Chapter 72
- Location
- Home
Venturing the Worlds – 72
If he was going to be honest, Magnus knew he was tempting fate by playing around with the whipped cream, the cherries and Brianna in the kitchen. Oh, he didn't expect Genn to stumble on them, his sister had taken Seance on a small trip to Jade for the weekend and Magnus was a hundred percent sure they would not come back unless the apocalypse started early.
The two of them were adorable and more than once he had stumbled on the couple lost in each others' eyes and completely uncaring of the rest of the world.
Though the most he expected was either a phone call or an enemy attack, he wasn't picky on which would ruin things the most. And since he had effectively shielded the kitchen so no one could see from the outside, they were quite surprised when it was the old Gina who appeared in the room.
"Magnus, you wanted to ta…" The words died in her mouth as her eyes wandered down. "…oh…"
Brianna nearly jumped off him. "G-Gina?!"
"B-Bri?!" Old Gina managed to squeak out as she turned and tried to run away.
Though in Magnus' opinion, it was a bit too late to escape and a quick application of the enchantments that had been baked-in the house, he kept her from disappearing from the material plane, effectively having her smack her face against an anti-teleportation wall.
He clapped loud enough to snap both of them from their shock at the same time he illusioned some closed and the mess away; not like it would last long given the auto-cleaning enchantments.
"Sorry Gina, but you're not running away from explaining this one, nor I'm covering for you when you interrupted us." He said.
She glared at him, which made him unsure if it was because of what he was forcing her to do, or because he had covered up. Still, she soon sighed and instantly looked as old as she truly was. Brianna was still recovering from the shock as she approached the time-alternate of her sister.
"G-gina? Is that you…?"
"Hi, Brianna, yes… in a way." She said and chuckled, fixing her cracked glasses and her ragged hat.
"Bri, this is Old Gina," he decided to skip the mystery act she was putting, "she's been trying to get back to her timeline while setting a few things here and there."
Gina's glare returned with a vengeance aimed at him. "Magnus!"
"Sorry Gina, you may be very old, experienced and a Nomad Artificer, but you're still incredibly indirect when you should just admit you aren't getting out of this one." He offered. "Just talk normally, or I will make sure you do it." He added before heading to get some tea, to keep their throats from drying, and to give them some privacy.
He took his sweet time until he stopped hearing the sobbing, only then he returned to the living room and handed the girls a mug each and placed a box of tissue papers. There were a pair of almost audible thank yous.
"Feeling better?" He asked towards Gina.
"… I hate you… but yes." She admitted, not like she would have been able to Lie to him.
Brianna suddenly looked like she realized something. "Is she related to why you looked guilty about injuring mom?"
Magnus let out a wince, knowing he wouldn't be able to hide things either. "Yeah, it was the easiest way to give her a reason to visit her old teacher."
"You!" Brianna let out a growl and he knew it would be hard to earn her trust completely. "Is this also why you called the Psi-Kobolds allies?" She added.
"Only a tiny bit." He replied and added, "I was not lying when I said my family does tend to get the weirdest allies. Also, I was Lying when I said she was trying to get back to her timeline, or at least that's not all the reasons for her actions."
Gina's expression quickly shifted from glad to not have been the target of Bri's anger to surprise and vexation.
"Yeah, things changed since I came back when my original sent a very particular piece of information." He said. "Because the real problem starts with an U." Gina paled instantly.
"What does that mean?" Bri insisted.
"World Traveling One Oh One, the actual Multiverse is infinite and unfathomable, and somewhere out there anything and everything is possible." He said, Gina's eyes shined with understanding.
"You don't mean…"
"Yeah, it happens from time to time, though we usually come across an example of the influence of a World and not the other way around." He explained.
The look Brianna gave the two made Gina explain.
"He… he means that there's another World out there where this World's known… most likely as a form of fiction." She articulated slowly, getting Brianna to look surprised.
"You mean…"
"Oh, I've long since thrown the story in so much disarray." Magnus laughed. "Also, I only learned there was a comic about this World after I returned from my time in the Labyrinth. There's only two or three things that can exist in Outside of Worlds, that's other Worlds and information." He shrugged. "We're not entirely sure why, it's hard to study something that effectively doesn't exist from a point of view of Reality and anything that exists inside Reality. But from time to time experiences, memories, knowledge and alike escapes a World and travels through the Outside until it finds another World and miraculously ends up influencing someone in the World."
He thought about it. "I think I explained something when I showed you the picture I had with Optimus Prime." The comment made Gina look at him. "Later."
"So it's not that we're fiction, but we influenced the creation of fiction?" She asked.
"Yes, though I won't deny the possibility that a World may just randomly create a specific fiction just by chance, anything can happen in the infinite Worlds."
"… okay, no crisis of faith for me just yet." Brianna said. "What did it say about me?"
"You met a Wildboy in a few years and hit it off very well, had a daughter and became the front-runner on plant-based techno-organic magitech as you became the high druid of Jade, effectively growing spaceships and mecha." Gina glared at him for just blabbing it all out.
Meanwhile Brianna seemed to be thinking about it. "And what about you…"
"I wasn't meant to exist in this World, not even counting on the fact that I even exist as a copy was totally and completely unexpected." He said. "And no, I'm not ignoring much of the shit that's coming, Gina."
"What does he mean?" Brianna pointedly asked.
Gina sighed in defeat. "Grandfather will kidnap Britanny and Tiffany to attempt to take over Tiffany's body." Those words made Bri bristle up until he placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Calm down, it's months away, Tiffany's not even born yet, and it's not like I'm planning to let it happen." He reassured her.
"Oh? What do you have in mind?" Gina prompted, sounding angry.
"I'm going to throw my brother at him." He answered. "Milo's more than capable of fixing things if he can get your grandfather's diary. In addition to him carrying the strongest Concept for Life and the touch of Death, that will allow him to get the Gaoblins on his side and hopefully get Fortress Kia."
"Wait, wait wait, you're throwing a lot of names I've no idea about." Bri interrupted him.
"You're right, I'm sorry." He said, and took a small breath before continuing, "Your grandfather, before he was turned into the Lich he's now, created an artifact, a diary with a very strong impression of his mind in it. If Milo can get it and the Lich, he could fix him, or at least that's what I'm hoping for. The Gaoblins are a race that lives in the Veiled Realm, where the Lich would take Brit and Tiffany, they worship Death, but most of all, they worship and wish for Life as their realm has forgotten the cycle."
"If Milo's Life and touched by Death…"
"He can kickstart the cycle back all by himself." He answered. "Fortress Kia is a Dynasty Fortress, one of the oldest, one severely traumatized, thankfully Milo's also a very good psychologist and therapist, and strong enough to force his way to Kia's main intelligence to calm him down."
"You're talking about one of those nasty guys who were destroying Aebra, the world the people of El Dorado and the other cities originally came from." Brianna said in anger.
"In their defense, the Dynasty's mainly been aiming to fight the Umbra in the most stupid way possible. They had the unpleasant experience of understanding what the entity was and came to a very stupid decision." Magnus explained. "And talking about them, we should warn the Kryn to not open Father Rio's prison."
Gina rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about that I was already moving some things to get them a message of warning, there's no reason to inflict that problem on them."
"If that prison's not going anywhere we can keep him waiting until Milo's done with more eminent subjects." Magnus said.
Brianna stood up, definitely looking angry. "Okay, stop talking over my head like this, if you're telling me this then I want in. You're talking about my family like pieces on a board and I won't stand for that!"
While Gina looked more than a bit angry at him having gotten her invested, Magnus just smiled. "Sure, I will send you two the written records of the comic, I honestly don't know how much it counts to watch a drawn depiction of the Umbra as even observing an example of it could trigger a link to the being."
"Is it really that bad?" She asked.
"Yes." Gina and him answered at the same time.
"Remember how I said I can't speak the Black Goat's name out loud without getting her attention? Observing a depiction of the Umbra most likely works similarly. Of course I'm not going to test that, so keeping it safe and not tempting fate by trying." He explained.
"… why would you have to name a being like them?" Gina prompts.
"Oh, she's my brother's girlfriend." He quickly answered.
"You mean the same brother that's visiting?!" Gina asks, exacerbated.
"Yeah, but don't worry, she's not coming." He quickly answered, that only got a slight worried look.
Bri laughed softly at the exchange. "So much older and you're still the same, sis." Those words quenched all anger Gina had, instead getting an honest smile out of her.
Of course it didn't remove the fact that Brianna was definitely still angry at him, no matter how overloaded with information she currently was.
Internally Magnus sighed, he knew he had fucked up and it was almost entirely his own fault. He would need to make it up to her with more than just a nice dinner and a lot of pampering.
Maybe he would keep the fact that she was wearing only an Illusion while hugging Old Gina until much, much later.
Theodore Diggers was quickly feeling like this meeting was souring and it hadn't even started yet. He had arrived with King Shamus of the Leprechauns and overheard Jzu-Jzu the representative of the Pygmis in the Mage Council, talking about shrinking Gina's head to reduce her intelligence.
He could feel his wife bristling unnoticeably for anyone else but him. Or well, her harsh tone left it quite obvious. He hoped that the small pocket realm they had chosen to carry this meeting would survive whatever disaster started.
"Order, everyone, please, order." The current representative of the Mage Council called out. "We can leave discussion for what to do after we discuss the subjects of today's meeting. The council has recognized you, Mrs. Julia Diggers, Armsmaster of Jade, you will have the same privileges as everyone here to speak and vote on the subject."
Everyone stopped talking and focused on the man as he spoke, "This one thousand meeting of the Mage Council will now begin, today we've two subjects to debate about. First is the subject of technology capable of utilizing or directly affecting the Ether Realm. The other is the apparent appearance of a Psi-Kobold colony in one of Jade's remote plains."
Theodore felt like the second was entirely Magnus' fault. The man had left the means of how he had returned a mystery, but it was becoming quite obvious what had happened. Thankfully no one noticed his reactions as other members definitely had much more of a response to the news.
"Psi-Kobolds?!" One of the oldest mages called out. "I thought they had gone extinct a long time ago."
"They definitely did not if they are being seen again, you old fool." Another called out.
"Order." The representative called out again. "If the subject of the Psi-Kobolds wants to be debated first vote ay."
Neither Theodore nor Julia voted, but that didn't change the result much.
"With more than half voting for it, the topic of Psi-Kobolds reappearance will be the first subject of this meeting." The representative called out. "Representative Gur will explain the subject."
An old werepanther stepped forward, his gray fur showing his age, even as his loose robs didn't hide his musculature frame. "While my people doesn't inhabit the wastes, we live on the neighboring territory and keep an eye on the area in case of monster stampedes or other possible problems," He started to explain. "We noticed the Psi-Snail's arrival when the monsters in the area started to act differently about two weeks ago. Thankfully so far there's been no hunting parties going off the plains, but we can't expect this to remain like this."
"So you've only seen the Psi-Snail? No sign of the Kobolds?" Jzu Jzu asked.
Gur nodded. "That's right, we think they have been majorly focusing on the monsters living under the plains. But from the records, even an average population of Kobolds wouldn't be able to subsist permanently from the monster ecosystem in the area."
"Do you have any images of the Psi-Snail?" Another mage asked.
An image of the beast was projected in the center of the group for everyone to see.
Theodore gave it an appraising look and compared it to the few images he had seen in his master's records. The Psi-Snail was definitely above average, it made him sure that without Magnus having been implicated in the snail's presence on Jade, the being would most likely be rampaging through settlements in search of ehter-rich sources to feed on.
The second thing he noticed was its shell, not only looking much tougher-looking and well designed than the haphazard examples he had studied about. The Runes inscribed on it were familiar, but they would be only for him. Those were the same Runes Magnus used with his Grimoire. Those two things severely increased the danger the Psi-Kobolds represented, but he didn't think Magnus would just leave them out there like that.
He felt like the man was at least a bit more responsible than that. He hoped.
Now the problem he was facing was if to bring attention to Magnus or not, so far the man had managed to keep himself off the council's eyes by not making too many waves, and, in what Theodore suspected, use his abilities to make people ignore him.
Before anyone started to call the motion to put an attack group forward, Theodore spoke up, "I'm not denying the evidence presented, but I would like to think I'm not the only member of the council that would like to know more before we act upon it. For that I suggest further scouting before we rush blindly."
The response was mixed, thankfully it was more biased to agreeing with him, Gur between those agreeing; which was a good sign. Thankfully the more belligerent responses were mostly from younger members or those that didn't live in Jade, lowering the worth of their opinion a bit.
"Order," the representative called out, "I see that most are thinking of agreeing, does anyone have a good reason to present against forming a scouting party?" None of the dissenting parties spoke up. "Everyone in agreement with the scouting party says aye."
Theodore and most mages present spoke up. In his opinion this would at least give him some time to talk with Magnus.
"Good, as for forming the scouting party…" The Mage Council representative stopped talking. "Mr. Diggers, there's something strange on your end of the pocket realm."
Theodore quickly reached with his magic and tried to open the way, finding the path barred by a massive object. "This can't be, the way is blocked… I don't recognize this kind of barrier."
"Let me see, Theodore." King Shamus jumped ahead. "I feared this, this is no barrier, this is candy."
"Candy? What are you saying?"
"This is the work of the Leprechauns old enemy, the Uompaluompian Kingdom." He answered. "It will be hard to deal from this side, let's hope the Vaultron Force can take care of whatever's happening on the other side until we take this out."
Theodore hoped the house was still standing by the time they came out. Otherwise he may need to ask Magnus for a new house along with the many questions he had about the Kobolds.
Magnus couldn't help but to grin as he watched Gothwrain shed his disguise and assume his Wererat form.
The man was disgusting, his Soul practically dripped with vile Magic and the weight of a very, very long and sinful life. It was the first time Magnus saw him, and he was glad he was doing so, it would be easy for him to find him after this. Magnus wondered if Gothwrain even knew he was so recognizable for anyone that knew him, or had his age dulled his sense of caution.
Just in case he layered another Curse on the Wererat.
By itself it would have been useless, but also imperceptible. It was like a spider's web, thin, fragile and just as sticky. But there were thousands of Curses laid this way, they accumulated, dozens upon dozens of them. And just like someone walking through spider webs, each movement only makes them tie up more, stick to everything, become irremovable.
Bad luck spells that would have never done anything more than have him miss grabbing his pen from his desk when not watching had been layered in the hundreds. Dozen of recklessness Curses, dozens of foot-in-mouth, dozens of forget-the-step, dozens of magical-mishap, dozens of impotence, dozens of blindness, dozens of ash-tongue, dozens of irritable throat, dozens of magical flare, dozens of fail disguise and dozens of other Curses he had prepared earlier.
And of course, everything had been hidden by a potent Lie, both hiding their existence and making it harder for him to think about them. Just like he had replaced all Scrolls in Theodore's study with fakes and made them appear correct. Unfortunately he couldn't replace all Scrolls Gothwrain had, because otherwise he would be having a lot more fun.
But it wasn't time yet. He still had other things to do, like hunting Zero down and removing the Curse he had upon his Soul. Removing minions from his enemies was always a good strategy.
He sighed as he watched Gothwrain leave feeling like he had won, it left a bit of a sour taste in his mouth. Especially as he saw Jzu Jzu the Pygmy following along.
Magnus wanted to reach and stop them, but the man was old and experienced enough to understand the danger. A small boom made him turn, seeing the Oompa Loompa Prince get shot to orbit, signaling the end of the fight.
He wandered back, slowly letting the Lie over him clear up as he reached to see the pile of robots the orange guy had used in his attack.
"Heard the explosion and came to check, but it appears I got here late." He said when Ayane noticed him.
"Magnus, you live near?" She asked.
"Not that near, so it took me a bit to hear the explosions when down in my lab." He joked. "Luan, where are Carla and Gar?"
"Hi Magnus, they headed out with Britanny to the mall." She answered.
He nodded and looked around. It looked like the damage had been thankfully quite reduced to a few craters on the lawn and a pile of broken robots. He quickly snatched one to study before the Leprechauns approached him.
"And you are?" A rough male voice called out from the human-sized, combinable robot.
"Magnus, the Teacher." He answered. "And you must be the Vaultron Force, it's a pleasure. Brianna spoke plenty about you."
"You know Brianna?" A female voice came from the robot.
"I'm her boyfriend." He answered quickly as he looked at the house as he heard the sound of the candy barrier getting dealt with.
He reinforced the Lies upon himself as Mr. and Mrs. Diggers came out of the house followed by other mages. He also hid the effect of Ayane's eyes, there were just too many magic users and even one getting curious could spell disaster for the young woman.
He didn't miss the look Theodore gave him, but it was also obvious he couldn't bring whatever subject he wanted to talk about right in the open. Magnus would need to talk with him once things calmed down. Because at the moment it didn't look like it would be that way.
Thankfully the attention was mainly on the pile of scrapped bots and the standing Vaultron Force.
Apparently one of the reasons for their meeting was to tackle the subject of Magitech. Another subject to talk with Mr. Digger, he would happily come forward and explain it, as good as Brianna was with it, he was still ahead of her in many fields.
Ayane scooted closer. "… are all of them mages?" She prompted in a low voice.
"As far as I know." He replied with a small chuckle.
"They are, I recognize some of them." Luan said.
"Is that why they aren't reacting to my eyes?" Ayane asked.
"No, that's because I'm hiding their effect." He answered. "And before you ask, that's mainly because I'm around personally, I still need to look more into what to do."
"So you can't tell me anything about them?" She asked, in a small pleading tone.
"I talked with a guy that should know about them, but he'll need to talk with another guy." He left out that one of them was an ancient Dragon. "Unfortunately our meeting was unexpectedly cut by a small magic mishap."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, is it a common thing?" Ayane asked.
"Eh… I was very lucky and unlucky." He answered. "A random teleportation can go very, very wrong, I was lucky to end somewhere I could actually survive and return from."
Luan showed more understanding of exactly what he meant, but even Ayane could imagine how bad that could have gone. Not that there were many locations he wouldn't survive, but the possibility did exist.
"So how did you two meet?" He asked.
"Oh, well, I asked Ryan for some sparring and he invited me to come along when he asked Mrs. Diggers to join her school. That's when I met Luan, Gar and Carla." Ayane started to retell their first meeting.
He listened calmly as he kept the magic user's attention away from them. Now that he knew what those eyes were, things would change. But the thing was doing it so carefully. Ayane was a nice woman and didn't deserve to be dragged down by that kind of curse.
