Like every Friday evening Sarah was studying her parent's grimoire. Discovering new pages and spells always filled her with excitement. She loved to discover magical secrets buried by her family and almost forgotten. Every turn of pages was like a treasure chest.
This time however Sarah was not on the way to discover anything new. The topic under her study that night was something she already knew very well. The magical cy tags. A magical artefact that combined the powers of its material, mystic alphabet and the user's voice. By far it was the discovery that Sarah was mesmerised by the most. She wanted to study it, perfect it and test its limits. Assuming it had any limits. No, it had to. Everything has its own limits. But just how far were they?
Sarah was dedicated to study those tags. She felt that this was the thing she wanted to perfect. And it felt cool to follow her parent's footsteps.
For now Sarah was sure of three things. One, the longer the word she would write, the more power the tag would have. Two, the louder she would shout the spell, the more power the tag would have. And three, the alphabet the tag used was really weird. Recently she also discovered that the spells could be cancelled by breaking the tags. This discovery opened the door to quicker and more extreme study. In fact Sarah had an idea for a little experiment. And she really wanted to carry it out that evening.
The idea was simple, yet it could tell a lot. Just try two tags with words of roughly the same meaning, but vastly different character count. She didn't even have to be loud. A whisper would tell her everything she wanted. She would just cast the two spells and compare the effects. It was not the most effective method of study on the scale Sarah intended, but it was enough for the beginning.
It would be good if Sarah found a spell that was not too destructive. But she thought that she found a good one. After all rain couldn't be that destructive, could it?
Sarah worked very hard to prepare the two tags which she wanted to use for the test. One of them had the word "rain" written on it. Four letters, quite short. On the other tag there was the word "downpour". Eight letters, the longest word for rain Sarah could think of. They would provide a nice comparison. Especially for casting the spells through whispering.
Sarah looked outside the window to see whether or not someone was walking through the garden. She remembered how she accidentally made rain pour on Angelo when he visited her. And she really wanted not to repeat her funny mistake. Luckily there was no one out there so she began the test.
First Sarah decided to test the smaller tag. She wanted to keep the rger tag for the ter test because she thought it would be more awesome. She focused on the tag and felt her energy flowing through it. She pointed the tag out the window and whispered "Rain."
The effect came instantly. A small cloud came over the garden and rain started to pour. Sarah expected it to be rger, but even such a small rain gave her some info. Sarah broke the tag and the cloud dispersed.
And then Sarah pointed out the rger tag. She expected a much rger effect. She focused on the tag and her energy and whispered "Downpour."
Just as expected the clouds came to the sky above the garden. They seemed to come from every side of the world. However before they gathered they seemed lonely and small. It was not until they gathered together that they seem of any noticeable size. But they actually seemed to have combined into one. And even then the rain it produced was not that great. Yes, it was bigger than the previous one, but not by a rge margin. In fact Sarah suspected that she might have gotten simir results if she simply did not whisper on the first tag. But Sarah was not disappointed. It was still an interesting experiment that provided some knowledge of how the tags work.
"I guess now I can test how much of a difference my voice would make," said Sarah. "And I suppose I should make three tags this time."
Sarah broke the downpour tag to make the clouds disperse. The rain stopped and Sarah looked outside. The garden seemed perfectly watered for the day just from the rain Sarah summoned. Just then Sarah saw aunt Caitlyn walking out with a watering can. She must have forgotten to water her pnts that day.
"And I thought there's going to be no rain today," said aunt Caitlyn.
"Oh, sorry about that," said Sarah from her room. "Was I too careless with my experiments?"
Aunt Caitlyn looked up to her niece's room. "Oh, have you found some interesting spell that you wanted to try out?"
"Yes, you could call it that," said Sarah. "I've found notes on these tags that you can enchant for some effect. I thought I could test them out a little."
Aunt Caitlyn ughed. "Oh, you remind me of how I was back in your age. I used to devour every magical recipe that fell in my hands. If you're excited, go on. But maybe next time warn me before such an… experiment, as you called it."
"No problem," said Sarah.
"And maybe show me what you found. I am curious myself."
"Sure thing."
It was getting te and Angelo was brushing his teeth before going to sleep. Ever since his mission in Pond, if one could call it a mission, he decided to take care of his sleeping habits. He wanted to be ready for the thirteenth mission. For the st mission. For the mission after which he could finally go back to his family.
Angelo couldn't finish brushing his teeth when his phone ringed. He spitted the tooth paste out and answered the call. "Hello?"
"Hello, my dear boy. What are you doing?"
Angelo recognised the voice. It was Mr. Ovid. The genie who saved Angelo's family in exchanged for his servitude. Normally a phone from him put Angelo in a bad mood. But this time he was excited.
"I was getting ready to sleep, but I'll listen to the new mission with pleasure," said Angelo.
"Oh, you seem really excited."
"How can I not be. You remember our deal? Thirteen things and I go back to my family."
"Yes, I remember. Don't worry, my boy. Us, genies, always keep our deals."
"Then what will be our st briefing about?"
"Ho ho! I like this attitude of yours. And indeed your st gig is very interesting."
However excited Angelo might have been before the call, the details of the job made him nervous. Normally when he didn't want to do his job he could always crunch his teeth and pull it through. This time he doubted he could even do that. That briefing truly broke him.