When the bell sounded, the students shuffled in. Some still yawning, others with parchment tubes tucked under their arms. At the front, professor Dullmere was already waiting. Bored and listless, as always. As the classroom filled itself, he wrote the lesson's theme the blackboard.

Basic Runewriting: Cathurian Glyph of Light Objective: Produce a stable, glowing rune. Ten merit points for success before the end of the lesson.

He waited until the last student had taken their seat. Instead of launching straight into the lesson, Dullmere raised his hand for silence.

"Before we begin, I want to introduce a guest student for this semester," he said. "Her name is Stitch. She is a flesh golem, so do not be alarmed by her unusual appearance."

The words dropped like stones into a pond. A ripple of whispers spread through the class as the flesh-golem stepped shyly inside, clutching her satchel close.

"She is not a registered student of Wildeguard," Dullmere continued, "but works as a library assistant at Bookhalla. She has been granted permission to attend a few practical sessions. While she has read extensively, she has little formal training. I expect you to treat her with civility."

Weylan hadn't expected things to move so quickly. He had no plan ready for her sudden arrival, and worse, no empty seat stood beside him. He turned to Faya, but she was already gathering her ink and quills. She caught his surprised look and gave him a quick wink.

"I need a spot closer to the window," she stage-whispered. "Sir Cloverton always complains he can't see the clouds from here."

Before Weylan could answer, she had slipped away, leaving a space open. He gestured for Stitch to take it.

She hesitated, blinking after Faya. "Well… that's friendly."

A sharp laugh cut the air. From two rows back, a boy drawled, "Careful, Weylan. Sit too close and she might stitch you into her next patchwork."

Snickers spread through the room. Another voice chimed in, louder: "Or maybe that's what he wants. Fancying a monster, eh, servant boy?"

* * *

Aldrich studied Weylan's reaction with cold precision. The boy's fists clenched as he half-rose, one hand drifting toward that pathetic, rust-flecked knife he claimed to keep for "sentimental reasons".

Sentimental, Aldrich thought dryly. More likely, he simply can't afford anything decent.

This was Aldrich's chance. He could clearly see it. One more comment, and the upstart house servant would draw a knife on someone in class. Maybe he'd even strike or stab someone. He'd be expelled before the sun set.

He opened his mouth for a scathing remark that would doom his rival, then he noticed the flesh-golems facial expression. Eyes wide, a trembling in the corners of her mouth. It was frightened, confused and almost crying. It was an ugly stitched up thing. But… obviously fully sentient and capable of feeling. It would probably never leave the safety of the library again after this. He mentally sighed. That wouldn't be fair. The poor thing wasn't responsible for its miserable existence.

He imagined hearing the voice of his noble house's bard, telling stories about knights and their oaths. Your sword defends the weak.

In his youth, Aldrich had wanted nothing more than to become a knight. Childish fantasies, but some things had stuck. Sometimes forgotten in a dusty corner of his mind, but still there.

The snickers turned uneasy and sounds of protest started to rise. About half of the class did not seem to like the abusive behavior. Weylan started to stand up, but then Valen Aldrich raised his voice to cut across the class, smooth and scornful.

"Really?" He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, his smile thin and dangerous. "Mocking a librarian's assistant? That's your idea of clever? Pathetic." His gaze passed over Stitch, then settled on Weylan. "The real question isn't whether she belongs here. It's whether he does. A servant playing at mage, dragging along anyone foolish enough to follow. If she sits beside him too long, she might start picking up his bad habits. Or his stable smell."

Weylan's angry gaze turned on him, every muscle tensing as if he'd been slapped in front of the whole class.

Aldrich's smirk deepened, clearly pleased with himself. He thought he had a good measure of the servant boy. Weylan wouldn't lose his temper when insulted himself, but that one had stung.

A thunderous clap silenced the class. For the first time since the students knew him, Dullmere stood fully upright and awake. His murderous glare intimidated even Aldrich. "Enough! This is not a menagerie, nor a theater for your petty rivalries. This is my classroom. And in my classroom, you will show respect. To me, guest students, and to each other."

* * *

Weylan noticed Alina sitting back down and returning a cudgel into her bag. Fortunately, Dullmere didn't seem to have noticed her.

The professors gaze swept the rows. Chairs creaked. Quills scratched nervously against parchment. No one dared laugh anymore.

Stitch kept her gaze down. Weylan put his hand on hers and gave her a reassuring smile. He whispered. "Don't worry. Some asshole always picks on the new one. You were just a convenient target."

"Easy target," she returned, but her breathing calmed down.

Dullmere began the lecture proper, conjuring a glowing version of the Cathurian rune in midair. Three graceful curves, like ripples, anchored by three equally spaced dots.

"The ink contains sun-crystal powder. It catalyzes with ambient mana to produce a harmless glow. This is the easiest single rune that still has a visible effect." He waved a finger. "Take care. Too much ink, it will sputter. Too little, it fails. Notice how the dots are connected to the main rune with fine lines? Do those with a line as fine as you can. If you manage to draw the rune with enough precision to start glowing, it will earn you ten merit points. To test if it works, just infuse it with a tiny amount of your own mana. Begin."

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Weylan's first attempt was... not glowing.

As he finished the glyph with sun-crystal ink and infused some of his mana into it, the paper suddenly shivered and then crumbled into a ball. The paper around the rune even smoked slightly.

"Seriously?"

He tried again. A fresh sheet. Slightly different brush pressure. Less curve on the second arc.

This time, the paper folded itself. Not entirely, just a single, gentle, rounded crease near the center. Again, the paper darkened around the rune as if heated.

"Okay… that's weird."

The professor stopped him before he finished his third attempt. Dullmere looked at his desk and raised an eyebrow. "Weylan, what is your mana type?"

"Shadow Affinity," Weylan answered.

"Then this ink is unsuitable." He went to his desk, rummaged in the drawers for a while and then produced a smaller, darker inkwell. "Everdark-squid ink. Harvested from the abyssal reef in the Marrowdeep Trench. That should be more conductive to shadow mana. Try that."

With the squid-ink, the folding effect remained, but became cleaner. The glyph's soft lines triggered a more deliberate curve. And the paper no longer took damage through an overheating rune.

It still didn't glow. But it obeyed. And the result repeated consistently for the next two pages.

Dullmere had made his rounds around the whole class, but with every try, he stayed longer at Weylan's desk. "There is still no light… but the effect is definitely structured and repeatable."

Weylan nodded.

"I'd say that's… a different effect entirely," Dullmere mused. "Interesting."

He went to the bookshelf at the end of the classroom and from the very bottom, pulled out a battered tome, bound in red leather. It's title read: "Handbook of Rune Documentation, Third Edition."

"Congratulation, Weylan. You have invented a new functional glyph. That means you are now obligated to submit a formal rune discovery report."

Weylan stared at the book as if it had grown teeth.

"You're serious."

"Always."

"Where in this book is the part about how to write such a report?"

"All of it. Just start with the basic documentation of your experiment, continue with the geometrical analysis of your rune, and then do and document the required tests and experiments specified in the following chapters. I'd like two sets of the results."

Weylan took the book like a man accepting a court sentence. "Can I just fail the class instead?"

"No," Dullmere replied. "You may also fail. But not instead."

As the professor moved on, Stitch leaned in and whispered, "Congratulations! It's rare someone finds a new rune effect. The last time was more than five years ago, when someone accidentally infused a water protection rune with fire mana. That one created a smell of wet fur."

Weylan groaned. "It'll take me weeks to even read that thing. I'm not a fast reader."

Now it was Stitch's turn to reassuringly pet his hand. "I've already read it. It's not that hard. Since you used an existing rune, you can just copy the geometrical analysis from the archive."

A whimpering sound filled the air and everyone turned to see Darken staring at his paper glowing, but also vibrating wildly. Then it burst into fire, which he quickly put out by putting one of his reference books on it.

Professor Dullmere groaned and went to him. "Darken O'Mighty. What have you done… Oh… I see. You are not a caster, so you couldn't infuse mana yourself. You do realize you were supposed to ask one of your classmates for help? But no, you improvised. Let me guess… You dripped some mana potion on the rune?

Darken nodded.

"That is… unwise. The potion's effect mixed with the magically active ink and created an unpredictable effect. It also probably dissolved or smudged part of the rune. Please do not do that again."

The low grumbling voice of Kane sounded from behind them. "You probably should have mentioned that earlier."

Dullmere turned to see the top of Kane's desk starting to emit sparks. He palmed his face. "Merciful Osha, protect us from folly…" Then he went to his teacher's desk and procured a bundle of leaflets. "I assumed that would not be necessary yet, but for homework, you will all read this pamphlet about work safety in rune writing."

He distributed the leaflets in the class.

Weylan skimmed through the contents and stopped at one point. "You're not supposed to tattoo runic glyphs on your body, because all mana-conductive inks are highly poisonous and less-conductive inks can cause overheating and burn injuries. Pity. Glowing tattoos would be cool."

Stitch shrugged and pointed at the paper that had folded itself into a ball.

Weylan gulped. "Maybe better not."

* * *

After the lesson Weylan took Stitch a bit aside to talk. "Well? That wasn't so bad, was it?"

She looked around at the other students and thought a moment. "At the start, I thought they'd get out torches and pitchforks for sure."

"That's for witches, not golems."

A female student passing them had heard his answer and stopped. "You clearly haven't read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, have you?"

Stitch and Weyland stared at her blankly. She gave them a warm smile and offered her hand to Stitch. "I'm Liselle of Darkwood. Welcome to our class! If you need anything like notes you can actually read, just ask me." She turned her head to Weylan. "I have seen your handwriting on the blackboard."

Stitch reluctantly shook the offered hand. "I'm Stitch. Library Assistant."

Liselle seemed intrigued. "Is that a class or a job description?"

"Job description. I don't have a class."

Now it was Weylan's turn to be surprised. "No class?"

Stitch slightly welted under the attention, but her voice held firm. "I'm trying to unlock a rare adventurer support class. It's silly, I know… I'll never get to leave the academy. But I always dreamt of joining a team for an excursion in the area."

Faya had finally managed to store her books her bag and joined them. "Hi, I'm Faya. Pleased to meet you."

Alina and Mirabelle had been on their way too, but they could tell that was a bit too much attention for the shy guest student and just gave her a friendly wave, before leaving the classroom.

Liselle was visibly intrigued. "Rare class? That sounds awesome. What is it called? What can it do? How do you unlock it, if there's requirements?"

Stitch calmed down a bit since that was something she could easily answer. "Well, it's the Monster Cracker class. It's a pure support class, specializing in harvesting monster parts and other also other resources like magical herbs, rare ores and minerals. To unlock it, you need basic knowledge in butchery, skinning, herb lore, monster lore, geology and mining."

The female revenant whistled. "That's a lot to know to start a class."

Stitch nodded, warming up to the conversation. "It is. I had lessons at the butcher in the village and with the local tanner. Geology, herb and monster lore I learned by books. It's the mining part I'm stuck with. There's not much of that in the area. I read a lot of theory, but to unlock the class, I need to actually mine some ore myself."

Weylan was also interested. "What can a rare class like that do, what a normal butcher can't?"

"You get the Harvest skill. That's what. Levelled high enough, you can use the innate residual magic of a monster's corpse to instantly preserve its meat or turn its hide into finished leather. Less waste, better quality herbs and minerals…"

Faya shuddered. "Cutting up dead body parts sounds horrible."

Stitch shrugged. "Someone has to do it. With the right skill, it's much faster and less messy. I was taught to do it by hand the normal way. Didn't get the smell off of my skin for days. At least it felt like that…"

The priestess absent mindedly petted her hare and swung to a different topic. "I didn't see you at the rave. Did no one invite you?"

Stitch looked at Weylan, who also clearly had no idea what she was talking about. Together they asked. "What's a rave?"

Liselle practically lit up. "Oh, it was amazing! Best musical performance in this entire world! And I've been to the Booming Grotto in the capital. I saw Archmage Deejay Gueatta himself laying down the beat. Not sure if he's a lich or just ancient, but his runic turntables shook the whole cavern!" She waved her hands for emphasis. "The Echo Vault's light spells were even better, though. Total sensory overload."

As the group made their way toward the cafeteria, Faya and Liselle continued chattering over each other, trying to explain what a rave was. Something between a musical performance, a thunderstorm and complete chaos.

They were overtaken by excited students hurrying past them. Weylan was instantly alarmed. Something was going on. Groups were appearing everywhere around them. From dorm rooms and classrooms, everyone converging on the courtyard in front of the cafeteria building.

Selvara landed on Weylan's shoulder, startling him. While the others were distracted by the sudden activity, the dungeon-fairy in raven form whispered in his ear. "Word just spread that the headmaster is going to make an announcement in the courtyard. Something important."

She needn't have bothered since the same information was shouted from group-to-group moments later.

Liselle perked up. "You think the other kingdoms finally joined us in the war against the goblins?"

Kane just now caught up with them coming from the direction of the latrines, still fumbling with his belt. He answered the question, though it had clearly been directed at Faya. "Don't get your hopes up. The other kingdoms have no troops to spare for the northern kingdom's problems. Not with all the monsters rampaging and the still ongoing containment efforts for the Krigesti."

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