Chapter 68 - Pop Quizzes and Duels

The longships faded into the mist once more, their bellies fat with plunder and pain. The thralls were herded like cattle into strange lands.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 4

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Felix found that he had both too much to bring home, and not enough. It was ‘only’ a short trip back, he didn’t want to lug around everything, but he also didn’t want to be without his books and spend the entire trip slacking off.

In the end, practical considerations ruled. He brought a few outfits, the wildly overdue library books - thank goodness he’d copied the sections they were going to use - toiletries, and left everything else behind. His suitcase was easy enough to haul around while light and half-empty, and this time he probably wouldn’t be falling asleep on the trip.

His eye twitched as he realized he was about to get utterly fucked by jetlag. Jetlag on the way over, and the moment he started recovering, whoops! Nope! Time to head over to Dublin for the ritual.

His trip out of the Dragon house was relatively uneventful. A number of the students had their shit together, and were walking along, their luggage flying, crawling, or dancing a jig behind them. Felix wanted to learn those spells, instead of rolling his suitcase. 

Others were in a last-second rush, running around wildly with armfuls of clothing and escaping cats.

Cats were absolutely not a sore point with the young Sutter. He’d worked out the numbers a long time ago.

Price of a cat: $99 from the local shelter

Vaccinations: $238.55 first year, annual boosters averaged out to $83.19

Litter: $4.76/week, although he bet he could stretch that by changing every 10 days instead of 7.

Food: $8.56/week with the cheap brands.

All in all - too much.

Then there was whatever trouble a cat got into. Felix had to imagine the curse of being poor would strike again. A trailer park wasn’t exactly the friendliest place for a cat to live, he’d get hurt more often, need to visit the vet more… it was a vicious cycle of expenses. 

Unless they were a familiar, pets weren’t allowed. Felix reminded himself that he didn’t see anything… provided he got to touch her soft fur.

“Here, kitty kitty kitty.” He said, putting his hand down in a fist. The kitten looked at him, sniffed, held her tail up high, and pranced away. Felix sighed.

Such was life.

He left the common room and made his way over to the dueling arena. On the way, he was intercepted by Professor Mistvale.

“Mr. Sutter. Just the person I was hoping to see.” She said. “Come along now.”

Felix sighed. He didn’t want to miss the duel, and vacation was right there, tempting him. There was only one thing to say.

“Yes, professor.” He said to the stern lady.

“This will do.” She said, entering a classroom. “Sit.”

Felix sat. Mistvale waved her wand, and a parchment and quill were conjured.

“This is a surprise quiz. You have fifteen minutes. Use the provided quill. Begin.” She said, watching him like a hawk.

Felix was not prepared at all. He’d happily turned his brain off right after exams had finished, and was all ready for entertainment and home. The only time he’d touched a quill was goofing off with his friends, and seeing how difficult it was to use.

In the few months he’d been at Camelot, Felix had gotten used to life not shitting on him from on high. The sudden recurrence was unpleasantly familiar. With a sigh, he picked up the quill and got started.

The questions approached a few basic concepts the class had covered from a sideways direction. Like a puzzle that had all the center pieces together, but none of the edges. They weren’t malicious, just twisty.

Felix put his quill down after eight minutes of tortured writing, and Professor Mistvale immediately took the exam from him. She scanned over his answers, looking like she was sucking on a lemon the entire time.

“Sutter.” She said with a heavy sigh, waving her wand over the paper.

“Yes professor?”

“I find myself in the rare position of needing to apologize. Your mind appears unfocused and chaotic at a glance, and it would be unethical of me to take a closer look. I made some… poor assumptions. Assumptions backed by years of students who look exactly like you in a classroom setting, even by a few others in your year. Yet, you’ve managed to consistently deliver excellent grades on your work. At first, I believed it was just you working off your coven. Ms. Park shows rare dedication to the class, and I made assumptions. Then your exams were flawless, and I made the poor assumption that you were cheating, somehow. Not the first time, not the last.”

Felix opened his mouth to protest his innocence, but Professor Mistvale barreled right over him.

“But your lack of focus is persistent. Even if you were cheating, you would’ve been focused on that. You just unicorned a surprise exam, with no preparation time, solely using supplies I provided.”

She sighed again.

“I’ve been completely wrong about your focus in class. I admire how you worked through my hostile presence. Take 350 points back for everything I deducted. Take an additional 150 points for perseverance, not disrupting class, and maintaining a respectful attitude. Now go, enjoy the break. I’ll see you in class in two weeks. Don’t forget to do your homework.”

She stalked out, leaving Felix gaping like a fish.

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Felix managed to make it to the indoor dueling arena right as the duel started. There weren’t too many people watching. Morsin’s Monsters, a couple of first years, Gideon Bane and a pair of teachers. He didn’t have time to make his way across the empty stands before Gideon shouted.

“Begin!”

He was clearly acting as the referee for the event, one of his family’s traditional neutral roles along with banking. A good enough place for him to start practicing and developing a reputation.

Erik quickly snapped off a trio of pictillum spells, one of which connected with Lance. The other boy had only managed to cast one spell himself, which Erik neatly side-stepped.

“End, end, end!” Gideon shouted. “Erik Morsin wins via first spell hit against Lance Thalorien! Thank you.”

Felix awkwardly clapped. All that drama over that? Over what they did every day in combat class? Seriously, was Lance an idiot or something? Felix was suddenly feeling a lot more relaxed about the end of year Dragon House duelling tournament. Yeah, he was going to lose, but it’d be over fast. He went over to meet the rest of Morsin’s Monsters, who were busy congratulating Erik and patting him on the back.

“You won! You won!” Sora was jumping up and down enthusiastically.

“You’re saying that like you had no faith in me.” Erik grinned as he teased his friend.

“Maybe this much.” Sora held two fingers a hair apart.

Vivian swatted at Sora’s hand.

“Nonsense! We always knew you’d win!” She said.

“Congratulations.” Alexandria whispered.

“Good job.” Hazel muttered, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Still, she was standing with them and talking, which was practically hugging Erik, coming from the skittish girl.

“Is it just me, or was that a whole lot of fuss over nothing?” Felix asked.

From the scandalized gasps and looks from his fellow students, he’d said something very wrong. Well, except for Hazel. She just rolled her eyes, clearly agreeing with Felix. The rest all started talking over each other, and Felix backed up, holding his hands up.

“Vivian, you’re the nicest, you explain.” Felix said.

If looks could kill, Felix would’ve been stabbed a half-dozen times.

“Well. Since Erik challenged, Thalorien was able to set all sorts of rules. He went for the ‘Classic A’ set of dueling rules, which is wands only, first spelltouch, nothing harmful.” She said.

“The coward’s set.” Sora muttered. Vivian pouted, but didn’t dispute it.

“Alright, alright, it’s Very Important to do a mini combat class.” Felix couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Guys, relax! It’s not a big deal!” Erik said. “Felix just doesn’t get it, like Sora doesn’t get words with more than three syllables and Vivian doesn’t get the idea of people not wanting to date.”

Felix chuckled as the girl’s ire was turned on Erik. Hazel started to leave, and Felix fell into step behind her, the wheels on his luggage going click click click on the stone floor. The rest of Morsin’s Monsters soon followed.

“Everyone cool with staying in the same cabin on The Prydwen?” Erik asked. Sora blew a raspberry.

“No, screw that, I want to go flying.” She said. Erik rolled his eyes.

“Broombrain.” The five of them - even Hazel - said in unison. Sora put her hands on her hips.

“And proud of it!” She said.

“Don’t you have any luggage?” Felix asked Sora. She patted Erik’s satchel.

“Nope! It’s all in here.” She said. 

“How much fits in there?” Felix asked, finally willing to ask. Erik seemed to pull everything out of there. Felix had assumed that he was just really good at putting the right things in ahead of time, but was starting to suspect there was more to the bag.

“You can fit a whole person inside!” Sora said. Erik groaned.

“Park…”

“No, no, it’s cool. Come on, we’re a coven. Here, let me show you.”

The next five minutes consisted of Sora trying to climb up Erik to stick herself in his bag, and Erik trying vainly to fend her off. Eventually, she got both feet in.

“Down I go!” Sora cheered, before vanishing into the bag. There was the sound of crashing furniture and swearing.

“Erik!” Sora’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away. “You need to clean up in here!”

“No shit!” He shouted into his bag. “That’s why I was telling you to not go in.”

“Oh.”

Erik facepalmed, while Vivian and Alexandria were curiously peering into the bag.

“Can we go in too?” Vivian asked.

“Uh-”

“Please?” Alexandria whispered with huge eyes. Erik’s shoulders slumped.

“Fine, fine.” He unslung his satchel and opened it up. Hazel lined up right behind the other girls, curiously absent of any bags, and Felix mentally shrugged. He figured if this was what they were doing now, this was what they were doing. Erik slapped the bag, and a rope ladder appeared, going into it.

“For those of you with GRACE and STYLE who don’t want to throw themselves into a bottomless pit.” He shouted a few pointed words deeper into the bag.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking!” Sora shouted back. Erik stared up at the ceiling and muttered. Vivian patted him on the back right before she dropped her luggage in, then climbed in herself.

“Warn a girl, will you!” Sora shouted.

“How does that even work?” Felix asked, staring at the bag. It was a normal bag… that could fit anything inside. Sure. And put things in normally, sure. But also dropping things in it was dropping them from a great height? But they weren’t breaking? Except when Sora was banging herself up…

“Magic.” Erik answered. Felix stared at him, and the boy shrugged.

“What do you want me to say? It’s magic. Being illogical is practically one of the rules.” He said.

Felix slowly climbed down the ladder, only for his luggage to slowly float past him a moment later.

“You forgot something!” Erik called down with a cheeky grin.

Felix got to the bottom of the ladder with the rest of his coven. There was a whole room here, with piles of stuff all over. There were a number of doors leading off to other rooms.

“Wait, why are we using a classroom when we could be here for coven meetings?” Alexandria whispered.

“I don’t know, but this place is a mess. Sora, help me move this. Alexandria, those chairs over there are hideous, can you stick them in another room? Felix, drag the table over here. Hazel, would you be a dear and throw the clutter into a corner?”

“Hey! That’s my stuff!” Sora protested.

“Do you guys need it sorted?” Erik’s voice came from everywhere. Vivian cupped her hands and yelled up.

“Yes! Why don’t we spend all our time in here!?” She asked.

With a huge jostle that had Felix crouching to keep his balance, everything in the bag sorted itself. Vivian put her hands on her hips.

“Well. Now we need to go and find those couches.” She said.

“We’re at Camelot.” Erik said. “We’re not going to hide away in a bag when we’ve got the entire castle to explore.”

Felix nodded along with everyone else. That seemed super reasonable. None of them moved to get out.

“Hey, you can let us explore in here and have fun though, right?” Vivian asked.

The entire bag jostled again.

“Sure, fine, but let’s not make a habit out of it.” Erik said. “Just a short trip down, get out at The Prydwen.”

Sora whooped a second later, flying overhead on her beloved broom. Felix traded a look with Hazel.

Broombrain she mouthed - but she was smiling.