Mark of the Ranger

VII. Don't You Worry.

          Maddie looked at the orange orbs lying in the dust. The wyverns had dropped them out of nowhere after they died. "What are these?" she asked, grabbing one and taking a look at it. It was slightly soft and glowed with a warm orange. One of the wizards answered as he brushed up some of the dust into a pan. "It's a core. All magical things have it. It's their source of power. When it's a monster core like this, The monster will regenerate in a short time after. For you or I, it can be taken out and crushed to destroy our magic. Important things, these cores." Maddie tentatively put her hand to her chest. There was a glowing sphere inside of her?

          Some magicians had set Isabel on a bench for when she woke up. As of know, though, she was dead to the world. Maddie grabbed a core and dropped it in a bucket. She cringed at the loud clack that it made. She continued her cleaning job, tossing cores into buckets and sweeping up dust. Every once in a while, she took a peek at the still-sleeping Isabel. After she brought the third bucket to people who were carting the cores to who-knows-where, Isabel sat up and rubbed her eyes.

          Isabel immediately began to chomp on some cheese tamales. She ate at least three in the five seconds that Maddie looked at her in bewilderment. "Why are you guys taking all of this time to clean up?" Isabel questioned, staff in one hand, tamale in the other. She raised her staff, and the cores and dust swirled into neat piles and dropped themselves carefully in buckets. The buckets then floated over to the carting people. Isabel swallowed some of the lunch she had picked out. 

          "So...How are you?" she asked. Maddie put her hands up in confusion. "W...What? You just used magic to clean up the huge mess, then just eat like nothing happened! How do you do that?" Isabel swallowed, then smiled. "I don't take such a little thing as a big deal. Maybe you should chill out."

          "Little things? That was at least a hundred wyverns!"

          "And my spell called for a thousand arrows. Do you think that if I had cast centum sagittas, I wouldn't have passed out?"

          "I'm done with you."

          "Fine by me. You yell too much."

          Maddie gracefully restricted herself from snapping. Isabel ate another tamale while she walked away. Minnie came out of nowhere. "So, you want to learn more about magic?" Maddie leaped up in surprise. She stuttered for a moment, then answered. "Shouldn't I eat first?" Minnie made a don't worry hand gesture. "You can go grab something quickly, if you're hungry. meet in our room," she told her.

          Maddie ate as much as she could. If Isabel ate tamales by the truckload, she was going to need some nutrients, too. As Maddie ate some lunch, she realized that she didn't quite remember where Minnie's and her room was. Knowing Isabel was a magic expert, she asked her for help. 

          "Oh, yeah, one second." Isabel grabbed her staff and put it to Maddie's head for about five seconds. "You're in room 536." Maddie, being wiser after a single conversation with Isabel, decided not to question her about it. Isabel was insane.

          Maddie walked through the hallways, smiling at the wizards and avoiding the warlocks, like Minnie said. Eventually, she reached room 536. She opened the door to see Minnie lying on the other bed, reading some sort of pop culture magazine. The person on the cover obscured the name. "Hey," Minnie muttered absently, turning a page.

          "So, about magic."

          Minnie closed her magazine. "That's right," she said, and gestured for Maddie to sit down. "Where should I begin? Oh, yes.

          "There are two different immediate types of magicians--the wizards and the warlocks, along with their female counterparts. The wizards use staffs and wands to channel their magic through. They mainly cast spells. The warlocks are more alchemists. They are master potion makers and cast enchantments, as well as curses."

          "Enchantments?"

          "Enchantments. When you're out of potions, you simply cast an enchantment. It is basically improving a thing--like a person, or even a pebble--by infusing it with magical power."

          "So you're telling me I could enchant a pebble to turn into a dragon when it hit something?"

          "You would promptly go into mana coma, but yes."

          "What's mana coma?"

          "Mana is like your gasoline for magic. Using mana drains you of your nutrients, unless you store mana into jewels that you keep by you. We can do that later, of course. You can add to a person's mana simply by willing it so, and if you give them enough mana, you can actually make someone go into a Mana Rush, which will make them have seemingly infinite mana for a short while. I've only ever seen the Grand Warlock do it, though."

          "Who's the Grand Warlock?"

          "A great time ago, two magicians were chosen--a girl and a boy. They were chosen to be the leaders of the Wizarding Guild. Their names--Grand Warlock or Grand Wizard, and vice versa--depends on what kind of magician they are."

          "This is pretty heavy."

          "Oh, I haven't even gotten to magi yet."

          "What?"

          "Magi, or mage, for singular, are special magicians born with elemental prowess. It doesn't matter what kind of magician they are, if they have those elemental powers, they're a mage."

          "What kind of magi are there?"

          "Pyromancer, necromancer, cryomancer, biomancer, arachnomancer, astromancer, chronomancer--which are the rarest--hydromancer, geomancer, aeromancer, and I think that's all of them. There might be a few more -mancers, but I digress."

          "Okay."

          "That's the right response. You know, they have a brewing chamber that we could use for potion making if we want, and there are probably more potion recipe books in the library than there are cells in the human body. We'll have fun here at the Wizarding Guild, don't you worry."

          Maddie laid down in her bed. All those -mancers were swirling around in her head. If she ever figured this magic stuff out, she probably could have fun at the Wizarding Guild.

          Don't you worry.