In the Key of Ether

  Book: 2 What A Fool Believes

  Prologue:

  Good tidings, readers, you may call me ‘The Magician’ so that we may avoid adding confusion to the already occult and chaotic nature of our tale. I will be your narrator for the next little while, as we walk along… Though, I shan’t address you directly, once this brief summary concludes.

  Now, gentle readers we shall begin with a list of our dramatis personae, followed by a brief summary of our tale.

  Cast of Characters:

  Gary Ward: The Fool. Musician and craftsman, moontouched former cripple and current caretaker of the lingering remnants of a god who had nearly been forgotten by mankind entirely. Orphan.

  Liam Kinnis: The Handsome One. Courteous, dedicated and energetic to a fault, Liam is an unwilling cultist of the god of War, Contracted by his parents to that god as a young child. Orphan.

  Trelawny ‘Tawny’ Belen: The Golden Girl. Golden… golden hair, skin and voice, Tawny hides a core of steel and her own motivations behind her facade of dignified propriety. Duchess Heir of Duke Leopold Belen, lord of Wheatford and the surrounding realms.

  Ivy Rhodes: The Drummer. Sharp of wit, compact and fierce; she pursues the art of ritual magic with a passion, while keeping her eyes fixed on the mundane world. Orphan.

  Shai: The Love Interest. Bold and uncompromising, Shai’s desire to see new sights and travel call her to Adventure. She holds the rank of journeyman smith in the crafts guild, a title won with skill, diligence and effort. Adopted Orphan.

  Tallum: The Giant. Quiet and gentle when at rest, Journeyman smith Tallum dislikes conflict, but will not flee from danger… Only his adopted sister, Shai could drag him from his forge to heed the call of Adventure; but only his love for Ivy keeps him on the road. Citizen of Wheatford duchy.

  Becky: The Smart One. At only just fifteen years and a few days, the youngest of our Adventurers can’t reach the high shelf in the kitchen, but she’s smart enough to hang around with tall people for such minor tasks. She can however, wield spears and her slim rapier with profound talent and skill. Orphan

  Dannyl: The Artist. Small, slim and ginger, He possesses an artistic soul and eager, adventurous spirit. He relishes the joys of exploration and travel, almost as much as he savors wreaking havoc on monsters and the unclean with his barbed chain whip.

  Other Players:

  Otho: High priest, Beloved of Cowl the goddess Joy.

  Naiomi: High priestess of Dana the Healer.

  Thelonius ‘Tony’ Dunham: Knight of Order, Justiciar for the Crafts, Common and Dock Wards of Wheatford city.

  Amicus Fawn: Master mage and administrator of the College Arcanum, Wheatford branch.

  See? That was not so painful; I never liked lists, myself. I dream of a life less constrained… Perhaps even walking a living world and breathing the air once more, someday… But never mind that!

  We have taken a glimpse at each of our players and now, with your kind indulgence, let’s begin at an ending.

  Our Story So Far:

  Gary Ward, the young scion of a well respected but little known family of musical instrument makers lived a quiet, comfortable life with his parents and grandpa, until shortly after his fourteenth birthday.

  Suddenly, he found himself the grievously injured sole survivor of his family, after their little car collided with a runaway big rig.

  Crippled, disfigured and in constant agony since that rainy night; he struggled in the heedless care of the state, lost in rage, grief and sorrow. A short parade of foster and group homes ended poorly, landing him in a medium security juvie hellhole.

  At the tender age of sixteen, fed up, rebellious and generally a pain in the system’s ass; he escaped juvenile detention the old fashioned way.

  The youth stuffed himself into a laundry bag and slipped out of the back of the truck at his first opportunity. There’s a reason that the laundry truck escape is a trope that just won’t die.

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  Two long and miserable years followed, living furtively on the streets, until, as if the universe had been waiting eagerly to deliver the long awaited punchline:

  A few days before his eighteenth birthday, he died of a sudden brain embolism while riding a rusty bike down a stretch of unremarkable rural road.

  That is where his story, and mine ended and began again, and again…

  Gary Ward awoke, lost, confused, coated in slime in a meadow, far from where he had just been. Our confused new friend found himself in a new body, without his handicaps and disfigurements, but with some new and surprising additions to his person.

  Reborn from a rent in the veil between worlds and spat out alone and naked into the wilds, he quickly began discovering new abilities and potentials within himself.

  A suite of new and profoundly weird magical gifts began to manifest, as he struggled to find shelter in the wilderness. First and most notably, one of his new ‘gifts’ insisted on telling him all about things, by throwing pop up windows in his face announcing:

  Congratulations, you are made anew!

  Gary Ward, Demihuman Monster Age: Seventeen

  Rank:normal

  Might:normal

  Resilience:normal/null: error

  Agility:normal

  Will:normal

  Mind:normal

  Animus:normal

  Debuff removed, mobility, left leg. Debuff removed, mobility, spinal damage. New abilities unlocked.

  Interface: gathers and disseminates environmental and internal information, via graphical objects and text messages. No Mana cost, no cooldown.

  Pockets!: Small to medium sized objects can be safely stashed and removed from a non dimensional space attached to your spirit/soul/shade/ghost. Weight and mass limits apply. Minor Mana cost, no cooldown.

  Familiar Stranger: When first encountering non hostile entities you will appear to be vaguely known and non threatening. You may choose to seem more forgettable or noticeable to any creature of animal intelligence or higher, scales against subjects willpower and perception. Possible advantages to stealth and/or performance activities. Language and literacy adaptation. Written, spoken or gestural languages are adapted to immediately. No Mana costs or cooldown.

  Artisan: crafting, artistic and creative skills receive bonuses for current knowledge; new skills are much easier to acquire and promote. Can craft, repair and use objects of one rank higher than current level; not all functions or options will be available when using higher rank items.

  No costs or cooldown. Resources and items may be extracted from interactions with the world. No Mana cost no cooldown.

  Homebody: Home is truly where the heart is. You may establish a dwelling in any open space capable of supporting a structure. Dwelling will conform to available space and creator’s design parameters as much as possible. Ten minute ritual, very high Mana cost, one hour cooldown.

  Temporary objects can be created in the dwelling at creator’s Will for a minor Mana cost, no cooldown. Created objects dissipate on exiting dwelling.

  Bombarded by a wall of illusory text messages detailing every plant and object he touched and his gifts, including himself. With magical storage pockets built into his legs and no clue what was going on; he stumbled onto a lonely cabin in the woods.

  In that humble abode, he found the mortal remains of a man, freshly passed on into the next life and that man’s will, leaving his worldly goods to; ‘the one who finds my corpse’.

  The ‘Mad Mage’ Zygnos Matteus died in that hovel, somehow knowing that a traveler from a distant world would be arriving, even at the moment he passed on.

  The mage’s notes revealed a complex interplay between mortal lives and the workings of the universe itself, and the strange position that those few who slip between worlds occupy.

  Isekai souls, the rare and always strange beings who manage to survive the passage between worlds, walk into their new lives drenched in magic. It erupts from their souls casting their excess Mana into the world, as the energies of the void, boil and churn in their beings.

  Isekai were little more than unremembered legends in the ancient and slowly shrinking lands of mankind. Lost to time and the needs of living, books, literacy and knowledge had dwindled in a world where monsters could and would appear without warning.

  Forgotten too, were the history, arts and crafts of ancient times, an age so long gone that even their ruins were lost.

  Tales of enchanted weapons and monster slaying heroes remained the domain of fairy tales and legends, as truly enchanted or magical objects were always either deceptions, or antiquities held by the wealthy as mere curiosities.

  Our young musician and instrument maker and his shiny new magical gifts combined to sprinkle undirected magic and fragments of his intent and emotions into his work, resulting in the occasional accidental enchanted item spilling from his hands, unknowingly. This swiftly attracted the attention of local authorities, with predictable results.

  Taken into the local orphanage until his legal majority at age twenty, soon Gary learns a dark truth behind the peaceful and prosperous town of Wheatford. Orphans, on reaching adulthood are sold at auction for an indenture of five years to be soldiers, servants or whatever the buyer decides for that term. Orphans, once sold, were to be bound in unbreakable soul contracts; magically shackled to the gods of their purchaser’s choosing forever.

  Together, Gary and a few companions set out to grasp their one slim hope of avoiding indenture and soul Contracts with heedless and careless gods of another’s choosing:

  To become journeymen Adventurers with that guild, before their twentieth birthdays; thanks to a dusty and ancient law of that hoary and nearly forgotten organization.

  A band of six young people set out into the wilds, seeking not fame or fortune, but hoping to earn their freedom and perhaps gain some control over their own lives for the first time.

  We rejoin our friends on the return trip, midway through a patrol ride for the Adventure guild; not long after Gary’s first real combat experience…

  A chance met trade barge captain, the flirty trader Esperanza; tipped the team off to an unknown monster lurking in the swamps beside their route. Forewarned, the team had a plan formulated and faced their foe with courage and determination.

  With barely eight weeks of weapon training under his belt, our young isekai musician felt ready to take on the perils of his new world. Armed and armored with the products of his own crafts; in a boiled leather cuirass and kilt of bullhide and bronze, wielding a shield and short spear, he was instructed to guard the healer and mage on the back line.

  A wise otter woman of my acquaintance once said: ‘Courage is a fine thing, save that it hangs around with Stupid far too often.’ Sadly, newbie warrior bard Gary saw a critical moment and chose… poorly.

  Our brave hero is currently recovering from injuries sustained at the claws of a monstrous, mutated crayfish. With admirable bravery and insufficient skills to back it up, he prevented a severe injury to a comrade; by getting himself half gutted and draining most of his blood into a swamp.

  Now Gary, our unwitting pawn of the gods, an orphan doomed to be a slave and half mad craftsman; must find a way to live and thrive in a new world. A strange place, where magic is real, but remains a feeble and pointless plaything of the nobility.

  Unless they too, wish to be toys of some wealthy lord, Gary and his friends must achieve their goals.

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