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“Man… three years and were still getting crowded by wizards and witches thanking us for defeating Malistaire, I really hope that this all blows over soon, I mean, we just dealt the final blow, nothing special about that…” I think as I put on my signature ashen cloth set that's been with me since near the start of my adventures.

My clothes were all a certain color scheme, snow white with icy blue accents for my signature school: Ice. The robes were form fitting but slightly loose, allowing a great range of movement, the shoes were slightly large, but otherwise a perfect fit, the pants were probably the tightest out of the entire set, but still just loose and flexible enough to feel comfortable, while the hood was probably my favorite, small enough that i can see past it and is easily retractable, but big enough that it covered my head well, only letting my lower jaw and mouth be seen easily, not many know that this is my signature set, as I've never pulled my hood down in public, not with these clothes.

“Oy Iceweaver! Get that cold heart of yours down here!” I heard from downstairs as laughter rose up with it.

I gained a small smile at that voice: our main Theurgist, Brianna Jadedreamer, our healer and my childhood friend, was calling me down, she's a sweet girl, but one should never piss her off, as she's also a well renown Pyromancer in our small group, it helps that her familiar is a Fire Cat and her hair is flame orange.

“I'm coming Bri, hold your broomsticks.” I call back down as I see my familiar waking up, she gives a small growl mixed with a yawn.

“Must we be awake at such an ungodly hour Issac?” she asked through our mental link, I just snicker at the thought.

“Sorry Nova, but today’s one of the few days we don't have any interviews or fans pounding down our door. We can finally do something we want to.” I tell her as she shakes herself awake and starts to hover next to me.

Nova is a dragon, who belongs to the school of Balance, so she can definitely help in a tight spot, she's a smoke grey color with her underside, horns and wing membranes being ice blue, we've been together ever since I saved her from an illegal trading ring we found and destroyed, Bri was the first to attack the first seller, we decided to follow her lead and freed all of the familiars from captivity, that was the first time we saw her mad.

“It is!?” she asked before flying over to the calendar on the wall next to the door, next thing I saw was her flying loops while laughing happily. “It is! Oh finally no interviews or parades or anything public! We can finally relax!” she calls out as she lands on my head and looks down into my eyes.

“I know, I know… now, how about we go see what Brianna wants before we head off to see the headmaster, then we can go to the pet pavilion so you can get some races in.” I say as I dust off my robes before heading towards the door to my room.

“Fine… but only if i can get some Gummycats afterwards!” she says climbing down to my shoulder, I laugh a bit at her love of Gummycats.

“Sure, we can get some Gummycats after the races.” I tell her as we head down the stairs.

Rounding the corner I see my friends, no, family sitting in the dining/kitchen area having a good time, Bri and her Firecat, ‘King’ Alexander were laughing at something, probably one of Angel’s jokes, he's always able to make us laugh. Angel Deathcaller, our Necromancer who’s also a powerful Conjurer who dabbles with Shadow spells, his familiar being a Dark Sprite named ‘Empress’ Luna, he deals with the dead and other types of creatures, he was once one of Malistaire’s top generals while he was trying to take over the Spiral until he met me and Brianna, we defeated him and his most powerful minions, we were able to snap him out of the trance he was placed under and recruited him as our third member, he helped us pick off Malistaire’s army and got us to Malistaire himself, which lead us to defeating him and becoming heroes throughout the Spiral.

“Okay, that was funny, but I still think you placed it there with magic last second.” I heard coming from the room just before I entered, that belonged to Kimberly SpellSong, our Diviner, or a ‘Storm-mage’ who also dabbles in the arts of Celestial magic.

That got my attention as Kim pulls out a whoopee cushion from underneath her, I chuckle a bit before announcing myself to the others.

“Hey guys, I seemed to have missed a classic prank, anyways, how is everyone?” I ask as I get their attention, they smile when they see what I'm wearing.

“We’re doing good, so you decided to wear the original outfit huh? It looks nice after all these years of wear and tear that happened to it.” Kim replied before giving me a once over. “Could use some different colors, but it's still you darling.” she said, smiling a bit as I chuckled.

You see Kim wanted to be a fashion designer when she was younger, her mom would help her with that dream while her brother taught her everything she needed to know about magic. A similar life if you think about it, me and Brianna had that kind of life too, only with different dreams and our father instead of any siblings, Kim didn't like talking about her father, now don't get me wrong, he was a great man, but he died when she was five, so it hurt her a lot. Anyways, back on track.

“Right, but no changing the colors, you know I take pride in showing what school I was first in.” I say turning around and showing off my school’s symbol on the back in pitch black.

“You always did take pride in being a Thaumaturge, even if you also studied to be a Theurgist too.” Angel commented as Luna floated onto his shoulder.

“Well we needed all of the healing spells we could get, so why not?” I say shrugging before going to sit in the empty seat. “So, what did you need me down here for Bri? It sounded important.” I say looking at the witch across from me, her forest green clothes with the bright orange accents made her stand out just enough.

She smiled sweetly, her golden eyes sparkling with amusement, which seemed to brighten against her raven black, shoulder length hair. “I was wondering if you wanted to go with me to the library right now, I found out about a few new spells that combine two different types of magic schools. I'm pretty sure I saw one that combined Life with Ice and one that combines Fire with Life, so I wanted to see if you were up for a little experimentation?” She said, gaining our attention, everyone was silent once she told us what she wanted to do.

“That… sound completely stupid, dangerous, and most of all like something could go completely wrong.” I say as I slowly get up from my seat, with each word the spark in her eyes slowly died, the other two looked at me in surprise, that was until I slammed my hands onto the table while smiling like a lunatic. “Let's do it!” I say as I look into her eyes, the spark coming back full force before she smiles and rushes up to her room, the others breathed a sigh of relief.

“You scared us for a second there mate, I thought you were about to degrade her for real.” Angel said as Luna shook herself from the coldness in my voice.

“Oh come on man, you know I could never do that to Brianna, we grew up together, we know more about the other than we know about ourselves.” I say as I get up, Nova curls around the back of my neck to hold herself steady.

“While true Isaac, you even gave me the impression that you were actually going to scold her for looking into mixed school spells.” She says nuzzling my cheek, I just chuckled lightly and brought up my hood before exiting our house and into the peaceful setting of Unicorn Way.

Now as much as I love where we decided to place our house, the main pavilion of Wizard City is the place to be, it's probably the most jam-packed place in the Spiral you'll ever be in, witches and wizards come here from all across the Spiral to attend Ravenwood Academy and learn about both their schools and themselves, especially for the School of Death, as it had been found and repaired by Bri and I, anyways, it's always a welcoming sight to see new faces running past as to get somewhere important, of course there's a lot of us, but when you know where you're going, it can be easy to navigate around in the streets, it helps when most of them know where to go too, so coming from a light jog in Unicorn way to a bustling walk in the pavilion came natural to me. Now our first stop was Headmaster Ambrose’s workplace/home, as earlier in the week I had received a letter from him detailing that he had something for me to pick up, and that it looked important. Coming up to the stone walls that line the mansion I could easily see through the open double doors about ten witches and wizards inside all with certain papers, one looked like he was from a very rich family and was practically shoving the others out of the way just to talk to the Headmaster. That's when I came through the door and right up to the Headmaster.

“Greetings Headmaster, you wished to see me about an important package that arrived?” I calmly said, gaining everyone’s attention, even the rich snob.

“How dare you just barge in here and demand that the Headmaster is required to see you!” the rich twat next to me screamed out before aiming a punch at me, to which I easily caught.

“Ah, young Issac, it's good to see you again, yes… now where did I place that box… maybe Gamma has seen it, why don't you go talk to her.” he informed me before looking back at the papers in front of him.

“Of course Headmaster, and I wish you luck on finding room for all of the new students that will be attending Ravenwood Academy. I know that I'll be happy to see all of the new students.” I say bowing my head before heading off to the side door, to the tower and Gamma’s usual reading spot.

“Hoo! Greetings Issac, I take it you're here for the package that was sent here?” a voice called out as I entered the tower.

“That I am Gamma, do you happen to know where it is?” I asked the snow grey owl who took a small box from under her perch and flew over to me.

“Here you go Issac.” she said as she dropped it into my waiting hands.

“Thank you Gamma, now if you excuse me I have places I need to go to and people I need to see, have a wonderful afternoon.” I comment making my way past the beautiful projection of the Spiral and out the door on the other side.

“You too Issac. Hoo!” I heard Gamma call before the door shut.

I quickly made my way over to the library and saw Brianna with King Alexander waiting at the entrance, they immediately saw me.

“There you are Issy! I've been waiting for nearly half an hour!” she said as I came up the steps.

“Sorry about that Bri, I had to make a quick stop by the Headmaster's place to pick something up, I was hoping to be quicker about it, but there some new witches and wizards trying to apply to R.A.” I replied before we entered the library, which was just as busy as the other places, except the pet pavilion.

New students were going throughout the library and checking out books, we always had this feeling of serine calm here, even with all of the activity around us, it was probably the calm and collected aura of Harold Argleston, the librarian, he helps witches and wizards with what they needed, whether it was books for school or treasure cards for a last minute spell. The old dog was the best when it came to remembering things, kind of like the exact opposite of the headmaster, but just as respected. We quickly walked up to the side where reserved books are placed and Bri quickly took out a void black book.

“Here it is, now let's just magi-check and leave.” she says pulling out her staff and tapping the crystal above the books slot, the gem glowed green, meaning that it was checked out. “Alright let's go.” she commented before walking out the door.

It took us a little bit longer to go back to Unicorn Way and find Diego, the resident duelmaster, at his normal charge, helping new witches and wizards with dueling and how to combine spells with others. Now that i think of it, he was one of the few biped unicorns I've ever met, but he was still a nice guy, even taught me how to work with more than one person while fighting enemies. We quickly went into the arena and found the Grizzleheim area to be empty, we quickly filled it's slot before anyone else could and went in to practice the new spells.

“Okay, so what spell should we try first?” I ask as we enter the center of the area, it was beautiful here, I always loved dueling here, as it helped me keep my cool with the tranquil sounds of the area.

“How about we look at the ones that combine Life with another school, as we’re both Theurgists.” she suggested and I nodded, it would be nice to have some new healing spells in case another big bad shows up to take over the Spiral. “Okay, let's have a look in the book.” she remarks opening the book and flipping through the pages.

She was about halfway through the book before we found the first primary Life spell, it seemed to combine the ‘Fire Cat’ and ‘Sprite’ spells making a healing flame that lasted four rounds, healing 60 hp up front with an extra 390 hp over time, and it cost five pips.

“Expensive, but a good mid-battle healing spell to have.” I comment as she looks on how to cast it properly.

“True, and thanks to me being able to use both schools, I should be able to pull this off properly.” she remarks before i prepare a spell.

“Then you're in luck Bri, i'm going to summon an old friend, he'll help you test that new spell you want to learn.” I say before pulling out an ice blue colored card and adding mana to it, since I didn't have pips to channel my mana I had to use twice as much to activate it.

The spell was one of the lower tier spells we had, but it helped in a bind when we aren't all together, so using six mana i summon up the minion spell ‘Ice Guardian’ and had him placed on one side of the dueling circle, she quickly thanked me and entered the other side, it was then that the duel circle activated and began the duel.

Ice Guardian goes first.
Ice Guardian casts ‘Ice blade’ on itself.

Brianna’s turn.
Brianna Jadedreamer casts ‘Spirit Armor’ on herself.

Ice Guardian's turn
Ice Guardian casts ‘Ice Trap’ on Brianna Jadedreamer.

Brianna’s turn
Brianna Jadedreamer passes.

Ice Guardian’s turn
Ice Guardian passes.

Brianna’s turn
Brianna Jadedreamer casts ‘Spirit Armor’ on herself.

Ice Guardian's turn
Ice Guardian casts ‘Snow Shark’ on Brianna Jadedreamer.
Successful cast /// Ice Trap activates +30% - Ice Blade activates +40% - Spirit Armor activates -400 / destroyed - Spirit Armor activates -390 /// Snow Shark deals 0 damage

Brianna’s turn
Brianna Jadedreamer passes.

Ice Guardian’s turn
Ice Guardian casts ‘Ice Cat’ on Brianna Jadedreamer.
Successful cast /// Spirit Armor activates -10 - Ice resistance activates /// Ice Cat deals 81 damage
Jadedreamer’s HP at 5911/5992

Brianna’s turn
Brianna Jadedreamer passes.

Ice Guardian’s turn
Ice guardian casts ‘Ice Trap’ on Brianna Jadedreamer.

Brianna’s turn.
Brianna Jadedreamer passes.

Ice Guardian’s turn
Ice Guardian casts ‘Ice Blade’ on itself.

Brianna’s turn
Brianna Jadedreamer passes.

Ice Guardian’s turn
Ice Guardian casts ‘Snow Shark’ on Brianna Jadedreamer.
Successful cast /// Ice Blade activates +30% - Ice Trap activates +40% - Ice Resistance activates /// Snow Shark deals 663 damage
Jadedreamer Hp at 5246/5992

Brianna’s turn
Brianna Jadedreamer casts ‘Sprite’s Flame’
Successful cast /// Sprite’s Flames heals 60 Hp /// Sprite’s Flame activates - heals 98 Hp
Jadedreamer Hp at 5406/5992

Watching her cast that spell was definitely something, it had pure white flame on a small pedestal surrounded by five Sprites, they then started to fly around the fire it then shot up and enveloped her, it then got rid of any scratches or cuts she had and those that it didn't were glowing white. She then destroyed my Ice Guardian and ended the duel, her injuries were completely gone and she was now holding three new cards that were green and red, showing the flame and the pedestal on the card.

“Well done Bri! You cast it perfectly!” i call out as the circle fades, she just smiles as she tries to catch her breath.

“I didn't think it'd be that powerful, sure it's a healing spell… but the amount of magic in that spell took a lot of me, like my energy was converted into my health.” she says walking over to me, and i could see a small layer of sweat on her brow.

“It's okay, that was your first time casting a duel school spell, it's bound to be more powerful than both schools individually.” I comment as I help her sit down on a rock before looking through the book.

“Yeah, I guess that's true, but it just… felt different from my usual healing spells.” she says getting me to look over at her in concern.

“Different how?” I ask, lowering the book a bit, she seems to think back at when she used the spell.

“Well, my usual healing spell feels like a soft cool breeze passing through me, like it's comforting me, that spell though, it felt like it was as if the breeze was trying to contain a solar flare, a barely did it's job. Like I could feel the breeze, but it was almost overpowered by the heat I felt.” she explains making me look down at the book in worry, if a healing spell mixed with fire was like a solar flare going through her, what was one mixed with ice going to feel like?

“It's okay, just try to get used to the feeling, unless you want to save it for something really important.” I say smiling at her a little bit before looking back at the book.

“Yeah… that'd be nice…” she comments before i find a spell that combines the Balance spell ‘Sandstorm’ and the Myth spell ‘Dimension Shift’.

It was a trade spell, so it was a Myth primary, as Sandstorm is a damage spell, it cost 5 pips and seemed to be a reverse damage spell, making the caster send damage against whoever cast the damaging spell in the first place, and it had one that targeted all allies if i could master this one, now the reason this spell caught me attention was because i was planning to dabble in both Myth and Balance, as i was also planning to practice the other schools too, to be a true wizard of balance. But this was something that would be difficult, and it could easily fail.

“You found a spell you wanted to try yet Issy?” Brianna asks, bringing me back to the real world.

“Yeah, I think I've got one that i'd like to try, but it's going to be difficult.” I say as I motion for Nova to come with me.

“Do you need me to cast anything?” she asks about getting up from her rock.

“No, this spell won't require any minion to go up against, so i'll be fine.” I say as I enter the center of the arena. “But just as a precaution, can you head into the stands? I don't want you to be caught up in this if I do cast it right.” i say looking back at her, she just nods and heads up the stairs that lead from the arena towards the stands as i prepare the spell.

“I had basic teachings in both schools, so I should be able to cast it.” I think as I channel my mana into performing the spell.

I had cast the spell perfectly, and it looked awesome, swirling through the entire arena floor was a brown and greenish yellow… that was until it started to swirl faster and I could feel a pull, confused I attempted to stop the spell, but it didn't work, that got me to panic, trying to reverse the spell I started looking through the book, I didn't notice the vortex behind me until it was wide enough to have me walk into it normally, I felt the tugging sensation become stronger until I was off my feet flying through the air with Nova flying past me and into the vortex, i dropped the book upon my feet leaving the ground, but the last thing i saw was Brianna’s crying out something before a bright flash of light enveloped my vision and then darkness…

Author's Note

And the first memory is out! This took a while to write, but it was so worth the extra time... anyways, as always my lovely little night terrors, stay terrifying!!