| Lessons of War |
This is just a story for the time being, I'll turn it into an RP, like "School of Magic", if anyone remembers it, only with more stuff(weapons and things like that).
Nothing was heard in the room but the hissing of a fire. In a large bed a man lay asleep, curled up tighly for warmth. Snow fell softly outside, adding to the sea of white already there. The man stirred, and sighed. A quiet mutter was heard as he counted. He eventually rose, still hugging the many blankets to his slight frame. He threw them aside, and dressed quickly. He wore a heavy woolen cloak, over many other garments, hidden from view. The cloak drifted along the floor slightly, the dust not showing on the black. The man was old, not a single hair other than grey lay on his wizened head, though there were a great many of these. Great bushy brows rose, examining the room he was now in. It lacked a fire, though a great fireplace was set in the wall. He set about the task of lighting one, despite his age he moved quickly. Eventually, he succeeded, and looked about the room. It was a study, books and scrolls filling the various shelves, which in covered near every inch of wall. He choose a book seemingly at random, and settled down at his desk to read it. The desk was near the fire, and the chair nearer still. He settled himself down, and begun to read.
He slowly peeled the wrinkled pages from one another to begin the tale. His fingers danced quickly around the pages, his eyes swiftly following. He spared the room a quick glance before immersing himself in the book. The small patch of wall that wasn't covered by books was by the massive fireplace, three cases of glass above it on the little space left between it and the ceiling. In the uppermost, a staff, crooked and unadorned, yet worn with ages of use, a crown in which a precious stone used to lie. The case below it contained a sword, straight and true, curving into a point only on the last inch. The steel blade was newer than the hilt, though it was slightly rusted, and blunt with use. Lastly, an oaken longbow was contained in the lowest glass case, bent out of shape and barely recognizable. A string followed an odd criss-cross of path from either end, knotted and near frayed. The old man sighed, ah the memories... He slowly wiped the dust from the yellowed pages, and begun reading aloud, though unaware that someone was there to hear him.
"Who can say when the magics were first discovered, way back near the dawn of the first beings, soon after the first weapons were made. Trained to a fine art, the youngest and most foolish of children have some spell at the top of their head, doubtless to trick some unfortunate fellow somhow. Even though magic was never as useful as a slash from a sword, or an arrow to the eye, it could be near as deadly and none could help but be curious of the wonders of it, with all the various different kinds, perhaps as many as types of weapons. At any rate, it is much more difficult to learn, at least for some..."
The book slowly fell onto the floor, the old man had fallen asleep, with the comforting heat of the fire, too drowsy to keep his drooping lids open any longer.
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The man awoke with a start. He glanced at the book in front of him, and put it away in its place amongst the shelves. He stumbled sleepily along the corridors of his home, towards the hall. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping out into the blinding blizzard of snow before he pondered as to what he was doing. He remembered, and continued on in a jagged path, almost falling with the heavy winds. He pulled his cloak and other garments tighter round him, his breath like fog in front of him in the icy weather. He slowly walked the half mile to the school, taking slightly longer than half an hour. He pushed the door open with shivering hands, falling into the brightly lit room. Lit or not, no one was there. The old man let out a sigh. He walked up the steep stairs, his knees creaking as he went. He stumbled at the top, and fell head first down the stairs. He lay at the bottom in a pool of blood for many an hour before the first in the building woke.
A young boy prodded the body with a tentative foot. A small book fell from the folds of the old man's cloak, and was rapidly whisked into the interior of the boy's own cloak. "Sir, sir!" he yelled at the top of his voice as he saw a professor trotting down the stairs. The man quickly came, heaving a sigh, wondering what the mischevious boy had done now. He gasped for breath at the sight of the body. "Quickly, get Professor Lisore." The boy rushed off, returning with a woman of middle age. She shook her head. "He's long dead, he lay here half the night I suspect. What he was doing here I don't know." The boy hesitated a moment before asking; "That's old Petterod, isn't it?" The man nodded his head. "Indeed it is. Go get the head-professor, and I'll try keep the students away, they'll be up shortly." With that, the boy headed off one way and the man another.
The boy stared into the strange eyes, a myriad of colours dancing within. "Well, out with it boy, what were you doing up so early?," asked the owner of the eyes gruffly, an elderly man with white hair streaming down to his shoulders. It was in fact the head-professor. The boy squirmed. "I was getting an early breakfast," he said timidly, looking at the wall. The head-professor looked sceptically at him. "I know that you are lying, I don't even need a spell to tell me that. I doubt you did anything so drastic as murder the poor old man, so out with it. You won't be punished," the head-professor hesitated. "... Probably."
"I was going to go outside to find the griffin that was supposedly flying around the area. It was said that whoever got a feather as proof would be rewarded with gold." The boy glanced at the brows in front of him. They were raised in a frown. "I was getting the feather so I could stop the shadow beasts getting at me." the boy blurted out. The old man chuckled. "Well, there may be such creatures, but you shouldn't heed such tales of them being here. Though you should be punished for breaking curfew, I'll let it past. You can also keep the book in your pocket, I can't decipher it, and I doubt that you can either. It was written in an ancient tongue, lost long ago. Petterod was always fascinated with such stuff, but even he could never read it. Well, you may go, you clearly hadn't killed him and are hardly dangerous." The boy left, closing the door behind him softly, but the old man's brows were still creased in a frown.
"You may not have killed him, but someone did." the professor muttered, recollecting the gash he had seen on his old friend's back. "And that someone is dangerous indeed..."
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[I guess it's time I started this... I'll start it in another thread, but I'll do the map out first.]
The boy glanced at the sheet in front of him. He had managed to crawl slowly through the letters, one by one he had deciphered them. Words of power they were, a hundred spells of various magics, of which he had never heard nor seen before. He chose one at random, and muttered the words softly, in the common language of course. It didn't matter what language you spoke spells in, indeed, you didn't have to speak at all, but the words gave shape to the magic, magic without words was unreliable at best. A swirling vortex gaped in front of him, and from strode a beast of unimaginable horror. The boy almost died of fright, but alas, he did not. All that was left to be discovered by the professors was a bloody and torn rag. Mutters flew softly along the corridors, students stared wide-eyed at rag as it was carried to the burial grounds, and thrown into a shallow pit to be swallowed up by the hungry earth.
[I'm going to plan this in this thread, so you can read it at your leisure if you might join]
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