Chapter 3

The term Hero carries an immense amount of social weight. Pop culture has superheroes, anti-heroes, meta-heroes, and so on, but there is a deeper meaning tied to the title. Those who risk their lives to save others have been called heroes, but a capital H Hero is something else, something more. Originally called Sacred or Chosen Heroes, these are people touched with immense talent, skill, and something more. Some say that they are born under a powerful sign, others say that they are chosen by deities for a power greater than any priest or cleric, and still others say that these powerful men and women were written into the fabric of fate. Regardless of their origins, Heroes are destined for deeds worthy of legend. Every child dreams of becoming a Hero. Every adventurer hopes that they will find some astonishing talent. To join the ranks of true Heroes is a dream everyone has at some point, and many cling to that dream well into adulthood.

It had been a week since I had the talk with Mystagogue Thrasher, and the day had come. The day I headed back to the Aegis Academy of the Grimmalk. Mystagogue Thrasher’s estate was nestled way back in the Titan’s Fall Mountain Range, several days west of the academy. In honesty, if I had traveled to the academy by foot, it would have been a trip of weeks. Because of this and the fact that the entire mountain range was classified as a red threat zone, the large Orc had a private AV (Aerial Vehicle) hovercraft that was designed custom to fit him comfortably. 

I packed my bags into the storage compartment of the sleek and large black craft. The storage compartment was large enough that I could have fit five of me in the space with little issue. As I loaded my belongings, the Mystagogue was prepping the vehicle for take-off. I shoved my rucksack to the back of the space beside the Mystagogue’s bags, then tossed in my training weapon kit beside it. I strolled around the vehicle to the passenger side and popped the door open with a hiss of pressure and a hum of small mechanisms. The door slid out from the frame and swung upward toward the front of the vehicle like a wing.

As I slid into the passenger seat, I noticed the Mystagogue flipping switches and checking gauges as he turned dials. I wordlessly slid into my seat and buckled in just as the Master did the same. In the past few months I had been living with the Mystagogue, I had grown used to how all of his furniture had to be specially built to fit his massive frame and hold his heavy girth, and the driver seat of the hovercraft was no different.

Without a single word, the craft hummed to life and vibrated as it took to the air, slowly lifting from the ground before speeding through the sky. The AV was heading west to follow the path of the setting sun. I watched the world pass by below, mountains and forests rolling past like some scenic painting. Most of the trip was silence between the Master and me, but suddenly he spoke up, his voice a deep rumble.

“Are you ready?” He asked, concern clear in his tone.

I glanced at the large Orc for a moment before turning back. “What? Oh, uh yeah.” I rested my chin in the cup of my hand. “I’m ready to start classes back up.” I replied, only half paying attention.

“That’s not what I mean, Iver.” He lightly scolded. “While classes will be more difficult, you will be under constant threat. You must remember that murder between students is commonplace in the academy. We allow it to weed out the weak from among our numbers. The higher in tiers you climb, the greater the threat from your fellow students.”

“Why allow so much murder?” I cut in as I shot him a scolding glare. My tone was both accusing and curious. “I thought I joined an order that worked for the greater good.”

“Don’t be naive, boy.” I flinched at the comment that Thallos had used against me so often.

“Greater good involves sacrifice. Organizations that actively fight to improve the world and don’t harden their members only produce bodies. We are not a church or temple, even if we do devote ourselves to the Nameless Goddess. We allow, but do not encourage, murder among our trainees because those that live through the academy and graduate are far less likely to die in the field, and it instills a necessary level of paranoia.” He gave a heavy sigh as he lowered his head and closed his eyes for a long moment before raising his head to look me in the eye.

 “Now, as I was saying, this year will be a whole magnitude more dangerous than last year for every student, and you will have it worse than most because of your race.”

I spat on the floor between my feet in defiance. “Prejudice or no, I’m not letting my demon blood hold me back.”

He shot me a warning look. “Don’t, spit, in the cockpit.” He warned with an edge to his words. He then leaned back in his seat and focused his gaze forward. “But I applaud your steadfast determination.”

That drew a snort of amusement from me as I sat back in my seat. “Mystagogue Thrasher, you know what I’ve been through to get this far. If I have to break bones to get what I want, I’m just going to ask, whose bones and how many?” Even as the words left my mouth, I wasn’t sure how much of it was a joke. 

In just under two years, I felt like I had lived a whole life in and of itself. The death of my father and the loss of my home was only a start. I gained an uncle and joined the Order of the Aegis. I fell in love, unlocked the ability to use magic, and joined an even more secretive sect of the secret organization. And through it all, I gained an uncountable number of scars. I had finally hit my stride near the end of the year. Then my uncle and love interest betrayed me, tried to kill me, and fled through a portal when Mystagogue Thrasher, Mysteriarch K, and Mystagogue Navor stepped in.

Rose’s betrayal was a sore subject at the time of that flight and for years after. The Primal girl had swooped in so many times before to save me from the gnashing jaws of the student body. She’d spent most of her free days either training me or just spending time with me, Nel, and Ferris. I had spent so much time just trying to impress her that I had been completely blinded to her seething jealousy because I was training directly under my uncle, whom she had been trying to impress since she was a year zero Slate. 

I could feel my mood spiral as I brooded on Rose, so I forcefully redirected my train of thought. I turned my mind’s eye to fantasizing about being a Hero. I mentally ran down the stereotypical Hero checklist:

• Tragic backstory: Check

• Dead or missing parents: Double check

• Remarkable talent: (I personally wouldn’t call my talent for tinkering anything remarkable, but I guess it fits) Check

• Ability to cast spells: Check (Albeit in a gruesome method)

• Scars: Check (a whole lot of checks to be exact)

• Weapon skills: (I gave it a tentative half Check)

While Thallos did beat some martial skills into me, and I mean the term ‘beat’ literally, I could almost never match up to Rose or Thallos. The logical part of my mind thought I was being stupid by comparing myself to the man teaching me, but the emotional part of my brain kept superimposing Thallos’s face over the mask he wore the day he killed my father. And the face I couldn’t get out of my head wore a twisted, half-mad smirk. The very same expression he wore during that last fight I had with him. I thought I had made reasonable progress in my weapon skills up until that moment. When Thallos dropped all pretense of training me, he took to toying with me. That amusement of his was nothing like a cat teasing a mouse. It was more like some mentally deranged child slowly ripping the wings off butterflies or gutting a puppy to see what made it work.

That comparison drew a shiver from me as I sat in the AV, and it would cause the very same response every time I thought about it for years after. After the traumatic memory of Thallos toying with me came another train of thought that had been bothering me ever since the events of that day same day.

Thallos had the box on him, the strange box he stole from my father’s house on the same day he committed the murder. My father told me had to get that box back. He had been so desperate for me to get the box back that the strange thing hadn’t left my mind. That is to say, the thought hadn’t left my mind until Thallos took my training under his charge, and after that, the only thing I had really been able to focus on was living to see the next day.

That box… Even now, I can remember it so vividly. The box was a square foot and seven inches deep. Its surface was a glossy black, with rounded corners and edges but not a seam in sight. The box raised questions, but it was the contents of the thing that raised just as many questions as hackles on the back of my neck.

It was a mechanical nightmare, a skeletal frame made up of viscous angles and gruesome spikes. On the thing’s right side was a large scarlet gem that glowed with a malicious inner light held in a spherical glass chamber and firmly set into a claw-like mount. On the contraption’s left side was a mythril ring the size of an adult Human man’s fist. Its outer left edge was lined with a crescent of bladed spikes.

Thallos had said that it was the key to changing the world all at once. I remember him rambling on about how it was what I was made for. That this choice was my destiny. Somewhere in his ravings, he said that if I sided with him, he could take me to my mother, but I doubted the truth of that claim.

I turned to face the Mystagogue. “Mystagogue, you remember the device in that box Thallos had?”

The large man gave a single nod, only sparing me a momentary glance, but in that moment, I was his concern. “I recall what you recounted of the events that day. You are the only one that got an honest look at the device. Are you dwelling on it again?”

I gave a half-hearted scoff of denial. “I wouldn’t say I’m dwelling on it, per se.” I looked out my window again as I thought about the device. “But the thing’s design, that crystal, those spikes. What was it supposed to do?” I could feel myself getting antsy as I began to spiral. I started to bounce my knee on reflex. “And those things he said.” I dropped my face into my hands and rubbed my eyes with my palms. “He said I was made for it. That if I used it, I would change the world all at once.” I shifted my hands to run through my hair, slipping around my horns without a thought. I could feel my tail trying to thrash in the seat under me. “What does that even mean? I was made for it? Was I selectively bred? Am I some stolen son of a mad cult leader who was born for the express purpose of using that thing?” I threw my head back to bounce off the neck cushion behind me even as I slapped my hands against my thighs. “And if I was supposedly made for it and it can change the world, I mean, that has to mean that I’m a monster in the making.”

By that point, I wasn’t even speaking to be heard. The pressure on that topic had been building for months, and I just needed to vent. I wasn’t even paying attention to the flight, AV, or the pilot. I was so wrapped up in my own little world. A gentle but massive weight resting on my shoulder shocked me back into reality. I looked down to find a bolder of a hand just sitting there on my shoulder. I looked up to find that I had his undivided attention. His hands were off the controls, and the auto-pilot was locked in. 

“Iver, do you need to dose again?”

“What?” I asked, confused and a bit taken aback. “No, no, Master Thrasher. I’m still well in control. I’m just…” I chewed at my lip as I thought of the right word. “Frustrated about the situation.” I deflated as I let out a defeated sigh. “If I’m being completely honest, Master, I’m lost. I’m confused and scared. I was just pulling together a new life when half of the people I trusted turned on me.” It was around that time I could feel the AV making its landing decent. I’d need to get my social mask back up before I was tagged as an easy target by other students.

“It’s perfectly natural to feel the way you do. You have suffered through no small amount of trauma. And it happened in such rapid order you were still reeling from your father when Thallos revealed his true colors.”

I gave a sarcastic huff of amusement. “It’s more complicated than that, and you know it, Master.”

I felt his hand retract from my shoulder as he said, “A bit of wise advice from an old Orc. There are always those you can turn to when you seek something stable. I’m not only referring to myself but to those two friends of yours, Miss. Darrdane and Mr. Stillwind. After you find your footing, try making a few new friends along your journey. I speak from experience; you can never have too many friends.”

As Thrasher finished giving his sage words of wisdom, the vehicle shuddered as it made contact with academy grounds. The doors swung open while Thrasher pinned me with an expectant stare. In answer, I gave a nervous nod before hopping onto the landing pad.

I looked around the academy grounds and was shocked by what I found. The grounds had always been in the center of a hollowed-out mountain, set into a massive crater and a large hole at the peak to let sunlight in. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was the contents of the crater site. Last year, the expansive grounds filled with the Circular Foundry, and clean and square Medical Center off to the right of where I stood, the massive and regal Aegis Hall set toward the rear of the crater, the dorms, and DEFAC off to my left beside a large dirt training ground. All of this was encircled by a forest of various trees with sapphire, yellow, red, and green leaves around the perimeter of the space.

Everything had changed. The dorms were now behind me, and I couldn’t be sure, but it looked larger. The DEFAC was directly to my left and was no longer a squat square thing of grey brick. The new DEFAC, or mess hall as many called it, was circular and domed with a glass roof, the walls were a seamless and shining white metal, and it even had an outdoor eating area. The Foundry was closer to the front of the crater and now seven stories instead of three with riveted black plates for walls instead of the grey brick walls I knew all too well. It also had a conical roof that strouted dozens of pipes, bellowing various colored clouds of smoke. The Medical Center was also larger and made from seamless white metal; the corners and edges of the building rounded, and the windows to the rooms were far larger than what I was used to.

Aegis Hall still looked very much like an old stonework church, only now it was wider by several hundred feet, and it had two more stories, bringing the total up to six with towers reaching ten stories. Speaking of towers, the structure now had eight towers instead of its original four. To put the feather in the cap of the structure was an astounding amount of strained glass. The colored glass filled every window; some formed images of people, creatures, places, or objects, while others were simply abstract images. Some of these colorful windows stretched from the ground floor to the roof of the base structure.

To top off the foreign seen was the natural scenery. The perimeter forest was now made up of trees with exclusively sapphire, rudy, or amethyst leaves and grey-black bark. The walls of the crater had flat plateaus at seemingly random locations, each big enough for at least one person to sit on if not eight or nine people. Some of these plateaus stood before the mouths of caves. At ground level in the center of the crater was a moderately sized lake of crystal green-blue water. Another smaller lake had a shore not far from the Foundry, but the body of water stretched into a large cave in the wall of the crater that was filled with glowing fungus.

“Umm, Mystagogue Thrasher,” I called back, even as I took in the expanse of the people wandering the area. “I think we’re at the wrong secret academy hidden inside a hollow mountain.” 

I turned around to find the large man had unloaded the luggage and was surveying the area as well. He gave an amused huff before saying, “Kaydammin really let the Genius Loci have a field day. This is some impressive work.”

I looked at the Orc with eyes squinted in confusion. I opened my mouth to speak, only to slap it shut as I tried to figure out what to say. In the end, I simply went with “What?”

Thrasher looked down at me with mild amusement. “Did no one tell you about the Genius Loci?”

“The what now?”

He turned around and tossed me my bag before shouldering his own as he spoke. “A Genius Loci. Think of it as a nature spirit that manifests on sacred or revered land. If enough people consider a natural location sacred for long enough and treat it as such, the land develops a consciousness. Admittedly, the Order has artificially constructed one for each academy site. They are used as an ever-conscious, ever-present defense for the grounds and the students. Because The one for these grounds is artificial, it has a habit of altering the environment every few decades to every few years. It’s also because of the spirit’s artificial nature that it is also bound to the buildings and can alter them just as easily as the ground. But the Mysteriarch must’ve had some serious cause for such drastic renovation because the spirit would have needed more raw materials to make all these changes.”

I leaned back just as much from Thrasher’s words as from the rucksack I had shouldered. I had no idea that there were spirits like that, let alone one at the academy. The thought of a spirit capable of altering an environment to such a massive degree boggled my mind. As much as I wanted to feel safe with such a powerful entity watching over the place I called home, in all honesty, I couldn’t help but feel paranoid. What if the spirit went rogue, or I somehow angered it? Would the ground just open up beneath me and swallow me whole?

I pushed the thought chain from my mind as I turned back to Mystagogue Thrasher. “Mystagogue, what comes next? I kinda joined the Academy late last year, so I have no clue how to get my dorm room. Or if there are any opening ceremonies, for that matter.”

The gentleman Orc rubbed his clean-shaven chin in thought. “The fact had slipped my mind. Mysteriarch Kaydammin hadn’t instructed me to keep an eye on you until about two weeks into the start of last year. She had only mentioned the circumstances of your joining in passing.”

I gave him a questioning look. “She told you to keep an eye on me?”

Thrasher waved away the question. “Don’t worry about that, young man. To answer your questions, Stop by the dorms’ quartermaster first, and he’ll assign you a room. Tomorrow is the Greeting Ceremony for the new Slates at 11:00 a.m., but you don’t need to be present for it. What you will need to be present for is the Sect Indoctrination Ceremony at 2 PM.”

“Sect Indoctrination Ceremony? How should I approach that, given my… position?”

“Each Sect has its own unique ritual to bring newcomers into the fold. Type 1 members or members with only one sect only need to participate in the ritual for their sect. Type 2 members or Mastloks that are part of two sects take part in first one ritual than a second which all sects hold later exclusively for these members.”

“And Type 3 members like me?”

“That’s where things can become complicated. Standard Type 3 members are simply part of three sects and undergo a completely unique ceremony depending on their sect set. While you are technically a Type 3, as a Dark Hunter, they hold your ceremony in secret. To keep up the facade, you will need to take part in a standard Type 3 ritual based on your public sect set. The Night after all this occurs is when your actual ceremony takes place.”

“Have I ever mentioned just how much I hate having to keep this whole thing a secret?” The words came out more as a statement than a question.

The Mystagogue gave me a patient yet annoyed look. “Indeed you have. Nearly several times a day, in fact. But your friends know the truth, and the academy has taken steps to prepare them, so you can count that as a blessing.”

I gave him a begrudging acknowledgment of the truth of his statement before he tapped me on the small of the back and pointed me to the dorms. “Now, best get moving and find those friends after you get settled in.”