"Now, where were we? Ah yes, the special skill and spell memory."

SPELL MEMORY

"The fourth member of the spells branch, special, is primarily used in the determination of your spell memory."

"How many spells you can remember does not directly relate to the number of spells, but rather what size those spells are in relation to your spell memory. Each spell has its own size, loosely related to how powerful it is, and your spell memory is based on your magic.spells.special bonus, plus 30 points."

"We then habitually quote the spell size in terms of how many of these points each spell takes up. For instance, Malich's Penetrating Ocular Lance has a spell size of 5, whereas the largest, Journey of the Heavenly Storm Dragon takes 75, with the rest of the spells somewhere in between."

"You can find out the size of each spell in certain handy reference books, some of which I will show you later. Alternatively, one of the things I was the first to discover, when only a young wizard myself, is that every spell has a direct relationship between the amount of thaums it adds to the background magic of the room and the size referred to earlier. That is, the thaums will always be one fifth of the size of the spell, so Malich's will add one thaum to the room, and JHSD 15 thaums.

"Before moving on, the second use of the special skill is in most of our commands. Feats such as contemplating, spellcheck and remember all utilise the skill when being used.

MAGIC SCROLLS

"Now, lets talk about the related subject of magic scrolls. These are spells which have been scribed onto an appropriate piece of paper, using the scribe command and your magic.items.scroll skill. You will of course also need a writing implement and a piece of paper. The larger the paper, the easier you will find to fit something like a spell onto, though you should also note, the larger the spell is, the more difficult it will be. Obviously then, it's best to use large papers for large spells."

"Some orders will specialise in this skill, though not all of them do. This can play a key part in whether using scrolls will be a natural part of your future studies, as it can be quite difficult to scribe our larger spells, with some of them needing well in excess of what one can learn in the guild.

"The process of scribing a scroll requires as much magical energy as casting the spell would have, and can only be completed directly from your memory, you cannot transcribe from a spell book or another scroll. Some students make quite a living scribing scrolls for the use of others."

Sekiri hands you a scroll.

"Now, this is a scroll of the spell Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula. With a scroll, you, or anyone else with the required skill, can do one of two things. Firstly, you can simply cast the spell directly off the scroll, without having it in your memory at all. Doing so of course removes the spell from the scroll. You will still need the same amount of guild points and components as if it were cast from your memory."

"The second use made of scrolls is for a wizard to remember the spell from it rather than a magic spell book. Like the scribing process, whether or not a wizard can successfully use a scroll for this purpose depends upon their skill in scrolls."

"You should also note that there is a danger in carrying too many scrolls, particularly of powerful spells. If you lack the required magic.spells.special skill to control them, they will escape or even explode. This then, is something to be avoided. You should only carry scrolls that are particularly necessary, such as a scroll of Jogloran's, just in case you get stranded somewhere without it in memory.

REMEMBERING SPELLS

"When remembering spells, be it from a spell book or a scroll, the special skill of the wizard determines whether or not they are able to successfully do so. If a wizard fails such an attempt from a spell book, the spell will be restrained, however from a scroll, the spell may be able to escape into the location. You should treat such escaped spells with the utmost caution."

"In addition to the special skill, the success or failure of an attempt to remember a spell is influenced by how full the spell memory of a wizard already is. The closer to full it is, the more difficult it will be to shape the spell into a form that may just fit into whatever odd shaped bits are left over after the other spells have claimed the best spots."

"This effect is far more noticeable with scrolls than books, but is present for both. Often wizards who are struggling with a large spell will forget some of their smaller spells to make room, remember the larger, and then re-remember the forgotten ones."