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Explain things through Wayne or other POVs Votes: 0 0.0%
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Explain things through documentary excerpts and letter and things Votes: 0 0.0%
Stepping into the garden outside the mansion, Wayne took a deep breath in. The grounds outside of his home were expansive, to say the least. He enjoyed coming out here and basking in the sun during his free time. The whole yard was neatly trimmed grass lined with tall, immaculate hedge bushes that he knew to be trimmed to seven feet tall. A single stone brick path led the way to the front gate, a silver archway with gold-coated bars as the entrance, the handles shaped into the image of the McMayther household's calling card, a ram. Making his way to the exit, he noticed a man trimming the bushes to the right. He stopped and called out to him.
"Hello! You must be the new gardener, Argus, right?" Wayne called out in a friendly manor.
The man turned to Wayne, standing up from his kneeling position at the hedge, and revealed his full height. He was much taller than he had seemed just a moment before, but his face was completely ordinary, save for the large scar running from the corner of his mouth to his temple on the right side of his face. He had brown hair, an ever so marginally wrinkled face, and a build that made him seem lanky due to his height. When Wayne looked at him, however, he felt slightly... off.
"I am. Hello, are you Wayne? It's a pleasure to meet you." He called back, his voice amicable.
Wayne shook off the feeling. It was probably just because he was meeting someone new for the first time, something that rarely happened during his admittedly sheltered life. The jitters from going to Hillchester probably weren't helping that either.
"A pleasure to meet you too, sir. I just thought I'd make introductions, see how you're adapting to the new job. " Wayne said.
"Why thank you, young man. I'm finding the job nice, so far." Argus responded.
"Good. I suppose I'll be seeing you around, then. Goodbye, Argus!" Wayne called as the guards standing outside opened the gate and he made his way through.
"Goodbye, Wayne." Argus replied, and smiled, before returning to the bushes.
Wayne walked to the carriage waiting for him outside of the hedge. Now outside, he could see the fence surrounding his home, covered by the bushes when looking from the inside. He stepped into the fine carriage and sat on the cushioned seat. The driver flailed his whip and they were off down the road into the city. Wayne was well practiced in entertaining himself, and he looked out the window to try and see what was visible. He had made a game of trying to memorize the route to somewhere on the first try, though he rarely succeeded. He watched as the fine houses surrounding his home past by, and took note of the turns the driver made. First a left, then a right, then another left, and another, then a right. He kept track of any landmarks he could see, like the water fountain by Sixth and Drumley, or the fine restaurant on Fourth and Main. Eventually, the carriage stopped by an impressive building rivaling and perhaps even surpassing Wayne's own home. A large dome sat surrounded by four tall spires at every corner of a thick marble wall that he knew to be enchanted to resist spells. An intricately designed gate stood in the middle of the wall, opened, allowing several people in. The driver stopped the carriage, let Wayne out, and drove off. Wayne was both nervous and excited. He was filled with both apprehension and anticipation at the idea of being by himself, learning magic like he had dreamed about his entire life. With these thoughts in mind, he stepped into the crowd entering the academy. He didn't recognize the people around him, and the noise of their chatter worsened his worry. Calming himself by taking deep breaths, he found a place to stand in the courtyard. He couldn't see much of the academy through the crowd, which was disappointing, but he was sure that problem would be resolved with time. As he wondered at what to do now, a platform of stone raised itself from the ground, and old man standing at the front facing the students, and several other individuals standing in a row behind him. The crowd quieted around him, and Wayne similarly stood at attention. As the surrounding noise grew near silent, the old man started to speak.
"Greetings one and all! Welcome to Hillchester Academy, I am the principal, archmage Galvin! Behind me are the instructors who will be guiding you through your journey of wizardry and witchcraft. At this academy, you will be learning your branch of magic. Whether it be enchanting with Ms. Verona." An older woman with a hunched back stepped forward, wide spectacles observing the students. "Elementalism with Mr. Yoland," A man of large stature stepped forward, hands behind his straight back. "Restoration with Ms. Havenshire," A younger woman with frizzy hair stepped forward, wearing a lab coat. "Runic Creation with Mr. Aeban," A slim man stepped forward, adjusting his tie as he did so. "or Conjuration or Illusion both with Mr. Bandel, " A young man dressed casually with a grin on his face stepped forward, waving as he did so. "we will shape you into the wizards of tomorrow. You, my students, will be the next generation of magic!"
The crowd cheered and yelled. Wayne, influenced by the people around him, joined in, cheering to his heart's content. Several students, however, raised their hands. Galvin, for his part, seemed to already know what they wanted to ask. His friendly demeanor dampened slightly, and he addressed the crowd once more.
"For those of you looking to study Necromancy, you have either already been licensed and it will be in your schedule, or you need to obtain a license and schedule a class next year for it. You will meet your instructor once in class." Galvin said, giving pointed looks to those raising their hands before they sheepishly put them down.
Wayne had never been very interested in necromancy, though he knew what it was. It was generally frowned upon by the lower classes, deemed as evil and unnatural. This is not why he wasn't interested, however. Necromancy is a dangerous branch of magic to study, for if a practitioner gets over ambitious and attempts to control a greater amount or higher quality of undead, or cast a spell out of their league that they can't control, it could turn on them. As such, necromancers were heavily monitored and restricted, not being able to conduct experiments without first going through a deluge of paperwork. Wayne didn't like being restricted, especially in magic, and he also didn't like the idea of being eaten alive by a rampaging high undead or swarm of zombies. That's not to say getting over ambitious in other branches isn't dangerous, an exploding fireball could easily kill people, but in necromancy it is especially treacherous to make a mistake.
"Your schedules have already been handed out. If you do not have one, please report to the front desk for assistance." Galvin said, before lowering the platform back into the ground where Wayne could no longer see him behind the crowd.
Wayne pulled out his schedule, rechecking it. He had already memorized it, but it never hurt to make sure. The first class he would be going to would be his Mana Studies. The class was mostly for general studies every branch of magic needed to know. It wouldn't specialize in a single branch, but every wizard or witch needed to know the things it covered. Next would be Conjuration 101, the branch of magic Wayne was most interested in. it was a basic class for conjuration, and would cover the basic knowledge for the branch. It would not, however, go into specializations. All branches of magic had specializations, a focus on one point of the branch. And that would be where his next class comes in, Basic Elemental Summoning. This class would be navigating the summoning and contracting of elementals, a specialization of Conjuration. After this class, Wayne would eat lunch. To support Elemental Summoning, Wayne's fourth class would be Basic Elementalism. Elementalism was the magic of manipulating the elements to do one's bidding, and also the one with the most specializations, such as Cryomancy or Druidcraft. After this class Wayne would go to Basic Runic creation as a form of self defense when he did not have access to elementals.
Putting his schedule away, Wayne made his way to his Mana Studies class. His instructor in this class would be Mr. Bandel. Wayne figured Illusion students would be having Mana Studies at the end of the day, as they would also need Mr. Bandel to teach them. After walking into class, he made his way to his assigned seat as detailed in his schedule, near the back of the room. After five minutes, the bell rang and a puff of smoke appeared in the middle of the class. Out of this smoke walked Mr. Bandel, still casually dressed, and holding a stick of chalk.
"Hello freshmen, welcome to Mana Studies with Mr. Bandel!" Mr. Bandel enthusiastically stated, before sauntering over to the chalk board with confidence. He started sketching a diagram of a mana circuit. "Let's do a role call." Mr. Bandel proceeded to call out thirty seven full names while he drew, thirty six of which were present as some kid named Jason Diagan missed the first day. When he got to Wayne's name, several students cast glances at him before looking forward again. Wayne took it as a good sign that biased based on social status was limited or outright restricted. He knew there were a few children of an Earl attending the school, and plus, Wayne just didn't like gathering too much attention. He wasn't used to dealing with many people.
"This," Mr. Bandel tapped the finished diagram, "Is a mana circuit. It's purpose is to give the mana instructions, and it is how all spellcasters use magic. It is, essentially, a magical language." The mana circuit was comprised of various connected runes surrounded by a circle.
"Some of you may notice the similarities this has with a runic construct made by Runesmiths. This is because Runic Creation is the art of using base mana to create a construct. We are not, however, here to talk about Runesmithing. Instead, let's talk about the mana circuits themselves. They run on a language we call 'Aetherial'. Each symbol you see inside this mana circuit stands for a concept in Aetherial..."
The lesson continued, and Wayne took careful note of everything that seemed even remotely important. At the end of class, a dictionary of conceptual Aetheric symbols were handed to the students. Mr. Bandel recommended to the students that they study it in their free time, as it would be useful no matter what branch of magic they studied. After the class was dismissed, Wayne went through his day detailing the information gained in his notebook. At lunch, however, Wayne ran into an unexpected situation.
The bustling cafeteria was packed with students. After five whole minutes of searching, Wayne could not find a table anywhere in the giant room. Or at least, a table that didn't already have students sitting at it. Wayne disliked the idea of sitting somewhere uninvited, and he didn't know how he should go about asking. He felt much more comfortable talking with people that worked at his own home, since he'd been doing it his entire life, but he felt like there was a world of difference in talking to someone new and completely unrelated. Eventually, he just decided to suck it up, face his social anxiety, walk right over to a table, and
"Hey, uh, c-could I sit here?" Spectacularly make a fool of himself, at least through the distorted lens of anxiety.
The boy he had asked looked up from his meal. He had auburn hair and a freckled face, along with green eyes.
"Sure, I don't see why not." The student replied before pulling out a chair for Wayne. "I'm Jackson, and you are?"
"Oh, I'm Wayne. Nice to meet you." Wayne replied, relieved that Jackson was friendly, and only now realizing that a stutter isn't really that bad.
As Wayne pulled his food out of the bag, Jackson spoke up again. "So, what branch are you studying, Wayne?" Jackson asked, before continuing to eat his sandwich.
Wayne felt infinitely more comfortable now that the conversation had changed to magic. Now that he was in his element, (No pun intended) he felt much more relaxed.
"Oh, I'm going into Conjuration. I want to summon elementals as my specialization. What about you?" Wayne replied, now animatedly talking about his passion.
"Really now? Well I'm studying Restoration. My family is all doctors, and I want to be one too, when I graduate." Jackson replied.
Wayne continued to talk to Jackson, whose last name was apparently Stales, about various topics. They kept at it, even talking about things outside of magic, until the bell rang and lunch was over. After that, the rest of the day passed by uneventfully for Wayne. Finally, school came to a close, leaving Wayne with several pages of magical knowledge, a possible friend, and a small amount of newfound confidence that he hadn't had before. Getting back into his carriage, he tried to memorize the way back. He couldn't remember the whole way, but he was close. The carriage finally pulled over at his house, and Wayne departed. The carriage driver drove off now that he had completed the job, leaving Wayne excited to talk about his day with his family and the servants. Walking up to the gate, he noticed the absence of the guards. In his excitement, however, he passed it off as them rotating posts. Luckily, he always carried a spare key in his back pocket. Letting himself in before closing and locking the gate behind him, he approached the doors through the quiet garden. As he went to open the door, something came to his attention. The door was slightly ajar. Normally, at this point, Wayne would realize something was off. But the creepy atmosphere of the lawn combined with his rapidly waning excitement didn't allow him to think rationally about the situation. All he did was make sure the lock was intact, and headed inside. When he walked in, the lights were off. Not unusual, the servants had a thing about saving resources when possible and no one in his family minded. His mother even agreed with the sentiment. His breath picking up pace as a chill went down his spine, Wayne started to tread towards through the hallway near his room to his father's office, where he could usually find the man. When he looked inside the door, however, his breath caught in his throat. He saw a man in a black cloak, pouring something on a pile. Looking closely at the pile, Wayne noticed what exactly it was. The lump sitting in his father's office was, in fact, several corpses piled on top of each other.
Wayne forgot to breath. He saw the ghastly, horrified faces and slit throats of the staff he talked to and knew his entire life. He saw Michael, the head janitor, Ferrick, his family's butler who had been like a grandfather to him, Matilda, the head maid, which was ironic, as she was decapitated and Wayne could not make out the rest of her body. But what shocked Wayne the most, what made his blood run cold, was the sight of his father, a dagger sticking out of his eye, and his mother, her entire body, once pristine and beautiful, now wrinkled and withered with her eye sockets no more than black holes in her head. His eyes widened beyond belief, mouth set in a disbelieving expression. Then Wayne made the last mistake of his thirteen year old life. Wayne gasped. The man snapped his head up, looked Wayne in the eye, and Wayne recognized him. It was Argus. He had a conversation with this person earlier that day, had talked to the man who had killed his entire world. That was when Wayne realized what seemed off about him, what he should have paid far more attention to. There was no emotion in his eyes. They were like looking at pits of emptiness, and he felt tears starting to well up in his own. Wayne didn't have time to blink before shadows shot out of the man and latched onto Wayne. He could feel the strength leaving his body. He was paralyzed, unable to run or even make a single noise save for the thud of falling onto the ground on his back. Argus, if that was his real name, walked over to him.
"Your back early. The carriage was supposed to be here in ten minutes." The man, if he could still be called that, said. His voice was deep and flowed smoothly. Wayne couldn't move as he started dragging him to the pile and threw him on top. Wayne could only stay stock still in horror as Argus pulled out another dagger, like the one that was embedded in his father's head. As he was doing this, Wayne's thoughts drifted, perhaps as a defensive measure to protect himself from what his waking mind knew was to come. He thought about how it was supposed to be. How he was supposed to make his parents proud by becoming a master in his field and serving his country. How he was supposed to watch his little sister grow up and maybe, if she so chose, to follow in his footsteps. Even as Argus slid the weapon between his ribcage, even as pain flared inside him as the knife plunged itself into his rapidly beating heart before it stopped, he thought about how him and Jackson could have learned and studied together. How he could have retired after becoming an archmage and started to work as a teacher, or maybe even the principal, at Hillchester himself. His life flashed before his eyes, not the one he lived to that point, but of the one he could have lived after. He refused to accept what was happening around him. As the last vestiges of life faded from him, and Argus lit the gasoline he had already poured on the pile, Wayne's soul stayed. It refused to leave. As Argus placed an anti-scrying spell, finished his business and left, Wayne's soul refused to go. As days passed, and the authorities concluded their investigation, Wayne's souled refused to go. Little bits and pieces floated off, Wayne's willpower, or anyone's for that matter, not strong enough to keep them after death, but only the non-important parts. He offered his memories of how to get to various buildings, and of playing as a kid, and how to contract physical muscles, and his soul stayed. Finally, Wayne's soul decided to get up, and Wayne opened his eyes.
