Single post in Pen and Paper - A Writers Clan

"Face Stealers are nasty business, Tero, if you do, in fact, have one on your hands, you'll need more than just my sword and magic." That was my fear, even if I called in some favors, I'd still need help. I let my eyes wander the room, coming to rest on my calendar. I was 3 weeks late on my rent payment, and I needed money; my answering machine was blinking; I also had two days worth of mail to sift through. "Thanks, Stirling, I will definitely let you know." I stood up,and flicked my wrist at the door, which swung open, a silent signal for him to leave. As he left, I crossed the room and fire up the coffee pot before checking my messages. The first few were solicitors, the fourth was a novice necromancer who angered the wrong undead or something. The last one, however, intrigued me, I hit the replay button. "Hello, Mr. Din? My name is Vera Chang, I saw your ad in the paper, and I want to enlist your services. I've noticed weird stuff happening involving my kids. Please call me back." She, thankfully, left a call back number. I sat down behind the desk to start writing down what I knew. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and at first I thought it was Sorin, but he was normally much quieter. I looked up to see Michael standing in the doorway. "Tero, I'm sorry, I just-" He began, but I held up a hand to stop him. "I'm not mad about the fire." I said, simply, getting up and pouring myself a cup of coffee. "You aren't?" The guy and his questions. "No, I'm upset about the Rune thing. Remember what I told you when you became my apprentice?" I watched him nod, before continuing, "magic is fickle, even the best practitioners have problems with it. If you choose to commit to training, you need to be willing to trust my word, and know I will not lead you wrong." I watched Michael, knowing I made an impact. I made all of my apprentices aware of that, as I am not patient enough to deal with doubters, I had to keep my head, though, and thus made them all agree to that. "Yes, your word. Not Sorin's, or even Stirling's! I haven't actually learned anything from you in over a year!" Ouch. The kid had a point though, I, personally, hadn't taught him anything in a long while, which was hurting his faith in me. "Okay, what do you wanna know?" I asked, placing my coffee on the desk. "How to defend against Dark magic." I grimaced at his response, it wasn't hard to teach, per se, but there was no practical method that could test if he could do it effectively that wouldn't get me killed. There are 5 laws that govern the use of magic by Magi, and the second one was about harming apprentices. If I even made an offensive move, Stirling would be alerted, and I'd be executed by the blade, as per standing orders from the High Council. If I got killed there was no way the Council would allow Sorin to exist anymore. I spent an hour teaching him proper technique for defending against Dark magic, silently cursing the magical laws. It would be a while before I'd be able to see if he had it down, so I had to trust in his skill with magic. Once I had taught him such, I sat back down to work on this new case of the vanishing children. There were numerous things that could steal children, and a good chunk that would.