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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Quetzhal on 2025-10-14 15:51:59+00:00.

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Chapter 27: Magical Geography, Pt 5

Shortly after manifesting the giant hammer and making both Leo and Damien gawk at him, Cale dismissed it and instead retrieved a tiny pin from one of his pockets. “Just kidding,” he said, setting to work picking open the locks on one of the windows. “The windows look too nice to break. And I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of window-related rule.”

Which was, yet again, rather strange—but Cale was learning to recognize the signs of a rule, even if he didn’t know the exact contents of them. Like the grass they had to avoid stepping on, the windows here had glass made out of the same crystalline domain, and he wasn’t particularly in the mood to fend off yet another refractor beast.

The locks, however? They had none of that telltale crystalline gleam, which wasn’t all that unusual. In all his lifetimes, Cale had encountered many mages that remembered to ward their doors but not their locks. It was part of the reason he’d learned to pick locks in the first place.

That trend, fortunately, applied just as much to windows as they did to doors. The only thing that was really unusual about this was that there were three of the locks, for some reason.

That seemed excessive for a window, but who was he to judge the Loomweavers?

“Should I be concerned about how quickly you’re doing that?” Leo asked after a moment, eyeing him. Cale had, by this point, finished picking the first lock and had moved on to the second.

“Hey, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to know how to pick locks!” Cale said, carefully tensioning the locking mechanism and feeling it out with his pick. “If you lock yourself out of your house, for example.”

He didn’t look back, but he could practically feel Damien and Leo silently conferring with one another and deciding that, for Cale, this was a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he needed to know how to pick locks. Cale might have been offended by this if it weren’t for the fact that they were entirely correct.

He had also done a large amount of breaking and entering, though. Learning to pick open the locks on his homes was a far more troublesome task comparatively; it was generally easier to just create a new doorway using a few well-placed barriers.

Cale did wonder sometimes if Sheriya had been right about him abusing his barriers. He felt like it wasn’t his fault they were such universal solutions to physical problems.

In any case, he got all three of the locks on the window open in short order, then pulled it open and peered at the dimly-lit stairwell behind it. Like he’d suspected, it did indeed lead down, beneath the surface of the ground. Presumably if they followed that path, they’d end up in the so-called “sky.”

But why bother guessing what would happen when they could just do it? Cale hopped on through the window, humming happily to himself. “And here I thought my first magic staircase in Utelia was going to be at the Academy,” he said. “Come on in, it’s not trapped or anything.”

“You’re sure?” Leo asked, entirely too suspicious.

Cale shrugged and beamed. “Probably!”

Leo seemed understandably rather dissatisfied with this answer, and so Damien was the first to climb through. After that, Leo followed, albeit reluctantly. The railing of the stairwell was decorated with an ostentatious gold trimming that matched the ones he’d seen on Sternkessel’s suit, which was another point for their professor being connected to this place. And wasn’t that fascinating?

Almost as if Sternkessel could tell Cale was thinking about him, the smooth timbre of the professor’s voice suddenly resounded around them, echoing in the stairwell as they began to descend.

“An interesting demonstration,” the professor said. “I would award extra points for it, but I suspect you will not need them. In the future, however, please consult me before you reveal my schemes to my students.”

Cale snickered at that. “You’re admitting to scheming now?”

“I would be a poor example of a professor if I did not scheme,” Sternkessel said. Cale could imagine him sniffing haughtily as he spoke. “And I am not so poor a sport as to pretend otherwise.”

“Is he just talking to us, or to everyone?” Damien whispered. “That’s going to sound weird to everyone else, right?”

“I am speaking to all my students, yes,” Sternkessel responded, making Damien jump. “Adam, please stop attempting to light your classmates on fire. I will deduct a point if you continue.” A short pause. “Attempting to shove their heads into your chest furnace is not a loophole, Adam. It is attempted homicide.”

Cale snorted so hard he almost choked.

“Now, I suggest you all listen closely,” Sternkessel said. Cale perked up—was he about to reveal something about the Inverted Spires? The stairwell they were in was lit only dimly by candles of magical wax, and the purple lighting flickered at his words, almost as if in anticipation.

“Utelia has a total of four continents, less than most realms we are aware of,” the professor continued.

Oh. Right. The lecture. Cale exchanged glances with his friends, who seemed equally bemused by the sudden change in topic; Leo shrugged as if to indicate this was rather typical for Sternkessel in particular.

“The one the Brightscale Academy is located in is known as Ercryst. It is the farthest south of the four continents and is ruled primarily by the Orstrahl Kingdom, although the Brightgrove Elves are a strong contender when it comes to sheer magical might. In fact, Orstrahl’s rule over Ercryst only became absolute when the Red Hunters came into power some decades ago: prior to that, Orstrahl and Brightgrove were close allies.”

Cale blinked, glancing at Damien and Leo. To his surprise, they both looked equally bewildered.

“You didn’t know that already?” he whispered. Leo shook his head, looking troubled.

“I thought Orstrahl was always the leading power here,” he muttered. “Have the Red Hunters really only been around for a few decades?”

“Six, to be precise,” Professor Sternkessel answered, making them jump. It was too easy to forget that he could somehow hear everything they were saying. Then, before anyone could ask anything else, he kept speaking. “North of Ercryst is the continent of Illwyld, occupied largely by beastfolk tribes and ravaged by wild magic. It is said that the leader of the Red Hunters originates from Illwyld, in fact, though this is more rumor than fact. Very little is known about them.”

“Shouldn’t the leader of the Red Hunters be a public figure?” Cale muttered.

“What I want to know is why he’s focusing so much on the Red Hunters.” Leo looked around as if trying to find the professor, though it didn’t exactly help. Sternkessel was nowhere to be seen.

Damien made an agreeing noise. “Maybe he knows about what happened during lunch?” he suggested.

“A lot of information about the Red Hunters isn’t even public,” Leo said. “It’s almost like Sternkessel is—”

The professor interrupted Leo, continuing as if he couldn’t hear them. Cale’s eyes narrowed slightly. “North of Illwyld is a steep, mountainous continent known primarily as Aersheld, though many Utelians also refer to it as the Divine Shield due to its importance as a bastion of defense against the advances of the dark lord. Aersheld is ruled and maintained by the Thyrahl Kingdom at no small cost—the mountains of Aersheld are known to have rather severe mana-dampening properties, a fact that makes them difficult to traverse. However, that same fact is what makes it so effective at fending off the dark lord’s armies.”

Leo had retrieved his notebook and started scribbling furiously, a look of intense concentration on his face. Cale had to reach out and prevent him from falling down the stairs several times, in fact. Damien was frowning slightly, but chose not to comment. Instead, he eyed the depths of the stairwell warily.

“Relations between Thyrahl and Orstrahl are rather strained at the moment,” Sternkessel continued, “in large part because Thyrahl continues to demand resources for its part in fending off the threat of the dark lord, and Orstrahl’s rulers are beginning to believe that the threat in question is not as great as Thyrahl claims. Still, they are attempting to keep the peace for now—Orstrahl has sent its greatest division of Red Hunters, the so-called First Squad, to occupy a small outpost near Thyrahl.”

There was a thin smile in Sternkessel’s voice. “Ostensibly, this is to assist with fending off the forces of the dark lord, though it is rather obvious to most that they are there simply to assess the threat posed by those armies for themselves. More conspiratorial is the belief that the Red Hunters were sent there to establish a foothold for Orstrahl should tensions escalate. You may come to your own conclusions.”

Cale frowned slightly. Sternkessel wasn’t the type to include mere speculation in a lecture, was he?

“Last but not least, the continent without a name,” Sternkessel said. "It is known to most simply as the Corroded Lands and is fully occupied by the dark lord and his forces. Very little is known about them. Scrying spells are unable to penetrate into the depths of the corrosion, and no mage has ye…

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