Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Apparently, my parents were sent with a group of other adventurers to subjugate a tribe of bandits that made their home nearby and were stealing food and women from the town farmers. They barely made it back alive and didn't have time to heal themselves until they got back home and locked the door. Nobody in our family knows any particularly effective healing spells so they had to use a telepathy spell to wake up a friend with a teleportation ability to come over and heal them.
It's not uncommon for people to develop special abilities that are just better/worse versions of spells but then if it doesn't require components it's a fairly good ability. Spells that require no components in this world are fairly rare and usually don't do much. They can also be cast indefinitely. Most of the minor spells I use on a daily basis require a few drops of blood to be cast but the spell doesn't specify that I have to spill the blood to cast it, so I just use my own.
Apparently, they got most of the bandits in their raid and the rest should have scattered by now. I took towards book. "perhaps today you should stay home and rest. It's not like we're in dire need of money anyway."
"did your oracle skill tell you anything?"
"something like that. I just think it would be safer if you didn't go to work today."
"maybe you shouldn't go to school today then?"
"it's ok I've made friends with someone with a teleport ability."
"really those are quite rare"
"well… it's not exactly teleportation but it works along the same lines" as I said that a note was half sticking out from my ring. "is it safe to come out now?" is what it said. "would you like to meet her?"
"certainly." I wrote back 'only if you're dressed and ready for school' the note was returned, and the twins stepped out from the crack in my ring fully dressed by the table. After a brief introduction, I asked the girls if there was a way to teleport directly to the school as it may not be safe to leave my house for a while and they gave me an affirmation.
We went through the twin's subspace and while it was difficult to breathe there it wasn't to the point where I thought I'd suffocate. That and the trip through her pocket dimension wasn't long enough for me to need to take a breath anyway… I did see all kinds of probably stolen things on my way through. Mostly perfumes and makeups… And boxes.
When we got to school, I asked how we were going to get back to my house if I had the ring she was using to teleport over. She explained that she could pull anything within her sight into her storage space if it was near a crack, crevice, or gap space, like if she could see inside a bag, she could take everything from inside it. But to return things from her pocket dimension she needed to take the items, or in this case, people, out of an object that either is or once was hers.
Essentially, she said it would be fine because she made my bed hers for a night or two… while that's a bit unsettling she also mentioned that if the item was no longer hers there was a limit to how often she could use it based on how long she had the item for, so the boxes were mostly for her to pop out of and then return/replace with other boxes so they never fall into the category of not hers. Which was probably why the ring she gave me was within two boxes, now even if this ring stops being a viable means of teleportation between us, she has two boxes at my house to just replace indefinitely.
And while they were introducing themselves to my parents, they asked to save any boxes for her as they help her with her teleportation ability. Well, ain't that just great. I clear my mind and look for a future where I don't wake up with them in my bed… before I could find one, they mentioned briefly that it can't cover extremely long distances so I shouldn't even think of trying to send the ring they gave me to a far-off country so we could visit. That wasn't what I had in mind but it's good to know once they move, they probably won't be able to visit me anymore.
Wait I found one… it looks like they're going to drag me into their bed for a night. Well, it probably won't happen any time soon. Also, it took every fibre of my being to fake dejection at the mention of her not being able to go too far. I was trying really hard not to smile, not that they knew I knew they'd be leaving soon.
Actually, would they try to get so close to me if they knew it wouldn't last? These thoughts were passing through my head as I ignored my morning classes, as opposed to the usual thoughts. While I was in a daze one of my Mathematics teachers noticed I wasn't paying attention and singled me out to come up to the front of the class and answer a question written on the blackboard. Instead, I leisurely glanced at the board and called out "42".
I already read through all the textbooks for this year and with my passive, perfect recall spell, any maths problem whose answer was written in the back of the book is child's play for me. The teacher was perplexed by my obvious ignoring of her and demanded I come up to the front and show my work, so I went up quickly and robotically drew out the proper formulas and placed the numbers where they needed to be. Everything was written out perfectly. "I've used the perfect recall spell and read the text, there's no question from the text you can write out that I can't answer"
After leaving the teacher to suffer in front of the class I went back to my seat, a bit annoyed I was taken out of my trance. At lunch, the twins were already eating with my friends when I arrived with my food and they were discussing this old theatre of the mind game we used to play when we had more time as children and talking about the adventured, we dreamed up like old men fondly recalling war stories. When I arrived one of the twins turned to me and said, "how nice perhaps we should get together for a game on weekends"
My friends took to the idea and while it's not unwelcome, I feel almost bad about how deep these twins are diving into the world of the nerds for my sake. History class was so boring I almost fell asleep, I got picked on again for obviously not paying attention and was asked a fairly difficult question no one else in the class would have remembered without cheating. "Mr. [insert name] could you tell me what breakfast food the demon who fought the 32nd Hero of our age threw at him as he fled on their 324th encounter?"
"smelly oatmeal."
"that's… correct… sorry I didn't think you were paying attention"
"I wasn't. and nobody else could have answered that question." I used a spell that didn't require components to write the words perfect recall in the air above my head as I drew an arc with my hands to remind the professor I was in the magic club and could therefore effectively skip every class except test days and pass with flying colours. Because by definition I am a scholar.
I'm surprised they don't just give me my diploma already, then again that would make it harder to study magic… unless I join a mage guild. But then I'd have to actively research the creation of new spells for weird rich old people that don't want to die or want to keep doing perverse things until they die.
Though that is partially also to do with book. I do have to leave book with the teacher on test days and only get it back at the end of class… now I'm thinking about how convenient it would be if I could just form a permanent link with the minds of the twins and use book to cheat at life, one of the twins could steal all the blank books I could possibly need and the other could help me decide on a future that doesn't lead to me dying a horrible death… Nah who am I kidding if I tell them about how not useless my powers are they'd probably never leave me alone and I'd have a much harder time navigating a way to not die by their hand…
Actually, recently my deaths in future book from perusing a relationship with these two is less them killing me and more their father killing me. These two girls are going to want to make the relationship go way too fast and their father will literally kill me if I go too far. It's no longer worrying about them anymore; it seems they've agreed to share me without my consent. I'll introduce myself to her parents a week before they have to move as their friend in magic club who's been teaching them simple spells. Book doesn't seem to be too opposed to that idea. I won't die from it at least…
Should I tell my parents about the alcohol I have now? While ignoring all my teachers I thought such thoughts and made it to club again. Oh dear, "[insert name] look! Look!"
"wow a long-range teleport spell" the more mischievous of the twins smiled with delight at the idea. "if I knew this I could go anywhere in the world at will"
"spells like this tend to be limited to places you've been before and they tend to require components for every cast, so you'd need to prepare enough for your trip too and back from where you're going. Teleportation magic is such a hassle very few people use it"
"but it is possible to imbue spells into items, right?"
"Are you looking to become an artificer?"
"it's not a bad career option and it's not like it'd be hard for me to gather the components I'd need to build what I want."
"It's just magics for casting spells and magic for creating magic items is a whole different field and I'm not too well versed in it. Talk to the club president I think he's dabbled in it from time to time." She gave me an ear-to-ear smile and trotted off to find the club president and present her desire to him. It must have gone well because she came back super determined. "how'd it go?"
"I have to gather 10 times the recommended components for the spell as well as get some magic spell crafting materials and decide whether I'm making a pendant that permits travel or an item to leave as a gateway."
"if you choose the gateway, we could go somewhere we've never been."
"but then I'd have to make more than one and I'd need the pendant anyway."
"right…"
"I know! I'll grab 30 times the components and make two pendants and a gateway"
"ah one for you and one for your sister"
"no one for us and one for you."
"oh, how kind of you" she gave a big smile and I saw how expensive the components were… no doubt she was going to steal them. Today at club I was teaching the senior members about some of the convoluted intricacies of the spell as I had studied it so far, my fellow senior members who were there for the group casing of perfect recall were fairly understanding those of them that weren't asked questions more along the lines of the twins. One of the twins was actually sitting in on my lecture and taking notes, I think the other was gathering components with the club members that tend to do that more than the rest of us, it seems she wanted to know where to find components less for her teleportation items and more for future reference.
It also seems the twins were using the telepathy skill to link their minds together during my lecture because the twin that was here asked a question on behalf of her sister. I then asked her how deep the mental connection goes with her special ability, she told me it will go as deep as I let it. So, I asked her if it was possible to share specifically everything, I knew about this spell with my peers immediately so we could just discuss amongst ourselves how it works as we study it instead of me having to tediously explain it.
Eventually, she consented to it and our conference of words turned into a conference of the mind and I instantly transferred everything related to the casting of the spell the club needed to know that I knew of already. While our minds were linked, I began reading on ahead and the students with perfect recall had to field questions from those who didn't and were having trouble with the torrent of information I was flooding them with.
Once I finished reading the spell, we began to decrypt the parts that were intentionally convoluted and actually figured this one out fairly quickly. They say two heads are better than one but a group collective working towards making it all understandable seems to be even better.
The twin with the ability we just exploited looked a bit overwhelmed, so I suggested we cut the connection for today. There are still a few puzzles left to be solved but it's nothing our senior members won't be able to handle in a day. It seems with this ability we might even be able to risk allowing some of our newer members to participate as there is a very easy way to teach them… though they might be just as overwhelmed as our resident twins were.
I heard later the flood of information made the other twin retreat to her home because she didn't want to be dazed and confused outside while everyone was gathering components. After club she came back a bit upset at me for putting her through that too it was like drinking water from a geyser she complained.
They managed to teleport me home via one of the boxes I left on the floor from when I opened the ring gift the other day, apparently, my mom found it and left it open and sideways on the counter, so we entered in through the kitchen. When we got there, we saw a bunch of dead bandits on the floor and through the door. My parents were fine, they were laying back and drinking some of the alcohol the twins left me as a gift. "oh good, you found my absinthe."
"Yeah, where did you get this?"
"It was a gift."
"Well, it's a fine absinthe you've got here. Come have a drink with us." The twins immediately left. I'm assuming they didn't want to get drunk around my parents. Either way, I ended up having a few drinks with my parents. They seemed to be celebrating their victory over the fools who attacked them where all their weapons are and I was just glad they were fine with me drinking.
It's not a common thing to find but after they learned I could handle myself and that I knew when to stop they gave me the bottle back and told me if I needed them to help verify, I was old enough to buy alcohol they'd gladly pick out some recommended drinks for me.
Well, that's just great this was one of my components too. Well… the component was a particularly tall flame, and this would burn particularly tall if you lit it on fire, it is 80% after all. I wasn't drinking this with the twins we had an 80-proof whiskey, but they gave me the absinthe probably because they knew they couldn't handle it.
This evening I was awake for when the twins snuck into my bed naked, in fact, I was naked too and a bit drunk. Don't worry though, book told me exactly what to do. As I was lying in bed, I began to play up how drunk I got, my slur from actually drinking was believable enough, I was whispering too because I knew my parents were asleep downstairs but I was trying to act like I was just too weak to speak up.
They were a bit confused as to why I was awake so late and to dodge the question I asked it they wanted a sip of absinthe. They ended up accepting and I managed to get them drunk enough that we fell asleep and didn't do anything and they didn't get pregnant like book told me they would if we did anything tonight. Least their dad won't be killing me today.
I awoke the next morning the day before the weekend with yet another wonderful sight to behold. This morning I was prepared for it and used a telekinesis spell to levitate a mirror so I could get a proper image for my sketchbook. After replacing the mirror exactly where it was the day before I got to waking the twins who were sleeping on either arm.
Book told me exactly how much drink I was supposed to give them so they would pass out without being hungover and I managed to succeed because I could tell they were faking being too in pain to get off me so I could brush my teeth.
It's not a morning I'd soon grow tired of seeing, it's just I'm not likely to be enjoying it so much if their father found out. I managed to get them to teleport back to their room before their father usually went to wake them and book told me as much. I also remembered to clean the smell of alcohol off them. I purposely left the smell on myself so my mother would take it off for me when I went downstairs, no use wasting my own blood when someone else would willingly cast the spell for me.
I left the bottle of absinthe on my trophy shelf undisguised this time. And I left a note telling my parents to ask first because I need the rest of the contents for a Passive spell, I'm trying to parallel cast with the magic club. We tend to get a lot of special privileges in that club, but this might be pushing the limits a bit.
I went to breakfast after getting dressed and the twins showed up after breakfast again to ask if I needed a teleport to school again and I told them that while it wouldn't be necessary, I wouldn't be opposed to walking to school together with them.
My parents were a bit hungover, so I had to cook breakfast for us but that doesn't really matter. Also, the twins gave me another bottle of high proof spirit after my parents got a hold of the first one and told me it was an apology for the first spirit being found so I told them they were fine with me drinking after seeing how well I handled myself the previous night.
But I accepted it anyway and put it on the shelf next to the half-drunk absinthe and moved the note over some so when they read it, they'd know I meant it for both. We walked to school and had a lovely conversation. They asked me what I was seeking from our relationship and I plainly and honestly told them that I didn't want their dad to kill me.
Book said it was about time I mention that I'm scared if our relationship goes too far, I'm not prepared to deal with whatever would come of it and that if we were going to be hanging out more as they seemed to want to hang out, we were going to have to set some boundaries, so I don't end up committing suicide by angry father.
They agreed that they wouldn't randomly teleport naked into my bed anymore and I'd agreed to not force them to drink until they passed out if they did anyway. Today at school I came to a horrible realization. I managed to drink so much the day before my hangover was delayed until school started.
I've made a terrible mistake. I was ignoring my teachers for two reasons today. A couple of teachers noticed I was having a bit of a headache and was a bit more sensitive to light than usual and one took pity on me the other wanted to make me suffer. Luckily the hangover only lasted a couple of hours and I was fine by the time my next class started. Lunch was a nice break today. The twins and I stopped hiding how close we now were publicly and so they were both sitting really close to me. I figured they're not going to kill me anymore. As long as I make sure they're the ones making advances on me and I'm the one trying to slow things down their dad won't try to kill me.
The twins know my concern and agreed to keep our relationship a secret from their father until they found a nice enough opportunity to broach the subject carefully and see if he'd be ok with the prospect of them dating because I'm definitely not ok with the prospect of me dying. But then what loving father wouldn't want their twin daughters to be in love with the same man.
Yeah, I'm going to die, aren't I? after all this time trying to avoid it, all I can do is hope their father sees that a man with hopeful prospects in a future as a head mage in a mage's guild could more than provide for twins… or I could just put it off until a week before they were going to move like I was planning on doing from the start. In fact, I told them to hold off on telling him about us for a couple of weeks and just feel him out about the prospect.
My initial explanation was so he'd get used to the idea over the time it took them to work up the courage to tell him. And they got it, I explicitly told them to wait two weeks so I could go under his radar for as long as possible. That day in magic club, I, the president, and the vice president took the twins to the local mage's guild on a field trip courtesy of the magic club so we could buy the equipment we needed.
Actually, one of the twins managed to get the price down by betting I could beat the dwarf behind the counter in a drinking contest and I managed to get the discount even though I didn't win. I managed to gain their respect. And that was enough for us to get those new better magic circles for the club room… also the twins bought some of the components they needed for their teleportation pendants and gateway.
I made them promise not to steal anything here lest we all be banned for life. We did blow 70% of the club's annual budget today though. But now that we had those new magic circles there is a plethora of new spells we can cast.
When we got back the senior members who didn't go with us managed to fully figure out what we needed to know from the spells, and I had the twins link our minds so we could all learn it. The twins weren't as overwhelmed today from the knowledge flowing as they were last time. Now, all we had to do was memorize the chant on our own time and not screw it up once we did it in practice.
The twins wanted to spend their weekend learning the chant with me and as I expressed fear earlier of their father, I offered to have us all as a group learn the chant together here over the weekend. The rest of the senior members liked the idea as we'd all have to say the chant together anyway once the spell circle was set up with the components anyway.
So, we were going to practice over the weekend, our plans were set we decided a time to meet up and I went home with the twins again. My parents asked if there was anything going on between us and I told them honestly. We're going to stay friends for a while and see where it goes from here. Essentially, stating I wasn't 100% on board with this whole idea. The twins knew why I was hesitating but that didn't stop them from looking a bit dejected. I remembered to give them a tiny nugget of information.
"Even a useless oracle can see patterns." They seemed a bit confused by this, so I told them a bit more. "I foresaw what would happen if we got together right now and I'm scared."
"you said the future's always shifting and changing when you look at it though"
"yeah, but it was hard to change that one to one where I didn't die the only way is to hold off on." I gestured to the two of them holding my hands "this degree of blatancy until at least we know I won't die. Just prepare him for the news and I'll tell you if I can see a future where I don't die from us when I can say it honestly"
My parents were a bit understandably concerned by this conversation, but I slipped them a note with telekinesis that basically said, "don't worry I know exactly what I'm doing." I had trusted my parents with the knowledge of how not useless my oracle skill is over a slip of the tongue during last night's bout with absinthe, but I doubt they remember.
But in case they know they should trust me with this.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Classy_Cosplayer
Classy_Cosplayer I'm fairly certain I was teetering after a bit more whiskey than I probably should have drunk while writing this so I apologize if the time is messed up on this one.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone