The Magus Chronicles Ch 04

Authors note: The characters, places, names, and such are not to be used, copied, or such actions without the permission from the author. Any places, names, descriptions of real life people, places, and such is pure coincidental. Much effort has been placed in keeping everything in this series very original as possible. This story contains, scenes of sex, violence, and use of magic. Let it be noted that all characters engaging in sexual activities are of legal age of consent.

CH.4

The weeks had flown by. Jessica and Kendra threw him an awesome housewarming birthday party. All four of the local LARP clans had shown up with gifts and had even cleaned up after themselves. Talks were held about the chance to hold LARP sessions on the property, and the leaders were ecstatic about the chance to have a larger area to fight in. Jack showed them a sketch that he'd been working on to have camp areas for the different 'races' LARPers played. "Here in this area is going to be the elves, and over by the mountains here will be the dwarves. The orc will be over here in this canyon area. There are swamps over here according to the map that I will have to eventually look at. And I want to eventually check out the whole property, but you know how I am doing with healing and therapy. The land survey showed this area to be a roundish canyon. But it's just all rough ideas right now. Still have a lot to do just getting settled in. And doing my therapy leaves me exhausted after. So it's slow and steady for me." Jack said, gesturing around. A lot of the stuff still had dust cloths covering things. They offered to help clean things up, but Jack said he wanted to be the one to go through everything himself when he got to feeling better. He said he might accept their offer once he figured out what all was there in the house.

Soon all the guests were gone, and it was just Jack, Kendra, and Jessica. Jack was soaking in his in-floor round hot tub with his eyes closed, enjoying the warm water and relaxing his body. Being on the property made him feel like he was energized. The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was themed with an older ancient theme. The floor was laid with dark brown square tiles. The walls were wood planks on some walls, with brick and mini tiles on other walls and surfaces. The hot tub was partially surrounded. Three quarters of the tub could be surrounded by large curtains, and the fourth quarter of the tub against the wall had a tall mural artwork that was divided into five parts. The artwork showed old Victorian-style artwork. Across from the hot tub was a large covered sink area. The sink cabinet area was divided into three. The two sinks were separated by a lower surface top with a vase of flowers and a brass clam shell sculpture. Over the sink area, an arch connected to the two brick walls that enclosed the side of the sink. The back of the sink had a large mirror that covered the wall. Behind the sink wall, the master bath had the toilet, shower, and large garden tub.

As Jack lay there with his eyes closed, he started seeing flashes of images blurring his vision as if he were traveling with a fast warp. He suddenly found himself in a large library facing two large windows that were darkened. Above the large windows was a smaller round window that was cracked badly, and the curtains were torn and tattered. The air doesn't feel right to him. It feels sickly and wrong. Turning around, the area flashes by again, like he moved to another area. Jack is shocked to see a large milky quartz crystal statue of himself accented with gold and silver standing before a large chair with a high back. The statue was covered around the waist with a royal purple garment of some sort. He was lucky enough to be able to make out the face of the statue because everything but the statue was blurry.

Jack looked around and saw other chains blocking stairs to an upper level just as the blur happened again. Suddenly Jack is back in the bathroom, and Jessica is squatted down beside his head. Jack sees she's wearing a bathrobe and has a towel around her head. He glances and sees she isn't wearing panties. He sees that she's shaved and lotioned her body. Jack smells the scent of strawberry coming off her. She smiles and tells him that they're headed to bed and he should get out before he gets sick, as the timer had turned off on the hot tub and the water had begun to cool down. After saying goodnight, she stands and heads out. Kendra pokes her head in, saying goodnight as Jack hits the drain with his foot and gets up out of the water and heads to bed after taking his pain medicine.

In his sleep, Jack has a profound and troubling dream. He sees a large map of the world, and a large chimera beast that's part bear, ram, and falcon rises up from the European area. It marches east before leaping far into the ocean. It emerged from the waters of the west coast of North America. Everywhere it steps, it leaves a trail of destruction. The scene changes, and Jack sees himself. Before him, he sees a large mass of fog with many shadowy figures that he senses anger, hate, and a presence of death coming from. Off in the far distance, he sees massive explosions happening across the planet. They were like nuclear bombs going off. But in the midst of yellowish orange, there was a mixture of green and purple. He could hear and feel the massive loss of lives gone in an instant. Swarms of souls streak through the skies and gather into many massive green and purple pearl-looking orbs. The scenery changed as time was passing quickly. Seasons changed, and so did the face of the planet, but it wasn't in a good way.

The world crept into a horrendous state. Plants, crops, and trees withered. Most of the world's population could be seen becoming enslaved and starving until they became skin and bones and eventually collapsed in death. Another explosion erupted overhead. Above them, high in the air, a busted-open black pillar floating in the air with shattered chains waving around. A legion of dark shadows came flooding out and landed on the ground. Behind the shadows stood a podium with a group of beings. The central cloaked figure's face was hidden with a horse-like skull helmet with a crown that has droplets of purple substance floating off the crown in droplets and raising up and disappearing as if gravity had been reversed. Beside the figure are two beautiful but deadly demon-looking females, a slim, frail, cloaked man with green glowing eyes, and a large, two-headed, hooded brute that stood larger than the others with eyes that glowed red on each head.

Before the group on the platform are several grayish, shadowy figures kneeling, bound, and gagged. On the ground in front was another shadowy cloaked figure standing in front of forty or fifty other shadowy figures with solid black skin and beasts that were enveloped in shadows. Jack feels a hand on his shoulder, and he turns around and sees a massive crowd of glowing figures behind him. Some glow with a light of green while others glow with a light yellow or light blue. The figure holding his shoulder seemingly tries to encourage Jack. Turning back ahead of him, Jack sees one of the demon females before him. She slices her claws across Jack's chest, waking Jack up from his dream. Turning on the light, Jack looks at his chest, and he can feel where she'd cut his chest. Not only could he feel it; there were red streak markings bruised upon his chest.

Two nights in a row Jack had the same dream, and around eleven in the morning he decided to go to the hospital and get checked out. He's at a stoplight and sees a three-story building that advertised an occult shop named The Dragon-Hide Nymph's Arcane Emporium. In the advertising he sees, they do tarot card predictions, palm readings, and dream analyzing. He turns and decides to see what they have to say before getting another trip to the hospital, as he'd certainly had his fill of hospitals and didn't want another medical bill. In the shop, the door chime rings as Jack enters the shop. He sees from the door there's two levels in the shop. The third floor was likely storage. Looking around, he sees various things one would expect to find there. Books, candles, jars of various powders and objects, and various trinkets and clothes. Jack hears a female with a slight accent call out from behind a curtain-blocked doorway that she'll be right with him. Jack is looking behind the checkout counter; he sees a picture of a young, light, bronze-brown-skinned couple that were maybe Middle Eastern, holding two babies. The picture was a ways from him, so he couldn't get a good look at the picture. The man was wearing a white shirt with some sort of black and gold sarong around his waist. He could see white shorts exposed and sandals. The woman was wearing a red dress with a yellow and orange scarf over her black hair. She had gold jewelry on her.

Moments later, a beautiful, mature, busty, light bronze-skinned female enters carrying some boxes. She looked maybe Middle Eastern, multiracial, African, Indian, or maybe some Middle Eastern, possibly. He could tell that this woman was an older version of the female in the picture. As she's bent over dealing with the boxes, Jack is stunned at getting a good view down her top at her free-hanging breast with thumb-sized dark nipple. Her moving around has caused a button to come undone, and that has popped out a full breast. She glances up, greeting Jack, and sees his mouth gaped open. She looks down and sees where he's looking and smirks as she fixes herself. "They used to be smaller and firmer, but after four pregnancies and feeding two kids and time... well, I'm glad I still can get that reaction from a man's attention," she says with a strange dialect as she stands up and fixes and adjusts her shirt. "What can I do for you, young..." she begins to ask but stops.

She cocks her head to the side as she looks at the young man standing there with his cane supporting him. She noticed several things that were off about him. One, he didn't have an aura, and two, he had some dark, negative energy flowing through him. "Welcome to my shop. I'm Beatrice Maniku Davis. Maniku being my maiden. You can call me Aunt Bea, though. What can I help you with, young man?" she asks as she looks him over. She sees Jack shift his weight on the cane, and she offers him a place to sit as she gestures to some chairs. As they sat, Jack began telling her why he was there. "The past few nights I've been having this reoccurring dream that ends with me waking up and these marks across my chest. I was going to go to the hospital, but I saw your shop and thought I'd try here first and see if I can get some answers," he says, showing her the marks on his chest. "I see you're in quite a bit of pain. What happened to your body?" She asks. Jack tells her about the accident and his injuries.

She has Jack describes the dream and then tells him that dreams, the majority of the time, are visuals of the brain deciphering what's on the mind. She said there have been occurrences where the body has suffered physical injuries from how strong the subconscious was. But there are times that they're a warning of something. Jack then remembered the library and the statue. At this mention, Beatrice is wondering what is up with the young man. He is saying the right things, but his body is saying something else. "Jack, what do you know of magic?" she asks as she pours herself and Jack some kiru sai or milk tea. "Having magic, I think, would be awesome, but aside from religions, according to science and much popular belief, it's all fake, including religion. I find it kind of funny that most religions say magic isn't real, but yet they have praying." Jack says as he takes his drink.

She tells him he must believe it's real since he's in her shop. Beatrice thinks a moment and then asks Jack to sit with his head back. She stands behind him and touches her necklace and whispers a few words. She places her hands on the sides of his head and finds herself in Jack's library. This area was the representation of inside Jack. Currently she was in his conscious mind area. She said something is foul as she studied the negative energy seeping from him. She wondered if it was from the marks on his torso or if it was from something else. She's somewhat shocked at the scene she sees. The conscious entrance to his mind is like a great foyer of eighteenth-century architecture. An eerie green, purple, and black mist was coming from deeper in his mind.

"That's a lot of flux for a nornmagin or even a magi like myself. But even the flux seems to be mixed with something." She says as she looks back and up where she entered and sees three windows. Two large windows with curtains closed. And a smaller one above the other two. The smaller one was damaged, the curtains were tattered and dirtied, and they had begun fading. "His third eye is damaged... let's get that fixed first. Then deal with the next issue." It was a mere minute in real time, but an hour passed in his mind, and the window and curtains were fixed. "From what he told me, it's likely his injuries from the accident he was in caused that. Now let's see what's causing that strange mess." She said, turning around.

She walks towards the doors to his inner mind. She opens the large oak doors to his subconscious. She's smothered by the flood of mist that rushes to her. The scene is grim as the structure and memories are being corrupted by something as she sees large cracks appearing, and a thick, moss-like film covers everything. She feels a foul presence and smells a stomach-turning odor. She hears the faint echo of gnashing of teeth and follows the sound. The closer to the sound she got, the worse the damage, smell, and presence of foul energy was.

She finally comes upon a large chamber blocked by an energy barrier and a chain barrier. She sees that they're special blocks mean to block power from going through but can still feel some coming through. If he was a magi, someone was trying to keep him from using magic. But their efforts wasn't completely successful. From his tale that he had told her, magic was still being used by him even if it's done unconsciously. Either the power was too great for the barriers or the barriers weren't strong. She passes through and can feel a great pressure as she entered the chamber.

This flux was dampening his actual mana pressure. This chamber was the soul chamber. It's very grim and poorly lit by the oozing glowing slime coming out of a large tub-like structure under what she thought was a statue but couldn't be certain because of all the moss and slime. In the tub was the minor demon Jack had lost, and it was feeding on some of Jack's mana, memories, nightmares, and dreams. She suspected the demon was planted in him as the claws made contact with his body, but that didn't seem right as this much damage would have taken a long time. She knew that this was the cause of the state of Jacks body and memory issue with the headaches he'd mentioned. "First to get rid of this foul being, then try to repair the damage to his mind, and then I'll be able to finally investigate his mind properly." She says as she slipped through the barriers. "I can clean up a lot of this mess but not everything. He's definitely going to need to detox when he gets home. He has a lot of flux build-up. I'm surprised he doesn't have physical appearance or symptoms from this much flux." She says to herself.

The creature didn't seem to notice her. She got into a defensive position at the furthest distance she could and still cast a surprise attack. She starts channeling energy, and particles are swirling around the demon, who has failed to notice. Suddenly the particles transformed into a cage, trapping the demon. She starts a second spell, and a blue fireball generated by her hand is followed by a second. She launched them at the demon, destroying it and the cage. It screamed and thrashed as it burned away into ash.

There was no exercising any demons or evil spirits with her. It was better to destroy them so they didn't have a chance to return to this plane of existence. She created two clones of herself, and they began repairing and cleaning up his mind and soul. But even with what she was doing, he'd still need to detox in a tub with the salts she'll give him. She'd also have to find a way to repair his memories eventually. The clones worked the chamber she'd killed the demon in while she handled the rest. She's finishing up her tasks when she feels her clones have returned to her. She can feel energy flowing through him again. Its feeling was like a light spring breeze caressing her body.

She sees his library of memories is large and like the foyer in design. She looks at pictures of various memories from his past that haven't been forgotten or destroyed. She oddly noticed a picture of an old detective friend of hers when he was a traffic cop. It looked like he was crouched down as if he was looking at picking up Jack. She touches the picture, and suddenly she's having a vision, seeing Jack's memory. Jack was in a ditch being picked up off the ground by a cop and given to a man and woman. She turns around, and she sees a nasty multiple-car wreck and multiple stretchers with covered bodies. Looking over the whole scene, she sees a man standing off near a tree, watching from a distance. She'd seen his face before. The look on his face showed happiness and contentment with what he saw.

The man was a horrible man in the magi community and the normal society. The man was known as an Aurotheri. The Aurotheri were murderers and criminals within the magi community. Seeing him in the memory gave Beatrice concern. The scene started over, and she moved on. The other memories before that were locked and shrouded and were still blocked. She finally reached the soul chamber, and the barriers were still in place. She finds this strange. "Why would someone put up such an elaborate set of barriers and block memories? Surely a nornmagin wouldn't need such barriers and blocks." She says as she steps through and is shocked by the vast energy presence he had. She's brought down to her knees and hands briefly. She composed herself and strengthened her stature. She's able to move again. "By the gods. To have this much power within this young man. I must inspect him further." She says before opening two large doors and entering the soul chamber.

She looks up and is shocked at what all she could see just by standing at the entrance. The chamber is fairly dark, and what she could see looked like a round great room or throne room chamber of sorts. The images on the various banners displayed here and there throughout the chamber were hidden by black smoke. Around the edge of the room were twenty-two smaller chairs with statues of some kind sitting in them that were eighteen feet tall. Aside from the pressure of energy, she got the sensation of rest or sleeping since entering the room. Had someone put Jack's power in a dormant state? She wondered to herself as she looked around. The torches and candles she saw were all unlit. "Maybe... No, Jack wouldn't be having this much pressure if he wasn't awakened. No, someone must have tried to put Jack's power back to sleep after he'd already awakened." She said to herself.

The first thing that she noticed after looking at the room was the platform holding an enormous ninety-four-foot-tall statue of Jack. This was called the Calefactis monolith. You're born with it if you're magi. Most times you're usually the same as your parents. A few cases had resulted where you're different or are born normal like most humans. Even those born into magi families aren't told anything about magic until their awakening. Most magi can tell if someone's been awakened just by looking at them and seeing if they have a selaura radiating in the midst of their aura. Depending on what material the calefactis is made of is the first part of what determines what class or classes a magi is classified as.