Fukarou’s large, owl-like eyes darted around. His pupils darted everywhere, taking in every single detail. He scanned the rough stone structures and the magical flicker of torchlight along the walls. Then, all at once, his eyes froze. His gaze locked onto the grotesque obsidian gate at the back of the hall, where thick, twisting vines dripping with mystical energy hung. The vines began to pulse softly with a purplish light, as if they were breathing.
Fukarou burst into loud, sharp cackling right on the spot. His head tilted with a sudden jerk at an unnatural ninety-degree angle, and he started flapping his arms wildly. The feathers across his back stood straight up all at once.
“Hold on a second… wait, what is that?! Where did that gate suddenly come from?! That wasn’t there just a moment ago!”
Silarias, Nyx, and the rest of the guild members turned their heads in perfect sync. They stared straight at Kaelid and Lila.
Kaelid and Lila exchanged a quick glance and instantly passed the look right along to Renuardo, who was leaning against a stone railing with a broad grin.
“Phew… yeah, yeah,” Renuardo let out a breath of relief. He rolled up his sleeves and grinned so wide his teeth showed. “It’s time.”
Renuardo cupped his hands around his mouth, took a deep breath, and bellowed at the top of his lungs through the entire space: “BOHHH! FEEDING TIME!”
The obsidian beneath their feet began to tremble violently. Small pebbles started dancing on the floor. A heavy, rhythmic thumping echoed from deep within the corridor behind the vines. The sound grew louder by the second, until the thick vines were shoved aside with a wild swing and snapped clean in two!
Uktar suddenly popped into view. The gargantuan creature first ambled into the hall on all fours, the ground cracking under his massive claws. But with every single step he took, he straightened his massive upper body a little further. Muscles strained under his thick hide. Wobbly yet resolute, he eventually stood straight up on his hind legs, towering high above everyone in the room. He stared right at Renuardo and began making a rapid sequence of hand signs with his giant claws. With intense gestures, he asked if it was truly feeding time, or if he had gotten up for nothing.
Before Renuardo could answer, Uktar’s gaze slipped to the side. His huge eyes caught sight of Miki and Ren. His face lit up in a single instant, and his ears began flapping in excitement. Without hesitating, Uktar sprinted straight toward the two little ones. The displacement of air nearly blew out the torches. He lifted them up in one fluid motion and threw them cheerily meters high into the air! Miki and Ren squealed with laughter as they sailed through the air.
After setting them back down carefully beside Nicola, Uktar began gesturing wildly in the most dramatic sign-language manner imaginable. His claws moved so fast they almost formed a blurry shadow as he explained just how terribly he had missed them and that they really needed to come visit him way more often.
Nicola stared at the spectacle with wide eyes. His jaw literally dropped. Stunned by the massive leap in communication, he turned to Renuardo in complete bewilderment.
“How… how can he communicate so detailed all of a sudden?! What did you do?”
Renuardo burst out laughing and slapped his thigh with a loud thwack. “Well… I had a few super fast learning sessions on making hand signs from two certain little tutors, paid for of course!”
Nicola’s bewilderment turned into a happy expression. He looked at Miki and Ren with a proud smile. “Aha… figures. Three slices of cake for the two of you!”
Fukarou watched the entire scene with wide eyes, nervously smoothing down his feathers. A visible aura of magical pressure began forming around the group.
“So… these must be the GOATS. I knew there was a difference compared to the rest, but I can feel such a freakishly strong spiritual pressure coming from every single one of you… The air in here is literally buzzing! Even from you little ones!”
Silarias stepped forward. A subtle, golden-yellow glow bloomed around his shoulders. He looked at Fukarou with a calm, open gaze.
“Stand up, my brother. We are equals here, take it easy… BUTTTTT now that you’re here anyway! There are a few things we really need to know about the university.”
Fukarou exploded into loud laughter. He laughed so hard that a whole cloud of down and loose feathers flew around his ears! With a quick flick, he flipped his cloak back, grabbed his round glass spectacles, and started wiping the lenses with his sleeve so hard that sparks nearly flew off them.
“Mm… yeeeeah!” Fukarou said with a smirking laugh. He set his glasses back tight on his beak and looked at the group. “I think I can definitely help you out with that. So, revamped GOATS… what is your question?”
Silarias leaned forward, placed his gauntlets firmly on the stone knob of his staff, and spoke: “What’s the deal with this place and its name? And what about all those other factions out there?”
Fukarou’s eyes began to shine like two fiercely burning stars. “Ohhh, that! Well, look…” He braced himself and began explaining with pure passion. “Besides the Ciphers, there are other massive main factions that truly claim to ‘be’. Seven of them in total, all with their own brutal, unique styles! Leading the pack are of course the Ciphers, the Sweets, the Floats, Occult X, and then we have Iron Vow, the Eclipse Seekers, and Solis Apex who actually matter and run the show around here!”
He gestured so wildly through the air that feathers fanned out from his sleeves to illustrate the sheer scale of the complex. “There were easily fifty billion stones used to build this entire structure! For comparison: the total number of paintings in the whole complex isn’t even a quarter of that.”
SUDDENLY Fukarou’s tone shifted. He leaned forward conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a mysterious whisper.
“But listen closely… not all paintings are what they seem. There are closed, sealed paintings. Canvases locked down with heavy magic. Someone is supposed to be standing in those paintings… a guardian, a guide, an ancient master. But those individuals haven’t been seen anymore. Long gone. Vanished off the face of the earth.”
He darted a quick glance around, as if the very walls were listening.
“So you have, apparently, somewhere deep in the forgotten corridors, a painting depicting a gorgeous, perfectly set round table… But it’s been empty for years. Nobody knows where the seat holders went. And the university stays completely silent about it.”
Cackling, he recovered his dramatic posture and flapped his arms wildly again. “And as for small factions? Literally new ones are born every single day! Simply because someone wants to set something up to support their own ideas or ideologies. Have you guys thought of anything yourselves yet?”
The realization hit the room hard. Everyone stared at Fukarou with open mouths. It grew so quiet you could hear the torches crackle; silent from the sheer scale and the dark mysteries of the university.
Nicola cleared his throat and stepped beside Silarias. “Are there secrets we should keep in mind? Things we must know? Because no… we thought it would be useful to start an Adventurers Guild.”
Fukarou nearly launched half a meter into the air out of excitement! “Why, that solves a whole lot of problems right away! There are so many places falling into trouble or about to, even inside the university itself. The university currently has no groups actually standing up for those kinds of matters… This is honestly insanely smart!”
He adjusted his glasses with one finger and locked eyes with Silarias. “Mm, I could check out what the other, bigger guilds have to say about this… Or even better, yes! I’ll have the head set something up. Athena will absolutely love hearing this! Mm yeah, very informative, all of this, thank you. If you need anything, you know where to find me—”
BOOM!
“ALL CLASSES ARE CANCELED FOR ONE DAY DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES!”
Solomon’s shrill, magical voice thundered so hard through the room that the crystal orb in the corner vibrated, driving a blue shockwave straight through the hall!
Fukarou burst out laughing again, clutching his stomach. “Haha! Looks like your old man just granted you extra time, Nyx! Haha, just don’t make it too obvious!”
Nyx’s face turned bright red on the spot. The shadows around her curled up playfully while she began squirming shyly, snickering through her laughter. “Yeah yeah… sorry, haha!”
Fukarou flashed from the bottom to the top of the hall in a fraction of a second. A whirlwind of floating feathers and gusting air was left behind, and he was gone without a trace!
Silarias lifted his massive staff and slammed it hard onto the obsidian floor.
CLANG!
A shockwave of pure golden light erupted from the tip of the staff and rolled across the floor, making every loose pebble in the hall leap up. The dull impact echoed powerfully through the space.
“This went perfectly… Really beautiful,” Silarias said, a bright, golden shimmer flashing in his eyes. “We only have two things left to settle: the final name and the location. As for the rest… perfect!”
He slammed his staff once more onto the stone. The wave of light flashed up again. “First meeting: SUCCESSFUL AND CONCLUDED! You are dismissed!”
The hall erupted into motion instantly. It was an explosion of sound and energy. Everyone stood up, full of energy and cheer, talking amongst themselves as they headed for the exit.
“Phew, man, that took forever!” Vulkan laughed, throwing his arms out as tiny flames sparked from his fingertips.
“Yeah, but it went really well,” Jane answered with a wide smile.
The entire group strolled noisily up the spiral staircase. Their footsteps sounded like a marching band on the stone steps. Eventually, only Nicola, Silarias, Nyx, and Uktar remained behind in the great hall. Nicola made a move to follow the rest, but when he turned back, he saw Uktar staring at the ground looking utterly heartbroken, his shoulders slumped. Even his giant ears hung completely limp.
Nicola stopped, turned around, and executed a quick, clear sequence of hand signs toward the massive creature.
Uktar… until tomorrow. I have a gift for you.
Uktar’s eyes went wide as saucers and lit up brightly. He began signing back completely hyped with his massive claws, so wildly he nearly tipped over!
For me?! Really for me?! Okay, I’ll wait!
With a gigantic grin plastered across his face, Uktar went swinging back into the deep cave, stomping his feet like Christmas had come a day early.
Silarias walked up beside Nicola toward the stairs and gave him a firm shove against his shoulder. “Haha! Since when did you get so expressive, Nic?”
Nicola looked down at his own hands, where a light magical current was still flowing, and shrugged. A warm, gentle smile appeared on his face. “Yeah… I don’t know. But when I’m with you guys, I open my soul or something… And it feels nice.”
Silarias gave him a warm look. “That’s damn good to hear, man. I’m really glad this went so well too!”
Silarias was so hyped that he broke into a little victory dance right there, hopping up the spiral staircase while tiny golden sparks burst from beneath his shoes. Nyx burst out laughing and joined right in with full joy, surrounded by dancing moon shadows. Nicola watched the pair, shook his head laughing, shrugged his shoulders, and at the top of the stairs just joined in dancing with full energy.
But the moment they reached the very last step, the aftermath hit like a heavy sledgehammer. The magic around them snuffed out in a single instant. A massive, paralyzing exhaustion swept over all three of them at once. Their legs suddenly felt like they were made of reinforced concrete.
Nicola grabbed the wall to keep from falling and yawned so deeply his jaw nearly cracked. Even his eyes began to water. “Mm… Sil… I’m completely wiped out. I need to sleep right now.” Without another word, he trudged off toward his room with dragging feet.
Silarias and Nyx wanted to quickly wish the rest a good night, but when they looked into the dormitories, they saw everyone was already dead to the world. Everyone was passed out across their beds in bizarre positions; they had literally gone knock-out the second they hit the mattress.
Nyx looked at Silarias with heavy, half-lidded eyes. Her pupils were already starting to drift. “Are you feeling this too… Do we just give in to it, or…?”
Silarias slowly shook his head, his own eyelids growing impossibly heavy. “No, no… We give in. See where the ship docks. So Nyx… aren’t you completely exhausted too?”
They shuffled heavily toward their bed, the tiredness seeming to slow down the space around them with every step. As soon as their bodies hit the mattress, they dropped like bricks. They curled up close together and instantly fell into each other’s arms.
The room went pitch black. The torches softly died out. And at the exact second their consciousness completely drifted away into the deepest, heaviest sleep…
A joyful, echoing giggle sounded ever so softly through the absolute silence of the room…