Chuchiru: --
Morgan: What?
Chuchiru: They're looking at you--
Morgan: Who?
Chuchiru: Them.
Morgan: --Riiiiight--
Chuchiru: The readers-- They're out there--
Morgan: --Well, yeah, they are.
Chuchiru: Staring--
Morgan: Um-- Yeah. Anyway, here's the third chapter. I had plenty of time to think it through, and I'm definitely going to finish this story even if there's no actual fanbase for it. However, I'd love some reader feedback, of course.
Chuchiru: Read and review, please!
Morgan: I want Ash to have a romance in the story, but I don't know with who. Certainly one of the characters I've introduced in these first chapters, here, but I can't decide which one. Read this installment, where I'll introduce the rest (save one or two, who'll show up in the next two or three chapters) of the major storyline characters, then e-mail me or tell me in a review who you'd like Ash to hook up with. Whoever it is, they'll be together forever, though, so make sure you say your piece if you have an opinion; I don't care who it is, but I need your help.
Chuchiru: So post your review now!
* * *
Ashnod decided after a few minutes that he could definitely learn to like this new school if all the teachers were anything like Kelvin. Art was already better than any of the classes he had been in back at Luskan, with no restrictions on his creativity and plenty of material to go around. The other three boys at his table passed the time exchanging school stories with him, filling him in on the layout of the facility and the personalities of the faculty, as they laboriously crafted their own sculptures. There was obviously some concentrated talent amongst them, since easily discernable shapes immediately began to emerge from the grayish clay.
Casanith was pulling a tree out of his lump of material, hollowing out the trunk and adding such embellishments as a skull and slightly bloated crow on one branch. It had far to go, but promised to be interesting in the end.
Kendrick was smoothing out a face; whose was not apparent, although the structure seemed elvish at first. As it progressed, the form of a young woman became visible, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose; a goddess or nymph, perhaps. The clay seemed to shift naturally under the dark-haired boy's fingers, although when complimented on it, he acted shy and deprecating of his own work, protesting his talentlessness.
J'soon chose to pinch out a pot, smoothing its edges carefully and punching out designs here and there to make it more attractive to the eye. He tossed over the idea of filling it with clay grapes and oranges, but decided against it in favor of adding more designs to the outside with his fingernails.
Ash was definitely the most into the project. With his slender fingers, he quickly had a basic shape going--a tall cone with a disc balanced on its edge at the peak. With a flick of his fingers, and to the amazed stares of the others, he unsheathed long, sharp talons from beneath his fingernails, using them to carve details into the model. He even brought his tail up under one arm to assist him, shaping and defining with the barb at the end of the prehensile appendage. In ten minutes, the shape was recognizable. In thirty, it was definite.
"That's Sigil, isn't it?" Casanith whispered. He had finished his own sculpture some time ago, and had been watching Ashnod ever since. "The City of Doors in the Outlands."
"You know about it?" the tiefling asked with mild surprise. "I thought that only the mage academies taught extraplanar geography and such."
"They don't have a class like that here, but I've read about it, and I've seen pictures on the astralnet. I wouldn't mind seeing other Planes, but I guess you kind of have to get off the Prime first." Casanith peered in wonder at the hollow wheel of Sigil on its clay Spire.
"That is amazing," Kelvin said, coming up behind Ash's chair. "You're really good, you know that? You'll fit right in with these guys here--they all have quite a bit of talent themselves. Some of them tend more toward laziness than art when it comes to specialization, though." The art teacher cocked a reproving eyebrow at Casanith and J'soon over Ashnod's shoulder.
"I work," the older boy protested with a grin.
"Sometimes," Kelvin agreed grudgingly. "Once in a while he comes up with something that's almost worth waiting for, too."
A bell sounded in the hall outside. "That's it, kids," Kelvin announced, clapping his hands together. "Leave everything on the table. I want to have a look at your work. Don't worry, we'll go over cleanup procedures tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your first day, if you can." He waved them toward the door.
"Where do I go next, Kelvin?" Ash asked as he rose, leaving his fragile-seeming miniature Sigil on the table and gathering his books.
"Evocation, I believe, wasn't it?" the art teacher replied with a smile.
"Thanks a lot."
"Don't worry about it. I have a feeling we're going to get along fine, so best to start out well, huh?" He jerked his head toward the door. "Get outta here, you four. See you later."
The boys stayed together as they walked down the hall toward their next classes. "What've you got next, Ash?" J'soon asked, shifting his pack.
"Evocation."
"Great," Kendrick chirped. "You'll be in there with me. I've got evocation right before abjuration."
"I've got abjuration with you, too, then!" Ash effervesced. "What do you guys have?"
"Alchemy," J'soon sighed morbidly.
"Dwarvish," Casanith said just as disgustedly. "You gotta have at least one foreign language before you can graduate, and I don't want to have one my senior year unless I can get elvish."
"Well," Kendrick said, stopping in front of the evocation room doorway with Ash, "guess we'll see you guys at lunch, then." He pushed the tiefling on into the room.
The boys took two seats in the front row of desks, side by side, as others began filtering into the room. Two of the walls were covered with hanging diagrams depicting mages in fashionably dramatic poses, detailed positions for hands and fingers, and various symbols and formulae. The third wall was a line of windows, their shades pulled up to reveal the front lawn of the building; apparently the classroom was on the outside edge of the facility, unlike the art room, which was stuffed on the other side of the hall, windowless. Truthfully, Ash preferred the art chamber--he was dreadfully sensitive to sunlight, and made sure he was well away from the windows. The final wall, where all the desks were facing, was a blackboard hung behind a monumental desk. There was no teacher in sight.
"Hey, Brenna!" Kendrick greeted another student with sudden exuberance. The girl, who was just entering the room, spotted him and came over with a smile.
"Ash, this is Brenna la Faye," the dark-haired boy introduced her. She was fairly tall for a girl, with long, dark brown hair and smiling brown eyes like Kendrick's. She was dressed in a pair of baggy jeans, a tie- die shirt, and sandals, carrying a purse under one arm and a pair of books under the other.
"Nice to meet you," Brenna said, shaking the hand Ash extended dubiously.
"Er, same here," the tiefling responded.
"Brenna's one of our little group, or whatever," Kendrick explained. "We've been friends for a few years now. Our type of people tend to stick together, kind of, since there's fewer of us than of all the other social groups; she's okay."
"Our type of people?" the newcomer repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, you know, the smart ones who don't do drugs, don't wear designer clothes, aren't on any sports teams, and accept everyone else."
"And who are put down and picked on because of it," Brenna added. "But we're not bitter about it. Most of the time. So, you're Ash, huh? New guy?"
"I just moved here from Luskan."
"There's not a lot of planetouched on Toril, are there? It's kinda neat to meet one." She suddenly let out a squeal of delight. "Is that tail for real?"
"Well, yeah," Ash replied. He wanted to be annoyed with her remark, but couldn't bring himself to grow irritated. Here was a person who thought his oddities were actually cool; he didn't want to drive her off.
"That is so great," she said, sliding into the seat on Kendrick's other side. "I've never met anyone with a tail before. That barb looks dangerous though."
"Venomous," he informed her deprecatingly. "So are the teeth and stuff. I have to be careful, sometimes, 'cause it's prehensile, but it twitches by itself if I don't pay attention."
"Teeth and stuff?"
"He has claws, too," Kendrick put in. "He used them in art; real handy."
The bell rang, and the last few stragglers in the hallway dashed into their classrooms. Ash noticed with some surprise that they were the only three people in the room.
A man entered, presumably the instructor, shutting the door behind him. He was tall, but bent slightly with age, and had a long gray beard and imposing, bushy eyebrows. His head bore no bald spot, but his steel-colored hair was cut short, and his eyes were piercing and of the same hue. He wore businesslike dress clothing under his red robe.
Moving to his desk, he glanced at the list of names that lay there, then up at his pupils with some annoyance. "That's it? Just you three?" His voice was rough and gravelly, stern like the rest of him.
"I guess," Kendrick shrugged, looking around.
The teacher sighed. "Blast and bebother this festering metropolis!" he spat, shaking his fist at the tiny part of the city of Waterdeep that was visible across the street that bordered the school's front lawn. He marched over to the windows and pulled down the shades, covering the offensive view. "I'm not here to waste my time with a handful of boisterous nixies; there ought to be at least twenty in this class to even justify my presence in this building at seven o'clock every weekday morning." He strode back to his massive wooden desk and plopped ungracefully in his chair. "Do you know what I had for breakfast this morning?" he asked, directing the question at Brenna.
"Er, ah, no?" she ventured, taken somewhat aback.
"Nothing!" he shrieked triumphantly, as though he had just scored a colossal point. "Not a blasted thing!" He got a grip on himself with some embarrassment, leaning back in his seat and venting a sigh. "Well, it can't be helped, I suppose. It's not your fault, is it? You're in here to learn, and I'm in here to teach, so let's get cracking."
He stood, seeming to notice Ash for the first time. "Oho, a tiefling this year, is it? Maybe we'll have an interesting time of it, after all. You have to be new here, or I'd know about you! What's your name, boy?"
"Ashnod, sir," the student replied, somewhat fearfully.
"Appropriate, I'd say. You have a tanar'rian aura about you. Well, I can't say how pleased I am to meet you--and you two, too, if you're friends with him. You've made my year! I've only had a planetouched student once before, an aasimon girl about thirty years ago. I enjoyed teaching her, and always wanted a tiefling in class to see what it would be like. My career doesn't allow me to go planehopping and find out." He came over and extended his hand. "I'm Zander Orpheus Cain," he declared. Ash took his hand and shook it firmly.
The man examined his hand. "Rather a bit below freezing, aren't you, my boy? I guess I'd better start with that. Being a tiefling, is there anything I need to know before we start hurling spells about? Special attributes and such? Besides the tail with which you are so dexterously scratching your back."
"It should be in my medical records, sir," Ash told him. "Ah, fangs, prehensile tail with barb, and retractable claws--all venomous. Then, night vision, surface climbing, unlimited teleportation within visual range, and energy channeling through touch. Oh, and my body temperature, sir."
Professor Cain raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline as Ash ticked these off on his fingers, a reaction imitated by Kendrick and Brenna, who exchanged a long look. "Body temperature--you mean you're just cold?"
"Ah, very cold, sir. I'm supersensitive to sunlight because I overheat very easily when exposed to any source of heat, but cold doesn't bother me at all."
The teacher looked him up and down narrowly. "You're in much too good a shape to not work out for it. If you overheat, how do you do that?"
Ash blushed a little. "It's because I have dragon blood in me, sir. Silver dragon--that's why cold doesn't affect me, and just a little exercise keeps me in shape. Too much over a long period will burn me out, though--after about an hour of running or whatever I get a nosebleed, a migraine, and pass out. It can kill me if I push."
"Well, don't worry about it in here. We'll be careful with fire spells and keep you away from the windows in the summer, and you should be fine. Let me know if I need to cool it down, though, all right? You two, too. You have to be comfortable to learn, I always say." Something seemed to dawn on the man. "Did you say--silver dragon blood?"
"Yes, Mister Cain, sir. I'm a sorcerer. That's why I withdrew from the Hosttower at Luskan."
Cain's squinted. "Prove it."
Ash looked startled, but obediently glanced toward the blackboard. A shimmer in the air coalesced into a crystalline blade of bluish ice, hovering in front of his face at eye level. He narrowed his eyes as the other three in the room widened theirs, and the conjured shard streaked through the air to shatter on the spell-protected surface. A wide ring of frost marked the point of impact.
He turned back to Cain, and with no word or even gesture but the opening of his raised hand, summoned a crackling black globe of energy, which rested lightly on his palm like a spherical window into nothingness. "How's that?"
"Impressive," Cain grinned. "It looks like you've got a good start. Even though this class is for magi, I can still show you a few tricks that will be helpful, though. Perhaps this class will turn out better than I thought it would."
Morgan: What?
Chuchiru: They're looking at you--
Morgan: Who?
Chuchiru: Them.
Morgan: --Riiiiight--
Chuchiru: The readers-- They're out there--
Morgan: --Well, yeah, they are.
Chuchiru: Staring--
Morgan: Um-- Yeah. Anyway, here's the third chapter. I had plenty of time to think it through, and I'm definitely going to finish this story even if there's no actual fanbase for it. However, I'd love some reader feedback, of course.
Chuchiru: Read and review, please!
Morgan: I want Ash to have a romance in the story, but I don't know with who. Certainly one of the characters I've introduced in these first chapters, here, but I can't decide which one. Read this installment, where I'll introduce the rest (save one or two, who'll show up in the next two or three chapters) of the major storyline characters, then e-mail me or tell me in a review who you'd like Ash to hook up with. Whoever it is, they'll be together forever, though, so make sure you say your piece if you have an opinion; I don't care who it is, but I need your help.
Chuchiru: So post your review now!
* * *
Ashnod decided after a few minutes that he could definitely learn to like this new school if all the teachers were anything like Kelvin. Art was already better than any of the classes he had been in back at Luskan, with no restrictions on his creativity and plenty of material to go around. The other three boys at his table passed the time exchanging school stories with him, filling him in on the layout of the facility and the personalities of the faculty, as they laboriously crafted their own sculptures. There was obviously some concentrated talent amongst them, since easily discernable shapes immediately began to emerge from the grayish clay.
Casanith was pulling a tree out of his lump of material, hollowing out the trunk and adding such embellishments as a skull and slightly bloated crow on one branch. It had far to go, but promised to be interesting in the end.
Kendrick was smoothing out a face; whose was not apparent, although the structure seemed elvish at first. As it progressed, the form of a young woman became visible, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose; a goddess or nymph, perhaps. The clay seemed to shift naturally under the dark-haired boy's fingers, although when complimented on it, he acted shy and deprecating of his own work, protesting his talentlessness.
J'soon chose to pinch out a pot, smoothing its edges carefully and punching out designs here and there to make it more attractive to the eye. He tossed over the idea of filling it with clay grapes and oranges, but decided against it in favor of adding more designs to the outside with his fingernails.
Ash was definitely the most into the project. With his slender fingers, he quickly had a basic shape going--a tall cone with a disc balanced on its edge at the peak. With a flick of his fingers, and to the amazed stares of the others, he unsheathed long, sharp talons from beneath his fingernails, using them to carve details into the model. He even brought his tail up under one arm to assist him, shaping and defining with the barb at the end of the prehensile appendage. In ten minutes, the shape was recognizable. In thirty, it was definite.
"That's Sigil, isn't it?" Casanith whispered. He had finished his own sculpture some time ago, and had been watching Ashnod ever since. "The City of Doors in the Outlands."
"You know about it?" the tiefling asked with mild surprise. "I thought that only the mage academies taught extraplanar geography and such."
"They don't have a class like that here, but I've read about it, and I've seen pictures on the astralnet. I wouldn't mind seeing other Planes, but I guess you kind of have to get off the Prime first." Casanith peered in wonder at the hollow wheel of Sigil on its clay Spire.
"That is amazing," Kelvin said, coming up behind Ash's chair. "You're really good, you know that? You'll fit right in with these guys here--they all have quite a bit of talent themselves. Some of them tend more toward laziness than art when it comes to specialization, though." The art teacher cocked a reproving eyebrow at Casanith and J'soon over Ashnod's shoulder.
"I work," the older boy protested with a grin.
"Sometimes," Kelvin agreed grudgingly. "Once in a while he comes up with something that's almost worth waiting for, too."
A bell sounded in the hall outside. "That's it, kids," Kelvin announced, clapping his hands together. "Leave everything on the table. I want to have a look at your work. Don't worry, we'll go over cleanup procedures tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your first day, if you can." He waved them toward the door.
"Where do I go next, Kelvin?" Ash asked as he rose, leaving his fragile-seeming miniature Sigil on the table and gathering his books.
"Evocation, I believe, wasn't it?" the art teacher replied with a smile.
"Thanks a lot."
"Don't worry about it. I have a feeling we're going to get along fine, so best to start out well, huh?" He jerked his head toward the door. "Get outta here, you four. See you later."
The boys stayed together as they walked down the hall toward their next classes. "What've you got next, Ash?" J'soon asked, shifting his pack.
"Evocation."
"Great," Kendrick chirped. "You'll be in there with me. I've got evocation right before abjuration."
"I've got abjuration with you, too, then!" Ash effervesced. "What do you guys have?"
"Alchemy," J'soon sighed morbidly.
"Dwarvish," Casanith said just as disgustedly. "You gotta have at least one foreign language before you can graduate, and I don't want to have one my senior year unless I can get elvish."
"Well," Kendrick said, stopping in front of the evocation room doorway with Ash, "guess we'll see you guys at lunch, then." He pushed the tiefling on into the room.
The boys took two seats in the front row of desks, side by side, as others began filtering into the room. Two of the walls were covered with hanging diagrams depicting mages in fashionably dramatic poses, detailed positions for hands and fingers, and various symbols and formulae. The third wall was a line of windows, their shades pulled up to reveal the front lawn of the building; apparently the classroom was on the outside edge of the facility, unlike the art room, which was stuffed on the other side of the hall, windowless. Truthfully, Ash preferred the art chamber--he was dreadfully sensitive to sunlight, and made sure he was well away from the windows. The final wall, where all the desks were facing, was a blackboard hung behind a monumental desk. There was no teacher in sight.
"Hey, Brenna!" Kendrick greeted another student with sudden exuberance. The girl, who was just entering the room, spotted him and came over with a smile.
"Ash, this is Brenna la Faye," the dark-haired boy introduced her. She was fairly tall for a girl, with long, dark brown hair and smiling brown eyes like Kendrick's. She was dressed in a pair of baggy jeans, a tie- die shirt, and sandals, carrying a purse under one arm and a pair of books under the other.
"Nice to meet you," Brenna said, shaking the hand Ash extended dubiously.
"Er, same here," the tiefling responded.
"Brenna's one of our little group, or whatever," Kendrick explained. "We've been friends for a few years now. Our type of people tend to stick together, kind of, since there's fewer of us than of all the other social groups; she's okay."
"Our type of people?" the newcomer repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, you know, the smart ones who don't do drugs, don't wear designer clothes, aren't on any sports teams, and accept everyone else."
"And who are put down and picked on because of it," Brenna added. "But we're not bitter about it. Most of the time. So, you're Ash, huh? New guy?"
"I just moved here from Luskan."
"There's not a lot of planetouched on Toril, are there? It's kinda neat to meet one." She suddenly let out a squeal of delight. "Is that tail for real?"
"Well, yeah," Ash replied. He wanted to be annoyed with her remark, but couldn't bring himself to grow irritated. Here was a person who thought his oddities were actually cool; he didn't want to drive her off.
"That is so great," she said, sliding into the seat on Kendrick's other side. "I've never met anyone with a tail before. That barb looks dangerous though."
"Venomous," he informed her deprecatingly. "So are the teeth and stuff. I have to be careful, sometimes, 'cause it's prehensile, but it twitches by itself if I don't pay attention."
"Teeth and stuff?"
"He has claws, too," Kendrick put in. "He used them in art; real handy."
The bell rang, and the last few stragglers in the hallway dashed into their classrooms. Ash noticed with some surprise that they were the only three people in the room.
A man entered, presumably the instructor, shutting the door behind him. He was tall, but bent slightly with age, and had a long gray beard and imposing, bushy eyebrows. His head bore no bald spot, but his steel-colored hair was cut short, and his eyes were piercing and of the same hue. He wore businesslike dress clothing under his red robe.
Moving to his desk, he glanced at the list of names that lay there, then up at his pupils with some annoyance. "That's it? Just you three?" His voice was rough and gravelly, stern like the rest of him.
"I guess," Kendrick shrugged, looking around.
The teacher sighed. "Blast and bebother this festering metropolis!" he spat, shaking his fist at the tiny part of the city of Waterdeep that was visible across the street that bordered the school's front lawn. He marched over to the windows and pulled down the shades, covering the offensive view. "I'm not here to waste my time with a handful of boisterous nixies; there ought to be at least twenty in this class to even justify my presence in this building at seven o'clock every weekday morning." He strode back to his massive wooden desk and plopped ungracefully in his chair. "Do you know what I had for breakfast this morning?" he asked, directing the question at Brenna.
"Er, ah, no?" she ventured, taken somewhat aback.
"Nothing!" he shrieked triumphantly, as though he had just scored a colossal point. "Not a blasted thing!" He got a grip on himself with some embarrassment, leaning back in his seat and venting a sigh. "Well, it can't be helped, I suppose. It's not your fault, is it? You're in here to learn, and I'm in here to teach, so let's get cracking."
He stood, seeming to notice Ash for the first time. "Oho, a tiefling this year, is it? Maybe we'll have an interesting time of it, after all. You have to be new here, or I'd know about you! What's your name, boy?"
"Ashnod, sir," the student replied, somewhat fearfully.
"Appropriate, I'd say. You have a tanar'rian aura about you. Well, I can't say how pleased I am to meet you--and you two, too, if you're friends with him. You've made my year! I've only had a planetouched student once before, an aasimon girl about thirty years ago. I enjoyed teaching her, and always wanted a tiefling in class to see what it would be like. My career doesn't allow me to go planehopping and find out." He came over and extended his hand. "I'm Zander Orpheus Cain," he declared. Ash took his hand and shook it firmly.
The man examined his hand. "Rather a bit below freezing, aren't you, my boy? I guess I'd better start with that. Being a tiefling, is there anything I need to know before we start hurling spells about? Special attributes and such? Besides the tail with which you are so dexterously scratching your back."
"It should be in my medical records, sir," Ash told him. "Ah, fangs, prehensile tail with barb, and retractable claws--all venomous. Then, night vision, surface climbing, unlimited teleportation within visual range, and energy channeling through touch. Oh, and my body temperature, sir."
Professor Cain raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline as Ash ticked these off on his fingers, a reaction imitated by Kendrick and Brenna, who exchanged a long look. "Body temperature--you mean you're just cold?"
"Ah, very cold, sir. I'm supersensitive to sunlight because I overheat very easily when exposed to any source of heat, but cold doesn't bother me at all."
The teacher looked him up and down narrowly. "You're in much too good a shape to not work out for it. If you overheat, how do you do that?"
Ash blushed a little. "It's because I have dragon blood in me, sir. Silver dragon--that's why cold doesn't affect me, and just a little exercise keeps me in shape. Too much over a long period will burn me out, though--after about an hour of running or whatever I get a nosebleed, a migraine, and pass out. It can kill me if I push."
"Well, don't worry about it in here. We'll be careful with fire spells and keep you away from the windows in the summer, and you should be fine. Let me know if I need to cool it down, though, all right? You two, too. You have to be comfortable to learn, I always say." Something seemed to dawn on the man. "Did you say--silver dragon blood?"
"Yes, Mister Cain, sir. I'm a sorcerer. That's why I withdrew from the Hosttower at Luskan."
Cain's squinted. "Prove it."
Ash looked startled, but obediently glanced toward the blackboard. A shimmer in the air coalesced into a crystalline blade of bluish ice, hovering in front of his face at eye level. He narrowed his eyes as the other three in the room widened theirs, and the conjured shard streaked through the air to shatter on the spell-protected surface. A wide ring of frost marked the point of impact.
He turned back to Cain, and with no word or even gesture but the opening of his raised hand, summoned a crackling black globe of energy, which rested lightly on his palm like a spherical window into nothingness. "How's that?"
"Impressive," Cain grinned. "It looks like you've got a good start. Even though this class is for magi, I can still show you a few tricks that will be helpful, though. Perhaps this class will turn out better than I thought it would."