literature

OTW 101 -Jan- Paralysis

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Ross returned to his dorm with an armful of books.  His whole group had left with more than one, at least.  Upon discovering that he would not get in trouble for taking books from this library (provided he return them on time), Ross had gone a little nuts, checking out nearly a dozen books on both incantations and shadowmancy, including the Incantations and Spells book Professor Razik had suggested to them.  He dropped the books on his desk and pulled that one out first. 

The other books were technically unnecessary.  Ross and his group had chosen a spell while they were still at the library, but as far as Ross was concerned more reading was never a bad thing.  He paged through the book absently, in no hurry to find the spell as he thought over his group.  It was kind of unnerving to have been paired up with a vampire and a blood demon, not to mention his teacher was a kelpie of all things.  Ross made a mental note never to let on in that class that he was afraid of water.  He didn't think Razik would ever let him live it down. 

He shook his head and began reading about the paralysis spell they'd be doing, and how they'd be linking to each other magically.  That, at least, wasn't totally unfamiliar to him.  Ross had linked with his sister ages ago when she was trying out new spells for the witches, to give her a little boost to make them work.  The book gave him a much more in-depth knowledge of how the link worked.  The spell was something completely new.  Ross had tried little moving spells, but nothing like this.  Reading more about it, he was a little nervous.  So much could go wrong if it backfired, and since they were linked, the repercussions might affect all of them, not just the spellcaster.  

Ross chewed his lip as he moved from desk to floor with some of the other books too, reading any passage he could find relating to magical bonding and paralysis spells. That became routine for a few weeks, as he, Selorah and Geen prepared to perform the spell. The night before, Ross spent the evening studying again.  He wasn't surprised to find himself waking up the next morning, still on the floor with four or five open books around him.  One had become his pillow when he fell asleep. 

He stretched, and grabbed a coat.  Selorah and Sangeen were going to collect some form of animal to paralyze, and he needed to as well.  And, if he was going out into the woods, he sure as hell wasn't going to freeze to death before he'd even passed one class. 

At least it wasn't windy.  There was a light snowfall on the ground, and Ross crunched through the crusty top shell as he walked across the open space between the academy wall and the woods.  He conjured sparks on his hands to keep them warm, and pulled them into little strings, then thicker strings as he went further in.  Nina had shown him how she used elemental ropes to catch rats and squirrels around their home as a child.  Ross had learned to use strings of fire to do the same, though he'd boasted to Nina it took more concentration, because he didn't let the fire burn the animal. 

He did the same in the forest, waiting until the light from his fire attracted the attention of some creature hiding in the shadows and baited it to come out to him.  The first creature that showed itself was meaner than Ross had hoped -- some sort of wildcat, with patchy black-grey fur and skeletally thin.  It growled and hissed as it realized Ross had seen it.  The warlock wrinkled his face at it.  The thing was ugly, and terribly mutated, which made him believe it wasn't the first time the thing had encountered students from the Academy.  He wondered if it would run off, but it screeched something inhuman as it jumped forward to challenge him.  

Ross didn't catch it before it bit and scratched him up a fair bit.  Great; now he'd need to go see what Everett (or his students) would do to fix that. But the wildcat -or whatever it was- was more or less tame now.  It hissed and growled at him, but the fiery collar around its neck meant it would stay near him without trying to hurt anyone.  His dorm room seemed to have other ideas about the animal, and by the time he'd gotten back with it, the room had produced a cage made of bones, like the rest of his furniture.  Ross put the cat in it, and went back to his books.  The group was meeting later to do the assignment, and he wanted to be as ready as possible. 

Ross met Geen and Selorah on the open field by the wall. Selorah had a deer with her, as thin as his cat, but actually made of bones rather than just being thin.  Regardless of the vampire's ability, Ross doubted whether the thing could actually be paralyzed, since there was no muscle for the spell to act on.  He shrugged mentally, and waved to the girls as he walked up.  Geen had one of the mutant mice that were all over the school in her hands. 

"Let's get this show on the road then," he said, and forced a grin to hide his nerves.  It made him edgy, knowing either of his partners could kill him and feed off his blood.  It was a school for dark magic, but that was still unnerving.  Ross wondered if either of the girls were nervous too. Selorah couldn't actually die if her spell backfired, but he was morbidly curious what would happen to Sangeen if she couldn't move.  He wasn't too familiar with how blood demons worked, physically. She was made of blood and shadows, so if she became paralyzed, would she fall apart, or would blood just drain out of her, since she couldn't hold it in? Maybe it couldn't even effect her, because she was made of something other than flesh and bone.  "Want to go first, Geen?" he offered.

"I'm not that good at this whole magic thing..."  she said.  Ross vaguely remembered her mentioning that she wasn't sure if blood demons were magically inclined or not. 

He hesitated, then patted her shoulder awkwardly, trying to ignore the blood it got on his hand.  "Well," he said, wiping his hand on his pants, "that's what the bonding is for, right?  Selorah and I will help you out," he added with more confidence than he felt.  Sangeen performed the bond with them, and Ross felt a loss in strength and power as Geen prepared her spell.  The spell worked, and her mouse was still as death, though the movement in its tiny chest meant it was still alive. 

Selorah seemed inclined to go last, so Ross followed Sangeen's lead.  He let the cat out of the bone cage and used the influence the fire collar had over it to keep in fairly still.  It paced in an angry circle between the three of them as Ross made his bond with Selorah and Sangeen.  With their added strength, he felt powerful, though still wary of the companions from whom he was borrowing power.  Ross let out a breath and held his hand out toward the cat, remembering how the witches had cast spells. He closed his eyes and spoke the incantation, feeling the power drain as it took effect.  When he opened his eyes, the wildcat was standing rigid and unmoving, only its eyes following him as he broke his bond with his partners, and recalled the collar from it.  He picked it up, feeling a bit sorry for it.  There was no way he was going to take the angry thing back with him though.  

He looked back at Geen, noting that her hair was almost nonexistant, and she looked hunched over.  Of course, the strength drain he'd experienced when the magic had taken effect would have a different effect on her blood-demon physiology, he guessed.  A strength drain to her meant loosing blood.  Ross walked back over to her, and offered the paralyzed cat.  "It's going to die anyway, if I leave it here," he said.  "Might as well give yourself a little boost."  After getting to know her over the past few weeks, Ross had learned more than he'd wanted to about blood demon anatomy, and also that Geen wasn't as bad as he'd pegged her for originally.  

He glanced over at Selorah, who didn't seem too badly affected by the spell-casting.  Which was fine, as far as Ross was concerned, because there was no way he was going to feed her too.  The vampire wasn't that bad either, if he was honest with himself, but for some reason, she still really creeped him out.  He figured it was her red eyes.  They just weren't human, and while he could somehow adjust to Sangeen's inhumanly white eyes and her unique physiology, the vampire was too close to humanity for him right now.  

"Guess you're up, Selorah," he said, but the vampire was way ahead of him, already beginning her bond with her partners.  As she readied her spell, Ross realized this bond was different for the first two.  Like some weird sixth sense, he'd been aware of his partner's consciousnesses when he'd bonded with them before, but Ross couldn't sense Geen this time around, and before he could mention it, Selorah had cast the paralysis spell.  

Without Sangeen's added strength, Selorah couldn't muster up enough power to properly cast the spell.  Instead of it attacking the deer-which Ross still doubted could even be paralyzed-Selorah herself fell to the ground with rigid limbs, and searching eyes. Ross walked over to her and frowned. A bit of him figured, that's what she deserved for rushing into it like that.  "Couldn't you sense the bond wasn't working?" he asked.  "You must have hit the wall or something that wasn't Sangeen.  I couldn't sense her through the bond."  Ross sighed, and knelt down to pick Selorah up.  She was surprisingly light.  "Well, I've got to go to the infirmary anyway to see about something that damn cat did to me, so I might as well take you, too. Want to come explain with me, Geen?"  He smirked, with genuine amusement now.  "Sorry, Selorah, but this is going to be one one hell of a laugh to explain."



Word Count: 1,769

Sorry to my partners ahead of time if I got either of them out of character! Tried my best to stay close to what their personalities were described as.

Anyway, this is my assignment for :iconotherworlde: course OTW101 - Incantations
Ross is so proud of himself for this spell, let me tell you xD He'll be a smug little prick for a bit before he fails at something else. and look, he's making friends... kind of....

By the way, I maybe should have mentioned I was a novelist first, an artist second. xD Too much I wanted to write for this.



Selorah -[link] - :iconangelheartthewarrior:

Sangeen -[link] :iconlizziecat1279:
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lizziecat1279's avatar
wooooo that was fun to read~ I'll have to adjust my comic ever so slightly so fit in with this, but that's not a big deal~
Does it matter if the plot of my comic/second part with the writing differs slightly from yours? To you that is. Just want to make sure ^^ *is obsessed with consistency*