[Guide, Suffering]

  “Well what did you think?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. What I want to know is how do you feel, that was the whole point of you writing a horror story.”

  “Well then I feel good I suppose, Draco asked me to write that story a while ago and I just wasn’t sure how to say in a story that mankind has been lied to since time immemorial that demons are the ultimate evil. When actually they are just trying to help humans work out their karmic debt. Were humans evil enough for you?”

  “Yes they were quite evil enough for me where was it set? The midwest America?”

  “West Texas.”

  “Was Nyx happy with it?”

  “She said it won’t change anything, she said even I knew that by reading the final paragraph. But if someone reads it, maybe they will at least entertain the idea that it actually is true. I guess it depends just how much trust that they put in the bible.”

  “I think the easiest way to show that someone is evil is to point out how they are lying. The villian / monster Thatcher lied about everything, he even admitted to trying to cheat his workers and got stabbed for his trouble. He would have looked worse if you had even one sympathetic human character in the story to contrast him with. In some respects he almost looks like a good guy compared to the snake salesman.”

  “Well I thought they were all awful people so that’s the way I tried to portray them.”

  “Well you certainly succeeded with that. But I was never scared, like you were scared when the creature burst out of the crewman's chest. Also the hero is supposed to be weak to increase the tension. Nyx just snapped her fingers and poof she went from this dirty naked victim to gorgeous naked woman and her antagonist is just kind of floating there.”

  “I wanted to show that she had the power to annihilate them all and that they deserved it, but she held back, even told them the truth. Nyx the supposed monster was kind and merciful while the humans were just vile. Humans are the scariest monsters of all. That movie with the big fish, I didn’t think the fish was evil, it just did what fish have done since they evolved. They ate other things in the water. Maybe humans would be nicer if they hadn’t evolved through survival of the fittest. If they really were created in a kind beings image.”

  “Alright, so you feel better, you wrote a horrifying story, even if I wouldn’t classify it as horror exactly but that maybe because you always have to flip things upside down. Now let’s get on with Opal’s boost, teach her to gather and try her with geriatrics healing.”

  “Arjun too?”

  “I’m not as concerned with Arjun, he’s not my apprentice. So what is your plan?”

  “I was thinking of taking her and Mossbeard to the estates, three of the estates still need magical fields. But first I’ll boost her magic, then at the estates gathering.”

  “Well what are you waiting for?”

  I portaled to the tower, walked down to Draco’s lair from the library, knocked waited for Draco’s deep bass response.

  “Come in Rose”

  “Hi I’m sorry to interrupt but Sparky wants me to boost Opal’s magic and I’m also here to show you how to gather magic. Draco, do you want to come to Juliet’s World? I was wondering if I tried boosting you again, maybe your magical capacity might rise again?”

  So the three of us jumped to Juliet’s World and I tried boosting Draco’s power again. I'd boosted him twenty five percent before and that seemed like the limit, but I was a little stronger now. It wouldn’t hurt to try. Three times I tried the boost and three times I failed to raise Draco past the twenty five percent gain.

  Then I tried boosting Opal’s magic, the first time it went up ten percent, the second time it went up five percent, the third time another five percent gain. The fourth time was a further five percent gain. I tried boosting her an additional six times with no further increase in her magical capacity.

  Then Opal and I portaled to the Evan’s estate, we walked over to the old Harris’s estate, the estate with the vineyard and the logical next estate to enclose in a magical field.

  “Okay sweetie, I want to enclose this entire estate in a magical field. Now even though you and Draco have much higher magical capacity than I do, I can easily enclose this field, using this new method. But this new method and the fact that I can boost magic users power by twenty five percent must be kept strictly secret. Some magicians aren’t as nice as we are and if they knew I could boost their power they may try to exploit me, and force me to do it. The same thing goes for this ambient magic gathering. For healing it’s really great, think of a patient you could only half cure because your magic is getting close to thirty percent. Before this technique, you’d need to wait till the next day. But now you just gather the ambient magic, absorb it just as if you were absorbing a magical field you created. But again, this would make an evil mage much more dangerous, no matter what their magical capacity. Because it would allow them to cast evil spell after evil spell, just breaking occasionally to refill their magic. Do you have any questions honey?”

  “No, Rose.”

  “What I do is close my eyes, and imagine that I have these gigantic magical arms and I sweep them through the air like I wanted to hug a tree.”

  This garnered a laugh.

  “Alright, so you just watch for a second.”

  I closed my eyes and imagined the giant arms and started sweeping the magic toward me. I paused but kept my eyes closed.

  “Sweetie, do you see the magic I’m gathering?”

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  “Yes Rose, I see your giant arms too, they look funny like Popeye arms.”

  “Popeye huh, do I have any tattoos?”

  “No, don’t be silly, but you have huge forearms.”

  “Alright do you want to try and see if you can add to the magic I’ve gathered so far.”

  “Yes Rose.”

  “Good, I’ll just talk you through it. Close your eyes and pretend that you have gigantic Popeye arms, with an anchor tattoo.”

  She giggled, but the arms immediately popped into view, tattoo included. She must have an incredible imagination because I struggled doing this the first time, I had to keep opening my eyes because I couldn’t believe that magic was actually accumulating.

  “Perfect, honey that was so fast, now sweep those arms in like you were trying to hug Elmer. Good that’s exactly right, now just keep that up, keep sweeping in and gathering after every ten or twenty arm sweeps you can open your eyes to see how much you’ve gathered.”

  We kept taking turns gathering, then watching each other. I tried to imagine a tattoo of a mermaid on my magical arms, but it never manifested. I was trying to make it fun, because honestly enclosing this large a space with a magical field just got boring after a while, the imagined arm sweeps.

  “I have an idea, we are about three quarters done, let’s try both of us doing it at the same time, see if we can do it twice as fast. Then when we are done with this estate I’ll take you for soup and we’ll bring Mossbeard back with us because we still need portals on both of these estates.”

  “Okay, Rose.”

  It went fast, not twice as fast but it definitely went quicker. The last estate I did took a little more than two hours. We finished in about an hour and a half, and this was the first time Opal had even tried gathering. Once we had plenty of magic, Opal completed the final step to create the magical field.

  “How much magic do you have sweetie?”

  “Ninety one percent, Rose.”

  “Great, let's try and collect another big ball of magical energy and have you absorb it this time. Because that’s what you’ll be doing when you are healing people.”

  After just a few minutes she had a good sized ball of magic.

  “Honey, try and absorb the big ball of magic you’ve gathered.”

  She did, I watched as she absorbed it all.

  “How much magic do you have now?”

  “Ninety seven percent.”

  “Hmm, that is exactly the same as when I gathered for you the other day, ninety seven percent. Let’s try an experiment, let's gather more and you try to absorb it.”

  We did but no matter how much we gathered, Opal never could absorb more than ninety seven percent. Draco and Sparky would be pleased. They both were interested in numbers and limits, maybe it’s a male thing, wanting everything quantified.

  We portaled to the pub, Lu joined us for lunch.

  “Lu remember when we talked about enclosing the rest of the pub in a magical field so you could add more tables outside in all kinds of weather, you were going to ask Paula and Nim if they wanted to. What did they say?”

  “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, I didn’t think that they’d want to but they do, they both readily agreed. But you mentioned Lily’s non-magical bakes, so is it even possible.”

  “Yes we won’t expand Madd Maggie’s field, we’ll create a new one on this side of the pub and just expand until they abut each other, we won’t be anywhere near Liliy’s outdoor oven. But I was thinking, for a solstice gift why don’t we have the gnomes build a building around the outdoor oven. Next time you see Paula and Lilies not around, ask her if she thinks that is something Lily might want.”

  “That’s a great idea, Rose, you are so thoughtful.”

  “No, it’s nothing Lu, Lily is the one who is out there in all kinds of weather keeping us safe from diseases and broken bones.”

  We finished up and portaled to the store to get Mossbeard.

  “Well apprentices, how goes the practice?”

  “Good, Opal’s magic was boosted, twenty five percent, Draco came with us and I tried boosting him past the twenty five percent mark but it was no use, I tried three times and it didn’t raise at all. I tried six more times after Opal was boosted twenty five percent and that’s it it seems like it is a hard limit. I have some other numbers for you. After gathering magic, Opal can’t absorb any more magic once she hits the ninety seven percent mark.”

  “That’s interesting, it’s always good to know the limits, can you tell how much magic you have left, Rose?”

  “No, just vague impressions, nothing like you, Opal and Draco.”

  Then Opal, Mossbeard and I portaled to the Evan‘s estate, we walked to the vineyard and Mossbeard got to work on a portal drawing right in front of the Harris’s old home. We left Mossbeard to his drawing work and crossed the next estate, the Davies, it already had the magical field in place. Once we reached the former Ferraro estate, the hairs on the back of my neck crept up.

  I looked around to see if we were being watched. But I couldn’t see anyone, nor hear anyone. I didn’t want to spook Opal so I didn’t say anything. We walked to the center of the estate. Just before we were going to start the gathering process Mossbeard arrived. The Vineyard Portal Drawing was complete. Opal activated it and I took it and their portal wallets then jumped to Juliet’s World were I copied the portal drawing and put copies in all of our wallets. Then jumped back, returning their wallets. Mossbeard went off to the mansion to create the portal drawing for this estate and Opal and I started gathering magic.

  “Rose, there’s something weird about this magic, I think someone else, no, something else is here.”