Jaux Ballad has always wanted to enter the realm of magic, but could not do so by regular means. In his desperation to become a magician he finds himself with more power, and more trouble, than he could ever have imagined.

*=+=*=+=*=+=*

In the morning, Frey took the book upstairs to the library. She forgot to ask Suhara which person got the book from the archives, so Frey had to ask each librarian separately.

"Were you the one who retrieved this book for my roommate?" Frey held the book out to the fourth librarian.

The fourth librarian was a bald man with glasses. He studied the cover and read the title, then his eyes lit up in recognition. "Ah, yes. I believe that was me. Theema... I remember now. I gave that book to a girl with violet eyes."

"Alright, cool," said Frey, "we just wanted to know if this is a legitimate history book. It's very important that we be sure."

"Yes, I am positive that it is," said the librarian. "It was archived with confirmed historical records."

"Great! Thank you very much!" Frey stuffed the book into her bag, waved goodbye, then turned and walked off.

=+=+=

Suhara still wasn't used to attending scheduled meals.

Back in Welldrop, she always ate whenever she had food on hand. That was how it worked when you were poor, parentless, and had to take what you could. She never bothered to eat at specific moments. Suhara had skipped breakfast quite a few times already. She might have also skipped it today, if her roommates didn't drag her down towards the cafeteria.

"I always thought you just ate breakfast alone or something." said Tricks.

"Yeah, I can't believe you were skipping all these meals!" said Desyi.

The girls were scolding Suhara, trying to explain the importance of eating a morning meal. They told her about nutrition, energy, calories, and metabolism. Suhara retained none of the information.

Food was just food to Suhara. If she didn't starve, she didn't mind.

"Geez, you Beradinians are so loopy." said Tricks.

The steamy odors of fresh food washed over the girls as they entered the lunchroom. Plates were organized on the counter, and most of them were filled with eggs, meats, and breads. Different types of drinks sat further down the counter.

Tricks skipped ahead first, and grabbed one of the meat-heavy dishes. Frey and Desyi both got a dish that contained salad with some bacon strips. The three girls sat down at an empty table, and called for Suhara to hurry up.

Suhara stood by the counter for several minutes as she inspected all the dishes. She eventually settled on a dish with rice, chicken, and eggs.

When Suhara took her dish and turned around, she found her path blocked by a horde of students. Roy Intone stood in front of the horde.

"You're gonna pay for yesterday, savage." said Roy.

Suhara's expression was blank. She had no idea what Roy was talking about. Suhara's roommates all gathered her a second later.

"You got a problem with our friend, punk?" said Frey.

"Yeah! That bitch assaulted me for no reason yesterday!" said Roy.

Suhara's head pulled back in disbelief. "Huh? No I didn't you liar!"

Tricks shook her head and laughed. "As if Suhara would ever do that."

"Then I'll prove it!" Roy stormed off, his mob leaving with him.

Desyi scratched her head as she watched them leave. "Are we supposed to follow him?"

"Nah, forget about it," said Frey. "Let's just get back to breakfast."

The girls sat down at their table, and enjoyed breakfast. They ate from their own plates, but also traded bits of each other's dishes. While they ate, the girls joked about Roy's tough act. Frey and Tricks both claimed they could singlehandedly take out Roy's entire posse.

Just as everyone was beginning to finish their meals, Roy and his group returned to the cafeteria. An older woman was with them.

Roy crossed his arms and looked smug, while the woman went up to Suhara.

The woman coughed aloud to get everyone's attention, then pulled out a crystal ball with an image playing through it. "Young lady, I just administered a memory spell and confirmed that you assaulted a student."

The crystal ball showed a moving image of Suhara. In the cloudy image, Suhara was seen walking up and throwing a quick punch from the side. This recording of events kept repeating itself. Suhara and her friends gasped in disbelief. In the image, Suhara's face was stoic, and she stared straight into the distance.

"No way! That never happened!" said Suhara.

A single brow raised itself on the woman's face. "Really? Then are you willing to subject yourself to a memory spell to confirm?"

Suhara nodded nervously. "Uh... yeah!"

The woman pulled out a clear crystal ball from her bag, and held it over Suhara's head. "Alright, hold still."

Suhara felt as warm heat seemed to radiate up out of her head. She couldn't see it, but the crystal ball was displaying an image from her point of view. In the image, she walked out from the practice room and headed to the library. A bald librarian went up to her and asked something. There was a pause as Suhara gave her reply, then the librarian clapped his hands together and led Suhara to one of the archive rooms. He extracted a book, took off half a dozen enchantments, then handed the book over. After that, Suhara walked to her dorm.

"That's odd. Your memory does indeed contradict Mister Intone's memory." The woman backed away and examined the crystal ball closely.

"What?!" said Roy. "Impossible! She assaulted me last night! I have bruises and everything!"

"I'm afraid I can't resolve a matter with contradicting facts." said the woman.

"Fine! Then I challenge you to a duel, savage!" Roy pointed at Suhara as he made his declaration.

Suhara growled lightly. "Fine, I'll kick your butt this time!"

"Yeah right, you can't beat the prince!" said a girl from Roy's group.

"She'll smash his stupid face in!" said Tricks.

A heated argument broke out between the two groups. Students began to draw out their staves. The woman stepped between the groups to calm down the situation.

"I can sponsor the duel," said the woman. "It can be set three days from now. However, any students I witness fighting will be punished accordingly."

After everyone had quieted down, Suhara and her roommates all left the cafeteria.

=+=+=

Suhara sat through another boring session of arithmetical magic. She learned how to put a timer pattern into her spells, which causes them to activate after a delay. The timer patter was a common pattern for magic traps, but Suhara didn't know any trap type spells.

During her potion class, Suhara learned how to mix up a potion to cure hunger to go with her potion that cured thirst. The potions were a useful addition for when someone is traveling a long distance.

Sellwall had been delighted by the news of Suhara succeeding in acquiring a master class spell. That brought her total to ten standard spells, three advanced, and one master. Five more standard and two more advanced would mean that Suhara could start receiving special spells from Sellwall.

Tomorrow was the day of the trip to Orouna, which meant it would be difficult to practice spells. Despite that, Suhara was still determined to learn the rest of her required spells within a day.

=+=+=

The Marlifa Lyceum had a gym, which was often used for paladins in training.

Frey took Suhara over to the gym, in order to measure strength. Suhara claimed that she had one fourth the power of a vampire, but Frey wanted to confirm it for herself.

There were several massive cylindrical weights laid out on the ground. Each had a pair of rings at the top for a person to lift it with. Frey demonstrated by lifting the weight that was marked sixty kilograms. She lifted it only by bending her arms, and kept her legs leveled. "This is the one I can lift consistently. If I use my best strength blessing, I can lift over eight times that amount of weight."

"Over eight times?" Suhara's hand went up to her chin as she tried to figure out the math. "Wow, so about five hundred? That's more than half a ton!"

Frey smiled proudly, and placed one hand on her hip."Yep, I can lift a cow over my shoulders if I wanted to. If I used some other blessings together, I can lift even more than that."

Frey then gestured to the twenty kilogram weight. "Start lifting the weights until you find your limit, Suhara."

Suhara complied, and started to lift the weights one at a time. She was able to lift past Frey's sixty kilogram mark. When Suhara reached one hundred kilos, she started to have trouble getting the weight off the ground.

After a few tries at lifting the hundred, Suhara gave up and let go out of the weight. "I think ninety kilos is my limit."

Frey pulled out a small piece of parchment once Suhara was finished. "Hm, that's about right. A newly created vampire averages about three hundred and seventy kilograms of lifting strength. You really are at a quarter of vampire power."

"Told you," said Suhara, "so can we go back to the room now?"

"Not yet, I want to see you use that strength doubling curse. Let's see if it all scales up." said Frey.

Suhara grumbled with frustration, but still walked over to the hundred and eighty kilogram weight. She used her strength aura for about twenty seconds, then deactivated it and tried to pick up the weight. The weight was lifted without any problems.

Suhara casually tossed the weight back onto the floor."Okay, there, it doubles. Can we go now?"

"Not yet, not yet." Frey walked up and placed her hands on Suhara's back.

"What now?" said Suhara.

Frey giggled, and leaned in to whisper into Suhara's ear. "Don't you want to see how strong you are with my strength blessing?"

That did catch Suhara's attention. If her strength went up by eightfold, she could probably toss boulders around...

Suhara spent the rest of the afternoon showing off and beating paladin students in competitions with her ridiculously augmented strength.

=+=+=

Suhara was doubled over and giggling to herself.

Frey was busy making wild faces and hand gestures while she was telling Tricks and Desyi what happened earlier. "Right, so the guy was all: 'Oh, I might have cast the spell wrong.' Then he did it again, and you could tell that he was concentrating real hard cause his face was all scrunched up. When he finished Suhara just kicked the ward and it went... poof, gone! You could tell she wasn't even trying. The guy who did the ward just made this stupid face and said 'whuh?' while the all the boys' jaws all fell open!"

Now Tricks and Desyi were laughing too.

Frey waved her hands excitedly to have the girls keep quiet so that she could continue. "Oh, and this other paladin boy was now trying to say he was way faster, right? So he tries to race Suhara from one side of the room to the other. He put some step booster enchantments on his legs, then he got all serious and took a dumb running stance where he crouches low. When they signaled go, Suhara hopped halfway across the room in a single leap! That boy stopped in the middle of his first few steps, you could just tell that he totally gave up in an instant!"

Tricks clapped her hands together and rolled on her bum as she laughed. "Aw dangit, I wish I went with you guys. Never liked those paladin jocks."

Desyi held her hands up to her mouth to suppress her giggles. "Oh, you'll definitely beat Roy with that kind of strength."

"Eh, I can only do the cool stuff with Frey's blessing." said Suhara.

"Hey, a hundred and eighty lift is still gonna wreck Roy," said Frey. "So long as you don't get a sand themed arena again."

The girls continued to gossip and enjoy themselves throughout the night. Since tomorrow was the trip to Orouna, they made some plans on where to go and what to do. Suhara had never been to Orouna, so she just let her roommates make the preparations.

It was going to be a fun day. Suhara was sure of that.