Mysticism

The exhibit wasn’t in the main temple itself but a building on the temple ground that was clearly built for the purpose of receiving visitors. It was modern art – both the building and the usual installations. Now however, the contents were ancient relicts from all over the world.

Wonwoo shifted quite uncomfortably in line for the ticket. The two duct taped sticks had been too long to fit in his pockets and he had been afraid that any bag might get searched at the entrance, so he had brought nothing but his “I hate you” shirt and skinny jeans. The wand-lightning-rod combo was tugged into his hair, covered by a beanie. The sticks pocked his head and were starting to rub him sore.

Finally he got in and went straight to the bathroom. The ticket price had been steep, but he reminded himself that he was about to steal a priceless artefact so it wasn’t as if he didn’t get more than equal with the museum.

After making sure he was the only one in the bathroom, he slipped the improvised wand into his side pocket, not concerned anymore that anyone might think it weird. He only had needed to avoid questions at the entrance.

Looking at his face in the mirror, he pondered what to say to himself as a pep talk, but drew a blank. He had come to commit his first major crime and his reason was to mind-manipulate his best friend because of a persistent teen age crush. There was no way for him to talk sense into himself, because none of it made sense to begin with.

“Oh, the things I do for your love,” he mumbled. “You better be worth this, Kim Mingyu.”

The next few minutes were spent snooping around to figure out the best escape route. Wonwoo intended to leave through the main entrance if possible but had to calculate the odds of other options. He figured he could always blast a window open. He was on the first floor, what could happen?

Then he laid eyes on the object of desire. There in a glass case in the middle of an alcove. The Adore-Me was a little bigger than he had expected, but it would fit under his beanie quite nicely. It looked heavy, perhaps of pure gold. The runes were definitely demonic but nothing else seemed off about it, making Wonwoo deem it save for theft.

He waited patiently until no one else was in the room – the exposition was not empty but not too popular either – and looked around one last time.

With shaking hands the boy pulled out his makeshift wand and wiggled it in the direction of the Adore-Me.

“Please, make something good happen. Help me magic. Pretty please?”

He could feel the sparks jumping from the metal stick into the wooden one and the smell of ozone filled the air – stray magic. He felt an inexplicable pull towards the glass case. His vision blurred – No, it was the room that lost substance!

The ground beneath Wonwoo’s feet had turned wobbly, like it was melting. He closed the distance to the Adore-Me and put his free hand on the glass. It gave way like warm butter. Slightly disgusted, the boy reached through the glass goo, stretching it until he broke through the transparent sludge.

The Adore-Me was perfectly solid. He lifted it from its little plastic podium and shoved it under his headwear, making sure it was well covered by his hair to keep it from shifting around.

The room returned to its solid state and any trace of his actions were gone. The perfect crime.

Wonwoo turned around to bail when his spine registered an all too familiar shiver. During his academic carrier he had felt enough magical wards going off to be able to tell the sensation apart from any regular old goosebumps.

Two things battled for attention in his panicking mind. Firstly, he had set of some kind of alarm. Second, the monks had magic.

*************************

Even as they had entered the Valley of Crimson Mingyu couldn’t catch a break. His joints were killing him from the huge bags he was forced to carry. Jihoon had insisted on taking samples of everything he encountered since “You offered to accompany me, so you do as I say, now stop sighing.”

Mingyu spent most of the time pitying himself. At least when he wasn’t busy getting attacked by hostile plant life. Hostile to people who tried to plug them, which is what Jihoon made him do. Over and over.

The tall boy had a growing suspicion that half the herbs he picked were utterly useless and Jihoon only made him plug stuff that he knew would fight back. The pink haired bastard was certainly entertained enough to lend this hypothesis credibility.

When they encountered a Dokkaebi Mingyu wasn’t even surprised. They hadn’t seen anyone down here yet, so of course the first person to greet them would be a mischievous, grotesque trickster demon. It was only natural.

“Human not walk here. Human pay Dokkaebi.”

Jihoon walked up to the superhumanly tall, strangely proportioned goblin, looking up at the thick head a good two meter’s above him. “Listen you ugly mofo, I’ve come here for so long you can’t even count that far. Step aside before someone gets hurt.”

The demon roared with laughter. “Human funny. Dokkaebi have good day. No hurt human. Yet. Give payment or walk other way.”

“Crawl back into your hole, dogface.”

Mingyu put his hand on Jihoon’s shoulder. “Er… Maybe don’t get into a fight? My wand it really tired out, I’m not sure I can get us to safety if-“

The demon tore the bags off Mingyu’s shoulders and lifted them far out of either boy’s reach. The fairly broad shouldered wizard felt quite small in front of the creature – which was an unusual experience for him.

“Good herbs. Dokkaebi payment. Human good pay.”

Jihoon’s face had taken on a red tinge – which was hard to tell in the appropriately named crimson valley.

“You give that back!”

The demon only lifted the bags higher.

“Human can leave now.”

“Give. Them. Back.”

“Small human annoying.”

“What!?”

“Small human. Or fairy? Yes, you small human. Very annoying. Very small. Tiny. Very-“

Jihoon bent his knees.

At first Mingyu thought the mundane potion expert was going to jump up in an attempt to grab the bags to save his pride as futile as it was, but the boy’s aim was something else.

Jihoon head-butted the giant demon in the balls.

With a faint sigh, the demon toppled over. His back hit the ground with a loud thud.

“Mingyu, pick up my bags. Let’s keep going.”

“Yes, sir.”

The shorter boy walked right on. Mingyu collected their belongings and bent over the demon, who was still on the ground, drawing deep breaths. “Mister Dokkaebi? Are you okay?”

“Tall human. It hurts. Protect Dokkaebi from evil fairy. Please.”

“Um, you don’t happen to know where I can find something called the Adore-Me amulet?”

“Human keep annoying fairy away if tell?”

“Yes.”

The demon was very cooperative.

*************************

“Jisoo?” asked Seokmin. “Can you stop playing? You know I love your sounds but if your music makes me eat any more chocolate I’ll get fat.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Jisoo got up and pondered where to play if not in the common room. Hm, usually Seungcheol came along at some point and told him to get lost – with varying degrees of nicety. He hadn’t encountered a distraught prefect for a while.

“Seokmin, do you know where Cheol is hiding?”

“No idea. Sulking somewhere I guess. Maybe the angel has rejected him again or something.”

The guitar player let his hands wander over some of the twenty or so rosaries he had on him as he tried to remember if he had witnessed any angel activity that day. “Nah, I’d know that. Jeonghan makes sure I’m there whenever he torments our Cheollie. It’s just funnier in a crowd.”

As if on command a piece of paper – torn from an old book by the looks of it – fell from the ceiling. Jisoo looked up to see more fragments falling down. The air vents were leaking. For a moment if snowed paper in the common room.

Seokmin collected them. “This isn’t the weirdest thing that happened this week, but definitely today. Unless you’ve seen anything?”

“Nope, most classes are still at the beach so I’ve spent the morning seeing almost no magic. Should we investigate this?”

“Look,” Seokmin said and pointed at the pieces he had arranged. Some words were emphasized. Some through highlighting, some through underlining, some through blacking out everything else on the page fragment.

The same words were marked over and over. “Help”, “Trapped”, “Book”, “Seungcheol”.

“Well, this is odd,” said Seokmin, matter of fact-ly.

*************************

Jun sliced apart a crab taller than himself. He swung the dadao like it was weightless. The sea creature’s corpse collapsed on the pile of three of its comrades. Ducking under a thrown spear he jumped back into the sand construction. The spear got stuck in the door just as Jun threw himself against it to close it shut. The sharpened wood broke through the splintering seashell door.

Castle Beach Excursion was falling. The crab army had breached the west wall, bringing down a corner tower with it. The courtyard was overflowing with intruders.

Beams came from the keep. Green lines that cut the air – and the crabs. Soonyoung was standing on top of the main tower, clearing a path for Jun.

Slashing up warrior crustaceans left and right, the vampire made his way to the keep’s gate. Jeonghan opened wide enough to let him in and slammed the huge shells closed behind him.

“Glad you’re back.”

“What happened?”

The angel shrugged. “We got attacked. It happened really fast. I dunno. Seems like the teachers haven’t noticed what happened yet. I’m going to fly over and tell them.”

“Can’t we deal with this on your own?” said Jun and let his blade shimmer in the dim light that fell in from the thin windows and the glowing orb the angel or the wizard must have hastily cast into existence before when they had retreated.

Outside, crabs were still getting roasted by Soonyoung’s beams.

“Some help?” yelled the wizard from the roof, down the narrow stairs. Crude arrows hailed against the keep and occasionally made it through the windows. The compact sand of the tower was beginning to crack in places.

Jun rushed upwards with superhuman speed. “If we get in trouble, Jeonghan, that’s when you can fly over and inform the authorities. But until then, let’s show the sea critter what we’re made of.”

The vampire arrived at the tower’s roof, stepped up to the ledge, nodded at Soonyoung, surveyed the surrounding, lifted his dadao, noticed it vibrating with bloodlust… and jumped off.

Three level’s down, the number of crabs got reduced by one. The last thing it saw was a pair of boots, descending from up high. The last thing it heard was its own body.

*Splotch*