Chapter 2: Chapter 2 - Mysterious Sigil
A rumble. The sound of a fall on wooden floor and a muffled grunt of pain.
Balthazar got up on his feet, patted his robes as he always did and moved the many books which had just fallen right onto him from the shelf. He also pushed the ladder from which he himself fell to the side and started to order the books again. Soon, a golem came and helped him. He took the two books he wanted and headed to the nearest table, quickly seating down and grabbing his grimoire as well as a pen and parchment paper.
It was a habit which Balthazar had never left behind him ever since he graduated. He still spent as much time in the library, learning about magic. "About" is the key word here, though Balth had only been second best of his class, it wasn't due to a lack of talent in spellcasting, but a complete disinterest in magical theory. So, he did not learn magic right now, he learnt its history. He had always been fascinated by the tales of great magis of the past, those that shaped the world and the art as it was taught now.
As for magical theory, he did the bare minimum, of course, some schools of magic were more interesting to him.
The Nine Grand School of Magic were as follow :
Evocation : the mastery of elements and destructive spells
Conjuration : the restriction and binding of magical creatures and effects
Invocation : the summoning of magical creatures and objects
Enchantement : lasting spells put on an object or creature
Illusion : trickery of the senses
Transmutation : the change of one thing to another
Divination : to predict the future and unravel the past
Polymorphy : to manipulate the body
Necromancy : to raise and control the dead and their energy
Of those, the most practiced was Enchantement, while harder than Evocation to learn, it is the most useful in everyday's life or one's work. A pen which writes what its owner commands it, a broom which sweeps by itself, such are good exmaple of basic enchantement.
The difficulty in Evocation lies not in the comprehension, but the danger, as a slight mistake when creating an explosion can easily blow off the caster's hand. As such, most Evocation wizard often bear the scars of their training.
Necromancy, however, was forbidden, and had been for almost 400 years, int the Empire of Karnoss and its tributary states.
It was described as vile, some argued it was not the magic in itself that was, but its user. Most of those omplaints fell into deaf ears.
There was a good reason Necromancy was banned. The Lost Lands of Drames. Once a beautiful sight, which now laid barren and bare, to the east of the Grand Duchy of Argel, itself to the east of the Kingdom of Celenis. The details of how such land was reduced to the desolate expanse of undeath it now is are unknown, but it is no secret, among the magical community and scholars, that this came from usage of Necromancy.
That was the reason of the ban on the school.
And that also was the reason why Balth was frustrated ! No it isn't about having to grade papers this time.
Its about passion. One that has always burned within Balthazar. Necromancy. To harvest the life and death of being. Necromancy, it is much more than that.
Why do wizard long for the arcane ?
They wish, like all arrogant mortals on the lands, to rebel. To rebel against the sky, the same sky which looks upon them with indifference, its cold gaze judgmental and impartial. And like ants they do rebel, archwizard reach for this very sky.
In the past, they made floating cities of gold. They search to live a century more, ever so greedy for a single day.
That is what Necromancy is. Rebellion. "Rebellion against death, may the Reaper die." Such was the motto of the now feared and outcast necromancer.
Of course, necromancy isn't just that. It also is the domination of others, the stealing of life and other horrible things. And those are the main reasons why it is banned.
But that didn't stop Balth from staying fascinated with it. And who could blame him ? What use is there to live if one cannot even follow is heart ?
For some time, he had tried researching necromancy on his own, but as there was absolutely no basis to start with, all books on the subject being either well kept in private chambers or having been burnt long ago, he struggled and did not go far. Hell, he didn't even have bodies to experiment with, no way to observe death. Even as talented as Balthazar was, it proved itself to be an impossible task.
And that is how Balth, for the past two years, had done all he could to try and grow his interest in the field of conjuration. It had not been a great success. While he showed good aptitude in it, as the geometrical shapes used to draw barriers, shields and the like came easy to him, he was mediocre in Invocation. And as he proved himself so bad at summoning creatures of magical nature, he had none to bind and command. While other graduates in conjuration had already aquired a familiar, like an imp or some animalistic spirit, he couldn't even start to commune with one. He had even thought of stealing or buying one during a moment, but grew to dislike the idea. If he couldn't replicate it, what was the use after all ? Its not like he needed one urgently.
And just like that Balthazar spent a good part of the afternoon reading about the history of magic, until something slipped from within the book's cover.
Balth furrowed his brow and picked it up. It was a small piece of parchment, barely three centimeters a side, in the shape of a square. Nothing appeared written onto it, but as Balth inspected the object with a closer gaze, he started to notice a few lines and indentations on the paper.
"Detect Magic." Balth cast the 1st Circle spell of the uttered name, it was a basic for all wizard, used to see magical energy normally undetectable to the naked eye.
As the spell took place, a symbol was revealed on the paper, it ressembed an X inscribed within a diamond shape. The magical properties of the drawing seemed to have been dispelled, as no magical effect was sensed or even perceived.
While it was not ususual for such things to be found in the academy, sometimes just left there by students, the weird part was that it was clearly hidden within the book's cover. Though it could have just been a prank after all.
'I'd rather check if I find anything about that, anyway I don't have anything to do before 3pm, so I still have the time.'
Curiosity easily carried Balth who started digging through books on magical imagery for a good hour, yet without finding anything.
'Huh, the symbol is quite simple, if I don't recognize it, it musn't be hard to find anyway... unless, it could be a personal sigil!'
A personal sigil was a sort of magical signature used by mages, each could design their own, or even multiple, and using their own mana, they could link magical installation, or just sign document.
'I'll keep it on me, like that if it activates, I'll be able to sense it without much trouble, and I'm kinda curious about it, students shouldn't be able to make personal sigil, let alone hide them and requiring the use of Detect Magic to see them fully.'
Time flowed and like that Balthazar left the libraary, heading to the sole class he had to give for the day.
"Rachel, A, 17/20, be careful when you draw a circle, use a compass, you lost 2 points there, for a tertiary circle of the spell, its too bad, it shouldn't take you more than a few seconds to do it correctly.
Jonas, C+, 12,5/20, you need to learn you formulaes, otherwise you're just gonna blow your hands off in practice class next year.
Cassandra, B, 15/20, flames are supposed to diffuse the heat in this direction , but your circle..."
Balthazar's hand moved fluidly on the blackboard, inscribing numerous remarks and correcting the students as he wrote down the correction.
"By the way, I spoke to Professor Amos, while he refuses to move the test, he said that you could come and find him anytime for help on how to prepare, you still have tomorrow left, its for the best you use them well. Understood ?"
Usually, the class gave clear answers in these cases, or at least protest, but here, there were only a few nods and timid 'yes' echoing from a few parts of the classroom.
Balthazar furrowed his brows, but continued on with the lecture.
8Pm rang at the big clocktower of the academy, sounding the end of classes.
"Rachel, come here a minute please."
Rachel approached the desk as her friends gave her a small sign they'd be waiting for her in the dorm. She had bags under her brown eyes, and her brown, reddish hair were not as well kept together as usual, her skin had a few red marks. Signs of troubled sleep.
"I reckon sleep hasn't been easier ?"
"Ah, no Teacher, its not going any better for any of us.."
"Have you thought about bugs ? Maybe there is an infestation of some sort, I can have it checked if you want."
"I... I don't think that's it. We all have nightmares, at first we thought it was the stress but I doubt it now ..."
"Well, a big test is coming it might just be it. Tell me if it goes better on monday, anyway I'll be supervising the test with Professor Amos."
"Thank you sir, I'll try to get some sleep."
Rachel left.
Balth chuckled for a second.
'I'm kind of a jerk huh?' He thought as he grabbed the sigil from the library.
'I most definetly sensed something from here, like a link of some sort ? Might not be a harmless prank after all ? Or is it just their seniors playing a bad trick on them ? If it is, I guess I can give them a scare, for the sake of discipline, definetly no enjoyment on my part.'
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