38
Milo sat in the Security Room, his feet up and a bowl of peanuts in his hand. He tossed back the peanuts while reaching for a mug of ale now and again while the screen played back Master Barrowclough’s practical lessons.
He’d previously ignored most of the Class Roles teacher’s lessons as they were very focused on what each mage could bring to the table.
What interested Milo about Barrowclough’s classes was the lectures.
Each week he focused on one of the five mage classes.
Arcanomancer, pyromancer, geomancer, cryomancer, and electromancer.
He considered electromancers to be suited to the Tank role, geomancers and arcanomancers to be Support, and pyromancers and cryomancers to be pure Damage Dealers.
His lessons were also very practical, involving a lot of time spent with students honing their spells on dummies and obstacle courses.
Useless to Milo.
But clearly useful to the other students.
He watched Fergus as the young man darted through a course designed to test his endurance and reaction time. Fergus fired off multiple icy shard spells, and even blasted one dummy with a spear of ice so powerful that it blew the straw man to pieces.
All the while, he flung himself from cover to cover.
Grudgingly, Milo had to admit Fergus was pretty good.
He used ice in some interesting ways. He could even use it to rain icy shards down from above, pounding an area about twenty feet in diameter with hundreds of them before he had to stop.
Jin wasn’t as focused on his magic. He was only a level three himself so compensated for that with raw physical power.
Still, he used lightning in a similar way to Belt.
He would snatch hold of enemies and blast them with a bolt which leapt outward, snapping from one to the next in a chain which left them shocked long enough for him to finish them off with his mace.
A lot of lightning mages tended to take on the Tank slot in a team.
Fulka skipped Barrowclough’s class, preferring to double up on Master Haddrow’s lessons.
When Milo had first started watching the other students blow dummies to pieces with their magic, he’d felt jealous. But, as the recordings continued, he found himself analyzing them more critically.
A huge portion of Barrowclough’s lessons was devoted not to the actual spells they used, but the strategy of using them while conserving and recovering mana. The more Milo listened, the more confused he became as to why most of the other students had dismissed him so easily.
Why they’d called him normie and other ridiculous names.
It looked like most of their time in dungeons wasn’t spent fighting, but in an endless game of hide and seek with enemies. No wonder they always looked more exhausted than he was when they returned.
And why it took so long for them to complete dungeons.
The advantage Milo’s golems had over them was their endless stamina and mechanical ability to just keep moving. It was rare that Tania or Selma needed to pause after a fight, and he couldn’t remember them having to run away and hide while recovering power.
He wondered why the mages didn’t train dedicated soldiers to do the physical work so they could stand at the back and cast when required. It would be more efficient.
Instead, the mages looked determined to be capable with magic and with the physical demands of combat.
It was strange.
Click suddenly skittered into the room and leapt up into Milo’s lap. The little spider golem wagged its back like a dog.
“You’re back early,” Milo said, giving it a pat. He wasn’t sure if that’s what it wanted, but it did respond with a happy whir of gears. “Did you get inside?”
The golem waved its arms, which he took as a yes.
Smiling, he opened the golem’s shell and retrieved the memory crystal. He popped another in before switching out Barrowclough’s lecture for the new one.
The recording started in the Dungeon Hall. The spider golem was clearly in the ducts and working its way through to the Vaults behind the Hall.
The recording skipped ahead after a brief burst of static.
It showed the hallway down which Milo had been carried on the stretcher. The Spider golem was peering through a small vent looking down to where a mage was standing in front of a doorway.
Beside the mage, a small tray loaded with tools.
Basic tools.
Hammers, screwdrivers, and a wand.
Leaning forward in his chair, Milo watched the mage work on the door which was still open to where he could see the plinth on which the machine core was still floating.
The mage had no interest in the core.
His attention was solely on the door. Which made Milo think he was a Tinker.
“Alright there, Jor?”
The mage looked up as a second arrived. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t see why it opened. It’s never done it before.”
“Yeah, but can you close it again?”
“I’m not really sure. And I’m not exactly eager to try too hard in case it triggers some trap we haven’t found before.”
“Is that likely?”
“I don’t know that either.” The mage scratched his head. “But it’s my neck, see? I’m kinda attached to it. I’d like to keep it in one piece.”
“Yeah. Well, the Headmaster wants an update this afternoon.”
“Sure.” The mage grabbed a hammer and gave the doors a gentle tap. “Maybe it’s blocked somewhere? I mean, we could try pulling some of the stones out to see if the pulleys inside have been damaged. But, like I said, I’m worried that’d trigger something. This room’s always been a bit tetchy.”
“Eh. It’s harmless now. We’ve disabled all the traps.”
“Tell that to Malco’s wife.”
“Yeah, well… That was an accident…”
“Right.”
The second mage hung around a little while longer. Mostly complaining.
But Milo wasn’t paying much attention to them. He was looking at the floor just inside the room. Where sharp runes were painted on the granite.
Not dwarven runes.
Human.
“Wards,” he muttered. Of course the mages would put some sort of security in place. If the door was supposed to be closed and had opened itself and was now stuck, then the mages would want to keep people out of the room.
They hadn’t moved the plinth, though.
That suggested they couldn’t.
Or it was warded up the wazoo and it was more sensible to keep it where it was.
“What’s those?” Tania asked, making him jump in his chair.
“Blast it!” Milo grabbed at his bowl of peanuts before they could spill. “Can’t you make a little noise sometimes?”
“No,” she said. “I’m an 11-B. It’s sorta against my Intelligence Matrix. So, what are we looking at?”
“Wards,” he repeated. “I don’t know much about them. They’re advanced magic. Basically just spells which have been contained within a rune. If you step on or near it, it’ll trigger.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Traps.”
“Magical traps.”
“A trap’s a trap.”
“If you say so.” He squinted at the runes. “I wish I knew what they were.”
“They’re too simple to be important,” she said dismissively. “Dwarven runes are better.”
“What?” He looked at her. “How so?”
“Well, they’re more complex, see?”
He remembered his original goal in coming down to the lower halls was to translate them. But he’d never gotten around to it.
And with Fed having translated most dwarven writing into human, he’d not been motivated to put more effort into learning.
“I thought they were just writing?”
“The runes?” She looked at him oddly. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, they kind of look the same as dwarven writing.”
“I guess so? Sort of? But not all that much?”
“Well, what are they, then?”
“Spell containers,” she said. “That’s why mana flows through them.”
“Like wards?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t have much information in my Matrix on them. I want to tell ya to-”
“Get access to the Prime,” he finished for her.
She reached out and pinched his cheeks. “Ain’t you a smart cookie?”
“I didn’t think dwarves used magic, though.”
“What do you think cores are?”
“I don’t know. I thought they were, like, some kind of construct?”
She cocked her head. Then she nodded. “You gotta-”
“Get access to the Prime. Yeah, I know.”
Tania giggled. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright. Fed does it to me all the time.”
“If I showed ya my coochie, would it make ya feel better?”
“Stop that,” he said. Then turned his attention back to the screen. The spider golem was still monitoring the mage, who was looking up and down the hall.
Checking to see if anyone was watching him.
“Place gives me the creeps,” the man said softly. “Always feels like someone’s watching me.”
As he watched, Milo saw a brief flicker.
“What was that?”
“I saw it, too,” Tania said.
Winding it back, Milo watched it again.
And again.
It wasn’t much. Just a ripple in the air behind the mage.
Milo squinted at the screen.
Tania squinted at the screen.
Then they turned to each other and said the same thing at the same time.
“Fulka.”
“Well, ain’t that just taking the berries?” Tania giggled, booping his nose gently. “I guess it’s true that great minds think alike!”