Chương 27: Chapter Twenty Seven

William was just about to scoop another mouthful of porridge and berries into his mouth when someone scooted into the seat next to him.

"Marline." He inclined his head before returning to breakfast. A breakfast that, prior to his teammate's arrival, had been blissfully free of noise or interruption. Which made sense given that the 'rise and shine' bell wasn't going to ring for another thirty minutes or so. To that end, the cafeteria was near empty, but for a few servants flitting around the place as they set tables or partook of their own breakfasts.

Breakfasts that were something of a step down from what was normally served at these tables, given that the usual heaped piles of hot sausages, crisp bacon and hearty eggs were still being prepared in the kitchens. Still, on this occasion, that was fine by William. Sure, the main reason he'd told his team to rise a little earlier than normal was to allow them to dine in peace without being harassed by the rest of the rumour hungry student body, but it was also useful in that it somewhat limited some of his more…

difficult teammate's breakfast options.

"William," the dark elf hissed as she leaned down.

"We have a problem." Despite his early morning lethargy, those words managed to send something akin to a shiver up his spine.

"What!? What's the problem?" he asked as he whirled around, remembering only at the last minute to keep his voice down. Sure, the cafeteria was relatively empty of both staff and students, but it hadn't escaped his notice that pretty much all of them had had their eyes on him since he sat down.

"What do you mean, 'what's the problem?'" Marline whispered furiously into his ear.

"The fucking alchemy lab blew up last night."

"Oh, that." She'd gotten him all worked up for nothing.

"Someone's enchantment probably went awry after being kept in storage too long." That was a lie and they both knew it. He'd explained to Marline in great detail why trying to gain access to his storage room was a poor idea without him present. To that end, it was obvious that someone had attempted just that. As such, the old alchemy building was now a smouldering ruin, with dozens of academy guards and at least one member of the palace guard sifting through the rubble when he walked past.

Or at least, they'd been watching over a dozen menial servants as they sifted through the rubble. Still, no one had been too alarmed by it. It was hardly the first time the building had been destroyed after all. Alchemy was by its nature a fairly dangerous art. A form of homeopathic magic that attempted to imbue objects with magical abilities by combining them with conceptually similar items, it tended to both be prohibitively expensive and notoriously unreliable.

Left eyes from forty-year-old salamanders didn't grow on trees after all. Nor testicles from albino bulls in heat. And that was the kind of specificity one needed to create a half-decent stamina potion. There was a reason that alchemy was gradually being phased out in favour of the slower but more reliable art of enchanting.

"Yes, very unfortunate," Marline said through gritted teeth.

"But what about 'our' ingredients that were being kept in the building. It might be… dangerous of someone stumbled across them in the rubble." Dangerous? Gunpower couldn't explode more than…

"Oh, you're talking about the gift we were holding for your family?" He realized.

"Yes!"

"Why didn't you check last night?" he asked.

"... I tend to wear earplugs when I sleep," Marline admitted reluctantly.

"Given… Verity." William glanced towards the young woman's long elven ears and thought about their orcish teammate's tendency to snore like she was trying to wake the dead. The inner walls of their dorm weren't particularly thick and Marline's room was right next to the other girl's. Yeah, he could see why she might have invested in some hearing protection.

A decent set of earplugs wouldn't drown out the noise of the morning bell, but they'd be more than capable of drowning out the distant whumph of an alchemy lab going up on the opposite side of the campus. He momentarily wondered if the noise had caused any of his other teammates to get up, before dismissing the idea. Strange noises in the middle of the night were far from unusual in a military academy and usually best ignored unless you had a very good reason to think they might involve you.

"Well, it's not a problem," he whispered.

"I moved it last night before heading back to the dorm." The look of relief on the dark elf's face was palpable, before it gave way to confusion.

"Why?" He shrugged.

"For the same reason I booby-trapped the storage room in the first place. Once it got out that I had a mithril core – and might have had something to do with Al'Hundra's death, well it seemed like there was a decent chance someone might go snooping around places I might want to hide something." And the alchemy lab was just about the first place someone would think of right after their team's dorm room.

Fortunately for him, there were a few places that were quite impractical for hiding something long-term, but pretty ideal in the short term. And just so long as Marline's aunts arrived before next Welday, the mithril core would be safe. Though as he gazed down at the bowl of porridge in front of him, he found his appetite wasn't quite what it had been just a few moments ago.

"So where'd you hide it?" Marline asked excitedly, clearly relieved that her family's future wasn't currently buried in rubble. William paused as he considered how to answer that question. Something his teammate was quick to notice.

"William," she prompted.

"Where's my family's core?" He gazed down at his bowl, still thinking.

"William!" she shouted as best she could while still whispering.

"The safest place I could think of. Somewhere it'd be covered completely and no one would voluntarily look."

"Voluntarily?" Marline said.

"Covered?" Credit where credit was due, no one had ever accused his teammate of being slow on the uptake. At least, where politics wasn't concerned. So it was that it wasn't long before he witnessed her expression morph from confusion to horror… to rage.

"You buried my family's mithril core in the latrines?!" she hissed. William scratched his chin awkwardly as he avoided her furious gaze.

"More like dropped. I didn't need to bury it because it sank on its own. Which is good given I wasn't quite sure of the relative buoyancy of mithril in… well… you know." In his defence, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Indeed, if one were to be purely objective about the whole thing, it still was. The core was safely hidden at the bottom of one of the lesser used latrine pits. The bottom mounted… storage vats of which were pulled out and emptied into the bay once a week.

It was a fairly old fashioned system, given the existence of indoor plumbing across the rest of the academy. Indeed, he suspected the latrines were only kept around to serve as a form of punishment duty for any cadets that happened to royally piss off their instructors.

"They'll be safe there until Welday," William argued weakly.

"At which point your aunts can collect them without anyone being the wiser."

"Collect them from the latrine's storage vats!" Marline hissed, slamming her head into the table.

"Ancestors, the future of our house is now literally swimming in shit." Gingerly, William moved to pat the dark elf on the back.

"Ah, but at least it's safe." Once more he glanced away as two silver eyes peeked out angrily from between the girl's arms. Needless to say, he was rather glad for the eventual arrival of the rest of their team – even if Bonnlyn chose to complain at length about the fact that she was going to be forced to dine on 'twigs and berries' – as opposed to the gut busting pile of vaguely food shaped grease she normally chose to partake of in a morning.

Still, at least Marline had stopped glaring at him by the time they'd all finished eating – escaping just before the first of their fellow cadets piled noisily into the cafeteria.

It was actually rather amusing, that for all that the coming match had obvious implications for the country as a whole, in theory it was simply another practice match between two groups of cadets. To that end, there was no great ceremony as the members of Team Seven made their way through the double doors leading to the Floats. There, as per usual, stood the members of the opposing team along with an Instructor from a 'neutral' house.

Never mind that the great bleachers to each side of the faux-ships were filled with eager spectators when they were normally all-but bare. Or that not one of the viewing orbs bolted to the gantries overhead was bereft of the ambient glow that signified they were in use. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Half the noble houses in the country were likely watching the events that were about to unfold through those crystalline orbs.

Though William had to wonder if the Queen was one of them or if she was present in person, simply hidden behind whatever magic she used to render herself and her guards invisible.

Still, as he gazed upon the spectacle around them, William couldn't help but be reminded of just how impressive a construction the Floats were, the stadium sized building hosting not just the ships that made up the field, but room for spectators, viewing orbs, staff and a myriad other smaller facilities that each worked to allow the practice matches to occur. With that in mind, one notable absence from the building's usual occupants was hard to miss.

"Where are all the sailors and marines?" Olzenya asked.

"I don't know," William said as they continued walking towards Tala and her team.

"Maybe they're already onboard?" He doubted it though. He'd have been able to see people moving about inside the great vessels or marching across the deck. No, something was amiss here. Still, he'd known there was a possibility of House Blackstone attempting something. And the absence of the Float's usual staff was likely to be related. Nothing for it now, he thought. Whatever they've done can't be too overt.

The Principal of the Academy might have been in New Haven's pocket – which made her an ally of House Blackstone – but even her power had limits with the Crown and half the country watching.

"Ma'am," William said as he came to a stop before the Instructor from House Summerfield.

"Team Seven reporting." Instructor Halfin, ironically the woman who'd first introduced his team to the floats glowered at him.

"I don't like this," she said without preamble, her voice raised loudly enough that it was clear she was aiming her words not just at him, but Tala and the rest of the world besides.

"The Academy and the Floats are supposed to be a training environment for the future leadership of the nation as a whole. Not a pissing ground for idiotic adolescents."

"I didn't choose the venue, ma'am." Even as she spoke, Tala's gaze stayed on William.

"And I didn't ask your opinion, cadet." Halfin's words were biting as she turned towards the third-year.

"The only opinion that matters here is mine. Not yours. Not his. Not your mummy's. And not the rest of these upjumped cretins." Her hand flew out to encompass the veritable circus that were the stands.

"So, with that in mind you can believe me when I say that my only concern is getting through this farce as efficiently and as fairly as possible. I don't give a shit about what's on the line or who doesn't want to marry who. All that matters to me is whether or not you have wax or paint on your breastplate or enough harpy-venom in your system to put you down for the count." Both Tala's and William's eyes widened a little at that.

"Wax, ma'am? Paint?" Tala said. The older woman grunted.

"You heard me, and that's all I'll say on the matter. Let it be known I'm not happy about it. Nor about the fact that half the sailors on base have apparently come down with the shits." Ah, so that was why the float's usual crew was missing. Clearly the work of House Blackstone, though to what end William was yet unsure. Are they trying to delay the match? He thought. That wouldn't be ideal for a number of reasons – most of which centred around it giving House Blackstone more time to sabotage him and his team.

There'd been a damn good reason he chose to have their match literally a day after he challenged her.

"This has naturally affected my ability to run a normal Float match. Normally that would be grounds for delaying this whole farce," Halfin continued, tone darkening as she spoke the next few words.

"But it has been 'suggested' to me by a number of parties that doing so would be impractical. So, we shall instead be making use of one of the scenarios available to us that does not require the use of regular crewmembers." She gestured towards the area between the two faux ships, the football field sized stretch of land normally empty but for a few overhead nets designed to catch falling cadets. That wasn't the case today.

Instead, the area had been filled with a tangled mess of pre-fabricated structures and various other bits of paraphernalia.

"Airship down," the Instructor said, and after a moment's observation, William realized that the stretch of land really did look like what you might have seen if an airship crashed into it. Assuming said airship crashed with enough force to scatter its component parts around rather than remain as a fairly battered single object. Which, given the heights said ships could drop from, wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.

"Our third year cadets will be familiar with this scenario, but I will explain it briefly for our first years." Again, there was no mistaking just how unhappy Halfin was with all of this.

"In short, an allied or enemy airship has crashed in neutral territory. Both sides of the conflict have dispatched a mage strike team to search the wreckage for the ship's core so as to deny it to the enemy. Unfortunately, neither side can effectively search said wreckage until the other strike team has been completely eliminated." Halfin's gaze turned towards his team.

"To clarify, do not let the flavor text of this scenario fool you. There is no core within the wreckage in this scenario. The only way to win is to completely eliminate the opposing team." Over the woman's shoulder, William didn't miss the small smile that flitted across his fiancee's features. Ah, so that's her game, he thought.

Oh, he didn't doubt she would have preferred this whole engagement be delayed so as to allow her more time to stack the deck, but on short notice simply changing the scenario to this still helped her. Theoretically. It reduced the number of 'wild card' factors that might benefit him or his team. No crew members. No orbs to collect. Just a straight up fight between the two teams.

Sure, said wild cards could have just as easily worked in Tala's favour, but given the skill disparity between the two groups, it benefited her to reduce the number of random vectors present in the coming fight. Plus, it also had his team attempting to navigate an unfamiliar scenario. Well played, he thought.

"Any issue with that, cadets?" Halfin said as she finished her explanation.

"None at all," William said before the rest of his team could interrupt, noting the small pout of disappointment that flitted across Tala's face. She'd probably wanted him to kick up a fuss and force the match to be delayed for the reasons he'd thought of before. Alas, she wasn't that lucky. No, for better or for worse this was happening here and now. Sure, it wasn't an ideal scenario, but he could make it work for him.

It simply required him to pull out another trick that he'd been hoping to hold onto for just a little while longer. Amusingly, Halfin also looked a little disappointed. The woman had probably wanted the match delayed on principle. It was clear both his new weapon and Tala's interference rubbed her the wrong way. Though as he had the thought, he was pleasantly surprised to see there was at least one woman in the academy who placed her duty as an educator and impartial judge above politics.

Indeed, if she had a reputation for such, that was likely part of the reason why she'd been selected for this match as a compromise between the Crown and the Blackstones.

"Well, if that's all, then you've got ten minutes to check out your weapons and get to your starting positions." Halfin grunted, before she seemed to remember something.

"And I suppose I'll take possession of the 'bet' now." There was no missing the disdain in the woman's voice, which actually made William feel a bit better as he gestured over to Verity. Unslinging the backpack she'd carried all the way over, the girl still looked more than a little awed as she unveiled the glowing metal orb. It was actually a little amusing, the mixture of relief and reluctance that crossed her features as she handed it over to the Instructor.

An instructor who was apparently not entirely carved from stone, as she somewhat reverently accepted the object. Even the distant stands hushed down a bit as the bowling ball sized core changed hands. Of course, it was barely a second before the moment was interrupted.

"Of course you'd have the orc carry it," Tala grunted, her tone resigned. Verity flinched back at the words and every other member of his team – including Olzenya leaned forward to argue – but William forestalled them all with a simple raised hand.

"Of course I did," he said simply.

"She's a valuable member of my team and I trust her. Far more than certain other individuals present." A core could also be deceptively heavy despite its ability to produce lighter than air aether and he had no real desire to carry it all the way across campus. It also went unsaid that Verity was best equipped to intercept any… opportunistic thieves. Indeed, he'd have paid to see some enterprising moron attempt to wrestle the bag holding the core off his orcish teammate on the walk over here.

It hadn't happened of course, the possibility had always been an outlier at best, but given the stakes it had seemed better to err on the side of caution. … It had also been amusing to see the myriad emotions that had flashed across the faces of most of the team when he quite casually tossed the bag holding the core to the orc. One would almost think he'd just thrown a baby at her. Indeed, the only one who'd not been affected had been Marline, who'd just looked quietly resigned. Which was still fun in its own way.

It was a little childish perhaps coming from a man 'his age', but that same age was what gave him the experience to know that sometimes life was about being a little silly and enjoying the small things. And what better silly fun was there than teasing a bunch of far too serious kids by throwing around a basically indestructible ball of magical space metal? Of course, given the flash of irritation that shot across Tala's face, it was clear she thought his smile was an accompaniment to his taunt.

However, before she could say anything, Halfin scooped up the core.

"Well, I'll be holding onto this until the match is over. At which point I shall hand it to whomever I deem to be the victor." For just a moment, her expression softened.

"You can rest assured, both of you, that I shan't let it out of my sight or off my person for the duration of the match. This I swear – even if I'm irritated at this whole situation." William and Tala both nodded, accepting the solemness of the woman's impromptu oath.

"Alright," she said, slinging the thing under her arm as she returned to her previous acerbic personality.

"You've got ten minutes to collect your weapons and be at your designated spots for the beginning of the match. Anyone not in the correct place at the correct time will be considered eliminated for the purposes of this match. Dismissed." With her bit said, she strode away, no doubt up to the judges tower - which had an eagle's eye view of the entire arena. Leaving two teams of rather combative cadets behind.

Ten minutes was more than enough time to collect their gear, so William allowed himself a few seconds to simply gaze at Tala's team.

"Finally realizing how outclassed you are, William?" Tala sneered. It was funny, normally that kind of open disdain was beneath her. Sure, she'd yelled at him before, but to his mind that was more of an expression of frustration than animosity. Here and now though? She hated him. And he revelled in it. Not because he hated her. He didn't. Even if they were enemies. At worst he'd say he pitied her for her ignorance and worldview. Much like him and his otherworldly views, she was a product of her environment.

She wasn't evil. At least not in an intentional sense. Indeed, by the standards of this world she was actually a good person. Loyal. Dutiful. Hardworking. Simply in service to an institution that he abhorred. With that in mind, the reason why he relished in her disdain was simple. It meant that he was now worthy of it in her mind. No longer an irritating non-factor that refused to play along, his actions now had consequences. He'd earned her animosity honestly. He was a factor. A person. It felt good.

"Just counting the numbers," he said.

"Some part of me wondered if you might be a team member or two short." Indeed, the fact that he'd hoped for the murder of a young man or woman last night was something he counted amongst the least of his sins. There'd be a great many more of those to come. Still, ignorant of his thoughts, the girl stiffened, all but confirming his suspicions as her mind no doubt turned towards last night's explosion.

It had been her people who'd tried to raid his alchemy storage room – though it seemed she'd not been so foolish as to send anyone on her team to accomplish the job. In all likelihood the unfortunate fools who'd run afoul of his trap had likely been little more than paid off servants or some other kind of catspaw. Irrelevant in the scheme of things ultimately and chosen for that very reason. Unfortunate, but hoping that his enemy would be a teammate or two down had ever been a long shot.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," Tala said.

"My teammates are all ready and eager to serve not only me, but to honour their family names as well through that service. Though I know that's a concept most alien to you." Around her, four other members of the girls team stood up a little straight, animosity burning in their gaze as they silently regarded his team with disdain. Disdain his own team was quite happy to level back – if only out of loyalty to him. Still, it was funny; Tala was more right than she knew.

The values of this world were in many ways alien to him despite having lived here for nearly two decades.

"I suppose you're right," he chuckled.

"To that end, I'll see you in the arena." He took a moment to enjoy the look of puzzlement on his foe's face at his placid rejoinder, before he strode away, his team falling in behind him. Though as he walked, he made sure to turn to each of them.

"Make sure to double check all of our equipment. If Tala was able to give half the Float staff food poisoning last night, I wouldn't put it past her to be able to tamper with our equipment." Each of the girls nodded seriously at his words, no doubt leery of discovering a razor blade or some other such implement in one of their boots. Or that their bolt-bow had a faulty intake valve.

Indeed, the only piece of equipment William could theoretically have been sure of was that which he was currently wearing and the spell-bolts that would have been delivered clandestinely at the last minute by either Griffith or a palace guard. And even then, what the fuck is this about wax and paint rather than rubber? He thought.