Chapter 7

The Aegis Academies are the training schools for new entrees into the Hermetic Order of the Aegis. Starting first-year students are titled as Slates, in reference to blank slates. After the first year, students are chosen by the sect that best fits their talents and are trained exclusively to fit the role of each sect. 

Day 0, Quenchenday

While I made my way through the cavern of christening, Thallos stood before the entry gate waiting for me in his combat leathers alongside the academy’s Mysteriarch and a professor from each sect. This next bit I got from him almost a year after he took me on officially.

“I bet Iver is gonna butcher that spider. From what I’ve seen, he’s quite the marksman.” Thallos boasted.

Master Mystagogue, Professor Neckar, the head caster of the Sect of the Blackened Crown, a pink-haired Gnome with blue-green eyes, groused audibly, “I doubt it. The damned child was probably the one butchered.”

“Why would you say that?” asked Professor Mallock. The old Human tweaking a screwdriver against the cogs of his rough bionic left arm.

“Why do you think, old man? The Darkling isn’t worth the water he was born with.” sniped the Orc, Master Mystagogue Bail, a snarl on her one-eyed face, “Starved little fiend would’ve been turned to slurry. ” She was the Master of the Warrior Sect called the Crimson Blade.

The spymaster from the Sightless Eye, Kellar, shrugged his shoulders. For a Human, he looked remarkably plain and bland aside from his pale cardboard brown eyes. 

“I’ll have to agree with Neckar. The spider must’ve butchered him. Little snotling probably made for good bait and sport for the critter,” Professor Bail said with a yawn. 

“Oh, don’t be like that, Darrdain.” Thallos defended. “Just because he’s a Darkling doesn’t mean he’s scum. I’ve trained the boy, and he works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Just wait till you see the footage.“

All at once, each of the masters received a chirping chime on the therra-nodes mounted to each one’s right temple. In an almost uniform manner, each of the masters checked the notification on their devices.

A long moment passed as each of them watched the video. Master Mystagogue Bail let out a barking laugh. “Warrior, my green ass.”

“I’d have to agree,” said the 3’ 5” form of Master Mystagogue Neckar. “This Maverick boy seems to have no talent, arcane or martial.”

“What about that shot?!” Thallos interjected. “That was a marksman shot that killed the critter in one shot.”

“Marksman shot?” Bail scoffed as she watched the recording. “The cobbled-together bit of wreckage is not an arrow, and the fact that he made the shot at all is little more than luck. Besides, you know the laws of the trial. Kill by weapon, tool, or element.”

“So what?”

“He didn’t use magic, so he can not join the Blackened Crown,” came Professor Neckar.

“The kill was not from direct combat.” said Master Bail.

“The kill was not from an ambush.” stated Master Keckarra, the Master Mystagogue of the Silent Heart Sect.

“The kill was not avoided.” said Spymaster Kellar.

“The boy did use what he had on hand to craft his weapon and turned the environment into a weapon as well. Not to mention how easily he solved the door. If he has half as much talent with a wrench and solder, then I think I will be the one to take him.” Master Mystagogue Mallock said with a crooked grin.

“Oh, he will not be amused with this.” Thallos said in an almost amused tone.

Thallos quickly hid his smirk as a figure appeared at the mouth of the cave.

I cursed and spat the dust from my mouth, seemingly for the hundredth time, as I rose from the mouth of the cavern. I was stressed. I was tired. I was annoyed, and I was bleeding. I passed from the mouth of the cavern into the heart of the mountain, a crater that hollowed out the very core of the natural monument. Within the blasted crater was nestled a forest unlike any other. The leaves of the forest came in shades of blue and crimson alongside the green of a dozen other trees. Some of the leaves held a glow of their own. Standing among the exotic trees stood a series of buildings. Each structure was a squat grey thing lined with runes in black ink. I counted seven buildings set wherever they seemed to fit best. Standing in front of the main building stood Thallos beside another six figures.

Beside Thallos stood a plain Human man with pale cardboard brown eyes, a scarred Wood Elf, brands only just barely showing along the low neck of her black leathers, a female Gnome, her tuft of dandelion hair a vibrant pink that blended in with her shifting crimson robes, a female Orc, her right eye, and jawbone replaced with steel and machinery, an old Human man with a bionic left arm and eye, his face a patchwork of scars under his long and wild grey hair, and a High Elf, her blond hair partially hiding a scar along the side of her neck, something that would be thought a death blow. 

I climbed up the hill, cursing and spitting as I went. I was so angry; I had half a mind to chew Thallos out. But the more I thought about verbally exploding, the more of a bad idea it sounded. I would never have mouthed off to my father, and Thallos was even more dangerous than my father, albeit with an odd temperament about him. I’d better not make a scene in front of who must have been the head instructors. Thrown into a life-threatening position or not, I need to make a good impression. My future started in those next few moments.

I marched right up to the group of adults and gave a deep bow. “G-good evening. I am Iver Maverick, and would like to know if I scored well enough to join the academy?”

Thallos broke out into a wide grin as all the instructors turned to glare at him.

“You didn’t explain how this works? ” The scarred High Elf enquired. This close, I got a good look at the scarred, blond woman. 

She was garbed in a long, black, flowing cloak hemmed with silvery-grey embroidery. Adorning the chest of the robes looked to be an odd-shaped compass rose. It was composed of overlapping lines, square in the center, with each of the four of the rose’s points creating a trident of sorts. Her sleeves were deep and wide, masking her hand movements. The form of the cloak cut off to reveal a pair of tight, black, thief's leather pants, form-fitting hugging her legs padded at the knees, reinforced at the shins, with several pockets, pouches, and slots for tools. The pants covered surprisingly shapely legs that I was old enough to be fascinated by, but too young to know why I liked them. Covering her feet and overlapping with her thief’s pants were what looked like some bastard hybrid between six-inch heels and steel-toe work boots. They looked like they were torture tools. Framing her face was a hood that could easily hide her face and was wide enough to remind me of a cobra's hood. Crowning the entire dark getup was a crooked wizard cap; its brim seemed to be a foot long, and its point bent and dancing with her every movement. 

If her outfit caught eyes, then her face was a step above. Her left half was the image of Elven grace and beauty. A sharp chin and cheekbones. Her iris, just like every other High Elf’s, were blue, but her sclera looked almost like they were grown from blue-white crystal to complete her face. This side of her face was a symbol of beauty, but her right side, it held a dichotomy between beauty and horror.

The right side of her neck was a sight of puckered and pale scar tissue, a wound that must have been lethal, yet there she stood, somehow having survived a ripped artery.

Her right cheek was torn open, and what remained was a scarred mess. The gaping wound of her cheek displayed teeth that had been shattered and repaired with gold into viscous fangs to give the sense of wolf’s teeth all the way to the back of her jaw. Her right eye was framed by a spiderweb of pink scars, the orb itself, a modeled globe of bloodshot tissue, and milky scars that promised this woman would never see from the organ again.

“Sorry, Lady Mysteriarch. I had him focus on training. I didn’t want to lasher his brain, letting him worry about how it all works.” Thallos offered an explanation that sounded cheap, even to me. All the other instructors either groaned in annoyance or massaged their brows or both.

The robed Elf woman, the one that Thallos called Lady Mysteriarch, turned to me, bending over to look me in the eye. She spoke in a soothing voice that was thick with an accent from the Elven highlands, all hard Os, long Rs, and sharp Ks.

“Young Mister Maverick, I am the leader and overseer of this school. I am Mysteriarch Maidra Kaydammin, but you can call me Mysteriarch. K. The others here with us are the Master Mystagogues, the Master instructors for each sect. “

I nodded numbly as I looked deep into her good eye, flitting a glance to her right eye, the reflex completely out of my control.

“Just by getting through the cave, you passed. The only fact that matters right now is how you made it through.” Mysteriarch. K. stood up straight and gestured to the Master Mystagogues, as she called them. “We watched how you dealt with the problem, and your actions show that you have great possibilities with the Sect of the Burning Hand.”

With those words, my hopes broke, shattered to the floor. “B-but Lady Mysteriarch, is there any way I can become a warrior? I-I’m afraid that I have my heart set on being out in the world with a weapon in hand.”

At this, the female Orc Mystagogue crossed her arms and gave a derisive snort. “Not unless you can grow a spine and some semblance of talent in the next year.”

I felt a flicker of hope rise from the shattered body of my dreams. “Excuse me?” I pressed in a manner as polite and as meek as I could manage. I really did not want to offend anyone, so I felt it best not to make too much of a fuss.

Another figure stepped out of the group. A Human man who looked to be in his late seventies. He stood only slightly above average. The build of his body was an odd combination of a craftsman hunch in his back and the thin, ropy muscle of a blacksmith who skipped a few too many meals. He was mostly bald save for a mane of ash-grey hair that appeared to suffer from a severe static charge as it stood on end, making him look a little mad. He had one blue eye, blue like where the ocean and sky meet. His left eye was an older bionic piece. It looked to be from about a decade ago, but so heavily modified it was hard to tell. His face was pale under a thin layer of black ash, which stood in sharp contrast to the heavily tanned and leathery skin of his one natural arm and mostly bare chest. His left arm was…. Fascinating doesn’t begin to express what his arm was. It was clearly a custom job, made of various types of metal, but I could tell just by looking at it that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of tools.

“Greetings, young Master Maverick. I am Master Mystagogue Kenis Mallock, Master of the Sect of the Burning Hand. We feel that you would fit best learning under me and my other instructors because of how you handled the trial in the cave. You see, if you had attacked the beast and started a fight with the creature and won, then you would have been selected as a warrior with the Sect of the Crimson Blade. If you had snuck around it, you would have been marked as a spy with the Sect of the Sightless Eye. If you had killed it with a single strike while it was unaware, you would have been slated as an assassin with the Sect of the Silent Heart. And if you had used a spell to end the creature, you would have been marked as a caster with the Sect of the Blackened Crown.“

“B-but Mystagogue, I killed it, didn’t I? Why can’t I be an assassin or a warrior?” I knew that what I said was a bald-faced lie, but I hoped they wouldn’t notice because I was getting frantic, my hands wringing and feet shifting.

“You are slated for the engineer sect because you used an abstract form of combat. You crafted a device and used the environment to kill the creature in the cave, which shows a sense of awareness, precision, and complex thought needed to solve problems and equations in our field.”

“But couldn’t I be an assassin by those same standards? I know they often have a need for the same skills.”

The Wood Elf woman stepped closer, but the old engineer raised his hand in a sign of asking for a moment. “I chose you instead of Master Mystagogue Keckerra because we saw your hesitation at the thought of harming another creature. With such a level of empathy, you would do no good as an assassin.”

I opened my mouth to protest but found Mystagogue Mallock’s finger over my lips. “But I see your determination in learning the art of combat, and lucky for you, you have an entire year to change our minds.”

“W-wait. What?” I asked, in completely confused consternation.

“As of right now, you are an entry trainee at the Aegis Academy of the Grimmalk. For the next year, you will be trained in the fundamentals of all sects and will study the foundations of better education as we ready you for the Day of Choosing.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. 

At that point, Thallos stepped in. “Everyone in any of the academies starts as a Slate. You will find your uniforms and everything you need in your room in Dorm Hall. You are given one fully furnished room, clothes and school supplies provided. For the next year, you’re going to train in anything and everything, boy. If you impress the Master Mystagogues with your skill in another field, then on your Choosing Day, you will be selected to join that sect. ”

Mysteriarch K. turned around and spoke, “We have wasted enough time. Kenis, see that the boy is tended to and ready for classes. Thallos, follow me. I have your next assignment. Everyone else, I will assume that you all know what needs to be done.”

Without another word, the group of adults dissolved; Thallos, Mysteriarch.K., and the Gnome Master Mystagogue all headed to the largest building centered in the crater. The Orc and the Wood Elf made their way toward the right, and the rather bland-looking Human Mystagogue just walked off into the nearest thicket of the forest. 

My head snapped around like rubber, trying to follow everyone heading in their own direction until I felt a weight on my shoulder. I refocused to find Master Mystagogue Mallock with his hand resting on my shoulder. “Follow me to your new home, Ticker. ”

“Ticker? ” I asked.

“Yes, you, Ticker. I give a lot of my students nicknames to express how they act. ”

I followed him as he headed due left toward a seven-story grey slab of a building. 

“You are Ticker. When under pressure, you take your time and think things through, those seconds ticking away like a kitchen timer.” I looked to him in shock to see him flashing me an amused grin. “But given time and tools, you answer any question set before you. The only sound that came to my mind as you crafted was that tick, tick, tick of a timer. But you knew you had time and worked diligently to solve the problem set before you.”

For his age, that old master had one hell of a hustle. I was too busy trying to keep pace with him to ask any questions, so he carried on. 

“You’re lucky to have gotten here on Quenchenday. This gives you the rest of the day to relax and get set up. But tomorrow, Igniday, you will start classes. Every Igniday for the next few months will comprise of foundation classes, like biology, history, and basic mathematics. On Smeltesdays, you will study spycraft and social engineering. Temporikdays will consist of all-day combat tactics and team strategy. Castestdays will have magic theory classes and myst mechanic fundamentals. Hornadays will always consist of my classes, mechanics, magic theory, electronics, and all that fun. And Quenchendays, just like everywhere else, is a day of rest and meditation. Oh! And you will have physical training every morning.”

By this point, we had reached the main doors of the seven-story grey building; the dormitory was clearly legible above the entrance in large brass letters. The Master Mystagogue bustled up seven flights of stairs, rambling on about something involving a faulty Water Myst crystal core and a sewage blockage. I lost most of the details trying to climb the stairs, feeling like little more than a wheezing floor rug. 

“And this is your room, Number 780.” He pressed a key into my hand, “Now, first-years are always on the seventh floor of the dorm, and every year after you go down a level, seventh year’s room on floor 7.”

I slipped my low-tech key into my low-tech lock, voicing my thoughts as I did so. “This security seems a little….um, lacking. I thought somewhere like this would have more high-tech personal security.”

“Oh, don’t fuss over that. Tomorrow afternoon, we are going to run physical, neural, and synaptic tests. During that, we will be sure to add a therra-Node mount and a R.A.T Tail; once those are added, we will add B.I.Cs to your wrists.”

I stepped into my room, noting the reinforced bolt locks set inside the fireproof steel plating on the door and wall. 

“I will leave you to get settled. The DFAC or cafeteria is the closest building to this one, just north of here. They serve food all day. And be up and ready for a challenge by 6 am.” Master Mallock turned and began heading back down the hall, only to stop three steps later and turn back to me, “Oh, and be sure to read the handbook to the academy.”

“Yes, sir. I will get on it.”

I stepped into my room, closed, and locked my door. Pressing my forehead against the door, my eyes closed, and I took a slow, deep breath. I held that breath and let the last few minutes pass through my mind. It had been a lot to process.

This was insane, I thought. I wasn’t adventurer material. I was going to get myself killed here. Hell, I almost got killed just trying to join this damned academy. What in Anogwin was I doing? I had about as much spine as a jellyfish. How in the nine circles was I supposed to graduate from this place? This was a place where legends were born. On the journey here, Thallos told me stories of the heroes who were part of the Order. Liquilla the Iron Branded, Morgan Crystal Blade, Tallos Light Fist. The Order’s academies had birthed legend after legend, and if what Thallos said was right, then there were hundreds of other men and women who had done just as much as those legends but kept to the shadows. 

There was no way I was going to make it. I should just talk to the Mysteriarch and ask to leave.

But then what? Go back to being homeless? Stay powerless, weak, and starving? Live with the nightmare of my father’s death and spend the rest of my brief life kicking myself because I could have done so much more, become so much more.

No. I started this journey to find that murderer and the stolen box, and I damned well was going to finish it. I was going to join the Crimson Blades, graduate, and find that man, or I was going to die trying. I needed to grow a spine, here and now.

It was at that moment I decided that the old Iver, the weak, shy, powerless Iver, died in that cave. If I was going to make it here, I couldn’t stay the boy I was. As of that moment, in that room, I was going to be a man.

I lifted my head from the door and turned to survey my new home. The room wasn’t large by any means, no more than eight by ten, made up of four grey walls with lit trim edging at each wall, emitting a clean white light through the room. The back wall was a holo-window, simply a hologram that displayed what was just past it, currently dormant. The ceiling was also a holo-window. At that time, it displayed the mouth of the crater leading to a grey-white cast sky that made me feel a bit melancholy. Mounted to the right wall was a weapons rack made up of matt-black nano hexagons called a Black Rack. The rack currently looked like an odd, flat, black box protruding from the wall, but if I pressed a weapon against it, the material would mold to the shape of the weapon and hold it snug. Beside the rack was a sliding door that could only lead to the restroom. Against the wall beside me was a wardrobe, no doubt already stocked with uniforms and other necessary clothing items. Set in the back left corner was a full-sized bed, neatly made with a grey pillow and white sheets; the comforter above glistened silver in the room’s light, displaying the symbol that was on the Mysteriarch’s robe in black, red, and purple, it only took me a couple of moments to realize that was the insignia of the Order. The bed frame was a single piece mounted to the floor. The headboard rose and stretched forward to form an overhang, no doubt some form of extra lighting or a vid-system. But what really caught my eye was the workbench against the left wall.

The bench was forged from steel. Directly above the bench had its own Black Rack with a range of tools. The front face of the desk was lined with row after row of drawers, probably filled with crafting materials or to be filled with them. Feeling a hunger that had nothing to do with food, I skittered over to the desk. I ogled the tools, ecstatic at finally having a more extensive set. Thoughts of what I could do with these raced through my mind. I could fix so much, and I make so much more. I went through the drawers, cataloging everything. Several sizes of screws, solder, wire of varying gauges, nuts, bolts, washers, gears, blank quartz boards, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and more. This was a great start, but I would need some more raw materials if I was going to make something good. 

I was so wrapped up zipping over my new supplies and toys that I almost didn’t notice the book on the bench. Bound in clean black leather and pressed with the same symbols as was on my bed, it was a little larger than a pocketbook. I picked up the book, set aside my bag, and let my bow and hunting knife clatter to the floor with a few quick motions, but I gingerly settled my quiver to let it prop against the bench. I pulled Sasha, my tattered and ratty blanket, from my bag. Her once rich forest green fabric was a faded shadow, one edge fraying and held together with a shabby knot. I draped her over my shoulder and flopped down on my first actual bed in almost a year. Splayed face down across the bed like a corpse, I waved my arms and legs like I was making a snow angel and emitted a muffled groan of pleasure that bordered on decadence. I flopped over onto my back, rolling like a bloated walrus, my arm extended into the air like a guiding sail. I pressed on the overhead light to my bed and turned to page one of my handbook. 

Welcome, trainee, and congratulations on your first step on the path to forging a better tomorrow.