After they left my childhood friend approached me at lunch and began twirling around cutely before asking the obvious question, "what do you think?" when first we had her dragon armour made for her in the timeline, I'm from it was a rush order and there wasn't much time for finer details. As there was no rush this time, she was wearing a fairly well-made suit of scale mail.
There were brass frames around the edges and on the belt buckles, there were a few more belts than seemed necessary but I suppose it's to ensure that if ever she should grow bigger or want to sell it that the size of the armour can be adjusted accordingly, or in case one of the belts rips or is cut in combat. Otherwise, it seemed almost form-fitting. If not for the cape that drapes over her shoulders and hides her from view, you'd get a pretty good outline of her figure.
"It suits you well." She smiled and laughed at my response. She seems pretty happy. She even has a dragon bone blade at her side. Normally students aren't supposed to carry weapons in school but as there are mages with attack spells walking around as well most teachers don't care as long as you aren't hurting or threatening anyone. If not for her award-winning smile the teachers might actually be wary of her but because she's so happy-go-lucky people often forget she killed a dragon.
"did I ever tell you I came from an alternate future?"
"I think maybe. Why?"
"you gave me a gift in that future, and I brought it back with me." She seemed a bit surprised at my words and then I pulled out a matching green dragon scale cape. She seemed surprised at first but then chuckled to herself. "so, we can still match?"
"yeah."
I donned the cape and used a minor illusion spell to make the cape slightly more fitting to my style, hence there were now skulls on my shoulders with a spine looking trail of bones down the center back of the cape and bones leading from the skulls on my shoulders to the collar of the cape which hid my tattoos.
That evening I spent at the archery club teaching the advisor how the magic worked and what parts of the formulas where actually useless and just bits and bobs from random spells hidden in the grimoire. By the end of the day, he managed to cast one minor space-time spell. It was the minor illusions spell I used earlier he used it to make his facial hair look more fitting to his features.
He asked me how I'd figured out the magic so quickly and I told him about the two ritual magic spells I use to learn magic. Usually, a spell that crams all the knowledge you need into your head would be worthless if you couldn't retain the information anyway. It's almost as if these two spells were meant to be cast together. He seemed pleased to have such a competent teacher but was still upset he'd never have a readable version of the grimoire, so I paraphrased the book under a different cypher and rewrote it in a readable way for him using Perfect Recall in tandem with a blank enchanted notebook and rewrote the entire grimoire in a legible way under a different code.
"This should work. I had to change the cypher but I'm sure you can figure it out eventually."
"Oh, how did you manage this?"
"I figured the charm that prevents the book being transcribed was more of a 'preventing people from making an exact copy' type charm, and though there may be something to the way it was written exactly this should be readable enough that you can get an understanding for the spells before you try cracking the code already in the grimoire you have."
"thank you."
"no problem. I'll be back to teach you the rest of the spells I learned later."
I left the professor to study on his own and after leaving the room one of the students sneezed and a stray arrow hit my cape. Luckily the cape prevented it from actually piercing me or that student might have been seriously injured.
"I'm sorry."
"this time turned out ok but next time be more careful of where you're aiming you could have gotten seriously hurt." I say as I pierce myself with the arrow on purpose showing it burst into necrotic flames and wither into nothing as the wound on my hand disappears completely, faster than it appeared. "passive spells can be pretty dangerous." I remarked offhand as I left the room to go home for the day.
When I arrived home my parents were relaxing a bit while leisurely setting up little traps, you'd expect someone low on resources to set up, they ordered moderate things like arrows and repairs on damaged weapons, from the outside it may seem like we're just being cautious and preparing for the next wave but it's not as blatant as when I had everyone preparing for the worst possible situation the first time, we lived through this.
This time it's only natural we act with a slight bit of paranoia. I told my parents this was the day I told them we had three days left the first time and that an assassin would come after three days so long as we continue acting wary. We can't lose sleep over them, but we should be prepared. I also told them about the labyrinth trap I set for any would-be intruders.
"Did you spawn any powerful undead in the labyrinth to attack anyone who comes for us?"
"No, I didn't think it necessary."
"Did you… hide any already strong monsters in it?"
"No"
"Traps?"
"What would men in dresses help?"
"Not that kind of trap."
"Still none."
"So, what did you put in the labyrinth to keep the assassin from escaping?"
"I gave a homeless man a sandwich and told him to guard the door."
"… What?"
"Is he at least strong?"
"You know I never got around to asking him"
"So, the only thing keeping any would-be intruders from escaping your labyrinth is the labyrinth itself?"
"Is that not enough?"
They looked at me as if perplexed at why I decided to leave such an important trap guarded by just a sad homeless man with a sandwich. Book told me the labyrinth was good enough and I'm not one to waste energy in one place where it could be better used in another. Speaking of.
'Hey [insert name] are you busy?'
"Hold on I need to take this."
'No, I'm not busy what's up?'
'The breakfast club wanted me to go hunting for wild boar in the forest today and as I'm not too well versed with the terrain around here, I was wondering if we could go together.'
'Sure, I'm not busy when do you need me?'
'I was hoping we could go now if that's ok.'
'Yeah, it's fine. I'll be right over.'
"That was [best girl] she was inviting me hunting."
"Are you sure it's safe?"
"What's the worst that could happen?"
I grabbed my spell focus and went over to her house to meet her. She soon grabbed my hand and skipped into the forest I almost didn't know if I was leading her or she me. We managed to find some edible plants on the way, and I pointed them out as we walked. "You sure are knowledgeable about plants."
"As a mage, I get to work with a lot of components and it's good to know what's poisonous and what isn't before you handle them. I've learned a lot through just wondering what it is I'm collecting and what the components do on their own. It's also interesting studying why certain spells require certain components"
"You mean these are all spell components then?"
"In a manner of speaking"
"Ok, what's this one do?"
"This nightshade is the main component in everyone's favourite spell."
"Fire ball?"
"Yeah, it requires two more components, but it needs a lot of this one. They taste pretty good even though they were once thought to be poisonous"
"Why would anyone think they're poisonous?"
"I'd say eat one but I'm not that cruel. They aren't very good on their own, but they are a fairly popular spice. Also, some nightshades are poisonous but not these ones."
"How do you know?"
"I ate one before on a dare"
"How does it taste?"
"On its own? Like pain and agony, in food? It's fine"
After a bit of foraging around and discussing various plants and things, we saw some wild boar in a field. My hunting buddy wanted to rush out and kill one with her ability to boost herself instead I used a mind magic spell I learned when I was younger to draw one nearby. It was a low-level charm spell, used mainly to get cats to like you but it can also draw wild animals closer and make them temporarily drop their guard. I had the boar eating out of the palm of my hand before I gave her the signal and the head of the boar fell cleanly into my grip.
After a few more boars met their untimely end by our hunting strategy the sun began to darken over the horizon, and I led her back home. I was about to go back to my house when she stopped me and said. "It isn't safe for you to go out at night when assassins are vying for your death"
"You want me to spend the night?"
"Unless you're ok with worrying me on your way back alone."
"Alright let me just call ahead to make sure my parents know I'm safe."
'Hello'
'Son is that you are you alright?'
'I'm fine, I'll be spending the night here since it's gotten dark already and she was so insistent I stay over. Book doesn't say either of us will die tonight so we should be fine.'
'Ok don't do anything you'll regret.'
'Wouldn't dream of it.'