"Ready for your fist class?" Bartholomew questioned as Del finished packing the last of her new books into a messenger style bag.
"Yes," Del replied with an eager smile. "I just have one more thing I need to grab."
So saying, she fished around in her box of Knick-knacks until she found what she was looking for. To the ignorant observer, it would look like nothing more than a child's sea shell necklace, featuring a little pearly white top shell. She smiled and tied the string behind her neck.
"Is that you baby horn?" Bartholomew asked with some amazement.
"It is," Del nodded. "I don't often have a chance to use it, but it's a great source to draw magic from. It will recharge itself too, at least as long as I am alive."
"I had heard Unicorns shed the outermost layer of their horns as they matured, but I thought it was a myth!" Bartholomew gasped.
"I'm surprised you've heard anything about that," Del remarked. "According to my father, that is a closely guarded secret. Honestly, he was surprised my horn behaves the same way. Most unicorn mixes retain a permanent horn, like dragons or other horned creatures."
"Fascinating!" Bartholomew breathed. "Oh! But we should be on our way!"
Del followed Bartholomew out the door and hurried to keep up with him down the hallway. It was difficult to keep traction on the smooth floor, so she nearly tripped a few times, but they still managed to make it to the main corridor with little incident.
As they were hurrying by, Del caught a glimpse of Gairovald. For a moment, they made eye contact. At least, she thought they had. She blinked, however, and he was completely engrossed in a book.
"Delivera, look out!" Bartholomew exclaimed.
Del glanced up just in time to see the wall she was on course to collide with. Too late to avert coarse, she hit the stone with a thud. Embarrassed, but otherwise fine, she quickly peeled herself away and hurried off, the sound of laughter following her.
"Really," Bartholomew scolded, "You need to be more aware of your surroundings!"
"Yeah, I got that," Del grumbled.
She couldn't reach her classroom fast enough. Some how, despite her ill-fated run-in with the wall, she was still the first to arrive at class. Bartholomew didn't seem either surprised or perturbed by this fact, even though the class was do to start any moment.
"Where is everyone?" She questioned.
"Who knows," Bartholomew scoffed. "I'm sure the majority will turn up eventually. For now, pull out your books and notes and let's get started."
"Do you teach this class?" Del asked with some surprise.
"No," Bartholomew shook his head, "that said, these tend to be self study. Any lecture presented is more of a formality, and likely won't start until about a half-hour in. Teachers are typically present to answer questions and provide guidance when necessary, though occasionally you'll get a blow hard that enjoys the sound of his own voice."
"Who teaches this class?" Del wondered anxiously.
As though in answer to her question, the door opened to reveal a petite man garbed in metallic purple robes specially designed to accommodate a pair of gossamer wings that billowed behind him like a cape. In his arms were an assortment of scrolls.
"Speak of the devil," Bartholomew smiled, "This is the instructor for this class, Taegan. He's one of the better ones, if you ask me."
"This is unusual," Taegan stopped to regard Del. "But a welcome sight! You must be one of the newcomers. Miss…"
"Stone," Del answered, suddenly feeling shy. "Delivera Stone."
"Very good," Taegan smiled. "In case you are wondering, I am the instructor for this class, Teagan Oberion."
"A pleasure to meet you," Del said with a nod of her head. She wasn't sure why, but something about being in the room alone with him—more or less—made her feel self conscious.
"Feel free to get started on any study or projects that tickle your fancy," Taegan smiled. "I will be offering a lecture on basic healing potions and poultices in about twenty or so minutes, in case you would like to prepare."
"Ok," Del replied with a wry grin. With a final nod, Taegan resumed his path to the front of the room. Blowing out a breath, Del clasped her baby horn and said a soft prayer for strength. Once she felt her head was a little clearer, Del let out a breath and fetched her study materials.
"Where would you like to start?" Bartholomew wondered.
"As I recall, the basic tenants of potion making follow the principles that the same ingredients can be used to hurt or heal depending on factors such as preparation, order of ingredients, brewing techniques, and even equipment used." Del stated.
"Right," Bartholomew nodded. "Of course, that gets more complicated than it sounds, but yes, that's the general idea. So what is your plan?"
"You said this is self study, for the most part," Del replied. "It looks like this class provides basic materials, so I think I will start by selecting a key base ingredient for the potion I intend to make, and study it's properties. From there, I will select other ingredients and materials to nurture those properties in a way I like."
"Sounds like you have a plan," Bartholomew nodded.
"Don't sound too excited," Del grumbled, catching Taegan looking their way. "I'm a complete novice when it actually comes to brewing potions. I have only ever read about it."
So saying, she approached a table with ingredients laid out for student use and began browsing its contents. To her surprise, there were all sorts of exotic species of flora spread out, mutations of items she recognized and others that she didn't even know existed. One item in particular, a white stemmed mushroom with a vivid cap that resembled the blended colors of an aurora, caught her attention.
"No way!" Del gasped. "Is that…?"
"An Aurelian Gigastool, yes," Taegan nodded.
"How do you have one? And such a small size?" Del marveled.
"You'll find our green house produces all sorts of rare, unique, and exotic specimens," Taegan chuckled. "That particular mushroom was collected in its infancy, though it theoretically could continue to grow given adequate nutrients, even removed from the main cluster. Resilient fungi, the gigastools."
"Is it really ok if I take this?" Del questioned as she reverently lifted the mushroom from the basket. She had read that the fungi grew as large and as stout as trees, and that homes could be carved into the stem and even the cap provided the paralytic toxins in the seeds were neutralized.
"Of course," Taegan waved a hand. "Everything on this table is in abundance in our store rooms at present."
Del all but skipped back to her seat. To her delight, Bartholomew already had a few different books open and ready for her. For the first forty or so minutes, as the students filed in and Taegan started his lecture, Del was able to quietly immerse herself in her studies. She had amassed a modest pile of notes which she was comparing to pages of runes she had scrawled down and organized, when things took a turn for the disruptive.
"Are you listening, little miss cupcake?" A familiar haughty voice cut through her concentration as a hand slammed down inches from her face on top of the book she had been reading. "Your betters are talking to you!"
"Did you need something?" Del adjusted her glasses with some annoyance then brought her eyes up to meet Beatrice's gaze. Of course the obnoxious girl would be in her first class. And it seemed she wasn't alone. A whole cluster of girls was gathered around, tittering like a bunch's of baby birds.
"I SAID you have some balls trying to sit at OUR table," Beatrice sneered.
Looking around, Del saw several other empty tables around. Heaving a sigh, she started collecting her things to move to a different one, though she didn't understand why they couldn't find a different one themselves. There was no special proximity to resources, books, vents, or anything else to warrant that table being especially desirable. Still, it wasn't worth getting into a fight over.
"Hey, where do you think you are going?" Beatrice frowned as Del collected her things and moved to a different table. They were starting to attract the attention of other students, much to her dismay. The last thing she wanted was more attention.
"You said that was your table, so I moved," Del stated. She tried to avoid further confrontation by avoiding eye contact while she set up shop once again.
"So? Who said you could move?" Beatrice demanded.
Del didn't bother responding to what she considered a stupid question. As far as she was concerned, the instructor was the only one with any real say on who did what in the classroom, and while Teagan was looking a bit annoyed at the on going interruptions, he clearly didn't care where she sat or when she moved. On her shoulder, she felt Bartholomew bristling, and patted his head gently. If she was going to have any chance of surviving her tenure at the Arcanum, Del knew she would need to fight and win her own battles.
"Hey!" Beatrice ripped the book Del had just opened out of her hands. "Don't ignore me when I am talking to you!"
"This is a prestigious tower, not some typical juvenile learning institution," Del snapped, finally having enough. Books weren't cheap, and Beatrice wasn't handling it with any care. "If you feel like you need to beat your chest and swing your dick around to assert dominance like a rapid ograppa, that's your prerogative but go do it elsewhere."
Without another word, Del reclaimed her book, then went back to work. Around her she could hear the murmur of the other students and even a few stifled giggles. They also had definitely captured the attention of Teagan who stopped his lesson, took Beatrice to the side, and engaged in quite the intense whispering session with her. By the time he returned to the front of the room, Beatrice was quite red in the face and was the subject of the heap of negative attention she'd been trying to pile on Del.
For the next few hours or so, Del was able to work in peace. Mushroom set in front of her surrounded by a number of rune notes she had written using ink mixed with droplets of her own blood so that she would be able to test the rune effects at a smaller, more controlled scale, Del was making fairly good headway on how she wanted to go about brewing her potion. At some point another student who seemed to be in the last steps of his own project joined her at her table. There was still plenty of workspace and he kept to himself, so Del didn't mind. They were approaching the end of the period when disaster struck.
"What are you doing?" Bartholomew wondered as Del removed the baby horn pendant from around her neck and brought it to the shroom.
"Purifying the spores," Del replied. "Just to be on the safe side, I don't want to run the risk of it accidentally showering paralytic toxins all over the place while I am moving. As I am sure you've noticed, I'm not exactly graceful."
"Ah…." Bartholomew frowned. "But couldn't you leave it in the classroom locker?"
"I wanted to study it some more after classes," Del replied, the nodded her head towards Beatrice who she assumed was still shooting her dirty glares. "Besides, I don't want to run the risk of that twit trying to mess with my work while I am not around."
"Fair enough," Bartholomew sighed.
All at once, a commotion broke out. A young lady who was passing behind the student across from Del tripped unexpectedly and the completed potion she had been carrying went sailing out of her hands and right into the beaker where the student was brewing his own. The two glass containers exploded in a shower of broiling brew and glass shards, causing everyone in the room to dive for safety. Del, too stunned to move, ignored the debris pinging harmlessly off of her tough stony skin and watched in horror as the mixture blasted across the surface of her notes and sent them, the gigastool, and her baby horn flying off the table. A secondary explosion occurred as her things landed in another cauldron with a loud plop. As apprubtly as it had all started, the chaos ended. Smoke, debris, everything vanished into thin air. At the head of the room, Teagan stood, staff raised, looking beyond furious.
"Beatrice," he snapped, eyes flashing, "I gave you a warning about fooling around in the classroom! Get your things, get out, and don't you dare set foot in here again!"
Everybody looked to Beatrice in confusion. Wearing a guilty expression, she looked away as she tried to unhook her foot from around the ankle of the girl who had tripped. Del was mildly surprised the bully didn't put up a fight as she fled the room.
"Are you ok?!" Bartholomew exclaimed, grabbing Del by the face to look her over. "Were you hurt?!"
"I'm ok," Del sighed. "Physically anyway. All my notes though… all that work…"
She groaned miserably and dropped her head on the table. She was dimly aware of a tapping on her shoulder, and assumed it must be Teagan who had started going around with potions and poultices to administer emergency aid to the other students.
"I'm ok," Del grumbled.
"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice stated. "Sorry to bug you, but I think this is yours…"
Del sat up and turned around to find herself face to face with a lovely young woman who seemed to be about her age with the most mesmerizing pair of mint green eyes framed by pine locks and soft mocha skin. Del felt immediately self conscious as she realized she was being addressed by some kind of Faye mix.
"Sorry! I… uh… I will take that!" She looked to the object in the Woman's hand and was surprised to see it was her mushroom… with a glowing white set of eyes peeping out of the cap, a set of tiny feet that were kicking a mile a minute, a pair of little flailing arms, and a minuscule maw where the cap met the stem with rows of tiny teeth opened wide as it let out an odd, barely audible mewling sound in protest.
"I'm Rohana, by the way," she smiled and extended a hand once Del retrieved the strange little creature that had once been her mushroom. "A pleasure to meet you."