Erage #1 Magic is Real

Erage: Untoltelage and his four apprentice: Quastiffany, Jostahim, Hyethra, Kekister

(Plot event idea I had last night. Shapeshifter names Xi, as in the Chinese Xi. Xi is an adult woman that the nine-year-olds would consider an old lady even though she is only in her 40’s. Xi is pronounced sounding something like between the English letter “C” and the word “She” but it doesn’t sound exactly like either. Introduction would a bird flying towards Untoltelage, shapeshifter back into woman-form while in mid-flight wielding katanas only to be stopped by Untoltelage wrapping her in vines before she can fully shapeshift back into a human, forcing her to return back into a bird form to escape and for Untoltelage to make his identity known to her. Because they are both friends.)

(Xi will point out that she literally hasn’t seen Untoltelage in almost exactly a decade or ten years. This is significant because Untoltelage is only nine-years-old.)

(Xi translates as something like 喜 which means happy or liking

And Cì translates as 刺 which means  stabbing. Put them together and the name is Xi Cì or 喜刺)

Untoltelage was beginning to think that he had messed up. He was certain there was supposed to be magic, but everyone told him that it didn’t exist. He was inclined to believe them because he didn’t recognize his surroundings as that of a post-apocalyptic world full of magical murderers.

Instead he was in an eerily familiar metropolitan city. Skyscrapers tower above him. Cars rush through the streets. But the most telling attribute is the schools. Untoltelage knows for certain that schools here should not appear as safe and boring as they do. This is why he is certain that he messed up. He must have died and gone to a world of torment. Why else would he go to school nearly everyday? Why else would there be no magic? Why would the only pain be the stress of homework and the boredom that comes after completing it?

Is this whole world just school? He started when he was around 5 or 6, and now he’s about 9 and he is still in Elementary School. Untoltelage knows that the world is supposed to be full of pain. But it is never supposed to be boring. Which is why he was relieved when he heard the tornado sirens.

The teachers calmly led the children to line up against the wall so that they can die pretending to be doing something for their safety. Why else would they be curled up against the wall with their hands over their head? Untoltelage couldn’t imagine that anything that these kids could do anything to prevent the tornado from killing them.

He was right.

The wind ripped through the windows and tore down many of the walls. Tables and chairs slammed into doors and broke out into the hallways. The roof ripped away and the wind picked up many of the children and teachers, carrying them up away and out of sight.

Looks like Untoltelage is going to die again. Hopefully he doesn’t return to this schoolhouse of neverending boredom. The tornado died down. It died down too quickly. In a matter of moments, the whirlwind completely dissipated.

Could it be? Maybe this isn’t a schoolhouse of nightmares after all? Untoltelage stands up and heads towards the exit. The door is missing. Instead, there is just a gaping hole that used to be a wall of windows and doors.

Outside, the parking lot is a mess. Cars burning, there is strewn debris of some of the cars that exploded. Then Untoltelage finds him, a man dressed in animal hides floating the sky above the ruined schoolhouse.

Untoltelage smiles because he is in Erage, the post-apocalyptic worlds of magical murderers.

Untoltelage shouts at the flying man, “Ha! I should have known this was the work of a ‘graduated’ apprentice.”

The flying man looks down at Untoltelage. The man looks to be in his early 20’s. The man is pretty high in the air, so it is hard to tell but he looks confused. He probably is having trouble putting together that a child in an isolated city of safety without magic knows that he is an apprentice. More specifically, that he knows to use the word “graduated” sarcastically.

The flying man slowly descends until he is only a few feet above the ground. He probably would have just killed Untoltelage if he wasn’t curious about how Untoltelage knew these things about him.

Untoltelage is excited. He hadn’t thought there was magic in this world because of what everyone kept telling him. And being a child, the amount of magic he generated was so small that he could be convinced that had simply imagined it. After all, he wanted so badly to have magic, but when he showed his magic to others, they told him that he hadn’t produced any magic.

But they were wrong. He knows this because there is a graduated apprentice in front of him.

“You might think you’re so powerful just you defeated your master, but surely your master taught you to always assume that your opponent has more magic than you.” Untoltelage says mockingly.

At this point, the flying man must have just assumed that Untoltelage was just making assumptions and didn’t really know anything about him because that’s exactly the case.

“Did you see that tornado?” The man says, “I made that. Don’t taunt me. You do not want to fight me.”

“That is where you’re wrong.” Untoltelage says, “There is nothing more boring than sitting in school all day, while everyone around you pretends that magic doesn’t exist. I could really go for some dueling practice.”

“Ha! A duel?” The apprentice laughs, “You’ve been reading too many books. For one who pretends to know so much, you don’t seem to realize that every combat is a fight to the death.”

“Ah, a duel to the death?” Untoltelage asks, feigning surprised, “I supposed I can accept those terms. Though, it isn’t appropriate to place such high stakes in a battle with a stranger, ex-apprentice.” Untoltelage bows, in mock respect for his opponent.

“Don’t call me that!” The man says angrily. He spreads hands to sides and a gust of wind pushes out from him and slams into Untoltelage. Untoltelage falls to his back with his legs rising above his head, the wind pushes his legs down behind him causing him to flip backwards until his belly is parallel with the ground. At which point he slams his hands to the ground, causing the ground beneath him to rise up and swallow his hands.

Untoltelage flaps in the wind, like a banner on a windy day, legs behind him in the air and his hands stuck under the earth. The apprentice sees that he is stuck and thrusts a chunk of bricks the size of a basketball into the stream of wind, sending it flying towards Untoltelage.

Untoltelage pulls his feet to the ground, frees his hands from the earth and launches himself upwards with his feet and a gust of wind rising up from underneath him to jump up and over the flying debris.

The apprentice adds to Untoltelage’s rising gust of wind, sending Untoltelage rocketing into the air, higher than the schoolhouse.

Up so high in the air, Untoltelage can see that the city seems empty because everyone is inside in fear of the tornado. But strangely, there are a few cars out, and they seem to be headed this way.

Untoltelage looks to the sides to see how far the city goes. It is a massive city. In three out of four directions, it continues past the horizon. However, on the fourth side, West, he sees that he is very close to the edge of the city. The city is surrounded by incredibly tall concrete walls. The apprentice must have flown over the walls to get into the city. The wall is only a few miles away, but he never saw it before because massive skyscrapers or just abnormally tall regular buildings blocked him from seeing that far.

Untoltelage runs out of upward momentum and starts falling downwards again. He produces small gusts of wind to maneuver himself to be over the apprentice as he falls down. He waits until he is about ten feet above the ground before he expends the rest of his pool of air magic to slow his fall with a powerful upward wind stream.

The apprentice throws himself to the side with invisible wind. But Untoltelage no longer has any more air magic to direct his fall to the apprentice’s new location. Instead, Untoltelage falls to the ground. His slowed fall means he won’t break any bones, but he still hits hard enough to fall prone and be disoriented for a few seconds.

The apprentice does not take advantage of Untoltelage’s moment of vulnerability. Instead of taking out a knife or sword and striking Untoltelage while he’s down, the apprentice simply blasts him with more wind, sending him tumbling backwards until he slams in through the window of an upside-down car.

Untoltelage looks around. He is an upside-down car. He looks through the broken window and sees the apprentice some fifty feet away still floating in the air barely above the ground.

Tires screech. The sound of heavy vehicles weaving through the obstacle course that is the parking lot after a passing tornado.

Metal scrapes. The long train of trucks, vans and cars cannot all make it cleanly through tight openings. They make their own paths through the parking lot, leaving the black paint scraped into the sides of stationary vehicles.

Brakes squeal. The abrupt stop of the loud rumbling of tires bouncing over and crushing broken glass, scattered bricks and other debris. A sudden silence broken moments later by doors slamming open.

The marching of half a hundred boots on pavement. The apprentice looks both scared and confused. Untoltelage extricates himself from the upside-down wreck that was a car. He sees a group of 20-30 heavily armed police officers completely covered in padded armor: vests, helmets, visors, riot shields, rifles. No, they’re not police. They look too military. Are they soldiers? They don’t look like they’re here to arrest anybody. They look too ready for combat.

The apprentice stares at the odd gear that the military-police are wearing and carrying. He probably hasn’t seen anything like this. Untoltelage hadn’t known that they had such equipment in this post-apocalyptic world full of magical murderers.

The apprentice doesn’t need to recognize or understand what they are wearing and carrying to know that they are armor and weapons. So the apprentice panics. He might have been able to escape in a whirlwind of speed and chaos. Instead, he conjured small tornado.

Untoltelage thinks that the apprentice is using the last of his air magic to make this tornado. But Untoltelage will not let that assumption influence his actions. One must never assume that their opponent is out of magic.

It doesn’t matter if he’s out of magic or not. That’s still a tornado he created. Armor notwithstanding, the military-police are going to get hurt if it gets too close. But more importantly, Untoltelage is likely going to get crushed by falling cars the tornado throws around.

Untoltelage can’t get rid of the tornado. He’s out of air magic, and he’s a child. His maximum capacity for air magic is lesser than that of the apprentice. But he can certainly weaken the tornado with some innovative use of fire and frost magic.

Untoltelage opens his hand and points his palm at the top of the tornado. A small ball of flame, smaller than his palm, flies out of his hand into the top of the tornado, where it explodes into a car sized ball of fire, where it remains swirling in the eye of the storm.

Untoltelage charges into the bottom of the twister, where it hits the ground. He still maintains the flaming car-sized sphere in the eye of the storm. Now at the bottom of the tornado, wind whipping around him, trying to throw him into the air, Untoltelage freezes the air around him with an icy frost.

Untoltelage really hates school, especially the early years where they teach you nothing. But highschool courses in the hellish world of torment he thought he was in, those can have surprising applications in magic.

Untoltelage tries to balance out the difference in pressure between the sky and ground, which causes the tornado to reach ground to begin with. The high pressure eye of the tornado created by cold downdrafts is countered by his flaming fireball at the top of the tornado. The relatively low pressure of the ground becomes a more heavy high pressure as the air cools dramatically.

But one can only do so much with so little magic. Untoltelage’s fireball extinguishes as he runs out of fire magic. And his calm coolness at the bottom of the storm fades away as his pool of frost magic is now completely drained.

But it did disrupt the tornado, causing it to return being a mere funnel cloud. Still a tempest, a whirlwind, but one that is no longer touching ground. Untoltelage sees that the apprentice is no longer floating in the air. He is scrambling away on foot.

All of this went by so fast. A quick reaction based off instinct rather than any actual thought out plans, as combat usually is. The military-police seem to be at a loss as to whether they should shoot the small child that weakened the small tornado. But they don’t take any time to deliberate over the life of the apprentice. With the wind out of the way, the air rings with the sound of gunshots.

They fire their weapons far longer than is necessary. But Untoltelage has learned from past experience that there is no such thing as overkill in the world of Erage. When people can come back from the most devastating wounds, some precautions must be kept to make sure that your enemy doesn’t get back up and stab you as you walk away.

With the obvious threat of the apprentice dealt with, the military-police turn their attention to Untoltelage. Untoltelage can’t tell whether these people find magic to be surprising or not. They’re not speaking to him and the dark visors of their helmets hide their faces.

A few heavily armored military-police are left to keep an eye on Untoltelage as the rest of them search the broken schoolhouse for survivors. It’s taking a terrifyingly long time for them to search for survivors. Haven’t they found any yet? They’d want to bring any survivors they found outside as quick as possible, right?

Then a terrifying thought forms in Untoltelage’s mind. What if they weren’t searching for survivors to save them, but to kill them? Of course, that is just the paranoia kicking in. Usually a good amount of distrust is helpful in keeping you alive in the post-apocalyptic world Erage. But this city doesn’t seem to realize that civilization collapsed millennia ago.

They wouldn’t be killing survivors and yet also keep Untoltelage alive. Finally, one of the military-police that is watching over Untoltelage gets a message on his pocket telecommunicator. He doesn’t actually know what this would be called. It’s not a phone. It has no screen, but it also isn’t a landline. It is like a pocket radio that tunes into a channel broadcast by another officer.

Untoltelage doesn’t hear what they are saying. It’s muffled. The officer just nods at the other officers and gestures from me to one of the heavily armored transports that seems more like a tank than a van. The three other military-police bring Untoltelage to the “van.” Two sit by Untoltelage to keep on eye on him, while the third one drives. The fourth one, that was on talking on the pocket radio, just runs along beside the “van” as it drives. The armored vehicle drives slowly, carefully. The people guarding Untoltelage seem wary that he might try to crash the vehicle or something.

They don’t need to be worried. Untoltelage is empty of most pools of magic that could do much to the vehicle. He still has earth magic left. He could probably get the “van” stuck in mud. But that’s about it. Maybe if he wasn’t in the middle of a concrete city, he could do some more with his specialty—plant magic.

With how slow the vehicle is going, Untoltelage doesn’t notice that it has stopped until the doors open and he is ushered out and into a building built into the side of the concrete wall that Untoltelage saw surrounding the city when he was pushed high into the air by a gust of wind during his battle with the apprentice.

This building is more like a giant cinderblock with tunnels carved into it. It looks very old. Untoltelage looks up at the wall and sees a watchtower above the cinderblock building.

Untoltelage is follows the military-police deep into the cinderblock building through a maze of narrow tunnel-like hallways. He finally stops when he reaches a large circular room with a round table that is five feet in diameter. A massive street mat covers the the table like a table cloth. There is a red paperweight on the area of the schoolhouse on the map. There are multiple black paperweight around the schoolhouse and by the wall where they are now. There is also a red paperweight at the on the wall on a building with a star saying “You are here.”

Standing over the table are three men in uniforms that make them look important. They are discussing the map, gesturing at the red paperweights. On the map.

Untoltelage is most intrigued by the four yellow paperweights that are surrounded by black paperweights. One of the uniformed men is moving those paperweights from the schoolhouse towards the wall where they are.

Untoltelage thinks he knows what the red paperweights mean. Those are obviously him and the now dead apprentice. The black paperweights are going to be military-police and other agents working with them. But Untoltelage has no idea what the yellow paperweights could represent. Maybe it’s some sort of special forces?

Maybe, but the only forces more special than military-police that he can think of are magic-wielding forces. But as far as he knows, the military police may wield magic already. If they do, it is likely a subtle body-modifying magic that increases their natural healing, strength, speed, and reaction time.

Maybe the people of this city really don’t know that magic exists, and magic-wielding individuals are an enigma. Untoltelage finds that unlikely. But he also knows that making assumptions gets you killed. So he keeps his mind open.

The uniformed men looked up to see Untoltelage in the room with the military-police. One of the three men in uniform asks, “Where are the other survivors?”

One of the military-police guarding Untoltelage says, “They’re still driving here. Sir, this is the outsider we brought back for questioning.”

The three uniformed men murmur amongst themselves concerning Untoltelage. One of them thinks that he is too young to be an outsider or have access to magic. The one who spoke seems to think that his apparent young age might be an illusion. They soon turn back to Untoltelage and the military-police.

Two of the uniformed men leave and military-police with riot shield take their place beside the last remaining uniformed man. The man gestures for Untoltelage to take a seat and to answer some questions.

“Outsider, our scouts saw the tornado-conjuring‘ outsider flying towards us a few days before he arrived.” The uniformed man says, “Why did he attack the schoolhouse? Was he looking for you?”

“I don’t think he was looking for me. I don’t know why he would want to hunt me down or know where I was to begin with.” Untoltelage says, “I think he just wanted some easy targets to prove his superiority. But...um, why do you call me ‘outsider?’”

The uniformed man looks a little confused. “Hmm, well. You used magic against the flying outsider.” He says, “We thought you were from outside the city, where everyone is insane and wields magic. How did you learn magic?”

“I learned magic on my own. Everyone tells me that I don’t have magic, that magic isn’t real. But I think that they just don’t want to believe that it exists.” Untoltelage says, “Surely, you all harness magic as well?”

“Magic is dangerous. We try to limit the amount of people with access to magic.” The uniformed man says resolutely (resolute? What does that even mean). Then the man makes a face of concentration then looks back at Untoltelage and asks, “Where did you come from? Did you come from the outside or are you from this city?”

Ah, yes. Assumptions. These people wouldn’t last long outside of their city. They assumed that Untoltelage is not from the city because he has magic. They almost missed that Untoltelage’s words implies that he is from this city.

“Yes, I’ve lived in this city my entire life as far as I know. I’ll make this easy and just tell you, I have no idea where this flying tornado man came from. I think he just wanted to feel superior, a god among men.” Untoltelage says, “He clearly didn’t think through the implications of the…”

Something was wrong. It might have just his paranoia again, but Untoltelage felt like he was in an ambush.

“Um, are you going to continue?” The uniformed man asks.

“That depends on what I was talking about.” Untoltelage says, “I forgot.”

“You were talking about the flying outsider.”

“Outsider. He attacked the school. Are there any survivors?” Untoltelage asks. Untoltelage wells up with fear. There is something wrong about the situation. What was it the uniformed man had said about magic within the city? ‘Magic is dangerous. We try to limit the amount of people who have access to magic.’ How would they do that? Everyone has access to magic. There is no good way to prevent anyone from developing magic. All it takes is a few supernatural events and they will realize that the magic they feel is real. Then all it takes is to foster that power despite what everyone says.

Untoltelage remembers what they had said. The uniform man thought that he was one of the survivors. Why did he think they would bring one of the victims into their base?

But what had the military-police told him. Untoltelage wasn’t one of the survivors, but the survivors were on their way here anyway. They’re just kids. Why are they coming here? What do they need these kids for? Find out what they know. Get rid of them. They’re a liability. They could develop magic if they learn that magic is real. But Untoltelage knows that trauma can also provoke magic. It causes strong emotions: sadness, fear, anger. Untoltelage knows what that feels like.

Those survivors, they must be the yellow paperweights. They are not a current threat, not a current problem. But they have the potential to become such. But surely they wouldn’t kill them.

“Hello? Can you hear me, outsid-I mean, child?” The uniformed man says, “Hello?” He waves a hand in front Untoltelage’s eyes.

Finally, Untoltelage returns his mind to reality. He stands up and starts to leave.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

Untoltelage continues walking. His mind is blurry. He is too overwhelmed with emotions. Fear. Fear is the only emotion he is feeling right now.

Paranoia. Irrational fear. They might get rid of the kids, but Untoltelage has great experience when it comes to magic and combat. Sure, he’s out of most general pools of magic. He only has earth, water and plant magic remaining from the general magic pools. Well, body enhancement is also there, but that doesn’t really count. It’s just not flashy enough for him to consider it magic. Of the esoteric and abstract magic pools, there is still, shapeshift, time, teleport, shadow, soul, death. But those are problematic pools to produce. They require abstract thinking, which is difficult to do with a child’s mind.

So he is stuck with mostly earth, water and plant. Is he really thinking of breaking his way out of here? They purposefully led him through a maze of hallways so he couldn’t find his way back in or out.

Looks like it’s going to be a break through the wall to the outside. Or back inside. He doesn’t really know the direction to go to go away from the city.

Untoltelage walks to the doorway, but there are military-police in the way. They’re not going to budge. Well, Untoltelage doesn’t feel like asking them to move, so…

Might as well use what tiny amount of shapeshift magic he has. In single burst that completely drains his tiny pool of shapeshift magic, Untoltelage’s upper body becomes less solid. Not ethereal like a ghost, but more liquid. Well, not liquid. He doesn’t have enough magic for that, but it becomes more squishy, malleable.

He walks out, legs passing between the two military guards and upper body slipping between them past their grips and attempts to grapple, tackle or otherwise inhibit movement.

Untoltelage’s upper body snaps back into shape, solid again. The military-police and uniformed man are now really worried about Untoltelage’s behavior. The military police turn around and point their rifles at Untoltelage.

Untoltelage feels really out of sorts. It’s like he’s in shock. He’s moving without really knowing why. He has a vague idea about breaking out of the city. Though he can no longer remember why he wants to do this.

“Stop, we’ll shoot!” The military-police say nervously.

Untoltelage turns around to face them, but he trips and falls into the walls. Yes, into the wall. Yes, it is a smooth opening that gives just enough space for his body into. He doesn’t have a large pool of magic, but he specialized it in moving earth around his body. It’s not going to be useful as projectiles. But it can attach to his body or he can tunnel an opening for his body.

——

The three military guards that were pointing their guns at Untoltelage. He’s gone. He tripped and fell into the wall. One of them looks back at the uniformed man, as if he would ask what he should do. He doesn’t ask. He knows that there is no good answer.

Suddenly, the wall beside him splits apart. The soldier-guard points his gun at the rippling the stone wall. A hand pops out. He shoots at it, but the hands recoils back into the stone before it can be hurt. Then the body of a small child dives out low from the wall, crashing into his legs at about his knee level. The guard falls backwards. The child wrenches the gun out of his hands and runs away. Then he runs down the hallway out of sight.

The soldier can barely believe he is still alive. He knew outsiders were insane, but didn’t this kid say he grew up here in the city? What’s wrong with him? The soldier doesn’t know if he can believe anything that the child said. The kid was in a middle of conversation when he just snapped and walked out.

He’s been trained to take down outsiders, but this was something else. He hadn’t expected to fight a child, especially not one that had seemed quite civil at first.

But he knows now, he is glad that he is in this city without magic. He can’t imagine how people manage to survive outside where people are constantly attacking each other.

———

Untoltelage finds himself in a storage room. He is lost. He knew he would be lost. He has a gun. But he can’t tell if the safety is on or not. It shouldn’t be on, right? The soldier had just shot at him, right? It didn’t really matter. He should be threatening enough by being both a child that weakened a tornado into a funnel cloud, and is a wielded of both guns and magic. Hopefully, nobody realizes that the gun will be useless the moment in runs through the magazine.

Untoltelage doesn’t really know how to reload the gun or where to get more magazines of bullets. But that’s not important right now. Untoltelage’s main concern is escape. Escape? But where would he go?

It’s dark in here. The hallways are more rough and round. It really seems more like a tunnel to cave than a hallway to a military base in a wall.

Untoltelage passes through a doorway. He shouldn’t be scared. These people probably won’t be able to do much in combat against him. Sure, he’s run out of nearly all basic general magics except for plant and body. Both of which aren’t going to be as useful as he would want. Plant in a stone building in the city. Not really going to have much vegetation to work off of. Body enhancement of his nine-year-old body? He has a gap physical of improvement he has to pass before he can even be equal to the adult military, let along superior. So he might get a short burst of superior strength and speed. But it’s not going to be too useful.

Why did he leave? No time for questions. Too afraid. Irrational. They wouldn’t be able to kill him. Even if they did, why would it matter to him?

The walls seem to be closing in, but it is just his imagination. He thinks he sees lights in the distance, but he can never seem to find the source. Walks forwards, bumps into a wall. Is there a doorway here? He moves his hands along the wall trying to find his way around. Why isn’t this place lit? How is anyone supposed to find their way around?

He sits down curled up against a wall like the children hiding from the tornado. Now he knows why they do that. They don’t plan to escape alive, they just want everything to end as quickly as possible. They are trying to ignore what is happening. They try to close off the chaos and fear they feel, outside and inside.

What is wrong with him? Untoltelage shouldn’t fear anything. He has a gun for protection. He could make it out alive without magic, but he has that advantage even just to ensure his victory. Victory? Over what? He’s not winning anything or fighting against anyone. He just ran away in the middle of a conversation.