Snapshots: The Lady of Life and Death

Sylan Myrkul practices a simple light spell in a graveyard. The college doesn’t usually forbid casting magic, but they made a special exception for her since she has yet to pass the safety classes that are prerequisites to arcane classes. To keep from prying eyes, she went to a place that she knows no one ever goes. As she invokes the power of light “Lumos, Agala!” and cups her hands she forms a tiny ball of light. Then she hears the voice of her roommate behind her, “Sylan, are you out here? I lost my key to our room, can I borrow yours?” Worried that her roommate might catch her casting spells, Sylan panics and accidentally packs the light spell full of power, creating a blinding burst of light. She hears a scream from behind her and footsteps running away, a thud as her roommate trips and falls to the ground before scrambling to her feet and fleeing. Sylan tries to chase after her but she can’t see. She’s blinded by her own spell. As the seconds pass, she begins to regain her vision. Her roommate is already long gone. Sylan knows that she’ll surely get expelled this time. But she can’t help but feel pride in finally casting a powerful spell. If she could do so much with just a light spell, she can’t even imagine what she could do with a more practical spell.

A few days later

“Sylan Myrkul, your presence is required by the College Board of Directors. Please report immediately.” Sylan solemnly walks to the office in which the Board of Directors counsel together. She knows she is going to be expelled. It was only a matter of time. And now that she has been caught practicing magic, creating a blinding light, and in a graveyard no less. It’s not a good look for her.

One of the directors begins speaking, “Miss Myrkul, we know you are a capable woman and have the potential to be a great mage. You’ve got talent that no one has seen in generations. But if you don’t learn discipline, then that talent of yours becomes a hazard. And we won’t abide hazards within our college grounds.”

“So you’re going to expel me?” Sylan Myrkul asks.

The directors shift uncomfortably. “The idea may have crossed our minds.” one of the directors admits. “But we have another solution. Your previous roommate has left the college and doesn’t seem to have any intention of returning. And we have another student that is excellent and prodigious in all his classes. We have high hopes for him. We think he should be your new roommate to be a role model to teach you discipline.”

“Him?” Sylan asks, “You’re rooming me with a man?”

“Um, not quite a man, really.” One of the directors says, “You see, he’s an Anthropod: Anthropomorphic Arthropod.”

Sylan Myrkul didn’t want to leave the college. But she didn’t like bugs. She decided to stay and give the new roommate a try. If she could stay at college and learn magic, she’d do almost anything.

Some time later

“Why didn’t they warn me that you can’t speak?” Sylan complains. Mycal the giant millipede clicks its mandibles in response. Sylan wonders if that’s it’s way of speaking or if it is just agitated. Sylan declares “I’ll have to have a talk with your teachers. If you're their student, they must be able to understand you, and I’m going to need someone to be a translator.”

Some time later

“So you just give him perfect grades even though you can’t read his work and can’t understand his sounds?” Sylan asks, accusatorily. The professor looks down sheepishly, “What am I supposed to do? Fail him just because I can’t understand him? He can understand us. And I can sometimes get basic information from him, ‘yes or no.’ But he can’t write with his lack of hands and he doesn’t have vocal cords.” Sylan Myrkul is annoyed that no one in school can understand what Mycal says. Even worse is that he might not be the perfect student the directors thought he was. He only gets good grades because the professors are too scared to admit to the directors that they can’t understand Mycal.

A few days later

“Since no one can understand you, I guess you can’t tell on me. Let’s try this one more time, “Lumos, Agala!” The small orb of light appears in her cupped hands. Even pouring in all her strength and energy, the light is bright but not anywhere near as bright as it was in the graveyard. She has been trying to replicate the event. Maybe she needs to go back to the graveyard to try it out again.

A few days later

Sylan Myrkul groans as she sees the guard by the graveyard. It was just one incident, but apparently that was enough for the Board of Directors to place a guard there. It’s going to be hard for her to practice light magic in a graveyard if a guard is watching her. In fact, she probably won’t even be allowed in the graveyard. Time to play the heartstrings.

Sylan takes out a mirror and uses realization magic to change the color of her clothes to black. Then she puts away the mirror and slowly walks towards the graveyard with her head down and sniffling. When she nears the guard, she says, “Oh, sir. You must be here to commemorate the anniversary of his death. Glaph was an excellent friend and a brilliant mage. Though I’m surprised anyone still visits. It’s been only me for a few years now. Maybe it’s because we were close. We had something special that no one else can understand. But now he’s gone.” She covers her face with her hands and pretends to sob as she walks through the gate to the cemetery. When did they build a gated brick wall? The guard is too off-put by Sylan’s seemingly sorrow that the guard doesn’t give any objection. Sylan pretends to mourn by a random gravestone. She conjures some flowers with a mirror through realization magic “Lumos, Extrila,” and the guard looks like he’s about to give an objection to her using magic, but then she lets out a deep sob and he decides to ignore the use of magic. She lays the flowers against the tombstone, and she notices that the flowers are solid and give off a thick floral scent. The flowers are also beautiful and lifelike. You would not be able to discern that they were illusions. These flowers, despite their magical origin, are real. Sylan Myrkul is surprised. While she could change the visual appearance of her clothes to be dark, she couldn’t convincingly change anything other than color. Now in the cemetery, she cast the more complex realization spell of producing illusory flowers, and the spell was far more powerful than she could have possibly created. What is it about the cemetery that empowers my spells?

A few days later

“Mycal, is that a dead body?” Sylan Myrkul asks as she stares at the corpse laying in the grass in front of her. The giant millipede waves its head up and down. Yes. Sylan Myrkul words her question carefully, as Mycal can only give ‘yes or no’ answers. “Did you kill that person?” The giant millipede waves its head from side to side. No. Now is the tricky part. Where could he have gotten the body? Then it occurs to her. She has been talking about her discovery that her magic is empowered at the cemetery. “Mycal, did you take the corpse from the cemetery?” Mycal waves his head up and down. Yes. Sylan Myrkul needs to return this body before anyone notices. If the guard finds it missing, he’ll blame her. But it also occurs to her that she can finally test her hypothesis. Are the corpses what makes her spells stronger or is it something else about the graveyard? Sylan Myrkul cups her hands together and says “Lumos, Agala!” The ball of light appears. It’s blindingly bright like it was before, but it is brighter than she has ever done outside of the cemetery. It lights the whole room with ease instead of barely lighting a few feet. So I have found it. The secret to magic is corpses. Who cares if I get expelled. If I stay around corpses, I can cast pretty much any spell that I know even the most basic components for.

Many days later

Sylan Myrkul stands before the Board of Directors again. One of the directors speaks, “Sylan Myrkul, it has been one month since you were assigned Mycal as your roommate, but you have not progressed. You still fail your safety classes. With this, we are sorry to say that you are hereby expelled. There is nothing here for you and we will not permit your presence here any longer.” It hurt to hear it even though Sylan Myrkul already knew she would be expelled. She quietly accepted their expulsion and let herself be led out of the campus.

A few days later

“Mycal, what are you doing out here?” Sylan asks, “The villagers will freak out if they see you!” The giant millipede is still incapable of speech, so it simply nudges her with his head westeward then slithers that way a few yards before looking back to see if she is following. It took her a few minutes to work up the courage to follow Mycal into the wilderness. But she had known Mycal for a whole month and he isn’t dangerous. He wouldn’t do anything to harm her even if he can’t comprehend human taboos such as Don’t dig up dead bodies!

A few days later

The fungal forest of mushrooms also has plants and animals that have disgusting growths of mossy mushrooms. Sylan Myrkul can’t imagine why Mycal would have led her here. Her fears began to rise again. But none of the animals here act hostile. Even bears just stand there, watching. Sylan hates how everything is staring at her. Eventually, Mycal stops in front of a massive Mushroom that’s as tall as a 5-story house. The mushroom puffs out a massive cloud of spores.