A Lazy Mage Quests (Un)EZ Creds Ch. 11

After dressing and settling his bill with the clinic, Spector walked back to where he'd parked, relieved to see the Prairie Cat still there and unmolested. Damon set the autonav to take him home and started to relax. The quest had taken exactly twenty-four hours and it took Spector a little while to realize it was a new day.

Damon's first hint was the odd sensation of not feeling any spirit presence. After so long of almost always having spirits summoned, the sensation was similar to not wearing pants. When he turned his conscious mind to check, he realized he had no spirits on hand. This late in the day, Spector considered skipping summoning any spirits. Then he reconsidered all the trouble he'd been through lately and the fix he'd be in without their back-up and he began summoning.

When the first attempt resulted in no spirit and a bloody nose, Spector almost decided to delay until after sunset. Instead, he lowered his expectations and tried summoning less powerful servants. The strategy worked and in short order, Spector had a full complement of spirits.

Next was what to do with the Prairie Cat. It was unlikely Mara wouldn't notice it and question where it came from. Where could he park it without drawing unwanted attention? A campground? Truckstop? Neither appealed to Damon and he would still need transportation home, so he decided to use it to get home then send it away. On the way home, Spector developed the idea to program the autonav to circle the city several hours and then either return to his home or just wait for him to retrieve it with a phone call to the autonav. Letting the autonav drive, Spector reclined in comfort on the Cat's leather couch. The thought occurred this was a great mode of transportation he could easily get used to so why not just send it to Joey's for "legalization"? Arriving home, Spector unloaded the weapons and it contained and sent the Cat to Joey.

Damon let Mara know he was home and was told leftover dinner was in the refrigerator. He fixed himself a plate, nuked it and grabbing a Fizzykaf soda joined her watching the trideo. The reheated meal interested Damon more than the program, but he knew Mara liked it so he sat and mostly ate. He woke up in the dark, stretched out in the leather recliner, his mostly eaten plate of food set beside him on an end table.

Damon shifted his perception to the astral just to get a bit more light and reprimanded himself for dozing off without summoning more spirits after sundown. He got the chore out of the way in much easier fashion in the friendly confines of his own home. Spector went to his den. The walls were adorned with several jigsaw puzzles, rubber cemented to a cloth backing, lacquered, framed and hung. Spector opened a new 5000 piece puzzle and started putting it together by the light of a few candles gotten out for the occasion.

Working the puzzle, Dogs Playing Poker, Damon considered other preparations he wanted to check off before attempting to bind the ally spirit. Before life got so hectic, Spector had few tasks to set his spirits to besides protecting him and mostly wasting them on chores. One of the jobs he had given them was erecting wards, astral barriers only select beings could pass through. Consequently, the den had a double-digit rating (on the Walker-Riggs Scale) ward surrounding it and another in a smaller space within the den. Actually, Spector and the puzzle he was putting together were currently within the smaller warded area, giving Damon three barriers to astral intrusions at the moment. He would want to remove the table and chair after finishing the puzzle, mounting, framing and hanging it. Summoning the spirit within this smallest ward might not contain it, but it should at least delay it wreaking havoc on the surroundings for a moment or two if Spector's binding failed and he saw no reason to let the furniture be destroyed or used as a weapon in that eventuality. Of course, Damon would have his spirits on hand. Not only on hand but readied and on stand by. He figured eight great forms and one bigger regular form, since they were slightly easier to conjure, plus nine watcher type spirits. They may be about worthless, but if the binding went badly, they might tip the balance in his favor or at least contribute to the general melee.

Arming himself with his pistols, passed through Damon's mind, but when he first contemplated what type of capsule rounds to load, he realized none would be effective. Loading them with regular ammunition or even explosive ammunition made him wince at the damage he might inflict on his surroundings plus the unlikelihood of them being very effective. The contemplated scenario left Spector rejecting the idea of firearms in favor of something more hand to hand. Should I wait for Harry to finish the whip weapon focus for me? he thought. Probably the wisest decision but he countered the idea of waiting with thoughts of what the spirit might do in the meantime. It could easily grow stronger. Maybe it would draw someone else's attention and they would get it bound before him. But mostly Spector realized he did not want to delay acquiring something of such power and value.

It could go along with him on astral quests, maybe not immediately but after he had helped it become more powerful. Damon had taken along a spirit on the last quest but it had gone about as well as possible and there had been no need to call upon the spirit for help. A bound ally spirit could help him when it came to learning new spells, double dipping in a way, by going on astral quests to make them easier and less costly to learn. The Ally could act as a power focus, making it simpler and less dangerous to use most of his magical abilities. Maybe last, he wondered what it would be like to have a long term companion. Mara might resent his thought, and the ally might resent being considered an upscale pet, but Damon hoped the truth was something different but, truth be told, likely somewhere in between.

When the sky began to lighten, Damon put the spirits to work tidying the house, doing dishes and laundry and making breakfast. Mara awoke and Damon took a break from the jigsaw puzzle and they ate breakfast before he saw her off to work. Once again upon the sun rising above the horizon, Spector summoned spirits. It took a while longer than usual because the last few Damon chose to conjure at a bit higher force and took the anticipated drain, resting and recovering from it before the next conjuring.

With the regular, twice a day chore behind him Spector astrally projected and visited Teflon Joey to see how his car was coming along. It looked whole again. Damon regretted not assigning a spirit to watch over it and make sure nothing resembling a bomb was being put in it, but then he remembered it wouldn't have mattered as he had lost an entire day on his astral quest. It may have seemed like minutes to him, but it had been an entire day in the physical world. Spector returned to his meat body and called Joey to see if his car was ready to be picked up. Hearing it was, Damon said thanks and he was planning on calling the car and having it park itself outside the shop's office for a while in case it exploded, so clear the way for it to exit. He got denials from Teflon Joey and it sounded like a sincere apology and offer to work together in the future. Never the less, Spector did call the car and program the autonav to park just outside the office, idle for a while, shut down, wait several minutes, then pull forward and back as quickly as possible a few times then come on home.

Then it was back to working on the jigsaw puzzle. When the pieces really started falling into place, Spector had a spirit round up everything he would require to mount and hang the puzzle. Finally, it was finished. It came apart a bit when Damon flipped it over face down on a drop cloth he'd set on the table beside the puzzle, but he got the cloth fully under it and the puzzle quickly went back together. Spector applied the rubber cement to the back of the puzzle and along a strip a few inches wide on one end of the fabric he was using as backing. When the cement was dry, Damon joined the cloth to the edge of the puzzle at the strip he had cemented then let the cloth drape over the edge of the table as he applied rubber cement to the rest of the cloth. He checked, ensuring there were no loose gaps between the strip he'd cemented and the edge of the puzzle, then after allowing the cloth to dry, carefully joined it to the back of the prepared puzzle. It went on nicely with no wrinkles. This time when Damon turned the puzzle face up, everything stayed in place. Damon applied a thick coat of acrylic sealer, the modern equivalent of lacquer, to the face of the puzzle to add more reinforcement to it and to seal it so it would be simpler and safer to dust in the future. He positioned a fan to blow across its surface and went to have lunch.

Carrying a sandwich he put together, Spector checked on his car, noting the glass seemed to match and moved up and down properly. He could not distinguish where the bullet holes had been, so was fairly well pleased with the work done. Damon cast a spell cataloging everything within the radius of effect and was very pleased to note nothing resembling a bomb or tracker. Bringing a baseball bat with him, Damon returned to the kitchen and opened a bottle of beer as he waited for his call to Teflon Joey to go through. When Joey picked up, Damon thanked him for the car repairs and asked when he could expect the Porche and Prairie Cat to be ready. He found it funny he had a hard time referring to it as a Rolls Royce. Joey explained the way he changed VINs required finding a similar model, usually a wreck, and actually removing the various VIN plates from the "host" vehicle and putting them on the desired vehicle. Porches were not as common as Fords, but he had already located a donor. The Rolls Royce was even less abundant, he hadn't found a donor yet, but had a lead on one and if it panned out maybe three days. Specter told him there was no rush and ended the call.

Damon did rush the puzzle. Normally he would have let it dry a lot longer, but it seemed set enough it wasn't going to run when he brought it to a vertical position, so he went ahead and tacked it into a poly-resin frame and hung it on the wall. Damon stood back then moved to various points in the room to admire the new ambiance. Happy with the new wall arrangement, he put away the items he had used to prepare it along with clearing the table and chair from the warded area he planned to contain the spirit.

Preparing himself for the confrontation by armoring up, donning helmet and taking shield in one hand and baseball bat in his other, Damon could think of nothing else he could do to prepare. He considered channeling a spirit; it would greatly increase his chances of survival if things went wrong, but would the spirit then be bound to that unique blended being? If so, there was no way to duplicate the effect after it wore off in mere hours, so he decided against creating any such scenario. It was the time of reckoning. Spector spoke aloud the ally spirit's true name three times. Upon uttering the name the third time, the free spirit made its appearance before him within the warded area as planned. She, it was impossible for Damon, Rev, Spector to consider the being anything but female, was impossibly beautiful. So gorgeous, Damon was distracted for an instant, but quickly recalled how dangerous this entity could be. Spector centered himself and said, "Carpe diem, carpe Spiritu," and attempted to bind the spirit to him

When the spirit did not attempt to rip his face off, Spector decided he must have been successful. Sort of uneventful, but I guess I'll take uneventful if the alternative is fighting in terror for my life.