Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Today's school day was interesting. A teacher called me aside after a class to discuss something, book told me the night before what it was going to be about, so I came prepared. "[insert name] it has come to my attention that the twins have done something to upset you and they wanted to figure a way to apologize."
"Oh, there's no need for that [Mr. indoctrination]. I forgave them the moment I forgot what they said to upset me."
"wait really?"
"yeah, I haven't spoken to them recently though, should I forgive them in person and apologize for making them go to the trouble"
"no, no, there's no need for that they've been hiding in the back room for a good time to come out and apologize in person." At that I acted a bit perplexed as the two came out of the teacher's office. The one that tends to get into more trouble lightly waved while the other one went for a hug. I patted her hair gently and pretended not to notice the jealous stare of the other twin who soon gave up and joined the hug.
"we good?"
"yeah, we're good."
"sorry for calling your special ability useless"
"that's ok if it were any more useful my life would probably be in danger."
"right criminals tend to kill people with your special ability when they plan on doing something major but since yours can barely make out anything, I guess they wouldn't even bother with you." I felt a bit hurt actually hearing it come from someone else's mouth. "glad I'm not even worth killing then."
"oh, I'm sorry"
"really as long as you don't keep reminding me, I'll be fine" I felt a hand slip into my pocket but knowing they probably weren't trying to steal from me I let it slide. After the hug dragged on for a bit too long the teacher cleared his throat, and we were subtly not so subtly uninvited from staying where we were.
I spent lunch time with my friends and the twins tagged along. "hey guys check out who I've just made friends with."
"come on man why you gotta bring the girls that rejected us to hang out with us?"
"yeah what [obnoxious friend #1] said."
"come on guys it's not like they were legally able to say yes anyways." After a bit of discussion my friends decided to let the twins stay as a pretext to becoming closer as friends and getting to know them to potentially, date them once it's no longer an illegal relationship. Not that they'd stick around that long. My friends and I had fun talking about nerd things together and you could almost feel the twins trying desperately to relate to what we were talking about.
By the end of this month these two will probably know more nerd things than they ever wanted to. At magic club I told the twins that I had to do some studying on a passive spell I wanted to learn and relegated the task of tutoring them to my friends. When the twins were about to protest, I told them simply and plainly. "I really like you two and I want you guys to be able to get along with my friends because I've known them for longer than you and I think since you're all cool you should get along too."
They seemed to accept my proposal and went off to ask my friends about me and try to grow closer to me by proxy of my friends meanwhile my friends obliviously attempted to grow closer to them by way of me. I managed to make a bit of headway on the spell. It's a bit similar to the perfect recall spell I learned as part of one of the senior club member's independent spell study from my first year in this club so understanding the basic principals of this spell was made slightly easier but for some reason the mage who made this spell convoluted it in places to make it purposely harder to cast.
Then again, a general rule of thumb for magic is that the harder a spell is to cast the more effective it will be, but does it have to be this annoyingly complex. I have to decode this in my head while making sure to memories the original cypher. I wish I could just say some words and have the spell be cast but for higher level magics you need to understand the why in order to get the intended result. Also, our club is going to need to go on a field trip soon to get more components. I know where to get a few of these and since they're easily found around the areas where other more commonly used components can be found we were going to have to go out and get them anyway.
Just as I thought that the club vice president returned with some of the components from my list "the left middle toe of a rabbit that died from polio, a chin hair from a hamster that lived a long full life and died peacefully, the tear of a child with cancer learning their life is about to come to an end, a pleasant memory and a liter of condensed venereal diseases."
"well, that's the more difficult components out of the way."
"may I ask what this spell does?"
"it makes learning spells easier."
"w-how?"
"it implants the knowledge you need to cast a spell by simply studying the conclusion of the spell's theory as opposed to memorizing it in full. Essentially it will cut our studies from chapters of reading to paragraphs."
"can it be parallel cast?"
"I don't know the book doesn't say." Parallel casting is when a group can cast the same spell with the same effect over a group as opposed to an individual without increasing the necessary spell components. The others still have to study the spell if they want to cast it but as the chance of the spell failing rises the more people participate and with this one being as complicated as it is even if it could be parallel cast I wouldn't want to.
I check book. "I think it could be but just take a look at the spell theory." I showed her my transcribed notes of the pages I copied from the old tome. "yeah, that's a bit too advanced to be casting with our younger members perhaps just the senior members."
"I'm good with that just make sure to get duplicate components in case the spell fails."
"I think we're good on most of the weird ones, but the toes and the diseases are going to be hard to get again."
"just infect yourself until you have enough and cure yourself later."
"no, it's your spell you do it."
"but I'm not very good at healing magic"
"then I'll heal you"
"how can I trust you to heal me when you're not confident enough to heal yourself."
"you know full well I have an auto recovery spell cast on myself and can't do it"
"and you'll teach me that spell once I learn this one, right?" the twins snuck up behind me while we were talking about components. "what are you talking about." I smile and look at the vice president she looks back at me like a stern parent reprimanding a 4-year-old for purposely soiling themselves. "no!"
"I didn't even ask yet"
"NO!"
"oh, fine we'll just get more liters while we get the toes, the book doesn't specify we couldn't give the rabbits polio" she audibly groaned. "fine, I guess we'll just have to kill some rabbits then." The twins begin looking between us all confused like. "what's going on?"
"we need more spell components for a particularly difficult spell and our club's vice president doesn't want to take an easy way"
"the easy way is potentially fatal."
"not if you use non-fatal diseases. It doesn't have to be polio"
"for the rabbits it does"
"yeah, the component list is oddly specific in places." The twins asked me to explain in more detail because they were still confused, so I explained to them what I explained to the club's vice president as well as mentioning that there were a few items I omitted from the list I gave the club's vice president because I already had them and needed to get rid of them. After saying this she made me give her the full component list so she could try to gather them and cast the spell on her own if it turns out later that it can't be parallel cast.
As I was reading through the spell on my own, I noticed something. I called the vice president over and informed her of something. The spell circles the club room has aren't of a high enough quality to sustain such a complicated spell. "we're going to need to buy better equipment"
"it was bound to happen sooner or later." She sighed and I apologized for the inconvenience. In all seriousness, my house does have some pretty high-grade ritual magic circles, but I don't know that my parents would be ok with me casting a spell, I probably shouldn't have found out about, in front of them. Usually, their adventurer work keeps them out of the house for most of the day but… not always.
There are times like this weekend where it keeps them away for extended periods of time, but those cases aren't too common. After club, I felt I grew a little closer to figuring out this spell but now that we're planning on parallel casting it, I have to teach my findings to a group of my peers and we're going to work together to get these components.
After school today the twins were following me home again today and since book said it was ok, I let them come. When I arrived at home, I saw a note on the table that said, "we'll be gone a bit later than usual. We will be back in time for breakfast. We left you some smoked meats and cheeses with bread. Love mom and dad."
That's strange, I thought to myself. "is work picking up for them?"
"you know adventuring is becoming a less and less popular job, what with the advent of constructs and the noticeable mortality rates people just don't feel like risking their lives for money anymore."
"it's not a risk if you know what you're doing."
"what do you mean?"
"gathering ingredients and components tends to be an adventurer's job but in the magic club, we don't have the funds to be wasting on hiring adventurers all the time and often just go ourselves. Most of us know combat magic anyway"
"Are we going to end up collecting components with you?"
"that job is mostly relegated to the club members that want to know where to get their own components if you want to go with the people that search you can but I'm probably going to be stuck inside tutoring my peers on how to cast this thing." Once we were inside the house, I found the note just as book said I would. I closed all the doors and windows and we hung out for a bit. I pretended to just now notice the box one of the twins left in my pocket and opened it, inside it was.
"it's a friendship ring. See we have matching rings" the twins held up their hands and showed off the matching rings each had a crack in it at a strange place. I put mine on and the twins grabbed my hand and showed me what the cracks meant. "if you line the rings up like this it makes a smiley face"
"ah, so it does." It's not like I could refuse, I didn't feel like I'd be cursed to become their suitor when I put the ring on so there weren't any weird charms or curses on the ring to my knowledge. One of the twins asked if we should drink together again but I reminded them that it is a school night, and they would have to go home at some point before the sun goes down.
They kept me company for a while and we read books and I briefly rehearsed what I was going to say to the rest of my club but to them and fielded their questions as they came up. After a while, the two left for the evening and I checked book. This time something strange happened. Every word on the page I was reading disappeared as I was reading it and book gave me a stern firm command "go to sleep." This was all that was written where my future should have been. It's very odd that book tells me what to do but perhaps it's a premonition of imminent danger.
I quickly and carefully shut the book set it aside and go to bed. In the middle of the night my parents returned fairly injured, but I wouldn't know until the next morning at breakfast. Because I was asleep when they returned, they needed not worry about calming me down in addition to worrying about themselves. Thanks to book they saved precious time that would have probably been wasted had I been awake…
Also, I woke up with the twins naked in my bed for some reason. Just, probably would have been bad if I was awake and they came in the way that they did. I checked book for a future where they explain themselves… apparently, the sister that can store things in a pocket dimension can also transport living matter this way. So, the ring was a way of planting a teleportation waypoint on me… yeah. I silently used my passive telekinesis spell to bring me the enchanted sketchbook that allows me to capture images from memory and began memorizing what I was seeing. After a few good images. I put the book away and used the same spell to give them back the shirts they wore last time.
These two seem to be pretty heavy sleepers… then again, I tend to wake up before the sun rises so I'm not really the best judge of these things. I very carefully removed myself from between the two and pushed them together, so they were holding onto each other without waking them and had another few sketches memorized.
After doing my morning ritual I left a note for when the two wake up on the dresser and used a cleaning spell on myself so I wouldn't smell like them… regrettably. Father has a sharp nose so I can't be too careful. Before going down to breakfast I kissed the two on the forehead and tucked them in, more because they looked a bit cute and book told me they were faking and I wanted to mess with them.
Before they could pretend to wake up I had left the room and was ready for breakfast. There my dad asked me if I brought a girl over last night and I told him that I did in fact bring the twins over and pitched them the spiel I'd have to give my peers for the new spell we were going to be trying to group cast next.
No doubt father could smell the girl on me, but it was just faint enough that he didn't show any signs of suspecting they stayed the night. Which if they did, they probably didn't stay the whole night as mom and dad would have probably caught them.
In case it wasn't clear before I carry book near me like how most mages carry a grimoire, with telepathy behind or in their sight. So, I occasionally glance at book to see what's happening because of my actions. I can watch through book as the twins realize it's morning and they have to go home before their dad notices they aren't in their room. they managed to teleport back using the blanket to disappear like illusionists of old back before magic was as widespread a study as it is today.
There are still mages who keep their spells a secret to others and thus write their magics in code so only they can read it so most of my friends just assume book is like any other charmed grimoire. And scarcely ever mention it. "you sure are dedicated to your magic studies." My mom said. "when you're old enough I'll give you my grandfather's grimoire and you can learn some of his old homemade spells."
"Thanks, mom." I then received a telepathic communication from the twins asking if it was ok to keep the shirts, to which I replied, not if you don't want your parents to find out. I heard her make a sound like she was a bit detected. She then said ok and cut the connection between our minds. Usually, for telepathy spells, you need consent from both parties in order to make the call but with her special ability, she can just force a call on anyone at any time.
And she can link her mind with multiple people at once which isn't a thing the common telepathy spell can do. After breakfast, I asked if my parents had time to tell me about what happened on their recent adventure and since my morning class for today was cancelled, I had time to listen for about an hour.
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