Five Magics

One month ago…

What… where am I? I got hit by a bus… did I seriously die?

Hi, I’m Par Gally.

Oh, hey dude.

What’s a dude?

You don’t know what a dude is?

No, not really. Do you know what happened?

I got hit by a bus! I was touring with Ozzy, and…

You died! Yes, you died and now you’re stuck in my body as a spirit! I think you came from another world. You’re saying a lot of words that don’t make sense to me.

Oh no, I’m so sorry dude… I should be halfway to Hell right now. My bad, I mean ‘a real bad place.’

We have Hell here, too. Anyways, I’m very smart, but I hate working hard. Do you want to take over my body while I simply stay in your soul and watch you live your life?

What?

Yes, you can live a new life, and all I have to do is give you some memories to get you started.

Can I still play music? I want to play guitar again…

Of course! I don’t know what a ‘gittar’ is, but I play a lute. I’m a battle bard.

That’s rad, dude. I’m up for it.

Okay, get ready to wake up!

Present day…

I woke up with that same dream. It was pitch black, and both me and Gally were floating around talking. I either think he summoned me here, or I just randomly popped into his body. Either way, Gally is super chill and he’s resting somewhere deep in my “soul” or something like that. He’s definitely resting because the other spirit in my, Arg, is always watching and living my old world memories. He would say things like “Yo, what’s ganja, bro?” while I’m in class, and I’d laugh! What else could I do if I saw a ghost of a pointy-eared dude asking me what ganja is in street talk?!

“Par Gally, can you please explain to me the fundamentals of Galakion and its 5 main elements? Since you have time to laugh at your professor?” Ah crap. What was her name? Professor S’mores? Schmutz? Schmutzal!

“Yes, Professor Schmutzal! Galakion is the Gift of Magic from Galaka to all species, excluding the Minotaurs. The five magics are as follows: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Energy.

Fire allows control of flames, combustion, high temperature objects, and sunlight.

Water allows control over water in all forms, including ice and vapor, and any liquid.

Air allows control of the dynamics of wind, such as pressure, density, and air supply.

Earth allows control of rocks, soil, minerals, and metals.

Energy allows control of light, plasma, electricity, and mana.”

Ha, Five Magics. If only Dave Mustaine could hear about this. Thanks for the memory, Gally!

“Good. Stay after class.” Aw man, detention time? I looked at Lara, and she looked at me back with rolled eyes. Man, having 3 spirits in my body is a pain in the ass!

“Professor! I think Gally did a great job explaining the 5 Fundamentals, even when he was laughing by himself. We need to perform our guild duties after class, as we are assigned together. Is it okay if I subject him to whatever punishment you were planning on after hours? Lara spoke loudly while standing. Her choices of words were not ideal, man. The class began to laugh all around us.

“Lara, after class as well.” Lara sat down and glared at me. Dude, none of this was my fault!

After the class bell rang like a typical high school sitcom, the students ran out of class like it was on fire. Professor Schmuztal had us sit next to each other, and she sat in front of us on a chair.

“Lara, Gally, I’m sorry I had to keep you both after class. I wasn’t trying to punish you both. I heard about the B rank quest.” Lara looked at me in relief.

“Yes, we both fought a whispertree and killed it! Well, Gally did most of the work.”

“Gally? Is that true? I understand that you are a battle bard, and your family is extremely renowned for the unusual class… But I have also heard that most of your members don’t usually have their affinities awakened until later in life.”

“Yeah, Prof. I have a secret to share…” Arg was squirming in my head, trying to hush me before I said something. Lara shot me a glance as well. I think I should shut up.

“I hit my head a month ago, and I started being able to cast spells with my lute.” I felt a giant relief, mostly from Arg.

“Is that so? And I also have heard that you have a Guardian Spirit a year earlier than you usually would as an elf. What is your Guardian?” The Professor is a human, which is why she asked so bluntly. Apparently, elves don’t just ask stuff like that. It’s like asking me what type of boxers I wore at the show.

“Professor, I don’t think that was appropriate to ask an elf, you know this…”

“It’s a cat. Kinda like a Sacred Cat.” Lara and the professor looked at each other, shocked for different reasons. I forgot, having a Sacred Cat as a Guardian is super rare, too. In fact, if I revealed that to anyone else, like a guild member or something, I would be immediately poached for guild work without graduating.

“Wonderful, wonderful indeed. I noticed that you began to talk in strange words. Perhaps you hit your head quite hard. Though I’m grateful that you are experiencing positive magical growth after your injury, you need to make sure that you take care of yourself. Okay?”

“Yes, thanks Prof!” Shoot, I keep calling her Prof, like back at home in college.

“And for you, Lara. I noticed that you also have increased your mana banks naturally, is that correct?” Mana bank is like how much a body can hold magic, and it’s like a muscle. If you hit the gym everyday, the bigger your muscles get, with the right protein shake added too.

“Yes, Professor Schmuztal, thank you for noticing. I have been training very hard after our encounter with the whispertree. During the fight, I noticed that my mana bank began to grow, and I used that momentum to keep pushing it to grow faster. I think I am just below an A rank.”

“Excellent, excellent indeed. Well, I will vow to you both that I will keep your statuses secret. I am sure that if anyone else had caught wind of both of you, I wouldn’t be able to shake your hand during your graduations.” I never realized how nice Prof was. I think Gally’s memories are a bit biased since he’s some smarty pants and he didn’t like instruction. I’m kinda dumb, so I appreciate a little bit of hand holding with things I don’t know about.

After our “detention,” we had to perform some more guild work to get credits for graduation. Because we did a B rank quest, our credits shot up pretty hard, so we only need to do like one or two more D ranks before we finish. Since we also registered that cat quest, that means we only need one more. Wow, I can’t do math.

The last quest we decided to do before committing to training with my parents was a rat infestation. It wasn’t the best quest, but it helped a poor human community, which was cool. The human workers were too scared to work there anymore, so the guild and those people were losing money at the same time.

The rats here were the size of bulldogs, and their teeth look like fangs, and they also spit poison. It made sense why anyone would be scared to work here. By the way, this was another B rank quest.

Lara began to survey the area, which was a basement under a huge warehouse. She has affinity to Air and Energy, which is a great combination apparently. Even though she was a healer, she can cast crazy offensive magic.

“Hey, Gally, I want to see if I can do this with just myself. If I fail, watch my back, okay?”

“Sure, dudette. I got your six.”

“Thanks, whatever that means.”

Lara casted a light spell, and it revealed a sea of gross fur in this basement. Thank Lemmy that we were on the top of some stairs.

“Ars Aerio!” Lara casted an air spell, and I could see the rats starting to suffocate. This was pretty metal, especially for a healer. Unfortunately, only half of the basement was purged, and the next half swarmed towards us. Since she was too busy maintaining her huge spell, I started to shred.

I played Lay It Down by Ratt, and a huge black ball appeared in the basement. It pushed everything down, including the suffocating rats. After a few seconds or something, everything under that ball was squished into meat soup. None of the rats made it to us.

“Gally, what in blazes was that?! I’ve never seen gravity magic before!”

“I don’t know… I just played a song called Lay It Down by a band called ‘Ratt’, and that thing showed up.”

Lara giggled from the obvious irony. Arg popped out of my chest.

“Yes, dear! This is technically Earth magic, but it is combined with Energy to control the energy of the Earth itself, which increases the gravity in a specific spot by a thousand-fold!”

“Does Gally have an affinity for all 5 magics?!”

“Technically, he does not. He only has an affinity for Energy. However, the Energy he uses is much like the Energy used for Summoning. However, instead of summoning beasts or undead, he is able to summon the elements themselves. This, itself, is quite unique, as I’ve only seen a few of his talents in my earlier days. In addition, I have never met a battle bard who uses a lute to summon anything. Most battle bards use lutes to imbue support magic to their party, but this is the first I’ve seen with offensive magic. Gally and Ricky, you dudes rock!”

Woah, he knows my speech! Arg, you rock!

“Thanks, dude! Lara, your Air spell was so rad. You held a light and you sucked their air away at the same time. That’s like a huge bench press!” Lara blushed, but also was confused by some of the words.

“Thank you, Gally, and, or, Ricky. What’s a bench press?”