#the unknown sorcerer { raymond }

[tetheredapart]

closed starter | @thatsineffable

Raymond was very careful with his magic. Making sure to do it outside their home and making sure not to make a spectacle out of it. He used his knowledge of Dennis' 'thread', carefully honing in on the trail it left behind as he jumped around. And soon, it became obvious he had been near some sort of magic. Some sort of bright spot almost. That had to be it.

In a corner of the bookstore, a portal quietly carves it way through realities. A man with wild curls and a beard peeks through the hole, eyes almost sparkling at the sight of many, many books. Excellent! No one seemed to be around either, so he stepped through and closed the portal after himself. Time to browse. Hopefully it wasn't a closed shop he had just entered.

[tetheredapart]

The momentum of the anticipation came to a slight halt at that, but Raymond wasn't bothered. It was magic, after all! It wasn't really an easy thing to learn, even for a kid who had it naturally. "Something like that, yeah," he confirmed, pointing at his own chest. "The magic comes from the torso mostly. We let it throw through our limbs to interact with the world, kinda like how the heart pump bloods." Yeah, that made sense. "Since you're not familiar with that, it helps to imagine it like a tingly warmth and you are letting it through the gates of your limbs to your hands."

He paused. "In this case, the end goal is your hands and the ring."

After studying Raymond’s pose for a moment, Dennis reluctantly let his light orb go to float off above their heads, straightened his posture, and did his best to mirror Raymond’s stature. He had to double check on the way Raymond was holding his arms a few times, wanting to make sure the bent arm was at the right angle and hand gestures were just right. But once he was certain he had everything right, Dennis looked out across the room and…

“How do I get the magic flowing again?” He asked in a quiet, shameful voice. “I’m supposed to be like imagining opens gates in my body and going down my arms, yeah?”

[rosesandartss]

ASOS Intros: Allistor Mira Raymond/ Allistor King/ Raven King

Allistor is from ASOS! -Allistor uses she/meow/moon pronouns -She is a tiefling and sorcerer/fighter -Allistor is affiliated with Selene, lives in the altena sector, and actively participates in the rebellion started by the citizens of Selene -Meow is pan and a demigirl -Moons spiritual connections are the shade of red that her eyes are, Crow, cats, and ravens -Meows got many a things going on in meows brain, including but not limited to, ADHD, Autism, Severe Depression, Severe GAD, and PTSD

The rundown of meows backstory is that she was born to Xavier and Vera Raymond due to Vera's moms forcing them to bind fates(at the threat of Xaviers entire family being killed) and have a kid. That kid was Allistor. Vera abused her, and believed meow was the cause of her problems. Xavier was not able to be around to keep Allistor safe, because he had to work to support himself and Allistor because Vera wouldn't. When Allistor had just turned 6, Vera sold moon off to some mind flayers, instructing them to kill her. They didn't and instead erased her memory and discarding meow in an alleyway, where she was found by more people paid by Vera to kill her. They left meow within an inch of death, but a young girl named Rowan(she/her) found and healed Allistor. Rowan and Allistor ended up sticking together, since neither of them had a home to go back to, and became the bestest of friends. Allistor also developed a small teensy little crush on Rowan. Woopsie! The two of them met Mix(they/them), and they joined the little group, making them a trio! Until one fateful day, Allistor had her first outburst. Rowan tried to help, though she didn't really know what to do or what exactly was happening and ended up being killed by it. Mix wasn't there when it happened, and once Allistor had the energy to get up, meow ran as far away from the body as meow could. Allistor and Rowan were 11 at this point, Mix was 13. For the next three years Allistor was completely alone. She was miserable, and hardly had enough to eat. Not that meow really wanted to eat, since during these years she believed she deserved nothing but death. Meow over these few years attempted to poison moonself, but was taken to Selene's medic area by an unknown person. Afterwards though, things started to look up, 1 year and a half in, meow found a cat, and named it Ember. She was a little bit happier then, but after a year, Hunters took the cat and killed it, leaving it in front of the area Allistor was sleeping in as bait. Little did they know, they sparked another type of outburst, an anger outburst. They were killed by the outburst in a quite gruesome way, and Allistor left the area, with the new belief that meow was a bad omen.

On the third year meow was no longer at her worst, but she was still in pretty bad shape, the first two years having left meow weak. Near the end of the third year, she was visited by her spiritual guardian, who gave her a little talk about how Rowan wouldn’t want moon to live her life like this, and also that Rowan didn't blame Allistor for what happened. This inspired Allistor to try to live a better and happier life, and start to recover from what happened to Rowan. The day after she was trapped and tortured by guards until Beatrix came along and killed them and took Allistor into Selene with her. Beatrix became one of Allistor’s caretakers after that. Once Allistor was out of the medics area she was initiated into Selene by the leader at the time, Meteor. She took on the Oath of Union and the Oath of Silence, and chose an alias for meowself, Raven, as well as learning the entrance spell to the underground city.

For the first 6 months she lived in Selene, she was mute, though she did have company in Beatrix and Beatrix’s other starling, Crow. He would talk to her every day for those six months, sometimes he told her about some interesting things, other times he would just ramble about his day. After he was done talking he would always ask her how she was doing or if there was something meow wanted to talk about to him. She never replied until one day she finally asked him "Why are you talking to me so much? I never answer so what's the point?" and he responded with "Well I mean you responded now. But if you're wondering why i kept on talking to you its cause its nice to have someone to talk to, and I also didn't want you to be lonely, cause that's no fun" and from there on out they considered each other siblings. After spending the entirety of her first year in Selene only within Selene Allistor wanted to get out and see the overground kingdom again and also get revenge on the guards. Within the time Allistor was stuck underground in Selene out of fear of the guards, Beatrix and Meteor started training her to fight without magic so meow was trained well enough to be able to fend off guards and Hunters when she was with Crow. She would go out and taunt guards and/or lure them away from people they were hurting. Meow also had started her hobby of dancing back up with a new dancing partner, Apollo. They could only do one performance that year since they had to spend a lot of time coming up with dances and practicing them together.

The second year Allistor lived in Selene is when tragedy struck, 3 months into the year Vera hired people to lure out Crow so she could rip his wings off, all to send a message to Beatrix, who had recently killed the Queen’s right hand, Zane(though, Allistor was the one who actually killed him, Beatrix just took all of the blame). Even before that Beatrix had been a thorn in Vera’s side. Crow spent about 3 weeks recovering before starting to get back into the swing of things, Allistor made sure to be by his side the entire time he was recovering. He had changed, he was extremely rude to anyone he wasn’t close with and extremely distrusting of everyone. The second tragedy that had struck was Meteor’s death. She was the leader of Selene and had also became one of Allistor’s caretakers through supporting meow with her outbursts. One of Allistor’s newer caretakers, Oberon, was chosen to be the next leader by the population of Selene. On the bright side, she had performed a few more times with Apollo and they even won a competition together. Allistor had also been getting closer to Apollo, they had started spending more time together and Apollo even gave Allistor some of the flowers she grew, and a few particularly nice gems. Halfway through this year meow broke her mirror in a fit of self-hatred and shoved her hands in the shards of it, and she used moons own healing knowledge to heal them well enough to where they didn’t get infected, but they did leave many scars.

The third year Allistor spent in Selene was a lot less eventful than the others. Allistor and Apollo did multiple performances across Selene and they won an award for their routine. Crow and Allistor tried to escape Starfell Kingdom and failed due to their lack of planning.

The fourth year was also less eventful, Allistor and Crow had plans to try to escape Starfell Kingdom again that were a bit more in depth this time, maybe they will finally get out.

A few more notes

-People in Selene did not like Allistor, due to her outbursts multiple people in Selene were killed or mortally wounded. Most of them were scared of her, but some of them wanted meow gone, whether that be her dying or her just leaving.

-Allistor received lots of harassment from people in Selene

-Allistor has two types of outbursts, anger outbursts and stress/panic outbursts. Stress/panic outbursts use up less energy at once but last longer while anger outbursts drain energy quickly and can only last up to half the time a panic outburst can.

- After bad stress/panic outbursts, Allistor is usually left unable to walk. After an anger outburst(unless it was particularly short-lived) Allistor will pass out.

-Allistor has been missing for 12 years to her living family(other than Beatrix)

-Xavier has been searching for Allistor for those 12 years

-Allistor’s birthday is May 20th

-When Allistor has an outburst, the cracks burn. It wouldn't be too bad if there wasn't so many. The outbursts create a lot of heat cause of the amount of energy being pushed out of Allistor’s cracks.

-The cracks when they first appear are wounds, but after the outburst they become scars. So during an outburst, if its too intense or Allistor is trying really hard to repress it, bigger cracks will appear, and those ones are the cracks that tend to draw blood. The bigger cracks are embedded deeper into her body than the smaller and/or thinner ones, they also are the cracks are more painful even after they appear in other outbursts thanks to the burning. Usually the burning is why shes screaming and crying so much. Moon cant do a ton of moving, due to this and the loss of her energy. It also limits the amount meow can talk since she has lots of  cracks on her face and neck.

-Allistor has a large tattoo of a raven on her back, given to meow by Crow

-Allistor instead of standing up for meowself when she was harassed just took it cause she believed moon deserved it.

-Allistor went on many rescue missions to help free tieflings

-Allistor has had many near death experiences, the current total is above 300

-Allistor is terrified of horses to the point where meow will not sleep during carriage rides unless she’s forced to.

-Allistor carries around many pretty rocks, she also swallows them regularly

-Allistor still carries around the map with all of meows and Crow’s plans to escape Selene

-Along with the plush bunny, Allistor carries around Rowan’s family crest and the pretty knife moon was given -Allistor collects daggers, 4 leaf clovers, small jars, shiny things(specifically silver, gold is Crow’s thing), pretty rocks, red things, and pest ears -Crow and Beatrix to this day don’t know about the mirror incident -Allistor has avoided looking at her reflection since the mirror incident(roughly two years)

this ended up being longer than i expected lmao but it is done now @multi-lefaiye since you asked to be tagged in meows intro post

[karatedinosaurpolice]

The Challengers of the Unknown have faced an array of villains:

Amenothoth – An ancient Egyptian villain.

Brainiex – Sentient computer/spaceship, allied with Villo.

Burt Langdon – A criminal who competed against the Challengers of the Unknown to obtain a wizard's deadly device.

Chang – An Asian mastermind.

Dakyab – An alien tyrant.

Dane Cary – A criminal that was sabotaging the filming of Connie Baylor's latest movie.

Darius Tiko – A scientist who discovers a time cube that lets him travel to the past and future.

Dekkar – A villain who once used a machine to steal the memories of the Challengers of the Unknown.

Dimension Man (D-Man) – A criminal scientist who had the ability to teleport and access other dimensions.

Dr. Fenton – A scientist who once kidnapped June Robbins.

Dr. Heathcliff Monroe – A scientist who worshipped M'nagalah.

Dr. Heller – A Neo-Fascist who the Challengers of the Unknown encounter on a deserted island.

Dr. Manning – A scientist who ends up turned into a giant, super-strong, rampaging caveman.

FX-1 – A robot that goes independent and ends up going on a rampage when struck by lightning.

Gargoyle – "Gary Doyle" is a roof-climbing villain who meets a blind girl and planned to pay for her surgery through whatever way he can.

General Tolek – A Tyran who led his kind to evade Earth.

Gurk – A criminal collector that once hired Multi-Man to help him find three pieces of a golden turtle statuette.

Hillary Mycroft – A criminal who sought to reassemble a sorcerer's apparatus.

Iron Dictator – An other-dimensional version of Adolf Hitler recruited by the Dimension Man.

Jacquard – A criminal that once challenged the Challengers of the Unknown.

Karnak – A criminal who used potions to create monsters.

Korba – A "man without a country" who enslaves people on an island to build his "world."

Krager – A criminal mastermind with a hook for a left hand.

Kubagy – An alien criminal who came to Earth to steal its chlorine in order to power his robot.

League of Challenger-Haters – A group of enemies that each fought the Challengers of the Unknown before joining together as this group.

Legion of the Weird

Malvolio – A criminal who possesses an ancient genie named Ahmed.

Mastermind – An Earth criminal who cons Cosmo’s alien master into believing that the Challengers are controlling Cosmo’s mind and forcing him to use his powers for evil purposes.

Morlean – A sorcerer who was the first villain the Challengers of the Unknown encountered.

Mr. Dimension – A vagrant who stole a dimensional weapon from a timeship from the far future.

Mr. Murlin – An alchemist that unleashed a plague that turns ordinary humans into violent zombies.

Mr. Tic-Tac-Toe – Dr. Bradford is a criminal who uses traps with a tic-tac-toe motif.

Neutro – Starrett is an element-transmuting villain.

Olan Tagorian – A criminal scientist whose machine can teleport monsters from other dimensions.

Ooze – Killer Stark was accidentally changed into the Ooze during his encounter with the Challengers of the Unknown.

Power Man – An energy-absorbing villain.

Raymond – A robot that was given to the Challengers of the Unknown as a gift, but had ulterior motives.

Roc – A criminal who obtained a mind-over-matter machine.

Roney – A criminal who obtained a stone that enables him to control two creatures.

Seekeenakee – An incarnate stone "god" whose worshippers want to take over the world. This was actually Red Ryan's transformed appearance.

Seth Gross – A wicked magician.

Sir Rodford – A criminal who lives in a world within a mirage.

Suboku – An alien who tricks the Challengers of the Unknown into doing things that would help him in his invasion.

Tartan – An alien ringmaster who once captured the Challengers of the Unknown for his intergalactic circus.

Torbert – A criminal who stole a "life liquid" from an ages-old pharaoh.

Tukamenon – An ancient mummy that fought the Challengers of Evil on behalf of the Legion of the Weird.

Ultivac – A giant computer robot that was built by an ex-Nazi scientist.

Volcano Men – Anthropomorphic giants made of fiery lava.

Wizard Welles – A criminal that once enlarged Rocky's cranium

Zardok – A criminal mystic who gained mind-over-matter powers from a meteorite.

Zarxes – A dimensional villain who plotted to conquer Earth.

Zog – An alien criminal.

Drabny – A villain who steals inventions from the future in order to take over the present. He was later a member of the League of Challenger-Haters.

Kra – A tyrant robot who enslaved the planet Zuna. He was later a member of the League of Challenger-Haters.

Multi-Man – A supervillain who gains a different form every time he dies. He was later the founder of the League of Challenger-Haters.

Multi-Woman – A giant robot created by Multi-Man. A second version of her later appeared as a member of the League of Challenger-Haters.

Villo – The "world's vilest villain."

Volcano Man – A lava monster. He was later a member of the League of Challenge-Haters.

[tetheredapart]

Raymond snorted, genuinely amused. "Immoral support," he repeated. He was considering it though. There was one major obstacle in the way though. "... I'd still have to ask Cyril. Stealing is dangerous."

"Someone, somewhere might. But in my experience," and he does have experience, surprisingly enough, "getting across universes to track people down ain't easy." A beat of silence, "Hell, if your brother can, why can't you? I'd come with if you want. Immoral support."

[brigdh]

Reading Wednesday

Penric’s Fox by Lois McMaster Bujold. Another novella about Penric, a sorcerer – which in the rules of this fantasy series means he is possessed by a friendly chaos demon. Penric’s is named Desdemona and has possessed ten women – plus a lioness and a mare – before him, giving it a rather female personality. Penric’s Fox follows fairly closely after Penric and the Shaman (link to my review of it), wherein he met Inglis (the shaman of the title) and Oswyl (a sort of police detective). In this one, Penric is spending a pleasant day fishing with Inglis when Oswyl arrives to ask for their help – another sorcerer has been murdered and her demon is missing. This sets off the murder mystery that ends up being the main plot: Who murdered her, of course, but also how on earth could anyone sneak up on a women with a demon, and where exactly has that demon has gone off to? And most importantly, who was the real intended victim: the woman or the demon? When it seems the demon may have jumped into a passing fox, Penric and the others begin to search the forest and its hundreds of local foxes, a task much like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Their task is complicated when they find signs that the still-unknown murderer is also looking for a certain special fox. I really enjoyed this novella. The Penric series (and the larger series it’s a subthread of, The World of the Five Gods) are all light, fun short stories, absolutely charming ways to spend an afternoon. I loved reading about Inglis and Oswyl again, as I'd liked them previously and was glad to see their friendship with Penric deepening. It’s also intriguing to see that Bujold seems to be setting up future stories to further explore the relationship between the magics of sorcerers and shamans, a topic that I’m very interested in her take on and so I will be looking forward to reading whatever comes next. My one complaint is that, late in the novella, there's a development that seems to draw on the real-world issue of police brutality. I don’t think Bujold handled it offensively, but it’s a brief digression and that's not a great way to deal with such a sensitive topic. I wish she had either gone into it with real depth or had just not brought it up at all. As it is, it feels half-hearted, which isn’t fair to such a serious matter. But this is literally only a few pages out of two hundred, so I certainly wouldn’t un-recommend the novella for that alone. On the other hand, it did bother me, so I wanted to mention it. Overall, a fantasy series that takes a digression into murder mystery. Certainly worth reading if you’ve enjoyed other books in the series, but not a good introduction to the world or characters. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley. Death Trick by Richard Stevenson. A murder mystery set in 1979 Albany, starring Donald Strachey, a private detective and gay man. The writing definitely shares some traits with the sparse, hard-boiled style of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett, but Don has a sense of humor and tendency toward cheerful sarcasm that lightens the cliche and makes him a fun character to spend time with. He's in a fairly committed relationship (though unfortunately we don't get much background on that in this book) but struggles with monogamy; both halves of the couple sleep with other people in the course of the plot. Which, by the way, is this: Billy Blount, a young gay man, spent the night dancing at a club with the DJ, Steven Kleckner. They were seen leaving together. The next morning Steven is found stabbed to death in his bed and Billy has gone into hiding. Don is hired by Billy’s parents to find where he’s gone and convince him to come back home – the parents have already worked out a plea deal with the judge and DA. However as Don investigates he slowly becomes convinced that Billy isn’t the killer, and his parents don’t have his best interests at heart. The real fun of this book isn’t so much the mystery itself but the rich world of the gay community in a small city in the pre-AIDS era. No single person (including Don) gets much depth, but the setting as a whole is crowded with recognizable characters quickly sketched out with a few well-chosen details. There are hustlers and cruising in the park, poppers and bath houses, radical anarchist groups and drag queens, gay bars with lightless back rooms raided by the cops, and lots and lots of disco, music and pop culture references (which I mostly didn't recognize, to be honest; I am not familiar enough with the 70s). It’s not all fun, of course; Don also deals with homophobic cops and mental institutions using electroshock therapy to cure teenagers of their ‘poor social adjustment’ (aka gayness). Death Trick is the first of a 15 books series. The cover is, uh, kind of appalling (unless you enjoy cheesy 90s stock photos, I suppose)(also why is there a dog? There’s no dog in the book!), but I really enjoyed reading it, and will absolutely be checking out more of the series.

[DW link for easier commenting]

[leonemian]

Hellion

Cult Sphere - The scum of the magic world, the vampire nests, the Courtless Faeries, the minor Demons, the flotsam and jetsam of the mystic world. Local Hero - Hellion Backstory: Raymond Barnett was a lifelong foster kid, who never got picked up by a family, until one day, a too-good-to-be-true, white-as-the-driven-snow couple dropped out of the sky, asking for him directly. Turns out, it was too good to be true. The couple were actually members of a Demon cult, dedicated to a being known as Murmur. After an unknown amount of time spent locked in a cage, unable to see the sun, catching only brief bits of conversation from his captors, Raymond figured about what was in store for him; sacrifice to Murmur, in exchange for good fortune for the cult. Well, Raymond decided, if he was going to die anyway, he might as well make a bargain of it. Based on what little he could glean of the circle being prepared just outside his cage, Raymond created a magic circle of his own, and summoned Murmur. He offered Murmur his soul, freely given, at the point of his death, in exchange for Murmur granting him the power he needed to bring vengeance upon his captors. Murmur, possibly out of some vestige of kindness, possibly out of boredom, but most likely out of a desire to gain an untarnished soul, which, when freely given, provided the most power, said yes. After tearing through his would-be murderers with his newfound demonic power, Raymond was finally free. After spending half a decade stumbling around the edges of society as a part-time criminal and full-time wretch, Raymond, while dumpster-diving, hears the whispers of despair collect around a nearby soul. Investigating, he finds a young woman preparing to commit suicide. He arrives just after the nick of time, but in his attempts to save her, covers the crime scene with his DNA. Fleeing the scene, he tries to drown his sorrows in a bar, but finds himself haunted by the ghost of the dead girl. She convinces him to stop blaming himself for failing to save her, and to stop worrying about what might happen to him for having implicated himself. What's important is ensuring that it doesn't happen again, because she has a little sister, and her suicide was prompted by the abuse she was suffering at the hands of her family. Spurred on by the vengeful spirit, Raymond uses his demonic powers to burn down the house (and the evidence he left behind), then track the family to a motel they move to afterwards. There, he terrifies the family into calling the police, panicked about "A Demon", just after he had himself called the police, saying "I think these crazy people locked up a girl in a hotel and are screaming about demons and shit." After getting the mother and father declared unfit to parent their remaining child, sneaking evidence the elder daughter had spirited away before her suicide to the prosecution, Raymond decides that this, the protection of the weak, shall be his life's calling. He may be damned to Hell, he rationalizes, but he'll ensure he keeps as many others as he can from following him. Powers And Abilities: Hellion is stronger, faster, and tougher than any human. In addition, he's displayed the ability to "Smell" certain emotions on people, primarily the darker kind, like lust, fear, despair, et cetera. He's displayed a remarkable ability to regenerate, but doing so requires a cost in lifespan, only a day for a finger, a month for a hand, an entire year for an arm, all hastening his aging process. As a result, he looks a fair bit older than he actually is. He can project Hellfire from his mouth in a stream of destructive energy that leaves burns which seemingly never heal properly. He can call upon the dead to speak to him, an ability not many demons have, it's specific to Murmur, and thus shared with him. If Hellion can lock eyes with someone in his demonic form, he can show them the fires of Hell, which forces them to confront their own sins. For those with a conscience, this can be debilitating, but Hellion has mused that, should he encounter a true sociopath, it might do absolutely nothing. Beyond his Pact abilities, Raymond is a demonologist and amateur sorcerer, capable of performing a variety of rituals, though obviously his specialty remains Demons, in their various forms. Additionally, Raymond, after a lifetime of getting into fistfights, has a dirty, unorthodox fighting style, with shoddy form due to his lack of formal training, but is nonetheless a ruthlessly efficient and brutally effective hand-to-hand combatant. He has some understanding of firearms, though mostly to further his defensive techniques against them, as he hardly needs them these days. He was a street punk growing up, and picked up a variety of unsavory skills, from lockpicking, to carjacking, to pickpocketing. During his time as a vagrant, he added extensive knowledge of the local criminal hideouts, fences, narcotics trade, gangs, and homeless shelters. His day job is as a bartender, so he also knows the local club scene like the back of his hand, and obviously, can mix pretty much any alcoholic drink consumed by humanity since they invented the stuff. His extensive knowledge of philosophy might stem from his studies into ancient literature, folk lore, and mythology, but he's always wondered if it's also a by-product of making a pact with the Demon who specializes in teaching philosophy.

[tetheredapart]

Closed starter for @hirvenxsoturi

It took Raymond a little longer to return to the library than intended. Once they had settled things with the space cop, Bev, Ray had wanted to go back to explore the books properly this time. Honestly, the odds were in his favor that he wouldn't encounter another agent or whatever. Especially because it was a big library. He just had to not use any magic this time.

Ray was also pretty sure Cyril wouldn't have let him leave, so he just... didn't mention it. While his brother was out working, Raymond took a deep breathe and tried to settle his nerves, fidgeting with the sling ring. Right, he just had to open the portal without being spotted, and then he could explore the books in peace. It'd be fine. Bev had turned out to be okay-ish. Scary but okay... ish. Ray was pretty sure Cy didn't trust him. But it'd be fine.

The portal was opened swiftly and Raymond quickly stepped through, taking a look around before shutting down the portal. He was pleased with himself. He had arrived around midday, it looked like, when the library was mostly quiet. He had a good spot out of the way, he hadn't been seen. Great!

The sling ring safely pocketed, Raymond started his research, getting lost in the books for hours and slowly building up a little mountain of scattered books in his corner.

[tetheredapart]

Oh, how much longer? Normally, Raymond would have used magic to check the state of the concealment spell, but given that they had a space cop watching their every move - and with their guardians' warnings in mind - he decided to guess. "Uhm... 15 minutes maybe?" Just to be on the safe side. "Then he can leave." The question from Bev did catch the wizard a little by surprise. He opened his mouth, closed it, thought for a second before saying, confused: "It's where we keep the books?"

--

“I didn’t agree to anything. Don’t-” he was about to stop Ray from sharing anything, but this was fine. “You don’t have to be nice to him just ‘cause he said so.” Cyril heaved a sigh. It felt like he was fighting a losing battle but he’d be damned if that would stop him from fighting anyway. “Some people like to read. That against some weird otherworldly rule you got where you come from?”

tetheredapart​:

The second Ray registered the pause, and his eyes caught Bev’s, he ducked behind Cyril, out of sight. That had been rude, right? And with strangers, rude was dangerous. Cy had laughed though, so that was at least something, and when he heard the snerk from their visitor, Raymond shuffled a bit out of hiding again. “You tripped on top of me,” he corrects quietly, still a little sullen about it.��

–

 "I think if you were lying you’d try to come up with something believable.“ But Ray was corroborating at least part of the story. “With any luck we’ll be able to send you home just as gracefully. How much longer is this gonna take?”

“So we’re in agreement then that this is all just one big misunderstanding and we should, probably, take a stab at civility?” There was the barest of a bite to the edge of his voice, still a touch bitter  despite the fact that he had repeatedly tried to clear the air. No changing the past though, and until his phone was charged more he was stuck.

“So…whats up with the big library?”

[tetheredapart]

Starter for @thatsineffable

Raymond had timed it better this time. At least he was pretty sure he had, it was a little difficult to consider time difference in the multiverse. With a colorful swirl, a portal opened up in a dark corner of the bookshop and Ray peeked out. Well, it looked to be daytime... no one was around buying books though... It was probably because of the prices.

Excitedly, he stepped out and closed the portal again, clutching and old, old book to his chest. Ray had searched for it for a while and he was excited to show Mr. Fell something that was hopefully rare for him too.

Considering the angel had practically felt the magic previously, the sorcerer had a pretty good idea he'd be found quickly, so he wandered around the shop, looking for the man - and maybe getting distracted by some books.

[tetheredapart]

[::yeah...]

[::Dude was rude but harmless] [::Fought tooth and nail just to not even talk to me about book sales] [::thing costs $800 btw]

Well... Raymond has no hope of buying that book, or probably any book. But maybe he can look.

[:: Thanks!! I'll try it out ]

He's going to go to Cyril and show him the screen. "I'm gonna try to go there. Dennis said it's safe but do you want to come along?"

--

Cyril runs a hand over his face, "That what that was about? What are the chances we get another unwanted houseguest out of it?"

--

"Uh... Very low if I go outside and make the portal in the alleyway?" It's a sheepish compromise.

--

"Auuughfine. Be careful."

--

Ray grins, "I will, promise!" before beelining to the door. He has work to do.

[tetheredapart]

Give the kid a moment to think. He's got to remember where the heck this hellish bookshop was at, other than London.

[::It was called like A.Z. Fell & Com or something] [::Somewhere in London] [::Don't ask how I got there btw]

Even better, a different reality possibly!

[:: Jumped there? ] [:: I can work with that ] [:: Was it safe?? ]

Please, please say yes, Cyril will see these messages for sure.

[tetheredapart]

Mr. Fell was expecting a lot if he was thinking Raymond would pick up on the glance to the clock. He wasn't going to remember he had popped in after closing either. Instead he blinked confused, glancing down before remembering he was holding a book. "Oh, uh, well, no but here," he said, holding it out for Fell to take, expecting that he wanted it back. He would go back to the shelf once it was taken however. "Did the language have a name? I don't suppose you have any books on it?"

Aziraphale nodded, though now his attention was flickering pointedly over to the grandfather clock, eyeing the time but not actually saying anything about the time. He had mentioned the shop was closed...

"Er, yes. That is, there was a way we communicated before the need to speak with people. Have you...finished with," the angel pointed to the book in Raymond's hands, brows raised in question, "that?"

[tetheredapart]

Beep boop! Incoming text from the weird kid. It's... a lot of snapshots of a book's pages?

Cyril checks the message the moment it’s received. He squints at the screen trying to make sense of it before leaning back towards Ray. “Think fast,” the phone is immediately, albeit gently, tossed at his brother.

--

Ray fumbles ever so elegantly as always, taken by surprise. He blinks at Cyril before squinting at the screen, soon studying the images closely with excitement. Oh, this is interesting! He's quickly typing back, asking questions about the location.

[tetheredapart]

Raymond if you could only save ONE book in the library what would it be?

...

"... One?"

Only one? There's a growing look of dread on his face as he tries and utterly fails to narrow down the most important books in the library. Obviously, most of the fiction is out, it will have to be one of the magical books, right? Oh, but there are some rare, signed editions hidden away... But Teo and Michelle would be disappointed if he didn't pick one of the ancient magical scriptures. But the books that has taught them the most magic are probably more important for the future of teaching...

"I..."

Oh, he is going to be stuck on this one for hours.

[tetheredapart]

//New faceclaim for Raymond. Eman Esfandi. Because he's just about perfect.//