Business as usual in the Shadow Academy. The inoculations had been given to the students. Immunity to the plague was permanent. Ronovi had even had a chance to kill a traitor with his own hold-out blaster once receiving the vaccine. Things, in short, were running smoothly again.

Since the Lyspair Horizons crisis, Ronovi had returned to her darker studies, the holocrons she was perusing proving to be very fascinating indeed. So fascinating that she almost didn't want to let them go. She was, however, expected to deliver holocrons once fully explored to the Holocron Center, where several adept Dark Jedi would retrieve them and place them in a vault that was restricted to the privileged few. But were these valuable artifacts ready to be shipped over? The Headmaster didn't think so. She preferred to keep them in the Dark Vault for now, almost obsessively poring over them with a bottle in her fist.

The night lay thick along the courtyards of the Shadow Academy, sealed away from the harsh weather of the moon. Ronovi and Solus sat in the Headmaster's office, which had been sealed off for their very serious discussion.

"I'm only providing my welcomed opinion regarding your name selection should you ever become more powerful, Ronovi," Solus was saying over a glass of whiskey that he was not drinking. Ronovi had poured it out for him, but it was like she was daring him to drink it instead of actually offering it.

Ronovi furrowed her brow and sighed. "I just don't think I can take it seriously if my future Dark Lord of the Sith name is Darth Whyren."

As said previously, very serious discussion. But that discussion would soon be interrupted. The door to the Headmaster's office opened with a loud hiss, and Ronovi jolted from her desk, her hand instinctively sliding to her hip where her saber lay. His impressive frame moving through the entrance, Halcyon Rokir Taldrya appeared before the steward of the Shadow Academy, his eyes flashing under his green hair.

Or was it Halcyon? Ronovi had her reservations. For one, Halcyon had vacated his post as Deputy Grand Master for personal reasons not disclosed to anyone, so who knew where he was now. For another, more potent thing, Halcyon did not hold the aura of a Dark Prophet. True, looks wise he seemed spot on, but Ronovi did not sense an accurate level of power emitting from the Force around him. In short, this could not be the true Sith Lord of Bias.

The Headmaster allowed her lips to curl into a soft sneer as she looked at Solus and pointed at their visitor. "Solus. It's a Halc puppet."

No sooner had those words leapt from her mouth that Halcyon transformed into a much less remarkable looking figure. His brown hair appearing to be dull against his lackluster face, Benevolent Taldrya smiled pseudo-apologetically as he lifted his shoulders in a cheerful shrug.

"Oh." Ronovi felt disappointment settle on her face. "I would have preferred the Halc puppet."

Ben, with a clearing of the throat, seemed very much willing to make himself comfortable in the space. Ignoring the look cast his way by Solus, who also worked alongside him in various studies of valuable lore, he moved to a spare chair and plopped into it. Then, to the Headmaster's annoyance, he casually propped his booted feet on top of the beautifully carved desk, nearly knocking Solus's glass over as he let out a relaxed exhalation.

Ronovi was not having it. "That's been polished."

"And it can be polished again," Ben replied, still smiling.

Ronovi drank a good portion of Whyren's Reserve and gritted her teeth. "Besides showing off your green hair fetish, Ben, why exactly are you here in my office?"

"Coming up with ideas for my own. It's been feeling a little empty lately, thought I'd look around and see what you were doing to spruce up yours. I can't fall behind in having the coolest office around, you know."

"Stop talking about your lack of feng shui," Ronovi snapped. "Tell me why you're here."

Ben chuckled as if Ronovi didn't understand. "Like I said, decorations. I hear you've got a few extra you've been keeping to yourself."

Of course. The holocrons. Ben had come to retrieve them. The Headmaster did not let her face fall. She would not give away any sense of anxiety. Being an Epicanthix had its perks; Ben, Dark Adept or no, would never be able to truly read the inner workings of her mind. Ronovi leaned forward against her desk, elbows propped against its surface, finally countering Ben's lopsided grin with her own bemused smirk.

"You're funny," she mused. "But I'm not done with them yet."

"Well, that's nice, but we don't have time for a young Journeyman to learn how a holocron works," Ben jeered. "Tell you what, next time you come by the gift store, I'll give you half off one of the toy ones. They light up and everything."

"Like it or not, I'm not treating these holocrons like an academy all-nighter. I mean, I'll do the booze part of the study session, but these take time." Ronovi leaned even further forward in her chair, tempted to push Ben's interfering feet away from her face. "Or maybe you just don't trust me with some borrowed jewelry?"

"Course I don't trust you," replied Ben. " How could I? You and I both know you wouldn't if you were in my shoes. Boots." As he mentioned his boots, he crossed one leg over the other against the desk. "Whatever. Look, I've already given you more lee-way than I really should. I'd like my baubles packed safely away before you manage to get this fine institution closed again."

Leave it to Ben to challenge Ronovi. The two of them had not exclusively worked together in all the years they had spent in the Brotherhood. Ben had certainly been in the Dark Jedi's ranks longer, however, and it showed, especially when it came to the fact that he certainly wasn't taking the Headmaster seriously. Ronovi slowly and purposely emptied her bottle of Whyren's into her glass, downing the stuff in one giant gulp, and folded her hands together.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she teased, "was I speaking Epicant? My bad, it's an old habit of mine. First language in my household, my father was a traditionalist. I said I'm not done with them. I'll send you a little cyber-message in a cyber-bottle once I've got tangible information on them. But no sooner. Solus, my Whyren's key, please."

Solus rose from his chair and fetched the old-fashioned key from the wall, handing it to Ronovi. She moved to a small cabinet and unlocked it, where lo and behold, rows upon rows of glistening bottles of whiskey lay upon the oaken shelves. Ben witnessed it all, from Ronovi's grabbing of a new full bottle to her splashing its contents into her glass, most likely wondering how in the galaxy she still managed to keep her stomach and her brain stable.

"Nice booze cabinet you've got, though," he observed, pushing himself back on his chair so that its front legs slightly hovered above the floor. "Maybe next time you have to abandon your post due to a nasty flu the dirty children dragged in, I'll take a closer peek. And I'll just pick up the holocrons then."

Ronovi slammed her glass down against the desk, drops of amber flying from the brim. She did not yell, but the intensity in her voice was enough to make Ben lean further and further back in his chair.

"Okay, Ben," she snarled. " Let me get something straight. You: Helpless isolated geezer who spends his time collecting pretty rocks. Me: Epic scholar and centurion who's reading them for you. And this guy right here? Checks on me as I do it. He can vouch for me. He can also vouch for the fact that I can take that ruby scepter off the wall and drive it so effortlessly through your nasal cavity that it'll pop out the top of your skull. So unless you've got the pretty Lion himself waving his mane at me, I'm not interested in following your anal deadlines. Kapiche?"

As she spoke, she pushed herself closer and closer to Ben, until the chair under him toppled back and he tumbled to the floor. However, he played the whole thing off with a dexterous roll, standing up and dusting off his robes without losing any face. He finished his little trick with a wink to Solus, who had been listening the whole exchange with his usual silence and keen ear.

"Man," he said to the Praetor, "if she's always like this, you'd better watch more than just your [i]nasal[/i] cavity." Adjusting his collar, Ben set his sights upon Ronovi's scowling face, his left eyebrow slowly arching as he looked at her organic eye. The iris was a deep amber color. Dark side corruption. "Also, get her some better eyedrops. The stuff you've been getting clearly isn't working right."

Ronovi froze. "Solus, why is he looking at my eye? Tell him to stop looking at my eye. He needs to ask me out to dinner first."

"No, thanks, I'm really not your type. Well, other way around." Ben made a spinning motion with one hand and plucked a strand of long black hair from his robe with the other. Ronovi's hair. "Besides, I'd rather not have to deal with your shedding. Honestly, you complain about your freshly polished desk, and you don't bother vacuuming once in a while? Maybe you should do a little housekeeping rather than trying to learn things you shouldn't know."

That did it. Belittling her ability to function as Headmaster, who was trusted to study holocrons, was one thing. Jabbing at her pervasive denial of her true feelings was another. Seizing the Whyren's Reserve, Ronovi took a swig straight from the bottle's lips, stood up, and gripped the hilt of her saber without pulling it from her belt.

"Okay, Solus," she warned. "Stand back. I don't want you getting in the way of my unbridled rage."

Ben started to back up at the sight of Ronovi's aggression, but he was still talking up a storm. "And this is why we don't let Journeymen touch the holocrons. Who gave you a saber, anyway?"

"I'm Primarch and you know it!" Ronovi spat.

"Oh, my apologies. It's just...you hang out with them all the time."

"Get out of my office!" roared the Headmaster. "And take your snark with you!"

Ben laughed heartily. He had gotten his entertainment for the night.

"Well, that was fun," he declared. "Solus, as always, good luck keeping her in line." He strode toward the exit, but before leaving, he turned around and grinned. "Oh, and don't worry about the door."

Ronovi's eyes widened at the sight of her own hair wrapped around Ben's index finger. In the next moment, she was staring at her doppelganger, which still flashed the Taldrya's token smile.

"I'll close it for you."

Ben, who looked like Ronovi, pressed a button on the door. The technology certainly was fooled, for as he sauntered away, the door snapped close and locked. Ronovi had to muffle the sound of anger behind her jaw, collapsing back behind her desk and glowering.

Solus, for the first time so far, looked amused. "And this is why I work for the both of you."

It took only one warning glare from Ronovi for him to exit the office and leave her alone.

The fiction you just read was jointly conceived by Ben and myself as a fun, humorous little piece connecting our two characters and their responsibilities. Seeing as the Wiki Tribune (aka the Keeper of Holocrons) takes care of holocrons and the Headmaster takes care of knowledge, it's fair to assume that they work together. But we wanted to establish a tension and a dynamic between the two given their fairly different motives.

Thanks to Ben for providing the very witty dialogue on his side. This was a lot of fun to write.

Those of you wandering onto the SA site just now will notice that some things have been changed. I decided, with Solus's assistance, that it was time to spruce up and switch around the departments a bit. So a few things to take note of while you continue your test-taking.

1. CORE exams and DB Basics have been moved to a new department called the Department of CORE Studies. Ood Bnar will be the new Professor of this department, given his impressive turnaround time.
2. The Department of General History has been renamed the Department of History, in preparation for the exam changes that we will be making in the upcoming months.
3. The Department of Philosophy has been renamed the Department of Lore. Sanguinius Tsucyra will be the new Professor of this department.

With the switcharoo, it is important to note that the Clan History Department has been closed. We had many reasons behind this decision, and we hope that the new department structure will assist newcomers in finding the exams they need to take more easily. As the DB Basics and CORE exams are some of the first exams Journeymen are expected to take, we figured that it would be better for them to all be found in one place.

A new exam, ToR Advanced, has been added to the Department of Combat Studies. This exam is a prime example of practical work balanced with academic work. This is one of the first exams that expects you to work diligently within the ToR game in order to complete the course. You have missions, objectives, and assignments to take care of. Thanks to Fremoc for creating this course and providing a more interactive level of test-taking. We're very happy to have it added to our repertoire.

Time for graduates! Here are the students who obtained Mavens, Savants, or Sages since October 20th:

Mavens

Dark Maven in Combat

Enapace (TAL) Mirus Cavataio (TAL)

Dark Maven in General History

Varkain Athanas (HSP)

Dark Maven in Philosophy

Varkain Athanas (HSP)

Dark Maven in Writing

Altheseus Levathan (TAR) Troutrooper (ARC) Xan Phraz-Etar (HSP)

Savants

Dark Savant in Leadership and Communication

Troutrooper (ARC)

Dark Savant in Writing and Philosophy

Troutrooper (ARC

Congratulations to everyone.

TL;DR

• Fun fiction with Ben; read it, guys
• Department shifts: CORE Studies Department, switched around Professors, no more Clan History Department
• ToR Advanced Exam
• Graduates ahoy!

Also, Here's another picture of Darth Vader crossing the street, only instead of being a crossguard, he's taking Leia and Luke to school.

D'awww.

Cheers, Ronovi Tavisaen Dupar Headmaster to the Shadow Academy