Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 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.