Brigid knew there was going to be trouble when Soraya and two of her coterie came into the classroom just before the teacher began speaking. They immediately took seats directly behind Brigid. Before Brigid could move, the teacher, Larius, a strict disciplinarian and a crossly demanding scarecrow of a man, and an Adept in Elemental Conjuration, slammed open the book before him and began to lecture from it.
Halfway through the lecture Brigid began to notice a faint ringing in her ears and a slight unsettling of her stomach that seemed to steadily increase. It puzzled her for a moment, as she carefully examined her self-image as a shapeshifter. Finding no physical cause for her discomfort, she checked instead for magick in the air around her.
Once she began looking for them, Brigid could detect three separate and distinct strands of magick weaving themselves about her: two of concealment and a third that seemed to be causing her discomfort. “Ganging up on me, eh?” she thought to herself, as she began to weave her own counter-magick. A spark of greenish light flickered between her hands in her lap, and two of the three strands about her suddenly began twisting together uncontrollably. Now that the obscuring enchantments had been set against each other and nullified, Brigid’s emerald ring pulsed with alarm. The third enchantment, now revealed, recoiled slightly: Brigid could plainly detect the mind of Soraya behind it. Brigid lashed at it with a flick of her fingers, sending a pulse of her own power back along its path, then lifted her hand to see Soraya’s reaction in the reflection on the surface of her ring.
Soraya’s spell rebounded against her: she hurriedly placed her hand over her mouth as she momentarily turned even paler. Her companions turned to help her as Brigid sent a similar pulse along the threads they had woven. The one to the left, lacking the control and the pride of Soraya, turned an interesting shade of pale green as she covered her mouth with both hands, and ran stumbling from the classroom and down the corridor outside. The other companion, possessing more dignity but still not enough control, made it only as far as outside the doorway; the class could hear the sounds of her losing her breakfast on the floor outside.
Soraya, still pale, stood with as much regal poise as she could muster amongst the laughter of the class, nodded in perfunctory apology to the teacher, and walked slowly, carefully, out the door. Her footsteps could be heard walking slowly down the hall: only sensitive ears like Brigid’s could tell that she began to hurry once leaving the immediate area. Brigid grinned maliciously to herself.
“Perhaps, Brigid, you would be so kind as to demonstrate the elementary control of the element of Fire by lighting this candle?” Larius’ thin voice cut through the noise of the class’s laughter.
Startled, Brigid looked up, then looked at the candle which Larius was removing from a desk drawer. It seemed a simple enough demonstration, but there was a confident undertone to his question that she had heard in the mocking tones of several superpowered opponents that made her stop and consider. Then she unfocused her eyes and gazed at it with her mind. There was a grey, hazy twisting of the air before the candle: Brigid observed that it covered the whole area before and around the desk and lectern. A wardspell, and strong enough to resist any immediate conjuration. But only from a distance.
“Certainly, sir,” replied Brigid as she stood and walked forward to the desk. Now that she was aware of it, she could feel the wardspell prickle about her as she walked through it. Walking up to the desk, she dramatically pointed towards the candle wick and said “Lumen.” A halo of green light briefly surrounded her head, then wound its way down her arm and leaped across the gap between her finger and the wick. The wick sparked and flared up brightly.
Brigid looked to Larius. “Like that, sir?”
He looked crossly at her, yet she could see a grudging hint of approval in his eyes. “Aye, like that,” he replied, then turned to the class. “Like that, indeed. Now, Brigid here will explain how she did it, for the benefit of all the rest of you.”
Brigid winced, then sighed and turned towards the students and began to explain.
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