===== (Pell, Day 1 of classes, 3rd period) =====



Pell followed his classmates into their next classroom, avoiding eye contact - not hard to do, as all eyes were focused on the hole-covered vessel hanging from a tripod at the front of the room and the white-haired woman standing stiffly beside it. When they were all seated, she counted, nodded, and began to speak. "There's the right number of you, so let's skip all that. I'm Professor Mordgrant. I'm here to teach you Theoretics, which is..." she paused. "Anyone?"

Pell looked around the room, wondering for a moment why nobody was answering, until finally he gave up and spoke up himself. "It's the theoretical, y'know, underpinnings of magic, right? What it is, how it works, why it works that way?"

Professor Mordgrant gave Pell a long look over her glasses. "Close enough for a novice, I suppose. Theoretics is the study of how the world works; magic is simply a particularly effective way of interacting with the world. But the real keyword out of all that was, of course, 'theoretical'. Which is why the Dean, in his infinite wisdom, has informed me that my first lecture *must* begin with a practical demonstration." She sighed, then performed a brief set of flowing gestures, and smoke suddenly began spewing from the vessel, spilling from the holes to dissipate along the floor.

"The world that your mundane senses show you - that's the room outside this vessel. The smoke is aether, flowing forth into it and causing changes. 'Magic' is simply the word we use to describe anything that allows us to affect that aether. In particular, casting a spell is equivalent to putting your hands in the vessel and guiding the smoke from there."

There were a number of murmured objections to this; TKNAME even raised his hand and blurted smugly, "That's impossible, Professor. So this can't be right, because magic is possible, I would know, just this morning in Basic Casting I -"

"Enough, TKNAME." Professor Mordgrant had removed her glasses and was cleaning them on the end of her vest. "I've already said that this is a theoretical course; I don't care in the slightest what you did at playtime." She settled the glasses back on her nose as TKNAME flushed and sunk back in his chair, deflated. "Would any of you - those who understand that I actually do have things to teach you - care to attempt it?" She stepped towards the hanging vessel so that the smoke billowed over her feet. "Extra credit for anyone who can keep the smoke off my boots for a full twenty seconds."