Clash And Grab

CHAPTER 1

“Sometimes the only ingredients needed to concoct a recipe for success is you, Life, and a 3rd Blessed thing”. A phrase which Ioneaus had heard from his infamous Uncle, “Amurab The Amicable”. His Grande-Uncle had been a hugely successful but generally frowned upon Mage who is credited with creating the very secret and widely heard about potion known as “Amurabs Amiable Afore-shave”; a potent beard tonic which caused anyone with any visible hair to become attracted, allured and assuaded to any and all abstractions and arguments made by the wearer of the potion. Despite being very mediocre at duelling he had partaken in multiple high prize duels which he had won. Though born with unexceptional business sense he had convinced the most astute moustache-twirling tycoons and traders to part with their affluence and acquired traffic. After suspicions and speculations had grown beyond ignoring, he was subsequently proven innocent the first time in the Greater Mage Court by a Caucus of wizened long-bearded Wizards, Mages and Occul-Crafters; For seemingly no proof had been left or could be sensed of the method through which he could have affected a large group and variety of Magik practitioners and Masters. The suspicions remained however and wider Fringe society avoided him and eventually most of  his kin. It was eventually inferred that a powerful potion was likely at play mostly due to the collective agreement by both adversaries and allies that he had a “fine and comely beard”. Unfortunately it didn’t register upon any standard method of investigation and it left no discernable signs or after-effects upon the user or any of those presumed to be influenced. And so for a second time he would be proven innocent because you couldn’t convict a person, Mage or otherwise, of being in possession of fetching facial hair. The potion remained a vague but well talked about rumour that many of the few in the family born with ‘The Art’ knew nothing concrete of it. Amurab had made sure to keep the secret of the potion and its method of brewing secret from his own closest kin, long past the age of 403 when he had disappeared mysteriously. And now almost a 100 years later Ioneaus like many of his other family members before him was attempting the vain endeavour of recreating the potion. 

“They’re about to start duelling, we should get a move on.” The hushed baritone voice snapped him out of rumination and back to the present. 

“Not just yet, I want to make sure of something.” Ioneaus whispered back.

Beyond the bushes they were hiding from, two Mages were facing each other in front of a large stone cottage and spewing fighting words at each other. When it came to most Mages, belligerent fighting words usually soon turned to magical fighting words and Wands or the occasional Staff became mediators of a colourful and dangerous conversation. 

“-All of that doesn’t matter, I have it on reliable authority that your runology and enchantments are of meagre and inferior quality!” shouted one of the mages. 

“And whose authority is that? You deplorable rapscallion!?” Shouted Eulander The Dark Red; an inheritor of a long attested matriarchal lineage in Magik, and a skilled and well respected Runist and Enchanter. 

“By the authority of your whore mother obviously!” 

Runists were not particularly known to be great at duelling but Eulander offered doubt to that notion with how fast his wand emerged from seemingly thin air and without verbal command, made the vertically downward zig-zag motion of what could be assumed to be a particularly debilitating offensive jinx. The bright red-yellow stream of energy arched like a mortar volley. His opponent's wand, materialising just as quickly, made an upward zig-zag motion that ended above the head and the yellow-green stream of a counter-curse poured out and collided with the offensive just a pace or two away. There was a shower of sparks, with a buzzing and strumming sound as the two energies cancelled each other out. Before the smell of ozone could hit Ioneaus where he was hidden behind the bushes, Eulander was already at the tail end of another more complicated and still wordless spell weaving as this time a few green-red bolts of energy shot from his wand one after the other, striking the ground around his opponent's feet. His adversary may have recognised the nature of the spell as her wand waved swiftly in a fancible and flowing motion that ended in an abrupt downward cutting zig-zag motion like a curse. Her wand tip glowed a red-blue colour as a translucent red liquid poured out in spurts just in time to meet some gnarly looking thorny vines that had begun to from the ground all around her; the liquid met the malignant plant growth with sizzle and smoke. Ioneaus recognized the spell that Eulander had cast as a unique variation of “Justanna’s jeopardising jungle”; the regular version of the spell didn't have malicious looking thorns though. The other Mage, now in defence, moved around avoiding and spraying the hostile vines  that moved with surprising speed for flora. 

“Let's go now ,this is the perfect time.” The Baritone voice intoned testily. 

Ioneaus moved through the cover of the bushes and trees, moving toward the back of the cottage. They had come to steal a thing so it was quite lucky that the last ingredient needed was at the home of a Mage who lived in the countryside; Ioneaus was surprisingly bad at blending in or staying out of sight within large crowds, city limits or general suburbia whether it was Magikal or Mundane. When Ioneaus tried to follow a quarry, whatever throng or object he was blending in with would suddenly part for no reason or said object would move somehow singling him out. Sometimes he would lock eyes with his target and they would immediately become suspicious. Even stake-outs on a person or location from a vehicle was near impossible though spying from a window sometimes worked out. Ioneaus blamed his conspicuousness on his tall height and astounding good looks, though his occasional colleagues would always say it was probably something else. 

They made their way to the back of the cottage where still hidden in the treeline Ioneaus pulled out a small beetle costume from the Void-sack he was carrying and put it on his companion, the orange tabby let him do this with a long-suffering look on his face.

“I look absolutely ridiculous.”

“To the Mundan you look like a runaway cat whose owner likes to play dress-up. To those Spy-Eyes you’ll look like a harmless beetle in their recordings.” Ioneaus pulled out a bigger beetle costume and wore that. Now they were ready.  

They came out of the bushes and moved quickly to where the invisible barrier of the house stopped. Ioneaus knelt and pulling out his wand from within the cheap looking costume he immediately began unravelling or stalling some of the protective enchantments that surrounded the house. 

“-simulcom solis-slumbari, evitat mirare secum-sepat, yamyo ni hochhama leama lim-” He muttered some of the arcane words aloud, and others he spoke in his head. His golden-brown wand made the accompanying intricate motions as he weaved through the mesh of interconnected defensive charms and spells. His rare wand made of Iroko with an Impundulu feather core had proven quite useful many times in quickly shorting out spells and enchantments that would have otherwise taken longer times and greater expertise to crack. The small private company he sometimes worked for didn't call him for casing jobs anymore, but due to his slightly above-average skill at Unravelling he still got some calls. This of course was a personal operation that Ioneaus and his team were on and he had selected them all specially for their unique skill and criteria, including the blonde-haired Dueller Mage, Carol, who was right now keeping Eulander occupied at the front of the house.

“-zamelzukh hi fetam hi meglam hi dashuchiomchagar.”

Ioneaus finished with the last of his chanting casting with a curt  flourish of his long wand as the sound of battle continued to echo; by now neighbours who lived in the mixed Mage and Mundan village would have come out to see what was happening at the cottage on the end of the road. The duel would definitely end up on Mundan social media and maybe some Magic ones as well, afterall Eulander The Red was a Named and semi-famous Mage in Occul world. 

“Alright it's all done. Eulander stayed within his house barrier as I suspected he would, so most of the energy is being used up there. You can go in and out real quick, we have about three minutes left before Carol is set to make her retreat.” 

Ohmriki the cat who was definitely not a cat, or a beetle for that matter, sauntered up in a winding unintentional fashion toward the house and hopped in through an open window. Ioneaus smiled in appreciation for the attention to detail; a beetle flying straight for an open window in a Spy-Eye reel would catch the attention of any Mage, especially Eulander if he went through the footage at a later date. 

Ioneaus made his way back to the bushes and pulled off his costume, stuffing it back into the satchel sized Void-sack which swallowed the costume whole. He hoped Carol was faring well. She was an exceptional Dueller so he was only worried about the enchantments for her disguise holding through; It would complicate things if say her blonde hair suddenly turned back to its customary Lemon-Green. 

With thirty seconds to spare Ohmriki jumped out the window and wound his way haphazardly to a random spot and disappeared into the bushes along the treeline. A few moments later he came up to Ioneaus with a metallic spatula in his mouth and Ioneaus took it. 

The Spatula of Ceresmanus, fashioned from a metal of the heavens that remained Divinely hot until it assumed its final shape. The tale went that Ceresmanus employed a Djinn to fetch an asteroid that fell in an active volcano. He then used that red-hot metal to craft certain magical tools and objects; one of them being the spatula. This would be instrumental for Ioneaus to attempt to recreate his Grande-Uncles potion. His teammates didn't know that part or what the spatula was for that matter. He would pay them handsomely and be done with it. 

“Let’s meet up with Carol and finish this up.” 

They made their way to the front of the cottage still hidden in the bushes. Ioneaus and Ohmriki were surprised by what they saw; smouldering craters, corroded vines and a few trees on fire as Carol and Eulander battled and flung spells at one another. A fair amount of villagers had gathered at a safe distance and some people were recording with phones and personal Spy-Eyes. Ioneaus had assumed this impromptu duel might end up in the corners of social media but with all of the destruction and display, it was definitely going to make it onto the Mundan and Magical news; probably even the Daily Scribe. This was the opposite of the quick and under-the-radar operation Ioneaus had planned. While it had gone on longer than expected, at least Carol’s glamour spell was still holding with her blonde hair waving in the wind, even as she performed an upper level “Mira, Mira Illusion”. Talk about Irony. Her sudden blonde multiples jumped out of her body, tumbling and pirouetting while firing sham, colourful magic-works to distract her combatant. Eulander matched that with a powerful, and rarely seen spell in the same category; “Montemulte’s Casting of Many Mountains.”; An array of alternate versions of him appeared in varying coloured garb and swallowed all the magical effects while physically grabbing and dispelling all her illusions. Who even carries around with them nine pebbles from the summit of nine different mountains, Ioneaus thought. Two of the nine of his copies were dispersed in the process and the rest advanced on Carol, forming a circle as they enclosed like alpine wolves. Carol casted “Voraxes’ Vengeful Ground” and swallowed up five of the clones as the earth formed toothed chasms that gobbled them up from underneath.

“Hey Carol, it’s Ohmriki, we’ve got what we came for so you can disengage and meet us at the bar.” Ohmriki spoke this psychically so Carol could hear but also aloud for Ioneaus’ sake. 

Psychic communication was one of the many strange things Ohmriki seemed able to do and Ioneaus still didn't know how he did it. Ioneaus had met at only three talking cats; one of those was a familiar to the famous and powerful translocation Mage ‘Jasmine The Jumper’, the other was an attendant to a minor Mayan goddess of exploration and lost items from Belize called Xochitlmiet, and the third was a Mundan French Dealer who had been cursed into a cat by an ancient Egyptian artefact. None of them were psychic and psychic cats in themselves weren’t common in the Magical texts and history, so this only brought up more questions regarding the nature of Ohmriki.

Carol blasted away the two remaining copies of Eulander using “Philomenos’ Flamboyant Flames”. The fireballs weaved through the air before it crashed into its targets, burning them. The real Eulander opened his cloak and the flames that came at him simply disappeared within the folds of his scarlet attire. By now Carol should have disengaged but she kept at it, throwing spells and jinxes as Eulander dispersed them; she was enjoying herself even more than the crowd of gathered villagers. 

“Carol, it's time to go, let’s wrap this up!” Eulander had managed to stay within the boundary of his home’s defensive spells which helped him greatly even though one of the flower bushes right in front of his house was currently on fire. 

Finally Carol casted “Tomvald’s Triumphant Tornado”, a whirlwind picked up all around and a tornado materialised moving haphazardly. Eulander immediately cast a spell Ioneaus didn’t particularly know but was likely “Cosima’s Convenient Cyclone”. Her tornado moved randomly before making a sharp turn and engulfed her a few moments before Eulander’s cyclone clashed into her summoned gale. The two cancelled each other out and by the time all the wind settled down Carol was gone. 

“Better late than never.” Ohmriki muttered, and Ioneaus nodded in agreement. 

“Okay Ioneaus, let's head down to the bar and regroup. And don't worry, I won’t tell Carol that I know you’re gathering the ingredients and tools for your Grande-Uncles potent and potentially dangerous potion.”