She raised her hands as she spoke. Shimmering green energy swept from her fingertips and into the pillars, crawling up them like twin snakes and lighting up runes as they went.

“Now stand still, if you can,” Auntie said. “It’ll be easier for me, and I don’t want to accidentally leave a few fingers behind.”

That was pretty effective at getting them all to stand stock still. She smirked, then let the expression drop from her face as concentration took its place. She raised her hands, pouring more energy out and into the pillars.

Runes flared and sparked. Damien resisted the urge to look around as the air started to hum with Ether. His skin tingled and the room took on a green hue. A sudden lurch in his stomach took him by surprise and he nearly doubled over, but he managed to remain upright. The expressions of his fellow students showed that they weren’t doing much better.

“Don’t worry,” Auntie called over the growing buzz filling the air. “It’ll only be uncomfortable for a moment. Get ready. I’ll be sending you over in three… two… one…”

Damien voided last night’s dinner against his best attempts not to. The world went green and his body felt like it had been crumpled up into a little ball and launched from a catapult. Everything vanished, turning into a roaring scream and dancing colors.

Seconds stretched on as the spell tore through space, sending the group hurtling toward Forsad. Damien’s lungs – which he was pretty sure were now located somewhere near his feet, ached for air.

He tried to draw a breath, but it was like trying to inhale stone. All attempts to move were equally as fruitless. Just as the panic started to set in, he struck something hard and tumbled forward, crashing into a wall and drawing in a deep, gasping breath.

Dust and stagnant air greeted him, mixed in with a hint of something sweet that he couldn’t quite place. Damien groaned, not even trying to move for a few moments as his head spun.

He finally managed to force his eyes open. Students laid strewn across the floor around him. Aven was already on her feet, while Yui’s retainers were struggling to help her to her feet. Everyone else was in various states of waking up. Derrod leaned against a wall, observing them idly while they struggled.

Damien pushed himself upright just as Sylph stood off to his left. He brushed some of the dust off his mage armor with a grimace. “That was less than graceful.”

“It was a very difficult teleportation,” Derrod said. “Everyone do a quick check to see if you’re missing anything. Auntie wasn’t joking about that, and I really do mean everything.”

Everyone examined themselves, then each other to make sure all was in place. Damien thought he caught the slightest smirk flicker across Derrod’s face, but it was gone by the time he did a double take.

“So, what now?” Mark asked, looking around the musty room they’d arrived in. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“You could try going outside before making a judgement,” Gaves said, brushing dust off his chest and turning his nose up.

“Is there anything else we should know before we venture into the city?” Teddy walked up to a stone door and pressed a hand against it, tilting his head as if listening to something before turning back to face them.

“It’s all your decisions from here on out,” Derrod said. “There are enough plants growing around the city for you to survive off, and you can also eat the monsters. Use your brains and don’t eat anything that smells bad or looks poisonous. I’ll be around, but you won’t see me.”

Aven pushed past Teddy, drawing the stone from the ground around her to form tight fitting armor that covered her body completely, not even leaving a single gap for mobility. It shifted around her like a living being, allowing the armor to have mobility despite its solid form.

She pushed the door open and poked her head out into the gray light that spilled into the room. Then, without another word, she stepped out and sank into the street, vanishing without a trace.

“The hunt is on,” Cheese declared. He jogged after her, turning to stick his tongue out at everyone before bounding into the air. There wasn’t a single trace of magic around the boy as he rocketed into the air, vanishing over the top of a building.

The others all turned to look at the remaining Blackmist students.

“Don’t give me that expression,” Damien said. “Not all of us have cool departing moves. I’m just going to walk out.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mark said, drawing his sword with an eager grin. He strode out the door, summoning red energy around him until two massive wings sprouted from his back. The magic forming them was so thick that Damien could barely tell it apart from flesh.

They flexed, then swept down, launching Mark into the air. He cackled as he flew away in search of prey. By the time he was gone, Reva had also disappeared. Everyone else quickly followed their lead.

Damien and Sylph broke away from the rest of the group, stepping into the street and weaving into the ruins of the buildings that surrounding them as quickly as they could. Quinlan followed after them, but at a fair distance. The sun in Forsad was muted and weak. Even though it hung directly overhead, the light that graced them was drab and gray.

Shadows danced along the buildings, and not all of them belonged to the students. A tickle constantly sat at the back of Damien’s mind as he and Sylph climbed through rubble, their magic at the ready for the slightest sign of danger.

“This place looks deserted,” Damien whispered. “But it doesn’t feel like it.”

“I know what you mean,” Sylph muttered, giving him a small nod. “I keep thinking someone is watching me. But, if they are, I’ve never seen cloaking like what they’re using. I’m normally very good at picking up magical energy since I had to get so sensitive to Ether to actually use it.”

Henry set his hat on top of Damien’s head and crossed his tentacles. “I’m noticing it as well. We aren’t alone. I’m picking up traces of Dark Ether, but my senses are so dulled that I can barely tell where it’s coming from.”

“What’s the hat for?” Damien asked, pushing it out of his eyes.

“Me,” Henry replied, taking it back. “I was just checking how it fit on a human head.”

Quinlan picked up her pace, jogging over to join them as they made their over the crumbling wall of a long decrepit building.

“Do you actually know where some fancy artifact is?” Quinlan asked in a low whisper.

“Nope,” Damien replied. “We’re kind of just wandering around. You?”

She cleared her throat. “Kind of.”

Henry grew an eye on the back of his head to look at her. “Go on, then. Spill.”

“Henry, she isn’t technically on our team,” Damien pointed out. “Mountain Hall probably expects her to get that artifact, and she could get in a lot of trouble if she doesn’t.”

“Those Kingsfront assholes took the last shiny bit we got,” Henry complained. “I want to examine them. What if it’s got some revelations to magic stored within it? The artifacts are wasted on those morons you call teachers.”

“I’d actually like to get my hands on it as well,” Sylph admitted. “It doesn’t have to be yours though, Quinlan.”

Damien blinked. “Why? I know they’re useful and can be very powerful in the right situation, but we’ve already got so much on our plate with figuring out our normal magic. Tossing extra artifacts into the mix seems like we could spread ourselves too thin.”

“It’s not that,” Sylph said. “While Henry was helping me fix the imbalances in my magic, I realized that I’ve kind of been stuck in a rut that was partially caused by the magic tweaking with my head.”

“What do you mean?” Damien gave her a worried glance. “How badly did it mess with you?”

“Oh, it wasn’t messing with any decision making, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Sylph said with a small smile. “Nothing was wrong there. It’s more that I’ve been stuck in a rut ever since I got to Blackmist, and the constant turmoil my core went through made it difficult for me to realize just how bad it was. Henry freed some things up.”

“And?” Damien asked.

“I’ve been thinking about what I actually want to do,” Sylph said, glancing around and sitting down beside a mostly intact wall. “After all this is done, you know.”

She waved around them, letting her eyes rest on Henry for a second longer than needed.

“I know what you mean,” Damien said. “Although I haven’t spent much time thinking about that at all. It’s hard to comprehend anything else, honestly. Especially with everything that we can’t really talk about.”

Quinlan cocked an eyebrow curiously, but she didn’t press.

“It helps to have sight of what you’re working toward,” Sylph said. “Something my old teacher taught me before he met his fortunate end. He was right about that, but I lost track in trying to train and keep up with you.”

“You’ve always been ahead of me!” Damien protested.

Sylph snorted. “At the pace you were increasing with Henry’s help, it’s always been a matter of time if I didn’t figure out some other way to keep up with you. But that isn’t the point. Once this is all done, I want to hunt for artifacts. Maybe I can find other kids like me – ones with low magical energy or other problems – and give them artifacts to try and make up for their weaknesses so they have a chance to train.”

“That’s a very respectable goal,” Quinlan said. “I wish other people shared it. Too many just discard people that can’t use magic properly.”

“Are you also…” Damien trailed off and gestured.

“No,” Quinlan said with a delayed chuckle. “I’m the opposite. My magic is more than sufficient. I was very lucky. It’s nothing. I was just thinking of somebody else. But is it safe to stay here? We might get attacked by a monster in an enclosed space.”

“I’m not really that worried about most monsters,” Sylph admitted. “Anything that Derrod doesn’t think is a major threat for the other students shouldn’t bother us in the slightest.”

“What do you mean?” Quinlan asked. “He isn’t going to kill everything that isn’t a threat.”

Sylph smirked. “You haven’t seen what we’ve been fighting this past year, Quinlan. If Derrod thinks the monsters are going to be a struggle that the other students can handle, we aren’t going to have much difficulty at all.”

“That’s… dangerously bold,” Quinlan said slowly. “I don’t want to sound cocky, but while Henry is strong, he’s still just a companion. He’s limited by Damien’s strength, and I was still able to fight back against him a little. Some of the monsters here are sure to be dangerous enough to at least make you respect them.”

“Oh, I respect everything I fight,” Sylph said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know that I’m going to win.”

“That’s what I’d expect from a mage on the front lines, not a student,” Quinlan said, standing up and frowning. “But there’s no way you’ve gotten this far with a foolish attitude like that and nothing to back it up.”

“I’d like it to be known,” Henry said, raising a tentacle, “You did not hold me off. I was trying to figure out how to take you out without killing you. Damien wasn’t happy the last time I killed a meddling student, and that one actually deserved it.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Damien said, grimacing. “But, Quinlan, if Sylph wants to look for artifacts, I’m going to do everything I can to help her. I don’t want to stop you from getting your artifact, though. Do you want to go and find it, then meet us somewhere to train for runes later?”

“That might not be a bad idea, although a part of me really wants to see what Sylph was talking about,” Quinlan said. “Where should we reconvene? I should probably take care of things for Mountain Hall just to keep them off my back.”

Sylph nodded up at a crooked two story building looming over them, visible through holes in the ceiling above them. “How about below that thing? It’s tall enough that it should be easy to find, but not so big that it’s an obvious meeting point.”

“That works,” Quinlan said with a nod. “I’ll try to finish this up tonight. The artifact isn’t far. Take care of yourselves. It would be very unfortunate if something were to happen to you.”

“Likewise,” Damien said. “Don’t worry about us. Henry would be furious if he got shunted off the Mortal Plane too early.”

“Damn right I would be,” Henry growled.

Quinlan laughed and gave them a last nod before making her way out of the house, turning down a street and disappearing from sight.

“So, should we go look for some artifacts?” Damien asked, glancing at Sylph. “We don’t want the others to find everything before we do.”

“Actually,” Sylph said, a tiny grin tugging at her lips. “I was thinking we might look for some of the other students. We don’t have a great way to locate artifacts, but Blackmist isn’t the only one that has information sources. I bet you the others have some leads too.”

“And how do we find them?” Damien asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I figure all we’ll have to do is wait for the inevitable fighting to start. It won’t be long before they run into each other, and that’ll be the perfect time for us to show up,” Sylph said with a wicked grin. “I’d like to get artifacts normally in the future, but I don’t quite have the skillset for that yet. We’ll have to make do with what we’re already good at.”