Once again; apologies for the wait! Super-busy with thesis but I'm basically done with the first draft of the background-sections now and the analysis is always a much faster work so hopefully I'll find myself having more time later on. To make up for things this chapter is very long ;)
They ordered sandwiches and take-away cups of coffee, tea and hot chocolate from Ruby and Granny the next morning before packing their bags into the cars once again and drove off towards the four houses that would become their home for the next... well, who knew how long they would be here? Could be weeks, months or years. The point was that there were four mansions waiting for them on the outskirts of the small town, both resembling the four houses of Hogwarts and the four benevolent animals in Chinese mythology, which Rachel had given them a quick description of earlier that week. She was guiding the rest of their caravan towards the mansion closest to the town, nicknamed the Tiger Mansion. The plan was to gather there and go through where people would stay and where the various classes would be held. As this mansion also had a large, square sand paddock on its grounds it was also the ideal place for group trainings where all thirty-two members of their squad were involved. Which was what would happen today as well.
The mansion itself was large and built out of sandy-brown bricks with a copper-red roof. There were an uncountable number of windows but no light was visible through any of them and outside on the grounds, except for the large paddock, were empty stables and multiple pavilions of a style that reminded people of the orient.
"Good morning", Toby said from the veranda, even though he had said those same words before they left the B&B. The apprentices, standing below the veranda, still replied.
"Before we go ahead and inspect our new homes we're going to do some training", Toby continued. "If you look towards the paddock and the grounds surrounding it..."
Everyone turned around at these words. The paddock had been empty when they arrived but while they had been busy looking at the house Wolfgang, Maryse and Miranda had been setting up multiple objects around it and on the grasslands surrounding it. They were ordinary objects, like chairs and vases and a mannequin (which perhaps was not the most expected object to find there but still did not scream of anything supernatural).
"If you look towards the paddock", Toby repeated, "you'll see multiple objects. These will form a series of obstacles that you have to pass, like a steeplechase. Each obstacle can be overcome with a certain spell, a basic spell that you will need to know regardless of what subjects you specialize in. Judging by what happened last night..."
He looked towards Josh in particular.
"It seems that you might be able to wield magic here in Storybrooke", he continued, "and thus the spells should not tire you. However if you do feel tired please alert the master standing by the obstacle you're currently facing!"
"Will there be one master at each obstacle?" Imogen asked.
"Yes", Toby replied.
"So there are fifteen obstacles?" Brandon questioned.
"No. Two masters will be monitoring two obstacles, meaning there will be seventeen of them."
Toby then stepped down from the veranda and led the way towards the paddock.
"There will be Muffliato charms placed around each obstacle", he said, "so you won't be able to overhear what spell you should be using in your next task."
"What if you're able to discern it anyway?" Serena suggested. "I mean, the spells do have different colours and such..."
"If you pay more attention to the person facing the next obstacle and what colour his or her spell of choice is, you will probably not be able to overcome the obstacle you're facing yourself."
He stopped by the paddock where the rest of the masters were standing.
"You will start off at the station manned by your individual master. Once you've overcome the obstacle in question they will direct you to where the next master is; we will be spread out both out here on the grounds, in the forest surrounding us and in the house. Sometimes you will receive instructions for what to do, sometimes you have to figure it out yourselves, some tasks will be easy and quick to finish while others will take time, thus if you arrive at the station with the next obstacle before the person assigned to it before you has finished their task you must wait for them to do so. When you have completed all of the tasks we have set you we will gather back here."
He then nodded at the other masters, signalling that the introduction was over.
"The exercise starts now."
There were six tasks located in or around the paddock, three on the large field between it and the forest, four inside the forest, two inside the house and two in the backyard, forcing the apprentices to not just use a large variety of spells to overcome the various obstacles but also cover large stretches of ground by foot. This especially applied to the tasks inside the forest as they were placed out to give a lot of room for each individual obstacle course.
In and around the paddock were the stations manned by Ella, Arianne, Tessa, Toby, Indira and Chris. At Ella's station was the mannequin the apprentices had seen before.
"Break it apart", was the instruction given here.
"Reducto!" was the most common spell used in reply. Once the mannequin had been blasted to pieces Ella would mark them as done with the task and send them to Arianne.
Arianne's task involved two chairs and, despite the simplicity of the spell involved, the task proved to require a lot more from everyone involved than they first had thought.
"Place the chairs on top of one another", was Arianne's instruction to them, "and make sure they stay on top of one another."
"Wingardium Leviosa", was the spell that they all used in return, lifting one chair up and placing it on top of the other. Coming up with this spell, however, was the easier part of this task as in the majority of the cases the chairs toppled over once the levitating chair was released. Some of the apprentices then used a gluing charm on the bottom chair before levitating the top chair onto it, while others went about the task in a more mathematical manner, carefully lowering the top chair onto the lower chair in precise movements. In the end they all managed to create a way for themselves to get sent to Tessa's station.
This station lay outside the paddock and the Muffiliato charm surrounding it was much stronger than the ones surrounding the previous two. Once the apprentices entered they figured out why, as Tessa had a pair of thick earmuffs around her neck and a pot with a plant next to her feet.
"This is a baby Mandrake", she explained to them. "I got it from the fairies, as they grow them to create healing potions. They're not exactly like the ones from the book, but they can render you unconscious with their screams."
Then she put on her own earmuffs and pulled the Mandrake out of its pot. More than half of the apprentices fell unconscious the first time around that this happened. The others managed to silence it, either by forcing Tessa to drop it back into the pot by hitting her hand with a jinx or by casting a silencing spell on the Mandrake itself. Some apprentices needed four or five tries before they got the timing of either of these spells right, thus avoiding falling back once more. Once the Mandrake had been silenced Tessa sent them back to the paddock, to Toby.
Toby's station had simple instructions.
"Fetch the objects I'm telling you to fetch, but do it fast. You have ten seconds to collect each object."
Then he started firing the names of various objects at them; book titles, kitchen supplies, ornaments, jewellery, anything that could possibly be summoned so that it arrived in the designated area within the set ten seconds. Needless to say some apprentices became very stressed with this task and were required to do an extra exercise due to failing to collect the required object – during which they had to spell a spell and then pronounce it correctly without a wand to prove if they had gotten it right or not. Vera, Tessa's apprentice, had some particular trouble with this extra exercise and the more she got wrong on this part the more nervous she became, causing her to fail in collecting the next object as well. Eventually, though, also she managed to go through with the task and onto the next one, which was manned by Indira.
At Indira's station stood a tall vase, but the first thing she did when an apprentice got there was to shatter it completely.
"There's a message written on the inside of the vase's rim", she said, "but you have to repair the vase in order to read it."
"Reparo", was the spell used to do this, a spell that none of the apprentices seemed to have any trouble with. They all also managed to read out the message written on the rim; Good job! Once that was done Indira sent them on to Chris'.
At Chris' station, outside the paddock, was a small cage containing a statue of a bird, which he had doubtlessly collected from the castle. Wound around the cage were three thick chains with padlocks in different colours; one blue, one red and one silver.
"Unlock the cage", were the instructions, after which the apprentice facing this task would cast the unlocking spell on the first lock of choice.
"Alohomora!"
However, for one of the locks, this spell did not work. The red lock was protected by an Anti-Alohomora charm forcing the apprentices to think of other unlocking spells or even try to pick the lock in order to get the statue out of the cage and finish the task. This proved particularly difficult for Carmen, Chris' own apprentice, who could not remember a single other unlocking spell and had no idea how to pick a lock. In the end her master had to step in and help her by giving her some clues as to how she could figure out a plausible unlocking spell. Then he sent her and everyone else across the field to the first of Maryse's two stations.
Maryse's first station had a collection of firewood in its centre. Her instructions were simple.
"Light a fire."
"Incendio!" was the most common reply. No one had any particular trouble with this task and thus quickly moved on to Maryse's second obstacle; a ring of fire that needed to be put out in order to collect a book placed in the middle of the (controlled) inferno.
The apprentices had different approaches to this task. Some chose an extinguishing spell, others preferred to douse the fire in water using an Aguamenti spell. However it rapidly spread from apprentices who had visited Maryse to those who had not yet done so that if the water conjured through the Aguamenti spell caused the book to be doused Maryse would not be happy with them and thus an extinguishing spell was preferred if one was not capable of directing the water properly.
After Maryse came Miranda's obstacle near the edge of the forest. There were multiple bare bones, most likely chicken bones, spread out in front of her on a small blanket and the apprentices were asked to pick one of them. Miranda then lifted the bone that was picked from the blanket and broke it in half.
"Heal it."
"Episkey", was the general reply, which instantly healed the bone and allowed the apprentice to proceed. Some, however, tried more advanced healing spells, but in a majority of those cases the bone either split several more times or just flew away.
After Miranda's task the apprentices were directed into the forest, following an old deer track leading to a small clearing where Wolfgang was waiting for them, although they were unable to see him. He was standing by behind a hedge of bushes, biding his time before charging forward, armed with the long knives he had trained to wield back in the Enchanted Forest. Some apprentices were too stunned to react and were forced to go running around a circular trail around the clearing while Wolfgang hid somewhere else. Not until they used the Disarming Charm, forcing him to drop his weapons, were they allowed to proceed to the next obstacle, which was handled by Jade.
Jade's station was located near a group of boulders slightly closer to the field than Wolfgang's had been.
"Come take a look", she told the apprentices from where she stood on top of the boulders, forcing them to climb up to her. Right in front of her feet was a small container, lodged between two of the boulders and perhaps wide enough for someone to stick down a hand in. However there were few who would do that willingly because it was littered with shining beetles.
"These beetles are covering an object", Jade explained, "so you have to get them out of the container, however you chose."
Some of the braver ones decided to do it using their bare hands and found that this was perfectly possible, at least if you were not too squeamish about the beetles crawling around your hand. Others tried lifting the beetles out one by one with a Levitation charm, a time-requiring task but also successful, while yet others chose a middle route, casting an Immobility charm on the beetles and then sticking their hand down among the now lifeless creatures to fetch the object in question; a pencil.
"Good job!" Jade said to them all after they succeeded, before sending them to Clarissa's station deeper inside the forest.
This station was also located in a clearing but it was not empty of objects or people like Wolfgang's had been. Instead it was littered with fragile objects, such as wine glasses, Christmas tree baubles and porcelain figures.
"I'm going to send five of these objects up into the air, one by one", Clarissa explained, "and you have to simply make sure that they land safely on the ground again. Not keep them levitating; land them."
"Arresto Momentum", was the most common charm used by the apprentices here and most were successful in landing the objects that Clarissa sent flying, even when more than one of them was in the air at once. Those who caused an object to crash were forced to repair that object and then catch an extra object after the initial five, before being sent on to station number thirteen manned by Rachel.
Like Wolfgang's and Clarissa's stations this was also located in a clearing, but Rachel was not surrounded by objects like Clarissa had been or hiding like Wolfgang had. Instead she was standing there, in front of the apprentice, until they became nervous that they were missing something and started looking for clues around them. At this point Rachel would raise her wand and send a knock-back jinx their way. Some, such as Brandon, Sam, Serena and Danielle, reacted to this jinx on time and were able to either duck or cast a protective spell around themselves. Others went flying back to the ground.
"Defend yourself", came Rachel's directions after this introduction, before she proceeded to fire multiple jinxes and minor curses at them, forcing them to find ways of blocking or shielding themselves. In some cases people also managed to send curses back at Rachel.
Rachel's station most likely had a set time or a set number of attacks that the apprentices had to defend themselves against, because no other instruction was given beside those two first words. Eventually, though, Rachel pulled back and handed them a bottle of water to go before sending them towards the mansion.
In the entrance hall of the Tiger Mansion had white walls, black floors and multiple fireplaces where fires were already burning, with a decor that consisted of furniture in gold and matte silver and multiple statues of horses. All in all it looked very modern and expensive. In one of the golden chairs sat Catriona and waited for them to arrive, at which point she rose and brought them into a nearby bathroom. This room had no windows and the lights were turned off.
"Find my wand", was Catriona's instruction, "and no, you can't summon it; you have to use another technique."
"Lumos!" was the spell that they all used after hearing this, illuminating the room and allowing them to search for the missing wand. Catriona had, of course, made sure to place it so that it would not be trampled on by accident; rather it was placed inside the tub or on top of the sink or on the shelf meant for toothbrushes and other toiletteries. In the end most were capable of finding the wand reasonably quick, after which Catriona sent them out into the backyard.
In the backyard was Rowan waiting with his first task.
"Create a compass."
This proved quite a challenge for multiple apprentices as they could not remember the incantation for this spell and had to be given clues by Rowan to allow them to complete the task. Once the wand had been turned into a compass, resting on top of the caster's palm and pointing north with its tip, it was time for Rowan's second task.
"An orienteering exercise", he explained. "There are four objects hidden out in the forest and by each object is a stamp. You've got a paper with clues and directions to where these are located, which you will also use to collect the stamps on, and a compass to help guide your way."
And so they were sent out into the forest to track down these objects, a task that did require a lot more of them than most had initially thought. There were, after all, several of them who had never tried any kind of exercise like this before and had no idea how to use a compass, but simply wandered around and hoped to get lucky. Luckily this task was constructed so that several apprentices could be out searching in the forest at once.
Finally it was back into the house and into the white kitchen, where Filipi was waiting. On the kitchen island stood a traditional chemistry set, with vials and tubes.
"I'm missing something to heat this potion with", Filipi said, "so I want you to create small heating points here, here and here."
She pointed at the three larger containers, holding blue, green and clear liquid respectively. Some apprentices chose to try creating small Bluebell Flames, locating them beneath the containers and causing them to heat the liquids. Others went around the kitchen and collected candles, placing them beneath the containers and then lighting them.
Once they had all completed the set seventeen tasks they ended up in front of the mansion again, most of them gasping for breath and wondering how on earth they could be so out of shape.
"You did good", Toby said as the masters joined them a little while later.
"I just don't understand what all of that was good for", Blaire grumbled. "When will I ever need to balance two chairs on top of one another?"
"All of them might not be clear to you right now", Ella said, "but there are explanations for all of the exercises, perhaps more specifically your reactions and ability to quickly decide what spell to use. Those are things that will be necessary for you to use; when faced with a task out in this world you rarely have time to discuss and chose a spell after deliberation. You have to do it right away."
"Hence the extra exercises when you failed at something", Wolfgang added.
"Well, in my opinion I've done enough magic for one day", Brandon grumbled.
"Yeah", Carmen agreed, "shouldn't we find out where we'll be staying and having lessons and all of that now?"
"Sure", Filipi said. "It's quite simple, really; we've tried to divide you so that you'll be living in the same house as your master. I think Nathan's the only exception to that rule."
"Correct", Toby said, "so I will list in which house the masters will be staying."
He paused, most likely for dramatic effect.
"Arianne, Indira, Jade and Maryse will be staying here at the Tiger Mansion", he then said. "Miranda, Rachel, Catriona and Tessa will be at the Dragon Mansion. The Turtle Mansion will be occupied by me, Wolfgang, Filipi and Ella, while Chris, Clarissa and Rowan will take the Phoenix Mansion. Nathan, you'll be joining the group at the Phoenix Mansion."
"Is there a reason for that?" Jenna asked. "Are there not enough beds or..."
"It's more that there isn't enough space in any of the dining rooms", Rachel replied. "All dining rooms seat no more than eight people, a lucky number in Chinese mythology. You will, of course, be able to go between the houses however you wish but your masters will be stationed at the mentioned mansions. Each master will host his or her lessons at that specific mansion."
"Perhaps we should also point out that at the Tiger and Phoenix mansions some people will be required to share bedrooms", Clarissa said, "so it's a good idea to start discussing who you might be rooming with."
"That means I'll be stuck with Nathan, won't it?" Chris groaned. Some people giggled at this.
"Anyway, schedules", Rachel said and opened up her bag. "You've got two lessons in your main subject per week and one lesson per subject that you've got a smaller talent in. Lessons are either held in the morning, between 8am and 11.30am, or in the afternoon, between 1pm and 4.30pm. Weekends are free, with this morning being an exception, and most of you do have free days in the middle of the week as well. You might get homework to do from your main subject masters in particular."
While speaking she handed out the schedules in question, laminated so that they would not be so easily ruined. A quiet murmur rose among the apprentices as they studied them.
"Now", Toby said, speaking above the murmur, "let's get settled in and then you'll have today and tomorrow off. Remember to set your alarm if you have a morning lesson on Monday, perhaps especially if you need to travel from one mansion to another."
Some groaned in reply to this; getting up for an early Monday lesson was not something that anyone enjoyed. However they had signed up for this freely and thanks to the still standing ice wall there really was no turning back, thus they all got up from the grass and trotted back to the cars. Those that would be staying at the Tiger Mansion took their bags out and headed inside to pick their rooms.
"I've got one of the single rooms!" Indira called after them while clearing up in the paddock. "If anyone tries to defy me I'll jinx them in their sleep!"
"I wouldn't be surprised if she did that, you know!" Wolfgang called from the cars, before quickly getting in and driving off towards the Turtle Mansion before Indira could get her wand out and hex him as well. Eventually only the ones meant to stay at the Tiger Mansion remained.
"Are you alright?" Arianne asked Maryse as they headed upstairs to the room they had decided to share. "Is it Godric?"
"I still haven't heard from him", Maryse said. She was frowning and looked, to those who knew her well, worried.
"He's alright, I'm sure", Arianne assured her. "I mean, what could have happened in these hours since we last saw him?"
Godric did not know how many glasses of whiskey he had downed in the past six hours. Fifteen? Twenty? Thirty? He did not really care anymore, but he did regret casting an irremovable anti-drunkenness spell on the drink some time ago. Now he could not even get drunk in his own apartment to remove the pain he now felt gnawing away in his chest.
His phone started to vibrate on the table in front of him, again. Maryse's picture showed up on the screen, just like it had all the other times the phone had gone off in the past twenty-four hours. He did not make a move to answer it. Instead he stared down at the crystal glass in his hand for a few more moments before getting up and hurling it into the wall at the far end of the room with a roar of pain. There was already a pile of shattered glass beneath that spot. The hotel must soon start to miss them. He did not care. Sure, he could use a repairing charm to fix the mess he had made by that wall, but he certainly could not repair everything. No one could do that.
In fact the only thing that woke him from his misery was the sound of the elevator approaching. No one stepped inside his elevator unless it was a friend of his and he had no more friends left in this town. This simple thought caused him to draw his wand and point it towards the still closed doors.
The elevator dinged when it reached his apartment and the doors slowly slid open. He had a very foul curse ready, but no sound came across his lips when the doors revealed the person inside the elevator. In fact he was unable to even think the spell in question.
"No", he eventually managed to spit out, "not possible."
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