Morning came far too quickly. Rain had spent longer than he should have talking to his older sister on the phone. She gushed about this Orbit guy, and was soooo jealous of him. He promised to try to get an autograph, but told her not to keep her hopes up about that. From what she told him, and from how he came off, he didn’t seem like the sociable type. He was a solo explorer, and didn’t tend to join into groups unless he needed to. Apparently he was also kinda a hardass who didn’t take failure well. Aspects that would make him an… interesting teacher, for sure.

Apparently he was really high level, so Rain couldn’t imagine why he was here teaching when he could be deep in the MAZE. Even he’d be excited about the idea of exploring some new place in the depths of the MAZE. It was weird, but whatever. Whyever his teacher was there and teaching… It wasn't his problem.

Rain yawned. He didn’t want to be late for class or anything, but he also didn’t want to be the first person there. Luckily, he doubted he’d have to worry about that considering how excited the others seemed and indeed, once he rounded the corner he saw that he was second to last there, despite being ten minutes early.

Mr. Levon was already there, and the only one not there yet was Rhea. Maybe she liked being fashionably late? He sat down at an open desk and loosely watched the twins talk to the teacher. They both called him Orbit. He wondered which was more appropriate to call him? They sounded like they were asking him a lot of stuff about monsters and whatever.

Honestly, he almost fell back asleep waiting for class to start.

Rhea came in, and the teacher used that at the sign to start the class, something Rain was thankful for, but also kind of dreading. Was it going to be as boring today?

The answer was no. System, the answer was no. Today was one of the more painful days he had ever experienced.

Mr. Levon, or Orbit, as he apparently preferred to be called, was a monster. That was the only reason Rain could come up with for the hellish treatment he gave. First, barely after he was done with introductions, he dragged us off to a big gym-like area. He smacked what kind of looked like a lightswitch, then messed with his tablet for about half a second.

All of a sudden, the room was different. What was once a massive open room became segmented by many walls.

“You’re all learning to hide,” he said, stepping forward a pace before he turned around to look at the lot of them, “My whole job here is to get you guys to be competent enough to not immediately die. You’re all adults, so that’s convenient. It means I don’t have to worry about how much I hurt you as much. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you or anything like that. Now then. You’re all going to hide. You’ve played hide and seek before as a kid, right? We’re playing that. I’m the seeker. If I find you, with my eyes only because if I used anything else this wouldn’t be fair at ALL, I’m gonna hit you. Probably with a random item from my bag. I shoved tons of relatively-not-too-hard items in it in preparation for this.”

“What?” “Wait, you’re serious?” “You can’t just… we aren’t even a week in and already…” “Well this is gonna suck.” People were grumbling in surprise, unsurprisingly, at the sudden challenge. Rain felt like he paled a shade or two at the idea. He was going to absolutely suck at this. How was he even supposed to hide from someone so high level and experienced? Even with a handicap like that, he felt like Orbit 100% would still be incredibly hard to hide from.

Orbit didn’t care about the bickering or the hesitations or any of it. He motioned to the maze of walls and places to hide, “Well? Get on with it. I’ll give you all to the count of twenty, and then I’m heading in. If you’re not dense, you know how to hide at least a tiny bit. You’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t. Hint, what doesn’t work will get you hit with a random flying object.”

The students scrambled to find places to hide. Rain did his best to tuck himself into a corner as far on the other side as he could get. Even if it wouldn’t help his chances, he’d at least have longer before the teacher got there and found him.

“Ready, GO!” Orbit shouted across the room after counting down. The yelp of pain from the first person hit sounded out almost immediately, followed by an annoyed, “Great idea hiding behind me, but you need to be really fuckin’ confident about the skills of your target. Go off and hide properly.”

He spoke as he walked, trying to make it as easy as he could for the small gaggle of students, but they all knew they were horrendously outclassed regardless. “Hide is a lifesaver skill,” he explained, “When you get in over your head… when you have to find some painfully shy creature…”

Another yelp sounded out as he continued, “Try again, Allie. You’re quiet, but you need to put more focus on what your limbs are doing. You move a lot more than you might think just by standing still, unless you focus. Right, continuing on that thought. Hide can literally save your life. It’s saved mine more times than I can count, even though I’m not a particularly stealth-focused explorer. There have been an unfortunate few times where I found myself face to face with an enemy that, had I approached it without an advantage, I surely would have perished.”

One of the twins groaned at his explanation, and though it was a soft sound, it got him pelted for it. Orbit huffed an annoyed sigh and explained, “Being quiet is a common sense part of stealth. Keep your sighs to yourself.” The other twin wasn’t far behind, though, unable to stifle the snickering giggles that came from hearing his brother get hit.

Everyone got hit at least twice, including Rain. It seemed like it was impossible to hide from the teacher. He was just too good at finding them! On the plus side, it didn’t take long to get the skill. All of them were desperate to hide from the crazy teacher after getting pelted a time or two with whatever random object he had lined up next.

That rush of adrenaline in trying to hide from a high level adventurer made time move quickly. He had felt like it wasn’t too long, but when the group of them had finished and were walking back to the entrance of the gym, three hours had passed. He felt like he needed a shower even though they hadn’t done any physical work.

The class of seven were starting to chat, even Rain relaxed enough with the high to loosen up and join in. Liko and Inoke annoyed the hell out of him, he found. They were constantly pestering each other, and were both like… some weird mix between the nerdy kids and the jocks. It was a headache to try to understand. Rhea was mostly ok, but she was also kinda holier than thou and definitely enjoyed the attention. She was a half-elf, after all, and had experience in the place everyone else wanted to go so desperately. Her enjoyment of the attention was underplayed, though. Like, she got annoyed about being focused on and wanted to be treated like she was normal… but she definitely egged it on.

Allie was an overachiever, not surprising since she had gotten the highest SAT score. She was asking everyone questions, and was already talking about how everyone could have improved. Kalia was super buddy-buddy with the twins, but he was pretty cool. He was a chill medium, interested in whatever anyone else wanted to talk about. He had a big interest in animals. Apparently his family owned a shelter.

Juniper was the person Rain found himself enjoying company with the most, however. She was calm, thoughtful, and had so much passion, but she wasn’t crazy with it like so many would-be explorers.

“I plan to pay for surgery with this gig,” Juniper explained, “No surprise there, I guess. Had to work hard to get this far, but hey, I’ll be able to walk better once it’s done.”

She could actually walk, just not very far, thus the wheelchair. It surprised everyone but the teacher to see her standing, hiding without her chair. She came from California, though he didn’t know where therein. Given how she commented on the humidity at first, maybe she came from the eastern side? Or the inland valley? Or maybe near LA or San Diego? The idea of such a different climate was an interesting one… though, he supposed he’d be seeing a lot of different climates in the MAZE.

That was still such a weird thought.

“Surgery, huh?” he said so eloquently, not sure what to say about it.

“Yeah. I noticed how surprised everyone was. Not everyone who uses a wheelchair can’t walk at all, but that tends to be the assumption. With the MAZE, there are a lot of opportunities that open for me. Medicine is so advanced, but so so expensive. Even if they can only make it a little easier to walk, though, it’ll be worth it,” she continued to explain with a smile on her face, “I just hope until then that everyone can see me as more than my chair.”

Rain nodded, stumbling for words, “I… um… yeah. I mean, I’m sure they will. You seem really… I dunno, passionate?” What was he supposed to say about something like that? He felt awkward. “I hope you can get the money you need, if that’s your goal. Mine is to get money to let my sisters follow my footsteps and become explorers too. It’s all of their dreams.”

“Aww! That’s so sweet of you!” she said, not missing a beat, grinning up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. They were pretty, a soft grey-blue color. She noticed he was looking at her for a long moment, “My eyes actually change color sometimes. It’s a neat fact about grey eyes. Pretty cool if you ask me. They can look blue, green, hazel, or even purple in the right light.”

She was so enthusiastic about life. He chuckled a little. She made him look like a total pessimist.

The class’s conversations couldn’t continue, unfortunately. Orbit cleared his throat and motioned for them to all follow him, “Come on now, it’s not like today’s over after just that. Let’s get a move on.”

Rain was pretty sure everyone paled at that, not just him.

The teacher had a cruel smirk on his pale face, black eyes unyielding. It was like looking into a hungry pit. He seemed to be amused with himself as he spoke again, “Now then, we’re going to have a fun time learning how to dodge. I don’t really feel like teaching you guys how to fight until you know how to avoid a fight.”

There was a collective, silent, “Fuck,” heard throughout the group.

So, for the next three hours over again, they got to have the pleasure of being pelted by a high-level demon that claimed to have their best interests in mind. 

Orbit used some really low-damage spell he made up on the spot, explaining all the while, “So there are a few different ways people make spells, but it basically boils down to, use whatever works for you. Some people picture it and use imagination or whatever. Others, like me, use code. Some people use mathematical formulas. Some people do a mixture. Then there are other, fringe ideas of how to do it. Using code or math makes it easier to share with others, but the imaginative avenue is very open-ended and in some cases faster to make.”

“Come watch. I don’t really have anything weak enough to not… well… obliterate you guys… so, I need to make something really quick to use instead. You have to use mana as an input and…” Rain‘s focus dwindled fast. He was only marginally interested, especially since it was just going to be used to hit them. Orbit tilted his head a little once he was over halfway done with the magical program, “Oh, actually, this is a great opportunity. I’ll just share the code with you guys. You don’t really have the ability to use magic yet but in the meantime it gives you something to play with.”

The others were ecstatic about the idea. Rain was… happy, but not really excited. He’d probably choose coding too when he could, but since they couldn’t actually practice it yet… ah, well. He was being too much of a downer. He shook off the thought and joined the group again as the teacher finished the spell. 

“So, I made it so it takes in the barest amount of mana - since I do quite a lot of magic, I have a lot of mana, so even 100 or more is a pittance to me, but this really is a tiny amount. 5 per bolt. It does next to no damage, and mostly imparts force instead. That’s good, since there needs to be some amount of punishment for getting hit,” he mused, partly talking to himself, “Go line up against the wall, ten feet from each other.”