It's around 20:00 O'clock. They're going to their dorm with Rainer too. They've arranged to play chess with Tharra in her room. They enter the hall of the Magical Animal Wings dorm, where there are many magical animals, from talking to non-talking ones. Nautika and Phoebe's room is on the 13th floor, while Tharra's is several floors below. They go to the 8th floor by riding a large, rectangular flower. It's a magical plant called Skyvine, which is usually used as an elevator. So, in Ethergeist, if they don't want to use the stairs, they can use Skyvine, Poltergeist, or magical animals like Mequine or Stardrake to take them somewhere.
The three of them enter Skyvine. They simply state which floor they want to go to, and Skyvine will take them.
"Go to the 8th floor," Nautika said.
They felt that the skyvine started to move upwards and soon, 2 skyvine flower petals that functioned as doors opened, they had arrived at the 8th floor of the dormitory building for the magical animals students.
They exited the Skyvine and looked for Tharra's room, 08-4, 8th floor, room 5.
Each floor had six rooms, one of which housed Tharra and several other female students. The rooms were separate for men and women. While the 8th floor was for women, the 7th floor was for men only. If a male student tried to use the Skyvine to access the women's floor, it would throw him hard to the floor.
They knocked on the door, and it opened automatically, revealing Tharra and two other students sitting on the floor with their chess set open.
"Hey, i played a game with Alice and Dove Ganger while i waited for you guys to arrive," Tharra said.
Phoebe eyed the Dove Ganger intently. The girl was half-dove. She had white hair and red irises surrounded by blue rings. She also had dove like feet, which she always covered with her robe and shoes because she was embarrassed by their shape. She rarely saw Dove because she was a very quiet child.
While Alice's full name is Alicya Therwins, she is also an elf, just like Tharra. Alice has elf ears, golden blonde hair, and aqua eyes.
"We brought our friend, Rainer" said Phoebe.
They sat on the floor around the chessboard. Tharra used real magical animals that had been enchanted to shrink to the size of normal chess pieces.
"Is it like playing normal chess?" Nautika asked.
Tharra nodded. "Yes, it's just using magical creatures as pawns. They can eat their opponents."
"Eat?" Nautika looked surprised.
Tharra just chuckled. "But not for real. After the game is over, the eaten opponent will be thrown back and can live a normal life. So don't be afraid."
Tharra began arranging her pawns. The board was gold and white.
"Which color teamdo you want to play?" Tharra asked.
"Can i play the gold one?" Nautika said.
Tharra nodded. "You can play first then. The gold one always plays first."
Nautika chose one of the Voxes on the far right and advanced it two steps. After at least 20 minutes of play, Nautika almost lost the game, she only have 1 king Flitter and one Vox pawn remaining. All of Tharra's magical animal pawns were bloated from eating Nautika's pawns.
Nautika resignedly advanced her flitter and, of course, was checkmated by Tharra's Mornlizard.
"You're checkmated again!" Tharra exclaimed.
"Okay, I give up! There's no way to win." Nautika said resignedly. "I'm terrible at chess. I always lose to my older sister when i play normal chess"
It was already 25:30 o'clock. Rainer returned to the Alchemist dormitory, accompanied by a poltergeist, while Nautika only escorted him to the bridge hallway. All dormitories had bridge hallways that led to each building.
He saw one of the students outside the building, a student he believed to be from the Magic Nethermancy wing. The student was holding a wand, its glowing, indicating he had just used it to conjure something. He couldn't see the student's face clearly, but he was a man with wavy platinum blonde hair and very pale skin. His hair and robes were somewhat disheveled, and his conical hat with a wide brim was slightly torn.
"Miss Wyenson, shouldn't you be inside your dormitory?" said one of the professors, it was professor Horstein, his full name was Claude Horstein, he said he was a very fierce professor and also had a twin. People said that his twin had died a long time ago when he was little, Horstein had jet black and slightly wavy hair, his hair was quite long until his bangs covered his eyes, he also had dark red eyes that glowed in the dark. No one knew for sure how old the professor was because he was very secretive. He was a professor for the Magic Nethermancy wing, he was also the one who was always active in enchanting the sorting doors, dormitories and the cosmic class building to be safe from danger.
"Sorry, Professor. I was just escorting my friend back to her dormitory," Nautika said, shuddering in horror as many students claimed she would turn students into animals as punishment.
Professor Horstein glared at her sharply. Nautika immediately ran away. The dormitory door opened automatically. But before she could finish cooking, she looked back at Professor Horstein. He had suddenly disappeared, but she could faintly hear his angry voice. Nautika concluded that Professor Horstein was throwing a tantrum at one of his students, whom she had seen outside the building with dishevelled hair and clothes.
***
Nautika, Phoebe, and her friends walked towards the classroom. They saw Professor Horstein and several of his students near the mequin cages usually used by the Fighters & Hunters wing for their creature hunting class. Professor Horstein was holding several wands; it seemed the students were supposed to clean the mequin cages without using magic.
Nautika noticed that one of the wizards being punished was the same student she had seen last night. He looked exactly the same, but this time she could see him clearly. He had jet-black eyes and an annoyed expression.
"Thankfully, they were told to clean up. It's better than being turned into cockroaches by magic," Evert said. This made many of the students chuckle, so the professor wouldn't notice that they were watching him and the students undergoing punishment. If he did, they could get in trouble too.
Soon, several students from the Fighters & Hunters wing arrived, as it was time for their hunting class.
"Professor, we have to use those mequine," said the archent alchemists. He is one of the outstanding students, especially he is very good at playing the game shadow arena. Archent has dark red hair and golden yellow eyes, he also has a twin brother named Archies who is in the alchemist wing. His entire family is a great alchemist, he is the only one sorted to a wing that is not the alchemist wing in his family.
"Okay, all the machines are clean, cleaned by those rule-breaking kids," Professor Horstein said coldly. Professor Horstein walked away, his students following closely behind.
Nautika and the other students entered the classroom. Phoebe suddenly whispered to her, "Tharra wants to play chess again, but the magical animals are normal-sized. Do you want to?" Nautika whispered.
"Is that okay?" she asked.
"Of course it's okay, we can play outside the classroom."
Nautika nodded. "Okay, I'll join in, even though I know I'll definitely lose again."
Nautika's words made Phoebe laugh. Boonie suddenly flew towards her.
"You forgot your writing utensils!" Boonie said, holding Nautika's writing utensils.
Nautika's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh my gosh, I forgot to put them in my bag. Thanks, Boonie."
Boonie gave her an annoyed look. "You're always like that. I'm like your maid, carrying your things everywhere you go," Boonie said. "I'm going now. I really want to eat those donuts the Derymons just made," Boonie said, flying away and waving his hand.
"Hey, get me a donut too!" Nautika shouted at Boonie. Boonie just gave her a thumbs up and sped off.
"Wow, it would be great if we had seltzer. We could tell him to steal food from the kitchen," Phoebe said with a laugh.
Nautika just rolled her eyes. "Where's your Loomy?" she asked.
"Oh, that sleepyhead? He's sleeping right now, full after I fed him so much," Phoebe replied.
The history class about magical animals found in the mountains and how to obtain them had concluded. Several students, including Nautika, Phoebe, Tharra, Alice, and Dove, went behind the school building. Tharra placed a chessboard on the ground and pressed one of the buttons on the board. The board immediately enlarged, and so did the magical animals. The magical animals that were used as pawns transformed into their normal forms.
Nautika watched in amazement. "Whoa, that's so cool."
They started the game again, this time, Nautika let Tharra play the gold team. Midway through the game, Nautika looked stressed because, once again, many of her pawns had been eaten by Tharra's pawns.
She suddenly noticed the bushes behind her moving. Suddenly, two creatures appeared, startling Nautika.
The two creatures were magical animals named Fluffy Cottonbell and Furgrizzly, two magical animals that could talk. Fluffy Cottonbell is a magical animal that resembles a sheep, and Furgrizzly is a magical bear. Both magical animals wear large flower petals as clothing, and both have white bodies.
"Oh, don't be afraid, we've been watching you and your friends play and got annoyed because you're so bad at it," said Furgrizzly, sounding insulted, and Fluffy Cottonbell laughed mockingly.
"I've only played Magical Animals Chess twice, so it's natural that I can't do it!" Nautika said, annoyed.
"Your opponent's pawn's stomach will explode from constantly eating yours," the furgrizzly said. "You have to think strategically when playing, don't just advance your pawns. Let me play for you."
The furgrizzly replaced Nautika in the game. As a result, she still lost, but at least she didn't lose badly because all her pawns were eaten.
"See! This is how chess is played!" she said.
"But you still lost," Nautika said, crossing her arms in frustration.
"But at least you didn't lose badly!"
"Yeah, well, whatever you want."
They heard the sound of Mequines running. It was a mech ridden by students from the Fighters & Hunters wing chasing one of the red creatures.
Fluffy Cottonbell and the furgrizzly shuddered in horror. "Ugh, that annoying creature must be causing trouble again," Cottonbell said.
"What kind of creature is that?" Nautika asked.
"It's a redgrizzly. "They love to cause trouble, so they're often caught by witches and hunters," the furgrizzly replied.
Redgrizzlies are similar to furgrizzlies, except they're bright red with yellow markings on their chests and foreheads. They have large bodies and are very prone to causing trouble and stealing.