by Bob Dattolo
“Umm, not to cast them in a better light, but they were thinking I was just some dumb schoolgirl and they could do what they wanted to me. It’s just my luck that I’m backed by someone as powerful as she is.”
Headmaster Burnes looked between the two of us, “You called your mother…Rasphael?”
“Yeah.”
“I…see.” He spared me another look before shrugging, “Then I think my research here is done.” He left without waiting for a response.
“Umm, that’s it? He’s just leaving?”
Ms. Darvel laughed, but it was more heartfelt this time, “What else can he do? Once it moves to a challenge, we’re rather out of options. Then again, once she became involved, we’re really out of options. Or most of them.”
I gave her a minute, “She call you about going to the movies or to dinner?”
She snorted, “Yeah. She did. We’re going out tonight. She contacted me a bit ago and asked if we could move the time out 15 minutes. She mentioned that she had a few loose ends to clean up.”
“15 minutes?” Steph asked. “She may be destroying an entire Pride and she asked for another quarter hour?”
“Yeah. Maybe she has to wash her hands afterwards?”
I’m happy to say that we all laughed at that.
The weekend passed faster than you’d think. Or, no, it took 48 hours for Saturday and Sunday to pass, just like it normally does, it’s just that they seemed to fly by to me.
Mom confirmed that Phil died with his Pride late Friday night after she got home from the movie and dinner with Jennifer and went back to the Pride house to review assets. Apparently she was going to let him go and even offered it, but he attacked.
That was a poor choice.
The rest of the weekend was spent learning the new chapters in my defense book, spending time with friends, and getting up to just a bit of activity that would have sent me to hell not that long ago.
Not that just being me wouldn’t have done that too, but you know what I mean.
It was a fantastic weekend, and I can’t wait to have more like it.
Classes on Monday were weirdly subdued. I didn’t interact with the freshman and sophomore classes much, so I didn’t realize they were so thrown off until everyone was together for breakfast Monday morning. They acted like I was going to attack every time I got up, but Steph convinced me to just let it go. Everyone at my table understands what happened, and that’s pretty much all that I care about.
Magics class threw me a curve ball that I wasn’t expecting. When we arrived, Mr. Reynolds called on us to pay attention as he held up a ring.
“Can anyone tell me what this is?”
We exchanged looks before Nick said, “It’s a ring?”
Our teacher smiled, and it wasn’t as sarcastic as I was sort of expecting it to be. “That’s a good point. A good point. What you cannot tell is that this ring has a charm on it. The caster wanted to create a ring that allows the wearer to grow plants with a thought. I have to say that they succeeded. Although this is not a very powerful charm, all things considered.” He put the ring back into his pocket. “I would show you how it works, but I don’t quite need any plants at this time, so I’ll refrain.”
He wrote on the board and smiled, “Please open your books to chapter 12. Today we start discussing charms. As most of you know, charms are spells that have been placed in objects. Be it a ring. A necklace. A pair of gloves. A house. A wand. It can be anything and everything, and the limits are up to the caster. Then again, so is the power level. We will begin discussing charms today, and the goal is that each of you have one of your own within the next two weeks. It can be anything that you want, but there will be restrictions. No death spells, and nothing of the sort. Not that I expect that from any of you.”
His smile came off as brittle at that, and I swear he glanced at me. I know he was at the challenge, but you’d think he’d cut me some slack on that.
“Charms are difficult and time consuming to cast, but their prices on the market reflect that. The more powerful you are as a magic user, the stronger your charms can be. The longer you work on setting the spell, the stronger your charm can be. If you take someone at my level and have us focus on a spell for six months, you can have a truly powerful charm. That being said, most people at my level won’t bother with that. There can be other ways of performing the same spell, and we rarely need a charm of our own. Then again, some enjoy the level of finesse needed to make charms work at that level. I myself, do not. It is, however, something we learn in this class, so let’s get started.”
The rest of the class was spent learning the very, very basics around making a charm. It sounds tedious at best, right?
Well, you’re wrong.
No, I’m kidding. Tedious is just the start of it. Holly crap, the requirements for getting it done correctly make it sound like more of a pain than it should be.
Yet you can come out with a cool charm!
I don’t know, by the time class ended, I was of two minds about it. I’m not sure that I want to dedicate that much time to something, yet I wouldn’t mind having something cool. I have to make one anyway, so I have to think about something neat to work on and a spell to try to put on it.
Mom shocked me to no end by texting me that a car would be waiting at the school after my last class, and it whisked me away to take my permit test. I guess it’s a good thing I studied my butt off in the gaps? And that I did it in my room where she could see me? Not that I did it there on purpose for that reason.
And…I passed.
I’ll admit that I did a bit of screaming about that once I got out of the building. A few other girls my age hopped up and down with me and cried with me, which is pretty cool. Weird, but cool. I appreciated their heartfelt congratulations and passed on my own. We’re going to be drivers!
The car that Mom arranged even let me drive back to the school.
I wasn’t expecting that. In the slightest. I made it successfully, too! Which is even better.
Steph corralled everyone and they helped me celebrate over dinner in the cafeteria, and I had a blast. Granted, going out might have been better, but I can’t complain about the food here. I agree that I’ll miss it when I leave. Well, assuming I don’t find a place that has even better food.
Monday night was spent working through homework. We’ve gotten off pretty light since I started attending classes, and they piled it on. Not that it took that long to get through. Since I basically tested out of my main classes, those assignments were really easy to get through. Magical species, on the other hand, sucked. I had to write a report on trolls. Thankfully, only 1500 words, so I got it done. At least they don’t require us to submit drafts and outlines and all of that. The others told me about that during a lull earlier in the day, and that sounded painful. My parents never went in for that.
Which makes me wonder why they had us learn anything. I seriously don’t get that. If the goal is to kill us at 17, why teach us anything at all? Why not just, I don’t know, cut off our arms and legs and stick us in a box or something? As long as we grow and eat, that would have cut down on so many things! Heck, they probably could have just straight-out told us what they intended, and we would have begged for the release after 17 years of that.
Oh well. I pray nightly that they’re caught and killed.
One of our assignments for magic was to identify a spell that we’d want to place. Steph and I reviewed the book and possibilities for nearly an hour before she gave up.
“I don’t know. I’m a shifter, what I know about magic is pretty basic.”
I leaned back against my wall, trying not to let my skin touch the colors. Yet. “I can see that. But you’ve seen more charms than I have. Given that, what’s useful? What would you want if you could get one?”
She rocked in her chair, spinning idly, “Huh, okay, I can see that. I’ve seen more than you, but not too many more probably. I think our family only has one charm among everyone.”
>
“What’s it do?”
“It helps with luck with business.”
“Is that useful?”
She shrugged, “It’s not a huge charm, it’s pretty weak from what I understand. Even so, my family has a good track record with businesses and business decisions. I think that’s attributed to the ring, but I could be wrong.”
“Okay, so that might be good. What else?”
“Umm…I’ve seen people with charms for speed? Basically to improve reaction times? Or to make them stronger? It just depends on what is important to people, you know?”
“So…what’s important to me?”
She spun again, “Hard to say? Speed is probably good, especially if you’re going to get challenged more. Not that you seem to need it, but speed is a power all its own, and if you run into someone fast as hell, then you might have issues.” She spun again, “Or maybe something to make your spellwork stronger?”
“Stronger? What do you mean?”
She waved her hands, indicating the walls, “Well, you’re already strong as fuck it seems. You killed those bastards without breaking a sweat. But what if you could create a charm that makes it even easier for you? Like…if it takes a certain amount of effort to do a spell, create something that cuts that in half? You don’t seem to need it, but it can’t hurt, right?”
I thought through that, “Huh, okay, I guess I can see that.” I thought about the spells I’d just read about. Or spell ideas, I should say. “So, as a shifter, what kind of charm would make sense to you?”
She stopped spinning, “What, like if I had one myself?”
“Yeah?”
She laughed, “Please, as if I’d have one of them. Do you know how expensive even a basic one is with a weak spell?”
“Nope. Not a clue. Mr. Reynolds said they’re expensive, but didn’t really elaborate on that.”
“I think the word we’re looking for is fuck-ton. Or metric assload. The family charm was something like 10 million, I think? I forget, but it was expensive. Like I said, it’s basic, too.”
She smiled at my whistle, “Dang, really?”
“Really. It’s a lot of effort to create a good one. Or one worth selling, I guess.”
“And it cost that much, and you said it’s basic?”
“Yup.”
“Oookay, no wonder they said it’s like printing money.”
“That it is.”
“So, back to you, if you had one, what would you want?”
She pursed her lips, “Hard to say? Given a genie and a magic wish? Either success in business or strength?”
“Strength? You mean like muscles?”
“Yeah?”
“Why would you want that? You’re strong as hell?”
“I am, but I’m not alpha level. Close, but not there. That means I can be taken down by anyone stronger than I am. If I had a charm to make me stronger, then I have the chance of fighting them off if it comes down to it.”
Huh, that makes sense. “Okay. Not too long ago I’d have wondered if it’s needed, but given what I’ve seen in the past few weeks…yeah, I can see how that’s needed.”
Carl stopped by a moment later and pulled her away to talk, leaving me with my book. I hit it again, looking through possibilities until I found the ones she meant. “Huh…speed seems good. So does strength.” Then I found one that I’d missed entirely the first few times through, “Magical multiplier?” Huh, that one seems interesting beyond belief.
Calls from our lounge had me leaving the spell behind and I was roped into judging a video game contest. Not that I know anything about it, but I guess they want more for their Guitar Hero contest. I felt bad for Paul that Leticia ended up winning, but she had flourishes that he couldn’t hope to match.
Late Tuesday, I stared at my little trove of items, wondering why I went a little hog wild. Rachel brought me to the store, and I found some jewelry that I liked. And then proceeded to over-buy things. I have at least 30 rings of varying styles, with some of them being really, really pretty. Not all of them are different. Some are the same…I just liked them for some reason. Don’t even ask, since I have no idea why I did that.
Holding the first one, I thought back through everything Mr. Reynolds has been teaching us. We haven’t tried casting a spell yet, but we’ve learned a decent amount about the basics. The primary issues seem to relate to the caster’s power level, how much time they dedicate to setting the spell, and their ability to work with charms. It seems like a charm can never be more powerful than you can cast, no matter how much time you dedicate. That seems weird to me, but I guess it makes sense. You can never run faster than you can run, no matter how long you do it.
So…what do I try? I’m not sure what to do, really. The pain of this type of thing is that you don’t really know how much time it takes to get the most powerful spell. Although it tends to take days. Based on class, if you cast the spell for five minutes, you could see anywhere from a tiny fraction of a percent up to maybe one percent of the total power level for the spell. If you continue it for another five minutes, you may not see any growth. Go for an hour, and it might double. Or maybe not. Some spells take hours and hours a day set over a month. Or two months. Or a year. It all varies so heavily.
What do I do? I like the idea of the magical multiplier charm. Based on the information on the spell, using it allows you to cast spells easier. Let’s say you have a charm that reduces effort by 20 percent, you can then cast more spells faster and with less effort for each of them. That’s pretty cool.
Maybe try that one? If it works, go for strength or speed?
It’s worth a shot.
Setting up my little desk as a workplace was easy enough, so I finished that and read through the chapter again, really paying attention to what I need to do. It’s easy on the surface, but hard in the actual follow-through.
Here goes.
The book leaves it up to the caster if keeping eyes open or closing them is the way to go. It seems it’s entirely up to me which works best. I’d love to have both work, because some folks can only work one way. That means if I’m like that and try it the wrong way, I may never get a charm built.
Settling on eyes closed to stop them from drying out, I held the ring, really feeling it. One of the items they note is that we need to know what we’re casting the charm into. We have to be able to feel it with our magic. And the start of that is to be able to feel it ourselves. At least to start. Stronger charm makers don’t need to do it quite as much, but it’s pretty integral at this stage of the game.
Meaning stage zero.
The ring isn’t anything special, but I spend time touching it, feeling it again and again before reaching for my magic.
As I’ve continued experimenting with my friends, the central part of me that seems to move and shift and collect magic has grown far larger than my body would seem to be able to accommodate. It can’t be a physical thing, although it feels that way. I can still reach it, though, so that doesn’t matter, I guess.
I don’t reach into that part of me that often, so it feels a little weird as it moves and shifts around me. Not that I’m really reaching anywhere, and things aren’t really moving, but it’s the best I can describe something so strange.
Making charms is a sometimes frustrating experience for magic users. Those of us that rely on ritual magic and the rigid steps needed to get spells to work have a harder time with this, it seems. The rituals don’t allow for a charm to be involved usually, so it’s a rare magic user that specializes that way that can create them. I have no idea where my skills lie, but I’m guessing it’s more on the mental side of things since I was able to cast spells with just my intent and arm movements. Not that the arm movements were needed. They were just flourishes that felt right to me.
What do I want for this charm? I want a spell of magical multiplication. Concentrating on that thought, I let my mind flow through what I was looking for and then focused on the ring, wanting the spell to catch
and remain behind. As an added twist, I threw in a requirement that it can only be accessed by myself and Mom. No idea if that’ll work, but it’s something that the best charm makers can do. And they can charge a boatload for it.
Five minutes later, I pulled away and stared at the ring. Five minutes dedicated towards creating a charm. Did it work? No clue. I’m not even sure how to determine that, honestly.
Reading through the book again had me moving to the next chapter and reading through that. Oddly enough, it covered being able to test charms and determine their power level.
20 minutes later, I stared in shock at my little ring of magical multiplier. It’s at roughly one percent. That’s low, but it’s on the higher end based on the time I dedicated to the spell. With a one percent ring, you will see your power output increase by that much. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Now I just have to try the same thing and keep the focus longer. An hour? That might double it. Or it might not. Too bad you can’t stack them together.
My mind went blank in a haze of white for a moment before I came back, staring at the ring in my hand.
Holy hell. Typically, people will use the same item and overlap the charm when they try to make it stronger. That wipes out the original and puts the new spell in its place. You can’t take a spell and then increase it once it’s set.
But I have a desk full of rings. If I keep this one and then use it along with my own skills and do this again, I should get a more powerful ring with the same time dedication. Then if I do it again? And then again?
My mouth went dry as I stared at a second ring. Can I do this?
There’s only one way to find out.
Five minutes later, I felt the second ring and dove into the steps to test it. Holy…just…it’s more powerful than the first. Not by a lot, but maybe by enough to mean the first ring helped in its creation?
A third ring followed, and I finished building and testing, ending up staring at the metal band. It’s working. Done separately, I should have three rings of roughly one percent. Instead, they’re stacking just like I wondered.