The rest of the morning passed in a blur that reminded Det, unfortunately, of the first week of every university semester he’d ever attended. A ton of information had been thrown at the class, most of which Det chose to ignore. His brain just didn’t work the way teachers wanted it to when it came to first classes.

  He didn’t really care about planning what was going to be instructed during which week or which part of the semester. His mind latched on to the learning itself when it came around.

  All this left him half-listening to Vault’s bass voice and half-daydreaming about what he could do to advance his magic. That was far more of a now problem than what they would be studying mid-semester. In some ways, it was lucky he didn’t have his brushes and ink with him, or he would have absolutely started doodling. The onslaught of ink-black kittens running around the classroom would have been a dead giveaway that he wasn’t paying attention. Not a great impression to the teachers.

  Still, the extra time to reflect on what he’d learned in the last two days wasn’t wasted. Maybe it was his ReSouled mind, or maybe it was just him coming to grips with pushing past the limitations he’d put on himself, but he was eager to try some things he’d written off as impossible. Why did he have to use animals, for example? If he could make a kitten the size of a tiger, couldn’t he fit people on a scroll and then manifest them at the appropriate size?

  They wouldn’t be as directly useful as Numbers One and Two were for Neferan—the cadet who could create two perfect clones of himself—but if he could instill his intent in them, he could definitely find some uses. Back on Radiant, when he’d been searching for Kels, it had been snakes he’d sent out. And while, sure, that had worked, if he’d sent people out, or at least something with two arms, they could have potentially picked up Kels and brought the unconscious girl right to Det.

  His renditions could always find him, even if the opposite wasn’t true. He doubted he could instill them with the magic to speak, but at the same time, he forced that hesitation right out of his mind. If he started telling himself “no” before he even tried, it would bleed into his intent, and everything would fail. The only way he’d know for sure was by going in with an open mind—literally—and testing things out.

  Something he wouldn’t get to do during lunch or the other class of the day.

  In fact, over the lunch break, most of the group, like him, spent the time recovering from the information overload provided by Libra and Vault. To say the two knew their stuff was an understatement. Fluke, when she was brought into the conversation, was no slouch either, though her interest clearly lay more in discovering history than reciting it. Libra and Vault both attributed some ruins on forgotten pillars being discovered to Fluke’s combination of curiosity and magic.

  That had been a very interesting point, telling Det there were pillars with unknowns on them. By the way they were spoken about so openly, these weren’t pillars that had Wordless emergences on them. No, these were just forgotten pillars that had to be hidden either below the mistline or in some less-traveled section of the mist sea.

  Det had never really been an explorer or a risk-taker, but he’d always loved finding hidden dungeons and ruins in open-world games. Doing it in real life, with the prospect of finding some artifact of power or a gateway home made it all the more enticing. Just mentioning that around the lunch table had five heads nodding in time with him. Even Calisco was completely on board with the idea. Almost frighteningly so.

  Her joking suggestions to steal a mistship and go exploring had just a little too much sincerity to them for the rest of the group to entirely ignore. It was unlikely she’d do it by herself—there was no way she could pilot one on her own—but Det and Tena made a quiet promise to each other to keep an eye on her lest she got them in trouble.

  Det didn’t really care if Calisco ran off on her own and fell off the side of the pillar—hell, he daydreamed about it most days—but as much as he hated to admit it, she was a member of their party. They needed six people to go into Wordless dungeons. If he wanted to stay part of the accelerated class, that meant keeping Calisco out of trouble. After making sure Eriba and Weiss were on board with the same thing—despite Calisco’s vocal argument against the plan happening around her—the rest of lunch ended very quickly, and most of the group moved on to their final class for the day.

  Det, however, hung back as four of the five got up and headed to where they needed to go. One person, Sage, had been quiet all morning and lunch.

  “We’ll be along in a few minutes,” Det told Weiss and Eriba, who’d looked back, wondering why everybody wasn’t moving. At his voice, Sage finally stirred beside him, like he hadn’t even noticed the rest of the party getting up to leave. Det’s hand on his forearm kept him from moving.

  Weiss’ eyes flicked to Sage, the observant man likely having noticed the same thing Det had, and the Medic nodded. “We’ll see you shortly,” Weiss said.

  “See you soon,” Eriba said quietly with a quick bob of her head, before the pair jogged to catch up with Tena and Calisco.

  “Everything okay, Det?” Sage asked when the others were gone. Most of the lunchroom had in fact cleared out, leaving only the two of them still sitting there. If they didn’t leave soon, they’d probably need to run to get to class on time, but they still had a few minutes.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Det said. “You’ve been unusually quiet all morning. Something about that class, to be blunt, really seemed to piss you off. Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Nothing,” Sage said, his smile coming forced. “Thanks for asking.”

  “Sage,” Det pressed. “You’ve been there for all of us since we came to Mount Avalon. If you’ve got something bothering you, let us do the same for you.”

  “I…” Sage started, took a breath, then looked around the room. “It’s the Mistguard,” he said as quietly as Eriba usually spoke. “I… sometimes… I wonder if they’re the good guys.”

  They’re, not we’re?

  Det didn’t ask the question, though, with Sage continuing at a whisper.

  “You heard Libra,” the other man went on. “Everybody else in the kingdom is dependant on the Mistguard.”

  Det nodded at the statement, but didn’t say anything yet.

  “It’s like… shackles,” Sage went on. “The headmaster said we don’t rule the kingdom, because it would be too much work, but is that really true? We have more military might in this room—and it’s just the two of us cadets—than most pillars have in their entire militia. It’s not even just that threat of violence, either.

  “If the Mistguard started withholding the repairs and maintenance Libra was talking about, what could the pillars even do? We have them over a barrel, even if we’re getting them there by offering fine food and gifts to seduce them.

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  “Then there’s the whole…” he dropped his voice to an even lower whisper, barely louder than the sound of breath across his teeth. “The Wordless and the fact we’re keeping the secret at all. If the Mistguard really cared about people, they wouldn’t hide that. Instead, we keep it to ourselves? Why? And don’t tell me you believe whatever story you got. The reason is simple: mistships, equipment, and general wealth.

  “All that comes from the same place. Without a monopoly on those things, the pillars wouldn’t need the Mistguard. With some of the gear, maybe they would even be able to defend themselves from pirates, the Cored, and emergences. Another reason they wouldn’t need the Mistguard.

  “Not to mention us,” Sage continued, his voice changing to a hiss. “We’re being indoctrinated into the Mistguard.”

  Det’s mind went back to a conversation he’d had with Captain Simmons in the arena during the week of fun and torture. When the man had asked if Det was making friends with his new roommates.

  He’d correctly said they were bonding over shared suffering.

  “Like frat-house or military hazing,” Det whispered back, seeing where Sage was going with it. “Initiation rituals. It might not be just about training our bodies, but also making us more comfortable with each other, because we all go through the same thing.”

  “Yes,” Sage said, eyes taking on a bit of a frenzied look. “I should’ve known you would get it! They’re bringing us together with the torture, relying on our drives to get us through it, then buttering us up with promises of power and money.

  “Then there’s that whole right of revenge bullshit you went through.”

  “How’s that the same?” Det asked.

  “Think about it, Det. Beauty said it himself; it’s an obscure rule. Used for a roommate? A loose excuse, if you ask me. And, how quick Projection accepted it? It was all a setup. Somebody told Fourth about the rule, knowing you would kick Aarak’s ass. Whoever it was knew she would jump at the chance to get her name in lights.

  “No offense, but, she didn’t care about you. It wouldn’t have mattered who was in the arena. She just wanted the chance at fame from beating the first real winner of a duel.”

  “And they knew she’d beat me,” Det said.

  “I’d put money on them even explaining to her how your magic worked. She went after your scrolls immediately. Even with how you used them in the first match, I think that’s too much of a coincidence.”

  “Okay, let’s say I agree with all that,” Det said. “How’s that related to all the other stuff?”

  “They put us all in suites with our groups,” Sage explained. “People we are going to work and bond with. Then, they set you up to get beat down by another person’s roommate. With a clear excuse-slash-reason it’s because they live together. What does that do? Makes all your roommates angry at the situation. Bringing us closer together by giving us another group of rivals.

  “I bet you’ll see more groups working and training together. Especially after the combat test yesterday where we dominated by fighting as a team. How much do you want to bet that was planned too?”

  “They’re giving us a group-wide rival arc?”

  “Exactly,” Sage said, pointing at Det. “How do you feel about Fourth beating you? How we do all feel about how she jumped you like that? Motivated. It’s feeding our drives.”

  “Did they do this to your uncle too?” Det asked, thinking back on where a lot of Sage’s info came from.

  Sage grimaced. “No,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve heard of this being done, but it lines up. I think the Mistguard is doing two things here. The first is obvious; they’re trying to make us the strongest we can be—as individuals and as groups—no matter what it takes, and counting on our drives to get us through it.

  “You like talking about arcs—like your new rival arc—but Mount Avalon is not your standard academy arc. This isn’t a happy place where we make new friends, discover we are some kind of magic prodigies, then go on to stop some all-powerful, ancient evil through the power of teamwork. We don’t get harems, craft legendary gear, or discover we have some rare bloodline.

  “No, we get torn in half by birokks, hanged and drowned for a whole day, and threatened to be tossed off the pillar if we share the secret about the… you know what. And, the whole time, we’re made to trust it’s all what’s best for us. We even believe it, because of our drives.

  “Sure, there are lessons like the alchemy class, but the rest of it? The week of torture to start things off, after the power display by the headmaster against the one person who didn’t want to wear the siltstone manacles.

  “The one person, who, rumor has it, isn’t currently chained up in a basement somewhere, but is instead getting special training.”

  “What?” Det asked. “What are you talking about? Where did you even hear something like that?”

  “I have my sources,” Sage said cryptically. “It was all a performance. A power display. To cow us and show us how we could climb if we just followed the rules. Then this R.O.R. Another bullshit rule that’s going to ‘push us to new heights”. Sage even used air quotes. “All that combined with what amounts to a bunch of misfits. Have you noticed how many ReSouled are absolute assholes?”

  “I grew up with one, remember?” Det said flatly.

  “Exactly!” Sage said, a fervor in his eyes. “Then your first meeting with Tena. That didn’t exactly go well. Aarak and Neferan, assholes. Beauty, quirky, but not terrible. Beast, though? How is she even an instructor? They’re all assholes, but that’s not the only thing they have in common. They’re all unstable in a way that can be manipulated.”

  Det leaned back in his seat at the declaration. Because of their drives, Sage wasn’t wrong. “What the hell? Are we like a twisted version of the breakfast club?”

  “Except they’re giving us the trauma as a path to becoming ‘acceptable’ to them, instead of talking it out,” Sage said.

  “Back to why?” Det said.

  “Because of the second thing they’re doing,” Sage said. “They’re grooming us.”

  “For what?” Det said. “To protect the Nivelhime Kingdom? To fight in the Corelands? Neither of those things is bad…”

  “Or to maintain the status quo,” Sage said. “It’s been like this for thousands of years. They have a good thing going. They wouldn’t want to change that.”

  “Again, why, though?” Det asked. “Who would benefit from that other than the regular people? Who is they?”

  “The Mistguard,” Sage said. “Us, I guess. No, that’s not right. With how many ReSouled die every cycle, we’re still mostly expendable. The ones who don’t fit in with their vision.

  “The ones who benefit? It’s got to be somebody higher up. If we live long enough, I bet they’ll tell us. Or, if we get as strong as the headmaster or The Wall. At the end of the day, it’s about control and power. Something only the Mistguard has.

  “That has to be it.”

  Det leaned back in his seat again to consider what the other man was saying. He didn’t disagree with the hazing part of it, but was Sage leaning too deep into what amounted to little more than a conspiracy theory?

  “Sorry,” Sage said, his eyes never leaving Det’s face, and that forced smile creasing his lips there. “I probably sound a little crazy. Hell, speaking about it, even I think I’m overthinking it. It… it just came to me in class while Libra was talking, then my mind went down this rabbit hole.

  “Saying it out loud like that…” Sage chuckled and shook his head. “Makes me wonder if all the torture and fighting has gotten to me. I might need a spa day or something to unwind.”

  Det looked at his friend, some of the previous tension still present in his body language. Sage knew his words had… upset—no, that wasn’t quite the right word for it—Det, and was trying to smooth things over again.

  “I don’t think it’s crazy,” Det said. “I just need to think about it a bit more. I’ve been focused on getting stronger, and, maybe that’s what they wanted. Like you said. Counting on our drives to keep us moving without noticing what’s going on around us. What’s being done to us.

  “Or, maybe that’s just how we’re seeing it.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sage said, words entirely unconvincing.

  The other Arsenal was usually so easygoing. Adapted to just about anything put in front of him. It was strange to see him fixate on something like this.

  Which should probably tell me I need to consider this, and not dismiss it. Hell, with how long it sounds like ReSouled can live—as long as we get more powerful—would it really be so far-fetched to think some would want to live those lives in comfort?

  Hold on… drives. If one person had the right—or the wrong—drive, it could lead them to orchestrating things like Sage is suggesting. Could that be it? Or am I falling as far down the rabbit hole as Sage did?

  “I really will think on it,” Det promised his friend at the same time he forced his thoughts to stop spiralling. “Let’s talk about this again later?”

  Sage seemed to brighten up at that, and gave one, short nod, then noticed there weren’t any other cadets anywhere within eyeshot.

  “We really should get to that next class,” Sage said.

  “Yeah,” Det agreed “And, Sage, thanks for talking to me. I don’t know if I agree with what you said—or not—yet, but I’m glad you told me what’s on your mind.”

  “Thank you for listening,” Sage said. “Like I said, I should’ve realized you’d listen without judging me. Just getting it out of my head helped clear it up a bit.”

  “Good, let’s go,” Det said, and the pair stood to hurry to their next class.