An Unusual Tonic

Three months later...

"And that's how you summon Bahamut. Remember to clean up the sacrifices, alright?"

He had just finished demonstrating another way to use freshly-dead bodies in summoning rituals. I'd managed to duck out of the rituals so far, so most of my time was spent in self-study periods.

The dark magic manuals lying around the place were surprisingly simple. They just required some breathing exercises, a meat-only diet and regular swimming, which I did in a lake near the house. Weirdly, I didn't feel any kind of mana after three whole months of training.

At dinner that day, he spoke seriously to me.

"Jimmy," he began. "Do you remember our work so far?"

I nodded. He still didn't remember my name, and I had long since given up on reminding him.

"Good, good". He gestured at me to drink tea and I took a sip. It tasted... tangy.

"The tonic in that manticore urine should alter your system enough to process dark magic without mutating oddly or getting...side effects. Oh, you'll need to swim regularly to build up stamina. NEVER use the lake, there is a pool out back." His face grew regretful.

"The lake would have been perfect, but the blood rite I did there last week polluted it somehow."

My face twisted as he spoke. The very first sentence had unfortunately sent me into shock.

He continued,"I don't even know WHAT happened to that lake. Real weird shit, my pet goldfish grew bat wings when I refilled its bowl with lake water. Nasty, nasty stuff."

I had ignored everything he said after the word 'urine'. "You fed me WHAT?!" I exclaimed.

"You're still hung up on that? Relax, it's good for you!" he said dismissively.

I snapped and attacked him.

3 days later, I woke up and he praised me for my violent tendencies.

Then he looked at me oddly.

"It's been three days since the tonic, but your power is already very well-developed. One would almost think you'd been training for months."

I twitched.

"I guess I must be a really good teacher! My talent surprised even myself..." he marvelled.

I thanked my lucky stars that he was an idiot.

"Well, then", he said, straightening up.I saw the flash of a grin under his dark cowl.

"I guess it's time we put that new power to the test, eh?"

Ooh, this sounded FUN.

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He brought me to a dark chamber underneath his home. Looking in, I gasped out loud. It was occupied by screaming villagers- fathers, mothers and children. They were staring in different directions with looks of horror on their faces.

"What did you do to them?" I asked, blood turning cold.

"They're all living their worst nightmares. I found them nearby, they were asking for trouble by straying so close to me. Anyway, go on. Give that one amnesia." He looked at me expectantly.

I told him I didn't understand and he gave me a quick explanation.

Dark Arts, unlike orthodox magic, exclusively focussed on the human body. All of our spells followed this route, so we had nothing other than illusions for ranged attacks. However, this expertise gave access to certain skills, and one of them was mental manipulation.

A skilled enough warlock could arrange his spells so that people would forget him or her even while walking openly among them, creating an illusion of invisibility.

So THAT was why I never saw Candy's face!

Well, at least these poor people didn't have to die.

However, if I didn't perform well enough, he'd blame the sacrifices for being useless and kill them all. After being around him this long, I knew the futility of trying to convince him that he was just a bad teacher.

To save them, someone would need to have their memories erased.