Story Time

Since Harry Potter premieres this weekend, I figured I'd try my hand at a fantasy story as fantasy can be fun as well as educational.

This story starts in the land of the Zu-Zu a giant bird who guards the Bylia castle. This story takes place in the home of a young stick boy named Asal. Asal is a young teenager who studies mid-level sorcery: low level summons, intermediate curing magic, basic presence magic, that kind of thing. He looks to study more advanced sorcery in college. However, above his sorcery studies, he also has a power inside him which he cannot control. This power manifests itself in many, various ways. He lives in a village, goes to school, like other students, though he's going into advanced studies into sorcery.

Asal goes to a small school with people all wanting to study mid-level sorcery. It's a specialty study so there are people of various races, ages, and personalities all wanting to study the same basic sorcery. There are several options for study for sorcery students. Students can specialize in curing magic, attack magic, summon magic, support magic, or presence magic. Students can choose any one of these 5 tracks as their specialty and are encouraged to take another track as a minor to expand their learning of sorcery. Saying all this, most of the faculty focus on curing, attack, summon, and support magic. Presence magic is a dangerous magic to teach and learn as it's not something that creates an external effect. Presence magic makes one aware of spirits in the environment and allows the user to use different spirits for different effects. Different elements of spirits give the user different abilities. As such, presence magic is the most powerful magic, but also if uncontrolled can cause different types of possession in the caster.

Asal, being a bit precocious, is really interested in presence magic. His interest makes him a bit odd in his school community as no one else is actively studying presence magic in his school. His interest also creates tension with the rest of the community as he sees things that others do not. These things are important to keep in mind as we go forth with the story. This story is a day in the life of a sorcery student.

Asal gets up early one stormy morning for a meeting with his main adviser, Sorcereress Cristophy. Cristophy is the only adviser who studies presence magic at the school. Asal on his walk over starts feeling sick, because of the thunderstorms. Thunderstorms create a combination of darkness and water elements present in the air and it overloads Asal's consciousness. Asal walks into Cristophy's office and she gives him a concerned look. Asal tells her everything is okay and they begin their meeting. Asal is writing a paper on the effects of darkness and light elementals on human existence and their interplay even outside of magic. Cristophy is his adviser and she is the only Sorceress who teaches presence magic. Their meeting is over the latest draft of Asal's paper. After their meeting Cristophy asks again if Asal is okay. Asal mentions feeling sick because of the weather and Cristophy gives him some tea, gives him a hug, and hands him some herbs, tea, and pills to deal with storm sickness. Asal takes the medicine and begins to feel a little better.

Cristophy thinks to herself inside her office after Asal leaves. "Asal has power unlike anything I've ever seen. The severity of his sickness, his sensitivities, and his ability to acclimate new spirits and magic is off the charts. I'm concerned about his darkness sensitivities though, this can cause great disaster for himself and others. He keeps not wanting to talk about it, yet, this power will eat him up unless he asks for help. Whatever monster lives inside him is beyond his own control, especially at this stage."

Asal's next meeting is with his summon magic adviser, Sorceress Kristoria. They arranged a meeting to discuss the Lich Lord summon and its potential effects on society, particularly as the Lich Lord has become a manipulative threat that threatens to control people in a Coreia cult. The Coreia cult is a religious sect that seeks to revive the Lich Lord in order to control the populace through manipulation, secrecy, and telepathy. Since it's such a strong darkness elemental, Asal is reacting the summoning of the Lich Lord, so Kristoria and Asal are looking for ideas on how to stop the summoning of the Lich Lord. This meeting is to propose a plan to use a support magic barrier by implementing Asal's ability to utilize wind spirits and her minor ability to use support magic. Her plan is to summon High Pixie and have Asal react to her element and create a barrier for a temporary seal of the Lich Lord. They discuss this plan during their meeting. The storm is still going on outside and Asal is getting noticeably more sick during his meeting with Kristoria. Asal tries to sneak taking Cristophy's pills but Kristoria notices. Kristoria asks what he is taking, and Asal responds by saying Cristophy's pills. Kristoria is unhappy but also realizes Asal is in severe pain because of his sensitivities. Kristoria casts a support spell to give him a barrier to the darkness elemental of the storm and Asal's mood brightens as he loves the water elemental aspect of rain and storms.

After his meeting with Kristoria, Asal goes to lunch. At lunch he encounters other students and decides to sit with them. At lunch, Asal notices he's not really in the conversation, but kind of just there, sitting with people. This makes Asal a little sad. However, he is sitting with a bunch of support mages, who tend to dislike what Asal says about presences and the need to act for others with sorcery. The support mages tend to like to do magic for themselves and invoke divine power to enhance themselves. Some support mages can act for others but their main goal and emphasis for study is their own abilities. So Asal is kind of bored with the conversation and observes other people in the cafeteria. He doesn't see anyone he knows, which makes him sad. In particular, he's looking for light elemental mages. While they are technically attack mages, their element also gives them healing abilities. Light elementals make Asal happy as they help control his darkness reaction. The pills Cristophy gave Asal are light elemental supplements to help calm down the reaction to darkness he is having, and the spell Kristoria casts on Asal is a light element boost that raises resistance to darkness elemental air.

After lunch, Asal goes and works for a bit. He works in an office by himself, so he plays some music to engage different feelings and elementals to try to control himself. Different tones of music exemplify different elementals and thus Asal can engage different feelings to control his powers. On a good day, Asal gets more control of himself, on a bad day, music simply causes him more pain as it cannot cure any elemental overload and sickness, it can only delay symptoms. Work is humdrum and Asal thinks more about seeing his light elemental friends, stopping the Lich Lord and is concerned with how Cristophy looked at him during their meeting.

After work, Asal talks with his friend Silmeria. Asal is happy around Silmeria just by her presence, because she's a light elemental that can calm his dark days down. On this day, they didn't get to talk for very long, but they got to catch up. Asal then tries to decompress from his day by playing some games, but he still feels sick and the sorcery and pills are wearing off. He is a little sad as Cristophy and Kristoria are gone for the evening and he is still sick. Silmeria is also busy, and Asal is unsure where his other light elemental friends are that can help him.

Asal starts to feel really sick and decides he needs to leave his room as being near water helps him control the darkness element somewhat. Asal walks to a fountain and meditates near the fountain to find some peace. The fountain on this day is not having much affect for Asal, so he decides to try something different.

Asal then moves to the lake area. It's a pleasant lakeside view accompanied by the sound of gulls, doves, and the wind against the lake. Some piers are seen along the lake and swimmers can be seen in the distance. Asal is feeling really lonely, as he's seen a lot of people but no one has really shown interest in spending time with him, but rather they want his gifts. Kristoria loves his ability to acclimate magic and Cristophy always thought Asal was a prodigy. The other students at the school are interested in him only inasmuch as he can help them and ignore him at other times, and he struggles to find his light elemental friends to calm him stress. He is contemplating on the lack of attention and he is overwhelmed by darkness that's present inside him and around him. The darkness paralyzes him on the ground he's meditating on. From inside him, without his attempt or control, he summons Neo-Bahamut. Neo-Bahamut is the ultimate darkness elemental that destroys worlds with one breath. Asal still can't get up off the ground, and lays there wondering, "how on earth will anyone ever come for me or be supportive for me when I have this ultimate evil living inside me, and because of this evil I sense all sorts of darkness?", "why do I have all these abilities that make me so different from the other students, and everyone else?", Lying in agony, Asal is still stuck in his own head, he sees people in the distance at the lake but can't scream for help, out of the fear of exposing his summoning of Neo-Bahamut.

I'd like to say that Asal gets out of his darkness, he gets his gifts under control and stops being tormented by Neo-Bahamut, but I don't know if that has happened yet. All we can say for now is that Asal is in a desperate situation, there's hope for a solution in the light elementals, yet the darkness elemental seems to have all the power in this situation. The tale continues, but not just yet, the story needs to stop here, just for now, to be continued... (*insert cliffhanger ending here*)


Afterword: This was a fun exercise and I kind of enjoy writing fictional stories. Granted this is more of an outline than an actual story, there's a lot of things I get to express here in thinking that I can't do so much with my philosophical writing. I'll have to work on this genre a bit though. (and not write this at 2 in the morning :P )

Aristocrates