A mind palace.  That was what Brother Loke had called it.  A mental state where the outside distractions faded to nothingness and all that was left was thought and introspection.  Grobbik had intended only to think of his own abilities as the professor had instructed him.  His obvious deficiencies in the magic he was casting had been the purpose of this exercise but somehow his mind had strayed, as it always did, to what had been his small group of friends at the college.  It had been just over a year since the group had assembled and seemed inseparable when faced against the Templar brothers, though there had been few real tests to their friendship beyond simple bickering.  Then the imp had come.

It was summoned accidentally during a class on ritual magic.  A darkness spell had gone wrong and before it had been ended the small imp lay crouched in the middle of their circle.  Though it had only injured one student and it had made no lasting effects, the punishment on Giles, who had been blamed for the incident, was severe.  Besides the extra work and detentions, he had been essentially warned that he would be expelled after one further incident - which came not long after.  After Giles had been expelled it wasn't long before Elliott was moved from the Hall of Soldiers to the Hall of Bishops presumably due to some donation by his family.  Elliott and Mariana started having issues almost immediately after.  They had been the two closest friends of the whole group but the move had gotten them off kilter.  They whispered quiet arguments during the occasions where they did speak with both of them agitated, Mariana usually more so.  It would only be later in the hall where Mariana would vent her frustrations quietly to the others: that Elliott was being an ass, that he cared more about perception than friendship, that he wanted to be the monk's goody two shoes despite the fact that he could barely catch fire to a cotton puff.  But then even that stopped.  Mariana one day just stopped being herself, she never stopped by their rooms anymore, In the few classes that she shared with others she was detached and silent.  She would avoid Elliott most of all and the few times they did meet each other usually ensued in shouting matches that would force bystanders to intervene.  Of course, that whole relationship culminated in theatrical violence.  The two cornered each other on the grounds at night and ended up in a duel that killed Mariana.  Though Grobbik had not been there, the rumored accounts of the handful of bystanders had been fantastical and grotesque, he had heard of Mariana enveloped in flames like a human torch and of the small pile of ash that had been the only thing left of her.  Somehow Elliott had escaped the worst punishments - when the story finally spread to the brothers he had been reprimanded for dueling and not for murder an odd reverse of the normal strict justice for minimal or imagined wrongdoing.  The whole event had obviously shaken him in retrospect however for Elliott had become darkened and broody since the event.  The whole situation seemed fictitious to Grobbik though the result was certainly real: he had lost another friend.

Though the rest of the small group still remained Grobbik had found himself drawn away, partly because of his limitations in magic.  His particular skills meant that he spent most of his time learning from Brother Loke, who was the professor of water magic at the college.  It seemed that the rest of the students avoided Loke whenever possible, especially Judoc, who had never entirely forgotten the embarrassment of his first day by the lake.  Indrid had always been sort of an ass so though they still roomed together, the diminishment of the other half of their mates meant his priggishness was all the more evident.
This message was last updated by the GM at 03:58, Tue 01 May 2018.