Aemric woke up feeling refreshed. Yet another reason to feel like this power was too much, he supposed. He didn’t even feel tired after using it. If anything, he didn’t even feel like he needed as much sleep. It really was Dreaming.

  It wasn’t a class day, either. Everything was in place for doing whatever he damn well pleased. He settled for a good breakfast, a shower, and a day of playing games. Maybe he’d check on Tiria, too, but he just felt like he needed a break day. After dedicating more hours than were in the day to his new ‘job’ and college for the past week, he really didn’t feel bad about it.

  Around noon, this was interrupted by a knock at his door. He figured it was someone from his dorm there to tell him about some event, and so he paused, got up, and called out, “One sec.”

  He checked himself with a hand mirror, straightened out his sweat pants, and opened up. A young man – maybe a college student too, but he’d have to be a senior – in a blue suit stood there. This promptly concerned Aemric a little; unlike the uniform Tiria wore, he knew the exact meaning of this one.

  The man wore a business smile, too. “Hey there. Are you Aemric Kellenson?”

  “Yeah. That’s me. Uh, what’s up?”

  “I’m from Leansville-U’s magic department. We’re investigating something. Can I come in? We’ve got a few questions.” He presented a card – a student ID, but with a magic mark on it. The mark glowed a striking blue, and emitted a faint hum. Aemric was too distracted to read off the other man’s name.

  Oh, shit. LV-U MD was just an excuse to put magicians in the police force before they could go off and do other, better-paying jobs; all the colleges had one, since the magic students were required to work with the department anyway. They handled the everyday magic-related crimes and helped with the heavier stuff, too. “Uh, yeah. Come on in. I don’t really have anywhere to sit… I guess you can take the desk chair.”

  “I’ll stay standing. You can sit if you like.” The investigator closed the door behind him, and stood by it.

  Aemric figured he was probably screwed if there was trouble, so he opted to be grilled in comfort. He took the moment to shut his laptop, too, since it was still open on his game. Once he was settled in, he asked, “So… what’s this thing?”

  “We can’t say much. Can you use magic?”

  “No, I took the course in high school and got a Zero-Affinity mark.” He presented his own card, after a moment of scrambling to find it on his desk.

  Nine out of ten people were measured as having no magical affinity, and so got the mark if they ever took a class and nothing showed up on a test. Otherwise, they got that magic mark that the investigator had. If they didn’t take a class they got nothing, no mark at all. Most people didn’t take the classes, though, since it was a nine-in-ten of wasting an elective slot, and most schools didn’t even offer it as an elective.

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  “I see. But you know magic theory.”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess I do. Never got to use it for anything.” Aemric realized only a moment later why that was suspicious.

  “Did you detect any significant magic in this dorm recently?”

  Anyone who took one of those classes (and didn’t fail) could at least feel when a spell was going off near them, and could hear that faint humming sound that enchanted items gave off. Aemric didn’t know if there was an obvious magic spike from his Dreaming – for all he knew, it might be some kind of spot inspection. Unlicensed mages were a big deal. If he said there was, but there wasn’t, it would be odd. If he said there wasn’t, but there was, it probably would have been too obvious a lie.

  That all being said, the Dreaming was an incredibly powerful ability, so he really expected there to be a spike, which he naturally couldn’t feel since he was asleep whenever he did it. Aemric took a guess. “I guess I might’ve. I didn’t keep up with my magic theory much, so I know I’ve felt something lately, but I don’t know whether I’d say it was significant or not.”

  The investigator nodded slowly. “We have a few reports that the spike happened in this area. Are you sure you didn’t use any enchanted items, either?”

  “I don’t own any.”

  “Then, have you had any visitors who knew how to use magic?”

  “Uhhh… no. I haven’t had anyone in my room, actually.”

  “Do you know if anyone on your floor had any visitors in the last five days?”

  They had known for a while, huh? “I think so? I don’t know if they could use magic, though. I don’t really keep track, I guess.”

  “Do you know if anyone on your floor can use magic?”

  “No, not really. I don’t talk to many people, I guess.”

  “I see. Well, that’s it. If anything else happens… tell us. You can find the number on the school website. Remember, unlicensed magic is a serious crime, and there’s someone practicing it in these dorms recently. Keep an eye out.”

  “Yeah, will do.”

  The investigator then turned and left.

  “Well, shit.” Aemric murmured to himself. This put a major hamper on what he could do. Obviously, trying to use the Dreaming here in his room was a no-go; even with his ‘man on the inside’ there was no accounting for solid proof. Using it somewhere else on campus was also probably a bad idea. He didn’t know who might spot him in a coffee shop, either. Anyone might be experienced enough to pick him out, especially if they could directly see him.

  Wait.

  There were two problems. One, they didn’t know when it started, not really. That had been the night six days ago… maybe nobody had noticed that one. It had been after midnight, too, he faintly recalled. Two, though, was a lot more damning.

  He’d tried Dreaming outside his dorm several times. In class, on benches around campus, wherever. Yet, despite many people passing by – and, again, even someone who couldn’t use magic could detect him if they knew how – nobody had been able to point at him. He would have been in plain sight back then.

  That meant it had to be something else. He thought about it for a while, and realized: it was probably duration. Or frequency, or both. That tracked. He’d only done the heavyweight tests in his dorm, since snapping out of those was a little dizzying. The relatively long Dreams he’d tried on the second day and just last night were probably the most obvious ones.

  Which meant… there was a limit, but it wasn’t from the power itself. If he kept the Dreams short and sparse they might be ‘quiet’ enough to escape detection. That still meant he had a lot of power in them, really, and if he ever found a way to avoid being detected anyway… well.

  All of this was still inferred, though. Aemric didn’t know whether his assumptions were correct, and so he resolved to be more careful and avoid Dreaming unless he knew he needed to. He also went online, and started looking for places to move to, if he could… An apartment was probably safer than the dorms.