Ok, this is my first story up on here so let me know what you think. All
criticisms are welcomed.
I Became a Mage
The first time I felt the magic, I was only 16 years old. I had been enrolled in the mage's school for almost 8 years, but hadn't done anything beyond simple sleep spells and a couple wizard locks. It was nothing that could have saved my life or anyone else's.
I was at the point of my training when my Master, a stupid, fat, waste of red cloth known as Samuel, sent the oldest and most accomplished students to go out into the world and learn their limits and what they needed to do to improve in their magic. We were to leave the morning of Mid-Summer's Day and not return until a year from that time. My plans were to go towards the land of my birth in the north.
Samuel was there to see us off. There were three of us total. Sanwin was an elven mage, who was also traveling to his homeland, which was to the south. Gregor was from a family of sailors. He never stopped telling us that he was only in this to help his family and to eventually help him on the seas. He was going directly to Tarsis to charter a boat back to the land of his homeland.
Samuel was not happy with our choices to visit our families as opposed to go out on a "real adventure" to places unknown and people unheard of. He was too stupid to remember that he had a classroom of teenagers who missed their own houses, their mother's cooking, and their friends they left behind.
"You'll be lucky to learn anything during this year off," Samuel was telling us. "Remember, you must attempt to learn a new spell. It can be either offensive, such as fireball, or defensive, such as levitate or confusion. You must also accomplish something beyond sleeping and playing with your friends. Try to go out and live a little." I wanted to learn a spell that would shut him up.
"This is your chance to decide if the mages life is for you." If this is not true, then we have wasted eight years of our lives in class and at least 30 more trying to forget ever meeting Master Samuel contemplating why we ever listened to him.
If you haven't figured out, I didn't think much of Master Samuel. I respected him as a master and someone who could do magic while I could not. I knew he had something to teach me, I just hadn't found much of that in the last year and a half. The last thing he taught us that had any meaning was what kinds of scrolls were good for what kinds of spells. Though we didn't know any of the spells he spoke of or where to find half of the components he was talking of. That had been over a year ago.
I couldn't wait to be done with him. I left as soon as he stopped for a breath. "I must go Master. I am due at home in three day's. I must leave now before the roads become busy. Goodbye Master. See you in one year's time." And with that, I was off. Free of my master's grip. Free to go and do what I wanted.
I was on the road for less than a day before I met up with the means for my first "real adventure." We were always taught to try to gain whatever magical items we could whenever they came available. Even if the items were beyond our reach now, one must remember that we would gain in experience and power and could be of use later in life.
I met up with a traveling peddler on the road. I was beginning to get hungry and thought he might have something better than the moldy cheese and stale bread give to us by our loving Master before we left. As I looked through his cart, I noticed something with arcane symbols it. It was a rod, or rather, a stick. It looked like the man had just snapped it off a tree while passing.
"Sir, I am magus, and was interested in some of your merchandise, but I need to cast a simple spell on your cart. This will only tell me what is magical and what isn't." The man, though reluctant, saw that I was a true customer and had some impressive herbs from my personal collection he thought he could fetch a pretty penny with and therefore, allowed me to cast my spell.
Spell is probably the wrong word. It is almost more of a trick than anything. It is one of the first spells a mage learns in his training for it is extremely important in situations such as this. I spoke the correct words and many items in the man's cart began to glow with a soft pink light. This seemed more to scare the man than anything else did.
Besides the stick, I found two spell-books for higher ranked mages, two emeralds, and four rings among the cart. All of these were magical and I managed to acquire them for next to nothing. I doubt the man knew he was carrying them before I came along and was glad to be rid of them. It was in these items that I found my adventure.
It was in the emeralds that took a particular interest. They were identical in every way. I had never seen their like. Both were near the size of a baby's hand, clear, beautiful blue, with about a dozen facets and a few arcane symbols carved into the sides.
To say they were identical isn't saying enough. The gems might have been the same. While holding one, then looking to the other, one had to make sure he wasn't still looking at the previous one. They boggled the mind. This was surely a low level confusion spell laid upon them.
I even managed to drop one in the dust during one of the confusing moments. When I picked it up, both gems suddenly appeared dropped. They both had a slight layer of dust on about half of them as well a bit of mud in one particular spot. It was like looking in a mirror. I couldn't wait to get home to my own study and figure out what these were.
A day and a half had passed. It was at this point in my adventure that a Traveler's Biggest Fear began to approach me. I didn't see It until it was too late. I tried to hide in the road ditch, but it was hopeless. It was upon me. I was suddenly looking eye to eye with a Kender.
His name was Noseblow Rockscrapper. I know this only because it was his first words. That was followed directly by, "Hey, you seem to have dropped some things. Here, let me help you pick them up!" I jumped to my feet and quickly began to gather the items from my pouch that I dropped when I dove for the ditch. Again I was too late. Noseblow had begun to pick up my objects and place them, almost quicker than the eye can see, into his pouches after examining them.
I rummaged through his person and recovered most everything I noticed I dropped and some other things that were in my pouch while I was standing there.
I bid the kender ado, and headed back on my way. Home was only a day's travel away and I could hardly contain my excitement. When I stopped for supper I wanted to once again look over my new possessions. I began to look at the spell-books, though they were highly above my level. I had to be careful. A spell-book above the level of the mage trying to read it can quickly make the mage go insane.
After glancing at them, they seemed to be spells for war-wizards; I began to examine the gems. My heart dropped into my knees as I looked into the pouch. There was only one of the two emeralds there. I reached down to pick it up, thinking, impossibly, that the second gem was under the first. As soon as my fingers touched it, it exploded into a green light, filling the entire clearing in which I was resting with its light. I was drawn to the light. Soon, it seemed the light became a destination for me. It was a place, a thing, not just a light. I went to it.
As I look back now, the light was horrible and wonderful, disgusting and beautiful, sweet and bitter. It was all things and none. It was here that my biggest fears were realized. I heard a voice. That voice said things few could ever understand. It was the worst thing I could ever experience.
I could hear the thoughts of the kender.
Obviously, he could not hear me, but it wouldn't surprise me if he could and just hadn't thought about it yet. A kender's thoughts should never be experienced by any other person, ever. I deduced this was a power of the gem, but what else? What else could this emerald do?
I rolled and screamed in agony all night long. The kender did sleep that night. I know because I also saw his dreams. Horrible wonderful dreams of objects, places, and things the kender had seen, and had hoped to see one day.
I was insane. I know this now. But from what I can remember and deduce from now, the kender headed for a tower. This tower had a mage of incredibly high power. It was here the kender was either killed, or the mage took the emerald from him. When the mental tie was broken with the kender, I passed out from exhaustion. I must have slept for almost two day's time in that forest clearing.
When I awoke, I heard a new voice in my head. This voice was strong, controlled, calculating, and totally in control of his thoughts. I knew that this was the mage's mind I was seeing now.
He was speaking with another person, Ogre I believe, and was incredibly bored with him. Suddenly, my body became warm. It felt as if my blood was boiling, but I was in no pain. Quite the opposite, I was in heaven. A totally euphoric feeling came over me. Suddenly, all the energy inside of me was pulled from my body. It could have formed a ball in front of me. I knew what had happened only because I had studied it. This was the magic.
The mage had obviously disposed of the Ogre by magical means. I could begin to understand his thoughts and realized it must have been a lightening bolt. I do not know how I knew this, I just felt it. I felt as if I had cast the spell. The best part was I could remember the words spoken. I could remember the words! I had just learned a spell I doubt Samuel could cast. I jumped to my feet and began to do a dance.
My homework complete, I could go on with my year and not worry about a thing, except for the voice in my head. He was still there, thinking, plotting, plotting to kill someone, plotting to kill a lot of people. I could see his plan! He was going to wipe out a village of farmers! I had to do something to stop him.
"What can I do? I don't even know where he is!" I cried from the clearing. Then it came to me. The one thing I had learned in eight years at mage's school. The most important lesson any mage ever learns. "You must have total concentration on the spell you are casting. If not, then the spell will either fizzle, fail, or backfire. Any of these can be hazardous to one's health." I could still hear his fat lips flapping these very words to me. I could disrupt the mage's spell.
I waited for him to gather his energy. He was casting some spell that would call fire down from the sky in the form of a gigantic ball. This ball would be as large as the city and leave nothing standing. He was reading in a spell-book how to cast it as well as what it did.
I waited most of the day. Finally, when the night had fallen, he ascended the stairs to the top of his tower. He was outside, it was raining. He began to chant the words. I remembered everything the kender had ever thought. I tried to concentrate all I had on reliving the horrible day I had experienced while being mentally attached to the kender. It was this that was going to be my weapon.
The mage became frazzled. I didn't think that he had been able to hear my thoughts until this point. Either I was sending my thoughts to him, or the kender's thoughts were so horribly powerful that they were being picked up through his magic. Either scenario was possible. Whichever it was, it was working. I could feel the loss of control of the magic. The man was losing it. The euphoria I had begun to felt threatened to tear me apart. Only when I could remember that I would not be harmed by the blast could I continue with my mental assault. The last thing I remembered was a blaring light and the feel of incredible pain. Then I passed out, again.
When I came to, again, I was still in the clearing. There was no voice in my head. With my fingers I began digging a hole. I didn't stop until the hole was nearly two feet deep. It was in this hole I threw the emerald. No one should have to experience what I did.
A year later I returned to my mage's school. I met the other two older mages on the road before reaching the school. Sanwin discovered his homeland boarders closed to all. He actually discovered an arrow in his bed- roll one morning. He had spent the year at the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth studying.
Gregor had gone to Tarsis to discover the Cataclysm had moved the sea. It had turned the port city of Tarsis into a land-locked trading town. The map he had used to do his research was over two hundred years old. He spent the time wandering from tavern to tavern, earning money with his elementary spells, turning around, and blowing it all on Dwarf Spirits.
Master Samuel was also there to greet us on the road. Though the road passed by his house and went directly to the mage's school. After Sanwin and Gregor had concluded their stories Samuel looked to me. "Well, what did you do over your break?" he barked at me.
With that, I cast the same lightening spell the mage cast a year ago. I set Master Samuel's house on fire. "I learned that I am done learning from you. I will take the dumb-founded expression on your face as a diploma. Thank you for your time. Try explaining that to the Conclave."
I had done it. I had eclipsed someone in power. In fact, I had at least eclipsed three, Sanwin, Gregor, and Samuel. I strode away from the burning house a real mage. I had taken the black robes, not because of my evilness, but because of my quest for power. I will no longer have someone with greater power than I.
I had learned, through my agony, what real power was, what magic felt like, and what I wanted to do. No longer would I wonder if I was good enough. I had done what few others had ever done.
I had become a Mage.
I Became a Mage
The first time I felt the magic, I was only 16 years old. I had been enrolled in the mage's school for almost 8 years, but hadn't done anything beyond simple sleep spells and a couple wizard locks. It was nothing that could have saved my life or anyone else's.
I was at the point of my training when my Master, a stupid, fat, waste of red cloth known as Samuel, sent the oldest and most accomplished students to go out into the world and learn their limits and what they needed to do to improve in their magic. We were to leave the morning of Mid-Summer's Day and not return until a year from that time. My plans were to go towards the land of my birth in the north.
Samuel was there to see us off. There were three of us total. Sanwin was an elven mage, who was also traveling to his homeland, which was to the south. Gregor was from a family of sailors. He never stopped telling us that he was only in this to help his family and to eventually help him on the seas. He was going directly to Tarsis to charter a boat back to the land of his homeland.
Samuel was not happy with our choices to visit our families as opposed to go out on a "real adventure" to places unknown and people unheard of. He was too stupid to remember that he had a classroom of teenagers who missed their own houses, their mother's cooking, and their friends they left behind.
"You'll be lucky to learn anything during this year off," Samuel was telling us. "Remember, you must attempt to learn a new spell. It can be either offensive, such as fireball, or defensive, such as levitate or confusion. You must also accomplish something beyond sleeping and playing with your friends. Try to go out and live a little." I wanted to learn a spell that would shut him up.
"This is your chance to decide if the mages life is for you." If this is not true, then we have wasted eight years of our lives in class and at least 30 more trying to forget ever meeting Master Samuel contemplating why we ever listened to him.
If you haven't figured out, I didn't think much of Master Samuel. I respected him as a master and someone who could do magic while I could not. I knew he had something to teach me, I just hadn't found much of that in the last year and a half. The last thing he taught us that had any meaning was what kinds of scrolls were good for what kinds of spells. Though we didn't know any of the spells he spoke of or where to find half of the components he was talking of. That had been over a year ago.
I couldn't wait to be done with him. I left as soon as he stopped for a breath. "I must go Master. I am due at home in three day's. I must leave now before the roads become busy. Goodbye Master. See you in one year's time." And with that, I was off. Free of my master's grip. Free to go and do what I wanted.
I was on the road for less than a day before I met up with the means for my first "real adventure." We were always taught to try to gain whatever magical items we could whenever they came available. Even if the items were beyond our reach now, one must remember that we would gain in experience and power and could be of use later in life.
I met up with a traveling peddler on the road. I was beginning to get hungry and thought he might have something better than the moldy cheese and stale bread give to us by our loving Master before we left. As I looked through his cart, I noticed something with arcane symbols it. It was a rod, or rather, a stick. It looked like the man had just snapped it off a tree while passing.
"Sir, I am magus, and was interested in some of your merchandise, but I need to cast a simple spell on your cart. This will only tell me what is magical and what isn't." The man, though reluctant, saw that I was a true customer and had some impressive herbs from my personal collection he thought he could fetch a pretty penny with and therefore, allowed me to cast my spell.
Spell is probably the wrong word. It is almost more of a trick than anything. It is one of the first spells a mage learns in his training for it is extremely important in situations such as this. I spoke the correct words and many items in the man's cart began to glow with a soft pink light. This seemed more to scare the man than anything else did.
Besides the stick, I found two spell-books for higher ranked mages, two emeralds, and four rings among the cart. All of these were magical and I managed to acquire them for next to nothing. I doubt the man knew he was carrying them before I came along and was glad to be rid of them. It was in these items that I found my adventure.
It was in the emeralds that took a particular interest. They were identical in every way. I had never seen their like. Both were near the size of a baby's hand, clear, beautiful blue, with about a dozen facets and a few arcane symbols carved into the sides.
To say they were identical isn't saying enough. The gems might have been the same. While holding one, then looking to the other, one had to make sure he wasn't still looking at the previous one. They boggled the mind. This was surely a low level confusion spell laid upon them.
I even managed to drop one in the dust during one of the confusing moments. When I picked it up, both gems suddenly appeared dropped. They both had a slight layer of dust on about half of them as well a bit of mud in one particular spot. It was like looking in a mirror. I couldn't wait to get home to my own study and figure out what these were.
A day and a half had passed. It was at this point in my adventure that a Traveler's Biggest Fear began to approach me. I didn't see It until it was too late. I tried to hide in the road ditch, but it was hopeless. It was upon me. I was suddenly looking eye to eye with a Kender.
His name was Noseblow Rockscrapper. I know this only because it was his first words. That was followed directly by, "Hey, you seem to have dropped some things. Here, let me help you pick them up!" I jumped to my feet and quickly began to gather the items from my pouch that I dropped when I dove for the ditch. Again I was too late. Noseblow had begun to pick up my objects and place them, almost quicker than the eye can see, into his pouches after examining them.
I rummaged through his person and recovered most everything I noticed I dropped and some other things that were in my pouch while I was standing there.
I bid the kender ado, and headed back on my way. Home was only a day's travel away and I could hardly contain my excitement. When I stopped for supper I wanted to once again look over my new possessions. I began to look at the spell-books, though they were highly above my level. I had to be careful. A spell-book above the level of the mage trying to read it can quickly make the mage go insane.
After glancing at them, they seemed to be spells for war-wizards; I began to examine the gems. My heart dropped into my knees as I looked into the pouch. There was only one of the two emeralds there. I reached down to pick it up, thinking, impossibly, that the second gem was under the first. As soon as my fingers touched it, it exploded into a green light, filling the entire clearing in which I was resting with its light. I was drawn to the light. Soon, it seemed the light became a destination for me. It was a place, a thing, not just a light. I went to it.
As I look back now, the light was horrible and wonderful, disgusting and beautiful, sweet and bitter. It was all things and none. It was here that my biggest fears were realized. I heard a voice. That voice said things few could ever understand. It was the worst thing I could ever experience.
I could hear the thoughts of the kender.
Obviously, he could not hear me, but it wouldn't surprise me if he could and just hadn't thought about it yet. A kender's thoughts should never be experienced by any other person, ever. I deduced this was a power of the gem, but what else? What else could this emerald do?
I rolled and screamed in agony all night long. The kender did sleep that night. I know because I also saw his dreams. Horrible wonderful dreams of objects, places, and things the kender had seen, and had hoped to see one day.
I was insane. I know this now. But from what I can remember and deduce from now, the kender headed for a tower. This tower had a mage of incredibly high power. It was here the kender was either killed, or the mage took the emerald from him. When the mental tie was broken with the kender, I passed out from exhaustion. I must have slept for almost two day's time in that forest clearing.
When I awoke, I heard a new voice in my head. This voice was strong, controlled, calculating, and totally in control of his thoughts. I knew that this was the mage's mind I was seeing now.
He was speaking with another person, Ogre I believe, and was incredibly bored with him. Suddenly, my body became warm. It felt as if my blood was boiling, but I was in no pain. Quite the opposite, I was in heaven. A totally euphoric feeling came over me. Suddenly, all the energy inside of me was pulled from my body. It could have formed a ball in front of me. I knew what had happened only because I had studied it. This was the magic.
The mage had obviously disposed of the Ogre by magical means. I could begin to understand his thoughts and realized it must have been a lightening bolt. I do not know how I knew this, I just felt it. I felt as if I had cast the spell. The best part was I could remember the words spoken. I could remember the words! I had just learned a spell I doubt Samuel could cast. I jumped to my feet and began to do a dance.
My homework complete, I could go on with my year and not worry about a thing, except for the voice in my head. He was still there, thinking, plotting, plotting to kill someone, plotting to kill a lot of people. I could see his plan! He was going to wipe out a village of farmers! I had to do something to stop him.
"What can I do? I don't even know where he is!" I cried from the clearing. Then it came to me. The one thing I had learned in eight years at mage's school. The most important lesson any mage ever learns. "You must have total concentration on the spell you are casting. If not, then the spell will either fizzle, fail, or backfire. Any of these can be hazardous to one's health." I could still hear his fat lips flapping these very words to me. I could disrupt the mage's spell.
I waited for him to gather his energy. He was casting some spell that would call fire down from the sky in the form of a gigantic ball. This ball would be as large as the city and leave nothing standing. He was reading in a spell-book how to cast it as well as what it did.
I waited most of the day. Finally, when the night had fallen, he ascended the stairs to the top of his tower. He was outside, it was raining. He began to chant the words. I remembered everything the kender had ever thought. I tried to concentrate all I had on reliving the horrible day I had experienced while being mentally attached to the kender. It was this that was going to be my weapon.
The mage became frazzled. I didn't think that he had been able to hear my thoughts until this point. Either I was sending my thoughts to him, or the kender's thoughts were so horribly powerful that they were being picked up through his magic. Either scenario was possible. Whichever it was, it was working. I could feel the loss of control of the magic. The man was losing it. The euphoria I had begun to felt threatened to tear me apart. Only when I could remember that I would not be harmed by the blast could I continue with my mental assault. The last thing I remembered was a blaring light and the feel of incredible pain. Then I passed out, again.
When I came to, again, I was still in the clearing. There was no voice in my head. With my fingers I began digging a hole. I didn't stop until the hole was nearly two feet deep. It was in this hole I threw the emerald. No one should have to experience what I did.
A year later I returned to my mage's school. I met the other two older mages on the road before reaching the school. Sanwin discovered his homeland boarders closed to all. He actually discovered an arrow in his bed- roll one morning. He had spent the year at the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth studying.
Gregor had gone to Tarsis to discover the Cataclysm had moved the sea. It had turned the port city of Tarsis into a land-locked trading town. The map he had used to do his research was over two hundred years old. He spent the time wandering from tavern to tavern, earning money with his elementary spells, turning around, and blowing it all on Dwarf Spirits.
Master Samuel was also there to greet us on the road. Though the road passed by his house and went directly to the mage's school. After Sanwin and Gregor had concluded their stories Samuel looked to me. "Well, what did you do over your break?" he barked at me.
With that, I cast the same lightening spell the mage cast a year ago. I set Master Samuel's house on fire. "I learned that I am done learning from you. I will take the dumb-founded expression on your face as a diploma. Thank you for your time. Try explaining that to the Conclave."
I had done it. I had eclipsed someone in power. In fact, I had at least eclipsed three, Sanwin, Gregor, and Samuel. I strode away from the burning house a real mage. I had taken the black robes, not because of my evilness, but because of my quest for power. I will no longer have someone with greater power than I.
I had learned, through my agony, what real power was, what magic felt like, and what I wanted to do. No longer would I wonder if I was good enough. I had done what few others had ever done.
I had become a Mage.