01 - Dark Is Her Nature

These are the events that occurred during this first book of this series, The School of Necessary Magic'. It is in the Oriceran wiki, as many of the characters in this series also appear in other series on this site, currently in the Leira Chronicles'Bold text, in The Unbelivable Mr. Brownstone, and in I Fear No Evil. It may also connect to other series, as time goes on.

DARK IS HER NATURE

TSONM 01/1 Izzie and her parents are attacked on their way home from a movie, end of summer vacation. Repell attack, rush home, pack, to avoid retaliation. Drive away in their SUV, talking about where to send Izzie away to protect her. Things weren’t at all how Izzie had thought they would be, but she could only follow her parents’ instructions and hope for the best.

TSONM 01/2 Her parents take her to the School for Necessary Magic, where they requested, to save Izzie’s life, and their own, that Mara Berens, the Head Mistress, do an erasure spell, so that neither they nor Izzie would remember their lives until then. Izzie would have memories of growing up in an orphanage, and being at the School on a scholarship, with no parents.

TSONM 01/3, 4 Kids coming back from summer vacation, greeting each other, new kids coming in, teachers getting introduced. Alison brought to school by James Brownstone and Shay Carter. Lots of meeting and greeting, older students finding their rooms, Mrs. Berens organizing kids into rooms, 5 in each. Alison drew room 314, along with Kathleen, Emma, Izzie, and Aya. The girls talk a little introducing themselves, and, after unpacking, decide to go and explore the campus.

TSONM 01/5 At the half moon landing that ran around the staircase. there were three other hallways off that floor, but nothing was labeled there were three hallways branching off from their area, Kathleen asked if anyone had brought their map, Emma waved her wand, causing a map to appear that floated in front of them. Kathleen walked fast, almost skipping toward the first hallway, then peered around the corner into the dark. As if the house could sense their presence, all the lamps lit along the corridor. Kathleen opened a large door, and saw the Library, floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with books. Ladders rolled back and forth on their own, growing tall and then shrinking again to the bottom shelf. In the center of the room were empty tables and chairs for studying. Meet Leo Decker, Gnome, Head Librarian. The girls explore the whole campus, (See Locations, School of Necessary Magic), meeting two upperclass girls (Scarlet and Claire) in the barn, who referred to the group as “fresh meat”. Scarlet and Claire leave, and the girls left the barn.

TSONM 01/6 As they had about an hour until dinner, Kathleen suggested that they all compare their magic. She went first, creating a rose, then a butterfly out of a glowing orb. Emma produced a constellation map above them. Aya moved a large statue at the edge of the field, ands it was Alison’s turn. “I’m going to admit something, so don’t laugh. I’m here to learn what my magic is. I don’t know yet what I can do. Please don’t ask me anymore about it right now.” Izzie had only small magic. She pulled the energy from beneath her feet and a light trickle of magic moved up to her finger. A white beam shot out and swirled around Alison’s leg and down to her untied shoelace. The lace twisted and turned and finally made a perfect bow. “I don’t know a lot of magic yet. It wasn’t a big deal in my family.” (See each Character for a full description of their actions). As they still had a little time left, they decided to go to a stream they had heard about, and asked Horace Rigby, the groundskeeper, where it might be. They went that way.

TSONM 01/7 Peter and Ethan running through woods. Peter tripped, flinging a ball of magic from his wand. It struck an old dead tree and the branch exploded, turning to sawdust that covered Ethan’s head. The girls notice them, and come over to talk. Henry and Wyatt come along, harassing the newbies, and Ethan gets angry, causing a branch to break from a tree over their heads, scaring them. The older boys leave, and the girls find that the branch has opened a cave, so they decide to explore it.

TSONM 01/8 The group all jump or slide down into the cave with the exception of Kathleen, who summons magic to slowly float down. Alison see stone steps descending, asks for light. Ethan threw up several orbs for light, which attached themselves on the walls like lanterns. Alison ducked to pass through an earthen arch. After a few steps she stopped, her mouth dropping open as she looked at the immense damp cavern. Black crystals shimmered along the walls and stalactites jutted from the ceiling, water dripping from them into pools. Kathleen saw something in the back of the cave. They went over to it, discovered an egg of some sort, a black egg whose specks of gold swirled in the sunlight from the crack in the roof. Alison could see the bright energy that emanated from the object, but the colors moved so fast she couldn’t read what it was. Kathleen decided Tare o take it back to the mansion, so she stepped forward and put both hands on the egg, feeling a surge of energy in her gut. She smiled, looking around before carefully picking up the egg, pausing for a reaction, but nothing happened. Alison suggested, “You can put it in my backpack so you aren’t walking through the mansion with a random black and golden egg in your hands.” Kathleen slipped the egg into her bag (left black dust on her hands). Its energy flowed through the fabric and into Alison’s chest, giving her a warm sensation. She still couldn’t sense what the object was or if there was anything inside, but she suddenly felt the need to take it back to their room and protect it. So did Kathleen. They are not going to tell Berens about it. They left, and went back to their room, listening for dinner. They decided to hide it in Alison’s top dresser drawer, pulling her socks around it to create some kind of a nest. Kathleen insists that they all not tell about the egg.

TSONM 01/9 The girls go to the cafeteria for dinner, and had to split up, as each table held seven, and they were almost all full. . Alison scanned the crowd too, looking for comforting energies. There were some, but the rest were mixed, some with envy, some pride, and others were too fast for her to really pinpoint. Kathleen and Emma filled in a corner table, Izzie sat with Allison. Peter and Ethan sat with Kathleen and Emma. The boys were late, and Berens scolded them. The upperclassmen, both boys and girls, were playing magic tricks on the first-year students. Berens stopped them, but it wasn’t much good. “I can’t wait to be an upperclassman.” Kathleen had watched in wonder. “So you can be an asshole to the younger kids?” “It’s a rite of passage, Alison. We all go through it and then deal it out. That’s how it works. No one will respect us if we can’t take a bit of harmless magic.” Girls go to bed immediately after dinner, awaken the next morning full of energy. Kathleen uses her magic to straighten her and Alison’s bed. A new day starting.

TSONM 01/10 Students have breakfast,go to class. Mrs.Hudson, in Basic spells, tells routine. Book, take notes, will be a test and a final. Oriceran history. ?started with the Great Treaty. (See Miscellaneous- GreatTreaty). When class was over, she gave them a new spell, Fizzing Bulb, with which she had tipped Ethen on the nose for falling asleep.

TSONM 01/11 Mrs. Hudson introduces Like to their group, knowing they would accept him better than most, (he was a shifter), and they all practiced the Fizzing orb. Spell. Ethan, the mad scientist, did them one better, though, and created a small Gnome to throw the orbs at all of their classmates. Max Regency, the Channeling teacher, addressed the class, trying to get them to channel their energy, to be able to support their magic better with increased energies. Everyone but Luke tried to channel, some with more suv=ccess than others. Aliso was the last. Alison had a special advantage, she was completely in touch with the energy around her, since she used streams of energy to compensate for her lack of sight. She had never tried what he was talking about, but she knew it was the key to gaining control over her magic. Just knowing that, and knowing how close she was to it, she got cocky. He wanted to ease her into the channeling since it was in her best interest, but before he could she was already knee-deep and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The magic flowed through her, unlike anything any of them had seen before.

TSONM 01/12 Alison stood in front of the class. There was an air of curiosity in the wavering energy around each person. None of them knew what to expect from the pretty little silver-tipped girl. Alison showed them all, actually turning the room and all of them counterclockwise, books flying, papers all over, etc., When she realized what she had done, she allowed Max to guide her to bring it all back to normal, to where it had been. She was exhausted, passed out, and when she awoke, was blessed with a magical hangover. Alison came to dinner, looking better, aware that she had tapped into something bigger than she knew, and that she just wanted to learn how to handle it before worse happened than just a reversed classroom.

TSONM 01/13 Elias Hodges, teaching a Transfiguration class about shifters. Some of the class start to make fun od shifters, and Ethan takes umbrance, sending magic up their legs and into their stomachs. The three of them wait for him after class, start to pick on him, when Alison and Aya come up and fight them so the three ran away.

TSONM 01/14 Annabelle Grant came in late. After passing out texbooks and packets, she started talking about kemanas, and their ability to recharge magical powers. (See Locations – Kemanas.)

TSONM 01/15 Parents’ Week-end coming. Izzie will have no one, and Alison will have adopted parents only. Alison and Izzie talk about their feelings, sad, missing something. Izzie keeps feeling there are memories hiding, wanting to come out, and when Alison “sees” her at those times she could see strange orange and black streaks twisting through Izzie’s energy. Anytime a new memory—which Alison saw as yellow—popped into her energy the orange and black would swirl around it, almost as if it were choking it. She had never seen something like that before and wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Alison wants to remember her Mom, and remembers her death, so tries not to remember. So they go to have some ice cream, as a special treat.

TSONM 01/16 Mrs Berens, knowing Izzie was without anyone on this week-end, invited her to come help with the lost parents who shouldn’t be where they were found. Izzie wore the borrowed blue dress and silver sandals from Emma, was definitely learning how to smile even when she didn’t want to, and how to deal with the craziness of running a magic school. Izzie wants to sneak away to the pastures, for some quiet. OK with Berens. Be back for dinner. Izzie finds Horace on he top of a hill, with one of the horses (was giving him a bit of a problem, nipping and biting the students) and a few dogs. Izzie went back to the School, spent the evening being lonely with Berens, and went to bed early, hoping the next day would be less stressful.

TSONM 01/17 Second day of Parents’ Weekend. Izzie helping Berens, Alison wandering around alone, as Shay and James had to leave. Decker allowed her to hide out in the Library. “Just don’t take any books from here.” His bowler hat was tilted to the side, the flower steadily blowing raspberries and gritting its teeth. “He pointed at her. I’ll know if you do.”Alison decides to investigate her lineage, the history of the Drow line. (See Species- Drow). Emma invites Alison to see some new Oriceran plants – sounds like a good idea. On the way, Scarlet taunts Alison about having no one to be there with her, and Alison begins to react, flames shooting up her legs. Berens comes by, stops Alison, reprimands Scarlet, everyone walks away. Izzie visits with Horace, on his nightly rounds, meets with Berens, goes back to bed. Mara thinks the Izzie reminds her of Leira. It hadn’t been until she had understood her heritage and her powers that she had learned to accept herself. She could only hope the same went for Izzie.

TSONM 01/18 The group decide to break the rules, and go to the kemana associated with the school, Ruby Falls. The kemana is in the caves behind the school and stretches out for miles in every direction. That’s where we’ll find the stairway.” Ethan had managed to steal the kemana code from Mr. Regency earlier. After Ethan entered the code, the passageway to the kemana opened up. Lit up, and they went down the stairs. Alison was excited. She was surrounded by magic, and there was something about the dark tunnel that made her feel like she was home. There were magical creatures everywhere, all of them in their true magical form. Shops lined the streets and the various fragrances of delicious food wafted through the air. The ceiling was like the one in the mansion, magically created to show night and day. They were excited, and they would ENJOY!

TSONM 01/19 The group walked into town, went to exchanged their coin for Ruby Gold, and started to shop. Ethan went to the woodworker’s shop, stole a whitling knife. Kathleen ad Emma entered the dress shop, Peter went to the book store, and Luke, Alison and Izzie didn’t know which direction to take. Shopped the general store, then went sightseeing to the darker part of town. Met up with three dark wizards, Izzie and Alison fighting them off, as they seemed to be immune to the dark magic used. One of the wizards recognized Alison, saying “You – you are HER!” Just then a werewolf came towards them, teeth bared.

TSONM 01/20 The werewolf attacks the wizards (it was Luke), and the fight slowed for a moment. Then the wizards re-grouped, began fighting again. The Willens showed up, threatening to tell the young wizard’s father about his activities. The wizards retreated, saying “This isn’t over, Drow.” The head Willen warned, still gazing at Alison. “The Darkness is approaching, and you are not safe here.” Above them the lightning cracked like there was a storm approaching, and from the dark side of town magical black clouds rolled over the sky. It was like a warning. Something distant and dark was angry, and Alison didn’t doubt it had to do with those three wizards and whoever their families were. She didn’t want to wait around and see what the storm brought. She’d had enough battles for one day—or for one lifetime, actually. She was just glad that her powers seemed to have a mind of their own, at least they had today.

TSONM 01/21 As Alison’s group start to return to the above grounds, they see Claire and Scarlet coming from the dark area with what might have been contraband in Scarlet’s bag. Everyone wants to keep their visit a secret, so Alison and Scarlet agree to ignore each other for the school year. They traded their Ruby Falls money for Earth dollars and headed for the steps that led out of the kemana. Alison didn’t like what was happening in her world, and she didn’t like the presence of dark magic in it in the least. Horace finds the group below, and warns them, “I don’t know what you were doing down here, or why you look like you were in the Great Oriceran War, but you need to get back to the surface.” Izzie stood next to Horace until the others had passed, and they took up the rear of the little procession Several of the street merchants made nasty remarks as Horace walked past, but he ignored them. He was used to it after all those years. He was the only human permitted down in the kemana, but that didn’t mean the magical beings there liked it. “Don’t worry about him, or any of the others. They have a right to hate humans. We have never been very welcoming to things or beings we don’t understand.” Izzie nodded, seeing a flash of pain pass cross Horace’s face. She wondered if maybe the kemana did affect humans, just not in the same way it affected magical beings.

TSONM 01/22 Izzie knew they were in trouble when they found the Headmistress awaiting them at their re-entrance to the School. She sent the group to her office, at once. When everyone was inside Ms. Berens shut the door, then went behind her desk and stood there tapping her wand on her palm. This was not the first time freshmen had snuck off to the city, but it was the first time they had come back looking as if they had been to war. She told them that the School had learned of the dangers of the kemana, at the cost of a life. .Now, does someone want to explain to me why you look like you have been battling Kilomeas in a swamp?” As no one was talking, Berens assessed punishment. Peter and Ethan were to work under Dr. Fowler. Izzie is frustrated. I want to know the truth about my past. When I got here I didn’t think I knew anymore magic than how to tie your shoe, but all of a sudden I am a Kung Fu fighting ninja-elf? Yeah, right. I knew there was something missing, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and I still have no idea what it was.” Whatever it was, her group is behind her, and will help her all they can.

TSONM 01/23 The upperclass students come to their room, to see if the deal is still a deal It is, and the word has been passed to leave the group alone for the year. Horace came early in the morning, to take them to the plant building to work with Mrs. Fowler. Emma and Kathleen are sent to harvest a turnip/radish salad for the evening meal. Alison and Izzie will work with the singing plants. They need a good fertilizer change. The girls were greeted with the harmonious tones of plants singing the 50s greatest hits acapella. “They sing as long as the background music is on. Now, if the music stops for some reason, they get really angry and will take a finger off if you aren’t careful. But that rarely happens.” Those were the good plants. Alison and Izzie had to work with the rejects, the ones who liked hard metal, and ear-deadening loud music. Thy wore earplugs all day, and couldn’t talk to each other. No one worked with the vampire plants. Girls were happy yo be done with the day, and vowed never to break the same rule again.