Chapter 156: 156
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Scanning Rio with spirit sight, the young mage couldn't immediately find anything wrong. He was on the verge of calling for medical help when Rio started calming down and managed to get off the floor long enough to slump shakily onto the couch. He got the teen an orange cream soda and a small pack of cookies and waited for Rio to finish calming down.
Orison asked worriedly, "What happened, there?"
Not completely certain himself, Rio explained, "I... The way you said that, it reminded me of what the cop who found me at the lake said. You know, stuff about being sent to a dorm for awhile. After that, I'm not sure. It was like my mind stopped thinking right and my body remembered....you know, what it felt like to be so hungry and too weak to move... I mean, I guess I know what happened but I thought I was past all that. Everything was fine.
"I didn't have it as bad as some of the others, you know. I was just tied up outside for a couple of days without water and then starved for a couple of weeks. They wanted to put me into an induced delirium to see if my patron would manifest to me. I'm not really sure what that means but I don't have one.
"All that showed up was... Well I stole your wand and ring thing from the o-"
Orison slowly removed the hand he'd quickly put up to Rio's mouth and said, "Avalon respects personal freedom as long as a person's responsible enough to handle it but I don't know how much they respect privacy. I know where YOUR wand and ring came from."
The young mage pulled them from his personal space while he looked like he was digging in his shoulder pack. He handed them to the teen and watched silently for a moment so that Rio could get his emotions back under control. The boy had picked up a few habits from Neil and wasn't the kind to feel better after crying.
He was starting to get a clearer picture of Rio. The more the teen clowned around, the more he was hurting. The more egotistical he was acting, the smaller and more vulnerable he was feeling. Such a person preferred to grieve alone and needed more carefully provided emotional support than most to keep from bruising their pride.
Once Rio was recovered and back under control, Orison used the retinal scanner to open the basement. One half of the basement was a magic and combat practice room, the other half was divided into three; the first of the three rooms was a practice equipment storage and meditation room, the middle was an office with a safe, the last was an alchemy lab. The office was still furnished as if it had been forgotten during the clean out.
They both looked at each other and Rio said, "Do you think there's still stuff in the safe?"
Orison responded, "No. But if you promise me not to use it for something stupid, I'll show you how to use the third ring of the wand. It's got an unlock spell carved in there."
The young mage sighed, "I feel myself getting dumber doing this. I'm serious, Rio. You use this to steal and I'll be the one to break your wand."
"When dad talked about you, he said you could become a hard a** over the weirdest things sometimes. I'm no thief. Well, I know I- they were yours to begin with. They stole them first!" Rio protested.
Arching a thin, still growing in eyebrow, Orison said, "Did you forget how I got stuck with you?"
"Hey. Dad wasn't even going to go. Why should I care what was written in a letter that was over twenty years old? Oh...Well, in hindsight it's clear but... What happened to that gem any way? It's got to be worth at least, what, three to 400,000 merits? Ahh!" Rio's snark cut off when the palm of his left hand radiated pain for a short moment.
Orison smirked. "Add a couple zeros or better yet, call it priceless. It's one of a kind... By the way, it looks like you do have a patron. And no, that is not a safe topic to discuss... maybe after we have some assured privacy... So fill the ring with essence and tap the butt of the wand to it three times."
Rio started looking pale. "Mind telling my patron to be a little less stingy? I can't even fill it."
The young mage checked the ring. "Damn. Yeah, it's reserve is quite a bit deeper than it used to be. There's enough juice in it... How much can you hold? Ugh, I can barely remember when my reserve was that poor. Ah, right after I just got back from having my soul shredded but before I made the year's worth of magic and physical training wish. Man, that almost killed me again!"
Rio rolled his eyes and did as instructed. It took two more tries and an explanation from Orison on the layout of the pins before Rio got the safe open. It was empty but with the young mage's spirit sight still turned up fairly high, he caught a faint glimmer of something. Focusing harder, he noticed it was a swipe of old blood only recognizable from the ghostly wisp of essence left behind from multiple times of use.
Out of morbid curiosity, the young mage drew the golden ratio shell pattern. After a good quarter of his available reserve was drawn out, the magic essence darted from the pattern to a hidden magic circle in the alchemy room. With a warning to Rio to either stay close behind him or go upstairs, Orison took a moment to carefully take off the outfit he was wearing and activated his teaser suit.
Rio had a strange look on his face that turned to surprise. "Oh, so that's what you were doing. Does that thing shred what your wearing?"
"Like confetti," Orison said blandly.
Rio took a second to get his shoes back on while the young mage looked at him in slight confusion. "When you said stick close, I kind of figured that you meant do what you were doing. But when you went full 'locker room', I figured I'd wait and see if you actually needed me to."
"Not a bad train of thought but I'll be as clear as I can when time permits. This isn't one. I need to study this circle for a second... Okay, it's a teleport glyph but it doesn't go far. Stay here and report this if I'm not back in a half hour." Orison said as he stepped in.
Rio jumped in at the last second.
Once they had appeared on the other side and Orison saw that the forested area wasn't dangerous, he turned to Rio and said angrily, "What part of 'stay here' was too difficult to understand!?"
Rio gave him a sour face and said, "If I listened to everything you said, I'd still be trapped on a dying world. Are you going to pretend this isn't a 'risk versus reward' kind of thing? I'll take my chances."
Orison looked at the teen for a moment and then said, "This and that are different but I can see your point. Just remember that we might reach a point where it's too much risk with no reward... When that time comes, hope I'm strong enough to save us both and that I still care enough after you outright didn't listen."
He took out the over robe and handed it to Rio. "I'll want that back later."
The teen checked out the silky robe. "No problem. I'm not going to try to keep a lady's night gown no matter how cool it looks."
The young mage looked at the sky. "Lawd, forgive me for what I'll do if he jumps on my last nerve one more time."
When he looked back towards Rio, the boy was gone and the over robe was laying on the ground. Snatching it up and throwing it on, Orison cranked up his spirit sight to max input and scanned around silently for the teen and saw no signs of life besides plants and bugs.
Mind on hyper drive, Orison thought, "Alright. First thing's first. Illusion stress test time. I'll be damned if another silk purse 'twilight zone' episode ever happens to me again."
Donning the ruby ring, he popped the main gem's ritual circle effect. The young mage had just enough time to make a sudden realization about the spiral-like inner formation at Rose Cliff, the layout of the Seven Heavens of Avalon and the golden ratio shell in the safe. He discovered that they lined up in an eerily similar way to the invocation portion of his new focus' circle. The split second after he made that connection, the ground underneath him ceased to be.
Layer upon layer of crazy landscapes, he kept falling through them until a floor came rushing up to greet him. At the last moment, Orison pulled off the strongest telekinetic spell he could to soften his fall. It was barely enough to avoid shattered ankles and knees with the combination of a well timed roll and his teaser suit.
Standing up, he looked around until he saw a dim light and followed it. Soon enough, he was standing in front of a blond lady in a stylish but definitively masculine business suit. She was sitting at a cheap folding card table with a tumbler glass of whiskey and a pungent cigar, playing solitaire.
"You gonna have a seat, boy, or are ya gonna stand there lookin all awkward?" the lady said with a voice as low and husky as a woman's voice could be and still sound feminine.
Warily, Orison said, "That depends. Is Rio alright?"
She chuckled humorlessly. "If that child can't climb down all those holes you just punched through all the Camdis will shard tests without somebody holdin his hand...Sweet mercy, he hopeless."
He went to ask more questions but she cut him off. "Boy we ain't got all that much time to be yakkin. He'll be sittin as pretty as you please widda prize he didn't even earn proper like, soon enough. Nuttin worse than a couple a tired arms to show he at least did somethin."
Orison sat down across from her and said, "Well, you're the one who claims we don't have much time. What do you have to say?"
She smirked, "Here in a hot city minute, you gotta important decision ta make. You can sit here wit me, whittle away a little time and yo boy, he get put on the fast track for core membership to da League. If ya do dat, you get put in da Rowdies program an you get to meet up wit ya boys Stag an Gan sumthin or rather, quick like.
"Othawise, you can go stop that kid from gettin the shard, report it, an you get fast tracked for core league but yo boys will flap in tha breeze long enough for somethin to happen to dem. It ain't all bad but it a sho far cry from happy days. I tried to drum up a third one but the shard will blow itself up to keep YOU from getting it. Knockin the kid out and pretendin none a dis happened ain't an option neither."
Orison said, "What about Ivan?"
She sighed out a belly full of frustration. "Oh, he dead, sugar. Well, he didn't stay that way but the lady he work fo now waddn't interested in no trades. Noxflora, you heard a her? I sho haven't. Not til recently anyhow. All the knots her an dat Zeke dude made on tha way up an out got me burnin through my liquor and my free time tryin a fix it all without getting in knots myself."
Schooling his expressions to keep from giving anything away, he said. "So what's the Rowdies?"
She smiled. "Fastest way to get up an out yo self or dead tryin. Dey da forward scouts an camp guards of the extra planar response teams. It ain't no punishment mind ya. Dey get da bes of da bes. If one of dem rips starts spillin demons or devils, a piece of angel a** ain't even out of da question. You know, if ya jus need a little taste of heaven to know you appreciated.
"Decision time. Jacques and his planar rip spot team caught da blip dis place made. What's it gonna be, sugar?"
Orison tapped the card table once, definitively with his index finger. "What I don't understand, is you or your place in all of this."
With a flourish, there was a glass in front of Orison and she poured them both a shot. "I'm da token 'neutral' in upper management. Let's jus say, when it come to keepin people around and makin babies, both da birds and da bats are on da same page."
He accepted her informal toast and drank his glass. It went down like liquid ice and turned into a volcano in his stomach. It was an experience that rode the line between unpleasant and enjoyable,even with his enhanced form. The young mage didn't want to imagine how much a normal person would suffer trying to drink whatever it was she had offered him.
She smirked. "First bite of the ol 'Ice and Fire' is somethin to remember... What do you think da low dimensions are exactly, boy?"
Orison shrugged. "Nonsense, chaos cobbled into barely functioning form. For the most part, I think that they're collections of communal imagination from the mid or high dimensions that take on enough substance to be considered real. Over all, I think the low dimensions are a bubbling cauldron of possible realities that make it to become a recognized and fully developed one once in a blue moon... Something like that?"
She said, "Dey figments. Some are like you say but others are da dreams of gods, the lingering memories in da bodies of dead ones. Many more defy definition of any kind. Fo da sake of moral ease, the only things considered real are what came from up higher and souls. Dat's it.
"I don't feel dat way. You don't gotta feel dat way but until somethin crosses the line it ain't got da same rights. An you can bes believe dat there are people who come down here actin all atrocious an feel like dat's jus fine. An I ain't jus talkin bout da demons an devils. Da Celetial Host can be a bunch a dirty b******ds down here too. Dey jus nicer about it."
Orison nodded. "Alright, Ms. Neutral. What's the real story here? What war's being waged on this world?"
She chuckled and poured them another shot. "We both got true names so I hope you don't mind but 'Ms. Neutral' ain't somethin nice to da ears. You can call me Sammy. An you don't gotta be so careful about tellin people yo name. Jus don't go around sharin yo true name, Orison."
She reached over and tapped him on the chest, sending his consciousness deep into his soul where he saw a pattern that his intuition recognized as a symbol of itself. It made Orison think of the contract that Ignatius had drawn up in the illusion. No matter who a person was or what language they spoke, the meaning would be clear. And if it was seen, it could be read.
What he didn't quite get is how it could be said but he didn't want to think about that too much. He had a good idea that it wouldn't take him long to figure out how but it would be better for him not to know. It would be harder to trick out of him that way.
Shaking himself out of the induced trance, the young mage said, "Thanks, I guess. So, Sammy, the real story?"
While he nursed the drink, she said, "If ya wanna call it a war, it's a war of agreements and trying to find ways around dem. At the end of da day, it's a recruitment drive. Celestial Host got da League, Infernal Host got da UTF and da Abyssal Host got da independents dangled in front of dem fo bait. Each got their own slice dat way but dey eyeball each other's all da damn time.
"If ya look close, you can see how dey do it. Devils be temptin Rowdies and Irregulars away here an there. Angels be usin the law to snatch up childrens and independents fo Avalon. An hell, I ain't never seen a demon follow a damn rule in my life dey ain't forced to. Not dat dey even hafta try dat hard. Fools an hot heads be lining up everyday to dance into da lion's den.
"Member dis, don't take the captain promotion if ya make it dat far. You out there to get stronger, not to become some angel's b*tch boy. Try not to take too long to handle bidness. You come up fo captain a couple of times dey start getting suspicious if you turn it down twice. Den, you gotta worry about getting tripped up. Like I said, even the Celestial Host can be dirty b******ds down here. Dey jus nicer about it."
She poured Orison one more double and did the same for her glass and handed it to him. "Hand dat one there to Jacques. Tell him I got my tongue all up in it fo him."
Orison's mind wondered for a moment as his conduit suddenly flared with brilliance in his space. He still couldn't peer through the astral fog of where it rested to recuperate but he could see three lesser glows near it in white, green and red hues. When his concentration focused back on the world around him, she was gone and he had bigger issues to deal with.
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Scanning Rio with spirit sight, the young mage couldn't immediately find anything wrong. He was on the verge of calling for medical help when Rio started calming down and managed to get off the floor long enough to slump shakily onto the couch. He got the teen an orange cream soda and a small pack of cookies and waited for Rio to finish calming down.
Orison asked worriedly, "What happened, there?"
Not completely certain himself, Rio explained, "I... The way you said that, it reminded me of what the cop who found me at the lake said. You know, stuff about being sent to a dorm for awhile. After that, I'm not sure. It was like my mind stopped thinking right and my body remembered....you know, what it felt like to be so hungry and too weak to move... I mean, I guess I know what happened but I thought I was past all that. Everything was fine.
"I didn't have it as bad as some of the others, you know. I was just tied up outside for a couple of days without water and then starved for a couple of weeks. They wanted to put me into an induced delirium to see if my patron would manifest to me. I'm not really sure what that means but I don't have one.
"All that showed up was... Well I stole your wand and ring thing from the o-"
Orison slowly removed the hand he'd quickly put up to Rio's mouth and said, "Avalon respects personal freedom as long as a person's responsible enough to handle it but I don't know how much they respect privacy. I know where YOUR wand and ring came from."
The young mage pulled them from his personal space while he looked like he was digging in his shoulder pack. He handed them to the teen and watched silently for a moment so that Rio could get his emotions back under control. The boy had picked up a few habits from Neil and wasn't the kind to feel better after crying.
He was starting to get a clearer picture of Rio. The more the teen clowned around, the more he was hurting. The more egotistical he was acting, the smaller and more vulnerable he was feeling. Such a person preferred to grieve alone and needed more carefully provided emotional support than most to keep from bruising their pride.
Once Rio was recovered and back under control, Orison used the retinal scanner to open the basement. One half of the basement was a magic and combat practice room, the other half was divided into three; the first of the three rooms was a practice equipment storage and meditation room, the middle was an office with a safe, the last was an alchemy lab. The office was still furnished as if it had been forgotten during the clean out.
They both looked at each other and Rio said, "Do you think there's still stuff in the safe?"
Orison responded, "No. But if you promise me not to use it for something stupid, I'll show you how to use the third ring of the wand. It's got an unlock spell carved in there."
The young mage sighed, "I feel myself getting dumber doing this. I'm serious, Rio. You use this to steal and I'll be the one to break your wand."
"When dad talked about you, he said you could become a hard a** over the weirdest things sometimes. I'm no thief. Well, I know I- they were yours to begin with. They stole them first!" Rio protested.
Arching a thin, still growing in eyebrow, Orison said, "Did you forget how I got stuck with you?"
"Hey. Dad wasn't even going to go. Why should I care what was written in a letter that was over twenty years old? Oh...Well, in hindsight it's clear but... What happened to that gem any way? It's got to be worth at least, what, three to 400,000 merits? Ahh!" Rio's snark cut off when the palm of his left hand radiated pain for a short moment.
Orison smirked. "Add a couple zeros or better yet, call it priceless. It's one of a kind... By the way, it looks like you do have a patron. And no, that is not a safe topic to discuss... maybe after we have some assured privacy... So fill the ring with essence and tap the butt of the wand to it three times."
Rio started looking pale. "Mind telling my patron to be a little less stingy? I can't even fill it."
The young mage checked the ring. "Damn. Yeah, it's reserve is quite a bit deeper than it used to be. There's enough juice in it... How much can you hold? Ugh, I can barely remember when my reserve was that poor. Ah, right after I just got back from having my soul shredded but before I made the year's worth of magic and physical training wish. Man, that almost killed me again!"
Rio rolled his eyes and did as instructed. It took two more tries and an explanation from Orison on the layout of the pins before Rio got the safe open. It was empty but with the young mage's spirit sight still turned up fairly high, he caught a faint glimmer of something. Focusing harder, he noticed it was a swipe of old blood only recognizable from the ghostly wisp of essence left behind from multiple times of use.
Out of morbid curiosity, the young mage drew the golden ratio shell pattern. After a good quarter of his available reserve was drawn out, the magic essence darted from the pattern to a hidden magic circle in the alchemy room. With a warning to Rio to either stay close behind him or go upstairs, Orison took a moment to carefully take off the outfit he was wearing and activated his teaser suit.
Rio had a strange look on his face that turned to surprise. "Oh, so that's what you were doing. Does that thing shred what your wearing?"
"Like confetti," Orison said blandly.
Rio took a second to get his shoes back on while the young mage looked at him in slight confusion. "When you said stick close, I kind of figured that you meant do what you were doing. But when you went full 'locker room', I figured I'd wait and see if you actually needed me to."
"Not a bad train of thought but I'll be as clear as I can when time permits. This isn't one. I need to study this circle for a second... Okay, it's a teleport glyph but it doesn't go far. Stay here and report this if I'm not back in a half hour." Orison said as he stepped in.
Rio jumped in at the last second.
Once they had appeared on the other side and Orison saw that the forested area wasn't dangerous, he turned to Rio and said angrily, "What part of 'stay here' was too difficult to understand!?"
Rio gave him a sour face and said, "If I listened to everything you said, I'd still be trapped on a dying world. Are you going to pretend this isn't a 'risk versus reward' kind of thing? I'll take my chances."
Orison looked at the teen for a moment and then said, "This and that are different but I can see your point. Just remember that we might reach a point where it's too much risk with no reward... When that time comes, hope I'm strong enough to save us both and that I still care enough after you outright didn't listen."
He took out the over robe and handed it to Rio. "I'll want that back later."
The teen checked out the silky robe. "No problem. I'm not going to try to keep a lady's night gown no matter how cool it looks."
The young mage looked at the sky. "Lawd, forgive me for what I'll do if he jumps on my last nerve one more time."
When he looked back towards Rio, the boy was gone and the over robe was laying on the ground. Snatching it up and throwing it on, Orison cranked up his spirit sight to max input and scanned around silently for the teen and saw no signs of life besides plants and bugs.
Mind on hyper drive, Orison thought, "Alright. First thing's first. Illusion stress test time. I'll be damned if another silk purse 'twilight zone' episode ever happens to me again."
Donning the ruby ring, he popped the main gem's ritual circle effect. The young mage had just enough time to make a sudden realization about the spiral-like inner formation at Rose Cliff, the layout of the Seven Heavens of Avalon and the golden ratio shell in the safe. He discovered that they lined up in an eerily similar way to the invocation portion of his new focus' circle. The split second after he made that connection, the ground underneath him ceased to be.
Layer upon layer of crazy landscapes, he kept falling through them until a floor came rushing up to greet him. At the last moment, Orison pulled off the strongest telekinetic spell he could to soften his fall. It was barely enough to avoid shattered ankles and knees with the combination of a well timed roll and his teaser suit.
Standing up, he looked around until he saw a dim light and followed it. Soon enough, he was standing in front of a blond lady in a stylish but definitively masculine business suit. She was sitting at a cheap folding card table with a tumbler glass of whiskey and a pungent cigar, playing solitaire.
"You gonna have a seat, boy, or are ya gonna stand there lookin all awkward?" the lady said with a voice as low and husky as a woman's voice could be and still sound feminine.
Warily, Orison said, "That depends. Is Rio alright?"
She chuckled humorlessly. "If that child can't climb down all those holes you just punched through all the Camdis will shard tests without somebody holdin his hand...Sweet mercy, he hopeless."
He went to ask more questions but she cut him off. "Boy we ain't got all that much time to be yakkin. He'll be sittin as pretty as you please widda prize he didn't even earn proper like, soon enough. Nuttin worse than a couple a tired arms to show he at least did somethin."
Orison sat down across from her and said, "Well, you're the one who claims we don't have much time. What do you have to say?"
She smirked, "Here in a hot city minute, you gotta important decision ta make. You can sit here wit me, whittle away a little time and yo boy, he get put on the fast track for core membership to da League. If ya do dat, you get put in da Rowdies program an you get to meet up wit ya boys Stag an Gan sumthin or rather, quick like.
"Othawise, you can go stop that kid from gettin the shard, report it, an you get fast tracked for core league but yo boys will flap in tha breeze long enough for somethin to happen to dem. It ain't all bad but it a sho far cry from happy days. I tried to drum up a third one but the shard will blow itself up to keep YOU from getting it. Knockin the kid out and pretendin none a dis happened ain't an option neither."
Orison said, "What about Ivan?"
She sighed out a belly full of frustration. "Oh, he dead, sugar. Well, he didn't stay that way but the lady he work fo now waddn't interested in no trades. Noxflora, you heard a her? I sho haven't. Not til recently anyhow. All the knots her an dat Zeke dude made on tha way up an out got me burnin through my liquor and my free time tryin a fix it all without getting in knots myself."
Schooling his expressions to keep from giving anything away, he said. "So what's the Rowdies?"
She smiled. "Fastest way to get up an out yo self or dead tryin. Dey da forward scouts an camp guards of the extra planar response teams. It ain't no punishment mind ya. Dey get da bes of da bes. If one of dem rips starts spillin demons or devils, a piece of angel a** ain't even out of da question. You know, if ya jus need a little taste of heaven to know you appreciated.
"Decision time. Jacques and his planar rip spot team caught da blip dis place made. What's it gonna be, sugar?"
Orison tapped the card table once, definitively with his index finger. "What I don't understand, is you or your place in all of this."
With a flourish, there was a glass in front of Orison and she poured them both a shot. "I'm da token 'neutral' in upper management. Let's jus say, when it come to keepin people around and makin babies, both da birds and da bats are on da same page."
He accepted her informal toast and drank his glass. It went down like liquid ice and turned into a volcano in his stomach. It was an experience that rode the line between unpleasant and enjoyable,even with his enhanced form. The young mage didn't want to imagine how much a normal person would suffer trying to drink whatever it was she had offered him.
She smirked. "First bite of the ol 'Ice and Fire' is somethin to remember... What do you think da low dimensions are exactly, boy?"
Orison shrugged. "Nonsense, chaos cobbled into barely functioning form. For the most part, I think that they're collections of communal imagination from the mid or high dimensions that take on enough substance to be considered real. Over all, I think the low dimensions are a bubbling cauldron of possible realities that make it to become a recognized and fully developed one once in a blue moon... Something like that?"
She said, "Dey figments. Some are like you say but others are da dreams of gods, the lingering memories in da bodies of dead ones. Many more defy definition of any kind. Fo da sake of moral ease, the only things considered real are what came from up higher and souls. Dat's it.
"I don't feel dat way. You don't gotta feel dat way but until somethin crosses the line it ain't got da same rights. An you can bes believe dat there are people who come down here actin all atrocious an feel like dat's jus fine. An I ain't jus talkin bout da demons an devils. Da Celetial Host can be a bunch a dirty b******ds down here too. Dey jus nicer about it."
Orison nodded. "Alright, Ms. Neutral. What's the real story here? What war's being waged on this world?"
She chuckled and poured them another shot. "We both got true names so I hope you don't mind but 'Ms. Neutral' ain't somethin nice to da ears. You can call me Sammy. An you don't gotta be so careful about tellin people yo name. Jus don't go around sharin yo true name, Orison."
She reached over and tapped him on the chest, sending his consciousness deep into his soul where he saw a pattern that his intuition recognized as a symbol of itself. It made Orison think of the contract that Ignatius had drawn up in the illusion. No matter who a person was or what language they spoke, the meaning would be clear. And if it was seen, it could be read.
What he didn't quite get is how it could be said but he didn't want to think about that too much. He had a good idea that it wouldn't take him long to figure out how but it would be better for him not to know. It would be harder to trick out of him that way.
Shaking himself out of the induced trance, the young mage said, "Thanks, I guess. So, Sammy, the real story?"
While he nursed the drink, she said, "If ya wanna call it a war, it's a war of agreements and trying to find ways around dem. At the end of da day, it's a recruitment drive. Celestial Host got da League, Infernal Host got da UTF and da Abyssal Host got da independents dangled in front of dem fo bait. Each got their own slice dat way but dey eyeball each other's all da damn time.
"If ya look close, you can see how dey do it. Devils be temptin Rowdies and Irregulars away here an there. Angels be usin the law to snatch up childrens and independents fo Avalon. An hell, I ain't never seen a demon follow a damn rule in my life dey ain't forced to. Not dat dey even hafta try dat hard. Fools an hot heads be lining up everyday to dance into da lion's den.
"Member dis, don't take the captain promotion if ya make it dat far. You out there to get stronger, not to become some angel's b*tch boy. Try not to take too long to handle bidness. You come up fo captain a couple of times dey start getting suspicious if you turn it down twice. Den, you gotta worry about getting tripped up. Like I said, even the Celestial Host can be dirty b******ds down here. Dey jus nicer about it."
She poured Orison one more double and did the same for her glass and handed it to him. "Hand dat one there to Jacques. Tell him I got my tongue all up in it fo him."
Orison's mind wondered for a moment as his conduit suddenly flared with brilliance in his space. He still couldn't peer through the astral fog of where it rested to recuperate but he could see three lesser glows near it in white, green and red hues. When his concentration focused back on the world around him, she was gone and he had bigger issues to deal with.
Scanning Rio with spirit sight, the young mage couldn't immediately find anything wrong. He was on the verge of calling for medical help when Rio started calming down and managed to get off the floor long enough to slump shakily onto the couch. He got the teen an orange cream soda and a small pack of cookies and waited for Rio to finish calming down. Orison asked worriedly, "What happened, there?" Not completely certain himself, Rio explained, "I... The way you said that, it reminded me of what the cop who found me at the lake said. You know, stuff about being sent to a dorm for awhile. After that, I'm not sure. It was like my mind stopped thinking right and my body remembered....you know, what it felt like to be so hungry and too weak to move... I mean, I guess I know what happened but I thought I was past all that. Everything was fine. "I didn't have it as bad as some of the others, you know. I was just tied up outside for a couple of days without water and then starved for a couple of weeks. They wanted to put me into an induced delirium to see if my patron would manifest to me. I'm not really sure what that means but I don't have one. "All that showed up was... Well I stole your wand and ring thing from the o-" Orison slowly removed the hand he'd quickly put up to Rio's mouth and said, "Avalon respects personal freedom as long as a person's responsible enough to handle it but I don't know how much they respect privacy. I know where YOUR wand and ring came from." The young mage pulled them from his personal space while he looked like he was digging in his shoulder pack. He handed them to the teen and watched silently for a moment so that Rio could get his emotions back under control. The boy had picked up a few habits from Neil and wasn't the kind to feel better after crying. He was starting to get a clearer picture of Rio. The more the teen clowned around, the more he was hurting. The more egotistical he was acting, the smaller and more vulnerable he was feeling. Such a person preferred to grieve alone and needed more carefully provided emotional support than most to keep from bruising their pride. Once Rio was recovered and back under control, Orison used the retinal scanner to open the basement. One half of the basement was a magic and combat practice room, the other half was divided into three; the first of the three rooms was a practice equipment storage and meditation room, the middle was an office with a safe, the last was an alchemy lab. The office was still furnished as if it had been forgotten during the clean out. They both looked at each other and Rio said, "Do you think there's still stuff in the safe?" Orison responded, "No. But if you promise me not to use it for something stupid, I'll show you how to use the third ring of the wand. It's got an unlock spell carved in there." The young mage sighed, "I feel myself getting dumber doing this. I'm serious, Rio. You use this to steal and I'll be the one to break your wand." "When dad talked about you, he said you could become a hard a** over the weirdest things sometimes. I'm no thief. Well, I know I- they were yours to begin with. They stole them first!" Rio protested. Arching a thin, still growing in eyebrow, Orison said, "Did you forget how I got stuck with you?" "Hey. Dad wasn't even going to go. Why should I care what was written in a letter that was over twenty years old? Oh...Well, in hindsight it's clear but... What happened to that gem any way? It's got to be worth at least, what, three to 400,000 merits? Ahh!" Rio's snark cut off when the palm of his left hand radiated pain for a short moment. Orison smirked. "Add a couple zeros or better yet, call it priceless. It's one of a kind... By the way, it looks like you do have a patron. And no, that is not a safe topic to discuss... maybe after we have some assured privacy... So fill the ring with essence and tap the butt of the wand to it three times." Rio started looking pale. "Mind telling my patron to be a little less stingy? I can't even fill it." The young mage checked the ring. "Damn. Yeah, it's reserve is quite a bit deeper than it used to be. There's enough juice in it... How much can you hold? Ugh, I can barely remember when my reserve was that poor. Ah, right after I just got back from having my soul shredded but before I made the year's worth of magic and physical training wish. Man, that almost killed me again!" Rio rolled his eyes and did as instructed. It took two more tries and an explanation from Orison on the layout of the pins before Rio got the safe open. It was empty but with the young mage's spirit sight still turned up fairly high, he caught a faint glimmer of something. Focusing harder, he noticed it was a swipe of old blood only recognizable from the ghostly wisp of essence left behind from multiple times of use. Out of morbid curiosity, the young mage drew the golden ratio shell pattern. After a good quarter of his available reserve was drawn out, the magic essence darted from the pattern to a hidden magic circle in the alchemy room. With a warning to Rio to either stay close behind him or go upstairs, Orison took a moment to carefully take off the outfit he was wearing and activated his teaser suit. Rio had a strange look on his face that turned to surprise. "Oh, so that's what you were doing. Does that thing shred what your wearing?" "Like confetti," Orison said blandly. Rio took a second to get his shoes back on while the young mage looked at him in slight confusion. "When you said stick close, I kind of figured that you meant do what you were doing. But when you went full 'locker room', I figured I'd wait and see if you actually needed me to." "Not a bad train of thought but I'll be as clear as I can when time permits. This isn't one. I need to study this circle for a second... Okay, it's a teleport glyph but it doesn't go far. Stay here and report this if I'm not back in a half hour." Orison said as he stepped in. Rio jumped in at the last second. Once they had appeared on the other side and Orison saw that the forested area wasn't dangerous, he turned to Rio and said angrily, "What part of 'stay here' was too difficult to understand!?" Rio gave him a sour face and said, "If I listened to everything you said, I'd still be trapped on a dying world. Are you going to pretend this isn't a 'risk versus reward' kind of thing? I'll take my chances." Orison looked at the teen for a moment and then said, "This and that are different but I can see your point. Just remember that we might reach a point where it's too much risk with no reward... When that time comes, hope I'm strong enough to save us both and that I still care enough after you outright didn't listen." He took out the over robe and handed it to Rio. "I'll want that back later." The teen checked out the silky robe. "No problem. I'm not going to try to keep a lady's night gown no matter how cool it looks." The young mage looked at the sky. "Lawd, forgive me for what I'll do if he jumps on my last nerve one more time." When he looked back towards Rio, the boy was gone and the over robe was laying on the ground. Snatching it up and throwing it on, Orison cranked up his spirit sight to max input and scanned around silently for the teen and saw no signs of life besides plants and bugs. Mind on hyper drive, Orison thought, "Alright. First thing's first. Illusion stress test time. I'll be damned if another silk purse 'twilight zone' episode ever happens to me again." Donning the ruby ring, he popped the main gem's ritual circle effect. The young mage had just enough time to make a sudden realization about the spiral-like inner formation at Rose Cliff, the layout of the Seven Heavens of Avalon and the golden ratio shell in the safe. He discovered that they lined up in an eerily similar way to the invocation portion of his new focus' circle. The split second after he made that connection, the ground underneath him ceased to be. Layer upon layer of crazy landscapes, he kept falling through them until a floor came rushing up to greet him. At the last moment, Orison pulled off the strongest telekinetic spell he could to soften his fall. It was barely enough to avoid shattered ankles and knees with the combination of a well timed roll and his teaser suit. Standing up, he looked around until he saw a dim light and followed it. Soon enough, he was standing in front of a blond lady in a stylish but definitively masculine business suit. She was sitting at a cheap folding card table with a tumbler glass of whiskey and a pungent cigar, playing solitaire. "You gonna have a seat, boy, or are ya gonna stand there lookin all awkward?" the lady said with a voice as low and husky as a woman's voice could be and still sound feminine. Warily, Orison said, "That depends. Is Rio alright?" She chuckled humorlessly. "If that child can't climb down all those holes you just punched through all the Camdis will shard tests without somebody holdin his hand...Sweet mercy, he hopeless." He went to ask more questions but she cut him off. "Boy we ain't got all that much time to be yakkin. He'll be sittin as pretty as you please widda prize he didn't even earn proper like, soon enough. Nuttin worse than a couple a tired arms to show he at least did somethin." Orison sat down across from her and said, "Well, you're the one who claims we don't have much time. What do you have to say?" She smirked, "Here in a hot city minute, you gotta important decision ta make. You can sit here wit me, whittle away a little time and yo boy, he get put on the fast track for core membership to da League. If ya do dat, you get put in da Rowdies program an you get to meet up wit ya boys Stag an Gan sumthin or rather, quick like. "Othawise, you can go stop that kid from gettin the shard, report it, an you get fast tracked for core league but yo boys will flap in tha breeze long enough for somethin to happen to dem. It ain't all bad but it a sho far cry from happy days. I tried to drum up a third one but the shard will blow itself up to keep YOU from getting it. Knockin the kid out and pretendin none a dis happened ain't an option neither." Orison said, "What about Ivan?" She sighed out a belly full of frustration. "Oh, he dead, sugar. Well, he didn't stay that way but the lady he work fo now waddn't interested in no trades. Noxflora, you heard a her? I sho haven't. Not til recently anyhow. All the knots her an dat Zeke dude made on tha way up an out got me burnin through my liquor and my free time tryin a fix it all without getting in knots myself." Schooling his expressions to keep from giving anything away, he said. "So what's the Rowdies?" She smiled. "Fastest way to get up an out yo self or dead tryin. Dey da forward scouts an camp guards of the extra planar response teams. It ain't no punishment mind ya. Dey get da bes of da bes. If one of dem rips starts spillin demons or devils, a piece of angel a** ain't even out of da question. You know, if ya jus need a little taste of heaven to know you appreciated. "Decision time. Jacques and his planar rip spot team caught da blip dis place made. What's it gonna be, sugar?" Orison tapped the card table once, definitively with his index finger. "What I don't understand, is you or your place in all of this." With a flourish, there was a glass in front of Orison and she poured them both a shot. "I'm da token 'neutral' in upper management. Let's jus say, when it come to keepin people around and makin babies, both da birds and da bats are on da same page." He accepted her informal toast and drank his glass. It went down like liquid ice and turned into a volcano in his stomach. It was an experience that rode the line between unpleasant and enjoyable,even with his enhanced form. The young mage didn't want to imagine how much a normal person would suffer trying to drink whatever it was she had offered him. She smirked. "First bite of the ol 'Ice and Fire' is somethin to remember... What do you think da low dimensions are exactly, boy?" Orison shrugged. "Nonsense, chaos cobbled into barely functioning form. For the most part, I think that they're collections of communal imagination from the mid or high dimensions that take on enough substance to be considered real. Over all, I think the low dimensions are a bubbling cauldron of possible realities that make it to become a recognized and fully developed one once in a blue moon... Something like that?" She said, "Dey figments. Some are like you say but others are da dreams of gods, the lingering memories in da bodies of dead ones. Many more defy definition of any kind. Fo da sake of moral ease, the only things considered real are what came from up higher and souls. Dat's it. "I don't feel dat way. You don't gotta feel dat way but until somethin crosses the line it ain't got da same rights. An you can bes believe dat there are people who come down here actin all atrocious an feel like dat's jus fine. An I ain't jus talkin bout da demons an devils. Da Celetial Host can be a bunch a dirty b******ds down here too. Dey jus nicer about it." Orison nodded. "Alright, Ms. Neutral. What's the real story here? What war's being waged on this world?" She chuckled and poured them another shot. "We both got true names so I hope you don't mind but 'Ms. Neutral' ain't somethin nice to da ears. You can call me Sammy. An you don't gotta be so careful about tellin people yo name. Jus don't go around sharin yo true name, Orison." She reached over and tapped him on the chest, sending his consciousness deep into his soul where he saw a pattern that his intuition recognized as a symbol of itself. It made Orison think of the contract that Ignatius had drawn up in the illusion. No matter who a person was or what language they spoke, the meaning would be clear. And if it was seen, it could be read. What he didn't quite get is how it could be said but he didn't want to think about that too much. He had a good idea that it wouldn't take him long to figure out how but it would be better for him not to know. It would be harder to trick out of him that way. Shaking himself out of the induced trance, the young mage said, "Thanks, I guess. So, Sammy, the real story?" While he nursed the drink, she said, "If ya wanna call it a war, it's a war of agreements and trying to find ways around dem. At the end of da day, it's a recruitment drive. Celestial Host got da League, Infernal Host got da UTF and da Abyssal Host got da independents dangled in front of dem fo bait. Each got their own slice dat way but dey eyeball each other's all da damn time. "If ya look close, you can see how dey do it. Devils be temptin Rowdies and Irregulars away here an there. Angels be usin the law to snatch up childrens and independents fo Avalon. An hell, I ain't never seen a demon follow a damn rule in my life dey ain't forced to. Not dat dey even hafta try dat hard. Fools an hot heads be lining up everyday to dance into da lion's den. "Member dis, don't take the captain promotion if ya make it dat far. You out there to get stronger, not to become some angel's b*tch boy. Try not to take too long to handle bidness. You come up fo captain a couple of times dey start getting suspicious if you turn it down twice. Den, you gotta worry about getting tripped up. Like I said, even the Celestial Host can be dirty b******ds down here. Dey jus nicer about it." She poured Orison one more double and did the same for her glass and handed it to him. "Hand dat one there to Jacques. Tell him I got my tongue all up in it fo him." Orison's mind wondered for a moment as his conduit suddenly flared with brilliance in his space. He still couldn't peer through the astral fog of where it rested to recuperate but he could see three lesser glows near it in white, green and red hues. When his concentration focused back on the world around him, she was gone and he had bigger issues to deal with.
