Chapter Nineteen

Amber found herself on the edge of her seat as the headmaster stepped up before the class and smiled at them all.

He was a strange looking man. His suit jacket just a little rumpled, and his shirt underneath straining to stay on over his muscular frame. The jeans and swept back blond hair gave him the air of someone that better belonged in a gym, not a classroom. He grinned at them all, and Amber wasn’t sure if he was winking, or if he just had trouble with one eye.

“Hello boys and girls, and welcome to Norumbega Academy. I don’t want to take too much of your time, especially not the time you’ll be spending learning. Education is, after all, the second most important thing you will be learning here.”

He nodded and his posture relaxed a little.

“My name is Thors Allfather, headmaster of this fine academy.” At the back, the woman in the officer's garb pressed her hands over her face. “I have been here for some years, and I've seen many students come and go. I’m incredibly proud of having taught each and every one, and I hope that all of them look back on their time here fondly.”

He started to move across the front, a slow, measured gait accentuated by soft gestures from his arms and hands.

“You might have caught on to me saying that your education here is the second most important thing you’ll come away with. That is because, as wonderful as knowledge may be, it pales in comparison to the importance of the bonds you will form with your teammates, with your fellow students, and with your own souls. We only have three years together. I hope that they are some of the best years in your lives.”

He bowed, and a few of the girls at the front started clapping.

Amber joined in a moment later, as did her teammates.

“Thank you,” the headmaster said. “I’ll now leave you in Mister Erickson’s capable hands. Remember, if you need any assistance, with anything at all, my office is always open, day or night.”

There was a small murmur that rose with the headmaster waving them goodbye, spoke a few words with the man Amber suspected was their professor, then left along with the officer woman.

“What did he say his name was?” Amber asked.

Morgan sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It changes every day.”

“Is he, uh, Odin?” Amber asked. She wasn’t that well-versed in Norse mythology, but she wasn’t completely ignorant.

“Who knows?” Morgan said.

Shouldn’t we all be a little more concerned about this?

“Alright!” The next man to step up was far younger, and unlike the headmaster, looked a whole lot more normal. He was young for a teacher, maybe in his late twenties, and in good shape. Just a hint of a five-o’clock shadow and wind-swept hair gave Amber the impression that he was either not entirely ready, or was a very casual man. She could see a few girls some rows down whispering between each other.

Crushes on the teacher already? Or just checking him out?

“As the Headmaster said, I’m Professor Erickson. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will say that I’m an Agarthan, born and raised right here in Norumbega. I wanted to be a teacher, and so I travelled to Earth to get my degree some years ago. And now here I am.” He smiled wide, then spun towards the screen behind him.

After fishing out a small remote, Professor Erickson turned off the screensaver to display what looked like a class curriculum.

“Agarthan Studies, year one, will cover three broad topics. The history of Agartha as we know it. Common rituals and mythology, and most important of all, the taxonomy, classification, and threat assessment of the creatures of Agartha. You probably heard people refer to those as monsters or nightmares, which are also acceptable, but less accurate terms.”

He clicked on a button, and the screen filled with two rows, the first horizontal one wasn’t labelled yet, but the vertical was marked ‘Threat Rating.’

“This is where we will begin. The systems which the military, the people of Norumbega, and the local magicals use to determine the threat posed by a creature of Agartha. Today we’ll be giving these a quick overview, and in the following weeks, we’ll be covering the history of these systems and how they were formed. Fortunately, that tends to tie in well with the formation of most of the walled cities of Agartha.”

Professor Erickson clicked on another button and the first row filled in.

“We’re going to jump into the deep end a little to start off. These are the classifications we use as a shorthand when determining the level of danger posed by a creature of Agartha. Thinking, moving, bio, ghosting, tanking, swarming, camo, fixing.”

Amber ran through the list in her head. It helped that it rhymed a little.

“When you learn about a creature, you will often see those same words with a number next to them, from one to five. There’s a threat level zero as well, usually reserved for things that are more annoying than dangerous. You might encounter a pixie in your time here. They’re a rank-zero threat. Anything you can handle with a flyswatter isn’t really worth considering.”

A few of the students laughed, but Amber didn’t join in. For all that the teacher’s tone was jovial, Amber felt like... well, I don’t know, exactly. Morgan was taking it seriously, even if both Jade and Cassy weren’t paying as much attention. This feels like it’s more important that he’s letting on.

The professor pressed another button, and the screen switched to a simple graph.

Threat Level Deployment One Threat can be eliminated by a single individual. Squadron Two Threat requires specific tools or training. Squadron - Specialist Three Threat needs to be carefully evaluated and eliminated using specialized units or methods. Battalion / Support Four Threat requires planning and preparation to face. Negation preferable. Magical Assault Five Threat requires immediate full-scale evacuation, N/A

“For the purpose of most threats, a single magical is considered to be on par with a squadron, and a fully-trained magical girl team is the equivalent of a modern battalion. Note that even then, that isn’t enough to take on a level four threat.”

A boy to the side raised his arm, and the professor pointed to him. “What’s a level five like, then?”

The teacher’s smile was a little fixed as he answered. “A level five threat is answered by evacuating the region. Fortunately, those are rare. The most recent example.” He paused and turned his head to the left.

Then he spat on the floor. Not just the one time, but twice more after.

What?

Amber wasn’t the only one that looked confused.

“The most recent example,” the teacher continued as if he hadn’t just done something gross. “Is Baba Yaga, in what would be Russia on Earth. The Russian Academy, as well as an entire city, was lost. She constitutes a level five threat.”

Amber looked to Morgan, her source of answers, and found the taller girl holding back a small smile. “Ritual,” she muttered. “To avoid attracting evil.”

The teacher clicked his little remote and a slide appeared on-screen.

Thinking​

Moving​

Bio​

Ghosting​

Tanking​

Swarming​

Camo​

Fixing​ Cognitohazards:

Abilities related to corruption perceptions and thoughts. Movement:

Abilities related to changing locations, usually in a rapid way. Biohazards:

Abilities which constitute hazards to the health of those in the vicinity. Ephemeral:

Abilities related to dimensional shifting. Physicality:

Capable of resisting great amounts of damage/force. Hives:

Threats that attack in large numbers (usually of a low rating individually). Shifting and Hiding: Threat is capable of disguising itself as something else, or of infiltrating ranks. Constructs: Threat capable of deploying and using complex or magical tools.

“These are the eight categories into which we fit most threats. Some, many in fact, will receive threat ratings in two or more categories. A Black Annis, a creature we’ll be learning more about later, is considered a Fix, or Fixing, two. Whereas a Jersey Devil is a Bio one, Moving one. We always give creatures a general threat rating, usually a combination of the previous ratings, but it also takes into account factors outside of those that require specialized training to tackle.”

Amber leaned back and tried to keep up as the teacher started talking about the history of the system. It was interesting to hear how it had changed over time, and she felt like she was slowly being fed little spoonfuls of information about the strange world she was now in, but at the same time... it was a class.

Cassy didn’t even try to hide it. She slumped onto her desk and went straight to sleep. Jade edged away from her a little. She looked like she was paying attention, but her frequent glances down revealed otherwise.

She had an audiobook playing on her phone, and Amber could just make out the wires hidden under her long scarf.

She was determined to pay attention, so she did, but by the time noon rolled around she was feeling a little fuzzy, and in dire need of a break.

Professor Erickson looked to the clock over the entrance and nodded. “We’re two minutes to noon. How about I let you all out a little early today? Our next class is on Wednesday, when we’ll start talking about the most common monsters in this region of the world, and eventually those against whom you’ll be testing yourselves. Have a good lunch everyone.”

Amber and Morgan stood, and Jade jumped in her seat as she finally registered that something was happening. She was quick to pick her earbud out while trying to make it look casual.

“Alright,” Amber said. “Lunch. At last.”

“The classes are a little intense,” Morgan said.

“I felt that, yeah,” she agreed before reaching down to shake Cassy awake. “Come on, Cassy. Food.”

“Urgh,” Casy said as she raised her head and looked around. “Ah, damn.”

Amber and her team gathered up their things and were about to head on down when someone tapped Amber on the shoulder. She turned, and came face-to-face with someone vaguely familiar.

“Hey,” the girl said. Her voice was low and husky, and she was idly playing with a little medallion hanging from a choker. “Remember me?” she asked.

Amber put two and two together. “Oh! Uh, you’re the girl from the... gym.”

“The one you saw naked, yeah.”

Cassy’s head snapped up. “What was that?”

Amber looked back to her team and found the two newest members paying her a lot of attention all of a sudden. “Uh, the occupied sign wasn’t up, and I kinda opened the door. It was an accident.”

“Sure,” Cassy said. “That’s a likely story.”

The girl laughed. “It really was. I’m Evalyn, of team Helskor." She gestured behind her where three other girls were grabbing their things from the seats right in the topmost corner. “You guys are heading out for lunch, right?”

“Yeah,” Amber said.

“Awesome. One of these days we should get our teams together, grab one big table.”

“Why not do that now?” Cassy asked.

Evalyn grinned. “Too early, I think. We need to get all of that team spirit stuff going. You know, so that we’re better off later.”

“Right,” Amber said. I think I know what she’s talking about.

Evalyn’s team moved on by, with only one of the girls stopping by her side. She started at Amber, wide-eyed. “Anyway, we’ll do intros one of these days, alright?”

“Sure.” Amber waved her off, then turned to her team. “That was nice?”

“She was,” Cassy said with a lecherous grin. “Bet she was nicer in the buff, huh?”

Amber decided to ignore that. “So, lunch?”

And I can start figuring out how to get the four of us to form some sort of proper team. As it is, we’re just four strangers, and I have the feeling that that won’t be for the best later. Not if we’re going to be fighting actual monsters or anything.