45 Suns: More Than One Mischievous Mind

--- Jon ---

“Should we really be stashing these here before we actually set up the haunted house?”

“I don’t see why we wouldn’t.” His Ma admitted.

He gave her a dry look. “Uh-huh. And if one of the other cops wanders into one of these before Halloween?”

“They’ll learn not to go through my shit.” The elder Whitaker told him as she stuffed a fake corpse into a closet where anyone could stumble upon it.

“And the fact that you’re leaving your ‘stuff’ in places anyone could find it?” He prodded.

“It’ll teach everyone better situational awareness.” His Ma explained, as she rigged the fake corpse to launch blood at whoever opened the door without severing a particular wire. “After all it’s much better for them to get hit by one of these rather than a bullet by some punk on the streets.”

“And this won’t get you a reprimand or something like that?” He wanted to make sure before he rigged the smoke bomb like his Ma told him to.

“First of all, they can’t prove it was me given how the cameras are down and we’re both wearing gloves.” His Ma reminded him. “Second, I’ve got the highest clearance rate in the station -without fudging my numbers with bullshit arrests I might add- meaning if they fire me the station’s success rate will take a massive hit reducing their overall funding and forcing everyone but the higher ups to take yet another pay cut.”

“Meaning they have to put up with your antics.” He sighed, rigging the bomb to the coffee machine.

“Ah-ah, not my antics.” His Ma corrected as she wrapped an arm around him. “Our antics. Since you aren’t stopping me you’re officially an accomplice in this mess.”

“I feel like if anything, that makes this whole situation worse.”

Scene Consequences

-Gained 1XP to Stealth and Trap Making

--Currently: Trap Making Lv. 9 (6/20) and Stealth Lv. 7 (3/16)

---

“So you mentioned your teacher taught you some stuff about potions, right?” Audrey asked him as she arranged a number of plants on the classroom table.

“Uh, yeah.” He nodded, trying to figure out how many of the plants he recognized. “Potions and Enchanting were Miss Edna’s bread and butter at her store.”

“What kind of potions did she sell?”

“Mostly she sold these mist makers that helped plants grow, and magic candies for the kids.” He answered before frowning at one of the plants as he touched the soil. “Isn’t this one a bit dry?”

“Drip Vine grows proportional to the amount of water in its environment,” Audrey answered, swirling a finger through the air as a small blob of water condensed before trickling into the pot. “What’s really interesting about it is the speed at which it grows, because thanks to an Anima mutation whenever it’s exposed to water it…”

The Drip Vine began growing and continued to grow for a few moments after the other teen cut off the supply of water.

“Huh…” He checked the soil again and found it just as wet as before. “A plant that drinks all the water cannot be sustainable or good for an ecosystem.”

“It was designed to help with areas that flood frequently. And being an artificial plant there’s usually an Arcane nearby to stop it before it goes out of control.” Audrey assured him. “What’s more even if it does get out it has safety limiters that prevent it from growing beyond a certain size, and cause it to wither relatively fast to keep the damage to a minimum.”

“I guess accelerated growth would mean accelerated decay too.” He figured, glad that there was some kind of limiter on it, though he was admittedly more interested in the fact that, “You said this is an artificial plant?”

“Yeah. Well, technically artificial.” The other teen admitted, adjusting her glasses. “There are a lot of plants that turn out weird because of Anima mutations, but Arcane frequently monitor and manipulate those mutations to create strains with specific effects and abilities.” Audrey continued to explain. “All in all it’s no different than non-magical plant breeding.”

“Makes sense.” He accepted thoughtfully, before frowning again. “But why do you need an anti-flooding plant around here, given where we’re at, isn't drought a bigger issue?”

“Depends, thanks to global warming sometimes we get these flooding rains that the city wasn’t built for turning some areas into swamps in between all of the dry periods.” The other teen shrugged. “Still we’re at least a few months from that stuff so that’s not why I brought the Drip Vine.”

“Then why did you bring it?” He asked.

“Because the pasted mulch of it is very good at carrying the properties of the other ingredients on the table. At least if you know what you’re doing with them.” Audrey gave him a look. “Which is why we’re here.”

“Ah.”

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to Audrey gained 4XP to Potioneering.

--*Skill Rank Up* Potioneering Lv. 7 (2/16)

-Progress made towards ??? Perk. (1/4)*

*Note: This progress only applies to Audrey’s Potion perk.

---

A phone started ringing before Audrey pulled out hers. “Shit, I’m going to have to leave a bit early today.”

“Uh, that’s fine.” After all he’d had to do the same just a couple days prior.

“Yeah, well that also means that I’m going to have to leave you alone with Val for your first lesson.” The other teen pointed out as she began to text on her phone. “I’m telling her to take it easy on you, but knowing her she’s not going to.”

“That’s um, I can handle it.” (After all it can’t be worse than anything DeSade and Rogers put me through back in Blackwell.)

Audrey gave him a look before shrugging as she got another text. “If you’re sure. Either way she’ll be here in about half an hour, just remember that while she may be rough on the outside, she’s a lot squishier on the inside.”

“I will.” He nodded, as the other teen waved her goodbye and left him alone in the classroom.

Figuring that he had a bit to himself, he pulled out his copy of the Layman’s Shaman before flipping to where he was in the book and beginning to read.

As mentioned in the explanation on what Spirits were, the most commonly seen variants weren’t actually sentient or sapient enough to maintain a true conversation. They were however ‘there’ enough in their existence that one could convince them to do one thing or another if it was something they would naturally do.

In practice this meant that a ‘Fire Spirit’ was always going to generate heat, but you could have it generate that heat where you wanted and then get a number of those spirits to gather to create enough heat to eventually result in a fire. From there one could then convince those Spirits to move said fire wherever it was needed. A principle that would work similarly for other lesser Spirits.

Now as a basic function this would bring up the question of why have the spirits work in such a roundabout way when you could just cast a quick spell and do it yourself. The primary reasoning being that while it took magic to communicate with a spirit once it set off to do whatever task you gave it, it wouldn’t actually need you to supply it with more power to fulfill the task or to keep repeating it on its own.

All of which allowed a person to create a simple Spell Engine with naturally occurring elements, making it more difficult to set up but both easier to maintain and harder to disrupt. Both of which were extremely important factors if one had to worry about an enemy Arcane attempting to set up a spell that could damage the environment around you. A problem that was easily fixed by convincing the environment to work for you and to resist any spells set up by people with ‘unfamiliar Anima’.

(Meaning that while Shamanism isn’t the best for quick one-off casting, it can be extremely powerful for maintaining an area of effect. Technically you can use this to entrap an entire battlefield for defense or offense with enough prep time.)

The handle of the door to the room began to turn, and a quick glance at the clock revealed that his half-hour alone was up.

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to reading the Layman’s Shaman gained 2XP to Arcane Shamanism.

--*Skill Level Up* Arcane Shamanism Lv. 3 (1/8)

---

“No puedo creer que estuve de acuerdo con esto…” Val mumbled as she walked into the room. “Pérdida de un pinche sábado.”

“Uh, sorry…” He apologized, having only understood about half of that but knowing it wasn’t anything positive in his favor.

The Scarecrow’s Keeper gave him a dry look before sighing as she shook her head, something that quickly turned into a glare towards him. “Look I’m only here because Audrey asked me to do her a solid. I’m not here because I like you or because I actually want to be here.”

“Sorry.” He apologized once more, though with a more prominent grimace this time. “If you want you don’t have to help me.”

“No, like I said Audrey asked me to do a solid so let’s just get this over with.” Val sighed, taking a seat.

“Alright, um… So what exactly did you want to do?” He asked, really wishing Audrey hadn’t left to take care of her ‘business’.

“What did she cover with you?” Val asked in turn as she messed with one of the flowers Audrey had left on the table.

“Um, a bunch of stuff about plant breeding and how certain species can work in different potions.” He answered.

“So nothing exciting.” The other teen dismissed as she dropped the plant, and leaned back in her seat as she stared at the ceiling for a moment.

(Starting to think this might not have been a good idea…)

There was a clatter as the front legs of Val’s seat hit the ground. “Alright, I think I’ve got something that isn’t just more boring theory for you to work through.”

Feeling just a little apprehensive he decided to see where she was going with this. “Uh, what did you have in mind?”

“I think you said something about knowing a bit of Contracting, right?” Val double checked as she pulled out a small box from her jacket.

“Uh, yeah.” He nodded.

“What exactly can you summon?” Val asked as she opened her box. “Anything you’ve actually Contracted?”

(Is there a difference?) He wondered, before answering. “Yeah, I’ve contracted a Fairy, a magic wolf, and a Flufflepuff.”

Val paused before giving him an odd look and shaking her head. “Okay… so all beginner summons and nothing really interesting.”

He couldn’t help but frown at that because he felt that Pix, Wolf, and Melon were all interesting in their own ways. But ultimately he didn’t get a chance to argue the point as the other teen continued before he could speak.

“Now I’m Contracted to the Scarecrow.” Val told him with a snap of her fingers, something that immediately had his hackles raising as he sensed the shift in the air.

His eyes darted to the shadow behind the other teen, a shadow that had notably more to it than the last few times he’d seen it creep and crawl. And from within this shadow a white bird skull emerged, and despite being a different face he had no doubt in his mind that this thing was still the Scarecrow he’d seen almost a week prior.

“And through that Contract I get a number of… Perks that most people wouldn’t get for summoning him.” Val continued, as she fiddled with the contents of her box. “And while I don’t plan on telling you what most of those perks are, I will say that he’s taught me a fair number of tricks.”

“What kind of tricks?” He asked, while thinking about those ‘Perks’ she mentioned. (I know Arcane are supposed to gain some extra advantages from Contracting but she’s making it sound like something else…)

“Well for one, I know how to make these… tokens of a sort that let me summon him in places that aren’t next to me.” Val answered, showing him this little bone effigy.

The Scarecrow moved suddenly and he stood from his seat with his knife in hand, ready to gouge out the Demon’s… (empty eye sockets…) (I need somewhere else to stab it.)

Val gave a half chuckle to his reaction. “Relax, he may be a Demon but I’ve got him under control.”

“Are you sure about that?” He frowned, watching the Demon’s flesh shift just enough to approximate a smirk. (On second thought I’ve got acid molotovs to torch it with, let’s use those.)

He’d like to think the Demon lost its smirk.

The Scarecrow’s Keeper seemed to consider his question for a moment before shrugging. “Had to give up most of my ‘Contracting Potential’ but like I said, it comes with its perks and I’ve got him under control. Just about everyone who knows their Contracting can piece that together.”

(Perks, Price, and Contracting.) He thought as he finally figured out what was throwing them about their ‘Contract’. (This sounds closer to Dealmaking than Summoning. Which makes sense when they’re two sides of the same Arcane Art, but this raises an important question.)

His eyes drifted between the Scarecrow and its teenage Keeper.

(Who made the deal with who?)

Scene Consequences

-Thanks to Val gained 2XP to Contracting: Summons and 1XP to Occult and Contracting: Dealmaking.

--Currently: Contracting: Summons Lv. 5 (9/12), Occult Lv. 7 (11/16), and Contracting: Dealmaking Lv. 3 (3/8)

-Progress made towards ??? Perk. (1/4)

A/N: Realized I didn’t specify, but going forward for the most part Val’s Contracting will be of the Summons variety. (The mix of XP types is for not clarifying this.)