Manifold Mirror Mage

Viniculus tweaked the crystalline blood floating in front of him with a twirl of blackened mana. Sickly brown smoke rose from several branches of the jagged manifestation, filling the room with a metallic odor.

A bolt of pain shot through Gio's mind, shredding his thoughts of escape before they had a chance to form. He could only focus on the pain. It was like an invisible vice had clamped down on each blood vessel, holding each delicate artery with far too much force.

"If your intention was to try and weasel your way out of this, that's not happening." Viniculus scowled.

The pain lessened, but only just. Gio furrowed his brow in distaste, scowling at the man with the little control over his borrowed face that he had.

"You're not even trying. Focus. Let the pain ground you. You need to be present in this moment, ______." Viniculus instructed.

His borrowed body shuddered against his consciousness. The lanky limbs of his mentor's memory were completely at odds with his perception of himself. The ache that enveloped him throbbed in time with pulses of black magic, wresting control of his mana away from him. Gio fought against the sensation, his will fighting against the curse like two territorial snakes writhing against each other, all coiled muscle and fangs.

"Justification." Viniculus repeated.

Hot, acrid annoyance bristled into ember deep in Gio's core.

"That. Isn't. Helping!" He spat.

He bucked and brayed at the spell binding him, but Viniculus' hold was absolute. He was at a loss. He didn't know what justification he was supposed to be looking for. The Rule of the Sword taught that raw intention was an important part of spellcasting- maybe the most important part.

So what is this lesson supposed to be teaching me? Intent alone won't get me out of this situation. What "justification" do I need to not be cursed? Is it not enough that I don't want to be cursed?

Gio tried to feed his emotions to his mana, although he wasn't practiced in the art of emotional spellcasting like Chandrika. As a primarily logic-based spellcaster who only occasionally used his intuition to solve spellcasting problems, he failed to produce much of an emotional effect at all on his magic. He didn't hate this man, even as annoyed as he was getting. He didn't even know Viniculus. He did really want the pain to stop, however.

"You must belong to yourself." Viniculus said, interrupting Gio's thoughts.

Belong… what?

"This blood… this black blood of yours… I may have taken it from you, but it isn't mine. It runs through your veins. It is you." Viniculus said, his speech becoming impassioned.

Is… that what justification is supposed to mean? Some sort of… logical argument? I can work with that.

Straining against the pressure building behind his eyes, Gio's mind raced. This body was, in fact, not his. How was he meant to claim ownership of a body that he had only just been dropped into? Had his skill made some kind of mistake? More importantly, if he failed here, would he be injured in the real world?

Viniculus tapped a massive finger against the desk impatiently, his eyes searching Gio for a response of any kind.

"I had hoped that you would figure it out nice and quick.. It's no matter, we'll make time. Perhaps we won't be making it to the festival after all."

Okay… maybe I'm starting to hate him. Just a little.

Gio did try to use the Justification that Viniculus had provided, despite everything.

I am in control of this body.

Nothing.

There was no tug at the curse binding him. No reaction from his muscles. If anything, maybe the squeezing sensation might have gotten a little bit worse.

"Come on, Rat. How were you planning on defending yourself if one of your ghosties wanted to pilot you around like a meat suit? Is your body yours? Who gave it to you? Does it still belong to your daddy? How about your absentee mother?" Viniculus prodded.

A vile heat rose within Gio's stomach.

Hatred. I do hate him.

A venomous scowl crept over his face, and the shadows of the room began to deepen. Gio started to see faces in the dark.

"Do it." Viniculus snapped.

Suddenly, Gio had a thought.

This anger… This hatred… It came on too fast. I don't get angry this fast. What if it Isn't mine?

Gio tried to center himself, despite the thrum of foul enchantment upon him. He looked inwards, trying to remember his conditioning.

Inner calm. Silence. The simple power of mastery of your own mind.

He took a shaky breath in, allowing his eyes to unfocus, even though they were being held open against his will. He held the breath in place for ten seconds before breathing out.

The shadows began to retreat.

Viniculus stared at him, as if expecting something.

Gio thought calmly, and rationally.

I won't be able to use the justification he's telling me to use. This isn't my body. But… what If I tried the opposite of what he's suggesting?

Gio focused on the little bit of the curse that he could interact with, imagining a place where his mind met his spirit to control the latent magic within himself.

This is not my body.

While he wasn't a musclehead by any means, Gio made sure to do the 'recommended exercises for wellness' that Mister Guzheng had shown him a few times a week at least. The little muscle definition that he had was earned. This frail body did not belong to him.

This is not my pain.

Whatever illness or disability Baphelus was born with was not Gio's burden to bear. Although he certainly had sympathy for what it must have been like to grow up like this, Gio did not feel that he had a responsibility to bear this pain.

This is not my anger.

Gio grew up in a loving family. Although he had no prestige, or political power, or any secret legacy of curse magic to inherit, Gio wouldn't ever trade his loved ones for this. If this was the type of upbringing required to make a great wizard like Baphelus… Gio would rather accept his role as a commoner.

This is not my life.

It was just a small bit of slack, but Gio felt the curse lose hold of him, just a little. He repeated his justifications in his mind.

This is not my body. This is not my pain. This is not my anger. This is not my life.

With a great act of exertion, he squeezed his eyes shut, much to the displeasure of the curse holding him.

In the sanctuary of his own eyelids, Gio found it much easier to center himself. He repeated his justifications like a meditative mantra over and over, feeling his breath grow stronger bit by bit.

Breathe in, Breathe out.

He scoured himself, rooting out every last bit of foreign mana. Now that he could exert control over his mana, he chased the foul influence out of him, experiencing it clearly through the ghastly perception of his mana sense. It was a strange, web-like structure of pink and red hues that wrapped around the pale white and blue hues of mana native to Gio's body. As he scoured the last bit of outside mana from his ethereal body, he noticed the return of his mirror-mana reservoir from [Font of Mirrors] as well.

That's weird. I didn't even notice that my mirror mana was sealed until just now. I would have thought that I would have instantly noticed if such a large amount of mana was taken from me all at once.

At some point he managed to sink to the floor, sitting in a cross-legged position. He opened his eyes, shocked to look down and see normal, healthy arms. He felt at his face, realizing that he was back in his own body.

He looked across the classroom to find Viniculus, whose eyes were nearly bulging out of his head.

"I- I can explain." Gio said.

"You- he-.... No… no." Viniculus stammered.

Viniculus looked down at his hands.

"This… This isn't…" Viniculus began.

He continued staring at his hands..

"Congratulations, I suppose. You certainly figured it out. But, this isn't how it happened, was it?" Viniculus asked, seemingly to nobody in particular.

Gio scrunched his face in confusion.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"No." Replied a cold voice.

Viniculus looked straight through Gio.

A spectre of a bleeding young man melted out of the wall.

"Because when I refused to rise to your provocations, you pushed, didn't you?" a younger Baphelus coolly scowled.

"You were only hurting yourself by holding back. I wanted you to have an outlet for all of those negative feelings." Viniculus explained.

"But that wasn't necessarily true, was it? I never needed malice like the rest of you. It ate away at your pride, knowing that I was following my own path despite-"

"You were a sick child, rebelling against the world. Your necromany was impressive, but it was stymied by your refusal to use it offensively. You would have been the greatest geist-crafter of the modern era." Viniculus interrupted.

"But that's not what I wanted. I didn't want to be great. I wanted to be normal." Baphelus said.

"You were never meant to be normal. Nobody in our family was."

Gio watched as duplicate silhouettes of Viniculus and Baphelus emerged and played out the scene again. This time, instead of breaking free of the curse, Baphelus sank to the floor, erupting in a spew of black blood.

"This really was the beginning of the end for us, wasn't it?" Viniculus wistfully said, looking down at the memory.

"Yes." Baphelus replied.

"What justification did you end up using? You never told me, in the end." Viniculus asked.

"I rejected myself. I disowned my body. I disowned my family. I forfeited my life. It cost me the last dregs of my health." Baphelus said.

"...but it gave you an intense connection to the dead." Viniculus finished.

"Yes. The dead had always been able to show me things, but it wasn't until I truly gave up on my life that they began to speak to me in earnest."

"I never understood that. Why give up? Why not just unleash your anger on me? Or… if not me, then on the other children?" Viniculus asked.

"You mean the gutter-whelps that father paid to torture me?" Baphelus replied.

Viniculus looked shocked. "How? How could you have known? We cursed them to secrecy."

"Isn't it obvious? Many were orphans. You praised me for setting ghosts on the tall boy who led the pack… but in truth, his parents begged me to help him. Even as he beat me, I saw them over his shoulders. His mother's ghastly face weeping silent tears for the son that she never got to raise." Baphelus said.

The shadows in the room began to darken.

The vignette of Baphelus bleeding on the floor faded away. The shadows fell across Baphelus' face, and his gaunt flesh started to sag. His cheeks became hollow, as his hair grew down to his shoulders. His robes became tattered, and a cane appeared in his hand. He aged instantly, looking far older. This version of Baphelus looked ragged and haunted, with an eerie light behind his eyes.

"I found that boy again." Baphelus said.

Viniculus could only stare, mouth open.

"Down below, in the sewers. You never got to see it, did you? The place that the church disposed of-" Baphelus abruptly cut himself off.

He turned to Gio.

"Wait. Who are…you?"

The memory of Baphelus faded into grey mist.

The room began to lose form slowly, starting at the door. Already, the handle had faded into a vague outline of a shape. Outside, the sun blinked out of existence, leaving a dark night sky, and the sound of chirping insects. The room plunged into total darkness.

Gio was startled by the sound of a striking match.

A large hand lifted the match to a shoddy lantern. It's light revealed Viniculus, older and somehow both more haggard yet also more powerful. He wore a black robe, with the hood up, revealing only his face with a greying goatee and moustache.

"Walk with me, Gio." He said.

He held the lantern up, revealing a path in between tall, dark trees.

"You… know me?" Gio asked, walking alongside him.

"Hmmm… I know that you were brought here to learn from me. I know that you are the disciple of the one who would become known as Saint Baphelus the Lamplighter. And perhaps most importantly, I know that our time together is drawing to a rapid close." Viniculus replied.

"Are you real?" Gio asked.

Viniculus laughed. It was a far cry from his earlier boisterous belly laugh. It was a beaten, weary chortle, the kind one might expect to hear in response to a joke made at a funeral.

"I suspect you already know the answer to that, Giorgio. Enough about me. This is about you. What did you learn?"

"Justification… is a reason. It's like an argument you can consciously make to enforce your spellcasting." Gio answered.

"Interesting that you chose the word 'consciously'. Could you not make an unconscious determination about your justifications?" Viniculus asked.

"I… yeah, I think that sounds entirely possible," Gio answered.

"It's a lot more than possible, Gio. It happens all the time. Have you ever heard of a "limiting belief?" Viniculus replied.

"If it's just what it sounds like, is it just a belief that makes you limit yourself?" Gio replied.

"Indeed, it is. You see, as we live, we develop all of these preconceptions about ourselves. Many of them are rooted in experiences, both the bad and the good. You may come to understand that you are good at certain things, which causes you to project an air of confidence in domains of which you have attained mastery. Likewise, when you fail badly at something, you begin to see yourself as a failure. Even if you are ignorant to the possibility of this principle, you can still be affected by these inherent biases. A mage, swordsman, candlemaker, or even a dancer can fall victim to these faulty justifications." Viniculus explained.

"That makes sense… but why was this lesson given to me now? I was looking at a spell that I was making good progress on. I don't think that I was doubting myself." Gio said.

"Well… the world itself can make its own justifications." Viniculus said.

Gio furrowed his brows.

"It's a subject of endless research, the likes of which we don't have enough time to talk about in depth. There's a lot of history to the world. There's certain magics that are rareified- things that don't happen accidentally. The spell you're working on might be one of those things, or perhaps it might have the possibility to become something similar." Viniculus explained.

"But… how would I have possibly known that? I only started delving deeper because I felt something distinctly wrong with the spellform… but I don't think I'd have ever stumbled across this "Justification" lesson on my own. How did my skill know to show me this?" Gio asked.

The lantern cast long shapes across the trees. The path underfoot was a thin carpet of moss growing on packed dirt. Gio could barely smell the scent of fresh rainfall, and a hint of something that almost smelled like fresh bread.

"You've learned the Rule of the Sword, so you know that the world respects intention, and craves stories. What we call "Justification" has also been called "The Rule of Entitlement." To put it plainly, the Rule of Entitlement states that we must provide a reason for being. By virtue of raw willpower, birthright, logical claim or an acted feat, provide substantial justification in order to be entitled to cast magic." Viniculus spoke.

"The Rule of Entitlement… so is this another Vulgarity, then?" Gio asked.

"Some have called it that, yes. Like the Rule of the Sword, there is not much of a danger present in learning this rule, but it does change you irrevocably. The more that you become aware of this rule, the more you will begin to see the justifications present around you. At a certain point, you will begin to understand small intricacies of these so-called "entitlements" in your daily life." Viniculus said.

The trees opened up, revealing a boulevard of row-houses lit by colorful glass lanterns, similar in style to the one that Viniculus was holding. Gio could now smell the fresh bread more clearly, and it was beginning to make his mouth water.

"For example, there's a bit of entitlement present in being a good customer at your favorite restaurant. You provide legal tender for a service, and you expect a level of fair treatment. You continue to return to that restaurant because of the food and the service rendered. They want you to return because they value your business. This relationship is the basis for a very loose and informal magical relationship… but there is always a spark of something in it. If soured, such a relationship can become a foul and acrimonious hostility, but it can also blossom into a lifelong friendship. I myself was a regular at this establishment." Viniculus said.

They came to a halt at a building that had outdoor seating, at which a slew of faceless patrons sat, eating formless meals. They blurred into each other as a half-forgotten crowd.

A blurry woman standing by a server's podium greeted Viniculus. The only features that she seemed to have were a bright pair of artificially red lips and a rather… curvaceous form. She greeted Viniculus wordlessly, leading them to an empty table.

"Forgive me… As a memory myself, I find that I don't have many details left to draw from." He said.

"So we're in… your memory? How is that possible?" Gio asked, face alit with surprise.

"Because I'm a teacher. I took a system-sponsored teaching profession in one of my bonus slots in order to teach your mentor that lesson. It's not the strongest justification, but I suppose it was enough to grab us a few extra moments." He said.

"But… you're dead. You shouldn't be able to-"

Viniculus gently clapped a hand across Gio's mouth.

"Don't go cutting down our time any more than it already is. I'd like for the food to get here before- ah, there it is!" Viniculus said, his eyes gleefully set on the food that the formless waitress had set in front of them.

The food was perhaps the most clear thing in the building. Even Viniculus had begun to lose his form, but the flatbread, cheese, and small pastries set in front of him were positively pristine with detail. The smell of spices was intoxicating to Gio.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Dig in!" Viniculus shouted.

"This isn't like… some sort of trap, right?" Gio asked.

"Hmmm… good instincts. This time, it isn't. But there are many such cases where I'd advise against eating free food in precarious magical circumstances. This time, you can think of it as… a foolish whim from an old spook." Viniculus said, already breaking open a pastry that looked to be full of cheese and some sort of leafy green.

Gio looked down at the banquet set in front of him.

"Well, If this is a trap, I guess I'm gullible." Gio said.

He bit into one of the pastries, shocked at how flavorful it was. The cheese was salty yet mild, and the finely chopped greens provided just the right amount of texture to balance out the smoothness of the cheese. The pastry was also pleasantly flaky without falling apart at a touch.

"Guuugh," Gio groaned in pleasure.

"Couldn't say it better if I tried."

They both ravenously dug into the food. A small glass of something came afterwards, but Viniculus claimed that he didn't think that he remembered the taste quite right at all, so they both passed on it.

"There are some things you should know." Viniculus said, picking leafy greens out of his teeth.

"Okay." Gio tentatively said.

"This version of me… is the best possible version of me. The real me would probably have tried to interfere with you somehow. I say this only to tell you that this should be the last time we meet. I don't know the extent of your tutelage under… him, but if you are a student of necromancy, you should leave me to my rest." Viniculus said.

"I'm not a necromancer… but I understand." Gio said.

"Secondly… be careful how you use this lesson. There are strange forces in the world who can twist the Rule of Entitlement to their whims because of strange pacts and old magic… In my day, we referred to these forces as "kindly ones", but they may go by a different name now, if they persist at all."

"Kindly… I think I might have some idea of what you might be talking about." Gio answered.

Viniculus twirled the glass of clear, vague liquid in his hand. He looked off into the distance.

Gio watched with him, looking at the lights down the road beginning to blink out one by one.

"And lastly… If I could be so bold…" Viniculus began.

The dim light above their seat began to dull. The restaurant had lost much of it's definition, becoming one big multicolored blur.

Viniculus regarded Gio for one last time, before looking off into the blurry distance once again.

"Nevermind. I lost the privilege of regret a long time ago. Live well, Gio." Viniculus said.

And the memory faded out.