Time to Make Some Magic

John’s next class was Web Design, and thankfully it was going to be equivalent to a free period for him. For the past two weeks, they had been working on creating a template for their own websites, and were allotted two weeks as most of the people who took the course thought it would be an easy A and probably thought programming was akin to hitting random keys and having things happen because of that. John, on the other hand, was quite adept at basic programming languages and was able to finish his website pretty quickly, creating a site that debated the factors of good MMORPGS and information about some of the most popular ones.

Since he was done so far ahead of time, his teacher allowed him to spend his class period in the library and study on his own, often leading to John writing up drafts for his stories minus the erotic bits, as those would be filled out when he wasn’t logged into the school’s servers.

The problem with going to the library today was that the library could be a bit too accessible for him to do magic in. The most private place in the library were the study rooms, and even then there were large windows into these rooms so the librarian could keep an eye on the students at all times. If the previous achievement threat held any water, he would prefer not being smited for some random non-magic-user stumbling onto his Runic Magic experiments, thus he figured that the best place to practice his experiments would be the empty classrooms down the hall where the band practiced. Those rooms used to be for the chemistry class, but ever since a new part of the building had been added, those rooms often stood empty and were only used for after school detentions and as storing areas for large projects made by some of the science classes.

John made his way down to the hallway with these rooms, and after passing the first two (he could hear the sounds of other students skipping their classes in favor of more carnal pleasures), he entered into the third empty room. Taking off his backpack, John set up an area for himself to work in: a few sheets of paper, a couple pencils, some notes on runes, and a book on runes he did grab at the library before heading off to this room.

‘Alright, John. Focus. You can do this. It’s just like what you did in class except with a word you write instead of your hand. You got this,’ he thought to himself as he took a few deep breaths. ‘Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out.’

With his increase in self-confidence, and a bit of a hopeful outlook, John began to focus. He focused on that same part of the brain as earlier, where he was now certain that mana must come from. He sat there for a few moments, just focusing on his mana output till he was certain he was ready to try making a new spell. This time, however, he tried to control the mana flow outside of this body, to the end of his pencil. Then, carefully and slowly, he lowered his pencil to the paper and with his best handwriting to date, at least he hoped so due to his eyes being closed, he slowly and carefully wrote the word “Fire”.

His breathing began to quicken. He could feel his mana draining. He could feel the flow of mana through his body as he wrote each letter, the flow pausing as he switched from letter to letter. As he finished the final loop on the “e”, he exhaled, dropping his pencil and opening his eyes.

There, sitting before him, was the word “Fire.” He spent two minutes writing the word fire. He waited for the paper to burst into flames, or for the words to just glow.

Instead, it just sat there, doing nothing at all.

‘… Damn it.’

John growled a bit and quickly brought up his character sheet. It showed he spent a lot of mana in writing this one word, meaning that wasn’t the problem. He knew he could feel the mana flow into the letters, so it wasn’t like he was just wasting it, so why the fuck wasn’t it working?

He leaned back in his chair, grumbling and murmuring to himself as he massaged his temples. Why didn’t this work?

_‘Maybe this was a dud? Did I fuck up? Should I have written in cursive? Is this a prank from whoever is giving me these achievements?’ _John looked over to the word, grabbing his pencil again. *Alright. Let’s try again.’ Once again, John focused on where he figured mana came from. He went through the same motions till he had the same feeling as earlier, the flow of mana from his body to the pencil. Then, again, he started to write the word “Fire”. This time, however, he wrote in cursive, making sure his pencil never left the page. Once again, he finished the word and sat back to look at it. Just like before, the word just sat there, doing nothing.

John growled again, grabbing his pencil and trying again. Each time trying to use his mana, each time trying new ways to write different words. He tried the word “Light”. He tried “Power”. He tried “Healing”. He tried “Magic”. Each time he tried and each time he failed, the words just being words on a page and nothing more. In an act of rage he crumpled up the sheet with attempts and flung it across the room before placing his head in his hands.

‘What the hell am I doing wrong? I tried so many words with different effects, so many different ways to write the words, and nothing works!’ John was about to call it quits, to just give up, when he looked down at his little station. The whole time he had been trying words in English. Maybe he should have been trying to write runes?

John facepalmed. Of course, how could he be so stupid! It was called Runic Magic, of course he needed to write in runes! He moved to grab his pencil when something caught his eye. His character sheet had never been closed, and was showing that his experiments drained him of all his mana.

“Ah shit,” he mumbled to himself. Dropping the pencil, John sat back and let out a held breath. “I was so focused on getting it right, I didn’t even checked if I had the mana for it.” He figured his mana would regenerate over time, so he got prepared to sit for a while and let it restore. As his mana slowly came back, it gave him a chance to calm himself. He sighed in relief as the tension in his body slowly ebbed away, realizing he was so ready to get Runic Magic right the first time he was setting himself up for disappointment if he didn’t go as he had imagined. A smile slowly spread across his face as he started to feel more relaxed, and right as he let out another deep breath, a new pop up window appeared.

Skill Unlocked: Meditation
Meditation: Regain health and mana at an increased rate by staying still with your eyes closed, focusing on nothing or reciting a mantra in your head. Nothing else may be done while meditating.
Gain:
Hp regen x2
Mana regen x3

‘Well, isn’t that useful. I mean, It could be more,’ John thought, looking over his character sheet. Thankfully, he still had about 40 minutes of class left, as his quick calculations in his head told him he would need almost that entire time meditating to regain all of his mana. ‘I should have enough time to give it one more shot. Hopefully.’ With that, John closed his eyes, bowed his head, and started to Meditate. His body felt quite relaxed as he did so, like the feeling of taking a hot bath after a long and hard day or putting on clothes straight out of the dryer on a cold winter morning. Every so often he opened his eyes to check his character sheet, seeing his mana coming back at a faster rate but still an overall slow process. Finally, after around 36 minutes of meditating, his mana was refilled, and he had just enough time to give it another shot before he had to go to his next class.

John looked over his small work station. ‘So, writing the word didn’t work. Maybe… Maybe it's time I try a rune. Maybe English just can’t be used with Runic Magic or maybe it’s too hard for a beginner like me to use Runic Magic with English. Let’s see what we can find…’

The book itself had a starting section with the main runes and their many meanings stated. John thumbed his way through them, trying to find one that he thought would work.

“Let’s see… Uruz, the wild ox. Sexual desire, strength, power… Probably not one I wanna start out on. Isa, ice. Stands for mental or physical frustration. Well, I would prefer to have neither of those and would like to not freeze the classroom either. Next. Ingwaz, the earth god. Stands for home, relief, and freedom to go into a new direction. I… don’t think I would be able to see those effects to make sure I can do that.” John kept flipping through the pages, seeing many great ideas but none that seemed to be good for this instance. That was until he flipped to what was nearly the last rune.

“Kenaz, beacon or torch. This rune represents vision, revelation, knowledge, creativity, inspiration, technical ability, the vital fire of life, harnessed power, fire of transformation and regeneration. It signifies the power to create your own reality, the power of light.” John smiled, figuring a rune representing the power to create your own reality and knowledge would be the best to start his new branch of magic. This one should be perfect.

At least he hoped.

John looked over the rune in question. It was rather simple in design, just a “K” without the vertical line. ‘Seems easy enough.’ John took out a new piece of paper, and after writing through it a few times, and then keeping his eyes closed to ensure he could write it while focusing, he felt that he was ready to try again. John gave the book a final once over and took a deep breath.

‘Alright, John. You got this. You got this. Don’t freak out, because you got this.’

Since the rune had so many meanings and he did not want to have the rune possibly activate with the wrong effect, John figured his best bet would be to say the meaning he wanted in his head over and over while writing. Focusing on the part of the brain where mana flowed from had become much easier after doing this so many times, so it didn’t seem too hard to **** mana to flow through his body while reciting the phrase “torch” in his mind over and over.

‘Alright. Let’s do this. Torch... torch... torch, torch, torchtorchtorch.’

Slowly his pencil descended upon the paper, carefully stroking out the lines for this rune. Had his eyes been open, he would have seen that, rather than the dark grey of graphite, his pencil was leaving behind streaks of gold, a slight glow of mana making the line shine like a glittering coin. Behind his eyelids he could tell the room was a tad brighter, but he just assumed that was from the natural mana flow. He carefully wrote the symbol, relying on muscle memory to write the symbol as he was so focused on spending mana and what meaning he wanted.

He finished the last stroke, and opened his eyes as he lifted the pencil. His eyes went wide as he saw the glowing symbol he left, the Nordic rune of Kenaz shining as if it were made of the finest gold. It then glowed brighter and brighter before the paper it was on caught fire, enveloping the rune in flames. The rune stayed, however, just sitting there an inch above the desk glowing and burning. Very little smoke left the fire, no more than what would come off a burning cigarette, but it was bright enough to light the dim room to the point where it would almost strain the eyes.

John marveled at what he had created, his eyes wide in surprise as he watched this rune about the size of his hand burn. He could feel it draining him though, feeling a steady pulling sensation from his brain to this rune. Then, just as fast as it had appeared, it vanished, winking out of existence. The room darkened again, leaving in the rune’s wake four new pop-up windows and an ecstatic John Newman

Achievement Unlocked: Erat Mortuus. Nunc Vitae.
You brought back a form of magic long since thought to be dead. Congrats, Newman. You may prove to be interesting after all.
+2 Intellect
+300 xp
New Skill: Runic Observe

New Skill Unlocked: Runic Observe Lvl 1
Runic Observe: You are able to look at magically inscribed runes to learn the meaning behind them and cast them yourself. In addition, you may use Runic Observe on a spell cast and learn the Runic equivalent of that spell. The caster of the spell must be Observed first, and the amount of times you must cast Runic Observe on the spell in question is equal to 5+((Caster Level*2)-Your Level).

Quest Complete: A Symbol is Worth a Thousand Words
You have chosen the way of a Runic mage. Runic mages focus on drawing symbols to tap into the powers of the universe through the gods. You may now cast runes you have learned, as well as inscribe runes for a greater cost to be activated later.
New Item: Runic Glossary
+300xp
Choose one item
-Burning Rune Stone of Surtr
-Shocking Rune Stone of Thor
-Freezing Rune Stone of Ymir

LVL UP!

Rune Unlocked: Kenaz- Torch Form Lvl1. 10mp to cast, 6mp per minute to keep lit.
A classic Norse rune, able to light up a room or a whole arena. Will catch on fire whatever the rune is inscribed on. May light other things as well.