Using one hand, Jack propped up his head as he waited for dinner. After a few minutes, he pulled out his notebook and skimmed through the past couple entries:

Day 4, May 9th, 2019

As things begin to slow down, expect these entries to become shorter. I say this because today was one of those slow days. Celsia dragged me around campus while she ran errands. I, of course, was the mule, carrying around whatever she gave me. On the bright side it gives me the exercise I need to stay functional. Like the last time we did this, I wasn’t allowed inside any buildings. I’m not sure what the reason for that is, but it seems likely that she’s embarrassed to have me around. She’ll have to get used to it.

I asked Celsia about the schedule she follows here at EAA. I’d like to know what to expect on a daily basis so in the future I can plan around it. Apparently this place operates on a three day work “week.” Now don’t get excited, it’s not how you might think it is. For three days there are classes, after that comes the “weekend.” The following three days are sometimes a break. Many times the Instructors use these days to do activities that couldn’t normally be done in class. Celsia’s schedule is as follows:

Day 1: Fire temperament and History class.

Day 2: Water and Air temperament.

Day 3: Earth temperament and Imbuement.

Then comes the three day break. This whole six day period is referred to a “seck.” (For the curious, the “temperament” classes are centered around the respective branches of arcane. History is, well, history and imbuement is essentially chemistry with extra, magical steps.) It's worth mentioning that not everything follows this six day schedule. For instance, Celsia’s “Rite of Companionship” happened to land during the work period. I’d wager that a number of traditional events probably predate the seck. On a completely different note, I need to learn more about this rite so I might figure out why how I, a human, fell victim to it.

Later tonight I plan on taking a bath. I’ve discovered that the bath house (yes, house) is empty at night, so I go then to avoid the crowds. I’ve only been in there once but I plan to make it a regular occurrence. I also get a chance to talk to Otono, the guy I had mentioned previously. He’s the only reasonable student I’ve met here so far and a pretty nice one at that. As much as I’d prefer to bathe alone, it’s nice to have someone to talk to. I’m running out of things to write. I’m going to call it for tonight.

Day 5, May 10th, 2019

Not a whole lot today. The highlight had to be Celsia complaining about how I smell. She didn’t take too kindly to me bluntly telling her that I’ve been wearing the same clothing for multiple days. I honestly don’t get her. I guess the idea of not being a bitch is lost on her sometimes. I’m surprised I’ve managed to put up with her attitude for as long as I have. I guess her being so easy to tease makes up for it. Anyways, long story short, she agreed to get me another set of clothing to wear. She didn’t tell me when though. Besides that, Celsia informed me about the upcoming “Ceremony of the Companions.” They have some festival or whatever after all the students have gotten their companions. I got the impression it is sort of like the “blessing of the pets” some churches do back home. Afterwards there is a party or something party like. I’m not looking forward to either, but that’s apparently not for a couple of secks. For the rest of the day I walked around campus while Celsia stayed in our room. I’ve got to come up with some regular routine now that I don’t have a gym to go to. Walking around seems to be my best bet, it's worked in the past.

Yesterday I asked Otono what his relationship with Celsia was. Apparently they have been friends since they were children. Both families' houses were near each other, so they often spent time with one another while they weren’t in school. They lived on the coast and judging by his description, they lived luxuriously. I’m not surprised, these people didn’t exactly scream “poor.” Anyways, he told me that at some point in the future I’d get to see it when they all head home for the holidays. Unfortunately he didn’t give this holiday a name or a date.

Day 6, May 11th, 2019

The seck starts anew and I get to “participate” in all of Celsia’s classes. By participate, I mean sit and listen. Despite my tone, I don’t mind it much, this gives me a chance to learn without any responsibility. A nice change of pace for sure. Today, like any other day, she had two classes: fire temperament and history. I’ll be honest with you, I had no idea what was happening in this fire class. It’s arcane related, that much I know, but they spent the whole time talking about “words'' and their “definitions.” I use quotes here because these words were (and still are) completely foreign to me. They definitely aren’t part of the english lexicon. Two examples I can think of off the stop of my head are “enshoe” and “kenhar.” The definitions were “gives it a rod like shape” and “gives it a pointed tip” respectively. The definitions and the rest of the class failed to mention what “it” is. The Instructor had put up diagrams on the board presumably explaining something about these words. I failed to make any sketches as I was too preoccupied with being confused out of my damn mind. From memory, the diagram relating to enshoe was, roughly, a not rod shaped object becoming a rod shaped object. The rest of the class consisted about talking about these strange words. I’m hesitant to call them adjectives. One big chunk was discussing how these words interacted with each other. For example, when enshoe and kenhar interacted a sharp rod was the result. That's what I gathered from the diagram and the lecture at

least. I’ll definitely be looking into this.

Jack rubbed his chin, still unsure of what to think.

I spoke with the instructor afterwards. Her name is Adelade of family Speight and she is head of the fire arcane branch here at EAA. She’s an older woman, approaching the age where one’s hair starts to gray. Perhaps somewhere near 60? When I approached her she seemed to already know who I was. I guess it's safe to say most people know who I am now. I would have liked to ask her a number of questions, but apparently she had somewhere to be. In hindsight I think this was for the best. I don’t think any explanation to what I had listened to would be a short one. Maybe another time.

After lunch was the next class, History. I’m happy to report that this one was much easier to wrap my head around. That being said, I’d be lying if I said I understood entirely what was being discussed. Without context history is just shy of meaningless. They were talking about the beginning a civil war that took place in Ester (where I reside for those who forgot) around the cycle 1109 (recall that a “cycle” is 2⁄3 of a year, or 246 days to be exact). This was about 173 cycles ago according to Celsia who begrudgingly answered my question. With that in mind, the present cycle is the 1283 or the mid 700s when converted to years. Anyways, this conflict was between two parties: the nobles and the loyalists. From what I could gather, the nobles were a conglomeration of aristocrats and the loyalists represented the state at the time. Whether either of these parties are still around, I don't know. The conflict was, presumably, politically motivated. The specifics were not discussed. What was discussed was the outcome of the first couple battles, but for the sake of length, I won't go into any details right now. I didn’t get to say much to Kolbert after class, but I plan on chatting with him if he’s in the library.

Day 7, May 12th, 2019

I still haven't gotten over the fact that Celsia carries her sword around with her. To class, to dinner, running errands. It doesn't matter. I haven't seen anyone besides her open carrying. Either everyone has gotten used to seeing it or they never cared to begin with. Though, I guess the latter makes sense with everyone carrying around catalysts. What's a steel sword to a fireball? Something soft probably. There has got to be combat oriented arcane, right? There totally is, they wouldn't be human if they hadn't weaponized it.

Speaking of arcane, I thinks it's about time to document some of the things I've seen (I'll go over classes today after this). I've seen a total of four different uhh… spells, they call them spells, so will I. Firstly, there was a simple light. With a flick of their catalyst a point of light appears at the tip and remained there. The result is a torch-like effect rather than a flashlight as there is no directional focus. Secondly, there was a lighter. Similar to the light, but now it's a small flame. I've seen them light candles and the like with it. Thirdly, there was one that made text appear out of thin air. The text lays on a flat plane and, from what I've seen, takes on a yellow hue. The instructors use it during lectures for the same reasons a teacher would write on the chalkboard. Fourthly, and lastly, we have the most intriguing one. “Silence” is what Instructor Helfo called it. It makes it so people outside the immediate area can’t hear what is inside the affected area. I haven't seen anything outside of these four, but I’ll keep you posted as new spells are made known to me. I’ll also update ones I’ve already mentioned if I learn anything new about them.

Today’s first class was water temperament. Interestingly, this lecture had nothing to do with arcane, the opposite in fact. They were talking about the water cycle. They seem to have the idea down pat besides the belief that groundwater from oceans was responsible for feeding rivers. As much as I wanted to correct them I kept my mouth shut. It seems that these temperament classes might not only involve arcane, but also respective fields of study that fall within the topic. I’ll have to keep attending to see if that is true for all, or this and the second class today, were merely a fluke. This class’s instructor was named Joyner of family Elgahat. His expression paired with the large scar running down his face certainly gave this man a presence. Nonetheless, I introduced myself. He spoke before I could, saying: “Jack I presume? I’ve been eagerly expecting you.” He is straight to the point, but by no means aggressive. Like usual, our conversation was brief, but I expressed my interest in conversing later. He told me that I could find him in the Instructor’s housing in the evening (and that Celsia knows where that is). I’ll have to find some time for that.

The second class today was air temperament. This lecture seemed to have dropped me in the middle of a conversation about weather, lighting storms to be exact. Most of the talk was about the lightning itself. The belief was that it was arcanic in origin, anything beyond that was said to be unknown. Some other questions arose about thunder. Here they at least knew that lightning caused thunder. The Instructor's name is Sabliela of family Ibota. She is probably somewhere in her forties, definitely younger than Adelade Speighte. She is rather short spoken, but seems friendly enough. I did the same thing I’ve been doing and introduced myself. Like usual, she seemed to have expected me. It was brief, I’ll have to try to talk to her at a later date.

Day 8, May 13th, 2019

Last day of classes this seck. Today’s classes were earth temperament and imbuement, both of which I’ve attended already (May 7th). I’ve talked about some of the stuff discussed in earth temperament, goylems most notably, but I haven’t made any direct allusions to it up until now. A slip up on my part. Todays earth temperament lecture was merely a discussion of our time at the Colored Wood Circle (May 8th). A number of questions were directed towards me, but Instructor Helfo answered in my stead saying that I’d be able to talk about it in the future. He insisted that I keep what I saw under wraps until a suitable report could be put together. The class ended almost as soon as it had begun and I was dragged out by Celsia, but not before Instructor Helfo could express his interest in talking to me at his office again.

After breakfast (early ass classes), we went to imbuement. As I’ve mentioned before this class is essentially chemistry with a arcanic twist. At least that's how I interpreted it. Today’s lecture was particularly interesting. It was what seemed to be one in a series of lectures centered around different substances. The item in question was a particular resource referred to a “rot rock.” Upon closer inspection this substance is actually sulfur. The yellow color and smell made it pretty obvious. If I can be honest, their name for it is goddamn perfect. I might even start calling it that. They talked about its properties and what it could be used for. They do use it to deter a certain creature called a “kuttle.” They failed to describe this kuttle though. Unfortunately, they haven’t discovered any alchemical uses for it yet. I might be able to change that.

Jack closed the notebook and ran a hand down his face.

“Good Lord. Has it really been over a week?” he said aloud.

He hadn’t given it much thought. Today was his eighth entry, in other words, his eighth day here.

“You look distressed. Is everything alright?” asked Hahnt, placing a platter down in front of Jack.

“I’ve been here for eight days. There's no doubt that they’ve noticed my absence…”

“Who is ‘they?’”

“My family. I’d imagine that they’ve started searching for me. It wouldn’t be that hard to find where I went given that I left my car in the parking lot. In a few secks from now they’ll stop searching. They won’t find me, they can’t. The case will close and I’ll be considered dead.”

“I am only a chef, but surely there is some way we could you get back to where you came from,” said Hahnt, “There is only so much land on this world.”

“And none of that land belongs to my nation. Not only am I not from Ester, but this world too. It’s the only reasonable explanation.”

Jack gestured for him to sit down. He described his walk in the woods and how it went awry.

“That… is quite the experience.”

“You’re tellin’ me…” huffed Jack.

Hahnt put a hand on his shoulder.

“I have only known you for a few days, but I can tell you are not a fool by any means. It might not happen today or tomorrow, but I think you will figure it out sooner or later.”

Jack had some choice words, but he decided to keep his pessimism to himself. He finished dinner quickly and brought his dishes to the counter. Jack was gathering his things when he remembered something important.

“Hahnt, next time I’m here remind me that I owe you for convincing Celsia to let me come down here. I have something in mind, but it’s a bit long winded.”

“Will do, Jack. See you soon.”

He nodded and ducked out the door.

* * *

Jack trudged up the stairs of the dorms to the third floor. He came to his room and swung the door open. Celsia, who was seated at the table, let out a panicked squeak. Clearly his sudden entrance had startled her.

“Y-You are back early.”

“I am,” he said dryly.

Upon closer inspection he saw his solar charger sitting on the table in front of her. Definitely not where he left it. He took a seat across from her.

“You know, if you wanted to see it, you could’ve just asked.”

“Then I will ask. What is this?”

“It’s a solar charger. It captures the sun’s energy and uses it to power things.”

“What kind of things?”

Jack got up and went over to his backpack. He pulled out the flashlight.

“Thing like this. You remember this, right?”

He flicked it on and pointed it at her.

“Stop that!” she protested, shielding her eyes.

Walking back to his seat, he turned it off.

“Any other questions?”

“Yes. Where did you get things like these?”

“A store where I’m from.”

Celsia leaned back in her chair.

“Tell me, what is it like? This place you come from.”

“So you finally don’t think I’m crazy?”

“No, but tell me anyway.”

Jack sighed.

“What do you want to know? ‘What’s it like’ is far to broad a question.”

“What I want to know is what it is like,” she said with a twinge of anger, “A simple question.”

He thought for a moment.

“Imagine a world where almost anything you think is impossible has already been done.”

“Name something that has been done.”

“We’ve been up there.”

He pointed towards one of their two moons, visible from the window.

“And how did you manage that?” she scoffed.

“All it took… was the right kind of airship. To put it simply.”

There was a brief silence.

“I am going to bed,” blurted out Celsia.

“You don’t want to hear more from your deranged companion?”

“I can only tolerate so much.”

“One of these days you’ll believe me. It's only a matter of time.”

She ignored his remark and got into bed.

“Lights out,” she said, blowing out the candle.

“You couldn’t give me just another minute?”

“Consider this punishment for coming back too early.”

Jack mumbled something to himself. He maneuvered through the darkness and eventually found his bed. After laying for a while, he scratched an itch in a familiar place. He ran his fingers over the mark, still on his neck.

A goddamn brand is what this thing is.