Scientific Sorcery : 22 The Dealermancer

Callista’s eyes widened in horror as she realized what I was asking. "You... you want me to sign my own contract?"

I nodded, my expression impassive. "It seems only fair, doesn't it? You came here to force me to sign it. Now you get to experience what that feels like firsthand."

Her hand trembled as she gripped the pen, tears streaming down her dirt-smeared face. "Please," she whispered, "there has to be another way."

"Sign it," I said firmly, "or you can stay in the floor. I turn people into magical crystals and I’m rather curious as to what kind of a crystal you’re going to make right now.”

With a choked sob, Callista pressed the pen to the parchment. As soon as the tip touched the paper, a small drop of blood welled up inside of the onyx form of the pen, filling it with red that spilled onto the page. She gasped in pain but continued to write, her signature shaky but legible.

As soon as she finished, I snatched the contract away, rolling it up and securing it in the golden tube. Immediately, I felt a connection to Callista, as if an invisible chain now bound us together.

"Now," I said, looking down at her, "let's test this out, shall we? Callista, I order you to tell me the absolute truth from now on. Tell me about why you really came to Svalbard from Bernt.

Callista's body tensed, her eyes going wide as the magic of the contract took hold. "I... I came because I heard rumors of a survivor in a dragon-ravaged village," she gasped out, the words seeming to force themselves from her throat. "Such survivors are rare and incredibly valuable. I thought... I thought I could easily manipulate a traumatized boy into signing the blood contract. The Iridium flesh markets pay over a thousand gold for Nordstaii heroes, especially ones that are… young."

I pointed the Arcanoelastic remote at the floor once more, pressing the switch to liquefy the wood around Callista. I threw her a rope and pulled her out of the floor. With a sickening squelch, her body came free from its wooden prison. She gasped, coughed and sputtered, drawing in deep breaths as she crawled out of the magical mire onto the floor, trembling and covered in dirt.

"Stand up," I commanded.

Callista's body jerked upright, her movements jerky and uncoordinated as she fought against her own muscles. She stood before me, swaying slightly, her once pristine white dress now stained and torn.

"So, how does it feel?" I asked curiously. "To be on the other side of the contract?"

"It... it hurts," she whimpered, her cat ears flat against her head. "Like my insides are on fire. Please, Ioan, I'm sorry!”

“Sorries don’t pay the bills,” I said.

The necklace flared up on her neck once again, flickering intermittently with silver and blue strings.

“I order you to take that damn necklace off,” I barked.

“I c-caaan’t,” Cali cried, clawing at her gemstone collar with her shaking fingers. “It’s magically augmented to stay on my neck, cannot be removed by a mortal!”

“Fine, just stop using it in my presence then,” I growled. “Turn it off right now or you’re going back into the floor!”

The blue and silver threads vanished from the air. 

I grabbed a pair of witch-soil augmented scissors from the pile. I had kept the scissors close to gemstone 62 for around two weeks, magically reinforcing the metal.

I approached Callista, the enchanted scissors gleaming in the firelight. She flinched as I brought the blades close to her neck, her eyes wide with fear.

"Hold still, it’s snipping time," I commanded. Her body instantly froze in place, the contract's magic forcing her to obey.

With careful precision, I slipped the scissors beneath the ornate collar and pressed blades closed with all of my witchy strength. An ominous, deep screech resounded from the scissors and the collar and magically augmented metal fought against magically augmented thread.

Cali’s eyes stared at the scissors in horror as blue and violet sparks began to rain down from the spot where the scissors fought against the thread. 

I pressed harder with a growl. Warmth rushed across my entire body from my feet to my fingers. The scissors groaned, metal bending. With a brilliant snap the thread finally gave, the collar slipping off Cali’s neck and clicking down to the ground.

Callista gasped. "How... how did you do that?" she whispered, radiating awe and terror.

I looked at the bent scissors in my hand and then grabbed a hammer from the earth pile.

"No!" Cali cried. "The lavaliere is priceless! It's been in my family for generations. Please, I beg you, don't destroy it!"

I paused, the hammer hovering over the fallen necklace. "And why shouldn't I? It's a tool for enslaving people."

Tears streamed down her face. "It's... it's more than that. It's my protection, my livelihood. Without it, I'm... I'm nothing."

I lowered the hammer slightly, studying her face. "Explain."

Cali swallowed hard. "The lavaliere... it's not just for charm. It enhances all my abilities. My dealermancy, my tonguemancy... even my ability to smell gold. Without it, I'm just... just a regular felix arcanicx. Vulnerable. Weak."

I raised an eyebrow. "Dealermancy? Tonguemancy? What are those?"

"Dealermancy is... it's the art of making favorable deals. Persuasion, negotiation. Tonguemancy lets me quickly remember any language I hear," she explained, her voice shaking. "They're... they're part of what makes me valuable as a merchant!"

“Well that’s too bad,” I said. “You should have thought about that before you shattered my belief in human decency," I growled, bringing the hammer down on one of the blue gems with a resounding crack.

Callista let out a strangled cry as the gem cracked, blue sparks flying in all directions. The necklace seemed to writhe on the floor, as if in pain.

"Please, stop!" she begged, reaching out towards the necklace only to hiss as she was held back by my previous command to stand still.

I ignored her pleas, methodically smashing the smallest blue gem. With each blow, Callista flinched as if I was striking her directly.

The gem appeared to be magically reinforced, refusing to yield to my witch-hammer.

“Hrm,” I pursed my lips as I grabbed my microscope and examined the gem through it. The crack I made with my hammer was slowly repairing itself… some kind of blue, blurry, microscopic things were flashing across the surface of the crystal, leaving transdimensional void trails behind them.

“Was this thing made with blood magic?” I turned to Cali.

"Yes! Blood magic is the most effective way to p-produce and maintain a familial artifact!" Cali stammered with a whimper, her eyes fixed on the damaged necklace. "It's been passed down through generations, each wielder adding their own essence to strengthen it."

I frowned, considering this new information.

“Doesn’t that attract all sorts of nightmarish entities from beyond the grave or whatever?” I asked. “Right. You can move if you feel like it. I’m getting tired of you trembling and squealing.”

“It… it does,” Cali slid to the floor hugging herself and sniffing. “But that’s what protective runes are for.”

“I see,” I said. 

The merchant girl looked at me from the floor, wiping her face with a sleeve.

“How are you doing this?” She asked.

“Doing what?” I asked, sensing as Stormy climbed up my shoulder to wrap around my neck.

“Magic,” she said. “Are you really a boy?”

“I am,” I nodded. “What, are there seriously no male Sorcerers across all of Thornwild?”

“None,” Cali exhaled. “Sorcery or ‘outer projection’ is the domain of the feminine. Internal fortitude is the domain of the masculine."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's... it's just how the world works," Cali said. "Since Starfall, the balance of power has been clear. Men draw strength from within, cultivating their inner fortitude to become heroes and warriors. Women, on the other hand, project outwards, manipulating the energies of the world around them."

“Since Starfall?” I repeated.

“From what they taught us at the Iridium Istria Maggelanum… Cometfall changed everything. When the Wormwood Star shattered our world, it didn't just reshape the land. It reshaped us."

She took a deep breath, trying to relax. "Legend has it that when the star fell from the sky a multitude of its shards scattered across all of Thornwild. The bravest men, seeing the destruction wrought by these celestial fragments, followed the falling stars and… chose to swallow them whole."

"They… what?" I sputtered.

"They swallowed the star-fragments they found, internalising their power,” Cali said. “It burned them from within, reforging their bodies into vessels of incredible strength, endurance and power. These men became the first heroes, the progenitors of the cultivator warrior clans.”

"And the women were wise enough not to eat random sky detritus?" I prompted.

"The women," Cali continued, sending me a glare, "they approached the star shards differently. Where men consumed, women communed. They held the shards in their hands, letting the cosmic energy flow through them and out into the world. It changed them too, from the outside, granting them the ability to manipulate the very fabric of reality. They became the founder Archmagi, that laid the foundation of Iridium Istria Maggelanum and other Maggelanums across the known world.”

“But that was a while ago, no?” I asked. “What about now?”

"Now sorceresses train their daughters to wield the shards passed from generation to generation,” Cali said. “Women become Artificers, Seers, or Dealermancers like myself. The shard within my lavalier belonged to my great grandmother.”

"But surely," I pressed, "there must be exceptions? Men who can do magic, women who become warriors?"

Cali shook her head. “Not in living memory. Not since Archmage Korantush tried to make her twin sons… into Sorcerers like herself.”

I waited for her to resume.

"She fed her boys deadly nightshade flowers to unlock their inner eye, gave them their own star shards. Her children bathed their shards in their blood upon their 13th birthday, laying claim to the magical amplifiers. At first, her experiment seemed to have worked. The boys showed signs of magical ability - small tricks, flashes of insight, even the ability to manipulate minor elemental forces. Korranta was elated, convinced she was on the brink of revolutionizing everyone’s understanding of magic."

"But then..." Cali shuddered. "Then everything went horribly wrong.

Cali took a deep breath, her eyes distant as she recounted the tale. "The powers of her twins grew rapidly, far beyond what Korranta had anticipated. But with that growth came instability.

"The boys... they began to change. Their bodies gradually warped, distorted, shifted in impossible ways."

Cali's voice dropped to a whisper. "Korranta refused to listen to other Archmagi because she loved her children so much. She didn’t want to accept that her sons were transforming into abominations that were neither human nor beast. Eventually their bodies inverted completely, flesh and organs moving to their outside. Whatever used to make them human, their very souls… folded inward, lost to the void. They became what your people call… Jotuns.”

She shuddered. "They did terrible things when they escaped Korranta’s tower… Several villages were wiped off the map. It took a coalition of the most powerful heroes and sorceresses to finally stop them."

"And Korranta?" I asked.

Cali's eyes met mine. "She couldn't bear what she'd done. In the end, she used her own magic to... to unmake herself. It's said that in her final moments, she cursed all those who would seek to upset the natural order of magic."

She sighed heavily. "Since then, no one has dared to attempt what Korranta did. The disaster serves as a cautionary tale, a reminder of why men and women must stick to their respective magical domains. It's not just tradition - it's a safeguard against catastrophe."

“I see,” I pursed my lips.

“If you’re truly a male sorcerer,” Cali said. “Then whoever created you made a grave mistake. As long as you continue to influence the world outside your body with magic, then eventually… in time you’ll simply turn inside out, go insane, lose whatever it is that makes you human.”