Magic Inscription

As the sun starts to slowly sink down and hangs not too high above the horizon, signifying the night is only several hours away, 4 kobolds and 1 'strange' creature that looked like a kobold are currently talking with each other as they converse about the origin of mages and how they utilize magic.

"Grandpa, what's the use of the staff then?" The first kobold kid asked the old kobold.

"To know that, we need to know first how to use the authorities that the gods had given us first." The old kobold answered the little kobold patiently before continuing his story.

"To utilize the authorities, we need to spell out the chants using the language that the gods had given to our ancestor as it signifies a command to the elements around us that the gods had given us the permission to be able to control the said elements in the chant."

"If we used the current language to translate the ancient kobold language, then the chants will be like this," Before continuing, the old kobold seemed to be silent for a few seconds as he seemed to be trying to remember the words then he continued.

"Through the fire authority that was given by the gods to the kobolds, hereby I command the fire elements to bend for my will and realize my desire."

The old kobold then continued his explanations,

"The chant is more like a declaration of command to the fire elements in nature to follow our will as the gods had given us the privilege of doing so."

After giving a quick explanation, the old kobold then brought up his staff above his head as he showed the wooden staff carved with inscriptions all over.

"But, only saying the chant is not enough as we also need a medium to communicate with the elements in the world as our words alone aren't enough to reach them."

The old kobold hold the wooden staff with his left hand as he ran through the inscriptions using his other hand and said,

"These symbols and inscriptions are given by the gods for us to enable us to communicate with the elements that exist in this world. The many symbols that made up the whole inscription are the ones that made the ordinary wood stick able to be used as a mage staff and even affect my evolution as I evolved as a kobold mage at level 15 because of my attunement with it."

The old kobold was about to continue his explanation, but Matthew brought up his right hand and from his look alone, the old kobold could see that Matthew had something to say.

"Yes Matthew, what is it?"

"If the only important part is the inscriptions, then the mages don't necessarily need to use the wooden staff right? Can they just draw the inscription on a piece of paper as they are lighter, simpler, and easier to bring around everywhere?"

"Nice logic Matthew, but as a matter of fact. The medium where the inscriptions were made also affects the outcome of the magic that was cast."

The old kobold brought down the wooden staff back to the ground as he continued to explain,

"If you wrote the inscription on a piece of paper, you would need a decent-sized paper as you need to write the whole inscription onto the paper if you want to use it as a medium, or if you are capable of writing in really small letters then using a smaller sized paper will also work."

"But that is not the only problem as the quality of the medium is also one of the factors that need to be considered when making a medium to use magic."

"As the inscription carries the commands of the Gods, an ordinary paper will crumble after only one use as it couldn't contain a speck of power of the Gods contained in the inscription. Even an ordinary wood will eventually crumble if it was being used as a magic staff after a certain amount of time."

The old kobold then swung his wooden staff towards Matthew and the kids as if he wanted to bonk the three wolf-like heads in front of him.

The three kobold children and Matthew reflectively brought up their hands to protect their heads, but the wooden staff never came as the old kobold only hovered it above their heads.

"While this wooden staff was made from a special type of wood that could hold the inscription just fine even after being used for a long time as I got this from my grandfather and he got it from his grandfather and so on. This wooden staff is still as tough as ever and it could still break your heads if I put in the effort."

After the old kobold was satisfied enough terrifying the 4 creatures with his wooden staff that was still hovering above their heads, the old kobold brought it back to his side again as he rested his right hand on the staff.

"Anything else?" The old kobold ask, before in the next moment after the old kobold closed his mouth, Matthew already raised his right hand once again and asked,

"I don't know if this has anything to do with inscriptions or symbols, but how do you do magic after you say the proper chant? Do you have another chant to create the fireball earlier?"

"It does actually! Although it is not directly connected to how we use magic since we don't need to do another chant or anything else rather than visualizing the spell that we want to create!" The old kobold said with a hint of pride in his voice.

"Every spell that we cast, a symbol will appear for a very short amount of time as the symbols act as a certain set of commands that the elements will follow to realize our visualization of the spell."

The old kobold then sighed a little before continuing,

"That may not mean much to us, the races that hold authority as those symbols are only a way for us to use magic. But the humans who weren't given authority by the Gods studied these symbols that appeared every time a race with authority used their magic and then they created their own way of using magic by recreating these symbols to reproduce the same spell the races with authority used."

Hearing this, Matthew's eyebrows started to frown a little as he asked again,

"Does this mean the humans could use every element of magic that they have successfully recreated...? And how do they do that?"

The old kobold nodded to answer Matthew's question before adding,

"Yes, they can. And I don't know how exactly they did it since I had never seen a human mage before and I only knew them from stories. And even the humans that attacked the village didn't have any mages among them."

The old kobold then patted Matthew's shoulder as he said,

"Don't worry Matthew, as you will probably only be dealing with swords and arrows instead of fireballs tomorrow."

Matthew then heaved a sigh of relief as he was worried that his enemy that may appear tomorrow will have mages capable of using something unfair like magic.

'Why is it unfair if you ask? It is because I can't use it!' Matthew thought as he replied to his own monologue that happened inside his head.

"Umm… Mutt, can you demonstrate to us again how you use magic? Maybe I could understand something more if I see it again for the second time."

"Alright then, peel your eyes open as I will do something different with the spell."

The old kobold then repeated the same sequence when he used magic as he started to close his eyes and said the same exact chant that Matthew heard earlier.

The wooden staff then lit up right after the old kobold finished chanting.

As Matthew knew what was going to happen next, he focused on the front of the staff where he guessed a fireball or something similar would appear there as he used his extremely good eyesight to see every minute changes that happened.

And by using his whole focus and attention, Matthew finally saw a faint unique symbol appear in the air in front of the staff. The symbols are a mixture of a few basic shapes like circles and triangles and some lines as it appeared for only a fraction of a second before it completely disappeared and Matthew began to see the same red light particles gathering at where the symbol used to be and soon a fireball was once again formed.

After the fireball was completely formed, the old kobold opened his eyes once again then said,

"This is an ordinary fireball, a very basic fire spell as it can be used by just throwing it directly onto an enemy. Or if you practiced enough…"

The old kobold then released his right hand that was holding the wooden staff and he pointed it at the fireball before he moved his right hand and its five fingers as if he was molding the fireball into a certain shape.

But what Matthew thought turns out to be true as the old kobold's right hand acted as a controller with each finger moving, the fireball starting to change its shape.

First, the fireball elongated to an ellipse as the old kobold stretched one of his fingers and after he made a pinching motion, the ellipse turned into a long tube of fire. The old kobold continued to make gestures with the fingers on his right hand and when he stopped, they all could see the once fireball was now turned into a fire arrow!

"With enough control, you can influence the shape of your spell even after you cast it."

The old kobold then kept his right hand with the opened palm facing the fire arrow as he seemed to focus once again and looked at the fire arrow.

The fire arrow then began growing bigger and the shade of red even became redder as all of them could feel the rising temperature of the room that was caused by the appearance of the fire arrow that is currently as thick and long as one of Matthew's arms.

"You can even increase the power of your spell with diligent practice." The old kobold said this as his eyes were now focused on one particular kobold that was sitting beside Matthew.

The first kobold kid looked at the ever-changing spell and started to have a constant change of emotions as his eyes shone with wonder in one moment and then changed to hesitation in the next, followed by a contemplating gaze as he shook his head, then returned to wonder again.

Looking at this strange phenomenon with his all-around vision, even Matthew who was amazed when seeing magic for the first time, noticed the first kobold kid's weird behavior and constant changes of emotion that are literally shown on his face.