After their brief argument was settled, Callis decided to scout ahead, because being close to Bellator would make him want to rip his throat out. Alexa placed herself in the middle of the group, hanging the lantern on her weapon, while Bellator closed the march, keeping the rearguard.

The Beast Blade, one of the nicknames for Callis, wasn’t just a fancy moniker, as his senses were as keen as those of a predator, allowing him to see in the dark and track criminals by their scent alone.

That was their current mission, as they tracked an infamous evil-doer, a force of unnatural arcane might that had terrorized the city of Rigel for the past year, creating hordes of undead creatures that roamed the streets causing panic and killing anybody out at night.

-We’re close, closer than ever before.- Callis commented, as the stench of Ninferi, a fluid required for the taboo art of Necromancy, as corpses needed to be filled with to animate them.

The trio advanced through the tunnels, once alleys of a forgotten city, now boarded up with bricks and mortar to create a complex maze of tunnels to carry the metropolis’ waste into the nearby lake.

Soon they reached a large chamber, designed to serve as a cistern to hold the water from defrosting snow in spring or autumn storms, but unlike most of the other underground reservoirs, this one was blocked from most sides, in fact the tunnel they were traversing had dried up a while ago, only making the stench of Ninferi more obvious.

The expansive underground space they entered had been turned into a makeshift laboratory, surely the lair of the Necromancer. Piles of scavenged supplies formed pyramids across the chamber, strangely ordered for such a den of villainy.

-Careful, we do not know where he could be hiding.- Callis whispered, scanning the whole area as the trio entered the laboratory as quietly as they could.

The area was chocked full with the pungent stench of Ninferi, to the point even the other two with less keen senses could notice it without effort. 

The stink also masked another disgusting odor, as piles of bodies lay in one of the corners, orderly placed into multi-layered rows, less like corpses and more like any construction material.

-This place is giving me the creeps.- Alexa whispered to Callis.

-We found the place, can we get the hell out of dodge?- Bellator asked, quickly adding. -Just to go get reinforcements, old man Praesul doesn’t know we are down here.-

-No, not when we are this close, each time we even get one step closer to catching the Necromancer he slips through our fingers.-The Beast Blade replied in hushed whispers.

-We need evidence to find the Necromancer’s identity and proof of any collaborators he might have.- Callis instructed his companions as he kept looking around for anything that could help them.

-That might be difficult.- A fourth voice, oozing menace, joined them in the underground chamber, echoing against the moist brick walls.

The Necromancer, stood over them, in one of the other open access tunnels to his lab, his black hooded tunic casting a cloak of shadows over his face, that was furtherly obscured by an ornate half-mask, which matched other pieces of armor scattered over his tunic.

In his hand he carried a large metallic staff with a large spear-shaped Cibus Crystal on top. The other hand carried a shorter wand, less elaborate but likely no less dangerous.

-Because all of you will soon join my forces and stop meddling in my affairs.- His voice boomed across the chamber as he began cackling with mad abandon.

Callis and his crew unsheathed their weapons and prepared to deal with the necromancer once and for all.

The sliding quills left trails of ink on each of the students' parchment. That almost rhythmic sound filled the room as any other sound seemed to be drowned out by it.

Novus was focusing on this test more than anything else he ever focused on. He could feel sweat pouring down his brow and the numbness on his clustered fingers clutching the quill.

This particular Arcane Equation was meant to allow the Arcanists to create a funnel using wind magic as part of an elaborate Lightning spell to forcibly guide the usually difficult to control Elemental Core onto its intended target.

The Young Arcanist would almost feel relieved as he was more accustomed to using the Wind element among all the Elemental Arcane Cores, but even with his knowledge, slightly over the average for a student Arcanist, this was quite the difficult problem to solve.

Sitting to one of his sides, slightly to the back, was Paulus Gurges Squalus, one of the Highborn Students of highest rank in this exam. Paulus, heir of the union between two ancestral houses, the Gurges and Squalus families, had many expectations on his shoulders.

He wasn’t by any means a bad student, but he mostly coasted on his family name and connections, doing the least amount of effort possible, knowing that he would get a high ranking job if he ever desired one after graduating.

But now his plan was ruined, as the inclusion of Novus put his dream of an easy-going graduation out of the window. He couldn’t allow a lowborn to take what was rightfully his, and it didn’t matter what methods he used to stop him. He was a Highborn, and anything went in his world.

There was only one chance, he only needed to finish before Novus and deliver his test while accidentally dropping his inkwell over the lowborn’s test.

Full of yellow-bellied determination, the kind of willpower cowards and cheats manage to pull from out of nowhere when they feel the walls closing in around them, Paulus stood up with his paper in one hand and his inkwell in the other, approaching an unsuspecting Novus, too immersed on the test to realize the encroaching danger.