Soul of a Human

Rosana Amethyne was worried. Mor, who she knew only as her slightly reclusive muster student, did not appear in class this morning and questioned his friends she would only get the answer, that they didn't know. So while she was on her break, Rosana went to the dorm room of the missing student to find it locked from the inside. Getting no answer after knocking a few times, she uses her magic and authority as a teacher to unseal the magic door lock, she enters to the sight of something awful. Her student Mr. Agaton lying unconscious next to something that looked like a hastily drawn and obviously failed runic circle, which she instantly recognized as a faulty soul-merging ritual.

She rushed to Mor´s side and tried to get him awake, but nothing she did would rouse him, he might have overestimated his magic reserves for this ritual, and with this, she used a teleport spell to get him to the academy's infirmary, and instantly calling her grandfather the headmaster and the healing adept on station for help. As the three mages converged in the infirmary, Rosana told the Adept and her grandfather what she had found, this erupted into a heated discussion and after letting the adept do her work, she and the headmaster went to Mor´s room.

Headmaster Amethyne walked around and looked at the carnage, mumbling to himself until finally coming to a conclusion.

“He really tried to do a soul binding, but it failed. Look here in the runic circle there are wrong symbols used, and I can´t even begin to describe what foolish idea it was to use plain earth as a kind of medium. Rosana, do you know why he would do something like this?” He asked and Rosana shook her head.

“No idea, I thought he would finally fit in after he made some friends. The first weeks of loneliness must have been very depressing, but after he started hanging out with the heir of the Ruby family and his group his grades improved a little, well the theoretical at least. Because as you know he has no specialized affinity he might never reach the true heights of magic.” The headmaster nodded.

“Yes but maybe this is exactly the reason, you say he found friends with the Ruby boy? Then maybe he felt inadequate and it is known that a soul-binding ritual if done correctly will enhance your shared magic energy over what the sum of both parts would be. I can only imagine he wanted to gain an attribute with this mess and a bigger magic energy reservoir. Probably to not be left behind by his, I must say, very talented friends.” He shrugs

“And maybe for all his school smarts, he is just a young dumb boy. We probably will find out after he awakens and tells us. But first, let's get rid of this mess before someone else gets hurt.” With this, they both start incantations to remove every sign of the failed ritual.

Meanwhile, in the infirmary the Adept did her very best to get Mor to reawaken, using magic that primarily restores the magic energy. After a while she noticed the eyelids of the boy flutter and he groaned. The Adept instantly called the headmaster and Miss Rosana, and they waited for a little bit as Mor came to. Mor slowly opened his eyes looking at the unfamiliar space and noticing the grave expression of the three adults in the room.

“What happened? Where am I?” Mor asked, which led Rosana to sigh and answer him.

“You are in the infirmary. Because what you did knocked you out for almost a full day.” This in turn plastered a confused look on Mor´s face as he tried to remember and falling short, he silently shook his head as if in pain. Which in turn let the headmaster speak up.

“You were either an idiot or desperate. We found signs of a soul-binding ritual in your room, and it seems you tried to do something that only works in fairytales. How did you even know how the ritual circle had to look? It was too close to being right, to just be coincidence from the well-known children's book scribbles and some half knowledge of a first-year student.”

Mor strained his memory, yes there were flashes of desperation. Slowly the pieces fell back together and let him remember. But he could not tell the truth, or why he had tried the attempt.

“I saw it in some pictures of the ceremony of my parents and adapted it as best as I could. I just wanted to get stronger” Mor mumbled and earned a stern look from the headmaster for this.

“So you did not want to be left out of your friend circle and the best idea for you was to try something that could have killed you or removed any chance of living a fulfilling life with a partner. You boy are lucky it failed and did not kill you in the process, that was incredibly stupid and will have ramifications and before you ask how I know it failed, I can sense your magic and it is still the same as before. Now for your punishment, I will inform your parents of this, and you will deliver a report to my office in three days on the topic of why using magic above your capabilities is a bad idea. Do you understand?” The last question was voiced without allowing any objection.

“If so, sleep for today, you need to recover your magic energy.” The face of the headmaster softened. “And eat something boy, you look like you need it.”

After everyone left, the Adept promised to bring him some food later. Mor wanted to cry. “Why did it fail, it is not fair! I don't want to be weak anymore. Why am I always unlucky.” He sobbed. As he heard someone ask.

°What failed?°

Shocked, Mor looked up, and could not detect anyone else in the room, slightly scared he called out, “Hello, who is there?” And probably because his luck is indeed bad, the door opened and four familiar students sauntered into the infirmary.

“Hey, peasant! You did not fulfill your obligations today. Where is the homework you promised us, we almost got into trouble with the teacher! Well, at least you had the sense to pull her away so no harm done here. What happened? Did the big baby have an itty bitty nervous breakdown? Want me to bring you some sweets.” Ranbor scoffed. “If you let us hang again, we will really hurt you but for today you are lucky and have the whole attention of sweet Zaletha just for yourself, aren't we nice?.”

Mor tried to suppress his rising fear because it will only give the illusion hold on his mind and completely failing he braced himself for the agony of whatever this witch will put him through this time, but nothing happened. Instead there was this unfamiliar voice again, screaming in rage, °FUCK OFF!° but his bully´s seemed not to hear it, could it be his imagination? Did he finally snap under the abuse and go crazy? At least it seemed the illusion could find no purchase and he was spared whatever torment would have been in stock for him.

Zaletha was confused, her illusion magic just bounced off the mental fortitude of that peasant, which should have been impossible. So instead she huffed “Not today, it is no fun when he's sitting around all sick. We´re leaving so he can dwell in his loneliness.”

And with an almost unnoticeable nervous glance, she turned around and stomped out of the infirmary, the three boys on her heels, berating her for ruining their fun.

°That was something else! But now that this is over, might want to explaint to me what´s going on?° Mor sight yes he was definitely crazy because the voice was back.“