NOVEL NEXT Chapter Twenty-Eight: Start of a New Year
I stepped into the classroom, and frowned. Kybar was sitting there, looking around nervously, but he seemed to be the only other person in the classroom. On the blackboard was written 'Intermediate Ethics: Understanding Stressors', so it seemed like it was supposed to be the right class, but…
"Where is everyone?" I asked as I walked to take a seat across from Kybar. Hadn't Yushin said she'd be taking Ethics in the same time slot? She should be here. Well, she'd said 'her' ethics course…
"I don't know," Kybar said, shifting uncomfortably. "I didn't really think Ethics was that bad of a class. I knew Emir said most of us would fail, but it didn't seem like that many people were bad people."
I nodded my agreement, and we waited in an awkward silence until the naiad student who had been in my first year course shuffled in. She glanced around awkwardly, then asked the same question I had, only to be met with essentially the same speech.
"That's… strange," she said, shuffling as she sat down, then extended a hand to each of us. "My name is Rhodisa, by the way. You're Emrys, right? And…?"
"Emrys of White Sands," I agreed, giving her a quick handshake. Her hand was uncomfortably wet, which I supposed made some sense for a naiad.
"I'm Kybar," the bulky minotaur said, shaking her hand enthusiastically. Before anyone else could say anything, professor Emir strode in, his massive frame and voice filling the near-empty classroom, the door snapping shut behind him.
"Welcome everyone. I'm glad to see that so many of you passed into second year. Normally, we only get one person passing into second year ethics, while everyone else has to repeat."
I glanced around, frowning.
"I don't think that Salem or Yushin are that unreasonable, or that far along in the Creep…"
"Salem is something of a special case, but I'd think twice about saying Yushin hasn't displayed any signs of the Creep," Emir said. His voice was calm, nonjudgemental, and I pushed down the immediate impulse to defend my friends, and instead tried to think logically about it.
Yushin had always been distant, and I didn't think that the Creep had anything to do with that. She was just like that – not everyone could be a bag of hugs and cuddles.
But at the same time, hadn't she explicitly been hoping for us to be attacked by two of the dark sect cultivators for the explicit purpose of letting us kill one of them, loot them, and get the reward for their lives? Killing dark sect cultivators who were happy to kill her was a far cry from the worst pre-aberrant signs of the Creep. She wasn't suggesting we hunt or steal from innocent people for personal power. But she had still hoped to get the chance to kill someone for money. She hadn't talked about getting rid of the threat to the city, or about the diminished threat to her uncle, or even to her own life. It had been about the money.
Of course, I wasn't Salem, I couldn't see inside her head. It was entirely possible that those motivations had been a part of her thought process, and she'd simply found them unnecessary to voice.
"Don't worry too much about your friend," Emir said, and his voice had softened from calm professionalism to something kinder. "It's very common to have to repeat the first year. After your little summer incident, you were almost bumped down. As long as they can push through and learn to self-reflect better, they'll be able to make up lost progress."
I swallowed and nodded my thanks to professor Emir. Then a thought struck me.
"What about Jackson? I refuse to believe that I did better in ethics class than him. He can be overbearing, but he's practically a perfect paragon."
"Jackson…" Emir said, frowning and pursing his lips. "Oh, the priest that's on your combat team?"
"Yes, him, Jackson Uyer. He was supposed to have class at this time too."
"I'm not the only ethics professor, Emrys," Emir said, a hint of a wry smile on his face. "Just because I can manage three simulacra doesn't mean that I can do everything. I don't know for certain that he has professor Grisham, but she does have a class at this same time, and I'd assume that's where your friend is."
"Oh. That's… Fair," I said, and I felt my face start to heat up in embarrassment. "Sorry."
Emir just laughed, shaking his head, and then clapped.
"Alright! There's no sense in pulling this out longer than it needs to be. The second year of this course is about identifying how external stressors can push you further along the path of the Creep."
He pointed at Kybar.
"Your entire family are all mages, and two thirds of them have graduated from either the Citadel of Ether or the Institute of Magedom, right? How often have you felt the pressure of needing to perform to their standards? Have you ever considered copying down work from someone else, in order to pass the especially difficult mathematics portions of your force magic classes?"
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Kybar shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"I'd be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind, but I didn't do it."
"And that's very good," professor Emir agreed. "Thoughts happen to everyone, and with the exception of certain mental conditions, hurt no-one. Actions, on the other hand, cannot even be undone. Not even gods of time, nor any time affinity on record, can go backwards to change things. Magyk seems to disallow it. That's an easy stressor to identify. This course will help you manage that, as well as learn the mental wellness tools to identify when other stressors are influencing your actions."
He pointed at Rhodisa.
"Pressure for you is also an easy one to determine. Your affinity for aquatic creatures is potent enough to allow you to express far more power from your bloodline than nearly any other of your kind. Not only that, but it makes you a valuable commodity. How many naiads, merfolk, or others have approached you in hopes of either improving an extent or igniting a dormant bloodline?"
I couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy at the naiad woman having an affinity that covered not only her own species, but also many others. If I had one, then not only would my current problem with the missing brazier be over, but who knew what kind of modifications I'd be able to make to a merged pool of power?
"A lot," the naiad admitted. "Also, I've been asked to kiss people like four times, and I don't know why."
"The naiad's kiss ritual lets a person breathe underwater, and requires a kiss to complete," I said idly. It was still on my list of things I wanted to do, though admittedly, it was very low.
"Huh. I guess that makes some sense."
"We're getting off track. Emrys, last year you had a lot of pressure, and you turned to blood magic in order to escape it. But how often did the idea of delving deeper, and learning the blood magic spells that allow you to pull power from other people's blood occur to you?"
"I don't think it did, or if it did, it was just an idle thought. I wasn't too sure of those spells' existence. Though, do they work with demons? If they do, that could be a useful source of power from beyond the wall."
Emir blinked, seemingly caught flat footed by the response, and stared at me intently. He seemed to be able to tell I was serious, either through personal experience in reading people, or though some kind of truth telling spell. Both were unreliable, but luckily for him, I really wasn't lying. The idea hadn't ever seriously occurred to me.
"And you've already mentioned you don't have draconic greed," Emir muttered, seemingly under his own breath. "Kindling… That's what she…"
"I might. I hoard secrets a bit. But that might just be professor Toadweather rubbing off on me," I said. "But yeah, I don't hoard wealth, and I find the idea of hoarding people pretty deplorable. That's not to say I've never felt the influence of the Creep, though. I'm sure I have. I mean, just a few days ago, I was refusing to share information with someone being open with me."
Emir squinted at me, then seemed to move on.
"Right. Well, unusual things aside, this class is going to focus on helping you learn when stressors are influencing your actions, and how to deal with them. Even setting aside that actions taken under stress are more likely to push you along the path of the Creep, they can also damage relationships."
"I don't intend to have any relationships," Rhodisa said. "I've never found them to be especially interesting."
"Not romantic relationships," Emir sighed. "Well. Yes, romantic ones. But not just them. Relationships of friendship, family, and even co-workers. All of them can be made worse by stress."
Rhodisa muttered something under her breath about how the bloodline tongue of water was so much better at explaining the differences around love and relationships than Ceylish, but professor Emir ignored her and pushed on.
"As a personal example, my husband was injured in the attack of the Dreki Matriarch Aberrant. That put me under stress, and I snapped at one of my coworkers when they said the attack hadn't been that bad. Objectively, they were correct. But I lashed out and hurt the feelings of a coworker because of stress. This might not have pushed me further along the Creep, but it still did real damage. So, let's begin with our first technique: writing."
He held up a hand as if to forestall us from complaining.
"I know that writing out a list of things that may be affecting your emotional state isn't exactly exciting, but it can be a surprisingly revelatory exercise. I encourage you to think about all possible…"
The rest of the class passed by easily enough, with us starting out on a handful of the most basic exercises to identify stress. Throughout the rest of the course, we'd be learning more techniques, meditations, frameworks for thinking about our own thinking, and more things besides.
After the class, I headed down to the mess hall. Kybar followed me, apparently also trying to grab lunch between classes. I was served a salad with some oranges, strawberries, grilled chicken, and a lemon vinaigrette. Kybar sat across from me, receiving a similar dish, but with a firm white fish instead of chicken.
"What's your next class?" I asked in between bites.
"Practical Magecraft," he responded, snorting his bull nostrils. "I know it's not required, but I think it's a good idea to take it. What other courses will cover ether shaping techniques, useful spells for everyday life, and rituals?"
"Oh, same here. Are you also taking it with professor Silverbark, just like first year?"
"Yep. He did a good job in first year, so I wanted to take him again. Is Yushin gonna be there again?"
His voice was overly casual, to the point it was clear he was forcing it. I wasn't sure if he found Yushin attractive, scary, or both, but I reassured him.
"No, she's taking an illusion course right now. Salem, my boyfriend, is taking it in this time slot. If he has professor Silverbark as well, I'll introduce you."
"That would be lovely," Kybar said. "Though I thought you were dating Wesley?"
I jerked, nearly dropping my fork.
"What?! No! What gave you that impression?!"
"I mean… you two were constantly staring at one another."
"Glaring. Not staring. He's a prick. Salem's a sweetheart."
Kybar shrugged and took a bite of his salad, clearly not agreeing with my assessment, but unwilling to push the issue. After a few moments, he asked me what other courses I was taking, and I talked about mine, while he talked about force magic and his force affinity. Before long, though, we had to put our dishes in the tray and head to the large, gymnasium-esque room for our next course.