Three Years Ago

Olivander looked over the paperwork on his desk, disgusted with what his life had become. He was sick and tired of it. All day long, nothing but bureaucracy and pain. Pain in his head and paperwork on his desk.

He sighed looking out the window of his tower office. It wasn’t too high over the city, and he could see the tops of the nearby trees, with flowers blooming and the sweet smell of spring in the air. It wafted in through his open window and reminded him that there was more to life than getting approval to change his own socks.

He decided he would go for a walk.

“Arch-magus! Is there something I can do for you?” Olivander’s assistant, Steven, asked.

Steven was the kind of guy who loved keeping Olivander’s schedule meticulously organized — he lived for it. So when he saw the Arch-magus leaving his office without anything on the schedule, it worried him.

“Steven, when did you get here? Nevermind, I’m going out for a walk.”

“A…walk?”

It was true, Olivander had never, in all his years at the castle, just gone out for a walk. He had walked with people, sure.

“Yes, I find myself growing bored of all the paperwork and absolutely nothing of interest to do right now.”

“What about your research? You always like tackling some new problem.”

“Steven, are you trying to keep me inside for some reason?”

“No, sir. I guess I’m just a little surprised. Please, by all means, carry on.”

Olivander gave the man a nod, and headed out.

Before long, Olivander found himself walking along an unfamiliar path through a lovely park just outside the castle’s walls. The city of Castleton by-and-large was separated from the Royal Castle by the gardens and parks that Olivander now walked.

He was just pondering the fact that he had never gone for a walk by himself when a chittering sound roused him from his reverie.

“Is that a raccoon? Outside during the day?”

There was a fat raccoon rolling around in the grass. Olivander found the behavior to be quite unusual. It occasionally chittered again, and Olivander walked closer to see if it was injured.

When Olivander bent over, the raccoon lashed out, impossibly fast. A handcuff was slapped around his wrist in an instant.

“What’s this?”

He remained calm. He was Arch-magus, and a simple raccoon wasn’t enough to put him off. The handcuffs were interesting though. He could sense that they were trying to inhibit some of his abilities, but his natural magical defenses held the enchantment at bay. Only one of the cuffs had been put around his wrist, and the other hung open at the end of the dangling chain.

“I can’t believe you fell for that, you stupid mortal fool,” the raccoon said.

“If you want me to be intimidated, you’re going to have to get a more menacing voice. That squeaky raccoon thing you have going on just isn’t helping.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. You belong to me now! Ehehehehehe” the raccoon cackled.

Olivander thought that was a novel concept. He wasn’t aware of any enchantments that would allow someone to control the actions of another, but all of the magics in the world was a wide river to cross, and he was bound to miss one thing or another.

“So how do you imagine this is going to work?”

“You’re a Magician, correct? I can smell the magic on you.”

“I am! Would you have handcuffed me if I wasn’t?”

“No, I would have just devoured you.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad I studied the arcane arts then. Now, what is it exactly you’re trying to accomplish here?”

“With your connection to this world’s magic, and my connection to you, you will be my instrument of destruction! Mwahahahaha”

“Oh, I liked that laugh better, you should dump the first one.”

The raccoon raised a brow.

“It is time, come. We must raze the castle to the ground!” the raccoon raised its paws and shook them dramatically.

“What about the Magi? Won’t they stop us?”

“The Magi and their pathetic Arch-magus do not have enough power to stop me. Come, minion, carry me to victory!”

The raccoon scurried up Olivander’s robes and sat on his shoulder. He thought it was kind of nice. If this raccoon wasn’t hell bent on destroying the world, he might like to keep it as a pet. Maybe he would anyway.

Olivander walked back to the castle, curious about what the raccoon had planned. The large wooden gates were shut in front of them, and Olivander paused for instruction.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Mortal! Hold out your cuffed hand and allow my power to flow forth, we will tear these gates to the ground!”

“I think they might be unlock—”

“Hold out your hand!”

“Sure, sure. My apologies.”

Olivander held out the cuffed hand. He felt a dark power emanate from them. It really did feel like demonic energy. He was glad he was carrying around a demonic raccoon instead of just a delusional one. That would have been embarrassing.

Olivander was interested in seeing what the raccoon was going to do, but he also kind of wanted to avoid allowing an unrestrained stream of demonic energy to wash away the castle and any living beings within a fair distance of it.

Behind his back, he summoned his grimoire. He mentally found the correct spell. Olivander didn’t actually need to read his grimoire; he just thought doing so made him look smart. He sketched out the ritual behind him, and activated it with a coughed word.

“Enough dallying, draw forth the power. I know you can feel it, mortal.”

“I live to serve!”

The flow of demonic energy was a pathetic trickle.

It scorched the outside of the door, but didn’t have any other effect.

“Wow, I’ve never seen demonic energy before, but I must say, it really doesn’t live up to what I expected.”

“What is this? You must be incredibly weak to only channel that paltry amount of power. You should be glad I came to lift you so much higher than you could have ever come on your own!”

“I am certainly glad you’re here! It’s really brightened up my day. But since I didn’t manage to do great with the doors, let’s say we just check to see if they’re unlocked.”

Olivander walked up and pushed the doors open.

“Ahha! We’re in luck, these fools left the gates unlocked,” Olivander said, trying to get into the headspace of an evil raccoon. It wasn’t easy.

“Indeed. If you were more powerful it wouldn’t have mattered. Once we reach the castle proper, we can use ritual magic to pull my full power through!”

Now that was interesting. Going for a walk had been a great idea.

Olivander whistled as he carried the demon deeper into the castle.

“Stop that.”

“Sorry, stop what?”

“That noise. It’s infuriating.”

“My whistling?”

“Yes. It’s awful.”

“Well you don’t need to be so blunt about it.”

“Hold, that tower…that must be were their famed Arch-magus lives. We will destroy him first.”

“You are a wise raccoon.”

“What’s a raccoon?”

“...Aren’t you a raccoon? It’s a creature we have in our world. You look just like one.”

“I am Demon Lord Velexeristixis. I don’t know what a raccoon is, but my form inspires terror across dozens of worlds. If your kind does not know of me, they soon will.

“You’re the boss.”

They reached the base of the tower, and Velexis…Velexeristis…the raccoon had Olivander begin drawing a fiendishly complicated ritual.

Olivander chucked at the pun.

“What’s so funny, mortal?”

“Ahem. Nothing, sorry Demon Lord.”

When he finished following the raccoons directions, he stepped back, admiring the ritual.

“That is ingenious.”

“I am a powerful Demon Lord. Expect nothing less! Now, activate the ritual! Tear this tower to the ground! Bwahahaha!”

Olivander definitely did not do that. He had been wondering for a long time if there was a way to pull demonic energy into their world. He had never proven it, since no one had ever seen a demon use ritual magic. Apparently they had just been asking the wrong demons.

A lone demon, even one as powerful as a Demon Lord weren’t particularly dangerous since they couldn’t natively use their magic in the world. They had to pull it through from the Demon Realm, which was usually accomplished by physically carrying mana gems through with them. If they didn’t have gems, they were usually pretty harmless.

He studied the diagram.

“This section here,” he said, pointing to a bottom section he couldn’t make heads or tails of. “Does this regulate the power coming through from your Realm?”

“Ahh, so you are a scholar? That explains why your power is so limited. Yes, that regulates the power, drawing it larger or smaller will pull more or less power through. We need it that large to destroy the tower, but any larger will trigger this world’s defenses.”

Olivander nodded, then he blew apart the ritual.

“What are you doing!” the raccoon hissed.

“So sorry to do this to you, but I really can’t have an evil creature running around unchecked.”

He flooded the cuff around his wrist with mana, and the demonic energy in it became too diluted. The cuff shattered. He grabbed the raccoon by the leg and held it up before him.

“What am I going to do with you? I can’t just throw you back into hell, you clearly figured out a way to climb out once.”

“Unhand me you pathetic insect. I will destroy you. I will devour your soul! I will find your family and ensure their last moments of life feel like torture unending!”

“The whole evil raccoon thing wears a bit thin after a while, doesn’t it?” Olivander asked himself.

“I guess I’ll just toss you into storage until I figure out something to do with you. Do you need to eat? Oh, do you go to the bathroom? That’s much more important. I have a lot of stuff I really don’t want ruined. Actually, on second thought, why don’t I just put you into the dungeon. Ha! I almost put you into my personal storage space. That would have been a headache later.”

Olivander hauled the furiously chittering creature into the tower. It was trying to bite him and lash out for freedom. Unfortunately for the raccoon, in this world, it really was just a raccoon.

Steven looked at Olivander, and then the rabid looking raccoon in his hand.

“Are you?…Is that?...How was your walk?” Steven settled on.

“Very nice, Steven! I made some really interesting new discoveries.”

“Are they raccoon related?”

“What, no, why would they be raccoon related? Oh, right. Forgot you were here already little guy. Steven, could you grab a small cage? I need to throw this raccoon into the dungeon.”

Steven looked from the raccoon, currently gnawing on Olivander’s hand, to the Arch-magus himself. He sighed an nodded.

“Good man. Oh, if you see this little guy pull out a pair of handcuffs, don’t get too close!”