The Calligrapher's Apprentice

[Dr. McNinja]

“I don’t understand,” Ogong mumbled.

A voice was speaking to him. The voice was attached to a giant hand in the sky. He’d seen this place before, when he had been cursed with the “Mah” spell. He had almost turned into a demon. That wasn’t fun. This voice, he recognized as his mother, Sun Hyun-In, from when she tried to save him from the coma he fell into as he tried to fight the curse.

“My child,” the Virtuous Sage* whispered, “You have overburdened your hon.”

“So I spoke a couple Words of Power,” Ogong grumbled, “I thought I was celestial. I thought I could take it.”

“You knew very well that you could not, my child,” Sun Hyun-In lowered her head sadly, “Not when your access to our magic is as isolated as it is.”

“Yeah, you kinda overdrew your account there, kid,” Mi Hyun-In admitted, standing next to Sun Hyun-In in his true form.

“Mi Hyun-In,” Ogong groaned, “I liked you better when you were a bendy stick.”

“One of these days, I’m gonna just drop your ass over a cliff,” Mi Hyun-In snapped.

“Mi Hyun-In, please calm yourself,” Sun Hyun-In whispered, “He’s facing a very difficult truth.”

“What truth?”

The two Sages glanced at each other nervously.

“Ogong, you know that the two of us would not appear to you like this if this wasn’t very important,” the monkey’s mother said.

“Yeah,” Ogong responded haughtily, “And?”

“So...” Mi Hyun-In stammered slightly, “You’re probably gonna get your soul replaced.”

Ogong nodded. “Yeah. I figured.”

The two Sages frowned.

“I mean, I was told not to go beyond my limits,” Ogong sighed, “Master Barley taught me as such. But you didn’t see the monster I was fighting-“

“Well, I did, actually,” Mi Hyun-In said matter-of-factly.

Ogong fell silent. The little boy was now beginning to understand that he was going to die.

“Do you think I’ll be able to come back?”

“Absolutely,” Sun Hyun-In lied.

“P-probably,” Mi Hyun-In stammered.

Sun Hyun-In shot her fellow Sage a glare. Ogong smiled sadly.

“Yippee,” Ogong mumbled.

---

Ok Dongja groaned and scratched his butt. Something kept brushing against it, to his great displeasure. And his arms were cold, for some reason.

“Ogong’s damn tail again,” Dongja thought to himself.

As he felt the tail twitch against his backside again, Dongja snapped.

“Ogong, put away your damn tail!”

With a jolt, Dongja sat up and looked around. That was not his voice that spoke. He was not in his bedroom, and Ogong was nowhere to be seen. He looked down. For some reason, instead of the greenish trousers he wore everyday, he was wearing blue sweatpants. And also there was a tail. Yes, that was probably the more alarming part.

Dongja had become Ogong.

“What the fuck.”

“Ooh!” Yeo-Ee-Pil exclaimed, his voice appearing out of nowhere, “You’re awake!”

Dongja looked around in a fury. He was alone, in some sort of prison cell. The walls and floor were made of moldy cobblestone, as if someone had sunk a dungeon underwater and had just pulled it out. The moisture in the cell was stifling. Dongja wanted to cling and pull at the iron bars that sealed him in, but they were too grimy for him to feel comfortable with touching.

After a while, Dongja located Yeo-Ee-Pil. He was just down the hall, clasped to the wall so that he couldn’t squirm. Didn’t do anything about his talking, though. Shame. Dongja scowled at Yeo-Ee-Pil across the hall.

“Yeo-Ee-Pil, if this is some sort of prank-“

“Nah, man, I’m not like that. And plus, that would need a Power Word, and I can’t cast those all by my onesies.”

“Your onesies?”

“Point is, I didn’t do this. This is the cosmos’ doing. Cosmos’s? Cosmos’? Cosmosi?”

As Yeo-Ee-Pil continued to mutter to itself to remember the possessive of “cosmos,” Dongja considered what this meant. If he was now in Ogong’s body, then that meant...

“By the way, who are you anyway?” Yeo-Ee-Pil shouted down the hall, “I mean, in Ogong’s body.”

“Only the greatest student of magic in the Second War,” Dongja bragged, crossing his arms.

“Right,” the magical staff snickered, “All that tells me is that you have an ego, which really boils down to anyone who was in that war. Except Samjang.”

Dongja flinched. “No! My love! Is she here too?”

“I don’t think so,” Yeo-Ee-Pil replied, “But I- hang on a minute, ‘my love’?”

Dongja bit his lip and stepped back slightly.

“Oh no,” Yeo-Ee-Pil groaned, “You’re Ok Dongja, aren’t you?”

“That’s me!” Dongja grinned, then frowned. “Wait, ‘Oh no’?”

“Whatever. You know what happened to you, kid?”

“Yeah,” the boy nodded, “I must’ve cast too much magic and it broke my hon.”

Yeo-Ee-Pil started rattling in its restraint as he started bellowing in laughter.

“HAHAHA BROKE YOUR HAAAAA” the staff nearly screamed.

Dongja scowled. “What?”

“YOU COULDN’T – HEE – YOU COULDN’T BREAK YOUR HON IF YOU WERE A GODDAMN FLY!” the staff continued to shake, “OGONG broke his hon, you IDIOT.”

A loud metallic clang resounded down the hall. Dongja slinked back from the bars, trying to hide. He felt his tail brush against the grimy wall and grimaced. God, how does Ogong live with having a god-damn fifth appendage sticking out his butt?

Yeo-Ee-Pil stopped rattling and became deadly still. The source of the clang appeared in front of Dongja’s cell – a guard, dressed in armor. There was something astoundingly and supernaturally non-descript about him, or possibly her. The only thing that stuck out to Dongja was the coat of arms on his or her chestpiece – a large tree, its branches crowned by stars.

“You’re awake, then,” the guard said, with a voice that was either gruff or soft, “You done blasting your magic everywhere?”

Dongja blinked. “My what?”

“Eh, I guess you wouldn’t remember. You’re not in any trouble, we just needed a safe place to keep you until you calmed down. And obviously, the cell is magic-proof.”

Dongja raised an eyebrow. His confusion was absolute.

“Right, well, I’m not too good at explaining things. The clerk outside will check in with you.”

And with that, the guard waved a hand over the locked door. The bars liquified and vanished into the ground. Dongja gasped.

“How did you...”

“What?”

“How did you do that?”

“...you’ve never seen magic before?”

“I’ve seen lots of magic,” Dongja mumbled, “But how’d you do that without the calligraphy?”

“Oh,” the guard concluded, “You must be new here. Listen, you should really talk to the clerk and set up a meeting with the Council of Dalaran. I can’t help you.”

The guard scratched his possibly bearded chin with one hand and reached for the wall where Yeo-Ee-Pil was bound. There were all sorts of strange objects locked in the wall, including several twigs, a baseball bat, a tiny golden marble with wings, what Dongja was pretty sure was a longsword with the symbols “+1” engraved in the hilt. The iron bands holding Yeo-Ee-Pil up snapped and liquified, and the staff zoomed into Dongja’s hand.

“Whoa,” Dongja mumbled.

“Little big for a wand, innit?” the vaguely humanoid guard commented.

“A wand?” Yeo-Ee-Pil snapped, one end of the staff turning indignantly to the guard, “I’ll show you a wand when I shove it up your-“

The staff struggled to get closer to the guard, clearly hoping to clobber him. Dongja barely wrapped his arms around the staff and held him back. With Ogong’s strength, this time Dongja could actually manage it.

“Please calm down, Mr. Yeo-Ee-Pil!”

“Ugh, talking ones,” the guard said sympathetically, “I hate those. They never shut up. It’s like they’re trying to make up for all the non-talking the other weapons.”

Yeo-Ee-Pil was now in a full rage, and Dongja had to use all of Ogong’s strength not to be carried by the staff. The guard snickered, and Dongja noted that he or she probably had teeth.

“Way out’s to your right. It’s pretty close, since, you know. You’re not a criminal.”

“Thank you, uh,” Dongja stammered, “Guard... person.”

The guard turned and moved further into the prison. It occurred to Dongja that it was a very real possibility that the guard was, in fact, not a person. Yeo-Ee-Pil snapped out of his frenzy when the guard’s footsteps became difficult to hear.

“Prick,” the staff grumbled.

Dongja didn’t hear him. He was busy trying to figure out even one aspect of the guard he could remember. Dongja was starting to doubt that he was wearing armor. He was now 53% sure that the guard was a man. Or maybe not. He had a very effeminate voice, or she had a very masculine one. Presumably, he (or she?) had two eyes, a nose and a mouth, like normal people. But Dongja found he couldn’t remember that either.

Unable to solve this little mystery, Dongja stepped out of the dungeon of Dalaran.

Sun Hyun-In (Virtuous Sage), Sun Ogong's mother, and Mi Hyun-In (Beautiful Sage) are two of the Three Sages of Heaven. They were the Heavenly Emperor's advisers. 1000 years before the events of the books, they defied the Emperor's orders for what they thought was the greater good. It didn't work out. Sun Hyun-In sacrificed her life, the third one got turned into the avatar of demons, and Mi Hyun-In was turned into a stick.

1484/7500 words.

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild
  

[Dr. McNinja]

Dongja blinked twice, dumbfounded. He was still gripping Yeo-Ee-Pil, who was trying his very best to wriggle out of it. It almost looked like Dongja was holding onto a fish out of water while trying to contemplate the tidal wave coming at him.

"Let GO, you irredeemably idiotic-"

"Where are we?" Dongja stammered.

Yeo-Ee-Pil finally wriggled out of Dongja's grip. The staff seemed to shake itself off, but in a dignified way. Well, as dignified as a worm-like metal staff could look.

"We're in Dalaran, according to one of those Faceless guards."

Dongja's jaw could have scraped the floor if it was any lower. There were machines here Dongja's admittedly frail mind couldn't even begin to comprehend. The floors were smooth to the touch, which Dongja could tell because for some ungodly reason Ogong walked around barefoot. As he stepped, he realized Ogong's feet were possibly burnt by something. Who knew. Ogong always got himself into trouble one way or another.

In any case, Dongja was pretty sure he was in the inside of a building, but it was so large the sorcerer could have sworn it was a celestial palace or something. The inside... glimmered. It was the strangest thing, as if the entire building was made out of a metallic substance, but not quite metallic. It looked the objects one might conjure if

"A-are we in the Conjuring Dimension?"

"Sorta!" Yeo-Ee-Pil chirped, as he eyed a strangely dressed woman passing by. She wore a grey robe that was far too short for her, and had a strange fins on the front, and a shirt underneath. Instead of trousers, she was wearing a strange half-dress. Her shoes were the strangest, slippers with spikes in the heel that lifted the feet up at an angle.

"It's an alternate dimension, alright," the brush continued as it eyed another woman in a similar garb, but stark black instead of grey, "And we got people from all sorts of dimensions around here. Earlier this week, I met this dude named Jim who had armor as big as a horse with this sorta glass helmet."

"That sounds stupid," Dongja chuckled, imagining the thought of wearing glass armor.

"Maybe in our world," Yeo-Ee-Pil admitted, "But that helmet took at least four or five, er, cannonballs to the face."

Dongja turned to him. "He what?"

"Yeah, tiny ones, but same mechanics. That Faceless guard wanted us to talk to a clerk, right?"

Yeo-Ee-Pil straightened and hovered into Dongja's hand. The sorcerer felt him pull towards a desk slightly.

"Come on, let's go."

Dongja looked around as he walked, still in awe about the whole place. He realized why he though the place was metallic. It was because it was clean. Not a speck of dust to be seen. Everyone was wearing the garb that Dongja saw earlier, with different variations. He noticed that the men were wearing skinny, tight trousers that veritably hugged the crotch, while the women had the tight half-dress Dongja saw earlier. Many of them were holding skinny leather satchels.

"What is this place?"

"It's called the Omniverse," the staff explained, "Basically a huge mish-mash of all the universes out there, I guess. Ogong was the one who arrived here, but I guess after he broke his hon, you got dragged in too."

"How do I get out?"

"I dunno."

Dongja smiled awkwardly at the clerk in front of him. He was standing in front of a weird machine with a piece of paper sticking out of the back. It clicked loudly as he pressed the numerous buttons on it.

"Hello, how can I help you?"

"Hi, uh," Dongja paused, "So I, sorta just got out of, your, uh, jail?"

"Ah, yes. What is your name?"

"Ok Dongja."

"He means Sun Ogong."

Dongja looked at Ogong's staff with alarm.

"What?" Yeo-Ee-Pil said, "You got in as Ogong."

"Do you permit your staff to answer for you?" the clerk asked.

"Uh... sure." Dongja shrugged.

"When were you arrested?"

"About a week ago," Yeo-Ee-Pil answered, "For... what was it? Oh yeah, reckless casting of magic and endangering the public."

"Those are some pretty serious charges." The clerk eyed the boy suspiciously. "Only a week?"

"He was possessed by a foreign spirit. Just look him up, you'll find his file."

The clerk raised one eyebrow, then pulled a small stick from inside his jacket. He waved it, and a metal cabinet about twenty meters away rattled open. A folder floated from the open cabinet to the clerk's hand. He opened the folder and read the inside.

"Ah, yes, of course. You were to be taken to the Council upon your regaining consciousness. It says here your sentient weapon is to speak for you, as you will likely not have your memories. Well, off you go."

"Uh... is the Council open now?" Dongja asked, confused.

"You'll see," the clerk droned, "Off you go. See that corridor? Go down there and take the second left."

Dongja followed the clerk's instructions, and Yeo-Ee-Pil continued to explain.

"So yeah. Mish-mash of other worlds, each with their own magic. Not too many calligraphy magicians here, I noticed, but then Ogong and I haven't been here long. Everything is made of this thing called Omnilium. It's a glowy rock thing. You can make stuff with it, but Ogong hasn't really done anything with that, so I don't know what to tell you."

"Okay," Dongja said, pretending to understand.

"You can't die, by the way. Well, you can, but you always come back. Though obviously you'll break your hon if you cast too much magic and then... well, you know."

"Yeah- wait, is Ogong in my body right now?!?"

---

Ogong rubbed his forehead, trying to adjust the red feather Dongja insisted on wearing under his headband. He stumbled a little, unable to keep his balance, since Dongja's body had no tail. Seriously, how do people do this?

"I'm telling you, Samjang, I'm Ogong!"

"Oppa, if you think that's gonna trick me into going out with you-"

"No, I broke my hon! I'm telling you-"

---

Dongja nodded thoughtfully. "So, to get Ogong back to his body, and for me to go home, I have to break his hon."

"Yeah, good luck on that, buddy," Yeo-Ee-Pil smirked, "Push that little circle with the arrow going up?"

Dongja did so. The buttons were next to large, iron gates, of which there were three. Other people were waiting to be admitted.

"Is there a line?"

"Oh no, this is one of those... Remember that "elevator" device that dog engineer invented?"

"Yeah."

"They... seriously upgraded them here."

The doors slid open. There was a small room on the other end with glass walls. Large metal ropes and various wheels floated in the air around the box. Dongja sighed.

"Yeah, sure," the boy mumbled, "Why not."

He stepped inside along with the other strangers beside him. The moment they stepped inside, they all spoke at once, listing various locations. Dongja stared at them blankly as they waited for him to say something.

"Council of Dalaran?" Yeo-Ee-Pil said.

And with that, the elevator lifted, rising rapidly. Dongja gripped onto a nearby handlebar.

"Oh my God!" he panicked, "It must be going, like, ten meters a second!"

The other passengers glanced at him, confused.

The elevator stopped smoothly, despite the incredible speed it demonstrated just moments before. The doors slid open, revealing a milky wall of floating liquid.

"What the hell..." Dongja muttered.

Few of the people stepped inside, the liquid warping as they entered. The doors slid close and the elevator began to shoot upwards again. Another group of people left. The third time the elevator stopped, everyone stepped out. A voice rang in Dongja's head.

"Your destination, the Council of Dalaran."

"Now a lady is talking in my head."

Dongja straightened himself and walked into the warping liquid.

2794/7500 words.

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild
  

[Dr. McNinja]

Ok Dongja was already alarmed, to say the least. Ever since he woke up, his day had been a whirling mess of disheartening revelations and a world whose very laws of physics operated differently. Also, he was inside his simian best friend's body, which was pretty jarring.

So when he walked through the glossy portal from the escalator and somehow managed to step in front of a pedestal surrounded by wooden benches, with no exit to be seen, Dongja decided this wasn't that surprising.

Nor was it particularly startling that these forty-something Council members, all sitting on elevated benches behind shiny wooden podiums, were expecting him. Dongja was mildly intrigued by how these members were various humanoid fish or dwarves or what appeared to be a giant anvil that hovered in the air, but that passed quickly. After all, he was currently a monkey with a talking magic stick. Speaking of which, Yeo-Ee-Pil was nowhere to be seen. Ok Dongja was alone.

The podiums of the room were arranged to be of varying heights, all centered around the witness in a circle of judgmental elders. There were no visible corridors or exits, presumably to make the witness feel trapped and alone. Apparently, the witness wasn't even allowed a chair, Dongja silently complained as he stood on the marble floor. One podium stood above the rest, and in that stand sat an elderly man, whose face was wrinkled beyond humanity. His hair was whiter than snow and it trailed down below the stand. Dongja suspected, given the width of the beard before it vanished behind the wooden podium, that the beard actually pooled on the floor in a pile of whiskers. The man wore purple robes that draped on his body quite similarly to how his beard draped off of his chin, and a single pointy hat that was probably longer than his head. Both his hat and robes were patterned with yellow stars.

The old man drew a short stick, much like the wands Dongja had seen the other magicians bear, and pressed the tip against the side of his neck.

"Diviner, please ready your spells."

A man appeared out of nowhere, holding a copper coin in his palm. He pressed a thumb against Dongja's temple, to his great displeasure.

"Sun Ogong," the old man spoke out, in volumes several times too loud, "You stand here before the Council of Dalaran, charged with multiple crimes against the people of Dalaran and the Kingdom. Would you like to hear these charges?"

"Uh..." Dongja stammered, "S-Sure."

Some of the Council chuckled. The old man cleared his throat, and Dongja's eardrums protested.

"Mr. Rincewind, if you would."

"Yes, of course," the man named Rincewind replied, shouting slightly, "Sun Ogong, you have been charged with two counts of unlawful discharge of magic, three counts of destruction of public property, and one count of resisting arrest."

"And how do you respond to these charges, Mr. Sun?" the old man boomed.

Dongja blinked twice, then shrugged. "I 'unno."

The Council laughed again, and the old man cleared his throat again.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sun?"

"It wasn't me," Dongja attempted, "This uh... This isn't my body. I know that sounds fake, but-"

"He's telling the truth."

Dongja glanced at the man in white robes besides him, who was drawing another copper coin.

"I see," the old man said, "Then what is your name."

Dongja puffed his chest. "I am the great hero-"

"Lie."

"-hero, Ok Dongja."

"...Truth."

"Very well, Mr. Ok," the old man said, "I imagine, in this case, you are not informed on what is going on here?"

"Not at all, no."

"Mr. Mordenakainen?"

Mordenkainen waved his hands, and blew greenish dust from his palm. The dust floated to the marble floor, and suddenly an image appeared. It seemed to change the floor into a cobblestone public square, where Ogong lay on the ground, writhing in pain. Chinese characters were etched into his skin, and arcane energy orbited around him like rings of fire. There were pedestrians nearby, various people in strange attire, backing away slowly. Two men in armor were waving them back.

"Get back! This area is unsafe! Get ba-"

A monstrous voice, the result of hundreds of voices speaking at once, interrupted the guard.

"Lake, Ho! Water, Soo! Ho-Soo!"

The cobblestones writhed and twisted into a basin, and a metal pipe snaked its way from within the street above the basin. It started pouring clear water into the basin, showing no signs of stopping. The guards seemed very unperturbed by the spontaneous fountain. After all, a third one was struggling to escape from a cage that presumably the spirits consuming Ogong had spawned.

"Sir, please stop casting immediately-"

"Eye, Ahn! Lens, Gyung! Ahn-Gyung!"

A pair of glasses popped into existence about half a meter from the ground and dropped in a clatter.

"Sir, you are in violation of-"

"Burst, Pok! Blast, Bahl!"

Dongja gasped.

"Pok-Bahl!"

The illusion vanished as the explosion wracked the streets. Everyone in the Council shifted uncomfortably.

"Fortunately," the old man said, "The guards were nearby and able to Ward against your, er, forgive me, against Mr. Sun's magic. Nobody was harmed, but Merlin Boulevard was quite ruined."

The anvil spoke up. "Would you care to explain, Mr. Ok, what happened that day?"

Ok Dongja glanced at the expectant Council members. He cleared his throat.

"Right, uh," the boy stammered, "S-So Ogong, I guess uh, he's the one that uh... Erm... Came? To the, Omniverse? Yeah. Um, so that's probably how he uh, got there."

"Got where?" the old man asked.

"To, uh, where did that happen?"

"Merlin Boulevard," Mordenkainen said.

"Yeah. That place."

The old man sighed. "And then?"

"He, uh, whatever he was doing, he cast too much magic at once, I guess? I don't know, I wasn't there. And then he, uh, broke his hon."

"His hon?"

"Erm, it's like, your, um, soul? Spirit? I guess?" Dongja was sweating so much his clothes turned a different shade of navy. "It's the part of you that nature, uh, interacts with when you cast, you know, magic."

"In your world," a beautiful middle-aged woman with blank eyes and yellow hair interjected.

"What Magna Aegwynn is trying to say," the old man said, his face calming, "is that magic works... differently here. It may or may not be that the 'hon' you speak of works the same way it does in the Omniverse as it does in your homeworld."

"So... none of you are from here?"

The other Council members blinked. The old man chuckled slightly.

"I see you are new to the Omniverse, Mr. Ok."

Dongja smiled awkwardly. "Erm, yeah. I woke up in your dungeon."

"What happens when you break your hon, Mr. Ok?" Rincewind asked him.

"Uh..." Dongja stammered again, "well, Yeo-Ee-Pil can explain better-"

"Yes, he's doing so," the old man nodded, "As we speak."

Dongja frowned.

"Temporal dislocation magic," Aegwynn explained.

The anvil spoke up, her voice strangely feminine. "We can have multiple hearings at once when we are in this room."

"I won't even pretend to understand that," Dongja replied frankly, "And, well, in that case, you know. If the hon shatters, there's this void within your body, and like all things in nature, voids wish to be filled. So all manners of spirits start fighting over your body, and... well, one of them wins. The process is violent, and magic starts firing everywhere... That's what happened on Merlin Boulevard."

"That means," the old man nodded pensively, "that your spirit won?"

"I think it just kinda got dragged in," Dongja mused, "I really have no idea, though."

"An accidental mage," Mordenkainen chuckled, "Sounds familiar, eh, Rincewind?"

"Hey, I detest that!" Rincewind snapped.

"Mr. Mordenkainen, please keep such comments to a minimum," the old man said for what was clearly not the first time.

"I mean, I'm a mage, too," Dongja said, "Just not supposed to be here, is all. This isn't even my body. It's my friend's."

"And how can we restore stability in your friend's body, Mr. Ok?" the anvil asked.

"I have to break my hon again," Dongja said, "And Ogong's hon will naturally slip back in. Probably."

"And that will lead to the same violent results we saw on Merlin Boulevard?" Aegwynn asked.

"Yeah, and the magic is as strong as the user," Dongja worried, "So you'll need some really powerful suppression magic."

"Your weapon claims it will be very easy to suppress it," Mordenkainen commented.

Dongja scowled. "Yeah. He would."

"I think we have all the information we need from you, Mr. Ok," the old wizard at the head said, "If you would please wait outside, we will inform you on our decision."

Dongja wanted to say something else, but when he blinked, he was suddenly sitting on a bench besides Yeo-Ee-Pil in a room with no door.

4275/7500 words.

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild
  

[Dr. McNinja]

"Mr. Ok Dongja, you have been found innocent of all charges by the High Council."

Dongja was back in the Council Room, standing nervously with Ogong's staff around his back. The entire Council was staring at him. The boy could've sworn it was near afternoon (yes he had waited outside that long) but here it appeared to still be morning.

"As such, you are to be released from Dalaran custody, effective immediately."

The boy sorcerer twitched a smile.

"You seem unimpressed," the old man and presumably leader of the High Council chuckled.

"Um."

Truth be told, Dongja was still extremely nervous, no matter how kindly this old man seemed to be, or how much Dongja would love as a teacher. That Mordenkainen figure was imposing and possibly evil, depending on the situation. And plus, there was an anvil here. Whoever thought of a talking anvil ought to be locked up. The old man cleared his throat.

"However, due to safety concerns regarding your recent outburst – or, your friend's recent outburst – of magic usage, you will be assigned a Master, a member of the Mages' Guild, to train under."

"Excuse me, sir? Mr., uh..."

"Dumbledore," the old man said, a twinkle in his eye.

"High Chief Warlock Dumbledore to you," Mordenkainen snapped.

"Just Dumbledore is fine."

"Uh, Mr. High Chief Warlock Dumbledore, sir," Dongja mumbled, "I already have a master. Master Barley. I don’t really know where he is – I assume he's home – but I don't really want to leave him."

"Whether you accept the tutelage of your master is your decision," Dumbledore explained, "As a gesture of kindness to you."

"Oh." Dongja fidgeted. "Thanks."

"You're quite welcome," Dumbledore replied, "My apologies for any inconveniences this misunderstanding has caused. I truly hope you manage to fix this mess."

"No, uh, no problem."

"My shiny platinum ass, no problem!" Yeo-Ee-Pil snapped, "You kept us here for a full two weeks, and made us sit on a bench for a day!"

"Is that how long it has been?" Dumbledore mused, "We really ought to recalibrate the temporal dislocation fields, would you tell Maintenance to fix that?"

"Of course," a woman said, appearing out of nowhere.

"You are all dismissed," Dumbledore said, rising from his seat.

"Oh, HELL, no, you ain't heard the last of-"

Dongja reappeared in a small room with several wooden benches. There were people sitting on them, waiting patiently for something. In front of Dongja was a desk, which was in front of a lady in the grey clothes Dongja had seen earlier, who was in front of a glass wall, engraved with the symbol of an eye and three lightning bolts descending from the bottom eyelid.

"-me. Hey, where are we?"

"The High Council of Dalaran has dismissed you," the woman said, clicking away at some sort of contraption, "You are in the lobby. Your assigned Master is waiting for you outside."

"I guess they heard the last of you," Dongja smirked.

The sentient staff was about to smack the shit out of the boy for his snark, when suddenly huge doors that Dongja had not noticed flew open behind him. A small figure appeared. Very small, in fact. He must have been about three feet tall. He had creases in his brow like he was permanently frowning. He was mostly bald, but what hair he had left jutted out in a large fan-like tuft behind him. Three spikes shot out from his chin, resembling spines on a deadly beast. He was wearing the Oriental robes Dongja was used to seeing. In fact, he had seen this man before.

"Master Millet?" Dongja exclaimed.

"Hey, kid, long time no see," the old man said, stepping forward and giving him a brisk pat on the arm, "I heard you broke your hon. So? Are you hanging on inside, or is someone else in there?"

"Oh, Ogong's not here," the boy said, glad to see another friendly face, "I'm Dongja."

Master Millet blinked twice and sighed. "Oh, you really must be fucking joking this time, Omni."

4949/7500 words (MS Word).

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild
  

[Dr. McNinja]

Now that Dongja was in the Omniverse, he found that many of the rules were much more lenient. For example, though he was not of drinking age, many taverns in Dalaran simply let him in. It was probably due to the fact that Dongja was traveling with a Master of Dalaran.

This particular tavern, the Flying Donkey, was very alien indeed. The walls were wood, not paper, and the air felt damp and dinghy. It was perfectly likely that the inside of all taverns felt damp, but Dongja wouldn't know. In particular, Dongja noticed that the building was filled to the brim with very loud drunks, casting random magic (again, Dongja noticed, without writing the corresponding characters) almost as pranks.

Having been sat at a table, the three of them sat quietly amongst the rabble. Master Millet ordered a "Tong-Ba", whatever that was, and had bought Dongja a type of grog-like meal. He had called it a pie. This was not a pie. But it was still the first meal Dongja had in what he perceived as days.

"So let me get this straight," Master Millet groaned, "Ogong stopped a desert from blowing up by breaking his hon and casting three Words of Power all by himself?"

"I mean, I was there," Yeo-Ee-Pil replied, "But pretty much, yeah."

"That idiot," Dongja sighed, "Master Barley told us not to even cast one."

"Yeah, just one of those might break YOUR hon," Master Millet snickered, "Ogong had a chance, at least."

Dongja shot him a brief glare before realizing it was not his place to glare. Yeo-Ee-Pil snickered.

"Alright, so to work this out, I'm going to need your full cooperation, Dongja."

"You know that I am always obedient, Master Millet."

Master Millet snorted. "Yeah, right."

The old man scratched his bald spot.

"I'm guessing you never met Omni, then."

"Who?"

"Omni," Master Millet grunted, "That big white asshole with no eyes and the giant mouth."

Dongja shuddered. What a horrible thing that this Omni must be. "I think I'd remember that."

"He owns the place."

"The Flying Donkey?"

"No, no," Master Millet grunted, "The Omniverse. At least, as far as I know. He snatches people from their home worlds and drags them into this place to play."

"That's kidnapping."

"On a divine scale, yes. You want tea or something? It's different here, but it's still pretty good."

Dongja watched as a neighboring table turned the water into a rat, and back into water again. He thought about the horrible bitter stuff that was the beverage equivalent of a thistle branch that Master Millet used to drink in their home world. Dongja gulped.

"No, thanks."

"Suit yourself."

Master Millet waved his fingers, and frowned tensely. A tiny prismatic cloud folded out over the old man's mug, and started raining into the mug, filling it with the beer he was drinking earlier. Dongja stammered.

"Master Millet, how.... are you doing that?"

"Magic."

"No, like, without the calligraphy."

"Oh!" Master Millet leaned back, slightly surprised. "Wow, you're behind, kid. Okay. So this entire world is made of different worlds."

"Right," Dongja said, thinking about the strangely dressed people back at that Council.

"Which means different forms of magic."

"Uh-huh."

"So, as it turns out, most worlds don't have calligraphy magic. They cast it differently."

"How?"

"Are you even listening?" Master Millet sighed, "There are fifty-thousand different worlds, all with their own type of magic. Some of them, there's an inner source of magical energy that you expend, like energy in a body. Some of them, like us, are borrowing power from another higher source. Some of them, you burn coal in a box and a small glass thing emits light for hours. They're all here, Dongja. All of them."

Master Millet raised his hands, and a glowing prismatic rock crumbled into reality.

"And here, they're all fueled by Omnilium."

Dongja caught himself staring at it in wonder. It was quite beautiful, and it filled with a warm sort of feeling. Master Millet clapped his hands, and the "Omnilium" disappeared.

"Basically," he continued, "This rock can make anything you want. Tools, toys, weapons, fire, water, metal, hell, I've seen a strong Prime make a whole house. Anything."

"Can it..." Dongja paused, checking if this was a stupid question, "Can it make people?"

"A shitload of it, yeah," responded Master Millet, "They're called Secondaries. You'll see them everywhere. Most of the people here are Secondaries."

"And they can use Omnilium?" Dongja gasped, "Is that how they make babies here?"

"What? No! They do it the usual way." Master Millet flinched. "I think. I don't know, actually. But Secondaries can't use Omnilium anyway. Only Primes. Like you and me."

"Yoe-Pil, too?"

"Nah, he's a Secondary. No offense, Master."

"None taken," the staff mumbled sleepily.

"So I can make anything I want?"

"With practice," Master Millet nodded, "Which means that we have some good news."

Dongja blinked rapidly. "What?"

"It means that the limits you had back home?" Master Millet smiled, "You don't have them anymore. Not only do you have Ogong's body, and thus his abilities, but you are theoretically only limited by how much Omnilium you have."

"How do I do that?"

"You entertain Omni," Master Millet responded.

Dongja raised an eyebrow as Yoe-Pil napped on the bench nearby.

5832/7500 words (MS Word).

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild
  

[Dr. McNinja]

Dongja trudged along the gravelly path, still getting used to not wearing shoes. It simultaneously made sense and was completely ridiculous. To feel like there were fingers on his feet meant that shoes would just restrain them. He'd feel trapped. And plus, the soles of his feet were callused enough that this didn't hurt. But still. Now they were all dirty. In hindsight, this explained a lot about Ogong's hygiene standards.

"So, you've caught up with some of the conjurations of basic elements," Master Millet nodded, "Fire, Wind, Lightning, Stone... Even learned how to represent parts of your body. You learned some of the non-human body parts yet?"

"Um, sorry?"

"Like wings. Or tails. Well, I guess you already have a tail. How about giant teeth?"

"Giant wha- Erm, I mean, no, Master."

Master Millet raised his eyebrows.

"Sorry."

Master Millet turned away. Yeo-Ee-Pil snickered.

"A winged monkey. Now, that's a funny concept."

Master Millet ignored the staff. "How about altering forces of physics?"

Dongja turned to Master Millet. "You can do that?"

"Of course. You thought all we ever did was summon things?" Master Millet scoffed. "I mean, wouldn't we call ourselves summoners, not sorcerers?"

"Is that what you're gonna teach me?" Dongja mumbled.

"Oh, God, no. I'm going to teach you how to control your magic better, so that when we put you back in your regular body, you don't nuke the world again."

"That was Ogong, though," Dongja sighed, "Not me."

Master Millet paused, then nodded.

"Right."

Master Millet stopped in front of the one house in Dalaran that Dongja actually thought was familiar. There was even a front gate with handles that he knew from home. He thought he could see the traditional roof tiling over the cobblestone wall.

"Welcome to my crib," Master Millet said, swinging open the large wooden gate.

---

Master Millet sighed.

"One more time."

Dongja dusted off his clothes, leaning slightly on a nearby pillar. He was standing in the courtyard of Master Millet's house, around which the entire house was built. It was the most logical place for training. But Dongja couldn't help but want to practice in the warm interior of the house.

He focused his mind on the task at hand, and began to imagine what it was like to be dragged on Ogong's adventures, every time Sam-Jang pulled him by the ear to motivate him to do something, or all the times he was yanked off his feet by whoever was attacking the gang this time. He imagined the sensation of pulling on a locked door. He imagined pulling a rope, wishing he had Ogong's strength.

Dongja snapped open his eyes, concentrating on the small boulder ahead of him.

"Pull! Lahp!"

He felt his mind gripping on the boulder for a moment, but before he could cheer, something yanked Dongja by his collar and flung him to the other end of the courtyard. The hood on his hoodie, which had once survived an ethereal fist ripping through a boulder, finally fell off in tatters.

As Dongja groaned to his feet, Master Millet pursed his lips.

"Again."

---

Unlike the coarse wooden pillars and beams that held the roof up, which seemed so old and withered that you could probably get a splinter the size of a tooth just from running your hands along them, the deck was made of smoothed, cool, lacquered wooden planks. Dongja restrained himself from thinking about that, lest it bring attention to the horrible situation.

The boy sorcerer was now in the middle of a handstand, balancing a cup of tea on each foot. His sweat was dropping to the gravel below, forming a splotchy area of wet dirt directly below Dongja's dripping brow. Even in his extremely strong friend's body, this was strenuous. Especially since the cups on tea on the soles of his feet were quite hot. Since it was winter, Master Millet thought it best to form a miniature sun over the courtyard to keep things warm.

Dongja was to maintain this uncomfortable position all day. As entertainment, he decided to watch the sun as it dipped down then back up again in a strange, upside-down arc. Fortunately, Master Millet's courtyard was breezy, despite it being completely enclosed by the somehow already ancient roof tiles that seemed seconds from simply sliding off the roof.

"Um, Master Millet?" Dongja shouted, "How does this help my training?"

"This is a strange world, Dongja," Master Millet shouted back, stopping to sip his tea, "With strange cultural concepts of 'entertaining.' Omni really likes excitement and action. Not exclusively, obviously. But, I mean, he probably wasn't even watching when we were meditating earlier."

The old man took another sip of his tea, then frowned. He looked at the bottom of the cup. Then he walked over to the kettle that was boiling in a corner of the courtyard, then poured himself another cup. He walked over to Dongja, then replaced the cup on his left foot with the fresh cup.

"And plus, this is actually a pretty important way of understanding the spells I'm about to teach you."

Dongja grit his teeth, nostrils flaring in the effort of maintaining this form. He had already spilled some of the tea, causing scalding liquid to drip down the sides of his legs. And, for some reason, this damn monkey was only ever comfortable wearing sweatpants.

"Keep it up," Master Millet chuckled.

---

Two weeks had passed, and Dongja had suffered every moment of it. Master Millet seemed to relish in torturing Dongja, and so far, he hadn't learned much. He missed Master Barley, who would actually teach him magic so he could practice it. He wondered if this was what needed to happen to reach the next tier of magic. But Ogong never needed to do this.

Master Millet mumbled once more, "Cold: Neng. Spin: Hwe-Jun."

Frost bloomed once more on the trembling surface of the bath. The water was swirling in a rapid rate. Dongja had been ordered not to be carried along in the current, while also surviving in the bitter, bitter cold. He shivered again, his skin attempting to clench onto the relatively warm cobblestone tub. The monkey was tougher in every way than Dongja, but even Ogong's bones were screaming in agony.

"You got another four minutes in here."

Dongja wanted to scream, but his lungs were too frozen for that. So instead, he just glared into the spinning bath water.

"You got something to say, Dongja?"

"No, Master," Dongja said, lowering his head more and gritting his teeth to stop their chattering.

Master Millet paused for a moment, then left the room.

---

Dongja scraped the last specks of rice at the bottom of his bowl. His hunched back trembled still after the cold bath. His bottom lip quivered slightly as it felt the scorching heat of the metal bowl. His sore legs sighed in relief at the comfort of sitting on a surprisingly colorful cushion. Yeo-Ee-Pil was currently napping, laid out on the floor.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Master Millet packing a sack full of books and one set of clothes. Dongja stopped a moment to give him an inquisitive look.

"Are you leaving, Master?" he said in a voice as hushed as possible, just in case.

Master Millet rolled his eyes. "I can't hear you, speak up."

"Are you leaving?" the boy tried again.

"What?"

"I asked if you were leaving."

"Oh. Yeah." Master Millet sniffed disdainfully, then slung the sack over his shoulder. "Forgot to mention. You're too weak to train. Bye."

Yeo-Ee-Pil perked up. "Ah, I see. You're on that-"

"That part, yes," Master Millet interrupted, "Sorry, Master, I have to go."

"I understand. See ya."

The staff slinked away. Dongja frowned.

"What did he mean by 'that part,' Master?"

"Don't call me that anymore, I'm not your master anymore."

Master Millet slid open the paper door and stepped outside. The night air flooded in, filling Dongja with another chill.

"Are you joking?"

"No, I am not. You're a hopeless case."

Master Millet started walking. Dongja tucked his tail back and rose to his feet, rushing out after him.

"But... that makes no sense. After all that, you're just going to leave?"

Master Millet sighed and walked briskly across the courtyard. "What are you gonna do about it?"

Dongja flinched, then he breathed in deep.

"Please, don't go, Master."

"Oh, boo hoo, my master is leaving me," Master Millet groaned, swinging open the large wooden gate, "You need to really learn how to shape up, Dongja."

"But Master, you need to fix me. I don't know how to do it, and you- you-"

"I can't do anything that'll fix your problems, boy," Master Millet sighed, "Leave me alone."

"Don't go!"

Master Millet spun on his heels, forming a small dust cloud at his feet. He glared pure poison at Dongja.

"What. Are you. Going. To do. About it."

Dongja stammered.

"Thought so," Master Millet muttered, then turned to leave.

Dongja pondered over the next course of action. If he were too aggressive, then he'd be stepping out of line. But he couldn't just let him go. Master Millet was his best chance at swapping the bodies safely, or at all.

As Master Millet prepared to turn the corner at the end of the street, Dongja did the unthinkable.

"Pull: Lahp!"

Dongja flew backwards, sliding down the street the opposite direction of Master Millet. The old man turned around and chuckled.

"Cute," he mumbled, then turned again to keep walking.

Dongja's eyes widened.

"Pull! Lahp!"

This time, the character Dongja envisioned etched itself dimly into a ring of glowing arcane energy above his head. It warbled with cosmic force, and Dongja's vision seemed to bend slightly.

Suddenly, Master Millet's collar jerked, and the old man started flying back towards Dongja.

The boy sorcerer squinted as he mumbled, "Wait, really?"

Master Millet spun around mid-air, his own, much wider ring of magic forming above his head. In a quick and jerky motion, a Chinese character appeared in its center.

"Push: Ahp!"

Master Millet landed, skidding on the dirt and catching his footing. Something invisible quivered directly between Dongja and Master Millet. Dongja felt his mind grip at something he couldn't understand. He maintained the magic, realizing that Master Millet was now trying to push back.

The invisible quiver in the air started approaching Dongja. As it did, he felt something resist his thoughts It was difficult to explain. He felt pressure on his thoughts, like what happened every time Master Barley asked him a tough question or the rare moments when Ogong was in trouble and Dongja, in all his ineptitude, had to help.

He thought about the last two weeks, when Master Millet boiled tea on his skin, or dunked him in ice, or removing a pillar in the house and forcing Dongja to replace it.

The man felt a rage boil inside him.

It wasn't right.

He had to fix it.

The quiver suddenly jerked forward, towards Master Millet. Dongja flinched. He could've sworn the old man was smiling.

Before Dongja could process that, Master Millet was once more lifted off his feet and making a beeline for Dongja. Whatever held him in the air seemed to let go in the last moment, forcing Master Millet to once more skid on the dirt path, stopping right in front of the boy sorcerer.

"Finally," the old man panted, "Knew there was a reason Barley kept you around."

Dongja blinked rapidly. "What?"

"Let me explain inside."

Master Millet adjusted his robe, then walked back into the courtyard. Dongja scrunched his face in fury, storming after him.

"What, so this was all a trick?" the boy started shouting, "Are you serious right now? You were just messing around with my head-"

"Yeah, and it worked wonders," Master Millet noted, "You held your own against a master in a magic tug-of-war. Of course, I was going easy on you, but- listen, it makes much more sense once you understand what happened, alright?"

Dongja threw his arms in the air.

"NO! Not alright! You could've- You should've- I felt something press my BRAIN!"

Master Millet suddenly snapped into a new glare, something Dongja hadn't seen since KentucKing* attacked his house back home. And when that happened, Master Millet beat the shit out of that overgrown chicken-man. Master Millet wordlessly crossed his arms, and Dongja bowed his head slightly instinctively.

"Alright, good, you're listening now," Master Millet nodded, "The magic I've been trying to teach you? They're abstract forces. Ogong understood the concept, because he went through extensive training on it. It was clear to me right away that you hadn't. So I did to you what I did to all my students."

"Act like an asshole?" Dongja mumbled under his breath.

"Man, now that you've grown a pair, you don't know when to stop, do you?" Master Millet scoffed, "But yes. Torture. Made them hate me. Intensely. Do you know why?"

Dongja didn't answer.

"Because magic is hard shit, Dongja. When you conjure things, you are simply asking the universe to borrow something. You're not changing too much about it, just putting one thing in a different place. But like I said, magic is more than just conjuring. Sometimes, you gotta change the rules of the universe. And the universe does not like it."

Master Millet set down his bag and sat on the porch, crossing his legs. He gestured to his side. Dongja sat down next to him.

"There's a rule in some of the other worlds, something named after a guy named Newton-"

"That's a weird name."

"I know. But he's apparently a master, in his own way. And he came up with this rule which I quite like. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. You know what that means?"

Dongja shook his head. "Not really."

"Ugh. Okay. Think about what it's like to pull against a really heavy rock. What happens?"

"Doesn't move."

"No, something moves. And that something is you. It's more obvious if you're doing it with a rope. If the rock doesn't move, you start moving towards the rock. How do you fix that?"

"I get stronger?" Dongja attempted.

Master Millet snickered. "You?"

Dongja frowned. "Then what?"

"You dig in, Dongja," Master Millet grunted, leaning in slightly, "You dig your feet into the ground and you hold your weight. You don't let your body get thrown off-balance. See, you may think all those exercises we did was just to torture you, but if you think about it, they were all about holding your ground. Now do you see what Newton's rule means?"

"No."

"It means that when you ask for magic that the cosmos doesn't like, you're pushing a little. And when you push, the cosmos starts pushing back. Not unlike that tug-of-war match we had earlier. And if you're not strong enough, it will push you harder and knock you over. In your case, instead of you pulling the rock, the universe pulled you."

"But that wasn't equal," Dongja noted, "That was way not equal. Whenever I cast the spell, it just tossed me aside."

"It's not a perfect metaphor," Master Millet sighed, "Point is, you have to ground yourself mentally. And how does one do that? You can answer this one, just think about what you felt when we were fighting."

Dongja considered the events. He felt angry. Very, very angry. And scared. Perhaps desperate, maybe? Yes. Yes, desperate for Master Millet to stay and help him. He relayed this to Master Millet.

"Almost," he responded, "You wanted something that someone else didn't want. So you...?"

"Fought for it," Dongja mumbled.

"Exactly," Master Millet nodded, "You can't cast cosmic magic if you're gonna be a pushover. You have to ground yourself."

Yeo-Ee-Pil bent and peeked his head from behind a door. "You guys done?"

Dongja looked at Master Millet, who shrugged. Dongja shrugged as well.

The staff floated out into the courtyard, one end of it turned to Master Millet as one would turn a head. "He understood what you were saying?"

"Almost definitely not."

Dongja looked up at the old man, offended. The magic weapon chuckled.

"He's doing better than you," Yeo-Ee-Pil snickered, "Remember when I did this lesson with you? Did I ever tell you this story, Dongja?"

"Please don't," Master Millet muttered. Dongja almost fell over. He had never seen Master Millet beg before.

Yeo-Ee-Pil ignored him. "So there was this one other student of mine, a girl, right? And Millet is just so in love with her-"

"Master," Millet hissed, "Seriously, don't do this."

"But he's such a big softie, he starts writing her love poems- Oh, hey, you know her! Master Foxtail."

Dongja stifled a laugh. "You had a crush on Master Foxtail**?"

"I guess it had to happen, there were only five students, and they were all going through puberty. You know I taught the Five Grain Masters*** when they were teenagers, right?"

Dongja grinned widely, not even bothering to hide his elation. Master Millet sighed and got up to leave.

"No, come on, don't leave, Millet!" Yeo-Ee-Pil laughed, "Come ooooon, kid's gotta hear some of the lovey-dovey crap you wrote! What was that one about the sweetest plum, huh?"

"Good night," Master Millet snapped, opening the door to his study.

"Wait, Master Millet?" Dongja cried out.

The old dwarf turned around, one eyebrow raised.

"So..." Dongja licked his lips nervously. "So you aren't just going to drop me one day? Because, I uh, don't know anybody here. In the Omniverse, I mean."

"You're my pupil now, Dongja," Master Millet sighed, "For better or for worse."

"It just, it really looked like you were just going to leave."

"You kidding? Why would I leave?" Master Millet snorted, "This is my house."

And with that, Master Millet closed the door.

* In the canon Dongja is from, there are twelve highly powerful warriors who formed the Twelve Demon Celestials, based on the Chinese zodiac. The rooster warrior once attacked the main characters, aided by Master Millet's backstabbing student, the newly appointed rabbit warrior (who then switched sides again, weirdly enough). And the rooster was named KentucKing. It sounds like that in Korean, too. Yes, as in KFC. That's right. The demon warrior is named after KFC.

** Master Foxtail Millet, not to be confused with Master Proso Millet. It makes sense in Korean, since Foxtail Millet and Proso Millet have different, simpler words.

*** The five most respected mortals in Dongja's world. Now masters, they are tasked with helping the Heavenly Emperor (basically God) keep the world spinning.

Yeesh, that was long. 8734/7500 words (MS Word).

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild
  

[Dr. McNinja]

Dongja gulped as Master Millet painted more arcane runes on the stone floor. Master Millet's basement was cold and uncomfortably damp, and the feeling permeated through Dongja's bones. But it was roomy and sturdy, perfect for the realignment ritual Master Millet planned out. The old wizard himself was on his knees, painting carefully to make sure there were no gaps in the lines.

"Just relax, Dongja. I've done this lots of times. And those other guys are just here to watch."

"And what if I fail?"

"Then you'll make a very big mess out of a very small circle in the room. But you won't fail, right?"

"Right."

"You're gonna hold your ground."

"Right."

"Say it."

"I'm gonna hold my ground."

"Thatta boy," Master Millet grunted, rising to his feet.

Someone knocked gently on the door to the basement. Master Millet waved a hand, a rune manifesting above his head.

Master Millet muttered, "Open: Geh."

The reinforced wooden door swung open, revealing three hooded figures. They held elegant branches with various ornaments, likely their wands, as Master Millet explained. They entered the basement, bowing slightly to Master Millet. A fourth mage followed them, dressed in white robes with red iconography. She smiled warmly at Dongja and Master Millet.

"Is this the young boy you spoke of?" the woman asked.

"This is him," Master Millet responded, "Madame Markovia, Ok Dongja. Dongja, Madame Markovia. The staff is Yeo-Ee-Pil."

Yeo-Ee-Pil floated into the air, bending so that its body was upright while its tip was bending downwards, as if to bow.

"Pleasure is all mine, Madame," the staff said.

The woman bowed to the staff, seemingly unfazed by the floating, talking stick.

"Madame Markovia is one of the higher-up clerics in the Mages' Guild," Master Millet explained, "She's here to make sure that the ritual we're doing fits Dalaran's standards. And, you know, to keep us honest."

Dongja bowed, his right fist pressed against his left palm.

"I'm honored, Madame Markovia."

"No need to be so formal, Dongja. Now, do you mind if I take a quick look in your head?"

Dongja glanced nervously at Master Millet. The old man nodded.

"Okay," the boy sorcerer mumbled.

Madame Markovia closed her eyes. She stuck out her index and middle finger, waving the hand in a circle. In her open palm lay another copper coin.

"Detect Thoughts," the cleric muttered.

Dongja suddenly felt something like a finger poke into his brain. It wasn't a painful experience, but it was certainly uncomfortable. The coin melted into liquid, then dissolved into dust, then into nothing.

"Let's see what you learned in the past few weeks," Madame Markovia said, her eyes gripped shut in concentration.

Dongja nodded. He stepped gingerly over the thin ring of runes that Master Millet painted onto the floor. He knelt in the center, where lines of runes intersected. The sorcerer couldn't help but notice the slight tingling sensation as the model ley lines touched his legs.

"Go ahead," Master Millet nodded.

Dongja inhaled deeply. In his mind, flashing images of the deities he and Ogong had met flickered from one to the other. The concept of immortality, of divinity, of the absolution that defined gods, formed like anthills in his brain. He was trying to grasp an idea that no mortal could comprehend.

"Divine," Dongja mumbled, his hands rotating in a circle, "Yung."

Dongja exhaled deeply. In his mind, flashing images of spirits flickered from one to the other. The idea of a person with no body, where the mind and heart was completely removed from any physical anchor, floating in the universe with nothing to hold onto.

"Spirit," Dongja mumbled, his hands stopping and knuckles pressing together, "Hon."

Master Millet watched with apprehension, fingers fiddling the brush he used to paint the runes.

"Soul," Dongja gasped, the twitching in his legs becoming insufferable, "Yung. Hon."

The ring on the floor flashed, purple light shooting upwards into walls of solid arcane energy. And just on time, as well. Dongja's body was beginning to ripple, branches of electricity reaching out and scratching at the magical cage. Fire swirled around Dongja, blocking sight of him from everyone else. It screamed outwards, pressing against the invisible wall like a child pressing his cheeks against glass. Frost crawled up the air on an unseen surface and the air vibrated inexplicably. Dongja screamed, and his eyes hollowed.

Madame Markovia looked at Maste Millet with concern, but the old dwarf nodded assuringly.

More magic burst from the boy in the middle of the glyphs, filling the space with elemental forces tearing at each other for room. The arcane energy was threatening to break the wall swelling the cylinder with its force. Master Millet, noticing this, waved his hands in a circular motion, creating an airborne glyph upon which he etched his next spell.

"Strength: Ryuk."

Clanking noises emanated throughout the room as the swirling column of unbound arcane forces straightened out, the force field holding tighter. Madame Markovia blinked in confusion.

"I... I can hear so many of them," the cleric muttered in confusion.

"It's working then," Master Millet snarled, "which one's louder?"

"All of them," Madame Markovia gasped, tears forming in her eyes as she clutched her temple, "They're all screaming, and the boy... is so lost..."

Master Millet snarled. He slammed on the arcane wall.

"Dongja!" the old man hollered, "Hold your ground!"

The arcane fury roared louder, swirling faster. Under any other circumstance, it would have been safe to assume the body would have been annihilated.

"Hold your ground!"

The storm dimmed lightly, as the magic made way for thousands of spectral faces to spin furiously. Sun Ogong's body lay in the middle, very dead.

"Hold your ground!" Master Millet roared,

"Hold your ground," the spirits replied, almost mockingly. It was impossible to see which one was Dongja's.

The magical rage flared up again, consuming the air. Master Millet scowled.

"He's... He's falling!" Madame Markovia screamed.

"I know," Master Millet snarled, four glyphs and sweat appearing on his brow, "Reply Dae, Prevent Hahng, Pour Ju, Words Moon!"

As he said each word, a new character etched itself hurriedly on each glyph. The four symbols crashed together, then separated themselves barely as the old man attempted to hold the spell.

"Counterspell! Daehang Joomoon!"

The spell was not quite right, and seemed to split a little into two different spells. The latter spell shot forward, lighting the cylinder with a very bright light. The former spell shot forward and shattered the wall, wrapping around the spell as if trying to smother it. In a mighty contest of magical wills, the master tried to embrace the student in a calming embrace, as violent as it was.

With an anticlimactic "beep", the magic vanished. A boy's body was in the middle, heaving. Master Millet, whose vision was blurry, sighed contentedly. The boy had done it after all.

Wait a minute.

Instead of the blue hoodied monkey that was there before, now rested a human boy in green robes. One orange feather stuck out of the boy's headband.

"This," Master Millet sighed, "isn't what I ordered."

***

Dongja scratched at his head. He was pretty sure that he didn't have fleas, since his body and Ogong's body would never have made contact, but he was itchy regardless. Next to him, Yeo-Ee-Pil was squirming back and forth like a child in a tantrum. They were sitting on a bench outside of the doors to the High Council of Dalaran.

"I'm boooooored Dongja let's go fight somethiiiiiiiing"

"Stop saying that," the boy grumbled, itching more.

Suddenly, the High Council's gate slammed open somehow gently. Dumbledore and Master Millet were walking out the door, murmuring something. Dumbledore smiled warmly at Dongja before turning back into the room. Master Millet smiled briefly, before correcting himself. He strolled up to Dongja.

"So you can stay in Dalaran now," Master Millet sighed, "If you want."

"I'm sorry?"

"You're not considered a liability anymore, just a student of a Master of Dalaran and a member of the Mages' Guild."

"I-"

"I mean, you're still an apprentice, since that's the lowest level. But frankly, you clearly had a lot more potential than I expe-"

"Master, I wanna go home."

Master Millet blinked, shocked. His expression briefly turned sad.

"Kid," the old man sighed, "There is no going back. I've never heard of someone transpositioning someone else like you did, and I highly doubt Ogong is back home, wondering what happened. Hell, even the biggest Primes around haven't been able to go back."

Dongja blinked.

"So," the boy stammered, "S-So I'm stuck here?"

His face crumpled. "Why? WHY? Ogong was the one who got dragged here! I didn't do anything! He just cast too many spells in his little playground and now I'm paying for it! Why do I have to stay in this fucking nightmare? Why do I-"

Dongja paused, tears fully streaming down his face. He collapsed onto the bench behind him, eyes distant. Master Millet sighed.

"After all this time," Master Millet grumbled, "You keep forgetting what I taught you."

The old man left, Yeo-Ee-Pil following behind him wordlessly (for once). The boy stayed on the bench for a while, thinking about what to do next.

COMPLETE

10273/7500 words (MS Word).

• Meet the Council of Dalaran
  
• Be assigned a Master
  
• Train
  
• Train some more
  
• Train even more
  
• Earn respect of superiors
  
• Be admitted into Mages' Guild