Arcane school story ideas.

    One that ties in with an idea I had is a fetch quest into the Nasty Woods (a la HP detention) for a theamancer. It nicely allows you to pull out any local monsters for random encounters, and show off that local floral and fauna. Theamancers are tea mages, who need herbs for obvious reasons, and in my canon, are Pacifist. This way, they have big powerful juju while still needing the PCs.

    Alternatively, I thought about one that is a bit outlandish, but might work well with certain groups, and the right DMs. They're taken to a door somewhere in the castle/grounds/cavern/basement and told that the door is their test for advancement. Imply subtly but do not direct them to go through the door, and watch the havoc. I pictured things like a doorknob twisting in someone's hand and just stretching away from the door. In the end, it is merely an illusory door and the test is to see how far students are willing to go in testing their own assumptions.

    Discworld was great about referencing this quirk from AD&D (I believe) in higher levels, but could be applied to low level students easily: maybe the number of wizards of a given level are a fixed number in the world, so that a quick way to advance is to strip another acolyte of magical power or life. Think the houses of Hogwarts, but more cloak and dagger. Maybe the administration even quietly encourages vicious competition in higher magic settings to weed out undesirables. This is one of the darker timelines.

    The Boggart could make a great enemy. Not a lot more to that one.

    In that vein, a hallucinated test would be nice, in that death in the test could have mitigated repercussions in the canon world, allowing you to really flex on the players.

    OOH! An Oneiromancer taking them into a dream world would work for that, in the spirit of Psychonauts or Inception.
    That's all I got for meow.