Mages and Mandatory Group Projects

Jayla ran through old stone hallways, steps echoing as she managed to duck under a gnarled wood mantelpiece and through a concealed hallway to continue along her route. She brushed cobwebs out of her hair as she continued to run, and couldn’t help but think that the others chose this ancient building just for dramatic effect. And for inconvenience. It was all the way across campus from her dorm, and Emily, the best conjurist in their assigned group, hated her, so that would make sense too.

Jayla paused, putting a hand on the stone wall to support her weight for a moment, squinting in the dark to look around before she lost her way in the two-hundred-year-old school’s first building. She wiped the dust onto her uniform, then quickly rubbed her thumb over her fingertips to conjure a small flame in her hand to illuminate the dark hallway. Jayla knew she was a skilled elementalist, and didn’t spare a thought to worry about the flammability of the paperwork in her bag. She hadn’t caused an accidental fire since she was eight. The same couldn’t be said of her friend, Tad, who almost bowled her over in his rush to get to the meeting spot before the clock chimed midnight.

She huffed as she gave the younger boy a once-over - he really embodied the “Enchanter” stereotype. His glasses were hanging off his head, hair a mess with different particles of multi-colored something smeared throughout, and the black uniform shirt wrinkled and untucked. Jayla reached up to brush some more cobwebs off his shoulder before grabbing his jacket with her free hand

“Tad, you have got to watch yourself! I could’ve set you on fire! And it would’ve been your fault,” Jayla said, shaking his shoulder.

He had the decency to look apologetic as he replied, “Sorry Jay. I’d say it won’t happen again, but we both know it would probably be a lie. But! I did bring the phoenix feather, vampire venom, and the hair from a holy man –none of which were easy to get, and I expect to be compensated fairly” at her look, he continued breathlessly “it’s not cheap to sneak into the Magical Menagerie! And if there is a Hell, I’m going to it after stealing hair from the High Priest.” He paused briefly to catch his breath, and Jayla used the moment to start walking again.

“Walk and talk, Tad. If Emily is to be believed, we have to do this ritual under the full moon at its peak. And please, we both know that you loved gathering that random weird stuff. You probably stole some other goodies to use in your enchantments later.”

“It’s the principle of the thing! I am contributing a lot to this particular assignment. I’m just saying I better see the same level of dedication during my finals.”

At this, Jayla felt her eyes roll heavenward. “This is tough on all of us, Tad. I haven’t been able to cast all day to save my energy for whatever Emily has in mind for me tonight. It’ll all be worth it once the ritual is done and we pass this stupid class. Who assigns group projects in college anyway?”

Tad’s answer is lost as he opens his mouth to find a hand covering his face. Jayla turned time to see the whites of his eyes as he was pulled backwards into the shadows without a sound. She lunged towards him, but strong hands surrounded her and yanked her back so swiftly she couldn't even swing out her hand of flame before she was pulled in the opposite direction of her friend. The particles of the wall behind her rearranged as she passed through them, and the nausea that always comes with transmutation magic flipped her stomach and made her palms sweat. As quickly as it started, Jayla was unceremoniously dropped on the cold floor. Scrambling to her feet as quickly as possible, she summoned flame in both hands to face her attackers, stopping short as soon as she saw who it was.

“Damn it all, Emily! That wasn’t funny. I hate transmutation. We were like, 2 minutes away at most –you could’ve waited!”

The conjuror just rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms. “I got tired of waiting, Jayla. It takes a while to set up the ritual correctly, which you would know if you ever bothered to do the reading.” She continued on over Jayla’s protests, waving a hand to bring Tad into view. “Did you get everything?”

Tad, the traitor, just laughed as he opened his bag and started placing the goods on the stone altar that Lila was busy sanctifying. The diviner had clearly gotten here much earlier, and Jayla saw the evidence of consecrated ground lining the room. Lila had managed to stay pristine, not a hair out of place even after what was presumably an evening in this relic of a building. The room wasn’t too big, and was mostly bare other than a red rug that had long since seen its glory days, and a thick layer of dust lining the singular bookshelf in the corner. Emily tossed dark black hair behind her shoulder as she addressed Jayla again.

“Seriously, Jayla, so unprofessional. You’re lucky I don’t care enough to tell Professor Heathersford about your lack of team spirit.”

An incredulous laugh burst from Jayla’s mouth before she could rein it in. “Oh please, Emily! We all know you just want to ace this because you think it’ll finally get him to notice you. The whole ‘teacher’s pet’ act isn’t as charming as you think it is.”

Emily’s golden eyes narrowed dangerously. “That’s a bit hypocritical coming from you. The entire student body knows that you lied to get in –you’re supposed to be able to control all the elements to call yourself an Elementalist. You had to have done some special extra credit with Professor Dade to get her to pass you last year after the disaster that flooded the entire girl’s dorm.”

Jayla’s feet moved her halfway across the room before she knew it, when Tad and Lila were suddenly stepping between them. Lila just motioned wordlessly to the room, while Tad exclaimed “we’re done setting up! We should really get going, only a couple minutes to midnight when we’ll do the ritual and then can get on with our lives and go back to never speaking to each other ever again,” he slung a casual arm over Jayla’s shoulders, cutting off whatever she had been about to say, “plus, with whatever residual energy is left from the ritual I can probably infuse magic into a few things as long as I have time before the moon sets.”

A quick glance at the altar showed the intricate spell work had been completed, a delicate combination of divination and conjuration symbols that Jayla really couldn’t comprehend at all. Tad must have seen her confusion, because he waved to one side of the altar and kept talking. “Now that I have everyone’s attention, this is where I’ll add the energy amplification runes to ensure we’ve got enough juice. Right, Emily?”

Emily was silent for a long time; and Jayla felt her eyes boring into her soul. Finally, she just shook her head and answered. “Yes. We have the proper celestial alignment, three magical objects, and an alchemical set-up. We just need Lila’s incantation in High Celestial and Jayla’s flame for power. Once we open a rift into the Demi-plane, Jayla just has to keep it open long enough for Tad to activate his seeking rune, and then me to cast a separate retrieval spell to get the Celestial Rune of Binding. That hits all the assigned categories and the extra credit.”

Another beat of silence, before Jayla breaks it. “Did we really have to get the hardest one on the list? We couldn’t have just gotten the Sand from a Sleeper's eye in the Dream realm? Or even just a vial of Lava from the Plane of Fire?”

This time, Lila was actually on her side. “She’s right, Em. I thought we had planned to just open the rift to the demi-plane and then grab something distinctly non-organic. That counts too.”

“No! You guys, I’ve been researching for weeks. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! The full moon tonight is a blood moon, and it just so happens to also be happening on the Summer solstice. We could even be published for this,” She slid a side glance at Jayla “or at least those of us that did the academic work could be.”

“Do you ever get tired of hearing your own voice?” Jayla shot back, “We both know I’m the best damn fire mage in this entire school. You have me here because you need me. Just get over it, we need each other. Tad, Lila, can we please just do this and then all go home?”

At the nods from the others, everyone silently stepped into place at the four corners of the altar. Jayla might not be able to read the celestial spellwork, but she could at least recognize the runic version of a power button. She hovered a hand over it and waited for Emily to begin.

Everything started exactly the way it was meant to. Lila began her incantation in the lilting tones of High Elvish, and Tad started the siphon of the materials into the intricate carvings on the altar. At Emily’s nod, Jayla harnessed the heat inside of her, and focused on moving that roiling emotion from her heart down into her hands. She had always felt a special kinship with the more volatile element. Emily was right about her in that way, at least. The steady flow of water or the calm steadfastness of the earth was incredibly difficult for her to harness. With fire, all she had to do was let herself really feel. The anger from before, the stress from running through this place at midnight, the fear that if this doesn’t go well, she could fail out and lose the spot she had worked so hard for so long to earn. The flame burnt bright as it leapt to life on her fingertips before she honed it into a malleable substance, and funneled it into the rune before her. This would take a lot of energy, especially if Emily meant to complete two extra spells within the ritual.

Slowly, steadily, as Tad held the Phoenix feather between his fingers and finished his siphon, it turned to ash and fell onto the altar. For a moment, nothing happened and the four of them shared the same, worried glance. Then, the world exploded into brilliant blues and golds, as each carving was filled and then erased by the brilliant beams of otherworldly light. Directly above the altar, a rift started to open in space. Jayla felt the demand for energy suddenly double, then triple, and she started to sweat as she funneled more of her magic into the altar.

She felt sweat begin to bead on her forehead, and spoke through gritted teeth, “Time to hurry it up guys, this energy drain is going to be intense! I’ll hold on as long as I can and give the usual warnings if we have to bail.”

“Don’t you dare stop. I’m about to begin and if a ritual like this one gets cut early, the dispersion of this amount of energy would be astronomical.”

Tad’s head whipped to look at her so fast Jayla would be worried about his neck, if she could focus on anything but the constant need for heat. “What the hell do you mean? This should only cause a little blowback, maybe some broken windows at worst.”

Emily was already shaking her head. “No, it wouldn’t. Just focus on helping Jayla if she needs it.”

Lila was still chanting, but her eyes widened at something outside of Jayla’s field of view. Tad lunged forwards, careful to avoid the altar, but couldn’t reach Emily before a flash of silver swiped through the air and slit through Emily’s palm. Everyone watched the first crimson drops of blood hit the stone. The light began to shift into smokey reds and dark shadows that swallowed the light from her flames. The sudden demand for energy knocked Jayla to her knees, and she cried out in pain as the strain caused her head to pound.

“Tad, turn on the amplifiers! I can’t hold it–”

“I can’t! It’s too early, she needs to cast–”

“Do it. Now!”

At her panicked tone, Tad rushed to Jayla’s side and brought out one of the amplifiers. “It’ll only last for about–”

“I don't care! Do it now.” Sweat was now pouring down Jayla’s face, as she funneled even more energy towards her fingertips. Harnessing the anger from Emily and Lila’s betrayal, she allowed it to burn the flame a little hotter as Tad placed the amplifier next to the power rune on the altar. She immediately pulled back to desperately catch her breath, demand still high but somewhat tolerable now.

The rift started to crackle open, ash smoldering as it fell from the portal. This wasn’t right. It should’ve been the golden glow and fluffy clouds on a clear blue sky. Instead, the stench of brimstone filled the room, and Jayla felt the sweat drip down her back as the energy demand started rising again.

Lila shrieked and called out, “Emily, what the hell is this?”

Emily’s eyes were wider than Jayla had ever seen, and the unbreakable confidence had seemingly disappeared with the smoke that started pouring into the room from the rift.

“Emily! Focus. What do we need to do? I can’t hold this for much longer!” Jayla couldn’t hide the desperation that had entered her voice. She already felt drained and the other girl hadn’t even started part two yet.

“Her control is slipping, and I only have one more amplifier! Seriously, we need to stop.” Good old Tad; if he was the voice of reason right now, they really were doomed.

The words seemed to jolt Emily out of her stupor, and she started to gather materials for her spell. “No. It’s too late. I don’t know what happened! I can’t fix this. If the ritual ends now, the energy release will level this entire building and possibly this half of campus. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I can’t undo it! We have to keep going. Tad, cast the finding spell. Now.”

Tad’s eyes were wide in disbelief. Lila crossed over and shook him on her way to Jayla. He started fiddling with something from his pack, and it was all Jayla could do to keep her focus on the rift. The energy requirement was immense. She had never felt a heat this dry and all-consuming. Lila reached a hand out and began funneling her own small flame, but it made little difference. There were sounds and lights coming from the other two, but Jayla could barely hear or care what was happening.

Without any warning, the rift burst wide and what looked like lightning started crackling in and out of the portal. Jayla couldn’t keep it all in focus. It was like her head had been stuffed with cotton–there were screams happening somewhere in the room but all she could think of was the way it felt like her fingers were blistering. Someone must have gotten the second amplifier onto the altar because she could breathe again, if only for a moment. It felt like the air she was sucking in was scalding her throat. She was slowly being consumed as the blisters started to spread from her fingers up her arms, and heard the screaming happening again. It was only when cool hands brushed her shoulders to keep her upright, that she realized the sound was coming from her own throat. Jayla was beyond caring. Every thought in her head was fire and heat and fury and pain, and she felt herself starting to fade.

It had been a good life, but if she died for Emily’s arrogance, she would never forgive herself. She clung to that thought as the flame grew hotter and brighter. She would hang on. She would do this. She deserved to be here just as much as any of them, and she harnessed the fire one last time, expanding the flames as much as she could. She heard one, small, triumphant cry and a single flash of white light before the world was pitching into black, robbing her of her sight.

Later– either a couple seconds or minutes or hours later– Jayla opened her eyes to Tad’s worried gaze and hands grasping her shoulders. Jayla was fading in and out but picked up phrases from his fevered speech. “We did it! Holy shit –”

“Jayla, stay awake ple–”

“This is so dramatic”

“Would you shut up for one sec–”

Summoning the rest of her strength, she rolled her head to look at Tad. “Is it done?”

He nodded so hard his glasses slid down his face. “Yes, you did it. We got the Book of Endless Night from the Demon’s demi-plane. Emily is totally an evil genius, and we can agree to kill her after we turn in this assignment and ace the final.”

She tuned them out again, as Emily presumably started defending herself. Jayla didn’t care to hear it and allowed herself to fade into the cool and sweet release of unconsciousness. She’d deal with the consequences that came with whatever the hell they did tomorrow. If they were all still alive, she might actually pass this class.

Days later, after a short trip to the infirmary and Tad’s gentle teasing, Jayla sat in the front of her Ritual Casting class and smiled as she received back their final report, with a bright, red A+ circled in the corner.