Phil stood in a narrow alleyway in Kabuki Street, holding a business card up to the sunlight. He stood in front of the service door to a nondescript izakaya, across from (and practically on top of) an English-style pub. A ten-foot tall concrete abutment, supporting a long-abandoned rail line from the docks to Cadentia, stood on Phil’s right and to his left was another narrow alleyway, filled with hanging lanterns, neon lights, and more bars.
He finally found an angle which allowed the sun to dance between the forest of buildings and touch the card. TURN AROUND. Phil scratched his shaggy dark brown, then obliged the card. The door that had been there -- a dusty brown hinged door with a keypad underneath the knob -- was replaced with a wooden door, painted black. A copper scroll hung from the center by a nail, and a lambda seemed to beckon Phil to bang it against the surface. He obliged, waiting patiently as the door stayed shut to him. Eventually, though, it opened, and Phil stepped inside.
He nearly ran into a short child with rounded brown ears, a slightly pronounced muzzle with a button nose, and a long thin tail that whipped at Phil’s legs as he tried to dodge.
“Sorry, sorry!” he called out to the kid, now scurrying towards a door on the left-hand side. Phil turned his attention upwards, at the light diffusing through the smoky crystal embedded in the ceiling. It threw rainbow rays across the atrium, onto dark green and obsidian scrying bowls, vials of liquids in nearly every color imaginable (and some not), wands of well polished walnut and roughly hewn rowan, and books bound in leather, buckram, and cloth.
Phil approached the pentagonal desk at the center of the atrium’s main floor, resisting the urge to run his fingers over the smooth silver knives resting in velvet carrying cases. A shimmering, faceless humanoid figure flicked painted beads back and forth on a wooden abacus, seemingly at random. After a nervous throat clear, Phil addressed the shape.
“I’m looking for Mallory Maeda? I know I don’ have an appointment or anything but I do have this-” He held up the card she had given him at the Golden Perch the other night, then whisked it back into his jeans pocket with sleight of hand. “- And I’m guessing the fact that the door let me in without turning me into a pile of ash or a frog or a smear of blood means I’m at least welcome here? I can wait…”
“That’s the Thirteenth Avatar of the Benevolent Vo,” Mallory said from the shop’s third story, leaning over the bronze railing to smile down at Phil -- and at the sound of her voice, the shape in question rapidly floated away from the desk and vanished into a wall. “Usually I leave a red specter behind the counter when I’m busy, but sometimes Vo likes to moonlight as a cashier. I think he likes the attention.”
The horned witch took the stairs slowly, winding her way around the twisted and blackened tree trunk that served as the staircase to the massive book collections on the upper levels of the Lyceum. She clutched a stack of leatherbound tomes in her arms, Elizabethan tomes of angelology and demonology, and heaved them onto the counter to wrap them in packing paper. “What can I do for you?” She continued to work, wrapping the parcel and tying it with twine, then making a few notes in her ledger, but her gaze lifted from the ledger with curious interest when she asked.
“This place, this Lyceum, am I - are we in a pocket dimension right now? An alternate universe or world or some other place in the multiverse or internexus or whatever you want to call it? Or am I just somewhere else in the city right now?” The motormouthed run of questions ended with a quick cringe and guilty look. “If you can’ tell me where exactly we are, I understand, I’m sure there’s all kinds of reasons for that, hence all the security to get in here.”
Phil scratched his head and pushed his glasses up on his face, then finally attempted to answer the question he had been asked. “I know, I know, I owe you four favors. Five?” He didn’t really need to, but he started counting on his fingers as a way to distract himself. “I didn’ want you to think I was skipping town before I paid off my debt, so here I am, although I’m not exactly sure how I can make it up to you. My skill set is kind of limited -- I don’ have magic, but you know that -- and I’m sure you can find a lot of people who can do things that I can do much better than I can.” As he continued, the pace of his speech grew faster and faster, and he began to roll his r’s more and more. When he finished, he turned his gaze on the package of books on the desk and not Mallory. Part of him wondered if she noticed how he’d buried the lead about “skipping town”, and part of him hoped she missed it.
“We’re in a demiplane adjacent to the Veil, if we’re being technical -- why would you skip town, Phil?” she asked, pivoting from that aside right back to the part he was hoping she’d missed. She’d stopped working, too, her left hand splayed flat on the ledger as she drummed her right fingers on the countertop and watched him very closely.
“The Veil -- interesting!” He couldn’t help but indulge his curiosity first. “You and-” His hand moved swiftly to his pocket to retrieve the business card. He read something off of it, and then just as swiftly hid it on his person. Clearly, Phil had learned legerdemain at some point in his relatively short life. “- Safiya al-Bahur must be very powerful mages, or wizards, or sorcerers, or witches? I think I heard someone call you a witch before?” He shook his head rapidly to force himself back on topic. “Strong users of magic at any rate.”
For all of his skill at swiping small objects in full view of others, Phil possessed little of the guile that characterized most thieves. He looked up from the books and right at Mallory. “They finally caught me borrowing items from the Artifact Department. They have a fingerprint scanner to get into their storage room, and I’d borrowed a coffee mug from one of the department’s professors and lifted a finger print off of it with tape. It took them a while, but I guess they had somebody pretty smart looking into it who realized it was kind of suspicious that I’d totally stopped going to the lab right around the same time things were disappearing and reappearing.” He coughed and glanced away. “Plus there was a photograph of me at the All Ranks Tournament wearing Coat. I think that’s what they’re really angry about. They’ve already kicked me out and they had me arrested Friday. The Wrecking Crew bailed me out but I don’ know how I’m going to prove to the court that you can’ steal something that’s sentient when it can’ really communicate unless you’re wearing it. RIMT already terminated my lease at the end of the month, so it’s not like I have a place to stay here anymore. I feel a little bad about jumping bail but the Crew can afford to lose that money and I doubt they want to travel all the -- ”
Mallory straightened from her lean as Phil rambled nervously, then held up a finger for silence. “RIMT must be run by very pragmatic people... people who understand that magic is a transaction. I... don’t think you have to be worried about them,” she said slowly, and gave him a sly smile.
Having been interrupted, he stood there in silence and got a chance to fully process what Mallory said. And what it suggested. Once it clicked, he immediately took a step backwards and shook his head. “If you are suggesting that I owe you yet another favor in exchange for you taking care of them, I have to pass. I already can’ see a way out of what I already owe you, and that would just heap another debt upon the mountain which I already owe you. I just want to find a way to square things as they are right now, leave the city, and prepare for a miserable life in Coalhold.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mallory shook her head, and gestured around them at the cluttered counter and shelves and cases that littered the shop. “I can stand to part with a few trinkets that’ll keep those stuffy old scholars distracted enough to let this thing go. And I don’t believe for a second that’s what you want.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What you’ve resigned yourself to, maybe, but... what do you want, Phil?”
Small Favors
Moderators: Patrick, Mallory, Eri Maeda
-
Phil Goshawke
- Adventurer
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:51 pm
- Location: #10 Halflight Hollow, The Gloaming at the Canopy, Twilight Isle
-
Phil Goshawke
- Adventurer
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:51 pm
- Location: #10 Halflight Hollow, The Gloaming at the Canopy, Twilight Isle
Re: Small Favors
“I want to eliminate the need for Guardians for the Great Barrier. I want to find a way to channel and store magical energy into some sort of artifact or battery that can power the Great Barrier without cutting our life spans short, without-” He paused, hesitated, and as soon as he caught himself, he sped right back up again. “ - side effects. I went to Camford University, studied my fucking ass off, graduated summa cum laude, got accepted here, all with the hopes of doing that. And the one moment I indulged in selfish behavior, look what it got me! What I want doesn’ matter, shouldn’ matter. I’m doing it all for them.”
Mallory was silent for a long moment, lifting her chin as she studied him carefully. “...What you want is the knowledge -- and the power in that knowledge -- to make things right. I understand that... very, very well.” Phil had retreated earlier, so now the witch advanced, slipping out from behind the counter and stepping slowly towards him. “Do you know what I did last Valentine’s Day, before my friend Jewell’s iron-poisoned heart could kill her at the stroke of midnight?”
“Assuming your Jewell is the same Jewell I met at the Golden Perch Inn months later, who enchanted or ensorcelled or glamoured me or whatever it is you want to call it, I’m guessing you saved her life.” Despite his height, he seemed to shrink some as Mallory drew near. An involuntary response, or a subconscious reaction to fear of her powers? Phil made it difficult to tell -- his eyes had fallen on a case filled with stone runic necklaces.
“Yes. I performed a primordial ritual and rewrote the past of her own heart -- so that her body had never been poisoned.” She stopped there, sensing his apparent trepidation, and let her hands fall to her sides. “These problems can be fixed... not easily, never easily, but RIMT isn’t the only place that holds the knowledge and power you need.”
Phil took another step back - one that allowed him to better survey the upper stories of the Lyceum. Even with perfect eyesight, he could not have possibly read all the titles up there, but he could see the reds and blacks and browns of the spines, faded from time and usage. “You mean here.” He jerked his head up at the floors above them. “Tell me, what are your thoughts on the idea or the concept of forbidden knowledge, of books being locked away from students or professors because they’re not ready for what’s inside them?” His own frowning expression made his opinion on the matter as plain as day.
“I believe in letting people know what they’re getting into. I’ve never misled a soul about the price of magic. That said... I’ve sold things here that any paladin would burn, given the chance -- and maybe me with them.” She opened her right hand to him, glove-clad, hot to the touch, with small signs of the ember-like skin visible on her wrist. “If the knowledge you need to help Coalhold isn’t here already, then I’ll help you find it. This isn’t the only trove of forbidden knowledge I can access.”
He almost reached out to touch her seemingly fire-ravaged hand, but pulled back before any further awkwardness -- or injury -- could ensue. “The knowledge is one thing, and I don’ doubt your resources, or the Lyceum’s.” He swept a hand out in a circle to gesture at the totality of it all -- the books, the artifacts, the spirits and specters hustling from shelf to shelf, corner to corner, making the whole operation run like clockwork. “The power, though? You know I’ve said this probably more times than I can possibly count, but I have no skill for magic. The sorcerer’s spark doesn’ burn within me, nor do I possess enough qi to make rote memorization of grimoires and spellbooks practical.” Phil pushed up his glasses and trained his full focus on Mallory. “Your talent comes from blood magic, doesn’ it?” The next few lines felt more like rote recitation than an indictment. “Blood magic has been forbidden nearly every place I’ve lived. Coalhold, Camford University, even RIMT ban practicing it.” He shrugged one of his shoulders. “It’s just as well, if that’s the power that’s taught here. I don’ think it’s a good idea to bleed myself dry to cast spells -- even if that were to somehow work for me, which I don’ think it would -- if I can’ even be healed easily by magic.”
Mallory withdrew her right hand slowly, then opened her left hand, frowning at her own palm. “It wouldn’t be your blood,” she said quietly, as if realizing this for the first time. “My blood... flows through the Veil, and replenishes quickly... and one day, very soon, my heart will rest there. An eternal fountain of it. I could give you your... spark,” she said, raising her narrowed eyes to him.
“Magic... magic of your own, to bend and shape how you will, for the first time in your life.”
“And the price for this bargain?”
“Every pact has a mark,” she said, tapping a fingernail against one of her horns. “What form yours would take wouldn’t really be up to either of us... I’d expect you to answer me when I call, help me when I need you... and I’d expect you to follow a few simple rules about not dominating and exploiting people with my power. And I’d expect an offering -- my blood to you and nothing in return is a simple line, taut yet weak and liable to break... but with an offering in return, offerings of knowledge and the regular invocation of a name, feeds power back and forms a circle. That’s far stronger when it comes to magic,” she added, raising her eyebrows.
Phil took his glasses off and wiped down each side of the lens. He hoped keeping his attention on that task might hide the excitement that threatened to creep into his voice. “And is there an expiration date on this offer? You can understand that I’ll want to do my own research on this, although I guess I don’ really have anywhere I can do it except the public libraries (which aren’ likely to have the books I need) or here.”
“No expiration date. And you’re welcome to come here and research while you consider. No pressure -- if I see you poking around the stacks, I’ll leave you to it. But if you should ever need to call on me... call for Malleus. I’ll be listening.” With that, she withdrew her hand, folding both together behind her back.
“That seems more than fair and generous of you and...Malleus?” His head tipped slightly as he considered the name. “And the trinkets?” He hadn’t forgotten the earlier part of their conversation --the offer to cover his debts that launched their discussion and Mallory’s bargain.
Mallory frowned as she considered Phil’s question... “Where are you staying right now?”
“RIMT has graduate student housing that I was living in, but of course since I’ve been expelled from the school, I no longer get that. I get to stay there through the end of the month, but I’ve already started packing my things and I put my furniture in storage even though it’s money I can’ really afford to be spending. What else am I going to do with a bed and a dresser and a desk? I’ve been turning down my heat to save money.” He shivered just thinking about that.
“It’s your call, but -- they’ll have a much easier time arresting you for skipping bail if you stay at their housing. I can talk to Eri and get you a cheap room on Kabuki Street, and I can put cash in your hand if you help me clean and shelve books around here,” she added with a critical frown for the admittedly dusty and cluttered state of the still very new magic shop. “You’d be working and paying rent, and it buys me some time to find someone... open-minded at RIMT.”
Phil paced around the displays, trying to burn off some nervous energy and contemplate the proposal. Part of him felt insulted by the position -- shelving books? Sweeping floors? There was so much more he could do! But he thought about his own experiences teaching magic at RIMT -- the students he had caught sleeping, the frustrated office hours meetings, the tense discussions with his professorial mentor. Combine that with the trust it took to turn magical education over to someone else, and he saw why Mallory wanted him to be a page or a janitor. It limited the damage he could do to the Lyceum. Finally, he came to stop near Mallory, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and offered her a hand to shake. “I accept. The offer of the room on Kabuki Street and the offer to work here keeping things clean and neat.”
Mallory clasped his hand in her gloved one and shook. “Great. I’ll talk to Safiya and Eri, get things straightened out. Why don’t you show up... tomorrow? and we’ll start to impose a little order on the chaos upstairs. I should have a room ready and an idea of the hours we can give you by then.”
“I think I can do that. Thank you.” After the handshake, he turned to find the exit. He made it a few steps away from Mallory before he turned back around with a sheepish expression on his face. “How do I get back?”
((Edited and adapted from live RP with Mallory))
Mallory was silent for a long moment, lifting her chin as she studied him carefully. “...What you want is the knowledge -- and the power in that knowledge -- to make things right. I understand that... very, very well.” Phil had retreated earlier, so now the witch advanced, slipping out from behind the counter and stepping slowly towards him. “Do you know what I did last Valentine’s Day, before my friend Jewell’s iron-poisoned heart could kill her at the stroke of midnight?”
“Assuming your Jewell is the same Jewell I met at the Golden Perch Inn months later, who enchanted or ensorcelled or glamoured me or whatever it is you want to call it, I’m guessing you saved her life.” Despite his height, he seemed to shrink some as Mallory drew near. An involuntary response, or a subconscious reaction to fear of her powers? Phil made it difficult to tell -- his eyes had fallen on a case filled with stone runic necklaces.
“Yes. I performed a primordial ritual and rewrote the past of her own heart -- so that her body had never been poisoned.” She stopped there, sensing his apparent trepidation, and let her hands fall to her sides. “These problems can be fixed... not easily, never easily, but RIMT isn’t the only place that holds the knowledge and power you need.”
Phil took another step back - one that allowed him to better survey the upper stories of the Lyceum. Even with perfect eyesight, he could not have possibly read all the titles up there, but he could see the reds and blacks and browns of the spines, faded from time and usage. “You mean here.” He jerked his head up at the floors above them. “Tell me, what are your thoughts on the idea or the concept of forbidden knowledge, of books being locked away from students or professors because they’re not ready for what’s inside them?” His own frowning expression made his opinion on the matter as plain as day.
“I believe in letting people know what they’re getting into. I’ve never misled a soul about the price of magic. That said... I’ve sold things here that any paladin would burn, given the chance -- and maybe me with them.” She opened her right hand to him, glove-clad, hot to the touch, with small signs of the ember-like skin visible on her wrist. “If the knowledge you need to help Coalhold isn’t here already, then I’ll help you find it. This isn’t the only trove of forbidden knowledge I can access.”
He almost reached out to touch her seemingly fire-ravaged hand, but pulled back before any further awkwardness -- or injury -- could ensue. “The knowledge is one thing, and I don’ doubt your resources, or the Lyceum’s.” He swept a hand out in a circle to gesture at the totality of it all -- the books, the artifacts, the spirits and specters hustling from shelf to shelf, corner to corner, making the whole operation run like clockwork. “The power, though? You know I’ve said this probably more times than I can possibly count, but I have no skill for magic. The sorcerer’s spark doesn’ burn within me, nor do I possess enough qi to make rote memorization of grimoires and spellbooks practical.” Phil pushed up his glasses and trained his full focus on Mallory. “Your talent comes from blood magic, doesn’ it?” The next few lines felt more like rote recitation than an indictment. “Blood magic has been forbidden nearly every place I’ve lived. Coalhold, Camford University, even RIMT ban practicing it.” He shrugged one of his shoulders. “It’s just as well, if that’s the power that’s taught here. I don’ think it’s a good idea to bleed myself dry to cast spells -- even if that were to somehow work for me, which I don’ think it would -- if I can’ even be healed easily by magic.”
Mallory withdrew her right hand slowly, then opened her left hand, frowning at her own palm. “It wouldn’t be your blood,” she said quietly, as if realizing this for the first time. “My blood... flows through the Veil, and replenishes quickly... and one day, very soon, my heart will rest there. An eternal fountain of it. I could give you your... spark,” she said, raising her narrowed eyes to him.
“Magic... magic of your own, to bend and shape how you will, for the first time in your life.”
“And the price for this bargain?”
“Every pact has a mark,” she said, tapping a fingernail against one of her horns. “What form yours would take wouldn’t really be up to either of us... I’d expect you to answer me when I call, help me when I need you... and I’d expect you to follow a few simple rules about not dominating and exploiting people with my power. And I’d expect an offering -- my blood to you and nothing in return is a simple line, taut yet weak and liable to break... but with an offering in return, offerings of knowledge and the regular invocation of a name, feeds power back and forms a circle. That’s far stronger when it comes to magic,” she added, raising her eyebrows.
Phil took his glasses off and wiped down each side of the lens. He hoped keeping his attention on that task might hide the excitement that threatened to creep into his voice. “And is there an expiration date on this offer? You can understand that I’ll want to do my own research on this, although I guess I don’ really have anywhere I can do it except the public libraries (which aren’ likely to have the books I need) or here.”
“No expiration date. And you’re welcome to come here and research while you consider. No pressure -- if I see you poking around the stacks, I’ll leave you to it. But if you should ever need to call on me... call for Malleus. I’ll be listening.” With that, she withdrew her hand, folding both together behind her back.
“That seems more than fair and generous of you and...Malleus?” His head tipped slightly as he considered the name. “And the trinkets?” He hadn’t forgotten the earlier part of their conversation --the offer to cover his debts that launched their discussion and Mallory’s bargain.
Mallory frowned as she considered Phil’s question... “Where are you staying right now?”
“RIMT has graduate student housing that I was living in, but of course since I’ve been expelled from the school, I no longer get that. I get to stay there through the end of the month, but I’ve already started packing my things and I put my furniture in storage even though it’s money I can’ really afford to be spending. What else am I going to do with a bed and a dresser and a desk? I’ve been turning down my heat to save money.” He shivered just thinking about that.
“It’s your call, but -- they’ll have a much easier time arresting you for skipping bail if you stay at their housing. I can talk to Eri and get you a cheap room on Kabuki Street, and I can put cash in your hand if you help me clean and shelve books around here,” she added with a critical frown for the admittedly dusty and cluttered state of the still very new magic shop. “You’d be working and paying rent, and it buys me some time to find someone... open-minded at RIMT.”
Phil paced around the displays, trying to burn off some nervous energy and contemplate the proposal. Part of him felt insulted by the position -- shelving books? Sweeping floors? There was so much more he could do! But he thought about his own experiences teaching magic at RIMT -- the students he had caught sleeping, the frustrated office hours meetings, the tense discussions with his professorial mentor. Combine that with the trust it took to turn magical education over to someone else, and he saw why Mallory wanted him to be a page or a janitor. It limited the damage he could do to the Lyceum. Finally, he came to stop near Mallory, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and offered her a hand to shake. “I accept. The offer of the room on Kabuki Street and the offer to work here keeping things clean and neat.”
Mallory clasped his hand in her gloved one and shook. “Great. I’ll talk to Safiya and Eri, get things straightened out. Why don’t you show up... tomorrow? and we’ll start to impose a little order on the chaos upstairs. I should have a room ready and an idea of the hours we can give you by then.”
“I think I can do that. Thank you.” After the handshake, he turned to find the exit. He made it a few steps away from Mallory before he turned back around with a sheepish expression on his face. “How do I get back?”
((Edited and adapted from live RP with Mallory))
-
Phil Goshawke
- Adventurer
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:51 pm
- Location: #10 Halflight Hollow, The Gloaming at the Canopy, Twilight Isle
Spark, Part 1
May 6, 2019
Tower of Earth
For the last week, the only creatures in the Tower of Earth’s crystal-illuminated library were the dust mephits, dutifully retrieving and shelving the tomes the Keeper required, and the young man she’d tasked with copying the most valuable contents into a massive grimoire, bound with micaceous rock and interlocking vines.
But a recent string of messages had Mallory descending the broad stone steps into the archives to talk to Phil in person. Despite her weary look, she took the stairs quickly, the clatter of her sneakers and the books bouncing in her messenger bag announcing her presence.
She lifted her hand to greet him as she approached from across the massive room.
The last week or so had put Phil on edge. It wasn’t the work in the Tower of Earth, or his own personal tinkering on his gun Dødsbringeren that made him ill at ease. No, it was his attempts to get out of the Tower and around people that backfired on him. A literally bruising “magic” fight with Matt Simon last Tuesday, coupled with the sight of a jötunn at the Outback while watching the fight between Gren Blockman and Kenny Chae for ShadoWeaver, and the decidedly mundane Phil felt even more vulnerable than usual. Perhaps that explained why he wore Coat outside of the rings, despite the garment’s twisting protestations, or why he kept his gun within arm’s reach even as he transcribed the stone tomes in the library with pen and paper.
He jumped with a start when Mallory walked into the library, reaching for his weapon before belatedly realizing only she (or someone friendly to her) could access the Tower. He pulled his hand away, back towards his face to push his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. His hand hovered over his face as Mallory waved, and then he remembered to return the friendly gesture.
“Hello!” He managed to muster up some enthusiasm in the greeting, but everything else about him -- his dark brown eyes, his gaze centered somewhere over her shoulder at the door into the library, the rigidness of his shoulders -- radiated an aura of caution, if not downright fear.
“You’re safe in here,” Mallory promised him as she sat down on the edge of the table. “From anyone. Even an isejotun paying off a debt.” She touched one of the books he’d been copying from earlier, glancing idly at a magic circle aligned with different gemstones, then looked back up at him. “Can you tell me about that? About giants and the Great Barrier?”
He sucked in a deep breath, in clear preparation for the verbal equivalent of a wall of text. “For 15 generations at least, my family, along with a dozen others, have trained their magically talented offspring (except for me of course) to power a spell that protects my town, Coalhold, from being attacked by frost giants. We’re right on the border between Midgard and Jotunheim so we’re a prime first target for them to attack but because we’ve got the Great Barrier no giants can come into our town and things are pretty peaceful there, only…” He slowed down, hesitated. “I probably mentioned this before but there’s something about the spell that shortens life expectancy for those who work on it. I’ve got my theories on what the spell is and how it works and I was working to find another way to power it when, you know, kicked out of school.” Mallory likely couldn’t see it under the table, but he kicked his foot out anyways.
“Mm. The Multiverse is a big place, and I’ve heard of more than one kind of icy-natured giant... Does Clan Boarsbane mean anything to you? Or their chieftain, Koscht?” Something more direct to focus on, though her curious mind was as fascinated as ever by the problem of the Great Barrier. “Boarsbane is the clan he belonged to, until they exiled him.”
“Most of what we learned about the giants in our histories and our textbooks was more practical information. Their powers, their strengths, their weaknesses, basic organizational structure. We didn’ really go out and ask them who their leader was or what they called their country or government or clan or whatever, we just wanted them to stay over on their side of the mountains and leave us alone.” Phil held up his hands, apologetic. “That’s a long way of saying I don’ know.”
“Well... I can tell you that Runt’s not in RhyDin to raid or pillage, though I think his clan were marauders,” she said with a downturn of her expression, and a thoughtful frown that followed. “I can’t say whether he’s any relation to the giants that try to attack your home — or if he’s from the same world. But I can tell you that he was Matt’s squire — and he became my squire instead after he and that Jonn fucker trespassed on my manor and attacked my wards. Now he’s working to make things right, after dishonoring a Loyal Baron... This fucking sport,” she added with a shake of her head.
“You’ll forgive me if hearing that he was Matt’s squire does the opposite of set my mind at ease, Mallory.”
The witch blinked, then thinned her lips, holding up three fingers as she said, “Okay, you’re the third person in about as many days to tell me he’s been acting like an asshole.”
“He is an asshole,” Phil cut in, ignoring the way the gold threads on Coat rippled and danced across the black fabric.
“Tch, fair enough. What’d he do?”
“Punched and kicked me in a magic duel. Magic! He ripped my gun out of my hands and then, when I asked for it back at the end of the fight, he just tossed it aside. And I maaaaay have kinda sorta done one of these-” he held up his hand and flipped Mallory the bird by way of demonstration. “- And he did it right back! I know, I know, I shouldn’ do stuff like that but he shouldn’ either -- isn’ he like in charge of some big paramilitary air force or something here? He used to be governor too?”
Mallory visibly struggled not to laugh at the gesture. “He is, yeah. And he punched me during my first Keeper challenge, too... but you did bring a gun to a magic fight.” Her fingers rapped on the table’s edge to either side of her, and she breathed a little sigh. “Still. Throwing your gun away was pretty fucking rude, and he was acting weird with me that night, too...”
She shook her head. “We’re getting off topic. About Runt.” Turning back to him, she added, “I really, really don’t think he’d do anything to you, Phil... but I understand your worry. Would you like me to tell him who you are to me, and what that means... and what happens to someone who decides to come after you?”
Phil opened his mouth, about to say something in response to her comment about the gun, but he thought better of it and let his mouth snap shut until she had finished speaking. When she stopped, he nodded. “I’d appreciate that, but (and I know this is going to sound like I’m parroting you) but I’ve gotten off topic too. Matt and Runt are just canaries in coal mines, they’re just symptoms of bigger existential problems I’ve got. Even Matt, even though he’s probably been fighting longer than I’ve been alive, is just a human, and Runt’s just one giant. And I’m utterly ill-equipped to even have a prayer in a fight with either of them. What hope do I have against someone like you, or a vampire or a werewolf or a Fae? Not that I’m saying I want to fight you or anything...” As he went on, he began speaking faster and faster, threatening to ramble on out of control.
Mallory held up a hand to stop him, though the look in her eyes was sympathetic and earnest, and she couldn’t help but smile when he backpedaled. “I get it. I get what you mean. And I think I can help now... if you’re willing.”
Phil tapped the side of his head, then pushed his glasses back up onto his nose. “I’ve done the research, I’ve read the books, and I think this’s ready, but fighting Matt’s sort of made me realize something. Magic’s just another way of channeling qi - you’re familiar with qi?”
“I am,” she said, shifting on the table to better face him.
“I think I will be more useful to you if I’m in better shape -- athletically.” His eyes drifted to the side as soon as he brought up his physical limitations, and he had to readjust his glasses again. “I don’ know if that’s why I can’ use magic on my own, the way you or other sorcerers do, but I was told even if I went the route of wizards, studied spell books and grimoires and scrolls that it wouldn’ be worth it, I’d be using mental energy equivalent to a wish to make harmless lights dance around.” His nostrils flared as he finally looked back at Mallory, anger unhidden on his face. “I need to be stronger -- everywhere. Mind, body, and with weapons, if I’m ever in a place where magic doesn’ work.”
Mallory blinked slowly and calmly when Phil looked back at her. “You need a spark,” she said, and opened her left hand to him. Her skin was bloody, cut by an obsidian knife, and now she turned the handle his way. She dipped her horned head. Go on -- take it.
As Phil pulled the knife away to examine it, Mallory slid off the edge of the table and stepped past him, turning her back to him. “Once you have that spark, a tributary from the Veil flowing into your veins... the rest will follow. The knowledge to use your mind and body, to bend objects to your will... the power that lies in all knowledge will finally be open to you. And all of your discipline, your commitment, every secret you bring to me will be rewarded.”
Phil turned the smooth knife over in his slender fingers, and it caught the crystalline light of the Tower’s archives, revealing the fiery green reflection of Mallory’s eyes narrowing at him. Do it.
But the witch’s back was still to him, hands clasped together as she studied the far wall. “Phil... can you tell me something I don’t know? Whisper it in my ear, like you’re telling me a secret?”
He had read about the particulars of the ritual in the tomes Mallory had provided to him, and the precise details of what needed to be done were no surprise to him. But it was one thing to read about it, and another thing entirely to go through with it. He kept turning the blade over, Mallory’s blood glistening in the light, barely aware that Coat had slithered off of his back and floated away towards the exit. No, his thoughts focused entirely on violence. He remembered when Penny struck him, and the wards did nothing to heal him. He remembered when Eden cut his shoulder, when he reached for her sword and carved up his hands and had to be veilstrided out of the Annex. The time he accidentally shot himself in the foot with a cold ray, and every single cut and bruise he’d suffered at the hands of careless duelers loomed in his mind. This? He could do this.
He made no attempt to hide his approach, and Mallory didn’t turn to face him. He bent over, avoiding the curl of her horns to get close enough to whisper. “When I was younger, I took private lessons for Norse with the Great Families -- that’s the language they use for the Great Barrier. ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, proper nouns, things like that. But once they realized I wasn’ gifted, they kicked me out, said it was wasted on someone like me. I begged mamma, pappa, Freya, Lennox to keep teaching me but they wouldn’.” The rage threatened to tip over into tears, but he gripped the dagger tighter and let the anger rise up instead.
Mallory smiled sadly as she turned to him, looking him in the eye as she said, “Then we’ll learn it together -- ”
Her words were cut short by the blade of the knife sinking into her chest. Her vibrant green eyes widened, and blood bubbled out of her mouth with a violent cough, spraying across his face. She moved her lips, struggling to form breathless words as she pushed against him...
Tower of Earth
For the last week, the only creatures in the Tower of Earth’s crystal-illuminated library were the dust mephits, dutifully retrieving and shelving the tomes the Keeper required, and the young man she’d tasked with copying the most valuable contents into a massive grimoire, bound with micaceous rock and interlocking vines.
But a recent string of messages had Mallory descending the broad stone steps into the archives to talk to Phil in person. Despite her weary look, she took the stairs quickly, the clatter of her sneakers and the books bouncing in her messenger bag announcing her presence.
She lifted her hand to greet him as she approached from across the massive room.
The last week or so had put Phil on edge. It wasn’t the work in the Tower of Earth, or his own personal tinkering on his gun Dødsbringeren that made him ill at ease. No, it was his attempts to get out of the Tower and around people that backfired on him. A literally bruising “magic” fight with Matt Simon last Tuesday, coupled with the sight of a jötunn at the Outback while watching the fight between Gren Blockman and Kenny Chae for ShadoWeaver, and the decidedly mundane Phil felt even more vulnerable than usual. Perhaps that explained why he wore Coat outside of the rings, despite the garment’s twisting protestations, or why he kept his gun within arm’s reach even as he transcribed the stone tomes in the library with pen and paper.
He jumped with a start when Mallory walked into the library, reaching for his weapon before belatedly realizing only she (or someone friendly to her) could access the Tower. He pulled his hand away, back towards his face to push his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. His hand hovered over his face as Mallory waved, and then he remembered to return the friendly gesture.
“Hello!” He managed to muster up some enthusiasm in the greeting, but everything else about him -- his dark brown eyes, his gaze centered somewhere over her shoulder at the door into the library, the rigidness of his shoulders -- radiated an aura of caution, if not downright fear.
“You’re safe in here,” Mallory promised him as she sat down on the edge of the table. “From anyone. Even an isejotun paying off a debt.” She touched one of the books he’d been copying from earlier, glancing idly at a magic circle aligned with different gemstones, then looked back up at him. “Can you tell me about that? About giants and the Great Barrier?”
He sucked in a deep breath, in clear preparation for the verbal equivalent of a wall of text. “For 15 generations at least, my family, along with a dozen others, have trained their magically talented offspring (except for me of course) to power a spell that protects my town, Coalhold, from being attacked by frost giants. We’re right on the border between Midgard and Jotunheim so we’re a prime first target for them to attack but because we’ve got the Great Barrier no giants can come into our town and things are pretty peaceful there, only…” He slowed down, hesitated. “I probably mentioned this before but there’s something about the spell that shortens life expectancy for those who work on it. I’ve got my theories on what the spell is and how it works and I was working to find another way to power it when, you know, kicked out of school.” Mallory likely couldn’t see it under the table, but he kicked his foot out anyways.
“Mm. The Multiverse is a big place, and I’ve heard of more than one kind of icy-natured giant... Does Clan Boarsbane mean anything to you? Or their chieftain, Koscht?” Something more direct to focus on, though her curious mind was as fascinated as ever by the problem of the Great Barrier. “Boarsbane is the clan he belonged to, until they exiled him.”
“Most of what we learned about the giants in our histories and our textbooks was more practical information. Their powers, their strengths, their weaknesses, basic organizational structure. We didn’ really go out and ask them who their leader was or what they called their country or government or clan or whatever, we just wanted them to stay over on their side of the mountains and leave us alone.” Phil held up his hands, apologetic. “That’s a long way of saying I don’ know.”
“Well... I can tell you that Runt’s not in RhyDin to raid or pillage, though I think his clan were marauders,” she said with a downturn of her expression, and a thoughtful frown that followed. “I can’t say whether he’s any relation to the giants that try to attack your home — or if he’s from the same world. But I can tell you that he was Matt’s squire — and he became my squire instead after he and that Jonn fucker trespassed on my manor and attacked my wards. Now he’s working to make things right, after dishonoring a Loyal Baron... This fucking sport,” she added with a shake of her head.
“You’ll forgive me if hearing that he was Matt’s squire does the opposite of set my mind at ease, Mallory.”
The witch blinked, then thinned her lips, holding up three fingers as she said, “Okay, you’re the third person in about as many days to tell me he’s been acting like an asshole.”
“He is an asshole,” Phil cut in, ignoring the way the gold threads on Coat rippled and danced across the black fabric.
“Tch, fair enough. What’d he do?”
“Punched and kicked me in a magic duel. Magic! He ripped my gun out of my hands and then, when I asked for it back at the end of the fight, he just tossed it aside. And I maaaaay have kinda sorta done one of these-” he held up his hand and flipped Mallory the bird by way of demonstration. “- And he did it right back! I know, I know, I shouldn’ do stuff like that but he shouldn’ either -- isn’ he like in charge of some big paramilitary air force or something here? He used to be governor too?”
Mallory visibly struggled not to laugh at the gesture. “He is, yeah. And he punched me during my first Keeper challenge, too... but you did bring a gun to a magic fight.” Her fingers rapped on the table’s edge to either side of her, and she breathed a little sigh. “Still. Throwing your gun away was pretty fucking rude, and he was acting weird with me that night, too...”
She shook her head. “We’re getting off topic. About Runt.” Turning back to him, she added, “I really, really don’t think he’d do anything to you, Phil... but I understand your worry. Would you like me to tell him who you are to me, and what that means... and what happens to someone who decides to come after you?”
Phil opened his mouth, about to say something in response to her comment about the gun, but he thought better of it and let his mouth snap shut until she had finished speaking. When she stopped, he nodded. “I’d appreciate that, but (and I know this is going to sound like I’m parroting you) but I’ve gotten off topic too. Matt and Runt are just canaries in coal mines, they’re just symptoms of bigger existential problems I’ve got. Even Matt, even though he’s probably been fighting longer than I’ve been alive, is just a human, and Runt’s just one giant. And I’m utterly ill-equipped to even have a prayer in a fight with either of them. What hope do I have against someone like you, or a vampire or a werewolf or a Fae? Not that I’m saying I want to fight you or anything...” As he went on, he began speaking faster and faster, threatening to ramble on out of control.
Mallory held up a hand to stop him, though the look in her eyes was sympathetic and earnest, and she couldn’t help but smile when he backpedaled. “I get it. I get what you mean. And I think I can help now... if you’re willing.”
Phil tapped the side of his head, then pushed his glasses back up onto his nose. “I’ve done the research, I’ve read the books, and I think this’s ready, but fighting Matt’s sort of made me realize something. Magic’s just another way of channeling qi - you’re familiar with qi?”
“I am,” she said, shifting on the table to better face him.
“I think I will be more useful to you if I’m in better shape -- athletically.” His eyes drifted to the side as soon as he brought up his physical limitations, and he had to readjust his glasses again. “I don’ know if that’s why I can’ use magic on my own, the way you or other sorcerers do, but I was told even if I went the route of wizards, studied spell books and grimoires and scrolls that it wouldn’ be worth it, I’d be using mental energy equivalent to a wish to make harmless lights dance around.” His nostrils flared as he finally looked back at Mallory, anger unhidden on his face. “I need to be stronger -- everywhere. Mind, body, and with weapons, if I’m ever in a place where magic doesn’ work.”
Mallory blinked slowly and calmly when Phil looked back at her. “You need a spark,” she said, and opened her left hand to him. Her skin was bloody, cut by an obsidian knife, and now she turned the handle his way. She dipped her horned head. Go on -- take it.
As Phil pulled the knife away to examine it, Mallory slid off the edge of the table and stepped past him, turning her back to him. “Once you have that spark, a tributary from the Veil flowing into your veins... the rest will follow. The knowledge to use your mind and body, to bend objects to your will... the power that lies in all knowledge will finally be open to you. And all of your discipline, your commitment, every secret you bring to me will be rewarded.”
Phil turned the smooth knife over in his slender fingers, and it caught the crystalline light of the Tower’s archives, revealing the fiery green reflection of Mallory’s eyes narrowing at him. Do it.
But the witch’s back was still to him, hands clasped together as she studied the far wall. “Phil... can you tell me something I don’t know? Whisper it in my ear, like you’re telling me a secret?”
He had read about the particulars of the ritual in the tomes Mallory had provided to him, and the precise details of what needed to be done were no surprise to him. But it was one thing to read about it, and another thing entirely to go through with it. He kept turning the blade over, Mallory’s blood glistening in the light, barely aware that Coat had slithered off of his back and floated away towards the exit. No, his thoughts focused entirely on violence. He remembered when Penny struck him, and the wards did nothing to heal him. He remembered when Eden cut his shoulder, when he reached for her sword and carved up his hands and had to be veilstrided out of the Annex. The time he accidentally shot himself in the foot with a cold ray, and every single cut and bruise he’d suffered at the hands of careless duelers loomed in his mind. This? He could do this.
He made no attempt to hide his approach, and Mallory didn’t turn to face him. He bent over, avoiding the curl of her horns to get close enough to whisper. “When I was younger, I took private lessons for Norse with the Great Families -- that’s the language they use for the Great Barrier. ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, proper nouns, things like that. But once they realized I wasn’ gifted, they kicked me out, said it was wasted on someone like me. I begged mamma, pappa, Freya, Lennox to keep teaching me but they wouldn’.” The rage threatened to tip over into tears, but he gripped the dagger tighter and let the anger rise up instead.
Mallory smiled sadly as she turned to him, looking him in the eye as she said, “Then we’ll learn it together -- ”
Her words were cut short by the blade of the knife sinking into her chest. Her vibrant green eyes widened, and blood bubbled out of her mouth with a violent cough, spraying across his face. She moved her lips, struggling to form breathless words as she pushed against him...
-
Phil Goshawke
- Adventurer
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:51 pm
- Location: #10 Halflight Hollow, The Gloaming at the Canopy, Twilight Isle
Spark, Part 2
...and then he was alone in the library, alone with a bloody knife in his hand. There were no mephits sorting books, no stony elementals standing guard, only whispering shades drifting among the towering shelves of tomes that fluttered loudly as they turned to sand and dust.
“No, no, no, no!” Phil’s voice grew quicker and louder as he desperately pawed through the disintegrating books, folding and frantically stuffing intact pages into his pockets before whatever power threatening the library could destroy them.
“The secrets aren’t in these shelves,” said a voice behind him -- a voice belonging to a terrible mirror image of Mallory, a person with a shock of white-blonde hair and ice in their eyes where the witch’s held fire. “They’re behind your eyes,” they hissed, raising their left hand towards him as they advanced, the ring fingernail lengthening into a wicked claw.
Trembling, Phil thrust the knife forward in the mirror image’s direction, but several of the shades that had been swirling around the books turned solid and secured him in place. His cry was muffled by a ghostly hand across his mouth, and the blade clattered harmlessly to the floor as several tendrils twisted on his arm. They pinned him in place as that twisted reflection of Mallory strode across the room.
“I am Malleus,” they said as they pressed their left hand over his face. “I wonder... what secrets will you have for me when I see you again?” Malleus laughed as their left ring finger traced a cruel path inward, scratching a curved line into the left lens of his glasses. The claw stopped in the center, pausing for one terrible moment before it pushed cleanly through.
* * * * *
Phil screamed, both hands reaching for his face, his eyes, knocking the glasses off of his head and sending them tumbling towards the obsidian knife on the floor. When had he dropped that? Had he dropped that? He covered his face, sucking in deep breaths of air before daring to open his eyes again. Without his spectacles, the room consisted of blurred shapes: rectangular smears that were probably the bookcases and tables and books, the slightly more in-focus blade and glasses in front of him, and Mallory face down on the floor, a puddle of blood around her -- though at least it wasn’t growing.
There was a pained grunt from the witch as she pushed herself up with one arm, and used the other to wipe blood from her face. There was a ragged hole in her shirt, but the wound he’d torn into her looked to be no more than a cut, letting out only a small trickle. She took a steadying breath before she pushed herself up to a crouch. Her fingers found his glasses, the left lens cracked in a single curved line with a chip neatly in the center, and offered them over to him. He slipped them on without looking up at Mallory, his gaze intently, intensely focused on a crystal in front of him.
In the low, strange light of the Tower’s library, Phil’s reflection stared back at him, the white of his left eye clouded with blood. Mallory chuckled at him, a kinder counterpoint to Malleus’ cruel tone.
“The very first spell I’ll teach to you, Phil... is how to fix your glasses.”
((Written with Mallory's player. Thanks!))
“No, no, no, no!” Phil’s voice grew quicker and louder as he desperately pawed through the disintegrating books, folding and frantically stuffing intact pages into his pockets before whatever power threatening the library could destroy them.
“The secrets aren’t in these shelves,” said a voice behind him -- a voice belonging to a terrible mirror image of Mallory, a person with a shock of white-blonde hair and ice in their eyes where the witch’s held fire. “They’re behind your eyes,” they hissed, raising their left hand towards him as they advanced, the ring fingernail lengthening into a wicked claw.
Trembling, Phil thrust the knife forward in the mirror image’s direction, but several of the shades that had been swirling around the books turned solid and secured him in place. His cry was muffled by a ghostly hand across his mouth, and the blade clattered harmlessly to the floor as several tendrils twisted on his arm. They pinned him in place as that twisted reflection of Mallory strode across the room.
“I am Malleus,” they said as they pressed their left hand over his face. “I wonder... what secrets will you have for me when I see you again?” Malleus laughed as their left ring finger traced a cruel path inward, scratching a curved line into the left lens of his glasses. The claw stopped in the center, pausing for one terrible moment before it pushed cleanly through.
* * * * *
Phil screamed, both hands reaching for his face, his eyes, knocking the glasses off of his head and sending them tumbling towards the obsidian knife on the floor. When had he dropped that? Had he dropped that? He covered his face, sucking in deep breaths of air before daring to open his eyes again. Without his spectacles, the room consisted of blurred shapes: rectangular smears that were probably the bookcases and tables and books, the slightly more in-focus blade and glasses in front of him, and Mallory face down on the floor, a puddle of blood around her -- though at least it wasn’t growing.
There was a pained grunt from the witch as she pushed herself up with one arm, and used the other to wipe blood from her face. There was a ragged hole in her shirt, but the wound he’d torn into her looked to be no more than a cut, letting out only a small trickle. She took a steadying breath before she pushed herself up to a crouch. Her fingers found his glasses, the left lens cracked in a single curved line with a chip neatly in the center, and offered them over to him. He slipped them on without looking up at Mallory, his gaze intently, intensely focused on a crystal in front of him.
In the low, strange light of the Tower’s library, Phil’s reflection stared back at him, the white of his left eye clouded with blood. Mallory chuckled at him, a kinder counterpoint to Malleus’ cruel tone.
“The very first spell I’ll teach to you, Phil... is how to fix your glasses.”
((Written with Mallory's player. Thanks!))
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