Suhara of Curses: Chapter 17 - Haunt

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Jaux Ballad has always wanted to enter the realm of magic, but could not do so by regular means. In his desperation to become a magician he finds himself with more power, and more trouble, than he could ever have imagined.

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It took around two hours before Suhara was able to shake off her magic fatigue. In that time, Frey had found all the remaining sounds keys, but still didn't know how to order them together. The last seven sound keys were: Bod, ri, thin, de, wich, ee and yohr.

The key words were written into the parchment to figure out later, then Frey rejoined Suhara for magic practice. The magic refilling blessing was placed on Suhara, filling her depleted magic back up. It didn't fully recharge her, but it was close enough.

Suhara wanted to try and surprise Sellwall, so she was going to attempt to learn a master class spell. Frey supported this idea, but first took some time to teach Suhara some more specific details about casting spells. Due to Suhara's inexperience with magic fatigue, Frey guessed that her novi didn't know about magic erosion either.

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Master class spells have incredibly complex preparation patterns. They take a significant time to cast, so aren't ideal for situations such as solo combat. It is very favorable to craft items that are able to cast a master class spell, since it is difficult for a person to remember every casting requirement for magic at that level of complexity. However, the more complex a pattern is, the more durable a crafted item has to be.

Stones, crystals, and metals are some of the only materials that can be used to craft items that cast master class spells. The massive amount of surging magical power required to activate a master level spell item is already enough to destroy weaker materials like wood.

This doesn't mean items like wood wands can't cast master class spells, the items simply can't hold the entire spell pattern. Spell patterns are usually formed in the body of a caster, but magical items take in the required amount of magic and funnel it through the spell pattern designed within. In other words, whatever is forming the spell pattern feels the recoil of a magic spell.

The recoil from a magic spell is usually negligible. Magic flows like water in a river. Simple spells mean simple and straightforward rivers. A complex spell pattern is much like a river of twisting turns and violent rapids. Low level and standard level spells are simple, and thus create little to no recoil for a mage.

Advanced, master, and divine class spells can actually harm a magician over time. Magic fatigue is when a person runs out of magic, out of water. A second form of magical injury, known as magic erosion, happens when an overabundance of complex spells actually damages how a mage is able to form spell patterns.

Older rivers tend to be simpler than younger or newly formed rivers. This is because rushing water that turns or flows down rapids will eat more away at the sides of a river bed. Eventually, if the water eats enough away from the sides of the riverbed, it will actually break through and flow into a separate part of the river, forcibly causing the river to simplify.

Similarly, when a magician experiences magic erosion, they are incapable of casting spells that are too complex. They have injured their ability to form complex patterns, which forces them to use simple ones.

Mages are able to recover from magic erosion, because living bodies will heal over time. However, magical items are not alive, so when a complex spell erodes the pattern, the magical item breaks.

The way magic behaves like rivers do is also a big reason for why most mages tend to specialize what type of magic they cast. Casting similar types of spells will slowly carve the pattern of the spell into a mage's being. The more they cast the same spell type, the easier that spell type becomes. Since creating new rivers is difficult over existing rivers, this also makes learning spells outside of a specialty much harder. Many mages pursue their favorite or best magic type to the end.

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"Why hasn't any of this been taught in my other classes?" Suhara asked.

"Well, you're a novice mage. Novice class mages aren't expected to know anything more complex than standard spells." Frey explained.

"Oh. How do I get promoted then?"

"The Lyceum administration tests the students five times a year, once every two months. You can apply for an earlier test through a teacher if you want, but Sellwall might actually be planning that already."

"Really?"

"Yeah, being able to efficiently use advanced spells is on the high end of the basic class mage. If you can get master spells down, then you're almost qualified for an expert class mage."

"Wow! Cool! So that means Tricks and Desyi both know a lot of master level spells already?" Suhara excitedly questioned.

"That's right! Though it's rare to ever need to use such powerful spells in day to day life. If we're lucky, Desyi and Tricks might use some against each other in their duel!" Answered Frey.

Filled with newly found zeal, Suhara got to work practicing a master class spell. The one that caught her attention from the curse book was an aura spell designed to disable the bodies of everyone surrounding her.

Electrical energy is what many creatures use to move their bodies. The disabling curse is supposed to send out a burst of magic that would cut off the movement of electrical energy from the brain to the body, which would be enough to shut the body down. The effect would be brief, but the moment would give a very big advantage when outnumbered in a fight.

There was a way to specify allies that wouldn't be affected by the mass disabling curse, but it made the curse a lot more complicated. Suhara was first going to practice the spell without making exceptions for allies.

Back when Suhara was practicing aura magic, she could only cover about half a meter from her body. Frey stood one meter away from Suhara as she practice the new spell, so that extending the aura radius could also be part of the practice.

Every spell has a unique number of components that make up their pattern. However, there is a rough estimate for the amount of parts to each level of spell. Beginner spells usually average two components. Standard spells have roughly five. Advanced spells require around twenty pattern parts. Master class spell jump up all the way to nearly a hundred.

Master class spells were just about five times more complex than advanced spells, and were extremely troublesome to remember. While Suhara was casting, she failed multiple times when trying to form the pattern. She tried breaking the spell pattern into several parts, memorizing each individually before trying to string them together all at once.

After about thirty minutes of failure, Suhara stamped her feet on the ground and groaned in frustration.

"Maybe you should try chanting," Frey suggested, "It's a good way to remember long spells, just think of a sound for common groups of pattern components and put them together into a song."

Suhara let out one more annoyed little huff, before going back to her spellbook.

Frey returned to working on the cube while Suhara studied the curse some more. Frey began to say keywords one after another, keeping an eye on the locks for when they triggered. The first key to work was 'Ri', while 'Lees' was the second key to work. After Frey had repeated the two keys for a few minutes, she realized that the phrase was written in standard language. The word 'release' was the start of the key phrase.

Eventually, with enough brute force repetition, Frey had all the keys lined up correctly.

'Release the air within, which wears your body thin.'

At the sound of the correct phrase, the cube started to glow much brighter. Frey powered it with a bit of her own magic, which then allowed the cube to cloak her in a blessing.

Suhara lifted her head out from her spellbook and stared at the sudden spectacle. The glow from the cube seemed to transfer over to Frey's body, giving her an illuminated presence.

Then Frey fell through the floor.

"... What?" Suhara gasped.

A few seconds later, Frey hovered back into the practice room. Her body seemed out of touch with the rest of the world, and she could move right through solid objects with ease.

"Oh, that's what 'unstoppable force' meant." Frey noted to herself as she began to fly around the room.

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In the end, a master class spell was too much for Suhara to learn, and curfew finally sneaked up to end the magic practice session. She might have managed to pull it off if she invested more time into studying the spell pattern, but a lot of time ended up being used to test out Frey's new blessing.

"You'll get it next time." Frey assured her novi. "Thanks for helping me out so much though!"

Tricks and Desyi were already waiting in the room by the time the two had returned.

"Our duel got academic approval, it's gonna be tomorrow!" Tricks announced with bubbling excitement.

"Yeah, we're gonna be graded on how well we beat each other up." Desyi sighed.

"Aw, we'll miss it then." Suhara whined.

"Actually, I'm sure Sellwall will let us attend, it's not like we're going to be getting anything new tomorrow." Said Frey. "I mean, he could somehow get a third artifact for me, but that's beyond unlikely."

"Oh yeah! Frey figured out her new blessing!" Suhara then told the other two roommates.

"Really? What's it do?" Desyi asked.

"Does it make your punches blow everything up?" Tricks guessed.

"No, it's not that kind of unstoppable force." Explained Frey. "The Gear of Miju makes me intangible for several minutes. It also grants me limited flight. I can pass through anything while using the blessing, but I can still fire off magic while intangible."

"What?!" Tricks exclaimed in awe. "That's way overpowered!"

"It does seem a bit perfect, is there any drawbacks? Maybe you can get stuck in walls or something?" Questioned Desyi.

"Yeah, there is one. I can't get stuck in walls though, there's some kind of contingency for that in the spell pattern, which forces my body to reposition in the nearest empty space when the time limit runs out, even if there's only something like a quill in my palm. The main weakness so far is that Suhara can still hit me with her raw magic." Frey confirmed. "None of her other curses work, but spells that target magic can hit me."

"What, so Suhara is your only weakness?" Commented Tricks. "That's hardly a disadvantage, no one else here uses curses as often as she does."

"She was the only one to practice with me though, the spell might have other drawbacks, I just don't know them yet." Frey established.

"Yeah, if Frey still relies on sight, then your light spells can fool or blind her." Desyi told Tricks. "But it's no fair, my specialty is useless against you now, Frey."

"Looks like." Frey giggled.

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"You should totally sneak over to the boys dormitory with your new spell!" Dared Tricks.

"No way! I am not going over to the guys!" Objected Frey.

"Do it! You can freak them out by casting spells at them from the ceiling!" Tricks exclaimed. "Oh oh oh! You can even wail like a banshee and make them think there's a specter haunting them!"

"Ah... I don't know. I might get caught." Frey pointed out.

"It is a bit risky..." Noted Desyi.

"It's totally worth it. No wait, cast the blessing on me, let me do it!" Tricks suggested. "I can make some specter illusions... No wait! Better plan! Let's team up and all go!"

"No! That would be so much more risky!" Desyi complained.

"I kinda wana do it," Suhara piped up. "I can think of a few things my curses can pull."

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Somehow, Tricks had managed to convince everyone to mess with the boys.

Frey's intangibility spell could be combined with Tricks' invisibility spell, making all four girls into invisible and intangible spirits of mischief.

Suhara was able to use her raw curse on the light crystals in the boys dorm, blackening several rooms. In the dark, Frey was free to enchant objects to glow and fly around, freaking boys out. Desyi even joined in and made the rooms much colder, causing a scary chill to sweep in. Then Tricks used the small amount of light from Frey's spells to create the illusions of terrifying specters. She made vampires, floating dragon heads, and even a mummy at one point.

And so the Lyceum would forever remember the Haunting Night.

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Comments

good story

I can't wait for the next chapter to see if they get caught or it backfires.

Aw Shoot

Sorry, no punishments! They got away :O

"Haunting Night"

meanies. scaring a bunch of poor boys ...

giggles.

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Pranks

Yes, beware the naughty ones! Haha

Well, I wonder if there will

Well, I wonder if there will be a boyish revenge :)

Thank you for writing this captivating story,
Beyogi

Ha!! Good in!! : )

Ha!! Good one!! : )

alissa