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Chapter III
🕑 Added 2025-03-06 18:05:15 +0000 UTCThis 'meeting' with a seemingly nice, if not a little quaint, old woman had been something of a humbling experience.
In a simple exchange of words, my intentions for this life had been reduced to a bravado, the sort I'd expect from a sudden 3 am burst of motivation. Then, that bravado had been thoroughly disassembled, leaving me entirely lost for words.
"What happened, boy?" Inorai cocked her head with a faint smirk. "You seem a bit... lost."
It wasn't a challenge. I knew it wasn't. It sure as hell felt like one though.
It annoyed me. It made me restless and angry. How could it not? In a single moment, all I had going was stomped on by my own instincts. I was mad at myself, I realised. Then, I made a decision I wouldn't call wise at all.
"Fuck instincts."
I was going to live without inhibitions this time. I'd died twice already for fuck's sake.
All these people with the strange energy appeared extremely eccentric anyway. I'd fit right in.
"What's that?"
"Nothing," I shook my head before whirling around on my chair to really face her. "A million's a bit far-fetched. I'm just happy to have someone to test it for me."
I decided desperation would never guide my actions. Be it for wealth or whatever else.
Momma didn't raise no conman.
With a curious hum, Inorai took the dusty chair I offered her and began fiddling with the keyboard as I listed out the basics. When it looked like she'd be able to play by herself, I stomped over to the fat librarian still ignoring we existed.
"I'm going to fucking strangle you, traitor."
"What was I supposed to do?!" He half-whispered, half-shouted, "That's one of the twelve lords! Do you want me to disappear? I have too much to do in life."
I looked him up and down. Then to the left and the right.
"Clearly."
He narrowed his eyes, a gloved hand over his beer belly. The dick's double chin looked like he was part man, part frog.
"You look like your whole wardrobe came from the discarded pile in a junkyard. I've seen homeless people with better clothes." He quipped back with a huff, "I need the credit, you know?"
"This was my father's..." I murmured. Well, it belonged to Henry's father.
"That explains a lot."
Quietly, I glanced over my shoulder to see Inorai was still busy with my iteration of flappy bird. Then I pointed at his belly, "At least, I don't look like I ate my father."
He didn't deign to respond, just huffed and turned his head aside.
Only then did I remember my real intentions for coming to him so, like a gentleman, I cleared my throat to draw his attention. "Okay, I think we got off to a bad start."
"You think?"
I took a deep breath and leaned on the table between us, putting on a sickeningly sweet smile.
"You said she was one of the twelve lords?"
"That's Lord Valualeta, you know? The head of the department of creation? I thought you were one of hers with those eyes."
He talked like it was obvious for everyone to know what that was. All I was able to put together though was that I was in some weird version of Harry Potter. The department thing really drove my thoughts home.
If that was the case then that energy I was analyzing was magical in nature. I was just going to go with mana then. Still, there were a little too many unanswered questions for me to have any reasonable and complete assumption of my new surroundings.
How was I supposed to find out more?
"Is there some kind of book about this stuff?"
"What stuff?"
"Magic?" I mumbled out quickly.
"I wish. Would make my life a lot easier." He laughed like I'd said something funny. "You're one of us New Agers then? Why didn't you just say so?"
What the fuck was this man saying? What were all these terms?
It suddenly became necessary to approach this with an even more open mind.
"Yeah, I'm definitely that," I nodded as wisely as I could.
He narrowed his eyes again, then sighed, "They have the real things all locked up so you'll have to do with..." He tilted his head in thought. "Well, we have some manuscripts from the Aurora Aureae. That's Ordo Hermeticus Aurora Aureae, in case you didn't know. The Golden Dawn. And let me see..."
I definitely understood every word that came out of his mouth.
"I can sneak you a bit of something from the Liber Al Vel Legis. Other than that you might like some of Helena Blavatsky's stuff. She made it simple enough."
In that moment, my expression could not have been more deader. I did not know the words but I knew he was naming books. I loathed reading more than anything. Practical experience was way better.
But then again, exceptions could be made. Like when real magic(?) was part of the equation.
Again though, practical experience would trump it. I needed to get someone to show me something magical. I was willing to wager these eyes of mine would help a lot in that situation.
"Ooh, trying to get some extra knowledge in?"
I barely stopped myself from lynching the old woman who kept sneaking up on me randomly and gave a begrudging nod, lowering my clenched fists. The librarian was quick enough to abandon me for the oh-so-interesting wall again.
"Yes."
"Always a pleasure to see. Might I suggest enrolling in Lord El-Melloi II's class? His approach is curious but always produces excellent results." She peered over my shoulder with her creepy eyes.
"I don't know how to."
"You need not worry about that," She smiled. "I quite enjoyed that little game of yours. And since you refuse payment, I will personally have the arrangements made. All you need to do is go to the London Museum. I'll have someone wait for you there."
...It appeared not conning people had its merits.
"Thanks?"
Whether or not this was a good thing was still up in the air... but damn was it exciting.
"Oh it's nothing, Henry. I expect great things of you."
I watched in frozen silence as the old woman floated out of the library, humming a strange tune all the way. Once she was gone, I turned to look at the librarian.
"How the fuck did she know my name?"
"That was one of the Twelve Lords." He repeated his earlier words.
Hmm... Did twelve lords mean twelve departments of study? And all those terms sounded an awful lot like things from my university days. The separate research material only served to reinforce the notion.
Had I just unknowingly signed up for school?
-
"I don't get shi-"
I was slapped over the head with a folded newspaper by Ellie, Henr-... my adorable little sister.
"No bad words in front of children." She complained with one cheek puffed before returning to her homework.
"So it's okay if there's no children?"
"No but it's... mmm..." She searched for the words, narrowing her little eyes. "It's badder."
"Badder isn't a word."
"Is too!"
After the strange encounter at the library, I'd all but bolted home with a few books in my hands. Since then, all I'd done till now was read the thick tomes over and over again. Well... single pages multiple times on account of understanding nothing at all. Somewhere along the way, Ellie had asked permission for something and a little while later, she'd come waddling out of the bedroom with a little baggie in tow claiming that we were going to do our 'homework' together.
I didn't have the heart to tell her I had no homework... or that her constant questions were distracting me.
In the end, it mattered little. I had read through the transcripts of the Liber Al Vel Legis; "The Book of Law", written by one Aleister Crowley in the early 20th century. Some mook who claimed an angel had conversed with him and declared himself a prophet. His work was supposed to be a way of interacting with the material and the immaterial.
...It seemed like a load of baloney but discrediting it would be stupid if magic was real. Maybe an angel had really appeared to him if this world was fully supernatural.
Helena Blavatsky's works were a tad easier to understand, and I was even able to link them together to some degree after miserably wallowing over how stupid it all read well into the night. It was hard to take it seriously but, in a way, with the notes that came with...
If I were to take all that was written to be true and put them through my eyes then I could liken them to programming languages... to some extent at least. Then spells could be programs, and the 'languages' could be the code for writing them. The programs would then be a way to interface with the system; the actual world, and the fuel would be magical energy.
Complex commands would require more 'lines', and expertise and experience would determine how every individual approached these programs. Similarly, the greater the effect, the more energy required to accomplish and sustain it.
The different systems of magic; the Kabbalah, Taiji, Alchemy etc, were then just different coding languages, each with their own pros and cons, suited for one spell or the other.
There was no real other way for me to see this and ground it in reality. There were some bits and pieces of needing to hypnotise oneself to fully believe and actualise what was written but... I imagined I didn't need that part when I could literally see and analyze mana and how it interacted with the world around me.
Being able to see it was more than half the basis behind my current theories.
"Hmmm..."
Admittedly, this train of thought and understanding was wildly radical in nature if the nature of the notes was anything to go by. An average magician had nothing to 'confirm' their spell would take hold where I did.
Or maybe these eyes of mine were a regular occurrence and all my theories and conclusions were self-possessed narcissistic attempts at seeing myself as 'superior'.
Again, I'd need to see to know for sure. That needed to be soon.
My profound thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when Ellie put her head on my knee and started snoring.
I had an important day tomorrow.
How was I supposed to get any sleep?
"Give her a sec. She needs to get up for dinner anyway."
Henry's mother spoke from the adjoined kitchen, an amused smile on her tired old face.
"Okay." I mumbled quietly.
"And uh Hal... You're a bright boy. Don't let those books get to your head," She warned, eying the cuckoo books spread all over the table. "It's not real."
Unfortunately, the wisps of mana wading off her being begged to differ. She had none of her own but there was some residue of a dark red substance. I had no way of knowing what that meant.
-
I'll be posting more regularly now that I'm settled into university.
