Professor Itza had almost completed her entire lecture on basic starmapping and the importance of making sure the correct constellations were present in the night sky when the tone from a wall clock announced the end of class. The troll woman’s shoulders quite visibly fell about as much as her expression did. She clasped her hands together and stood up straight once more as she called out to her students, startling her feline familiar Chaq’ab from his sprawled out spot on her desk.

“The skies may wait for none, but we shall have to wait until our next class to continue!” She said with sparkling yellow eyes and sharp teeth gleaming. “I’ll see you all in Stargazing Lab in a few days!”

Xoco had fewer things to pack away as she and Isak left class, and found herself momentarily amused by how many notes the human was taking. As she stood, she commented “I would think you would already have an advantage here, without all the lights of a city in The Western Wastes.”

Isak looked up to the jungle troll with a slight shrug and uneasy smile wavering on his face as he shoved the rest of his notes into his bag. “Just because you can see a whole lot out there on clear nights doesn’t mean I ever really knew much about what I was seeing. That, and it was usually cloudy.”

“Hmm, still sounds nice.” Xoco said, casting her gaze out a window as they made their way down the long tower stairs. “One of our vacation homes was in Yulaya, tucked away in the mountains and away from most other signs of civilization. The nights were beautiful whenever it wasn’t snowing!”

Isak chuckled, passing over the bit about that being just one of her vacation homes as he scrambled down the stairs after her and her long strides. “Well I had a treehouse, and sometimes I would spend the night there and sleep under the stars. You know, whenever they decided to peak out from behind the clouds. It was nice. Good place to get away too, clear my head.”

“Ah, you truly are lucky then.” Xoco smiled, though didn’t show any teeth. Her eyelids fell the tiniest bit, and Nelli nuzzled at her neck from her shoulder perch. “Home was always...quite busy….speaking of! Are we still on for more research today?”

Isak blinked away any notions of luck on today of all days as his eyes darted off for a moment towards his tall rock familiar in tow, deliberately hanging back but never skipping any steps. “Ah, well one of my professors wanted some one on one time. He wanted to try and find out more about Vidal. He said it would only take about half an hour or so, so if you want, head to the library to get started and I’ll join you later on!”

“Oh!” The momentary drooping of her eyes from earlier was washed away in surprise as they grew wide. “Well by all means! I’ll try to save us a spot where we met last time, alright?”

“It’s a da-” The human coughed, covering his mouth and avoiding her large pink eyes yet again as the two exited the Astronomy tower. “Yes! I’ll see you there!”

He could have sworn he saw the jungle troll turning a slight shade of green as she gave a quick nod and a wave before turning to make her way to the library. It was too quick though, and he was too distracted putting more distance between them as Vidal kept up without effort. As Isak rounded a corner he took the chance to look back, making sure neither she nor anyone he knew was within ear shot as he spoke to Vidal.

“See, that wasn’t a lie.” He said as he pointed to nothing in particular to make a point of some sort.

“Correct, Master Isak.” Vidal said, still looking out ahead.

“I just didn’t give the whole story!”

“Also correct, Master Isak.”

“Professor Manoka does want to find out more about you! Mostly just...just because I’m apparently the worst at having a familiar….so once again I did not lie!”

“You remain correct on that account, Master Isak.”

The human’s fists had balled up by the time he stopped, looking up at Vidal after once again glancing around to ensure there was no one to overhear. “I know, I know. One more mark against me. But we’ll get this figured out! Okay…I’ll get this figured out! You don’t have to worry about anything, obviously. Just uh...just keep...yeah let’s go.”

Isak walked with his hands in his pockets as he stewed in his own thoughts on the way to the building complex that housed the professors’ offices. Whereas the student dorms were modified barracks, these buildings were modified officers quarters that took full advantage of not needing to be a living space for a staff population that all lived in the nearby city. Though as was well known, at any given time there was likely to be a few overly dedicated professors overnighting in their offices. The overall design of the buildings was similar to student dorms, but with an added layer of luxury as a holdover from incentives to rise through the ranks, and no buildings higher than 2 floors.

Walking past more blocky buildings accented by expert stonework flanked by palm trees that cast meager shadows under darkening clouds gathering to attempt some rain, Isak arrived at the 2 story building he had been directed to. He gave the weakest of smiles that didn’t fully reach his eyes as he looked over his shoulder to Vidal and pushed past the wood and steel door that led into a hallway featuring a number of doors. There near the entrance sat a door bearing the name plate of one Professor Muteba Manoka.

The human rolled his shoulders a bit, steadying his breathing as he stood in front of the door and mentally prepared himself. He raised a hand to knock at the door with the back of his hand. Another pained, toothy smile to Vidal as the rock man gave a tiny nod while staring straight ahead at the door that swung open a moment later.

“Mister Moreno!” The mantisman exclaimed with open arms, the right set of which clapped him on the shoulder as he was ushered in. “Don’t look so grim, Mister Moreno! You came to this school to learn, and learn we shall!”

Isak’s forced smile as he entered fell with such force that even Vidal had no hope of holding it up. Though he had postponed one meeting at a library, it seemed he had only walked into another. The actual office part of this office was relatively small, with a desk and chairs along with a few cabinets of documents. But the entire larger room was one that stretched up two floors, with bookshelves towering up to the top of two adjacent walls. The remaining walls were only mostly covered, as they also had to accommodate a set of large doors, likely for letting in larger familiars, and a wall full of animal handling supplies of every sort.

“Do you like my collection?” The professor asked with a trilling sing of a chuckle after he closed the door and walked over to his desk, currently covered in books splayed open with Nsanza sitting at the corner and gazing up at her mage as he gave her an affectionate pat on the head. “I prefer to have all my research and reference materials close at hand. I still remember those early days as a professor, getting strongly worded complaints from the library to stop hogging all of the books!”

“It’s all quite impressive, Professor.” Isak said, still looking around at the room lit mainly by magelight and lacking in windows to give it an almost cold feeling in spite of the book collection. He took a seat just in front of the professor’s desk, small smile crossing his lips as Nsanza looked at him and tilted her head in an adorable fashion.

The tall mantisman took a seat as well, tenting his two sets of hands together as he looked to Isak, yellow eyes blinking a few times as his voice mellowed. “I was hoping you could answer a few questions about Vidal? I’m afraid I have come up with nothing about such a familiar directly. Though that doesn’t mean the indirect is off limits to us.”

Chewing on his tongue a bit first at the first set of bad news, Isak sighed as he glanced over to his familiar and recounted to the professor how after the mome beast attack, there had been even fewer animals suited for familiar status than usual. He spoke of how desperation and frugality led to his mother purchasing a ‘pet rock’ from the local magic shop owner. And how, despite it seeming like the Familiar Bonding Ritual should have failed to complete, it worked as intended. And how until he was on the steam ship over to this island, Vidal had been just a simple fist sized rock until he had introduced a bit of elemental magic to his surface.

“Or at least…” Isak hesitated, drumming his fingers against his knee. “I thought it did? Is there any way for a ritual casting to complete with an unexpected outcome?”

Professor Manoka’s antennae twitched as he studied the rock man, looking him up and down before shaking his head. “The Familiar Bonding ritual is one that’s been studied in depth and been in use since before The Empire even formally existed. It has no known variations nor Ritual Verges. History and research have emphatically proven that to fail to properly cast this ritual only results in the outcome itself failing. That you are sitting here, with Vidal measurably as your familiar proves it had the expected outcome.”

“Oh.” Isak slumped down a few inches in the chair as his eyes fell from the professor to a few random books laid out on the desk. “I had...been hoping for an easy answer like that. Not that I even know what the solution would be at that point but still.”

“Be glad that those fears were untrue! I wouldn’t even know where to begin with solving that problem!” Despite the trill singing laughter being unfamiliar to him, Isak could still sense the tiniest bit of unease in it from the rest of the Professor’s voice mumbling out concerns. Focused yellow eyes betrayed morbid interest. “Unbinding? Soul fragment extraction and...re-weaving? Before the attempted fix or...possibly simpler to hold in a temporary vessel...Gods. Fascinating yet horrifying to think about. No, I remain fully confident that this dilemma is a different one entirely Mister Moreno.”

The human had no idea if that was cause for a smile or panic. He settled on both as he tilted his head and leaned forward.

“Vidal is...an unknown. Clearly suitable for the Familiar Bonding Ritual.” The deep blue mantis stood and began making a slow circle around the stalwart standing Vidal as he put a seven-clawed hand to his lower mandible. “Fully capable of speech, which makes him the most intelligent familiar on record. And it’s not even close.”

Professor Manoka leaned in, antennae dancing just above the flowing water streams of Vidal’s current form as his eyes narrowed in on the runes. “He still possess that mechanical nature, so the intelligence comes with limitations. These runes-”

“I will be happy to let you know once I know.” Isak groaned, turning to the side in his chair to look at the two as he propped his head up on a wooden armrest. “Right now what I know is pretty much nothing. Well, aside from it maybe being an ancient Wastelander script.”

The mantisman responded with his own groan of dissatisfaction as he leaned back. “And the obvious question, are you aware of where this local mage obtained Vidal’s...larval? His larval form, from?”

“He is currently off investigating that.” Isak said with a wince, his hand that was formerly propping up his face now running over it and smoothing his hair back. “And knowing Kazimir, results...uh, might happen?”

“I see.” The professor’s claw tapped a final decisive time on his mandible before he held that arm to the air, pointing in apparent triumph. “I have a working hypothesis!”

Isak blinked through the initial amazement as he dared at a smile. “You...you do?”

“Indeed! Isak and Vidal, follow me!” The mantisman exclaimed, holding out a hand for Nsanza to leap into before he marched off to a far end of the large room that held a storage closet.

The human couldn’t help but notice the man had the light step of someone who wouldn’t be completely out of place teaching a Survival Basics course from how little noise his boots made upon the tile floors. He followed after rising from the chair, with Vidal in tow as noises of searching within that storage closet echoed out into the rest of the large room. Isak couldn’t help but look around the room again, admiring the dark wood bookshelves packed tight to contrast the cool lighting.

“Found it!” Professor Manoka announced as he wheeled out a large, semi translucent obsidian mirror on an ornate wooden stand with dozens of runes carved into it.

Isak raised an eyebrow. “Scrying?”

“Correct!” The mantisman said as he used one set of arms to motion and direct Isak and Vidal to stand in one spot just so, as the other set adjusted the angle of the mirror. “You see, I have a running theory that Vidal has a soul of his own! Or a close enough approximation. Which this mirror would allow me to see! So if I’m right it would show up alongside your own still growing shard that was implanted duri- oh. Hypothesis disproved!”

The excited tone of the professor had had Isak following along intently as he laid it all out plain and clear. It was a strange concept but one that he was none the less eager to find the answer to right before the mantisman threw it over a cliff with the same bright candor as the rest of his speech.

Which left the poor boy in complete confusion as his brain almost went sailing over that edge along with the idea. His eyes narrowed and his mouth hung open until he asked the obvious question. “What?”

“The good news is that I can see here with complete certainty that the ritual worked flawlessly!” Professor Manoka said with twitching antennae as he pointed at the mirror, Nsanza looking up at him from her shoulder perch as if to remind him that the human was physically incapable of seeing himself through the mirror. His pointer finger curled back, the professor instead opted to straighten out some wrinkles in his shirt. “Well, take my expert word for it. The ritual worked just fine. Your own soul and the shard growing within Vidal are doing so in a completely normal manner as could be expected for such a low link. Slow growth, but growth indeed.”

“What uh…” Isak leaned on Vidal as his mind swam. “What kind of news is that?”

“Good news! It means that the worst possible scenarios, that I have thought of, have been disproved!” He said with a cheer as even Nsanza raised a small paw into the air.

“....hooray?” The boy gave the most half hearted of cheers as his brows furrowed. “Are we sure about that?”

The professor made his way around the mirror to pat the boy on the back once more. His jovial tone had returned in force. “Magical breakthroughs rarely happen in a day. That we can cross out some worst case scenarios is good! Vidal is an enigma, and a powerful one at that. Such things take time. The Emperor didn’t conquer the world in one day afterall!”

“....so it could take that long to-”

“Not if I can help it!” The trill singing laugh returned. “I am going to conduct more research, confer with colleagues, and everything else I can do to help you, Mister Moreno. Keep at your own research, it will be invaluable.”

Isak grit his teeth, glancing at Vidal before nodding.

Then shook his head a second later. “Professor, may I make a request?”

“Of course!” He said as his antennae bobbed.

“Can you...not tell anyone? As much as you can? I-I mean, I want to know more!” Beads of sweat were busy starting a long, painful march down Isak’s forehead. “But also I don’t want people knowing. So no...I dunno, names maybe?”

The professor’s antennae curled back, his eyes studied Isak before finally blinking and settling into heavy lidded eyes. “Is there a problem that I should be aware of, Mister Moreno?”

“NO!” Isak held up his hands and shouted a bit too fast, before he looked away and let his arms fall to his sides. “Well, yes. I don’t want anyone knowing I’ve got problems with my familiar.”

Professor Manoka emitted a low buzzing hum as watched Isak fidget and fail to make even a bit of eye contact, continually looking to Vidal whenever his eyes weren’t searching for some escape around the room. “Isak, there’s no need to-”

“There is!” The boy wasn’t having it as he cut him off, sharply inhaling loud enough to be heard before continuing. “I am already some nobody from nowhere. Now I have a very awesome familiar but I’m apparently really bad at it? Oh and you should see the magic he can do! Puts me right to shame. So yes, there is a need to just keep this as secret as possible while I try to play catch up...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

The mantisman held up a single hand, silencing the boy. “Isak, though it is not my area of expertise would you like a short history lesson?”

The human balled his hands into fists, clenching and unclenching a few times before nodding. Professor Manoka ushered them over to a bookshelf containing a number of particularly ancient texts that seemed to be held together mostly through prayers as the professor picked one old tome out with a delicate claw and flicked through it.

“The Great Speaker himself was born a mutant in a cave, lower than the lowest slave and destined to die to untold experiments at the hands of The Old Masters.” He came to a stop on one page as he patted the jittery boy on the back, causing him to flinch. “And he did not do all that he did alone. He will be the first to tell you he did so with the aid of others at every step. Now, do you remember what familiar joined him and started it all or do I need to make the first day of class more interesting?”

Isak finally made eye contact as he shook his head. “A hummingbird!”

“Named?”

“Itzihhuitl!”

“I hadn’t named him in class, so it looks like the Imperial School system holds up just as well in this ‘Nowhereland’ of yours!” The professor’s antennae flicked forward as he held up the book, showing an aged illustration of the first known familiar taking up the page. Violets, blacks, and greens all fading with the rest of the book. “And that is enlarged to show detail!”

He handed it to the boy, who carefully held it in his hands with more than a little worry showing in his face over handling such a delicate artifact.

“Isak, many a mighty tree starts with a small seed. And no matter how grand it may grow, one tree does not make a forest. And the whole point of my class, which I will still endeavor to show you, is that as a mage you already have one tree growing beside you.” He pointed to Vidal, who made the tiniest movement to look down and meet Isak’s eyes looking up at him. “I will only reveal the most necessary details in my research and collaboration, for I too was once a teenager. So I may say that teenagers are often terrible! But even I had friends back then. Friends that I trust to this day to keep such a sensitive matter a secret as long as necessary.”

The human boy nodded, looking over the illustration in a text he did not recognize before closing the book and handing it back to the professor who promptly yet carefully set it back on its shelf. “Thank you, professor. And I do have friends! Friends who are helping me with this research I mentioned! They don’t know about the whole weak familiar link but-”

“Splendid!” Professor Manoka clapped two sets of hands together as his antennae bristled. “You may determine how much you trust them and what monsters may stalk that forest at your own pace while I assist you with the scientific side of things! The possibly numerous papers and books written about this can come much later, with sensitive information left out. I am a patient man!”

Isak still wasn’t used to this level of enthusiasm, especially not in the unfamiliar form of the mantisman. He did smile though, as it was infectious to an extent even if he was still unsure if the professor was giving his own version of a smile in the form of clicking mandibles. “Yeah...yeah thank you professor um I uh...I had a d- a meeting with a friend to do some more research on that mystery script. I’ll get to that. If there’s nothing else?”

“Just a reminder that you still have that homework due next week!”

“Right! Even more reason to hurry!” The lightness was back to Isak’s laugh, if only for now before he could overthink everything. Which was enough to get him out the door after thanking Professor Manoka again and again, still getting used to how few people shook hands here in attempting to do so once more before apologizing and excusing himself even as the professor insisted no offense was taken.

Isak was back outside in the cool air of approaching rain clouds, power walking out of the building complex and almost past a large silk cotton tree with his hands in his pocket before he relented and took refuge in the tree’s shade. “Okay. So, I was a fool to think I would get quick answers. But hey, all that changing the world take’s time huh? Haha!”

At his mage’s laughter, Vidal looked down to him as his voice rumbled out. “Self-improvement before global improvement is a healthy progression, Master Isak.”

“Smartest Familiar alright.” Isak chuckled to himself as he first tried not to think about the rock man’s words, then let them sink in as he looked off to the horizon to see the faintest hint of ocean. “Speaking of improving...does any of your advice apply to girls? Like if a certain girl might like me as...you know, more than a friend?”

“I am ill-equipped to deal with such inquiries, Master Isak. My assessment is that at present she presents no intentional threat, and any harm she would be capable of inflicting would be wholly accidental as previously observed. Such harm was deemed good natured in the attempt to prevent greater harm from coming to you and has been taken into account in all future threat calculations. Additionally-”

“I will take that as a very long no.” Isak cut him off as he shook his head. “And I will add that to the same category as homework. Which I would like to remind you is a threat but not one to be destroyed….overzealous friends are also included in there. As a reminder.”

In spite of his only facial features being two tiny swirling whirlpools in place of eyes, Vidal seemed to bear an expression caught between indignity and solemn acknowledgement that matched well with the carved ‘mouth’ that was always fully serious. “Both threats have been sorted into the non-lethal solutions category, as more definitive solutions would cause you greater harm both mental and possibly physical.”

Isak’s formerly furrowed brow now took to rising instead as he stared at the rock man. “Yeah yeah, you’re learning.”

The human said as he hurried toward the library to escape the tiny rain drops finally starting to fall, content to call that a victory and pretend that put him ahead for the day as he started mentally preparing himself for another not-a-date with Xoco.