Andorra Academy—Part Four (Patreon)

This story was brought to you by the Tuan'diath Exzircon, in cooperation with Thunder King, who requested a short story about their custom characters attending the Caldenian magic academy.

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          Ex tried his best to not curse at the meathead that had so forcefully wheedled his way into his circle of trust. The more he tried to outline his plan the more clear it became that TK just wasn’t getting it. Ex considered it a personal failure that this other student had discovered part of his secret. It was so beyond clear that if he hadn’t let his necklace almost run out of mana and literally leave an easy-to-follow trail in his wake, TK would have never even suspected him.

          “I still don’t get why we need all the cloak-and-dagger,” TK complained. “It’s just a building on campus like any other. Any student can go into it.”

          “Really?” Ex challenged. “Have you ever seen even one student walk in there your entire time on campus?”

          TK scratched his brow. “I guess not,” he admitted. “But we’re supposed to be able to. Haven’t you ever been inside? It’s not that special.”

          Ex froze. “Of course I’ve been inside, but how have you been inside?”

          “You never got a tour of campus? Like when you were deciding which school to attend?”

          “No. They don’t do that.”

          “They definitely do. My dad and I got to walk around every building and they told us all about them.”

          “Oh, I see. This comes back to your father again. You do realize how wealthy and influential your family is, don’t you? You take a carriage to school every morning. They refuse to even put you on academic probation despite not even turning in three of the last five written exams.” Ex gestured to the dorms. “Do you even realize how small our rooms are in there? I don’t think your experience can be considered anything like a ‘typical’ one.”

          “Okay, okay, so not everyone gets a tour. Fine. But either way, it just seemed like a regular building to me. They said they had a research program and studied advanced magical whatevers. They’re supposed to be on the bleeding edge of new magic stuff. Even Eldesia doesn’t match them.”

          “Of course they would tell you that,” Ex replied. “Did they show you where the real research happens? Did they take you to the basement?”

          TK swallowed. “What basement?”

          “That’s a no then. I think that’s where they’ve taken Meridias. I… overheard a conversation earlier this evening that mentioned they were in need of new ‘supplies.’ Now that I put Mere’s disappearance into context, I think it’s related. The fact that she doesn’t have a wealthy family that will be able to open some kind of investigation when their daughter goes missing only seems to be all the more significant.”

          “But why just her?” TK asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. She was a really good student.” He shook his head. “No, she is a really good student.”

          “It’s not just her. I checked. There are a total of six rooms in the dorms that have been emptied in a similar fashion. I would bet that if you took another look at that dumpster you would find a lot more possessions in it.”

          TK did just that. He walked over and stuck his head right in the damn thing. “You’re right!” he shouted, with his voice reverberating around the metal box, “this thing is full of clothes!” He pulled out another bag. This one had bundles of pants in them. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

          “We don’t have a choice,” Ex told him. “If we want to save those students from being experimented on, we have to break into the Research building.”

          “Right now?” TK asked.

          “We can’t wait. For all we know they’ve already started doing things to them.” That seemed to steel TK’s resolve. Ex could practically see an image play in the other student’s mind of his precious Meridias being tortured by faceless goons.

          “No, you’re right. We should go now.” He turned and started walking across the courtyard at the center of campus.

          “Wait!” Ex said, jogging to catch up. “We can’t just go barging in there. We need a plan.”

          “I’ve got a plan for you,” TK said. He raised his fist up and clenched it into a ball. “We break the door down and blast away anyone that tries to stop us.”

          “You don’t understand the security measures they have in place there. I’ve been surveying it for weeks. There’s an intricate layer of wards at the entrance to alert the entire campus of a potential break-in. I tried disabling them but they have multiple redundancies.”

          TK just shook his head. “Then we go in the back door. Duh.”

          “There is no back door! You have to listen to me. The building has a small contingent of Caldenian combat wizards whose job it is to guard the place. If they hear the alarm go off they’ll be sure to come running.”

          They reached the building and continued bickering just outside. The place looked dark and buttoned-up for the night, but Ex knew that even now there were at least two guards in the basement and an administrator keeping an eye on all the various experiments.

          TK perked his head up. “Wait a second. Did you say if they hear the alarm?”

          “Umm…” Ex didn’t know what to say. TK’s line of inquiry was so straight-forward Ex was sure if he answered the question honestly he might do something reckless. “I mean there might be other alerts that go out when the alarms are triggered. Like… light or something. I’m not sure. I haven’t tested them.”

          “Alright, well…” TK leaned down and pried a cobblestone out of the ground. The courtyard was covered in the things, but they weren’t actually secured in place by anything but dirt and gravity. “We’re about to give them a test right now.”

          “What do you mean? Test them how? If you try to break down the door with that rock we’re both going to get caught. We need to slow down for a second here and try to think of—”

          “While they torture her in there? I don’t think so, man. Not while I can do something about it.”

          “What are you going to do with that rock, TK?”

          TK hefted it a few times to test its weight. The stone was smooth and round. It was about half the size of his head: big enough to be threatening to something like a door, without being unwieldy. “I was gonna… smash the door in,” TK admitted. “I think I can get it open in like two seconds. Did you see what I did to the door back in the dorms? I wasn’t even trying then! Just think what I can do when I really apply myself.”

          “Yeah, Professor Gim has been wondering the same thing all year.” Ex put a restraining hand on his shoulder. He was careful not to press too hard. “Look, I could break that door down if I wanted. I’ve known about that place for weeks. Don’t you think I would have tried that if it was going to work?”

          “Well obviously I’m going to cast a zone of Silence around myself before I do that. I’m not as dumb as you think.”

          “Hmmm,” Ex said. That got him thinking. Silencing the alarms… surely that was too simple to actually work, right? “I guess if you consider the situation we’re in it’s probably worth a shot. Do you even know that spell though? I’ve never seen you cast anything but that Thunderclap spell of yours.”

          TK hefted the cobblestone onto his shoulder and approached the door. He set it down at his feet when he was in position. “Sure,” he said, “I know loads more sonamancy spells. Thunderclap’s just the one I’m best at and pretty much the only one that works well in a fight.”

          “Okay, let’s see this ‘Silence’ spell of yours then,” Ex said in a sardonic tone. He crossed his arms to watch this play out. He fully expected TK to flounder at it for several minutes and eventually give up.

          TK stood up straight and moved through some tightly-controlled hand signs that involved a lot of finger movement. ““Vox null tractus” he intoned in a clear voice.

          Did it work? Ex tried to ask. The words didn’t come out. He moved his mouth, but he couldn’t even hear when he clinked his own teeth together. They were well and truly consumed by Silence.

          TK turned around with a goofy grin on his face. He moved his mouth to say something. Ex could only guess what it might have been. He silently mimed laughter, then picked up his stone again. He lifted it over his head with both hands and brought it down on the door’s handle with what looked like considerable force. The metal handle popped right off. Ex was sure the alarms were probably already going off. If they were, he and TK wouldn’t be hearing a thing. He could only hope that there wasn’t some secondary system that was blaring away somewhere else on campus that they weren’t aware of. If there was, the security forces would be alerted and they wouldn’t even know it was happening. Ex glanced around the courtyard behind them just in case, but he didn’t see anyone around.

          It took three more strikes on the broken door before TK got it open. The front door was really the building’s only weakness. The rest of it was made of solid stone which would have rendered a brute force attack like this useless. TK grabbed at the hole where the door’s handle used to be and swung the door wide. He smirked to himself.

          Ex had to grab TK on the shoulder to stop him running ahead. For one thing he didn’t even know where to go, but they still had to deal with the alarms. Just because they couldn’t hear them didn’t mean they weren’t clanging away at that very moment. As soon as TK walked too far away, his zone of Silence would recede and alert the entire campus that someone had broken into the Research building. From there Ex was certain it would be a trail of broken things leading all the way to them. Their only chance was to stay undetected until it was too late to bring in security to stop them.

          TK opened his mouth. It looked like he was asking, “What?”

          Ex pointed to a blank spot on the inside of the door and formed letters out of shadow. It was the only way to communicate. If he’d known TK was going to be successful he would have stopped and come up with an actual plan for their infiltration before letting him do it. Now they’d just have to play it by ear.

          Wᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴇsᴛʀᴏʏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀʟᴀʀᴍs ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ᴡᴇ ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ, Ex wrote on the door. When he was sure TK had read the first sentence he formed another. Oʀ ᴛʜᴇʏ'ʟʟ ʜᴇᴀʀ ᴜs ᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ.

          TK nodded. He pointed his finger around the entryway randomly and threw his hands up in confusion. He didn’t know where they were. That was alright. Ex had outlined every detail of the security system this place had ages ago. First he pointed to one of the corners of the door. TK shook his head so Ex jabbed his finger at the spot more insistently. He had to grab the little bun on the back of TK’s half knot and push his face closer before he saw it too: a rune carefully scrolled into the wood. It was very close to the same color as the wood, which made it hard to notice.

          Ex still didn’t know what all the different runes did, but at this point it was too late to try to figure that out. Better to just break everything and hope for the best. TK nodded once he noticed the rune. He retrieved his trusty rock and smashed away at the corner of the door. As soon as he was done he went to drop the rock but Ex stopped him with another hand on his shoulder. He shook his head. TK mouthed something again. Ex gestured to another rune in another corner of the door.

          TK rolled his eyes and just started smashing every surface he could see. Ex picked out more runes and pointed them out to TK while he worked. TK barely needed any encouragement, and judging by the goofy smile on his face he was rather enjoying himself. The doorway: smashed. A large rune engraved on the floor, disguised as a rug: smashed. Two more on the wall leading to the stairwell: smashed. Then there were a series behind the front desk. Where the receptionist worked there were at least a dozen more runes engraved on the inside surface where those standing in front of it couldn’t see. Ex had watched her use them at work and was reasonably certain nearly all of them were part of a complex communication network… but at this point it was better safe than sorry. He pointed them out to his little smasher and TK turned the whole desk into splinters.

          Ex was about to lead TK back to the basement stairwell when some movement caught his eye. And he was lucky it did. On the ceiling above the front door there was a small circular bell and a metal tong was slamming against it repeatedly. It must’ve been a non-magical security feature. It was funny how those things could get you when you focused in on only one type of threat. That made him nervous. The fact that he’d just caught something that he almost certainly would have missed made him imagine three more security features he probably also missed. He pointed the bell out to TK and he tossed his rock at it. He missed, leaving a large hole in the ceiling. TK picked his rock up again, shrugged, and tossed it again. It took him four tries to hit the bell hard enough to break it. After he was done, the two of them took a step back to survey the room.

          It looked like a tornado had wrecked the place. Ex couldn’t see anything functional left, not even a chair. Hell, even the floor didn’t look like it could support their weight anymore. Ex gave a thumbs up to TK to signal that they were probably done.

          With no other targets for his stone’s wrath, TK finally put it down. Ex waved to get his attention, then signaled for him to cut off the Silence spell by pointing to his ear. TK shook his head. Ex touched the wall and formed more letters. Wᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴀʙʟᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛᴇ, he wrote.

          TK held up a finger for him to wait, then returned to the remains of the receptionist’s desk. He pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from the rubble. Wʜᴀᴛ ɪғ ᴍɪssᴅ ᴀʟʀᴍ? he scrawled quickly.

         Wᴇ ᴅɪᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ, Ex wrote back. Iғ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ’s sᴛɪʟʟ ᴏɴᴇ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴏғғ ɪᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʙᴇ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ʟᴇᴀʀɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɴᴏᴡ. Wᴇ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʀᴇᴛʀᴇᴀᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀ ɴᴇᴡ ᴘʟᴀɴ.

          Bᴜᴛ ʟᴇᴇᴠ Sɪʟɴᴄ ᴏɴ, TK wrote, Wᴇ sɴᴇᴇᴋ ᴜᴘ ᴏɴ ᴇᴍ.

          Ex rolled his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed at his childish strategy or embarrassed for his atrocious spelling skills. Lᴇᴛ’s ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴛᴀʟᴋ ғᴏʀ ᴀ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ᴡᴇ ɢᴏ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ. Tʜɪs ɪs ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ. Wʜᴀᴛ ɪғ sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴇs ʙʏ ʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡᴇ’ʀᴇ ᴘᴀssɪɴɢ ɴᴏᴛᴇs?

          That finally got through to him. TK waved a hand and noise returned to the world. The first thing Ex noticed was the sound of his own breathing. “Okay, what’s so important?” TK asked.

          “Well first off, it sounds like we got all the alarms, so good job. Now that that’s done I think it would be a good idea to go without the Silence. We can’t run into a situation where we need to talk to each other in the heat of battle but can’t.”

          “But it’s my best stealth spell! We can sneak up on anyone with it. We don’t have to worry about being slow or careful, we can just run at full speed and nobody will hear us coming.”

          “Can’t you just make it a Silence bubble instead of a silence field?”

          TK blinked. “Can I? I didn’t know that was possible.”

          Ex sighed. “You don’t know how to do a simple range modification? They’re similar across most harmonics. Honestly, it wouldn’t kill you to pay attention in class a little more.” He gave a couple impatient curling motions with his index finger. “Come on, show me the hand signs. And do it slowly.”

          TK started to move through the motions slowly. Ex stopped him on the third form. “There,” he said, “stop. You see that? That’s classic distance determination. See the way your fingers are positioned?”

          “Uhh… yeah? But this is the way the spell is cast. You can’t mess it up like that.”

          Ex just shook his head at the blond-headed dullard. “How old are you? Are you seriously still using rote memorization for all your spells? Don’t you know how to make even the standard adjustments?”

          “What would I adjust?”

          “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the aim for one! That’s got to be the most basic adjustment…” He read the blank look in TK’s eyes. “My gods. You don’t even know how to aim? How did you get this far!”

          “Why would I aim a sonamancy spell? They just shoot off in every direction at the same time. That’s what sound does.”

          Ex shook his head sadly. “You really need to read a book some time. I don’t have time for this. Look. See that finger? And that one?” He reached out to the form TK was still holding and slid one of his fingers down so it rested just shy of the crook of his thumb. “Move this one down here and cast the spell again. I’m not even going to explain how it works. Just trust me.”

          TK shrugged. “This would never come up in a battle,” he grumbled, but he did the motions anyway and cast the Silence spell again.

          “Great,” Ex said. He stood up. “Now we can go.”

          “What? No way. The spell didn’t work. I can hear you just fine.”

          “Spell’s working perfectly,” Ex countered. He pointed out the front door of the building where a very subtle red glow hung in the air. “The range is now very far away from you to just slightly farther away than that. It forms a bubble. We can still hear each other, but if anyone enters the bubble nobody outside it will be able to hear them. You have your wish. We can make as much noise as we want.”

          TK nodded appreciably and studied the red glow Ex had pointed out. “That’s cool. I didn’t know I could do that.”

          “Technically you can’t. Don’t drop the spell, there’s no way you’re going to be able to cast it again without my help.”

          “Sure thing,” TK said. He leaned down and picked up his rock. “I’m taking this thing with me. It’s lucky.”

          Ex led him around the corner to the stairwell. “These stairs go two stories up and ten down,” he explained. “We’re going down.”

          They began the long trip down, taking steps two or three at a time. They made quite the racket, but Ex pushed him to maintain the speed. There was no telling when or if someone would happen to walk past the front of the Research building and see the smashed-in door. Their chances of success would go up the shorter their little mission lasted.

          “Hold up!” Ex said when he knew they were close. “There’s going to be a guard up ahead. He’s supposed to check people through to this restricted area. He’ll be waiting at the bottom of the stairs.”

          “Why do we have to stop? You said he won’t be able to call for help. I say we just take him.”

          “Let’s at least go carefully,” Ex urged. “We might be able to sneak up on him if he isn’t looking in the right direction.”

          TK nodded enthusiastically. “Good point. Gotta be sneaky.”

          Sneak. That was the special word. Ex thought he was starting to get a handle on TK’s affectations. If he could just try to frame his suggestions as something cool and “sneaky” the kid would seemingly agree to just about anything. Otherwise, his patience was less than that of a songbird.

          Moving carefully turned out to be a good plan. “I guess they don’t get many visitors around here,” TK snickered quietly. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs to find the guard curled up into his coat, snoring softly.

          TK raised his rock high up over his head. Ex saw what he was about to do and jumped forward to stop him. “Don’t do that! You’ll kill him.”

          “What? No. I was just gonna knock him out for a bit.”

          “With a rock that big? You’ll spill his brains all over the floor. Just leave him be. We’ll be in and out before he wakes up anyways and he won’t wake up if he can’t hear us.”

          They left the guard where he was. Ex darted out of the stairwell first and ran across the front desk and into the next hallway. He signaled TK to follow from around the corner. TK made slow, exaggerated sneaky steps while staring intensely at the sleeping guard. He wasn’t watching where he was going though, and he caught his foot on the end of a chair. He tripped and fell on his face. He popped back up almost instantly with a red mark above his left eye. The chair he tripped on went sliding across the room. He looked around with wide eyes and mouthed something. Ex could only shake his head in disgust. TK scrambled back to his feet and slid the chair back into place, then hurried over. Somehow, the guard on duty slept through the whole ordeal.

          “Sorry,” TK said when he caught back up.

          “Don’t worry about it,” Ex told him with a shake of his head. “Technically you didn’t make a sound. You’re so lucky you have that Silence spell. Now let’s go.”

          As much as Ex yearned to run to the dean’s office and grab as many letters and documents as he could, he knew it was too risky. There were communication runes on the desk, so if the night shift manager was alert for danger he would at least have a chance of summoning the guards up top before they managed to restrain him. Even a small risk was too great when the lives of their fellow students were at stake.

          “This way,” Ex urged, leading TK down the left path. He’d never been down that way merely because nobody he’d shadowed had voluntarily walked in that direction. Perhaps it was because of the moaning and screaming. He didn’t like the place, but the rest of the basement level that he’d explored only contained a few offices and a break room where both the guards and admins took their meals. It was unlikely they’d be keeping the captive students in an office.

          “Do you actually know where you’re going?” TK asked.

          “I have a better idea of it then you. Just follow. And keep your eyes sharp.”

          “Maaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

          “What’s that?” TK asked in alarm.

          “…aaaaaaaaaaah…” The strange moaning grew, then suddenly faded away as they kept walking. Ex knew sounds like that were common from this wing of the basement but he’d never figured out what made them. They came to a T intersection in the hallway. The walls were made of smooth stone and orbs of light were set at regular intervals down both directions. They could see solid iron doors set into the walls. Just at the edge of TK’s faint red bubble of Silence, one such door was close by. That was where the moaning had to have come from, any further away and they wouldn’t hear anything.

          Ex pointed to the door. “Whatever it is, it’s behind that door. It was the only one close enough to be inside your Silence.” They approached the door and listened carefully. The moaning had gone silent, but after a while it picked back up again.

          “Buh, buh, buh, buh…” came a repeated call. The sound of it rose and fell. The door muffled most of the sound.

          “I think it’s actually saying something,” Ex said, turning his ear to the door. “I can’t quite make it out. We should probably keep—”

          BAM!

          Ex jerked his head around to find TK pulling his arms back to bring his lucky stone down on the door a second time. He grabbed the reckless idiot by the elbow. “What are you doing?” He demanded.

          “Breaking ‘em out,” TK answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. There was a deep gash in the metal where his first strike had already landed.

          “Okay, why are you doing that? There’s no way Meridias is in there. Have you ever heard her make sounds like that? It doesn’t even sound like a person.”

          “Maybe they know where Meridias is,” TK suggested. “Whoever’s in there has the first room in this hallway. The others would have had to walk right by.”

          “Do you see a window on this door? Use that brain of yours, Tellas!” Ex used the other student’s first name to help drive his point home. “Whatever is in there isn’t going to help us. And look at these runes.” He pointed to intricate scrollwork embedded in the metal of the door. Like the runes on the door up top, these were designed not to stand out. “You’ve already smashed several of them around the door handle. We have no idea what they do. It’s not worth the risk.”

          “I mean, yeah. That was kind of the point.” TK lowered his smashing rock. “Okay, fine. Let’s leave whatever’s in there alone. Do you know where to go?”

          “Sure.” Ex turned in one direction at random. He had a 50-50 chance of picking the right direction, so he figured he could probably just pretend he knew where he was going anyway. “This way,” he said, “they’ll be keeping them down here.”

          Ex led the way and TK followed after reluctantly. Almost as soon as they turned to leave, a ferocious banging came from the other side of the door. Ex gave TK a fierce glare.

          “What?” TK said. “That wasn’t me.” He held up his rock. “I only hit it the one time.”

          The door was still within the radius of TK’s Silence spell so Ex held up a hand to halt them. “Maybe we should wait and see if it calms down. If we walk away and the guards hear whatever’s in there banging away like that they might come to investigate.”

          “Gaaaaaaah!” called whatever was behind the door. The metal frame shook more and more violently. The gash in the frame started to glow with flecks of red light. Heat spread outward from that point and quickly turned the entire metal door red hot.

          “You know, on second thought maybe we let the guards deal with whatever that thing is.”

          “I like that plan,” TK agreed. “Let’s do that plan instead.”

          Ex turned down the hall. “Then let’s get out of here!” He started to run. He could hear TK’s heavy footfalls behind him. Red light flashed out behind them. It was accompanied by no sound. Ex peeked over his shoulder as he ran and saw the hallway filled with fire. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like it was headed their way. “Shit! It’s coming for us!”

          A few seconds later the moaning sound returned as whatever was following them entered the sphere of TK’s Silence. It was clear they weren’t going to outrun the thing, so Ex turned to fight it. What he saw was pretty intimidating: a massive swirling vortex of fire was headed their way. The fire created a screen that prevented Ex from seeing the person or thing that had cast the spell. He instinctively grabbed a thread of shadows from the ground at his feet and lashed out at the flaming vortex with it. The whip of solid shadow struck the flames and just… dissolved. Ex realized his mistake. Fire was also a light source; his umbramancy was practically useless against anything that bright!

          TK pushed Ex aside and stepped in the path of the flames. His fingers flipped through the hand sign for his Thunderclap spell nearly as fast as thought. There was a loud clap of thunder and the tornado was blasted away into a cloud of warm air.

          “Where did that come from?” TK asked.

          “I think the better question is how many people did you alert with that Thunderclap spell just now! We’re trying to be quiet here!”

          TK rolled his eyes. “Says the guy yelling at me. Relax. That spell isn’t going to extend past the bubble of Silence.”

          Ex suppressed the urge to chastise TK for recklessly testing the limits of a spell he barely knew how to cast properly. He looked back down the hall to see if he could spot whatever had escaped that cell instead. He didn’t see anyone. “Okay, I think whatever did that ran off. Not our problem anymore. Come on, we’ve still got to—”

          Foom!

          Fire erupted in the hallway again. It sprang up spontaneously from the ground in the same place TK had just dissipated it. “What the hell?” TK cursed. “Where did that come from?” The flames quickly grew to a raging vortex again.

          “You didn’t take out the wizard casting the spell!” Ex told him. “What did you expect? You handle this, I’ll find them.”

          “Leave it to me,” TK said. He snapped out another Thunderclap. Ex’s ears were left ringing as the shockwave blasted out of TK and smashed into the tornado. It disappeared once more.

          Ex took the opportunity to cast Dark Sight. The spell was a simple beginner’s umbramancy spell. Dark and light swapped places. The dark hallway became brightly lit to his eyes. There were very few camouflage spells that could hide someone through something like that, even the faint warping of an invisibility spell would be clearly outlined by Dark Sight if cast in a sufficiently dark space. Ex scanned around for any sign of the person casting the fire spell. He didn’t see anything but empty halls in both directions. That left only one other possibility. He darted through the cloud of hot air and got a direct look inside the cell.

          It was empty.

          The tornado reformed once again. A voice emanated from within the flames. It was a sound like the crackling of fresh logs popping in a fireplace. “Buh, buh, buh, burn, burn, burn!” it moaned. The feathers—or hairs—on the back of Ex’s neck stood on end.

          TK unleashed another Thunderclap. The maelstrom of fire dissipated once more. “What kind of fire spell talks like that?” TK asked. “I didn’t know you could do that with fire.”

          “You can’t,” Ex told him. “And there’s nobody here.” He clenched his teeth and dismissed his Dark Sight spell. “There’s only one thing that acts like that and you’re not going to like it.”

          Flames licked the ground as the tornado of fire started to reform once again. “What?” TK demanded. “What is it?”

          “It’s a pyromancy elemental.”

          “Oh,” TK said. He turned back to the growing coruscations of flame and blasted them with another Thunderclap before they’d even finished recovering. “What’s that?” he asked.

          “You actually don’t know? It’s exactly what it sounds like: a manifestation of pure pyromancy. Like a living spell. They have a lot of power and are basically impossible to kill.”

          TK laughed. “Impossible? I just killed that thing like three times. Give me a break.”

          “You’re hurting it, sure, but you can’t kill it like that. The most you can hope to do is weaken it until it’s not a threat anymore. Given enough time it will eventually rebuild its power.”

          “Eventually? I can deal with eventually. We can be out of here by then.”

          “Not that simple,” Ex explained. “You’ll run out of mana for your Thunderclaps long before it gets to that point.”

          “Shit! Why don’t we try running away while it’s busy building back up then?”

          “That actually sounds like a great idea,” Ex agreed. “Let’s go!”

          The two students turned back down the hall and started running. Doors whipped past them but they didn’t bother checking them. Ahead of them the hall made a sharp turn to the left. They ducked behind it just as the light from the fire was starting to return.

          “Hold. On,” TK panted once they were behind cover. “I don’t. Hear it.”

          “That’s just because of your Silence spell.” Ex pushed just his head into the wall and melded it into shadow. He moved it just around the corner of the hallway so he could see the pyromancy elemental without exposing himself. The thing had reformed back to nearly full size but didn’t look like it was headed their way with any urgency. With any luck it would be drawn to the guard on duty and act as a distraction while they escaped with the other students. He pulled his head out of the wall. “Okay, it looks like it’s headed off the other way now. Elementals aren’t very smart so as long as we stay out of sight it should leave us alone.”

          TK had his top lip curled up in disgust. “That was pretty gross, man. If you’re going to do freaky shadow stuff, just do your whole body next time.”

          Ex rolled his eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind. Come on, we can at least check out the rest of these rooms.”

          “And risk another elemental getting out? What if they have loads of those things in here?”

          “Well obviously we’re not going to smash open any doors that don’t sound like they have actual people behind them.”

          “Yeah, sure.” TK turned back down the hall and stopped. “Oh, damn! I dropped my lucky rock back there!”

          “It’s fine. I’m sure we can get by without it.” Ex tried to think about the implications of a pyromancy elemental being locked away in here. Elementals were exceedingly rare creatures in the mortal plane. What were the chances…?

          “But it was lucky,” TK whined. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without that rock.”

          “Yeah, well. We also wouldn’t have almost died to a fire elemental either. A rock is only as good as the—”

          TK held up a hand. “Hey! Do you hear that?”

          It sounded like distant laughter.

          “Yes… I don’t like it.” Ex had heard all kinds of moaning and screaming coming from these chambers in the last few weeks, but never laughter.

          “It’s coming from the other side of this door,” TK said. He pointed at the closest door.

          As they approached they came to the unspoken agreement not to talk and instead listen. Closer to the suspect door they could just start to make out words coming from the other side.

          “…and he was all, ‘What would your parents say if they saw you now?’”

          Another burst of laughter came from behind the door. Ex and TK looked at each other in confusion. Ex shook his head. He had no idea what to make of it.

          “I think that sounded like Meridias,” TK whispered. Ex tried to object, but before he could say anything TK brought his knuckles up and gave the door three quick knocks.

          Bang, bang, bang!

          “Hello?” he called.

          “Coming!” someone said from inside.

          A moment later the thick metal door swung inward. “Sorry about the noise. We’ll try to keep it… TK? Ex?”

          Meridias stood in the doorway. She was wearing pajamas. In the room behind her, three more girls were laying on cots. They all looked up in surprise.

          “Oh, hey, Meridias,” TK said. “We’re here to rescue you.”

          “Rescue? Gods! What are you two idiots doing? You’re going to get us in trouble!”

          Ex and TK shared another look. “In trouble how?” Ex asked. “You do realize you’ve been taken to a secret underground research facility, right?”

          “Well, duh! We were all expelled today but they said we could enroll in a special supplementary training program if we didn’t want to go home.”

          “We all agreed,” one of the girls from the room said.

          “You’re going to get us in trouble!” another of the girls repeated.

          The picture of what was really going on in this facility finally snapped into focus for Ex. “You girls can’t stay here,” he told them firmly. “Whatever the school told you was a lie to keep you complacent. This facility… I think they’ve found a way to turn people into elementals.” It explained everything. Sometimes, when the pieces of the puzzle fit so perfectly it was for a damn good reason. Ex made a mental note to include this in his next report…

          “You can trust us,” TK said, “we’re spies.”

          Ex snapped his head around and fixed TK with a fierce-eyed glare. “I thought we talked about this!” he shouted.

          TK threw up his hands. “What do you want me to do? Their lives are at stake here. We can’t just lie to them.”

          Ex sighed. He was right, of course. “Fine,” Ex said to the girls. “We’re spies and this is an illegal military testing facility. If you want to live, come with us.”

          Meridias looked at them suspiciously. “This all sounds really—”

          TK grabbed her wrist. “Come on,” he urged, “if we’re lying we’ll take all the blame. But if we’re telling the truth?”

          “You won’t die,” Ex finished.

          Meridias rolled her eyes. “How about this,” she said. She pulled her arm away from TK. “If this turns out to be bullshit and you get us all expelled for real, you agree to pay all of our tuitions at Denicus Academy.”

          TK blinked. “That would be…”

          “Yeah, a lot of money, even for you.”

          TK nodded. “Deal. Now let’s get the hell outta here!”

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