Derek sat next to his mother and ate quietly while he listened to the adults talk. After a while the conversation turned to the students and they joined in. He let it wash over him as he ate, focused instead on internalizing the lessons of the day. His spell competition with the Paladin and following altercation in particular having given him quite a bit to process.

As they wrapped up their meal a runner came along to inform them of news from the Cathedral. Eona, Rebekah, and Derek met him in the parlor. The runner bowed politely to them before going into the details of the Priestess’ judgement.

Paladin Rhys Wallace had been punished for disturbing the peace and behavior unbecoming of a person of his rank with menial labor in the Temple District to be overseen by the City Guard for the next few months. For assault against Derek Thorne of House Windreach his punishment was twenty lashes to be administered in the public square of the Temple District at noon the next day and a fine of five hundred gold talents to be paid as recompense to the victim. For conspiring to disturb the peace at the Academy, Chapter Master Michele Ordino as well as the other members of the local Chapter of the Order of the Ardent Dawn were forbidden from entering the grounds of the Academy. Any communication necessary between that organization and the Academy was to be routed through the Cathedral for the Church to act as intermediaries.

Eyeing the small chest of talents that the runner had brought to him, Derek finally turned to Eona, “Mother, can you keep this with my other money? I don’t really have need for it now.”

She smiled at him and touched his cheek, before signalling her butler to have it carried off, “Of course, son. Just let me know when you want it.”

Turning to the runner from the Cathedral, she thanked him while withdrawing a small pouch from a nearby stand, “I am grateful to the Priestess for her wise judgement. Please inform her that our family will be visiting the Temple district on the next holiday and that I would be most pleased to thank her in person then. Please take this for your troubles today.”

The runner received the pouch and bowed smoothly before leaving. “I will inform her, thank you.”

As the man left, Derek’s family returned to the dining room. His mother turned to him and pretended to straighten his collar. “I am proud of what you did today. Just remember to be careful. Do that for me.”

Derek nodded in acceptance before kissing her forehead, “Yes, mother, I promise.”

She smiled at him and clasped his hand, “You are my only son and one day you will have to leave me but for now allow your mother this selfishness.”

They returned to the table to find that Ovid and Ander had already retired for the evening but the young men and women around the table were talking happily amongst each other. Eona lightly clapped her hands to get their attention, “Alright everyone, you should all return to your dorms. Tomorrow morning will come early for all of us.”

After some short farewells the students left the house and each group went their own way back to the dorms. Derek couldn’t help but notice that the time spent together had slightly warmed Tristan up to the others. The boys managed to return to their dorm right as the lamp lighters started doing their work. After arriving, they washed up for the night before finishing their homework and going to sleep.

That night’s nightmares were worse than the ones before. Derek even managed to remember snippets of pain and horror. He remembered being in another place where order and light had no sway. Beings of amorphous power clawed and scratched their way out of a pit and he was one of them. Each time he would break free some form of danger or violence would cast him back in only to climb his way back out again. He yearned to be free of the pit, to exist in a place where he would be the strong and nothing could harm him. He yearned for a world where he could determine who survived and who would return to the pit. He yearned for freedom and power.

As his dreams became darker and darker, he finally felt a gentle pulling and heard a playful voice, “Master, that isn’t you. Come back to us.”

And in response he heard a chorus of other voices, “Yes, master come back. Come back to us.”

He woke with a start to find his portion of the room warded by his wind and dark sprites, Sylph and Wisp. On his bed he saw the little mana spirits looking at him. Eris, his chaos sprite playfully pinched his face, “Welcome back master. You were scaring us for a moment there.”

The others nodded, making exaggerated expressions of fear. He smiled at them, “Thank you for waking me. I was scared as well. Wake me sooner next time, ok?”

They all agreed, nodding their heads vigorously. Sighing, Derek checked the time. it was shortly after midnight, so he settled back in for more fitful sleep.

“What do you mean, he’s not here? The boy only just underwent his coming of age ceremony less than a month ago. Don’t you know that we require the months afterwards to be spent in contemplation for a reason? Where is he now?”

In Redwyrm, Patriarch Daren was being grilled by an angry old woman. He glanced at the other two men in the room and the oldest of them shook his head, while the younger one raised his hands as if to beg for surrender. Neither seemed willing to speak up and draw the attention of the woman who was pacing in anger in front of Daren.

“Granny, please. He is in good hands, he went to Windreach with his family to join the Academy there. What could possibly harm him there?”

“What could possibly harm him? You have been the Patriarch of this family for over a decade now; have you not read the secret texts? Don’t you know that the most dangerous stage is not during the coming of age ceremony, or even during the demon hunt, but in the time afterwards, when the soul of the Demon Warrior must defeat and consume the soul of the Demon!

“What do you think could possibly harm him in this case? What aside from the soul of a Greater Demon devouring his own? Buffoon, those books are there to be read, not to collect dust on the shelf!”

The Patriarch looked wounded, and mumbled to himself, “But they’re so boring…”

The old woman looked like she was about to launch herself at him, but the oldest one there finally spoke up, “Ehehe, Katherine, please calm yourself, the boy is partially right. The books are rather dry and the odds are things haven’t progressed to such a negative state yet. I will go to Windreach myself and get Penny at the Cathedral to help me with the boy. Why don’t you stay here with Christof and keep an eye on the rest of the Clan until Peter and Rodney return?”

She turned and looked at him; visibly working herself down from her rage. Finally she responded, “Matteus, you must hurry. There are so few children left. We can’t afford to lose them to foolishness like this.”

The old man laughed as he headed towards the door, “Ehehe, I will not let anything happen to the boy. I promise you.”

The next morning Derek woke to someone shaking him. He couldn’t hear him until he had Sylph lower the sound shroud around them, “What is it Garrett?”

Garrett smiled, “Good, you’re up. Get dressed, we don’t want to be late to the smithy. I didn’t know you could be such a heavy sleeper.”

Derek glanced around noticing that both Desmond and Garett were already prepared. Even Tristan was starting to prepare for the day. Realizing that he woke late, Derek sprang from his bed, dressing and preparing himself in record time. His grandfather had instilled in him a fear of being late to work from a young age and it had been ages since he had even come close to being late.

The three boys waved at Tristan on their way out. Derek sheepishly spoke up, “We should hurry. We don’t want to be late to breakfast as grandfather will definitely not allow us to be late to the forge. I am sorry I slept in, I had more nightmares.”

The other two glanced at each other and all three picked up their pace. Luckily they were able to arrive at his mother’s place just as Alicia arrived. She had come alone this time, the other girls from her dorm having their own early morning obligations. She smiled sweetly at them, “Good morning to you three. Derek what is wrong with your eyes, you look like you haven’t slept at all!”

He raised his hands in defense, “I did sleep, I just didn’t sleep well.”

She seemed a little mollified by that and nodded, “Hmm, you should try to make sure your sleep is as regular as possible. It helps promote a healthy mind, magical aptitude, and even with schema harmonics...”

He weathered the lecture quite well knowing that she meant well by it. His friends whispered among themselves and chuckled, provoking a dark look from him. Finally, they arrived for breakfast and joined the adults of the house at the table.

This morning there were three other adults at the table with them. The first was Charlotte Windreach and the other two were professors from her college. Derek greeted her, “Aunt Charlotte, it is good to see you. Sofia is in my Auras class.”

She smiled at him, “I know, boy. She told me about it last night at dinner. If you need any help in the class be sure to tell her and she can help you out.”

As they continued their meal eventually the topic of the conversation turned to why she and her professors were there. She looked at Garrett, “Garrett, we intend to pull you from your classes today to prepare you to reset your schema and to begin the design for your new one. Are you ok with that?”

Garrett looked up in alarm, “Already?”

She smiled, “Yes, already. The sooner the better. Resetting someone in their late teens makes the odds of them returning to Tier One much lower so the sooner we can get this done the more likely you are to successfully attain Tier One again before the age of maturity. We need to ensure not only that you have the time to gain the essence required to promote ten times, but we also need to provide you with as much time as possible to familiarize yourself with the schema as well. Your body will change fundamentally because of this even if we ignore the fact that you will be weak as a baby when you first begin your level reset.”

Garrett nodded, anxiety and excitement seemed to war across his face, “OK, but when are we going to do the actual level reset and the craft the new schema?”

Charlotte thought for a moment, “I would like to do it as soon as possible, but I want to give Eona some time to design it. How long do you think you will need, Eona?”

Derek’s mother finished sipping her drink and set down her cup, “Two weeks, three weeks on the outside. I would like to give our other faculty time to review it.”

Charlotte and the other two glanced at each other before she responded, “Yes that seems reasonable. Let’s schedule it tentatively for the first week of next month then. Is that ok with you young mister Smith?”

Garrett seemed to steel himself before looking around, “Yes, let’s do this.”