Enola Yarn – blogpost 21

When I wake up, my stomach is growling. I decide to go straight to the dining hall for breakfast instead of waking Farryn, Zeph, and Valentine. Instead, I put a piece of parchment in Zephs’ and Valentines’ mail-tubes saying: I’m off to get some breakfast.
In the breakfast hall, I’m later joined by the party. I already got some porridge on my plate as they arrive. Violence joins us. “You look good,” she tells Valentine jokingly (Valentine is still disguised as Violence at the moment).
“Thanks for helping my sister,” she continues. “Nylas wasn’t very nice, but hey, you can’t befriend anyone. I have no idea why he had it out for me. I’m usually SO NICE.” she winks.
“Do you duel much amongst yourselves – the students, I mean?” asks Farryn.
“Yeah, sometimes… but it is not asked of us.”
“Is it always to the death?”
“No.” It is silent for a bit. Then, I realize that I have not introduced myself again, now being her new neighbor and all.
“Hey hey, Violence, I got the room opposite of you!” I say excitedly.
“Oh god no.” she sounds really exasperated. I kind of feel disappointed: I don’t particularly like Violence but am excited to share a hallway with her and Turbulence. Too bad that she doesn’t like me AT ALL.
But hey, I’m used to this kind of behavior, Violence is kind of similar to Valentine – her character, not only her appearance.
Violence continues: “Today, we have a lesson by the headmistress about Golems. She has room for four people, but two seats are already taken.”
She sees we’re interested. “Hmm, you know what, I can just stay in my room, and let you guys go. I don’t necessarily need or want to go.”
Excitedly, we agree with going to the lesson instead of her. After breakfast, we go straight to the classroom Violence described to us.

We enter a smokey, stinking classroom. I almost vomit when I see four Flesh Golems hang from the ceiling: the stench is almost unbearable – like rotten meat.
The headmistress tells us we all need to pick a body. My table is next to Farryn and Zeph, who are sharing one, and Valentine. In the opposite corner, Spite is already busy carving up his Flesh Golem.
“We’re beginning with a clean slate today. Sometimes you have to break something up to start over. We’ll start with cutting up the Golems, later, we’ll use each other’s carvings to reassemble and then enchant them.”
I have no idea how to cut into these things, so I start neatly parting the flesh of the bones. On the other side of the table, the headmistress scoffs: “It is not a beauty contest, you need to cut and carve faster. No need to be careful.”
As she walks off, I start carving faster, multiple limbs fall off, and my hands are covered in blood. Valentine is carving with mage hand and is standing far away from the Golem out of disgust. Farryn took over from Zeph, who did not feel like
cutting up flesh anymore. When we’re all done, we can really start the class. I need to get some flesh from other students, so I walk to Valentine to ask for some limbs. When I feel like I’ve got enough meat, I return to my station and try to construct my Flesh Golem.
Valentine asks to be excused to go to the bathroom. She hastily leaves the room.

I’m still sowing and mending the body, but suddenly, I hear a giant explosion from next door. Even though the door and wall, I am overwhelmed with strong magic, and feint on the spot. I wake minutes later: Farryn helps me to get up.
We can see Valentine paralyzed on the ground in the headmistress’ office next door. “It is good NOT to do something without thinking about it…”
Valentine obviously set fire to the office, and that did not go so well. The last thing I can see before the classroom door closes is Hallaster who picks Valentine up and says: “You come with me, young lady.”

The class is dismissed for a couple of minutes, so the headmistress can inspect her office. I am trying to figure out why Valentine blew up the office. Quickly, I come to the conclusion that Valentine must have a voodoo-like puppet in that room. There must be more puppets there.
What could the fireball have done to the other puppets? Are they destroyed? And what does that mean for the connected people? But… How am I hurt?! I don’t have a voodoo-doll, do I?! This is very worrying. However, I first need to
talk to Valentine before I assume things that are not true.

Valentine returns with a pale face from shock, gets some more scolding from the headmistress, and walks back to her Golem. The class continues. The headmistress inspects all of our projects: Spite is done, and I need to stitch over some areas and stick them together with acid.
I fix the stuff she pointed out, and call her back to inspect once more. “Well mended, Enola,” she says. She releases her magic on the Flesh Golem and gives it ‘life’. I step back. “Don’t be afraid, this is your work!” she pulls me closer to the Golem.
Valentine, Zeph, and Farryn did also manage to properly create their Flesh Golem, so the class is finished.

We walk back to the common room, and Spite joins us. “What did you do, Valentine?!” he asks eagerly. “I blew up the office.”
“Wow! I wish I could do that! How did you do it?”
“Fireball.”
“Wow, really cool!”
“Yeah, but Hallaster was not happy…”
“Oh, but that could’ve been a great opportunity to get the book, why didn’t you message me?”
Valentine apologizes and tells him she’ll do that next time something big happens.
During the walk, we come near the area where the secret passage is where Zeph and Farryn saw Spite and Dumara.
After a while, Spite leaves us again. In the common room, we find the body of Elan. He is dead! Oh no! What happened?
Is this the result of the voodoo-magic blow-up?! Valentine did this…
I decide to go to Hallasters’ office to tell him about Elans’ demise.
“I already knew that,” Hallaster replies. “your sister is a cold-blooded killer,” he adds when I walk back to the door.
“I already knew that,” I say coldly. I walk back, and Farryn and Zeph appear to have already left. Valentine sits in a corner, next to Elan, eating. It is disgusting how calm she is, just sitting there.

“I did not mean to hurt anyone,” she says.
“I don’t know what to do with this situation…” I sigh.
“I did not know… the puppet needed to be destroyed. I did not know that so many puppets were affected.”
“You should think longer before you act… Look at this… Elan’s dead.”
“Violence was dead too… Hallaster showed me the damage I’ve caused. I could save ONE person, and I had to choose between Elan and Violence, so I chose her. However… It did something to me…”
“I BEG YOUR PARDON?! DID SOMETHING TO YOU?!”
She takes away her disguise: I see she looks weak and tired, covered in scars. Quickly, she transforms back – she must have seen the look on my face.
What could this be? A spell with side effects? It has a cost on both sides. I think the two are tethered to each other now.
“I don’t think I should dispel this…” Valentine mumbles.
“How does Violence look?” I ask hesitantly.
“The same.”

side note: Valentine and I discussed resurrecting Elan by using the spell I have in my pocket. But we need to see if it is wise to do so.
Valentine takes off to talk to her Higher Power to get some answers. I stay with the body, waiting for her.
As she returns she says: "I made the right decision: he had evil plans with us."