Chapter Twelve

The summer went almost without consequence. There was an assassination attempt against Petra, but between her and Chesi the ambitious youth had been subdued. He now sat in a cell muttering incoherently about the shaditha and death. He must have been quite arrogant, he seemed to believe that Petra could only have beaten him because she was possessed. To which she replied, 'possessed of sheer awesome maybe.'

At the academy life went on as it had the prior year. Otan continued teaching his class; Gnogg, sadly enough, also taught intermediate casting. In place of natural magic they had the choice of potions and herbs; sprites and shrines, or alchemy. Chesi took alchemy, Petra followed suit.

Alchemy was more or less magic for those who are no good at casting. Chesi excelled at it; a good memory and a little skill were all that alchemy required. Petra was mostly just bored; she could accomplish most of the same effects with her casting faster and more spectacularly. Nevertheless, she did find that alchemy could be applied within TacSim; and she used it rather effectively against her enemies. Alchemical etchings that could detonate in the presence of enemy mages or larger ones that could stop thousands of arrows or even stop armies in their tracks.

Vlad took potions; as did the others, with the exception of Kora, Kara and Knarf(who had been absent for their first match on account of a fever). Kora wasn't much good with sprites, but she was growing more mystically oriented and a lot of the rituals around the shrines seemed to appeal to her. Kara disapproved, but she tended to disapprove of things in general.

Chesi was distant that year. She'd been uneasy since the assassination attempt over the summer. She also seemed to develop this minor obsession with Vlad's origins. She was still amicable, but not nearly as much as in the past. Less cheerful, more cautious and reluctant to act.

And so went the second year.