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The Great Hall, being underwater, was faced with many logistical problems. One of those was how to dispose of waste. Some food waste could be fed to the fishes, while most had to be transported to the outside to be gotten rid of. There was a sort of waste, however, that many wanted to get rid of right away-- Fecal matter.
In the outside world, people would throw their fecal matter in ditches or in a stream. Perhaps they would even use it as fertilizer if they were in the farming business. Technically it could be thrown in the ocean. Fish might be dumb enough to want to eat it. But it would look gross, floating there.
That was the problem that the young, upstart witch Jonnin was tasked to solve.
The initial plan was to connect all the toilets in the Great Hall to a small portal in the outside world. It would drop into a lake, or a ditch. The exact location didn't matter.
A trial version was made, however, and problems quickly began to show. For one, you could feel the outside air when you used the toilet, which wasn't so bad in summer, but was absolutely awful in winter.
There was also the problem of an outsider coming along the traumatizing sight of it and the environmental effect of that much waste in one area. Even if it was possible to hide the other side of the portals from view, they were still open to the world, making them prone to attack.
No, the portal had to go to a closed-off area, accessible only to witches. What would happen when it filled up, though? You would have to remake every toilet.
Jonnin believed that he had a solution. The spell he used wasn't too dissimilar than the one used to make a space bigger than it appears to be on the outside. He just made the space really, really big. Limitless, one might say. And he was able to figure out a way to connect multiple portals at once to this limitless space. A void as dark and as endless as the night sky on a clear night.
How did Jonnin come up with this solution? Well, no one knows. For he disappeared, leaving nothing but a few prototypes of his invention. The house showed no sign that Jonnin had left it. All of his clothes were still there, and there was a half-drunken cup of tea on his desk. There was however, one sign of where Jonnin had gone. By one of the prototypes, one with a slightly larger entrance than the others, sat his wand and quire, two things all witches have on them. It was presumed that somehow, he had fallen into his own creation.
How? Did he trip? Did he stick his head in, trying to get a look at the void itself, and fell? Perhaps he had dropped something, and reached too far in. Perhaps he had wanted to explore what he had created. Some even say that he went into the void on purpose, no longer wanting to be in this world.
There was much discourse and discussion on what to do amongst witchkind. This magic was clearly dangerous. But it was useful. It served exactly the purpose that Jonnin commissioned it for. And so, the void toilet contraption was standardized. To this day, it connects to the same void where Jonnin went missing.
"His body is believed to still be floating around somewhere in there, amongst the waste" said Qifrey. He closed the history book that he had been reading from and looked up at his apprentices. "It's quite a story, isn't it?"
The girls sitting around the fireplace looked pale. They had been rather quiet during the lesson. Qifrey had thought they were engrossed, but now that he got a good look at their faces… Well, they looked rather terrified.
Olruggio had told Qifrey that he should start teaching the girls more history lessons, "like you're supposed to. The newest one doesn't even know the most basic of facts yet." He wasn't wrong. Qifrey however, found the large majority of witch history to be boring, so he had decided to start with something which he found to be exciting.
Perhaps it was a bit too exciting.
"That's a terrifying story," said Coco. "I never thought about where the void went to. I just thought— That it all disappeared somewhere. I didn't think that it was an actual place! And there's a body in there? Floating around?"
"What if we fall in?" asked Tetia. "Could… Could we be saved?"
"Er… I'm sure we could find a way—"
"I doubt it," said Agott. "Maybe if you were caught right as you fell in. But the void is totally endless, isn't it? That's… That's how everything can fit in it."
"That's right," said Qifrey.
"I never want to use the void toilet again!" said Coco.
"Now, now. Modern void toilets are made to be very safe," Qifrey explained. "There's lots of rules and regulations to follow when you make one so no one will ever fall into one gain. The void part is required to be small enough that no human could ever fall into it… Though I suppose it's still big enough for small animals, like a brushbuddy."
Qifrey glanced at their pet. Brushbuddy somehow managed to look pale. Richeh gave him a pet.
"How would you even fall in a toilet anyway?" said Richeh. "Richeh thinks there's no need to fear!"
"Exactly," said Qifrey with a smile. "They're perfectly safe! There's no need to fear when you go to the bathroom. They would be banned if they were truly dangerous."
The girls looked at each other, frowning.
"I guess.." said Coco.
"It's still a scary story." Tetia shivered. "Why did we have to hear it?"
Why did they have to hear it again? They were supposed to learn, that's why.
"Jonnin should've never made that mistake of falling in the void in the first place. What lessons about safe magic practices do you think we can learn from him?" Qifrey prompted.
"Always have your wand and quire directly on you," said Agott, logical as always. "If he had them on him, he could've used a spell to propel himself back."
"He should've worn his sylph shoes!" said Coco. "They did have sylph shoes back then, right?"
"Of course they did," said Agott. "It's basic magic."
"Sylph shoes have existed for a while, though there has been times where other modes of flight were more popular. Jonnin's was a time where brooms were in vogue, I think…" Was it? It would've been right on the cusp. Oh dear, maybe he did fly in on purpose.
"Then it shows why a magical contraption you can always have on you is better than a bulky one," said Agott.
"That's a way to look at it," said Qifrey. "Is there anything else we can take for this?"
"Maybe some things don't need magic to make them better," said Coco. If she of all people was saying that, then the history lesson had truly failed to inspire.
"But outsiders go to the bathroom in outhouses or chamber pots, where they have to remove the poop themselves," said Tetia. "Isn't that gross?"
"There's no risk of falling into the void though," Coco pointed out.
"Do they ever fall in the poo?" asked Richeh.
"Not that I know of, though I suppose someone who's clumsy might've once. But you aren't at risk of death if you do fall in. It's true it's not fun cleaning it, but there's no danger. Is this a contraption they use outside of the homes of witches?"
"I don't think so," said Qifrey. "The spell for it is rather complicated. The sort of people who would commission it have servants who take care of that sort of thing for them."
"It still makes life easier for the servants, doesn't it?" said Tetia. "As long as it helps someone, I don't think we should get rid of it. I think the lesson is to always have someone near you when you're practicing new and dangerous magic. If he had a friend with him, they could've pulled him out of the void."
"That's right!" said Coco.
"He could've also tied a rope—" Agott tried to point out.
"But what if the rope snapped?" Tetia countered.
"… Then I guess a friend would've helped."
"Well, that comes with its own risks," said Qifrey. "The friend could've fallen into the void with him."
"Don't be negative like that, Professor Qifrey!" said Tetia.
"The friend wouldn't have left their tools on the ground," said Agott.
"Perhaps. What do you think, Richeh?"Qifrey turned towards her. She had been the most quiet during all of this. "What could Jonnin have done that might've saved his life?"
"I've been thinking about this carefully," said Richeh. "I don't think he's dead!"
"That's not—" Possible, he wanted to say, but he quickly switched his words. "Why do you think that?"
"He could eat the poop."
"You can't eat poop," said Agott immediately. "It'll make you sick... Wouldn't it?"
Qifrey thought about it for a moment. "Well, I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's recommended."
"They'll be puke down there too," Richeh continued. "And vegetables children hide in their clothes and throw in there so they don't have to eat them."
"What's that?" Qifrey asked.
"One time I had a pet fish, and when it died I threw it in the toilet," said Tetia. She clapped her hands together. "You can eat fish raw!"
Qifrey scratched his head. "Er. Certain types, I think. But…"
"Fish and vegetables!" said Richeh. "He can live off of that!"
Qifrey should probably put an end to this.
"While I do appreciate your optimistic thinking, it's been decades since he fell in there. Jonnin was a young man, yes, but even if he could've survived for a bit, there's a good chance he would've die. Floating in a void of toilet waste isn't a way to live, anyway." He probably would want to die. That's not the sort of thing you could tell children who were already traumatized by this.
"Do you think he wants to die?" asked Richeh.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," said Coco.
"Me either," said Agott. "It's an absolutely awful story. I don't feel like I've learned any lesson I haven't learned before from this."
"Never give up hope," said Richeh. "That's the lesson Richeh got from this!"
How? What part of this was hopeful?
"I'm glad one of you enjoyed this," Qifrey said.
Always have your tools with you, remember the dangers of magic, rely on friends, and never give up. Those were just the lessons they learned in their daily lives by practicing magic. They didn't need a textbook for this.
Qifrey got up and put the book back on the shelf. That was enough history for the month. Olruggio would be proud.
The girls quickly dispersed, except for Richeh. She stared deeply into the fire, thinking.
"Can I have a roll?" she asked after a moment.
"Are you hungry?"
"I want to give him real food. The void toilet guy."
Qifrey kneeled in front of her. "Haven't you been giving him vegetables?"
"Only the gross ones."
He would have to watch her more carefully next time they had a meal with too much green in it.
"Richeh, even if by some miracle he's not dead, the void is vast. Even if you threw him food, there's a good chance he wouldn't come across it."
"Richeh believes in him," said Richeh.
Qifrey hesitated. Well, if it made her feel like she was doing something good…
He went to the kitchen and handed her the smallest roll available.
"Just this once, all right?" he told her. "It's bad to waste food. Don't throw anymore in the toilet after this, all right?"
"I won't!"
She ran off. Brushbuddy followed her, but once it noticed she was headed in the direction of the bathroom, he scurried off the other way.
Richeh tore the roll in two to ensure that it would fit, and dropped it into the toilet. The roll swiftly disappeared into the void.
"Here you go!" she shouted down. "Real food!"
She turned to run off, but then… Richeh swore she heard a quick shout back, something that almost sounded like 'thanks' in the echoes of the void.
She stuck her head above the void.
"Are you there?"
There was no reply. Perhaps it was just her imagination.
Or perhaps, like she thought, Jonnin was still out there.