The morning light filtered softly through Kaien's dorm room window, casting long shadows across the room. His mind, however, was far from the tranquility of the morning. Every part of him was buzzing with possibility. The scroll—his scroll—had shown him a power that seemed boundless, a power that could change anything. Everything.
Kaien sat on the edge of his bed, the scroll open before him, his quill hovering just above the parchment. He'd tested its limits with minor changes, but he was still unsure of what he could really do. He needed more data. More control.
His hand hesitated for a moment, but then the idea struck him. What if he could change something subtle? Something that wouldn't attract too much attention but would still prove the scroll's power.
"It will rain today." he wrote with careful precision.
He waited for a beat, watching the ink dry on the page. His heartbeat quickened, and he glanced out the window—nothing had changed. The sky was still clear, the sun shining brightly.
A moment passed. Then another.
Kaien frowned and shifted in his seat. Nothing. Perhaps it wasn't as powerful as he thought. He placed the scroll back on the desk and stood up, grabbing a jacket and making his way toward the door. As soon as his foot hit the hallway, something caught his attention.
A raindrop splattered against the stone floor.
Then another.
Before Kaien could comprehend what was happening, the heavens opened up above him, and rain began to fall in torrents. The hallway, normally dry and warm, was drenched in water, with the sound of it rushing down the stairs to the lower levels.
A smile crept across Kaien's face. It worked.
But, as the rain came pouring down, he also noticed something odd. The water was dripping from the ceiling, pooling unnaturally. The magic had brought the rain inside. The academy wasn't designed to withstand such a deluge, and the floors were quickly becoming slippery, making it difficult to walk.
It wasn't perfect. But it was real.
Kaien couldn't resist. He had to keep experimenting. What else could he change? What else could he bend? The possibilities were endless, but as his mind raced, he had a troubling thought—what if he pushed it too far? What if he created something he couldn't undo? But the thrill of control, the power to shape his world, was far too enticing.
The next test came to him like an impulse.
"I will find a lucky pen today."
He scrawled it out quickly on the scroll, confident that this would be a harmless test. As soon as the ink dried, Kaien stood up, glancing around the room. His eyes landed on his desk, where his writing supplies lay scattered in disarray.
A few moments later, his gaze was drawn to a small object on the edge of the table—a pen he had never seen before. It gleamed with a subtle, otherworldly shine, as if it had been plucked from the very heart of the scroll itself. Kaien reached out, astonished, and picked it up. The lucky pen.
He smiled. It was working.
As Kaien stared at the pen, marveling at his ability to manipulate fate, a mischievous idea came to him. He couldn't resist. It was too perfect of an opportunity to test the extent of his control.
"Everyone loves frogs." he wrote, chuckling to himself. It was such a random, silly thought. What harm could it possibly cause?
He placed the scroll down on his desk and left his dorm room for a stroll through the academy grounds. The sun had returned, the rain having vanished as abruptly as it had arrived. Kaien was in high spirits, convinced that nothing could stop him. Little did he know, the effects of his careless scribble were about to manifest in ways he never expected.
The next morning, Kaien woke to an absurd sight. As he stepped out of his room, he was immediately greeted by frog statues—dozens of them—lined up all along the hallway. Not just ordinary statues, either. These were large, ornate sculptures, each one crafted in exquisite detail, with lifelike eyes that seemed to follow his every movement. The statues were spread out across the floor, almost like an army of amphibians waiting to be noticed.
He blinked in disbelief. How did this happen?
His first instinct was to laugh. It was so ridiculous, so over-the-top that he couldn't help but giggle at the thought of an entire academy filled with frogs. The halls, the stairways, even the courtyard were filled with these bizarre marble statues. Some were posed mid-jump, others reclining lazily, while a few seemed to be positioned as if mid-croak.
Kaien turned to one of the students walking past, who had paused in shock, staring at the frog statues. The student's face was a picture of confusion, mixed with a bit of amusement.
"Did… did I miss something?" the student asked, as if expecting an explanation. Kaien simply shrugged.
"I guess everyone really does love frogs." He grinned, as the absurdity of it all sunk in.
But as Kaien wandered deeper into the academy, he noticed something strange. The statues weren't just objects. They were animated.
Every now and then, one would twitch, shift its position, or even let out a low croak. It wasn't much—just small movements—but it was enough to make Kaien uneasy. He had no idea what he had unleashed with his flippant scribble, but he was already starting to suspect that there was a deeper complexity to this magic than he had realized.
By the time Kaien made his way to his first class of the day, his mind was still buzzing with the sight of frogs around every corner. It was almost impossible to focus. He had written a joke, and now he was surrounded by an army of frogs. How far could this magic really go? What would happen if he accidentally wrote something catastrophic?
His thoughts were interrupted when he entered the lecture hall.
The room was filled with students from all factions, and standing at the front was none other than Professor Inkwell, the head of the Scriptors faction. The professor was a middle-aged man, tall and gaunt, with a sharp, calculating look in his eyes. His clothes were embroidered with silver thread, and he held a thick book in his hands, which he opened slowly as the class settled in.
"Ah, Kaien Lior," Professor Inkwell said, his sharp gaze fixing on him. "I see you're already experimenting with the magic of words. But let me warn you—ink lies when it is rushed."
Kaien froze. The professor's gaze seemed to bore into him, and he instinctively clutched the scroll tighter in his hand. Inkwell's warning sent a chill through his spine.
There was something about the way he looked at Kaien—like he knew more than he was letting on.
The professor's lips twitched into something like a smile as he continued, "Rushing words leads to mistakes, and mistakes often have... interesting consequences."
Kaien didn't know whether to take it as a challenge or a warning. Either way, it felt like the stakes were growing higher.
That night, as Kaien lay in bed, unable to shake the strange unease that had taken root inside him, he drifted into a fitful sleep. The dream that came was unlike anything he had experienced before.
He was standing on a high tower, the wind howling around him. Below, the academy spread out in all its grandeur, the stone walls stretching far into the distance. But the dream was distorted—wrong. He felt an overwhelming sense of dread in his chest, the kind that weighed him down, pulled him toward something terrible.
Then, the ground beneath him cracked, and he fell.
His body hurtled through the air, and he could feel himself tumbling—no, plummeting—toward the stone below. As the ground rushed up to meet him, his last thoughts were of the scroll.
"What if I can't control it?"
To be continued…