Random stories

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“Of course you’re not!” Grand Magnus Elliot yelled from behind his great oak desk. The pieces of parchment that were our plans for victory still spread out across the top of the beautifully polished surface. I could still see the runes and sigils he used to hide them from searching eyes lightly branded on the linen.

“Then why am I here?” I asked back, “Why was I effective when you have a hall of wizards that have trained a lifetime to use magic? Some of them more.”

“Because you can see,” Elliot explained, “You have a gift. We have been through this, your skill is a divine blessing.”

“It is not anything other than what I have learned,” I argued back, “I have talent but the skill I have I earned. Gods and deities didn’t put me through school. I did.”

“You struggled to use your gift when you were at home,” Elliot tried to change his approach. The number of arguments that we have had over the years on this topic was mind-numbing. I wanted to go home because at least the divine didn’t interfere. Watching Elliot carefully, he tried to pick up one of my diagrams and explain, “you linked three dozen spells together. That’s multiple times more than anyone has ever tried and yet you talk about struggling for resources at home. Why would you go back?”

“Because I don’t have to worry about some teenager blowing up a city block with his mind,” I explained but hedged and added, “Well at least I don’t have to worry about the with his mind part.”

“That happens rarely,” Elliot argued, “Just because you were in the wrong places doesn’t mean it happens as often as you experienced.”

“The idea that it happens is enough,” I yelled, “You have magic and yet there is so much of this world that is suffering.”

“And there isn’t in yours?” Elliot asked, “There isn’t suffering in a world devoid of magic?”

“Well no, there’s a lot,” I explained, “Greed still exists but it exists at a human level. We don’t have deities taking active, rather vocal roles in our progression.”

“Then why do you complain about the religions of your world so often?” Elliot asked.

“Because if our world has those beings they choose to remain undetectable,” I explained, “We don’t have five-story, rise from a volcano, made of fire demons that intentionally kill people.”

“We killed As’tovel,” Elliot stated, “Could your kind do that?”

“We killed him the same way my kind would have,” I argued, “I’m the one who thought of how to string your wind manipulation spell into a concussion bomb.”

“You can do that?” Elliot asked, “Without magic?”

“One of our countries almost set the atmosphere on fire because of it,” I explained, “They sort of agreed to stop after that.”

“How?” Elliot asked, sitting back in his chair. I had tried to tell him about my time in physics but he always told me that the rules of matter were of no importance compared to the rules of magic.

“We took Uranium and shoved enough energy into it that it broke,” I said, honestly I wasn’t exactly sure how weaponised nuclear fission worked. When Elliot looked at me rather confused I added, “It’s like special dirt.”

“You made special dirt explode?” Elliot asked, “Without magic?”

“You don’t need magic to make something explode,” I countered, “Honestly, people love making things explode regardless of what it is.”

“True,” Elliot sighed. He was probably thinking the same thing as me. How many people had died in the countless explosions the two of us had seen? Looking over a couple of more pages on the table he asked, “I just don’t understand why you would leave this.”

When I came here, it would have been a hard question to answer. The room we sat in was enchanting and enchanted both by the skill of those who had carved it and those who had woven the spells needed to create the living tree we sat in. It smelt so clean. Here there was never a care in the world that couldn’t be solved.

Elliot wasn’t the Grand Magnus when I came here though. Grand Magnus Ilsima had been cursed from across the sea to wither and die in front of the Wizards High Court in front of us. His successor, Grand Magnus Starrak had built the anti-magic defence around the High Tree only to have his head removed while he slept by a friend turned traitor. Grand Magnus Terry lasted less than a day after Starrak’s assassination when he tried to make peace with As’tovel. Elliot was then put in place and had lasted the last three years by being about as paranoid as I had become.

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Submitted by asolitarycandle on Sat, May 28, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

"Because you defeated the evil you can go back to your own world. Or you could stay here if you want." "Nah, I think I'll go home." "Wait seriously? Why would you want to go back to you primitive world? We've got magic!" "You think that because we don't have magic we're not as advanced as you?"