fandomhigh | How Not to Kill Yourself with Incantations

Class today was meeting in a regular classroom (sorry, class). Bob waited for everyone to arrive, then nodded and began.

"This class is called 'How Not to Kill Yourself'. I hope it also teaches you how not to maim or inadvisably transform yourself or anyone else. I can't, of course, help what you intentionally do on your own time, but I've seen any number of bad things happen by mistake.

"As the class summary, which I hope you read, says, one of the issues in dealing with written magic is that so much of it is old and in languages or scripts you don't know. That can lead to you saying the wrong word, using the wrong ingredient, or any one of a number of other mistakes. And if you're very lucky, the worst that will happen is nothing." He grimaced.

"So, we're going to cover a number of techniques that will hopefully help. What to do, what not to do. Also some of the more common languages in Earth-like worlds that are used for magic. Before we begin, however, we have the obligatory introductions. My name is Hrothbert of Bainbridge; you can call me Bob. My TA is Anders; anything you don't want to bring up to me, you can talk to him about. Now, please tell me your names, but also if you read and/or write, and if so, which languages."

He looked at the first student expectantly.

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Name, if you read and/or write, and which languages.

"I'm Mabel," Mabel announced, looking pretty darn proud of herself, if only for having a name in the first place. It wasn't hard for Mabel to find reasons to be pleased, generally. "And all I read and write is English, but I figured a class like this would probably be good to have, in case a perfect three-part harmony doesn't save the day the next time my brother goes and raises the dead."

She was never letting that one go, Dipper. She didn't ask much of you, but...

There was so much there; where did he start?

"...Raising the dead?" Bob asked. There were a few ways of doing that, and he rather resembled a few of them.

"Oh, you know. The shambling, brains-eating kind. Dipper kind of did that once during our summer vacation to try to prove a point to some government guys. We had to blow up their heads to keep them from eating us."

Sure, it had been more terrifying than she was letting on. But at least it hadn't been old-timey stop motion animation.

"Zombies?" Bob said. "Your brother raised zombies to prove a point?" He was signed up here too, wasn't he? Bob was going to have to Have Words with him about responsible magic use!

"It worked?"

That was a pretty bad plus side, and Mabel was well aware of that.

"... I think it worked, anyway. That was a weird summer."

Bob sighed and massaged his head. "And what, may I ask, was the point?"

"Proving that there was something weird about his journal, I think," Mabel replied, giving a little sigh of her own. "For what it was worth, 'raising the dead' was the one thing I specifically told Dipper not to do."

You had one job, Dipper.

"I'm Blue Sargent, and I read and write in English. And also I took a couple of semesters of Spanish at my old school, but I'm by no means fluent."

Bob nodded to her. "Any exposure is something. And if I remember, you do have magic in your world - is much of it written?"

"I'm Anders. I read and write in our common tongue, which -- lucky me -- is the same as English. I know a few bits of other languages from my world, but not enough to be particularly useful."

"You mentioned knowing a bit of the older writing of some of your magic. Does it use the same script as your common tongue?" Bob asked.

Anders shrugged. "The volumes I've seen do," he said. "I don't know what they use in Tevinter. Probably it's the same. It's a Dwarven alphabet, of all things. They're the merchants so they needed to write things down first."

"Have to keep track of the money," Bob agreed. "Always the first thing."

How Not to Kill Yourself with Incantations | Friday, Period 1

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