Chronicles of the Blackblade 06
Chapter 6 – Local Neighbourhood
The meal was about to start, all the students had taken their seats yet there was still room at the far end of the tables, as if it were reserved for others, from first years to older students, some of whom were going on close to twenty years of age. Some of the instructors had arrived and taken their seats as well, the warrior and elementalist’s from the earlier at the town gates was there, she was still dressed in her regal red robes, the warrior however had changed from his training clothing into something more eating friendly. The monk from earlier had also arrived, he was garbed in a sleeveless priest uniform. Several other’s sat around the main table, elementalist’s, ranger’s, warrior’s, monk’s and mesmer’s were the easily spot-able ones.
At once the hall grew quiet, the angelic woman entered the hall shortly after the non-important looking man from earlier, they took their seats at the head of their table, and he stood to make a speech.
“Greetings to all present, another year is here for us and we have new guests staying with us.” He indicated with a wave, the new students clumped together in the hall. “Most of you will notice that there are still a few of the older students still here, they have decided to stay on for more training then usual, and may soon join in as tutors and instructors.” A cheer went up at this from some of the older students who could recognize whom he was talking about. “To the new comers, enjoy today as rest, for your tasks and training starts tomorrow. You will all gather in the courtyard at dawn to be assigned to your groups.” He then sat down. The beautiful woman next to him stood and clapped her hands twice loudly.
All at once the room was ablaze in movement, the side doors had burst open and students looking only slightly older then the current new comers brought forth food of all kinds, in the next few minutes the huge tables was covered in everything imaginable, chicken, meat, bread, potato’s, tomatoes, the list goes on and on, in short order these students also joined the table.
Once everyone was seated the woman raised her drink, as did everyone else to join in.
“To the Honor of Kyndale!”
The meal was over. Senior students left the hall while the same students who brought the food out returned the empty plates and cutlery to the kitchens; the only people remaining were the instructors and the new students.
The head master of the academy stood again and drew everyone’s attention to himself. “So comes the time for you to start your training here, tomorrow you will be arranged into groups where you will be assigned duty’s, your core training will not begin until you are deemed ready, every seventh day will be a free day, and any time you can muster after your duties are done will be considered free, here you can self study, or enlist the help of another older student if they agree to teach you. Remember your duties are your top priority.”
The woman that acts as his right hand stands, “The rest of today will be classed as free time, explore, mingle and get comfortable, make sure to get a good nights sleep as tomorrow will be a long day for you.” At this, the instructors slowly left the hall.
Zela had been talking to the small girl during lunch; her name was Mara – of the Acoma clan, she’d had heard of these, they were a group of wild elementalist’s that live up in some mountains somewhere, she did remember that some of the older members of the clan had strong connections to certain elements, and adding in the wild nature of the magic that they used, could be extremely powerful; or extremely deadly – to any in range, including themselves.
After they had sat down, their conversation had quickly turned to magic, while Zela had been taught of the many different kinds of magic, of its flowing nature, Mara had been taught only a single way of magic, of tapping the wild energies all around, this intrigued Zela as she had not heard of that way of magic before, but what with the small girl happily topic jumping, looking at the ceiling and not being able to stay on focus for more then two sentences, it was hard to learn anything of value.
Some of the other students had decided to look around the monastery, and Zela was going to follow in their footsteps - after she found what which room she was staying in. “You could stay in my room with meee, there’s enough space, weee could get another bed put in and weee could have fun, oooooooohhh it would be soooooo great!! We could have looaads of fun, and we could practice magic together, you could show me what you know and and and oooohh it would be really really exciting!” Mara had squeaked, Zela quickly changed the subject - wanting to keep her mental health intact; the thought of staying in the same room as the tiny girl for some years was enough to give her a mental breakdown.
Zela managed to catch up with Miss Surane before she got back to the infirmary, after enquiring about a room to stay in she was told to go to the general office, and given directions to get there, it wasn’t long before she got there with Mara in tow.
She was recognized at once, she was quickly given a key and directions to a room, it appeared that a room was picked out for her while she was unconscious, she was informed that she would be sharing a room with another student.
Dawn and Gonzo explored, they had already gone around half of the academy, its huge halls providing adequate chances for new student’s to get lost in, and lost they had gotten, until they found another group of wandering student’s and decided to follow them until they found their way.
So far they had found three giant halls, numerous classrooms - some purely for reading and being taught, while others large enough to have enough space for practical classes, a gigantic library, with books that lined the room from top to bottom on the two floors it spanned, there were other courtyards situated behind the academy, some with archery targets lined up on the far wall, others with patterns drawn onto the floor, some of these courtyards were full of burnt spots and other such effects, they both saw the results first hand as a group of student elementalist’s practiced spells against targets at the far end, these ones seemed to be designed to withstand magic damage.
At the back of the academy after crossing the rear courtyard there was a small building, upon further inspection they found that it was a bathhouse! The mountain close by had natural hot springs that had been tapped into, and the bathhouse had been built around it, the huge pool had been split in two to provide a split for the different sexes, but it was also apparent that this could be moved to make one huge pool to share.
They left and headed back towards the academy, there was only a small part they had not yet explored.
Zela entered the room with Mara right behind her, their eyes both widened in shock at the huge room before them, and not just a single room, it was split up into four rooms, a large central living room, with a comfortable array of various sized sofa’s – given the seal of approval from both girls after being flumped on.
Connected to the living room were two bedrooms and a washroom, one bedroom looked like the sheets had been scuffed and moved around, Zela guessed that the other student had already been here, she entered the other bedroom to find Mara bouncing on the giant bed.
“Woooo this is sooo cool, your sooooo lucky you got such a nice room! And this bed!” She stopped bouncing and dived on the bed, “Its soooo soft and comfortable, much better then the bed I got!” her voice still squeaking along, “oh oh look at all these books as well.” She jumped up and bounced off the bed towards the bookcases that lined the room.
Zela had to admit, the rooms were amazing, after a brief look at the bookcase’s she noticed there were a lot she could use to self-study, the sofa’s providing a comfortable place to read, and with the room surrounded in glow orb’s and a control point for them on the wall, the light could be turned up or down depending on when they were needed, for now the light bombarding the room from the huge window’s gave more then enough light to see and read by, the view from the window over looked the courtyard, and beyond that the town, she made out the route that they took earlier that day during the race, she could spot the marketplace and Mirabell’s house.
“Ooooohhhhh we gotta find loads of friends and then bring them all here, we could have this hhhuuuuuuuuuggggiiiieeee party here! You got so much space, we could all stay up and then play games, do some magic and er.. we could talk and er.. and party heeee!” Mara had strolled into the main room and walked over to Zela, “oh, did you also check out the wardrobe?? Some of them dresses are sooooooo gorgeous,” “Oh really?” Zela replied, she had forgot to check out the wardrobe and proceeded to do so now, Mara followed her into the bedroom and dived on the bed, “Hey your right! There are quite a few nice outfits here. Give me a minute I’m going to change out of this top.” “ooo-kay,” came the reply, the tiny girl happily situated on the soft bed, leaning on her elbows swishing her legs in the air.
Zela picked out another blue top to go with the skirt, this one also left her stomach bare, but wasn’t so low cut; it had straps that went over her shoulders but otherwise left them bare, the small girl didn’t look like she was going to leave the room, so Zela turned her back to her and continued to change clothes, after she was done the pair decided to explore the academy a bit.
They headed back towards the central part of the academy, where the general office is located and heard shouting coming from inside, it seemed there was an argument going on, “-don’t care what you say, where is she!” “If you would jus-“ she was cut off “Tell me where she is, I saw what happened at the gate, and she’s not at the infirmary so where is she” the voice was getting angrier. Zela and Mara took one look at each other, and then entered the general office, they were spotted immediately, and Zela was quickly caught in a bear hug off the angry woman.
“Oh my god Zela are you ok?” Mirabell asked, still in the bear hug “I saw what happened at the courtyard gates, I found out that it was you and I came running as soon as I heard! You’re not hurt are you? How are you feeling? You must have been terrified, what happened? Where did all that wind come from?” Zela finally managed to break the bear hug and was left gasping for breath; Mara had started edging towards the door at the last words said.
“Yes I’m fine,” Zela started “I’m not sure what happened really, I remember flying towards the academy, and then waking up in bed in the infirmary afterwards.” “Allow me to fill you in then.” The three turned to see the monk from the balcony earlier, Zela also recognized him as the monk that saved her earlier that day.
The monk retold the tale. That wild surging magic had merged with a simple air spell, which caused the wind, a older student had caught Mara, but no one was left to stop Zela, she survived from his own Mark of Protection spell, and from a new student monk that had started.
“Anyway,” Mirabell started, “If there’s no objections, I’d like Zela to stay with me, I have space in my home for her.” Mara was the next to speak “ooooohhh but her rooms soo, nice she’s got-aahhhh“ a glare from Mirabell silenced the girl, and she quickly hid behind Zela, “You know the rule’s Mirabell, we try to keep all the new students together at the academy.” “oh hush Theodore, you know there will be no problem with it.” Zela joined in the conversation, “Sorry Mirabell,” all eye’s turned to her, “I don’t want to receive any special treatment from the rest of the students.”
Faced with this, Mirabell had no choice but to give up the idea of having a housemate, “Ok then, but I want you to get given free range access to town, your welcome anytime, remember that, is that ok with you Theodore?” The monk sighed, “Very well Mirabell, I will arrange for Zela, – and company, to have access to the town during free time.” “Thank you Theodore, well, now that that’s settled, I’m needed at the market, so I shall see you all later.” And with that, Mirabell left.
Zela and Mara spend the rest of the day exploring the academy, and then the rest of their time in the library looking for interesting books, by the time Zela got back to her room, her room mate was already in their bedroom, with the door closed.
Dawn returned to her room, her and Gonzo had finished exploring and it was beginning to get late. She wanted to have an early night and her roommate was not yet in, she put the lock on the door and changed into a cream nightgown that was located in the wardrobe, she hung her priest robes up and brushed them off.
Trying to figure out how to use the strange glowing orbs, a simple tap turned it off; Dawn turned all but the one next to her bed off, unlocked the door and climbed into bed after a brief prayer, she fell asleep after some meditating…
Dawn awoke, it was dark, very dark, and she felt cold; a shiver went down her spine, and she realized that she no longer had the bed covers over her, her senses suddenly kicked in, alerting her of someone’s presence looming over her in the dark, a outline could be seen above her, and the faint sound of breathing to accompany it. She went to sit up, her hand going out for the orb nearest her bed, but her wrist was grabbed before she reached the orb. She struggled against the hold but she couldn’t shake it off, her eyes; now fully accustomed to the dark saw Jake standing above her.
“What are you doing!” she half spoke, half shouted, as she tried to shake his grasp off again, “Aww and you looked so cute laying there sleeping there like that, just like an angel, why did you have to wake up?” Dawn tried to push him away with her other hand; but he caught that as well, using his standing advantage, he shoved her back onto the bed. “Release me this instant!” she commanded, trying and failing again to shake him off, he lowered his face towards hers, “But we’re room mate’s, start as we mean to go on and all that,” he said, his face looming closer, “and you can’t stop me can you, noo the gods wont love you if you hurhgg-“ he was cut short as Dawn’s knee embedded itself in his rib, his grip loosened and she used that to flick her hand over to touch the orb, its light brightening the room at once, using her other hand she pushed Jake away from her, and quickly flipped herself to her feet.
Jake backed off, he stood there guarding the door; he was holding his rib where Dawn had hit him. “I’m leaving. Move out of my way.” Dawn’s voice was even, anger not getting the better of her, “Where you going to go baby, you should just stay here, the night is young.” Dawn knew the time for talking was over; she prepared herself to get past him.
She feinted a rush for the door, stopping and attempting to jump back when he made his move, it worked, she got within distance and he dived for her, not even attempting a simple swipe, he had attempted to tackle her completely and bring her to the floor, Dawn was not ready for that and didn’t get out of the way fast enough, while his hands missed flesh, one of them grasped a handful of her nightgown at the top, ripping some of it off at the neck down to her waist; exposing her shoulder, arm and part of her chest, he fell to the floor as Dawn rushed past him, using his back as a stepping stone, preventing him from grabbing her leg, she made it to the door, swung it open and sprinted out into the cold dark hallway, her arms holding the remains of her nightgown up; and covering herself at the same time, tears forming in her eyes as her legs took her away, with only the sound of her bare feet on the cold stone to acknowledge her passing.
