magic practice

Slowly Bradin opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was shouting at the bandits, and then everything went black. he looked around and saw that he was on one of the beds in the snow house.

Bradin couldn't see Ivan anywhere in the room. he grabbed the blanket covering him to get out of the bed, but he stopped when he felt that he was completely naked. Bradin let the blanket cover him once more.

What had happened? he thought as he looked around for his clothes. he couldn't see them anywhere. filled with a need to see if Ivan was ok, Bradin wrapped the blanket around his waist. the small fire ring was lit so he was not cold.

As Bradin reached the door of the house, Ivan started to enter.

"oh good you're awake." Ivan said

"what happened to the bandits?" Bradin asked glad to see that Ivan was all right

"dead." Ivan said "thanks for your help."

"me what did i do?" Bradin asked

"well you yelled stop loud enough to alert me, and your magic stopped the bandit's horses causing the bandits to fly through the air. it was pretty amazing."

"wait what?"

"i thought so. when you yelled stop you used your magic. animal magic to be exact. the bandit's horses immediately did as you commanded. i'm impressed it took me an hour to break the spell on the horses enough to get them to move from the spot they stopped at."

"but how did i even use magic. i don't know how." Bradin asked confused

"remember when i tried to make you mad?" Ivan asked

Bradin nodded

"intense emotions bring the magic out of mages. that is why one of the first lessons mages are taught is emotion control. if you let your emotions run wild, so will your magic. you must have been feeling a lot of strong emotions last night."

"oh. ok." Bradin said "then why did i pass out?"

Ivan smiled as he explained "magic and spells take energy to use. some use crystals, others use the energy of the world around us, and most use the energy of the person casting the spell, or the person getting the spell casted on them."

"each spell has a different energy cost, depending on the power of the caster and what they are trying to accomplish."

"so when i have more power i won't pass out after casting normal spells." Bradin summed up

"exactly."

"but how do i know if i'm powerful enough for a spell?" Bradin asked

"by the size of your tattoo." Ivan said pointing to Bradin's bare chest.

Bradin looked down and saw centered on his chest just in between his pectoral muscles, was a black out line of a circle.

"wow so does this make me a official mage then?"

Ivan laughed and said " mage in training."

"cool! so what type of mage am i? an animal mage?" Bradin asked looking at Ivan.

"possibly. you see when you first use your magic its hard to tell what type of mage you will be. your tattoo as you can see is an empty circle. as you use your magic more and gain power, that circle will fill with a color."

"each color means a different strength. i am a water mage, but because my real talent is with ice and snow, i have a light blue color. to make it simpler to tell what you can do, every mage is called by what their strength is."

"another example is plant mages they technically are earth mages but to simplify it they are called plant instead of earth. you will go though a test to see what type of magic is your strongest magic at the Earthmother's temple."

"Can you teach me a spell now?" Bradin pleaded

Ivan thought for a minuet, and then said "i suppose i could. i don't know if it will work for you though. its an earth spell, but we can give it a try."

"ok." Bradin said ready to use his new found power.

"lets go inside its cold out here." Ivan said

they both moved back into the house and Bradin sat on the edge of his bed. Ivan rummaged in one of his bags and pulled out two small stones the size of a thumb nail.

"ok now this spell is used to change one type of earth into another." Ivan began "these are simple river stones, an earth mage would know exactly what type of stone they are, but i don't. i use these to practice new spells on."

Ivan gave one to Bradin keeping one for himself.

" now watch." Ivan said

Ivan said three words over his stone. slowly Bradin started to see a difference. Ivan's stone started to lighten in color from a dark grey to a white. this continued until Ivan looked away from the stone breathing hard.

"there you see." Ivan said still trying to catch his breath.

Bradin nodded. in Ivan's hand was now a small clear crystal.

"now you try."

Ivan went over the words with Bradin for a few minuets, until Bradin had mastered the pronunciation.

"now to gather your magic close your eyes and picture what you think your magic looks like. when you do this you should start to fill a tingling sensation all over your body. this is normal. some people feel other feelings, but tingling is the most common."

"once you have that feeling say the words and concentrate on what you want the stone to become. its easiest to go from stone to another substance that comes from the ground."

"ok." Bradin said closing his eyes.

he pictured a frozen lake in the middle of a forest. he walked up to the lake and broke the ice with his fist. A rush of excitement filled him as he started to feel tingly all over. Bradin opened his eyes and looked at the stone in his hand.

he concentrated on the stone, and then said the words that Ivan had taught him. what happened next surprised them both. with a sound like breaking glass the stone immediately changed into an emerald.

Bradin looked up at Ivan in surprise. "wow that was so cool."

"how do you feel." Ivan asked looking Bradin over.

" i feel great. i just did magic."

"really? no tiredness? aches? pains?" Ivan asked

"nope i feel fine."

"ok, now change it back." Ivan said

"what? why?" Bradin asked sadly

"because it is best to only use this spell when you need to, and i want to see if you can do it."

Bradin took that as a challenge. Having once done the spell before he fallowed the steps and was successful in changing the emerald back into a gray stone. after he had done that Ivan had him change the stone again a few more times, into different types of rock or crystal.

after the fourth time, Bradin was starting to feel tired, like he had been stacking wood for three hours.

"all right." Ivan said "i want you to do the spell one last time but on a different rock."

"ok but i'm starting to get tired." Bradin said

"just once more." Ivan said as he pulled something out of his bag. "i just want you to turn this into a clump of dirt."

Bradin sat there in shock. Ivan had his gray slave crystal in his hand.