Midas Journal 15

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Wow! It's been a long time since I wrote anything for this one, to such an extent I think I've seen a few comments assuming I never would get around to it. Truth is, this was started a very long time ago and very, very slowly written with a large amount of writer's block thrown in my way repeatedly as it went. But of course, the last more-than-half of it came out all at once, as usual with that sort of thing.

Anyway, here's to maybe not taking so long to make #16, eh? As usual, ideas are appreciated.

Entry: April 27

After all the stuff that happened on Friday, I had an idea. Well, it was really more like a thought. Okay, long story short, it occurred to me that Rio keeps telling me she's an apprentice witch and in all the time she's been trying to help me learn about and control my powers she hasn't once suggested I talk to whoever the master witch, or I guess wizard, is. So yesterday I decided to confront her about that.

First thing I did was ask her to meet with me at the coffee place again. I'm guessing she didn't want to discuss her being a witch in school with a bunch of muggles or whatever. Once we were there, she said, "So what's this about? Anything new happen?"
"..Sort of. I don't know anything new about my power, but I wanted to ask you something."
"Okay. Shoot."
"You're an apprentice, right?"
"Yeah." She nodded. I could sort of tell she knew where this was going, but wasn't about to try and stop me either.

"So..does that mean you have a master? Like, someone who's already a full-fledged..mage? Wizard? What is the right term?"
"Witch if female, wizard if male, so in this case witch. And yes, I study with her on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other weekend."

"Okay. So have you ever mentioned me to her? Or, like, asked an awkward hypothetical question about someone with reality-warping powers?"

"No, I haven't."
"Well..why not? I mean, am I in some kind of danger of a wizard society killing me or something if they find out about what I can do?"
"No no, nothing like that. Witches and wizards are the academics of the magic world, Kael. They...er, I should say we are about as likely to try to arrest or kill you as a chemistry professor is a businessman. Even if some witch or wizard did dislike your powers for some reason, they'd know better than to try attacking you."

"So why haven't you told her anything about me, then? It seems like someone with more knowledge and experience or whatever would be able to help me more, right?"
"Hm..maybe. I mean, I've done my research, and there are pretty much no records about a power like yours. But..I didn't really want you to have to deal with her."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, my master is..the kind of mentor who's always pushing you as far as she can, even when you're pounding your head against the wall. It's..effective, but kind of harrowing. I'm used to it since I've technically been her student for so long, but I wouldn't want anyone to have to deal with her if they don't have to. In addition to that I don't know exactly how she'd react to someone with as much power as you have, and as odd a power as yours. She might want to experiment with it, learn what makes it tick or something, and..well, I trust her, okay, but I'm scared she might poke something that shouldn't be poked. I guess I should have asked you anyway, though..sorry."

"It's fine. I probably wouldn't have wanted to deal with that, either. But I think I'm kind of desperate now. Um..you know how I turn into a girl to go shopping with Lue sometimes?"

"Yeah, sure. It's good practice, isn't it?"
"Well..yes, but the other day I was doing that and I saw a guy, and..well, I don't know exactly how to say this but I...almost lost my mind for a minute or two. I know it's normal for me as a girl to be attracted to guys, and I was kind of used to that in general, but this was kind of extreme. And nothing like that's ever happened to me as a guy, so I'm worried it might be something to do with the way my power makes the female me. And I'm worried if it did that to me, it could do it to other people I've changed, which is even worse, since I have no idea how to stop that from happening when I change people, or how to tell whether or not I did with someone." I didn't want to mention that Lue was playing matchmaker at the time. We'd figured that out between the two of us. "So if there's some other way to make my power easier to control, well, I want to at least try it."

"Okay," Rio said. "If you're sure, I could take you with me tomorrow after school and introduce you. Are you sure?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "I mean, if she does something I really don't like I don't have to come see her again, right?"

"Of course."
"Err, I mean I don't want to make things difficult for you, but she isn't going to harass you about it if I don't come back, right?"
"I don't think so. She's more reasonable than that. Even if curiosity got the best of her she'd snap out of it in a few days or so."

So today after school I followed Rio to her witch-mentor-person's place. I think we went in a circle at one point, but at the end of it we were in a different place, probably some kind of hiding-stuff magic. Anyway, it was a huge freaking manor. I was glad Rio knew where to go once we got inside because I thought I could've gotten lost in there.

We went up a couple of flights of stairs and eventually went through some doors to a big, nearly empty room with chairs along the sides. There were some kind of symbols all over the floor and ceiling and walls, magic symbols I guess. And at the other end of the room, looking out the window, was this tall woman in jeans and a sweater, but also a ridiculously giant black conical hat.

“Rio. You brought a visitor,” she said, turning around to look at us. “Do you want to introduce us?”

“Uh, this is my friend Kael.” She sounded a little nervous, which is weird, because I don't ever remember Rio being very nervous about much of anything. “Kael, this is my teacher, Threa.” (She told me the spelling later, it's pronounced like “thray-uh”.)

She nodded. “Good to meet you, Kael. Rio, would you mind just doing your usual exercises for a while in the other room while I help your friend out?”

“Not at all,” she said, nodding, and then left.

Threa walked up to me, looking at me the whole time. It wasn't straight-up staring, more kind of an analytical look, like the way an art critic looks at a painting. Once she was pretty close, she said, “Now, Rio explained some of your situation over the phone, but it might be easier to understand the details from the horse's mouth so to speak. Would you go over it with me?”
So I started explaining everything I knew about my power again.

A couple of minutes in, she said, “Hold on a moment,” and kicked the floor a couple of times. Two chairs rose up out of the floor like it was being brought up on an elevator. She took one of them, and waved at the other. “Take a seat, if you like,”
“Uh, sure.” And I went on with the rest of the explanation, her nodding occasionally the whole time.

It ended with me saying something like, “..and that's why I'm here.”

“Well,” said Threa, “before I get into the rest of it, have you considered that you might not simply be attracted to that person more than you are most girls—or boys, when you're female?”

I shrugged. “I mean, I might be, but it seems like such a fluke for that to have only happened once.”

“I suppose so. But suppose you tried speaking to that person with your genders reversed? You have the means to do it, and it would likely decide your suspicions more definitely.”
“Yeah..but I don't really want to do that to him, is all,” I said.

“You might try explaining the situation and asking whether he'd be willing to test your theory. But enough of such personal matters.”

“It really isn't all that unusual for sufficiently high-level powers to come coupled with highly inconvenient rules—for example, the power to turn things to gold by touching them might come with an inability to turn the power off for anything. Yours, of course, is of an even higher level than that. But when it comes to controlling the power further than you've learned to already, it may help to re-frame what you want to do as actions within the rules themselves.”

“Um..okay,” I said, obviously not getting it.

“A concrete example should help,” she said. “You mentioned that your power seems to be able to grant you any changes to appearance, even changing you from human to various magical people, complete with the powers inherent, such as becoming a werewolf with the ability to actually shift forms.”
“Right, but only if I stay a girl.”
“Yes. And it seems like your power could even incorporate, into a female form, any power you might imagine that makes enough sense to you yourself, since your power reads in some way from your own mind.”
“Right..”
“That being the case, you should be able to get around the restriction of only adding powers or changing the appearance of your female form, by giving yourself a female form with the power to become a male version of that form, complete with any magical race the female form is, and any powers you've added to it.”

“..Oh. That's...wow.”

Threa nodded. “I may be wrong, but if you are correct about your power's rules, they don't actually prevent you from doing that. It's worth testing, at least. But..you can do that on your own later. For the moment, I would like to test a few traits and rules I suspect your power might also have.”

“Okay..like what?”
“Hm...well, if you wouldn't mind standing up, I can show you my first test. It ought to be quite harmless, but it will tell me slightly more if I don't immediately tell you what it's for.”
“Sure.” We both stood up, and the chairs sank back into the floor again. That was still weird.

“Now, I am going to attempt to cast a spell on you. Tell me if you notice anything at all.”

Threa made some motions with her hands, which made them glow, and then pointed at me, which made the glow disappear again. For a few seconds, I didn't notice anything; then I did.

“Um..I have some kind of weird feeling like something's pushing at me, trying to get in,” I said, “but not making it.”

She nodded. “Could you let it in, if you wanted?”

“I..think so,” I said.

“Please do, then.”

I tried to tell my body to let whatever was pushing at me in. As soon as I did, I started to feel a lot of direct, physical pushing, nearly everywhere. “Whoa--!” It was worst at my stomach, arms and legs, and pretty soon I noticed that it was actually doing something—I was shrinking again! My body was getting thinner, and Threa was starting to look even taller than she did before. “Aah—ow.” My voice was starting to move up in pitch, and now the uncomfortable pushing had started in my private parts, too. My clothes started to change, my underwear quickly turning into a pair of panties while my pants spread out into a skirt and stockings, my shirt getting tighter and a bra appearing under it. I could feel my hair making its way down my back and onto my shoulders, and then the pushing finally started to ease off. When the pressure released from between my legs, I could tell I was already a girl. “Aa-aack!” I yelled slightly in surprise, in girl-me's voice, at another sudden, uncomfortable feeling. It was like something had grabbed my hips and chest, and was pulling out at them. I could feel my center of balance moving, and the weight on my chest, and after a few seconds the material of the bra up against the growing breasts, and then, as suddenly as the pulling had started, it stopped.

I noticed that I was panting and sweating slightly. “Ugh..your spell turned me into a girl?” I said.

Threa nodded. “It was a fairly standard sex-change spell, almost as comfortable as one can get. Potions are generally considered the most pleasant way of doing that, but I needed to use a spell for the test.”
“You..wanted to see if my power would stop your spell from transforming me?” I said.
She smiled, and nodded again. “Yes. You're very clever. And, it would appear that indeed it did. Very impressive, I must say, considering the amount of power I put into the spell, along with the amplification runes around this room that normally make my spells even more powerful. To a person with a powerful magic shield active that would have been difficult to repel, but you only felt it as a slight push. So your power likely includes an effective immunity to any outside attempts at changing your appearance.”

“Well, that's good,” I said. At least I wouldn't have to worry about being turned into a girl against my will. Or anything else for that matter, like a frog or rat.

“Now, I wonder—can you change yourself back from a form I've imposed, having accepted that form?”

“I'll try it,” I said, and gently prodded my shoulder with a finger, telling my body to turn back to normal. Immediately I started to feel my chest tightening, and the rest of my body loosening, and I grew back into male Kael within a few seconds. “Apparently, yes.”
“I suspected as much, but it is interesting what I saw happen,” said Threa. “The spell I cast was a temporary polymorph—meaning that a normal person's magic would eventually return them to normal anyway. There are immensely stronger, more difficult spells that actually alter the 'template' one's body uses to 'return to normal' from polymorph spells, but I'm reasonably sure anyone as totally immune to the latter as you are ought to be immune to the former, as well. Your power might have accelerated the usual process to return you to normal—that would be the way to spend the least energy on changing you back. But instead, it appears that it actually rewrote your body's state in reality to be as if you had always been the form I changed you into, and then rewrote it again to return you to your usual state.”
“So you're saying my power actually thinks it's easier to warp reality instead of working inside of it?”

“That would be a reasonable hypothesis,” said Threa, “though I wouldn't go so far as to personify the behavior. It's more that it always takes a path of least resistance, like most things in nature and magic, but it just so happens that what it considers 'least resistance' is changing reality from one state to another, rather than directly interacting with any other magic at all.”

“That's...kind of scary,” I said.

“Well, it need not be, but I'm glad you have that attitude, rather than its opposite,” said Threa. “You shouldn't be afraid of what you can do, as long as you are fairly able to control it. Just don't let it go to your head. I imagine if you abused your power, it still would not be able to prevent you from being killed by its victims in one way or another.”
“Y-yeah, I really don't want to abuse it at all, vengeance or not. I'm worried I already have, though.”
“Has anyone you've changed indicated as much?”
“Well, no, but what if they just don't know that I did something wrong? Like, it took away whatever parts of them didn't like the other things it did to them?”

“I suppose that is possible, but it seems unlikely. If a person disliked the idea of the changes your power made to them deep down, then they would behave completely differently as a result of that deep change, right?”

“Yeah.”
“So if the people you knew both before and after the change profess to be perfectly happy, and any differences in how they act now compared to before can be attributed to something other than the surgical removal of a dislike of your changes from their mind, then you must conclude that at least with them, you've done nothing wrong.”

“That...makes sense, I guess.”
“It would be logical to extrapolate to the ones you did not know before as well, since your power likely behaves about the same among all instances of your accidentally changing people. All the same, if you want to be absolutely certain...” She thought about it for a few seconds. “I suppose, with the control you have over it now, you could order your power to return them to the exact pre-change mental state, along with memories of the intervening time, and ask whether they feel any differently about the change itself. You would not even need to alter their bodies to do so, but it would be wise all the same to ask permission first, and do it somewhere private and sufficiently safe, since the difference between their old and new mental states would naturally include at least bodily coordination.”

“Yeah. I might do that with..at least a couple of them.”

She nodded again, and smiled slightly. “All right. I cannot think of any more tests for the moment, unless you can?”
“Uh, not really.”
“Then I should probably get to training my apprentice. She's probably tired of those exercises by now. Just let her know if you want to speak with me again.” She'd started walking out of the room, and I ran after her.

“Hooold on a sec!” She stopped so I could catch up.

“Hm?”
“I, uh, don't actually know how to get out.”

“Oh, sorry. The layout is magically determined. Just keep turning right and thinking about wanting to get out, and the front door should be in front of you soon.”

“...Is there anything about this house that isn't ridiculously magical?”

“Hmm. I've never had it posed that way, but I suppose there isn't. At least, I am hard-pressed to come up with examples.”

The directions worked, somehow, and I left for home. Later, like a few minutes before I started writing this, I decided to try the loophole. I turned myself into Kayla first, and then I tried to give myself the power to shift between being Kayla and Kael, complete with clothes, and then I tried to use that power. It worked, and changing back and forth feels exactly the same as when I use my actual power to change. This is convenient, at least, but I decided to test the rest of idea by turning myself into a kitsune like Adena while Kael, and my power insisted on turning me back into Kayla first. My fur is black like my hair, but with white tips to it. I was still able to shift back and forth, though, and keep the fox tail.

I'm still guy-kitsune-Kael right now, and having a tail is kind of weird. I only had one one other time, and it was the cat tail I had for like two seconds while testing the fact that I could actually change myself to have one in the first place. This one is really soft and fluffy, which is nice, but at the same time it feels weird touching it with my hands because I'm not used to anything that fuzzy also having feeling on the inside, like, being a part of my body. I'm going to get rid of it before I go to sleep, I think.