In Which Mackenzie’s Appointment Is Booked

As much as I would have liked to stick around after Professor Swain’s demonstration ended to ask Eloise more about her work and see if she’d let me examine how the interface was created, I knew how easily that could become my excuse for not dealing with the thing with Professor Bohd, whatever it was.

It wasn’t like I was giving up my chance to pick Eloise’s brain forever… Swain had suggested we’d be using the map for at least a week, and even if it wasn’t a fixture of the classroom for the whole semester I could still talk to Eloise about it at a later date.

I did take the time to head back to Gilcrease Tower to retrieve the card first. What I’d said about Bohd and her ability to relate to people within certain contexts also applied to me… I found it hard to face just walking over to a professor’s office and knocking on the door without something like an engraved invitation in my hand.

Once I saw it, I couldn’t really blame Dee for having read it… it was just a postcard-sized slip with Professor Bohd’s info autoscribed on and my info written in. Not that I would have minded if either Two or Dee had gone out of their way to read it in order to relay the message… opening up actual imperial post would be one thing, but a little card dropped in the intra-campus mail was another. I really couldn’t see any harm in it.

Well, I could see Two taking it to far, if someone did convince her that it was okay. She tended to have a very dualistic view of things with little room for ideas like something occasionally being okay, or only being fine if it wasn’t taken too far. Where a natural-born mind would at least have some notion that boundaries can be pushed to a certain degree with relative safety, Two would need both the border and its flexibility defined for her before she’d be comfortable with it. Under the circumstances it was probably best to let her stick with other people’s mail being none of her business.

Of course, I was attributing Two’s lack of flexibility to her golemhood, but Professor Bohd was what the golems called “bornfolk” and she had her own operational parameters that she worked best within… for that matter, so did I.

I had been to Professor Bohd’s office before, twice when I was a student in her class and then intermittently during the summer term. Even though I’d turned down her offer to spend the summer assisting in her research, we’d still turned to each other for help with a few small things. As much as neither one of us preferred to relate to the other primarily as part-demons, she had found that my higher level of infernal energy made it easier for her to calibrate her apparatus so that it wouldn’t be thrown off by her own demonic influence.

Such influences only ever made very tiny differences in the course of ordinary magic use, but Bohd was pushing back the limits of mortal knowledge. That could be a dangerous pursuit in the best of circumstances.

Each time we’d met had been by prior arrangement. I thought we had a good teacher-student relationship, but that was it. She seemed to be fond of me. There were definitely times that she showed a warm regard for me, and she’d acted to protect me in the past. But as long as I was a student she could only interact with me as a well-liked student.

There were some teachers I’d had who were open and warm enough that I could imagine myself doing so if I had to. Professor Goldman, my freshman thaumatology instructor, had always spoken like everyone in the classroom was a good friend… or at least a well-regarded colleague. This despite the fact that he’d taught the biggest class I had yet seen. Professor Swain’s homespun wisdom… if that was the right word… had a similar effect.

I’d still feel presumptuous just dropping in on either of them, but I’d be less worried about how either one of them would feel about it because I imagined they prided themselves on being accessible. Professor Bohd had her own reasons to be proud, but I doubted she counted personal accessibility as a virtue.

I wondered how much of that was her own original choice or natural inclination and how much of it was something she’d learned to do, to protect herself and any student she might think shows potential.

As a demonblood working with college students… often people young enough to have parents who take a direct and active interest in their lives and well-beings… she would have to be beyond reproach and above suspicion. Keeping things strictly professional might have been a survival strategy to keep people from looking too closely at her when she’d been concealing her heritage, and to shield herself from repercussions when and if it came out.

I realized I was fixated on this even more than I usually would have been, and the reason for that was that for once it wasn’t completely irrational to think she might not be happy to see me. Calling me into her office just to chew me out would not really be typical for her, but it was hard to figure out what else it would be if she were even half as upset about whatever had happened as Twyla was and she assigned any blame for the incident to me.

The only way to find out for sure was to go. I headed for her office. It was in one of the three higher arcana buildings, where the serious magical disciplines were studied… well, I supposed that diabolism, necromancy, and transportation were all fairly serious pursuits, too, but none of the other colleges begrudged them their own halls set a respectable distance back from the others.

I was hoping she would be there. If she wasn’t, I had some ideas where she might be… assuming that she was still on campus and she didn’t have a class to teach in he mid-afternoon. I sot of envied the me who would have given up after the first failed attempt, but as it turned out it wouldn’t have mattered… the professor was in.

She was sitting at her desk in the outer office, which was unusually cluttered with wands and other devices, including what I recognized as the warding devices she used to help contain elemental reactions. She was reading from a big weighty old tome that I took at first to be a grimoire, but it seemed to have pictures more typical of a storybook. I didn’t get more than a glimpse of a muscle-bound swordsman stripped to the waist before she closed it and put it beneath the desk.

It wasn’t the sort of fare I would have imagined her reading for fun, but thinking she didn’t have any hobbies would be like imagining she didn’t have any friends… just because she was all business in dealing with me didn’t mean that there was nothing to her but business.

She looked rattled… whether she was startled to see me or fearful for some other reason, I couldn’t see. I didn’t have a lot of experience with her being nervous to compare this to.

“Mackenize,” she said. “Hello… just a little reading.”

She’d dropped the formal title from my name at some point over the summer, by which point I’d no longer been her student for more than a semester. It had been a surprising change, though one I’d only noticed in retrospect precisely because she didn’t make a big deal out of it. Still, it seemed like a big deal, once I noticed it.

“I got your note,” I said, holding up the slip.

“I didn’t expect you so early,” she said. “Not that it isn’t… of some urgency, but I hope you didn’t cut class to be here.”

“No, actually, I’m here now because I have class later,” I said. “I like to keep my classes spaced out… it’s just easier that way.”

“You do have a tendency to get things done at the last minute,” she said.

That would have been a great place to say something like Did you ask me here to talk about my study habits? or something, but it didn’t really occur to me, so I just nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Ms. Mackenzie, did you send Twyla Jenkins to see me?” she said. I hoped the reappearance of the title was another comfort thing and didn’t reflect a loss of respect.

“I… sort of put the idea in her head that you might be able to provide some guidance, elementally speaking,” I said. Suddenly I wondered if that was the problem. Bohd wasn’t just a full-time college instructor, she was also involved in cutting edge thaumatological research. What if Twyla had interrupted something important? Maybe I should have suggested that Twyla take one of her classes instead. “I didn’t promise her anything, I just thought you could point her in the right direction…”

“Did you tell her anything else about me?”

It would have been obvious what she was driving at, except there was no reason for her to be driving in that direction. There was nothing I could have told anyone about Profesor Bohd that wasn’t public knowledge… if maybe not exactly common knowledge… and I hadn’t even told Twyla that.

“I didn’t mention your ancestry, what I know about it,” I said. “Though I thought it wasn’t a secret.”

“Not being a secret doesn’t make it anybody’s business,” Professor Bohd. “What do you know about Twyla?”

“Not a lot,” I said. “I didn’t even know her last name until you said it. She’s Khersian…”

“She’s Khersian?”

She sounded surprised. I wondered at that… others might be surprised if they thought of Twyla’s horns or left-handedness as demonic, but Bohd wouldn’t have made that mistake. Unless it wasn’t exactuly surprise… maybe the confirmation of her Khersianity was making something Twyla had said or done fall into place? Though Twyla had never shown any prejudice against my demon blood, and I doubted she would have been more careless in how she addressed a teacher.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think she’s kind of serious about it, but I’ve never noticed her being aggressive about it before. I don’t think she has any particular problem with demons.”

“She wouldn’t, no,” Bohd said.

I thought again of the fact that having horns and being left-handed didn’t mean one didn’t have demon blood… Bohd herself had both infernal and djinn ancestry… but it would be hard to explain all the prayer, in that case.

“What do you know about Twyla?” I asked her. “She’s been trying to find out about her ancestors…”

“I’m sure you know I couldn’t possibly discuss that with you,” she said.

“You could discuss it with her,” I said, “if you knew something.”

“I will be having no discussions with Ms. Jenkins,” Bohd said. “It’s quite impossible. I simply wanted to… I thought she’d come to… well, it was only after she left and I started piecing together everything she had said that I realized she’d mentioned you. I simply needed to ascertain the truth of what she said.”

“What did she say?”

“Simply that she’d spoken to you. I had feared that might have been a pretext.”

“You feared… Twyla?” I said, trying to make sense of this. I couldn’t imagine a less intimidating person.

“Not the young woman herself, necessarily, but I thought she might have been here with some sort of agenda,” the professor said. “I can see now that I was mistaken and I overreacted.”

“You might want to apologize to her, then.”

“No, I think it’s best if there’s no further contact between the two of us,” she said.

“What is she, Professor Bohd?” I asked. Any question of whether or not I wanted to involve myself in Twyla’s mysteries was gone for the moment. I didn’t exactly feel an overwhelming sense of suspense or anything, but… it was right there.

“She’s a student, just like you.”

“Then why can’t you help her?”

“I doubt she would want my help,” Professor Bohd said. “And while she is a student, she isn’t a student of mine… I would certainly make an attempt to repair any misunderstanding if things stood otherwise, but in this case there is no need. Now, I’m sure that we both have things to do.”

“You could at least…”

“I’m sure we both have things to do,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Fine,” I said. It sounded both harsher and more final than I’d meant it to. “I mean yes, I do. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Professor. Maybe I should have spoken to you first.”

The professor’s features softened, and in the space of the few seconds where her defenses crumbled there was an instant where I could clearly see the fear that had gripped her for the past day or so, then the walls came back up.

“I lead an existence that is uncomfortable, in some regards,” she said. “You did what you thought was best, under the circumstances.”

I didn’t say anything. She seemed conflicted, and I thought she had a better chance of convincing herself of whatever it was she thinking about doing.

“I wonder if I might ask a favor of you,” she said after a while. She pulled the book back out from under the desk. “I checked this out of the library and now it seems I don’t have any need of it. I wonder if perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking it back for me?”

It was hardly an unreasonable request, especially as I went to the library for fun most weekends anyway. But it was an unusual one for Bohd to make. It seemed even more out of character that she would hint I should read something instead of simply recommending it outright, but I couldn’t figure out why else she would be giving it to me. The only thing I could figure out was that she’d decided to give me some information about or for Twyla after all… or possibly an explanation for her behavior… but she still didn’t want to directly discuss another student’s heritage or secrets with me.

“Sure,” I said.

“There is no rush to return it right away,” she said.

Yep… she was definitely assigning reading.

Thank you,” I said, tucking the book under my arm. I resisted the urge to ask what I should be looking for or to examine the book more closely right then and there. She was bending her principles as it was.

If nothing else came of this, Amaranth would be proud that I’d apologized, and pleased that the apology had netted positive results. And if the book… which was quite weighty… didn’t seem to present me with an immediate and obvious answer to anything, I could always turn it over to her. We both enjoyed reading and could do it fairly quickly, but Amaranth practically devoured books.

Once I was outside the building, I took a closer look at the book. The title was written in flowery gold letters: Nights of Fire and Wonder.



This chapter of Tales of MU has been brought to you by the generosity of:
AegisRune


Tales of MU is now on Patreon! Help keep the story going!

Or if you particularly enjoyed this chapter, leave a tip!


Characters: ,





72 Responses to “Chapter 36: Wondering”

  1. zeel says:

    Very interesting. Just how much of this book will be relayed to us readers?

    Current score: 0
    • Dark Seer says:

      Having my own ideas on this current subject.
      I can hardly wait to see if I’m correct. If
      nothing else, Mack, may have a kindred in TWYLA.

      Current score: 0
  2. 'Nym-o-maniac says:

    The HTMl for this chapter seems to be borked; the main site page is showing the full text, and bolded and italicized to boot.

    Current score: 0
  3. Jennifer says:

    Good chapter! It just answers nothing…. but I’m interested in seeing what the book is about. Is there some history between Djinn’s and Dragonbloods?

    Typo report:
    “I could see Two taking it to far” should be “too far.”

    Also, there is no period at the end of the story!

    Current score: 0
    • Kevin Brown says:

      Given the way the chapter ended I’m not certain there should be a period at the end. Of course I am not the best at English Composition (apparently elementary school teachers don’t need to know much about it either as mine taught me a few things that I later learned to be completely wrong) so it is possible that one should be there. Of course with the way it was quoting a title at the end it could appear misleading if you added a period to the end.

      Current score: 0
  4. Aenea says:

    Interesting, in a I won’t tell you what she is, but here’s a book all about her and why you should stay the heck away from her. No rules are broken, but the point is made.

    Current score: 0
  5. MacGuyver says:

    Another typo:
    “swordsman stripped to the waste”
    “waste” should be “waist”, I think.

    Interesting chapter! Looking forward to where this leads!

    Current score: 0
    • fka_luddite says:

      While either word could work, since the comment is based on a quick glimpse “waist” is indeed more likely.

      Current score: 0
  6. Kevin Brown says:

    Considering the Bohd’s surprise at finding out Twyla’s religion I begin to wonder if there is something in her ancestry that opposes Khersis but is not infernal in nature, such as a different god. A dragon god perhaps.

    Current score: 0
    • Zukira Phaera says:

      I’m willing to wager that Bohd concluded from Twyla’s appearance that she’s Pelorian. Referring back to Vol2:14 Hart says when discussing them:When the proportion of dragon blood is smaller, we get humans with dragon eyes, or with scaly-textured skins, or with claws or wings or horns.”

      The Khersian Account of Creation has dragons coming to existence before Khersis Dei. Twyla being a follower of Khersis is amusing on that hand seeing as her ancestry may make her a predecessor of the deity she follows. Still, her particular choice in faith is understandable in that she’s an orphan, she was raised to it. The vector of dissonance between nature and nurture in Twyla’s case may well be furthering the masking of her ancestry from not only her, but others. If she is draconic and this isn’t a red herring situation that is playing out, then when she discovers the truth, if she discovers the truth, I’m anticipating a Major crisis of faith on Twyla’s part.

      Current score: 0
      • Krey says:

        The formatting of Vol2:14 here amuses me to no end.

        That is all

        Current score: 0
        • Zukira Phaera says:

          It amused me as I typed it too. 😉 I see we’re on the same page.

          Current score: 0
  7. fka_luddite says:

    twyla’s family name is “Jenkins”. I’m wondering if she uis related to Lee.

    Current score: 0
    • Erm says:

      Making her something far more fearsome than people assume: She doesn’t have demon blood, she has lawyer blood. 😉

      Current score: 2
    • Greenwood Goat says:

      I’m wondering whether that mightn’t, by connection, mean that Lee is related to Embries. He probably would prefer to keep things in the family, even if they were only twelfth cousins twenty-three times removed. That might also explain why Lee thought he could survive attempting to thwart the aims of a greater dragon.

      Then again, assuming the necessary concordances of translation with the WoMU, Jenkins isn’t an uncommon surname, and they might be completely unrelated. But where would the fun be in that?

      Current score: 1
      • Luke Licens says:

        I just kinda assumed that Lee thought he could get away with it because he was LEEEEEEEEEE(roy) JEEEEEEENKINS! Let’s DO this!

        Current score: 2
      • Zergonapal says:

        Well that isn’t an unreasonable conjecture, in extended families it does seem to be the habit to keep things in house and there is usually an incentive in that becoming a representative for the family is a fast track into the upper hierarchy.
        On the otherhand Jenkins isn’t an uncommon name. But it does smell like a smoking Chekhov’s gun 😉

        Current score: 0
      • Lesath says:

        Twyla’s adopted, so presumably she would have the family name of her adoptive family, and then even if her adopted family is related to Lee, Lee is probably not anything other than a pretty cool dude.

        Current score: 1
    • Amelia says:

      I was thinking that, also pen Dragon?

      Current score: 0
  8. Does anyone remember the title of the book Mackenzie’s mother was reading, as a child, when the demon first came upon her?

    Current score: 0
    • Kevin Brown says:

      It was actually the second time the demon came to her but it was “Summers in Athanasia” the “abridged” version.

      Current score: 0
  9. sliversith says:

    I believe “I sot of envied the me who would have given up”
    Should read:
    “I sort of envied the me who would have given up”

    Current score: 0
  10. Cairsten says:

    Typos …

    “assuming that she was still on campus and she didn’t have a class to teach in he mid-afternoon. I sot of envied the me”

    “he” should be “the” and “sot” would be “sort”, I should think!

    Current score: 0
  11. Erm says:

    “Mackenize”

    Wow, Professor Bohd is really rattled. 😉

    Current score: 0
  12. Calia says:

    Wow, interesting to see that as shaken and upset Twyla was, Bohd was even worse. Looking up a way to protect herself from a 19 year old girl? Curiouser and curiouser 🙂

    Current score: 0
  13. Ariel says:

    Great chapter! I can’t wait to find out what is in the book!

    On a separate topic, I have noticed over time there seems to be more and more comments pertaining to spelling and/or sentence structure. While from a writers perspective I can see how this could be enlightening, I tend as a reader to scroll through such comments and instead look for the comments pertaining to the story itself. I was wondering if there could be a way to separate and structure these comments in a clean way?

    Current score: 1
    • Brenda says:

      Ideally, everyone would see the first post that discusses typos/grammar/etc. and post their own in comments to that post – but people tend to post without refreshing to see what other comments have been posted, so that doesn’t happen.

      Current score: 1
  14. Burnsidhe says:

    Ifrit vs. Djinn.. I could see a bit of a conflict there.

    Current score: 0
    • Greg says:

      Reading this chapter rather late, myself, but that was exactly the thought that occurred to me. : )

      Current score: 0
  15. Greenwood Goat says:

    ‘Nother typo:

    Unless it wasn’t exactuly surprise…

    Current score: 0
    • Stonefoot says:

      (stealing from Lewis Carroll) If your mind is perfectly balanced between saying “exactly” and saying “actually”, so that you cannot choose one over the other, you would say “exactuly”. (Or perhaps type “exactuly”.)

      (That would be pronounced “ex ACK chew lee”.)

      At least that’s the explanation I prefer. 😀

      Current score: 0
  16. Greenwood Goat says:

    “The title was written in flowery gold letters: Nights of Fire and Wonder.

    Getting out my shoehorn-rimmed spectacles and trying to read/force as much meaning into that as possible… perhaps the subtitle of that book might be: Or, the Beast with the Two Fundamentally Dissimilar Backs; or, How Half-Dragons end up getting made. We shall have to wait and see… …if Amaranth can read it without getting excited. >:=)>

    Current score: 0
  17. N'ville says:

    Two and two make four, Twyla is Embries’ daughter also adds up. Twyla’s family history is hidden from her and no one can speak of it. Only the likes of Embries can close a mind from speaking, in the same way Mackenzie cannot speak about what happened to a certain mermaid.
    It makes too much sense for it to be any other way, it would certainly not be to any advantage for it to be known Embries both had a daughter and also that daughter is a student at the university he runs. His obviously hidden identity would be at risk otherwise.
    Oh, and when I say two and two, I don’t mean there is more than one golem girl called Two.

    Current score: 0
    • Brenda says:

      Sometimes the reason no one can speak of something is that no one knows.

      Current score: 0
      • Silverai says:

        Except somewhere it was mentioned that Twyla had gone to a number of people trying to find out who her real parents were, and everyone she went to didn’t just say they didn’t know, they also acted strangely as if they had an idea what it was and were scared or worried or something.
        I forget exactly how far back the reference was.

        Current score: 0
        • Silverai says:

          Here we go, Chapter 17 in the reboot:

          “So what did the diviners tell you?”

          “Nothing,” she said. “They said it was like there’s a wall or a barrier, a veil drawn over part of my life, that they can’t see past. It’s not a spell, it’s not… well, they all said they didn’t know what it was. But I think some of them did, or at least knew enough to be afraid of it.”

          Current score: 0
          • Brenda says:

            Ah, thanks – I’d forgotten that detail.

            It’s just that saying something “makes too much sense for it to be wrong!” is just seriously tempting fate – and fate in the MUniverse is controlled by the author! The fact that it IS obvious is what makes me think it’s got to be a little more complicated than that.

            Current score: 0
            • Angnor says:

              I think Twyla being some part dragon makes the most sense of anything. Whether or not she’s in any way related to Embries is a bit of a stretch to work out at this point.

              Current score: 0
            • Chips says:

              Twyla is Embries & Callahan’s illicit love child! Read all about it in the MU Midnight Star!

              Current score: 0
  18. readaholic says:

    Om nom nom. Of course Boyd is rattled. I’m willing to bet that she suspects Twyla not only of being dragonkin, but kin to one particular greater dragon. And Twyla’s family name being Jenkins? Looks even more like it.

    Current score: 0
    • erianaiel says:

      While dragons are frequently associated with nights of fire, I am not so certain if they are also on speaking terms with wonder…

      The title does not rule at something more of a djinni or iffriti nature.

      Current score: 0
    • Bramble says:

      Yeah… she’s probably not biologically related to Lee, but it would make sense that Embries would leave a part-human descendent with a family he can keep tabs on. He doesn’t really seem like the “leave the kid and hope for the best” type – he’d want her where he can keep an eye on her, and maybe where he can intercede without actually admitting they’re related. Kind of a “this family works for me so no one messes with their kid” kind of thing. (Of course, we don’t know if Lee working for the law firm is a family thing; if his extended family has no connection with Embries, this looks less likely.)

      Current score: 0
  19. Kaila says:

    No one else has read Mark Anthony’s Last Rune series?

    “We live our lives a circle,
    And wander where we can.
    Then after fire and wonder,
    We end where we began.

    I have traveled southward,
    And in the south I wept.
    Then I journeyed northward,
    And laughter there I kept.

    Then for a time I lingered,
    In eastern lands of light,
    Until I moved on westward,
    Alone in shadowed night.

    I was born of springtime,
    In summer I grew strong.
    But autumn dimmed my eyes,
    To sleep the winter long.

    We live our lives a circle,
    And wander where we can.
    Then after fire and wonder,
    We end where we began.”

    I sort of see the djinn connection, but my first thought was this poem/song from the last rune series. I’m surprised noone else mentioned it.

    Current score: 0
  20. Krey says:

    At first I thought Bohd was just into trashy romance novels. Y’know the kind with muscley men with long flowing hair and a complete inability to button their shirts on the cover?

    Current score: 0
    • Lee says:

      Yeah, how come we haven’t seen Amy and some literary smut with as much time as they spend at the library?

      Current score: 0
      • Burnsidhe says:

        I’m sure if literary smut becomes important to the story, even in an extremely tangential way, we’ll see it. 🙂

        Current score: 0
        • Kevin Brown says:

          Would one of the Literary Smut at the school library people please tell me where they went to college. I wish to attend.

          Current score: 0
          • Chips says:

            Please see “Romeo and Juliet” … the only way Romeo can interact with Juliet in the beginning is a small hole…

            Current score: 0
  21. x says:

    “she closed it and put it beneath the desk.”
    “She tapped the closed book on her desk.”

    These seem to be talking about the same book (or I’d at least expect the second to be “a closed book”), but the locations conflict.

    Current score: 0
    • Zergonapal says:

      Yeah that was only book mentioned in sight, I think some editing is in order 🙂

      Current score: 0
  22. ayla says:

    I’m a bit curious as to why the revelation that Twyla’s surname is Jenkins has made people think that she must be related to Embries. The only “link” there is:

    Twyla Jenkins is quite possibly a dragonblood.
    and
    Lee Jenkins works for the same law firm that represents (serves?) Edmund Embries, greater dragon.

    Nothing there is proof that Embries and Lee are related. In fact, I was under the impression that Lee doesn’t represent Embries; that job likely belongs to the Pendragon in “Pendragon and Associates.” And as others have noted, “Jenkins” is probably a pretty common surname in the MUniverse. Of course there is no proof that Embries, Lee, and Twyla aren’t related, but it still seems like a pretty big leap to me.

    Current score: 0
    • Dark Seer says:

      Well,some folks tend to take Greater Leaps then this.
      So much fun when the landing zone is not exactly there, 🙂

      Current score: 0
  23. anon y mouse says:

    “Well, I could see Two taking it to far,” – too far?

    “often people young enough to have parents who take a direct and active interest in their lives and well-beings” – well-beings sounds weird, even if it might be right.

    “I sot of envied the me who would have given up” – sort of?

    “Unless it wasn’t exactuly surprise…” – exactly, or actually maybe?

    Current score: 0
    • Lunaroki says:

      Typo Report

      Thank you,” I said,

      No opening quote.

      Current score: 0
  24. Zathras IX says:

    Demonblood teachers
    Must be beyond reproach and
    Above suspicion

    Current score: 1
  25. Billy Bob says:

    The “original” Leroy Jenkins earned his fame in WoW by running into a room in BWL that was filled with dragon eggs that hatch and attack when you get near them. His idea was to agro them all so that the rest of his group could AOE them. However, the hatchlings plus their tenders pack quite a wallop and the result was a party wipe.

    So, ToMU’s Lee works for a dragon and we have a possible relative who may be part dragon.

    Current score: 0
  26. readstospouse says:

    I’m sure Bohd thinks Twyla is an Efreet (or ifrit) an arabian fire genie with a racially antagonistic relationship with the Djinn (more air genies). My understanding of efreet from 80s video games and dnd is that they are slightly less magical than djinn, but tougher and much more aggressive (and often are horned).

    This explains the Djinn descended Bohd’s fear of Twyla, and her Arabian Nights reading… but since she so radically misinterpreted Twyla’s background, religion, and goals… did she guess her race correctly?

    Current score: 0
    • Brenda says:

      Why do you say Bohd is descended from a Djinn? We know specifically that she has DEMON ancestry.

      Current score: 0
      • Zukira Phaera says:

        Part of that probably comes from the class where Bohd outted herself as having demonblood, but did mention many different non-human notes in her ancestry while at the same time mentioning Djinn alongside demonbloods as having a natural racial affinity for fire.

        On the other hand I seem to recall (but at this particular moment can’t remember where exactly from to cite it) that Djinn might have been mentioned as one of those ancestries also in Bohd’s closet. Her mentioning needing pure elemental fire and air as part of her diet reinforces the idea.

        Current score: 0
      • Burnsidhe says:

        Professor Bohd has a surprising number of different bloodlines. Demon’s only one of them. I seem to recall the chapter where Bohd hints at several of them, in reference to the things she needs to consume to live.

        Current score: 0
      • jagroq says:

        Unless its an edit after your post to clear things up. Bohd’s djinn blood was actually re-confirmed in the chapter above.

        Current score: 0
        • readstospouse says:

          To help folks find the references, in this chapter:

          …”I don’t think she has any particular problem with demons.”

          “She wouldn’t, no,” Bohd said.

          … Bohd herself had both infernal and djinn ancestry…

          Note that she wouldn’t have a problem with the demon blood ancestry, so that leaves…

          Also as to her previous mentions, I used the site search feature to find references (ctrl-F djin):
          https://www.talesofmu.com/story/book0x/440
          Here she comes out to the class about her demon blood, but only mentions Djinn as an example of other races with fire affinity.

          https://www.talesofmu.com/story/other/infernal-interrogation
          This is the first mention I could find where she clearly says she has djinn blood, but she mentions it to an investigator in private.

          https://www.talesofmu.com/story/2book02/chapter-22
          Here Mackenzie knows about the djinn as well as demon. Perhaps word spread around from her being more forthcoming with other classes, or other students who asked her about it.

          Note that while I am certain Bohd thinks Twyla is efreet blooded, that does not mean that Bohd is correct (she got a lot else wrong about Twyla in the short, confused time they spoke).

          Current score: 0
        • Brenda says:

          Gaaah!!! Yes, I had missed the part where it was specifically mentioned in the story… *headdesk*

          Current score: 0
  27. Ally says:

    No, here’s how the hypothetical Lee-Twyla-Embries connection goes: Twyla & Lee are family. Lee works for Pendragon (seriously, pen dragon?) et al. Pendragon serves Embries? Twyla has dragon ancestry? There are a couple possible scenarios where all of those are true. Since we’ve seen a dragon leave his half-dragon offspring to be adopted, that seems likely; the Jenkinses adopt Twyla, Embries’ daughter, and Lee (brother? Uncle?) wins a lucrative client, or gets taken into the firm because of the connection. -Or- the Jenkinses could be a dragonblood family, but that doesn’t seem supported, we haven’t seen anything remotely suggestive from Lee.

    Current score: 0
    • cnic says:

      My current theory (and I’ve had many) is that Twyla is Lee’s adoptive niece.

      Current score: 0
  28. Sindyr says:

    Excellent as always, AE! Thank you for the fantastic story updates.

    Current score: 0
  29. Sleet says:

    I know I’m late to the party, but I can help but wonder whether any celestial beings are typically horned. The only basis I have for this query is that time Twyla was scribing an image of an angel. Easily completely unrelated , though.

    Current score: 0
  30. Khazidhea says:

    “Well, I could see Two taking it to far,”
    To should probably be too

    “I sot of envied the me”
    The ‘r’ is missing from ‘sort’

    “Unless it wasn’t exactuly surprise”
    ‘exactly’ contains a stray ‘u’

    Current score: 0