Fantasia Concordat Ch. 01

"Hold up," Jack interjected, "Do you mind if I write in you?"

"WHAT?!" Dahlia shrieked, startling Jack.

"Well I, uh..."Jack fumbled, "It's just that whenever I take notes, I like to write in my books, that's why I like owning my books..."

"A-absolutely not! I-I don't think I'd be able to t-take such l-l-lewd activities from Master..." Dahlia's voice inflection once again with that adorable innocence Jack was growing to love.

"Okay, okay, I'll just write this stuff down in a separate notebook." Jack rummage through his drawer and pulled out a spiral-bound notebook and a fresh pen. Dahlia's pride swelled a bit as she watched Jack diligently write down the gist of the things he had just told her.

"Oh, and another thing," Jack said, not looking up from his hasty scribbling, "Don't call me 'Master.'"

After a few moments of scrawling, Jack got his notes up to speed with current information and signaled Dahlia to continue with her explanation.

"In order to cast spells, besides being able to concentrate enough to gather arcane energy, you will also need a catalyst of some kind. There are countless categories of magical catalyst, but the two main distinctions are made between glyph and wand. A wand is more versatile, but more difficult to use, and it requires you to have memorized the particular spell rune you are attempting to use.

"You will most likely start out by using the glyph method of spell-casting, however. That process basically boils down to physically recreating the spell rune through some sort of marking. A pen, a piece of chalk, or even carving into an object will work for that. You just need to store arcane energy within the glyph and it's good to go. The downsides to this are the obvious time-consuming task of drawing the design. However, glyphs have the benefit of being more powerful, and don't need to be activated immediately."

"Wow." Jack offered, "That's pretty cool."

"Still," Dahlia continued, "You will probably want a wand eventually, as no proper mage develops using either style completely. You will also probably have to make your own wand, as I doubt you can buy one at the market anymore."

"Don't worry," Dahlia added, sensing Jack's trepidation, "It's not very hard to create one. It can be anything really, a ring, a rod, a bracelet, as long as it's some form of metal, copper or silver especially..."

"Let me guess, materials like rubber, wood, or glass would be the worst choices?" Jack said, expectantly.

"Yes, that's correct, but how did you...?"

"Oh, no reason." Jack turned back to his notebook and scrawled something in the corner, underlining it with swift motions of his arm.

"Well," Jack said, suddenly standing up, "I have an idea for what to make my wand out of."

Jack stumbled out of his chair and limped over to his bed and picked something up off the floor. He attached it to his arm and strutted awkwardly, albeit more fluidly than before, over to the desk, in view of his Grimoire. Dahlia bit back a gasp as he realized what he was holding.

"I have this crutch-brace thing, would that work?" Jack waited for Dahlia's response.

There was a certain chill in his response, as if he knew the question she was dying to ask, but was choosing to ignore it. When Dahlia didn't answer right away, Jack gave an angry sigh and lifted up his pant leg.

"I've got a fake leg," He said plainly, clinking his brace against his artificial limb for emphasis.

"I see." Dahlia's response belied no emotion on her part, but Jack felt the anger rising anyway.

He sat down gruffly into his chair, leaning his brace against the desk. "Just keep talking, sugar-tits. I have a feel we've got a lot of ground to cover."

Dahlia sat on Jack's desk and watched the young man slumber. He'd fallen asleep after a long night of revelation and instruction. He'd taken more than a few pages of notes in their long discussion. Dahlia was pleased to see that he seemed to be a diligent learner. She looked around. That probably explained why he owned so many books, and why he was so keen to take notes on things he didn't want to forget. She eyed the closed notebook lying underneath Jack's slouched form. She desperately desired to see its contents.

It wasn't that she didn't respect his privacy, she reasoned with herself and she slipped the notebook from under him. It was just that he'd flipped through her contents so easily as soon as he brought her home, she felt like she deserved to read through him, in a way. Besides, she was curious to see what he'd written about her. Dahlia blushed.

She opened the notebook with an uncharacteristic grin on her face. She quickly skimmed the pages and flipped through them. Her grin wilted. She eyed the page Jack had spent a particular amount of time on. She recognized what the drawing was as a twinge of shame ran through her. The final page was full of several different drawings, full labeled and explained, concerning theoretical methods to use magic to restore Jack's leg.

Dahlia put the notebook down.

Author's Note: Well, that's the first chapter of a new series I wanted to start writing. I hope you like it. Tell me what you think!