With my trials completed, and a new name given to me I had the chance to study under Flaminius, apprentice under an actual mage. And so I did, striking a deal with Flaminius, stating that I would work under him for as long as I needed his tutelage, reserving myself the right to sever our contract whenever I wanted to. He wasn’t exactly in the ideal negotiating position, considering the fact I was all but promised a spot with him.

I also made sure to make it so I could work with Vegter in the forge as well. I wanted to improve my forging and keep my bond with Vegter, Caden, and Clara. I also still lived with Vegter, since it would be kinda awkward living anywhere else. My schedule went as such, the first half of the day would be spent with Vegter, forging as I am used to, then the second half of the day would be spent with Flaminius, learning magic and such.

That was how it was supposed to go, but my first day went a bit differently. I spent my first following a routine I’d spent a month or so perfecting with Vegter, waking up, eating breakfast, working with Vegter, and soon Caden since his arms well on it’s way to healing. Then though, Then the problems arose. I left to go to meet Flaminius as I was supposed to, heading directly to the town square as he said.

When I get there, I don’t see Flaminius. I look around for a bit, wondering where he might be, not finding. I guess he’s late. Weird thing to be late on the first day, but this is a different world and all, maybe just have a different sort of common sense than I. Shrugging my shoulders, I sit down to wait for him. Time rolls on as the hours pass by, thirty-minutes, then an hour, then two hours. By this time I knew he probably wasn’t going to come. Also by this time I was basically sleeping with my eyes open, so even if he did come, I would be practically useless.

Calling it quits I stand up to leave, freezing when I hear a sudden voice creeping behind my back. “wha-what sha doing there, Ulf-Ulf, holy hell, I’m gonna puke” the voice says, sounding extremely familiar. I look back to see who, but Flaminius heaving what looks like breakfast, lunch and dinner onto the floor. I nearly puke from the sight alone but manage to restrain myself.

After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a couple minutes, Flaminius finally stops. “Ahh, that felt terrible. Anyway, Ulfr, it seems as if you passed my test” Flaminius says, sounding smooth, which was probably hard to do right after puking in front of someone. What test? I ask myself, where the hell have you been old man I think.

“I am sure you’re asking yourself, what test. Well, Ulfr, I left you here waiting for me, to see if you’d actually wait or just leave, and boy have you passed the test. On account of that, you get to advance ahead of schedule I terms of magical training” Flaminius says, almost managing to sound convincing, if not for the fact that he puked all over the floor, and has lipstick all over him. Sure you were setting up a test, probably just been drinking and banging, or s. He’d a been more slick if he could’ve actually put more thought into this lie, than none at all..

Deciding to just go along with all this, I say “oh knowledgeable teacher, how very wise of you.” I say, putting on my, dutiful student face. “you’re going to need to memorize the first ten pages of this book by heart by next week cuz you’re going to have a test on it” Flaminius says, handing me a big black book, with the title ‘Runes’ written on it in dark red ink. Ink so reddish dark it looks like blood. Kinda spooky in all honesty.

Okay, memorization should be super easy for me because of my fast learning ability, so this entire thing should be a peace of cake. I then proceeded to go home, still sorta mad at the fact that I almost basically wasted the day. When I get back, I tell Vegter all about what happened while eating dinner. He just replies with a “Classic Flaminius”. Ugh.

When I am finished dinner I go to my room, telling Vegter and Clara that I am going to be studying for a bit.

When I get to my room, I open up the black tome that Flaminius gave to me. Inside the book there are around five or so simple looking runes per page. Each rune has a it’s meaning written under it, so the first page contains, heat, cool, spiral, rod, blade.

Each of the runes, while having simple meanings, are extremely complicated, with lines and swirls and blurs and dots. I study these things for a bit. I also contemplate trying to actually use them for a bit. I decide on not trying that because magic is still a new thing to me, and I don’t know what might happen if I mess up.

It takes me a bit, but I do eventually memorise the runes on the first page. Only took me thirty minutes or so, but I had to ask Vegter for some paper and a pen and ink to write with. For whatever reason I can near instantly memorise a rune if I write it a couple times correctly. The only reason it took me thirty minutes and not ten is because of the fact that these runes are extremely complicated things to write. And those were supposedly only simple runes. I get goosebumps just thinking of what more complicated runes might look like.

The sands of time move forward once more, me falling into a bit of a routine, waking up, spending time with Vegter and Clara, working with Vegter and Caden, then studying the rune book independently for the rest of the day. By the time next week arrives, the day Flaminius said there would be a test, I had memorised all the runes in the ten pages Flaminius gave me. I could write all of them by now with almost no effort.

Hoping that Flaminius would show up on time, this time I go over to the town square as soon as my duties with Vegter are finished. As soon as I get there this time, I spot Flaminius in the distance. As I walk closer and closer I see that he’s conversing with a women, and holding a beer in one hand and some money in the other. Ugh.

Walking over, I stop near him, fuming. Flaminius hasn’t spotted me yet. I think a little on what would be the best course of action from here. I could wait for him to come to an agreement with the women (probably of the getting laid kind) and then take my chance to go and remind him that he has responsibilities today. That or I could do it right now. Really an eenie meenie miney mo situation.

I eventually decide on just waiting until he hands her the money before going over and ruining it. Seems like the best course of action. After a couple of minutes, or seconds, Flaminius hands the women the money. Guess it’s time for me to strike.

I walk the distance between me and Flaminius in a second or two, feeling some righteous anger as I go. “hey, Flaminius. Man I was looking for you” I say, reaching and putting a hand on Flaminius’ shoulder. Flaminius looks startled for a second, then looks back and sees me. He has a look of recognition come over his face before his expression morphs to one of horror. Ha ha this is going to be fun.

“you were supposed to be teaching me today Flaminius. What’re you doing here?” I ask, trying to make my voice and expression seem as innocent as possible. Flaminius flounders for words, his expression going through bizarre series of emotions as he does so. “uh, um, I uh… I am so sorry, I completely forgot that was today. Please forgive me my disciple” Flaminius says, founding the right words eventually. Going for the honest sincere route eh, nice try, but that’s not all I have in store for you.

“oh, well who’s your lady friend Flaminius” I say, taking the dumb innocent kid act to the extreme. If looks could kill, I’d probably be dead by now from the thousand megawatt death glare Flaminius is sending me right now. Flaminius’ displeasure though just motivates me more to keep on going. “tch, she’s just some someone I was talking to before you came” Flaminius says, making an excuse on the fly. The women gives Flaminius a look of distaste. I feel slightly guilty, but only because she got caught in the crossfire between me and Flaminius. My quarrel is with Flaminius and Flaminius alone right now.

Stamping down any feelings of guilt, I go in for the kill. “well, why did you give her money then?” I ask, cranking my act as hard as I possibly can. The women looks startled for a second before turning red with anger and slapping Flaminius. She then looks over at me and slaps me, stomping away right after. I feel my face burn from the impact. What the hell. I guess she didn’t buy the whole dumb kid act.

Well, I guess we both deserved that, me and Flaminius. Even with my face stinging from the blow though, I try to put on the smuggest face I possibly can. Even if I kinda lost, I will still bask in the glory of my victory. “alright boy, Ulfr, I get it. I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll go and teach you as I am supposed to, but let me tell you, boy, if you ever do anything like that again, you will suffer” Flaminius says, putting so much vitriol into the last part that I feel a shiver run down my back.

“you better have your runes memorised good, Ulfr, because I will not hold back in testing you. Every time you mess up, you get hit” Flaminius says. This makes a me little nervous. Even if I memorised everything perfectly, the threat of pain is still scary. I take a deep breath, trying to clear the nervousness right out of my mind. “of course” I say, trying to sound as calm as possible.

For the rest of the day Flaminius tests me in all sorts of inventive ways. He got me to write them all out from memory, I make a couple mistakes here resulting in swift and executive punishment, just as he promised. He then got me to label each one, this part was easy, I didn’t fail once at this. After that he started casting the runes, sometimes using variations and combinations of runes. For that I messed up a lot at first, never having done something like this, but as I got more and more experienced with it I started messing up less and less. After a while he started showing progressively more complex magics and spells, and as the spells progressed I progressed at being able to identify them.

I get so absorbed in this that I lose all track of time and my surroundings, so when Flaminius suddenly says that the days over and that I needed to memorise to page of runes by tomorrow, I got a little startled. I leave Flaminius, and start my journey home. On the way I think of how the training with Flaminius went. Suddenly, I get an idea. I wonder if this will work? I think to myself. Well, I won’t know unless I try.

See the thing is, that I remember all the spells Flaminius showcased to test me. Remember them maybe to replicate them. Before I get a head of myself though, I need to test this out, and I decide to do this with one of the simpler spells first, before casting anything too complex. One of the spells Flaminius showed to me was a simple spiral of wind, resulting in something somewhat similar to a very small hurricane. To get this he used the spiral rune on top of the wind element.

I gather up cluster of air energy. I then create the spiral rune, and place one on top of the other. In the end I get something that looks kind of like a tornado, if you squint a little. The results, while lack lustre, prove that I can in fact recreate magics that are shown to me, as long as I understand the runes and elements being used.

And so the sands of time shift and rumble once more, and a day passes, then a week, then an entire month. In this time my magic grows in leaps and bounds. Even if my relationship with Flaminius started off a little rocky, it at least bared some fruit.