23) Addendums

So a few subjects not worth a whole post on their own have come up in the forums, that still deserve to get a mention.

1: The grateful dead.

Not the band, although I’m sure there are a lot of worlds that would have loved to get the members who have already passed on.

The thing is that I have noticed but never thought about the implications of is that on average three out of four returnees I heard of or met, have died here on earth then have either been reborn on another world, got a brand new body once there, or took over someone else’s body.

Which means even though thousand of people are getting physically stolen from our world each day, at least three times as many are being taken after their death.

Maybe more since dying and ending up in a new body seems like something that would cut off your ties to your old life.

But a rebirth isn’t a bad deal for them, I wouldn’t mind so much being taken to another world if it meant getting to live a new life of any kind after dying in this one.

In fact, I hereby declare and assert that I am up for grabs to anyone who wants me after I am well and truly dead on this world. Barring any form of causing my death to free me up for the taking, or dragging me off to some kind of punishment world.

On second thought, I’d rather goes the same route as normal rather then take my chances. Offer withdrawn.

Although even if I end up in another body, I’m pretty sure Imogene will still come looking for me, and world bring me back here if at all possible.

I guess I should covert some of my money to gold and bury it somewhere in case I end up in a different body and it takes forever to prove I’m still me in a legal sense and get access to my bank account.

Also, with Imogene having a legal identity and American citizenship, I should get a will done up.

2: The former Baron of Relham is currently in a deep hole in the ground that Imogene’s team is referring to as Askaban. Where he will be tried and likely sentenced to as well once the various Federal and state agencies finish fighting over who get a piece of him.

I’ve asked for a tour, and maybe an interview. Special A haven’t said no, just not now. “After all, it would be hard to let someone into a secure area that I know is armed.”

Ouch. I should have guessed she was going to make me pay for that remark.

3: I have been on several more camping trips, both with Brother Jude and some other members of Group, as well as a few trips all on my own. In several different environments thanks to Imogene dropping me off, and sometimes joining me along with a few of her team members.

These are often less survival training then camping trips, both the weekends with Jude and the Group members, and the ones with Imogene’s work buddies, but I still get to learn things from people who know, and have experienced, a lot more then me, and I get to try some things out I’ve seen on videos and read in books.

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Some of that is even new to the people who are teaching me. It’s nice to have something to contribute.

I just hope Imogene doesn't get me in trouble. It’s not like she bothers with customs. But whatever country in South America we were at last weekend was nice. There were parrots, in flocks, that was a new.

4: My training at arms is going well, as are my weekly sparring sessions at Robert’s gym. I’m a little surprised at how much crossover there is between what I would have thought were two completely different types of fighting. But Robert just sighed when I mentioned it to him. “I taught you moves that worked with your strengths, anyone else worth a shit would do the same regardless of if you got something in your hands or not.” Then he showed me a few new moves to work with the way I fought now.

And finally...

5: My Magic. Yes, I got some of my own. Finally.

The city of Relham had something no one else who had came, or had been returned to, Earth had.

A school for magic, along with it’s testing facilities.

Toberan Primary wasn’t the premier school of magic from their world, it was more like a community collage. They taught basic magic to anyone who could afford the tuition, which was dirt cheap for locals, and had the ability to use magic.

Good news, I got that.

I can see magic, just like my sister, which is the most common way of being able to use magic.

The problem is that I had no magic of my own.

Most people lack a core, an abstract part of their mind, or soul, that they collect magic in and then channel into a spell. If you lack a core, you can’t do magic, not unless someone or something else supplies it for you.

I have a core, but wait, there’s more.

Mine’s inverted. Which is rare.

Laren, Baroness Relham, who had accompanied me to my testing since she had picked up enough about our world to know people might read about my visit in the blog and wanted to look good, was kind enough to explain it to me.

See, I described you as helpful, and kind. That’s a good look.

“What you have is sometimes called a Witch Hunter’s core, or a Mage Killer’s. Rather then pull magic into yourself to cast spells, you reject it and anything shaped from it.”

“It can defend you against magic that you aren't expecting, or magic you see as harmful or hostile. And every time you do so it slowly grows stronger, just like an Arcane’s core grows stronger every time they cast a spells.”

So, needless to say I was pretty bummed out. But…

“That doesn't mean you can not use magic, you just can’t cast spells. You can still manipulate magic around you, it just takes longer to do so and it takes more effort. Combat magic is beyond you, but it’s will also one day be largely ineffective against you.”

As it turned out, it wasn’t that I can’t do magic, I just was trying to use it on too small of a scale.

Ritual magic takes, well, rituals. Rituals and constant intent.

Glyphs slowly carved into stone or engraved in metal. Walking a labyrinth, which is not a maze by the way, just a twisty path without any branches.

Martial art training. Dancing. Painting. Music.

The easiest Ritual magic to use is something you can put your feelings into while you do it, either the calm that come from being in an almost meditative trace while you work, which is called the inward path, or something where you put you feeling into it for others, the outward path.

I don’t feel calm when I do the fighting. I feel nervous, disappointed, or pissed off at myself for not being good enough, or losing so easily.

Any sort of artwork is not a me thing, I’m too self conscious to dance, and my voice is gravelly at best.

But when I was younger, my grandfather let me try out his harmonica a few times, and it was one of the things he left to me specifically.

I’m not a good player, not yet, but I sure as hell feel something when I set it to my lips and begin to blow out the discordant notes that are supposed to be Ave Maria.

And I see the pretty lights begin to swirl around me in the back yard as I try to play sitting on the steps on the back porch and look out over the garden me and my sister planted with some of the various seeds we got from the Goblin market.

Some of those lights are magical, but they aren't magic to be used.

They dance.

Either it isn’t just flesh and blood people coming to Earth, or we got some natives of the unseen and magical variety emerging from the magic which is becoming part of this world.

I like them, unlike my sister they don’t make fun of awful attempts at playing a musical instrument for the first time since I was seven.

“You’re just jealous because you know how much sweet loving I’m going to get as a Bard.”

Her staff flew in front of me and leaned back like it was giving me a look while my caring, loving sister, the only family I have left in the world, laughed at me so hard from behind my back that she snorted.

She gave me a hug later that night when I explained who I gotten the harmonic from, and told her stories about our grandfather. Including the one’s Mom never knew about.

Tomorrow we’re going to put some of the weird greenish white petaled flowers with the pale violet stalks flowers on his grave. He would have liked to have meet his granddaughter.