A Tale of Soldiers and Scientists
~~~Chapter 2~~~
~~~~~A Time and Place for Everything (And Everyone)~~~~~
Dr. Web worked late into the night, checking and rechecking calculations to be sure they were correct, creating magic circles and studying his books. Finally, as the moon approached its apex, he had finished.
A large smile broke out across his face. He had a full day tomorrow, and he didn’t want to miss any of it. He laid down in bed, and, in no mood for waiting for sleep to take him, cast a sleep spell on himself.
~~~~~***~~~~~
Phillip calmly walked towards a bar, his HUD flashing ‘break up protest.’ Huh, he thought. This is a funny place for a violent protest.
He motioned to the defenders besides him, and as he took a position to the side of the door they took similar positions. “Jenkins,” he whispered, “what’s it look like in there?”
“They appear to be singing, sir. Singing quite happily, actually. I don’t even see any violence. Still, it is singing, which we all know is a tool of the devil,” he joked as he looked in the window. The singing slowly began to come into focus to Phillip through his helmet. They had just finished one song, and were now starting another.
“Heyyyyyyy, howwwww, hooooooo
Well let me sing a song to you,
A song about the Judds.
They’ll roll out a guillotine,
And with snicks and snacks and thuds!
You’ll have to ‘scape my maritine,
Or rollin’ll be your head!
You won’t say but my oh me,
And then you’ll be dead
Oh yes you’ll have to ‘scape by sea!”
“Hey, they’re singing a song about us!” whispered Michael, none too quietly. “Good to know we have recognition!”
“It doesn’t sound like a patriotic song, Michael, it doesn’t sound like one at all,” replied Phillip.
“Well once me wife and me,
We had a deathly spat.
She’d something she did see,
A very fancy hat!
I’d wake, she’d groan,
I’d dress, she’d cook,
And finally I moan!
Upon you I’d sic a mook!
Well, turns out she took it lit’rally,
So she had called
The Judds! Rilly?
I was quite balled.”
“It’s a drinking song,” said Jenkins. “Is it a good idea to break it up?”
Phillip thought for a moment. “Well, it’s that or face the Court, or even The King. So, given the alternative, yes, it is a good idea.”
“Alright!” Michael said, breaching the door.
“Fuckin’ newbie,” whispered Phillip as they walked in. “Alright people, Court order, no unpatriotic songs. You know the rules. You don’t have to like ‘em, but that doesn’t mean they’re not the rules.”
“Hey!” called one of the patrons. “Who’s the Court to tell us what drinking songs we can and can’t sing!?” A chorus of agreement was heard.
“The Council,” Phillip said, with more venom than strictly needed, “controls everything. You know this, I know this. It’s common knowledge. So sing regular songs, sing patriotic songs, but don’t sing unpatriotic songs. We don’t want to have to crack down on civilians any more than we have to.”
A grumbling mumbling is heard, but they do not restart the song, nor do they continue. We head out of the inn, and, as we walk away, it finally restarts.
“Heyyyyyyy, howwwww, hooooooo...”
“Jenkins, if you will?” Phillip asked.
“Sure thing, Senior,” Jenkins replied, then turned around and coiled a ball of mana in his hand before kicking open the door. “We mean it!”
Loud groans of disagreement are heard, but the singing does not restart that night.
~~~~~***~~~~~
Dr. Web’s alarm clock woke him early in the morning, before the sunrise. He groaned at first, but then realized just what was going to happen today. This was the day he was going to take Phillip’s place.
Dr. Web had really done his research. He made sure to scan every bit of Phillip’s history in his spare time for events that might come up, as well as practice lucid dreaming to get used to a bipedal body, watching history class lectures and in general making sure he would be able to perfectly impersonate Phillip.
He got up out of bed, and quickly trotted back to his study. He’d left notes all over it the previous night, setting up the runes to cast a sleep spell on him just after the spell completed and use the excess magic stored to destroy them, so he could not be followed. It was foolproof.
He cantered over to the center of the circle and sat himself down on a pillow. Last night he had called in his accumulated vacation time, and had stocked up on preserved foods, so Phillip wouldn’t starve, as well as mane and coat dyes and a number of books to help situate him.
He levitated over the first book for him to read, labeled clearly, and set it in front of the pillow where his head would go. He then began to channel the energies of the spell, watching his notes in front of him.
Fully charged, he funneled the energy through the runes around him, and guided it just so to keep it from explosively failing. When he reached the end of the pattern, he held the energy for a moment and then let it go as his surroundings vanished from his sight.