GoldFinger
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Ch. 233 - Gamble
🕑 Added 2022-05-15 00:52:28 +0000 UTC"U-u-uh hey where am I? Where are we, I mean ... I-i-i was in ..." Quentin stuttered in confusion, as he looked around.
"Upstate New York." Eliot answered.
"Upstate...but I was just..." Quentin fumbled.
"Okay ... W-what is this place?" He asked.
Yeah. He's definitely more of a Deku.
May turn out useful later if only as a meat shield.
I silently assessed.
"Brakebills University." Eliot explained as we walked, "You have been offered a preliminary exam for entry into the graduate program."
"Am I hallucinating?" Quentin asked, finally with some force.
Heh. Maybe we might just make something of you yet, Coldwater.
"If you were, how would asking me help?" Eliot teased with a straight face and I snorted.
"Come on or you'll miss it." Eliot added, walking away.
He led us up the stairs to a classroom and pointed towards it with a 'tada!'.
"Here we are." Eliot pointed out, opening the door for us.
"Um thanks...." Quentin muttered as he shuffled in while Eliot held my hand for a second longer.
"Thanks. See you at Brakebills?" I said, and Eliot grabbed my hand.
"Pass. I wanna hear all about that portal once you've gotten in...." He let go of my hand, and I nodded.
"And don't make that face. I won't tell Dean Fogg. I'm not a snitch." He giggled and walked away.
Well, that was weird.
I walked into the exam hall, and took an empty seat, as the Dean, a black male in his late 50s started to speak.
Dean Fogg.
Prodigious magician, master of magical engineering and grade A functional alcoholic.
Taught himself magic at the age of four, loves his grandma, likes having affairs woth other people's wives, wears expensive suits to hide his insecurities, hates tedium, and is apparently very good in bed if a wealth of characters and his sordid list of affairs is to be believed.
Genuinely cares about his students and friends.
A protagonist in his own time, in his own right.
But as they say, a prodigy at ten is a genius at 20, a moderately good scholar at 30 and just your average guy at 40.
That didn't mean he gave up of course.
Even after what's about to happen to him soon, losing magic and having to go through all the exhausting drama that is our protagonists' lives, he still perseveres.
He even creates a perpetual magical battery later to help the protagonists of the story.
Honestly, one of my favourite characters from the series.
He walked onto the podium as we entered, a university emblem emblazoned onto a flag behind him.
"Late!" He scolded, "Be seated."
"Welcome. You may address me as Dean. I know you have questions. They will be answered in time. Now your only job is to pass the examination before you."
He flipped an hourglass on a table that magically appeared beside him and ordered.
"Begin."
.
Passing the exam was easy enough, even without my microverse crash course in becoming sorcerer supreme levels of powerful and my fierce intellect.
Of course some still failed but eh, not my business.
What intrigued me was the enchantment on the paper.
It flickered every few secodns changing the questions, jumbling up the answers. But what was funny was that the higher your stress level or lower your magic capacity, it adjusted it to a manageable level for you.
So for me, the exam was harder than most.
And then there was the silent probing they did, checking for magical capacity while the students were busy writing the exam.
Should have seen Dean Fogg's face when his magical tendrils reached me and got brutalized.
He tried to hide it but I knew and so did the teacher beside him. He even brought another teacher, I think her name was Lipson? Eleanor Lipson, yes. I remember her. Minor character, specialized in investigation of enchantments.
He didn't find anything suspicious of course.
He couldn't if he tried.
Not at this level.
And any other spells he could try were likely to flashy for an exam hall.
I walked over to the room assigned to me for the second part of the exam and opened the door to find a panel of teachers sitting before me.
Dean Fogg, obviously, but also Lipson and another black guy.
The herbology teacher if I remember right.
Two other I couldn't remember.
Eh, I'll learn their names eventually.
I walked in, and stood against the wall as they began.
"Jay...Walker." Dean Fogg read woth a certain incredulity, "You cannot expect us to believe that is your real name, whoever... whatever you are." He slammed the booklet shut.
"True. But it is the name I choose to go by. So you know, respect my privacy maybe?" I shrugged.
He frowned.
"Usually we ask our students to do magic but seeing as how you were able to sneak past our wards and attend the exam when you were clearly uninvited shows me you already know about magic."
"I'd be surprised if you didn't. Especially after I practically flayed your probes. But that's not what you want to ask, is it?"
I could see the professors tense up instantly eliciting a laugh from me.
"Indeed." He said, "Why don't we begin with the basics before I deport your ass off this property.
What are you?"
"My, aren't you rude! I'm a human."
"A human wouldn't have given that answer." He growled, "So tell us the truth and maybe we won't kill you."
"Oh Dean Fogg." I giggled, letting off my magical pressure, "You couldn't kill me if you tried. And I should know. Gods have tried. And gods have failed. All eaten alive. By me."
I could feel the tension in the air, and the silence was such that you could hear a pin drop.
To be honest though? That was my entire magical reserve.
I had hoped to keep it back for a bit, waot to refine some energy converters and such but given that my cover was blown, no point holding back now.
This was a gamble.
Either they believe me and I get in or they call my bluff and I die.
Shit gamble but what else can I do on such short notice?
So, time to employ my most useful skill.
Bullshit no jutsu.
"But I'm not here to hurt anyone so no need to worry." I waved off his concerns.
"What are you here for then?" He asked, cautious.
"Why do people come to a university?" I asked, eyeing him lazily.
Fogg raised an eyebrow.
"You are here to learn? You expect me to believe that?"
"No. If you actually believed that I'd consider you a fool.
I'm here to learn, yes. I am a researcher at heart. That gods bit was a necessity at the time. I was trying to revive my wife and they had a thingamajick that I needed in my studies. It's a long story. It's not my usual fare though." I assured him, pacing around the room.
And I am still human, if that bothers you. With my shade intact."
"That is good to hear but somehow I find that hard to believe."
"What can I say. Strange worlds, strange deeds. Shit happens.
But you are right. I am here for another purpose too. Nothing that concerns you however.
As for what concerns you....perhaps, does the Beast ring any bells?"
Dean Fogg's face warped into a grimace at the mention of the name.
And with that I knew I had my hooks in him.
Now to reel that line in!
The Beast. Or as he was previously known as, Martin Chatwin.
Martin along with his siblings was the protagonist of a Narnia-esque children's fantasy series in this world, Fillory And Further. A five book series written by one Christopher Plover, and exceedingly beloved by the magicians of this world for some reason I cannot fathom.
It was basically the Lord Of The Rings of this world.
Now, Fillory, the world featured in the books was your standard fantasy fare. Elves, dwarves, fairies, talking animals, children of earth as rulers. The whole Narnia shtick minus the Jesus Lion.
In his place were two gods. Brothers.
Ember, god of chaos and Umber, god of order. Or was it the other way around? I tend to mix them up and without the biochip to draw from, my knowledge is a bit spotty in that regard.
The invited the Chatwins, (read kidnapped), into their fantasy world as entertainment for themselves.
Little adventures, intrigue and drama. The usual.
But after a couple of adventures, they got bored of Martin Chatwin and banished him from Fillory.
And poor little Martin, he needed it. He needed Fillory.
Why?
Because after the Chatwins' mother died they were orphaned and taken in by the author of the Fillory books, Christopher Plover.
And Plover was a pedophile with the primary target of his unwanted affections being a young Martin Chatwin.
Fillory was all Martin had. His only escape from the monster that controlled his life and sexually assaulted him anytime he could.
Martin found a way back to Fillory eventually.
And unwilling to be sent back into the hands of his monster of a guardian, he swore to make sure he could never be sent back.
By anyone.
He drank from the very source of magic, the Wellspring and mutated into a powerful monstrous magician.
Then he created a new branch of magic that only he could cast with his new mutated six fingered form.
Wild magic.
With this newfound power he took over Fillory as it's absolute ruler, banished Umber, god of order from Fillory and sent his brother Ember, god of chaos running, forced into hiding, in revenge.
He became the Beast. So no one could ever hurt him the way he had once been hurt.
To run away from the traumatized little boy he was inside.
And now he was trying to turn Fillory into his very own North Korea, taking control of all ways in and out of the world.
And his plan was in it's final swing now.
That included killing all the people who know about Fillory and can go there, i.e., the magicians of Earth where the books Fillory and Further were widespread.
He had even begun capturing World Travelers and hired mercenaries to patrol the Neitherlands, a junction between worlds to try and stop anyone from getting to Fillory.
His sister, Jane Chatwin knew about this and had come to Dean Fogg for help.
Only, they failed to stop him.
Thankfully, Jane gad a watch that could fuck with time on a cosmic scale and she used that power to create a timeloop.
Every time she failed to stop her brother, she would reverse time, change a variable and try again.
This one was loop 40.
And Dean Fogg had already lost hope.
He was a master magician and he could perceive the shifts in timelines. Meaning, he remembered all the other 39 loops and his death in all of them.
Major boner killer that.
But I was here now, and I had an offer he couldn't refuse.
