《Quality of Life Mage》 An Act of Charity Rewarded I was walking down the street after school on a monday afternoon. The side-walk was wide, the shops fancy, and as always there were some people busking and begging - not that many and they were always at least reasonably clothed - and I failed at not making eye contact, as one does. I had prepared, however, and had a 5$ note ready to give to the weird white bearded, cloaked guy with a wizard staff who might have been taking the piss. Or on the piss. Well. Didn''t matter. I looked him in his eye sockets, smiled, and said my, "Hello, this isn''t much, but I hope five dollars helps you." bit. The (discount) Gandalf guy - with yellow stained teeth and a dozen zigzag papers lying around - grinned and took my cash. "Thanks, kid. You know what? I can teach ya magic, kid. I got a book to give you to take home too, if you want." His eyes glinted with some hidden assessing glintingness. "Umm. Sure, yeah! magic sounds good? so, umm, wanna sit at that table over there? I think I could shout you coffee too so the shop person can''t complain." This was awkward. Awkward. With a capital A. This guy was cray-cray and I was in a bit too deep. I rolled my shoulders a little. Politeness, and, like. Adventure.Why not? this would be a fun tale later. He might even have some intriguing magic idea that wasn''t generic trash. "How generous, my young acolyte." yellow grin. "My name is Gan Dolf. Heh heh. Well, that''s what I say anyway ya see. Lead the way." He dusted his rather grubby, calloused hands on his faded robe. Him standing up? pretty sure I heard some crackling of his joints. Rough guy. I firmly resisted shuddering or wincing or any major reaction.Poker face, Jack. Poker face. I waited a second before waving him to follow you to one of the many bistros along Queen Street. Coffee place? whatever. Oh god. These coffees, even a tall black were 5 dollars. That made my charity be 10 dollars now plus 5 for myself. Joy, joy, please be not full of shit Gan Dolf - more like Gan DOLT BUGATTE! GOTTEM!I smirked to myself as he was settling in. Order awkwardly done, I prepared myself for disappointment. Gan Dolf pulled out a tattered but suitably mysteriously covered and titled 1B5 sized book. Sorta like I had in my school bag. Gan Dolf - okay "GD" - steepled his fingers, looked me in the eyes and informed me seriously.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. "I am a disgraced former Magister of the Queen Street Battle Mages. For 30 long years I studied, trained, practiced andworked hardbusting my ass for my guild. Guild they say. Guilds are a thing of the past. A hold-over of the Royal British Expeditionary Commonwealth Magician Guild Branches. Pretty much all of the greatest were recalled by the parent chapters and guilds over back in the homeland. Well, that''s what they ALSO say. Bunch of idiots who never felt at home outside of Britain. Oh right. Where was I? yes. I said some things, and might have punched the "Lord Magister of the New Zealand Commonwealth" in my role as the head of Queen Street Battle Mages. Lost my Magister rank. I am still mad about it but I won''t die mad." I couldn''t help it. I burst out laughing. "What the heck dude? that''s pretty goddamn hilarious." GD glared at me, but I could tell he was only half offended. Fellow must be pretty used to this sorta reaction. "Okay okay, sorry bro. Gan Dolf? really? so you wanted to teach me magic? I need to get home, already missed a couple of buses, no biggie. Oh, wait a moment." I quickly texted my mum I was just chatting to a homeless dude and would be home late but not to worry. I also chucked it on silent to focus, as focusing was polite, you see. "Okay." I quickly finished the coffee that was getting a bit less hot so not as good. I composed myself a little. "Okay yeah. Teach me magic please." This was gonna be good. GD smiled, beginning his speel. "Repeat after me, concentrating fully: Magic is real." I did so, focusing properly, too. "okay so whilst you do that, I will show you magic." He flipped his palms open and up. I noticed some rune-like patterns, though maybe more like Full-Metal Alchemist? hard to tell. A mix of FMAB and Nordic or Celtic. "You fully focused? remember: Magic is Real." I nod profusely. "I am going to now channel mana/qi/essense what have you wanna call it. It''s real okay?" I nod again, slower. This was gonna be the make or break of this demonstration. Better be good. GD hummed a tune, and his palms lit up for a couple of seconds, and a soft but distinct light emanated and coalesced into a sphere of flame that emanated warmth. "Woah. Nice." "I told you magic was real! Here''s one of my spare spell books. It explains things more indepth. Stuff like glowing lights and seeing in the dark or lobbing fire-balls." I took the book. "Now shoo! go home! study for yourself, I will see you around. Good luck, Jack." Wait why does he know my name? "Bye, thanks Gan... Dolf!" I waved at him as I hastily fled the scene. People were looking at me funny, too. Aghhh! Reading on the Bus Right. Bus arrived. I stared at the open doors for a second. Oh yeah! AT HOP card. I tagged on and hurried to a seat near the back, clutching the book. Doubts beset me like sea-gulls on children eating chips at a beach. I looked around anxiously, and no one gave a shit. I was just another kid who was a bit late home; nothing remotely unusual. Breathe in, breathe out. Come on, you got, like 20 minutes till ride''s over. Hope I don''t forget to tag off again, those surchages suck. I mentally slapped myself into concentration, rolling my eyes for whatever reason. The Book. The BOOK! The uhh MAGIC Book! I inspected it intently, wiping off the tobacco dust and little grime, flipping it over and looking at the back. Nothing much beyond "Magic Spell Book" and a blank name space. Huh, you''d have thought the hobo would have written more? ehh. Hurry up and open it. You''re wasting time Jack. Ughh I always procrastinated. I didn''t even know why I was so worried. Heart thumping in anticipation and some fear of personal embarrassment. Shoulders set. Lips licked. Eyes rubbed of any afternoon sleepies that remained after the entire day... aannnd OPEN!
Welcome to magic, intrepid acolyte. Oh fortunate one. Magic! This enchanted book - your Grimoire if you will - is going to be your closest companion and guide to the world of the mystical arts. All spells you learn, research and practice will automatically update in the pages. Unlimited pages. Extremely durable. An obfuscation enchantment means that anyone who doesn''t believe in magic will consider it a mundane textbook or other innocuous storage of the written word. A word of warning that there''s some dice elements and gamer-like elements, but I have found that they are unobtrusive and simply rather helpful to make sure you have some sense of direction. -Former Magister of Queen Street Battle Mages
There was some hard to read, fancy signature. It appeared that Gan Dolf had a bit of a rambly way of writing, which would normally be annoying, but hey. I did too so maybe that was just a magic thing? I was a bit magic now right? So, nice intro. Did he gimme any spells??
Spells Believer: You believe magic is real, protecting your mind against Rationality
"OYE!" I looked around embarrassed, realizing I had said that out loud. "Sorry!" OYE! What the fuck is this bull? Magic is real which means it''s rational to believe it, damn it hope I can change these spell names. Hmm maybe I could? I whipped my pencil out, crossed Believer out. Oh shit it disappeared with a ____ available, and scribbled in with great aplomb "Magic Unforgotten" and some edits hehe.
Magic Unforgotten: You have witnessed magic being performed before your very eyes, and have fixed that knowledge in your mind, that you may not forget easily.
Damn, that was the only spell on the list. He tricked you! It was only an implication that there were more than the single thing I learnt! I glared at the spell for a few seconds, and my frantic looking through the book almost immediately caused me to breathe a sigh of relief. The inner cover contained an Index.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Introduction Spell List Journal Beastiary Glossary Research notes Training notes Action list Edit History
Errrr That''s a weird some bits make sense; others don''t. I tapped Beastiary and the pages flipped to an empty page with "Beastiary" at the top as the title of the section. Good, I really hope there aren''t any demons or gryphons or hydras around here, that would be really dangerous and make me wonder how everyone could possibly be safe. I flicked back to the Index and tapped Glossary. The book shifted into a dictionary. I flicked back and tapped Journal. It was empty besides the first line.
New owner, Jack Briggs received Grimoire, and hopefully does cool things with me.
I scrawled into it after some complaints, which were, after flicking through the other indexes quickly, was there where I had left the words, exactly as intended. Excellent. All in one text books. Pretty much very useful by itself, let''s see the other stuff. Research notes was empty besides
This is where you write your research notes down. 0 modifiers. 10% progress stored as headway.
Which was deeply informative, and I could not have picked it up from the name of the section. Every thing I read just left me in awe of how effective and efficient the author was. Not. Well, besides the weird modifier and headway info. Training notes was the same. 0 modifiers. 1 headway from unsuccessful training. Edit History was a big old wikipedia-edit-history-like list of changes and additions to my Grimoire. I could, in fact repeal any change, and could be as selective as I wished to. This would be fantastic in future and if I did something stupid or wanted to look at my progress. Could be super fun? basically stopped me from ever losing anything whilst I had the book. Tapping "Action List" and actually looking led me to the conclusion that I generally saved the best for the last. Which was, of course! when I looked up and noticed that my stop was approaching! Damn it. I pushed the STOP button, and made sure I hadn''t dropped anything, then with tens of seconds to spare glanced down.
Action List Training is 1d10+modifiers to hidden DC, Research is 1d100+modifiers to hidden DC. Headway varies. "Actions" are Grimoire Guided Actions. They are between 3 and 4 hour time slots, and heavily recommended to use for magic training and research. Train (write in, or from list of spells): Research (write in, or from list of spells) Explore (write in) Write In (write in)
Whoa. Oops, tag off. Good. What a day! I hurried home. Sky was getting a bit dark, I hoped mum and dad weren''t too worried. Hopefully dinner was ready, god I was so hungry. Training Before Bed My parents weren''t particularly surprised or worried about me being late. It wasn''t necessarily the first time that I forgot the right way. Dinner was ready and it was really good. My parents talked about a bunch of stuff that I wasn''t really interested in, though I probably wasn''t really listening. The Grimoire was calling me. The promises of dice rolled for progress and research for getting magic was awesome. I hurried to get to my room and I locked the door and whipped out the book. I stared for a few seconds at Magic Unforgotten and the complete lack of anything else. Where the heck did I even start? And I needed to start with something very simple because otherwise I might have to spend weeks grinding, what with no DCs shown until the completion and meh. "Whatever." I licked my lips and pressed the pen button a dozen times, thinking of something. Light. Whatever. Create a glowing light.
Train: Create Light
After scrawling my training action into the journal''s Action list, I went into a state of somewhat focus and concentration. I sort of glazed out a bit trying a chant, trying to concentrate on the World/Universe and "connecting" with nature? or something? to Willing there to be a light of some sort. It was a bit tiring but I felt as though I had made a little bit of actual progress and understanding of at least what wouldn''t yield quick results. Over the course of the few hours, at end, that weird sense of determined not-quite-manic-feeling dispersed and I moved from where I was standing at one of the walls to sit down at my little desk with the Grimoire out and it showed me the mechanical results of my session.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
1d10-1(no specific method picked): 4-1 "Come on! only a 3! and only 1 headway? lame as fuck what the heck is up with this? Though like, at least I know that I should pick a method. Time to write notes I guess. Ugh it''s 9pm. No time for more training, it would probably reduce my rolls or something lame." a knock on my door. Parent, probably Mum. "You should go to bed now, school tomorrow remember." It was Mum. "Thanks yeah I was just thinking that, goodnight Mum." "love you dear" "love you too mum" I rolled my eyes at all this of course, I totally didn''t really care about my parents. Back to the Grimoire! it was wayy more important a little voice was like, not really yet, but it''s pretty cool.
Training Notes: Create Light Spell thing: okay so what method? connecting to the World, channeling my Will? what else? oh, is it just Light as the photon thing or is it a fire that makes light? all at once? no. That would involve me having to learn each light generation method in the first place to unite them. Umm connecting to the World sounds like it would be a pain since I would need to connect like a dial-up connection before getting anything done, but I mean, the World is pretty big so I likely wouldn''t need to worry about power issues, but it sounds a bit dangerous. Willing light into place then. But hang on: why do I need to make light? doesn''t willpower and all that sound like it''s better to enhance Myself instead of making something? Alright, so let''s revise the Light Spell to be Enhance Night Vision. Yeah that sounds more reasonable. Mmm yum these pages are really soft and nice to write on. It''s therapeutic or something.
It was a strain but I resisted the urge to write all night and I managed to get to bed on time, awhirl with ideas for how to get some magic on. But first... school in the morning. Lame.