Enola Yarn – blogpost 19

After a calm night’s sleep next to Valentine, I wake. I am determined to do my utmost best to get admission to the academy today – nothing will stand in my way, I tell myself. As Valentine wakes as well, we agree to find Zeph and Farryn in Zephs’ room, so we depart.

When we get to Zephs’ room, it is empty. They’ve gone. Fuck. I never want to split the party if I cannot help it, and see what they did! I am exasperated – how COULD they. In the middle of my mental rant about Zeph and Farryn, Valentine writes a quick note and puts it in one of the tubes to send to a student. Before she folds it, I can read it. It says: “I’ll kill you.” I don’t try to withhold her, as I don’t really care at this point. I try to call the rest with my staff of birdcall: “QUACK” – the sound fills the room and hallway, but after a couple of minutes, I have to admit that it did not have any effect. We decide to wait for Zeph and Farryn and sit on the bed. Valentine studies her own things, and I mine. I open the weird metal spellbook I got that belonged to Cephalossk and try to learn wall of force.

After a long while, Farryn enters. I tell him to shut up because I’m studying, and Valentine does the same. He tells us to come with him to Zeph. Reluctantly, I follow. Walking down the hallway, I still try to soak up some knowledge about the spell but put the book away when we get near Hallasters’ office. The students say Hallaster is often in his office. Let’s check because I don’t know what to believe sometimes: empiricism is the way to go. I knock on the door. 

“Come in…” I hear on the other side of the door. 

I enter, Valentine follows me. Damn. He is sitting in his chair at his desk and looks boringly at me. 

His chair is kind of weird, but at first, that does not distract me. I can see Valentine really wants to leave the room as soon as she came in, but I have some questions for my soon-to-be headmaster. I tell him that I want to study here, but that it seems a bit impossible to get an admission. He replies that there were enough opportunities already and that there are a few still left now. I wonder if he means Violence and Turbulence leaving, but I cannot tell from his face. I am a bit angry – I am smart, I study hard, why can’t I study here yet?! Do I need to take over a room or something? “There are enough opportunities…” He replies for a second time. At that point, I feel a presence from the chair: it makes an ominous sound. It is frightening, so I walk back towards the door. “I’ll be back,” I tell him. “I will study here!”

Valentine is already outside of the room, pulling me out of the room as soon as I am within reach. “My gosh, that was scary!” she says. I agree. Farryn doesn’t seem to believe us at first, but seeing our frightened looks as we explain what happened in there, he is less skeptical.

We continue our way to Zeph and cross a hallway. In the far end, we see a tiefling. His name is Nylas, also a student here. He’s been here for a long long time. He is close to his graduation, he tells us, and that he’s defeated the three statues we’ve encountered earlier. Valentine doesn’t buy it and tells him right to his face. She doesn’t want to give him any more of her attention I see, because she is walking away from him without finishing the conversation. “I don’t need to prove SHIT!” Nylas calls after her. For the people that did not walk away just yet, find a cauldron in the middle of the room: it contains a potion that gives you more spell energy! That might come in handy during our time here.

A bit further we find a potion brewery. Farryn yelps in enthusiasm. He asks me to grab some of the potion in the big pool with mage hand so he can investigate. I scoop some light green goop out of the basin – it looks like trash to me… Farryn comes to the same conclusion and walks away. However, he doesn’t make it far, as a green goopy tentacle grabs him by the waste and pulls him into the waste! In a reflex, Valentine jumps in (NO VALENTINE! NO!), and with a dimension door, she gets herself and Farryn out. Covered in poison, they appear on my opposite side. As they clean themselves off, Zeph hastens into the room. He is searching for the headmistress.

On our way again, Zeph asks a pretty woman for directions. He doesn’t trust her fully as she answers him, so he pressures her a bit to tell him the truth. Suddenly, she transforms into a Night Hag and says: “First lesson: you cannot see everything with your eyes. Well done pupil.” She gives Zeph a spell scroll. I sigh in disbelief. HOW is Zeph having so much luck?! Why is he performing better than me?! Zeph takes the spell scroll and hands it to me: “I don’t get this kind of magic, here, Enola, this is for you.” I take it and thank him. I see that it is shatter! Super cool! As I am studying the scroll, Zeph and Enola ask the Hag about how to defeat the three statues. Apparently, Nylas was indeed lying, because the Hag – also the headmistress – tells us that only Spite completed that challenge. As for ways to get admitted to the school, we can clean her classroom, or defeat the bone devil. I am already running to the classroom – with Valentine in hot pursuit. I NEED to get in! Before I open the door of the classroom, I hear something big behind the door. I ready myself and find a huge blue slaad behind the door. It poisons me, but with help of the party, I can deal the last blow with sickening radiance.

The headmistress thanks us for cleaning out her classroom. “What a beaut.” She says as she looks at the dead saad. She grabs a knife and takes its eyes and some slime from his cheeks. “Good job, now I can teach in my classroom again.” Zeph pushes me forward to say something, but I completely shut down. Zeph sees it and asks: “Is Enola a student now?”

“This is not a task to become a student. I have other tasks.”

“But you’ve said that someone could become a student if we did this…?”

“Yeah. But no. You can get a reward instead.” 

The headmistress gives me a spell scroll. I fold it open: raise dead. This is awesome. But not as awesome as an admittance, I think bitterly. Zeph proposes in a message that I should beat him, so I can get his room. “Don’t be stupid,” I tell him. That would not be fair. I want to deserve the room, and he got it fair and square. The headmistress continues she got some tasks left: the bone devil, and some Cloaker. “If you beat the bone devil, you all can get in, but I have to talk about that with Hal.”

After our conversation, we decide to power up with the potion where we met Nylas. He is still there as we drink the vinegar-like potion. 

“Did you see Violence?” He asks. 

“No. Why?”

“I want to teach her a lesson…”

“What?”

“Yeah, I got enough to teach her… She is so annoying.”

As we walk away, we think about warning Violence. Nylas doesn’t seem like a very nice character. We walk to the common room. We pass Turbulence in the hall and warn her about him. Elan is in the common room, studying. I grab my spellbook to do the same. Zeph is talking to Elan, but I don’t notice until Zeph clearly says my name. He tells me Nylas is indeed not a nice person – according to Elan; I should challenge him. I am still a bit distracted, but take note of that comment.

Suddenly, Zeph hears someone screaming. He flies out of the room. We run after him. The scream came out of the room with the cauldron and where Nylas stood. He is still there, but now, Turbulence is on the floor, barely able to stand up, attacked by Will-o’-Wisps. We need to help her. NOW!