Chapter 2: Butian’s Emporium of Magical Texts
Liev woke up dazed and confused, and for the second time in the day, lying on a cold stone floor. Except this time, instead of in the center of a creepy summoning chamber, now he found himself in a dark alleyway littered with trash and excrement. The skull staff laid right next to him. He groaned as he slowly made his way to his feet, the previous events of the day coming back to him in a trickle. He cursed Nabit as well as the woman who had knocked him out in what seemed to Liev, to be a very magical fashion. He had forgotten her name, and didn’t care much at the moment to find out what it might be.
Bitch, he thought, if I ever see those mage idiots again I’m gonna smash their faces in. He decided to put aside the fact that he likely had no way of doing harm to any of them, and fantasized about the grizzly demise of all four of them for a solid 10 minutes before his mind returned to the current situation. So this isn’t a dream. What kind of person rips another from their reality and then decides to dump them on the city streets? What kind of game is that? Liev thought like that for a moment, and then he ran his hand through his hair. His long hair. But he knew he had gotten a haircut just a week ago, and the barber had unceremoniously butchered the lucious black locks, leaving him with barely an inch on the top. Pulling a strand in front of his eyes he saw that it was blond, the color of hair he had assigned Balthazar.
Panicking he reached up and touched his face, feeling unfamiliar features that did not belong to him. The nose was slightly larger than his and now had a distinct bend, leaving it curved marginally to the right. He realized with horror that not only had those damn mages cleaved him from his world, they had also taken his body and replaced it with what he imagined was Balthazar. The 30 year old necromancer that he had created in DnD the night before. In just one night he had lost all that he had ever lived for, his life, his body, his friends, and most importantly, his family.
He wondered if they thought him dead, he wondered if his old body had stayed on Earth, sitting in Jake’s basement.
Then as it all hit him, he started crying. Letting out heaving sobs as the tears rolled down his cheeks, the only thing he could think about was how much he wanted to go back. To be playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends again instead of sitting in this nasty alley. To be sipping on a beer as he annoyed Max with a stupid character. Ahh the good ol’ days before I became the world’s most pitiful necromancer, he reminisced.
Then suddenly he was knocked out of his reverie by a child that looked to be 13 years old running past him. She was so swift that Liev only barely caught a glimpse of her before she was beyond him. Then the child stopped halfway through the alley, turned around, and charged at Liev.
The girl wore a tattered brown tunic, black pants, well worn boots, and had dirt and grime smeared all over her face. As she charged at a speed Liev could not comprehend, she pulled out a dagger hidden within her shirt, and within one second she was upon him. He scrambled and quickly whirled around to pick up the staff the mages had apparently dumped him with. He turned back around just in time to block the incoming dagger strike with the body of his staff, jarred as the force of the blow buckled his arms. Countless questions crossed his mind at that moment: How does a little girl have so much strength and speed? How did I manage to react quickly and accurately enough to block that stab? Am I not as powerless as I assumed? Does this have to do with that moul Nabit talked about?
Then Liev voiced the most important question he had, “what the fuck?!” He exclaimed it with such volume that the girl looked a little taken aback before he continued. “Why are you attacking me? What did I do to you?”
“This is my alley, old man, go pity yourself somewhere else.” The girl replied angrily. “Otherwise I kill you.” She wrenched the dagger from the wood of the staff and held it menacingly above Liev.
Not one to be told twice when someone threatened his life, Liev ran away as fast as his legs could carry him, clutching the staff tightly to his chest as he did so. He once again cursed the violent people in his new world. After a couple of seconds he emerged onto a larger street bustling with people moving around in the early morning light. Wiping off the tears still rolling down his cheek, he caught his breath and took in the sight of the capital city, Hodloren
He had to begrudgingly admit that it was pretty impressive. From where he stood, he could see what he assumed was the center of Hodloren, full of towering buildings reaching just as high as any skyscrapers on Earth. They were constructed from colorful stone and glass windows that reflected the blue-ish sun as it slowly rose into the sky. People flowed all around him in carriages pulled by creatures with four muscular legs ending in large paws. He stared intently at one of the creatures as it pulled past and saw a glimpse of squared off teeth in its squashed face. What the heck are those things?
A man yelled a curse at Liev, and it was only then that he realized he was blocking traffic while marveling at the strange sights the city had to offer. He mumbled a quiet apology and meandered towards the sidewalk where other pedestrians shuffled about, getting strange looks from a large number of them.
Black robes and a staff with a miniature skull on top of it aren’t quite normal attire here I suppose, he thought as he noticed the strange clothes of the passersby. Most of them wore shirts of vibrant colors, almost neon in the way they reflected light. The cloth was layered around the shoulders and neck, making the wearer appear bulky, and the fabric was strangely thin on the other areas of the shirt adding to the contrast. Their pants, however, seemed uniformly dark in color with a pristine white belt in stark contrast, and even the women all donned the same dark pants and silvery belt. Liev ignored the odd fashion sense of the city for the minute and committed to finding out more information about his new world.
He walked beside the road for a time, stopping occasionally to gawk at one thing or another that he had never encountered before. In front of a smaller, red building, a man roasted the body of a large animal in a way reminiscent of kebab meat. It slowly rotated around a pike, heated by a fire which glowed brightly from its place in a crevice etched into the outer wall of the building. The scaly hide of the now roasting beast was up for sale, and apparently it was a hot commodity, because dozens of men and women circled around it in a heated bidding war.
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As Liev looked up to the sky, he could see not a small number of people flying about. When they flew directly over the crowds of people hurrying to their destinations, a large gust of wind would rip through them and ruffle the lustrous clothing they all wore. Again Liev wondered about the nature of the magic that was so prevalent, and if he too could learn to use it, if he too could learn to glide through the air like a bird.
Approaching a man playing an unfamiliar stringed instrument, back up against the wall of a building, Liev felt his heart wrench at the stimulating tune. It affected him more than any song on Earth had, and when he finally passed out of earshot of the man it took a couple of seconds for him to regain his bearing. Focusing on the task at hand, Liev carried on.
Only after about an hour of walking did Liev finally find the place he had been looking for: a bookstore. Strangely, although the characters on the signs of the shops were unfamiliar to him, he could still comprehend their meaning. Liev glanced at the billboard plastered right above the bright green stone building. Butian’s Emporium of Magical Texts. A fine place to start, he decided, and stepped into the store.
“Welcome to Butian’s Emporium of Magical Texts!” A plump, short haired man greeted Liev with a smile. “What can I do for you today?”
“Just.. browsing,” he replied, noticing the man’s curious look at his clothing and staff, the latter of which he had fashioned into a cane. “I’m new to the city.”
“Ahhh a tourist. Haven’t had too many of those these past couple of months. Not much time for sightseeing with the war going on I suppose. Where are you from anyways? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone dress quite like you do.” The man regarded him intently, waiting for a reply
“Far to the east, a land called Iowa.” Liev answered in a half truth. “We don’t have much in the way of magic there. I’m curious to learn a little bit more. The name’s Balthazar by the way.” He chose his words carefully, not sure how the man might react if he found out that Liev was actually the result of a botched summoning. He did not entirely know why he chose to introduce himself as Balthazar, it just felt right to him in the moment.
“Interesting name, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this Iowa you talk about. Must be pretty far huh.” The man mused, “I’m Butian, owner and proprietor of this store, a pleasure to meet you Balthazar. I don’t mind if you want to look around for a little bit, always nice to have a new face in the shop.”
“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” Liev smiled and turned away from the man and walked towards the considerable amount of shelves filled with books lining the floor and walls. He looked superficially at the varying titles, noticing some that might be of interest to him. A Brief History of Magical Development, Wind Moul: The Engine of Flight, Attunement To Different Aspects of Moul, Strengthening Channels for More Effective Magic. All of them contained something that Liev thought he could benefit from, and just reading the titles, more questions continually popped into his mind. They seemed too advanced for him to actually make practical use of, though, what was the point of learning about magic if he couldn’t do it himself? He needed something that would be given to little children, a beginner’s intro course to performing spells and the mysterious moul.
As he browsed, he made mental notes of more texts that he might circle back to later, some looking promising. The first thing that really caught his eye, however, was a thick, dark blue book, the silver engraving on the spine of it reading Necromancy for Dummies. Remembering how forbidden and looked down upon necromancy was in the popular fictions he had read on Earth, Liev thought it strange that a book about it would be displayed so openly. Perhaps the dark art was viewed as another form of magic by his new society. But his confusion at the open exhibition of the book was not the only reason that it had caught his eye, he became a necromancer named Balthazar when Nabit conjured him after all. Leaning into it with all he had couldn’t be a bad idea right?
Quickly snatching the book from its resting place, Liev turned back to the front of the store and approached Butian, book in hand. The plump man, when Liev went to browse his wares, had picked up a book and began reading it. Glancing at the cover, it read Love Magic and Seduction. To each their own he supposed, Butian looking up from his perusing of the love magic text as Liev stopped in front of him. He suddenly realized at that moment he had no money, nor any way to pay for the tome he had just picked up. He hadn’t noticed any price tags that would indicate how much the book would cost either, not that a price tag would mean anything to him should he have seen one.
“Find something you like?” Butian asked, and upon seeing Liev’s selection of book added, “that one’s been lying around the store for ages, death attunement is pretty rare around these parts, so I suppose not many people have much use for it.”
“What do you mean death attunement?” Liev inquired, curious.
“What, you don’t know what an attunement is?” When he shook his head in response, Butian continued. “Must be from pretty far away then, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Like I said I’m new to magic, there’s not many people where I’m from that have any talent for it.” Liev sincerely hoped that his lies were at least somewhat convincing.
“Mhmm, I can see that, most people here have surpassed your current power by the time they reach five cycles old. Oh well, I’ll humor you. Basically a person holds an attunement to multiple aspects of moul, usually three or four attunements, although I’ve heard of people with as many as 7, and some rumors say that the Mage Supreme, Nabit, has 8. Not sure if there is any truth in that, though.”
Liev stiffened at the mentioning of the name, but ignored the anger that boiled beneath the surface as he asked “And how do you know what attunements you have? And how could you tell how weak I am?” He was unable to control his curiosity, regardless of how stupid he may have looked asking those questions.
“The easiest way to determine a person’s attunement is to see the color and form of the moul they expel from their fingers when pushing it out from their core. Technically each finger could expel a different aspect, but typically, in an average person, the same aspect will be expelled from multiple fingers. For example,” Butian held up his left hand and stuck up his thumb, pointer, and middle finger. “These three represent my attunement to the water aspect. As for how I could tell how weak you are, I can sense just how small the amount of moul running through your channels is. Any person could sense your weakness. You should be able to sense the moul inside of me as well, you should be able to feel it. If you can’t try focusing inwardly first, that is what is taught to children when they are first learning to control their magic.”
Liev nodded, pleasantly surprised at how helpful the man was proving to be, and took his advice as he attempted to look inwardly, towards where his moul, core, and channels supposedly lay. He closed his eyes in focused determination, remembering back to when he had felt the power at the tips of the mage lady’s fingertips. He stood there for a considerable amount of time, fixating on the sixth sense that he knew he now had within then. Suddenly, his mind felt like it was being overloaded as he finally awakened all of his senses. Not letting go of this newfound sight, he dove deep within himself and saw wisps of energy curling around a deep black core. Then he shouted in exhilaration, he had taken the first step of many towards his goal in killing that damned Nabit.