Disclaimer - I don't own anything. As the corporations say these days, you will own nothing & be happy. I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or Disney or any of its characters. With that out of the way, let's goooo!
Siberian Taiga[1998]
–Master Elia Veyra–
As soon as she asked the question, she got a foreboding feeling in her heart, her entire body tensing as the very air around the clearing became heavy, as if something was pressing down on her from all sides.
It was so much that she couldn't even focus long enough to generate anything but the most basic offensive spell, a small fireball that she couldn't even aim in his general direction. She looked at him as he blinked at the appearance of the fireball, as if surprised by it, before the fireball was snuffed out mid-air.
Before she could do anything else but gawk at the sudden disappearance of her magic, the pressure receded, leaving her standing on shaky legs as the brat said, "Like that. I know everything that happens here, and I can control stuff here, to a limited degree, obviously."
Dangerous. Too Dangerous!
Alarm bells rang in her mind as she looked at the kid in a new light, wondering if he was some demon who'd assumed the form of a human child in order to trick her, but there was no way that was true. If that were the case, she would be dead by now.
Her eyes caught onto the tail end of the barrier that appeared all around the clearing, realising that this kid had somehow taken control of the barrier that was placed around the seal.
"W-Who are you?" She finally asked, finding her footing once more.
The kid grinned at her, "Me? I am Damian Hawthorne, and this is my home. What's yours?"
Hawthorne?
Shaking her head, she straightened up and shook the offered hand, "I am Master Elia Veyra from Kamar Taj."
____xx___
–Damian Hawthorne–
He grinned internally. Finally! Someone from the outside world. He was getting tired of being here all by himself. The training was great, but it did get lonely sometimes. On top of that, this woman was from Kamar Taj, so he didn't need to hide himself at all.
It felt good to be able to show his stuff off to someone who was not a supernatural creature that wanted to eat him, or a cannibal. God, this place attracted crazies of all sorts. Good thing he was here to clean them all up.
"So, what are you here for? I assume something to do with the big bad sealed in there," He pointed at the seal, covered in one of his advanced barriers.
The Master of the Mystic Art, who was so far outclassed it wasn't even funny, looked back at the seal before confirming, "Yes, I came here to do a routine check on the seal. It is holding a Demon. According to the records, that was not here last year. How did you do it?"
He grinned as he walked to the barrier. He would consider this one of his better works in the past year or so.
To be honest, he had been working on his magic, using it in pretty rudimentary ways, like reinforcing his entire body at once, and then parts of it. It worked like a control exercise for him. During one such practice session, he focused magic in his brain, dangerous, yeah, he knew, but it worked.
It boosted his magical sensory prowess to such a degree that it almost made him black out, due to the sensitivity to magic. In hindsight, he really should have chosen a place that was not surrounded by his magic from all sides, but oh well.
That was how he found out the source of a magic so foul it was affecting the forest around him. It also led him to this clearing, which had a ton of enchantments so subtle his gaze would have slid right over them had it not been for his Expert Enchanter perk.
He learned a lot from the enchantments, finally learning how to use Dimensional Energy enchantments, so he decided to help them out a bit. With the brand spanking new source of almost infinite energy he got from the enchantments.
As for her question, he shrugged, "Eh, one day I just stumbled upon this place. I learned a lot from these enchantments, so I decided to bolster the seal, just in case. Don't worry about any maintenance, it should be self sufficient for a long time now."
"O-okay. Also, Damien, what are you doing here? How did you get here?"
"Well, as for how I got here, even I don't know." He shrugged at her suspicious look sent his way, ignoring the way her body remained tense in his presence after his recent show of taking control of the magic around her and exerting pressure on her, "Also, I live here. This is home, for now anyway."
He emphasised on the for now part, as he did not plan on staying here for any longer. He was certain that this meeting would lead to him finally getting out of this forest. Well, he could have gotten out of this place a long time ago, but knowing what universe he was in, he decided to err on the side of caution, because he knew that the moment he got out of here and into the real world, of magic and more, the problems he was facing would rise in difficulty, exponentially.
It was odd. At the time when he got that second note, from the ROB, it scared him, a lot, like pants shittingly terrified him. But now? He was actually starting to look forward to it a bit, as the new challenges excited him.
Also, he was really looking forward to some structured learning. After all this time of winging it by himself, he had gotten pretty good at it, but even so, he would like to learn more about how other people went about things, since he was certain that there were better ways of doing stuff that he hadn't found yet.
Huh, that hunger for new magic reared its ugly head once more, something that led him to this seal in the first place, despite it exuding such a frightening aura that it had rooted him to his place for what felt like hours during the initial encounter.
Now? He barely felt it. Perks of Calm Mind being strengthened after he studied the mental distraction aspect of this clearing.
"What do you mean this is your home?" He looked up as she asked him sharply, that weariness evaporating as she looked at him with anger and concern on her face.
He shrugged, "It would be better to just show you," saying so, he lightly tapped the two wooden slippers he was using, the deer hide used as a cushion glowing lightly as he began floating in place.
Yup, he had cracked flying. Well, really slow and only single directional, almost clumsy flight but flight nonetheless.
"Follow me," He all but ordered as he leaned a bit forward, the slippers moving him forward, kind of like a segue.
"Where are we going? And how are you doing that? Is that a relic?" She rapidly fired questions at him, her gaze zeroing in on the slippers, as the floating finally brought him face to face with her.
He could guess that she was European, and also really young. Like could not have been more than thirty-young. Although this was the Marvel world they were talking about, so who knows if she had some de-aging magic on her or not, though if it was active, he could not sense it.
"As I said, we are going to my home. I have enchantments on the slippers that constantly expel kinetic energy in a single direction. It is mind numbingly complex and requires constant mental direction for it to work properly. Also, I don't know what makes an object a relic so I can't comment on that." He said as he began picking up pace, something that Master Elia noticed as she began speed walking.
The weather of this place, along with the weight of the gear she had on her, meant that soon enough, she was more focused on her breathing than talking, even though her gaze constantly slid to his slippers, very curious about the whole thing.
Honestly, he didn't even like them. Only the fact that they served as a nice control exercise made him use them. He was sure there were way better ways to fly and he had some ideas but unless he could get his hands on a technique that allowed him to create a Mind-enchantment interface far better than anything he had right now, they might only remain ideas.
Maybe studying that cape that Doctor Strange would get in the future would help?
"H-How far?" Master Elia asked in between breaths as they were firmly in the jogging territory now.
"Just a couple of minutes now," He said as the dense forest around his home finally came into view. Another thing he was thankful for, because the enchantments in that clearing also taught him how to better hide his home.
They slowly came to a stop right in front of a series of trees, a scene similar to everything around them, which was on purpose.
"W-Where is it?" She asked him, hands on her knees.
He slowly floated back down, standing on his feet as he walked right towards the trees, "Follow me."
She didn't follow him at first, likely because she didn't believe him but once she saw him disappear into the trees, she scrambled to follow suit, as they finally came across his home sweet home.
An area encompassing his original cave, with a small pond in front, with a weather enchantment built into the illusory barrier, as the temperature was pleasantly warm, like springtime.
"Whoa…" he turned around, with his hands spread wide, showing his home, his pride, as he literally built it by his own two tiny prepubescent hands, "Welcome to my crib!"
If you would like to support me, read ahead(12 chapters rn) on this & other stories, commission more stuff like this, or vote in Snippet Polls, you can head on to my P*treon.