Despite not wanting an 8:00 am class, especially not a biology class, I did want to arrive on time because Dr. Lord is teaching that class. I tried to make sure none of us Scions would be late for our first class, but it seems like the self-centered Sadie escaped my notice and arrived late...probably because she was too busy texting someone on her phone to notice the time.
Fortunately I was early enough to get a chance to introduce myself to Liam. Unfortunately I really had no time today to get a chance to learn more about him - except he apparently went to the same high school as Gabby. I wonder what the odds of that are?
Gabby, Jahiera, Liam, and I basically sat together, but surprisingly Ren didn't sit with us. Dave didn't either, but he was sitting with one of his followers who was also taking the class. But Ren didn't seem to know any of the people he was sitting with, so I was wondering if maybe he was upset with me still, or something. As with Liam, I unfortunately didn't really have any opportunity to discuss this with Ren today, but I will make sure to do so ASAP.
Not even 10 minutes into the class, and Dave goes and ask if we can have a break to get a drink. At that point I was kind of glad Dave was sitting with his follower and not with us as that was probably the most asinine question I ever heard in a class. It's just a little after 8:00 am, class barely started, Dave's drinking from his Relic mug that is full of ale, and he asks for a break to get a drink? I almost thought he was trying to get kicked out of class, which part of me thinks would be kind of a good idea. And I might even try that if it wasn't for Dr. Lord is our advisor as well as our teacher and that our lab work in the class is apparently going to be oriented heavily towards stuff we Scions need to know. But for Dave, I recalled he was planning on majoring in microbiology. Getting kicked out of this biology class would surely mess that up. I seriously don't understand what he was thinking when he asked that question. I am going to try to forget about it, too bad it wasn't something less memorable.
And here's when things start getting weirder and weirder. Dr. Lord starts off by showing us slides. They're pretty amazing slides too, but the most amazing aspect about them is the subject matter. I see what looks like a reincarnation of Saint Francis of Assisi riding a giant grizzly bear while fighting off a fire giant. The next slide had zombies being punched out by a bare-knuckled boxer and being sliced up by a machete wielded by our teacher. Then we were shown a slide of a Mardi Gras parade - but this parade had a giant earthworm that tunneled up from the ground, and that was being fought off by Dr. Lord and a black woman with a giant snake. The next slide was of a basilisk staring down Dr. Lord and a young woman sporting elk antlers who was carrying javelins in both of her hands while in the middle of some desert. Next was a slide showing a young man in insect themed armor kicking away a griffin as Dr. Lord tended to a woman turning into stone...which for some reason caused Ren to chuckle. I should try to remember to ask Ren what was funny about that. The next slide was of the jackal-headed Anubis towering above Dr. Lord and a man dressed in an Incan poncho and wearing a golden sun mask. There was also a giant puma next to Ix Chel in this slide, possibly there is some sort of relationship between these animals? Next was a picture of Dr. Lord bleeding from several wounds while holding hands with a beautiful Mediterranean woman. The background of this picture had many shadowy ninja like figures in the background - my guess is they are what wounded Dr. Lord - and these shadowy ninjas having bright lights shining from them. I wonder if light shining from the shadowy ninjas has some special meaning? The final slide is a celebration with Dr. Lord and the others - I guess they are his Scion Bandmates - from the previous photos in what appears to be a small restaurant.
As the lecture hall seated 60 and was mostly full, while only 12 of us attending were Scions, the above series of photos seemed extremely strange to be shown. But I glanced around at the mortals sitting next to me and read what I could of their notes. It seems the mortals were all seeing things like slides of the rain forest and other mundane things. But we Scions all saw the set of slides with Dr. Lord on some of his adventures. As I expect we will be tested on both what we saw and what the mortals saw, I hope I can acquire a copy of the notes from some mortal. I also wonder if all the lectures are going to be like this, I mean with us Scions seeing one thing while the mortals see something else. If so, then I will need a regular source for the mortal notes of what occurs in class.
After the slide show was over, Gabby had another vision. We obviously weren't in a good position to discuss things then, and about all I had a chance to learn of it was something about Dr. Lord's Bandmates that we saw in the slides, and that it didn't seem to be very urgent (and maybe not too important?).
At that point a quiz was handed out to the class. Of course it wasn't normal either. Shortly after I received my copy, the words on it all changed. This was not some general pop quiz, these questions were tough biology questions. At that point I regretted not having taking any formal biology classes before. After we all turned in our papers, Dr. Lord said he'd have them graded and ready to be returned by our next session. Of course that's not what happened for us Scions, somehow our papers were magically graded and returned to us on the spot. This whole class today was really one surprise after another. But despite my lack of formal training, I still got a B...which, while not my normal A, was still something of a relief considering how ill prepared I felt. Though I guess my general reading on topics like genetic engineering and bionics helped, and especially my more recent intense study of medicine I had been making.
Finally the bell rang and class was over, but all of a sudden I felt refreshed. Apparently Dr. Lord used some sort of speechifying knack to do something to us. Not sure what it was, but it definitely felt good.
Before he left class, I asked Dr. Lord about mortals hearing us talk during class. He said that their hearing was unaffected, that stuff that was special to us Scions would normally be communicated in slides.
I probably also should have asked him what he did to make us all feel good. As well as if slides like these were going to be common in our lectures. Too bad I didn't think about those questions until tonight.
Also, Bob the-archer-guy-that-looks-like-the-guy-that-played-Legolas-in-the-movies is in our biology class. Fate? Coincidence? Something more?
After that, the rest of my classes were quite normal. But I went to Dr. Lord for some special tutoring in Medicine and Brawling later that day. Fortunately Dr. Lord had time for me, but his training was quite grueling. I felt battered and bruised both physically and mentally by the time I was done. Nothing serious, but Dr. Lord really worked me over good and he knew just what my limits were. And that is definitely past tense as he pushed me farther than I thought I could go.
After the brutal training session with Dr. Lord, I was surprised to find that our "missing" Scion, Sean, had arrived. What with the email and all, I expected him to be more than a day late for classes. While I was too tired to talk much with Sean, he seemed pretty nice. He even brought me a gift from Ireland! It was a set of Uilleann Pipes, similar to the bagpipes, but softer - and hopefully less annoying to my fellow Scions when I try to learn to play. It was a truly thoughtful gift. I just hope I can learn how to play them without driving the others insane.
I'm not really up to much thinking now, but I still wonder about that first class with Dr. Lord. Thinking back on it, it was a LOT of showing off. There was really no need to have separate slides or magically changing/graded tests for us Scions. Everything could have been handled in a mundane fashion, even if it maybe waited a day. So why did Dr. Lord do this? Showing off...or demonstrating demi-godly talents? Or something else. I'll think about this later, after a good night's sleep.
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