Chapter 7: Chapter 6 - First Day of Classes

“Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Post Revolution History. My name is Sister Aster, and I will be your teacher.” Cliff stifled a yawn, straining to keep his eyelids up. The woman in the front of the classroom was dressed in the standard black, green trimmed cassock of a priestess of the Church of Gaeon. She was young, probably not even thirty, and he might have thought her pretty if his mind wasn’t shrouded with sleepiness.

“As you may have seen on your schedule, we will be meeting three days a week, bright and early. Attendance is mandatory, for all classes at the Academy, and I will not tolerate absence or tardiness. Should it become an issue, I will speak to your advisor and recommend disciplinary action.” He was barely able to suppress a groan. Cliff had always worked best by lamplight, and mornings, put kindly, did not agree with him. “Now,” she continued, “I’ll be taking attendance, and then we’ll have a discussion on what it means to be a historian.”

Cliff squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force himself awake. The morning class was a black mark on his schedule, but at least things got better from there.

***

“What you have in front of you is a Crestfall-manufactured Mark 4 Personal Magetool,” Lieutenant Ulster boomed from the front. He was big and bald and every bit an intimidating caricature of an angry drill sergeant. Cliff didn’t care, though. A talking hog could have been teaching the class, and he wouldn’t have noticed.

“It is a weapon, not a toy, understand me? I will not tolerate tomfoolery in my classroom – under no circumstances will you even think about putting your PMT on without express permission from me. Do I make myself clear?” Around him, the other students grunted their agreement, but Cliff was too distracted examining every nook and cranny of his very own PMT. It was empty, for the moment, but he could already picture the circuitry he would cram inside.

“You there, Apprentice Courier in the back,” the lieutenant barked.

An elbow shot into Cliff’s side and he jerked his head up. His teacher’s eyes were fixed on him, brows furrowed and arms crossed. “Uh – yes, sir?”

“I asked you a question, did I not?” the lieutenant said.

“Um, yes – er, sir, yes you did,” Cliff replied.

“And the other students, they answered me, did they not?” Cliff blinked, looking around. There were about twenty-five students in the room, a good mix of apprentice Couriers, seminarians, and cadets. Thalos was there, along with Percy and Deb, whose elbow had graciously gotten his attention. From the name “Personal Magetool Basics,” Cliff figured this was a remedial class for the folk who had never used a PMT before – so, basically, the scholarship kids.

“They might have,” Cliff said, with a belated, “sir.”

“They did, son,” the Lieutenant corrected, his brow, impossibly, furrowing further. “But you didn’t. What’s your name, apprentice?”

“Cliff.”

“Well, Cliff, if the other students could answer, why couldn’t you?” Cliff swallowed. He did not like the way Lieutenant Ulster said his name. Like he was marking it down to remember.

“Well, sir-” he started.

The Lieutenant raised a hand, cutting him off. “It’s because you deemed whatever you were doing to be more important than what I was saying. Tell me, Cliff, where are we right now?”

Cliff hesitated, looking around. “A – uh, classroom, sir?”

The lieutenant shook his head, taking on a chiding tone, like he was talking to a child. “Not just any classroom, Cliff. My classroom. What would that make me?”

Cliff paused a moment, but thought better of calling the man in front of him a blowhard. “The teacher, sir.”

“And what are you?”

“…a student.” He didn’t need his Gift to see where this was going.

“Well, there we have it Cliff. We are in my classroom, where I am the teacher, and you are the student. That means, when I ask you a question, I expect a prompt and enthusiastic answer. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Cliff said, though what he really understood was that this man was going to try his hardest to make Cliff having his own PMT a miserable experience.

“And that goes for everyone, not just my new friend Cliff,” Lieutenant Ulster continued, finally sparing Cliff of his angry glare. “As I have already said, your PMT is not a toy. It is a weapon, so I will be treating you like soldiers under my command. Am I understood?” This time, Cliff’s voice was the loudest, if only to spare himself another lecture. Besides, he agreed with Lieutenant Ulster. The PMT was a weapon. Weapons were way more fun to play around with than toys.

***

Cliff knew his eyes were twinkling as he stared down at the textbook in front of him. He wasn’t normally the type to read, but this was an exception. It was a thick, weighty tome, printed on impossibly thin paper full of narrow text and circuit diagrams: “Magetool Engineering: Principals and Applications.” The title didn’t exactly sound like casual reading, but, just from glancing through the book, Cliff was already salivating. This was his one elective class, Introduction to Magetool Engineering. There’d been about a dozen to choose from, but he’d made his decision as soon as he saw it on the list.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” a voice said from next to him. Cliff looked up to see Jenna, one of his fellow apprentice Couriers, with the same thick textbook clutched in her hands. “Mind if I grab the seat next to you?”

“The pleasure’s mine,” Cliff said with a nod. A few graceful movements later, Jenna was seated beside him, doing the same cursory flip through the textbook that had gotten him so excited. “Why are you surprised?” he continued, “Magetools are, well, kind of my thing.”

“I thought your thing was that crazy insight of yours?” Jenna asked, thumping the textbook closed.

Cliff clicked his tongue. “That’s my Gift. Magetools are what I’m really interested in.” He shrugged. “It just happens that there’s some convenient overlap between my hobby and my Gift. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed yet.” Even at his most timid, Cliff knew he wasn’t exactly shy about his interests.

“Oh, don’t worry, I already figured out you’re interested in Magetools,” Jenna replied, “after all, I saw you when you got giddy talking to Nym about her PMT. I’d have thought you were making a pass at her, but your eyes never left the gauntlet.”

Cliff grinned. “Maybe I’m playing innocent now to lower her defenses, to swoop in for the kill later.”

Jenna chuckled. “A simple farm boy like you? No, I don’t buy it. You’re too straightforward to fake interest in the engineering just to take a shot at a girl.”

“Guilty as charged,” Cliff said with a shrug, “But it really is interesting, I mean the versatility of it – you can just take a standard water node, slap a single temperature circuit in there and boom – you’ve got ice. I mean, think of-”

“I was there, Cliff,” Jenna said, cutting him off with a smirk, “You don’t need to explain it again.” She paused. “That’s the reason I’m surprised to see you here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you did read the name of the class when you signed up for it, right? Introduction to Magetool Engineering? With your Gift, I figured you’d be off to one of the advanced courses,” She said.

“Believe me, I tried,” Cliff explained with a shake of his head, “but when I asked him, Roose told me, in no uncertain terms, that this was a prerequisite to the rest.” He left out the part of the story where he’d tried to start disassembling Roose’s desktop lamp, then and there, to prove his skill. “Either way, I think this will still help me out. I’m not all too familiar with the formal names of things, and I figure I’ll hit a ceiling eventually if I keep giving my own names to parts. I’m pretty sure it’s not actually called ‘the thing that lights up’.”

Jenna giggled. “Well, at least I know I’ll have you to come to if I start to struggle,” she said, adding a belated, “if you don’t mind, of course.”

“Not at all,” Cliff said with a wave of his hand, “I helped my sister with her homework more times than I can count.” Of course, her homework was more in the vein of basic arithmetic than Magetool engineering, but he figured he’d manage. “But now I’ve got to ask you,” he continued, “why’d you sign up for this class?”

“Oh?” Jenna said slyly, “do I not look the engineering type?”

“Hmm,” Cliff said, giving the girl a closer look. She was tall and athletically slim, with long, wavy, sand-colored hair and striking green eyes. She certainly didn’t look like any Magetool tech he’d ever seen, but his momma always said that they came in all types. “Not particularly, no,” Cliff replied with a shrug, “but that’s not what I meant. I figured you’d sign up for one of the combat classes – there’s one just called ‘Dueling’, isn’t there?” This wasn’t the first time he’d chatted with the girl, though last time had mostly been about her spar with Penny. He’d asked her about her combat experience, and she’d explained it away, referencing a decade of formal dueling training.

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“I took up dueling because of my mom, mostly,” she said. “The army has these dueling competitions, and she was really into them when she was in the service. My dad, however, was an engineer in the army. I decided I’d spent enough time on Mom’s thing that I might as well try Dad’s.”

“Makes sense to me,” Cliff said. He paused when a thought occurred to him. “But, wait, both your parents were in the army?”

“It’s where they met, yeah,” Jenna confirmed with a nod.

“Then why’d you enroll in the Courier College?” Cliff asked. That seemed a bit odd to him, though he had a good relationship with his parents. If not for his Gift, he probably would have followed behind them to become a farmer.

Jenna leaned forward, tilting her head to rest her cheek on her hand. “That was their thing, you know? The Couriers, well-”

“They’re your thing, is it?” Cliff said.

She smiled at him. “There’s that intuition again, huh?”

Cliff gave a little sarcastic bow. “It’s a Gift,” he said, tapping the side of his head with a finger.

***

“All I’m saying is it’s an outrage,” Cliff said, crossing his arms in front of him. Most of the rest of the first-year apprentice Couriers were in the dining hall, though a few had yet to arrive from their last morning class.

“No, I understand what you’re saying, Cliff,” Deb said from across the table, “I just don’t know why you’re saying it.”

“Because it’s an outrage!” he cried.

Deb looked like she was about to snap at him, but before she could, Percy raised a hand between them. “I think,” he said, “she’s asking the reason you’re outraged, Cliff. We all understand that you are.”

“I get it, I think,” Jenna replied from next to Cliff. Their engineering class was just before the lunch break, and when they took a spot in the dining hall, a group had quickly formed around them. The scholarship kids were there, along with Penny and Nym. “It’s like they’re saying his Gift is inferior or something.”

“Exactly!” Cliff said, slapping his hand on the table. “Jenna understands me – it’s-”

“An outrage, Cliff, we know,” Deb finished, glaring at him.

“What’s Cliff outraged about?” Thalos asked, laying his tray down on the table and grabbing the empty seat next to Cliff.

He turned to his roommate, fire in his tone. “You’ll never believe this, Thalos. I was remarking to the others that the lunch break was strangely long. I mean, I like to take my sweet time with lunch as much as the next guy, but three hours is a bit long, even for my tastes.”

“I didn’t realize you were so eager to be in a classroom,” Thalos said dryly.

“I’m not, really - well, I’m excited to learn, but not for the classes, if that makes sense.” Cliff shook his head. “But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m saying is – imagine my surprise when I learned that not everyone has such a long lunch. Courtesy of Penny and Nym, I learned that everyone with a Gift has a class in the after-lunch slot.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for Thalos to understand his anger.

Thalos paused a moment, as if waiting for more. “And?”

“And – I have a Gift, Thalos! Why didn’t they put me in that class?”

His roommate stared at him for a moment. “So you’re mad they have an extra class?”

Cliff slapped the table again. “That’s not the point, Thalos, it’s-”

“An outrage,” Thalos finished. “I gathered as much, yes.” His roommate stared at him for a moment before sighing. “Cliff, what does your Gift do?”

“You already know,” Cliff said with a frown, “it gives me intuition – show me a step and I’ll understand the process.”

“And what does Penny’s gift do?” Thalos asked.

Cliff glanced at the girl, who was involved in some conversation with her roommate, but had turned towards them at hearing the question.

“She can freeze and redirect an object’s momentum in a set plane,” Cliff said, “But I don’t see what-”

“What about Nym’s gift?”

Cliff looked at the pair of girls again. They’d stopped their conversation to listen to Thalos and Cliff. “She can-” He thought back to her fight with Loria. Most of his attention had been on how the prissy girl had used her PMT – she was seriously skilled, which might explain her haughty attitude – but he’d paid a little attention to Nym. He recalled what his Gift told him, after seeing her manipulate the earth and then later the ice. “She can reach through material and manipulate it at a distance.” He tilted his head with an added, “Presumably, she needs physical contact with it.”

Thalos nodded. “How could Penny train her gift?” he asked.

Cliff paused to think for a moment. “She could – attempt to increase the size of the plane, the number of objects, the amount of momentum she can freeze?” There had to be some upper limit to all of those factors, he concluded, or she’d be able to pull off some crazy stunts - stopping a river, catching falling trees, you name it.

“And what about Nym?” Thalos asked.

“Well,” Cliff said, “If her Gift works like I think it does, she could train to stretch the distance she can reach, the number of different manipulations at once, maybe work through different materials.” His mind was suddenly racing, and he turned to the girl. “Hey, Nym, can your Gift reach through liquid?” He clicked his tongue. “Hmm, but that might not work – after all liquids don’t have a consistent, stable form. Then again, if the form is maintained by your Gift, perhaps it would work. Have you tried using your gift on water?” Cliff asked. “Ooh, or better yet, mud! We’ve already seen that it works on earth, and what is mud besides a little earth in water?” Nym was looking at him with wide eyes, her mouth moving soundlessly.

“Cliff,” Thalos said, just before Cliff started pressing Nym for more information, “not right now.”

“Ah – uh, right,” he said, remembering that he was supposed to be outraged as he turned back to his roommate.

“How would you train your Gift?” Thalos asked.

“I would-” Cliff started, “I would, um-” He was drawing a blank. “I could – maybe look at different things, and – uh – think about them?” Even to his own ears it didn’t sound like a particularly good curriculum.

“And why do you need a special class to do that?”

Cliff blinked. “Well, I – ah-”

Thalos stabbed his fork into the steaming potato on his plate. “Cliff, as far as I can tell, your Gift has no external manifestations – you’re better off skimming textbooks in the library than you would be in a class designed for people to push the limits of their Gifts.” Thalos shrugged. He gestured down at the food on his tray. “My grandfather used to say that having a Gift is like learning a recipe. Some are simple, some are complex, and you can’t improve them all the same way. Add salt when you need sugar, and you’re liable to ruin dinner.”

“And my Gift, what does it need?” Cliff asked.

Thalos shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, but theres no point in getting mad at them not putting you in that class, that’s for sure.

Cliff stared at Thalos for a long moment before sighing. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, “though it doesn’t feel good.”

There was a beat of silence before Deb spoke up. “Well done, Thalos!” she said, “I didn’t want to listen to him repeating that he was outraged for the rest of the day.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Thalos said as he started picking through his lunch, “I’ve got to share a room with him.”

***

“Last year, the world ended,” the chubby, severe man read from their textbook. “It started slowly in spring, when the number of stillbirths began to increase at an alarming rate. As the year continued, the problem got worse. It was one in a hundred at first. And then, one in twenty. One in ten. One in five. When it came that half of all children were born without a heartbeat, the panic set it. And then, the animals started to change.” He paused in his reading, looking up around the classroom. “My name is Jericho. I’m a member of the Courier Alliance, though I have not been active for a decade and a half. I will be your professor for this course on Early Magic History. What I have just read for you is the earliest known account that references the Great Rise. This class will cover humanity’s response to that cataclysm as well as the balance that arose from the ashes of pre-magic civilization. I will not be taking attendance, but our discussions in class will cover more than what is in your textbook, as will your exams.” He paused again. “With that said, there is little for us to talk about before you have done some reading. Please read chapters one and two for tomorrow’s class. Dismissed.” Without another word, he turned and walked out of the classroom, leaving a silent, surprised class behind.

“That was… odd,” Thalos muttered from beside Cliff They were only ten minutes into a one-hour time slot.

“I guess it’s better than wasting our time on something pointless,” Cliff replied, recalling the trite, sleepy discussion from his morning class. “Plus, the professor seems interesting – he’s the first Courier I have as a teacher.”

“Same,” Thalos said with a nod, rising from his seat. “I don’t think there are too many on staff – explains why we have Roose as our advisor.”

“I wonder if Jericho is the second or third years’ advisor,” Cliff said, examining their textbook as they walked out of the room. Most of the upperclassmen had yet to arrive after their summer vacation. There was a steady trickle of arrivals, but their classes didn’t begin for another week. Cliff’s eyes widened as he noticed something about the book. “Hey, look at this.” He held it up to show Thalos, tapping a finger on the cover.

His roommate frowned. “The Rise of Magic and the Fall of Man – yeah, it’s a somber title, what of it?”

“Not the title,” Cliff said with a shake of his head, “the author.”

Thalos continued to read. “Written by Jericho Rolend.” Cliff’s roommate blinked. “Huh – I guess he’s an expert, then.” Cliff nodded, feeling suddenly more excited for this class. History had never been his strong suit – his Gift made many things easier, but history was not one of them. But with Thalos in the class and an expert as their teacher, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. At the very least, he wouldn’t be half asleep for this one.

***

Templar Roose stood at the front of the classroom, his hands resting casually on the lectern. “How was your first day of classes?” he asked the room. Various noises of optimism and pessimism filled the air, and his smile widened slightly. “If nothing else, I hope you are excited for this class.”

Cliff glanced around. All sixteen of the first year Apprentice Couriers were there, naturally, as this was the Apprentice Courier Module, taught by their advisor. As he understood it, the cadets and seminarians had a similar block of classes at the same time.

“It may be presumptuous of me to say this,” Roose continued, “but this will be your most important, productive class this year. Together, we will cover the basics of what it means to be a Courier as well as the skills required to live a courier’s life.” He paused again, looking around the room. “Now, who can tell me the three founding principles of the Courier Alliance?” A few hands rose into the air. “Penny, how about you?”

“The three principles of the Couriers are – um – to give service to those in need; to connect the isolated; and to protect the defenseless.” Cliff nodded. He’d read the same in the primer readings.

Roose smiled, but shook his head. “Those are the three contemporary principles of the Courier Alliance, but not the three founding principles. The first two are the same, but the third was changed two hundred years ago. Does anyone know the original?” Fewer hands rose this time. “Nym, how about you?”

“To stand as a bulwark against the tyranny of the Church,” she quoted.

Roose nodded. “That’s right. It may seem odd, in this day and age, but on its founding, the Courier Alliance had the explicit purpose of standing against the Church. Nowadays, of course, that is not the case, or else this would be fairly awkward,” he said, gesturing down at his priestly garb. “Another question. Historically, what has been the most common contract for a Courier?” This time, no one raised their hand. “Cliff, what do you think?”

Cliff blinked. “Uh – well-” Frankly, he had no idea.

“A guess is fine,” Roose said.

“Hmm,” Cliff said. Most of the time, when he saw Couriers around the farm, it was to clear out some pest, so he wanted to say monster extermination. After a moment of thought, though, he realized there was a much more obvious answer. “From the name,” he said, “I’d guess deliveries?”

Roose grinned. “Yes, based on the fact that we’re called Couriers, you might expect as much, but that’s actually not the case – well, it may be, if you count people as something to be delivered. Nice try, though.” Cliff shrugged. “Yes, for much of its history, the Couriers’ main job was taking people from one city to another. Before the advent of PMTs and Magetool Vehicles, travel was an expensive and dangerous affair. The Church and the governments, of course, sponsored some travel between cities, but if you did not want to be subject to their tithes and taxes, you would hire a Courier to escort you. Of course, these days, there exists a broad, ever-expanding infrastructure of traversal between cities. It’s cheaper and safer to travel now than it has ever been.” He paused again to look around the class. “You may be wondering the point of these questions. It’s simply this: the role of the Courier has changed. They were founded as a pushback against the control of the church, they became an escort service available to all, and now – well, since the Godhand Wars, what have the Couriers become? Anyone?” He looked around. “Loria, what do you think?”

“Specialists.”

Roose nodded. “That’s exactly right. These days, there are fewer Couriers than ever, but on the flip side, the Couriers continue to serve an important role as a highly-trained, widely-hireable task force for specialized jobs. Long-term protection, monster extermination, private investigation, and really anything outside the purview of government or Church work – that is the job of the contemporary Courier, and that is what we will be working towards.” Cliff felt excitement bubbling in his stomach – there were a lot of fancy words in there – he couldn’t imagine himself as a member of any kind of specialized task force, but maybe he would be after a few years of classes.

“With that said, let’s get started,” Roose said, turning towards the chalkboard and scooping up a piece of chalk, “today, we’ll go over the basic organization of the Courier Alliance, from the administration down to each individual squad. Take notes, people, this is important.”