Maya approached the crystal spire at the center of the academy with trepidation. Last time she’d spoken with Shardlord, it hadn’t ended well. He’d accused her of being a spy and threatened to kick her out of the academy - a threat he’d later followed through on.

His interim leader, James, had reinstated her during Shardlord’s absence, but Maya still wasn’t sure if her continued access was due to a change of heart on his behalf or simple oversight. He’d been logged out for weeks, ever since the whole Conquest fiasco around Domitius unlocking the Crystal Desert zone.

But Maya didn’t want to dance around the situation any longer. She didn’t want to slide by on a technicality. If she was going to stay here, commit to his academy as her primary allegiance, then she needed his assurances that they were good and he wasn’t going to randomly boot her without good reason.

Part of her marveled that she even dared take this step. She usually tended to avoid problems until they forced their way into her attention. But that didn’t mean she was incapable of being assertive when necessary.

So she strode up to his tower and rapped on the crystalline door with her best bravado, trying not to believe that everything would immediately go wrong.

The door opened slowly, as though reluctant to admit her. She took it as a bad sign, but entered anyway.

She started for James’s room first, as it was nearer. As Shardlord’s trusted second in command, he would be of high enough authority to answer her questions while being slightly less intimidating than Shardlord himself. She like to think she had a bit better of a relationship with James. But his room was locked, and though she knocked no one answered.

Well. Guess she couldn’t put it off any longer. She continued upward to the private room at the top.

Shardlord, the dark-furred felinis archmage who owned the entire academy, was fully dressed this time, in an even more elaborate set of robes than his usual archmage attire. Or, no. Now that she looked closer, it was just the same archmage robes, but with more gold accessories. He stood beside his bookshelf, a thick tome open in one hand, the other resting atop his archmage staff.

He looked somewhere right between regal and absurd. She stifled the desire to laugh, which would have come out far more nervous than amused anyway.

"So. The hero returns." He snapped the book shut and smiled thinly.

Maya wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she shrugged and nodded. "I’m back. Yep."

"One might be inclined to ask where you’ve been, and what you’ve been doing."

"I—" Maya began, but he shook his head and cut her off.

"I know what you’ve been doing. Frittering about, wasting time, playing the noob. I don’t care about that. What you do in your free time is your business so long as it doesn’t conflict with my academy’s best interests. What I would like to know is why you’ve returned."

Maya felt immediately defensive. "Why wouldn’t I come here? I want to learn magic, this is where all my friends are—"

"Not all your friends. That mercenary you hang around with isn’t allowed inside."

"My friends are none of your business!"

"Then why are you speaking of them to me in the first place?"

Maya stuttered, trying to find the words.

"Why have you come to see me?"

"Uhhh, I… I wanted to make sure we were copacetic, so I wouldn’t end up booted or anything. I like it here, I want to stay, but I don’t want your potentially banishing me mid-lesson hanging over my head. I think I’ve done enough for this academy to earn at least that much consideration." She tried to hold back on the irritation seeping through, but at least anger was better than the alternative.

"Is that all? Very well. I have verified that you pose no threat to the academy. You may remain so long as you do not break any of my rules, and do not go running off to Domitius again."

"I may have to deal with Domitius again at some point," Maya said. "I don’t think he’s just going to let me go after what I did."

"Do you want to be banished from my academy?"

"No, of course not. I just wanted you to know, if he decides to come after me, I may not have a choice."

"You always have a choice. If they’re trying to carry you off, log out. Sure, they’ll hang around a few weeks waiting to catch you off guard when you come back, but no one is worth tying up powerful players indefinitely waiting for you to return. Eventually, they’ll slip up and you can escape. Allowing yourself to be captured is inexcusably stupid."

Maya bristled at this, her feathers pricking up in affront. "Maybe I didn’t think of it at the time."

"Of course you didn’t. Because you came here as an alternative to death, treating it as a new reality. While I came here to treat it as what it is - a game. One with rules that can be used to advantage." He set the book down and leaned the staff against the chair, switching to a more relaxed and open posture. "But, for all the criticism I could level at your behavior, you still accomplished something no one else had. And single-handedly ended the magic famine in the process."

"I did?" Maya hadn’t heard that one.

"Magic cannot be created or destroyed. When expended, it returns to cycle back in at natural collection points. From what I gather, the quantity held by Domitius was sufficient to stifle its use in all but the most minimal of quantities. Most people like myself and my mages would have personal stores which we kept guarded and used sparingly, thus further limiting the amount available to return to the world. By burning off his entire stockpile, that’s hundreds of thousands of drams of power available once again."

"Oh. I didn’t realize." The reminder of her feat brought to mind one other thing. "Oh, I have an ability spell, but it’s got error codes in it and won’t activate. Do you know anything about that?"

Shardlord frowned. "No, I do not. I’ve never heard of a glitched spell ability. What is it?"

"Inferno. It’s what I made when burning off Domitius’s prison."

"Ah. That explains it. The cubic volume of that place was insane. You’d require tens of thousands of energy to cast something like that, perhaps hundreds of thousands. I have nearly two thousand energy, and could reach close to four thousand if I geared specifically toward maximizing it. Do you begin to see the difference in scale? Even if you could reach level five hundred, I doubt you’d ever attain enough energy to use that spell."

"Oh." Maya tried not to be disappointed, but even if she had largely resigned herself to keeping the useless ability as a trophy it was hard not to wish it could be usable. It was far too easy to imagine herself standing in the center of a raging firestorm, laughing gleefully as boss monsters dropped all around her.

It would have been awesome. Alas.

"If you do find yourself in Domitius’s service again, would you mind keeping an eye out for any of my other mages? I’m not entirely convinced you aren’t the spy, but if you are in fact the genuine newcomer you claim to be, it’s possible that they might underestimate you and be careless."

"Of course. I would do that much anyway." Maya hesitated. "Are you sure there’s a spy at all though?"

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Absolutely certain. There’s no way we both happened to launch attacks on each other at the exact same moment. I knew his plan, and he knew mine, and I know he knows that I have spies in his outfit, but he’s so much more careless about who he lets in. And shockingly good at bribing them away from me when he discovers them, more’s the pity." He said this last in an undertone, as though grumbling to himself. "Regardless, though I initially suspected you, I have a hard time reconciling your frankly erratic behavior with that of a spy. Most spies would draw as little attention to themselves as possible, rather than throwing themselves into the spotlight at every possible opportunity."

"I don’t mean to. I just—"

"It’s not an accusation." Shardlord took a step toward her, holding out a gleaming magic-covered hand. "I apologize for my treatment of you in the past. I realize it is no excuse to say I was under a lot of strain and your arrival came at an extremely inconvenient time. I should not have been so aggressive. I’m impressed you still wanted to be a part of my academy."

Maya shook his hand, accepting the magic that slipped over to her in the process. "It would take a bigger obstacle than your ego to keep me away from a magic school," she said, without thinking. Then immediately covered her mouth, ashamed. "Oh—"

Shardlord laughed softly. "It’s alright. Recent events have made it abundantly clear that considering myself to be, shall we say, ‘the exception to every rule’, may be less than strategically sound. I founded this academy on principles of sharing and cooperation, and I’m afraid that in recent years I’ve become more focused on my own priorities to the exclusion of everything else. I would never have come this far on my own, and it’s time I remembered that."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"James told me of your vehement insistence on rescuing my captured mages, and from what I’ve heard you received very little support in that endeavor. If we had all been more united, we could have accomplished more than a suicidal desperate move such as what you did. And saved more than a few nerfed characters in the process."

Maya frowned. That almost sounded like he was criticizing how she’d gone about her self-appointed task, saving people he’d abandoned?

"Yes," Shardlord continued, "it is wonderful that magic has been returned to the land. Yes, you have dealt a morale blow to Domitius’s followers. But the majority of the players who were rescued have yet to recover from the debilitating energy debuffs. It will be years before any of them are up to fighting strength again. In a way, we’ve taken a step backwards."

"What? Really?"

"The debuff only counts down while the character is in use. Unless the players abandon their alts and return to their formerly-imprisoned characters for long periods of time, they’ll remain useless. Even the best gear can only mitigate so much."

"Doesn’t it go away when you die?" Maya asked. "Mine did."

"Dying reduces the amount by 5, once per day. Otherwise, it reduces by 2 each day naturally. For a character with hundreds of energy, that comes out to months of extremely reduced damage capacity."

"Yikes. I didn’t realize it was that bad."

Shardlord waved a hand dismissively. "It’s not important, on its own. It’s just one more adversity plaguing my month. Was there anything else you needed?"

"I don’t think so. As long as you’re not planning to kick me out again."

"Unless you prove yourself to be disruptive to my students, you are welcome to remain."

"Thank you. I shall do so."

"Be disruptive?"

Maya stuttered. "No, remain here. Undisruptively. with as much not disruptiveness as possible." Had that been ... was he actually joking around with her? She wasn't sure if she should be pleased or offended.

She waved awkwardly and started toward the door, then remembered something else and turned back. "I do have one other question. Would it be possible to gain access to the advanced classes? I have all the starting spells now, and have created several variants on my own. I’d like to know what all has been discovered already so my personal research doesn’t waste time duplicating existing results."

Shardlord laughed. "You think you’ll be able to create new spells just like that? Maya, we’ve been trying to crack the formulae behind the spells for years and a few variants are about the best we’ve managed."

"Then you haven’t been properly utilizing available resources," Maya said. "Do you have any tricksters in your research groups?"

"Trickster? Like the chaos deity?"

"Yes. But, no. The class."

"Deity classes are notoriously difficult to unlock. I don’t believe we have anyone with a deity class, though Yinon is close to attaining the Oracle’s favour if his reports are to be believed."

Maya smiled. She’d forgotten about Yinon, but now she was thinking of it she silently wished him well in his quest.

"I haven’t even heard rumors of the Trickster’s deity quest," Shardlord continued. "I didn’t realize it existed. I assumed he was more of a boss villain NPC, going around disrupting things. Most people go for Liyaan or Ildorne. There are rumors that Mayrado has a few aspirants, and I think someone said they’d unlocked Reigyosh’s quest chain. Nothing about the Trickster."

"I’m not surprised. Tricksters do have significant incentive to keep quiet. But since Domitius has so many of them, it’s only fair for you to know the advantage they can provide."

Shardlord straightened, staring at her intently. "Domitius?"

"I believe his infamous ‘secret class’ is in fact trickster. I know for a fact that he has more than a few tricksters in his employ, possibly even dozens. Five at an absolute minimum that I can personally attest to."

Shardlord exhaled very slowly. "And I suppose you know something about the class’s archetype and role?"

"Everything. Anything. Tricksters gain access to a restricted and usually hidden ‘Luck’ statistic which directly impacts everything from experience gain and loot drops to intuition. This stat is … basically randomized every day in either a positive or negative direction. On a high luck day, a trickster could, for instance, instinctively understand the accuracy of the drawings or equations of a spell and correct any errors."

"You’re a trickster."

"Yes."

"Nearly all known tricksters gained their skill through whatever method Domitius used."

"Ah, no. Sorry. I should have clarified. The trickster class can be unlocked by anyone at character creation. Well, any permanent."

Shardlord stared.

"It’s a glitch. The randomized stat bonus has access to the hidden luck statistic, and upon reaching 5 luck you become eligible for the trickster class. So if you’re permanent and get luck as your bonus, boom. Instant secret ultra-rare deity class. Not so rare any more. But Domitius seems to have done it properly. He said that ‘my’ way of being a trickster wasn’t legit, so I think he did the deity quests. So, it’s possible that’s how his followers did it. I got it at character creation."

"That is certainly a plausible story."

Maya groaned. "Please don’t tell me you’re back to being suspicious of me, now that I’ve shared very powerful secret information with you instead of keeping it to myself?"

Shardlord hesitated. "You’re right. It would hardly be reasonable for a spy to give away this much suspicious information after I’d just admitted to being inclined to believe her. And yet—"

"Here I was just starting to think you could be reasonable." Why did Shardlord end up infuriating her every time she spoke with him?

"You must understand my position. You have just asked for access to the academy’s entire store of spells. The one advantage we hold—"

"No you don’t. It’s not an advantage if your people stay to themselves. It’s not useful if you keep it so diversified that no one can use it! If every mage had access to every spell, then it would be an advantage. What you have now? No. Not enough."

He didn’t answer.

Maya stood, breathing heavily, trying to get a hold on her temper. She didn’t come here to argue. She was just trying to be helpful!

"You’re … not wrong," he said at last, as though it pained him to admit. "If what you say is true, we are protected only by Domitius’s disinterest. With enough tricksters, he could duplicate our best results in a few weeks. Perhaps it is time to stop holding back and allow greater dissemination of our knowledge."

"So I can visit the combined groups?"

Shardlord shook his head. "No. By no means are you a sufficiently leveled or integrated player to be trusted with that much information yet. I will be personally considering every individual who applies for full access, and I can tell you right now that you do not yet meet the criteria."

"Can you at least give me a list of spell names so I know what to not recreate?" Maya asked. "I have elemental variations on Wind Whisper and Wind Word so far, but I haven’t started on the more advanced ones yet."

"I will not forbid you from requesting spell lists from the other departments, but I will not require that they give them to you. That is up to each group’s leader to decide."

Maya sighed. "I guess it’s the best I can hope for."

"If you stick around and prove yourself a valuable and trustworthy member of our academy, you will be able to earn all the knowledge you could ask for. But you can’t prance in and expect us to give you everything the moment you show up."

"Alright, you’ve made your point."

"Then I bid you good day."

Before she could turn to leave, he tossed her a small pouch that jingled when she caught it. Maya glanced between him and the pouch inquisitively.

"It wasn’t an official quest, but for restoring the balance of magic to the natural world, some reward is appropriate. For all that I could wish it had gone differently, you have done well."

Maya opened the pouch. Items gained: Currency Pouch, 200 gold.

"Wow. Thank you." She was already imagining how she could spend it. New gear! Or pets! Or hiring mercenaries to help with her questing! Or … she glanced at her quest list. She still had the private grudge mission from the guard captain, to take over Standalone’s castle. If she could finish that quest, it gave a personal house in the city. She couldn’t wait to start decorating.

Maybe she should buy materials and do some more crafting? As a trickster, she had a huge advantage over ordinary player crafters; on a good day she could expect vastly superior results, with a subsequent increase in profits.

"You can stare at your screens in your own room," Shardlord said with laughter in his voice. "I’m glad you’re satisfied with the arrangement."

"Oh, yes. Thank you again. You’re right. I’ll go. Thank you!"

Maya descended the stairs, her mind completely full of plans and hopes for the future, and it was only when she saw Darrow patiently waiting for her that she remembered the other problem she had to deal with.

What in the world was she supposed to do about her alleged husband?

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

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