My name is Theodore, but I prefer Ted and I absolutely despise Teddie. I’m a nice even six feet tall, thin but not lanky, brown hair and eyes, and am a junior at Tetrade University. At this moment, I’m walking through the cafeteria in the student union, food tray in my hands, trying to find a decent place to sit and eat. I chose a couple slices of pepperoni pizza and a bowl of tater tots. There’s no such thing as a junior fifteen, I don’t care.

“Hey, this seat’s open!” I heard a bubbly female voice call out to me as I squeezed my way through the rows of occupied chairs. The bubbly female voice in question belonged to Emily. Cute, blond, decent sized rack(I’m a guy, these are the observations I make). She had picked out a much more reasonable chicken salad.

“Oh, thanks!” I said, pulling out the chair across the table from her and sat, “So, done with classes for the day?”

“Blah, one more.” She replied before scooping some of her salad into her mouth.

Meanwhile, I stared intently at my tater tots, well, one tot in particular. I squinted and concentrated on it’s starchy goodness, almost as if willing it to rise out of the bowl and into my mouth. Which it did. Now would probably be a good time to mention Tetrade University is unlike other colleges, though it looked normal enough. The student union looked like any other cafeteria, and the dorms were co-ed, had RAs and communal bathrooms that no one dared shower in barefoot. It had lecture halls and labs, and a quad with a statue of a distinguished looking man standing in the center that was often found wearing a pair of underwear over its head on Sunday mornings.

Where Tetrade differed was what it taught, which was magic. I used my hard earned tuition money to feed myself tater tots now, but by the time I graduate, I’ll know the basics needed to enter one of the two graduate schools. Not many career paths open when one majors in magic, basically you either put on a military uniform and use magic to kill demihumans or you put on a lab coat and research more efficient ways for that first group to do their jobs. It may sound silly limiting myself to just two options, but graduation from Tetrade guarantees free admission into either the military or research graduate school, and graduation from one of those guarantees you get a job, and the powers that be compensate quite nicely. A fair trade for not making my post-high school education a five digit gamble, I say.

Oh, and those demihumans? They come in all shapes and sizes. Minotaurs, succubus, gargoyles, trolls(the kind that live under bridges, not the kind that harass you over the internet. Though I wouldn’t mind using magic to take some of them down a peg), all real. Hilariously, there actually are lizardmen living beneath the Earth, though they are far too weak and feeble-minded to secretly control the government, unless that’s just what they want us to think. Another interesting note is that the Hollywood depiction of vampires and werewolves was pretty spot on. I say ‘was’ because they were hunted to extinction centuries ago. Their glaring weaknesses made them quite easy to cull.

The only real difference is that their bites did not convert people, they were born that way, members of their respective demihuman tribe. People were simply their food. Which is why Tetrade exists, to train those chosen to eliminate any demihumans who come out of hiding into human territory with the intent to kill, which they do attempt quite frequently.

“Showing off again?” Emily rolled her eyes and took another bite of salad.

“No, I’m just practicing, you know that!” I replied after swallowing the tot. It was the second semester of the school year, so I only had one semester’s worth of experience actually using magic. The first two years, you only learn theory and safety, as well as some general education they felt the need to make us learn. I shouldn’t complain, I suppose, since the art history class I put off until last semester is where I met Emily, who is a freshman(which is when most people get that crap out of the way), when normally the different years don’t mingle in their coursework. Her being a freshman also explains why she might be a tad jealous of my mad tater-lifting skills.

I had gotten to know Emily when we were paired together for a project. When studying together, we really hit it off, made each other laugh, I really felt the sparks flying. Then, one fateful day, I saw her refer to me as her best friend on facebook. Friend zoned. Hard. Not even the valiant wing-manning of my best friend, Will, could free me from the dreaded land of ‘just friends’. I truly enjoy her company regardless, though.

After we finished our meals, we put our trays away and went across the hall to the mail room to check our boxes. I opened mine and found a slip informing me I had a package and to go to the front desk to pick it up. Probably another care package from mom. Yay for free food! With Emily in tow, I headed toward the desk and showed them my slip, and the clerk ran out back and returned with my package.

“Whoa, it’s from my brother!” I said, if it was from him, it had to be something a lot better than some snacks.

“Now, if it’s from him, I’m so following you back to your dorm room to see what’s in there!” Emily said excitedly.

My older brother, Jason, is a prodigy in the Research and Development department. Graduating from their graduate school only a year ago, he’s already made significant strides in increasing the effective range of our offensive magic. He sends me interesting things on occasion, wanting me to test them out for him when his superiors say the item in question is not a productive use of his time. Over the centuries, modern technology has trumped magic in many areas. For example, telepathy exists, but cell phones, especially texting, made it obsolete, so once cell phones became a staple of life, Tetrade dropped telepathy courses. The only thing technology could not hope to accomplish, however, was harming the demihumans. They seemed to have some sort of strange innate immunity to normal weapons and could only be harmed by magic. As such, R&D has no time on the schedule for any magic not specifically tailored for combat. This doesn’t stop my brother from trying to invent other types of magic, he just has to send his creations elsewhere for testing once his superior finds out about them, and often that elsewhere is me.

“Open it open it open it!” Emily chanted.

We were back in my dorm room and the three foot long cardboard box sat on my bed. The curiosity was killing both of us. Pulling out my keys, I used my mailbox key to cut the length of the tape and peeled the flaps open. Inside I saw a note on top of some bubble wrapped object.

I read the note out loud:

“Hey, bro, decided to send you an early birthday present.”

I paused and said, “... My birthday isn’t for six months.”

“Shut up and keep reading!”

“In my research, I stumbled upon an undiscovered form of magic. To put it bluntly, I have figured out how to divide the body without causing it any harm. In this box, you will find three evokers in the form of swords. Each is infused with a different variety of this new magic. Each blade, when cutting through living flesh, creates a new layer of skin over the cut. No blood or guts, no death. The process can be reversed simply by pressing the two cut surfaces together. The three blades all work slightly differently, however. Here is what I was able to find out about them before my superior determined they were of no use in combat and ordered me to cease further research:

The green blade, when used to cut off a body part, will leave the person with feeling and control of the severed part. Chop off your hand and you will still be able to wiggle your fingers, as an example.

The second blade has one blue side and one red side. Pay very close attention to how you hold this blade when you swing it, because the while the cut surface on the blue side of the blade will continue to function normally, the red blade removes all feeling and control, making the severed parts inert but still alive. So if you were to cut through someone’s neck with the blue side up, they would be a bodiless head. Red side up, they’re a headless body.

Be very careful with the final blade, the purple one. It is similar to the previous one in that it removes feeling and control, but it also causes whatever parts no longer connected to the brain to gain a mind of their own and operate independently of their owner.

Keep in mind this is only what I know so far. I have yet to discover the full potential of this magic, which is where you come in. As always, please email me your findings.

Regards,
Jason”