Chapter 7 – Hunger Unending

Arascus walked into Mikhail’s workshop. He had stepped with Anassa into her various worlds of sorcery before, this was much like that. There was a desk near the door, and then the realm of men ended and industrial insanity began. “Mikhail.” He summoned the ngineer from behind a cluster of pipes and blinking lights.

“What is it my lord?”

“You fashioned the drill, did you not?”

“I did.” He said rather proudly.

“Do you fashion weapons?”

“It’s why I took this job.” The engineer pulled out a small device from his pocket and pressed a button. One of the walls lowered to reveal an armoury to make any knight blush. Arascus walked into it: swords, hammers, glaives, axes, there was enough here to outfit a small horde of beastmen.

“Fine works.” Arascus said as he spun one of the swords in his hand, it was finely balanced and it didn’t have any needless decorations. The craftsmanship spoke for itself. “But they’re primitive.” That seemed to catch Mikhail’s attention.

“Primitive?”

“Back in the Great War, about thirty years before it ended, the dwarves fashioned muskets, started to at least.” The God turned to Mikhail, his eyes weren’t confused or angry at the insult. Instead, they burned with a hunger enough to devour a mountain. “A day of training with that weapon is enough to surpass a decade of knighthood.” Mikhail grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.

“Show me.”

The Arcadian School of Magic served as the grandest institution of magic in the entire world. In the era of the Great War, it had stood as a fine collection of towers surrounding a sacred leyline crossover point, now the institution had devoured the neighbouring the towns and grown large enough to be considered to be a tiny nation. It had even been given a new name: Arcadia.

It was the beating heart of magic for an entire continent, even the governments of Epa would not try and set up their own national colleges. Afterall, what hope did they have to try and compete with the Goddess of Magic? She had served as the school’s headmistress since its founding. It was generally a quiet place, the various training facilities had their own noise suppression fields. One of the dorm-rooms was exceptionally quiet today, with nothing but whispers between the four students inside.

“Lyca, you CANNOT do that!” Eliza shouted at her friend, she was a short girl in her prime, short but well blessed by nature. She knew it herself, the skirt had been rolled up to reveal a fair amount of thigh. They were all final year students of Arcadia. She turned to Edmonton, her brown eyes pleading for the oldest of them to stop Lyca. “Tell him something Ed! We’ll get expelled.” Edmonton ran his hands through his hair and let out a heavy breath, he stood an inch taller than Lyca and was a month older but that’s where the seniority ended. Lyca was the most talented of them all.

“Is it that bad though?” He asked Eliza. The girl tugged at the edges of her blazer, then finally crossed her arms with ahmph.

“I’ve never met anyone as cretinous as the two of you.”

“Don’t moralize in front of us.” Lyca said again as he pointed to the piece of paper. It was a map of Elassa’s Gardens. The gardens were the size of a small town, students would visit them to go on dates or to practice magic but there was one location which was to never be visited. The Divine Library, it was one of the first things any student would be told, the library held divine magical arts which would cause your mind to explode. It had always made Lyca curious. “And can you answer my questions? If it’s so dangerous, why is there no guards? Why do teachers not even go there? If the knowledge in there is so strong, why do we not use it?” He rattled them off one by one before getting to the one that had made them all interested. “And why is itTHEDivine Library, not Elassa’s Divine Library?” In the gardens, everything carried the Goddesses’ name, even the benches were called Elassa’s Blessed Bench of whatever-year because her ass had once touched it.

Edmonton tapped the piece of paper. “But we can’t have been the first to ever work it out.” He leaned back against the bunkbed, he twisted and pulled the green pillow to rest his back. “Come on Lyca.”

“That’s the point, how many people have actually disappeared?” Lyca said, the buttons on his shirt were undone and his chest trembled with excitement. His blue eyes couldn’t contain what he just worked out.

“Actually, I concur with Lyca.” Fleur said, like the rest of them, she was in the elite classes of the final year. Those elite classes trained only the strongest of the next generation and that strength bred a certain type of character. Her hair was black and straight, she wore her tie high, her skirt modest, her face was sharp and angular, her eyes were dark but they shone with the brightness of quick wit. Whereas Lyca’s uniform was creased in various places, Fleur’s was so perfect she may as well have been born in it: she was a true Rancais.

“That’s three against one Eliza.” Edmonton said.

“I never said I’d wouldn’t do it.” Eliza quickly bit back. “I’m just saying you’re stupid for it.” Lyca burst out in laughter, his light hair almost danced in the light of the sun outside. “And you’re plan isn’t even stupid, it’s the sort of thing I’d expect a child to think up. Although even a child would have enough brains to realise how idiotic it was.”

“Oh really?” He joked.

“Yes really.” Eliza crossed her arms and pushed her breasts up, Fleur silently averted her eyes. There wasn’t much she was envious of, she was smarter and stronger than Eliza but Lady Luck had blessed the girl in one certain aspect. “You want to sneak in in the middle of the night like some supervillain. That’s not how you do it.”

“Enlighten us then.” Lyca said.

“A week from now, we have the semester assembly. Everyone will be there.”

“I can’t miss it.” Fleur quickly said. Eliza merely smiled at the girl and pushed her chest out even more.

“I didn’t ask if you can or not, I’m saying you will miss it. There’ll be a parade, all the teachers, everyone will be there. We’ll have an entire day to walk in and browse at our leisure.” Eliza turned to the two boys in front of her. “There’ll be no running or magical artefacts or whatever, we’ll simply go on a walk. We act like we belong there, then no one will think twice about us.”

“Like I said, I can’t miss it!” Fleur said again. Lyca was about to argue back when Edmonton pushed elbowed his side. Lyca was a brat, he was smart yes, but he lacked social skills, Ed did not. He thought so at least.

“Why not?” He asked.

“I’m giving a presentation.” If it was Eliza who didn’t want to go, maybe it would be challenging, but Fleur was an easy blade to handle.

“I forgot, they really deserve to see you, don’t they?” Fleur’s eyebrow twitched as she closed her eyes.

“Of course they don’t.” She said quietly.

“No no, you should stay Fleur. We need someone to take the hit and entertain the masses to take attention off us.” Fleur didn’t respond, Edmonton only pressed the attack. “Make sure to give them a nice smile as Miss Yana said, the boys need something to give them sweet dreams.” Fleur shook her head.

“Don’t even mention that hag.”

“She’s a teacher you know, you should always listen to your betters.” Fleur opened her eyes, they were rolling in anger.

“As if she had the gall to say that to me!” She shouted. “And she isn’t mybetter!”

“Is she not?”

“NO!”

“She knows more than you do.”

“Only because she’s a hundred years old!”

“Then you can live in her shadow for the next century.” Edmonton made his voice and emotionless and then tapped the map. “Or she can live in yours from next week.” Fleur sighed and shook her head.

“I know exactly what you did.”

“I’m not stupid enough to think I can trick you.”

“You can’t, and we’re doing it next week.”