* The Misfits of Al'Magi Academy - Rionriv

*

Rionriv rested against the railing of the galleon as it drifted into the Dwindlefyre Port. Staring out over the compact townstead, she sighed defeatedly. She was exhausted, dirty, and wearing clothes that were tattered. It had been a long day of travel on board the ship, after a longer week of carting north to Sutin’eli, which followed three even longer months of repeated failures.

"What are we going to do?" She muttered to herself as the wind toyed with her shoulder-length red hair.

Tucking a strand behind her ear, she revealed the deep mocha tone of her skin to the nearby crew, who quietly gawked at her natural beauty. Piercing sapphire blue eyes looked down at the brown leather pants held together in a makeshift patchwork of fabric strips and the collared khaki shirt, which wore numerous cuts, holes, and burns from the adventure. 

Releasing another defeated sigh, her gaze shifted up and stared at the shore too slowly approaching, counting down the seconds until she could escape her triop.

Her triop—the name given to predestined groups of three magical students attending Al'Magi—was brought together by the arcane and divine energies of the world. They ate, slept, studied, fought, and sometimes nearly died next to each other. They did all of this so that one day they would graduate from Al’magi Academy together as powerful Magilancers, ready to make history.

But, lately, that future felt like a big maybe to Rionriv, and that fell upon her shoulders as the de facto leader of her triop.

She loved the other girls to death, but currently, she needed a breather from them. The summer had been a total waste of time, and not only did they fail to retrieve any of the pieces of the runic puzzle that was their summer assignment, but they had also nearly killed the overseeing professor in the process. This meant that they had failed their project and didn’t earn the extra credit for assisting the teacher. The latter of which would have bumped up Aesandoral and Sharzin’s failing grades from the previous year enough to be barely passing.

The thing was, Rionriv didn’t think that she was free from fault for their summertime blunders. In fact, she had her fair share of failures over the last three months as well, but the problem was that most of the errors came from the other two.

Rionriv was her group's sorceress and the one in charge, yet, despite that fact, the rest of the triop never seemed to listen to anything she said. If Aesandoral had been paying attention when she yelled at her, the earth golem wouldn’t have thrown the piece of the puzzle into the lava pool. And if Sharzin hadn’t been more focused on being stealthy than observant, the frangulnoa wouldn’t have caught the professor off guard.

“Ugh, are we there yet?” A voice spoke queasily as it approached from behind Rionriv. “I hate boats.”

Glancing over her shoulder, Rionriv eyed Aesandoral, the group's archer and shield. The girl was tall, standing over the average height of Rionriv by a good half a foot.  She herself was a chestnut-toned elf with thigh-length brunette hair tied into a braid that currently bounced off her leather armour. Her large, emerald green eyes revealed discomfort as she approached, mirroring the unsettled look plastered over her equally beautiful and androgynous face. 

Unfortunately for her, the girl's mortal nemesis was the sea, and she never stopped reminding everyone of that when needing to sail on it.

“We’re close enough,” Rionriv snapped in reply, whipping her hand at the deck and quickly muttering an incantation. “I’m going for a walk.”

There was a forceful gust of wind beneath her feet as thunder clapped in response. With leap that gently rocked the massive vessel, she flew from the galleon to the nearby stone dock. Landing with a thud, Rionriv walked purposefully, refusing to look back.

After all, she wasn't mad. She just needed time to think. Or at least that was what she was telling herself and everyone around her—in her own way.

What the hell are we going to do? She stressed to herself as she stomped, grabbing her shirt.

Her chest hurt as her heart beat against the cage trapping it. She attempted a calming breath, but it wouldn’t work. Her mind was racing too fast, and her heart was trying to catch up. It made sense, because the three of them were in a bad place academically. Without the extra credit, the others would fail and, lacking the two remaining members of her group, she wouldn't be able to pass several of the triop-dependent courses. The school was designed for groups of three after all.

Professor Skirrtlegirt is a hard no, now. She began to scheme. I know they got to him in time, but he was pretty clear that keeping him unharmed was part of the extra credit. And by a frangulnoa no less. Of course...just our luck. By the Seven, Sharzin, you had one job.

Stepping into Dwindlefyre Square, Rionriv observed as a pair of First Years flung freshly purchased wands around like toys. Then, with a particularly forceful whip of their wrist, one of them flicked their tool a little too hard, casting a bolt of ice from the tip.

“Watch out!” The kid yelled.

Rionriv continued her pace, watching as an icy blast cut through the air directly towards a young-looking boy with his eyes closed. It connected with the First Year, splitting the distance between his gut and groin. His warm, sun-kissed face and stark white hair quickly whipped downward as he doubled over in pain, releasing the most pathetic whimper she had ever heard before collapsing.

She paused her stride at this, eyeing the situation and gently chuckling to herself.

Holy crap, heh-heh, that kid got rocked. She smiled. Okay, that raised my spirits.

Rionriv wasn’t the most sympathetic person when she was upset. Luckily, it was usually the little things that improved her mood. But as Rionriv watched the assailants laugh and flick a copper at the boy's head with ridicule in their voices, something clicked, and her paused pace lingered.

Her racing heart changed its beat. No longer anxious but, instead, sorrowful. As though she felt bad for what had happened to the stranger. 

Taking hold of her chest once again, she inhaled a deep breath. 

Rionriv must have passed by hundreds of people in worse conditions over the summer. Even more than that in the year since she and her triop arrived on the continent of Moal'aw. But she never stopped for them. Not once. Though as she looked at the boy, something bound her to the cobblestone just long enough to do something.

With a quiet incantation and a flick of her wrist, the coin lifted into the air as though a pair of invisible fingers had plucked it. Pocketing the copper, Rionriv drifted over one of her remaining three gold coins and silently placed it down. She watched for a moment as the boy began to shift and stir. 

Not interested in making friends or picking up another charity case to weigh down her already burdened shoulders, she continued forward, feeling content with her decision.

Casting the moment from her mind, Rionriv continued with her short stroll around the heart of campus. After coming up empty for ideas concerning her current conundrum, she eventually made her way to the Grand Central Library. It was her favourite place to think, resting amongst the stacks of ancient, arcane tomes, using the silence to help her. With a shove, she stepped through giant doors, pausing to examine the gaggle of First Years running around with excited looks on their faces.

Ugh, I don’t have energy for that. She thought, turning immediately around and pondering other places that the new mages likely wouldn’t be.

I know! She suddenly realized, quietly snapping her fingers. I'll head to Mitriv’s Mimic Café.

So, she continued to move deeper into the campus towards a café that the newer students would never find. It was nothing impressive, just the size and shape of a janitor's shed, tucked into a small neighbourhood of school-themed shops and faculty housing. But if someone reached through the window and didn’t panic when they felt the sharp teeth of a mimic, they could easily find the secret lever within. That switch opened a back panel and revealed a spiral staircase down to the cozy café filled with friendly mimics.

There, I can sit and think about what to do about Aesandoral and Sharzin. And if we can save their grades—I really don’t think they can handle retaking First Year courses and succeeding Second Year tests.

That was around the time Rionriv heard a familiar whimpering sound. 

Rounding a corner, she watched as the same boy from earlier had stumbled into a vermin trap set for First Year triops. Eyeing the scene, and bloodshed, he seemed to have put up a good fight by himself against a scenario meant for three. Unfortunately, he was currently pinned under his shield with the corpse of a rat weighing his scrawny body down.

Nah, sorry kid, one a day. She thought to herself, keeping to the edge of the nearby building, watching as the blood began to pool around him. Don't worry, your I-D will take you to the nurse any second now—

Then, as his body began to convulse, he started to cry before finally vomiting over himself. As tears, bile and blood soaked the ground around him, Rionriv watched as he fell limp. The sorceress' heart skipped a beat as panic set in.

He's not teleporting. Why isn't he teleporting? SHIT! Shit. Shit. Shit. Not another Skirrtlegirt!

“Godsdamn it, not again!” She yelled out, rushing to his aid.

Stomping up to him, Rionriv quietly muttered to herself as she reached into the satchel on her hip and began to search for one of the remaining potions.

“He really gave it his all,” A shadowy figure, a foot shorter than Rionriv, muttered as she emerged from the dim light near her. "For a solo—"

“Ahh—gah!” Rionriv jumped back, nearly fumbling the bottle from her hands. 

Electricity arced between the strands of her flowing red hair, excitement coursing through her body as she prepared a retaliatory lightning blast. But, looking over at the figure, she immediately realized that it was Sharzin, the triop's shadowy skulker. She inspected the scene from beyond the concealing black cloak that barely revealed the cute alabaster-toned face hidden beneath the hood. A few strands of her shoulder-length raven black hair hung before her face as she looked down at the boy with a confused expression on her lips. Silvery eyes that glimmered like diamonds in the morning light were focused intently on him.

“Damn it, Sharzin," Rionriv lectured. "You’re going to give me a heart attack. And, I wouldn’t know, just got here. Where's the rest of his triop? And why didn't he teleport?”

Sharzin approached the boy’s neck and touched it in search of a pulse.

“No idea." She replied, holding a hand out to Rionriv for her potion. "He’s unstable. We need to stop the bleeding. Potion me.”

"Of course he is," Rionriv sighed, handing the potion over and watching as Sharzin poured it into the boy's mouth. “Makes sense, I saw him get pummeled in the square earlier.” 

Rionriv crossed her arms and looked down at the pinned kid before kicking the rat with the heel of her boot. The beast barely budged, instead spilling more blood over the boy's already stained body.

“Ah, that makes sense," Sharzin remarked, finishing to apply the potion and stepping back to help Rionriv. "Must be why I saw him crying at the top of the switch.”

"He was crying at the top of the switch? Gods, this kid isn't having a good first day of school, huh?"

"Nope. And, even though he seems to be stabilized, for some reason, he's not waking up."

Rionriv sighed loudly, looking up at the sky as she dreaded the next words that were set to escape her lips.

“Fiinnneeee, let’s get this thing off of him and take him to the infirmary.” Rionriv finished as she and Sharzin removed the vermin before hoisting the boy up and hauling him away.