Suhara of Curses: Chapter 5 - First Day Jitters

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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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The enrollment center was a bland experience. All they did was take Jaux’s certificate and ask which specialty class she wanted to take. Jaux had decided to follow Hawkshire’s advice on her specialty, since curse magic was still the only magic she had access to. Then she just sat there until they finished writing up a schedule for her.

The schedule was written for Jaux on a small card that was just about the size of her hand. She had a total of four class days, one for every other day of the week. Each class day had three classes. Two of the classes were two hours long each, and the last class was always her specialty class, which was only an hour long. Although the specialty class was the shortest, it was the only program that repeated itself throughout the week. The other four days of the week were listed as ‘study and practice’ on her schedule.

Well, that wasn’t too constricting, Jaux would get a day of rest between each learning day. Since today was Meldres, she had an ‘Enchantment Studies’ class coming up, followed by a ‘Casting Pattern Development’ class before her specialty.

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The enchantment studies class was located up on the third floor. Jaux had gone to the room early, because she wasn’t sure about what else to do. There were two other girls and a boy who had also arrived early, and they were all studying what Jaux guessed was the class textbook.

The teacher was a woman with fuzzy and chocolate colored hair. It bloomed out from her head in a pattern that reminded Jaux vaguely of ripe pine cones. Her skin was kind of an olive tone, and smooth to the point that Jaux had no way of determining her age.

“Is there something you need?” The teacher asked as she noticed Jaux.

“Oh, uh, no ma'am. I’m just new here, so I wasn’t sure about what to do before class.” Jaux replied. “My name is Suhara Ballad, I was just admitted.”

“Ah, I see. Well then, I am Professor Caeti Hadron, it’s nice to meet you Miss Ballad.” Said the teacher. “Since you’re early, you could study the basic terms so that you don’t get lost during the course.”

Hadron took out a small textbook out from a basket behind her, and opened it to a page with a long list of words Jaux had never seen before. She handed the open textbook over, before gesturing for Jaux to sit in one of the student desks.

Jaux thought the enchantments class was actually pretty okay once it got started. She memorized enough of the terms to keep up with the lecture, and had the textbook laying open on her desk for when she didn't understand something.

Every student was later given a wooden doll to enchant. The goal was to enchant it with a high degree of light concentration, which boiled down to making the wooden doll glow.

Since she didn't know anything about enchanting or concentration magic, Jaux was partnered with a more advanced student, who slowly explained to her how to exchant the doll.

Jaux never managed to succeed at it. There was just too many variables.

However, the tutoring process did help teach Jaux how to store magic into inanimate objects, which she thought was neat. It was similar to how she used her wand, but with a lot more focus on keeping the magic inside the object instead of firing it out. By the time class was over, Jaux had injected so much of her magic into the doll that it had begun to visibly leak out a faint black mist.

=+=+=

Casting pattern development was more of what Jaux was expecting from a magic school lesson. The class took place on the roof of the Lyceum, which was amazingly huge. The old and bald Professor Elsnik instructed the students in how to visualize magic in order to give it different shapes when cast. Then the students were put to practice, shooting spells into the air in different shapes.

Shapes required a mage to visualize their magic down to every little detail. Anything they don't concentrate on gets left out of the spell. Magic performed without thought of the appearance end up being featureless spheres. The imagery doesn't have to be thought of all at once during the spell casting, but there is only a small window of time for a mage to carve the details of a shape to their raw magic before they cast.

Jaux had fun with this, using her wand to fire off cones, cubes, and even a very rough sword. She even discovered that it was more effective to 'draw' the desired image in her head when she wanted to make a smoother pattern. All she had to do was think quick.

During the second hour, Professor Elsnik conjured multiple rings of light up in the sky, and explained to students how to aim their spells. Magic could take basic commands, allowing them to turn and bend if you just add a little extra power and thought before casting. For a demonstration, Elsnik fired off a small ball of green light, which flew through a dozen different light rings like a hummingbird before fading.

Aiming spells was a lot harder than Elsnik made it look. You actually had to command your magic with a list of instructions before you start to cast your spell. It was very easy to misjudge distances or make incorrect turns. No one managed to get their spell to move through more than three light rings, and on many occasions students had to run away from stray spells that fell from the heavens like colorful meteors.

This part of the class frustrated Jaux, since her magic had the unfortunate effect of nullifying the light rings on touch. She really needed a new type of spell besides curse if she wanted to practice aiming...

=+=+=

Jaux's final class was located on the fourth floor, tucked away in one of the farthest corners from the stairways.

The target-subject manipulation class, Jaux's specialty, had very few students. There were a total of seven girls and two boys altogether in the class. Jaux included herself as a girl, since no one would realistically categorize her as a boy at this point.

The teacher was also extremely unusual. He wore an armored breastplate over a dusty green robe. His hair was black and disturbingly oily, like a squid had spit on on top of his head. He also had so many tiny runes tattooed on his right hand that from a distance his hand appeared to be colored gray.

"Ah welcome! Always a special day when we have a new student!" The teacher greeted, "I am Sellwall Diji! What might your name be, little lady?"

"Uh, I'm Suh-"

"Oh good Suhara, so you did choose this class," Frey interrupted as she walked in from behind Jaux. "I didn't tell you about specialty classes, so I was afraid you might have chosen a wrong course."

Jaux gasped with surprise when she saw Frey. She didn't think they would actually meet again before the day was over. Then Jaux suddenly remembered why she wanted to see Frey so badly. "Hey! Why'd you collar me! I don't-"

Jaux abruptly lost her voice, no longer capable of making the slighting sound from her lips.

"Shhh, we'll talk about private things after class, okay?" Frey teased while lightly patting the top of Jaux's head.

Frey then went over and sat down in her seat, before she beckoned Jaux to sit down next to her.

Now unable to speak, Jaux resorted to sitting by Frey and staring with a sharp glare.

The teacher Sellwall just grinned in amusement at the two, before pulling out a few textbooks from a shelf. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Because of the small class size, every student got a one on one lecture from the teacher. By the end of it, the student in question would have at least one new spell written on a piece of parchment, which they were supposed to practice tomorrow.

The class was incredibly lax. Students were reading, playing with magic, or even sleeping when Sellwall wasn't talking to them. When he was talking though, the student would always pay close attention.

When Sellwall got to Jaux, he placed two small books in front of her. One was black and one was white. "Pick which one you want, little lady." He told her.

The black one was most likely the curse book, so Jaux picked it up and took a peek at the first page. It was a tiny spellbook! Every single little page had the instructions for a curse spell, and there were more than two dozen pages in the book!

"That's the book of the most basic curses, try them out one by one tomorrow, and then tell me which ones you could cast during the next class, okay?" Sellwall instructed.

Jaux looked up at the teacher with a huge smile on her face, trying to say her thanks but finding that her voice was still shut down. She shot another quick glare at Frey, before turning back and nodding to the teacher.

"Finally, for my star student, I got my hands on this!" Sellwall Diji announced, as he opened up a hollowed out book and pulled out an ancient tile made of smooth and gray stone.

"Ah, thanks Sellwall!" Frey said as she took the tile.

Frey studied the tile from every angle, before she took out her pearl wand and tapped lightly on one of the corners. White runes began to appear all over the tile, filling every available little space. Jaux couldn't help but look at the tile in awe. She had never seen an artifact like it before.

"Looks like a new blessing for speed, it's splendid!" Frey told Sellwall, as she leaned forward to blow him a kiss. "You're always so dedicated to helping me."

"Ah, it's the dream of the teachers, my dearest Miss Oden." Sellwall said. "Now then, class dismissed! Go study and practice your hearts out, kids!"

=+=+=

"Sorry Suhara, but the collar isn't coming off." Said Frey.

"Well if you don't take it off then I'll curse it off!" Jaux countered.

"The lock isn't powered by anything, it's just a regular lock. You can't curse it off." Frey explained.

"Ugh! This is so stupid, who came up with this stupid tradition?!" asked Jaux in annoyance.

"I'll tell you all about it tonight, now hurry up. The clothing shop gets crowded fast, you won't get anything if you keep up that snail's pace." Urged Frey as she pulled Jaux forward by the arm.

The two girls were on the first floor, heading right for the Lyceum clothing shop. The clothing shop was often very crowded, due mostly to how often robes get damaged by magic effects. When the two arrived, the store was only half filled with students, which was good. It gave the girls enough room to move about.

"Okay, let's see. You should look good in some green..." Frey muttered, "some brown and some black too."

Jaux just kind of tagged along while Frey picked out robes and nightwear. She didn't know much about colors or clothes, and figured Frey would have good judgement.

=+=+=

"You're lucky I know Desyi's sizes, it made this so much faster." Frey told Suhara, a fair bit of confident pride in her voice.

Jaux wasn't sure if fast was the right way to describe the clothing shop pandemonium. The shopping had almost taken longer than any of her classes did, and was nowhere near as fun. It was good to get over with, though. Now she wouldn't have to worry about clothing for a long time. Frey paid for her too, which was... nice.

Curfew was about a couple hours away, so the students were beginning to head towards the staircases. Jaux still hadn't forgotten about the collar, but Frey promised some explanations back in the dorm.

As they made their way through the first floor's central hallway, Jaux noticed the side hallway she remembered finding the black statue room in. She had an urge to go down to the room and inspect the statue, but didn't want to do so while Frey was keeping watch over her. Perhaps she could sneak over during the free day tomorrow...

Just a minute after they passed by the black statue's hall, loud and hurried footsteps began sounding out from it. Frey and Jaux looked back to see a tall blond wizard run out from the restricted hallway, a large staff in hand and with a face filled with anger. He stopped in the middle of the central hall, looking around madly.

Then the wizard looked towards Jaux and Frey, and pointed his staff in their direction.

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Comments

Uh-oh..

Podracer's picture

Of course this has "nothing" to do with Jaux's little visit earlier. It could be coming up is merely a "You there! Have you seen.. " but I suspect a little magical over-reaction is in store.
I'm glad Suhara is finding the treasure.

"Reach for the sun."

Speculation

Very good guess! Not quite right, but amazingly close!

Ruexin

I doubt it very seriously that Suhara would be so calm about the collar. No one especially someone who grew up as an orphan and had to fight to keep whatever they got. He being a small boy I am sure he had to fight a lot.
Good story so far am looking forward to reading more.

sdom

Men should be Men and the rest should be as feminine as they can be

Collar

Oh yes, I can see what you're saying. Hm, I'll have to work on how I express reactions like this.

Jaux's upbringing is the opposite of mine, and I mistakenly wrote the interation more from my personality.

I'll be sure to keep that in mind in future stories.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy what happens!

Dot

It has some power of control. when Frey told her to shush she could not speak. she couldnt even answer the teacher who was talking to her. Frey also made it clear she had no intentions of taking it off. Like I said in my comment earlier. there is no way in hell Suhara/Jaux would take this as lightly or as calmly as Ruexin has indicated. It is a magical device that controlls the wearer of the collar by the one who collared the person. its a form of magical slavery. that is the significance of the collar

Men should be Men and the rest should be as feminine as they can be

Restrictions

Well... sorta, yeah.

The collar restricts speech. She is able to physically talk, but all the sound coming out of her throat is absorbed and negated.

It's a bit of a domination sort of thing against the newbies, like long term school hazing.

Dot

It has some power of control. when Frey told her to shush she could not speak. she couldnt even answer the teacher who was talking to her. Frey also made it clear she had no intentions of taking it off. Like I said in my comment earlier. there is no way in hell Suhara/Jaux would take this as lightly or as calmly as Ruexin has indicated. It is a magical device that controlls the wearer of the collar by the one who collared the person. its a form of magical slavery. that is the significance of the collar

Men should be Men and the rest should be as feminine as they can be

What the collar does:

This collar is just a sorority/dormitory tradition in the Lyceum. It's similar to 'big sister' representation, but with a physical symbol for girls to... mark territory, I guess you could say.

It is physically locked, so it can't be easily removed with magic.

There is a small enchantment that absorbs sound nearby sound waves. Since it's placed on her neck, it negates the ability to speak when activated.

There's also a second enchantment that makes it extremely comfortable to the point where it's difficult to notice, even though it's made of metal.

Thank you!

Thank you very much! I appreciate it ^_^

More is always coming :)