What We Do to Survive

It was a relief to get out of there. I didn’t wait my usual five to ten minutes, instead rushing out of the room as soon as the professor finished his lecture. At least Brenda didn’t follow, she had another class after this on the opposite side of campus from me.

This was such a mess, and not one I could easily solve. Killing her was out, lover’s spats were the second most common source of deaths at Avalon. I would be the prime suspect and I didn’t think I could avoid the scrying mirror of an enraged Archmage. Avalon would not protect me from her wrath.

Pulling another Mistletoe on her was similarly out, the wards on student housing were powerful, especially when layered with each student’s individual protections, but I didn’t think that would be enough. She was not an elf either, though I didn’t think she was quite pure human, so keeping her locked up would be much more messy and complicated. The fact she was still alive would maybe mitigate Goodwitch’s wrath, but I doubted it would save me.

That left more complicated solutions. I could technically try to distance myself from her, just push her away until she stopped coming but I didn’t think that would work. Brenda was obsessive to a fault and I’d certainly tried to get rid of her before, obviously unsuccessfully.

I needed something subtle, something to get rid of her as a threat while leaving her alive and capable. Oaths could work, a high end vow of loyalty would turn her into a virtual puppet, but that sort of oath had to be sworn willingly to take hold.

I might be able to manage something slightly stronger than what Miranda was under with some potions, but that wouldn’t be enough. Shallow oaths were not only more detectable, but also much more easily broken. Miranda had no one who would go out of their way to help her, and the oath ensured she couldn’t ask anyone for help either. Brenda? Well, it was a question of when, not if.

Oh gods this was such a mess, and not one I’d seen coming at all. How had I been so oblivious? It was so clear in hindsight, the touches, the constant presence, everything. I’d been so careful, avoided making enemies, shut down any potential threats, stayed out of the way of people capable of crushing me, and this had just snuck up on me out of nowhere.

After all, Brenda had never done any of that. She had annoyed tens or hundreds of our classmates, flaunted her protections! Protections that did not extend to me. Hells, I might have even gained the wrath of her overprotective family without knowing it. I doubted they would approve of their daughter fawning over an orphaned nobody from a backwater village.

My eyes darted furtively around as I wove my way through the crowded hallway. I hated being surrounded by so many people, even before I’d known any number of them might decide to murder me. Now, I also had potentially dozens of secret enemies I didn’t know anything about, hoping to strike at my apparent paramoure through me.

I made it to my rituals class in record time, before even the ever punctual Professor Williams. The main classroom was quite small, with only two rows of desks set in a three-quarter circle around the teacher’s lectern.

I had just taken my seat, the rightmost spot in the front row, when the Professor and Erna stepped together out of her office. I almost didn’t recognize the girl initially, she looked very different from the ritualist I’d watched two days prior.

She’d grown at least two inches in height and she had filled out, gaining at least thirty pounds of pure muscle. She was dressed casually, a tight shirt and shorts that showed off her new musculature. Her long hair was pulled back in a high ponytail on one side of her head, highlighting the large feather earring she wore on the opposite side.

Professor Williams looked startled to see me for a moment, but quickly graced me with a small smile regardless. “Oh, hello Orion. You’re here a tad early, no? Class isn’t starting for another twenty minutes.”

I shrugged, “I’m coming from another class and it's certainly better than staying in the hallways longer.” I turned to address Erna, who was standing silently beside her mentor. “I can see the ritual seems to have worked, almost didn’t recognize you!”

“Thank you. I am very pleased with the result.” Her voice was soft and tinged with an accent I couldn’t place.

“Yes, Erna here did a marvelous job!” Professor Williams gushed, “I’m very pleased with her progress. Why, she only did her very first solo ritual last year and here she is, trait-stealing trolls!”

Erna blushed slightly at the praise and looked away. I took the opportunity to ask a question that had been bugging me.

“I have to ask, what’s with the growth? I know you stole the troll’s strength and regeneration, but I didn’t see any components of the ritual to take physical properties as well as mystical ones.”

“Oh that is an excellent question. We’re actually going to discuss it in class later but would you like to give him a preview Erna?”

“Of course, professor.” She stepped forward slightly and turned to address me. “It’s not exactly a direct effect of the ritual. You are correct in seeing that I wasn’t taking the troll’s physical traits, only its magical ones. However, those magical traits rapidly altered my body in order to accommodate them. It's possible to stave off such effects, and is often important to do so, but in this case I felt the added height and muscle mass would be a blessing.”

“Oh, so it's like the Lair effect?”

“Exactly, just as enchantments can cause alterations to the vessel in order to better suit their purpose, I allowed my new internal magic to adjust my body in small ways. In this case, it is to augment the improved strength and durability granted to me by the ritual. I have more muscle to reinforce, more body mass to protect my organs.

It is the same effect that allows elder trolls to grow to such massive size, though somewhat accelerated and altered by the spells I used to direct the change.”

I nodded slowly in understanding. I hadn’t realized that sort of thing was possible, but it made sense in hindsight. It was well documented that powerful enchantments and passive magics would alter the world around them to better suit them.

It was why the homes of elder dragons and ancient elementals were so incredibly suited to the creatures, why the rock in the dwarven citadel of Deephearth was nearly indestructible after millennia of habitation, and why the old forests of the elves naturally beguiled unsuspecting trespassers.

I’d heard that such effects could be accelerated slightly with the proper spells and rituals, but I’d never considered applying that same technique to a person. That warranted further research.

“That's fascinating, I’ve never heard of that sort of magic.”

“I am not surprised, it is not a common topic of study. If you are interested, I can recommend some of the books I reference?”

“Yes please.” I answered gratefully. Digging through the library for obscure topics was somewhat of a tedious proposition. The massive collection was technically sorted, but it was still hard to find anything beyond the basics without a guide. It was why one of the first things you received from any class was instructions on how to find books on that subject.

I passed her my pen and a loose page from my notebook and she quickly scrawled down several titles and the shelves they could be found on. I was somewhat surprised by her open offer of assistance, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She was probably still being compensated by Professor Williams for helping her students.

“Thanks, I’ll definitely take a look at these.”

“Of course. If you have any further questions, Professor Slaughterfang is highly skilled with such magic, though I know they can be somewhat abrasive to work with. Alternatively, feel free to reach out and we can work out some sort of exchange.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.” Neither of those options was especially appealing, but still good to know. It seemed that her free help was limited to what we were doing in class today and beyond that I would have to pay for her help as was usual between students.

I was almost certainly not going to reach out to Slaughterfang. The ancient draconic shapeshifter was said to be temperamental on the best of days and actively malicious during the rest. I wasn’t quite sure of the details, but it was common knowledge he was only teaching here due to some bargain or similar with the Myrddin and greatly resented his posting.

There was a reason I never planned to take any of the advanced shapeshifting courses, sticking instead to the more general body alteration classes. He may be an absolute master of the field, but he wasn’t much of a teacher.

I tried to ask a few more questions about the ritual, but she waved me off, telling me there would be plenty of time for that during our class. Instead she joined Professor Williams at her lectern as she prepared for class to start.

I was disappointed but not surprised. I’d already gotten a lot of valuable information out of her and Avalon was not a school that taught the free dissemination of magic. The school would teach and guide, but it was the student’s responsibility to learn, research, and apply that basic instruction.

Eventually the rest of the students trickled in and class began in earnest. The seat beside me was taken by Ulan, who greeted me warmly with a squeeze on the shoulder as he rushed in at the last moment.

We started with a brief review of the fundamentals of ritual magic, with the professor calling on students at random to explain certain sections as she wrote them on the board. In addition, she wanted us to explain what we’d seen that fit that section in the ritual we’d watched in our prior class.

She seemed pleased with the result, smiling brightly the entire time as she asked us to elaborate on what we’d observed. I spent several minutes theorizing out loud about how Erna had arranged herself and the troll within her ritual and the particular changes she’d made to a standard sacrificial ritual to account for the troll’s magic resistant nature.

I was particularly interested in what the other’s had observed in the initial preparations of the ritual, the runes and sigils that Erna had painstakingly drawn out and the ink she had used. I’d primarily prepared to observe the magic of the ritual itself but some others had approached the ritual from other angles.

Sten Strongpike had gone even more in depth on the specifics of the runework than Camille had and gave an impromptu presentation on what he’d seen. Professor Williams was so impressed that she called him up to the board and let him draw out some diagrams as he spoke.

When there were about twenty minutes left, she called a halt to our discussion and Erna stepped up to the lectern for a brief question and answer section. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to ask anything, but I did receive a thorough explanation of what exactly those spikes she’d used to restrain the troll were, which was something I’d been curious about.

They were an interesting design, but one she’d purchased and not made herself. They were made from pure iron, a metal known for its poor magical conductivity, and were actually entirely non magical so as not to interfere with the ritual. Instead, runes inscribed along the length of each rod channeled the magic of whatever creature they were impaled in to power their effects.

It was an ingenious solution, since active magic and enchantments could interfere with the operation of the ritual, but it was difficult to restrain something as strong as a troll without reinforced bindings that could also interfere with the ritual. It was the same reason rituals were typically done naked and in magically inert rooms, much less risk of harmful interaction ruining everything.

The stakes were made in such a way as to sidestep this. Their magic was the same as the magic of the victim, and while active they counted as part of the target’s body. Thus, a powerful restraint could be used without compromising the integrity of the ritual.

Unfortunately the rods were built in such a way as to foil recreation, most of the key runework hidden inside of the inner layers of the metal. Any attempt to reproduce them would be incredibly challenging.

She was however happy to point us at their creator, a dwarven smith who was always looking for more commissions. I was almost certain the two had some sort of relationship or understanding, since she seemed very eager to direct new customers to the smith. I still noted down the name and contact information, though I doubted I would be ordering any myself. They looked ruinously expensive for someone with my meager funds.

I was disappointed when class came to an end and Professor Williams told us that Erna would not be coming back the next week. We would be returning to our usual course material to help prepare us for our own upcoming rituals.

I wanted to stay back to discuss what I’d learned with some of my classmates, but unfortunately I had my prior commitment with Janna to get to. If I’d known how interesting today’s class would be, I would have asked to meet her somewhat later in the afternoon.

I spent five minutes extracting a promise from Ulan to get a copy of his notes. He was meeting up with Camille and a few of our other classmates to compare notes, then made my way down to the underground chambers where the private training grounds were situated. Hopefully Janna wouldn’t be too bitchy about me missing our meeting yesterday.