[Flashback] Pied Piper Pipeless

[Wrenmae]

Summer 32 509 AV

By all accounts, summer brought with it invigorated life to the city of Illusion. Sylirans hopped the ferry and braved the fair seas (Fairer still than winter at least) to try their hands at piercing the mystery of the Riddling streets. Wrenmae took the occasion to sleep rooftop last night, the stars wheeling above him as the night life paraded past the street beside him. Lullabies were best spoken than sung, murmured like secrets and poured into a hidden ear. There was something distinctly Alvadian in it...and perhaps that was why Wrenmae enjoyed it so.

He woke with the sun on his face, a brilliant reminder of daytime activities. He was lucky a squall hadn't awoken him sooner, a wet reminder of why roofs were invented and why few people actually DID sleep on roofs these days. Scrambling to his feet, Wrenmae carefully stepped around the edge of the roof to swing back into his window. Adoptive parents had a policy about keeping his window open all the time, especially after last summer, the room itself had been filled with fat, black beetles, tumbling on uneven legs as they tried to mete out how much of Wrenmae's room to divide among themselves.

Careful to swing himself down inside (and not miss his mark to fall to the street below) Wrenmae hesitantly allowed a line of Djed to sink through his fingers gripping the rock. His nails shifted, twisting and unfurling like new leaves as he called one of the more simple transformations in his repertoire, the ability to make claws. Djed, these days, was like flexing a muscle. According to Seidaku, it was a muscle that demanded much practice and care...it was not something he should do for the sake of ease. However, in cases such as swinging into windows, it was better to err on the side of caution than to fall a story or two onto the head of some passing Dhani or Isur.

Definately not Isur...they had a habit of being the most painful people to land on.

His fingers twisted along with the magic, hesitant of their shape before reforming into black edged claws along the lip of the building. Swinging, looking for all the Alvadas streets like some sort of ungainly burglar, Wrenmae swung into his open window and rolled across the ground of the small room, thumping up against the wall dejectedly.

Laying there, arms splayed out, vision spinning, he became aware of a shadow looming over his head, the scent of old cologne and a swift kick in his side. It wasn't meant to injure, but more to remind.

Rolling into himself, already banishing the effects of his hasty morphing, Wrenmae coughed a chuckle, the only answer he had for being caught.

Charm. The boy had lived his life on the charm he naturally exuded. Vayt had marked him with plague, but seen fit to augment it with a stronger sense of attraction. Ever since he'd shown up in Alvadas, his presence had been marked with the almost inability to resist his smile. Hypnotism helped, of course, but it was a dangerous art. Not that he knew it then, no, now was a time of sunlight and youth.

Now was a time when he was closest and most distant from happiness. Bliss, after all, was a form of glee...and yet the lack of knowledge bothered him, touched some inner edge of annoyance in the boy's mind.

"Wrenmae," came the expectant chiding, delivered on vocal chords cracking with the weight of their age, "You picked a fortunate time to drop in."

"Kale," the boy answered, choking a breathless laughter from the ground, "For an old man you have petching good ears."

Another swift kick, and the boy rolled with it across the ground. "Language, young man. I will not have Ionu's house disrespected with your dirty tongue."

"As if Ionu doesn't curse," came the immediate reply, "I might even be Ionu, come to test your faith, Oooooo~!" That brought a swifter and more deliberate kick, but by now his breath had returned and the boy was having a good time.

"Jest, if you like," the old man warned, his face a home to cracks and apertures like caverns in the Unforgiving, "But I've known doubters more charming than you driven mad by Ionu's wrath. Have some respect."

"Oh I have respect," Wrenmae assured, getting to his feet and dusting off his tunic, "I just doubt such an important God or Goddess much cares what a kid has to say about her...besides, Storytellers are masters of illusion themselves, so she should be marking me any day now."

Kale shook his head, sighing. "You're the kind to learn only when it's too late... incorrigible."

"Part of my charm." Wrenmae assured, "Now you woke me up for something, right? You don't usually make the trip upstairs unless its important...knee troubles or something, I always get old age ailments confused."

He ducked another swipe from the old man, and Kale's mouth seeped into a cold grimace. "Rats," he said, pushing the nonsense out of the interaction, "We have rats in the basement and the food stores. I was going to hire a catcher, but we could save some mizas if you did it for us."

Wrenmae sighed, already imagining the amount of work it would take to chase the creatures from one end of the cellar to the other. The day itself was dripping away from him, drawing to a close before it had scarce begun!

But they were his adopted parents...and if he could save them a few mizas from the expense of keeping him fed, all the better. "Fine," Wrenmae answered nodding his ascent "But if I get rid of them all, I expect some sort of reward."

The old man thought, balancing from foot to foot, and finally nodded. "I'll have Andrea cook something up special...but only if it's done today."

Wrenmae saluted, brushing mortar dust from his clothes and falling against the narrow bed. Without anything more to say, the old man opened and closed his mouth, running a hand against his perpetually running nose, and finally exited.

Wrenmae waited until the creak of wood had receded in the lower part of the house before following, dancing step to step as though a dancer or juggler. He always envied the way Kit had been able to move, the adopted niece an agile comparison to her Uncle's heavy handed movement.

Even so, he could dream.

Descending into the cellar, any question of the old man's claim being exaggerated collapsed. The smell was a rank example of wet fur and feces, the sort of careless infestation he expected from the ramshackle huts along the dock...not here in the richer part of Alvadas. Rubbing his hands together, the boy glanced up the stairs for sign of the old man and his wife. Neither had opted to watch his progress, which was just as well.

"A lot of you, aren't there?" he queried the darkness, "All cozy in your new home?" Only the quiet sound of scratching answered him, the quiet gnawing of preservatives and fabric.

"Why don't you all come out?" Wrenmae asked, his voice sweet and quiet, a brush of Djed wafting at his words, "Why don't you let me have a look at you, huh?" His words were quiet, but the familiar backbone of Djed poured meaning into his words, the hypnotic mesmer of an accomplished practitioner. Ever since Alric and he had stumbled on the art, Wrenmae had been a guilty mage, using it for all sorts of small things. It was a sacred art, a dangerous one, the act of utilizing ones own life energy into a wave of quiet command to suffuse the air and draw the unwanted creatures from hiding.

Hypnotism was the art of subtlety, using it so heavy handed was not its intended purpose. A skilled hypnotist, the book had said, focused on using words to guide the power, a divining rod to where they wanted to strike. This was a blatant display of power, asking the rats to come to him was no small feat. Blood pulsed in his head, a constant metronome of seething headache and sweat popped along his forehead, glittering across his head. "Come out!" he ordered, tasting blood as Djed lanced out of his tongue and drew blood from its depths. Wrenmae spit, cutting off the connection to the power and sinking to his knees.

His head hurt, burned even, everywhere the shadows seemed to take on a darker tint, edged monsters waiting just beyond the shadows. He smelled Vayt's cigar smoke, a cloying smell...how could he have missed it? Wildly he searched for the god, here in the darkness of the cellar.

Instead only a small collection of rats, eight in all, peeked up at him from the center of the ground. The lanternlight against the wall cast the creatures in strange shadow, flickering shapes that seemed to suggest there were more of them, hundreds more...then eight again...then twenty.

Without the power to hold them, the rats were ill at ease to sit idly by and wait for the human to command them. Sniffing out their old habits, they began scuttling back to work.

"NO!" Wrenmae growled, spitting blood as another wave of fresh Djed held the beasts in place, mesmerized them, assured them of safety. "You're all...you're all going to leave, this isn't your home."

He was dizzy, it was all dizzy.

He fell on his ass, hand against his head, focusing his power against them. Why was it so damned hard to control animals? Why couldn't he just be good at this?

"There's...monsters here,"

((Just him))

Why even talk to them? They didn't understand him anyways

"You're...not safe."

((From Me))

He puncutated his words with fresh directions of Djed. He instilled the memory of intelligent fire, the kind of fire that sought little rats and burned them alive. He didn't know if they felt the sting of family, but he tried to manipulate their minimal memories, their instincts even, to warn them there was fire here, that there was danger, that it wasn't safe.

Screetching in unison, surprising Wrenmae with the ferocity of the panic, the rats swarmed over him and up the stairs, scrabbling underneath the door and skittering across the street beyond, little worm-tails bobbing in the daylight as they scurried to their unknown ends. Wrenmae, however, did not follow them up the stairs. He sat, instead, smelling Vayt's cigar smoke and listening to the dirge cries of the rats fading. To him they remained, a chirruping chorus of what was to come, of what he had done.

Vayt wasn't here...he was overgiving, overgiving like the book warned not to do. Alric would be disappointed in him, at least if Wrenmae every told him. Instead, he lay his head on the back steps and closed his eyes. It was easier when there was no light, when he relied only on himself. Eventually he may be forced to leave this place, find a new home.

He wanted to think that wouldn't happen, but his adopted parents weren't getting younger and his presence was poison to them. Sitting up in the darkness, Wrenmae blew out the lamplight and sat in the oblivion...remembering the lessons Seidaku taught him.

Nothing

They were all nothing

Everything could be nothing

And like an illusion, it could be everything as well.


"No more overgiving," Wrenmae tried to promise himself, "I'm a better wizard than that."

But he knew the truth.

He would again...and perhaps next time he wouldn't keep his mind.

It was a sobering thought to be left with.

[Cantrip]

Did you want something? Wrenmae: XP Award: Morphing +1; Hypnotism +2 Lores: Overgiving; The Effects of Hypnotism on Rodents Additional Notes: A nice, short thread, with a fairly unique use of hypnotism. I really enjoyed your depiction of overgiving. It was nuanced, and very appropriate for a fairly young mage.