Corpsing, a Worm/Mage the Ascension FI ft. Nihilo

[Ahriman]

Chapter 1

Another day, another writing project, the Spaniard stooped over his keyboard mused to himself with a small smile. The glare from the window was just enough for him to catch a glimpse of pale skin and long brown hair courtesy of the black background of the Worm wiki and the glare of the morning sun, at least right up until a couple bony fingers pulled the curtains a few inches to the side before it could start bouncing off of his glasses.

Now, where was that damn excerpt about Ogun's power?

As Neil continued to look, he barely realized that his eyes were drifting shut until he had to shake himself to see the screen clearly. That worked for a few moments before he felt them drifting shut again, and he felt his head drooping down in exhaustion. The unpredictable, walls-shaking construction work in the apartment below him was really taking its toll on him. Especially when he couldn't prop himself with any stimulants beyond buttrock on account of all the antianxiolytics he was on.

Still, as much as his body bitched and moaned, it wasn't like he could get any real sleep with his chair vibrating from the hammerblows and it sounding like a whole china shop being smashed up. He had already jammed in the earplugs as deep as they'd go into his skull without breaking something, his ear canals distinctly unhappy with him too but the dull ache was easy to ignore compared to his chronic stress migraine. So Neil fought to stay researching through the pile of shit heaped on his plate, finally finding the excerpt he was looking for and starting to read, occasionally shaking himself back to wakefulness as the screen crept closer and closer to his eyes as he slumped towards it to keep working.

Right when Neil should've felt his forehead hit the screen, things went strange. Instead of bonking his thick skull and leaving an imprint of oil on the very expensive piece of electronics, he kept on pressing forwards into something that felt like semi-liquid jello, through the screen. He only had a half-second to grapple with this impossibility before something yanked on every part of his head that had phased through the computer. He barely had time to blink before his head and shoulders were slurped up like a cup of noodles through his computer monitor to wherever he was being dragged to– any consideration of which fell away in favor of a shrill screech as he was treated to the sensation of sandpaper scraping off every inch of his skin. He barely even registered being plunged into absolute darkness and silence through the pain, and only because whatever this was it didn't have the common decency to let his scream sound out.

As he fell, feeling his skin peel away and his body begin to warp under the influence of whatever was around him, he heard a three-toned voice through the oppressive forced silence. It was a deep groaning voice, like the earth itself was speaking through grinding stones, the velvety tones of a woman, and the tinny buzz of a machine all at once. "All the world's a stage, yet I wonder how an actor from another story would influence this one? Will it be a tragedy or a comedy, a tale of anguish or victory? For the script is yet unwritten, though the actors take their places. Go, oh maverick actor, and write your story amongst those who would be forgotten."

Barely registering the words through the pain, he felt things seem to settle and the pain diminish, before he suddenly felt himself falling free of the substance and landing back-first onto something soft enough to break his fall without breaking his back. It did knock the wind right out of his sails, though, although hearing his own grunt of pain was a relief.

A moment later, he had sat up and was well on his way to his feet, the feeling of his brain pinching and blunt spikes of pain boring in like thumbscrews ignored with the ease of familiarity as he took in his surroundings.

He found himself in a relatively barren bedroom, its sole piece of furniture the bed he had landed on, a king-sized affair from which he could hear the sounds of a city drifting in through a pair of closed windows. Blessedly, they had shutters and they were firmly shut, only a trickle of light filtering through the slats. Neil may've screamed if he'd gone from that darkness into a sunlight bukkake.

He was still about to get one, though, as he staggered over to the windows. It would just be on his own terms, bony fingers nowhere near as pale as they'd been minutes ago - something to figure out later - slowly letting in more and more light into the room before he dared peek out the window.

The first thing he felt was pain as the sunlight shone in through the window, clearly setting but still disgustingly bright. As his eyes finished adjusting to the light, he noticed a few important things. The first was that he definitely wasn't in Barcelona anymore, for all the buildings piled up on the hill he could see in the distance seemed stately enough, the urban decay everywhere else was stark. Dozens of buildings were visibly broken, with roofs being caved in seemingly by wrecking balls, and boarded-up shop windows interspaced along the street he overlooked. The second was that he was probably in America instead as he caught sight of more than a few stars and stripes waving in that district. The last thing he noticed was someone flying through the skyline, tiara catching the sunlight and his eyes in equal parts.

"So." Neil mused with deceptive placidity as he stepped back into the gloom of the bedroom, making his way to the lightswitch. "A superhero world. That's…"

The shuddering breath he sucked in through his gritted teeth was a more eloquent answer to his feelings there than any words he could've used. If a human was going to land safe and sound after all that pain and ominous noises, it figured it would be in a world like this. Hopefully he hadn't ended up in the sort of city that got an alien invasion every other month, but he wasn't holding his breath given the state those roofs had been.

Click.

The rest of the room was illuminated, turning out to be a tiny bit more lively than Neil first thought. The walls were covered with a simple forest-green wallpaper without any patterning, the floor decorated by an equally inoffensive tan carpet while a large dresser was pushed up against the wall near the window. There were also two doors, one white and one brown, a short distance away from the foot of the bed. The light, after examining the rest of the room, came from a single lightbulb in a naked housing on the ceiling.

Without anything but vibes to go off of, he tried the white door, wedging it open and popping in his head.

It opened up to a bathroom, a relatively small one with a combined bathtub/shower on the far end, and a sink and mirror close to the door. A mirror that he could almost see himself in, the mirror showing some of his hair hanging down at the very edge. Well, that solved one of his most immediate questions as he stepped in fully and looked himself over.


He looked very much like himself, same hispanoasiatic mutt, just… airbrushed. He had a bit more muscle mass, his skin was less pale than his indoors lifestyle usually allowed, his eyes could no longer be rightfully called 'shit-brown'. Most importantly and irritatingly, though? Whatever that'd been had stolen his beard. He just had some scruff now. At least his hair was still just as poofy, silky and glossy as always. He hadn't gotten shorn there, his ponytail reaching a bit past his shoulderblades.

Then there was the teeny tiny fact that he was dressed up in the sort of clothing he'd been planning to buy if that Assistant Production Manager job got back to him with a date for the second interview. A clean white button-up shirt, a dark red tie, a vest and some snazzy suit pants coupled with polished black shoes. It was, in fact, the exact outfit he'd eyed two days ago on the way back from a dinner with his mother.

Not worrying at all, no siree.

Right, well, unless any superpowers he may or may not have after that… event wanted to come say hi right now, that was his self-inspection done. Time to go try the other door in the bedroom and hope this house, which he could only pray wasn't already spoken for by a very angry American about to give him a 12 gauge greeting, was sensibly designed and it led out into a hallway.

As he reached out towards the door, he… felt that there wasn't anything negative to him beyond the threshold. The sort of gut feeling that had people betting it all on a roll of the dice in Vegas right before winning big. He wasn't entirely unfamiliar with uncanny hunches that were spot on more often than not, but they usually didn't have this sense of surety, more along the lines of a 'hold up'.

Something to gently prod later, for now he had a house to explore and ideally some food to scrounge up. Revelations fit to shatter worldviews and eldritch events or not, he hadn't had breakfast and his gutmeats weren't shy about letting him know their displeasure with the fact.

The brown door of the bedroom opened into an empty hallway with a second door opposite his own, looking identical to his own save for a small plaque he could barely read through dim light filtering through noting that it was a 'guest room'. Off to the right there were stairs going down, and a window to the left letting in light, suburban decay barely peeking into view. He could just about see the bottom of the stairs, though he noted they had a small landing with two rooms to either side, and a wall near the bottom.

Carefully walking down the creaky stairs, flicking on the light switch as he did so, he paid attention to his newest sense as he got a sudden bad feeling about the fourth step. Toeing it gingerly while keeping a deathgrip on the handrail, it squished under the thimble of weight he put on it and that was all he needed to know to skip it.

Reaching the landing proper, a look to the right showed a few somewhat-dusty chairs and a clearly out-of-date television. The left meanwhile showed a kitchen with clean and functional, but clearly old set of cookery and appliances. Right, time to see if there was anything still in eating shape. Canned anything, honey and crackers, instant noodles, didn't matter.

Rifling through the cabinets showed a lot of long-to-eternal shelf life goods, from cans to things like vacuum-sealed rice and pasta, some spice containers still wrapped in plastic, as well as a small container of honey shaped like a small bear. Closing the cabinets to check the fridge and freezer, he found quite a lot of frozen meat and some chilled bottled water, but not a lot of food on that front. A quick check of the faucet showed the water seemed clean, and nothing about it gave off bad vibes like the rotten stair did.

He quickly took a spoonful of honey, just to cut off his body at the cross with any surprises it may want to pull on him. His hunger and thirst liked to jump from nothing to freakout, so he had to do something like this before dusting off a pot and getting some pasta boiling. There had been some frozen cubes of butter in a ziplock bag in the freezer, at least, which together with the pre-grated cheese there would make this whole thing a passable meal.
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After polishing off a full meal and then some, his gut hitting him with a surprise revolutionary tax, Neil was back to exploring. The ground floor was fairly barren with only two rooms, the kitchen and a room with a few pieces of covered furniture indicating a sitting or living room. The last thing other than the way outside was a door to what had to be either a broom closet or a basement, set right under the stairway up to the second floor.

Upon putting his hand to the innocuous knob, he suddenly felt as though he was a bug pinned to a board, something too big and impassive inspecting him. He wasn't too proud to admit he squeaked like a small animal and froze up. Neil felt the 'eye' focus in on what his gut said were his motives and beliefs, and after an incredibly uncomfortable second of having his inner self dissected by this apathetic force, it turned away. The doorknob let out a soft click, turning easily as it let the door swing open, revealing an incredibly makeshift stairwell into the darkness. The whole stairwell gave off a feeling of passive danger to his sixth sense, sitting unpleasantly in his stomach. The steps were steep, seemingly disconnected outside of a frame, and only wide enough for a person to stand with both their feet held tight together.

Looked like he had avoided summary execution by ineffable entity only to be served up a big heaping platter of 'trip and break your neck on the stairs'. He didn't set a single foot in there, just leaning his head slightly as he peered around for a light-switch or cord.

Thankfully, there was a light switch on the inside of the wall just to the right of the doorway, and flicking it on turned on a set of unseen dim lights, just enough for the rest of the stairwell and a small slice of the basement to be made visible. It was an almost 15 foot drop or climb down to what looked like scratched up concrete, but the whole ladder-like stairs looked almost brand new in stark contrast to everything else he'd seen.

This was starting to reek of a benefactor, or at least a meddler. Whether it was the same entity that'd spoken to him while he got sucked off in the worst way possible remained to be seen, though. For now, all there was to do was very carefully crawl down to the basement and hope there were some clues there as to what the hell was going on.

He slowly made his way through the dim light and down the stairwell to the basement floor, getting close enough to see that the scratches were in large, regular patterns, rather than fully random. He got a sense of order and direction from the floor once he got close, and once he was able to put his feet to the ground, he did so on the only flat patch of concrete nearby. He disentangled himself from the stairway and gave a look around the basement.

The 'random scratches' he'd seen from the top of the stairwell, at least nearby, resolved themselves into monstrously complex magic circles which traced themselves all across the floor, walls, and ceiling. A quick check showed that they were even drawn into the underside of the ladder, and at a guess were also likely hidden under the old paint up top by the doorway.

There was no helping his low, impressed whistle.

"Oh, it's always wonderful to see an example of the school of Correspondence~" He suddenly heard a light, feminine voice chuckle from behind.
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[Nihilo]

As my coauthor forgot to say, you can read two chapters ahead on Patreon. Uploads will be one chapter a week, Wednesdays. As usual with projects I participate in, we have a good amount of backlog.

 

[Ahriman]

February 4th

He jolted, heart nearly ejecting from his throat as his overtuned reflexes screeched and flailed around. It was only years of practice that let him take the uncontrollable reaction in stride and focus on the voice as he turned around. A voice that he had heard not ten minutes ago, for all it was missing two overlays. "You won't hear me disagreeing, Miss…?"

"Oh, you can just call me Merlin, it's the closest you'd be able to get to what I really am" A woman, floating in the air and wrapped in the most extravagant and ribbon-y silks that Neil had ever seen. "What I am here for however, is to help guide you to being the best spellcaster you can be, and perhaps allow you to reach the much-coveted heights of Ascension." She said, waving one hand around and trailing the ribbons along behind it. "You already have the start of your own Paradigm, which is more than could be said if I hadn't … put my thumb on things, but you also aren't going to be getting any guidance further from any of the fools out there."

Lots of fancy terms he had no context for being bandied about. Still, lady had a nice voice and the look of someone about to loredump, so he didn't interrupt. Gave him more time to process the teeny tiny detail of, oh yeah, being a god damn wizard now.

'Merlin' twirled in place, keeping her eyes on Neil as she did so. "So then, allow me to break down what you can learn in a way your developing paradigm can understand." She waved a hand, and nine sigils traced themselves into the air. "If the whole world is a stage, then each of these different areas is a different element of the play that you can alter."

A sigil that looked like a lopsided 'A' made of arrows lit up. "The first that you have already discovered is often called Entropy, you can think of it as seeing the calls that a play would make, from characters that the plot foreshadows the importance of to props designed to fail, to even being able to tease out future plot beats from current ones or inflicting misfortune on others."

A sigil that looked like a vanishing ladder lit up, "The other one you have encountered here is often called Correspondence, though calling it Space or Data is just as correct. It is the alteration of the stage itself to better fit what you need, whether it be lengthening or shrinking the distance between two actors, creating a new stage to play on, or dividing a stage into multiple parts."

The sideways pitchfork lit up, "The last of the three important and interesting ones for you would be Life, the ability to alter the actors on the stage, to mend wounds and enhance physical capabilities, or to do the reverse."

Was he hearing right? He could fix his malfunctioning guts with that one? And inflict the same suffering on others?

Merlin flicked her wrist, and moved those three glowing sigils, likely ones representing Entropy, Correspondence, and Life, over into one group, leaving six still-dark sigils in front of her. "That is not to say that you won't find plenty of use for these six, but they happen to be of lesser immediate interest."

A tilted staff-like sigil lit up, "The sphere of Forces, for you control over the special effects of the play, allows you to manipulate the natural forces of the world with even a little investment in learning such, from invisibility to the creation and dismissal of storms, including the all-important fireball."

A half-circle atop a spined staff lit up, "The sphere of Matter, or control over props, allows you to manipulate, enhance, and transmute materials from one material to another, or even from one phase to another."

A flag inside a box lit up, "The sphere of Spirit, or control over both the stagehands and backstage. This will both allow you to speak to and empower the spirits of objects, as well as allowing you to step into the backstage of the world."

He didn't bother hiding the way he perked up at that one. Living weapons had always activated his muse something fierce.

An ornate Z lit up, "The sphere of Mind, or control over the lines and choreography that another remembers. While it can be used passively for defense and understanding, most of its use lies in gently or not-so-gently guiding others into thinking along the lines you desire."

God, if he could fix his anxiety disorder with that one. Bye-bye, chronic migraine.

A P with multiple slashes through the bottom lit up, "The Sphere of Time, or control over the choreography. This is a dangerous sphere to tamper with, but it allows you to alter the flow of time, even reversing it if need be."

Hahahahaha, yeah, no. Fuck time travel, in a bad way. Dilation, compression, taking a peek, sure. No time travel, he didn't want to get a colonoscopy at the end of a Hound of Tindalos' muzzle.

Lastly, the final sigil, an upright trident set in a cross lit up, "The Sphere of Prime, or control over the ephemeral material of the act itself. While it serves little use on its own, without it magic will forever be transitory and weak."

Merlin summoned all 9 sigils back, organizing them into a circle with odd groupings, before seeming to go into a trance and starting to speak with a reverence that seemed almost out of place with her. "All things come from Prime, are conceived through Mind, given focus by Spirit, made form by Matter, Life, and Forces, are perceived through Correspondence, and Time, decay through Entropy, and return to Prime." She shook herself before dismissing the sigil and continuing, "One last thing to mention, outside of this basement, beware of showing your hand. The disbelief of your audience and fellow actors is just as dangerous to you as a blade or bullet, but if you can play it off with a flick of the wrist or show off the mirrors you used to turn that elephant invisible, there's very little you can't do."

"Well, it'll be easier to play the stage magician with an assistant as lovely as you at my side." Neil replied without missing a beat. Flirting was easy, it was just vaguely horny banter, great thing to focus on while he tried to come to grips with that deluge of information. "So this is my Paradigm, then? Treating everything as a stage play…"

He frowned. No, that wasn't quite right.

"Like a story I'm both a coauthor of and living in." Neil corrected himself, something deep in his gut thrilling happily, that familiar feeling of finding the perfect faceclaim picture that fit the character on so many levels it spurred the muse to develop them even further. He didn't have full rights to do as he pleased, there were checks and balances, but he very much had the authority to slip in a few extra lines. And if nobody minded or even noticed his little edit in the first place…

He saw Merlin smiling as that mental thrumming clicked into place. "Very good! That feeling? The sense that everything is right with the world, that you've dug up a secret about it that nobody else has found thus far? That's the result of a Seeking. Usually I'd drag you through a dream-world to help you make that realization, to grow your Arete, your Enlightenment, your Genius, but when it happens on your own?" She tapped him on the nose, startling him out of his reverie. "That's perfection."

"Between that and your little Awakening falling into this world, you're well on your way to being able to master any of the Nine that you put your mind to, just make sure that you keep up with the script-reading you've already started~" She faded from view with a wave and a giggle.

"Minx." Neil chuckled without any heat, sighing as he eased himself down to the floor to sit cross-legged. Okay. He was an enlightenment-fuelled mage who played fast and loose with the backend of reality, checked by the goddamn collective unconscious, all while in a superhero world.

He ground the base of his palms into his eyes, deflating with a groan as he just… took in that nonsensical sentence that was his reality now.

"Me getting whisked away from my homeworld better not be a setup for one of those 'and yet, despite all the power he accrued, never could he find the exact parallel world he had come from' tragedies." He grumbled as he straightened up. If it came to it, he'd move on, but he'd really rather be able to at least send messages back home to let them know he was fine. Didn't want people grieving on his account. "Those're nearly as much of a pain in the ass as 'and then everything went back to normal and everyone lost their powers'."

That aside, the poignant question was of course, how the hell did he go about developing spells.

He promptly smacked the upside of his head. "Just do what you'd want a baby mage in one of your stories to go through in order to learn branches and develop shit there, genius."

So out of the basement and onwards to touch grass.
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Neil found his way into the back yard, and after digging up a coat to deal with the winter chill he made his way out. The backyard was overgrown, grass reaching up past his shin and wildflowers passing his waist. The weather was mostly clear, with a few clouds floating through the sky and the sun shining down.

He wasted no time settling himself in, finding a nice spot in the grass to lay spread eagle on. It didn't matter that it was wet and cold, or the odd bug coming to say hello despite the season. If anything, it helped just as much as the sun tickling his skin and the feeling of his blood cycling under it.

If he wanted to wield Life, he had to immerse himself in it. The same went for the rest of the triad it formed with Matter and Forces, the most easily grasped as they were the most physical. So he lay there and just drank in every sensation, sinking into them as he slipped into meditation the only way he knew how, allowing his mind to drift like a leaf on a stream.

As his mind drifted with a purpose, he slowly began to feel out the world beneath and around him. He slowly began to hear whispers that didn't sound like they were coming from anywhere that described his surroundings, more specifically, the plant life around him.

Tall, growth: 3 years, lawn grass. Assorted flowers, growth: 2 years, re-flowering…

On and on it went, with a voice so much like the timbre of his own thoughts but not quite. Not quite a prompter or narrator for all it gave snippets of Neil's surroundings. An experimental shift in focus, towards the cold of the dew and soil underneath him and the warmth of the sunlight playing across his face, and–

Heat, source unalterable, white light, angle of approach…

A blast of highly technical information about the sunlight, breaking down both the type of energy and the information about how it was moving. From sunlight's heat and light, and a little bit of radiation, to the light breeze pushing on him, to the ground beneath him gently pulling him down. His power, however, gave him no feedback from the cold, merely noting a lack of energy present, rather than the presence of some sort of nebulous 'cold energy'. Likely because he had an education and knew that, by pure physics, cold was the absence of heat.

But. This was no longer pure physics, was it?

The caloric and frigoric theory, with ethereal fluids that were responsible for hot and cold as they were created by certain events and suffused matter… that may be a good way to visualise thermal magic. It was an interesting thought exercise, trying to shift his perception, building up in his mind the idea of two complementary forces like some magic systems held the Light and Dark elements. Something cold that pooled and encroached, pulling a bit from Yin's concepts. Something hot that was vivacious and volatile, easily spreading itself too thin but gathering and multiplying with the right setup.

At first, it seemed that nothing changed, but as he held the perception of twin, complementary forces of heat and cold in his head, he heard the information he was taking in shift to balance around some temperature he wasn't quite sure of, and a whole host of measurements of the 'cold energy' from around him started flooding in. The sudden shift startled him and broke his focus on the mental framing, and he suddenly stopped hearing about cold energy from the space around him.

Seemed like he'd need to actually internalize it for it to stick around without the mental equivalent of holding in his gut. Curiously, though, he could now see the flow of something yellow-orange, raining down from the sun and seeping into everything its light touched. The caloric fluid, he realized immediately, it had nowhere near as much resistance as trying to imagine cold as its own independent force so he could still perceive it.

Neil couldn't help but chuckle. The caloric theory had incorporated cold being an absence of heat into itself before being debunked, stating that instead of frigoric there was simply a lower amount of caloric. There was a temptation to reach out, try to cup his hands and gather the ethereal liquid floating through the air, but Merlin's warning rang like a bell in his head.

Best not to risk it.
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If you enjoyed this, or would like to read two chapters ahead, please consider supporting the continued creation of these works here: https://www.patreon.com/Ahruman

 

[Mithrill]

Welcome to Ascension, young mage, please leave your logic by the door.

 

[Ahriman]

February 4th

Instead, he dove his hands into the loamy soil, focusing on how it clumped under his fingernails and pressed against his fingers. He may as well finish the triad before moving on to the next logical step for an aspiring mage.

Designation: Soil, mix of carbon, silicon, and …

And the triad seemed to be complete as information about the makeup of the soil started streaming in. It seemed to break down into the elements he was most familiar with, that being the periodic table, though with his experiments in Caloric and Frigoric energy, he figured that if he put forth the effort, he could probably change that. His awareness eventually left the soil, completely ignoring the bugs, and started informing him about the structure and makeup of the wooden paneling on the side of the house and the fence surrounding the yard.

He let it fade, instead going to work on something far more important: building himself an arcane focus. Now, he could just find himself a nice stick and carve it into a wand, but he had a better idea. This time, when he willed the whispers to come to him, it was with specific information in mind. Measurements and health of blades of grass.

Rope was fire's equal as a pillar of human civilization, and rope made from long grass was as ancient as it got. A simple bracelet made from the braided fibers would be the perfect focus for flying under the radar, an anchor point around his wrist with which to invisibly tie and tug at reality. Maybe he could even keep the constituent grass alive? There was an appeal in having a focus that could grow and shift, that'd give him a ready-made wand or even staff if he could line things up right.

As he gathered up the grass, carefully brading it together and winding it into a bracelet, he tried to mentally reach out to it and offer some support to keep it alive. Instead, all he felt was sand slipping through his fingers, and when he tried to tighten up his mental hand to keep that from happening, suddenly he staggered as an immense weight felt like it slammed into the inside of his skull.

"All Mages need tools to perform any advanced magic, such as keeping cuttings alive devoid of nutrients." Merlin said, gently picking up the half-woven band that was starting to unravel. "More than that, all mages interact with the world through the first sphere they learned, and attempting to reach beyond their mastery in that sphere will simply fail. If you don't know how to write in the script, how in the world could you get a fellow actor to follow along?" Merlin carefully twined everything together as Neil pulled himself into a sitting position. "Here, I'd suggest working on your voice, to help give stage cues. It's at least more reliable than just utilizing tools." Neil felt a burst of magical energy and the loose ends of the grass weave sealed up, and the grass turned greener than everything else around him.

"Thanks." Neil sighed as he grabbed the item, shifting his focus once again. His attention, while reaching for the vague gut feelings he'd been having before, was inexorably drawn to his new prop like a moth to a flame. He knew that it was important, even beyond it being the first thing he had that would serve as a focus, before suddenly he was assaulted with fragmented visions.

A staff thrust through the rain, glowing with eldritch power.

A handshake between a black-gloved hand and his own, band in full view.

A trio of rocks, one blue, one red, and one white, sat in a circle.

A flash of gold fading into nothingness.

Neil fell back as the visions faded, staring up at the sky as his band muttered importance and fate at him. Merlin floated over and looked straight at him, that little smug knowing smile of hers not budging for a second, "Well, you're certainly getting how to see with your Paradigm, but I think you really ought to try and learn how to manipulate with it. I'd suggest going out and grabbing a deck of cards, a set of dice, or some other game of chance, and try to remove the chance from it."

"It's that or a gacha game, but I'm not sure how that'd interact." He chuckled as he slipped the band on his left wrist. He was already clothed for going out, he just needed to go find the house keys to lock up behind him. It was an important item, so he should be able to play hot or cold with the note-whispers if it wasn't in plain sight.

Ah, he knew what they truly were.

"Marginalia." There was something in voicing it that felt weighty and made the whispers thrill happily, for all it wasn't quite the same rumbling revelation as what he'd had in the basement.

Putting a name to the phenomenon quieted the whispers, and instead consolidated most of them into a just-readable chicken-scratch hovering near different objects and regions based on whatever Sphere he was using. Matter had rough sketches of chemical compounds hovering near or even seeming to be written on the object being analyzed, along with notes such as 'layered over another material'. Life had the full kingdom to species name written out, along with other small notes such as 'needs water' or 'damaged by harvesting'. Forces gave both scribbles of vectors and rough energy values, along with highlighting various fields in gentle shading that somehow didn't overlap or interfere with each other. His Entropic sense literally highlighted weak points, or important routes, along with showing several massive pillars of importance almost entirely faded into the sky to the point that he didn't think he could use them to locate whoever they were pointing towards.

After trying out his new sensorial enhancements, he decided to follow the advice of his now-absent… Muse? She had never explained quite what she was. Either way, he followed Merlin's advice to get something to play with probability on. After digging around the house and finding a safe, one he was pretty easily able to crack by reading the Marginalia while carefully and slowly turning the dial, he managed to pull out about 10k in hard cash as a mix of small and large bills. Of course, he only actually took a tiny sliver of that huge pile, about enough for a smartphone a couple generations behind whatever tech bros were huffing today plus some extra for a tabletop game if he couldn't just find a few spare dice or cards.

After heading out and asking a few passing neighbors, he was directed towards a place that the locals called 'the Boardwalk' to go buy the sort of stuff he was looking for. One of the people he talked to, a fellow hispanic in fact, mentioned that while there were a lot of shops to the south, they weren't exactly places 'their sort' wanted to go to.

"La he cagado heredando esta casa, ya veo por que el desgraciado con el traje estaba tan calladito." <I shat it up inheriting this house, now I see why the suited asshole was so quiet.> Neil groaned, eliciting a groan of understanding from his neighbor. Great, wonderful, apparently he was in one of those cities. Whether it was a superhero world being more exaggerated and blatant about things or just America being America, he had no idea. <Thanks for the warning.> "Gracias por el aviso."

"Hace tiempo que no oigo el habla hispana. Con el Imperio arremetiendo por todas partes, es un peligro mostrar lo mínimo de la patria." <It's been a while since I've heard the mother tongue, with the Empire creeping everywhere worth living in it can paint a target on your back.> The plainly-dressed hispanic man responded with a Mexican accent, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he did so. "A demasiados vendedores les da igual, si tan si quiera saben el riesgo que proponen los nazis. Achucha por el paseo marítimo y quédate arrimado a la multitud, los matones del Kaiser están allá donde esté el dinero, pero hasta los Enforcers sobornados no te molestaran si no les das excusa." <Far too many realtors simply don't care about the Empire and its reach, assuming they are even local enough to know. Go head down to the Boardwalk and stick to the crowds, Kaiser's goons go everywhere there's business, but even the bribed Enforcers won't step in to isolate you if you stick with others.>

"Solo por verme la cara ya querrán arrear-me." <Just by seeing my face they'll want to smack me.> The sharply dressed mage sighed, shaking his head softly, swearing under his breath as he waved goodbye to the man, "Santa Maria…"

Neil picked his way through the streets, keeping to crowds and staying a good distance away from any alleyways he passed by. As he passed out of the crowded and built-up downtown region and into the busier but much smaller Boardwalk, he caught sight of one of the regions that had one of the pillars of importance hovering over it. It looked like a much-overhauled oil rig with a futuristic office building stacked on top of it and a police station seemingly hanging underneath the platform, all having the overly-saturated look of something pulled directly out of a television screen and bristling with several visible and almost-certainly dozens more invisible defense systems. The biggest sign that it was absolutely where that pillar came from was the translucent, nearly rainbow bridge that shot out before his eyes and linked up with a well-maintained and mostly empty pier almost out of view.

The pillar on the Rig seemingly split into two, with one vanishing as a brilliant star whispering tribulation, history, success, and failure to the mage appeared at the other end. He noticed that most of the people around him also looked towards the bridge, but seemingly mostly with expectant eyes rather than the curious ones he was watching with. The star rocketed down the bridge, eventually resolving into a figure wearing blue-and-silver power armor and riding a motorcycle, who rapidly reached the end of the bridge and rocketed out of view with just enough of a sound to alert people of the incoming motorcycle.

The sudden disappearance of the figure caused Neil to blink in surprise, and a quick look around showed a lot of people on their phones, likely filming his passing or texting friends about what just happened. As for the hispanoasiatic mutt of reality-bending power, he just didn't understand the scramble. The motorcycle was good, the armor was better, but there was really little point in filming a few seconds of the guy zipping by. All it really served was reminding him to go buy himself a phone already.

Good thing he could peek into the reference notes of reality itself, ought to make shopping a hell of a lot easier.
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