Some students make me want to scream and throw things at them. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in my library all content, when all kinds of magical alarms started blaring. A huge cloud of smoke was flying up from between shelves at the back of the building. I ran towards it, raising my magical reserves as I went.
In the aisle between the memory stone collection and the book collection a fire was raging, and in the middle of the havoc stood a young student, looking forlorn and frightened. I immediately formed a magic bubble around the fire and sucked the oxygen out until the fire died. Of course, that meant that the student also couldn’t breath for a minute, but I so didn’t care about his discomfort in that moment. I did make sure he was still breathing when I burst the bubble, nice person that I am.
I checked the shelves. Magic fires burn fast and hot, so I was not surprised to see that a large portion of the books had been burned. The cases of the memory stones had fared much better, as they are protected against all kinds of disasters, but the shelf boards underneath them had given out, leaving the stones in a messy pile on the ground.
The shaky voice of the student hardly made it through my murderous thoughts. “I… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean… I just wanted….”
He broke off and his eyes became huge when I looked at him. I know I must have been a frightful sight. I’ve had this reaction before when I put on my angry face. “I know full well what you wanted,” I spat out. Of course I knew. Young students always want to try out new talents immediately and they constantly overestimate themselves. They think just because they learned the how’s of something from a memory stone, they can just command whatever new ability they gained. But that’s not how it works. Knowing how to do something and getting good at it are two very different things. One always needs to train a new ability. Which is exactly why there are training centers everywhere. “Training” in a library was just plain stupid.
This dumb kid deserved to be punished severely. Unfortunately I have been forbidden to hurt imps, so I had to come up with something that wouldn’t hurt the little fool and yet gave me some satisfaction.
“Don’t move,” I told the youngster and went back through the shelves a bit. I picked up a level one stone and took it back to the kid.
I whacked the case against the idiot’s chest and he clutched it with shaky fingers. “This is a memory stone that will teach you how to restore burned things. Unlock it and get to work.”
The restoring spell is a relatively easy one, but it needs utter concentration and it is tedious work to reconstruct anything with it. Meaning: it took the kid hours to get everything back to its original state and by the end he had enough training with the new spell that he, from now on, at least is able to restore anything he burned by stupidly trying out his gift.
I really would have preferred to kill the little critter, but at least it was fun to watch him get the hang of the restoring spell for the rest of the day.
In the aisle between the memory stone collection and the book collection a fire was raging, and in the middle of the havoc stood a young student, looking forlorn and frightened. I immediately formed a magic bubble around the fire and sucked the oxygen out until the fire died. Of course, that meant that the student also couldn’t breath for a minute, but I so didn’t care about his discomfort in that moment. I did make sure he was still breathing when I burst the bubble, nice person that I am.
I checked the shelves. Magic fires burn fast and hot, so I was not surprised to see that a large portion of the books had been burned. The cases of the memory stones had fared much better, as they are protected against all kinds of disasters, but the shelf boards underneath them had given out, leaving the stones in a messy pile on the ground.
The shaky voice of the student hardly made it through my murderous thoughts. “I… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean… I just wanted….”
He broke off and his eyes became huge when I looked at him. I know I must have been a frightful sight. I’ve had this reaction before when I put on my angry face. “I know full well what you wanted,” I spat out. Of course I knew. Young students always want to try out new talents immediately and they constantly overestimate themselves. They think just because they learned the how’s of something from a memory stone, they can just command whatever new ability they gained. But that’s not how it works. Knowing how to do something and getting good at it are two very different things. One always needs to train a new ability. Which is exactly why there are training centers everywhere. “Training” in a library was just plain stupid.
This dumb kid deserved to be punished severely. Unfortunately I have been forbidden to hurt imps, so I had to come up with something that wouldn’t hurt the little fool and yet gave me some satisfaction.
“Don’t move,” I told the youngster and went back through the shelves a bit. I picked up a level one stone and took it back to the kid.
I whacked the case against the idiot’s chest and he clutched it with shaky fingers. “This is a memory stone that will teach you how to restore burned things. Unlock it and get to work.”
The restoring spell is a relatively easy one, but it needs utter concentration and it is tedious work to reconstruct anything with it. Meaning: it took the kid hours to get everything back to its original state and by the end he had enough training with the new spell that he, from now on, at least is able to restore anything he burned by stupidly trying out his gift.
I really would have preferred to kill the little critter, but at least it was fun to watch him get the hang of the restoring spell for the rest of the day.
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