The Fool 11

While they waited for Hunter to finish his rest and taking turns getting a nap in themselves, Orison dug through Roy's patch for clothes they all could wear. He smiled widely at the selection of stuff inside. The equipment specialist was a brutally efficient pack rat prepared for all occasions.

After a round of Mends and Prestos, the young mage frowned even as Cray and Cole looked increasingly happier. Whatever place they were in, it didn't stop him from using magic but it felt like he was pushing his models through a spaghetti strainer once they left him. If it hadn't been for the sudden and significant raise in reserves, he would have been exhausted to the point of collapse again.

There was magic in the air as well but it was slightly unclean and mildly corrosive to the body. It wasn't too big of an issue as long as he didn't lean on it too much to refill. It did make him wonder and worry about the others. He could sense that Cray had no meaningful connection with the ambient flow of dirty magic but Hunter did and Cole did a little.

"Cole, you and Hunter need to be careful about drawing the magic from the air. If you take it in, it can fill your body and magic channels with corrosion and toxins," Orison said.

The cat boy looked at him oddly. "What makes you think I can use magic? Even if I could, everyone knows you don't 'take it in'. Only beast kin with primal blood, the Dracanos or people with the dragon lancer job do that stuff."

The young mage said, "Setting aside that this place doesn't feel remotely like Osomo, invalidating your common knowledge, you have a connection with the magic of this place and all magic users draw ambient magic into themselves instinctual to refill their reserves."

Cole exclaimed worriedly, "I'm drawing magic in!? Quick, teach me how to stop it! I don't want to turn into a creature!"

Now confused himself, Orison said, "Drawing magic won't turn you into a creature. That was just a label slapped on things by the artifact that ran your world. Drawing the ambient magic here will do a little damage to your body and harmful things can build up inside of you but... I don't get it. I saw with my own eyes, sort of, other magic users on Osomo pulling magic from the air."

"That's the problem with Chosen... Did you even watch one of the Children who could use a little magic, cast a spell, even once!?" Cole said.

Thinking back, Orison realized he didn't. If he'd have stuck around in the classroom Mylar had turned his office into, he very well could have. It dawned on him that the magic channels of everyone he'd seen there were a great deal weaker than his own but hadn't thought much of it.

If Cole's understanding was true, then it made sense. The magic users there would have only been using their channels to draw instinctively, assuming they had them. The rest were pseudo mages who would have had vestigial channels opened just enough for their sparks to 'read' what they were trying to do. Suddenly the 'cool down' information from the summoner and artificer training had a different meaning.

It wasn't informing about the need to watch for magic channel stress. It was only talking about how quickly the spark could receive a new 'command'. Trying to overcome that would make magic fail or possibly cause harm to the caster. It would certainly explain why younger elementalists had scars on their arms no matter how careful they tried to be. In the heat of battle, it was bound to happen that a mage would push to fire a spell even a fraction of a second faster.

Cole and Cray watched silently while Orison tried out a few ideas. To keep from there being any repercussions from failed magic, he played around with the basic summon model he'd copied from Tait's scroll before he'd used it to blow up Jaffin's basement kitchen. Nearly an hour later, the ghostly blue astral projection of a demonic looking dog stood with them in the cave.

As soon as he finished the model a strange tickling sensation settled onto his aura. The ambient magic around him shifted in his perception. Like light passing through a tinted prism, one part of the magic grew a little brighter while the rest grew dim. He tried to run healing but it failed in a way that suggested the laws that governed magic here didn't recognize the model at all. Switching to Degree Shift, it was the same but when he tried Mend, it worked easily.

Two parts of the magical 'spectrum' in the ambient air was detectable to his magic channels but the rest was completely obscured. There were complicated laws at work but he wasn't overly concerned about it. The world would help him hold and fill in conjured models and transmutations, his third and first most costly 'bang per buck' magic. He would just have to slog the old fashioned way with dramatically increased cost for the rest.

"There are some similarities with Osomo magic here but it feels far less like a 'program coding' from an artifact and far more like an organic rule or reality. It could very well be a principle that was used in Osomo's creation. I always thought that it was a control mechanism but maybe the reason your world had magic work the way it did was to prepare people for wherever they'd be up here," Orison said, more talking at Cole rather than with him.

The feline teen looked back confused and a little angry for being confused. The young mage inwardly chuckled that nearly everything probably caused disgruntlement in one form or another with the boy. Naturally prickly disposition barely covered it. Trying to think generously, Orison reasoned that if he had endured being crippled for easier coin earning only to be thrown out when he no longer was cute and pitiful but just plain pitiful, he'd be rather angry at the whole world too.

Pushing his ruminations on Cole to the back of his mind, the young mage rummaged through the Blood Moon badge for other useful things. Dumping it all out, he hit the contents and the inside space with a Presto before putting it all back in except what was immediately useful. After some careful consideration, he handed Roy's spare holstered caster gun to Cray and the survival knife over to Cole while keeping the machete for himself.

"Since there's ambient magic, the gun should fill on its own but if you shoot faster than that, you'll be losing a couple hours of your lifespan a round," Orison said, immediately feeling foolish as Cray broke it down to do a maintenance check.

Cray nodded at him and went back to his inspection while Cole kept glancing between the machete and his survival knife. "Not to sound like a snooty beggar but why do I have a knife while you have a jungle saber?"

The archer cut in, looking up from the lightning quick reassemble of the caster gun with a smirk. "Said the boy to the man."

As Cole's frowning face turned into a scowl, Orison held back an inappropriate chuckle and said, "Because you won't be engaging threats unless it's more than Cray and myself can handle. Your main job is to keep yourself and Hunter safe."

Focusing his glare on Cray, the feline teen said, "Suit yourself... Said the warrior to the mage who wants to tank."

Orison sighed. "You have a point. Call it pride or uneasy conscience but I couldn't sleep well if I thought I was exposing someone over half my age to danger in order to keep myself a little safer. Duran was a special case but even that bothered me more than I can say."

Turning to Cray, he added, "I don't know how to say this without it sounding a little weird but did I turn somewhat into a floating ball of light at some point. And if I did, who touched me first?"

The archer shrugged but Cole said, "You were fuzzy around the edges but getting less and less so when Adam reached for you like he dropped his only meat pie for the month."

Orison said, "I see. So, that's why I'm a little shorter, younger and lighter built but everything else is about the same."

Cray chimed in. "From what I saw, you still look like a gladiator. You just went from pit to pet. Now, whether folks thought it was the Senator or his wife that was keeping you... Guess that would depend on which side they saw first."

Over the subject, the young mage prompted, "Squeeze off a round on the caster and let me see how long it takes the ambient to refill it."

Seeing the archer pointing out of the cave mouth situated on a cliff side, Cole said, "Wait! How loud is it? What if it brings those skeletons back?"

Cray said, "They stopped coming at day break. We're not quite past midday and if they had a master, I'm right sure that our troubles would have doubled before now."

The feline teen didn't look so certain but he remained silent as Cray leveled the barrel at the distant sky and let a shot rip. Although not as loud as regular gunfire, it didn't sound much different. Hunter, who was understandably sensitive to the sound, woke up howling in mindless terror.

Feeling terrible about not thinking of how such an event might affect the kid, the young mage apologized as he still continued observing the ambient fill rate. "A bit longer than three seconds. I'm so sorry, Hunter. We could have at least covered your ears or something. If-"

The boy dryly croaked, "It's all my fault. I didn't know but I thought I did and I could have done it so differently."

His words became increasingly harder to understand as he worked himself into a stupor. While Hunter calmed back down, Orison asked Cray, "How long have we been here?"

"A mite past half a day, I reckon," the archer replied.

The young mage grew thoughtful. "Has the top of this cliff been scouted yet?"

Cray replied, "I took a gander earlier and damn near fell to my watery death. It's chalky. All I can say for sure is that there were skeletons falling from above trying to get to us and down below there's not so calm water. Left and right don't look much different than where we are for a good half mile."

Trying to remain calm, Orison said, "How did we end up in a strangely spherical cave on a crumbly cliff?"

Cray scratched his head. "Truth is, we was IN the cliff. A part fell off. I think we was further in but the bubble we was floating down in tried to make its way out into open air before it wore off."

Sighing, the young mage said, "Count our blessings, I guess. If there are undead above us, we wouldn't have had a breather to figure some things out if we popped up there or in the water under us. I don't fancy our survival chances if we had to hit the ground LITERALLY running, swimming either for that matter. If the temperature's anything to go off of, that water's probably chilly."

Turning back to Hunter, he said, "Hey, bud. It is what it is. Give me the best breakdown you can and we'll figure it out."

Between a few more emotional moments that Cole helped support him through, Hunter's revelation was pretty shocking to all of them. Having said some rather unintentionally cute things that pulled on Zoe's mommy heartstrings, she gave him a present when she swung by to drop off a second round of 'space between places' drop offs. She just thought it was an amphora 'wine jug' used by 'real vampires' that she thought the kid would get a kick out of owning.

It turned out to be the Jinn Orison had accidentally helped to escape the Wish Tower. Hunter didn't exactly know how she had been corked again but he remembered her mentioning an Abyss Lord named Rozcherek hatefully. Being the nice kid that he is, after asking excitedly about the three wishes, he dedicated the last one to setting her free in exchange for nothing more than to be friends. The innocent sincerity of that gesture managed to touch the fiery haired woman enough that she didn't twist his other two wishes to lethal slag as she was originally inclined to do.

It turned out that Hunter wasn't that big of a gullible kid anyway. He intentionally chose a wish that was loaded with its own built in death traps. His first wish was for a full 'Deck of Many Wonders' that Orison had to keep Hunter from explaining to death because he probably knew the item in question better than the kid did, Al being a veteran tabletop gamer.

For the kid's second and final wish, since he already dedicated the third to freeing the Jinn, was that his first of five draws from the deck would be 'The Moon or its equivalent' at full effect. The Jinn, who was ready to take off, stopped when she realized that the kid had pretty much earned himself four more wishes. It was something she had always been told was impossible because the laws of reality didn't allow for such a thing as a wish for more wishes of any kind.

He didn't do anything overly crazy with the other wishes, spooked by the Jinn's surprise at his maneuvering. He dedicated the first card granted wish to having each of his draws affect those who had 'received Al's goodwill', figuring that it would help not only just him but everyone present and be able to reach his dad and uncle in the hospital. Two he used to 'call draws' and the final wish was to make his remaining draws, positive ones.

There where already a few small problems but there were two larger ones in effect that became clear later. The first was that the deck he had wasn't exactly like the deck from the game. The second was that he didn't declare 'or its equivalent' like he had with The Moon card which had been the Snow Berry and its granted 'wishes' only affected the deck itself.

Hunter's second draw and first called draw, the deck's closest resembling card to The Page, was supposed to call forth a relatively low level but seasoned warrior to be a loyal protector. What it actually did was call to one's side, a debtor raised from the dead to work it off in service or some such. That had an interesting and not completely beneficial effect. It also illustrated that Hunter had miscalculated things.

The third draw was The Sun and he was happy about it's affect of granted joy and prosperity but was unsure of what the 'joy' thing was actually supposed to do. That was the card that had caused Al to be pelted by things on the stairs because all the things that appeared wasn't just his but his niece's and Adam's as well. With the accumulated horde upstairs, the first floor of the house had turned into a dragon's nest of loot.

While everyone was scrambling to claim what they believed to be theirs and possibly not, he drew the fourth card and the second called one. The Star raised some character stats in the game but Hunter's deck version granted wisdom through 'great loss'. Everything disappeared and the house full of people were floating in the void, kept alive by Zoe. It was at that moment, as many started becoming ghostly, everyone became aware that the only people who were actually 'alive' were the summoned debtors.

Understandably, a lot of people were freaking out. As icing on the cake, everyone who was dead became aware of their last moments. No doubt a part of the 'granted wisdom' effect of the card.

The last part was hard for the boy to get through because not only did he find out he was dead and how but Deshawn, recently returned to life after being summoned to Myra's side, kept trying to clutch his ghostly form while screaming his name over and over. Cole took over and explained the last card, The Three Fates. Its effects were hard to describe but its what sent the key, ring and 'black marble' to the 'other remaining Orison' while sending all the people from Earth back home along with their bound debtors.

For reason's that weren't completely clear but vaguely understandable, 'Al' and Hunter were excluded from that. They weren't, however, excluded from being brought back from the dead and sent elsewhere. What still remained a mystery was how Sammy and the key conduit played their parts in it all.

Orison sat down bonelessly. "So, we were all dead? Then what was that place and how were we-"

Cray cut in. "Bardo, Spirit Plains... whatever you want to call it, it's a place between the living and the dead. Seemed Zoe knew that all along but didn't really see how it mattered. According to her, most souls just roam around until they lose everything. Some souls, especially strong ones or a whole mess from the same place, they form afterlife places that don't rightly belong to nobody."

In a burst of grim realization, Orison said, "I thought I was the collector for all the dying Orison parts but I was wrong. Al was just the first to be dead because he didn't get to live again like the other parts. Of course I'd be in a place like that. There's no reincarnation until you're completely dead and there's still a part alive out there."

Cray chuckled. "Well, now there's two. How about that?"

The young mage slipped his hands over his face. "There's too many variables. I don't know if we're still under the affects of 'Gates of Reincarnation' or not. If I or the one I call Red Orison, die before merging now, there's a chance what the other one has will be lost or follow them. We've become a fractured soul! If I'm right, our greater space and its connected plane will be lost to us forever if we don't merge."