The mage exam

Today Riley was wearing a beautiful pure white dress that was adorned with golden lace and frills, a full skirt and a tight corset. Agnes had decided to pair everything with some golden necklaces and earrings and Riley quite liked the combination today.

Today Bard was accompanying her to the Mage exam, while Agnes was down in the common sect pinning up posters for the safe house and possibly recruiting some women.

Bard carried the sword, that his Lady was presenting today, firmly yet carefully in his palms and followed behind her as one of the butlers from the Royal palace lead them through to the open field, adjoining the Royal Mage Society's headquarters.

A joyful smile broke out onto Riley's face when she saw Edgar standing amongst a crowd of people. She couldn't help but quicken her pace as she walked towards him, eager to greet and catch up with him.

Bard noticed that she was walking faster, then adjusted his pace to match hers. Bard looked over at who she was so excited to see and was pleased to recognize the young man who had placed second in the Mage tournament. Bard had remembered him as a very earnest and passionate young man, a very skilled Mage with curly green hair and bright lively eyes.

Edgar turned just in time to see Riley walking towards him. Edgar's eyes sparkled even more than their usual sparkle. He practically jumped for joy at the sight of Riley.

"Edgar!" She called out as she jogged the rest of the distance towards him.

"Riley!" He called out, barely containing his excitement.

Riley and Edgar embraced in a big happy hug, and Edgar lifted Riley off the ground making her squeal happily.

"How have you been Edgar?" Riley grinned eager to catch up with her friend.

"It's been like a dream Riley..." His eyes sparkled again. "I have more money than I could have ever asked for... More room than I'll ever need. I can finaly support my parents and pay them back for letting me go to the Mage society. Oh and Riley, I even have a mage tutor!" He said earnestly as he turned back to the man he had been talking to before Riley showed up.

Riley turned to follow his line of sight and thence almost had the wind knocked out of her due to the amazing beauty of the man she saw standing there.

"Let me introduce you to my magic tutor, Lord Elian Von Josselheim." Edgar announced proudly.

Riley was trying not to stare too hard at the lord, but she was finding it impossible to take her eyes away from him. Lord Elian had a more feminin look, which made him both appealing and intriguing. He was the same height as Edgar, which made him on the shorter side of the men in Gismead, he had been blessed wih a full head of gorgeous lavendar hair, that was cut in a straight line just below his shoulders. His skin almost glowed as the light shone on it. His build was slender which complimented his elfin face. Riley couldn't help but be be envious at his plump pink lips and long lavendar eyelashes. Riley thought that he quite literally jumped out of a manga.

Riley suddenly remembered that she had seen that colour hair before at the Von Esterheim soiree.

"Good morning Lord Von Josselheim." She curtseyed politely to him.

"Please don't stand on ceremony." Lord Elian said not wanting to see Riley bow to him. "A freind of Edgar's is a friend of mine. Please call me Elian." Elian wasn't only beautiful, he was also very kind, as well as being an extremely gifted magical student.

"Lord Elian, are you perhaps Georgiana Von Josselheim's brother?" Riley Asked thinking back to the Von Esterheim soirée, thinking about the very lively and friendly lavender haired girl she had met.

"Ah Yes, Georgiana is my little sister." He smiled at Riley's reference to her. "You must have met her at the Von Esterheim soirée. I hope she wasn't to much trouble for you." He sounded almost apologetic as he laughed.

"No, not at all. She was really very friendly and inviting." Riley complimented.

"Well, she certainly had many good things to say about you when she came back home after the soirée."

Riley smiled at blushed at his words, feeling awkward and proud of herself at the same time.

"Lords and Ladies!" Belted out a loud voice. Please head my words! We will soon commence with the Mage examination, so please make you way to the Great Mage Hall where the exam will take place." At this point the sudden sound of announcers voices didn't shock her anymore.

Everybody then made their way to the Great Mage Hall, inside the Royal Mage Society's headquarters so that the exams could begin.

Riley walked amongst the crowd of fancily dressed Lords and Ladies into the Great Hall. She was happy to see Alice and Cornelius were there, both of whom had already taken the exam and were just there to cheer Riley on. When they were all settled inside the hall, Riley walked over to Alice and Cornelius to greet them.

Riley was surprised to see Dimitri there, apparently also a participant of the exams, she was really anticipating seeing what kind of spell he created.

Then Riley turned and saw Lavinia.

Lavinia was standing by herself with one of her maids by her side. She was standing perfectly still, not uttering a word or trying to to make conversation with the other nobles, she was simply wearing that same fake smile of hers and gazing around the room.

For a moment Lavinia's eyes met Riley's, but as soon as they made eye contact, Lavinia looked away as if they hadn't seen each other and pretended to look dumbly into space, which for some reason infuriated Riley. Riley wanted her to take responsibility for trying to ruin her reputation, her life even, but the only justice she got was for Lavinia to look away as if she hadn't done anything wrong.

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I was on the verge of stomping on over to her and confronting her then and there when Alice placed her hand on my shoulder and gently rustled me back into reality. If I had marched over there and started shouting, the people here would think that I was in the wrong; a third rank noble disrespecting a second rank noble.

"Don't let her get to you Riley, don't let her spoil your exam..." Alice's voice of reason brought me right back to what I was supposed to be focused on, the exam.

"Come Riley, I'll tell you about all the judges." Alice and Cornelius lead further to one side of the Great Hall, where I could get a proper view of the judging table.

There was a large rich dark colored wood table, at which five people were seated behind.

Alice started talking first, "The man on the far right is Lord Mannon Brunhild, Arcadia's uncle and the chief editor of the 'The Gismeadian'."

"The newspaper?"

"Yes the newspaper." The bells rang in my head because I remembered Arcadia telling me that her family was in the printing business, so it would make sense for her uncle to run a newspaper.

"The woman standing behind him is his deputy chief Cressa Theorden, I believe she comes from a wealthy merchant family." I gazed over the tall thin severe looking woman with the plain black skirt and brown blouse, her blonde hair slicked back into an immaculate bun.

"The very old man next to him is Mr Bazthornia," continued Cornelius. "He is the most renowned and respected artifact maker in Girannon, his reputation even stretches out to the other kingdoms."

I chuckled at seeing sweet old Mr Bazthornia hunched over the table, his circular glasses on the end of his nose.

"Yup, that's my fire demon..."

"What?"

"Oh nothing."

"Then you obviously don't need me to introduce the prince to you..." I looked up to see the First prince Geoffrey seated at the middle of the table, his short golden hair and eyes gazing down at the paper in front of him. He exuded charm and confidence. The perfect prince.

"Is Prince Geoffrey a very good Mage?" I asked curiously as my eyes fixed on a los stand of his golden hair that was dangling from his forehead.

"Oh yes, he is incredibly powerful..." Cornelius trialed off. "He is even rumored to be able to use four of the magic styles, he might even be able to give you some trouble Riley." Cornelius raised his red brow at me. I don't know why but the idea thrilled me.

"The judge next to Prince Geoffrey is Saint Corvinia Isleen of the church of Magic." Continued Alice.

"The church of Magic?"

"An institution that devotes itself to praising and worshipping the gods of magic. She is like one of the heads of that organization." Alice explained. I looked over at the woman and my eyes trailed over her strange attire. Even on this Flowering day she was wearing a thick black cloak that completely covered her form head to toe. The black material acted as a dress underneath the cloak as well, with a thick black leather belt that sinched in her waist. Around her neck she wore a long chain that reached her middle, on the end of the chain was a simple metal ring. The older woman's hair was completely gray and was slicked back out of her face down her back in a straight line.

I felt a bit frightened of her for some reason.

"Then the last judge needs no introduction either!" I looked next to the Saint to see Lord Umfrey seated happily at the table.

"Lords and Ladies!" I almost jumped out of my skin when the announcer's voice boomed from right behind me, "The Mage examination will commence shortly. The order of participants will go as follows:" the announcer proceeded to call out a whole bunch of names. Dimitri was called somewhere in the middle. Lavinia was third last, then Edgar and then me. This was going to be really interesting.

Everyone then retreated to the sides of the hall behind the pillars. Since the hall was enchanted with nullification dark magic, the magic would be repelled if it hit the surface of the hall and dissipate, thus making it safer for the people inside the hall.

"Henriek De Tolstein!" The announcer called out the name of the first examinee.

A young man with the ordinary blond hair and blue eyes made his way to the judging desk and placed down his grimoire, the book which details how the spell was created, and bowed to the prince then stepped a faces paces back.

The young man then took out three small pebbles form his pocket and held them in his palm. I watched intently and hoped that he would do something amazing. I watched as the guy proceeded to turn around and take in a long deep breath, he then began to cast the most ridiculous sounding spell I had ever heard.

"Oh gracious deities of land and fire, I beg of you to come together and thus increase your almighty might into one full out flaming attack of Rolling Hellfire Stones!" they guy belowed out in a suprisingly high pitched and nasal voice. My heart sunk after what happened next. The three small pebbles in his hand caught alight, he then chucked them accross the room and the pebbles, still on fire flew threw the air for a while until they hit the side of the hall, then the nullificatio magic kicked in and extinguished the fire. Completely anti climatic. I could have done the same thing without magic if I had dipped the rocks in some oil and then set them alight and thrown them across a room. What was the point of this...?

I felt so embarrassed for him that I wanted to turn away, cover my face in shame for him, but I was totally shocked to see the self satisfied grin on his face. As if he was proud of himself for that really weak display of magic. I was even more shocked when the people around me started clapping.

"Was that actually considered good?" I whispered into Alice's ear.

"Remember Riley, very few people are good at magic, and even less are able to acheive the levels that we have acheived, so that was actually pretty good compared to the general population." Alice whispered back to me. I was starting to feel my gut pinch a bit, I definitely went overboard with the crystalline sword I created...

I then turned to look at the judges, they seemed to be shuffling around and comparing notes, however prince geoffrey barely moved, he had a board expression on his beautiful face. It made me kind of pleased that he hadn't been impressed by the display either. The prince held up his royal hand that was adorned with golden rings, and I could secretly appreciate his long slender fingers. The room hushed down immediately.

"Your grade is..." Alice told me that the grades ranged from F to S. 'F' being the worst grade, meant that you would have to retake the exam the following year in order to move up the ranks. 'A' being the highest grade, reserved for only the best spells or artifacts created. Then there was 'S' that was reserved for only the most exceptional, unbelievable , unmatched spells, a rank that only occured once every five years or so. The last person to get this rank was Cornelius.

I heard people whisper around me, 'He'll definitely get a B rank', 'it'll definitely be a C or a B', 'he did quite well, so I imagine that he'll be awarder a B.'

"Your grade is," The whole room anticipated Prince Geoffreys words, "D."

Shocked gasps errupted from the surrounding people.

"Prince Geoffrey is so strict!"

"Isn't he being a bit too harsh..."

The guy who had just taken the exam suddenly burst into tears and frantically ran out of the room. Halfway across the hall, he tripped over his own feet and landed flat on the floor with aloud thud, after he fell he didn't get back up again, he just remained there sobbing for a few moments before the palace butlers helped him up and lead him out of the hall. I felt sorry for the guy, but he atleast could have kept his dignity by exiting gracefully, I mean it wasn't like he would have to repeat the exam again next year, since he got a D grade he could move onto the next level of the Royal mage association.

"Ethelina Sorcana!" boomed the voice of the announcer, calling on the next participant. When she exhibited her spell I found it to be equally as weak as the first guy. Her spell was a really sloppy version of my water dragon spell, but instead of a dragon it looked more like a decomposing cow, and instead of doing anything cool like attacking or spurting water, she created it so that it just walked around her in circles. Completely useless. I was actually pretty happy when the prince gave her an 'F'.

Contestant after contestant, elaborate spell name after elaborate spell name, the spells weren't getting any more exciting. Until finally Dimitri was called.

Dimitri walked up the table holding something under his arm that was covered by a velvet cloth and placed his grimoire down, just as all the others had done and then took a few paces back.

"Begin." Ordered the Prince, who already had a bored and uninterested expression on his face, it seemed like he had lost all hope for any good spells. Dimitri proceeded to place the cloth covered object on the floor and then unveiled it in one swift yet graceful movement, revealing an atrifact that I had never seen before. Two large crystal hoops were connected at the base by a pole of the same material, the creation was fastened down onto a block of wood. I leaned in and tried to get a beter look at it when Dimitri called out the word "Play!"

I gasped when I heard the sound of beautiful music emanating from the object, it was the same song that Dimitri had played for me many times on the uldreying, yet this time there was no uldreyin in sight, only this artifact. Everybody around me gasped when they heard the beautiful song emanating form the artifact, many looked puzzled and confused with awe and wonderment written over their faces. A big smile broke out onto my face, Dimitri never disappointed me. When the song came to and end, Dimitri began to explain,

"This artifact that I have created uses wind magic to record and mimick the music that I play through it. Therefore it enables you to record and play music."

Immediately people began to appluad him and I even gave a loud cheer for him. Dimitri looked very pleased with himself. the judges also had smiles on their faces, even prince Geoffrey's constitution brightened up a bit.

"You have done well, Lord Dimitri." Geoffrey spoke, looking truly impressed. Dimitri bowed to the the prince, grateful for such a compliment. "Your grade is," the hall went silent waiting for the prince's decision,

"A."

The hall erupted in clapping and praise for Dimitri and I waved excitedly at him like a mad man, I just couldn't contain myself. I was so pleased for him. He then recovered his artifact and then carried it to the sides of the room and came to stand close to me.

"Impressed?" he smirked.

"Very." I honestly was, he somhow managed to create Arteria's first CD player, but without the CD.

Then the exams continued, unfortunately the standards of spells seemed to drop right back down again and nobody was able to score higher than a C. The majority of the contestants were given D's by the prince, a few F's were also dished out, and the highest score after Dimitri's A, was a C. Until finally the announcer announced, "Lady Lavinia Izora Hestia!"

I couldn't help but sneer at the calling of her name.