"To all students that are currently in the dorms, the doors to your rooms are presently locked. If you are in any common area immediately go to your room and wait for me. I repeat, go to your room and wait for me. To those students that are in their rooms, wait for your roommates. All will be explained in due time." Mistress Dea said in a calm yet firm voice.

Tercius looked at the mature woman, as she lowered the amulet. "Mistress?"

The woman sighed deeply, deflating as if she was a recently punctured balloon. Shaking her head in apparent disbelief, she said, "What's going on, you ask? Idiots. That's what's going on. Idiots, Tercius --"

Her amulet started glowing orange and Mistress Dea went quiet. The woman's glacial expression morphed into one of rage. The Mistress immediately moved for the door which she unlocked with her amulet. "This should be over soon, don't worry,"

With those words she slammed the door shut, leaving the three of them staring into the place Mistress Dea last occupied. Tercius checked, just to be sure, and the door was locked. His amulet seemingly didn't work as a key anymore.

"What the hells?" Tercius repeated in a murmur. "Where is the explanation?"

"Who did she mean by idiots?" Eunim asked, alarmed. “What did they do?”

“Hells if I know,” Jorro answered.

***

Running down the hallway, Deamela opened the doors for the few first years who managed to get to their rooms in the few moments since she sent out the general message.

"Merlily, what is the status of my students outside?!" she sent the mental shout through her amulet.

"All but six are currently near one of the Masters or Mistresses. Two were injured, but are currently stable." an answer came back in a moment.

"What of those six?" Deamela asked, afraid of what she might hear.

"Alive, but trapped in Eastern Research Facility, where the portal spawned. A team is being prepared at this moment to extract them."

Deamela released a breath she held for too long. Only those who were in the sixth year of their studies were allowed in that building, and they knew how to properly engage defences, so they would be able to last until help arrived. As worry left her, a fury came as a fast replacement.

"Who is responsible for this?" Deamela demanded, her voice snapping like a whip.

"Currently unknown." the female voice from the other side said.

"Number of enemies?"

"Eight from the initial spawn. The chance for that number to increase is high."

"Why?" Deamela demanded.

"The portal that spawned them is still open, and judging by the amount of Mana that I can sense, it will last for two more hours. That timeframe is enough for a Greater Demon to cross over."

Deamela had to lean on a wall. "Idiots," she repeated in a murmur. "Idiots and their toys," Pushing herself forward, she ran to the front door of the dorms. Twenty students of various ages had tried to enter, but all were denied access until she gave the permission. "To your rooms, now," she commanded sternly to the frightened children and they obeyed.

From there she ran to her office. Once there, she engaged the visual surveillance of the surroundings of the dorms. In the park that surrounded their dorms, she spotted one of those demons Merlily mentioned. "One of the demons is near my building," she sent into her amulet mentally.

The demon was in the shape of a dog of gigantic proportions, tall as two floors of the dorm building. Like most demons, its visibly fiery interior was contained in a physical body made of flowing black tar and various metals. She was no specialist on these particular beings, but Deamela thought that the fiery core was merely a special affinity of Mana, an extreme one at that. The small jagged metallic spikes, that jutted out of the body of this dog-demon, were silvery black so the metal in question, for this demon, was probably iron. The metals made the bones, the flowing black tar was the skin, muscles, and the demon's lifeblood, while the fiery core was both the heart and the brain of the infernal beast. Deamela saw that its eyes glowed straight from the core of its being, and every time it opened its mouth, the same glow was seen from within. She was glad that the building was currently in complete lockdown, meaning that not even ventilation vents were open. Most demons could squeeze themselves through holes much smaller than their size, so that precaution was quite necessary.

Who knows what the sight of this being might have done to some of her youngest charges.

"Merlily, who is going after the portal?"

"Lazarus, Turinia, Qunir, and We'tar. There is another team getting ready to support them. The Repository has also sent a team."

That made Deamela breathe a bit easier. Turinia was a specialist in portals, and she would be able to dismantle the one that was open in mere moments if she was able to come near it. Qunir and We'tar were one of the most accomplished combat mages in existence, while Lazarus had probably tagged along just so he could take a few samples from the other side of the portal for his studies. She envied the man.

Deamela would have portaled there herself, but she was in charge of something that was much more important to her. Someone needed to look over almost eight-tenths of the student body that was currently present inside of the building. Their safety was entrusted to her, and she would see it done, no matter the cost.

"Get me in contact with those Masters and Mistresses who have my students," Deamela finally said. "I will allow them to portal students here. We need as many free hands on Academy grounds if we are to contain this with minimal damage,"

Now she had to get the rest of the students here, make sure the wards of the building were properly engaged, and hold the fort while the cleanup was underway. Deamela’s fists tightened around the neck of the imaginary culprit. There would be hell to pay after this, she would make sure of that, no matter if this happened out of ignorance or...

"I need to appeal to Lazarus to save me a sample or two…" she murmured to herself, as she set to work.

***

It was over two hours later that Tercius heard their door unlock itself.

Tercius jumped up from his bed and Eunim and Jorro followed suit. In Tercius's mind, Jorro and Eunim were taking this whole situation much better than he would have when he was their age. The time spent in a completely sealed-off room had the effect of making both boys nervous, but not to a point where they panicked.

Tercius himself had to admit that the time in this type of isolation was a heavy weight on a mind. The imagination was a raging river. The fact that they did not have any clue of what was going on outside did not help in any way. From the way Mistress Dea reacted and what she said, Tercius thought that the Academy was under attack. Who was it that was attacking? Why? He simply had no way to know.

The walls of his room offered no way to see outside, not even with any of his visual skills. Once Mistress Dea did what she did, it was as if the world outside was simply gone. Tercius made sure to keep his mind occupied on things he knew for a fact, rather than guess and go to some imaginary corners of his mind. Meditation helped, but he only used it for a few moments.

The only one in the room that was not affected in some way was Amber. She got her ears and forehead scratched and her eyes were closed in a blissfully ignorant manner.

Just as he headed towards the door, a voice reached Tercius. "To all first years, move slowly down the hallway towards my office. I repeat, all first-years move slowly to my office."

Tercius and his roommates exchanged looks.

"We better go," Jorro said.

Tercius nodded and picked up Amber. I have a bad feeling about this, he thought, as his arms tingled in an ominous way.

The three of them joined the crowd of his male classmates in going down the hallway. Tercius saw faces filled with fear and uncertainty, and he felt the same way. Mistress Dea was waiting for them in front of the door of her office, her hands on her back.

Tercius saw Penelope and her roommates arrive from the hallway that was opposite theirs.

"Be quiet," Mistress Dea commanded and the brief murmurs stopped completely. "We have a situation on our hands that has a good chance of taking quite some time to be solved. First I should inform you what happened. There was a security breach inside one of the buildings here, at the Academy, and a portal to one of the infernal planes was opened. I know that for most of you these planes and its creatures are mere mythology, but that was not always so. You will see soon enough with your own eyes. There were two injuries amongst upper years but nothing major, and both students are resting in the Hospital. The reason that I called all of you here is to give you this explanation in person and to tell you the decision that has been reached by the staff of the Academy. For a reason I can't currently disclose, every student of the first year will need to leave the premises of the Pyramid for a period of three months. You will have to turn over your amulets when you leave the barrier. If any of you used the storage function, please empty that space. I am truly sorry for this, but there is no other way."

Taking a deep breath she quieted down the murmurs that started, then continued, “Your lodgings for the next three months will be in a facility in Chameos. Your teachers will go with you and hold your classes there. Let me be frank, your education will not suffer. That is all from me. Are there any questions?”

Tercius thought about asking the Mistress about the security breach and who was the one who did it, but he doubted an answer would be provided. Especially when two hundred pairs of ears were listening. Though the fact that only the first years were being sent away and that the amulets were to be given over did give him some food for thought.

"Go pack, and be here in twenty minutes. Now." Mistress commanded and went to her office.

The kids stayed where they were until the Mistress saw them still standing there, at which point she started moving back. That made them scatter like ants. Tercius stayed, merely moving from direct view the hallways had.

“Tercius, what did I say just now?” Mistress Dea said, her hawk eyes gazing him down. “To your room and pack.”

“I have a question I want to ask in private,” he said.

The woman exhaled, and suddenly she seemed so tired. “Of course you would. Go on then, ask away.”

“How safe are we here? And how safe are we in Chameos? Is the way you're acting now, by sending us away, the standard protocol for these situations? What’s wrong with our amule--” as one question came, the next followed, but he stopped when Mistress Dea raised her hand.

"You said one, that's multiple. Let me ask you this. How safe are we anywhere in the world? Here, security is probably the highest on the whole planet. In Chameos, the security is second to very few places. Yes, it's the protocol, smartass. As for your amulets, I can't tell you anything at this time. Now, shuffle to your room and pack. Not a word more, I warn you.”

***

If Tercius learned anything from any strategy game he ever played, almost any book he ever read or movie he ever saw, was that the first few moves were almost always the setting up of a board. How the board was set up, in the beginning, was as important as everything that came after, if not more.

This whole thing smelled like someone else's game.

One player in this game, that Tercius conjured in his mind, were the mages of the Academy, while the other was a dark question mark, a mysterious player.

This attack seemed to him like one of those opening moves. The mages of the Academy responded by sending the new arrivals away, as protocol dictated. So they probably walked straight into someone else's plan. The question was; did the mysterious player want the students out so he could use them in some way, or, less likely, did he want to use the empty space the students left behind? Or maybe something else entirely, that Tercius in his ignorance did not see?

For all Tercius knew this mysterious mover could be a he, a she, or even an it. An individual, a small group, or even a large one. Too many questions marks plagued the whole thing.

Knowing that a game was played and that he was not one of the players did not sit well with him. He was a small unknown fish that could be swept away by a current at any time. The unknown part was to his personal preference, as limelight carried too many problems that he frankly would like to always avoid. Yet the small part was something he hoped to remedy as soon as possible. Even then, If he had to go down, Tercius would rather have big bones on which his enemies would choke on… Or something like that. Tercius’s survival instinct told him that it was stupid of him that he did not leave here and now, while his heart still pumped warm blood. Instead, he was choosing to be a sort of an aware pawn in someone else's game of chess, a move the instinct told him was moronic. But he simply couldn’t leave.

Both because of himself and because of those close to him.

As Mistress Dea said, there was no safe place on this planet, not really. Even the Pyramid, which was essentially unassailable from the outside, was still vulnerable from the inside, where its core lied. To leave now was to throw away the best chance for a better tomorrow. There would always be someone who came after him, after people who cared for him and for whom he cared for. The painfully obvious answer, as the emotions were washed away by Meditation, was to learn more. To become more powerful and fuck up any game he was involuntarily pulled in, by simply smashing their boards.

If he wanted to play, then that was another thing entirely.

He cringed as the metaphor came to mind. Tercius was never a team player, not even in another life. One-on-one or simply games where he played against himself were his preference. Now, this metaphor sounded like an angry child's tantrum, instead of what it truly was. A simple desire to never bend to someone else's whims, if he so desired, merely for lacking the power to back up his point of view.

Rala, the Army officer in Nurium, and his cronies came to mind. If Tercius had the power then, he would have simply told them to fuck off. If they resisted… who knows?

Tercius was sure that his answer would have differed a decade ago, but now he would have probably beaten the ever-living crap out of them. The exercise and… special training he had with Lux, and his father, had taught Tercius that even physical violence had its place in the world and that it was merely a tool. A good beating, used properly, was a great teaching tool, but only up to a point. The problem for most, Tercius realized early on, was that the people who knew to spot that point were rare. In lieu of that, the majority of people in his old world oscillated around two extremes, either completely eschewing from the practice or embracing it completely and then following its easiest path, that of physical torture of those weaker than you.

Choosing between the two extremes, he would always choose to abandon violence completely. Yet in merely seeing the extremes, the majority ignored the middle, and he was once one of those. To walk the middle required someone to trust himself completely, something that most struggled with. To walk the middle was to make decisions on a daily basis, ones which had consequences. Merely in that, he saw why most chose one extreme or the other. Who wanted to go through something that was incredibly hard, daily, when you could just choose one for your life? His uncle, Lux, knew the middle, the man walked the middle and Tercius saw this with his own eyes. Lux knew enough to control himself, and Tercius thought of that control as critical. Those who knew little of themselves and their capabilities should never even think of anything else than completely eschewing violence, except in self defence. Instead of helping they would hurt. And those who hurt others, especially with purpose, should in turn get what they gave.

Rala and his cronies were soldiers, and they had someone at their backs to come and replace them, but those would suffer the same fate. Hells, if he knew how to do it, he would replicate what the founder of the Pyramid did and make a space that only those who know how could access. That seemed like a one stone multiple birds solution.

Tercius almost chuckled as he thought that the real reason as to why Grand-Master Tergaron made a parallel space was to completely deny annoying people access, rather than continuously avoid them.

Besides, he couldn’t leave these kids to fend for themselves. As the teachers protected from the outside, he would be… an undercover protector on the inside. Undercover to both sides in fact. Does that make me a double agent or a… zero one?

It took Tercius very little time to pack since he kept his clothes in order at all times. Most of his time was spent musing a few thoughts that flew through his mind. Jorro and Eunim, on the other hand, shoved messy clothes and items, essentially everything they owned, in a bag or a private storage amulet, respectively.

“Time is up,” Mistress Dea’s voice said, as his amulet glowed. “Leave your rooms with your possessions, and head to me,”

The backpack slid nicely on his back, Amber was cozy in her favorite spot, and Tercius felt ready. With eyes narrowed, he marched to the door and stepped out.