The two boys sat talking for a while before their conversation was stopped by a whistle. A group of men and women in Windreach colors stood at the front of the room. Their clothing was uniform and they each had a pin on their breasts that showed they were staff at the Academy. The man in front smiled at the gathered children, “Welcome to Windreach Academy. We have bright expectations for you all. Please come forward as I call your name and a member of the staff will lead you to your dormitories.”

He then began calling out names and with every four names a staff member would lead them away to their dorms. It was all a rather efficient operation and after a while, Derek heard his name called. As he approached the front of the room he also heard Garrett’s name called and that nobleman from before, Desmond Westmont. When they arrived at the front of the room they were joined by another boy who gave off a cold and distant vibe and practically stared down his nose at them before dismissing them altogether and turning towards the staff member who had come to lead them to the dorms.

“Ok, Derek, Desmond, Garrett, and Tristan? Good, let’s go! Here’s your keys, you four are being assigned to room 24C. The easy way to remember that is building two, floor four, room C. Do you understand? OK, great. I am Jonas and I am the manager in charge of that building so let me know if there are any problems. Also, don’t break any of the rules, or I will have to punish you and I don’t want to have to go through that hassle and all the paperwork it creates for me.

“This will be your room until you graduate, so it will help if you guys get along. You are lucky to be in building two really, it is one of the closer ones to the cafeteria and the girl’s dorms. Though I strongly suggest you don’t get caught going over there. The managers in the girls dorms are more strict than us in the guys dorms and they have been known to be quite cruel in handing out punishment to young men they catch over there...”

Jonas kept talking as he led them to dorm two. The dorms were just behind the Dean of Students’ office. Between two groups of them was a large cafeteria. On either side of the cafeteria, arranged in a horseshoe around a central green, were groups of four story dormitories. Theirs was the one nearest to them on the right, with a large ‘2’ painted over the doorway.

The building was whitewashed as most of the others in this city were with terracotta tiles on the roof and red painted window shutters. It was rectangular with the doorways in the middle of the short length. Next to the doors were stairwells leading up to the other three floors. They climbed to the fourth, and were pleased to see that due to being on the top floor, they also benefited from the sloped roof, with much higher ceilings than the other floors.

Theirs was the third door on the right, with rooms A through F on the right and G through L on the left. Jonas opened the door for them and they saw four beds, dressers and writing desks in the rather large room. “Alright boys, this one’s yours. Decide amongst yourselves who gets what beds, but don’t start a fight over it. There are restrooms down at the end of the hall and a washroom on the ground floor. There are staff that will be by every week to replace your linens, but it will be on you four to keep your room clean. You understand me? Good. Enjoy your stay here boys.”

With that, he headed back down the stairs and the guys went in to pick their beds. Two of the beds were on the side of the room near the door, while two of the beds were under the windows on the far side. Between the beds along the other walls were the dressers and desks. Desmond and Garrett immediately started arguing over one of the beds near the door, so Tristan and Derek picked the beds near the windows. Derek looked out of the window over his bed to see the green between the dorms and the cafeteria and on the other side of the cafeteria stood the girl’s dorms. There were groups of students walking around the green and he could hear snippets of their conversations brought up to him by the wind.

Placing his armor on a rack at the foot of his bed, he turned to see that Garrett and Desmond had gotten quite heated. He glanced at Tristan, who was busy ignoring them and placing his books on his desk, he focused on the other two, “Guys, there are two beds near the door, Garrett why don’t you come over to the one on this side of the room?”

Garrett turned to him as if to argue further, but seeing as his friend had staked a claim on the other side, he finally decided to cede the bed over to Desmond. A few moments later, porters came up with their belongings and in short order the four boys were unpacked and ready to start their lives at the school. Derek was looking over his gear when he heard Garrett from the other side of the room, “So, uhh, Derek, who was that girl you came with today?”

Derek looked up quizzically, “You mean Alicia? She’s my mother’s apprentice. Why do you ask?”

He noticed that Garrett was sitting on his bed, looking kind of bashful, but he also could not help but notice that even though Tristan was acting like he was reading and Desmond was trying to act like he was still writing the letter he had started, they were definitely listening in. Garrett quickly noticed that he had the attention of the whole room, so he started to blush as he stammered out, “W-well, you s-see, she’s really p-p-pretty. Do you know what she likes?”

Derek thought for a moment. What did the one thing have to do with the other? She preferred sweeter foods and nice dresses. She showed a particular fondness for cute animals and had a collection of figurines she rather treasured. There was also the music box she always played with, but that didn’t seem to be what they were asking for, “Um, she likes studying and talking about magic?”

He remembered that over the last few weeks she had really enjoyed spending time with the adults and showing off what she had learned during her apprenticeship. It seemed to give her a lot of pride, so he went with that. The admission, though, had an effect on the room. Desmond and Garrett both looked deflated, while Tristan looked a bit more smug than he had a moment ago. Derek could not tell what was going on in these boy’s heads.

After a moment of awkward silence, he finally spoke up, “Er, well, I guess since we are going to be sharing this room, we should probably introduce ourselves. I am Derek Thorne, I am a sponsored student of the Magic Warrior College. My sponsor was my grandmother who will be teaching holy magic at the Mage College.”

That definitely broke the ice, Garrett spoke up next while Desmond was finishing his letter, “I am Garrett Smith, from Windreach, I won a scholarship for the Magic Warrior College at the arena this year. I scored Third place, but they made a spot for me because they said I had a unique schema.”

His voice was full of pride and he thrust his chest out as he said it. Desmond almost dropped the letter in his hand as he started laughing, “Hahaha, that’s not what I heard, they said your schema was uniquely terrible. I heard them compete to describe how bad your schema is.”

Derek couldn’t help but be alarmed when he heard this, “What, it can’t be that bad is it?”

Even Tristan was looking up from his book at this point, and Garrett was looking rather deflated as Desmond continued to laugh at him. Finally Derek interceded, “It can’t be that bad, Garrett, do you mind if I check your status, we can all take a look at it and see just how unique it is.”

Garrett looked a bit poleaxed from being mocked by the other boy, but he nodded in affirmation. Derek cast the best status checking magic he could at his masked level, revealing a gnarly mess. Tristan’s book hit the floor and Desmond’s laughter came to a complete stop. Derek checked the magic and muttered to himself, “That can’t be right…”

“What is it? It looks like a regular status right?” Garrett was now starting to fidget.

“Don’t worry man. Your schema is trash but that can be fixed.”

Garrett looked at him, “Just how trash is it? My family saved for a year to buy that schema.”

Tristan spoke up, “Have you ever seen the first attempted doodle of a rune by a child?”

Garrett turned to face him, “Yes?”

Tristan continued, “Now imagine if that child was drunk.”

“Really?”

At this point Desmond couldn’t help but laugh and pitch in, “And blind.”

“What? Come on man.”

Tristan’s follow up came right after, “And using its feet instead of hands.”

“...”

Finally Derek had to step in too, “While asleep...”

“That’s it!”

As Garrett lunged forward, Derek dodged back, laughing, “I am sorry I had to do it! But don’t worry about it, I am sure they are going to do something about it. Your schema really is a mess, but the most interesting thing is the Titan’s blood enhancement you inherited. I imagine that made the difficulty of writing your schema too much for any common schema designer which explains your ‘unique’ schema. In fact, I bet if the school makes you a new schema and resets your level you can grow to be one of the strongest people here.”

Somewhat mollified, Garrett sat down on his bed. Derek turned to Desmond, “What about you Desmond?”

The young man stood up from where he was sitting, “I am Count Desmond of Westmont. I got first place at the tournament at the Arena this year and won a scholarship to the Magic Warrior College as well.”

Finally the three turned to the fourth young man, who had picked up his book to begin reading again. He glanced back before he tersely responded, “I am Tristan Brennon of Dewnens, I am a Second Tier Mage and will be attending the Mage College. Unlike you lot, I paid to be here, so I would rather you not disturb my studies.”

Garrett Smith-

Class

Magic Warrior

Elemental Attribute

Elemental Affinity

Point Value

Spell Level

Tier

1

Order

Good

6r1

Low 2 (11)

Level

3

Water

Good

6

Low 2 (11)

Light

Good

7

Low 2 (12)

Basic Attribute

Point Value

Wind

Good

5r1

Low 2 (10)

Strength

14

Chaos

Excellent

6r1

High 2 (16)

Body

12

Fire

Supreme

8

High 3 (28)

Agility

6

Dark

Excellent

7r1

High 2 (17)

Mind

5r1

Earth

Supreme

9

Peak 3 (29)

Essentia Pool

High Tier 0

Previous Classes-

Burgher

Permanent Enhancements-

Magic Warrior, Tier One: +1 Strength, +1 Body, +1 Agility, +1 Mind

Titan's Blood: Improved Essentia Utilization for Strength and Body (+100%). Increased Schema creation difficulty. Unknown.

Equipment-

Runic Armor, Tier 1: basic protection low t2, maximum defensive spell level 4

Runic Great Hammer, Tier 1: basic offensive mid t2, maximum offensive spell level 4

Runic Sword, Tier 1: basic offensive low t2, maximum offensive spell level 4

Runic Shield, Tier 1: basic defensive low t2, maximum spell level 4