School today was eerily uneventful. The twins stayed away from me, lunch was a bit strange and strained because my friends were upset the twins suddenly stopped eating lunch with us. If they tried to confront me about it, I'd just tell them I rejected their advances to give my friends a shot and that it wasn't my fault they managed to make no progress with the twins in the week they were together with them. Honestly, I might have just saved one or two of my friends from a death sentence not that they'd understand if I told them.
That evening I introduced my childhood friend to the breakfast club because I remembered she liked it there and at magic club the twins, while still tinkering with their pendants were keeping their distance from me. That day I saw the vice president with more clothing than usual. She looked like a proper mage with the shadow of her hood covering her face. As opposed to the apprentice robes common for the club that leave the parts from the elbow down, the knee down and neck up exposed. I was wearing my disguised armour so it looked like I was just in the regular school uniform and thus had a collar I could use to hide the mark on my neck.
She approached me and took me aside to a different more secluded part of the club room and pulled down her hood to face me. She wore a troubled expression and on her face were the marks for the radiant magic circle. She had a giant green cross on her forehead. I almost laughed. She could see me concealing my laughter and immediately tried to shut me up.
"Hey, quit it someone will hear you"
"I'm sorry it just looks so stupid"
"You know how to hide the tattoos right?"
"Yeah, but it doesn't hide all of them look" I showed her the back of my neck. "Also, they start to glow when you use magic, so the disguise spell only helps when you're not casting."
"Even then tell me the spell you used."
"Alright, alright, it's this one." I showed her the spell in the book. "why are those the components?"
"I know right, it's a tricky situation, isn't it? Do you tell someone else or do you suck it up and-" she didn't let me finish and cut off my snide taunting, by shoving her tongue down my throat. "Hey, why-"
"shut up!" she then started the chant and by the end of it all the tattoos in view were gone except for one on the back of her left hand. "that was not cool, you gotta ask before doing something like that"
"you tell anyone I did that I'll say the opposite happened"
"double standards everywhere." I cast the spell chantlessly and revealed the armour I was wearing to her as well as the rest of the tattoos that could be seen before taking out my spell focus and re-concealing everything. "why?"
"it's only fair, you showed me after all"
"no… why did your marks change?"
"I think they were in such conflict with one another that they just did that. Magic is a strange thing we've still yet to completely understand after all."
For the rest of magic club, I started learning some of the necrotic spells from my grandfather's book and committing them to memory in case I need to use any of them. I also looked into space-time magic in case I'd need more component orbs later on. Looks like I'd need to buy the grimoire from a local shop that sells basic spellbooks.
But then I'd have to figure out the spell on my own. Oh well, it's not like it's the most convoluted kind of magic or anything. Wait… I walk up to the club president. "Is there anyone here who's good at space-time magic?"
"No? Why?"
"I need more component orbs"
"Why not just buy more?"
"I spent most of my money on components for the last big spell I cast."
"The one that had you covered in tattoos for a bit and left you incapacitated on the floor?"
"No that was a conflict between two passive spells I activated on the same day… I think"
"Did you deactivate one or the other?"
"no, they just seemed to have settled down"
"Just remember that spells going wild doesn't always mean the casting failed."
"Don't turn this into a lecture I need space-time magic."
"Well, I do know a teacher who needs an assistant in his space-time magic research"
"There's a teacher with a space-time magic grimoire here?"
"Yes, apparently he received it as a gift and wants to be able to make use of it so the person who gave it to him doesn't think he squandered the gift he'd been given."
"That sounds great, where is he?"
"I think his classroom is the third door down from the same hallway the potion club room was, but on the left."
"Right mind if I spend a few days learning magic with him?"
"No go ahead, think of it as a learning opportunity."
"Thanks." I followed the president's instructions and went looking for the teacher when I got there, I made a sudden realization. This is the archery club. I was almost shot at when I entered the door, but I managed to stop myself and back up from the door. "Hey, you could have been killed!" I heard a random person shout from inside.
"Not likely but thanks for the concern," I replied. After the whizzing of arrows stopped, I stood at the door and asked the class "where can I find your club advisor? I hear he needs help studying a gift given to him."
"he should be in his office," one of the club members said pointing to the opposite side of the room. I gave a slight bow in response and made my way over there. When I entered, I found a slightly dark-skinned man with a foo Manchu that didn't suit him at all staring at a book angrily as if the book would reveal its secrets to him if he intimidated it hard enough.
"Excuse me?"
"What! What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy!!"
"The Mage club president sent me to help."
"Oh really? Sorry about that." He leaned back in his chair a bit and bowed his head slightly as if to apologize and then resumed his previous posture and began staring at the book again. I quickly glanced at the page. "What kind of chicken scratch is this?"
"I know right! How am I supposed to decipher this tome when I can barely read it?" I took out a blank sheet of paper and started trying to rewrite it in a way that could be read but as I did the letters began shifting and morphing on the page making it just as unreadable as the tome. "I tried that already it doesn't help!!"
"Wait this gives me an idea." I turned the page over and began cleaning it up while memorizing where the first letter of each word is and putting it up on top of the morphed and changed one after the fact so I could tell what the letter was before and after, after about a paragraph I managed to get a key for each letter, and we could begin to try reading what it actually said. "I didn't think of that… mostly because I thought the new letters would morph and change too"
"There seems to be a charm on this book to prevent transcription, but it doesn't prevent me from taking notes in my transcription." I handed the key over to the big man so he could try to memorize it because he didn't have the Perfect Recall spell. Meanwhile, I read what I needed to. "what were you looking to find in that grimoire anyway?"
"I need component orbs."
"right, anything else? It is a big book"
"maybe some home defence or self-defence magic but I don't know what that would look like for this kind of tome."
"Are you kidding? Space-time magic is the epitome of home defence magic, you can make traps that leave people stranded in the void. You can create locks only certain people can access; you can do all kinds of things as long as you can figure out how the spell works."
"Cool you mind if I transcribe this? I'd like to study it more at home."
"Be my guest. Just be sure to tell me about any spells you learn."
"Of course," I pulled out a blank book I keep in my school bag in case I run out of pages to see my own future and flipped through the space magic tome copying the book down exactly. I returned to him his grimoire and told him I'd let him know if I figured anything out before going home for the day.