Phoebe sat on Rissa’s bed crying. A vision of one’s death was always disturbing.
What was worse was that this was the third vision she’d had of her own death in the past week. It kept changing. Originally, she’d always known she’d die of old age, while Russ watched over her. It had been reassuring to know that was how she’d go. In the past week, she’d seen herself die in a traffic accident, by drowning, and more recently by suicide.
Why would she ever cut her own throat with a knife? It simply didn’t make sense. It seemed like a singularly unpleasant way to die, and by her own hand? Why?
As she cried, the sunlight continued to stream through the window. When it finally hit her, she felt the warmth and started to wonder why she was crying.
Yes, she’d just seen her death again. It was unpleasant and she didn’t understand it, but it wasn’t like it was a surprise. She’d known since she was a child that someday she’d kill herself.
Perhaps she was depressed and it was getting close? She didn’t really feel depressed, but that would certainly explain why she was crying for no damn reason. It might also explain why she’d had the vision of her death again; it was only the second time she’d seen it, but it hadn’t gotten any more pleasant.
Phoebe grumbled at her weakness and got up to go wipe off her face and replace her makeup. She envied the girls that could cry cutely; she’d always ended up with blotchy makeup and a runny nose.
She needed to pull herself together and get back to what she was supposed to be doing. So what if she hadn’t been able to find a vision that would help Russ locate whatever had caused the “shopping mall mystery”? The incidents had stopped, and that was usually enough. It certainly wasn’t a reason to cry.
When Phoebe stepped out of the sunbeam, she missed the warmth; it was cold without the sun on her back. She didn’t pay it much attention, since she still needed to wash her face.
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When Rube’s arms were both revealed, Serenity wasn’t sure what to think. His arms were affected very differently from each other, which didn’t make sense if they’d both been exposed to the same magical effect at the same time.
Rube’s left arm, starting about halfway between the elbow and the wrist, was strangely colored in swirls of green, pink, and orange. They were very distinct from each other, but other than the odd colors there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the arm itself. His hand, however, had issues; he didn’t seem to have any bones in his left hand past the wrist, and the fingers had all merged into a single fleshy pad. Strangely, he could still move the hand, but not with any precision or strength.
Rube’s right arm looked swollen starting only a little below the shoulder. Some of the additional width seemed to be muscle, but the arm also seemed strangely twisted, with ridges of flesh rising in a sort of a corkscrew pattern around the arm. More than that, it was covered in lumps and sores that continually wept pus. His fingers were twisted, but otherwise his hand seemed less affected than the rest of the arm other than a lump on his palm.
“It’s not cancerous. At least, they don’t think it is. It’s been tested. Several times.” Rube frowned, but the words kept spilling out of his mouth. “If it doesn’t start improving, they’re talking about removing my arms. They would have already except I keep saying no. I don’t want to lose my arms. It doesn’t hurt. I mean, the sores can be uncomfortable when they’re new but once they’ve been there a while they’re not bad. The pus is pretty nasty. I wish I could keep it uncovered. It’s neat to be able to see through my hand.”
If the magic was limited to the visibly affected areas, amputation might even work. It might well be easier than countering the magic, since it wasn’t an obvious, simple spell. It would require regrowing the arms, but that wasn’t unreasonable at this point; his arms were going to need significant reconstructive work once the magic affecting them was removed.
Serenity stopped himself. Replacing lost limbs wasn’t ever cheap, and it probably wasn’t even possible on Earth. Leaving Rube with partially-functioning limbs was probably better than none, as long as he could stop whatever was happening. “See through your hand?”
Rube held his twisted arm’s palm towards Serenity and the lump in the middle of his palm split down the middle to reveal an oversized eye. “I have to be really careful with my hand, can’t really use it. Squishing the eye hurts.”
It suddenly clicked in Serenity’s mind where he’d seen something like what was happening to Rube. The eldritch often had strange, mismatched bodies and sometimes people would follow them as if they were a god in an attempt to gain power. If anything, they were less welcome in most places than necromancers, and that was saying something.
Serenity had always thought the eldritch and the Void were connected. Now that he knew the “Void” was many different things, that was not only possible but likely; in fact, he suspected that “eldritch” was just as vague a term as “void”. It was also possible - even likely - that some void summons came from the Origin and others came from a different space that the eldritch called home; there might even be more than one home for the eldritch.
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It was also likely that Serenity would seem eldritch to some people. The Origin did seem to operate on a different set of physical and magical rules; that was more or less what eldritch meant, wasn’t it?
The multiverse wasn’t small, and the Final Reaper had never felt the need to explore the corners that weren’t suited for undead life. He’d seen more than enough without needing to go looking.
If this was yet another set of rules, it might explain why the Essence felt wrong to Serenity and tainted to Aki, but theorizing wasn’t going to help solve the problem; Serenity pulled his wandering thoughts back to the problem in front of him.
While it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t something that belonged here. The question was what Serenity could do about it. “Can I see one of your arms?”
Rube held out his right arm to Serenity. Serenity didn’t care, but he’d expected the left after what Rube had said about his right hand.
Rube must have seen that on Serenity’s face, because he shrugged, then quietly muttered, “Seeing around corners is great but I’d rather be able to use my phone.”
Serenity could understand that.
How should he start? Serenity had already determined it wasn’t a spell; it was closer to spell residue, only Essence instead of Mana. Spell residue could have all sorts of effects; they were generally minor, and at low Tiers could simply be left to dissipate on their own. Even at higher Tiers, most mages would eventually grow good enough at magic that they wouldn’t leave enough residue to be noteworthy anywhere except their work and training rooms.
It wasn’t always the case. The portal residue in the room where Serenity found Ita wasn’t dangerous, but it would still have been enough to potentially warp the spell of someone who wasn’t good with magic and wasn’t using a Path Skill. The Sterath mage Serenity killed by collapsing his portal was the worst mage Serenity had seen since he returned to the past, and that included the students he’d taught in the Tutorial as well as the instructors.
Well, it might not include Liam, but Liam didn’t count. He’d never had the option of training. Serenity didn’t regret killing him, whether or not Liam had had the chance to be trained; he’d chosen his path and completely deserved to be removed for threatening Rissa.
Perhaps the place to start was a spellform used to cleanse magical residue? Serenity didn’t know what the equivalent for Essence was, but he knew several for Mana. It seemed likely that one would have an effect.
It was well known that purification rituals of all sorts worked better in dungeons; even curse removal was often performed in a dungeon. Serenity had always thought that was simply because of the higher Intent-less mana concentration. That was definitely the reason most people gave, but after what he’d seen recently, Serenity was beginning to think it was the less important reason.
Serenity quickly built up the simplest option; it was designed to remove old Intent and allow spell residue to disperse more easily. It was very, very weak and he didn’t expect much success, but he wanted to start with the basics and see how they affected the strange corrupted Essence affecting Rube’s arm.
The spell was not even remotely strong enough, but Serenity could see that it did seem to reduce the number of strange flashes of Essence Serenity could see. There were no surprises in the spellform; it didn’t seem to directly affect Essence at all except perhaps as a side effect.
Serenity tried another option, then one after that. Strangely, none of them seemed to have any way to affect Essence when he watched the spellform carefully. He’d expected most of them to do something to Essence; all of the other spellforms he’d examined had sections that dealt with Essence, so it was very strange that none of the mana-cleansing ones he knew offhand did.
Unfortunately, none of them did anything, either. He probably needed exactly the section he wasn’t seeing.
Serenity looked up at the others and frowned. “It looks like magical residue, sort of, but none of the spells I have for that are doing anything. They’re aimed at a different sort of residue, but I thought I could start with them and modify as needed.”
The eye in Rube’s hand blinked at Serenity. “Maybe you need to deal with the vase first? I mean, that’s where it came from; maybe it’s still connected?”
If it was just residue, that wouldn’t make any sense, but Rube was the one suggesting it. “Does it feel like there’s a connection?”
Rube turned to look towards the vase. “Maybe. I mean, it’s always there in my dreams, even ones that don’t have anything to do with this, and my arms are always like this. I didn’t even think of it until Dr. Rasmussen suggested it, but when he did it sounded right?”
It was clearly the blind leading the blind, which wasn’t Serenity's preference, even if that was how things had gone since he came back in time. He’d expected -
Well, he really hadn’t expected anything, had he? He’d hoped for a chance. A chance he’d gotten and made the most of. It wasn’t that bad; the fact that he was continually deluged with more things to take care of just meant that he kept fixing the earlier ones.
Whether or not it was true, it entirely was possible that if Rube believed it, the magic affecting him would follow that belief. Belief could change magic by changing the Intent that surrounded it. Serenity nodded at Rube. “If you think that, you’re probably right. Do you want to get the vase out, or shall I?”
“I will.” Rube didn’t even stop to think about the question, which made Serenity watch Rube closely as he took the lid off the box and reached into the box for the vase. Rube seemed to relax a little when the lid came off, but as he reached for the vase he tensed back up again. That was odd; Serenity wasn’t sure what it meant, if anything, but it was obvious enough that even Serenity could see it.
Rube seemed to have some trouble lifting it with his altered hands, so Serenity offered again. “I can take it out-”
“No. No, don’t - don’ttouchthevase. Don’t.” Rube spoke so quickly his words tripped over each other.