Chapter 245: 245
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"Can you drive?" They asked the young woman.
She said, "Decently. I'm not as goo-"
The magician pulled a set of empty clothes from the driver seat and threw them out along with a large amount of empty food packages left in the back seat. With a casting of Presto, there weren't dead bugs or eggs left in the car either. At least, none that Orison could see.
"Let's have a trial run to the gas station up the road. If everything looks good, we'll take a detour through an out of the way town for resupply and rest. Then, we'll start heading to our original destination," the magician explained.
Later that evening, the two were passing through a third town free of corpses but with random clothes discarded here and there. It seemed that they were passing through the bug cloud monster's previous path. Finding additional food was a great deal more time consuming but the occasional house had hidden stores of 'apocalypse ready' supplies. The current need wasn't overly great but Orison was preparing for future needs as well as present.
"Why do you pick up so much stuff if you don't care about it?" the young woman asked curiously.
The magician replied, "My grandfather was a shapeshifting dragon."
She looked at him with wide eyes.
"That's not the reason but it's also true... What, I'm not allowed to tease? I like comfort but I try not to become attached to it. It's a kind of exercise to amass things and allow them to pass to others. In the right kind of situation, a roll of toilet paper or a pack of batteries can make a friend," They said.
The young woman asked nervously, "Do you... like me?"
Orison chuckled. "I hardly know you but I don't dislike you. Why?"
Looking a little scared and on the verge of a panic attack, she said. "I-I noticed some of the things you've been collecting and wondered if... if you planned on using them with me."
They shot her a look of sympathy and said, "I didn't get them with any one purpose in mind. With one of my abilities, they have a variety of uses outside their intended purpose. I don't personally need them for 'that' at all...
"Don't look at me like that. Although I'm not overly eager, at the moment, I'm capable and not particularly unwilling. But, I certainly wouldn't push my affections on someone that was anything less than clearly consenting."
Looking relieved but unconsciously still tense, she asked, "Just to make conversation, what's your type?"
"The most important thing is feelings, though. I tend to be a mirror to the person I interact with. If someone loves me, I'll eventually return that feeling in some form. Though, it's not always the one they want from me.
"It'd be the natural thing to return the question but I have another instead. Do you want to be a man for a little while? It wouldn't be permanent and maybe it would make you feel safer."
The young woman said, "... No!... I'm sorry. I-it's hard to put into words but... I don't think that would be a good thing for me."
Orison knew the woman was a sensitive but They had underestimated by how much. The closer they came to their destination, the tighter time laws were winding. A quick check on a marker point left where the magician had arrived on the world placed that at around a twenty times difference. The closer they were to the pull Orison was feeling, the slower personal time was moving and the greater the stress the frame and structure of reality was under.
The young woman was overcoming her trauma at an advanced pace because her spiritual consciousness was straddling the line between her body and her soul. A physical body synced with the environment it was in but the soul synced with the reality as a whole. A consciousness, which bridged the two could gain a great deal more in such a situation, the more sensitive it was. That applied to healing from trauma but also to the accumulation of it as well.
Such tighter wound places would also be where the fractures on the world would occur. The fragments that would stick to the mid-dimensions instead of sinking/merging with the low would be found in such places. It was all theory but from what the magician knew, that seemed the most likely outcome. There was a lot more that They didn't know and experiencing it first-hand would be a valuable learning experience, assuming They didn't die.
That night, while they were resting, a part of Orison's consciousness was using intent and Spirit Sight to attempt learning how to 'see' the stress marks caused by reality's 'fall' as it died. There were a couple of different times that the magician had fell prey to naturally occurring traps created by inharmonious stress and fracture points in space-time. After having experienced the floating 'splinters' on the adjoining planes of Beta Majoris, They had a reference. Learning how to recognize the dangerous stretching and splintering of space-time when the signs were more subtle would be an invaluable addition to Spirit Sight's usefulness.
The next morning, the young woman had turned a freeze dry 'breakfast scramble' into something that actually resembled one. While they ate, she chatted about the romantic comedy that she had watched on the portable DVD player they had picked up the day before. It was nearly surreal how 'normal' it felt.
On the road, she said, "We've been traveling together for a while now and we still don't know what to call each other. I've never been a big fan of my full name but I don't mind my nickname so much. You can call me Cat. What should I call you?"
Drawn out of Their half-trance study by the question, Orison replied, "Sonny's fine."
Once the floodgate had been opened, it gushed. Cat's voice would be a bit raspy for the rest of her life but it was fuller and stronger once she started using it. She seemed intent on making up for all the time she hadn't been.
Although it disrupted the magician from his studies once in awhile for comments that required response, that wasn't such a bad thing. The idea was to be able to notice stress marks and fractures without warning, after all. Popping in and out, searching for the nearly invisible signs, was good practice.
While Cat drove, occasionally asking Orison to change out a music CD, the two began noticing a thinning of everything from trees to houses. The trend continued until there wasn't much more than a carpet of tall grass browning under summer heat. The magician would have been alarmed considering the roaming supernatural dings on Their radar but Cat put Them at ease.
"It was the Fallow Field Phenomenon. In the first year of... plague, the sudden drop in travel and commerce caused issues with agriculture. Large commercial farms closed their doors all over the place in tandem with small community co-ops popping up." she said.
Orison frowned. "That doesn't explain the lack of houses and other buildings."
She added, "Oh, safe zone building material reclamation. With so many places a no-go for anyone but authorized government personnel, local government began issuing permits for reclaiming materials from unused structures. Foreclosed and unclaimed property of deceased households defaulted under state government control. Law enforcement was so overworked that anyone could just go and start looting or tearing down other people's houses in outskirt areas like this."
"Because of that, most of the relatively nicer communities we'll meet were formed from neighborhood watch 'militia'. You know, when we do. We are going to where more people are at some point, right?"
The magician nodded. "There's almost guaranteed to be protected communities but I don't know who, among those that might let us in, will be safe to join."
Flashing Them a wry look, Cat said, "And that's different from normal, how?"
The magician sighed. "I guess it's not, really. I was talking about supernatural or supernatural aware communities, though."
To help her get a grasp on what They meant, Orison shared some stories about Their time on another dying reality without bringing up most of the confusing parts. Before They'd completed those stories, They sensed a somewhat familiar disturbance in the air. It was a boundary crack like the one They were stuck in within the purse's illusion version of the other dying world.
Orison thought, "It shouldn't be that bad. We're going around thirty miles an hour and the road's cleared. Most importantly, no one's wearing enchantments that might interact with it. I wonder how she's going to react to the feeling of passing through it."
With some mild anticipation, the magician was monitoring carefully as they passed through. There was a static tingle and a sense of increased gravity pulling down that only registered on a supernatural level. That should have been it but there was an unpleasant surprise waiting on the other side.
Among a loud crunch, The two barely had time to register that they hit a physical barrier before Orison reflexively ghosted to keep from busting through the windshield. There wasn't enough time to reach out to her in any way as They sailed through the air and the wall of force that had stopped the car.
Twisting in air, the magician could see the look of confusion and pain from the seat belt biting into her. She, the car and everything in it looked ghostly to Orison as They finished passing out of the boundary's field of effect. Even that only lasted but a moment before she vanished from view completely, drawn into the rift.
Through the key bound shadow holding her pact mark, They saw her personal time slow down. A moment later, as They came to a floating stop, Orison's ability to monitor grew dimmer as she slipped into a vacuum-like space. For the short few moments she was like that, as her time sped up far past Orison's own, the temporary pressure of the air conditioned car kept her from suffering more than some disorientation from weightlessness.
Suddenly fatigued from a surge of essence They gave to the Entanglement Key, Orison kinetically pushed through it at the car. Not too far from her location there was another rift with faint essence signs indicating life. It was a close call but the car managed to hang on to enough oxygen and cabin pressure to keep her from passing out as she sailed through it.
There were no more visuals. The shadow wasn't strong enough for anything more than to act as a passive intermediary for the moment. It was strange feeling the fast forward of complex emotions working themselves out but it seemed she was alive and relatively unharmed. Assured that They did what They could within reason, the magician focused on Their own person situation.
Orison was stuck in 'see through' form but wasn't paying for it anymore. They seemed to be in some sort of magic circle hidden in a hollow under the asphalt but there was no one else around. Looking back behind Them, the beginning of the rough and irregular boundary wall showed a scene of peaceful and uninterrupted scenery.
Someone was using two stretches of wires to pass a low current of electricity between locked boxes on either side of the road. The magician had no idea how it worked or what principle was used but it caused a small portion of the boundary's wall to act as if it was solid to things within the boundary line's effect. Since boundary lines weren't something Orison understood anyway, it was pointless on guessing but they filed the piece of information away.
"Well, at least the occasional ion shimmer is colorful and pretty to look at in Spirit Sight. I wonder what aurora borealis would look like when viewed under a powerful Spirit Sight capable of reaching it. " the magician muttered.
They were stopped by the magic circle to begin with but tried to forcefully push through it anyway. The dome of power might as well have been made of steel for all the traction Orison could get in ghost form to pass through. The only bright spot was that, since the circle was paying for the ghost form to remain active, it was powering down fast.
They waited patiently while using the opportunity to study the elusive form that seemed to be available only when void form was restricted or denied. It seemed that the ghost form was actually a transitional state from the normal material plane presence to the extra-dimensional one. Knowing that, Orison was confident that They could arrest the transition to void form before it completed. In places where going '2D cut out' was allowed, it would likely be a cheaper alternative with a lot more utility.
It had been nearly five minutes and most of the power used up when two cars came screeching to a halt several feet away. A bald man in his mid forties that was covered in tattoos and looking more than a little worse for wear approached the circle with hurried movement and barely contained excitement. He was joined by a handful of younger men and women ranging from mid teens to early thirties.
With a barked order for them to maintain the circle in complete silence and to not look inside, the man turned to Orison, refusing to make direct eye contact. "By the power that hath been granted to man by God, to have dominion over the earth and command over angel and demon alike, I order you to reveal your name to me."
They felt only the slightest compulsion to answer but saw no harm in giving some form of address for the half crazed man to use. "Uh, you can call me Sonny, I guess."
"Sonny, by the Holy of Holies, tetragrammaton, by Elohim and all the sacred names of the divine, I command you. In which sphere do you reside and what title do you hold there?" The man intoned with a solemness and charismatic force that superseded his unwholesome appearance.
A compulsion with the force and unpleasantness of being slapped in the face with wet toilet paper broke over the magician. They were tempted to answer with a nasty rebuke but a small trickle of essence of existence came from compliance to the first question.
So, with building annoyance, Orison answered, "I reside in the material sphere and my title is The Magician."
The man blinked in surprise. "Within the- within the hierarchies of the infernal and celestial hosts, where does this title rank?"
"It doesn't. I don't belong to any host's hierarchy. That includes abyssal to save you some time," They replied.
Looking confused, the man said, "To what placement of power do belong in the cosmic order?"
Orison was puzzled by the unclear wording. "Between mortal and transcendent? I'm a tier four... That's equivalent to a demigod's level of power and ability."
Doubt cleared from the man's face as he laughed contemptuously. "A lowly egregore who postures and misleads with pretension. Swear to serve me all the days of my life with utmost loyalty."
"That'll be measured in seconds if you make such an asinine statement again. If you're done, wrap it up. Your younger disciples are starting to suffer spiritual and lifespan damage from maintaining the circle," Orison said darkly.
The man sharply barked, "Do not do as this entity says. The weakness you feel is trickery. Fight it and your will shall be keener, your spirit stronger."
Targeting the younger ones, Orison gathered up debt and threw it at them with the unspoken command to sleep. Without exception, every disciple targeted collapsed into unconsciousness on the spot.
With half of his people shaped soul batteries out of commission, the man removed a ceremonial dagger from an inside pocket of his ratty leather vest and slammed it into the asphalt, chipping the blade. "I command you to obey. Stay in the circle peacefully."
A force akin to a bullwhip crack raised a seeping welt on the magician's chest above the heart point as a force with the potency of a ten year old's punch rippled through and dispersed within the first layer of Their inner space. Stunned more by surprise than inability to resist, They unintentionally complied for a moment. A sizable portion of the special essence unique to mortals was gifted to Orison as a reward for that compliance with a minute but steady trickle flowing in to reinforce it.
Inwardly Orison chuckled and thought, "So, that's how it works. It's carrot and stick together. But damn, that's a bitter pill to swallow. No wonder lesser devils and demons are so angry yet cooperative with summoners."
The man bellowed, "Serve me!"
"I will provide a service within my abilities up to what my moral integrity and personal pride will allow but I will not 'serve' you," Orison said, last compromise and patience used up.
The man geared up to push some other outrageous demand when a man dressed like an English gentleman, somewhere in his mid sixties, whacked the tattooed man on his bald head with a silver tipped cane. "Stop this inanity at once!"
Orison smiled and said, "Oh my gawd! I'd recognize your soul signature and attitude no matter what form it wears."
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
"Can you drive?" They asked the young woman.
She said, "Decently. I'm not as goo-"
The magician pulled a set of empty clothes from the driver seat and threw them out along with a large amount of empty food packages left in the back seat. With a casting of Presto, there weren't dead bugs or eggs left in the car either. At least, none that Orison could see.
"Let's have a trial run to the gas station up the road. If everything looks good, we'll take a detour through an out of the way town for resupply and rest. Then, we'll start heading to our original destination," the magician explained.
Later that evening, the two were passing through a third town free of corpses but with random clothes discarded here and there. It seemed that they were passing through the bug cloud monster's previous path. Finding additional food was a great deal more time consuming but the occasional house had hidden stores of 'apocalypse ready' supplies. The current need wasn't overly great but Orison was preparing for future needs as well as present.
"Why do you pick up so much stuff if you don't care about it?" the young woman asked curiously.
The magician replied, "My grandfather was a shapeshifting dragon."
She looked at him with wide eyes.
"That's not the reason but it's also true... What, I'm not allowed to tease? I like comfort but I try not to become attached to it. It's a kind of exercise to amass things and allow them to pass to others. In the right kind of situation, a roll of toilet paper or a pack of batteries can make a friend," They said.
The young woman asked nervously, "Do you... like me?"
Orison chuckled. "I hardly know you but I don't dislike you. Why?"
Looking a little scared and on the verge of a panic attack, she said. "I-I noticed some of the things you've been collecting and wondered if... if you planned on using them with me."
They shot her a look of sympathy and said, "I didn't get them with any one purpose in mind. With one of my abilities, they have a variety of uses outside their intended purpose. I don't personally need them for 'that' at all...
"Don't look at me like that. Although I'm not overly eager, at the moment, I'm capable and not particularly unwilling. But, I certainly wouldn't push my affections on someone that was anything less than clearly consenting."
Looking relieved but unconsciously still tense, she asked, "Just to make conversation, what's your type?"
"The most important thing is feelings, though. I tend to be a mirror to the person I interact with. If someone loves me, I'll eventually return that feeling in some form. Though, it's not always the one they want from me.
"It'd be the natural thing to return the question but I have another instead. Do you want to be a man for a little while? It wouldn't be permanent and maybe it would make you feel safer."
The young woman said, "... No!... I'm sorry. I-it's hard to put into words but... I don't think that would be a good thing for me."
Orison knew the woman was a sensitive but They had underestimated by how much. The closer they came to their destination, the tighter time laws were winding. A quick check on a marker point left where the magician had arrived on the world placed that at around a twenty times difference. The closer they were to the pull Orison was feeling, the slower personal time was moving and the greater the stress the frame and structure of reality was under.
The young woman was overcoming her trauma at an advanced pace because her spiritual consciousness was straddling the line between her body and her soul. A physical body synced with the environment it was in but the soul synced with the reality as a whole. A consciousness, which bridged the two could gain a great deal more in such a situation, the more sensitive it was. That applied to healing from trauma but also to the accumulation of it as well.
Such tighter wound places would also be where the fractures on the world would occur. The fragments that would stick to the mid-dimensions instead of sinking/merging with the low would be found in such places. It was all theory but from what the magician knew, that seemed the most likely outcome. There was a lot more that They didn't know and experiencing it first-hand would be a valuable learning experience, assuming They didn't die.
That night, while they were resting, a part of Orison's consciousness was using intent and Spirit Sight to attempt learning how to 'see' the stress marks caused by reality's 'fall' as it died. There were a couple of different times that the magician had fell prey to naturally occurring traps created by inharmonious stress and fracture points in space-time. After having experienced the floating 'splinters' on the adjoining planes of Beta Majoris, They had a reference. Learning how to recognize the dangerous stretching and splintering of space-time when the signs were more subtle would be an invaluable addition to Spirit Sight's usefulness.
The next morning, the young woman had turned a freeze dry 'breakfast scramble' into something that actually resembled one. While they ate, she chatted about the romantic comedy that she had watched on the portable DVD player they had picked up the day before. It was nearly surreal how 'normal' it felt.
On the road, she said, "We've been traveling together for a while now and we still don't know what to call each other. I've never been a big fan of my full name but I don't mind my nickname so much. You can call me Cat. What should I call you?"
Drawn out of Their half-trance study by the question, Orison replied, "Sonny's fine."
Once the floodgate had been opened, it gushed. Cat's voice would be a bit raspy for the rest of her life but it was fuller and stronger once she started using it. She seemed intent on making up for all the time she hadn't been.
Although it disrupted the magician from his studies once in awhile for comments that required response, that wasn't such a bad thing. The idea was to be able to notice stress marks and fractures without warning, after all. Popping in and out, searching for the nearly invisible signs, was good practice.
While Cat drove, occasionally asking Orison to change out a music CD, the two began noticing a thinning of everything from trees to houses. The trend continued until there wasn't much more than a carpet of tall grass browning under summer heat. The magician would have been alarmed considering the roaming supernatural dings on Their radar but Cat put Them at ease.
"It was the Fallow Field Phenomenon. In the first year of... plague, the sudden drop in travel and commerce caused issues with agriculture. Large commercial farms closed their doors all over the place in tandem with small community co-ops popping up." she said.
Orison frowned. "That doesn't explain the lack of houses and other buildings."
She added, "Oh, safe zone building material reclamation. With so many places a no-go for anyone but authorized government personnel, local government began issuing permits for reclaiming materials from unused structures. Foreclosed and unclaimed property of deceased households defaulted under state government control. Law enforcement was so overworked that anyone could just go and start looting or tearing down other people's houses in outskirt areas like this."
"Because of that, most of the relatively nicer communities we'll meet were formed from neighborhood watch 'militia'. You know, when we do. We are going to where more people are at some point, right?"
The magician nodded. "There's almost guaranteed to be protected communities but I don't know who, among those that might let us in, will be safe to join."
Flashing Them a wry look, Cat said, "And that's different from normal, how?"
The magician sighed. "I guess it's not, really. I was talking about supernatural or supernatural aware communities, though."
To help her get a grasp on what They meant, Orison shared some stories about Their time on another dying reality without bringing up most of the confusing parts. Before They'd completed those stories, They sensed a somewhat familiar disturbance in the air. It was a boundary crack like the one They were stuck in within the purse's illusion version of the other dying world.
Orison thought, "It shouldn't be that bad. We're going around thirty miles an hour and the road's cleared. Most importantly, no one's wearing enchantments that might interact with it. I wonder how she's going to react to the feeling of passing through it."
With some mild anticipation, the magician was monitoring carefully as they passed through. There was a static tingle and a sense of increased gravity pulling down that only registered on a supernatural level. That should have been it but there was an unpleasant surprise waiting on the other side.
Among a loud crunch, The two barely had time to register that they hit a physical barrier before Orison reflexively ghosted to keep from busting through the windshield. There wasn't enough time to reach out to her in any way as They sailed through the air and the wall of force that had stopped the car.
Twisting in air, the magician could see the look of confusion and pain from the seat belt biting into her. She, the car and everything in it looked ghostly to Orison as They finished passing out of the boundary's field of effect. Even that only lasted but a moment before she vanished from view completely, drawn into the rift.
Through the key bound shadow holding her pact mark, They saw her personal time slow down. A moment later, as They came to a floating stop, Orison's ability to monitor grew dimmer as she slipped into a vacuum-like space. For the short few moments she was like that, as her time sped up far past Orison's own, the temporary pressure of the air conditioned car kept her from suffering more than some disorientation from weightlessness.
Suddenly fatigued from a surge of essence They gave to the Entanglement Key, Orison kinetically pushed through it at the car. Not too far from her location there was another rift with faint essence signs indicating life. It was a close call but the car managed to hang on to enough oxygen and cabin pressure to keep her from passing out as she sailed through it.
There were no more visuals. The shadow wasn't strong enough for anything more than to act as a passive intermediary for the moment. It was strange feeling the fast forward of complex emotions working themselves out but it seemed she was alive and relatively unharmed. Assured that They did what They could within reason, the magician focused on Their own person situation.
Orison was stuck in 'see through' form but wasn't paying for it anymore. They seemed to be in some sort of magic circle hidden in a hollow under the asphalt but there was no one else around. Looking back behind Them, the beginning of the rough and irregular boundary wall showed a scene of peaceful and uninterrupted scenery.
Someone was using two stretches of wires to pass a low current of electricity between locked boxes on either side of the road. The magician had no idea how it worked or what principle was used but it caused a small portion of the boundary's wall to act as if it was solid to things within the boundary line's effect. Since boundary lines weren't something Orison understood anyway, it was pointless on guessing but they filed the piece of information away.
"Well, at least the occasional ion shimmer is colorful and pretty to look at in Spirit Sight. I wonder what aurora borealis would look like when viewed under a powerful Spirit Sight capable of reaching it. " the magician muttered.
They were stopped by the magic circle to begin with but tried to forcefully push through it anyway. The dome of power might as well have been made of steel for all the traction Orison could get in ghost form to pass through. The only bright spot was that, since the circle was paying for the ghost form to remain active, it was powering down fast.
They waited patiently while using the opportunity to study the elusive form that seemed to be available only when void form was restricted or denied. It seemed that the ghost form was actually a transitional state from the normal material plane presence to the extra-dimensional one. Knowing that, Orison was confident that They could arrest the transition to void form before it completed. In places where going '2D cut out' was allowed, it would likely be a cheaper alternative with a lot more utility.
It had been nearly five minutes and most of the power used up when two cars came screeching to a halt several feet away. A bald man in his mid forties that was covered in tattoos and looking more than a little worse for wear approached the circle with hurried movement and barely contained excitement. He was joined by a handful of younger men and women ranging from mid teens to early thirties.
With a barked order for them to maintain the circle in complete silence and to not look inside, the man turned to Orison, refusing to make direct eye contact. "By the power that hath been granted to man by God, to have dominion over the earth and command over angel and demon alike, I order you to reveal your name to me."
They felt only the slightest compulsion to answer but saw no harm in giving some form of address for the half crazed man to use. "Uh, you can call me Sonny, I guess."
"Sonny, by the Holy of Holies, tetragrammaton, by Elohim and all the sacred names of the divine, I command you. In which sphere do you reside and what title do you hold there?" The man intoned with a solemness and charismatic force that superseded his unwholesome appearance.
A compulsion with the force and unpleasantness of being slapped in the face with wet toilet paper broke over the magician. They were tempted to answer with a nasty rebuke but a small trickle of essence of existence came from compliance to the first question.
So, with building annoyance, Orison answered, "I reside in the material sphere and my title is The Magician."
The man blinked in surprise. "Within the- within the hierarchies of the infernal and celestial hosts, where does this title rank?"
"It doesn't. I don't belong to any host's hierarchy. That includes abyssal to save you some time," They replied.
Looking confused, the man said, "To what placement of power do belong in the cosmic order?"
Orison was puzzled by the unclear wording. "Between mortal and transcendent? I'm a tier four... That's equivalent to a demigod's level of power and ability."
Doubt cleared from the man's face as he laughed contemptuously. "A lowly egregore who postures and misleads with pretension. Swear to serve me all the days of my life with utmost loyalty."
"That'll be measured in seconds if you make such an asinine statement again. If you're done, wrap it up. Your younger disciples are starting to suffer spiritual and lifespan damage from maintaining the circle," Orison said darkly.
The man sharply barked, "Do not do as this entity says. The weakness you feel is trickery. Fight it and your will shall be keener, your spirit stronger."
Targeting the younger ones, Orison gathered up debt and threw it at them with the unspoken command to sleep. Without exception, every disciple targeted collapsed into unconsciousness on the spot.
With half of his people shaped soul batteries out of commission, the man removed a ceremonial dagger from an inside pocket of his ratty leather vest and slammed it into the asphalt, chipping the blade. "I command you to obey. Stay in the circle peacefully."
A force akin to a bullwhip crack raised a seeping welt on the magician's chest above the heart point as a force with the potency of a ten year old's punch rippled through and dispersed within the first layer of Their inner space. Stunned more by surprise than inability to resist, They unintentionally complied for a moment. A sizable portion of the special essence unique to mortals was gifted to Orison as a reward for that compliance with a minute but steady trickle flowing in to reinforce it.
Inwardly Orison chuckled and thought, "So, that's how it works. It's carrot and stick together. But damn, that's a bitter pill to swallow. No wonder lesser devils and demons are so angry yet cooperative with summoners."
The man bellowed, "Serve me!"
"I will provide a service within my abilities up to what my moral integrity and personal pride will allow but I will not 'serve' you," Orison said, last compromise and patience used up.
The man geared up to push some other outrageous demand when a man dressed like an English gentleman, somewhere in his mid sixties, whacked the tattooed man on his bald head with a silver tipped cane. "Stop this inanity at once!"
Orison smiled and said, "Oh my gawd! I'd recognize your soul signature and attitude no matter what form it wears."
"Can you drive?" They asked the young woman. She said, "Decently. I'm not as goo-" The magician pulled a set of empty clothes from the driver seat and threw them out along with a large amount of empty food packages left in the back seat. With a casting of Presto, there weren't dead bugs or eggs left in the car either. At least, none that Orison could see. "Let's have a trial run to the gas station up the road. If everything looks good, we'll take a detour through an out of the way town for resupply and rest. Then, we'll start heading to our original destination," the magician explained. Later that evening, the two were passing through a third town free of corpses but with random clothes discarded here and there. It seemed that they were passing through the bug cloud monster's previous path. Finding additional food was a great deal more time consuming but the occasional house had hidden stores of 'apocalypse ready' supplies. The current need wasn't overly great but Orison was preparing for future needs as well as present. "Why do you pick up so much stuff if you don't care about it?" the young woman asked curiously. The magician replied, "My grandfather was a shapeshifting dragon." She looked at him with wide eyes. "That's not the reason but it's also true... What, I'm not allowed to tease? I like comfort but I try not to become attached to it. It's a kind of exercise to amass things and allow them to pass to others. In the right kind of situation, a roll of toilet paper or a pack of batteries can make a friend," They said. The young woman asked nervously, "Do you... like me?" Orison chuckled. "I hardly know you but I don't dislike you. Why?" Looking a little scared and on the verge of a panic attack, she said. "I-I noticed some of the things you've been collecting and wondered if... if you planned on using them with me." They shot her a look of sympathy and said, "I didn't get them with any one purpose in mind. With one of my abilities, they have a variety of uses outside their intended purpose. I don't personally need them for 'that' at all... "Don't look at me like that. Although I'm not overly eager, at the moment, I'm capable and not particularly unwilling. But, I certainly wouldn't push my affections on someone that was anything less than clearly consenting." Looking relieved but unconsciously still tense, she asked, "Just to make conversation, what's your type?" "The most important thing is feelings, though. I tend to be a mirror to the person I interact with. If someone loves me, I'll eventually return that feeling in some form. Though, it's not always the one they want from me. "It'd be the natural thing to return the question but I have another instead. Do you want to be a man for a little while? It wouldn't be permanent and maybe it would make you feel safer." The young woman said, "... No!... I'm sorry. I-it's hard to put into words but... I don't think that would be a good thing for me." Orison knew the woman was a sensitive but They had underestimated by how much. The closer they came to their destination, the tighter time laws were winding. A quick check on a marker point left where the magician had arrived on the world placed that at around a twenty times difference. The closer they were to the pull Orison was feeling, the slower personal time was moving and the greater the stress the frame and structure of reality was under. The young woman was overcoming her trauma at an advanced pace because her spiritual consciousness was straddling the line between her body and her soul. A physical body synced with the environment it was in but the soul synced with the reality as a whole. A consciousness, which bridged the two could gain a great deal more in such a situation, the more sensitive it was. That applied to healing from trauma but also to the accumulation of it as well. Such tighter wound places would also be where the fractures on the world would occur. The fragments that would stick to the mid-dimensions instead of sinking/merging with the low would be found in such places. It was all theory but from what the magician knew, that seemed the most likely outcome. There was a lot more that They didn't know and experiencing it first-hand would be a valuable learning experience, assuming They didn't die. That night, while they were resting, a part of Orison's consciousness was using intent and Spirit Sight to attempt learning how to 'see' the stress marks caused by reality's 'fall' as it died. There were a couple of different times that the magician had fell prey to naturally occurring traps created by inharmonious stress and fracture points in space-time. After having experienced the floating 'splinters' on the adjoining planes of Beta Majoris, They had a reference. Learning how to recognize the dangerous stretching and splintering of space-time when the signs were more subtle would be an invaluable addition to Spirit Sight's usefulness. The next morning, the young woman had turned a freeze dry 'breakfast scramble' into something that actually resembled one. While they ate, she chatted about the romantic comedy that she had watched on the portable DVD player they had picked up the day before. It was nearly surreal how 'normal' it felt. On the road, she said, "We've been traveling together for a while now and we still don't know what to call each other. I've never been a big fan of my full name but I don't mind my nickname so much. You can call me Cat. What should I call you?" Drawn out of Their half-trance study by the question, Orison replied, "Sonny's fine." Once the floodgate had been opened, it gushed. Cat's voice would be a bit raspy for the rest of her life but it was fuller and stronger once she started using it. She seemed intent on making up for all the time she hadn't been. Although it disrupted the magician from his studies once in awhile for comments that required response, that wasn't such a bad thing. The idea was to be able to notice stress marks and fractures without warning, after all. Popping in and out, searching for the nearly invisible signs, was good practice. While Cat drove, occasionally asking Orison to change out a music CD, the two began noticing a thinning of everything from trees to houses. The trend continued until there wasn't much more than a carpet of tall grass browning under summer heat. The magician would have been alarmed considering the roaming supernatural dings on Their radar but Cat put Them at ease. "It was the Fallow Field Phenomenon. In the first year of... plague, the sudden drop in travel and commerce caused issues with agriculture. Large commercial farms closed their doors all over the place in tandem with small community co-ops popping up." she said. Orison frowned. "That doesn't explain the lack of houses and other buildings." She added, "Oh, safe zone building material reclamation. With so many places a no-go for anyone but authorized government personnel, local government began issuing permits for reclaiming materials from unused structures. Foreclosed and unclaimed property of deceased households defaulted under state government control. Law enforcement was so overworked that anyone could just go and start looting or tearing down other people's houses in outskirt areas like this." "Because of that, most of the relatively nicer communities we'll meet were formed from neighborhood watch 'militia'. You know, when we do. We are going to where more people are at some point, right?" The magician nodded. "There's almost guaranteed to be protected communities but I don't know who, among those that might let us in, will be safe to join." Flashing Them a wry look, Cat said, "And that's different from normal, how?" The magician sighed. "I guess it's not, really. I was talking about supernatural or supernatural aware communities, though." To help her get a grasp on what They meant, Orison shared some stories about Their time on another dying reality without bringing up most of the confusing parts. Before They'd completed those stories, They sensed a somewhat familiar disturbance in the air. It was a boundary crack like the one They were stuck in within the purse's illusion version of the other dying world. Orison thought, "It shouldn't be that bad. We're going around thirty miles an hour and the road's cleared. Most importantly, no one's wearing enchantments that might interact with it. I wonder how she's going to react to the feeling of passing through it." With some mild anticipation, the magician was monitoring carefully as they passed through. There was a static tingle and a sense of increased gravity pulling down that only registered on a supernatural level. That should have been it but there was an unpleasant surprise waiting on the other side. Among a loud crunch, The two barely had time to register that they hit a physical barrier before Orison reflexively ghosted to keep from busting through the windshield. There wasn't enough time to reach out to her in any way as They sailed through the air and the wall of force that had stopped the car. Twisting in air, the magician could see the look of confusion and pain from the seat belt biting into her. She, the car and everything in it looked ghostly to Orison as They finished passing out of the boundary's field of effect. Even that only lasted but a moment before she vanished from view completely, drawn into the rift. Through the key bound shadow holding her pact mark, They saw her personal time slow down. A moment later, as They came to a floating stop, Orison's ability to monitor grew dimmer as she slipped into a vacuum-like space. For the short few moments she was like that, as her time sped up far past Orison's own, the temporary pressure of the air conditioned car kept her from suffering more than some disorientation from weightlessness. Suddenly fatigued from a surge of essence They gave to the Entanglement Key, Orison kinetically pushed through it at the car. Not too far from her location there was another rift with faint essence signs indicating life. It was a close call but the car managed to hang on to enough oxygen and cabin pressure to keep her from passing out as she sailed through it. There were no more visuals. The shadow wasn't strong enough for anything more than to act as a passive intermediary for the moment. It was strange feeling the fast forward of complex emotions working themselves out but it seemed she was alive and relatively unharmed. Assured that They did what They could within reason, the magician focused on Their own person situation. Orison was stuck in 'see through' form but wasn't paying for it anymore. They seemed to be in some sort of magic circle hidden in a hollow under the asphalt but there was no one else around. Looking back behind Them, the beginning of the rough and irregular boundary wall showed a scene of peaceful and uninterrupted scenery. Someone was using two stretches of wires to pass a low current of electricity between locked boxes on either side of the road. The magician had no idea how it worked or what principle was used but it caused a small portion of the boundary's wall to act as if it was solid to things within the boundary line's effect. Since boundary lines weren't something Orison understood anyway, it was pointless on guessing but they filed the piece of information away. "Well, at least the occasional ion shimmer is colorful and pretty to look at in Spirit Sight. I wonder what aurora borealis would look like when viewed under a powerful Spirit Sight capable of reaching it. " the magician muttered. They were stopped by the magic circle to begin with but tried to forcefully push through it anyway. The dome of power might as well have been made of steel for all the traction Orison could get in ghost form to pass through. The only bright spot was that, since the circle was paying for the ghost form to remain active, it was powering down fast. They waited patiently while using the opportunity to study the elusive form that seemed to be available only when void form was restricted or denied. It seemed that the ghost form was actually a transitional state from the normal material plane presence to the extra-dimensional one. Knowing that, Orison was confident that They could arrest the transition to void form before it completed. In places where going '2D cut out' was allowed, it would likely be a cheaper alternative with a lot more utility. It had been nearly five minutes and most of the power used up when two cars came screeching to a halt several feet away. A bald man in his mid forties that was covered in tattoos and looking more than a little worse for wear approached the circle with hurried movement and barely contained excitement. He was joined by a handful of younger men and women ranging from mid teens to early thirties. With a barked order for them to maintain the circle in complete silence and to not look inside, the man turned to Orison, refusing to make direct eye contact. "By the power that hath been granted to man by God, to have dominion over the earth and command over angel and demon alike, I order you to reveal your name to me." They felt only the slightest compulsion to answer but saw no harm in giving some form of address for the half crazed man to use. "Uh, you can call me Sonny, I guess." "Sonny, by the Holy of Holies, tetragrammaton, by Elohim and all the sacred names of the divine, I command you. In which sphere do you reside and what title do you hold there?" The man intoned with a solemness and charismatic force that superseded his unwholesome appearance. A compulsion with the force and unpleasantness of being slapped in the face with wet toilet paper broke over the magician. They were tempted to answer with a nasty rebuke but a small trickle of essence of existence came from compliance to the first question. So, with building annoyance, Orison answered, "I reside in the material sphere and my title is The Magician." The man blinked in surprise. "Within the- within the hierarchies of the infernal and celestial hosts, where does this title rank?" "It doesn't. I don't belong to any host's hierarchy. That includes abyssal to save you some time," They replied. Looking confused, the man said, "To what placement of power do belong in the cosmic order?" Orison was puzzled by the unclear wording. "Between mortal and transcendent? I'm a tier four... That's equivalent to a demigod's level of power and ability." Doubt cleared from the man's face as he laughed contemptuously. "A lowly egregore who postures and misleads with pretension. Swear to serve me all the days of my life with utmost loyalty." "That'll be measured in seconds if you make such an asinine statement again. If you're done, wrap it up. Your younger disciples are starting to suffer spiritual and lifespan damage from maintaining the circle," Orison said darkly. The man sharply barked, "Do not do as this entity says. The weakness you feel is trickery. Fight it and your will shall be keener, your spirit stronger." Targeting the younger ones, Orison gathered up debt and threw it at them with the unspoken command to sleep. Without exception, every disciple targeted collapsed into unconsciousness on the spot. With half of his people shaped soul batteries out of commission, the man removed a ceremonial dagger from an inside pocket of his ratty leather vest and slammed it into the asphalt, chipping the blade. "I command you to obey. Stay in the circle peacefully." A force akin to a bullwhip crack raised a seeping welt on the magician's chest above the heart point as a force with the potency of a ten year old's punch rippled through and dispersed within the first layer of Their inner space. Stunned more by surprise than inability to resist, They unintentionally complied for a moment. A sizable portion of the special essence unique to mortals was gifted to Orison as a reward for that compliance with a minute but steady trickle flowing in to reinforce it. Inwardly Orison chuckled and thought, "So, that's how it works. It's carrot and stick together. But damn, that's a bitter pill to swallow. No wonder lesser devils and demons are so angry yet cooperative with summoners." The man bellowed, "Serve me!" "I will provide a service within my abilities up to what my moral integrity and personal pride will allow but I will not 'serve' you," Orison said, last compromise and patience used up. The man geared up to push some other outrageous demand when a man dressed like an English gentleman, somewhere in his mid sixties, whacked the tattooed man on his bald head with a silver tipped cane. "Stop this inanity at once!" Orison smiled and said, "Oh my gawd! I'd recognize your soul signature and attitude no matter what form it wears."
