Chapter 19

In Elven culture, half-breeds are frowned upon and are regularly mistreated for being of ‘impure blood’. Yet, there is a taboo among the Elven people that makes no sense to those outside of the culture. An Elf of one breed may not reproduce with an Elf of another breed. Elves born of two breeds are called Quints and are reviled by almost all Elven people. These Elves are thought of as abominations because of an old Elven prophecy that says that an Elf of two breeds will aid in the end of a nation.

Day 108 Quenchenday

Today was the first day back to class after a week of rest. During that week, I got better acquainted with Ferris and did plenty of training with Rose and Nel. We walked to the dining hall as a group, talking together as we readied for the day ahead. 

“Come on, Iver, there’s no way you’re gonna beat anyone with those twig arms of yours. That strike last Quenchenday was a fluke.” Rose said with a dismissive wave.

“Don’t be so mean, Rose. Iver could totally make it into the Crimson Blade if he tries hard enough.” Nel defended, mock-punching Rose in the shoulder. 

“Whatever, Iver can make it into the Crimson Blade if I can make it into the Silent Heart.” Ferris boasted, his nose high even as his hands fidgeted with his shirt.

Ferris and I had spent a lot of time just sitting back and talking the past few days. It took some serious effort, but I managed to convince him that no one in the group was going to attack him. But he still felt like he had something to prove. Where, with my lack of social experience and skill, I was timid and quick to apologize for any small thing, Ferris went a different route. I could tell he had just as much social trouble as myself, but he felt he had to prove he was strong and capable and hide any weakness. He never opened up about his home life, but from the way he acted, it had to be pretty bad.

“Oh, come on, Ferris, no need to act so hoity-toity.” Rose sniped.

“I’m not being hoity-toity.” Ferris shot back in an offended tone that I wasn’t sure if he was joking or honestly offended.

“I like your faith there, Ferris,” I spoke up to stop an argument before it got too far. “but we can’t just expect to get what we want at our current pace. We need to step up our game, especially after today, if Mystagogue Thrasher was telling me the truth about today.”

“Oh, he was telling the truth.” Rose confirmed with a wicked smile. “You kids are in for some serious hell that won’t stop till you graduate.” 

“Care to elaborate on that?” Nel asked with a deadpan tone and an arched brow.

Rose gave an over-exaggerated roll of the wrist toward Nel as she leaned sideways toward the girl and tilted her head to look past her brow to make eye contact with Nel. “Sadly, I can not. And my woe goes out to you.” She spoke with an accent that was used on stage to mimic industrial-era high-class ladies from the now long-dead nation of Tiassus. Her tone was an overly dramatic flavor that was meant to sound like her own bemoaning or mourning. “Anyway, you need to get to the auditorium for the announcement, and I need to get to class ssssoooo, toodles, my dear chitlins!” With that, she bounded off to the mass ahead of us into the Aegis Halls, no doubt to find an elevator and descend into the many mysteries under the surface structure. “We aren’t your kids! You’re only a year older, dreck-head!” Nel shouted, her hands cupped around her lips.

“Really? Dreck? Are you a slum slicker now? Living in a hive city? Why not just say ‘shit head’?” I mocked Nel as I ribbed her with an elbow. “We are almost adults, so we can say what we want, within reason at least.”

We passed down the entry hall of the main building, making our way to the auditorium as we debated and bickered.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘within reason’?” Nel asked.

“Oh, come on, Nel. Would you walk up to a Mystagogue or noble and call them a shit-licking cock fucker?”

“Well, no.” She sounded uncertain as she thought about it.

“Are you crazy?!” Ferris burst out, throwing his hands in the air. “I come from a noble family; saying something like that to a noble of any nation can get you executed if you’re of lesser rank than them or challenged to a duel if you’re a noble too. Hells, you might even start a war between noble houses if the offense is bad enough.”

Nel and I both turned to look at the Elf as if he was completely mad. “What?!” we said in perfect unison. 

The normally angry and aggressive Elf lowered his head and clutched his left upper arm in his opposite hand in a clearly nervous action. “Well, technically, I’m a bastard. The Stillwind family is a well-known noble house in Evarra, the Elven nation. They have their threads around a bunch of trade and transport companies. I’m a Quint, a half-breed between two kinds of Elves. My mother is a High Elf of house Stillwind. My father is a Wild Elf war chief. And you know how Elves think about Quints.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard how they treat your kind worse than trash. Slaves with the worst jobs, regular beatings, and torture.” Nel commented, her eyes conveying a clear disturbance at the thought.

“I was lucky enough to avoid the torture, but they pressed me into the rest. My mother would often throw berserk fits of rage, breaking everything in a room and forcing me to clean up after her with little more than a damp cloth and a bucket. She is also well known for her paintings, so cleaning up flung paint became a regular duty of mine. I speak from experience when I say that nobles are nothing more than a bunch of pompous pricks and children that rage and beat on anything at hand when they don’t get their way. My mother often lets guests beat me for things as small as their soup being too cold.” When Ferris spoke, his eyes stared unseeingly at his feet as he picked at his nails in an almost compulsive manner. I also noticed that he started shuffling his feet, forcing Nel and me to slow our pace and shorten our steps.

“I don’t get it. Why would your mother be so cruel? Maybe I’m missing something because I’ve never had one, but I thought that a mother was supposed to be loving and nurturing?”

“No, you’re not missing anything, Iver.” Nel reassured me. “I think it has less to do with her being a mother and more of a cultural issue because Ferris is a Quint.”

Ferris viciously nodded his head so hard that he stumbled. I managed to catch him by the shoulder before he toppled ass over hammer. “Thanks.” he muttered to me as he righted himself. “Yeah, you’re right. You see, Elves are a little fixated on bloodlines. Marriages are not normally made out of love like most other species. Instead, the primary goal of a marriage is to give birth to the strongest children possible, to forge a better business partnership, to acquire more land or money or some other resource. You get the point?”

Nel and I both nodded. “It sounds like marriage is more political than romantic.” Nel summed up exactly what I was thinking with that simple line.

“That’s striking at the heart of the matter. And I can assume that you both know that Elven children are a rare sight.” We both nodded yet again. Elves could live up to around five hundred years, meaning they had a remarkably slow rate of birth and longer periods of gestation than any other species. Elves didn’t reach early adulthood till they were forty years of age.

“So it’s not a huge leap of logic to realize that children are sacred in Elven culture. So everyone knows that Half-Elves bred with other species are frowned upon. They claim that it’s like watering down a fine wine. Well, cross-breeding with other Elven breeds is like mixing whiskey with red wine.”

“I’m assuming that’s a gross mix? Sorry, I’ve never had anything other than my father’s bourbon, and that was just a taste once.” I commented, only admitting my blatant ignorance of the topic of brewing and distilling.

“I only make that analogy because my slither-spined mother made me live through it.” When Nel and I gave questioning looks, he elaborated as we massed into the auditorium, all taking seats near the back of the large room. “First, my mother gave me a glass of rather pricey red wine. As she made sure that I drank the entire glass, she said that it was like a strong family bloodline. It tasted really bitter and flowery, like I was chewing on a rose blossom. She then poured me another glass of wine but filled half with water and made me drink it. She said that was like the blood of a Half-Elf, someone of impure heritage. Personally, I found that one tasted better than the first, and maybe that’s why I’ve always liked Half-Elves more than full-blooded ones. But finally, she pulled down a tankard, filled it half with the red wine, and filled the rest from a bottle of Dwarven whiskey. She said that it was ‘putrid filth’ and that was what I was. She made me drink the whole thing. I can’t even explain how bad that stuff was. It burned like fire going down, tasted like I was drinking lighter fluid mixed with rose oil, and made my stomach heave. When I threw up, she made me clean it up with my tongue for fifteen minutes before allowing me to have a bucket and rag.” I watched as the young Elf clenched his fists so hard that his dark skin paled at the knuckles. “And she watched me with a smirk for the whole time, part of it with a heel from her platinum-quality shoe digging into my neck.”

I was almost physically ill at the story. My father may have knocked me around, but he was never cruel. Definitely never as depraved as the woman Ferris called his mother. “But that doesn’t fully explain why she was so vicious, does it?” I asked.

Ferris gave a weighty shrug before he said, “It doesn’t help matters that my war chief father kidnapped and raped my mother for months on end. She has never let me live down how that was how I was conceived. So much so that I got an early education into how babies are made and what rape was. All of her friends have heard the harrowing story of her months of torture and violation before escaping into the dead of night when he was too drunk to cage her back up or how she tried to live with dignity while she was forced to carry me in her womb, or the even more harrowing endeavor of pushing me out like a, and I quote ‘like pushing out a whole rotting hog’ from between her legs.”

Nel and I traded looks of total mute shock. It was downright inhumane how he had been treated growing up. This explained why he was so distrusting of everyone, and it made me sick to my stomach just thinking of that kind of life.

“I am deeply sorry that you have that kind of home life, but I need to ask, why open up now?” I asked. “Every time I’ve asked about your past and your family, you’ve locked up. Why spill your guts now?”

Ferris shrugged. The silence between us stretched out before he gave an answer. “I can’t really explain it. You both have been completely open with your past. And Iver, you were honest about all the abuse you went through when you had no reason to be. I guess listening to all the horrible things that have happened to both of you just needed to sink in before I could feel right sharing my troubles. Plus, Rose isn’t here, which helps. She makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Before either of us could come up with a suitable response, there was a clapping sound from the stage area of the massive hall.

If I’ve never explained what the auditorium, also known as the Great Hall, looks like, let me paint you a picture. The walls are made of white marble laced through with veins of black and gold. The trim along each edge and corner of the room was made of dark stained cherry wood that was carved to look like ornate rolling waves of the tides. In each corner of the room were matching cherry wood pillars just like in Mystagogue Thrasher's office, only these were much larger and delicately carved with depictions of heroes slaying monsters, mages casting mighty spells, craftsmen forging legendary works and veiled assassins stalking kings, one pillar dedicated to each theme. I thought it rather fitting that the spy sect was missing a pillar since they wanted to remain quiet and unnoticed. Draped in arching waves along the highest points of each wall were velvet curtains of deep black, sapphire blue, and royal purple, with silk banners of blood red and royal purple hung at the lowest bow of each curtain.

Taking up the center of the room were six long tables, each spanning what I could only guestimate to be seventy-five yards. These tables were a finely carved cross-work of marble and wood matching the walls. In some places, the tables almost seemed designed to look like the wood was flowing through grooves, crevasses, and bows in the stone. In other places, the inverse seemed true, with stone looking to flow through the notches and natural breaks of the wood. But the tables were all precisely cut and level on the surface, with engravings along the trim that looked like grapevines in full bloom. The tables were placed vertically parallel across the room with stone benches draped with plush throw pillows of velvet, all a uniform maroon. At the head of each table was an arrow-shaped banner displaying each of the sects in the colors found around the room. The blade crossed over the slashed eye of the Crimson Blade sect, The mechanical fist holding a raised hammer of the Burning Hand sec, The crown with a crack splitting metal and the central gem of the Blackened Crown sect, the blind eye crowned with seven stars of the Sightless Eye sect, and the anatomic heart pierced by a dagger and leaking blood of the Silent Heart. The sixth banner displayed a raven skull with one eye engulfed in blue flames looking down at a bleeding anatomic heart set atop a three-way crossguard of a vicious curved dagger set point down over an Elven and a Dwarven war sword crossed in an X formation. Behind the banners stood the raised platform of a stage with a dais in the center. 

This all sat in front of the current student body, who all sat on bleachers against the back wall. All present were slates, hence why none of us had taken a seat at any of the sect tables. But did have a burning curiosity about that sixth table.                             

Striding toward the dais was the Mysteriarch herself. She walked like a predator, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting slate. She stalked with long strides of her shapely legs across the stage with fluid strides in those nightmarish high-heel combat boot hybrids. As she made her way to the front center of the stage, she gave a slow yet loud clap to get the attention of the student body. Silence washed over the bleachers in a wave as students noticed who was probably the most dangerous person in the entire academy.

As she reached the middle of the stage, a trapdoor opened in front of her, and an elegant podium shaped like a lightning-struck dead oak rose. As the podium locked in place, Mysteriarch K made a wave to the student body that seemed more utilitarian than a greeting. When she started making more gestures, her hands glowing with yellow, white, and purple, I realized she was casting a spell. She pressed the tips of her fingers on both hands to either side of her throat, and the myst dissipated.

“Good morning, students.” Her Elven Highlands thick voice sounded like she was standing right in front of me and not carried almost a hundred yards. “I do hope you all have a pleasant break after this year’s first quarter. If you are here now, that means that you have earned a sufficient score in both mundane studies and sect training. But do not get comfortable because starting today, we are introducing a new variable into your day-to-day life. The variable is what we call The Point Factor. Starting today, you will be in competition with everyone else in this room. You will gain points from any of the six vectors. I will have each Master step up and explain the pertaining vectors, but what you need to know is that there is one vector for each of the five sects and a six that you can think of as extra credit. As you complete these challenges, you will score points based on how the challenge is completed. These points will bring you closer to joining the sect pertaining to that vector.” She gave a moment’s pause as the slates began muttering to each other.

Nel and Ferris looked at me in concern, clearly expecting me to have answers, but I could only shrug helplessly, with a nervous grimace painting my face.

“Now.” Mysteriarch started back up, bringing the room back to silence with a single word. “Now, you must understand that these points are meant to subsidize your sect classes and not replace or overshadow your quarterly and final exams. This point system will be kept in place until the day of your graduation, so get comfortable staying on your toes at all times. Now for the breakdown, Master Bail, you have the floor.” The headmaster turned away and took a seat against the back wall, at the apex of the dais, in what looked very much like a throne. Her posture was an entertained lounge that reminded me of a large, predatory cat. Her gold-capped fangs didn’t help imagery as they glinted in the light while she set her remaining cheek in the palm of her right hand.

The massive female Orc that was Master Mystagogue Darrdain Bail stepped up to the podium. Her stride was less like a hungry cat and more like that of a surefooted warrior. As she reached the podium, she shook her shoulder loose and rolled her neck, which I could only assume emitted a series of cracks that we were just too far out to hear. She turned over one shoulder to look at Mysteriarch K, who tapped her throat with her free hand, a ball of yellow-white light separating from her person to stand on the tips of her fingers. The headmaster tossed the glowing ball of energy to the Master, who smoothly shifted from catching it to pressing it into her own neck. “Good morning, students!” She shouted, causing the entire student body to recoil in shock and pain. She coughed into her fist and tried again. “Good morning, students. The first vector that you need to be aware of is for the Crimson Blade, the Martial Vector, or MV. To acquire points in this vector, you must challenge another student or students to a duel and defeat them with standard combat choices. In other words, swords, fists, bows, guns, and so on are allowed. These weapons should be non-lethal. If you choose to use lethal weapons, you are only allowed to legally challenge another student with a lethal weapon. Deaths made by these challenges will not provide extra points, and the death of a non-lethal student with intentional lethal force will result in half of your acquired points from all vectors being stripped.” She rolled her neck again, clearly uncomfortable with speaking to so many people at once.

“Now to how points are scored. This goes for all vectors. In order to score points, the combat or interaction must be recorded. You will do so by double-tapping your therra-node, which will auto-start a record sequence. If you do not record, you do not get points even if you are the vector. And tampering with the data will not be permitted. To score points with the Martial Vector, as I said, you will need to challenge another student or students to a duel. You can challenge solo or as a group as well. The vector will take the points regardless of whether or not they initiated the combat. Defeating one opponent will score you one point, and every opponent after that defeated by said student will have a rising value. In other words, one opponent equals one point, two opponents, the first is worth one point, and the second is worth two points; three opponents mean the first is worth one point, the second is worth two, and the third is worth three points, and so on. Only the student who makes the blow that renders the opponent incapable of continuing gets the point. So, ganging up on one person will not score the entire party a point. And again, I must make this clear: to gain the Martial Vector points, your opponent must be aware of the attack. Master Kellar, you have the floor.” With that, the large woman with the bionic eye tapped her throat and tossed the orb to the plain-looking man as he stepped up.

Master Mystagogue Dain Kellar pressed the spell into his throat and, without skipping a beat, began speaking as he reached the center of the stage. “Hello, students. The next vector we will discuss is the Escape Vector, or EV. If another student or students challenge you, your goal to gain these points is evasion. In other words, flee. If your pursuers give up the chase, you stay out of line of sight for five minutes or avoid capture for fifteen minutes. Then, you will score points based on the number of pursuers. The number of points gained is dependent on the number of pursuers. So, if you evade five pursuers, you gain five points. Alternatively, if you can go an entire week without being challenged, attacked, or without an assassination attempt on you, you will score one point. Thank you for your time. Master Keckarra, I will pass you the floor.” With that, he stepped back and turned, meeting the next master halfway to simply hand her the spell ball.

This Master I knew next to nothing about. All of my assassin classes had been taught by either one of the Spy Mystagogues or Mystagogue Kellenar, who seemed to have something against me. From this distance, what I could tell about the Master Assassin was that she was clearly a woman, an Elven woman, a Wood Elf, to be precise. Brown hair and dark sclera that I could only guess were brown. I knew her irises had to be green because of her breed. 

“Good evening, students.” She drew out her Os and ending Ss. Her accent was maybe from the northern end of the Kethran Empire. “The Silent Heart’s vector is the Hit Vector or HV. You will score one point for giving a lethal blow to an unaware target. No murder is allowed unless there are extenuating circumstances. Beyond that, the scoring system is the same as the first vector. Again, the target must be unaware. You may strike during class, at lunch, or even in the target’s own room. Rather than poison, I will provide a series of non-lethal options that can be administered as a solid, powder, drinkable, or injectable. If you want to get ingenuitive enough to try to use a gas, please let me know and break down how you will use it. All of these so-called poisons will only cause stomach pain, vomiting, or drowsiness. That is all I have to say. Master Craftsman, the floor is yours.” She turned from the podium as if we were less than nothing and handed off the spell orb to the ever-affable Master Mallock. 

He made his way across the stage with what I could only describe as a peppy shuffle. “Good morning, students,” he began as he toyed with his mechanical left eye. “I’m here today to discuss the Craft Vector or CV. Now, doesn’t that sound exciting?” Even from where I was, I could see his broad grin as he spread his arms wide. “Now I know tinkering isn’t what you would think of as dramatic or spiffy, or as some would say, ‘badass’. But the work is honest, as safe as you make it, and can even be reasonably therapeutic. To score points in this vector, you will obviously need to craft devices. Myself or another Burning Hand instructor will score you based on complexity as well as whether or not it works as desired. You do need to record the crafting process with your therra-node to prove you yourself made it and you didn’t steal it from a classmate. But for those of you with a bit of fire in your heels and heart, you can also score points based on the creative use of tools that you make in combat situations. I can’t wait to see what you all create. Master Caster, the floor is all yours.” With that, Master Mallock plucked the spell orb from his neck and shot it from the tip of his mechanical finger like a pistol.

The Gnome master stepped up and plucked the orb from the air, her other hand pressed behind her back. With no due drama, she pressed the orb to her throat and marched up to the podium. Because of the fact that she was no taller than three and a half feet, she vanished from sight behind the tree-shaped podium. She then gradually and evenly rose above the bench as if it were totally natural. Her orange skin was in dramatic contrast to her bright pink hair, which stood in all directions, reminding me of a dandelion puff. “For those that do not know me, I am Master Mystagogue Nellis Neckar, and I will be addressed as Master or Mystagogue Neckar.” Her voice was reedy and high but held a tone like a bar of steel. “I will explain the fifth and final standard vector. The Spell Vector, and if I have to tell you the abbreviation at this point in the lecture, then you should just forfeit now and save us the trouble of grading you. If you have the ability to cast spells, then this route will be open to you but does not guarantee that you will join the sect of the Blackened Crown. Gaining points in this vector is based on spell complexity. You will score one point for mixing two elements in a spell and two points if you can mix three. These spells have a minimum capacity requirement of five vells. You are not allowed to exceed fifteen vells for any one spell, but seeing as the average capacity of a Mystwell is around twenty, I hope none of you are that stupid. The elements Life, Death, and Ruin are banned from use for safety purposes. Fate and Chaos are allowed limited use but no more than two vells at any one time. These spells can be used for mundane purposes or in combat. I would advise you to keep enough in reserve for at least one spell in case you are attacked. If used in combat, the same rules about murder and fatality apply as those for Hit Vector and Martial Vector. That is all I have to say.” With those final words, she lowered herself back out of sight before marching back to her space at the back of the room. 

Mysteriarch K stood and made her way back to center stage, stopping only to retrieve her spell from the Gnome instructor. As she came back to the ornate podium, we could all hear as she cleared her throat. “I will explain the six vectors, the Hero Vector. To avoid confusion with the Hit Vector, we don’t abbreviate this one. Hero Points are awarded to someone who steps in and risks their life to save someone else who is in danger. These points are not necessary to join a sect or graduate, but they do look good on your academy record, and there may be benefits later on down the line for those with enough Hero Points.” As the headmaster went silent, murmurs rose among the slates. I could hear hushed declarations from some claiming they would claim the most Hero Points while others scoffed at the idea of risking themselves for something as ephemeral as a point with no value.

Mysteriarch K let these mutters persist for a few more moments before she spoke back up.“We hope that this orientation was informative. Should you have any questions, feel free to ask any of the Mystagogues. We only wish you all the best in these challenges, and as always, May the five fragments bless you. You are dismissed.”

As she turned away, the student body stood as one and began walking towards the exit. “Well, I’m doomed.” I groused, feeling completely hopeless.

“Why?” Ferris asked.

“Are you kidding?!” I exclaimed, drawing the attention of several other groups of students. Abashed, I lowered my voice to a harsh whisper. “After that talk, my number one takeaway is that if I want to get into the Crimson Blade, I need to do so by winning fights without using any gadgets. Gadgets are my only saving grace in a fight. Gadgets that will only score my points with the Burning Hand. I’m dead, screwed ten ways from Quenchday. I bit that bad apple.”

“OK! We get it, Iver.” Snapped Nel. “Gods above, you’re not going to fail. Just put in some more time with Rose. She’s already training you on Quenchdays, right? Adding a few sessions after class a few days a week wouldn’t hurt.”

“Yeah, she’s been ‘training’ me on our off days.” I said “training” with air quotes, “In reality, she’s been beating me with wooden sticks and metal rods for a couple of hours every day off I’ve had. I don’t feel like I’m improving. What I do feel is my growing collection of welts and bruises. The only change in my skills is that I’m getting superb at taking hits.”

“We all need to start somewhere, and learning to take a hit isn’t the worst place to begin,” Nel consoled.

“If it’s not the worst, then I’d hate to see anything worse because it certainly hurts the most.”

“At least you aren’t learning what it’s like to get stabbed,” Ferris pointed out.

I shivered at the thought of being kabob’d on the end of a sword. “Gee Ferris, thanks for that mental image. Nothing says friendship like giving your buddy phantom pains of getting stabbed.”