Seeing as how it’s nightfall that brings all the monsters to the yard, I decided that being inside and creating their kryptonite would be the best use of my time.
“Milkshake of death! Haha!” I tittered. “Shut up Elizabeth! Even though you’re not laughing right now, bad music references are still funny.”
Returning to the task at hand, I reviewed what I knew. Most of the bastards that come crawling out of the woodwork when the sun goes away are vulnerable to light and fire. Pretty damn basic. And elementary school proved that fire is essentially heat, or rather it is the visual expression of intense heat that is consuming combustible materials as long as there is oxygen, right? Maybe that’s high school science class.
So what is magical fire? Eh, I probably shouldn’t play with this inside, I mean, I do have a living-tree in my living-room. Speaking of tree, I stopped my musings and walked over to Elizabeth. Looking at her showed no outward physical change; I placed my hands on her trunk and sent my magical senses inward to check on her, trying to find any information I could.
Emptiness.
Nothing is what I felt. The egg-like feeling of glowing potential was . . . gone . . . or rather, it had moved. My senses felt a downward tug and I followed that down to about fifty-feet or so. She had grown a root that snaked down the house to join with the front root of the World Tree.
I started, almost falling backwards in disbelief. This bitch!
Throwing my hands in the air and not caring about my volume in my rage, I yelled, “So being a little tree wasn’t enough! Huh!? Ya had to go and join Mr. Infant World Tree! The fuck is this?”
A cascade of emotion ripped through me as I came to terms with what was obviously true. My woman was now connected to the ACTUAL World Tree, the backbone of the collective multi-verse!
I felt a rough nudge on my ankle. “Who’s this looker?” Rath asked. I had to take a minute to pull myself back from my shock and collect my emotions.
I gulped at the sudden knot in my throat. “This is, uh, was, my fiancée.”
“Whoa brotha!” His eyes going huge as he hopped up on the couch. “Dryads have more stamina than any mortal man! How’d ya swing that!”
I whipped around, turning to stare at the wiggling dragon. “Uhm, she wasn’t a dryad a month ago. When the Ripple came, we were drinkin, and she wished to be one with nature. And apparently, now she’s one with the Cosmos.”
He looked at me, then back at the now empty shell, then back at me. “Dude, she isn’t dead. She’ll be back. World Tree Dryads are even more rare than seeds of Yggdrasil, but she’ll come back. Give it a couple thousand years or so. Do you have any idea how rare this is?”
I freaked, my jaw almost hitting the floor. “WHAT?!” A couple thousand years? For fuck’s sake! What the fuck takes that long?” My knees shook as I stood in disbelief.
“Good grief, you don’t know shit.” He grumbled, making his way to the basement with me right on his tail. He curled up at the feet of the generators fully prepared to ignore me.
I turned them all off except the main one powering the housewards. “Oh fuck no, no mana for you unless I get some goddamn answers.”
Opening one eye he muttered, “So touchy.” Rath sat up like a haughty cat with a long suffering sigh.
“Fine.” He began with a lecturing tone, waving one clawed foot as if to talk like a human. “The more powerful a dryad, the longer it will take for them to gestate. It takes even longer if the tree is on a ley line or is some kind of epic magical tree, like the World Tree, duh, and it takes even longer if a human converts over to a dryad as the soul has to undergo unparalleled amounts of change to handle that kind of paradigm shift.”
Rath pointed at me with his tail and sniffed. “And your lady has all of those. This house is on a growing ley line thanks to your mana generators pumping pure energy without end saturating the air. This much pure mana causes a mana sink which then causes the nearby ley lines to shift their path here.” He took a breath. “And for the record, she was human, AND, she is in the newest addition to the World Tree. This will probably take about four thousand years or more for her to regain consciousness. On the flip side, she will be one of the most powerful nature beings to exist in the cosmos. Even deities like your visitor won’t be able to touch her.”
Every negative emotion possible rocked my soul one after the other. Blinding white-hot anger at being alone, abandoned. Sticky, deep jealousy at the stark differences of power and lifespan. Wet and dark depression for realizing that the love of my life is no longer in it. Cloying despair and envy, realizing that maybe her wish was way better than mine, and that maybe she would truly be happy this way. Ugly infectious guilt, because she probably didn’t even know any of this.
“How could she?” I raged, my eyes turning red with the growing pain of my migraine.
[Calm down!] I thought, doing my best to rein in my wayward feelings. [How could she know that this could possibly separate us for millenia, or turn her into a tree, or that the wish would even be real? We were drunk! She didn’t even know what she was doing. Hell, I still didn’t know what I was doing. Man, I am low. I don’t even deserve her.]
Rath froze, just watching me. In my anger, my Sorcery conjured and banished over and over random floating blobs of wickedly sharp crimson ice that floated around next to ores of iron and stone with carnivorous plants sprouting out of them. Spikes of bone exploded out of my body only to vanish a second later. The spontaneous manifestations grew smaller as I tightly reeled in my emotions.
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Even though I pulled back my power, Rath still shrieked in fear.
“Calm down mortal, before I eat your MAGIK!”
The True Name for magic rocked me back with a blast I didn’t understand. The non-physical slap to the face brought me back to myself. In those few words, the little lizard’s aura flared, showing me his true form. The real self of Rath was larger than a freaking jet airliner and I felt hemmed in. All of his power at this moment crammed into this rather small basement, his soul wreathed in magma and raw physical power on a scale simple Earth creatures haven’t seen since the days before the Rending. My soul interpreted his true nature for a split second when he drew back the curtain on his true self.
It just pissed me off more.
I wasn’t thinking clearly, but then again, I didn’t care. Fuck this iguana. In fact, fuck them all.
I flicked on the rest of the generators with my mind, linked them to the house crystal battery, connected the main tether of power to Gungnir and cracked the mana output to the max. The entire process took a few split seconds as our auras squared off.
Now, several days ago, when I finished altering Gungnir, one of the ideas I had had was completely experimental, like most of the events of the past few days. I used a shard of the crystallized Chaos to make the spiraling spearpoint but I hadn’t really tested out the full capabilities. What I saw in that moment of mad inspiration is that the solidified embodiment of pure Chaos that formed my spearpoint could easily handle the amount of energy that would have instantly vaporized any living thing.
Gripping it with both hands, I set my feet and pointed Gungnir at Rath. “Don’t fucking threaten me, lizard.” I snarled, my rage easily returning as fast as a summer storm, my knuckles whitening under the strain. “Raw Chaos doesn’t care what you are.”
Crackles of shifting black lightning snaked up and down Gungnir’s base to its purple blade punctuating each word, my slipping control making the entire spear glow to match my growing anger.
Rath gulped. “What, did you say is in that spear exactly?” All traces of power and arrogance vanished as he slowly backed away until his scaly-butt hit the wall, his entire demeanor shrinking, trying to appear small and defenseless.
I wasn’t fooled. For a split second, I got to peek behind the curtain. “This.” I grinned, barely shaking Gungnir for emphasis while keeping the glowing blade pointed directly at Rath.
“This was forged from a ley line confluence not too far from here and then altered with a piece of crystal infused, Ripple-induced Chaos. And I’ve really only gotten to test it once.” I replied, my jaw hurting from the mad smile. Gungnir was still vacuuming up all of the mana being sent to it by three matter to mana generators. It started to shake harder in my hands, probably reaching its full capacity.
“Odin himself would love that spear.” Rath mumbled while he started to visibly shake with fear even as his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “And Hephestaus would love to take it apart.”
Everything in me yearned to end everything around me.
One of my favorite books from before the Ripple said something along the lines of, let the world burn and we’ll roast marshmallows in the flames. The problem here is that I have no one to roast those marshmallows with, so I can’t really let the world burn.
Yet.
Trying and barely succeeding at reigning in my emotions, I shunted the generators back to their original purposes and turned the power flow back to very low. Leaning my spear up against the wall and taking an obvious step back, I crossed my arms and leveled my gaze at the lizard. Taking a deep breath, I spoke very slowly and made sure to over-enunciate just to play to the fact that this primitive monkey had a very large gun.
“Look. I might be new to this whole fucking thing, Sorcery and monsters and fiancée trees, but do not underestimate me. This world is mine, it just doesn’t know it yet.”
Determination crystallized as I spoke. I hadn’t openly made any serious long term plans but clarity revealed itself as the tide of rage and loss returned to the dark corners of my soul, bringing with them my fears and doubts.
“If you play with the unbridled insanity and unstable calamity that is Chaos . . ” Rath whispered, trembling, “You might be just mad enough to do it.”
“Mad enough?” I sputtered, waving my arms around. “Evidently, I am beyond mad! Mad’s not even the right word! I know exactly what it takes to be considered a sane individual, I’ve done that my entire life! But since the Ripples have come and gone and changed everything and they aren’t even close to being done with this planet, maybe I don’t need to act like a nice little human.”
I let my imagination run wild as I spouted off crazy ideas. “Maybe I could do some fucked up shit and be Sorcerer-King! Think about it! Armies of flesh Sorcery-twisted goblins and dragons and huge ass eagle-crows at my beck and call, or maybe I’ll conjure some water and earth and nature elementals so that the very land the invaders step on rips them to shreds! I haven’t even sat down to think about what I’m capable of. What if the people that took all the humans come back for round two?!”
I looked mad, as in off-the-deep-end kind of mad. Is this how the Joker got to where he was? The creepy kind of sanity that’s a result of looking a bit far under the dirty skirt of reality? Maybe it sneaks up on you one step at a time.
Conjuring a bucketful of water and splashing myself with it to avoid yet another dark rabbit hole, I sat on a quickly conjured stone chair behind me. Rath’s current visage made it hard to believe that just a minute ago his true dragon self was shown to me in all its power and glory. I wasn’t impressed, simply tired. My anger drained from me as the water sluiced down my body and evaporated before it hit the ground.
“I’m sorry. I’m really not upset with you,” I apologized, one hand supporting my head. “It’s late, and I need sleep. You can stay here if you’d like, just don’t fuck with me. I don’t even know a better way to put it than that. Shit, I don’t even know what I’m gonna do.” I waved my hand and banished the puddle of urine beneath him, grabbing Gungnir as I went.
Upstairs, I plopped on the couch next to the shell of Elizabeth and glared at my pile of clean workout gear on the ground in front of me. “A couple thousand years huh?” I wondered to myself quietly. “I’m a motherfuckin sorcerer. I can hang on for a couple thousand years. Flesh Sorcery kicks Father Time’s butt after all.”
[But how?] I wondered, absently picking at the frayed couch. My second least favorite pillow propped up my head. [I need to cheat the system.]
Literally. I need to cheat Father Time, the endless march of the ticking clock. I could reverse old age, but could I do it easily? Could I do it often and what is the ultimate cost? Could I just stave off death, or did age heal like a wound? Letting my mind wander, I turned the problem over and over in my head, chewing on it with dogged persistence as I ran my musing past my sorcerous instincts.
[I’m young right now, could I simply put a semi-stasis or permanence enchantment on my cells so that they perfectly replicate their genetic code, effectively keeping me at my pseudo-twenty five?] I pondered, trying to come at this from every angle. [My first attempts at reversing age worked, kinda. I mean, I really didn’t know what I was doing, and still don’t actually know. Hmmm, Flesh Sorcery. Maybe I could incorporate some strands of DNA from a creature with ridiculous longevity into my own, but how far am I willing to go?]
That got to me. How far am I willing to go? How far are any of us willing to go? And does that mindset change as circumstances do? Take away a man’s wife and children and push his back against the wall and then give him just one more push. At that very point of complete personal loss, what exactly is left to lose? His life? Isn’t that worthless without someone to share it with? Isn’t the grand meaning of being a man lost without something to protect, something to care for, something worth living for?
Purpose. We do what we do because it's ingrained in the very building blocks of who we are but we are at our most dangerous when those very limiters on the constraints of unbridled purpose are loosed.
Conjuring a stone box six-inches across and deep, I imprinted a rune of stasis or timelessness on the lid, a broken hourglass wrapped in a chain within the confines of a great circle. Then on the bottom of the box, I shaped a rune of sealing, a picture of an actual ‘Ar Ar’ fat arctic seal, because magic follows intent more than structure. I laughed to myself a bit trying to lighten the moment.
No one would figure that shit out. It’s too stupid to fail.
Using Flesh Sorcery, I smoothly opened a vein and poured blood into the open box until it was half full and then healed my wrist. On the underside of the lid, I shaped a rune of ice into the inside of the box and made sure to focus on the intent of freshness combined with the longevity of a northern glacier. Closing the box checking to make sure it was airtight, I put it on former-Elizabeth and sunk it into her empty shell of a chest using Nature Sorcery.
“Here babe. A literal piece of me. If I ever get too crazy or twisted somehow, I can come back here and rewrite my biology back to old me with this.” The World Tree, linked through Elizabeth’s tangential root, recognized my magic, the one that brought it up and protects it and feeds it the purest of mana, swallowed the box down and sent it out of range of my senses.
[Good night babe. I’ll be here, even if I have to wait a few thousand years.]