Emray was awoken by a sound of knocking on her dorm door. One eye slammed open as the knocking persisted, desperately searching for the source of the racket. As her vision came into focus she saw one of her classmates, an avian girl with piercing yellow eyes, nutmeg brown skin where it wasn’t covered in silver and blue feathers, and a curious expression on her thin and pointed face as she peeked inside.

“G’Hiira, what do you want?” Emray groaned.

“Professor Marigold wants to see you,” G’Hiira answered, her voice reedy and irritating, "and when I couldn’t find you down at practicals I thought I’d come look here. You do know that it’s nearly 5 o’clock, right?”

“No, but if you hum a few bars I’ll try to sing along,” Emray answered as she struggled up to a sitting position and then her feet. What little light shone through her curtains confirmed G’Hiira’s assessment; the sun was the ruddy orange of twilight.

“Did Marigold say what he wanted?” Emray continued, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she got dressed.

“Something about your future and whatnot, I wasn’t really listening. Probably has to do with what you did to Elifas, but that’s none of my business.”

“If it’s none of your business then why are you mentioning it like you know what happened?” Emray asked through gritted teeth.

“Oh, everyone knows what happened. You slap Elifas in the lab, she runs crying about it to Irhüm, Irhüm gives you the dressing down of a lifetime and forces you to repeat your last year of classes on top of revoking your lab access. Word spreads fast here, not that you ever pay anyone enough mind to notice.”

A cold chill ran down Emray’s spine. Not only would she be spending the year redoing her studies on top of taking a subject she found thoroughly superfluous, but now she’d have to do it with the judgmental eyes of her peers on her back. She’d considered lying about why she was in the same classes, but that plan was now thoroughly dashed.

“So why’d you do it?” G’Hiira continued curiously, now fully standing in Emray’s door and letting the fullness of her winged frame show.

“You don’t need to know, so go bother someone else,” Emray spat back as she shoved past G’Hiira. With firm steps and a stoic expression Emray marched out into the common room, heading for the door.

“You’re gonna have to open up to someone sooner or later!” G’Hiira called after as Emray slammed the door shut behind her.

The walk upstairs to Marigold’s office only further cemented how massively Emray had messed up. She passed by students on the various floors of the Tower showing off what they’d done for their practicals, and the sight made her stomach twist and churn with revulsion. One dwarvish boy was busy conjuring up a seemingly endless supply of bread and handing it out to anyone who would have it. A gnomish girl was petting the spectral rabbit familiar next to her, sending white wisps of energy floating off of its semi-corporeal form. A dark elvish boy who she’d taken evocation classes with was transitioning a small metal sphere between different elemental attunements.

Everyone had a smile as they showed off, and it made Emray’s mood sour with every passing moment.

Finally she arrived at Marigold’s office, and knocked on it with a sharp rap. Much like Irhüm’s door, it slowly swished open with only a slight creak. The Professor was seated at his desk, multi-layered eyepiece strapped to his head as he examined a curious device that glowed with the unmistakeable teal of refined oriculum.

“Putting it to good use, I see,” Emray started as she entered.

“Indeed I am, young Emray, indeed I am,” Marigold answered, not taking his eyes off of his work. The device was a sort of brass cylinder with rotating dials on either end, and various switches covered the tube connecting the two dials.

“G’Hiira said you wanted to see me,” Emray said, taking a seat at his desk.

“Quirky bird she is, wouldn’t you agree?” Marigold asked, eyes fixated on the device.

“Overly curious about things that don’t concern her, that’s for sure. I’m not sure if that qualifies as ‘quirky’ in your book, but it counts as irritating in mine.”

“And why is that, Ms. Alvurshi?” Marigold asked, setting the cylinder aside and looking up at Emray. It was the first time she'd ever heard his tone sharpen to anything past some playful ribbing.

“She’s constantly sticking her nose in things that don’t concern her. Wouldn’t you find that irritating too?”

“On the contrary, I find it mildly amusing. You see, curiosity is the cornerstone of the work that all arcanists do; Wizards satiate it through study and practice, trying to crack open the wider mysteries of the universe for study and experimentation. Pact-Makers seek their answers from beings of higher power than us, whether it be demons and devils or calling power down for the One Above Us themself. Animists like G’Hiira look to the chaos of nature for their answers, and even those born with magic like Elifas are curious about the extents of their natural talents.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you, sir,” Emray replied.

“And therein lies the problem with you, Ms. Alvurshi,” Marigold replied, gingerly stepping up onto his desk so he could look Emray in the eye. “You’re not curious, and it’s led to your fall from grace.”

Emray felt taken aback, scooting slightly away from the table as Professor Marigold got into her face. His accusation stung like a slap across the face.

“What do you mean I’m not curious? I’ve dedicated all of my time to my studies, trying to pull apart as many secrets as I can so I can be the best damn artificer this Tower’s ever produced. How is that level of dedication lacking curiosity?”

“Curiosity is not simply dedication, Ms. Alvurshi, curiosity is drive. You’d hardly call a cooper curious for making barrels all day, no matter how dedicated his is to his craft. Curiosity is an insatiable craving to know more, to know things beyond the scope of one’s own knowledge, and you are severely lacking in that drive.”

“If I’d been allowed to present my practical, you’d see just how wrong you are, sir!” Emray shot back, standing to her feet so that Marigold would have to look up to her. “I spent months working on that only to have it snatched away from me because Elifas had a vision and I overreacted to it.”

“I have seen it,” Marigold replied, his voice rising above its usual creaky timbre, “and I found your work technically impressive but extremely derivative of various military designs created by Bernard Lusoran. The oriculum core circuitry and runic composition were both lifted almost wholesale from his work on the repulsive actuators that go into Enclave Hardsuits, to say nothing of the rather gaudy presentation that totally lacks in adequate protection for the core itself.”

Emray sat back down, the wind all but taken from the sails of her indignation. She went over all of the months of work she’d put into that gauntlet, all the research she’d had to reference, and found Marigold’s claim holding firm, as much as she wished to the contrary.

“If I’d been the one grading you, Ms. Alvurshi, I’d have given you partial marks at best,” Marigold continued. He gingerly stepped down off of the table and pulled the cylinder back towards him, going back to examining it as if the conversation hadn’t happened.

“Is that all, sir?” Emray asked, voice low as she spoke.

“I don’t know, is it?” Marigold asked back.

Emray looked between Marigold, the door, the cylinder, and even her own hands as she ruminated on the last few minutes of conversation.

“What would you have me do, sir? I’m already going to be re-doing all of my coursework on top of the divination course Professor Irhüm has assigned me to. I doubt th—"

“That sounds like a good start,” Marigold interrupted. “Learn some new things, take in some new perspectives. Perhaps that will light the fires of curiosity within you. Maybe go to the party tomorrow night as well, carouse a bit with your fellow students.”

“God’s sake, not that again,” Emray groaned. “Sir, I’m stressed out enough as it is, the last thing I want to do is be surrounded by people in a noisy hall at an event being organized by someone I can barely stand being within ten feet of.”

“If it’s the last thing that you want, then it sounds to me like it’s the first thing that you need, Ms. Alvurshi.”