Haven's Addiction

After an unsettling breakfast in silence, we chose to eat inside with the door shut tight, we headed straight to Fenton’s shop to see what he had for me. I immediately thought the Twittle birds were a scam. Train some birds to arrive at peoples windows, spread the word that the birds can tell you have psychic talent, charge them for getting tested when they come in, and then charge them even more for schooling. It seemed like a brilliant scam. As it turned out, the evaluation services were free, just like the translators. Although that didn’t mean it was any less of a fraud.

If it hadn’t been for ‘The Birds’ encounter I would never have considered going. It was too much of a Twilight Zone moment to ignore completely. Mazzy agreed that she wouldn’t tell anyone about what happened, but we both concurred that this would have a way of getting out no matter how hard I tried to keep it under wraps.

When we arrived at Fenton’s he was very happy to see us. He was busy with a customer and pretty much blew them off in order to greet us, hurriedly finishing the transaction. Fenton had good news already and wasn’t hesitating to hide it.

“Mister Bailey, it is so good to see you this morning. I hope the sounds of Twittle birds didn’t disturb your rest last eve.”

“I see you caught wind or our little visitors already, as I knew you would.”

“Very astute you are Mister Bailey,” he chuckled “as I could tell you were from the moment you first walked in my door.”

“Yeah, yeah. Enough with the flattery. What have you got for me?”

“Astute and straightforward. I like your style Mister Bailey. Lets get down to business then shall we?” He waved his hand towards the front door. I turned to see the sign on the door change from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ all by itself, and heard the click of the lock engaging. “Lets go into my office and discuss the good news, shall we?”

Fenton escorted Mazzy and I to his office in the back of the store. Apparently Fenton wasn’t very organized, as the office was as much of a disaster area as the rest of his store.

“I have spoken with my contact, and he is very interested in purchasing the pieces of yours that I presented to him.” He was very excited and speaking rather quickly. “He has made an initial offer of a very admirable sum. Very admirable indeed. A far larger sum for a single transaction than I have ever had in my history in this business, and he is willing to make the transaction as soon as possible. As he is an extraordinarily wealthy man, possibly the wealthiest in all of the known realms, his credibility is above reproach. To pass up an offer like this would be a grievous mistake, a tragedy to end all tragedies. There is a catch, however.”

“Of course. There always is,” I replied, stoically.

“See, you are a businessman at heart Mister Bailey. He said he would only purchase the pieces if you sold him the entire collection. Believe me I did not mention that there were additional pieces. He came right out and said he knew there were more, and seemed to know exactly how many you possess. One doesn’t become as powerful and influential as him without knowing things.”

I felt my stomach twitch with anticipation, but kept my poker face on. “So, exactly how much are we talking?”

“The sum he gave was such a high amount that I don’t have a proper word for it. However he did write the figure down for me so that I could pass it on to you.” He excitedly pulled out a piece of paper from his vest pocket and handed it to me.

I unfolded it and took a look at the figure I was quoted, intrigued by the fact that the numerical digits were the same as from my world. I remembered my math teacher in college stressing that mathematics was a universal language. Apparently he was more correct than he realized. Make now mistake, it was significantly higher number than what the actual value of the currency. I had a hard time believing someone would want to pay that much for them, but I also didn’t care. It was his money, and would soon be mine.

If the figure he quoted had been in US dollars I would be set for life on my own private island, as would my great great grandchildren, barring any unforeseeable financial difficulties. The IRS would have a field day laughing their asses off if I tried to explain where this income came from. Then again, the entire IRS office had probably been vaporized by the Graxis. I guess something good came out of my predicament after all. If I made it back home alive I would owe my brother-in-law a cut.

I felt like I won the lottery on a ticket that someone else had bought, but for some reason I wasn’t all that excited about it. I should have been jumping for joy and making an overall ass out of myself. I realized that I wasn’t thrilled about it because my next response was the eternal question of ‘What do I do with it?’

So what could I do with it? Buy a mansion on an alien world that I was trying to escape from to get back home? I could use it to buy weapons to take back home, but what? A few million bows and arrows? A dozen magic wands? If machine guns and nuclear weapons couldn’t defeat the Graxis, then what could I possibly purchase here that would save the world? Besides, what good is it to be filthy rich if you don’t have anyone to share it with? And there was nobody I would rather share my good fortune with than my wife, who was no longer with me.

“That is a lot of zero’s,” I remarked. “But,” I crumpled up the piece of parchment and threw it aside with the rest of the clutter around the room. “What good is having that much money for? The only thing I want right now is to get back home. You don’t happen to have a ticket to that somewhere in your store do you?”

Fenton looked at me like I had asked him to kick a baby. He looked on, eyes wide and mouth agape, in complete shock, and then looked at the crumpled piece of paper on the floor. He then looked back and forth between me and the paper absolutely flabbergasted. He muttered and stammered forever without making any real words. Apparently, making a sale like this was the ultimate dream come true for him, and I had denied it to him, ripped it out of him like I had reached in and pulled out his heart.

“Don’t worry, I will sell it to him. There is nothing I can do with those bills anyway. Sorry to burst your bubble like that. It’s just that…” I trailed off trying to think of the right words. In all reality I didn’t know what it was like. Everything I experienced the last couple days was unlike any I could have imagined in my wildest dreams, or nightmares. I had no clue what I should do next, or even what I could do.

“Don’t you fret Mister Bailey. We will get you set up with the finest equipment and contacts in the realms. With that sum of money you will be one of the wealthiest individuals I have ever known, and I have been in this realm for a good long time. With those kinds of resources, we will get you back home in no time.”

“It’s not just a matter of getting home. I was sent here to find a way to save my world from a threat that I don’t even know anything about.”

“Ah, Mister Bailey. You come from a realm that does not embrace magic, do you not? You are in for quite a surprise when you see what I have for you. There are things in this realm that boggle even my mind at times. Wondrous items are yours to behold. Get ready for a big surprise Mister Bailey, a very big surprise indeed.”

Soon after that the paperwork was completed and the deal was made. I handed over the wad of cash in exchange for currency in the amount written on the paper still lying crumpled on the floor. I didn’t even haggle the price and took the first offer, which wasn’t like me at all. Back home my wife was a Craigslist junkie, finding deals on furniture and such for our house that I would get an even better deal on when I went to pick it up, talking them down in price. With this transaction, I didn’t really care. It was like getting paid a large sum of cash for a box of stuff I was on my way to donating to Goodwill because I had no other use for it.

“Obviously I don’t have that kind of currency on hand,” Fenton told me. “Even if I did it would be impossible to carry around, and even more impossible to keep it safe. Fortunately there has been something created recently for just such an occasion.” He removed a black cloth from one of the tables in his office to reveal a glowing blue sphere on a stand. It looked just like a crystal ball, and had a continuous bluish-white mist billowing about inside of it.

“This is a Soul Sphere. They were recently created and developed, oddly enough, by the man who is purchasing your pieces. His merchant house has developed the most fantastic innovations in the realms, which is why he is so incredibly wealthy. The Soul Spheres were specifically created for just such a transaction, one so large that a straight trade of currency wouldn’t seem prudent.”

“You simply place your hand on the sphere, and it will scan you to verify your identity. The funds from the buyer are entrusted to the merchant’s guild. Once your identity is verified you will have access to the account and withdraw whatever funds you need as long as the proper amount of currency is on hand to distribute to you. You can currently access the account at any merchant’s guild house or mage guild house in the realm. I am sure that the locations where funds can be exchanged will be more readily available when the Soul Spheres are more widely accepted throughout the realm, but there are still enough locations that you shouldn’t have any troubles.”

“It’s a bank card,” I chuckled with that sly, crooked grimace that irritates my wife so much.

“Excuse me?”

“We have something like it on my world, but not nearly as sophisticated as this,” I said looking over the sphere absolutely fascinated. The shimmering light emanating from it was hypnotic. “It’s a small plastic card about half the size of one of the bills I gave you. It scans through a machine that reads the card to verify the account. You get a special code number to access the account, but that can be stolen just about as easily as the card itself.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very safe way to contain funds.”

“It gets worse. The number of the account is imprinted on the card. At some places the account can be charged just off that number.”

“And your realm thrives like that?” He seemed appalled and confused.

“Yep. Just about everyone in the world has one, often times more than one. Granted there are safeguards, but they are not always enough. No truly effective way has been mastered that positively determines the persons identity, at least not yet…” I trailed off realizing that everything I knew about modern finances was probably just wiped out, and that such technology would likely never be used again. The very thought of it was depressing.

“So how does this Soul Sphere work?” I asked him, trying to change the subject before I got further depressed. “How is it safe to use?”

“The Soul Spheres, and their accounts, are controlled by the Merchants Guild, which has the strictest standards in secrecy and privacy. The process is really quite simple, and if you ask me ingenious. The sphere makes an external scan of the subject, and doesn’t alter them in any way. It is like a Spectral Eye that is designed to look only at a person’s soul. The account is opened by scanning your soul, and then imprinting it into the sphere’s memory, which is then stored in the Merchant Guild’s archive. Reference is then made to the archive on later scans to check the validity of the individual.”

“Scanning a person’s soul is what makes it so ingenious. Every living being that is able to use the sphere has a soul, and each soul is unique in its own way. No two souls are alike, and as far as anyone knows there is no way to duplicate or impersonate a person’s soul.”

“It sounds a bit extreme to go as far as to scan a person’s soul. I mean, isn’t it the very essence that we survive on? What makes us who we are?”

“Exactly. Your soul is especially unique and defines who you are. There are many methods in this realm and others that one can shape change, duplicate another body, or take over the body and mind completely. So any kind of bodily scans are insecure, which leaves only an internal scan. And there is only one internal scan that is truly universal.”

I could see his point. Fingerprints and retinal scans can be faked, or so I have heard. In a world where people can use magic to shape change there were even more opportunities for fraud. Fenton also informed me that since the sphere is reading the person’s soul, it can readily tell if the individual is making the transaction of their own free will. Thus eliminating any forms of mind control, of which he said there were many. Since the transaction must be made of free will, it would effectively eliminate withdrawing funds to pay off extortion or blackmail, because deep down in their soul the money is not being withdrawn freely. While that would be a problem in some specific instances, I could see how it could benefit the world as a whole.

So I had my soul scanned on the sphere. It was disappointingly uneventful. There was no tingling or mystic flashes, only a slightly brighter glow to the orb as I placed my hand on it that faded after only a few seconds. It felt no different than placing my hand on a photocopier and hitting the start button, although it was a lot quieter and didn’t stink of toner. Fenton found my disappointment in it hilarious, and made a remark that I obviously came from a non-magical world; or Mog, which seemed to be the preferred phrase around here. He said that Mogs tend to exaggerate about the effects of magic in stories because they have never witnessed it themselves, making it more dramatic for the sake of storytelling.

After the transaction completed, Fenton brought me to his back room behind the office. It wasn’t so much a back room as a large vault. I couldn’t help but smirk when I saw a similar small blue crystal orb recessed into the wall at the doorway. Fenton remarked that the spheres were originally developed for security purposes, but never quite worked the way they were expected. There were difficulties keying more than one soul to a door or device, and in the event that the one individul authorized to use that door died, there would be no way to open it.

With all the safeguards in keeping the room secure, I was surprised to see that the vault looked no different than a typical storage room with wooden shelves lining the walls. I expected it to have the polished stainless steel look of a bank vault, at least that is the impression Fenton gave on how valuable the items in it were. The vault had a surprisingly large amount of floor space, more so than should have been allowable given the size of his shop. I had a feeling it was more like a TARDIS than a standard vault; bigger on the inside than on the outside.

The items covering the shelves looked no better in quality than the items in the rest of his store. I was decidedly unimpressed, and it must have shown because Fenton bore a grin as big as Texas that told me there was more here than it appeared.

“Here is my collection of enchanted items,” He beamed with pride. “Most of them are useful, but some of them are not. At least not useful to everyone, but as I say ‘for every item out there is an owner who has a use for it’. Each item here is simply waiting for it’s newest owner to come and claim them, for a nominal price of course. You Mister Bailey I am certain will leave here today the proud new owner of several of these items.”

“You should feel privileged Mister Bailey. I never allow customers to see what all I have in stock as far as enchanted items go, and certainly never let them in here. You, however, are a very exceptional case indeed.” He turned with his back to me and plucked something off one of the shelves that I couldn’t see. “You are free to purchase anything that you wish in my shop. As far as I am concerned you have an unlimited line of credit here.”

He turned around and held a sword in a scabbard. “Now, Mister Bailey, I will show you the wonders to behold in Haven. Wonders that will soon be yours.” He pulled the sword from the scabbard, and it looked like a normal blade. As he spoke a command word the blade erupted in flames, as if he had poured gasoline along the blade and ignited it. Fenton waved the fiery sword around in the air with the flames dancing about. Then with a flick of his wrist the flames vanished and the blade returned to normal. Fenton then returned the sword to its scabbard and placed it back on the shelf where it belonged.

“All right, you have my attention,” I was practically drooling. “What else have you got?”

The shelves may have looked cluttered, but Fenton knew exactly what every item was, and where it went. He would take each item off the shelf, tell me briefly about what it did, and if I was interested he would demonstrate its abilities for me. It was amazingly awesome. Some of the trinkets he had in there would put James Bond to shame.

The vast majority of the items were passed up. Fenton told me very briefly what they did, but didn’t go into very much detail. Since most of these magical items were made by wizards for their own personal use, they couldn’t be used by just anyone that came along and picked them up. At least a modest amount of arcane knowledge would be necessary in order to even begin thinking about using some of the spell scrolls, wands, staffs, and items he had in stock.

Skipping past those items I couldn’t use even if I wanted to, he moved on to weapons. The weapons weren’t very useful to me either. Heck, I had weapons on me that were far more powerful than anything in the vault, no matter how magically enchanted they were. While some of them were pretty neat, like the flaming sword, they did me little good because I didn’t know how to properly use them. I would probably cut my own hand off or set my own hair on fire swinging that thing around.

Although I did end up choosing a sword with a thin blade that resembled the rapier’s used when I took a fencing class in college, except this one was actually sharp. I took the class with my wife back when we were just beginning to date. It was a lot of fun. We got to fight together like a couple of swashbucklers. Holding it in my hand reminded me of her more and more. I had to put it back. It was really making me homesick, but eventually decided to buy the sword so I could fit in better with this world. I saw many people in town already who were brandishing swords, and needed to blend in as much as possible. I also chose the sword because it reminded me of her. Not to cause me pain at being apart, but as a reminder of what I had to fight to get back to.

When we moved past the weapons we got to the really good stuff, the gadgets that anyone could use. A lot of them were basic items meant to improve on the quality of life around the house. I guess our two worlds aren’t that different after all. There was a brick that continuously radiated warmth. With a few of these placed around the house you wouldn’t have to worry about heat in the winter. There were several kitchen utensils, like a magical version of a meat thermometer and a toaster. At least there was no need to plug the toaster in the wall, but apparently this particular one had a bad habit burning the toast. Go figure. Some things really are universal.

Some of the mundane items that I did pick were a leather satchel that could preserve whatever is placed in it for an infinite amount of time. It was basically Tupperware that actually keeps food fresh instead of acting as a mold culture farm like most of the leftovers I tended to stick in the fridge. I also chose a canteen that is continually full of water, and a camping plate that creates a small meal to eat three times a day. Granted the food tasted bland, but it was still food.

The most useful item I found Fenton called a Bag of Storing. It looked just like a purple velvet Crown Royal bag, and was about the same size. Yoda said it best, “size matters not”. It may not have been very big, but inside it was like a bottomless pit. You could stuff whatever you want into it all day and it still wouldn’t be full. What’s even better is that when you go to pull something out of it, all you have to do is think about something specific and the bag puts the item you are searching for on top so that it is the first thing you pull out.

My favorite selection was in the clothing department. Which is really weird because I generally despise clothes shopping, or dressing up. There were so many neat outfits it was difficult to decide. Not just that they looked cool, but that they could do some really amazing things. The cream of the crop was a hooded cloak. It didn’t look all that fantastic on its own. The plain gray cloak had streaks of white in it, but what the enchantments on it could do more than made up for it.

At will, the cloak could change into whatever kind of clothing apparel I wanted it to, and I mean anything I could think of from a Hawaiian shirt and shorts to a full white polyester jumpsuit. It gets better. It can even change its color and appearance with precision. So if I stand in front of a brick wall the cloak will hide me by looking like the wall. But wait, there’s more. It also has the ability to alter my appearance so drastically, and continually altering, that I would be truly invisible to everyone around me for a brief period of time. This cloak was, without a doubt, the most expensive of all the items I purchased that day. Fenton was hesitant to sell it to me, so I had to raise the price significantly, I Really wanted it.

There were also a pair of glasses of interesting note that Fenton had for me. It bore the enchantment of allowing me to comprehend any written language seen through the lenses. It seemed like something that would be invaluable in this new world, especially as I tried to navigate my way around to find a way back home.

The most handy out of all the purchases were the bracelets. Each bracelet was made from a very thick metal that looked like iron. They came with an accompanying set of metal bands. The bracelets were usually sold individually, but I chose to buy two. By placing any of the metal bands on an item, usually a weapon, the item could be stored. When stored the weapon vanishes and a small etching that resembles the weapon appears on the bracelet. On command the weapon reappears in my hand.

Understandably these items were illegal to use, since they enable anyone to smuggle weapons or contraband goods into restricted areas. So I needed to be careful that I kept the bands covered when in the city. As soon as I got back to my room that night I put bands on every weapon I had so that I could carry them without actually carrying them.

The only other weapons I received from Fenton was a small bag of decorative marbles, but these were no ordinary marbles. When these marbles were thrown they would explode on contact in a ball of fire like an incendiary grenade, or they could be set to go off with a command word. Holes drilled through the center of marbles enabled them to be sewn into clothing to be carried discreetly.

One of the coolest items I got was a ring that froze things, no pun intended. The frosty blue ring was cold to the touch, and kind of uncomfortable to wear for any extended period of time. On command it would create a sheet of solid ice. It could be used to either create a wall of ice, or a sheet of ice on the ground to slip people up. I called it my Iceman ring, although it couldn’t create ramps of ice to ride around on like in the comic books. Fenton did sell it to me with a warming, though. If I used it too many times in a row, the cold that the ring radiated would spread, freezing me solid. It made me a little leery of it, but it was still too fascinated by it to pass up.

The last piece of gear I got was a leather contraption that strapped to my forearm. Fenton said it was a recent invention, although more like a prototype, to make magical potions more readily available. The device could hold up to six potions at one time. The potions were lined along the device on my forearm with a metal stud next to each one. When I wanted to use a specific potion, I just press the stud next to it and the potion would appear in my hand ready to drink, much like the bracelets for holding my arsenal of firearms.

Drinking strange liquids in the first place made me uneasy. It was a lot easier after Fenton demonstrated the effectiveness of some of the elixirs, although I didn’t appreciate his method of presentation. He took arm by the wrist and held on to it tight. He then sliced my forearm with a knife he drew from out of nowhere. I couldn’t pull away because he had such a strong grip on my arm, he had a lot of strength for a little guy. Before I could yell out in protest he poured one of the bottles of potions onto the wound. It bubbled up for a second like hydrogen peroxide on an infected cut. When he wiped the foam away, the wound was completely gone. It completely healed in seconds with no trace that he had ever cut me.

“Although they are much more effective when drank,” he informed me, grinning at my astonishment.

I ended up buying several of the healing potions. The other potions in his stockpile were pretty neat, but with a limited duration. I ended up buying a couple potions that drastically increased my strength, a potion that would allow me to breath fire, an antidote to any poison, one that would make me resistant to magic for a period of time, and one that would make me run super fast.

By the time I left Fenton’s store, I was geared up and ready to go. But go where? I had no clue what I needed to do next. Then I remembered the Twittle birds that blessed, or cursed, my doorstep earlier that day. My new found experience in seeing what magic had to offer gave me a new perspective on the idea of having magic and psychic abilities. If I could utilize magical abilities to make items like what I found in Fenton’s vault, I may be able to save our world after all.

If I learned the secrets of making enchanted items and brought it back home, I may be able to save our world. Drognaus said that I was likely sent here to learn how they defeated the Graxis so that I could take that knowledge back home with me. With my new found wealth I would be able to buy those methods, or even better, with the items themselves, and be back home in time to blast the Graxis to smithereens with a staff of Ra or melt their brains with my new psychic powers.

Since I had only been gone a few days, there was still time to sweep in and save the world, and most importantly my family. We were off to the Djedoas Academy and the University Magica to be evaluated, and towards a way to get back home. For the first time since arriving in Haven, I was smiling and hopeful.