The special dorms were a series of houses with no two alike. Boxy brick structures with black or grey-painted walls, lurking together like a clique of goth teens turned into architecture.

  The oddness was only increased by the way they seemed to subtly change whenever you weren’t looking at them. Oxley explained that all of this was normal, or Noxarcer normal at least, the only real issue was that the path to the buildings had a tendency to change without warning. This made them not only difficult to find but also meant that even if you followed the same path, you might arrive from a completely different angle to the one you left by.

  Oxley reassured them that it was nothing to worry about, grumbling that the academy explained it as ‘necessary remodelling’. Noxarcer made the houses on demand and to the specific needs of that generation it housed, and until they were inhabited, liked to fiddle with them.

  The explanation was necessary to calm down Angeline, who was certain that the black picket fence hadn’t been here when she’d left this morning. Oz knew something weird was going on when he spotted that the gate had a plaque marked with ‘Beware the familiar’.

  This occult renovation revealed that by sheer chance, and with nothing to do with the dark machinations of an academy-shaped ancient eldritch being, Oz and Angie were actually housemates.

  Oxley had got them settled, the minotaur blitzing through the magical nonsense that had been keeping Oz from finding the dorms. Once settled, he ordered Oz to keep Angeline company until he could get Lillian sent over to check on her. She’d tried to complain, but he explained it would help with the ‘confusion’ around her exemption.

  The professor left with a face full of thunder. Someone was going to get the horns if Oz was any judge.

  While Angie changed, he explored. The common room was the ‘academy’ way of saying ‘living room’. It had a couple of sofas, a table and chairs, and was big enough that the six-odd people who were set to live here could just about use it at the same time. It was tiny compared to his house at home, but that was fine. By the end the house had felt far too big for just one person.

  His room was all but empty apart from a desk, bed and chair. It was plain, with grey walls and a window. It had somehow looked even worse when he’d placed his lone box of things in the room. The size was good. He’d spotted a kennel outside, and there was enough room that Chops could sleep on the floor. The other upside was he was on the ground floor, which would be good for letting Chops out at night to do his business. A nudge from the Other derailed his thoughts.

  “Do familiars shit?” he muttered aloud.

  “No, they don’t tend to. They feed on mana, and while they can eat it tends to get converted into raw mana rapidly. It’s only if they consume something they can’t convert that they’re forced to expel it, one way or another.” Angie’s voice startled him and he jumped. She’d come back from her room fully dressed, in some casual clothes. Baggy black trousers and a jumper with his coat over the top.

  “Feeling more myself, yes. I’m so—”

  “Please don’t apologise again, I screwed up, you’ve got stuff going on, let’s move on. I’m honestly more annoyed at the whole bullshit about the spell that messes with your sense of direction.”

  Oxley said it’s tradition.”

  “It’s dumb, that’s what. I mean you move realms and then have to wander about on your tod!” Oz began to explore the kitchen, finding a mix of useless utensils and half-destroyed kitchenware that some former student had left, pretending that filling up cupboards with a motorised apple peeler was an act of altruism rather than laziness.

  “You know what it is so dumb!" Angie shouted, before wincing and looking around to check she wasn't about to get in trouble, "You know what was worse, doing that on my own and then being alone in this house! Last night it got so bad I stayed with my dad at his hotel.”

  “Your dad’s in town?”

  “He didn’t want me travelling across the realms on my own. Who accompanied you?”

  “A family friend,” Oz muttered. “She’s going to be visiting later.”

  During his chat with Brackham, he’d mentioned that Venna would be dropping by later to update him on the investigation and generally catch up. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, and looked for something to distract him from the upcoming meeting.

  “Question. If these houses are rebuilt for us, whose miscellaneous meat is this?” He’d opened a cupboard and found a corroded tin of minced meat. No specific animal named, just ‘meat’.

  “I don’t know.” Angie paused, as if looking around for a book to start exploring the mystery before her fatigue caught up with her and had her flopping down onto the sofa.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to start cleaning up some of this stuff. There’s a cast iron pan in there which may prove to be more rust than pan, and some of the trays are in good nick,” Oz commented. It’d be a good quick project, do something to be busy.

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  “Oh, don’t you want to speak?”

  “I’m sorry. I do, I just...” Oz scratched the back of his neck.

  “You must be important, and then I attacked you and—”

  “No, that’s not it.” Oz paused. “Wait, why did you say I’m important?”

  “Well, you having a familiar means you have a class, and earlier it seemed like you didn’t know about the medical exemptions, so there’s only one way I know of that you could’ve got your class. The Gauntlet.” She looked at him guiltily, as if nervous at having exposed his secret.

  “Well, slag me.” Oz cursed. Had he really been that obvious? It wasn’t even a couple of hours and his secret was already sussed out. “You reckon you can keep a secret, Miss Angeline?”

  “It’s the least I can do to return the favour, and please call me Angie. Though I would be interested to understand more about it, I mean it's meant to be at least D4 if not higher threat, and while it changes subtly each time people have recorded enough that I know it has a full range of challenges. I'd be really interested to know..." She winced getting her mouth under control. "I should let you talk shouldn't I?”

  Oz slumped into the sofa and began to explain. Words tumbled out of him in a way that he was unused to. The Other’s influence, no doubt. He didn’t fight it though, it felt good to talk. Not like he was trying to solve something like he had with Brackham or Miss Lilly, but just talking through everything.

  He started at the beginning, at waking up and being told he’d been poisoned. How he’d discovered he was in the dungeon, the challenges, and the following bullshit. All he skimmed over was the fairies and what had been used to poison him. It felt unexpectedly good to explain, and Angie was a good audience, listening patiently with appropriate looks of shock and horror.

  “That’s insane.” She was right, it was insane.

  “I know, I mean yesterday, wait, no, day before? I was at home, and now I’m here.” Oz gestured to the strange building, before patting Chops to comfort himself.

  “I meant more that you managed the gauntlet. You said you didn’t have any formal delve training?”

  “No, but my dad was a bloody good tunnel fighter, so my fighting is on point. His job in the army was trap making, so I knew a bit of that too.” Oz didn’t mention the medal. His dad always told him not to brag.

  “Look, I know that the Archchancellor said he’d organise tutoring for you, but there’s so much to cover.” Angie began pulling out her books and Oz panicked. Aware that a lecture was pending.

  “He put my class list in the box somewhere.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. You’ll have the main course, that’s more experiential where we work in the seniors’ dungeons and plan out our own dungeons. It covers a few areas, roughly grouped under ‘Dungeoneering the Difficulty Curve’, ‘Cultural collusion and camouflage’, ‘Dungeonomics’, ‘Combat basics’. It’s where we rotate between classes on different roles within the dungeon. Then you have to study a craft and a magic, and finally you get a free choice based on what’s available with your timetable. Given you said you were looking at being a Ranger, you should look at Covert Movement and Reconnaissance.”

  “You aiming to be a Ranger too?”

  “No, I’m aiming for the Overseer role. I’m good at understanding how people work, so we can prepare countermeasures.” Angie looked embarrassed for a moment. “I was just so excited about everything I read up on the other classes too.”

  “Well, it’s doing me a world of good. Do runes count as a magic? I’m good with runes.”

  “Yep, they class under magic. That’s good, at least that’s one thing down, and it given you passed the Gauntlet I'm sure you won’t have to worry about combat basics. What about your craft?”

  “Is art an option? I used to do a bit of art? I mean it’s either that or sculpting, but given that dungeons can just make things...” Oz paused. He’d done nothing artistic in a long time. He wouldn’t even have thought to mention it if not for having seen all the paintings around. Then again he didn’t think he could do that kind of art, that was more champagne kind of art. Even when he’d been painting, his work had been rougher, more moonshine.

  “Oh, art is totally an option. You think a Builder has time to personally design all the murals and little pieces that fill up a dungeon? There are a few different classes for you to look into, I think, under the mundane crafts section.” As Angie continued to explore options, pulling out stacks of books and guides, Oz could feel the Other squirming, and not just because he was being denied the chance to look at her rabbit ears.

  It desperately wanted to know about the first three. The three that Oz had the least interest in, and he was certain. “And at least with your schooling you must’ve picked up the basics of the main course.”

  “That's a bold assumption. I wasn't exactly very good at paying attention to things I didn't directly see as connected with being a ranger.” Oz noticed the wince on Angie's features before she could hide it. “How screwed am I?”

  “It depends, how good are you at cramming theory?”

  “I...” Oz was about to explain that for him studying any book that wasn’t either an adventure or teaching him exactly how to do something was the equivalent of a sleep aid, but the din from the Other drowned him out. The Other had a terrible thirst for knowledge. It thrashed about in his head, firing questions off left, right, and centre.

  “I think we’ll have to see.”

  Oz talked some other details out with Angie. They were mostly practical things. Angie was going to be meeting her father tomorrow in the city that Noxarcer lurked on the fringes of. She offered to get him into town and to some shops, which he appreciated, especially once Angie explained that the uniforms were only required if you were going into the main buildings, and it was considered rather ‘keen’ to wander around in it outside of classes.

  Oz gladly accepted. Angie was also a fount of knowledge, like where the library was, where the gyms were, which he was excited for, and other such details. She seemed ecstatic to have someone to talk to, and while he was unused to such chatter he didn't resent it. He was mostly quiet, having used up all his words earlier, spilling his guts.

  Oz couldn’t help but notice how nice it was to speak to someone without the spectre of his reputation hanging above them.

  Eventually Oz did retreat back to his room. He was still exhausted from everything that had happened since he'd woken up in the gauntlet. Talking to Angie had been fine. He strangely found it easier to talk with her now they’d fought than if he’d just met her in the dorm. That said, his social muscles were long atrophied and would take some careful training before they had the endurance to survive a longer conversation.