Chapter 226 - Substitute Exhibitionist

Sebastien

Month 8, Day 30, Monday 7:30 a.m.

Giving Sebastien the report on his research seemed to have released something held taut within Damien, and as they and their friends gathered for breakfast, he slumped listlessly in his seat.

The food was better than normal, perhaps to encourage them to put their all into the exams. Ana pushed a plate of eggs and toast towards Damien. “You need to eat something,” she said, her voice tinged with concern. “You look like you’re about to fall face-first into your porridge.”

“Too nervous to sleep?” Alec commiserated, his own knee bouncing rapidly beneath the table.

Damien mumbled something incoherent and halfheartedly picked up his fork.

Sebastien watched him with a growing sense of guilt. Damien’s exhaustion was almost entirely due to the research project she had encouraged him to pursue, but at this rate, Damien was likely to perform poorly on his exams. “The quicker you eat, the quicker you can take a nap.”

Damien blinked as that information burrowed past the sleep-deprived barrier in his brain, and then began to shovel down the food. Then he pushed his tray aside, folded his arms on the table, and rested his head on them. Within moments, his breathing had evened out.

Sebastien unbuttoned the light summer jacket of her suit and rested it over Damien’s head to block out the light. When the others were finished, Sebastien waved them off. “You all go on ahead. I’ll stay here with Damien for a bit, make sure he gets to the exam in time.” They still had about forty-five minutes before the first extended test period began. Sebastien knew from experience that sometimes that could make all the difference.

The atmosphere was festive and hectic, but slightly less panicked than she remembered from the first term’s exams. Even this term’s exhibitions were slightly less elaborate than the first term’s, except for a couple of big planned events that were enough to draw the crowds all on their own. This might be because it was an even-numbered term for the majority of students. Only those who had been held back a term or who had entered during the more limited Sowing Break exams were hitting milestones now.

When it was time to leave for the exam, Sebastien gently shook Damien awake. They arrived only a couple minutes before the bell sounded, and most of the other students were already seated.

Professor Burberry was handing out sealed test papers, smiling merrily and trying to joke to put the students at ease.

As Sebastien took her paper from the woman, Burberry leaned in close put her hand on his elbow to keep him from walking on. She spoke in a low voice. “Mr. Siverling, I want you to know that although we emphasize the importance of these exams, you are not in danger of failing out for the year if you put in even moderate effort.”

Sebastien blinked, unsure how to respond.

Burberry continued, her voice gentle but firm. “I’ve had a talk with Professor Lacer about unrealistic expectations and the risks that pressuring young thaumaturges can bring. I know how hard you’ve been pushing yourself. Please don’t hurt yourself just to impress someone who’s forgotten what it’s like to be just starting out.”

Sebastien stood there, somewhat baffled by Burberry’s words, and then walked on to her seat when Burberry gave her a nod.

She guessed that somehow, word about her lack of sleep must have reached Burberry’s ears. She tried to be discreet, but it was impossible to keep people from noticing when a light was glowing from her cubicle in the middle of the night. Not unless she wanted to make more elaborate renovations to the small space.

It was a stark reminder that she needed to find a more discreet way to manage her nocturnal activities. Suddenly, she realized that it had been a mistake not to sign up for any of the exhibitions. Sure, she hadn’t had time to prepare anything impressive, but without an extra source of contribution points, she was unlikely to ever get out of the dormitory.

When Ana asked her what was wrong, Sebastien explained.

Ana flipped her long, honey-colored waves over one shoulder. “Is that it? You know you can put your name down to fill in a spot if any of the other students drop out of the exhibition last-minute, right? It happens every term, for various reasons I’m sure you can imagine.”

“Ah,” Sebastien said. She had not known that, but it made sense. Students probably dropped out due to nerves, straining their Wills or injuring themselves during the exams, or even, occasionally, because they had died.

The Introduction to Modern Magics exam wasn’t much different from the ones held in this class before. Sebastien easily poured out her knowledge into short essay questions. Most of it they had covered, at least briefly, in class. The rest was covered in supplemental reading for this class, or was something they should have picked up in one of the other three mandatory, core classes.

The practical portion involved casting a selection of random magic they had practiced throughout the term. She moved through the tasks with practiced ease. She created a simple, all-purpose antidote potion, and stashed the two extra vials she’d made in her satchel with a secret grin.

Next, she did a simple card-reading divination for her test proctor, being sure to sound as confident as possible. She had learned that the way they graded people on these kinds of ambivalent magic had a lot to do with their own perception.

Finally, she created a tiny vermin-repelling artifact. That was the hardest, but she doubted that just being able to detect small animals like mice and rats and then wave little clacking sticks would actual deter vermin for long. They were smarter than people gave them credit for, and hunger was great impetus for bravery.

When she was finished, Sebastien decided to take Ana’s advice, and made her way through the combined crowds of students and civilians to the administration center in the library.

‘That was easy,’ Sebastien reflected. Though Intro to Modern Magics was supposed to be an overview of the different kinds of magic they could be learning each term, a place to consolidate and get a little extra practice—or to get an introduction for a topic whose election they weren’t taking—Sebastien thought Practical Casting was actually doing a much better job of teaching her this term.

They moved too slowly in Intro to Modern Magics, with too much time spent explaining things in-class that they could be learning through doing some basic research on their own.

When she arrived at the administration center and announced her purpose, the faculty member at the desk lit up like a flower that had seen the sun. “Guys, it’s Sebastien Siverling, and he’s here to be an exhibition stand in!”

One of the older, more portly staff members immediately pushed his way to the counter. “You won’t regret this,” he said, filling out Sebastien’s paperwork with impressive speed.

When Sebastien explained that she was willing to fill in a spot in the exhibitions at any point that she wasn’t taking an exam, with twenty minutes of forewarning, and for any of the classes that she was taking, the man literally grabbed her hand in both of his. He bowed over it. “Thank you, Mr. Siverling.”

Sebastien stood there awkwardly as they finished the paperwork and everyone beamed at her.

“We will send a runner for you if we have a spot,” the man said. “Keep your student token on you.”

Sebastien idled about, ate lunch, and supervised a second nap for Damien before the Natural Science exam.

Professor Gnorrish had again gone out of his way to make even his exam engaging, with interactive questions and drawings that moved across the paper in response to the students.

The most difficult and time-consuming topic of this exam was a simulated experiment. The test provided an issue, some basic information, and then asked them to go through the steps to gather data, analyze the results, and present their conclusions. The paper responded to their written answers, providing “results” based on the steps they described. It even included some fun drawings.

Around her, Sebastien noticed several students discreetly attempting to cast ink-erasing spells on their papers. She ducked her head and smirked at their suppressed panic. They had probably realized that they had made mistakes earlier in their experimental setup. She admonished herself to remain focused, and finished in time to answer some of the extra-credit questions at the back. They wouldn’t count toward her score, but were a great way to earn a few extra contribution points.

As the test period drew to a close, Professor Gnorrish stood at the front of the classroom, smiling out at all of them with pride. He cleared his throat and addressed the students, his voice carrying a hint of emotion.

“It has been my honor,” he began, “to guide you all through this first year of higher learning. Natural Science is not just about memorizing facts and figures, but about understanding the very fabric of our world and how magic interacts with it.” He paused, his gaze sweeping across the room. “I hope that a few of you will go on to change the world with the knowledge you’ve gained here. Remember, true discovery comes not just from what we know, but from questioning what we don’t.”

Sebastien smiled back genuinely at him as he met her gaze.

As soon as she stepped out of the classroom, a young man lunged at her.

Sebastien jerked back, but instead of attacking, the man gestured into the distance. “Mr. Siverling?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You’re needed to fill in for an exhibition immediately. Please follow me!”

The runner led Sebastien to the History of Magic exhibition area. She remembered from last term that it was mostly museum-style displays of ancient relics, some reproductions of what they thought certain things looked like, and sometimes a speech or two talking about some historical topic.

She had nothing like that prepared.

The exhibition organizer who met her there was notably apologetic, but reminded her that she did say any of her classes, and without any extra lead time.

“It’s okay,” Sebastien assured them. “I just need a black curtain for a backdrop—as large as possible.”

“What will you be doing?”

“An illusion play. A story about Myrddin’s travels, I think.”

They put up a hasty sign at the entrance and sent the poor runner to get the curtain for her while she set up a simplistic spell array on the empty, portable stage. She only used a couple of glyphs. Even outside of Professor Lacer’s class, and though this was not an emergency where speed was of the essence, it was valuable to practice minimizing her reliance on a spell array.

When the curtain was set up and the organizer called the start of the exhibition, she began to absorb and bend the light within the Circle to her Will. The story she told was one of the lesser-known, about an adventure during Myrddin’s travel to the East. While there, he had learned some of their magics from a local master. The scene depicted a small Eastern village nestled in misty mountains, with ornate pagodas and cherry blossom trees.

The East also had their own magical beasts, many of which were insidious and clever, and loved to slowly terrorize small communities of people. Sebastien didn’t know if the story was true or the beasts even existed, since some of them sounded rather more like Eldritch or Nightmare-type Aberrants.

Sebastien narrated the story and did the voices herself, taking liberties with the characterization and the appearances of the monsters. She also frequently took the opportunity to interject asides about any historical truth behind the tale.

A crowd slowly grew, and she was satisfied with the couple dozen attendees gathered around by the end of her exhibition. They clapped politely—the children with extra enthusiasm—and Sebastien encouraged them to check out the other historical exhibits.

The single judge seemed to be a history enthusiast, as he took the opportunity to loudly introduce some of the other exhibits to the crowd before they could politely slip away.

The organizer bustled over to Sebastien, beaming. “Oh, that was wonderful. I wish more students would come up with ideas like that. People don’t know the value of history. It’s not as if it’s all boring dates and lists of names. What we don’t understand, we are doomed to repeat, my father always said.”

They made a note on their clipboard, shared a glance over their shoulder with the judge, and then told Sebastien, “Fifty contribution points.”

“Fifty?”

“Fifty.”

As Sebastien walked away, she realized that the contribution points—a far larger number than her exhibition really warranted—was some kind of belated bribe for putting herself on the spot.

Tuesday started with the History of Magic exam. It retained Professor Ilma’s signature requirement for deductive reasoning and a comprehensive understanding of the broader forces that shaped pivotal historical moments. It made for a good story, but rarely were huge movements and the shifting of power caused by a single man, good or evil.

After the main test, there was an extra credit question. “What would the world be like today if one of these significant historical figures had never existed?” It then gave a list of names that they could choose from.

The bell rang, cutting Sebastien off when she was only a single page of hasty scribbles into her answer. Reluctantly, she set down her fountain pen. Her fingers ached and were so stiff she had trouble relaxing them from their clawed position, as if she were still holding her pen between them.

Sebastien considered asking Professor Lacer for whatever spell he used to control his pen. She was pretty sure her mind could move faster than her fingers.

As the other students filed out of the classroom, Sebastien lingered behind. She approached Professor Ilma’s desk and pulled out the borrowed books about Myrddin.

Ilma pressed them back toward Sebastien. “Keep them,” the woman said with a small smile.

Sebastien blinked in astonishment, acutely aware of the books’ considerable value. Especially Enough Yarn to Last the Night: A Collection of Myths from the Life of a Man with Many Names, which had been illustrated by hand. It wasn’t just that. They were full of notes from Ilma’s mentor, and surely held sentimental weight.

“Why?” Sebastien asked, unable to hide her confusion.

Ilma’s eyes twinkled with an uncharacteristic warmth as she replied, “I heard about your exhibition.” She gestured towards the books in Sebastien’s hands. “You read these,” she said simply, as if that single fact explained everything. Without waiting for further response, she gathered up the sealed box full of students’ completed tests and walked out.

During the midday break between exams, Sebastien was called for another exhibition while eating lunch. The sudden summons caught her off guard, her mouth still full of food. Reluctantly, she stuffed her cheeks like a chipmunk and set her half-finished meal aside. As she hurried behind the runner, she drew several amused and curious glances from passersby.

The exhibition, she learned as they cut between cobblestone paths to get to their destination more quickly, was for Introduction to Modern Magics. However, upon arriving at the venue, Sebastien noticed on the schedule that the student whose spot she was filling was actually in term five, taking “Studies in Modern Magic: Elemental Influences,” a more advanced specialization of the introductory course.

The organizers, seemingly unfazed by this discrepancy, began announcing her presence with great enthusiasm as soon as she arrived. Their excited proclamations soon drew in a sizeable audience. ‘They must have considerable faith in my ability to pull something appropriate out of my ass.’ It seemed like a risk to her, but luckily for them, she did have an idea.

Sebastien cleared a space on the white stone ground in front of some tiered spectator seating. She measured out an area a few strides across and began scraping out a more intricate spell array than those she usually used. This was too complex to hold even half of it in her mind.

She incorporated glyphs for each of the five elemental planes—earth, air, fire, water, and radiance—and added drawings to represent the specific form she wanted each element to take. She had appropriate components in her satchel, many saved from various in-class practices, but she asked the organizers to get planar components for her anyway. They were expensive, and if no one stopped her, she might be able to sneak off with them afterward.

Finally, she added two central glyphs: ‘lifelike-movement’ and ‘detailed-molding.’ Here was one case where specificity trumped flexibility.

With the array complete and the planar components in place, Sebastien populated the circular, makeshift arena with small competitors, each made from one of the five elements. The diminutive figures came to life, the tallest of them reaching to her knee, but ready for a mock battle.

The audience cheered, and Sebastien smiled out at them. There were quite a few children, but several of the adults looked equally captivated. She didn’t have the strength to make the combatants any bigger, but thought it would be alright with the small size of the stands. Hopefully none of them had poor eyesight.

Sebastien orchestrated the battle with careful precision. She focused on animating two elemental beings at a time, allowing them to engage in dynamic combat while the others shifted and breathed, or stalked back and forth in a loop, looking somewhat alive but not really contributing to the melee. Without dropping her shadow-familiar spell and using both halves of her Will, she didn’t have the ability to do any more than that.

The audience didn’t seem to mind too much, screaming and cheering as the miniature elementals clashed.

The battle progressed, each elemental showcasing its unique strengths and weaknesses. The earth golem’s sturdy defense crumbled against the water sprite’s eroding attacks. The air sylph danced gracefully, evading the fiery salamander’s scorching strikes. But it was the Radiant angel that truly captured the crowd’s love.

Wielding a child-sized spear of pure light, the glowing avatar moved with ethereal grace, smiting its opponents one by one. Finally, it stood alone, holding spear and wings high as it turned to the crowd in glory.

The audience actually shook the stands with cheers and stomping, as if they had just watched some kind of provocative blood-sport.

Sebastien looked to the judges, who seemed to be…exchanging coin under the table?

“Seventy contribution points,” one stood up and yelled, which was met with resumed cheers from the audience.

Sebastien grinned, rolling her shoulders and rubbing her forehead to release some of the tension that intense concentration had caused to tighten her muscles. Again, it was more than she perhaps deserved. This had taken barely any preparation, and left nothing of value behind, and yet she earned as much as she had for her Practical Casting exhibition last term.

‘More bribes for being a last-minute stand in,’ she concluded. ‘But perhaps this, rather than signing up from the beginning, is actually the optimal strategy for earning maximum contribution points. I might do it again next term.’

After that, the Sympathetic Science exam proceeded much as it had the previous term. Now that she understood transmogrification better, Sebastien attempted to refine her strategy slightly. She focused on discerning the connections an average person might make, while also seeking out more unusual associations when she could think of one that seemed particularly poetic.

She had also gotten a lot of practice with easy transmogrification tricks that term, as they ran through hundreds of examples of simple spells in Practical Casting.

As the exam concluded, Sebastien felt cautiously optimistic about her performance. She had balanced the expected responses with more creative connections. Hopefully, if she hadn’t gone overboard into the realm of outlandishness, she might even impress Professor Pecanty again.

As they reconvened after the final exam of the day, Damien appeared much recovered from the previous day’s exhaustion. The entire friend group decided to take the opportunity to observe some of the ongoing exhibitions, rather than put any time into studying for the remaining exams.

As they wandered through the bustling grounds, eating food from stalls rather than visit the cafeteria for dinner, Sebastien managed to get them over to a Practical Casting exhibition.

An upper-term woman was presenting, and the crowd around her buzzed with excitement as she stepped onto the stage.

Without uttering a word or drawing a Circle, the woman raised her hands. A shimmering, spiral-shaped shield of wind materialized before her. As assistants launched various projectiles at her, the wind shield caught and deflected each one with graceful efficiency.

Sebastien wasn’t certain if the faint glow emanating from the spell was intentional—perhaps to make it visible to the audience—or if it indicated some inefficiency in the casting. Regardless, she found herself impressed. A free-cast shield spell seemed like an eminently practical skill for any thaumaturge to develop.

Ana, standing beside Sebastien and Damien, let out a small sigh. “I’ll probably never have anything like that to show for Practical Casting,” she admitted.

“You can do it,” Damien encouraged her.

“No, probably not. I’m barely keeping up in Professor Lacer’s class, and I’m not putting in the hours to catch up to either of you. I might even end up having to re-take this term again.”

Damien scrunched up his forehead. “Why are you taking the class then?”

Ana’s eyes were still fixed on the woman giving the demonstration. “I’m not there because I expect to become a free-caster myself, though if I manage it eventually of course that would be a nice fringe benefit. It’s where the most ambitious thaumaturges of our generation will be found. I’m hoping to network with them, to build connections for the future.”

Damien looked from Ana to Sebastien, and she followed his gaze and nodded. “It’s already paying off.”

Sebastien grinned. “I am the most ambitious thaumaturge of our generation,” she promised.

“Do you hope to surpass Professor Lacer some day?” Damien asked.

Sebastien shook her head, looking back to the stage, where the woman finally grew tired and dropped her shield spell. “I plan to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world.”

She almost expected one of the others to laugh at her, but none of them did.

Practical Casting was Sebastien’s only exam on Wednesday. The test began with a short written portion, heavily focused on glyphs. Sebastien felt confident in her knowledge in that area.

However, she deliberately missed a few answers, particularly those she had learned from Myrddin’s journal. She doubted even the more studious of her peers would know some of them. The decision to hold back grated at her like something was scraping against the bones of her spine, and she acknowledged that she was probably being paranoid, but if anyone had a chance to deduce her secret, it was Professor Lacer.

And he was the one who had given the advice about erasing all hints of a secret’s existence. Impressing Professor Lacer with her unusual knowledge wasn’t worth the risk. Besides, it wasn’t as if these exam results actually mattered for her in the long term. She doubted she would ever have a conventional job working for someone who would care.

After the written portion, students were directed to cubicles outfitted with protective wards. Student aides bustled about, preparing to grade the practical portion, which required only a simple demonstration of a few spells from each of the nine general areas they had practiced throughout the term. They even had a bucket of components prepared for the students to work with.

Sebastien had no trouble with any of it. ‘I’m learning,’ she thought with a deep satisfaction. The spells Professor Lacer had forced them to gain a modicum of experience with ranged from controlling heat and its absence, to creating various gems or earthen armor, to pushing an electrical current through ground the while divining for hidden metals. Over the course of the term, his students had gained a solid grasp on how to use the world around them for a source of power as well as to create various effects.

Most of the spells weren’t really useful outside of niche applications, but there had been so many of them, and it added up to a general level of competence and the versatility to create her own solutions to a wide range of problems.

It was a shame that so many of the spells used components, which she found generally inconvenient, but thought was probably useful to discourage impatient students from trying to free-cast any of the exercises.

Still, she had several ideas for new spells to add to her spell rod, and ways to modify her existing spells for greater versatility.

After the exam, Sebastien and Damien found themselves watching a group of children who had gleefully volunteered to participate in an exhibition. A witch’s elemental, resembling an enormous water blob, “ate” the kids, carrying them around in air bubbles amid shrieks of muffled laughter.

“What are we going to do about... you know?” Damien asked, his voice low and tinged with concern.

Sebastien considered her response carefully. “It is incredibly serious,” she admitted, “but if you’re right, it’s been going on for a while now. It’s not likely to reach a critical turning point overnight. Even if we can confirm that your hypothesis is what’s actually happening, from there we have to figure out what’s causing it to even have a chance of doing something about it.”

“But…do you think we even have a chance? How do we even begin to tackle something of this magnitude?”

“The higher-ups are going to want a lot more information. This isn’t something you need to agonize over,” Sebastien emphasized. “But yes, Damien. We always have a chance. There is always hope as long as you haven’t given up.” Silently, she admitted that this was daunting. If she ended up having to save the world from the failure of magic itself… Well, that seemed eminently more difficult than just becoming the world’s most powerful sorcerer.

Author Note: Sorry it's late this evening. I had to take a nap this afternoon to cool down my melting brain so that I could actually write properly, and that pushed back the rest of my (long) workday well into the evening. I haven't even had a chance to do my customary editing pass, so please inform me of any errors in the prose.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I also did an iteration pass on Chapter 225 to help clarify things, fix issues, and add a lot of new ideas I had when I wasn't totally exhausted. It's improved and somewhat lengthened if you would like to re-read it.

Edit #2: Got back around to do that edit pass on this chapter, with much help from you guys. It's probably not perfect yet but likely a lot more readable.