She gets one for him, counting out two silver coins by the feel of the runes carved into them.

The cider is sweet and tart, and lightly spiced. 

Taking the drinks with them, they follow the crowd into the atrium, and from there through to the courtyard on the other side of the building.

The courtyard is more of a park, really - students litter the grounds, studying and practising under the trees and eating breakfast by the pond, lightly menaced by the waterfowl who live there. A group near them is currently scattering away from an angrily chattering, large, mottled-green-and-brown, tree dwelling creature, both tree and dweller soaked and dripping water. Erin giggles as she passes but does nothing else; korniff are harmless, and they deserve it for drenching the poor thing. 

Once they reach the center of the park, she settles on a bench out of the way of the traffic and spreads an arm as though presenting their surroundings to him.

"This is the Academy! What do you want to see first? I can show you the library, or admissions can suggest some good lectures to observe, or I could introduce you to some of the scolars and professors here." 

"Observing lectures might be a good place to start. Can you show me the library first, so I can visit it before or between lectures?"

"Definitely! It's this way."

She hops off the bench snd starts toward the east side of the courtyard. 

Back inside the Academy's wrap-around building, the library is immediately visible. Just inside is a wide corridor that continues all the way around the courtyard, and beyond that the wall alternates between stone and glass. Through the windows the massive archive of knowledge can easily be seen. There must be over ten thousand books on the first floor alone, where more than half the space is taken up by study tables and lounge areas. 

"Do you want to go inside?" Erin asks, "We can move on to the admissions office first, you'll almost certainly have time to take a look at the library before a likely looking lecture comes up." 

"I'm fine not looking inside, though - who would I talk to to learn about library etiquette? Things like 'what do I do with books I've read' and 'can I check out books.'"

"You can ask the librarians! Though I can answer both of those questions - there's book carts near the entrance, you put books you're done with there so they can sort them and put them away later. As for taking books out, they record who took them out and then you have to bring them back in a certain amount of time. You need an Academy badge and slip for that, though. They'll give you one at admissions. You're not a student, and normally they'd make you do tests to mark you as a scholar, but I'll vouch for you as a 'foreign magic expert'." 

"Alright. Thanks."

"You're welcome!"

And they're off to the administration building. That is to say, back to the entrance, and into one of the large office-like spaces therein. 

There Erin voiches for him, as promised, and a man of roughly thirty years (assuming he's not bonded to an Artefact and just looks that way) sets Sugira up with a Scholars badge - actually more of a large metal pin, the backside covered in engraved runes and the front depicting a hand outstretched - and an identification slip, which states his name, status (student, teacher, scholar), area(s) of study, living arrangements, and an emergency contact. 

The admissions official also offers a list of classes which are open to observers that day. These include: 

- An Introduction to Artefact Handling

- History of the Sealed Age

- Novice Life Magic

- Permanency and Runecraft

and a special lecture on the Mana Crisis by a well-respected scholar.

The magical ones sound more useful to him than the history, but history is one of his fields...

Can he attend 'Permanency and Runecraft', 'An Introduction to Artefact Handling', and the Mana Crisis lecture all together?

Sure! Artefact Handling will be about three hours after noon, Permanency and Runecraft starts three hours from now, and the Mana Crisis lecture is set to start in thirty minutes. 

Erin will be attending some other classes shortly - she's a student at the Academy, attending classes here and there as suggested by her tutors, most of which involve higher level magic. Still, she can show him to where the Mana Crisis lecture is. 

Alright, thanks.

Who would he ask for directions to the other two?

She's not actually sure in this case. Usually you can ask the scholar or professor teaching, but from what she's heard about this one-

"Thom Morton is a visiting scholar," Lucan cuts in, "And is unlikely to be able to direct you to your other choices. I would recommend asking the other attendees - I can direct you to any good options if I recognise them."

"Oh! He's the one who studies the Mana Seal, and wanders the world investigating the Pre-Seal Ruins, isn't he?" 

"He is."

"What's the Mana Seal?"

"We don't know a great deal about it," Lucan tells him, "But it's well known that roughly 300 years ago a seal which had been keeping anything magical from affecting the world for 3000 years was broken through unknown means. Based on what immediately followed and what we have since been able to reconstruct from materials found in formerly sealed locations, humanity was being driven to annihilation by a disease which we call Mana Sickness. As a last attempt at surviving our ancestors sealed magic away, hoping that in time the sickness would die out, before eventually magic was unsealed once more. No one knows how the Seal was broken, but we can assume it was not meant to be this early - uncountable people died of it when the Unsealing occurred." 

"Do you know if it's possible for people not native to this world to develop Mana Sickness?"

"I wouldn't expect it," Lucan says, "It passes from parent to child. Even if it could somehow pass to you, no one lives long who has it - that is to say, they die as infants, those born to lines which carry it and inherit the disease. There is no one to pass it." 

"So it's more of a genetic sensitivity?"

"Yes," he says shortly, "The mana in the air chokes them, the mana in their mothers milk poisons them, their own mana pool kills them from the inside. It's... horrifying to watch, especially considering the victims are always so young. Most often they fail in the womb, but there are cases, where both mother and child have a small enough pool..." He trails off, clearly remembering something. 

They reach the classroom at this point; seizing on a chance to change the subject, he points out two of his former classmates - one a full time student, the other a professor at the Academy - as good people to ask for directions. Heun Korrus, the black-haired man, teaches Pre-Seal era history, while Teyla Carver is studying under a number of Academy professors to gain her mastery in Life Magic. 

And now Erin's class will be starting soon, so they have to rush off. 

"I hope you like the lecture!" 

"Thank you. Good luck with your own classes."

And to find a seat, preferably somewhere on the edge of an aisle or the room.

The room is shaped sort of like a small, square amphitheatre, with the lecturer's desk and podium in the central pit, a very large slab of slate covering the entire wall behind it, and the seats going up from the pit to the door. Most of the seats in the back and front are already taken, or are at least more crowded than he might prefer, but there's a few aisles in the middle where almost no one is sitting. The man Lucan pointed out, Heun, is sitting about halfway down the aisle of the middle-most row, and no one else is sitting there. 

Another man, this one really quite old looking, stands, head down, at the lecturer's podium, poking through some notes there. He looks a bit nervous. He's quite wizardly looking, otherwise - big pointy hat, long brown robes - he even has a staff, tucked into the crook of his elbow. 

He should probably introduce himself to Heun.

He walks up, and says, "Are you Professor Heun Korrus?"

The man looks up at his approach, "I am," he says, "Did you need something? I don't recognise you from my classes." 

"I'm a visiting scholar; Lucan pointed you out to me as someone who could direct me to my next class. I'd wanted to introduce myself, first - I'm Sugira."

"Lucan... Ah, Lucan Lethburn! We were in the same magic combat classes. Yes, I do know my way around, I'll be happy to help you find your other classes. What are you taking? What's your area of study? Or areas, I suppose."