~ The Adventurer Chronicle 33 ~
"... so now that you are all seated I can tell you more about the secret arts."
Deep in this part of the woods, sun crystals grew, giving a bright light all around them, even if the sun could barely penetrate the thick foliage. Ghola sat near a tree lower than the others, on it's protuberant root escaping the earth. The tree was the only thing between him and the river, which made a nice sound, and reflected the light around, turning every leaf to a different color.
The children sat in different places, mostly near trees in front of him, but some decided that is was a good idea to seat on the branches of the tree, but everyone made sure they could listen to the scholar. There was a tree close to his left, where a particular group of five friends sat on the branches, boys on one, girls on the other, all quietly hearing his tale.
"There are many schools of magic." He paused. "As you all should know by now. Mostly they teach you about the ten most fundamental ones. That is because they are the most common, easy to use, day to day handy spells. I've already told you about the secret school, which has spells so rare and powerful, that only a few people ever master a spell. They are hard to perform and learn, and since their power is immense, few people get to practice them without disrupting lifestyles."
Ghola swept the ground in front of him, making a clear and even surface, where he used his staff to draw some symbols. "Basic magic, we use mana and casting to create a breach between this and the mana plane, in order to create a spell. That is how most schools work at least. This particular school has a peculiar difference. It does not create the magic from the mana plane through the ritual, it instead creates many small holes between the planes from where the mana flows, in chaotic patterns, creating a natural spell."
The kids followed with different levels of attention as he drew on the ground and explained. Some seemed confused, others eager to learn more. Considering this wasn't a class, they were greatly focused.
"You may have heard about it, it is known more popularly as cursing, jinxing and hexing." Most didn't seem to recall anything, only a handful gave a positive response, including one of the girls in the tree next to him. "They are different forms of the same school, they all use the same principle, but each work differently. This is how the school of entropy works. It changes the flow of mana, to affect the flow of events"
"Cursing is one of the most ancient magic arts, with records from before the rebirth, but like the whole school, it fell out of use, since it's power is purely destructive. Curses take long to cast, like a ritual, their effect is quite strong, but they activate on certain conditions, it may take years, centuries, or they may never go active."
"If it's not guaranteed to work, why use this kind of magic?" Asked a boy with blond hair sitting the highest on the ground.
"Well, there are many ways to make it work. Mostly curses serve to keep people from doing things you don't want, and so you warn them before the curse is activated. When a curse is used to harm, instead of prevent, then the caster usually uses the person's habits to trigger an eventual curse, using an event that is bound to happen."
"But of course this is not useful in combat" Ghola continued. "So we have hexes and jinxes. Both are extremely fast cast, low consuming, but also unpredictable. Hexes are mostly effects that leave you vulnerable, but contrary to other schools, they don't have a specific way of happening."
"Wait... what?" Interrupted a confused girl near his right. He took a moment to survey everyone's faces, making sure that they could follow his explanation, after all it was a weird information to give to 7 year old children. Then he began to draw again in the ground, this time using a prestidigitation spell to help the drawings move around as animated stick figures.
"Say your opponent is really fast, so you try to cast a hex to slow him down. With a time spell, some force, generated by the casting will reduce his speed for you, but with the hex something in the environment will do the job. It may be the roots of the bushes that stretch out to bind him, or maybe the ground explodes, sending a thick mud all over him, anything the world can do to make it happen. It would seem mostly like bad luck, and that is the whole principle of Entropy magic. It is not cast, leaves no traces, seems natural."
He dismissed the spell and the stick figures remained silent and static.
"Jinx is the most direct way to enact an Entropy spell. Jinxes, like hexes, make things go wrong for your opponent, but instead of applying vulnerabilities, it has short term effects that disrupt your enemy. Going from indirect damage, to fumbles, misses, slips and anything that might mean trouble to your opponent. Just don't expect anything specific, cause bending entropy to your will is much harder than making something happen, though the better you are, the easier it is to make the simple things go the way you want..."
One of the boys in the tree to his left laughed as bit. "Magic should be something you can rely on, it's a complex art that requires precision and timing, so why would anyone waste so much effort in something they are not sure they can count on?"
Ghola just grinned as he looked forward to the other kids. "No spell is 100% reliable, but Entropy
will try to make the effect happen, doesn't matter how, or why, just the outcome. Like this." He said snapping his fingers.
Both boys heard the distinct sound of wood shattering, they looked at each other, only one of them looked surprised as the branch beneath them broke and fell, taking the child down with it. The other, who until now remained silent, floated where the branch once was, ignoring the funny event and reclining once again against the tree.
..."
~ Taken from the Book of Origins ~
~ End of Part 33 ~

Blind Search
People don't believe me when I say that everyone has stats like any RPG in the world. The only difference is that we have a whole lot more special cases that can be considered that are often ignored.
The game treats two characters with the same strength as being able to life a stone with the same ability, regardless of their personal experience in lifting stones.
RPGs usually have two very confusing skills, that may seem to represent the same thing, but if one pays close attention they actually represent something very real.
Search and Spot, are usually mixed, and people often don't get the difference. Quite frankly I agree they seem to represent the same thing, someone trying to find something, but that is the pure definition of search. On the other hand spot is usually meant to represent people suddenly seeing something, without really searching for it.
These skills are associated with different status, intelligence for search, and wisdom for spot. Despite being another discussion whether we do have status like these ones, I agree with this association. When you are intelligent you use search patters to cover a better area more efficiently, of course, it's hard explain a link between wisdom and spot, but I believe wisdom reflects directly how you perceive the world.
Searching is usually going through a Where is Waldo? book and searching areas, rows, columns or any organized way. Spot is wandering your eyes aimlessly around and suddenly seeing Waldo behind the elephant. People are not aware how their lives are ruled buy skills and status they have and train.
It's very often to see people who have no ability whatsoever to search for things and people. The kind that wastes 5 minutes searching for the notebook that is on their lap, or searching for someone who is 5 meters straight in from of them. But these people when not paying attention they know where things are, it's just the difference between a really bad search skill and a good spot skill.
This is when you want someone to perceive something, you can only ask them if they have a good search. Imagine you want to make a joke, and ask for someone to tell you if they see anything wrong with something the see frequently, something you are sure they'll see the problem. But they try to find something they are not sure what is, and just ruin the whole search.
I've seen this happening many times, people each have different perceptions and not everything applies to everyone. The same goes about every status and skill.
I for one have a high spot, but a low search, not as low as my peers, I still can find a notebook one my lap.