Soul of a Human

As the silence slowly vanished, it was replaced by the screams of panicked students, the wailing of magic alarms, and the frantic shouts of teachers trying to regain a semblance of order and evacuate their charges.

After the explosion, a single figure hobbled through an empty corridor open to the sky, leaving bloody footprints on the floor and a smoldering ruin on their robes. Ranbor stumbled along, completely lost, wondering what had happened.

He had retreated to his room after the headmaster limited his magic output, cursing the ice-kin and the peasant with every breath. And to make matters worse, the limiter sigil on his chest itched and burned. Still, no matter how much he scratched, it would not lessen his discomfort. Soon, it was utterly chaffed.

Then his subjects would come and try to get him out of his room, but Ranbor didn't want to. If he returned to class with his punishment active, he would be a laughingstock for everyone. Even the commoner would be able to overpower him.

But after he sent them away, they would just bring a teacher, which wouldn't change Ranbor's mind. Instead, it annoyed him greatly, and his hatred would fan a wrathful flame, getting stronger with each passing day. He began to imagine all the things he would do to everyone who defied him, and then it happened.

The dormitory tower on his level exploded in a thunderous fireball, throwing him across his room, charring his robe and flesh, and leaving him in a stunned, bleeding heap.

As he continued to wander the destroyed corridors, a "whump" vibrating through the floor caught his attention. A teacher teleported next to him, reaching out and saying something Ranbor could not understand.

The thundering clap of the explosion had taken his hearing. Still, the teacher's intent was clear. He wanted to get Ranbor to safety. With a relieved smile, Ranbor reached out to grasp the teacher's hand. A secondary explosion erupted before he could touch the teacher's outstretched hand, throwing him and the teacher in different directions. Ranbor was the lucky one. He landed on the smoldering carpet. The teacher, though, had no such luck. His position relative to the new explosion had thrown him against the walls, his neck now bent at an unnatural angle, his body mangled.

If Ranbor still had his hearing, he might have heard the audible crunch of a breaking spine. Shellshocked, Ranbors mind tried to protect him with madness. He laughed, silent to his destroyed hearing, but sounding unhinged to everyone who might hear him.

He slowly got up, returning to his slow, unthinking wandering, leaving a trace of bloody, smoldering footprints behind him. Ranbor only knew he needed to get out.

°What's going on?!° The human asked, but Mor could give no answer.

Mor stood there stunned, unable to comprehend the situation. Orth doing the same.

°HEY! Snap out of it!° The human shouted!

Finally, Mor turned to Orth, looking at his shocked friend, his brain finally catching up with the situation.

"Orth! What is going on?" He asked, but only Orth blinked in confusion.

Mor shook Orth, getting him out of his stupor.

"I... don't know." The noble answered.

"The girls," he then mumbled.

"What?" Mor asked.

"This is where the noble dorms are. Saphine's room is up there, and so is mine," Orth said, still unbelieving.

°Shit!° The human exclaimed.

°We need to find out what's going on. But what should we do with Orth?°Mor asked.

°Drag him along. We need to find a teacher or someone!° The human ordered, and finally, Mor acted.

They pulled a stunned, mumbling Orth along, frantically searching for a teacher or someone who might know what was happening. They got closer and closer to the now-beheaded tower, finding the first victims of this atrocity. Students hurt by debris were sitting around sobbing, crying, or in stunned silence.

°We need to help them.° Mor said.

°We can't help them all! The best thing we can do is find Adept Amber for them, but we should save our energy. We don't know for what we might need it.° The human said.

°But, we could heal some!° Mor countered.

°Yes, but if the infirmary is obstructed, we need all the power we can get. It's stupid to heal some and then have to abandon everyone else because we can't get the experienced healers. We need to stay safe, and that means saving our energy.° The human explained.

Mor nodded, feeling helpless, but forging on with Orth following him like in a trance.

The headmaster tried to regain control of the situation. He was shouting orders at the teachers, searching out stuck students, and at the same time trying to find out what had happened.

"I want to know what this was? Were we attacked by a monstrosity?" He demanded to know from a panicked teacher, who just shrugged at him.

"I don't know!" she answered, then she was sent away again to get more students to safety.

"Get everyone into the gathering hall!" The headmaster ordered. "And where are the healing adepts?" He demanded to know.

Everything was a chaotic mayhem, and nobody could tell him anything. The headmaster cursed.

"Why must it happen at this time. We don't know who was still in their rooms and who was already off to breakfast or meeting before class." He pondered to no avail.

He shook his head. Panic gripped him, but he couldn't let himself be consumed by it. He needed to stay calm and make the right decisions.

Clare was bent over Sahpines' motionless body. They were just on their way to meet up with the boys and get breakfast together when suddenly a loud crunch was followed by the groaning of stressed stone. They were lucky, as they were already on the stairs downstairs, but unlucky, as the stairs fractured and crumbled, dropping both girls and stone debris down a floor.

Clare was protected, by sheer luck, from the falling debris by Saphine, but the other girl was bruised and hurt, half buried in degree, one of her arms pointing in a strange direction.

Clare did everything she could with her healing magic to keep Saphine alive. While she concentrated, she couldn't hear the footsteps on the upper floor until it was too late.