Chương 54: The Walk

I told Elica that I would be back around later, and that I needed to have a look around the campus before dinner time. She waved that off, and busied herself fastidiously arranging everything on her side of the room. Now that the bags were unpacked and what she was doing wasn't work or labor, she was quite capable of picking things up with her own hands and moving them about. She hummed to herself as she sorted things just to her liking.

A couple of knickknacks went up on the sill of the big window, just a little bit to my side. She laid down an area rug in the Brunbling colors, orange and gray, again somewhat over the midline. It looked like she was going to claim about 60% of the room for herself, just enough to take a symbolic majority. For some people, it's not enough to have, they have to have more than others. I shrugged, and cruised out of there.

The hallways were still a crush of humanity, and I picked my pace and pauses so as not to run over anyone or get run over myself. It would probably never be this bad during the rest of the year, but right now it looked like a fire drill in a luggage factory. I made it to the stairwell with a combination of patience and haste, and found a corner that seemed to be out of everyone's way. There couldn't possibly be this many people living in this one dorm building, right?

Or, it just looked like a lot because they were all moving around at the same time with no order or organization. When things settled down it'd be less chaotic. Fingers crossed! I spotted my opportunity a moment later. I only had to go up on my toes a little bit to see above the teeming throngs, and I saw three young ladies all together holding huge canvas bags that clanked heavily.

They were handling these easily enough, slung over their shoulders, but when one of them turned I saw her duffel swing and thump another student on the shoulder and nearly throw her sprawling. They were coming down the stairs from seventh floor, and they chatted loudly amongst themselves as they moved. My chance! I waited until they turned the landing and headed down the next flight of stairs, parting the crowds with muscle and presence or bulldozing anyone too stubborn or slow to move.

I slipped through a gap and fell in behind them, walking in their wake as they trooped down the steps. Much easier than trying to elbow my way upstream on my own! We walked down, with them shouting and laughing and bragging and dragging massive bags around, and me just sort of trailing along behind, all the way to the front foyer and then out onto the front walkways. Since carriages did not come up this side on Moving Day, this was much quieter, all the struggles were at the loading dock and the back stairs.

"Exciting, yeah?" I said to the nearest of the duffle-toting amazons.

"I'll say!" she said, pivoting and nearly smacking me with about a hundred pounds of gear.

"You headed over to the athletic complex?" Well now I was.

"I sure am!" I said.

"Say, you look familiar." Because I remember you with fond annoyance from my attempts to romance Claise Atland, I thought to myself.

"Ah, you follow fencing?" she cheered.

"Always great to meet a fan!"

"Right, I'm having... sorry, Seneca?"

"Sepecca. And nobody calls me that except the announcers," she said. The other two girls had already gotten oriented and started walking, we hustled to catch up to them.

"Call me Thumper. Everyone does."

"Because of that strong leading leg, right?"

"You do know me!" she cheered, beaming. She was bright and sunny and sincere, it was going to be a pleasure to recruit her.

"I've heard that every year the fencing clubs start with a tournament! First thing, in the first week! I bet I get pretty high up!"

"You'll make team captain," I told her.

"Almost right away." The gravel ground noisily under her feet, less so under mine. The winter weather here was bitter- no matter how huge and well-ventilated, a cave is uncomfortable in the winter. The sky overhead twinkled at us, and I smiled back at it.

"Hah! That's great, you're even more confident in my abilities than I am!" Thumper said.

"You must be a real fan!"

"It would be polite to say yes, but honestly I don't follow fencing that much," I said.

"I just have visions, you see." She went a little quieter, staring sideways at me. I played up the image of the mysterious mystic, a neutral expression. The two other warrior-women were bantering brassily, sounded like they were eager to get started at the school.

"Visions, eh?"

"Mm-hm."

"And what have you seen of me?"

"Team captain. And, I think we become friends. There's lots of small snippets, like we spend time together. I'm not as sure about that part, I don't think it's set in stone. But team captain for sure, and then.. um, some other stuff in the future."

"What kind of stuff?"

"The kind that is important not to talk about before it's arrived," I said.

"Sorry. I always have to be careful not to say too much." She nodded sagely.

"Well, we got that in common. My ma was always telling me 'Thumper, dammit, be careful what you say, your damn fool mouth is gonna get you in trouble!', and stuff like that." I burst out laughing despite myself. She was smiling too. The pair of women leading us looked back, curious. They were both of about my height, with wiry compact bodies. Like Thumper, neither of them wore a coat, ignoring the cold entirely. Probably staying warm with the exertion of carrying those duffels over their shoulders.

Thumper was broader across the shoulders and well over six feet tall, with her hair shorn short and cropped to copper wavelets over her scalp.

"I've always had people trying to get me to say too much," I said, looking sideways at her.

"Maybe I could've used someone reminding me to keep my damn fool mouth shut."

"And you've had visions about my future. Important visions?"

"Yes," I said. I decided to take a little more of a chance.

"You and your sword both." I watched her face process that. All of her thoughts were right there, even more transparent than I am. She was doing the math in her head. Visions of the future + important secrets + her sword.

"Hmm," she said, thinking this through, and coming to the logical conclusion.

"I think I'm going to train very, very hard for these next few years."

"Thank you," I said, with real feeling.

"Visions, huh?" she mused, shaking her head.

"Funny, there's a lot of that going around these days. Used to be you never heard about anything like that, but now this! And a few years back, there was this other girl that had visions of the future."

"Yeah, that was me," I admitted. She shook her head.

"No no, see, this girl was on trial for mass murder."

"Yep." She turned her head, and it was worth a lot just to see that turn of amazement on her face.

"Son of a one-legged bitch, you're Natalie Harigold!"

"Yep."

"You're here?!"

"My sentence is up. I served my time. Now I move on with my life. Get an education."

"But- wa- but you're so nice!"

"I've always thought so." She considered this for a good long minute. Mass murderer. Ex-convict. Visions. Famous. Nice.

"Are you going out for the fencing team?"

"Not for me. I was gonna go for camogie."

"Ah," she said, nodding.

"Got it. Fencing's not violent enough for you." -and I blushed.

"It's not like that! It just looks like fun! And there aren't many field sports here. I've been cooped up, I want to run!"

"There's a track team," Thumper pointed out.

"You've got aggressions to work out. I can tell." Already she's adjusting her view of me to incorporate the legend of Natalie Harigold. I felt a little disappointed again. I liked it better when she thought I was nice.

"You might see some of my brother hanging around the fencing team," I said.

"I'm not sure what training he's signed up for, but if he's not on the fencing team he's likely to hang around some times."

"Your brother? Is he in school too?"

"Yes."

"What year?"

"Same year," i said. A few seconds.

"Twins?"

"Yes."

"But you don't know....?"

"We haven't been close in a while," I said.

"You sound sad." Well I thought I was hiding it better than that, I thought to myself, a little peeved.

"I guess so. My situation's been hard on him."

"It's been hard on you too."

"Sure."

"But you mentioned him, instead."

"Well, it goes without saying that my situation's been hard on me," I reasoned out.

"But not just me, is what I'm saying."

"Uh huh. Who's decision was it to not be close in a while?" I didn't answer that. I think she understood what that means. I hung around while the three girls went to their locker room, and stowed their gear. Helmets, padding, swords, boots, towels, chalk, mouthguards, and spares of just about everything. They were all eager for the tournament that started tomorrow at the thirteenth bell. Thumper seemed very confident, in a quiet way.

I peeled off from the fencing squad and made my way solo across campus, checking in at each building and memorizing their positions. Tomorrow if I got turned around I wasn't going to have any plot-relevant meet-cute that introduces a new character, I'd just be lost and late. It's different when you don't have protagonist privileges. For example when a protagonist needs to get revenge against the villains, they don't go on trial afterwards unless they're going to be exonerated in a dramatic turn of events.

I do kind of dwell on that, don't I? There was still some time before dinner, the fourteenth bell, so I went to visit the main hall for the natural philosophy center. I ignored the display cases on the ground floor, and headed straight to the stairs. One floor after another had class rooms and lecture halls and storage rooms and demonstration labs. But I wasn't going there, I headed down. The lab down here was where the faculty did their research, and where the real work was done.

Later in the semester, Nathan was probably going to disguise himself to sneak in here and swipe some chemicals to decrypt an invisible ink, because this area is less secure than the storage rooms upstairs. I curved brass to open the locks and walked in, looking around, taking it all in.

"Ah," I said, enjoying a moment of nostalgia. Dust, traces of faint chemicals, floor wax, and just a little bit of hot wiring. It smelled exactly like my science classes back in high school. I never realized I could be nostalgic for that experience until I smelled it for myself. It looked a little different though. Some tables were moved, a shelf was over against a wall, all to make room for a Tesla coil given a prominent place opposite the main door, where it was instantly visible. That was new.

In the original game, before I interfered, electricity was not a science people worked with here. So far the differences were just cosmetic, it probably wouldn't affect Nathan's schooling at all. But it might save a lot of lives later on. I walked over to the thing, and looked it over. It seemed to come from the Pailser patent, they used a roll-up roll-down dimmer switch instead of a left-to-right dial like I had taught to Quethron.

There were plenty of notebooks laying around it, like several different people had a lot of different thoughts about it.

"How did you get in here?! Get away from that, it's dangerous!" I glanced over my shoulder. Ah, a classic mad scientist. Big puffy gray hair, spectacles, lab coat. Great visual shorthand for the players. She was bustling over, looking rather angry already.

"Hello," I said.

"Have you had problems with people being hurt by it?"

"Sent two undergrads to the healer already, so don't touch it!" she snapped.

"What are you doing in here?!"

"Well, if I understand correctly, I'm going to be doing an elective class here this year," I said.

"I just wanted to get a look around."

"Impossible, I know everyone who's scheduled for Developing Philosophy," she blustered, and tugged my arm until I stepped away from the machine.

"That's a post-grad class and you- why, you're a first-year aren't you?"

"I am," I said, enjoying the moment. I always have fun here, in the moment before they realize.

"A first-year shouldn't even know that this room exists! That there's an elective class here! I demand to know what you're doing with that machine and -""It was built from my plans," I explained. Her voice cut off short and her face dropped, then brightened, and then her eyes popped in amazement." Harigold," she gasped. She stepped away in shock, pulling me with her.

"What are you doing here!? They told us you'd turned down the invitations! You weren't coming!" I smiled, and gently unwrapped her fingers from my arm.

"I declined to attend early," I said.

"But I'm fifteen now."

"Fifteen?" she was puzzled.

"Just now? But that-""I started my work in controlled electricity quite some time ago," I admitted.

"I felt that this environment would be difficult for a ten-year-old. Historically, child prodigies are not happy people, after all." She was thinking fast now.

"Isn't that the truth... So you're here, you're taking the developing elective, and... well, half of this stuff is yours already! Most of our work right now is to pull apart your work and document everything, then see if we can extrapolate further truths from it. One of my colleagues-" And she was interrupted by a bell. One higher ding, and three low bongs.

"Fourteenth," I said aloud.

"Dinner time. I should go to the main cafeteria, with the other students."

"You can't! I have so many-""-Questions, yes," I said with a smile.

"I shall see you at eleventh bell tomorrow?" She glanced around.

"Yes?"

"Splendid," I said, and opened a portal to step into. What? It's a long walk from here to the dining hall. Not everything is about farming aura. I let myself out between the student center and the art building, and walked over. I don't mind being conspicuous with my portals in the science building basement, but not the main dining hall. There was a crowd filtering in, and I merged with the current, following the stilted pace of the group.

The turn from the main hall to the dining hall opened up to a high bright space, much better lit than most of the campus, with a high ceiling of angled panels. There were various stations set up, plates here, various food displays and steam tables, and then forks and napkins before we were funneled out to find tables. I got some pot roast, a couple dinner rolls, and a deviled egg, then looked around for an empty spot. Instead, I saw someone waving me over. It was Elica Dandston of the Brunbling Dandstons.

I walked over because the alternative was to embarrass both of us. I carried my plate and tray over to the bench-seat she was at, with a few other girls, one of whom I recognized, sort of.

"Ah, Earl Harigold!" Elica said as I approached, grinning broadly.

"I would like you to meet Countess Larianne Ebonder and Countess Vancy Tarcelle. They're just next door to us."

"Charmed," I said, before I sat down. One of the last things that Baroness Grancine said to me when I saw her last weekend, was for me to make friends. She had been through the Academy herself in her day, and it was important to make contacts, find people you can joke with. I assured her that three years of social isolation was plenty, I did not need another three years of social isolation while surrounded by people. So, I guess I'll take what's offered.

Larianne did not say anything, but she did look up from the nails she was filing to give me a less-unfriendly glare, before turning her attention to her nails and examining them with murderous intent. I would later find out that's just her face, she's always like that. Those nails of hers looked quite dangerous though. She was dark-haired, pale-skinned, with flashing brown eyes and a high-necked black dress. Gothic princess for sure.

Vancy was quite opposite, peppy and bright-eyed, with magenta hair worn in a breezy windblown style.

"Hi! Since she and I are roommates, right next door to your room, it's not like neighbors but more like step-roommates!" I turned to the other girl that Elica had not introduced, again.

"Hi," I said to her.

"I'm Natalie."

"Um," the mousey little girl said.

"Rinnie."

"Pleased to make our acquaintance, Rinnie," I said. This was the girl that Elica had recruited to make up her half of the room, and now seemed to be a fixture at the earl's side.

"You've been looking around?" Elica said, with her fork cutting away a bit of bread-dusted fish on her plate, next to the fluffy spring greens. Oh gods were they actually serving fish here in Hearstcliff? I was going to need to research this. Funny, I hadn't seen any fish offered at the servings line.

"Yes, I wanted to see some of my classes in advance," I explained, and cut open my roll and started spreading on the pat of butter that came with it. Vancy looked wide-eyed.

"Do they teach classes in duchessing?" I twirled my hair around my finger.

"I don't know if that's something you can teach."

"Can we not talk about anything so dull as classes?" Elica sighed, rolling her eyes.

"I was hoping to coordinate social calendars with you three." I glanced at Rinnie. She seemed to understand that she was not part of "you three". She did not seem surprised or offended by it. She watched the four of us more like a naturalist observing wildlife in its habitat. Countess Ebonder paused in her filing.

"I'll get you my secretary's card. She keeps my appointments." Vancy tapped her chin, thinking.

"Well, all right, I've got the meet-and-greet tonight, but I could cancel for a better offer. Twoday night there's an intramural that I'm totally committed for. Thirdday is a semi-formal with the Anti-Temperance League, I can't miss that. Fourth-""I'll get back to you when I've got paper and pen available," Elica said, and Vancy stopped.

"Natalie?"

"My vendeuse is going to brief me soon," I said.

"We're recalibrating after my debut last week."

"Oh, so your season is just getting started," Elica said, nodding along.

"Anyway, Lachel Freckentop is a total bitch."

"Oh?" I said. Polite interest. Lachel was not one of the love interests I pursued vigorously when I was playing the game, and I know I didn't unlock most of her content. But I did know enough to know that she's not a bitch.

"Yes, just completely stuck up," Elica expanded, gesturing with her fork. Now I recognized Elica. I don't think she ever got named in the game, just "a girl". But I'm playing a different side now, I'm not the protagonist this time, I interact with different people.

"Oh no!" Vancy was saying, looking genuinely disappointed.

"I was hoping I could be friends with her! I'd love to be friends with a princess!"

"Technically Natalie's a princess," Elica said, though it looked hard for her to admit. She was a full earl, and I was only technically an earl, and she had real lands she governed over, whereas I only had a couple of villages I haven't seen much of lately. But, strictly speaking, I'm a ducal princess and she is not.

"Oh wow!" Vancy said, giggling. I knew what I was going to have to do.

"Well, it's a shame the princess is like that. But if she is, I think people have a right to know." Elica's eyes gleamed dangerously.

"Exactly! It just wouldn't do for people to adore her just for her elevated rank if she's going to hold herself above even her fellow aristocracy!" Which obviously meant that Elica invited the princess to her little power-posse here and got turned down, probably because of Elica's obnoxious classism and arrogance. So now she was setting herself up to make the princess's life miserable. This was inevitable. Every one of the love interests represented a storyline that would need to be challenged and advanced.

And of them, almost all had a distinct antagonist or opponent to overcome that was causing a hard time for Nathan and the love interest. For example, Filly Coltorn and her brother Yheta Snairlin. Lachel's antagonists were a group of rumor-milling aristocrats. Which, apparently, includes me now. Honestly, I'm still figuring out my role here. I'm not quite all-seeing. I know what I need to accomplish, but I'm not sure how I fit in to get there. How to save the world? I've got clear instructions.

How to save the kingdom? I've got some pretty good ideas. What exactly is expected of me as a [Rival]? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Elica and her pals sat and worked out their gameplan for smearing the princess's name, and every so often I gave suggestions. Mostly the kind of things that would make it harder for her and Nathan specifically to get close to each other. And I contributed the idea of putting forward overlapping, contradictory stories.

"That way, there's no way for her to push back against one rumor without helping to push a different one," I said.

"That she's a daddy's girl with no will of her own, and that she's a spoiled brat sent away to stop causing trouble. Anything she does will make one of those look more credible." And I had another reason for wanting them to follow that strategy. Long-term plans. I'm gonna save the world with rumor-mongering. After dinner there was two hours until lights-out. I told the others that I wanted to take a walk. It was true. It was a very specific walk.

I strolled around the grounds until I felt at home, then I found a quiet spot with no witnesses. I curved water, and then void. The doorway opened out onto the aqueduct far above. From the ground it was visible only as a shadow against the starlight above. A turnoff segment streamed water down to the Academy campus, supplying all our water. The main body of the waterway was massive, a pounding river flowing at dozens of miles per hour.

I lifted part of that water from its riverbeds and formed a bridge from my portal to the walkway on the lip of the aqueduct. I froze the water, and walked across, reinforcing it with my magics. When I had my feet on solid ground, I released the water and it sloshed back into the rest. I closed the portal, and channeled the owl. I was going to need its night-vision for a while. I walked north, along the water way, upstream.

There was probably a way for me to just warp void through the space and shortcut my way all the way to the far end, but this felt like something I should do the hard way. Symbolically, this was the end of a very long road. Philosophically, even more so. And with the finish line in sight, it felt wrong to skip ahead. It'd gotten this far doing things the hard way. Time to finish as we started. One foot in front of the other, I walked along. One hand on the safety rail, watching all around with an owl's bright eyes.

The bats avoided me, like they could smell the essence of the nocturnal raptor. On my left, water roared past, an unending torrent that would sweep me away if I lost my footing for even a second. Symbolism, again. I walked on a narrow passage above all the world, a whole city spread beneath me of people, none of them aware of where I was or what I was doing. But to lean too close that way would have me falling for a long time and dying on impact. On one side the flow, and on the other side the fall.

Either would kill me and never regret my death. The crystals above were closer, I was maybe halfway the distance to the top. The individual lights here were brighter and sharper, less of a twinkle and more of a gleam. I could nearly see facets from here, the way the crystals spread light from one of them to the next, distributing every bit of illumination across the whole cavern of Skyside Hearstcliff.

The angles were fitted to send the bulk of the glow down to the surface, here in the middle zones it was nearly pitch-dark. The city still looked twilight-bright, like it always did at every hour. Without clocks carefully calibrated, nobody in Skyside would ever get any sleep. I walked at my own pace, thoughtful. This part should not be rushed. Below me, one building after another slid from the front of me to behind, and then a city block, and another. After a half-hour, I'd walked a mile.

Bells chimed beneath me, three deep bongs and one light ding- sixteenth bell. When the tones faded away, I was left with the squeaking speech of bats, the pounding thunder of water, and the occasional sharply raised voice from the city below. The owl's ears picked up so much. Right now, Elica and her inner circle were playing cards, probably laughing about something. Well, not Countess Ebonder, I don't think she's the laughing type. Other students were wrapping up their days, getting ready to sleep.

Inevitably, someone would be sitting right by the laundry facilities, waiting for the embedded spells to wash their clothes or sheets for them. Thumper was probably already asleep, one of those work-hard-play-hard types that sleeps incredibly deeply. Right now Nathan is on the roads, in a carriage that was delayed by storms and an unexpected stop to pick up Filly Coltorn.

He may be looking at his pocket watch and calculating to make sure they would make it before orientation, or maybe he was asleep already, resting up for his big day, already quite confident of their arrival. He's not much of a worrier. Madame Cushnere was in the coach as well, to help out, and to chaperone him and Filly. It's that sort of culture, after all.

"People would talk". The owl's eyes could clearly see the river to my left, the stone beneath my feet, and the rail I held on my right. All of those to a decent distance, hundreds of feet in the darkness. But it did taper out after a while, and the way ahead of me was lost to darkness. So was the way back. I walked a bridge from nowhere to never, danger on either side, and I was alone. Unknown. Every so often a turnoff would split away, leading the water in a new direction, down to the city and people.

An alternate path that I could see but could not follow. Once upon a time, I was a comet. I felt numb. My chest felt heavy, like my heart was tired. It had never had even five minutes of rest, all my life. I kept walking. Sleep comes after this. Ahead of me, I could see the end of the city. There was a point where the city lights stopped, where there were no more windows shining up at me, no more streetlights painting a glow across the paving stones. The city stopped abruptly, back here at the wall.

This cavern traveled miles into the dark, massive and geode-crusted, but it could not go on forever. And after an hour and a half, I had reached sight of the end point. Below me the towers and churches rang their bells. Three big, two small. Seventeenth bell. Last call. Lights out. Curfew. The last bell of the night, until the signal to wake up tomorrow. The city turned to its pillows, and I walked the last yards to the end of the track.

The water to my left was being drowned out by the water ahead of me, the outfall pipe dumping hundreds of gallons of water per second. One of dozens of pipes just like this, feeding and growing the whole length of Skyside. A new reflection, light striking wet rocks. The spray of water was everywhere, misting up from the pressure of the outfall pipe. I walked past the pounding whitewater rapid, and I stopped. Far enough tonight. I'd be back to start the fight, soon enough.

Tonight, it was enough just to have finished the walk. I rested, my feet hurt. I curved stone, and used my spell to carve lines into the rock.

'Natalie Harigold was here. Seventhday, first week of Winterwax.' I did not leave a year. If anyone cared, they would already know. I made my mark, and then I opened my door. I stepped into blinding light, knowing I would be back soon.