Chapter 14: First Term Feast

Suria’s third day at Darkmoon University was mostly peaceful and filled with reading, which was a relief. After her terrible first hour, part of her had been afraid that her time there would be a never-ending ordeal where she’d never get to study magic. Now she could sink into her books, though they only made her hungry for deeper understanding of their subjects.

The first disruption was actually the sound of loud drums pounding out music, apparently coming from outside the building. When it persisted, even growing louder, she and Maut-mai left to figure out what was going on. From outside, they could see that a group of students were atop one of the towers of the Taedric Building, laughing and celebrating.

“Stop that at once!” Maut-mai shouted at them. Someone atop the tower booed and hurled a bottle in their general direction.

It broke against the stones, splashing a small amount of what smelled like alcohol. Maut-mai was shocked, while Suria just sighed and resolved to find a quieter place. She could add silencing magic to the long list of things she wanted to find inscriptions for.

“Are you going to put up with that?” Maut-mai asked on their way back.

“Do you think there’s anything we can do?” Suria asked with a shrug. “Could you call the guards on them?”

“It could certainly be tried. I’m going to start by going up and giving them a piece of my mind.”

Though it seemed like Maut-mai wanted her for support, Suria didn’t feel up to confronting a bunch of drunken revelers, especially if some of them were mages. She instead returned to her room to read, and for whatever reason the sounds of the drums quieted over time until it was easy to ignore them.

Most of campus was still closed, including the library, so Suria resolved to keep reading and be as prepared as possible for the beginning of the term. She was in danger of finishing her main two books and having nothing to read but the boring parts of Magical Law: An Overview, though, so she stretched out her runic training in hopes of improving her capacity further.

The other exercises in the book weren’t as simple as making crossed runes, though they seemed just tantalizingly beyond her level of understanding. Instead she absorbed general knowledge about how runic capacity could be increased, which answered a few old questions.

Many cultures across the world had discovered ways to increase a mage’s strength, from rituals to smoking herbs to modern potions. All of them ultimately provided a surge of energy that eased the creation of the first few runes, so they became less effective the more powerful a mage was and the less relevant those first runes became. Methods that could improve an archmage were few and far between, and the difference between four runes and six was simply more significant than ninety and ninety-nine.

It was possible to permanently increase rune capacity aside from training, however, which was the real revelation. The most common was potions that saturated the body, rendering it better-suited to magic: those could increase a mage’s capacity by several runes. Even if each one became rarer and more expensive, it was an advantage no one could ignore.

She was almost tempted to study Alchemy, even if she knew they wouldn’t be making such powerful potions in their very first term. If only she had more time to study everything… for now, she would stick to the plan and focus on the specific fields she chose.

Interestingly, the book alluded to a few other methods. The soul could somehow be enhanced in a way that increased runic capacity, but soul magic was so far beyond her that there was no point studying it now. Likewise the vague allusions to physical methods that enhanced the mind suggested they were so complex that even top Medicine specialists didn’t use them normally.

Before Suria could find any answers, Maut-mai came in and closed the door huffily. She then went and sank on her bed, similarly huffily. When it seemed like she intended to sit there with increasing huffiness, Suria realized she would need to ask.

“What happened?”

“They were extremely rude.” Maut-mai glared up toward the tower and the faint sound of drums. “They treated me like… like I was nobody! Despite them being a bunch of random first year students. I wouldn’t want to join their gathering anyway, but I’ve never seen such disrespect.”

“It sounds like you made them quiet down, though,” Suria pointed out. “Thanks for that.”

“I reported them, and I sincerely hope that the faculty will stop such things once the term begins. I know that students engage in revelry from time to time, but this…” Maut-mai turned to her desk with a sniff and went silent for the evening.

The only other thing to interrupt them was when Maut-mai used a magical letter to order a meal from off campus. It arrived smelling delicious until Suria saw that Maut-mai paid an astonishing 400 oss to the living statue that delivered it. Maybe she was just poorer than she thought, but Suria would have hiked across the entire city to avoid paying 400 oss for a single meal.

Maut-mai had ordered enough for both of them, and for a while Suria was afraid that she was going to demand payment of half, but the other woman didn’t seem to think of it again. Suria eventually reassured herself that no one would be so foolish as to make a decision like that without consulting someone else. Apparently Maut-mai had enough money to be extraordinarily generous.

As she went to bed that night, Suria reflected that the next day would include the opening ceremony and the ceremonial feast. Her first term at Darkmoon University was about to begin.

~ ~ ~

The ceremony proved to be extremely boring and Suria was glad that she had brought The Measure of a Mage in her satchel. It took place in front of Convocation Hall, where the students assembled around a floating marble platform. After walking there alone, it was shocking to see the space filled with hundreds of students, and this crowd wasn’t even close to the full student body.

“Many praise Darkmoon University for the weight of its legacies,” an official droned on. “They speak of the grand history of the Hall of Thrones, the wonder of the Sequential Library, the heights of Skypiercer Tower, or the prestige of the Aether Society, and rightly so. But I think the real value of our institution lies in its people…”

What disappointed her most was that the head professors weren’t present, so she couldn’t even check their identities. From the mutterings around her, apparently most people considered the opening ceremony and its speeches to be wasted time. She’d have to get into the Hall of Thrones, once it was open, in order to learn more about the professors.

Since practicing runes in the middle of the ceremony might be frowned upon, Suria made more reading progress than she had expected. As she left with the others, she looked toward the Sequential Library mournfully. Just one more day and she could finally go inside.

Their next major event was the opening feast, which was allegedly going to take place in the Hall of Thrones. When Suria asked Maut-mai about it, however, the other woman shook her head. She seemed distracted as she answered, staring into her mirror and fiddling with her jewelry.

“Sorry, Suria, I’m going to attend a different function at the Cerulean Sanctum.”

Suria blinked in surprise. “It takes place at exactly the same time as the opening feast?”

“Everything important happens on the opening day.” Maut-mai peered closer and then replaced her earrings with a set of sapphires. “All the societies have some sort of event, during or after. The academics start in a few days, but socially the term starts now.”

That was a strange statement that Suria decided not to interrogate further. Her roommate seemed to be worrying over her own appearance, acting more vain than she had up to this point. Whatever it was, Suria wanted no part in it.

Instead, a little before the feast was to begin, she left the Taedric Building to explore a little better. Darkmoon campus was still vast and confusing to her, and she hadn’t even ventured into the western side or the northern forest. The Taedric Building was to the eastern end, with only strange hedges further east, and surrounded by all sorts of buildings, most of them smaller dormitories.