Coffee addiction must be a real thing, but more than that, it must be a super real thing, because the first act I did after finding out that my long-lost magical ancestor was the baseline for the stories of Zeus’ rutting habits was to go make some damn coffee. That wonderful bitter nectar from heaven might just be the bedrock of my sanity. I mean, I know there was a whole pitcher of it on the table in the main room, but I just had to go through the motions of making some more.
Conjuring water to fill a stone pot, heating water in the pot by touching the candle shaped rune for ‘heat’ with a finger full of mana, pouring it into the big french press I saved before everything went to hell, carefully pouring a large helping of Baileys from my stash into the bottom of my mug and smelling the lovely combination of heavenly flavors as I strained the coffee to make the most comforting drink ever invented. And there I stood at my granite counter, slowly sipping the first bit of alcohol that I’ve had in weeks, and Holy fuckin Moly did it taste good!
I could see Merlin through the doorway, still sitting at the table with Reeanth. She was gushing over his every word, fangirling hard as he laughed and drank, just having a jolly ol’ time. Maybe I can play the family card and get some info for once that is actually useful. Gathering my wits steadied by a liberal amount of the good stuff, I made another Irish coffee for Merlin, collected my butt and sat it back down at the table with authority.
“So what’s really going on?” I asked as I slid the mug over to him. “You shagged a bunch of people way back when, and now you’re here?” I didn’t let his sheepish face keep me from a bit of a rant, although Reeanth’s glaring may have slowed it down a touch. “Seriously Merlin, I get that we might be related, but it’s gotta be like the grandmother’s, boyfriend’s, third cousin to the umpteenth power. What gives?”
“Yes, what gives Merlin?”
Goosebumps bigger than softballs ran down my spine at those words, because I couldn’t tell where they came from. I’m not gay, but that was weirdly the most sexy voice of a masculine flavor that ever spoke, and those weren’t even words meant to seduce. It put the Mr. Clean voice to shame.
“That’s not funny, Gav’riel,” Merlin said, calmly sipping his coffee, focusing his eyes at a spot several feet above and off to the right of me. “I can talk to my descendants some if I want to, especially the ones that actually show some potential.”
“You know the strictures of the BAN!”
“If the kid’s not an idiot, he’s already figured it out.”
I kept real still. I didn’t feel anything with my magical senses, just heard the voice from nowhere.
“Besides, angelic paladins? Really?” Merlin’s eyes hardened. “Or are you going the route of your fallen brethren? Astria pushed the bounds pretty far but you, awakened half-bloods? Again?”
“CHOICE IS NEVER VIOLATED!” Bright light bereft of pressure and sound exploded behind me. My body froze as my eyes tracked what could only be described as absolute masculine perfection stepping into reality. The heavenly humanoid floated ominously towards Merlin, its white and golden wings not flapping. The pressure in the room dropped, as if a compressed storm was psyching itself up for a prize fight.
Merlin’s eyes sharpened as he spoke, both his gaze and tone vying for the right to shred the Angel. “Except for mine.”
Continuing on as if Merlin hadn’t said a thing, Gav’riel said, “Besides, We of the Host have not bestowed boon nor judgment in this realm for several millennia.”
“Dude, this shit is nuts,” Gungnir whispered to me audibly as a cartoonish picture of me sneakily backing away popped into my head. “Let’s get while the gettin’s good.”
The laser focused ire of the intruder broke off from Merlin and landed on me. “Necromancer!” Gav’riel shouted. Turning back to Merlin, it pointed its oddly shaped weapon that appeared out of nowhere at him. “Since when does the Protector of Man sit with the defilers of the dead, the slayers and chainers of souls?”
My quiet backing up got a lot louder real quick as I turned and sprinted for the tunnel leading to the under-river bolthole. My magical senses barely let me know in time that something invisible, but definitely made of magic, barred my way as my body reacted to my panic. Planting one foot while pivoting blindly towards the only direction not blocked off put me right back in front of what could only be an Angel, and one that for some reason didn’t like me.
Truly awesome power erupted where the Angel was, light and sound and power all magnificently choreographed to carefully and perfectly let me know how pitiful and small I was. The sensation of insignificance washed over and through me as the presence of an Angel muted my existence. The effortless lightshow blasted me into the magical walls behind me, which I bounced off of and landed on my chest. An awful tearing sound in time with something getting ripped off my shoulder didn’t herald good news.
“Don’t you see, Merlin? A necromancer. One of your brood, which would make him the most powerful of them, if given time.”
Slowly and painfully propping myself up on my elbows, I saw that the floating warrior made of light was holding Gungnir, who had been attached to my armor just a second ago. I couldn’t even feel the mental link while Gav’riel’s hand cradled my weapon.
“Look again,” Merlin chuckled. “Not only did you harm a mortal in your misjudgement, but that’s not even what you think it is. Damn, for all the light you put out, you have sure gotten dim.”
I could see the Angel’s field of vision as light shot through with purple and green to scan the ball. “This is a soul, Merlin! Or, at least a part of it. The human must have eaten the rest of it already.”
“Look at the human Gav’riel, and then look a bit deeper. Tell me, whose soul does it remind you of? Care to take another look?”
The green and purple lights left off scanning Gungnir and turned to me. Suffice to say, it wasn’t pleasant. It was the combined experience of a doctor lasering a patient closed after surgery and a dentist all up in your mouth examining your gums when you know you haven’t flossed as much as you should have, and then add your mother’s worst nagging on top of it.
“His own soul?” Gav’riel said. “What depraved and ignorant idiot would be dumb enough to use their own soul in making a tool?”
Merlin chuckled again. “Apparently, ‘one of my brood’.”
Gathering my courage, or my stupidity, I growled at the Angel as I fixed my cracked ribs with Flesh Sorcery. “Then fix it.”
“What?”
“I said, fix it!” I spat. “If I’m so dumb and depraved and I fucked up, then fix it, but in a way that Merlin over there would approve of. I take it from y’alls conversation that one of you messing with a mortal maybe has some dire consequences, so you owe me. Fix it, or owe me a favor.”
The Voice of the Host deepened, shaking the entire cavern. “You dare to command me, Third of the Host, the Herald of the Most High, the Horn of all the Seven Heavens!”
Merlin’s laughter nearly drowned out Gav’riel’s outburst. I never thought I’d see a historical figure spray coffee out through his nose. “Oh ya got him by the small hairs now, boy!” Merlin roared, his feet kicking as if he were being tickled. “Take him for all he’s worth! Angels don’t get themselves twisted up very often!”
Gav’riel’s glare evoked the image of a thousand burning suns while thunder boomed from everywhere and nowhere.
“You know what . . .” I said, swiping my hand at Gav’riel and then pointing up. “Fuck it. Don’t fix that, fix my wife.”
“What?” Confusion stopped the impotent rage of the Angel as he flew closer to me, intense beams of light scanning me up and down. “What wife? All bonds of matrimony are recorded in the Book and celebrated for eternity by the Seraphs, but no such cord wraps your heart.”
Pointing up at the root of the fledgling World Tree that adorned the center of the room as it plunged down into the earth, I kept going, my voice getting more intense. “My wife! She was my fiancée, the love of my life, we were going to get married in two months before this stupid apocalypse happened and now she’s in a FUCKING TREE!”
Merlin’s laughter cut off. Painful silence ruled as I took a moment to gather myself. The painful ache in my chest deepened with every beat as all the hurt I had pushed down in order to survive began clawing its way back.
“Just bring her back. Please.”
The illuminated glare of Gav’riel’s gaze softened from blazing sunlight to a light spring day as he scanned both the room and the nearby root of Yggdrasil and then looked back at me. “Of all the things you could ask for from the Host, you ask for this? All the possibilities of power and you ask for the redemption of another, one who’s fate or heart isn’t entwined with your own?”
“Uh, Gav . . . ” Merlin interrupted. “This is one favor you can’t grant.”
My pain whipped me around. “What d . . “
“Not your fault, boy,” Merlin interrupted again. “He hasn’t even taken a look yet. Trumpet boy, you’re a bit confused here. His wife isn’t that lady over there.” Merlin’s finger was pointing at the fainted figure of Reeanth in the doorway of the kitchen. “She’s up there.”
Gav’riel looked up. Like rumbling thunder, the raw ambient noise that accompanied the Heralding Angel, a soft music reminiscent of a gentle rain at a funeral began to emanate from the core of the Host.
“Yeah, I figured,” Merlin said sadly. “Nothing we can do but wait.”
“He didn’t even say anything,” I said as I slumped helplessly to my knees. Gav’riel knelt beside me.
“You heard my sorrow, the music that called to your own tortured soul?” He asked.
I barely nodded as I tried to look Gav’riel in the eyes. It was too intense, but not in the way of burning your pupils, which it almost did. There was too much Truth there, as if my soul was not ready to step up to an angel’s. It hurt in the way that a judge looks at a convict, already knowing that the convict is guilty, with every sin and unclean part laid bare. This light wasn’t kind, it just was. It was clean. The way bleach cleans, by killing everything. A cleansing pyre.
“That music is the only thing angels and humans have in common. It is a higher form of communication that we use consciously.”
“That’s enough Gav’riel!” Merlin cut in. “He’s too young to be that close to you. You might harm him further.”
The light dimmed considerably as the Host vanished from sight. “I haven’t left,” a voice spoke as Merlin and I looked around. “But the Wild One is correct, on many accounts. I have made more than one misjudgement here today, a first for me in a very long time. I cannot help you with your beloved, but do know that she is safe and in very good hands. Nothing less than one such as I can get near her. It’s rather remarkable that you can.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
My brooding silence didn’t mean anything to the Host. He continued when I said nothing. “Regarding your favor as you asked for the salvation of the soul of another instead of your own, I’ll grant two boons. Both of which I shall choose.”
Gungnir, laying on the ground at my feet in spherical form, shot into the air, spinning so fast it turned into a blur. Suddenly, it went dark. A flash of light immediately followed by an entire orchestra’s symphony packed into a two second experience washed over everything from the invisible form of Gav’riel.
“The first boon is the restoration of your soul fragment from your weapon, with your own soul.” Gungnir flowed into a spear and fell tip first into the ground at my feet. I watched as it quivered in the stone floor.
“The weapon will still work. It certainly doesn’t need any enhancement that I can give. The benefits of having yourself whole once more are many, but there are two you will notice the most. Your powers will affect your mind less as your soul is whole once again. And your internal mana-well is much larger than before.”
The ache in my heart where my wife resided pulsed hard enough for my Flesh Sorcery to instinctively check that I wasn’t having a heart attack. Nope, just fresh emotional pain, or is it soul pain?
Gav’riel kept going, interrupting my thoughts. “The second amendment is a healing of your companion, accompanied by a mote of knowledge to balance the scales. The higher star known as Astraea, the one who violated the Strictures by harming you. I have been allowed to let you know that she has been encumbered. If she strikes at you, she may only do it through her mortal followers, and even then she is greatly weakened. I have spent too long here. Merlin, a word.”
Another blinding flash of light and both the Angel and Merlin were gone. Absent the awfully brilliant being of light, cooling shadows regained their supremacy as I looked up in shock from where I knelt, turning my attention to the root connecting to where my wife rested in her arboreal cocoon.
Loneliness struck again, harder this time. “Hey babe, got some good news.” If wounds of the soul could actually bleed then my pain would have killed me in this moment. Biting my tongue, I forced myself to project some optimism. “You’re safe enough that I don’t actually have to worry about you as much. I got it on pretty good authority too.”
As I took a ragged breath, a deep bark cut off my monologue.
I heard that. I freaking heard a ‘woof’. My body flew on its own, around the stone table, through the well-runed tunnel door, down the softly lit tunnel itself, toenail scratching sounds speeding my steps as I reached the door to the under-river bolt hole hurling it open.
“SPOT!!!”
I screamed with sheer joy as I saw my gigantic mutt for the first time in what felt like years. I couldn’t stop my eyeballs from leaking as I jumped on his massive head that was easily big enough to fit three of me. But he wasn’t comfy. I slid off his head to give him a good look.
“Back up, and sit.” I commanded as I pulled out a runed lightstone from my pocket to get a better look at him. “Fucking hell dog, you trying to commit copyright infringement?” I muttered joyfully to myself. “You look like Clifford the big red dog had a threesome with Skeletor and a dragon!”
My restored canine was red, and not just any red, but the scaly kind of fire engine red. Every bit of fur that a dog usually has was replaced with large crimson scales, his eyebrows had bulges of bone armor that seemed to form a smooth helmet specifically made for ramming or brutal headbutts. His fluffy tail was now a thick whip of scale-covered muscle and ridges of knobby armor-like bone curved down his back and adorned his knees. This pseudo-dragon tank of a dog with more raw mana packed into his frame than a freaking magic bomb sat in front of me like a proud puppy, his tongue lolling out and bits of drool hitting the floor and sizzling.
A soft whine escaped his humongous jaw and I caught a glimpse of teeth that were way too big to fit in there comfortably. “Holy Cow! Whoa boy!” I said in wonder as I examined his fangs. Looking down, normal toenails were now ebony-esque claws that cracked the solid stone floor as he shifted his prodigious weight. A fermented smell wafted up to my nose, drawing my attention over to the corner of the cavern. Besides the old broken-open cocoon, a large pile of brown material lay there steaming.
“You better be worth it,” I grumbled as I lovingly gave my pup a hug. “Let’s get you and this place cleaned up huh?”
Several hours later, Spot and I sat on the bank of the Rappahannock river, enjoying the fading light of the evening sun. It had been a total pain in the ass to excavate the dog poo and the now much larger dog, from the cavern. I also made sure to take care of Reeanth, putting her in a chair in the under-tree bolthole and using a bit of Flesh Sorcery to put her in a deeper sleep. The sight of the Angel didn’t have as good of an effect on her. I remember stories about angels from when I was a kid, back when my parents took me to church.
The soldiers of the Heavenly Host were either associated with giving good news to the masses or passing judgment and brimstoning cities to dust. The Good Book talked about whole crowds of people falling over themselves, weeping, or fearing for their lives when they saw an angel. I mean, they’re pretty much the self-guided nukes of the Big Guy, so I didn’t blame her. Better passing out than risking another Sodom and Gomorrah.
For the first time in a long while, I felt a measure of peace. Having Spot back was one worry that I didn’t have to think about anymore, but what really did it was the divine reassurance that my wife Elizabeth is ok. I felt like I could finally let go, exhale for once. This whole time I’d been running around while holding my breath, not knowing shit, and trying to punch way outside of my weight class. But now, I could breathe. Elizabeth was fine, is fine, and is going to be ok.
The sun dipped down a bit lower, crowning the mountains not too far off in the distance. I remember when those used to be hills, and that waterfall didn’t use to be there either. How much more of this mudball is magic going to change? I already freaked out three times on the short walk to the river from my house because floating islands are suddenly a thing.
Spot loved the floating islands, always thinking that they were closer than what they were. Every time he saw one, he bounced and jumped as high up as he could. The reverberating booms of his landing scared off all nearby wildlife, which was good as it led to a few solid hours of actual peace. No monsters, no craziness, no magic, and no worries. Spot lay down and coiled his big heat-exuding body around me, forming a living wall. Basking in comfort, I passed out.
******
Chirping birds, the morning sun, and the incredible, all-powerful, undying primal desire to pee woke me up. I posted one arm on Spot’s tail and vaulted in a hurry to the nearest tree to relieve myself. Pure bliss.
Looking around after finishing my business, I saw that Spot was still passed out in a giant red ball of snoring. A quickly conjured ball of water took the place of a shower but it was good enough. My stomach rumbled but I silenced it with a whisper of magic.
Sitting next to Spot and leaning on him, I started to consider where to go from here. One part of me was chewing over the events of the past day and the other part was arguing with it. My emotional well being was in a better place, mainly due to the good news of the angel confirming that Elizabeth was ok.
On the other hand, my logic was railing at me for wasting an angelic favor like that. The emotional side smacked back in the manner of, ‘How could you say such a thing?’ while the logical side reasoned that with our mix of sorceries we could have figured out that Elizabeth was just fine, if we had stopped even once to do a super in-depth examination.
Then the in-charge part of my mind told the other bits to shut the hell up, because none of it matters. It’s already over so nothing could change.
The curious side of me spoke up though, “What about Gungnir? How come we didn’t wish for our family back? Is the Big Guy even real? Could I use the World Tree to magic my way into one of the heavens?”
The in-charge part again said shut up and addressed the only concern that I realistically could: The Angel said that I was now whole, and that a bunch of things were going to be better because of it. What better time to do a dive than right now? Spot will keep away anything too hungry for its own good.
Closing my eyes, I started with regulating my breathing, because what the hell do I know about self-examination? After a few minutes, I started consciously feeling out my magic, going through the tendrils of colors woven into my soul.
I couldn’t feel my soul itself, but I knew that Sorcery was somehow related to it, which meant that I could work backwards. I slowly conjured and banished idle bits of ice and water and dirt, feeling the flex of my soul, my will, working the mana. From there, I did trace the flow of power inwards. Using my imagination, I pictured my soul in the visage of a human tree like the first tree version of Elizabeth, but with my face and body. My energies are all spur of the moment, but with enough foresight that they worked together.
Earth and water, nature and flesh, the basic elements were linked together with the Sorcery of magic itself acting as a glue, forming a naturally beautiful but literally ugly picture in my head. The feet of my anthropomorphized soul showed as compacted dirt, while my toes were long spears of stone gripping the earth itself. Water twisted up my wooden legs while leaves of pure magic sprouted out of the fleshy torso. Underneath my feet ran thick streams of brightly colored energies that I interpreted as ley lines while my arms and head were unattached translucent bodies of consciousness.
As I sat there concentrating on the freaky personification of my magic, the details became clearer as my pulse slowed just a bit more. I focused on the arms and head. They were literally separate from the rest of the body of sorceries, floating about four inches away from each spot where they were supposed to be attached. My heart slowed a bit more as my will walked closer to the tree-me, searching for what was keeping me apart.
Nothing, there was a barrier of nothing separating the blobs of consciousness. My body looked like the partial stump of a tree, half moving with the barest spark of conscious life.
[The blood jar! Fuck me! I left it in the damn tree hideout!] I cursed, my thoughts as loud on the inside as I was quiet on the outside. No wonder, I had acquired the mixed bag Sorcery of will/life/consciousness, but I hadn’t actually used it. [Damn I’m an idiot sometimes.]
Shaking my head and pulling out of the internal examination, I kicked Spot awake and rode up on his back all the way home. He’s so big and tough now that it takes a real solid kick from a normal human to wake the damn dog.
Carefully but quickly gaining entrance to my hideout, I saw that Reeanth was still passed out on the chair and the precious blood jar was sitting on the stone table. [Weird . . .] I thought, [I don’t remember actually putting it down.] I pulsed out my magic making sure that no intruders were around, and I looked back at Spot who was laying down facing the door from the outside, his big head taking up most of the entryway.
No growls or signs from Spot letting me know that I should be uncomfortable. Walking up to the jar, I saw that a note filled with almost doctor-level handwriting was underneath it. Moving the jar to the side, I took about ten minutes to decode that horrible handwriting.
Yes you dummy, you forgot all about the jar because you’re an idiot with no sense of priorities, so I, in my wild graciousness, decided to keep it safe and out of sight from Flemel and the Foghorn (that’s the angel in case you couldn’t figure that out). People can do some freaky shit to you if they get ahold of something like this. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, since time doesn’t matter to me, but I may show up again. Or I may not. Enjoy the fruits of your sneaky universe-cheating labor. Don’t worry about Flamel, he’s going bonkers testing some zombie spices a couple octaves away. Your lady is fine, which the trumpet boy told you, but what he didn’t tell you was that your magic making rock is powering her up in such a way that it would take a colliding planet to harm her, literally. So, you’re basically off the hook for the next couple thousand years. Go on, have fun, use magic, conquer shit, that kinda thing. Might be nice if you could make this dirtball a quiet vacation home for me, hint hint. Hop to it. Also, your weapon ball still works, but the piece of your soul animating it is back inside of you, so have fun being alone. Also, no, you can’t magic your way into heaven through Yggdrasil, tried that and they weren’t too happy about it, something about how I “didn’t earn it” and “didn’t have anything resembling faith”. Lame. Oh, and sorry about your liquor, I drank it all as payment for all my good deeds. Now, the last bit of advice that I can get away with, not all of your family is gone.
I stared numbly at the yellowed parchment.
[That’s it. Seriously? No more, just a little bit of fuckery at the end, something to send me on my way with? Which family members? Where are they? How many?]
As my hands shook, a bit of light from the door caught the back of the paper showing smudges. Carefully, I turned the paper over and read the rest.
HAHAHA! Just kidding, we old people gotta have fun sometimes! I mean, I’m not really kidding but I’m not gonna leave ya hanging like that. Your next youngest brother is alive and well, roughly a thousand miles south of here, in what you humans called “Miami”. Oh yeah, the Centauri have also claimed that area, so have fun! P.S. There’s a dude about forty miles east of you who might help, but you’ll have to help him first.
Equal parts relief and worry caused my hands to split the note just a bit at the top. Shards of various instinctive plans bounced around in my head like frantic pinballs loaded up on some high quality cocaine. Help out some dude forty miles away or find my brother who’s a thousand miles away? How the hell am I going to do that?
Uhm, recapture Norn and fly him around? Go after that oversized gator and bring him to the coast, then head on down? Maybe ride Kong and make a giant animal army to storm the area? How about an earthquake, can I make my own earthquake?
Exactly how do I go about this? Does my brother even want to come back with me? Because I’m ok with leaving the immediate area for a bit, since I know Elizabeth is safe for now, but my paranoia won’t let me stay gone for too long. What am I gonna do with Reeanth, or the damn hillbillies? I felt strangely responsible for those four knuckleheads, but my priorities had taken a massive shift in the past three minutes. Looking up at the blood jar and then back down to the note, I carefully folded it and put it in my pocket. No time like the present.
Grabbing the contained Sorcery, I walked over to Reeanth and nudged her foot with mine while belting out the most annoying good morning children’s song I could think of.
“RISE AND SHINE AND GIVE GOD THE GLORY, GLORY!” My lovely singing voice in the tone of a nasally child woke the sleeping soldier out of a magically-deepened dead-slumber.
I should have expected the obviously violent reaction to being woken up in such a manner. Luckily for me, I was still decked out in all of my magical gear with every shield activated, so the blast of raw magic just got sucked into Svalinn. Holding my blood jar in front of me with both hands, I shook it just a little.
“So, how the hell do I use this thing?” Her gaze followed my own to rest on her blood jar, which was tightly clenched in her left hand. She had had a death grip on it since yesterday, which Merlin would have given high praise for. “Don’t tell me I gotta drink my own freaking blood, come on?”
“Coffee.” She grumbled blearily, standing up on shaky legs. “I need coffee.” Rubbing at her eyes, Reeanth stumbled off to the kitchen. She trudged back a few minutes later carefully holding a pot of coffee with two mugs and her blood jar. Pouring both of us a cup, she sipped her coffee and stared at the crimson depths of her jar. “I never thought I’d be staring at this,” she started, focusing her whole frame on the blood jar, her right hand listlessly holding the coffee. “This, this is pure power.”
My face scrunched just a tiny bit. “Ya know, I never really got the chance to ask you what kind of Sorcery you went for . . .'' I said. “Get anythin’ good?”
She seemed to come back to herself after losing herself in thought for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she set the blood jar down. “Sorcery of Sight, my lord.”
I shot her a look. “I’m gonna need a bit more information than that. Clearly you’re not blind, so . . . “
“Sorcerous sight. I’ll be able to see magic, in all its flaws and glory. Most wizards muck their way along, barely feeling the power they hold, like a surgeon performing heart surgery with a blindfold on. They know what they’re supposed to be doing, but without sight to guide them, think of how crude their constructs must be. With this,” she gestured at the jar, “I’ll be able to wield magic of perfect efficiency, see the kind of magic my enemies use, see magic invisible to most, spot flaws and inefficiencies in enchantments and more.”
“Damn, that’s actually pretty fucking cool, and very insightful.” As I said that, a trace of fear made its way to the surface of her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take it from you, sheesh. I mainly want to know how to use the damn thing. See, here’s my jar.”
Setting my own in front of hers, I noticed for the first time that they were actually different colors. Yes, they were both red from the blood, but mine was a solid crimson, the deepest of reds, while hers was a lighter, almost watered down red bordering on orange. But while mine was mostly solid with a few striations of gold, probably due to having the literal focus of me-ness, hers had a rainbow of particles glittering throughout.
“My lord, it is a blood jar. If you properly created it, then all you need to do is put some mana into it and it will form a glass needle which will pump the contents inside of you. Then you will need to internalize it.”
Draining the rest of her coffee that had cooled off in our talk, Reeanth raised her blood jar and poured mana into it until the jar morphed into a sphere, which then proceeded to form a thin point at the bottom part.
“For power! For honor! For righteous service!” She intoned, bringing the point down and stabbing it into the meat of her thigh like an epi-pen. I watched as the blood jar’s contents drained into her leg. As it emptied, the glass container shrank perfectly until it was just a needle jutting out of her thigh. With a breath of air, the glass dissolved and blew away.
Slumping over onto the table to get closer, I tenderly reached out my hand and set it on her shoulder, letting my magical senses feel out the process.
The red glow of power had already sunk into her thigh and shot up the veins, straight into her heart. The mass of thickened mana stayed until all of the Sorcery gathered, then shot up again into the brainstem where it pounded away at her brain like waves on the shore, slowly molding the soft tissue. The weird part was that my own Sorcery of Magic was showing me how the Sorcery lost some of its power because it had to flow to where it needed to go, instead of being directly input into her brain. All the tissue between the insertion point and its destination was mucking up the process.
Maybe she should have stuck it in her ear. Monitoring the process and seeing as a whole, I couldn’t help myself. Reaching inside of her leg with my magical senses, I began to pour mana that was perfectly neutral into it and used it to gather the sight-based Sorcery. I coaxed the missed remnants up to the brain. I had to take it slow as my magic was on the cusp of being rejected by her body. Bits of her Sorcery were left in various parts of the veins going to the heart; a third of the overall portion resided in her heart, and another small part got stuck in her neck, kinda hanging near her vocal cords.
Taking my time to unravel the bits of scattered mess, I gathered up the fragments from where they stuck, pieced them together and fed them up through the brainstem to reconnect with the rest of the Sorcery, which showed up as bright blood that was contrasting with the rest of her system. Shit man, maybe I should have gotten some more magical sight, cause from what I could tell, mine was like a kid’s crappy microscope and hers was a damn telescope and electron microscope rolled into one.