Crystal Cage 10

There was a strange intensity to the request that had Orison's guard up.

Sighing, the royal guardian said, "I've offered to do you a favor even though you're a complete stranger. Is my request so much to ask for?"

Orison turned to Gan with confusion in his eyes as if to ask, "Is this guy hitting on me?"

Gan looked at Ivan and back at the young mage and slowly shook his head, not looking entirely sure.

Trying not to insinuate anything, Gan asked the royal guardian, "You'll, um, return Orison the way you took him?"

Orison thought to himself, "What the hell am I, a cellphone?"

"I doubt it will come to much but if it does, I'll cover any medical bills and I promise to do nothing life threatening... Mr. Cantrip, I assure you that safety is my utmost concern, on or off duty. If you'll agree, I will place your arbitration request as my number one priority," Ivan delivered with a straight face.

Not seeing any way to politely refuse without causing even more problems for his group, Orison agreed with a great degree of reluctance.

Leading the young mage deep inside an excessively enchanted cavern, down into the heart of the private property of the controlling family of the Holy See, Ivan eventually said to the increasingly nervous young mage, "No need for such concern. Have a care with your emotions or you'll draw other family members' attention and they may not be as gentle in handling you as I will."

Orison thought, "That's supposed to help calm me down!?"

At one point, as they were passing through a corridor with many doors, Ivan put a barrier around them that kept a curious older man with brighter green hair and a six inch set of antlers from getting closer. The older man smirked at Ivan but let them pass. As anxious as he could be without actively being attacked, Orison constructed a teleport model in his space and handed it over to his sub-mind to hold.

Their strange tour ended past a bedroom that lead into a cavernous space lit with floating orbs and covered in a blanket of faintly luminescent grass. Ivan instructed Orison to put his equipment away and change into unenchanted civilian clothes. What would have been a stern refusal turned into compliance since Ivan backtracked to the bedroom to do the same.

Combing through his space, Orison managed to find some knit cotton pants and a shirt that didn't look too far from what the average person might wear in this world. There wasn't a single set of footwear in his space that didn't have some kind of enchantment on them but Orison didn't think it mattered much. Though it was never stated, Ivan had called his steel banded boots into his inventory as soon as they passed through his doors. Apparently clothes didn't matter much at all since Ivan came back into the cavern wearing only a pair of loose dojo pants.

Frowning, Orison said, "Alright, start explaining because you're seriously starting to freak me out and that's something people a great deal more powerful than you haven't managed to do."

A brief stab of envy passed through the anxiety and creeped out sensation Orison was experiencing. Ivan's frame was around half a foot taller and around two to three inches wider in the shoulder. That allowed the early twenties looking man to healthily support half again as much muscle as the young mage without losing much potential mobility.

Ivan's eyes clouded with a look of irritated disbelief as he stalked up to less than a foot away, slightly tilted his chin up and looked down at Orison. "You don't feel that?"

The royal guardian was close enough that Orison could feel Ivan's body heat through through the flimsy shirt as puffs of warm air broke on his forehead. In spite of wanting nothing more than to put a few miles of stone between them, some rousing instinct kept Orison's spine straight and his eyes unflinching as Ivan stared in them with uncomfortable intensity.

When Ivan put his hand on Orison's chest, the young mage broke out in unpleasant goosebumps. "Look, I hope I'm reading this situation all kinds of wrong but... If you're trying to throw game at me, I'm flattered but I'm not interested."

Ivan's intense stare turned blank for a second and then he started laughing. There was no joviality in it at all, however. A sad and impotent rage with a hint of desperation induced madness at it's edges bubbled up through it.

A hazy spiritual force began condensing toward Ivan's hand. "You thought I..."

Orison registered a faint hint of danger right before a needle of highly condensed will lanced through his spiritual boundary. It felt quite similar to when Duran had did the same thing in front of the mountain of tainted eternium that everyone thought of as the heart of Osomo. Unlike Duran, however, it carried no sense of good will and the royal guardian didn't try to withdraw it but drove it ever closer to Orison's spiritual seat.

The instinct that had been working its way to the surface of Orison's skin, as it had once before during his fight with the fire wielding master mage, found an outlet past and roared through it. Fortunately for Ivan, the will was strong but not condensed. The first wild surge knocked the green haired man's will out of Orison and back into himself with enough force to mentally stun the royal guardian.

Wave after waved crashed and washed over Ivan's spiritual boundary. Already stunned, the guardian's legs nearly buckled under the pressure. Staggering backwards away from the young mage, Ivan had finally recovered enough equilibrium to actively resist.

Ivan smiled and said, "Yes, this is just as good. I may not be able to cow you to boost my confidence but you can help me hone my will."

Orison was horrified at first. Under his spirit sense, he could see that the will he was unleashing weakened Ivan's boundary with every tidal surge. The guardian's admission of trying to assert spiritual dominance mixed with total lack of remorse removed the young mage's reservations as he began wielding it with deliberate intent.

Feeling the growing weakness but sharpening of his focus, Ivan thought he was benefiting from the experience but in truth he was mere seconds away from his soul being riddled with weak spots that would take a long time to heal.

The older man they had passed in the hall, appeared in a blur with his shield in front of him and a barrier springing into existence. "It's obvious my son is responsible for whatever this is but if you don't withdraw your intent, I'll scatter it. No wound you've ever felt even comes close to that pain."

It took all the self control Orison had plus his sub-mind to wrestle the wild intent back inside. Locked away back under his skin, the intent surged around inside of it for awhile before it finally started to settle back down into dormancy.

Seeing that Orison had gotten himself back under a decent amount of control, the man dropped his guard into a loose state of readiness and turned to his son. "I gave you permission to look for a partner to train your glamour with, not your spiritual intent. It's far too easy to wound or even maim someone without guidance. What possessed you to do something like this?"

Ivan looked at Orison bitterly and then back at his father and said, "He's doing it right now."

The older man looked at the confused but still angry young mage then turned to scowl at his son. "He's a descendant of tribal fey not wild fey like we are. Glamour is something we learn. It's an innate quality they are born with just like we are born with spiritual intent."

Ivan looked at Orison with a slowly dawning understanding and rising sense of horrified guilt which helped the young mage let go of the biggest portion of his anger. It was pointless holding a grudge over something caused from ignorance when no real harm had been done.

The older man turned to Orison once more. "I don't know what era you originally hale from or why Osomo would chose now to release you back into the world but my son isn't completely wrong to take some offense to what you're doing once you're aware... Considering you've spawned only a little over a month ago, you're glamour's only going to get stronger and it's already enough to influence people in small ways. If you leave it unchecked, it will warp the personalities and free will of the people around you."

Feeling a little drained, Orison sat down in the grass and said, "Well, fill me in then because I'm hella lost right now. It would be great if you could start with what is was your son was originally going to do with me and what he actually ended up doing because for a hot second I thought he was trying to get handsy with me."

The older man forced a building sneer off of his face and said, "Setting aside your... misconception, glamour and intent are two sides of the same coin but before I can answer your questions, I need to know myself. Give me a chance to speak with my foolish boy here and I'll return in a short while. I'll send Vivian to attend your needs. Be warned, unaware of your glamour or not, don't get 'handsy' with my daughter."

As soon as they had walked off for a heart to heart, Orison changed back into his gear but kept his boots off since even the father wasn't wearing shoes when he came in to rescue his son. Even though the young mage was simmering under the surface, he didn't see any reason to act like an uncouth foreigner in someone else's home. Besides, he somewhat liked the feeling of the feathery grass.

Unaware of the goofy grin on his face as he walked and even rolled around in it a couple of times, Orison turned to see that a green hair girl had been watching for an indeterminate amount of time. Trying hard not to blush from being caught acting childish, Orison did some stretches and acted like he had been going through a workout routine. Judging by the wry look on the girl's face, she had either been watching too long to be fooled or simply didn't buy it.

Vivian didn't stand out overly much when compared to the hyper feminine aesthetic men of this world leaned towards and women in this world tended to desire displaying. Orison, however, found the modestly endowed and willowy Vivian far more appealing. If not for the olive colored hair and deer-like elvish ears, she could easily be the girl next door that men found pleasant to look at but women wouldn't be overly threatened by. She was the kind of late teen looking girl who had no trouble finding a babysitting gig or retail job.

With the type of clear and slightly musical voice that Orison could listen to all day, Vivian said, "I really don't know what my brother was thinking when he brought you here. Of all the times for a descendant of tribal fey to be brought here, it's the absolute worst."

Orison said, "According to what your father gave permission for, it was a practice partner for glamour. I think that's what he intended but ended up acting real weird before losing his temper and tried to do on a spiritual level what I thought he was about to do on a physical level. I have a whole slew of rotten jokes to make me feel better about everything but I think it might be in poor taste to share them with a young woman I've just met. More so because her brother is the butt of them."

Vivian brought out a glass of vibrantly green tea and some biscuits then handed them to Orison. "Ivan's always been so sensible. It's unsurprising that in this area, he'd be even more unreasonable than the rest since he tries to be so disciplined the rest of the time... Oh, I mean for the rut. It's ridiculous really. Why, two years ago, a distant cousin of ours rejected the champion outright and beat him down. I'd say it was quite the scandal but a year before that there were three women of our family who refused to participate at all and threatened to run away if made to.

"I have it on good authority that the one he has his heart set on isn't as resistant to his overtures as she's lead him to believe. I think she was just too shy to tell him and used this year's challenge as a way to test the sincerity of his feelings. I would have told him as much but I fear if he gave too bad of a showing, she might have a change of heart."

Orison sighed. "No offense, but I have less interest in your brother's romantic troubles now than I did when I thought he was trying to make me a part of them. It was zero then, so I'm fairly sure it's managed to reach negative numbers."

Looking slightly irritated, Vivian said, "What about a duel of glamour felt romantic to you?" No sooner had she finished saying that, a look of comprehension flit across her face and she continued, "Do you see assertion of dominance as, um, romantic? A cousin once told me it could be quite a thrill. There's no shame in liking what you like I suppose."

Orison's eyes got wide and he waved a hand vigorously, "No, no, no. Whatever this duel of glamours thing is, I didn't feel it at all!... He brought me into this little quiet spot on the other side of his bedroom, pretty much asked me to change into something more comfortable and then came back in wearing nothing but pajama bottoms. If that wasn't enough, he gets in my face and says-"

The young mage dipped into a false baritone and said, "You can't feel that?" Returning to his normal voice, "Then he groped my chest!"

Vivian's face pinched in repressed laughter. "Th-that sounds absolutely dreadful!"

"I know right!?" Orison chimed in.

Vivian shook her head. "My poor brother was trying his hardest and he couldn't even get you to feel his awe inspiration at all. That must have been devastating."

The young mage realized she was laughing at his misunderstanding but actually felt pity for her brother.

He thought, "What, you actually think she should care about you? You're a stranger... Well, she's a sh*tty hostess. Here I am traumatized and she's focusing on my assailant. Petty but true."

She crouched down in front of him where he was half sprawled on the grass, propped into a sitting position with his arms. Balanced on the balls of her feet, she locked large, innocent eyes with him. With a look of extreme concentration on her face, she bit her lower lip as a thin sheen of perspiration broke out on her forehead.

Considering how adorable she looked, Orison decided not to take offense at yet another green haired deer person trying to use a decidedly antagonistic supernatural ability on him. Due to not having his guard up like he had with Ivan, Orison felt a slight tingling itchy sensation spread across him. The settling intent inside of him stirred ominously as Orison willed it down.

"You- you can't feel that?" Vivian said, shooting optimistic eyes at him.

A little flustered, Orison said, "Maybe? If you promise not to flip out and start trying to poke a hole in me with your intent, you can put your hand on me."

A light splash of pink colored her cheeks as she reached out and lightly placed a hand on his chest. Like a spark had leapt between them, a faint but ultimately ignorable wisp of essence tried to sink into his mind. Not having it, the roaming beast of intent nipped at it.

His intent might not be fully under his control but it was still a part of him. Since he was positively inclined towards the female who had just tried to charm him, the wild intent just weakened the outer layer of the foreign intent flavored glamour. As it returned to her, it soaked in some of Orison's own unconscious glamour. Both were unaware until it was too late for either of them to do anything about it.

For only a split second, Orison's relatively innocent subconscious desire to earn a little friendly affection from the cute girl intensified within her into something not quite so innocent. She lunged in and kissed him hungrily as she fell on him. The young mage's body had a predictable instinctual response to the sudden stimulation but he didn't reach for her, he tried to back away. He fully well knew that it wasn't her choice to throw herself at him but some kind of retributive rebound of charm.

Despite his chivalrous response, she could feel the not so gentlemanly part of him quite clearly. In a fit of embarrassment and shame from failure, she slapped him before rationality returned and she scampered back to her feet and away from him like he was a campfire she had accidentally fell on. Though it had stung a little, the reflexive slap hadn't been that powerful so Orison shrugged it off as he stood up. Letting the front split in his robes drape closed to curtain off the only evidence of his guilty indulgence in what happened, Orison said in a slightly cracking voice, "I may not know much about glamour and spiritual intent but it must take quite a lot of practice to add the penetrative power of intent to your charm and keep the soul attacking quality out."

Vivian willingly took the peace offering but denied the flattering topic for distraction it was couched in. "Not so much. It was actually quite clumsy. I committed far too much of my strength into the push so I didn't have anything held in reserve to defend with. You can learn from my mistake and we'll call it even on the slap... I'm sorry for overreacting. In a way, I suppose I could take it as flattering that-"

The stern voice of Vivian and Ivan's father cut in, "Save the mutual stroking of ego. You both possess an embarrassing lack of self-control."