Role Playing Fan Fiction ❯ Conjure It At Your Own Risk ❯ Astral Objection ( Chapter 9 )

Trolling is a critical skill. Father and grandmother were apparently expert trolls, in the internet sense, even if neither could use the internet. Instead, they trolled wizards, monsters, wizard cops, demons, fairies, and fallen angels. Beings that deserve it. I think if Dad had more nerve he might have trolled those dragons he met at that vampire party where mom first got into real trouble. More than once, I wish I’d been at those events just to mock the participants. So smug and snide and enjoying the moment of betrayal, when their trap closed on the idiots who walked into it. Like Mom and Dad and Uncle Michael. Realizing that the rip in the universe, through time, meant I could apply my own magic to modify it even further than merely seeing the other side at this location, but beyond that using Clairvoyance and a drop of my own blood to my own relations back on Earth, but only as an Astral Projection. And then I noted I could use illusion magic to create my own image there on the far side and speak to people there. So I could find Papa and Michael and say hello.

I cast the spell, imbuing it with soul thanks to this whole Shout-Soul magic I’d been delving into and search across time and space… and found the glowing anchor of Papa. I zoomed in, focusing myself and then projected my own image and was able to see and hear. It was a largish stone chamber without windows but many lanterns and candles and around two hundred wizards and apprentices. They stared at me. Many gasped out loud. Papa was sitting at a bench, looking around 25 years old and wearing an old bathrobe, a ratty beard and long hair. If memory is correct this would be a few months after that first attack by the vampires and Dad lit them all on fire, twice, and then summoned the shades of the dead to tear Bianca’s soul apart and drag her to hell. Literally.

“Huh. Hi Dad!” I called out to Papa. He blinked, looked around, then looked back to me, and pointed to himself in great confusion.

“Who are you?” he asked in bad latin.

“Your daughter. From the future. Just a bit of time travel. Special circumstances,” I didn’t explain. He blinked. I turned to regard the Merlin, and his soul was black as night, full of Outsider contamination and Necromancer.

“Merlin, you are a BAD bad boy! I can see souls and yours could not be blacker. You kill baby black wizards. What do you clowns do about the big bads?” I asked the crowd, still staring at me. I was glowing blue and transparent like one of those force ghosts from Star Wars Return of the Jedi. The one with the teddy bears. I was also floating around eight feet in the air. I used my magic to adjust my position. “Lotta black wizards here. We’ve got some Outsiders wearing human skins. And a couple Denarians! Several of you are property of Demons… does the idea of Basic Security even occur to your people?”

“Foul hag! Name yourself!” called out the gruff maniac who had to be Morgan. He died when I was little, so I never met him. But any wizard who’d been forced to deal with the man had stories. He was everyone’s enemy. Total nutjob.

“Wow. Look at you. Soul grey and black. All those murders add up. You know, killing with a sword isn’t any less killing with magic. You aren’t insulated from the psychic blow. You’re going straight to hell. Wow. And your hypocrisy! The angels here are very disapproving over your behavior. Why don’t you people use your Sight more? You’d solve a lot of mysteries, understand the universe, actually learn important truths about magic and the soul. Like, that faerie back there,” I said, pointing to a nondescript woman near the back row, who tried hard not to react. “They can’t stand iron. Do any of you know why?”

“The touch of iron is bane to faery folk,” called out Ebenezar. He’s my great grandfather, and covered in black magic. Man needs to pray more. Some serious sanctification is required.

“Yes, but WHY is that so? It is because of the elemental properties of iron. It has a stable nucleus, so its presence prevents the magics used for most time travel, and faery folk are Timelords. Like Doctor Who.”

“Preposterous,” muttered the Merlin Necromancer. His understudy with the poisoned inks tittered at this. I flung a dagger through his head. Pity it was insubstantial. He sputtered and screamed.

“I see you Walker. Know that your time is ending. Before and Behind will end. The ones who can Eat you live. Your immortal souls torn apart, dissolved, your power stolen and turned to a new purpose. Your own ending comes SOON. Tell your brothers, Walker. Your Cthulu monsters are WEAK.”

“Sorry Necromancer Merlin. I see you’ve trained your dog not to notice. “Do you hear me Morgan? You evil idiot! You are a Dark Wizard. If you truly believed in justice you’d cut your own throat with that sword you worship.”

He fired some spells at me. I laughed.

“Astral Projection, dummy.” The german wizards laughed. Dummy is short for the german word Dumpkopf. I noticed the Vampire snot addicts and projected magelight globes above them.

“There are Vampire spies. They probably know something about that Archangel thing you are all so upset about. Sunlight will burn them, a sure sign of vampire venom addiction. Basic Security!” I shouted at them again.

“All these kinds of wizards and a few gods, and some fallen angels, and some actual angels,” whom I nodded and gestured to, still watching intently, “and none of you are proper faithful. Well, Papa and the Gatekeeper are, but the rest of you need to spend some time in Church, praying for forgiveness of your sins. Few of you sitting here are clean souls. Most are grey and some are black. If your Basic Security worked they wouldn’t be seated here. Much less following your Necromancer Merlin. Speaking of which,” I said and turned, then fired Dragonrend at the two Walker contaminated puppets. The lesser screamed right out of his body, which broke apart, and the Merlin was blown out of his body, which deflated as his soul swelled outwards into a cloud of evil darkness finally visible to the crowd.

“Why are you clowns so blind?” I demanded of two hundred of the Earth’s strongest wizards. I fired Soul Bind as a shout, which prevented the cloud from escaping, then fired Mortal Helix Purity and destroyed the darkness in an inward spiraling shower of soulfire. The angels stood at my shoulders, holding back the Outsider, aid I did not expect and was grateful for. I cast Heal on my throat again and fired of Purify Banish Motality and the cloud of magic left behind rushed into me, despite the distance and my astral body being so far away.

“Now that is how you kill an Outsider. Elect a new Merlin, and have everyone checked by some actual Temple Dogs, not those robot things. Use the real ones. They can’t be fooled,” I ordered, remembering Mouse fondly. “There are some in Tibet at the Buddhist temples there.”

I descended my floating figure to face Papa. Morgan tried to slash me with his magic sword. I blinked at him as it did nothing. I shouted the first word of Unrelenting Force and blew him across the room. An angle caught him before he could brain himself on the wall. Still a purpose to serve in God’s plan. Well, God did make really good beer, even if Papa put it in the icebox, on the quiet.

“So, what did you think of that?” I asked him.

“Who is your mother?” he asked in genuine concern.

“Not Murphy, sad to say. Someone you know well. Someone you love,” I answered.

“But how?” he asked.

“Well, someday you’ll have a conversation with a girl about handcuffs and get an idea that works. Something about unicorn rope, a couch, and inability to reach you to bite your throat. Nine months later there was me.”

“So time travel? How does that work? The laws?” he complained, confused.

“The laws are interesting. The Faery folk are bound by the laws too, which is why they are so very Lawful, and why they love cheating without breaking the laws. They are literally bound by paradox. I am not. First, because I am not actually here. And second because I’m accessing this place using an artifact in the far distance of the Never Never, so far it is a different planet, with humans and several non-faery versions of elf. There are artifacts that the local gods either created or God did and dropped there, but they are nails in reality, something around which that world is composed and an exit from the Nevernever to this world is possible. They call it Nirn, locally. There’s a LOT of magic here, so you don’t really run out. Mages and wizards are powerful here, or would be if they weren’t so boring and uncreative. Much like Earth, there’s always some idiot making deals with demons or raising the dead to serve them, and before you know if they’re picking fights with people with better armor and sword and get killed, and good riddance. The more lawful wizards are kinda weak. Even the local archmage isn’t much. Hey, did you know you can combine Thaumaturgy and your fire spell to make a fireball that homes in on enemies and burns them, linking the ball back to your mana and will so it recharges and can be used again. Might come in handy if you run into another dungeon where it is full of enemies and you can just cast the spell and wait outside until the spell says it is over. Works great on vampire dens,” I explained. Papa looked intrigued at this, and I could see his eyes mist over, thinking of a way to make this happen.

“As for Mama and he condition, I don’t have a solution. The eventual conclusion made me what I am today, and I think Mama would be proud of the Witch I’ve become. Or sorceress? Archmage? I have killed a few gods you know. They have dragons here. Did you know they are part god? You either need one of those fancy sword like Michael carries or be starborn to actually kill one for good. Next time you see that Ax-dragon, keep that in mind. Works best on Samhain or Beltaine. But works on ALL gods. And greater faeries, too. That’s why Morgan fears you, Papa. Not this nonsense with Uncle Justin, but your actual potential.”

“Heya gramps. Go to church. Go see Father Forthill. Your soul needs cleansing,” I ordered Ebenazar. The crowd of wizards were still arguing about who should go to Tibet and ask for a Temple Dog, and who was senior enough to be the next Merlin.

“If I find you clowns elected a black wizard as the next Merlin, I’m going to be really angry. I may even shout at you,” I warned. They stopped talking, having just seen me kill the greatest wizard in the world by shouting at him. The Nords in the crowd cheered. I realized I’d said part of my threat in Norse. Figures.

“See you around Papa. Might be at sort of random times,” I cautioned him.

I allowed the spell to withdraw me back to my own body, chilly on the top of the mountain. I cast warming on myself and waited for the shivering to stop.

“So, what happened?” Sofia asked.

“Found my Papa, met a bunch of wizards, killed a couple baddies by shouting from my ghost, and taught my Papa how to sleep with my mother so I will exist.”

“That is not the usual way,” Sofia admitted after a moments thought.

“Yes, not the typical way at all.”