Steady again on his feet, and with the saturating whiteness dissipating into nothing, Rum felt the crowd behind him mumble.
“What was that!?” a gnome voiced loudly.
“Somebody cast a big magic!”
Rum turned his head to see a multitude of curious faces looking up at him, as well as at the new gnome. The human’s mind kicked into emergency processing: the mood has received a blow. But, that shouldn’t be an immediate problem. Their gayified minds should not revert in an instance. There should be a significant delay. I see it in their faces. They’re confused, but not self-conscious yet. Rum studied the faces briefly. I have time then, before they degrade back into their socially insecure existence. Rum turned his whole body to address the crowd: “I AIN’T HEARING ANY BEATS! WHERE’S THE DRUMS!?” The juggernaut mage challenged the multitude of confused faces. A butt-cheek was slapped, and then another, and then shields were hit by speartips, and the walls by improvised drumsticks. Slowly, the gnomes were starting to rebuild their performance, though not without a noticeably drop in overall enthusiasm. It’ll have to do, the wizard concluded, and turned back to face the other, smaller wizard, who’d pooped his party.
Taking a single threatening step towards the other mage, the juggernaut waited but the briefest of a second, letting the threat linger, before taking another step.
“Cease your movement, criminal!” The gnome wizard yelled the words fast, producing them with a nasal, despising tone. “You are under arrest! For the enthrallment of the gnomes of The Iron City, for trespassing Gnomiture, and for suspicion of dungeon lord conspiracy!” The little man waived an accusatory finger in the juggernaut’s direction.
Rum waited for the gnome to complete his sentences. Then took another step, and another. The big wizard raised his palms against the little wizard: “Gay Bolt-Gay Bolt-GAY BOLT!” The bolts of magic shot towards the gnome mage at speed, crossing the distance quickly. Still, the little gnome was a small target, and proved himself an adapt magical duelist, as he managed to smoothly dodge the first 2 bolts. However, the last bolt struck true, hitting the magic user’s shoulder. Rainbowy glitter erupted, and the gnome shielded his eyes against the colors with his hand. Taking 3 quick and nearly stumbling steps backwards to escape the sparkles, the gnome soon unshielded his face, and with both hands grabbed his staff. Closing his eyes, the mage uttered a spell: “Eivo A-devo Mesi” a new saturating white light bathed the gnome’s body in magic – dispelling magic, Rum noticed, damn, damn, damn.
As the light quickly calmed and dissipated into the colors of this world, the little wizard took 3 long strides forward, as if reclaiming his battle position.
“You’re outmatched, mage! My name is Revospark, power level 69, and a famed pyromancer among the gnomish military! I bet you stand no chance against me!”
Rum put a hand to his black beard, stroking it cautiously. “Impressive” the human acknowledged.
“Yes.” The little mage sneered. “So surrender – SUBMIT to ARREST!”
“Sorry.” Rum shook his head slightly. “I don’t really believe in arrests.”
“If challenging the authorithee of The Iron City is what you wish to dooO!” Revospark’s sentence ended on a high upwards intonation. “Then you will rue the day!” The gnome put forth his staff, holding it with one hand, and aiming at Rum. “Roath-Roath-ROATH!” 3 bolts of fire flew towards Rum. The taller mage, being quite tired from the day, didn’t quite have the agility left in him. He tried, almost vainly, to step aside, but he was a big target, and as he managed barely to avoid 1 firebolt striking his shoulder, 2 others reached his belly and chest, setting his black robe instantly ablaze with a flame both hateful and cruel.
“Aaaah! Too hot!” Rum tried to choke the fire with his other robe arm and gloves, but only achieved setting both now on fire. “Not good! Hot, hot, HOT, HOT, HOOOT!” The wizard frantically began beating his own body, but the fire showed no mercy. It spread, and it hurt with greater and greater destructive power.
“OKAY!” Rum shouted, momentarily stopping his smacking. The wizard grabbed his chest forcibly, a cool-headed decisiveness overcoming his despair. “RENEW CLOTHES!” A whirl of magic burst forth around Rum, taking hold of him and his clothes. Putting effort into retaining his calm under the pain of the hateful fire, the wizard let the process unfold, transforming him on the spot.
As the storm of magic flared up around him and then recided, the first unusual thing Rum came to notice, was the sudden feeling of being naked – except he wasn’t. Or, rather, that is, he was naked, but he was naked inside of something. He still wore a mask, or at least something like it. Everywhere he felt hairy, like a huge set of furs surrounded him everywhere. He looked down through a new pair of only mostly see-through fabric. There IS fur! Rum recognized. Bending a little forward, to see past what he could only guess to be his belly, the wizard noticed his feat had become huge hairy fake paws. Bringing his hands forward, the mage noticed that these, too, looked like huge hairy fake paws. What happened to me?
“Is... that a bear?” The smaller mage stood still in astonishment.
“Bear?” Rum wondered at the question. He turned around to look at the many gnomes. Some of their music had stopped, and many of them were looking up at him, and smiling? For some reason, many of the gnomes were sending Rum, or at least Rum’s body, expressions ranging from jovial smiles to... longing smiles? The latter confused Rum somewhat. What has happened to me? He looked down at himself again.
“Bear...” The gnome wizard repeated his sentence in recovering astonishment. “Well” Revospark forced through a determined voice, “no matter. You WILL surrender! I can bare any bear!”
As Rum turned back, to again face Revospark, the little wizard did not give him any more chance to prepare, but instead threw a new trio of spells: “Roath-Roath-ROATH!”
3 bolts of hateful fire were again projectiled into the air, flying over to Rum’s body, who’d now gained even more size, and even less agility. The juggernaut wizard dodged none, but took all 3 bolts straight to his belly and chest. Staring helplessly at his new costume-paws for a second, while fire raged on him, the mage managed eventually to come to grips with the situation. He slammed and squeezed his paw at the fire burning on his chest, and to both him and the gnome wizard’s surprise: it works! IT WORKS! Rum felt relief as he saw the flame actually die down under the suffocation of his paws. He soon proceeded to extinguish the other 2 flames as well. Continuing to pat his slightly burnt spots, he was able, over the course of a few seconds, to fully kill all 3 flames.
With smoke still rising from his body, Rum looked through his bear costume over at the pyromancer, who now was looking back at Rum with somewhat reduced confidence. The bigger wizard took another couple of threatening steps forward. The little wizard subconsciously took a step back.
“You will submit!” Revospark iterated, convincing nobody. As Rum closed the distance another couple of steps, the gnome opened his free left palm, and proceeded to lower the head of his staff over it. Without a word of magic uttered, the pyromancer started bringing out a large flame. The same flame started growing as soon as it came into being. “If you decide not to surrender here and now, I will be forced to use a magic most terrible. You will not survive me – agent of the dungeon lords.” The gnome had a face of concern, although it wasn’t immediately clear if that concern was aimed at Rum as a threat, or out of concern for what he was about to do to Rum.
Rum himself faced a concern of his own. He wasn’t sure what Revospark The Mage had in store, but if the gnome wished for a magic duel, then I’m going to give him one. May the greatest mage win. Working past his nerves, Rum made a most rash decision. In each of his new paws, he drew forth balls of magic of his own, readying himself to create a new spell mid-combat.
“Magic against magic.” Rum replied through his bear snout. “You are mistaken in your assumption. My cause is pure, and it is so much more worth fighting for than whatever you’re telling yourself about me. If you intend to fight, then I will unleash upon you all of my magic, and we’ll see who is the first to give up.”
For a second Revospark stared into Rum’s lifeless bear eyes, perhaps checking if I’m bluffing, or weighing the chance that I’m more powerful than he is? He doesn’t know my level, he can only guess. The expression on the gnome’s face gradually changed, it became dark, grim, malicious. “You chose this, I hope you relent when you realize your error.” The gnome began channelling magic through his staff, causing his flame to rapidly grow and reach a new terrifying size, its individual flames ascending upwards, only to die in wild, ferocious embers, each one promising the aggressiveness of a rabid beast, and the destructiveness of an ultimate hunger.
At his end, Rum pressed his paws inwards, trying to squeeze together a new spell. The synthesizing process shone with a dozen plus colors. Yellow, gold, light blue, and a rainbow of many more. This time though, Rum’s intense squeezing caused violent outbursts of magic to flare up from the synthesizing balls. The outbursts leading into small flickering waves and -projectiles of multiple colors that shot out in all and every direction. The melting-together balls themselves were culminating in a show of magical color that was rapidly shifting between various intense displays of neon light. And the more Rum squeezed, the more the synthesis flared, and the more rapid the bright colors of it all switched, like the most hallucinatory lightshow.
Back to Revospark. With a would-be terror-inspiring sweaty look of misery on his face, the gnome appeared to be reaching the peak of his fiery channelling. Slowly, he rotated his palm towards Rum, getting ready to throw his spell. “ROATH-AMOTH FASHUM-WROAAAH!” Thrusting his aimed palm at the juggernaut mage, the giant flame burst forth at the movement. Leaving the small hand, the flame instantly took on the form of a comet, shooting towards Rum like a flaming piece of artillery. But that wasn’t all, having covered just its first meter of ground, the comet flame suddenly expanded, and instead of a mere projectile, Rum now instead faced a giant wave of fire, come to engulf his bear-shape like the most toxic of hugs.
However – Rum ignored the fire as the storm of deadly heat latched onto his body like a new, added, deadly suite. Instead, the bear mage focused all his efforts in a final squeeze, creating in the event an unstable new synthesis of his magic, 2 balls merging unwillingly into one, a single unity of power, dense with energetically shifting magics. Through a view partially covered by the flames enveloping him, Rum fixed his eyes on the offending gnome. The big mage stepped forth: one step, another, a third. He shortened their distance considerably, the gnome just standing there, still, as if waiting for Rum to be passively consumed by the fire. Finally, Rum felt close enough to unleash his plan – literally. Still holding his ball with both paws, Rum thrust his paws forward, throwing the ball of magic into the air between them. From either of his paws, threads of magic reached over to the ball, continuing to connect Rum to the spell even as he let go of it. And so it was, that there, with his magic in the middle of the air, the bear wizard shouted, in the briefest of pronounciations, the powerful words of his great new spell: “SUPER-GAY-BLAST!” The tethers to Rum’s paws lit up with a sudden bright stream of light-blue magic, and the ball itself – it exploded forth. Like the fire that’d been thrown at him, this ball became more like a wave of magic, sent through the air like a great unyielding gust of wind. The mage was throwing every drop of mana he had in him into the spell. Every single piece that he manage to send out from his body. The result was indeed, more than a bolt – it was a blast, a huge spectacle of magic that covered the entire body of the little gnome wizard many times over, bathing him in a sea of shifting lights of different colors.
“UEEEEEAAAAAH!” Revospark screamed. As on one side of the room, in front of a partying and enthusiastically observing group of gnomes, stood a human encased in a bear suite burning like a living torch, while on the other, a gnome was swallowed by the most fabulous of magics – by a great spectacle of color.
“Hot!” Rum abruptly reminded himself, having gone mildly hazy from a sudden total mana expenditure. The bear started patting his fur. But this time the process was not so smooth, and he was having a hard time working against the fire which was more hateful and ferocious than ever. Covering most of his body, it was also burning too fast for him to extinguish. Everywhere, the speed of the flame would burn through his fur and start melting his flesh before he’d make any overall progress. With no mana, he couldn’t cast Renew Clothes either. For several seconds the wizard fought a losing battle against the fire. But, then a jolt of inspiration arrived. He turned around quickly, looking over at the partying and awe-struck gnomes. Patting his own paws a few more times, he managed to free at least them of that most hateful fire. It was enough of an accomplishment. Rum speed-walked forward, reaching with his paw for the shoulder of the first gnome he found, who weakly tried to back off from Rum’s outstretched arms, clearly weary of the massive, orange-yellow, smoking destruction happening all over Rum’s attire.
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“Mana Requisition!” Rum yelled. The gnome, who looked at Rum’s paw with an awkward confusion, contorted his face a little as the spell began. His new expression becoming one of discomfort.
“What’re doing?” the gnome demanded, confused.
“Sorry, but I just urgently require a bit of your mana.” After a few seconds, and with Rum starting to feel the fire bite through his costume, the mage retracted his paw, and placed it hurriedly at his chest. “Renew Clothes!” He yelled out the spell, and a whirl of magic soon clouded Rum, and lasting for a few seconds. Seemingly, it put out the flames, although in reality, it just undid all his attire, giving him a brand new set. When the spell concluded, Rum looked down at his belly and hands. He was still a bear, but whereas before he’d been a brown bear, he had now become a black bear.
“Oh, wow” the mana-requisitioned gnome exclaimed.
Several gnomes glanced over at Rum, and then behind Rum. The juggernaut of a mage turned. Standing at the other direction of the hallway was a gnome whose demeanor had transformed entirely. Revospark was down on his knees, looking over at Rum with an open mouth, his face a mix between amazement, and total craving desire. “YOU LOOK SO AWESOME! SO CUUUTE! I WANT!” The sentences were all produced with his trademark naisal voice, but now raised to an excited exclamation. “I want it! I wanna be a bear too!” The expression of the gnome developed from amazement to pleading, the previously hard eyes becoming like the shining adorableness of a puppy.
Rum was stunned for a second, the display of the full effects of his Super Gay Blast spell taking him a second to process.
“Make me a bear!” The gnome dropped his staff and put his hands and arms forth in pleading submission, appearing as if ready to do anything to become one.
Managing to realize the extent of his victory, Rum strode over to the gnome who was sitting on both his knees, looking up at the big mage with a desperate hunger for the cute and the cuddly. Due to their size difference, Rum felt it necessary to come down on his own knees, as he reached down with a big black paw. Touching the head of the gnome mage, he spoke a first spell: “Mana Requisition.” The big mage drained the little mage, but only for a few seconds as the little one grimaced with discomfort. Then Rum let go of the spell, and with his paw still on the gnome’s head, spoke a second pair of magic words: “Renew Clothes.” Rum couldn’t really command the spell in detail, it drew its power from the creativity of the person he’d mana ghosted, after all. But the spell understands intent, right? In a whirl of cloudy magic, Rum’s guestimate was soon proven true. Coming into view, as the magical cloud spun its last whirl, what was once a robed gnome wizard, appeared completely replaced, as in front of the big black bear wizard, now sat a small brown bear wizard. Revospark looked up at Rum through black eyes, and round cuddly brown ears on the sides of his new brown furry head. The little guy raised his paws up for inspection, and with a “oooh” of joy, the man in the bear cub costume admired his new look.
“Ha ha” the new little bear wizard laughed. “I’m a bear!”
“You are” Rum’s bear head nodded. He stood up, and turned to the crowd of gnomes. He strolled back over to them, and to the line of furniture that’d come to a total halt in their midst.
As he got close, a trio of gnomes came over to him, hands raised. 2 of them began touching his fur.
“You look wonderful” a blond pudgy gnome woman spoke, her crystal blue eyes admiring the large shape with a smile of amazement and joy as she stood a couple of steps back, behind the other 2.
A gnome man in front of her, wearing nothing but his underwear, stroked Rum’s fur suite up and down on his bear leg. The man had a thin set of chest hair, but a thick, brown, well-kept moustache that in any other setting would’ve radiated authoritative energy. Here though, the same little man’s face shone with overwhelmed amazement, a dreaminess haven overtaken him. “So soft.” The gnome man stepped forward and hugged Rum’s leg in a big sigh of delight, uttering an “aaaah” in a nearly moaned follow-up.
Near Rum’s other leg, a gnome woman was also stroking his leg. She was similarly undressed down to nothing but her cotton panties, her bell-shaped tits rebelliously out on liberational airing. This woman radiating a joyous smile, and giggled lightly as her hand went up and down the fake bear leg. “It’s like touching an animal, hi hi” the woman commented, captivated, no... mesmerized even, by my fur. With a short ginger ponytail dangling down her neck, she put a lightly freckled cheek to Rum’s leg, gliding her skin back and forth against him. “It’s so nice.” Like the moustachiod man beside her, she eventually went in for a full body hug of Rum’s legs, closing her eyes in a delighted sigh.
“Ah. Well” Rum started, a little unsure. Then he stopped, and just let the gnomes enjoy him for a few seconds, while he observed in thought.
“How did you do that?” The blondie in the back asked eventually. “How did you become bear? Can you cast magic that turn people into bears?”
“Well.” Rum raised his bear head and addressed her. “I suppose I can, sort-of.” He looked down again at his new gnomish leg appendages. “But the magic has a will of its own. This time, it just happened to make me a bear. By the way, speaking of magic” he looked up and around. Many of the gnomes were starting to lose a bit of their gayish energy, a few gnomes had started to retreat back into corners, as if trying to escape the spotlights of the party, and were silently observing the still partying gnomes with a worrying level of confusion on their faces. And we can’t have that. The atmosphere needs to become more gay if we are to succeed here.
Rum looked back down at the gnomes covering his legs. “Sorry, but, could I borrow you both for a spell?” None of the mostly naked gnomes responded. Both their sets of eyes were closed, and they appeared to have taken off to a realm of dreams, their faces merely hugging his fur with a contentment and absentminded delight. Rum tapped both of them on the head with his big paws. “Do you hear me?” 2 sets of dozed eyes looked up weakly at his big bear head. “I asked you both, if I could borrow you for a spell? I need your help, you see, I’m out mana, but I need to get this party going again, and if you’ll let me, I could get some mana from you.”
The rest-desirous eyes of the gnomes gave each other a look, then the woman spoke. “What must we do?”
Rum pushed their bodies gently off him, to mild physical but no verbal protest. He knelt down. “If you could just climb onto my chest and hold tight, while my hands hold your back, I can get the mana and you don’t have to do anything but hug me. Can you do that?”
“Oh course” the gnome man responded with chill attitude, before biting his lip looking longingly at Rum’s fur-covered chest.
“Yes, just let me hug you” the woman opened her arms towards him, as if asking for permission to grab.
Rum spread his arms as a gesture for the gnomes to approach, and they both clung onto his body with their naked arms and -legs. The juggernaut mage stood up, and the gnomes stuck to him like glue. “Mana Requisition” the wizard spoke softly, and with a minimal drain, and therefore minimal discomfort to the gnomes, his own mana began refilling. He stepped back into the crowd of half-partying gnomes with his new gnomish mana batteries, and looked around. Many, if not most gnomes, were eyeing him. Even the ones still partying, slapping butt cheeks and hitting the walls with improvised drumsticks. The furniture, who all were basically stuck in their line, were certainly looking up at him. Perhaps the only one not concerned about Rum at the moment, was Revospark The Bear Cub, who had waltzed over and into the crowd behind the big mage, getting small joyous hugs, pats and touches whereever he went, spreading merry to every gnome in his viscinity. Rum stared a bit after the joy-spreading mini-bear, before turning back to the crowd of eyes, staring, gazing and darting over at him. “Hey” the mage spoke out, loudly, and nodding at the gnomish faces, “time to reinvigorate this party?” It was a rhethorical question, but he got a few “yeah!”-s. Rum moved to position himself in their very midst, and from there, had but 2 more words to speak: “Gay Aura.” Over the next few moments, the party’s volume and activity regrew back into a proper gay riot. The hallway again came alive, properly now. It was reborn: full with a new energy, full with a new liberty, no worries – a happiness epidemic.
“To the above!” Rum announced through his snout, as he moved through the crowd and over to the front of the line. “To the above, resume movement!” And the train of furniture inched forwards.
After a long while, through corridors, through the open space before the department entrances, and up the long and slow stair-crawl, the furniture and Rum, finally gathered in a crowd outside the surface entrance to Gnomiture. The mage was waited until the last of the furniture were beginning to reach the top, him still carrying around his gnome batteries for the constant emitting of his Gay Aura. The spell had, after all, proven quite handy. So far all the gnomes who’d tried to come after their Great Migration had been too low level to resist his magic, and had all been swept away by the aura, leaving a gay trail of gnomes behind them, all busy with discovering new sides to their selves.
As always when nothing else seemed to be immediately happening, this was the time for a certain shelf to make a question. Leaning against a commode on the stone pavement, the shelf looked up at Rum with its wooden eyes. “So, what’s the plan now?”
Rum watched the last piece of furniture get up the last step and out of the square metal entrance, his 2 gnomes practically sleeping in each of his bear arms.
“Now. We need to move you through the city without raising suspicion.” Rum didn’t look back at the shelf, but gazed in thought at the last furniture finding a spot to park at.
“And how we do that?” The shelf continued.
“Hmm...” Rum looked around him, around at the furniture, examining and pondering their situation. “I can carry you. The cover and deadness of the night should help with saving us from most interested eyes. But it’s still going to be a risk.” The wizard looked down at his bear costume. “And I most certainly need to get rid of this. For all that it is disguising of my face and body, it most certainly attracts attention, much more than someone strong carrying furniture would.”
“Carry me first?” A chair hoped out loud.
“First” Rum responded, “I will have to move you to an intermediary area. Get you just far enough away from Gnomiture that people won’t make connections. And after that, I’ll have to get help from a strong friend of mine.”
“So...” The commode behind the shelf started, after short period of silence. “What are we waiting for?”
Rum carefully dropped off the sleeping gnomes inside. Casting Softify, Magic Blanket and Warm Body, and making them hug each other instead, he managed to make both the man and woman comfortable. Together, the duo ended up sleeping along a wall, just inside the “Sleep and Comfort” department. That done, Rum proceeded to step outside again. While ascending the stairs to the open air, he dropped the bear suite with another “Renew Clothes”, giving him the new, inconspicuous disguise of the pants and shirt of a regular bulky worker, his beard plainly and roughly braided into 2 bushy tails. The result? He now had the overall look of a totally hardy workman.
Outside and among the furniture, he quickly began running down and out of the street that lead into Gnomiture. Finding his way onto the main highway, he scouted out several mostly empty locations on the way home. Speaking of home, when Rum arrived there, he immediately recruited White Rose for help, and – quickly dropping by The Dark Closet – announced to a resting Veish that “you’re about to get a whole lot of new room mates.” Before the witch managed to fully realize the extent of what he’d said, Rum ran back for the closet door. By the time she started to understand what had been said, she only managed to yell a “wait, WHAT!?” at Rum’s departing back as the wizard disappeared out of the closet.
The rest of the night went like this: Rum, using Beast of Burden, and White Rose, using zes natural strength, carried furniture to the intermediate drop-off points, scattering the furniture away from Gnomiture, and thus decreasing the likelihood that someone would make a connection between seeing the furniture, and the rumours that most certainly would spread about what had been going on at Gnomiture that night. Time was approaching dawn by the time Rum had found intermediary storage for all the furniture. These places ended up being a whole set of different places, from collective backyards, to the porches of large houses, and the outsides of a few shops and workshops. Generally, places where a large amount of furniture would be less out of place.
Then, throughout dawn, and into early morning, Rum brought all the furniture back home, stashing it as best he could inside the closet, a process which required a lot of clever manouvering that took considerable time. But Rum spent what mana he had, and he labored for dear life to accomplish his objective before the city came alive proper, and his neighbours would start emerging from their homes. Clear Mind, Magic Mind, Beast of Burden, Self-Running Legs, he used every trick he had to speed up the process and save each and every item of furniture.
And as Rum managed to squeeze the last table inside Amez’ backdoor, a neighbour shouted out over to him. “Up early?” Frightened, Rum twirled on the spot, looking over at the neighbour, an old human woman he’d briefly chatted with before.
“Ye-yeah.” Rum managed to produce.
“That’s an unusual outfit for you. Don’t you usually walk around with robes, kinda like a mage? You gotten yourself a new job?”
“Eeeh” Rum began, “kinda. It was just a simple job. It’s over now.” Rum shrugged his shoulders, trying to look chill and non-bothered, although he was deadly tired and sweating greatly. Not to forget that his muscles were swollen big and looked almost comically unnatural. “A moving job. Simple, but downside is that I have to get up real early for it.” Rum shook his head and sighed, as if the job was real and he was feeling regretful about picking it.
“Well” the old woman said. “We all have to work. Everyone’s gotta make a living somehow.”
Rum tried for a smile. “Yeah, true dat.” And then, before the uncomfortable conversation could go on any more, he shut his door, stepped over to his bed, and fell face first into it.
“What a day...”