Seth and the Prometheus Guild

Late-Night Burgulary

I took exactly three days for Seth to decide he was done with school.

It was boring, unnecessary and he hated having to listen to the puny teachers.

Apart from P.E and Creature Theory he also had to sit through something called First Aid, where Elaine of all people showed the right way to disinfect wounds and bind them or how to handle someone who might have a broken neck (in Seth's opinion she should just have twisted the head clean around and be done with it). Another subject that went completely over his head was Data Analysis. The students had to learn how to categorize different cases, how the Guild sorted their files and so on. Seth used the two hours to catnap.

History had started out interesting, with lots of dying humans, but when the founder of the Guild started banding them together, Seth lost interest.

The only subject in which he perked up briefly was Geography. A big map was projected onto the wall, the white parts showing areas under human reign and the grey areas standing for the so-called Uncharted Zones. This simply meant that those parts were not infested with humans and the Guild had no jurisdiction in them. If a human wandered into the Uncharted Zone and was used as a chew toy by some nastiness no one could take any issue with it.

Seth was oddly satisfied to see that there were a lot of those grey zones on the map.

The part of the world the map showed was called New Undia. In the middle was a big white blotch, slightly pear-shaped, surrounded by continuously smaller blobs on its edges. There were some bigger patches farther out, connected to the biggest spot by thin lines, but otherwise the map was grey. Wild, untamed grey.

The teacher who was wearing glasses so thick she must be blind without them, had tapped those lines, explaining that the connecting roads between the bigger cities were still not safe. That it was one of the Guilds most important tasks to protect those pathways and patrol them, guarding important shipments from one settlement to another.

Seth started to catnap again and didn't bother waking up for something called Math.

"I don't like school," he told Francesca after the third day was finally over. They were sitting in his small room - which he found out had originally been a storage room - and Francesca was showing him the new clothes she had bought for him.

She lowered a bright green shirt. "Oh, darling, I understand that it must be difficult as the new kid. Are the other children ignoring you?"

If anything, they paid him too much attention. If it wasn't Mary Ann and her jelly-eating companions it was Merlin and Kaya. Even Braeden had once tried to nudge him awake during History. This in turn meant that there was always someone who towed him along into the cafeteria. Even though the Hall of Horrors had lost some of its creepy vibe he still didn't like it - especially since he found out what 'cheese' was.

"If you want to, I can go talk to them?" Francesca offered. "Or do you think you'll manage on your own? You're clever and sweet, I'm sure you'll be able to get along with the others."

Seth had neither intention nor desire to get along with anyone. Nevertheless, he nodded, wanting Francesca to leave for the evening.

"That's the spirit," she said, folding another colorful shirt. "Did you have dinner yet?"

Seth nodded again. He had and he had used the opportunity to scout.

He wanted a knife. He had wanted one since his second fight with Braeden two days ago. But he hadn't known where to find one until he started looking.

He was quite sure the Guards, Gregory and the P.E teacher, would have one. But he didn't know where their private quarters were, and even though he could probably sniff them out he wanted to save that as a last option and maybe find a more easily available knife first.