Lazily, my eyes drift open, the world still blurry from the golden light filtering through the curtains, casting elongated shadows of all the furniture throughout the room. Still stuck in a morning haze, I gnce around the room. The door is slightly ajar, and next to it stands a massive dresser, which stands at least four times my height. In the corner, there’s table with all sorts of dad’s toys, all setup like a battlefield. To my right, there's a small dresser, which has a piece of parchment resting on top, on it is the alphabet scribbled across in messy handwriting. On my left, another bed is against the wall. I squint at it and rub my eyes, noticing the sheets rustled to the side.
I feel a nose poking into my upper shoulder; I look down to see Lay shifting in her sleep; her eyes still closed. Currently, she’s sprawled across the bed wrapping her arms around my torso. Her long bck hair ys sprawled out across the pillow and onto my arm. Also, she's drooling into my shirt, which is kind of uncomfortable. Every night since we started sharing a room she's been crawling into our bed, likely because she's still scared of the dark.
I try to move, but Lay shifts uncomfortably when I do. I really don't want to wake her up. I try again, this time she hugs tighter, locking me in pce with an iron grip. Looks like I'm stuck here until she wakes up... Bored, I stare up at the ceiling. "You guys awake?" I say in my head, my eyes still locked on the patterns in the wooden ceiling.
“What do you think?” Rose replies with a yawn, forcing a yawn out of all of us.
One of the weirdest things about sharing a body is how we don't share the same dreams. I thought we would finally be able to meet face-to-face when we slept. Unfortunately that’s not the case, we all are off in our own separate worlds, alone, until morning when one of us wakes up. Although if I’m being honest, it's really nice to have the peace and quiet during the nights.
"We're sneaking into the attic today," I poke Lay's cheek trying to wake her up, "Are we bringing her?"
"Can we..?" Ogma says tired
"I don't see why not." I pause for a second. "Celia?"
I feel myself brutally pushed aside as Celia takes over; she moves Lay and pces her hand on her chest "Answer: Lay does not have the required capacity to use crysta"
"So... um... can she come with us..?" Ogma asks with a sad tone.
"Crification: No, she will likely harm herself in the process. It is estimated she wait another year before any attempts with crysta are made." Celia says coldly.
“Okay… But we’re not making her use 'crysta'. She doesn't know how to read, so she can’t accidently use it, and even if she tries to copy us, i'll stop her. We just need to know if she can come along."
I mostly say this for Ogma’s sake. The second Celia shut her down, I could feel Ogma’s sadness about to burst. I don’t really care whether Lay comes or not, but if having her there stops Ogma from getting upset, then she’s coming with us.
There’s a brief pause before Celia responds. "Conclusion: This is, acceptable... she can accompany us but it will provide no tactical advantage."
“Yeah, well, neither does Rose, yet she's still coming along.”
“Hey!” Rose yells at me.
"BWAHAAHAA" Ashley, you who was quiet before, cuts in, her ughter drowning out Rose who is now yelling at her and me.
Ashley pushes out Celia and takes over control of our body. She was going to do it anyway, so Celia didn’t bother trying to fend her off. Ashley props herself up on the bed, taking a few moments to stretch, which feels really good in the morning. She forces Lay's arms off of us and wipes the drool off our shirt. Lay rolls to the side slightly, waking up and looking up at us, her golden eyes staring into ours.
Ashley pushed up, sitting down feet dangling off of the bed. She turns our head to Lay “Ay, time to wake up, we're breaking into the attic today.”
Wide eyes looking at us "...Huh?" she mutters.
Ashley grins. “We're breaking into the attic today. You in?”
She gets up on the bed, sitting next to us, tilts her head to the side, looking into our eyes again "Awre we gonna look for books?"
Ashley smirks. “Something like that."
Lay fidgets with the hem of her shirt. “Can you read to me...” she mumbles, gncing at the floor.
Ashley reached up ruffling her hair. “Sure!”
I take control back from Ashley; she didn't even resist. Right after breakfast, we’d be heading up to the attic.
Part 2: Attic
Lay and I finish our food as quickly as possible, smming our bowls onto the table at the same time. Our eyes meet, and we're both smiling. Mom looks at the both of us after scarfing down our food, shakes her head and sighs. She's not saying anything, but she probably already knows we're getting into something. I jump off the chair and dart to the hallway, motioning Lay to follow. It takes her a second to process before she jumps off her seat and chases after me, "Wait fow meee!” Lay yells as I run upstairs.
I’m already halfway up the stairs by the time she reaches me, but I slow just enough for her to catch up. Reaching the top, I poke my head just above the top step, good there’s no one watching. I turn to Lay who is next to me, grabbing her hands in mine.
“Lay, your mission should you choose to accept it, is to help me break into a highly secure vault that holds secret books” I say.
Her head tilts to the side, eyes glistening with childlike wonder. “What’s a vault?”
“You good nix? You’re doing it again.” Ashley cuts in.
My face turns red embarrassed. "...N-Never mind!" I let go of her hands and run up the steps, pressing my back against the wall and shuffling forward. "Just follow me."
Lay mimics me, pressing herself ft against the wooden wall. As we approach the room that holds the entrance to the attic, I pause, peeking around the doorframe. There’s nobody there…
I turn back to Lay, lowering my voice. "Two guards inside. Trust me, I got this."
I reach down, grab the small wooden ball that I had stuffed into my waistband earlier, this was one of the toys dad had given me. I toss it into the room and watch as it rolls across the floor. It comes to a stop near the far wall. I plug my ears and Lay does the same.
Three… two… one… BOOM! (I make an explosion sound with my mouth)
We slip into the room, looking around before our eyes fall upon the hatch to the attic. The entrance was already open, likely because dad had just gone up here before he left. There is a rge wooden dder that leads upwards, it was much taller than me. Lay immediately starts climbing up without me, trying to show off.
I step back, watching as she climbs up, I prepare myself mentally to catch her if she falls, luckily she makes it to the top safely. Her legs kick a little as she hoists herself up, and I hear a thud of something falling as she gets to the top. A second ter, her head pops back down. "Come on"
I used to climb the rge oak tree outside my school, so I make it up there with ease, Lay helps me get my bance when I reach the top.
The attic surprisingly looks like a normal room, the only difference being that this room holds a bunch of swords, spears, and other weaponry. Honestly, that's most likely the reason we weren't allowed into the attic, mom's scared we'll hurt ourselves. There is, however, two training swords in the corner that are wooden and about our size. Other than that it's filled to the brim with dangerous weaponry and crates too rge for either of us to see into. The room itself is illuminated by a rge circur window at the far end. Wooden beams stretch across the roof, and the floor creaks beneath us as we walk around.
Lay immediately took to the two wooden swords in the corner, pying with them.
I scan the room, searching for any pce mom might've put the books for when she's not using them. I find a suspicious chest in the corner of the room, with a little upper arm strength, I push it open and look inside. There are around five... no, six books stacked on top of each other along with some currency in the form of coins that I've never seen before. I take them all out lining them on the floor. Standing above them arms crossed and proud.
Part 3: Beginner Magic Theory
Out of the six books, two are the stories mom read to us, so I’ll be setting those aside to read to Lay after I'm done. The other four books are different and will likely prove to be useful. These were the four books:
This book mostly contains information about the various kinds of pnt life found in Palthea, or whatever country we're currently in. It even has information on those edible flowers dad got for us.
A book containing the animal life found in Palthea. For the monsters portion, it discusses their known traits and weaknesses. As for fauna, it tells you where to find specific animals in the region.
This book is exactly what it sounds like, a guide for people beginning to learn magic. Its mostly theory, but and It has spells in the beginner and intermediate category, but they are very few. It unfortunately only has attack magic, so any healing like mom used would have to be taught ter.
The book has my mother's name on the spine, I assume it was wrote by her. As for its contents, well... I couldn't understand a single word, Celia however was immediately obsessed with this book, saying we're extremely lucky it's up here.
I read through the first few chapters of Guide to Elementary Magic, and turns out that magic an elementary level is pretty simple. In order to cast magic you must have mana, there are three methods of using mana for magic.
Personal Mana: You can use your own mana to cast spells, this is the most common way mana is used. As for how much mana you have, your maximum capacity is determined from birth by your parent’s capacity. As you grow up, your magic capacity increases exponentially until it stops growing at the age of 15.
Stamina: Your physical strength can be used as a substitute for mana. It works differently from personal mana, requiring as much energy as it would to actually preform whatever action the magic takes. Also it says that running out of personal mana will also exhaust you the same as you would using stamina for magic.
Catalysts: You can use external substitutes for your mana. These include, but are not limited to, mana in the air, other people’s mana, and monster corpses.
Using the mana required two simple steps: First you must actually have the required mana for the spell you want to cast. This step is easy as long as your personal mana is high. As for the second, you use an incantation to force the magic to take the form of a specific spell. This one is the one I’m actually worried about; it seems tedious having to say the spell out loud every time.
Apparently, magic was developed for war, and most of its developments have continued to be for combat. The continent we are on has experienced many wars, and the magic has developed from it. Because of that, the people of this continent developed all the magic in this book for combat..
Anyway, currently I’m standing in the center of the attic. The first spell in the book is a wind spell called "Burst." I want to try it here while Lay is still gawking at the swords.
I hold my hands outward, closing my eyes. Finally, I can try my first spell.