There was a barrier around the campus.

Cirdor Pengall had spent the last two weeks investigating the dome around the city. The Council was worried that it was the beginning of an invasion, but the magic was full of the signature of the Elders. Cirdor had tried to contact the Elders, even using the private line straight to Vita Feletis, but nothing was getting through the dome around the city.

The old orange Elf had been the headmaster of the Dimar satellite of the University, but that was more of a punishment than an honor. He had reached the Proficient level only to fall back into Intermediate during his military service. As a Flectomancer, all his specialty could do was keep the magic circuits in working order, but after the ship he was on was destroyed in battle, the Congress sent him back to the Elders in shame. Not wanting a Mage who couldn't even pass as a janitor on the world that housed the main campus of the University, he had been sent to a backwater planet with the responsibility to send any promising Elf Mages to the main campus.

Part of the reason that the campus had been chosen for this location was so that the Elves could run their school without the interference of the Council that ran the planet. While each race had their own territory, the larger cities were all filled with politicians who looked after their own interests and only wanted the teachers to help fight their petty squabbles for power.

The war with the Dark Legion wasn't going well; more territories were being attacked every day and the people of Dimar lived in constant fear that they would be the next battlefield. Not that there was much on the world worth taking. They hadn't sent a Proficient Mage to the main campus in over a hundred years.

The mining operations in the mountains had dried up so long ago that the Dwarf presence was under a thousand bodies in the entire mountain range. The Unktehila had taken over that role, content to live on the scraps the mountains produced in exchange for a safer place to live. The lizardmen didn't have a homeworld that they could remember and the majority of their people had found their way to this backwater planet.

The Sively-controlled transportation, the hairless orange people utilized their leathery black wings to fly short distances. For longer trips, they piloted shuttles around the planet and cargo ships traveled through the Gate orbiting the planet.

Mebope, the hybrid cousin of the Merfolk, had a fishtail while underwater but walked on two legs on land and could pass as an Elf in that form. They controlled the harbor and the fishing industry and were the first line of defense in the event of an invasion of Mages. Their investigators had spent the last two weeks studying the dome, but they'd been unable to break out of it.

It was luck that the Centaur farms were inside the Dome. Their population wasn't great, but they would be able to last indefinitely thanks to the fish from the Mebope and the fruits, vegetables, and grains that the Centaur tended.

The Goblins, on the other hand, were stockpiling everything that they could inside the Casino. The game-loving humanoids were taking full advantage of the restriction on processed goods, buying up as many of the resources as they could, driving the price of goods up.

"Reminiscing about the old days?" Shearkar Husley stopped next to her old friend.

Cirdor looked over at his silver-skinned friend. Of all the Mages in the city, the Mebope royal was the only one close to his power level. She was also one of the members of the Council, which meant this was likely not a social call considering how far from the port they were.

"The security barrier has been reinforced." Cirdor ran his orange fingers along the barrier. "I can't tell you which Elder did it, but it was an Elder."

"Civil War?" Shearkar hesitated for a moment. "You think the Congress finally got tired of Vita Feletis?"

Cirdor shook his head and turned to look at the blue-eyed woman. "Not with the war back in full swing. The Congress can't afford to have the Alliance split in half. The Dark Legion grew too strong during the peace."

"Maybe it was the High Elf Alliance that grew too soft and forgot what war was like." She emphasized the 'High Elf' part of the name of the official country.

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While there had been twelve different subraces of Elves, most had homogenized into a singular Elvish race over a thousand years before. There were many who claimed that it was exclusive to call the strongest nation in the universe by a designation that applied to a small fraction of its population, but that fraction held a lot of sway and had resisted every attempt to have it changed to merely the Elf Alliance.

"I wish that we never had to remember." Cirdor sighed. "Neither of us were there for the Dark Times. I can't imagine what it was like if it was worse than this."

"Whole worlds vanished." Shearkar reminded him. "Including my own."

"I know my history." Cirdor huffed. "And I served on the Faber fleet." His voice lost the edge as he remembered the war he'd been pulled out of.

Shearkar gave him a moment before she prompted him to continue. "If it's not a civil war, then why do you think one of the Elders isolated us here?"

Cirdor opened his mouth, then closed it. He'd never met Vita Feletis or most of the Elders. Vita Dumas had inspected one of his rune grids on the Bronze Sparrow, the ship he'd been assigned to, and called his work 'adequate'. In the end it hadn't mattered and he'd been sent to Dinmar as a punishment for failing to keep the ship safe. While he would love to be able to speculate on why one of the Elders had set up shop on Dinmar, it was so far above his pay grade that he didn't rate as someone who would be informed if one of the supreme magic users in the universe decided to take over their small colony for some secret project.

He coughed into his hand. "What's obvious is that this is an Elder barrier, and if they didn't inform me that they were taking over this campus, then it obviously is a classified mission."

"Which is short for 'you don't know'." Shearkar scoffed. She kicked the barrier. "Isn't it getting weaker?"

Cirdor pulled on his magic as he scanned the dome again. "It's deteriorating…" He looked at the woman beside him. "Most barriers—"

"Weaken over time." She held up her hand and water swirled through her fingers. "I'm a Mage too. I know how this works, but why isn't the Elder giving it more magic?"

"Maybe they're injured." Cirdor's heart quickened. If one of the Elders had used this as a safe place to flee from a fight, then it would explain the double barrier. But that would also mean that there was something out there strong enough to seriously harm an Elder that would be coming for them.

"We need to speak to the Council." He spun on his heels and hurried down the street.

"You know what's going on!" Shearkar ran after him.

"What I know is that there is an Elder in there who can't recharge what for them should be a simple barrier." Cirdor didn't slow down as he marched up the street. I should have taken a cycle. He pushed the thought out of his mind. While the campus was on the outskirts of town, he had found the walk to be liberating. The small park and walking trails were a pleasant contrast to the stone buildings that filled the paved streets.

"What are you going to do?" Shearkar demanded as she ran to keep up with the fast-moving Elf. "You can't get in there…" She motioned behind them. "And whatever could beat up an Elder isn't something that the Authority here is equipped to deal with!"

"Then we prepare!" Cirdor wove an enhancement spell into his legs. It was a simple spell that would allow him to run faster and not get tired since the extra energy burned was provided by the spell. It was times like this that Cirdor regretted his choice of a guardian. If I'd been stronger, then maybe I could have gotten a sentient, but no, I had to pick from the Monster Catalog.

His guardian, a Stone Turtle, pushed at his mind as if the creature could tell that the Mage was disappointed in the slow creature. Cirdor sent calming thoughts to the massive creature. The entire reason he had chosen the large monster was because the Stone Turtle was large enough that Cirdor could hide in its shell. What the monster lacked in speed and offensive capabilities was more than made up for by the defensive protection it offered.

"I can get the Pinkers to send a patrol to the campus if you think that will help." Shearkar grabbed the Elf's arm and pointed to her right, towards the docks.

"No need." Cirdor pulled his arm away from the other Mage. "I know exactly when that barrier is coming down."

"Then I'll come with you." Shearkar fell into step beside the orange Elf. "How long do we have?"

Cirdor fought the urge to panic. They had already wasted fifteen days, half of which had been what he'd needed to realize that it wasn't the automatic security barrier that had appeared around the campus when they'd been isolated under the dome. They might not make much more than an ant's resistance against a bear, but they needed to be ready to do what they could.

"We have forty-nine days until that barrier comes down." He looked over his shoulder at the campus that had been under his care once upon a time. "And when it does, I hope the light is with us."

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