Rayne and Magic School Part 3 (Patreon)

Rayne yawned and woke when he heard the bathroom door shut. "What time is it?"

"We have fifteen minutes to get to class," Yelena said as she grabbed her shoes and started putting them on.

"Shit," Rayne grumbled as he crawled out of bed and grabbed his jeans, not particularly concerned about his roommate seeing him in his boxers. "You didn't think to mention it before you got your shower?"

"Was I supposed to?" Yelena asked, not exactly sure how having a roommate worked as she'd only ever shared a room with her older sister.

"It would have been nice but I guess not," Rayne admitted as he pulled his pants on, glad that he'd grabbed a shower the night before. "Enchanting and Metamancy should be fun."

"Better than learning to curse people at least," Yelena agreed as she finished tying her shoes. "Did you manage to get Hex Proof working after I went to sleep?"

"No, I decided that reading my Enchanting book was a better use of time," Rayne replied as he grabbed a pair of socks from his bag and started putting them on. 'Does it count as reading if you just absorb the information? Probably close enough.'

Yelena glanced at the clock then grabbed her brush and started working on her hair, figuring she had enough time before she had to leave and her sister had told her to try to be less antisocial.

Rayne finished putting his shoes on then grabbed his bag. "Ready?"

"Yep," Yelena replied as she grabbed her bag and headed for the door.

Rayne smiled as he grabbed his books and notebook and followed her, looking forward to his classes. He smiled and gave a half hearted wave towards several of his classmates as they headed towards the Enchanting classroom, slightly annoyed that he hadn't woken up early enough to grab breakfast but unwilling to let it ruin his day. "Do you think she'll just give us an overview of the spells?"

"My sister said that she normally starts with a demonstration," Yelena said, hoping to see something impressive. "It should be impressive."

"Hopefully," Rayne agreed and fell silent as they walked down the hallway.

"It can't be worse than Ms Black's lecture," Annika complained.

Jessica snorted. "There's nothing wrong with knowing how to curse people that piss you off."

Rayne glanced at Jessica, noting the normal looking, if short skirt and t-shirt as well as the plastic dog collar she was wearing. "There's a difference between tossing curses at people that deserve it and cursing someone for stealing your parking spot."

"I'll admit it was a bit excessive but it's a good object lesson," Jessica replied as they walked into the Enchanting classroom.

"Object lesson?" Fiore asked from her desk.

"They thought Professor Black's video was a bit excessive," Jessica explained.

"Cursing someone for stealing your parking spot seems a bit excessive," Annika said as she took a seat at one of the desks.

"Ah." Fiore walked over to the front of the room where she'd set up the supplies for the day's lesson. "Did she tell you that the idiot in question dumped one of her students after sleeping with her?"

"That makes more sense," Annika admitted.

'Still seems a bit excessive,' Rayne thought as he looked at the strange collection of dolls, plastic wands, rings and necklaces on the table by the whiteboard with a dozen brooms leaning up against the whiteboard next to the table.

"Either way, my name is Fiore Du'Lys, you may call me Professor Du'Lys or Fiore. I'll give you a brief overview of Enchanting then we'll move on to letting you play with the spells."

"We haven't learned any," Annika pointed out.

"Of course not," Fiore paused when the bell rang twice, letting them know they should be in class. "That's why you're here, to learn to imbue items with magic or even change one substance to another if you wish to put in the time and effort." She gestured towards the brooms leaning up against the wall. "How many people have seen the Sorcerer's Apprentice?"

Rayne wasn't surprised when most of the hands went up, his own included, it was a classic for a reason.

Fiore nodded. "Set Task is a spell that allows you to animate an object to perform one task, such as sweeping the floor. The reason I bring up the movie is the spell isn't that imaginative and the animated items will continue doing their assigned task until you dismiss the spell or until the spell ends. Mastering the spell would let you animate an entire collection of objects to perform tasks."

"Can you use them to play a piano?" Victoria asked, wondering if it was worth the effort when you could just order servants to do any menial labor that needed done.

"Technically," Fiore said as she pulled a wand out of her subspace storage and pointed it at the ground near her desk. "Abracadabra!"

Rayne blinked as an exquisite looking grand piano appeared out of thin air in the spot the professor pointed at. "Damn."

"What can I say, I'm a fan of the classics," Fiore said as she put the wand back in her storage and gestured towards the piano, using her Set Task spell to animate the keys.

Emma winced at the noise coming off of the piano. "Is that because of the spell or a lack of musical talent?"

Fiore laughed as she listened to the piano play Mary Had a Little Lamb, knowing she wouldn't win any awards but it didn't sound that bad. "Mostly the second though programming complex actions is harder than something simple like animating a broom to sweep the floor." She gestured, removing the Set Task spell and reclaiming the energy from the spell. "Do you think you can do better?" she asked as she pulled a wand Imbued with the Set Task spell out of her storage and held it out towards Emma.

"I'm willing to try," Emma offered as she stood up and walked over.

"Go for it," Fiore said as she handed the carved wooden wand to Emma. "Just picture how you want the keys to move and the timing as you focus on the spell then give it a bit of a wave."

"Are all of those wands imbued with spells?" Lance asked.

"Of course, how do you expect to learn if you don't get to practice?" Fiore asked with amusement as she watched Emma prepare to 'cast' her spell.

"There are dozens of wands. That must have taken weeks," Therion sputtered, surprised that the professor would waste her time.

"That's one of the reasons my fellow teachers call me a workaholic," Fiore replied with amusement, not seeing a reason to mention the various workarounds she'd discovered over the years that made creating a bunch of wands for her students to play with easy.

Rayne turned to look at the piano as it started playing a complicated song, sounding a touch off but far better than the professor's attempt. "Nice."

Fiore listened to the song for twenty seconds. "That's certainly worth bonus points and it's soft enough that I can still talk over it so it gets to stay until the piano vanishes."

"Thanks," Emma replied as she handed the wand back with a grin then walked over and sat down, not seeing a reason to mention that it wasn't the first time she'd used a wand charged with spells.

"One of the other spells you can learn lets you boost a quality of an item such as the speed of your computer or how sharp your kitchen knife is," Fiore explained as she put the wand back in her storage then gestured at one of the dolls and animated it. "Of course, everyone loves golems. Run and jump off the table."

Rayne watched the Barbie doll run and jump off the table, landing on the ground face first, wondering how effective a full sized metal golem would be in a fight. "I thought golems were supposed to be made from stone or mud?"

"It's traditional but not required," Fiore replied as she knelt down and grabbed the doll. "Stone golems are more durable and mud golems can 'melt' and reform. Plastic golems aren't particularly durable but they're cheap." She walked over and set it on the piano. "Dance."

Rayne laughed as he watched the doll dance like it was having a seizure.

"Does that mean you suck at dancing?" Trisha asked in her valley girl voice that grated on Rayne's nerves.

Fiore laughed. "No, unlike the Set Task spell where you basically use your skills and imagination to program the spell, golems aren't all that bright. They get slightly better with age but unless you're a master golem smith, they'll never learn."

"Are you a master golem smith?" Mei asked as she watched the doll dance on the piano.

Fiore shook her head. "No, the idea of creating golems that learn never really appealed to me."

"Why not?" Derry asked.

"You're basically creating someone with the capacity for thought and binding them to your service. There are a number of ethical issues that I'd rather avoid." Fiore pulled a wand out of her storage. "You can also change objects from one substance to another like lead to gold."

"Seriously?" Trisha blurted.

"Or glass to gems though the transformation will always look a little off and I wouldn't use the material for actual chemical reactions until you master the spell. Enchanting is a wonderful and rewarding field of study. For example, I can use the Equip spell to change someone's clothes or make sure they can't set something down."

"What's the point?" Trista asked.

"Using the spell means that you can instantly put on an elaborate old fashioned dress or a complicated set of armor or if you're feeling malicious, you can swap someone's outfit. If you're a master of the spell, you can make sure they can't take anything you equip off until you let them or someone breaks the spell."

"That could be fun," Jessica said with a grin.

"Of course, that leads to the next spell, Disenchanting." Fiore gestured at the doll golem and cast her Disenchant spell, reclaiming the energy she'd used to enchant the golem and causing it to topple off the piano, a lifeless shell. "And the reason that I don't see the point of working with intelligent golems, one spell and all of your work vanishes."

"Couldn't you ward them?" Mei asked, her red eyes catching the light, causing them to glow.

"Probably," Fiore admitted. "I've just never been particularly motivated to explore the theory but it would make a good graduation project. One of the more useful spells I teach is Imbue, which allows you to make basic magical items, they're basically an Enchanter's bread and butter."

"What type of magic items?" Rayne asked.

"Mostly simple magical items, flaming swords, glowing rocks, boots that let you run faster," Fiore said as she walked over to the table and picked up a plastic ring. She tapped the ring with her wand then tossed it to Rayne. "Congratulations you have a ring that lets you climb on walls, it should last an hour."

Rayne glanced at the wall. "Permission to test it?"

"Go for it," Fiore replied, keeping a straight face when Rayne slipped the ring on and his dark hair turned blue.

Rayne sighed as the class started snickering. "Care to fill me in?"

"You look good with blue hair," Yelena offered.

Rayne reached up and grabbed a lock of hair and looked at it, noticing that it was in fact quite blue. "Does it actually let me climb walls?"

"Of course," Fiore assured him. "I just added a bit extra to drive home the next point, be careful of magical items you find, not all of them are nice or pleasant."

"If it only lasts an hour, what's the point?" Trisha asked.

"The point is Imbue can take the place of a number of spells. Why learn Flight when you can enchant a broom to fly? Or Light control if you just want to be able to turn invisible, a cloak of invisibility works just fine. Not to mention that with Permanency, your magical items will last until the item falls apart which means you don't have to cast spells and waste energy for every little trick you want to pull off," Fiore explained.

"Is that because of the limit on magical energy?" Derry asked.

"Basically," Fiore replied with a shrug. "I'll tell you a truth and a lie, I could cast five more spells today and the Earth is round, which is the lie?"

Trisha snorted. "We saw you cast two spells and the Earth is round, so unless you figured out a way to cast more than five spells you're lying about the spells."

Fiore grinned slightly as she glanced around the room at her new students. "Anyone else have a guess?"

"All of the Professors cheat and the Earth isn't perfectly round," Emma offered.

Fiore laughed and touched her nose. "Another point to Ms De'Lain. Technically I could if I wanted, cast five more spells today without using magical items. Bonus points at the beginning of the next class if you can tell me how." She gestured towards the wall. "Rayne, start climbing, the rest of you come up and grab some wands so we can start practicing."

Rayne walked over to the wall and placed his hand on it and pulled, a touch surprised that his hand stuck to the wall when he wanted and didn't when he didn't, making it rather easy to climb up the wall and pretend to be Spiderman while the rest of the class started imbue the plastic rings and necklaces with magic or at least trying as there was a bit of a learning curve. He dropped off the wall and walked over to grab an item, far happier about the class than his Malumancy class the first day.

0o0o0

Rayne wasn't sure how to feel as he walked out of Zetana's Metamancy class with the rest of the class after grabbing a couple of Spell pamphlets to work on. While she certainly knew her subject, she had zero patience with people without 'talent', making him extremely glad that he'd used the information spell to memorize all of his textbooks as it let him recall all of the important points and not look like a complete idiot in front of the class when she'd called on him. "Does anyone see a point in the Store Spell when you could just imbue a spell in a wand or trinket?"

"Beyond needing to carry a trinket?" Yelena asked. "Not really. You can't store a Metamagic improved spell in either of them so there's no real advantage as far as I can tell."

Trisha shrugged. "You'd have to master the Imbue spell to make a wand and the Store Spell lets you instantly trigger the spell."

"You're still paying two slots when you could just Enchant a bracelet," Yelena argued.

"To each their own," Trisha replied a touch sarcastically.

"It's a bit like the Trigger Spell," Derry mused. "You set it to activate if something happens."

"Which you have to redo every month," Rayne pointed out.

Derry shrugged. "I never said it was a good spell. Echo Spell might have some use in combat but I think I'm going for Counterspell first."

Mei grinned as she poked Derry in the back with her devil tail, causing him to jump. "Let me guess, you're afraid of being hexed?"

Derry glanced down at his roommate's tail then looked at her red eyes, curious how much demon blood she had or if it was a magical accident. "I've talked to some of the second and third years, they said things can get a bit heated and that some of the students use the first years for test subjects, I'd rather be able to fight back."

"I wouldn't mind being a test subject, depending on the tests," Jennifer mused.

"I'll keep that in mind," Jessica said with a grin.

Gemma yawned. "Seems like too much work."

"What are you going for?" Rayne asked, trying to distract himself from the happy look on Jennifer's face, fairly sure she was missing some screws.

"Empower sounds good, the ability to get the most out of other spells without the work, maybe Permanency so I can keep my summons around longer," Gemma offered.

"Subtle casting sounds good," Victoria said thoughtfully. "You can't Counterspell something if you don't know it's being cast. Not to mention it helps dealing with mundanes."

"Fair point," Rayne agreed as the group headed into the cafeteria, promptly breaking up as they went looking for seats to set their books down or grab food. He stuck his books under his arm and headed for the food lane, wanting to grab something before the line got too long. 'I just need to get through the next couple of days, once I get the hang of Hex Proof, I'll be able to relax.'

0o0o0

Rayne groaned as he stumbled out of Psionomancy feeling like he'd just stuck his mind in a blender or maybe just his hopes of being Professor X as his talent for the mental arts was, according to the teacher, practically nonexistent. "Wednesdays suck."

"What did you expect?" Yelena asked as they headed back to the dorm to practice. "Not everyone has a talent for manipulating the elements of nature or controlling plants or animals. I'm in the same boat."

"I had fun, but that's because it's in my blood," Emma said proudly.

Lance rolled his eyes behind Emma but kept his mouth shut as he didn't want to give her a reason to use her family's wealth to make his life miserable. "That's probably one of the reasons we'll end up dropping subjects for second year."

"I'm certainly dropping both," Rayne grumbled, wishing he had more talent as some of the spells were interesting and useful, sending thoughts and reading minds could certainly come in useful and seeing everything around you might be interesting. "Hopefully the rest of the week goes better."

"Hopefully, I'm getting closer to figuring out how to imbue things with magic, I could give you a couple of pointers," Yelena offered.

"At this point, I'll take just about anything other than a contract with a demon," Rayne admitted, glad that he'd already learned the Information Absorption spell or he'd have been worried about not having magic.

"Hey now, demons are people too," Mei piped up playfully.

"They're also well known for making unfair deals and trading in souls," Rayne replied, thinking about the section on demons in the summoning book he'd 'burned' into his mind.

Mei snickered. "And yet people keep making deals."

"That's because they're stupid," Trisha stated as they walked into the cafeteria.

"You realize, we count as people, right?" Derry asked, a touch sarcastically.

"Nah, we're magic users," Trisha replied as she headed for the line. "We're whatever we want to be."

"As much as I hate agreeing with her, she's not wrong," Sandra piped up. "With the right Epidromancy spells we can become anything we want, just look at Professor Naga."

Rayne shook his head. "I'd rather not screw something up and end up like that permanently."

"I wouldn't mind being able to turn into a dragon," Annika said as she set her books on one of the tables. "My family has a talent for Epidromancy spells and Enchanting, so I guess it's possible, that might be a decent graduation project."

Yelena shook her head as she followed Annika, fairly sure she'd rather work on enchanting and make something that would let her transform into a dragon.

"If you can't be yourself, be a dragon?" Rayne asked with amusement as they headed towards the line.

Derry grinned as he followed Rayne, Annika and Yelena, figuring they could start an enchanting study group as they seemed to have the right idea.