Life 1: Week 2

WEEK 2 Schedule

Day 1 – Arcanis (+1 Structured Magic & Formal Study)

Morning

: Arcane Gunsmithing (Lecture)

Afternoon

: Magical Ballistics (Lecture)

Evening

: Guncaster Fundamentals (Lecture)

Day 2 – Draveth (+1 Combat & Training)

Morning

: Guncaster Fundamentals (Field Training –

Body Focus

)

Afternoon

: Guncaster Fundamentals (Field Training –

Gun Focus

)

Evening

: Mini-Tournament / Challenge Trial

(Bounty Hunter Combat Aptitude Display)

Day 3 – Caelith (+1 Prophecy, Stars, Theory)

Morning

: Arcane Gunsmithing (Practicals - Gunsmithing)

Afternoon

: Join Secret Society –

Union of the Oppressed

(Initiation)

Evening

: Form/Join Student Study Group (Low Ranked First-Years)

Day 4 – Ferradine (+1 Runes, Crafting, Mechanics)

Morning

: Arcane Gunsmithing (Workshop)

Afternoon

: Magical Ballistics (Workshop)

Evening

: Instructor Office Hour – Magical Ballistics(Bullet Crafting)

Day 5 – Veilmere (+1 Planar & Spiritwork)

Morning

: Magical Ballistics (Lecture + Live Demo)

Afternoon

: Romance Partner (Seraphyne - Sell info)

Evening

: Club: The Librarians (

Multiverse Gun Orders & Factions

)

Day 6 – Zarvian (+1 Beasts & Exploration)

Morning

: Train with a Familiar or Pet (

Familiar Awakening

)

Afternoon

: Club: The Librarians (Gun Lore - Legendary Firearms)

Evening

: Academy Schemes & Power Plays –

form secret cabals, clubs, unions, Alliance or courts

Day 7 – Hearthrest (+1 Recovery & Meditation)

Morning

: Rest & Recovery –

Linehouse Bathhouse Car (Stress Relief)

Afternoon

: Meditation –

Learn about Power System, Levels

Evening

: Host Game Night for Dormmates (

Boost Relationships

)

-

Week 2(Year 1, Semester 1)

Day 1: Arcanis +1 Structured Magic & Formal Study

Morning – Arcane Gunsmithing (Lecture)

Professor Elra Vintock arrives on a levitating forge-sled, half-covered in soot, with sparks crackling from her gloves. "Today we cover Stability Arrays—the internal rune structures that keep your gun from blowing your damn hand off when you channel spells through it."

She draws a diagram in midair with molten glyphs, each one hovering like iron-branded stardust. Joshua takes notes furiously. Terms like choke coil tension, anchor runes, and feedback bleed stick in his brain like shrapnel.

Toward the end of class, she passes out a schematic labeled: Prototype Class-B Modular Receiver: Safe for Controlled Spell Channeling (in theory).

Class Gains:

Arcane Gunsmithing - Class Progress 12/100

Roll for Class Progress[1d8(Talent) +1 Instructor Bonus + 1 Day Bonus +1 Relationship Bonus]

Rolled 9!

Arcane Gunsmithing - Class Progress 21/100

Threshold 2 Reached!(20)

Skill Already Gained: +1 Skill Progress - Magical Metallurgy 1(1/3): +1 Bonus to crafting, fixing and modifying metal objects

-

Afternoon – Magical Ballistics (Lecture)

Professor Liora Fenwick, ever the perfectionist, strides into the lecture hall in heels that click like gun hammers. "Today: Trajectory Distortion and the myth of the 'unmissable shot.' There is no such thing. Only corrected failure."

She casts a diagram of bullets warping mid-air—curving around invisible fields of magic, wind-shifting spirits, and other combatants' auras.

Joshua sees a bullet that loops back to hit the shooter. "This," she says, "is what happens when you forget the field's magical velocity decay threshold."

She has each student analyze a real-world arcane duel. One of the students duel (from the mini-tournament last week) is shown—highlighting his strengths… and flaws.

Class Gains:

Magical Ballistics - Class Progress 16/100

Roll for Class Progress[1d8(Talent) +1 Instructor Bonus + 1 Day Bonus +2 Relationship Bonus]

Rolled 5!

Magical Ballistics - Class Progress 21/100

Threshold 2 Reached!(20)

Skill Gained: Alchemy(Gunpowder) 1(0/3): +1 Bonus to making and modifying gunpowder

-

Evening – Guncaster Fundamentals (Lecture)

Cassian Varn leans against the chalkboard with arms folded and his oni horns still scorched from a recent bounty run. "We're talking trigger discipline, soul alignment, and mental burnback. Fancy lectures don't mean squat if your gun doesn't fire when you're bleeding."

He makes them hold their weapons—no firing, just holding—until their mana begins syncing. It's grueling. Some students faint. Joshua doesn't. Not anymore.

Before dismissing them, Varn walks by and mutters: "Your grip's steadier this week. But your stance still whispers doubt. Fix that."

Class Gains:

Guncaster Fundamentals - Class Progress 10/100

Roll for Class Progress[1d8(Talent) +1 Instructor Bonus + 1 Day Bonus +1 Relationship Bonus]

Rolled 4!

Guncaster Fundamentals - Class Progress 14/100

-

Give me Class Gains Rolls,

Give me 1d8+3(gunsmithing),

1d8+4(magic ballistics),

1d8+3(guncasting)

-

Day 2: Draveth +1 Combat & Training

Morning – Guncaster Fundamentals (Field Training – Body Focus)

Location: Broken Gauntlet Combat Valley

Cassian Varn doesn't show up in a classroom—he sends a signal flare into the sky. Joshua and the others find themselves dragged to the Broken Gauntlet, an open-air, rune-lined obstacle course carved into a valley of fractured stone. The air is thin, and the mana here feels jagged.

"Today's focus is body resilience," Varn growls. "You wanna cast through your gun while bleeding out? You want to cast if you can't breathe. You want to aim if your arm's shaking. And if you sure as hell want to duel if you flinch when your bones crack. Start here."

Then the Trials begin. Weighted sprint with mana-dampening shackles. Balance beam dodging minor spell fire. Recoil resistance tests: catch a gun and fire at a target within 3 seconds or start over. Meditative reloads under stress: cold, wet, disoriented

Joshua's legs scream. His breath fogs from overexertion. Sweat pools in his gloves. But he finishes, even when others collapse. He earns a nod from Cassian—brief, but real. "Samuelson. You're starting to carry weight."

Class Gains:

Current: Body 6 - Stat Progress 54/60

Roll for Body Stat Progress[1d6(Body) +1 Instructor Bonus + 1 Day Bonus +1 Relationship Bonus]

Rolled, 8

New: Body 7 - Stat Progress 2/70

Current HP: 15

Roll 1d7 for Health Pool Gains

Rolled, 1

New HP: 16

-

Afternoon – Guncaster Fundamentals (Field Training – Gun Focus)

The air smelled of scorched sandstone and old gun oil. The Dustback Range stretched under a cracked amber sky—half real, half conjured. Fragmented terrain dotted the dueling field: cover posts, ruin fragments, raised sigil-plates that glowed faintly with residual energy. It looked like a dead frontier town had exploded and left its bones behind.

Cassian Varn stood on the chalked dueling line, arms crossed, his horns casting long shadows over the field. His voice rumbled like gravel shaken in a drum. "Magic makes you clever. Guns make you honest. And in the real world? You rarely get to use both at once."

He paced once between the lines, flipping open a dueling ledger scorched and stitched together like it had survived wars. The names shimmered in ink that twitched with mana.

"Today—no incantations. No glyphs. No fancy sorcery or ritual shortcuts. Just you, your sidearm, and whoever wants to ruin your day. Safety wards are active. First blood ends the match. You die, you're out. You kill, you're gone. Clear?"

Silence. Nod from the class. Joshua adjusted the grip on his revolver, as his match was called: "Dorne. Samuelson. To the line."

Erik Dorne swaggered onto the field with a sharpshooter's poise—bronze rank glinting on his coat sleeve, precision long-pistol already sighted in. He smirked. "Try not to blink. I don't miss."

Joshua just tipped his head forward slightly, eyes sharp. He holstered casually, watching Dorne's footwork. Aether-sirens whined. Duel sigils flared. And the match began.

Class Practice Duel!

Round 1

Initiative: (Enemy)1d8=6>(You)1d4=3

(Enemy)Attack 1d8=2<(You)Dodge1d4=3

+1 momentum

Round 2

(Enemy)Attack 1d8=4<(You)Attack1d4=4+1 momentum=5

-5 Damage. First Blood, Winner(You)!

Dorne opened immediately—suppressive mana bursts pulsing from his barrel, popping sigils across terrain. He used the enchanted fog plates to distort his shots, blasting blindfire lanes across the map.

Joshua dove for a half-collapsed wall, keeping low and mobile, using old support beams and cracked rubble for cover. The bullets shattered stone inches from his face.

He let himself fake-stumble, crashing shoulder-first into a debris pile, groaning like he was hit. Dorne, seeing his opening, advanced fast—no fear, long-pistol raised. His boot hit a reflective rune.

And Joshua fired. The round ricocheted off the rune—angled perfectly, cracking Dorne in the shoulder just as he lunged to fire. The duel flare blinked red. Match over. Under a minute.

Cassian Varn walked up slow, looking at the ruin-scarred rune, then down at Joshua. He didn't speak at first. Then, a low grunt: "That's a hunter's trick. Smart."

Joshua, panting, holstered his revolver. His ribs ached. His coat was torn. He was grinning anyway.

-

Duel Gains: +8 Progress to Mind

Mind 5 - Stat Progress 12/40

-

Class Gains:

+1 Skill Progress - Guncasting 1(3/3) → Skill Upgrade Guncasting II(0/5) - (+2 damage to spells fired from gun)

-

Evening – Mini-Tournament: Bounty Hunter Combat Aptitude Display

Location: Transdimensional Bounty Hunter Hub – Academy Substation

Chaperone: Cassian Varn

Cassian Varn didn't call out names. He just stood at the edge of the Dustback Range with his arms folded and a look that could sandblast steel. "End of class," he barked. "But not for all of you."

As students gathered their gear, he pointed—to five, maybe six of them. Joshua was among them. "You, you, and especially you," he said, locking eyes with Joshua. "You've got teeth. Maybe even the right kind of hunger."

He reached into his coat, pulled out a strip of stamped iron, and slapped it into Joshua's palm. "No more training wheels. You're coming with me."

The world beyond the inside the bounty hunter hub wasn't a training hall—it was a coliseum of steel, glass, and grit.

Thousands of students milled about under different arcane banners. Portals shimmered. Drones scanned faces. Recruiters from a dozen timelines hawked flyers. The Transdimensional Bounty Hunter Hub had opened up its recruitment drives —and with it, the place was open to all hopefuls.

Joshua had no idea you could sign-up for it as a student which was great since he was interred in it. This was the same line of work he would have most likely taken up on his homeworld.

Cassian leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, jaw set. "This ain't a duel. This is the job."

A proctor in red-violet robes stepped forward, voice amplified by a vocal charm: "You're not here to duel. You're here to track, survive, and terminate."

Each hopeful is handed a sealed dossier before entering. The paper is cool to the touch, wax-stamped with a black bullet sigil that writhes faintly when tilted. Joshua's glows—a low, almost judgmental amber flicker—as if the system is already reading him.

"Assignment uploaded. Profile cross-matched. Difficulty adjusted." A mechanical voice. Neutral, uncaring. Almost bored.

When the doors hiss open, Joshua walks into what looks like an empty stone chamber—no visible tech, just a faint pulse of glyphs beneath the floor. As the door seals shut behind him, everything drops away. No transition. Just sensation.

This isn't some game. This is a reality-wrapped training bubble—a magic/tech hybrid using: Real battlefield memories, harvested from agents' minds. Spell-bonded environments with adaptive Spirit(AI) personalities. Custom illusion-crafting that hits all five senses, including pain, exhaustion, and mana strain. Failure penalties—even though death isn't permanent, it still hurts, and every mistake is recorded.

Inside, time stretches. Five minutes outside could be an hour inside. Long enough to test your mind. Or break it. The sim learns from you in real-time—if you favor one spell or tactic too often, it throws counters. It's not just measuring combat prowess. It's measuring: Cunning. Adaptability. Will to push through under pressure. Kill counts.

Image:https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/cyberpunk-soldier-city-patrol-gm1271513829-374075904

Simulation 1: Crimson Vale Dustlands

Target: Elric Flay – Pyrokinetic Smuggler. Fast. Ruthless. Doesn't hesitate. Objective: Elimination. Environment: Ruined frontier town, holographic winds, active hazard overlays.

Sim 1!

Round 1

Initiative: (You)1d4=3>(Enemy)Attack 1d10=2

(You)Attack1d4=3> Water Tower=0

-25 Damage, Winner(You)!

Joshua's boots hit packed sand. A burned-out saloon collapsed in the distance. Simulated gunfire echoed like ghosts between boarded windows and melting rooftops. Dustback Range rendered beautifully—almost too beautifully.

He moved slowly, careful, slipping between collapsed structures. His nail-hammer hung on his belt and his revolver in hand.

There—movement. Elric, grinning through the flames, dashed behind a flickering illusion of a water tower. Wrong move. Joshua exhaled. Aimed.

Fired—not at Elric, but at the base of the building. The shockwave detonated downward, collapsing the structure from underneath. Elric dropped with a shout, buried in crashing timbers and shattered illusions.

Victory: Indirect Kill.

The simulation froze. Then unraveled. Talk about non-textbook style.

Combat Sim Gains: +10 Progress to Mind & Spirit

Mind 5 Stat Progress 22/50

Spirit 4 Stat Progress 24/40

-

Simulation 2: Glimmerhusk Docks, Moonport 7

Target: Nyssa Veer – Water-Fencer with blink magic

Objective: Elimination. Environment: Abandoned seaport lit by blue eclipse; time distortions ripple over the water

Sim 2!

Round 1

Initiative: (Enemy)1d10=5>(You)1d4=3

(Enemy)Dodge 1d10=7>(You)Attack1d4=3

+1 enemy momentum

Round 2

(Enemy)Attack1d10=8+1 momentum>(You)Dodge1d4=2

-8 Damage, you Lost

The dock fog gleamed under twin moons. Water rippled oddly—like skipping through time. Nyssa moved like light refracted, blinking in and out with ghostlike giggles. Joshua prepped a his gun, watching for patterns, reflections, tempo.

He fired—once, then twice. But Nyssa wasn't where she was supposed to be. A ripple, a phase shift, and suddenly she was behind him.

Bang. His simulation feed cut to black.

"Simulation failed. Subject terminated."

Combat Sim Gains: None

-

Simulation 3: Korravex Vault Depths – Blacksite Maze

Target: Kulta Mar – Rogue Summoner, Psionic Predator

Objective: Elimination.

Environment: Urban ruins beneath an ancient orbital station; psychic interference thick as fog

Sim 2!

Round 1

Initiative: (You)1d4=3[Sneak]

(Enemy)Defence 1d10=4 [Bounce-Back]=(You)Attack 1d4=3+1=4[Raw Reinforcement]

-4 Damage to each, Draw

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The final sim drops Joshua into the nightmare. Twisting corridors of alien metal, half-lit by pulsing sigils. Kulta Mar's illusions scuttle across surfaces like insects, whispering and reforming.

Joshua tunes his breath, focusing through the haze. Loads up his gun at the ready. He ignores the bait illusions, moving slowly, tracing magic residue through the dust. Up a fire escape. Into a shadowed tower.

Kulta is below, feeding on a tethered illusion. Joshua breathes out, aligns a shot through three walls using Reinforcement magic to guide the barrel. Fires a round through layers of debris and veil barriers—just as Kulta summoned a psionic shield. The shot hit. But so did the return volley.

The simulation bleeds to white.

From the observers' deck, a bounty agent whispers: "Shows Potential. Deadly. Tactical. Worth watching."

Combat Sim Gains: +10/2=5 Progress to Magic & Spirit

Reinforcement Magic 0-✩: 63/100

Spirit 4 Stat Progress 29/40

-

Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/441634307228064690/

Trainee Bounty Hunter(Job) - 1 or 2 Actions a week

"You've been flagged as a prospective operative. Welcome to the long shadow between law and chaos."

You show potential to be a future Magic Bounty Hunter Agent!

You can join the Bounty Hunter Organization as a trainee.

Also Jobs pay, so no longer will you be a sad brokey.

–

Give me Rolls;

1d6+3(Body); rolled 8

1d7(Health): rolled 1

-

Day 3: Caelith +1 Prophecy, Stars, Theory

Morning – Arcane Gunsmithing (Practicals – Gunsmithing Lab)

Professor Elra Vintock leads a practical workshop under a sky-glass dome showing the constellations of every known world. The forge is filled with clinking gears, alchemical smoke, and the rhythmic pulsing of ether-hammers.

"Today, we build a real firing core," she announces. "Your gun lives or dies on this moment. Botch it? It misfires. Or explodes. Or eats your thumb."

Joshua spreads out his materials: Aether-threaded filament, a cracked but salvageable spirit coil, and a prototype modular receiver, now further refined from the last few days

He channels Reinforcement magic into the crucible to stabilize the rune flow. Others struggle, but Joshua enters a trance—he's not just building a gun now; he's crafting identity.

By the end, he has a working custom-etched core, uniquely sync'd to his mana. His short-lived moment of silence is broken by Vintock who growls. "Next week, you're testing it live. Don't die."

+1 Skill Progress: Arcane Gunsmithing 1(1/3): +1 Bonus to crafting, fixing and modifying guns

-

Afternoon – Join Secret Society: Union of the Oppressed (Initiation)

The Ancient Sewers Beneath the Academy – Subgrid Level 9A ("The Gutwork")

It starts with a whisper. Joshua finds a piece of folded paper tucked beneath his notebook in class. Just a single symbol: a broken wand clenched in a fist. Beneath it: "Come alone. Bring nothing with you."

He follows rusted stairwells behind the Old Thaumaturgy building—then down forgotten hallways that smell like rusted iron and ozone. Runes flicker and die as he passes. No light follows. Eventually, he finds one of the entrances down into the sewers below marked with a glyph in red chalk: a reversed Academy crest with the stars cracked. He was stepping somewhere beyond the Academy. He was about to enter something old and dangerous.

Image: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ea9aJG?album_id=194487

They say the Grand Academy of Magic sits atop the bones of countless dead civilizations. Or at least—that's what the Librarians whisper, in hushed tones behind sealed archives.

Beneath its ever-shifting towers and fractal classrooms lies a layered underworld of forgotten empires, buried dimensions, and sealed histories—guarded fiercely by the faculty and restricted to only the most sanctioned of researchers. For most students, access to these hidden worlds must be earned, petitioned, and overseen by layers of arcane bureaucracy. But there are backdoors. And one of the oldest, strangest, and most dangerous is known only as: The Ancient Sewers.

A name far too simple for what it truly is. The sewers are an architectural palimpsest—a tangled sprawl of ancient infrastructure, dead city ruins, magical arteries, and dimensional scabs. Here, centuries of discarded blueprints overlap like ghost impressions. Temples rot beneath filtration chambers. Spell vaults collapse into fungal cisterns. Gravity forgets its rules.

It is a breathing labyrinth, filled with broken pipes and bio-mechanical veins that pulse with forgotten mana. Some sections hum with residual magic. Others whisper when no one is speaking. It doesn't just run beneath the school.

It runs between its spaces—slipping through unused dimensional folds, abandoned construction layers, and old metaphysical scaffolding no one has dared to unravel. Magic rot clogs the walls. Reality here drips and bleeds. None of dared or will ever map it all.

And some whispers say the sewers contain truths the Academy buried, not because they were false, but because they were too true. Some secrets sleep behind sealed archways. Others leak through cracks in time. And some... walk freely, wearing borrowed faces.

Down here, it's said you can find: Spells that were never meant to be cast by human minds. Weapons forged for wars that history no longer remembers. Blueprints for worlds that were built, then erased Doors that open into lives you never lived—but somehow remember. Oaths so old even the gods have forgotten who broke them. And shadows that remember when magic was still wild.

Some say if you go deep enough, the sewers stop being underground… and become something else entirely. And let it not be forgotten—this place has history. Over the eons, the Academy's waste has trickled downward: Spells that decayed improperly. Failed rituals left to fester. Cursed objects swept out of sight. Toxic familiars too unstable to destroy. Broken constructs with memories still running

As the saying goes: One mage's trash is another's breakthrough—or their curse.

But perhaps the sewers' most dangerous trait isn't what was dumped into it. It's what found a home there. A thousand years of outcasts and accidents now live in the depths: Monsters who were once students—twisted into grotesque shapes by experiment gone wrong or curses let loose. Familiars who broke free from their contracts and remembered how to hate. Cultists, heretics, dropouts, exiles, and more. Whispering gods and Legendary Mages. Revolutionaries and dissidents, plotting from the shadows. Down here, the Academy's failure gathers. It is a sanctuary. It is a graveyard. It is a battlefield.

Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/367043438362899636/

The air changes instantly. It gets wet, still, and echoey. The scent of moss, old ozone, and faint blood tingles in his nose. His lantern is useless—the walls here absorb light like velvet. Magical torches flicker with inverted flame. Runes along the wall pulse like heartbeats—some faded, some still angry. He's left the Academy. He's entered something older.

Inside: stairs. Then: pipes. Heat. Wet stone. Echoes. He's entered the Ancient Sewers —the immense, half-mythical sewer-sprawl beneath the Academy. The corridors changed with every turn. Some were tight—rust-choked, dripping, filled with the hiss of pressure valves and whispering vents that almost formed words. The air stank of iron and time. Joshua ducked beneath broken pipes, waded through puddles that shimmered with spell-oil and algae-light.

Then it would open. Into spaces so vast he could hardly believe they were real cathedral-sized chambers where ceiling pipes arched like gothic ribcages, and glowing ichor rained in slow, heavy droplets into canals black as memory.

He crossed a chasm by walking the length of a bone-metal bridge, each step echoing over the vast, unseen belly of something breathing far below—slow and wet and alive.

In one tunnel, he stumbled into a shrine. A broken star had been painted across the wall in fading runes and burnt offerings. The sigils were unfamiliar—flickering faintly, like they wanted to be remembered. Or rewritten. Around him, the world kept shifting.

He passed abandoned subway trains, half-swallowed by coral-like magical growths which were remnants of the old tube that was pushed by the school before shut down for mysterious reasons.. Doors hung loose, windows long shattered, but they hummed faintly—power still trapped inside. On the walls, glyphs from dead languages had been scratched in blood, soot, and chalk. Some glowed faintly. Some bled.

And the bones. He stopped counting. Human. Animal. Something else. Arranged in spirals. In runes. In warning.

Hurrying along, he heard movements. They didn't seem to be of rats, but something larger. He froze, holding his breath, as a pale, headless creature slid across the wall just ahead, flowing like shadow-smoke, leaving behind a trail of frost and dead runes. It didn't look at him. It didn't need to. As it was on the hunt for something much better.

Later, he spotted a six-legged hound, stitched together from the remnants of broken familiars. It drank lazily from the putrid water. And then—he saw a door. It had no hinges. No handle. But it was breathing. In and out, like lungs sealed beneath stone. The breath was warm. Sour. Almost curious. He didn't touch it.

No one survived here without making a pact or praying to some dark god. Joshua could feel it, the pressure behind the walls. Watching. Measuring. Judging. More than monsters lived down here. Old things watched from cracks in the pipes, from spell-sealed vaults, from forgotten altars. Some said there were gods buried beneath here whose dreams let slip horrors and curses. Others said the sewers led to places the Academy wouldn't admit existed—entire worlds locked away and left to fester—realities too unstable, too shameful, or too powerful to be permitted daylight.

Joshua walked on, wondering why this godforsaken school had to be so dangerous. "Is it too much to ask," he muttered, "to reach one underground revolution cabal without tripping over a cursed dog, a breathing wall, and a creature without its damn head?"

Eventually, the darkness changed. It wasn't the absence of danger—far from it. But something purposeful began to cut through the rot. Joshua saw it first in the red chalk, scrawled arrows on stone walls and rusted grates—pointing sideways, then down. Always down.

Next came the signs of vandalism, or maybe scripture. Academy propaganda posters—the ones that said Excellence Has No Floor and Rank Is Earned—had been burned, their ashes smeared across doors like war paint. Nails pinned them to old maintenance panels like broken wings.

And then, the slogans. Etched into copper pipes, sprayed across cracked tiles, scratched into steel bulkheads with ritual blades: MAGIC FOR ALL. NO WANDS, NO MASTERS. WE BLEED UNDER YOUR STARS. WE BUILT THE SCHOOL.

The words pulsed faintly under his torchlight, animated by belief—or rage. He followed them. The path led into a narrow tunnel that stank of hot iron and oil, like a forge left burning too long. The air shimmered slightly, as if reality was thinner here. Like the world was holding its breath.

He found the door tucked behind a massive, corroded filtration valve, half-sunken into the wall like a forgotten organ.

At its center was the Academy crest—a sunburst wand surrounded by laurel and stars. But someone had painted over it. A fist, red and defiant, smashed through the emblem, shattering the laurel into falling pieces. The paint was fresh. Dripping. Like the message had just been sent.

Image: https://www.tumblr.com/rvexillology/614907017359998976/help-years-back-ago-i-found-this-flag-on-reddit

Joshua stepped forward and laid his hand on the door. The glyphs around it—dormant before—flared red, then pulsed once, twice... green. The door creaked open—not with machinery, but with a sound like stone unlearning its shape. And beyond it— The air changed. Gone was the damp rot of the sewer. In its place was something heavier, warmer—like breath before a riot. The smell of old spell ash, ink, sweat, and steam. And the low, echoing hum of many voices, chanting without words. He had found it. The Union of the Oppressed. And whatever came next—he wasn't walking back out the same.

The door sealed shut behind him with the sound of boiling air and groaning stone, and Joshua descended into the belly of something far greater than he expected. He thought he was entering a hideout. A bunker. A damp little revolution in the shadows. He was wrong.

He emerged onto a massive stone landing that jutted out from the side of an ancient, domed reservoir chamber—a subterranean megastructure that must have stood for millennials. The space was enormous. Easily the size of a cathedral sunken into the earth, yet far from silent. Light came from suspended glyph-cages, glowing chains, and crude lanterns made of hollowed-out wands and soulglass. Their flames shimmered across arched ceilings webbed with pipes, rusted walkways, and half-collapsed scaffolding.

The walls were lined with red banners, sigil-paintings, and hand-carved murals, all depicting the Union's history: The first revolt by nameless students. The wand burnings after unjust expulsions. The secret classes held in sewer tunnels. A figure masked in gold and black standing defiant before the Academy gates.

At the center of it all was a massive circular plaza—paved with engraved copper tiles, each stamped with the names of past rebels, burned students, and expelled innovators. Rising from a circle of engraved stone tiles, stood the Oathflame Basin. A jagged cauldron made of melted wands, broken staff shards, and severed binding rings, its rim forged from splintered dorm crests, all twisted together by spellbinding and ritual heat. From it burned the Oathflame—a slow, churning fire as dark as ink and alive with flickering red veins. It wasn't a fire in the normal sense. It was memory. Blood. Pain. History. Ideology set ablaze.

https://bethefuture.space/about/

Taking in everything, he expected damp walls and makeshift torches. Instead, he found a civilization beneath a school. This was no mere hideout. The Union's domain was a fortress-city, carved from ruin and repurposed magic—a living archive of rebellion, invention, and refusal. A place where the forgotten had built something lasting, where the undesired had found power outside of permission. This was a city. A hidden utopia. A sanctuary of steel, steam, and solidarity—built from the bones of the old world and lit with the fire of a new one.

He stood beneath a towering vault of iron ribs and glass veins, where pipes rose like cathedral spires and red banners fluttered from welded rafters, each marked with a black symbol: a broken wand, a raised fist, a circle of stars beneath a hammer-shaped rune. The chamber extended into terraced platforms and branching corridors, each with its own function. Bridges of welded spellmetal and bonewood spanned narrow chasms and glowing channels of run-off mana. Archways still bore the sigils of ancient engineers—but now, defaced and overwritten with the Union's mark: a broken wand rising from a fist.

The pipes sang softly in the background. The glyphs along the ceiling pulsed not with light, but with ideology—encoded chants of liberty, solidarity, and vengeance, running like a nervous system through the architecture. Joshua passed through spaces he hadn't dreamed a sewer could hold:

The Red Forge: A smithy where rebel artificers repurpose confiscated spell-tech and broken tools into arcane weapons. Here, enchantments are reclaimed, recoded, made to serve the collective—not the elite.

The Archive of Dust: A sprawling hall of banned grimoires, forbidden blueprints, and erased lesson plans. Copied by hand. Guarded by sentient books. Taught to those willing to learn what the Academy deems too radical, too wild, or too free.

The Speaker's Chamber: A stone amphitheater where initiates practice rhetoric, leadership, and revolutionary theory—a school within a school, where power is taught not just as magic, but as narrative and negotiation.

The Infirmary of the Broken: It's a hall of healing for those damaged by magic's misuse—familiars abandoned or abused, mages with severed soul-bonds, students whose contracts shattered under pressure or betrayal.

The Union Treasury: Not gold—but glyphkeys, spell scrolls, potion stockpiles, and salvaged mana cores. Stored for the collective. Given to those who prove themselves.

The Spiral Hall: A meditation and spell-training chamber where every spell cast within these walls resonates with those who came before—layered, not in sound, but in intent. A fireball carries echoes of a rebellion. A barrier spell hums with defiance. Even silence shivers with meaning.

Everyone Joshua passed—no matter their species, magic, or rank—nodded to him. Not out of fear, but recognition. They wore cloaks stitched from rejected dorm colors, armor built from cafeteria trays, enchanted scraps, or stitched-together uniforms turned inside-out. Their faces were bruised, scarred, tired. But they were unbroken.

There was warmth here, but not softness. It felt like walking into the lungs of a great machine powered by hope, fury, and vision. It pulsed. It breathed. It thrummed with the magic of people who had nothing left to lose and everything to build.

The scent was one of burnt ink, mana-oil, iron filings, chalkdust, and old parchment—the perfume of a revolution in motion. He saw new students reciting spells side-by-side with dropouts twice their age. He saw a duelist tutoring a former cleaning golem. He saw a warlock teaching ethics to a necromancer. The Union didn't just give you a banner. It gave you a place. A purpose. A counterweight to the Academy's judgment.

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"Greetings," a soft, serene voice spoke from behind him. Turning to face the older woman who had a smile on her face. She asked, "Did you enjoy the sights?"

"Yes, it's a nice place you have here," he answered honestly.

"Soon, it will also be yours." She turned and walked without looking back. He followed. "We share everything down here," she continued. "Knowledge. Labor. Shelter. Magic. This is more than a sanctuary. This is family, tribe, resistance—one people, bound by one purpose: to set all free."

Joshua squinted upward at the glowing rafters and tiered walkways crisscrossing the domed cavern. "Interesting," he muttered. "Not sure if I'm joining a revolution or a magic hippie commune."

She chuckled, a sound like a warm spell dissolving in water. "You'll understand the truth in time. Come. They're waiting."

They came to a great gathering chamber which fell still as they entered. Hundreds watched from platforms, arches, bridges above and below. From balconies carved into old tunnel walls, from scaffolds of welded sigils and spell-iron. They were rebels, dreamers, outcasts—watching history unfold. A low drumbeat rolled through the hall.

In the center, on the copper-tiled plaza, six initiates stood in a circle, backs to the watching crowd, faces to the flame. Joshua joined them. Before them roared the Oathflame Basin—its black fire curling like smoke underwater, crowned with flares of red and ash-white sparks. It made no sound. And yet, it filled the air with pressure, like the moment before lightning strikes.

The Masked Leader approached, coat trailing like a stormcloud of stitched colors—pieces of burned flags, ripped house sigils, confiscated robes. His mask caught the firelight in jagged patterns.

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He spoke—not loudly, but the chamber carried his voice like scripture. "The Academy made you feel small. Replaceable. Weak. But weakness is not truth. Weakness is isolation. And now you are not alone."

He raised his fist. All around them, Union members did the same. A sea of clenched fists, from every tier and tunnel of the city-fortress.

"Come forth to be reforged. This flame does not burn flesh. It burns lies. It does not scar. It sears truth into your bones. You came here thinking yourself discarded. Let us mark what cannot be discarded."

The Oathflame surged. A single tendril of black fire slithered forward—splitting into seven, each heading toward one of the initiates. Joshua watched his approach like a striking serpent, slow and elegant.

The flame hovered above his forearm, whispering heat. It seemed to wait—not for permission, but for understanding. Then it pierced him. It did not burn like fire. It sank like truth. His body shuddered, not from pain, but from revelation

As the flames withdrew, the crowd exhaled—not as relief, but as unity. Drums rolled from somewhere high above. Spells flared like fireworks—silent, elegant, red and gold. Whispers turned to chants. And the Masked Leader turned once more to the seven.

"Welcome, brothers and sisters in arms to our great cause!" With that, the man left as the basin cooled, Joshua turned to see the others who stood before the sacred flame. Seven other students stood in a half-circle near the opposite wall—eyes sharp, faces shadowed by torchlight.

1. Aldric Veylan –

The Heir

A slim, pale youth draped in white robes embroidered with silver runes. His hair is raven-black, shot with a silver strand at the temple. He had an emotionless expression as he stood by himself.

2. Albert Harrow –

Steampunk Mechanist

He wore a patchwork vest of gears and etched brass, with goggles perched on bright copper hair. His left arm clicked faintly as he lifted it in a wave. Grease smudged his cheeks. Mischief danced behind his eyes.

3. Aurelia Dawnshield –

Angelic Warrior-Priest

Clad in partial armor, with radiant runes etched along her gauntlets and a symbol of judgment crossed out on her shoulder plate. A former warrior-priest—banished, perhaps. She bowed once to Joshua. The motion felt like a vow.

4. Quille Marwood –

The Inkwright

Tall, cloaked, with pages tucked into every visible pocket. A young novelist in ink-stained coat and perpetually inky fingertips. He grinned lazily. "Samuelson, was it? A strong name. Mind if I borrow it for a story later?"

5. Fenja Karsson –

The Shield-Breaker

Built like a glacier. A towering warrior-woman with a rune-carved gauntlet covering her right fist. Leather armor and scars over her body. She looked Joshua up and down. Nodded once. A woman of few words and fewer weaknesses.

6. Mira Silvershade –

The Moon-Eyed Seer

Veiled, silent. Her feet hovered an inch off the floor, eyes glowing faintly through a curtain of silver-blonde hair. She said nothing. But Joshua felt her see him—more than his name, more than his thoughts.

Seven rebels. Seven new flames. And one cause burning through them all.

-

Summoned to the Inner Circle

The ceremony ended. The crowd dispersed into tunnels, chambers, and platforms, their chants fading like smoke into the vaulted air. Their little group of newbies were also about to disperse when the woman from earlier steps forward, silver eyes bright. "Joshua. Come with me."

She leads Joshua through dripping corridors to a small chamber warmed by a single brazier of molten glyph-iron. The Masked Leader stands waiting, mask gleaming.

His coat dragged faintly along the floor, still dripping with emberlight from the ceremony. His mask gleamed—a jagged halo of bronze and bone. He wasn't alone. Flanking him stood two figures cloaked in dusk-black armor—one lean and blade-quiet, the other broad and jagged like a living war golem. They did not speak. But they watched.

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"Joshua Kane," the Masked Leader rasped, voice like paper torn slowly. "We have heard of what you did… at the ball."

Joshua said nothing. But he knew. He knew exactly what they meant. The First-Year Welcoming Party.

"You lifted your voice," the leader continued. "When others stayed silent. You raised your name. Not to rise alone—but to carry others with you."

The brazier hissed. The glyph-iron flared for a moment, casting red shadows up the leader's mask. "We are not only rebels, Joshua. We are builders. And the world we build needs pillars strong enough to carry those who have been broken. I feel as if you will be one of those great pillars to lift up the weak and weary. To do what I do, what we all do here."

A pause. The masked head tilted slightly. "We ask you to continue what you've begun. To gather the lowly, the cast-out, the underestimated. Help them rise. Raise alliances. Forge magical circles. Build what the upperclassmen and top talents fear most: solidarity."

Joshua hesitated only a moment—then nodded once. He was going to do that anyway, but he felt there was more to this. He glanced at the brazier. At the flickering light that didn't feel like fire, but memory made molten. "This is about more than lifting the low rank first years, isn't it?"

The leader didn't answer directly. Instead, he stepped closer. His mask only inches from Joshua's face. "There are truths beneath truths, Joshua. In due time you shall have your answers. For now—do what you know is right. And don't imagine this will be a thankless job. My research has led me to places few have tread. I can promise to raise your talent. Helping you change your future and earn your rightful place at the top."

He stepped back in shock. That was possible, to raise talents? The woman touched Joshua's shoulder lightly. "You are a light in a place that has long gone dark," she said. "Just don't be surprised when it draws more than just hope."

The two armored sentinels stepped aside. "Go," the Leader said. "You are the Union now. Let the Academy learn what that truly means."

-

Quest #2 Update - Save/Lead the Downtrodden

The Academy thrives on hierarchy: ranks, bloodlines, dorm prestige. Its towers gleam above a foundation built on exploited magic and buried names. But you've walked the low roads. Fighting the good fight.

Goals

Unite the Low-Ranked: Seek out overlooked, ignored, or disgraced students. Gain their trust. Train with them. Make them believe they matter.

Protect the Vulnerable: Intervene in moments of abuse, exploitation, or dismissal. Make enemies by doing the right thing.

Forge Power in Numbers: Turn friendship into coordination. Coordination into strategy. Strategy into victory.

Reward

Talent Upgrade: Don't let your talent hold you back anymore. Now you can rise up and claim the power that should be yours!

??? - More Rewards in store

-

The Union of the Oppressed

"No masters. No martyrs. Only the many—rising." Role: Revolutionaries. Educators. Dissidents. Underground Healers. Shadow Law. Magical Mutual Aid.

What They Do

The Union is a clandestine collective of outcasts, low-ranked students, failed prodigies, magical mutants, defected instructors, and magical radicals who believe the Academy's hierarchy is not a natural order—but a weapon. They do not seek mere rebellion. They seek liberation—of magic, status, and truth.

Their Work Includes:

Protecting the Discarded

: They shelter familiars too wild, students too strange, and magic too unstable to be welcomed elsewhere. If it's rejected by the system, it's welcomed by the Union.

Shadow Education

: Teaching banned magic, lost traditions, heretical spellforms, and altered rituals to students who'd never get into elite towers.

Undermining Injustice

: Union members spy, steal, and sabotage elitist rituals, discriminatory rites, and magical oppression from inside.

Empowering the Low

: They offer sanctuary, purpose, and arcane resources to the lowest-ranked students—then teach them how to punch up.

Preserving Magical Truth

: The Union archives forbidden histories and rewritten events the Academy tries to suppress—offering an alternative spell-canon beneath the one taught above.

Where They Operate

The Undercity Sewers: A vast and ancient sewer system that houses not just waste, but ruins of forgotten schools, discarded gods, failed experiments, and metaphysical rot. The Union's tunnels are lined with graffiti wards, bone totems, and sigils of revolution. Down here, everything is recycled—including destiny.

The Red Bastion: An underground fortress carved into a long forgotten city shielded by propaganda illusions and cloaked spells. Within: rebel dorms, armories, infirmaries, scroll forges, ritual halls, training yards, and communal kitchens. Everything is shared. Nothing is earned through bloodline alone.

Training Offered

Guerilla Spellcraft: Quick-cast techniques, low-component rituals, and improvised spell use. Learn to cast in the dark, with scraps, under pressure—and still win.

Spellbreaking: Dispel elite-level enchantments, dissolve magical contracts, and disrupt glyph-locks used to enslave or suppress. Learn to "crack" magical oppression wide open.

Familiar Liberation & Rebinding: Learn to communicate with bound familiars, break soul-contracts, and reforge new bonds based on consent, balance, and mutual power.

Speechcraft & Revolutionary Rhetoric: Not all spells are cast with sigils. Union members are taught to wield words that incite change—be it in a dorm, a duel, or before a tribunal.

Red-Thread Tactics: Learn to organize quietly. Build circles, courts, and cabals beneath the Academy's gaze. Structure resistance cells. Create alliances between dorms.

Counter-Rank Combat: Tactics to take down higher-ranked mages using knowledge, environment, teamwork, and grit. Because when the system stacks the deck, the Union reshuffles it.

Perks of the Path

The Oathflame Mark (Innate Union Gift): A soul-mark left by the branding ceremony. Glows when you stand up for others. In certain places, it opens doors, calls allies, or resists suppression magic.

Underground Resources: Access to rebel-run spellshops, potion brewers, scroll copiers, and curse-breakers. Prices are bartered or earned—never privileged.

Rebel Intel Network: You hear whispers from ghosts, familiars, janitors, dropouts, and shadows. If something is happening in the school, the Union hears it first.

Secret Trials: Special rites for learning magic outside Academy approval—like soul-reconstruction, dream-forging, or blood-truth rituals.

Factional Protection: When a professor targets you unjustly, or a high-rank tries to crush your dorm, Union watchers might step in. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with knives.

Endgame – The Red Dream

"We are not here to replace one throne with another. We are here to melt the throne down and forge a table where all can sit."

If the Union rises high enough—if enough minds shift, enough power changes hands—a legendary outcome is possible: The Red Dream – Found the Free School. Establish a new magical sanctuary within the sewers, fully independent from Academy law. A place where all magic can be taught, where all are free and equal.

[A/N: They are Commies]

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