Been sitting on the first four chapters for a year or so so hopefully I'm not too rusty. I really want to get back into writing, and even though I have my insecurities, I'm going to do this. By posting and knowing people are waiting, I'll be more motivated to write.
In a tower in the middle of a forest, a young man ran up a set of spiral stairs, “Master! Perhaps you should sober up before…”
His master, a lean, tall man with sharp features, took a swig from a wineskin, interrupting his student with a loud belch, “Oh shut up, or I’ll shut you up myself!”
The young man paused at this as he knew his master would happily follow up on this threat, drunk as he was, “Master…”
His Master raised a hand threateningly without looking back at his student, but instead of another threat, looked up towards the open door leading to the next level, “You got those crystals set up yet? We’re gonna miss Red Lace’s show!”
A barely coherent baritone voice called back, “Al… (hic) most do…(hic) done! Yer… stick in tha’ mud (hic) apprentice (hic) commin’?”
The young man furrowed his brow from frustration and pulled out his beginner magic book from the storage ring his master had given him, as he thought to himself, ‘There has to be something in here I can use to stop my foolish master and his equally foolish friend from making a terrible mistake.’
His master yelled back, “Just the two of us! My soggy bottom student said he’s not comin’!”
His master was right, there was no way he would have anything to do with teleportation magic performed by the heavily drunken mages.
He and his master reached the door and entered as the man replied, “‘gured…(hic) ‘s’much.”
A man sat in the middle of the room, fiddling with the dust from magic crystals by transmuting it into wires that connected the crystals to each other. He was a squat, but well muscled man, like all mages, but his thin gray hair and wrinkled skin showed his age.
The windowless room itself was as rge as the others in the tower, about the width of five men across. Shelves filled with knick knacks, magic components, and dried food lined the walls, while stacks of wooden boxes filled with a fresh shipment of magic crystals took up much of the rest of the floor space, other than the room needed for the teleportation circle.
The young man had only studied magic for a few weeks so far, and as he looked over the teleportation circle, he could tell something was off, “Master…”
His Teacher raised a hand, and the young man felt his lips get sealed together.
The young man, now furious, decided he wanted nothing more to do with these drunks. Until now, he endured the abuse because of the difficulty of finding a teacher, but his master's treatment and unpredictable behavior because of the Corruption left him fearing for his life. Once he got his master to restore his lips or figured out how to do it himself, he was leaving. He should have listened to the others’ warnings before he came here.
The young man began leafing through his magic book as his master and his friend bickered over the teleportation circle. He passed through Alchemy, Creation, and finally settled on the section dedicated to basic life magic. He’d so far only focused on Creation, because it was the safest, but life magic was obviously best suited to his situation.
His eyes lingered on a paragraph talking about magically induced sleep, when his master’s friend drunkenly tried to stand, “‘s ready, ‘m thin(hic)k.”
The young man, sensing danger, backed out of the room and turned to return downstairs. If…
His master touched a crystal, which immediately glowed with power, “Hurry, we can still…”
A wire lit up and after a loud popping noise as it disintegrated, there were several much louder popping noises as the crystals in the circle exploded in near unison.
The bst sent several small pieces of hot, still magic filled pieces of crystal towards the young man.
He felt pain all over his body as the crystal shards pierced him, and he lost vision in his left eye.
His master and the friend had been standing in the center of the mess and fell onto the boxes surrounding them, blood oozing from wounds both rge and small. They looked to be still alive, and his master even summoned his Magic Skin, causing a blue aura to appear around him that would protect him if anything else exploded.
The young man’s eyes went wide as he saw a portal begin open above the teleportation circle, but his attention drifted to the box his master had colpsed on. Magic crystals had a violent tendency to absorb power from Magic Skin.
Before the young man could so much as jump out of the way, an explosion rger than the first blinded him before sending him to bckness.
The young man vaguely remembered feeling himself sm into something hard before falling to the floor.
He was still alive, but his body ached as he felt even more injuries.
Slowly, his vision came back just in time to see the portal close, leaving behind two strangely dressed men. The shorter of which fell almost as soon as he came.
His increasingly foggy mind took a moment to put the pieces together, but considering the teleportation circle hadn’t teleported his teacher and the friend, it had opened up a portal to elsewhere and brought back some Others. People “plucked” from a world near Psalo.
He felt his body grow cold and realized he was probably dying. He doubted his master, or the friend had survived the second explosion, so there was no one who could save him.
The young man realized he was still clutching on his magic book in a near death grip. Perhaps… before he died, could he help these Others? His master was to bme for taking them away from their homes.
His vision blurred, but he heard a shout and footsteps hurrying towards him as he moved to take off his magic storage ring. There wasn’t much in it, but it would help them even if they just sold it.
The Other knelt over him and said something in a nguage he’d heard another Other use before. He didn’t know the nguage, so just proffered his ring and book to the man.
As the Other took the book, the young man used the first magic his teacher had taught him. Life magic of the soul variety that would link the ring to the man. Without doing that, no one could use the ring once he died.
It turned out to be the st magic the young man would ever use.
