Omake
What are the odds?
Mathilde sat in front of Algard's desk, the man himself across from her and his head in his hands. The door, closed when Mathilde had slinked into the office, was open just a crack, just enough for a fraction of the wizards horded outside to peek inside.
"So I have the best kind of news...!" She begins before Algard whips a single finger out upraised. For a mercy it's his index finger.
"No. Just no." His hand comes back to his head, a shuddering breath exhaled, before the Patriarch drags his face up to look Mathilde in her eyes. "Explain."
Mathilde gives a single deep nod, the rim of her hat flopping in response. "I was minding my own business..."
"BULLSHIT!"
"I was!!! Literally! I'm the head librarian of what's going to be the greatest mortal library in the world and I need scribes. So I figured I could settle like, three or four problems at once and recruit orphans from across the Empire and train them and give them jobs working for me. So I figured I'd start with a trial run of 100 random orphans from the provinces."
"And how many of them are currently sitting in the proverbial front yard of the colleges because they have magical potential."
It's not even phrased as a question.
"One-hundred."
Algard's face returns to the comforting darkness of his cupped hands. Maybe it wasn't too late to feign his death and make this someone else's problem. But then it would most likely just curve back onto Mathilde and then she'd do something else ridiculous.
"What are the odds that's even possible?" He mutters.
"Well assuming an average minimum talent is 1 in 10000..."
"That was rhetorical." There's no fire left in his voice. This is it. Forget feigning his death, he could almost feel Morr himself patting him on the shoulder.
"It's not even the fact there's 100 orphans with magic talent, or even that you brought them to the college to be trained. How did you find them!" Oh, there's fire.
Mathilde leans back from the spittle flying from the patriarch's furor. "Our current leading theory is Ranald."
"...I can't even be mad at that. What's the second."
The thought of denying her private second theory crosses her mind. "Well...you remember Eike? And Mandred?"
"You. You think that children develop magical talent by spending time around you."
The idea of it was... was stupid. That's not how magic worked. That wasn't how it worked at all! That wasn't how anything worked!!
"This isn't my problem anymore." He decided. Algard stood up and walked to the door, not even glancing at Mathilde's shocked face.
"Dragomas." He addressed the Supreme Patriarch, who was certainly not hastily standing up by the door alongside his other fellow high wizards. "I believe that Lady Magister Mathilde has proven herself beyond a doubt a credible teacher and leader of wizards, of all the colors of the Winds. I propose that she clean up this mess she's made... I mean, give her what's she's due. I propose an official Branch of the Colleges of Magic be established at Karak-8-Peaks and Lady Magister Mathilde Weber be made headmistress, and the one hundred students she has found," the word was ground out between his clenched teeth, "be the first of a new age of magical education."
Only then did he turn back to the aghast Mathilde, ignoring the uncomfortable talk between his various contemporaries, staring into her very soul as she broke, collapsing to her knees.
"Algard! No! You can't do this! What about my AP! My backlog of research materials! My elfcation!"
Algard showed no mercy, grabbing her by the scruff of her robes at the back of neck and threw her out of his office and slammed the doors shut behind her.
"Just what are the fucking odds?"
In the silence, though he would deny it, he heard the laughter of Ranald echoing.
