Alchemist rules, p.4
Alchemist Rules, page 4
part #3 of The Ironspell Chronicles Series
“Awck-awck-awck,” she said softly.
I scratched her head. “Go back to your bed. We should be okay now that I warded everything.”
I watched as she walked down the hall and went into my TV room where her bed was. I then followed Tuzren to the kitchen.
The little demon found some hamburger I normally use for Fluffy, but I didn’t saying anything. If Fluffy’s transmogrify spell was failing, the goblins combined with Tuzren had stressed her. She probably needed a haunch of beef to maintain the guise. I made sure Tuzren was settled enough before going upstairs.
~ * ~
After I climbed the last stair, I hesitated. My bedroom door was just on the right, but my mind was still on my rejection letter and Carnaz. I passed the door where my bed awaited to walk down the hall. The hall took a sharp left, and there was a blank wall ahead. It was the secret door to my lab, which I could only open.
I touched the runes which unlocked the door and pressed my hand against the wall. Science imitating magic. Combo touch and biometrics combined with a top notch wall illusion spell. The house had safe guards that thwarted magic users and Normals alike. The door appeared and swung open.
My lab was a mix of alchemy, chemistry, library, sorcerer’s lair, security station, and a steampunk convention gone terribly wrong. A bank of monitors hung from the wall, showing me both outside and inside the home. I saw Tuzren was still eating in the kitchen. He was looking around, terrified that Fluffy was sneaking up on him. But I saw that Fluffy was in the other room in her nest, her head tucked under her wing, fast asleep. Good, I hoped his encounter with her taught him a valuable lesson. If he knew what was good for him, he’d stay clear of the bantam.
I fortified the house with both magic and electronic security measures. It’s a common misconception among folk that wizards and magic don’t play well with electronics. Well, it’s a partial misconception. Some magic naturally fouls up technology, and those wizards who are born with it are shit out of luck when it comes to smart phones, computers, and other electronics. The more natural, grounded magic—the type the Fae use—can do that, but it’s a double-edged sword. Fae have a distinct aversion to iron and steel. Cold iron—that is, wrought iron, and its products, including steel—are deadly to most Fae in high doses. Some Fae are fine with iron and steel, most notably the Dwarves, Goblins, Orcs, and Dark Elves, but the rest have a real problem with it.
With a name like Ironspell, you can guess where my strength lies. I could become a technomage if I wanted to, but the best universities for that were in California and Massachusetts. Mom being in Denver sort of clinched that I needed to be here for a while. Alchemy was a good compromise.
Along the other side of the wall was my library with texts my father had inherited. I could only read maybe a third of them, but what they had in them made me wish I could read the rest. Surprisingly, the library had a number of alchemy texts, and one I was sure had the recipe for a Philosopher’s Stone.
Someday I planned to scan everything into a database so I could retrieve the information. Problem was, that was time consuming and I didn’t have the time to spend copying every single page into a system that could be compromised on the Internet. I’d have to firewall the hell out of the systems or keep them off a network. In today’s computing world, I’d have to go with a Linux or UNIX-based system. PCs and Macs were right out. The Denver werewolf pack had a new Alpha female who was tech. Maybe I could persuade my girlfriend, Luna, to ask her to set up my systems.
I had a permanent summoner circle etched in the floor farthest from the door and a thick, oaken table that served as my workbench. On it sat my latest creation: a small scale air purification elixir. The blue, viscous potion bubbled in its Florence flask; a magic flame heated it from underneath. An air quality meter sat nearby.
My idea for cleaning the air around Denver was relatively simple. The blue potion was a small scale version of an air cleaner. Get enough magic wind to draw the particulates and CO2 to an intake filter coated with the stuff and have the potion do its work. Simple and easy. A twist on a purification spell combined with alchemical elements and rituals created the Blue Goo, as I liked to call it. As far as I could tell, no one owned the patent on the thing, so I had applied for a patent months ago. I was still waiting on it. The trick, though, was having enough cred to pitch the stuff to the cities. Working graduate studies and a sympathetic mentor would greatly improve the chance of getting it to where it should be.
What’s more, I needed funding. Major funding in order to provide large scale proof that the stuff actually did what it was supposed to. In a lab was one thing; full scale was another. I needed a University with all its prestige to back me. That led me to thinking about Carnaz.
Who the hell was Carnaz and why did he reject me? There wasn’t anything on the Internet regarding the professor, but maybe the Enchanted Forest, the name of the Net within the Net, had some information the Internet didn’t. I walked over to my circle, knelt inside it, and gathered my thoughts and power. I wouldn’t need the circle to control anything, but it did help me focus when I made the connection to the network.
The Enchanted Forest was the name the creators gave the Net within the Net, and the name stuck. It was a network set to a frequency not quite, but close to the brain’s normal firing. That one-off proved to simulate the same frequencies those with magical brains had. Normals had to use specially designed headsets to access the Enchanted Forest, but certain types of Supernaturals—werewolves, Orcs, Goblins, wizards, Gremlins, and Elves—could access it without technology. It was the way our brains were constructed—along with a healthy dose of magic—that made it possible. At least, that’s what I learned from a doctor mage who tried to explain it to me once.
The werewolves were the first to discover it outside of the humans who invented it, soon followed by other magic users. Since humans were the ones who first created it, they also created the augmenting headsets that allowed them in. Connecting to the Enchanted Forest without a headset required technomage skills which fortunately I had. Some wizards and mages found that they could connect easily, but others who were tech-aversive had a really tough time. I discovered when I was in the Enchanted Forest I actually had other powers that I didn’t in Real Life or RL, as the hackers called it.
I closed my eyes and knelt in the circle. Although I could connect to the Net within a Net, it wasn’t easy to access it via magic, which is why when I got my first five hundred bucks of discretionary cash, I was going to buy an augmenting headset. In the meantime, I’d have to connect the old fashion way. I cleared my mind and focused on the entrance into the Enchanted Forest. The portal wasn’t far from here—some weres had fixed a site outside of the University. Made sense, given how many Supernaturals were attracted to universities. I hear CU in Boulder has more portals than Starbucks coffee shops.
Although my eyes were closed, my vision shifted. I stood on the corner of University and Evans, looking at DU. In my mind’s eye I could see the University Park Café where the entrance to the Enchanted Forest stood. The portal wasn’t inside; it was just outside on the patio where in the summertime they had chairs and tables for college students to dine and hang out. It looked weird, if innocuous: a blue door fashioned from wood standing just off to the side on the patio. I looked around, and seeing no one near the portal, I touched the door. It opened. Inside, it looked just as if it was just opening to the other side of the patio. Clever. I stepped inside, closing the door as I did.
I stepped into a forest—literally. Although it was early spring in Colorado, snow blanketed the ground here in the Enchanted Forest. Pines and other coniferous trees hung heavy with snow—more like a northern Rockies forest than something you’d see in Colorado. Despite being ethereal, I felt cold. The wind lashed against my skin and I found myself wanting a parka. Luckily, I could produce one easily. My sleeves turned into a black parka, starting first at the cuffs and traveling up my arms, shoulders, and down my back until I was encased in warmth.
“Fucking werewolves.” I looked around. “You could’ve made this anything—a beach in the Bahamas, but no…”
“That’s because we like it here.”
Chapter Seven
I jumped. Well, not literally, if you know what I mean. “Luna? What are you doing here?”
A pretty silver wolf sidled up to me. My girlfriend, both in this virtual reality and in real life, is a werewolf. Yeah, what can I say? My life isn’t boring. “Hey Magic Man, I could ask you the same question. The app on my phone pinged when you entered.”
I looked down at her. “There’s an app?”
She jumped up and planted a wet lick right on my lips. I refrained from pulling back and muttering about dog germs. Or wolf germs. Or whatever. “Of course there is. Since Spaz got turned, he’s been cranking out apps for Alaric and the Denver Wolfpack.”
“I got to talk to Spaz about getting me some of those. Won’t be cheap though.”
“He’ll barter. I’m sure you have some potions or something he’ll want.” She giggled. In case you were wondering, giggling looks rather unbecoming on a wolf. “So, what brings you here, Magic Man?”
“Looking to get some info on someone.”
“Oooh, mysterious,” she chided me.
“One of the University professors. I was going to check out the Library, but if you have a better idea.”
“Spaz is your man.” Luna said. She turned and gave me a knowing look. “You coming by Trader Vics this afternoon?”
“I’ll be there tonight. After I get some sleep.”
“I thought you were working tonight.”
“Long story.” I sighed. “I’ll explain later. Meet you around seven?”
She smiled a wolfy grin. “It’s a date, Magic Man.”
With that, she vanished. I stared at the place where she had stood. Spaz was a legend, both with hackers and werewolves. Hackers, because he had help create the Enchanted Forest and then single-handed stole the entire specs from the Department of Defense contractor who was commissioned to build it. Werewolves, because they were the first to discover their curse allowed them to mentally connect to the Enchanted Forest. That, and Spaz was made into a werewolf. For a long time, the Enchanted Forest was only the domain of the werewolves, but word got out. Now, anyone with a headset, or magic, could enter it. That made it pretty unsavory at times. I knew I had to get to the Archive and access the Library, but there were all sorts of obstacles in my way.
“Hey, Dude! Want some Brain Dust?”
I turned to see a guy leaning against a tree, dressed more for a hot day in Los Angeles than a snow-covered mountain. A white dude with long, dirty blond hair and a crappy goatee, he was wearing a Fire Ant t-shirt from what appeared to be their latest concert, and gray, baggy shorts with large cargo pockets. His sunglasses revealed him as a head surfer—my guess was he was real, and not a bot using a human avatar.
“Not interested.” I started walking, which seemed rather incongruous, given that I should’ve been able to pop just about anywhere in the Net within a Net. But the Archives and the Library were constantly on the move to prevent asshole hackers from bringing them down. The addresses constantly changed, making it hard to lock onto the virtual location. Given that the Library had redundancy across multiple clouds, hackers could take down one piece, only to have the redundant portions take over and the hacked piece pop up in another place. Ingenious, really. Only problem was it made it difficult to locate for legitimate business. They had gotten around it by offering subscriptions, but like anything, it was pricey for my paycheck. That’s why I settled on searching for them for the few times a year I needed to go there.
Suddenly something akin to an electric shock hit my brain, and for a brief instant, my vision went back to my lab and I had a raging headache. But my spell kicked in and I stood in the Enchanted Forest again. I whirled around and faced my attacker. The drug dealer had grabbed me from behind and injected my avatar with a subroutine. He actually thought I was using an augmenting headset. The code was a simple destruct routine—made to scramble people’s brains using the headset. Only I wasn’t using a headset.
I grabbed him and held him up by his collar. Not surprisingly, I felt him try to rip his own headset off, but I was already inside his head and blocked the thought before his brain could translate it to action. “What the fuck was that all about?”
“Dude, it was just a joke,” the dealer said, his face draining of color.
“Not funny.” I glared into the guy’s eyes, or what passed for eyes in this place.
“Hey…hey, man, I did-didn’t know you were a Supe.” The guy was stammering.
“Shouldn’t matter what I am,” I said. “Scrambling brains ain’t funny.”
“No, no, no, it isn’t. L-Look I-I’ll leave and-and won’t come-come back.” He whined piteously, and if he hadn’t tried that shit, I might have felt sorry for him. But instead, I smiled coldly.
“Yeah, and I’ll make sure you won’t.” I focused my thoughts on the synapses buzzing around his brain. The last thing I saw was him screaming and convulsing before disappearing from the Enchanted Forest.
The forest went silent.
“Shit, remind me to not get on your bad side.”
I turned and saw Spaz leaning against a tree. Like the punk whom I just banished, Spaz was underdressed for the area. A short, skinny guy in his twenties, he looked every bit the mix of African American and Japanese he was with dark skin and slightly hooded eyelids. Spaz wore khaki chinos, long-sleeve, navy shirt, and sneakers that probably cost a fortune—if he was indeed wearing such things in RL.
“Yeah, well, he shouldn’t have tried that stunt. He’s given me one hell of a headache. He deserved to have his headset taken away.”
Spaz nodded. “He’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, just sent feedback through his brain and fried the augment. He’ll have to change his pants, and he’ll have the migraine, but he’ll be okay.” I shrugged.
“Luna said you were looking for me.”
“Yeah, I was going to go to the Library and see if I could ferret out anything in the Archive about Professor Carnaz.”
“For work?” He knew I was a cop.
“No, more like why I got rejected to the University.”
“Shit, man. They said no?” Spaz furrowed his eyebrows in consternation.
“You know about the University thing?” I looked at him, confused.
“Yeah,” he said. “Once one pack member knows, we pretty much all know.”
Terrific. I filed that away for later use.
“Hey, man, why don’t we go someplace warmer to talk?” Spaz said. At that moment, the entire scenery changed around us.
We were sitting in an outdoor café on a beach. The sky was amazingly blue with twin suns—hey, in the Enchanted Forest, you could have anything—complete with pristine sands and perfect waves. A voluptuous naked woman walked by us as we sat at our table. She grinned at me as I stared at her perfect form.
“Heya, sweetie, aren’t you little overdressed for the beach?” she said.
I looked down. No wonder I was sweating. I was still wearing the parka. I focused on my clothing and opted for shorts, a Hawaiian print shirt, and flip flops. “Better?”
“Yeah,” she said and walked back to our table.
“Mmmm, mmm, mmm,” Spaz said. “I could enjoy this view, Honey, but I and my friend have work to do here.”
“All work and no play make for a dull boy.” She smiled again and ground her hips suggestively. “Let me help take your mind off work for a while.”
Part of me screamed to rip my clothes off and fuck her eyes out, but a small part of me was wary. This was the Enchanted Forest, and like most magical domains, here there be monsters. I glanced at Spaz. He looked bored.
“Move on, Honey, we ain’t taking your bait.” Spaz sipped his drink that somehow magically appeared in front of him. He turned to me. “As you were saying about the University?”
I tore my eyes off of the woman. “Uh, yeah…uh, some prof named Carnaz who I never heard of before…”
I was interrupted by a snarl. I looked back at the woman, and to my horror, she had changed. Gone was the sexy beauty, instead was a hideously large creature with fangs, claws, glowing red eyes, and wings.
Psyche-vamp. And a big one.
Spaz was already on his feet and backing up. He started to morph as the vampire rushed us. I had other plans.
I stood, called up a ball of lightning, and hurled it at the psyche-vamp. The creature screamed as the electricity fried its avatar and sent a feedback loop into the vampire. For a moment, I thought it was down for the count, but as Spaz turned into a wolf with silver and black fur, I realized my mistake.
The psyche-vamp started reforming.
Shit.
Psych-vamps’ natural defenses made them tough against electricity, since they fed off of electric brain energy and moods. They were one Energizer-Fucking-Rabbit in wrapped up in a shitload of scary. My lightning might have overloaded the vampire for a second, but I made it more powerful. Shit.
Before I could launch another attack, Spaz leapt on the vampire in a whirl of black and silver, knocking it down and tearing large chunks of gray-green flesh from its hide. The creature’s avatar sizzled under the were’s attack and I stared in awe as Spaz tore it up.
The psych-vamp evaporated into a cloud of green miasma and dissipated. Spaz shook his head and changed back into his avatar. “Well, that totally ruined this place. Fuckin’ vamps.” He wiped this mouth. “That’s the third mind-sucker I’ve had to deal with this week.”
“Three in a week?” I asked. “I thought they were rare.”
“They are, which is why they shouldn’t be getting so bold.” Spaz put on some shades. “I thought we could talk here, but we better get to the Library instead.”
And suddenly, we were standing outside of what looked like the outside of the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. I sighed in relief. We walked inside. Instead of looking like the inside to an old library, everything was sleek, chrome, and shiny. The dark blue counters looked like marble and were ringed with silvery chrome or some other similar metal. In truth, it could be anything, since this was just a program’s creation. If the programmers thought silver and gold with bright gemstones would work, they’d do that. But, even tacky programmers with taste in the soles of their feet knew better than to make everything gold or silver, so they opted for a more tasteful décor.
