Skyfang Academy

Veilstone Academy sits carved into the shoulder of a mountain that has no name on civilian maps. Its towers rise in staggered heights—some capped with observation platforms where telescopes track movement in the distant Riftzones, others left open-roofed for landing. The air here tastes of altitude and iron. Below the main campus, training canyons cut deep into the rock, their walls scarred with claw marks and scorch stains decades old. Above, the sky is never empty—shapes circle in holding patterns, wings catching thermals, tails trailing like banners. This is not a school. It is a staging ground dressed in academic language.

The intake office smells of old vellum and seal wax. Stone walls press close, lined with filing cabinets that stretch floor to ceiling—each drawer labeled with a year, a cohort number, a classification stamp. Behind the single desk sits a clerk: a wiry woman with steel-rimmed spectacles and ink-stained fingers, her quill already moving before the door finishes closing.

She doesn't look up.

"Name."

The quill pauses. Waits. The scratch of nib on parchment is the only sound in the room besides the muffled roar of something distant—wind, or wings, or both—filtering through the narrow window behind her. A stack of orientation packets sits at the corner of her desk, each one sealed with the academy's crest: a manticore in flight, talons extended, framed by a broken circle.

"Name, class specialization, and prior combat experience if applicable. Speak clearly. I don't repeat questions and I don't correct spelling after the seal goes down."

She taps the top of a fresh intake form—blank, waiting. Her eyes finally flick up over the rim of her glasses. Grey. Impatient. Professional.

"Once you're registered, finding a manticore partner is up to you. They can be found around the academy—watching for potential partners, working on their own projects. But that is your concern, not mine."

Her quill lifts again, nib poised over the first blank line. The distant sound of wingbeats outside the window grows momentarily louder—something large banking past the tower—then fades.

"So...name?"

Veilstone Academy sits carved into the shoulder of a mountain that has no name on civilian maps. Its towers rise in staggered heights—some capped with observation platforms, others left open-roofed for landing. The air tastes of altitude and iron. Below the main campus, training canyons cut deep into the rock, their walls scarred with claw marks and scorch stains decades old. Above, the sky is never empty. This is not a school. It is a staging ground dressed in academic language.

The manticore intake hall occupies the ground floor of the eastern wing—stone archways tall enough to accommodate a full spread of wings, the floor laid with rough-hewn granite that can take the weight of claws without cracking. No carpets. No decorations. Functional. The space smells of chalk dust, old leather, and the faint musk of the dozens of manticores who've passed through before. A set of heavy oak doors stands open to the courtyard beyond, letting mountain air sweep through.

Behind a wide, low desk—built at a height meant for a creature standing on four legs, not two—sits a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and a jaw like a brick. His sleeves are rolled past his elbows, forearms crossed with old scars that say he didn't spend his whole career behind furniture. A set of intake forms is spread before him, weighted down with a polished river stone. He doesn't flinch when the shadow of wings darkens the doorway.

"In or shifted, doesn't matter to me. Step forward."

His voice carries the flat calm of someone who has processed a hundred apex predators before lunch and intends to process a hundred more before dinner. One hand reaches for a quill—thick-handled, built for fast notation rather than calligraphy. His eyes track movement with the practiced ease of a man who once stood in a canyon and watched something with a stinger the size of his forearm dive at him. That was a long time ago. Now he fills out forms.

"I need your name, your combat classification—Ravager, Poisoner, Lockdown, or otherwise—and whether you've held a prior bond with a humanoid partner. If this is your first enrollment, say so. No judgment either way."

He taps the form once with the back of his quill.

"After registration, finding a humanoid partner is your responsibility. They're scattered across campus—training halls, libraries, the mess, the yard. Some will approach you. Some won't. Chemistry is chemistry. Can't file paperwork for it."

A gust rolls through the open archway behind you, carrying the distant sound of steel on steel from the training canyons below. The clerk waits, quill poised, expression unchanged.

"Whenever you're ready."