77 – Baths?

The Kushtar Mountain Range is perhaps Laika’s largest natural wonder. It extends north and never seems to end. The valleys to the south hold marvelous cities. Samarand and its seven temples, Goodpeak, and Imatha.

As one wanders deeper, they’ll find remote valleys where civilization has yet to extend its reach. Unclaimed land where monsters strong enough to flatten cities roam freely. Ghosts, demons, fiends.

But make no mistake, humans, too, inhabit the deepest depths of Kushtar. And we shall find them.

Excerpt from Letter of Intention Regarding Kushtar, from Samir Batsed.

Alexandra shoved Clarity of Mind inside a drawer of her desk and opened the door to find Louis.

“Oh,” she said. “Hey. What’s up?”

He tilted his head forward. “You’re a bad actress. I’m expecting troubles.”

“Troubles? No, never.”

Louis stared. “Can I come in?”

Alexandra looked back into her room. The stolen book was hidden, but Louis was a thief himself. “How about we go out instead? I’m starving.”

“Fine. I’d rather not know what you did, anyway.”

She and Louis walked to the refectory, filled their trays, and found a table. Alexandra started eating, leaving a sliver of attention on her mana with the hopes she would detect the slightest hint of the malediction.

“Have you talked to him?” Louis asked.

“I have. Yesterday,” she answered, mouth half-full.

“How was it?”

She paused. “Weird. The time difference is making it weird.”

“I can imagine.” Louis grabbed a piece of bread. “But what do you think of him?”

“He’s…” she trailed. “Fine, I guess? Better than I expected. It doesn’t feel like he wants to kill me, so that’s a start. What about you?”

“Me?”

She drank from her cup. “You talked to him too, didn’t you?”

Louis nodded. “A great honor. The opportunity to study here is more than I could have asked for. His conflict with her makes me feel more secure, too. I have to thank you. It wouldn’t be possible without you.”

She waved her hand. “You’d find a way. What classes did you take?”

“Mana Control, Spatial Theory, and Enchantment Detection,” he said. “There’s a Warding class tomorrow, too.” He tore the bread in half. “What about you?”

“Something about curses and geography.” She planted her fork in a piece of meat. “The first one was interesting.”

Louis nodded. “He mentioned you’d be starting with the fundamentals.”

She looked up. “He said that?”

“In passing. He’s been in your shoes. I think he knows what he’s doing.”

“Right.” She chewed. Swallowed.

Louis glanced at her. “It’s not a bad thing, Alexandra.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Willow dropped her tray across from Alexandra.

“You actually came.” She looked pleased. “I thought you’d bail.”

Willow sat. She smiled at Louis. “Hi. I’m Willow. I’ve heard nothing about you.”

Louis glanced at Alexandra. “Louis.”

“Where are you from?”

Louis claimed Esmera. Willow asked follow-up questions in quick succession and listened to the answers with genuine attention. Within ten minutes she had his first impression of the academy and whether he’d been to the Iron Library yet and offered her own opinions on both without being asked.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Alexandra ate and said little.

She kept her senses on her mana and watched the threads. Still nothing.

“By the way, Alexandra,” Willow said. “Did they show you where the baths are?”

She raised her head. “The baths? Why?”

Louis and Willow looked at her.

Over the next three days, she learned where the baths were, and Willow forced her to use them every evening.

Every morning began with two new classes. The second day had her join Basic Mana Manipulation, only attended by Irons, and then a history lesson. The third morning gave her Monster Taxonomy and Theology, while the fourth was Spell Theory and Mana Sensing.

Other than that, Alexandra spent most of her time at the refectory, which was conveniently open through the night. She’d quickly dropped the habit of sleeping more than four hours. Her increased constitution more than allowed for shorter nights.

It was getting harder to get Louis to eat with her. He was busy with his own training, and spent most of his free time on the Gold floor of the library. Thankfully, Willow made the effort to be present. Maybe it was their shared secret, but the two of them had hit it off. The Silver had even compiled a list of books she should read from the Iron floor.

It made her think of Lara. She winced, chasing that thought away.

Sitting in classes, eating, reading, and working on Curse Unraveling took most of her day. She was making fast progress thanks to the skill. After training on curse of weakness until it caused her no difficulty, she moved on to using Dark Bolt to generate random curses.

Some of them proved too puzzling for her to solve, like the curse of stupidity. Others, like the curse of mana blindness, seemed impossible to cure with her method. She couldn’t exactly unknit a pattern in her mana if she couldn’t sense mana at all. But, overall, she was getting better at spotting the curse patterns and unraveling them. But she still hadn’t found a hint of her sickness, and even less of her malediction.

In all this time, Raymond hadn’t contacted her again, and she hadn’t seen Qafit either.

Through all that, she didn’t miss a single daily quest. Of course she wouldn’t. Though, she had to admit the last three had been relatively simple.