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 narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
> 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.