Introduction to the world of the Magical University of Lille

Short book synopsis
Adélaïde Jameux is a lecturer in the Magical University of Lille in France. When the Chosen One prophesied to be able to kill the Dark Lord is found and sent to Lille, Adélaïde becomes one of his teachers. She is suddenly thrust into the high-stake politics she has tried so hard to avoid. Now both the king and the Dark Lord are circling around the university and Adélaïde, pushing academia politics to a new level of deadly.

Meta

Genre

High fantasy and alternate history with romance subplots.

Location

1850s magical France, in a magical university where lecturers wage a deadly competition for funding and promotion.

Unique selling point

Explore the world and life at a magical university through the eyes of a lecturer. Enjoy the teaching, the entitled students behaving like spoilt brats, and the cut-throat rivalry for promotions and funding.

Tone

Greydim

Everyone at the university is ambitious and self-serving and the atmosphere does not really let anyone focus on the students' wellbeing. The students themselves make use of their political connections to behave as they want without reprisals. Nevertheless, life in the kingdom is generally good and Lille itself is a prosperous city.

Lille by Pixabay

Setting the scene

France and its neighbours by AmélieIS with Wikipedia Commons

The world

Europe is not a colonial power and is in fact still considered a backwater by the rest of the world, with the Chinese and Ottoman empires as the heights of culture and sophistication. France is currently the main power in Europe after winning a big war against Spain. Lille itself is a strategic French city at the border of France and Belgium—previously part of the Spanish Netherlands—and it has often changed hand in the past. Rumours are currently spreading of wars brewing against Austria and Italy.
French kings are elected by the parliament. The current king has shown himself to be a great military leader. His main political concern has been to implement a series of laws limiting what kind of magic could be practised in the kingdom so as to avoid dangerous magics getting out of control and killing people. Those measures have been highly unpopular in a part of the population, and some individuals have rebelled against the king because of them. This group is led by Ludovic de Gaudriault, who is called the Dark Lord for his defence of forbidden magic. Those rebels have taken refuge in Prussia and regularly lead terrorist attacks in France.

The University

Lille is one of the most populated cities in France and so it is also the home to a big university. The fact that the current king was its previous president has only helped the university gain prominence, allowing it to rival with Paris as the most important university in France. This has led many of the elite French families to send their children to Lille instead of Paris or their own local university, filling Lille with a wave of spoilt entitled brats protected from reprisals by their political relationships.
After difficult entrance exams, new students enjoy a wide variety of courses in a multitude of magical and non-magical fields. Of particular note is the recently developed army-track, an elite program grouping together talented students to train them to become officers in the army. Among the staff, the competition is fierce to gain the approval of the president of the university or of powerful political patrons so as to gain funding and promotion.

The University of Lille by Archives de l'Université Catholique de Lille

Adélaïde Jameux by Stefan Keller on Pixabay

Main character

Adélaïde Jameux is a young and promising lecturer at the university of Lille, specialising in the crafting of artefacts through runes. Despite her unassuming appearance and behaviour, she is ambitious. She has already gained the president's good will and now only needs to compound that with a successive research program to be ensured a promotion. Such a promotion would protect her from some of the potentially harmful consequences of politics and allow her a bigger margin of freedom.
Indeed, out of concern for her own and her family's safety, Adélaïde has been attempting to lie low and avoid politics—though not by going as far as downplaying any of her talents. Yet, despite her knowing how to manipulate the people around her to obtain what she wants, that is not enough anymore. The restrictions have been chaffing on her and she wishes she would be able to gain the respect to which she is entitled from her students. However, good sense has prevailed. At least until now.

Magic

Everyone has different degrees of magical power. Using raw magic is possible, but it is exhausting and it does not allow for fine control. More sophisticated forms of magic are performed through rituals, artefacts, potions... The crafting of those artefacts is the subject of numerous fields of study. Families tend to specialise in one type of magic which they refine over several generations. It is possible to guess which family specialises in which type of magic through the study of the linguistic origin of family names—a topic most individuals are at least superficially familiar with.

An example of jewellery with magical properties, by AmélieIS with Pixabay and Vecteezy

"Professor!"

Adélaïde turned quickly, ready to intervene. She knew the little imbéciles would mess up and put them all in danger. Again. Still, she was frozen for a moment in horrified wonder at the sight of green sparks sizzling above Rémi Catteau's rune work—there was even smoke! How could he have ever managed to end up with that?—but more cries from her students had her jumped into action. The normal classroom wards she had created would not do for that.

She quickly rushed forward as she seized the long locket she wore over her teaching robes and poured her magic into it. As soon as the first energy stage was filled, she activated the rune pattern. She then immediately unleashed the magic directly at the green stuff starting to float above the chalk markings on the stone floor. When they made contact, she felt the "spell" go into action and the containment wards form around the unrestrained rune. The engraving on her locket had forced her magic into specific patterns, giving it the properties of a ward of protection and containment. She was able to materialise an impermeable sphere of magic around the bad smoke and easily sniff it out.

Adélaïde breathed out slowly.

No more than a few seconds had gone by. She had been right on time.

She checked that her expression did not betray her inner turmoil and stayed relaxed. It would not do to not appear in control of the situation or she could say farewell to all hope of promotion. Her eyes flew to the young man standing next to the barely-avoided disaster. Rémi Catteau's mouth was gaping open in an uncouth manner. Of course, it had to be him. His eyes met her. He finally closed his mouth and flushed bright red.

"... sorry professor."

Conflicts

Lecture theatre in the University of Lille by Archives de l'Université Catholique de Lille

Political oppositions and the Dark Lord

The Dark Lord and his followers regularly lead incursion in France during which they attack strategic targets and the royal armies. Anyone caught in the crossfire risks losing their lives.

The king's purge

The king is targeting anyone practising forbidden magic. Even people getting close to those fields are looked at with high suspicion. This has made academic research challenging and even dangerous. Attracting negative attention from the king is not something anyone with any common sense wants to do. And yet, the attraction of knowledge and powerful magic is strong...

Rivalries inside the university

While people are not outright killing each other, competition is still high and backstabbing is common among the staff of the university. Funding is essential to conduct research with precious materials, and powerful and rich patrons are the only way to get it. In addition, promotions bring high prestige and a measure of academic freedom and protection from politics that are enjoyed by few. The most common forms competition takes are a fight to teach the most interesting courses, spreading rumours about rivals, forcing others to do menial and useless administrative tasks... And the most important things are a lecturer's good reputation, as well as their ability to secure materials and research time away from teaching and administrative tasks.

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