Chapter 17

Halflings in Elven society are treated with disdain. Elves are very proud of their familial heritage and see any half-breeds as a strain on a family’s name. By the Elven standard, the worst form of taint to a bloodline is the interbreeding between two different types of Elves. These “Abominations” are seen as a cancerous melding of two things that should never mesh. 

Day 102 Quenchenday

The first quarter of my school year drew to a close only just the day before. My quarterly test results were a mixed bag. 

CLASS GRADE Score

Social Studies: F 35.6%

Algebra: B+ 88.2%

Biology: B- 81.6%

History: C- 73.5%

Science Fundamentals: A- 94.8%

Mystech Fundamentals: A+ 110.5%

I was making no progress with Social Studies. But given my history with most sentient interactions consisted of getting the shit kicked out of me or being treated like a goblin, my social skills and interpretation of cultures were understandably very limited. 

I had a fairly reasonable grip on mathematics. While I had yet to find any need for any of the algebra theorems or formulas, I still put in the effort to understand them. I had developed a talent for numbers, specifically measurements and values, through my constant tinkering.

Biology, the squishy, slimy, bloody, nasty yuck class. Diagrams are fine, models are cool, and these let me think of the organic body like a machine. But being handed a thermal laser and told to cut open a larval Dire Black Throne Beetle to pull out its guts and tag each organ. Yeah, no, that was utterly revolting. At least I didn’t have to actually tag the organs for the final. It was just holo tags to be seen in AR (Augmented Reality).

History was definitely a weakness for me. Since I wasn’t allowed to go to primer school back in my hometown, all of my teachings were based on what my father taught me when he felt like teaching. History was a topic he avoided, like the plague. What little I managed to learn was from the television. So, I knew about the Scale War in the Second Age and the Rebellion of the Broken Sheers, and a few of the more dramatic historical moments. Mostly wars and battles. This class covered way more than just war and drama in history.

Science Fundamentals was a cruise over the Shining Sea. It was so easy. Basic metals, minerals, gases, and chemicals are easy. Learning the Periodic table, I already knew it. Basic four states of matter, simple. I taught myself most of the topics while doing research for my tinkering. I could even take it a step further and provide durability and conductivity scores for a healthy amount of the metals.

If Science Fundamentals was easy, then Myst Fundamentals was exhilarating, like H.E.L.L Diving with a dissension equalizing equipment set that I built from scratch and knew everything about down to the pressure needed to trigger the activation button. Everything that I had been working on up to that point had more than prepared me for the entire course. In fact, I was over-prepared. I found two errors in the test questions that the Mystagogue didn’t even know were there.

 The Sect tests were much less varied in results, and I’m pretty sure you know exactly how I scored. Each of the tests was set on a Pass/Fail system. Either you made the cut, or you came up short.

CLASS GRADE Scores

Sightless Eye: Fail

Silent Heart: Fail

Blackened Crown: Fail

Crimson Blade: Fail

Burning Hand: Pass

The Sightless Eye test was both simple and unfair. All the students were told to wear their personal attire and go through the day drawing as little attention as possible. Those that stuck out failed. It doesn’t take too many brain cells to puzzle out how I did. I won’t go into detail about how badly I failed.

The Silent Heart test is just a game of laser tag with thermal optic sniper rifle models and sidearms. We were given free rein over the surface of the academy. I can only assume that the other students that were above us in rank were ironically below us now that I knew that there were at least four subterranean levels to the school grounds. At the time of the test, I thought that I was being clever by heading into the woodland at the perimeter of the cavern. As it turns out, about 60% of the student body went for the sapphire-leafed woods. I was tagged not fifteen minutes into a twenty-four-hour test.

The Blackened Crown Test I just failed outright. It was a test to see if I developed an open channel to my Mystwell. Plain and simple, they scanned me, told me I failed the test, and I left for the day. 

The Crimson Blade test was the one I really needed to pass if I wanted to become a warrior. We were set into teams and set upon each other with our choice of training weapon. I lasted till I found my first opponent. I was broken by a certain Dracose who was still holding a virulent grudge against me for putting him in the dirt with an electric charge. The only thing I can be proud of from that butchering was that I survived, albeit with two shattered knees and a broken back. To add salt to the wound, the healer who patched me up used me as an example for a group of students. I was an example of extreme physical trauma.

The Burning Hand test was the only source of solace I had. The test was to assemble the most complicated piece of work we could. We could start with a base object that we had built previously, but it had to have a minimum of two modifications done over the course of eight hours. I spent the first half-hour just sketching out designs. I was going to pass this test if it killed me. Everyone needed one passed sect test in order to continue in the academy. 

After half an hour of mad scribbling, I finally came to the decision that I was going to use my gauntlet as a base. There’s no such thing as too many features in a self-defense item. I set the glove to launch the Secorus gas disks with the press of a button. I also mounted an adjustable spray nozzle to the outside edge of the wrist and hooked it up to a Water crystal and an Air Crystal. I also attached another projectile system to the Underside of the gauntlet. That one I mounted with custom ball bearings that I enchanted to emit a thick black smoke on impact. I cobbled the entire device together over the course of five hours. I say cobbled because I was only guesstimating most of the numbers. 

Master Mystagogue was suitably impressed with my performance and the amount of time I took to complete my task. I explain the modifications and how to trigger them. He took me to a weapons testing room, where he let off a couple of my smoke pelts and sprayed a wall with oil. Once he was satisfied with my design, Master Mallock was more than happy to tell me that I had passed.

But the truly notable events happened on the next day, the sacred day of rest in the week, Quenchenday. Nel, Rose, and I were traversing the blue woods at the perimeter of the cavern. More precisely, Rose was chasing Nel from treetop to treetop as I strolled along beneath them, just watching.

Nel shot from the limb of one tree, propelling herself eight feet through the air before she stuck her left hand out to catch a limb of the next tree. She caught a fork in the trunk of the tree nearest her, her momentum spinning her around the limb. Her face was alight with joy. She had never been pursued by anyone with the level of mobility Rose had.

Rose, hot on Nel’s heels, used her feline claws and high-grip boots to traverse the forest canopy like a lithe shadow. A blur of motion overhead, then a matted ‘thump’ of a body landing on a tree. Her claws were not the only feline thing about Rose, and I was not referring to the shape of her body. As she pursued Nel, her motions were smooth, fluid, and predatory. Watching her move through the treetops gave the sense of some mountain lion-sized wild cat stalking the sapphire canopy overhead, on the hunt for some inattentive prey. Rose lunged from a tree limb, throwing herself bodily toward Nennel. A fraction of a moment before the two were to collide, Nel hopped up, placing both feet on the trunk she held to, and kicked off, launching herself off to the right into another tree. As she flew, Nel twirled her body in a corkscrew roll. 

Where Rose’s grace was very much that of a predatory hunter, Nel’s was more akin to a dancer, an Elven dancer. Her motions reminded me more of flowing water, birds at play, and a leaf on the whims of the wind. 

“Ya know, Iver, if you joined in, you would get better mobility skills.” Rose said, hanging from a tree limb, claws buried deep into the flesh of the wood, to stare down at me.

I stood directly under Rose, glaring up at her through my modest brow. “If I even try to keep up with the two of you, I’ll break my neck. The academy’s healers are good, but they can’t bring back the dead.”

“Na, that’s when we get a necro. Have ‘em raise you.” Her lips were pressed into a tight smile that said that she found my reactions entertaining. 

“I completely REFUSE to be a necromancer’s test subject. I Hate the restless dead.”

“Why? I mean, I get that zombies are gross, and ghouls are just downright feral. But what about vampires? Revenants? Wraiths? None of them rot, and they’re just people. You, of all people, should know not to listen to pop-culture stereotypes. If all vampires stole teenage Elves, and wraiths possessed random people to murder their families, then by that thought, all Darklings are evil mastermind cult leaders.” She looked down at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not stereotyping Blightlings. I just don’t think undeath is natural. I mean, the dead are supposed to stay dead.” I took a half-dozen steps back as Nel landed beside me, meaning Rose was going to drop. “Besides Rose, unless you would need to find and convince a Sixth-circle necro, if not higher, if you wanted me to come back as… well, me.”

Rose dropped to the grass below and braced a clawed hand against her hip. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to get the first necro I find to bring you back, regardless of their circle.”

“Oh, come on, Rose.” I huffed in only half-false offense, crossing my arms over my chest. “And what are you going to do with a shambling Iver corpse?” I cocked my head in question, daring her to give me a good answer.

“Simple, you would become my butler.” Rose spoke with a wide, toothy grin.

“Excuse me?! A butler? Are you serious?” I was only mildly offended, but I over-exaggerated the response to dramatic levels. After a whole semester with Nel and just under half of a semester with Rose, I was improving my social skills to a degree. They both knew my history with people and were unbelievably patient with me when I stumbled through even basic social skills. A quirk I had picked up while spending time with these two was to over-exaggerate certain reactions and get their feedback on whether or not it was socially acceptable.

“Ignore her, Ive’, she’s just being mean because she thinks it’s funny. But your response was almost on point, for if you were actually offended, maybe pull it back just a bit.” She emphasized this by raising a hand and pulling her index and thumb together in a sign of shrinking.

“Noted.” I gave her a grateful nod for the feedback. “But I actually was kinda offended by the resurrecting comment.”

“Why?” asked Nel

“Yeah, what was so bad about it?”

I worried at my lower lip as I gave a great sigh. “My father raised me to believe that all restless dead were unnatural. Whether or not some of them are good people or bad, the fact of the matter still stands. They shouldn’t exist.”

“Harsh.” Rose said, a little taken aback by my comment.

“Look, can we drop the topic and go to the dining hall? I need food.”

“Yeesssss.” Rose said in relief, drawing out the word as she threw her head back. “I have the need to feed.”

“Ok, now you’re just mocking me.” I hissed with a glare.

“What?” She seemed honestly confused. “Oh! No, I’m not talking like feeding a ghoul or anything. I mean feed like how a wild tiger feeds on a boar or some dreck.”

I slightly tilted my head, one brow raised, giving her a skeptical look.

“Look, Iver, you don’t want to talk undead. We won’t talk undead. But right now, this tiger needs some meat.” With that, she turned towards the main campus and began a meandering yet dedicated pace down the hill. 

I turned to Nel, who rolled her eyes in Rose’s direction in response. I stifled a snort, and we both made to follow.

Nel pressed her hands into her pockets and began a cantering skipping walk as she hummed the notes to some song I didn’t recognize. With Rose leading the charge and me holding the rear, we made our way to the dining hall. One by one, we passed through the front door and came to a dead stop. I stepped back as I almost collided my nose with Nel’s shoulder. Nel came to a stop because Rose halted mid-pace. I stepped around the two to see what was going on. Rose’s eyes were locked on the far wall across the dining hall. I followed her venomous gaze to find who else but Mallrimor’s gang of thugs picking on someone. Blackened blade, they had to learn at some point to just mind their own business. This time, I was going to mind my own business while Rose reeducated the simpletons. I wasn’t going to get involved. I was going to keep my head down, get my food, and take a seat. ‘Come on, Iver’ I thought to myself. ‘Let the she-warrior do her thing while you just try to stomach what this kitchen had mistaken for edible food.’

Rose stormed towards the instigation. I could feel the thunderclouds in her wake. I made it halfway to the lunch line when there was the sound of clattering metal against that far wall. I looked up to find that Rose hadn’t even reached the group yet. Instead, I found a food tray lying at the feet of a young Elf with wild hair acting like a feral animal. He threw a fist at Gellar, who ducked the wide swing and planted a knee in the boy’s abdomen. The Elf boy curled in upon himself in pain. He used that position as a starting point for a headbutt, again aimed at Gellar. In answer, Kesher grasped the attack in one gargantuan paw, completely halting the momentum. The Dracose lifted the boy off his feet by his head. The boy struggled, beating his fists against the scaled arm with about as much result as doing the same to a statue of granite. But when the Elven boy’s snarls turned to screams of pain as the Dracose squeezed, something happened. 

Suddenly, I was moving. Not just moving, I was running, straight for the Dracose, training blade in my gauntleted hand. I had no idea what I was going to do. All that I knew was that something had to be done. I jumped atop a dining table, almost losing my footing in the process. I righted myself and lept from one table to the next. This act was not easy, and I almost ate floor several times in only a handful of seconds, but I couldn’t waste time running around the tables. No one else other than Rose and I were moving to help, not even the adult staff. This wouldn’t be the first murder of the year from my class. I counted myself lucky that I wasn’t present for the first death. But I couldn’t just stand by and let a murder happen in front of me. With no idea of what to do and rushing toward the problem, I was probably going to get myself killed. If I did live through those next few minutes, I definitely was going to regret it.

Rose noticed my action and moved to close in just ahead of me. She reached the Dracose only a fraction of a second before me. As she closed in, she drew her own training sword and fell into a heels-first slide. She struck the oversized lizard in the back of his knees with a wooden blade gripped in two hands.

As Kesher dropped the Elf and began to topple, I was already in the air, flying right by his head. Taking a page from Nel’s book, I spun in mid-air to build up momentum. As I came around, I chopped my blade, with both hands, into his throat as his weight was already falling forward. With all the force from my running jump, redirected through a spin to hack into the scaled throat before me with all my might. The training weapon shattered into splinters, and I watched as someone twice my height and five times my weight was close lined by my blade, his trachea flattened. His legs flew forward, his head flew back, and suddenly, the brute was ass-over-hammer.

Thinking back on it now, that Dracose got lucky that Rose and I had been using wooden training weapons instead of our standard steel ones. The training area outside had wooden variants if we didn’t want to break each other too badly, and we had snatched a few for ‘personal use’ and had yet to return them.

I struck the back wall with bone-jarring force, my teeth rattling in my skull. I needed to think fast. At that moment, I was now right in the middle of the batch of nasties. I needed to get out and take the Elf with me. I was going to be pursued and couldn’t count on Rose to deal with them. I reached into my bag and dropped five familiar items after turning five dial timers to a quarter of a second delay. Without skipping a beat, I shot three smoke pellets at the floor in the center of the group of thugs that violently burst upon contact. I threw myself away from the wall as heavy and highly conductive gas ejected from the disks I had just left behind. I slipped my left arm into the armpit of the Elf and made my daring escape the whole time, half-shouting, “Dreck! Dreck! Dreck! Dreck!” 

Three paces outside of the ever-expanding cloud, I turned and released a jet of oil to coat the floor just under the fog. Just as the others of Mallrimor’s gang took action, coughing and trying to make pursuit, I armed the affectionately named Shock Bites feature of my gauntlet. I took a quick second to check for Rose and found her staggering from the choking smoke, coughing herself.

“Hey, uh, Rose, you might want to get clear.” I tried to keep my words calm, but it did very little to hide my shaky tone.

“Wha-?” she gagged out as she tried to blink her watering eyes free of the smoke. As soon as she saw my outstretched arm with a closed fist pointing at the cloud, she got the picture. Roserra threw herself out of the damage zone. She wasn’t safe for a full second before I triggered my shock bites. 

Brecken was the first to leave the smoke and enter my line of sight, so the poor Orc was my shock target. The barbs hooked into the cloth of his uniform and the skin of his neck and forehead. He didn’t even know what happened. None of them did. Small arcs of blue-white power jumped through the cloud of gas. On cue, as thugs started locking up from the current, they couldn’t maintain a footing in the oil, which had already been giving them issues even before the system shock. After three seconds of current, I killed the power and retracted my barbed hooks. After a few moments, the smoke and gas cleared to reveal four figures on the floor, moaning in discomfort, struggling and failing to get to their feet.

Rose jogged up to me. “What the hell was that?!” 

“I don’t know! I think I lost my sanity there for a few seconds. I could have died!” I exclaimed, gesturing frantically with my hands as I spoke. I was so sick with anxiety that I had failed to notice that I had dropped the Elf, and even more so, I had failed to realize that an entire dining hall worth of people were staring on in mute shock.

“What are you talking about, Ive’?! That was perfect! Just keep doing that, and you’ll get into the Crimson Blade, no problem.” Rose shouted, a massive grin plastered on her face.

“Keep doing what? Throwing myself headlong into danger to almost get killed? Yeah, great idea, Rose. How about I just become straight suicidal and save the universe the effort of having something else kill me.”

“Calm down, Iver. You did a good thing. Hell, that strike you made was strong enough to splinter a wooden training sword.“

“Shit! My sword! Oooohhh man, Kellennar is going to have my hide mounted on the wall of his office.” I knew that I was falling into a panic attack even as I started pulling on my horns, an act I used to do as a child when my anxiety was overwhelming me. I started pacing in circles around Roserra, tugging on my horns.

“Iver, stop. Iver, stop.” Rose said in a placating tone as she kept turning to face me, pressing her open hands in a downward motion as a sign to relax. 

“Oh man, and the mess I made. I’m so dead, sssooo dead.” I muttered to myself.

I was brought to a sudden and jarring halt by a pair of furry hands, feline claws gently pressed against the skin of my triceps. I was rotated to face the stern countenance of Rose. “Pin your feet before I pin them myself with a hammer and nails.”

I froze, my already spiraling mind easily visualizing Roserra nailing my feet to the floor.

“There, much better. Now, Iver, I need you to do something for me.” Her tone was still soothing but reflected that she wanted something.

“W-what is it?” I stammered.

“I need you to calm do-” She was cut off when a force struck the side of my face. I felt a pressure against the side of my jaw then I was ripped out of Rose’s grasp and off my feet. My side struck a table and several chairs, both the furniture and I tumbling to the floor in a heap. My jaw, ribs, and hip were alight with throbbing pain. 

‘Who hit me? Did I miss one of the thugs?’ I asked myself mentally.

Once my vision straightened out from seeing double, I found the culprit. The Elf I saved stood in an aggressive, primal stance, his eyes locked on me with a fire of anger. He stormed up to me. 

“What do you think you are doing, trog ?!” the Elf snarled. “I could have taken them. I had them right where I wanted them.”

My rattled brain was having a hard time keeping up with what the Elf was saying. All I could do was try to keep my eyeballs from rolling in my skull. But Nel and Rose came to my rescue. Nel rushed to my side and offered me a hand and a shoulder to help me stand. I took the offered aid even as Rose tore into the guy. 

Rose clutched the Elf’s uniform jacket in a choking grip as she lifted him to stand on his toes. “Now listen here, you little skavy cut-ear. That guy you just decked klept your viletemp ass from getting your skull turned to chunky jelly. So I expect you to apologize to my friend, and you’d better make it sincere.” She snarled every word, carrying the weight of an unspoken threat with each syllable. 

The wild-haired Elf struggled against Rose’s grip with just as much success as he had with Kesher. “I, can, handle, myself.” There was a pause between each word as he tried to pull free of Rose’s steel-clenched grasp.

“Oh, you can handle yourself, yeah?” Rose spoke in a sickly sweet tone that dripped with sarcasm. “Well, then I’ll give you thirty seconds to break my grip before I start beating your slither-spined ass into a pulp that no one will be able to tell apart from the slop being served for food here.” As she spoke, she pulled her free hand back, cocked in a fist, ready to deliver what she no doubt felt was some much-needed punishment. She started counting down from thirty.

After ten seconds, his efforts redoubled. After twenty seconds, his struggle got frantic. At the five-second mark, he tried to bite her hand. The moment his teeth made contact with her fur, Roserra dropped any pretense of counting and drove her fist into his nose. The Elf’s head shot back and bounced at the end of its flexibility. As he slowly tried to lift his head, his eyes hazy, nose clearly broken. Rose struck him again, blackening his eye.

I pulled myself from Nel’s support and took a lurching, limping step toward Rose. “That’s enough, Rose. Let him go.”

She released the Elf, who fell to his knees. Rose took a step back and gave me a questioning look. I knelt down beside the feral-seeming Elf. I put a hand on his upper arm. He drowsily turned his head to look at me. 

“Can we talk like civil people now?” I pressed. He gave a sluggish nod in answer.

“What’s your name?” I gently asked.

“Ferris, Stillwind.” He murmured with a pause in the middle as he tried to collect his thoughts.

“That’s a good start. Now, can you please explain why you’re upset with me for saving you?”

“Made, me, look, bad. I could’ve, handled them, myself.” I could tell from his voice that he was regaining his senses.

I gave an amused snort. “I don’t want to be rude, Ferris, but even I could tell that you didn’t have things under control. I’m pretty sure that Kesher would legitimately have killed you.”

“I could’ve won.” He half-mumbled, half-snarled.

“Ferris, I think it’s time you be honest with yourself. Take it from me. I want to join the Crimson Blade, and I can’t even really call myself a warrior. What I did back there.” I gestured towards the back pool of oil with a thumb, “That was a fluke. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I would have gotten completely demolished. I just got lucky. We got lucky.”

Ferris shot me a fearsome glare. One of his eyes was blacked and almost swollen shut. “I could take you on if I wanted.”

I gave him a tired smile. “You probably could take me. But that’s not saying much. In the local food chain, I’m at the bottom. Nel over here,” I gestured to her with a thumb, “is a step above me. Those drake-eyed thugs that were picking on you are all above Nel. And above them is Rose, who you’ve already met.” 

To make a point, Rose cracked her knuckles in a rapid-fire series of pops. At the noise, Ferris winced. I also noticed that he was pointedly not looking at her, even as she loomed over him from behind. Rose seemed to cast a shadow beneath her, much larger than what should have shown. Even I felt intimidated and I knew she was acting in my defense.

“Say, Ferris, do you have any friends here at the academy?”

“No.” He said with obvious pain that had nothing to do with his face. This pain came from the heart. I knew the feeling of loneliness far too well. I had never had a friend before I met Nel, not even before the academy.

“What would you say to joining our little ragtag group?”

“Really?” I could hear the hope in his words. Then he turned suspicious. “Why would you do that after I hit you?” He eyed me, clearly expecting this to be a joke or for there to be a stick to come with the carrot of friendship.

I shrugged and looked down at my hands with a phantom of a smile as I remembered first meeting Nel and Rose. “Let’s just say that I know what it feels like to be alone in a world full of drake-eyed pricks.”

I stood up and offered him a hand to help him rise. “How about a deal?” I offered.

I watched as he thought that his suspicions were realized. “What kind of deal? You want me to do something or give you something?”

I flashed him an amused smile. “Well, of course. If you promise not to deck me unless I really deserve it and promise not to be a pain, I’ll call you friend. And I’m willing to bet that if you chill your fists, Nel and Rose’ll call you friend.”

“You’re joking. There’s no way it’s that simple.” He clearly wasn’t going to buy the ‘let's be friends because friends are nice’ card. It was time to change tactics. If I hadn’t met Nel and Rose in the ways I had, no doubt I’d be just as suspicious.

“Think of it this way, I want allies when those cackle-tards come knocking at my door again, and there’s no such thing as too many allies. You need support, be it tactical or emotional. This is a give and give alike kind of…” I needed a word other than friendship, and I was struggling to find the word. 

“Partnership.” Nel said, dropping into the conversation. 

I watched the gears in Ferris’s head crank away as he rolled the idea around in his head. No doubt he was looking for loopholes or for something that could cause him problems later.

“You promise not to screw me?” He asked. 

“I swear on the Dead One’s missing eye.” I solemnly spoke with two fingers raised and pressed against my left eye. I turned to Nel and asked, “How about you, Nel?” 

She shrugged, “I don’t see why not,” and raised two fingers in the same gesture.

I turned to Rose. “And you, Rose?”

With her arms crossed over her chest, she gave a roll of the eyes that was so over-exaggerated that her head moved with the motion. “Sure, but only if the snot rag promises not to be a little prick.”

That was good enough for the Elf as he reached up to grab my wrist. I pulled him up with a grin on my face that no doubt looked goofy. I was only faintly aware of how quickly my panic about the mess I had made had faded when I saw that someone needed my support. But it was after the interaction with Ferris I became painfully aware that we had done all this in the middle of a dining hall full of people, people only staring at me. My grin turned sheepish, and I felt the heat of a blush rising in my marble-skinned cheeks. I felt like such a moron at that moment, but that feeling turned to dread when I heard the entry doors slam open, and there was a hulking figure glaring at me. Clearly, someone went and got an instructor because of the scene we had made. And it was just my luck that the instructor happened to be Mystagogue Thrasher. The gargantuan Orc shared control of our martial training classes with Mystagogue Kellennar. That Mystagogue Thrasher. 

“Slate 23, follow me to my office.” His voice was a deep rumble, showing no sign of anger or annoyance. It may have just been my imagination, but I would have sworn that I felt him speak the words just as much as I heard them.

I blanched and mechanically made my way over to the massive instructor. I tried to hurry, but the walk still felt like it took long minutes. The entire time my numb legs carried me closer to the Orc, I couldn’t help but think about how easily he could snap me in two if he had even the slightest whim to end me. As soon as I reached him, he gave me a scrutinizing inspection, his eyes scanning me from head to feet and back. He then turned his head to look back in the direction that I had come from. I just knew that he was looking at the mess I had made. Four unconscious students lying in a pool of oil and splinters. The entire dining room was muggy with the still dissipating smoke. There was a tang of ozone and copper in the air from the secorus gas that had dissolved into the ambient air of the room.

The hulking instructor slowly turned his head back to me, the motion as smooth as that of a machine with an almost methodical sense to the action. 

“Follow.” was all that he said before he turned and ducked his way out of the room.

I moved to obey as best I could.