Vhalar 51 722
Eternity had actually done it. She’d managed to scrape enough money to go to university. When she’d registered it didn’t seem like they actually needed to measure her aptitude at all. That had been her primary hesitation about getting a proper education. The other concern had been the cost, but she’d stolen enough to make do. She had a chat with one of the non-academic staff and talked about how she wanted to learn more about magic and that conversation led to her deciding that ensorcelling would be the right first step for her to take. It wasn’t actual magic, if she understood it correctly but then again it wasn’t as if she could learn how to use actual magic at the university anyways. At least, that was what she got out of the conversations she’d had. Learn about magic, yes, but not how to do spells especially since she wasn’t a mage. Eternity’s head spun when the staffer tried to explain it all to her so she’d just nodded her head in agreement to move the conversation forward. None of that really mattered though, because she’d been ecstatic to find out she was going to learn something.
So what was ensorcelling? Eternity only had a vague idea. Something to do with wells. She’d never been to a shop that carried them and when she’d looked around the public library she didn’t find anything, though that might have been because the library staff had been too busy to help at the time. As she sat in class she reflected on how hastily she’d decided to pay for this course load without giving proper thought, but that just went to show how impulsive she could be. She was in university now which meant she could brag about it. She was giddy with her status as a student and she hadn’t done a lick of work yet.
Eternity gazed around the room she was in. It was a typical classroom setting. There was a place for the instructor to stand, walk about, draw pictures, what have you. There were also a number of desks for students. The room looked small. It was not exactly what Eternity had pictured when she’d registered. She’d been to classrooms before, non-university ones, that were larger than this. It soon became clear why it was so small – there were not that many students. The realization made Eternity’s heart sink. “Did I make a mistake? Did I pay for a useless class? Do they offer refunds? I haven’t been in a classroom in so long, can I even do this?” she thought as a handful of other students filtered into the room. The other students looked so smart. They carried books with them, bags, looked intellectually capable. They were polar opposite of Eternity who looked very casual and dumb, relatively speaking.
Luckily the lesson started and Eternity had something else to think about instead of her doubts. The instructor spoke:
“Hello, I am Euadne Thamnistre, I am the Fractive Studies instructor. I welcome you to my class. Before we get started, I’d like to go around the room and find out who you are, what your backgrounds are and why you were interested in learning about this subject. Let’s start with… hm, you there, in the back.” She pointed right at Eternity.
Eternity started sweating bullets. Her background? Huh? What was this, a job interview? Even if it was, she wouldn’t have been prepared. Her voice cracked as uncharacteristic social awkwardness crept into her voice. “I’m… eep…” she coughed, “I’m Eternity. I’m taking this class because…” she looked around the room. Everyone was looking at her. She tried to calm down but it was incredibly difficult to do so. She took a deep breath and even that didn’t help. She decided to just rush through and think about the embarrassment after the fact. “I wanted to learn about magic, this seemed like a good course for that. My background is… not academic at all. I have a job but, I don’t want to talk about that. Um, I think I answered everything.” She then shut her mouth and buried her head in her hands.
Euadne smiled and said, “excellent. Next, you there.” She went around the room. All but one of the students had some kind of background studying magic or some other subject. The one that didn’t was a crafter who wanted to incorporate wells in their trade. Eternity hadn’t even know that was possible. When all was said and done Euadne started the lesson.
“I’m happy to see you all here today. I suppose I forgot to introduce myself, but then there’s so much I could say and I don’t want to take up too much precious time. I have a background in fracture diving and have collected wells. I’ve studied them for… quite some time now. I recently came to Scalvoris and have chosen to share what I’ve learned throughout the arcs. Now, can someone tell me what Fractive Studies actually entails? Anybody? Don’t be shy. Alright, it’s the first day I won’t pick on anyone. Fractive Studies covers fractures and wells and of course, ensorcellment. I take it everyone can pick up on these three words and have a general idea of what they are?”
Euadne looked around the room again and saw some nods and some head shakes. “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly natural. It’s the first day of class after all, one wouldn’t need to be here if they knew everything already. Alright, let’s start simply. We will be diving deeply into these topics so don’t be intimidated. Fractures are breaches between Emea and Idalos. They come in a variety of sizes and types but what you need to know for today is that they facilitate the formation of wells. What are wells? They are the result of ether flowing from Emea to Idalos. Ether cools and hardens into a well. Ether, for those of you who don’t know, is basically the fuel for magic. Mages use ether to cast spells. Similarly, the ether within a well can be used to produce certain effects, based on the type of the well. Ensorcelling is the act of processing and handling of wells to a… shape, a form that is useful to us.”
Euadne drew as she spoke and she spoke slowly so students could take notes. Eternity hadn’t brought so much as a piece of paper but someone from the desk over gave her a few. Eternity tried to jot down everything word for word but she couldn’t right nearly as fast as the teacher spoke. That led to her skipping around and having barely comprehensible notes. She was very thankful that Euadne repeated everything she said in a different way and jotted down the main points so everyone could copy them down. Eternity was not used to having a teacher that could actually… teach. The gym instructors had been good teachers but her most recent exposure to teaching had been terrible, absolutely awful singing instructors that she’d hired from bars.
Eternity was having enough trouble trying to wrap her mind around fractures and wells, but then she had to think about emea and ether as well. It was just too much. She was used to learning a lot simpler things and being able to forget about them. But she couldn’t just forget because Eaudne wanted to move onto other things. Eternity definitely did not feel like she belonged in this classroom. What chance did she have? None of the other students looked to be handing things so poorly.
Thankfully the rest of the lesson was rather simple. Instead of inundating the students with a bunch of complicated concepts Eaudne knew that the most important thing was to get students engaged and interested. She laid out sets of ensorcelling tools, one for each student. The students took turns coming up to take them as she slowly checked them to make sure each set of tools was complete and that the pieces still looked functional. These weren’t necessarily gifts to the students, since they paid for them with their tuition. Eternity, for one, was glad that she wouldn’t have to buy one. Eaudne spent time going over what each tool did. The kit included a variety of hammers, chisels, and tuning forks. She explained the purpose of each tool was briefly and encouraged the students to inspect them.
Eternity liked having tools in her hand. They felt natural to use. They were not tools she was used to using as a larcenist but they were about the same size as she was used to. Being able to hold them made her feel more secure because she thought that if she could just get good with them then she would be alright. That’s how it’d been with larceny at least. The lesson didn’t last all that much longer. There was time for questions and answers but Eternity didn’t ask any. She was still shy and insecure; it was something she wasn’t used to feeling. She hoped that with any luck she would be able to overcome these feelings and become a great student.
[Template credit to Pyrre]
