Business Meowers

You turn it over in your hands, examining the minimal etching on each side. "What's that even mean? And why is it seemingly so barely enchanted? All the other guns in here are hard too look at, they're so blindingly magical..."

"well you see", he says, sitting back in his chair in his usual way he does when he's going into lecture mode, "it's for two reasons. One, it's got only got two basic chronomancy spells on it, and two: they're of opposite polarity, alignment, whatever you want to call it."

"so they cancel each other out and make it seem less magical than it is?"

"precisely! And those two spells are protection-from-timeshift and you-were-never-born. The, uh, names sound better in Temporal Runes but I was never good at pronouncing four dimensional shapes."

"doesn't that completely counter itself out? If you're protected from time shifts, it can't never-born you, right? And holy shit, are you saying you-were-never-born is a BASIC chronomancy spell?"

He pulls off his glasses and slumps back in the chair, looking his age for once. "look: you don't become a pyromancer because your soup is cold. Chronomancers are... Well they're very dedicated people, even if that dedication tends to be fervent and uncontrolled. Did I ever tell you about Dilfen the Reversed?"

"uh, no, but maybe another time. I still don't understand how this gun does anything, if it had two opposing spells on it. It'd be like enchanting a vessel to be constantly full of fire AND water."

"that'd be useful if you were building a dream engine. Or maybe a smoke machine! Anyway... So you have to understand that time magic isn't exactly targeted, not at a person. It's targeted at time. So just because you personally are not going to be affected by a chronomatic enchantment doesn't mean it doesn't still have effects."

Your eyes go wide. "wait, so it still has the effect of you-were-never-born, but you personally are not effected, because of the timeshift protection?"

"yes. And it's 'affected' . You need to learn to use the right forms of words if you're going to be a wizard for very long. Common is much more forgiving than Magical Speach."

"how... How can you tell I used 'affected' vs 'effected'? They're pronounced the same!"

He puts his glasses back on just to dramatically lower them a bit and look over them at you. "my dear young lady, you do not make it to three hundred and four years of magical study without getting a good at seeing how people spell the words they are speaking. Hells, I wouldn't have made it through university, either time, without being able to see how the professors were spelling their words!"

"huh. Anyway, back to the gun," you sat, gingerly placing it back in the display case, carefully. Very carefully, like you just realized you're holding a live grenade and you're not sure where that pin went. "So that means, you get shot with this thing, and it doesn't unborn you, but it does make the rest of the world think you were never born."

"Correct. Or, almost. You actually were never born; recall that it's a chronomantic enchantment, not merely a mind control spell. Everyone thinks you were never born, and they're right. You become a walking paradox, and the only thing keeping you continuing to exist is the enchantment on the gun that keeps time from finishing to correct itself. "

"That's... terrible. Your parents, friends, loved ones... They all won't know you anymore!"

He leans forward like a kid telling a scary story around the campfire, clearly enjoying the morbid table. "oh it's so much worse than just that. Think about the kind of person who gets shot by this gun, wielded by a chronomancer drunk on power."

You ponder (good practice for an aspiring wizard). "Adventurers? Guardsmen?"

"Exactly. Do-gooders, to not put too fine a point on it. The kind of people who go around saving kittens and orphanages, defeating Goleths in the dark dungeons, and stopping Porphyriamancers planning to destroy a whole town for some slight or another."

"so all your legacy will be gone in any instant. No one will know it was you who did all those good things!"

He shakes his head, slowly and sadly. "You're not thinking far enough done this thought, my dear apprentice. Yes, no one will know you did those things... Because you didn't. You were never born, remember? The orphanage is still ashes of wood and bone. The town is destroyed. The kitten is drowned. The Goleth is still demanding virgin sacrifices. All the good you did in your life is undone, because you were never there to do it. Maybe someone stepped up and did some of those things in your absence, but not all of them. Your role in time cannot be replaced."

You neatly utter an oath that'd get you grounded for the next few weeks. "That's some heavy stuff. I see now why you keep this in the deepest vault". You step back, as if a little more distance from the accursed thing will make you any safer. You can't believe you picked it up. You'll have to be more careful in future: just because your magic sight shows something as barely enchanted, it doesn't mean you should consider it safe to pick up. You turn to your master again. "So how did you acquire this damned thing?"

He walks over to one of his lightly-glowing food boxes, the ones he cast that spacetime warp on. They're not really "here", so much as in many places at once, so he always has access to his favorite food and drinks. He pulls out a frosty bottle, and starts pouring himself a drink. (He explained before that although the boxes are in many places, most of them scattered around his tower in convenient spots, their primary location is in fact buried in a snowbank many miles into the northern wastes. So even when it's the height of summer, his drinks stay cool, and his icecubes are always frozen)

While pouring, he explains. "Many years back, my partner Gregor and I tracked down the chronomancer who was fighting a one-man (well, one-elf. Or one half-elf?) war against the nation of Gridden. He was undoing all their battles, afflicting their kings with hereditary diseases of royalty, and generally trying to unmake their entire kingdom from all of time. He was nearly successful, too. We were paid a King's ransom to stop him, and we did, but in a lot of ways the damage was already done. By the time Gregor and I finally ended his reign of terror, Gridden was barely half the nation it used to be. It still exists, technically, but it has lost much of its territory to neighboring empires exploiting its weakness, and many of the people have fled the nation, living as refugees in other countries to avoid the wrath of their unstable monarchs. We couldn't undo most the damage, because chronomancy is like that. You never quite know what has been changed and what wasn't. "

"And if you do change something, what effects will it have? You can read history and see that "oh we lost this big battle in the 19th year of King Whatever", but if you go back and make them win the battle, does that make the nation stronger? Or weaker?"

"There's many a naive chronomancer who met their end trying to improve their nation out of patriotism, by undoing defeats and hardships, only to learn that losing that battle is what finally brought the warring clans together for the defense of their suddenly unified kingdom. Or that plague is why why devoted so much study to healing magic, and if they hadn't had that experience, a later sickness would have destroyed them all, or they would have never gained favor with their expansionist neighbors by being able to cure their queen's infertility."

He slumps back in his chair, glass of something very strong in his hand. "You can never predict how a change in time will work out in the long run. And the nasty thing about time is that there's always a long run, and nothing ends. This is why time magic is largely the domain of those drunk on their own power, who don't care about the consequences, so long as they are the sculptor for the clay of time. You can ask Gregor about that."

You blink. "I didn't know you have a partner Gregor."

He downs the glass and stares into the middle distance. "I don't. I never did". He puts down the glass, softly, as if trying to not make a sound. His eyes still aren't focusing on anything in this place.