A W

This is a good pace for me. I do have a life outside writing fan fiction, granted not as much as I'd like but the research does eat up some of my time too. I spent hours going through wiki pages and digging through my Pratchett books in order to try and figure out how Wizard magic works on the Discworld. In the end I had to guess a bit and outright make some stuff up. I hope it works.

I don't think Gothic can be the Master of Death. As far as I am aware in order to get the wand you have to either steal it, kill the person who owns or at least disarm the current holder which is Dumbledore so it won't impossible to get the wand but it won't be easy. The stone won't be to hard to get the ring is the Horcrux not the stone so its just a matter of going the Gaunt shack. The cloak however is passed from Father to Son so I can't see how Damien can get it since he's Potter's son.

Selias

I mentioned that in this chapter.

Douchiesnacks

I remember you mentioning that before its nice to know that I'm easing your burdens

The First Gothic. Book One. A Wizard In Training. Part Nine.

The Unseen University Ankh-Morpork. The Discworld.

Magic on the Discworld is very different to the magic back on Earth.

This wasn't the first time that I'd had that thought in fact I was having that thought quite often these days. Especially during my lessons.

The lessons were interesting because Wizards treat magic like a science were as at Hogwarts its... well art is the best term I can come up with. Wand users like to show off how powerful they are by displaying great feats of magic using up as much energy as possible because they can. Staff Wizards (a term I had coined for them) can't do that because on the Discword Wizards have to deal with the fact that magic is a science and therefore it has rules.

One of those rules is referred to as the conservation of reality. Its sort of like Sir Isaac Newton's set of rules. But rather than say 'what goes up must come down' its more like 'if something goes up then something else has to go down' .

An example of this was if I were to use to my staff to levitate myself. With the staff I could go much higher than when using a wand spell to levitate but while the wand spell would just lift me up a few meters off the ground. However if I used my staff I could go much higher but I would cause something else to fall the same distance that I had gone up. So defying gravity with a staff spell meant that something else had to suffer gravity's wrath.

The rule the conservation of reality also applied when working with masses. It was pretty easy to transfigure an object into something that massed roughly the same but you couldn't transform an object into something that had greater mass than what you started with. Also if you wanted to transform an object into which massed a lot less than the object you had you couldn't but you could turn that object into lots of smaller objects that together equalled the same mass.

An example of this rather complex rule was shown in one lesson. I watched a Wizard transform a large cat into a small dog and then back again. This was rather draining for the Wizard in question but it had rather impressed the rest of class (It hadn't impressed me since I could transform into a fox cub which massed far less than I did and then transform back which totally disproved that rule but I didn't bring that up) . The teacher had then gone onto transform the cat into a number of mice which massed the same as the large cat. During the next lesson he turned a horse into a large flock of birds which didn't support his case as they were impossible to weight since they flew off and he got into trouble as horses aren't cheap.

Another example of Wizard magic I was shown was their version of teleporting. It involved exchanging an equal amount of mass in one location ,were the Wizard wanted to go, with the mass of the Wizard. Using the correct spell I could of in theory transported myself right back to Hogwarts (this Discworld turned out to be the same universe as the version of Harry Potter's world I was living on) but I'd end up replacing part of the mass of the school so a statue or possibly a student would end up at the point in space that I'd left. Or my atoms could be spread across half the Milky Way if I didn't do it right.

Performing magic isn't easy on the Discworld. I would of thought magic would be so easy here given how magical the flat world was. Perhaps it had something to do with reality of this place being so unstable. The conservation of reality rule might be needed here in order to keep the reality of this world intact as unlike my native Earth , which makes sense at when compared to other parts of the universe we can see, this world could so easily fall apart.

That theory worried me as it meant that my wand magic might actually cause problems as it didn't obey the rules. With wand magic I could alter reality at whim without repercussions (unless I was careless enough to do something foolish like try to transfigure a body part) and during my lessons I'd realised that my wand magic made me a Sorcerer. This was bad as the last Sorcerer to enter the Unseen University had nearly destroy the Discworld.

A Sorcerer had next to no limits since he didn't need to use the magic around him he made his own magic (which I guessed was how I powered my wand magic since I never ran out so it must as a renewable source) Wand magic did have a few rules and limitations, not many but they did exist. However here on the Discworld those rules might not apply at all since like a Sorcerer I could make my own magic.

Which meant that I could quite possibly destroy the world either by destabilising the messed up rules of reality around here to the point where 'normal physics' took over and made the Discworld cease to exist. Or worse I could rip open a whole to the Dungeon Dimensions. Which are nasty places that contain Unspeakable Horrors of some sort (and after reading one books about them I really wished they were called Unprintable Horrors as well) which would flood into this universe like a tide washing away all existence. With this in mind it would be no surprise to discover that I was using my wand as little as possible.

There were, thankfully, types of magic that I could perform on the Discworld without having to worry about destabilising reality or dropping stones on people.

Ritual magic like summoning demons or even Death himself was actually rather easy. Summoning Death required more than one Wizard and wasn't to be done lightly but wasn't actually that hard. Demons were easy to summon and rather comical really. You had to be sure to keep them contained and to make the right offerings or it could go wrong but done right demon summoning was an excellent way to gather information as demons seemed to be more aware of what was going in a big picture sense.

Still as interesting and scary as it was to learn about a new kind of Wizardry I'd much rather have been learning Witchcraft with Luna in the Ramtop Mountains, and not just because it ran far less risk of me punching holes in the universe.

I'd thought that I would be learning Witchcraft along with Luna over in the Ramtops but that turned out not to be the case as Granny Weatherwax (who turned out to be the tutor the Traveller had set up for us) didn't think a Wizard (read male) could learn Witchcraft. There were male Witches, they were called Warlocks, but only a Warlock would teach a boy to use Witchcraft and since I had no idea how to find a Warlock I'd been told to take a mail cart to Ankh-Morpork. I hadn't even had anywhere to hang my hat for the night.

However I being a fan major fan of the Discworld books knew the local customs, so I had known that it was traditional not to turn up empty handed at a Witches' home empty. Before I'd left the school Tizzy had aided me in acquiring a bottle of Oak Matured Mead and some Honeydukes chocolate as well as a bottle Elf made wine (House Elves ran the Wizarding World's Vineyards down in Southern France) a bottle of which ended up going to Nanny Ogg who had decided to visit her friend at the time we were scheduled to arrive for reasons I never found out.

These gifts (along with the awesome power of a twelve year old boy's puppy dog stare method of begging) had gotten me a roof over my head for the night and a chance to learn the magical art of Borrowing. Before being sent off to Ankh-Morpork which the Traveller had accounted for according to his latest note.

Still I was glad I got to stay one night and learn the art of Borrowing as it had been something I had wanted to learn.

Borrowing is an awesome ability which allows a magic user to 'piggyback' their mind on to the mind of another. At my level all I could do was experience whatever it was the animal experienced while my mind 'piggybacked' this allowing me to share the creature's awareness of its surroundings. It was a great way to get a bird's eye view of an area without actually having to fly. The only hard part had been not letting my fear of heights led to bird I was borrowing crashing into a tree.

With practice (something I'd promised Mistress Weatherwax I wouldn't do until Luna learned enough to supervise my Borrowing) I would be able to direct the creature I was 'piggybacking' by subtly prodding to go somewhere I wished it to which would allow me to use the animal as a sort of living remote surveillance device. It would be great for spying on people or to investigate an area without risking my own hide.

I might just end up sticking with a crystal ball as it was a lot less hassle even if it wasn't as a cool as Borrowing. The Discworld crystal balls didn't see the future (at least not the ones made by Wizards) they were used to spy on people or at least the places the people you wanted to spy upon could be found. It was really difficult to spy on a moving target and you had to know what the place you were spying upon looked liked as well. If you had the knack for scrying you could locate a person on the move with a crystal ball but it was tricky.

Ironically despite the fact that the crystal balls were very expensive to make most Wizards outgrew the need for them quite quickly during their education. An experienced Wizard (something I wasn't) could use a mirror or even a bowl of water to scry for something. But since I had I only had a year of education in magic I did need such devices.

Staff magic was rather good with devices as using them avoided a lot of unnecessary effort and it avoided the risking of the fabric of reality, which was always a plus.

Getting a crystal ball (in fact I had a spare) hadn't been hard for me because when I arrived at the University they'd been expecting me. Apparently my 'benefactor' had arranged things for me so I'd been made a student and I'd been given... well half buried in everything a trainee Wizard would need.

I had, upon arrival, been presented with my official pointy hat. The University supplied hat was much more colourful than my school one ,which I'd never worn, yet it somehow suited me.

I'd gotten a Wizard's staff which admittedly was rather puny and small but according to my tutors it would grow as my power grew. That had been a literal statement it actually grew like it was still living wood albeit without spouting leaves or roots, two things wood needed in order to grow. This worked because it soaked up a Wizard's magic. Which I took to mean that a Staff Wizard either had magic some magic in him or that when he used the magic around him it passed through him and that some of it would be stored in his staff.

The staffs could also hold spells this allowed a Wizard to perform feats of magic without exhausting himself. For now all mine could do was shock people it was a nasty shock meant to make people think I could do worse and had been put into the staff due to thieves guild habit of mugging people as a way of welcoming them to the city.

No thief would attempt to rob an adult Wizard but I looked my age and therefore I'd looked like easy pickings. Or at least I would have had I not thrown my would-be muggers into the river. This being Ankh-Morpork the crooks had bounced rather than make a splash but the message had been sent. However they hadn't been guild members as guild members would of shown me their business cards before trying to take my goods and would have offered me the chance to pay a protection fee to avoid being robbed at that point or for a set amount of time into the future.

The actual guild had sent me a letter of apology for allowing a couple of amateurs to try and mug me (the guild members meant to mug me had been delayed that afternoon) they'd also waved my protection fee for the next few months as part of the apology. I guessed that they didn't want me throwing guild members into the river should I be robbed by card members of the guild as the river did have a habit of being on fire sometimes.

It also paid to be friendly to Wizard's in training because one day soon I'd be trained and given I could throw people of bridges using magic as a kid they'd figured out that I was just going to get more dangerous very quickly. It was so nice have organised crime with government oversight. It made things much more civilized.

The only negative to the whole situation upon my arrival was that I had been presented with Wizard robes and shoes. Men in my opinion should wear trousers and the shoes looked like something that should only be worn by character in pantomimes. Thankfully I was getting away with wearing the robes over jeans and a t-shirt. And I was very grateful that I could wear a belt as while I had a great metabolism my waist line just wasn't up to the sheer amount of food I was getting at the five daily meals served here.

Using magic, like any activity which required effort, taxed the body so magic users had to eat along. This was the reason for all the school feasts back at Hogwarts. It wasn't because Wand Wizards and Witches are greedy its because they use up a lot of energy in spell work. My weight was going up because I wasn't using any magic.

Staff Wizards are the same but some of the teachers here at the university don't do much actual magic as their work is more theory than practical, or sometimes non-existent given the way teaching is done around here. Which explains the lack of trousers there waist lines can't be contained.

This laziness and expanding waist lines was due to a tradition here at the university. The tradition was that anyone who passes the exams (of which there are many if you want to be a Wizard of rank but even you don't want to be a high rank you can still teach as Rincewind does) can become a teacher if they can find an office not in use and a subject not being taught.

However none of the teaching staff are actually required to teach student. Most of those who do are the younger and skinnier ones. But as far as I can tell very few of the teachers offer courses. Some of them are involved with legitimate research and a few do use their talents to aid the city. But mostly this just means that they have chairs on different committees and go to meeting to advise people who will ignore their advice. And to be fair the Wizards that try to teach are very good at what they do.

Still there's a great lack of actual teaching here so I can only assume that the exams are more Wizard general knowledge sort of things that test how much the students learn from reading books rather than from doing classwork. It would explain the amount of study periods on my time table, its mostly a schedule for meal times with a few hour long classes

I'd quickly come to understand that the point of the Unseen University wasn't to train young men to use magic its true purpose was to keep Wizards out of trouble. By keeping kept busy inside the University with giving or attending boring lectures, doing almost pointless research and sitting down to really big meals they couldn't be out in the real world causing trouble.

Its my suspicion that the Unseen University was set up a ancient and clever coven of Witches who wanted to keep men out of the whole business of using magic for productive purposes like helping people, but as of yet I have no proof of this.

Knowing this made me feel as if my time spent here was rather pointless. I could only just hope that Luna was doing something more worthwhile with her time.

Lancre. The Ramtop Mountains. The Discworld.

"Luna, dear what are you doing" inquired Nanny Ogg who was visiting Granny Weatherwax under some pretence in order to score more of the House Elf made wine.

Currently Luna was standing over Mistress Weatherwax with a paintbrush and was writing on a signboard the elderly Witch was holding while lying flat down on the bed.

"I'm correcting Granny's grammar" explained the blonde girl from Earth "It should say 'I AM NOT DEAD' rather than 'I ATE'NT DEAD'"

"Well as long as your using your time productively" replied Nanny Ogg before heading for the pantry to 'borrow' some wine.

The Unseen University Ankh-Morpork. The Discworld.

While sitting in some classroom I checked over my time table to see what lecture I had next (this was a bit hit and miss due to some of the Unseen University existing in different time zones then the others) I noticed that I was late (or possibly two hours early) for Professor Rincewind's 'class' on Dangerous and Unusual Geography.

Truth be told this 'class' was mostly about how dangerous this world was. Rincewind did offer some good advice on running away methods. These methods were rather effective when one is being chased by the likes of the Personification of Death or Lovecraftian Horrors from Dimension X. And he always told us never to underestimate the value of having half a brick in a sock on your person.

I didn't really need to worry about tending the lectures I was suppose to as there was no register for the students, as that would involve the teachers having to learn the student's names, so I found the room I'd go if not I'd find any lecture and just sit there while a voice somehow even more boring than Binns droned on giving me plenty of time to read. Some students napped during lectures but I didn't as naps were taken into account on my schedule.

If I couldn't find any lectures to sit in on I'd head to the library. It was fun in the library as the Librarian seemed to like me I guessed this was because I had for a short time been a librarian myself. I could also understand everything the Librarian said to me.

This was because the Traveller had enchanted the fox head amulets all the Outcasts wore but since Luna and I didn't need our amulets to give us mental defences he'd made it so our amulets allowed us to understand any form of communication and to be understood by others. Which didn't mean that I could speak orang-utan it just meant that I understood what the Librarian meant when he made an Oook noise. That wasn't so strange here but anywhere else the fox head amulet would be an impressive tool.

Using one of the few wand spells I dared I got my wand to point me in the direction of the library and headed for the only library in the known universe that advised you to take camping equipment with you when you went browsing for something to read before bed. I could use the point me spell so I didn't bother and if things got really bad Tizzy would save me.

The first time Tizzy had turned up here on the Discworld had been a major surprise for me as I hadn't imagined that House Elves could travel through space (and possibly time) like that. I'd questioned the Elf to try and find out how she did it hoping that I could learn to do the same but she had no idea how she did it. All she could tell me was that House Elves go where their master or mistress need them to and that they can find their master or mistress when called no matter where (and possibly when) they are. But that didn't stop me from wondering how the heck Tizzy had travelled light years to get to the Discworld.

I'd been tempted to try and send Tizzy off to somewhere else like say the Lost City Of Atlantis which had been destroyed by a magical catastrophe of some sort but that seemed foolish as there was no sense in putting the Elf in danger. Still it was nice to know that I had a way to get home no matter where in this magical universe I was.

Using the point me spell again I finally made it to the library and after only half an hour of wandering around I found the front desk.

"Oook!" greeted the Librarian.

"Morning, Librarian. How are you today" I replied.

It always paid to be polite to apes that could rip your arm off and beat you to death with the soggy end.

"I'm looking for spell books" I told the hairy animal after exchanging pleasantries "I want to try memorising a few spells".

You couldn't learn staff magic spells the traditional way. It was a bit like D&D magic in that a Wizard memorised spells only you never had to re-memorise the spell as the spell stayed in your head forever in fact to make room for more spells you had to use a spell to make you forget the spells already in your head.. That alone was enough to put me off the whole thing but I'd decided that it would be a good idea to insert a few spells into my head as they might come in handy one day

Spells took up a lot of what was called mindspace which had nothing to do with memory per say it was just that there was a limited amount of room in a person's head to store spells. The more complex the spell the more room it took up. Rincewind had one of the eight spells used to create the Discworld in his head and it prevented him from storing any others in there due its complexity, or at least that was how I understood it to work.

I also understood that the more powerful and more experienced a wizard got the more mindspace he had. I might be powerful but I didn't have experience so that was why I wasn't going to risk trying to store a few dozen spells in the old noggin.

Even simple spells could take up a lot of room hence why I wouldn't be risking more than three maybe four spells. The reason why even simple spells like say a spell to create a fireball took up so much room was that it wasn't just a matter of making a ball of fire appear in your hand so you could throw it. You had to be able to form the fireball safely. Then you had to not get your hand horribly burned by the fireball. The fireball also had to stay intact when you threw it and then not stay intact when it something. And it got more complex if you wanted a fireball that would do the moving part for you and even change course to hit a moving target.

Given the sheer complexity of just having a spell for a fireball it was easy to understand why these Wizards used staffs. It was much easier to simply hit people with a big piece of heavy wood. It was much better to have as few spells as possible because you might need to fill your head with new spells quickly so not bothering with offensive spells was a good idea.

However I was going to fill my head with spells since I wouldn't need the spells used to pass exams or perform party tricks down the pub like the older students.

At least learning the spells didn't prevent you from performing the rituals I'd learned here nor would they stop me from learning more wand magic as the spells from the books here were more like living creatures you could play host to rather than information to be learned.

"Oook" said the ape.

"I'll be careful" I promised "I know I should wait but I won't be here much longer. This is just a summer trip to me I have to go back to Roundworld".

"Oook?" the Librarian asked.

"No its not that Roundworld mine had magic on it".

I was somewhat worried about the version of Earth under Hex's protection. The magical AI seemed to be looking after a version of Earth that could be the version of Earth that I was born on but its not the Earth I live on now as it lacks magic and Narrativium.

Narrativuim is an element present in what people from my world would call fictional universes its the cause of Narrative Causality which is why all fictional universes work as stories. The reason why things happen in stories is because the plot says they should. Reality bends to the whims of the story because these things need to happen. It applies in the Wizarding World to. The hero will defeat the big bad. The girls gets the boy she's crushed on since forever. And so on and so.

On the Discworld Narrativuim is a measurable force governed by rules everyone seems to know. I haven't quite figured out how to use these rules my advantage but I'd at least gotten to the point were I'm not surprised by the weirdness going on around me.

"Oook" stated the keeper of books. "Oook oook oook, ook ook".

"Don't worry I don't need the chalk" I assured as I walked off "I'll try to follow your direction, and thanks".

What a nice primate to talk to and he was rather handy with the directions as he knew all the shortcuts, including the ones than involved walking past shelves of book that were in other libraries some of which weren't even on the Discworld. L-shape was strange that way.

After navigating a series of book shelves I got chased by a rather hungry looking dark arts tome until I bumped into roving band of older and very feral students who took the old book down with some well placed jabs of their spears. In thanks I pointed them to the way and carried on heading to the location the ape facility member had hold me about. The point me spell came in very handy as I could simply name the place I was going even if I didn't what it was.

In the end my trip led me back to the front desk only I was now behind the front desk now in a part of the library that even its caretaker had trouble reaching due to the massive piles of books blocking the way. Had I tried to climb over the books to get here thinking that it would be easier I would have surely needed an oxygen mask.

The Librarian joined me and took me to a collection of books most of which were chained down. A measure taken not to prevent theft but to save lives. These books were far more horrible than the dark tomb that had chased me. That book had really been no more dangerous than Hagrid's Monster Book Of Monsters.

With a mighty whack the Librarian made the largest of the black leather books calm down and started to undo the chain.

"What spells are in these books?" I asked wondering what sort of black arts could be contained within them.

"Oook".

Necromancy, Demoniac Summoning and Archchancellor's extra hot curry recipes. Very dark arts indeed.

"Oook".

The book I was going to read was on war magic, nasty stuff not really evil just very dangerous. I could tell that by the fireball spell the furred creature was pointing to. It sounded nasty and something people would underestimate given that the illustration made it look like I'd be throwing a spark rather than something that had the effect of going off like a grenade. It didn't say grenade as that word meant nothing to the author of this war magic compendium but the effects were pretty much the same only the 'grenade' could be thrown like a dart.

"Oook".

"Maybe something a little less advanced would be better" I agreed.

Pages were turned and I found one that I liked.

"Flaming Sphere" I read out "a sphere filled with flame that will burn safely until the sphere is broken. The caster of this spell can direct the sphere to its target and if directed with enough force the protective sphere will break unleashing the flame in an energetic burning attack".

Weaker than the first spell I'd read but it sounded a lot safer. Whatever its counter effect was would be less extreme as well.

"Oook?".

"Yeah that looks good" I answered "I don't want to be found lacking a good offensive spell if my wa... staff is ever taken from me".

"Oook Oook".

"I'm to young to drink". I pointed out.

"Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook Oook"

I'd forgotten that there was no such thing as a teenager on worlds like this. You were either a child or an adult and since I was an apprentice Wizard I was an adult in the eyes of the law. Plus it helped that I looked older than I was as long as I acted older.

"Oook Oook?"

I considered what to say before replying.

"Maybe, it really depends on the flow of time here at University. I have to get my betrothed back to her Father before the Summer holidays end. She's suppose to met me in Pseudopolis at the end of the week. So we can catch a lift. I wanted to check at Braseneck College before we went home so I need to get there the day before we leave".

It wouldn't take to long to get to Pseudopolis but I was little worried about getting there after a night on the town. I hadn't risked apperating on the Discworld but Tizzy should be able to get me there.

"Oook!"

"Your right its only one pub. Had bad could a place called the Mended Drum be".

Despite having said that something at the back of mind was nagging at me. The name of the pub sounded awfully familiar

"Oook"

"Oh no I can't sing or play the guitar".

"Oook Oook"

"There's a spell to that let's you play any instrument you want perfectly for a couple of hours. I'm surprised it didn't get used during that whole Soul Music thing".

"Oook" the Librarian explained.

I laughed loudly at that it had been rather clever for him to do that.

"Oh okay then guess it could come in handy".

I had no musical talent so that seemed like a good spell. I'd risk three so as long as my third spell was something defensive it would be okay to learn this guitar hero spell.

"Oook" offered the simian

"Sure but take it slow" I requested as I climbed on his back "I have a fear of heights".

With grace and agility an Olympic gold medal winner in gymnastics would envy the orang-outang leapt on top of a book shelf and carried me off deeper into the library at great speed. I should have appreciated the lift but all I could was scream.

"AHHHHHH!"