Chapter 1
Notes on how to kill a psychic
If running knee deep in wet soil you find yourself wondering how you might be able to kill a psychic, then this book is for you. Equip yourself with a sword, wand or whatamacallit, you stalk around the forest for hours waiting for any sign from the house. And when you’re sure you see a blue light flicker in the back and the slightest hint of peppermint and shit hits you, you run. And run and run and run to the house but the wind whips you back, the ground below your feet cracks and you feel the vertigo take hold as the flaming red locks of this now very real psychic are glimpsed through painfully shut eyes.
Chapter 1: The Team
You’ll need a familiar. I know this sounds a whole lot like what those bastard psychics do but this is different. Trust me.
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My journey begins outside a small tavern and shop combo in the crowded market of Carawon. Growin, the bartender and dwarf, hates not making a sale but hates me just as much. So, he’s not especially pleased to see me, even more so when I ask to see his magikal stuff. His frown deepens and the man looks like an upset concrete statue, carved primitively centuries ago.
He grumbles, looks around the street and heads into his shop. I fidget outside for a few minutes until he pokes his head out and signals for me to lock the door and follow him to the back. The reason Growin is so reluctant to sell to me is due to the ban of all Magika and Magika related items imported from Flevn. By basically limiting and instituting sole monopoly of all Magika items sold, the federal government has steadily gained more and more control over the last several years. And you really don’t want to fuck with them.
Growin takes me back through a cramped tunnel into a small dining room. He pushes the table aside, moves a massive mat and unhinges the hidden door on the floor. I’ve been here before so I can navigate the steep, always strangely slippery steps though it hasn’t rained in months in this country and go into a dimly lit dungeon. The dwarf lights the mage lanterns as we descend and motions me towards several drawers at the bottom.
“You said you need elemental books and a pointer?”
“Yeah”
“Yeah what? What books thickhead?”
“What books do you have?”
He looks me up and down to sigh. It fills the room.
He leads me towards an old massive wardrobe drawer, waves me back a bit and peers in slowly. He pulls out several crates.
“Sort through and find what you want.”
In a matter of time, I’ve found 2 books, a minor coin and an enchanted dagger but no pointer. I also do not have enough money to buy all these sparkly things but I could barter.
“20 stones for the books with dagger and 2 denari for the coin.”
Growin looks at me unimpressed.
“20 stones for the books, 4 denari for the coin and 5 stones for the dagger.”
He spoke while the frown remained cemented on his face, not budging in the slightest, which I thought truly was not possible for any species.
We haggled some more but I walked out with some books, the coin and dagger. Also, carrying a very empty feeling purse.
The dark night outside the shop was heavy, blue and I had work.
—
The Job
The Yellowstone Bakery has been part of the city of Venezuela for over 45 years. It’s been passed around in ownership but throughout the years it’s been true to its goals of providing food that is mediocre on its best days and edible on its worst. A big believer and participator of this tradition, I work as one of the bakers at the store. We open from 9 to 9, not on Tuesdays.
Today I’m on shift with Ajent and Fran. Ajent is the other cook and Fran’s our busboy. Ajent hates working here and often complains how he’s too skilled for his job. Ajent’s dejected remarks roll off Fram like light sweat in monsoon weather. Hatefully bright Fran is loved by the customers.
During my shift I learned about the sighting of a young fire lizard in the orange mountains of the west. Somewhere underneath the sea a whirlpool had just opened up, forming monstrous caves. A possible site which I can exploit. Having no magical power of my own, I must rely on others’ magic to do my bidding.
As the shop reaches closing time, I get Ajent and Fran riled up to go hunting with me. Though you wouldn’t suspect it, Ajents a natural born tracker and hunter.
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The Troubled Deity
What are the odds that I happen to the only major consciousness that’s within the universe when there are septillion of conscious minds all around.
Deity is troubled. Though Deity is all powerful and most knowing, they have been struck by quite a bit of sadness. Sadness that seeps out of their core, sadness that envelopes galaxies around to smother and burn out. The third magic was dying, and Deity didn’t know where to go. This was the first time Deity wasn’t all knowing all seeing.
In the minor outreach of Deity’s sadness was an ever-blooming constellation. It had become infect with Deity’s touch and evolved, mutated and began to use the powerful consciousness’s power to leap through centuries of progression of time. The constellation collected for itself inhabitants, mimicking the Deity’s matter imprint to create living beings that were born with a power they called herun as their atomic structure. The first creatures mirrored the night sky, their physical shape a mix of matter and herun. Their descents became more and more material, imbuing their herun into their physical self and internalizing the power.
As the first progeny was forming, the second creatures of herun came into existence. These were born from the planet, being the children of the sleeping consciousness that existed within the orbiting rock. The planet’s consciousness had begun to bleed out and those thoughts mingled with the herun to form their core. Rather than storing herun into themselves, these creatures absorbed the power into their physical being and used it as fuel.
