Ray and Mariel walked side by side up a long twisted stairway. A soft, royal blue carpet ran down the steps, tightly fitting into every groove with flawless accuracy. Polished stone rails lined the stairs on either side, making sure a clumsy student wouldn't end up taking a detour whilst traversing the staircase.

          After reaching the top, the duo stopped dead in front of a large set of ebony doors. Two fearsome dragons, frozen in action were carved on their metal surface, each defending their own luxurious black door knob.

          Ray gave the doors a pouting look, and approached them dejectedly, followed by Mariel who looked on at Ray like an overseer. He grabbed one of the doorknobs after a spell of hesitation, and gave it a hard tug before it decided to slide open. Beyond the parameters of the thick metal was a broad room, dimly lit by the light flowing through the wall sized windows opposite of them. Large wooden shelves heaped with dusty books and strayed cobwebs lined the other walls, barely touching the ceiling with their tremendous height.

          The faint smell of tree sap and fresh rain wafted over to Ray and Mariel as they walked in. The caramel colored wooden floor was caked with a thin layer of dust more prominent around the edges of the room, and in the center of the floor was a long rectangular fancy carpet. Upon its fuzzy surface sat a thick legged robust desk, weighed down by a mountainous pile of unorthodoxly stacked papers and letters.

          "Milady?" Mariel softly called, approaching the desk. A stack of papers hanging precariously off the edge of the desk toppled over, and the head of a woman shot out from behind the pile with surprise.

          "Ah Mariel! What brings you here this time?" The sound of chair legs scraping against the carpet sounded off as the woman left her seat to approach Mariel. Her wavy blonde hair was tied up in a sloppy bun, and her eyes sagged like dark shopping bags. She pulled up her green glasses so they were perched upon her head, and noticed Ray standing casually in the doorway. "Something good this time I hope." She smiled, giving Ray a mischievously playful grin.

          Mariel gave Ray a prompting side glance, nudging her head towards the woman.

          "Good Morning mi'lady." Ray bowed courteously. "I took the liberty of acquiring a possibly exceptional student."

          Samanthra noticed Mariel's face slowly form into a disappointed glare. "Possibly exceptional? And how, might I ask, did you acquire this student?"

          Ray stuttered a bit, forming an explanation in his head. "Well, I was going about my normally routined day, when one of my... lumience detecting devices went off in an abnormal location. So I took a short trip to this location, and found a lonely boy named Káel. The poor kid was being pursued by a group of chirops, so I rescued him, and we both went back to Lumi together."

          "Back to Lumi?" Samanthra stopped, her eyes widening in unison with Ray's. "How did you get to Earth?!"

          Ray chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head. "Hold on, I'm still explaining... Anyways, we both arrived on Lumi, and he was eager to learn some lumience-" Ray's story was conveniently interrupted by Mariel clearing her throat. "And... So I showed him how to turn a stick invisible..."

          "Aren't you forgetting the part where you pushed him off a cliff face? Because you loved telling me that part." Mariel said, eyeing Ray with a sarcastically joyous face.

          "Er, well yes. But that part's not important." Ray replied. "Anyways, we made our way to Cobalt... And on the way I told him all about the entrance exam-" Ray was interrupted yet again by a conveniently placed Ahem. "I told him all about the entrance exam..." Ray repeated, looking at Mariel cautiously. "and he happily par-" Ahem! "He happily, participated in it!" Ray shot Mariel and innocently confused look and cleared his throat. "And after the exam, he managed to score a B with next to no lumience experience!"

          "Ah that's very nice Ray," Samanthra said, smiling sweetly to mask her disbelief. "Now Mariel, you seem to know this story too." She exchanged knowing signals of the problematic situation with her. "So do tell... what seems to be the problem?"

          Mariel dipped her head respectfully and cleared her throat. "Draven had proposed a bet with Ray, where whomever brought in the highest scoring examinee would be able to request anything of the loser." She turned her head to Ray, who still stood in the doorway. "However Ray took it a little too seriously, and with a trans-world travelling device of unknown origins, he went to Earth and abducted a poor boy. As if that wasn't risky enough, he placed the boy into Cobalt's entrance exam by controlling him with lumience, and failed to mention the molves were not intent on killing him." Mariel turned her head to Samanthra and dipped it again. "Now Káel is stuck on Lumi until we find a way to get him back, so I sent Draven to get him registered. That, is the current extent of my knowledge."

          Everyone stood frozen in the room, speechlessly staring at each other. Until Ray stepped out of the door frame and allowed the iron door to slam shut. "So you caught my manipulation spell, huh?"

          Mariel growled at Ray's evasive response, and Samanthra allowed her forehead to drop into her open palm as she shook her head in disbelief. "Ray... You're on stable duty for the next month, as punishment for breaking multiple school rules simultaneously."

          He drew back in offense. "Can't I have the sweeping duty punishment?"

          Samanthra's stressed expression softened and she walked up to Ray and flicked him on the forehead. "No because for some reason you find enjoyment in sweeping every inch of the school. A punishment is not a punishment if one enjoys doing it!" She waited for Ray to droop his head in shame, turning to Mariel with an air of seriousness. "Is he related to any of the warlords?"

          "We don't know, but Ray says his parents aren't on Earth." She replied, receiving a nod of agreement from Ray.

          Samanthra rested her chin upon the knuckles of her hand, and pursed her lip. She looked around the room, in deep ponderment. "Káel... that can't be his name. Tia." She spoke, looking up at the dusty ceiling.

          The voice of the anonymous girl Káel had met before broke into the room. "Yes milady?"

          "I need some information. There was a boy named Káel who took the exam, I need you to scan the nature of lumience around him, and identify his lineage."

          "Oh, that kid. I was just about to tell you about him after the examinations ended... Man was he weird. He walked into the exam with less experience than a five year old, and took out every single molve with three daggers, a pack of Smoke Balls, a flashlight, and a piece of the examination sign. Although, I did go easy on him."

          "A flashlight? He used a flashlight?" Ray said, breaking down into laughter.

          "Oh good, you're here Ray. You're about to be in a ton of trouble... Anyways, his last name's Williams, that's so Earthy it's gotta be fake." Tia continued, oblivious to Samanthra's foot impatiently tapping the floor.

          "Tia."

          "Yes milady?"

          "Did you scan him?"

          "Naturally I tried to, given his overall oddness, but when I scanned him, I was blocked."

          "Blocked?" Her brow scrunched in confusion. "How?"

          "It's like there's a barrier, I can't get past it." She replied. "But I did a bit of eavesdropping, apparently he has an uncle named Staz taking care of him."

          Samanthra's face scrunched up with confusion and she pulled her glasses down. "Staz... I don't recognise that... His name can't be Káel then." She rolled up the sleeves of her emerald green robe, and rummaged through her bookshelves. Thick clouds of dust evacuated the quiet corners she violently disturbed. After looking over an entire shelf she collapsed against it and sighed. "How are we going to get that kid back to Earth?"

          Mariel's face turned to a reassuring smile as she wrapped her arm around Ray's shoulder and pulled him in. "Ray brought him here, and he's taking him back."

          "About that..." Ray muttered, dropping his gaze to the floor.

          Samanthra and Mariel both pressed Ray down with the overwhelming weight of disappointment. "What? You said it was going to take about 100 days right?" She dug her glare straight into his eyes.

          "I did... Yeah. Cause Káel had me up against a wall, and I didn't feel like roughhousing with him." Ray pulled off his overcoat and shook it until a silver ball dropped into his palm. "Tellys only have a one time use. It'd be easier to find an ancient portal than to get a new ones of these."

          The room went dead silent.

          Samanthra stood there watching Ray without any emotions whatsoever. "So you can't send him back?"

          Ray silently stared at the floor.

          "When you were kidnapping him... Did this extremely likely situation ever cross your mind?"

          Ray cringed, sucking in a wad of air through his teeth, and snapping his fingers. "Say. Didn't you just clean that desk?"

          Samanthra peered at her desk and frowned. "Registrations are always a hassle. Now stop avoiding questions. Is he stuck here?

          Ray pulled on a strand of his bangs curling out of its proper place. "Yeah." He placed the silver ball back in his overcoat. "Unless we find a different way to get him back, he's stuck here... For good."

    —————   

          Mariel and Ray strolled out of the room, allowing the doors to slam behind them with a heavy thunk. Samanthra was without a doubt going back to her work, with another stressful problem haunting her. She had asked the three of them to gather as much information about Káel as they could while she figured out another way get him back to Earth; Ray was more than happy to say his farewells and get out of the room.

          Mariel hustled down the stairs, dragging Ray behind her. They had to get to the registration area before Draven got bored, otherwise he'd lead Vera and Káel to some unpredictable location. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase, leaning against the end of the polished rail. "Did you really kidnap Káel just because of that bet?"

          Ray smiled, his eyes glinting with a mysterious shine. He was up to something he deemed important, but it was impossible for Mariel to figure out most of the things going through his mind. After all, almost nobody on Lumi could.

          "I had my reasons." Ray replied, walking past Mariel without stealing a single glance at her.

          She sighed, focusing on the tail end of the strange uniform Ray was wearing. She'd been so flustered about Káel, and how obscenely abrupt Ray's actions were to a point where she hadn't noticed the hideous thing. "Ray."

          He stopped dead in his tracks at her tone, glancing over his shoulder with a timid squint. "Yes?"

          "Where did you get those clothes?"

          There was a hint of pride leaking through his voice as he checked himself out. "Earth, why?"

          Mariel grimaced as Ray was in the middle of admiring the overcoat's cuffs. "Please, for the love of Tesirus. Burn them."

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3/09/2018