Students of Adventure - Chapter 3: A Manticore Welcome

Spruce Burrows was dead. Stone and headless, in the corridor outside their hangout. The students wanted answers. The teachers wanted them out of the way.

The next few hours were a wall. Every door they tried to push through, a professor stood on the other side. Investigate? No. Search the corridor where it happened? No. Talk to whoever found her first? No. The school had decided this was a matter for adults, and the students were not adults.

What they did manage to do though, was sneak into Spruce's room and have a quick look around. While the room was in a state of disarray, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They did manage to grab Spruce's journal, with Sandre slipping it off the nightstand before anyone could lock the room down. On their way out, Hazel noticed and pulled an old book off a nearby shelf. "The Histories and Legends of House Foxtail." If the school wasn't going to give them answers, they would find their own.

Then word came down. The remaining students of House Foxtail were being relocated to House Manticore.

It was the worst possible place to be.

Manticore opened its doors with a polite face. Professor Lawrence Nightshade was waiting inside. Tall, thin, medium-length brown hair brushed back, cream-colored skin. He greeted each student by name and showed them to their temporary rooms. He told them they would be safe under his roof. The man said all the right things.

The group did not believe a word of it.

Hazel had one bright moment in all of this. Her girlfriend, Grace Reynolds, was already at Manticore, being in her final year of school. She found Hazel almost the second the group walked in. Whatever the rest of the night held, Hazel had Grace, and that was at least something.

The next morning they awoke to the sound of impact and shouting. Magic cracking against shields. A dueling arena had been built inside the main dorm hall while they slept. By the time the group got downstairs, half the house was already gathered around it, and the matches had begun.

A Manticore prefect explained, cheerfully, that this was tradition. Newcomers to the house participated in welcome duels. There was no opt-out. Everyone was expected at the line.

Vin drew first. Her opponent was Harriet Gold, one of the Golden Trio. Harriet was confident. Harriet was wrong. The duel lasted about thirty seconds before Vin had her on the ground, hair tangled with twigs and vines holding her down.

Hazel went next, and pulled Buckston Gallowguard. Buckston was apologetic about it before the match started, smiled at her like he wished it were anyone else, and then proceeded to take her apart anyway. While Hazel stood strong in her strength, Buckston's abilities with his spells took the edge. Hazel sat the rest of the morning out with a ringing headache and a bruised ego.

Arden and Sandre were called together to participate in a Duo Duel. Thomas Bristlecone, big, broad, and grinning.... and Ryan Wilson, in the gold and crimson of Manticore. 

Sandre walked out of the ring before the match started. He had not slept. He had not eaten. He had the journal of his dead friend in his pocket. He told the prefect he was forfeiting and turned his back on the arena. The prefect let him go without an argument, which should have been a warning sign.

Arden took Thomas down clean. Wild Magic likes a moving target, and Thomas was very large and very slow. The crowd cheered for the upset.

Arden continued on, turning his focus to Ryan. Like Hazel and Buckston, Ryan was strong but Arden was quick. Ryan tried closing the gap, attempting to use defensive spells to get closer, but Arden fired off several spells that seemed to be getting the edge of the fight.

Then Henry Phillips stepped up to the rail.

Arden never saw the spell coming. One moment he was standing, wand drawn with Ryan in his sites, and the next his body was not his own. Henry's voice was in his head. "Step forward."

Arden stepped forward.

Ryan was already winding up. The spell that left his hand was not standard duelist's fare. It was a blade made of something purple and screaming, and it cut through Arden in three different places before anyone in the crowd realized the match was over. Arden hit the ground in pieces of cloth and red.

Henry, Ryan, and Hilary, who had been recovering from her own loss in a nearby chair, walked out together. Smiling.

The group dragged Arden off the floor while the prefect called for a healer in a voice that was just a little too late. He was breathing. Barely.

Whatever House Manticore was, it was not safe.

Chapter 4 drops next Friday.

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