As Elbexas had told me, my arrival to Primevus was well-timed, and I had a few days to relax and catch my metaphorical breath before classes started.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend a fair portion of that time in my room, by myself, enjoying the simple pleasure of solitude. But in a world without phones, or computers, or televisions, that wore out pretty quickly, and by my third day in Vigilant House, I started venturing into the common areas more often, spending more time with my grademates.

  Although they made their best efforts, I found it hard to get along very well with most of the other grade one rogues–we were just too different. Their gossip, their card games, their literature, it was all bound up in a culture that I just didn’t understand. At the very least, they did start explaining the ellid nations to me, giving me names for the varieties of ethnicities I had noticed, including deep ellids (like Calum and Nenis), sea ellids (like Essern and Fennia), and central ellids (like Gwyn and Charrin), among an assortment of others.

  Thanks to the introduction Elbexas had made, Calum was the most comfortable spending time with me, but despite how kind and considerate he was, something just didn’t click. He and Fennia, who seemed to spend a large amount of her time around him, were both great people, but they reminded of those jocks that everyone was friends with in high school. The kind of person who was on good terms with everyone, but who you didn’t really want to hang out with that much.

  That left me a bit bereft, socially, unable to really connect with Calum and his friends while scorned by Gwyn and her posse. Still, he and Fennia at least kept me from going insane from boredom.

  #

  My third day in Vigilant House, after breakfast–morning meal, that was hard to adjust to–Calum took me to the Outpost, the general shop for students' needs.

  “Grade one students receive 1,000 credits per term,” he explained. “Outside currency can be spent to supplement that balance, of course, but since I doubt that’s happening for you any time soon…”

  I jumped on the chance to throw out a guess I had been slowly growing in the back of my head. “That’s not true of you, though, right?”

  Calum froze for a moment, looking at me cautiously. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re obviously a social rival to Gwyn,” I reasoned aloud, “and she’s some kind of noble, right? I figure that means you probably have some kind of influence too.”

  Calum narrowed his eyes, and I could see the carefulness in his body language. “My family is well off, yes. I’d rather not talk about it.”

  I blinked. That was the first time since I had met Calum that he had so completely shut down at a question I asked. “Right, okay.” I swallowed a little, fumbling for a change of topic. “Uhm… so, 1,000 credits. What’s the value like on those?”

  Calum continued to watch me closely, his eyes suspicious in a way I didn’t entirely like, but he kept walking, even if he was still obviously a bit closed off.

  “Enough that we can get you comfortable,” he finally explained, “but not enough that you can spend like there’s no end.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Speaking of which…” Now he was the one speaking carefully. What was going on with his family, that the mere mention of them got him this uptight? “Do you have any other clothes? I mean, aetherweave is nice and all, but I haven’t seen you wear anything besides those.”

  I grimaced, realizing just how strapped my fashion sense had become. “No, not really. I mean, I have the armor I can conjure, but these are what I…”

  Wait a second, what did he just say? “What did you call this material?”

  Calum tilted his head, as if he thought I was making a bad joke. “Aetherweave? Did the Magisters not tell you that, either?”

  “The Magisters didn’t give me these clothes, Calum. I woke up with them in the dungeon.”

  The boy’s slender brows raised. “Really? That’s… weird.”

  “Is it?” I asked, genuinely not sure.

  “I mean, I don’t know anything about how hu–uhm, how you crossed over, but-”

  “It’s okay Calum, you can say ‘humans,’ I know what I am.”

  “Sure,” he told me, in a way that confirmed to me that he wasn’t going to stop any time soon. “It’s just that aetherweave is a magical cloth–I’ve only ever heard it coming from supply crystals. That’s why I figured the Magisters had given them to you.”

  “The leaders of this place are a lot of things,” I told him sourly, “but ‘concerned with my comfort’ is not one of them.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Calum lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “Sorry, sorry. But look, I’m sure we can see about getting you at least a few other outfits. Not made out of aetherweave, of course, but I’m sure we can figure something out on a budget.”

  #

  Looking around the Outpost, I was reminded of the camp store at the grounds where my family had gone camping a few times. It was similarly rustic–I suppose I couldn’t just keep calling everything “rustic” in a magical world, should I?–and carried just as wide of a variety of goods.

  Behind the counter was a central ellid, with the characteristic light hair and dark skin. He was noticeable mostly for how unnoticeable he was–on a campus of obviously dangerous and exceptional ellid, the shopkeep just sort of looked like some guy. Middle-aged, receding hairline, comfortably heavy.

  “Hey Genst,” Calum greeted him.

  “Good morning, Pupil Calum!” he responded merrily. “And… oh my!”

  I sighed. Being (nearly) unique got old fast.

  “This is Danielle,” Calum introduced me, stealing Elbexas’s tact of pretending there was nothing notable about me. “She needs to stock up on some essentials.”

  “Of course, of course. Let me know if you need help finding anything.”

  “That’s just the thing,” Calum explained. “Dani needs some help finding a few changes of clothes on a budget.”

  “A budget?”

  “Well, as a first-termer, she only has…” As he spoke, Genst turned the heavy logbook on his counter to face Calum, gesturing at a line. “...Five thousand credits?”

  “The Watchful Magister dropped by yesterday,” Genst explained. “Said he wanted to make sure the young woman was all taken care of.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course Elbexas couldn’t have just told me that.

  “Well…” Calum said, his voice heavy as he thought things over. “That… That changes things.”

  #

  A little less than an hour later, we emerged from the Outpost, thankfully bereft of any physical goods.

  The first, and largest, purchase I had made was called an inventory crystal.

  “Normally only connected first-termers can afford them,” Calum told me. “But if you can buy one, you definitely should.”

  Though it cost me more than a thousand credits by itself, I agreed with him that the inventory crystal was more than worth it. It actually dissolved straight into my status crystal itself, opening a new Inventory tab. From there, it functioned something like a blank supply crystal, allowing me to fill five slots with items–and the slots weren’t just limited to one item each.

  [Inventory]

  > Slot 1: Cosmetics and Sundries (Low bulk)

  > Slot 2: Linen outfit (purple centric)

  > Slot 3: Linen outfit (green centric)

  > Slot 4: Cotton outfit

  > Slot 5: Swimwear

  The first slot held an assortment of simple hygiene goods, including a lump of soap scented with something dark and floral, like roses soaked in brandy, a simple broad-toothed comb, a small container of tooth polish with a rough brush of its own, and a pad of a few light cosmetics (I missed doing my makeup, so sue me) with a miniature mirror. The first two outfits would supplement my (at this point, quite soiled) aetherweave clothing, while the cotton clothes were softer, meant for wearing to bed. The swimwear was something like a one-piece, skin-tight, black, and made of a thin, stretchy fabric Calum called popol.

  Once I got back to my room, I pulled my outfits out to hang them in my little wooden wardrobe. They appeared quickly, without the concentration required for my conjured items, simply appearing out of midair and into my waiting hands at a thought.

  I sat back on my bed, pleased. Even after my purchases, I had well over two thousand credits on my account, more than twice what a normal grade-one student had. My frustration with his utter lack of communication aside, I couldn’t help but be a bit thankful to Elbexas.

  Since my status crystal was already out, I pulled up my status window.

  [Danielle Starcrossed]

  [Level: 1]

  [Primary Class: Rogue]

  [Status: Healthy, 0/20 AP]

  [Experience: 11/30]

  —

  [Abilities: 1/5 slots assigned]

  [Equipment: 2/5 slots assigned]

  [Class Pool]

  [Action Log]

  [Inventory: 1/5 slots filled]

  After how much I had relied on my rogue abilities after first receiving them, it felt weird that I had barely touched them in the days since. I conjured my coat and armor pieces each day when I worked out, and brought out my daggers just to practice swinging them, but it had been made quietly apparent that it was considered rude to walk around the campus armed and armored.

  Of course, there was every chance that would change soon. In only a few days, classes would start.

  On a whim, I pulled out my soap and comb and decided to go down to the bath to wash up for the first time since my night in the Entrarium.

  #

  Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. From the sound of running water, there was someone already in the baths, and so I sat down outside of the doorway, waiting for my turn. I found myself sighing at the simple normality of it all–this felt like the sort of thing that I could’ve expected at a normal dorm back at Coastside.

  After what had to be twenty minutes, I pounded my fist on the door a couple times. “C’mon!” I called. “There are people waiting!”

  Finally, another hour and a half later (there was no clock, you can’t say I’m wrong), the door swung open and, from a cloud of steam, emerged Gwyn.

  Immediately, my face darkened. Her long, lean body was covered by a simple towel that showed off her svelte curves, and her hair was pulled up in a towel knot so tight that it drew her face out to its usual severity.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she greeted me, with all the joy of someone catching a raccoon in the garbage.

  “Ooooh, it was you,” I mimicked her, getting to my feet. “I should’ve known, after I didn’t hear your boots clomping through my ceiling.”

  Gwyn’s mouth twitched in a smile as gentle and comforting as a butcher’s knife. “In the future, I’ll stomp nice and loud, just for you, so you know when you won’t interrupt my bath.”

  I’d like to claim that I responded with a witty riposte that left her shocked and embarrassed, but instead I just told her, “Fuck off,” and pushed past her into the baths.