Today had been Elise's last day at general school. She had assumed that a week would be quite long. But the week had passed quickly, almost as if the last few days hadn't existed. Most people didn't seem to care that she was leaving school and wouldn't be coming back.

This was something Elise found deeply hurtful. She had therefore left after classes ended. Elise had decided not to attend lunch. She didn't want to see anyone ever again. She sighed, hoping her mother would hurry up.

The young girl continued to wait for her mother outside the school building. The building was a rather old estate that had once belonged to a foreign noble family. Her patience was at an end, but luckily she had brought many interesting books with her.

Elise sat down on the grey, cold stairs and rummaged through her old brown bag before fishing out a thin book. It was the second volume of Wild Magic. Heidi had lied to her, the book had been quite cheap. The money she had got from killing five spiders, five silver marks, had been enough to buy it. But it could also be that she had gotten a discount. That seemed much more likely. Gertrud had recommended a bookshop to her, and the old shopkeeper there seemed to be a friend of Gertrud.

"Wild magic is really wild," she began to read. It was something she had known for a long time. The book really started rather weakly.

She continued, "But even the wildest beasts can be tamed. That is also the case with wild magic. After many years of research, I have found that those who learn wild magic before they find their first node are more likely to experience almost none of the side effects of wild magic."

Elise frowned. She had learned wild magic before she unlocked her nodes. Did that mean that the side effects she experienced weren't that severe? She really wanted wild magic to be less wild. Yet that didn't seem like a realistic goal.

She stared at the next paragraph and read, "But even that does not fully tame wild magic. I have only found records of two mages who were able to tame it completely. One was an elf who had lived for almost a thousand years. He had decided that wild magic was something he could learn so as not to get bored. This is not an unsurprising reason, considering how long elves can live. Their longevity is nothing to sneeze at. Unfortunately, he doesn't appear in any other records. To tame wild magic is a an unimaginable feat. Maybe the elves just didn't care. But that's impossible, they recorded everything. It is frightening how many different things they recorded. Unfortunately, they stopped this practice after the fall of their empire."

Elise stopped reading. She had never found out why the elven empire had fallen. Some books claimed that the elves had summoned demons into this world and that these demons had killed their masters before bringing chaos to all of creation. Other books claimed that this had been only one of the reasons. What all the books agreed on, however, was that the demons now ruled the lands that had once belonged to the elves.

She eyed the page again and read, "Yet I cannot understand why I have not found any records. Could it be that the archive is incomplete? But even that is impossible, the archive is alive and nothing ever disappears."

Elise had never heard of a living archive. Was it something that every mage had access to? The author had been one, at least he had claimed to be one. Elise concluded that this archive was really great. It was effectively a hoard of information, perhaps so big that it contained information about almost everything.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Elise took a deep breath and focused her eyes on the page. She read, "The other mage was a Monia."

The young girl stopped reading as quickly as she had started.

"A Monia?" she thought, "One of my kind managed to tame wild magic?"

She felt really proud. Elise tried to find where she had left off and found the sentence after a few seconds.

"The Monias are quite a mysterious race. We humans don't know much about them," she read. "According to their stories, the Monias are direct descendants of those who managed to escape Hell. It appears that this Monia was a descendant of a greater devil. But unfortunately I found nothing further about the mage. There was no name, no gender and no age mentioned in the records. But... the archive lives. In exchange for a fraction of my life, the Goddess of Knowledge revealed important information to me and to all who would follow my research. I can only reveal that the Monia was a descendant of a devil named Belial. Belial is related to someone whose name she dared not to tell me. The goddess only told me that this person, or perhaps even deity, was someone who ruled over anger, rage and fury. Unfortunately, our understanding of Hell is very limited, otherwise I might have been able to decipher her words. Asking the survivors of the recent demon attacks did not help either. It seems that those who hear the language of hell are suffering from madness or other diseases of the mind."

"Why hasn't mum told me about that?" Elise wondered.

Elise decided to ask her mother why this was the case. The young girl put the book in her bag and decided to visit the old shopkeeper again to find a book about hell.

"Belial," she whispered and frowned, somehow that name sounded familiar. But she didn't remember reading it in any of the books she had read. That was strange. She had a good memory.

Elise looked up and took a quick glance at the big old clock tower in the distance. Fortunately, Sight was working and it felt like the side effect was slowly disappearing. It was already quite late.

"Where's mum?" she thought.

"She told you she might be late," the angry voice replied, "you must have forgotten that because of those other mortals. And also ignore what you just read. You are far too young and weak to pry into the secrets of the world."

"Elise!" Elise heard someone shout. That was wonderful timing, because Elise really didn't want to spend any more time near the school where she hadn't made any friends. She ran to her mother as fast as her tiny legs could carry her.

On the way to the mansion, her mother turned and whispered, "How was your last day at school?"

"As awful as ever," Elise replied. She was more interested in the shop that lay ahead of them. It was a bakery that had recently opened, a white sign in the front window claimed so.

"It seems you've found a nice shop," her mother said, "Do you want to go in there? A friend of mine told me they sell great stuff. The elf probably knows what she's talking about. She's the margrave's personal cook."

Elise looked into the shop front and noticed baked goods that didn't look like bread. They were brown or black, long and some had strange little stones in them.

"What's that black stuff there?" asked Elise.

"Chocolate," replied her mother. "My mother used to make hot chocolate, but I never found a shopkeeper who sold it. Shall we go and buy some?"

"Chocolate is what the beastkin traders brought to Euros, isn't it?" asked Elise.

"Indeed," replied her mother, "it's amazing that they managed to sell their wares to an imperial city. Most of their kind are hardly welcome here."

"I've read it tastes good," Elise murmured and smiled, "Yes. We'll go in there and buy something. But I also want to drink or eat hot chocolate."

"You drink hot chocolate too," her mother replied, "You don't eat it."