Magic..What?

Magic ...What?

“Crack Bang!” Thunder erupts the power goes out. “What? NO NO NO! Curse you fate. I am in the middle of editing my CAD portfolio and this happens.” Dan furiously throws his keyboard at the wall. At this moment he begins to realize the severity of the storm in which he has been caught. The window of his home rattles from the howling winds. He can feel his heart rate jump as he begins to see the very walls of the house begin to fail. He darts for the center of the house and leaps into a bathtub. “Snap!” Dan's stomach fell inside him like reaching the top of a roller coaster. “This is impossible, the physics working hear should not pick up my house. Shivering from this experience he laughed at the irony of his extensive education being snuffed out just as it would become useful to anyone. “Ka-Crash!” Dan hit the porcelain hard. His face ached from the sudden deceleration. “Oh thank you lord! I have....errr landed!I swear I will consider going to church more, or at least be slightly more guilty about not going.” In his joy he walked as calmly as he could towards a door, fearful of the structural damage done to his home.

Upon first opening the door of his now shambly home he was surprised to see a procession of people outside his home, dressed curiously to say the least. “Did this tornado hit me during Halloween?” Dan accidentally said outloud. “It worked!” the group of trick-or-treater-look-alikes claimed. “Listen do any of you know where I am?” “You are in Dysmadia of course.” “Hmm is that near Chicago?” Still loopy from the adrenaline combination fear Dan failed to care about the lavish robes and ancient looking artifacts that each wore. Behind the people were torches on storefront windows with an odd cobblestone walkway outlining a gargantuan lightning bolt mural. These buildings all remained under thirty feet tall. They appeared to follow a shady build code and did not appear structurally sound. Then he focused on a distant building, the apparent remains of the Sears tower, still dominating the night sky.  Sanity remained until Dan hesitantly confirmed a second moon much larger than the original still in the sky. (faint) “Flop”

Waking up did not serve to calm Dan down at all. His heart rate rarely reached these peeks and he visibly had discomfort with his current situation. Hoping a dream had occurred he look around only to confirm the reality of the situation by wood flooring followed by wood roofing and wood walls. “Well... constant anxiety will only serve to kill me faster. At least I’m not.... did I Die?” Failing to notice a figure in the corner of the dismally light room a soft and luckily calming voice spoke “No. I can promise you are alive. We brought you here because we face the wrath of a new magic none of us can defeat.” “Magic..Bwhahahahaa! Sorry given the situation I should really consider your proposition, ,but really... magic! I am not sure how familiar you are with the conservation of energy, or mass, or the fact that entropy can never be negative, but as an engineer I believe magic is infeasible.”

         Visibly upset the figure came from the darkness and held lightning in her hand, produced from seemingly nowhere.  She had the most peculiar choice of dress. It looked to be something out of a costume catalog for a witch, though with cutoff sleeves and a short skirt with shorts of red worn underneath. Her hair had a shade of roses highlighting the blonde locks. She wore her hair loose with a few broaches of lighting bolt figures. Her face was young and determined like a girl applying for a desperately needed job. She had fair skin which gleaned in the blue light. She had many accessories adorning herself, including a necklace of a circular yellow stone and many armbands of figures with the five old-school element symbols on them.  “Listen to me you don't know what has been going on the past 300 years, everything has changed. As infeasible as it sounds Magic has become real. I am one of only a few that have read the texts of the past telling of the age without magic, your time. The book foretold of a day where we reached a zone of space where the physical constants were not the same.” The expected face of disbelief was replace by a face of absolute thought. Dan sat scratching his head at one moment, raising his finger at others, standing to pace, siting back down in silence, and finally speaking a few minutes later

“Different Physical constants! Fascinating! Our solar system does haul ass through space and there have been reports on different physical constants in other solar systems. This leaves the question of the extra moon and why I am here.” “Well no one know why the extra moon is here, but we understand it as the source of the change of constants. You are here because your magic all but died over the 300 years and now someone is using to destroy us during Lunar Blackout. Essentially when your moon interferes with ours every month our magic is dampened and we become vulnerable.” “My Magic?” “Yes your machines that breath smoke, your fire without magic, your seemingly unstoppable metal men.” Dan manages a smile for a moment then an unpleasant frown. “By magic you mean engineering and science. This is not magic at all.” “Regardless of what you call it we need to know how to stop it, they make advances every month on our land.” “With what motivation do I have to go on?” “You are in their path and will not hesitate to crush you into rubble.”  “Sold! I shall do what I can.” Seeming relieved with a smile she said “ Lye” “What?” “My name” “Oh Dan Wender pleased to meet you.”
          Dan went out into the lightning bolt mural and saw what lay before him. “These are the only pieces of their artifact we have collected” Lye claimed. These sat the dismembered remains of what appeared to be a bad reproduction of a 60's  style robot, complete with seeming unnecessary lights and knobs. Another pile contained the shattered remains of what looked like a Sherman tank  “When is the next Lunar Blackout?” “A Week” Dan shot straight to a few questions regarding the capabilities regarding this worlds magic. Apparently each of the armband symbols represented the classification of a magic user, some had the lightning bolt while others had fire or water.  Dan pondered as he had in Lye's house. “Listen we cannot survive a defensive battle. No matter how high our walls or strong our resolve. I understand this technology and our best bet is sabotage.” “What chances does a small group have to stop an army? Countless have fallen to the Rock Wall Line.” a curiously large ginger man proclaimed.  “ currently we need our available resources, apparently your magic scares them enough not to attack, but their machines are powerful enough to make them feel safe to your attack. Your current course of action only has one result, defeat. I am not a brave man, only realistic.” Lye chimes in “He knows where to hit them, their weakness. Let his knowledge be our trump card Charon” “Fine! But you go nowhere without me! I undoubtedly have more fire in me than any other.” Dan attempted to protest but quickly decided not to when Charon literally had flames come from his eyes. “The less people the better though.”

The group was formed.  Lye Charon and the unwilling Dan. Making it to the heart of the Rock Wall Line's facility proved easier than anticipated. Assaults must have been rare. Dan had appointed Charon to burn the fuel of the tanks, as fuel must be rare in this time. The hardest of the task was for Dan and Lye. The machines appeared to be waterproof and resistant to lightning. “ In order to do this Lye we must destroy a central computer of some kind. I have no idea where it is or even if it exists.” “Do we have a choice” “not really, if they are independently ran we are kind of screwed.”

They began to move towards a building with what appeared to be a satellite dish on top of it. Inside the metal men were hammering away creating more of themselves. They ran on what seemed like an endless power source, magic.  They did not have any projectile weapons in hand luckily. While attempting to make it further into the facility they were detected. Suddenly hundreds of the metal men began slowly marching towards them. “Lye hit them!” She stood firmly, took a long deep breath, and with the effort of lifting a dead weight above her head a branching blue blur spread from her hands going straight into the machines. A few melted into slag outright, leaving only welded to the floor feet. Some were offline, but many still ran despite the significant voltage that had hit them. “Damn it, they must have a lightning rod installed on them. Run Lye.” Dan pulled an exhausted Lye deeper into the menacing facility. Closing large metal door behind them. Still the metal men marched through them as if they were not their. “ There has to be a network. They all noticed us at once.” Deeper they went until a door, that looked more like a vault appeared before them. “Shit, it has to be in there. I half guessed this might happen. Lets bolt.” At that moment the door they had just entered began to strain from the metal man on the other side. Lye took a firm grip of the yellow circular amulet and crushed it in her hands. From this her hair stood straight up and the air became distorted from the power. With the remaining strength in her she hit the door with a flash almost blinding despite closed eyes. The vault door became cratered and pitted but remained. Lye collapsed to the floor. A voice rang through an ancient speaker system “Don't worry about a rescue. Your friends have been dealt with, They did know where to hit us however. I wonder how they knew” Seemingly ignoring the voice Dan took a deep breath and had the look complete entrancement as all of his consciousness went to check out for a second. “Yeah that doesn't make any sense at all” He took his hand and concentrated on the vault door. “FZZZZ!” The door turned into dust revealing the user of the intercom and a massive computer. “No! This doesn't make sense. That door is four feet thick. The physics do..” “Yeah doesn't make sense. I know. Neither does having to putting physical effort into making Magic work. If it is truly negative entropy at work, conservation of energy doesn't matter. Its all about your will” “That is bullshFZZZZ!” Nothing but ash remained of the mysterious man. The metal men fell silent.

Lye had regained consciousness as Dan had been piggy backing her back to  Dysmadia. Following closely Charon surprisingly able to walk despite his injuries. Lye finally spoke “You know Dan we have no idea how to send you back. I’m sorry.” “Dan laughed at the irony of walking down a yellow brick road at that moment. “That’s fine, not sure I want to leave anyways. Who knows with the way things are going may be I can become a wizard. The wonderful wizard of  Dysmadia? Nahhh!”