Abyssal Arcanist [Chapter 3]

Hey peeps!

Mimic Arcanist releases tomorrow!! <3

Here is the next chapter to Abyssal Arcanist. I'm excited for the plot of this book. A lot of good scenes. <.<

Shami

CHAPTER THREE

MOVING DORMS

The lecture continued, but I heard little of it. I was only jolted from my daydreams when Piper walked around her desk and loudly proclaimed, “Oh, look at the time. We should have a break.” She clapped her hands and motioned to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

Piper exited the classroom before anyone could get a word out. And she left with a smile, which was more odd behavior from her. Or perhaps I was reading too much into the situation.

Then a strange thing happened.

Both Raaza and Nasbit stood from their tables and walked over to mine. The tables in the room only had bench seating, and none of the tables were really designed for the whole class to sit at one. Raaza dragged over a bench from the nearest table, the wooden legs scraping against the stone floor until it was in place on the opposite side.

Nasbit and Raaza took a seat facing me, Sorin, and Nini. Raaza’s kitsune, Miko, leapt up onto table, her flame feet flaring once she landed. Nothing burned, but it was startling. She pranced over to Twain and lied down next to him, her fluffy fox tail wrapping around her little kit body.

I lifted an eyebrow.

“Is everything okay?” my brother asked.

Brak, Nasbit’s golem, lumbered over. The golem halted at the end of the table, casting a shadow over us. It wasn’t intimidating, though. Brak took a seat, practically slamming onto the floor in the process. Then it folded its legs, resembling a child listening to a bedtime story.

“Don’t play dumb,” Raaza whispered in a harsh tone. He at my brother, and then at me. “What’s going on with you? Twice you’re involved in strange circumstances related to the abyssal hells. Twice.”

“It was more like one really long event,” I said. “The Gate of Crossing that Professor Zahn had created, and the aftermath of the explosion. That’s it. And everything’s fine now. No need to worry.”

My statements fell on deaf ears. Everyone stared at me with frowns or hardened expressions of utter disbelief. I didn’t blame them. Somehow, I kept running in major problems. I wasn’t even aiming for them, which was the troubling truth. They just found me.

Nasbit shook his head. “Gray, I saw what happened to you. I saw… how you were possessed.” His frowned deepened as he added, “I apologize for not helping you more than I did, but… Well, I wasn’t certain what to do. But now I think I have for moving forward.”

He stood from the table, walked back to his, and grabbed his notebook. Then he returned to his seat across from me.

“Let’s document every strange thing that happens to you.” Nasbit flipped open his notebook and held his pencil poised over a blank page. “Why don’t you explain why you lied to the professor about the defiant dragon?” He waited, his eyes wide.

“Who said I lied?” I asked.

Raaza scoffed.

My brother furrowed his brow.

“You obviously didn’t research that torture device,” Nasbit said, his tone sardonic.

Nini nodded along with the statement. “Yeah. I mean, normally you’re pretty good at, uh, telling little white lies, but that was bad.” She tapped her fingertips together. “Sorry.”

“What?” I waved away their comments. “Piper believed me. And how could you all tell I was lying?”

“If you had read a book about the defiant dragon, you would’ve known its name,” Nasbit said matter-of-factly. “You only described it, like it was something you had seen, and not really researched at all.”

Huh.

Couldn’t argue with that logic.

“I’m tired,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll come up with a better explanation next time.”

“What really happened?” Nasbit asked.

“I had a dream about the statue.”

Again, everyone went quiet. Sorin placed a hand on my shoulder, and I shoved it away.

That seemed to concern everyone as well. Nini stood and her reaper, Waste, floated closer to the table. Her freakish eldrin was nothing more than an empty cloak seemingly hanging on an invisible person. He had a chain of names, and a rusty scythe, but that was it. No face, no body—he was a phantom made of magic.

“You shouldn’t push us away,” Nini whispered. “Sorin just wants to help you.”

“Look, everyone needs to calm down.” I smiled as I tugged at the collar of my robes. “I’m wearing something that no one should touch. That’s why Sorin needs to keep his distance.”

The moment the gold “necklace” was visible, everyone caught their breath. With a dramatic twirl of my wrist, I showed off the sinister accessory, and then folded my robes over everything so it was once again out of sight.

“What is that?” Raaza asked.

“It’s a weapon from the abyssal hells.” I nervously chuckled, because I knew they weren’t going to like this, as I added, “It’s, uh, called Vivigöl, Silencer of the Damned.”

“The necklace is a weapon?”

“It can change shape,” I muttered. “This just makes it easy to wear.”

Technically, I had already told Sorin this. I had told him the moment I returned to the dorms. But he didn’t seem to care or perhaps he just didn’t listen. He refused to stop showing his affection through touch. He embraced me, held my shoulder, or otherwise kept close no matter what.

“Do you all hear this?” Raaza asked, his words steeped in disbelief. “Gray is having dreams about torture devices and he’s wearing a weapon from the abyssal hells? He’s clearly under some dark influence. Am I the only sane one here?”

Nasbit furiously took notes, his pencil moving so fast, I was surprised his lettering came out so neatly.

“Maybe you’re having these new dreams because of the weapon,” Sorin said. “You should take it off.”

“I can’t.” I rubbed at the cold metal that touched my skin. “I mean, I can, I just can’t risk it sitting somewhere. If anyone else touches it, they’ll get hurt.” I wasn’t entirely sure what extent they would be damaged, but I didn’t even want to risk it.

Sorin folded his arms over his barrel chest. “Seems like a bad omen, though.”

My father always spoke about bad omens. He would tell us all the time that sometimes it best to listen to signs whenever they appeared. Was this weapon an omen or was it the consequence of not listening to omens?

“It’s obviously a bad omen,” Raaza stated. He motioned to me with sarcastically dramatic flair. “Twice you’ve come into contact with things from the abyssal hells. You’re cursed. And it’s only getting worse. And the fact that we’re all just sitting here, pretending like you’re not about to slide deeper into the hells, is a farce.”

I held up a finger. “Woah, woah. Settle down. The gate fragments were the cause of all the recent trouble, and the headmaster is taking care of everything. He’s locating the fragments, and Dr. Doon, the new relickeeper arcanist on campus, is using his magic to hold them in stasis, so they can’t, ya know, wreak havoc.”

The shattered bits of the Gates of Crossing that led to the abyssal hells had frightened me before, but Headmaster Venrover had discovered a solution and seemed to be implementing as fast as possible. And as long as I stayed inside Astra Academy, away from the fragments he hadn’t found yet, there was little chance of running into any more trouble.

I hoped.

Nasbit kept writing with all the haste of someone swimming to the ocean’s surface for fresh air. Was he writing about my dreams? Or about the headmaster’s actions?

“The headmaster actually wants you to stay?” Raaza shook his head. “He’s not trying to expel you? Heh. That’s bizarre. Not what I would’ve done.”

I shrugged. “Would you rather I wander away and inevitably aid in the opening of the abyssal hells? Because I think that option is still on the table.”

“No, it’s not,” Twain said. He lifted his head high, and his ears higher. “My arcanist isn’t about to be a key for weirdos to unlock the gates to the afterlife. Not while I’m around.”

Sorin grabbed my upper arm and held on. “No one is getting Gray without a fight.”

And while I didn’t want him touching me, his hand was above the fabric of my robes. Perhaps that would be fine, but I worried.

“I’ll fight, too,” Nini stated. She held onto Sorin’s shoulder, and my brother gave her an appreciative glance. The two stared at each other like only sweethearts do. Then Nini quickly returned her attention to me, her face red. “Uh, anyone who is important to Sorin is important to me.”

Her reaper hovered close to the table. “We’ll cut down the corpses of the abyssal hells and grow stronger at the same time,” Waste said.

Raaza’s kitsune perked her ears. “I do like the sound of gaining strength and practicing magical abilities on corpses.” Miko turned her gaze to her arcanist. “You like that, don’t you, my arcanist? Hm? Hmmm?” She wagged the tip of her tail.

Was she on my side?

Raaza eventually rolled his eyes. He leaned onto the table and patted his kitsune. “No one is going to listen to me, anyway. I might as well kill the corpses that rise from the crypt.”

Miko smiled. “Oh, yes. I like this.”

“But if you turn into a monster,” Raaza said, glaring in my direction, “I’ll cut you down, too.”

What a hero. I almost made a quip, but I kept it to myself.

“Hm.” Nasbit finished writing a sentence and then glanced at the door. “Professor Jenkins isn’t back yet.”

“Piper,” Sorin corrected. “Just call her Piper.”

“The professor,” Nasbit said, clearly trying to avoid her first name at all costs, “should have been back by now. But she isn’t here.” Nasbit closed his notebook. “I was thinking… Perhaps we can take a few minutes—before the professor eventually returns—to move some of my things?”

“Move things?” I asked. “What do you mean by that?”

Nasbit stood and gathered his belongs into his arms. His stone golem also stood, the boulders scraping along the floor and creating a short ruckus. Once the golem was on its feet, Nasbit smiled.

“Hm,” he said. “I figured, if I wanted to help you, and perhaps learn more about the abyssal hells, I should switch dorms. I’m not really getting along well with my current dormmates anyway, as all the men belong to a different class.”

Raaza shot him a sidelong glare. “Oh? Your highborn peers didn’t work out, so now you want to slum it up with all us lowborns? What will your family think of such a disgrace?” He spoke the last few words with faux distress.

“Hey,” Sorin growled.

“What? That’s what happening. Nasbit could’ve stayed in our dorm when we first enrolled in the Academy—the dorm the rest of his classmates were in—but instead, he chose the dorm of the aristocracy.” Raaza motioned to Nasbit. “Admit it.”

Sorin stood, and I almost wished I wasn’t so tired. Why was my brother getting so agitated? What was he thinking?

“Nasbit’s trying to help.” Sorin gritted his teeth for a moment. After he was a little calmer, he added, “It doesn’t help anybody to start a fight like that. We are in the same class. Nasbit did help Gray by informing the professor when he saw Gray possessed. I think it’s fine if he joins our dorm.”

Ah, Sorin. Always advocating for peaceful camaraderie. He was too nice, but I’d never be able to convince him otherwise.

Nasbit didn’t say anything during the exchange. If anything, he just stared at the table, his expression twisted, almost as if he were ashamed, but I was guessing. I didn’t know Nasbit that well.

“I think it’s better if we’re all in the same dorm,” I said, trying to keep my tone causal. Fighting about bed arrangements seemed petty. “Besides, we need someone to even out Knovak. That man fancies himself the most noble of nobles, and if Nasbit is around, he won’t bother all of us about which shirts match his belt buckles.”

Again, Raaza scoffed. Then he threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. I suppose we weren’t using half the beds anyway.”

“I wish I could join you all,” Nini whispered.

Sorin turned to face her. “W-Well, I mean, we would all be respectful, but we do use the dorm to change. And other things.”

Nini’s eyes widened. She straightened her glasses as her cheeks grew red, “Oh, um, actually. Forget I said anything. I didn’t think this through.” She glanced away, and even tugged at her some of her shoulder-length hair, as though using it to cover her face.

Her reaper floated close and made a sound akin to a growl.

I glanced over at the door, ignoring the odd conversation.

Piper still hadn’t returned to the classroom.

“If I am welcome in your dorm, we should move my things now,” Nasbit muttered.

“Why?” I narrowed my eyes. “We should probably just wait until after class. We’ll have more free time then.”

“Well, I would prefer not to explain to the others in my dorm what I was doing.” Nasbit slowly rubbed his gut. “They mock me a lot, and I suspect if they were there while I was packing my trunk to move to your dorm, I would forever be haunted by their howling laughter.”

It was just that sad sack to be in a lowborn dorm? People were cruel sometimes. I barely ever experienced this before enrolling at Astra Academy—our small home island didn’t have any noble families. We had a single arcanist, and a herd of hippogriffs that cared for us as much as we did for them. That was it.

My father made candles, and—somehow—he was prominent figure in the community. We weren’t really swimming in dukes and duchesses.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go now.”

“Wait, Gray—what if we’re late returning to class?” Sorin asked.

I motioned to the front desk. “I think we can just point out we weren’t the first to be late, and Piper will understand.”