At this point... I need to make a decision.

Do I continue this tale, or do I cease and desist before any cease and desist letters come my way?... I mean it wouldn't be the first time a project of mine has been shot down by the lawyers of an author I like...I know I haven't put much work into this story. Not nearly as much as on the blastwave story, but on the same coin this is a story I wanted to tell.

The biggest issue is, Anne Rice. Yes the one and the same who wrote Interview With the Vampire, she's put out another book, this one called Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. While I have not had a chance to read this book, the reviews I've seen put it... well really close and similar to the overarching story I was putting together regarding the midnight war and the dealings between the Al'jiin and the Angels....

So, do I continue my writing on this tale, and look like a damned plagiarist, or close up shop on this story completely and focus solely on blastwave and hope someone high profile doesn't combine post-apocolyptia and high fantasy too....

Decisions...Decisions.

In the Fauni's Garden.

(This took a bit longer than anticipated because I had to come up with a name for the devil, and when I couldn't come up with a better one I then had to get permission from John Wigger over at Zombie Roomie since he did it first.)

So after a moment of confusion, Sul and I found ourselves in a sort of folded space containing a large garden.. of plants a bit more fantastic than the rest of the arboretum, very similar to most plants but infused with magic.

"Soooo..."

"Yeah magical garden."

"Sense anyone?"

"The cat you were talking about...and...something else. I think you can handle this."

And with that Sul patted me on the shoulder and stepped backwards through the portal we'd  gone through, leaving me alone in an unknown location with at least one unknown entity. And so I stepped into the unknown... didn't take me long to find them though since John's energy is rather... unique compared to most people,  and so I walked past a pair of, I think they were some type of banana trees flanked by birds of paradise to find him and another person playing cards... Well person is simplifying it, he had the torso of a man with legs like a goat and a deer antlers growing out of his head....And they were playing cards.

"So... I think I've walked in on a joke of some sort....but I'm guessing this is a friendly get together."

The cat tilted his head in my direction before speaking to his companion across the table"Aye, so this is the one I was telling you about Sam, the new up and coming magical beastly being, so what brings you here kiddo?"

"Patches sent me to find you, said you'd been gone longer than usual and she was worried."

"Her worried for me? Aw tha's cute.... must'a been gone longer than I thought.. so what do you think of my friend?"

"Hmmm....well if I were a little less knowledgable of the world I'd say he was Old Scratch... but I'm thinking a Fauni?" I turned to face him he stood up walked over and pulled me into a hug crying. "..I'm sorry?.... did I make a mistake?"

"No not at all it's just been ages since someone didn't mistake me for Lucius Morningstar." After a few mome moments he let me go and turned back to the cat "...so take five on the game I'm sure he has questions of me."

I nodded as John shrugged "Based off context....that's Lucifer?"

"Yup."

"Interesting tidbit... so is Lucifer and Satan the same?"

"Nope, two different devils."

"Honestly that's all I could even think of for right now, mind if I sit and watch?"

"not at all, any friend of John's is by extension a friend of mine... except for that one that tried to take my horns.. fuck that guy."

And so I sat talked, and after a while got dealt in on a few rounds of cards, found out that the plants were in fact bananas, but unfortunately the non-edible kind, and eventually reminded John that Patches was in fact worried enough to send someone to find him.

The Witch's second task.

When you sleep like the dead, it takes a while to wake up.

To say the least, I am out of practice on this..... As I recall I returned to the campus without much of an issue despite how late it was, brought the requested items and was told I'd done a decent enough job and sent on my way. It was.. I think a week later when Patches called for me again.

John had gone missing... as in completely missing, from campus and from her ability to scry him. So this job was to go where his energy was last sensed and see if I could ferret things out where she'd failed. Patches suggested that I see if I could convince Sul to assist me since Patches was bound to the school.. for some reason.


Ultimately it took a bit of convincing as Sul is wary of anyone and anything that hasn't actually been seen, and Patches is someone that hasn't been seen, ultimately it was an appear to the curiosity of things unknown that brought the D'jinn along. And so, it brought us to the school arboretum on a mostly foggy, and mostly moonlit night. One of those weird nights where the moon is mostly full, but you can also see most of the stars. And then we stumbled through a rift in space into an even larger garden.

Back in this world.

You could say my sudden and unexpected absence was noted.. or not noted.. honestly not sure. I don't even remember what I was posting about last...

Of all the things to have been caught and trapped in a mason jar...was unexpected, much less being forced to compete in a twisted battle royale by a warlock was also not expected.

Though I doubted he expected an alliance between myself a tiny manticore and a miniature minotaur to end the fighting and all of us escape, however that all is another story for another day.

So if you'll excuse me I'm going to sleep until either I wake up again or someone blows up the sun... probably be awake again this weekend.

for now, I leave you with the musical stylings of  Tobuscus.

The Witch's task

Two days later John, still inhabiting the cat, wandered up to me and dropped a note on the desk I was writing lecture notes on. No one else in the class seemed to find this strange or out of the ordinary... I just played along and didn't make much of a fuss about it.

The note read as follows:

"Due to certain rules I have to abide by, to keep a certain entity bound to the college grounds I cannot actually leave for the time being. So you will go in my place to [address redacted] and retrieve the following for me:

•  sixteen ounces silver dust

•  eight beeswax candles, dyed red or blue using natural dyes

•  wool off a yearling lamb, first shear preferable but not required

• one dehydrator onion and one clove of garlic. Very important, cannot forget these.

Tell the person at the storefront that "East" sent you and he'll should have everything ready. You may need to go to a grocery store for the onion and garlic though. I also trust that your abilities as a magic user have grown enough to tell if something has artificial additions in it. Return to me with these items and I may have more work for you before you get any answers to your questions..

-Madam Patches Witch of the East Wall"

Once I was free of class, I got to ponder the meaning of "more work" as I made the brief walk to the address marked. Once there I found myself staring at the same "odds and ends" store that I'd found Sul's prison in.

"huh... never thought I'd see this place again."

"Those that come here are often fated to return here many times young-one. Come in come in."

I was startled by the voice of the owner of the store, an imp of a man, barely four feet tall in a simple smock, jeans jeans and t-shirt. Sandals and a manner of hair simmilar to a hippy, though his eyes were bright blue and youthful defying the lines of age surrounding them. despite his stature he had the presence of a giant. "and what brings you back?...I assume it is because you found the secret guest of that trinket I sold you months ago?"

"you knew about Sul?" I arched an eyebrow as I was guided into the shop quickly and brought to the counter before the man simply blinked into the chair on the opposite side.

"I know a great many things young-one. Each with a price, I did not know it had a particular name. I too did not know whether it was malevolent or benevolent, though you seem to have made out of the exchange quite like a sly fox, if I do say so myself." He paused as he procured a tea kettle and poured himself a drink, offering none to me, and I asked for none despite the sudden thirst that clawed at my throat. "So.. your tale? Or do you have.... other matters to attend to."

"..I..um.." I sat there at a loss for what to say before remembering why I was here and what to say. "East sent me."

"Ah, say no more, I am well aware of the details of what...and why she needs such items. Payment has already been made, allow me to gather them. Look around if you will while I do so, if anything catches your eye you need only ask and I will name the price."

As he busied himself with collecting the things "east" had asked for I peered about the store, my eyes eventually settling on a stack of books several feet deep, though nothing immediately collected my attention this time, as I extracted myself from the labyrinth of books I found the shopkeeper had collected everything and laid it all out on the counter top for me. "....No.. nothing calls to me this time."

"Hmmm..perhaps some other time. Here, examine the goods if you will."

I poked at the candles and materials, not sure what to really look for to see if it was.. or wasn't actual beeswax. It certainly smelled like beeswax, and the other items seemed right the silver felt right, at least as best I could tell as it was in a granular form instead of coins or jewelry, and the onion and garlic was quite pungent, despite it's dried state while the fleece was soft and clean looking like a cloud on a midsummer day.  I shrugged and wrapped everything up in a bag before heading back to campus, not sure when it had gone from, mid-day to dark of night. "Hope I didn't take too long..."

The Witch.

John must be rather prophetic, as nearly a week later I did in fact meet his master, or rather mistress, barely a week later. Sul says I collapsed due to overexposure to dirty energy. I think I know what he was talking about though, as it was weird em frequencies coming off electronics.

 I suppose I should back up to the beginning first. The day started off like any other, I was sitting in the back row of one of the classes, not one I was taking but one I work as a TA in for credits. Because of renovation we were in a different lecture hall than usual, this one the overhead projector was damaged apparently since it was giving off an annoying whining noise to everyone else, while to me I was getting a terrible headache, and eventually collapsed, managing to knock over a lamp which did get someone's attention. One of the football team had apparently got some training in first aid and directed two of his other team-mates to roll me onto my back before sliding me onto a folding table and using that as an impromptu stretcher before taking me to the school medic.

And so I awoke to a familiar ceiling. Familiar being that it wasn't the first time I had passed out in a class and been taken to the school nurse, though the other times had been from over-stressing with an overloaded class schedule and not exposure to wild and unrefined electromagnetic fields.

"Welcome back to the waking world again Ser Bookworm." My unofficial moniker on campus was the Library Knight Sir Bookworm due to my penchant for spending so much time there. I sat up and rubbed my forehead.

"I bite my thumb in thy general direction Madam Patches."

The nurse laughed as she looked up from her desk, barely a bit older than I was, her hair was a gold tinted coffee color tied back professionally with a sharp hawkish face and dark sea blue eyes. The school nurse, a student like myself but fully qualified medically due to her tour in Afghanistan probably had enough credits in medicine to graduate with a masters by now. She had a simple black T-shirt that didn't cover up the scars from her previous job and olive paratroopers pants with an inordinate amount of pockets, which she probably carried any and all medical tools she might need on a given day.

"So... of all the people John could have been describing I never actually thought it would be you to wind up stumbling into magic....You always seemed rather boring."

"That was rather straight to the point."

She shrugged, "My mother did say I was subtle as a blind mallet at times. So what was it? Did I miss one of the occult books in the library? Did you go off hunting for stuff of lore and legends with no preparation?...Or did you just pick up on the arts yourself on your own? A freak accident?"

I sat there confused trying to sort out things. "So you're John's Witch?"

"I prefer Wicce, but yes, he's bound to my service until I either find a different spirit to make a contract with, or he gets bored and asks to be released from it., anyway I'm the one asking the questions here."

I tried to move into a more comfortable position but found that I couldn't move much more than sitting up. It didn't take long to make sense of it as there were shadowy purple "chains" holding me down on the bed.

"Ah, so you can see and feel them? A precaution, I wasn't sure if you were going to be hostile once I realized you had some magic to you, had a run-in with a priest a few years back, he tried to take my head off with a bayonet." she tilted her head some showing a silvery white scar just barely visible above the neckline of her shirt.

With that revelation I decided to play it safe from that point on and choose my words carefully. "Um..right so anyway...it was an accident to say the least, I found a trinket in a pawn shop and bought it, when I brought it home I accidentally broke it..stepped on it, and after a while found myself to be changed some, I could see and manipulate electromagnetic currents a little, and so a bit of research later at a used books store I figured it was magic."

She sat there quietly for a bit before shrugging. "seems to be the case with most people I've met. Accidents mostly, though some of them do in fact have the sight and gift from birth, but the vast majority of people don't.... you're not going to try and attack me are you?"

"No. Should I?"

"Just making sure." With a flick of her hand the chains holding me down vanished.. melted really, and I was able to sit up properly with my legs folded. "So, now what?"

"Mmmm....tell me your story, how did you become a witch? If it's not troublesome."

"See that's a private story that you won't be getting even if you are one of my most regular patients... You'll have to work for it."

I sat there quietly before shrugging. "Ok, what's the cost?"

"You've got to got to collect some materials for me. I don't have the time since my full time job is school nurse now, and John has taken off somewhere in the body of a cat and might not be back for a month or two. I'll have the list ready tomorrow."

"Sounds good. I'll be back."

And so, after an actual check of my health, no fever, just a little dehydrated and a bruise from where I landed on the lamp, I wandered off questioning the world even more.

Filler fluff

Not much actually happened in the interim between my previous encounter with John and  the next "fae" I truly got to speak with.  I noticed a few will'o'whisps off near the park but they don't seem to have the capability for talking... I think. Maybe I'm the dumb one to them.

Other than that I continued to learn from Sul about various kinds of magic and consequences of using them and such. It's pretty similar to most physics reactions. For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. Say you cool a particular area magically, the energy of the heat has to go somewhere. Well in the most basic sense that's how it works anyway.