	Power.  Jim had been given such awesome Power that he could not help but giggle with the madness it brought.  The Power to wield magic was the stuff of storybooks, legend, and heresy- but for Jim, a junior year college student, it was now a staggering reality.

	The find had been accidental:  A summer trip to South America for a cultural exchange, a free day that he used to go trek through small, forgotten villas in the middle of an ocean of jungle, a whim to pay three brown Indian men for a tour in a newly discovered Mayan temple, a sudden storm, a mudslide, an exposed crypt, a stone coffin, an ancient tome, a year of study of undecipherable glyphs, but now... now Power.

	It was late at night when Jim translated the very first page and read the phoenetics aloud.  At first, he thought the late night and gallons of coffee caused him to hallucinate- but he quickly discovered it was all very real.  The first page he uttered had been a magical incantation that gave him the ability to understand the rest of the magical text.  A Rosetta stone to preserve the Power beyond the last priest mage from a long forgotten civilization.  And Jim was eager to learn more.

	Jim decided when his loan check cleared that the money was best spent creating a workshop and library necessary for his true education.  The spellbook began with recipes requiring all manner of bizarre plants and substances that were not readily available.  Jim spent thousands of dollars and had native plants and rare elements shipped to him.  He set up his workshop and study in a family hunting lodge that long since been abandoned after his grandfather's death.  The land was held in trust, conditional that it was left as a natural preserve and undeveloped allowed Jim's parents to continue to collect a yearly stipend that his grandfather had set up before his passing.  The old cabin served Jim's purposes well.

	Jim spent hours learning the basics that most of the spells required.  He ground plant parts, combined ingrediants into mixtures, and prepared components for his magical endevours.  This occupied much of his waking moments, and school began to slide as a distant and unimportant second.  Within a month, Jim began crafting his first spells.

	Jim met with success immediately, to his stunned pleasure.  The spells worked.  And there were scores of them to try.  Some altered reality, created illusions, moved things, started fires and created ice, others needed targets and Jim needed subjects for his experiments to continue.  At first, Jim practiced on the forest animals.  He found a spell that created a magic arrow, which appeared when the proper words were said and a hand gesture resembling Spiderman's web slinging stance was made.  The magic arrow hovered before his eyes parallel to the hand used to make the gesture.  As the hand moved so did the arrow, until he pointed it at a small bird sitting on the limb of a tree a dozen feet above his head.  The bird disappeared a puff of blood and feathers.  Jim was startled, but found its corpse on the ground below the branch it had been on.  The magic was real- and had the power to kill.  Jim attempted to repeat the spell, but realized he had forgotten the words utterly.  Repeat experiments developed his understanding of the Power.  The ability to cast a spell not only required sundry components, but memorization of the text to chant- and that only lasted until the spell was cast and then more study had to be employed to repeat the spell.  Jim found he could remember enough to cast three spells.  By studying, Jim found that he had access to what the text's author or authors called the First and Second Circles of Power.  Apparently the Circles including ranks up to the Ninth Circle, which was the most Powerful.  Jim knew that he could increase his knowledge by practice, and so practice he did.

	Jim retained the ability to cast two First Circle spells and a single Second Circle spell a day.  At his disposal were a variety of choices, and he tried as many as he could.  Apparently, most spells in the first several Circles did not require terribley outlandish material components- however a glance at the end of the book revealed recipes which mandated the use of such ingrediants as diamond dust, volcanic ash, and animal sacrifice.  Surely Jim would find a way to procure those items as the Power became available for him to understand and use.

	Jim decided to use his Powers among people for the first time.  In preparation, he memorized a spell to put people to sleep, another that would enchant a person to treat him like a trusted friend, and a spell that would grant him invisibility.  He brought with him a pinch of sand, and a stick of chewing gum that he needed for the new spells.  Jim drove into the small town center near his cabin in order to test out his abilities.  Jim pondered his choices over and over again, but decided that his first attempt should be be cautious.  Jim drove his truck over to the one and only auto mechanic in the area and got out of his vehicle.  The mechanic was at work in the repair bay, and called out that he would be with Jim in a moment.  Jim used that time to cast his spell to charm the man.  It only took seconds to utter the words and nothing else was required for the casting.  Not knowing the effects, Jim waited.  Within moments, a man in his middle forties with short cropped black hair and a worn pair of coveralls crawled out from underneath a truck he was fixing.  He strode over to Jim, wiping the grease from his hands with a rag that looked like it was already saturated.  "Pleased to meet you, son, what can I do for you today?"  The man greeted Jim with an extended hand.

	"Dave Mathews," Jim introduced himself, smiling back.  "I have this truck here that could probably use an oil change- but I'm a bit low on funds so I was wondering what your prices were like."

	The man scratched his head, cocking it slightly to the side before replying, "You know, maybe it's just the Christian thing to do, but how about I change the oil and rotate the tires for free today?"

	Jim felt bold.  The spell had worked, he had actually used his magic on another person and it had worked!  He was delighted, chortling with the Power he knew coursed through his veins.  More, he wanted to try more!  Just as he had that last thought, a sleek sportscar shot by.  Jim saw several women in it, but had no time to see their faces.  No matter their looks, Jim cursed himself.  He wondered how far his charming spell would take him with a woman.  Jim gulped and his face flushed.  Tomorrow would be the time to find out.  "That'd be fine, thank you sir,"  Jim said, allowing the mechanic to do his work.  Jim departed the garage after another hearty handshake and a round of well wishes.