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The Mage's Confession

Part One...

By Shi-Tokey SlimPublished 3 years ago 11 min read
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Art by Brandilyn Ireland

She's gone... There's nothing I can do about it. I can't condemn another person to unlife like I did with Dritz and Pittman. Not for such selfish reasons. But I hardly know what happened. Thes-...These are my confessions, I have to piece this together...

My name is Christian Murphy, though many of you probably know me better as Mystic. Yeah, Twixton's most renown magic user. The blonde in the blue robes. Sorry to disappoint those of you who thought I might be someone else. I never held strongly to a secret identity... But now I think everyone needs to know who I am. If what I think happened actually happened then I need to be held accountable, for the death of an angel is on my hands. Just know that, for those of you that might use my identity against me, I'm protected. You won't reach me, so don't try. Fuck, listen to me... I'm supposed to be the good guy and I sound like I'm challenging adventurers to a dungeon. [Frustration reaches its peak] Dammit! What Happened?!

Rose... Oh, my Irish Rose. My arms held you as you wilted, but I couldn't have been the cause... could I?

[Deep breath] By the fucking fungus, its only been a few months... I guess it only takes 90 days before your numbers up just for associating with me... About three months ago me and the rest of the crew were in Ireland. This was right after Pittman had lost his limbs...and, temporarily, his life... in the fight against Wither. We had come to Ireland to try and find a 'Living Silver' from the legends of the Tuatha De Denaan. Rose was one of the first locals we ran into. There was a building on fire, and just as me and Evan were about to run into the flames to save whoever we could a figure came crashing out of a window on the top floor. Interposed between the flames and the sun I couldn't make out what I was looking at but I still cast a spell to slow it's fall. As the figure fell slowly it started to open up, spreading wide a large set of angelic wings. The wind raged off of the fire in waves of heat and blew the figure's hair wildly. Though she was still backlit by the flames and the sun as she floated gently to the ground it was clear that she was carrying a small child. It was then I got my first real look at her, and I think I was her's from that moment on. My costume had never seemed so silly to me before. Yet here I was dressed as a wizard in front of a beautiful winged woman with a lazy mohawk and tattered jean jacket. I forgot about the fire, Evan had already run into the blaze, still wearing Pittman's limbless torso in a baby carrier on his back. I was barely aware of Pittman's cursing at Evan for dragging him into a burning building on some goody goody shit. It was then that the look of panic on the angel before me's face started to register.

I remember thinking 'Well I guess that's fair her building is on fire.' but then she looked over her shoulder to the gigantic bird wings sprouting out of her back and I had seen a similar look before on other Darwinites in the moment their gift is realized... She had never seen those wings before, and if it was sudden then I imagine the metamorphosis was quite painful. I couldn't imagine what was running through her head in that instance. Power was something I had to seek, it wasn't thrust upon me like a present I never asked for. Capri was with us however and it had been nearly a year since she starting toying around with her innate talents for genetic tinkering and adaptation... I thought she would understand and be best suited for talking to the bird lady about the changes her body was going through. Atomic Eve and I had been in a similar situation before and it didn't take much gesturing before her attention was on the newly realized Darwinite and she knew what to do. As Capri was closing the distance on the winged woman I would come to know as Rose I ran into the building after Evan. Just as I was entering Evan was exiting having guided a couple small children out of the blaze. "There are more people in there!" Evan called after me as I entered.

I could just barely hear Pittman mocking him as I ran deeper into the blaze. "ThErE aRe MoRe PeOpLe In ThErE! Seriously, do you hear yourself?"

"Buddy, I love you, but cram it you grumpy potato, lives are at sta-" Evan chirped back, but by then it was hard to hear anything over the crackling fire and the occasional muffled scream. I looked around... It didn't seem like there was anyway up that hadn't already burned down, and all the shouting was coming from the upper floors. I watched the smoke rise up the stairwell and I couldn't help but smile. Sure, on one hand this was a deeply unfortunate situation for the people involved, on the other hand I had been wanting to try this next bit for a long time. I traced my fingers over the sigil on my left arm and spoke the gibberish that would allow me to slow time as much as possible. As close to a full stop as I could get it. Knowing that this meant I couldn't sustain it for long I dove right in. Just as I had expected, I couldn't affect the rising smoke slowly enough to go through it. Acting quickly, in contrast to time itself, I started climbing the immobile smoke plume up the stairwell. It might be worth mentioning that it was like climbing a mountain of charred pillows, the stench was... well notable. Things started to slowly refocus in a way that told me the spell was going to wear off in a moment. I jumped to the nearest floor and the rapidly weakening structure seemed to groan a little at the sudden placement of my weight.

I listened carefully, trying to find one of the people trapped nearby... In the distance, below me, I heard Pittman again, following a massive crash. "Are you fucking insane?!" You're going to bring the whole building down on us." I kept listening... then I heard it, smoke choked moans from a nearby apartment. I kicked in the door and immediately took note of the young man trapped under a fallen support beam. He was quick to see me as well.

The young man was pinned, and I couldn't lift the whole beam. I didn't have to try and fail to know that. So I called out to the guy as I approached him. "Listen friend, I'm gonna need you to trust me okay?"

"Okay." came a frail reply.

I pulled out a large dagger from my belt. He started to panic a little bit but to his credit he stopped wiggling when I told him. "Trust me, Don't fucking move." Holding the blade in my right hand I reached with my left over to the sigil tattooed on my right arm. Tracing a pattern and muttering "Satym Hewn Filg Koo" the edge of the dagger briefly glowed brighter than anything else in the burning room. Still several feet from the young man and the fallen support I cut at the air, and the glowing edge leaped from the dagger and sliced the support beam into a much more manageable size. I got the beam off of the guy and got him out to the stairwell. Just then I could hear more yelling from the floor above. I instructed the guy I had just helped to hang here for a minute and then stood on the half-wall in the stairwell, looking up, past the fire blocking the rational route and straight to the floor where the shouts originated. A little patterned twist on the right arm, a couple more nonsense words, and a strange ball of energy appeared in my hand looking almost like a decomposing moon. I arched it in a toss to the next floor and as it soared through the air it left behind a wide trail of a white cloud-like substance. I jumped along the trail to the next floor and as I traveled the distance inside it was as if there was no gravity fighting my ascent. I landed right where I needed too. Making things even better I could immediately see the source of the shouting, the last shouting I could hear. A middle aged woman in her pajamas. I guess she woke up late and couldn't find a safe way down and out of the burning building cause she wasn't restrained like the guy from before. I heard Evan's familiar voice from the floor below calling up to me. "Mystic! I've got this guy, I can't find anyone else."

"Alright.

See you outside, get him out of here." I replied before moving towards the woman in her PJ's. "Ma'am, just try to calm down, I'm gonna get us out of here." Ash covered parts of her face as she looked over at me and nodded. Unfortunately now wasn't a great time to take a deep breath... I looked around, trying to find an exit route. I saw the window down the hall that Rose had jumped through when we arrived. I smirked and straightened out my robes a bit. "Ma'am I'm gonna need you to trust me." I said while sticking out my hand for her to take. She took it and before she could get a grip on exactly what we were doing I had taken her over to the broken window. "Remember... I need you to trust me." she looked confused and for just a moment frightened as she realized my intentions. I lifted her into a bear hug and jumped out of the broken fourth floor window holding the stranger tightly.

Fuck, I guess I should break here for a second. Ancient secrets abound in this day and age so I may as well leak one of my own. Sometimes the outfit makes the man. I don't wear the robes on the job purely because I think they look good, I don't think anyone wears what they wear on the job purely for aesthetic purposes. In my case the majority of my "work outfit" as Mystic is geared towards surviving my rash decisions. I wish I could say I had tested this before this next moment.. definitely not on a fall like this with someone else with me. Sometimes though, its just a matter of faith...

My robes billowed out slightly and I found my fall slowed to a route comparable to a parachute. "Hang on lady, and if you have a thing about heights I definitely WOULD NOT look down." About halfway through the decent I saw Evan run out of the blaze with a couple people in tow and Pittman still strapped to his back. If I didn't know any better I would swear I saw Pittman see me floating down and roll his eyes at me. I touched down on the ground and the woman I had carried quickly muttered her thanks and ran off without making eye contact. Evan started walking over to me but it was Pittman I heard first. "Hey! That's a nice dress you got there Mary Poppins. All I've gotten on this vacation so far is a lungful of smoke. And not the fun kind!"

"Where are the girls at" I asked Evan.

"I'm not sur-" Evan tried to reply but Pittman cut him off.

"Don't you ignore me!"

"Excuse me!" came a somewhat shrill voice. We looked around and none of us could find the source of the voice at first. "Excuse me!" It chimed off again. For some reason I looked down and there was a finch staring up at me. It cleared it's little bird throat and said "Miss Eve told me to make sure you know they went to a pub down the road to talk."

"I can't see back there, who's talking?" Pittman said.

Evan tried to explain. "I think Capri gave this little bird vocal cords and taught it English."

"She can't fucking text?"

"Let's just get going." I said to them before looking back down at the finch. "Which way?" The bird extended a wing as if to point down the road. Evan, Pittman and myself headed in that direction.

fantasy
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Shi-Tokey Slim

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