Bone Plains

By now, the situation was quite dire, truth be told. My attempts to 'keep my head down' and try to act as a normal person completely unaffiliated with whatever disaster was headed my way had done absolutely nothing to help.

Everything had started off quite normally. I was having a lesson on mana, which I found to be surprisingly interesting. I had a generally great time learning while taking notes and keeping in mind the concepts that the enthusiastic teacher was explaining with fervor.

As such, I was on the edge of my seat when I was told that we would be having a practical show on spellwork, by a 'fifth-tier Archmage'. As soon as he loudly announced this, everyone clapped and cheered as a listless young man walked in, and demonstrated a few spells. 

Everyone gathered around the guy, who was explaining the idea of spells through demonstration, such as Fireball or simple elemental spells, which he called 'second-tier magic'. Eventually, he started casting more complex spells, including some spell called… Supreme Strength? 

After casting it, he asked for a piece of wood to be brought in and he chopped through it easily. Everyone was cheering and hollering in excitement and complimenting his skills… but honestly, it was pretty disappointing. I thought he would have been able to punch through a wall or something, but instead he just punched through a wooden block, which could have been done even without spells.

Maybe because everyone was cheering so loudly and complimenting him so much, he said that he would allow all of us to experience a spell called 'Mass Teleport'. It was quite obvious what the spell was going to do and I was completely sure that it would be the reason for the catastrophe I would inevitably end up in, but the spell was cast before I could even say a word.

Naturally, we ended up in a seemingly abandoned wasteland, at which point every teacher and student turned so pale they could have passed for ghosts, the fifth-tier Archmage included. 

One of the mentors asked shakily, "W-why does this look like the Bone Plains? Esteemed Archmage, are my eyes deceiving me?"

I had no idea what these Bone Plains were, but they did not sound fun. The Archmage immediately reassured the teachers and students that he would cast Mass Teleport once the cooldown ended and send us all out, so everyone calmed down and started chanting spells that formed shimmering shields of light around us.

For a time, everything was peaceful and there was no sign of any movement from the surroundings, but the Archmage and teachers were starting to look more and more concerned by the minute. 

I heard one of them whisper, "Why aren't any of the undead here? I thought they would be swarming us in minutes, but there's been nothing…."

Just as all eyes turned to the Archmage and he started to answer the question, a flash of light seemed to pass through the shield, which shattered with the sound of tinkling glass. A second later, the Archmage dropped to the ground, blood pouring from his neck.