Chapter 31 – The Art of Geopolitics

Chapter 31 – The Art of Geopolitics

“You okay Emily? You’ve been kind of out of it since I came to get you earlier?” Juliana asks with a look of concern while eating a spoonful of her oats.

Emily looks up from the toast she is half-heartedly pulling apart.

What do I even say? ‘Sorry, just a little confused because I didn’t even know today was my birthday but the mysterious voices in my head told me when I checked this morning.’ Oh, or maybe ‘Sorry, just feeling a bit depressed that it’s my birthday and half my family is dead, and I can’t contact the other half for fear of them being killed too!’

Sighing, she reaches up to wipe the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes.

“Sorry, it’s my birthday today and I’m feeling a little depressed that I can’t see my family.”

“Oh.” Juliana seems at a loss for words, choosing to silently take Emily’s hand under the table and give it a supportive squeeze; a gesture Emily appreciates as she ignores the uncomfortable feeling of Tom and Hester giving her looks of pity.

They all eat the rest of their breakfast in silence, only speaking again as they prepare to leave.

“What lessons do you have today?” Juliana asks while releasing Emily’s hand and standing up.

“I have geopolitics now and hand-to-hand combat after lunch. I can’t wait to beat someone up,” Emily responds with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood she killed.

“Geopolitics actually isn’t that bad, maybe listen for the first ten minutes at least before you knock the teacher out?” Juliana responds in kind, getting a chuckle out of Emily.

“Sure, I’ll consider it.”

Juliana hugs all three of them, giving Emily a few seconds of extra attention, before waving goodbye and stepping into a transportation room.

“Right, let’s go too,” Emily says to the twins, heading towards her first lesson of the day.

***

Once again, the only ones in the classroom are Emily, the twins and Nico. The teacher who shows up is a small man with greasy black hair and crooked glasses.

“Hello class, my name is Theodore Eleocharis, second circle mage, and I’m here to teach you all the fascinating subject of geopolitics,” he says while turning to the board and raising his chalk. “As I’m sure you all know, our wonderful planet of Ulea is a sphere. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool and should reconsider their education carefully.”

“Ha, I like him.” Emily hears Tom mutter under his breath, making her chuckle.

“We estimate our planet to have a radius of about five thousand kilometres and a surface area of about three hundred and fourteen million kilometres, an easy answer to reach if you know simple maths. This area is covered by roughly sixty per cent land mass, split between the three major continents.”

As he speaks, Mr Eleocharis draws four large blobs on the board. In the centre is a large, top-heavy mass. To the right is a chunky mass in line with the top half of the first, and below it is a small stretched-out mass with a disconnected blob below it.

“The first is the Keban continent.” He points to the large mass in the centre. “This continent is where we live, and it makes up around seventy-three per cent of the world's land mass. Next is the Dennari continent.” He points towards the second largest mass. “This continent makes up around twenty-one per cent of the world’s land mass. And that leaves the Lerus Isles down here, with only six per cent of the world’s land mass.” He points to the two small masses in the bottom right of his diagram before turning back to face the class.

“Now, what can any of you tell me about these continents?”

There is no reaction from the students, and after a couple of seconds, Mr Eleocharis sighs and opens his mouth to speak again. But before he can say anything, Nico tentatively raises his hand.

“Yes?” Mr Eleocharis asks sharply.

Nico flinches and lowers his hand before saying quietly:

“Um, most of our planet has a dry climate.”

“Good! Anything else?” Mr Eleocharis asks in a gentler manner.Diiscover new stories at novelhall.com

“There is only one rainforest on our planet, The Glade, it’s on the Keban continent to the south of Chroni. Also, there are three main forests, one in the far southwest of Keban, one directly west of Chroni, and the last one is in the northeast of Dennari,” Nico continues, slowly relaxing more as he speaks.

“Very good, Mister?”

“Nico Robinson, first circle mage of house Hedera sir.”

Emily frowns as he answers.

They were on Jenny’s list; I’ll have to avoid him.

“Five points to Nico Robinson, can anyone else tell me anything?” Mr Eleocharis rewards Nico with his points at the podium while looking over to Emily’s group.

Emily considers for a moment before raising her hand.

“Go ahead, and introduce yourself first please, you should all get into the habit of introducing yourselves the first time you answer a question in a class with a new teacher.”

Why weren’t we told that in etiquette? Never mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Stick-Up-His-Ass assumed we were all stupid commoners who would never give useful input.

“The artist. The artist! Goddess, he was so rude for no reason,” Tom whines.

“Didn’t you say you liked his snark?” Emily chuckles.

“That was before the snark was turned on him,” Hester joins in.

“Urgh, you two are the worst!”

Tom speeds up and walks ahead of them with a scowl.

“Aww, don’t be like that. Maybe doing some drawing will calm you down,” Hester calls after him before breaking out in laughter with Emily.

As the two of them calm down, Hester turns to Emily and asks:

“Got any plans before lunch?”

“Nah, I think I’m just gonna head to the training rooms and meditate for a bit.”

“Got it, see you at lunch then. I’m going to go pacify the child.”

“Haha, good luck.” Emily gives a small wave and steps into a transportation room alone.

Making her way to the training rooms, she finds the only unoccupied room and selects the same settings as last time. Sitting down in the centre of the gathering array she attempts to clear her mind. However, her thoughts keep going back to her family.

Damn, I’m wasting points. I should have only chosen double density.

With her mood dropping further, it takes her twenty minutes to fully empty her mind and begin using the Technomancer’s Breath.

***

Two and a half hours later, Emily leaves the training room twenty-eight points poorer. As she walks towards the transportation rooms to go to the cafeteria, she checks her contribution points on the back of her crest: ‘128’.

I should use these more sparingly. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to earn a large batch more.

She enters the cafeteria with a scowl, in an even worse mood than this morning. Spotting Juliana and the twins, she walks over and drops down next to Juliana, dumping her notebook onto the table.

“You okay?” Juliana asks her worriedly.

“It’s nothing, I just wasted a load of contribution points because I couldn’t focus on my meditation, that’s all,” Emily answers sharply, shaking off the hand Juliana offered for support and immediately regretting it as she flinches back.

“Sorry, it’s not your fault,” Emily apologises with a sigh. “I’m just in a bit of a shit mood and I don’t think meditating was the right choice.”

“It’s okay, you drew a map in geopolitics, right?”

Emily nods, glad to change the subject.

“Want me to add my family’s territory to it?”

“Sure,” Emily agrees and opens her notebook to the map she drew, handing Juliana her quill. As Juliana starts drawing, Emily adds: “Oh, and I used solid lines for land borders and dotted for-“

She stops as she realises Juliana has already finished drawing a solid line around everything.

“Ah, sorry!” Juliana looks up with panic.

“It’s fine, I guess it adds character?” Emily says questioningly.

“As the resident artist, I’d say it totally improves the piece,” Tom adds to the conversation, having embraced his new nickname, probably to avoid his sister’s ribbing.

Emily and Hester laugh at his comment as Juliana looks at them with confusion.

Maybe spending my birthday with these guys isn’t so bad.

This is a poorly realised version of the map Emily drew!

(Don't judge me too hard, I'm not an artist and this was mostly to help me visualise while writing)