If you thought this was going to be a story about a kid learning to control his powers in magic school, you were wrong. This story, my story, is of a loser; literally, I lost everything. The Krymmeno doesn’t even exist anymore, and Neil and Emma are dead, but before we get to the present, there’s one more thing you need to know.

Two years after that first day, it was time to take the exit exam to determine if we could become full members of the Gnosilepides. In the past, this was done by releasing multiple potential squadrons in a remote area and make them compete for some goal. For instance, the first 60% of squadrons that ring 3 bells scattered over the area become spellswords, etc. Our class was different as there were only the three of us, and we had to be passed or failed as an entire squadron. I don’t know if there was debate on the subject or if Quinn just decided himself, but our test was a battle royale: all three of us were to fight to the death. Our pass or fail status depended on how every single one of us performed: the variety of magic we were able to cast, our speed, our defenses, and our weapon handling skills. Speaking of weapons, we had all chosen different ones: Emma chose a katana, Neil chose a large mace headed with a spiked sphere, and I chose something unconventional. I learned my mother did not have a physical weapon; she molded her own soul into a sword. Technically, soul magic is a form of necromancy, but because she only used her own soul, the order let it slide. All of the weapons spellswords use are heavily enchanted with dozens of runes placed all over them; as such they’re basically indestructible. They’re bullet-proof, can survive extremely high or low temperatures, etc., but they’re nothing compared to a blade composed of a soul. I tried to replicate the spell, but I guess I don’t have a talent for necromancy. I was able to do something similar though: instead of using my own soul, I formed an arcane construct in the shape of a curved sword similar to a scimitar. Due to the unstable nature of pure arcane energy, it’s usually very difficult to sustain an arcane construct with the exception of spheres, but I managed to make it work. Even now, it’s second nature to me.

In the two years between then and when we first arrived at The Krymmeno, Emma, Neil, and I had become quite close. Neil and I were always destined to be best friends, but even Emma warmed up to us after a few weeks. There’s something about being worked half to death every single day that really builds comradery. We had all developed different fighting styles with different strengths; Emma was extremely fast, and her sword skills were unparalleled. Neil was physically strong; all spellswords are strong, but some are able to focus pneuma into their muscles more effectively and/or efficiently than others. For instance, I’m somewhere between a regular person and Spider-man; I can lift a 4-door car with some difficulty, but Neil is closer to Thor; he can throw a F250 20 feet in the air. He’s also a very powerful geomancer. Practitioners often favor certain elements, and in Neil’s case, that’s earth magic. I was not as fast as Emma nor as strong as Neil, but I could cast the big spells: walls of fire, tidal waves, tornados etc. Casting spells without a wand or a staff is quite difficult as you effectively have to cast two spells simultaneously: first you have to use a pentagram sigil (in our case from the tattoos on our hands) to create an image of the sigil associated with the spell you want to cast. Then while maintaining the illusion, you have to focus pneuma into that sigil to make the spell activate. To cast a more powerful spell, a more intricate sigil is needed; as such, most spellswords can only cast relatively simple spells in the middle of combat. For instance, a fireball the size of a baseball or a single lightning bolt; I could do it though. The only downside is the sigils necessary are so complicated, it took me several seconds to form the illusions. A few seconds can mean a lot in combat, but it’s still quite useful to make enough lightning to make Palpatine jealous or freeze an entire lake. One thing was undeniable: Emma was just better than either Neil or me. Emma and I had a special friendship; in fact, later it would evolve into more than a friendship. That being said, I did not want her to be the last one standing in the royale. She may have been better than us, but she knew that too. You know those people who think they’re smarter/faster/stronger whatever-er than you that never come out and say it, but you know they think it? That was Emma. It wasn’t just me that thought that either; Neil wholeheartedly agreed. Partially out of spite and partially to make ourselves look good, we formed a pact: we wouldn’t go after each other until Emma is taken out.

The archmage singlehandedly constructed an arena for the battle royale; it was a 30 foot diameter circle inscribed in 20 foot high walls of stone covered in enchantments to make them nearly invincible. To prevent any serious injuries, each of us had sigils drawn onto our bodies which teleport us to medics if either we surrender (by introducing a small amount of our own pneuma to the sigil,) or if we lose consciousness. Arcane magic, a general term for the type of magic spellswords and most practitioners use, is not well equipped to treat injuries, but it’s not the only type of magic. There are various types of druidism, shamanism, and even holy magic which is much more adapt at this purpose; luckily, Quinn knew some shamans who could basically regrow an entire body with enough preparation, so we weren’t in much danger of dying or being permanently injured.

Each of us were to start on the circumference of the arena placed equidistantly around the edge. The night before the event, Neil and I were unable to sleep, so we came up with a “foolproof” plan: as soon as the match started, I’d cast the big, flashy spells at a distance giving him a chance to sneak up on her. The next morning, the three of us headed toward the pit together in silence. I think even Emma was worried; we took our positions and waited. Nearly the entire Gnosilepides order had come to see the spectacle, and bleachers made of stone were constructed around the arena. As we took our positions, Quinn walked to the center of the circle and addressed the crowd, “Welcome everyone! This is a momentous occasion: the first students with the opportunity to join the Gnosilepides in almost two decades.” He had somehow magically amplified the sound of his raspy voice so everyone could hear. “Regardless of the outcome, I hope this will convince all of us that the time to rebuild our order is at hand. The world is a dark place with every day being more dangerous for mortals than the day before. We are the ones that must light their path and defend them from the evils they don’t even know exist.” He droned on about our responsibilities and whatnot, but if I’m being honest, I stopped listening. I knew the first spell I was going to cast, and I had to cast it as quickly as possible if I wanted the match to last longer than 10 seconds. My heart was beating two or three times per second, so I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing feeling the pneuma throughout my body preparing to focus it on the pentagram on my right hand.

“And with that in mind, let the competition COMMENCE!” Quinn shouted the last word, a large bang reverberated within the arena as the archmage disappeared presumably reappearing in the stands. I instantly lifted my right hand, an orange sigil with complicated sigils appearing. I focused all of the pneuma I had gathered in the moments before the fight into it, and after three or four seconds, a sphere of white-hot fire about four feet in diameter appeared in front of the sigil and launched toward Emma at hundreds of feet per second. I was banking on the fireball being too fast for her to dodge; whether I was right or she chose not to dodge I’m not sure, but either way she held her ground, a light pink sigil appearing in front of her own hand. She was casting a shield charm; controlling pure arcane energy is nearly impossible, but the exception to that is shaping it into a sphere. Spheres are the most stable shapes in all of nature countering the arcane energy’s natural tendency to change forms. Because of this one of the first spells we were taught was the shield charm: one creates a hollow sphere of arcane energy with one’s body at the center making one invulnerable to all but the most powerful attacks. The fireball exploded on her shield, expanding in a huge, fiery explosion kicking up dust and wind. It almost looked like a small nuclear explosion; as the dust cleared, I could see her shield was still intact. I gathered my pneuma to cast another spell, and Neil suddenly appeared five feet above the ground swinging his mace will all of his might; when the weapon collided with Emma’s shield, a crack appeared and rapidly grew throughout the shield, but it didn’t shatter. Neil rebounded landing a few feet away on the ground; I sent another fireball at her. This time the fireball hit the walls of the arena where the sigils absorbed all of its energy; Emma must have moved before it could get to her. I scanned around the battlefield with pneuma surging through my eyes and nerves to be able to detect such vast speeds and caught a glimpse of her running toward me. I had just enough time to cast my own shield charm as she rushed at me swinging her sword from left to right. The symbols written on every inch of the blade glowed a bright, pale pink as it made contact with my shield. I could feel the shield buckling, so rather than be struck down with it, I abandoned the spell and instead cast a different one: a white rune appeared in front of my hand as a gust of wind lifted Emma off of the ground and threw her 10 feet back.

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“It won’t be that easy!” I screamed with a smile.

“I guess we’ll see!” she shouted back with a wild look in her eye.

The moment before Emma hit the ground, stalagmites (or stalactites? I don’t remember which are which, but pointy, conical rocks) grew out of the ground curtesy of Neil; if Emma had been a quarter of a second slower, she would have been impaled, but instead she wrapped her left hand around the rock formation and pointed her other sword wielding hand at Neil. A dark blue sigil appeared momentarily, the sword piercing through it, and a bolt of lightning shot out along the blade directly toward Neil; we had played this game before, and Neil knew his shield was no match for Emma’s spells, so instead, he summoned a two foot thick wall of earth in front of him. This had two effects: first of all, he didn’t get struck by lightning with the lightning instead being grounded by the rock, and now, Emma didn’t know where he was.

While summoning the lightning, Emma used her other hand touching the rock to throw herself up into the air, so I took my shot. I used every ounce of speed I had to rush toward her and summoned my sword: a pink sigil appeared a few inches in front of my hand, and a partially transparent, pink sphere appeared in my hand. With a bit of concentration, the sphere elongated and reshaped itself into a curved blade; I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and felt the weight of the weapon. By the time she turned her head back to look at me, I was already slashing with my blade; with her own gust of wind, she pushed herself through the air and avoided the brunt of my attack, but the very edge of my sword sliced through her jeans and left a shallow 6 inch long cut on her left thigh. While still in the air she managed to kick me in the face busting my lip and dislodging one of my molars. We hit the ground at the same time as I noticed three large boulders were 10 feet in the air above us. Neil was now standing on top of his earth wall controlling the boulders; all three of them shot straight for Emma. She dodged the first, then the second, then sliced cleanly through the third with a single stroke of her sword, and the two halves inertly struck the ground. I hopped back to my feet while Emma lifted both hands in the air, a light blue sigil appearing above each. Then cold. A frigid wind whipped me back forcing me to reestablish my shield; I dropped my sword which vanished the moment it lost contact with my skin and used both hands to enforce the pink dome protecting me. The wind was accompanied by large amounts of snow and temperatures so cold condensation began to appear and freeze over all surfaces even my shield. The snow was so thick, I couldn’t see anything, but in the darkness, I heard Neil scream. Abandoning my shield, I lifted both hands, and shot a cone of fire everywhere in front of me evaporating the snow and overcoming Emma’s spell. As I regained my vision, I saw Emma and Neil exchanging blows: she sliced her sword from the right as he swung his mace from the left. Her sword sliced into his midsection as she created a shield blocking her left half. The mace shattered her shield, but it didn’t have enough kinetic energy left to do any serious damage to her aside from perhaps bruising her ribs. Neil grabbed Emma’s wrist and twisted causing her to lose grip on her sword; with the same motion, he threw her over his head away from me toward the edge of the arena. Before she could slam into the wall, she used an earth spell to create a pallet of soft dirt to absorb her impact. Neil collapsed to the ground as I came up beside him.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“I’m not out yet,” he grunted, clearly in pain. “Go after her; I’ve lost my mobility, but I can still back you up from a distance.” I nodded at him, resummoned my sword, and ran full speed toward Emma; once I reached her, I struck, and our swords clashed light saber style.

“This isn’t a very good plan, Dante,” Emma said. “You know I’m a better swordsman.” She flipped around and attacked from the other side which I was only barely able to deflect. “And I’m faster!” She began a barrage of attacks faster than I could keep up with, and I was forced to cower under my shield.

“NEEEEEEEEEIL!” I shouted, but he was way ahead of me. The very ground we were standing on began quaking when it opened up and dozens of blades carved from rock shot out of the ground in all directions. It was an area attack; it wasn’t only aimed at Emma but also at me. That bastard had decided to end the game by taking both of us out. This was by far the most impressive spell I had ever seen him cast; the rock blades pierced through my shield and would have pierced me too if I hadn’t jumped 20 feet in the air with the help of a gust of air; Emma played the same game skillfully avoiding all of the blades with much more style than me. Even in the middle of battle, I couldn’t help but give her a small smirk; she just looked so damn cool. When I regained my senses, I was flailing in the air, turned my head to look at Neil, and shot the biggest fireball I could muster at the time right at him. Unfortunately, the fireball was only a few inches in diameter, but with his wound, it shouldn’t have taken much to knock him out, nor should he have been able to dodge. I looked back over at Emma just in time to see her summon 5 three foot long icicles sharper than swords. All of them shot straight toward me; as I hit the ground I summoned my shield, but I was too late. Four of the icicles were deflected, but the third one pierced me through my left side in my gut, and then… I was falling.