D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Lily —

The contest was over, lunch was eaten, and Kat had gone off to practice a bit more. Lily had pouted a bit at that… but when Kat actually voiced the question Lily had turned her down. Lily didn’t want to interrupt Kat’s trying, especially when it seemed like her girlfriend was on a roll. With their link it was a touch odd.

Lily could swear she could almost feel the breakthrough Kat was on the edge of, just out of reach. It was particularly strange because Lily hadn’t even asked Kat what she was trying to learn.

So here Lily was sitting across from Thyme. Thyme had a ball gown on but it was shredded. It looked like Thyme had picked a fight with a rosebush and lost. This ideas was only reinforced by the slight cuts that Thyme left on their exposed skin, and the rose that sat in Thyme’s hair. Must have been one serious rosebush. “So?

Have you come to a decision?” asked Thyme.

“Yes. I’d like the books please,” said Lily.

Thyme nodded, “Indeed, I had heard as much but I didn’t want to jump to assumptions without hearing you say it in person. I’ve done some preliminary digging, so I could hand over the bundle right now… or you could wait till tomorrow morning when the time limit for purchasing the treasures is up for a slightly more refined collection.

I doubt it’ll make much of a difference, I can only imagine swapping out two books at most… but it’s up to you,”

“I can wait,” said Lily with a slight sigh. “I’ve stressed enough over this choice. A bit of waiting will be nothing in comparison,”

Thyme winced and said, “Yes… I do apologise for that. I didn’t want to cause you any issues… but a choice like this is always accompanied by some stress. It’s why I tend to ask what people are looking for and then give them something that matches the description as best it can. It prevents things like this from becoming an issue,”

“Yeah… I mean I don’t hold it against you… but yeah. It was not a fun time going around asking everyone what they thought. Especially once I knew what I really needed was to just… buckle down and find my answers but I didn’t want to pick so I put it off, did other things… had a few emotional spirals, but Kat saved me from anything serious,” admitted Lily.

“Yes well… it has encouraged me to think about moving up my plans to make a few basic grimoires for all the affinities I know about it… but that’s a much larger project then it appears on the surface. Actually… you’ve got quite the outside perspective, so if you’re interested I’d love to bounce ideas back and forth for a moment?” requested Thyme.

“Oh please, go ahead I’m very curious,” said Lily with a smile.

“Right, so… obviously I can’t use my real name. That would immediately cause a bunch of political issues and I’d have to waste more time arguing with people then I’d spend actually writing the books,” said Thyme, pausing for a bit to pull out some props for the demonstration.

“The basic plan is just to gather what’s publicly available for Rank 2 and below, maybe add one or two more basic spells on top of that, and then publish it in a compendium.”

Thyme tapped on a thick book they’d pulled out. “What I’ve been debating is a few things. Should I cut the spells down to the absolute basics, and make it more like a training aid, focusing instead on ALL of the magic? Aim for getting it into schools alongside some easy ways for anyone to test their affinities to try and find all the mages we have.

“Because yes, potential for external magic manipulation is considered quite rare… but I honestly wonder if part of that is just that a lot of people never even TRY or, do try but fail quickly and then never try again, falsely assuming that not getting it after like a week of practice that it means they’ve got no future as a mage?

“Following that line of thought. If I could somehow turn practicing external mana manipulation into a game I could probably encourage a lot of kids that way… but I’m really not sure how I’d even start with developing a game like that. Most things I come up with either need you to be aware of your mana, or don’t help all that much except for the true talents that would probably realise it anyway.

“On the other side of things, I could instead build up a big collection of books. Sort of like… ‘The Basic Magics Every X Mage Should Know’ and turn it into a series. The problem with that… is I’d have to maintain a fake identity for those books. Some random nobody shows up with all that information?

They’ll just assume it’s a fake name… so I’d have to work something out to avoid that, and it could potentially be a major pain in the ass.”

Thyme paused to throw a bunch of smaller books on the table. Not too small, about the right size for a 400-500 page novel.

Each of them had ‘The basics of X’ with the elements name and a representation of the element drawn on the cover in what looked like crayon. “Plus, a lot of what I’d be putting in the books, just to avoid stepping on too many toes right away, would be stuff you could find normally if you put in some effort… but that’s the thing. Effort.

“So it could be a good start… but the question is how many do I release at time? What sort of other stuff might I need to right to establish an identity? What do I do if people start complaining I haven’t done some obscure type of magic? Would I deliberately search out those books? If so, how quickly is reasonable for a Rank 2 or 3 researcher I’m pretending to be?

Sorry, I covered quite a few things there… what do you think? I’ve got some more ideas, but let’s just keep it where it is for the moment,”

Lily chewed on her lip as she mentally sorted through everything Thyme had told her. A few ideas immediately stood out. “So… I’d say perhaps work on the single book compendium first before branching out into everything else. I think it might give you a better understanding of things, and then make the specific books better.

“Now as for how you’d release them? I’d suggest finding someone else who’d be willing to let you use their name on the books for a percentage of the profits. I’d suggest probably an elf? One that has lived for a while but doesn’t really interact with anyone all that much. Someone that can easily pretend to be the source of the books…

“Or perhaps take it one step back? Find someone to pretend to be the writer, and have them approach someone. It’s more people involved, but if anyone does dig into it. First they’ll see a reclusive elf, then a step back they might see a really reclusive elf, or whoever you get for that and I imagine most people would stop looking at that point,”

“Hmm… it’s not a bad idea. I can certainly see how it would work out. I’m just not sure if I could find someone that would make for a good cover story. A lot of reclusive people don’t share my ideas, and I’d need to find someone who knows enough about magic to pretend they’ve written all that stuff… but not so much they have their own pride as a researcher.

I know plenty of people who fit the bill, but would definitely turn me down if I asked for something like this…” said Thyme.

“Well creating an identity is hard. You’ve either got to borrow one… or make one from scratch. I guess you could find someone who’s very old and about to die and then pretend to be them once they pass. With permission of course, but it’s not exactly a tasteful way to go about it and I didn’t think you’d be too interested.

I mean, you could also do the same with someone who’s sick but… you can probably just heal them,” explained Lily.

As the words came out of her mouth though… another idea came to her. “Wait, no I’ve got an idea. The researcher Marigold brought up! The… the anti-elf league or whatever they’re called. The ones that go around attacking elves and cutting their ears! You can find one of their victims, and offer to heal them completely while changing their face.

That should make them safer, make them healthier, and you’d get an identity that has a reason to hide away from people for the most part,”

“Hmm… I don’t enjoy the idea of profiting off someone else’s suffering… but I would be doing a good thing for everyone involved. Well, except the terrorists, but they’re terrorists so I don’t feel to bad. Hmm… yes definitely something to think on,”