Chapter 3: A Forlorn Packet of Crisps in a Vending Machine
Name: Liam Nowak
Essay Title: Magic Missile is an essential first level Mage spell: Discuss
In considering whether Magic Missile is an essential first level spell or not, this essay will draw on the experience of Arch Mage Rirves as described in his autobiography. This essay will favour the point of view that Magic Missile is an essential first level Mage spell but it will also present the opposite point of view.
In his autobiography, Memories of an Arch Mage, Rirves the Red talks about his very first spells, which he obtained at the precocious age of fourteen. One of these was Magic Missile. About this spell, Rirves says, “…
A jolt as the bus stopped for a red light caused the laptop to slide from Liam’s legs and he only just caught the device before it crashed into the shins of the student opposite. Damnation. It was hopeless anyway. With only fifteen minutes to class, dashing out a quick essay was always going to be a tough ask. Considering that Liam couldn’t even find the quote he wanted, he may as well give up now. There was a twenty per cent penalty on late essays and he decided he’d just have to suck it up. Not for the first time. Or the fifth. Closing the laptop, Liam settled back into the small space left to him by the bulky man in the seat on his right.
Frustration was Liam’s middle name. Unlike the wealthy kids on his mage course, he hadn’t been able to afford power levelling or decent gear before starting college. It hurt that he was still only level 2. In six weeks of college, he had just four out of the hundred soul stones he needed to gain his first star and two out of the twenty quests completed to take him out of grey rank into light green. Most of the rest of the class were level three or four. Tom McCardle and Winifred Fitzgerald were five and they both had a star. Being the lowest level mage in the class was frustrating enough. Nearly as bad though was the fact that Liam had consistently low marks for coursework that he should have excelled at. His problem was time. He just didn’t have the time to study properly.
Poor but honest was how people like Liam appeared in the fairy stories of his childhood. The woodcutter, not the prince. Hard working, check (grocery deliveries mostly). Caring, check (for Liam’s younger brother, though Aengus might not agree). Good looking, check (obv, hah). Good in his morals, check.
The lights having changed to green, the bus lurched forwards again and once it was going, about half the people in it got up ready for the next stop. The bus was approaching College Green, where all the students would get off and walk through the high, stone-arched entrance of Trinity College. Big Guy next to him didn’t make it easy, but Liam squeezed past and joined the other students.
On Liam’s first day in Trinity, he’d felt so happy. Even walking off the busy streets of Dublin into the tranquil calm of the ancient quadrangles of the college was a joy, let alone the feeling that he’d made it. Liam was the first of his family to go to Trinity and there was only one other kid on his street – a warrior – who was also going there. To study as a mage at Trinity required 570 points in your Leaving Cert exams: no other course in the country demanded more. To get that score had been a massive effort on Liam’s part. It should have ensured he would end up with well-paid job and a comfortable lifestyle. By the time Liam graduated, he could expect to be in the level 10 – 20 range and ready to work for some of the best paying companies in the state.
Now though, nearly all that sense of achievement had worn off. Liam wasn’t used to being the worst at anything and especially not at something so important as being an adventurer. It was even conceivable that he would fail his first year exams. Even though the sun was shining on a pleasant spring day, Liam felt as though he was entering college under a cloud. Unable to afford the high cost of housing in Dublin, his parents had returned to Poland. But they’d insisted on renting a flat so that Liam and his brother Aengus could remain to complete their studies. The pressure and weight of their expectations was enormous, and it often resulted in Liam dreaming that he was at the bottom of a dark sea, looking up at a faint light and feeling unable to swim upwards.
Monday mornings began with a practical, so Liam hurried to his locker and put on his mage robe, over which he strapped a bandolier of pouches with match sticks. His one spell was … drum roll … Magic Missile. A tiny amount of sulphur was consumed with each cast of the spell, hence the match sticks.
As Liam hadn’t had time enough to prepare lunch at home he stopped at the vending machine that was outside the lecture theatre and got a bottle of water, a packet of apple pieces, and a bag of crisps. Unfortunately, the only flavour left was prawn cocktail and the bag looked forlorn and neglected at the back of the machine. Would it even be delivered properly? After teetering on the edge for a moment the bag of crisps dropped into the tray where Liam retrieved it and put it into his backpack.
Their guide this morning was a PhD student called Rob. Liam hardly ever saw Professor DuFrey, who concentrated on teaching the sophomores. The freshmen students were left in the care of DuFrey’s postgraduate researchers. Liam didn’t mind Rob though. Not much older than the rest of the students, Rob was affable and, unlike some of the other researchers, didn’t try to show off. Nor did he favour Tom McCardle and Winifred Fitzgerald. Perhaps it was because Rob was American, he didn’t care so much about the potential value of networking with the Fitzgeralds and the McCardles.
Fifteen of the class were present, one short. A few weeks into the course and Liam hadn’t quite learned everyone’s names so it took him a minute to figure out who they were waiting for: Roisin, a dark-haired girl from up north. Here she was, hurriedly tightening her belt as she ran up the corridor.
‘Right, we’re off,’ said Rob cheerfully, throwing back his fringe so as to look around at everyone. ‘Four groups of four please.’
This was probably the worst moment of the day, the moment the class grouped up for a practical. It was like being back in school, where you had the playground way of selecting teams for a sports game. The one where the captains took turns picking players until only those considered useless were left. There was no escaping your place in the pecking order, everyone knew it. In school, Liam was always fine, choice number one or two in fact. Here though, forming groups was awkward because the truth was that the group with him in it would probably complete less battles and get less exp and loot.
‘All soul stones to be shared equally, of course.’ Rob announced. This was the usual rule, but if there were an uneven amount of soul stones found, the people who killed the most mobs got the extra one. At the stage the class were all at, that extra one was important and so Winifred and Tom quickly got the next highest level students into their group, while everyone else tried to avoid being in the group with Liam.
At last he got an invite.
Kevin O’Brien has invited you to join a group.
Yes / No
‘Thanks,’ Liam said as he accepted.
‘Not at all.’ Kevin was a metal fan of some sort. His dark hair came down to shoulders. He was level 3; as were Kate and Roisin, Liam’s other group members.
‘Follow me, it’s the Garden of Roses on the First Plane of Virtue again. I mainly want you to grind exp but feel free to farm giant wasps for soul stones.’ Rob led the way to the college’s main portal beside the cricket pitch. A tall, sandstone arch, it had the date 1592 inscribed on the capstone, which was when the college was founded. For hundreds of years, adventurers had been learning their class skills at Trinity and many famous adventurers had passed through the portal en route to fame and fortune.
This part Liam still genuinely loved. Of course he’d been on carefully chaperoned school trips to other planes. College field trips were something else entirely. These were real adventures, with a genuine edge of danger but also with the chance of levelling up, not to mention the possibility of getting a magic item.
A mixed group of ten senior sophisters were ahead of Liam’s class and for them the portal was glowing with an ominous scarlet colour. The seniors were off to one of the evil planes and probably were going to face mobs that were around level 5 or 6, with perhaps a boss of level 7 or 8.
The older students were well prepared. Liam could see from the turquoise glow around their weapons that everyone had a magical sword or spear. Even the casters had magical daggers. All adventurers had twenty-one slots into which you could equip a magic item (head; face; neck; left shoulder; right shoulder; left upper arm; right upper arm; left lower arm; right lower arm; upper body; lower body; left hand; right hand; left fingers; right fingers; left thigh; right thigh; left calf; right calf; left foot; right foot). Liam had no magic items at all. These adventurers had rings and armour and necklaces that shouted of magic. He doubted they had an empty slot among the whole group.
‘Imagine running in now!’ Kate laughed at the absurdity of the idea of crossing through the portal. Her hood was down and her fine hair shone in the sunlight, framing a cheerful and ruddy face. From her Kerry accent and sturdy figure, Liam had first assumed that Kate was from a farming family; in fact her dad was a well-known local enchanter, level 21.
Whereas Kate seemed to find the idea of entering a high-level dungeon absurd, to Liam the red pulses of the portal exerted a kind of appeal: come, come see, find out. In his daydreams he was rich enough that he didn’t need to work and could devote himself to being a mage. Then, by the time Liam was in his final year, he could be like these students ahead of him and explore the wilder planes in search of rare magic items and valuable treasure. He’d become wealthy enough to buy a house for the whole family and bring his parents back to Dublin.
When the last member of the senior group had gone through the portal, Rob placed a green gem in one of the slots in the richly decorated stone frame and the shimmering skein inside the arch changed colour. The swirling magic was now mostly light green and its surface seemed to bend as Rob strode through, popping back into shape for the next person. No one lingered though there was a bit of goofing around: leaving a foot sticking out behind and wiggling it, that kind of thing.
‘After you.’ Liam’s was the last group to enter and Kevin waved him forward.