“And then like, wow, like,” Chellsi said. "After Elisa and Latte's like, ball thing, like I don't even know..."

  “Seriously it was, like, not normal, like anything that happened and I could not believe it,” Mikei-Kei said. “We could have like…”

  “Like…”

  “Died, maybe.”

  Ovie had some respect for Chellsi and Mikei-Kei, but her limit with them had gotten smaller over the st few weeks, especially ohey joihat freak Chumbler’s group of weirdos. She tapped at her pen and chewed on her free hand's pinky nail as she waited for Caya Kio start their test void studies css. At least Caya had the ability to shut the two up.

  Caya looked down as the rest of the css filed in. Ovie made sure to stare daggers at Zeta Faleur when she arrived with her horrible friends. Caya dimmed the lights and turned her projector on.

  “Today’s lesson will be a little different than usual,” Caya said. “We’ve discussed that i and void energy es in various forms correct? anyone hem?”

  “They’re the same names as three schools of teag, aren’t they?” Oka Ohri asked. “Atrian for spirit, Havena for body, and Calestia for mind.”

  Ovie decided she hated Oka's stupid flowers she always had in her hair as she nervously patted it, as if she was scared her ansrong. Or she ying scared for attention and knew she was right. Either was annoying.

  “Correct,” Caya said. “But there are others, of course. One of the most infamous is this.”

  Caya’s proje was turo a camera on her desk with a small tray u. Caya pced a vial of dark liquid uhe projector area, and it appeared on the ss as she rotated it in her hands. Ovie reized the substance immediately.

  “This substance is called Elka,” Caya said. “It is void discord in liquid form. While the other forms of i energy allows us to trol them in and out of the void, Elka is much harder to tain. It’s energy born of darkness, effectively. You may have heard of cultists like the Order of Terina. This is the substahey strive for.”

  “ we like, touch it?” Mikei-Kei asked.

  “ we taste it?” Aira asked.

  “No, you shouldn’t touch this, or drink this.” Caya said.

  Ovie gred at the others. She khe depths of Mikei-Kei’s stupidity was near unfathomable, but Aira seemed to have fshes of brilliance, so her being idiotic was disappointing. Caya tio turn the vial, and Ovie could see it still had that water paint-all-mixed-together shade us dark hue.

  “Elka is capable of many terrible things with the user’s i,” Caya said. “Elka be maniputed the same way as regur i energy, but Elkaiergy is more focused on the mind, simir to the Calestian school of power.”

  “What that means?" Kalei asked.

  “i energy generally trols the matter of the world,” Caya said. “For example, an i that has their powers focused on trolling water is trolling something tangible, or something on the surface.”

  Ovie gnced over to Zeta again, who hadn’t looked up much during the lesson. This probably looked familiar to her, and she didn’t know what to think of it. Elka was definitely familiar to Ovie.

  “Elkaiergy is closer to Calestian energy, or a corruption of it,” Caya said. “Calestian energy is of the mind, and so is Elka. But Elka is used to manipute and cause pain.”

  Ovie grinned as she could see all the way from her seat whea’s hands started to shake. Serves yht.

  “In various a wars across the void, there is evidehat armies used Elka in the war as a ter to their enemies when Atrian, Havenan, and Calestian energy proved futile,” Caya said. “It’s capable of inflig incredible pain on those targeted with it.”

  “How did they eve?” Ovie asked. “Aren’t all Eche incapable of using the etherealis? Or were they all i?”

  “Good question,” Caya said. “That is correct, Eche ’t use any schools of the etherealis. This is where things get a little fuzzy. It’s hard to keep records of our own aimes, let alohose of worlds far away in the void that have faded.”

  Caya had the css turn to a page iextbooks. It showed a froze.

  “One such war we do have a bit of knowledge on is the war between two world bodies in the void, Indicordia and Crimsalia. That war seems to have been fought mostly over sources of Elka.”

  “My head hurts,” Latte said.

  “Oh no, they gave Latte Elka!” Chellsi said.

  The css ughed, but Ovie didn’t find it funny at all.

  “How e it’s like a liquid while all the other energy we’ve seen isn’t?” Aira asked.

  “Anood question,” Caya said. “Do any of you know who studied Elka in the ret era, colleg samples from battlefields to make incredible strides to uand it?”

  Nobody seemed to know the answer. Ovie did, but she didn’t bother answering, enjoying seeing the css squirm.

  “Was it Auren Corde?” Oka finally asked.

  Caya smiled.

  “That’s right,” Caya said. “A very famous adventurer named Auren Corde studied it, and it greatly aided the war efforts in the Serrate System of void nodes. If not for Auren, we probably wouldn’t be able to have a sample of Elka in this rht now. Auren made the e that the strength of both is tied to feeling. He discovered the way the a Indicordian and Crimsalian armies kept the substan simir taio Atrian veins. And luckily, evidence of that world body system ended up here before they faded away.”

  A lot of it was nonseo Ovie. Who cares how some a people from long dead worlds millions of miles away in dimensions they could never visit potentially used the stuff? She wao learn more about how she could use it herself, because she knew Elka’s history enough already.

  It was what Jeans used for her best research, after all.

  After css, Ovie didn’t want to spend much time with her roommates, especially after their intense iude in css. Instead, she overhead something iing.

  “We should go visit it now,” Aira said. “We’re not gonna have as much time when we do the memory trials, right?”

  “Quiet!” Laenie said.

  “Oh, sorry.” Aira said.

  Curiously, Aira and Laenie were whispering to each other. Ovie stayed close, but not too close as she followed the two. They were up to something, and the more information she could find on people that were up to something would always be valuable. Ovie couldn’t hear much of their whispering, but she did hear Laenie say she didn’t want to teleport because she was feeling queasy.

  Ovie followed the two all the way to the beabsp;What the hell are they doing?

  The two stopped near some caves. Ovie found a spot behind a rock grouping that allowed her to see them clearly without them seeihere ot in the sand that looked a bit dug up. Laenie grabbed a water pot that they kept nearby for some reason and started p it.

  “I’m still not sure this thing needs water,” Aira said.

  “It’s like a flower,” Laenie said. “And if I know flowers, it needs water, sun, and love.”

  Aira hugged the ground. “I love you, mystery silver egg thing.”

  This was all toe. i life was never normal, but what oh would be a silver egg that’s buried uhe sand that they o tend to?

  “So yeah, do you think we ask some more people to watch it while we do our memory trials?” Aira asked. “I asked Amara already.”

  “Maybe, if Kalei, Oka, aa are doh theirs already we ask them.” Laenie said. "Oh, and I think Nikki's free!"

  Ovie perked up at that thought.

  “That’d be good,” Aira said. “That Elka thing has me nervous. Who knows what kind of people will try to hurt mystery egg if we leave it alone?”

  This was all remarkably iing to Ovie. Especially the idea of gettia far out here in a pce where it’d be hard for her to escape.

  That, in fact, gave her a delightful idea.