Me and Mathis argued back and forth until everyone was 'invited' to leave the mess hall, it really did seem like they couldn't force us to do anything, which as much as I understand it, seemed strange. It may just be my view on authorities, but they really seem to lack defensive power.
If someone shot me, I'm decently sure that I would die. Even if they don't have guns here, I find it ridiculous that I couldn't be stabbed, or poisoned to death. As far as I see it, I'm a threat, a fallen seems like a living time bomb. Take Alexis' authority as example, what if she said the world no longer existed and everyone immediately suffocated in space?
If I was a regular citizen ruler here I would declare fallen to be exterminated on sight with roundabout methods, like poisoning or assassination, I couldn't take the risk of their continued existence. Although it's worth noting that the world isn't controlled by mundane leaders, it's controlled by fallen kings.
But from what I've seen from Alexis before, others' authorities can kill me just as easily as anyone else in this world. So I'd be scared if I was the king, knowing that a bunch of children and adults who gain miraculous powers might be egotistical enough to see and eliminate me as an obstacle with nothing but a mere thought.
This line of thinking gives me two conclusions for if I want to continue my existence, find a way for defensive augmentation against authorities using my authority or some other power or item, or be really, really careful. So I decided to go with the second one due to the fact it's more grounded in reality, and plan to start a notebook full of the authorities and risk level of every fallen I come across, first up, Alexis.
I looked up to see an academy staff member looking at me anxiously, seemingly asking me to finally leave the mess hall. I looked around in the realization that in my contemplation, I was the only one who hadn't left. I then exited promptly.
Going back down the corridor, I was met with a giant library, the bookshelves going up past what my vision would allow with spirals of floating staircases littering the landscape. Straight up ahead of me was a small circular depression in the floor, with a set of small and thin stone steps leading down to a symbol in the floor I could only describe as some sort of fantastical magic circle.
I looked around, there is no supervision here. Assuming the others went into the same giant library megacomplex that I did and did so at the orientation that I did, so that they saw the same magic circle that I did, and most likely went on the magic circle due to human curiosity, it is fairly safe to assume that the magic circle won't kill me, after all it's in the middle of the library, unless they are trying to kill me.
Wait! They could very well be doing that! It goes like this: they get our guard down with food and people and then get us a bit too excited about the future that we don't think a public magic circle is dangerous! Which then kills us, further cementing my theory: the king wants us dead and everything great you hear about fallen is just propaganda meant for our eyes so we don't shine away from the academy! Which means the king may not really be a fallen but a mundane person pretending to be one in order to give the real fallen, us, a false sense of security!
Although I could be wrong and this could be just a pad to teleport us to our rooms. I'd never know until it was too late. It's like Schrodinger's cat in a way, I either will die or won't die upon reaching the pad, it would be one or the other, and I'll never know until I observe it.
Observe it, observe it? This gives me an idea. There should be another staff member in that room. I turned around and headed back towards the mess hall, and there he was, a janitor of the academy, I called out to him and said, "Hi! Could you possibly help me with something, I can't figure out how to use the teleporty-thingy in the library." He responded with admiration and a hint of fear, "Oh, yes, of course. You must have missed the instructions venerable one."
I thanked him and he took me to the pad. My plan is going swiftly so far, if the sigil engraved in the stone kills biological creatures, there's a chance he'll make up excuses not to interact with it, and if he's not aware that it kills things he'll die and I'll know.
He walked up to the white symbol and explained, "This is a teleportation 'rune' and it was personally created by a 1st generation fallen centuries ago, I gaze at it whenever I can, it's truly remarkable. It works by syncing two symbols in different places with a single authority's influence, so only fallen can use it. If you use your authority on it, the symbol will change and it will be linked to your authority, at which point you can walk on the rune and it'll teleport you to your dorm."
Interesting, it uses my authority's "marker". I didn't know authority's even had markers, according to the explanation the janitor just gave me they would have to get my marker in advance in order to set up this 'rune teleportation', when did they do that exactly? Did they discover it at the same time they mysteriously found my location, this marker thing may also have unintended consequences.
I am still uncertain if what the janitor said was untrue and touching this would be damaging. I said my thanks to the janitor, I swung my left arm around his shoulder and spun him in a playful circular motion, making sure his left foot tripped and landed in the rune. To my discontent, nothing happened. He seemed alarmed at me spinning him but he didn't seem to notice or care that his foot touched the sigil, so I let him go and sent him on his way with a gentle wave.
I then decided to commence another experiment before claiming this sigil as safe enough to go through. I already found that when the janitor walked over the sigil nothing happened, this means a few things: biological matter doesn't have any dangerous reaction when approaching the symbol, and for as well as I know, his shoes may have deactivated any booby traps.
I was about to commence my experiment when I came to a realization: it doesn't matter. I can't ever be sure it's not trapped in some shape, way, form or fashion when it comes to an infinite array of conceptual powers. I can never know.
Although there still is a solution, my authority functions on belief, theoretically if I believe this rune isn't booby trapped it won't be, inversely I can kill myself if I think it is booby trapped when it isn't.
So if I step on it without believing it can hurt me it won't even if it actually can. I looked at myself in the reflection of my monocle and then looked at sigil as I raised my left hand and shifted my monocle.
The gray light emanating from the symbol turned ivory white as the sigil which originally had a design reminiscent of a rubix cube with the top right piece missing switched to a design of a circle containing a rectangle that constantly changed its shape and size.
My left foot touched the sigil and fine grains of white sand emerged from the rune at an alarming rate, completely surrounding me in the shape of a rectangle. In the next instant, my ivory holding collapsed into shifting sand that merged back into the sigil on the floor. I looked around to find myself in a giant wooden lodge, outfitted with fireplaces, a stone floor, an open kitchen and a giant balcony overlooking what I assume to be Hearth City.
I looked around ecstatic, I really liked the feel of this 'dorm' . I went out to the stone balcony outside and felt the chilly winter air assaulting my face. I allowed myself to relax a little. It was peaceful, I saw the sunset, it was off-putting seeing a square sun set, it allowed me to further realize and accept that this is an alien world and possibly even universe.
I began thinking about how these trees, sun, sky and wind are going to be my life now, but that's when it hit me: I need to be vigilant, I remember a quote from a video game I played a while back: 'the more crutches you have, the more it hurts when they're ripped out from under ya'