Flinging Rocks at Bureaucrats in a Magical Academy

The Eidralith? The stony box that looks like a piece of veined quartz?

The inert box that the upperclassmen had tried so hard to invoke after so many years had responded.

He jolted in surprise—

—and his satchel tilted.

With a series of cheerful clunk, clink, eleven more hideous, completely useless stones cascaded out and hit the polished sanctum floor like a pocket-sized rockslide. They stopped only when a particularly big stone nudged against the base of the dais . . .

The Headmaster, Archmagus Murelien Draeth looked down at the dozen Stupenstones littered across the sanctum. “Kestovar,” he said, voice like falling granite, “do you imagine yourself amusing?”

Fabrisse opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, “. . . not usually.”

A ripple of horrified disbelief spread through the assembled magi.

Draeth took a single step forward. “You have failed more courses than any apprentice in recorded history,” he said, voice rising now. “You can’t conjure a spark without singing your eyebrows. You once submitted a stanza instead of a methodology section. And yet—yet—you continue to squander what limited time and limited attention you possess on these . . . these geological droppings!” He jabbed a finger at the mauve-flecked stones as though they might explode. “You parade your incompetence like a badge! You disrupt a sacred invocation to chase rubble!”

The Archmagus sure remembers a lot about a student he claims to not care about . . .

It wasn’t entirely fair to judge him based on his failings in Basic Thaumaturgy. He’d passed Introduction to Air, Fire, and Water Thaumaturgy I and II on his first try, scoring over 45 out of a possible 50 on the Theory portion for each of them to offset the meager 6s and 7s out of 50 for the Practical tests. Unfortunately, passing Practical was mandatory for the main units, and no amount of booksmart was going to compensate for emotional incompetence.

Lorvan Lugano, however, had told him that as skewed as his grades were, he could land a post in a research position if he could keep up the excellent grades in Theory and pass the Practical units with just enough flair to not make a mockery of himself. He hadn’t skipped a theoretical lecture in over a year.

“Permit me to speak, Archmagus,” Fabrisse muttered, “technically it’s sub-aetherically inert metamorphic residue with unclassified matrix potential—”

“Silence!” Draeth thundered.

The winds that weren’t there a moment ago came roaring through the sanctum, stirred not by any open door or window, but by the Archmagus’ command of Thaumaturgic Gale. The gale was crimson, the color of rage. They coiled through the rafters and howled against the stained-glass moons above, rattling every banner on its pole.

Fabrisse instinctively shielded himself with his robe. That was too loud and too sudden.

“Nonsensical babble! That is why,” the Archmagus snarled, voice echoing through the chamber, “the Origins have never blessed you with a trace of true gift! No magic reverence! Because you have the soul of a hedge-rat and the priorities of a moth!”

Nonsensical babble? That’s Stone Thaumaturgy theory. I get you don’t like practical incompetence, but you can’t just dismiss theory.

Fabrisse’s mouth opened, but he had absolutely nothing to say.

Lorvan stepped forward.

“Headmaster Draeth,” he said, inclining his head. “If I may—”

“You may not,” Draeth snapped, already turning the full weight of his disdain. “Unless it is to apologize for the catastrophic standard of apprentices you continue to advance.” The sound of Draeth’s voice flattened, like someone speaking underwater. Fabrisse blinked slowly, focusing on the mauve flecks in the stones.

Lorvan’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

Draeth turned to the assembled congregation with theatrical derision. “Consider, for contrast, Mentor Rubidi—whose pupil, Magus-Student Severa Montreal of the Ninth Tier, has not only completed her trials a full annum early, but has already drafted three treatises on transference theory and translated the Sixth Flame Canticle into pre-Draconic syllabary.”

As if on cue, Rubidi, resplendent in a robe stitched with glyphs no one else had earned, lifted her chin a smidge, the kind of smug gesture that required years of practice. Beside her stood Severa, a statuesque figure of impossible posture, wearing the faintest trace of a victorious smirk. Her hair, a precise cascade of ink-dark coils pinned into a faultless spiral, looked like it had never known the concept of wind. Even her uniform robes looked somehow sharper than regulation, cinched at the waist with a clasp etched in her House sigil.

Severa glanced at Fabrisse like one might glance at a pigeon that had wandered into a royal banquet. Rubidi gave Lorvan a glance that might as well have been a sympathy wreath.

Draeth raised both arms, silencing the room once more with nothing but presence.

“This is not merely ceremonial,” he intoned. “This is the first true awakening in nearly half a century. The Eidralith has stirred. It is a gift from the Origins themselves, bound in mystery and power older than speech. And for the first time in over two Spans, it calls.”

The silence in the sanctum deepened in ways Fabrisse didn’t think possible.

“Not to the loudest,” Draeth continued, voice ringing like a bell. “Not to the cleverest tongue. But to the most steadfast. To those who have shown reverence, devotion, and scholarly mastery beyond their years.”

He swept a hand toward the dais, where a shrouded, towering form throbbed beneath coils of braided silver chain.

“Only the most accomplished among you may earn a Vothiculum, a sacred chance to attempt resonance with the Eidralith. A chance, I must remind you, that many will never see in their lifetimes.” The Vothiculum was just the name of the ritual where you try to earn the mysterious box’s respect. Fabrisse didn’t know why there should be a name for every little thing, but there was anyway.

A hushed murmur rippled through the ranks. Somewhere behind the third column, someone actually clutched their heart.

The Archmagi had never explained why students had to be the ones to attempt resonance. There were theories among the students, of course: that the Eidralith rejected minds calcified by age, that the cosmic frequency of adolescence was more compatible with the stone, or that the box simply hated wrinkles. Whatever the case, the rule was unshakable. The performer of the resonance must be an undergraduate.

Then Draeth turned back to Fabrisse with a gaze like a hammerstone. “You shall stay,” he said. “Not to participate. But to witness. So that you may at last comprehend what it means to be worthy. So that you may see the reward of diligence, and what becomes of those who choose the path of reverence over rubble. But first, pick up your rocks.” His robes swished as he pivoted.

Fabrisse stared at the floor.

Of course Severa gets to try first. She gets every first. Even Nora and Aldren—actual hardworking magi—haven’t been invited to go first once. They’ve studied for years and haven’t so much as touched the box. But nooo, Severa does one flawless flame braid and suddenly she’s Destiny’s chosen frypan.

Severa Montreal was the best sixteen-year-old he’d ever seen, and she was attending lectures in many final year subjects, which would mean she was on track to graduate by seventeen. He didn’t know if that would set a new record.

He also didn’t know if Severa would have achieved that level of success had Draeth not decided to all but adopt her as a personal project. That alone was a ridiculous advantage. One private review a week with a High Instructant, plus personal access to annotated spell-rotas. There had also been whispers that she’d been allowed to test prototypes of new resonant glyph matrices before they even passed peer audit.

From the far end of the chamber, a heavy door creaked open, and the attendant emerged. No one knew his name. He had no robes, no sigils, no house crest. Just a face carved by years and eyes that never quite blinked at the right time.

Behind him floated the Eidralith.

The box itself was roughly the size of a bread loaf, but that was the only familiar thing about it. It drifted, bound in writhing aether chains that twisted like smoke caught in amber. Veins of raw energy traced along its edges, threading themselves through the chains, which sparked gently as they adjusted to the pulse.

The chamber went completely still. Even Severa straightened a little more.

The Eidralith floated to its resting place: an obsidian pedestal etched with warding runes that glowed in a lambent violet as it descended. The aether chains settled too, coiling midair in neat, watchful spirals.

He crouched to retrieve his shame, stone by stone. Each one was louder than it had any right to be. As if they weren’t rocks, but proof. Proof of his failure, of stubbornness, of dreams so unmagical and mundane they couldn’t even spark in his imagination.

What’s wrong with rocks? I can go into theoretical strata research if I know enough about rocks. But Draeth had never seemed to care for theoretical research.

He reached for the largest one when a second hand came into view.

Lorvan bent beside him and began helping.

They said nothing. The air was too thick with the aftertaste of public humiliation.

Fabrisse risked a glance. “Thank you,” he mouthed soundlessly.

Lorvan didn’t respond. He just shoved the last of the stones into Fabrisse’s satchel and walked away without a word.