Rising Shards

“This Tragic Pizza of Exam Humiliations” (49.1)



When I pictured the void adventuring part of my final, I pictured us back in that fallen castle, and everything was all explode-y, and we were all locked in a desperate struggle with some huge void monster, our class careers on the line if we couldn’t defeat it.

Instead, I found myself sitting with the group as Diast casually instructed us about our attire.

“Say you’re going into an icy environment, what do you set your adaptive gear to?” Diast asked.

All of us fiddled with the controls of our gear, changing our attire to warm coats.

“Perfect!” Diast said. “Set it back to normal, and that concludes the gear part of your finals.”

With each task completed, we got a little closer.

“Next is some fighting and adventuring, but I’ll be here as you head down.” Diast said, pointing to the stairwell behind us.

This was the last day of finals. Each of our seven classes got a day for finals at school. At least one of us had managed to embarrass ourselves in the classes, but we also gave everything we had on the academic side. Now all that was left was the dungeon. We stood in our shared temple, which had changed greatly since we were last here for memory trials. Gone were the doors specifically for us, and the creepy statue that looked like me crying blood (a terrifying visual that in hindsight I’m surprised I didn’t have nightmares about). That whole section of the wall was now a big stairwell.

“There will be seven floors, one vaguely kinda sorta representing each of your classes.” Diast said.

“But we don’t all have the same schedule,” Kalei said. “Like I’m not in choir like Oka was.”

“That’s where the ‘kinda sorta’ part comes in. Treat this like a usual void adventuring challenge and you’ll be fine."

“Question!” Iris said, raising her hand in the air.

“Yeah?” Diast said.

“Are we going to have to walk all the way back up these stairs when we’re done? Cuz I think I’ll take the failing grade if so.”

“It’s not a lot of stairs…” Diast said.

“Says you!” Iris said.

“Alright, any non-stair related questions before you get started?” Diast asked.

I had plenty of questions, but none were really worth asking out loud. It was time for us to shut up and do this. Well, as a chatty bunch, I knew we’d be talking a lot during this so shutting up probably wasn’t happening. Shutting up at least for the questions for Diast part.

As we headed down to the first level of the void test, I tried to think about how my first period final went to see if that could give me any clues about what we’d be up against.

 

1st Period: Cani Biology 9 A2E3 DIAST

In my continued expectations of finals being a lot more dramatic than they were, I kept getting lost in a worry spiral that Diast’s exam would be incredibly difficult, filled to the brim with scientific verbiage too high level for my peanut brain. Instead, it was pretty direct, and the way she taught helped me actually know what the right answer would be from understanding the lessons versus the kind of final where I try to just remember what answer goes to what question, not really getting what I had put down on the page. I left it feeling pretty confident in my work even if I had slept terribly the night before.

After that came the lab, which got off to a start that was like if I was in a marathon and I started with my shoelaces tied together.

For this lab, we’d be dissecting a fake void monster. Baggies full of gross looking artificial void monsters were piled up in the center of the lab area. They looked like a pile of melted gummies about the size of a volleyball. One member from each team had to go get theirs, and I was voted in for my group. 

In an effort to seem really cool to my classmates, I started cracking a joke that I was sure would go over so well that the whole class would laugh and everyone would think I was the funniest person to ever walk the halls of the school. With my gross monster baggie in my hands, I said, “These things sure, uh, look like—” 

And then the bag slipped through my fingertips, landing on the ground with a splat.

I stared at the ground, a dopey smile on my face with my hands outstretched as it sunk in how the fake monster guts had splattered entirely on me and the ground, coating my dress, the bottom of my shirt, my leggings, and my shoes. It looked like I’d been sprayed with ink from some kind of magical evil octopus. If anyone else had been hit I would have felt awful, but at least I would have had them to suffer with. Instead, I got cackling students laughing at my misfortune as I tried really hard not to cry. Oka rushed over pretty quickly, emergency paper towels in hand. 

“I probably should have mentioned aprons on first.” Diast said.

“I’m…pretty sure you did,” I said, not in the mood for her sympathy. “Can I go back to the dorms and change?”

“Zates, we don’t have time. Just turn on the clean ‘er up feature and get back to it.” Kalei said.

“This isn’t adaptive gear, it’s just our regular uniform!” I said.

I rushed back to the dorm, fighting back stinging tears all the way. When I got out of the gross clothes, I thought it’d be fun to do the rest of my final in my PJs and a casual shirt. I could make a funny entrance back into the classroom Kalei style and get some points to counteract the embarrassment I just dealt with. But of course, the second I got out of my room, Naomi Ratuna found me while patrolling and asked, “Where’s your uniform?”

I felt the lack of sleep catching up with me on the way back, and had to try even harder not to cry after getting scolded by Naomi. I felt like all eyes were on me when I got back into the classroom, even if everyone was focused on their stations, each with a bunch of paper towels set up and trays to hold the fake void monster and its parts.

“Did you get yourself all cleaned up?” Kalei asked like I was a baby. “Remember to put on the apron this time?”

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“Awww.” Oka said.

“What?” Kalei said.

“Sorry, Zeta is just way too cute when she’s pouting.” Oka said.

“Heh…” I said.

“I'm sorry that happened, too. If I was there in time, I would have dove for it and blocked that gunk from hitting my Zeta.”

“Awww!”

“Can we move on from Zeta’s mishap and get back to the lab, please?” Lillia said, looking like a doctor with her subject sliced open on the counter. “I could easily do this entirely on my own, but I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of depriving you of this educational opportunity.”

“Wow, thanks Lillia.” Kalei said.


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