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Accidental Bondage (Bubbly Continued.)

Magdalena Chef

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The aether carried her swiftly to the City of Mages, from there she would have to travel on foot. Maggy swore lightly, tonight she would remember to mark a rune to the professor's house. The wrought iron gate groaned and protested as she yanked it shut behind her and headed through the dark towards Von Cross' estate.

Maggy ran the most of the way until she was breathless and standing before his door. There were no lights on inside, a sudden reminder of how late it was and she paused before pounding on the aged oak. "Professor! Professor!" Her hand was red and raw before it finally cracked open. Von Cross stood there, bewildered. He held a lantern up, nightcap askew, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and squinting, "Marguerite?"

"Don't stand there gaping, child. Come in, you're the one knocking doors down at unreasonable hours." He stepped aside and with a sweep of his arm, all candles were lit. Maggy blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden light. Von Cross disappeared and returned with his spectacles and some tea.

"Now," he yawned, "what is so important, that you must interrupt my beauty sleep?" He gave her a stern look over his glasses and she sunk lower on the chair.

Ten minutes ago she was all but ready to kick his door down for an answer and now Maggy found herself barely squeaking out the words. "I need to show you something, and I need you to tell me what it is..." her voice trailed off. Von Cross pushed himself out of the chair and limped over to her.

She showed him the mark on her shoulder and after several long minutes he snorted. "So you got a tattoo and now you don't know what it is? Kids today....." he shuffled to the other side of the table. "Not the first time someone's gotten 'Minax Rules' or some other nonsense printed on their backside and regretted it..." he was waggling his finger at her.

Maggy cut him off, "But I didn't get a tattoo. It wasn't there before today." Von Cross' brows shot up. He turned, frowning, and walked back to look again."If you didn't have someone do that, how did it get there? Things like that just don't appear by themselves."

"But it did," Maggy was scowling. She told him about Peter. He listened quietly, arms tucked into the sleeves of his robe. His nightcap was dangerously close to falling off his head and she supressed a giggle.

"He bears the same mark? And you are responsible for it?' Von Cross pulled a book from the shelf and dropped it onto the table.

"So you don't know what this is?" Maggy asked.

"Oh, I do, actually." His eyes darkened and his whole demeanor changed. Maggy fought the urge to flee.
 
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Magdalena Chef

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
"Yes, yes I know what it is, did I say that already?" He cocked his head to the side as if listening to someone and looked expectantly at Maggy. She nodded slowly.

He wet his finger and continued to flip through the huge tome. "Your souls are now bound together, kinda like being married and all that jazz," he waved his arms around, "but much more literal... "

"WHAT!"

"...don't be surprised if you start sharing dreams and such with Peter," he flipped a page.

"Take it off me!"

"I can't," he pushed his glasses back up his nose, "you have to remove it yourself."

"How?!" She was frantic.

"That's easy," he said with a chuckle, "just cast the reverse of the spell."

"But..but...I don't know what I cast! And I don't want to dream about..." she snapped her mouth shut. If she was going to be sharing Peter's dreams at night, she was never going to sleep again.

"Here it is! Saturn!" Von Cross looked up. "Alchemical lead," he poked the air, "associations with Time and death....could be a ward... there's also domination...unrevealed power...Hm, that's strange ...there's a page missing. Torn out." He thumbed through the rest of the book.

"Ward?"

"Symbolic wards usually protect you from what they symbolize. That is the layman's terms anyway. So, it will probably protect you from harm...Sort've. Death magic, maybe?" He held the book upside down and started shaking it.

"Death magic? Sort've? " Maggy paled.

Von Cross nodded. "Only one way to find out," he stuck his head under the table to look for the missing paper, "duel a Necromancer." He hit his head and the tea sloshed out of the cup. "OW!"

"And if I lose?"

"Well then, you'd be dead and we would know that it didn't work," he said it matter-of-factly.

Von Cross shook the book again, "I will look into this for you, after I ...um...find the missing page..." Maggy watched him flip the book over and tap it like he was burping a child. "In the meantime, sleep easy. You're not dead. And you've not turned into anything unnatural."

He set the book down and pushed his glasses back up his nose, "Now, how does your, um, guardian feel about your new tattoo?"

"Just us three know about it."

"Well you shouldn't keep things from her, you know," he was giving her a stern fatherly look, "thooooooouugh if it happens to slip your mind..." he winked. "Now, go give your future husband a kiss," the professor grinned and pushed her toward the door, "and we will figure this out."

She heard the bolt slide into place and started to walk back towards the city. Death wards? Married! Sharing Peter's dreams at night? She whimpered at the thought. Well, if she was going to be forced to dream about GreenBoobs everynight, at least she knew knew which necromancer to challenge to a duel. Maggy realized she was walking and stopped. "Ugh. Kal Ort Por."

The spell brought her back home. Peter was sound asleep and snoring loudly on the floor. So much for waiting up for me huh? Maggy grabbed a blanket from the drawer and threw it over him. She watched him sleep and wondered what happens next?
 

WarderDragon

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Stefan dragged his hand down his face, tugging at the short silver beard that clung to his chin. Consciousness was fleeting, and the long since cold cup of tea did little to stave off the mental fog, or the overwhelming desire to surrender and dream.

“No,” he sighed to himself. I can sleep when I'm dead. He smiled. Again. He leaned back in the dining room chair, the groan of the aging seat deafening in the preternatural silence. Something about that mark troubled him, tugging at the edge of some forgotten memory. He had long since lost the vast stores of knowledge he, or the man who he had once been, spent a lifetime learning, all his scientific and alchemical knowledge gone since he was raised from perdition. Which was perhaps for the better, since he doubted he wished to remember his time in Hell. Yet each new mystery seemed to tug at the edge of who he was, teasing at that mental block. The Seal was important to him in his past life, but he couldn't seem to remember how.

He paused as he flipped the page, as if on queue, turning it back. There on the yellowing parchment was a printed diagram, a pentacle, the Seal of Solomon, surrounding the Seal of Saturn. He drew his finger along the authors text. Saturn, the Latin God of the Harvest, also known as the Archangel...

“...Azazel.”

“You figured it out,” a voice teased behind him. “Well done. But far too late.”
 
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