"Forest Sprites, like many of nature's creations, have a habit of traveling great distances in marvelous journeys. Some do it to follow their food sources or locate new ones. Others do it when preparing to increase their species population.

"Archiasous has been one of the many stops of Forest Sprite migrations for longer than it's been inhabited. Students for centuries have had the chance to study them on this leg of their once in every five year journey. Any questions?"

I raised my hand, "Is this safe?"

"While the area is warded to keep unprepared students from accidentally wandering too close. We won't be. We are simply going to observe them. We wouldn't want to interrupt any of their pre-nesting behaviors and rituals, would we?"

Pre-nesting, not nesting. Because approaching a wild creature's young was always a terrible idea. Triple if that creature had two rows of sharp teeth.

At least something good has come out of the notes and reports I got from the Representative Council paperwork. Yay.

Seriously though, these things cause between two and five deaths every year and some of us can't cast spells to protect ourselves should this go sideways.

And things had a terrible habit of going sideways.

Not that anyone here besides Fethris knew that. Maybe the Pixies could guess though. They've seen me in Spellcraft.

I was going to stand as far away from everything as I could get away with.

(*********)

The professor had other ideas.

The barrier was a large white dome. From what I had been told it was put up a by teacher. Though I didn't know which one and I didn't have nearly enough knowledge about the other professors to hazard a guess.

Perhaps in time.

But not today.

Today I was staring up a white dome that had scrolls of paper attached to it about every twenty feet. They all said the same thing.

Enter at your own risk, beyond is infested with Forest Sprites.

I wasn't sure how I felt about seeing the manifestation of something I had a say in. A bit of a strange feeling.

Depending on how Saturday went, it might be my last experience like this.

I'll have to wait and see.

We couldn't see any of the Forest Sprites from our current vantage point.

"Why do I get the distinct feeling we're not turning around and going back?" I whispered to Fethris.

"I'll bet you a drake we're going in," he responded.

"Don't jinx it. You might be able to spook them with a horde of tarantulas, but if a sprite tries to take a bite out of me I'm screwed."

"Oh, you'll be fine."

"My record says otherwise."

Fethris laughed. Bastard. I'm serious!

I sighed as the professor put her hands on her hips. Please don't make me go in there. Please? Hecate have mercy on me.

But there was no mercy to be had.

"Good news students!" Oh no. "We have permission to enter."

Gods, why?

"There are some rules however. You are to keep a minimum of two hundred feet between you and any sprites you see. I also want you all to stay in groups of at least four."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Angelina was by Fethris and I before the professor was finished talking. "This is going to be so much fun!"

I highly doubted that.

Someone else was also joining our little crew.

"Runebringer," Fethris greeted coldly.

I suppose being the Dragon Tower Representative I had to at least make a show of keeping the peace.

"Thank you for joining us. We were asked to have four and we do now. Let's all just get our notes on these sprites and get this over with. Sound good?" Olive branch offered. Please take it. Our tower already has one fight this week. I'd hate for us to get a reputation.

I got a narrowed eyed near glare, but it was then followed by a curt, "Agreed."

Yay, small victories.

Runebringer was at least willing to pretend to be civil.

I could work with that.

The reason for my concern, simply put, was that sprites unlike their gentler relatives the pixies, were omnivorous and thus had meat in their diet. They ate mostly small lizards and birds with the occasional bit of fruit or tree sap.

They really like unripe holly berries.

But I had no desire to get a bite taken out of me.

Two hundred feet was more than okay with me.

For the first several minutes it actually went alright.

Half of us were still working on our Summon Object spell. And some of us couldn't cast a spell at all. But enchanted uniforms with magic pockets were extremely useful. And not needing backpacks was a definite plus.

I scribbled in my notebook as we wandered in this forest looking for hazardous wildlife.

Wonderful choices have been made here.

Stupid curses. Stupid monsters class. Stupid forest.

Saturday better work out. I might scream if it doesn't.

Whether by a rare stroke of good luck or some twist in irony we hadn't found any sprites. Hints and traces of them were in branches stripped of all of their leaves and a lizard carcass with very suspicious bite marks.

Average bite strength of twenty PSI? More like twenty pounds of nope.

Four weeks down, eight more to go.

Then I can take a different class.

Like Brewing, or maybe geography. Give me a map to fill in over monster hunting any day.

"We seem to be finding a lot of nothing." Runebringer broke the silence of our makeshift party.

"Yeah, well that's probably a good thing," I commented.

"No need to be snide about it," Runebringer responded.

First of all, that's rich coming from you. Second, I'm not.

"No, Serafina just talks that way. She doesn't mean anything by it," Angelina added in a failed attempt to be helpful.

"I think it might be her attempting to make a joke," Fethris didn't sound sure. Which was good because he was also wrong.

"Am I really that hard for everyone to read?" I wondered out loud. "I'm just nervous. Plus if an accident happens I can't protect myself. Can't cast, remember?"

I stomped forwards away from them. I was mortified at myself. I really need to control my outbursts.

"That rumor is true?" Runebringer asked.

"And none of your business," I snapped at them.

My wrist flared up in hot pain for a brief second.

It cooled as I took a deep breath. I turned back around to the others, "Yeah. But so what? I'm here. I go to class and I'm mostly making it work. It's no one's concern but mine."

Brave face Serafina.

"Nothing to add? Great. Can we please focus for like fifteen more minutes? Then we can all part ways." I could handle coldness. I just didn't need more open hostility.

But perhaps picking fights wasn't as tolerated in Kelpie as it was in Kraken, because Runebringer stayed quiet and continued looking at the leaves and fallen branches.

Thank the gods.

I rubbed at my wrist as I looked at a different tree.

"Is it hurting?" Fethris asked in a quiet voice.

"It was for a second. It's fine now."

"Keep me updated?"

"I'll try. If I run off it's because I'm worried it might explode and it might be pertinent to get either Vivian Hearth or Healer Sealie."

"Not worrying at all," His sarcasm was a little appreciated.

"I have no time to worry about that. I have too many other worries," I sighed again, "But I'm managing."

"I knew you could handle being Representative." I did not trust the hint of amusement in his voice.

"Hmm. Fail me Saturday and it can be your problem."

He laughed, "You're the only one treating it like a punishment."

"It's a threat Nightcall."

"Good. Plenty of motive for me to win."

That's when I heard something. It reminded me of the buzzing of flies.

Except I couldn't see any.

I couldn't find any flying insect where we were.

But the buzzing was getting louder.

"Do you hear that?" I asked.

Fethris nodded.

But where was it coming from?

I turned around slowly only to find Runebringer staring off into the woods. They were wide-eyed and frozen still.

Oh no.

Why is it always me?

Why doesn't stuff happen to anyone else in this school?

Sprites. Little winged humanoids no more than four inches tall in shades ranging from light green to a muddy brown and in a swarm that numbered around twenty.

And they were headed straight for Runebringer.

Who seemed to be far too busy being paralyzed with fear to do something useful. Like cast a spell.

Angelina looked too horrified to move.

Fethris was also frozen.

Girl who can't cast it is then.

I closed the gap between me and Runebringer before the sprites could reach them and shoved. They fell over leaving me in their place.

That twenty PSI of bite strength was not a joke.

The pain was sharp and wasn't from my wrist for once.

One of the little shits was attached to my left index finger. Blood poured out of the wound while dark brown wings flapped around wildly.

I waved my hand in an attempt to get rid of it.

In that moment two things happened simultaneously.

One was a burst of pink energy. It erupted outwards and flung all the sprites away. Like watching seafoam break on rocks.

The second was absolute agony burning through my wrist and consuming most of my left arm. There were faint sparks of dark green energy that I could just barely see.

My vision was getting blurry and dark.

I could just faintly hear a voice calling my name.

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