Slimes & Magic

10. Spells for me!

The following day the group continued their travels through more open fields and soon it was time for Alex's second magic lesson. Having finished their dinner Elvan and Alex walked some ways down the road from the campsite so that the magic they would be casting wouldn't affect the other two. "*If you want to keep casting for now in your snake form you might want to come sit on my shoulders here, otherwise you wont be able to see the magic we cast very well.*" Elvan says as he crouches down and puts out his hand towards Alex. Nodding once Alex shrinks down a bit in size and climbs up onto Elvan's shoulders so that they can do their magic practice from there. "*Alright then, for today I'll teach you a bunch of the magic spells that I know. Whenever you have someone teach you a named spell, you should always make sure that they explain what the spell does and how it works, otherwise you wont necessarily be able to use it well. This is of course because different people might imagine spells differently based only off of the name. So I'll explain and show you some spells, when casting make sure to aim any fire spells at the road so we don't catch the field on fire.*" Elvan says looking at Alex while talking. "*Alright then, you've seen me cast "earth spike" and "ice bullet" before, with this pair you can also cast "ice spike" and "stone bullet". The spike spells create spikes in a specific location growing from a starting point. Imagine it like a trap that suddenly pops up from the floor or out of the wall, so you can cast the spell to grow under what you are attacking and it will quickly grow to pierce it.*" Elvan says, pointing at the ground next to them making an ice spike grow out of the ground almost instantaneously. "*The bullet spells are basically projectiles that you create and then launch at your target, you decide how big you want it to be, how far you want it to fly, and then more of less blast it off with a powerful gust of wind.*" Elvan continues to explain as he demonstrates, "*Here, you create a bit of rock in whatever shape you want, making it as big as you want. Before you then let go of the magic you create some air behind it. when you do this make sure that you hold all the air in one spot and don't let it escape before you are done. Then once you have enough pressure built up for the distance that you want you release the air behind the bullet and let go of the magic and watch it fly off. Go ahead and try these for yourself.*" Gathering the magic together and making it flow in to their cast is no longer a problem for Alex because of their practice the previous evening. The spike spells had pretty good results, however the bullet spells didn't fly very far at all. "*Figuring out how much pressure you need to launch the bullet is something you will probably have to figure out for different types of spells as well. Once you understand how it works well you wont even have to think hard about it anymore. Next there is the "fire ball" and "fire arrow" spells, which are essentially the same spell, while fire ball has a wider effect the fire arrow is better for accuracy. The way they work is slightly different from the bullet spells because if we launch the fire in the same way as the bullet all the fire would just be blown out. Instead what we do is form a ball of fire, and encase that with a thin layer of air currents keeping the fire going inside. Then we can use the same air currents to launch the fire ball away, and when casting we set it so that the air currents disappear as soon as it hits a target unleashing the fire. Give it a go, but use the fire arrow by shaping the fire like an arrow.*" Indicates Elvan at the ground before them. Creating a rough arrow shape out of fire is the easy part it seems because as soon as Alex tried to encase it in air currents the fire just disappeared. "*Oh don't worry to much about it, if you keep practicing you'll eventually get the hang of it. Oh yes then we have the ability boost spell. This is a simple all in one spell that slightly boosts your defence, agility and strength. The basic principle behind it is that you send some of your magic in to your target's muscles to give them extra strength and speed, and you create a thin barrier around the target that will slightly slow down any incoming attacks. You'll have to save trying this one for the next time we are in a fight as its hard to test out right now with just you and me.*" Alex nods "***Ill try to remember to cast a boost the next time we fight***".
"*Then there is also a more advanced version of the barrier spell, which is basically turning your magic in to a solid see-through barrier. Honestly the best way to explain how this one works is that it takes your magic and compresses it in a set place so that any attack coming at it will be stopped. Of course the more magic you condense in to one spot the stronger the attacks are that the barrier will be able to stop. As for how the barrier looks it often takes on the purple colour that magic has, and it is thought that if someone with a uniquely high stat casts the barrier its colour will be consistent with that of the stat. So in theory your barrier should have a purple and golden tint.*" Elvan carefully bends down and picks up a rock. "*For you to try this one out try making a small barrier about halfway to the ground strong enough to stop this stone from falling. Ill drop the stone once you cast the barrier.*" Thinking about how to approach this the imagining seems rather vague to Alex, so in hoping to get a better result they decide to mentally think a sort of incantation to hopefully strengthen the image, "***Small barrier to stop a falling stone***", imagining it to be halfway to the ground from Elvan's hand, facing flat side up. Already tapping in to their magic flow Alex feels a slight pull on the magic flowing towards where they cast the spell. Directing the magic flow out, the pull doesn't show any sign of stopping so they decide to cut if off and let the magic loose when they deem it enough. Looking now at the barrier it seems to indeed have taken on a purple and gold colour, though it is still see-through. "*Very nice, lets see how strong it is.*" Elvan says dropping the stone, it falling and landing on the barrier. "*Hm very good, lets see how strong you actually made this barrier, ill try putting some of my weight on to it.*" Elvan puts their hand down on to the barrier covering it exactly and puts some pressure on it. With the barrier not budging at all Elvan leans in to put on some of their body weight and it breaks apart, fading away. "*Well ill tell you this much Alex, that was a very good barrier, though way to strong for this situation. Obviously practicing with how much magic to release will allow you to better judge the amount you need so no need to worry in that regard. There is one more thing I want to show you tonight.*" Elvan says to Alex, he puts out his hand in front of him and casts their own purple barrier. "*Once we cast our magic and we let go of it there is still a minimal connection that we continue to have with it. This minimal connection allows us to more or less cancel a spell that we cast. Imagine its like a thin thread connecting us and our cast together, and all we have to do as caster is break that thread. So, like with this barrier, it will continue to exist for a certain amount of time before it entirely disappears if nothing attacks it. If I want to get rid of this barrier before its broken or runs out of time all I have to do is imagine it breaking apart and fading away.*" The barrier that he had cast suddenly shatters and fades away as if it was hit by something. "*This can also be done with things like our fireballs before they hit a target, so if you accidentally get someone caught in the crossfire with your magic you should be able to cancel the fireball. Keep in mind that this doesn't work with the bullets because once we launch the bullet with air pressure there isn't any more magic controlling its movement, you would have to stop it with more magic to cancel it. Do you understand how this works?*" Elvan asks as he finished explaining. Alex, having heard a lot of information has just about reached their limit, nodding yes to indicate they understood."*Well I think that is about all of the basic stuff, Ill save you from some of the more advanced spells for now. Before we go to bed I'll say one more thing however.*" Says Elvan as he starts to walk back to the camp site. "*Tomorrow you should spend some time on one of our shoulders practicing some magic. If we don't come across anything that you can attack you should try coming up with different spells of your own that could be used for things other than attacking. Everyday magic is just as useful as battle magic. What you do need to remember in this case, is that when you are creating materials using magic, the harder it is to find the material naturally, the more magic costly it will be. So creating gold is far more costly than creating an equally large bit of dirt.*" With that bit of advice they find Carl fast asleep and May sitting on her tarp quickly hiding something from sight. Alex jumps down from Elvan's shoulder as he walks past May, turning in to a wolf before they hit the ground. "*Oh no looking yet*" May says quietly as she turns her back to Alex as they come closer investigating. "*It's not ready yet, turn around while I put this away.*" She says turning her finger in a circle towards Alex. Not wanting to spoil her surprise Alex sits down next to her facing the other way. Elvan checks the fire making sure it will burn out safely before they too follow Carls example and go to bed.