The next ten seconds happened in slow motion. Towcard turned around and dashed into the back office, slamming the door behind him. Rembrandt, meanwhile, teleported into the room with enough force to break the door behind him. The Chatelaine was hit with a shattering of wood splinters, and three mages teleported to grab Rembrandt and pin him to the ground.

Mehdi could not find the words to describe such a scene, beyond, perhaps, Spectacularly Horrifying.

The screams continued, mostly from Rembrandt as he ran his voice raw. He vanished at one point, but reappeared in frustration in the same spot he was before.

Finally Rembrandt was escorted out, leaving the deathly silent medical room, with two confused initiates and Chatelaine, and an utterly baffled Mehdi and Barnabus.

“Holy crap,” Barnabus whispered.

The door to Towcard’s office opened. He had changed into entirely different clothes, a dark purple shirt with thick pants to match. It looked like padded hunting clothes.

“Well, that was highly unexpected,” Towcard said brightly. He gave a yelp and walked past the initiates straight to the Chatelaine. “Now this won’t do, come on lets get you cleaned up, I have some private quarters behind my office, we don’t have to start anything until your husband arrives, if you prefer.”

The Chatelaine gave a sad, sobbing nod, and Towcard escorted her to the mysterious backroom.

“What did the doctor do to make him so mad?” one of the initiates said.

“I don’t know.” Mehdi said. “Maybe he was miasma poisoned. Or the antiquity warped his mind.”

“Do you think he’ll be removed from the base?” the initiate asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing his broken arm.

Mehdi shrugged.

Barnabus stared at the floor. “And so life goes on.”

It was a small, silly little sentence, but the way Barnabus said it bothered Mehdi, for reasons he could not quite place.

As Barnabus said this, Raphael Quolle stepped in quietly through the broken archway, and stood to the side, saying nothing.

The Mage from before who was with the Chatelaine returned afterwards, heading towards the back room in a heated march. He banged on the door, yelling for Towcard to let him in, to which the door was promptly opened.

There was no more screaming or smashing of objects, so evidently Towcard hadn’t pissed anyone else off today.

There was nothing but silence, and Mehdi shifted in discomfort. Watching this entire thing had been… riveting, he supposed, but now he was stuck with a wholly different problem. Was he… allowed to leave? He very sorely wanted to leave, but that would seem suspicious, wouldn’t it? He had come here with a claimed injury, and Towcard hadn’t told him he was allowed to leave, but he had also been partially faking an injury. He was missing class too. They were supposed to be practicing shorthand writing today, and Mehdi had almost been looking forward to it, finding the dexterous challenge of writing much easier than running.

Maybe he could just cough, say “I have to get to class” and walk right by. Subtle, unimpressive, that wouldn’t draw any attention, right?

His heart beat wildly. Why had he let Barnabus talk him into this? This hadn’t been an adventure this had been one long awkward moment and now it was just anticlimactically stressful!

He glanced at the other initiate, who had taken to staring at the wall in disinterest. Barnabus was chewing on the inside of his lip, whilst scratching furiously at his nose. That could mean he was nervous, but it could also just mean he was very itchy at the moment.

Mehdi rehearsed the phrase in his head. “I’m late to class.” Just say it, barely at an audible volume, and not make eye contact, so it would look like he wasn’t causing any trouble and definitely wasn’t breaking any rules

He took a deep breath, got off the bed, grunted, and with all his energy he said, in an apathetic tone--

“I’m late to class.”

No one even paid him mind. With his eyes focused on the exit, Mehdi strode out, only sort of tripping over his feet as he did. He kept walking, blood thrumming in his ears, until he nearly slammed into Mages going in the opposite direction as he turned the corner in the twisted hallway.

Four Mages, battered and bruised, all glaring at him.

“Sorry,” Mehdi muttered, continuing his stride.

“Hey!” Barnabus called from behind, just as Mehdi made it to the staircase.

Mehdi froze to see the shorter initiate bounding after him.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Barnabus spat, glaring at Mehdi.

“Sorry,” Mehdi mumbled as he walked up the stairs to get out of the way of Mages, Pillars and some doctors moving around frantically. “I just needed to get out of there.”

Barnabus shrugged. “That’s fine you just could have, I dunno, warned me.”

“How?” Mehdi blinked in genuine confusion.

Barnabus idly scratched his neck. “I dunno. Stared deeply in my eyes with intent.”

“How does that even work,” Mehdi asked in disbelief.

For a moment, neither said anything, and instead stared deeply into each other’s eyes, as if to try and intuit its use.

Barnabus broke down laughing. “Okay--okay that one’s my bad--hah! You just kinda glare like you wanna murder people, you know that?”

“Hrm,” Mehdi grumbled. “So if I want you to kill someone, I’ll send you a message with my eyes.”

Barnabus cocked his head. “Come on, follow me.”

“I need to get back to my dorm.”

“It will be fine,” Barnabus said, nodding. “I know a place.”

“I am going to burn a hole through my stomach with the sheer miasma of your shenanigans,” Mehdi hissed, nonetheless following Barnabus as he walked down a hallway Mehdi had never once paid mind to.

Barnabus didn’t respond, and instead the two made their way to a small pantry area, stocked with jars of powder that Mehdi didn’t recognize.

“Is this medicine,” Mehdi asked, glancing at the unlabelled jars.

“Protein,” Barnabus said. “The Pillars who work here store the powdered protein here. It’s usually pretty abandoned outside of early morning delivery, so we should be good here.”

Mehdi sat down as Barnabus shut the door. He could hear footsteps coming down the hallway, and Mehdi’s breath hitched. Mages. They were going to find them and then they would get in trouble and Mehdi would drop dead of embarrassment.

“Did you see the fucking size of that hole?”

“Fucking Mages can suck my--”

The two conversationalists got further away. They sounded more like Pillars than Mages, which Mehdi sighed in relief. Barnabus hadn’t been kidding.

“Anyway,” Barnabus babbled excitedly, “can you believe that just went down? What do you think that black box can do? And why Towcard? Also he didn’t really act that terrified of Rembrandt--”

“He went into his office and locked the door.”

“Calmly! He did it calmly!” Barnabus insisted.

Mehdi shrugged. “I guess.”

“Oh come on, are you seriously not interested?” Barnabus frowned.

“I am, I just--” Mehdi stared off in the distance. “I dunno. This isn’t our mystery to solve. I only cared because Rembrandt came from Bricketfriar, where I’m from. But I highly doubt it actually involved my literal family.”

Barnabus sighed. “But don’t you want to at least know what the black box can do?”

“Yeah. I suspect that was the antiquity stolen during my Adreday,” Mehdi said. “So I assume it’s an antiquitie of great power, since a rogue Mage tried to steal it.”

Barnabus stared at him in the dark, his eyes wide as saucers. “What do you know about this rogue Mage?”

“Uh,” Mehdi shrugged. “Absolutely nothing. There might not even be one. I might have misremembered. You should probably ignore me and everything I say.”

Barnabus made a ‘hrm’ noise in annoyance.

“What do you think Towcard’s doing to that Chatelaine?” Mehdi asked after a moment of quiet.

“Oh I just thought he was trying to like, sneakily give her an abortion,” Barnabus said.

“Give her a what now?” Mehdi stared at Barnabus blankly.

“You know. An abortion. That thing noble women get all the time.”

Mehdi continued to stare at Barnabus in utter confusion.

“Uhhh--” Barnabus scratched his neck more deeply as he tried to think. “It’s a thing that stops you from being pregnant.”

“Oh. That’s kind of stupid,” Mehdi said. “Why get pregnant in the first place, then?”

Barnabus shrugged. “I dunno, maybe it’s for people who have something come up, like a grandparent dies or their uh, manor burns down?”

“I guess that makes sense, but why would Towcard be sneaky about that?” Mehdi asked.

“Not sure. It’s not something I ever saw people talk about openly, so I assumed it was some sort of taboo thing,” Barnabus replied.

“I’ve never heard of it, but then again I don’t exactly pay attention to medicine,” Mehdi said. “Is that something that interested you?”

“Not really, but people talked about random shit and you just sort of pick it up, you know?” Barnabus said.

Mehdi looked down at the ground. “I mostly uh, try and ignore people who say things I don’t care about.”

Barnabus snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like you.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Not--no not really. I guess it’s just kinda funny. Lots of people here really don’t like the idea of doing or learning anything that’s not immediately in their purview,” Barnabus said.

“It keeps the mind focused and healthy,” Mehdi recited dully.

“I know. It just seems awfully boring.”

Mehdi opened his mouth, but thought better of it and promptly closed it.

“What,” Barnabus asked.

“Nothing.”

“C’mon.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Barnabus crawled over to Mehdi, and poked him. “You were gonna say something.”

“No.”

Barnabus stood up in the cramped room, and placed his hand on Mehdi’s face. “Speak your secrets, young core, and confess unto me.”

“Buzz off,” Mehdi groaned, swiping away Barnabus’ hand. “It was just a bad joke.”

“Aha! Now you have to tell it to me!” Barnabus proclaimed, leaning over to make eye contact with Mehdi, who remained sitting down.

Mehdi groaned. “I was going to say perhaps the reason you don’t feel like a Mage is because you’re more suited to be a Chatelaine.”

Barnabus made an offended huff, and placed all of his weight onto Mehdi’s shoulders, most likely in an attempt to push Mehdi down. Instead, Mehdi remained straight in posture, unmoving.

“You jackass!” Barnabus hissed.

“I told you it was a bad joke!” Mehdi said. “This is your fault!”

“My fault?” Barnabus placed his hand on Mehdi’s face again, covering up half his vision. “You’re the one with your shitty little ruminations.”

Mehdi didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how angry Barnabus was, or how much of it was just Barnabus thinking he was funny, but he certainly didn’t want to fight Barnabus. He also didn’t want Barnabus towering over him and giving him crap. So he did the only logical response and licked Barnabus' palm that covered his mouth.

“Ah!” Barnabus yelped, reeling his hand back in disgust.

Mehdi smirked. Without thinking, he opened his mouth, and said the words he probably should not have said. “You kinda scream like a girl too.”

This time Barnabus tackled him with force, and this time Mehdi couldn’t remain upright. His back slammed into the cold floor, and almost hit the wooden shelves that held the protein.

“Ohhh look at me I’m Mehdi Lucrece!” Barnabus said, shaking his head back and forth. “I have two emotions and they’re both different levels of being a silent dolt.”

“A tall silent dolt,” Mehdi corrected.

“Right. Yeah. A tall, silent, just absolute dumbass. Just the stupidest man to ever exist,” Barnabus continued.

Mehdi gripped Barnabus by the ear and tugged, briefly just for a moment. Barnabus hissed from the pain, and to Mehdi’s shock, the skin on the ear cracked, and small amounts of blood trickled through.

Instead of stopping and expressing worry, Mehdi returned the tackle, pushing back against Barnabus and forcing him to the ground.

“You’ve got lizard skin,” Mehdi observed dully.

“Fucker did you make me bleed?” Barnabus cried out, slapping Mehdi across the face.

“You tackled me.”

“You called me a girl!”

“You told me to tell you!” Mehdi finally said.

“And then you said it again,” Barnabus insisted, trying to grab at Mehdi’s face to claw at it. Mehdi grabbed Barnabus hands with relative ease, and the two engaged in what could only be called the graceless slapping of each other’s hands.

There was a momentary silence as Mehdi tried to think of a good comeback, punctured only by the flailing of mutually violent hands.

“You did tell me to confess, in my defense,” Mehdi said, smiling momentarily at his own cleverness.

“You licked my hand!” Barnabus yelled.

“Yeah, and?”

Barnabus responded by jutting upwards suddenly, and violently, and licking Mehdi across the nose and face.

“Ew--gross!” Mehdi hissed, getting off of Barnabus, and wiping at his face in disgust. “You put your hand on my damn face! That was not the same!”

Barnabus was grinning proudly to himself in the darkness of the cabinet. He didn’t even say anything in response, he just kept giggling quietly.

“Stop laughing!” Mehdi ordered as he used his sleeves to get the disgusting saliva off his face. “What if I catch your skin disease?”

“If you were gonna catch it you would have caught it around the time you licked my damn hand!” Barnabus shot back, pushing Mehdi’s shoulder.

Mehdi narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like this at all. Not the fight specifically, but this distinct feeling he was losing, and why Barnabus had been so quick to fight him. Friends didn’t just randomly fight each other for no reason.

Well, that wasn’t true, some people wrestled for fun, but usually they were five.

So he pushed Barnabus back.

And Barnabus pushed him in return, harder.

Mehdi returned with equal force.

Barnabus pushed him again, and this time Mehdi was ready, and pushed Barnabus back with all the weight he could muster. Barnabus slammed into the shelves, straight into the protein.

The jars fell onto the ground, shattering open.

Barnabus and Mehdi stared at each other in muted horror.

As if in sync, the two scrambled out of the pantry, left the servant’s hallway, and went their separate ways to their dorm without a single word spoken otherwise.

Mehdi stumbled over to his bed, collapsed face first, and buried his head in his pillow. What an absolutely bizarre day this had been. Now it felt like a dream, a hallucination, something he had concocted up in his mind’s eye as something that would definitely never happen in real life. Rembrandt appearing with a magical item, destroying the mess hall, and then Mehdi going down to medical just to see what would happen, and then getting into the weirdest, most bizarre fight with someone he considered a friend?

Fake. All fake. Fake embarrassing actions that would be better off in a dream than in reality. He must have been thinking something that absolutely warped his mind. Maybe it had been that damn magical room. Ever since coming out of it nothing had felt the same or right. Maybe Mehdi should have talked to Towcard about the possibility of that magical room giving him toxic ruminations, it certainly felt like it had.

And he had hurt Barnabus! He didn’t even know why he had, or why Barnabus had kept fighting back in the same way! It was absolutely baseless and the actions of a mentally addled individual. Mehdi resisted the urge to scream into his pillow.

He would just have to lay low and not keep getting into whatever these antics were. He had years left at this Mage base and wasting it on nonsensical shenanigans was a recipe in becoming overloaded in miasma.

Mehdi sat up, taking deep, calming breathes. He knew there were kinds of cleanses one could ask for, maybe he could look into that. Or possibly just focus on the meditation classes with their therapeutic methods of reducing the toxicity of memories. He didn’t really know how to do it by himself without an individual instructing him through the steps, so next time he could ask the teacher if there was a way to do that by himself.

“You missed class,” a dry voice floated in his direction.

Mehdi looked up to glance idly at Lorenz, another Balustrade with a chiseled jaw and a toneless inflection.

“Yes,” Mehdi said. “Yes I did.”

“We had to do planks.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lorenz squinted at him in annoyance. “Do you even want to be here?”

“Yes,” Mehdi lied. “I just had to go medical, I tripped and fell.”

Lorenz snorted. “Fell again, huh?”

“No, no I mean--I really did fall.”

Lorenz rolled his eyes and walked away from Mehdi, going to his own bunk, and set to idly polishing his shoes. The others were also filing in, all taking a special moment to glare at Mehdi. Perhaps he should have made a bigger show of going to Towcard. Now when the teachers saw him they would no doubt see him as a delinquent with no respect to the rules, the absolute worst thing anyone could be seen as. And they wouldn’t even be wrong.

Stupid magical room and its stupid mind altering effects. Stupid Barnabus and his mind altering effects. Stupid Rembrandt and his volatile anger, just spitting out in every direction. How was any of this Mehdi’s fault when Rembrand was exploding all over the base?

Overwhelmed and exhausted, Mehdi resolved to go to bed early, willing to accept that whatever prank or revenge enacted on him would happen regardless. It wasn’t like he could fight them off, even Barnabus had been able to pretty easily fight Mehdi, and Barnabus was a puny little punk.

The base wasn’t even quiet, with Mages yelling and people walking through the hallways, talking loudly. Whatever Rembrandt had done had caused quite the stir. He hated it.

He went to the bathroom, opting out of a shower, instead just using a water basin to keep himself as feasibly clean as possible without removing his clothes.

When he returned, predictably, his mattress was nowhere to be found, his things were scattered across the floor, and rude words were carved into the wall next to it.

What he didn’t expect however, was an unfamiliar pile of shredded paper. Mehdi frowned, and stared at the other Balustrades, who had gone back to ignoring him.

He didn’t have anything on paper that would have been important to him. He filtered through it and saw they were letters. Mehdi groaned. Either they had stolen his mail, or it had been delivered and they had torn it to pieces. How frustrating.

On some pieces he recognized his father’s handwriting, but couldn’t make heads or tails of what it said, and certainly not torn to pieces. Great. They could be arriving soon or not and he had no way of knowing. He’d just have to prepare as if they were arriving every day, even if they cancelled.

The other torn pages were not in shreds, but solid chunks. Specifically a paragraph punched out in a paragraph, which had been messily scrawled over to imply he had an intimate relationship with animals.

After much struggle, he finally figured out what it was saying.

BALUSTRADE MEHDI LUCRECE, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY:

Your schedule is changing from BAL. Y1R3 to MAG. YXRQ. You are to report to *****, tomorrow, at 6 AM. Failure to do so will

The rest of the page was torn off. Mehdi was honestly shocked he had been given this much information. But of course, if he had shown up to classes with the rest of them, it would most likely end up with all of them getting in trouble.

Naturally, they had still blacked out the actual room he was supposed to go to with great efficiency, to the point there was an ink soaked hole.

He looked up at the fellow Balustrades, who had taken to going to bed, still very much ignoring him. Mehdi sighed, heaved his mattress back onto its frame, only to see that it was leaking padding.

He laid down on the slowly shrinking mattress, and made do with his coat for a blanket. He didn’t know what was going on, and frankly he didn’t care to. Whatever was so important that he needed to change schedules over it could wait until tomorrow.