Page 31

“You okay Emily? You’ve been kind of out of it since I came to get you earlier?” Juliana asks with a look of concern while eating a spoonful of her oats.

Emily looks up from the toast she is half-heartedly pulling apart.

What do I even say? ‘Sorry, just a little confused because I didn’t even know today was my birthday but the mysterious voices in my head told me when I checked this morning.’ Oh, or maybe ‘Sorry, just feeling a bit depressed that it’s my birthday and half my family is dead, and I can’t contact the other half for fear of them being killed too!’

Sighing, she reaches up to wipe the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes.

“Sorry, it’s my birthday today and I’m feeling a little depressed that I can’t see my family.”

“Oh.” Juliana seems at a loss for words, choosing to silently take Emily’s hand under the table and give it a supportive squeeze; a gesture Emily appreciates as she ignores the uncomfortable feeling of Tom and Hester giving her looks of pity.

They all eat the rest of their breakfast in silence, only speaking again as they prepare to leave.

“What lessons do you have today?” Juliana asks while releasing Emily’s hand and standing up.

“I have geopolitics now and hand-to-hand combat after lunch. I can’t wait to beat someone up,” Emily responds with a smirk, trying to lighten the mood she killed.

“Geopolitics actually isn’t that bad, maybe listen for the first ten minutes at least before you knock the teacher out?” Juliana responds in kind, getting a chuckle out of Emily.

“Sure, I’ll consider it.”

Juliana hugs all three of them, giving Emily a few seconds of extra attention, before waving goodbye and stepping into a transportation room.

“Right, let’s go too,” Emily says to the twins, heading towards her first lesson of the day.

***

Once again, the only ones in the classroom are Emily, the twins and Nico. The teacher who shows up is a small man with greasy black hair and crooked glasses.

“Hello class, my name is Theodore Eleocharis, second circle mage, and I’m here to teach you all the fascinating subject of geopolitics,” he says while turning to the board and raising his chalk. “As I’m sure you all know, our wonderful planet of Ulea is a sphere. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool and should reconsider their education carefully.”

“Ha, I like him.” Emily hears Tom mutter under his breath, making her chuckle.

“We estimate our planet to have a radius of about five thousand kilometres and a surface area of about three hundred and fourteen million kilometres, an easy answer to reach if you know simple maths. This area is covered by roughly sixty per cent land mass, split between the three major continents.”

As he speaks, Mr Eleocharis draws four large blobs on the board. In the centre is a large, top-heavy mass. To the right is a chunky mass in line with the top half of the first, and below it is a small stretched-out mass with a disconnected blob below it.

“The first is the Keban continent.” He points to the large mass in the centre. “This continent is where we live, and it makes up around seventy-three per cent of the world's land mass. Next is the Dennari continent.” He points towards the second largest mass. “This continent makes up around twenty-one per cent of the world’s land mass. And that leaves the Lerus Isles down here, with only six per cent of the world’s land mass.” He points to the two small masses in the bottom right of his diagram before turning back to face the class.

“Now, what can any of you tell me about these continents?”

There is no reaction from the students, and after a couple of seconds, Mr Eleocharis sighs and opens his mouth to speak again. But before he can say anything, Nico tentatively raises his hand.

“Yes?” Mr Eleocharis asks sharply.

Nico flinches and lowers his hand before saying quietly:

“Um, most of our planet has a dry climate.”

“Good! Anything else?” Mr Eleocharis asks in a gentler manner.

“There is only one rainforest on our planet, The Glade, it’s on the Keban continent to the south of Chroni. Also, there are three main forests, one in the far southwest of Keban, one directly west of Chroni, and the last one is in the northeast of Dennari,” Nico continues, slowly relaxing more as he speaks.

“Very good, Mister?”

“Nico Robinson, first circle mage of house Hedera sir.”

Emily frowns as he answers.

They were on Jenny’s list; I’ll have to avoid him.

“Five points to Nico Robinson, can anyone else tell me anything?” Mr Eleocharis rewards Nico with his points at the podium while looking over to Emily’s group.

Emily considers for a moment before raising her hand.

“Go ahead, and introduce yourself first please, you should all get into the habit of introducing yourselves the first time you answer a question in a class with a new teacher.”

Why weren’t we told that in etiquette? Never mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Stick-Up-His-Ass assumed we were all stupid commoners who would never give useful input.

“Emily Coldstone, first circle mage of house Mandrago. There is a volcanic region in the south of the Lerus Isles and a large desert to the north of us on Keban.”

“Good, there certainly is.”

Mr Eleocharis turns back to the board and begins adding to his diagram.

“This entire island here is a volcanic region which spreads to the seabed around it.” He draws a small cracked open mountain in the centre of the disconnected island. “Forgive my poor drawing, this is geopolitics, not art.”

“Then as provided by Nico, we have a rainforest here.” He sections off a small segment in the southeast of Keban touching the coast, drawing a water droplet in the centre. “And forests in these places.”

He sections off the southwest quarter of the Keban coast, a bubble just below the centre of the continent, and the northeast quarter of Dennari’s coast. Drawing a small tree in each of them.

“Now as for deserts, Emily told us about the large desert in the north of Keban.” He draws one line horizontally across the centre of the continent, and another to cut off the top tenth. He draws a small curly wind symbol in the centre.

“How is that a desert?” Tom voices Emily’s internal thoughts quietly next to her.

Mr Eleocharis turns his head and fixes Tom with a glare, clearly having heard his comment.

“Not art, if you have a better symbol, I’d gladly use it. No? Didn’t think so,” he rapidly fires off before turning back and continuing without pause. “But what she didn’t mention, is the other two major deserts on Dennari.” He draws a line from the edge of the northeast forest to the far southwest coast, and another slightly higher up to the centre of the north coast. After labelling both sections with his totally-not-desert wind symbol, he gestures to the thin empty strip curving through the centre of the small continent and dividing the northwest desert from the other regions.

“Now, can anyone tell me what these sections are?”

Nico raises his hand again and answers when prompted.

“Arid grasslands?”

“Good!”

He draws a grass shrub on the strip, as well as on the main body of the Lerus Isles and the bare centre of Keban.

“Now, there is one final major biome on our planet. Do any of you know where and what it is?”

As Mr Eleocharis looks back again, this time it is Tom who raises his hand.

“Oh, what a surprise, the artist wants to contribute.”

Tom clicks his tongue and grumbles out his response:

“Tom Valentine, first circle mage of house Dahlia. Is there a mountain range somewhere in the west of Keban?”

“Yes, there is,” Mr Eleocharis agrees with a nod while turning back to the board. “There is a mountain region right here separating the southern forest from the rest of the continent.”

He sections off a small strip between the two forests on Keban and draws a mountain in the centre.

“Right,” he says with a clap while turning back to the class with a wide smile. “Now that we have established our world map. What resource do you all think fuels tensions across borders?”

Nico raises his hand and Mr Eleocharis nods for him to speak.

“Metal?”

“Nope, anyone else? Feel free to call out, there aren’t exactly a lot of us in here.”

“Fertile land?” Hester offers, joining in for the first time.

“A good idea, but not quite, Miss?” he asks with an irritated tone.

“Hester Valentine, first circle mage of house Dahlia,” Hester quickly adds in response.

“Mana veins,” Emily says with conviction.

“Yes! A perfect answer Miss Coldstone. Five points to Emily Coldstone,” he says, placing his hand on the podium. “The most valuable resource a country can fight for is mana veins themselves. While different mana crystal types will be formed depending on the region, the most consistent indication of value is the number of mana veins within a territory. Let’s now break this map down into the different countries, and then we’ll look at where their important mana veins are and what they produce.”

Turning back to the map, he starts drawing dividing lines. First, is a large line curving from the northwest of Keban, a third of the way along the top grassland strip, through the centre of the desert, the central forest, and curving to horizontally split the rainforest. The right-hand side of this line is labelled as the Modo Kingdom, and the left as the Morzea Republic. He circles the entirety of the Lerus Isles and labels them as Lebard. Then finally he splits Dennari in half from northeast to southwest, labelling the northwest as New Denntimo and the southeast as the Denros Kingdom.

Emily draws out the map from the board onto a double-page spread in her notebook, along with marking down the capital cities of each as Mr Eleocharis continues. The lesson soon ends after a brief overview of the mana-dense regions.

“That’s all we have time for today. I look forward to seeing you all in two weeks when we look at the current tensions between New Denntimo and Denros. If any of you would like to do some reading in advance, I’d suggest looking for ‘The Fall of Denntimo’ by myself, in the library. Dismissed!”

Bowing and leaving the classroom, Emily and the twins head towards the transportation rooms together while chatting about the lesson.

“The artist. The artist! Goddess, he was so rude for no reason,” Tom whines.

“Didn’t you say you liked his snark?” Emily chuckles.

“That was before the snark was turned on him,” Hester joins in.

“Urgh, you two are the worst!”

Tom speeds up and walks ahead of them with a scowl.

“Aww, don’t be like that. Maybe doing some drawing will calm you down,” Hester calls after him before breaking out in laughter with Emily.

As the two of them calm down, Hester turns to Emily and asks:

“Got any plans before lunch?”

“Nah, I think I’m just gonna head to the training rooms and meditate for a bit.”

“Got it, see you at lunch then. I’m going to go pacify the child.”

“Haha, good luck.” Emily gives a small wave and steps into a transportation room alone.

Making her way to the training rooms, she finds the only unoccupied room and selects the same settings as last time. Sitting down in the centre of the gathering array she attempts to clear her mind. However, her thoughts keep going back to her family.

Damn, I’m wasting points. I should have only chosen double density.

With her mood dropping further, it takes her twenty minutes to fully empty her mind and begin using the Technomancer’s Breath.

***

Two and a half hours later, Emily leaves the training room twenty-eight points poorer. As she walks towards the transportation rooms to go to the cafeteria, she checks her contribution points on the back of her crest: ‘128’.

I should use these more sparingly. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to earn a large batch more.

She enters the cafeteria with a scowl, in an even worse mood than this morning. Spotting Juliana and the twins, she walks over and drops down next to Juliana, dumping her notebook onto the table.

“You okay?” Juliana asks her worriedly.

“It’s nothing, I just wasted a load of contribution points because I couldn’t focus on my meditation, that’s all,” Emily answers sharply, shaking off the hand Juliana offered for support and immediately regretting it as she flinches back.

“Sorry, it’s not your fault,” Emily apologises with a sigh. “I’m just in a bit of a shit mood and I don’t think meditating was the right choice.”

“It’s okay, you drew a map in geopolitics, right?”

Emily nods, glad to change the subject.

“Want me to add my family’s territory to it?”

“Sure,” Emily agrees and opens her notebook to the map she drew, handing Juliana her quill. As Juliana starts drawing, Emily adds: “Oh, and I used solid lines for land borders and dotted for-“

She stops as she realises Juliana has already finished drawing a solid line around everything.

“Ah, sorry!” Juliana looks up with panic.

“It’s fine, I guess it adds character?” Emily says questioningly.

“As the resident artist, I’d say it totally improves the piece,” Tom adds to the conversation, having embraced his new nickname, probably to avoid his sister’s ribbing.

Emily and Hester laugh at his comment as Juliana looks at them with confusion.

Maybe spending my birthday with these guys isn’t so bad.

This is a poorly realised version of the map Emily drew!

(Don't judge me too hard, I'm not an artist and this was mostly to help me visualise while writing)