The Beginning.

The smell of burning hair saturated the air leaving a bad taste in Ramóne's mouth. Pain seared through his temples, his brain pulsed sending him to his knees, making his eyes water and vision blur. He cursed himself for using up a spell so frivolously when he could have handled the situation differently.

Amongst smoldering wooden furniture a person shaped ember glowed. The female bandit had threatened him with a knife and he had panicked. His instinct had kicked in, the magic flowing forth to first catch her alight sending her down in a flaming heap before becoming a raging inferno. The magic fire burning hotter still until the woman's body was nothing more than a cinder.

The pain intensified as he sat up making him squeeze his temples and groan. The putrid haze of smoke made him cough which in turn made his head throb more. The weeks of study spent etching that spell to memory wasted in a single moment, the pain making it a bitter victory. The recovery time was a chief reason that mages rarely graced the battlefield and all Ramóne could do was sit breathing the foul air until he could muster the strength to stand enough to stumble from the room.

Pulling dry food from his satchel he ate slow and tediously before uncorking his small skin to drink the herbal brew within. The pain was starting to subside allowing him the power of thought again. It had been foolhardy to use such a spell in a confined space. Had she reached out to him while the spell was churning, he might have found himself victim to his own spell. Not to mention anything of value she may have been touching was now a pile of ash.

Rising to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain that it caused he reentered the ruined temple. The haze still hung in the air but the fire had burned so hot and fast it didn't put out much smoke. The smell however was enough to make Ramóne choke and cough, it would be many a day before this chamber would loose the taint of burnt flesh.

It took him a long time to locate the scribe carved deep into the stone low on an obscure wall. The kind of place a child might write his name while left alone while his guardians preyed for hours on end to whichever god they thought would help them the most.

Dirt from the ages was piled up against the walls giving moss and small plants that were somehow immune to the dark, a foothold in which to sprout and thrive. His fingers traced the cold rough grooves of some long dead mage as he committed it to memory.

It would take a lot more study before it became a usable verse and even then it was always a gamble on how practical it would be. One could spend months building a spell only to find it did something unexpected or worse something dangerouse.

Drawing a long thin metal tube from a pouch Ramóne slid the paprus from it like a scroll. From the interior of the device he removed an ornate pen and small ink well carved in oak. Uncorking the well he began to match the writing exactly, scratching it onto the paper with great acurracy. When it was done and the ink dry he turned the end of the tube to retract the paper.

As he left the temple stepping into the cool night air he felt a surge of accomplishment. The mistakes of battle forgotten in favor of thoughts of victory. He had long sought this particular verse and deep down he could feel it was the right one.

The walk back to his hired armed gaurd was brisk, his soft shoe liners making little noise on the dirt track. Upon reaching the camp he slipped through the back of his tent quietly removing his belt and leather armour. He didn't sleep that night, the headache combined with the thrill of an unknown scribe with an unknown spell haunted his mind inducing insomnia. Slowly he traced the language in his mind beginning the new track that would allow the magic to flow through him.