Skull's Tale

The Choosing part 2

A child raised their hand in question, “sir, are boy’s really better at magic than girls?” as the child spoke a few of the boys in the group sniggered.

Skull chuckled at the question, “Well, I suppose there is only a single World Breaker, and I do happen to be a man. But in my travels I have met many women who were just as strong as men. Or stronger in some cases, I would say that it is the individual that makes them stronger, not the gender,” some of the children nodded in agreement or smiled at this statement, the boys who had sniggered before had a pained look on their faces like they had been cheated.

“Now, children, back to the tale. Unless we have any more questions? No? Excellent. As I was saying, ‘Bruiser and I were running through the corridors, slightly late to the choosing,”

“Squirt! You’re falling behind!” Bruiser called from further down the hallway.

The boy with the orange eyes sprinted as fast as he could in his oversized boots. No matter how fast he ran, Bruiser could easily outpace him with his much longer legs. Which were almost as wide as the boys were long.

And he was supposed to be the second tallest apprentice.

“Bruiser, wait up!” He called to his friend who was constantly enlarging the gap between the two of them.

“Are you getting tired Squirt?” Bruiser called back at his friend.

The boy’s eyes narrowed and his fighting spirit took hold of him, “I am not tired!” the boy shouted and that’s when he felt it. A strange power inside him suddenly gave him a boost of speed. There was a strange pop like noise and the boy found himself running at a speed greater than he had ever managed before. All he could do at the moment was to keep his legs moving to avoid stumbling on the cold, hard marble surface. By the time the power from the strange boost of speed had begun to dull he had almost caught up with Bruiser.

Suddenly Bruiser turned a corner and almost hit the boy as he did.

The boy stumbled and fell over, sliding across the flat surface until his oversized boots weighed him down enough for him to put his hands down to stop himself. He leapt to his feet, annoyed. Bruiser better not have done that to keep his advantage.

The boy ran off after his friend, ignoring his bodies protest to the movement.

Eventually both Bruiser and the boy caught up with the rest of the children, who as it turned out had been lead through the Hall of history until the two of them had caught up. Although the boy was glad he wasn’t late he, the boy was annoyed that his friend had been in such a rush.

Once the cloaked Adults had checked to make sure all the children were present they began heading towards a chamber in the South Wing. The air seemed to crackle with power and the children became excited from the very feel of the place.

The boy even found he was smiling as he walked through the elaborate hallways of the First Year’s floor.

Finally they reached a massive room. It looked like some sort of council chamber or an arena because of the size of the room and the seats set up just like the ones from the ancient Colosseums of Rome which the boy had seen in an old movie with his parents a long time ago.

Rome didn’t have mages so why would they have an arena out here?

“Children!” a figure in a large grey cloak exclaimed from the front row of seats directly opposite of the entrance, the boy hadn’t seen him initially because the cloak was a similar colour to the rock the seats were cut out of.

“Today is the day of your choosing. Form a line from tallest to shortest across from that side of the room.” The figure indicated the side on the children’s left with a withered looking hand, “the tallest shall go first in this choosing, they will walk to the centre of this chamber and there they will be presented with a mind rune. When it has been given to you it will place the memories of each discipline through your mind, simply state the discipline that appeals most to you and the rune will be transferred permanently into your memory. After that the next tallest shall go forth to choose their own aspect and the next will follow after that until you all have chosen your very own discipline.”