It is now: 2018-08-07 Evening
It's getting late and I'm going to bed after writing this entry in the journal.
I've been making small notes for the journal, but I just realized that it's been close to 3 months since I last gathered my notes and wrote a proper entry.
Since the last entry, I've been learning, experiencing, growing and improving by leaps and bounds; then again, I don't really have anything else to do and living in an abandoned, Wizard's Tower, with all the food I need, with places to exercise and holy fuck-snack; let's not forget about the magic.
I can do magic and I can do it well enough not to blow myself up.
Anymore.
Mostly.
A few words of power, a flick of the wrist and things just seem to happen.
I technically shouldn't need any of the words or gestures, but they make everything a lot easier. Like a focal-point for my attention and the ritual of doing everything the right way & in the right order.
I've begun studying the principles behind the magic of this world. It's a lot like learning a programming language. It's difficult, but fun.
It was the thing that was gnawing at me in the beginning. Magic really does remind me of programming.
The Wizardly version of Jame Gump (aka Buffalo Bill, aka the former Arch Mage of this Tower), has a lot of magical texts and tomes and from many distinct fields of magic.
I've read treatises on constructive necromancy.
I really don't like that old Arch Mage. I know I give him a lot of shit. I'm judging someone I never met. On the other hand I did read his research notes, and while, yes, I have gained some advantageous changes, it wasn't because he wanted to do me any favors. I have to constantly remind myself that he was someone who wanted to do bad things to me. Well technically, he wanted to do good things to my body, seeing as how he was renovating it, before evicting me to take it over. But he didn't care about the personality (me), inside it. So as I see it, he was a body-snatching, medically experimenting murderer, or planning to be.
I can just imagine him looking into the space between worlds at my floating form, yelling at my unconscious body.
"It rubs the potion on its skin or else it gets the water-elemental again", before moving off to his bedroom to don an open front robe and dancing to a recording of some local bard's popular melody and dancing without a care in the world. "Mirror mirror on the wall, would you magically possess me? I’d magically possess me. I’d magically possess me hard. I’d magically possess me so hard").
There are books upon books on the ethical summoning of sapient animal spirits & the uses one may, could, and should have for these as well as the religious, philosophical and possible divine consequences of their misuse.
An analysis of the efficacy of different magical fires and the optimal uses for them, such as for smithing, razing forests and villages and fighting water elementals, to mention a few examples.
All of the above and more with accompanying spells for me to learn.
And I slowly realized, that one of the few key differences between all of the different branches of magic are (to use a programming term), the "libraries", they have access to.
The books may deem one type or technique evil or good or neutral, but it seems to me, that it's all about the code and "Libraries", you have access to, and I think I only realized this because I can see the flows of whatever magic is all around me. Though it took me a while to realize that this isn't normal for users of magic. Again a surprise change that the Magical Mengele wrought upon my still nubile (albeit slightly aged), flesh.
I'm getting off point, so please allow me to get back and bear with me.
My point is that it's slowly becoming obvious to me, that there isn't really an inherently "good", "evil", or any other actualized metaphorical altruistic (or its opposite), component to any of the magic I've studied, by which I mean, there is no power of Good, Evil, Chaos, Corruption or any other morally defining quality.
Forgive me and go with my metaphor. Necromancy uses some of the same Functions (or Methods if you prefer), that Healing or Body-Morphing spells also use.
Most of them draw their energy from the same source, although it seems that it is possible to use other sources with differing results.
It seems to me that they've given different branches of magic a positive/negative reputation based on the perception of the magic being wielded or on the actions of the wielders, despite the fact that the magic itself, is only a tool, and NOT inherently good or evil.
Though I did find a few spells that had code imbedded meant to change the user incrementally, it is worth noting that the spell worked as well without the embedded code. So perhaps it's the magical equivalent of Malware or Adware for the religious groups that made the spell, to begin with? Like an organization saying "Hey, have this nifty spell. It'll make you taller, smarter, sexier and your fireballs will really show some zest & a certain je ne sais quoi.", and every time they cast the spell, it will slowly & incrementally convert them to the whichever cause created the spell, or maybe just mess with someone, because why wouldn't there be a wizardly, priestly or sorceress version of a troll (Not the giant green kind, but rather the much more monstrous internet type). Mythology back home is full of it. Gods seem to do it all the time in myths. Why not humans with magic. As in the magical version of "Hey! Did you know that your spells become even more powerful and that you cast faster after running the spell; CTRL-ALT-DEL? Try it. It's amazing..... *snicker*".
Also, I think it's one of the things old Raisin-corpse (aka the Arch Mage that I'm running out of insults to call), modified or embedded. I'm understanding things I haven't read, but it's like I can see something behind the symbols and gestures. Like there's a gist of the code that's running in the machine. It's the best metaphor I can come up with right now, but it's getting clearer every time I try to understand the magic I'm manifesting.
There also seems to be something similar to levels of coding, as in the difference between binary, assembly, and Java with different strategies as well as strengths and weaknesses.
Some of these spells I'm seeing are increasingly ineffective. They don't use the resources to the best effect, and a lot of mana is going needlessly to waste. Some of this is due to seemingly inexperienced spell programming and another waste seems to be a by-product of the spells actualization.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
This is super interesting and boring at the same time, so I'll let up for now. I'm sure I'll be less enthusiastic when I read this again, but darn it, I hope I'm on to something here.
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Other things have changed as well. Slowly at first, but rapidly and at an ever-increasing pace.
It's like having someone use cheats on me as I go about my day or having a deity as your guardian angel.
My senses have become sharper and I've tested it from the roof of the tower. It's taking me some time to get used to them. The sensory overload is distracting and I can't sleep unless I set up a noise-canceling spell to create blissful silence.
I had to sleep using levitation for a while because everything felt uncomfortable on my hyper-sensitive skin, but I forced myself to get used to it.
The sensory data is just too much right now, but I'm taking one sense at a time and trying to expose myself to it a little more each day. Hopefully, I'll be able to acclimate myself.
A cool thing is being able to see in darkness. I'm not talking low light vision or heat like ultraviolet or infrared. I'm talking total darkness and seeing things as if they're well lit.
I think it's tied to the magical sense which enables me to sense magic and the flows of.... energy? Mana? Magical je ne sais quoi? I don't really know WHAT mana is yet. But I'll find out.
I also need a lot less sleep and rest, which is nice, though I'd enjoy being able to stay unconscious for longer. I like dreaming.
On the other hand, I do sometimes have weird dreams and nightmares. More than I remember having back home. Perhaps this is some sort of PTSD? Maybe I'm more shaken than I realize. I did get kidnapped into a different reality, where I realized that magic is a thing, someone wanted to steal my body, and even though he failed at stealing my fleshy frame, he did finish his magical and medical experiments on me.
While I think I'm cool with being able to do cool stuff (How eloquent of me). I'm not sure how I feel about someone doing things to me without my consent and I'm still not sure of what most of the things he did was.
A lot of things are changing my body, but I can't keep up with all of them, I kind of want it to keep changing, but it's also getting a little frightening. It seems like every day there's something new or something I just got used to that radically changes. It makes me feel off kilter and I'm losing my cool.
I'm calling it my magical puberty. I'm changing like a butterfly. Albeit a seemingly demonic and magical butterfly, I'm sure (fingers crossed), that I'll be sufficiently non-demonic nor terrifying to gaze upon. Not a single tentacle in sight when the changes have passed.
I don't look any different, although the books often show the protagonist as having become more muscular and handsome after super-puberty, I guess magical-puberty works differently on thirty-something geezers.
What can I say?
I'm a late bloomer, and attempts at humor always did keep the existential horrors of life and reality at bay when I was an angsty teen.
It also somewhat worked when I was an angsty twenty-something and it was slightly less effective but much more enjoyable as a somewhat angsty adult with thinning hair, graying sideburns and fighting a passionate tug-of-war against gravity, that I still feel hopeful or even, respectable, about more days than not.
Though I guess I should embrace a more positive attitude towards the wild and aged look, seeing as how I'm practically a Mage. I could own the look as a balding Gandalf or Merlin. I'll be a famously well-groomed Wizard. No wild hair here.
If no one else has done so already, I plan on inventing a magical grooming spell, for brushing my teeth, staying clean, washing my clothes and perhaps a magical perfume. A magie eau de toilette. My French isn't up to par. Which is strange since I seem to be able to speak any and all languages I stumble upon. But I guess no one here will object to a bad translation of magical toilet water. Because saying it in French just makes it more sophisticated, even IF I'm butchering two languages in my attempt at Wizardly Metro-sexuality. I'm looking forward to building a reputation as a neurotically neat wizard who is always exceedingly well dressed.
I wonder if they'll see the humor in a Wizard overlord with a nifty comb-over or a magical toupee that refuses to stay in place, and that magically attracts attention?
Why am I obsessing over my hair? There's a spell for that if I actually care about losing my hair.
I'm doing it again. I'm overcompensating. I'm ranting and trying to make jokes.
I'm alone and I should be frightened.
I haven't seen a living soul since I arrived and maybe I should be talking with someone about my experiences, besides ranting at a journal because I'm too afraid to admit that I don't have a plan and that I don't know what I'm doing...
I'll think about this, but for now, let's change track.
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One weirdly interesting thing I found was dimensional magic. (Yes. Even more weirdly interesting than everything else.)
I've mentioned it in my journal before. As in how places inside the tower are much larger than on the outside?
I found bags, boxes, and jewelry that does the same.
And apparently, one such item was installed into me. So I have a place to put things inside my body. It freaks me out a little, but I also think it's amazingly cool and useful.
I dubbed it Soul Storage. But it reminds me too much of computer games, where someone pulls something out, from seemingly nowhere. So I lovingly call it my Inventory.
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Besides all the strange and magical changes, I do try to keep to a schedule.
Some days I study and train my magic. Other days I focus on physical training.
I also force myself to read and learn things that I don't find as exciting as reading magical tomes, like the history and religion of the continent I'm currently on. Though there doesn't seem to be much of the sorts and it's rather old.
I should mention that a lot of the texts are written in different languages and dialects, and while I find it intensely exciting and exhilarating to realize that I gain a sudden understanding of any and all languages I am exposed to, it also makes me intensely frightened and paranoid that something is messing with my mind. Not knowing the method by which this is done, freaks me out.
Is it changing my memories?
Why not give me all the knowledge from the beginning?
Is it like a hard-drive, where I just suddenly get access?
If the latter, then who is giving me access?
A lot of questions with far-reaching and frightening consequences.
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On another note, I found out that I'm a terrible rider. I've ridden a few horses for a few hours in my lifetime back home, but I guess it's incomparable to riding a horse that isn't trained to carry ignorant fools around while being led by a trainer.
I so much want to like riding, but I don't know if it'll ever happen.
I'm sore in weird & embarrassing places, and that's only if I manage to stay in the saddle for long enough.
I'm chafing and I'm scared that my testicles will stay numb forever. I've also decided never to let my thighs touch each other again. I'm completely at peace with this decision if it frees me from the chafing pain of doom.
Though I have been strongly motivated to improve my healing knowledge and spells.
It's..... complicated.
There are separate spells for dealing with bleeding, nerves, muscles, bones, diseases, poisons & venoms and everything else.
Why can't Healing work like in games and fantasy literature?
Red potions heal. Blue gives you more mana and yellow helps you get back stamina. They're energy drinks I guess.
But nope. Not here.