A Lesson in Alchemy, Chapters 1 - 5

Hey all, aaron again.

Working on Chapter II of "Sick Note" at, like, 12:30 last night, I hit the wall. I'm a paragraph or two till I'm finished, I've got a ton of things I wanna do, and no way to phrase them.

So I stayed up working on this instead. It's the first chapter of my more fantasy themed series.

There's no "action" for this chapter, in fact, not much explicit content at all (except for a remark..or two:D ), but don't let that scare ya away! Things'll get hotter, I promise!

I apologize in advance for the ending, it is lame, and it does leave you hanging.

A Lesson in Alchemy

by aaron

Chapter I

Greensdale Girls School, situated in sunny Southern California, is like many private schools. If you or I were fortunate enough to attend Greensdale, we would see a beautifully lanscaped campus, excellent learning facilities, and comfortable living quarters for both students and teachers. We, however, wouldn't be able to attend. Surprisingly, the students of Greensdale aren't daughters of the wealthy & powerful, being prepped for their entrance into the world of exclusive golf clubs, fancy costume balls, and the rest of the trappings of social elitedom. The reason these girls are enrolled here is beacuse they have talents. Talents normally invisible, but a at a moment's notice, more beautiful than the most intricate snowflake, or more terrible than the forces of Nature herself. In addition to classes like Algebra, U.S. Government, and Earth Science, Greensdale has classes teaching students in the arts of Alteration, Illusion, Restoration, Destruction, Conjuration, Mysticism, and Alchemy. In short, Greensdale teaches magic, to those select few destined to wield it.

Now, most of us, if we were willing to belive such a thing as magic even existed, would have a lot of misconceptions about what a magic school would be like. We'd imagine Merlin-like teachers in peaked wizard hats, and students reading dusty manuscripts, riding brooms and waving magic wands. Greensdale has none of this: It is a school after all. True, some teachers keep wizard's hats, but only as a joke, and Greensdale's books are all latest editions, regardless of subject. Students are much more apt to whip out a cell phone than a broom, and on an all-girls campus, the closest thing to a magic wand that gets waved around is probably a vi...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Greensdale, and all the other schools like it, operate like they always have: in secret. Even before the rise of Christianity in Europe, magic was beginning to be feared, rather than praised, and with the advent of the Crusades, many practitioners of the Old Ways simply dissapeared, either slain by those fearing their abilities and calling them heretics, or because they had gone into hiding. Many of the survivors decided they would spread to various parts of the world, keeping in touch, and teaching their arts to a select few. It was their earliest ancestors that had shown their prehisto