Post by Admin on Jun 14, 2022 23:15:28 GMT
Introduction
Who will win in a pitched battle between technology and magic?
Setting
Chicago: October 1955 (The Day the Magist Returned, see Bonnie Get Your Shield)
Prologue
Noise and Discord
“As the absolute ruler of the world spanning Empire of Atlantis for a thousand centuries, I had the Imperial Institute of Magic, comprised of the 1000 best mages in the Empire, which is to say, the entire world, always instantly available to respond to my every magical request. Though they were lesser in power than my own, they were well-suited for the tedium of magical research and meticulous spell-crafting.”
Bilmoore Maglimar was still unnerved when the green skull on his magical staff spoke to him, even though the jaw never moved. Making it more disconcerting, the skull spoke only ancient Atlantean, and sounded as if it was speaking in an echo chamber after being recorded and played back in slow motion. The echos sometimes made it difficult to understand, and the arrogant skull rarely repeated anything for clarification. He looked a little more closely and noted that the skull was no longer a glowing, vibrant jade but a much more subdued lime green, somehow giving the impression of someone who was very sick.
“You were the absolute ruler of a box made of rocks, smaller than a gas station, filled with nothing more real than dope dreams!” Bilmoore shouted back, also in Atlantean. (“Eyado pogso ihnyv agopa vopyl ihycw ikoyl pyjxn nwivv opgsi zimin ngigu yzluv vokdu gszyg suzmw ypopo ivgsi kpoiw kyqok yqokp qokpo okpoi kpoiw nnqij!”)
“Eyaky ggopu zmpyg guzmh ammop!” the Magist, screamed again in still-growing rage and frustration at his staff, (possibly referring to a dottering, rotting bugger, but you’d need to know Atlantean to be sure). “You didn’t tell me I’d need to recharge you every other day.””
“It’s not something I ever needed to worry about,” the staff replied smugly. “I founded Atlantis on a fountain of magical power, so there was always all the power I ever needed. And if I ever needed anything more,”
“I know, I know, you had the Imperial Institute of Magic, which fawned on your every whim. I don’t have an Institute - how do you suggest I recharge the staff?”
Bilmoore often spoke Atlantean these day, for practice. And he had to admit, it was very a satisfying language to curse in. Igviz Gunnz, allegedly the spirit of the first Emperor of Atlantis, now bound to the staff, stubbornly refused to learn English. With the increased range of abilities the staff granted him, Bilmoore could now easily cast a translation spell, but he’d just discovered that the staff was extremely low on stored magical power - and after Igviz had repeated referred to the Imperial Institute of Magic, he wasn’t sure the ‘Emperor’ actually knew how to recharge. Bilmoore couldn’t call on the IIM, which had vanished hundreds of thousands of years ago - if it had ever existed at all.
He waved his hand to indicate the lavishly furnished room around them, decorated with statues and paintings, area carpets and luxurious furniture. “You couldn’t have told me BEFORE I used up practically your whole charge creating this place, could you?”
“This ‘place’ is nothing more than a hideously furnished hole in the ground, and unacceptable even as a temporary residence for the Emperor of Atlantis,” the staff sniffed in reply. “Still, your problem is easily resolved. I can sense sources of Atlantean magic in the nearby city. We have enough power remaining to secure those sources for our own use.”
“Since you’re stuck living here, it’s a good thing for you that you aren’t Emperor of Atlantis any longer, huh, Igvi?” Bilmoore snarled back. He’d quickly realized that the ex-Emperor hated that name. “Any suggestions about ‘securing’ that magic?”
“I suggest you contact the Imperial College of Strategy, who will provide you with a plan and resources,” the staff replied.
“Nsagg solaj xaqih yaguw qopui vgsun izkgs ignqi!” the Magist snarled back. “You had better be right about still having enough power! Maybe I should just junk you and find a better staff.”
“You forget, fool, that our life forces are now melded together. An you are without me, you will die” The staff laughed, hideously.
“I’ve got a plan for that worked out,” the Magist matched the hideous laughter. “Keep pushing me and you’ll be sorry.” He laughed again when there was no response.
Peace and Quiet
Bonnie and Cody Mason were preparing dinner together. They had been discussing Bonnie’s encounter with Captain Democracy and the Magist as their son Nate was happily occupied with his mystery hero action figures. He’d organized a One on One Tournament of Heroes, and a dozen hard-fought matches had played out in the past half hour. Cody wasn’t quite sure how Red Rocket had managed to beat Major Power to make the finals, but he found it very interesting that Lady Lambda had won the other half of the bracket.
“Police Commissioner Graham asked Red Rocket and Tom Atomic to find the Magist,” Cody noted, as he mashed the potatoes. “Won’t leave me much time for MTM for a few days.” Red Rocket was Cody’s mystery hero identity. He and Bonnie Marlow Mason made up two thirds of Marlow Thomas Mason Investigations, the best private detective agency in Chicago.
“The Magist said it was his return, but I’ve never heard of him before. What’s the deal with him?” Bonnie asked curiously. She was tossing a salad and keeping a close eye on the big steak in the broiler, while periodically checking on her son.
“Back in 952, when Tony Spinelli was still a Detective, the Magist had a run-in with Captain Catapult and Tony ended up arresting him. He was a distinctly minor wizard back then, but he’d somehow got hold of a magic wand that allowed him to animate stone. He brought a statue of Captain Catapult to life and sent it on a rampage. Catapult ended things quickly, ‘confiscated’ the wand, and the Magist was in prison since then. Escaped a month or so ago. Without the wand, he was just small potatoes. Looks like he’s found himself another wand now, more powerful than his first. Should be an interesting case.”
“Captain Catapult? Haven’t heard that name for a while…” Bonnie was interested.
“Beating the Magist was actually his last case before he retired. But he was the biggest news in Chicago from just after the end of World War II until around the middle of the Korean War.” Cody seemed glad to change the subject away from the Magist. “The speculation is that he was a World War II vet who somehow got his powers during the war, then got recalled to active duty in Korea and never made it home. He was sorta my hero when I was in high school. Heck, he was everybody in Chicago’s hero.”
“I wonder if he’s someone I served with in Korea?” Bonnie mused. “I think in my copious free time, maybe I’ll see what I can find out about him. Seems like a real shame that an acclaimed mystery hero like that can just sort of fade out of sight and memory. There should at least be a statue to him or something!”
“Well, if anyone can find out more about him, it’s you,” Cody knew who was cooking his steak!
A few minutes later, they were ready to eat. Lady Lambda flew to the table alongside Nate, and landed beside his plate, clearly the winner of the latest Tournament of Mystery Heroes. “Mom! I need a Captain Catapult action figure!” Nate demanded as he pulled out his chair. “And you promised me a Vic Valor, too!”
“Tomorrow I’ll ask Uncle Tomas to make them up for your birthday,” Bonnie promised. As well as being a detective and the mystery hero Tom Atomic, their partner Tomas Thomas was a budding entrepreneur in the toys and games market, and often presented prototypes to Nate for some real-world user testing before going to market. He had never dreamed his action figures would get the workout Nate regularly put them through!
Red Rocket on Patrol
As always in a city as big as Chicago, there were many situations in which Red Rocket could have intervened. He had learned early in his career that the hardest decisions he would ever have to make were when NOT to get involved. And still, situations that called for his help expanded to fill his time.
Today he concentrated on finding the Magist. He reread the police reports from years ago, and learned the mystery villain’s original name, Bilmoore Maglimar, dropped in on Pop’s Hock Shop and later the agent for the stage magician Maglimar had been before he discovered his first magic wand, Stonebender. After learning nothing from these two contacts, he simply flew above the Windy City on patrol and monitored the police radio bands.
And he did a lot of good that day. He stopped a couple of muggings, rescued a cat from a tree to stop a little girl from crying, pulled an elderly man from the path of an out-of-control car, carried the occupants of the car to a hospital after it crashed into a fire hydrant, returned and repaired the fire hydrant, and gave hundreds of tourists the chance to tell their friends that they had seen Red Rocket, a real mystery hero, on their visit to Chicago.
Along the way, he stopped in at a number of unsavory hangouts and had friendly chats with the denizens, plus talked with as many of his own street contacts as he could locate. Nobody knew anything about the Magist, and nobody even recognized the police sketches of the two henchmen from the bank robbery. Putting everything together, Cody deduced that Maglimar hadn’t made any attempt to contact the Chicago underworld… yet.
Late that afternoon, he met up with his partners at MTM Investigations to discuss their current cases. After reading the police reports, Tomas summed up what they knew about the Magist. One of the games Tomas was working on was called ‘Super You’ - a mystery hero/villain role-playing game. He and Cody had worked out a system to classify mystery villains, which Tomas had included in the game - and now he applied that system to classify the Magist.
“Type B villainous wizard, uses a wand as a focus for his spells and possibly as a storage device for his magical power, spells include a vocal component (chanting in an unknown mystical language) and a ritual gesture. Likes to show off with flashy effects. Spells used indicate moderate to strong magical power, but he could be concealing his real power level, so don’t make any assumptions. Unlike his earlier appearance, when his wand specifically gave him control over stone, in his current incarnation he has not shown an affinity for a single type of magic.”
Cody continued the discussion, shifting to battle strategy. “Standard tactics against Type B — disrupt his chants, don’t stay in the same place long enough to make an easy target, get the wand away from him, and be cautious, even when he doesn’t have the wand. Some Type Bs can cast spells without the aid of their wands.”
“So,” Tomas continued, “do you want any help?” Tomas made the offer because he felt obligated to, but Cody could see that his main interest was really in his own current case.
“Keep your receiver turned on. If it looks like the $#!* is about to hit the fan, I’ll give you a shout.”
Cody’s Lucky Day
The next day, Cody went out searching for the Magist again. ‘I’ve got a feeling I’ll have better luck today. Well, if you could call an encounter with a deadly, bloodthirsty mystery villain better luck, anyway,’ he chuckled wryly to himself. And less than an hour after he took off, he was responding to a ‘situation alert’ over the police band at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. A security guard had called the police and hysterically announced some kind of robbery, and then the line had gone dead. Immediately, Red Rocket was flashing toward the museum at high speed, a red guided missile streaking across the Chicago sky.
‘Kind of ironic, Bonnie and I have been planning to take Nate to the current attraction at the Field Museum, ‘The Lost Civilization of Atlantis’. It’s hard to believe human-made artifacts could survive for a thousand centuries - and even harder to believe that one branch of homo sapiens could become civilized while the rest of the species stayed hunter-gatherers for another 90,000 years. There must be more involved…’ It was the kind of mystery he liked to ponder in his off-time - but then the Museum came into view and he was back on the clock.
A few people were still rushing frantically from the museum when Rocket arrived. A number of cops and firemen were standing at the entrances, but no one was attempting to go inside. “The place is haunted, Red Rocket! Ghosts, monsters, zombies, you name it, the place is filled with them! Don’t go in, you might never get out alive!”
None of the people racing hysterically from the building looked injured in any way. “Gotta go in, Officer Kwan, part of the job.” Rocket pushed open the door and stepped inside - into a low budget horror movie. A crowd of nightmares faced him. And the stench was tremendous. He issued the command that sealed off his battle suit and sighed in relief at the flow of clean air the environment system started. He could still sort of see the nightmares from the corners of his eyes, but they no longer caused fear.
“Photons and protons! I HATE magic!” he swore to himself, surprised at how shaken he was after such a brief exposure to what he knew was only a magical illusion.
Louis and Douis, Henchmen
The entrance was in one of the three wings of the building, which met in a central chamber that was several stories high. Rocket probed ahead with his built-in sensor suite. His enhanced hearing indicated some vigorous activity in the central chamber, so he proceeded cautiously, floating forward slowly a few inches above the floor. He could hear the smashing of glass, screeches and scrapes as of heavy things being dragged across the floor, and grunts of effort that didn’t sound quite human. Signs told him that the featured display in the central chamber was Atlantis, the Early Pinnacle of Civilization.
‘Hope there’s still something to see when we come back with Nate, he thought wryly. The telescopic amplifier in his visor let him see a couple of very large men, at least 8 feet tall, dragging or carrying exhibits to the center of the chamber. ‘Giant strongmen with unknown magical enhancements. Wonder where that fits into the tables, and what the best game strategy would be? No doubt, Tomas would rush in and try to overpower them, but I don’t claim to be one of the 4 strongest mystery heroes in the world.’
He flew into the room at high speed, flying directly at the giant farthest away, and fired the gun on the back of his left arm. A small projectile trailing a thin wire flashed forward, and when it struck, a high amperage electrical charge zapped the giant. He was thrown backward through the air, crashed into an exhibit and slumped to the floor, but almost immediately began to struggle to sit up. Meanwhile, chunks of rock, powerfully thrown, were bouncing painfully from Rocket’s force field. He was protected by both the field and the armor cloth of his battle suit, but he was starting to realize what the olive in a martini shaker might feel like. He concentrated, and managed to point his right arm at the other giant, and then raised it as if he were scooping something off the ground - and he was. Using his gravity controller, he lifted the second giant into the air - away from the statue he’d smashed to use as ammunition.
“Geez, it’s anuder one a dem underwear bums, and Louie’s takin’ a nap…” the floating giant complained. He threw his last stone, but missed wildly. “Da boss is gonna make us inta rats again, I just know it!”
Actually, Louie was already starting to climb to his feet, and he had something to say. “Tell youse wat, little guy. Let Douis there down and let da two of us get bakta work, and we’ll let ya fly outta here still livin’. Uderwize, dey’ll have to use mops to clean whats lefta youse offa da floor.”
“Sorry, guys, can’t do it - union rules, you know? But since lightning didn’t work - maybe you can take each other out?” Louie was also lifted in the air, and then Cody clapped his hands, and the two giants slammed into each other - hard! But it didn’t seem to faze either of them.
“Cripes, Dou, youse STINK!” Louie yelled. “When’s da last time youse took a bat?” “You’re head must be harder’n the boss’s heart,” Douis ranted back. Then, much less aggressively, “Crap, I hope dere ain’t no dogs around dis…”
Battle in the Museum
Douis was cut off by a deep voice projecting loudly:
XUVALU!
With a sigh of air rushing to fill empty volume, Louie and Dewie were both transformed from very large humans into very large rats. Rocket turned to face the Magist, who was still waving his staff.
“I warned you so-called mystery heroes not to interfere with me!” the evil wizard thundered.
“Kyzgg ivxgy suwly yvtan gjpan ssuwn!” issued from the staff. Rocket had never heard anything quite so weird - like the same voice speaking from dozens of speakers, each a couple inches farther away than the last one.
Instantly the mage yelled back: “Nsaga qeyak oikha llyyz uwhan epums gzydn!”
Cody didn’t bother to join the argument. He fired another shock projectile, which the Magist somehow parried with his staff. Most of the charge zapped the stick, but enough leaked past that the Magist was knocked into staggering backward. He must have prepared some spells in advance, because he didn’t even hesitate.
“Gheyna duwygt luhgha zrylsg. Ghewyv kohtuk wysthc ohollo. Skuohx onngaw wykuxe kghohp iupuli, XUVALU!”
Great fireballs burst from his hands and flew toward Red Rocket.
“Plasma on!” Rocket commanded mentally, and a pulse of superheated plasma blasted from his chest projector. The mighty fireballs met and exploded between the two opponents. Many of the exhibits, which the Magist had hoped to ‘collect’, were starting to char.
“Iggij xdugs jyvki zkujo!” the eerie voice of the staff screamed, followed instantly by a chant from the Magist:
Hving suwdu gsujo, XUVALU!
A barrage of ice blasted from the skull, a thick mix of tiny crystals, hailstones, sharp pointed icicles, and jagged chunks up to the size of beach balls, all smashing into Red Rocket’s force field. He tried to fly out of the barrage, but the Magist could swing the staff around faster than Rocket could move out of the way. The battering was severe enough that the armor cloth in his battlesuit was stiffening randomly to protect him, preventing him from making a coordinated effort to fight back.
‘Well, the plasma worked before, why not again?’ The incoming ice was vaporized almost instantly, but it took less than a second for a billowing cloud of scalding hot steam filled the room. Rocket’s battlesuit protected him, but the magical protection around the Magist apparently wasn’t crafted to stop steam. He was badly burned before he could craft his next spell:
Jyyvi upqpy gojgw olpyw ngoiw! XUVALU!
And he violently slammed the butt of the staff on the granite floor. He was instantly surrounded by a magical cone, inside of which the air was clear of steam and much cooler. He needed s spell in a hurry but was having trouble with his Atlantean, so he tried a reverse English spell he’d crafted for Stonebender:
Eof ym dnib enots fo sepor!
Strands of stone erupted from the granite floor beneath Red Rocket. A very thin cord wrapped around him almost at the speed of a whip, while thicker tentacles moved more slowly, but unerringly in his direction.
Cody bent down and swept the ‘hot spot’ of his short-range disintegrator across the strand, and the part wrapping him immediately went from being strong and supple to being stiff and brittle, and as he flew away from the other reaching tentacles, he was easily able to flex and twist and free himself as the thin rope shattered. He drove at the Magist at his best acceleration, both fists pointed in front of him. He hit the magical protective field surrounding the villainous mage, and the Magist was knocked backwards until he slammed into a very large, ornately carved throne of granite that the two henchgiants had piled in the middle of the floor. As he slumped over the throne, he cast a previously-prepared escape spell that he had made a special effort to commit to memory:
Onjiq onqij, xuvalu
Even with the lack of emphasis on the final word of power, the spell worked, and Magist, staff and throne vanished. And two very large rats changed back into 2 normal sized human males, who bolted in fear at the nightmarish illusions surrounding them and ran screaming out the door into the hands of the police.
Bestest of Buddies
Eyag ygivv euzo qgha whvuz muku ygnqi!
“You totally inept bumbling idiot! With the mighty magic of Atlantis at hand, you failed to defeat a single incompetent mundane foe.” The skull’s eerie, discordant screams were making Bilmoore’s head spin. Before he would lose focus, he screamed back.
Tnelis eb!
He used his own magic, rather than magic drawn from the staff, and he was gratified when for the moment, at least, his own magic still had an effect. Though he could feel the ancient wizard fighting back, virtually all the remaining magic stored in the staff had been used up in his fight and escape. He noted that the skull, which had begun as brilliant jade green and faded to dull lime green before their sortie in the museum, had further faded into very pale yellow.
“That nightmare spell was useless against Red Rocket. I admit, it got rid of the peons, but they’re no problem anyway. We needed a spell to keep away the so-called mystery heroes, and your sure-fire solution was nothing more than a waste of our precious power.”
“And yet, even with your precious Atlantean magic running out, we were on the verge of overpowering that mystery so-called hero before you demanded the ice attack, which almost killed me! If there hadn’t been enough power to heal my burns when we got back here, I would have died and you along with me. This room would have been our tomb, and this monstrosity our epitaph.”
He examined ruefully once again the 10 ton granite throne which had crushed much of the magically-crafted furniture in the hideout’s main living room, and which would have crashed through the floor, if this room hadn’t already been hollowed out of bedrock.
“So why did we rescue this throne? The other items were MUCH more portable. You may speak, but you WILL be civil.”
“Eons ago, when I discovered the fountain of magical power, and there founded Atlantis, I created THIS throne with a special purpose. The throne is a giant battery, which draws magical power from the environment around it, and stores it for my own later use. It will work for none but me. Which is no doubt the reason Atlantis fell when I was deposed. Though the throne no longer draws on the fount, still it is capable of slowly drawing magic from the air around it, and it currently retains a significant magical charge. I designed it specifically to charge staves.”
Bilmoore was beginning to have doubts about the myths the staff recounted. Could this buffoon really have been the founder and first Emperor of Atlantis, or had he been merely some foolish apprentice, fooling around with magic powerful beyond his control? But he could sense a significant amount of magical power stored in the throne. If he could learn to transfer that power into his staff, he should be able to use it to aid him in locating and recovering other powerful artifacts. And if the throne really could draw power from the environment and make it available to him…
‘I’m really tired of dealing with this pompous nincompoop, whether he was Emperor of Atlantis or charlatan. Once I learn the trick of charging a staff, I’ll have the power I need to be done with him… forever!’
Igviz Gunnz, the staff, interrupted his thoughts and continued his eerie speech. “I call this throne the Unlimited Spell Battery. Touch me to it at the spot that is now glowing.”
A round spot on the arm of the throne began glowing red, looking very much like a mundane red plastic button illuminated from inside with a peanut bulb. When the staff touched it, a circular hole opened up in the surface of the rock - just a little larger than the butt of the staff. “If you plug the staff into this port, power from the Battery will slowly charge the staff. Given the observed power level in the throne, and the current state of discharge, I expect to reach full charge in 24 hours - and there should be enough energy to fully recharge one more time, before the throne itself must rest and recharge. You will know I am fully charged when the skull again glows jade green.”
In 24 hours, then, Bilmoore would begin his plan to free himself from the alleged ‘First Emperor of Atlantis’, the first step in his larger plan to rule the world.
Tnelis eb!
He would use that time to craft the spells he would need, and he didn’t want to be distracted by the staff swearing at him during that time.
Post-fight Critique
“So, you totally ignored the strategy you yourself suggested for handling Type 2 wizards with wands,” Tom Atomic critiqued his partner’s description of his fight with the Magist. “And the tactics you DID use didn’t seem that smart, either. Setting the museum on fire, and filling it with scalding steam, don’t seem too well thought out.”
Cody didn’t like hearing this from his partner, but he’d already heard the same critique from Bonnie - and it was pretty much the same things he had alreacy concluded. Which didn’t make it any easier to hear, yet again.
“Agreed,” he acknowledged, hoping to quickly get past any further critique, and move on to topics that stung less. “During the fight, I never had a thought about strategy, I just reacted and attacked. After the fight, I unsealed my armor, and the place was still filled with magical illusions, and I couldn’t get out fast enough!” He shuddered at the recollection - even knowing he was facing only illusions, he had never been more frightened, even when facing death.
“When I could think again I resealed and went back inside. And realized that even through the sealed battle suit, the spell was affecting me. I had trouble thinking straight, couldn’t even solve simple math problems. I theorize that armor cloth is only a partial defense against magic. So how do we prepare for our next fight with the Magist, if his spells can impair our ability to think strategically?”
“I’d say, practice your tactics so you don’t have to think about them during the fight,” Bonnie spoke up. “That spell didn’t affect Cody’s ability to fight, using tactics and weapons he was already familiar with. He just wasn’t able to translate the strategy he’d only thought about for no more than a few seconds into appropriate tactics. ”
Cody was about to protest, but she cut him off. “You know it’s true. Once you decided you knew how to deal with him, you moved on and never thought about it again - until after you fought him. I know how you think.” He remained silent.
“So, instead of just thinking about how you might fight against a “Type 37 malevolent Wizard with a Type 18b badass Wand”, or whatever you guys called him before, make a list of actions you need to take when facing said wizard next time - confuse him, distract him, misdirect him, etc. - and then practice those actions.”
She reached behind the sofa and pulled out a staff - a broom handle with a wooden globe on the end, and a sheet of paper covered in her neat, easily legible handwriting, and handed both to her husband. “I started a list already, in fact - so you two just get suited up and go wherever it is you go to train so you won’t wreck the house. Take turns being the wizard. See what you can think up that’s not already on the list. And once you’ve got that stuff down, we will sit down together and see if we can think of anything else.”
Both men knew that there are times when it is better not to argue with a woman, whether you are her husband, her business partner, or even a famed mystery hero. This definitely felt like one of those times. “Sounds like a plan, thanks, Bonnie!” They headed out for a practice session.
Who will win in a pitched battle between technology and magic?
Setting
Chicago: October 1955 (The Day the Magist Returned, see Bonnie Get Your Shield)
Prologue
Noise and Discord
“As the absolute ruler of the world spanning Empire of Atlantis for a thousand centuries, I had the Imperial Institute of Magic, comprised of the 1000 best mages in the Empire, which is to say, the entire world, always instantly available to respond to my every magical request. Though they were lesser in power than my own, they were well-suited for the tedium of magical research and meticulous spell-crafting.”
Bilmoore Maglimar was still unnerved when the green skull on his magical staff spoke to him, even though the jaw never moved. Making it more disconcerting, the skull spoke only ancient Atlantean, and sounded as if it was speaking in an echo chamber after being recorded and played back in slow motion. The echos sometimes made it difficult to understand, and the arrogant skull rarely repeated anything for clarification. He looked a little more closely and noted that the skull was no longer a glowing, vibrant jade but a much more subdued lime green, somehow giving the impression of someone who was very sick.
“You were the absolute ruler of a box made of rocks, smaller than a gas station, filled with nothing more real than dope dreams!” Bilmoore shouted back, also in Atlantean. (“Eyado pogso ihnyv agopa vopyl ihycw ikoyl pyjxn nwivv opgsi zimin ngigu yzluv vokdu gszyg suzmw ypopo ivgsi kpoiw kyqok yqokp qokpo okpoi kpoiw nnqij!”)
“Eyaky ggopu zmpyg guzmh ammop!” the Magist, screamed again in still-growing rage and frustration at his staff, (possibly referring to a dottering, rotting bugger, but you’d need to know Atlantean to be sure). “You didn’t tell me I’d need to recharge you every other day.””
“It’s not something I ever needed to worry about,” the staff replied smugly. “I founded Atlantis on a fountain of magical power, so there was always all the power I ever needed. And if I ever needed anything more,”
“I know, I know, you had the Imperial Institute of Magic, which fawned on your every whim. I don’t have an Institute - how do you suggest I recharge the staff?”
Bilmoore often spoke Atlantean these day, for practice. And he had to admit, it was very a satisfying language to curse in. Igviz Gunnz, allegedly the spirit of the first Emperor of Atlantis, now bound to the staff, stubbornly refused to learn English. With the increased range of abilities the staff granted him, Bilmoore could now easily cast a translation spell, but he’d just discovered that the staff was extremely low on stored magical power - and after Igviz had repeated referred to the Imperial Institute of Magic, he wasn’t sure the ‘Emperor’ actually knew how to recharge. Bilmoore couldn’t call on the IIM, which had vanished hundreds of thousands of years ago - if it had ever existed at all.
He waved his hand to indicate the lavishly furnished room around them, decorated with statues and paintings, area carpets and luxurious furniture. “You couldn’t have told me BEFORE I used up practically your whole charge creating this place, could you?”
“This ‘place’ is nothing more than a hideously furnished hole in the ground, and unacceptable even as a temporary residence for the Emperor of Atlantis,” the staff sniffed in reply. “Still, your problem is easily resolved. I can sense sources of Atlantean magic in the nearby city. We have enough power remaining to secure those sources for our own use.”
“Since you’re stuck living here, it’s a good thing for you that you aren’t Emperor of Atlantis any longer, huh, Igvi?” Bilmoore snarled back. He’d quickly realized that the ex-Emperor hated that name. “Any suggestions about ‘securing’ that magic?”
“I suggest you contact the Imperial College of Strategy, who will provide you with a plan and resources,” the staff replied.
“Nsagg solaj xaqih yaguw qopui vgsun izkgs ignqi!” the Magist snarled back. “You had better be right about still having enough power! Maybe I should just junk you and find a better staff.”
“You forget, fool, that our life forces are now melded together. An you are without me, you will die” The staff laughed, hideously.
“I’ve got a plan for that worked out,” the Magist matched the hideous laughter. “Keep pushing me and you’ll be sorry.” He laughed again when there was no response.
Peace and Quiet
Bonnie and Cody Mason were preparing dinner together. They had been discussing Bonnie’s encounter with Captain Democracy and the Magist as their son Nate was happily occupied with his mystery hero action figures. He’d organized a One on One Tournament of Heroes, and a dozen hard-fought matches had played out in the past half hour. Cody wasn’t quite sure how Red Rocket had managed to beat Major Power to make the finals, but he found it very interesting that Lady Lambda had won the other half of the bracket.
“Police Commissioner Graham asked Red Rocket and Tom Atomic to find the Magist,” Cody noted, as he mashed the potatoes. “Won’t leave me much time for MTM for a few days.” Red Rocket was Cody’s mystery hero identity. He and Bonnie Marlow Mason made up two thirds of Marlow Thomas Mason Investigations, the best private detective agency in Chicago.
“The Magist said it was his return, but I’ve never heard of him before. What’s the deal with him?” Bonnie asked curiously. She was tossing a salad and keeping a close eye on the big steak in the broiler, while periodically checking on her son.
“Back in 952, when Tony Spinelli was still a Detective, the Magist had a run-in with Captain Catapult and Tony ended up arresting him. He was a distinctly minor wizard back then, but he’d somehow got hold of a magic wand that allowed him to animate stone. He brought a statue of Captain Catapult to life and sent it on a rampage. Catapult ended things quickly, ‘confiscated’ the wand, and the Magist was in prison since then. Escaped a month or so ago. Without the wand, he was just small potatoes. Looks like he’s found himself another wand now, more powerful than his first. Should be an interesting case.”
“Captain Catapult? Haven’t heard that name for a while…” Bonnie was interested.
“Beating the Magist was actually his last case before he retired. But he was the biggest news in Chicago from just after the end of World War II until around the middle of the Korean War.” Cody seemed glad to change the subject away from the Magist. “The speculation is that he was a World War II vet who somehow got his powers during the war, then got recalled to active duty in Korea and never made it home. He was sorta my hero when I was in high school. Heck, he was everybody in Chicago’s hero.”
“I wonder if he’s someone I served with in Korea?” Bonnie mused. “I think in my copious free time, maybe I’ll see what I can find out about him. Seems like a real shame that an acclaimed mystery hero like that can just sort of fade out of sight and memory. There should at least be a statue to him or something!”
“Well, if anyone can find out more about him, it’s you,” Cody knew who was cooking his steak!
A few minutes later, they were ready to eat. Lady Lambda flew to the table alongside Nate, and landed beside his plate, clearly the winner of the latest Tournament of Mystery Heroes. “Mom! I need a Captain Catapult action figure!” Nate demanded as he pulled out his chair. “And you promised me a Vic Valor, too!”
“Tomorrow I’ll ask Uncle Tomas to make them up for your birthday,” Bonnie promised. As well as being a detective and the mystery hero Tom Atomic, their partner Tomas Thomas was a budding entrepreneur in the toys and games market, and often presented prototypes to Nate for some real-world user testing before going to market. He had never dreamed his action figures would get the workout Nate regularly put them through!
Red Rocket on Patrol
As always in a city as big as Chicago, there were many situations in which Red Rocket could have intervened. He had learned early in his career that the hardest decisions he would ever have to make were when NOT to get involved. And still, situations that called for his help expanded to fill his time.
Today he concentrated on finding the Magist. He reread the police reports from years ago, and learned the mystery villain’s original name, Bilmoore Maglimar, dropped in on Pop’s Hock Shop and later the agent for the stage magician Maglimar had been before he discovered his first magic wand, Stonebender. After learning nothing from these two contacts, he simply flew above the Windy City on patrol and monitored the police radio bands.
And he did a lot of good that day. He stopped a couple of muggings, rescued a cat from a tree to stop a little girl from crying, pulled an elderly man from the path of an out-of-control car, carried the occupants of the car to a hospital after it crashed into a fire hydrant, returned and repaired the fire hydrant, and gave hundreds of tourists the chance to tell their friends that they had seen Red Rocket, a real mystery hero, on their visit to Chicago.
Along the way, he stopped in at a number of unsavory hangouts and had friendly chats with the denizens, plus talked with as many of his own street contacts as he could locate. Nobody knew anything about the Magist, and nobody even recognized the police sketches of the two henchmen from the bank robbery. Putting everything together, Cody deduced that Maglimar hadn’t made any attempt to contact the Chicago underworld… yet.
Late that afternoon, he met up with his partners at MTM Investigations to discuss their current cases. After reading the police reports, Tomas summed up what they knew about the Magist. One of the games Tomas was working on was called ‘Super You’ - a mystery hero/villain role-playing game. He and Cody had worked out a system to classify mystery villains, which Tomas had included in the game - and now he applied that system to classify the Magist.
“Type B villainous wizard, uses a wand as a focus for his spells and possibly as a storage device for his magical power, spells include a vocal component (chanting in an unknown mystical language) and a ritual gesture. Likes to show off with flashy effects. Spells used indicate moderate to strong magical power, but he could be concealing his real power level, so don’t make any assumptions. Unlike his earlier appearance, when his wand specifically gave him control over stone, in his current incarnation he has not shown an affinity for a single type of magic.”
Cody continued the discussion, shifting to battle strategy. “Standard tactics against Type B — disrupt his chants, don’t stay in the same place long enough to make an easy target, get the wand away from him, and be cautious, even when he doesn’t have the wand. Some Type Bs can cast spells without the aid of their wands.”
“So,” Tomas continued, “do you want any help?” Tomas made the offer because he felt obligated to, but Cody could see that his main interest was really in his own current case.
“Keep your receiver turned on. If it looks like the $#!* is about to hit the fan, I’ll give you a shout.”
Cody’s Lucky Day
The next day, Cody went out searching for the Magist again. ‘I’ve got a feeling I’ll have better luck today. Well, if you could call an encounter with a deadly, bloodthirsty mystery villain better luck, anyway,’ he chuckled wryly to himself. And less than an hour after he took off, he was responding to a ‘situation alert’ over the police band at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. A security guard had called the police and hysterically announced some kind of robbery, and then the line had gone dead. Immediately, Red Rocket was flashing toward the museum at high speed, a red guided missile streaking across the Chicago sky.
‘Kind of ironic, Bonnie and I have been planning to take Nate to the current attraction at the Field Museum, ‘The Lost Civilization of Atlantis’. It’s hard to believe human-made artifacts could survive for a thousand centuries - and even harder to believe that one branch of homo sapiens could become civilized while the rest of the species stayed hunter-gatherers for another 90,000 years. There must be more involved…’ It was the kind of mystery he liked to ponder in his off-time - but then the Museum came into view and he was back on the clock.
A few people were still rushing frantically from the museum when Rocket arrived. A number of cops and firemen were standing at the entrances, but no one was attempting to go inside. “The place is haunted, Red Rocket! Ghosts, monsters, zombies, you name it, the place is filled with them! Don’t go in, you might never get out alive!”
None of the people racing hysterically from the building looked injured in any way. “Gotta go in, Officer Kwan, part of the job.” Rocket pushed open the door and stepped inside - into a low budget horror movie. A crowd of nightmares faced him. And the stench was tremendous. He issued the command that sealed off his battle suit and sighed in relief at the flow of clean air the environment system started. He could still sort of see the nightmares from the corners of his eyes, but they no longer caused fear.
“Photons and protons! I HATE magic!” he swore to himself, surprised at how shaken he was after such a brief exposure to what he knew was only a magical illusion.
Louis and Douis, Henchmen
The entrance was in one of the three wings of the building, which met in a central chamber that was several stories high. Rocket probed ahead with his built-in sensor suite. His enhanced hearing indicated some vigorous activity in the central chamber, so he proceeded cautiously, floating forward slowly a few inches above the floor. He could hear the smashing of glass, screeches and scrapes as of heavy things being dragged across the floor, and grunts of effort that didn’t sound quite human. Signs told him that the featured display in the central chamber was Atlantis, the Early Pinnacle of Civilization.
‘Hope there’s still something to see when we come back with Nate, he thought wryly. The telescopic amplifier in his visor let him see a couple of very large men, at least 8 feet tall, dragging or carrying exhibits to the center of the chamber. ‘Giant strongmen with unknown magical enhancements. Wonder where that fits into the tables, and what the best game strategy would be? No doubt, Tomas would rush in and try to overpower them, but I don’t claim to be one of the 4 strongest mystery heroes in the world.’
He flew into the room at high speed, flying directly at the giant farthest away, and fired the gun on the back of his left arm. A small projectile trailing a thin wire flashed forward, and when it struck, a high amperage electrical charge zapped the giant. He was thrown backward through the air, crashed into an exhibit and slumped to the floor, but almost immediately began to struggle to sit up. Meanwhile, chunks of rock, powerfully thrown, were bouncing painfully from Rocket’s force field. He was protected by both the field and the armor cloth of his battle suit, but he was starting to realize what the olive in a martini shaker might feel like. He concentrated, and managed to point his right arm at the other giant, and then raised it as if he were scooping something off the ground - and he was. Using his gravity controller, he lifted the second giant into the air - away from the statue he’d smashed to use as ammunition.
“Geez, it’s anuder one a dem underwear bums, and Louie’s takin’ a nap…” the floating giant complained. He threw his last stone, but missed wildly. “Da boss is gonna make us inta rats again, I just know it!”
Actually, Louie was already starting to climb to his feet, and he had something to say. “Tell youse wat, little guy. Let Douis there down and let da two of us get bakta work, and we’ll let ya fly outta here still livin’. Uderwize, dey’ll have to use mops to clean whats lefta youse offa da floor.”
“Sorry, guys, can’t do it - union rules, you know? But since lightning didn’t work - maybe you can take each other out?” Louie was also lifted in the air, and then Cody clapped his hands, and the two giants slammed into each other - hard! But it didn’t seem to faze either of them.
“Cripes, Dou, youse STINK!” Louie yelled. “When’s da last time youse took a bat?” “You’re head must be harder’n the boss’s heart,” Douis ranted back. Then, much less aggressively, “Crap, I hope dere ain’t no dogs around dis…”
Battle in the Museum
Douis was cut off by a deep voice projecting loudly:
XUVALU!
With a sigh of air rushing to fill empty volume, Louie and Dewie were both transformed from very large humans into very large rats. Rocket turned to face the Magist, who was still waving his staff.
“I warned you so-called mystery heroes not to interfere with me!” the evil wizard thundered.
“Kyzgg ivxgy suwly yvtan gjpan ssuwn!” issued from the staff. Rocket had never heard anything quite so weird - like the same voice speaking from dozens of speakers, each a couple inches farther away than the last one.
Instantly the mage yelled back: “Nsaga qeyak oikha llyyz uwhan epums gzydn!”
Cody didn’t bother to join the argument. He fired another shock projectile, which the Magist somehow parried with his staff. Most of the charge zapped the stick, but enough leaked past that the Magist was knocked into staggering backward. He must have prepared some spells in advance, because he didn’t even hesitate.
“Gheyna duwygt luhgha zrylsg. Ghewyv kohtuk wysthc ohollo. Skuohx onngaw wykuxe kghohp iupuli, XUVALU!”
Great fireballs burst from his hands and flew toward Red Rocket.
“Plasma on!” Rocket commanded mentally, and a pulse of superheated plasma blasted from his chest projector. The mighty fireballs met and exploded between the two opponents. Many of the exhibits, which the Magist had hoped to ‘collect’, were starting to char.
“Iggij xdugs jyvki zkujo!” the eerie voice of the staff screamed, followed instantly by a chant from the Magist:
Hving suwdu gsujo, XUVALU!
A barrage of ice blasted from the skull, a thick mix of tiny crystals, hailstones, sharp pointed icicles, and jagged chunks up to the size of beach balls, all smashing into Red Rocket’s force field. He tried to fly out of the barrage, but the Magist could swing the staff around faster than Rocket could move out of the way. The battering was severe enough that the armor cloth in his battlesuit was stiffening randomly to protect him, preventing him from making a coordinated effort to fight back.
‘Well, the plasma worked before, why not again?’ The incoming ice was vaporized almost instantly, but it took less than a second for a billowing cloud of scalding hot steam filled the room. Rocket’s battlesuit protected him, but the magical protection around the Magist apparently wasn’t crafted to stop steam. He was badly burned before he could craft his next spell:
Jyyvi upqpy gojgw olpyw ngoiw! XUVALU!
And he violently slammed the butt of the staff on the granite floor. He was instantly surrounded by a magical cone, inside of which the air was clear of steam and much cooler. He needed s spell in a hurry but was having trouble with his Atlantean, so he tried a reverse English spell he’d crafted for Stonebender:
Eof ym dnib enots fo sepor!
Strands of stone erupted from the granite floor beneath Red Rocket. A very thin cord wrapped around him almost at the speed of a whip, while thicker tentacles moved more slowly, but unerringly in his direction.
Cody bent down and swept the ‘hot spot’ of his short-range disintegrator across the strand, and the part wrapping him immediately went from being strong and supple to being stiff and brittle, and as he flew away from the other reaching tentacles, he was easily able to flex and twist and free himself as the thin rope shattered. He drove at the Magist at his best acceleration, both fists pointed in front of him. He hit the magical protective field surrounding the villainous mage, and the Magist was knocked backwards until he slammed into a very large, ornately carved throne of granite that the two henchgiants had piled in the middle of the floor. As he slumped over the throne, he cast a previously-prepared escape spell that he had made a special effort to commit to memory:
Onjiq onqij, xuvalu
Even with the lack of emphasis on the final word of power, the spell worked, and Magist, staff and throne vanished. And two very large rats changed back into 2 normal sized human males, who bolted in fear at the nightmarish illusions surrounding them and ran screaming out the door into the hands of the police.
Bestest of Buddies
Eyag ygivv euzo qgha whvuz muku ygnqi!
“You totally inept bumbling idiot! With the mighty magic of Atlantis at hand, you failed to defeat a single incompetent mundane foe.” The skull’s eerie, discordant screams were making Bilmoore’s head spin. Before he would lose focus, he screamed back.
Tnelis eb!
He used his own magic, rather than magic drawn from the staff, and he was gratified when for the moment, at least, his own magic still had an effect. Though he could feel the ancient wizard fighting back, virtually all the remaining magic stored in the staff had been used up in his fight and escape. He noted that the skull, which had begun as brilliant jade green and faded to dull lime green before their sortie in the museum, had further faded into very pale yellow.
“That nightmare spell was useless against Red Rocket. I admit, it got rid of the peons, but they’re no problem anyway. We needed a spell to keep away the so-called mystery heroes, and your sure-fire solution was nothing more than a waste of our precious power.”
“And yet, even with your precious Atlantean magic running out, we were on the verge of overpowering that mystery so-called hero before you demanded the ice attack, which almost killed me! If there hadn’t been enough power to heal my burns when we got back here, I would have died and you along with me. This room would have been our tomb, and this monstrosity our epitaph.”
He examined ruefully once again the 10 ton granite throne which had crushed much of the magically-crafted furniture in the hideout’s main living room, and which would have crashed through the floor, if this room hadn’t already been hollowed out of bedrock.
“So why did we rescue this throne? The other items were MUCH more portable. You may speak, but you WILL be civil.”
“Eons ago, when I discovered the fountain of magical power, and there founded Atlantis, I created THIS throne with a special purpose. The throne is a giant battery, which draws magical power from the environment around it, and stores it for my own later use. It will work for none but me. Which is no doubt the reason Atlantis fell when I was deposed. Though the throne no longer draws on the fount, still it is capable of slowly drawing magic from the air around it, and it currently retains a significant magical charge. I designed it specifically to charge staves.”
Bilmoore was beginning to have doubts about the myths the staff recounted. Could this buffoon really have been the founder and first Emperor of Atlantis, or had he been merely some foolish apprentice, fooling around with magic powerful beyond his control? But he could sense a significant amount of magical power stored in the throne. If he could learn to transfer that power into his staff, he should be able to use it to aid him in locating and recovering other powerful artifacts. And if the throne really could draw power from the environment and make it available to him…
‘I’m really tired of dealing with this pompous nincompoop, whether he was Emperor of Atlantis or charlatan. Once I learn the trick of charging a staff, I’ll have the power I need to be done with him… forever!’
Igviz Gunnz, the staff, interrupted his thoughts and continued his eerie speech. “I call this throne the Unlimited Spell Battery. Touch me to it at the spot that is now glowing.”
A round spot on the arm of the throne began glowing red, looking very much like a mundane red plastic button illuminated from inside with a peanut bulb. When the staff touched it, a circular hole opened up in the surface of the rock - just a little larger than the butt of the staff. “If you plug the staff into this port, power from the Battery will slowly charge the staff. Given the observed power level in the throne, and the current state of discharge, I expect to reach full charge in 24 hours - and there should be enough energy to fully recharge one more time, before the throne itself must rest and recharge. You will know I am fully charged when the skull again glows jade green.”
In 24 hours, then, Bilmoore would begin his plan to free himself from the alleged ‘First Emperor of Atlantis’, the first step in his larger plan to rule the world.
Tnelis eb!
He would use that time to craft the spells he would need, and he didn’t want to be distracted by the staff swearing at him during that time.
Post-fight Critique
“So, you totally ignored the strategy you yourself suggested for handling Type 2 wizards with wands,” Tom Atomic critiqued his partner’s description of his fight with the Magist. “And the tactics you DID use didn’t seem that smart, either. Setting the museum on fire, and filling it with scalding steam, don’t seem too well thought out.”
Cody didn’t like hearing this from his partner, but he’d already heard the same critique from Bonnie - and it was pretty much the same things he had alreacy concluded. Which didn’t make it any easier to hear, yet again.
“Agreed,” he acknowledged, hoping to quickly get past any further critique, and move on to topics that stung less. “During the fight, I never had a thought about strategy, I just reacted and attacked. After the fight, I unsealed my armor, and the place was still filled with magical illusions, and I couldn’t get out fast enough!” He shuddered at the recollection - even knowing he was facing only illusions, he had never been more frightened, even when facing death.
“When I could think again I resealed and went back inside. And realized that even through the sealed battle suit, the spell was affecting me. I had trouble thinking straight, couldn’t even solve simple math problems. I theorize that armor cloth is only a partial defense against magic. So how do we prepare for our next fight with the Magist, if his spells can impair our ability to think strategically?”
“I’d say, practice your tactics so you don’t have to think about them during the fight,” Bonnie spoke up. “That spell didn’t affect Cody’s ability to fight, using tactics and weapons he was already familiar with. He just wasn’t able to translate the strategy he’d only thought about for no more than a few seconds into appropriate tactics. ”
Cody was about to protest, but she cut him off. “You know it’s true. Once you decided you knew how to deal with him, you moved on and never thought about it again - until after you fought him. I know how you think.” He remained silent.
“So, instead of just thinking about how you might fight against a “Type 37 malevolent Wizard with a Type 18b badass Wand”, or whatever you guys called him before, make a list of actions you need to take when facing said wizard next time - confuse him, distract him, misdirect him, etc. - and then practice those actions.”
She reached behind the sofa and pulled out a staff - a broom handle with a wooden globe on the end, and a sheet of paper covered in her neat, easily legible handwriting, and handed both to her husband. “I started a list already, in fact - so you two just get suited up and go wherever it is you go to train so you won’t wreck the house. Take turns being the wizard. See what you can think up that’s not already on the list. And once you’ve got that stuff down, we will sit down together and see if we can think of anything else.”
Both men knew that there are times when it is better not to argue with a woman, whether you are her husband, her business partner, or even a famed mystery hero. This definitely felt like one of those times. “Sounds like a plan, thanks, Bonnie!” They headed out for a practice session.