He worked through the rest of the day, pausing once to recover his Ether. As weariness started to creep into his mind, Damien finally allowed the orbs to fade. He was covered with a thin layer of stone dust.

Henry stirred within his mind. The dust puffed off him and fell to the ground.

“Thanks,” Damien muttered.

“No problem,” Henry replied, receding once again.

Damien dragged himself over to their bathroom and took a quick shower before brushing his teeth. Sylph sat on her bed facing the wall, small motes of dark energy still twisting around her.

Damien trudged across the small room. His clothes flew off him as he flopped into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Within minutes, darkness enveloped his thoughts and he was fast asleep.

Something poked Damien in the cheek. He groaned, turning over in bed without opening his eyes and burying his face in the pillow. He got poked again.

“Go away,” he grumbled.

“No,” Delph’s voice replied.

Damien blinked, his weary mind struggling to process what had happened. Reality clicked into place and he jumped, sitting straight up in bed as a rush of adrenaline shot through his veins.

“What are you doing in our room?” Damien exclaimed.

The professor just cocked an eyebrow. “You left the door open. I came to check on you two. To my horror, I found you were sleeping away good daylight hours, so I felt I’d do you a favor and help you wake up.”

Damien squinted past Delph. The sun wasn’t even up yet.

“What time is it?”

“Two hours before sunrise,” Delph said.

“And why exactly did you come check on us again?”

“Because your roommate won the tournament,” Delph replied, rubbing his hands together. The man looked more gleeful than Damien had ever seen him. “And you did quite well too. I had three students in the top four! I've got your rankings as well. Sylph, unsurprisingly, placed First in all the Year One students. Damien, you placed third. There was some debate on whether you should be fourth instead, but Whisp actually cast the deciding vote. Apparently she appreciates wily students, even when they force her to change the rules of future tournaments.”

Damien rubbed the weariness out of his eyes. He grabbed his clothes and pulled them under the sheets, shuffling around for a few moments until he was dressed. Once he was finished, he swung his legs out of bed.

Sylph was already awake. She sat on the edge of her bed, watching Delph with an expression similar to that of a cat that had been kicked.

“Do you have our rewards for us or something?” Damien asked.

“Among other things,” Delph said. He nudged the book that he’d given Damien – which laid on the ground at the foot of his bed – and raised an eyebrow. “I see this is going to good use.”

“Let’s stay on the subject of rewards,” Damien said, repressing a yawn. “And I hope one of them is a door. No offense.”

Delph just harrumphed. He traced a grey line through the air with a finger. The line split open and he reached inside the hole, pulling out a fist sized bag. He tossed it onto Sylph’s bed, then repeated the process and tossed a bag onto Damien’s bed.

Damien glanced at the bag, then looked back up at Delph. He half expected the professor to have filled the bags with flour or some incredibly unwelcome training method. Sylph didn’t make any moves to open her bag either.

“What?” Delph asked, crossing his arms. “Aren’t you going to open your rewards?”

Damien gingerly picked the bag up. It was rather heavy. He held it out in front of him as far as he could while he walked outside. It didn’t react, so he very carefully untied the small drawstring at the top while keeping the bag’s opening pointed away from him. He pulled it open, but nothing happened.

Slowly, Damien peeked inside it. There were a good number of gold coins at the bottom, along with a few other things that were difficult to see in the dim light from the setting moon. He walked back inside and gave Sylph a nod.

“Seems safe,” he said.

“Cautious is good,” Delph said approvingly. “Always be wary, even when gifts come from friends. There are a lot of ways to impersonate someone. Regardless – this wasn’t a test. I was planning on having a training session today, but there’s no point. You both did well, and you earned me quite a bit of mon – ah – prestige among the other professors. Take a day off to recover from the tournament. There will be a normal class tomorrow, so don’t show up for our special training as well.”

Before Damien or Sylph could even acknowledge the professor, his cloak folded around him and he vanished.

“…do you think he’s gone?” Damien asked Sylph. He glanced around nervously. “A small part of me feels like he’s hiding in one of our other rooms.”

“Don’t say that,” Sylph said, shuddering. “You’ll give me nightmares.”

Sylph peeked inside her bag and her eyes widened. She tipped it over on the bed. A veritable tide of coins rushed out of it. A small white slip and three glass vials fell out on top of them.

Damien did the same. His pile of coins was considerably smaller than Sylph’s, and he only had one vial instead of three. However, he had the same white slip that she did. He picked up the white slip. The back was blank, while the other side had the number two hundred printed on it.

“I think these are contribution points,” Damien said, turning it over in his hand. “This is quite a bit. Wasn’t your dagger something like three thousand points?”

“Yeah,” Sylph said, picking up her own white slip. “I got five hundred points for winning. That’s nearly five quests.”

“Not to mention the gold,” Damien said. “I wonder how much there–”

“One hundred,” Henry said.

“Ah. I got one hundred,” Damien said.

“It looks like I got around two hundred,” Sylph said, her voice uncertain. “Maybe two hundred and fifty. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much money in my entire life.”