“HAHAHAHHAHAH! I TOLD YOU GUYS, HAHAHAHA, THOSE STUPID ACTIONS OF YOURS FINALLY CAUGHT UP, LEMMIE GUESS, YALL RAN AROUND LOOKING LIKE MURDERERS AS YOU KO’D PEOPLE!” However, unlike Benny, Selene, and Cynrik, who were enraged at the punishment, Brance burst out laughing his ass off, nearly falling out of his chair.
“Shut up, it’s easy for you to be unconcerned by this change in events, but for me especially, I am being chained down in place.” It took every ounce of Cynrik’s willpower to restrain himself from lashing out both physically and verbally at Brance.
“Oh, come one, it can’t be that bad. How bad was the pay dock, and when is your *snicker* curfew?” Covering his mouth to conceal the massive shit-eating grin, Brance tried to come off as concerned.
“Basically, the salary reduction is from 50 to 20 Merit Points a month, and the curfew is set for 6 pm every night, even on weekends. To top it all off, they also removed my Training Facilities discount. Bastards.” Cynrik said as he picked up his chair and sat down while smoldering.
“20 points a month isn’t that bad, considering we all originally planned on pooling our funds together anyway. Regardless, the curfew thing is neither here nor there. Don’t act like you have no intention of holding yourself up in your room all day and night to study. This curfew will have little to no effect on you.” Finally breaking free of his laughter fit, Brance calmed himself down and started analyzing the facts aloud.
“The real issue is this addition of mandatory classes the three of you are being forced to take; while I know Ivar has seen NUMEROUS therapists in his time, Benny is the opposite…sorry Selene, I don’t know your history with psychologists.”
“No offense taken; for the record, I saw a few when I was a teenager; it shouldn’t be that big a deal for me.” Selene waved her hand dismissively and told Brance it was ok.
“The anger management classes shouldn’t be too bad; it’s just a lot of how NOT to hit people when they piss you off and reign in your feelings. Nothing we haven’t already taught you, to begin with, Benny. I have no idea how long they will force these stupid classes on us, but the sooner we make them believe we are sane and stable children, the sooner they get off our backs.” Cynrik crossed his fingers into a steeple and leaned against the table.
“Benny, you got dragged into this because of how you reacted to how that guy was treating your sister; it’s understandable; however, it was allegedly unacceptable in the eyes of the school staff.”
“This presents us with a significant amount of helpful information. The first is that Selene and I need to reel in our facial expressions during combat and tone down our brutal nature. It clearly isn’t enough to be in total control; the second we leak out our true selves, it freaks out the staff. Thus I will be setting aside some time every night to teach everyone some basic acting skills.” While Cynrik said this, he swiped the dinner knife Selene was spinning around her fingers and kept it on his side of the table.
“The acting skills should be sufficient to shut up the naysayers from anger management, but we have to play things properly when it comes to those shrinks in therapy. As my brother so rudely pointed out, I have been to one too many of these bastards in the past, so I pretty much know how to handle them.”
“Unlike how TV depicts them, it won’t be a lot of “How does that make you feel,” instead they will start off by building a layer of trust with you before picking at your brain to bring forth all the dark and dreary shit locked in the recesses of your mind. Their goal is to determine the source of your trauma and how it has grown before moving into their diagnosis and subsequent treatment.”
Cynrik paused as he remembered this wasn’t Earth, and he forgot a critical difference between the two planets.
“That is to say; they don’t bring in people with Psychic Affinities…if that happens, we can only rely on learning how to combat the effects. Since everyone’s MIND stat is relatively high, it will be up to our individual discretion as to how we handle it; I, for one, will be going into full-blown actor mode.” Cynrik leaned back and stared blankly at the ceiling in thought when he finished speaking.
“The only thing you three need to do is convince them that there is nothing wrong with you. Then, try to paint it out as if the other side is the one at fault, that the second year’s bullying attempt forced you into a corner where you lashed out the way you did. You should only face one big problem, and that is how both you and Selene seemed to enjoy dismembering your opponent Ivar thoroughly.” Brance once again stepped in, adding clarity where Cynrik missed out.
“Remember, this isn’t the Headmaster trying to lock you down; looking at it from their point of view, it’s really just them trying to cover their asses from future problems that… let’s be honest, will more than likely occur.”
The only sound remaining after Brance fell silent was the gluttonous sound of Gabby polishing off the remainder of the desserts. Upon realizing that the conversation had nothing to do with her, she tuned out everyone’s words and focused solely on finishing her food.
With everyone lost in thought, the room remained silent until the time when the waitress returned with the bill, which Brance took and quickly paid for out of the party’s funds. All that was left was for Gabby to finish up the last two bites, and then everyone left the restaurant with full bellies and heated attitudes.
Their next stop was back to the book store, where everyone located and purchased all the textbooks required for each class they had chosen before storing them away with everything they had purchased in their inventories.
“Where to now? We only have about two hours until that dreaded curfew hits our beloved Ivar, so we should head back to our dorms and settle in.” Selene barely made it through her sentences as she fought back laughter at the mention of Cynrik’s curfew.
“Bite me, Selene, keep it up, and I’ll request you get one too. It shouldn’t be difficult to convince the headmaster that we all need a curfew to promote unity in the party.” Cynrik snapped while picking up his pace to go to a giant map indicating street names and the prominent building locations.
“YOU WOULDN’T DA…” Selene started, but Brance jumped to her side and covered her mouth before she could finish those words.
“SHHH, never, and I mean NEVER EVER, try calling Big Brother’s bluffs; he will only see it as a challenge.” Brance hissed in a hurried and fearful tone, causing Selene to go ridged and break out in a cold sweat.
Realizing the mistake she nearly made, her eyes darted to Cynrik, who was several meters away already and whistling some anime theme song, oblivious to what she had almost said.
Seeing he was none the wiser, Selene tapped Brance’s hand twice, and he let go; then, the two shared a look of understanding and chased after Cynrik as if nothing had happened.
Standing in front of the large map which showed everything available on Mount Kaer, it didn’t take Cynrik long to locate the path to the dorms, which, as it turned out, were built inside hollowed-out caverns within the mountain itself and then separated into Boys’ and Girls’.
“From its looks, we are supposed to take the same route towards the dorms until we reach this junction here,” Cynrik said, tracing the path on the large map for everyone to follow.
“Once we reach the fork, guys have to go left, and girls right; after that, it’s up to you and Selene to locate your building; according to the info we received, you guys are located in the S-Rank block building 003. So find it as soon as possible. Once you arrive, I want one of you to call me so we know you two made it.”
Selene and Gabby happily chirped their understanding and linked arms before running off like sisters ahead of the group, ignoring that they could stay together until the fork.
“Children, the both of them,” Cynrik scoffed and motioned for Benny and Brance to follow him.
The walk through the town-like campus was pleasant enough; it resembled a bustling downtown medieval village, where on one street you could find blacksmith shops or potions stores, yet the next street would be more futuristic. You could buy computers and other advanced technology meant for daily needs.
Cynrik and Brance were fascinated by the constantly changing scenery. Still, once they arrived at Mount Kaer, everything changed into a uniformed medieval school campus, with the roads getting even more densely packed since most people had just finished eating dinner and were returning to their new dorms.
It took the group of boys nearly another 45 minutes to break away from the herd and make their way over to where their dorms were located. Upon reaching the fork in the road, everyone followed Cynrik to the left side as they walked into a large, apparently well-crafted cavern that burrowed deep towards the center of the mountain.
Once inside, Cynrik’s eyes went wide as he saw, for the first time, something that made him truly feel like he had arrived in a fantasy world. Sprawled out before him was a massive open space carved into the mountain, reminding him of something out of LOTR. Knowing his thoughts, Tobs timed a song perfectly to make matters worse.
-Now playing 2 hours of Moria/LOTR& Ambience- Dwarven Music with Cavern Ambience.-
The dimly lit cavern was filled with hand-carved stone buildings that appeared to be hundreds of years old, yet either by their expert craftsmen ship or the sturdy stone materials the buildings were carved from, everything looked immaculate.
[Hey…Brancie,…you sure we didn’t choose Middle Earth to reincarnate into?] Cynrik asked, barely able to keep his feet moving due to shock and awe.
[At this point, Cyn, I have no fucking clue, but it’s…its… it’s beautiful.] Brance said, wiping a single tear from the corner of his eye.
((((PS. Brance was a HUGE LOTR nerd back on Earth, thus his reaction.))))
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg
Current Progress
1500/1500 Power Stones (COMPLETE)
100/100 Golden Tickets (COMPLETE)
4/4 Magic Castles (COMPLETE)
I will start publishing two chapters daily at 0600 and 1800 beginning Monday, May 16th.