Schedule Change

The new schedules were released later that evening. Chris picked up his and Daren's new schedule directly from campus. Nothing should have changed, but its best to avoid the constant harassment of the admins. They cannot stand having someone not checked off on their lists.

Chris squeezed through the crowd and finally made it back to their dorm room just in time for dinner. If no one was watching, Daren would study through his meals. Sure enough, Daren had his nose buried in a book when Chris entered their room. Chris snatched the book out of his hands.

"I wasn't done reading that."

"It's time for dinner Young Master. You can finish it later."

Daren wrinkled his brow and tried to grab the book back. Chris laughed and barely kept the book out of his reach.

"At least let me finish the chapter."

"No. Then you'll want to finish the next chapter, then the next, until you just might as well finish the entire book and move on to the next in the series."

"I believe that I am the young master in this situation. I can read whatever I want to whenever I want to."

"Fine. Then you can finish your book while eating."

Before Daren could retort, Chris dashed out of the room. Daren huffed and followed him outside. He hated going to dinner. The nobles swarmed around him more lately. That was super annoying. Daren would rather do something productive than put up with their snobby attitudes and shrill laughs.

The duo quietly snuck into the dining hall. With the rear courtyard open again, many students ate outside. This made the dining hall much more pleasant now that people didn't have to sit elbow to elbow. A couple of their upperclassmen acquaintances had already grabbed a table.

When Chris and Daren arrived, the upperclassmen quickly pulled over two more chairs.

"Good evening Young Master Forolan. Hey Chris."

"Hello seniors. How's the food tonight?"

"It's okay. Don't even bother with the soup though. The gremlins 'helped' this time."

One of the upperclassmen magically pulled strands of short fur out of her bowl. The fur was disgusting, but could easily be removed with magic. The actual problem was the hidden 'improvements' that the gremlin would make. Typically, those 'improvements' were either freakishly hot, mouth numbingly bitter or sugar coma inducing.

Daren subtly pushed away his bowl of soup. He did not choose well today.

"Oh, that's right. You both remembered to pick up your new schedules today, right?"

"Yes seniors," Chris waved two envelopes in his hands. "I just picked them up from campus."

"Good. Nothing major has probably changed, but I've heard of a few students who've had completely different schedules. Mostly those who took Professor Rosewall's classes. Well, he's a former professor."

Chris handed Daren his envelope then opened his own. Briefly scanning the page, none of his classes changed, though the locations and some of the professors did. Each of the professors didn't have any problems, and all leaned towards the progressive or neutral factions. There shouldn't be any problems.

The light patter of a falling spoon caught Chris's attention. Daren had a dark and shocked expression on his face. He snatched Chris's schedule and furiously looked through it. His frown only got deeper the more he compared their schedules.

"What's wrong, Daren?"

"All of my classes were completely changed. Our schedules are completely different."

"What?"

That got Chris's and the upperclassmen's attention. That should never happen. They quickly moved to read over his shoulder. Someone hissed in surprise and pointed to a class.

"I've heard about that class! It's full of highly conservative nobles. The professor is known to be a part of the conservative faction as well. The young master shouldn't be in that class."

"Yeah. This one as well. The 'Universal Research Methods' class. Young master, didn't you mention that the headmaster was teaching you that stuff directly? It's basically useless for you, and it's not a required class."

"Take a look at this one! Piano? Since when do magic majors take creative arts classes after their first year? That if they take one at all."

One of the upperclassmen scratched their head. "Piano… Hmm… I thought that I heard about someone taking piano. Who was it? Never mind. It's probably not that important."

The more they looked, the more the schedules seemed odd. Daren had two extra classes on top of his original course load. Those classes weren't what Daren would be interested in at all. In fact, their levels were far below his actual skill level. They were basically just 'fluff'. Also, about half of the professors were people that the Forolan family specifically wanted Daren to stay away from.

Chris's seemed like something he would sign up for on the surface. But when looked at with Daren's, the classes were awkwardly timed and in completely different areas of campus. The schedules were normally set so that Chris spent as little time away from Daren as possible. However, with the new schedule Chris would be lucky to see Daren at all during the school day!

They smelled a conspiracy. Could this just be some mishap? That was highly doubtful. The university claims that it stays neutral in noble affairs and doesn't let parents interfere with their adult children's decisions. However, that is not exactly the case.

For more powerful families or students with special circumstances, the university will meddle with the students' schedules. A major example would be keeping students from rival families in separate classes, or grouping together students from the same faction.

As the Forolan heir, Daren had a strict set of students and professors that he could and could not be around. The Forolan family was a neutral family with progressive tendencies. They were one of the top noble families, and should technically be aligned with the conservatives.

The other factions have been hounding and aggressively courting the Forolan family for ages. The conservatives have been particularly persistent. This is the reason why Daren's schedule was set so meticulously. Any consistent associations of Daren together with a faction's important member could be seen as the Forolan family's intent to join that faction.

However, Daren's schedule suddenly changed without the knowledge of the Forolan family. Not only was it completely changed, but it was structured to give the conservative faction maximum exposure to Daren while minimizing his time with his aide. There were few who could pull this off.

Chris's face darkened. Even if they did complain, technically Daren's schedule didn't differ to much content wise. The excuse that 'they didn't want to take a course from such-and-such professor due to their faction' isn't valid for changing a class. At most, they could get the two extra classes dropped.

He and Daren would need to have a word with the headmaster. They would probably need his intervention to sort this issue out. If someone went through the trouble to mess with Daren's schedule, then they wouldn't let him change it back so easily.

Who on Tellus did this and why? More importantly, what was their next move?

**********

Opening day for the trial grounds was packed. The line just to schedule a time slot stretched from the residence hall to campus. From dawn to dusk, none of the resident advisors got any rest. Those managing the trial runs could at least sit down while monitoring the controls. Everyone else had no such luck.

Aayla was one of the poor fools who got stuck combating the line of students anxious to secure their time slot. She had never seen so many anxious students all at once. The only ones busier than her were security and the Disciplinary Committee.

She worked side by side with Daren and Chris all day. Every so often, Aayla would get chills down her spine. Like someone was watching her. Whenever she looked around, she would only find a sea of students pushing against each other.

The next day Aayla still felt a bit uneasy. Her worries were quickly pushed aside as she went to class. Today was the day that the schedules changed. Students crazily ran around campus like it was the first day of school. She had no time to worry about anything else.

Her morning class was still linguistics, and her afternoon class was still her history class. Aayla bumped into some surprising faces. Off in the distance, she could hear a familiar obnoxious laugh. Disgust formed on her face. She heard that laugh all the time in the Residence Hall.

Vanessa Landrienne was once again terrorizing campus with The Butterflies. Aayla was about to go around, but then she saw who Vanessa was sneering at. She recognized the others as some of the Halcyon second-year young ladies. The Halcyon young ladies looked furious.

Aayla could only understand a few of the words that Vanessa heavily emphasized over the chatter of the crowd. She said something about a 'boyfriend' and 'proper status'. Whatever Vanessa was saying clearly angered the Halcyon young ladies even more. They promptly stormed off while The Butterflies laughed and mocked them.

Honestly, Aayla was curious but it was none of her business. Unbeknownst to her, it wouldn't stay that way for long.