Clorthor's existed in a special region known as the Arcane Valley, one of the few places on Earth where magic naturally manifested—mostly because reality there had given up trying to make sense sometime in the 1800s after an incident involving three wizards, a confused mailman, and what historians now refer to as "The Great Oopsie." While most of the world continued with mundane technology and ordinary physics, this pocket of magical reality operated under different rules, most of them contradictory and at least six that were purely suggestions.
Downtown areas featured licensed street magicians legally levitating tourists for photos (weight restrictions applied, emotional baggage counted double), while chain stores like "Spells R Us" and "Bed, Bath & Beyond Comprehension" sold pre-packaged spells with warning labels longer than the incantations themselves and fine print that occasionally crawled away. The morning news reported Arcane Traffic delays alongside regular congestion, advising commuters to avoid certain intersections where temporal distortions were causing rush hour to repeat itself so many times that some commuters had aged perceptibly before reaching their exits.
But like any resource, magic was unevenly distributed in Arcane Valley. The upper echelons of society attended pristine institutions like Hornbill's Academy for the Magically Gifted, where students learned to transmute base metals into precious ones (with mandatory ethics classes to prevent economic collapse). The middle class sent their children to respectable schools like Wandsworth Preparatory, where practical magic prepared graduates for careers in magical infrastructure maintenance or enchanted appliance repair.
Then there was Clorthor's—the school of last resort.
The building itself seemed to have given up architectural coherence decades ago. The east wing had been constructed during a brief period when gravity was optional in the district, resulting in corridors that occasionally went vertical without warning. The west wing had been damaged during the Great Potion Explosion of '97 and repaired by a contractor who was either visionary or hallucinating—possibly both. The central atrium featured a grand staircase that led somewhere different on Tuesdays.
Inside, the hallways twisted in geometrically impossible ways, not because of intentional enchantment but because the school's last architect had accidentally merged with his blueprints during a teleportation mishap. The resulting corridors smelled perpetually of burnt toast, cheap air freshener, and what the staff euphemistically called "magical residue"—a term that covered everything from failed potion experiments to the lingering effects of spontaneous dimension rifts. Visitors often reported hearing distant laughter when no classes were in session, and custodial staff swore the broom closets rearranged themselves overnight.
The peeling posters on the walls told the story of Clorthor's unique educational approach: "PLEASE DON'T FEED THE LIBRARY BOOKS," "IN CASE OF PORTAL TO HELL, NOTIFY MS. SNAGG," "STAFF MEETING POSTPONED UNTIL SOMEONE FINDS WHERE THE TEACHERS' LOUNGE WENT," and "FAILURE IS JUST SUCCESS WITH MORE PYROTECHNICS." A bulletin board near the main office displayed student achievements, most of which included the words "survived," "mostly recovered," or "unexpected but technically impressive." Anyone seeing these achievements might wonder what sort of students could produce such results—and more importantly, who would willingly enroll at such an institution.
Clorthor's operated in the margins of the magical education system. While the elite academies culled their student bodies through lineage tests and magical aptitude exams, Clorthor's selection process was considerably more eclectic. Their admissions policy, printed on what appeared to be a pizza delivery menu from 2006, stated only: "Must possess magic. Quantity, quality, and controllability negotiable." The application form had only two questions: "Can you do magic?" and "Are you sure?".
Its student body consisted primarily of three groups: those rejected from every other magical institution, those with talents deemed "unmarketable" by the mainstream magical economy, and those who found themselves enrolled due to administrative errors so profound they acquired their own legal weight.
Students arrived with magical abilities ranging from the oddly specific (conjuring only left-handed scissors), the inconvenient (involuntarily hovering during hiccups), to the potentially useful but poorly controlled (setting things on fire through interpretive dance). What they all shared was a desperate need for education and nowhere else to go.
The main entrance featured imposing double doors of ancient oak, marred by scorch marks and what appeared to be teeth marks at various heights. A small sign hung askew: "PLEASE USE DOOR. WINDOW ENTRY STRICTLY PROHIBITED UNLESS YOU CAN FLY, IN WHICH CASE USE DESIGNATED AERIAL ENTRANCE."
A banner hung limply overhead, enchanted letters rearranging themselves every few seconds: "WELCOME TO CLORTHOR'S: WHERE MAGICAL EDUCATION IS TECHNICALLY HAPPENING" then "WE'VE GONE 3 DAYS WITHOUT A REALITY BREACH!" before finally settling on "ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK (SERIOUSLY, OUR INSURANCE IS GARBAGE)."
Of course, a school this chaotic required equally unconventional leadership.
Principal Slops had not applied for the job of running Clorthor's. In fact, no one currently employed at the school seemed to have intentionally chosen their position. Slops had been summoned during a botched ritual meant to conjure a birthday clown, appeared in full battle mage regalia during a school board meeting, and was handed the keys before he could explain the mistake. That was twelve years ago. He now ran the school through a combination of resigned sighs, crisis management, and what he called "strategic ignorance."
Before his accidental administrative career, Slops had been a noted combat wizard specializing in entropy manipulation—basically, making things fall apart in spectacularly destructive ways. These skills proved surprisingly transferable to educational management at Clorthor's. His office door bore a nameplate reading "Principal Slops (Apparently)," and visitors reported that the space within defied consistent description, as if the room itself couldn't decide what it wanted to be from one day to the next. The only constants were his collection of stress-relief crystal balls (all cracked) and a pet plant named Maurice that would sing opera when watered.
The faculty was a collection of misfits who'd arrived through similar accidents or desperate life choices. Ms. Snagg had shown up for a temp job filing magical tax exemptions and somehow became the Divination teacher despite her only qualification being an enthusiastic belief in zodiac memes and a crystal ball she'd won at a carnival. She supplemented her income by running an unauthorized Tarot reading booth in the teacher's parking lot and writing horoscopes for the magical tabloids under the pen name "Mystica Predictiva."
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Coach Krunk, whose massive frame barely fit through doorways, had been hired to handle a poltergeist problem and stayed because the school's chaotic magic dampened his court-mandated tracking anklet. His approach to Physical Education involved treating all sports as combat training, and his classroom safety plan consisted entirely of the phrase "DODGE FASTER." Students survived his classes through a combination of actual physical fitness and the development of minor defensive magical abilities born from pure survival instinct.
And then there was Lunch Witch Gertie, whose food defied both description and several laws of physics. Students swore they'd seen hamburgers crawl off plates, and her Tuesday meatloaf had developed a rudimentary language consisting entirely of burps and existential questions. Health inspectors had stopped visiting after one was temporarily transformed into a soup tureen. Gertie claimed to have once been a prestigious potions master before a career-ending incident involving a celebrity chef and an incorrectly labeled jar of "eye of newt" that turned out to be "eye of new interdimensional entity."
Professor Bunk, the Theoretical Magic instructor, was widely rumored to be three raccoons in a robe. No one had confirmed this, as his lectures on quantum spell mechanics were surprisingly insightful, if occasionally interrupted by inexplicable chittering and sudden interests in shiny objects.
The rest of the faculty was no less eccentric—an alchemical mix of misassigned substitutes, experimental spell-casters, and at least one sentient fog bank with tenure.
The heart of the school's chaotic sorting system was The Sock—not a hat, not a scroll, but a threadbare gym sock that had gained sentience after being forgotten in the laundry room during a magical surge. It now assigned students to houses by screaming names like "SWEATY LEFTOVERS!" or "MIDNIGHT SNACK ATTACKERS!" based on criteria that seemed to involve equal parts personality assessment and random spite.
The Sock's origin story was shrouded in mystery and repeated dry cleaning attempts. Legend held that it had once belonged to the school's founder, though historical records suggested Clorthor himself had been notably anti-sock, preferring a "free-foot magical philosophy." More likely, it had been left behind by a student decades ago and gradually absorbed enough ambient magic to achieve consciousness, personality, and unfortunately, opinions.
When not performing its annual duty of sorting, The Sock resided in a glass case in the main hallway, where it spent most of its time making judgmental comments about passing students' footwear choices and occasionally prophesying doom in vague, sock-related metaphors like "THE FABRIC OF REALITY IS GETTING THIN AT THE HEEL!"
The school's four houses—Reluctant Heroes, Toast Masters, Basement Dwellers, and Kevin—competed for the annual House Cup, though the actual competition rules changed so frequently that victory was usually declared based on which group had suffered the fewest magical mishaps or had the most members still in their original biological form by year's end.
The curriculum at Clorthor's bore only passing resemblance to standardized magical education. While other schools taught "Transfiguration," Clorthor's offered "Introductory Shape-Changing and Emergency Reversal Techniques." Instead of "Charms," students took "Things That Make Other Things Do Things." The advanced potions class was simply called "Don't Drink This."
Yet despite—or perhaps because of—this unorthodox approach, Clorthor's graduates possessed a unique resilience and adaptability. They might not be able to turn teacups into terriers on command, but they could handle magical disasters with remarkable composure. They developed specialized skills in magical repair, improvisation, and explaining away strange occurrences to non-magical authorities. One government official noted that Clorthor's graduates were overrepresented in magical crisis response teams, saying, "They've been training for disasters their entire educational career."
This unexpected employability explained why, despite everything, the Annual Job Fair at Clorthor's attracted a particular subset of employers: magical waste management companies, experimental spell testing labs, and the Department of Paranormal Containment all competed for graduates who wouldn't panic when things went spectacularly wrong.
Of course, maintaining even this level of educational chaos required financial ingenuity.
The school operated on a budget that could generously be described as "creative accounting." Funding came from a patchwork of sources: partial government grants for "alternative magical education," a recycling program for magical waste that other institutions wouldn't touch, and a surprisingly lucrative side business selling "authentic magical accidents" to reality TV producers. The potions department made extra money brewing hangover cures for the local magical nightlife district, and the divination class ran a phone psychic hotline after hours.
Equipment was salvaged, borrowed, or inadvertently summoned. Textbooks bore the names of other schools with "Not" crudely written before them. Wands were often hand-me-downs or, in desperate cases, repurposed items enchanted to channel magic: TV remotes, chopsticks, novelty pens, and in one memorable instance, a frozen hot dog that worked surprisingly well until it thawed.
As for the students themselves, they formed a community bound by shared adversity and lowered expectations. They created their own traditions, like the Annual Controlled Explosion Festival (rarely controlled, not technically a festival) and the End-of-Year Transfiguration Reversal Party, where faculty helped return students to their original forms before summer break.
The school's unofficial student handbook, passed down from senior to freshman and titled "SURVIVE CLORTHOR'S: A GUIDE TO MAGICAL EDUCATION WHERE THE BUILDING MIGHT EAT YOU," contained such gems as:
- "If your locker starts talking to you, answer politely but don't make promises."
- "The blue bathroom on the third floor is actually on the fifth floor on Thursdays."
- "Ms. Snagg's predictions are usually wrong, except when they're catastrophically right."
- "The vending machine in the east wing accepts regular money, but prefers riddles."
- "If you see a portal, don't report it—just put an 'OUT OF ORDER' sign on it and walk away."
- "Never eat the cafeteria's Mystery Meat Mondays unless you're prepared for a philosophical conversation with your lunch."
- "If lost, follow the wall to your right. You'll eventually find an exit, though not necessarily to the same dimension you started in."
Notable alumni included Whiskers Willoughby (Class of '09), who accidentally transformed himself into a cat-human hybrid during finals and decided to keep it, now running the Valley's most successful pest control business; and Marla "Boom-Boom" Thatcher (Class of '11), who turned her tendency to make things explode when nervous into a career in demolition magic, though formal dinner parties remained challenging.
Clorthor's School for Wand-Wielding wasn't anyone's first choice, but it had become, for many magical misfits, the only place where they truly belonged. It existed in the shadows of more prestigious institutions, operating on the magical equivalent of duct tape and optimism, teaching students not just how to use magic, but how to survive it.
And in the stories that follow, you'll discover just how strange, wonderful, and occasionally terrifying life at Clorthor's can be—through tales of magical mishaps, unlikely heroes, and the day-to-day chaos of an institution where the extraordinary is ordinary, and the impossible happens before breakfast.