I woke up feeling oddly refreshed, like I'd left my burdens in the sleeping world of dreams and was free to enjoy this world without them. I went from resting to awake in an instant, which seemed like a vampire thing. I was just happy I could still sleep properly, since I was pretty sure Kindred, for example, didn't really sleep. When they slumbered, it was more like a coma, a dreamless sleep where they truly resembled the corpses they truly were.
I hopped off the bed, my eyes glinting, and my gaze landed on the letter resting on my table. It was still dark outside, but it seemed like I already had my schedule. I quickly pried it open and glanced over at the schedule, a bit surprised at how sparse it was. Just seven classes?
'Arcane Fundamentals'
'Introduction to Spellcasting Theory'
'The History of Magic'
'Lawful Use of Magic'
'Mana Control & Meditation'
'Magical Safety & Containment'
'Practical Magic: Cantrips'
'Mathematics and Geometry'
All of them were two to four hours long and were held three times per week. Okay. The good? I had a practical magic class! Yay. Two classes were about magical theory, which was also neat and … I read through the short summary of what 'Magical Safety' was about and found myself pleasantly surprised. It was supposedly less a lecture about all the ways we could blow ourselves up with a miscast spell and an extremely tedious assignment at the end, and more like a practical class in which we would be taught how not to get blown up by our own magic. Neat.
Magical control and meditation … I wasn't all that worried. I had Power Upgrades to help me cheat with those, so I doubted the teacher could really help me improve anything about my mana control.
The last three? Blegh. Magical laws, magical history and regular mathematics. I was crossing my fingers that having the first two be associated with magic would make them less mind-numbingly boring than their regular counterparts, but I wasn't going to hold out much hope for it. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised if it turned out to be actually interesting. As for having to go to maths class again? … meh. I was more curious than anything.
Maths had been one of my better subjects in high school, and I passed three courses in calculus at different levels in college, though the last two just barely. Meaning, I wasn't all that worried about failing this class, especially with Rapid Learning and my enhanced mind helping me out this time around. It would be interesting to see how different a maths class would be in a magical world, though.
I had to fight down the urge to jump right into some magic practice. The books in my mind had a pretty good roadmap for Arcane magic and the levels of training exercises I could do and benefit from every step of the way. But dorm rules. I didn't want to find out just how cross with me people overseeing things here would be if I went ahead and broke a major rule, not even a day into my stay here. Sure, I could technically be a self-taught Arcane mage, but I didn't want to. I wanted to be a Dalaran-trained mage of the Kirin Tor. I wanted it to be official. I wanted to attend a magical academy, listen to lectures by Archmages, and experience life in Dalaran. I didn't want to get kicked out.
And who knows? Maybe the stuff in my soul library would only get me so far. What if I get stumped? There wouldn't be anyone to ask for help! I'd have to figure everything out all by myself based on dusty old tomes.
So instead I just sat on my windowsill, peering out the coloured glass at the city below, slowly coming to life as the sun crested over the horizon. I almost jumped out of my skin — literally — when a loud alarm went off, and only my superhuman instincts stopped me from flopping off the windowsill.
A large clock woven from threads of Arcane magic had popped into being on the far wall, and reading it quickly revealed the cause for the alarm. It was morning. 6 AM to be exact. Was this stupid thing going to do that every single morning?
I stared at the magic, at the clock, letting my mind slip into that delicious flow state where it once more unravelled all the mysteries held within the spell. It was a simple one, just a timekeeper spell that always kept the time. It was probably just a cantrip, too, though it was tied to an alarm, and both of them connected to some massive weave that covered all of my walls and every brick of the building for as far as I could sense.
If it were only the first two spells, I'd have been confident in poking the alarm spell in all the right places to make it stop causing a tuckus every morning, but with that last weave that was probably some enchantment woven into the entire building? I'd probably get in lots of trouble.
At least I got two new spells out of it. I mused, happy with my haul despite the uncomfortable ringing in my ears. The alarm went on and on for what felt like forever, but was only half a minute. Well, I suppose that means I can leave and explore a bit! The first class I can attend today should be Arcane Fundamentals, and I have a whole two hours till that starts … I should leave an hour for myself to find the classroom, just to be safe.
Which still left me with an entire hour to do with as I wished. I threw on my novice robes, which were pretty cool looking and comfortable too, with a style that somewhat reminded me of a lab coat, just much more fancy and primarily in Dalaran's colours instead of pure white. Only the rim of it was done with some dull grey embroidery, which I'd learned denoted me as an uninitiated novice. Once I became an initiate, I'd get the big golden Eye of the Kirin Tor on my back, then a second line once I got a 'master' and became an apprentice, then from there it would be bronze, silver and gold with adept, master and archmage ranks.
The robe also did a pretty good job of hiding my unusual clothes when I buttoned the top.
Suitably dressed, I swept out of my room and made for the nearest exit of the building, planning to just wander around on the streets and maybe take another look at those self-moving mops or maybe a flying carpet. With how easily I'd reverse-engineered the few spells I'd seen so far, I was pretty hopeful about ridding myself of the need to mop, dust or sweep myself ever again. Also, even if I could fly now, a flying carpet … I wanted a flying carpet! Aladdin had a flying carpet, and that's always been my favourite Disney movie.
I barely got halfway there when I felt the thrum of magic nearby, of spells being cast and thrown about. Without even pausing, I changed course and headed towards where I felt that magic coming from, noting the sign about this being the 'magical training hall'. Right. I remembered that broke novices would have to use the shared training hall, while those with a bit more cash in their pockets could rent private training and practice rooms. I followed the signs towards the training hall meant for novices and initiates.
It was the size of a gymnasium with many smaller cubicles on one side and a larger magical 'range' on the other with training dummies, and I even saw a sparring ring on the far side of it. For now, I just settled in the middle and watched on as two preteen boys, probably five or more years younger than me, cast spells down range at some unfortunate dummies.
Of the six people already in the training hall this early in the morning, they were the most interesting to watch, as the others were doing simple training exercises or just straight-up meditating.
One of the boys was casting pure Arcane magic, just good old bolts of arcane mana shaped vaguely like a bullet and launched at an enemy. Was that even a spell? I watched his hands move, his fingers shifting between gestures that shaped the bolt and then the final one that launched it forward. With me being able to see the arcane spellweave he'd been making with those gestures, it'd almost looked like he was doing crochet with his fingers or something.
The other body was doing something a bit more interesting: fire magic. Or rather, the fire aspect of Arcane magic. A sad little bolt of magical fire whizzed through the air, splattering across the shoulder of an unimpressed dummy.
Both of them kept going, unperturbed by their display or when one of their bolts seemingly nonsensically decided to curve sideways or just poof out of existence. That was impressive. I doubted I could find two twelve-year-old boys who'd be able to just stand there and launch spells down the range for minutes on end with little to no visible improvement to their skills.
Both of them had rather shaky mana control, though in opposing ways. The arcane bolt kid was constantly overcharging his spells and mangling the spellweave by rushing through it, while the fire bolt kid was hesitating. Hell, his hands and fingers were quivering as he made the somatic gestures. He also undercharged the spell every once in a while, which was what made it poof into nothing or swerve away.
I stepped up to a range a good bit away from them, not wanting to be mean and held out a hand. I didn't need gestures; I've never had trouble manipulating my mana or moulding it into shapes using just my will. Maybe for some of the complex, big spells, I'd need to, but these spells were cantrips.
The arcane bolt I formed was conical, though it ended not in a tip but in a blunted dome. With a flick of my wrist, it shot ahead and smacked into the wooden dummy with a muffled thud. Those things had noise suppression built into them? Made sense.
The next logical steps would be to make the bolt end in a sharp point and to make it spin. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to do that quite yet, since I hadn't gotten to experimenting with combat spells yet in my self-study. Spinning, I could maybe do manually through raw mana control, give the bolt a spin just the moment I fired it, but the pointy tip? Nah. I'd only made balls so far, and not even those with a proper spell structure.
There was a big difference between raw mana manipulation and doing things that way and actual spellweaves and structures. In DnD terms, one was like being a Sorcerer and the other like a Wizard. Amy's Force and Ward magic, which I'd totally copied from her without shame, relied almost entirely on raw mana manipulation. There was just this mental trick that you had to do first to twist neutral mana into Force or Ward aspected mana.
For now, I just fired off this somewhat refined arcane bolt a few more times, evening out the kinks where the mana flow didn't feel quite right. Just because I could see the problem didn't mean I could fix it in my own casting instantly, though I did get all the major ones after a handful of practice casts.
"Hey! How're you doing that?" The arcane bolt kid asked, having rushed over and got up in my face with the lack of shame only a child could have. "You're a novice too, right? I can see the stripes on your robe, so how did you get so good at Arcane Missiles? Is there a trick? Can you show me? I'm Declan, by the way, what's your name?"
"Evelyn," I answered with a slow blink. How do you even deal with kids? I knew it came naturally to some people… but I felt no innate instinct telling me what to say. "Yes, I'm a novice, I just arrived yesterday. I've been doing some self-study before, though, so I know a bit about magic. As for a trick? There isn't one; it just takes practice. From what I saw, you're putting far too much mana into your spell and keep rushing to finish the casting as fast as possible, so … try not doing that?"
He just stared at me with big, round blue eyes, as I'd just told him Santa wasn't real. "But da' said all them mages are worthless because all you got to do to beat them is punch them in the face before they can finish casting their fancy spells. But he can't punch me in the face if I cast faster! How am I supposed to not get punched in the face if casting a single spell takes five seconds!?"
"You have to … slow down, make sure you are doing it properly," I said, picking my words carefully. "Once your mana control improves and you've practised the spell enough, casting it will slowly speed up over time naturally. Rushing it now is just wasting half the mana you spend on the spell, and it's also what makes your spells fizzle out, blow up or just slam into the floor."
"Slow down to … speed up?" He tilted his head, tiny cogs working slowly inside his head. "Practice. Urgh. Guess … I'll get back to that?"
"Just take it slow and make sure you're making every gesture properly and not rushing through them," I said.
"You're not using gestures, though," he pointed out, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Because my mana control is good enough that I don't need to," I huffed. "Go practice, or something."
"Okay," he said, shrugging. "Bye, Evelyn."
Then he was off, rushing back over to the other boy and babbling about my 'advice'. The stupid kid was talking about how I had the secret to gesture-less magic. I rolled my eyes and got back to practice, though I switched it up and repeated the same refinement process with the fire bolt spell I'd yoinked from the other kid.
Arcane magic couldn't really do true elemental magic. Its two 'specialisations' of Frost and Fire were more a result of manipulating thermodynamics through magical mathematics than drawing on the magical element of fire. Yes, there was a difference. I had some novice fire spells, and they felt super different, more alive and vibrant, almost angry. Arcane's fire magic was scientific and lifeless, just heat and mana-induced chemical reactions, or even just faux flames that just mimicked all the properties of a fire through Arcane spellweaves. Frost was its inverse, the cold, the lack of heat, the denial of everything Fire represented.
I mentally went through all the Upgrades I'd gotten for my Sorcerer Apprentice power, trying to keep track of them, but it was an absolute mess. There were four upgrades, and each had a synergy power with all the other upgrades, so if you picked two, you actually got four. When you got three? You got nine. I bought four, so I had sixteen.
Perpetual Refinement and Attunement were both going to be really damned useful, one because it almost gamified spellcasting by allowing me to improve my spells by sheer repetition. Analysis was something I'd entirely forgotten about, and what it did was allow me to analyse any object I laid my hands on down to the molecular level, and its secondary effect allowed me to replicate it if I had enough mana for it, no matter how magically complex the object was. Attunement, meanwhile, allowed me to will effects into being and have the magic making up the spell obey my will to reshape itself, to a certain extent. Which I was just about to test.
I wove together threads of arcane mana, completing the 'Arcane Missile' spell, as the kid had called it, and then focused. My considerable willpower and superhuman focus fell upon the spell structure like the hammer of God — turns out, being a pseudo ancient vampire hybrid thing gave me lots of mental strength — and the structure jolted, threads snapping, others blooming into existence. I blinked, looking at the altered spellweave, then shrugged and actualised it with a flex of my will.
The bolt that leapt from my fingers was shaped like a real missile, with a pointed tip and a long, narrow body. It was also spinning as it sped up and slammed into the dummy with the same muffled thud as before. It flashed red after a moment. I mean, the dummy lit up and flashed red, making me blink.
What did that mean? I looked around for a bit, noticing the two kids staring at me again, Declan bouncing on his toes and the other kid looking like he'd just seen Jesus walk on water or something.
"You know what the red light means?" I asked.
"You killed it!" Declan said cheerfully. "It detects when the dummy gets lethal amounts of damage!"
Huh, neat. That was pretty useful. I'd have to take a look at how it worked, maybe after picking up a bit of Arcane Enchanting. I had a feeling my Babel Perk would be an absolute cheat code when it came to deciphering runic enchanting, and as far as I knew, Arcane Enchanting relied quite heavily on runes. Arcane magic also had more direct uses for them, like Sigils, Glyphs, Marks and stuff:
I continued playing with the spells for a while more, then settled into one of the cubicles set aside for some training exercises. The cubicles were bland, just three walls and a noise suppression field around it to let me focus on what I was doing and not the two kids chatting outside. I went through my favourite training exercise with the dozen colourful balls of mana orbiting me, not pushing myself to the limit of my multitasking, just enjoying the way they moved under my guidance in perfect synchrony like a troupe of performers. It was almost like meditation.
After that, I got into the next exercise that sounded like fun: trying to draw in the air with coloured threads of mana. I had to use my fingers at first, using some shaping gestures to help control the mana so it flowed the right way, but in practice, I looked like a kid who tapped her fingers in paint, making smudges on the canvas, then called it art. The first result was so bad Carol wouldn't have put it on the fridge even if it had been 5-year-old Vicky drawing it. Which was saying something.
An Alarm blaring in my ears made me startle, my latest attempt at drawing a tree vanishing into thin air as I glared at the stupidly loud spell and swatted it out of the air. I huffed and rose to my feet. I still had an hour until Arcane Fundamentals, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Which of course led to me being the first person standing outside an empty classroom five minutes later, when I found it not ten minutes later. They apparently knew how to put up proper signs and maps everywhere over here.
Some kids came by twenty minutes later, gave me strange looks … then walked past me and sat down inside. Okay then. I guess we were allowed to head in even without the teacher being present? Good to fucking know.
I followed them in and sat down in the front row, like the dutiful little nerd I was. My college self from another life would shudder in revulsion if he could see me now.
Actually, on second thought, the kids had course books and empty notebooks with writing supplies spread out on the tables before them. My gaze wandered back over to my empty table … oops? I was supposed to gather my school supplies from the Matron, wasn't I?
I took some sneaky glances at the course books on the kids' tables and breathed a sigh of relief. I recognised it from my soul library, so I summoned the illusory book onto my table with a thought. It was a book I'd chewed my way through a few nights ago, so maybe this class would be less exciting than I'd thought.
A few more students streamed into the classroom over the next forty minutes, filling the roughly forty seats maybe halfway through. About half of them were kids between 11 and 13 years old. Another quarter was teens like me, with the last quarter being anyone from their mid-20s to their 50s or 60s. I recognised both the nervous girl and the book-reading man from the day before among them, along with Declan and his friend, but no one else.
The teacher arrived five minutes late, sweeping into the room with his copper-rimmed Adept robes hanging from his shoulder, doing nothing to cover the casual clothes underneath. Said robe got thrown over the chair behind his desk with a swift motion before he spun around and hopped onto said desk, facing us. He had flaming red hair and a well-groomed goatee, along with a pair of dark circles under his sleepy blue eyes.
"I am Mage Adept Rhonin, and I will be keeping you company for this course of Arcane Fundamentals, as well as the practical magic course," he said, making me blink. Rhonin? Wasn't that the dude from that stupid Warcraft book where they rescued the Dragon Queen from Grim Batol? And why did he sound like he was only here because he lost a bet or something? Maybe he was. I doubted doing this introductory class to absolute novices was a much-desired task with the older mages. "So Arcane Fundamentals. This class is the cornerstone of your magical education. Fail this, and you are out. The only other class as strict as it is Magical Safety, so try to pay attention. Now, who can tell me what the Arcane is?"
Of course, no one raised their hands, which made the ginger mage huff and point at … me. The only idiot who thought it was a good idea to sit in the front row. Fuck.
"You," he said lazily. "What do you think the Arcane is?"
"Uhm, it's a cold and intellectual magic that warps space and controls the flow of mana?" I think that was the definition in the book.
"Someone has studied ahead and memorised the coursebook, it seems," Rhonin said wryly. "And what do you think it is?"
Did I have a 'please bully me sensei' note stuck to my forehead or something!? I just sat down, leave me alone!
"It's … magic, but ordered? With defined laws and rules?" I said, my brain working overtime on trying to keep my foot away from my mouth. How much knowledge about other types of magic in Azeroth could I show basic knowledge about? Knowledge of some basic druidic magic should be fine; there were woodswitches everywhere in the continent of Lordaeron once. There were still some in Gilneas. Shamanism? The Wildhammer Dwarves of Aerie Peak were pretty good at that, then there was the Holy Magic of the Church of Light.
"Closer," Rhonin said, nodding once. "The Arcane is all about controlling the flow of mana, the magical energy that flows through our world. Some even say it's the lifeblood of Azeroth herself, but if you want a simpler explanation, then think of mana, which is just the fundamental measure of power, as water. If mana is water, then the arcane would be steam pressure. And if anyone here has ever seen a pressure cooker go off, they know that steam pressure can be extremely volatile, unruly and dangerous. The same goes for the arcane. This class is about learning what we can about the fundamental nature of the Arcane so that you have some basic idea of when it's about to blow up in your face."
Rhonin took a moment to look around, then shrugged. "The easiest way to remain safe, and the one most mages use, is to not actually use pure arcane for their spells. Instead, we have frost and fire spells, both of which require much less skill with mana control to use effectively in combat, frost especially. The last thing you need when a Murloc is leaping at you to chew your face off is to panic and have your Arcane Blast blow your hand off to make things even worse. Besides, pure Arcane spells are mana hungry as well, aside from being unruly, so you could throw roughly five to ten frost bolts for the same mana cost a single arcane missile would take to cast."
A hand went up, and one of the younger kids eagerly waved it in the air with such enthusiasm that Rhonin couldn't even pretend not to see her. He paused, then nodded towards her.
"Why do people even use pure arcane spells then?" The girl asked.
"Because arcane's innate unruliness translates to being very good at blowing things up," Rhonin said with a snort. "It is also something of a pride thing. Arcane requires more innate talent and skill with mana control to use effectively, so anyone who can use arcane is wordlessly stating that they have better mana control than those who don't. It's a bunch of hogwash, something for the pompous old-blood mages who never go out of the city and get into an actual fight for their lives."
He scoffed, then ran his gaze over the class, his eyes lingering on the few kids who looked disgruntled at his words. I realised they were probably descendants of those 'old-blood' mages Rhonin was talking about. "So before any of you start getting ideas, I am an Adept Fire Mage, and this fancy little sign on my chest marks me as a War Wizard, so I'll be disregarding all your and your daddies' opinions on the subject until they get the same thing pinned on their chests. Fire is the best school for actual combat, though frost also has its uses, especially when you have to fight alone and not inside a combat formation or in a squad with physical fighters to keep the enemies out of your hair while you incinerate them."
For the remainder of the class, he went over the very basics. Leylines, what they were, how they worked, how they affected ambient mana and magic, how mana tended to act in an open space, some 'scientific' laws on the behaviour of mana, other dry stuff like that. Lots and lots of stuff to memorise and stuff into our heads, because all of it was going to be in the exam. Luckily, I was a dirty cheater who cheats, so I'd have zero trouble reciting all his lectures word for word. Noctis Cape was really an awesome Perk, even if my vampiric nature would have saved me from needing to sleep anyway. Perfect recall was a good enough benefit to be more than worth the expense.
Not that most of these things were new information for me, what with having memorised the course book word for word already. I'd have been planning to skip classes and just take the exam prematurely had the teacher been anyone else, but this was Rhonin Redhair, the man who would one day take over from Archmage Antonidas and lead the Kirin Tor.
The Horde had to drop a magical nuke on top of his head to kill him in the end, and even then, he managed to localise the explosion and save nearly everyone within the blast radius. Sure, that event was decades into the future, and he was still just a twenty-something adept stuck teaching children, but I was hoping he'd sprinkle in some useful nuggets of information I could use to be a better mage as he went through that tedious task.
After class finished, I made a beeline for the Matron of the dorms and got my course books plus my monthly allowance from the grumpy old woman. Technically, I could have had the rest of the day free, but there were both the first Magical Safety and the first Maths class of the week this afternoon. Of course, I decided to attend the former and keep the less interesting class for another day. There would be one on Wednesday and Thursday as well, so it was no trouble.
Grabbing my course book for the class, I took my time getting to the classroom. Technically, this was lunch break, and the class was only starting at 1 AM, but I really didn't need regular food … although, maybe there would be extra mana in the food here? That could be neat. I might try it another day.
I just wandered the hallways, looking at the paintings on the wall, the elaborate pillars, the statues of historic mages in the small alcoves. I stopped at each one, reading the plaques next to them, which described their feats and summarised their lives. I lingered a bit longer at a bust statue of Meryl Winterstorm. A member of the One Hundred human mages who'd been taught the secrets of the arcane by the High Elves during the Troll Wars. I also knew that he'd been a founding member of the Council of Tirisfal, and that he'd somehow managed to turn himself into an unaligned undead by sheer willpower. He was still out there somewhere, 2800 years later.
I still arrived at the Magical Safety classroom ten minutes early and sat down, looking around the room. Unlike the previous one, this classroom was set up more like an auditorium with a sizable open space down below filled with dormant magic. Right, this class was supposed to be a practical one where we were supposed to get some firsthand experience dealing with dangerous magical phenomena, and our mistakes could result in.
There were already some people in, but with the auditorium being large enough to hold about a hundred people, I easily found a spot away from everyone. Including the teacher. Fuck the first row, I've had enough of being a nerd in the last class. I was going to just melt into the crowd this time, like in college.
I got lost in thought at one point, only snapping out of it when someone — ignoring all social cues I'd been throwing up about not wanting anyone to sit next to me — plopped down into the seat right next to mine. I could almost feel their gaze drilling holes into the side of my head, so I suppressed a sigh and glanced up, going stiff as my eyes met a pair of glowing sky blue orbs. No pupils, just a thin circle of darker blue to separate the irises from the sclera.
"Hi," the person whose eyes belonged to spoke up, her voice soft and high-pitched. I blinked, taking in the supernaturally pretty face and the snow white hair framing the girl's face … then the pair of long, pointed ears poking through her hair. "Can I sit here?"
She kept staring at me, face blank and eyes sizing me up with a level of scrutiny that made me want to fidget.
"You already are," I said dryly, the snark coming to me without conscious thought. It was practically an automatic defence mechanism by this point. Then I shrugged and banished my annoyance at not being left alone. I mean, elf. "But sure, I guess."
"Thanks," she said absently, blinking slowly before tearing her gaze away from me. Good thing that she did, I wasn't sure how to deal with someone staring at me with such intensity. God damnit, am I blushing? I'm blushing, aren't I? That's so lame. "My name is Azavie Embergleam."
It was weird. She acted shy and awkward, but she was still forcing herself to talk to me. Did she make a bet with someone about going over to the lonely girl sitting all by herself and asking her out on a date as a joke? It wouldn't have been the first time that happened to the Evelyn part of me … although, thinking back on it with the benefit of hindsight and with a bit more objective perspective, I wasn't so certain anymore whether most of those really were just jokes.
"Evelyn Lavere," I said, deciding to just own it since I was in another world anyway. It was my name, and it rolled off the tongue much better than 'Dallon'. "Never thought I'd see a high elf studying in Dalaran."
"My parents moved here a few centuries ago," Azavie said, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper. Though it didn't feel like it was intentional, she just didn't seem like she liked to raise her voice. "Back when Prince Kael'thas started studying here. I was born and raised in Dalaran."
"Huh, that's neat," I hummed, and before you start questioning why I was being so friendly: elf. Most of my characters in WoW were Blood Elves or Nightborne. I could barely believe I was actually talking to a High Elf. This was so awesome! "I got here just yesterday. Thankfully, I passed the tests, so I can study here."
"You are new to Dalaran?" Azavie blinked, her eyes lighting up — literally — as she spoke. "I could show you around! Only if you want, of course- I did not wish to be presumptuous!"
I blinked again. There was something I wasn't seeing here, some unknown variable that made this situation leave me mystified. Still.
"Sure," I said. Even still, she seemed genuine, and I would really appreciate having a guide for when I went out to explore the city. Plus, it promised to be even more interesting if it gave me more opportunities to talk with Azavie. A high elf living in Dalaran, she must have had all sorts of interesting stories. "Having a guide would be really useful. I can barely find my way around this single building."
"Great," Azavie said, a small smile gracing her face. "I-"
The doors next to the auditorium slammed shut with a thunderous boom.
"Wonderful, seems like we have quite the class this time around," a loud male voice rang out from all around us, probably a spell, likely from the teacher currently sweeping down the stairs towards his podium, his robe billowing behind him theatrically. Is it enchanted to do that? … yes, it is. Huh. What a drama queen. "I am Master Mage Raymond Brown, and it is my solemn duty to impart the knowledge and skill required to keep the lot of you from blowing your fingers off with your first miscast spell. Magical Safety and Containment concerns such topics as dealing with miscast spells, magical backlash, runaway magic, natural magical phenomena and some more obscure things following that established trend."
"Stay behind after class?" Azavie whispered, giving me a hopeful look. I wasn't sure what her deal was, but she looked like a puppy begging for treats. Even if I had intended to resist giving in, I would have folded anyway, like a lawn chair. I nodded, and she graced me with another small smile before focusing her attention on our teacher, her expression turning serious.
I did the same after a moment. This class was promising to be even more exciting than I'd thought.
******
AN: Sorry for the longer wait; I was lazy again.
By the way, that 'Slight AU' tag is going to be doing some heavy lifting in Azeroth because this world's in-lore magic system is all over the damned place. I pulled from sources that were made non-canon and just made up other parts, yoinking ideas from similar magic systems to make it feel proper. For example, Arcane magic's 'spell weaving' is practically synonymous with Mother of Learning's structured magic, though it also has notes of original Warcraft lore sprinkled in, along with some DnD Arcane Magic, but that's kinda inevitable, methinks. The same will inevitably happen to Nature magic, Shamanistic magic, Monk Chi bullshit, and Holy Magic. I'm undecided on the last two, but I've done some workshopping on how shamanism and nature magic are going to work.