58k and stalled out on the Admiral's Gambit front.
I just wrote 10K on a work that's mis-titled. I'm calling it Intergalactic Assassin. The only thing is while she's a trained assassin, she's trying to get out of the game.
Meanwhile due to comments here I'm posting the 3rd Snippet of the Tome-worm librarian.
here it is!
Chapter: Back Home
Back in my little four room apartment I kicked off my shoes and grabbed hold of my copper grounding rod. Iron made the best grounding rods but for a practicing magic user, and even if I wasn’t the strongest one you’d ever seen I still considered myself one, copper worked good enough and it didn’t have the nasty side effect of draining away your personal energy at the same time it got rid of all the bad vibes outside.
Four rooms might seem like a lot to a member of the pre-crash world but post-crash it was positively Spartan. There were entire building available for squatting rights and I was stuck in a measly little four room apartment.
Nothing would make it better than it actually was but on the other hand it had been renovated post-crash by a practicing hedge-witch and came with all sorts of those nifty little add-ons a girl needed in this modern new world.
Gripping my feet into the nice thick throw rug covering a hardwood floor in need of a fresh coat of varnish, I leaned my head back and sighed.
Then I went over to the green monster and lay down. The green monster looked like something straight out of the late 70’s or early eighties but was simply the most comfortable couch I’d ever come across. That and the fact I wasn’t strong enough to both get it out of the apartment and a new couch installed inside, let alone pay for a luxury like that, meant that the green monster was here for the duration. Oh it had been moved from one end of the apartment to the other and planed in just about every position imaginable within my little living space. Unfortunately nothing made it any smaller and even bleach applied in the name of disinfectant, had failed to make it look like anything other than eye sore it was.
The arms of the green monster were definitely scratchy, I though as I squirmed around in search of that perfect position. Currently I was using pillows to cover those scratchy arms but had designs on some kind of hand sewn coverings for the arms.
As much as pink would have been a wonderful power color to add to the main room, this green monster of mine was such an ugly color of dark snot green that even a certifiable pink-aholic like myself just couldn’t imagine pink coverlets doing anything but clashing with this couch of mine.
I’d inherited the couch from the previous owner of my little four room apartment and while I could understand why she’d left it behind when she moved out, for the life of me I couldn’t understand how she came to possess it in the first place.
No matter what I tried the couch just looked big and ugly.
Then I finally squirmed myself into that perfect spot and all my gripes about the green-monster faded into the back ground. I once again learned why it had survived multiple owners and never once been broken up for kindling and thrown into the garbage to make room for a newer, more color coordinated model.
With a sigh I told myself I’d just take a little nap and least until my feet and back stopped aching.
I woke up with a start and realized it was some time after midnight. The deceptive green monster had once again worked its wiles on me and I was both hungry and in dire need of scanning the work book of Heironeous the Mis-Enchanter so I could write my money making paper tomorrow during work.
I groaned and stuck a foot outside dark green afghan blanket that was the only thing I’d found so far that hadn’t clashed or been color dominated by the green monster. As things stood it was a battle to the death of ugly green and something that I’d be ashamed of if anyone ever saw it in my living room. But since I never had any visitors I think I was safe from humiliation at lest for the moment.
It was cold out from under my ugly little afghan and I hurriedly retracted my foot. I tried a hand. Yep, still too cold for my liking.
Visions of freezing to death on the way to my room in search of something warm to put on warred with the knowledge that a paper for the odious little T.B. could mean the difference between having food or not having food the last week of the month.
I hesitated and looked at my brown satchel carelessly tossed next to the doorway. I’d meant to come back and arrange it properly but first the throw rug had called out to my aching feet and then the green monster had seduced me with its comforts until I’d fallen fast asleep, the satchel and its contents completely forgotten.
With a sudden move I jerked the afghan over the back of the couch and jumped into the cold. Dancing from foot to foot, as even the nice thick throw rug was freezing to the touch, I danced into my bedroom.
Cuddled within its warm pink embrace I jumped into bed and pulled the blankets up over my head until my body head warmed things enough that I stopped shivering. Re-fortified with warmth and certain I’d never be able to write a paper under here, I once again braved the cold.
Scrambling for my closet I pulled out the first warm thing hanging on the rack.
Several minutes later I was layered in three layers of sweatshirts and two pair of sweat pants. Once again warmed up, I pulled out my nice little pink gloves and returned to retrieve my satchel before making for the kitchen.
A peanut butter sandwich in hand and two day old left over dim-sum noodles on the burner to heat up and I was now ready to tackle the works of this mysterious mis-enchanter.
A lot of whining and blathering about how misunderstood and oppressed he was later, I was jaw crackingly tired. Looking up I saw that I’d just burned over four hours reading the books of a self-important little whiner.
It was obvious from reading his work that Heironeous had a lot of the same problems I did. No money, no materials and a limited innate magical power supply. The world wasn’t out to suppress his genius, as far as I could tell he just wasn’t any good at enchanting thing. On the other hand it seemed he’d had to cope up with many of the same problems I did, being a person with low magic power. While his skills as an enchanter hadn’t been misunderstood as far as I could tell from reading behind the lines and looking at his descriptions of how to go about enchanting objects. Maybe his ideas of how to overcome the power deficit had been.
You’d never know until you tried and as a starving magic student I was desperate for any edge I could get. Maybe I’d try out a few of his less off the wall theories and see what happened. Even if they didn’t pan out, the theories would make the fine basis of a paper for my Advanced Magical Theory class and now that I thought about it for T.B. as well. There was no need to burden the little skeeve’s head with the whining of Heironeous when there were a few perfectly unproven theories to gush about instead.
This way I could kill three proverbial birds with one well written stone. I could writing a paper that would both earn me money, give me some ideas that might be useful in passing my currently stalled out Advanced Magical Practice classes and earn me direct credit in Advanced Magical Theory.
Too bad every side project of mine didn’t turn out to be as profitable.
Satisfied that I’d found the most elegant solution to this little mess, I jotted down a few notes on things I wanted to remember for the paper and after a few jaw cracking yawns acceded to the seductive call of my pink covered twin bed.
The little coocko clock screamed its dire little warning that I was late for class and it took me a moment to realize I’d slept through its more softly voiced wake up calls.
With a jerk I rolled over and fell out of bed. Landing with a thump I grumbled at the coocko clock and hurried to the shower stall.
An ice cold shower later proved that the hot water heater had once again failed to magically fix itself and if I wanted warm water I’d either have to heat it on burner and ladle it onto myself or hire someone to fix the busted water heater.
With little hoping shrieks of dismay I grabbed a towel and did my best to rub off all the freezing water, rapidly destroying my body temperature.
Hopping from foot to foot, I pulled on my clothing as fast a girl possibly could. Dressed again in my work outfit, I grabbed my rain coat and set out to the kitchen for my satchel and backpack.
The weekend was over and it was time to go back to school in the morning and library work in the evening. This business of only working a straight eight hour shift in the library and going home was once again a thing of the past. It was time to go back to four hours of school and eight hours of work, with travel time thrown in on top.
I grunted as I locked the door behind me. My hidden wealth wasn’t in active magical department, although I seemed to do pretty alright when it came to the theory business. Maybe my hidden wealth lay in the stubbornness department, that’s the only reason I could come up with why I was still sloughing through text books at school and magical tomes at work, after all my batch mates from magic 101 had either graduated with an Advanced Degree or given up on the study of magic and switched majors or gotten married.
My scholarships may have run out and I was ten years into what should have been a four-to-six year degree but I was dogged and relentless. Or so I told myself. It was hard though, I thought as my stomach grumbled, to be both dogged and relentless when you were short on money, food and just about everything else in the world that made life worth living. The thought of another two-four years of part time schooling followed by two master thesis that needed to be peer reviewed, was enough to make the most dedicated of students doubt herself.
If I was only able to spend more time studying instead of dealing with runaway books, some wizard or sorceress had thought would be a great legacy to leave behind for future generations to chase down, and re-file. Then I could pay the fees and challenge the course for accreditation instead of sitting in a hardwood chair for hours on end…
I had to laugh at myself. Once again my life had degenerated into a series of hopeless dreams. If I didn’t even have the money to fix my hot water tank, there was no way I could afford to pay for more classes, all so I could dream of challenging them for instant credit.
Back in the daily grind, my Advanced Theory class was as dull and boring as I’d feared. Magic Storage was a rehash of things I’d already learned at school in other classes or on the job at the library. Really I just was making time in Magic Storage until I earned an associate degree and qualify for one dollar an hour bump for holding the position I was currently filling, only with an associates degree.
I knew I’d set my sights low but at least the Mondale Foundation was paying for the class under their job training program and I received an automatic waiver for not taking a full load of classes. One of the few perks of working for at the Emporium.
Then it was off to the corner of the campus to catch a bus. All the good mechanical ones were taken by larger or more pushy students, all super eager to get home and unwind. My lack of enthusiasm to get to work meant I got stuck with an old flat bed, pulled by some kind of giant lizard. The seats looked like they’d been torn out of something else and bolted to the floor.
The first time the great big lizard passed gas a giant a six foot fireball launched out of its back side and gave the last of the pushy students sitting in the front a real fright. It also made clear that on this bus sitting near the front wasn’t the advantage it might have been on another carrier.
The driver of course hastened to assure us, it was just a harmless bit of indigestion and after a few more fireballs harmlessly passed, where one was actually singed or hurt, the passengers in the front settled down enough to resume the usual sort of back biting comments that go on at a magical academy.
Other than a few nasty looks at those of us in the back, as if it was our fault they’d pushed us aside in their rush to claim the loser seats, they chose to ignore us in favor of the continual whose-who of active college risers.
I gathered from the snippets I overheard there was a new child prodigy on campus and he was looking to complete the Advanced Magical Practice four year degree in two and a half and then challenge for his masteral thesis paper if the dean and magical advisory board would sign a waiver.
I firmly instructed myself to ignore them and turned my head to look at the streets as they passed bye.
Being open sided it was cold and a few of passengers complained until the driver offered to try and excite the lizard into producing more heat giving flames. The passengers in the front shouted those in the back down and soon the bus had settled into a sullen unhappy silence.
The old timers like to complain about how public transportation was alternately faster, slower and more terrifying back in the good old, pre-crash, day but I for one couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying than some of the public transportation options available along my various routes. Compared to some of these, a gassy lizard with a penchant for fireballs from out its hind quarters was far from taking the cake.
Remind me to tell you about the gelatinous cube that doubled as a part time emergency elevator and everyone was issued breathing masks.
I was one of the last ones off by the time the bus hit the library. And by hit I mean it ran up over the curb and side swiped a news paper stand. It didn’t actually run into the library itself. The wards on the old building must have been recharged recently.
Heading inside the library was almost like coming home. The dry, slightly musty smell of all those books stored inside its walls welcomed me. As did the level stare of Mrs. Pruitt, she glanced down at her the water clock on her desk and then looked back up at me.
I gave her a cheeky grin and went to punch in my time card. Sneaking a surreptitious glance at the card I felt a surge of triumph. Mrs. Pruitt might like to make everyone feel like they were late to work but I was rarely late and today was not one of those days.
Taking off my rain coat and hanging it on an old style standing rack made of wood, I quickly redid my hard into a tight bun and after straightening my dress and button up shirt I felt ready to face the world.
Marching over to the giant sort rack I sat down behind my little pigeonhole of a desk and glanced over the night slips.
I suppressed a frown. Once again the night shift had failed to do any sorting. Leaving the unenviable task to my. The night assistant librarian, the young man responsible for sorting new books as they came in and filing recently re-discovered and misfiled works, like the black magic book I’d found hiding out in the slightly restricted section, claimed that they were too understaffed at night for him to safely do his work.
So instead of doing his job like he was paid for, he instead left all of it for me to do on the day shift. Which was just unfair. While I might be forced to admit that they had less staff on nights, even so, that was no excuse for not doing you job. What was the foundation paying him for anyway if they were just going to let him slack off like this?
Personally I think he was just too lazy and busy sleeping when he should be working but all my reports to Mrs. Pruitt so far, had engendered no relief.
Its just as well I told myself with a sigh. This way you have more to do and will be busy wrangling unhappy books instead of building love handles. Although with an assistant librarian’s salary I didn’t know how I was going afford enough in the way of junk food to get fat in the first place. Still it would have been a neat solution to a problem it might have been nice to have.
Another day of sorting and surreptitiously writing T.B.’s report on the odd techniques of Hieroneous the Mis-Enchanter.
A second day passed, since my little adventure in the slightly restricted stack, and with my report for T.B. completed I rubbed my back and clocked out.
Taking the same decrepit looking flat bed and giant lizard set up I’d arrived in this morning, I gave the driver a flat stare. Riding the thing once had at least had some comedy value. I could only hope this rickety set up wasn’t going to become a permanent fixture on my route.
Securing a seat well in the back, I silently laughed at all the pushy people who jumped onto the bus, only to stop in delighted dismay at the sight of all the empty front seats, the seats normally in such hot demand on a public transportation route.
Being for the most part hardened denizens of the city’s public transportation system, they immediately suspected something was up and reluctantly moved to the middle of the bus.
A few people started and jumped the first time a fireball shot their direction but at the studiously unconcerned looks of the rest of us in the back, they suppressed their natural urge to dive under their seats and scream.
I have to admit it was mildly amusing to watch there reaction to a little bit or harmless flammable gas.
Still chuckling to myself when I hopped off the bus, I trudged through water deep enough to get my feet wet.
Grimacing I determined to change my socks as soon as I got home.
At home I started studying for class tomorrow. This was accomplished by activating a finger joint sized little magic recording stone I’d way purchased back when I’d still been on scholarship. It recorded whatever the teacher said and could replay it for only you to hear. Making it a neat little piece of magic that helped a struggling young student stay up with her more talented classmates. It was also harder for a teacher to set off than you standard hear all play all stones.
So while I did my laundry for the last two days by hand, my washing machine was also broken and the cost of hiring a brownie was way out of my price range, I sat and listened to the little recording device. Its only draw back was also part of its security feature, only the person holding it could hear what was recorded. If you were holding it your instructor’s voice came in as clear as if you were sitting in your chair in class but if you weren’t holding it was the same as if it was turned off.
The main drawback of this recording stone was that you could only hear what was stored on the little stone once. It stored the words and then released them. Once the little stone spoke a word it was gone from its little memory bank forever.
Plunging and scrubbing my clothes in some nicely pre-warmed water courtesy of my little oven burner, I soaped and rung out my clothes to the tune of the same boring class I’d sat through earlier in the day.
I didn’t care, knowledge was knowledge and tomorrow I had an Advanced Theory class that might actually be interesting. I wasn’t about to leave my little stone’s memory full of a stupid Magic Storage lecture. Not when it could only hold about one lecture at a time.
Since there was no way to instantly erase the lecture, doing something productive while I was forced to listen to the same boring lecture a second time was the lesser of two evils.
If only I could channel more magic I thought dispiritedly. Kelsey McBride had graduated with a Masters Degree in Advanced Magical Practice just over two years ago and had established her own practice in the city. She’d been almost half a year behind me before we became friends and I started helping her with her homework. Now she had her own shop and small business, while I had a temporary job as a full time Assistant Librarian.
I mentally went through the tally of former schoolmates who’d already graduated or moved on to something better.
Maybe I’d try for another familiar again tomorrow. Most of the Library staff had mice or rats although one night shifter had a small garden snake. I shuddered at the thought of getting a snake. The last two times I’d summoned a familiar I’d ended up with alternately a field mouse and then a small sewer rat.
I shuddered remembering how I’d kept the sewer rat in a small aquarium within the apartment until our familiar bond had withered from disuse and I could finally set it free.
I was secretly hoping for a Cat. Preferably a cute little kitten that would grow and add a significant bump to my ability to draw magical power. Although at this point I’d take a mangy street cat if that was what it took.
A mouse or rat just couldn’t channel the kinds of power I needed to perform the next level of power spells I’d been itching to try every since the middle of my second year at school.
I’d already flunked out on the familiar front twice now, I suppose nothing would hurt if I tried one or two of those power enhancing techniques postulated by the Mis-Enchanter. Then I caught myself. Maybe I would just study them as a theoretical application in my Advanced Theory Class before testing out anything dreamed up by a man known as the Mis-Enchanter.
With a new goal to keep my modest hopes alive, I decided not to wait for theory class to run the idea by my instructor. I’d just do a little research on my own before presenting the idea.
By the end of the day, I’d disproved most of the ideas Hieroneous had presented in his work book, but in the process had come up with a few ideas of my own. Even if completely on the wrong track, they should be good for some additional credit in Advanced Theory.
Humming to myself as I cross referenced my current school book with several others from past classes, I jotted down what I thought was a credible attempt at a work around for a magic user of limited power.
The Deposed King
No comments:
Post a Comment