Chapter 21: Isekai Life & Eating Platemail

Now that I had had a name to go on, memories of Calliope came flooding back.

I had been enamoured with her ever since I noticed her two week into basic lessons. She was smart, attractive, kind ... if a little too serious and standoffish. But that didn’t matter, what are little things like human flaws to get in the way of a good infatuation?

The best part is, she seemed to warm up to me in time. We didn’t flirt, precisely, but she would blush whenever our eyes met, and she was really embarrassed the one time she bumped into me by accident. We also competed, vying for the top of the class, but she would overtake me pretty regularly, and I didn’t really mind.

Eventually we went into different streams. I apprenticed under a Transmuter, of course, while Calliope seemed determined to become a war mage for some reason.

Hey, just because you crush on a girl, doesn’t mean you know all that much about her.

Either way, now she was there before me, and I kind of felt like a mess.

But, surprisingly, she stepped forward and gave me a hug. “Oh, Theodore! They didn’t tell anyone what happened to you when you disappeared! Jeez, everyone assumed some kind of terrible accident happened!” Then she stepped back and gave me a light push away. “Sorry ... you breath kind of smells like a brewery.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I said, clamping my mouth shut after.

“What happened to you? Where have you been?”

“Well ... it’s kind of a long story, but Katriana and I had to leave the Academy...”

“Katriana? That’s your sister, right?”

“Uh, yeah ... Anyway, my education was basically done, so we just took to the road as adventurers, and we’ve been working pretty steadily since we got here. You found me on my first day off in awhile, actually.”

“Oh, I see...” She fidgeted a moment. “You really couldn’t have said goodbye, at least?”

“I didn’t know where you were. They keep the different Schools pretty separate, you know? And it’s not like I could have just walked into the women’s dorm.”

“You could have at least sent your sister, though!” she accused.

Which was true, and had genuinely not occurred to Theodore before I was in the driver’s seat.

“Sorry...”

She sighed. “I guess Katriana’s still around somewhere, taking care of you? The Gods know that you need it.”

“Yeah ... what about you? What’s your situation?”

She bit her lip. “A few of us from the graduating class came here together, to look for work as adventurers ... what we didn’t expect was that adding a bunch of young Invokers to the mix here was basically going to crash the economy for magical talent.”

That kind of makes sense.

“Anyway, as it turns out, “ she continued, “A lot of people make some pretty strange assumptions about women war mages. I’ve had it about up to here with jokes like, ‘we can’t have you fireballing the camp once a month.’ I’m an Academy graduate! I shouldn’t have to prove anything!”

“Wait, you don’t have a job?”

As far as I knew, Calliope came from common folk, who got into the Academy based on her talent. She couldn’t have a ton of money.

I gave her a concerned look. “Are you okay? How is your situation?”

“I have a job, as a matter of fact,” she replied haughtily, “It’s just not one that happens to use my magical talents. Which I would prefer, by the way.”

“Right. Well...”

I gave it some thought. Calliope was clearly angling to a spot in our party, but splitting reward money five ways would start to cut things a little fine. Especially if a perfectly good bard or ranger or paladin or something else showed up a little later on.

But having an Invoker would be pretty great. She could focus on blowing stuff up while I focused on solving problems. She could be an excellent addition.

“You know what... ? Why don’t you come along and meet the other members of my party,” I finally replied, “Then we could have a discussion about whether we have a place for you.”

She smiled at me. “Really? That would be fantastic! Thank you so much!”

I turned and located Voss, standing by a street vendor and munching on a meat pie. Bringing Calliope over, I made the introductions. “This is Voss, he’s one of our front line warriors. Voss, this is Calliope, a friend from the magical academy I studied at.”

“Charmed,” he said around a mouthful of pastry and unidentifiable meat. Calliope shook his hand with more than a little trepidation.

“Hey, Theodore, can we discuss something in private for a moment?” he asked after finishing his mouthful and wiping crumbs off his chest.

“Uh ... sure. I guess we’ll be right back?”

“Well ... alright, don’t take too long.”

Voss pulled me aside, around the corner of a building and just out of sight. Then, he clapped his hands flat against each other, as if praying.

“Promise me that if a cute girl ever expresses any interest in me, you won’t talk to her. In fact, don’t even be in the same room as her. Please!”

“Uh ... okay...”

“And teach me whatever sorcery you know that has all these girls flocking to you!”

“Calliope hasn’t flocked anywhere!”

“Come on, man, she hugged you right away like that. If you’re not banging her, too, by the end of the week, I’ll eat my brand new plate mail.”

“Well ... now you’re just trying to get out of having new armour again.”