Magenta: The Empty Canvas

Continued from here.

There was no getting around it – there was no way out. She was trapped alone in a sealed-off wing of the museum, and no one from her group would know where she had gone. “The sign on the door to this place said ‘NO ENTRY,’ it didn’t say ‘NO EXIT!'” said Magenta aloud, giggling to herself nervously.

She had a short freak-out. This involved spinning around in circles looking for lost doors and much pulling of her curly brown hair, and running through random doors only to always end up back in the room with the empty canvas. After encountering the room for the tenth time, the young woman stopped running. She doubled over and caught her breath.

“All right. All right. Why am I running?” the sorceress muttered to herself. “No one’s looking. I’ll just teleport out of here. I’ll reappear in a ladies’ room, then catch up with the rest of the class.” Magenta ran over the plan several times in her head. It felt almost too simple, but surely the worst that could happen is that someone else would notice her appearing out of thin air in the ladies’, and she could always modify memories if it came to that.

Magenta closed her eyes, as if the blank, framed canvas that dominated the room distracted her. She took a deep breath. Then she spoke the incantation for the Teleport spell.

Magenta: Museum Madness

This is a story about Magenta. Recall that Magenta, formerly known as Hot Pink, is a recently qualified witch, now cut loose from the master who abused her as an apprentice. Previous stories in this setting can be seen here.

With her ex-master disposed of, Magenta felt freer than she had in her life. No longer forced to live in his house, no longer forced to obey anyone’s rules, and cleared of any wrongdoing by the Archmages who ruled the small community of wizards, Magenta had no obligations to anyone.

It was a choice she made unconsciously, the sort of thing that “just sort of happens” when someone knows what she wants instinctively. Magenta cut herself off from the rest of the wizards and witches. Not from magic. After all, she hadn’t just spent seven years studying the art for nothing. She learned not only how to use magic, but how to hide it from others. So she she didn’t need anyone else any more, really. Not even her friend Plum, now called Cyan. It had been his idea to do in their former masters, but now she had come to associate him with them, and just stopped seeing or talking to him. To repeat: Magenta cut herself off from her fellows.

Instead, she decided to take a cover name and enroll in a university. Magenta’s magical education hadn’t covered anything except magic. Magic helped her get into the school of her choice, a prestigious school in a big city. Once there, things started to become challenging again. Magenta took a major in Psychology. She figured being able to cast thought-reading and mind-bending spells would be a big help to her there, but she did find the lectures pretty boring. So, she took a minor in another subject – art  history.

And it was on a field trip for art history, that something quite extraordinary happened involving Magenta, the lost kingdom, the curious canvas, the court magician, and an unsolved art heist.

Harry Potter: Isn’t 007 the most powerfully magical number?

Years after Hogwarts, Harry Potter is the top Auror in the Ministry of Magic. The Death Eaters are gone. But what happens when an international Dark wizard ring rises out of the shadows, and Auror Potter must join forces with his muggle opposite number in MI6? If anyone’s interested in exploring this question, I offer the following titles to help get you started…

• For Your Mad-Eyes Only
• A View To Avada Kedavra
• From Azkaban With Love
• License To Curse
• On Dumbledore’s Secret Service*
• The Auror Who Loved Me
• Thunderbroom
• The Man With The Golden Wand
• Dragons Are Forever
• Octopeevesy
• GoldenSnitch
• The Wizarding World Is Not Enough
• You Only Die Seven Times
• Quidditch Royale

Potter. Harry Potter.

*Actually, On Hermione’s Secret Service is funnier because it sounds very close to the original title.

Sorcerers & Apprentices: Revenge

This chapter in the Sorcerers & Apprentices story covers a lot of ground. This is going to be one of the times when the story gets kind of condensed, with a lot of details left out. The reason for it this time is because, otherwise, this chapter would be too hard to write. Anyway, the last chapters were all about a couple of wizards being evil to their apprentices. This one is called “Revenge.”

After 7 years of being an apprentice to the abusive and evil Archmage Cyan, Plum took his Examination. The Examination is a time-honored ritual, and only one who passes it can truly claim the title of Wizard. The details of the Examination are a secret, but suffice it to say that Plum passed with a perfect score on his first attempt. His master made it clear that to do less would embarrass him as a teacher, and would be met with severe punishment. But that’s not why Plum worked so hard. He did it because he was world-quality, and wanted everyone to know it. And they did.

When Plum passed the Examination and ended his apprenticeship, he packed his bags and left Cyan’s house that same day. Plum made himself two promises when he left. The first was “I will never take an apprentice.” The second was “Cyan is going to die for what he did to me.” But not yet…

Archmage Cyan’s best friend and ally was Archmage Magenta, and they had always pitted their apprentices Plum and Hot Pink against each other, mostly for their own sick

Plum & Pink: Fighting Back

Continued from the last chapter. Also, this setting now has its own page to keep track of stories.

“Now, Pink, dear. Choke Plum again. Now.”

Plum steeled himself. This time, he thought, he’d be cleverer about this. Instead of just attacking Pink and hurting her, he’d cast a silent counter-spell. He’d break her spell using pure magic instead of distracting her by hurting her, like the Archmages wanted. Not only would it be painless, but it would be quite an achievement for him to pull off. Maybe enough to impress the Archmages into ending this “game”.

Seeing that Plum looked ready, Pink obediently cast the spell. Plum’s throat began to constrict again. Air was running out faster than he thought, and he struggled to keep his vision steady. Plum could undo the Strangling spell… if he could just work the counter silently… A gust of wind blew by, teasing him with air that should have been in his lungs… He focused. Yes! He could do it! The world was going white, but just a second more and…

Plum & Pink: The Silent Spell

Here is a story continuing the tale of Plum, the apprentice wizard, his evil master Archmage Cyan the Elder, and a new character, his fellow apprentice Hot Pink. It’s based in the same setting as my previous stories with these characters, but is quite a bit darker. The truth is, I have a lot of stories about these characters after they’re done being apprentices, but in order to understand what they become, you have to understand what they went through before. And so, I give you this.

There were 16 members of the ruling council that governed all wizards. They were called the Archmages. And of the Archmages, three men were the clear leaders when Plum was an apprentice: Archmage Alabaster, Archmage Magenta, and Archmage Cyan. They were the most powerful, the most charismatic, and the most influential of the group. All other wizards (well, almost all other wizards) looked up to them.

But, in private, they were really very cruel people. Cyan, of course, had an apprentice named Plum. And Magenta had his own apprentice, a young woman whose wizard name was Hot Pink. In order to be an apprentice, they had to live under their master’s roofs and serve them in any ways they required during their terms as apprentices. What this should have meant was help around the house, doing some chores, in payment for room, board, and magical instruction. But Plum’s and Pink’s masters went well beyond that. They saw their apprentices first and foremost as toys, and maybe second as students. In short, old Cyan and old Magenta were physically, sexually, and psychologically abusive, and cared about their apprentices’ education only in how it made them look, as teachers.

It would be too awful to recall all of the times Cyan and Magenta mistreated their apprentices. But here is one example.

It was late in Plum’s apprenticeship. He’d

Halteproblem

FIND
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you find out in the end

Aptchi the Chef

This story is the background of a new Pathfinder character I came up with, who I may use as an NPC in my Meier setting.

Aptchi hatched about seven years ago.

Aptchi’s mother’s name was Eustela, and she was very unusual for a white dragon. Of course, as any dragon scholar knows, there are ten dragon breeds, and white dragons are the stupidest, weakest, and most pathetic of the bunch. Of course, that’s not saying much, since they’re still dragons who can bite your head off or freeze you into ice with their frost breath. But still, the other dragons look down on them. And white dragons themselves, seizing every opportunity to claim some kind of superiority, look down on those members of their tribe who show any kind of frailty or oddity. So when I say Eustela was an unusual white dragon, I mean that the other white dragons all laughed at her.

Eustela liked living in the warmest parts of Kamto, the frosty kingdom which white dragons rule with an iron fist. Already that was strange for a white dragon. She prefered the meat of unintelligent beasts to that of humans and other intelligent creatures – also odd. And she had been known to trade away part of her hoard, something almost unheard of in white dragons. For even though she got more valuables out of her trades, to part with any part of one’s hoard was considered un-dragonly.

Being so odd, Eustela was belittled and dishonored by her peers. She had no intention of changing her ways to  fit in, but she desperately sought any way to show the other dragons that she really was great. Her chance came when she caught a small group of human interlopers in her domain one day, and captured them all. As I mentioned, though they are stupid and weak by dragon standards, mature white dragons can still beat the stuffing out of humans who aren’t prepared, and Eustela wasn’t going to compound her dishonor by letting these intruders get away with their lives. But, lording it over the few creatures she could for this brief moment, she allowed them to beg for their lives. 

Cyan & Plum: Practice, Practice, Gun

And now, the exciting conclusion of yesterday’s story.

“Sir… there’s a situation here…” Plum thought, trying to reach out to his master. As much as Plum resented Cyan, he knew that the Archmage could fix up any jam. But Cyan didn’t reply. Maybe the Archmage was busy, or maybe he had gone farther away. Or maybe he just didn’t feel like helping. Whatever the reason, Plum was on his own. In the corner of this dive of a diner were six gangsters, three in pinstripe suits, three in plain gray suits, all pointing guns at each other.

Heart pounding, Plum realized he had mere seconds to avert a bloodbath in the diner. He focused on pinstriped Mustachio, who’d started all this, and cast Silent Suggestion again. <I don’t want any violence. I’d better put my gun down.>

The man’s arm shook slightly, but it did not move. Why hadn’t it worked?

Cyan & Plum: Practice, Practice, Practice

This story takes place in the modern fantasy setting I described in my last post. 

Archmage Cyan always believed in learning by doing. Once the theory was understood, of course.

“And what are the components of the spell?”

“Mental only. As the name suggests, Silent Suggestion has no incantation or verbal component.”

“Obviously,” said Cyan, unimpressed. “Its effects?”

“To influence the actions of the target by implanting a single suggestion, no more than a sentence or two. A basic mind controlling spell, made more complex and more difficult by its undetectability.”

“I didn’t ask how difficult it was,” Cyan said curtly. “What are the spell’s limitations?”

“The suggestion must be worded in such a manner as to make the activity sound reasonable,” the apprentice recited. “And acts that the target considers to be self-destructive will cause the spell to be rejected.”

“That’s right, Plum,” Cyan nodded. With that, he pushed open the door.