Chapter 94 - The Core, the Duel, and the Vaults IV (Patreon)

“Um. Hi.” Felix said, staring at the spirit of Camelot. She looked roughly to be 10 or so, made out off shimmering light like a sparkly, overly bright ghost. And she was lounging in the vault.

“Hello! Congratulations! You made it!” She said, making sparkles pop all over.

“Thank you?” Felix said, not sure where this was going. The spirit of Camelot was basically a well-meaning kid, who enjoyed light-hearted mischief and merriment.

“You get all the points!” She threw her hands up, and motes of light rained down on Felix. “And because it’d be boring, you get everyone else’s points as well!”

“Err. Thank you?” Felix said.

“Phoenix House was smart.” Camelot whispered. “They put a spell on the door to re-lock it after it got unlocked. It’s much more fair when everyone is robbed.”

“Well, thank you again.” Felix said. That sort of trick would have completely stopped him cold. A mechanical lock, backed by magic? It wasn’t a ward he was trying to step through, it’d be an actual door. As far as he could tell, he couldn’t go immaterial. Then it clicked. He had a dragon spirit core. Camelot was a spirit. 

“Hey, what can you tell me about spirits?” He asked, hoping to know more.

“That you should go to the library! Toodles!” The spirit faded away, leaving just her uncanny grin before it, too faded away.

Felix looked around. Well, the place was still utterly loaded with enchantments and lines, and there was nothing saying he couldn’t go out, get his notebook, and come back to take notes. 

Although, hmmm. It was about to be finals week…

Nevermind. Prioritization was important, and his studies were more important than maybe getting a glimpse of some advanced magic. He could always come back after finals week, or just read overly complex books in the library. It was interesting to see all the ways magic could be applied, theory turning into practice, but right now the best he could do was see what magic was possible. Trying to divine all the minutiae was far beyond him, and just not practical at the moment.

He left with a hop in his step, only to get ambushed the moment he left. 

“How’d it go?”

“Did you get it?”

“What was it like?”

“Diagrams of the spells?”

Every member of his coven had questions for him, and Felix was grinning. It was great to have friends.

“Yes, yes, and let me tell you all about it…”

==========

Felix and the rest of his coven ended up eventually getting back to studying, where Felix despaired at how his study schedule had been utterly mauled. Shredded. Torn to pieces.

“You’re good at rituals.” Alexandria whispered, without looking up from her book. “Skip reviewing that. Work on your practical charms instead.”

“No, you should-” Sora started to say, only for them to get interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Enter.” Erik commanded.

The door opened up and one of the Praetorians was there.

“Headmaster would like to see one Felix Sutter.” He said.

Felix sighed, and consigned the entire day to a bad job. If this impacted his scholarship, so help him, he’d be furious. Erik started to pack up and stood up to join him.

“Only Sutter.” The Praetorian said. Erik frowned, but nodded.

“Tell him the truth, the whole truth.” Erik said, sitting back down.

“Alright.” Felix said, strongly suspecting this had to do with the Vaults. He packed up and started to follow the Praetorian, butterflies starting to dance in his stomach. Had robbing the Vaults really been a good idea? It was a school-sanctioned activity! They permitted it, encouraged it, and invited people to do it. But maybe it was one of those things that was supposed to be impossible, that he should have to strive for. Instead, he showed up and actually did it. Like… Felix couldn’t come up with any examples. He could come up with the annual cost to attend Camelot, and what he’d owe if he got expelled.

Fuck. He’d worked so hard this year. Stumbling at the finish line would be brutal. This was the last time he was going to stick himself out there, it was too hard on his nerves.

He blinked, and in no time at all they were at the Headmaster’s Office. The Praetorian knocked on the door.

“Enter.” The headmaster commanded. Felix tilted his head - that sounded exactly like Erik. Not the voice, but the tone and all. He had no more time to think of it all as the door opened up.

“Sutter.” The headmaster said, putting aside a pile of documents. “Sit.” He gestured towards a hard wooden chair in front of him. Felix dutifully sat down, his back ramrod straight.

“Sir.” Felix hated how his voice squeaked. 

“Do you know why you’re here?” He asked. Felix shrank down in his seat.

“Yes?” He didn’t mean for it to come out like a question.

“An hour ago, the spirit of Camelot gave you all the house points. All of them. I’d like to know how this came to happen.”

The stern look in the headmaster’s eye had an implicit ‘and it better be good’ behind it. Felix briefly thought about what to say, and remembered Erik’s advice. Right. Erik had his back, he’d be fine.

He straightened up.

“Well, sir. It all started with the Dragon House dueling tournament this morning.”

The headmaster said nothing, simply continued to stare at Felix.

“I was paired against Leona Thorne. Last seed, and I’m not particularly good with my charms. My magic’s quite slow, you see.”

Still silence. Felix could feel sweat pop all along his back.

“It turned out that Thorne couldn’t touch me. Most of her spells missed, and the ones that connected just bounced off. Zing.” Felix made the motion, and finally got half a reaction out of the headmaster, who leaned forward a bit. Felix felt like a particularly interesting bug under the microscope.

“Well. Push came to shove, literally, and Thorne won by punching me in the face. We got an appraisal crystal, and it turns out my core’s a spirit dragon. Maybe a Patagonian Mirrorscale spirit dragon? We’re not entirely sure, we suspect it’s American and that place isn’t well described in the beasteries we have here. One of our tests suggested that I could walk through wards, and Morten had the great idea that I should try the house vault challenge. Except, kinda cheating, since I could just walk through the wards separating the challenges. We went down there, and I just… walked right up to the vault and opened it.”Felix frowned.

“But wait, I passed the Thunderbird trial if nothing else. Camelot gave me all the house points?” He asked.

The headmaster continued to be silent. What else could he want!? Felix desperately thought through it all, and kept talking.

“Well… Camelot was in the vault, and said it’d be boring if I robbed all but one house. Phoenix House apparently had a lock I wouldn’t be able to walk through. Then she gave me all the points, and I went back to study with my friends. Errr. My coven. That Erik’s in. Yeah. Um. The Thunderbird House vaults were the Ifrit, an orb I couldn’t fill, a room with a bunch of bibles and clocks, and the vault room itself had runes all over the place, I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be. Yeah. Then you summoned me here, and… yeah. That’s what I’ve got.”

Felix shut up at that point. The headmaster stared him down for a minute, and Felix fidgeted under his gaze. Eventually the silence broke.

“I believe you.” He said. “Congratulations on passing the Vault challenge. There hasn’t been a successful one in the last 50 years, and that was because one of the houses was trying to protest the entire system, and refused to participate. Good days.” 

With a start, Felix realized the headmaster might’ve been one of the students refusing to participate in the vault games. 

“Am I in trouble?” He blurted out.

“Mmmm. No, not this time.” The headmaster said, leaning back to stroke his beard. “You’ve followed all the rules, both in letter and in spirit. With that said, you’ve bent the spirit of the challenge quite severely. Congratulations, you get new rules made for you. As is tradition in Dragon House, I’m sure your seniors will be quite pleased.”

Felix swore he could’ve seen the stern headmaster smile. 

“Now, with that said, you’ve got far too many points, and I won’t be allowing you to roll all of them over to next year. Mmm. How about a nice 400 point lead to start off with? Nothing too major, but it does reward you for your efforts. Additionally, you’re banned from directly participating in future vault participation. By all means, plot and scheme with your friends and coven, but it can’t be you who actually enters. Lastly, a number of places in the castle are off-limits. I generally don’t go into details, as it simply encourages students to go looking, but between a lack of information and the wards, the last incident was nine years ago. I’m explicitly telling you not to cross unknown ward lines.”

The headmaster continued stroking his beard as Felix took it all in.

“Oh, and lastly, don’t get too confident in the library. You haven’t tested if your core will protect you from simply being eaten, and far more experienced and powerful wixen have been devoured by the upper levels of the library. Continue to exercise prudence, caution, and restraint. Excellent work with your grades so far, and I look forward to the absolute chaos my announcement at the leaving feast will cause.” The headmaster was definitely smiling now. “Do you think the other houses will notice, and lay siege to the Dragon House vaults now, or should we leave it a mystery for the other students?”

Felix found his worries being washed away, and was grinning.

“Oh, let’s leave it as a mystery. Vivian knows all the rumors, I wonder what the craziest thing they’ll think of in the meantime?” He said. It wasn’t like the house points were concealed or anything.

“Very well. Please see Dame Elspeth to make your selections for next year. Good luck with your finals. Please close the door on your way out.”

Felix did, and the Praetorian was still there when he left.

“Glad that went well.” He said.

“Was - was there a chance it wouldn’t go well?” Felix asked, suddenly nervous.

“Sure. All sorts of things. If you were threatening the safety of other students to blackmail Camelot? We’d be having a very, very different discussion.”

“Do you know where Dame Elspeth’s office is?” Felix asked. 

The Praetorian whistled.

“Kept all the points? Very nice, you’ll have to let me know how you did it some day. No pressure, this is me, as a person, being curious, not a Praetorian interrogating you.”

Felix’s grin almost split his face in half.

“Well… we’re more curious what rumors will pop up. Let us know what the staff thinks, yeah?”

He snorted.

“Not a chance in magic, kid. I’m not gossiping about the staff to a student, that’s a terrible idea. Now come on, let’s get you to Elspeth’s.”

They trotted down a few hallways, went down a staircase, then back up - why couldn’t castles be sensibly laid out - and soon ended up at Elspeth’s office.

“Got this year’s point winner for you.” The Praetorian said as they entered Elsepth’s office. Endless cabinets of paperwork lined both walls, and sharp flicks of her quill-focus rapidly summoned and moved them around.

“Really?” She said. “Before finals are done?”

The Praetorian grinned and patted Felix’s shoulder.

“Kid here managed to rob all the house vaults. So unless the entire school gets together and repeats the entire year’s worth of material and content in the next week, I think it’s safe to say he’ll win. Might as well record his answers now. If there’s an upset, well, I think we’ll be more excited about that. Better than trying to track him down in the noonie world before next year starts, eh?”

“Fair. What do you want?” She asked Felix.

“Um?” He said, not sure what she was getting at.

“The student with the most points can decide part of the menu next year for Camelot. What would you like to see at the dinner table next year?”

Oh yeah. There had been a good amount of Indian food this year. Felix had mentally stuck it in his mind as ‘normal’, entirely forgetting that it was the prize of last year’s student. What did he want?

Only the best. Only the most luxurious food, one that signaled good times were happening or that it was his birthday. A special treat.

“Could we get In-n-Out burger?” Felix asked nervously. “Or like. Just burgers, fries, chicken fingers? No need to actually get In-n-Out.”

Also, he was holding a mild grudge against McDonalds for firing him.

He’d done some math on how utterly ruinous the logistics to Avalon were from the mundane world. No wonder he’d been able to sell things at such a large mark up! It was a gigantic pain in the ass to get things here.

“I make no promises.” Elspeth said. “However, it is an exciting chance to try something new.”

Felix stared. He didn’t think it was possible. Then again, Arcadia wasn’t the mundane world, and so it wasn’t insane. Still, he had to double check.

“Wait, you’ve never had fast food before?” He asked.

“Never. Now, if that’s all, I’m quite busy. Can’t wait to hear how you did it. Congratulations.”

Without another word, Felix was shooed out. With a shrug, he went to find his friends.

It was finals week next week.