Codex

11 - Serpentine Visitors

"Teach, what the hell, man?" Pyro yelled above the class when he saw me splayed over my clone's shoulder. The clone stopped Levitate and landed, placing me on the teacher's seat and taking a seat on the desk himself.

"He'll be up by the end of the day," the clone pointed out, a most indifferent look to him. Seeing myself from another perspective was quite jarring, was I such a pain in the ass?

"Come on, don't leave us hangin', teach. Tell us what happened!" Pyro urged, gaining the wholehearted support of the class. It had grown a lot since our return from Inferno Desert, soon I'd have to hold classes outdoors to accommodate the number of mages.

"Nah," the clone swerved his hand in front his face dismissively, "too lazy. Anyway, let's get this underway." The class continued. None of the mages had managed to sustain an elemental yet, one of the most basic spirits. The class ended with poofs and faulty summons, but they were growing, which was nice.

By night, I was back to my normal strength, after constantly gnawing on food to rebuild myself.

"Okay, summon a hollow clone now and try to transfer consciousness from the first to the second," Donna directed.

I did as she told, prepared to collapse again, but this one didn't take much mana or stamina. Maybe because it was probably a living corpse. The procedure went surprisingly smooth, it looked like the hardest obstacle by far was summoning an actual self-conscious clone. The first clone was now just a husk and the second one gained the ability to think. So, how do I put an extra consciousness in me?

"How would I know?"

Even after all those years together, even after knowing each other inside out, she still surprised me sometimes. The last step, the last goddamn step, and you don't know!

"Yeah well I'm not all-knowing. How about you think about it for once?"

Eh, nah, I'll pass. I went home that night, getting a good night's rest. Around noon the next day, when Dawn dragged me out for lunch, something, strange happen. 'Strange' being a rather heavy understatement. We walked through the courtyard, through the bustle of mages and a couple figures were spotted in the skies far north. Many heads were turned to the spectacle encroaching us. It didn't take long before panic and commotion set in, the masses had realised there were two colossal creatures flying toward us and decamped the area to hide in the shadows of the buildings. We did the same.

They slowed their flight as the came closer to the Order, diving downward to the courtyard and landing. Me, along with everyone were dumbstruck by the sight of dragons! Hey, so, are those–

"Yup."

One was near black, horned and scaly. The other one was of a much lighter, greying ash, with no horns. "We seek an audience" the black one's booming voice ruptured the sky, "with Eric Archibald!" it shouted out. I was sure half of Aquan heard that announcement. Yeah, in my head I knew I had to speak up, or do something, but all I could afford was a mindless stare at the winged behemoths. I mean, these things were dragons! Creatures of myth and legends, folktale and children's stories.

More and more heads began turning to me, and the pair of fire and ice looked in my direction as well. Okay, calm down. The witch was cool with me, so these guys should be too, right?

"Well, buddy, you kind of were the only mage in existence to ever turn her down, probably. That might've really hurt her pride, you know? Probably. Rather, it doesn't matter what you do or think, if these two want to hurt you, they'll do it, probably. The Order is an insect to them. Anyway, good luck!"