#might loop back for impy might not

[factorialsotherfandoms]

I missed day one, and I'll miss a lot more most likely, but... A stupid little scribble set in an even sillier au for @hermitadaymay .

Hermitcraft, mixed with extremely silly base building game Spellcaster University.

Xisuma, Joe, and Cleo interview Grian for a job teaching portal magic at Hermiton University.

(It also serves as a semi-decent into to the verse, I suppose.)

Xisuma is late of the interview. It's never a good thing when the headmaster is late to the interview, but, well, one student had let the pegasus out of the stables, and another had set fire to the House Dinnerbone stairwell, and then-

Needless to say he is a little flustered when he arrives.

Joe and Cleo, already present, glance at him.

"Why Xisuma," Joe greets him. "You look terrible."

"Here, let me-" Cleo doesn't finish the sentence, just tugging on his clothes until they meet her specifications.

"Thank you," Xisuma straightens his helmet. "We're interviewing for a portals teacher. The gentleman is a friend of Mumbo's, so please be gentle with him."

Not that Xisuma has met many people for whom "friend of Mumbo's" would be the first words that sping to mind, but he cannot well imagine Mumbo befriending anyone less anxious than he himself.

"Didn't the teacher's union ban portal teaching? That's the entire reason portal rooms exist?" Cleo raises an eyebrow. "If he's wanting to teach it…?"

"I know, it's strange," Xisuma tries to rub his forehead, and hits his helmet instead. "But, looking at his qualifications he would be very useful, and he directly asked if portals was open."

Which means. The arcane department staff - Joe, Cleo, and technically Hypno, though he ia busy with classes and has already declined to have an opinion - get the final say.

Xisuma is still the headmaster, though; he walks in and sits first, then Joe takes his left, and Cleo his right.

On the other side of the desk sits a scrawny man with large wings tucked awkwardly behind him, fidgeting as he glances around the room. He wears a rather comfortable looking red jumper, and looks nothing like the archmaster his qualifications show him to be.

"Hello, Grian," Xisuma fiddles with the papers as he sits down, pretending that they matter. "Sorry for the delay; at any school this large some student will always cause trouble."

"Right, yeah!" Grian's attention snaps to him, then the other. "Archmaster Xisuma, right? And… I recognise Professor Cleo from her free lectures on necromantic ethics, but I don't know you, Professor…?"

"Joe Hills!" Joe replies, perfectly brightly. "Not a professor at all; I just teach temporal magic, and dabble in a bit of this and that."

"I'm glad you liked the lecture enough to remember it," Cleo replies to him. "Though I teach elementalism here."

Most mages have at least two or three specialisms; Cleo isn't a necromancer at all, really, she's just what happens when one goes rogue. Keralis sometimes finds time to teach it between his other, more theoretical lessons, and Joe can cover the basic classes - it's not regularly on the curriciulum, though. Only by special request, and only to certain people.

Demonology is one thing - demons themselves have standards - but necromancy…

"So you're the arcane department here?" Grian asks. "That's cool, I was wondering-"

"We're conducting the interview," Cleo cuts across with a reminder.

"Right, sorry," Grian grins a little nervously at them, cowering in his seat some.

"Spacial magic?" Xisuma asks. "You do realise that the teacher's union has banned the teaching of it, right?"

"But your students still need to learn it," Grian counters. "Properly taught it's no more dangerous than temporal magic - less, even, as you cannot unwrite the timeline with portals. I know you've been letting them experiment, but proper tuition would improve it."

He's right, but Doc is going to obliterate them all if Xisuma agrees to it.

"You would need to convince the school's union representative to allow it," Cleo suggests. "Otherwise, we do have a position as a careers councilor open…?"

That earns a laugh.

"I'll speak to the union rep and convince them," Grian grins.

"Well that's swell!" Joe chimes in. "But! While your magic is all impressive, what about children? Our students are mostly eighteen to twenty-five, but you wouldn't really know it to see them act."

"I did work experience in a preschool?" Grian offers. "I am, according to seven three year olds, an expert in fingerpainting."

Cleo cackles when he says that, managing to control herself back to a "oh, he'll fit right in."

Technically speaking, as a private university there are no formal requirements for teaching here. Xisuma likes to think most of his teachers are properly qualified, and he does make sure they know their magic, but… Well their Mumbo is very precious, and a fantastic teacher in the end, but he had ended up with a job after his student application paperwork ended up in the same pile, and…

Xisuma has instituted a better sorting system since then, thankfully.

Or, well, his hermits did it for him, but same difference.

"Prank wars?" Joe asks.

Grian clearly hesitates before answering that one, looking between them, "prank wars…?"

It's not the wars he's worried about, Xisuma quickly realises; it's their reactions.

"The staff have semi-regular prank wars, sometimes student-led, sometimes not," Joe tells him. "Keeps us on our toes. Nobody knows when the Lord of Evil will attack, so you always need waterballoons ready."

"I can do that," Grian perks up at the idea. "Not waterballoons, but something. Maybe? I thought you meant student ones."

"Oh the teachers gamble on those ones," Cleo gestures dismissively. "As long as they don't involve the handful of actual children, and clean up after, they can do what they want."

"Actual children?"

"We have a few," Xisuma's heart curls at the thought of them. "We have scholarships for anyone over 14 who is both orphaned and shows magical talent. Sometimes younger, though those are… unique circumstances, and require a guardian in attendance."

Grian nods along, either understanding or thinking he does. "That's fine. As I said, preschool - hormones are a different problem, but you have your own medical and counselling staff, right? So I just need to control the classroom, not all that."

"Exactly," Xisuma smiles at him. "Some of the teachers lead houses, but that wouldn't be expected for you for a few cycles. Now, I asked you to bring a sample lesson plan. Could I see it?"

Xisuma is one of the few people who was ever taught portal magic, rather than left to learn it from items and experimentation; it's not taboo, it's just accidents with portal magic are more traumatising - and bloody - than most.

Grian hands over a folder, and Xisuma starts flicking through. It is not how he would plan a lecture course on portals, but then there are good reasons he does not teach it himself. It seems perfectly competent, with foundations first…

There's not much for the advanced level students, but it would be best to test with just some first years first; new classes are always offered to continuing students, but their schedules are usually too full. Even then, they would have to start at the bottom.

So, for a first year on the job…

Xisuma finds them competent, but he hands them to Cleo to check over next.

"Well, this all seems to be going marvelously!" Joe claps his hands. "There are a few more staff memebers under the arcane banner - we should introduce you before any final decisions are made."

"I've got the job then?" Grian finally manages to sit still, looking at them with wide eyes.

"Cleo still needs to review your papers, but the interview is done," Xisuma offers him a small smile. "Welcome to Hermiton University, your acceptance and a provisional period pending. It's been a long while since we were based out of Hermiton itself, but we still wear the name with pride."

How many cycles since Hermiton burnt?

Xisuma does not want to know.

"Thank you!" Grian grins. "I knew Mumbo wouldn't lead me astray!"

Mumbo absolutely leads everyone astray. He doesn't mean to, poor boy, it just happened to the best of them all.

Still…

The university has burnt before, and it will again; it's not fair, to recruit someone who doesn't know exactly what they're facing.

Xisuma glances to Joe, then to Cleo, and then realising that, as headmaster, he must be the one to say it himself.

"Just to be clear," there is one thing that Xisuma needs to make sure anyone who ends up in his radius understands. "You are aware that this university serves to provide sanctuary to, and train, mages to fight the encroaching forces of evil? And that, in doing so, we tend to be burnt to the ground every ten to fifteen years? We do of course build escape routes in as we go, and former staff are contacted first to see if they with to return to their positions, but we cannot guarantee that you will not be injured in the process, nor at any time during your employment. Once you sing a contract, you will be bound to us, and you will be a target. You can back out now, but there will come a point when it is too late. So think carefully, okay?"

"Yup," the young man pops the p on the word, resting his chin on his hands with a mischevious grin. "I've been hosting Mumbo between cycles the last little while, I've heard all about it. But if it's forces of evil you want chasing down? It's me you want on your side."

Well /now/ he's curious. "How so?"

Grian grins, spreading his bright wings and ruffling his feathers, revealing a network of arcane eyes beneath them, "because, let's just say, I always have another card up my sleeve."

[officialleehadan]

Blackbird

This is one of my New Subscriber stories! For Sarah, who requested Hope Punk with Luka. This one is a little farther ahead, in HGE - Rise Above!

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“We’re getting a distress beacon.”

Ella looked up to see one of Luka’s bodyguards, she thought it was Right, in the doorway to the communal room. She was flipping through one of Luka’s books while he carefully took apart one of the kitchen conoles. It had been acting up recently and, never one to leave something broken, he was fixing it.

“Did we transmit it forward with my code?” Luka asked from under the console, only the bottom half of him visible as he rewired the processors. “Mother and LaShan shouted at me the last time I answered a distress beacon.”

“That’s because it was a pirate trap, and we would have gotten blown up or captured if you didn’t fly like the devil,” Right said pointedly, and winced. “I think they’ll make an exception. It’s the Blackbird.”

In a flash, Luka was out from under the console and running for the cockpit.

“Why didn’t you lead with that?” he snarled, angrier than Ella had ever seen him as he threw himself into the pilot’s chair. She scrambled to join him and flipped on the comm before he could reach for it himself. He spared her the slightest nod of thanks. “All hands, we’re making a Jump. Dammit Right, you know who’s on that ship!”

“I turned us around and kicked on the engines before I told you,” Right said, apparently unphazed by his boss’s anger. “And sent a reply on your code. It was urgeant, but not seconds-to-live urgeant. Breathe and get us there.”

Luka glared, but his hands relaxed on the controls when he saw that they were already at max speed without Jumping. It was just as well that it was Right who brought it to his attention. The towering bodyguard seemed to think of Luka more as a bratty younger brother than an employer.

Before Ella could ask who they were flying to save, the ship bucked smoothly, and the stars warped around them.

Jump tech was expensive. A combination of magic and science that slipped through one of the great loopholes in space travel.

It wasn’t possible to go faster than light, but it was possible to bend space around them the slightest bit, until they shot forward. A short Jump took minutes, and could take a ship from one solar system to another with relative ease.

A long jump, from one galaxy to another, took days, and took so much power than only the huge intergalactic cruisers could make the jump safely without the risk of running out of juice halfway there.

Of course, no that the Empire and the Alliance were working together, they were building a higway of sorts. A string of bases connecting their galaxy to their next nearest neighbor. Soon, anyone with a half-decent ship and a working Jump Drive would be able to visit the Alliance and explore the newest frontier.

But they weren’t making a long Jump today. When Ella glanced down at the coordinates of the beacon, she was relieved to see that the distressed ship was only one good Jump away.

And the Roja had top-of-the-line engines, as maintained by an overinvested technopath.

Space cracked around them, and Ella closed her eyes against the momentary nausea that always accompanied a jump-landing. No one was immune. Even Luka pressed his lips together and pushed through it. Electricity crackled along his hands, and the Roja rumbled

“What?” she asked and stared at the ship readouts. Whole blocks of the ships, engines, wings, and all, were shifting about, smooth on precision-rails. “How?”

“The Roja is fully modular,” Luka said tightly, and pointed to a set of controls. “I designed it to be whatever I need it to be. Hit that switch, and that switch.”

Ella did, and the readout changed again.

The Roja was one of the finest ships in the Black, but Ella thought they were a modified racing ship. Maybe even a hotrodded transport.

“How-“ she whispered as cannons folded out of the hull, and a pair of missile tubes slipped out along their wings. A mine deployer glided open off the back of their cargo hold, and a definitely-illegal communication jammer began broadcasting on all frequencies. “None of this is even sort-of legal!”

“We’re a Continental-class Destroyer. Imperial authorization and all,” Right said from behind her. Ella always wondered at the strange little alcoves behind the cockpit, but as Left joined his twin, back-to-back at newly revealed consoles, she understood.

Gunner stations. The Roja wasn’t just a transport. It was a weapon, small enough to go anywhere, to any base, but with the kind of firepower only the biggest and most powerful Destroyers carried.

The scene that met their eyes when they cut a path closer, weapons armed and ready, was all too common in the farthest reaches of the Empire. Pirates had cornered a mid-size runner ship, usually either smugglers or cargo transport, and were in the process of boarding.

Luka didn’t waste time.

“This is Luka Gol, aboard the Roja,” he said into an open broadcast. “Disengage and leave or we will open fire.”

Ella honestly didn’t expect it to work, but two of the three ships immediately threw up a white-flag signal and pulled back.

The third, locked into the Blackbird’s airlock, was hampered by their own ship. Even Luka couldn’t disengage from an airlock quickly without risking both ships in the process.

“Are they going to pull back?” Ella wondered as their guns trained on that third ship, enough firepower to level a good-sized starbase on a ship with barely eleven crewmembers. She didn’t particularly care if they fired on the pirates. Her parents where killed by raiders just like these ones. “What do we do if they don’t? We can’t fire on them while they’re attached. It could vent the Blackbird.”

“I’ll kill their ship,” Luka said darkly, and flicked his fingers. A new weapon armed. “That’s an electromagical charge bomb. “Pirate freighter Jenny, you have two Galactic minutes to evacuate your personel from the Blackbird and leave or I will personally blow your ship apart.”

“We’re on our way, Red Baron.” The crackly reply sounded scared. Ella was glad, and now she understood why exactly Luka could stand down three ships with his name alone. The Red Baron. She didn’t know he was the Red Baron. Hell, she didn’t know the Red Baron was real. “Two Galactic minutes. Understood.”

“Good,” Luka muttered darkly, and stared through the viewscreen until the ship pulled away and vanished in a blink of space. “Left, you tagged their ships?”

“Of course,” Left said cheerfully form his console. “The Portugal will meet them as soon as they land.”

“Make sure they’re charged with the crime they actually committed.”

“Yes Sir, Impie Sir.”

“I can hear what you really mean when you call me ‘Sir’.”

“Yes Sir.”

Pirates gone, and apparently being apprehended by a destroyer of all things, Luka eased them into the Blackbird’s space and connected their airlocks. As soon as they were locked, he took off at a run again, this time for the just-opening doors.

He didn’t make it. As the door opened, a young woman threw herself through the door. Luka barely had time to catch her before she hit the ground, and pulled her into a crushing hug.

“You have really good timing,” Ella heard her sai into his shirt as he murmured reassuraces into her ear and rocked her gently. Her accent was as pure Core as his, and she was shaken, but not weeping.“I thought you were heading to the Arctic?”

“Something came up,” Luka told her and pulled back to check her for injuries. “Are you hurt? If someone touched you, I’ll give them to Uncle Vlad with a happy heart.”

“I’m alright. My captain has panic rooms built into our escape pods. We locked ourselves in as soon as we got the capture-alert,” she assured him, and straightened her back proudly. Any jealousy Ella might have felt at the sight of her maybe-boyfriend holding another woman vanished the instant she got a good look at the woman in question. “The crew will be coming out soon. I got your reply-code and knew you were on your way.”

“Couldn’t let my favorite little sister get captured by pirates,” Luka said, confirming Ella’s half-formed suspicions, and kissed his sister’s head. “The Portugal will be collecting them shortly.”

“I’m your only sister,” she replied cheekily, and offered a hand to Ella. “Hello. I’m Maggie Gol.”

“Ella Rawlet,” Ella shook her hand. Maggie looked about seventeen, for all that her Core Pride made her seem older. “Your brother took apart our stove, but I think I can scrape up some tea for you. Sounds like you’ve had a hell of a day.”

“Pirates, forged documents, and Red Barons, Oh My,” Maggie said with a smile, and looped her arm through Ella’s, her other hand still firmly wrapped around her brother’s. Behind her, Left and Right were leading Luka’s other security onto the Blackbird. “I could definitely use a cup of tea.”

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HGE - Rise Above

Elizabetta Ralet saw something she shouldn’t, and met someone who might be able to fix her problems, if he doesn’t get them both killed first.

Hands on the Wheel

Dirt and Glitter (Subscriber only!)

Blackbird

In the Late Hours

Night District (Free on Patreon!)

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