ULTRAMagic Eon 1 - Chapter 19
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Guinevere was making her way down to the great hall to present a modest proposal to her mother. As she made her way through the halls carrying her folder full of research with golems bowing to her as she passed by, she contemplated pleading to her mother to cease her contest with the ULTRAMagic Guild once more. Guinevere’s desire to join them was mounting and it would have been ideal if Valerie had also joined, but she knew her mother would not listen to reason. If the foolish bout was going to continue, Guinevere could at least get something out of it. Upon entering the great hall, she froze in her tracks. Eloise was standing next to something big under a tarp, with her proud smile screaming to her that her sister had done something rash.
Of course Eloise saw Guinevere walk up with her signature frown and went a little smug. “Hey, Guinevere…”
“Sister, what’s under the tarp?”
“Oh, just a little surprise for mom…” Eloise then noticed the folder. “Going to pester her for more stuff again?”
Guinevere quietly took offense to that. “No worse than all of the armor and dresses you ask for…”
“Bleh bleh bleh,” Eloise mocked while making a talking gesture with her hand, to her sister’s annoyance. “What are you asking for?” she asked as she tried to swipe the folder.
Guinevere backed up and shifted to protect her folder. “Tell me what’s under the tarp…”
“Tell me what you wrote down!” Eloise ordered as she made more attempts to take the folder.
As Guinevere held the folder up high from Eloise’s needy grasp, Valerie came up from behind and plucked it from her youngest daughter’s hand. “Girls, please, no rough housing in the castle…” she said as she thumbed through the documents. “Goodness, Guinevere, a dinosaur?”
“Yes, mother. I…”
“Oooh, what kind!?” Eloise interrupted.
Guinevere groaned. “I’ve been studying the prehistoric animals of Earth-23 and they are incredibly fascinating. I wish to adopt a Ceratosaurus and I found a special facility in the Market District that focuses on preserving such animals.”
“You want to keep a big, smelly lizard here?” Eloise incredulously questioned. Guinevere ignored her, eagerly awaiting her mother’s decision.
Valerie was impressed with the thorough research and Guinevere’s well thought out plans for the dinosaur. Plus the Ceratosaurus species looked incredibly noble with their head horns. “Consider it done, dear,” she said as she closed the folder and handed it to one of her golems. “I’ll make the call tonight. Now, Eloise, the surprise?”
“Haha, yes!” Eloise said as she prepared to remove the tarp, gripping it tightly.
Guinevere pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled. “Do I even want to know?”
Eloise elected to ignore that comment. “Now, mom, I heard that ULTRAMagic is the talk of the town these days. What better way to study it then straight from the horse’s mouth? Taadaa!” She yanked the tarp off, revealing the frozen slab that imprisoned Will.
Valerie’s face lit up as a great deal of her research had just become attainable. “Eloise! You really-come here!” she said as she picked her daughter up and hugged her tightly.
Guinevere’s stomach dropped as she saw the petrified mage, a surge of anger coursing through her veins as she processed the terrified look on his face. “ELOISE! YOU KIDNAPPED WILL!?!”
“Hey, hey! He was spying on us…”
“DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!” Guinevere roared as she lit ablaze with magenta fire. “That’s one of the Future Squad!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE JUST DONE?!”
“Sweetie, relax,” Valerie tried to say in a fruitless attempt to calm her down. “I merely want to borrow him for my research…”
“THEN WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO JOIN THE GUILD!?”
Valerie was on the spot as she did not want to admit she had doubts about her plans. Furthermore she did not just want to stroll up to Blood-Wraith and admit defeat like that. “Look, I promise we’ll have him back to the guild before he’s missed. Ter Avest honor and due diligence.”
Guinevere’s flames seemed to die down a little, but the seams in her licorice suit were still glowing and embers were flying off of her. “Could you just take The Eternal Order seriously for two seconds!?”
“I am, dear, trust me. I can’t just sit on the insight Serjiel provided to me…” Before she could finish, Guinevere screamed and stormed off, complaining incoherently as her hair and body occasionally flared up.
“Jeez, what a hot head…” Eloise remarked.
“Eloise, please,” Valerie interjected. “I hate to admit it, but she does have a bit of a point…” she half muttered.
“Aw phooey… Also hey, you know that gun slinging demon?”
“Yes. A year before I made you he came to me seeking information about The Tower of Babel. In return for data on its current trajectory I asked him to tell me about ULTRAMagic, a trade of mutual benefit I’d argue.”
“Huh, just like with Barry and that stinky Gudrun…” Eloise concluded with a nod. “Well, I mean we could go have a tea party with the guild, but we got an Unlight to unite.”
Valerie calmly sighed, the nuance of her anxiety being lost on her intrepid daughter. “Indeed. Golems, carefully bring Will to the main lab.”
Valerie’s laboratories were quite the sight to behold, and would have any scientist salivating over the thought of working in them. Sleek machines and futuristic computers were everywhere, running through all sorts of data and combining all manner of materials. And of course the facilities had a whimsical touch to them, making them look and feel like something out of a chocolate factory from a fairy tale. Tending to the magical, delectable smelling experiments were special, female candy golems that were slender and ever so careful. The ones of the main laboratory scrambled to get ready as the cake golems brought Will in.
The frozen ice cream slab was set gingerly down on a special platform, with the golems working together to make sure it was nice and secure. Once that was done, they got to work setting up the various machines and instruments that would analyze Will while Valerie and Eloise waited in the observation room. Valerie was still feeling conflicted, not helped by the fact that she was about to magically poke and prod at Will like he was an experiment. On one hand she had every right to pursue ULTRAMagic, but on the other hand there had to have been a better method than the one she was currently using. Regardless of her feelings, Valerie tapped some glowing keys on a keyboard once she had the all clear. A device lined with lasers and lenses calmly lowered from the ceiling, shooting steady, neon-colored lasers at Will that hummed at varying intensities.
Will was in such a strange state of zen while trapped inside the ice cream. He had been frozen awake, but his mind had long since fallen asleep. Upon the lasers finishing their job, he woke up… except something was off. He got up like he would in the morning, but the slab had remained unchanged and his body was glowing and ethereal. It was also floaty and weightless, making for an incredibly surreal feeling that made him think he was a ghost. Glancing over to the observation room, he figured he would go see what Valerie had discovered. As he phased through the walls, the only ones that seemed to notice him were the golems, who gave him a weird look before going back to their duties.
Seemingly not realizing Will was standing right next to her, Valerie watched as the data that had been collected was slowly converted into usable information on the shiny computer monitor. “Interesting, very interesting…”
“So what’s the deal, mom?” Eloise wondered as she tried to make sense of the data. “Do I need to go get another mage?” That made Will frown a little.
“No no, dear. He’s more than enough for what I need. It’s just that… he’s fascinating. From what I can tell, he pursued ULTRAMagic under great duress. We can’t look at his memories with my current equipment, but we can identify who gave him his soul fragments…”
This seemed to excite Eloise. “Ooh, do tell!”
“Let’s see…” Valerie typed on the keyboard, causing names to flash up on the monitor. “Faustus Ashman…”
“I think that’s his devil he keeps referencing.”
Valerie nodded. “...Antares Briggs, Zoltan Dracul? Vlastimir Dracul? He knows Vlastimir?”
Eloise nodded, thoroughly impressed… despite lacking proper context. “What about the other two?”
Valerie took a second to inspect the names, then froze. “What the… What in abaddon?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Morrigan Devilfay and Buster Ash…”
Eloise looked at the screen, glanced at the slab, then returned her attention to her mother. “Who are they? I’m a bit lost…”
Valerie took a quick breath, wanting to word things carefully. “Morrigan is a rogue sellsword from Universe-23 that I do not trust and have been keeping an eye on. Buster is Sir Odo’s younger brother. Odo has been increasingly concerned about Anne and The Eternal Order coming after Buster, but we’re not sure why yet.”
Eloise could hear the worry in her mother’s voice and grew equally concerned. “I mean, can’t we just confront this Morrigan person and bring Buster here? If it’s to stop The Eternal Order I’m all for it…”
“Sadly we can’t just go out and save the day, sweetie. We’re playing with fire here, as Will is from 10 years into the future.” She sighed, glanced to her side thinking she saw someone, then turned back to Eloise. “I don’t know how it would impact the flow of time if we acted specifically on the information we now have access to. It’s invaluable information, but I have no idea what to make of the implications. If we intervened now, it could lead to something even worse…”
Like a concerned child, Will wanted to tell the two that everything was going to be alright. Before he could (and even if he could), something caused him to begin floating upwards and phase through the entire castle itself. Will found himself floating calmly up towards a series of golden, fluffy clouds with the sounds of an amusement park in the distance and his close friends beckoning him to come join the fun. Will was traveling to The Dream Realm and was overwhelmed with a feeling of joyous bliss. Since he had some time to think before he arrived at his destination, Will began reflecting on his time in the ULTRAMagic Guild, as he had a lot on his mind.
The first thing Will realized was that he was never going to hear the end of it from Antares, Jackson, and Marcus for getting captured. Valerie was something else as she defied Will’s expectations. He had expected to fight more Sebastian’s, but his current mission was a far cry from the month-long battle at Red River City, which was a sobering experience truth be told. As Will continued to reflect, he had come to the realization that he had been a boastful jerk since joining the guild. Rostislav had been supportive of him as his mentor, but he ran into friction as Teunis kept antagonizing him and getting on his case. And Will finally understood it as Teunis had survived the fall of Feuerland and had been pursuing Gudrun for ages. As for himself? Will had been carried through the battle with Sebastian by his friends and allies. Suffice it to say he had to shape up and start facing the facts when he got back to the present.
Later that night at dinner, things were awkwardly quiet for the Ter Avest’s. Valerie could feel Guinevere’s frustration piercing her like knives as they ate. She wanted to comfort and console her, but had no idea what to say. The breakthrough she had made was truly spectacular, so it was understandable that Valerie did not want to admit capturing Will was not the best decision. Valerie also refused to admit she had been enraptured by the contest with Blood-Wraith. Truthfully she wished she had a husband, someone like Deimos perhaps that could fully convince her daughters that things were alright.
“So, mother,” Guinevere said in a slightly dull, formal tone. It was punctuated with her anxiety that she was doing her best to hide. “How did the call go?”
“Oh, that. It went fine, dear. The little darling will be here in two days…” Seeing Guinevere’s emotionless nod made her feel bad, forcing Valerie to say something. “Girls, I have an announcement. I… I’m going to pursue ULTRAMagic.”
Eloise applauded. “Fantastic to hear, mom! We’re one step closer to securing The Unlight!”
Guinevere briefly showed intrigue in her face, but quickly switched back to her indifferent expression. “And how do you plan to go about this, mother?”
“Well I plan to pay a visit to Dunja tonight in secret. We haven’t properly talked to each other in a while and I want her to be my first fragment. You can understand my urgency given the little stunt she attempted to pull upon returning to The Iron City.”
Guinevere nodded in acceptance. “A reasonable course of action. What about the other fragments though?”
“I’ll set out tomorrow and see what I can scrounge up, returning once I have ULTRAMagic.”
Valerie seemed sure enough of herself and Guinevere could not deny her the quest. “Very well then. I wish you the best of luck. Good night, mother, sister,” she said as she excused herself from the table. Making her way to her room, Guinevere was still sore over Will’s situation. Getting him back to the guild was going to be tricky with Eloise around, so she had to devise a cunning plan to help return Will to where he was supposed to be. Entering her grand, library-like bedroom, Guinevere quickly made her way over to her desk and began writing. “Well, mother, prepare for your first big challenge as an ULTRAMagic mage…”
Next: Chapter 20
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
Master Post - Patreon
Guinevere was making her way down to the great hall to present a modest proposal to her mother. As she made her way through the halls carrying her folder full of research with golems bowing to her as she passed by, she contemplated pleading to her mother to cease her contest with the ULTRAMagic Guild once more. Guinevere’s desire to join them was mounting and it would have been ideal if Valerie had also joined, but she knew her mother would not listen to reason. If the foolish bout was going to continue, Guinevere could at least get something out of it. Upon entering the great hall, she froze in her tracks. Eloise was standing next to something big under a tarp, with her proud smile screaming to her that her sister had done something rash.
Of course Eloise saw Guinevere walk up with her signature frown and went a little smug. “Hey, Guinevere…”
“Sister, what’s under the tarp?”
“Oh, just a little surprise for mom…” Eloise then noticed the folder. “Going to pester her for more stuff again?”
Guinevere quietly took offense to that. “No worse than all of the armor and dresses you ask for…”
“Bleh bleh bleh,” Eloise mocked while making a talking gesture with her hand, to her sister’s annoyance. “What are you asking for?” she asked as she tried to swipe the folder.
Guinevere backed up and shifted to protect her folder. “Tell me what’s under the tarp…”
“Tell me what you wrote down!” Eloise ordered as she made more attempts to take the folder.
As Guinevere held the folder up high from Eloise’s needy grasp, Valerie came up from behind and plucked it from her youngest daughter’s hand. “Girls, please, no rough housing in the castle…” she said as she thumbed through the documents. “Goodness, Guinevere, a dinosaur?”
“Yes, mother. I…”
“Oooh, what kind!?” Eloise interrupted.
Guinevere groaned. “I’ve been studying the prehistoric animals of Earth-23 and they are incredibly fascinating. I wish to adopt a Ceratosaurus and I found a special facility in the Market District that focuses on preserving such animals.”
“You want to keep a big, smelly lizard here?” Eloise incredulously questioned. Guinevere ignored her, eagerly awaiting her mother’s decision.
Valerie was impressed with the thorough research and Guinevere’s well thought out plans for the dinosaur. Plus the Ceratosaurus species looked incredibly noble with their head horns. “Consider it done, dear,” she said as she closed the folder and handed it to one of her golems. “I’ll make the call tonight. Now, Eloise, the surprise?”
“Haha, yes!” Eloise said as she prepared to remove the tarp, gripping it tightly.
Guinevere pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled. “Do I even want to know?”
Eloise elected to ignore that comment. “Now, mom, I heard that ULTRAMagic is the talk of the town these days. What better way to study it then straight from the horse’s mouth? Taadaa!” She yanked the tarp off, revealing the frozen slab that imprisoned Will.
Valerie’s face lit up as a great deal of her research had just become attainable. “Eloise! You really-come here!” she said as she picked her daughter up and hugged her tightly.
Guinevere’s stomach dropped as she saw the petrified mage, a surge of anger coursing through her veins as she processed the terrified look on his face. “ELOISE! YOU KIDNAPPED WILL!?!”
“Hey, hey! He was spying on us…”
“DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!” Guinevere roared as she lit ablaze with magenta fire. “That’s one of the Future Squad!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE JUST DONE?!”
“Sweetie, relax,” Valerie tried to say in a fruitless attempt to calm her down. “I merely want to borrow him for my research…”
“THEN WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO JOIN THE GUILD!?”
Valerie was on the spot as she did not want to admit she had doubts about her plans. Furthermore she did not just want to stroll up to Blood-Wraith and admit defeat like that. “Look, I promise we’ll have him back to the guild before he’s missed. Ter Avest honor and due diligence.”
Guinevere’s flames seemed to die down a little, but the seams in her licorice suit were still glowing and embers were flying off of her. “Could you just take The Eternal Order seriously for two seconds!?”
“I am, dear, trust me. I can’t just sit on the insight Serjiel provided to me…” Before she could finish, Guinevere screamed and stormed off, complaining incoherently as her hair and body occasionally flared up.
“Jeez, what a hot head…” Eloise remarked.
“Eloise, please,” Valerie interjected. “I hate to admit it, but she does have a bit of a point…” she half muttered.
“Aw phooey… Also hey, you know that gun slinging demon?”
“Yes. A year before I made you he came to me seeking information about The Tower of Babel. In return for data on its current trajectory I asked him to tell me about ULTRAMagic, a trade of mutual benefit I’d argue.”
“Huh, just like with Barry and that stinky Gudrun…” Eloise concluded with a nod. “Well, I mean we could go have a tea party with the guild, but we got an Unlight to unite.”
Valerie calmly sighed, the nuance of her anxiety being lost on her intrepid daughter. “Indeed. Golems, carefully bring Will to the main lab.”
Valerie’s laboratories were quite the sight to behold, and would have any scientist salivating over the thought of working in them. Sleek machines and futuristic computers were everywhere, running through all sorts of data and combining all manner of materials. And of course the facilities had a whimsical touch to them, making them look and feel like something out of a chocolate factory from a fairy tale. Tending to the magical, delectable smelling experiments were special, female candy golems that were slender and ever so careful. The ones of the main laboratory scrambled to get ready as the cake golems brought Will in.
The frozen ice cream slab was set gingerly down on a special platform, with the golems working together to make sure it was nice and secure. Once that was done, they got to work setting up the various machines and instruments that would analyze Will while Valerie and Eloise waited in the observation room. Valerie was still feeling conflicted, not helped by the fact that she was about to magically poke and prod at Will like he was an experiment. On one hand she had every right to pursue ULTRAMagic, but on the other hand there had to have been a better method than the one she was currently using. Regardless of her feelings, Valerie tapped some glowing keys on a keyboard once she had the all clear. A device lined with lasers and lenses calmly lowered from the ceiling, shooting steady, neon-colored lasers at Will that hummed at varying intensities.
Will was in such a strange state of zen while trapped inside the ice cream. He had been frozen awake, but his mind had long since fallen asleep. Upon the lasers finishing their job, he woke up… except something was off. He got up like he would in the morning, but the slab had remained unchanged and his body was glowing and ethereal. It was also floaty and weightless, making for an incredibly surreal feeling that made him think he was a ghost. Glancing over to the observation room, he figured he would go see what Valerie had discovered. As he phased through the walls, the only ones that seemed to notice him were the golems, who gave him a weird look before going back to their duties.
Seemingly not realizing Will was standing right next to her, Valerie watched as the data that had been collected was slowly converted into usable information on the shiny computer monitor. “Interesting, very interesting…”
“So what’s the deal, mom?” Eloise wondered as she tried to make sense of the data. “Do I need to go get another mage?” That made Will frown a little.
“No no, dear. He’s more than enough for what I need. It’s just that… he’s fascinating. From what I can tell, he pursued ULTRAMagic under great duress. We can’t look at his memories with my current equipment, but we can identify who gave him his soul fragments…”
This seemed to excite Eloise. “Ooh, do tell!”
“Let’s see…” Valerie typed on the keyboard, causing names to flash up on the monitor. “Faustus Ashman…”
“I think that’s his devil he keeps referencing.”
Valerie nodded. “...Antares Briggs, Zoltan Dracul? Vlastimir Dracul? He knows Vlastimir?”
Eloise nodded, thoroughly impressed… despite lacking proper context. “What about the other two?”
Valerie took a second to inspect the names, then froze. “What the… What in abaddon?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Morrigan Devilfay and Buster Ash…”
Eloise looked at the screen, glanced at the slab, then returned her attention to her mother. “Who are they? I’m a bit lost…”
Valerie took a quick breath, wanting to word things carefully. “Morrigan is a rogue sellsword from Universe-23 that I do not trust and have been keeping an eye on. Buster is Sir Odo’s younger brother. Odo has been increasingly concerned about Anne and The Eternal Order coming after Buster, but we’re not sure why yet.”
Eloise could hear the worry in her mother’s voice and grew equally concerned. “I mean, can’t we just confront this Morrigan person and bring Buster here? If it’s to stop The Eternal Order I’m all for it…”
“Sadly we can’t just go out and save the day, sweetie. We’re playing with fire here, as Will is from 10 years into the future.” She sighed, glanced to her side thinking she saw someone, then turned back to Eloise. “I don’t know how it would impact the flow of time if we acted specifically on the information we now have access to. It’s invaluable information, but I have no idea what to make of the implications. If we intervened now, it could lead to something even worse…”
Like a concerned child, Will wanted to tell the two that everything was going to be alright. Before he could (and even if he could), something caused him to begin floating upwards and phase through the entire castle itself. Will found himself floating calmly up towards a series of golden, fluffy clouds with the sounds of an amusement park in the distance and his close friends beckoning him to come join the fun. Will was traveling to The Dream Realm and was overwhelmed with a feeling of joyous bliss. Since he had some time to think before he arrived at his destination, Will began reflecting on his time in the ULTRAMagic Guild, as he had a lot on his mind.
The first thing Will realized was that he was never going to hear the end of it from Antares, Jackson, and Marcus for getting captured. Valerie was something else as she defied Will’s expectations. He had expected to fight more Sebastian’s, but his current mission was a far cry from the month-long battle at Red River City, which was a sobering experience truth be told. As Will continued to reflect, he had come to the realization that he had been a boastful jerk since joining the guild. Rostislav had been supportive of him as his mentor, but he ran into friction as Teunis kept antagonizing him and getting on his case. And Will finally understood it as Teunis had survived the fall of Feuerland and had been pursuing Gudrun for ages. As for himself? Will had been carried through the battle with Sebastian by his friends and allies. Suffice it to say he had to shape up and start facing the facts when he got back to the present.
Later that night at dinner, things were awkwardly quiet for the Ter Avest’s. Valerie could feel Guinevere’s frustration piercing her like knives as they ate. She wanted to comfort and console her, but had no idea what to say. The breakthrough she had made was truly spectacular, so it was understandable that Valerie did not want to admit capturing Will was not the best decision. Valerie also refused to admit she had been enraptured by the contest with Blood-Wraith. Truthfully she wished she had a husband, someone like Deimos perhaps that could fully convince her daughters that things were alright.
“So, mother,” Guinevere said in a slightly dull, formal tone. It was punctuated with her anxiety that she was doing her best to hide. “How did the call go?”
“Oh, that. It went fine, dear. The little darling will be here in two days…” Seeing Guinevere’s emotionless nod made her feel bad, forcing Valerie to say something. “Girls, I have an announcement. I… I’m going to pursue ULTRAMagic.”
Eloise applauded. “Fantastic to hear, mom! We’re one step closer to securing The Unlight!”
Guinevere briefly showed intrigue in her face, but quickly switched back to her indifferent expression. “And how do you plan to go about this, mother?”
“Well I plan to pay a visit to Dunja tonight in secret. We haven’t properly talked to each other in a while and I want her to be my first fragment. You can understand my urgency given the little stunt she attempted to pull upon returning to The Iron City.”
Guinevere nodded in acceptance. “A reasonable course of action. What about the other fragments though?”
“I’ll set out tomorrow and see what I can scrounge up, returning once I have ULTRAMagic.”
Valerie seemed sure enough of herself and Guinevere could not deny her the quest. “Very well then. I wish you the best of luck. Good night, mother, sister,” she said as she excused herself from the table. Making her way to her room, Guinevere was still sore over Will’s situation. Getting him back to the guild was going to be tricky with Eloise around, so she had to devise a cunning plan to help return Will to where he was supposed to be. Entering her grand, library-like bedroom, Guinevere quickly made her way over to her desk and began writing. “Well, mother, prepare for your first big challenge as an ULTRAMagic mage…”
Next: Chapter 20
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
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