Brain Drippings for Liminal Magic. (Patreon)

"So, how does magic work?" Blum asked as she laid on her stomach, her legs kicking in the air.  "And keep the clothes on," she added sharply at the girl.

"You're such a tyrant," Muschi replied with a pout as she sat on her desk, black tail twitching as she crossed her arms.  She pouted, plucking at the dress.  "The least you could do is give me a body that'll fill this thing out better."

"I didn't give you that body!" she snapped, then blinked.  "Did I?"

Muschi gave a wry smile.  "I don't know.  I'm rather astonished I'm not a boy."  She pointed a finger at Blum's brow.  "That doctor of yours would love to hear this, I'm sure."

Death first.  "Stop stalling," Blum muttered, crossing her arms.  "For all I know this is just my brain having some sort of delusional dialogue."  She slumped a moment and then glanced away.  "But things are weird.  Too weird to be just crazy.  You say I'm a wizard, so go ahead and explain magic to me."

Muschi pursed her lips and slipped off the dresser.  "Alright.  Since you asked so nicely."  The cat girl strolled over to grandma's old desktop.  "This is God."

"Huh?" Blum palled, pointed at the computer, and then asked, "God is my grandma's old apple?"  Muschi didn't answer right away, with a patient smile on her smug face.  "You mean God is like a computer?"

Muschi nodded.  "Knew you'd get it.  God is the universe and everything in it, and God is like a computer calculating towards some ultimate conclusion."  She raised a finger and winked.  "Magic is like chopping a computer."

"Chopping?" Blum blinked in bafflement.

Muschi frowned.  "That's the phrase, right?  Computer chopping?"

"You mean hacking?" Blum suggested.

"Hacking, chopping, slashing... it's where you make a computer do things that it doesn't normally do," the familiar said as it walked over to the bed.  "Magic is doing the exact same thing to the universe.  It's exploiting loopholes, secret codes, and other cheats to get what you want."  Muschi said as she crossed her legs.  "Humans have been cheating since the dawn of time.  Fire?  Magic.  Tools?  Magic.  Agriculture?  Magic.  You don't even think of them as magic anymore, but compare them to what animals do and it's nothing short of magical.  Even without spells and the like, you still bend the rules constantly.  Like its instinctive or something."

"But drawing a circle and making flames appear isn't bending rules!" Blum objected.

"Nope.  It's out and out breaking them," Muschi said.  "Some people are born with special access to the supernatural.  Some are crazy enough, or insightful enough, to get that special access.  Everyone else just gets by on the billions of little cheats humanity's pulled off."

She tapped the drawing pad.  "This is magic because you think of it as magic.  Because Alexander, your grandfather thought it was magic.  Because thousands of people over thousands of years thought it was magic.  The only limit is what's in your head.  Oh, and your ability to resist exploding into flame.  That's always important too!"

"What?" Blum staggered.

"Well, what would happen if you hacked a computer all the time?" Muschi asked.

"Well, I'd..." she paused and thought a moment.  "Eventually the cops would come after me."

"Yup.  And the same thing happens with wizards," she said, giving a little shrug.  "Every spell you cast either resonates with the universe, or is dissonant with the universe.  Get dissonant enough, and the universe will take you out of the equation.  So a little change isn't a big deal.  Changing something back to normal isn't just a big deal, but kinda good.  But change a lot of little things, or try to change big things, and the universe will come after you in a big way."  She gestured to Blum's notes.  "All this is to keep your magic as resonant with the universe as possible.  Seriously, if you got a stick and called it a magic wand, it might help."

"Seriously?" Blum said with a frown.

"Couldn't hurt.  Once upon a time these things were a lot more serious but there's so many humans and your media is such a powerful focuser of will that I'm astonished more of you aren't flying around on broomsticks."  

"So," she frowned.  "I could just make fire happen?"

Muschi snorted, then blinked.  "Oh, you're serious.  Yes.  Theoretically, you could.  You'd probably stop your heart long before you did, but it's possible."  She tapped the page.  "When you go through all the motions though, magic becomes a lot easier.  Geometric symbols take focus to draw and get right, and symbols have power.  You're writing in hebrew, one of the most ancient languages in the world.  That's more power.  You're invoking the unknown nature of God calling on one of God's sepheroit for power.  All those little things add up to make magic easier.  Of course, you can also go buy a lighter for three bucks that does the same thing."

Blum grunted as Muschi took the fun out of everything.  Then she looked at the strange cat girl.  "What about you?  Where do you figure into it?"

"Me?" she blinked her feline eyes.  "Well, technically I'm a demon.  That's a pretty loaded term though.  Spirit is slightly more accurate."

"A lust spirit, right?" Blum asked dryly.  "Because my grandpa was a pervert."

"Alexander was fifteen when he summoned me.  Do you know what fifteen year old boys wanted then?  The exact same thing as they want now.  Something to put their penis in."  She snorted and reached up to tug her ears.  "Honestly, these ears?  All you.  I have no idea why you made them kitty ears."

"I didn't mean to make them cat ears.  Just like I didn't mean to make you a naked girl!" Blum blurted. 

Muschi sat up a little, the dress slipping off her shoulder as she gazed into Blum's eye.  "There's nothing wrong with it."

"Talk about magic or I'm putting you back into fur!" Blum demanded, clenching her eye shut.

"Fine," Muschi murred.  "Demons and angels are like... like special computer things.  Programs.  Apps.  Whatever.  When wizards summon us, they set our personality and existence.  It's actually really complicated because we get a little of your free will.  So once all the rules are worked out, you can't guarantee what we'll do.  Worse, if you're dumb, we might just kill you, because we'll be dumb too."

"So I'm guessing there's a lot of Darwin awards for bad summoners," Blum muttered.

"I suppose.  Which is sad, because if you die, we die.  Well... not die.  We disappear," she said, her smirk gone.  "If you hadn't had magical talent, I would have disappeared with your Grandfather.  Nothing would have been left except for this cat.  It would die instantly too, for all I know."  She drew up her knees and hugged them.  "When Alexander died, I was so happy to know you had the talent.  I was terrified.  I didn't know if I'd just disappear or fade slowly.  But then you started talking to me, and I knew I'd be okay."  She then turned and glanced at the door.  "Till your stupid grandmother got rid of me!"

"It means that much to you?" Blum asked.

"I exist because of you," Muschi said, giving Blum a smile as tears ran down her cheeks.  "I get to live and touch and smell and feel and matter, because of you.  I love you.  Truly.  There's no way I can express how much with words."  She leaned towards her.  "I wish I could show you another way."

Blum, her cheeks blushing furiously, reached up and pushed her back.  "Not talking about sex.  Now.  Ever!  Talking magic," she stammered, took a deep breath, and latched on the first thing she could think of.  "You said your body is a cat?"

"It's a more stable form of summoning," Muschi explained with a slight pout.  "You could just summon me out of nothingness, but it would take a phenomenal amount of power.  Putting our will into a vessel is much, much easier.  Of course, it also makes us more vulnerable.  Like being shipped out to the South Atlantic."

"so... since you're a demon... are you going to take my soul or something?  How does Heaven and Hell figure into this?"

"I didn't come from Hell.  I came from nothingness," Muschi corrected with a frown.  "Heaven and Hell, and every other afterlife and magical realm, is like a..." she frowned.  "What do you call a computer that's attached to a bigger computer?"

"A server?" Blum guessed.

"Something like that.  Think that's wrong though, but yeah.  It's a computer attached to a main computer.  Theoretically, you could disconnect it from the main computer, but it wouldn't do much on its own.    Heaven and Hell are like those mini-computers, handling all souls when they die.  People go where they know they should go subconciously.  Eventually the souls come back and get reborn."

"And how does religion tie into all this, if magic is hacking god," Blum asked.  "Atheist wizards must be pissed."

"Not really.  None of your religions are even close to the truth.  It might be that God isn't even aware your universe exists.  It could be nothing but an immense chalk board where God is working out a massive equation, trying to find some incomprehensible solution to a problem we can't even imagine.  God doesn't care if you pray, how you pray, or even if you pray.  God might not even be intelligent.  Just some sort of processor working out a simulation we call the universe."

"But you're a demon and you said there's a Heaven and Hell so something's up," Blum said.

"I thought you wanted to talk about magic," Muschi said with a smile.

"I want to talk about anything besides why you're a cute cat girl," Blum countered.  Her eyes popped wide as her face exploded in a hot blush as Muschi just smirked.  And she was purring.  "Answer or back to cat."

Muschi kept purring for several seconds, then gave a shrug.  "Angel and demon are loaded terms.  Spirit is better.  The ones you call demons, or malefic spirits, want people to be honest.  Angels, on the other hand, are benevolent spirits.  They want you to be better people."  She rolled her eyes a little and shook her head.  "The being most Abraham religions interact with isn't actually God, but a spirit.  Michael runs Heaven.  Lucifer Hell.  They go by a lot of names though."

"Can you summon them?" she asked, more to keep Muschi from lapsing back to sex.

She snorted, rolling her emerald eyes.  "Um, theoretically you could.  Summoning a spirit like them, basically any spirit that exists independently of their summoner, is easier but more dangerous because they typically have their own agenda.  They're pretty unhealthy to be around too.  There's some wizarding traditions that specialize in it though."

"You mentioned the White Tower.  Is that them?"

Muschi broke into peals of laughter, rolling off the bed with a thunk.  "Ow," she moaned out of sight before sitting up.  "Oh, that was funny.  No.  Not the White Tower.  They're like the major wizard government for the world... or they try to be.  They want magic to be resonant, mortals to be ignorant, and everything to be boring.  You'll hate them when they get around to dealing with you."  She frowned as she stood and tugged her dress into place.  "Just remember, if you cross them, they won't kill you.  They'll fix you and make you into a nice, perfect, happy little wizard."

"Yikes.  And they're in charge?" she muttered.

"They try to be.  Oh, they're not evil.  That's the worst part.  They deeply, sincerely, want to make the world a better place.  They'd see fixing you as a favor.  And getting rid of me, since I'm an adolescent boy's abomination."  Muschi took a deep breath.  "No, the bad guys are the Order of Illumination."

"You mean the illuminati?"

"No, that's a dumb conspiracy theory.  The Order also wants to fix broken things with magic, but as far as they're concerned the broken thing is the world, not them.  They're the White Tower's main rivals.  Not the worst one though."

"So Grandpa was with the Tower?" Blum asked with a frown.

That got another grin from Muschi.  "Alexander?  A Towerer?  Ha!  No.  He was a Traditionalist.  They're mages from all kinds of different origins.  Religious mystics.  Druids.  Witch Doctors.  All that.  Lots of culture wrapped in the Traditions.  Technically he was a Jewish Kabbalist.  There's lots of Traditions, but they're as organized as a sack of cats.  They fight as much too."  Her smile faced to a serious frown.  "No, the really nasty ones are the Unmakers."

"What do they do?" Blum asked, her voice dropping.

"Duh.  Listen to their name.  They unmake things.  More specifically, they want to unmake everything.  Tear down the chalkboard and start a whole new equasion.  They tend to be really crazy, really dangerous, and thankfully rare, thanks to the Crusaders."

"Good guys?"

"Kinda, if you don't mind lunatics for lost causes.  They fight for the 'liberation of humanity', whatever that means.  It's hard to nail them down, but if they sniff out an Unmaker, they get everyone together and take the Unmaker down.  Usually the damage is covered up as riots or something worse.  Like Pompeii."  She stretched her arms overhead.  "Individual Crusaders are called Heroes, and they generally go around looking for lesser monsters and threats like vampires and therinthropes."  She pursed her lips a moment.  "Let me guess, you want to know about them too?"

Blum glanced at the clock.  "Well, it's only one A.M.  Sure."

Muschi rolled her eyes again.  "Well most supernaturals are alternative humans.  Like the first humans never died.  Sounds great at first, till you realize that immortality would mean either horrible murder or trillions of humans competing for a few scraps of food or mouthfuls of water.  They're dissonant with the universe now, so they've adapted to survive.  Therinthropes are bonded to specific animal spirits.  No problem till those spirits take charge and turn them into eight foot tall beasts powered by fight, flight, or fu-"

"I get the idea and don't need details about that!" Blum interrupted.

"You are such a prude," Muschi muttered.  "Fae are strange.  Like they're from a whole different universe, but they like coming to this one.  Or need to.  Or get exiled here.  I'm not really sure.  And beyonders are things that just crawl out of the corners of the universe where things don't get cleaned out regularly."