Thoric groaned as he opened his eyes, for the last couple of weeks he had been practicing his spells to open his channels. Grammy had provided the family with bracers that allowed them all to share the pain. With these bracers, Vandora had pushed him relentlessly to practice. He had managed to open all his channels somewhat and finally last night he had successfully cast multiple spells in a row, pulling from his dimensional pool, without passing out. Of his pools, life, air, and fire could all be pulled from without causing but a small twinge of pain. Earth and temporal both gave him a minor headache while dimensional still gave him a raging migraine.
“Time to get up.” His mother said as she walked through the door to his bedroom.
Thoric pulls the covers up over his head and grumbles, “I don’t want to. My head hurts.”
“Be that as it may, you must practice as much as possible while we have these bracers before my parents return. Remember, my little nugget, your powers are our secret and we need to cultivate them in private. Now get up”, his mother said as she threw covers off exposing him to the cooler air.
Rolling out of bed Thoric staggered over to the washbasin to splashed water on his face. He quickly grabbed his clothes and dressed so he could rush down to the kitchen and eat. As he walked down the hallway he heard voices coming from the kitchen.
“He is getting out of bed now and getting ready.” Came his mother’s voice.
“Are we pushing him too hard? He is only 10.” His father’s voice reverberated.
“Yes, he is only 10. But have you noticed how mature he acts? It appears his human half makes up a huge part of his mentality. Remember many human boys are already a couple of years into their apprenticeships at his age.” Another voice that he thought belonged to Vandora replied.
Thoric walked into the kitchen and plopped himself to the table. After loading his plate up with an obscene amount of food he crammed a forkful into his mouth. “I am really mature.” He said as he spewed chunks of food across the table.
His mother’s hand quickly connected to the back of his head. “Mature! Since when do mature boys spew food across the table when speaking with a mouthful.”
His father and Vandora chuckled. Breakfast was pretty much silent as everyone ate their fill. His father stood and gave his mother a peck on the cheek. “I am going to the king today to sit in on some meetings with the delegates. Breldra also said and I quote “If our little hell raiser could cast without passing out now she wants her bracers back.” Katerina chuckled as she got up to go get them so that her husband could drop them off by the temple on his way to the meeting hall.
Vandora turned to Thoric and stated, “Today we're going to start by you showing me all that you have learned. Save your dimensional pool for last. Now follow me to the classroom.”
Thoric and Vandora proceeded to the family’s den that served as the home classroom. Thoric began first with his air pool and created a gentle gust of wind that caused little moats of dust to flitter about the room. As his air pool quickly emptied the gust settled and Thoric had no noticeable headache. He followed it with an earth spell that caused the floor at his feet to raise into a 1-foot cube square. As the square rose from the floor a minor headache crept its way upon him. He quickly followed with a healing spell Vandora had shown him that eliminated a headache and used almost half of his life pool. He quickly followed by incinerating a piece of paper with his fire spell and used a universal reconstruction spell to reassemble the paper making sure to pull from his temporal pool. Taking a deep breath he cast the universal spell to help dampen his metal sense which caused him to stagger to his knees in pain. Calling up and trying to focus through the pain he managed to mostly successfully cast the heal spell again emptying his life pool but making it so he could stand up again.
“Very good!” Vandora exclaimed. “I think in a few more days your pains from casting will be over. Now, I’m going to be gone for a few days and I want you to practice this as many times a day as you can. I expect at least every morning before school like this morning, when you come home at lunch when the others go to their tradesmen, and again before bed.”
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“Yes, ma’am. Do I really have to cast before school? I still have a pretty good headache.”
“Remember we are doing this for you. We expect you to work hard. You seemed so excited to push yourself but if you want to slow down we can.”
Thoric caught himself before he blurted that yes, he wanted to slow down. But he remembered only through determination and hard work could he achieve his goals. His teacher and parents had each suffered great pains of the last few weeks so that he could clear his channels quickly. He would not disappoint them by not trying his hardest. “No. I do not want to slow down I can do this.”
“That is good. Now I will be gone for several weeks. I have left several parchments for you to study while I am gone. I also want you to spend some afternoons with your friends. Between school and magic study you’re not getting exercise a young one should have. Now get to school.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Thoric replies as he rushed from the room to get to school at the temple.
For the next few weeks, his days are mostly filled with school, practice, study, and at least every third day an afternoon playing with his friends. His friends chatter a lot about their studies with the trades. Just like any child, some loved it, and some hated it. His friend Jenger chattered aimlessly about her weeks studying how to work stone. The others kept asking what trade he was studying at and the best he could reply was learning knowledge. That got him teased about turning into a teacher. Regardless that quickly diverted the attention from him as they were not interested in learning by tablet and parchment.
Every evening, his father would rant and rave about the stupidity of the human delegation. Apparently, the new “Emperor” was demanding that the dwarves and the elves should be including a tribute to all the trade goods going into the Empire. They felt that since there lands and people were of a factor of 10 times greater than the elves and dwarves combined that they were superior. The emperor was insisting that it had been over 10 generations since his ancestors had agreed to the current trade agreements and deals. They could not grasp that for the elves and dwarves, it was their fathers who agreed to the current deal. It was fully expected the Emperor would pull out of the trade deal and demand to leave. While open warfare was not likely because of distances he fully expected trade caravans to suffer and the cost of trade to drastically increase as well as the danger.
The humans had recently discovered the proper combination of copper and tin to make bronze that was equal to the dwarves. And with the recent crashing of a meteor in one of their provinces they had a supply of very pure iron. Even the dwarves had very little iron and the even better mithril but the humans felt that they didn’t need it.
The elves were angry at the humans because they had started clearing the great forest. While they realized the need to harvest lumber, the humans were destroying it just for the fact they wanted to free the land to push back the monsters. These monsters, unfortunately, had streamed into the elven lands and caused widespread destruction.
Late one afternoon, as Thoric practiced his spells in the family den, he heard the front door slam open. His mother came running in with a panicked look on her face. “Quickly, come with me!” She screamed as she grabbed his arm pulling him rapidly through the house toward the back door.
“What’s going on? What’s the matter?” Stuttered Thoric as he stumbled through the house toward the back door.
Thoric heard a bloodcurdling scream echo somewhere in the distance, as it echoed off the stone cavern. As his mother and he exited the back of the home three humans rushed around the edge of the house carrying bloodied swords. “Kill that bitch and the welp to!” They screamed as they charged.
His mother spun and quickly chanted a spell while weaving her hands causing a beam of bright light to leap from her hand striking one in the chest catching him on fire. She shoved Thoric behind her and shouted at him, “RUN!”
Thoric stumbled and fell as his mother chanted again causing a thin sheet of ice to spread out along the ground. As the guard slipped one of them drew a dagger and flipped in underhanded at his mother. He could see the glint off the blade as it slammed into her. The blade’s point exited the back of her thigh as it pierced her leg. She screamed as she fell to the ground. “RUN I said! GO!” his mother shouted again.
As the men were getting to their feet Thoric stood, turned, and managed to run a few feet when he felt a blow to his back. Apparently, one of the men had attempted to throw another dagger but had slipped and the dagger had hit him pommel first. He looked over his shoulder to see that one of the men had gotten to his feet and was about to bring his sword down on his mother. Suddenly Thoric felt himself raise his hand and channel what felt like the entirety of existence through his dimensional channel. “BLACKHOLE!,” he felt himself shout as he closed his fingers into a fist. Suddenly a pinprick of darkness appeared in the middle of the men. Near instantaneously the large men were sucked into this tiny hole as their bodies ruptured and exploded. The exploding viscera and blood were also instantly sucked in. His mother and he were physically lifted and yanked toward the black pinprick as well but it vanished before they could reach it. Thoric felt in the moment that a mountain of weight had slammed in all around him trying to crush him.
“Mom.” He gasped as he blacked out.