Faris woke up on the floor. Why had he woken up on the floor? Venka had decided to sleep practice Kung Fu, and gentle fisted his face hard enough to knock him off the bed. Faris considered that a good time to wake up, the night sky had begun to change in appearance, signaling the sun's rise, so that meant it would be a good time to train. He began practicing his tai chi. First was the warm up. As he faced the window, he stood with his feet flat on the floor, his legs were slightly wider than a normal stance with them barely going past his hips. He relaxed his arms and rotated his hips to the right and left gently, his arms following loosely, he rotated his neck, shoulders, and spine along with his hip movement, only relaxing the elbows as he concentrated on his breathing. He then shifted, opening his legs slightly into a shoulder length stance. He began the windmill exercise, relaxing as he began to shift his arms upwards and around, feeling the sweat begin to bead his forehead. He began going through the motions of each of the movements he had learned, finally finishing with the closing posture, in which he stood, feet shoulder-with apart again, relaxed shoulders as he brought his hands in front of his pelvis, cupped together, he closed his eyes, imagining energy flowing through him, he raised his arms slowly and deliberately, as if he had picked up precious water in his palms, lifting it up to his chest before turning his hands and gently pushing down, he repeated this course of movement for another minute, opening his eyes to see Venka observing him with interest, copying the movements he made.
"Oh!" He said, "When did you wake up?"
"When I punched you in the face." She admitted sheepishly. Faris for his part laughed.
"Well, it's a good thing you're awake then, we should probably prepare before Hanna comes to take us to their school."
Venka nodded, clenching her fist and giving off a determined look. The two of them had already resolved to tackle whatever came their way today. Hanna opened the door to a clean and sharp looking pair of kids, she smiled approvingly at their attire, they had gotten their best-looking clothing for the occasion.
"I'll give you bonus points for the new clothing, but deduct a few for the state of the room."
Venka groaned, causing Hanna to chuckle. "Since both Nasuada and Trianna have acted on your behalf you have a room to yourselves, we brought some extra linens and pillows there to help you get comfortable there, after the opening ceremony and speech you will be admitted to your room, after getting packed in you will be given a password only you can know to your room, everyone else will have a unique, magic keyword activated password. The Password isn't blocked by someone else's voice, and is effectively a spell, so you will feel a bit of energy drain each time."
They made their way to one of the large raised platforms that lined the tower of the castle, Faris stared in awe at the large stone and metal bridge that extended to the major towers surrounding the city, in which smaller bridges spider webbed across the top, he noticed now finally that there was a slightly blue transparent dome surrounding the city, likely a shield of some sort. They weren't the only ones on the platform, men and women and even some dwarves walked around busily, it seemed to be a popular spot, as they waited for something. A large bell began to ring, as Faris hear the sound of metallic chugging and a nostalgic horn.
"No way…" He murmured in amazement.
Hanna beamed in pride. "One of the greatest technologies hidden by Galbatorix was the discovery of a mineral that could be burned to release large amounts of energy, he had tasked mages with finding a way to take the byproduct of this burning, and renew it, under our Queen, researchers were able to finally do it, storing energy back into those minerals, we call them dark stones. The technology is mainly used to help transport workers all across the city and surrounding country side, and a special jewel is enchanted, capturing a bit of the energy released when the carriage moves, converting it into power for the rest of the city."
They stepped into the "carriage" and Faris marveled at how comfortable everything looked, the ride was completely smooth, he saw several robed individuals standing near a furnace, their faces in deep concentration.
"What are they doing?" Faris asked.
"They are Commerce and Engineering mages, many mages who believe they don't have the magical prowess to go to the front lines or become full time healers take this position, they help support the infrastructure and public works, often times magic is more precise than an human's hands, their job is to collect the soot through a filter, so only steam escapes, the soot was found through research to have an adverse effect on people who breathed it in, and the mages had learned a means of imbuing energy into the soot to create more dark stone, it's long and complicated yes, but it's also very much an important endeavor."
"How many mages would it take?" Venka asked.
"From what I've seen, it takes two mages 1 hour to turn the byproduct of burning darkstone back into one ounce of dark stone."
"But that takes so many mages!" Faris exclaimed in shock, thinking about how much coal was needed to fuel one train.
"You may not have realized it, but Galbatorix ignored many people who had barely any magical power. Our 'Research into Arcane Mysteries Guild' mages learned simple enchantments that granted some of those without the gift the ability to cast one or two simple spells. While the number of proper magic users worth a damn may number only about 5,000, the number of people who can use magical ability given the correct catalyst numbers over 30,000 in this city alone. These men and women, under the guide of about 1000 mages belonging to the Commerce and Engineering Guild, are the back bone of the city's commerce, working with black smiths, architects, artists, farmers, and general laborers to keep the city developing and running." She smiled in pride, "More and more children are born each day who may be able to contribute to the city this way. And they are paid a handsome wage for their work. Major cities like Teirm, Dras Leona, Gilead, and Carvahall are considering beginning their own local chapters of the Commerce and Engineering guild."
Faris nodded his head, impressed with the way the world had developed in such a short time. Galbatorix had been wrong to halt those one hundred years of development it seemed. Hanna spent the rest of their train trip talking about all the different technologies, such as the magic stones enchanted to clean the water entering the city, defending against poison and disease. How special pumps let water flow throughout the city, giving the vast majority of people access to plumbing and bathing in their own homes. The utilization of erisdar (the flameless lanterns used by elves and dwarves), to light the streets at night and improve public safety.
"I noticed that a few of the soldiers have jewelry on their armor." Venka spoke up as they got off the train and headed towards the academy, which was a large collection of several different buildings close together.
"Well that is for an important reason, Nasuada knows that no non magic user can hope to compete against a magician normally, so soldiers who have proven exemplary are awarded a special gemstone, they normally require relatively precious stones along the lines of Beryl, Aquamarines, or emeralds at least for the enchantment to work, the first thing that is done is about one tenth of the soldier's remaining stamina is absorbed by the stone before they rest. The armor is enchanted to do one of two things depending on the verbal or somatic setting the soldier has placed it on. The standard defense setting will use up the stone's reserves to block any magical attack that would otherwise incapacitate or kill the soldier, if the stone's reserves emptied then it would tax the soldier until they lacked the energy to spare. If the soldier had been injured the magic instead slows down their bleeding and begins attempting to heal the wound, depending on the severity pain may be temporarily removed. The other setting is combat mode, the soldier gains a boost of strength and speed for a short amount of time with the sole purpose of wearing out and breaking the mage's wards. In order to be approved for one the soldier must have passed several trials and proven himself worthy from his achievements in the military. They must be at least competent in mental defense against a mage, and exemplary melee combatants. Our practice trials show that soldiers equipped this way have a 35% chance of defeating mages they run into in a straight forward fight, which is a lot better than the virtually 0% an unprotected man would have against a mage. The longer the soldier of this rank serves the more energy the stone would likely have in reserves. When a soldier retires exemplary younger soldier inherit the stone and the cycle continues. These soldiers are called the SIS, short for Sorcerer Interception Squadron. Many of the commerce and engineering mages devote time to helping fill in energy for the soldiers who have the most experience or decorated titles. Though most of them are down in the south, allied with Surdan forces to face down the Steel Horde."
As Faris and Venka entered the complex, they turned to face Hanna. "Steel Horde?" They said in unison.
Hanna nodded, "Yes, a coalition of several wandering tribes and small kingdoms below Alagaesia, Galbatorix seemed to have been aware of them but chose not to interfere due to their sheer size and number, it seems the Scarlet Heart has formed a partnership with them and they have begun an invasion. As it is, we are holding them back with great ease, 3 riders had returned from training and are in the front lines, and the Urgals and Dwarves sent some of their elites down to help. The Wandering Blade Guild, Commerce and Engineering Guild, Research into Arcane Mysteries Guild, and Protectors of Life Guild have sent teams of their best mages and apprentices down there. The elves have even sent a retinue of mages and archers to bolster the flanks and rendezvous with the human and dwarven mages. Urgal shamans have shown themselves relatively unwilling to work with the rest of them. In fact, in order to show the people that the elves were still their allies, they decided to send two young elven dignitaries here as diplomatic exchanges with some nobles here to Ellesméra."
"Aren't there five mage guilds?" Faris asked, "where's the fifth?"
"Oh? That would be the Branching Path Guild, almost all of them are down in the front lines."
As Faris and Venka made it to the main assembly of students, he noticed more than a few giving them odd looks. News about the half Surdan boy and girl with curly fire for hair had passed by quickly, and they had established a reputation. Or at least, Venka had.
"Excuse me, madam, I must say, even in your youth I can see the blossoming of a great beauty." A handsome young man with blond curly hair walked up to Venka. He had on a charming smile as he pushed past Faris, grabbed Venka's hand, and kissed it. "I am pleasantly surprised that more exemplary mages in training earned their way into the Pearl class."
Venka looked at him with a face that reminded Faris of the time she found a dead rat killed by a poisoned hunk of cheese, and he couldn't help but laugh at the teen's awkward reaction to Venka's visible disgust. He turned to face Faris, scowling.
"I see I have a rival for her affection!" He posed ridiculously, placing his hands on his face and eccentrically moving them away, revealing a rose in between his lips. "Pleasure to meet you, cherished rival, I am Morgan!"
Faris nodded as Venka looked away in disgust. "I am Faris, and she is Venka. I take it you are one of the original six to make it into the Pearl class, how did you pass?"
"Ah my dear friend, using my mystical mastery of the arcane, I conjured a lightning storm, smiting the iron man where it stood until it eventually melted from the force of my power!"
"…No but really, how'd you do it?"
"Oh! Faris my friend! You doubt me! Oh, my heart is filled with pain from this betrayal!" He slung his arm over his head in mock shock. Venka giggled at his ridiculous display, which caused Morgan to open one eye and wink at her. "Oh, if only a beautiful maiden doth blessed me with her kiss! It would cure my pain filled heart."
His face got dangerously close to Venka's before being pulled back by the combined efforts of two girls, one with straight black hair and brown eyes, the other was a bit taller with straight brown hair and blue eyes.
"Morgan, what are you doing?" The black-haired girl began, looking down at Morgan with an annoyed look.
"Oh! Nya! My darling how are you!" Morgan tried to get up, only to realize the brown-haired girl was keeping him from rising. "Katya! My dear do you mind moving your foot? I love that you would wish to be so intimate with me, but I cannot give you a hug if you don't let your foot up my dear!"
Katya smiled at Morgan and let her foot up slightly only to press it down a bit harder. "I apologize, I accidentally slipped, I tend to do that when womanizers call me "dear".
"Ehm… Dully noted…" Morgan states. Breathing deeply as Katya lets him up, he turns back to Faris.
"My Rival! Allow me to introduce! Katya, the daughter of Sona, the head of the Protectors of Life Guild, 'P.O.L.' or 'POL' for short. And Nya, little sister to Cecilia, second in command and acting head of the Wandering Blade Guild."
The two girls appraised Faris and Venka coolly, nodding their hellos to Faris before turning the bulk of their attention to Venka.
"It's pleasing to see another girl here, especially one as powerful as you." Nya said, smiling. "I'd be happy to welcome you to the Wandering Blade Guild."
Katya interrupted her, "Don't go recruiting already, she'd be better off in the Protectors of Life." She smiled at Venka, "You'll join right?"
Venka looked flustered at their attempts to recruit her. Morgan stood in front. "Don't overwhelm the poor girl on her first day ladies! It's unbecoming." Both Katya and Nya looked down in embarrassment over their forward attitudes. Faris felt some respect for Morgan's countenance and values, and immediately had that respect dashed away. "You should all join the Researchers into Arcane Mysteries! Three lovely lasses like you would go a long way in this guild."
Venka sighed in annoyance at the three's bickering, she hoped that she didn't become so odd when she became a teenager, she was turning twelve soon, and that worried her a bit.
"I see the rest of you lot have gathered here." A smug voice approached them from afar, they turned to see a fat boy with freckles and short brown hair on his head.
"Tiny Mortimer" Venka blurted out, pointing at the boy. This elicited chortles from the three who had been fighting.
'Tiny Mortimer' for his part took it in stride. "Oh? You recognize my illustrious family resemblance to my Uncle Mortimer? I give you a pass, my name is Bartholomew Vignette. But I already know all of you, information is an important thing to know." He turned to Faris, "Nice to meet you."
Faris absentmindedly nodded. Venka turned to look at him. "What's wrong?" Faris said nothing, so Venka followed his gaze to a strange fellow wearing the oddest attire. Their tunic and pants seemed normal, but they had a hood and mask that blocked anything except for their piercing blue eyes.
Bartholomew nodded, "You have good intuition, my uncle was correct." He grinned, "That's Lord Jaya's child, not much is known about her, so the information is expensive. I can tell you however that she's the most powerful Pearl Initiate, even if we compare to the second, third, and fourth years who had graduated to Pearl Initiate, of course that rank is debatable when we compare to you, young lady Venka."
"Doesn't seem so tough to me, she's just standing there staring at us." Venka scoffed.
Faris did not take his eyes off the girl, eventually the crowd filled up and he lost track of her.
"Ahem."
Everyone turned to look at the podium overlooking the audience hall. Lord Jaya stood at the front, Sona stood to his right, and Rakus stood to his left.
"I thank you students from the bottom of my heart for making it this year, as I'm sure you are aware, we face trying times both within and without our nation, but together we can overcome. It is quite fortunate then that the grand games take place soon, for this reason, and to prepare our students for any threats, the level of intensity each level take in training various skills shall rise. And to add to the incentive, any students who enter the grand games and achieve at least a notable mention shall be awarded a diamond gemstone and two free visits to the charging station." The students erupted into excited chatter over the news. All except a few, most pearl Initiates showed a lack of excitement, fourth years in general showed apathy to the news, and the group of first year Pearl Initiatives continued to generally bicker among themselves.
"What's important about the charging station?" Venka asked.
Bartholomew puffed his chest with pride. "There are 20 charging stations, each one houses 50 magicians who take 3-hour shifts. These 1,000 magicians at a time power and add more layers to the shield protecting the city from any who mean to harm it. Now even a dragon would find the walls nearly impenetrable. Anyways, accomplished or extremely affluent mages can go to a charging station if they earn or buy a token, and one half of the energy generated in those three hours is instead siphoned off into the mage's crystal, it's a quick one-year dump of magic into your arsenal, and any copper initiative with half a brain's way into pearl next year."
"And why don't the pearls care?"
"geez you really are new, here let me explain, when classes are taken, coppers automatically dump half their magical stamina into an orb as payment for their classes daily, silver pay 20%, Gold pay 10%. Pearl Initiatives don't have to pay anything, in fact depending on class rankings, you can gain a chunk of the daily pooled in energy, only so many students can become Pearl for that reason."
So that's why they wanted us as silver or gold, Faris realized, they wanted Venka to give a chunk of her massive energy many times over for at least a year.
"Mages, especially human mages, have finite levels of magic that can't be compared to dragons, elves, riders, shades, and perhaps you miss Venka." Bartholomew continued. "So, placing as much energy as we can into our gemstones as quickly as possible is our way of competing against power houses. The big difference being no matter how much power we amass this way, it is finite in a way no Rider's magic is. When it comes to a rider or an elf, they start off with a high maximum magic power, and even after exhausting their power, they will recover at the pace a human recovers stamina." He lifts up a diamond, "It doesn't matter if I amass twice as much magical power than an elf did, I now must fight with this in order to compete with an elf, and even then there's no saying I can handle that much magic at a single moment, so a fight with an elf will become an endurance match of two competing long lasting spells if I wish to win, I better hope the elf doesn't attack with hit and run strategies then, slowly wearing down my magic that unlike him or her, I can't replenish nearly as quickly. I better also hope the elf didn't have similar ideas and don't place their energy within gemstones the way I did, because having twice as much magic as an elf is barely able to handle one, the equivalent of even two or three elves would spell my doom at the point, and the sad thing is it would have taken me a year to amass that much energy by myself, when it would take an elf a little less than a week to surpass it."
"What does that make me?" Faris asked Bartholomew, interested in his lecture.
"That makes you incredibly smart, but stupidly reckless." Bartholomew commented. "From what I can tell, you barely have the magic of the average copper initiate, that's why those two meat-headed women barely paid you a second glance, well, that and sexism." He ignored the angry stares Katya and Nya gave him. "My suggestion to you is dump as much energy into your stone when you receive it today, and keep dumping as much energy as you can. Maybe think about joining the great games trial, you certainly look like someone who'd make an interesting showing in the junior league."
As the students began to leave a number appeared before everyone.
"As you see, every student has someone who shares their number, this is your roommate, if you have any complaints, bring it forth at a later time."
Faris and Venka looked at each other and rushed to their room. Packing away their items
"Well, those kids seemed like interesting people." Faris smiled to Venka, who grinned back.
"They're all cuckoo."