MAGIC ACTIVATE!

Garrick stands tall, his belly filled with a meal fit for a champion, the tendrils of determination sprawling all over his being. He has never felt more prepared for the demanding practice of READING! Like a bat out of hell on a warpath, he snatches the half-asleep Meetle, who can't resist and sprints with him into the reading chamber with unrelenting gusto, leaving Kyra talking to herself among the dirty bowls and cutlery.

"Can you tidy up, Kyra?"

"SURE! I love tidying up other people's messes!"

"You're a doll!"

"It's so much fun! I mean, I could be training, but this is just more enjoyable! PRICKS!"

Kyra gives the middle finger to the now-disappeared Garrick and Meetle as she argues to herself. As she snaps up a dirty bowl, nearly cracking the wood from her grip, a ghostly figure dressed like a trick-or-treater wearing a bedsheet materialises through the table, startling her.

"Messy bast-AHH! WHAT THE FUCK!" Kyra recoils with fright, then snaps into anger as she swipes with malice at the ghostly figure but to no avail as her hands glide through it, with not so much as a reaction as it casually starts tidying the dishes up and wiping clean the table.

"Creepy ghost...use the goddamn door next time! I know you did that on purpose to scare me!" Kyra shouts to the ghost, but it continues its duty, focused solely on cleaning as if nothing else matters. Quickly realising she is essentially arguing with a brick wall, Kyra stomps away to meet up with the two knuckleheads in the reading chamber, who, by this point, are standing in the centre of the hexagon-shaped reading chamber, staring up at the ever-expanding catalogue of magic tomes.

"The sheer amount of spells out there to learn is mind-boggling, Meetle." Garrick turns his head towards Meetle, who is dangling lifelessly by his side, trying his best to throw up after the raucous ride. Garrick places him down carefully and quickly apologises as he walks to a nearby bookcase. The smooth wooden bookcase has a distinct emanating smell of varnish, only overpowered by the smell of the mix of paper and leather tomes that stack them. Meetle shakily stands up, covering his mouth with a closed fist, attempting to compose himself. 

"Yeah... lots of choices *BURP* I got some...out already, have a look." Every word that Meetle utters is another vicious battle with a vomit demon he must win, and thankfully, he does.

"It's a specific book I need, Meetle. How do I find it in all this, though?" Garrick scans the bookcases with uncertainty as Meetle shrugs, unsure how to find specific reading material himself.

"You got to the end of the day to use magic, so let's start pulling books out. You start on that one, and I'll try the one over here." Meetle waddles, his belly full of soup as it sloshes around, over to a bookcase near where his tomes are already laid out next to a chair and inviting fireplace. "What's the specific book you're looking for?"

Garrick reaches for a random book in the bookcase and turns his head toward Meetle. "Oh, It's a book about-" Turning his head back towards the book he pulled out, in shock, the title of it reads:

'Telekinesis: Mind Over Matter.'

"Uhh, I found it." Garrick looks in disbelief at the tome in his hand as he shifts his gaze and stares at the thousands upon thousands of books to pick from. "What's the odds of picking the exact book I needed?"

"Oh? That's pretty lucky, then. I'd not be much help past the first shelf anyway." Meetle giggles as he walks over to his chair and plops himself down. "What spell did you want to learn anyway?" Meetle curiously adds.

Garrick, with the book in hand, walks over to Meetle. The tome's aged brown leather binding yields cracks that branch over it and discoloured yellow pages inside. If these weren't tell-tale signs of the sheer amount of time the book has existed and spent on the shelf, then the layer of caked-on dust that Garrick blows off it creating a dust cloud is, before showing it to Meetle, who leans in close to read the title.

"Telekinesis?! That's the book?!" Meetle exclaims as he raises his eyebrows, confused with Garrick's choice of material. "That's high-tier magic; you can't learn it in a day!"

"A promise is a promise! If there was any spell that would keep me focused enough to learn, then it's this one!" Garrick opens the book with purpose, confident in his determination to not be a magically inept failure. The first page reads-

'Telekinesis is a potent tool for many purposes. From mundane to complex, domestic to warfare itself, the potential of telekinesis far exceeds that of other higher-tiered magic due to its direct application. No time is wasted on the spell reaching its target as it is instantaneous! However, being so potent means, as a direct consequence, the spell is difficult to master. As such, we recommend all participating mages should expect moderate success with this spell after one year of practice.' 

Further down the page, as Garrick continues, the text reads-

'IMPORTANT! A person's mana reserve pool must be sufficient due to its high taxing cost on the user body. So, even with adequate training, you won't be able to use this spell if you have a low magical reserve!'

Down at the bottom, in bold letters, it reads-

'NO REFUNDS'

Garrick stares dumbfounded at the end of the first page, sure that the last paragraph was aimed directly at him. Shaken but not completely undeterred, he flips the page over, only for his gaze to be met by what could only be described as hieroglyphics, a seemingly random spatter of runes and symbols covering the page.

"You okay over there, Garrick?" Meetle worriedly asks, seeing colour drain from Garrick's face.

"Uhh..Oh yeah! It's much simpler than I thought, so it caught me off guard!" Garrick giggles as he shuffles away to a corner, eyes wide in complete and utter 'what-the-fuck' confusion at the nonsense on the page, turning it upside down to see if that helps at all...it doesn't. "Fucking mages. Why can't we just say, 'Telekinesis activate,' and it just works? Old, robe-wearing, smelly fogeys got to make everything complicated." Garrick angrily mumbles under his breath.

"The rooms still in one piece. Guess that means you haven't learned magic yet." Kyra walks into the chamber, laughing at Garrick's expense as he lifts his head, eyes peering over the book at her before descending again.

"Bitch." Garrick thinks to himself, not daring to run the risk of her hearing him.

"What about you, Gnome?" She adds while cleaning her ear with her finger.

Meetle turns in his seat, head poking off the edge. "Check this one out!" He excitedly utters as a semi-transparent, stuttering clone of Meetle appears.

"I ain't dealing with two of you. I'm gone!" Kyra wastes no time scurrying off to the training chamber, the clone Meetle chasing jaggedly, causing her to startle and sprint full pelt away.

"Get away from me, you ugly glitch!" She shouts as the clone falls to its knees, silently wailing to the sky before disappearing while the real Meetle giggles in his seat.

"This is so much fun. I can't wait for my family to get here so they can see all this amazing magic I can do!" Meetle gleefully says as he peeks over to Garrick, nose still smushed into the book.

Garrick continues flicking through the pages, each filled with as much nonsense as the last, until he reaches the end. Garrick sits staring at the empty final page for a few moments in disbelief until a slow, warbled guttural reverberation is heard, growing steadily louder until it grows so loud Garrick feels the chamber shake. Garrick drops the book and grabs any support he can find to stay balanced, the book falling open as his eyes shake violently, like they'll fall out at any second. However, through the pain, a distinct moment of focus strikes him as the runes and symbols on the page slowly melt and reform into legible words.

"Garrick, you're sweating. Are you sure you're okay?" Meetle worryingly asks, beginning to move off his seat.

"I'm fine, don't worry, Meetle. Just felt the room shake a bit." Garrick reassures Meetle as he reaches down and picks the book back up.

"Shaking? I didn't feel anything. It must have been a tremor from last night's earthquake. An earthquake in The Sovereignty is pretty rare, too." Meetle places a hand on the floor to feel any tremors but feels nothing. "Don't worry, Garrick, tremors are common after earthquakes."

Garrick walks over and takes a small piece of blackened coal from the edge of the fireplace, which is warm but not burning to the touch, and takes it back to his reading area, placing it on a small marbled ledge to use as his object for telekinesis. Garrick shakes his arms and cracks his neck before crouching and stretching his arms towards the piece of coal.

"Telekinesis activate!!!!" Garrick roars with might, which gets the attention of Meetle, who doesn't look too impressed.

"Did you even read the book about magic basics?" Meetle voices with annoyance, his eyebrow raised.

Garrick looks toward him, eyes wide, like he is in trouble.

"Okay, I'm assuming not. Okay, you can't just shout random words for spells and think it'll work the same as the assigned words every mage follows. The designated words act as a direct conduit, allowing the magic to form for its intended purpose. Magic may look easy from the outside, seeing a mage casually move objects, but years of practice allow it to appear that simple." Meetle speaks with passion as he summons his magic arm and disperses it again. "Just the other day, I struggled to maintain my arm's presence, but now I can summon it and disperse it consistently."

"So...no 'telekinesis activate'?" Garrick cautiously asks as his gaze swaps between Meetle and the coal.

Meetle sighs while rubbing his eyes.

"Follow the book's steps, Garrick. You have less than a day to move that coal using telekinesis, so take it seriously."

Realising Meetle's patience is wearing thin, he relents with the jokes and reads from the book instead. Each page, although legible now, is still complex in its demand for the user. The book speaks intently on not just the words needed for the spell but body position, when and how to move at specific times during certain parts of the words for maximum benefit. Garrick quickly understood that learning magic is no joke. As the hours passed, his body shook with exhaustion as sweat cascaded from his forehead. The sheer amount of mental stimulation demanded was bringing Garrick to his limit, so much so that he wished he was getting his ass kicked by B.U.D.I. instead. 

Kyra enters the reading chamber, dripping in sweat and covered in bruises from her fighting with B.U.D.I. and walks over to Meetle while gazing at Garrick, who is focusing intently on the coal, the visible frustration painted on his face.

"Assuming he didn't manage it then?" Kyra quietly asks Meetle while wiping sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. Meetle gives a sorrowful head shake in reply, clearly saddened by Garrick's hard work not paying off.

"Garrick! It's the end of the day. You can get back to it tomorrow." Kyra voices as she walks and stands beside Garrick, who is flustered, each ticking second closer to his failure. 

"Garrick, you there?" Meetle worryingly asks as he walks over, too. "It's okay not to manage it in a single day. It's a demanding spell to learn."

Garrick's magical ineptitude pounds like a drum in his mind, every understanding and caring word from his friends bringing the dagger of shame closer to his heart.

TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK.

Every deafening tick of the clock rends his soul like a shadowy claw, dragging him further into the depths where he cannot escape, the pit of his mind where evil rests.

"You understand?! I Promised! I am sick of being this failure, being controlled by magic. I don't want that anymore!! Anything, please! Please move!!!" Garrick thinks to himself. His anger isn't directed at his friends; he knows it's directed at himself, and silence is golden in this moment, but no matter how much suffering he pours into moving the coal, it just won't move.

"Move!! Just move!!! MOVE!!!" He screams internally as a flashing image of a lumbering monster stutters into existence and disappears again, chains dragging on the ground, the back bubbly and writhing.

"My...master..." The monster's deep growl shaking every fibre of Garrick's being as the image changes once more to Xzeralaki in Redwood Forest as he watches himself die as a bystander. "Fuck off! I'm sick of that shit! Fuck off!!" Garrick thinks to himself as he shakes his head, trying to force the images away.

"I needed to find the medium for your magic. It's wrath!" Araval words echo in his mind, and as he falls into that chasm of endless misery, shrouded in blackened collapse, a blue glow encases him.

"My...master." The deep monster growls invigorate Garrick.

"FUCKING MOVE!!" With wrath in his veins, Garrick roars, catching Kyra and Meetle off guard as the runes on Garrick's fingertips light up. With relentless will, the coal shifts an inch to the left, leaving the three stunned for different reasons.

"YYYEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!" Garrick yells in happiness, his voice echoing upwards through the endless ceiling.

"Does that even-" Kyra speaks with confusion, but Meetle taps her leg, which gains her attention.

"He deserves this win, Kyra. What he did is more impressive than we could know." Meetle smiles in admiration for Garrick's determination as he cheers. Kyra sighs as her visage turns into happiness as she claps.

"YES FUCKING YES!! I MASTERED IT!!! TIME FOR THE NEXT BOOK!!!" Garrick triumphantly bellows as he leaps around the chamber, overcome with joy.

Meetle stops cheering as Garrick is getting ahead of himself slightly. "Uhh, I don't think you-" Kyra cuts Meetle off by tapping his face with her hand.

"He deserves this win, Gnome. What he did is more impressive than we could know." Kyra sarcastically utters while she stares at Garrick. A warmth fills her as she smiles, seeing him so happy.

Garrick has taken the proper first step to control magic and, with it, moves on to more extraordinary feats.

End Chapter