The air witches learned to create a Wytchwar version of a flash-bang grenade. Erika, of all people, stumbled on it using a hollow reed. When activated, the spelled tube would pull in air for about ten seconds, compress it, and then release it all at once.
We learned to make some things that were very useful, like magic lifts, which lifted any avatar up about two feet in a split second, making short work of high climbs, and some things which were complete duds, like the air bridge spells that were put together to get people over chasms or the river. The little golems kept falling off and either got trapped or swept away.
Aunt Ash also had us change the landscape weekly, tweaking the underlying spellwork to allow the river to move and the ridges to change into separate mountains and valleys.
Wytchwar quickly permeated the entire school, from group discussions on tactics and rules to new versions of game and competitions on both a team and individual level. Even the teachers and staff were drawn into watching the weekly Monday night games.
Not too surprisingly, I did well although my team didn’t always win. Caeco quickly proved herself the best tactician, but Delwood seemed to have a knack as well. My own skills were usually utilized as sort of a heavy weapons platform. Sometimes I was used to spearhead an attack and other times I was left almost on my own to defend, allowing the team to field the most attackers possible.
Interestingly, my greatest challenges came from whatever robot T.J. was driving at the time. His inventiveness was crazy good and the fights between his robot and my dirt dude became a spectator favorite.
In one area, I had no equals. I was still the premier avatar maker and so my services were always in demand, which allowed me to trade my skills for favors, spelled objects or even, once, help with an essay. I could easily trade for alcohol, but Arcane didn’t have a whole lot of ilicit drinking going on. Weres couldn’t get drunk, the result of their metabolisms, and witches are iffy with any drugs. Some of the rest experimented, but really, if you went to a school where the most dangerous and most prank-prone kids couldn’t drink, would you risk getting blotto? We did have some kids who were prone to attempting mind expansion through pot.
Even Explorations of Power class got marginally better. Miss Berg had settled for leading us through the vast body of written knowledge, or I should say, supposed knowledge, of the psychic and supernatural world. Most, possibly as high as ninety percent, was bullshit. But some kernels of wisdom did pop up here and there. She split us into two-person teams and had each team review a book. The teams were almost always a witch and a nonwitch, and she changed them after every assignment. The result was that I learned more about clairvoyants, psychometrics, telekinetics, telepaths, and distance viewers than I would have thought possible. I suppose that they learned about witches at the same time.
The one area of study that proved to provide little gain was the witches learning the Irwin knack of borrowing or, as Paige called it, leveraging magic. It wasn’t that they didn’t try hard, as I think most of them worked on it out of class more than they did anything else. It lurked just on the edge of their abilities, with little, sporadic glimpses of success mixed with hours of fruitless attempts. Maybe it had to be taught young. I don’t know and apparently, neither did my aunt.
Winter was passing quickly and the university’s spring break in March was fast approaching. Gina announced that none of us were eligible to leave Arcane; instead, we would have a full week of guest speakers, seminars, and workshops. The end of the week would be a parents-and-guests weekend where we would get to show our families around, have a Wytchwar tournament, and finish with a big dinner and music party.
Gina was bringing in a couple of different types of performers, including a young up-and-coming rapper and a pretty well-known D.J. We were also informed of a special performance by the Sisters Eerie, as Ryanne’s other three sisters were accompanying her parents to visit. I would have thought that would make Ryanne happy, but instead she got moody and even snippy with me. The weather was a bit warmer in early March and she stopped catching rides with me. I didn’t know