04/17/2026: Group Projects

The librarian — cheerful, oblivious, and armed with an enormous key — locks the doors to the restricted section of the Biblioplex without a second glance at what he is sealing inside. Diro, Alistir, Squid and KFC find themselves alone among the chained volumes and hushed shelves, the soft thud of the bolt echoing in the cool, ink-scented air. Somewhere above them, Squid has already vanished from sight, their footsteps muffled as they pad across the tops of the highest bookshelves.

The group fans out. Diro moves methodically through the stacks, scanning titles with practiced efficiency. When his first perusal of the shelf before him comes up short, Squid materializes at Diro’s elbow — appearing, as they often do, from nowhere in particular — and offers their assistance in exchange for cookies.

Diro declines to be impressed, so Squid pouts. Alistir, meanwhile, casts a spell to enhance their own intellect and sets to work looking for texts on how to defeat powerful fey entities. The threat of Oberon taking Squid from them disturbs both Titania and Alistir. The effort finally pays off: they locate not one but two volumes, both of them chained to the same shelf.

The chains are thick iron, each one about five feet long — long enough to drag a book to a nearby table, but no further. Diro points out an arcane knob glittering behind the lock mechanism on the bookshelf, clearly connected to some manner of alarm. He also points out to the fey a single loose thread where the pages were stitched into the binding on the smaller book. Pull it gently, Diro suggests, and the relevant section might simply… fall out.

Alistir does exactly that. Ten pages of dense, useful information drop neatly into their hand. He tucks them away in his pack.

The second chained book is more stubborn. Alistir’s Enhance Ability spell is still in effect — for just barely enough time — and another 15 minutes of investigation confirms that, besides breaking the chain, the only way through the magical alarm is a Dispel Magic spell or a Knock spell. Fortunately, Alistir has Dispel Magic, and they cast it. The little red arcane light winks out.

The chain, however, remains firmly attached to the tome.

A quiet debate breaks out about whether to forge a library checkout slip. Squid volunteers to forge one. The discovery that Squid can’t read barely impairs the resultant words on the end product. The forged checkout slip is technically a document — most of the words are spelled correctly, thanks to Titania’s dictation, and it is written in library pencil and crayon, which might not be considered an improvement. Whether it would survive scrutiny is another matter. Titania doubts it, but pats the child on the head and mutters, “Good job, Squid. Well done.”

With the forgery set to the side, Alistir and Diro combine their strength against the chain, which stays stubbornly in one piece. KFC, somewhat unceremoniously, simply yanks the thing free. The chain breaks with a resonant clang.

Alistir stuffs the book and much of the chain into their pack, but a full four feet of iron links now dangle around their feet like an extremely heavy tail. They coil up what they can around one arm. The clinking is noticeable, but manageable. Probably.

They throw their cloak over it, resulting in a lumpy disguise.

Squid, hungry and bored, finds Beckaylee’s grassy ration bar just as inedible as it was earlier in the day. They lick it before sticking it to the underside of a table. Alistir retrieves it and puts it in the bin. Squid declares them no fun. Alistir agrees.

The door rattles. Someone is unlocking it with the key. The librarian has returned to reshelve books. The Hexmates flatten themselves behind the stacks. Squid turns invisible. Very quietly, Alistir casts Pass Without Trace on everyone present, and one by one, they slip out, undetected, into the corridor.

A backward glance through the open doorway shows the archivist standing in the middle of the room, staring at dirty footprints on the sofas, a gap on the shelf dangling three inches of chain, and a faint dusting of crayon shavings.

⚔️

Diro and Reyna make their way across campus to the Star Arch — the massive arcane structure that dominates the center of Strixhaven’s grounds. Twin stone plinths rise twenty feet from the earth, eight feet wide each, set a hundred feet apart. High above, a rainbow of glowing green stars float, slowly rotating in the air, kicking off occasional sparks of raw magical energy. The smell of ozone hangs over the place like air after a thunderstorm.

The Arch is both a monument of and a solution to catastrophic ambition. Fifty years prior, a consortium of professors — including, rumor has it, the father of the now-infamous Professor Murgaxor — had attempted to unify all schools of arcane magic into a single, universal force. The ritual failed spectacularly. The bell tower at the center of campus collapsed, killing many of the practitioners and a few students outright. What remained was an open rift seeping uncontrolled arcane energy into the world — a wound in the campus that took two years to cap and control. The structure dubbed the Star Arch was that cap: a beautiful, quietly dangerous monument to everything that had gone wrong. Even now, casting spells near the Arch can cause a burst of wild magic to affect the results. 

Here for their joint project for Environmental Thanatology 301, Diro uses a key and with Reyna, descend the steps into the cavernous space beneath the Arch. Their assignment — news to Reyna, who knows nothing of her schedule or workload in this timeline — is straightforward: take readings of both organic and inorganic thanatographic decay rates in the vicinity of the Arch, document the energy’s effect on living matter, interpret what it means, and write it up before the deadline. Diro pulls out a thanatoscanner — a slender, pistol-shaped instrument designed to detect signatures of life and death in surrounding materials — and begins to sweep various points within the room.

What he finds is wrong.

The readings spike wildly. Some areas of the chamber register as intensely, almost impossibly alive. Others read as profoundly, utterly dead, leeching life force. Some have no reading at all, neutral. There is no gradation, — just the two extremes, alternating unpredictably across the space or the null. Diro walks Reyna around the room to show her the readouts, pointing first one direction, then another. The needle swings like a compass near a lodestone.

Reyna suggests that they test themselves with the thanatoscanner. When Diro stands in a dead zone, the scanner reads him as null — not alive, not dead, just present, as if he were stone or metal. When he moves to a neutral zone, it reads him as alive. In the living zone, it confirms what they expected: alive, but with amplified readings too high to be believed. 

Something in the room counterbalances them, absorbing or magnifying their vital signatures depending on where they stand.

“That’s not right,” Diro says, and Reyna agrees that it is, in fact, not right.

They write it all down.

The thanatoscanner confirms anomalous readings. The sensible next step is to leave, compile notes back at the hex, and submit a tidy but mystified report to Professor Murgaxor. They will have to report that they have no idea what their readings mean.

Diro is not interested in returning to the hex immediately.

His artifact — dormant and waiting for the right infusion of arcane energy to wake it — has been at the back of his mind all semester. The Star Arch, Diro reasons, is a powerful source of concentrated magical power. The math, such as it is, seems straightforward. The book he found in the Restricted section of the Biblioplex confirmed it: Diro can jumpstart his Power Stand — but he needs arcane plasma to do it.

He needs to collect some. A casual search locates a dented, half-finished soda can on the floor. Diro pours out the dregs of whatever had been inside and summons his Arms of Astral Self.

”Um, is this a good idea?” queries Reyna, who moves away from Diro toward the stairs.

Floating toward the center of the chamber, one of the spectral hands descends toward the closed hatch and begins to spin the wheel. The can is in the grip of the other spirit hand.

One of the astral hands lifts the hatch open and fierce, pale green light spills forth. Sparks of energy fly into the air. The hand holding the can drops below the threshold to dip out the arcane plasma. In a fizzing white flash, both the can and the hand dissolve. A stump of glowing mist floats where the arm had been. 

The open hatch begins to fizz over. It sizzles. The room begins to smell bad.

Diro manipulates the remaining arm and attempts to crank the wheel closed. It will not shut. He is unable to see if anything is in the way or if something is pushing back. The wheel refuses to turn. The scanner, meanwhile, begins behaving like a compass gone mad — the readings flicker back and forth wildly andwithout rhythm.

He picks up a pebble and throws it into the vapor rising from the hatch. The pebble disappears in a flash.

From halfway up the stairs, Reyna calls, “Hey, is everything okay?”

Diro doesn’t answer. This is getting a bit alarming.

⚔️

Elsewhere on the Strixhaven campus, things are only slightly less chaotic.

Debbie drifts through the afternoon in a fog that has nothing to do with the weather. In another timeline, she had been a rockstar, or nearly. Here, she can’t even get into Quentillius’s band — one with the stupidest name imaginable. Debbie tries to remember what success had felt like.

Rounding the corner behind the Biblioplex, she runs into Zander — her former drummer in a history that never happened in this timeline— and Rampart. The two are having a heated argument over a thanatoscanner. They are pointing it at the pile of lumber cut from what had once been a living tree, felled from just behind the library. The readings flicker between alive and not-alive in exactly the way that makes no sense to either of them. Rampart announces that he is going to take the readings to Professor Murgaxor. Debbie does not stop him.

“Let’s let Debbie look before we give up,” suggests Zander. “Maybe she’ll have some insight.”

She points the scanner at herself. It registers her as completely, unambiguously alive. She isn’t sure whether that is comforting. But as to what it means, she has no wisdom.

⚔️

Alistir, back on the main campus walkway, scans the passing crowd for a potential bodyguard to protect Squid. They spot Greta — formerly a scrappy weightlifter and one of their bodyguards in their own timeline. Now, in this timeline, Greta is apparently in possession of significant wealth: expensive clothes, flawless makeup, and perfectly coiffed hair. Alistir approaches and clears their throat.

Greta pauses, looking Alistir up and down. Finally, she says, “Are you here to beg for your job back?”

Alistir gulps.

Greta continues, “You know I am generous, and that I always can always make room for another needy person to tidy the Hex for us. I’m happy to consider re-hiring you, if you are more dependable this time. Hopefully you’ll be able to pay back the gold you owe everyone on campus. Just no more talking to yourself.”

Alistir flips her off and moves on.

Greta calls out a suggestion that they visit the campus mental health clinic.

⚔️

One of the guidance counselors catches up with KFC as she crosses campus with Hester and Squid. With practiced discretion, she inquires sweetly, “KFC, tell me about your group project in Ecological Thanatology. I understand that you are partnered with Hester Slightfeather.”

KFC cocks her head, not understanding.

The counselor continues, “Professor Murgaxor is concerned that your assigned project partner is not holding up her end. Hester has done essentially nothing all semester, and between you and I, she is at risk of not returning to Strixhaven next semester. The faculty is concerned for your welfare, KFC. To maintain your position as valedictorian, we realize that you are already under a tremendous amount of pressure. We would like to assist you in whatever way we can. Professor Murgaxor is willing to adapt the project to more accurately reflect the actual input of each group member. Ms Slightfeather is, in the professor’s own words, useless.”

KFC, a loyal friend, is instantly angry. She delivers a loud and impassioned defense of her Hexmate: “Hester is one of the brightest minds on this campus and the school is lucky to have her. If the university can’t see that, then perhaps the school isn’t good enough for Hester!”

As she stomps away, the guidance counselor calls after her, “It is a shame to waste such potential.”

She means it as a criticism. KFC does not receive it that way.

Hester, standing several yards away on the walkway, hears every single word. She is devastated. She needs to get out of this timeline. They all need to get out of this timeline.

KFC does not seem to notice. As she strides up, she asks, “What does valedictorian mean?”