Rumerra - The Journey Begins

Chapter 4 - Let's Graduate Together (part II)

"WHAAAT?!" Arianna yelled at the top of her lungs. "You tell me this NOW?!"

"It's no problem, really." The other girl tried to calm her down. "We're partners, right? That's nothing we can't handle! We just have to complete two tasks instead of one! Easy peasy!"

"Don't you 'easy peasy' me! That's almost impossible based on travel time alone!"

"We'll think of something! It's us, Arianna! We're the best team there is and ever will be!"

It took quite a bit of convincing and reassuring for Velvet to get her friend to stop panicking. When she finally did, they started forming a plan.

"Alright," the golden-haired girl breathed deeply. "I already ditched Dan, so there's no way back now. First things first, we have to draw our tasks to see what we get. Then we will go from there and make a plan on how to complete them both as fast as possible."

"See? Now you're thinking!" Velvet patted her on the back. "That's the Arianna I need!"

The adventurous witch was the first one to place her hand on the orb. When she did, her mark of light lit up and the orb turned yellow. After a few seconds, a folded piece of paper was ejected from a hole in the pillar it was standing on. The girl quickly took it and opened it up.

"Retrieve a treasure..." Her eyes lit up when she saw that word, but the light in them quickly died down when she read the rest of the note. "...from the cave goblins."

"That's an easy one!" Arianna exclaimed happily. "Cave goblins are not that hard to kill!"

"You don't have to rub it in," Velvet sighed. "I wanted a harder task..."

"Are you crazy? Do you want us to fail? Let's just hope mine is an easy one as well. Then we might actually stand a decent chance at completing them both within a week's time!"

The other girl now stepped in front of the orb and hesitantly placed her hand on it. Just as with her friend, the mark of air on her hand lit up and the orb changed its color to white before a piece of paper was spat out from the hole in the pillar.

"Please be an easy one..." she begged as she opened it. When she did, her face turned pale and she felt her blood run cold.

"What is it?" her friend asked impatiently, tearing the note from her hands to read for herself.

"Steal an egg from the wyvern's nest. So lucky! You got one of the best tasks!"

Arianna sat down on the floor and leaned her back against the wall, looking devastated. "We're doomed. We're absolutely doomed," she repeated quietly, shaking her head.

"Why?" Velvet asked. "It's just a task like any other. Except much awesomer!"

"Wyverns are one of the most vicious and tenacious creatures in Rumerra, that's why!" the other girl yelled. "They are fiercely territorial and protect their nests with their lives. The only thing worse than a wyvern is a dragon because it's bigger. But both their breaths are lethal and their scales make them resilient to magic as well. Additionally, as opposed to dragons, who mainly live in solitude, wyverns tend to form flocks. There is usually never only one. This is probably the hardest task there is! We might not even make it out alive!"

"Yes, isn't this amazing?!" Velvet was bouncing up and down like she was getting shocked repeatedly. "I can literally feel shivers, that's how excited I am! We get to fight wyverns!"

"You're insane," Arianna concluded, staring at her friend in disbelief. "Completely insane..."

***

There wasn't much time to really process things, because the written and oral exams just kept coming over the next few weeks. That was not a problem for either of the gifted girls, though. Their heads were filled up to the brim with knowledge and they've basically made it a contest between themselves on who finishes an exam first.

One time it was Velvet, who read every single book on magic in the library twice over and the other time it was Arianna, who had been preparing for this since the first year, reading books and studying spells that were already post-graduate material. Whoever made it to their room first was deemed the winner.

After finishing her final exam, Velvet handed in the paper and stepped out of the classroom. She heard the sound of a door opening and turned to her right to see Arianna step out as well.
They stood like that for a few seconds, staring at each other, before the brown-haired girl suddenly started sprinting for the stairs.

"I'm winning the last one! You can just give up!"

"No way! I'm not letting you win so easily!" Arianna shouted and started running after her. When they reached the stairs, she cast an air spell to propel herself upwards and flew by Velvet who had to actually climb the stairs.

"That's cheating! I can't fly!" Velvet said.

"Too bad!" Arianna exclaimed teasingly and giggled as she landed on the first floor where their room was located in the hallway to the right.

The other girl reached the top of the staircase and bolted after her. "Light Whip!" she yelled out and emitted a thin stream of light, that she cracked. It wrapped itself around Arianna's legs, causing her to fall. She watched helplessly as Velvet ran past her, turning around and sticking out her tongue at her. "You lose, Ari!"