The Fool 37

There are many mysterious circumstances that surround the awakening of a demigod, much less one who does it through ways not related to faith. Those mysteries went unobserved, its signs and portents unrecorded. The young mage's focus was driven so far inward, making the most of that momentary flash of insight into a law, he could have been stabbed to death with an acid covered toothpick without noticing.

The occasion may not have had a dedicated observer but that did not mean it went unnoticed. The various phenomenon and much stronger step baptism washed over Stephen who was stunned senseless by the overwhelming sensation of his first. That prematurely stimulated the forming of an unstable second step ring around his sluggish soul.

***

In a distant and slightly removed plane, Cray felt a powerful sense of awe and clarity settle within him. His third step ring that was on the verge of collapse, stabilized and the conceptual form of a ghostly bow within the archer's spiritual consciousness became the fragile shadow of a conduit. Through the spiritual mark, he could sense how deeply Orison was concentrating. Although he didn't know what had happened, he could sense that it was an important moment and was eager for the young mage's next communication to ask.

***

The stirring of magic and spiritual essence within the cave had some interesting effects on the two magical constructions there as well. A semi conscious, shadowy domestic spirit went about its tasks with a renewed and self driven sense of importance. A magic circle that had been dormant for nearly two centuries soaked in ambient essence while the shadowy creature flitting about became aware of its existence.

***

A far roving band of goblinoids that had been coaxed closer to the cave for unknown purpose by an unknown power, scattered in fear before a sensation that they had no way of defining. Sensitives that happened to be near the other side of the shining wall that night turned restlessly for a reason they could not name. Both parties sought what comfort they could in the knowledge that they were out of reach of whatever had disturbed them.

***

A reluctant soldier of demonic forces that wandered weak and lost through the deep paths, thought that they had found hope only to be crushed under despair. The way out they had found was utterly blocked by fallen debris despite the few glimmers of fresh air and light that seeped through a few cracks. A large swarm of bats disturbed from their hibernation seemed to screech mockingly at their plight.

Looking at the light longingly, the dark skinned soldier elf swore that if the light on the other side would offer him salvation, he would dedicate the rest of his life to serving it. A new, less wholesome feeling light joined the first as a buzzing filled the air. A slight tremor wracked the ground as frantic bats beat themselves around in a frenzy to escape the light and sound. One, then another large rock tumbled loose, allowing the elf to barely shimmy through.

Crawling his way through the bats' leavings, he saw the source of light. A young man sitting in meditation, still radiant with the light he had first seen, faded from existence as a dark haired, fair skinned man awoke from his own musings. That man locked onto the dark elf which quickly threw his hands up, in no condition to fight.

"Did you do this?" Stefen said.

In fearful confusion, pupils constricted to pinpricks under the glaring light of the banishment circle, the elven man said, "I was attracted by the light. I do not know what I am seeing."

Stefen took in the malnourished and bedraggled stranger and said, "Here are two days rations. Remain here and tell the ones who come that their friend Orison has been taken by the banishment circle... somehow. My name is Stefen. Tell them that I followed after him to ensure his safety. Cray may take pity on your plight and lend you additional aid."

The elven man slammed his fist against his breastplate weakly and sat down as if the motion had taken what little energy he had left. "Tell that man, Orison, I owe him a debt of service. My name is..."

Stefen, who had already stepped into the circle, disappeared before the elf could declare his name.

***

Orison snapped out of trance floating weightlessly through the void. Assessing his situation, there wasn't much to see. Drawing on the key, he reached out to find that Cray could barely hear him and that Stephen was desperately fighting a downward pull to a location few, if any, would care to go. While he was filled in by Stefen and relating information to the archer, Orison yanked with the power of his conduit.

While attempting to pull Stefen to his side, he felt that he'd dragged the dhampir through a connection to some elsewhere. It was disconcerting but he felt assured that he at least had shifted the man from a definite grim fate to an unknown one. Since he couldn't pull Stefen back out, he tried to use his key to follow instead.

Getting closer, he could vaguely sense the existence of an entrance to somewhere. It wasn't the exact same place that the dhampir had gone but it was linked and that was about as good as he could get because it became quickly apparent that he was either going to have to put the key away or send it elsewhere. Wherever he was going, his space and the Entanglement Key were going to be restricted.

Before he sent the key to Cray, thinking that it might help the man reach him at some point, he exercised a bit of attraction power through it using 'Locate Objective' and the bit of telekinetic ability he had. The thought was, if this is where things passed when they were banished, there might be some abandoned things in the space. He wasn't wrong.

In the weightless surroundings, a little bit of telekinesis went a long way, both figuratively and literally. A couple of dead bodies, a few random items and a couple of familiar ones came to him. He felt like he could have reached for more but he was running out of time to send the key and he still had to sort things.

In the last few moments after sending the key to Cray, he tossed all he could into the triangular storage device. He hid it on his person before he went through the barely perceived crack into what he thought was an adjoining plane. Through the flashes of passing layers, he realized it was an adjoining reality that merely neighbored outer planes with the world he had left.

As he fell from a great height once he passed through into material existence, Orison almost felt like laughing. He was in the same situation as the shadow Orison that had died in his dream. He also realized that he wasn't in the mid dimensions at all. He never had been. Even the expanse of realities that Keita had passed and Amoril itself were merely in an expanse that divided the low from the mid dimensions. The only Orison that had fully made it to the other side in life was 'Red' Orison, the part that was wholly made of 'the boy'.

Keita's misunderstanding about what she sensed was almost entirely Orison's fault due to his flawed understanding. It suddenly made sense why she had found a place that passed a handful of people into the 'high dimensions' every generation. It was because the 'high' that Keita had perceived WAS the 'mid'. The place where she had chosen to be reborn was merely a hair's breadth from being in the mid dimensions properly itself.

Focusing back on his current dilemma, he realized that his over robe was handling it fairly well already. A slight amount of magic essence flowed along his connection to the suit to support a parachute-like effect that was actually mostly non-magical in nature. If there was one complaint about it that he'd voice in front of it's convenient saving grace, it would be a lack of gliding that should have been evident in the build for very little extra effort or magic expenditure.

"It would have been far less grand and graceful but I have enough supernatural might of my own to pull off a friggin straight down descent with no glide. At least, I'm pretty sure I do. At some point, I'll try out my idea when it isn't do or die," he muttered.

Using Find Objective, he tried to latch onto the presence of a nearby person who would be neutral or better in temperament towards him. The last bit was more wishful thinking than something he actually believed that Find Objective could do but didn't see where it would hurt. With a little hope that the intent would help, he used his own body and weak telekinesis to do what he was still mentally bickering his robe should be doing anyway.

"I'm grateful to have this suit and it's amazing. But an obvious design oversight and being amazing despite that, are two different things." The young mage realized that he was rambling to distract himself from the fear of unknown circumstances that he'd be facing alone.

Once he had cleared the dense blanket of stagnant clouds, Orison surveyed the land below to realize that it was a fairly large swampy marsh he'd be landing in. If it wasn't for the fact that the direction he was reaching for was heading relatively near the outer edge of the place, he would have abandoned his original objective to focus solely on escaping landing in it at all.

"What the hell is it with me and swamps or muddy sh*tholes!? Can we not, Greater Reality? Can we not do any more of these? I mean, I'll take it over the vastness of space with no life in sight for light years or some other grim, insanity inducing nightmare. But as long as a whole planet or plane is on the table, maybe we could go for a nice meadow. Maybe a beach with a snack bar or something."

Upon awkwardly landing and being buried into muck up to his shoulders, he checked the status of his spacial and innate powers. "Things can come out but won't go back in without a lot of juice and concentration. I can't do the living portal thing but I can ghost. It's still expensive as all get out but... there really isn't a but. It's just friggin expensive. On the plus side, ghosting with weak telekinesis equals floating!"

With relief, he found that there weren't any issues with the triangular storage device. The current reality may have been restrictive about his space but was extra kind to him being a 'patron'. Although he couldn't speak to Stefen, he could vaguely sense and send emotional impressions. He could also send and receive small things.

Of the random things he grabbed, one of them was the package that Noxflora sent him. He had no idea how it ended up out in the 'space between places' but the reason he found it above other possibilities was because there was some kind of effect on it that drew it to him.

"Aww... It's a portable apothecary's cabinet and a sweet little thank you note from Mr Wei's niece, Ying Yue. Oh, she's been logging some serious hours with the witches. Every single drawer has a preservation enchantment with a few different features. I'll put these weird little flowers that Stefen sent me in this empty one.

"I swear, if I found out HE got placed in a meadow, we're going to have words, Greater Reality. Well, I don't want him to be in the stink anyway. He's got coins, a couple of gems, some medicine and some food. I need to worry about me now."

As he was slogging along, testing his one and only full concept magic and the tiny mote of law revealed by it, he stopped. Within his spirit sight, the young mage saw a huge outline of a creature crouched under nearby murky water. It was slowly creeping closer to a cluster of deer taking turns sipping at a relatively muck free spot.

"My gawd, it's undead spider baby's long lost grandfather! I don't know which I want more, a mother figure to comfort me or the ability to call a missile strike," the young mage thought.

As a test, he reached out telepathically to the matron doe and projected the sense of 'danger from the water'. The elder doe didn't immediately look to the water but towards his direction. The strangeness of his appearance alarmed her all the same. As she tapped the ground to get everyone's attention and slowly lead them back into a nearby thicket, she watched him closely.

Once they were out of the way, he inched closer to the water as a sewing needle slipped out of his hand to hover. "If you're smart enough to move on, ugly, you live. If you pounce up at me, you-"

The creature lunged at him. Orison circulated the stored essence in his legs and bound backwards behind a nearby gnarly rooted tree. Snapping at the air, the thing gave chase. With the small illusion of safety the tree gave him, the young mage gathered his courage to stand ground until the thing moved close enough for him to pull off a kinetic shove of the needle into one of it's two large eyes.

His brain trembled under the strain of pushing through to the brain tissue behind as it flinched back under the unexpected prick of pain. With a finger snap for dramatic flair, he activated the 'mending' temporarily stored in the needle. Although he couldn't see it, Orison knew that the needle was branching out into a delicate burr of fiber thin extensions.

It didn't die easy or quietly. The eerily old man faced looking giant arachnid thrashed and screamed for half a minute before its legs finally curled up underneath it while it laid immobile on its back. Under spirit sight, Orison wasn't fooled. He didn't know how but the abomination was still alive and even showing signs of recovery.

It might have been supernaturally tough physically but spiritually, it was nearly void of protection, displaying its no soul status keenly. The young mage might not have the key but it was made from himself which meant that he had the ability to utilize it features to a minor degree. Reaching out with his intent, he connected with the needle that had been touched by his essence and caused it to rotate.

The creature was up and thrashing again but the second go round wasn't as strong. It was erratic and sluggish and its screams were more pitiful than shrill. The young mage squashed a momentary feeling of pity, knowing the creature would have had none if it could have snatched him.

Once spirit sight showed that the creature had breathed its last, he checked on the state of the needle. The essence that had been pushed through it had ruined it to the point that creating a fresh one from scratch would involve less energy and effort than trying to fix it. Exercising the law touching concept was much different than the spell itself. It messed with bonds on the molecular level which meant that if it wasn't used carefully, he would ruin the inherent memory of its pattern making things un-fixable.

Done with his experiment and racing heart returning to normal, he said cheerily, "That wasn't so bad. Now Miss Doe Matron can have a safe drinking area for her posse a little while. That is, assuming I can figure out how to move this thing away so it doesn't attract scavengers and other predators."

A deep and wary voice to the side said, "I could help with that."

A middle aged man nearing his late fifties but looking like he was still fit and armed enough to take on the world leaned against a tree, deceptively relaxed looking. Orison took in the special black leathers that hid extra protection for vital areas around the torso, weary but neutral amber eyes and the assortment of edged weapons.

"Uh, sure. You need some help for that help or do you got this?" Orison said in his best 'friendly' voice.

The man eyed him back and said, "I wouldn't say no to an extra pair of hands but I'd feel a lot more at ease if I could see your face."

"Promise you won't try to stick something in it and I don't mind flashing you my pearly whites but I didn't bring bug repellent," the young mage said.

After getting a relatively half hearted agreement not to stab his face as long as he didn't give a reason for it needing done, Orison deactivated the helmet. The man's eyes looked at him as if they could see through him and perhaps they could. There was a soft illumination behind them not unlike Orison's own.

"Your master some kind of tough love teacher? What's a kid who can't even grow whiskers yet doing all the way out here?" The man said as he tossed the young mage a small stone jar that smelled of citronella.

For the sake of playing by social rules, he dabbed a bit on and tossed it back before mirroring the man's hold on the creature. He quickly found out that the stranger was a great deal stronger than him, a touch supernaturally so. Running a small trickle of essence into the suit, he could somewhat keep up enough to barely be more help than hindrance.

"Baby smooth is a lifetime default for this face, I'm afraid. Not that you'll hear me griping about it. Imagine all I'll save on time and razors," the young mage said, feeling oddly chipper in his slightly unbalanced state.

Ignoring the evasiveness over mentorship, the man said, "Can't disagree with that."