“Your sister is a lucky one, Adalas. And quite literally too.” Rum spoke without looking at Toothie. His eyes were closed and his mana was feeling around the woman, trying to get a grasp of her mana signature – the particular configuration of her mana revealed upon close inspection. It was not revealing anything obviously wrong with her unfortunately.

So Rum decided to give up and instead analyzed his own mana. He was still heavily caffeinated and his mind felt clearer than it had in years. In fact it was a bit too clear, and several thoughts about the nature of personal magic were trying to surface at this rather inconvenient moment when he was trying to cure a person. Rum was quite acquainted with studying his own mana though, and so he noticed rather soon that his head had mana flowing at rather unprecedented speeds, and flashes of magical activity where happening all around his brain. This must be the coffee dose.

What was going to happen next would be a bit tricky though. Because Rum wanted to make a spell for producing clarity in other people’s heads. But if he tried to make a mana ghost of himself, he might cause himself to collapse from the freezing of internal bodily functions, or even worse: he could die. The chance of death was rather slim though. But it would be embarrassing to just suddenly fall over into this demented old woman’s lap. And even if he didn’t die he didn’t want to give himself internal brain injuries which might happen, and which sounded horrible.

No I’ll have to somehow automate the mana ghost conjuration. I need something that can latch onto my mana from the outside, and produce a mana ghost of me without my involvement. Rum pondered for a minute, loudly “hmm”-ing and “hah”-ing, having completely forgotten his audience of two little boys, their mother, and the old single-toothed man, all of which had no idea what was going on. What if I mana ghosted my own mana ghosting? Could this give me a spell that’ll automatically collect mana ghosts for me?

Rum decided to try. If anything, the experiment sounded too fun not to try. I mean, how can something as mind-blowing as magic-on-top-of-magic not make me try it out immediately? Damn this coffee is amazing. I’ll have to use that clarity spell on myself when I get it.

Rum leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He was going to start by mana ghosting Rhathie. As such, he unfolded his mana and let it latch onto Rhathie. At this Rhathie burst out a desperate breath, and Rum could hear his little crowd shifting their feet and everyone collective taking an inward breath in worry. Then Rum proceeded to manifest his strange new idea by splitting his mana; letting the secondary flow of mana onto his first flow of mana. Further Rum tried to activate two conjurations of mana ghosts simultaneously. And for a long time, much longer than he probably should’ve; Rum tried to to make his mana ghosting of his mana ghosting partially take on the shape and form of the initial mana ghosting, such that this secondary mana ghost would be able to do exactly the same as the first one, just with his little twist of independent action letting the spell take control and steer the complicated affair of mana ghosting for him.

As the mana ghosts eventually finished up Rhathie fell forward onto the floor. Rum, meanwhile, almost followed suit himself as he fell forward a little bit just from the mind-overloading massive stream of magical information flowing into him to shape the spell. More or less as a consequence Rum also decided to relinquish the initial Rhathie mana ghost at this point, wasting the effort of collecting it. However, from his second mana ghost he was left with a rather interesting piece of magic, as he’d succeeded. Yes, Rum thought, this is the mana ghost of a mana ghosting. In spite of this success he made no time for celebrating his victory though, and immediately rushed to integrate the mana ghost into his mind, where settled it into his memory like a spell – a piece of solid and clear knowledge, capable of invoking magical power.

He opened his eyes. He was hunched forward and a bit tired. In front of him was Adalas sitting on the ground next to his fallen sister, a tear in his eye, and the mother and two little boys standing next to the bed now, staring with concern at Rum. Rum wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead.

“Your sister” he spoke softly to Adalas who looked back up at him, “she should be alright. Isn’t she?”

Adalas got down on all fours and put his ear to her mouth. “She’s breathing, yes. But she’s sweating a lot too. Did you fix her?”

“No”, Rum responded firmly. “We’re not done yet. This was just the first stage. But it was a successful stage. I got something very valuable out of it. Now please put your sister back on the bed while I perform an experiment on myself.”

Adalas did as Rum requested, and Rum closed his eyes, leaning back into the chair again. Rum was nervous though, he didn’t know how this was going to play out. Like he’d said, what he was going to do now had no guarantees for success, it was all hypothetical. If he cast the spell wrong, or even if his spell was wrong, he could still end up killing himself or give himself internal brain injuries. But Rum was no coward. True, he had run away from fights often enough, but only out of concern for the other party, like he’d indicated when talking to the woman Elrith Heart-Piercer. When it came to putting himself in danger, he’d obviously done that many enough times that there should be no doubt, even to himself, that he was a man of sufficient courage. Still, the risk of unintentional suicide did worry him, and he grew another sweat and breathed anxiously with a cold running down his back for several seconds. Then he’d had enough of his own hesitance, and he launched the spell, whispering: “Conjure mana ghost”. To guide the spell he tried inserting into it his will – his intense desire – to figure out what made him so clearheaded.

“Mommy, what’s the wizard doing?” the older of the little boys asked Lini. Rum with his eyes closed couldn’t see himself what was going on, but to all the observers a small ocean of see-through light-blue mana was swirling around Rum’s head like a faint magical torch illuminating a mist.

“We’ll have to ask him when he’s done, sweetie”

A few moments passed, and then the magic faded away. Rum opened his eyes: “I know coffee magic” he announced matter-of-factly to the air.

Lini – executing the promise to her son – could only reply “What?” in confusion.

Rum turned towards her: “I now have a spell which can instantly make a mind clear. I see you are confused so I’ll give you a taste of it.”

“What!?” Lini widened her eyes, but her mind was too slow to follow Rum’s sudden turn of events. Rum pointed at her and said “Clear Mind!” and an arc of faint light-blue magic zipped through the air and into Lini’s forehead. Lini grabbed her own forehead and took a deep breath inwards, exclaiming:

“What did you do to me wizard!?”

“Have you ever tasted black coffee before?”

“No!” she shouted back irritated.

“Then it’s difficult to explain. Just try to think a little bit, and you’ll see it for yourself. Basically, for the next few hours I think, your head should feel much faster, and your thoughts much clearer.”

The two little boys looked up at their mother, and she looked down at them. Not knowing exactly what to say, she just barked: “Next time ask before you magic someone! And don’t cast any more spells in our direction, you were here to help her!” and Lini pointed at the old woman.

“Ah, yes, indeed” Rum responded calmly, turning to his original target.

“Now I have clarity. But how can I turn this clarity into a cure-dementia spell?” Rum pondered again, this time out loud. He resorted to resting his bearded chin on his right hand knuckles, and looking at Rhathie who was mostly awake now and trying to sit up straight. An objective for which she was only partially succeeding at.

He got up from his seat and placed the chair next to the wall, then he started pacing back and forth between the chest at the end of the bed and the closed window.

“Wait, I have it!” he finally said after roughly 5 minutes of mumbly contemplative pacing. If I merge her mana ghost with the clarity spell, and insert into it my will to battle dementia, perhaps the two mana bodies of the mana ghost and the spell can battle out the disease? Especially if I push as much mana as I can into the clarity spell, the woman’s demented mana ghost should be overpowered, and the clarity spell will have to adapt itself to vanquish any signs of dementia!

Rum stood in front of the woman now. He felt determined to try, but as always this was just an experiment, and if it failed in the end, a lot of bad things could happen really.

“Conjure mana ghost” Rum whispered, pointing at Rhathie’s head. The swirling glowing mist of mana that’d previously been seen above Rum’s head, now swirled around Rhathie’s.

“Rhathie”, Rum stepped and leaned forward while whispering, hoping only the two of them could hear what he said, “if this fails, I’m really sorry about it.”

“Clear Mind!” he eventually said, softly but determined. As he pointed his finger this time however, it was not aimed at Rhathie’s head, but rather at the swirling light-blue mist above it. As before a zap of magic came out of his hand and struck the target. But what happened next was quite interesting, because as Rum had inserted his will to vanquish dementia into his spell, so the spell was now apparently following his will as it zipped and zapped across the mist, and the mist started to swirl faster and faster. Eventually the two sources of magic broke out into a fight and a sudden fierce storm erupted over Rhathie’s bed, causing the entire house to creak painfully and frightfully for several seconds. Then it all died out, and a permanent electric torus was permanently lighting up what was essentially a little thunder cloud above Rhathie’s head.

A few seconds of study of this new object, and Rum decided the show was apparently over, and weak as he was now that he’d spent so much mana on several spells, including pouring his utmost into the Clear Mind-spell, he pulled the mana body of this purified mana ghost into his mind, wishing to create a spell. What resulted from this endeavor was nothing short of the most complex spell Rum had ever had to make. Fearing that the spell might not work exactly as he’d hoped, he continued to nourish it with his will for clarity and will for vanquishing dementia. Many minutes passed to all observers, while Rum was deep in thought. At some point he’d even sat down on the floor in a resting meditative pose as standing was becoming difficult. Finally however, he again opened his eyes.

“It’s ready.” He said, sounding somewhat ominous, before standing. “This is it. In a few seconds Rhathie, you’ll either be somewhat still demented and by slight possibility brain-damaged, or you’ll feel clearer in your head than in many years.”

“Wait, what was that first bit!?” Adalas exclaimed hoarsely, trying to stand up to so as to confront Rum, but Rum was quicker. By the time Adalas was up, Rum had already managed to take a deep breath and was now pointing his finger at Adalas’ sister Rhathie.

“Restore Mind!” Rum shouted, and dozens of zipping electrical arcs shot out his hand and into a torrent of magic blasting into Rhathie’s head. Adalas, unable to do anything, looked upon with horror, while everyone in the room: from child, to mother, to the granduncle; they all stopped breathing momentarily. The continuous lightshow almost blinded the spectators, while the magic kept on accelerating, eventually becoming so intense that in the end Rum’s entire arm was little more than just one large continuous beam of various shades of light blue, pink and even purple colored lightning arcs.

Seconds passed, the air filled with violent mana, and the house again creaking noisily, and to anyone observant this might’ve been the house announcing an imminent collapse even.

But then the light collapsed. And as it did, Rhathie again collapsed, falling sideways this time into her bed pillow. Rum meanwhile was less lucky, and promptly fell forward head first into the floor. Even less lucky the floor cracked soon after impacting with Rum, and he fell down through the floor into the end portion of the entrance hallway. Down here Rum couldn’t move, and for several minutes he was barely conscious.

Eventually though, Rum woke up to the sound of Adalas shouting his sister’s name, sounding absolutely ecstatic: “Rhathie! It is really you? Everything’s fine? OH GREAT MAGIC TREASURE, YOU ARE BACK! RHATHIE, RHATHIE, RHATHIE!” he shouted excitedly, and Rum imagined Toothie hugging his sister, there upstairs, like a little kid who just a cute little puppy. Meanwhile Rum was left alone down here, nobody bothering to check up on him apparently, except for the younger of the two little boys. For some reason he stood in front of Rum looking down at his now dusty and slightly scratched face.

Rum pushed himself up. “Hello there little boy. I never caught your name. What is it?”

“Yalovan” the little boy, maybe 4, possibly 5 years old, replied shyly.

“Well hello there Yalovan. Can you do me a small favor?” Rum was standing straight up right now, dusting himself off and checking for injuries.

“Yes?” the little boy Yalovan said softly, though perhaps a bit curious.

“Great.” Rum fished out the remaining money he’d gotten from his little brother. “Give these silver pieces to your granduncle Adalas up there. It’s payment for my time here. And remind him to split it with his sister, who was taking all the risk after all.”

Yalovan nodded, turned around and sprinted upstairs.

“Oh the gods be damned” Rum shook his head, tired. “I need a drink!” he informed the remaining emptiness of the hallway. Then promptly, he turned around, and walked away from the scene.