by Phoenix Grey
The school itself was about a mile off the main road. Azure had expected some giant university, but what greeted him was far different from anything he could have imagined. The building was made up entirely of trees clustered together. There was an archway between two of them that served as a door, and gaps between the trunks that were used as windows. Azure couldn't tell if it was a single-story structure or made of multiple levels. The trees reached up at least forty feet into the sky before branching into a large canopy of leaves. In front of the building on a free-standing metal sign were the words Hawking's School of Land Magic in elaborate cursive.
A few young people, whom Azure could only assume were students, were sitting outside of the building reading. Azure smiled at them as he passed, letting himself in since there was no one at the door to greet him or tell him that he couldn't enter otherwise. Surprisingly, for being made entirely of live trees, the building was sectioned off rather well. Upon entering, there was a small room with only a stone desk and a woman sitting behind it. She wore thick horn-rimmed glasses, glancing up at him over them.
“Hi,” he said in the way of greeting as he strode up to the desk. “My name is Azure, and I'm here to enroll in your school.”
She cocked a thin eyebrow at him as if he was crazy, seeming none too enthusiastic to start dishing out information. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I wasn't aware that I needed one.” He frowned.
She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples.
“Are you casting a spell?” Azure asked excitedly. “Telekinesis, perhaps.” He wanted to impress her with what little knowledge he thought he had of magic.
“No. I have a headache.” The woman looked at him like he was stupid, and Azure instantly felt that way.
“Oh...” Maybe it was best if he just kept his mouth shut.
“What are you wanting to major in?” She sifted through some papers on her desk.
“Major?” This really was like college back in his own world. He hadn't taken the time to think about it, and asking her what he could major in would make him look like even more of an idiot. “Land magic,” Azure replied hesitantly, making it sound more like a question than a statement.
She continued looking at him like he was a moron for a few seconds longer before finally saying, “I'll go get Elise.”
The woman stood and left her post, entering a walkway to her right and disappearing around the corner.
Had he said something wrong again? Azure wondered as he stood there waiting with his wrists clasped behind his back.
Two students came out from the same walkway, chatting amongst themselves. He greeted them politely. They merely looked at him and smiled, not bothering to say anything in return. Several moments later, one of the people who had been sitting outside reading came back in. It was then that Azure realized he'd been waiting for an excessively long time. Still, he had nothing left to do, so he simply paced slowly around the room, searching the walls for points of interest, though there was nothing notable.
Finally, after what seemed like forever but was probably closer to twenty minutes, the woman returned. She looked startled to see him still standing there, as if the whole point of being gone for so long was to drive him off. As she took a seat at her desk, she said, “Elise will see you now,” offering no further information.
“And where do I find this Elise?” Azure stepped back up to the desk to ask.
“Third door to the left.” She gestured to where she had just come from without even glancing at him, her eyes focusing again on the stack of papers.
“Thank you,” he replied courteously before heading down the walkway.
Well, she's a pleasant one, he thought sarcastically, hoping that the rest of the staff wasn't quite so rude.
Much like the opening that served as the door into the school, there were large spaces between the tree trunks that denoted rooms. The first door Azure passed seemed to open into a classroom. Desks sprouted from the floor in the form of deformed trees. He could only assume that they'd been magicked to look that way. Several students were sitting about either eating or studying. They were all facing away from the door, so Azure couldn't really tell.
The next room appeared to be an office. It was empty except for a stone desk and a few chairs, also made from trees. When he came to the third room, Azure was pleased to find it occupied. In all honesty, he hadn't been sure that it would be. The receptionist's reaction to him still being there hadn't given Azure a vote of confidence that she cared whether or not he found Elise.
“Azure.” The woman stood to greet him.
He was surprised to see that she was a dwarf, her features wide and squat. While her skin was smooth with the youth of a woman in her early adult years, everything about her seemed chubby. Chubby for a human, that was. Proportionate for a dwarf. Her long red hair was braided away from her face, running down the length of her back. Bright blue eyes welcomed him and, for the first time, made him feel like he wasn't out of place. The outfit she had on reminded him of that of a headmistress. She wore a white long-sleeve blouse buttoned all the way to the collar and a black pencil skirt and heels. A thin black ribbon was tied around her neck.
"My name is Elise Smith. I'm a professor of land magic here at Hawking's. Have a seat." She gestured to the chair in front of her desk.
"Thank you." Azure nodded in respect before moving to sit across from her. The chair felt firm and honestly wasn't very comfortable. He took note of the tiny leaves sprouting from the armrests, doing his best not to touch them.
"Miss Ogden told me that you're interested in enrolling. Do you have any prior experience with land magic?" Elise folded her hands on top of her desk, looking nothing but professional.
"I'm afraid not. I've never done any magic before." Was that the right way to phrase it? After that conversation with the receptionist, Azure was worried that everything that came out of his mouth sounded stupid.
"That's perfectly fine." She smiled at him. "May I see your credentials?"
"My credentials?"
Just then, a notification popped up.
Elise Smith has asked to join your party. Will you accept?
"Oh, of course," Azure stuttered, immediately accepting her request.
Elise's name displayed at the bottom right of his vision. She stared at him for a moment, her eyes glazing over. Azure could only guess that she was casting some silent spell that would allow her to see further into his stats. He would not make the same mistake twice by assuming he knew what was going on.
After a moment, she disbanded from him, her smile returning as she seemed to come back to life. “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”
"The bad news." Always the bad news first. It usually made the good news that much better afterward.
"The bad news is that you don't speak Elvish. Elvish is a prerequisite for taking any of our courses here."
"My friend told me something along those lines." Azure sulked, thinking back to what he and Lonnell had spoken about on the ship.
"The good news," Elise perked up, "is that I can help you with that."
He sighed in relief, letting a soft chuckle escape. “You got me there.”
"The other good news is that you are a high enough level to start novice lessons here." Things were looking better by the minute. "Do you know how our lessons work?"
"I do not, ma'am." Azure settled into his seat, preparing for what he knew would likely be a lengthy lecture.
"Miss Ogden told me that you were primarily interested in learning land magic, but I'd like to give you an overview of how things work here before we get down to the business of assessing your finances and selecting the courses that would be the most suitable for you." She took a breath before continuing. "I'm not sure how much you know about magic schools, but as you have probably already guessed, land magic is our specialty. Here at Hawking's, we teach all levels of land magic from novice to master. We are the only school
in all of The Realm that teaches every land magic spell known to man, gnomes, dwarfs, and elves. I, myself, am a Master Land Mage," Elise told him proudly. "Having said that, we also teach novice fire, water, air, and life magic. The only thing we don't teach is necromancy." She paused as if waiting for him to be disappointed.
"Why don't you teach necromancy?" Azure asked hesitantly, feeling like she was sniffing for the question.
"Because it is evil," Elise replied plainly. "You will not find necromancy spells anywhere except for The Deadlands unless they've been smuggled in."
Now he was intrigued. “Is necromancy forbidden?”
"It depends on the spell. Most of them are outlawed, and generally, necromancy is frowned upon. Teaching necromancy in the element countries is illegal. The only place where it is taught publicly is in The Deathlands, but few people are willing to venture there due to the high level of monsters and other perils. Besides, what's the point if you can't use it anywhere else."
If Azure remembered correctly, the Steal spell that Ruthren had tried to sell him was of the necromancy class. Now he kinda wished he would have forked out the money to buy it. He hadn't realized exactly how rare it was at the time.
"Moving on," Elise cleared her throat before continuing. "Here at Hawking's we also teach all levels of battle magic, enchantment, and alchemy. Alchemy can be learned separately from everything else. We have had many students that have come from around The Realm just to take our alchemy courses.
"While this does not apply to you, I feel I must tell you that if you had come with the intentions of learning any other field of magic besides land magic, you would still be required to first take one land magic course before we would be willing to teach you anything else.
"Spells here are divided between five different levels: novice, apprentice, adept, expert, and master. You must meet the level requirements of each before moving on to the next. Novice spells are taught to those between level three and twenty-four. Apprentice spells between the levels of twenty-five and forty-nine. Adept spells between the levels of fifty and seventy-four. Expert spells between the levels of seventy-five and ninety-nine, and Master level spells are only taught to those level one-hundred and above. Either your character level or your skill level in that magic class must meet the requirement for you to be able to acquire the spells within that level. For instance, a level five character with a level fifty in land magic would still be considered an adept Land Mage and would be able to learn the spells within that level range."
Azure nodded, doing his best to follow along until Elise stopped speaking. “How many spells are in the novice level of land magic?”
"Three."
That was disappointing. He had expected there to be much more.
"Now we should probably talk about how you plan to pay for your lessons," Elise began the subject that Azure was the most nervous about. "We have two options for payment. You can pay for your novice semester in full or one spell at a time. Either way, learning land magic will be cheaper here than at any other school within The Realm because that is our specialty. If you pay for your semester in full, it will cost eleven gold, six silver, and one copper. If you pay one spell at a time, each course will cost you three gold, eight silver, and seven copper. How would you like to pay?"
Azure thought his asshole was going to suck up the seat beneath him. Many had warned him that magic school was going to be expensive, but this was an absolute outrage. How could anyone possibly afford to attend at those prices? Now that he thought about it, the students he had seen did look wealthy. Their clothes had been nice and their appearance kempt.
Azure inhaled deeply, his expression unable to hide that he didn't have the money. Just one class cost more coin than what he had on hand. Hawking's School of Land Magic was starting to make that Bag of Holding look cheap.
A short laugh passed between Elise's lips, and she dropped her gaze to the papers on her desk. “I've seen that look before.”
"I didn't realize that magic school was going to be so expensive," Azure confessed, feeling like he had just wasted her time. While he still wanted to attend, it didn't seem like it was going to happen anytime soon.
"Why do you think there aren't many mages in The Realm? Magic is a rare and precious thing."
"I still want to learn. I just have to figure out how to get the money together. Do you happen to have a price sheet I can take with me? I want to know exactly how much I'll need to save up to learn everything that I want to learn," he tried his best to sound eager.
She nodded before taking the top paper from the stack on her desk and handing it to him.
Azure's eyes scrolled over it. For supposedly being the cheapest school for land magic in all The Realm, the land magic classes were the second most expensive next to air magic. Air magic classes had a whopping price tag of four gold, four silver, and three copper a piece. Water spell classes followed close behind land magic at three gold, three silver, and two copper a piece. The cheapest classes on the list were for life magic, which were only nine silver and five copper a piece, followed by battle magic which were one gold, six silver, and six copper a course. Alchemy classes were priced the same as battle magic classes.
Azure quickly decided that if he could just jump over the hurdle of being able to afford his first land spell that he'd switch his major to life magic and work his way through all of the least expensive classes first. While he had no interest in taking on a cleric role, it would be good to be able to heal himself without needing potions.
Well, shit. It looks like I shouldn't have invested all of those points into Mana just yet after all. Azure thought as he placed the sheet of paper in his bag and thanked Elise for the information. As she walked him to the door, he turned to her, hoping there would be at least some silver lining to dropping so much money on magic school.
"Do you guys have a dorm here?" he asked, optimistic.
She gave him a puzzled look. “What's a dorm?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE REALM – Day 44
It was difficult not to feel hopeless. Nothing in The Realm came easy, it seemed. The parallels between his own world were a bit annoying. If this was really just a game, then wasn't it supposed to be fun? Radical Interactive needed to dial down the difficulty level of earning coin.
Oh well, maybe he'd get exactly what he was looking for at The Adventurer's Guild. It was his only hope right now. If he was lucky, he'd qualify for some decent paying quests. Azure knew from past experience with other games that there would be a hierarchy to what quests he would be allowed to take. That would put a cap on how much he could earn until he grew stronger. Much like life in his own world, living in The Realm could be a slog sometimes.
As he was about to reach the gates of Squall's End, he was surprised to come upon Lonnell walking in his direction. Seeing his friend instantly brought a smile to Azure's face. A strange comfort after suffering a minor defeat.
"Hey there, stranger. I didn't expect to see you again so soon," Azure said.
Lonnell smiled back at him in greeting. “I told you our paths would cross again.”
"Where are you heading?" Azure stopped to talk to him.
"To find you, actually." His expression changed, the smile fading.
"Miss me that much already?" Azure elbowed him.
Lonnell drew his tongue over his bottom lip, hesitating. He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped again. It was then that Azure realized he was about to be asked for a favor. “Does the magic school have a dorm?”
"No. Why?" Azure waited for him to get down to business.
"I just came back from the inn," Lonnell rubbed the back of his neck, looking nervous. "It's a bit pricey. Four silver for a night. Two gold and four silver for a week, and eight gold for a month."
Azure sucked in a breath, feeling his hope dripping away again. Why was everything here so damned expensive?
From that short conversation, he already had a pretty good idea of what Lonnell w
as going to ask him.
"It looks like we won't be sleeping easy for a while." Azure tried to force a smile. "Are we going to argue over who gets first watch?" he tried to make a joke of it.
"I'm not really sure what we should do." Stress was apparent on Lonnell's face. "I am really tired of sleeping in the forest. It feels more dangerous here than on Crescent Island. At least there, we didn't have to worry about bandits. Here, we could save up a bunch of money only to be robbed in the middle of the night."
"Then we best find a good sleeping spot." It was definitely a concern. During their brief walk through Squall's End, Azure had noticed some unsavory characters wandering about.
"I was thinking more along the lines of us rooming together," Lonnell suggested.
Azure wasn't sure why he hadn't thought of that. Perhaps because he was so desperate to keep the money he already had on him. Paying for a roof over his head and magic school seemed like an impossible task. Maybe it was beyond him. Something meant for only the wealthy.
"I wonder if they have grants here," he mumbled under his breath, already pretty sure of the answer to that. Handouts in this world would be few and far between.
"What are grants?" Lonnell gave him a queer look that quickly turned hopeful.
"Don't worry about it." Azure dismissed the question. "I think we should go to The Adventurer's Guild first. It would be a good idea to gauge how much money we're going to be bringing in before we dig ourselves into a hole spending what we already have on us."