The Ceretian shield spell had been significantly easier to establish. That one had resembled unstructured magic a little more, the pattern being nothing more than a simple circle that we flooded with magic. It was still irritating, but it was trivially easy to maintain one, the surface of it magically darkened to the extent that it looked like a two-dimensional object almost as large as I was head to toe and equally as wide, hiding the way the wall of ruin-tinted force was bowed slightly outwards from me, forming more of a protective quarter- dome than a circle.

Apart from me, seven of the now twenty or so other students that had finished the magic missile had also managed to successfully establish their shields, glimmering circles of force that sported a variety of effects— it appeared that a number of spells under the Ceretian school took on the attributes of the god that an oathholder swore to. The boy who’d expressed his dislike of unstructured magic earlier was sustaining a crackling yellow shield, though it looked like it was taking some effort out of him. Noben wasn’t even paying attention to the translucent brown shield he’d made, electing instead to give advice to another boy, tall and black-haired and holding himself with a dignified air that screamed noble. Noben’s noble ‘friend’ had a shield going as well, hexagons shifting within it to overlap other hexagons, creating a shield that reinforced itself even as it protected the oathholder. An interesting effect. A Voci oathholder, maybe? This shield’s effects fit the self-replication style that Voci emphasized.

The remaining students weren’t failing to produce a shield per se. They had semblances of shields going, but they must not have been used to sustaining a construct because they were flickering out of existence almost as fast as they wrote themselves into it. The girl that had been next to me fell into this latter category. It looked like she was creating a mass of smaller shields that were trying to form together into one large shield, but they weren’t quite holding together properly and individual nodes kept disappearing into the air. Her method of casting, combined with the missile barrage she’d cast earlier, cemented her in my mind as a Sanyin oathholder.

Interesting. The University sure brought in a lot of intriguing characters, if she was anything to go by. By Jasmine’s definition, the god of vermin Sanyin was a second-pantheon god, and the requirements to swear an oath to it included utter dissociation from one’s self and an extended period of time spent living with, if I remembered correctly, literal thousands of rats and similar creatures. Ultimately, it granted an oathholder power with the focus of swarm at a steep cost to one’s sanity, but this girl looked pretty damn stable. I’d keep an eye out for her.

“Some of you have functioning shields now,” the professor said, interrupting my thoughts. “Excellent. To those of you with full shields, stop fuelling them and come aside with me for a moment.”

The eight of us dismissed our shields and obeyed, following him for almost a hundred meters before we made it to the stone platform where he’d started class.

“When I told you that you would receive practical practice, I did not just mean that you would stand in a field and cast spells,” Professor Lasi said. “You all have access to the Ceretian magic missile and basic shield.”

“Are we sparring?” This from the noble that Noben seemed to favor.

“Of course,” Lasi said. “Rounds will end when one party’s shield breaks, they declare surrender, or if their life is in imminent danger. You may decide the pairings and you will be the judges of who is victor. Wins will be factored into your semester scores, but losses will not.”

That said, he unceremoniously left, going to check on the next wave of students finishing up on the destruction of their dummies.

Almost immediately after he was gone, the noble walked over to me, pace dignified and reserved.

“Alex of House Varga,” he introduced himself, sticking a hand out. He was unnecessarily tall, and it felt almost like his words were meant to look down on me when he was doing exactly that by towering over me.

“Lily Syashan,” I replied, matching his greeting and shaking his hand. “You want to spar?”

“Lukas mentioned you,” he said. “You’re from a village?”

“It’s my namesake,” I said. “Syashan.”

“Crazy that you made it from there to here,” he said. “I’m impressed.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Ready, then?”

We walked to the classroom-sized platform, the others watching and in a couple cases offering words of light encouragement. I couldn’t tell who they were directed at.

The Varga noble waited for me to stop and paced out ten meters from me. He pivoted on one foot to face me, and we adopted a traditional dueling stance almost simultaneously.

“You know the noble fighting style,” he said, bemused. “Color me surprised.”

“Some things pass out of the nobles,” I said. “Let’s get on with it.”

“Anyone not ready?” the noble asked. “No? Alright, let’s go.”

On his last word, both of us tossed up shields immediately, the awkwardness of the magic still present but not obstructing me.

I wanted to practice spells today in order to reduce my reliance on the slower process of unstructured magic, so that meant—

I paused halfway through forming my magic missile, allowing the unused magic to dissipate into the air.

Godsdamn it, I was an idiot. I fundamentally couldn’t spar with my magic. The last time I’d had a proper spar had been before I had picked up an oath, so I’d forgotten. My spells were going to either do jack shit or kill the noble, with no in between. I wouldn’t be too broken up about it if I killed a fellow student during the course of my time at the University, but using lethal force now would screw up the lesson and ensure that I would never get a chance to connect with Noben, who was clearly a lot more talented than I had originally noticed.

The Varga fired his first offensive spell, a magic missile that seemed to grow in intensity as it travelled. I blocked it easily with my shield, bright green magic fizzling out into the paradoxically transparent emptiness that comprised my shield. With the block came a dip in my magic power that I could almost physically feel, a grunt escaping my throat as a measurable amount of oath energy left my reserves.

My shield spell shuddered as the spell spent itself on its surface, and I knew from the description in the textbook that this meant the missile would be able to break it, if fired enough. Ceretian shields didn’t recover— once I cast them, I just had to keep feeding magic into them until I either ended the spell or it broke. Once a shield went down, it generally meant at least half a minute of recovery before the oathholder could recover from the feedback and cast another, so I had to end this quickly, without killing him, and preferably while remaining conscious.

I was running on the assumption that this noble was a Voci oathholder, which meant that if those missiles hit me there were bound to be effects beyond a simple ray of force. That meant my lose condition was getting hit a single time.

An idea formed in my mind. Not one with a whole lot of merit to it, but I was short on options and low on time so I accepted it.

As another sickly green missile formed, I sprinted forward, my shield moving as I willed it. The noble shouted in surprise and loosed his missile early, its magic half-formed and weak. It spent itself uselessly on my spell, but even weakened like that I could feel the drain on my shield. A sweat started to break out on my neck from the physical exertion brought on by my oath, pressure falling onto me like someone was hanging from my shoulders. Based off my admittedly incomplete understanding of my own body’s interaction with magic, I would probably only be able to sustain this spell for another shot or two before the shield failed, at which point I would certainly lose the fight. Sure, I could hope that he would run out of magic first, but I couldn’t rely on that against an opponent whose capabilities I did not know.

That just meant I couldn’t give him another shot.

I closed the distance between us. Ten meters became five meters became two, and even as the noble tried to back off I forced more magic into my spell, dumping just enough to avoid totally exhausting my body for the time being. I surprised myself, reaching into the well of power that was my oath and finding that somehow it was deeper than it had been just days ago. It was a definite overcharge, and the bones in my body began to feel leaden even as I cast it, but then again shields were generally not intended to be offensive weapons.

The Ceretian shield gave the user a lot of fine control, which improved as more magic fuelled it. With most of my remaining magic— enough to kill the entire Varga household thrice over, I was pretty sure— invested into a single shield, I had pinpoint control over where it went. I forced it into the noble’s shield and not a centimeter further, releasing the spell as I made contact so that I wouldn’t lose focus and accidentally kill the noble and so that I wouldn’t have to sustain this any longer.

His shield shattered like cheap glass meeting a brick, the spell fracturing at the seams and the hexagons comprising his shield were simply removed from existence by my already-dissipating spell.

I felt physical relief as I cancelled my spell, and I used that golden moment of recovery to sprint at the noble, his shield no longer blocking any possible physical advance.

I almost always wore pants with pouches at the belt when I went out, and today was no different. In one smooth move, I drew a knife and lunged for him. He fell on his ass, but I had to give him credit. The Varga was casting already.

The noble’s spell was hasty, panicked, and as he was beginning to shout out the command phrase for another missile I was on him.

Before our spar could progress any further, a voice sounded from the sidelines.

“Stop! We’ll call it a draw!” Noben shouted.

I looked at my opponent. He looked at me. I shrugged, and he nodded.

“Good spar,” I said, extending a hand. The noble took it, letting me pull him to his feet.

I genuinely didn’t know if he would’ve managed to get the spell out before I got the knife to his throat, but even then this was still a spar. I wasn’t going to slit his throat, and that meant that I probably would’ve gotten hit if not for the intervention. It really had been a close fight.

“Good spar,” the noble replied. “I can see why Lukas was interested in you.”

“Don’t put it like that,” Noben scoffed. “And be more careful. You both could’ve been hurt.”

He eyed me carefully. He’d noticed, then, that I had failed to cast a single missile during the fight.

“I would’ve been fine,” the noble said. “It was going to be a draw anyway.”

“You nobles sure can fight,” I sighed. “I should let my friend know about you. She’d be ecstatic.”

“You can introduce her to us anytime,” the noble said. “You’ve earned my respect, for sure.”

Huh. I’d been half-joking when I had said that, but…

Income, notoriety, connections. This certainly fell into the latter.

“Alright then,” I said. “Dinner, today?”

Noben and the boy from House Varga looked at each other, and the former shrugged. “I haven’t got anything. Would everyone be alright with Funen’s Barbeque? I’ve been craving it."

“Anything is fine by me,” I said.

The noble nodded. “It’s a date, then.”

“What did you say his name was?” Jasmine asked.

We were walking in front of the school library, where Jasmine had decided we should meet after class days. The imposing structure was as large as a governor’s castle, five stories high with a length and width greater than any other building on the campus. Magically reinforced pillars nearly ten meters tall and carved of granite and steel towered above the two of us as we walked down the steps in front of the library.

“Alex of House Varga,” I said. “And his bodyguard Lukas Noben, who I’m pretty sure is more powerful.”

“Alex?” Jasmine repeated. “I know that guy! He’s… not quite a friend, but a friendly acquaintance.”

“Oh, really?” I asked.

“Mhm. I talked to him at a few parties, and the Vargas tend to be Nacea oathholders so I would talk to him when my family went to get healed after a mission.”

“Small world.”

“Sure is.”

It was a beautiful day out. It was warm without being hot, and there was a hint of a breeze, the air lightly brushing me on my cheek as we walked. Wispy clouds on the horizon were beginning to turn a bright pink as the sun slowly began dipping behind the mountains.

I nudged Jasmine’s shoulder with my own, closing the already-small space between us. “Is the place we’re going to any good?”

Jasmine nudged me back. “Funen’s Barbeque? It’s a unique place, that’s for sure. They give you an oathlight-powered stove and raw meat, and then you cook it yourself.”

“Interesting way to eat,” I said. “Are you a fan of it?”

“I can kind of do it, but I’m not the best,” Jasmine admitted sheepishly. “I”m hopeless at cooking.”

“Of course you would be, noble girl,” I teased her, receiving a light jab to the shoulder in return.

Jasmine laughed, soft and bright like silver chimes on a windy day. We continued on our path to the restaurant, filling the time and space between with more idle chatter.

Funen’s Barbeque wasn’t far from the university— just a block or two away, in fact— and it was a respectable establishment. The restaurant had a building to itself, short and squat but wide enough to seat several dozen inside. On the storefront was an oathlight-lit sign proclaiming that this was, in fact, “FUNEN’S BBQ”, and the letters shone bright red and blue against the brown brick of the building.

Noben and the Varga noble had already found a table by the time we walked in, waving us down before we could flag down a receptionist.

The two of them were sat at one end of a square table, so Jasmine and I sat side-by-side opposing them. They hadn’t ordered anything yet, or at least it hadn’t arrived, but the cast iron pan in the center of the table was already being heated by oathlight flames, an Aedi-made magic battery under the pot feeding a consistent, unwavering flame.

“Hello, Alex,” Jasmine said. “And Lukas as well.”

“Jasmine!” The other noble replied, surprised. “It’s been too long!”

“Hi, Jasmine,“ Noben said with a wan smile. “The food is on its way.”

“Varga. Noben.” I said.

“Call me Lukas, please,” the latter said, making a face. “I hate being referred to by my last name.”

“It’s Alex,” Jasmine’s acquaintance said. “Please?”

I mentally reassigned the labels I’d been using for them. It’d probably help, if we were going to be able to work with them in the future, I reasoned.

“How’s it been going, Alex?” Jasmine asked. “Last I saw of you, you still hadn’t gotten your oath yet.”

“I swore my oath two months before I came to the University,” Alex said. “Still class one, unfortunately.”

“Ditas or Nacea? Your house almost always produces one of those, right?”

Alex looked a little uncomfortable at that. “Actually, I have an oath to Voci.”

“The Vargas have enough oathholders who deal with the human body,” Lukas said. “If anything, it’s good for the future.”

“I totally agree,” Jasmine said. “Good on you! You always said you were going to branch out, and look at you now!”

“Almost kicked my ass, too,” I readily added. Even after I apparently increased my magic capacity. But you don’t need to know that.

“Oh, give yourself some credit,” Alex said. “I could tell you were holding back with your magic, you know? Your shield didn’t break. You ended the spell. Not only that, but you also didn’t cast a missile a single time and almost had a knife to my throat. In a real fight, I’d be dead thrice over.”

“Given equal starting power, I think you could win,” I said. “I’m already class two, so I had a little more power to pour into that last maneuver.”

I had a sneaking suspicion that I might even be a class or two higher, now. When I had overloaded my shield with offensive power, I’d casually drawn far deeper on my oath than I had on actual adventuring jobs, discounting the life-or-death oath alignment. There was a pretty decent possibility that killing five oathholders and a bunch of Altered vermin had deepened my connection with my god enough to push me over the edge and gain the power boost that came with an increase in class.

“Maybe, but—“

“Beef and pork for four with rice and condiments,” a server announced, placing a heaping platter of raw meat on our table along with steaming rice and sauces before leaving immediately, hurrying to the next order.

“Let’s eat,” Lukas said, already using a serving fork to drop a slice of meat into the pan.

The pan sizzled as it made contact, fragrant steam rising from the cooking meat.

“Hold on one second,” Jasmine said, and she stuck her hand in the oathlight’s flame.

It said something about our acquaintance with oathholders that none of us batted an eye at that. Setting oneself aflame at semi-regular intervals was a key part of being an Igni oathholder, after all. I’d seen Jasmine do it with a match or torch after school before, and both Alex and Lukas seemed to know her in her noble life, which meant that they probably knew what she did to uphold her oaths.

“Alright,” Jasmine said, withdrawing her unburnt hands from the flame. “Let’s eat.”

The four of us— three, excluding Jasmine, who seemed more than willing to let me cook a few slices and then steal a piece— worked our way through heating the meal. It wasn’t something I’d had with great frequency before, but it was tasty, the beef and pork mixing well with the sour and spicy sauces and the rice acting as a nice way to break up the rich taste of the meat.

“So,” Jasmine said, swallowing a bite. “I assume you’re not working with the Varga healing business, then.”

“I am not,” Alex confirmed. “I get enough of an allowance to afford room and board with a little spending money, and that’s it.”

Nobles, I thought, not kindly. I had received a scholarship to the University after breezing past their entrance exams, but it didn’t cover everything and after its costs adventuring would barely cover for my basic needs.

“Around the same for me,” Jasmine said. “I make a little money on the side, though.”

“Oh?” Alex asked. “Do tell.”

“Adventuring with Lily here,” Jasmine replied, pointing a finger at me. “It helps train up my oath and it gives a bit of cash, but it’s not really the best job.

“Even more coincidences,” Alex laughed, and Lukas laughed with him. “We’ve been doing the same.”

“Half the reason I’m here is to keep his ass from getting killed on a job,” Lukas said, putting an arm around his noble.

“Hey, don’t say that in front of them,” Alex said. “You’ll make me look worse in front of the Rayes prodigy!”

“Prodigy?” I asked, pointedly glancing at Jasmine. “You have a bit of a reputation, huh?”

“The less said about that, the better,” Jasmine said.

“Oh, Jasmine’s a genius,” Alex said. “One of the strongest young oathholders out of House Rayes in generations, but—“

“Please, Alex,” Jasmine said. “I do not say this out of modesty. The less said, the better.”

“I have to ask you about this some time,” I said. “That aside, you two adventure? How frequently?”

“Once or twice a week,” Alex said. “Sometimes more. We haven’t been doing it for very long. We barely made it past the first month, and I’ll admit that a lot of that was because of Lukas.”

“We’re on the second membership level,” Lukas said. “What about you?”

“Still on the first,” Jasmine said. “Around halfway to completing the first month with three or so weeks remaining.”

“Would you like to party up?” I asked. “We’ve done two jobs so far, and one of them was with a randomly assigned party.”

“I’ll second that offer,” Jasmine said. “We could definitely use a full party. Lots of jobs that want a minimum of four people that we can’t do.”

“I see no issue with it,” Lukas said. “Alex?”

“What oath do you have?” the noble in question asked me, rather than giving an answer. “I know Jasmine is an Igni, Lukas is Tsau, and I’m Voci. But I like transparency.”

“I don’t know,” I told him freely. I genuinely had no idea who my god was, which meant that potential enemies would likely not either, so there was no harm in revealing this to people that were essentially strangers. “But it’s not first or second pantheon.”

“Interesting,” Alex said, pausing to eat a thin slice of beef. “That explains why your shield was so… different.”

“It’s a unique god, that’s for sure,” Jasmine said. “Powerful, too.”

“I’d appreciate a little more information,” Alex said. “I want to know who I’d be working with.”

“I can vouch for her, if that’s what you’re on about,” Jasmine said. “She’s saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“I’m really good at killing things,” I said.

I didn’t elaborate further. I knew Jasmine, now, but Alex and Lukas were still little more than strangers to me. No point in sharing sensitive information with people that we weren’t even sure that we were working with.

“A vote of confidence from you is good enough for me,” Alex said, as if reading my mind and trying to dispell my concerns. “Lukas?”

“All good with me,” he said, stretching. “In any case, I’m probably a lot more powerful than you all are, so we shouldn’t run into any major problems.”

“You were working with the professor earlier,” I said. “Do you even need to be here?”

“Like I said, I’m here to protect the scion of House Varga,” Lukas said, purposefully overenunciating the title. “Household soldiers like me get oaths early and train them up for years. I’m class seven with my oath to Tsau, and I recently acquired a new oath to Caël.”

“He’s godsdamned powerful,” Alex supplied unhelpfully.

That would put him at or above the level of the cultists I’d slain, then. Maybe someone I could fight or even defeat if I was aligned, but I would fold like a house of cards in the wind if I fought him right now as we were. He would be a massive asset to have in the field.

“So you’re in, then?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“How soon are we available to run a job?” Jasmine asked, sneaking a piece of my food into her mouth. “We’d like to clear the first member level as soon as possible.”

“We could run a short one after classes tomorrow,” Alex said. “Tomorrow’s classes should only go up until about an hour or two after lunch.”

“Sure,” Jasmine said. “Lily?”

Tomorrow? That was a rather rapid timeframe, but I couldn’t say that I was opposed to it. “I’m game, so long as we keep it on the shorter end.”

“Excellent,” Alex said, and he was all smiles. “I’m excited to work with you all.”

“The feeling is mutual,” I said.

I had surprised myself with those last words. We were going to be working with a noble and his soldier bodyguard, and despite the lack of trust I held for people like them, despite the reserved caution that I still planned to approach our partyship with, I realized that I hadn’t been lying.