The Magnus Response & Review

INCREDIBLE solo ttrpg. Literally blasted this out in one ~6ish hour sitting. Genuinely cannot recommend it enough. Get it on itch.io here: https://momatoes.itch.io/the-magus

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My name is Terle, the first born to our village’s local florist, a traditional path sweeping back centuries for our line. I had the unfortunate luck – in the eyes of some – to be born a woman, but the fortunate luck – again, to some – that the floristry profession is known for a woman’s career anyway. My parents had no fear in putting me to work on our ‘stead. It is a good career. Humble. But it is not what I desire. Some would struggle to call me a humble woman. 

Magic has..always drawn me. Its masters are lonely folk, and hard to get a hold of. They are reviled, yet highly sought after; a single, pitying wizard can twist your life around, change the fate of your fortunes. Or destroy everything. Their deep connection to the wicked – to the demons that give them their power, at the taxing expense of their soul – has always set them apart from the church and its droves of worshippers. But much like manure on a flower farm, its usefulness cannot be denied. For although anyone can study it – with time, ambition, and resources – the black stain it casts on your soul in this life and the next scares away the common folk  and elite power alike. But ‘hard’ is not ‘impossible’. And I was a determined young woman. The flower farm had grown…stifling. The pollen ached at my eyes and dripped down my nose. Under my skin lay a thousand, prickling hairs from the stems I pulled each day. A change was direly required, for I could feel myself draining the more seasons I spent toiling under the watchful eyes of my weathered parents.

And Aebh…oh, she was so different. The way she could twist the matter of our world – force it to her will, all the while smiling at me her queer, twisted smirk – it captured me. I could feel the answering pull deep within me. Ironically, the sensation made me feel like my soul was finally reawakening, like petals unfurling after a deep chill. I made her teach me. Demanded it of her, like an imprudent child. She was soft with me – heeded to my whims like a lover to their cherished. It almost made me greedy. Firstborn I may be, but sons poured out of my mother, like I had been the stopgap to her fertility. This specialised attention intoxicated me. For months, Aebh taught me the steps to access my magic, hidden in the woody fields my family grew kitchen herbs in. She was achingly gentle with it – hands on my wrists, shoulder to shoulder, purple veins moth-like under my fingertips. I’m not sure she knew how to look me in the eyes. My demon’s name is Xerxes. The ritual, a convoluted and winding affair that took place in the brook a half-mile from the farm, saw my soul bound to it in exchange for this…power. That night, Aebh and I celebrated my newfound abilities, rejoiced with each other under the waning moonlight shifting in through the canopy above.

The morning after, I awoke to her gone. I suppose I understand now why we wizards are such isolated beings. Magic…demands. But oh, how I had wished she’d never left. Magic was so bloody interesting. Some say flowers and such are fascinating, the way the stem can follow the sun and hide beneath dirt to protect from unsuspecting frosts. How a simple daisy can concoct teas curing ailments. But I knew flowers as well as I knew my own face. Intimately, so much so that it bored me. If to a bee the orchid is a mystery unsolvable, with its confounding stems and curing petals, magic was my equivalent. The way one can alter the world merely with words! In my trade, words did not carry much. We traded by bunches and stems, dried furled petals and the bulbous lumps of seeds half propagated. My newfound connection to this previously hidden world awoke within me a hunger I could not contain. No longer would a humble profession constrain me to the mundane. I was a wizard. 

However, I found myself not only skill-less, but friendless. Or rather, mentor-less. Aebh was, for reasons obvious, out of the running. I could only hope to one day see her again. But I desired…direction. Some guidance on how to manipulate this newfound power. There was much to being a wizard, I was discovering, that the rumour mill of the world just simply glossed over. How to acquire spells, for example. Or power – ability – whether it was through lack of spells, practise, or raw arcana, I instinctively knew I was less powerful than Aebh. I wanted to correct this, put myself on even footing for what I assumed was the wizarding standard. More than that, I desired to understand how such a thing was possible. And what was not possible was gaining that knowledge in my hometown.

So, moving it was. I’d assumed saying as much would be harder than doing, but reality again seemed to bow to my whims. After those first few days of settling, the feeling of acting the new fawn faded. Xerxes awakened in the corners of my mind, a faint presence I could sense curling around mine. It guided me out of my village and I travelled eastwards, the south, days slipping by on horseback, on foot, clutching the roiling edge of a slip boat across the Gerhad’s Lake. I settled in a rather meagre cottage on the outskirts of Niocur, a large and bustling town that rather abruptly faded in wilderness. It was within this wilderness that my new abode was built. A little dilapidated, but nevertheless mine, acquired from a local family who had no need for the steading when I was offering the presence of a serviceable wizard. That I knew nothing well…it never came into the equation. The cottage had 3 rooms downstairs, an attic one could stand in, and about half an acre of land surrounding it. Enough, certainly, for me. The southernmost room became my study; on the land I broke earth once again to begin to cultivate useful household herbs. I lived in the first room; the attic and smaller room to the east remained rather dormant. It suited me well. 

My first few days at the cottage – which I decided to name Cutter’s Cottage, in some strange fit of lonely melancholy – were quiet. I did not venture into Niocur, nor to any of the steadings in the near distance to mine. In fact I barely explored my own land, which as it happens, contained not only a wealth of edible plants, but wild ducks which I promptly captured to keep close to the cottage upon discovery. But isolation was new to me, and it was only a matter of time before I bumped into someone…captivating, on one of my excursions into Niocur. Startling, she was the image of Aebh. So similar in fact that I felt my heart leap in my chest, felt a confusing tumble of eager excitement and burning, resentment fueled confusion crawl up my throat. I had almost spoken to her, had already reached out and caught her attention, when I noticed the subtle differences. A freckle at the corner of her mouth. Brown eyes, not a hardened blue. Powered makeup dusting high cheeks. Embarrassment replaced all else, and I ran away before I could further muddle the situation. I almost wish I had stayed to talk – laugh off the peremptory casualness – but cowardice had taken hold of me. And perhaps a little fear, too. Xerxes had brighted at the edges of my soul at the sight of her – the feel of her. It wanted to know her. And I didn’t know why. 

I took to the books. Well, more accurately, I reflected what I felt on paper. I had no books. No knowledge. No mentor – yet. But Xerxes was still active, in the back of my self. My magic felt closer than it ever had. So, I…experimented. And, oh. It was glorious. Arcane thrummed through me, sparking up my veins and fizzling on my tongue as I spoke out the words, breathed life into the matter of the metaphysical. The flower cuttings I kept on the sill of the study flushed to life. My own skin took on a glowing hue, as if I had spent hours lounging in the sun. I had done it – all without a mentor or guidance. I am not, it must be acknowledged, a humble woman. But this felt worthy of a braggarts attitude. 

Spell: Verdure Sighs. A lyrical stance that, when sung at the right tune, embalms all around it with an artificial flush of life. Lasting for a little over half a day, it gives people and objects alike the appearance of being flush with health. 

My success filled me with confidence – and a source of income. Wizards are rare (people are loud. Xerxes seems to have sharpened my senses to the natural world), and people paid minted money for one who could enable them to look flush with health, even if only for a short while. The shorter the while, in fact, the more often they paid me to give them my service. The wealthy of Niocur, the poor of the surrounding hamlets; I took money from them all, though I was glad to retreat to my cottage after casting out my services. There is a certain…twitching under my skin, sometimes, interacting with folk. I’ve heard the rumours now, about wizards and power. It doesn’t disgust as it perhaps should.

Nonetheless, my trips into Niocur increased. I never did run into that woman again, but the next time Xerxes awakened under my skin I was better prepared. For the person, that is. I do not think I could’ve ever prepared myself for the way in which we met. Bal, whose name I later found out, is a sailor. Cut from cloth far flung from Niocur, their eyes gleam with knowledge I could only dream of – thinking about it even now makes me itch to hear them speak, shake loose all the sights they have seen, the wilder magic encountered from a life on the sea. They stood alone when I first caught a glimpse, surveying the packed crowds of Niocur’s main promenade from a sheltered cove against a wall. Yet clearly their sea salted exterior hides a noble disposition, for the minute a fair lad cried out in shock as his purse was snatched by thieves, they threw themselves into action – foolish, if you had asked me. One scuffle later, and yes the young lad had his coins back – bar a few he graciously gave Bal with a starry-eyed expression – but Bal themselves now sported a rather ugly blackening eye after a nasty box to the cheek. Luckily by then, I had gotten my hands on a few magical tomes, and knew enough spells to remember a minor healing wound that quickly soothed Bal’s face. They asked me why I bothered; I asked Bal why they had. After a moment, they simply shrugged. And that was that. The life of a sailor keeps Bal on the ocean, and it was only hours later they departed. But I do not fear; I will see them when the tides draw us together again. 

It…relieved me, I think, to speak to another human as I had to Bal. Though to be frank we had not done much speaking, as much as I long to hear what they have seen on distant lands. Instead, we got coffee. Such a mundane activity, coffee with acquaintances. Yet I realised then that I had grown somewhat withdrawn, alone in my cottage, surrounded by notes both my own and those written by wizards I will never know. Dead fellows, even. I must not forget, in my pursuit of knowledge, that I am human as well. Bal was a welcome reminder. 

And in hindsight, a glaring reminder that set against my magical work, what I deal with now is as far from human as ever fearfully pictured by the lay folk. Mastering spells increasingly eats up my time. My hunger for power – for knowledge – has only increased the more greedily I consume magic. But they don’t get any easier. My theory that it was simply a matter of practice – of flexing the muscle, as such – was proven woefully wrong. Magic is a funny thing to understand. Some spells take naught but a flick of the fingers, a flex of the soul – but those are so mundane as to be practically replicable by humans. The true spells are more…otherworldly. And these take a deeper engagement with my magics – with Xerxes. The deeper I probe into spells forgotten, into true knowledge, the more Xerxes bayed with hunger in my flesh. I could feel its excitement crawling up my spine, tangling with my own naive eagerness for achievement. But it is addictive, even as it goes wrong. Mistakes still teach after all. My latest spell was a remnant of one I found in an old magister’s tome. As it happened, one of the local farmers had a building on his land that once housed a wizard, centuries ago. The magic then seemed…rougher, perhaps to match the lifestyle. I couldn’t be certain of the nature of the spell on first reading, but I could sense a malevolence emanating from the words I slowly mouthed aloud. It excited me. Up until now, the spells I had cast were…tame. This not only felt powerful, but was an area of the arcana I had not yet touched on. In my eagerness I neglected to consider any wards the old wizard could have cast on his notes, or perhaps any extra components the spell might need to stabilise. Whichever mistake I made the outcome was this: the book melted in my fingertips, pages rotting at a speed hitherto unknown. Black, clumping gunk seeped through my fingers and fell to the ground where it gathered and formed into a monstrous shadowed figure. It grew taller than the amount of gunk would assume, hunched and terrible and silent as it moved its great head to stare at me. For a moment, there was stillness. Then Xerxes awoke in earnest. My heart pounded in my chest as an unnatural excitement overtook me. All sense of panic was abandoned; instead, I felt an ever tightening band across my chest as my demon sensed my potential death. I understood – when I died, my soul belonged to it. But underneath this strange eagerness, my hands clawed into my legs. I stared down the shadowy beast; it stared back at me. Slowly, it sluiched its way towards me, no legs visible; only a terrible, seeping black mass. With an almost detached calm I considered the spell that had gotten me into this; revelatory poison. Malevolence. In the old tongue, there was a rune that symbolised a weaponised hatred, a malevolence so deep that it drove men against men. As if guided by the spirit of that wizard, I turned my hands to each other and carved that rune into my palms with my own fingernails. As the blood dripped feverishly down my arms,  my world erupted in such pain I was convinced either Xerxes or the shadowy beast had struck me. But no; oh, no. It was something much better. My fear of the shadowy beast seemed foolish in the face of my internal agony. What had I to fear, when I could withstand such pain? Why had I frozen in cowardice, when as my veins bulged and blackened in my veins I could sense every weakness of the pathetic creature in front of me? It was easy to constrain it. Easier still to temporarily bind it to another book, though not as proficient as the wizard before me; the beast still roamed free in the corners of my eyes, but I knew it had no agency to attack. Xerxes flushed through my veins, mildly disappointed at my success. What was one more demon haunting me, after all? But one thing was clear: if I wanted to continue down my path, I needed more power. 

Spell: Revelatory Poison. A rune scratched into both of the caster’s palms. When the casters blood has dripped past their wrists, their blood will erupt in very veins as if set alight; the veins and eyes will rapidly darken until it appears as if the caster has been poisoned. All weakness of the caster’s immediate enemies will become evident, as if marked out by an unseen hand. The caster will retain a darkened tint to their veins and eyes, worsening each time it is cast. 

Bal returned from sea. They seemed…different. But then, so did I. My exchange with the shadow creature not only hardened me, but changed me physically. My veins ran darker; the whites of my eyes, now a sallow grey. People avoided me on the street more often than not. Bal didn’t even hesitate to draw me into a rough, salt-scented embrace. It – refreshed me. Together we sat, huddled into a darkened table at a shabby bar, and whittled away the hours with chatter. I learned their stories; told them mine. Tenderness is so odd, I found. To learn someone more intimately – it rubs. There is almost a fear in me when I begin to recognise the oddities that compose a person. I am ever grateful for our companionship. We agreed to send letters. 

Bal spoke to me with such softness, despite their craggy exterior. The reminder of my humanity once again frightened me, yet reassured. I almost believed them when they took me into a closing embrace and wished me well. They inspired me to make my presence more known in Niocur, as a person and not simply a wizard. I feared I was too late; already tales of my spellcasting into darker matters has spread on the streets, and as I mentioned people have started to avoid me. True, it could’ve been because of the shadowy beast that flickered in the corners of my eyes; it made me twitchy. Not many enjoy the company of a twitchy wizard.

 I took to lingering in pubs and bookshops, rather than standing exposed to hate on the street. The folk in here were more to my taste anyway; either sullen and quiet, or sharply inquisitive. It was within one such bookshop that I met Koval. She is a small woman. Forlorn. I pitied her story, yet felt drawn to her perseverance; a disgraced scholar, withered and hunched over with the pain of attempting to cure her husband’s illness. She claims to have been searching for such a cure for decades now, and I certainly believe her old enough. Perhaps the stress has taken years from her unfairly. I hadn’t the heart to inform Koval that a miracle cure does not yet exist, and instead inquired if she had pursued any of the more powerful wizards that occasionally haunt the area. To my surprise, she confessed that only five years ago she had attempted to strike a deal with a demon herself. But, she said, no demon wanted a deal with a soul as sucked dry as mine. 

An individual inclined to danger, then. I liked her. 

It was still infused with this deluge of human connection that I found the mildew-coated papers outside my door. They were naked to the elements, tied together only by a strangely sinuous string. I brought them inside, dried them; spread them reverently out on the floor in front of the fire. I had no one to thank for dropping these arcane notes to me, no hands to reverently shake – but I vowed to do so, for they were unlike any notes I had ever seen before. The spell it seemed to describe made my insides twist, nervously, excitedly. It would push my knowledge and power to its boundaries. Despite my research, I had not yet figured out how to change myself that much further, that the same magic Aebh had yielded would pour over my own hands. But this – might this do it? 

Deciphering it took weeks. I shared my progress with Koval, Bal when they were around, and other like-minded folk from the libraries. Slowly, word spread of my latest spell. It was shaping up to be something truly exciting; I had uncovered the title of the spell – ‘Hallowing Judgement of Mirrors’. It called to mind prestige, power, and knowledge. My pursuit of its contents became feverish and had I the will to do so, I would have isolated myself in my cottage. However, the choice was rather rudely taken out of my hands. This…waif of a woman showed up at my doorstep, and simply never left. Please, she begged me. Please, do not use this spell, do not engrain its foul words into your mind. Only despair lies ahead, so she warned me. Despair, agony, pain – misery for all. This is not the way forward – apparently. 

But I cannot simply unlearn what I know. Attempting to explain this was futile. Ignoring proved useless, locking my door only appeasing my sense of security – I could hear her wails even from within my attic. I studied throughout it all and ignored her increasing hysteria. Eventually, the words came to me. It was late, the woman having exhausted herself to mere laboured breaths outside my front door. Pulling open the door caused her to fall in, at my feet. I looked at her, and felt…nothing as I spoke the spells, a screeching symphony echoing the chant. Then I was unable to look at her; my eyes began to sizzle in their sockets and melt, molten, down my face. The woman was too terrified to do much more than whimper, but by then she was merely a footnote in my mind. There was a cacophony of voices, screaming as I did, wailing their monstrous tune when I fell to my knees. Pressing my face to the cool stone of the floor offered no relief; I could feel grit sticking to the wet liquid trickling down my cheeks, mixing with the saliva drooling from my mouth. I was sightless, when I wished to be deaf. Xerxes coiled tightly around my soul. For a moment I could feel myself waver, incomplete and weak, at the periphery of something that for once I desired not to know. 

It stopped. I rose. Blinking, I could see the numb visage of the woman at my feet, frozen some feet away in the mud as if she had crawled backwards in terror. Though perhaps ‘see’ is too generous a word, for the world was distorted, in a colour scale I had never imagined. I moved my head, grinding my teeth, and suddenly the world was different again; but still, not normal.

What have you done, said the woman. What have you unleashed on this earth? And I said I didn’t know. But Lord, I did know. There was no decision I could not know, not any more. After a pause I told her this, then told her what she had done; described to her in some detail how rather than deterring me, her efforts to turn me off learning had only encouraged me. I told her that there were those in power in Niocur who had suspected what spell I had come across – and now that it was spoken, they would be eager to put before me their most difficult of decisions – that of war, of power, of money. But I am not human, not any more – perhaps not since I took on Xerxes, or bound to me a creature of the shadow realm. My moral judgement is not your own, I explained to her in earnest. And this is only the beginning of my path. Are you so remorseless? She asked me. So heartless? Who are you to preach to me, I retorted. She left, trust broken in me, though truth to be told I am not sure why she had any to begin with. Perhaps because I was a woman from a village similar to hers that I would listen. 

Power is not found in villages. And I have just unlocked the spell to more. 

Spell: Hallowing Judgement of Mirrors. Speaking the words of this spell harmonises the castor with the fabric of the world. Jarring voices underlie their own; their eyes shift with every twitch of their skull, one moment human, the next some other creature of the earth. The caster gains the ability to see for a split second the future when faced with difficult decisions, to better cast judgement on which to make. It comes at a curse of moral instability; the judgmental compass of a snake is not the same as a human’s, after all. Once cast, only death will rid the caster of its effects. 

It’s no exaggeration to say I changed fundamentally after the hallowed judgement. I was called on with some frequency to the halls of Niocur, though after some time I began to be more particular with whose calls I answered. My judgments fluctuated with what was asked of me – what is best for this community? What is best for the economy? What will secure me favour with the throne? Bal was called to sea, after I cast judgement on that last enquiry, and I have not seen them since. Distantly, I hope they live. Even more distantly, I worry that I am straying too far from my roots. But humane concerns pale so magnificently when I have the voices of the world whispering in my eyes, showing me visions of what is to come. My success has brought magic out of the shadows. Though I am avoided in the streets more than ever, those with the power to utilise my abilities have no qualms in serving me fragrant tea and piling me with riches. I am offered a tower, in the heart of Niocur – the opportunity to be the first in-residence wizard of the Niocur is too tempting to ignore. 

Koval at least delights in my new closeness. We spend nights together, pouring over textbooks. I even visit her bed-bound husband; he is pale, as fragile as old paper. When he shakes my hand and averts his eyes from my face, I almost fear he will pass away with fright. She never asks me what she should do; I honour her by not looking. Instead, I cast verdure on them both, and allow them the grace of half a day of health. But it dislodged something in her, for as the days following it trickled by, she grew restless. Uneasy with my presence. Although it hurt, I understood. I knew what was coming. She truly had forgotten what I was, I think, even as the blacked eyes of a shark peered out from my brow, and shadows danced in the corners of my room. Casting verdure was a reminder of what I could tell her. What I had, perhaps, held from her all along. When she asked me what the best path for her was, I already knew the answer. If guilt burned in my chest – if a strange anticipation curled my fingers in, dug furrows into the scars on my palms – if the best way forward was for her to sacrifice herself for my power well. Well. That’s just how it was. I told her the benefits of her sacrifice – a continuation of the last three decades of her life – and she barely flinched. Somehow, that assaged my guilt. If Koval expected this outcome herself, then I could hardly be accused of taking advantage of a vulnerable woman could I? I explained to her – to us both – how her life would fuel my power. Increase the reservoir on which I can pull miracles from. I swore to her that I would use it to heal her husband, and shook on our sweating hands. 

Killing her was almost anticlimactic if not for the blissful rush that seared through my veins. Xerxes purred in pleasure at my actions; rewarded me with a sudden flooding of power that thudded in my skull. Her blood coated my hands in thick, cooling clumps. The sight of her crumpled body filled me with a sickening horror, even as the voices overlapped in my ears to soothe me. What…had I done? What had you done, the voices echoed, what had you done, what had you done, what had you done.  Power – knowledge – sacrifice. You sacrificed, didn’t you? You gave, didn’t you? Are you human, still? Is that not sacrifice? Be grateful for what I’ve given – for what we’ve done. Be grateful, I told Koval’s husband as I fed him the apothecaries tincture. I am delivering on her promise. You shall suffer this fate no more. Move beyond your mortal capacities. Embrace what you have unlocked in us. 

My tower had 6 rooms. The top room was my favourite – it overlooked the entire city, tall enough that on foggy days it peaked through the clouds. The wall opposite the window bore a mirror, floor to ceiling, wide enough I could have stood with several companions all in frame. Looking in it was a strange experience – my face was not quite my own, anymore. Could I remember the colour my eyes once were? Did my hands always bear such a rusty tint? The purple-black hue of my veins stood in stark contrast to the sun-deficient hue of my skin. I used to spend hours in it. Pruning flowers. Planting bulbs. I wondered how my garden fared, at the cottage, and realised I could not remember the last time I tended to it, before moving. Had it truly been so long since I touched the earth? My breath was tight in my lungs, rasping on exhales and choking when I inhaled. The world spun around me – turning too fast caused a sickening bile to rise up my gullet. Such were the woes of nightshade poisoning, an unfortunate requirement for my latest spell. One of my patrons is particularly eager for me to deliver the results to her. However it is…worse than I imagined. The hot, burning flux of magic combined with the deadly nightshade – I felt as though I no longer remembered myself. The words of the spell emerged in a rasping croak from my mouth – the glimmering copper goblet felt like it took eons to materialise on my desk, every inch of pouring copper leeching away the nightshade poisoning. Staring at the goblet, I feel a little more myself – but not as I once was, not even after Koval. Mist lingers on the edges of my vision – Xerxes ever tightens – I never lose the swaying lurch of my poisoned gait. Perhaps part of my soul has been displaced. I’m sure Xerxes is delighted.

Spell: Feeble Denial of True Creation. This spell requires the castor to chew and swallow several nightshade berries. The poison must be allowed to work through the body for a day before the words are spoken. Successful casting will conjure a deep chalice that, when drunk from, will subject the drinker to a form of false death; on reawakening, they will be a blank slate. 

But this new stage of power…it fails to deliver. Even as I deliver conjured chalices, determine the fortune of the elite, infuse health to those who can afford it – I am hollow. I still yearn for more, but this time as I question it the voices remain silent. What have I done? What have I truly accomplished? Seeking guidance from myself offers no answers. The voices cannot judge themselves. The months seem to pass in a fog. I seek no further knowledge, though I still froth at the thought of knowing more – but is magic what I desire to know more of? Is this the game I desire to play? Koval’s death feels less and less gratifying the more time passes between my magical conquests. Eventually, Bal returns. They’re more hollow than they’ve ever been, and on pressing confined to me that their assignment had been private warfare of all things – a guerrilla campaign on the ocean, played out between two of my clients. I had not known Bal worked for them. It twinges something within me, something that I’d thought I’d lost. 

Was this what magic was for – the fleeting whims of the powerful? The more I thought about it, the more resolute I became. That’s what I’d become, anyway – a powerful figure, concerned with naught but their own enterprises. It did not take such a leap to my current plans: I am leaving. Leaving Niocur, perhaps the continent altogether. I am still no flower farm labourer, but I am no court’s arcane plaything either. Neither am I the plaything of arcane beings beyond my ken. I am changed by my actions – my eyes still shift; voices echo in my mind; the shadow beast is more of a sad companion than a threat – but my tether to this world has been cut in some way I do not think I can ever recover from. I do not wish to see it snipped before my time is truly over. There is so much for me to learn, beyond the greedy hands of the arcane. Bal has encouraged me to come with them on their next assignment – a research ship, to record the patterns of the tide. They have promised me terrible rations and boring academics. Truly, it sounds delightful – a change from my new, cold tower. A step back towards Cutter’s Cottage.

I leave at dawn.