The Necromancer's Stone; The Party, part five

The next item on Thalia's list was the school's end of semester activities.  In this case that was a tourney, the interleague championship TacSim game, and a sort of magical equivalent to a science fair.  Most of the students would be competing in the tourney before being eliminated and heading over to watch the TacSim match, which would of course hold off on anything more than prepwork and initial troop assignments until the tourney was over.  As a result, Thalia would be heading over to see what the universe's budding magical experimenters and cunning illusionists had managed to turn out since June.  She wouldn't have stood a chance in the tourney anyways.
It was a tried and true format, with slight tweaks.  Reinforced and warded booths in which each student participating would have a display explaining their experiment, and then the student himself waiting to demonstrate it to passersby and judges.  Thalia had a booth, but her toothbrush replacing golems weren't going to win any awards.  Necromancy never won; too many teachers turned up their nose at such things.  Besides, it wasn't so much a test of the limits of magic as it was a test of her won limits.  The fact that they were smart enough to do so was a testament to her skill certainly, but hardly pushing the envelope.  At least, as far as any of them could tell.  Professor Zinksfeld might realize what she was really trying to do, but the odds of her showing anything but disdain for Necromancy were abysmal.
Self-combating swords, often in pairs, seemed to be the proverbial baking soda and vinegar volcano of this years fair.  Every student past third year enchanting seemed to be determined to show how simple it was to make a sword duel with proper form by using a simple enchantment etched into the pommel and then lacing it across the whole hilt to meet a second copy of the enchantment at the guard.  Thalia could have made them in her sleep, and had once done so just to prove she could; she'd made a pretty penny off that bet.  Some of the more clever among them had added a minor enchantment that caused the blade to glow when it was active.
Another student was demonstrating how the addition of a small looping pattern at specific parts of a pattern could completely alter the personality of a speaking sword, talking wall, or otherwise en-vocalized object.  Thalia had to stop and talk to him for a while, get a working understanding of his project.  This was the sort of advance in magic she came to the fair for in the first place.
But the booth that forced her to stop longest was the student who had decided to prove that a mage using Rucuun's theorem could not be defeated except by another mage equipped with the same or an equivalent ability.  Thalia couldn't stand the sheer elitism being displayed, and decided to volunteer herself to disprove his findings.  She stepped into the open space provided and drew a small dagger.  She'd run the scenario several times before in the past, it was doable but not easy.  Much easier than the tourney though.  She stood in the middle and knelt.  No enhancements, that wasn't quite the rules, but it was how she played it.  She watched him begin sidestepping about her like a bolt of lightning, letting her senses adjust to their limits.  She was looking for patterns, any weakness in his motion, judging the weight of his sword against his strength.  She'd only have a second to exploit any advantage he gave her, and little more to avoid his attack.  He came at her with a horizontal slash, which she jumped back to avoid, flinging her self to the side to avoid his follow up vertical blow.  There, he overextended and she darted in and pushed the dagger into his arm.  As he recoiled, still moving faster than she could manage without magic of her own, she condensed the vapors of the air into a sheet of ice beneath him.  He fell and she flipped him back up to meet her clenched fist.  It was somewhat cruel to do in front of student and judge alike, but his hubris had brought this upon him.  She released the magic that held the ice together and dispelled his enhancement as she did. Then she leaned in and pulled the dagger from his arm.
"Do you have someone you would trust to heal you; a girlfriend or something?"
"No."
She placed her hand over the wound, sealing it and mending the veins beneath.  "Perhaps the humility you should learn from today will help rectify that.  I have no hard feelings towards you for this, and I hope that you will feel the same."
"You just wrecked my experiment and stabbed me in the arm."
"Your experiment was faulty, but the concept was good.  It is difficult to defeat a mage using the theorem, not impossible.  And I've fixed the arm."
He stared at her, looking ready to scream.  Finally he softened and sighed.  "I see your point.  Thank you for correcting me."
"What's your name?"
"Weydon."
She pulled an envelope from her sleeve and passed it to him.  "I'm having a party on Junsrew Eve.  Be there."
"Thank you?"