The YoungWorld

scrivneria · Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 4:01 pm Post subject: Storytime with Scriv

Hi there TYW-ers! I recently started working at the Writing Center on my local campus and had to write for 3 hours in a sort of writing marathon exercise. We broke it up into blocks and chatted with each other about what we were doing in between. Anyway, below is the short story I wrote, posted without my judgments. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to leave comments or request more. It's about 3 pages in word, so it's not super short, but not the longest thing you'll ever read either.

The rain is a door and I shall pass through it – The Raven King of the Lands of Fairy

“Modern wizards do not seem to have access to these types of amazing feats. Crawley’s lists of magickal correspondences seem to provide a link, however, for contemporary practicioners to connect with the magicians of the 19th-century’s second flowering of magick (Strange, Norrel, Drawlight, etc.), and from them back to the Golden Age of Magick. The idea of rain as a door seems especially possible during those storms which produce heavy sheets of water falling all at once. If a person were to have access to the appropriate knowledge – it almost visibly looks like the rain could be swept aside to reveal another world behind it.
Difficulties do arise in a practical application of this theory. Foremost among these is the grounding effect of running water on magic. Even if one can draw aside the veil between realities by applying proper focus and grasping the fibrous membrane of the world in their fingers – this process would be impeded, if not stopped outright, by the constantly pouring rainwater – even if that water is in fact outlining one of the doorways between worlds.” - From the Shadow Diaries, Order of the Swashbuckler, 1957

I squeezed my forefinger and thumb together on the ridge of my nose just between my eyebrows. After 16 consecutive hours of consulting various books of magic, treatises on mythology, fantasy novels, and Indiana Jones films (hey, don’t know those last two-people can and do sneak the truth in there all the time), I was no closer to discovering a magical means of world travel than I had been when I started. Definitely not my favorite way to spend a – well any night really, but somehow my proclivity towards hermitage just feels more socially damning on a Friday. “I spent my Friday night home doing research by candlelight” somehow sounds infinitely worse than saying the same sentence ending in a day other than Friday.

While absorbed in these thoughts, my candles finally burn out. Maybe if they were tapers instead of tea lights I could have more light for longer? Of course, the real issue is that I can’t afford power. In fact, I have a new job housesitting and doing some grounds patrolling for this family in Sweden. Someone seems to be stealing their livestock and haunting the barracks where the hired men live. Since there are several indicators that “someone” might be one of those creatures from mythology that no one likes to talk about. A friend sent them to me as soon as the idea occurred to them. Here’s the thing, sure, no-one believes in fairy tales. Even if they do, “that stuff” all died out centuries ago when Christianity took over the Western Hemisphere right? Wrong, but of course nobody believes that. The thing is, while they don’t believe in the threat, the things happening around them still look…off somehow. So does a magic practicioner/shaman/wizard, pick a word any word, hanging out in the “for hire” section of the newspaper. Generally, when a situation looks weird enough, people decide they want a person who seems the same sort of weird to check it out for them. The problem for making a living at such an….atypical job is that these things tend to happen……..a bit far apart from each other. So, I can try to get people to pay thousands of dollars for airfare for someone that they have never met before, and are only calling because they think I’m weird enough to make their weird problem go away, or, I can figure out how the ancient ones seemed to be able to crop up halfway around the world by walking through doors of rain.

Unfortunately, the only thing better at wiping away magic than water and fire is time. See, those wizards of old had tremendous power, but people feared them and hunted them down for it. So even if they trained 10 or 20 people – maybe 2 of those trained persons survived to teach anyone else. So, transmission has really bogged down over the years. “Lumens.” Yes, I just said a word for light. You don’t have to say anything to make magic happen, but it helps free up mental space to craft what you are trying to change about reality.

Oh, introductions! My name is Jeff, and somehow or other you seem to be involved in my oddly clear internal monologue. I’m a paranormal problem-solver, but not like you see on tv. Those guys show up with lots of fancy equipment, make a big show of casting a spell (usually with a bunch of unnecessary candles and crap irrelevant to the working at hand), and collect a giant paycheck from their corporate sponsors. Since my work is neither technologically advanced (I mean, hell, I just lit tea lights with a latin word), or flashy (the light clicks on like a light switch, it’s not like fire came down upon each candle or hopped like a frog from wick to wick – that would be cool though). What can I say, Gandalf I ain’t, although maybe if I had a fire magic augmenting ring from the ancient past I too could make grenades out of pinecones.

Anyway, from what I can tell, these Swedes are having Jotun problems. You know – big ugly troll giants from further up the World Tree? It’s Norse mythology – go google it – I’m running out of time to spell it all out for you. It’s all the classic signs though: senseless violence, strong whistling noises, reports of frost in the middle of summer, clumps of black hair are left behind on dead livestock. Ok, sure, it could be any number of Winter Fae, but their magical influence usually fades as soon as they’re gone, and if they leave hair and whatnot it tends to dissolve away in the next few hours. Not get found several days after the fact by untrained mortal observers. The ice these good folks have been finding has also been lasting a couple days, even in heat and perpetual sunlight. The hair has survived not only time but forensic testing, though the scientists report that it has 15-strand DNA and that the molecular proteins almost look like ice crystals. Did you do that google search yet? IF you did, you know that Jotuns are from Jotunheim – which is basically a huge ice-world. It’s why they want our world for themselves so very badly, even our cold bits are warmer and nicer than home.
Opposite Jotunheim is Valhalla, where the beings we call the Norse Gods live. Hey, that reminds me! They have a rainbow-bridge to travel to and from Earth! It’s called….bifröst and a guy named Heimdall stands eternally vigilant on it so that the pure in heart can cross in safety. It makes sense to me that a rain door might have a rainbow bridge on the other side,a nd that I might be able to shortcut around the world tree to Sweden! If…..someone will show me the way when I get there. It’s a massive long shot, but here goes nothing.

To call a gateway between worlds, you need something of both in mind. That way you don’t rip yourself apart trying to pull too strongly on your current and intended reality. You break that balance, and poof – you’re gone. So to do this in the rain, you need a way to interact with the curtain of failly water without the water crossing your aura. See, your personal energy field is where your magic comes from. If I’m right, a rubber glove with a hole in the palm ought to work, that way energy can pass through but I’m not getting grounded out constantly.

So, in my kitchen I grab a yellow cleaning glove. (Hey, dishpan hands screw with handwritten old books alright!?) I cut out a ½” circle in the palm to account for a portion of the energy vortex that is described there by Ayurvedic medicine. So, the tool is ready, now I need to prep a spell, you know, the hard part.

The rain door itself can be my anchor to current reality, and it has been raining for three days straight so I’m good to go. Bifröst is my intended reality, so I can picture the water drawing apart to reveal it on the other side. There’s quite a bit of mind-clearing involved for magic at this level, so I’m afraid I’ll be shutting all in-roads to my head and blocking your access to the story for a bit. If this works, you can tune back in I suppose when I reach Sweden (unless you find me in another dimension), or read about the crazy light show over the Nordic regions. See, if I’m right, crossing Bifröst will create an aurora effect. Hell, maybe someone will notice and ask me on to one of those paranormal TV shows. Of course, that depends on me not ripping myself apart or blowing myself up in the next thirty minutes. So long for now you Jeff-voyeurs!
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With my seal and blessing -Scrivneria, Grand Master

Darkest Souls · Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:56 pm Post subject:

MOAR!!!!! >:O
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- A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials-

scrivneria · Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 4:47 pm Post subject:

Oh dear someone actually wants more story! I shall have to get back to thinking about how to continue this then!
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With my seal and blessing -Scrivneria, Grand Master

scrivneria · Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 11:28 pm Post subject:

Update: I've not been able t recapture the story of of Jeff in my mind thus far. Honestly this story came out of a 3 hour writing marathon that took place at the end of a week-long writing tutor staff development retreat.

Despite an inability to recapture this character and get the story flowing again i have just started writing again. For those who have been on TYW boards a good long while, you may remember the character of "The Wanderer." An enigmatic figure who wielded a magical sword called the Silverthorn. That story has been reforming itself in my mind, and I'm working on a beginning as I write this. Storytime with Scriv to resume when I get something substantive worked out.
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With my seal and blessing -Scrivneria, Grand Master

Fort Europe · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:12 am Post subject:

I've finally found a moment to sit down and read this all the way through... it's quite good in a quirky rambling sort of way. Certainly something different.

As your mind can not retrieve enough of Jeff to continue this story, then I guess that his was not a successful attempt to traverse between realities.

Will look forward to reading more stories from Scriv soon.
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