12 Arcanist

Vance made his way out of the nook. Today, he'd decided to bring his backpack, he'd learned quickly that he should probably be at least semi-prepared, wherever he went.

Almost as soon as he'd stepped through the door, he heard his name from the lips of a stranger not too far away.

"Vance Kalliea?"

It was a woman's voice. Her voice was breathy, like she'd been running just before speaking.

"Yes?"

He made a point of turning to face the person speaking to him, he found his closed eyes were often clue enough for people to let them avoid asking the question.

"My name is Gloria. I'm from the lord's office. I was asked to come and speak to you regarding the events inside the college. I understand you are intimately familiar with the aftermath of the attack?"

"Attack? It wasn't a magical accident?"

"I'm afraid not. Would you be willing to accompany me for a walk? I assume you're on your way to the college. I'd love to get your account."

"I'd be happy to."

She fell in beside him and the two walked down the road, towards the college. Vance was very aware that she was walking perhaps a little closer to him than he'd ordinarily think would be appropriate, but he purposely didn't linger on that too long. Though, she did have a wonderful scent about her, what was that, some fruit he'd never heard of? How lovely.

"Mr. Kalliea, can you tell me what you remember from the incident?" His wandering attention was suddenly pulled back to their conversation.

"I was in my room, when I heard an explosion coming from the Masters studies. When I went to investigate there were many students already present, battling fires in Master Telis' office. I unveiled a second fire with the help my friend Thomas. The second was in Master Elijah's office."

There was a pause before he finished.

"He was dead before we arrived."

"From what I learned at the college, he was your teacher, correct? I'm sorry."

She gently rested a hand flat against his shoulder, the gesture was a perfect display of compassion. Well, it would have been if Vance hadn't noticed the extremely gentle probing against his newly acquired mana core.

He opted not to react. This woman, whoever she was, was an Arcanist. A good one. He had spent weeks practicing this sort of thing by now, he knew what Elijah's probing felt like when he was trying to be sneaky, this was even more subtle. he barely noticed it. He mused that this sort of probe might be almost entirely undetectable for those without his extraordinary mana sense.

He wasn't particularly thrilled that someone was poking around inside him, but he didn't fancy his chances in any manner against what was likely a real, fully trained Arcanist.

"Thanks." He squeezed out, putting a tiny, forced smile on his face.

She removed her hand a moment later. She hadn't harmed him and he supposed he could understand her purpose. She was clearly interested in what was locked away in his newly acquired core. He wondered if she found what she was looking for.

"Your account matches up nicely with that of the other students present. More than one of them has told me that your actions were no less than heroic. Of course, some disagree, labelling your actions as reckless, irresponsible and the likes. I'd like you to know that I'm inclined to agree with the first of those assessments, and I commend you."

Vance wasn't used to his actions causing such controversy, not outside of his own household, anyway. He felt the simultaneous inflation of his pride, mixed with the emotional kick in the teeth that came with a sudden onset fear, he didn't like the idea of confronting the people who disagreed with what he'd done.

"Mr. Kalliea, I only have a couple more questions, I do apologise for taking up so much of your time. The first is one that I believe I already know the answer to. Are you familiar with a woman named Victoria Aimlee, or perhaps her father Tristan?"

Vance searched his memory for a moment but nothing came to mind.

"I Can't say that I am. Should I be?"

"Not at all, Mr. Kalliea. You may have heard there was an additional casualty outside of the masters in the college. It was Ms. Aimlee, she was in Telis' office when the initial explosion happened."

Vance didn't reply to her. A few moments passed until Gloria evidently felt comfortable moving on to her next question.

"You're from Wethermane, correct? I'm terribly sorry to hear about the recent outlaw attack on the village, as I understand it, your father was amongst the casualties. You have my condolences, Mr. Kalliea. You've evidently had a hard couple of months. If I could trouble you, would you please recount to me your experiences with the outlaws? In as much detail as possible."

He hadn't really noticed it at first, but the mention of his father caused him more pain than he'd expected. Right now, with all that was going on, the events back in Wethermane seemed to him like they'd happened to somebody else. He knew that wasn't true, but he didn't have the time to dwell on it.

Vance rigidly took her through the events of that day, omitting a few small details, mostly about his state of relative undress and that fact that he spent the whole day something of a self-built isolation tank.

He told her about the trap, the initial shots fired, how they holed up inside the house, their father fighting the first of the outlaws, his brother killing most of the rest. He decided not to tell her he'd imbued the sword he'd dropped on the man with mana, and instead opted to explain it away as a "Stroke of luck" that the tip found it's mark.

As far as he could tell, she didn't seem to pick up on his little fabrications. Which is to say, he had absolutely no idea whether she'd read him like a book.

Eventually, Gloria seemed satisfied and bid Vance farewell and went on her way. Vance breathed a long sigh of relief. At first he'd been glad to entertain her questions, but once he knew that she was an Arcanist, his brain had been screaming warnings at him the entire time.

He noticed that as she walked away, he did not hear her footsteps past a few feet away, she must be incredibly light, or perhaps wasn't wearing shoes. He found the image of some barefoot law enforcer going around quizzing thugs more than a little funny.

Not long after, he arrived at the college grounds. He could still smell the scent of burnt wood permeating the place. As he approached, he noticed something pop up in his mana sense. Not too far from him, at the entrance to the college grounds, there was mana stretched thin into a line. It seemed like a thin piece of rope or string that had been stretched out horizontally in front of him. It hovered about 3 feet off the ground.

He could sense more than one type of mana in the construct, which was something he'd not tackled yet. It was tricky for him to figure out exactly what types they were, he suspected one was wind - he'd seen Thomas use wind magic. He couldn't identify the other.

It was effectively barring the entrance. Then he heard the footsteps of a student walking past him towards the line at pace.

"Careful, there's something there!" He warned as the students approached the line.

He heard the person stutter their steps for a moment, then a masculine voice gave out a little chuckle.

"It's just an boundary construct, first year. It's the magical equivalent of a warning bell. Nothing to worry about, just a precaution by the masters."

With no further explanation, the unknown man crossed the line into the college grounds.

As far as Vance could tell, the helpful man hadn't exploded, so he figured it'd be safe enough. Gingerly he crossed the line, feeling the mana stretch as he approached and wrap around him, until it snapped back into place, passing harmlessly through him.

He didn't think he'd ever get used to this.

He made his way further into the grounds, more than once he heard students who were walking around campus start to talk about him. He decided it would be better to try and ignore that, he'd rather not hear all of that right now, he already had enough to think about. As far as he knew, this might be the last time they permitted him to visit.

He only received the slight warning of someone running in his general direction before a small, but extremely enthusiastic individual crashed right into him. At first, he was fairly certain that someone had accidently bumped into him, but instead of stumbling away, the stranger wrapped arms around his chest, right under his arms and gave him a big squeeze.

Surprised by his very sudden, very unexpected hug, it took him a moment to realise that there was an awful lot of hair in his face, so much that it caused him to pull his face back a little bit, lest he suffocate.

"Damn it, Mariah!"

Vance heard Thomas' familiar voice. It helped put him at ease, but he was still trying to figure out who his mysterious new friend was. He thought about it for a moment, going through intensive many logical steps to figure out what his best course of action was.

Naturally, he just stood their like an idiot.

"...Thomas?"

"Hey, Vance. That's Mariah, by the way. Sorry."

She turned from Vance at that point, finally letting go of the unsuspecting man.

"Hey, what're you apologising about me for?! That's rude, you know."

"So is randomly hugging a stranger."

"He's hardly a stranger, Thomas. He's your friend and he saved half of the school from burning down with his heroic actions. You realise of course that we'd have to be sent home if the damage was much worse, right?"

She spoke in such a way that clearly informed Vance, as well as the other students nearby who could all hear her extremely loud voice - that going home was precisely the last thing she wanted to do.

"What's his last name, then?"

"It's..." She went to reply, didn't know and chose the best option available to her. "Shut up."

Vance was gobsmacked but couldn't hold back a little smile.

"Nice to meet you, Mariah." Vance was a little surprised, but otherwise she seemed harmless. "and..." He could hear another set of footsteps, heavy. They reminded him of Leon, the floorboards tended to complain in a similar way he was around.

"That's Brad." Mariah chirped.

"Hello." The low rumble of Brad's voice was certainly unexpected. Voices could go that low? Vance felt a little jealous.

"Good to meet you, Brad."

"Likewise."

Thomas spent a little time properly introducing everyone. He reminded Mariah on more than one occasion to not randomly grab people who didn't know her. Vance laughed it off, but did admit he would've appreciated some warning.

"So, you're back on campus again, Vance? Have you spoken to Master Noelle yet?"

"...No. Should I have?" Vance's expression changed to worry, but Thomas seemed elated, apparently he was happy he got to deliver the news.

"Master Noelle has been asking questions about you since the incident. Specifically, she wanted to know where you came from. She makes it something of a point of pride to know every student enrolled and she didn't recognise you when you shot that beam of fire into the sky."

Vance didn't like where this was going, he'd essentially been caught hiding on college grounds, unenrolled, learning magic he probably wasn't authorised to. He didn't know the laws here, but that didn't sound like it'd go down well.

"Naturally, I told her everything I knew." Thomas continued. "So did James, about six other students who were present helping you fight the fires, and Mariah. She didn't know you at the time, but I couldn't get her to shut up once she heard about what you did."

"What did she say? Am I..." Vance started to ask, voice shaky. Thomas cut him off.

"Relax." He could see Vance was reaching a boiling point over there, poor kid. "She said, and I quote: "How could I be expected to allow such an example of untapped magical potential be lost to another school, absolutely not. I shall have him enrolled formally by the end of the day.""

Thomas did his best (terrible) impression of an old lady.

Vance lit up and instantly grew about an inch taller. Thomas and co. found great amusement in this and each of them beamed along with him, except Brad, who cracked a little smile instead.

"Congratulations Vance, you're officially an Arcanist in training. I'd like to formally welcome you to the Vereecian college of History. We study the ancient past, local archaeological interests and dabble in the Arcane arts. We hope you enjoy your stay."

Thomas gave Mariah a little wink after he finished his little spiel. He had to grab her and hold her back from rushing at Vance to give him another hug when she saw a few tears streaming from the corners of closed eyes.