An extremely unfortunate set of circumstances.

However, before your body can eliminate the remnants of drowsiness, this drunken idiot with a stupid expression on his puffy, freckled face opens the book and reads aloud the first text that catches his eye...

He probably didn’t understand why he did it...

The consequences are immediate.

The book is enveloped in a small light purple sphere. The book floats in the air in the center of the room.

Some invisible wave of energy throws Patrick's body a couple of meters to the side. He falls awkwardly to the floor. From the light purple sphere emanate several strange tentacle-like translucent appendages of a light purple hue, which quickly come into contact with Patrick's body. One of these appendages wraps around his neck. Patrick can only wheeze quietly. A second tentacle-like appendage touches the chest of an unlucky alcoholic student. You see how, at the moment of contact, something like a lot of small and sharp spikes are released from the appendage, which plunge into Patrick’s body. Then a strange effect occurs: there is no bleeding from the thorns, but Patrick’s body begins to shake convulsively, he continues to wheeze, his eyes roll back in such a way that only the whites of his eyes are visible, and a strange foam of a light greenish hue comes from his mouth.

All these events happen in just a couple of minutes.

The strange light purple sphere and tentacle-like translucent appendages of a light purple hue disappear instantly. The book just falls to the floor.

You come to your senses, realizing that now you are just sitting on your bed, shaking, with your hands wrapped around your knees.

Your gaze alternates between looking at the book, which is simply lying on the floor (as if nothing terrible had happened), and then at the body of your roommate Patrick, which lies on the floor at a distance of a meter from the book.

The dim light of the lamp, which Patrick never let go of, illuminates the space of the room.

You turn around and see that your roommate Alfred is in about the same state of shock as you.

He sits on the bed, his skinny legs dangling down.

His narrow shoulders tremble as does his weakly defined small chin. The grayish eyes look as if this frightened guy is about to cry.

You hear him whisper, riddled with fear: “Is he... Is he... dead?! What... What should we do now, Jorin?!”

You concentrate the remnants of your will. You slowly and carefully approach Patrick's body, which is lying on the floor and not moving at all.

You lean closer and look into his face. Glazed look of brown eyes. A slightly open mouth from which a stream of saliva flows. The chest rises slightly when inhaling. The beating of the heart... is still audible.

With incredible relief, you whisper to Alfred: “Patrick is alive! Calm down! Some strange magical paralysis... It happened because that drunken idiot found a book in your bedside table and read something! You should have hidden the book better, Alfred!”

Your roommate mumbles guiltily: “Excuse me, Jorin...”

You wearily brush aside his words: “Apologizing won’t help us now... We need to figure out what to do! We're lucky that it's night and that no one saw what... happened in this room. But if Patrick’s body is found in the morning, then we’ll both have very... very serious problems!”

Alfred mumbles in fear: “Exception from the list of students of the Royal Academy of Magical Arts?!”

You answer gloomily: “And not only that... There will probably still be consequences... “Purchasing” this book is illegal. Creating conditions in which one of the students was struck by magical paralysis is similar to grounds for imprisonment ... "

It seems that your answer affected Alfred so much that he... began to cry and sob, muttering something unintelligible about how he did not want to go to prison.

So, this weakling is of little use now. Therefore, you need to come up with a solution to the problem yourself.

What to do with Patrick's body?

His paralysis is clearly magical in nature.

A logical thought comes to you: "What if I try right now to find a suitable spell in this magic book to solve the problem? What if I manage to remove the magical paralysis and Patrick will be fully capable again?"

This magic book contains a lot of spells from a wide variety of branches of magic. It is quite possible that, although not on the first try, you will be able to find something suitable...

This would be ideal.

Because the alternative is extremely sad: you and Alfred will have to go to the dean of the Royal Academy of Magical Arts right now and confess to everything that you have done. It will be similar to the confession of criminals. Your adoptive father Alexander Tanrod will find out everything. He will take this rare magic book from you. He will punish you both. However, there is a chance that your punishment will be less severe than Alfred's... Still, your family connections can help you avoid the worst...

Alfred's sobbing and quiet crying are already starting to irritate you...

So, you urgently need to make an important decision. A decision that will determine the future events of your life...