The emotions that struck him as he swung open the door to room A110 and found himself back in this place were perhaps the most conflicted ones he'd had since deciding to leave MIT.
First, there was disappointment. He'd been looking forward to lab today and was loath to miss it, though he supposed that couldn't be helped. He could only hope he'd be allowed to make it up at some point without too much fuss. There was anticipation too. His dreary world had returned, and this time he was prepared. Chester reached into his bag and retrieved a jacket and umbrella, sighing as he suited up. Of course, there was the smallest pulse of fear as well, a baseless worry that he wouldn't make it back home this time. He'd been fine before. He would be fine now. Until then, he'd just have to observe and document. At least he had a notebook this time.
Chester didn't bother turning around as he started forward, knowing what he would find. He wouldn't be going back to class until he was permitted to leave.
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 6:41 am
Other ashdown was peculiar, obviously, but beyond that it was strange for other reasons. As all of the city was accessible, certain things weren't which included both the college, high school and the library. That meant that most of the places Algie would want to explore were off limits.
Now that he had his grimoire he was eager to try some things, see exactly what his limits were and hopefully improve his skills. His bookstore and he and Jeremiah's home had become somewhat like bases of operation but with a fear of harming those places on this side (and having it carry over into the other side) he decided that even with the rain he should practice in the middle of the street.
The graying professor stood right in the middle of the road with an invisible magical barrier over his head that looked remarkably like an umbrella if you really paid attention to the rain rolling off the shape of it, and a large book in his hand that he was reading intently.
It took all of thirty steps for him to realize that he was nowhere near Rider-Waite. Unlike the first time he had come here from the gym and ended up in an alternate version of the same, this time he had been delivered to a different location entirely. It was familiar enough to ensure that he didn't start panicking or anything, just another part of town, but it was odd nonetheless.
Still, it was nowhere near as strange as the man in the bubble.
Chester could only stare as he rounded the corner and saw him, and when he realized the man was someone he knew, it didn't help. Well, it gave him a reason to approach, but it didn't explain anything. It was the owner of Bibliophile. The author. Detective Mercer had called him 'Alg' but Chester doubted that would fly from just anyone.
"Hello? Sir?" He spoke louder than he probably needed to, but that was because he thought the shield was made of plastic. It helped with the distance, in any case, considering that he had stopped a good twenty feet away.
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 9:41 am
Algie jolted at hearing a voice cut through the quiet and his own thoughts. When he turned to look at Chester he was actually clutching his chest a bit. The young man was lucky he wasn't closer, hadn't tapped him on the shoulder or something, as he may have been punched.
"Jesus bloody christ-" Alg breathes, breath coming out in a puff in the cold air. He adjusted his glasses, peered through the rain, and blinked.
"Chester, yes?" He'd been present at fashion week event and he was sure he'd been somewhere on a class attendance list at some point. "You scared me," then repeated with a sigh,"Christ."
Chester swallowed and pressed his lips together, taking a small, squelching step back as he was hit with Mr. Mixlin's vehemence.
"Yes, it's Chester Poole. I... I'm sorry. I should have warned you." He wasn't sure how he might have done that, short of spinning his umbrella or jumping up and down, but the man's reaction suggested he definitely should have made the effort.
"I was surprised to see someone else myself. Not... heart-clenchingly surprised, and I apologize again for that, but... I thought I was the only one who could come here." In hindsight it seemed a little silly to think so, but he couldn't help feeling mildly disappointed even so. Less special.
He risked a couple of steps forward again, squinting at the shield above Algie's head. "How are you doing that? I don't see a handle or anything."
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 5:07 am
"No, it's fine. I was just concentrating and didn't expect to see anyone," He smoothed his sweater and closed the book in his hands.
"The only one?" Alg almost laughed, instead it was a fleeting expression of bemusement, "No I'm sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for some sort of quiet escape. Though I don't generally recommend wandering here alone anyway." Of course he was- but he was feeling more confident since he'd gotten his grimoire. "There's a lot of us, whether you think that's fortunate or not. When I was first pulled here it was with a sizable group."
Alg glanced up at the barrier over him, water trickling slowly over the spines of the invisible umbrella. "Magic. Willpower. You should be able to do as well it if you're here."
It was a lot to take in, the confirmation that there were a respectable number of people who could show up here, the implied danger in being alone, as well as the casual, conversational mention of magic, of all things. Just make a wish and you'll be tossing up all the oversized contact lenses you could ever dream of. Chester gave it a shot, attempting to envision something solid that might block the drops directly in front of him, but he spent most of the next fifteen seconds wavering between a plank and a tarp, unable to truly focus on either. Why he hadn't gone for the classic umbrella was beyond him, all he knew was that it had been very hard to think with any clear intent at all when he was expecting something extraordinary to happen.
"Magic. All right. I mean, I see it, but..." The unnatural woman in the alley who had spoken directly into his head came to mind. The people he'd seen at Blackfriars with animal ears and tails who he'd been fairly sure weren't cosplayers or furries. "Yes. Maybe. What else can you do? If you don't mind me asking."
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2016 9:52 am
"It's willpower mostly, knowing and believing it, having something strong to connect with that channels what you are looking for." Algie adjusted his glasses and walked a bit closer to Chester, his barrier following him, and with a glance up at it and a moment of concentration, it simply expanded to cover both of them.
"Do you have any shows or book series with magic in them that you like? That you're familiar with?" Alg had found that for the younger folks, Heliodora's brand of magic may have possibly been easier. "Harry Potter for instance?"
Alg took a breath, "So you know how the spells look, you know how they sound and you know what they do. So long as you believe they can succeed, you can essentially perform them here. As a beginner, probably not much.."
The professor extended a finger and murmured, "Lumos."
A small globe of light appeared in front of his finger.
When he'd been a kid, Chester had played at being a wizard as much as anyone else, but this was... well, it was real. Ridiculous, but undeniable. He had just watched someone cast lumos three feet in front of him and it had worked. It seemed almost blasphemous to make another attempt without a wand or something, but now was not the time to be fishing a pencil out of his bag to use as a substitute. Belief and willpower. That was supposedly all it took.
He tried to come up with a different spell that might work, an incendio or diffindo or wingardium leviosa, but each of those presented problems that he didn't want to try mitigating in the middle of a rainy street. His finger followed Algie's into the air, and after speaking a lumos of his own and focusing on the singular thought of nuclear levels of light erupting from his skin, it glowed faintly like he was shining a flashlight through it instead, then sputtered into darkness. He stifled his smile by busying himself with lowering his umbrella, though a bit of it remained when he spoke again, his voice betraying his excitement much more than his expression did.
"As a beginner it's not much at all, I guess. But this is the only place you can do it? And it's dangerous here?" If these previous trips were any indication, he had no idea when he'd be back anyway. He wanted to learn everything there was to know, and there simply wasn't enough time.
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 12:04 pm
Algie smiled a bit crookedly to see the young man so excited, well at least he sounded excited. It was a bit amazing to think you could bring to life the magic from fictional sources, things that had only ever been on paper or in someone's head before now. And it was real, not even movie magic.
"I'm to understand that doing magic here is like practicing anything else," Alg motioned to the barrier over their heads that still adequately streamed the rain away from them, "The more you do it, you exercise those particular muscles, the easier it becomes."
Alg looked around, "Dangerous? Possibly, yes. There's dangerous things here and I suppose the terrain can be a bit like an obstacle course." The crumbling buildings, the forest, but it was still the city. "But I suppose anyone could debate there being dangerous things everywhere."
The professor blinked, "Well you probably have some bit of magic in the real world. Some- natural ability that's a bit too uncanny perhaps? Luck that's too good maybe?"
Improvement through repetition over time was a concept that Chester understood intimately, and even though he didn't like to admit it, a mindless assembly line approach often served him better than actually using his brain. For the first time it felt as though he was being presented with a goal he could reach by combining the two.
"I suppose I'll be more careful than I have been then." He looked up, tentatively reaching above his head to touch the barrier. "And I'll keep an eye out for something I can do back in Ashdown. I've never noticed anything particularly out of the ordinary though." Currently, his luck was through the roof, but it didn't seem like a magical thing, just the world apologizing for what it had thrown at him previously.
After a bit of a pause, Chester looked down again, glancing at Algie's book. "But I interrupted something when I arrived, didn't I? I could go," he vaguely gestured off in a random direction, "over there, if you wanted to continue."
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2016 5:28 am
"If you can get here, do some small amount of magic," Alg nodded, "Then you have some sort of power. Possibly subtle. It will grow- it seems to be part of the arrangement."
Alg gave a bit of a sympathetic smile. As much as magic powers sounded good he hadn't had the greatest experiences. His life was infinitely more complicated now, "So just keep it in mind if one day you wake up with some uncanny and much more obvious change."
The barrier, to the touch, almost felt like an actual umbrella. It bent with the touch, though see through Chester's finger clearly pressed to something, and the path of the rain over it derailed when he pushed up and went back to shape when he let go.
"My husband's is a bit more solid-" He motioned to it, "I only seem to be able to channel an umbrella."
Alg glanced down at his book when it was mentioned, fingers closing tighter around it, "I'm not much of a performer..." Alg scratched his head with a sheepish bit of a smile. He did suffer very greatly from performance anxiety.
"Though I'm an alright teacher-" Considering it was his job, "If you'd like to try some things. You managed the light well enough."
A change. Presumably a physical one if the 'much more obvious' part was drastic enough that everyone might notice. He would keep an eye out, as much as he would for these real world abilities that were hiding on him somewhere.
"Your umbrella is perfectly functional," he said, reassuring in his conviction if nothing else. "You wouldn't need a sturdier shield unless you were blocking bullets." Did they actually need protection from bullets here? The thought made him pale slightly, though he covered it with a small, embarrassed smile. His lame little E.T. finger glow wouldn't be protecting him from anything more threatening than dropping his keys in a deep bag.
"I could try something else, I guess." What had Harry Potter done? Unlocked doors, tamed plants, nothing he really had the equipment for here. "I could move things with my mind? Make a breeze? This all sounds very silly out loud."
iloveyouDIE
Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:23 pm
"The best explanation I've found.." Alg didn't look completely sure but he was also learning himself. He was reluctant to use his book, so new, in front of a near stranger. "is to find something that triggers for you. Something that resonates the strongest."
Alg crouched to pick up a discarded twig, no different looking than any other twig, but it would serve as an example. "Which is to say that Harry Potter spells work well because you know the exact words, motions and results. You merely have to believe - know that it will work."
Again he muttered 'Lumos' and much like before, a light bobbed at the end much more strongly than his finger. It just looked and felt more accurate to use a 'wand'.
"My husband uses memory triggers- he summons memories, vivid ones, that connect his senses to the effect he wants. It doesn't need words. Just willpower and belief." Yes Algie seemed to be more than adequate at lecturing on theory.
He had no doubt that wands and spells and sweeping gestures would continue to work for him as well, but he was certain he would prefer something less demonstrative if he could manage it. Chester tried to make a list of the things he felt a connection to—reading, reading, funny t-shirts, reading, the internet, reading—but it generated a frown rather than any sort of enlightenment. He reached into his bag despite his earlier reluctance, searching for anything at all that might spark a feeling other than embarrassment and failure, and in the midst of a load of pencils and tissues his fingers brushed his calculator, an old TI-89 he still used to play Drug War when his phone's batteries were low. It held failure too, but mathematics had been at the heart of his dreams for so long that there was hope there as well. It was worth a shot.
Chester produced an eraser, finally, a small purple turtle that he rested in the palm of his hand. He concentrated again, starting with the basics that every schoolkid learned once they'd mastered numbers. Addition. He wanted the damn thing to get bigger, and it did, but only after he added a little pinchy motion with the other hand, like he was enlarging the screen on a cell phone.
"All right. That has possibilities." It was a comfort to know that his belief could also be grounded in something real, something that helped to construct buildings and send people to space.
iloveyouDIE
FINALLY TAGS HAVE HAPPENED TO ME RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE MY FEELINGS CAN'T DESCRIBE THEM
