Dying for Extra Credit

Whew! Has it ever been a crazy year at Strixhaven — so busy I’ve hardy been able to keep up with this journal! I really should try and do better though, you never know. Maybe this will end up in the Archives somewhere and it will help some young future wizard or wizardess. I could be famous! Like Elminster!

So, let’s see… what all has happened since the last time I wrote? A lot. Rather than try to backtrack to capture it all, I should just begin with where we are now and try to keep up from here on out. Yes, that seems a much better idea.

We attended an Open Stage Night thrown by the Theater Club over in Silverquill. All of us got together to do something to support our fellow students. I did a reading of the Weird Sisters’ incantation from Macbeth. Y’know “Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble” that whole bit. I added a bit of flair using some cleverly shaped Minor Illusions and plenty of Dancing Lights. Everybody seemed to like it!

Cian, who is my Very Bestest Friend, did some really amazing feats of strength! He lifted so much he hit a new record for the school — and we all kinda had to help him set the thing he lifted down before it squished him — but it was great!

Cheryl did two things, because she’s clever and kind of an overachiever like that. Her and Rowan told us a fairy tale that sounded suspiciously like “Sleeping Beauty”, though they didn’t call it that. They did a whole lot of flashy illusions and spell effects though that were neat! Cheryl went on to tell a limerick that kinda sounded like it was poking fun at Rigor but I couldn’t be absolutely certain. I don’t think Cheryl would be the kind of person to pick on someone when they’re down! Rigor’s already been to the infirmary twice now for things biting him Really Hard.

Leon did a comedy routine about Useless Potions or rather Spells That Should Never Be Put into Potion Form. Puck brought out a million frogs — okay, maybe not an Actual Million, but it was a lot! — and they all danced, complete with little top hats and canes. Rigor got up and told some pretty bad jokes, I don’t think anyone was impressed at all. E for Effort, though! Then Puck and Rigor got up and did a little stage play; they were girls talking about getting a date? Or ignoring a date… something about somebody ignoring somebody else so that someone wouldn’t think they were as interested as they really were. Hooves and Tails, people make it sound so complicated!

After that, we had to go back into this magical book and prove that it was Actually A Magical Book. Why nobody believed us after we’ve saved the school ten times by now is beyond me. I guess maybe everybody does it so it’s nothing special. Just how many times a day does the school need to be saved from itself? Maybe I don’t wanna know the answer…

Anyway… We went back in the book and got attacked by rats! Really big and mean rats. I don’t remember getting to do much because I got bit… a lot! So much so that I fainted right away. Dad would be embarrassed, so I kind of haven’t told them about it. We managed to get through that by the skin of our teeth. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to collapse, but we made it.

Once we got back, the Theater Club put on an exceptional show of their own full of beautiful costumes, enchanting special effects, and of course glorious acting. As the show ended, though, creatures burst through the back of the stage area! Beasts of all kinds came roaring out: ravenous birds, a couple of mimics, but none so loud and scary as the owlbear! Now, we’d just learned about owlbears in class, so I gave a couple of cupcakes to Puck to try and dissuade it from attacking while everyone else who was watching the performance high-tailed it right out of there!

Puck flew them over and threw them at the owlbear, who ate them — and the floor they landed on — but it didn’t do anything to slow it down. It charged right at us and just started going crazy! It took a fair bit of fighting and just about every spell in my arsenal, plus a few Inspirational Cookies for Cian, to get it down. That wasn’t the weirdest part of it, though. As we slayed the beasts, they turned into wooden cutouts, props that the Theater Club kept stored backstage.

Afterward, everyone was curious where all these beasts came from and why. I went to go search backstage where they came from and I wasn’t the only one with that idea. However, I was the only one to remember that all of those props had been in one particular quadrant of the backstage area and it was there that I noticed more of the black ichor that we’d been finding lately in the things we fought. We found it with the mimic on the first day of school; we found it again when we fought the steam mephits at the tavern. It was so curious that I called Cheryl over to investigate, too, and she, in turn, called over Professor Lang, one of our teachers.

Professor Lang explained to us that this ichor was originally supposed to be some kind of magical coating that they put on things to preserve them so that the mages didn’t have to expend precious spells to do so. To say nothing of the sheer volume they’d have to do, it was much easier to have something you could just slather on things and call it done. Well, this particular goop came from a spring in the Witherbloom section of the campus, in a place called the Sedgemoor Swamp. Why you’re getting spring water from a swamp, I have no idea; seems like you’d get much cleaner water elsewhere…

But that’s neither here nor there. Professor Lang said that the spring was likely corrupted and that we should investigate since, conveniently, our class was due to take a field trip to tour the Witherbloom campus anyway. We’re all still prospective students, you see, and we’ll be choosing a College next year so we’re supposed to be getting to know each campus this year. We agreed, but only if doing so counted as Extra Credit to which the Professor agreed.

When the field trip day finally came, we did as we were asked along with learning where and how to find various spell components in this environment. Leon was courteous to Cheryl and I, casting a Floating Disc for us to ride on while he and Cian slogged through the muck. Puck being Puck — and a faerie dragon — just alternately flopped on peoples’ heads or rode on the disc with us. As we went about our business, we got attacked by a couple of winter wargs! What the heck are winter wargs doing in a swamp?! It was a tough battle and, again, I used up all of my spells and my Inspiration Cookies. Cheryl ended up unconscious, but I brought her back with a Cure Wounds spell. This field trip was certainly not a Fun Time!

We took a short rest and I played some soothing music while I shared a loaf of Banana Nut Bread with my friends. It seemed to help them immensely! Once everyone was feeling a bit better, we continued on and eventually found the spring. Leon used a vial of holy water that Professor Lang had given him to cleanse the spring, but when he did that something in the spring got Really Angry! It was a giant scorpion!

Hooves and Tails! I had nothing left to use spell-wise; Mother would chide me for being so frivolous with my magic. I will have to learn to be more sparing with it in the future and save it for emergencies. Though, I should really learn some kind of combat cantrip… or more clever ways to use Dancing Lights and Minor Illusion. Anyway… Scorpion!

This thing was probably the hardest thing we’ve ever fought since coming to Strixhaven — and we’ve fought some pretty crazy things! It had it out for Cian, though, I don’t think it struck at anyone else the entire time! I felt so bad for him! I had nothing else to do, so I kept trying to stab the thing with my rapier, but its legs kept going all over the place, making them very hard to hit for little me! I got a couple of good jabs in, but not before the scorpion took out Cian and left him in a heap in the mud! Cian did such a great job whittling it down for us, though. Leon was able to cast Sleep on it and while it was prone and vulnerable the rest of us finished it off.

We got Cian back on his feet and were taking a short rest to recover — cue more soothing music and Banana Nut Bread! — but no sooner than we recovered this time that a lizard man came bursting out of the bushes. Only to collapse into the mud.

The troubles never end here at Strixhaven. This better count as a lot of Extra Credit.