When John decided to head back he found Magoi sitting in his usual place. No signs of discomfort could be found in the man’s body language. John breathed a sigh of relief, so the Fateweaver was okay. “I was afraid you would get sick and the barrier would crumble or something,” John said truthfully as he stepped towards the dinosaur-masked man.
“No, I just needed to temporarily alter the time dilation as well as do…something else,” Magoi gave a half-hearted explanation.
“Why? For both of those,” John asked, too curious not to.
“Ah, well, I needed to get the contract correct.” Magoi turned a page of his newspaper. “See, I was told to give you 28 days, or a month, instead of four days. Therefore, the average per day is one to seven, but because we started late on Monday I needed to stretch today a bit. For the other thing, there was an external problem, but it’s gone now.”
“What kind of problem?” John wanted to know.
“Nothing of concern, I assure you,” Magoi answered. “Sometimes entities from the space between Illusion Barriers knock on ones that currently exist. Rare and this one was persistent. It’s gone now though.”
John did not feel assured in the slightest, but he had another question to ask, “You can alter the flow of time whenever you wish in here?”
“This is my domain, so yes. With a few caveats, but none too binding.”
“Can you do me a favour and give me more time?” John asked.
A long pause, during which the nose of the raptor skull mask rose beyond the rim of the paper. “Why?” he asked, in a calm and calculating tone. So, John explained. The whole story from when he had gotten his powers over to what he did with them and the mistakes he did up to now. He told him of Travolta, of Rave and of Thana. At the end of it all Magoi sighed heavily. “I can’t.”
“But…” John wanted to say how he NEEDED the time to save them, he needed it badly. Magoi raised a hand, at first John thought he was telling him to stop with that motion but instead Magoi took off his mask. Underneath John saw an aged face with pale blue eyes and no hair whatsoever, three horrible scars ran over his head.
He pointed at the first one, it ran from his right ear diagonally over to his forehead. “This scar I got when I helped a young man save the city of his birth from a horrible monster that was about to become a catastrophe,” he said. The second scar, it spanned over his right ear, cutting apart where his eyebrow should be and even further down, splitting his lip, “That one is from when I fought the Blood in the Cold War.” He showed his last scar, it was from a burning incident that much was clear, it covered half of his left cheek, “And that one is from when I foolishly fell into a fire when I was on a camping trip with a few buddies of mine.”
He giggled as the mood suddenly swung completely, “My point is, Gamer, that all of these are from when I was young and fought for things I believed in. In those days I would have helped you without a second thought. Now, however, I am old, not old enough to be close to dying thanks to my powers keeping me younger than my years, but old enough to feel like I deserve some peace and quiet in my life. I have three kids, I have a wife, I have an organization to oversee.”
“I am not asking you to fight with me, just to give me more time,” John argued.
“Then what? People will see the favouritism, they will demand I give them the same free treatment, worse yet I am a High Fateweaver so my behaviour would reflect on our order as a whole. We are one of the great non-combat organizations, we can’t go choosing sides.”
“I have no si-“
“You are indebted to Lydia Augusta the fourth of house Hohenzollern,” Magoi reminded him as he put his mask back on, “I help you and people will associate that with me helping one of the most divisive figures of the European Abyss. I would make a lot of enemies, a lot of whom I spent years getting on neutral terms with in the first place. I am too old and too important to do favours I don’t get anything from. I am sorry.”
John shut his mouth and thought about that for a moment. Finally, he sighed, “Nothing I could say would convince you otherwise, right? No argument that no one ever would have to know or anything I could do for you down the line?”
“No,” Magoi stated, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel for you. I’ll help where I feel I can and perhaps we can have an amicable working relationship.” Resigning himself to that with a sigh, John nodded. “Splendid, now let’s talk about that loot. Oh, and before you get the wrong impression: I am wearing this mask because it is totally awesome, not because I am ashamed of my face.”
John hadn’t assumed, but whatever. The Loot Basin was filled with watches. Okay, filled was an overstatement, the basin was quite large, but there were a lot of them. There was also a lot of money, which he took immediately. “Did you automatically withdraw the money when I ‘died’, by the way?” John checked on something. The skull jumped up and down in a nod.
The thing did indeed look terrible. It was too big to comfortably fit inside his hand, had a case made of light wood crafted so badly there were splinters hanging out and it made loud clicking noises all the time. However, it did seem to be good food for Aclysia. One more reason that this would be his new prime grinding ground.
“You get on this,” John told Aclysia and tossed her the watch. Aclysia looked at it and then swallowed in one gulp. Her eyes and lips were suddenly closed shut. “What? Is it painful?” John asked, alarmed.
A sour taste flooded through the mental connection. The things were hardly edible it seemed. Aclysia extended her hand towards a second one, “You don’t have to force yourself,” John told her.
“I cannot let food go to waste, children in Africa are starving,” Aclysia stated and quickly threw a second and third one into her mouth.
John would have burst into laughter, if Aclysia hadn’t been making such a sour face. It was like she was force-feeding herself lemons. “Those kids will starve whether or not you eat watches,” John explained.
“Oh? How sad,” Aclysia said but didn’t stop, John got the notification for a level-up.
“You REALLY don’t need to eat those if you don’t like them.” John emphasized, almost pleading with her. Aclysia stopped for a moment, her emerald eyes focusing on him with an almost chiding glint to them.
“You’re not the only one who wants to do all they can to save her.”
John was just awestruck. Sure, eating sour things was a pretty minor sacrifice, but it spoke to a broader determination that he hadn’t respected properly so far. Aclysia had always thrown herself in harm’s way for him in combat. She had done her best to keep him alive and well but that she was willing to do unpleasant things in order to help with this made his heart beat faster. She did it for him and she did it because she too missed Rave.
A pat on the head was the best he could do to express his feelings. Aclysia made a pleased hum.
“I feel like I am no longer needed here. See you tomorrow, Gamer,” Magoi said and walked off.
“Please, we will be together for a bit longer, so call me John, High Fateweaver,” John shouted.
The addressed laughed and tipped his top hat, “Very well, John. Well, I don’t think you have earned the right to call me by my first name yet, so you may refer to me as Magus.” He bowed like a butler. “Glad to be of service.”
With that, he took his exit. John kneeled down next to Aclysia and with every watch she managed to eat he rewarded her with a gesture of affection.
“No fair, I want kisses too!” Sylph said and landed on Aclysia’s head.
“Read the mood, Sylph!” Salamander reprimanded and kicked her off, Undine giggled, a sound John seldom heard, pure like the calm flow of water.
Gnome stood there, doing her usual eye routine where she could not really look at John but neither look away, she pushed her index fingers against each other in an unsure gesture. “I mean – we could – if you want to – maybe – like really only if you want to – repeat – ehm…”
“Out with it, sis!” Salamander interrupted.
Sylph crashed into her back a moment later. “Who can’t read the mood now, huh, you burning bitch!”
“Oh, you are just asking for it! I will scorch you!”
“You can’t ‘scorch’ me you fancy-dancy-lancy-wordy-burny, I am made of AIR!”
“Then I will heat you up and inflate a balloon with you!” Salamander countered.
Sylph hesitated a moment, clearly confused, “Wait, would that work? Can I fill a balloon? Would I be the balloon? WAIT?! WHAT AM I? I am air, but air is made out of several different elements? Am I helium? AM I POISON GAS? John! Whatever you do, do not breathe me in! I could be poisonous! Wait, you shouldn’t do that whether or not I am poisonous, I don’t think that…” Sylph, within a few seconds, had completely forgotten that she was fighting with Salamander and now everyone was ignoring her again.
“re-re-repe-re-re-repeat that -uhm- I mean re-re-repe-repeat that stu-stu-stuff…” Gnome was now stuck in a loop of stuttering, only slowly progressing through the sentence as John continued to hug Aclysia and spent the points of the three levels she had earnt after eating all the watches, putting her at 51, only one below his own level.
“She wants to have sex with you again,” Salamander finally interrupted Gnome’s endless stammering. Gnome threw her an angry glance, face beet red, John could almost see the steam rising from the Asian-looking elemental. Gnome stomped towards her, “Now, don’t be hasty!” Salamander narrowly dodged Gnome’s clutches, she did not have Sylph's Agility but she was still a lot faster than Gnome. Also, she could fly. At about two and a half metres high Salamander laughed down in a victory pose, “Wahahaha, what, you embarrassed? You know we all watched you ‘have intercourse’, right?” Salamander said in a mockingly sweet tone.
Gnome turned almost as red as Salamander, “Uwuwuwuwu,” she made that sound again, one that made John throw Salamander a very secretive thumb up. Bullying is wrong, he knew that, but Gnome’s reactions were so adorable it was almost impossible not to.
Salamander winked at him, but that gesture gave him away and Gnome turned to John. “I-I-I…” She stomped and the earth rumbled, “I…urgh,” she kneeled down and hid her face between her legs.
“Let’s just enjoy the evening and play some games,” John suggested. He totally planned on banging both Gnome and Aclysia later but he felt that it would be unfair to leave the other three bored for so long, some fun times would surely help put their minds at ease a little. Also, he felt that after such a tumultuous week he deserved a break that was just fun and games.
They went inside the house but all John found was a deck of charade cards. “Well, better than nothing,” he decided and grabbed the hourglass right next to them as well. “Okay, some ground rules, no peeking into thoughts and if the hourglass runs out the other team has its turn, okay?”
“”Okay,”” said everyone else in unison. John drew the first card with a smile, he read it and put his hand on the hourglass. He hesitated.
“Can…I just want to say something really quickly,” John said, his smile ever so slight, “I realize that I wasn’t quite myself at the start of the week. I got myself into trouble, I was rash, I made mistakes and some of you paid the price for it.” A glance at Undine was all he could bear, before he directed his ashamed gaze at his hands. “I am very sorry, I said it before but I think you deserve to hear it again, and more than that I thank you for setting my path straight. Thank you, you are the parts and the sum of me, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
He didn’t receive an answer, he didn’t need to, wordless communication was the true honesty and appreciation they felt in his words. Undine was still a bit mad, but she appreciated his words, Sylph was overly happy that he thanked them, and appreciated his words, Salamander thought that this was overdue, but appreciated that it came better late than never, Gnome knew that it cost him a bit to say these things out loud, and appreciated him all the more for it, Aclysia heard all that she had hoped, and appreciated it with all of her heart.
John grinned and blinked the bit of tears that welled up in his eyes away. This was the night to finally leave behind those days. He turned the hourglass.
When John decided to head back he found Magoi sitting in his usual place. No signs of discomfort could be found in the man’s body language. John breathed a sigh of relief, so the Fateweaver was okay. “I was afraid you would get sick and the barrier would crumble or something,” John said truthfully as he stepped towards the dinosaur-masked man.
“No, I just needed to temporarily alter the time dilation as well as do…something else,” Magoi gave a half-hearted explanation.
“Why? For both of those,” John asked, too curious not to.
“Ah, well, I needed to get the contract correct.” Magoi turned a page of his newspaper. “See, I was told to give you 28 days, or a month, instead of four days. Therefore, the average per day is one to seven, but because we started late on Monday I needed to stretch today a bit. For the other thing, there was an external problem, but it’s gone now.”
“What kind of problem?” John wanted to know.
“Nothing of concern, I assure you,” Magoi answered. “Sometimes entities from the space between Illusion Barriers knock on ones that currently exist. Rare and this one was persistent. It’s gone now though.”
John did not feel assured in the slightest, but he had another question to ask, “You can alter the flow of time whenever you wish in here?”
“This is my domain, so yes. With a few caveats, but none too binding.”
“Can you do me a favour and give me more time?” John asked.
A long pause, during which the nose of the raptor skull mask rose beyond the rim of the paper. “Why?” he asked, in a calm and calculating tone. So, John explained. The whole story from when he had gotten his powers over to what he did with them and the mistakes he did up to now. He told him of Travolta, of Rave and of Thana. At the end of it all Magoi sighed heavily. “I can’t.”
“But…” John wanted to say how he NEEDED the time to save them, he needed it badly. Magoi raised a hand, at first John thought he was telling him to stop with that motion but instead Magoi took off his mask. Underneath John saw an aged face with pale blue eyes and no hair whatsoever, three horrible scars ran over his head.
He pointed at the first one, it ran from his right ear diagonally over to his forehead. “This scar I got when I helped a young man save the city of his birth from a horrible monster that was about to become a catastrophe,” he said. The second scar, it spanned over his right ear, cutting apart where his eyebrow should be and even further down, splitting his lip, “That one is from when I fought the Blood in the Cold War.” He showed his last scar, it was from a burning incident that much was clear, it covered half of his left cheek, “And that one is from when I foolishly fell into a fire when I was on a camping trip with a few buddies of mine.”
He giggled as the mood suddenly swung completely, “My point is, Gamer, that all of these are from when I was young and fought for things I believed in. In those days I would have helped you without a second thought. Now, however, I am old, not old enough to be close to dying thanks to my powers keeping me younger than my years, but old enough to feel like I deserve some peace and quiet in my life. I have three kids, I have a wife, I have an organization to oversee.”
“I am not asking you to fight with me, just to give me more time,” John argued.
“Then what? People will see the favouritism, they will demand I give them the same free treatment, worse yet I am a High Fateweaver so my behaviour would reflect on our order as a whole. We are one of the great non-combat organizations, we can’t go choosing sides.”
“I have no si-“
“You are indebted to Lydia Augusta the fourth of house Hohenzollern,” Magoi reminded him as he put his mask back on, “I help you and people will associate that with me helping one of the most divisive figures of the European Abyss. I would make a lot of enemies, a lot of whom I spent years getting on neutral terms with in the first place. I am too old and too important to do favours I don’t get anything from. I am sorry.”
John shut his mouth and thought about that for a moment. Finally, he sighed, “Nothing I could say would convince you otherwise, right? No argument that no one ever would have to know or anything I could do for you down the line?”
“No,” Magoi stated, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel for you. I’ll help where I feel I can and perhaps we can have an amicable working relationship.” Resigning himself to that with a sigh, John nodded. “Splendid, now let’s talk about that loot. Oh, and before you get the wrong impression: I am wearing this mask because it is totally awesome, not because I am ashamed of my face.”
John hadn’t assumed, but whatever. The Loot Basin was filled with watches. Okay, filled was an overstatement, the basin was quite large, but there were a lot of them. There was also a lot of money, which he took immediately. “Did you automatically withdraw the money when I ‘died’, by the way?” John checked on something. The skull jumped up and down in a nod.
The thing did indeed look terrible. It was too big to comfortably fit inside his hand, had a case made of light wood crafted so badly there were splinters hanging out and it made loud clicking noises all the time. However, it did seem to be good food for Aclysia. One more reason that this would be his new prime grinding ground.
“You get on this,” John told Aclysia and tossed her the watch. Aclysia looked at it and then swallowed in one gulp. Her eyes and lips were suddenly closed shut. “What? Is it painful?” John asked, alarmed.
A sour taste flooded through the mental connection. The things were hardly edible it seemed. Aclysia extended her hand towards a second one, “You don’t have to force yourself,” John told her.
“I cannot let food go to waste, children in Africa are starving,” Aclysia stated and quickly threw a second and third one into her mouth.
John would have burst into laughter, if Aclysia hadn’t been making such a sour face. It was like she was force-feeding herself lemons. “Those kids will starve whether or not you eat watches,” John explained.
“Oh? How sad,” Aclysia said but didn’t stop, John got the notification for a level-up.
“You REALLY don’t need to eat those if you don’t like them.” John emphasized, almost pleading with her. Aclysia stopped for a moment, her emerald eyes focusing on him with an almost chiding glint to them.
“You’re not the only one who wants to do all they can to save her.”
John was just awestruck. Sure, eating sour things was a pretty minor sacrifice, but it spoke to a broader determination that he hadn’t respected properly so far. Aclysia had always thrown herself in harm’s way for him in combat. She had done her best to keep him alive and well but that she was willing to do unpleasant things in order to help with this made his heart beat faster. She did it for him and she did it because she too missed Rave.
A pat on the head was the best he could do to express his feelings. Aclysia made a pleased hum.
“I feel like I am no longer needed here. See you tomorrow, Gamer,” Magoi said and walked off.
“Please, we will be together for a bit longer, so call me John, High Fateweaver,” John shouted.
The addressed laughed and tipped his top hat, “Very well, John. Well, I don’t think you have earned the right to call me by my first name yet, so you may refer to me as Magus.” He bowed like a butler. “Glad to be of service.”
With that, he took his exit. John kneeled down next to Aclysia and with every watch she managed to eat he rewarded her with a gesture of affection.
“No fair, I want kisses too!” Sylph said and landed on Aclysia’s head.
“Read the mood, Sylph!” Salamander reprimanded and kicked her off, Undine giggled, a sound John seldom heard, pure like the calm flow of water.
Gnome stood there, doing her usual eye routine where she could not really look at John but neither look away, she pushed her index fingers against each other in an unsure gesture. “I mean – we could – if you want to – maybe – like really only if you want to – repeat – ehm…”
“Out with it, sis!” Salamander interrupted.
Sylph crashed into her back a moment later. “Who can’t read the mood now, huh, you burning bitch!”
“Oh, you are just asking for it! I will scorch you!”
“You can’t ‘scorch’ me you fancy-dancy-lancy-wordy-burny, I am made of AIR!”
“Then I will heat you up and inflate a balloon with you!” Salamander countered.
Sylph hesitated a moment, clearly confused, “Wait, would that work? Can I fill a balloon? Would I be the balloon? WAIT?! WHAT AM I? I am air, but air is made out of several different elements? Am I helium? AM I POISON GAS? John! Whatever you do, do not breathe me in! I could be poisonous! Wait, you shouldn’t do that whether or not I am poisonous, I don’t think that…” Sylph, within a few seconds, had completely forgotten that she was fighting with Salamander and now everyone was ignoring her again.
“re-re-repe-re-re-repeat that -uhm- I mean re-re-repe-repeat that stu-stu-stuff…” Gnome was now stuck in a loop of stuttering, only slowly progressing through the sentence as John continued to hug Aclysia and spent the points of the three levels she had earnt after eating all the watches, putting her at 51, only one below his own level.
“She wants to have sex with you again,” Salamander finally interrupted Gnome’s endless stammering. Gnome threw her an angry glance, face beet red, John could almost see the steam rising from the Asian-looking elemental. Gnome stomped towards her, “Now, don’t be hasty!” Salamander narrowly dodged Gnome’s clutches, she did not have Sylph's Agility but she was still a lot faster than Gnome. Also, she could fly. At about two and a half metres high Salamander laughed down in a victory pose, “Wahahaha, what, you embarrassed? You know we all watched you ‘have intercourse’, right?” Salamander said in a mockingly sweet tone.
Gnome turned almost as red as Salamander, “Uwuwuwuwu,” she made that sound again, one that made John throw Salamander a very secretive thumb up. Bullying is wrong, he knew that, but Gnome’s reactions were so adorable it was almost impossible not to.
Salamander winked at him, but that gesture gave him away and Gnome turned to John. “I-I-I…” She stomped and the earth rumbled, “I…urgh,” she kneeled down and hid her face between her legs.
“Let’s just enjoy the evening and play some games,” John suggested. He totally planned on banging both Gnome and Aclysia later but he felt that it would be unfair to leave the other three bored for so long, some fun times would surely help put their minds at ease a little. Also, he felt that after such a tumultuous week he deserved a break that was just fun and games.
They went inside the house but all John found was a deck of charade cards. “Well, better than nothing,” he decided and grabbed the hourglass right next to them as well. “Okay, some ground rules, no peeking into thoughts and if the hourglass runs out the other team has its turn, okay?”
“”Okay,”” said everyone else in unison. John drew the first card with a smile, he read it and put his hand on the hourglass. He hesitated.
“Can…I just want to say something really quickly,” John said, his smile ever so slight, “I realize that I wasn’t quite myself at the start of the week. I got myself into trouble, I was rash, I made mistakes and some of you paid the price for it.” A glance at Undine was all he could bear, before he directed his ashamed gaze at his hands. “I am very sorry, I said it before but I think you deserve to hear it again, and more than that I thank you for setting my path straight. Thank you, you are the parts and the sum of me, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
He didn’t receive an answer, he didn’t need to, wordless communication was the true honesty and appreciation they felt in his words. Undine was still a bit mad, but she appreciated his words, Sylph was overly happy that he thanked them, and appreciated his words, Salamander thought that this was overdue, but appreciated that it came better late than never, Gnome knew that it cost him a bit to say these things out loud, and appreciated him all the more for it, Aclysia heard all that she had hoped, and appreciated it with all of her heart.
John grinned and blinked the bit of tears that welled up in his eyes away. This was the night to finally leave behind those days. He turned the hourglass.
