Nightmare Fuel / Wizarding School Mysteries

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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In the world of Midgaheim, even a bunch of meddlesome youths will find that magic is not a toy, and there are things out there that would seen them sooner dead.

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The Meddlesome Youths

• The concept of lichrot. Anyone who experiments with magic, or even practices it in general, becomes afflicted with it. The result at first isn't so bad, such as pointy ears and such, but then it descends into Body Horror. Symptoms include green skin, warts, Creepily Long Arms, gnarled talons, More Teeth than the Osmond Family, irregular height, and many others. However, in-universe, it's expected and at times considered perfectly normal, so it can't be all bad.
  • The same cannot be said for its sister-condition, shadowrot. According to Word of God, this may happen if a wizard is lacking in self-esteem. In other words, one that has crossed the Despair Event Horizon and given into darkness. It all but destroys their bodies and leaves them as wraith-like beings made entirely of shadow. Lord Dhenregirr is one of those afflicted, which may say a lot about his backstory...
  • One of the AAAM's faculty, Professor Curdletongue, has the gift of prophecy...but he's in constant agony because his lichrot has given him the human equivalent of an infection by the Leucochloridium parasite. For those who don't know, it causes the eyes of slugs to become bulbous and multi-colored. Curdletongue is experiencing something similarly painful as he rants and raves about the future while on the ground. And Dermberder just shrugs it off.

• Lord Dhenregirr is a total loser and a Big Bad Wannabe, but you cannot deny that he's imposing with his tall frame, clothing covered in bones, and the only features on his pitch-black face being deep red eyes and a full set of gnashing sharp teeth.

• The sorting ceremony is not done by some mere hat in this world. It's done by the four elemental spirits...corpses. Well-preserved ones too. As if that wasn't morbid enough, it's implied that these are STILL ALIVE, as they can speak the names of the ones they choose, even the gnome which is merely a skull. Then James is chosen, and all four shout his name at once very loudly like a chant. Even Dermberder is unnerved.

• Margot's positively unenviable lichrot (complete with the typical Body Horror) has all but destroyed her left arm, leaving it a malformed withered husk. Even worse, without her gauntlet, her fire magic spirals out of control. The first time it's used, it ends up creating a fireball that almost engulfs the entire classroom. Not that Professor Evelina cares.
  • Related to the above, the starkly awful way Evelina treats Margot. Despite the pain and power the tall student has to keep under control, she still actively tears her down verbally, and there's nothing she can do to stop it (until James intervenes anyway). For the average student in real life, there can't be anything scarier than being stuck with a teacher that seems to make it their mission to put you down.

• Fairyland is where most magical creatures come from, and it's described as being something of an Eldritch Location. Complete with an Alien Sky, tons of dangerous beasts, and a total lack of logic. In Professor Schwaa's words, it's a place where all rules and facts of the world are but mere guidelines. It wouldn't be so bad if our heroes didn't have to keep coming there.

• The disappearing students. Not long after James begins his time at the AAAM, there's a sudden decrease in students such as the place has never seen, even with some blowing themselves up with magic. No, they have been unmistakably KIDNAPPED, and there doesn't seem to be a single thing any of the teachers (besides Oomlowt of course) are willing to do or acknowledge about it.
  • James convinces Ivan and Gretchen that something is amiss by showing them his findings on student records. During the first to second year of the school's lifespan, it lost thirty students to magic abuse. The next year, it was just twenty-seven. Then there's this year, which isn't even finished. The count? Fifty-eight.
  • The fact that wizards are prone to blowing themselves up is played for Black Comedy, but it's still rather unnerving how students at the AAAM are outright expected to get themselves killed with little fanfare.

• After creating a Flying Carpet, Ivan and James take it out for a test run. But then the thing springs to life...and the patterns on it become eyes and teeth. It basically springs to life and turns into a deadly predatory animal WHILE THEY'RE IN THE AIR WITH IT. Had it not been for Fafgander, those two would be stains on the ground.

• Mr. Mackers. Oh sure, he's a cordial good guy through and through, but he's still a Nuckelavee, one of the most dangerous mythological beasts of European folklore. And his appearence is equally nasty, looking like the typical "human corpse merged with a dead-looking horse", complete with exposed muscle and conditions akin to leprosy. Oh, and his kind can manipulate disease. But again, he's no threat to the students.
  • Much later in the story, we get to see exactly what a nuckelavee can do when it's mad. When the high elf general threatens him on his turf while pursuing the youths, he proceeds to tear into the fool's body with his teeth. And then he sics his personal favorite disease, the mortasheen that the original myth was known for, onto the rest of the soldiers.

• The moment Evelina and Oomlowt both object to how Dermberder handles the case involving Margot. The dean proceeds to shroud the office in darkness, and then rise above them while cast in red shadow. What follows is a threatening Badass Boast in which he demands they obey his words or suffer the consequences. After seeing how ridiculous he was before, it can be quite jarring to remember exactly why he rules this school with an iron fist.

• The youths being ambushed by an army of elves under the command of the Summer Prince. Thankfully, they're more than capable of fighting back after the initial shock.
  • Later though, the general brings forth a horde of kelpies. Usually, these monsters are fairly scary, being mostly water horses that drown unlucky riders. Here, they're re-imagined as spiky crocodile-horses that can talk and look forward to tearing our heroes to shreds.
    • Tournament of Death reveals just how Kelpies eat people. First they lure them in by disguising as beautiful horses. Then, when the person is riding them, they revert to their true form, their back spikes digging into the human's thighs and preventing escape.

• During the fight with the orcs, Margot becomes so overwhelmed by their numbers that her unstable fire magic begins to draw immense power from Fairyland (which has magic in the air at all times), and practically explodes into an unforgiving megastorm of fire and electricity, sucking everything in and disintegrating it. Even her allies aren't safe as it threatens to destroy everything. Thank the gods she was able to get it under control.

Tournament of Death

• One of the first incidents of the Ultimate Wizard Battle tournament was when Wyver Wickam and Henry Pansley squared off. The latter summoned a dipsa, one of the most venemous snakes in Midgaheim. It tore poor Wyver's throat out on top of poisoning him. Since then, there were no fatalities, and summoning living creatures was banned from the ring. But it wouldn't be called Tournament of Death if the rules were not to be broken...

• After the hilarity of Lord Dhenregirr showing up at the UWB wears off, he reveals to James during their fight that he's still a very powerful old master of evil magic by darkening the skies with green clouds full of red lightning, assaulting James with a relentless barrage of spells, and summoning a legion of skeletons to back him up.

• The saboteur of the UWB has certain contestants get struck by lightning after they perform a certain number of spells, activating a glyph placed on them mysteriously. We see it nearly happen to James, and then Gabriev, who's fried so severely that he not only dies, but his armor (minus his helmet) fuses to his skin as he perishes. Ouch.

• As awesome as it is for Margot and everyone else, you can't deny that her new Signature Move, the Doomstar, is terrifying to behold. It's essentially Frieza's Death Ball, but in the hands of one of our heroes.

• Once again, Margot's magic spirals out of control, this time thanks to the saboteur's cursed rune. It explodes into a pilar of pure energy that comes very close to breaking the magic barrier around the battlefield. Had it not been for Chungo helping out, the results would have been catastrophic.

• We learn in this book that not only are there demons, but unlike the fair folk, they're a lot more dangerous, and their idea of fairness is definitely NOT the same as ours. While the one featured in this story is just an imp, who knows what other kind of horrors lurk in the underworld?

• Dermberder's insistence that the tournament goes on despite the increasing incidents and Heka's urging. Then she tells him that he's making a mistake. At that point, he drops his affability and tells her with seething venom that he does not make mistakes, except maybe hiring the wrong people, implying that he could and would fire Heka if he wanted to at any moment. He also tells her that if something does go wrong again, it'll be on her. Dermberder may run this school with a seeming quirkiness, but it's hard to deny that some of his tendencies border on the terrifyingly tyrannical.
  • This blind inability to accept responsibility on his part has some rather horrid implications as to what would happen if something worse were to happen to the school. How much longer until he becomes a full-on villain because of his violent demand to always be right?

• Although he's a nice guy, Eruz Tobael is a deeply unsettling student to look at, with his triangular face, three eyes at each corner, a disturbing grin that stretches across said triangle, tall frame, additional eyes on his shoulders and chest and hands, and his lower body being nothing but floating tendrils. Not to mention his insanely powerful magic whom he doesn't even know the origin of himself. Word of God states that he's actually a nephilim, and beings of the angelic/demonic variety are an Outside-Context Problem for Midgaheim, something that will rear its ugly head in the next book...

• It's revealed that the saboteur is not doing it alone. It's none other than Richard Rainsford and Miguel Esmerejon working together with an imp summoned by the latter. While it's not that much surprising that someone as vile as Miguel would do something like this, it is in fact Richard who' the more despicable of the duo. In his twisted mind, the only way he'll finally find a Worthy Opponent in this tournament that's ended up defining him is by killing/maiming wizards left and right to get them out of the picture. Failing that, he and Miguel can square off and end it all that way. For him, there could be nothing more honorable than slaying something more powerful than dragons like his old man used to...that being innocent wizards around his age. Sure enough, he's Laughing Mad that he's going to be a legend once he's caught.
  • He and Miguel's fates are quite chilling too. Dermberder decides death is too severe...and then traps the screaming youths in a small amulet for the rest of time. They deserved it, yes, but THAT'S why you don't screw with the dean or his school.

• James finds out from Helseng that in four years, his time at the AAAM will end with him facing "The Judgement". Keep in mind that the character representing that tarot card is Dean Dermberder himself. All we can say is that he'd better be prepared to face the most powerful wizard of his time.

• At the semester's end, Gretchen meets a rather creepy-looking witch who claims to be a part of the Letharg Coven. The mysterious woman claims that she can show the youth her true potential, and heavily implies that the means of doing so are not quite within the realm of ethics. Either way, Gretchen is compelled to join her for the summer. Considering that the next book is called Wicked Witchcraft, odds are it can only end so well...