So, suffice to say my first day of courses had some ups and a lot more downs. House Essentials was interesting, at least, even if I was at risk of becoming a teacher’s pet–which, if you asked any of my grade school teachers, would be a possible sign of a pending apocalypse. But both Basic Lore and Physical Training had proven themselves draining and tedious, and, partially thanks to Gwyn and my own naivety, were taught by instructors who did not like me. Almara hadn’t shown any particular distaste to me today, but I wasn’t ready to think that the Amethyst Magister was the type to let bygones be bygones.

  After I recovered from my borderline-lethal first day of physical training, I accepted Fennia’s invitation down to Glitterdust Lake, along with Calum, a handful of other Vigilant House students, and a dozen Iron Curriculum students. The water lived up to its name, sparkling under the bright afternoon light of the artificial sky, and while I didn’t have the energy to go swimming, or even to go back to the dorm and change into my swimwear, just sitting at the waterside, letting my feet and lower legs soak while my body finally began to cool down, was more than worthwhile.

  As I had noticed earlier, the weather was warm and sunny, closer to spring than the early autumn I had left behind on Earth. I had no idea what that meant for the passage of time between my old world and my new one, but as I laid back on the sandy shoreline, I certainly didn’t have it in me to argue, or even think about it too much.

  My grademates, and even a few of those from the Iron Curriculum, were warmer to me now, commiserating with me over my punishment at the hands of the Senior Delvers. At the very least, I had to give Gwyn that–her little trick had done quite a bit to wear the shiny newness off of Vigilant House’s only human student. Nothing made you less special and unique in the eyes of your peers quite as effectively as getting chewed out by a superior.

  Somehow, though, I doubted that Gwyn did it out of the kindness of her heart, and despite the relaxed torpor sinking into my body, I found myself dwelling on petty revenge against the central ellid girl.

  There is one more thing that bears mentioning. That afternoon, resting on the shores of Glitterdust Lake, socializing with my grademates, was the first time I actively noticed one ellid, standing a bit aside from the rest of them.

  She was a central ellid girl, her skin a deep bronze and her hair a brilliant white that she let hang down her back. She sat in the shade of a tree not far from the shoreline, a book sitting open and ignored in her lap as she watched the rest of us with a look I should’ve recognized as wistfulness, the space between her and the rest of us almost tangible.

  I didn’t approach her. I didn’t even think about it, honestly. I was mentally and physically drained, what little energy I had left dedicated solely to vengeance. I barely even noticed her in the moment, only seeing her as a passing curiosity.

  I wonder if she thought the same about me?

  #

  That night, Calum and Nenis made dinner. The two deep ellids, I had learned, came from the entirely subterranean city of Onyx, located underneath the Diamondtip Mountains to the east (yes, those were their real names. Elida was obsessed with crystals, if you hadn’t noticed.)

  They prepared a sampling of the food native to their home–thick, grilled slices of mushroom, which was a little too firm and a little too flavorful, but which overall reminded me of portobellos, served over a creamy mash of root vegetables not so different from potatoes, only blue and salty.

  There were some groans and mutters about the odd fare, but I dug into the unfamiliar food, fascinated by the similarities between Elidan and Earth recipes.

  Over dinner, Calum discussed the need to set up a rotation for cooking and cleaning, and despite some resistance from Gwyn’s circle of hangers-on, the grade collectively agreed to follow whatever set up Calum put together.

  After we ate, I stayed in the common area for longer than normal, making an extra attempt to socialize with my grademates. Essern attempted to teach me vess paw, the card game that half-a-dozen of the boys passed their nights playing, but the over-complicated rules and quiet glares from a few of the boys who were in Gwyn’s perpetual orbit resulted in me throwing a few hands and making a quick exit.

  I soon found myself sitting with Fennia and Calum, chipping in my thoughts on the shift rotation he was trying to draft up while Fennia did her best to distract him. It was obvious to everyone, except apparently Calum, that Fennia had it bad for him, but he seemed (somehow) immune to her charms.

  In general, Calum seemed untouched by the constant miasma of romantic entanglements natural to any collection of people in their late teens and early twenties. At some point, I had started wondering if he was asexual, or whatever the local equivalent of that was.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  The local differences in terminology kept catching me. I suppose, as I had lived in Elida for barely a week, that was probably fair, but the language was still a constant reminder of this world’s alien nature. Courses and grades, at least, made sense. Both of those things would’ve been called classes back home (like “english class” and “the freshman class”), but here, class referred first and foremost to rogue, warrior, and the others granted by identity crystals.

  Another change was that weeks were “spans” (and only six days long) while months were “cycles.” The ellid calendar was (thankfully) close enough to my own that I didn’t have to be wary of the “actual” age of everyone around me. 360 days were divided into three seasons, each of which consisted of four cycles of thirty days. I had learned over dinner that the seasons were similar, but slightly different, from those I was used to. We were currently in Bloom, the first season of the year, which included what I knew as spring, through the first half of the summer. Next was Wither, the harvest time that included the hottest parts of summer through early autumn, then Repose was the end of autumn and all of winter, changing to Bloom as things began to warm up.

  Primevus, fittingly, had three terms per year, each three cycles long, leaving one cycle of each season for rest and recovery between terms. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do when those breaks came around, but that was a problem for future Dani.

  I still had some outstanding questions, of course. As I had noticed, I arrived in Elida at a very different time of year than I had left Earth. Did that mean time had passed between my accident and waking up in the dungeon? Did time pass differently between the two worlds, or was it a product of the same astronomical phenomena that led to the slightly different calendar?

  And that was leaving aside my questions surrounding exactly what language I was speaking. It seemed unlikely that Englishwas the native language of Elida, yet I could both read and write legibly, as easily understood by the ellids as I understood them, with only a few exceptions.

  I had noticed, for example, that the Magisters referred to the bus that had hit Fallon and I as “a large vehicle,” which was technically correct, but likely blurred because the ellids didn’t have a word for a bus, or a car. Elida as a whole was fairly metropolitan, but as far as I could tell, it was still pre-industrial.

  Swears were another word I had noticed didn’t translate great. Ellids seemed to understand “fuck” contextually, just like I understood “breaking” or “dar crap,” even if I didn’t know what a dar was.

  I kept these questions to myself, though–there was enough of a boundary between me and my grademates without asking deep questions about the nature of time and communication in their world. There would be plenty of time for that once I was more than an oddity to the majority of the school.

  “Dani?” Fennia broke me out of my reverie. “She left a few minutes ago, if you’re still up for this.”

  “I really, really wish you wouldn’t do this,” Calum cautioned quietly. “Nothing good can come of it.”

  “I have a point to make,” I told him. “I’m ready if you are, Fen.”

  The coastal elf winked playfully. “Wait here, count to thirty.”

  I nodded, doing as she asked while she made her way upstairs. Once I had finished my count, I gave Calum a nod good night, garnering a judgemental sigh in return, and slipped upstairs.

  Fennia was waiting one flight up, outside of the bathrooms. “Gwyn’s in the bath,” she confirmed.

  I smirked, and we both continued upwards. After a brief stop in our rooms, we continued to the top floor. Gwyn had, of course, locked her door, but Fennia had the fastest fingers in our grade, and she had the door open in mere moments..

  We slipped into her ridiculously lavish rooms, (I mean seriously, plush carpets, silk sheets, down blanket, what the hell?) and despite my desire to trash the entire place, we did only what we came to do.

  Fennia held up Gwyn’s tall, heavy boots for me, while I poured a bag of lake mud into each of them.

  Petty? Yes. Immature? Certainly But it was the closest I had felt to a normal college student since I took that damned bus to Coastside. I was pretty okay with it, all things said and done.

  Afterwards, with a final conspiratorial grin, Fennia and I split up, her to return to her unsuccessful attempts to flirt with Calum ( a waste of time I was only mildly jealous of, I promise), while I went to my rooms–and promptly pushed my desk over against my door. I wasn’t going to make it too easy for Gwyn to get back at me.

  That done, I felt myself relax a little bit. My room was cramped, rough, and not very comfortable, but it was still mine. Just being there, getting some time to soak in the quiet of being by myself in a space all my own, was comforting in a small, but significant way.

  Out of habit, I pulled out my status crystal, interested if a day of classes had done anything for my experience.

  [Danielle Starcrossed]

  [Level: 1]

  [Primary Class: Rogue]

  [Status: Healthy, 0/20 AP]

  [Experience: 12/30]

  Huh. An actual extra experience point. Interested, I flicked over to my action log, scrolling around until I found the source of it.

  > Strenuous athletic activity completed, 1 experience gained.

  Well. Maybe there was a point to all of that running around.

  It was… something, at least. Already, I suspected my experience was a bit ahead of my grademates, since most of it had come from fighting a bunch of shadows back in that first dungeon. If they gained experience at the same rate as me, I might even reach level two weeks before the rest of my class.

  Yeah. Somehow, I didn't think it was going to be that easy.