An Origin and Schooling of an Arcanist.

All my life I was called a genius.  Wait.  While true I don’t think I should start there.

It was a dark and stormy night, with howling winds beating at the trees between flashes of lightning, all about a week before my birth.

Yeah, I know, I’m reaching here aren’t I?  I can’t help it, epic heroes always have epic stories and well, mine starts off as normal as it gets.

I am young for an elf, a mere hundred and twenty two years.  I was born to loving parents who as far as I know are still alive doing magical research somewhere.  I have an older twin brother who while also studying magic as I do is highly proficient with the sword and far more athletic than I will ever be.

I am Derrack Tyme, scholar, spell caster, and sometime clumsy but lovable goof.

And yes, I am a genius.

Our parents raised my brother and I for the first fifty years of our lives.  That was when I surprised everyone by casting a simple spell after having just seen it once.  I was able to recreate the effect perfectly.  Up until that point I had received no training what so ever.  Suffice to say my parents were pleased and shocked.

My brother and I were then separated as I was rushed off to an elven academy for young students and he was raised (as he tells it) by the city guard.  That’s not true of course, as my brother is an accomplished mage in his own right, it’s just that I’m better.  Of course he is miles above me in terms of...you know what, I already mentioned this.

Drake (I know, it’s a silly name but he likes it.  Also  not his real name much like Derrack isn’t my real name.  It’s more like our identities.) and I were always good at communicating and with his athletic prowess it was easy for him to sneak into my academy room occasionally and we would talk.  We’re still close, though we don’t see each other often at all.   I think the last time I saw him was right after Tibby left.   Now I’m sad again.   Excuse me, I’ll be right back.

Sorry about that, I’ll explain more later.

I never did graduate from that school, stayed there a little while, few decades, but the classes were boring and I quickly found I knew more than the teachers.  Even before I was considered an adult I was participating in magical formulae theory with people who had been studying it for centuries.

During these decades Drake joined me in the school, to polish his abilities.  He really is good at combining magic and martial combat.  So much so in fact that our parents returned for his graduation (I said I didn’t graduate, he stayed after I left and completed his training) and gave him the family blade, a strange highly powerful black thing that was supposedly magical and intelligent however no one in the last few generations could get it to work.  Hopes on my bro were high.

As for me, I spent my coming of age in the center of the world.  On the day of my hundredth birthday I took the test to become a student of the Arcanamirium.  One of the oldest and most prestigious arcane schools in the world, if not the most respected.  Once a year the school opens it’s doors to outsiders for an entrance exam.  Passing the exam gains admittance to the school and an opportunity to earn a scholarship if a student can’t afford the tuition.  Once inside a new student becomes an Apprentice, wearing green robes with gold trim and helping older students by doing a lot of the grunt work for reseources not available to apprentices.  Unlike a traditional master/apprentice relationship this one is pure college based.  Students stay in dorms with their levels denoting how well they stay.  Apprentices have two bunk dorms with communal baths and an open area in the dorms for group study.  The higher ranked students can get up to a two room suite with an attached bath and easy path to the library and labs.

Have I mentioned why this school is considered one of the best?  Most schools of magic, while teaching the general theory of all types (or schools) of magic tend to focus on one particular genre.  The Arcanamirium however focuses on pure magic theory and application.  Much like me it doesn’t teach students to focus on a specific instead seeing the whole as something more powerful than it’s individual parts.  

Now, I entered and took the test.  Then I asked for a harder one.  The instructors initially thought I was bluffing or bragging.  I wasn’t.  I just wanted to know if the school would have things to teach me.  

The instructor in charge of the testing that day finally caved in and allowed me to take the test for Journeyman, the step above apprentice.  While I was taking the test, the head instructor allowed the other teachers to make comments about students who overstepped their bounds and had to be put back in their place.  He didn’t allow it to be mean, rather he was testing me.  He saw something in my answers for the Apprentice exam and wanted to clarify however he also knew something I had not considered yet.

I admit, their jabs at my expense hurt but this test was much more satisfying.  I was able to write out my theories and it had much more indepth questions than the one to just get in the door.  So I toughed it out and finished the exam and eventually the mocking voices were tuned out.  Or, as I discovered, had left.  Turns out that I was so into the test that I didn’t notice it was now dusk, the regular testing had ended long ago and the only other person there besides me was the head instructor.  He had waited for me to finish, a small half smile on his half elven face as I handed in the papers.  Ten minutes later he shook my hand and took me to see Lord Gyr, the First Spell Lord of Absalom and Dean of the school.

His office was huge, filled with numerous scrolls and books and other trinkets and items.  Far too many to count.  A huge map of Absalom covered one wall and one of the school grounds covered another.  However he was not there.  Instead of him was a tall Taldan woman with redish hair and calculating eyes.  The arua about her was one of controlled power and it was obvious, though she dressed like a political figure, that she was a powerful spell caster.

My guide lowered himself in a bow to the her as she looked up when we entered, “My Lady Darchana, this is the student I informed you of.”

The lady herself looked me over, and I have never felt so naked as I did under her gaze.  She knew things just by looking at me and I knew right then and there, I wanted that ability too.  Yet another reason I wanted to be here.

“Dear Lord Taldavar, what have you brought us now?” her voice, rich and powerful questioned the one with me.

“A student like none other my Lady.”  he said as he proffered my tests to the Arch Dean of the school, Second Spell Lord, and member of the Grand Council of Absalom (all stuff I found out after the meeting.  Exciting first day.)

She quickly read my entrance exam and her eyebrows raised, impressed by my answers.  “Interesting.  Not a single question wrong, and he even wisened out your trick questions.”  She moved her eyes to the second test and again read that one carefully.  Probably more carefully than she did the first one.

After about ten minutes (an eternity to me waiting to find out my future) she looked up and smiled warmly at my half elven guide, “He seems to have some of your theories.  I’m sure that had nothing to do with your decision to bring him to me of course.” she said sweetly.  The instructor blushed slightly but didn’t respond.  A peal of gentle laughter burst forth from Lady Darchana’s lips.

Her eyes then turned toward me and gazed again deep into my entire being, “Young man, and I do say young because I dare say you haven’t had your coming of age ceramony yet, have you?”  My guide and I were both suprised that a human was able to discern elven ages that well (specially since the half elf next to me hadn’t seen it himself.)

“No my Lady” I responded, my voice cracking an awe and respect, “Though technically today is my hundredth birthday.”

Her sweet smile, while genuine, did not touch her eyes, “Happy birthday then.”  She leaned forward in her chair as her gaze somehow bored deeper into me, “If, and I do mean if, I allow something that has happened only once in the entire history of this school, are you prepared for the ramifications of that?”

I nod most enthusiasticly, “Oh yes my Lady, I am fully prepared.”

She shook her head sadly, “I do not think you are.  See  you are young, and the young have, with few exceptions, not learned to see the full picture.  Say I let you skip the Apprentice level, move right to the Journeyman, you would be skipping two full years, at least, of study that everyone else here had to complete first.”  she smiled, “What would that mean?”

I admit I had not thought about that and my answer showed that most successfully, “I would be able to continue my education that much faster and have much greater access to.”

She held up a hand and stopped me mid sentence, “But what about the other students, the ones who had to suffer through those years of hard study, of labor and errand running while you did not?”

I looked puzzled, I must have.  “I would work with them and…..” here I paused, initially thinking she was worried I would hold my intelligence above them but that wasn’t what she was aiming for.  No, I would have achieved something they worked hard for, broke their backs for, sweated and studied for, for at least two years.  While I, I was just given it.  As I realized the reactions that would garner me my face paled.

“Yes,” she nodded seeing realization had set in, “You will be hated, mocked.  Reviled and scorned.  The students here will not go easy on you and you will find nary an apprentice to run errands for you.  Which means you will have to work that much harder, all while being under constant abuse from not only students but staff who will not aid you against them.  Many teachers will consider you an outcast who didn’t earn their right to the blue robe.”  Her look almost took on one of pity, “Can you handle that child?  Striving against all odds to overcome?  Still passing the much harder curriculam to move ahead?”

Slowly I swallowed.  I had not considered that aspect, though my guide had.  It was why he allowed the other teachers to mock me so openly.  Still, I could not stop now.  I would not stop now.  With steel in my eyes I nodded my head, “Yes my Lady, I can.”

She smiled warmly, genuinely at me, “Good answer.  Ok, I’ll have to run this by Lord Gyr when he returns from city business tomorrow but he usually listens to my opinion on these matters.  Master Taldavar will show you to your new room.  For your safety I’d suggest you keep your door locked and alarmed if you can.”  She turned her gaze to my guide, “And you mister Therogeon, you are lucky you brought me such an interesting student or I’d have not forgiven you for tonight.”

My guide blushed again and smiled warmly, bowing again, “Yes my Lady, thank you.”

The Lady Darchana chuckled, “Go you two, classes start early tomorrow.”

Master Taldavar and I made our exit with him leading me through the vast compound.  I was excited, beyond excited.  I was not only admitted, but got to skip an entire level.  Finally I was going to be challenged mentally.  Yes, it would be tough, but…..no I knew I could handle it, I had to.  This was where I belonged.

“So Derrack” my guide started while we were walking, “you have some interesting theories.  I usually teach a more advanced class than what you will be taking, when I’m not working that is but I may have some things that will help you out.”  He smiled a half smile over at me as we walked, “come by the Varlokkur office after your first class tomorrow.”

We entered a small dorm building and he quickly ushered me inside and to a room in the back all before I had a chance to ask what the Varlokkur was.  “Here you go, you will be meeting in the central courtyard at sunrise exactly, wear your robe, it’s in the wardrobe.  You are expected to keep both yourself and your room and clothes clean as well as any labs you use.”  He handed me a key and seeming to know I’d want to ask questions said simply, “there is a welcome book given out to all apprentices on your desk, if you have any other questions ask me tomorrow.”  he smiled as he gave me a light push into my new room.

My room.  A single room with a small window inset in the far wall.  To my left was a single bed with simple sheets, next to that was a small desk.  A wardrobe stood just next to the door with a couple blue robes with gold trim inside them.  Like Therogeon had said, there on the desk was a large book, easily over a thousand pages detailing the classes, expectations, rules, and guidelines of the school as well as a full color map of each section of the campus.

Being too excited to sleep I began reading, devouring the books contents without even bothering to unpack.

End Part 1