Chapter 38: Corruption

Doug -- Earth time: 2101

I have searched for twenty-five years, but I can’t find her.

My entity is sullen, and I barely communicate with it anymore. I believe that it is sick and not just sick of me. I don’t believe it can leave me as I have found ways to lock it to its box. I met this wizard in Galanta who was having similar problems to me.

Lord Gazan told me a wizard like me had taught him coercion spells a couple of years before. He had then experimented and through an unfortunate accident, he discovered blood magic. Nonetheless, he found the persons that he spelled could still escape him through death.

He had mourned his first love’s death for a few years but decided she couldn’t have loved him and he had moved on. He had similar tastes to me, and we had some fun for a while. I did notice that that people spelled with blood magic seemed to sicken and die after a few years if they were in contact with me for prolonged of periods.

While I used others to sate my lusts, I still wished to find Pearl. Her loss was like a nail in my head. I knew in my heart that she wasn’t dead. I have been to every continent and many of the islands on this planet several times, but I can’t find her.

I met another wizard in Palatine. Lord Richard as he called himself when I met him was a real megalomaniac. I put him in touch with Lord Gazan, they were two peas in a pod. They were different from me in their abilities and their magical boxes. I knew I was a better and stronger wizard than they were together.

The last time I had visited Richard he had really changed. Apparently, he had a run-in with a witch just after he became the Bishop and he had a real hatred of female magicians. I hoped my Pearl hadn’t gone to his country. She would have fitted in there, as tall light-haired people were common, although she was fairer of skin, more like the Galantines.

On second thought, she was such a force of good I don’t think Richard would have been able to cow my Pearl. I know the Islanders really missed her. I was amazed by just how much she had done for the people on our island.

It didn’t take me long to realise that they suffered my presence. Actually, they hated my guts. I wasn’t the beloved ruler I thought I was. Each time I came home from a trip after looking for Pearl, they seemed even more sullen, like my entity.

It didn’t help that a couple of my idiot sons also behaved as badly as Richard did. It seemed the magical items I had given them did something to them and they had no remorse or guilt over how they treated our people.

It was only at odd moments that I felt responsible. Mostly when I thought that Pearl wouldn’t approve of my behaviour or theirs. Well, it was her fault for leaving me. I seemed to care less for other people as each year rolled on. They simply existed for my pleasure.

I still enjoyed relieving other ships of their goods. I even have a fleet of ships now working between the three continents that surround Tree Isle. I seem to attract people like me who wish for power and wealth. I’ve had to kill the odd Captain when he got out of hand and tried to cheat me.

We don’t tend to go as far as Federation too often, as that is Lady Di’s territory. She said that some guy from Green Island has these superfast ships but her people have never caught one of them. My old friend Lady Di says that they have strong spells on them and she can’t even go near one.

She did mention last time I visited her five years before, that the super ships didn’t come to Garson anymore since one of her son’s ships tried to capture one of them. That Ethan of her’s is as strange as my some of my sons seem to be.

At least I was able to help her get the wizard’s box she had to accept Ethan. It wouldn’t have a bar of her. She is one nasty piece of work when she is cranky. I’m not big on screwing my own off-spring like her. Ethan may have the box, but he is still under her thumb. Talk about a mummy’s boy.

I did learn that the mage with the super ships didn’t have my Pearl as I feared. Apparently, he was just one of those disgusting goody-goodies that make you sick. He set up some alliance with Weston and Lime Isle, and we learnt to leave ships flying his colours alone. The bloody things can even repel our cannon balls.

Fortunately, the ones we prey on haven’t learnt his tricks yet. I have worked to make my ships sturdier, but I can’t seem to get the speed thing just right. They go faster than the average but not like his. The cannons my Prol Priests built for me have made a huge difference.

I even sold a few to Ethan for some war he is planning.

Heard some disturbing rumours recently.

Lord Gazan was dead. They say Galina has a new Lord Wizard. He performed a spell in the marketplace of Trenton and disabled the items that Gazan had corrupted. I knew from the books I had that a Lord Wizard beat a Pix wizard like me.

With Pearl’s box void of an entity, I was severally disadvantaged and wasn’t in a hurry to meet this Lord Wizard. I’ve tried several times to get a new entity to accept the items in the box but to no avail. The stupid entity has to love mine, and he was thwarting me in that he refused to accept them so they couldn’t claim the box.

Even worse, I got the impression from him that even if I got Pearl back, his love wouldn’t be able to come back to the box. I guessed my best hope for advancement was a better box so I could take out the Lord Wizard.

This I was learning was easier said than done. If I collected some of the other wizard’s boxes, this might be possible. I dropped over to visit my old friend Bishop Richard. He’d mentioned on a previous visit that he believed there were wizard’s boxes in an old city on Saran.

With a little help and a lot of gold, I got him to agree to send some people to collect them for us. I told him with his help we could get rid of this Lord Wizard. I even hinted that I would help him claim a full Wizard’s box if he found one. I was a bit worried about his health and sanity.

I even lent him one of my mages to speed up his ship. We were both worried when the ship came back, and my mage was missing. Apparently, this Lord Storm wasn’t mucking about, and he had beaten us to the boxes.

Even worse, he now had two full Wizards and two apprentices active in his decad. We also learnt that there were new players. Richard’s spy said they came from the sky and they had Pix boxes like mine. Richard panicked, and he headed to Tinble City.

I’d been careful to keep my people away from his city. Bloody Richard had some damn plague running rampant, and I knew once the Lord Wizard learnt of it, he would turn up here. I found transporting myself any great distance was difficult, but I didn’t want my people dead. It had taken me many years to even learn how to do this.

I headed home. I seriously thought of going to get Ethen’s help, but he was so bloody unpredictable. Di believed another of the boxes from our sextet was in one of the ships in Garson. I remembered her saying if she sent a mage into the ship they died and the entity deserted the item.

On the trip home, I thought about what Di had told me. Pearl had mentioned that our boxes were not right and the local people still shunned the spaceship. I thought about how Pearl had changed and behaved before she disappeared.

She had spent a lot of time in the crystal cavern. Once, when I had asked her why, she said the crystals made her entity feel better. I had always thought her aura was so pure, but I realised that it hadn’t always been so. I now wondered just how long I actually had any control over her in those twenty years.

I now suspect that Pearl had played me for a fool. I’d not produced a single child since she left me. I now believe I had only been fertile because I had convinced my entity that I loved her. But Pearl can’t have loved me. She never came into season even once.

With her entity gone and mine in grief even if I didn’t wish to accept it, the facts were staring me in the face. Even Ethen hadn’t produced a child since his box had accepted him. The bloody pairing of the boxes was a curse. I wondered if Di had worked this out yet.

I had to laugh. She planned to perform some magic like the Mad Wizard to be reborn so she could claim the box from Ethan. I suspected her wishes were doomed to failure. I needed a decad’s Lord Wizard’s box or better if I hoped to have a full life again.

I wondered if that was how Pearl escaped me. She had uncanny luck that woman. The bitch could have taken me with her. But I knew why she hadn’t. I’d never been a good person like her. Being nice to people was not my thing. I loved the thrill of battle and collecting the spoils. Only the strong survive in my world.

I was strong, and I would find a way.

I was in Pearl’s room today.

I still called it her room even after all this time. It was odd, but I often felt she was here. I felt her comfort in this room. Even my entity liked being in this room. I was reading through the books of the last wizard to own her items. I was looking for some clue she may have left to help me.

I often felt my entity was an arrogant bastard and that his wife had been the one to temper him. Her writing only reinforced this belief. She was a lot like my Pearl, as she had tempered me too. As I was reading, a few things jumped out at me, and I needed to write them down. I got out of the chair to find paper and a pen.

As I searched through Pearls things, I noticed that in every drawer were small cloth bags. I put them on the vanity, and then kept searching. Beside the bed, I found three bigger bags. Curiosity got the better of me, and I released the strings and looked inside one of them.

Why did she have so many bags of crystals in her room? I had thought they were herb bags to make the clothes smell nice. I closed the room up and taking the bags, I went and sat down. I dropped two in my lap and hefted the larger one. They felt odd. I even felt my entity stir with the bag being in my possession.

I dropped the bag onto of my head to see what he would do. I shuddered as the magic seeped into me. My cock got hard, and I had to release my pants and pull it out. I massaged my cock and enjoyed the feeling of stimulation.

The entity seemed to be bathing in the magic and the sexual stimulation I was providing. I whacked myself off. I didn’t do it often as I had little trouble finding a willing vessel for my cock, but with the crystals on my head and the feelings of sexual rush it was ramping me up and I was enthralled, as my entity.

Normally when I came, I pulled the magic from my partner, but I was masturbating so I pulled the power as I came and pushed it into the crystals I wore as I did. It was a massive head rush, and I came hard. I jerked my cock to expel my useless seed and got the second and third rushes. It wasn’t as good as I remembered with Pearl, but it was close.

I was amused that my entity had enjoyed the rushes as much as I had. I felt recharged better than I have been since Pearl left me. As I got my breath back, I felt that the crystals on my head were also recharged. I then understood about the bags of crystals and why so many.

Pearl had pulled the magic and pushed it through me to the crystals. She had always been the stronger magician. With so many charged crystals around her, she didn’t need as much sex to recharge as I did. I had to chuckle at my own stupidity. That was how she had thwarted me for years.

Damn, she was one smart lady. I had to admire her. Here I was, thinking I was bending her to my will, but she had simply found a way to use me instead. I should hate her but I just couldn’t. She was a goddess compared to me.

My entity seemed more lucid after the recharge. More like when we were near Pearl. I idly wondered if somehow the magic was healing him. I thought of all the time Pearl spent in the cavern. I had gotten those feelings of disapproval from her and her entity after she had been down there.

She had tried to get me to come with her to the cavern many times, but I had considered it a waste of my time. My own arrogance and self-indulgence had driven her from me. The only way I could get her back was if I was stronger than she was, but I didn’t know what level she had obtained or how.

I put the crystals back on the vanity and cleaned myself up. I found paper and pen, and I went back to the book. I was reading one passage when my entity seemed to get excited, so I read it again carefully.

“Heard a rumour today that several Queen’s boxes and their sextets boxes were to come aboard Torus. Things at home have gotten desperate, and many believe the end is close. I’m just glad our sextet was on the wheelship. That strange mage said they had a solar flare that wiped out half of Planet 2.”

“The planet was dying as most of its seas had been boiled off, and they were trying to get the survivors to other planets and the wheelships. He said they had also sent a lot of them to settlement ships. Magical people can’t board them unless they haven’t claimed their magical items yet.”

“He said that the older magical people were giving up their items and taking the death so the boxes could be sent to their children. He even said the Empress had died. He was worried that Planet 2 would explode before the sun and cause even more destruction.”

“Why he wanted to stay on Hades had me confused. It would be many thousands of years before it would be ready. The Prols might like the world, but personally, I preferred a lighter gravity. We were going to check out the world that the people on Zara had found. It sounded much more to my liking.”

I looked back at the bit about Queen’s Boxes. I picked up the spell book and asked about Queens. I felt my entity get excited as I read that they were more powerful than even a Lord Wizard’s box. It didn’t seem to matter which type the Queen was, they were all supposed to be equal.

I doubted a Queen’s box would take me unless it had been damaged, as mine was. “So how did you become damaged?” I said aloud. I got the impression of the engines on the ship from my entity. The spaceship. I thought back to our time on the spaceship.

Pearl didn’t like going to the lower levels. We hadn’t searched them as thoroughly due to her reluctance, especial once we wore the items from the boxes. Also, the wealth she had found was more than I had ever seen in my life, so I didn’t push the issue.

I then had to shake my head. Forty-five years, I had been fucking around for forty-five years, and the wealth I had amassed since was barely more than in the chests I had from the spaceship. When I compare my deeds to Di and Richard, I had achieved nothing.

I then thought about that High Mage, Bron. A mere mage and he controlled the fastest ships on the seas. He owned an island that was far more prosperous than mine was. He even had electricity and manufactured many items.

It was said that he was considered the High Mage for both Weston and Lime Island. He even had a hidden city on Federation. I thought of my people. They were savages compared to Bron’s people. The bulk of them made little, and they only farmed enough to cover next year’s crops and the food they needed.

We didn’t export anything but pirates. I had twenty ships, and we were supposed to head north for the summer hunting, but I had new ideas. Normally we sank the ships, but I wanted to increase my fleet. I wasn’t going to be a small player anymore.

If what I thought was on the spaceship was, I would be the highest powered magical user, and I would rule this planet. I sent a message to the Captains in port informing them I wanted the ships they captured brought back.

I then headed off to the spaceship.

I had piled all of Pearl’s crystals into a pack that I found, which I could put on my back and I took them with me.

I had a feeling they would provide me with better protection than anything else I could think of. My entity wasn’t happy with me going near the ship but I told it if it helped me find a better box, he could have his freedom. I knew he desperately wished this and so he agreed.

I took the lift to the ninth floor. We had spent the least amount of time on this floor. It was primarily storage and held many of the chambers that the ancestors of the locals had been in. I was surprised by how many of them were still closed and had ash in the bottom of them.

This ship had hit hard. It didn’t even have all of its landing legs extended. The two that had been, had buckled even more over the years. I noticed the slight lean the ship had when I had been in it twenty-five years before was more pronounced.

It was a bit disorienting having the rooms tilted. I wandered around and found myself bypassing an area. I stopped and retraced my steps and this time paid attention and felt the spell. I grinned and placed my hands on the wall.

I may not be Pearl, but I had learnt a thing or two over the years. I think the fact the spells were weakened by age also helped me and I finally broke them. The opening appeared, and I entered the room. At first, I thought it was just another storage room. It was filled with a dozen large crates.

My first thought was how had they gotten them into the room, but then I realised they had been teleported in here. Even I could feel a wrongness about the crates and guessed they had been infected by whatever it was that had damaged my box. My entity wasn’t happy being in this section of the ship.