by Bob Dattolo
“Okay, so a dollar each?”
She laughed again, “A dollar…no. I’m sure your friends said this; it can be a discount, but needs to be a real value. I will think on it and let you know what may work.”
“What about the process that I used? Should I tell the others? I don’t know, I feel like if people know about the stacking thing, it’ll result in mayhem as it gets out. There’s no way people won’t tell their family. Then they’ll either horde it and crush others or hand it out. I don’t see it not resulting in deaths sooner rather than later.”
She stared at the ring in her hand, “Excellent. I’m happy to see that you’re thinking through possible repercussions. My recommendation? Do not share that information with others. I know the temptation will be there, but please try to hold off. In some cases, sometimes it is best not to spread information that makes mass deaths not only possible, but likely.”
I had a feeling she’d feel that way. “Thank you. That’s the way I was leaning, but wanted to get your thoughts first.”
She handed me back the ring, “Hold onto this for now? And…what will you do with the mid-stream rings when you have the ones you want?”
I shrugged and slid the ring back on. “Possibly hide some away somewhere, but destroy the others. Or at least wipe out the spells. I don’t want 40 powerful rings to be floating around out there even if they’re all keyed to just the two of us.”
She smiled wide, “Sometimes I am impressed at how some people entrusted with power have good heads on their shoulders. You impress me yet again, daughter-mine.”
“Thank you. I should get back. I…I love you.”
Her tears came on suddenly and she leaned through the portal to clasp me. “And I love you as well. Please be safe. Keep this information close and do not let it spread.”
“I will. I miss you.”
She pulled away and wiped my tears, “And I you. We can see each other daily and you’re down to less than two weeks until your birthday. Hold steady, and we can spend the entire weekend together before you have to return for classes.”
“Thank you. I will. Be safe.”
“I will try.”
The portal closed as I pulled power away from it, leaving me sitting in the woods trying not to cry more. It nearly hurt to tell her that I loved her, but I meant it with everything in me. Everything. I’d give up the power I’m developing to be with her. All of it.
Except I can’t do that. That just means that I’ll get her and the power, so I have to make the best of what I’m hoping is a pretty cool situation. God, I hope so. I can’t imagine her being like my parents, but for years I couldn’t imagine them being like that either.
Back in my room, I let everyone know her thoughts. They were just about as upset as you can imagine by my inability to tell them what I did, but happy that I could make them something. Hopefully. Now they just need to figure out what they’d want, and I can go from there and figure out a cost.
Once everyone was asleep, I pulled my rings back out and went to town on everything, growing each iteration stronger and stronger, finally running out of rings and needing to wipe out the weakest to keep going.
In the end, after less than three hours of effort, I held two rings that hold a charm of magical multiplication of 1,000 percent. The book only talks about charms up to a certain level and never mentioned anything like this. This means that a spell that would take full power can be done with 10 percent of the same power. Or even slightly less. That’s a heady thought, especially given what I’ve managed on my own. Plus, I have literal handfuls of other rings that are crazy powerful. More than 30 of them at 100 percent or stronger. That’s crazy.
I debated what to do about them before removing some of the middle levels of power, leaving those on the lower and higher end. Granted, I only had 11 other rings available, but that still leaves me with metric buttloads of powerful rings to play with since I didn’t have to wipe out all that many to make sure I had clear rings. The others went into my drawer, and I hit it with every protective spell that I can think of, even trying to make some up on the fly.
I’m not sure if they work, but I’m okay with that. For now. Maybe Mom has a way to protect them once our relationship is official.
Thursday had a quiz of the latest chapters Mr. Darvel wanted me to learn, and I’m ecstatic that I passed. Everyone helped me study this time, but that only earned me another four chapters.
Magics class became a bit awkward when Mr. Reynolds had us start working on our charms. He let his magic out mid-stream talking to us and I didn’t realize he was testing my rings until he stopped talking and had problems swallowing. It took him a minute to continue, and he finished soon afterwards with instructions to begin our efforts.
When he nodded at me, I took that as a request to see him at his desk.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from my hands. He didn’t even wait for me to sit, “Did you somehow go home yesterday and create more powerful rings? More than 1000 percent?”
“Uhh, yeah? I did. I talked to Mom and she doesn’t want me sharing what I did or that I have these, so…I hate to ask, but can you keep this secret?”
He gathered himself together and nodded, “Knowing who your mother is? Of course I can! You don’t get to be as old as I am without knowing who not to anger. I certainly don’t want to push either of you towards that.” His eyes glinted, “Do you, by chance, have the originals from yesterday still?”
“Yeah? I kept them in case they ever come in handy.”
“If you’re able to adjust who can access them and are willing to sell one or both? I’d be willing to purchase them and even pay a premium.”
“I’d have to check with Mom first?”
“By all means.” He nodded, “Now, what do you intend to try and make today?”
“I’m not sure? My classmates want me to make things for them to buy, but none of them have told me what they’re interested in.”
“My recommendation? Don’t allow others to pass on how strong you can make your charms. Or how easily. You will never get a night’s rest if that gets out.”
“Thank you. I’ll try. My mom had the same sort of thoughts. People would come out of the woodwork after me.”
“They will. Until you smack enough down to make the other sit up and take notice.” He studied me for a minute, “That being said, many of your friends are on the stronger side of their shifter powers. Your mage friends vary, but strength in mages is different. My recommendation to you is to shore up your weakest link when it comes to strength.”
I thought through the possibilities, “Umm, I’m not sure who that’d be? Paul, maybe?”
He shook his head, “Rachel.”
That didn’t make sense to me, “What do you mean? She’s a vampire. She’s iffy on what she can do, but everyone tells me that she’s stronger than the shifters?”
He shrugged, “Between the races like that? Yes, she’s stronger than they are. But within vampires she’s only eight months old. Vampires start at a certain point and then get stronger with age. She is not as weak as she could be, but she’s not nearly as powerful as the strongest one her age I’ve ever encountered. If she’s stronger, then older vampires have more of a problem forcing her. At some point, she will be out of school and on her own, and she’ll encounter more vampires that do not have her best interest at heart. If she had more strength to back her, then she’d have a better chance of standing on her own without someone going after her or hurting her.”
I growled at that image, “So one of strength?”
His eyes twinkled, “Well, not quite. You see, a ring of strength will help her physical strength, but it won’t help her vampire strength. While they overlap, her vampire strength covers more ground. I have a spell here that covers vampire strength. Take a look and see what you can do? Even a 10 percent increase will help tremendously.”
He pulled out an old looking book and flipped pages until turning it towards me, showing me a hand-
written spell that covers what he mentioned.
Huh, based on what it says, vampire strength is a lot more than just physical strength. It covers her ability to last without blood. Her ability to capture with her eyes. Then another huge list of things beneath it. When he said it overlaps, it only overlaps in one category, and a regular strength spell would have left a lot not accounted for. It would have helped, just not as much as I would have hoped.
He let me wander back to my desk, where I settled into my seat and concentrated on the book. Overall, the items seem pretty standard. At least once they’re spelled out for me. It’s funny, the common idea seems to be that charm spells can only cover one thing, but this is proof right here that it’s not the case. Not really. Same for the fact that I put a restriction of who can use the rings on them. Yet another example of how you can wrap more spells around things than just one. That’s interesting. Very interesting.
As I studied the ring I chose for this, I debated trying to add to the overall spell for Rachel. I’d love to see her accepting of what she is, but that could open a can of worms and she goes off the deep end. That’s not quite the best approach to things.
In the end, I decided to try to add two things to the list. The first is to make it harder for her to be sucked up by other vampires. The eye thing works on weaker vampires, too, so I figured it can’t hurt to make that harder to do. The other is to see if I can make her harder to hurt. That one’s a little more nebulous, but I figured being harder to injure has got to be a good thing.
Holding everything in mind was harder to do than I expected, but it still flowed well as I felt everything connect to the ring in my hand. I let the minutes pass as I kept up the stream of power, pushing at full strength while also using both of my multiplier rings. This should be interesting. It makes me wonder what exactly will happen. If you can create one level of spell with your full power, that’s a known thing. If you use a spell like the one I have, that means that you can create the same level of output with 10 percent of the input. What happens when you use your full power? Do you get 10 times the result? How about if you use two rings that reduce the same level each?
It's a heady thought, but I didn’t let that distract me as the charm came into being in my mind. It’s interesting, but this one can be seen just a little, whereas the others that I’ve made can’t. At least not like this. I can somehow see the facets of the spell as they’re going into place, and it makes me think that I can adjust on the fly or tweak, maybe. I ended up doing just that as I added limitations on who can use it and making it possible for me to change who can access the ring.
And no, I made it so only I could do that. Not Rachel.
Why? I’m not really sure. Maybe to make sure she has to come to me for that? It probably doesn’t help that I tossed in that no one but either of us could take it off of her. And only my mother could take it off of me. Why am I including Mom on everything? Because she’s an ancient fey with strong enough power that people are in awe of her. I’d feel like an idiot if she needed something I created and couldn’t access it.
Mr. Reynolds called our attention, pulling us from our efforts one by one.
Armand looked decently pleased as he looked at the necklace in his hand. Carl and Zach had a perplexed look. Nick and Christine looked mildly upset.
“Now,” Mr. Reynolds said, “given the varied looks on your faces, let’s go around the room starting with those that look the most upset. Christine? What can you tell us about your attempt?”
She groaned and fingered the ring on her desk, sliding it a few inches, “I just couldn’t connect! I felt like I was close, but it just wasn’t jumping over.”
Our teacher nodded, “I see. Nick?”
He shrugged, “Same sort of thing? Just not to that level? I don’t feel like I was almost connecting. It felt like it wanted to work, I just wasn’t getting it done.”
Magic flowed out of our teacher, touched their items, and then pulled back. “You’re both right, neither of your charms took. Your error could have been any number of things. For tonight, try it again in your rooms. Just don’t try quite so hard. I know that’s an oxymoron, but I think that may help each of you.”
They nodded and slumped a little as our teacher turned to the others, “Now, Carl?”
Carl held up the necklace, “I think it took? I was trying to make a charm of luck.”
“Luck? That’s a good first attempt. Let’s test it together and see what you have.”
They both fell silent as they worked through testing it, with only Mr. Reynolds saying something periodically to direct the flow of magic from Carl. When the magic pulled back, Carl looked even happier.
“There we go. A successful first attempt to create a necklace of luck.” He looked to us, “Your excited classmate was able to create a necklace of luck with a low-level charm on it. Very low, but still a successful charm! With more time and attention, he can improve it.”
He turned to Zach, “And you, Zach?”
Zach held up the ring from his desk, “I tried for a charm of…umm, virility.”
The class laughed at that. “I see.” Our teacher said, “Shockingly enough, that is not the first or even the 100th time I’ve seen that particular charm. Especially when magic users spend a lot of time with shifters and vampires.” He waited for the good-natured talk to end between us and smiled at Zach, “All right, let’s test it?”
More time passed and it left Zach smiling wider, “Okay, so it worked?”
“It did,” our teacher agreed, “although it’s weak. Still functional, and I would say it should allow for one more erection. Although maybe not every time. Again, concentration and time will help.”
Zach smiled wider as he put the ring on. Now I’m wondering what he’s going to be doing with that extra erection. Or who, I should say.
“Now, Armand? What did you work on?”
Armand held up the necklace he’d been cradling, “I wanted to create a charm of memory.”
Mr. Reynolds cocked his head, “That’s an odd spell for a student to try first. Can I ask why?”
He turned a little red, “My grandmother? She’s up there and having issues with her memory. We all think it’s just old age since she’s so old, but I wanted to help her. She was so vibrant when I was little. Now it’s fading.”
“That’s an admirable goal. Now let’s see if it was successful.”
They poked and prodded for a few minutes before coming back to the room, “Very nice work. We had about an hour and you managed to create a decently powerful charm in that time. That should help her in the short-run while you attempt to make the spell stronger with more time focused on it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. I’ll do that.”
Every eye turned to me and I blushed, “Oh give it up, Ceri. What’d you do over there?” Christine asked.
“Umm, I attempted to create a charm of vampire strength for Rachel.”
Armand oohed, “Huh, how’d you do?”
“I’m not sure?”
“Let’s test, shall we?”
Power flowed at me from every direction, letting me now that my friends were testing it as well. Ten minutes later, the room was filled with cursing.
“What the fuck is that?” Zach asked.
“Seriously?” Carl said, “I can’t compete with something like that!”
Mr. Reynolds held up his hands, getting silence from everyone, “Now now, it’s not a competition. Granted, what Ceri created is, by no means, normal, she did create it.”
“400 percent?” Christine asked. “How did she do that in an hour? We all had the same time, and she managed that?”
“I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”
Zach caught me in a hug before the tears could start. “You didn’t upset us. It’s just shocking. You do you, okay?”
“You guys aren’t upset?”
“No, we’re not upset.” Christine agreed. “It’s just so weird seeing someone new to things do something so
strong. How did you do it?”
I wiggled my fingers, “Umm, I used my multiplier and then tried to hit it with my full power?” I lucked into remembering that I was keeping the fact that I could use both rings together and kept it at one.
Mr. Reynolds began to laugh, “All right…that’s enough said, then. I can possibly see how she got those results. It’s still on the higher end of possible, but it’s much more possible given that.” He cleared his throat, “Now, for those of you that weren’t able to create your charm, try it again tonight. For those of you that were successful, I recommend trying again with more focus and for a longer period of time and see how things change for you. For you, Ceri? I recommend studying your magical species work, since I understand you all have a test tomorrow.”
My friends laughed as I groaned. I’m not failing that class, but by no means is it coming easily to me.
Out of class, we gathered together to head back to the dorms. Steph looked us over and nudged me, “All right, what’d you do that freaked everyone out now?”
My mage friends laughed while Armand answered, “She made something for Rachel that blew our attempts out of the water.”
She perked up, “You made something for me?”
“Umm, yeah? A ring of vampire strength?”
She frowned, “Vampire strength? What does that mean?”
Steph looked at her ring, “Did you make me one of shifter strength?”
“No. Just regular strength for you. It makes you physically stronger. Mr. Reynolds let me know that my original thoughts there wouldn’t quite work for her. They’d make her stronger, but there’s more to vampire strength than just the physical. Like being able to capture with her eyes or not be as susceptible to others. So I went for that.”
Rachel touched the ring, “Why are you guys so freaked out?”
Armand laughed, “Well, it’s like this, a strength charm is a percentage, typically. Like Steph’s made her about 30 percent stronger than she was. Our girl here managed to make your ring something like 400 percent stronger.”
Rachel sucked in a breath, “That’s a lot, right?”
The group laughed, “Yeah, that’s a lot.” Tom agreed. “It sounds like that means for every year you grow and get more powerful, you’ll be four times stronger than that. So at 100, you’ll have the strength of a 400 year old. That’s a ton. Granted, it doesn’t turn you into a hulking brute of a vampire right now, but it does help quite a bit.”