Chapter 1- "Wet Dogs and Abusive History Teachers"

The dust flowed upwards into the air as an overly large foot printed itself into the patted dirt road. The foot belonged to a 16-year-old man. He wore a black cloak to match the darkness that fell over the town. The bottom of the cloak glazed the ground beneath it, and the hood was drooped over his face so far that you could only see his slit-like bright red eyes, gleaming through the mist into the view of several wooden houses. As he approached, the mist thickened, and his lungs became to fill, he clutched at his throat and quickened his pace.
The sky was clear, the stars shined brightly and cast light the village's way. The man in the cloak swept past all the smoke, for that was what it was, clutching a heavy, clunky and worn out iron sword in his left arm. His pace quickened to a run as flames came into view. He started to breath more heavily, for as he got closer the flames grew bigger, far too quick to be a normal accidental house fire. He turned around nervously, the houses that he had just passed were lit and burning, the straw roofs fell down in heeps, which soon turned to ashes. Short images of men scurrying silently came into sight, faster then a normal person. Shortly afterwards screams issued through the walls of the houses. A hand wiped across a nearby house window, cleaning hem from their tinted state. The man stood in silence, too scared to look around him in fear of what he might find. He let out a gasp of air followed by a whimper as terror began to fill his face. Into the distance he could see two figures carrying a body, one at the head and one at the legs. The man crept closer, but with caution. More and more came, and they were being lined up like cattle, checked, then thrown into a pile.
The man quickly disappeared from view into the near forest that surrounded the whole town, like a mother holding her newborn. Except this village was not so new, always prospering and growing, but old nonetheless. The village and it's contents always kept to themselves, nobody ever strayed that far into the grasslands past the trees. Praying to god the forest would protect him, for his enemy count grew larger, he crouched underneath a fallen log, back against a standing one, cushioning himself and gripping the moss below him with his hands, crushing it in his grip. He took a deep breath and looked around the surrounding area, taking notice of his options, but he could not bring himself away from the ongoing pile of bodies, and could definitely not bring himself away from the drama. He couldn't stop it, his head repeatedly began to bang against the tree, knocking off lose bark in the process.

Two men now approached the outskirts of the town, back against the man in hiding. One had long black hair and was wearing a magnificent amount of armor, black in color, but not just black armor. A very dark red cape, made out of some kind of leather was draped over it, almost covering his back. Two curved dark red horns were placed on each of his shoulders, fastening the cape. He was holding a black helmet in his left hand, which looked to be able to fit a dragon instead of a human. In his right hand he wore a black glove with what appeared to be metal pasted on where his knuckles would be. In it he held a sword, a sword that was so much longer, so much thicker and so much more powerful then any normal sword. The handle was plated with red leather and bright red designs almost glowed through it. The blade was being used as a leaning stick for the moment, the owner obviously considered it a staple in life. It was curved at the very end, the width of two legs just above the handle and a needle at the tip.

The other was clearly a wizard, with a light gray cloak to match his long hair and beard, which was clearly visible from the back. At the sides of the cloak it glowed pure white, barley recognizable to be unicorn hair meshed together. His hand was old and wrinkled, with the long curled yellow fingernails, and in it he held a staff, also being used as a leaning stick.
It was frightening how incredibly close they were, he could hear their words clear as day "Well, I think we've stood here long enough, this shall do, just wait until it's out of his procession. I'm sure we've made our presence known." The man in the armor hissed, as he turned almost directly towards the man in hiding.
The man turned suspiciously, but not as directly as the knight did. He started to in a forceful whisper "But what if he dies holing it? Everything we've longed for will be lost."
"We?" the Knight replied "Sorry to say but there has never been a we. You are a strong and loyal Warlock to me, nothing more. Of course you are the closest comrade to me, but even you do not know what I intend to do with it.... Anyway, what do you suppose we do? The best thing to do now is leave, he should be alive for a little longer. Let us retire for the night and contact or affiliates in the morning to aid us in this prickly situation of ours."

He turned to leave without waiting for an answer. The wizard looked at him, but followed with no complaint rather hastily. A few seconds after their departure, some more of those black figures appeared with a torch in each of their hands. The first turned around, raised his hand to the highest of his reach and dropped it on the pile of bodies. It almost instantly gave birth to a tremendous bon fire, just a couple of meters away from the forest. The other started to look around, twitching his fingers with every second. His eyes met the man in hiding. He was wearing a black ninja outfit with a helmet. He looked frightened for a bit, but did not hesitate to throw the torch his way. It was if the world was going in slow motion, the torch came closer, and grew bigger, until the light blinded him.

"Arrow" the ninja shouted.
The cloaked man blinked twice and opened his eyes.
He was in a classroom now, filled with students in bright clothing and bright faces. They cheerfully turned around his direction, as the teacher hastily closed the blinds again, looking mad as ever, which was actually comforting after what had just happened. Her hair was bunched up, her droopy purple eyes were covered with glasses and her face was as bony as ever, except now with a red flare. Her fashion sense was probably the worst in the whole town, which is one of the good reasons cloaks are the town's school uniform. Her skin looked as if she had just stepped into a hot spring for a day or so, wrinkled to the last bit, and of course red to the last bit. She was wearing a short pointed white hat to go with her cloak and to match an appearance of what one may call a witch in this world.
"A dream, I presume is your excuse?" she said, loud but calm.

"Actually, yeah." He said, half laughing "It was weird, there was a person in a black cloak, I think it might've been me, but he had red eyes, he was in the village, and people were atta-"

Kaz was cut off by Mrs. Claftry. "She's a force to be reckoned with even on a good day, she must've been out when the village was attacked in the dream." Kaz thought to himself.
"I'm sure it was horrifying, now back to the lesson." She shot a scary look his way.
Kaz stared around the room daydreaming, drowning out all noise in the process. That's something he was very good at, probably the best in the class. He tried to keep his mind in the lesson, but history was far too boring. The whole school was far to boring. For two weeks now every class has been review from the year, and even past years of school.
"Yo Kaz," his desk neighbor in History, Bryan, whispered. "You notice something different?" Kaz lazily looked from Chester to around the class for something different. The plants were shining brightly in the many window sills around the room as usual. The chalkboard was full of useless notes, as always. Her flashy learning posters were still on the wall, Belvadeere was picking his nose, as usual. (Kaz stopped at him for a couple seconds, he usually waits 30 seconds after he picks, looks around then eats it).
"Uh...I dont know, the woods rotting" he replied.
"Nope, still bright and shiny as usual."
"Er..Right, ok, windows need cleaning."
"Um...No...Mrs. Claftry has her hair up, something exciting's gonna' happen today."
Almost everything that comes out of his mouth are stupid and useless, and Kaz would be more then happy to be moved. The fact that her hair was up may seem stupid, but truth be told when the Mrs. Claftry has her hair up, it's a sign. Of course Kaz would never show any gratitude, so he replied "Or she's going on another date with Mr. Pedrey."

He would've loved to have taken that sentence back, the class was so boring he could've survived a conversation with Bryan to give him something to do. The schoolhouse that he was taught at consisted of Six teachers and classrooms, along with a staff room, all the most boring rooms and people in the whole village. The school taught History, Magic, Swordsmanship, Creatures, Crafting & Smithing and Archery. Each race of student was entitled to take three classes, History, Creatures and his/her specialty according to race. People with more then one race, a halfling, would have to take four classes. Saint Cardinal School was one of the best schools in Maltessa. Although it still had chipped window frames, a leaking roof, shortage on supplies, not to mention it was put together 50 years ago with wood from the surrounding forest, which is probably a couple hundred decades old.
As a matter of fact, the leaking roof stands right above Kaz' best friend Larth's seat in history class. Every once in a while he pulls a tantrum when it rains and asks to be moved, but there is no space in the classroom. Of course History is expected to be old and withered, the other classrooms are a lot better kept.
"I'm thinking of Dragons, give me three breeds and where to find them." Kaz heard out of the corner of his ear, he straightened up. Now things were getting a little more exciting.

It seemed as if the whole class hesitated, but after a bit Larth raised his hand. Mrs. Claftry acknowledged it with a point of her wand in his direction "ma'am, why do we have to know that?" he continued quickly, "I mean of course I know it, but there is only one we in Sybalk need to worry about and it doesn't come out of dragons den." He paused again "This is one of those "Will I ever need to know it" things... Oh, and... Um.. Also, they aren't really part of history, they kind of just keep to themselves.. Unless you're talking about the one that killed King Je-
"And which one is that Larth?" she paused, then started again "While you're at it, just answer the question at whole just for the fun of it."
Larth down at his feet, possibly thinking, then quickly looked up and nodded "The Tyranian Spitzore Dragon is the biggest of them all and has green scales. It uses it's weight to it's advantage and stomps on it's prey or eats them whole. If it spits out flame, that's just a warning of what's to come. The Rizzor dragon is the fastest and smallest of them all, as it's wingspan is a couple times bigger then it's body, it has the least amount of flame out of the three. And finally, the Skelleflare is the most feared, as its unforgiving flame can scorch a town like this to dust in a matter of half an hour. To finish my answer, the Tyranian Spitzore can be found in Tyranian's "Dragon Den" and the other two can be found in Varcease."

"Or less, to your estimate on the time it might take to scorch this town, ive noticed the wood has been rotting lately" The teacher picked at the wooden wall, which easily released a chunk of wood. She smiled. "But otherwise, very good Larth."
He looked down at the fallen wood and grinned, then raised his head "Dragons are elementary Professor."

Mrs. Claftry matched his grin "Are they, Mr. Craze?" She gave a short laugh and continued on. "Well then, who can tell me the name of the hero that combined the power of the earth guardian and black magic to separate the kingdoms of Varcease into five different continents, or islands if you will?"

"Haha, unforgiving flame. You're such a geek." Kaz sniggered. Larth looked over to him and pointed to the teacher with his quill, signaling to pay attention. Instead Kaz went back to his daydreaming, trying to shield his face from the sunlight that managed to stream through the bottom of the curtain. Whoever thought of putting History first of the day couldn't have been thinking properly, and most definitely had not met Mrs. Claftry before they made the decision. Everyone hated her for two reasons, and good reasons they were. One, There's no one more boring then her in the school. Two, she despised teachers pets and what she called "the non-listeners", which meant that Larth and Kaz were at the top of her "People to Yell at" list, along with everyone else in the class, as you were either a rebel or a teacher's pet.

There were no bells at Saint Cardnal's, each teacher would simply look at the sun dial and dismiss their class. There had been numerous times with numerous teachers where it somehow "slipped their mind". When you were dismissed, you were given 30 minutes before you're next class started. Kaz grabbed The History book and brang it up to Mrs. Claftry. She was straightening the already straight pile of books and cleaning the already clean drawing board. She turned from the board and raised an eyebrow. "Would you like to help?" She asked.

"Not really, I was just wonder-" she broke him off, it was too late.

"There is a rag on the corner of the desk Hun" she said cheerfully "the pail's on the floor. I told the headmaster, we have to hire some sort of cleaner. Like, this is getting ridiculous, with exams coming up and all." She paused "You know this is a very important time of year for you Kaz, are you prepared?"

"Umm...That's what I'm here for, I was wondering if I could take the book out for today...and" he paused "this weekend, to, you know...study up."

"Oh yes of course, take it, ive got plenty extras, just make sure to sign it out" she said.

Kaz turned from the board to the parchment laying on the pile of books. The list was growing fast, just yesterday there was about two people, now there was ten, all Seniors.

Mrs. Claftry turned from the board and smirked "Kaz, History is important too, like it or not. You must pass every subject to be able to wield a weapon, legally that is. And with the tension between Maltessa and Lark, I'm so very sad to say, but it's needed in the world today. If you're not going to do it for me, or your father, do it for yourself."

He could've argued that point, or brang it to a discussion about the two continents, but current issues lead to past issues, and past issues result in a break lost to the History teacher, which is something he didn't want to have to endure at the moment. Instead, he changed the subject "Wuddya think I'm getting right now, about?"

"Just barley passing." she said frowning.

"Oh, well, I better get studying. Well, nice talking to ya, thanks for the book, see you tomorrow!" he half shouted as he left the classroom. Almost as fast as he ran out of the classroom he was pushed hard against the wall, his skin caught in-between two of the logs. "Did yea get it for me?"

Kaz gave a forced laugh "Yeah, I got it. But I don't know man, you've already got two books out, that's the limit bud."

Larth gave a serious look, one that one might be scared of if it wasn't coming from the biggest nerd in the class. He had light blonde messy hair with bright blue eyes about the size of a donut hole. He was a little shorter then Kaz, which was tall for an elf considering Kaz was one of the medium sized to small guys in the class. Barley visible behind his robes, his prized golden necklace lay still. It had a glass charm at the bottom that resembled a small leaf, it was the elf thing to do to wear one. His look changed from serious to a kind of half grin "Ah, the master of sleeping through history class has finally decided to start studying eh? All right, fine, I can deal. Want to place a wager on who will do better on the test?

"Don't do business with geeks, sorry." he peeled Larth's fingers one by one off his robe and continued walking through the hallway, taking notice to his surroundings. "Hey, you notice this hallway gets smaller each day? Like seriously, our village is so poor they can't build a decent school. We even live inside a forest and we get this chipped wood.
Larth hurried to catch up "Umm... One, we have some of the best Teacher's in Maltessa. Two, they just don't have the rounds to kick this one to the ground and make another...See, they renovated and put all these windows in to make it look bigger...Oh yeah, and three, I'm pretty sure you're just getting bigger, the hallway isn't changing much."

"I say a couple words about the school and you give me a big essay" Kaz came to a halt "Hey, why don't we go play with Buds for a bit. There's nothing else interesting to do for thirty minutes.

"K, you were just calling me a geek, now you want to suck up to a dwarf and a puppy for half an hour. We will be playing with that thing all month, trust me it'll get unenthusiastic by the end of it...I think it is highly probable that we are learning about something boring like plants today." It looked as if he was going to go further, but when Kaz raised one eyebrow and reached for the doorknob, he caved in "But, I also think it is very probably that if I don't follow you around, I'll be back on the broken fence reading the newspaper, over and over again. So ok, just excuse me while I just go get the news."

Kaz leaned up against the wall right beside the Creatures class door, careful not to pinch his skin. "There isn't a news post until tomorrow, didn't you hear?" Judging by Larth's weird expression and lack of argument, he continued. "My dad told me. Why is everybody obsessed with that anyway, you have to walk all the way to the bulletin board to get it, and it's usually just news pulled out of a Chimeara's ass. I don't see why they try to get one out every day."

"Did I hear one of yers' say Chimeara? Ah, fine creatures" Kaz looked out of the corner of his eye, only to see Bryan walking steadily his way. Kaz was the sort of person born to avoid people, and Bryan was the sort of person born to annoy people, so it worked out great. They quickly opened the door, stepped inside and slammed it shut.

Back against the door, he took a deep breath and started to look around the classroom for Mr. Riley. The room was a lot more grand then the History class. Dwarfs generally like their surroundings dark more then light, so the class was almost pitch black. It was the only class with no windows, though it was bordering the schoolyard. The only intentional source of light was the candle at the front teacher's desk, which reflected off the black carpet changing it to the color of the candle. Pieces of parchment and scrolls lay scattered along the desk. Something of particular notice was a gold casing. It had two black lines on either side of an engraving of a sword, wand, arrow and axe that were intertwined with each other, with a chakram in the middle. If this gold case was left on the desk it meant that the class the students were about to have was very important, and, for the most part, exciting. Every day each student walks in each classroom with one thing on their mind, hope. Hope to see the gold case of course. Some even go to their next class right after their last, just to look at the desk and walk away. If it were there, they'd bother their teacher the whole break, if it wasn't, they'd make it their top priority to avoid eye contact with the teacher and get out.

To the right of the blackboard in the corner of the room, which seemed to be darker then any other area was a big cage, bars the size of a Warriors arm. It extended to the roof, and had a metal plate at the top. That was for the dangerous and big creatures that were brought in to show the class. Before the class, Mr. Riley gets Mrs. Claftry to use her wand to guide the creature into the showing circle. The showing circle was a neon blue circle engraved into the floor. All the desks were aligned in a circle around it to get the best view of the creature locked within. It was pretty much like the cage, except it had no visible walls. They were only visible when the creature walked into them, which would give off a small shock to the creature, which was in fact visible. In addition to that, the back of the room was home to about 15 glass cases, placed on the wall like cubbyholes to hold small creatures.

Kaz began to walk towards the gold casing on the front desk. "Look the case, awesome! Don't think Mr. Riley's here, lets open it." Kaz began to advance towards the case, arm outstretched.

As predicted, Larth grabbed his arm and steered it away from the case, then dragged him to the back of the room. "Are you stupid, you know charms are placed on those. Remember Archie Wiliz? Yeah, he touched it and look where he is."

"Seen em last week in the healing center, he's doing great."

"That e' is, they expect a full recovery by the end of May, just in time for tha' exams." A dwarf appeared from the door at the back of the room, left of the cubbyholes.

"Mr. Riley, we've came to see those mutant dog things." Kaz exclaimed sounding very excited.

"They're called hellahounds Kaz, and for good reason too, they raise alota' hell." He paused and looked at the two boys for a sec, apparently looking for a laugh. He quickly cleared his throat and continued "I bet yeah have. There is no need really, we'll be studying the little buggers all month, you'll be plenty bored of em' by then." Mr. Riley explained. Kaz suffered an I told you so look from Larth, who was heading towards the back.

"Were just going to introduce ourselves, apparently his name is Buds." he shot another scary look towards Kaz.

"Ah, making names before even getting possession of em now are we?" Mr. Riley snorted, sitting down at his desk in amusement to their amusement. "You see only 15 of em don'tcha'? We'll be having a contest to see which one of yeahs' group members is getting it.

Kaz' spirits went from high to low with that comment, Larth was top of every class, even Creatures, Kaz' best. "Is it like a question and answer type thing?"

"Ah now don't you worry about tha' alright? You'll know as soon as everyone else will. Now, I haven't even taught you how ta' handle em and you wanna just jump right in there dontcha?" he said, shaking the gold case in his hands as if wanting to change the subject.

"Come on, you know my dad, you know me. I've heard of these things a lot, just like puppies right?" Kaz said.

"Ah, that they are, but if yeah cross them," he made a weird crunching noise with his teeth and started making weird faces. "You're done for. But yes of course; give em a try, not hard to handle. Hard to master, but not hard to handle."

"Master? You mean hard to make them love you, but not hard to get them to like you?" Larth piped up, for the first time not looking too excited about the question he had just asked.

"Er...If you'd like ta say it that way, sure." Mr. Riley answered.

Kaz smiled and headed towards the door on the right hand side of the glass cases. The room he walked into was a lot brighter then the classroom. Chandeliers filled with candles hung from the roof ablaze. On the right side stood loads of cupboards with supplies and food. To the left, the doors to open the back of the glass cases.

"What number's ours?" Kaz called out without thinking. There were names pasted right beside the number. 14 read "Kaz Stirloing and Larth Hazel". He pressed the button beside the name. By the sounds of it the glass opened on the other side. He hurried back, pushed Larth aside and reached into the container. What looked like a normal baby black lab was curled at the back curled up in a ball sleeping.

"Ah, this one's color hasn't changed yet. You just got em yesterday, I just ordered em a few days ago, straight from Tyrania might I add. Cost me 700 rounds for this lot, might I add.

"You'll get it all back in the end yeah sleazy bastard" Kaz laughed. Any other teacher would've gave a grin in this situation, but Mr. Riley was good friends with Kaz' dad.

He merely laughed "Yeah you're right...Well, if you'd like to do any more then stare at em like a lunatic, make sure you treat it a little more cautious then a normal dog. It's a little more ill tempered then a dog, and packs a lot more of a punch.

Kaz smiled and reached his hand right below the hellahounds head. After a moment or too, it opened it's eyes, lifted and then tilted it's head. After a while it acknowledged the outstretched hand, got a sent of it and raised itself to a standing position. As if it expected to be going somewhere, he kept turning around aimlessly, closing and opening his eyes all the while.

"Get outta' the way yeah dummies. Back up back up, quickly now." Mr. Riley raised his voice and started walking fast towards the back of the holding areas. The two boys backed up quickly, as they were taught at a young age to expect the unexpected when it came to creatures of the unknown. Number one rule of Creatures class is if you ever find a creature that you don't know, it's best to run away.

Like a slap in the face, the glass case shut and Mr. Riley came back into view. "Didn't mean ta scare yeah, from what I read it would've waited longer, but you never know with new creatures, always gotta be on your toes."

"It would've waited longer? Heh'?" Kaz said.

"Just watch the beauty of this creature. Wu'd you think it was a normal black dog? Watch, pure black now and..." he stopped as if he was expecting something. The two of them lifted their bewildered faces from Mr. Riley to the dog. It was spinning more frantically now, around and around for no apparent reason. Then, it stopped and tilted its head again. Its eyes met theirs, and in a split second its appearance changed completely, other then size of course. Its body appeared as if it had been splashed with a coat of lava. Running, flowing lava that is. The color of it was engraved into the black fur, which was still showing through the weird pattern. Its two eyes were separated by that same weird pattern, which resembled a straight line. The rest of its face was black like before, but that was the only thing. Top to bottom this pattern covered, The tail (which had seemed to grow through the transformation) had little tiny streaks of the pattern all over it like threads.

"Ah, a magnificent Fava Pattern yours has. Better then the other two I saw the other day. Truly magnificent, you're very lucky to have this little one." The professor exclaimed, eyes widening all the while.

The patterns that resembled lava were now moving, while still keeping its shape, it looked as if it was flowing just like lava. The hellahound spun around one more time "and heres the grand finale" Mr. Riley said, and in that instance, it shook itself like a wet dog. The pattern that was splashed over the creature flowed outwards in all directions like globs of lava.

"Um... Professor, there is lava on our dog, there is lava all over our glass case, thus there is lava in this classroom, which means there is lava in the-" Larth was cut off.

‘School. Yes yes don't worry it won't be harming you. All of the holding cases are enchanted with a magic charm, nothing can go in and nothing can go out unless the button is pressed. Now," he paused "speaking of which, go press it. We may be safe, but little Buds isn't. If it touches the lava it'll burn just like it would us, not life threatening, but you better believe it'll sting.

Kaz could not figure out how he could be talking so calm about something like this. Larth rushed to the door and opened it with much force. The glass case immediately opened. "Now, although that lava was just embedded in its fur, it is dangerous in its current form. But as the book says, he won't move an inch until the lava's been removed, so we'll just have to remove him ourselves."

Mr. Riley cautiously reached into the holding area, careful not to touch any of the sides in fear of being burnt. He grabbed Buds and quickly pulled him out.

"Aren't they dangerous, you said yourself they won't move willingly." Said Larth.

"No no, not until it has somewhat of completed the transformation. Now if you'll hold him Kaz, I'll go get Mrs. Claftry. It's really too bad she's the only witch in the school right now, only one of her kind can clean that mess up." He handed Buds over to Kaz "Oh look his tail stayed the same, good news...All good news."

Kaz looked from Mr. Riley as he left the class to Buds, who was cuddled in his arms as if nothing had happened. Sure enough, the tail still had the glowing lava patterns on it, which Mr. Riley called fava patterns.

"Touch it's tail, I dare you!" Larth called in excitement.

"How about you, I've never seen you step out the box for a while." He said, smirking.

"Well judging by the fact that you're cloak isn't on fire, I'm guessing were safe to touch it." He looked at Kaz' disapproving look "See look, it's just a bit warm...and jelly feeling"

"Yeah, ok, whatever. I'm taking it outside in the Creatures yard, tell me when they're here." Kaz smiled "This'll be its first time outside with me."

"Oh, so you get all the firsts now I guess? First one to take it outside, first one to name it."

"Well its other owner didn't care enough to name it." He finished and headed towards the door on the left, where Mr. Riley came from, which was the only door in the school made of metal, and the only door in the classroom with a window. It was about the size of a wallet, and had bars running down it in a threatening look, but still a window nonetheless. He opened it and stepped out into the little area.

It was about 3 by 3 meters. The ground was blessed with lush green and the walls were concrete, but there was no roof. The sunlight streamed in and shined brightly in his face, for the first time in a while. Not that Kaz didn't go out, but the fact that the weather had been horrible for two weeks in a row.

Kaz kneeled down to get a better luck at his carriage partner. But before long he dropped it violently and ran to the door, opened it and slammed it shut.

"What's wrong?" Larth asked loudly with a threatening look on his face.

"The thing, it burnt my hand. Hottest flame I've ever felt. You should've felt I-

"Where'd yeah put the hellahound? Back in its cage I presume?" Mr. Riley walked in without any knowing of what had just happened.

"I took it outside, it burnt me-" he was interrupted again.

"You took it where... Yikes, ugly ugly ugly this'll be. Ms. Claftry go fetch Buds will yeah. Sorry Kaz but are you honestly that clueless, you just left a hellahound with a dragon just because you were burnt, doesn't that sound a bit selfish, odd, stupid even?" Mr. Riley spoke loudly, though he very rarely started yelling.
"Um...D...D-what?" Larth opened his mouth.

Ignoring Larth, he headed for a wet cloth, which was conveniently left on the floor beside them. "Which one burnt yeah? If it's the Hellahound, you'll need immediate treatment, it's Fava gives out the rage status effect."

"Well, umm... First off, holy shit, what are you talking about "dragon"? Kaz asked. Those last words put a wide grin on both Kaz and Larth's faces. Without waiting for an answer, he leaned over Larth's soldier and whispered, with the best possible impression of a geek voice strapped under his belt" I presume you already know this, but it is highly unlikely we will be learning about plants this next lesson. Yes I know heartbreaking, you'll have to carry that water you had especially for them back to the spring."
After obviously not getting the joke, Larth replied "Ha, jokes on you, you overestimated my geek abilities, I didn't even bring water to school today."