//------------------------------// // Chapter I - Curiosity killed the mage. // Story: The Adventures of Damon Lipton // by Mr101 //------------------------------//                 The Adventures of Damon Lipton             Chapter I - Curiosity killed the mage It was a quiet summers day in the temple, mages of all races and age were going about their individual daily routines. The practise halls, filled with young aspiring mages, who were beginning their first ever lessons in the art of magic on the long journey to become a master of the arcane arts. The library was filled with thousands upon thousands of books, scrolls and old tomes each containing a vast sea of knowledge, the likes of which was only dreamt about in the whole of Cyrium. Sitting in a small section of the library, all by themselves were two people, an old elven man with long silver hair and wearing dark grey robes with matching hood and cloak, and standing up across from him leaning on a wall, was a young man with brilliant green eyes and short brown messy hair, looking absolutely bored out of his mind. The elven man was holding a large, ancient looking tome and had a clear look of irritation on his face, with a sigh he slammed the book closed and took a seat, rubbing his temples as he leant his elbows on the table. “For Xerillien’s sake Damon... you’re as stubborn as a dwarf, you know that?” He sighed. “But Master Kalanar, I’ve already learned the basic and adept spells! Why can’t we, I don’t know, start training me in the higher levels?” Damon grumbled. “Because you’re still too young Damon, you’re only twenty eight. You’ll be taught the higher level spells once the council has agreed you are ready, now,” Kalanar picked up a different book and placed it on the opposite end of the table, “turn to page three hundred and ninety four.” Damon scoffed before sitting in the chair, his arms crossed in a huff. He idly turned the pages of the book to the correct one as Kalanar began to drone on about warding spells, Damon let his thoughts drift off as he looked at the pages with little interest. He had been found by Kalanar at the age of ten in the Northern range of the Dalmora mountains whilst studying dragons with the Dragore, and after finding out his parents had died a couple of years prior he had decided to take the young boy back to the temple with him, as he had displayed signs of a promising mage. Kalanar loved Damon like a son, and even though Damon would occasionally act like a spoilt brat and complain about his lessons on magic and other things such as history, Kalanar knew that the boy wasn’t lazy, just a little impatient. “Ok, Damon... can you repeat what I just said?” Kalanar looked up from the book he had been reading from and blinked, staring and the face of Damon who was gazing downwards, his eyes slightly adrift from the book and away with his thoughts. Kalanar sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose before walking round behind Damon and dropping the tome just in front of him with a loud bang. Damon snapped his head back grunting as he blinked in surprise, leaning his head back to see the very annoyed look of his Master looking down at him. He nervously chuckled and smiled up at Kalanar. “Uh... what was the question again?” Damon asked. “You’re bloody hopeless sometimes...” Kalanar sighed, “I said, can you cast a protection ward?” “Yes,” Damon replied. “...Well?” “Well what?” Damon grinned. “You bloody know what, Damon, answer the question.” Kalanar shook his head, “come on.” Damon snickered as he stood up, one of the ways Damon would pass the time was by winding up Kalanar. It wasn’t all that difficult really, the old elf didn’t seem to have a sense of humour so naturally he was easy to wind up. They began to exit the library and pass by all the other mages who were going out their business and headed outside of the temple towards the practice grounds. “Ok,” Kalanar started, “I’m going to use fireballs to try and break your shield, you must keep it going for five minutes whilst I bombard you, ok?” Damon nodded as he got ready to cast the spell. “Don’t forget, you can move the shield around.” Damon took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and concentrated, he felt his magic flowing throughout his body and focused it towards the tips of his fingers. Opening his eyes he raise his arms out in front of him and pointed his palms upwards, soon his hands began to glow a light green and the image of a glowing kite shield appeared, covering the front of his body. Kalanar nodded in approval as he raised his arm in the air and muttered under his breath, Damon watched as three copies of Kalanar appeared behind him and to his right and left, all with their hands ignited with fire ready to cast their fireball spell. “Ready Damon?” Kalanar asked. “Ready,” Damon replied. “Then let us begin." “Stupid fireball...” Damon muttered. He was lying on the ground, smoke slowly raising from his body as Kalanar stood over him, shaking his head slightly. “If I've told you once, Damon, I’ve told you a thousand times. Keep your eyes open for flanking attacks, the ward spell only covers the position you're facing!” Kalanar said. “I know, I know,” Damon replied. “Clearly you don’t, what were doing yesterday when you were meant to be practising your technique with your classmates?” Damon’s mind briefly flashed back to him outside of the temple, he had been about to start his practise with the others when he noticed an odd looking butterfly nearby, ignoring the protests of his classmates and out of curiosity he had decided to follow it instead and try to catch it, failing badly each time he did and it wasn't until the butterfly had lost him did he realise he was in the forest at the base of the temple and roughly five hours had passed and he was late for his next lesson. “Uh... practising?” Kalanar glared at Damon as he tried his best to keep his face straight, but the gaze Kalanar gave him was one of his many weaknesses and Damon chuckled nervously. “I... may have been observing some wildlife?” Kalanar sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose again growling slightly in annoyance. “I want you to write me a report on everything there is to know about ward spells, by tomorrow and if you don’t get it done, I’m going to make you clean out the stables the visitors use for two months!” “But-” “No buts, Damon, just do it. I need to go to a meeting with the other elders, I’ll see you in the morning, six am sharp.” Damon stood where he was speechless, he tried to speak but no words came out as he watched Kalanar walk back into the temple. “FUCK!” He shouted out kicking the ground. “By the ancestors... my brain hurts...” Damon groaned. Damon slowly raised his slumped head form the book he had been reading for the past two hours, all around the small table he was sitting at were dozens of books, some open and some waiting to be read. Beside the book was several scrolls, some blank and some with half arsed writing on them. he had lost track of how long he had actually been in the library but he figured it must have been at least five hours, given the two moons were in the sky. Letting out a sigh as he looked out the window, he tried to focus on his work, vowing to work throughout the entire night in order to get the report done in time. “So... dragons have two of them? Huh, learn something new everyday...” Damon turned the page over from the large book about dragons he had found, about ten minutes ago, after vowing to work all night, he had gotten bored and decided to stretch his legs and have a walk around the library where he stumbled across the section that contained information on every monster and creature that existed in Cyrium, so naturally he got curious and after rummaging for a few minutes he brought back several books on various creatures and began to read them. “Ok, let’s see what we have then...” Damon yawned loudly as he gazed over the scroll that contained his work, it had taken him several long, painful hours but he finally finished the report. He yawned again and glanced out the window to see the sun was slowly rising, with a rub of his eyes he rose from his seat and rolled the scroll up before heading to the exit of the library. As he walked, he let out a pained cry as something heavy landed on his head with a thump before it fell to the ground. He looked down to see a book had fallen from the shelf and onto his head, picking it up he read the title out loud. “Traversing the void...” Damon’s eyes glistened as he felt a familiar and overwhelming urge of curiosity fill him as he quickly rushed back to his seat with the book and began to read, his eyes glue to the pages. As he read, his eyes grew wider and his grin threatened to stretch of his face and failed to hear the low chuckle that came from above him. “Where is that boy?” Kalanar wondered. He had been waiting in the courtyard for a good twenty minutes and was getting impatient that Damon was late, with a sigh he stood up and headed back inside the main building and headed straight for the quarters where the younger mages slept, finding Damon not to be there, he was told by another student that Damon had been in the library all night. Kalanar smiled to himself, happy that Damon was at least late for a reason. He quickly strode his way to the library, chuckling to himself on the idea that Damon had actually done what he was asked to. As he approached the library, there was a loud rumbling sound as a deep voice echoed in the temple, Kalanar recognised it immediately as belonging to Damon and ran towards where the sound was coming from. “And... done!” Damon took a step back from his work and grinned to himself, he stared down at the circle he had drawn onto the floor, he was inside one of the practise rooms which he had locked the door to so he wouldn’t be disturbed. The circle itself was drawn in chalk and had runic symbols drawn around it as well as inside the circle, he hadn’t found the candles that the book was describing and didn’t want to waste time looking for some, so he had improvised by using regular normal candles in the right spots. Satisfied he was ready, he sat in the middle of the circle and flipped a few of the pages trying to find the correct incantation. “Ah here we go!” He began to mutter under his breath, the circle began to glow as his eyes shone a bright white and his voice rumbled in the room. The door burst open and Kalanar along with two other mages looked at Damon in shock and anger, just as Kalanar was about to try and cancel the spell, the books suddenly exploded in a bright light startling Damon. “That’s not supposed-” There was a loud boom that rumbled throughout the whole temple and the three mages shielded their eyes from a bright light that suddenly erupted from the spot Damon was in. As the light quickly faded, Damon was no longer sitting in what was left of the circle, only the book remained. “That book...” Kalanar whispered as he walked over and picked it up, “this was meant to be locked in the vaults... how did he get his hands on it?”   Luna sighed as she got into her bed, it had been a long night in the night court. After her return a month ago, things had been very rough for the Princess of the Night. Many of the nobles and even some of the night guards were still cautious around her, and she had difficulty understanding the new policies that had come into effect during her absence.. Celestia had done her best to help her sister with some of duties as did her nephew, Blueblood, who she had recently met. He was an arrogant pony at times, but he saw that his new aunt was struggling and offered to take care of the minor problems that affected the town of Canterlot itself. Sighing in content as she wiggled her way into her bed, she closed the curtains with her magic just as her sisters sun was peeking over the horizon and closed her eyes. Suddenly there was a crackle sound like lightning and a flash of white followed by a loud thump beside her, causing her to be thrown up slightly in her bed and land near the end. Gasping softly as she looked around trying to find what the heck that sound was when her eyes fell upon what was beside her in her bed. Her eyes widened and her pupils shrank to the size of a pin head as she stared at what appeared to be a charred skeleton of a bipedal creature in slightly tattered blue robes. She let out a soft gasp, pitying the poor creature that was clearly dead. Or so she thought. Her mouth dropped as the skeleton sat up and looked around his surroundings, before slipping off the bed completely ignoring the fact she was there and placed it stands on its hips before giving out an impressed whistle. “Man, this place is fancy... wonder where the heck I am anyway? Certainly isn’t the temple...” She blinked as the skeleton spoke in a deep, booming and deathly voice before gasping and covering her mouth with a hoof. The skeleton turned round at the sound and saw her in the bed, its black eye sockets staring at her with a glowing green dot in the centre, from its pose it looked surprised but she couldn't; really tell due to the fact it was a skeleton and had no face. “Uhm... hi?” It feebly said with a wave. Luna’s ears lowered as she opened her mouth, the skeleton panicked and made shushing motions with its hands. “Please don’t scream!” It asked. She screamed.