The end of the evening had passed cruelly slowly and Sol had had to endure the inopportune taunts of a very annoyed Devion.
It was hardly surprising that Cristael had chosen to put Caspian and Devion on the same team. Caspian was Orpheion's ace and Devion was a real public menace. It therefore took a powerful magician to master another magician who was also very powerful but had no control over his powers.
The two roommates laid respectively on their beds, staring at the ceiling in their small room. Umbra was sleeping on the floor where they had set up a small cushion for the animal to rest on. Sol scratched the top of Panther's head which made her purr in her sleep.
"Are you taking her with us?"
"I think so."
"Won't she get in your way?"
Devion pondered and turned his head to his friend.
"She probably will, but without her it'll be worse." He straightened up. "It's good training for her too, I know very little about her skills and it wouldn't be bad if we improved our synergy. Anyway, Cristael agreed."
Sol nodded calmly. They continued their discussion and gradually drifted off into a well-deserved sleep.
The academy's students plunged into tormented dreams, no one really knew what awaited them in Pinevale. For some, Pinevale was a godsend and a kind of crazy adventure that signaled the beginning of their studies at Orpheion, for others, Pinevale was an announcement that none of them were ready for.
Devion's scar flickered slightly before he sank into a deeper sleep. The flickers faded as quickly as they had appeared.
It was cold, agonizingly cold. The marble floor of the castle didn't help, and the dark atmosphere of the surroundings didn't help to warm things up.
Her heels clicked on the ground with a shrill sound, closely followed by the grunts of the two imps following in her footsteps. These two ghastly creatures, with their reddish devil-like appearance and sharp claws, were nothing less than her servants and bodyguards.
But she didn't need protecting. Rather, it was up to them to watch their backs if they didn't fulfill her every wish. Much like everyone else in this nation, she was feared and respected by all.
A perfect tyrant.
A supreme queen.
A terrifying leader.
A flawless ruler.
With a wave of her hand, she beckoned her attendants to leave her. The train of her dress followed its path until she reached the throne, where she sat down immediately afterwards. Crossing her legs, one hand on her cheek, she tilted her head back and let out a small laugh.
"Enter my Phantoms."
Hel Osvaelrix watched the powerful magicians who made up the kingdom's elite magicians enter one by one. The Phantoms arrived and all put one knee to the ground as a sign of respect to their empress, their divine ruler, their queen.
"Stand up." Hel contemplated them one by one, proud of her Phantoms, her creations, her greatest achievements.
The magicians rose to their feet, invading the room with their presence and their absolutely phenomenal magical aura. They all stood respectfully, one arm raised, the other at their sides.
They were all awaiting orders from their sovereign.
"Eris." Hel announced.
Following this call, a young girl who didn't look a day over fourteen lifted her chin and locked her gaze on Hel. Her dark dress, with its many ruffles and golden charms, was decorated by a multitude of dancing bats. Her long hair, part of which was pulled up slightly on either side of her face by a brooch, highlighted her mischievous face and the two horns that stood out on the top of her head.
Eris Osvaelrix was frightening.
She was a worthy creation of her mother.
Hel grinned and held out a hand in the girl's direction.
"You'll be the first." she announced with a laugh.
An army of bats swirled around the room. Taking possession of the space they were in, these hideous beasts left a monstrous amount of magic in their wake, and black smoke took its place.
Eris cackled, clutching her face in both hands, her intense pink eyes turning red.
The knell was sounded.
Thepra began to fall.
Sol's sleep was restless. The teenager was by nature calm but stressed. This was the first time he'd ever been to an event of this kind. To be more precise, Sol had hardly slept all night.
Next to him, Devion slept soundly, seemingly unperturbed by what was about to happen. Umbra likewise hadn't moved all night, but was the first to welcome Sol, while the brunet struggled to get out of bed.
"Get up Dev!" Sol had thrown a pillow in his face, they were already late. "We've got an appointment in thirty minutes. Come on get up!"
"Hmm." Devion had simply grumbled half-awake. "Okay, comin-"
The front door to their room opened with a loud bang, revealing two female figures: one with a big smile on her lips who held the door wide open, the other more reserved, watching the scene from slightly further away.
"We've been commissioned by my sister to wake up all the first years. STAND UP!" Maya enunciated with some pride.
"Uh?" The dark-haired man with one eye open and the other closed stared at Maya and Carla standing opposite him. The princess had regained her peony color at the sight of the half-dressed teenager.
"Give me ten more minutes." Devion muttered.
Devion turned and sank back under his blanket before hearing a slight noise and finding himself in a pool of sand.
He jumped to his feet and shot a murderous glance at Maya, who was laughing and beckoned Carla to change rooms. They prepared to change victims and moved away from the doorway.
"Oh no, you won't get off that easy." Devion stood up and moved to catch up.
This time, it was a huge splash of water that Devion received in the face. Sol was the culprit. Laughing his head off, the latter looked at the dripping brunet with his hair plastered to his head.
"Sol."
A friendly scuffle ensued before the two teenagers realized that they were furiously late and that Jaz might severely reprimand them if they didn't hurry up.
Carla and Maya had already gone on their way to wake up one by one the other young prodigies of Orpheion institute.
Clad in heavy bags almost as big as themselves, the Institute's students were all lined up in military fashion, arranged by class. All were dressed in uniforms adapted to the conditions of a training camp, but especially to those of an area such as Pinevale.
The instructions were quite simple: everyone had to take a two-week change of clothes from the ones provided for the expedition.
Kel and Merily stepped forward to face the crowd, perfectly in place, in the institute's large main courtyard. With a flick of her hand, Professor Mendoz conjured up a surprisingly hollow device and began speaking into it to amplify her voice.
"Dear orpheians students, I'm delighted to meet you again this morning to announce the first departure for the training camp in Pinevale." She paused in her sentence before telling Professor Shapper to approach. "I'll let professor Shapper remind you of the rules to be observed during this camp. Please also bear in mind that during this trip if danger occurs it is imperative that you warn us."
Kel approached and, with a kind nod, took back the ice device that allowed Merily to speak in an intelligible voice.
"Thank you, Merily." He nodded again seeking, once more, to greet as many students as possible, which occasioned a few chuckles from the crowd. Kel was an excellent teacher but a bit of a mess. "Very good. Dear childre- students." A few students laughed again.
Kel stifled a slight laugh and resumed his speech with a much more serious tone that was in stark contrast to his usual personality. "As a reminder, as Professor Mendozal ready said, you must not take any risks and if, by misfortune, you find yourself in a delicate or worrying situation I'll ask you to use these calling stones."
A light breeze materialized and enveloped all the students, each of whom received a surprising stone decorated with some kind of symbol none of them knew.
Violet rubbed the stone a little as it came into her hand and leaned over to Charly to whisper something in his ear.
"It's ancient Kaelish. The language they spoke in Kaelor hundreds of years ago."
"Absolutely!" Kel replied distantly, Violet blushed and Charly looked at her smiling.
Nothing escaped Professor Shapper's notice and it was well known that he enhanced his hearing with his wind power and could hear for miles. This was probably why Cristael had decided to send him to Devion's side. His presence reassured her.
"To call us, simply break this stone and we'll join you as soon as possible. Also note that there are many hostile creatures in Pinevale and facing them is part of your training. Naturally, we'll take you to areas where the monsters are at a correct level. The maximum level you'll encounter will be that of a creature in the Ascendant stage, for these creatures we ask you to face them imperatively with more than one person." The professor's gaze was harsher as he emphasized the last sentence. "Merily, the floor is yours again."
"Thank you. As far as your days for these two weeks, they'll run as follows: we will all meet at camp only in the evening, during the day you'll all go on expeditions in teams. You are not to return to camp until the end of the day, except if it is an emergency, so that you can be exposed to a real situation of danger and constant fatigue." She cleared her throat. "This stay will be neither a vacation nor hell but a real opportunity. We ask you to take it as seriously as possible. May I also remind you that the third years will be the captains of each team and will be your mentors."
The two teachers finished their talk, adding various details about the different areas that made up Pinevale, as well as the times for getting up, going to bed and returning back to the camp. The students each had access to food for lunch, which they added to their already heavy bags.
For the evenings, the students would be divided into pairs similar to those in their rooms at the institute. On hearing this, Devion turned his head and looked at Sol, giving him a thumbs-up that made him laugh.
Now that everything was clear and perfectly calculated, it was time to head for Pinevale, miles away from Orpheion. Much to their regret, Sol and Devion were separated as the students were divided into teams to reach Pinevale. The dark-haired man was seething, and even though Umbra was rubbing his legs with a purr, he wasn't in the least happy about having to deal with Vladymir and Caspian for a whole day of walking and two weeks afterwards.
Teams formed and, one after the other, the students headed out of the institute, in delayed team starts so that they didn't all leave at the same time. Devion joined his team of six and inwardly thanked Cristael for having put Maya by his side, as she seemed to be the only fairly normal student in his team.
They'd already been walking for three hours, and Devion could feel the urge to grumble in his bones. He wanted to fight not to hike through a valley that stretched as far as the eye could see and in which there was strictly nothing to see.
"Don't worry, we'll soon reach the entrance." Maya offered him a big smile, and as he looked at her he realized that she really wasn't very tall.
"The entrance?" Asked the student looking at the girl facing him.
"Don't you know?" She raised her head and Devion followed her gaze as her finger pointed to a large mass of rock in the distance.
Completely shapeless but absolutely gigantic, this mass of rock was pierced by a huge hole that revealed a kind of tunnel that went underground and whose bottom could not be seen. Devion scanned the strange landscape before his eyes in astonishment; he had absolutely no knowledge of this entrance. For him, Pinevale was nothing more than a faded forest full of monsters.
"This entrance is not known to everyone, but it's a sort of large underground cavern that extends much further, and it's the one that leads to Pinevale. That's why we only hiked for three hours, and why they expected more. The place where we'll be spending most of our time is here, in this cavern."
Devion strode towards the mysterious entrance.
Umbra followed, growling as they approached the huge boulder that led to an area no one really knew about.