[X] Something isn't right. Go look for Ruby yourself.
-[X] See if Blue-hair wants to come along. She seems useful, and besides, you've got a competition to win.
You'll trust your instincts on this. Something is off, even if you don't know exactly what it is yet. You had a few theories in mind, but the truth was that you could speculate all day long and never get anywhere. And regardless of anything else, you know that under normal circumstances, even fighting through these elementals it should not take Ruby this long to get to your room from hers. You would have to try and see for yourself what was happening.
"Hey!" You call to the blue haired girl. She turns to look at you calmly, a thick tendril of water wrapping around an elemental as she does. She looks at you expectantly as it compresses and crushes the thing into so much rubble.
"I'm going to go see if I can find a friend of mine. Want to come along?" You ask.
"Friend? Yes. Ruby. Am I correct?" She asks in return. Her voice is surprisingly deep. Not unnaturally so, but it stands out to you along with her manner of speaking. She speaks quickly and precisely. It's incongruous really.
"Ah, yes." You reply after a moment's pause.
"Good. I will come." She says.
You note the others along your hall seem mostly relieved by this and have to take a moment to figure out why. They don't need the help of the two of you to defeat elementals this weak, and they don't want to risk not doing their full part due to the two of you killing the elementals too fast. You wonder if their confidence is justified or if whatever the Archmage has in store will change their tune. You suspect the latter.
Regardless, you- oh. Blue-hair has started ahead of you and is leading the way. This irritates you slightly.
"So, I don't think we've been introduced. I'm-" You begin as you reach out a hand to her when you catch up and match her pace.
"Saphira Baldeth. Yes. I am Lusca."
You blink at that. "How did you know my last name?"
"Saw you sign with it the first day."
You quiet at that and think for a moment as the two of you stride down the halls at an even pace, dispatching elementals along the way. You hadn't done anything noteworthy the first day. Had she known you had passed the entrance exam and kept an eye on you? Did she just happen to remember a random student's last name? Was she lying about where she knew it from? You haven't actually mentioned it to anyone since you came to the college. Or-
You shake your head.
It didn't really matter. It's not like you were keeping it a secret or that it would be particularly hard for someone to find out if they tried. Unimportant. Still... You give Lusca another glance, taking her in. Her dark blue hair was somewhat long and a bit stringy if you were being honest. Her facial features you could only describe as 'placid' and her robes were fairly standard except that they were somewhere between a deep purple and a dark blue. Really, besides the color of her hair she seemed somewhat inoffensive and boring. You would keep an eye on her.
---
Lusca stops.
"What?" You ask.
"This hall. It is not correct." She answers.
"How do you mean?"
She tilts her head.
"It is."
You wait a moment for a continuation to the statement.
"Wha-"
"A lie. I see falsehood and truth both. The lie is that this halls exists."
You take a second to decipher her statements before reaching out with your own magical senses. After about a minute of solid concentration during which Lusca makes no motion or comment, you feel some kind of complex and subtle spatial warping. You think you understand what Lusca is getting at- This hallway... It was like someone had managed to use planar control on the real world somehow. The hallway was real... but it also wasn't. It wasn't the same hallway that was normally here, even if it looked identical. And if it wasn't the same hallway, where did it lead?
You look at Lusca somewhat agape.
"How did you know it was spatially warped?"
She tilts her head again.
"I did not. I saw the lie."
You sense that trying to get a clear answer out of her might be an exercise in frustration. Still, a realization comes upon you. If this hallway was spatially warped then- Now that you knew it was there, it was simplicity itself to open up a portal to the 'real' hallway on the other side.
You hesitate though. Getting to the real hallway might let you get to Ruby's room, but it's likely that she didn't see through the "lie" like Lusca did. Which meant that she was probably running around through fake corridors trying to find a room it might be impossible to get to from within the spatial warping.
"Lusca, can you see the real hallway past the fake one?"
"Yes. Though I cannot reach it. I see the truth."
"If we were in the real hallway, could you see into the fake one?"
"Yes. I sense your intent. My sight is constrained by the physical."
"Ah, I see the problem. You can see into the fake hallway, but only so long as the spatial warping doesn't take it past any walls."
She nods.
Hmm. An interesting problem. It was clear the Archmage intentionally made the college just about impossible to navigate correctly with this spatial warping. And you had to assume that Ruby was caught up in it. So how to find her?
[] Enter the spatially warped area. That's almost certainly where Ruby was, and Lusca might be able to prevent the two of you from being led too far astray.
[] Portal past the spatial warping.
-[] And continue to Ruby's room, even if it was a longshot.
-[] Find the TA to ask for her help, it was unlikely that she was caught up in this.
-[] Head to the courtyards. That was the largest open space in the college, and it gave Lusca the most volume to look at for spatial warping. If you were lucky, she might see Ruby.
[] Write-in.
Though slightly later than I had hoped, the update arrives.
