A Second Generation Whateley Academy Story
Last Orders
by
Astrodragon
(with help from the usual suspects, especially Null and Cprime)
Part One
Tuesday, January 10th, Magic department, evening.
Elyzia Grimes looked over the assembled group of juniors and seniors, wondering who among them would decide to select an inappropriate destination this year. There was always one. She waited for the group to settle down, before starting her opening spiel.
"Welcome to this year’s special topics course on Portals and Gates for Dimension Travelling and Contacting Entities. For those members of society outside the Mystic Arts community or the more exotic Physics practitioners, the process of forming a gate to another location is one of the pinnacle skills for a practitioner. It is also one of the most dangerous skills one can master. Tomes have been written about what can and has gone wrong when a lack of care was taken when performing such acts. The bulk of them shouldn’t be read before eating.
Now the main part of what I am going to teach you is the creation of a gate, usually using a pre-existing gate. A completely new gate requires a considerable expenditure of essence, more than some of you will have available at one time. Now, for those of you who have read the notes – or watched Stargate” - she waited a moment for the chuckles to run through the class – “you will realise that to create a gate we need a stable and defined start and end point, defined in metaphysical and temporal coordinates. Now the start point is fairly straightforward, the information isn’t common knowledge but is not too hard to get hold of. The destination endpoint” – she gave them one of her creepier smiles – “can be a lot harder to get hold of.”
She looked over her class again. At least some of them had the common sense to look worried. Good.
“Now, who can name or describe a technique for obtaining the necessary end-point data. Either for a physical location or by using a contact?”
Several hands were raised, and Elyzia called on students one by one until the answers petered out. At least it showed some of them had read the notes. When no more answers to her question were forthcoming, she spoke again.
"Very good, you have covered most of the possibilities. However, there is at least one method that nobody covered; in order to access a contact to give you the necessary coordinates. " As she spoke, she retrieved an item from her desk. Several jaws dropped open as the item was revealed to be a cell phone. She pushed a couple of icons then turned it off. A moment later, the door to the classroom opened. Framed in the entryway was Thulia, carrying a stone bowl inscribed with runes carefully in her hands. As the dragon girl walked up to the front of the room, ignoring the whispered hubba-hubba comment on the robe she was wearing, the teacher resumed her lecture. "Rarely, very rarely, you might have something as mundane as a phone number for such an entity. For the duration of this course, Drakaina will be my teaching assistant. We will begin the course by covering the precautions which need to be taken when attempting the creation of a portal or a contact. Students will be allowed to proceed to the practical phase of the course only when we are satisfied that those precautions are understood. At best, failure to take the necessary precautions during the practical phase will be grounds for an automatic failure. At worst, your experience could form the foundation for a new chapter in one of those tomes I mentioned earlier. Do I make myself clear? That was why you all signed a special waiver for this course."
“Ma’am, will Drakaina be giving us coordinates for a portal?” The questioner sounds rather doubtful. No doubt he hadn’t believed the stories circulating about the girl, after all, a dragon? This was a perfectly ordinary school for mutants, not a Dungeons and Dragons game!
“She will be aiding me in showing you some feasible fixed locations” – she waved at the bowl that Thulia had carefully placed on the table – “this is a scrying bowl designed to show you a location, rather than a person. It can be used to give you a destination. It can also be used as a more normal bowl to channel to a person or entity. Be careful how you use it, and make sure it gives you the destination or entity you really want.” She sighed to herself as a couple of the boys brightened up at that – yes, they were thinking succubi again, the idiots.
“Drakaina will also be helping to define a reasonable safe destination for you on the Plane of Fire, a destination point not inherently hostile to humans. She will also act as an endpoint to allow you to construct a gate leading close to her.”
“Ma’am, what about the essence requirements? You mentioned they were high, and some of us don’t have as much available as others.”
Grimes nodded and tapped a large purple crystal on her desk. “I have already noted which of you will have that problem. This is a storage crystal, which will be on loan to you through the course. Also, I intend to cover some of the group techniques you can use to pool power in order to create a portal. In any case, we have considerable material to cover before actually creating a portal.”
Monday, January 16th, Order of the Red Ba'al briefing room in a hidden underground base somewhere north of London.
Master Olrun sat behind his desk and eyed his two senior acolytes with a slightly annoyed look as he steepled his hands in front of him and spoke in a grating tone.
“Very well, as you will be taking part in the assault to recover the conduit I have brought you here to give you your instructions. I will be instructing the rest of the assault squad later.”
“But Master, I thought the Order had forbidden actions against the conduit doing to her being at this Whateley place?”
Olrun glowered at his apprentice’s rather whining tone of voice.
“Acheron, please show some signs of intelligence. Of course I’m not going to let something as powerful and useful as the conduit escape me. Just because the order is not going to become involved officially means little.”
His other acolyte looked worried. “Master, I understand that, but given what our agent Nephandus said about the situation...”
Master Olrun sighed to himself. They really weren’t training the brightest of acolytes these days, they kept fixating on trivial details rather than on the big picture.
“Lethe, Nephandus is a self-serving mercenary only interested in the money we pay him. If not, he would have aided us in this operation when he was asked. His warnings appear to be a mixture of self-serving excuses and probably a scheme to extract a larger payment from us. The idea that a school would be as dangerous a place to attack as he tried to get us to believe is absurd, some of the actions he mentioned are quite outrageous, making it sound more like an active military base than a school. Yes, it’s a school for mutants, so they will have some dangerous children there, but they are only untrained children. And some security to keep them in line, quite possibly. But he makes them sound like some sort of heavily armed military organisation, which they certainly are not. However, just in case, I have arranged for an informant at the school to let me know when the conduit will be away from it, so we can simply abduct her. Even if Nephandus’s warnings about attacking the school are not as exaggerated as I expect, if we take her when she is away from the school they are irrelevant.”
“Master, what about the demon? Is it still with the conduit?”
Olrun shrugged. “Acheron, the demon may have been bound to the conduit as a bodyguard, my information is that she was present when last we checked on the conduit. Just in case, I have anti-demon precautions in place, so it won’t be a problem. If necessary the two of you can distract the conduit while I banish the demon. While the conduit has power, she is not trained to use it so won’t be a threat to us. I want to get her in my hands within the month, in time for me to adequately... motivate... it before using it at the next major fire festival.”
Monday, January 16th, the M3 clubroom.
The renovated M3 clubroom looked unusually clean and attractive for something normally used by teenagers. Of course, it had only recently been tidied up by the maintenance department, and the appliances they’d bought were still new and shiny. How long all that was going to last with a gaggle of teenagers hanging out in it was an interesting question. There was, of course, a betting pool on that. They’d even covered over the weird rune-covered stone in the middle of the floor with a tasteful rug to make it look more like a coffee table than an unexplained mystical object . Apparently, no one had found anything active about it, it just sat there like a rock with indecipherable runes that not even Bianca could make any sense of carved into it. But as it seemed to be solid with the floor, they’d covered it over rather than try to extract it, which would probably have ripped part of the floor up and required a comprehensive repair. Which they would have had to pay for. Given that they were teenagers, they’d settled for a rug. It did make a convenient coffee table. The only thing that distinguished it from many of the clubrooms on campus was the spell sigils Bianca had scribed onto the walls.
Morgana was sitting with her feet up on the ‘table’ while watching the TV. Given the crowd usually hanging around the Poe TV and watching a lot of movies she at least had little interest in, it had seemed like a good investment. After all the feel-good Xmas love-affair centred movies they’d had on before Xmas, she was still sure she’d been traumatised by them. It had put her right off snowflakes. Especially as Thulia really needed to get more up to speed with popular culture, and steered away from ‘reality’ TV programs. Well away, in Morgana's opinion.
The two dragongirls were semi-cuddled together on a couch, pretending to watch the TV, as Morgana gazed at the screen thoughtfully without actually seeing what it was showing. She and Laura had put together a list of the science fiction they thought Thulia would need to keep up with the smalltalk in the Labs, but she’d seen it all before, even if she did keep getting distracted over rewatching favourite bits.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Thulia gave her partner a slightly amused sideways look. “About?”
Morgana shrugged slightly, still looking rather distant.
“About Pastel. She’s been pretty good in helping us, and while seeing dragons is cool and all, it doesn’t seem like much of a reward for what she’s done. We owe her quite a bit.”
“Hmm, that’s true. Did you have something in mind?”
“Well... I was thinking back to that ambush. She mainly tries to avoid things, which given she doesn’t have much in the way of protection seems remarkably sensible of her. Could we give her some way of casting a ‘Don’t Notice Me’ spell? Even if it's not as powerful as the one we use, it could be a help and save her from getting killed, it would help her evade or find safety, and it should hide her face from cameras and stuff at least, which never hurts if people are trying to track her with CCTV.”
This time it was Thulia who stared into the air. “That’s not a bad idea. It would be a useful holdout for her, and it’s always good to protect a healer.”
Morgana waited patiently for Thulia to continue. “How about this. We can craft her a bracelet to do the spell. If we use a crystal or two in it, it would be able to be used more than once, and tying it to her would let her recharge it – slowly, true, but it’s basically an emergency holdout, it's not like she’d be using it all the time.”
“I like that idea, it will protect her and if I make it, well, I can use the practice. You can make sure I don’t mess it up, right?”
Thulia grinned. “You just want to use some of the stuff they’ve been teaching you in crystal enchantments, don’t you?”
Morgana grinned back. “It would be cool to actually make something practical, we haven’t got that far in the course yet. Learning about Crystal usage is fascinating, but I wish they’d get onto actually doing stuff! I want to put all those lessons into practice.”
Later, in the School Shop. Magic section.
Morgana looked at her shopping basket with a slightly dubious look. “So, is this everything we need?”
Thulia nodded. “A few turquoise stones, and a pretty bronze bracelet to set them in. You have all the tools to inscribe the stones from your course, right?”
Morgana nodded. “Yeah, we had to buy a set of tools, and as I expect to be using them again I got a good set. It should have everything I need to inscribe the spell on the gemstone. Turquoise isn’t that expensive, so I can practice on one or two first before I do the real one. I just needed the fine gold pen to fill in the runes I scribe in it, the kit doesn’t come with that. The gel they use has an expiry date, so I didn’t want to buy one until I needed it.”
“Good. Then let’s go to my workroom and we can set the spell up, then work on the components. We also have to set up an appropriate spell to tie everything together. Until we’ve constructed the spell structure you won’t know what to inscribe.”
Morgana nodded and made big baby-dragon eyes at her companion. “If this all works OK – will you teach me later how to add a spell to my spear? I’d love to have some in it, people look at it and will think ‘spear’, not staff.”
Thulia patted her partner on the shoulder. “OK, if this all goes smoothly. It’s rather more complex than just making a simple magic item, as you have to set the spell into the spear, and the material it’s made of isn’t like the crystals you’ve been learning about. But I brought all the special tools we’ll need with me at Xmas, as well as a couple of scrap pieces of crystal for you to practice on.”
Tuesday January 17th, Thulia’s Workroom.
Morgana was leafing through one of their spell books to get the details of the ‘Don't notice me’ spell. Of course, it had a much fancier name, in Latin, but no one except the teachers used it. She’d looked it up before her combat final to deal with the ‘conceal your face’ requirement, but it never hurt to check the details before using the spell in an inscription. Getting it wrong would mean tossing the gemstone, so she wasn’t prepared just to trust to her memory when she could check the book first. She showed the relevant section to Thulia, who nodded.
“It’s a little different from the one I use, but stick with the human version, it worked well enough on you. And the human versions tend to use less essence.”
Morgana nodded, as she slipped the gemstone into a padded vice to hold it still, then hunted around in her kit for a fine marker pen, before slipping on a pair of magnifying goggles.
She spoke out loud to herself as she made sure she was going about everything correctly.
“OK, first lay out the spellwork on the gemstone, then use that to inscribe the pattern into the stone?”
Thulia nodded. “That’s it. Don’t worry, and make sure the ink pattern is right first, you can always redo that if you have to.”
Some time later Morgana put the inscribing tool down and flexed her fingers. Holding the vibrating tool had made her fingers stiff as she made sure to follow the inked lines precisely to cut fine channels into the stone. She used a fine brush to make sure the inscription was clean of any debris, and then looked up at Thulia. “There, the course said that would work as it is, but you suggested to lay down some gold into the channels?”
Thulia nodded, examining the work critically. “Yes. The inscription looks good, and you don’t have to add a layer of gold or whatever into it, but it will be more powerful and store more essence if you do. If it was for you, we could add some of your blood into it as well, but as it’s for Pastel to use...”
Morgana nodded, bending her attention back to the gem as she shook the pen a few times to help the emulsion flow smoothly. “How come you don’t use a pen?”
Thulia shrugged. “You get better results if you use the actual metals. Making them liquid is easy enough, but I don’t know how much heat this stone will take without cracking. The gems I use are a lot more heat-resistant. Which isn’t surprising as we harvest most of them from volcanoes.”
Morgana nodded as she started to fill the lines and curls of the spell diagram with the emulsion. This wasn’t hard, it just required her to concentrate and keep the emulsion flowing steadily out of the pen.
“There, all done. Now I guess we need to power up the spell for Pastel.”
“Yes, but we’ll need her here for that, we want to attune the spell to her, she needs to be present and to finish it off we’ll need some of her blood. Not a lot, but enough to cover the stone. In the meantime, we’ll give the inlay a day or two to properly set, and then we’ll fit the stone into the bracelet.”
Thursday January 19th, Thulia’s Workroom
Thulia gave the new inscriptions on the bracelet, and the carefully-inlaid spell inscription on the gemstone a final inspection and nodded. “That all seems fine. Now you have to set the stone into the bracelet.” She smiled as she looked at the slightly worried expression on Morgana's face. “Don’t worry, this is the easy bit, you just need to be careful.”
She handed the magnifying glasses over to Morgana. “Now, first thing we need is to mark the bracelet. A marker is fine, it’s just to make sure the stone is going in the right position.”
Morgana nodded as she adjusted the glasses and held the bracelet and marker pen, before inspecting it closely, the tip of her tongue peeking out between her lips as she concentrated (which caused Thulia some amusement), then marked a small x on the bracelet.
“OK, that’s where it goes. Should I glue it on? That’s what they mentioned in class”
Thulia shook her head. “Oh no, there are better ways to set a stone in metal. Glue means a hard shock or something could make it come loose. We can do better than that.” She held up a finger, letting fire play along her claw/fingernail. “What you’re going to do is heat up the metal – not too hot, just enough to soften and melt the area you’re going to use for the stone – then press the stone in. When the metal is still pliable, use one of the tools to flip a few pieces of metal as keepers over the edge of the stone. Once the metal cools, it’s a pretty permanent join, it won’t come loose easily.”
Morgana looked at the bracelet and the stone and sighed. Well, if she screwed it up it was only a semi-precious gemstone. And better to practice with a cheap stone and bracelet. Following Thulia’s instructions, she carefully fitted the bracelet into a small vice, took the stone between her pliers and carefully applied a hot claw to the metal, stroking it across the part of the bracelet she wanted to heat slowly. Through the glasses, she could see the metal change under the application of heat, and her claw felt it soften and melt. She eased the stone into position and released it from the pliers, where it sat in the depression she’d made for it. Quickly she used one of the burins to slide a small tab of semi-solid metal over each end of the stone – when it cooled, they would make sure the stone sat securely. Perhaps a little more than was necessary, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure.
“There, all done.” She could feel the perspiration on her brow, she hoped it had all gone properly.
Thulia peered closely at the new item. “It all looks good, now we let the metal cool and set slowly, then we just have to embed the spell. We can do that after lunch.”
It was easy for the dragongirls to find Pastel in the Crystal Hall, chatting with her friends as she ate. She looked up curiously at the two girls, a query obvious on her face. “Yes?”
Morgana coughed quietly. “Pastel, could we have a word with you in private? Nothing serious, but there are too many listening ears around here.”
Pastel looked around, but the girls didn’t look worried so she assumed they just wanted a private chat. “Where?”
Thulia smiled. “My workroom is nice and private, we can use that.”
Once they’d walked down into the bowels of the Magic Department to Thulia’s workroom,
Pastel looked at the girls again. “OK, so what’s the bloody big secret? Planning a threesome?”
Morgana blushed slightly then laughed. “Well, after all the help you’ve given us recently, we thought that just seeing some dragons wasn’t payment enough, so we made you something, which we hope will be useful.” She opened a small box and put the bronze bracelet with its stone into the centre of the spell pattern she’d drawn onto a work surface.
“It’s for you, but we need a little help from you first.”
Pastel's eyes widened as she looked at it. “What does it do?”
Morgana smiled. “Remember the’ Don't notice me’ spell you saw us use to hide our faces? This will let you cast a similar on yourself. Hopefully, it will keep you out of trouble or let you get away. It’s a permanent item, but as you aren’t a mage it will only recharge very slowly as you leak essence – I’d suggest putting it under your pillow at night, it will soak up the essence you leak while you sleep.”
Pastel’s eyes were still fixed covetously on it. “You mean it’s permanent? And for me?”
“Sure, I told you we felt we owed you. But we need your help in finishing it off. First, we need to cast the spell to finish it up, as it will be yours we need you here for that so you are properly attuned to it. Don’t worry, there’s no danger. Once that’s all done we’ll need some blood from you, just enough to cover the stone, but that will link it so your essence can recharge it. After that, no one else can use it except one of us.”
Pastel nodded eagerly. “All right! You vampires can have as much blood as you need!” She still couldn’t believe the two dragongirls were giving her such a valuable item, just for a little help in healing.
“Remember, its not an invisibility spell. It should fool normal cameras - it makes you look like your face is in shadow, so unless they are using some very sophisticated image processing they won’t make your face out. People, it depends on them not having a lock on you and their vision skating over you for something more interesting, so it does have limits – it’s not so much use against people actively looking for you, or ones who have already spotted you, but it should make it easier to hide.
A little while later the ritual had been concluded, and Pastel had bled enough to cover the gem. Now it looked a bit different, the turquoise seemed to have a depth to it that it hadn’t possessed before. Pastel held it up and admired it, her little coos of pleasure amusing the dragongirls.
“How long will it last?” Pastel asked. She was shaking her cut finger and smiling - for once the smile wasn't cocky, nasty or mischevious, the girl looked genuinely happy
Morgana considered. “Around 15 minutes once you activate it, I think. Then it will need to be recharged. I’m not quite sure how long that will take, it rather depends on how much essence you put out for it to absorb, but I’d expect about two weeks for a full charge. You can tell by the way it looks, when it’s charged it has that pseudo-depth effect. You could get a mage to charge it up quickly if you need to, but I don’t expect you’ll want to use it all the time.”
Sunday 22nd January, M3 table, breakfast.
Thulia waited until the crew had pretty much demolished their breakfasts before looking at Vic and coughing lightly to get his attention.
“Vic, I have some answers to your question about your condition. Is it OK to tell you here, or should we go somewhere private?”
Vic looked a bit worried. “Here is a bit public, maybe the clubroom?”
The two dragongirls exchanged a look, then stood up, beckoning to Vic.”
“Probably a better idea than at the breakfast table.”
Morgana grinned. “After all, some people have just eaten.”
The cheerfully innocent grin on Morgana’s face didn’t reassure Vic in the slightest.
“So what do you have for me?”
Thulia eyed Vic in a calculating manner that didn’t exactly reassure him, it reminded him far too much of how the Whateley medical staff looked at him.
“Well, first of all, you don’t have a BIT. This is good, because trying to modify a BIT pretty much always ends in a disaster, and I wouldn’t attempt it even if Ms. Grimes hadn’t made me swear not to try it. It isn’t safe for the spellcaster, as well as the subject.”
Vic gave her a look, then examined Morgana.
“But didn’t you...”
Thulia put a hand up. “what I did – or did not – do to Morgana was before she manifested, so altering an existing BIT didn’t apply. Anyway, with no BIT to get in the way it should at least be possible to alter your physiognomy, but there are still several issues.”
The dragongirl took a quick look at the flat piece of scarlet crystal which seemed to serve her as a pad.
“The first issue is that your avatar spirit seems to be what is changing you. Now I don’t know much about avatars, they aren’t a dragon thing, but in your case, I can class it as an entity trying to change you. Now say we were to reverse the changes in you, all that would happen is that the spirit would just keep on applying them again. So unless we were to remove it, returning you to your original form would be problematic. And the spirit constantly trying to change you would put a lot of stress on your body. Humans aren’t designed to be constantly changed.”
Vic game her a half-hopeful look. “You can’t remove the spirit?”
Thulia sighed. “I could possibly remove it more easily if it was an external entity controlling you – she exchanged a quick glance with Morgana, which didn’t seem to make either of them any happier – but this isn’t an external entity as such, it locked into your hallow, and I wouldn’t even attempt to mess with out without extreme need.”
Vic looked upset. “I’ve heard stories about people having avatars removed.”
Thulia shrugged. “You’d be better off asking one of the experts on campus about that than me. All I can tell you is that removing a spirit inhabiting or bound to you is both complicated and very dangerous. You might want to take advice on getting rid of it if that’s what you want to do.”
“If the spirit were removed, I’d return to normal? Or at least as I was before I manifested?”
“Probably. You might keep all the physical changes since the spirit started to work on you, you might not. I can’t honestly say right now. For now, I’d suggest talking to the avatar experts, and keeping an eye on your changes to see how acceptable they are to you.”
“How about using magic or something to freeze the change, stop it from continuing? One of the medics I talked to said that might be possible?”
Thulia looked concerned. “It might be possible in your case, we’d need to do more investigation to find out. Personally, I wouldn’t suggest it unless the change was going badly, there are quite a few things that could go wrong. If something happens to intensify the change, like you drawing on the spirit's power, it might collapse the barrier and you could be hit by a sudden and stronger change.
Vic sighed. “So I guess it's wait and see?”
The two dragongirls nodded. “Sometimes it’s best to let things happen before you try for too drastic a solution. Interruption of the process part way through could be worse than letting it reach its conclusion and then attempting a remedy. The change so far doesn’t seem to be causing a major or threatening change to you, if that happens you’ll need to reconsider your options. In any case, you need to keep the medics informed – remember I would have to talk to them anyway before doing anything, I’m used to working with dragons and you aren’t one. It’s always best to be safe and certain before messing about with your body.” She ignored the *hmph* from Morgana, Vic wondered if there was an interesting story there.
The boy nodded and stood up. “OK, thanks anyway.”
The girls waited until he'd left before conferring quietly.
“Didn’t removing that demon class as removing a spirit riding me?”
Thulia made a maybe yes, maybe no gesture. “Possibly, as I told him I don’t really do avatars so without a fair amount of work, I don’t know how well it’s bound into him. And you remember how dangerous it was removing yours, and from what I’ve read an avatar spirit is bound directly into your hallow, it’s rather different.”
Morgana nodded. “It’s a shame we can’t do something, but as you’ve said, better wait and see first. Messing about with your body doesn’t seem like something to do casually.”
“Yes... although it’s an interesting problem, removing a bound spirit without the risk of killing the person it's bound into.”
“Morgana nodded. She could see the appeal of the research to Thulia, her eyes had got slightly out of focus as she considered some possibilities. However... “Thulia, Vic is a friend, not a research topic.”
Thulia nodded even as she made notes on her pad. “I wouldn’t treat him as a lab rat. But it’s an interesting problem, and it would have all sorts of possibilities if I could work out a safer and more efficient way of doing it.”
Morgana sighed to herself. Thulia was off in magic-gadgeteer mode again, and trying to stop her never really worked well.
“So what are you going to do?”
Thulia tapped her pad thoughtfully. “The first thing is to get more data. Remember the tests I did on you before my experiment? That sort of thing. I’ll need a full physical data set before I even attempt a fix.”
Morgana grinned as she remembered what Thulia had put her through. “That’s going to mean taking him to your workshop.”
“Yes, and so?”
“From what he’s said so far, isn’t the spirit some sort of water entity? Won't it be upset if you drag Vic off to your workshop on the Plane of Fire?”
Thulia shrugged. “Probably be fine. Despite all your human stories, we do get visitors from other planes, you know. We aren’t barbarians.”
“And when you tell Vic he has to be tied naked on your table while you investigate him?” Morgana couldn’t help smiling as she considered Vic’s reaction to that.
" I’m sure it won't be an issue, people get naked for medical procedures all the time.”
Morgana wasn’t convinced by Thulia’s nonchalant rebuttal. Most medical procedures weren’t done by a lovely girl who you already knew.
“And how long is all this going to take, anyway?”
Thulia considered the wall as she thought. “A few weeks to sort out what I want to do, then some examinations, after which I can put together a plan for him. But as I said, I’m not going to risk anything before I’ve discussed it with his medical advisor. So far all he’s got is a few scales and a power boost.”
Morgana gave one of her grins. “I don’t think he likes the scales. They aren’t nearly as pretty as yours.”
Thulia leaned over and gave her partner a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, I like them, even if they are pretty inconspicuous.”
Sunday 22nd January, lunchtime, Morgana’s room, Poe
“OK, let’s see what you brought with you to wear for the audition.”
Thulia grinned as she dug some clothing out from her backpack. That wasn’t hard, it wasn’t as if it was a voluminous costume...
“Don’t you trust me to wear something appropriate?”
Morgana snorted. “Yeah, but what’s considered appropriate for your home might not be considered suitable here. I’ve seen some of your outfits, remember?”
“Spoilsport.” The dragongirl held up a leotard made of some iridescent and sparkly fabric, granted it was a bit minimal in construction, but probably suitable for use at Whateley, as long as you didn’t mind the drooling boys walking into things. It was no more revealing than other stage costumes she’d seen.
“See, and it’s fireproof too.” She slid out of her clothes and, with a little bit of effort, slithered into the tight costume and posed for her companion.
Morgana looked her over and made a ‘thumbs-up’ sign. “OK, it does look really good on you. That’s what you wear when you practice?”
Thulia nodded. “Dancing was a good way of taking a break from work, and it counted as the physical part of my course requirements. Yeah, we have those too...“
Morgana gave her a quick hug. “You’re going to wow them all.”
“I hope so, I don’t know how good the other girls are, they may think I’m terrible.”
“Stop worrying so much, it’s just an audition.”
Thulia still seemed a bit worried. “I’ll try. I want to make a good impression.”
Thulia had tossed her cloak on over her costume to walk over to the King Auditorium, it was another typical January day at Whateley, freezing cold with the promise of more snow later. At least it wasn’t snowing yet. She’d slipped boots on, even if she didn’t really need them, to stop people wondering about why she didn’t need them. Leaving a set of melted-snow footprints on the pathway behind her was a little obvious and would probably make people talk. Besides, some of the things kids left on the ground was not the sort of stuff she wanted to step on in bare feet. Morgana had reminded her that people expected someone attuned to fire not to like or be vulnerable to cold a lot more so than it was in her case, so misleading them was always good.
“They said about 1 o’clock?”
Morgana nodded. “I wouldn’t worry too much, they won’t start till everyone is there.”
As it turned out, when they arrived at just after one o’clock they found only Fairyfire and Belfry ready. Well, as she was running the auditions, they’d expected Fairyfire, but Belfry’s appearance was rather unexpected. As well as the way he looked. It wasn’t just the costume, which made him look like a cross between a down-at-heels presenter for a poorly-financed game show and a street bum, it was the makeup that looked like a fairly successful attempt to look like a corpse. Sort of the ‘Addams Family’ version of an MC.
Morgana waved to the girl. “Oh, hi Fairyfire, Belfry.” She gave a somewhat sideways look at Belfry's makeup, but then considered what-the-hell, she assumed he was going to audition as the MC for the show. It was a weird look, but what did she know about show business?
Fairyfire nodded. “I didn’t think you’d be here, Morgana, you said you couldn’t act or dance?”
The redhead shrugged. “I can’t, but I’m here to stop Thulia from getting too nervous, and you said you needed a tech or two? I can handle tech.”
“Oh yes, someone to handle the gear would be so helpful. But I thought you were a mage?”
“I am. But before I manifested I was on the tech track, so I can give looking after the equipment a shot if you like.”
Fairyfire did wonder a little how much of that helpfulness came from a desire to look after Thulia, who was already looking a bit nervous after a side glance at Belfry’s makeup. It wasn’t like she didn’t already know him from class, but there he looked a bit more...alive?
“That’s the costume you mentioned, Thulia? It does look good on you.”
Thulia smiled, doing her best to calm down and not look so nervous. “Yes, from home. However...” she made sure she was clear of everything, as fire bloomed and slid along her body and costume, flickering across the material and scintillating off the crystals set on it. “It’s also fireproof.”
Fairyfire’s eyes widened. “Wow, that is a cool effect! We’ll definitely want to go with you using that.”
Thulia smiled as she checked no one was too close to her then went into one of the dance routines she’d practiced back home. Yellow and crimson flames surrounded her, lighting up the area as Morgana dimmed the lights to let her fire stand out more, as it seemed to flow around her and follow her as she moved athletically around the stage. The light from her fires reflected and scintillated from the crystals and fabric of her costume, making it look like it was also ablaze. She finally came to a halt, panting slightly after her exertions. “How was that?”
Fairyfire clapped. “That was an awesome use of fire, do you have anything else to show us?”
Thulia looked around the stage and grinned. “Well, yes, but for the time being I need to do this without fire.” She moved across to the pole set at the edge of the stage, swinging herself up on it as Morgana put on some appropriate music for her. She curled and slid up and down the wooden pole in an impressive display of strength and skill, until she finally whirled around the pole and dismounted, bouncing slightly then standing poised in front of it. “Of course, it looks better with flames, but it’s only a wooden pole. Having it burn up halfway through would be embarrassing.”
Fairyfire looked thoughtful. “It was certainly an impressive display, if a bit risqué. A shame about the fire though, watching that curl around you and the pole would have looked fun.”
Morgana coughed. “It’s only a pole, if you want to use it we can easily fab up a metal, fireproof one in the Workshop. I’ll just need to take some measurements.” She looked at the fastening arrangement. “Looks simple enough to swap out, I can easily arrange one before your next practice session.”
Swimming Pool changing rooms.
“I suppose a costume is required?”
Morgana smiled at her partner's petulant complaint. Thulia hadn’t exactly been keen on the whole point of this particular exercise anyway, and it had taken her a while to persuade an unhappy dragongirl.
“Yes, it is. You know how they feel about nudity on Earth.”
Thulia pouted. “It still seems silly, putting on clothing just to get it soaking wet! I don’t have to wear a costume in the shower!”
“Trust me, it will get you a lot less of the sort of attention you don’t really want, See, I’m wearing one.”
Thulia had to admit her partner did look sexy in the dark blue costume that looked like it had been painted on her body, and started to put her own costume on. Slowly and reluctantly.
“Well, how do I look?”
Morgana smiled. She’d persuaded her companion to get a slinky red and black swimming costume from the store, and stretched tight over her athletic frame it really did look good. It was probably a good thing she was going to be giving Thulia her swimming lessons personally, she suspected any of the male instructors would be a bit...distracted... And in a swimming costume that could be rather obvious, and embarrassing, to the boy.
” You look great. “
Thulia sighed deeply. “I still don’t see why I have to learn to swim, hardly anyone swims back home.”
“Maybe that’s because a lot of the pools your people could swim in are full of dissolved minerals and crap that probably class them as acidic toxic waste?”
Thulia remembered the vibrant green of the pool at the base of the volcanic mountain she lived in.“Oh yeah, that might have something to do with it I guess.”
“Look, weren’t you planning on going swimming if you needed to rescue me on that island?”
Thulia looked slightly guilty. “Well, it was a fallback plan. I was wearing a harness and Bruce had a rope around me to haul me out. Luckily it wasn’t needed.”
Morgana tried not to roll her eyes too much at the concept of a non-swimming dragoness plunging into the North Sea in the dark. The fact that Thulia had considered doing that to rescue her was flattering, but she didn’t actually feel it was that practical. “Yeah, luckily. Look, 70% of Earth is covered in water. If something happens, I want you able to survive if something goes wrong, at least long enough to do something about it. I’m not going to lose you just because you can’t swim!”
Thulia shivered. 70% water. It wasn’t natural.
Thulia eyed the shallow end of the pool with a rather jaundiced eye. She didn’t like the way the surface rippled. The cheerful shouts and splashes from other kids in the deeper part did nothing to reassure her. They sounded like they were having far too much fun in such a dangerous environment.
“I have to get into that?”
Morgana nodded. “Don’t worry, it's shallow here, you can stand up. And it’s nice and warm.”
She sighed at Thulia’s completely unconvinced expression and gracefully slid into the pool herself. Then she turned and made a beckoning gesture to Thulia. “Come on, it's fine. It's only waist deep, you can’t drown here.”
Thulia braced herself against the pool steps and put a toe in, making a face. “I thought you said it was warm!”
“It is warm, it’s just not hot. Come on, don’t worry, I’m here, I won’t let anything happen to you.
Thulia edged slowly into the warm water. She wasn’t quite convinced by Morgana’s reassurances, she’d seen her partner swim and the concept of a dragongirl who seemed to actually enjoy frolicking about in the water was more than slightly disturbing to her sensibilities.
The water might have been shallow, but Thulia still made an urgent grab for her leman once she was in the pool. “Why do I feel unbalanced?”
“Don't worry, it’s the water. You’re displacing some of it, that’s all.”
Thulia gave the innocent-looking water a suspicious look. Bad enough she was in it, but now it was trying to make her fall over. She knew this had been a poor idea, but Morgana had been quite insistent.
Tuesday 24th January, Tanya and Thulias room, late evening.
“So do you have an outfit for the sims? I know they said we didn’t actually have to have one, but judging by the way they said that...”
Thulia smiled at her roommate. “I see you’re wearing the outfit you made for the Combat Finals. It does look good on you, it goes with your hair and your aura.”
Tanya nodded and preened slightly. “Yeah. How about you?”
Thulia scowled. “I think the one I used has some issues. Remember what happened to me?”
Tanya nodded. “I didn’t think you had a new one yet?”
Thulia smoothed out the grey bodysuit she’d borrowed on her bed – Tanya recognised the style as like the one some of the team had worm for their combat challenge last term. “Not yet. This one is a generic loaner, I want to see how the style works for me. Since I can’t actually be stabbed in the simulator, it seemed suitable for the time being. And it does cover my lower spine.”
Tanya eyed the costume with a rather dubious look.“I thought you might have gone with some sort of robes, aren’t they traditional for a mage?”
Thulia nodded with a smile. “Yes, which is why Morgana suggested I didn’t wear them. Mages seem to be a priority target in any combat, and I didn’t see the point of making things easy for them. I can see what a form-fitting costume works like in the sim, and then Morgana and I are looking to get a couple of good-quality costumes made. If it doesn’t work out, I can always use robes.”
The dragongirl picked up a utility belt off the bed with a sigh. “I can see the point of this with this costume, it’s not like it has pockets, but the only thing I need it for right now is my phone.”
Tanya’s lip twitched. “I think Morgana carries snacks in hers, as well as some holdouts.”
“Well, true, snacks are important. But I’m wearing my holdouts, I don’t need a pocket to put them in.”
Tanya looked a bit puzzled. “Wearing?”
Thulia tapped some of the jewellery she was wearing. “Most of my jewellery is multi-purpose – magic as well as pretty. People expect a girl to be wearing jewellery, so they might ignore it. At least Morgana thinks so, and I trust her advice, it seems sensible.”
“She’s devious, that’s what she is.”
Thulia grinned. “And that is a problem how, exactly?
Wednesday 25th January, Holographic Simulation Centre briefing room.
“OK, are we all prepared? I know its not a first sim run for most of us, but it’s been a while and this is a search and rescue scenario.”
The assembled teens nodded to Erica. While they hadn’t actually had a vote or anything on a leader, the rest of them were happy to let Erica put in the work for them.
“Radio check, Laura?” The blue girl nodded and muttered into her throat mike, followed by a gabble as the rest of the team did the same before she held a headband-mounted compact camera package to Thulia and Tanya. “You’re our two fliers, so this will relay anything you see to me. Just in case.” The two girls nodded and fiddled with the headbands until they had them sitting comfortably. “Vic, do you have the first aid kit?” Vic nodded and held up the shoulder bag adorned with a big red cross. “OK, then I think we’re about as ready as we can be.”
The simulations assistant gave the new team a look and sighed to himself as he saw the expressions on their faces. Here we go again...
“Now, you’ve done all the prep work and registered everything you want to have on you.” He glared at the assembled team. “You have, haven’t you?”
There was a concerted bobblehead-like nodding from the team. He wondered just how much would have been ‘accidentally forgotten about’, it always happened.
“Now, you all have basic comms gear, so you’ll get the situation briefing over it once you enter the sim.” Laura had been busy making earpieces during the week, but everyone had her combined ear protection and comms earplugs now, fortunately making them was a semi-automatic thing, and she’d added a cheap throat mike so they could talk to each other. It wasn’t seriously hardened or military secure, but they were only doing an S&R mission, not fighting Dr. Reaper. Both Tanya and Thulia had the added headbands with mini-cameras which linked to the teams phones; having a video feed from their two fliers seemed like a sensible precaution, as long as watching the feed didn’t give Laura motion sickness. While she’d assured them she’d be fine, a number of the girls were waiting to see what would happen in practice. There was, of course, a betting pool.
The other team, waiting for their own first real sim experience, eyed M3 with interest. At least the Fast and the Furryous looked a lot more relaxed, with a definite air of just waiting until they had an excuse to hit someone. At least Ratel hadn’t challenged anyone yet. No doubt she was planning to later, Morgana thought cynically.
“OK, when you enter the sim there will be someone there to give you a briefing. Listen to them, then just carry on and do what they tell you. Remember, you can’t get hurt in the simulator, so if anything really bad happens to you you’ll just end up in your chair. The pain is dialled down, so no horrible agony if the worst happens to you, but you will notice if you get a bad injury. If you end up back in your chair, then you died in the sim. The other teams can see what you’re doing on the monitors so they can get an idea of what you are doing. Try and remember to use your codenames in the sims, we often use them as training aids or examples. The software can catch and rename on the fly, but it's good practice to not use your real names. Now, Cerulea, Eisenmadel, Tidestriker, Drakaina, Dragonsfyre, Invictus, go get in your chairs and put your helmets on and we’ll get this show started,”
The supervisor waited as the individual chairs indicated the helmets were on and locked, then nodded and pressed the Big Red Button on her pad. He wondered how long it would take the kids to screw up their first S&R sim.
Morgana looked around with interest as the sim started. While she knew it was all computer fakery, it looked and felt real enough, surprisingly so. Her teammates were gathered around her. Most of them were wearing form-fitting suits of one sort or another, some like her using the ones they’d acquired for the Combat Finals, some like Laura or Thulia wearing a loaner, although they had changed the default colours to make them more recognisable. Apparently, things like a colour change were allowed as long as it didn’t enhance the costume in any way. In front of them was a large idling helicopter, with a rather impatient-looking man tapping his foot as he eyed them.
“Good, now you’re all ready, we have an accident to deal with. Get on the helicopter and put a headset on, I’ll give you your briefing on the way.
The team looked at each other and did as they were told, Thulia giving the flying machine a dubious look as she got into it. She still wasn’t entirely convinced about flying in a human machine, but this was a simulation, she reminded herself. The markings on the helicopter indicated it was a National Guard emergency response vehicle, which made sense as the man had talked about some sort of accident. At least the recent rule changes allowed a serious incident to mobilise FEMA, the old rules had required mobilising the State National Guard via a state of emergency, which was too clumsy when a lot of incidents were caused by supervillains.
There was a loud noise and some juddering as the aircraft lifted off and headed – well, presumably for the accident. At least they didn’t have to walk.
“Ok, now listen up all of you. There’s been a major train derailment, and your tasked to help rescue people and tidy it up.
He read from his pad. “At 07:33 a.m. local time, while approaching a bridge over Interstate 5 the Amtrack Cascades passenger train near DuPont, Washington. It was operating on a new, replacement track. Luckily the trailing locomotive remained on the rails and didn’t tumble down the slope. Several automobiles on southbound I-5 were crushed by the train wreckage, and three people on board the train died. The train derailed a short distance from where the new route merged with the previous route.
“The lead locomotive, and six rail cars, went down the embankment to the west of the bridge (to the train's right, in the original direction of travel). The locomotive ended up on I-5 and spilt about 350gallons of fuel. Two further cars ended up on the bridge span, and three cars went off the railroad bridge abutment on the opposite side, some onto I-5. Only the trailing locomotive remained on the tracks. Seven vehicles, including two trucks, were damaged by the derailed cars of the train. We think some of the tank cars in the train may have been carrying dangerous or explosive contents, but we haven’t got the shipping invoice yet so you’ll have to look for the labels on the tanker cars.
“Our preliminary reports say that in addition to the three people killed on the train, there are over 50 more injuries of differing severity. We also have causalities from people in cars. There is some emergency medical help, and a couple of ambulances should have arrived by the time we get there. We mainly need you to help people out of the wreckage, stabilise it if necessary, and in general help. There’s a police helicopter overhead, so your fliers need to be aware of it and stay clear.”
Cerulea looked at the man. “Can we get a copy of the video feed from the police helicopter? It could help and save us having to replicate it.”
“Sure.” He tapped on his pad. “There, that should be sending you the raw feed.”
The helicopter landed and the crew ushered the team out. There were bodies all over the ground, and people trying to put them into some sort of order ready for the ambulances to collect them.
“Do any of you have enhanced strength?”
The man who walked over to them was, from the tone of his voice and the fire officers gear he was wearing, obviously in some sort of authority over the mess, as Erica, Drakaina, Dragonsfyre and Tanya raised their hands.
“Good, we need to get some people out of the wrecked cars, and you can help get them free. Pass them out to my team, they will triage them, the ambulances will be here soon. They will have stretchers for all the victims” He motioned to one of his men. “Andy, show them where we need help in getting people out, will you.”
The man nodded and walked over. Judging by what he was wearing, he was probably a Fire Officer of some sort. “OK, there are a couple of people trapped in the first car, the one under the bridge. Be careful, we don’t want the rest of the cars coming down the embankment after it, so try to only get the people out without touching the car much. If you can cut people free without affecting the car much that would be helpful.”
Removing the injured passengers wasn’t too hard, the most difficult thing was easing them out of the mangled carriages without causing any more injuries. It might have been a simulation, but the mangled bodies and blood looked all too realistic to the team. One, in particular, was a problem, as he had a nasty arm injury that Tanya had to tie off by wriggling around him. As the smallest in the group, and one who had basic medical skills, she’d been the obvious choice to get into all the tight spaces. Luckily there were mainly minor injuries from being thrown about in the carriage as the train derailed, but several people with broken bones were put into the ‘priority’ pile.
<crack>
Erica tried to see what had caused that sound, but bits of broken train were in the way.
“That sounded like a gunshot?”
Erica nodded. “It did, but who would be shooting at a train wreck? Drakaina, can you go airborne and give us some imagery?”
The dragongirl nodded and took off with a loud clap of her wings.
“Cerulea, we just sent Drakaina up to get a look-down at what just happened.”
“Ok... there's a group of men heading for one of the rear carriages, maybe the baggage car? They aren’t wearing supersuits or anything, but they look a bit rough. Drakaina, can you circle a bit and let me get some better views?”
There was a leisurely ‘on it’ as the dragongirl lazily circled around in the air currents above the wreckage.
“Ok, definitely sus, one of them is using a crowbar to get into the rear carriage.”
Erica nodded. “Ok, we’d better go and take a look, the rescue people aren’t really equipped to stop an armed incursion.” Invictus wriggled out backwards from the hole she’d been exploring and nodded. The three girls headed for the back of the wreck. “Tidestriker, carry on with helping people while we check this out, but be ready if we need your help. You aren’t bulletproof and keeping a reserve makes sense. Cerulea, keep monitoring the situation and let us know if anything changes.”
“OK, Eisenmadel, it would help if Drakaina could get a bit closer, the resolution on the camera sucks. I think they may be saying something, but again it's too far for me to pick up.”
“Thanks, Cerulea, we’ll put better tech on our shopping list.”
The group headed around some of the wrecked carriages, to see a group of rough-looking men busy breaking into the car. Fortunately, the FEMA people and the injured passengers were concentrated well away near the front of the train.
“Maybe there’s something valuable in that baggage car?
Erica nodded. “Could be, but how would they know about it?”
Invictus thought a bit. “If they were the ones responsible for the train wreck in the first case? There could be something valuable they are after in that last car?”
“Makes sense. In any case, we should take them into custody, and take those guns away before they hurt anyone with them.”
“I can do that.”
Eisenmadel looked a bit worried at Drakaina’s nonchalant statement. While she knew the dragongirl had an impressive arsenal of damage spells, she wasn’t nearly as reassured by her range of non-damaging ones.
“Can you take them down without hurting anyone?”
“Not sure, is it important? I figure I can take that group out without hurting anyone else. Probably.”
Erica made a quiet, if rude, comment in German. The ‘probably’ part worried her, they were supposed to be here on a rescue mission after all. She wasn’t really sure how well Thulia understood the concept of ‘squishy mundanes’.
“OK, if you can stop them without hurting anyone else, go ahead. Please don’t kill them, it would only lead to paperwork.”
“On it.” Thulia swooped lower, to get a better image of the group. Probably too low, as there was some cursing in what the group assumed was dragon as a couple of the men fired on her with semi-automatic weapons, leaving several holes in one of her wings. She had been told that pain sensations were turned down in the sims, but having holes punched in her wings was still painful. So some retaliation was in order, as she gained height to give her a breathing space to activate her shield. She hadn’t thought it would have been needed on a rescue mission.
She turned lazily in the air as she took another look, then decided the best way to deal with the men and dissuade them from whatever it was they were doing was a few fireblasts. She aimed her staff, and a bolt of crimson fire lanced into the ground next to the men. She assumed it would scatter them, and they could then take care of them individually, but instead, they took cover under a white-painted tanker trailer and started a heavier return fire at her. She swooped upward, nearly getting hit again as a few of the hexagons of her shield flashed under the effect of their gunfire, and this time she blasted the tanker car they were trying to hid under, using a fireball to get most of them at once.
A fireball into a damaged and leaking propane tank tends to cause an impressive result. While propane isn’t that easy to ignite, a fireball managed that quite effectively. There was a loud ‘WOOMPH-BOOM’ as the trailer exploded enthusiastically, sending pieces of flaming wreckage into the air and across the ground. The concussion blast knocked the others in the team off their feet and blasted Thulia out of the air. She hit hard, followed by a stream of dragon cursing, which at least assured them she was alive, that crash had looked pretty bad. On the other hand, the explosion had dealt with the gang, most of whom were lying still on the ground, a couple of them burning. One of them staggered to his feet, dropping his weapon as he surrendered.
Cerulea’s voice crackled through their coms. “Well, that was a bit more impressive than I’d expected, but it did deal with that gang. It also set fire to a couple of cars, so your next job is firefighting. Are you all OK?”
Thulia tried to get to her feet, and sat back down suddenly as she realised a piece of the debris had broken her leg. “My leg is injured, but I’m pretty much OK apart from that.” The other girls had managed to avoid anything but minor scrapes and a few singes, which made them look a mess but wasn’t anything serious.
“Very well, now to see how you did and what you did well – and what you did wrong.”
The team looked a bit unhappy. After changing out of the sim suits, they’d trickled back to the briefing room. The grin and smirks from the two teams who had been watching them on the monitors didn't exactly inspire them to think they’d done well, and the guy in charge didn’t look very happy with them.
“Now, let’s see. The task assigned to you was to aid the people involved in the wreck. That went pretty well until the gang turned up, you assigned the best team members to dig people out. While some of you” – he nodded at Drakaina and Dragonsfyre – “have built-in help at cutting things apart, the rest of you should consider some sort of tool kit to help. Now the gang was there to stop you from getting too much of a milk run on your starting scenario, and to show you there can always be an unexpected development, and that having backup plans is always good, even when a surprise scenario is sprung on you.”
Invictus raised a hand. “Sir, you seem to be implying that we should have let that gang go?”
He grinned. “You could have. Remember, in a S&R scenario, the people and damage are your priorities, not looters. Yes, it’s nice to stop them, and depending on what they are doing you might have to deal with them, but juggling priorities is one of the things we intend to teach you. Money is replaceable, people aren’t. However as you had no information on what the gang was really after, and it could have been something nasty, it was rather a marginal call.”
The Fast & the Furryous were looking like they weren’t really taking in the idea of not fighting criminals when they came across them. How surprising.
“Now, you started off reasonably when you encountered the looters. You did reconnaissance to find out what was going on, and moved in with what should have been ample force to take out what was basically baselines armed with ordinary weapons. You’re dealing with them, however, could have been considered better.” He glowered at Thulia, who shrank down in her chair and looked embarrassed. He grinned. “There are labels on things like tanks and tankers to tell you the sort of thing they are carrying. You should have looked at them and worked out what sort of attacks were sensible. A fire attack on a damaged propane tank isn’t usually a good idea unless you are trying for collateral damage. Drakaina, Invictus, as the recon elements of your group make learning these labels a priority. Drakaina, you need to learn more less-destructive ways of tackling a problem.”
He looked around at the team. “You all have a lot to learn. Which is, of course, why you are here. Before the next session, you will write up a report saying what you did, and why, and what you should have done for a better result.”
He waited for the muttered and rather grudging acceptances before turning to the next group. “Now, The Fast and the Furrious, we have a scenario for you, so go and get suited up.” He made a note to forward the details to team 6502, who's schedule didnt permit them to be here right now.
Saturday 26th January, Tanya and Thulia’s Room, morning.
“You’re up early today.”
Thulia shrugged at her roommate as she pulled some cosmetics out of her drawer and placed them on the table. The girl had brought quite an impressive range with her from home, even if she didn’t seem to use them much.
“I wanted to shower early so I could put some cream on my skin. This cold dry weather isn’t doing my scales any good at all, they dry out and feel rough. My skin is better, but it’s still getting dry.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll be glad when this winter ends.”
She demonstrated the issue by sitting on her bed as she lifted one leg up high, examining it critically. Tanya blushed slightly at the casual way the dragongirl just lifted her leg to work on it, even if it was just in their room.
“However I did bring some skin and scale care products with me from home, and rubbing them in works best after I’ve cleaned myself.”
Tanya nodded. It did seem reasonable. Her own skincare regime didn’t need as much as Thulia seemed to have, but then she didn’t have scales. Or horns, for that matter, Thulia had abrasives for cleaning and polishing these as well.
“Do you use a different one for your scales than your skin?”
Thulia nodded as she took some of the cream from a jar and started to rub it over a patch of scales. “Yes, giving my scales a good clean uses something a little bit too abrasive for my skin.” She sighed happily as she worked the cream in. “Mmm, that feels better. I hope you don’t mind the smell? I thought it was best to do this in the morning so you weren’t smelling it all night, just in case.”
Tanya shook her head. “no, it’s sort of... cinnamon?”
“It comes in various scents, I thought this one wouldn’t be too objectionable. Thank you for tolerating it.”
Tanya smiled. “It’s not a bother.” She was still a little undecided about her roommate. Sometimes she acted like a dragon, others as a shy and considerate teenage girl. She was hoping to encourage the latter. She was still envious of how flexible Thulia seemed to be as the tall girl wriggled around on her chair to give her toe-cla-nails a detailed inspection.
Sunday 27th January M3 table, breakfast
“Do we have anything on today?”
Morgana grinned at Laura past her forkful of pancake.
“WE don’t have anything. So you can go and spend the day in the Workshop which is what you were going to do anyway. Thulia and I are headed into town later, we’re going to see about getting a set of professionally-built outfits from Cecilia Rogers.”
Erica looked thoughtful. “Isn’t her work pretty expensive?”
“It’s not that bad, we aren’t looking for exotic materials, just good ones. No mithril or stuff like that. And the MCO is paying. We aren’t planning on much in the way of special effects, we can use magic for that.”
That brought a few grins from everyone who’d heard Morgana bitching about the MCO’s actions over Xmas.
Laura looked past the plates of Tanya's and the dragongirls breakfast offerings for some new topic to discuss. She was tempted to see Cecilias shop again, but the call of the Workshop beckoned louder. She wasn’t flush on funds anyway, not yet. The food almost blocked out a familiar freshman walking up to the table. It was her TA from Theory and Practice of the Escape, and she wondered why he was here at breakfast. She hoped he wasn't planning to be another of Bianca's would-be minions. Most of the fallout from the chocolate incident had died out. So, whatever intent the boy had lodged in his head, it shouldn't be another grudge match challenge. In any case, if she remembered correctly he hadn’t been part of the Great Chocolate Fiasco, so why was he here?
Following her friend's gaze, Hikaru chuckled.
That was interesting, how did Hikaru know him?
Hikaru delicately swallowed a piece of waffle in a far more ladylike manner than the rest of M3 to ask, "Belfry. Colombine. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
The kid from the airport in Japan! Maybe that's how Hikaru knew him, though she didn’t remember them conversing much on the plane. What could he want now?
Benjamin smiled past the princess’s attitude.
"I'm just here to give Thulia – and Morgana, since it would be rude to leave out the leman – a token holiday greeting." While speaking his piece, he rummaged through his jacket for two red envelopes to hand out. At least he was gentleman enough to wait for the recipients to have their hands free.
"Gong hei fat choy."
The envelopes were addressed in a style of calligraphy that amused Amaterasu.
Her voice sang in her daughter's mental ear: *Something tells me this one will never darken <Wáng jiàoshòu>'s door. You should have introduced us!*
Remind me later to tell you what Kurenai was able to dig up on him. He's got more fleas than Coyote.
*Daikokunyo be a Lady...*
Out loud, Hikaru said with a somewhat supercilious air, "New Year envelopes are traditionally exchanged at the beginning of the Spring Festival, not at the end."
Benjamin shrugged as if they were lucky any of his gifts survived to be given out.
"I lost some things when my dorm room exploded. Then time sort of got away from me."
Behind Jimmy, Tavi conjured up a space opera-worthy explosion, pieces of holographic burning planet streaking past some of the diners.
"Tavi heard! Big badaboom!"
"How? We were in Team Tactics."
Tavi morphed one of his ears into a Dumbo-sized ear horn pointed at Belfry.
"Tavi hears! Whole dorm heard. You not listening."
Morgana shook her head at the VI's antics. Curiosity won out over distraction as she speared a breakfast sausage.
"That sounds a bit... careless," she said
"Eh... True enough. I have some ideas on better securing my calligraphy supplies. But, that's going to take some research."
As far as Benjamin knew, flash paper didn't have the right texture to take traditional inks. He'd just have to get creative. Maybe some sort of chemical coating the paper?
This time Morgana stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. "How did you manage to blow up calligraphy materials? Even at Whateley..." She waved her sausage-laden implement at him in a disapproving manner.
"They were locked in my desk safe. That's where I happened to be when I was interrupted during manifesting practice. Very Whateley, or so I'm told."
Morgana grinned and finished her sausage. "Ah well, at least you didn't set fire to everything."
Maybe keeping a supply of flash paper on hand would be useful after all? FairyFire thought he should add some stage magic to his unique set of skills. There were plenty of things that caught fire or made interesting smoke he could use, and the school store had a remarkably varied set of such things available to purchase.
"I've been tempted, but not recently. Thanks for the suggestion!"
Once the prospective Junior Arsonist of America was safely out of hearing range, Laura cautiously asked, "Does he wear anything other than the school uniform or military surplus?" Erica answered with a question of her own: "Is 'hobo chic' really a thing?"
"So the answer is that we should be happy with what we've got? Got it."
“At least he isn’t festooned with chains and handcuffs this time.”
Most of the rest of the table gave Bianca looks, as she finished. “He’s the TA in our escape class. How a kid that young qualifies I have no idea.” She didn’t mention a few of the things she’d heard via the family that might have given clues.
Sunday 27th January, Thulia’s workroom, mid-morning. Tarot Reading.
“Something's been bugging me.”
“Real bugs or feelings?”
Morgana grinned. “Feelings, the Spy Kiddies have been quiet recently. Not a suspicious-looking insect in sight, and no one skulking around following us. I just get this feeling that there is something I should be looking into. So I thought maybe I’d try a divination and see if it throws up anything. I have a new pack of Tarot cards to try out and give a proper test.”
“How good are you at this sort of thing anyway? Divination isn’t exactly a dragon speciality.”
Morgana looked at her partner and shrugged. “Well, we covered it in class, and since I got these cool cards in London I thought I’d see what they say. Can’t hurt, and I might get a better idea of why I’m anxious.” As she spoke she dug her box of cards out and started to shuffle them.
Thula nodded. “It will be interesting to see what they say to you, we don’t do much divination and certainly not with paper cards.”
Morgana shrugged and kept on shuffling the set of dragon tarot cards she’d acquired on their shopping trip. She gave her book another look to remind herself, nodded and slowly laid the cards out.
“So, Celtic Cross Pattern.” She called the cards as she laid them out. “Self, Shield, Influence, External Circumstances, Past, Future, Strength, Others, Guidance, Outcome.” She frowned as she looked the arrangement over, then checked her book again. “This doesn’t look too cheerful.”
Thulia peered at the cards. “you seem to have some of them reversed. Is that good?”
Morgana shook her head. “Not usually, no. It varies a lot, mind. Now let me see...”
Self – The Magician. “well. That seems reasonable, as its supposed to signify me. At least it’s not the Fool.”
Shield – The High Priestess. “mmm, I think that’s you.” Thulia just smiled.
Underlying/Influence – Death. “change. Well, yeah, been a lot of changes, haven’t there? With all sorts of repercussions. At least it isn’t reversed.”
External Circumstances – 5 of cups. Morgana hissed slightly “Not surprised that’s bad, it hasn’t always been a pleasant trip. Excluding you, of course.” Thulia patted her hand. “Now is that a continuing warning or not?”
Past – The Tower, reversed. – “Yeah, I can see that. Delayed disaster, or avoided disaster. We have had a few near misses, haven’t we. It’s been like living on a knife edge a lot of the time.” Thulia just quirked an eyebrow.
Future – Knight of Swords “Hate or Violence, with no regard for consequences. That’s worrying, especially as it's supposed to indicate things coming up in the future. But then, it hasn’t been that peaceful so far. I suppose it isn’t unreasonable to expect more stuff in the future. The ‘no regard for consequences’ worries me a bit.”
My Strengths – The Wheel of Fortune. “um. Change and inevitable fate.” Thulia shrugged. “No such thing as inevitable. Not if you use enough force, anyway.”
Others involved – Three of Wands, reversed. “Oh yea, Obstacles, delays, frustrations. Like that hasn’t happened already.”
Advice/Guidance – Knight of Swords, reversed. Morgana worried her lower lip. “Oh well, at least it's reversed.
Outcome – The Tower. “that’s not good. And there is only one tower card in the deck, supposedly. The Tarot deck is playing up.”
Morgana sat back and looked at the spread. “It’s certainly not cheerful, it suggests something nasty is in the works.”
Thulia considered. “Soon or not soon?”
I don’t know, it doesn’t say, but with so many dubious cards, I’d guess sooner rather than later. And the tower at the end – if we don’t beat whatever it is, we’ll be in trouble.”
“Now you see why I don’t like divinations.”
“Yeah, you do have a point there. At least I didn’t get the 10 of Swords.” She took out her phone and took a picture of the layout. “Maybe I should run it past Pat, he’s the Tarot expert. I’ll try and ask him after we get back from Dunwich, see how he interprets it.”
Saturday 28th January, Order of the Red Ba'al briefing room in a hidden underground base somewhere north of London. Early afternoon.
Everyone stood as Master Olrun swept into the room and looked around before nodding to himself in satisfaction. This time he had his full team assembled, including the mercenaries he’d hired, and intended to give them their final orders.
“Team Commander, is everything prepared?”
None of the men had anything in the way of unit ID or rank badges on their uniforms, but one of them was obviously the senior officer, as he braced to attention.
“Yes, Master Olrun. We have the plans arranged for the assault, assuming I have the team we assembled plus the powered combatants. As arranged, we have left you and your two acolytes out of the main plan to allow them to act as you see fit and to deal with any magical threats. I have assumed you will be at the end of the trap to allow you to deal with them and acquire the target. We intend to herd them into an obvious kill zone and have the exit be your trap. Since they are young and inexperienced we don’t expect them to realise what we are encouraging them into.”
Olrun gave a satisfied smile. “Good, now go through the plan one final time before we make arrangements to get to the town and make final preparations for tomorrow.”
The leader nodded briskly. “Yes Sir.” He turned to the screen next to him and started to pull up slides and videos as he talked.
“Our original idea was just to take the girls at the school itself, but it was rather larger than we initially expected and it's packed with mutants. While they are all young, the sheer numbers lead us to expect some with dangerous powers. In addition, they have a security force. While we expect them to only have suppressant and non-lethal weapons such as tasers, we don’t see the need to waste time with them. Given the numbers, we’d need a much larger force to go through the place, especially if the targets have gone to ground. Our agent indicates a substantial tunnel capacity, which would take time to clear properly, even with the use of gas. We can't use a lethal gas as we need the conduit alive, and there is always the possibility that some of the mutants will be randomly resistant to an incapacitating agent.”
He brought up a new map. “However there is a small town a few miles from the school, and we have information that the girls will be visiting it tomorrow. So we will set up an attack in the town itself. This should also give us more time before our attack is reported. Our best estimate is that we will have 30-60 minutes before our actions are reported to anyone who can intervene with suitable forces – ones powerful enough to engage with us. People like local law enforcement don’t worry us, we will just eliminate them if they get in our way. We are planning based on 30 minutes of free action, to give ourselves some leeway in case of unforeseen problems. We will, of course, be jamming the local communications from the start of our attack, but there is always the possibility someone will get a warning out in some fashion. But even if they do, it will take far too long for an effective force to close the area. It’s a small town, so no significant opposition is expected.
“Now, we first set up just to the north of the town, in this forested area, and leave a few men with the helicopters to be ready to pull out. We will leave the stealth systems up and running, we think stealth will work better for us than speed under the circumstances, and want to be ready for an immediate withdrawal once we have achieved our objectives. The rest of the squad will infiltrate the town ready to capture our targets. We have full personal armour and weapons, as well as some light surface-to-air equipment in case of things like drones. As you can see on the plan, we have arranged overwatch positions to allow us to isolate the targets and link up to capture them after herding them into the kill box, as well as setting up appropriate positions for the anti-air weapons.”
He turned to the two men in colourful costumes. “You are our backup. We do know that one of the girls has powers, and taking her may be difficult if she gets a chance to react. We understand the other girl is a demoness, we have appropriate protection against her. If things look like they are a problem, we will call you in to neutralise them. Remember the redheaded girl is to be taken alive.” There were a couple of grunts from the men, who didn’t seem too worried about dealing with any likely situations. “And uninjured?”
“Preferably, but we need her alive at least.”
“Now, Master, we have left you and your acolytes out of the main plan, your intervention might not be needed if everything goes as planned, but of course, you are free to intervene if it proves necessary, especially if the demoness proves to be more of a problem than we have planned for. Any questions?”
One of his men put his arm up. “Heavy weapons?”
“No, nothing massive. We need the girl alive, and after all, we aren’t facing tanks. So light personal weapons, grenades, that sort of thing. Light anti-aircraft stuff in case we run into drones. Nothing you can’t carry easily”
He turned to the Archmage, who had been watching the briefing with his usual dyspeptic expression. “Have you any additional commands, Master?”
Olrun rubbed his chin. “No, you seem to have done a competent job, and if there are problems I will be there myself.”
“As you say, Master. Now we go in by helicopter tonight, landing outside the town just before dawn. Obviously, we will be landing under stealth, just in case, as we will have a few hours to wait before we can expect the girls. We have the parts for a portal, and we will be setting them up once we have secured our landing spot. That will allow Master Olrun and his assistants to gate in, and the portal will be available for them to leave with the targets. Once that extraction is complete, we will destroy the portal and leave by copter.”
“What do we do if we are attacked as we leave?”
“The portal is to be protected until Master Olrun and his acolytes are clear. After that we have two options – leave via the portal ourselves if it's still active and we have the time, or an emergency evacuation on the helicopters. If neither is possible we will exfiltrate through the forest, every man for himself. But I don’t think that will be necessary. In any case, we only need to get to the main extraction point, where we will get rid of anything incriminating and pick up false papers, then slip away into the mass of people in America.”
