Smoke and Ash. That was all Kieran could smell as he slowly came to, the smells a sharp contrast to the damp smells of mildew and old paper of Whitmore Hall's basement archives. He gasped as he opened his eyes, soon breaking into a coughing fit as it felt like his lungs were lined with soot.
There was something wrong with his lungs; despite the soot and ash still in the air, they were burning far more than the burning air would suggest. They also seemed to have much less air capacity than before as he struggled to fill them with each ragged breath.
He soon found that he couldn't breathe through his nose as it was likely soot plugging his nostrils. He felt at his wet nose and whiskers as they protruded from his snout, trying to dig at his nostrils with his claws...Wait, what the hell?!
He stared cross-eyed down at the protrusion now extending from his face, a short snout covered in russet fur with black markings ending in a small black nose with whiskers growing from his upper lips underneath it. He quickly tried to get to his feet, only to immediately fall over again.
His legs felt...Wrong somehow, like they were bent the wrong way. He sat down and took a closer look. They were bent forward at an odd angle where his ankles should have been, russet fur ending in a long black-furred foot with pads and claws on the ends of it. He tried again, shakily getting to his feet as he balanced on the unfamiliar pads, though he found it was easier to counterbalance himself with his tail...Wait, what?!
He looked behind him, staring at the floofy extra appendage as it swished lightly to help him balance on his unfamiliar legs. Just what WAS he now?! He looked around, squinting as he stared at the blurry mass of green around him, trying to make anything out. What was wrong with his eyes?! Anything beyond a few feet devolved into a blurry mess as it seemed he was practically blind now.
Sunlight glinted off of something in the grass in the clearing he now found himself in, and he lightly padded over to it as he bent down and picked it up. It appeared to be a pair of glasses with frames carved from some sort of black stone. They didn't appear to have any stems or other means of holding them in place, but as he held them up to his eyes, they strangely seemed to settle on his face comfortably despite the lack of support.
His vision improved dramatically as he stared through the lenses, taking in his surroundings. He appeared to be in a clearing near a vast forest, several feet from what appeared to have once been a vast tower extending into the sky, but a wide charred circle of stone was all that remained, bits of charred stone and wood littering the area. There were some shards of glass as well, and it was in the reflection of a particularly large shard of glass that Kieran finally got a good look at himself.
A small fox boy maybe ten years old standing upright on two digitigrade legs stared back at him from behind the thick lenses of the glasses and a mess of dirty black hair. Russet fur covered most of his body save for the cream-colored fur around his neck and torso and the tip of his tail. Black fur covered his vaguely paw-like hands and long feet, though much of his fur was currently burned away, revealing angry, red burned skin underneath. Two small pointed ears with black tips poked out from his mess of hair and as he reached up to touch one, it instinctively started to flick at his touch.
He pulled back at the side of his mouth under the snout he'd seen before, revealing rows of long, pointed teeth, definitely not human. He collapsed to his knees, stricken with grief as he tried to remember what had happened. This was not who he was, who he had been...Who had he been?
Memories started to slowly return to him as he remembered who he was. He'd been Kieran Ashford, twenty three years of age in his third year of studying for his Linguistics major degree. Yes, yes...Now that he thought about it, he'd been in the basement archive of Whitmore Hall University, pouring over old manuscripts written in long-forgotten languages. It had been then the entire structure had begun to quake violently, soon after the discovery of a mysterious book...
The book! He startled at the realization as he frantically started searching around on the grass before he found it. He walked over to a large red leather-bound tome with shiny metal corners and the unfamiliar symbol etched into the cover. He flipped it open to the symbol he'd been looking at in what felt like only moments before, tracing a padded finger along the design. It consisted of long tendrils reminiscent of long tongues of flame with a rounded bottom. The design was open and seemed relatively simple, as if it were meant to be drawn with a single continuous line.
He hadn't known why, but he'd UNDERSTOOD the symbol as soon as he'd laid eyes upon it, seemingly to instinctively understand the meaning behind it; fire.
"What...What IS this?!" he asked himself before wincing at the sound of his own voice and how high-pitched it sounded. He didn't have long to wonder before his ears twitched as another sound reached them as he heard the sound of a group of men approaching his location.
"They likely didn't survive that blast, but they couldn't have gone far if they did survive...Look for the bodies," the leader of the men was saying, Kieran's sensitive new ears hearing him as clearly as if he were standing right in front of him although he couldn't see him yet. Frightened at the prospect of being discovered by the men who likely had something to do with his current situation, he tucked the book under his arm as he fled towards the tree line.
Kieran didn't make it far into the trees before he fell to his knees, gasping for breath. It appeared his new body was quite weak and without much stamina. He also suspected the fox boy's body he was now occupying may have had some form of asthma from the way his lungs burned from the relatively minor physical exertion. He was also now fully aware of how much his body ached, as if he'd endured a fall from a significant height as well as the pain from the burns covering much of his body.
Now that he thought about it, those burns seemed a bit...Familiar, somehow...He frowned, picking at the edges of an area of his chest where the fur had been burned away as he suddenly realized with a jolt what it was. He opened the book once more to the page displaying the fire symbol, tracing a finger along it as he looked back and realized the edges of the burn were almost an exact match of one side of the strange symbol.
Disturbing implications aside, he decided to keep moving as the men couldn't have been too far behind him, and he rather didn't want to stick around to see what they would do to him if they caught up to him. He pressed on through the forest, being careful to pace himself so his sore muscles and weak lungs didn't hinder his progress any more than necessary.
After making his way through several bushes and thickets, Kieran finally felt safe enough to take a breather as he leaned against a tree and slid to the ground. He looked at the book at his side and opened it once again, flipping through it. He couldn't read much of it, but it was seemingly divided into six sections with a different symbol at the beginning of each one much like the symbol for fire.
He focused on one of the other symbols, trying to see if he could deduce any meaning from it, but he quickly stopped as pain bloomed from his forehead the longer he stared at it. He flipped back for the symbol for fire, staring at it, but feeling no pain as a result for doing so.
"Why is it only this one?" he asked out loud, not really expecting an answer. He then noticed the corner of the page rustling as more pages of the book continued rustling...Only there was currently no wind, the pages seemingly moving on their own.
It was then that Kieran started to put everything together; the strange book, the meaning of the symbol, the tower, even this strange new world in which he now found himself.
"You showed me this symbol...You knew I'd be able to read it," he spoke, addressing the book in his lap. "You're a spellbook, aren't you? You're a book about using magic!" as if to confirm his suspicions, the pages suddenly started flipping on their own as the book opened itself to a new page, and Kieran leaned closer to read.
Grimoire: An enchanted tome purposed for information on magic and anything else a mage might want or need to know. These tomes are linked to their mages through a magical bond, similar to a familiar. Unlike a familiar, a grimoire can't directly help their mage and can't directly communicate with them until their mage reaches a higher level. Rather, it can only provide information.
"So, I guess I can't really expect an actual answer from you just yet," Kieran mused, inferring the intent behind showing him the last part of the definition. Then he frowned as he realized something.
"Wait...How did you become linked to me? For that matter, what were you doing in my world? This IS the world you came from, isn't it?" he demanded as the pages of the book lifted slightly and then fluttered back down. He guessed that was the book's closest approximation of a shrug.
"All right, all right, I get it, you can't tell me yet," he sighed leaning back and closing his eyes. "Not even a day in this place, and I'm talking to a book," he muttered before he thought of something.
"You can't answer me directly, but you CAN give me information, right? So, can you tell about where I am at least?" he asked before the book flipped to another page.
The world of Valterra is similar to Earth in regards to land mass and terrain, but different in many others. Society doesn't have any technology that could rival that of Earth's, but unlike Earth, Valterra is rich in magic. Many societies of Valterra are similar to the medieval societies of Earth, although there are some that more closely resemble the Renaissance period, and still more are even more advanced with steam-based technology reminiscent of the Victorian era. The world is in a state of relative peace at the moment, but tensions are rising between certain groups of people, most notably Beastkin and those of elevated magical ability.
Kieran sighed as he read that last sentence, particularly since he likely now fell into both categories if his appearance and apparent link to this grimoire were any indication.
"All right, so how do these things work, is there a status screen or anything I could..." no sooner as Kieran had mentioned a status screen than the book suddenly flip all the way to the front of the book where the words "Current Status" were displayed in fancy, shimmering letters. Kieran blinked, but then took a look to see where his current standing was in this world.
Kieran Ashford/Ember
Level 1 Wizard's Apprentice
Age: 10
Race: Beastkin
Racial Variant: Foxkin
HP: 70/100
MP: 80/80
Status Effects: Burned
Strength: 3
Stamina: 1
Agility: 3
Intelligence: 8
Constitution: 3
Skills: Claw swipe, Identify
Talent: Sage
Affinity: Fire
Kieran took a moment to take in all of this new information. He frowned a bit at the name that had been added after his own, "Ember". Was that the name of this body's original owner? Was it a good thing he was taking over his life after such an incident, or would he have resented him for it? He shook his head as he decided to worry about that matter later and focused on the other parts of his status instead.
His lowered HP and burned status weren't of too much surprise neither were how low most of his stats were. His intelligence stat being higher was a bit of a surprise, and something told him 80 MP wasn't too standard for the stat's average. He took that to mean that he might be more proficient at magic than was normal for this world. Perhaps that talent, Sage had something to do with that. What was a talent in this world's context, anyway?
It seemed the book could even respond to his thoughts as it quickly flipped to another definition.
A Talent is a predisposed aptitude towards a skill or passive ability the people of Valterra are born with. Those with the Sage Talent have a predisposition towards all types of magic and as they level up they gain the ability to cast more powerful spells with less mana expidenture.
So it seemed his hunch about his new body's magical potential was correct after all. He then had another thought as he flipped back to the status page and took another look at the last entry; Affinity: Fire. He flipped back to the fire symbol on another page, starting to get the picture.
"So is this the only symbol I can read because I already have an affinity for casting fire magic?" he asked, thinking out loud. He looked around and focused on a patch of grass before he held a hand out towards it, focusing on the symbol in the book and trying to will the magic into his hand, but nothing happened. The book, seemingly sensing his intention, flipped to another page that seemed to be a basic primer on magic.
Most Valterran magic is focused on the creation of magical glyphs within spell circles to manually craft spells. There are six elemental glyphs that form the basis of most magic, but there are many lesser glyphs that can change the function and nature of a spell. In order to cast a spell without a magical focus, one must focus their mana to draw a spell circle in the air and then draw the glyph(s) associated within the spell circle. A casting will be successful if the associated glyph(s) are drawn with 80% accuracy, though higher accuracy glyphs are more powerful and stable.
Kieran shrugged as he decided to try it, focusing on his finger to see if he could will his mana into it to draw the necessary spell circle, and soon enough, his finger pad started to glow with a pale blue light. He raised it into the air, drawing a shimmering circle in the air before him. He then turned back to the page with the symbol...Or glyph, he now supposed...For fire. He started drawing the glyph inside the circle with his finger to the best of his ability and when he was finished, the spell circle flashed and turned to fire. He reached out towards it, managing to gather the flames into a small fireball that hovered above his hand.
He could feel the heat from the flames, but it seemed his own magic couldn't actually burn him while he was actively conjuring it, even as he passed his other hand through it. He turned, focusing on the patch of grass and thrusting his palm forward as he hurled the fireball forward. The patch of grass lit on fire immediately and it seemed once the spell was cast, it behaved like normal fire as the small flame soon started to spread to the grass around it. Kieran quickly went over and stomped the flames out before checking his status page again.
Mana: 75/80
He supposed a simple spell using a basic element wouldn't have cost too much mana, and it certainly hadn't been too powerful with how easily he'd snuffed it out. He also supposed he could learn more glyphs to cast more complex spells in time to make the flames more powerful. He cast his thoughts aside for now as he closed the book and ventured deeper into the forest as his thoughts soon turned to the matter of survival.