Less than two minutes after leaving Louise, Quill was somehow already hopelessly lost.

The survival check to not get lost had a fairly low difficulty class of 15, which was normally improbable for Quill with his negative skill modifier. He had assumed that, between the area containing much more distinctive features than a natural environment, his destination being about 100 feet from his starting point, and having been given explicit directions, there would be enough circumstance bonuses to make it a trivial endeavor.

And then he'd rolled a natural 1, so much for that.

Quill now stood before several corridors in a warmly lit lobby of moderate decadence, considering his next move. "This isn't really too large a place," he muttered. "But there are a lot of doors, and it's unclear which one goes to the library. I guess I'll just need to check all of them. Probably best to mark the ones I've done already."

As he reached into his incredibly useful haversack for a bit of chalk that he'd thrown in as an afterthought, Quill thought he heard posh snickering behind him. He hesitated and instead pulled out a small mirror. This allowed him to see whoever was behind him without making him turn and lose his cool demeanor. It also allowed him to check his hair. It looked dashingly tousled as always… maybe too tousled.

The source of the snickering seemed to be flower boy from the courtyard, who now had a girl hanging off of his arm. Quill casually stowed the mirror and asked, without turning around, "you wouldn't happen to know where the library is, would you?"

"Down the hall, first door on the left," a posh and effeminate voice floated back to him. The adjectives "posh" and "effeminate" seemed to bleed into everything this man was or did. "You can't miss it. We don't have much that's written in Albionese, though."

Quill considered trying to continue the conversation without looking at his addressee. That seemed stupid, so he turned and shifted to a friendly and sincere tone and expression, trying to make it as dramatic and sudden a change as possible in an attempt to unnerve the boy. "Thanks for the advice," he replied. "But I probably wouldn't be able to read too many books in one night anyways. What's your name?"

If he was unnerved, the youth didn't show it. Rather, he took the invitation to introduce himself with bardic fervor, stepping away from his companion to make room for wider hand gestures. "I am the magnificent Guiche de Gramont!" Guiche de Gramont announced magnificently. "Famed hero and paramour, and the son and heir of General de Gramont!"

"Hm." Quill considered him for a moment. "You're a PC, right?"

"…I'm a what?" Guiche had been called a great many things, but he wasn't quite certain how to respond to this.

"A Player Character. You know, the people who kill dragons and take their treasure, cut their ways through armies of orcs, just generally run around thwarting evil and being awesome."

"Well, I… it seems you've grasped my idiom fairly well, peasant," Guiche replied, flourishing under the praise.

"Great! I am too," Quill said. "Let Louise and I know when there's heroing to be done, then. See you around."

Guiche was somewhat taken aback. "I'll… consider it?"

But Quill had already left.

o—o—o—o

"Please take a seat, Miss Valliere."

Louise did so. She stared nervously at the calm old man before her, wondering what he was thinking. Osmond was one of the oldest and wisest mages in the world, and eccentric as he was, he seemed to exude a nearly palpable aura of power – until he took an interest in some unfortunate lady's skirt, and his demeanor was yanked away like the tablecloth of a stage magician. Seated before him, Louise found herself almost wishing for such an incident, if only to disrupt the overpowering intensity of his gaze.

"You're probably wondering why I've called you here," Osmond said calmly.

"I was, Professor." Though Louise had a fairly strong prediction that it was something to do with her familiar.

Osmond unhurriedly raised his teacup to his lips. Wait, tea? Louise glanced down at the desk, and saw that she had been provided a cup as well. Maybe she should drink some. It would probably be rude not to. This didn't seem like the right moment, though. Osmond lowered his cup.

"What do you think of your familiar, Louise?"

What sort of answer was Osmond looking for? Was he testing her? Was he trying to get her to admit that her familiar was an elf and a heretic? No, he couldn't possibly know that already. Aside from his mysterious ancient wizard powers, which meant he probably definitely did.

Then again, he would probably know if she wasn't being sincere.

What did she think of Quill?

Well, he's fairly good-looking, in a rogueish sort of…

Louise blinked, as those thoughts officially ceased to have ever occurred to her.

What did she think of Quill?

The fact was that she didn't really know much about him at the moment. He had seemed relatively unfazed by what were, by any standards, very peculiar circumstances. That was probably good, as it indicated a high level of mental discipline. He seemed so far impulsive, but reasonable and, more importantly, compliant. Louise had gotten the impression that if she told him to jump off a bridge, he would do so, and probably smile the whole way down.

On the other hand, these factors also may have indicated that he was a lunatic and not suited to function in a high-level society. Where Louise had broken down at the mere suggestion that she might have been caught breaking the rules, Quill stepped in and told a boldfaced lie without so much as a catch in his voice. This wasn't exactly something she could chide him for, as she had just explicitly told him to conceal his nature, but it was somewhat troubling in its implications. How much of his cheerful demeanor had been an act? If he thought he had a good reason to, would he so easily betray the queen and the country?

Would he betray Louise?

"I think he's dangerous," Louise said honestly. "But I think that I can work with him."

Osmond raised his eyebrows as though in surprise. Blood began to rush to Louise's face as the two stared at each other. Had she failed a test of some sort? Was Osmond going to take away her familiar?

Then, wholly unexpectedly, a loud snort escaped Osmond, and he had suddenly broken down into entirely undignified cackling. Louise's face further discolored until it bore an uncanny resemblance to a tomato as she stared in mortification at the old fool, gripping his desk and howling where a paragon of wisdom had sat just a moment before.

"W-well, I mean, that is to say –"

"No, no, you don't need to correct yourself, Miss Valliere," Osmond wheezed, bringing himself under control with some difficulty. "That was a fine answer. You examined not his physical characteristics but his personality traits, and very deliberately took on responsibility for his actions as your familiar. I'm honestly quite impressed."

Louise was somewhat mollified, but now very confused. "Then why –"

"Why am I acting like a baboon at a fireworks show?" Osmond said bluntly. He lost himself to chuckling for a moment. "Louise, that question was intended as a test to determine how ready you were to have a human as a familiar. The benchmark I was using was whether you referred to the young man as 'him' or as 'it'."

"What?" Louise said crossly. That was what the point of that had been? That was absurd. "Professor, what possible reason could I have to refer to him as an 'it'? He's human. Even if he wasn't, most mages use personal pronouns for their familiars, even though they can't even understand basic language. That would just be totally and pointlessly demeaning."

"And I'm glad you think that way," Osmond said, his eyes still twinkling as his breath returned to him. "But please remember that I read everything submitted to the suggestion box outside my office."

"Really?" Louise was caught off guard for a moment. She had always assumed Osmond's secretary handled that. "Wait, what does that have to do with anything?"

"The suggestions are, of course, anonymous," Osmond said as though she hadn't spoken. "But you have rather distinctive handwriting, and it becomes quite easy over time to recognize which submissions are from you. Or perhaps I should say, which submissions aren't." Louise blushed again. She needed to vent her feelings somehow, and Karin would read all of her letters to Catt, so she couldn't say anything improper in them. She had only submitted a few suggestions to the box each week though! "And your suggestions have often referred to the servants, and even to your classmates, in highly dehumanizing ways."

Oh. Louise started to see what he was getting at. "They deserved it though," Louise said matter-of-factly. Osmond burst out laughing again, and Louise now outright glared at him. "They're incredibly rude! They just completely reject the terms of civil conduct! If they don't respect me, I see no reason to do so for them." The last part was said a little pointedly, as Osmond was by that point laughing so hard he was in danger of sliding from his chair.

"A-and that justifies saying that Kirche ought to be spayed," Osmond choked out. There were snickers behind Louise, and as she turned around, she saw Colbert and Osmond's green-haired secretary both trying very hard to look interested in something other than their conversation.

Louise huffed. "Kirche is an unruly beast, and best handled by animal control, if not pest control." At this, the secretary stopped trying to control her laughter. Louise reflected on the unfairness of the world as she ensconced herself in self-righteous disdain.

o—o—o—o

Quill reflected on the unfairness of the world as he found himself lost again.

Honestly, it was rather unreasonable that he had needed to roll to navigate a single hallway. He could see his destination from the starting point. He hadn't even rolled a 1 this time, though it had been a low roll.

"What kind of situations actually warrant these checks, huh?" He asked the unfamiliar architecture. "Are you going to make me roll Survival to plot out a straight line to charge on? Will I need to chart an opponent's location and velocity vector on a bloody map before I can make attacks of opportunity against them?"

Somebody behind Quill said something, and either it was unimportant enough that he physically couldn't register the meaning of it, or it was in a language he didn't speak. Under the assumption of the latter, he turned around. There was a girl there, wearing some frilly black-and-white dress that screamed "unimportant NPC" so loudly it would probably give a circumstance bonus to hide checks.

"Hello," he said. She responded with a somewhat longer statement, followed by a question. "Uh, renthisj wux darastrix?" She didn't.

"And this is why you carry around a scroll of Comprehend Languages, and a Wizard to use it," Quill muttered as he pulled a piece of chalk from his pack and started scrawling an image on the wall. He made a note to himself that in the future, he would need to keep the party together even for minor errands in downtime. If things kept going as they were now, he would have to roll on a random encounter table when he reached the library itself. He stepped away from the startlingly realistic chalk drawing of a book he had drawn on the wall (of course he had rolled well on that untrained check) and looked at the girl. She seemed to understand, and motioned for him to follow her.

o—o—o—o

"Is there anything else you need to talk about, professor?" Louise asked loudly over her near-empty teacup. The last few minutes had been decidedly trying, as Osmond had seen fit to lighten the mood by sharing more of her confidential and anonymous suggestions with the room at large. This had been followed by Colbert pitching in with some of the more vitriolic banter she'd exchanged in his classroom, and even the damned secretary had shared some embarrassing family nicknames which she should not have possibly known about. Louise had experienced quite enough of the world being a joke at her expense outside of mandatory meetings, thank you very much. She made a note to herself to add publicly disgrace Osmond to her list of reasons for becoming the most powerful mage in the world.

"The runes," Colbert managed in a strained tone. Osmond instantly perked up, and was on his feet and brushing himself off in seconds, as though nothing had happened.

"Ah yes, the familiar runes. This is why I called you in to speak with me, actually. Louise, are you aware that the sequence of runes which appears on a familiar when bound corresponds to their role of service, and has magical effects which help them to perform that role?"

"Of course," Louise said irritably. "This might come as a surprise to you, Professor, but I did actually study for the summoning ritual."

The professor waved his hand. "Oh, Of course. I'm sorry. You also know what your familiar's runes mean, then?"

"…No," Louise admitted. Okay, maybe she had been a little bit rude, if mostly exonerated by the circumstances.

Professor Colbert was frowning at Osmond. "You were called here, Miss Valliere, because we haven't been able to identify your familiar's runes. They're nonstandard, and not listed in any of the typical references." Fully exonerated then. Professor Osmond at least had the good grace to look ashamed.

"Wait. Non-standard runes? What does that mean then?"

"That's just the thing," said Osmond. "We don't know. It does, however, at least strongly imply he might not be a normal kind of familiar. And by extension of that…"

Louise's breathing quickened. "That I might not be a normal kind of mage."

"Precisely," Osmond said. "To be perfectly honest, we've suspected that you're more than simply incompetent, or a late bloomer. Your theory is excellent, and your power output rivals that of a grown mage. However, any number of things could explain your failure to cast normal spells. A bloodline curse, damaged willpower conduits, even spiritual possession at a young age.

"Not the last one," Louise remarked distantly, her mind racing. Maybe it's a Valliere thing? Maybe I need to do blood rituals in order to use my powers? Louise couldn't imagine her mother doing any blood rituals. Maybe she spills enough blood from her enemies that she doesn't need the ritual part? "My parents had me exorcised three times."

"Hm. I still wouldn't rule it out," Osmond said critically. "The soul has all manner of folds to it, not all of which mortals have access to. Nevertheless, it's become clearer than ever that you're not going to learn magic by the standard means."

"Then how?" Louise asked sharply.

Osmond spread his hands helplessly. "I have no idea."

Louise's train of thought crashed to a halt. "W-what? But you just did this whole thing… With the exposition… And you're so, so wise and old…"

"Old I may be," Osmond said gravely, "but in my travels of the world, magical study has, in almost every culture, been based on the same principles – essentially, to discipline the mind, and memorize the forms that invoke whatever spells your culture knows."

"Different cultures have different spells?" That sounded important enough to create a tangent from the current conversation.

"Oh yes," Osmond said. "Much of our nobility that knows doesn't assign much value to it, but the Mystic East has its own magical traditions, which differ from ours in a number of ways. They actually consider wood to be its own element."

"Does… does that work?" Louise said, shocked. "Does that imply that there are elements outside the founder's, or…"

"It hasn't been very thoroughly explored, and there are a number of explanations that have been proposed. If you want my input, the one which seems most likely is that the elements aren't actually the sole components of spellcasting, but rather are simply the ones we are most informed about. After all, the familiar summoning ritual isn't associated with any particular affinity, and while any element may be used to enchant items, the forms for doing so are the same for any mage. It may very well be that we're particularly good at spells of our elements due to the Founder's bloodline, and they have their own particular affinities from some other source, but the true range of spells is much vaster than we've tapped."

Louise considered this. "Then if I was able to do the summoning ritual, but not any other spells, it's likely my affinity, and… Are there any other non-elemental spells I might be able to learn?"

"A few, but they're very hard to get a hold of. The majority of our spells today come from times of blood feud, when houses wouldn't want to devise spells that could be easily copied by their enemies. After that, there simply wasn't enough incentive to take the risks inherent to creating new spells. Any non-elemental spells out there are either forms created by Brimir himself, which are probably locked away in royal archives and take at least a square-mage's level of power, or the primitive rituals of the pre-founder times, which are also quite hard to acquire, and tend to require a bit too much sacrifice to be palatable to the modern mage."

So she needed to become a square-class mage before she could start casting useful spells. That was something to go on, at least. Something infuriatingly difficult, of course, but it wasn't as though she wouldn't try it anyway. "Do you think the magic schools of the East would help me?"

"Not in the slightest," Osmond said. "I've actually integrated some of their better techniques into our curriculum already. Like I said, it's really all the same thing. There are more obscure things you could try, but they tend to require a lot of effort for very little result. I have a feeling you wouldn't take very well to decades of ascetic seclusion."

"I might," Louise said weakly. Actually, now that she thought about it, a solution that both adds magic and removes people might be perfect for her needs…

"It's your choice," Osmond said softly. "I'm afraid you're mostly beyond my capacity to advise at this point. However, I have a hunch that it might help you to remain at this academy."

Louise blinked. "Didn't you just say that wasn't the case?"

"You have no use for our lessons at this point," Osmond said. "But I would say that your experiences here have definitely helped to develop some aspect of yourself. The challenges you've faced, the work you've done… the friends you've made."

"The friends I've made," Louise repeated. The words took on a mocking brand of irony in her mouth.

"Surely there are some students you consider friends, Louise?" Colbert piped in. "Miss Montmorency maybe, or perhaps Miss Zerbst?"

Louise loosed a short, barking laugh. Seeing no need to follow it, she instead let it linger in the now festeringly awkward atmosphere. She'd prefer to be alone. She'd prefer to be in some dusty basement, poring over some academic text by candlelight. She'd prefer to be anywhere but this cauldron of false sympathy, in the wash of uncaring daylight and stifling air from the open windows.

"Miss Valliere –" Professor Colbert began.

"Permission to leave, Professor," Louise interrupted, ignoring him and staring at Osmond's inscrutable expression. There was another moment of silence.

"Granted," Osmond said neutrally. Then, in a softer voice, "But remember, Miss Valliere, that people are there for you when you need them."

She walked out, not stopping to respond.

o—o—o—o

The girl laid another book on the table. Quill thanked her and flipped through it briefly. More setting fluff, this time what seemed like a genealogy and history of some noble bloodline, dating back a few thousand years. No quantities, no tables, not even a unique weapon in a sidebar. It was completely useless. He sighed and went back to the book he had been reading. This one was also sorely lacking in crunch text, but it at least had descriptions of battles and could give him an idea of what he could expect from the local magical community. It seemed that a lone mage turning the tide of an entire battle was considered uncommon, and rather than binding outsiders to spam Blasphemies and Holy Words, most mages contributed to battles by showing up and personally blasting large areas of enemies, and only occasionally were even the most basic battlefield control effects used.

Aside from the usual tendency of NPCs to abhor optimization, the mages of this world seemed very limited by their spell lists, and by some sort of Elemental Affinity system, which seemed significantly more restrictive than that of the Wu Jen – or at least, these fluff descriptions made it seem highly restrictive. For all he knew, it might be only -2 caster level on an opposed element, or something equally meaningless, and these descriptions exaggerated its importance.

Which was why Quill needed a real sourcebook, rather than all of these campaign setting novels.

"Any luck?" said a voice from behind him. Louise was standing in the doorway.

"Not much," he answered, snapping the book closed. "There are a few books in Common, but none of them have very useful material."

"Albionese," Louise corrected. "You'd best get those put back, then, because dinner's about to start." She looked over at the servant girl standing in the corner, and tried to remember whether this particular servant had ever slighted her. She didn't seem familiar, and Louise held a grudge well. "Have you been helping my familiar?" Louise asked her in Tristainian.

The girl shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I haven't seen a familiar recently," she responded. "I can help you look for it, if you need."

Louise shook her head, and pointed at Quill. "He's my familiar," she clarified. "He was summoned from… a distant country, and doesn't speak Tristainian yet."

The girl's eyes widened. "A human familiar? I didn't know that was possible! That's certainly impressive. In that case, I'm happy to have helped, Miss…"

"Call me Louise," said Louise. Using her family name didn't seem appropriate to the situation somehow. "And this is Quill." Quill waved, grinning like an idiot. "What's your name?"

"Siesta," she said.

"It's nice to meet you, Siesta," Louise said. After the conversation with Osmond, it felt good to show that she could be polite when someone else reciprocated, even though this was just a commoner. "We need to go, but I'd love to talk to you later."

Siesta's face brightened, and her posture relaxed. It was a startling change; all of a sudden, she seemed like an entirely different person. "Oh, that would be lovely!" she chirped. "Perhaps we could meet for tea tomorrow? The courtyard has a nice place under the maple where the sun is just right at teatime, I'll show you where it is!"

"Um… yes, that would be great," Louise replied unsteadily. What had just happened? Louise got the feeling that she had when she committed a social faux pas that made a conversation turn sour, except that in this case the conversation had become friendlier and she had no idea how to diffuse that or even whether she should. She motioned for Quill to follow her, and he stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"I'll see you then, Louise! Have a wonderful day!"

As Quill followed Louise out of the library, she glanced over her shoulder. Siesta was still looking at her, waving her hand and smiling that strange smile – not a derisive, threatening, even beseeching expression, but seeming somehow cheerful.

"You noticed that, right?" Louise said to Quill once they were out of earshot.

"Noticed what?" Quill said. "I didn't really catch much."

"The way she… changed," she said, dropping her voice. "One moment, she's all quiet and reserved, and then she's chipper and informal and…"

"Ah, right, that. You're new to this, aren't you?"

"New to what?

"You know, the whole thing," Quill answered unhelpfully. "That tends to happen when you show interest in an unimportant NPC."

"NPC?"

"Yeah, the Commoners. They don't really have much of a personality most of the time, when you're just interacting with them in passing. But if you actually care, and you ask them about themselves, I mean, did you get her name?"

"What? Um, yes. It's Siesta," Louise said. "And I asked to meet with her later."

"Ha, wow, directly setting up a recurrence like that? Yeah, I wouldn't wonder if she switched to the Elite Array on the spot there. You're a PC, Louise, and that means you're very important." Louise took note of the term. Was that a title of nobility where he was from? "The people you take notice of are going to be important too, whether you want them to or not."

"Are… are you saying that when I was nice to her, that made her more important, and being important caused her to spontaneously develop more personality and human qualities?" Louise asked, shocked.

"That's pretty accurate, yeah."

Wow. Louise had always known that Nobles were better and more valuable people than Commoners, but she had no idea that it was such a direct, causal, and manipulable relationship. The extent to which she'd seen landholders squabble over political favors and titles suddenly made much more sense to her, as did the way that the princess had always managed to be better, nicer, and prettier than her in every respect. She would need to be more careful around the servants.

…Or more open, maybe. If the attention of a Noble was so good for people, and it made them more pleasant company to Louise, then why shouldn't she provide it as much as possible?

Louise would need to test this power before she started using it recklessly. She foresaw frequent tea with Siesta.