Chapter 29: Graduation ceremony
Sara stepped gingerly into the room. She paused as she did, staring wide eyed all around.
The room itself was gigantic. It was almost as big as the arena from before. There were pews sitting in rows, facing a single direction. Tapestries depicting the Dark Goddess Lolth and her different forms hung from the high ceiling, falling all the way down to brush against the floor. The lights were tall torches sitting ten feet high, but instead of fire being used, there were dim crystals radiating light. Giant shadows were cast all around the dimly lit room, though Sara's Drow eyes could see just fine.
At the front of the room was a giant platform that stretched out almost the entire length of the room. Upon the stage were chairs. In those chairs were more Drow, their sour expressions sending chills down the backs of the unprepared young mages. The Drow sitting on the platform were other mages, but they were definitely of a higher rank. Some were much older than Sara, their forms were wrinkled and their white hair was thin. Others were young, perhaps close to Sara's own age. As she scrutinized the spectating Drow, a familiar sound caught Sara's attention.
Notice!
The Graduation Ceremony will take place under the watchful eyes of the mage academy elders.
As Sara closed out of the notice, she made a mental note not to provoke those high ranking mages sitting atop the platform. They seemed like the type to kill first and ask questions later.
Sara's eyes darted past the older mages, landing atop a giant obsidian sculpture standing behind the platform. It was carved into an alcove in the wall behind and stood at least twenty feet tall. It was a beautiful Drow Priestess standing upright with her back straight. She was sculpted to look as if she were stepping forward, ready to traverse the deep under dark and have its inhabitants praise her as their dark mistress. Her eyes seemed to look down upon the world before her with hate and malice. The longer Sara stared at the sculpture, the more unsettled she felt. She knew who it was.
It was Lolth, in her Drow form.
She was the perfect Drow woman in every aspect. Tall and lithe, her features sinisterly beautiful and her expression one of cold callousness.
Sara felt someone push her from behind, causing her to stumble forward. She turned to see who it was, only to find it an impossible endeavor due to the amount of Drow surrounding her.
She ignored the push and began making her way down, to find a place to sit and wait for the ceremony to begin.
Other Drow were doing the same, there weren't many that spoke, the dreary atmosphere causing those meant to be enjoying the celebration to become stoic and somber.
Finally, Sara found an empty seat next to another Drow and waited patiently.
As the rest of her class took their seats, the ceremony began.
A male Drow stood before them upon the platform. He wore crimson robes that swept against the floor beneath. His hair was long, pulled back into a pony tail, the ends hung down to his middle back. He stood with his back straight, his eyes staring out at the mass of students before him with mild disdain.
It wasn't his fault, most Drow's default expressions were of disdain and distrust. Drow's disliked everyone. They trusted no one, not even their own family members.
Especially not their family members.
It'd happened more than once that a Drow they needed to be weary of the most were those closest to them. A female priestess wanting to become the first sister? Just kill the older one and take her place. A male Drow wanted to be the first son? Kill the older brother, so there is no more competition.
Drow families were little more than roommates that continuously conspired against each other to take what their siblings had. They were greedy creatures that wanted power and authority over all else.
Even the Matriarchs weren't spared at times. It wasn't unheard of for a daughter to conspire against the mother before striking out on her own to start her own family.
As Sara waited for the Drow in front to begin speaking, the rest of her class quieted down until not even a mouse could be heard. The Drow standing atop the platform raked his white eyes across the crowd of young mages before him.
Slowly, he opened his thin lips to speak in a voice dripping with self importance.
"Young mages. Those of you present are brought here to graduate from the rudimentary Mage School and begin your true journey into the arcane." He paused before continuing. "From here on out, those that are considered of exceptional talent will be invited to continue their studies in the more advanced class. The others will be sent home to your families to learn in their own time."
He turned to gesture toward the Drow at his back.
"Those behind me have made their recommendations for who they believe to be worthy of the privilege of continuing their studies, but aside from their picks, the rest of the advancement class with be decided through the class ranking. There are seven individuals that those behind me have chosen, with my own pick making it eight. There are one hundred spots total, so, for those of you that can count, you know there are ninety-two spots left. That being the case, if your ranking is not within the top hundred of the class, you will most likely be ineligible for advancement."
The man turned back to face the crowd of young mages as a smile spread over his face.
"If any of you wish to put forth a challenge in order to climb in rank, now is the time to do so."
As he finished speaking, a Drow stood up on the other side of the room.
"I, Elnin Arkenarn, rank 115th, challenge the 100th ranked, Solorvir Barriiryn."
As the mages voice range out, another notice appeared before Sara.
Mission!
Challenge another classmate to climb the ranks into the top 100 of your class.
Rewards: a low level combat spell; the opportunity to gain more powerful spells.
Penalty for failure: If you die during a ranking battle, your character will suffer loss of experience for both character level and spell level, as it normally would when your character suffers a death in game. You also have a low chance of dropping one of your items.
Sara read through the mission quickly. She felt her stomach drop.
She wasn't sure about how much experience she had accumulated, but she'd been working hard on leveling up her spells…If she lost and died in battle, did that mean she would lose the progress toward turning her Force Arrow spell into a low level Somatic spell?
Sara suddenly regretted taking a break when she did. She felt that she should have leveled up her Force Arrow spell and learned her Message spell completely first. As it was, her character hadn't completely even learned the message spell, so there wasn't much loss in experience there, but Force Arrow wasn't yet a Somatic spell. Plus, her character had yet to level up, with the amount of time she'd spent in the game already, with her not having leveled up yet, does that mean leveling up wasn't easy? What if it took a massive amount of experience to level up? What if she was super close to leveling up now, but if she died, she'd lose all her progress…
Looking around, she saw a number of players that seemed to have been given the same mission.
'This is bad…'
Sara tried counting the amount of players that were given the mission, but she couldn't. There weren't names over top the players or NPC's heads, so it was hard to tell just how many she'd be competing against.
Not only that, but even the NPC's seemed to be interested in the advancement classes.
There were 100 spots originally, but that dropped down to 92 after the elders placed their specified picks. That number dropped even further when one considered there was no way for a new player or those in the absolute bottom of the ranking to challenge those at the top. Sara estimated that the top twenty probably wouldn't be able to be knocked down from their lofty peaks. That meant 38 spaces of the 100 were already taken up. There were over 300 mages in her class, which meant there were over two hundred people vying for 62 available positions. If she got a position, she'd find it hard as hell to keep it.
Sara decided not to make a challenge just yet. It'd be best to be one of the last challengers, rather than the first. If she waited until there were less than sixty people that still needed to challenge for a position, then she might only have to fight once in the arena. At most twice, if she was unlucky. Hopefully.
After that initial challenge, and no more followed, the older Drow on the platform sneered.
"Challenges can only be issued now. You will challenge a placement, rather than a person, so if the original owner of that rank is knocked out, you can still challenge their replacement. Also, all challenge matches will be done randomly, so even if you wait to put your challenge in, you probably wont be the last challenger. If you survive the challenge, but lose the battle, you will be given a second chance, so I suggest choosing wisely..."
His words sent thunder clamoring through Sara's mind.
As they finished ringing out across the room, a commotion began.
Before it could become too crazy, a system was put in place for others to apply to challenge a position. Each member of Sara's class wrote upon a large scroll placed atop the platform, which position they would be attempting to usurp. As Sara saw the amount of people signing up to challenge the ranking from 90-100, she decided to aim a little higher. The challenges would be randomized, apparently, so it didn't matter how quickly or slowly one signed up, she could end up being the first person to challenge the rank 100 mage and then have to go another 100-200 fights right after.
She didn't want that, obviously.
Looking over the rankings, there was a line that no one seemed willing to cross. Once the rankings hit thirty, no one seemed willing to take the risk.
Sara signed up to challenge the 44th ranked mage, who only had a single other challenger. If Sara could go second, she might be able to get lucky and win. After losing, if they didn't die, they were allowed to challenge another lower ranking classmate, so Sara went ahead and wrote down the 100th ranked mage for her second attempt, just in case. Many people wrote the 90th- 100th ranked mage for their second attempt.
Sara sighed a she walked away from the signup sheet. It looked like everyone under rank 100 had decided to challenge the rankings. Not a single person chose to sit out.
They were informed the ranking matches would take place over the following week, starting with the lowest ranking mages fight, then heading upwards in the ranking. The challenges for a single position would continue over and over again, until the one holding the position lost their rank. So, if the 100th ranked mage won twenty fights in a row, then lost the 21st, they would begin the 99th ranked mages challenges and so on and so forth.
So, it was feasible that the 44th ranked mage would lose his fight and Sara would have more time to prepare. She hoped she had enough time to find and learn another combat spell within the coming week.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone