Chapter sixteen

I was pleasantly surprised when Walter came to my home with a wagon full of wire the very next day. I invited him in and I treated him to some whiskey, its amazing what you can make with a barrel that was enchanted to quickly ferment liquor. He left slightly sloshed but completely happy.

The next thirteen days I spent setting up the A.R.M. ( automated ritual machine ) . In the end I had to magically dig out a second basement just to fit the damn thing. It was a giant complex web of wires that I had to carefully set up in the exact way that Jules specified.

The idea behind the machine was actually pretty simple, You draw the ritual circle you want to invoke on a board. Instead of mages (a.n. different parts of the world use different terms like witch doctor, witch, wizard etc... but I'm gonna use mage as a general term) to provide the power you insert starting pins. Afterwards you insert the board into the A.R.M.

The other important component of any ritual other than power is the mages 'will' that acts as a guide for the mana through the ritual. That part has been replaced by the magnetic field that is going to be supplied by the wires. There where tens of thousands of separate wires that could be plugged into a switchboard connected to a bank of five hundred magical generators. The calculations to determine the current that should flow through each wire to get the appropriate field was so astronomical that it would probably have taken me hundreds of years just to figure out a single ritual, but thankfully I have a supercomputer in my head to do all the calculations for me.

It was a door to a lot of possibilities that were not open to me before like summoning and empowerment rituals among others.

I was really excited about the next part.

"Jules, its time to summon a familiar."

I was imagining all the creatures I was going to summon and bind to my will when Jules shattered my fantasies with two words.

"No succubi."

"Awwwww........ Come on!"

* * *

P.O.V. change - Lidia

The past two weeks have been absolutely wonderful, and it was all thanks to the generous and mysterious John. I was not only able to pay off all of the orphanage's debts, but also pay some masons to fix the house before it collapsed on our heads. Even after all that I was able to buy some of the older children second hand equipment and they started doing low grade missions in the mercenary's guild, so we had a good income source now.

I was in the parlor playing the violin, which I hadn't played in a while, while I marveled at the change one man's generosity had wrought upon my life. So I had a big smile on my face when I went to open the door after I heard a light knock.

All my good cheer disappeared right along with the smile when I saw who was at the door.

" Mom? "

A,n. I know the chapters are short but I released like 10 chapters in two days so please bear with me. Shout out to icecranium for understanding