In a small village at the edge of a vast forest, within a cozy cottage a young boy with messy brown hair, inquisitive hazel eyes, and caramel skin, sat cross legged in his bed; a small smile resting on his freckled face. The boy should've been asleep; his mother and father had already turned him in for the night, but he couldn't rest.
After all, Armin had just cast his first spell.
It wasn't anything special, just a basic illumination spell. But this advancement was monumental for Armin. It had taken him 5 months, 3 just learning to read the old tattered spell book, another month trying to scribe the spell into his own makeshift tome, and one more learning to recite the verbal components perfectly and finding the exact Material components neccesary. It had been an arduous process consuming all of his free time, but he didn't mind. school was easy enough and he was far beyond what his peers were learning. He didn't speak to the other kids to begin with so he didn't really mind spending many hours studying alone, and thankfully his parents didn't need his help around the house so he had a lot of free time. As the light from the spell began to fade, reaching its natural duration, Armin cast the spell again. Reciting the verbal components felt foreign on his tongue, strange and forced, but he could do it. The strangest part however was most definitely the pull he felt deep within him. It was his mana being drained, at least that's what Armin assumed, there was no way of him knowing. It wasn't painful per say but it wasn't exactly comfortable, kind of like twisting a damp towel to draw out excess water, except that his body was the towel. With the light returning Armin looked down at the book he got from old man Bon once more, rereading the description of the spell:
[Spell Name]:Light
Spell Level: 0
Description: The caster summons a mote of light that produces no heat, to illuminate their path.
Material Components: A firefly or phosphorescent moss
Verbal Components (Living Tongue):
ekove eht thgil raelc eht htap
Somatic Components: None
Armin had no real understanding why he needed a firefly, nor what the Verbal components of the spell meant. He had found out however that unless he perfectly recited the strange phrase, and only if he found a specific type of firefly, the results of the spell would be… unpredictable. His first few attempts were horribly embarrassing with the only saving grace being the fact that there was no one around at the time to witness the failure. He found out that when not perfectly recited, when the material components were not on his person or of the wrong type it could result in any number of oddities ranging from te spell flashing too brightly or too dimly, spinning, or bouncing along the ground like a ball, or most commonly simply blinking out of existence mere moments after casting the spell . In truth Armin didn't know how he was correct this time, perhaps he had just gotten lucky and stumbled upon the exact right combination between material, and verbal components. What he did know however was now that he had found it he couldn't allow himself to forget. That's why he was up, despite his curfew and his parents already wishing him sweet dreams. Armin had made a ritual of making an attempt to master the spell before going to sleep each night, and it so happened that this night he had finally gotten it. There was nothing special about this night to anyone else in this village but to armin this night would be etched into his memory as the first step in his road to arcane mastery. It would take time but tonight had proven that it was definitely possible, and more importantly that nothing was impossible. The only thing that was holding him back at this point was–
"Armin?"
His mothers voice cut through his thoughts.
"Armin what are you doing baby, what is that?"
She said her eyes fixed on the ball of light gently floating just above his hands Apprehension apparent on her face. Unsure as to how to answer, Armin said the first thing that came to mind.
"uh it's light mom"
"A spell?…"
His mother's brow furrowed apprehension giving way to confusion. But before she could continue Armin interrupted excitedly
"Yes! A Spell! I've been trying to learn magic mom and tonight I finally got it! It took a few months, but i finally know how to cast a real spell Now it's only one b-but it's a start, i don't know–"
His mother gently raised a hand interrupting him
"Armin, wait…"
Armin paused his excitement dimming a bit.
"Yes mom?
His mother took a breath running a hand through her curly grey-brown hair, her tired hazel eyes looking at her son with something approaching amusement
"How did you learn this, Armin? "
Armin paused for a moment before holding up the book to his mother
"Oh, one of the librarians let me borrow this old spell book, he even gave me advice on where to start…"
Flipping to the page he showed his mom the spell
"See… and now I know how to cast a spell, this spell right here! isn't that amazing?"
His mother looked at him a warm smile spreading across her face, and as she sat on the bed beside him and wrapped him in a hug she said
"Yes baby, it is amazing, but can you do something for me…"
"Yes, Mom?"
Planting a kiss on his forehead she said standing
"Can you please go to sleep, you have school in the morning."
School had never been Armin's favorite responsibility, not because it had been difficult or even because it was boring but because of the amount of kids that flooded the halls of the school house. The village was small but somehow each household had at least one child with many having multiple. Armin surmised it was some sort of pact all the women of the village had made, for some sort of future ritual or prophecy, or at least that's what he like to believe, was it plausible technically yes, was it at all likely no, not at all, but the fun of life did not come from the boring plausible but from the unlikely yet exciting possible. Still his musing did not change the fact that his classroom was horribly over capacity. In theory the class should be able to hold 30 students, in practice it could comfortably hold around 20 students, accounting for damaged equipment, but unfortunately for Armin, the classroom, like the rest of the school was understaffed and overpopulated, housing 35 students and one woefully underpaid and underappreciated instructor.
"Now Everyone, Quiet down and listen for your name!"
Ms. Ackerman called out her voice tired despite the day only just getting started. She was always like this, always only halfway there. Perhaps once before he was born the older woman had had a passion for teaching but if she did it was long gone now. Now all that was left was an woman well into retirement age trying to teach students that had no intention of learning. A shame really.
Nevertheless Armin began planning out the rest of his day. After school he needed to talk to his parents, he knew they'd have questions, especially after how the previous night ended, but that would probably be the last thing on his schedule, more importantly he wanted to start searching for the components on his next spell. It was a bit more complicated than light, but not unreasonably so, still a 0th level spell. He also had to thank old man Bon. If not for the librarians advice Armin would've probably tried to learn a level 1 spell from the start, not an impossible task but harder than learning any 0th level spell by an order of magnitude. Which was a problem in itself because–
"Mr. Penderghast!"
Ms. Ackerman screeched, her voice shrill and harsh, pulling him from his thoughts.
"H-here! Sorry Ms. Ackerman!" Armin stuttered, straightening in his chair, trying his best to ignore the snickers echoing throughout the classroom. Armin knew who the laughter was coming from, and he knew that after class it would be a problem he'd be forced to deal with. But that was a future Armin problem and present Armin had more interesting problems to deal with. Opening the old tattered spellbook he began to read over the next spell he wanted to learn. The book wasn't especially expansive, it only cataloged 11 spells in total: 3 0th level spells, 4 1st level spells. 3 2nd level spells, and 1 3rd level. The Tome had belonged to a diviner that had passed through town ages ago, Armin didn't know why a wizard capable of casting third level spells would be willing to part with his spell book, but he didn't mind it either. Each spell presented a problem all in of its own, every spell a puzzle begging to be solved. The problem was that his base of knowledge was too lacking to learn anything beyond a 0th level spell, and even the more complex of those would present a nearly insurmountable undertaking, there were three reasons for this. The first problem was as spells increased in scope and in level the amount of material components would grow in cost or specificity. One of the second level spells for example called for a book inlaid with at least 25 gold worth of material, while another required a small clay model of a ziggurat. Armin had no idea where to acquire whatever a Ziggurat was, and spending 25 gold on a book would be a monumental task for a 14 year old boy from some no name village. Secondly, the process of chanting the magic words required with the verbal components was a puzzle in and of itself. Each spell had its own chant and were categorized in a set of languages, each different from each other. There was the [Living Tongue] , the language used in casting light and a few other spells, but also [Sussur Script], [Netherisean Tongue], and [Thayan Script]. Each language was completely foreign to Armin, and each doubtlessly held it's own rules and guiding principles, and in order to cast a spell he had to be able to recite the sentence perfectly. Worst still Armin was fairly certain that each of these languages were dead. The reasoning for this was rather simple. It was nowhere to be found in the village library. The Library, while not having the most extensive collection, definitely could boast the most useful collection of information to any farmer, blacksmith, or tavern keeper this side of The Red Spine. Its owner had taken a rather utilitarian approach in what information was sought, and as a result there were all sorts of books recounting the basics of anything a villager would like to know including the various languages common in the land as well as the cultures in which they belonged to. So the absence of the languages found within the old diviners spell book could only mean that these languages were not useful to the common villager. At least that is what Armin hypothesized. In any case in order to cast the spells he would need to be able to perfectly recite a language he didn't know, nor currently had any way of learning, multiple languages in fact. And lastly there was the Somatic components. None of the spells within the book required them, so that wasn't something he had to worry about currently. But it didn't mean that it didn't worry him. Armin had no idea what a spell requiring a somatic component entailed. Somatic meant relating to the body, so did that mean he would have to sacrifice pieces of his body like how some material components were consumed upon use or would it mean he would temporarily lose access to bodily functions, would he not be able to pee? No, that didn't make sense right?.
Maybe he'd have to sacrifice his vitality, wizards were always old, at least that is how the legends and stories portrayed them. Was that because they were old naturally or had years of casting spells artificially aged them. The idea of it made him shiver. Armin forced the idea out of his mind, it wasn't something he had to worry about right now, so he wouldn't.
He had other problems to deal with. class was coming to an end, and he knew he had to deal with something even scarier than the prospect of rapidly aging: his "friends".