11. A Message From Corporate

So … I might have dark magic … and I might have just shown it off to a vigilante who obsessively targets Dark Mages. I mean, he didn’t seem to notice anything at the time, but I need to avoid giving him any reason to look back on that interaction critically. More importantly, what am I supposed to do with myself now? Thinking back on my lessons when I got brought into the guild, if I see a dark mage I’m supposed to run, hide, or fight. Well I’m pretty sure she can keep up with me, my illusions don’t fool her, and any fight would be a wash, so … despite everything I laugh at that stupid joke. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the intended meaning behind that lesson, but I’ve never actually gotten a lesson in ‘so you’re a Dark Mage, what now?’. In theory I’m probably supposed to turn myself in to the church, but … I’d really rather not. I’m pretty sure all their experience is in fighting and killing evil Dark Mages, so I’m not sure I’d trust them to handle someone trying to avoid using dark magic. In practice it’s not like it’s illegal to have a certain type of magic, just illegal to actually use it … of course, I’ve never actually had the chance to study dark magic … I’d love to know what it’s capable of, and I have all the right experience to safely map out the different shapes that particular form of magic could take. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to apply it, but I’m plagued by curiosity regardless, and it’s not like anybody needs to find out if I do a few harmless experiments.

I end up mapping things out on a piece of paper, there’s a lot of different paths and combinations I can push my magic into, and two types of magic just make it exponentially more complicated. It’s no longer just a question of what shapes to form the magic into, but what ratios to use of the two types. Even worse a rather … self evident problem comes up. I’ve used Illusion magic all my life, and as a result it’s gotten more and more potent with practice. My illusions are great … for illusions of course. My dark magic in contrast is probably where it was when I was born, and as a result I can’t do anything with raw dark magic. Maybe if I’d been practicing it all my life I really could do that bolt of destruction I tried to do before, but as I am now I can barely afford the magic to mix a little bit of darkness in with my illusion magic. From what I can tell with a bit of self experimentation the effects are interesting, but don’t bypass the weaknesses of illusion magic, it still can’t actually hurt someone, the main difference is that it can absolutely feel like it’s hurting someone. It can also add in a few other odd little tricks, notably making the perception of illusions vary from person to person. They’re neat to play around with, and make my illusions a bit more versatile, but they’re still very much illusions. Honestly I’d love to keep up a lot more practice and really get good with them, but … well. Thinking about it, does it really matter what the rules are? I’m not about to go on a killing spree because I have dark magic, and if I’m not planning to harm someone just because my magic changed there’s no reason not to mess around with it more while I’m alone, as long as nobody finds out. Especially as long as both Willard and the church don’t find out … they’d both cause a nightmare if they found out. It’s another issue to put off till later, for now I’m more than a bit tapped out on dark magic, and I still have a set of armor to make.

I get a decent bit of the armor done before what’s probably the morning, if I work through the day and night it’ll probably be done with that too, but for now I should get some fresh air. I’ve been cooped up in my hovel for a bit too long … well that, and I need to pick up some food.

Outside is about as unpleasantly bright as mornings usually are, but at least there’s a cloud cover this time. Maybe I should use illusions to make a magic hat that keeps shade in my eyes no matter where I look … although that would probably look way too much like I’m trying to conceal my identity. Oh, but if I used dark magic I could shade my own eyes without anyone else knowing. I shake my head, I was disturbingly fast to jump onto ‘I should use dark magic to keep the sun out of my eyes’. I should probably have more lines I’m not willing to cross, but whatever. Thinking about those sorts of things isn’t going to hurt anyone including myself, there’s no reason to worry about it.

As I look around the market people are pretty clearly gathered in one spot. It looks like the notice board is getting quite a bit of activity … probably a good idea to check what it is. I snake my way through the gathering to get a better look, and fairly freshly pinned to the middle of the board is a piece of paper written on in gold tinted ink.

“ATTENTION: by degree of the church, all stores not directly affiliated with the church still selling magical items are to be closed immediately. Refunds are to be issued to all customers still waiting for magical items. Additionally to facilitate this all purchased ingredients for the creation of magical items are to be refunded at their full purchase price immediately. All magical items purchased through the church are now at the liability of their purchaser, and any damage done by Dark Mages using magic items will be considered the liability of whoever originally purchased that item. Purchasers of illicitly sold magic items will be assumed Dark Mage sympathizers and treated as such. As usual we rely on your reports to identify potential Dark Mages and their sympathizers, and as a result we will be doubling the standard rewards for credible reports for the duration of this transitionary period. We appreciate your assistance in the preservation of our city’s safety and prosperity.”

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That’s … unpleasant. Without knowing what Willard wants I probably shouldn’t assume he’s going to pick up his armor. Although I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fine with it, he’s not exactly defined by a strict adherence to laws. I really wasn’t expecting the ban to be that overwhelming … or to offer such a big reward, they’re really serious about this for some reason. I didn’t really see how this is such a problem … anything a crafter could reasonably make would be vastly inferior to normal Dark Magic unless they were sourcing illegal materials, and at that point they’d just have their own person to craft it. Well at least I know someone I can ask about it.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Bridget does her usual welcome across the markets. “Hey Jez! How’re you doing?”

For someone who seems to be in the process of introducing me to a shady person daisy chain Bridget herself is the exact opposite of Willard. I guess she just has some odd old friends. “I … could be better.”

She nods. “I did see the announcement, it’s about as bad as I expected. Still, at least you have limits to work around now. Oh, and speaking of working around limits, I heard you made a good impression on Willard yesterday. Well and you apparently spooked him a bit, but in a positive way.”

I … see? “I … don’t really see how that happened, but I guess I’m glad it worked out.”

She chuckles at that. “How ominous. You’re scary, and you don’t even realize it. Well either way his group wanted to meet with you at about the expected time. Oh, and I told them you’d be fine meeting at night if that’s fine.”

“I mean that’d be fine, I guess I wasn’t planning on sleeping or anything.” Meeting at night is probably suspicious, but at this point that hardly even registers.

“Great! It should be fun! Oh, and did you need to return anything? I don’t remember you working on anything at the moment, but I could always be wrong.”

Alright … I guess probably not. “No, I should be alright. Are you … still going to be okay yourself? I can’t imagine there’ll be a lot of business at the moment. Or really much at all if people don’t need liquid life materials anymore.”

She shrugs. “Don’t worry about that, I’ve got a bit of a nest egg saved up, so I’ll see how it pans out first. Though I won’t complain if you end up needing supplies to make stuff for yourself. That’s still perfectly allowed.”

I take my leave, and head back to my shop. That’s been enough dealing with people for one day. For some reason I’m getting a few more looks than usual, and none of them are pleasant. Nobody actually says anything though so I just scamper down to my shop. This has been far more than enough other people for a day, I’m just going to stay down here until I’m done with my work.

I finish up the armor a bit earlier than I expected. That is to say it’s not even night of the second day by the time it’s done. I still really don’t want to go outside, so I just go back to decorating, the back room could absolutely use some more style. I’m thinking something in the style of a dungeon, it’d be a good use for the cobweb illusions I made earlier, and I can still add some fake windows to show an eternal moonlit sky.

For once I’m not interrupted by a knock at the front door, but only because I just hear the front door open. My first instinct is to conceal myself in illusions as I hear footsteps approaching the back room door. A lot of footsteps, definitely more than one person, probably more than two. I bring up an illusion to hide the door to my room, and walk silently over to a corner in case somebody bursts in. There’s a light knock on the door to the back room. Ok, so probably not somebody coming to rob me. I guess that means it’s probably Willard and his group … probably. I put an illusory door over the door to the front, and use another illusion to make the real door disappear. This is kind of fun, I don't usually get to do this much of a balancing act with my magic. I create an illusory self, and move over to open the real door. It is in fact a group of people I don’t recognize plus Willard. Just to be safe I have my illusion open the illusory door. “Oh, I didn’t realize that was you, normally people knock on the front door.”

A man I don’t recognize just glances straight past the illusion and stares right at me as he responds. “Apologies miss, we didn’t want to cause a fuss. You can drop the illusions, we’re not here for anything violent.”

I drop the illusions not around my door. Hopefully that’s the truth because illusions are very much my one trick. “So … you wanted to talk?”