Cameron To Candy

The Mage Guild loomed ahead, a strange hybrid of stone battlements and humming machinery, as if a medieval keep had swallowed an advanced laboratory and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Iron pipes threaded through ancient walls, glass bulbs glowed in metal cages, and the hallway lights snapped on one by one as Candy approached. The effect made her skin tighten. Was it enchanted? Were sprites trapped behind the sconces? Some hidden sprite working the switch? She couldn’t tell, only that every step felt noticed by something she couldn’t see.

She adjusted her coat as she walked through the hall, lights turning on one by one as she moved. A receptionist at the front desk, wearing a pointed hat, stamped her visiting scroll without looking up, murmuring, “Second left, resonance chamber. Don’t touch the crystals.”

“I never do,” Candy muttered, and immediately brushed one with her sleeve. It sang like a tuning fork.

High Mage Eldrin was waiting in his usual posture of weary patience, the kind of man who looked perpetually two cups of coffee short of developing an eye twitch. His robe was wrinkled, spectacles glowing faintly blue from whatever runic coating kept them from fogging.

“Ah, Candy,” he said, cheerful in that way people get when they know you’re about to worry. “How’s the world treating our favorite experimental demographic?”

“Still breathing,” Candy said, stepping into the scanning circle. “You wanted me back after three months of not turning into a newt.”

“Yes, and I thank you for your restraint.” He flipped a switch. The room hummed to life. “Now let’s see what your inner tapestry’s up to.”

Light rose around her, threads unfurling in shades of blue and silver until her entire form shimmered like a ghost woven from moonlight. The projection pulsed gently, each beat matching her heart.

Eldrin frowned. “Interesting. Your fibers have shifted again. Here, see these ones around the eyes? They’re thicker. Have you been cursed or otherwise magically exposed recently?”

“Not that I know of…. Oh, but the spell… it changed my sight. I’m not color blind anymore. And it did it in real time!”

“Ah! That explains that. Curious though. It happened on the spot?”

“Well, not the first part, I don’t know when that happened. But I could see red. Then, when I was trying to see what Marcus’ shirt color my vision blurred, and when it stopped, I could see greens.”

“Quite curious indeed.” Eldrin leaned in, twisting a brass dial. The projection zoomed closer, and his eyes narrowed. “I can see deeper through the refraction layer now… that’s new. And here we are… something entangled in your field.”

The threads rippled like hair underwater. Through them, a small, glinting aperture appeared, functioning as an almost unnoticeable window. Beyond it, deeper fibers gleamed faint gold.

“These aren’t yours,” Eldrin murmured. “And stranger still… they appear older than you.”

Candy frowned. “Older? What does that mean? Is it the spell?”

He hesitated, studying the projection as if it might start explaining itself. “I can’t be sure with this little view. It could be. The pattern’s different from the standard template, but that would make sense after bonding to your personal field.” He scratched his chin. “The oddity is the dating… this energy predates your casting by, eh, well, at least decades. But the spell was cast less than a year ago.”

“Several months,” Candy thought out loud.

“Then this shouldn’t exist. The only possibility I can think of is you’ve somehow linked to the original spell, the one sealed in our Vault of Enchantments. Each time this spell is performed, it copies from that master template. Perhaps, in attempting to correct itself, the spell mid-cast tapped the original strand and then pulled it into you.” He leaned back, muttering, “That would make it… fifty years old. Maybe a tad older.”

Candy’s arms folded. “So I’ve got an antique enchantment mixed into my magic fibers. That’s comforting.”

“I’ll have one of the archivists verify it,” Eldrin said.

"What?! Why hasn't the spell been checked before? I mean, I was freakin’ feminized! I'm a man with tits! Or a chick with a dick. Why am I not Paddlewicks biggest priority? Why hasn't everything involved been examined? Has the spell worked normally for everyone since then?" Candy dumped a chunk of her frustration and curiosity in that one outburst. And her position was valid.

Eldrin snorted. "A lot of questions there. Well, that spell hasn't been used again since your mishap with it. We weren't risking anything. In truth, I hadn't thought to check the original spell manually. Even if I had it might have taken a while."

"Because it's just you?"

"Yes. The archivists can help, but they're pretty backed up."

"Why? Why don't you have a whole team, or at least an assistant?"

Eldrin sighed. "My assistant was re-assigned. The fact of the matter is, I was assigned your case because I'm the best mage in all of Paddlewick concerning transformation magic. It's not a brag, just a fact. And even then, there are mages in other parts of the Cone that far exceed me. Look, I am sorry about this. Six years ago you would have had at least three teams and a personal overseer working your case."

"So what the hells happened?"

He sighed again. “A huge project, an all-hands-on-deck kind of thing, has come up. They assigned as many mages as they could spare to it. The rest of the mage network is working on a skeleton crew. The truth is, there weren’t enough mages in Paddlewick to begin with. That's why there's a one-hundred gold coin reward for anyone who finds a yet undiscovered natural mage among our citizenry." He paused for a moment, the gravity of the situation weighing on him. Eventually, he snapped back and concluded with, "Don't ask more. I'm sworn under a level four seal, K class."

"Oh gludge!" Candy spat out. A K-class level four seal was the only thing higher than the class of seal Candy had on her own file. It carried basically the same rules, but it meant the King had personally issued it. No one wanted to mess with King Roderick.

“At any rate," Eldrin continued, "having the original is no worse than the freshly cast version we initially imagined. If that’s the case, we’ll confirm your classification as magically entangled and officially rule out cursed. Progress, of a sort.”

Candy squinted at him. “And if it’s not that?”

He smiled faintly. “Then we have yet another mystery on our hands. I collect those, you know.”

Eldrin turned another dial. “Now, these little blips along the outer fibers. Harmless, I think, but something’s pressing on your field from outside. Any contact with demons or the undead recently?”

Candy snorted. “No. Of course not.” Then, after a pause, “Well, it wasn’t recent, but I was in Drapeville a few years ago.”

Eldrin didn’t look up. “Ah. The city of polite corpses, spectral tea and impossible banking. Go on.”

“No cursing, no hauntings,” Candy said quickly. “I had tea, bought some stock, had some weird dreams that night and got escorted back to my outpost the next day by a local courier. That’s all.”

“Hmm.” He twirled his quill. “Drapeville stock is often soul-bonded, you know. The contract ties to your essence to prevent theft. Perfectly harmless, but it leaves a faint signature in your magic field. That would explain the outer anomalies.”

“So that’s one concern off the list?”

“For now. And congratulations, if it’s the type I suspect, those shares are worth quite a lot these days. I hope you’re collecting your dividends.”

“The what now?”

Eldrin smirked a bit, adjusting his spectacles. “Your profits. If the account’s still active, your earnings have likely been compounding. You, or rather your former self, could withdraw or reinvest. Perhaps enough to fund some independent projects for yourself. Assuming Marcus doesn’t claim husbandly authority over them.”

Candy paused, the thought catching like a spark. “An independent source of money…”

“Yes, quite.” He shut down the projector with a push of a crystal lever, the light constructed threads fading out of existence. “I'm going to need more data than I'm getting now. Let us increase your appointments to every two months. And if you experience any further real-time changes, contact me immediately.”

“Understood, I will.”

“Good. In the meantime, try not to dabble in any additional magical mishaps.”

Candy hopped off the platform. “No promises.”

As she reached the door, Eldrin called after her, “And Candy?” She glanced back. “If the dividends are substantial, do consider bringing me a bottle of something nice. After all, I did find them for you.”

Candy smirked. “Sure thing, jackass.”

Eldrin waved pleasantly. “Goodbye, Candy. It was nice to see you. Why yes, I did lose weight. Thanks for noticing.” He ended with a smirk and a wink. Candy left with a faint chuckle and a mild sense of concern. What in the Cone was going on inside her?

The door hissed shut behind her, leaving the mage alone with his notes and the memory of that pulsing reddish-golden thread tucked away deep inside her magic threads. This case was getting stranger by the scan.