Keepers of the Book [PG-16]

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of disturbing scenes. While I try to keep it to a minimum, the nature of the story doesnt leave me too much wiggle room.

 

 

So this section is dead as all hell. Figured I'd start posting in it again, liven it up a bit. The upside here is that this story isn't really being written for any audience, its an idea I want to write. So I'm writing this more for myself than for any audience. Meaning that this topic isnt just going to die out of nowhere due to inactivity.

 

Anyway, review if you want. Feedback is appreciated.

 

[spoiler=Table of Contents]Chapter One: OP[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Chapter One]Your brain chooses some very unique moments to begin contemplating deep, philosophical ideas. You could be on the toilet, for example, dealing with last night’s Mexican that had way too much spice. Or you could be on a rollercoaster screaming for your life.

               

Me? I was currently wondering what life choices had led me to being pinned down by five large skinheads in an alley behind my school, with my books scattered everywhere, my shirt missing about three or four buttons, and the heel for my shoe located somewhere on the roof.

               

Well, half of my brain was. The other half was mostly shouting incoherent swear words in various languages.

               

I know what you’re thinking? Who am I, and why do you care? Well, dear stranger, let me tell you a little bit about myself. Whether or not you care is totally up to you, however. But you picked up this book, so you might as well keep going, right? Right.

               

Most people start with their name, right? Well, you can just call me Fox. My real name is Olivia, but everyone calls me Fox because in middle school I used to wear one of those fake fox tails every day. Every. Single. Day. The name caught on, and even after I burned the thing in my backyard, it stuck. So now I’m Fox.

               

I’m seventeen, and graduating next year. I speak English, and I know some very colorful curses in various languages including Swedish, Spanish, Russian, and German. Foreign swear words are my specialty.

               

And I had managed to draw the aggro of five a****** skinheads that were currently attempted to defile me in a rather unpleasant manner. So let’s skip back a little bit. To my last year of middle school, where everything was peachy. I had friends, I had a boy following me around, my teachers thought I was the best thing since sliced bread, my parents had a happy marriage, and my sister was clean.

               

Everything was just too perfect. So naturally, some karma from some stupid thing I did in a previous life decided to catch up to me and basically turn my life into a living hell in the span of one year. One year is all it took to reduce the solid, functional life I had to the soiled, piss-poor, pathetic excuse of an existence I have now.

               

And it all started the day the cops walked into my house and arrested my dad. On charges of murder, rape, child molestation, cannibalism, and various other extremities. He was found guilty of all charges and put on death row. He was executed a year later.

               

I didn’t watch. I wasn’t even there. That man was no longer my father in my eyes.

               

My hometown turned against my family after that. Me, my sister, my mom, we became resented. Hated. Like we were part of it. Like we had supported that mans twisted urges. We all had different ways of coping. I became depressed, suicidal, and have attempted to cut my wrists multiple times. I still have the scars.

               

My mom turned to alcohol. The local bar and liquor store became her second home. She isn’t even AT home very often and when she is, she’s either throwing up in the bathroom or passed out on the couch with a bottle of vodka, tequila, or some other hard alcohol in her hand.

               

And my sister turned to drugs. Small things at first, like pot. Pot turned to Ecstasy, which turned into coke, which turned into heroin and meth. She fell in with a group of druggies and her entire life now revolves around her next fix.

               

I somehow managed to stay in school. I scraped by with grades that I could tell the teachers were reluctant to give me. My sister flunked out a long time ago. I got into a lot of fights, because other kids would torment me and I had no one to stand up for me. So I learned to fight back.

               

It was always self-defense, and I hadn’t been arrested yet. But I’ve been suspended more times than I can count, while my tormentors get away scot free. a******s.

               

So that leads me to my current situation, with my face being pressed against asphalt and filthy hands roughly grabbing wherever they could on my body. I think I’m crying. I can’t tell.

               

“Little b**** thinks she owns this school, doesn’t she?” one of the skinheads growls to his mates, a triumphant note in his voice. “Well we’ll show her, won’t we boys?”

               

Another one grabbed my face in his hands and lifted it up to his level, grinning at me. His teeth were yellowed and his breath smelled like weed. His eyes were bloodshot and he had obviously fresh pit stains on his shirt. Gross. White noise begins to fill my ears and drown out their voices.

               

I know I’m crying now, because a drop of water just touched the ground in front of me and it’s in the middle of July. We don’t get rain in the middle of July. My shirts gone now, and I just have a bra on. I let myself go limp as I just wait for it to be over.

               

Then I’m dropped and I hear a crack as I hit the ground, hard. Heavy footsteps tell me that my antagonists are running.  I hear another crack as one of them steps on my leg, grinding his heel into it. The noise begins to fade and I feel large hands gently lifting me up and carrying me away.

               

Then the pain hits and my vision goes black.

               

…

               

The first things I notice is that I’m alive, I have clean clothes on, I’m pretty sure I’m still a virgin, and I’m in the wrong bed.

               

The second thing I notice is a blinding pain in my jaw and leg, which is propped up on a cushion with a cast around it, and my mouth hurts when I try to open it.

               

The room I’m in is pretty clean. I know I’m not in a hospital, because it looks like an unused bedroom. The walls are white plaster with a window to the right of me, and a door on the left wall. The bed is a dark wood with blue bedding and big poofy pillows. Aside from a dresser next to the window and a bedside table, the room is bare. On top of the bedside table is a device with a red button on it. I hesitantly pick it up and out of sheer curiosity, I pressed the button.

               

A massive buzz sound comes from the thing and I yell like an idiot, dropping the thing onto the floor. After a few minutes I hear footsteps and the door opens, and a big man walks in. A big man that I recognize.

               

“Hey, Fox. You’re up.” The man is tall and wide, but not fat. His body is thick and muscled, and he’s wearing a black tee and baggy jeans. His face is kind of soft, with black hair reaching his shoulders and a handsome-looking scruff.

               

“Mr. Dober?” I ask, rather confused. My speech is slurred as well, and my jaw hurts. See, Mr. Dober is our janitor. One of the friendliest guys you’ll ever meet, he’s the only one who’ll give me the time of day anymore at our school. “What…what the hell happened to me?”

               

Mr. Dober frowned. “You got assaulted by some gang idiots trying to rough you up. I scared them off and brought you back here to treat you, since I gather your mother and sister would be of little help to you.”

               

“Why not just bring me to a hospital?” Ow.

               

He shrugged at that one. “Your mother and sister spent all your families’ money on alcohol and drugs, and I work as a janitor. I can treat broken bones, so I figured instead of giving either of us a big fat bill we can’t hope to ever pay, I’d just bring you here and treat you. Make it easier.”

               

“Are you some kind of doctor?” Ow!

               

“Nope.” He said this with a large grin, and I smiled nervously back at him. I’d like to leave, but with my leg in the condition it’s in I’d be hard pressed to stand, let alone walk.

               

“Umm…okay. So…when am I going home?” s***! My jaw is on fire right now!

               

“Once your leg is fixed up, they did a number on it. It should hopefully heal on its own, but the problem is they aggravated it by grinding it the way they did. I can fix it, but it’ll take a while.”

               

“But what about school and my family?” God DAMMIT!

               

“The school doesn’t give a damn, and do you really think you’re family does? Your mother is currently piss drunk in the alley next to the bar and your sister is getting high somewhere in the junkyard.”

               

He was right. And I hated it.

               

“I’ve honestly been trying to get you out of there for ages, but CPS isn’t exactly the most proactive of agencies. You’re a good girl.” Mr. Dober states this with a soft tone, and smiles gently at me. I’m honestly rather flattered.

               

“So,” he continues, raising his voice a bit. “You can stay here till your leg heals, and then you’re a free bird! Oh, and you must be starving! I’ll get you some breakfast.” And then he’s gone, and five minutes later the tantalizing smell of bacon comes wafting in through the door. I haven’t had bacon in years.

               

I suppose it wouldn’t be TOO bad to stay here for a while. I mean, the guy did save me from getting gang-raped. And I don’t exactly have anyone to worry. Plus, this bed is clean and I smell good food. If he’s going to kill me in his basement, at least I can die with a full stomach.

               

He came back twenty minutes later with a platter of bacon, applesauce, and a banana. The right side of my jaw still hurt like hell, but if I chewed the bacon with the left side it wasn’t as bad. Plus, it was bacon. The pain was worth it.

               

He ate with me and made small talk. He’s actually a pretty nice guy, and is surprisingly only 25 years old.

               

“I didn’t go to school, I dropped out in my sophomore year of high school. My parents were furious, but I was an idiot teenager and I ended up running away. I stayed with a friend of mine until I eventually got a job, saved up some money, and bought this place. It’s small, but I like it. Especially since some old stuffy lady across the road saw me moving in and dumped a whole load of her old furniture on me.” I smiled and nodded along, preferring to use my mouth for eating instead of talking.

               

After a while he checked his watch and sighed. “Another day at the rat race beckons. There are crutches behind the dresser for you if you want to get up and walk around.”

               

“You mean I don’t have to stay here?” I asked, surprised. I thought a single guy like him would want to keep his man-cave secret from most people.

               

“Nope. You’ve got free reign of the place.” He said, grinning. I waited for him to tack on an ‘except the…’ to that, but he didn’t, and I raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously! If you can get to it, then you can be there. I don’t care. Do what you want, read what you want, eat what you want.” And with those words, he got up and left the room, but not before moving the crutches he pulled out to a more accessible place.

               

I wanted to get up and walk around, but at the moment I just wanted to stack some Z’s and sort my thoughts out. My life had certainly just taken a turn for the interesting.

               

…

               

I’m not sure how long I slept. Mr. Dober doesn’t actually have a clock in this room. I stretched, winced, and tried to figure out how to use the crutches. After a little trial and error, one such error involving me stumbling to the side and smacking my funny bone on the dresser, I got the hang of them and made my way over to the door.

               

The house was small, and cramped. There was a little hallway leading to the front door in one direction, and to a staircase in another. Three other doors lined the hallway along with the one that led to the bedroom I was sleeping in. Two doors on the left, two doors on the right.

               

Let’s see what's behind door number one. I thought as I opened up the door across from mine. It was a bathroom, which I noted as useful information to have.

               

A few minutes later I opened up the second door and found it was a second bedroom. Also rather plain, it just had a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand with a lamp and a book on it. I gathered that this was Mr. Dober’s room, and I shut the door.

               

Door number three held a much more interesting scene. It was a kitchen, but along the walls of the kitchen were bookshelves, packed tightly with a good hundred, hundred fifty books.

               

I crutched my way over to a shelf and looked over the spines. A lot of the books were in another language, and I saw precious few English titles. And the ones I did were pretty weird ones. Ghost stories, fairy almanacs, and other such things.

               

“This dude is a hard-core collector or something…” I muttered. I pulled out a book titled Creatures of Blood and walked back to my room. Lying down on the bed I opened up the book and began reading.

               

The Creatures of Blood are a curious phenomenon that occurs when one’s blood is animated to form a being of intelligence. It takes on its own thoughts, ideas, and independence, while still remaining bound to the person from whom they were brought into being. Creatures of Blood can take many shapes, but the most common for them to take is that of a spider, as the arachnid form is useful for hiding, moving around, and remaining unseen by others.

               

I lost myself in the dusty old thing, reading about various things people did to their own bodies in order to create these ‘Creatures of Blood’.  I was in the middle of a very interesting section on Blood Ravens when I heard a rush of wind blow down the hallway, startling me into dropping the book.

               

Hesitantly, I picked up my crutches and swung myself into the hallway. The front door was wide open and a few of the pictures on the wall were askew. The door to the kitchen was also open, which I found odd. I thought I had closed it after all.

               

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as something drove me to walk towards that door. Why am I doing this? Call the police! Someone just broke in! Don’t go looking for them!

               

But my legs wouldn’t listen, and neither would my arms as I swung forward and peeked into the door.

               

I was greeted by the sight of a short, stumpy creature of pale white. It had a flat head, its ears were huge and pointed, and it had warts, bumps, boils, and rashes all over its skin. Its eyes were bloodshot and it was totally nude.

               

I just stared. I was hallucinating. That bacon had LSD in it. That’s a goblin. Or a gremlin. Or a boggart. Something. Looking through the books. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Still there.

               

Then it turned its head and looked at me. We stared at each other for a full ten seconds of total silence as I saw gears turning in its head. Then it snarled at me and jumped, clawing at me with its fingernails.

               

I screamed as it collided with my face, tearing my flesh and causing blood to drip into my eyes. I don’t know what possessed me to say those words at that time, but in a panic I remembered a passage I had read in that book, and I bit my finger. Hard.

               

As I did so I blocked out every other thought in my mind except for that of a fox. It was the first thing that came into my head and I rolled with it. The little bastard clawing my face open took a sideline as the image of a red fox dominated my mind.

               

Then I felt funny. Like something was squirming in my chest, my guts, my hand, my face, all at once. I gasped and stopped biting my finger, and the blood sprayed out. But it didn’t just spatter everywhere like I expected.

               

My blood that at this point was coating my body floated up and coalesced in a swirling maelstrom of red. The spray from my finger swirled and whirled around, and I heard a horrible snarl of fear coming from the little demon that at this point had turned its attention to the blood.

               

Then it began to take form. I could see the tail first. Then the legs. Then the body. Then the head. The snarling, grimacing visage of a red fox, made out of my blood. A Creature of Blood. It charged at the gremlin and tore into it, causing the little a****** to howl in dismay.

               

It smacked the fox, tried to claw at it, but it was already dying. It eventually stopped struggling and just went still. The fox dropped it a ways away from me and slowly padded over to me, and set to work at licking my wounds.

               

I was in shock. I didn’t know what just happened, so I decided to do what any sensible person in this situation would do.

               

I passed the f*** out.

[/spoiler]

[Alice Moonflowyr]

Figured I might as well pop in here and update this, because I am still writing it. Figured why the hell not.

 

[spoiler=Chapter Two]Strange dreams plagued my rest as a maelstrom of chaos wove its tale. I saw a man in a tall golden tower writing glowing letters on pages of pure energy, weaving ancient magic into a leather-bound volume. I saw the letters shift and move, disappearing and reappearing. The man had no face, and wrote with strong, precise movements. And I knew his name.

             

His name was Abraham.

             

Then the world swirled around me and turned to dust, flickering away as the chaotic Dreamland took me to another place. A massive city, the edge lining up with a huge shoreline, with waves crashing against it. Strong pillars of marble held up temples that dwarfed the likes of skyscrapers and small mountains. People in robes walked about, chattering aimlessly.

             

Then a dark shadow fell across the land as a rip appeared in the air. A tear in the fabric of Reality, it grew to create a crack. A great crack in the world that led to a deep place that was feared by all. And out of it swarmed monsters. Small ones like imps and goblins, and massive towering demons that nearly matched the temples in size. They stormed the city and tore down building after building.

             

Yet one lone figure stood in their way. A dark man atop a pale horse. In his hands he held a book, a different book from the one I saw before. It was a purple colour, with the likeness of a skull etched onto its cover. Chains covered the book and a large lock was dangling from the side.

             

The man held up a hand and dark magic swirled from it, creating a black singularity that sucked in demons and men alike. He then used this piece of magic to seal the rift, but at no simple consequence. The ground began to rumble, and shake. Cracks appeared in the ground and the entire island shuddered as it began to collapse beneath the waves, swallowed for eternity.

             

I had just witnessed the Fall of Atlantis.

             

“Fox!”

             

A noise from the black maelstrom called out to me and I turned to it. I saw a creature, a blood-red fox padding around my side, looking up at me. I nodded because I knew him. I don’t know how, but I feel like I’ve known this creature all my life, yet I cannot pick out a memory with him in it.

             

“Fox! Fox, you’ve gotta come back to me, Fox!”

             

“Should I go back…?” I murmured, mostly to myself. My companion yipped and nodded his head, and I smiled in agreement. “Let us go then.” And I walked. And as I walked, the maelstrom faded. A pounding began to fill my head as a whiteness overcame my vision.

             

My body turned to dust as I surrendered this Dreamland, this convulsion of time. And I awoke to the sight of Zane Dober leaning over me, a bloodied rag in hand.

             

“My face feels like hell…” I muttered, attempting to sit up.

             

“Whoa, careful.” He said, pushing me back. “You lost a lot of blood. And…some of your face.”

            

  I chuckled dryly. Oh I knew what I had lost. My vision was fuzzy and I felt a dull throb on one side of my face that caused me to grit my teeth. The little bastard gouged out my eye.

             

“Where’s the Boggart?” I whispered, looking around.

             

“I disposed of the thing. It was a nasty one, I’m surprised you’re still alive.” He said, frowning.

             

“I had help…” my voice was growing weaker as I spoke, and my vision grew fuzzier.

             

“Yeah, the Creature of Blood. I’m impressed. I haven’t met anyone capable of creating a creature as big as a fox before, let alone on their first attempt. What’s his name?”

             

I’m not sure how I knew this, but his name leapt to the tip of my tongue like I had spoken it a thousand times, and a thousand more before. “Eryien. His name is Eryien.”

             

Zane blinked. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. You’re lucky to have him.”

             

As his name was spoken, Eryien padded up beside me and licked my face.

             

I chuckled and petted his head. “It’s strange. I feel like I’ve known him all my life, yet he just came to be today.”

            

  “That’s because you have known him. You didn’t just create a Creature of Blood, you created a familiar. Which is interesting, because the book you were reading doesn’t cover familiars until far further into it.”

             

“How did you-“

             

“I know lots of things, Fox. But what I don’t know is how that boggart got in here. And that’s disturbing, because the wards and scrying enchantments around the premises were out for a full ten minutes.”

             

I didn’t dig all this talk about wards and scrying, but I had a fox sitting right next to me made from my own blood, so I just rolled with it. Zane got up and fetched some bandages and began patching up my face.

             

“I did what I could for your face,” he said, frowning. “But your eye is beyond my ability to save. Nerve tissue is tricky.”

             

“What are you talking about?”

             

“Magic, girl. I thought that would’ve been obvious at this point.”

             

“So…you’re like a wizard or something?”

            

  “Wizard, magician, sorcerer, alchemist, oracle, healer, and various other titles accompany my name, yes,” he muttered, finishing up the bandages.

             

“Zane.” I spoke, without really thinking. It then occurred to me that he hadn’t told me his first name.

             

He rose slowly and stared at me. “Now that’s curious. What exactly did you dream about?”

             

I told him and he became stone-faced and his voice turned deep and serious. “You must never repeat what you have seen to anyone else. Abraham and the Fall of Atlantis are people and events lost to history, very few people remember those events. And of those who do, very few of them are…benign.”

             

I wanted to ask about the books, but something told me I shouldn’t. I instead looked at Eryien. “What do I do now?”

             

“Well, you’re obviously talented. And normally I would simply cast a memory blocker on you, stop you from remembering this whole debacle. But I can’t erase a familiar so easily. So you have a couple choices.”

             

I waited silently for him to continue, curious.

             

“You can leave and go your own way. I have tools and ways to get you out safely and with Eryien by your side you could do great things. Or…you could stay here. Become my apprentice. I need someone to pass my knowledge on to anyway.”

             

I blinked. I wasn’t really expecting that, but I was intrigued. “What would being your apprentice entail, exactly?”

             

“You stay with me. You learn to harness the powers of your talent. Eventually you could choose to specialize in a specific field of magic. But mostly you’d be helping me out with my job.”

             

“As a janitor?”

             

“No, you idiot. This place is not all it seems. Concealed here is a very special artifact that I guard. I also go out and kill various demons, devils, fae, and other assorted magical creatures that are disturbing the peace.”

             

I liked the sound of this. I’ve always been a fantasy junkie, so to actually be in this scenario? To be the one learning to magically blow shit up and become all powerful and stuff? It might as well be Christmas.

             

Plus…it wasn’t like anyone would miss me if I were to die fighting a demon or something. At least I’d die doing something awesome, right?

             

“I’m in.”

             

Zane jumped. “Wait, really? It’s like, insanely dangerous. These are like, the boggart times ten. And the training is also going to be pretty difficult; it isn’t something you can just back out of. You stay; you’re here for the long haul.”

             

“Cool. I’m still in.”

             

A grin broke out on Zane’s face and he stood me up. I noticed my leg was back to normal and he grinned wider. “I fixed that too.”

             

“So…what do I do first?”

             

“First you get some sleep. Actual sleep.”

             

I agreed with this proposition and walked back to my bed, Eryien trailing behind me. He jumped up onto the bed as I pulled the covers over myself and he curled up in the crook of my knee. I could get used to having a fox as a pet.

             

…

             

“Whaaat the fuck did you do to this place…?” I asked in amazement as I walked around the now massively-bigger god damn mansion that seemed to have grown around me.

              “I merely lifted the blockers on your psyche, letting you see what the place actually looked like.” Zane said, walking ahead of me, leading me to some unknown place.

             

The house was now massive, and was made of some really dark wood. The halls were twice as wide as they were before, and the ceiling towered over me. Every doorway I passed seemed to have either more hallways, books, or they were locked. I heard some howling behind one, and I looked at Zane inquisitively.

             

“I have to capture some creatures alive, for various reasons.” He said quickly and kept walking.

             

We eventually arrived in a small room with a couple desks pushed against the wall, a bookshelf or two stocked with books, and a table in the middle of the room with various glass instruments on it. The table had drawers on every side and a thick smell of herbs permeated the room.

             

“Welcome to your study.” Zane said, sweeping his arm around. “You’ll find plenty of paper, ink, blank volumes, alchemical regents, and a few basic spellbooks. Everything in here is fairly safe, but you can still burn your hair off if you’re not careful. The room itself, along with the furniture, has about a thousand abjuration spells on it, and it’d take a nuke to scratch it.”

             

I grinned and walked over to a bookshelf. There were two, side by side. One was full with just blank books, the other full with various titles, only a few were in English though. I looked at him with a sour look and he laughed.

             

“Part of your training will be language. You will be fluent in every language known to man when I’m done with you. But this room is basically where you get to screw around and basically experiment.”

             

“Aren’t you going to actually teach me stuff though?” I asked, now pulling open drawers and examining the various glass bottles and wooden containers full of various liquids and herbs.

             

“Yes, but the best way to learn is by doing. Not just watching and imitating. I’ll come back for you in three hours, and then we can start our first official session of training. If you need it, water can be found in that wooden bucket in the corner of the room.”

             

I went over and examined the bucket and it seemed empty at first glance. I stuck my hand in it and felt nothing but dry space. Curious, I grabbed a glass beaker and tried scooping…something….out of the bucket. It came up full to the brim with water.

             

“Cool.” I said, and then I turned to see an obvious lack of Zane. “I guess he already left,” I said, this time talking to Eryien, who yipped in agreement.

             

I stood up and walked back over to the table, carefully placing the beaker down. I walked over to the desk and saw a familiar title, but this time with a piece of paper on it. It read; Experiment with this especially. You have a unique talent with it, so practice and understand it to your fullest.

             

It was the book on Creatures of Blood. I cracked it open and revised the first chapter, about creating a basic creature.

             

To create a simple creature of blood that will follow a simple command, you must first cause the flow of blood. Causing the flow of blood must be self-inflicted and voluntary for this to work. Then you must whisper to the blood your command and the blood will take its shape and enact your command.

             

I held up my thumb and bit it, causing blood to drip onto the table. I whispered into it, and I felt the strange feeling of the blood swirling and working once more. Soon enough, a black widow spider sat on the table in front of me, except it was blood red and already skittering across the room and out the door.

             

“Cool.” I said to myself, grinning. Then I winced as I pressed my injured thumb against the table. “I should probably figure out a minor healing spell or something, so I can fix these…” I muttered, browsing the books once more.

             

Two hours passed and I came across a neat little divination spell called ‘Find Me’. It looked like it’d be used to find like your lost keys, or your wallet. It didn’t look to complicated, so I gave it a shot.

             

“Chalk, chalk, chalk…” I muttered, digging through the drawers till I found one stocked full with sticks of various colored chalk. I pulled a white one out and etched out the symbol described and pictured in the book. A circle, with four triangles meeting in the centre. Then two curves in each triangle that resembled an eye, and then I drew the ‘pupil’ of each eye.

             

Then I had to figure out something to find. “Hmm…”

             

I eventually found a neat little coin in a drawer stuffed with various knickknacks like that. It was round with a square hole in the centre and it looked like it was bronze. I threw it to Eryien and told him to hide it, and he scampered off down the hall.

             

“Okay…so…how do I begin to go about this…?” I muttered, looking through the book. I needed a focus, in this case a scrying orb. I saw a cloudy glass sphere resting on a golden stand on one of the desks, so I grabbed it and placed it in the centre of the divination circle.

             

I swear the chalk lines glowed a little as I began speaking the words to the spell.

             

O, Orb of Dreams
             

An item precious to me I have lost
             

O, Mimir, grant this humble apostle your guide
             

To lead me to the place of my loss

             

The chalk was definitely glowing. I finished the spell and a purple smoke began emanating from the Orb and began swirling around it. Then a small hissing noise started coming from it as a wisp of smoke trailed down and crawled down the hallway, twisting and turning.

             

I followed it for about five minutes, as the smoke curled around corners and snaked down the hall. It stopped at an elaborate vase and swirled around it, and looking inside I found the coin I had told Eryien to hide.

             

“Well I’ll be damned.” I muttered, pulling the coin out. The smoke cleared as I walked back to the study, and when I returned everything was normal. The chalks glow had faded and the smoke was gone. I heard a yipping, and Eryien padded up behind me.

             

“Good job buddy.” I said, grinning. “I wonder if there’s something I can do to make it so I can actually speak to you.”

             

“Oh, there definitely is,” came a voice from the doorway. I turned and saw Zane standing there, smiling. “But it’s going to be much more difficult than that party trick you just pulled.”

             

I grinned. “That was cool though.”

             

“That was basic.” He scoffed, walking up to me. “That coin was nonmagical, was barely thirty feet away from you, and was in a very simple spot to locate. Anyone with any spark of magic and the proper implements could have done that. A monkey could do that if you got him to say the words right.”

             

“What would a monkey need to look for?”

             

Zane opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it and got a thoughtful look on his face. Then he shrugged. “I don’t freaking know, bananas?”

             

I laughed and he grinned. “That’s funny, eh?”

             

“Yes.”

             

He just smiled and started walking, motioning for me to follow. We walked for about twenty minutes, and then we arrived in a room with padded floors, and leather bags hanging from the ceiling. The opposite wall of the room was lined with weaponry, from a basic longsword to what I think is called a glaive, and I even saw a spiked chain.

             

“Whoa.” I said, looking around.

             

“Go to the side room and put on the clothes you find in there.” Zane said as he pulled off his shirt, tossing it aside to reveal hard muscles underneath. But there was also a network of scars lacing around his body, some were small and insignificant, but there were a few large ones that marred his skin. Some even looked like horrific burn marks.

             

I headed off to the side room and located a pair of sweats and a tank top. I changed into them and found a scrunchie to tie my hair back. I walked out and saw Zane wrapping cloth around his hands. He tossed me a few strips and instructed me to do the same. Once I had finished, he walked me over to an empty area and stood about ten feet away from me.

             

“Hit me.” He stated.

             

“Huh?”

             

“Hit me.”

             

“Um…alright.” I had done my fair share of fighting before. I knew how it all worked.

             

We began circling each other, my muscles tense and ready to jump into action. He looked loose and relaxed, his arms at his sides. I dashed in and threw a right at his shoulder, and he reached up to grab my arm, then tossed me over his shoulder with a judo throw.

             

I hit the ground and rolled, bouncing back up and wincing at the pain in my shoulder. His expression remained flat as he stared at me, waiting for me to make another move. I lifted my arms up like a boxers, and dashed in.

             

He threw a left at my midriff which I managed to dodge, but I didn’t anticipate his right hand coming in to grab my shoulder. He got a grip on me and shoved me to the side, unbalancing me. Then he dropped to the ground and swept his legs in a crescent, knocking mine out from under me. I collapsed to the floor and groaned.

             

“Get up.” He said, walking away. I pulled myself up and took a few deep breaths. “Now, hurry up and hit me.”

             

I cautiously began circling him again, this time paying a bit more attention to my actions. I waited for him to come to me, but when it became obvious he wasn’t going to, I dashed in. I feinted to the left and, leaning low, I landed a hard right on his stomach and he grunted. But then he bent over me and wrapped his arms around my midriff and lifted me upside down. Then with a heave he threw me across the room, leaving me crumpled on the ground.

             

I pulled myself back up and found myself breathing heavily.

             

“Are you going to attack me again?” Zane asked, his voice level and calm.

             

“Only if you ask me to.” I grunted, straightening up. He nodded and motioned me to come towards him.

             

“Then hit me.”

             

Once more I flew at him.

            

…

             

Two hours later I was beaten, bruised, battered, and very, very out of breath. Zane didn’t seem to break a sweat the entire time though, and even now was standing quietly over me as I hunched over, hands on my knees, my lungs crying for air.

             

“We will be doing this,” he said softly, watching me, “every day, for three hours a day.”

             

I groaned.

             

“You have free reign of the place, and may do as you will to train. Anywhere you can gain access to, with or without my help or knowledge, you are allowed to be in. However, I will advise you of this. There are many very lethal, very dangerous things in this place. It is up to you to defend yourself from these things. Whether you do so by learning to fight, learning your magic, or simply running away, or possibly even not messing with it at all, is your decision.”

             

I nodded to show that I understood, and he continued.

             

“I recommend, however, that you limit yourself to your study when it comes to messing with magic. It’s a dangerous thing, and I don’t want my apprentice going and blowing herself up. Now go and get a drink and then you may do as you wish for the rest of the day.”

             

And with that, he walked off. I took thirty minutes to just sit down and drink a few glasses of water, then I returned to my study and read the same spellbook that contained the Find Me spell. It was well into the night when I closed it with a sigh, with Eryien sitting calmly beside me.

             

“This is going to be exhausting, isn’t it?” I groaned.

             

Eryien simply yipped in reply, but I just know he was laughing at me.[/spoiler]