2. Life’s Little Problems

Chapter 002
Life’s Little Problems

Although the academy loved saying they were an elite institution thanks to the excellent quality of its teaching staff, the truth was that the main reason for their supremacy was their library. Through contributions of its alumni, generous budget allocations by a number of former headmasters, quirks of local criminal law, and sheer historical accident, the academy had built a library without equal. You could find anything you wanted, regardless of whether the topic was magical or not – there was a whole section reserved for steamy romance novels, for instance. The library was so massive it had actually expanded into the tunnels beneath the city. Many of the lower levels were only accessible to guild mages, so it was only now that Zorian was allowed to browse their contents. Fortunately, the library was open during the weekend, so the very first thing Zorian did when he woke up was descend into these depths to see what he’d been missing these past two years and maybe fill out his spellbook a bit.

He was pleasantly surprised at the sheer number of spells and training manuals available to a first circle mage. There were more books and spells than he could master in a lifetime. Most of the spells were either highly situational or minor variations of each other, so he didn’t feel the need to obsessively learn all of them, but he could already see this place would keep him busy all year round. A lot of them looked surprisingly easy and harmless, and he couldn’t help but wonder why they were kept on the restricted level instead of being available to everyone. He could have used these during his second year.

He was right in the middle of trying to find the rain barrier the academy incorporated into its ward scheme when he realized he had skipped breakfast and was getting awfully hungry, and that it was past noon. Reluctantly, he checked out a couple of books to pore over in depth in the safety of his room and went to get something to eat.

There was no kitchen in his room, sadly, but the academy had a pretty good cafeteria available to students – the food they offered was cheap yet surprisingly edible. Still, it was something of a poor man’s option, and most of the richer kids ate in one of the many restaurants in the vicinity of the academy. That’s why Zorian was a bit shocked when he entered the cafeteria and realized that changes to the academy weren’t only in exterior appearances – the cafeteria was positively sparkling, and all the tables and chairs were brand new. It was weird to see the place so… clean.

Shaking his head, he quickly loaded a couple of plates on his tray, idly noting the cooks were a lot less stingy with the meat and other expensive parts of the dish all of a sudden, and then started scanning the eating students for familiar faces. Clearly something was happening here, and he hated being left outside the loop.

“Zorian! Over here!”

How fortunate. Zorian immediately set off towards the chubby boy gesturing for him to come over. Zorian had learned over the years that his exuberant classmate was firmly plugged into the academy gossip network, and knew pretty much everything and everyone. If anyone would know what was going on, it would be Benisek.

“Hello, Ben,” Zorian said. “I’m surprised to see you in Cyoria so soon. Don’t you usually come with the last train?”

“I should be asking you that!” Benisek half-shouted. Zorian never understood why the boy had to be so loud all the time. “I came here so early but you’re already here!”

“You came back two days before classes start, Ben,” Zorian said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at him. Only Benisek would think that coming a couple of days early is some great feat worth mentioning. “That’s not all that early. And I just got back yesterday.”

“So did I,” Benisek said. “Damn. If you had contacted me, we could have arranged to travel together or something. You must have been bored out of your mind here, all alone for a whole day.”

“Something like that,” agreed Zorian, smiling politely.

“So are you excited?” Benisek asked, suddenly changing the topic.

“About what?” Zorian asked. Funny, hadn’t Kirielle asked him the exact same question?

“The start of a new year! We’re third years now, that’s when the real fun starts.”

Zorian blinked. To his knowledge, Benisek was one of those people who weren’t terribly concerned about their success in the arcane arts. He already had a guaranteed post in his family business, and was here simply to obtain the prestige of being a licensed mage. Zorian had half expected him to drop out immediately following certification, yet here he was, just as excited as Zorian to finally start delving into the real mysteries of magic. Now he felt pretty bad about writing him off so quickly. He really shouldn’t be so presumptuous…

“Oh, that. Of course I’m excited. Though I must admit I never knew you actually cared about your education.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Benisek, eying him suspiciously. “The girls, man, I’m talking about the girls. The younger ones love upperclassmen like us! The new batch of first years will be all over us.”

Zorian groaned. He should have known.

“Anyway,” said Zorian, recovering quickly, “since I know you’re always gossiping around-“

“Informing myself about the current state of things,” Benisek cut in, his voice assuming a mock-lecturing quality.

“Right. What’s with the academy being all sparkly and clean all of a sudden?”

Benisek blinked. “You didn’t know? Oh man, people have been talking about this for months! Just which rock do you live under, Zorian?”

“Cirin is a glorified village in the middle of nowhere… as you very well know,” Zorian said. “Now spill.”

“It’s the summer festival,” Benisek said. “The whole city is getting ready for it, not just the academy.”

“But there’s a summer festival every year,” Zorian said, confused.

“Yeah, but this year is special.”

“Special?” Zorian asked. “How?”

“I don’t know, some astrological bullshit,” Benisek whined, waving his hand dismissively. “Why does it matter? It’s an excuse to have an even bigger party than usual. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I say.”

“Astro-“ began Zorian with a quirked eyebrow when something occurred to him. “Wait, you mean planetary alignment?”

“Yeah, that,” Benisek agreed. “What’s that anyway?”

“Do you have a couple of hours?”

“On second thought, I don’t want to know,” Benisek quickly backpedaled, chuckling nervously.

Zorian snorted. So easy to scare. The truth was that Zorian knew very little about planar alignments, and probably couldn’t speak about them longer than 30 seconds. It was a pretty obscure topic. Zorian strongly suspected that Benisek was right, and that it was being used simply as an excuse to have a bigger party.

“So what did you do over the summer?” Benisek asked.

Zorian groaned. “Ben, you sound like my elementary school literature teacher. ‘Now, children, for your homework you will write a short essay about what you did during the summer holidays.’”

“I’m just being polite,” Benisek said defensively. “No need to snap at me because you wasted your summer away.”

“Oh, and you spent it productively?” Zorian challenged.

“Well, not voluntarily,” Benisek admitted sheepishly. “Father decided it was time I start learning the family craft, so I spent all summer helping him and acting as his assistant.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Benisek agreed, clacking his tongue. “He also made me choose estate management as one of my electives. I hear it’s a really tough class too.”

“Hm. Can’t say my summer was particularly stressful. I spent most of my time reading fiction and avoiding my family,” admitted Zorian. “Mother tried to dump my little sister on me this year, but I managed to talk her out of it.”

“I feel for you,” Benisek said with a shudder. “I’ve got two younger sisters and I think I’d die if they came to live with me here. They’re both utter nightmares! Anyway, what did you take for your electives?”

“Engineering, Mineral Alchemy, and Advanced Mathematics.”

“Eh!?” Benisek blanched. “Man, you’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you? I guess you’re gunning for a spot in one of the spell forges, huh?”

“Yeah,” Zorian said.

“Why?” Benisek asked incredulously. “Designing magic items… that’s a tough, demanding job. Surely your parents could find you a spot in their business?”

Zorian gave him a strained smile. Yes, no doubt his parents already had a spot all planned out for him.

“I’d rather starve out in the streets,” Zorian told him honestly.

Benisek raised an eyebrow at him, but then simply shook his head sadly. “I think you’re crazy, personally. Who did you choose as your mentor?”

“I didn’t get to choose,” Zorian scoffed. “There was only one left by the time it was my turn to do so. I’m mentored under Xvim.”

Benisek actually dropped his spoon at this, staring at him in shock. “Xvim!? But that guy’s a nightmare!”

“I know,” Zorian said, releasing a long-suffering sigh.

“God, I’d probably transfer if I got assigned to that asshole,” Benisek said. “You’re a lot braver a man than I, that’s for sure.”

“So who did you choose?” Zorian asked curiously.

“Carabiera Aope,” Benisek said, immediately brightening.

“Please don’t tell me you chose your mentor based on appearance?” begged Zorian.

“Well, not just based on appearance,” Benisek said defensively. “They say she’s pretty tolerant…”

“You don’t want to do any extra work,” Zorian surmised.

“This whole thing is like a vacation to me,” Benisek admitted sheepishly. “I get to postpone employment for two years and have some fun in the meantime. You’re only young once, you know?”

Zorian shrugged. Personally he found learning about magic and gathering knowledge in general to be fun all by itself, but he knew all too well that very few people shared this opinion with him.

“I suppose,” Zorian said noncommittally. “So is there anything else that everyone knows that I should be familiar with?”

He spent another hour or so conversing with Benisek, touching upon a variety of topics. It was particularly interesting to hear which of their classmates would be joining them this year and which ones wouldn’t. Zorian had thought the certification exam was a bit on the easy side, but apparently he was mistaken, since roughly a quarter of their classmates would not be joining them. He did notice that most of the failed students were civilian-born ones, but this wasn’t terribly unusual – mage-born students had parental support when learning magic, and a reputation to live up to. He was pleasantly surprised that one particular asshole wouldn’t be joining them this year – apparently Veyers Boranova lost his temper on his disciplinary hearing and got himself expelled from the academy. He wouldn’t be missed. Honestly, that boy was a menace and it was a disgrace they hadn’t expelled him sooner. Fortunately, it seemed there were some things that just couldn’t be overlooked, even if you were an heir of Noble House Boranova.

He left when Benisek started discussing pros and cons of various girls in their class, not willing to get dragged into such a discussion, and went back to his room to get some reading done. He hadn’t even opened the first book properly when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Very few people cared to track him down to his room, so he actually had a pretty good idea of who it was before he even opened the door.

“Hi, Roach!”

Zorian stared at the grinning girl in front of him, contemplating whether to take offense at the insulting nickname before shooing her inside. In the past, while he was still crushing on her, the nickname had kind of hurt… now it was just slightly annoying. Taiven promptly ran inside and jumped on his bed like a little kid. Really, what had he ever seen in her? Beside a beautiful older girl who was fairly nice to him and had a propensity to wear form-fitting clothes, that is.

“I thought you graduated,” he said.

“I did,” she answered, taking one of the spellbooks he borrowed from the library into her lap to leaf through it. Seeing how she had already taken over his bed, he sat down on the chair in front of his work desk. “But you know how it goes – there’s always too many young mages, never enough masters willing to take them under their wing. I’m working as a class assistant for Nirthak. Hey, if you took nonmagical combat you’re going to see me all the time!”

“Yeah, right,” Zorian snorted. “Nirthak blacklisted me in advance, just in case I get any ideas.”

“Really!?”

“Yeah. Not that I would ever sign up for a class like that anyway,” Zorian said. Except maybe to watch Taiven all sweaty and puffed up in that tight outfit she always wore whenever she trained.

“Pity,” she said, seemingly engrossed in his book. “You really should put on some muscle one of these days. Girls like boys who exercise.”

“I don’t care what girls like,” Zorian snapped crankily. She was starting to sound like his mother. “Why are you here anyway?”

“Oh calm down, it was just a thought,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Boys and their fragile little egos.”

“Taiven, I like you, but you’re really treading on thin ice here,” Zorian warned.

“I came here to ask if you would join me and a couple of others on a job tomorrow,” she said, throwing the book aside and finally getting to the point of her visit.

“A job?” Zorian asked suspiciously.

“Yeah. Well, more like a mission. You know those job postings people tack onto the big board inside the administrative building?”

Zorian nodded. Whenever a mage in the city wanted something done for cheap, he posted a ‘job offer’ there for interested students. The payout was generally miserable, but students had to collect ‘points’ by doing these, so everyone had to do a number of them. Most people didn’t start doing these before their fourth year, unless they really needed the money, and Zorian fully intended to follow this tradition.

“There is a pretty nice one there,” Taiven said. “It’s actually just a simple find and retrieve in the tunnels below the city that-“

“A sewer run!?” asked Zorian incredulously, cutting her off. “You want me to go on a sewer run?”

“It’s good experience!” Taiven protested.

“No,” said Zorian, crossing his arms. “No way.”

“Oh come on, Roach, I’m begging you!” Taiven whined. “We can’t apply until we find a fourth member of the team! Would it kill you to make this tiny sacrifice for your old friend?”

“It very well might!” Zorian said.

“You’ll have three other people to protect you!” she assured. “We’ve been there hundreds of times and nothing really dangerous ever happens down there – the rumors are mostly exaggerated.”

Zorian snorted and looked away. Even if they really did keep him safe, it was still a trek through smelly, disease-ridden tunnels with three people he didn’t really know, and who probably resented having to bring him along for the sake of a formality.

Besides, he still hadn’t forgiven her for that fake date she invited him on. She may not have known he was crushing on her at the time, but it was still a pretty insensitive thing she did that evening.

Also, he might feel a little more inclined to help if she stopped calling him ‘Roach’. It was not nearly as cute as she thought it was.

“Okay, how about a bet?” she tried.

“No,” Zorian promptly refused.

She let out an affronted cry. “You didn’t even hear me out!”

“You want to fight,” Zorian said. “You always want to fight.”

“So?” she pouted. “You chickening out? You’re admitting you’d lose to a girl?”

“Absolutely,” Zorian deadpanned. Both of Taiven’s parents were martial arts practitioners, and they had taught her how to fight since she could walk. Zorian wouldn’t last five seconds against her in hand-to-hand combat.

Hell, he doubted anyone in school would do much better.

Taiven waved her hands in the air in a frustrated gesture and promptly collapsed on his bed, and for a moment Zorian actually thought she was accepting defeat. Then she sat up and folded her legs under her until she was sitting in a lotus position. The smile on her face was giving Zorian a bad feeling.

“So,” she began cheerfully. “How have you been?”