ULTRAMagic Interlude BC - Chapter 37
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Blood-Wraith was in a better mood the following day, humming the tune of an upbeat, motivational rock song as he came down for lunch. Drusa knew why this was. “I take it you started on those DVDs?” She asked as he entered the dining room.
“Yes! Geez, giant, alien robots… your timeline is strange.”
She laughed. “Agreed. And the funny thing is that everyone thinks those aliens are fictional… haha, Earth is in for a rude awakening.”
Blood-Wraith silently stared at her. “Well as long as they don’t try to abuse The Unlight.”
“Kind of makes me glad Eustorgio kept me from doing what I needed to sometimes” Vexation remarked. “I was considering heading to Earth for my reincarnation.”
Drusa nodded. “A blessing disguise. Honestly, Rich, you dodged a bullet. I know how Earth is going to end up…”
“Pardon? Just how bad is it…”
“Democracy.”
“Oh…”
“What’s… oh never mind, I don’t want to know” Blood-Wraith said. “So are we going to do more delving into the collective unconscious?” he asked as he took some food from the platter at the center of the table.
“Nope,” Drusa replied. “We’re going to manipulate cause & effect!”
This caught Vexation off guard, causing him to nearly choke on his drink. “Excuse me? That was your idea?” She nodded again. “Are you mad, woman?”
“Very much so.”
“Okay, what does this entail?” Blood-Wraith inquired, with his curiosity piqued.
“Hold up a second, Blood,” Vexation interrupted. “Drusa, I’ve looked into this idea before. It’s very dangerous, the gods don’t like it, and I do not condone it. Are you absolutely sure about this?”
“Yup.”
“And you trust Blood to be responsible with it?”
“Absolutely.”
Vexation looked at Blood-Wraith, then back to Drusa. “What makes you so sure?”
“Blood has had no unjust conflict in his life. No leaky roofs, no parents fighting, no taxes for everything under the sun… He yearns for nothing more than to protect the ones he loves and cares about. With a little discipline, he’ll use our knowledge for great things. I’m sure of it.”
Getting up to think, Vexation paced back and forth. “I suppose… I trust that you looked at his past when you went looking for information about Fausta?”
“Of course I did, the little of it that was there.”
Blood-Wraith frowned a little. “That small?”
“Yes, but it’s not like you haven’t left a mark on the Cosmos, regardless of how minor it is in the grand scheme of things.”
He groaned as he got up to head upstairs. “Alright, enough talk. Let's get busy then.”
Drusa could not just tell Blood-Wraith her methods, she had to show him. Even then, this would be a little tricky. Touching her forehead to his, the two entered a special state of mind that opened up all of their experiences to them. Blood-Wraith quickly found the cause & effect knowledge and realized that it was borderline impossible to teach conventionally. It had to be thought of. The method was so simple yet infinitely complex. When the two finished, Blood-Wraith was a bit disoriented. This led to him tripping and falling on his face… except, that did not happen. He remained standing as a ghostly version of himself hit the floor and vanished.
“What in the source…?” Vexation questioned.
Drusa laughed triumphantly. “Cause & effect manipulation. So it’s real after all…”
“Hold up! You weren’t even sure to begin with?”
“Well, it was just an idea at first…”
Blood-Wraith was not so happy as he was starting to cry, interrupting their back and forth. “Guys? My nose is…”
Drusa quickly went over and gave him a hug. “Oh no no no, sweetie. It’s alright. You’re fine. You didn’t actually hit the ground.”
He sniffled, realizing his nose was not actually bleeding. “I didn’t?”
“Nope. You should have, though.”
“So I did it then?”
“Yes indeed. And you proved that it can be done too.”
Vexation inhaled and exhaled in a concerned manner. “I don’t know how I feel about this. We’re playing with fire here.” He could sense a certain god below the city growing worried.
Drusa shrugged. “No worse than what brought Blood into existence…”
Naturally Vexation gave his wife a stern look. “Excuse me, but Leif, Eustorgio, and Achasiah all knew what they were doing…”
“Debatably.”
He groaned loudly. “Are you sure madness isn’t one of your domains?” Something then pinched Vexation. “Ow, hey! What in the blue blazes? Drusa, how did you do that?”
She cackled mischievously. “I didn’t… or did I?”
Vexation sighed. “Well, this is certainly going to be interesting… seriously, be careful, you two.”
Blood-Wraith looked at his hands. “Hum, only for accidents…”
The rest of the day was spent practicing. Blood-Wraith and Drusa would take turns making contact with each other with various degrees of strength. As they did this, they agreed that it would be best to save the manipulation for emergencies. It was highly likely that flippant usage of the technique could damage reality itself (barring their practicing, as it was incredibly simple and mundane). Plus it would lead to them shirking their responsibilities. Blood-Wraith also realized that if he never got sick, his immune system would never grow. While this self-awareness did make Vexation feel a bit better, he was still incredibly worried.
It was the next day, with the cause & effect manipulation becoming better known to the two students. They felt they could start tackling curse magic at this point. Vexation was still a little hesitant, but conceded that they seemed to have a grasp on what they could and could not do. In regards to the plan, the entire process was incredibly tedious. Blood-Wraith went first, trying to figure out how to get around the seal. His main idea was to remove the effect of the seal. This started to work until the seal itself inevitably kicked him out of the collective unconscious. The shadow entity was watching and laughing, but it was sympathetic laughter.
“I think I get it now…” Blood-Wraith commented as he got up from another round of getting kicked out.
“What’s that?” Vexation asked.
“The riddle, I’m starting to get it now.”
Vexation gave an expression that was in line with a slight grimace. “That means the entity foresaw all of this…”
Drusa seemed a little distracted. “Rich, what’s with this black and white color scheme for your suit? You should change it to pure black. You’d look nice in black…”
“Drusa, not in front of Blood…”
Blood-Wraith shook his head. “I’ll get back to it then.”
Another day was needed as Blood-Wraith messed around with variations of the method. Nothing was working until it finally occurred to him: He had to manipulate both the seal and the knowledge, not just one of them. First he removed the cause of learning curse magic, keeping the effect. To deal with the seal, he kept the cause, but removed the effect. Hopefully this would trick the seal into thinking everything was alright. Little did Blood-Wraith realize that he was taking longer than what had been expected.
Blood-Wraith came back to reality a little tired, but incredibly excited. “Guys! I… did it.” The room was empty and dim for some reason. “Guys? Hello?” He called out as he left the ritual room. “What the… why is it morning all of a sudden?” He wondered with a yawn.
Heading downstairs, Blood-Wraith noticed the mail was on the floor. Did he forget to pick it up the day before? He opened the door and collected the newspaper, which did not have the correct date. All of this was disorienting him to no end and was starting to overwhelm him. Blood-Wraith went back inside, unsure of what was real anymore.
“Vex, Drusa? Help?” he called out.
Drusa showed up and took him by the hand. “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’re right here.” She then led him to the dining room and sat him down, with Vexation serving him some breakfast.
“What day is it?” The confused boy asked.
“The next day,” Vexation replied. “You took so long that Drusa and I ate dinner and went to bed. We were just about to come check up on you… of course this mischievous goddess was going to trick you into thinking that way more time had passed…”
Drusa chuckled regretfully as Vexation gave her a slight glare. “Ha, I’ll save it for April Fool’s Day… So, get any results this time?” she inquired.
“I did it,” Blood-Wraith answered.
They were both stunned. “Really?” Vexation asked in return.
Blood-Wraith nodded. “I’d like to show you, but can we do it in front of my family?”
“I don’t see why not,” Vexation replied. “Incredible if you pulled it off, Blood.”
“Ooh, Blood, share that knowledge with me real quickly,” Drusa insisted.
“Oh, right, sure” Blood-Wraith accepted, followed by them touching foreheads.
“HAHA! I’ll be back in a second!” Drusa then rushed up the stairs.
Once Blood-Wraith was finished with his food, he and Vexation went over to the mansion. Drusa could figure out where they were, so they did not worry. Rose was getting ready for her day when the two showed up. Upon hearing the good news, she quickly rounded up everyone she could. Dragoslava, Desislav, Kresimira, and Corentin were all present. The only one that could not show up was Radovan, but he was busy with his duties and Blood-Wraith did not want to bother him. Once Drusa was present, everything was ready to go.
“Alright, everyone? I believe I learned how to perform curse magic” Blood-Wraith announced. Everyone else clapped.
“Well done, Blood,” Desislav congratulated.
“I knew he could do it, despite the fooling around,” Dragoslava pointed out. “If only we had this back when we fought The Lich…”
Vexation shook his head. “Curse was something I was going out of my way to keep The Lich from learning about. The last thing we needed was him poking around in the collective unconscious where he shouldn’t.”
“Ah… fair enough.”
Kresimira lightly cleared her throat. “My, it feels like he started this only yesterday” she commented.
Corentin nodded in agreement. “Time flies when you’re having fun. So, Blood, what can this magic do?”
“Yes,” Rose added. “For those of us not in the know.”
“Well, it’s self-perpetuating magic,” Blood-Wraith started. “Curses create a situation where you subconsciously cast magic, even if you can’t cast magic normally.”
“Goodness!” Corentin said with slightly wide eyes. “Are you sure about that? That’s incredibly powerful, if true.”
“Indeed,” Vexation confirmed. “It’s the reason why I was so insistent on sealing it away in the first place. Scant few could actually learn it, but it could do untold damage in the wrong hands.”
“I presume you trust Blood and Drusa then?” Kresimira questioned.
“Yes. I mean, they’re not perfect, but I think they can handle it.”
“Then perhaps a demonstration is in order?” Rose suggested.
Blood-Wraith thought about what he could do for a moment. Then he remembered why Vexation had begun teaching him. “Oh! I got it…” He snapped his fingers, which made him glow for a moment.
“Interesting… What did you do?” Desislav asked.
“I cast a curse that will always bring me into existence, regardless if whoever or whatever created me has the ability to do so. Think of it like a backup for me.”
Vexation smiled and hugged him. “Well done, Blood.”
“Oh, Rich…” said Drusa. “Also, Blood, you just did your true creator a massive solid. Now in regards to me, I’m not sure what I want to do yet. I’ll need to sit down and think before I commit to any ideas. Ideally I want it to be something that will help me become 6th dimensional.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Kresimira assured.
Corentin pondered Drusa’s predicament, musing on the fundamental forces within the 6th dimension. “Now that’s a quandary. I recommend staying here for a while as people born in The Unlight are typically omni-dimensional. The degree of it varies from person to person, but we are capable of understanding the nuances of higher dimensions better than people on say Earth could.”
Drusa slapped her fist into her palm. “Very good point, Mr. Schindewolf.”
Funnily enough, Radovan had sensed what had happened and showed up just as Blood-Wraith was about to leave. After a quick explanation, Radovan picked up his boy and congratulated him with a hug. He also shook Vexation’s hand and thanked him for the honor he had granted his son. Things had been sluggish for Radovan, but the good news made his day. Once back at his house, Blood-Wraith plopped himself down on the couch and relaxed. He was very tired.
“Vex? Can I take a break?”
He chuckled. “Blood, take as long as you need. I do want to teach you some other stuff about curses, but that can wait for later. You deserve a break.”
Blood-Wraith turned on the television. “Good. That left me exhausted…”
Drusa patted him on the shoulder. “Hey, do you want to meet my fellow Spiritus Magni sometime soon? I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”
“I guess so. Are they nice?”
“Octavia, Athena, Hestia, and Aphrodite are some of the coolest gals I know. They’re also utter sweethearts, despite how war grizzled they are, ha.”
“Alright then, but not right now. I got the weirdest feeling something big is about to happen tomorrow… and today? Why does it feel like something incredible is happening?”
Vexation shifted in his recliner. “Blood? This wouldn’t happen to relate to that letter Andelin had you deliver now, would it?”
Drusa’s eyes glowed for a brief moment. She then laughed. “Oh baby, Blood’s right on the money…”
Blood-Wraith sighed. “Oh hey, my worry just came back.” He knew his anxiety would return eventually. Hopefully it would be for the better this time.
Next: Chapter 38
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
Master Post - Patreon
Blood-Wraith was in a better mood the following day, humming the tune of an upbeat, motivational rock song as he came down for lunch. Drusa knew why this was. “I take it you started on those DVDs?” She asked as he entered the dining room.
“Yes! Geez, giant, alien robots… your timeline is strange.”
She laughed. “Agreed. And the funny thing is that everyone thinks those aliens are fictional… haha, Earth is in for a rude awakening.”
Blood-Wraith silently stared at her. “Well as long as they don’t try to abuse The Unlight.”
“Kind of makes me glad Eustorgio kept me from doing what I needed to sometimes” Vexation remarked. “I was considering heading to Earth for my reincarnation.”
Drusa nodded. “A blessing disguise. Honestly, Rich, you dodged a bullet. I know how Earth is going to end up…”
“Pardon? Just how bad is it…”
“Democracy.”
“Oh…”
“What’s… oh never mind, I don’t want to know” Blood-Wraith said. “So are we going to do more delving into the collective unconscious?” he asked as he took some food from the platter at the center of the table.
“Nope,” Drusa replied. “We’re going to manipulate cause & effect!”
This caught Vexation off guard, causing him to nearly choke on his drink. “Excuse me? That was your idea?” She nodded again. “Are you mad, woman?”
“Very much so.”
“Okay, what does this entail?” Blood-Wraith inquired, with his curiosity piqued.
“Hold up a second, Blood,” Vexation interrupted. “Drusa, I’ve looked into this idea before. It’s very dangerous, the gods don’t like it, and I do not condone it. Are you absolutely sure about this?”
“Yup.”
“And you trust Blood to be responsible with it?”
“Absolutely.”
Vexation looked at Blood-Wraith, then back to Drusa. “What makes you so sure?”
“Blood has had no unjust conflict in his life. No leaky roofs, no parents fighting, no taxes for everything under the sun… He yearns for nothing more than to protect the ones he loves and cares about. With a little discipline, he’ll use our knowledge for great things. I’m sure of it.”
Getting up to think, Vexation paced back and forth. “I suppose… I trust that you looked at his past when you went looking for information about Fausta?”
“Of course I did, the little of it that was there.”
Blood-Wraith frowned a little. “That small?”
“Yes, but it’s not like you haven’t left a mark on the Cosmos, regardless of how minor it is in the grand scheme of things.”
He groaned as he got up to head upstairs. “Alright, enough talk. Let's get busy then.”
Drusa could not just tell Blood-Wraith her methods, she had to show him. Even then, this would be a little tricky. Touching her forehead to his, the two entered a special state of mind that opened up all of their experiences to them. Blood-Wraith quickly found the cause & effect knowledge and realized that it was borderline impossible to teach conventionally. It had to be thought of. The method was so simple yet infinitely complex. When the two finished, Blood-Wraith was a bit disoriented. This led to him tripping and falling on his face… except, that did not happen. He remained standing as a ghostly version of himself hit the floor and vanished.
“What in the source…?” Vexation questioned.
Drusa laughed triumphantly. “Cause & effect manipulation. So it’s real after all…”
“Hold up! You weren’t even sure to begin with?”
“Well, it was just an idea at first…”
Blood-Wraith was not so happy as he was starting to cry, interrupting their back and forth. “Guys? My nose is…”
Drusa quickly went over and gave him a hug. “Oh no no no, sweetie. It’s alright. You’re fine. You didn’t actually hit the ground.”
He sniffled, realizing his nose was not actually bleeding. “I didn’t?”
“Nope. You should have, though.”
“So I did it then?”
“Yes indeed. And you proved that it can be done too.”
Vexation inhaled and exhaled in a concerned manner. “I don’t know how I feel about this. We’re playing with fire here.” He could sense a certain god below the city growing worried.
Drusa shrugged. “No worse than what brought Blood into existence…”
Naturally Vexation gave his wife a stern look. “Excuse me, but Leif, Eustorgio, and Achasiah all knew what they were doing…”
“Debatably.”
He groaned loudly. “Are you sure madness isn’t one of your domains?” Something then pinched Vexation. “Ow, hey! What in the blue blazes? Drusa, how did you do that?”
She cackled mischievously. “I didn’t… or did I?”
Vexation sighed. “Well, this is certainly going to be interesting… seriously, be careful, you two.”
Blood-Wraith looked at his hands. “Hum, only for accidents…”
The rest of the day was spent practicing. Blood-Wraith and Drusa would take turns making contact with each other with various degrees of strength. As they did this, they agreed that it would be best to save the manipulation for emergencies. It was highly likely that flippant usage of the technique could damage reality itself (barring their practicing, as it was incredibly simple and mundane). Plus it would lead to them shirking their responsibilities. Blood-Wraith also realized that if he never got sick, his immune system would never grow. While this self-awareness did make Vexation feel a bit better, he was still incredibly worried.
It was the next day, with the cause & effect manipulation becoming better known to the two students. They felt they could start tackling curse magic at this point. Vexation was still a little hesitant, but conceded that they seemed to have a grasp on what they could and could not do. In regards to the plan, the entire process was incredibly tedious. Blood-Wraith went first, trying to figure out how to get around the seal. His main idea was to remove the effect of the seal. This started to work until the seal itself inevitably kicked him out of the collective unconscious. The shadow entity was watching and laughing, but it was sympathetic laughter.
“I think I get it now…” Blood-Wraith commented as he got up from another round of getting kicked out.
“What’s that?” Vexation asked.
“The riddle, I’m starting to get it now.”
Vexation gave an expression that was in line with a slight grimace. “That means the entity foresaw all of this…”
Drusa seemed a little distracted. “Rich, what’s with this black and white color scheme for your suit? You should change it to pure black. You’d look nice in black…”
“Drusa, not in front of Blood…”
Blood-Wraith shook his head. “I’ll get back to it then.”
Another day was needed as Blood-Wraith messed around with variations of the method. Nothing was working until it finally occurred to him: He had to manipulate both the seal and the knowledge, not just one of them. First he removed the cause of learning curse magic, keeping the effect. To deal with the seal, he kept the cause, but removed the effect. Hopefully this would trick the seal into thinking everything was alright. Little did Blood-Wraith realize that he was taking longer than what had been expected.
Blood-Wraith came back to reality a little tired, but incredibly excited. “Guys! I… did it.” The room was empty and dim for some reason. “Guys? Hello?” He called out as he left the ritual room. “What the… why is it morning all of a sudden?” He wondered with a yawn.
Heading downstairs, Blood-Wraith noticed the mail was on the floor. Did he forget to pick it up the day before? He opened the door and collected the newspaper, which did not have the correct date. All of this was disorienting him to no end and was starting to overwhelm him. Blood-Wraith went back inside, unsure of what was real anymore.
“Vex, Drusa? Help?” he called out.
Drusa showed up and took him by the hand. “Don’t worry, kiddo. We’re right here.” She then led him to the dining room and sat him down, with Vexation serving him some breakfast.
“What day is it?” The confused boy asked.
“The next day,” Vexation replied. “You took so long that Drusa and I ate dinner and went to bed. We were just about to come check up on you… of course this mischievous goddess was going to trick you into thinking that way more time had passed…”
Drusa chuckled regretfully as Vexation gave her a slight glare. “Ha, I’ll save it for April Fool’s Day… So, get any results this time?” she inquired.
“I did it,” Blood-Wraith answered.
They were both stunned. “Really?” Vexation asked in return.
Blood-Wraith nodded. “I’d like to show you, but can we do it in front of my family?”
“I don’t see why not,” Vexation replied. “Incredible if you pulled it off, Blood.”
“Ooh, Blood, share that knowledge with me real quickly,” Drusa insisted.
“Oh, right, sure” Blood-Wraith accepted, followed by them touching foreheads.
“HAHA! I’ll be back in a second!” Drusa then rushed up the stairs.
Once Blood-Wraith was finished with his food, he and Vexation went over to the mansion. Drusa could figure out where they were, so they did not worry. Rose was getting ready for her day when the two showed up. Upon hearing the good news, she quickly rounded up everyone she could. Dragoslava, Desislav, Kresimira, and Corentin were all present. The only one that could not show up was Radovan, but he was busy with his duties and Blood-Wraith did not want to bother him. Once Drusa was present, everything was ready to go.
“Alright, everyone? I believe I learned how to perform curse magic” Blood-Wraith announced. Everyone else clapped.
“Well done, Blood,” Desislav congratulated.
“I knew he could do it, despite the fooling around,” Dragoslava pointed out. “If only we had this back when we fought The Lich…”
Vexation shook his head. “Curse was something I was going out of my way to keep The Lich from learning about. The last thing we needed was him poking around in the collective unconscious where he shouldn’t.”
“Ah… fair enough.”
Kresimira lightly cleared her throat. “My, it feels like he started this only yesterday” she commented.
Corentin nodded in agreement. “Time flies when you’re having fun. So, Blood, what can this magic do?”
“Yes,” Rose added. “For those of us not in the know.”
“Well, it’s self-perpetuating magic,” Blood-Wraith started. “Curses create a situation where you subconsciously cast magic, even if you can’t cast magic normally.”
“Goodness!” Corentin said with slightly wide eyes. “Are you sure about that? That’s incredibly powerful, if true.”
“Indeed,” Vexation confirmed. “It’s the reason why I was so insistent on sealing it away in the first place. Scant few could actually learn it, but it could do untold damage in the wrong hands.”
“I presume you trust Blood and Drusa then?” Kresimira questioned.
“Yes. I mean, they’re not perfect, but I think they can handle it.”
“Then perhaps a demonstration is in order?” Rose suggested.
Blood-Wraith thought about what he could do for a moment. Then he remembered why Vexation had begun teaching him. “Oh! I got it…” He snapped his fingers, which made him glow for a moment.
“Interesting… What did you do?” Desislav asked.
“I cast a curse that will always bring me into existence, regardless if whoever or whatever created me has the ability to do so. Think of it like a backup for me.”
Vexation smiled and hugged him. “Well done, Blood.”
“Oh, Rich…” said Drusa. “Also, Blood, you just did your true creator a massive solid. Now in regards to me, I’m not sure what I want to do yet. I’ll need to sit down and think before I commit to any ideas. Ideally I want it to be something that will help me become 6th dimensional.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Kresimira assured.
Corentin pondered Drusa’s predicament, musing on the fundamental forces within the 6th dimension. “Now that’s a quandary. I recommend staying here for a while as people born in The Unlight are typically omni-dimensional. The degree of it varies from person to person, but we are capable of understanding the nuances of higher dimensions better than people on say Earth could.”
Drusa slapped her fist into her palm. “Very good point, Mr. Schindewolf.”
Funnily enough, Radovan had sensed what had happened and showed up just as Blood-Wraith was about to leave. After a quick explanation, Radovan picked up his boy and congratulated him with a hug. He also shook Vexation’s hand and thanked him for the honor he had granted his son. Things had been sluggish for Radovan, but the good news made his day. Once back at his house, Blood-Wraith plopped himself down on the couch and relaxed. He was very tired.
“Vex? Can I take a break?”
He chuckled. “Blood, take as long as you need. I do want to teach you some other stuff about curses, but that can wait for later. You deserve a break.”
Blood-Wraith turned on the television. “Good. That left me exhausted…”
Drusa patted him on the shoulder. “Hey, do you want to meet my fellow Spiritus Magni sometime soon? I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”
“I guess so. Are they nice?”
“Octavia, Athena, Hestia, and Aphrodite are some of the coolest gals I know. They’re also utter sweethearts, despite how war grizzled they are, ha.”
“Alright then, but not right now. I got the weirdest feeling something big is about to happen tomorrow… and today? Why does it feel like something incredible is happening?”
Vexation shifted in his recliner. “Blood? This wouldn’t happen to relate to that letter Andelin had you deliver now, would it?”
Drusa’s eyes glowed for a brief moment. She then laughed. “Oh baby, Blood’s right on the money…”
Blood-Wraith sighed. “Oh hey, my worry just came back.” He knew his anxiety would return eventually. Hopefully it would be for the better this time.
Next: Chapter 38
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
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