Chapter 167: 167
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Despite the jokes, Garret looked like he was wound tighter than a pocket watch as the young mage filled the tub with water.
Orison handed him the touchscreen and had him read it, which he decided to do out loud for some reason. "Before the 1800's, the rusalki were not considered malicious entities. In the spring, they were known to sprinkle fields near their residences with a mist that made crops more fruitful. It was believed that this was done to-"
The young mage interrupted, "That's far enough for the relevant part. Okay. Now that you have the first piece of the puzzle... Rusk, Russel, Salk sound familiar, Rogers family history buff?"
"Yeah, branch families that probably share a common ancestor with us. But just because they sound similar to some creature that went extinct doesn't mean much," Garret said as his forehead creased in thought.
Orison pulled up a map and used the highlight function on the touchscreen. "Those arrows point to where the families I just mentioned roughly came from. The circle is the most well known area for rusalka sightings before they began turning predatory and migrating."
More in an attempt to talk himself out of buying Orison's line of logic than because of cold skepticism, the teen said, "See, right here? It says that they are more like a spirit or apparition. How could an ancestor knock up a ghost?"
The young mage frowned. "Don't confuse spirits of the dead fey with nature fey. They're already hard enough to identify...When this world stopped sharing its magic, the more spiritual fey connected to it were doomed to wither away. Even though 'The Little Mermaid' is a tragedy of a story, it holds one possible answer. In fact, if it was accepted, it would explain a multitude of other phenomenon about this world."
Just shy of sneering, Garret said, "You're trying to tell me that you think humanity started making all kinds of evolutionary leaps and changes because supernatural creatures found ways to become people? Well, let me share what we're taught at school. The Great Shift, when the magnetic poles did a full 360 over the course of a few years, and the appearance of planar rifts sparked the evolutionary leap."
Orison smiled, "In what way are they contradictory? Ambient magic probably faded to pretty much nothing over the course of a thousand years. Supernatural creatures doing what they could to adapt to that and mixing with humans laid dormant inheritances inside humanity. The Great Shift and the appearance of planar rifts woke those inheritances up.
"What tripped them up was that their cover experiment actually bore accidental fruit. You see, what Avalon calls 'aqua vitae', I call vital water. I have a pretty good idea of how it forms naturally and I'm pretty sure that the Rogers family might be one of a very small percentage of the world's population with a natural resistance to its carcinogenic effects. Why? Because it was a Rusalka's food and the Rogers family are their mortal legacy."
Garret folded his arms and said, "Go on. How does 'aqua vitae form naturally and how does all this tie together in a way that has you so sure?"
Smiling widely, Orison said, "Alright. You know what dirt I'm claiming to have, now. Lets give you some and provide evidence my dirt's legit."
The young mage pulled out a dropper vial with water so 'pure', it had a tinge of blue light refraction to it, even at such a small amount. "Vital water forms from condensation or dew on certain spiritual plants and collects in nearby depressions like ponds and lakes because it's heavier than normal water. I know because I collected it. In this state, it's far less dangerous than whatever source the pre-UTF found and a bit more potent than the undiluted version that Avalon makes and uses. Even though I say that, it's still about as dangerous to have direct contact with as organic mercury. Which is to say, freaking scary lethal but survivable."
He carefully unscrewed the cap and let some micro evaporation circulate. Orison watched Garret closely and saw the teen's eyes slightly dilate and the pours of his skin open up like he'd stepped into a sauna.
The young mage smirked. "Feeling thirsty? That's the Rusalka instinct telling you that you just found something yummy. Don't be fooled by it. I need to dilute this stuff to about the same degree as your bloodline is diluted before it's safe for you and even then, you can only safely take it in once every seven years or so. Speaking of which, when did you get your fish bowl dip?"
Swallowing a mouthful of saliva and tearing his eyes away from the bottle to look at Orison, he said, "A little less than eight years ago. I was nine."
"Ah. So, you only need me to vouch for you for five months. Avalon will let you emancipate without a hearing as long as you're within nine months of eighteen and don't have any outstanding reason why you shouldn't be, right?" Orison said.
Garret nodded and pointed at the dropper vial, the bathtub then back to himself with a hopeful look.
The young mage chuckled and said, "Gold star!... Hold up. Don't go jumping into the tub yet. We have to do this in a specific way. We might be able to cut some of the middle steps because of your heritage but it's still dangerous stuff.
"The reason why Avalon's method works so well and is so universally helpful is because the 'fish bowl' medical wash imitates the natural 'source to human' cycle. A Rusalka takes in the vital water, 'sprays' the ground and the plants neutralize it in the process of growing. The fish bowl wash drips its 'aqua vitae' through a carbonized filter made of Rogers special keratin, heated til the steam pushes through another filter of secret formula plant fibers which makes it safe for just about everyone to take in once in a lifetime.
"I don't think you need me to tell you how much of its overall potential is lost along the way but it's what allowed a Rusalka to be pretty much biologically immortal as long as their food never ran out and what allowed the people who got just a touch of its surviving benefit through eating plants grown in Rusalka 'sprayed' fields to be a hearty and robust people."
The light bulb came on in Garret's mind. "Enough to be broad spectrum B-class, if they could skip the middle parts, and to keep refreshing following generations to broad C's and D's!... They can control our whole family's overall power to make as many of us rank and file for whatever level they need us at!"
Seeing that Garret was about to go down a dark road when he was still in a dark place, Orison said, "They could but I don't think they're abusing that power. Avalon's 'aqua vitae' is useful for everyone but even if it was selfishly reserved for just the Rogers family, it still wouldn't be enough to make more than a couple dozen more B-class while maintaining a thousand or so of the extended family at C... at best. The fact they share some with everyone, even if it's forced and has to be paid for, means they've struck a pretty decent balance between human instinct and societal good."
He let Garret vent a bellyful of gripe before he added, "You're right. It's far too selfish for me to save this all for you. I should round up all the D-Class Rogers and get them to C-class before I even think about giving you, the far more advantaged one, even a single drop, right?...
"You know that sudden struggle you're feeling inside between the ideals you just formed and your personal desires? I would guess that Avalon's solution was to keep half and give the other half to everyone else. Now, that's just a guess and it might be a little on the generous side but it seems about right from everything I've seen.
"Is that how I should handle this, give you half of what I think you can handle for maximum effect and give the rest away? Who knows how much lost potential boost that actually translates into but that's the standard I believe the people you just ragged on uses. Thank goodness you just saved me from stupidly giving all this to you and showing me how a generous and civil minded person should handle it."
Orison made to put the dropper vial away as Garret's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
Thinking he'd carried the joke far enough, Orison said, "I'm not nearly as enlightened as the person who set up how Avalon works because this is all for you. It's all yours because it's mine and I choose to give it to you, no one else. I'd rather pour it down the drain than be forced to give it to someone else I didn't choose because that's the kind of petty a**hole I am.
"There's a person you'll never get to meet directly named Al. Thank that guy because before he became a part of my life, I'm pretty sure I was a borderline psychopath. And that 'give a crap' line you find yourself on the good side of, it would be a lot smaller and a lot harder to cross."
As if he was afraid that Orison would change his mind again, Garret said quickly, "Thank YOU for showing me how easy it is to be a hypocrite. Thank you, Al. And thank you, mom, for keeping me humble, showing me the good of being a little shameless and the bad of being anymore shameless than that. Do I get in the bath now?"
The young mage smiled in spite of himself and said, "No... Don't look at me like that. I'm not still messing with you... We don't have the same equipment as intake or wherever it is Avalon citizens go for their medical wash. That means we have to take a couple of safety precautions and make sure you're aware of what you're in for because you're going to be awake for it this time.
"Here in a second, I'm going to add a few drops and you're going to dunk your head in. I'm going to be watching on the side with spirit sight... Keep your eyes shut tight and try your best not to get any in your mouth or nose. Come up for air as needed until you hear me say rinse or tap you on the shoulder three times...
" -the full soak and rinse off. If we time it all well, you'll be finished with that before you're hit with what will feel like the worst hangover of your life and the sensation of microscopic splinters pushing out of every pour in your body. Stuff's probably going to be coming out of every hole you got and you're going to be hurting while it's happening. Tissue regeneration should be able to keep up with it but be prepared to shed anything that can be.
"No matter how much you're hurting, if you feel liquid in your mouth, swallow. If you shed too much your body's going to start cannibalizing resources and you'll come out looking like a mummy with candy corn soft teeth. I don't care if it's fixable. Both of us have been traumatized enough today."
For the first time, Orison's worst case scenario briefing wasn't met with fear or second thoughts. Instead, Garret looked pumped to get started as he said, "Foreign micro particulate rejection and pseudo secondary maturation phenomenon!? Come on, baby. Hurts so good! Whoo!"
Black lines ran down the young mage's face as he looked at the teen hopping in place and shaking loose like he was getting ready for some hard cardio. "Might, as in maybe."
Garret's grin looked a little wild as a dim fanaticism danced in his eyes. "That's the kind of suffering only the elite of the elite are even qualified to feel. Here's hoping."
A few minutes, a surprisingly empty dropper vial and a few awkward poses later, the soak was done.
While rinsing off, the teen cracked, "Some of those poses made me feel like I was posing for dirty pictures. Your eyes being all glowing and staring at me made that feeling real for me, you know? I'm just glad you only have to touch the wish bone or between the shoulder blades or things would have gotten scary."
Despite laughing, there was a touch of sincerity behind it. He couldn't really blame Garret. He was a bit of an exhibitionist and would have felt uncomfortable himself.
Orison said, "Sorry about that but the only observation equipment we have are my eyes and spirit sight. The left/right flip was an unexpected necessity. I don't know why the tender bits had so much lower of a resistance than the rest of you. Maybe it's because the Rusalki are an all female group?"
Nauseousness and discomfort setting in, Garret started projecting uncertainty. "I'm not going to change into a woman or something crazy like that, am I?"
"Not from vital water. In fact, your soak tolerance would be much lower if you were a woman. Men's skin is thicker. Then again, it's not like I've had a chance to observe a female Rogers family member going through this. Maybe they could drink it, for all I know," Orison deflected.
Due to the mixing of multiple, if weak, additional mutant genes, the chance of an instability as a gender change was laughably low but it wasn't zero. The chance of anything wasn't zero, really. The one main fact that science would always be able to flaunt over the magical and supernatural was greater stability and repeatability of results.
Under Orison's watchful eyes, the teen's stomach settled down and began rapidly drawing vestiges of still digesting cheeseburger and fries from it instead of making the guy lose them. Seeing an opportunity, orison tapped the last trembling drop of vital water in the vial into a multivitamin/mineral emulsion and got Garret to chug it down before the pain hit. As he watch the teen's stomach absorb it, he realized that it had been a decent idea but it was going to cause him a little more aftercare work. The internals didn't have more than half again as much resistance to vital water as a normal person.
"Good news for you, since you're all for the dramatic transformation effects. Your teeth are starting to loosen and new ones are about to grow in behind," the young mage added cheerily.
Pale and shaking from the first wave of toxin expulsion, looking like a stray dog left in the rain with the shower going overhead, Garret weakly said, "Yay..."
After that, things got violent looking, ugly and sometimes revolting. Another forty minutes later, Orison was tossing a makeshift feeder tube into the trash and carrying a sobbing, kitten weak Garret to bed. As the orb in the grandly realistic artificial sky outside dipped from gold to bright orange, the young mage dealt with bipolar mood swings from the thankfully weak and delirious teen as he spot removed abnormal cell clusters that occasionally popped up.
As Garret's head began to rapidly cool back down to normal temperatures, he became more aware of his surroundings. Confusion was slowly replaced by more curiosity than concern on his face as he saw Orison's half closed Caribbean blue eyes roam along with fingers across him. Perhaps because of a combination of his recent ordeals mixed with the slow trickle return of his strength and energy, anxiety over awkward intimacy with this near stranger suddenly vanished.
The teen's body relaxed as his heart rate quickened, prompting Orison to think, "Damn it. This again? I was sure we'd be past this after his fever broke and brain activity returned to HIS normal."
While another icy-electric tingle rolled across his nerve endings from the young mage's magic, barely above a whisper, Garret said, "It's been a crazy day so... Even though it's not really my thing, I'm cool if it's yours. You've got the candle lit. Blow it out and make a wish or bring the cake. I've got the ice cream and it's always somebody's birthday."
Barely half listening, Orison mumbled, "I don't know how many of these 'Bro, I'm so DHH that I'm down if you're down.' locker room confessionals I can take. Biscuits and sausage gravy, something about cheese spread and now cake and ice cream. Maybe I got it wrong and he's just hungry... The fever's returning? When is this nightmare going to be over!?"
Garret said, "Can you just give me a sedative and execute me already?"
Orison breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh. It's just embarrassment and you're lucid. Thank gawd."
He stopped scanning the teen's body for abnormal cells and surface dangers stimulated by an excess of life essence and collapsed into the desk chair the room came furnished with. "Don't sweat it. With your strength coming back, a whole lot of itches you couldn't scratch yourself yet are going to start demanding your attention. I'll give you privacy until the 'need for food' itch drowns the others out."
He got up, grabbed the Turkish robe and thought better of it.
After tossing it onto Garret's bed and walking out, he closed the door and said, "There aren't any paper products in the house. It's clean but you can't clean memories. Throw it into whichever recycle bin it belongs to when you're done with it... And my prayers go with it for the factory worker."
A few minutes later, while the young mage was going through what could be made for dinner, Garret weakly staggered to the bathroom. He quickly ran some 'presto' in the teen's bedroom and noticed that the robe had been hung up in the closet. From across the hall, through the bathroom door, Garret said. "Don't throw it away! I'll trade it for some merits or use it myself. Do you know how much those things cost!?"
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Despite the jokes, Garret looked like he was wound tighter than a pocket watch as the young mage filled the tub with water.
Orison handed him the touchscreen and had him read it, which he decided to do out loud for some reason. "Before the 1800's, the rusalki were not considered malicious entities. In the spring, they were known to sprinkle fields near their residences with a mist that made crops more fruitful. It was believed that this was done to-"
The young mage interrupted, "That's far enough for the relevant part. Okay. Now that you have the first piece of the puzzle... Rusk, Russel, Salk sound familiar, Rogers family history buff?"
"Yeah, branch families that probably share a common ancestor with us. But just because they sound similar to some creature that went extinct doesn't mean much," Garret said as his forehead creased in thought.
Orison pulled up a map and used the highlight function on the touchscreen. "Those arrows point to where the families I just mentioned roughly came from. The circle is the most well known area for rusalka sightings before they began turning predatory and migrating."
More in an attempt to talk himself out of buying Orison's line of logic than because of cold skepticism, the teen said, "See, right here? It says that they are more like a spirit or apparition. How could an ancestor knock up a ghost?"
The young mage frowned. "Don't confuse spirits of the dead fey with nature fey. They're already hard enough to identify...When this world stopped sharing its magic, the more spiritual fey connected to it were doomed to wither away. Even though 'The Little Mermaid' is a tragedy of a story, it holds one possible answer. In fact, if it was accepted, it would explain a multitude of other phenomenon about this world."
Just shy of sneering, Garret said, "You're trying to tell me that you think humanity started making all kinds of evolutionary leaps and changes because supernatural creatures found ways to become people? Well, let me share what we're taught at school. The Great Shift, when the magnetic poles did a full 360 over the course of a few years, and the appearance of planar rifts sparked the evolutionary leap."
Orison smiled, "In what way are they contradictory? Ambient magic probably faded to pretty much nothing over the course of a thousand years. Supernatural creatures doing what they could to adapt to that and mixing with humans laid dormant inheritances inside humanity. The Great Shift and the appearance of planar rifts woke those inheritances up.
"What tripped them up was that their cover experiment actually bore accidental fruit. You see, what Avalon calls 'aqua vitae', I call vital water. I have a pretty good idea of how it forms naturally and I'm pretty sure that the Rogers family might be one of a very small percentage of the world's population with a natural resistance to its carcinogenic effects. Why? Because it was a Rusalka's food and the Rogers family are their mortal legacy."
Garret folded his arms and said, "Go on. How does 'aqua vitae form naturally and how does all this tie together in a way that has you so sure?"
Smiling widely, Orison said, "Alright. You know what dirt I'm claiming to have, now. Lets give you some and provide evidence my dirt's legit."
The young mage pulled out a dropper vial with water so 'pure', it had a tinge of blue light refraction to it, even at such a small amount. "Vital water forms from condensation or dew on certain spiritual plants and collects in nearby depressions like ponds and lakes because it's heavier than normal water. I know because I collected it. In this state, it's far less dangerous than whatever source the pre-UTF found and a bit more potent than the undiluted version that Avalon makes and uses. Even though I say that, it's still about as dangerous to have direct contact with as organic mercury. Which is to say, freaking scary lethal but survivable."
He carefully unscrewed the cap and let some micro evaporation circulate. Orison watched Garret closely and saw the teen's eyes slightly dilate and the pours of his skin open up like he'd stepped into a sauna.
The young mage smirked. "Feeling thirsty? That's the Rusalka instinct telling you that you just found something yummy. Don't be fooled by it. I need to dilute this stuff to about the same degree as your bloodline is diluted before it's safe for you and even then, you can only safely take it in once every seven years or so. Speaking of which, when did you get your fish bowl dip?"
Swallowing a mouthful of saliva and tearing his eyes away from the bottle to look at Orison, he said, "A little less than eight years ago. I was nine."
"Ah. So, you only need me to vouch for you for five months. Avalon will let you emancipate without a hearing as long as you're within nine months of eighteen and don't have any outstanding reason why you shouldn't be, right?" Orison said.
Garret nodded and pointed at the dropper vial, the bathtub then back to himself with a hopeful look.
The young mage chuckled and said, "Gold star!... Hold up. Don't go jumping into the tub yet. We have to do this in a specific way. We might be able to cut some of the middle steps because of your heritage but it's still dangerous stuff.
"The reason why Avalon's method works so well and is so universally helpful is because the 'fish bowl' medical wash imitates the natural 'source to human' cycle. A Rusalka takes in the vital water, 'sprays' the ground and the plants neutralize it in the process of growing. The fish bowl wash drips its 'aqua vitae' through a carbonized filter made of Rogers special keratin, heated til the steam pushes through another filter of secret formula plant fibers which makes it safe for just about everyone to take in once in a lifetime.
"I don't think you need me to tell you how much of its overall potential is lost along the way but it's what allowed a Rusalka to be pretty much biologically immortal as long as their food never ran out and what allowed the people who got just a touch of its surviving benefit through eating plants grown in Rusalka 'sprayed' fields to be a hearty and robust people."
The light bulb came on in Garret's mind. "Enough to be broad spectrum B-class, if they could skip the middle parts, and to keep refreshing following generations to broad C's and D's!... They can control our whole family's overall power to make as many of us rank and file for whatever level they need us at!"
Seeing that Garret was about to go down a dark road when he was still in a dark place, Orison said, "They could but I don't think they're abusing that power. Avalon's 'aqua vitae' is useful for everyone but even if it was selfishly reserved for just the Rogers family, it still wouldn't be enough to make more than a couple dozen more B-class while maintaining a thousand or so of the extended family at C... at best. The fact they share some with everyone, even if it's forced and has to be paid for, means they've struck a pretty decent balance between human instinct and societal good."
He let Garret vent a bellyful of gripe before he added, "You're right. It's far too selfish for me to save this all for you. I should round up all the D-Class Rogers and get them to C-class before I even think about giving you, the far more advantaged one, even a single drop, right?...
"You know that sudden struggle you're feeling inside between the ideals you just formed and your personal desires? I would guess that Avalon's solution was to keep half and give the other half to everyone else. Now, that's just a guess and it might be a little on the generous side but it seems about right from everything I've seen.
"Is that how I should handle this, give you half of what I think you can handle for maximum effect and give the rest away? Who knows how much lost potential boost that actually translates into but that's the standard I believe the people you just ragged on uses. Thank goodness you just saved me from stupidly giving all this to you and showing me how a generous and civil minded person should handle it."
Orison made to put the dropper vial away as Garret's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
Thinking he'd carried the joke far enough, Orison said, "I'm not nearly as enlightened as the person who set up how Avalon works because this is all for you. It's all yours because it's mine and I choose to give it to you, no one else. I'd rather pour it down the drain than be forced to give it to someone else I didn't choose because that's the kind of petty a**hole I am.
"There's a person you'll never get to meet directly named Al. Thank that guy because before he became a part of my life, I'm pretty sure I was a borderline psychopath. And that 'give a crap' line you find yourself on the good side of, it would be a lot smaller and a lot harder to cross."
As if he was afraid that Orison would change his mind again, Garret said quickly, "Thank YOU for showing me how easy it is to be a hypocrite. Thank you, Al. And thank you, mom, for keeping me humble, showing me the good of being a little shameless and the bad of being anymore shameless than that. Do I get in the bath now?"
The young mage smiled in spite of himself and said, "No... Don't look at me like that. I'm not still messing with you... We don't have the same equipment as intake or wherever it is Avalon citizens go for their medical wash. That means we have to take a couple of safety precautions and make sure you're aware of what you're in for because you're going to be awake for it this time.
"Here in a second, I'm going to add a few drops and you're going to dunk your head in. I'm going to be watching on the side with spirit sight... Keep your eyes shut tight and try your best not to get any in your mouth or nose. Come up for air as needed until you hear me say rinse or tap you on the shoulder three times...
" -the full soak and rinse off. If we time it all well, you'll be finished with that before you're hit with what will feel like the worst hangover of your life and the sensation of microscopic splinters pushing out of every pour in your body. Stuff's probably going to be coming out of every hole you got and you're going to be hurting while it's happening. Tissue regeneration should be able to keep up with it but be prepared to shed anything that can be.
"No matter how much you're hurting, if you feel liquid in your mouth, swallow. If you shed too much your body's going to start cannibalizing resources and you'll come out looking like a mummy with candy corn soft teeth. I don't care if it's fixable. Both of us have been traumatized enough today."
For the first time, Orison's worst case scenario briefing wasn't met with fear or second thoughts. Instead, Garret looked pumped to get started as he said, "Foreign micro particulate rejection and pseudo secondary maturation phenomenon!? Come on, baby. Hurts so good! Whoo!"
Black lines ran down the young mage's face as he looked at the teen hopping in place and shaking loose like he was getting ready for some hard cardio. "Might, as in maybe."
Garret's grin looked a little wild as a dim fanaticism danced in his eyes. "That's the kind of suffering only the elite of the elite are even qualified to feel. Here's hoping."
A few minutes, a surprisingly empty dropper vial and a few awkward poses later, the soak was done.
While rinsing off, the teen cracked, "Some of those poses made me feel like I was posing for dirty pictures. Your eyes being all glowing and staring at me made that feeling real for me, you know? I'm just glad you only have to touch the wish bone or between the shoulder blades or things would have gotten scary."
Despite laughing, there was a touch of sincerity behind it. He couldn't really blame Garret. He was a bit of an exhibitionist and would have felt uncomfortable himself.
Orison said, "Sorry about that but the only observation equipment we have are my eyes and spirit sight. The left/right flip was an unexpected necessity. I don't know why the tender bits had so much lower of a resistance than the rest of you. Maybe it's because the Rusalki are an all female group?"
Nauseousness and discomfort setting in, Garret started projecting uncertainty. "I'm not going to change into a woman or something crazy like that, am I?"
"Not from vital water. In fact, your soak tolerance would be much lower if you were a woman. Men's skin is thicker. Then again, it's not like I've had a chance to observe a female Rogers family member going through this. Maybe they could drink it, for all I know," Orison deflected.
Due to the mixing of multiple, if weak, additional mutant genes, the chance of an instability as a gender change was laughably low but it wasn't zero. The chance of anything wasn't zero, really. The one main fact that science would always be able to flaunt over the magical and supernatural was greater stability and repeatability of results.
Under Orison's watchful eyes, the teen's stomach settled down and began rapidly drawing vestiges of still digesting cheeseburger and fries from it instead of making the guy lose them. Seeing an opportunity, orison tapped the last trembling drop of vital water in the vial into a multivitamin/mineral emulsion and got Garret to chug it down before the pain hit. As he watch the teen's stomach absorb it, he realized that it had been a decent idea but it was going to cause him a little more aftercare work. The internals didn't have more than half again as much resistance to vital water as a normal person.
"Good news for you, since you're all for the dramatic transformation effects. Your teeth are starting to loosen and new ones are about to grow in behind," the young mage added cheerily.
Pale and shaking from the first wave of toxin expulsion, looking like a stray dog left in the rain with the shower going overhead, Garret weakly said, "Yay..."
After that, things got violent looking, ugly and sometimes revolting. Another forty minutes later, Orison was tossing a makeshift feeder tube into the trash and carrying a sobbing, kitten weak Garret to bed. As the orb in the grandly realistic artificial sky outside dipped from gold to bright orange, the young mage dealt with bipolar mood swings from the thankfully weak and delirious teen as he spot removed abnormal cell clusters that occasionally popped up.
As Garret's head began to rapidly cool back down to normal temperatures, he became more aware of his surroundings. Confusion was slowly replaced by more curiosity than concern on his face as he saw Orison's half closed Caribbean blue eyes roam along with fingers across him. Perhaps because of a combination of his recent ordeals mixed with the slow trickle return of his strength and energy, anxiety over awkward intimacy with this near stranger suddenly vanished.
The teen's body relaxed as his heart rate quickened, prompting Orison to think, "Damn it. This again? I was sure we'd be past this after his fever broke and brain activity returned to HIS normal."
While another icy-electric tingle rolled across his nerve endings from the young mage's magic, barely above a whisper, Garret said, "It's been a crazy day so... Even though it's not really my thing, I'm cool if it's yours. You've got the candle lit. Blow it out and make a wish or bring the cake. I've got the ice cream and it's always somebody's birthday."
Barely half listening, Orison mumbled, "I don't know how many of these 'Bro, I'm so DHH that I'm down if you're down.' locker room confessionals I can take. Biscuits and sausage gravy, something about cheese spread and now cake and ice cream. Maybe I got it wrong and he's just hungry... The fever's returning? When is this nightmare going to be over!?"
Garret said, "Can you just give me a sedative and execute me already?"
Orison breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh. It's just embarrassment and you're lucid. Thank gawd."
He stopped scanning the teen's body for abnormal cells and surface dangers stimulated by an excess of life essence and collapsed into the desk chair the room came furnished with. "Don't sweat it. With your strength coming back, a whole lot of itches you couldn't scratch yourself yet are going to start demanding your attention. I'll give you privacy until the 'need for food' itch drowns the others out."
He got up, grabbed the Turkish robe and thought better of it.
After tossing it onto Garret's bed and walking out, he closed the door and said, "There aren't any paper products in the house. It's clean but you can't clean memories. Throw it into whichever recycle bin it belongs to when you're done with it... And my prayers go with it for the factory worker."
A few minutes later, while the young mage was going through what could be made for dinner, Garret weakly staggered to the bathroom. He quickly ran some 'presto' in the teen's bedroom and noticed that the robe had been hung up in the closet. From across the hall, through the bathroom door, Garret said. "Don't throw it away! I'll trade it for some merits or use it myself. Do you know how much those things cost!?"
Despite the jokes, Garret looked like he was wound tighter than a pocket watch as the young mage filled the tub with water. Orison handed him the touchscreen and had him read it, which he decided to do out loud for some reason. "Before the 1800's, the rusalki were not considered malicious entities. In the spring, they were known to sprinkle fields near their residences with a mist that made crops more fruitful. It was believed that this was done to-" The young mage interrupted, "That's far enough for the relevant part. Okay. Now that you have the first piece of the puzzle... Rusk, Russel, Salk sound familiar, Rogers family history buff?" "Yeah, branch families that probably share a common ancestor with us. But just because they sound similar to some creature that went extinct doesn't mean much," Garret said as his forehead creased in thought. Orison pulled up a map and used the highlight function on the touchscreen. "Those arrows point to where the families I just mentioned roughly came from. The circle is the most well known area for rusalka sightings before they began turning predatory and migrating." More in an attempt to talk himself out of buying Orison's line of logic than because of cold skepticism, the teen said, "See, right here? It says that they are more like a spirit or apparition. How could an ancestor knock up a ghost?" The young mage frowned. "Don't confuse spirits of the dead fey with nature fey. They're already hard enough to identify...When this world stopped sharing its magic, the more spiritual fey connected to it were doomed to wither away. Even though 'The Little Mermaid' is a tragedy of a story, it holds one possible answer. In fact, if it was accepted, it would explain a multitude of other phenomenon about this world." Just shy of sneering, Garret said, "You're trying to tell me that you think humanity started making all kinds of evolutionary leaps and changes because supernatural creatures found ways to become people? Well, let me share what we're taught at school. The Great Shift, when the magnetic poles did a full 360 over the course of a few years, and the appearance of planar rifts sparked the evolutionary leap." Orison smiled, "In what way are they contradictory? Ambient magic probably faded to pretty much nothing over the course of a thousand years. Supernatural creatures doing what they could to adapt to that and mixing with humans laid dormant inheritances inside humanity. The Great Shift and the appearance of planar rifts woke those inheritances up. "What tripped them up was that their cover experiment actually bore accidental fruit. You see, what Avalon calls 'aqua vitae', I call vital water. I have a pretty good idea of how it forms naturally and I'm pretty sure that the Rogers family might be one of a very small percentage of the world's population with a natural resistance to its carcinogenic effects. Why? Because it was a Rusalka's food and the Rogers family are their mortal legacy." Garret folded his arms and said, "Go on. How does 'aqua vitae form naturally and how does all this tie together in a way that has you so sure?" Smiling widely, Orison said, "Alright. You know what dirt I'm claiming to have, now. Lets give you some and provide evidence my dirt's legit." The young mage pulled out a dropper vial with water so 'pure', it had a tinge of blue light refraction to it, even at such a small amount. "Vital water forms from condensation or dew on certain spiritual plants and collects in nearby depressions like ponds and lakes because it's heavier than normal water. I know because I collected it. In this state, it's far less dangerous than whatever source the pre-UTF found and a bit more potent than the undiluted version that Avalon makes and uses. Even though I say that, it's still about as dangerous to have direct contact with as organic mercury. Which is to say, freaking scary lethal but survivable." He carefully unscrewed the cap and let some micro evaporation circulate. Orison watched Garret closely and saw the teen's eyes slightly dilate and the pours of his skin open up like he'd stepped into a sauna. The young mage smirked. "Feeling thirsty? That's the Rusalka instinct telling you that you just found something yummy. Don't be fooled by it. I need to dilute this stuff to about the same degree as your bloodline is diluted before it's safe for you and even then, you can only safely take it in once every seven years or so. Speaking of which, when did you get your fish bowl dip?" Swallowing a mouthful of saliva and tearing his eyes away from the bottle to look at Orison, he said, "A little less than eight years ago. I was nine." "Ah. So, you only need me to vouch for you for five months. Avalon will let you emancipate without a hearing as long as you're within nine months of eighteen and don't have any outstanding reason why you shouldn't be, right?" Orison said. Garret nodded and pointed at the dropper vial, the bathtub then back to himself with a hopeful look. The young mage chuckled and said, "Gold star!... Hold up. Don't go jumping into the tub yet. We have to do this in a specific way. We might be able to cut some of the middle steps because of your heritage but it's still dangerous stuff. "The reason why Avalon's method works so well and is so universally helpful is because the 'fish bowl' medical wash imitates the natural 'source to human' cycle. A Rusalka takes in the vital water, 'sprays' the ground and the plants neutralize it in the process of growing. The fish bowl wash drips its 'aqua vitae' through a carbonized filter made of Rogers special keratin, heated til the steam pushes through another filter of secret formula plant fibers which makes it safe for just about everyone to take in once in a lifetime. "I don't think you need me to tell you how much of its overall potential is lost along the way but it's what allowed a Rusalka to be pretty much biologically immortal as long as their food never ran out and what allowed the people who got just a touch of its surviving benefit through eating plants grown in Rusalka 'sprayed' fields to be a hearty and robust people." The light bulb came on in Garret's mind. "Enough to be broad spectrum B-class, if they could skip the middle parts, and to keep refreshing following generations to broad C's and D's!... They can control our whole family's overall power to make as many of us rank and file for whatever level they need us at!" Seeing that Garret was about to go down a dark road when he was still in a dark place, Orison said, "They could but I don't think they're abusing that power. Avalon's 'aqua vitae' is useful for everyone but even if it was selfishly reserved for just the Rogers family, it still wouldn't be enough to make more than a couple dozen more B-class while maintaining a thousand or so of the extended family at C... at best. The fact they share some with everyone, even if it's forced and has to be paid for, means they've struck a pretty decent balance between human instinct and societal good." He let Garret vent a bellyful of gripe before he added, "You're right. It's far too selfish for me to save this all for you. I should round up all the D-Class Rogers and get them to C-class before I even think about giving you, the far more advantaged one, even a single drop, right?... "You know that sudden struggle you're feeling inside between the ideals you just formed and your personal desires? I would guess that Avalon's solution was to keep half and give the other half to everyone else. Now, that's just a guess and it might be a little on the generous side but it seems about right from everything I've seen. "Is that how I should handle this, give you half of what I think you can handle for maximum effect and give the rest away? Who knows how much lost potential boost that actually translates into but that's the standard I believe the people you just ragged on uses. Thank goodness you just saved me from stupidly giving all this to you and showing me how a generous and civil minded person should handle it." Orison made to put the dropper vial away as Garret's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Thinking he'd carried the joke far enough, Orison said, "I'm not nearly as enlightened as the person who set up how Avalon works because this is all for you. It's all yours because it's mine and I choose to give it to you, no one else. I'd rather pour it down the drain than be forced to give it to someone else I didn't choose because that's the kind of petty a**hole I am. "There's a person you'll never get to meet directly named Al. Thank that guy because before he became a part of my life, I'm pretty sure I was a borderline psychopath. And that 'give a crap' line you find yourself on the good side of, it would be a lot smaller and a lot harder to cross." As if he was afraid that Orison would change his mind again, Garret said quickly, "Thank YOU for showing me how easy it is to be a hypocrite. Thank you, Al. And thank you, mom, for keeping me humble, showing me the good of being a little shameless and the bad of being anymore shameless than that. Do I get in the bath now?" The young mage smiled in spite of himself and said, "No... Don't look at me like that. I'm not still messing with you... We don't have the same equipment as intake or wherever it is Avalon citizens go for their medical wash. That means we have to take a couple of safety precautions and make sure you're aware of what you're in for because you're going to be awake for it this time. "Here in a second, I'm going to add a few drops and you're going to dunk your head in. I'm going to be watching on the side with spirit sight... Keep your eyes shut tight and try your best not to get any in your mouth or nose. Come up for air as needed until you hear me say rinse or tap you on the shoulder three times... " -the full soak and rinse off. If we time it all well, you'll be finished with that before you're hit with what will feel like the worst hangover of your life and the sensation of microscopic splinters pushing out of every pour in your body. Stuff's probably going to be coming out of every hole you got and you're going to be hurting while it's happening. Tissue regeneration should be able to keep up with it but be prepared to shed anything that can be. "No matter how much you're hurting, if you feel liquid in your mouth, swallow. If you shed too much your body's going to start cannibalizing resources and you'll come out looking like a mummy with candy corn soft teeth. I don't care if it's fixable. Both of us have been traumatized enough today." For the first time, Orison's worst case scenario briefing wasn't met with fear or second thoughts. Instead, Garret looked pumped to get started as he said, "Foreign micro particulate rejection and pseudo secondary maturation phenomenon!? Come on, baby. Hurts so good! Whoo!" Black lines ran down the young mage's face as he looked at the teen hopping in place and shaking loose like he was getting ready for some hard cardio. "Might, as in maybe." Garret's grin looked a little wild as a dim fanaticism danced in his eyes. "That's the kind of suffering only the elite of the elite are even qualified to feel. Here's hoping." A few minutes, a surprisingly empty dropper vial and a few awkward poses later, the soak was done. While rinsing off, the teen cracked, "Some of those poses made me feel like I was posing for dirty pictures. Your eyes being all glowing and staring at me made that feeling real for me, you know? I'm just glad you only have to touch the wish bone or between the shoulder blades or things would have gotten scary." Despite laughing, there was a touch of sincerity behind it. He couldn't really blame Garret. He was a bit of an exhibitionist and would have felt uncomfortable himself. Orison said, "Sorry about that but the only observation equipment we have are my eyes and spirit sight. The left/right flip was an unexpected necessity. I don't know why the tender bits had so much lower of a resistance than the rest of you. Maybe it's because the Rusalki are an all female group?" Nauseousness and discomfort setting in, Garret started projecting uncertainty. "I'm not going to change into a woman or something crazy like that, am I?" "Not from vital water. In fact, your soak tolerance would be much lower if you were a woman. Men's skin is thicker. Then again, it's not like I've had a chance to observe a female Rogers family member going through this. Maybe they could drink it, for all I know," Orison deflected. Due to the mixing of multiple, if weak, additional mutant genes, the chance of an instability as a gender change was laughably low but it wasn't zero. The chance of anything wasn't zero, really. The one main fact that science would always be able to flaunt over the magical and supernatural was greater stability and repeatability of results. Under Orison's watchful eyes, the teen's stomach settled down and began rapidly drawing vestiges of still digesting cheeseburger and fries from it instead of making the guy lose them. Seeing an opportunity, orison tapped the last trembling drop of vital water in the vial into a multivitamin/mineral emulsion and got Garret to chug it down before the pain hit. As he watch the teen's stomach absorb it, he realized that it had been a decent idea but it was going to cause him a little more aftercare work. The internals didn't have more than half again as much resistance to vital water as a normal person. "Good news for you, since you're all for the dramatic transformation effects. Your teeth are starting to loosen and new ones are about to grow in behind," the young mage added cheerily. Pale and shaking from the first wave of toxin expulsion, looking like a stray dog left in the rain with the shower going overhead, Garret weakly said, "Yay..." After that, things got violent looking, ugly and sometimes revolting. Another forty minutes later, Orison was tossing a makeshift feeder tube into the trash and carrying a sobbing, kitten weak Garret to bed. As the orb in the grandly realistic artificial sky outside dipped from gold to bright orange, the young mage dealt with bipolar mood swings from the thankfully weak and delirious teen as he spot removed abnormal cell clusters that occasionally popped up. As Garret's head began to rapidly cool back down to normal temperatures, he became more aware of his surroundings. Confusion was slowly replaced by more curiosity than concern on his face as he saw Orison's half closed Caribbean blue eyes roam along with fingers across him. Perhaps because of a combination of his recent ordeals mixed with the slow trickle return of his strength and energy, anxiety over awkward intimacy with this near stranger suddenly vanished. The teen's body relaxed as his heart rate quickened, prompting Orison to think, "Damn it. This again? I was sure we'd be past this after his fever broke and brain activity returned to HIS normal." While another icy-electric tingle rolled across his nerve endings from the young mage's magic, barely above a whisper, Garret said, "It's been a crazy day so... Even though it's not really my thing, I'm cool if it's yours. You've got the candle lit. Blow it out and make a wish or bring the cake. I've got the ice cream and it's always somebody's birthday." Barely half listening, Orison mumbled, "I don't know how many of these 'Bro, I'm so DHH that I'm down if you're down.' locker room confessionals I can take. Biscuits and sausage gravy, something about cheese spread and now cake and ice cream. Maybe I got it wrong and he's just hungry... The fever's returning? When is this nightmare going to be over!?" Garret said, "Can you just give me a sedative and execute me already?" Orison breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh. It's just embarrassment and you're lucid. Thank gawd." He stopped scanning the teen's body for abnormal cells and surface dangers stimulated by an excess of life essence and collapsed into the desk chair the room came furnished with. "Don't sweat it. With your strength coming back, a whole lot of itches you couldn't scratch yourself yet are going to start demanding your attention. I'll give you privacy until the 'need for food' itch drowns the others out." He got up, grabbed the Turkish robe and thought better of it. After tossing it onto Garret's bed and walking out, he closed the door and said, "There aren't any paper products in the house. It's clean but you can't clean memories. Throw it into whichever recycle bin it belongs to when you're done with it... And my prayers go with it for the factory worker." A few minutes later, while the young mage was going through what could be made for dinner, Garret weakly staggered to the bathroom. He quickly ran some 'presto' in the teen's bedroom and noticed that the robe had been hung up in the closet. From across the hall, through the bathroom door, Garret said. "Don't throw it away! I'll trade it for some merits or use it myself. Do you know how much those things cost!?"
