Hello JuJubees! This Is JuJu, as you guys requested, we are adding the team's commentary to all the documents we release going forward. Today, you get me!

I’m ok, I hope that last video didn’t scare you all too much. Fumu got my thumb all wrapped up and calmed me down. Tim is editing it all together now while I get this ready, He says it’s going to be a really good video. As much as he annoys me, he tends to be spot on when it comes to how well a video is going to do. The guy knows his stuff.

Now, because we are adding a bit more oversight to these, I’ve edited the stuff we have today to make a better story. I’ll add in my comments so you won't be too confused, though!

Let's get started. It seems my grandma has some more things to tell us about magic and the academy she finds herself in:

42 of Tal, 128

The humans of this world concern me. I hesitate to truly identify myself as one of them. My fellow students at this academy seem cordial enough to me, but that is a thin veneer. I have seen my first true fantasy race, a biped with feline features. A cat girl. She is a student here as well, but the others treat her like a slave. I hesitate to get involved, as I would prefer to make it home safely without sticking my head into a delicate matter. I know full well what happens to those who support the minority, the civil rights movement was what took my father away from me.

So I hide in the library where few venture, studying. I know that if I see too much more abuse to that poor girl, I will not be able to stop myself. Things will get ugly quickly.

In opposition to the grim politics, my studies continue, magic comes easily to me. I believe I have finally understood enough of the basics to be confident to teach them to others. I will record those basics here. In part, so I am always reminded of the essentials myself, and otherwise in hopes that when I return home, I can teach this to my children.

There are all kinds of names and terms the professors use to describe the beginning steps of a spell. I do not see any point in confusing you with terminology from this world, I had to cut through the mysticism of what exactly a ‘Fundamental Weave Loop’ was, and I see no point in sharing that headache when we have a less pretentious name in use back home. It is a slip knot, yes we are using the fabric of the universe, but a slip knot is still a slip knot.

I am getting ahead of myself.

The essential structure of a spell is essentially a granny square, for those who do not crochet I will elaborate. It starts with a small circle made in the weave with a slip knot. Now, most squares begin from the center and radiate outwards, but is too advanced for a novice. Instead, we will start with the simplest of all crochet techniques, a chain.

Imagine a crochet hook in your mind, and insert it right into the loop of the slip knot, pull it tight. Wrap the thread of weave up and over your mental hook, making a second loop around it, catch that loop in the curve of your hook and pull it through the slip knot. Congratulations, you have chained one. Repeat this process and chain the weave as far as you would like. Careful, though, fail to hold the entire construction sturdy in your mind and the chain unravels and vanishes. The longer or larger the chain, the harder the weave fights you.

This does not take nearly as much time as you may expect, as a wizard has no need to use a crochet hook to physically weave the Weave. If one can imagine how a knot or stitch is constructed and can exert precise control, each stitch only takes the slightest thought.

A novice can use this chain as an invisible string, creating an effect similar to mild telekinesis, grabbing light objects and pulling them along. An expert can take that telekinesis farther.

The second spell I have been taught is also one I was familiar with from home. It begins with a chain, one as long as you need. Professor Riego suggests to start with just fifteen stitches. Then you take your first step towards true crocheting.

Here they call it a “Simple Weave Expansion Tie” back home, it was known as the humble single crochet. What is true is that it is simple; take your hook and push it into the top of the last stitch of your chain. Wrap the weave overhand around the hook and pull through - not all the way - just through the stitch. If done properly, you know have two loops around your hook, loop the weave around your hook once more, and pull through both loops. As you continue in this way, stitch by stitch then row by row, you will finish the spell.

This spell is a simple shield, it solidifies or re-enforces where ever you have manipulated the weave. If woven in the air it creates a hard invisible barrier. Inside of an object or material, it strengthens it. The natural weave of the atmosphere is most malleable and least likely to fight against such manipulation. This makes for quick if weak shields. If you weave inside a material, the natural structure of the object will fight against you, making reinforcement much more difficult. However, the difficulty results in much stronger structures.

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The Professors at the academy hint that other structures can be woven into existence, things that create and control nature. I have seen the more experienced students summon fire and water, twisting it into their will.

I would be excited to experiment with such magic, if it were not for the warning I was given upon my very first lecture. The Weave is a fickle beast, and a natural phenomenon. Twisting it in ways not understood can result in varied and random effects, an ill-advised tangle has as good odds of teaching something new as it does of killing you.

Interesting right? With the whole magic detection device, this seems to be a bright spot, at least if magic works outside of ‘Elentier’. Fumushu is trying to teach me how to crochet now, and it's going horribly. Gran doesn’t mention a whole lot of things, like tension or hook size. Fumu even tried to give me a whole lecture on yarn types.

I know people will ask, JuJu are you going to try to do magic right away? And the answer is absolutely not. If this stuff is real, I do not want to mess around with it. Odds are I’ll end up finding out it's real in the worst possible way. I know that for a fact, too.

Take a look at this recording. You'll see what I mean. There's a bunch of empty space I cut out getting up to the action here, don't worry about what your missing out on, nothing much was happening. I can post the raw footage in the discord, link in the description, if you want to join the bees and take a closer look.

VIDEO BEGINS TRANSCRIBING — — —

The video begins, the footage shaky, peaking out behind a crumbling doorway out to a greater hall. The hall itself is also crumbling, the stones mossy, and whatever furnishings that had once graced the space have long since splintered and rotted. Light streams in from the far corner of the hall, the walls crumbled inward, littering the floor with stony debris. The crumbling section spreads, making a craggy v shape, only broken up by the strong stone arch of a grand entrance directly across the room, the wooden door rotten and ajar but still standing.

Inside the hall, lit by the morning light, are a collection of goblins. And three massive wolves. The goblin’s screams and war cries fill the space; and they brandish long sticks, jagged and snapped on both ends, towards the wargs.

The wargs, look sickly and tattered. The normally massive and stately kings of the pack lacking the thick and warm fur typical of their species, instead their fur is matted and dirty. They still stand tall, however, nearly as tall as the goblins, or up to the chest of a human. They look far too thin to bear that height, their ribs showing through their sides and their legs thin and bony.

Whatever desperation drove these three here sustains them more than enough to overwhelm the pack of goblins trying to hold them off. They rip through the goblins, pushing away the improvised spears with ease, biting off limbs and slamming the goblins against the walls and larger rocks of the hall.

Soon the goblins organize and circle up around one of their number, shabby wooden spears pointed out at all angles.

The goblin begins to shriek and yell, thrusting his hands out in front of him and waving them around. The air begins to glow, a random tangle of glowing strands surrounds him like a net in all directions. His fingers plunge into them, pulling and twisting and tying with no rhyme or reason.

One of the wargs finds bravery and rushes the group, slamming through the protecting goblins. Shattering a spear and biting the head off of one poor soul.

As the warg pushes forward to the center goblin, that goblin’s yells reach a crescendo and the Weave around him quivers and locks into place in the air, random twists and knots in it like a child’s tangled ball of yarn.

The goblins that had been protecting the mage from the warg have cut and run, putting as much distance between the two as they can.

The Weave brightens, then vanishes from view, along with the goblin. The warg still stands for a moment, then it collapses. Its front leg and half its face liquified and streaming down to the stones beneath it, mixing with a suspiciously green puddle already there.

One goblin has been cut off in his retreat by one of the two remaining wargs. As he is backed into the corner of the room, he holds one hand out, a much smaller tangle of the weave illuminating and twisting in his fingers.

The warg hesitates at the glow, wary of its effects, and growls at the lone goblin.

The weave does not aid this one, as the glow subsides nothing has changed but the color of the hand he used to cast, now a bright pink standing out from his green skin.

The warg rushes him and dashes him against the wall.

The camera shakily pans to the other side of the room where the last six goblins huddle, three of them in an arc pointing their spears at the other warg. The other three frantically dance about in the space protected by the spear bearers, pulling and twisting at the weave. Which already glows its cool white as they pull at it, handing off strands to each other and wrapping themselves in the glow.

The warg attempts to rush the goblins, and stop whatever they are trying to do. But the three spear bearers finally manage to hold one of them off. The warg lets out a sharp whine of pain. The splintered wooden end of a spear stabing into his flank. The other warg bounds into the frame and presses his weight on to the spear line. Buckling the goblins and pushing them away.

The second warg is too late, the weave begins to brighten as he crashes into the spear holders.

Soon the light is overwhelming, the camera covered in white. Then a loud boom shakes the air rattling the lens of the camera.

The light recedes, the camera showing an empty room with a crater where the goblins and wargs had just been fighting.

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