I live!
Things are getting busier for me between work, a new craft ambition, baking, and the usually scheduled crafts, but I’m hoping things will settle out in the next week. With schools having started up again for the year I decided to pull out a school-adjacent short story.
I hope you enjoy!
What’s the Buzz About?
When her class started at exactly 3:05 Avedia Stardew hopped up onto the magic carriage where her students had gathered and activated the spell that would get it moving. A quick headcount afterwards showed all her students had arrived on time – a benefit of teaching second years. All the students stared back at her, carefully holding the covered baskets that had been left on the seats. One for each of them.
“Welcome, and I hope you came prepared for a hike! We’re starting the gathering and hazards class with a trip!” Avedia pulled out a stack of papers as the carriage creaked its way out of the thick defensive walls of the school and started traversing the path through the borderlands. They would be staying in the area of the borderlands that was frequently patrolled, which meant there was no worry of being jostled around on the well maintained road. “If you’ve read the syllabus I’m sure you’ve all got questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them. No matter how odd or silly you may think your questions are, you’re here to learn. If you need extra examples or additional information then I’m here to help.”
The students relaxed a little, and Avedia smiled. Avedia Stardew had a reputation as one of the nicest teachers at Silvan’s High Point Magica academy, and she worked hard to maintain it. Her job, goal, life mission, was to equip her students to the best of her abilities and make sure they left her class as experts in all she had to teach them. Anything they needed to excel, she was more than happy to provide.
She was still a teacher at High Point Magica academy, however. A school on the border of the frontier land known for its ruthless teaching methods and its excellent results. Only the bravest, foolhardy, or most desperate of students enrolled.
“Alright everyone, let’s pull the covers off of our baskets,” Avedia watched as each student pulled the cover off carefully, fighting to keep her smile small. “In your baskets you’re going to see a small vial of perfume. Now, I want you all to pull them out and get a good smell of it.”
After a cautious glance around at their class mates each student pulled out their bottle and gave a brief spritz, clearly surprised at the light floral scent that came out. Some of the girls gave more than a few spritz, more like they were putting it on.
Excellent.
“What you’re all smelling is a perfume commonly worn by noble ladies in the capital, made from the Esper Gloria flower. In the wild, the flower is usually scentless until disturbed. Due to their small size and scarcity in the inner kingdom the perfume is expensive, which is one of the reasons it hasn’t spread out of the inner kingdom.”
A girl in the back raised her hand. Avedia nodded at her to speak.
“I recently read that there are a lot of Esper Gloria in the frontier lands, is that why you gave us this? Are we gathering flower ingredients for perfume?”
Avedia grinned. “Nope! I gave you this because of the second reason the perfume hasn’t taken off outside the inner kingdom: Esper Gloria is one of the favorite foods of Mountain bees, and they are attracted to the scent!”
She probably shouldn’t be so amused by the way her students faces fell, but this was literally called the gathering and hazards class. The whole point of the class was to train students to face hazards in the wild, especially if they expected to hunt and forage in the frontier land later on. Moutnain bees weren’t even that hard of a pest compared to most of the monsters you would meet out here. She knew for a fact that their bestiary and combat classes would have covered at least their strengths, weaknesses, and habitat in their first year courses. She had even caught a couple dozen of them for said classes so they would have live specimens for those lectures.
The cart came to a stop at what would be the lesson’s base camp and she hopped out. “Now that you all smell like Esper Gloria, you’re going to receive a list of ingredients. Your job is to go out and collect what you need and make it back here, preferably without being attacked. Failure to get any ingredients will be an automatic fail.”
She handed each student a list of ingredients as they slowly shuffled off the cart, watching the open grassy plain next to the road with trepidation. Good, the last thing that would help them out here would be to get careless.
“The area around the cart is warded to deter any monsters so if you really can’t handle the mountain bees, or if you somehow pick up a whole nest, you can retreat back here.” She raised her voice to make sure she had her students attention. “But be aware, once you return you have to turn in your baskets and whatever you’ve gathered and can’t leave again. You are allowed to go solo or group up. Any other questions?”
One of the boys hanging around the cart raised his hand. “Are we allowed to fight the Mountain bees?”
Avedia grinned widely back at him. “Attack spells are still restricted, same as on school grounds, but you are absolutely allowed to use whatever else is at hand to fight if you want to.”
The contemplative look on the boy’s face meant trouble later, but it also promised that this class would be interesting. She couldn’t wait to see how her students would do.
When no one else said anything Avedia clapped loudly and turned, gesturing towards the open field. “If there are no further questions then get your baskets and let’s get going!”
