"Alright, alright, let's go then, if you say we have to." Jason said, annoyed. The trio got up from their seats and walked back down the hall. This time Jason was in front, muttering under his breath. This left Derek walking next to Ana. The two of them continued on in an awkward silence, neither being able to think of something to say.
"So what do you think of the castle here?" Derek asked. It was a lame starting point and he knew it, but it was the best he could come up with.
"It's nice, very pretty. A little to old and drafty for my tastes, but still, its nice and homey I guess if you like this sort of a place." She said.
"Yeah, I heard the rest of the grounds are supposed to be amazing…" He trailed off, looking at the dragon eggs again as they passed through the rotunda. There was something about them, some feeling he just couldn't fathom.
"What's wrong?" Asked Ana, looking confused.
"Oh, nothing, sorry. There's just something about those eggs that keeps grabbing my eye." Derek replied.
"Who knows, maybe you are the chosen one then." Se said with a little laugh.
"Yeah, who knows?" He said, and fell silent for a few minutes.
As they walked out the front doors, Ana tried to strike up a conversation again.
"So the weather's nice here." It was in fact an even worse way to start a conversation that Derek had tried.
"Yeah, not exactly what I expected for a school way up in the mountains, you know?"
"I bet they did a sorcerie on the weather here, like to keep the snow away until the winter time." She said.
"Yeah it wouldn't surprise me. But hey look over there, Jason's way far ahead of us. We should catch up before we lose him."
Derek and Ana stopped talking and started to take longer strides to catch up with Jason. They reached him and walked to the edge of the lake. There was a small group of students gathering there. All of them were looking around and craning the necks towards the sky. Derek was just about to ask what everybody was looking at when he saw a dark shape plummeting out of the sky. As the shape neared the ground it became distinguishable as a human, or at least human, form. The humanish thing neared within four of five feet off the ground, it altered it's direction and began to swoop towards the ground instead of fall into it. When the figure finally sopped, or landed would be a more appropriate term, it was right in front of the group.
A few of the students tried to clap or cheer, but most couldn't find the words to say anything. Upon further examination, what Derek had taken for wings was really just a large blue cloak that had fanned out as the women fell.
"Hello all. Welcome to Voyaging class." The woman said with a distinct English accent. "I am your Professor, Professor Parker. Now, I can see you are all anxious to begin, so the first thing you will be getting is one of these nice cloaks. Now let's see, how many of you are there?" she did a quick head count. She touched the gem set into the choker she was wearing. With a flash of light, seventeen ash grey cloaks appeared, on beside each student. Some of the students were surprised by this and jumped a little to the left or right. "Don't be alarmed now, you can put them on, they won't harm you." Professor Parker said with a light laugh.
A few of the students who hadn't jumped away reached out to grab the still floating cloaks. Derek reached out a hand and trailed a finger along the fabric. Where his finger had touched, a trail of dark green was left behind. This spread across the cloth very rapidly. Derek look around to see if this was happening to anyone else. A few of the other kids who had plucked up the courage to touch the cloaks had gotten a few pale streaks of color to show where fingers or hands had touched, but the majority had stayed grey. Once all the students had successfully gotten the cloaks on, Professor Parker spoke again.
"Right, now these are your flying cloaks. They are called this because they aid in flying. This is not the only thing they do however. As a few of you have managed to discover, by accident of course, it is possible to change the color. This is very useful when trying to hid from enemies, or teachers for that matter. Now, this is a very simple thing to do. All you have to do is concentrate on the color and then think about the cloak being that color. Try it!"
Many of the students screwed their eyes shut, or furrowed their brows in looks of deep concentration. Derek looked over at Jason and Ana. Jason had his eyes closed and was sticking his tongue out. Ana had her nose all scrunched up. Derek turned his attention back to his own cloak. Professor Parker had told them to try it, so what color should he try? He decided on red and began to concentrate on the color A nice deep, rich red, almost blood red. He thought. Again where he touched the cloak, the color began to form and spread out. Then an idea occurred to him. If I'm already at are, why not go through the whole rainbow? Derek flicked through each of the seven colors of the rainbow, focusing on each in turn. After he had successfully gotten all seven colors, he looked up to see how everyone else was doing. Most everyone had a color spreading across his or her cloak.
"Alright, good job all. Now, like I said before, these are flying cloaks. So I figure the next thing we should learn to do is fly eh? Now I'm not expecting that you will be able to fly like I just was, but you should all be able to grasp the basic concepts of flight. Now, for a basic levitation, if you will, the concept is rather simple. All you have to do is convince the air that you are lighter than it. That's all flight really is, is talking to the air and getting it to do things for your. This will most likely be the first time you have to do a sorcere using the Lost Tongue. Who has had language class already today?" A few of the students raised their hands. "Alright then, I'll just pop back up to the school for some dictionaries. While I'm gone, look up the basics of flight in your stones." With this, she rose off the ground and sped off to the school. Students dug into pockets or grabbed at chains around their necks to get their stones. Derek looked down at his wrist and placed a finger on his emerald. He unlocked the stone and tried to decide where he would find the basics of flight.
She wasn't very clear was she now. He thought to himself. Well I guess I could always just ask a question, that little sheet did say that that was another way to access information didn't it? So well here goes. Where can I learn the basics of flight? He thought.
Would you like to see the essay entitled The Basics of Flight?
Yes please.
The Basics of Flight
Flight in and of itself is a very simple concept. You simply have to talk the air into letting you do things. The simplest of these things being convincing the air that you are light enough to float. In order to do this you must tell the air that your body is lighter than air. The words of this are Shelet gath sen regli ke roha.
Derek looked up from the words that were floating in front of his face. Professor Parker was flying back towards the field. She came in for a landing, but didn't seem off balance as Derek would have expected if she was carrying dictionaries. He Derek looked at her more closely once she landed. She wasn't carrying any big books. Instead she had a small bag clutched in her hand. Well there's hardly a need for a dictionary now, I mean that essay tells you what words to use. Well it doesn't seem to matter anyways, she doesn't seem to have any dictionaries with her.
Professor Parker opened up the bag and pulled out a handful of small squares mad of glass or crystal. She walked among the students, most of whom had sat down on the grass, and handed each person one of the little squares. Once she had given one to everybody, she moved back towards the lake.
"Now, these are dictionaries." A few of the students glanced around in disbelief. "Yes yes, I know it's not the kind of dictionary you're used to, but trust me on this one. This is how all the books in the Academy come. What I want you to do is take your stone off you body, and lay it flat on the ground." Students began to reach up behind their necks to unfasten the chains that held their stones in place. The ones that hadn't been to Forge class yet simply placed their stones on the grass in front of them.
Derek looked around and raised his hand. Professor Parker strode over to where he was sitting.
"How can I help you young man?" She asked sweetly. Derek felt like he was being talked to by one of those annoying shopkeepers who treated him like he was five years old.
"Um, can you help me get this off? I don't really know how and Professor Harte didn't really explain." He lifted his arm to show her the band of silver on his wrist. Professor Parker's expression suddenly changed. She looked much more serious now that she had seen the bracelet. She looked back at his face and smiled.
"Of course. In order to take that bracelet off, all you have to do is cover the stone with your hand until it opens." Derek took his left hand and placed it over the emerald on his wrist, and waited for something to happen.
"Are you sure that this is all I have to…" Derek stopped short. A flash of white light leaked through his fingers. He lifted his hand and the bracelet fell away to the ground in front of him. "Oh. Thanks."
"Not a problem, Derek is it? Now also, if you want to take the stone all the way off the bracelet, all you have to do is place your fingers under the stone and push." Professor Parker got up and walked back to her place in front of the lake. "O.K. Now that we're all ready, I want you all to take the square of crystal I have you, and place it on top of your stone." Each student picked up the little slightly tinted square and placed it on the stone sitting if front of them. All the stones flashed through a rainbow sequence and then were lifeless again.
"Well what are you waiting for? Start using those dictionaries and start flying." Professor Parker said.
"Um, excuse me ma'am, but how do we do that?" Ana asked.
"Oh dear me, I keep forgetting how little you know. Yes, yes. The dictionaries are under school and books.
All the students now began to access the dictionary on their stones. Derek was unsure if he was supposed to keep the crystal square on top of his stone or not. Not wanting to call Professor Parker over to ask about such a trivial thing, he just left both stone and crystal sitting in front of him on the grass, and closed his eyes. He thought about the words he was about to use, and what he was about to attempt to do. He opened his eyes, deciding he was as prepared for this as he was going to get. Derek looked down at his stone, and was surprised to find that the small crystal was gone. Absorbed into the stone I suppose. Well it's not like I really need the dictionary anyways, I know the words.
Derek picked up his bracelet and put it back on his wrist. The two halves closed with a flash of light. He looked around and saw most of the students were still staring into their stones. Well I guess it couldn't hurt to try. He thought.
Derek settled into a cross-legged position and closed his eyes. He wondered if he should try and visualize what was going to happened, like he had in the forge. Then he realized that he didn't know what was going to happen, and simply cleared his thoughts to focus. He furrowed his brow and concentrated very hard on being lighter than air.
"Shelet gath sen regli ke roha." He muttered under his breath. He wasn't sure if it was working or not, he certainly didn't feel like he was floating on a cushion of air. Derek opened his eyes. He was still sitting on the ground. The sorcere hadn't worked. But that went against the basics of magic. It was one of the only things Derek had taken away from Moonshadow's lecture.
"A spell always works." He had repeated multiple times in class. "There is nothing that can stop something from happening if you put your power behind it. Granted, the effect may not be the desired one, but something has to happen"
But still, nothing had happened. Derek just sat there, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. Professor Parker came over to him and sat down on the grass in front of him.
"Something wrong lad?" she asked.
"Yeah, well, I did everything that article said and the words and everything, but nothing happened. But Professor Moonshadow said that something always has to happen.:
"Ah, and did he say anything just after that?"
"Um, something about it not always being the desired effect." Derek answered.
"What about before that, anything that seemed important."
"Oh yeah, he said you have to put power behind the words."
"And did you do that?"
"Well I don't really understand how to do that."
"Then I would assume that you stopped paying attention to him, am I right?" Derek looked at the ground. "Ah ha, I thought that might have been the problem. Well come on then, let's find your power. Close your eyes. Go on. Now empty your mind, let it drift. What do you feel?"
"Well there's like, this one hot spot, and then everything else its surrounded by is cooler."
"Good, good. Now try and capture some of that hot part, try and harness it. Do you fell like you have a hold on it? Good, now say the words again, but try and put some of that power into it."
"Shelet gath sen regli ke roha." Derek said. And nothing happened again.
"That's okay lad, it takes practice, keep trying while I go check and see how everyone else is doing."
She stood up and walked away Derek closes his eyes and tried to find his power again. As soon as he had found it however, he was jerked out of his trance by a small scream. He opened his eyes and looked around. Ana was floating a few feet above the ground. She hung there for a few seconds, then wobbled a bit and feel to the ground with a soft thump.
Note: This isn't the end of the chapter, just how far i've gotten so far. keep checking back periodically or check if you get an email about me submitting chapter 5 again, that means theres a new part. Please review.