Evren was walking down the road towards the center of town, chewing on some jerky and carrying a mannequin he had found in one of the clothing shops on the west side of town. The mannequin was only a chest and head, but it had a stand that let it stand upright. Across his shoulder was hanging his basket, which contained a couple books and a wand. He set the mannequin in the center of the clearing and took five steps away from it.
He pulled the wand out of his basket and held it in his left hand, at his side. With his right hand pointed at the target, he chanted “water ball.” A ball of water was launched from his hand and hit the mannequin, causing it to rock back slightly and splash a lot of water. He tried the same thing using the wand and got the same results.
He stared at the wand for a bit, then tried pouring magic into the wand before casting “water ball”, but he still got the same results. “Ok, so tell me why people use wands?” He moved the wand to his left hand and cast “wind blade” at the target, causing a small scratch in the wood. He repeated the test with the wand and got a similar result. He moved forward to the target to compare the two scratches. It seemed the wand cast spell may have caused a deeper scratch, but it could have just been softened wood from the water balls.
“Ok, fire now.” He said as he pointed his hand at the mannequin, “fire ball.” A ball of flame the size of his head appeared before him and flew to the target and burst. Steam rose from the wet spots on the mannequin. Evren’s eyes flittered between his hand and the target, “That seemed useless.”
He rummaged around in his basket, pulling out a book and was going through the pages, “What was that spell called again?” he said. “Ah! Here it is. ‘earth ball.’” A head sized ball of dirt was launched from his hand and flew to the target. The target tilted back slightly before righting itself. It was now dirty. With a frown he looked at the book in front of him. “I hope all of these spells aren’t as terrible as these.”
He put the wand back into the basket and flipped through the pages of the book, “Let’s start with the basic spells.” When he found the spot in the book he was looking for, he cast a new spell, “Push.” The mannequin rocked back about as much as it did when it was hit with the earth ball. Evren sighed and then used telekinesis on the mannequin to do the same thing, and the mannequin fell over as if he walked up to it and pushed it forcefully.
He shook his head and said “Pull.” But the mannequin only shook in place. He used telekinesis to upright the mannequin as he moved on to the next spell. “Those are useless.” As he turned the pages he said, “‘Heat’ and ‘chill,’ I know what those do, ‘cut’ is probably as damaging as ‘wind blade.’ Hmm… ‘mend.’ He walked forward to the mannequin and found the two scratches he had caused with the “wind blade” spells and used “mend” on them both. The scratches disappeared.
With an impressed look on his face, he nodded, drawing out his dagger. He put a deeper cut on the mannequin and used “mend” on it, but the cut only seemed to get a little smaller. He had to cast it four more times to get the cut to completely disappear, but he was satisfied with the meager results. “This is like the material version of ‘heal cut.’”
He looked back at the book and turned a page, “Ok, ‘wall.’” A shimmer like a heat wave in the air, approximately two meters wide by two meters tall appeared before him. He reached forward to touch it and it seemed solid enough. After five seconds, it disappeared. He cast it again and this time he kicked the wall with everything he had. It defended the blow, but again only lasted five seconds.
“Decent.” He said as he turned back to the book. When he chanted “shield” a circular shimmer of air in the shape of a shield appeared on his left arm, approximately half a meter in diameter. It had no weight to it, and it moved with his arm. When he hit it, the feeling was transferred to his arm, but there was no pain involved, just pressure. This one lasted for ten seconds.
“Alright, the last two I don’t know how to test, so I’ll just save that for later.” He closed the book and placed it back in the basket, grabbing another book from it. This book was a faded red color and was in filled with spells based on the fire element. “Hmm, ‘flame’, ‘fire ball’, here we go. Ahem ‘fire arrow.’” Flame formed in the shape of an arrow in front of him and was launched at the mannequin. Once it hit the mannequin, it stayed in place and continued to burn. After five seconds, the fire arrow was extinguished, but the mannequin wasn’t. He launched a ‘water ball’ at it, putting the fire out.
“Ok, that one looked pretty effective. Not sure the range on it, or whether the wand will work or not though. And I only have the one mannequin, so I don’t want to test that out now.” Turning a couple of pages he said, “Hmm, ‘explosion’ sounds like it is getting dangerous, and I don’t want to blow up my target, so I’ll save that for later. Here we go, ‘jet.’”
A stream of fire flew out from his hand in front of him, reaching about five meters, completely engulfing the mannequin in flames. He stopped the spell and looked at the burning mannequin. He quickly casted ‘water ball’ a couple of times but it continued to burn. Cursing, he bent down to his basket and fished through it for the book on water spells. He flipped through the pages mumbling until he found the spell he was looking for. Quickly he chanted, “Deluge.”
A large volume of water poured down on the mannequin like a waterfall, knocking it over and flooding the area for five seconds before it stopped. Evren had grabbed his basket and backed away from the rapidly approaching water with a stunned look on his face. As he stopped, his right hand moved to his forehead and he said, “And there’s the headache.”
He walked over to the porch of a building and sat on the edge of it. He looked back to his mannequin, laying in a puddle of mud, in the middle of the road, in the middle of the intersection in the middle of the town, and sighed. “Ok, ‘jet’ is effective; ‘deluge’ was more than I was expecting.” He went back to the book in his hand and flipped through the pages, “Oh, I should have used ‘drench’ instead of ‘deluge.’ Alright, and the last one for fire is ‘fire wall.’ I’ll have to imagine what that and ‘explosion’ are like for now as I don’t want this headache to get worse.”
“Let’s see, ‘drench’ is just a big ball of water that appears at the target, then gravity takes over. ‘Cutter’ is a water version of ‘jet’ so probably like a hose. And lastly there’s ‘freeze.’” He looked at the soaked ground around the target and smiled. “Alright let’s try it. ‘Freeze.’” The mannequin was rapidly covered in ice crystals, and the muddy ground froze out to a diameter of five meters. Outside of five meters until about seven meters, the area was considerably colder, but not frozen.
Evren squinted his eyes in pain, “Oh I hope I don’t pass out again.” He said as the headache got considerably worse. He remained in place suffering for about ten minutes before the headache subsided to a manageable level. He stood and walked to the center of the frozen area to put the mannequin back on its stand, and said, “Nope. Frozen to the ground. Ah well, nobody’s going to steal it.”
As he was walking back to his base, he was reading through the elemental spells of Air and talking to himself. “‘Breeze’ sucks, already tested that one, ‘wind blade’ too. ‘Barrier’ seems situational. Ha ha! This one’s called ‘dust devil!’ That sounds useless too. Then there’s ‘blast’ and ‘squall.’”
He stopped and read the description on ‘blast,’ “It ‘sends a cylindrical burst of air, one half a meter in diameter that moves away from the target.’ I wonder if I can somehow make use of that in the forge or the furnace.” He shrugged and started walking again.
When he reached his base, he climbed up the stairs to the apartment and grabbed a cup from his small cabinet and sat down on the wooden bed. He held his hand over the cup, filled it up with water with one cast of ‘drink’ then used the spell ‘chill’ to cool it down to a nice cold temperature. He set the cup down on the floor at his feet and rubbed his brows with his finger and thumb.
“What do I recall of the earth spells? There’s ‘cavity’ which is useless. If I wanted to create a hole in dirt as big as two fingers in my hand, I didn’t need a spell to do that with. ‘Earth ball’ throws a ball of dirt at a target. I guess I could use it as a less wet distraction than ‘water ball.’ Hmm… what were the other ones?” He fished out the book on earth magic and thumbed through it. He nodded as he read through it. Some of these could probably be useful. ‘Rock’ creates a rock and launches it at the target. Probably less than I could send a rock myself with telekinesis, but what if I don’t have a rock!” He frowned in thought, “I wonder if I could augment the launched rock with telekinesis.”
“‘Boulder’ creates a rock, no a big rock, so that’s like ‘drench’ but more impactful. Hmm… ‘skewer’ seems interesting. It makes a mini lance that flies at the target. I should check to see if I can augment that one too. And the last one, ‘avalanche’ is like ‘boulder’ times ten.” He sighed and leaned back on the bed, “Fuck it, I’m taking a nap.”
