In the quest for magical engineering, the group of valiant adventurers are directed to the dining hall to eat a great feast.
Everyone in the party sits with Nethandric, who sits at the head of the table. Again, Nethandric asks the party about the nature of their quest.
Dar-wynn and Konrad explain that they are on a mission to repair the barrier between the planes of existence. That segues into a discussion of magical engineering and the adventurers are told that there will be an arena test that will be graded on a pass/fail scale.
The overriding question is: Does the group have all necessary components (skills, aptitude) to learn magical engineering.
Magical engineering is about combining spells to great effect.
Amicas is the one individual who can fix the barriers between the worlds, so ultimately, that is the goal of the quest. To find Amicas.
The headmaster knows where Amicas is but the group will likely die getting there. So it is very important that the group thinks about themselves as a whole.
Amicas has a series of guardians. The first set are giant snakes. That information was enough to give the group pause to consider what it will take to get through all of the guardians.
After eating, the group follows George down a hallway and into the bowels of the university.
They arrive at a big wooden door with a nameplate for the professor. However, none in the party can decipher the symbols of the name.
George opens the door and ushers the group inside but doesn’t follow.
Dar-wynn skips inside. The room is dimly lit. The rest of the party follows Dar-wynn, minus the skipping.
The room is really large. The occupant (assumed to be the professor) greets the adventurers. The group explains their mission to the professor, who listens patiently.
They soon notice that the room is bare except for large stone statues and a few creatures standing off to one side.
The professor beings a demonstration of magical engineering. He speaks to the creatures and they ready themselves for the demonstration.
The adventurers watch as the students’ combined spells cause the stone floor under a statue turn to liquid and then the stone floor is re-solidified. This is an example of taking the spells and combining them to greater effect.
The instructor leads the group to a room with a very dark pit. He casts a light spell and sends the light down into the pit. The pit is 600 feet deep with water at the bottom. The professor requests a cup of water. The object of this lesson is to combine the spells to get down to the water.
Brega flies down but gets trapped, as a lattice of bars is now over her head. The water itself is not deep so she is not in immediate danger. However, the instructor resets the test with Brega back up at the top with the others.
The students demonstrate a combination of spells to make a ledge in the stone wall of the pit with handholds placed to go down lower into the pit.
Konrad makes ready to move stone, hoping to create stairs but a magical backlash has Konrad running back up to safety.
After the first challenge has been passed, the group gets settled into the dorm rooms for the night.
Later, Kat discovers that someone left her a piece of paper in her room. This is a note telling her to meet the sender by the lion at midnight.
Kat wakes Brega and they agree she should talk to Konrad. But, Konrad says to wait until morning to discuss this further.
The group follows the students to breakfast and get some substances that look like food… maybe?
Dar-wynn soon turns neon-green and hiccups. She keeps trying new foods and ends up with a wiggly cube up her nose. She blows it out of her nose. After some trial and error, she finds something that seems to resemble a more familiar meat.
After breakfast, one of the teachers agrees to give the group a remedial class in spellcasting. They take 4 classes a day with a break for lunch.
The adventurers will be going into the arena to compete against the first year students.
Kat is offered a rune for her great sword and she chooses a fire rune.
Later, the adventurers meet a helpful humanoid student who agrees to assist them with locating landmarks around campus. The student can cast a holographic map and takes the group to the room of orbs.
In the room of orbs, they can see a town and it turns out to be Val’s town. The baby dragon has grown up a bit, demonstrating that time seems to be moving faster there than at the university.
Val and the town are not looking so good. Off in the distance, there is lightning and the forest looks like it is dying. But the adventurers take a small comfort in the knowledge that the university can insert the group into any point on their timeline.
Next, the group goes to the library and learns that the map spell is operated through a tattoo.
Lauren, the friendly student, picks up the book of tattoos and presses the symbol to Dar-wynn’s arm. Now, Dar-wynn can make a map. As suspected, the lions are indeed outside the library.
The group goes back to the dorm rooms to do homework and then make plans to sneak out. But the group gets caught because Kat trips.
Brega casts invisibility on the group. The adventurers attempt to sneak past the teacher but it doesn’t work.
The group goes to bed, missing the meeting with the informant. They make ready for the combat day.
