While Yuriko had tutored kids and warriors back during the War for Rumiga, she had never been assigned to teach a class that was part of a greater whole. And while her early lessons were interesting, it didn’t take into account everything that she needed to cover. She also needed to check what the students had learned over the past years, and what she was expected to teach them during the trimester.

As such, she often found herself in the faculty office every afternoon until close to dinner time. Reading records and reviewing the class syllabus had not been things she enjoyed doing, notwithstanding her trouble with reading. After the first couple of classes, she finally finished the review, and was following the course laid out by the syllabus. Most of it was really converting theory into practice since her students only had a year left after the academic year.

Well, most of the recommended classes were to bring the students into the academy’s tamed Chaos Fount, the Hot Spring Caves. There was even an inn inside it, manned by students and faculty alike. Supposedly, the hot spring pools inside were luxurious, though Yuriko hadn’t visited them yet. Desire and Devotee were in there, though, serving as inn staff. Desire worked as a musician, while Devotee was on general help. Both Chaos Lords needed to be in the Chaos Sea frequently to restore their Wells, or within Chaos Founts, which practically did the same thing.

Ryoko served as Yuriko’s caretaker and she kept their residences clean. She also prepared breakfast and dinner, though Yuriko wasn’t often home at that time. Secretary Ferron had taken to inviting her for meals and drinks at the end of the day, or sometimes, Laura Mondero asked for training and exposure.

In the third week of the Season of Earth, she scheduled a delve with both of her classes into the Hot Springs Cave. It would be a day trip for both classes, and it would be during Waterday and Woodday, spanning the half the day.

Devotee gave her his impressions of the Fount, and the students themselves have delved into it several times last year. But apparently, since anything found in the Hot Spring Caves were bought by the academy at a standardized price, it wasn’t a popular delve spot for both adventurers and students.

True enough, the students’ expressions were unenthusiastic, and as the delve went on, Yuriko could see why.

The Nirian Inn was built on a semi-cavern, with half of the ceiling open to the sky. The rest of the Fount consisted of tunnels and caves, some with holes in the ceiling to show the evening skies, and some completely enclosed. The foes within were a type of lizard that was large enough to act as a mount for the twisted, bestial humanoids that looked like distant cousins of L’Tik lizard beastkin. Their features were more savage, and they had animal cunning. They were also smart enough to use weapons, but their sense of tactics was simply to throw their javelins at the delvers than rush to bite and claw once they were out of projectiles.

Most of the student groups displayed practiced ease in fighting the Raptoks and their Redscale Drake mounts. Yuriko kept watch over all of them with her perception, and none had any trouble. The only bothersome point of the delve was when they had to retrieve beast and elemental cores from their kills.

When she returned to the faculty office afterwards she was surprised to find a letter on her desk. Gwendith, Heron, and Saki communicated with her through the Sending spell, and the two Chaos Lords used Message. Normally the Chaos Fount would not have allowed communication spells to get through its barrier, but the academy had long since made a workaround. Ryoko knew the spell, too, as well as a handful of useful kitchen spells. No one wrote her letters nowadays and she kind of missed receiving messenger cranes.

She picked up the folded piece of paper and opened it, scanned the contents, then put it down with some confusion. “A letter of challenge?”

One of the teachers sitting on the lounge looked up at her and chortled, “Oh, that must be from ol’ Eddie.”

“Who?”

“Eduardo Farran’ir? Your department head?” The teacher, a woman with short black hair and piercing green eyes, said. “Department Head of the Battle Magi. He likes to test new instructors with a spar.”

“Oh. Well, I, hmmm. I hope he’s good then.” Yuriko raised an eyebrow. “If he’s not, then why bother, eh?”

“Ahahah, you must be very competent.” Then, in a low voice, “Or arrogant beyond belief.”

Yuriko didn’t answer and scanned the letter again. The spar would be on the weekend, in the skies above the academy. There was little mention of a wager or anything of the sort, though it did mention that out of a hundred official duels, he’s only lost twice.

Well, she’d find out if the man was an authentic fighter by then. Right now, she had no mentoring sessions scheduled and a Desire asked her to spend the afternoon in the hot springs.

__________

It took several days to find every desecrated altar within the Hillside Burrows, and even then, Gwendith wasn’t sure if they got all of it. Well, the broken stone slabs fit each other as though they were originally one piece, but even so, the other edges were still jagged. She wasn’t sure if it was just wear and tear, or there was genuinely more of the stuff.

As the pieces connected to each other, the map grew in scope and detail. By the fifth one, they could practically see the bird’s eye view of the entire Fount, but that really wasn’t too useful considering more than half of the entirety was underground. What they did note was that there was a large clearing in the centre of five burrows and one of the five paths leading to it wasn’t that far from their campsite.

When they arrived at the designated point, Gwendith couldn’t help but stare. The path was not visible from where they were, since it was covered in thick grass. The only reason they could tell  it was there was because of the stone slab. Aside from pointing at the thicket, a subtle light started to glow from the grass roots. And then, when she touched the grass, her hand went through it as though it were made of illusions.

The three of them exchanged glances, shrugged, then went through the path. It wasn’t too long, just a couple of longstrides that took them two minutes to cross, but as they did, the surrounding grass was covered by a greyish fog. It was when they arrived at the centre that things grew…strange.

It was as if they entered a space that wasn’t the same as the rest of the Chaos Fount. The ground was suddenly hard-packed earth and mixed with broken cobblestones. The skies had turned dark, cloudless, too, but it didn’t show the star-filled fields. Instead, that was the impression of the familiar Chaos flows of home.

There was a shimmer in the air. Gwendith shook her head and looked away. Or at least, she tried to. Her eyes were always drawn back to that shimmer, and as she took a step forward, it revealed itself to be a free standing arch. Beyond it was much of the same terrain, but as soon as she saw it, the odd compulsion disappeared.

“That’s a portal arch,” Heron noted dryly.

“Leading to where, though?” Gwendith mused.

“Only one way to find out.”

“Really? That’s your go-to solution?” Gwendith muttered. “You act more like Yuri every day.”

“Hey, it works,” he protested.

“Let’s take some precautions first, anyway,” Gwendith muttered as she approached the stone archway carefully. The space between it shimmered invitingly, but she pushed down on that impulse. She activated her Chaos Sight, and noted that the area still had the same density as the rest of the Fount, and that the arch was not pulling in more Chaos or Elemental energy than normal. There were naturally formed runescript formations on the arch as well as on the cobblestones around it. It was rough and the flows of Chaos and Elemental energy meandered, but it got the job done. It was definitely not something someone made. Well, aside from the wide circle of runescript that served to stabilise the natural formation. She wasn’t good enough at runescrivening to identify the creator, however. She was good enough to know that the arch was stable, and wasn’t about to shut down anytime soon.

“Step through?” Heron finally asked.

“Should we send Saki outside to cast Sending? Tell Yuri about this?”

“Do you want to bother her over every little thing?” Heron asked.

“Hmm, I guess not.” Both of them were Yuriko’s Squires. They were supposed to aid her, not have her hold their hand forever.

“Well, Miss Saki? You want to go through?” Gwendith asked.

The Shadow Guard must have been equally frustrated at how her young mistress had practically outpaced her in personal power and the fact that her job was becoming more redundant by the day.

“Let’s go,” Saki answered almost before Gwendith finished asking.

With all three of them agreeing, Heron took the lead. Nothing seemed to happen when they crossed the threshold though. The area immediately around them was still the same. They followed the cobblestone path to the edge of the boundary, and that was where they saw the difference. Instead of tall grass, there was a stone wall that went up to Heron’s hip. It looked like the fences that farmers used to keep livestock within an area, or prevented them from getting into the vegetable garden.

They backtracked to the arch, went through, and verified that they were back in Hillside Burrows, then returned to the walls. The cobblestone path led directly to a patch of wall, but like the tall grass back then, they could walk through this one as if it didn’t exist.

The same grey fog covered up the area around the path, and by the time it faded away, they were finally able to see their surroundings. And it wasn’t pleasant to look at.

Scorched land, ashes cold on the ground, and broken farmsteads dotted the area. The path was gone, and the stone slab’s power had faded away. Gwendith looked back, and tried to press against the low wall that appeared behind them, only for her hand to press flat against the stone.

“Well, that’s trouble,” she muttered. They would probably need a new set of stone slabs to find the way back. Either that or they exited this Chaos Fount and figured out where they emerged. There was little doubt they were in a different place. The Elemental energies were different, too.

Heron stored the stone slabs into his backpack and picked a route at random. Saki took out a notebook and began drawing a map. Gwendith kept watch of the area around them. Unlike the Hillside Burrows, this Fount was not made with constrained routes, but was an open field. The ruined farmsteads were the landmarks, and she thought she saw even more ruins in the distance. Was that a city wall?

It was as good a place to explore as any. With Heron in the lead, Gwendith a few paces behind him, and Saki off to the side, they headed towards the distant city. The smell of ashes washed over them, and when they came close to a broken building, the wind picked up and blew ashes all over the place.

A feeling of malice sent a shiver down her spine as the ashes billowed into a vortex, then condensed into a three pace high, humanoid figure. The portion that looked like the head began to glow with inner fire that showed through eyes, nose, and mouth.

The Ashen Elemental roared in fury and charged directly at them.