Yes, alright, dungeon diving will earn her plenty of money. Unless she dies. She can have half a gold loaned to her at 55% annual interest rate compounded monthly with a 5c flat fee on top of that to cover the paperwork. She can have up to one and a half gold total this way, actually, if she wants to buy adventuring gear with it. So long as she swears under lie detection that she really does intend to pay it back.

She'll have one gold and swear under lie detection that she intends to pay it back.

Excellent! It's added to her student account. There's no fee to withdraw money from her physical account if she needs any to go shopping with later.

First she'll go back down to admissions and confirm her three-month program; then she'll withdraw some of the remainder and go buy herself a physical sword, as a backup.

Plenty of places are eager to sell her a physical sword! Enchanted ones are expensive. Ones customized to your grip and balance are also fairly expensive. Swinging a Flaming Sword, a practice sword, and a real blade around are all somewhat different, though the Skills she has help with that. A few hours of shopping around and trying different blades will get her one for 1 silver 8 copper. A matching sheath is another 4 copper.

She'll take the blade and sheath. 

Now she should go investigate the local Adventurer's Guild. What are their fees like? 

Pretty steep (10s/month membership, taking 25% of all your proceeds), but from her Finance class she knows she can make it up in, like, a week's work tops if she goes in every day.

She's going to go sleep, wake up in the morning, go back to her classes and everything will be normal. Except her new schedule. 

What to do with all that free time?

Perhaps she'll look into clubs again.

The other clubs with space in Ancilla's big building do cartography, economics, paper and balsawood gliders, painting, pottery, mathematics, history, political debates, and something complicated and almost computery-sounding with wizardry (the other main branch of magic that she hasn't looked deeply into). There's a student theater in a different building, various study groups, a Student Craftsmen Cooperative that sells cheap stuff made by students.

Is there a study group for Bright Sorcerers, or are there not enough of them?

There's a Bright Sorcerer social club - with an advisory not to bring anything too flammable.

She makes a note of it. She'll turn up there tomorrow after her classes, see what's going on.

Her teachers and classmates welcome her back and tell her not to be too discouraged by a miscast! Happens to everyone.

The social club takes place in the hall with the warded practice rooms. It's a larger room, with stone walls and floor and furniture, but none of the subtle string-lines of protective enchantments she can faintly feel on her skin in the practice rooms. It's really warm in there.

There's someone whose hair is fire, literally, someone with eyes that seem lit from behind, someone whose left arm is covered in flaky ash and cinders, and five relatively unmarked people. There's a table with a variety of alcoholic beverages and a few non-alcoholic ones. Two of the group are wrestling in the back of the room while the others float between watching and drinking more booze and chatting about apparently random things.

"Hey, new girl!"

"It's the- Liath, the talent."

"Welcome, welcome, pull up a chair and have a drink."

She pulls up a chair and drinks. She smiles. "Yes, I'm Liath. Glad somebody's heard of me. Can I get a round of introductions?"

"You learned three spells in three weeks from a cold start. In a year you'll be Magister level if you don't blow yourself up first."

"And a crying shame it would be. You've got the drive, and the attitude. Fine example of a bright."

"Gregory," Ash-arm woman says, pointing. "Antimony, Alex, Jeanne, Mendrei, Cassie, Sergei. And I'm Othala."

She smiles, a little deeper than she means to, and settles a little further into the chair. Praise like this is like catnip to her. "Nice to meet everyone."

"Yeah, I'm reducing my class hours back down to eight a day after that miscast, think I was pushing myself a bit too hard there. And normally I wouldn't say this, but you all seem the types to appreciate it - I'm on the dating market if anyone is interested." She knocks back her drink, grins. "Now let me hear some war stories."

"I'm on the market for sex with any other Bright," Jeanne cheerfully replies. "Not so much dating but hit me up."

"Several of us can appreciate attractive and confident women," Sergei comments. "As for war stories, there is the time Othala started a forest fire-"

"Oi oi oi oi I'll have you know they thanked me for it. Zombie army? Burnt to a crisp!"

Liath laughs. "I'll certainly consider it. And go on, tell me about this zombie army."

Othala is too enthusiastic with sound effects to be a particularly good storyteller, and the others gently rib her about it. She creates flames above her head to demonstrate particularly enthusiastic moments of the battle, like the double-sweep phoenix claws she used on the necromancer in charge of the whole mess.

The others tell their own war stories soon after. Some about miscasts, some about enchanting things, most about fights they got into.

She soaks it all up appreciatively. This tells her a lot about what the life of a Bright is like, and surprisingly she's more attached to being a Bright than a noblewoman by now. It's still her birthright, her talent. And it's so much simpler than petty politics. 

She keeps an eye on how much she drinks, doesn't let anyone press too much on her. She tells the story of her recent miscast, such as it is. She asks Jeanne straight out whether she enjoys pain in bed, and doesn't mind what rumours may spread. 

Nobody reacts especially strongly to the pain thing. Nobody tries to press more drink on her more than halfheartedly.

"Hmmm. HMMMMM." She looks Liath up and down. "I mean, sure, you're hot. Depends how intense you get, maybe I'm up for that. Can you take it at all, or just dish it out?"

"I used to whip people. Don't have a whip right now, but I'd scratch you up, maybe some general rough treatment, slapping, spanking. I can take light punishment. Haven't been whipped personally."

"Yeah, we can blow off steam together. My room. All my shit's fireproofed, it's nice."

"Let's, then. I've been working twelve hour days for almost a month now and I need to vent."

"Hah. Take it out on me, intense is fun until it's not." Jeanne's room is in a much nicer building than Liath's. It's a whole suite. Lots of things are decorated with red. She strips naked with a little dance, then looks at Liath expectantly. "Come and get me."

She's good at this, and doesn't hurt Liath back much.