It doesn’t take me long to find Private Connelly, the guard I ask points me to him where he stands at the entrance to the housing area.

I walk up to him unsure how he’ll greet me. I remember his name vaguely from the game, but don’t remember anything about him.

“Excuse me sir, Headmaster Ambrose sent me here to help with a ghost problem?” I say cautiously, as the bear of a man turns to look at me over his thick mustache.

“You say the Headmaster sent you to help us?” The man smiles at me,  “Well then you’re just the person -er, wizard- I’ve been waiting for. The ghosts have been getting out of control lately, and no wizard wants to take the time out of their day to travel here to fight such weak creatures. Us guards have our own hands full dealing with other problems on the street. If you defeat a few of these creatures, we’ll be happy to pay you for your troubles.”

I look at the man curiously, a little surprised at the quest-like way the man phrased his words. “To be honest, I need the money. So I’ll be happy to help you out… but uh,” I look at the empty street, which unlike the game, has no obvious monster running around. “Where are they exactly?”

Private Connelly gives a hearty laugh at my look. “If they were easy to find, we wouldn’t be having so much trouble with them, now would we? Don’t worry, I’m sure if you just walk down any of the empty side streets, one of the annoying buggers will come out to attack you. They like to prey on people that are walking on their lonesome.”

“Strange question, but uh… do you think I can fight ghosts if I only know one spell?” I ask, looking at the street with some trepidation.

“Only one spell? You must be new here, I should have known from your robes.” He emphasises his statement by motioning towards my clothing. “Yeah, The buggers are barely able to keep themselves together with the amount of power they possess. I don’t think you’d encounter any real trouble.” Private Connelly pauses, before continuing, “I should warn you, there have been sightings of skeletons around. They are a little tougher than ghosts, but they shouldn’t pose any real trouble to you.”

“If I hear the rattling of bones, I’ll make sure to run.” I say half jokingly. “Thanks for the help.” With that thank you, I turn to the street. A few people are still out and about, going about their business, but it’s mostly empty compared to the commons.

With a shaking of my head to get rid of my doubts, I walk down the street, pulling out the wand that Headmaster Ambrose had given me. Houses line the sides of the paved street, and I walk down a small sidewalk looking at every corner for any kind of paranormal activity.

After a few seconds, I stop to laugh at myself. 

I’m walking down the streets looking for ghosts, holding a magical wand that a man I barely know gave me.

The situation seems so unreal to me, but I don’t doubt it. The magic that Ambrose showed me was too convincing. 

I’m not scared, not really. I mean, Ambrose wouldn’t send me here to make money unless he thought I could hunt the ghosts just fine. Plus, Private Connelly wasn’t very worried either.

It doesn’t take me long to reach a roundabout, and I take a left towards the more empty looking street. After a while, I find a nice part of the street that is actually empty, like the private had suggested.

Then I wait… and wait.... 

I sigh as the fire cat jumps out of my arms to chase a small mouse that had run by us.

The fire cat quickly disappears around a corner and I find myself all on my own. 

I shout in surprise as a familiar pentagon appears beneath my feet. On the other side of the pentagon, a hooded figure appears, my eyes easily see through the creature’s robe to the street on the other side.

So that’s a ghost, huh? I was expecting something a little more terrifying.

The energy in the pentagon shifts, pointing at the ghost first.

The ghost lifts a hand out of it’s clothes, I cough in surprise at the finger blackened from rot. 

The ghost draws a magic circle slowly, finishing it with a flourish. As soon ast the magic circle is finished, a large beetle-like creature bursts out of the ground, before turning to me and running head first into my barrier. 

The red bar representing my shield falls by a fifth.

The magic energy in the circle shifts pointing to me, and the scarab beetle disappears back into the earth. I gulp, wondering if the only spell I know will work when the Fire Cat is already summoned. 

It doesn’t hurt to try.

I lift my wand, forcefully stopping the slight tremble coming from my arm. Energy leaves me as I draw the only magic circle I know. My arm shakes in the middle of the drawing and the magic circle falls apart, quite literally fizzling into dust.

“Goat’s horns.” I curse, before pausing. What the heck? Why can’t I curse? I can’t even do it in my head? Heck. Poo. Beautiful Copulation.

While I’m wondering at the oddity, the energy shifts until it’s pointing back at the ghost.

The Ghost starts drawing another circle, but then I watch as it messes up its own circle, the circle fizzling into ash.

The energy shifts back to me, and this time I make sure that my arm is steady as I draw the magic circle. 

A familiar fiery portal opens up in the middle of the circle, and a panther surrounded by flames jumps out, turning its gaze to the ghost. With a familiar roar, the panther jumps onto the ghost, crushing it’s shield immediately.

The pentagram below me dims as the ghost dies. I watch curiously as some of the energy leaves the ghost, entering my body through my wand. All that is left in the ghost’s place is a strange shimmering, yet slightly see-through cloth.

I walk over to the cloth, and put it in my backpack. The flaming Panther grows smaller until it’s back in the shape of a fire cat I recognize. 

The cat happily hops over to me, rubbing its head against my leg. “Yeah yeah yeah. thanks little guy. I probably wouldn’t have survived without your help.” I say, petting the cat’s head.

I take a deep breath, finally feeling the twitchiness that comes from the adrenaline of a fight. I take another deep breath, calming down.

Well. That was something. Who’s up for round two?

I think I should be fine, one of the ghost’s attacks only took about a fifth of my red bar, while It only took one spell from me to finish it off.

I continue to search for ghosts, and It doesn’t take me long to figure out that the ghosts only attack me when I am alone, which meant that they appear whenever my fire cat disappears.

I encounter two more of the ghosts, gathering the strange cloth they leave behind, before I realize that the red bar that represented my shield was getting smaller every time I took damage from one of their spells.

As soon as I figure that out, I decide to cut my ghost hunting short, and return to Private Connelly. He’ll probably know how to get my red bar back up to muster, although I suspect that I just need to rest. 

Private Connelly confirms my guess when I arrive back at his post, apparently I can regain my energy passively over time, or by actively absorbing the energy in my surroundings, however I’m supposed to do that. He also hands me three pretty coins I don’t recognize for the cloth I’d gathered from the ghosts. 

Once I have the coins, I stand there not really sure what to do next. The grumbling of my stomach reminds me that I haven’t had anything to eat since I entered this world. Where am I supposed to find food? I don’t remember there being any cafeterias in the game. Maybe there will be something in the shopping district? It’s worth a shot, I suppose.

It’s a short walk back to the commons, and I find myself immediately drawn to the waterfall that hides the death school. 

I stand on the bridge, staring at the waterfall for a few minutes. It is surprisingly beautiful actually. 

No one comes out from behind the waterfall, not that I expected them to in broad daylight. I still don’t know where I fit into the timeline of the game. Am I here before the start, before the death of Malistaire’s wife? I have to make sure to visit actual schools soon. 

It doesn’t take me long to find a food vendor once I’m in the shopping district. The layout of the shopping district is much different then I remember, the whole district is bigger than it was portrayed in the game. 

The food vendor that I decide on sells a delicious pasta-like dish that costs two of the three coins I’d made from hunting ghosts. 

There’s some surprisingly modern benches surrounding the vendor which I happily sit down on.

I watch the traffic of the street move on as students and people that resemble the various races of the spiral go shopping.

“Excuse me!” A teenager a year or so younger than me with curly red hair and red robes to match waves to get my attention. “Did you see a moody Death student walk by? He had black hair, and brown eyes…” His voice drops off as he tries to describe the person he’s looking for.

“That describes a lot of people that have walked by.” I say half-jokingly, scraping my wooden bowl with my spoon for the last of the food in it.

“Yeah…” The red haired teenager looks up and down the street hopefully, before his face turns downcast. “Do you mind if I wait here for him? He should come back this way once he’s done exploring.”

“Go ahead.” I say, motioning to an open spot on the bench.

“Thanks.” He sits down, watching the street for another minute before turning his attention to me. “I’m Daniel, by the way. First year fire student.” 

“Chris. I guess I’m a fire student as well.” I respond, my mouth quirking up from introducing myself that way.

“Really? I should have been able to tell by the robes, but I’m terrible at that kind of thing.” Daniel shakes his head with disappointment. “My brother is the Death student. I’ll introduce you guys when he gets back.”

“There’s no need. The Headmaster told me that I’d have a dorm room, so I should probably go find that before it gets too late. It was nice meeting you Daniel.” I say, standing up.

“It was nice meeting you Chris!” Daniel says enthusiastically. “I’ll see you around.”

“Probably.” I respond, before setting off.

After asking a few official looking people, I manage to find the dorm room I’d be staying in. I find myself immediately jumping face first into the comfy looking bed of my room, tempted to immediately crash.

Everything was strange today, so I make some mental effort to just absorb the event, and finally let them catch up to me. I’ve enrolled in a magical school, just like that.

It’s actually fairly exciting. I don’t remember everything from the game, but I do remember enjoying the concepts that were brought up in Wizard 101. From world hopping, to magical plants, the whole world is very magical.

So where am I right now? Am I in the game itself? Or was the game based off of this world? Wizard 101 is a kid safe game, but from the little I’ve seen already, this world isn’t a kid safe world. 

I can’t help but think about that brief gruesome glance I’d gotten of the ghost’s finger.

Strange thing for my mind to latch on to, I know, but it was actually rotting, and I could see the rot. It wasn’t some kind of cartoony thing. I think it could be dangerous for me if I don’t take this world seriously enough.

Something tells me I won’t respawn if I die.