Chapter 159: Clues
Professor Baswara?
No.
Her mind imdiately hit a wall. It was a finely tuned search engine calibrated for patterns and anomalies, but nothing? The na triggered no recognition within the vast, ticulously constructed database of this world’s history she’d been compiling for hours. Baswara... Baswara... Baswara—
But it did trigger a mory from a different vault entirely. One made of real stone and real blood.
Ah!
Elder Dragon Baswara. Five thousand years old. Sovereign of the Sapphire Depths. The Sea Drag—
WAIT!
Eastiel’s younger brother, Elias, existed here. Arzhen, Ruby, Nikolas, even Anton Vasiliev, they were all present, their roles adapted but their essences recognizable.
They were narrative extensions plucked from her real-world relationships and conflicts, woven into the fabric of this high school AU to provide depth and tension.
And obviously, Oathran’s world of acquaintances would expand the sa in this world too!
If the System, or whatever power crafted this reality, drew from the core identities of its inhabitants to "fill in the blanks," as Eastiel described, then Oathran’s ancient connections would also have reflections here.
His world wasn’t just hers and Eastiel’s grafted onto a new setting, of course. Now that Oathran existed, it contained shadows of his epic, draconic history.
But, and here was the critical twist, those reflections would be translated. A five-thousand-year-old Sea Dragon wouldn’t be a Sea Dragon in a boarding school.
The narrative would bend, would find a role that fit the setting while preserving the original relationship. A ntor. A protector. An authority figure?
Who would this elder dragon be in this fabricated world?
She dove back into her ntal archive, the library of this world’s lore she’d been building page by tedious page. She scanned through noble lineages, faculty records, historical texts on the school’s founding. Baswara yielded nothing.
She couldn’t believe she’d miss anything.
If the na existed in any official record she’d seen, she would have seen it.
Or perhaps, she didn’t.
She was just looking at the wrong place.
Official records were one thing. It could also be deliberately hidden. But history in a place like this was also written in stone, in mortar, in paint. It was etched into the very bones of the building.
So, why would her mind’s eyes lifted inward, reconstructing the visual map of Scholomance Athenaeum? Because it was giving her a hint.
Corridors. Walls. Portraits of—
The Grand Hallway of Headmasters.
Grim, oil-painted faces staring down from ornate fras, each labeled with a na and tenure. She’d passed it ti and ti again, her focus always on her destination, not the flat image watching her go.
Ah!
Professor Baswara.
Not a current teacher. Not in any registry she’d seen. But on a wall. The stern, kind-eyed face of a man with a beard like frothing seawater and eyes the color of a deep, calm ocean. The plaque beneath it would read, "Headmaster Baswara."
Predecessor to Current Headmaster Lazuardi.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.
Perhaps outside of this world, Professor Lazuardi too was a dragon?
The current headmaster, a man she’d only seen in passing, distant and enigmatic.
She never heard of that na, though. In the real world, Lazuardi ant nothing to her. But then, well, no human in the real world knew how many dragons there were and it was impossible to know for sure either.
Apparently, this fabricated world was far more ticulously crafted than she’d assud. It wasn’t just a flat stage set for teenage drama. It had strata. It had a hidden mythology that mirrored their real one, translated into academic robes and painted portraits.
Heh.
A smile spread across Cecilia’s mind, though her face remained schooled into polite inquiry. She had watched Eastiel grapple with the existential terror of this place, his fear of the power that could reshape him. But the sheer, breathtaking craftsmanship of it only hit her now.
Whoever, or whatever, was up there, pulling the strings of this reality... they were amazing.
Clues!
"Professor Baswara?" she asked, her tone carefully nonchalant. "You an, the previous headmaster?"
Oathran turned from his contemplation of the smoothie to look at her, a flicker of mild surprise in his grey eyes. "Yes."
"You know him? How is he? Is he... healthy?" Cecilia pressed, layering her question with just the right amount of generic, polite concern.
"Mm, too healthy, perhaps." Oathran took a thoughtful sip of his broth. "His retirent seemingly freed him from... so mortal constraint."
He said it with the air of soone repeating an inside joke he didn’t fully understand but appreciated the sentint of.
Then his gaze sharpened, focusing on her. "You..."
Cecilia felt the shift like a drop in barotric pressure. She recoiled slowly, subtly putting a few more inches between them. "What?"
"If my mory’s right," Oathran began, "he should’ve retired before you entered the Athenaeum. And I rembered him hoarding all his research projects and everything with his na on it from the school to store back ho instead out of spite because of the school’s bureaucracy."
He leaned forward a fraction, his eyes narrowing. "How did you know him?"
Ahh... the question... it assud a level of personal, contemporary knowledge she shouldn’t possess. She dodged, turning the question back on him.
"You live with him?" she asked, her own voice a mirror of his sudden curiosity.
"Can you please answer
first?" Oathran countered, his politeness now edged with steel.
Ti for the fallback. The boring, logical, nerdy explanation. Cecilia shrugged. "The school’s hallway of headmasters? Also who wouldn’t know their own school’s headmasters? Wouldn’t it be common knowledge?"
She sold it perfectly, acting as if this were the most obvious thing in the world, as if she’d just casually morized the entire rogues’ gallery of old academics on her way to class.
Oathran stared at her for a beat. Then a slow, disbelieving smile touched his lips. "No. Nope."
He shook his head. "I, for once, didn’t know my elentary school’s headmaster’s na until I was told to ask for his signature for reasons I will not disclose."
He leaned in again, his voice half-amused, half-accusatory. "And what normal person would morize the na of old people on the walls?"
Reviews
All reviews (0)