Chapter 5: A plan

Chapter 5: A plan

A sharp rap on the door broke Noah from his research. He dropped his book and dove to the ground in preparation for a crazed monkey to come swinging at him. It took him several moments to realize that he wasn’t in the forest anymore.

“Hello?” Noah asked, slowly standing back up and grabbing his book on the way up.

“Vermil! I heard you were back,” a deep male voice called. “What happened out there?”

“I took a pretty bad hit,” Noah replied. “Sorry. I’ve got a little memory loss. I’m not feeling too well right now, but I’m sure I’ll be good again soon.”

“Idiot,” the man on the other side of the door said with a chuckle. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Just how bad is that memory loss, Vermil? You’ve got a class in a few hours. If it’s serious enough that you can’t teach it, we’re going to need to find someone to take over.”

“That sounds like a gr–”

“And we’ll send for a mage who can really take a look at what happened and see if we can get that damage repaired. The Linwicks are going to be furious if they find out you got seriously injured and didn’t get proper treatment. I'm heading back to report later today and will be gone for a few months, so I can't cover for you.”

Noah paled. He wasn’t sure who the Linwicks were, but the absolute last thing he needed was a mage taking a closer look at him and finding out that he wasn’t Vermil at all.

“I actually don’t think there’s any need for that,” Noah said, trying to force a casual tone into his voice. “I can handle myself. It’s just a little bit of memory loss. Details and the like, but I’ve still got the important stuff. When’s my class again?”

“Gods, has it been that long since you actually taught? Building G, room 100. You’ve got an hour until it starts.”

“Right. Thanks. I’ll be there.”

“Make sure,” the man rumbled.

An hour. Okay. It’s been so long since time mattered to me in the slightest, but that’s not too long. Not too short either, though.

The man’s heavy footsteps echoed away and Noah let out a sigh of relief. He leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his long hair, bunching his hands up in it as he slid down into a seated position.

Runes let you cast magic. Already knew that.People can have more than one Rune, since Vermil had a whole bunch of them in his book. I am unsure as to if there is a limit to how many you can have.There are probably variations in the Runes. I’m unsure as to how this actually changes their function, if it does at all. Vermil placed more importance on the complicated looking Runes, though. That probably means they’re better somehow.

“I wish I had a coin to flip,” Noah muttered.

He chose a direction at random and strode off through the halls. To his delight, after turning down several corridors, he came across a small metal board hanging from the wall. It had a miniature map of the building he was in, including a small gemstone that presumably marked where he currently was. Above the map, printed in what Noah was starting to suspect to be the common language of this world, was the letter T.

There were a dozen other buildings, all labeled with letters. A small key at the bottom of the map identified the meaning of each one and, the more Noah read, the less it sounded like a school and the more it seemed like a fortress.

Distributed throughout the multitude of normal school buildings was an Armory, a Transport Cannon, Drill Fields, and a multitude of other locations that he didn’t recognize.

I wonder if every letter has an equivalent to English, or if I’m just somehow translating everything to the closest thing to it. I bet it’s the latter, since human brains are fantastic at making things up to adapt to new visual information.

After memorizing the map, Noah set off once more. Even with the path in mind, the building was surprisingly difficult to navigate. He’d never considered himself to have either a good or a bad directional sense, but whoever had built this building clearly hadn’t been a fan of straight paths.

He finally reached an exit after several minutes of walking and more than a few mistaken turns that ended in dead ends. Noah stepped through it and into the beautiful garden, letting out a relieved sigh.

His nose twitched as a myriad of sugary, warm scents entered his nostrils. It was like a bakery that had been mashed with the essence of every fruit in the world and condensed down into a single smell.

He ran his tongue along his lips.

Food. I want to eat something.

He took a step toward the garden, then paused. Food could wait. He was pretty sure his hour was going to run out fairly soon – or had that already happened? Noah pursed his lips, then shrugged. He was probably fine.

Noah started down the path, keeping close to the building’s wall to avoid getting lost in the thick garden. Especially from ground level, some parts of it were so thick that they might as well have been a forest.

Through no small amount of luck, the path he’d chosen led straight up to a large stone circle in the ground. At its center was an obsidian pillar, bearing yet another map. It depicted an eagle’s eye view of dozens of buildings, along with another small red gemstone just above a building marked T.

His eyes darted around the map before landing on his target – the G building. It was just two buildings behind him, opposite the garden. Noah studied the path for a few more moments to make sure he wouldn’t get lost, then set off.

Just around twenty minutes later, he found himself standing in front of a stout stone building. Heavy vines wound around it like the embrace of a kraken and the wooden entry doors were worn and weathered by years of exposure to the elements. One of them hung slightly askew, and the other was heavily rotted. In the stone just above them protruded the letter G. The top half of the letter was chipped away, but he could just barely make out the pale area where it had once been.

“Looks like they had just as big of a budget as I did,” Noah grumbled, tugging on the door. It ground open, scraping across the ground. Once it was large enough for him to fit through, he squeezed inside.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.