Heaven or Hell, Spell One, Let's ROCK!

Class passes by uneventfully. Despite the many questions you have, the ticking hands of the clock seem determined to move at a rational pace, the bastards. When the class thankfully ends, you consider grabbing your grimoire and running somewhere secluded to check for any new spells... but the rational part of your mind shuts down that option quickly. You've only got seven minutes between classes, after all. If you went somewhere without the possibility of prying eyes, like a bathroom stall or something, that would leave you with almost no time to actually read the new spell. And that's assuming there even was one.

You briefly wonder about the whole "demi-human" thing, and what exactly "connection" is supposed to mean, but you're quick to push it out of your mind. Regardless of what labels your sight decides to throw on him, Aster is good people. You'd love nothing more than to just ask him about it, but you very much doubt he'd know any more than you do. Aster's just some guy, after all. No, it's probably better that you keep these thoughts to yourself until you got a chance to ask your Grampa what exactly those words might mean. After all, a full fledged Level 10 Wizard ought to know something about it, right? You really wish you could just text him, but as far as you know he's only got a landline phone. Maybe you should try to talk your dad into buying him one. He'd never buy himself a smartphone, but if it was a gift, he might actually try to use it. Looks like you'll have to wait until after your classes to give him a call then.

With a forlorn sigh, you grab your textbooks that no longer fit in your overstuffed backpack and prepare to head to your next class. Between your grimoire and calling Grampa, it feels like all you're going to be doing today is waiting!

The monotony of your next two periods is only alleviated by the fact you've got Aster by your side. The two of you planned this semester of school months ago, back when you were selecting your electives. Neither of you are missing any of the required credits for graduation, so you made sure to take all of the same electives for your last semester. Now, only months away from the end of high school, you could essentially cruise through your remaining classes together. Hell, you could probably cut class for a week, and the only thing you'd get would be a stern reprimand... not that you'd actually consider doing such a thing. While your father tended to be a rather "hands off" sort of parent, you know that Aster's parents are certainly not. With them breathing down his neck, there's no way Aster would cut class.

And what's the point of cutting class without your buddy?

When lunch rolls around, you quickly excuse yourself from Aster's company and make your way to a place you know will be empty; behind the gym building. It's a sizable building, and technically speaking the backside of it was off limits during lunch hour; few people would bother to walk this far out of their way to eat lunch, especially since there was nowhere to find shade. After all, even in February, the California sun doesn't hold back. Even fewer still would risk getting caught out in the open by staff. There's nowhere to hide here, just a simple asphalt blacktop between the gym and the various outdoor athletic fields the school provides; the track, the football field, the soccer field, and the two baseball diamonds. Even if there was the occasional straggler out in the fields, they would be too far away to see you in any real detail; all they would see is some nerd with a book.

You quickly sit cross-legged on the asphalt, back against the building, and pull the grimoire out of your backpack. You open it across your lap, flipping through the pages as fast as you can, hoping that something, anything, has changed.

And sure enough, it has. Halfway through the book is another two page spread of arcane symbology, suddenly and inexplicably where you are certain there were only blank pages before. Here it is! Your first real spell! With hungry eyes, you try to read over the diagrams and calligraphy. At first, it's all nonsense, as though you were trying to read in another language, but after focusing yourself you can feel a subtle change in the back of your mind as the words seem to make sense to you. It's not as though the letters and symbols change. It's more like, suddenly you can glean some sort of meaning out of them. It's foggy at first, but the more you read the more you understand, even as you have to go back over the same line multiple times. It's almost like...

It's like you're looking at an abstract painting you can't make heads or tails of, and then someone comes along and tells you, "oh I think this one is about the artist's depression". And now that you know what you're looking for, you start to notice all the little things in it that feel sad to you, like the subtle blue hues and the disconnected lonely brush strokes.

Yeah, it's just like that kind of guided realization, but... with words. So... y'know, completely different.

At least this time it's not (metaphorically) kicking your brain in.

In any case, what the page is telling about your new spell is wild. This appears to be a spell of... well, the words don't exactly translate into English well, but this seems to be about "undoing", or maybe "unraveling" would be closer. As you go over it multiple times, understanding more of the text with each pass, you can see that it's... not very efficient? Like, based on what you're reading, the amount of energy (or maybe **** is more accurate?) that you need to put into the spell needs to be significantly more than what it took to make whatever magic you're unraveling. Which at least lets you know that there's some expenditure of effort in casting a spell, apparently. So, you're gaining some knowledge! That's good, right?

After a few minutes of scanning the text back and forth, you can certainly understand the pages just fine on a basic linguistic level. The best you can glean, as far as actually casting the spell, is that you need to say some magic words and then "focus the ****" (now that you look again, maybe energy was more accurate?) on the magic you want to unmake. While that's easy enough to understand, how the fuck are you supposed to know how to focus anything? The best you can guess is that it'd be like focusing your Sight to see more information, but even that's a rough guess at best.

As cool as being a fucking Wizard is, you can't help but be a little disappointed. You were really looking forward to getting a spell that did something cool, like flight, or being able to shoot fireballs. Still though, you have to remind yourself to be grateful. After an evening and morning of nothing, any spell at all is a vast improvement. You take a moment to scan back over the text for those magic words. Nothing to it but to do it, you suppose. Despite your magical ability to understand this bizarro language, when you try to pronounce the word out loud, it feels awkward and distant. Your lips and tongue stumble over the word, but after a few tries, it rolls out of your mouth in a pronunciation which you think might be correct.

"Hey man," says a voice, causing you to snap out of your mutterings up at the face of Aster, who is standing pretty close to you. "Whatcha got there?"

Shit, you were so engrossed in the grimoire you didn't hear him sneak up on you. There's a moment of tense silence as you scream inside your head, scrambling to think of a response. Gaining your composure, you quickly snap the grimoire shut and shout "NOTHING."

Smooth.

Aster just grins his little shit eating grin. It's the kind of grin you've seen before, like when you were two stock down against his main. "Looks like an old book," he says in a mocking tone.

"I'm serious," you say, more evenly this time, mustering up all of your self control to try (and fail) to not sound suspicious, "it's nothing, okay?"

You go to stuff your grimoire back in your backpack, only to find there's no room. Of course, you think miserably, you just put your textbooks back in there, so you kind of just spend a moment awkwardly trying to shove it in. To no avail, of course.

"Alright, fine," he says, crossing his arms. "I didn't see your dark secrets at all."

You stand up as you zip up your backpack, having now successfully swapped some of your books for the grimoire, and turn to him. "It's not a secret, shut up!" you hiss, trying to keep your voice at least somewhat low. But something has changed. Now that you're standing and looking more closely at Aster, you realize that your Sight must be doing something weird. Aster's HP bar is still floating above his head, but where before it was red, it is now blue. But not a solid blue per se. Rather, it's looks as though someone's photoshopped a blue filter over his HP bar and the accompanying text. Surprised by the change, you stare at it for a moment.

Too long a moment, as it turns out. Aster looks up at where you're staring, then back at you, confusion evident on his face. "What are you looking at? You're acting weird, dude."

You snap back to attention, and lock eyes with him. You don't get a chance to deliver the cunning retort you were thinking of though, not that you even had a decent excuse for your behavior.

Because in that split second you lock eyes, Aster is completely engulfed in a conflagration of bright blue flame.