111 Vhalar 719
Location: Melrathian Village
After the incident with the criminal, Abra decided to take a small journey towards a small town outside of Raelia since he wanted to test out a few more things with Overlay. He wanted to go as far as making people feel the desired emotion after they see or hear something he would predetermine. Everything looked good on paper and his research, but he needed to make sure that this wasn’t some mere guess he was making. So, he ventured into town to grow his spark concerning emotions. He put Crimson in charge of his other slaves and told her that he would return in a few days. He’d learned to trust her with these sorts of things because it gave her pleasure. Having her on his side had proven valuable in many ways so far.
Upon entering the town, he looked around and noticed how peaceful it was around him. Abra originally was going to set his sights on something simple like a woman since they were easier to deal with when grabbing hold of the new ability, but that wasn’t the case this time around. There was a commotion at the center of town, and Abra couldn’t help but be drawn towards the noise. He approached the group of people that were cowering as a burly man was pushing people aside. His body had a marking of tattoos, perhaps a local gang. Abra couldn’t help but scoff under his breath at the ridiculous appearance.
However, the man was reaching over and grabbing food from the local stalls and pushing items to the ground, unable to be sold since they were dirtied. The man was causing trouble, but he was too strong for anyone to calm down. Even the guards looked weak as they were unsure how to deal with the disturbance that was rising around them.
“Get out of my way.” The man yelled as he pushed people aside, from his touch alone, they stumbled to the ground. He laughed gruffly and snagged some apples from someone. Taking a bite into them as he spat onto their face, the loud guffawing heard everywhere. “I’ll take that!” There seemed to be no reasoning with the man who had little else to do other than be a nuisance.
“Hey, stop, you have to pay for that!” An older man that was one of the sellers in the market finally gathered up enough courage to stop him. Abra could feel the anxiety rippling from him, and he wondered if that would be enough since the criminal, on the other hand, felt confidence oozing from his body.
“I’ll do what I want.” The man hissed out to the older man, and he pushed him with his shoulders. Not bothering to use his hands and the older man fell onto his back, a yelp of pain heard from him, but no one came to his aid. Instead, the surrounding people quivered in fear as they were unsure what to do since they wanted this madness to stop. No one was strong enough to calm him down.
Abra decided to approach him since he knew that he would appear as nothing but average in front of everyone. He didn’t see anyone nearby that would be considered a threat. Abra decided to apply some magic into his words as he tied his ether around the strong feelings emitted from the large man that could crush anyone with his hands. With his shoulder rigid, he appeared like he was gathering his shoulders, and everyone watched with a pensive stare as they were unsure how this would work out for him. But inwardly, Abra was already smirking. Then he stopped very suddenly. He was in Melrath, not on duty and it was clear to everyone by just his eyes that he was a mage.
“You’re disturbing the peace here,” Abra explained to the man as he grabbed hold of him. The magician’s fingers wrapped around the thick wrist of the violent person, and he noticed the fiery glare directed towards him, but Abra didn’t feel any chills. He knew that he would be able to win this battle if he implied certain things to grab his attention. Abra grinned broadly, speaking with intention as he glanced over to the messy stalls. A look of disappointment noticed when he tilted his head, and he fixated his stare towards the older man on the floor before shifting it back towards his opponent. “Don’t you want to return what you’ve taken?”
The man froze as if he was considering the words said to him, but he shook his head. “No, I don’t think I will.” was his response. He moved his arm and sent Abra flying through the air. The crack of a portal was heard and Abra reappeared right in front of the large troublemaker.
“I am a mage as you can see, and though I am a Magus I will not be using my magic against you because I am not on official duties.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked. He wasn’t the only one who was wondering about Abra’s strange behavior.
“Because I think you know what the end result would be if I got on duty and was asked to deal with you.” Abra smiled even though he knew there was no way this was worth enough for him to go through the trouble of going all the way back to town so soon. He was bluffing in hopes that the burly man would give up his rampage without having to resort to magic.
“You big dumb dumb!” cried the idiot. He grabbed more fruits and toosed them at Abra instead of the ground. It was all too easy for Abra to blink out of the way of each one, drawing gasps and cheers from the crowd with each crack of a portal.
When the rampaging buffoon finally took a breather Abra couldn’t help but notice a gleam of a small object buried in the mud. It’d been overturned by all the wreckage. “Hello there, what are you?” he asked. He blinked over to it and pulled it out of the ground. His Attunement spark was getting excited from its frequency. He could tell that this object, whatever it was, was something special.
It was a pocketwatch, though the name of it eluded Abra since clocks didn’t exist in Idalos. It was in fact a relic blessed by Ralaith with hands that told a time that mortals wouldn’t understand. On the back was an inscription. “Distortion Watch. With the turn of the knob, alter the flow of time.” He blinked to avoid another volley of fruits. While he inspected the item he’d found the buffoon was runing out of steam.
Abra turned the knob without a second thought and looked right at the heaving man. His heavy heaves sped up. He picked up more fruits and threw them even faster now. “So you increase someone’s speed,” Abra asked with a curious whisper. He blinked far from the idiot and noticed his breathing had returned back to normal, same with his speed. “And you stop working when I move too far away. Interesting.”
All the while the guards had been creeping up from behind and finally had their chance to subdue the troublemaker. The crowd cheered, those except for the ones who owned the fruit stalls. It looked like Abra had solved this problem without having to resort to magic even if his attempt in persuasion had failed. “When in doubt, wear them out. I like the ring of that,” he said with a smile.
Abra seemed to be the unexpected hero of the day. Most villagers just gave him nods of appreciation and went about their day. Some villagers however invited him to dine with them and kids asked him to show them what else he could do with the portals. He didn’t want to join them but he had little excuse now. He’d come here to experiment with magic and ended up losing enough ether to take safe experimentation off the table. He didn’t even have a claim to any money for the help he had given.
Not getting paid sickened him to his core and made him sour throughout dinner till he learned a tidbit that made the whole trip worth it. He learned that there were whispers of rewards for reporting information about mages and was warned to be careful. Some of those at dinner didn’t look at him quite right, giving him the suspicion that his actions and location was going to reported to the wrong sort. After this, Abra quickly made his leave to return back to Raelia. He didn’t need to risk being out in the open any more than he already had. For the entire journey back Abra felt watched. It was eerie and he didn’t like it. He just had a feeling that one of these days he was going to have to fight for his life.
