Chapter 4: Whispered Walls and Bloody Chalk
Alaric spent the next day mapping.
Not the school buildings. Not the terrain.
The circles.
He marked the dungeon chamber, the courtyard slab, and a few faded carvings on the outer walls no one paid attention to. At first, they looked random. Spread out. Unconnected.
Until he viewed them from above.
Literally.
He floated five books into the air and projected the pattern across their surfaces with:
"Memory Layer."
—Projects a mental image onto physical surfaces using psychic imprinting. Think blueprint, but spooky.
He stepped back.
Then squinted.
The circles formed a shape.
Not a summoning circle.
A containment net.
A huge one.
The Academy itself was part of it.
And someone was building it from the inside.
Piece by piece.
They weren't summoning one demon.
They were building a gate big enough for dozens.
---
In the cafeteria, the Class F students stared at Alaric as he floated a bowl of soup, a spoon, and a sandwich while also sketching in midair.
The elf girl poked his notebook.
"Why are you drawing spiderwebs?"
"It's not a spiderweb."
"It looks like one."
"It's a summoning grid."
"...Do spiderwebs summon things?"
Alaric sighed.
Gaelin wandered past, saw the floating spoon, and pretended not to see it.
---
That evening, he slipped out again.
This time toward the old observatory, long abandoned, rumored to be haunted by a mage who failed a teleport spell and reappeared without skin.
Alaric didn't care.
He followed the pull in his mind—subtle but constant.
He reached the tower's base and pressed a hand to the stone.
Warm.
Alive.
Another circle hidden beneath it.
This one half-carved, still in progress.
Whoever was building these… was still working.
He turned to leave.
Then stopped.
A word had been scratched into the wall behind him.
Fresh.
Just one.
"Stop."
He didn't.
He stared at it.
Then calmly erased it with his finger.
The psychic residue on the word was faint.
But it wasn't magical.
It was mental.
Someone with a trace of the same kind of power had written that warning.
Not identical to his—but too close to ignore.
Which meant two things.
One: Someone was watching him more directly than he thought.
And two: Maybe… just maybe…
He wasn't the only one who could do things without mana.
---
The word "Stop" was gone.
But Alaric's thoughts weren't.
He kept replaying the sensation—the faint mental residue left behind. Not real psychic power. But close enough to be dangerous.
A mimic?
A demon trick?
He needed answers.
And he had a hunch where to start.
---
The next day, during an "optional" lecture on fireball safety—which seemed to consist mostly of explosions and apologies—Alaric quietly slipped out the side window.
The faculty tower was restricted to staff and high-level researchers.
Which, naturally, made it the most interesting place on campus.
He walked with purpose, head down, not too fast, not too slow. Carried a stack of papers he'd swiped from the library. Didn't make eye contact with the wardkeeper at the door.
The guard nodded politely as he passed.
Being underestimated had perks.
---
The hallway inside smelled like alchemy glue and disappointment.
Offices lined the sides—some locked with glowing glyphs, others suspiciously ajar.
He stopped outside one with a brass plaque:
Professor Edric Wern, Ritual Studies
Authorized Access Only
Alaric narrowed his eyes.
He'd seen Wern near the old observatory two nights ago.
Supposedly researching "moon-phase casting instability."
At midnight.
With a shovel.
He pressed two fingers to the lock.
"Veil Pierce."
—Unravels minor illusion and obfuscation effects, bypassing visual and sensory wards.
The glyph flickered.
He slipped inside.
The office was quiet.
Too quiet.
The air was still, heavy, like it was watching him.
He scanned the bookshelves. Old tomes. Nothing forbidden—on the surface.
Then he noticed the rug.
Too new. No dust. Slightly off-center.
He pulled it back.
Stone floor.
With an active summoning circle etched beneath.
This one was smaller, meant for concealment—but still pulsing.
Worse, it wasn't a complete spell.
It was a relay—part of the larger net he'd mapped.
Something connected these smaller circles across the school.
And this one wasn't cold.
It was warm.
Still active.
Still transmitting.
Alaric reached toward it.
Not with his hand—with his mind.
The moment he touched the energy flow, it pulsed back violently.
A backlash.
Not magic.
But something twisted, wrong.
Demonic presence—thin, stretched like a dying scream.
It tried to push into his mind.
He stopped it with one thought:
"Mental Lockdown."
—Seals off conscious layers from outside intrusion. Shuts the door on anything trying to "crawl in."
The pressure shattered like glass.
He pulled away.
Breathing steady.
Whoever made this circle knew someone would come looking.
It was bait.
And he'd almost taken it.
Then a voice echoed from the doorway.
"You shouldn't be in here."
---
Alaric turned.
Professor Wern stood in the threshold, smiling politely.
But his eyes were wrong.
Too wide. Too calm.
And glowing slightly red.
Not magic.
Not normal.
Possession.
Alaric straightened.
Wern tilted his head. "Curious little thing, aren't you?"
"I like circles," Alaric said dryly. "Yours are messy."
Wern stepped inside.
The door closed without being touched.
Alaric didn't blink.
The professor's smile widened.
"Well then," he said softly, "shall we test which of us draws the better lines?"
---
The office fell silent.
Professor Wern stepped further into the room, each step oddly weightless—like the floor didn't matter anymore. The summoning circle beneath the rug pulsed red. His body moved like it still belonged to him, but Alaric could tell:
It didn't.
The thing inside was watching him through borrowed eyes.
"Students," the voice hissed, "shouldn't meddle in adult rituals."
"I'm very advanced," Alaric said. "And you left your circle unlocked. That's just poor academic security."
Wern raised his hand. Fingers splayed.
A bolt of dark mana surged from his palm—fast, twisting, and unstable.
Alaric didn't flinch.
He whispered:
"Vector Grip – Reverse."
—A sudden telekinetic redirection. Grabs incoming force and throws it back, faster.
The bolt snapped midair.
Flipped.
Slammed into the ceiling and exploded harmlessly.
Wern blinked. Just once.
Then threw three more spells—fire, curse, bind.
Alaric moved his fingers slightly.
"Dominion Field – Controlled Pulse."
—Releases a shockwave that destabilizes active spell matrices within a set range.
The spells fizzled mid-cast.
The lights flickered.
The demon inside Wern hissed.
"So... not magic."
"Correct."
"Then what are you?"
Alaric stepped forward.
"I'm what happens when you skip the chant and just decide things."
The demon screamed and twisted Wern's arms outward—forming a wide summoning glyph across both palms.
Something growled from beneath the rug.
A creature began to rise.
Big. Wrong. Teeth-first.
Alaric whispered:
"Cognition Split."
He didn't just dodge.
He walked between movements—one layer of thought dedicated to the creature's claws, the other pre-reading Wern's next command.
Then, for the first time—
He raised both hands.
Two thoughts. Two movements. Two effects.
"Neural Crush." (Left hand – Wern)
—A concentrated psychic surge targeting the possession channel in the brainstem. Forcefully severs control link.
"Telekinetic Collapse." (Right hand – creature)
—Compresses all kinetic motion into a single internal implosion. Turns muscle into soup.
Wern dropped like a puppet cut from strings.
The creature made a wet, folding sound and fell flat.
Alaric stood over them both, breathing steady.
Silence.
He stepped back from the circle.
The room was still again.
Whatever had been controlling Wern—gone.
He knelt beside the professor's unconscious form.
No magical aura.
But a faint, residual mark along the collarbone.
Like a brand.
Family-made.
Veyron-made.
Alaric slowly clenched one fist.
His father had sent demons here.
Through teachers.
Through students.
And no one knew.
Except him.
---
Far above, in a sealed study chamber of House Veyron's estate, a mirror cracked.
The patriarch of the family—Malrik Veyron—glanced at the ripple in the blood-circle he'd carved hours ago.
"Something interrupted Wern," he muttered.
A steward stepped forward. "Should we retrieve the body?"
"No," Malrik said calmly. "Let the boy find more. He's cleaning up better than expected."
He smiled thinly.
"Let him wander. Let him learn. Let him grow confident."
A pause.
"Then we'll see what happens when he meets a real demon."
---
Alaric stood over the unconscious professor, still breathing, still alive—but stripped of his puppeteer.
The room was scorched in places. A few books floated midair, torn by stray energy. The air still tingled with fading echoes of something wrong.
He pulled the rug back into place. Closed the desk drawer. Reset the door lock.
Then looked at Wern.
"You didn't volunteer for this, did you?"
He crouched. Touched two fingers to the man's temple.
"Memory Tap – Surface Sweep."
—Briefly scans the last few conscious thoughts like flipping through the top pages of a book.
Blurred flashes.
> A sealed envelope from someone with Veyron colors.
A whispered chant not of this world.
"Your body is the key."
And finally—fear.
Alaric pulled back.
No deep control. No ritual contract. Just a channel.
The man had been used.
Like a gate with legs.
He sighed.
Then straightened.
"You're going to wake up really confused," he muttered. "Try not to cry."
---
He left the office with no alarms.
No one saw him.
Except one.
A girl—first-year, average height, light green robes. Sitting on a bench nearby, sketchbook in lap.
She stared at him.
Then down at her drawing.
Then back at him.
"You smell like fire and secrets," she said quietly.
Alaric blinked. "That's… specific."
She tilted her head.
"I like it."
Then stood, closed her book, and wandered off like nothing had happened.
Alaric stared after her for a moment.
"…This school gets weirder every day."
---
Back in Class F, he found the elf girl asleep on her desk with a chalkboard diagram labeled:
> "How to Punch a Demon if You Don't Have Arms."
Gaelin looked up from a stack of paperwork.
"You missed practical training."
"I had practical training."
"I meant school-approved training."
"Oh," Alaric said. "Then no, I didn't."
He sat down.
"Wasn't Wern scheduled to teach tomorrow?" Gaelin asked.
"Change of plans."
"You didn't break him, did you?"
"Not entirely."
Gaelin grunted.
"You're getting good at not explaining things."
"I've had practice."
---
In the headmaster's office, a sealed scroll arrived.
Unmarked. Magical chain-locks broken from the inside.
Inside: A single word, written in blood-red ink.
"He knows."
The headmaster read it once.
Then stood.
And summoned every senior staff member on campus.
It was time for the Academy to admit:
Something was very wrong.
And it wasn't just Alaric Veyron.
---
The chamber was round, windowless, and deeply serious.
A half-moon table sat at one end. Behind it: the headmaster, three deans, and a senior inquisitor from the city's Church of Radiance—robes pristine, eyes like a hawk who hadn't eaten in days.
Alaric stood in the center, arms at his sides, cloak too wrinkled for this much attention.
"Alaric Zevran Veyron," the inquisitor began, with the slow drama of someone who enjoyed vowels. "You are here because a faculty member was found unconscious in his private study, surrounded by tampered magical wards and—"
"Let me guess," Alaric said, "strange symbols, no signs of magical interference, and one half-digested summoning circle no one can explain?"
The inquisitor blinked.
"That… is classified."
"I'm just smart like that."
The headmaster cleared his throat. "Alaric, this isn't a joke."
"No," Alaric said calmly. "It's a cover-up."
Murmurs around the chamber.
The inquisitor scowled. "Explain."
Alaric stepped forward—not aggressively, just enough to make them all lean back a little.
"You've had four incidents in the last month. Two dungeon anomalies. One corrupted construct. One demon-puppeted professor."
"Allegedly—"
"I've personally encountered three of them," he continued, ignoring the interruption. "Each time, I found summoning circles with a unique signature: incomplete, invisible to mana detection, and hidden inside Academy structures."
The headmaster frowned. "You're saying someone is using the Academy's own layout as a summoning network."
"Not someone," Alaric said.
He reached into his coat and placed a folded diagram on the table.
The summoning net.
Circles. Lines. Locations.
Drawn across a scaled map of the Academy.
All connected.
"It's still growing," he added. "New nodes are being carved into unused spaces. Abandoned classrooms. Dead ritual wings."
The inquisitor scanned the map.
Then stopped.
"You drew this by hand?"
"Memory Layer projection," Alaric said.
The room went quiet.
A pause.
Then the inquisitor whispered, "That's not… mana work."
"Nope."
"Then what is it?"
Alaric smiled slightly.
"A talent."
---
The headmaster leaned forward, eyes hard.
"You're implying the Academy has been infiltrated."
"I'm not implying it," Alaric said. "I'm showing it."
"And who, exactly, do you suspect?"
Alaric's smile faded.
His voice dropped, quiet, but sharp.
"Ask my father."
The air in the chamber turned colder.
The Church inquisitor blinked. "...You mean the head of House Veyron?"
"He's not just watching," Alaric said. "He's managing. Coordinating. Maybe not every piece—but enough."
The headmaster sat back slowly.
"I'll need proof."
"I'll get it," Alaric said.
"How?"
Alaric turned to leave.
"I'll follow the next circle," he said. "Because now I know where it'll appear."
"And where is that?"
He paused at the door.
Then looked back.
"Classroom B-17."
Another pause.
"Under my desk."