Chapter Forty-One: A Special Notice

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Shad stared tensely at the parchment listing elective courses, which looked more like a price list. Based on his circumstances—his city, profession, and age—as well as the academy he had joined and his core spirit rune, the academy had opened nearly two hundred elective courses to him during his first year. Among them were such obviously useful subjects as *Divination of Inspiration* and *Easy Acquisition of the Four-Element Spirit Runes*.

Some courses required students to complete certain basic or elective courses before they could be selected. Otherwise, Shad would have seen even more options.

Even the cheaper courses cost more than twenty pounds, while the most expensive ones could not be paid for with money at all. Their price consisted of relics, other requirements, or assigned tasks.

Fortunately, elective courses could be chosen at any time. Whenever Shad visited the doctor on Saturdays, he could simply contact the academy if he wished to pay for one.

Dr. Schneider suggested that Shad familiarize himself with the basic courses for a while before considering electives. The old priest recommended several useful subjects, while Miss Louisa crossed out a number of them for him. During her own first year, she had received a substantial amount of money from her writing and spent much of it on courses, so she knew which ones were unnecessary for the time being.

“Elective courses don’t have to be passed. The academy and the professors don’t care about that. But they are an excellent opportunity for correspondence ring wizards like us to meet and become familiar with the academy’s professors. You should know that whether certain valuable electives are offered also depends on the professors themselves.”

Miss Louisa continued explaining. Shad was very familiar with this sort of system. Although it differed slightly from what he had known in the past, he adapted to the rules easily.

After reading through the list of elective courses, he turned it over absentmindedly when he reached the end. He had assumed that the back of the parchment would be blank, but to his surprise, it really did contain writing:

> Mr. Shad Suellen Hamilton, First-Ring Wizard:
>
> At midnight tonight, prepare four wooden chairs in an empty, unoccupied room. The chairs must not bear any divine emblems or decorations. Place them facing one another at the four points of the compass—due east, due west, due south, and due north—and arrange them around a basin filled with clear water. Before midnight, sit on the chair to the north, set the parchment alight, and throw it into the basin.
>
> Please dress formally. You may light the gas lamps. Close the curtains, and do not tell anyone about this matter, including the other ring wizards in your group. Professor Hams Sanchez of the Academy of Library Management and Professor Hessing Garcia of the Academy of History wish to see you.
>
> St. Byrons Comprehensive Academy—Student Administration Office
> Professor Hams Jane Sanchez

“What is it?”

Seeing Shad staring blankly at the back of the parchment, Miss Louisa also looked over.

“What’s so interesting about a blank page? Oh, I see. You’ve probably never used parchment before. As a matter of common knowledge, we usually don’t use both sides of a sheet, so the back is normally empty.”

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Miss Louisa was standing in a position where she could clearly see the writing, yet she acted as though she had seen nothing.

“Only I can see this? What does the academy want? Is it giving me a secret mission? They want to speak to me alone—could my identity as an outsider have been exposed?”

Shad memorized the message, rolled the parchment back up, and placed it on the sofa.

Because of Shad’s core spirit rune of space-time, the Academy of History had promised to provide him with a Keeper-level relic for self-defense after he joined. The relic had appeared only after all the books and documents had been delivered and he had sent back a receipt confirming that he had received them.

The highest level of object that a Poet-level relic could transmit was Keeper-level, and even then, only certain Keeper-level relics could be transported. Clearly, the Academy of History had gone to considerable trouble for Shad.

The relic had been placed inside a cube-shaped, rusted bronze box no larger than a palm. The mottled surface of the box was covered in incomprehensible vine-like patterns.

Beneath the bronze box lay an instruction sheet describing the relic’s function.

The relic was not a gift to Shad. If he left the Academy of History or withdrew from St. Byrons Comprehensive Academy, he would have to return it. If he graduated normally, however, he would not.

You have come into contact with the “Whisper.”

According to common sense, Shad should not have known at once that it was a relic, since he did not yet know its properties.

“The Twenty-Sided Die of Fate?”

Without making any attempt to hide it from the others, Shad opened the antique-looking bronze box. The box was almost entirely solid metal, with a bronze-colored die embedded in its exact center.

The twenty-sided die was covered in rust. Its numbers were indented into the metal surface, all of them gold—some so corroded that they had nearly blended into the rust. They were marks left by the passage of time.

“I know this!”

Miss Louisa sounded surprised. She raised a hand as though she wanted to touch her earlobe, then shook her head.

“No—I should say that another version of me knows it. I must have happened upon information about this die in a book at some point... But why would the academy give you such a dangerous relic?”

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“All relics are dangerous. They are terrifying remnants condensed from the whispers of bygone ages.”

Father Augustus offered the reminder, but the writer shook her head, her golden hair swaying slightly.

“This one is particularly dangerous. Its properties manifest in two ways.

“First, while carrying the die, most forms of divination cannot affect its bearer. But that protection applies only while it is being carried, and carrying the die for an extended period will permanently diminish the bearer’s luck. I know luck is an immeasurable concept, but the Whisper element truly can interfere with it.

“Second, the die can be actively rolled, though only once per day. When it is rolled, the outcome of some matter related to the roller will be determined by the number shown. The higher the number, the better the luck—and no trick or technique can influence the random result.”

“Any matter related to the user?”

Dr. Schneider seized upon the key point. The others in his group often considered him unusually unlucky, so he was especially interested in such a relic.

“Yes. That’s why, after rolling it, you usually won’t immediately know what matter has been affected. But sooner or later, you will certainly find out. That is also one of the properties of the Twenty-Sided Die of Fate.”

The blond woman edged away from the bronze box in Shad’s hand with some unease.

“But most of the time, it can only produce numbers below ten, which correspond to bad luck. That has been confirmed statistically. It is said that if the result is one, something more horrifying than death will occur. How could the Academy of History give such a terrifying object to a detective?”

The information provided by the academy was much the same as Miss Louisa’s explanation. The die could only be contained within that bronze box, which had been made from a special material. Outside its container, the die would constantly tempt its holder, unconsciously, to roll it. Nor was the chance of rolling each number evenly distributed. Results below ten were the most likely, and their purpose was to trigger terrifying events.

For that reason, Miss Louisa strongly advised Shad not to use the die’s active effect. He should simply treat it as a relic that interfered with divination.

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