“Hello Sir, would you like to try out my new concoction?” Sliding a Gin bomb towards the new guy as he walks in, eyes wondrously wandering to get a feel for every inch of this pub.
And after a Gin bomb he decides to explore the bathrooms.
Ah there’s no plumbing…I’ll have to sort that out soon.
Making drinks behind the bar using whatever I desire and giving my experiments away as an opening gift, relieves more than a few hours of my time.
While concocting happens, I also try learning bar flair, using some very very old memories to help me through, and have a few meals from the menu.
Turns out the cooking crew had little problem getting the meals done correctly once I implanted the knowledge in head cook’s brain and let her teach everyone else.
Burritos and pulled pork nachos are the best. Although they don’t taste as nice as I remember, fucking mind.
“Hey” Catching a bottle mid-flip, I look past the bar to see Thessa standing impatiently, finger tapping on the bar.
“What would you like?”
“Anything but whatever you made before” Guess I’ll give you a little bitch drink then.
Grabbing a long glass, half filling it with ice, I pour Southern Comfort until it drowns the ice and top it off with some lemonade.
Passing it to her, she gives it a sniff and then a small sip. And then a big gulp.
“This, this is amazing!” She’s finished it off already, and I'm supposed to be the alcoholic. “What is this?”
“Whisky and lemonade, it’s a relaxing drink for the posh and the pretty” and for those who you’re trying to get into the drinking life…Works excellently.
“More” No please? ah wait no such thing in this world. that was hell of a habit to kick.
Rolling my eyes, I make her another, flipping the open bottle in the air and catching all in the glass. Just a little bit of anti-gravity magic and it’s so much easier to do.
“You’re bleeding” Ah shit, nosebleed. “Why are you bleeding?”
“Magic overuse” To get to bleeding though, that’s a stage I thought I wouldn’t be at already.
She just looks at me blankly. Why am I stuck with all the dim-witted people who know shit about the world?
Mute Barrier, Physical distortion barrier
I just made the nosebleed worse.
“Magic is like burning energy when you do a physical activity. It consumes you. Rapidly. And it will do so as long as you use it until you’re nothing but a dry husk. It’s how liches are made.”
“Liches?” My eyes are going to get stuck again from rolling them.
“Mages who overused their magic until it literally consumed everything but their bones. Come on you must’ve heard about them. They are the leaders of all undead armies. Dreaded monsters over all kingdoms due to their incomprehensible power over magic.”
“Undead are just myths” You were this close to becoming one.
“They’re extremely real and disturbing. Anyways back to liches. All mages who overuse their power and only get drained by it, not killed, will become liches. Became a real problem with the Third Blight Spread when all the court mages got lich-drained and then the whole kingdom had an army of liches against them. If you ever meet a lich, you’ll have an inkling of how terrifying the notion of one thousand banded together is. Anyway, one of the signs of overusing magic is bleeding, usually from the nose but with more overuse it comes from the eyes, ass and literally any hole in your body, sometimes even making holes”
“…Disturbing”
“Indeed, but the body can be replenished naturally, or through alchemical devices such as mana potions or more commonly, food”
“So do all mages eat as much as you?” That sounded ever so slightly like an insult.
“In all honesty no, because most mages often had mana potions on hand for recovery after battles and dragging lots of food around is annoying, but I prefer eating.” Plus mana potions are addictive…
And thinking about food, I take three fresh burritos coming out of the kitchen, freaking out the waitress as she doesn't exactly see me due to my physical distortian barrier, and devour it in one bite. Mmm they’re improving.
Thessa is still staring at me, empty glass and a slightly worried look in her eyes “Don’t worry about me, I’ve learnt my limit and I won’t be turning myself into a dry husk anytime soon. Rather it’s more likely you’ll turn into one”
“Why?”
“Because if I ever need to cast a hefty spell, I’ll be using my surroundings to help”
“And I count?”
“Yep” Sucking on the bottom of my glass, time for a refill.
“So what, you’ll suck the mana out of me? I don’t even have mana" Oh the naivety.
“All living things do, bar a few extraplanar manaless monsters. Some people have more than others, such as elves will naturally have more than humans but even goblins can learn magic if they tap into their pool”
“If it were that easy why doesn’t everyone have magic?”
“Mana is like blood, take it out at the wrong place and you’ll die faster than you can blink. It’s why about fourty percent of apprentices die from incorrect mana dispersal” and eighty percent of the survivors from fucking up their spells.
“...”
“Actually do you want to learn some magic?” getting kind of bored from the bar flair, it’s too easy.
“After telling me there’s a pretty good chance I’ll die from it?” She gives me a 'are you kidding' look. very pretty, and it has been over fifty years...
“If you learn how to control it, you can stop it from leaving you when I’m taking from the surroundings…” Honestly all mages should’ve learnt it in but bloody nobles and their court wizards and coteries.
“…Well where do we start? What kind of magic can I even cast?” Back to basics because I’m speaking to a moron in magic.
“Every kind. Magic is universal, why would you think in the first place that you can only cast one kind?”
“But my mother told me that elves used life and earth magic, to commune with the trees and help things grow.” So she’s not completely inane towards the subject. That’ll be slightly helpful?
“Society dictates what magic is learnt and what isn’t. It’s like how humans didn’t learn druidic magic because they were simply told it was impossible. Human druids are a thing, rare they were but they were a thing” Blank look, of course you have no idea what a druid is “If you have mana, you can learn all types of magic as long as you don’t do the stupid thing of refining your mana into a certain attribute. I’ll get to that a long time later.”
“Attributes, like life and earth?”
“Exactly, there are vaguely around fourteen main attributes which can be further refined into thousands more and yes certain races have better affinity towards certain attributes like how Drows have an affinity to dark magic and an incompatability towards light magic.” Ignoring her blanks looks now or i will be rolling my eyes into the back of my head.
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Drow priests are the best kind of priests from what I’ve learnt. Holy yet no mercy when verbally ripping into you. Man I wonder where D’alukäin is.
“So what affinity do I have for being a half elf?”
“Doesn’t matter, because real mages don’t give a damn about affinities. You just need to learn how to cast” I refill her drink and pour myself another Ginerine.
She raises her hands in a ‘so what now’ gesture.
I poke the tip of her finger with a cocktail umbrella.
“Magic is complicated, it can be cast in a variety of ways. What I’m going to show you is blood magic. The simplest by far” She raises her eyebrows at me, playing with her welling finger. Well I’d imagine anyone would look at me suspiciously since blood magic doesn’t exactly sound friendly. “Now mana is a part of you, and more importantly is mixed in your blood. But you can’t just cut yourself and pour it out, because then you’ll just have blood.”
“So…?”
“Find your mana pool, and squeeze it out, as if you were squeezing the blood out”
She closes her eyes and scrunches up her face. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone do something as idiotic as that. concentrate with your mind not your face.
Activating my mana eyes, indeed she’s got quite the pool, especially as it hasn’t been used before. Maybe her father is an elf, would explain quite a few things about her.
“Think of it as a nest of snakes that sleep in your stomach. Imagine them wriggling around, one moving up and towards the opening in your finger”
Still nothing, time for a little help then.
Grabbing her left shoulder, I send a small wisp of mana across her collarbone multiple times, just so she can get the feel of what it is like.
Something I learnt long ago is that most mages ‘awakened’ on the battlefield, usually when attacked by an enemy mage. The feeling of mana lingered for a while and those who focused on the feeling usually found their own pool due and played about with it.
And died due to that, but then that's life.
Sure enough, I see the tiniest wisp of mana slowly travel up, through the heart and towards the arm. Within a short time, it stops at the edge of the wound, refusing to leave.
“Tug it, like you’re removing a splinter, tug it firmly but not enough to do more damage”
*Spurt*
Blood splatters across the bar and me, a bloodied finger swilling in my drink.
Nobody ever succeeds on the first try.
“Aaaagh” She gnashes her teeth, holding her 4 fingered hand to try stem the bleeding.
“That was the barest wisp of mana, now imagine if I ripped all your mana out of you at once”
She shudders visibly, an inkling of understanding brimming her eyes.
Grabbing her hand, I cast regenerate and cough some blood onto her. Quid pro quo.
“Now, usually with blood magic you don’t want it to just spurt out your finger like that. Most blood magic users cast rituals” I begin inscribing a tree on the counter, roots facing her. “A ritual has three main components to it” She stops playing with her newly regenerated finger and pays attention once more. “The Gate is the first part. It opens up contact with the desired affinity and diety. It is also their hieroglyphic symbol.” I point to the newly made tree with countless roots and one branch, encompassed in a circle.
“So this is life?”
“Earth, Yegdrra is its name. now most people will just draw this, with a differing number of branches in relation to how complicated the spell is but if you really want to be efficient it needs to be as realistic as can be to Yegdrra”
“Yegdrra’s a tree?”
“Technically yes, in actuality, that is just the head. Moving on” I stop her before this gets seriously off track “The second thing in rituals are the runic symbols which dictate the spells components. For Yegdrra, each branch is a spot for a symbol.” Drawing the symbol for stone, linked to the branch, I make sure to get the strokes correct or I’d be summoning a boulder. “This is the symbol for stone”
“How do I know the symbols”
“Books, knowledge, asking the gods. It’s their language, we just use their alphabet.”
“This doesn’t seem easy”
“No it isn’t. this is why rituals are the least efficient and most difficult to do out of all casting types. But it’s also the safest”
She replies with a raised eyebrow.
“The third part is the blood itself. It is used to fill the inscription, like this” Placing my finger on the circle, I force my mana and blood to push through the cell walls, trickling out from underneath my index nail. “Use your mana to push the blood around, as you may notice this is flat so gravity won’t do much to fill everything”
“That’s a lot of blood” She exclaims as the small inscription, which is only the size of my hand, fills up.
“Blood magic, not efficient, and definitely not for one to do by themselves. Mainly a cult practice by the dozens if not hundreds. Taking the blood from others also works” And that’s why a lot of people didn’t like blood magic, nasty thing if used by the wrong people. and i don't think I know more than two people who didn't use it for 'evil'.
Finally, I fill the inscription, feeling slightly lightheaded, ah my regeneration is getting slower.
…
..
.
“Now what?” She’s staring at the blood filled inscription which is currently doing nothing.
“We wait. Once the blood is dry the ritual will be complete”
“Why would anyone in their right mind use this?” Yeah it is basically useless.
“Because you don’t need any sort of skill whatsoever to do it. Plus most who do use it aren’t in their right mind.”
“Noted”
Using a bit of flame magic to heat and dry the blood, it dries within a minute and before our eyes, the inscription and blood congeals and disappears together into a brown rock about the size of my hand.
“Voila, I just created a rock out of my blood and mana. Technically rituals are for summoning since this has basically no use in combat situations, technically.” She’s just entranced with the new rock and probably didn't catch any of that. Well I guess it is pretty cool. “Right your turn”
“Wait a second, I’ll just blow my finger off again”
“And then I’ll regenerate it”
With a tsch, she shakily draws out the inscription with a knife, fully concentrating on trying to recreate the tree.
“Just draw a tree, it’s not going to be efficient anyway”
Giving up on trying to copy, she makes roughly the same tree, one branch and a few roots. After reminding her what stone looks like, she draws that too and now for the bloody part.
*Spurt*
Finger in my god damn drink again. And I just made another bloody drink too.
“Don’t stop bleeding on it, just focus the blood on the circle” Grabbing her hand as she tries to pull it away from the spattered mess that is all over the bar, I place it on the circle. “Once a ritual starts, you finish it or it will cast with whatever little you did to it. If you stop giving, it will count as finished and the excess will be rejected. And a finished yet messy ritual is ALWAYS better than an unfinished one”
“But isn’t it ruined since I bled all over it?”
“The drawing and the cleanliness just improves the efficiency of the spell, as does the quality of mana in your blood, but you don’t need to worry about any of that right now”
Stopping her bleeding after another few seconds, I regenerate her finger, coughing my own blood away from the ritual and start drying.
Hmm there’s only a little bit of mana but that’s about the average amount if you just cut a human’s throat and let them bleed all over it.
Within a minute, the blood and inscription coalesces into multiple messy pebbles scattered around.
“The less efficient you are the worse your spell will come out. If you were trying to summon an arch-devil, you’d probably get a blood worm with this, maybe” Eh I'd doubt even that, maybe a wisp of hell-fire smoke.
“Thanks” bitterly sarcastic.
“But well done anyways, you can now cast magic. Or well at least you now get the idea that if you just tried to make a fireball, you’d be blasting it and all your innards out of our body.”
“Disgusting”
“Indeed” Seen it happen too, not pretty and I’ve seen some nasty things. “Now I’m going to show you why rituals are pretty damn useful, once I’ve gotten something to eat.” Jumping into the kitchen and scoffing a few dozen meals, I get back to the bar.
And has my bleeding stopped...yep that's good.
Inscribing a large Life gate, branching out into four different smaller different gates through miniature babies of all kinds, then writing the few symbols I need in each gate’s respective ‘branch’; Lemon, Cinnamon, Cloves, Cherries, Oranges and Vanilla inside the scarecrows on Ferra’s Field, Ice on the snow particle in Wakchar’s Blizzard, Sand and Fire embedded in the logs surrounding Carlak’s Campfire and Bungrop inscribed on the cask kept in Yaidors Inn.
And now for the depressingly time consuming times. Giving everything a certain weight, height, volume, width, shape, density, ripeness and other annoying properties that I guess would be good to put, as well as its chemical compound which I do skip this time.
Then I write the processes between the ‘branches’ and their gates, so using fire on the sand to make a glass of this shape and properties. I believe that’s the only one this time…yep.
Throwing everything else into Yegdrra’s Tree, I make sure the glass remains separate, ice goes into it and doesn’t become part of it and then the drink goes in.
…
..
.
Shit, this is going to cost me a lot. Fuck it, been a while since I’ve done an interesting ritual.
Slicing my finger open, I make sure to fill it in order of process, so everything on the outer gates happen first and then go to the main one to become a single thing.
Leaving the blood to dry naturally, I just about finish filling it within the thirty minute mark, even downing a few bottles behind the bar to give me a temporary boost in mana.
Useful but not as good as food, although in times of need it’s pretty useful.
However this is going to be a bitch in a few hours…
Taking a break once I’m done, Snacking on a twenty person pulled pork nacho plate and being told that I’ve eaten all the stores already…well great.
Silently, the blood dries and everything snakes together into a small pillar of blood and symbols until it just fades away.
“…Is that a drink?”
“Yep” I top up the newly made drink with lemonade. “Taste it”
She takes the glass and looks at me most oddly “You aged almost fifty years, and are bleeding from your eyes quite heavily…to make a drink”
“I told you rituals aren’t efficient, that’s fifty people’s lives right there. But imagine the possibilities” I can see the gears clicking. Yes it’s inefficient but with only few limitations you can create anything.
“Gugh this is bitter” Ah forgot the sweetener.
Honey honey honey? Aha there it is.
Pouring some in, I have her drink again.
“Better, but it’s still not as sweet as the southern comfort”
“That’s because I used Bungrop, kind of like this world’s bourbon but more bitter, way more bitter” Orcish brewers, strong stuff and surprisingly sought out by some major drinkers.
She drinks in thoughtful silence.
“You’re not a normal mage are you?”
“Now what gave you that idea?”