The next morning Eos was awoken by a knock at her door.
“Eos, are you in there?” Varen quietly asked in English.
She was taken aback- not because the knocking was unexpected, but because the individual behind the door was. She asked for a moment, getting out of bed and cleaning and dressing herself.
“Come in,” She said, opening the door.
Varen, without stepping into the room, smiled at her, “I’ve heard a lot about your adventures around campus.”
Eos had fear shot through her body, but Varen continued anyways, “It's good that you're finding your way around. I see the clothes I prepared for you fit as well.” She was suddenly aware of the clothes she wore and how they fit on her body. It was irritatingly tight- she’d grow out of them soon enough. “How are you feeling?”
“Uh, yeah.” Eos replied. “I’ve been good! I’ve already made some friends.”
“Good to hear,” Varen seemed slightly distracted, “Are you ready to head out?”
“To the meeting, right?” She asked, to which he simply nodded.
Varen led the way out, Eos following in tow. Before they left the campus, Eos relayed Meddyg’s message to Varen. Leaving the campus, they headed through the city, ending up in front of a small doorway several floors up a building near the cathedral. Varen knocked.
“Who is it?” A voice emanated from the room behind the doorway, speaking heavily accented english.
“Varen and a friend.” Varen responded, “They’ve awoken as well.”
The door clicked open, and swung to reveal the scene behind it. The room was large, the size of two classrooms, and looked like it was pulled out of Eos’s memories. There were 6 other people in the room, one of whom immediately dragged Eos’s attention towards them. He was a bulky man with heavily tanned- almost leather- skin. Despite that, he wore a suit of light blue, parted in the middle, with dark blue pants. Around his body, from his shoulder to waist, was a disk of ripping water, flowing over nothing and with no impetus. He looked as if he had just come from a difficult litigious battle, but his calm demeanor said otherwise. His black hair was partially parted by two dark horns protruding out of the top of his skull, rising another few centimeters before ending in a sharp tip. Eyes complimenting his suit, a glowing yellow, scanned up and down Eos.
One more immediately stood out, a lean elf with golden blonde hair. Similar to Rhawn, they were lanky. They wore large glasses, and carried themselves with confidence, but their outfit was more casual than the demon’s- or perhaps, what Eos expected more of a fantasy outfit. His eyes were an electric blue, closely resembling the color of the demon’s wardrobe.
Among the other four, all of which were human, Eos could clearly make out their professions- one was a cardinal, clad in shortened cassock with excessive decoration; another was a carpenter, small wood shavings still on her clothes; a women wore a tavernkeep’s garb, dirtied but cleaner than one would expect; the last a man with armor on, emblematic of the armor of guards she saw upon entering the city.
The man with armor on took Eos off guard- she wasn’t sure of his ranking, but he had an insignia on his chest. It seemed as if he was high ranking, given the insignia’s grandeur, but she wasn’t up-to-date on the military status of the capital.
Eos wondered for a moment why they were wearing outfits representative of their jobs, before seeing Varen was wearing a school administrator outfit. Eos looked down, realizing she too was wearing her profession’s outfit- school uniform. She then realized everyone was staring at her, her eyes glancing at everyone once again. Even Varen’s eyes betrayed her immaturity in a room full of adults.
Eos’s eyes couldn’t help but wander from the people staring at her. The room was well furnished- things she didn’t think existed in this society were around the room: Couches from the 20th century, a chess board on a coffee table, a printing press in the back of the room, a hand-fed table-sized calculator, a small steam engine with nothing to power, and a myriad other small technological miracles from another life.
It was the demon first who broke the silence. “Varen, I thought we said not to bring your children- even if you’re on babysitting duty.”
A small chuckle emanated from the crowd, and Eos felt blood rushing to her face. To her surprise, it was not Varen who spoke next. “Let him justify himself first, before we jump to ridicule again.” Spoke the elf.
“She’s not my child,” Varen began, “She’s Awoken. And speaks English.”
The disbelief that spread across each of the six’s faces spoke volumes to Eos. She decided to pitch into the conversation as well, “I speak English better than Varen, if I do say so myself.” She tried to keep very careful control over her prosody and enunciation.
“I see,” the elf spoke first and foremost, “and you didn’t train her such?” He directed his question at Varen, who only shook his head. “May we test this with written word as well?”
“If that’s what it’ll take to show you.” Eos said, then turned to Varen, “Have you tried this before or something?”
“Tried what?” Varen asked, flustered, “No, no. It’s just, people don’t awaken as young as you.”
“Uhuh…” She responded despondently, “You said that before.”
Eos was guided to a chair. The elf sat across from her, a small table with a sheet of paper on it sat between them. He handed her a pencil.
“Please write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”
She diligently wrote it, trying to keep her handwriting as legible as possible. “Do you want me to do the sphinx one as well?” She quipped.
“If you remember it.” The elf emotionlessly replied.
Eos wrote `Sphinx of black quartz, Judge my vow!`, “I’m fairly sure I don’t remember it, but here is my best recollection.” She was trying as much as she could to flex fancy words in her speech, but she wasn’t an orator in her previous life.
Still, this little got gasps from the individuals around them- all except for Varen.
It kept on like this, with Eos trying to prove by both writing and conversation with the elf that she was fluent in English, and his emotionless responses. In the end, the battery of sentences seemed to be enough to satisfy the elf, and everyone else seemed to agree with him. As such, introductions began quickly.
“I’m Eos,” Eos introduced herself to the group with a small curtsy. “I awoke a few weeks ago.”
“My name is Donovan Stelph.” the guard spoke plainly, “I’m chief operating officer of the guard. My past life was an operational and asset manager. If you get into any trouble with the guard, just ask for Lieutenant Stelph.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“I’m Amiran” the carpenter introduced herself, “I’m a carpenter, and in my past life I was an architect when I died.”
“Johann”, the cardinal quickly spoke, “I’m a cardinal- was an electrician.”
“Name’s Gwendolyn”, the tavernkeep said, “Tavernkeep at Angel’s Blessing, you should visit sometime. General manager of a large hotel in a previous life. Nice to sit back and manage something less complex than that really.”
Then the demon spoke, “I’m Sigurd, one of the head’s of the adventurer’s guild. Was a fisherman in the past.”
Finally, it was the elf’s turn.
“Otto Lyrin, chief advisor to the king, at your service. In my past life I was an academic, and fortunately a polyglot.”
“Uhm,” Eos stammered for a moment, “I was a student named -”
“Don’t say your deadname,” The tavernkeep interrupted, “They aren’t you any more. Your knowledge gained is important, not what or who you were.”
“There’s a reason so many of us ended up in similar careers to what we awoke with,” the guard said, “although it's… not fully applicable.”
A few of them had a small chuckle and for the next few hours, time passed somewhat awkwardly, and all of the adults had begun engaging with alcohol. Eos was focused on watching and playing and losing games of chess- Otto was unbeatable-, but her attention was snapped when she heard Sigurd speak to Varen. “So, how’d you find her?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t believe,” Varen began audibly drunk, “I’m sitting at the open session for admission, right? Formality, we haven’t accepted a student through this process for two decades. Eos,” He points his thumb at her, “walks in as our last kid for the day and starts trying to teach the old bastards on the council advanced mathematics. Like, professor level mathematics.”
Eos felt blood rush to her face, and everyone’s eyes on her, “u-h-a-” she stammered.
Varen continued without either notice or care, “And obviously, no one there is having any of it. Especially ‘cause she’s Apepi. But I could tell that she was talking about old world stuff, so I stuck out my neck to get her into the school. Thank the Light she could speak English, my only other hope was Chinese.”
Sigurd gave a hearty chuckle, and Eos felt the powerful slap of his hand on her back. “Quite impressive, and quite lucky Varen was there.”
“You know I wanted to call sick,” Varen said, “Lucky I didn’t- I swear Rhawn would have moved to execute her on the spot if he could. He was MAD.”
“Pfft,” Donovan, who could barely stand straight, spoke, “Wh-what’s Rhawn’s problem anyways? I neva hear nuthing good about that man. I once ‘eard that he became a real thumb in our investigation. Had to work around him insteada with him.”
“Speaking of,” Gwendolyn, whose face was fairly flushed, asked, “Eos, baby, do you know who your homeroom professor’s gonna be?”
“No?” Eos asked, “I haven’t been briefed much about anything.”
Sigurd thought for a moment, before blood drained from his face, “It’s Rhawn. I did the graduation ceremony for his last class only a few weeks ago.”
Donovan broke out into laughter, “That’d explain why you haven’t been briefed about anything!”
Eos, upon hearing this, began to spiral into panic.
“You know magic, right?” Sigurd asked Eos directly.
“No?” Eos wondered why the question came up, “That's why I enrolled at-”
“How long does she have again?” Sigurd turned to Varen.
“End of third year- plenty of time. I’m trying to make special arrangements for her regardless. You know my friend -”
Sigurd interrupted Varen, “Yes, yes. That makes sense now- is his position conditional on winning?”
Varen sighed, “Unfortunately so.”
Sigurd laughed. “It’ll be a battle to watch! I’m sure I can make it. Must’ve told him one hell of a story to pull him out of his routine.”
“You know how he is. Tell him it’s for a kid and heaven nor earth could stop him.”
Sigurd nodded, “He has the skills to make Grandmaster too, if he were dedicated. He’s one lucky son of a bitch.”
Otto, looking up from the chessboard, asked “Does he still not want to join us?”
Varen solemnly nodded, “Still thinks we’re the illuminati.”
Johann, with a beat red face, interjected. “I mean, what’s the difference? We’ve got an advisor to the king, a head of the guild, and one of 24 cardinals of the bloody Church under the same roof. More diplomacy goes on here than through any official capacity. Hell, if we wanted to make Angel’s Blessing the most visited tavern in the city we could!” Johann jerked his thumb towards Gwendolyn, “She’d be the most popular lass in the entire city!”
Gwendolyn, equally intoxicated as the rest, piped in. “I ain’t got no more youth to be that popular. Besides, my heart couldn’t take that many people!”
Eos noticed her opportunity to ask what or who Sigurd and Varen were talking about had passed, and let the conversation just flow, participating only as an idle listener.
“Thank the Light Donny was able to get the guard to cease the investigation though!” Gwendolyn carried on, “Was a nightmare to get people in with the guards stationed there 24/7.”
Donovan replied, “It’s no issue- I still don’t understand what Ganelon’s issue with your inn was.”
“How’s the investigation going?” Amiran asked.
“Well, we’ve be' get some help,” Donovan drunkenly nodded towards Sigurd, “Thanks to 'em, we’ve made 'gress. Beyond just young girls goin' missin' from the stre-” Donovan’s eyes flicked towards Eos and then turned back towards the group, suddenly sobering quite a bit, “I think it’s best we talk about this later.”
Everyone turned away from each other and the conversation died out. Eos, turning towards the chess board again, was prompted by Otto. “You only have one legal move, and I have a checkmate after.”
The rest of the time passed exceedingly quickly, and no other conversations caught Eos’s attention more than the games infront of her. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been focused on chess, but as the day was nearing its end, the Demon approached Eos, as Otto disappeared to the back of the room. Sigurd seemed sobered, but she didn’t even remember if Otto had drank
First to speak was the Demon, “Have you considered which path to go down?”
“Path?” She responded.
“Do you want to be an adventurer, a guard, militia member, worker, et cetera.” He listed off.
“My career? I didn’t know I had to choose so soon.” She questioned if she’d missed a lot without the orientations.
Sigurd continued, “If you want to become an adventurer let me know. I can definitely… help you with it.” He nodded. Eos understood nepotism well enough to nod back.
Meanwhile Otto stood behind Sigurd, holding a bound book in his hands. “It’s a gift- something I wrote up a few decades back, to help awoken learn english. It’s a common-english dictionary.”
“I already know english?” Eos responded, confused.
“Yeah, but do you know common?”
Eos didn’t want to answer, and graciously accepted the gift.
As Eos and Varen head back towards Avivenorlin and as the suns set, the city seemed to light up to replace it.
“Enjoy yourself? I’ll throw up a stink with Rhawn, so I wouldn’t worry too much about him.” Varen asked in common.
“Mhm,” Eos responded, “Why are we speaking in common?” She responded in English.
“Best not to let others know you’re Awoken,” He began, “You never know what they’d do for some power in that regard.”
“Like, kidnap someone?” She asked, trying to clue in on the conversation from before.
“That’s been happening a lot more recently, in all fairness.” He said, “Kids disappear just for going down the wrong street. I’m worried what it’ll look like in a few years- broad daylight for sure.”
Eos just agreed, feeling too tired for any discussion or deep thought, and they walked together towards Avivenorlin.