by Andy Nadir
Chapter Two
I woke up to the man looking at my face in worry. I sat up. He looked at me. “Are you alright kiddo?” He asked.
"I would hate to lose a potential mage right after I found him. I know it’s hard to believe, but there are thousands of other people just like you. I know this is all hard to take in though. I bet you are thinking you are in a coma, or the such. Here, Take this card. It’s the Magi academies address. You have 2 days to decide what you want to do with your life.”
Then he touched me and the world spun around. When My eyes came back to focus, I was standing in an apartment. I looked around. The apartment was a dull gray, with a pattern of stars on the ceiling. It had three rooms, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. I pulled the curtains over. It looked like I was in a large theme park. I headed out of my room, to try to find where I was.
As I walked down, I looked at the card that Harvester gave me. On the top it said Magi, Gold rank 7, Name: Harvester Jones. I got to the street and looked around. The street was crowded, with lots of small shops. I looked around, for a newspaper stand, or something of the like. TV shop near; so I went in.. After half an hour of waiting, I finally got what I wanted. “San Diego morning time news” said the nasally announcer.
“So I’m in San Diego huh?” I said to myself
I looked at the card again, tucked it in my pocket and went back to my apartment.
While I was walking back to my apartment, I sat down on a bench next to a massive tree. I looked at the card again. The address was: Lenen Street, between the ice cream shop and the TV shop, right at the base of the big tree. I looked around. The ice cream shop was on my left and the TV shop was to my right. I turned around. Behind me was a massive tree. I didn’t see anything else that seemed like it could be the school, so I figured that the school must be hidden, or something. “If that had magic to make a fire sword, then they should definitely have a way to hide a school”. I muttered to myself
I marked the place mentally, because, it looked like a good place to hide, if the need arose. Then I walked back to my apartment, to get some much needed rest after what had happened.
As I was walking to my bedroom, I heard growling and scratching at my door. "What the..." The scratching continued.
I paled; that didn’t sound human. I started walking to my room faster. My door flew in, torn from its hinges. There was screaming, I’m not sure who; I think it might have been me. I sprinted as fast as I could into my bedroom and locked the door. I then flipped my bed upright and hid behind it. Then there was pounding on my bedroom door, slow and rhythmic, like the person, or thing behind it had all the time in the world.
The pounding stopped. I felt relieved. They must have given up. Then my bedroom door flew open and all hell broke loose. I screamed for help. I ran behind my bed, and hid there. Suddenly, the lights in the room blew out. There was a flash of light, like lightning. Then a small dragon appeared. It had short, curled horns on its head, with dark gold scales and red eyes. The monsters seemed to freeze. Then I looked more closely. They actually DID freeze. They were no longer breathing, and they seemed like they were just...stopped. The monsters seemed to be frozen in time.
I looked at the dragon. “Are you another monster?” I asked, shaken.
The question was supposed to be rhetorical, but the dragon responded. “How dare you compare me to a demon from the circles of hell! I am a familiar! And, unfortunately, it appears that I am bonded to you, weak human. Now, since I have no choice in the matter, what would you have me do?" It asked.
Then what was happening to me started to sink in. I was trapped in a small room with a dragon the size of my arm, 3 monsters that want my blood and that I am apparently a mage. I started to hyperventilate.
“What the hell is going on! I never asked for anything, but now, a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters are after me, and a God-darn dragon is bound to me!”
As I stood there, Panicking, I remembered reading in one of my story books ,when I was a kid, that wizards would often rhyme to cast spells.I smirked. “Lightning hear my cry! Make these dumb monsters die!” I wiggled my fingers and lightning shot out of them and roasted one of the monsters.
I stared at the small pile of ash where it was. I screamed. "What is going on? "Now I rhyme out spells? This is a complete joke!"
The dragon slid back into shadows. "I will return later. Another force approaches, you will be safe now...weakling”
Just as the dragon disappeared, Harvester teleported into the room with a worried look. He looked around saw the monsters. He frowned, and muttered a word. He waved his hand, and turned them to dust with one quick spell. I looked at him blankly. Then I passed out; for the second time that day.
I was woken up quite rudely, because when I fainted I was standing, so when I collapsed, I smacked my head on the floor. I saw Harvester standing near me. I looked him in the eye. “You got me. Count me in.” I said to him.
“If only to get out of this nightmare” I thought to myself.
“Great!” Harvester crowed.
“When do I begin?” I asked.
Harvester looked at me strangely. “Now of course! Now come with me”
When Harvester walked into a tree, I wasn’t even surprised. So much had gone on in the past day nothing could surprise me anymore. I just followed him in. When we got in the tree, it actually was the size of a normal room; except it had lots of paths leading out of it. I followed him down one of them. He took me to a room and said “This is the test room. It tells me your potential as a mage.”
"Just don't move, and play along." He said.
He took me into the room, and sat me down on a chair. He then left and locked the door. I sat there for about a minute when suddenly a cold wind started whipping around me. A ghastly face appeared in front of me and looked me in the eye. I jumped back. “What the hell?” I muttered. I forced myself to sit back down.
The face seemed to be made of smoke and it didn’t appear to have a body. Its eyes were glowing red, like hot coals. It stared at me for a bit and disappeared. Suddenly there was an excruciating pain in my back and I collapsed.
When I came to, I saw Harvester standing near me…again. He looked at me and said “Well? How did it go?”
“Horrible” I muttered, under my breath.
"That’s about right” he said
“So, how many bronzies did you get?” He asked curiously.
“What are bronzies” I asked.
He looked confused. "Well, they are what we call the bronze stars that appear on your back after your testing."
"How many did you get?”
I frowned. What bronze stars? I pulled up my shirt. There were ten black stars tattooed on my back, how I knew, I don’t know. "I didn’t get any bronze stars." I said.
He looked horrified. “What? I was sure you had potential! I checked it twice myself!” He said, starting to panic.
I though back to when I used a spell to blast that monster, and laughed to myself. I was pretty sure that I had this “potential”. But all I said was, “Well, I don’t have bronze stars, but I do have these black ones” I said. He looked surprised. “Black ones? He asked.
You’re just full of surprises aren’t you?” He said grinning.
“What’s special with black ones”? I asked
“Well," He said, "Black stars usually don’t appear until you test for journeyman mage.” He said. So, how many of the black stars did you get?"
I lifted my shirt and turned to him. Suddenly he paled. “Stay here!” he shouted, and ran out of the room, like it was the end of the world. He returned about 3 minutes later panting. “Lance… you never told me your last name. Could it possibly be Starfinder?” he asked
I jumped. “How in the world did you know?” I cried.
He got even paler, if that’s even possible. He looked at me and said “You are part of an ancient prophecy. You must tell nobody
about this. Understand?”
“Okay... But what prophecy?” I asked.
"It is important for you not to learn. You will just have to wait kiddo." He said.
“Now head off to your dorm and meet your roomies.”
I walked through the massive halls of the boy’s dorm, looking for room 104. After a few minutes of searching, I finally found it. I opened the door and went in. inside were three beds, one with a body in it. Thinking that my roomie was asleep, I figured I would go to sleep as well and meet him in the morning. But as I got into bed and pulled the covers up, a form jumped up in front of me and scared the living crap out of me. Literally. I flipped out and snapped at him. “What in the world man? Do you have any idea of the day I just went through? I got jumped by monsters, rescued from jail, and scarred in the back by an ugly face!”
He looked apologetic, though it might have been false, I'm not sure. “Sorry man… I didn’t think you would take it so hard.” “The body on the bed was just an illusion anyway; I didn't think you would fall for it...” He muttered.
“An illusion? What’s that?” I asked. “You don’t know?” He asked, his eyes glowing with laughter. “Yes I’m sort of new here, so why don’t you tell me about this.” I said, snidely. The boy chuckled. “Well my name is Bakar Lightsword. Who are you?”
I thought for a moment. I remembered Harvester telling me to keep my last name and stars secret. “I’m Lance. I don’t know my parents.” I took the moment to look closer at him. He had light blonde hair, and seemed to be about 4'6. Not too tall, but he wasn't ugly. He had a fair face, with soft features.
Bakar looked at me. “All-righty then Lance. I’m a healer with 3 stars.” “What about you?”
“Healer? What’s that?” I asked
“You’re a paramedic or something?” Bakar chuckled.
“How new to this are you, Lance? I’m a Healer mage. Do you even know the different types of mages?” He asked.
“Different types of mages? I didn’t know that…what are they?” I muttered. “In fact, before today, I didn’t even know that there was magic” I thought to myself.
“It’s a long explanation.” He replied. “Well we do have all night” I said. “But first, bring me some flipping paper towels to clean up my bed!”
“Well, the well-known classes are redmage, blackmage, shadowmage, swordmage, bluemage, summoner ,graymage, and healer. There are more types, but those are the basic ones, and you can become one of the stronger branches from one of those.”
“Redmage and Blackmage are the normal offence classes. They both use elemental spells, but black mage has weather spells and a little bit of necromancy.”
“Hey, I thought necromancy was the thing the bad guys did.” I said. Bakar laughed. “Not only bad people use necromancy. It can be used for evil purposes like you said, but it can also be used for good. Like letting people see their loved one more time.”
“Yes, but...” I started, but he cut me off.. “Bluemage and Graymage are the basic defense classes. Bluemage can only use the water element, and can use it mostly for shields, but can do a little offense magic as well. Graymage has no elemental power, but they can buff and use all defense spells.”
“What is “a buff”? I asked
“Well, buffing is like making people stronger through magic. It can let them take more hits or become faster.”
“Then there is the swordmage. They are rather rare and are our blacksmiths. They can enchant weapons, armor, and metal. They can also control their bodies more than an average human, like being able to bend their arm in loops, or stop their nerves from sending pain signals to the brain.” He explained.
“Then there are summoners. They are a dark/fire class. The can use fire element and the super element dark. They can also summon demons. They also usually get familiars.” “Wait a minute” I said. “Is it possible for other mages to get familiars?” I asked
“It is, but it is rather rare.” He continued on. “The healer class can use the super element light. They can also heal. And finally, there is Shadowmage. It is the most powerful basic class. It has all four elements, can have familiars, summon demons, and has the super element Dark.”
“Also, there are very rare.” “Now get some sleep, you have the choosing tomorrow when they tell you what type of mage you are.” He said, and promptly jumped into his bed, and started snoring. “Goodnight” I muttered. I look I fell asleep before I could hear his answer.
Light was streaming to the room; I could feel the sun's warmth on my face. I sighed. I rolled over to check my alarm clock. "Why isn't it ringing?" I thought.
Suddenly, I remembered what had happened. I snapped awake, grinning. "Oh no, did I miss the choosing?" I thought.
I jumped out of bed, and ran off to the choosing as fast as I could. I got there barely on time. As I watched they would call people up and have them sit on a chair. Then they would cast some sort of a spell on them and a sign would appear above their head. So far what I had seen was: a red fire for redmage, a black skull for blackmage, a glowing sword for swordmage, a yellow star for healer, and a red staff for summoner.
After what seemed like hours I got called up. I walked up to the stage on shaky legs. I sat down and let them cast the spell on me. I sat on the chair, and watched the crowd. There was a collective gasp in the crowd. All I looked up to see a pitch black monster with red eyes above my head, but it seemed to shimmer, like a mirage. The announcers looked at me and, with rather wide eyes, proclaimed, “And now, look here! We have our first shadowmage in a decade! All welcome Lance!”
Shakily, I returned to my seat. "A shadowmage? The first in a decade? How rare, exactly, am I?" I wondered.
The rest of the choosing passed like a blur. When it finally ended, I ran to my room.