The one on the left was “silence”, a simple rune for blocking noise. The other one was “blindness”, which blocked vision. Drawing them on walls wouldn’t do anything on its own, though.
Some of her runes must have been to tie the runes to the wall as an area of effect, then to focus them outward, preventing people outside from seeing or hearing what was within. Predictably, I couldn’t find those runes in the basic book, even though they were the most important.
And I still didn’t have the materials to power any of those runes, even if I knew them.
Maybe I was thinking too much in terms of runes. I still hadn’t even tried to make one yet, so it was probably a little too soon to be formulating my defense plan around them. There were simpler ways to protect myself, at least until I’d taken a few days of classes and made some test runes.
It didn’t take me long to purchase a few mundane supplies at a nearby store. I also checked the school rules for modifying the interior of the room — I could make some basic alterations as long as I fixed them before I left.
Good.
Nailing my door shut at night wasn’t exactly elegant, but it was a pretty effective deterrent. Much more than a simple lock, which undoubtedly any number of spells — or even mundane tricks — could remove. It would be pretty tough to dislodge a board nailed to the wall without anyone noticing.
Eventually, I’d get a silence rune so that people didn’t hear me nailing a board over my door every night.
I considered setting traps, but in a small enclosed space I doubted I’d be able to make them any more of a threat to an intruder than they were to me.
My room only had one entrance, the door. That was fortunate. I didn’t know how I’d handle anything as vulnerable as a window.
I also bought chalk. I’d place a small chip in the hinge of the door when I was about to leave. If I came back and found it crushed, it would imply that someone had been in my room while I’d been gone.
With some effort, I switched around the configuration of my room, putting my bed on the opposite side. If someone was going to blast straight in from the doorway, I’d be out of their line of attack.
My preparations felt woefully insufficient to handle any real threat, but most of the other options I considered were either too expensive (lining the walls with anti-magic materials), logistically infeasible (sleep somewhere other than my dorm room), or outside of my current capabilities (warding the walls).
I didn’t sleep much that night, but I felt some comfort from the sword cradled in my arms and the aura of frost seeping through the scabbard and provided a reassuring chill.
Tashday, the first day of classes.
I hadn’t been murdered in the middle of the night. Success!
I didn’t feel that successful, though. I felt exhausted, cranky, and a little bit numb. As it turns out, sleeping with a frost-enchanted sword in your arms has some disadvantages.
For the future, I’d remember to sleep with my dueling cane nearby instead of my sword.
I could already hear the sounds of the parade students heading their way toward the mess hall, trying to get in a meal before classes started. As much as it dismayed me to come into the presence of people again, my stomach was feeling neglected, so I decided to join them.
I winced at the damage to the wood as I unhooked my board from the doorway. There was no doubting that the board would be an effective delay, but it was going to do an unsustainable amount of damage if I had to keep it up for long. I’d have to look into getting a chain to replace it eventually. Possibly several chains. Ideally enchanted ones.
With that done, I realized I still wasn’t in my school uniform, and I’d been told it was mandatory for classes. Like all of the school uniforms, mine was primarily white, but it was accented with copper buttons and crimson epaulets to signify that I was a part of Phoenix Division. Red wasn’t really my color, but the uniform fit me better than I’d expected, and I had to admit that the floor-length overcoat was pretty nice.
I pinned on the shield sigil, and I immediately felt more like I was really attuned. I had a magical shield. I wondered how much it had to cost to provide every student with one of these. Did all our actual soldiers get them, too?
Putting the pin on also made me feel a good deal safer. I had no illusions that it would help me if Katashi came for me directly, but a protective barrier could help if someone else tried to get rid of me.
I resolved to wear the pin at all times. Even when I was sleeping. Especially when I was sleeping.
I belted on my sword — which I really needed to name at some point, all the best magic swords had names — and headed to the mess hall.
The scents hit me almost as soon as the building was in sight. I’d expected the dining hall food to be bland and uninspired, but the smell that filled the air were thick sauces and heavy spices. Some kind of curry, maybe? I loved curry, but I hadn’t had it since a family vacation to Dalenos in my youth. It wasn’t common in traditional Valian cuisine.
The line was less inspiring than the smell. It took me at least half an hour of waiting in the throng of students to get inside the door. I’d say it added to the anticipation, but I still would have preferred instant gratification.
I spotted a couple familiar faces amongst the students in the line. Patrick Wayland, Lisa Stone, and a few others that I’d gone to school with as a child. No doubt there were many others among my former classmates in the line who were too different in appearance for me to recognize. My three years of “private tutoring” had scraped my relationships down to the bone.
I didn’t resent my father for pulling me out of school. I understood his reasoning, his lack of trust for the system that had failed to adequately train my brother for his contest against the games of the goddess. I did resent his adamant refusal to allow me to visit with my friends. Letters helped for a time, but within a year, most of my friendships had atrophied from disuse.
When I neared the front of the line, I saw a list of meal options. I could pick from curried chicken, salmon, and some kind of unfamiliar pastry called a “cinnagar cake”. I picked the chicken and sides of seasoned potato slices and a mixture of vegetables.
It was a disconcertingly good meal. I grew suspicious. Were we being lulled into thinking we’d get excellent food so that it could be taken away at a later time?
Or maybe it was just the fact that this school was attended by those who had been wealthy enough to take an attunement test, and thus they had high standards. I wasn’t sure.
For the moment, at least, I wasn’t going to complain.
After a significant amount of searching, I managed to find an empty table to sit alone. I had a few minutes of precious silence, sipping the apple juice I’d chosen for a beverage and reading a book, before Sera manifested in front of me.
I didn’t even have a chance to groan before she’d put down her plate and sat down. It was too early for me to interact with the living, and in spite of my general fondness for Sera, she still was another entity and thus a toll on my exhausted mind.
“Corin.” She gave me a catlike grin, slicing into her own chosen dish with relish. “Good morning, brother.”
I closed my book, looking up to pin her eyes with mine. They were lighter than my own, more like my father’s.