The Rule of Rules

It had been three weeks since I had last seen the triop. I mean, obviously, I had seen them—except maybe Sharzin—but the big takeaway from those encounters was that they were now ignoring me.

Rionriv made it look easy. In fact, it was the coldest damn shoulder I had ever gotten. On the other hand, Aesandoral appeared to be struggling a lot more with the separation. I could see in her expressive eyes that she wanted to talk, but there was rarely a moment that I saw her without Rionriv at her side.

Yet, even with the apparent disdain, I wasn’t going to let that deter me from fulfilling my promise to them. They would graduate. All of them.

So, I did something I swore I would never do.

I studied.

I studied every chance I got. There was a book in hand at meals, in my free time and even before, during and after the gym. In fact, I was the definition of that guy everywhere I went. But I needed to be.

What Rionriv said had really struck home with me. I had let my machinations get in the way of what was right and wrong. I took the easy route when, if I wanted to be considerate of the wants and needs of the entire triop, I should have found a solution that worked for everyone.

And, after hours of reading, I believed I had found the answer. A solution to all the problems hidden in the arcanolegalese of the school’s bylaws.

I hope this works. I thought to myself, standing before the daunting doors to the Grand Central Library. Remember. Confidence. You wrote these rules, after all…well, most of them.

Giving myself a mental pat on the back, I pushed open the doors of the library and stepped through. Beyond the threshold, the entire library had been converted into a single, large testing room. Roughly three hundred desks were set up in long rows where exhausted magic users poured every ounce of their remaining energy into the questions before them.

I had barely reached the backmost row when one of the professors approached me. Correction, he was not a professor but the Dean of Student Acquisitions, Jack Atlas. He was a character in my story with a very specific purpose—being a self-serving annoyance.

“Um, hello, excuse me.” Jack said quietly as he intercepted me, “We are currently in the middle of a test. Are you a student here?”

“No, I am not, Mister Atlas,” I replied politely. “I am not a student.”

“Oh—hmm, do we know each other? You seem to have me at a disadvantage here.”

“You are very much at a disadvantage, Mister Atlas.”

Oh-ho-ho! I thought after that gibe.

“O-okay? Well, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I refuse to leave. Under the Al’Magi Legal Code as established by the Moal’aw Treaty of PGC Thirty-Twenty-Five, as a denizen of this plane, I am warranted unrestricted access to all public campus structures within operational hours.”

“I-I, umm, heh—” Atlas stuttered as he looked around.

Several students had become more interested in this conversation than in their tests.

“Keep writing.” He instructed before returning his attention to me with a clearing of his throat. “I—heh, I don’t believe that’s…correct? And even if it is, I don’t believe it would apply to testing periods.”

“Al’Magi Legal Codex. Section Twenty-Seven. Subsection Nineteen. Subsubsection Three. Paragraph Nine. In the case of Jennit, the awakened magical hound who needed his emotional support mundane during testing!”

Atlas stared at me, trying to determine if I was being serious.

“Go check it out,” I said as I looked around, noticing Aesandoral and Sharzin near enough to have heard me talking.

They were currently watching me.

“Read the rules, Jack. We’re in a library, after all. Excuse me.”

As I began to walk away, several students gasped and gawked from their seats at the sight of a child putting down the Dean. It took him a moment before he realized what had happened, and, confused, walked away from the situation. Surprise washed over the faces of several students at this, but I knew he was simply doing what he did best: finding someone else to fix the problem.

This gave me valuable minutes for the next stage of my plan.

I approached Aesandoral first as she was the closest.

“Iz, what are you doing here?” She asked quietly as I took the opportunity to glance down at her test.

Yeeee, those are all wrong. Okay, this has got to work.

“Aes, listen, I don’t have much time. I have a way to get you all to pass the test, within the rules, okay?”

“How?”

“Group Challenge. Listen, when I give the signal, I want you to stand on your desk and declare something as loud as you can, okay?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Say: I call upon the ancient founders. Hear my plea.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. You seen Ri?”

“No.”

Placing a hand on her shoulder, I quickly apologized for what had happened before weaving through desks to get to Sharzin. I gave her the same spiel as I did Aesandoral.

“After Aes says her bit, you say: I call upon the current faculty. Hear my plea. Got it?”

“Sure.” She paused for a moment, looking at the doodles on her test.

She’s not even trying to pass! I know for a fact she knows that answer.

“I miss hanging out with you.” Sharzin whispered.

Taken aback for a moment, I suddenly realized something. “You miss the mall food.”

“I miss the mall food.”

“Show me to Ri, and I’ll get you whatever you want from the mall for a year.”

As fast as a whip, her arm extended out with a single pointed finger. I followed it to see Rionriv’s head down and focusing hard on her test.

Patting Sharzin on the shoulder, I gave her a nod and a quick apology before making my way to Rionriv.

“Hey, excuse me, little boy. Please come here.”

Two professors had appeared with Atlas and were hastily making their way towards me.

Crap! I don’t know them. Gotta book it.

I began sprinting through the desks. What had been a rough beginning became a tumultuous middle, and now I could only hope for an acceptable ending.

“Hey! Stop!” The professors gave chase, brandishing wands as they pursued.

Oh no! I’m going to get tased. Must go faster!

By this point, I was almost to Rionriv, and the entire library had noticed the kerfuffle.

Lifting her head, the sorceress made eye contact with me, and I watched as she went through a rollercoaster of emotions. Confusion. Excitement. Confusion again. Frustration. Anger.

Ah, good old Rionriv.

“What are you—”

“Listen, hate me later. This is for the triop. And it's within the school rules.”

“I don’t believe—”

“Just listen, please.” I glanced over my shoulder at the quickly approaching teachers before looking back to her. “You can still all pass a group challenge. When I give the signal, after Sharzin speaks, stand on your desk and, as loud as you can, shout: I call upon the future mages. Hear my plea. My triop declares Article Two from the Ex Parti Arcanum Tabularus.”

Rionriv inspected my face, looking for my tells, seeing if I was being honest.

“Ri, I’m sorry I hurt you.” I felt my heart ache as I said it.

After all, it was the absolute truth. I had let an old, bad habit of doing everything I could to succeed take over me, and I regretted it. I broke a forgotten promise to myself that I’d never regress into that mentality.

I just hoped she could find a way to believe me.

“I thought I was helping.” I continued. “I was wrong. But this is right. Please. For them. For all of you.”

I watched as Rionriv blushed before quickly averting her gaze. I followed her eyes to see—

Oh, craaaaaap!

The teachers were almost within range to hit me with their wands.

Jumping to the nearest desk, I pulled my amulet of the Sunblessed Scholar out from my shirt and hoisted it into the air. Channelling magic into it, I cast a spell I had learned after almost three months of being regularly hit with it.

“Thunder!” I called out as a loud blast echoed through the library.

Then, a moment later, I was hit with a pair of ye olde tasers. A surge of paralyzing energy overcame my body, and I locked up before tumbling over the desk I had been standing atop. Landing hard on the ground, something on my face immediately felt broken. I just wasn’t sure what could have been damaged since everything felt about the same at that moment.

As the professors surrounded me, they picked me up from the ground and inspected my face closely. They appeared reasonably pissed.

Then a voice cried out.

“I call upon the ancient founders. Hear my plea.”

There was a moment of quiet as the teachers stopped and looked towards Aesandoral.

“I call upon the current faculty. Hear my plea.”

Their heads shifted, now looking to Sharzin and then to me. They were beginning to suspect something more devious had happened as I charged down the rows of obedient students.

Then a second passed, and another. And another.

Come on, Ri, please. I thought as I stood locked in place by the pain still surging through my body.

I heard someone stand on a desk behind me.

“I call upon the future mages. Hear my plea. My triop declares Article Two from the Ex Parti Arcanum Tabularus.”

And then, without warning, the library shook at the completed incantation and the three women, standing atop their desks, began to glow a radiant gold.