Aeron was woken at six o’clock sharp by an alarm clock.
What’s that? I didn’t set an alarm.
Rolling over, he slapped at where the alarm should be until it shut off. Groaning, he got out of bed and headed over to the master bathroom.
Once he had showered and changed, he went down to the kitchen and searched out some breakfast. After a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, he went back upstairs and grabbed the campus admittance card from the office. By that time, it was already seven o’clock. With a glance at the brochure, he remembered that the school day started at eight. I’ll need to leave if I want to get through the enrollment process before school. He went to the bedroom to gather his things. He considered bringing the pocket knife, but dismissed the idea immediately, realizing that if it was like most schools, it would be confiscated and he would never see it again. He eventually settled on just bringing the pocket watch.
Leaving the room, he glanced back to see that the nameplate above the door had somehow been changed overnight to read:
Aeron Paterson, owner
How did that happen without me noticing?
Leaving the complex, he saw that the school was indeed right next to the complex.
He was confronted by a security guard as soon as he reached the gate.
“Card, please.”
Aeron handed the one time card over.
The guard scrutinized it carefully, then started examining his face.
“What are you looking at me for?” he couldn’t help but ask the guard.
“Memorizing your face so that I don’t need to stop you again,” the guard replied.
Ah, so that’s why it is one-time use only, to make sure that you don’t copy it and use it to get extra people on campus. The guard will simply recognize me and know to let me in.
The guard grunted, ”Okay, you can go”
When he went through the gate, he found the school to be arranged like a Roman training camp.
Why am I not surprised?
There were about a dozen tents and buildings set up around the grounds. He saw a large smithy, an archery range, two separate sleeping tents, a tomahawk throwing range, a small kitchen, sword fighting arena, a large dining hall, some kind of mine, and a small pond. However, one thing that really surprised him was the library full of ancient books and scrolls that was set up against the wall.
There was also what might, judging by the smell, be a stable, though he saw no horses.
Suddenly, he was stopped by a 17-year-old boy with straw blonde hair, stormy gray eyes, and deeply tanned skin. He was wearing what looked like battle armor. There was a lightning bolt symbol engraved in the center of the breastplate and on the top of his helmet.
“Hi! I’m Jack Watt. Are you the new classmate that we were told about?” the boy asked as he extended his hand.
Taking his hand, Aeron jumped as it shocked him. “I’m Aeron Paterson. You knew I was coming?” he asked, quickly releasing Jack’s hand.
“Sorry about the shock, and yes, the instructors told us a week ago.”
“I didn’t know that I was coming until this morning, how could the instructors have known? And what do you mean sorry? You couldn’t have known that you would shock me.”
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“Who knows how the instructors know, regardless, they do know,” Jack replied. ”And I apologized because I’m descended from Zeus, and in my excitement to meet you, I forgot to restrain myself.”
“Oookay…” That explained the shock “So, where do I register?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said that the instructors knew that you’d be here for at least a week. You’re already registered!”
“Then where do I start?” Aeron asked.
“You start with meeting everyone,” Jack said, grabbing his arm. “I’ll introduce you.”
They went to the smithy first.
The smith was a brawny 16-year-old boy who was at least 7 feet tall, extremely serious looking and almost completely covered in fire.
“Let me guess, descendant of Hephaestus?”
“Close, he is actually a demigod son of Hephaestus, and he is also descended from Athena and Hegemone.”
“Who’s Hegemone?”
“She’s the Goddess of Mastery, flowers and other stuff. One of the Charities.” Jack told him.
Suddenly, the fire disappeared, and he was able to fully make out the rest of the person. He was wearing a white sweatshirt and leather apron around his waist.
“Why didn’t you call to me? I would have come out to meet you.”
“We’ve only been here a minute!” Jack said, laughing.
The smith turned toward Aeron and introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Jake Smith, the toolsmith and the weaponsmith around here.”
Extending his hand, Aeron introduced himself.
Right after they shook hands, Jake’s eyes widened. Releasing Aeron’s hand, he made a gesture at his pocket, asking “Can I see the item that you have in your pocket?”
Realizing that he meant the pocket watch he had woken up with, he shrugged and handed it over, figuring that if anyone could figure it out, it would be a smith.
Taking the watch from him, Jake started turning it over, tracing patterns his finger along invisible patterns in the metal.
“This is made of mountain-bronze and based on my estimates, it predates the Olympians by at least a thousand years. There is some kind of enchantment on it, though I can’t identify what it’s supposed to do," Jake told him. “What I can do is tell you is that the energy for the enchantment is gathered by the diamonds and stored in the black fire-opal. The energy might originally come from the very passage of time itself.”
“What’s mountain-bronze?” Aeron asked.
“I’m not the greatest explainer in the world. Luckily, I see one of the greatest just came out of the library.” Jake told him. “Miss Smart!” Jake yelled, causing Aeron to jump.
Aeron turned around to see a young woman hurrying across the campus.
“What is it this time? Don’t tell me that you incinerated your underpants again?” He heard the woman, presumably Miss Smart, ask.
“That was just that one time,” Jake protested, “And, anyway, that’s not why I called you,” he said, gesturing at Aeron.
“Oh, hi, I’m Martha Smarts. I’m assuming that you are Aeron Paterson.” She said, seemingly embarrassed that she hadn’t noticed him before.
“You would be right. However, you weren’t called over just to meet me. I would also like you to tell me about that pocket watch.” Aeron told her, nodding toward the pocket watch in question.
Turning back towards Jake, she let out a small gasp, hurrying over to take the pocket watch from him. Quickly, she examined it, doing the exact same thing as Jake, but she was muttering either math problems or magic spells under her breath, and he couldn’t tell which.
Looking up, she told him, “This is a very powerful relic. It is able to stop time for about ten seconds, your perspective, though it then takes probably half an hour to recharge.”
“So… how do I use it to stop time?” Aeron asked her.
“Oh. you simply hold one of the hands in place, any hand will do, and it will stop time, and when you run out of time, it will force you to let it tick.” Ms. Smarts replied, "If you try to hold it any longer, it will probably cut your finger off!"
“I also have a pocket knife at my apartment, that looks like it might have been made by the same person, and is definitely enchanted in some way. Should I bring that to be appraised as well?” Aeron inquired.
“Please do, if it is, it will likely also be extremely powerful, and quite possibly be just as old. Plus, I suspect that Jake could learn something just by examining it.” She told him.
“Now, we need to get along with the introductions, so that I can get back to target practice,” Jack interjected, clearly tired of being ignored.