The Way of the Sorcerer: A 'The Wandering Inn' Fanfiction

Ivory made a sitting-hole in the sand for himself and Misoe. Thankfully, the seals had all gone back into the water, so there was no chance of being crushed to death by an angry mammal.

“Alright, what first?”

… And that was the problem. Ivory knew that [Sorcerers]' magic was unique to each [Sorcerer], and there wasn't a rulebook to adhere to. It was easy to think—and think this he did—that you just needed to start casting spells and figure it out later. But actually starting? That was hard. Especially since he now had spells that, seemingly, were for combat. How could you practise combat spells without knowing how much damage they did? Or what they did?

"No way I'm going to blast myself or Misoe, that would be psychotic," he thought aloud.

[Gust], [Electric Jolt] and [Eerie Cinders]. If he had to guess, each of these corresponded to some of the magic that he witnessed from that manic from yesterday. He was ready to start casting, but he just didn't know what each of them did.

"Stop thinking, just do," he fished out his wand and cast [Light]. The bright orb materialised at the end of the Wand of Zont and wafted just above his knees. Misoe's head turned, and she lunged from her little hole.

"Woah now!" he shouted, as she did as close of a leap as she was capable of after bumping into his legs, reaching the floating [Light] and swallowing it.

"That's right, you can eat magic!” he exclaimed. He summoned a few more orbs of [Light] for her to eat. He’d think about the efficiency of that later.

“Stuff it. [Electric Jolt]!” he shouted at the sky. From his sandy throne, a pale, slightly crackling yellow orb the size of a tennis ball shot out from his wand, leaving an even paler glow in its wake. It travelled fast, but not as fast as lightning, of course. Ivory had a look of delighted horror on his face. He had just cast an offensive spell, the purpose of which was to hurt someone. That was the horror—the delight was everything else.

“[Electric Jolt]. [Electric Jolt]. [Electric Jolt]!” Three more flew from his wand. He saw them eventually dissipate in the far distance. On a roll, he continued. He pointed his wand in front of him.

“[Gust].”

A stream of fast moving air shot out, disturbing the sand below it. Ivory nodded after a few seconds. That definitely was not what he expected the spell to do.

“[Gust].”

This time, a weaker—but not insignificant—well, gust of air disturbed a large area of sand in front of him. A gusty ‘runoff’ of air slightly brushing his hair to the side.

“That’s more what I expected.” The first iteration of the spell seemed more useful as an attack and the second iteration was more for utility. One more spell.

“[Eerie Cinders]!”

Three ghostly flames, dark blue in centre and red around the exterior, appeared in the air in front of him and wafted at the sand, a good distance away.

“Oh,” Ivory said, as they flew at a leisurely pace towards the sand, dissipating into nothingness. There was a light blue hue on the sand they landed in.

“What the hell was that?”

He was, perhaps understandably, under the impression that this was just some kind of Drathian [Fireball]. Ivory held out his wand-carrying hand and cast the spell again.

The ghostly orbs of fire floated harmlessly in his hand. He could feel the heat they emanated; he felt as if there were upside down toasters a few centimetres above his palm, which was his only frame of reference for a close heat. He saw Misoe eyeing them.

“Absolutely not,” he said as he got up and retrieved a large leaf from the underbrush back on the trail. The [Eerie Cinders] stayed put in his hand without any necessary magical manipulation. He found a giant leaf, the size of his hand, and returned to his sandy seat.

He bid one of the flames onto the centre of the leaf. He watched in surprise as it simply ‘fell’ into the leaf—a ring of light blue appeared where the [Eerie Cinder] touched, which began growing outwards, consuming the leaf. There was no ash—it was completely consumed.

“Yikes.” He shot the remaining flames into the sand again; after seeing what happened to that leaf, he didn’t want to mess around with that anymore.

He leant back, and saw Misoe pouting.

“Mate, did you see that shit? You’d have burnt yourself.” He shook his head. “No… but I want to fiddle with this spell. For some balls of fire, I expected them to be a bit hotter, frankly. [Eerie Cinders].”

They appeared about half a foot above him. They looked like they should have been making an oooOOOoooOOoooO sound, hovering there, well, eerily.

“That’s not quite right,” he said, as he brought his palm close to the flames. There was no heat, at all—it wasn’t a cold fire, it was as if they just… had no temperature at all. In a moment of mild madness, he swished his hands through one of the orbs, and felt nothing, save for a slight resistance in the air as if to signify that there was a curious magical phenomenon (to him, anyway) occurring.

Ivory crossed his arms, unsure what to make of this. He turned to Misoe.

“I’d let you eat those, but I have no idea if it will suddenly become actual fire, or if the mana is… hot, or something. Not taking those chances, sorry. But why isn’t it hot now? I cast the spell to see if it was going to be hot, but now it has no temperature. So I’ve obviously influenced it in some way. [Gust] was either an air blast or an actual gust of wind, depending on what I wanted it to do… maybe I was too spooked to be burnt? Subscribe to my blog, Misoe.”

“Blegh.”

“Thanks,” the [Eerie Cinders] disappeared without fanfare. “Trying again. [Eerie Cinders].”

The three flames appeared in the same spot as before. Ivory brought a hand close to them again and was pleased to feel that they were hot. He’d remember this useful information. Useful would be an understatement—it confirmed to him that it wasn’t like a game, where the spell just did the one thing: it was fluid, like actual magic, which it was.

He looked at the [Eerie Cinders], which were just below eye level, and had an idea. He pushed them out a few metres; in theory, this could work.

“[Gust].”

This [Gust] was of the utility variety. It picked up the [Eerie Cinders] and carried them around as it did windy things. Ivory was controlling the wind as it was happening, hoping for the two spells to combine. It was like watching three cupcakes float along a riptide, not really doing anything. Misoe was greedily watching the [Eerie Cinders] bob around in the air.

“Hmm. Oh, right.”

Now that he’d cast these spells a few times, he got a better feel of not only how they worked in practice, but how they worked in the ‘back end’, so to speak. He could change the area of effect of [Gust], and could alter the temperature of [Eerie Cinders]—so far.

Ivory concentrated on the [Eerie Cinders]. Instead of exploding—which is what he certainly expected would happen—they looked to be… liquifying. The damn things were malleable, he gave them that. The wind from the [Gust] spell was turning a lovely shade of lilac—Ivory just wished he knew what was actually happening!

Ivory felt an unpleasant twisting in his stomach, and the beginnings of a headache. The memory of passing out flashed in his mind, and immediately cut the [Gust]. No fire remained; it had dissipated with the conjured wind.

“Not that again. I must be running out of mana… I guess I’ve been pretty cavalier with the spells I’ve been using.” He got out of his sandy seat and lay down on the sand to chill out.

Ivory took this time to think about Skills. Not his own, but about Skills in general. Not really, actually: two Skills specifically. The first was Nozumu's [Language: Australianisms]. How was that even a Skill? Ivory could think of two explanations, and he wasn't sure which was more groundbreaking. The first was that he was not only not the only person from Earth here, but he was not the first Australian person in this world. And that person would have been on Drath! The second was explanation was that it was completely new, and it was the first of its kind: the magical rules that ran this world could adapt and create completely new Skills

Worryingly, as Ivory pondered this, he realised these two explanations coexisted. Could he just… create a new Skill? Were spells Skills? He put aside that thought for the time being as he pondered on the other Skill.

Luck. There were Skills that could—literally—make you lucky or bring you luck. For such a simple concept, Ivory was struggling to get his head around it. A [Fisherman] could get more fish during a full moon—did the universe just make more fish go to them? Did the luck make the [Fisherman] just… better?

Could a [Card Player] use [Heart of the Cards] if they were in a pinch?

"Good god… something like that could actually exist!"

A troubling thought, if he were one to partake in such things. A reminder of something from Earth helped ground him.

"Wonder when I'll be able to use my blood Skills… at least if anyone gets gutted I'll be able to prolong their life for a few seconds," Ivory thought aloud. He looked over as Misoe did a great big yawn and gave her a pat on the head.

It was at this point that he wished his iPhone was functional. Well, it may still work, bit he didn't want to interact with it in case something more happened to it. He was running low on mana, so he didn't want to cast any spells.

To think that Ivory could be bored. He couldn't believe it. Luckily—or, perhaps, coincidentally—Nozumu returned.

"It looks like you had fun while I was gone," Nozumu said. Ivory jerked up in surprise.

"Oh, hey. Yeah, I'm knackered actually. Pretty sure I used too much mana."

"Eehha!" Misoe rolled over as she played in the sand.

Nozumu took a second to remember that this was a real scene, and then levelled some sand and sat next to Ivory.

"I managed to find some information on Misoe in the—Drathian Academy," he looked expectantly at Ivory. It took him a moment to understand his meaning.

"Ah, yeah, sounds about what I expected. Drathian Academy." Nozumu nodded.

"I am still getting used to switching back to Drathian for your Skill. She is an adult—these types of seals don't tend to get much bigger than this, as they need to be able to be able to guarantee kills on naturally magic sea creatures. They can only survive on a diet of mana—this is why they do not grow very large, since there are only so many magical fish they can catch and kill. There are cases where they have gorged on the [Mages] of destroyed ships."

"Bloody hell. Well, when in Rome. Anything about, err, alive Human interactions?"

"They are caught and killed," Nozumu said with a sympathetic look. His eyes glanced to Miseo, who was less than impressed. Ivory saw her obvious frown—she was either naturally intelligent, due to being an inherently magical creature or, possibly, it was due to his new Class.

"More importantly. I told the [Biologist] I was speaking to that Miseo ate the mana from your spell… she told me that as long as you are not outright attacking her, you will be able to feed her some mana from your spells." Ivory thought of his [Efficient Spellcasting] Skill. It made him more confident in what he was about to do.

"Okay. That settles it," he rummaged through his Bag of Holding and took out a healing potion. Ivory considered taking out one of his mana potions, but figured that casting one more spell wouldn't kill him. It bloody better well not.

Nozumu eyed the healing potion with worry as Ivory plonked Misoe on his lap; she was happily lounging on the sand, having moved past the slight on her species. She gave him a neutral, yet expectant look.

Ivory closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that something bad was going to happen.

"[Eerie Cinders]."

The three ghostly flames appeared in his right hand. They gave off no heat. Misoe didn't hesitate to lean forward and lap at one of the flames. The [Eerie Cinder] began to shrink in size as Misoe consumed the mana fuelling it.

"Incredible," Nozumu spoke, in awe. "How does it not burn her?" Misoe began working on the second flame; the first had been licked out of existence.

"I have control over whether they're hot or not. Cool, right?" Ivory put the healing potion back in his still open Bag of Holding, and closed it up.

Misoe polished off the final [Eerie Cinder] and rolled over Ivory's leg, satiated.

"That definitely should have hurt. Skills really are something, huh," Ivory muttered. He instinctively rubbed his leg where his round friend had steamrolled.

"You got any more tricks to show me, Missy?

All eyes were on the lounging loaf. Her eyes, though, were closed; her satiated smile told them that she was probably just thoroughly sated. It was hard to do much on a full stomach—or where ever it was stored.

"'Spose not. One serving of [Eerie Cinders] might be enough for a meal, unless those [Lights] filled her up, but I doubt it. There was also that [Detect Magic] from earlier on as well. Ah well. Up you get, mate," Ivory got up and took Misoe with him. She protested not. "So, where to?"

Nozumu did a great big stretch—if he were being honest, this is the most leisurely he had ever been.

"We can go through the city and you can see more of Drathian culture. You will find it is not so different as you may think. The night markets will begin at sundown, which is what we were meant to go to last night."

"Great! Sounds like a plan. Lead the way."

Their walk started mostly in silence. Each were deep in their own respective thoughts.

Ivory was thinking about all the spells he could discover—he was hoping to find a proper 'magic training area'; the beach wasn't exactly the best spot for trying out unknown spells.

Nozumu was thinking of his time studying. He knew that his level was average, and he did not feel like the time he had spent so far as a [Student of Drath] had been wasted time. The last two days, however, had felt more fulfilling to his class than the past year of his tutelage. It was common knowledge that the practical application of one's class made you level faster—but this was ridiculous. He did not want to be a [Diplomat], and he did not even know what he wanted his class to turn into. This strange Terandrian Human had turned what he knew on his head. His philosophy on classes and Skills, and not to mention the knowledge… he was a curiosity. Perhaps the mystifying reverence that foreigners had of Drath went both ways?

Before they both knew it, they were back at the inn and ready to head into the city proper.