Viktor chuckled "Duh, you're gonna need somewhere to sleep and hang when you aren't on mission or training, right?"

"I guess you're right..." I responded, giving a faint smile.

Viktor grabbed me by the arm and began rushing across the training grounds, flashes of brilliant color blurring by us. Once we were on the other side, he let go of my arm and slowed down, beginning to walk towards the cabins. As we passed the guild hall I was surprised by how ominous the grand building looked in the lantern-light. Each column was illuminated by its own individual torch situated neatly on the center of the column.

Once we reached the back, we headed to the cabin directly next to Viktor's cabin. This one was a very big contrast to its metallic forge brother next door. To start with the cabin seemed to have been originally painted grey, but it was now covered in dozens of long splashes of paint. The cabin had a large balcony on the top with several things that looked like kites, but a lot bigger. Through the windows I couldn't make out much other than the faint glow of lanterns from inside.

We walked up onto the porch and stood there, looking around, seeing if there was actually anyone there. After some searching Viktor walked up to the door and gave it three hard knocks which resounded through the inside of the cabin. After a few brief seconds of waiting there was a flash of green from the windows and then the door opened.

We were greeted by the wild smiling face of a younger boy. He had puffy green hair similar in color to mine, but it was all swooshed back like he had just stuck his head out of the window of a moving car. He was a few inches shorter than I was, but he was a little bit beefier than my lanky frame. Loosely stretched over his hands were gloves similar to Julian's gauntlet, but shorter and covered in tons of colorful stains. The boy was dressed in a simple black t-shirt and cargo shorts, the pockets bulged, clearly containing many different items.

"Hey Viktor! Whatcha up to?" The boy asked, his voice was slightly high and he spoke very quickly.

"Well, this is the newest member of your cabin" Viktor said gesturing behind to me.

I peeked out from behind him and waved, giving the boy a faint smile. "Hello there..."

The boy quickly bolted and was next to me with very little apparent movement, hand outstretched "Nice to meet 'cha, my names James, James Akicio!"

I reached my hand out and shook his, the gloves many stains blended together and formed a very odd sensation "My name's Avien Ventilius, it..." Before I could finish, the boy retracted his hand and retreated back to the doorway. I sighed, apparently my situation wasn't exactly a secret to the other campers.

"Come on James, there's no need to be that way, he's not going to bite you" Viktor pleaded with James.

The boy peeked back at me, his face going from shock to fear to sadness "I'm sorry, but you know what he is! He's gonna create some real problems around camp..." James seemed a bit ashamed to say it, but I knew he was right, I shouldn't even exist and now here I was showing up at camp and turning everything upside-down.

Viktor sighed "Yes, I am well aware of Avien's situation, but we never turn our back on people in need, and this is his cabin, so can you please just show him around please?"

James sighed, bolting back and grabbing me by the arm, leading me into the house "Alright, fine, let's go..."

The door shut behind us, the last thing I saw before I was inside being Viktor walking down the porch and over to his cabin. We entered into a small foyer area. There were hooks dotted all around the walls, coats and clothes of all manner hanging from them. The floor was a simple checkerboard marble pattern of alternating green and blue square.

Through the opening of the foyer there was three different paths you could take. The one directly in front of us was a carpeted staircase leading upstairs to a hallway that I couldn't quite make out. To the left was an area with wood flooring and rows upon rows of large bookshelves containing thousands of books. To the right there was another area floored with wood paneling, but this side had a pool table directly in the center and bright lights coming from the right.

James began walking up the steps and motioned his hand "Come on, follow me..." He sounded a bit somber and defeated.

I trudged up the stairs, each step making a low creaky noise as we walked "I'm really sorry..."

James stopped and looked back to me, his face a bit confused "Don't worry about it man..." I could tell he was just trying not to hurt my feelings.

Once we reached the top of the steps I could see the full hallway. It was very long and on each side there were six green wooden doors with golden numbers glowing on them. Each set of three doors was separated by a wooden table, each holding a strange glass container with glowing liquid inside. The containers radiated a brilliant light that seemed to crawl up the walls and on to the ceiling.

We continued to the end of the hallway and stopped at a door marked with a glowing number ten. James opened the door to reveal the room inside "This is where you'll be staying..." He seemed shy, which made sense considering this was probably the only room in the cabin with only one bed "Nobody wanted you to bunk with them..."

I waved off the comment, I didn't blame anyone for feeling that way towards me "Don't worry too much James, I don't mind sleeping alone, I've never slept with anyone else anyway" It was true, I had always slept alone, I felt better that way.

He nodded solemnly "Alright, well if you're ever not on a mission or you just wanna chill, you can come up here"

I smiled, the thought of having my own room made me pretty happy, even if I wasn't going to share it with anyone because nobody wanted to bunk with me. James closed the door and led me back downstairs and into the left section of the house, the one with all the bookshelves.

Stretching all the way from the front of the house all the way to a wall at the back was over thirty massive bookshelves each containing hundreds of books. The books didn't really seem to be organized in any particular manner, just randomly put back on to the shelves whenever someone was done. The books ranged from The Chronicles of Jezebeth to The Complete Guide to Alchemy: Volume LXII. Needless to say, the collection was quite expansive and diverse as well.

"This section is our library, if you ever need to try and find a book on something, you can most likely find it here" James said, breaking the silence.

"How many books do you have here?" I asked

"I dunno, something like seven thousand or so books, but our collection is nothing in comparison to the Exfernerous girl's cabin, their library is absolutely enormous!" James responded.

I laughed, thinking back to the massive bookshelves I saw in the window of Lilith's cabin. I frowned, thinking about Lilith and hoping she was getting the treatment she needed and would recover soon. Her injuries had looked serious to me, but Viktor seemed very certain that she was going to be absolutely fine.

I was snapped out of my daze when James said "You ready to move on?"

I shook off the thoughts of Lilith and nodded, following James into the room with the pool table. Once we had entered, I saw that the light was coming from a television hooked up to several different gaming systems. There were four boys sitting on a couch in front of the TV fully immersed in their session of intense gaming. To the left of the pool table, on each side of the wall, was an air hockey and foosball table.

"This, as you could probably guess, is the gaming room. It's usually a bit more crowded, but everyone is currently downstairs" James said, gesturing to room.

I cocked my head sideways, confused "What's downstairs?"

James gestured his hand for me to follow him as he walked over to a door left of the air hockey table on the wall under the stairs. He opened the door and I followed him down a flight of wooden stairs to a large basement area. I was glad there was a rail for me to hold on to because what I saw almost made me fall down the stairs.

In the basement of Cabin Three was a full-fledged laboratory complete with beakers full of strange liquids and people in lab coats. However, nobody was wearing a white lab coat, every single one of them had some oddly colored coat and gloves exactly like the ones James was wearing. Across the large room were a dozen or so wooden tables covered in test tubes, jars full of odd substances, and tons of sheets of paper.

Each one of the apprentices is mixing together some strange combination of foreign materials into glowing substances that were then being transferred to tubes and beakers. As they mixed different chemicals they took down notes on the pieces of paper strewn all over the tables, occasionally crossing things out to change them. Occasionally the liquids would elicit a small puff of gas or begin moving around strangely in the container causing the person working on it to smirk and draw a large check on their notes.

I turned to James and asked "Does every descendant of Strataros practice this?"

He turned to me and looked at me with a confused a look "Of course, it's our natural talent, like the Gigrias descendants and their talent for craftsmanship, descendants of Strataros have a talent for alchemy. How could you not know that"

I sighed, putting my hands in my pockets and looking down "Yeah... sorry, I'm not super well acquainted with this world and all the different stuff about it..."

James gave me an odd glance, but then shrugged it off, not very interested "Well yeah, every apprentice of magic has some sort of natural talent they inherited from their magic ancestor. Strataros is alchemy, Gigrias is craftsmanship, Exfernerous is combat skill, Pototangaros is architecture, Luminitrious is medical practices, and Malistryfe is writing."

Before I could respond a loud sound came from above us, after a few tolls I realized it was a bell. At the forth toll all the apprentices working at the lab stations stopped what they were doing and rushed up the stairs and out the door. James did the same, on his way up calling back to me, saying "Come on Avien! It's dinner time, don't wanna miss a meal, that'll never go well for you!" I smiled and made my way up the stairs, excited to eat my first good meal in years.