I was soon going to pass through the Gate, and I was just as nervous as I was excited. I had been preparing for this event ever since Marticel had told me about it, and how important it is for me. As I knew very little about myself back then, the only thing I was pretty sure about was that what would happen to me would be different than what happened to most likely everyone who passed through the gate before me. I had never expected how different it would be.
Passing through the Gate always happens on the person's 16nth birthday. Since the exact date of my birthday was unknown, we were going to leave 4 days before the day we would normally have as my birthday. It happens during your sixteenth year, and right after is the coming of age party. After these events, you are considered old enough to marry legally, and this would mean a lot to me, as it would give me a real family, and a place in the world.
Just days before I was scheduled to go through the Gate, I wanted to make a potion of protection, just in case my unique magic made it so the magical forces built in the Gate tried to hurt me, whether physical or magical. Because this force was different from other things that might hurt me that other potions already protect me from, I decided to try and design a new one. Potion invention was highly discouraged, unless you had an extensive knowledge of chemistry supervision from someone who does, and if you knew exactly what you are trying to do with the potion, none of which I knew or had. With my natural recklessness, I probably should have at least told Marticel what I was doing so that he might have been able to help me, and perhaps prevent the accident that followed.
The basics of a potion of protection is taking something that resists what you are trying to protect yourself from. You then give the substance and give it the magical ability to expand its resistance to you. This is often done by adding specific ingredients and then liquifying it, as most of your body is liquid, so you can get it throughout your entire body. For example, if you wanted fire protection, the most obvious substance is water, as water doesn’t burn. If you wanted to protect yourself from physical harm, you would use a substance that is hard to damage, such as a hard rock.
That is actually how most potions work. If you want to be hard to hold, you could use slime or water, depending on what you want. This system is used for all potions. What I wanted was protection from magic, so I used the material that magic doesn’t work on, lead. The magic that I wanted protection from was ancient magic, so I also used the substance that ancient magic is most correlated with, Dark Granite, a type of granite made of magical minerals that no longer exist in nature. There were two things I forgot though. One, lead is poisonous, and doesn’t react well to magical fire, my natural ability. Two, Dark Granite is very sharp, and stays sharp even when it is liquid. (A fact that baffles everyone who tries to study Dark Granite, called that not only because of its color, but because nothing is known about it, and we are all “in the dark” about it. A pun my potion mentor loves making anytime we breach the topic, and one that I hate due to how often it is made, and the tone of voice my mentor always makes it in) Dark granite also greatly strengthens the magic that gives mages their innate magical abilities, and mine was already almost too strong as it was. The end result could be disastrous for me.
To be sure that my potion would work, I made two batches. One I was going to take then, and the other, if it worked, just before I went through the portal. I foolishly decided to take the first potion when I would be alone, and in a clearing far into the forest so that I wouldn’t be seen. Thank goodness that it had just rained, so I left a path of footprints to my location. If I hadn’t, my neighbor, who Marticel had appointed to watch over me without my knowledge, wouldn’t have found me in time.
After I checked the surrounding area to make sure there was nothing that would interfere, I was ready to take the potion. A lot of potions work better when you have an empty stomach, so that nothing interferes with the workings of the potion. Because of that, I hadn’t eaten or drinken anything that day, and was eager to drink the potion even if it was just to satisfy my thirst. I suddenly began feeling nervous, and was having second thoughts, but I was determined to take it, so I downed the entire glass in one go before I convinced myself otherwise, an action I immediately regretted as the Dark Granite and lead reacted to my magic, and sliced up my throat and stomach, followed with a wave of what felt like liquid fire, that spread throughout my body, as if I was drowning in it.
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Fire and heat don't usually hurt me, and I can even handle red hot metal relatively easily, but this fire and heat burned with a pain that I had never felt before, and I hope no one except my worst enemies ever feel. I was relieved when I fell unconscious, but my torture continued in the form of the worst version of my most common nightmare, drowning in a sea of fire, with an evil laugh constantly sounding and someone screaming for me. Normally when I have this nightmare, I force myself awake, but with what I suspected was awaiting me in the conscious world, I was torn between which torture I preferd.
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When I awoke, I was laying on a bed, and was in no pain. The first thought that entered my head was, was that all a dream? How could I go from so much pain to completely painless just in the time I was unconscious? My second thought was, How long was I asleep? I opened my eyes and saw Marticel hovering over me like a mother, well, father, I guess, bird. I groaned.
“Uuugh, I wish I didn’t have to wake up to that face.” Marticel was actually not ugly at all. In his younger years, he was actually quite handsome, but his status as the local mage kept him from getting married, as his magic experiments could do who knows what to his relationship, both romantically and physically. Even so, I enjoy teasing him about it, and it became somewhat of a habit. He chuckled, and moved to help me sit up.
“Welcome back to the world of the living, Elenaril” he teased back. He knows how much I hate my name, and so every time I tease him about his looks, he teases me back about my name, which he stubbornly refused to let me change, because it might have something to do with your special condition. “I hoped you didn’t enjoy your time away too much, I would hate to lose you permanently.”
That had surprised me. I hadn’t realized I had actually died. Luckily for me, Marticel managed to heal my body before I had fully died beyond repair. I later found out that every time I had that nightmare, my magic was starting to burn me up from the inside, and I would have died every time if I didn’t wake myself up. There is a certain control to your magic that is only used when you are awake, but for most people, their magic isn’t strong enough that it is actually dangerous for them.
Marticel, after a sound scolding, told me I wasn’t yet fully healed, and so I would still need more rest than normal. Also luckily for me, Marticel had found the second potion I had made, and quickly and accurately guessed what I had done, so he knew best how to treat me. I would be able to heal in time for the Gate Ceremony if I didn’t do anything else rash.
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I saw him two days after I awoke for the first time. I was resting, when I heard a stifled gasp, as if Maricel had stubbed his toes and was keeping quiet so as not to disturb me. I moved to sit up so I could complain, letting the blanket fall down to my waist.
“I told you to leave me alone, I wanna sleep,” I mumbled. ”What do you want that's so important that you had to interrupt my recovery rest that you yourself insisted that I take?” I heard another gasp, and was about to say, and please stop hitting your toe, those gasps are annoying, when I looked up at Marticel, only it wasn’t him. Standing in the open doorway, that had previously been closed, was a male.
He was wearing a style of clothes that I had never seen before, and they were wet with what I assumed was sweat, the clothes sticking to his lithe but muscular body, and he was handsome. Until I realized what he was staring at, and I remembered how small my nightgown was. I screamed, grabbing the blanket, and he opened his mouth with an apologetic look in his eyes, but then he disappeared before he was able to talk. Completely and utterly, with no sign of him even being there except the open door.
He had disappeared too fast for him to have run away, and I didn’t think he would run away on purpose. He looked startled when I first saw him, like he had been here by accident. I hadn’t seen any sign of anyone else, so he was probably alone. My best guess was that he either had either taken an invisibility potion, and was still here, or it was some mysterious force, and he had as much of an idea what had just happened as I did. His odd style of clothes suggested that he either was not from around here or had some weird sense of style, and some odd ideas about what clothes should be made of, because his clothes had looked almost shiny in a way normal clothes shouldn’t. I never suspected that he was from another world.