Chapter 18: Class Selection

The hours were counting down until Suria had no choice but to settle on her final decisions. Maut-mai had told her that Convocation Hall was least busy over the noon hour, so she had an excuse to hold off until then. But Suria had promised herself that she’d lock in her decisions today, so she couldn’t delay for much longer.

At the moment she was avoiding looking at the course catalogue, instead sitting against her wall and considering her newest talisman. After reading the basics of Elemental Inscriptions in the New Age, she had begun practicing the inscriptions it contained. She focused first on fire, since it was said to be one of the easiest to learn for most mages.

Now she had a new talisman with a runic square, filled with what felt like an effectively-made fire inscription. The problem was, she didn’t dare try to test it out, at least not in her own room. As she had just reminded herself with her healing spell, being able to construct an effective glyph was different from being able to cast it properly. Even if the book hadn’t warned her about it, she would have been concerned about burning herself or the whole building.

Still, it was progress. If she was attacked, she had at least a desperate option for fighting back. And with that done, she couldn’t justify procrastinating any further.

When Suria picked up the course catalogue, there were just too many promising options. She was required to take Foundations of Modern Spellcraft, and though Maut-mai and others seemed to view it as a bore, she thought it would actually be useful to her. Since she wasn’t sure how difficult it would be, she resolved to take two other courses, and do additional reading on her own if she proved more than equal to the challenge. A mere two classes out of hundreds…

There were multiple courses that sounded extremely tempting and her eyes ran over them yet again. Some descriptions were written in formal language:

Exploration of Runic Capacity: Explore runes not merely as a capacity, but a field in their own right. Students will be expected to learn the fundamentals of how both the body and soul limit runic capacity, as well as the underlying mechanisms that promote growth. No minimum runic capacity, but academically rigorous.

That one could be very useful for building up her fundamental strength. Another in the same category was a popular class with a well-liked professor, which had an entirely different sort of description:

Greater Spells and Greater Glyphs: Wondering just what a great spell is? Tired of confusing and arbitrary tiers of spellwork? Join now and learn the secrets of taking your craft from gooder to greater!

Despite the informal course description, Maut-mai and others said that it was always a full class, and potentially useful to students in different years. Her only hesitation was that it said nothing about a minimum runic capacity, so she didn’t know if she’d qualify.

Another course that sounded intriguing was called “Combat Perception” and it had caught her eye because Orinyan Gessalsah was apparently teaching it. She had checked carefully and it was the only class he was teaching that term aside from a more specialized librarian training course. Just having a professor who she knew was friendly and a good instructor could count for a great deal.

There were also several classes that she considered primarily because they were taught by one of the head professors but still open to first year students with few qualifications. Lia Huen Rei taught a course called Magical Analysis In Depth, though the description made it sound extremely challenging. By contrast, Nulphus Abouric made his Fundamentals of Arcane Elements sound welcoming, and she saw that it was a requirement for most interesting classes in the Naturalism department. A class called Self-Transmutation for the Practicing Mage sounded fascinating, but it was taught by Tollvard Rhamsolk and she wasn’t sure she wanted to get close to him so soon after he killed Lirngelf.

When she was honest with herself, she sort of wanted to study everything. There were numerous courses under Alchemy that sounded like they would complement healing abilities perfectly, for example. Many Enchantment courses looked useful, though Professor Eortrax had such a mixed reputation that she shied away from them. Even many of the purely academic classes would be fun: she could learn about magical cultures, history, or trade across the world.

Of course one of her main objectives was to gain basic competence in self-defense, so she needed to take an appropriate class. Though most fields could be used in combat, Evocation was the most obvious choice, and the listings were clearly written for students with that goal:

Basic Combat for Mages: Spellcraft must be used carefully on the battlefield, particularly in an age of projectile gauntlets. This course focuses not on combat spells, but on the tactical questions that can transform a mage from a liability to an asset. Essential for any mage on a combat track.

Introduction to Glyphic Combat: Learn the fundamentals of crafting glyphs useful in violent conflicts. Students will internalize a variety of combat-focused inscriptions and then display mastery in practice sessions. Final examination includes both academic and physical components.

Material Evocation: Master the ability to apply elements and other effects in conjunction with weapons and armor. Class eschews Enchantment or extended preparation in favor of instant effects. Students must bring their own equipment.

She didn’t think she would actually take the weapons-based class; she was just fascinated to learn that it existed. The other two were both high on her list of potential choices, since they seemed like good foundations. Her attention kept wandering past them to the later sections, however. There were classes with names like “Magnified Application of Runiotic Spellcraft in Warfare” that seemed so technical she wasn’t sure what they actually taught, alongside a simple name like “Battlefield Evocation” that promised spells that could turn the tide of battle.

Every time she let herself look at the higher classes, Suria became dizzy at how much there was to learn. Thaumatic Calculus, Leximancy in Advanced Glyphcraft, Deeper Runiotics, Integrative Orthomancy, Tomograthurgy… she wasn’t even sure what some of those words meant. There was a whole section of classes with “Inscription Construction” in the name that promised to teach how to create fundamentally new inscriptions.

Suria realized that she had let herself become distracted again when Maut-mai returned. Her roommate groaned and dropped onto her own bed in a sulk.

“Greater Spells and Greater Glyphs is already filled,” Maut-mai explained in a muffled voice. “I should have signed up for everything earlier.”

“That’s too bad,” Suria said, though a part of her was glad that her choice had been simplified. She probably wasn’t ready for a class like that, anyway, so she should take one of the other foundational classes.

“You still haven’t signed up?”

“No, but I will at noon, like you advised.”

Fortunately, it didn’t seem like Maut-mai wanted to chat much after that, leaving Suria to all her worrying. She really needed to make a decision soon, and she recognized that she was going in circles, so she returned to her list of objectives.

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Alchemy and other supportive classes could be deferred until a later term when she officially joined the Medicine program – the professors might even be able to advise her on which of the many courses would be most useful to her. After a while, she reluctantly crossed out Orinyan’s class, judging that she was biased toward taking it because she liked him personally. She couldn’t afford to make a decision that way until she had a stronger foundation.

It took her longer to give up on the classes taught by the thrones. She might be able to get closer to them and learn more about them in a class, but the truth was that she would be one of many students and trying to get information from them would stand out. Better to understand a few more basics about the conspiracy before she began pursuing information on individual professors.

As she looked over her list of objectives, Suria realized that she was being overly optimistic. It would be easy to make a schedule of years of classes for herself, all of them neatly building on one another, but reality might not cooperate. If her plans only considered best case scenarios, they would be terribly brittle.

When she was honest with herself, she seemed less likely to be threatened by a direct attack than by her limited funds. Without the scholarship to Darkmoon, she would be in a terrible situation in an unknown city, as her venture there had taught her. For that matter, she wasn’t even certain that her scholarship would cover her during the breaks during the year, and she certainly couldn’t afford to go back home. Even if she managed the trip, she would be imposing on everyone who had sent her off to study.

So she spent some time examining the humbler courses in the catalogue, those that nobles would never dream of taking. There were classes involved in magical farming or textiles, of course, as well as practical skills-based classes in just about every subject, especially Enchantment and Alchemy.

Resolving not to spend any more time dithering, Suria made herself leave for Convocation Hall before she had made a final decision. It was just as well, because even at noon there was a line. She waited, eyeing the tapestries in case one of them did anything time-loopy, and considered her choices as her turn came closer and closer.

Now that she was looking at the less theoretical classes, some of them sounded more interesting than she expected. With just one person ahead of her, Suria suddenly laid eyes on an interesting-sounding description: