《Magick, not Magic》 Into the Assimilary! Emilia had a headache. Not a regular headache, like the kind you get from too much stress or from the flu. It isn¡¯t a ¡®pounding in your temples after the party¡¯ kind of headache either, and she doesn¡¯t have chronic migraines. Instead, she¡¯s just got this building...pressure, in her skull, like there¡¯s something in there, slowly growing until all she can think of is the dull pulsing in her head. It wasn¡¯t anything in particular, really, at least on a mundane level, but everything has just felt...weird, lately. She only really started noticing maybe two weeks ago, but originally she¡¯d thought it was just because it¡¯s october, restless spirits and all that. As the month had gone on though, there was just a weird vibe just, everywhere, pretty much ever-present, and it seemed like a lot of her online friends were feeling the same way. It¡¯s only in the last couple days though that it started to become a real issue, to the point that she was getting pretty much constant headaches, migraines, whatever you want to call them. Just today, the pain spiked so bad that her manager actually excused her to go home and get some rest, which is honestly probably for the best. It felt like someone was trying to crush her head with a mountain, and ibuprofen hadn¡¯t done shit to help with it. The walk back home was helping a little, fresh air and all that, and it¡¯s during some kind of lul in the headache, but she still felt like she was hungover. She took a deep breath of the cool autumn air, taking a moment to look around as she waited at a street corner for some cars to pass. Aldon is a pretty good-sized town, nice and cozy really, though to be completely fair Emilia moved here because of the cheap new housing that was being built when she was looking for a place to rent. Also fortunate, the autoshop she worked at was only a few streets down from her house, so the fact that she-ironically-didn¡¯t have a car wasn¡¯t an issue. The trash people had managed to clean up all the fall leaf litter, so the streets weren¡¯t a hassle to walk through, only leaving the bare, skeletal trees spaced around the streets, slowly starting to hibernate for winter. Unfortunately, she couldn¡¯t really take in the familiar sights because of this damned headache! All she could do was groan and rub her temples, only cognizant of her surroundings enough to stay on the sidewalk and keep on track to her house. She¡¯s actually kind of glad she doesn¡¯t have a car, she probably would have run off the street by now. If this didn¡¯t let up, she¡¯d probably have to go to the hospital, as much as she¡¯s sure it isn¡¯t a mundane reason¡­ Emilia stumbles to a stop, putting a hand on the telephone pole she was walking by, groaning with one hand on her forehead, nearly falling to her knees. On her hand, her ring seems to heat up until it¡¯s nearly burning her, until it eventually just cracks in half and falls off, and she can tell in a way that only a witch can that something just bulldozed its way through her protections and a wave of something pushed through her. The air around her feels dense, almost suffocating, and for just a moment everything seems to become more, before finally her ears pop, like she¡¯s on an airplane and she¡¯s changed altitude. Taking a moment to take deep breaths and ground herself, she slowly straightens back up, still somewhat expecting the pain to come back. After a moment of nothing, she opens her eyes to look down at her destroyed ring, but pauses when she sees...a floating IPad?
Your universe has been chosen to join The Assimilary. Congratulations! This opportunity comes with many challenges, along with many benefits, one of which is this UI. Would you like to use the Introduction Guide?
Staring at the screen in confusion, Emilia takes a moment to look around. Little Jess from down the street has stopped playing hopscotch, seeming to navigate her own screen curiously. Gerard, her neighbor, was squinting at something, taking off his glasses to get a closer look. She couldn¡¯t see their screens, but it was pretty obvious what was going on. She looked back at her own, visible screen, down at the two halves of her ring, before pulling her necklace out from her shirt. The sigil carved into the wood looked charred to hell in a kind of fractal-y pattern, like someone used it to try and make a lichtenberg wood burn. She looked between it and the screen a few times before a determined set came to her shoulders. ¡°...Nope. No, fuck that, you¡¯re gettin banished.¡± She scoops up the halves of her ring and puts them in her pocket, marching the final few houses down the street to her own home. The screen passively follows her, always keeping in her vision no matter what she does, occasionally chiming a little jingle, as if trying to get her attention. As Emilia¡¯s home comes into view, her garden of plants and herbs growing like a little forest in the front yard (albeit subdued with winter coming soon), she feels a wave of calm and relief wash over her. There¡¯s a kind of pressure as she walks through her yard, but a much more comfy kind than whatever was going on before, like a cool blanket. It¡¯s odd enough to make her pause, closing her eyes and allowing herself to take in the plants around her. It¡¯s...easy, to get into that meditative trance. Too easy, even. That feeling of comforting pressure resolves into a symphony of feelings, bouncing out from her plants in little ripples like in a pond, the occasional glimpse of a half-formed image or word riding through her senses like she¡¯s walking through a crowd of thought. The strongest intents she can feel come from her fruit trees, the oldest and strongest plants in her garden, only rivaled by the mycelium connecting them all, threaded through the soil below. The general vibe from them though, is¡­ complicated. Grow-fight-grow-love you-share-drink-my sunlight-no mine-share it-helper¡¯s here-grow-pests no good-BIG PEST- where¡¯s the big pest-everywhere but nowhere-something changed-food or drink-no but it¡¯s good-good for helper-maybe maybe not-helper be cautious- We will help, as always. With a gasp, Emilia sits up, slightly confused as to how she ended up sitting, but weird stuff happens when you meditate sometimes so she¡¯s not too put off by it. That was quite possibly the strongest, clearest connection she¡¯s ever gotten from one of her plants, and it happened with¡­ well, all of them! There¡¯s definitely something weird going on, that¡¯s for sure. The boughs of her apple and pawpaw trees wave and curl in the wind, seeming just a little too weak for the amount of movement the branches make. The somewhat disorganized jumble of pressure that she felt slowly shifts around her, and what she now realizes was turbulence smooths out into something more coherent, like a fog around her house. Or maybe a bubble would be more accurate? Definitely a ward though, much stronger than the green ward she¡¯d had before. Good to know her plants had her back, though. She takes a moment to ground herself again to get rid of the shakes from all that energy and info going through her, before actually making her way into her house this time. Considering she couldn¡¯t feel anything else like her green magick ward, it looks like all her other ones must have gotten broken from...whatever it is that happened.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. She takes a moment to give the annoying screen a glare as she takes off her jacket, putting it up on the doorside hangar. The entrance hall leads right into her living room, with the kitchen off to the side. Emilia pulls at her blouse¡¯s sleeves to straighten out the wrinkles, before rummaging around to get the right materials. The house definitely has the feel of some kind of modern hermit, herbs and spices hanging in the windows or sealed in jars in the cupboards, various carved statues and other items, even things like skulls and bones. The most prominent example is the large altar off to the side in the living room, which she visits once she puts her materials down on the coffee table. Squatting down a little and swatting at the odd screen to move it out of her direct line of sight, she almost goes right to lighting her deity¡¯s candles to try and speak to them, but she remembers what happened with her garden and decides to take things one at a time. She grabs some incense and her incense holder, along with her athame, and moves everything she needs over to the coffee table as well. She takes a few minutes to take calming breaths and strongly ground herself-despite the annoying chiming of the screen-and starts setting up a ritual. First, she starts drawing out a pentacle on the table with black salt. She could have done another symbol, but she¡¯s a bit too frazzled to make a specialized sigil, and the pentacle would help her invoke the elements, which would be a good help. She leaves a little space open on the circle, before manipulating the ¡®stay in your line of sight¡¯ property of the screen to put it hovering above the pentacle. Keeping her eyes on it, she pours the last bit of black salt needed to complete the circle down, and the screen seems to stutter and glitch before being wrenched back into place when she looks away. A new screen pops up over the first one, an angry red compared to the cool teal blue of the first.
WARNING!!! Unknown Interference has occurred. Please standby while we run diagnostics...
She smirks at the screen, pleased to see that she can actually affect this thing. At the tip of the top left point, she places a feather, along with lighting her incense. On the bottom left, she places some garden soil in a miniature unglazed pot, with a clear quartz crystal sticking out of it. Bottom right gets a black candle and a chunk of charcoal, and top right gets a seashell full of moon water. The top point gets one of her more prized animal skulls, a crow¡¯s skull that she¡¯s painted sigils and runes on and meditated over. She can feel a...not pressure, not like her garden ward, but there¡¯s the potential for magick there, in this ritual. Whatever¡¯s going on, it definitely made her more sensitive. Or maybe made magick stronger today? Either way, she takes up her athame, and Emilia allows herself to fall into that potential, reciting her intent as she calls on the elements. ¡°The element of Air, I call on you, and welcome you to my home. I entreat thee to remove this spirit from me, and allow me to fly free once more.¡± She points her athame to the top left point, and the air seems to pick up outside, battering the windows. The air around Emilia seems to shiver, blowing through her hair playfully. ¡°The element of Earth, I call on you, and welcome you to my home. I entreat thee to ground me and mine, that I do not find myself haunted by this specter ever again.¡± Next is the bottom left point, and it feels as if her footing becomes steadier, despite not changing her stance. The faint smell of fresh, rich earth tickles her nose. The screen starts glitching and warping more, patches seeming to almost lose resolution, getting more pixelated as she watches. ¡°The element of Fire, I call on you, and welcome you to my home. I entreat thee to give me the power to banish this spirit, and to burn away any bindings it might have with me.¡± The candle flares and grows wild as Emilia points to the bottom right of the pentacle, and the sunbeams coming through the windows seems to dance in its dappled form through the spaces of the tree branches, crawling along the floorboards. The incense smoke swirls and coats the screen, creating complex shapes as if twisting around things that can¡¯t be seen. The screens seem to shiver, before folding in on itself for a half-second before snapping back into place. ¡°The element of Water, I call on you, and welcome you to my home. I entreat thee to heal me in body, mind, and spirit, to remove whatever wounds this entity might have left on me.¡± Despite the fact that nothing nearby seems to have fallen, the moon water in the seashell ripples and shivers as she points her athame at it, and the potential around her, already thick and heavy, starts to swirl and flow. More half-formed error messages start to pop up in front of and around the main screen, like it¡¯s struggling to stop whatever¡¯s going on. Finally, the point of her athame falls on the top point on the pentacle, and the symbols on the crow skull almost seem to glisten in anticipation. ¡°The guardian Spirits, I call on you, and welcome you to my home. I entreat thee to direct this entity to whence it came, and to bind its ability to find me, evermore.¡± Something whispers in her ear, and for the briefest moment Emilia could swear that she could see a real life crow superimposed over the skull, and she could swear they winked at her. There¡¯s a very audible cracking sound, and the screens seem to fracture like glass, before slowly dissolving into sparkles of light. Once the thing is completely dissolved, and there doesn¡¯t seem to be any other surprises in store, Emilia lets out a deep sigh of relief, feeling a weight she didn¡¯t know was there lifted off her chest. Whether that was just a mental one or a metaphysical thing, she didn¡¯t know, but still good either way. She takes her time to bask in the intense energy of the elements for a moment, and takes her time reversing the circle and cleaning up the table. Once all is said and done, she collapses onto her couch and turns on the TV. ¡°Thank the gods that¡¯s over. I still can¡¯t help but feel like this all some kind of fever dream or something-¡± ¡°Breaking news!¡± ¡°...Never mind.¡± As it turns out, literally everyone has gotten the screens, lauding the human race for having their universe merged into something called ¡®The Assimilary¡¯. According to what people could figure out through the ¡®Introduction Guide¡¯, their world would begin to rapidly exhibit ¡°magical leyline overflows¡±, warping the world and causing various issues. The UI system would allow people to harness said mana and use it to become more than they ever could be alone. There¡¯s classes and shit, but honestly Emilia stopped really paying attention after the mentions of ¡®magic¡¯ and ¡®mana¡¯. It sounds like a crock of shit concocted by the mainstream media, and she¡¯s honestly insulted by the ¡°Witch¡± class mentioned. Firstly, it¡¯s gendered, and secondly, it¡¯s exactly the kind of BS you¡¯d expect to find in some cheesy RPG. It¡¯s some harry potter BS! Pulling out her phone, she scrolls through the regular websites, and the general conclusion seems to be that this is either the end of the world, the start of an alien invasion, or something else along those lines. Thankfully, nobody¡¯s set off nukes or anything in a hair-trigger move, though who knows if that¡¯ll change or not. There¡¯s already videos of people showing off ¡°Base Classes¡±, which are apparently what you get at the end of the intro thing. Apparently most of them are semi-broad archetypes based on general stuff, so like a Warrior, or Priest, or Computer Tech. Thankfully it doesn¡¯t seem like whatever this entity is will try to push humanity back into the medieval era, since the big internet personalities all have Base Classes like ¡®Media Star¡¯, ¡®Modern Bard¡¯, ¡®Internet Dramagogue¡¯, or something similar. It almost made Emilia regret banishing her screen, but only almost. The fact that whatever is in charge of the things just bulldozed through her personal protections and latched onto her like a spiritual parasite without even a ¡®how do you do¡¯ struck her as more sinister than she wanted to risk, and she¡¯ll stand by that decision. Even if the videos of people testing out new, fantastical abilities did make her a bit jealous. But hey, magick in general seemed to be...maybe not necessarily stronger, or more direct like the ¡®mages¡¯ blasting soda cans with mana bolts online, but it felt very, very present, in a way that she¡¯d normally only felt during special days for maybe a few minutes at a time. She should probably work on getting more wards and protections up, make her house start to feel like a home again. Emilia had another headache, she¡¯s just glad that it¡¯s regular stress this time.