Learning Magic

In Dedu Tedu Novus, Dhane sat in the soft and vibrant green grass near the cemetery, engrossed in Pip’s notebook on symbols. Magic. The arcane marks had a logic to them like code in an alien language.

He sighed and turned the page.

Programming was definitely not his forte.

The fountain in the cemetery gurgled. Soaking wet Cobalins laughed as they splashed water at each other. Puffy white Sumilians bayed or grazed or knocked their colorful and twisted horns against each other in bouts of contest to determine who was the fluffiest of them all.

“Yo, man, check this out,” Devron said, finishing off a set of symbols at the end of a hefty stick. He was all smiles with giddy excitement to perform his first bout of symbol magic.

The lines were difficult to read. Did that create heat or fire or . . . Oh shit.

“Wait!” Dhane yelled. But before he could say anything else, Devron pushed a shimmer of pearlescent mana into his messy art project, his nose nearly touching the wood, watching the mana seep into the symbols and sizzle as if it were to ignite.

Instead, the stick—in all of its woodiness—had a sudden and desperate urge to part ways with itself.

And that was what it did.

Dhane twisted away, throwing an arm up to protect his head. Splinters of wood stung his side, drawing a -8 in red to swivel up toward the sky.

When he turned back, Devron was there, sitting with a stunned look carved into his brow, hundreds of slivers sticking from his face like a porcupine.

“That,” he said, “was radical!”