Chapter 86 - Explorations in Camelot (Patreon)

“Right. Felix, Alexandria, I get that the two of you are working your hardest on your grades and magic, but I need to stretch my legs, and explore more of Camelot. At this rate, the only part of the school I’ll have seen by graduation is the inside of this room. Sora, want to come with?” Erik said.

Sora was already opening the door, beating out Hazel’s record for fastest exit.

“Boss, I never thought you’d ask!” She said. “I need air! I need light! I’ll DIE without them! FREEDOOOOM!!!!”

The other five watched Sora leave.

“I want to say that was new, but…” Erik said. 

“Nobody would’ve taken a bet on that.” Vivian agreed.

Felix frowned at his work. He didn’t like getting interrupted, but with everyone else packing up… well, time to explore the castle. They did say that a single step was worth more than a dozen books in learning things, and to be honest, it wasn’t like he wanted to be a bookworm. He just happened to be so far behind everyone else that he had to.

It was October, he’d spent long enough digging through things. Yeah, it was time to explore. Felix packed his bags and joined everyone else.

“... you know, it’s a shame we’re not all in the same house.” Vivian said.

“Yeah, you should all join Dragon house!” Felix said. He was a little sick of being the only kid in his year. Someone always ended up joining, and he’d prefer if it was his friends.

“Sure, sounds like fun.” Erik said. 

Felix pumped his fist. Yes! Erik was cool, and he wouldn’t be so alone. Plus, where Erik went, Sora would follow. The only question was if Vivian and Alexandria came along. He liked Hazel enough, but had no doubts that she’d do poorly in Dragon house. The girl had enough of her own demons to fight without needing to wake up early and run around.

“Let’s go to the Vaults.” Alexandria whispered. Sora skidded to a halt.

“Aww, no! Come on, it’s a beautiful day outside! Let’s not go into the dungeons to look at more magic. Please?” Sora looked around with huge puppy eyes, but nobody was moved.

“Cool magic? I vote cool magic.” Erik said. 

Vivian slung her arm with Alex’s.

“I’m going with Alex. Felix, you want to watch Broombrain fly around or join us?” She asked.

“They change the Vault puzzles every year, right?” Felix asked.

“Yeah, the seniors in the house make their own puzzles.” Vivian confirmed.

“Cool, so this year’s magic will only be on display this year. Let’s take a look.” Felix said.

“Noooo…” Sora complained. She kept muttering and whining without good grace the whole way down, but did follow the rest of them to the Vaults.

Eventually, the six of them made it down to the 1st floor, where the house Vaults were. Each house had a set of their own tests and challenges to secure their points. Given that it was 7th and 8th years setting up multiple layers of challenges, and only the 1st years that could challenge it, it served more as one part educational, three parts showing off.

“You know, I think I’m going to hate setting one of these up when it’s our turn to graduate.” Vivian said.

“Why’s that?” Alex whispered.

“I just know whatever I think up will get shuffled to the back. Your cool project will be the display piece everyone gets to see, and mine will be behind it, tragically hidden from the little tadpoles. They’ll never get a chance to see my art!”

“Oh wait, could I make a flying challenge?” Sora asked.

“Sure, if you’ve got the magical and enchanting know-how.” Erik said. “Gotta hit those books a bit harder.”

Sora grumbled, but didn’t actively protest.

The six of them made it to the first level of the Vault, where the six house Vaults were.

“Hey, wait, before we take a look, did someone set up a vault here?” Felix asked, pointing to a closed door.

The six of them wandered over.

“Do we just, like, open it or something?” Vivian asked.

“Yeah, like this!” Sora opened the door and ran inside. Without looking. There were roars, the sound of crackling lightning, and agonizing screams.

The other four members of the coven all tried to cram through the door at the same time, while Hazel just stood back and rolled her eyes. 

Felix looked in, expecting the worst, and… Sora was standing there, smiling triumphantly, with the safety box door open next to her. The words ‘12 points’ were magically written in the air, and slowly fading away.

“See! Nothing to it. Just a whole lotta flash and thunder.”

Alex frowned.

“I had thought it unusual that someone at our level was properly warding a place.” She whispered.

“Big dumb bluff.” Sora grinned. “And now all their points are mine. MINE! All mine!” She rubbed her hands and cackled. 

“Fortune favors the bold!” Erik agreed good-naturedly with a grin. 

“I know who I’m sending in first to check for traps.” Vivian’s smile wouldn’t have been out of place on a shark’s face.

“Hazel! We’re sending Hazel in first!” Sora said.

“Meep?” She said, pointing to herself. Sora nodded.

“Oh yeah, you can totally do the object mind-reading thing and figure out all the traps ahead of time, it’s great!”

Hazel tilted her head, confused.

“Broombrain… I’m pretty sure that’s part of divination.” Felix said.

Sora tilted her head.

“Have you ever called me broombrain before?” She asked. “I dunno… are you allowed to?”

Felix gaped like a fish. Sora mmmm’d thoughtfully, then brightened up.

“Okay! You’re allowed!”

She skipped past them, humming a tune.

“O-” Vivan barely got out before Sora slugged her in the arm as she passed by.

Vivian muttered something unpleasant under her breath.

“Let’s go see the magic.” Hazel practically ran away from the growing conflict.

“Dragon house first?” Felix asked, curious what his seniors had brewed up. He was sure they had talked about it in the common room… for like, a week, before the topic was dried up and they all moved along to whatever was new. The very same week Felix was still trying to figure out up from down, how to put on his uniform, and how to not get lost in the castle, nevermind follow technical discussion about magic.

“Dragon!” Erik said, pausing at the door. “Do you want to do the honors?”

At a round of declines, Erik carefully cracked the door open. Immediately the six of them were assaulted by the noise of glass breaking. A lot of glass breaking. He opened the door more and backed up.

The ceiling was raining crystals. Sharp, hard crystals were being endlessly conjured from the ceiling, then raining down onto the floor where they broke into a thousand pieces. The broken crystal eventually faded away, preventing the room from filling up, but all that allowed was for the incessant, deadly hail to continue. At the far end of the room, a shimmering blue light covered the exit, and the entrance to the next room.

“We have to run through that?” Sora asked incredulously.

“We finally found something you can’t fly through!” Felix teased.

“Not just that.” Alexandria whispered. “It’s just the first room. It’s not the last. You’ve got to get through that, then whatever other challenge is waiting.”

“I want to know how they’re doing it.” Erik said, peering up at the ceiling. “Like, I get that it’s a ritual. A summoning ritual? A conjuration ritual? Then they’re tying it to a fading, banishing, or vanishing spell of some flavor, but how are they powering the entire thing? I don’t see any cores attached to the array, and running it must be expensive.”

Hazel snuck over to the door and crouched down. When there was a brief lull in the rain, she whipped her hand inside, grabbed a shard, and clutched it tight to her chest.

“Ow.” She whimpered, dropping the crystal and sucking on her fingers.

“Come here!” Vivian said, starting to fuss over Hazel.

“Why did you do that?” Sora asked, peering around Vivian in fascination. 

“It looked nice. I wondered if it would stick around if I took it out of the room. I was going to make a sun catcher or something with it.” Hazel muttered.

Felix immediately reevaluated the room. That much raw material could easily get turned into something nice and resold, if it didn’t have any intrinsic value itself. A quick analysis-

His musings were interrupted by a kick to the shin.

“No way.” Sora said, stepping between him and the door and crossing her arms. 

Felix grumbled, upset that he’d been interrupted, but begrudgingly recognizing that Sora had a point. 

The six of them explored the remaining rooms.

The first one was Unicorn house. Erik poked his head in first, then immediately slammed the door shut, looking more than a little green.

“I need to sit down.” He said, plonking himself right down on the floor. Alex started to move towards the door, and Erik stuck his leg out, trying to block her. She stopped.

“What’s in there?” She whispered.

“Illusions… I hope.” Erik said. “A horrible battlefield, lots of people dying and screaming, demons eating people alive. And the stink…” He shuddered. 

“Next door! Not a horror show, not a horror show” Vivian chanted, before opening the door.

“It’s safe! Ish.” She said, fully opening the door. Felix went in with nearly everyone else, Erik still taking a minute to sit down.

“I think this goes without saying, but don’t touch the creepy skull on a pedestal.” Felix said, not quite trusting the wixen common sense. Or Sora, who was getting closer, and starting to reach a finger out towards said skull.

Hazel nodded along.

“What is it?” Vivian asked. “I mean, apart from human. That’s obviously a human skull.” She said.

“I bet it’s cursed.” Alexandria whispered. “This is a classic setup for a ‘cursed object’, and Phoenix house loves their curses and cursebreaking.”

“Yeah, but how do we know? And how is this educational at all?” Felix said. He thought the rooms were supposed to show off cool magic. 9/10 points to Dragon house, ‘endless rain of crystals’ was pretty cool and had all sorts of questions. ‘Skull with mysterious curses’ didn’t exactly invite ideas or inspired learning.

“Look up.” Alex whispered, pointing up to the ceiling. Felix and the rest craned their heads up, and Vivian slapped her hand over her face.

“We’re IDIOTS.” She said.

There were hundreds of hieroglyphics on the ceiling, and Felix could make out a good number of them. Not quite enough to fully understand what was being said, but he got the general idea of it.

“Making us work on our language skills, just to taunt us in the end when we can’t do anything about it.” Sora guessed.

“It’s educational, at least. Safe notes on high level magic theory, even if it’s not the full set of curses.” Alexandria whispered.

Felix pulled out a notebook and pencil from his bag, and started tracing the runes.

“Noooo.” Sora and Vivian both said, then looked at each other, surprised.

“Come on, let’s see the rest of them first!” Sora said.

“Yeah, copy the runes after.”

Felix grumbled, but stuck his pencil in the notebook and closed it anyway.

Thunderbird house had an enormous Ifrit lounging in a pentagram, with stacks of books, magazines, and other entertainment. 

“What is it?” Felix asked. Hazel looked at the Ifrit appraisingly.

“A being of fire and wind, from the great deserts to the south.” Erik answered.

“I wonder if I could get its name.” Alexandria whispered. “Then summon it and bind it to my will once its contract here is done.”

Vivian slapped her hands over Alex’s ears. The Ifrit looked far too interested in what Alex was saying.

“NOPE!” She loudly called out, as the Ifrit got up. “We are leaving, NOW, before the demon tempts Alex into making bad decisions.”

Kirin house looked like a modern laboratory crossed with a mad scientist’s lair. Cauldrons swung from moving chains hung off the ceiling. Each one was at a different height, and their paths kept intersecting over and under each other. Felix was sure the chains should cross or tangle with each other at some point, but they just somehow didn’t. More magic, he was sure. A thick book was on a table, and a cabinet held rows upon rows of ingredients. The same blue light was warding the next door. Felix carefully peered at the book.

“It’s instructions.” He said. “We need to… are you kidding me?”

“What?” Erik asked.

“We need to brew various sub-potions in the higher cauldrons, then pour them into the lower ones to create the ‘greater’ potions. Except the timings, if I’m understanding them correctly, mean that we need to start every potion at the exact right moment, to pour them out into the lower ones when they cross over. Otherwise, we miss our chance. I think.”

Felix wasn’t entirely sure that was correct. He was doing a good amount of speculating, but it seemed like the sort of thing the brainiacs in Kirin house would cook up. A timing and logic puzzle on top of tricky potion brewing. The entire thing was patently unfair, in his opinion. They didn’t even get to the fundamentals of potion brewing until next year! Seeing multiple high-level potions and theories really didn’t help their education out. Although, maybe it was worth copying the recipe book. Maybe that was the real treasure? He had no idea how common or rare these potions were.

The door to Hydra’s Vault opened into a misty wood. The ceiling was replaced by a starfield, and the mist was so thick Felix could barely see the drooping trees. The entire place was whispering, and Vivian looked thoroughly freaked out. Hazel, by contrast, looked right at home.

“There’s a lot of mind magic in here.” She announced, and made to grab Sora. “Um. Can I pull Sora out before she’s eaten by a plant or something?”

“Please do.” Erik said, moving like he wanted to clutch his head. The six of them stepped out of the room, and Felix stomped his shoes to try and get the dirt off them.

“That was super creepy.” Vivian shuddered.

“Could be a good place to check how well our mental defenses are doing, and study botany of rare plants.” Alexandria whispered.

“That’d be just like my house, making an endurance training room.” Hazel said.

“Sora, did the room enthrall you or something?” Erik asked.

“Me? Enthralled? FUCK no, you know mind magic’s my best class.” Sora hotly protested. “It was outside! It was nature! I was trying to figure out what was going on with the breeze! Was it artificial, or natural? Did they knock a hole in the castle wall to get the wind going, or is it a spell? Enchantment? Maybe there’s a wind elemental in there. Come on, it was interesting! I’m kinda mad you could think I’d be enthralled, honestly.”

Sora looked genuinely mad for a moment, then turned to Hazel.

“But, uh, hey, thanks for the save. Next time you think I’m under some mind magic nonsense, you’ve got my full permission to smack me over the head and drag me out of the problem. Better safe than sorry.” She said.

“Are you sure you’re a wixen?” Alex whispered. “You know there are easier ways to knock someone out than going all noonie on them and hitting them over the head with a tree branch.”

Sora had a one-fingered answer to that.

The last room Felix could only describe as a ‘singing forge’. Hot vats of molten metal, crystalline trees ringing out various sounds, a hammer and anvil, engraved with runes.

“I didn’t think being a blacksmith was on the curriculum.” He half-joked.

“It’s not. This is… enchanting, item creation, and one senior’s pet passion project, I bet.” Erik answered. “Can’t really think of a better defense than to be an utter nerd in a niche subject. The sacrifice to power the defenses is just as large and potent as a common subject, but so rare as to practically be a lock.” 

“It’s almost like a really complex flying course would be an excellent defense.” Sora loudly commented.

“Yeah, but everyone flies.” Vivian said.

“Not those two!” Sora gleefully pointed to Felix and Hazel.

“Sure, but that’s because they came from the noonie world. You could make a key just as obscure by having people sing nursery rhymes.” Vivian said. 

With all of the Vaults peeked in, the coven was ready to go on its way. Felix started to make his way over to the Phoenix house Vault to copy down all the runes when Erik stopped him.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He said.

“Yeah?” Felix asked, as the others filed their way up the stairs.

“Phoenix house is the super nice one. Instead of spending hours copying down all the runes, why don’t we go up there together and ask them for a copy? I bet simply having gone in and taken the initiative, they’d be happy to give us a set, plus, I heard it’s fondue night tonight. I’m up for atrocious amounts of cheese, and getting the notes gives me a good excuse to get in. What do you say?”

Free food? Free food.

“Yeah!”