Prologue Pt. 4

--- Jon ---

Giving the room one last look over he moved towards his bed and shrugged off his backpack before opening the second zipper, the one Miss Edna had helped him enchant to hold far more than a bag of this size could naturally be capable of.

In a habit that had ingrained itself in him even before the nightmare was that was this last summer, he began doing an inventory of everything he’d brought back with him from camp. Namely the things he had zero intention of letting his mother find, such as the wooden handled axe he was probably a little too familiar with.

Stepping out into the longest hall of his and his ma’s house, and making sure Brutus was behind him, he threw the axe with a practiced ease that would allow it to pierce into the wall roughly thirty meters away. Or would’ve allowed it if he didn’t flex his right hand in a way that triggered the enchantment binding the axe to the little band of plastic wrapped around his wrist.

For a split second the axe seemed to pause in mid-air before reversing its path and returning to his hand with a solid thump as it hit his palm.

“Never going to get tired of that.” He admitted, easily tossing and twirling the lighter than it should be axe in his hand.

It was one of the first enchantments he’d bothered to learn on his own, after having lost both his axe and his knife in a particularly nasty fight with the Corrupted of Blackwell.

(Fangs bit down onto his forearm as the beast thrashed and mauled, rending flesh from bone in a way that had him screaming…) A thumb idly ran over a patch of skin that after a number of potions and spells was only mildly paler than the skin around it.

He’d made sure all of his gear had a way of jumping to hand after that.

Sadly, even though he had managed to figure out the basics to a few of the more common spell affinities, his actual affinities weren’t all that common. It had been a surprise to him and Miss Edna both when her Arcane ring identified his primary affinity as [Hunter] it got even weirder when you considered the fact that his secondary affinities were, Moon and Defender.

None of which were like the earth, fire, water, or wind he’d been expecting given what little he knew about magic back then. Even something like shadows or light would’ve made more sense to him given the few Mask fights he’d seen online.

Honestly if not for Miss Edna he’d of only had the obvious to go off of, which given how magic was big on things such as ‘flowers are plants but plants are not flowers’ and ‘ice is water, even if water is not ice’ meant he wouldn’t know about half of the uses she’d pointed him towards, even if he still had to figure out how to pull most of them off.

As he pulled out a large package wrapped in red, he couldn’t help but be reminded of what De Sade had taught him about every form of magic being another tool for power and destruction.

(Something the man was more than willing to prove.)

Shaking his head, he started undoing the package, some part of him compelled to make sure he still had De Sade’s ‘reward’ for saving the man’s daughter.

A series of books the man had rewarded him, ones containing anything he could possibly want to know about using his affinities to hurt someone, summon a demon, or even bring the dead back to life if he was desperate. (I really don’t want to know if that book on top is actually made from human skin.)

Making sure not to touch the package's contents, he sealed it shut once more, trying very hard not to think of whatever strings were tied to the gift from the man who taught him, ‘Power has a price.’

Instead he began going through the things that had more positive memories tied to them, such as the Bow Jill gave him as a goodbye, since this was the last year she’d be at camp…

He set the bow next to his bed, figuring it was one of the few things it wouldn’t matter if his ma saw laying around his room.

Something that couldn’t be said of the few trick arrows he’d experimented with over the summer. Such as the tranq-arrows covered in a tranquilizer he’d figured out how to make with a few simple ingredients, admittedly he hadn’t had much use for them given how most of what he was fighting needed to be put down but… (The arrow flew through the air, its path set forevermore as it neared its target, before driving its way through the ma-)

He grabbed his fingers and started forcing them back until and stretching sting drew him back down to reality, his heart pounding in his ears, and his breath far shorter than he was comfortable with.

“Yeah… Yeah, it’s a good thing I have tranq-arrows… It’d be real bad if I didn’t…” He chuckled a little deliriously, before pulling out an arrow that was much more straightforward in its purpose.

His trip-arrows were a pair of arrows with a mechanism connecting the two hooked arrowheads through a thin reinforced metal wire. The real trick to using this one was to fire two arrows in quick succession, from there the arrow meant to always be fired second would pull the line taut as soon as it dug into a surface, allowing him to rig a tripwire at any distance. Something that would come in extreme usefulness once he figured out how to rig something to said tripwire without detonating it on impact.

He blinked before shaking his head. “No. No, I don’t need to figure that out. It’s not like I’m going to be fighting anymore…”

The only reason he’d fought the Corrupted over the summer was because he'd stumbled upon them when investigating the Quartermaster, thinking the old man was a threat to the various campers. (If only it’d been that simple…)

Next up were a series of beginner magic books Miss Edna had gifted him, as well as a few packs of seeds for any plants that could help his potion making. Things he felt bad accepting, given how she’d already made him his amulet, the thing that allowed a non-Arcane to practice magic at all.

Under that were a number of drawings and knick-knacks the younger campers had all gifted him over the summer. And while they weren’t necessarily good, they were things he immediately set about finding places for throughout his room.

It was as he was taking one of these drawings to his wall he noticed Pix walking into the room, her hair and wings still wet from her bath.

The little fairy was possibly the best thing to come of his summer misadventures, and despite knowing her for a far shorter amount of time than anyone else, was probably his best friend given how much of the nightmare she’d helped him through.

In fact, he had no doubt he’d be dead if it weren’t for her own skill at, piecing him back together whenever he was injured.

And that wasn’t even including all of the emotional support she’d given them, despite their racial language difficulties.

In the end her friendship and aid made up for the bouts of mischief the little fairy was so fond of, such as-

“Clothes.”

Pix stuck her tongue out at him, not seeing what the big deal was, before climbing onto his bed and digging through his backpack for something to wear, if only to shut him up.

“Right.” He sighed, making a note to collect the clothes he left out for her, before giving her a glare as instead of getting dressed she pulled out a jar of sugar honey. “If you’re hungry you know I can just make dinner, right? I mean, I’m probably going to cook it to treat ma anyway.”

Pix made a series of chimes that he roughly translated to, (‘Don’t worry I’ll eat that too.’)

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes with an amused shake of his head. “Glutton.”

Pix nodded in a sage-like manner.