Enola Yarn – blogpost 16

With my Tensers’ floating disk, we cross the swamp again – we have decided to proceed our way down to find the wizard academy, and already know where the stairs are. When we see the stairs, we find ourselves on a shore and descend the floating disk. However, Valentine steps on a glyph we did not see in time and activates a trap. Green smoke fills the area: cloud kill. I recognize it. This is bad. We all hold our breath for a few seconds and try to find a way out. Luckily, Valentine dissolves the cloud with dispell magic. After the cloud is gone, we walk a very long way down to the next level of Undermountain.

We enter a wide space and see a cut-off hand float in the middle of the area. Farryn walks to the nearest wall to look around the corner, and suddenly, all the torches are magically lit and the hand points towards him, following his every move. As we are a bit disoriented by the light all of a sudden, someone appears right in front of us: Hallaster. He looks at us with a sly eye and says: “Welcome, adventurers. How can I be of service? Are you maybe a bunch of new students? I feel some magic, and I see a fairy if I’m not mistaken?” Farryn replies: “I would like to go to the library.”

“Oh no, that is not possible. The library is only for students.” At that point, he mentions me, Zeph, and Valentine and says we are allowed to study here if we want to, but Farryn is not. 

“I want to be a student here!” I almost interrupt him, as I am eager as hell to study here. 

Farryn makes a comment: “But you’ve already been here, haven’t you?” 

I really don’t know where he’s coming from, it has always been a dream of mine to come here and study, how the hell could I’ve been here before. “No, I haven’t!” I reply.

“Can’t I join the academy?” asks Farryn to Hallaster.

“No. I bid you farewell.” 

Hallaster waves his wand and Farryn disappears! He is transported to the back of the room, placed onto a chair. The rest of us – Zeph, Valentine, and me – can join. “Oeeh exciting,” Zeph says.

Unfortunately, Farryn is not permitted to stay at this level of the dungeon. If he pays Hallaster one magic item, he will transport him to the Troglodyte level. Farryn tries to convince Hallaster that he can contribute to the knowledge that can be found in this place, but Hallaster laughs and dismisses him. “I have a different task for you; complete it, and you can stay here. We have a small problem. I don’t want to solve it – I don’t like devils that much. You can clean up the bone devil.” Farryn accepts but will wait for our return.

We are transported to the waiting room to begin our entrance exam. “Take a seat, I’ll make sure you’ll get scheduled asap.” In this room, there are benches on each side, and some tubes with names on them. Maybe those are the names of the students? We see Turbulence and Violence and some other names, but none of them ring a bell. It seems that this is a postal system – if you put a piece of paper in one of the tubes, the air transports it. Valentine creates a card with ‘help’ on it and puts it in the ‘Turbulence’-tube. Nothing happens. It is already taking quite a while before someone is taking us to the exam, so I check the door. It is not locked. We decide to stay here a while and wait, so we take a rest.

Valentine wants to explore the other rooms, but I think if we get caught we are not likely to be admitted to the school: I’m reluctant to let her go. Zeph asks Brightwing to fly out and explore instead. I feel we just have to wait. I need to get in, and I’m NOT letting anyone ruin my chances. Brightwing and Zeph saw names on the doors – all the same names that were on the tubes as well. So, with that knowledge, Valentine sends cards to all students. Nothing happens. We decide to wait some more, but not more than five hours we tell ourselves. During this time, Valentine and I are playing catch with Valentines’ conjured dancing lights as a ball, and catching and throwing it with our mage hands. Super fun!

Five hours have passed. This is a joke. Why hasn’t anyone come for us? This cannot be true. I have had it. We leave the room and explore the hallway. Valentine finds the showers and takes a lovely break. I stay outside the door to make sure she’s safe. Zeph finds the recreational room and returns to get Valentine and me. We follow and find a drow writing in his spellbook. His name is Elan and he tells us that the ‘entrance exam’ does not exist… “You should stay away from the other students and the headmaster. They’re all bonkers.”

“But what about the entrance exam?!” I ask frustratedly. “Why did they let us wait for so long?!”

“Sometimes, rules are not to be followed if you want to study here,” Elan replies. 

I ask Elan if Aiden is known here, as we met him when he was fleeing from this place. Elan tells us that he stole some chrystals from the headmistress and he needed to flee because she was very angry at him. 

“Here, you learn all finer things in magic. If you don’t succeed a semester or a year, then… – let’s say: there are fewer students every year.”

We walk around some more and find a Tiefling sitting on a desk. We greet her. “Hullo,” she replies disinterestedly. “What’s your name?” asks Valentine. 

“I’m Violence, and I’m here because I have to.”

“Hi, I’m Enola.” I stretch out my hand to introduce myself.

“OOOHH what a STUPID name: Enooooooolaaaa.” 

I feel quite insulted, but before I can react, she continues: “I am sitting here for a while now… You threaten ONE teacher and then… DETENTION. How STUPID.”

We decide to get Farryn and quickly find our way back. “Did you succeed?”

“Yes, we had to battle a dragon each!” responds Valentine. “Enola had a weak one, but I had to battle a very big one, he was so mean!” It is a very funny and good joke, but unfortunately, Farryn does not believe her.

We want to walk back through the hall, but where we see a hallway, Farryn can only see a door. With her dimension door, Valentine takes Farryn to the ‘other side’ to see the insides of the academy.