🔮 Magical Academy

At long last, when the dreamscape realm finally released you from its grasp, you landed on your knees with a sleeve torn clean off and that letter clutched tightly in your hand.

You had made it. Just a few scratches, tattered robes and a mildly concerning amount of property damage. That's hardly more than barely, surely.

The acceptance letter had been in your pocket since the moment the entrance realm unceremoniously hurled you back into the corridors. It was almost the size of a scroll, though apparently the majority of the writing wasn't in fact a congratulation on your excellence, but merely rules and regulations after the last first years decided to challenge the academy's entirely reasonable prohibition against duelling on school grounds. By now, the corners were flimsy from being checked too often, as if the words might have changed while you weren't looking.

A thunderstorm had been the final test. It laughed boisterously at other students that attempted and failed to overcome it before you (storms apparently had a sense of humor) and most importantly, the examiners believed that foundational mana equations were easier to remember while being struck by weather. May it be due to sheer luck or otherwise, you had somehow emerged on the other side.

By the time you reached Veilspire Academy, you had already been dragged through a sentient hedge maze, nearly drowned, struck by lightning, and threatened with expulsion from a pocket dimension you technically had not been aware you were trespassing in.

Three years you had spent hearing about Veilspire. None of the books had mentioned that finding the first-year lecture hall required several flights of staircases and endless halls where one wrong step might deposit you somewhere considerably more ancient, cursed, or administratively inconvenient than intended. Corridors forked into six staircases, three of which appeared to lead somewhere useful. The others, you presume, had been designed to discourage curiosity by simply ceasing to exist halfway up. You chose the one with the sign pointing toward First-Year Orientation and immediately passed a professor arguing with a portrait.

In your pocket, you held a map, a brass key, but also exactly twelve minutes of advice from a registrar who disappeared before you could ask where the classrooms were. The timetable was still folded along the creases the registrar had made for you, which meant you hadn't yet learned which corridors were allowed to rearrange themselves.

The library had a west wing, an east wing, and, according to the map, a wing that was “currently reconsidering its location.” The brass plaque outside the nearest staircase had been polished so often that the words TRANSMUTATION FACULTY were almost invisible.

It was relatively mundane as far as magic schools go, though Alchemy class truly was a different breed. You wouldn't be surprised if someone's hair caught on fire. Speaking of which, a herd of panicked third-years came tumbling down the grand staircase, one of them desperately balancing a cauldron that was actively pouring out thick purple smoke, Professor Sterling yelling out in exasperation to "mind their step."

Reminder to not enter that class first period. It's for your own good.

Near the stairwell, you overheard two students were arguing over whether a puddle counted as a Tidecalling accident if nobody had intended to summon it. One drifted into a suit of armor, to which the armor incidentally apologized, as though this happened often enough to warrant good manners.

A single chime echoed down the hallway, and the entire corridor went dead silent. You went still right beside them, having absolutely no clue what was happening after admittedly skimming through the rules.

“That's the Founding Bell,” the students beside you whispered curiously.

Congratulations for surviving the entrance exam, first years. Choose your designated class:

➣ Spellcasting ➣ Spellweaving ➣ Alchemy ➣ Magical History ➣ Divination ➣ Magical Creatures ➣ Rune Craft ➣ Combat & Defense ➣ Enchantment