In which I have finally (maybe) figured out how I can see this place.

Yes, yes, I’m titling things like that now. I don’t know, it seems to fit the topsy-turvey that I find myself in.

Based on what I’ve learned so far:

Magic is real and magic users (usually mages, but there are others) are usually born of families of mage lineage. Occasionally, there’s an old bloodline that pops up from a dormant bloodline, but that’s a rarity. And it’s worth mentioning that Lucy estimates that there’s probably only a few hundred mages in the world, wild and initiated. Hardly the sort of thing one needs a grand conspiracy to hide.

Next - lycanthropes are real. They tend to live in dens (no, really, that’s what they call them). They tend to be wealthy, but quiet and keep to themselves. This is apparently the result of some battle back in 1357 between Eastern and Western families and a resulting concordat which established a kind of permanent ‘how we shall act’. Warren has said that there have been several attempts to break the concordat, but that they have been deliberately and very thoroughly put down. The concordat council is apparently very heavily invested in baseline business these days and so is equivalently invested in ensuring that while their people should still get to be their people, no unreasonable exposure is made. Again, no grand conspiracy to hide, just a kind of… mutual understanding on a need for privacy and not the ‘we should be ruling the world, not hiding’ front.

Most of both of which I’ve already described. Now for some of what I haven’t touched on (or have only vaguely touched on). It helps that I got access to the equivalent of magical Wikipedia.

Sorcerors, warlocks, and various types of magicians do exist and are largely under the above ‘magic users’ title. Again - they’re pretty rare and while they aren’t overly smug about it, they do occupy a kind of niche in the world. Like the lycanthropes, they police their own, rather heavily or so I’m given to understand. Rennet, the bookshop mage (apparently he’s an apprentice by their standards), was actually surprised that I hadn’t been visited by the equivalent of the wizard investigators, what with me being a ‘wild’ mage. Which of course leads back where I started the story in terms of figuring out why I can see this building when, as far as I know, I’m a baseline.

I suspect Rennet reported me to said wizard investigators, since the trio that showed up outside my door were very clearly here on official business and while they did not look like the comforting sort, they reminded me more of social workers than grisled police detectives. Even if one of them was smoking a cigar (which curiously smelled like strawberries and not the usual tobacco smell).

“Are you Sam Evermore?” the lead one asked. In as far as I could tell, the lead was a woman. Unlike the local witch, this… woman didn’t look like a woman or rather straddled non-binary to such a point as to be difficult to distinguish. The plain brown clothing that looked semi-anachronistic put me in mind of Capt. Reynolds. Close cropped hair, brown eyes, and skin that was neither sun warmed nor pale.

“I am. And you might be?” I asked, standing there with the door open, but very clearly blocking the way in.

“We are the local magic users’ enforcement team. May we come in?” the lead asked.

“Not yet. Please tell me what this is about,” I prompted. Most of my limited experience with baseline police was to treat them with care. They could be helpful, but even helpful police will still arrest you if you’re caught on the wrong side of the line and since I was in an environment where I knew nothing about what laws or rule sets I might be likely to break, like visiting a foreign country 200 years ago, I didn’t want to put myself at an obvious disadvantage.

“You have not registered with us,” the lead said, flatly.

“I was not aware that I needed to,” was my equally flat response.

“All magic users are required to register, in compliance with the Charter of 1856,” she said. It put me in mind of a lawyer or perhaps a prosecutor, one who is about to say that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

“How and where was I to be informed of this requirement given my recent discovery of magical society?” I asked after a moment.

The two in back looked at one another. Apparently they had been expecting me to claim ignorance in some other way, not in committing to not having been even asked to register. The lead looked over her shoulder at the one to her left.

“You said you’d visited him already,” she half-way snarled.

“I…. might have done,” came a kind of simpering response from a man who looked like a linebacker. It was very clear that he was being called out on something that he’d claimed to have done, but very evidently hadn’t. If he hadn’t been wearing a sort of brown leather duster, he might have looked more at home in an American football jersey with pads and a helmet. His strange smelling cigar smoked slightly.

The lead looked over her other shoulder at the other attendee. A woman, at least more obviously so, but not showily. She looked to be middle-aged, but was clearly younger than the man and the lead. Her clothing was the same semi-anachronistic garb that the lead was wearing.

“Tran, signature trace,” was the command the lead ordered.

Tran pulled a small tablet out with a massive number of runes on the outside of it and tapped at it a moment.

“Sam Evermore is correct. He has not been in contact with an agent,” Tran replied after a moment.

The lead’s head snapped around back to the linebacker.

“We’ll discuss this back at the office. You know my rules,” the lead snarled in such tones that even Sam felt a chill in the air from the very words.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Turning back to Sam, the lead appeared to soften a bit.

“As a newly discovered magic user, it is our job to help you come to understand the rules and guidelines of the non-baseline world that you now are a part of. Would you be available for an interview?” the lead tried a not-as-flat voice, but it didn’t work on her and despite the softening of the voice, I wasn’t thrilled about it either. By the sound of things, they were here to haul me in for failing to abide by their rules.

“Look, I haven’t had a scan done. I’m not sure if I’m even ready to be interviewed,” I admitted.

“That’s still perfectly acceptable. We would still like the opportunity to trace your lineage if we can, so that we have it on file when your scan is recorded,” the lead said, in a no-nonsense sort of way. It reminded me of a principal or school master. The sort who hates all the paperwork, but understands that it must be this way or else chaos reigns.

“Alright, but I’ll only allow Tran in,” I said, pointing to the younger woman.

This was clearly not part of the normal procedure, as evidenced by the linebacker’s scowl and the lead’s shifting expressions, but it wasn’t as though they had much choice, at least for now. Tran looked a bit surprised, but overcame it quickly.

I stepped back a bit and Tran stepped up to the door and through the doorway into the apartment. I closed the door on her two compatriots.

“Now, that’s done with, how about some tea?” I offered, walking towards the kitchen

“Thank you. I suppose I should begin interviewing you. So what kind of mage are you?” Tran asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Well what kind of magic can you do?” she tried.

“I don’t know. What kinds are there?” I wasn’t stalling, but I definitely didn’t want to give any more than I had to.

“Well, there’s elemental, scrolls, enchanting, and, uh, torquay,” she explained, stumbling over the last one.

“The first three sound pretty self-explanatory. What’s that last one?” I filled the electric kettle to the 2nd mark and set it to going.

“It’s a kind of… catch-all for extraplanar magics that don’t follow one of the other three, at least in as far as we understand them,” Tran explained.

“So a djinn would fall under elemental obviously, but where would a lycanthrope fall under?” I tried.

Tran looked at me in a funny way and cocked her head to one side.

“A lycanthrope isn’t magical,” she said, as if reciting from a book.

“Could have fooled me. I shouldn’t think a transformation like that would be possible except with magic,” I could tell that there was more there that wasn’t being said, but decided not to press it.

“In any case, I don’t know that I fall into any of those 4 categories,” I explained.

“You’re not being very helpful,” Tran tried to fall back on the lead’s temperament.

“It’s hard to be helpful when you don’t know anything about who or what you supposedly are,” I pressed back.

Tran sighed a bit.

“Look, is there a way I can get the scan done and then contact you lot? I might not even be a wild mage, at least not by your standards,” I offered up, the hot water finishing bubbling and I began pouring into a disposable cup. I always kept a few around for guests.

“I suppose that would be acceptable. And in the meantime, we do have a questionnaire you’re supposed to fill out,” Tran appeared to take this better than I think her lead might have.

“Can you sent it to my WizMail account?”

“Certainly. What’s the address?” she appeared to perk up at this sign of cooperation.

“[email protected],” I spelled it out. “Although I’m still not sure what the .epr stands for.”

“Earth Primary Realm,” she called out as she entered the address into her tablet. “It’s a hold-over from the initial creation of the network over top of the baseline internet.”

“Ah, well, I am certainly familiar with those,” I said.

“So what do you do, at least as far as what baselines consider a job?” she asked.

“I’m a kind of technical consultant. I work for Edin, Nurem, and Guten,” I offered up.

“Oh, they’re a good firm,” Tran responded.

“Are they involved in non-baseline work at all?” I asked, hoping for a connection.

“Not that I know of, but it’s not impossible,” Tran said after screwing her face up in a few moment’s concentration. “What makes you ask?”

“Just trying to figure out why my ‘magic’ discovery happened recently,” I managed to not lie or be too patently vague.

“Well, we don’t actually know what triggers it. Sometimes, it’s environmental, sometimes, it’s magic, and sometimes, well, it just happens,” Tran shrugged.

A peal of thunder sounded outside.

“Oh, looks like we’re going to get some rain after all,” Tran said, looking towards the windows.

“I can appreciate the rain, but I don’t go outside in t-storms,” I smiled, handing her the disposable cup with a bag of a cinnamon tea that wasn’t too obtrusive, but wasn’t lacking in flavor/scent.

“Well, that’s usually good advice, but why not?” Tran looked over at me.

“I am kind of lightning rod. I’ve been hit a few times and have had enough close calls that I stay indoors when there’s lightning,” I explained.

Tran’s face screwed up in concentration for a few moments and then it was as though a lightbulb went off over her head.

“You’ve been hit by lightning several times?” she asked, almost excitedly, gesturing with the rather full cup of liquid as though it weren’t almost scalding temperature.

“Yup. Got the scars to prove it too,” I smiled a bit.

“Well that means you’re probably some kind of elemental mage then. That’ll make all the paperwork much simpler,” Tran was now grinning as though I had just let her in on some fantastic secret.

“Really? How so?” I prompted.

“Well, elemental mages tend to have a kind of focus. Lightning is rare, but not unheard of. But the key difference is that lightning can even affect baselines. Usually baselines just end up burned, soaked, frozen, or otherwise damaged if they come into contact with one of the more pure elements,” Tran tried to explain, still clearly very excited.

“Wait… you said that lightning can affect even baselines?” I asked, still a bit in disbelief.

“That’s right. It’s not very common though and the effect usually wears off, but it’s kind of like getting your perceptions re-wired for a few hours. A bit like Mage Fungus,” Tran was calming down more now and started to sip at her tea.

“Mage Fungus?” I prompted.

“What? Oh, right, uh, right, uh, I think the baseline equivalent would be LSD crossed with a magic mushroom, except it’s less drug trippy and more ‘miracle berry’, except instead of your taste buds getting rewired, it’s more like all your senses getting rewired, so you can see what’s already there, but in a different way,” Tran seemed to have trouble explaining it since it was a kind of base knowledge that didn’t seem to have an obvious parallel.

We ended up talking a bit more about generalities, but that was my first real origin on why maybe I could see this place. Either I was some kind of lightning mage (via some kind of means that I still didn’t understand) or I was a baseline with some lightning in my veins.

I’m not sure what’s the scarier option - that I am a lightning mage or that I’m a baseline who’s been hit by enough lightning to be able to beat the runic/artifact bell-curve. I ended up doing a bit of research. I already knew that I was in the minority in having been struck by lightning twice as well as having multiple near-hits (I always hated the term near-miss), but I wouldn’t have suspected that it’d do anything, other than give me some interesting scars.

Tran had recommended I get the scan done soon and to get the questionnaire done immediately afterwards. For once, I was inclined to agree. Perhaps it was time for me to find out for sure.

But at least for the moment, I had some inkling on why I could see this place.