Ms. Jo added dodgeballs to the course on the third day. In that, she threw balls at them and expected them to dodge. Those who got hit, whistled. The balls stayed on the ground to be treated as debris.
Oh, and the first three who made it through without a single mistake got to join her until the next person bumped them out.
That’s how Micah ended up bombarding Ryan with an unlimited amount of ammunition and a grin on his face for the last half hour of class, only switching to other targets to make sure they couldn’t take his place.
Ryan would be lying if he said it wasn’t fun.
Those who performed the worst had to clean up. Despite Micah’s best efforts to put him in that group, Ryan wasn’t one of them. As payback, he trapped him in a nuggie on the way out. They were second only to those who hated gym class but did well enough to escape chagrin.
As they got changed though, he frowned at the choice of clothes the other guy was painstakingly getting out of his bag. They were same as he had worn yesterday, and the day before that
“You do know the school uniform isn’t mandatory, right?”
“I know.”
He even wore the tie. Ryan was surprised he knew how. His parents must have taught him, for formal events and the such. “Then why are you wearing it?”
Micah smiled. “Because I like it.” When he saw Ryan wasn’t convinced, he added, “I made it into the school Ryan, I’m going to wear the uniform.”
He shrugged and stuffed his things into his bag, slung that over his shoulder. It wasn’t like Micah looked bad in it. He might stand out, though, depending on how many others did the same. “Just bring it to the cleaners, okay? Or you’ll wear it out too quickly.”
“Sure.”
He headed out and Micah hurried up to keep pace. Without the ceremony to disrupt things, two hours of Gym class was followed by a break before afternoon classes started, so they could wash off and eat. Or drop off their things at the dorms, which was where they were headed right now.
“Oh, hey,” Micah said and sped up a little to walk sideways in front of him. “You should wear it, too.”
“The uniform?”
“Yeah, you look awesome in it.”
He did?
“It’s three layers and two long sleeves,” Ryan reminded him, picking at his shirt. The crowd split up, only half or so choosing to drop things off. Others wanted to get the jump on the cafeteria. Very few did both, groups splitting up as one side took the luggage and the other reserved tables.
“Oh, right. Hm.” Micah shifted his lips. “I have [Dissettle], now? I could try and improve on your breeze potion?”
“The potion is fine, Micah. Focus on other stuff. I can just drop layers.”
“Like the undershirt?”
“I was thinking the dress shirt.”
“So you are going to wear it?”
He shrugged. He could roll up the sleeves.
“Yes.”
Ryan snatched his blazer from his room—along with the tie, on Micah’s insistence—and they cut across the courtyard to save time, passing people eating with their trays on the steps. They entered the cafeteria from the side wall that was more glass than building.
A moment’s pause while the door fell shut and he located Lisa in the chaos of what was now easily four-hundred students. He led the way to the table she sat at, along with that redhead friend of hers. But the moment they got there, the two girls got up and left, saying, “Keep our seats, will you?”
Micah looked confused. He didn’t receive an answer when he called out. Ryan stole an apple from a sparse tray and took a bite as he sat, so the other followed suit, plopping on the bench with a frown. “How are we going to get food, now? I could try keeping the seats on my own, but …”
Ryan took another bite and tossed him the rest, eyes on the two girls as they headed for a table a few rows down. Shoving the chunk to his cheek, he said, “If they take too long, we’re stealing their food.”
Micah smiled. “Deal.”
He dragged the white space Ryan had made wider, and Ryan focused on watching Lisa and … Moira? Myra? He thought it was Myra. They approached a mostly-full table of wealthy kids, guessing by their clothes. They looked almost like the school uniform, but as casual-wear.
Their conversation lulled as they dug into their food. Lisa looked around as if she couldn’t find another seat and planted herself with a sigh. It turned to a scowl at something in the distance. Her voice was hard to pick up through the crowd, but Ryan managed. “Did you see that? Is that how it’s going to be, then?”
Her friend calmly followed her glare to the food line opposite her. Her brows furrowed as she said, “Madin.”
That made the other people look up and search until they found Navid Madin standing in line, somewhat impatiently—which was only reasonable, considering its length—completely innocent of whatever crime Lisa was accusing him of.
Two people approached their own table with trays and Ryan put his leg over the bench, one elbow up to block them. He didn’t recognize either, so he said, “You can’t sit here.”
Belatedly, he remembered to smile. Be polite.
They hesitated.
Micah looked up from his apple, but apparently didn’t know them either. He wiped his mouth and said, “You really can’t. Sorry.” They left, looking unhappy and Ryan focused on the conversation.
“He thinks he can just trample around school because his parents are rich,” Lisa complained, “cutting in line like that and ignoring them with that shit-eating grin. What an asshole.”
Her friend nodded in solidarity, but didn’t do much else.
“How can you be so calm about it?” Lisa turned on her. “Doesn’t it make you angry that he can do what he wants?” It sounded like the words were for the other people at the table, not her friend.
She hesitated and leaned forward to share a secret, but spoke in a voice much too loud for it to actually be one, fidgeting with her hands. “I heard he’s signing up with the dueling club.”
“And?”
Dueling? Ah. Now, Ryan got where this was going. Freaking Lisa.
“And,” her friend spoke, “his instructors will have gone easy on him because he’s spoiled rich. So he doesn’t know how to fight. And everyone knows Ms. Denner hates him, so …”
She left the rest up to Lisa’s—and the other people’s—imagination. Ryan wondered if Navid was even signing up or if they still had to con him into it, too.
Their friend looked torn. “Wouldn’t that ruin the entire club? Nobody would be allowed to fight him because he’d just go crying to— Oh.”
Myra smiled. “The staff, who don’t care. Principal’s orders. He could go to his family, but would they really want to make an issue out of how much of a disappointment he is? His parents would want to sweep it under the rug, make him quit after his first lesson. Maybe say it was too basic.”
“After he gets his ass handed to him?” Lisa asked with a grin. “Oh, I have got to see that.”
Myra smiled. “So sign up. But between you and me? He’s stubborn. I doubt he would quit after his first loss.”
Her eyes practically glowed. “So I could get to beat him over and over again? That’ll knock him down a peg. Good idea— Oh, hey. Ryan is waving at us.”
He hadn’t been, but some people at the table looked over so he quickly started doing it, hiding his scowl behind a casual smile. What if I hadn’t been eavesdropping, Lisa?
“—And he’s got a table. How the hell? C’mon, I’m starving.”
“What are you doing?” Micah asked him.
“Smiling and waving.”
“Oh, cool. You should do that more often.”
“What? Smiling and waving?”
“Just the first bit.”
Ryan leaned away to free up the bench and resisted the urge to applaud them as they sat, asking instead, “Do you want all of them to join? Even with multiple courses, they’ll only allow so many in, you know?”
“What? No,” Lisa scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just want the angry one who thinks he’s better than others. I heard him and a few others boast about how good he is as a [Spellsword]. I want to see if it’s true. And crush him if not.”
She pulled out a list and struck the name, self-assured that he would join. Or maybe not invested enough to care. “Three down, that leaves”—her eyes glanced up at Ryan and Micah—”eight more.”
Micah did the wise thing and ignored Lisa’s antics. “You’re Myra, right?”
She nodded. “I am. And you are Micah Stranya.”
His smile was a little nervous around the edges. “Yeah. You’re nothing what I thought you’d be like.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Well, Lisa said—” He caught himself. “I mean, uh, you’re a friend of Annebeth’s right?”
She thought about it. “I suppose. What did Lisa say about me?”
“Nothing, nothing. So—”
“What did Lisa say about me?”
“That you have a posse,” Lisa answered without looking up as she tucked the paper away. “Which is true.”
Micah sank down in his chair, clearly ashamed that he had ratted on a friend.
“Mm?”
She didn’t really look like the girl to have a posse though, Ryan thought. Girls like that were usually more engaging and always smiled. Myra did neither. She fiddled with her hands when she spoke, which was weird, and had that poise he had come to affiliate with nobles. Her eyes, at least, seemed calculating.
The cat was out of the bag anyway, so he just asked, “I thought you two didn’t like each other?”
Lisa looked up. “Oh, I didn’t. She was annoying.”
Myra nodded in agreement, to the dislike part not the annoyance. “For the longest while, I thought Lisa was a savant.”
“A savant?” Micah asked.
Sometimes, Ryan was glad he had him around to ask questions like that. He had few inhibitions, it seemed, for better or for worse.
Myra gestured. “You know? Touched in the head, but really good at something? I thought she was a spellcraft savant. I wanted to learn.”
“You copied me.”
“Imitation is the highest form of flattery.”
“Is that why you’re a mimic, then?”
Oh, right. She was a [Blue Mage]. Ryan had almost forgotten. He wondered if he should say something. Converse.
“In part.”
“Yeah, right. Just admit it. Summoning was too hard for you so you gave up halfway and settled for less.”
Myra’s quirked her lips and shook her head in an amused, No.
Then again, [Blue Mages] really were just the cousins of [Summoners], weren’t they? They used spells. Ryan could just as well ask Lisa.
“Whatever.”
“Seems to me like you’re friends,” Micah said and took another bite with an open smile.
Myra furrowed her brows. “You took my apple.”
He almost choked on the piece, alarmed though it was Ryan’s mistake, and hurried to apologize.
Ryan hung back. Oops?
In the end, Micah got up to get both a replacement apple for her and food for himself, now that Lisa was here. Ryan got up after him, but took a moment to ask, “Defend our seats?”
She nodded. “With our lives.”
Myra brushed a hand past her chest. “Our?”
The other guy was already gone, so Ryan cut in line to stand next to him. [Blue Mages] also got Skills, he knew. Especially from level ups. But he could just consult a book if he wanted to know more. He had the entire Registry to consult, now. That definitely went on his to-do list …
Along with a hundred other things.
They had been given assignments already and Ryan hadn’t gone climbing in almost a week. He had to get used to squeezing in a few hours in the afternoons so he could earn pocket change—Micah wasn’t the only one who needed money. Then there was bringing laundry to the cleaners, or home, when he went to hang out with Lang on the weekends, and he still had to go look at the fliers and choose extracurriculars—
Extracurriculars. Right.
Ryan sighed and deflected it with a nod at the long line when Micah gave him a questioning look.
He didn’t really want to sign up with dueling. But while some of the other options sounded cool, the points Lisa had raised were sound. In a year, they would have to fight monsters from the fifth floor and Ryan didn’t even have a combat Path. He would have to put in the extra effort to keep up. His two new Skills had given him some breathing room, but he couldn’t be allowed to slack off.
He probably had to sign up with the archery club, too, now that he was a [Scout]. That was great.
Really, Ryan was used to this. A busy schedule. Putting in the extra effort to learn things that came naturally to others. Meeting expectations. The last few months had practically been a vacation. It was time for a return to form.
Afternoon classes would start soon, so he picked the meatiest sandwich with salad he could find, an apple, and one of those weird bananas. Things he could eat on the go. He handed in his food mark and fiddled with the banana. He thought he had to bend the stem back to get the skin to— Ah. It worked.
Mentally, Ryan pumped a fist, glad he wasn’t completely ignorant of normal city culture.
He only followed Micah back to the table to get his things and make plans to meet up at the library later, then left, eating on the way. He wanted to arrive ahead of time to get a good seat.
Two thirds of the descending seats in the classroom were already taken when he got there. He kept an eye out for anyone he knew, but only spotted a roommate. It wasn’t one he would want to sit next to in class.
He headed for the front row and spotted someone else there; dark hair in a braid and busy getting her things from her backpack. She sat in the front left row, one seat off from the aisle.
Anne.
Ryan hesitated, then headed for her row. If Micah really wanted to be friends—or more—with her, he might as well play nice. Or something. “Is this seat taken?” he asked, one hand hooked into his backpack strap already.
“No—” she answered and looked up. Her eyes widened. “No. I mean, ‘No’ as in, the seat isn’t taken yet, but also, ‘No, you can’t sit here.’ Uhm, if that makes sense? Sorry.”
He frowned. “So I can’t sit here?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Uhm, I want a friend to sit here. Ah, there!” She started waving at a girl her age coming down the steps. “Hey, Calla! Over here!”
The girl looked surprised, but waved back. She hurried up to take the seat and looked almost disappointed when Ryan didn’t stay.
He shrugged and looked around for a different place to sit. Inwardly, he was relieved though. There was one on the far right instead, opposite her. Ryan checked with the guy there and sat down next to the aisle.
Textbook out, he cracked his neck and read the first few pages to see what they might talk about in class, but couldn’t really focus. He felt that same boring sensation that came from when Micah stared at him for some insane reason. In the corner of his eye—
Ryan chanced a look to the left. Yep, Anne was staring at him. She quickly looked away. He kept it up and she looked over two more times before she realized he wouldn’t stop. Did she recognize him? Want to chat? When she looked over for the fourth time, he tried smiling.
Huh. That didn’t seem to work.
Whatever. Ryan went back to his book, but the lecturer showed up anyway and wrote his name on the board.
He introduced himself as Mr. Salbei, their Social Studies teacher, but didn’t say if he was a proper [Teacher] or not. It seemed like the school only employed them for subjects like this.
Going through attendance, Ryan got the same looks Micah and thirty or so other students got when people recognized them. The only ones of them who had any kind of reputation already.
He even got a nod from Mr. Salbei and gave one back, feeling entirely out of place. Class started and he focused on participation. It made time pass more quickly, in his experience. But the first time he answered a question before Anne could, she shot him a glare.
Okay. That was a little less ambivalant. Ryan waited for an opportunity and offered a minor “correction” for an answer she had given. She shot him another glare. Getting clearer. Did she … not like him?
He tried smiling again and got nothing in return. Okay, so apparently, she didn’t like him. That was just great. Why? What had he done wrong this time?
Maybe she was just competitive? It seemed possible. Ryan sighed and leaned back, content to not answer anymore if it would make her happy. But Mr. Salbei still called on him, even without his hand raised, because it was obvious that he knew the answers. That earned him more and more aggressive answers from the other side of the room until eventually—
Ryan gave up. Screw it. This wasn’t his fault, for once. He hadn’t even spoken to Anne before. Whatever this was, it was her freaking problem, not his. He ignored her.
Class thankfully ended soon enough and he made sure to pack his things beforehand to be one of the first out of the door. He paused in the hallway. He could head left and either meet up with Lisa or Micah halfway from his course off-campus, or head right and drop by his room first.
“Ryan!”
Considering Anne was calling his name, Ryan took a right. The first two options but him the middle of campus and with people who wanted to spend time with her.
“Ryan!”
He kept on walking.
“Ryan Payne.”
She couldn’t push through the crowd as easily, small as she was. A head and a half shorter than him and most other people. So she ran to keep up and huffed as she fell in line with his step. “Ryan.”
He sighed. “What’s up, Anna?”
“It’s Anne. Annebeth. You know that.”
“Do I?”
“We just had class together. Of course, you do. And I’m only one spot below you on the rankings.”
“Which rankings?” They were in entirely different age groups.
“For the third exam.”
Oh. Right. “I barely glanced at it,” Ryan said honestly—and only because Micah had dragged him there—”Sorry.” He frowned, realizing something, and slowed down a step to look at her. “Wait, is that what this is about?
She pulled her backpack a little closer and wouldn’t quite look him in the eye. “What do you mean?”
“The rankings? The glares. You’re jealous?”
“I am not.”
No wince of pain. The truth, then? Ryan had once heard that Heswarens couldn’t lie without getting hurt. It seemed to him that if lying hurt you, you’d want to learn how to hide that as soon as possible. Like when you stubbed your toe in public, you just grit your teeth and bore on through it.
Anne was gritting her teeth right now.
Ryan picked up his pace and looked ahead. “Envious, then. Sorry. I get the two mixed up sometimes.”
“I’m not envious, either.”
“So then why are you here?”
“Can you stop running and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m not running, I’m just walking. You’re the one with the short legs.”
“My legs aren’t short. I’m two years younger than you.”
“Less than one and a half,” he corrected her. Micah had once confessed that he worried about how she was a few weeks older than him. “You were saying how you were beneath me?”
She visibly bristled at that. Ryan belatedly realized she was the type of person to dig her teeth in when that happened, not let go. He regretted it already. She was an angry girl. He just wanted her to go away.
“In the rankings, I mean,” Ryan added, placating her. “If you’re not envious or jealous, why are you here?”
“You spoke at the opening ceremony because you got third place,” Anne said, “but Micah got first place.”
He waited. It seemed like she was expecting something from him. “And? Was there a question in there?”
“And, why didn’t he speak?”
Ryan shrugged. He wasn’t about to tell other people how Micah had troubles speaking in front of crowds.
She picked up her pace to walk almost backward in front of him, so she could look at him while she spoke. A lot like Micah did, actually. “Tell me honestly, did you bully him away from it? I know Ms. Denner offered him the choice. She told me so herself.”
She went to Ameryth over this? Ryan rolled his eyes. “I haven’t bullied Micah in ages.”
“Then you did something else.”
“What do you care? What do you want, Anna?”
“I want you to tell the truth.”
He looked at her. “I haven’t lied to yet, have I? You would know.”
She almost missed a step.
Ryan used the opportunity to speed up as much as he could while keeping it casual. He wanted to jog away, but he couldn’t help but feel that she would chase after him and then he would have to run. And how would that look? They were already attracting frowns as argued down the halls.
She couldn’t follow him into the dorms, but they were so far away. Maybe he could— No. He squashed that thought before it form. Ryan was not hiding in the men’s bathroom from an angry fourteen-year-old.
“You know you only got third place because you found that mana crystal, right?” she asked. “Just like that Frederick who got second place just because he stumbled from one chest to the other. I don’t care what Ameryth said on that stage, at least Micah earned his place. You only got lucky.”
This was starting to get annoying. Ryan knew that already. What did she want from him?
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“Aren’t you going to say anything? Or are you—”
He huffed out. “Look, princess—”
“Did you just call me—”
“You got fourth place because you earned fourth place, okay? Nothing more. Nothing less. I bet Ameryth told you the same when you went crying to her. You didn’t even bring back any fire crystals.”
“No, but I had others. And I didn’t go crying. I argued that I had brought back two crystals you didn’t even get, from two miles deeper in. That’s worth more. Especially since only six people brought back fire crystals—”
“Yeah, and you weren’t one of them, so f—” He caught himself. “Bugger off. Honestly, you’re annoying.”
She ignored him. “If it weren’t for your mana crystal, I would have placed better than you and you know it!”
“Sure you would, Ms. Fourth Place.” She tried to retort, so he spoke over her again, “It sounds to me like you’re just too small to carry your massive ego, Anna. Be careful you don’t trip.”
That being said, Ryan stopped walking and she almost ran into him, but managed to stumble away at the last moment. She was quick on her feet. He thought about tripping her up, but then he would have to catch her. Of course, he couldn’t let her fall. What would Micah think?
… Oh, hell. What was Micah going to think?
When she turned back around, Ryan was already headed down a different hallway. The one that led to the guy dorms. She had no reason to follow him there unless she wanted to hound him to its doors.
“You’re an ass, you know that, right?” she called after him instead. “A bully and a coward! I’m going to do better than you on the rankings!”
“Don’t worry!” Ryan called over his shoulder as casually as he could. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of turning around. “The feeling’s mutual!”
As soon as he was out of sight, he slowed to a crawl and groaned his lungs out. Some of the guys passing him gave him weird looks, but he ignored them. Why couldn’t things ever be simple?
----------------------------------------
The Dangers of Healing took place off-campus, but still in a Guild building. Micah had to walk close to twenty minutes to get there, along with the forty or so other students who had to take the course.
It was on the other side of the Southwestern Climber’s Guild in a stuffy room that was used to give lectures to employees. The educational kind, not the angry ones. But guessing by the perpetual scowl on the lecturer’s face as he left the room, there might not be a difference.
Micah found a seat in the middle of a row one back from the center. By the time the classroom filled, he felt like he was the only one without a group or friends. Everyone else was talking.
He kept an eye out for Anne and her perpetual smile, hoping she would be in the course as well, but she was either late or wasn’t go to show. Didn’t [Paladins] get healing spells?
His books and notes in front of him, hands folded on top, Micah didn’t know what to do. He waited nervously for the lecturer to come back.
Two boys sat next to his left, older than him, and were wrapped up in conversation. The right seat of his table was empty. Thankfully, one of the guys tapped him on the shoulder, so Micah wouldn’t have to approach them.
“Hey, you’re that Micah kid, right?” He had white teeth and dark hair, made darker by the shade in the room. There were lots of windows, but it was early September and overcast. The days were getting shorter.
Micah nodded. “Yeah.”
“You got first place?”
He nodded again, unsure what to say.
“What are you doing here? Are you some kind of [Healer]?”
“Like a [Healer] will get first place in a Tower exam,” his friend commented learning forward to see with them both.
“[Alchemist], actually,” Micah piped up.
That got their attention. “Shut the front door. You’re an [Alchemist]? How the hell did you get first place, then?”
He was so nice about it, Micah smiled. “You know those new Kobolds?”
They nodded.
“I discovered them, back then.”
“No shit. So you’re really an [Alchemist]?”
His friend raised a hand in greeting. “Me, too.”
“You are?”
He got a nod an answer and wanted to ask more, but the first guy nudged him before he could. “What level are you?”
Micah hesitated, since it wasn’t necessarily a question you asked. At least, not among adults. Especially not if you hadn’t even given your name yet. He guessed it might be more normal in school, so he admitted, “Ten.”
“Fuck, no. You’re not level ten,” his neighbor said.
“I am.”
“You’re lying.”
Micah smiled a little wider. “I’m really not.”
“Wow.”
“Ten?” his friend asked. “What do you specialize in?”
“Specialize?”
“Like, what kind of things do you prefer to make? Or have you gotten any affinity-like Skills yet?”
Prefer to make? Micah thought about it. On a regular basis, he made perfume, healing potions, and glue. Most recently, he had made fertilizer out of compost to make flowers look prettier, something to help against travel indigestion, and lamp fuel.
Mm … Best not go with that. That didn’t sound very impressive. Did he specialize in anything? He frowned. Well, Lisa and Anne knew about them, and Ms. Denner did, too. Maybe they would?
“Have you heard of essences?” he asked.
The second guy shook his head. The first one’s smile slipped into a slight frown. “Essences?”
“Yeah—” Micah wanted to explain, but was interrupted.
“Like, what Northerners use?”
“What?”
Micah and the friend both asked it.
“You know, Northern magic. They use something they call the ‘essence’ of the world, right? I mean, it depends on the cult because some people also call it ‘taste,’ I think. I don’t know the words in their gibberish, but that’s the translation I learned.” He turned on Micah. “Do you mean that or what?”
“I mean, maybe?” Micah asked, confused. “But—”
“You’re practicing Northern magic?”
“What? No. Of course, not. It’s just, my Path—”
“Your Path, what?”
“It’s [Essence Path], okay?” Micah snapped. “Let me finish speaking and I could tell you. And it doesn’t have anything to do with Northern magic. It’s just my Path.” From one moment to the next, the guy didn’t seem friendly at all.
“Sure sounds like it,” he said and looked at Micah in contempt. “They use something they call essences. You have an [Essence Path]. Why the hell would you choose a Path that copies their magic? You know they’re all assholes, right?”
“From where I’m sitting?” Micah asked. “You’re the asshole.” The words slipped out before he could think, but he didn’t regret them one bit. Who would insult another person’s Path like that?
“I’m the asshole? Oh, so now you’re defending them?” the guy asked, clearly agitated. “You know they tried to conquer two of our Towers, right?”
Micah shook his head. “I’m not defending them, I’m lumping you in with them, you idiot.”
The guy froze as if someone had slapped him and said in a low voice, “Say that again.”
Micah was acutely aware of his stupid, white teeth and how easy it would be to break them against the table-side. Did he think he was intimidating? He said it louder, “You’re an asshole.”
The guy shifted to stand.
Micah moved an arm and knee. Foot, ankle, side of the knee, inner thigh, crotch, guts, spleen.
“HEY!”
Someone shouted right behind them and they turned. A girl one row back, leaning forward over her table. Older than him and with dark hair. It made Micah worry that they might be related, but then she said, “Knowledge is universal, you idiots.”
She looked pissed.
“Shut up, [Witch],” the guy told her and Mica’s mind spat out that list again, adding targets since he was half-turned away from him. Now he was insulting someone else’s Class as well? Had someone dropped him on the head as a kid or what?
“Sit down!” a voice called. The lecturer, Mr. Jung, came back in and walked around the tables to the front. “Quiet. Books out. Class is starting.”
The guy hesitated and looked around, as if for another place to sit, but then the teacher addressed him directly. “Sit down, Mr. Forester. Class is starting.” He grit his teeth and gave up. His chair scraped along the floor as he dragged it closer to the table and he shot Micah a glare.
Micah returned the sentiment.
“Everyone here?” the lecturer asked. “I guess we’ll find out. Welcome to the Dangers of Healing. My name is Mr. Jung and I will be your lecturer for this course. I hope you all brought your textbooks with you?”
He stood leaning over his desk as he spoke, pen on a page but his eyes were searching the crowd. Every now and then he would spot someone and scribble. Was he doing attendance? He knew their names already?
“Well?” he asked.
Belatedly, some people brought out their textbooks. A few had forgotten and kept their heads down.
“You’ll just have to look in with your neighbor, then. Remember to bring your textbooks next time. Now, I hope none of you are faint of heart. If not, raise your hand. I brought barfing bags. But really you shouldn’t be in this class if you are.”
He looked at them expectantly. Nobody raised their hand. Rather, they looked confused.
“Alright, then. Open your books to page seventy-four. Someone tell me what you see.”
As one, the class started leafing through their books. Micah felt the irrational urge to get there quicker than his bench neighbor, but when he did, the guy was forgotten. The page showed a depiction of a man’s back torso, in color. His left shoulder looked like it was trying to grow a third arm, but had given up halfway. It was half-sized and bulged and twisted unnaturally. One of the fingers looked almost see-through.
His throat tensed up.
After a moment, Mr. Jung asked, “Nobody?”
Some people were looking away, others seemed confused by the picture or were paging around for answers. Micah took a closer look. The skin around the man’s right arm was lighter from a certain point down. In between, he could make out stretch marks. The details were fascinating. At least, now he knew why the book had been so expensive.
He knew the answer so he raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Stranya?”
“He regrew a missing arm and something went wrong, I think.”
“That is correct. Can anyone guess what exactly went wrong?” He waited for a moment, but there were no takers. “The answer is our bilateral symmetry.”
He turned to the board with a piece of chalk in hand and drew in a few seconds a surprisingly good outline of the human body with a dotted line cutting straight down the middle.
“It means our bodies are symmetrical, biologically speaking. One leg on each side”—he tapped the drawing with the chalk piece—”one arm, one eye, one ear. Of course, only to a certain degree. Our hearts, for example. Other organs. But arms are included and the potion this man used—yes, it was a potion—worked from the ground up. It tried to regrow two arms when he already had one.” He went back and tapped the book on his desk. “This was the result. The man is lucky he survived. The arm had to be surgically removed, but it ruined his entire bone structure on his left side. It was incredibly painful, I can assure you that.”
Micah could only imagine.
“The alchemist who made the potion, of course, lost his license. Now move on to page fifty-seven. What do you see?”
The depiction was smaller. A large lump growing on a hand.
“A tumor,” someone said. “Also from a healing potion gone wrong?”
“Not one, but hundreds,” Mr. Jung told him. “This here is the result of a lifetime of healing. If more people saw these pictures, they would think twice before healing every little scrape with a salve or potion. Or even spell.”
Micah nodded absent-mindedly, feeling a little sick. He had been using healing potions on a regular basis for years now. He had the scars to prove it. If he imagined that growth in the palm of his hand …
“Page forty-five.”
Pages turned. This time, it was a corner of a lip that had swollen to unnatural sizes, almost like it was someone else’s lip. Micah missed the explanation because the guy next to him snickered, “Hey, look. It’s you.”
“Screw off,” Micah hissed back. The seat next to him was still empty. He considered scooting over, but he wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. He would not give ground to an enemy.
“Page forty-three.”
Mr. Jung showed them six more depiction before they stopped, but they were all slightly different types of deformities with slightly different causes. An unclean potion. An expired potion. An allergic reaction. Bodily rejection of restored flesh. Localized necrosis due to a lack of resources for the potion to work with—it killed one part of the body to heal another.
“It should be clear to all of you that healing is, in fact, dangerous,” Mr. Jung said at the end of it. “Sometimes, it can do more harm than good. Hence this course’s name and purpose.
All of you who are here today have some degree of healing capabilities. Whether it be through Skill, spell, recipe, Path, or Class. If you got a Skill from a Class, you’re lucky. In many cases, it will do most of the work for you. But if you want to make a potion that can regrow limbs? Or, Lord forbid, devise a spell to do the same thing? Even if you just make a potion to heal scrapes and cuts, I remind you of page fifty-seven. Imagine that tumor anywhere else—on a neck or next to a vital organ. You need to be aware of theses dangers and the mistakes that cause them. That is why this course is mandatory.”
A round of silent agreement went through the class. If any of them had had doubts about the course before, it was gone now. Micah did not want to be the cause for any of those problems on himself, and especially not on Lisa or Ryan.
“Onto a short organizational note,” Mr. Jung went on. “The bright side is that this course will allow you to collect credits for various licenses, including medical and alchemy ones. The first step to achieving that is attending. The second one is bringing your textbooks with you.” He looked pointedly at the ones who had forgotten theirs. “The last will be an exam.”
He continued to tell them more about the course and Micah diligently noted everything down. If he had gone to a proper alchemy school, he would have more opportunities to collect credits. Here, he only had this course and the overarching alchemy subject.
And, of course, he wanted to learn how to not accidentally kill his teammates, so there was that.
“Because this course offers credits, we will also have to dive into some other dangers aside from physical consequences—namely laws and the type of things that can cost you your license.”
Mr. Jung got a paper out of his binder as he spoke and turned around, mumbling, “Let me see if I can still do this right …” He stuck the page to the board with magnets and cast, “[Lens].”
The air around the paper distorted into a light-brown. There was a black splotch in the corner, the beginning of a word.
“Widen.” He waved his hands out and suddenly, the contents of the paper were large enough for all of them to see. It was slightly blurry, but Micah could make out the words. Especially since he recognized the recipe.
It was his.
He stifled a groan. Didn’t these people have recipes of their own? Go visit the library yourself, Micah wanted to shout. Teachers always told them to do it.
It was his blood healing recipe, but the title was cut off. Mr. Jung made sure it was visible and asked, “What can you see?”
He spoke in the same tone as before, showing them the deformities, and it set an uneasy feeling in Micah’s stomach.
After a moment of reading, somebody raised their hand and asked, “Is it … a healing potion of some kind?”
Micah leaned forward to get a look at the guy. Why did he sound uncertain? Of course, it was.
“Correct. This is a low-grade healing potion that has a slight affinity for restoring blood and small incisions. What else can you tell me?”
The same person spoke. “It, uh … it uses blood?”
Mr. Jung nodded. “Yes. It does. What about that?”
“That’s not—” He hesitated. “You can’t do that. That’s not right.”
Micah raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Stranya?”
“What’s not ‘right’ about that? What about blood transfusions?”
“Can anyone answer his question?” Mr. Jung said and reached through the image of the recipe to move the paper to the side. The entire image shifted and he cleared up a portion of the board.
“Not just Mr. Stranya. All of you: How do blood transfusions work?”
Micah answered on his own. “A person donates blood to doctors. The doctors store it. When somebody gets injured and loses too much blood for a healing potion to restore, they transfuse it.”
“That would be the basics. But you can’t just take blood from one person and give it to the next. That would catastrophic. Are all of your familiar with blood types? What about blood components?”
He wrote the keywords on the boards and Micah copied them with only one eye on his paper.
Another person answered, “I think there are eight blood types that different people have? And you can’t just donate blood randomly. The blood type has to match or things go wrong.”
“A bit inaccurate, but mostly correct,” Mr. Jung said. “We will have to work on the details. What else do you have to keep in mind when using blood?”
The girl behind them raised her hand and answered. “That the donor doesn’t have any diseases?”
Mr. Jung pointed at her. “Very important. Because those diseases will get transferred with, even from a healing potion.” He wrote it down on the board. “And when used in alchemy, there are also the issues of properties. Blood has very complicated and very fickle alchemical properties. There are whole fields of research dedicated to studying how it interacts. That’s why you shouldn’t use blood. Ever. There are simpler options for creating healing potions and doctors have many other means of restoring lost blood, the simplest of which are transfusions or Skills. The risks of using a recipe like this”—He gestured at the recipe behind him—”are just too high.”
Micah couldn’t help it. Even if he hadn’t made it in months and devised it years ago, this was still his recipe. He raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Stranya?”
“I used that recipe for years and nothing ever went wrong.”
He nodded. “That you did. But that’s not how risks work. For those of you who don’t know, this is Mr. Stranya. He is the senior-most leveled [Alchemist] at your school and made this recipe.”
Everyone stared at him.
“Just because you got lucky that does not mean nothing could have gone wrong, Mr. Stranya. Can you honestly tell me that you always worked in a sterile environment? And if you used your own blood, as I suspect, are you sure you never made the potion while sick, or made the potion and got sick a few days later? Not to mention that you couldn’t possibly have known whether or not your blood type was compatible with someone else. This”—he gestured again—”is a health risk. I can only hope that your ignorance did not endanger anyone before learning of it today.”
Micah felt his face heat up, but not necessarily in embarrassment. Something inside him wanted to argue, fight back. His bench neighbor was grinning like the asshole that he was and it made Micah want to punch him. But no matter how hard he racked his brain, Mr. Jung was right. He hadn’t known what he was doing and that was even more apparent because he couldn’t come up with all blood types in his mind. So he admitted, “I haven’t made it in ages. And I never used it on others.”
That much was true, thankfully.
“Good,” Mr. Jung said. “Moving on.”
He took the paper off the board. For a moment, the [Lens] spell showed a distorted chaos of moving colors before he put the next recipe up and left it alone. Again, it was one of Micah’s. His light potion recipe using dead fireflies.
The man didn’t even try to hide it this time, he just asked, “What’s wrong with this recipe?”
The students scrutinized the paper for a moment before a girl in the front row raised her hand and asked without being call upon, “Uhm, I’m not sure, but is this a glow potion recipe?”
“That is correct.”
Light, Micah thought bitterly. His shoulders were tense and his jaw clenched as he waited for whatever mistake he had made this time.
“And it uses dead fireflies and, uhm, a different type of healing potion?”
“Correct again.”
“I don’t actually have a mistake, I just wanted to ...”
“Alright. Anyone else?”
The asshole’s friend raised his hand and asked, “Uhm, I’m not sure, but isn’t this cantrip-level necromancy?”
“What?” Micah asked, spinning on him.
“You’re a [Spellcaster], then?” Mr. Jung asked him.
He shook his head.
“Ah, but you’ve subscribed to their tier concept? Even so, ‘cantrip-level’ is a misnomer. Cantrips are far more complicated than most spells. There is a reason why we get them from our Classes, not our Paths. Tier-0 might be correct. But yes, this counts as necromancy.”
“But it isn’t!” Micah protested.
“Please raise your hand before you speak,” Mr. Jung told him. “And you used a healing potion to force the last bits of alchemical properties out of dried firefly husks. Yes, that is necromancy. Not true necromancy, of course. Like we’ve said, but selling this type of potion in Anevos would be illegal.”
That left Micah stumped for a moment. Thankfully, someone else put his surprise into words, “It would?”
Mr. Jung nodded. “Anevos has few laws, but the ones they do have they enforce with a passion. One of those is: ‘No Necromancy.’ Of any kind. Including this. Either way, this potion is rather ineffective, so you wouldn’t want to make it in any case. But keep in mind, a simple mistake like this can cause problems, the worst of which is losing your license indefinitely.”
After a moment, Micah made a terse note and tossed his pen to the edge of his notepad after. He hated this class.
Mr. Jung was already switching the paper to another one of his recipes. This time, it was a middle-grade healing potion. The more expensive kind, though he’d only had [Infusion] back then.
Micah regretted ever handing in a stupid portfolio. They hadn’t even looked at it during the interview and now this asshole was tearing it apart. He sunk back in his chair, intending to simply endure until class ended. He didn’t really want to be that type of person, but … maybe he would go to the administration afterward to complain.
“Now, what is wrong with this recipe?” Mr. Jung asked the class.
They all knew it was his by now and jumped on the question, the opportunity to find faults in him. Just because he was the highest-leveled [Alchemist] here that didn’t mean they all had to be as big assholes possible. But apparently were.
“He used too many Perspit leaves,” one said.
“I don’t think you should use that type of nutrient powder,” said another.
“What about nut allergies?”
“Why does the recipe only use [Infusion]? That’s stupid. It makes the entire potion more expensive.”
No shit, Micah added.
“The order of ingredients is all wrong. Why is it half-and-half? Components need to be added last.”
That guy clearly didn’t know what he was talking about.
Mr. Jung listened to it all patiently, nodding along until the last one had spoken, and waited a few more minutes until nobody had any ideas anymore. Then he said, “You’re all wrong.”
Micah blinked. What?
He repeated his question, “What is wrong with this recipe?”
A few more people tried. “You have to crush the leaves first. If you’re using [Infusion], it won’t mix clearly enough. It’s not like [Dissolve], I think.”
“No, you just have to brew it longer,” another tried. “Especially with healing.”
The concept was right, but Micah had already accounted for that in his recipe. He sat up a little. What else?
“What about nut allergies?” the same person asked again. Micah was beginning to think he might have a nut allergy.
There were two of three more suggestions and some repetitions before the class gave up.
Mr. Jung shook his head. “No. That is still not it. And healing potions have warning labels for allergies, Mason. You should know that.”
Mason sighed and grumbled something about allergies.
“Can anyone of you tell me what is wrong with this potion?” the teacher tried again. “Nobody?”
Micah was searching himself. What was possibly wrong that forty people couldn’t find? Should he have used different ingredients? Adjusted it somehow? Added warning labels to the recipe? Was the temperature off or the proportions wrong? He had tried to make it as accurate and tidy as possible for the interview back then, and Lisa had checked his work.
“Well— Oh, yes?”
The girl behind him had raised her hand again and asked in a confused voice, “Nothing?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, nothing is wrong with it. Is that the answer?”
For the first time in class, Mr. Jung smiled. “Exactly. That is what I wanted to hear. This is a good recipe. Especially for [Alchemists] who only have access to one of the three alchemical catalyst spells. I suspect [Witches] and other potion-brewing Classes could use this recipe as well, though you might want to test it first.”
Immediately, a third of the class started taking notes and Micah felt a twisted sense of satisfaction that they were copying his recipe after having torn apart the other two. His bench neighbor didn’t look happy either. But Micah’s mood was ruined. It didn’t bring a smile to his lips.
“I hope you all realized the mistake you made?” Mr. Jung asked. “You blindly assumed this recipe would have a grievous fault just because the two before it did. That kind of thinking is fatal. Literally. For others and possibly for yourself. You always need to use your heads when you heal people.”
While the others copied the recipe, the man turned to address Micah in a lower voice, “I’m given to understand that this is one of your newer recipes, Mr. Stranya? Did you devise it yourself?”
He sat upright. “Yes and no. I based it on Hadrick Hale’s recipe and rounded the edges a bit for [Infusion]. I made it about three months ago.”
“Hadrick Hale?” he asked. “That old fool? Well, improving on his work isn’t that hard, but you definitely managed. And your other two recipes? How did you come up with those messes?”
“I made the first one when I was twelve, sir,” Micah said slowly, hoping he would get the hint and stop being such an ass. “It was ignorance.”
And he didn’t consider the other one to be a mess at all. If using dried-out firefly husks was considered necromancy, then what about preserved foods and powdered meats? Where was the difference?
Easy. There was none.
“Mm. Well, I’m glad that you’ve improved. Now you know better.” He addressed the class again and gave them an assignment on blood transfusions for next week already, then told them to open their books to the first page.
Micah sunk down in his chair, but paid attention and made notes. He was content to keep quiet and to himself. He just had to ace this course. Everything else didn’t matter.
When he got back, he couldn’t find Ryan anywhere. Not at his room, the foyer, in the cafeteria, the library, the Registry, even the gyms. He searched around for a bit and thought he might be running laps, but Micah wasn’t going to walk all the way to the Guild on the off-chance of finding him.
So he sat down next to Lisa in the school library—she apparently hadn’t seen him either—and they got started on their individual assignments for next week. Micah just wanted to get his over with.
Dinner was a baked cheese and ham pretzelstick. He didn’t have much of an appetite today.
His front two roommates were just as chatty as always, later. Vladi was a hero in Micah’s eyes, reading silently on his bed, but those two …
He practiced his [Condense Water] spell without a crystal on his bed, but couldn’t get much more than a sheen of condensation to form inside his bowl. After Ryan had gotten back from his camping trip, Micah had had much less time to practice. And with school and everything …
He practiced for half an hour and went to bed early, trying to block out Lanh and Fabian’s voices. They were telling each other ghost stories.
“Oh, I’ve got a new one,” Fabian said.
“Tell, tell.”
“Have you heard about the Charred Ghost of the Salamander’s Den?”
“No. There’s a ghost in there?”
“Yep. A bunch of people have heard it already.”
“And you’re sure it’s not just a spirit?”
“What are ghosts if not tormented spirits?”
Micah had his blanket over his ear and tried to keep his eyes closed, but he couldn’t help but listen. He looked at the window in an attempt to see their reflection. Ghost? What ghost?
“According to the legend—”
“Legend? You said this was new.”
“It can be new and a legend. But according to the legend, this is the ghost of a child that died during the Salamander’s Den collapse.”
“What? People died back then?”
His reflection nodded. “Just one. A child that didn’t make it out and got trapped under the rubble. Climbers looking for Kobolds say that they hear it close to the broken tunnels. You know from the Wolves’ Den down?”
Micah almost nodded himself.
“Well, the legend says that the child speaks to the ones walking down those stairs. Help,” Fabian said in the child’s voice, ”’Help’, it says. Help me, please. It hurts. It hurts so much. It got trapped under the rubble and cooked alive. Now, its ghost is in constant pain and wanders those halls, lost. And if nobody helps it, it will try to lessen the pain the only way it knows how.”
“How?”
His voice was deadly serious. “By sharing it with others.”
“Get out.”
“No. It’s true. The guild even issued a private warning, that employees should be careful when looking for Kobolds.”
“Duh. Because they’re dangerous.”
“It’s the first floor. They’re not afraid of some Kobold. They’re afraid of the ghost, because it can— BURN YOU ALIVE!”
Lanh screamed and Micah winced as he felt a flash of heat fill the room. The window reflection lit up red. He threw his covers back and jumped up, demanding, “The fuck was that?”
Fabian jumped, surprised. “Oh, sorry, Micah. It was just a fire spell—”
“A cantrip, really,” Lanh said with a smile. “Relax.”
Vladi put his book down, but let Micah state the obvious. “Don’t cast fire spells in our room, you idiots. Are you stupid? What if you set something on fire?”
“I could smother—”
“Don’t. Just don’t do it. Don’t risk it. Don’t or I will tell the Dean. Now shut up. Some of us are trying to get some sleep.”
He turned back around and tugged his sheet a little tighter, trying to bury his doubts. An uncomfortable silence reigned the room. Micah didn’t even need to look at the window to know they were staring at him and knew, he hadn’t earned himself any favors with that. But he didn’t care.
The people from the Guild had told him back then. Lisa had told him back then. If it wasn’t true, somebody would have said something, right? If only to spite him? Nobody had died during the collapse … right?
Micah didn’t sleep at all that night. He skipped jogging and breakfast the next morning to head into the Guild. The first thing he ever looked up in the Registry was the report for that day.
A friendly clerk pointed him in the right direction without asking any questions and he found an entire drawer for the collapse. One of the newer additions was a follow-up report written a month ago. It included Micah’s account of what had happened as well as confirmation that the people who had entered the Tower around that time were all accounted for.
Of course, not all of them were. Micah’s stomach lurched at that. People went missing in the Tower every day. The file showed a censored list of climbers who had gone missing around that time, but each of them was a professional and far too experienced to have spent their free time in the first-floor Salamander’s Den.
Still, there was a chance Micah had killed someone on this list, or someone who wasn’t even on this list—it wasn’t perfect—but the Registry’s official assessment for the collapse was—
Estimated casualties: 0
His grip on the file sagged and he breathed again. He felt like he could have cried in relief. Just a ghost story, he told himself as he carefully put the file back in place. “Just some stupid roommates.”
Help me.
Micah slammed the drawer shut. “Shut up.”