go back through and try again!"

"I knew it!" He shouts triumphantly, punching his hand up into the air. When the rest of her sentence, the less important part in Maury's mind, catches up to him, he hurriedly drops his hands down in front of his body to hide his wiggling little appendage. He continues, at a much more agreeable volume, "I knew it! That mirror IS evil!"

"My mirror is NOT evil. It is a perfectly safe and pain-free way to separate the soul from the body and get rid of all the ick so I don't have to deal with it." She picks up a bone from her work table with freshly carved runes from her morning practice. Swinging it experimentally, she turns back to the human and tries to decide if his head is hard enough that her pretty, runed bone club will break.

The boy, man, whatever, says something, but a knock on the door reminds Maury what it was that distracted her before. "Hold on a second, let me get that, and then I can separate your soul, okay?" Ignoring his increasingly loud protests, she walks to the door, bone swinging at her side, and opens it to find a much improved looking Pixiesnort.

"What's all that noise?" She asks as she tries to look around Maury unsuccessfully.

"There was a glitch in my mirror, I'm handling it. You should stay out here, though. Its dander is probably all over my room right now." Ignoring the girl in the hallway squealing about how Maury DOES care about her, Maurgeth shuts the door again and raises her club as she stalks toward the human. "Now, just stand still. I don't want to get your goo all over everything."

The human squeaks in fear and tries to run around her toward the door, but between the club and her three or so inches in height that she has over him, he can't get past her easily. Still, just swinging the club as she picked it up was more effort than she would normally expend, and she is slow in bringing it back up toward him. He ducks under her swing, then trips over the clothes she left on the floor at the foot of the bed the night before.

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Why am I this tired already? Maybe I should start exercising or something, she thinks as she leans over and knocks the human over the head with a hearty thunk.

No. Exercising is stupid and gross.

Lucky for Maury, another swing isn't necessary. With a flash of red light bright enough to leave sparks in her eyes, the boy disappears.

"Maury? Can I come in yet?"

"Probably. The human is...gone?"

The door opens a crack, and Pixie's voice comes through more clearly. "You don't sound certain."

"Well, I mean, he isn't a human anymore..." Maury scowls down at the puddle of pastel green goo on the ground.

"Uhm, can you use a disinfect spell?"

"Mimimimi," Maury mutters sarcastically, wiggling her fingers and casting the beginner level spell. Raising her voice, she replies, "All clear and super hypoallergenic, you annoying freaking blue giraffe."

The door opens the rest of the way, gorgeous blue hair swinging around the doorframe as a head pokes inward. One delicate sniff, a long pause, and then there are once more two in the room.

"Why was there a human in your room? It's not against the rules, but it is a bit tacky, don't you think?"

"Tacky?" Maury chews the inside of her cheek as she determines whether or not she should be insulted. "Why?"

"Because we kill them and use their souls to power all of our things?"

"Oh. Whatever. It wasn't my fault. The stupid human didn't die when he passed through the mirror. I got no soul, AND I had to look at his weird little hanging part and every-"

A sharp squeal pierces their ears, and both girls look around before settling their eyes on the slime on the floor. The green fluid shimmers, it shakes, and with a mighty lurch, the puddle balloons upward into a dome. Two brilliant green eyes form on the side facing the door.

"You didn't kill it? What spell did you use?" Pixie rubs her forehead, a grimace marring her normally cheerful countenance.

"I didn't. I hit it with a bone I was practicing rune etching on."

"What rune?"

Maury chews on her cheek again. What rune WAS she practicing earlier? "Uhm, a transmogrification rune. But it isn't complete...oh, I see. I was thinking about exercise making you slimy at the time. My brain filled in the gaps with that. Well...I guess I have a slime now. Why is it still screaming, though? Don't they have to breathe?"

She bends over and smacks the green blob with her opened hand. The squeal stops immediately, and the slime flexes in and out quickly in time with high-pitched pants.

"That's better," she says with a smirk. She straightens back up, wiping her hands off on her pants. "So, do you want to go and get some food?"

"Maurgeth! You can't just leave it here like that! The poor thing is obviously terrified!"

Ignoring the sweet voice pleading for her to take care of the 'poor thing', Maury marches out of her room and straight down the hallway to the broad stone staircase that will let her out in another long hallway that will eventually take her to the dining hall. She may be getting used to eating with someone besides Sidney, but she will be hecking darned if she will miss out on dinner because someone wants her to deal with the consequences of her own actions. The only thing THAT road will lead to is...shudder...responsibility.

As she approaches the doors to the dining hall, she hears running footsteps coming toward her. For the second time in one day, and the second time in possibly ever, Maury is thinking that she maybe should exercise some to build up her speed. Maybe there is a spell she can learn to just instantaneously travel from one place to the next. Like a portal, but without all the work of setting one up. Surely there is a rune she could link with something to-

"Wait up!"

Pixiesnort runs up beside her, slapping her right hand on the dining hall entrance door to keep Maury from opening it. The complete lack of heavy breathing or sweat irritates Maury immensely. Almost as much as the hyperventilating slime tucked against Pixie's left side.

"I'm hungry. Move aside." She tugs ineffectually at the arm holding the entrance door closed for a moment before realizing she can just open the exit door and go in that way. What a rebel, she thinks to herself as she struts in the wrong door, silently daring anyone to say anything. If anyone notices, they don't say anything. Perfectly good 'cool person' strut wasted. A monitor rushes past her and starts whispering to Pixie frantically, but she doesn't stick around to listen. There is food to be eaten.

"Darnit, Maury!"

A bite of food is ALMOST in her mouth before Pixie finally catches up. With a serene expression on her face, Maury crams a fork full of an unidentifiable brown meat in her mouth. She chews it slowly, focusing on the strange, bitter flavor before swallowing and taking a sip of water. Pixie is still lecturing her about something when she finishes, but she has no idea what, nor does she care.

"You forgot your food," she states, carefully picking up another piece of the mystery meat and looking it over carefully.

"I forgot my- Oh, frog farts." She disappears, only to return a moment later with a tray of her own, which she unceremoniously drops on the table across from Maury along with the bug eyed slime. "I just got yelled at for your unregistered pet! I said you would register it in the morning, it was a surprise acquisition. He gave me a leash since if it isn't registered, it probably isn't trained. So you have one day to get it registered and come up with a training certificate before they dock credits!"

Maury looks up at that, the brown meat forgotten for the moment. "They dock credits for that? But I need my credits! You should have just left it there, and I could have killed it when I got back from dinner."

"You can't kill it! It was human once!"

"Sooooooo..." she draws out the word, cutting off only because she remembers her fork of food and shoves it in her mouth.

"Don't kill me!"

One blue face and one purple turn toward the source of the high-pitched voice. The slime trembles, eyes so large they look like they will fall out as they look back and forth between them.

"Did it just talk?" The two girls say together, food temporarily forgotten again.