Aaralon remained in Catherine’s bed for almost an hour before finally getting up. While he still felt a bit exhausted he had recovered enough to look and act normally, as if nothing had happened. Now it was time for him to go - if anyone came and found him in Catherine’s room he would end up in big trouble since he had no excuse for being there, and he couldn’t tell anyone why Catherine wasn’t in her room, or anywhere in the College, for that matter. Revealing his demon summonings would only make things worse for him. His only option seemed to be to leave and pretend that nothing had happened. And that was exactly what the young mage intended to do.
Slowly Aaralon sneaked out of Catherine’s room. With a bit of luck he managed to leave the building as well, narrowly avoiding the few living souls that were still present. He then made his way to his first class - Herbalism. He was very late, but in this case it didn’t matter - nearly everyone was late or didn’t go at all to this particular class. There were several teachers in the College teaching Herbalism, and one of them was Derval the Hermit. Derval was an old man with long white hair. He seemed so old that he looked like he would drop dead any second. But despite his looks he was still very healthy, and spoke loud and clear during classes. He was a very good teacher, but his classes were not very popular simply because most other teachers who taught Herbalism were young and pretty women (there were also a few handsome men, to the delight of most girls). So anyone who happened to be in Derval’s classes considered himself or herself very unlucky. And Aaralon just happened to be one of the unlucky ones.
Right now however Aaralon felt very lucky, for Derval was used to people being late (or not showing at all) for his classes, and never asked any questions, or demanded explanation. Today was no exception, and Aaralon’s late arrival was ignored by the old teacher.
The class was as boring as ever, at least as far as Aaralon was concerned. By the time it ended Aaralon’s energy was completely restored, his exhaustion completely gone. He briefly wondered what had happened to Catherine and if he would ever see the blonde girl again, but decided that it is better not to know - after all, to find out he would probably have to meet that demoness again, and that was not something that appealed to him. So during his lunch break (the entire morning had been dedicated to Derval’s Herbalism class) Aaralon tried to forget what had happened and to concentrate on what to do. He wondered if he should try to summon another demon. If he did, he would need to be extra careful – or he could end up in another, bigger, mess. Or maybe it would be wiser not to attempt another summoning for a while – to summon three demons in such a short period of time could be dangerous, not to mention the increased chance of getting caught if he got overconfident.
After lunch Aaralon discovered that his next class had been canceled because the teacher had been sent on some important task and it was uncertain when she would be back. So Aaralon decided to take a little nap. He went back to his room (Yerther was not there), lied down on his bed, and fell asleep… |