Jim startled awake with a gasp, a hand instinctively going up to grasp his thankfully still beating heart. He sprang up from his position and, not having realised he was laying down, smashed his head straight into the top of the wooden overhang of the bed he was on. Memories of the gigantic monster, of a cathedral in which dark-robed individuals walked amongst their fallen brethren, a ritual circle, a sword piercing his heart. Clearly some sort of theater production, he decided as he groaned and cradled his head.

  A knock sounded on the door before he got any time to gather himself. "Arrival in two hours! Everything all right in there?" a female voice shouted.

  The voice grounded him just as much as the quickly developing bruise. It was a voice he recognised, even if he didn't know from where.

  “I’m all right, great even, perhaps the best…" Jim replied in a slurred voice as he ran his hands over the rough mattress and looked around, realising that he was on a ship. More specifically, in a cabin. Wooden and bare. "I think I just unlocked my family's prophetic bloodline," he realised quietly in a confused tone of voice.

  Visions weren't supposed to feel so real.

  "You don't sound alright," the voice said from outside, before unceremoniously opening the door. Professor Kalypso stood there, her dark skin and dreds clashing horribly against her yellow robe. Jim winced at the fashion disaster, remembering that her style had been one of the reasons he'd never visited any of her classes on divination back when he'd still been a student at the academy.

  "I'm alright, I'm alright," he said. "I just hit my head." He pointed to the overhang.

  The professor looked at him doubtfully, seemingly gazing into his very soul. "Well, all right, but do get ready for docking," she said, before closing the door again.

  Jim puffed out his chest proudly once she was gone, the pain of the vision he'd just experienced quickly fading before the pride he felt for his new accomplishment. His gift would make passing exams much easier, Jim decided. That and the prestige of being a seer was just what he needed to further establish his impeccable reputation. He winced as he analysed his future from the vision before deciding that his failure to reach the third circle must have been some sort of fluke.

  It didn't occur to him for even a moment that he had experienced anything other than a particularly vivid prophetic dream of the future.

  "Get ready, world, Jimothy Papillion Savant is coming for you," he muttered as he stood up on shaky legs to make his way to the small circular window in his cabin.

  He promptly opened it, leaned in, and puked out.

  It took Jim a few more minutes to recover from the profound feeling of nausea that the incredibly realistic and long prophetic dream had on him. It disoriented him so much that he even felt like he could cast spells he hadn’t learned yet, or had he?

  As with all things, time helped. What time did not help was the fact that Jim couldn't find his coin purse. He'd packed away all his belongings in the associated trunk to be delivered by the deckhands to his dorm room in Sredina. His money, however, was nowhere to be found. As a disadvantage of the dream, Jim didn't quite know where he'd put it either; the dream had taken an incredibly long time. He felt like an entire six months had passed.

  It wasn't on or in his nightstand, nor was it in his trunk. It wasn't under his bed, and neither was it in the inner breast pocket of his robes, which is where he tended to leave it.

  He patted himself down, once again, just to make sure that he wasn't forgetting something. But he didn't feel anything, and his coin purse was bulging with enough means to be felt, no matter its location.

  A crinkling sound came to his ears as he ran his hands down his black robe again. Frowning, he put his fingers to the task of searching his inner breast pocket for where the offending sound was coming from, and soon he found himself staring at a piece of parchment that had been roughly stuffed where he usually put his money.

  "What kind of a mage doesn't even put up a ward, ha." The note said. With a stunned look and an affronted gasp, Jim realised that he'd been robbed!

  "But wait," this hadn’t happened in the vision; in fact, Jim had never been robbed before! Were his prophetic dreams perhaps not as accurate as they seemed, or had he simply not been able to process all the information, forgotten about the coin purse?

  He jumped up from where he'd sat down on his cot to think. "Preposterous," he muttered as he walked up and down the four metres available to him in the cabin. Jim Savant had never been robbed before in his life. No one dared. Messing with him was messing with his family. If someone had robbed him in the dream, he would have remembered.

  "Which means…" He narrowed his eyes and looked at his reflection in the dirty mirror on the door. It stared back at him. Beautiful and luscious black hair and blue eyes, a patrician face. "Which means…" he trailed off. "I'll have to find the thief without any help from the dreams," he determined, and promptly exited the room to start his search. And to find a professor to complain to.

  However, the first person he bumped into wasn't a professor, but a fellow student. Decorus Gold, a Ezengerdian boy not particularly talented with magic. Perhaps his grades would be better if he didn't spend the whole time lurking in front of people's doors and talking into that glowing yellow marble of his that he always carried around his neck.

  Jim brusquely walked up to the golden-haired boy, whose hair was spiked up by a spell to somewhat resemble a flame. Decorus looked up from where he'd been sitting in a corner, nervously glancing around, and muttering to himself. "What?" he asked. "Don't you see I have important business to attend to?" he barked rudely.

  Jim just rolled his eyes. Decorus was the only Ezengerdian teen attending his year of the magical academy, and from him, he'd gleaned that all Ezengerdians were prone to lurking in dark places, schizophrenic episodes, and incredible rudeness. This was odd as his family dealt with them often, and they’d never mentioned such.

  But, as his family always preached, annoyance was temporary, trade routes were forever. "Decorus, I don't have time for your tomfoolery. Have you, or have you not seen anybody enter my room?" Jim asked, getting straight to the point.

  The Ezengerdian gave him a queer eye, looked him up and down and glanced to his right and to his left at the wooden walls of the corridor, as if checking to make sure that no one could overhear the important information he was about to reveal. Jim leaned in, the secretive atmosphere making him assume that he was going to receive an answer.

  The boy's head neared his open ear, only for the boy to mutter a quiet, barely susceptible, "No."

  "By the Flame, you're useless," Jim cursed as he reeled back in disgust at the theatricality.

  He promptly left the boy to his delusions, going towards the deck.

  "Don't take the empress’ name in vain!" Decorus shouted after him, but went back to muttering into his marble once Jim went up a set of stairs and out of his sight.

  Decorus was interrupted in his important task once again when Jim came back. "Wrong deck," Jim muttered as he passed Decorus on his way to the correct set of stairs. Going up the narrow passage, feeling the creaking of the planks underneath his feet, he finally heaved himself up onto the main deck, which had several stairs leading up to it from the labyrinthian cabin space underneath. He'd only taken one step after finally reaching his destination, before he was bowled over by a form dressed in brown rags.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Jim roughly shoved the girl off of him and cursed. "Get off me, bloody peasant," he grunted as he dislodged her from him with some effort.

  The girl rolled away with a wounded "uf," before promptly scrambling up and running away, likely to knock into someone else. Jim watched her go, annoyed, as he righted himself up to sit on the floor.

  The Sredinan magical academy put a lot of value in admitting magically talented people who couldn't afford the usual tuition, mostly from Mitelos, the eastern part of Rotto. This was why the first semester of the academy was wasted on mana control exercises, history, mathematics, magical theory, and some basic spells. To allow the uneducated to catch up. They often couldn't even read when they arrived!

  And this was the result. A bunch of stupid, poor people sullying what would have otherwise been a prestigious institution.

  The only question was; why had that girl been on the ship coming to Sredina from the Richean part of the country? She was obviously Mitelosian. Jim eventually shook his head and decided that he didn't really care. Every person of means needed a profoundly deep capacity to put grievously impolite interactions with poor people out of their mind.

  Returning to the actual issue at hand, Jim looked around the top of the gigantic ship, as big as about five whales, or 430 camels. He was unable to spot any figure of authority that could aid him in his current plight. With a huff, he went over to the railing to lean on it and look at the quickly approaching Sredina. The city of iron, the city of fire. Encased in a large and artificial lake, devised mostly by the Waterflower family, this gleaming behemoth of an island stretched out its spires towards the heavens like one of the giants of old trying to defy the gods. Rings of runes inscribed in fire encircled the city like an angel's halo. Horrible for trying to get a good night of sleep, Jim knew from experience. Turned out that when you based your whole runic script around fire-sigils, you got light pollution. Who would have thought?

  City illustration

  "It's beautiful, isn't it?" a voice suddenly said from beside Jim, making the boy nearly fall off the ship in surprise. A strong hand grabbed the back of his black robe and anchored him to his spot. A laugh. "Ha, sorry for surprising you!" the man exclaimed.

  Jim turned around with some annoyance but stilled his face when he saw who'd come up to him. It was Professor Mirtol who taught Combat Magic I. He’d get assassinated soon in the vision so Jim had never interacted with him much. His replacement, Jim, had been told, was less impressive. Not that he could tell, considering he'd never been to any of Mirtol's classes.

  "It's beautiful, for sure," Jim lied, like a liar. He scratched at his nose. "Just a bit too bright, sometimes."

  The professor hummed, still looking at the approaching city. "Maybe, sometimes. But it has to be. It would be weird if the city representing humanity's hope was anything but bright."

  "I know," Jim placated. "I just mean… It's sometimes a bit hard to fall asleep."

  Mirtol, the old man that he was, ran his fingers through his long and silver beard, which clashed horribly with his red robes. The traditional garb of battle mages. It was said that they wore the colour so the enemies couldn't see them bleed. Jim thought black would have worked better for that, but whatever.

  "Anyway, professor.” Jim continued. “I recently encountered a problem that I was going to approach a member of the faculty with."

  Mistrol smiled at him gently, crinkled his eyes and nodded. "What can I help you with, my boy?"

  Jim reached into his robe to pull out the note the thief had left, only to find nothing. He patted himself down once, twice, feeling increasingly ridiculous as the professor watched. Eventually, he gave up and coughed awkwardly into his hand. "Someone stole my coin purse while I was sleeping, probably a Mitelosian student. They left a note, too. I was wondering if you could help with that."

  Mistrol's eyes turned cold at the mention of Mitelos. "Well, if it was stolen by a student, it doesn't fall under the academy jurisdiction. We generally let conflicts between children stay between children. There were divination spells that you could use to find the coin purse once you locate the note, but without it, you're stuck with looking for any hair the perpetrator might have left behind and bringing it to the enforcers," the professor said, before promptly turning around and leaving. “Althought they’ll probably be busy with the robbery at Vingastan.” Jim heard the man mutter.

  Jim watched him go, in his ugly red robes and his bald head. "What an asshole," he muttered to himself, quietly.

  "Jimmy boy," a voice suddenly said from behind him. The afore-mentioned Jimmy turned around to glare at the offender who'd walked up to him, but his mood improved when he saw that it was only Lebowski. The fact that it was only this friend of his in particular who called him Jimmy should have tipped him off, really.

  Completely in character, the other boy, slightly chubby and brunet, sometimes bearing the resemblance to a particularly pale pig, was already gripping a wine bottle in his hand, from which he took prodigious sips in very short intervals.

  "Lebowski," Jim crowed. "You look like shit," he said, pointing to the boy's dark bags.

  "There was a party on our part of the ship, we didn't actually sleep at all, really. We all got really drunk and did stupid dares the whole night," the boy explained. Jim nodded along. While Lebowski was a good friend of his, he tended to avoid his parties, as the other boy liked to invite girls of lower standing, something he was even less willing to tolerate considering recent events.

  "How's the summer been treating you? Had to help your family harvest the grapes as always?" He asked instead of digging further. The fact that the other boy was actually expected to do manual labour always amused him. A rich merchant family with such a famous vineyard, and they used their children as manual labour.

  Character building indeed, more like peasant masquerade.

  "It was better this time," the big boy muttered as he pushed the bottle into Jim's hands, who took a gulp of the delicious liquid. You could say what you wanted about the Kabaj child-rearing practices, but they made damn good wine. Nearly the best in the region, in fact, if the Amarones didn't exist. "Turns out that the minor telekinesis spell they had us working on during the first semester is actually useful for something. I had the excuse that I should use it as practice to pluck the winter grapes. I was so slow all my siblings left me behind in minutes, then I got drowsy from mana exhaustion and fell asleep right there on the spot."

  "And they didn't notice?" Jim asked curiously, giving back the bottle after another healthy swig.

  Lebowski just shrugged. "Sure, they did, but what do they know about magic? I'm the first mage they've got. I just told them that practice generally exhausts you very quickly, but that you have to do it to grow your reserves."

  "None of that is wrong, though?" Jim asked confusedly.

  His friend awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "Well, maybe I exaggerated how long one generally needs to recover."

  "So what, you used telekinesis once an hour and slept the rest of the time?" Jim asked curiously. Despite his prophetic dreams, he didn't remember this either. Maybe because he talked to Lebowski a lot, and there was a lot to forget.

  The boy yawned; he suffered from an affliction called sleeping so much that one was tired again. "More like twice a day," he admitted.

  "Look at you, hard-working bastard," Jim mused. "You ever think your family was just tricking you into practising your magic, which you wouldn't have done at all had they not made you pick grapes?"

  Lebowski's mind seemed to buffer at the suggestion for a bit before he cursed. "Bloody hell, those bastards. Telekinesis twice a day, it's more than I do when I'm at the academy." He groaned before sighing. "At least it's over now. Your family still doesn't care?"

  Jim nodded. "They're great like that. They know that sending their mage offspring to the most combat-oriented magical academy gives them the reputation of having well-defended caravans. They don't actually care if I learn anything. Just that I graduated. Didn’t use magic all summer,” Jim said with a grin. “Except to light candles, it’s faster than matches and I wasn’t about to yell for a servant. I swear they intentionally drag their feet. Just because I’m the second son…”

  Lebowski turned to look at the approaching city, which for most students meant a laborious semester of trying to impress professors, taking as many electives as possible and otherwise qualifying for a decent certified mage status.

  For them, it was their paradise. Their retreat from familial expectations. It was ironic because their family business meant that, in comparison to home, they actually had to attend fewer classes when at the academy.

  And the prophetic dream about the monster attack? Well, Jim was going to offload that particular responsibility on the staff as soon as possible. Him having activated such a prestigious bloodline might even give him enough credit to pass the start-of-semester exams outright. Seers were rare after all. And if they tried to send him to that hamlet, well, he would just walk away in the opposite direction.

  "Home sweet-," hiccup "-home," Lebowski muttered, looking completely and utterly sloshed.

  Jim didn’t answer at first. He just watched the burning runes dance in the distance and thought about the future. “Yep,” he said finally. “Home sweet home.”