WTF MAGIC IS REAL??

Magic is real. I don’t get a ton of information from my higher-ups at Redoubt about how it works, so my context is super-patchy for the whole thing. My mentor, Soror Smirk, enchanted me just enough for me to do my new job as an occult investigator, and gives me just enough information to make that possible.

Magic’s not too much like what you’ll find in the New Age bookstores. For all I know, this may well exist, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It also isn’t much like a fantasy movie. There don’t seem to be any cool werewolves or vampires. Who knows, though. Maybe they’re still hidden from me. I also haven’t gotten to see anyone shoot fireballs (besides the liquor).

But magic is somehow real, even if I don’t understand it.

I’ve been told by Smirk that magic goes all the way back to pre-human ancestors, actually. That is, frankly, badass. I guess someone (Redoubt itself?? Fuck if I know!) has even done experiments and found that a few complex primates can connect with magical forces in a rudimentary way. Maybe any being with a little bit of a mind can tap into it, given enough effort? They should frankly try to teach cats magic. I hate cats, but still.

In a lot of fantasy novels, you get this thing where only certain people can learn magic, like it’s inherited, or you have to be born with the capacity. I guess you’d have to be the most special snowflake in that case, or you couldn’t cast even a mediocre spell. Y’know, the whole thing where you got someone who’s the chosen one or some shit like that, or they’re born into some kind of magical family? Yeah no.

Redoubt (well, my trainer, Smirk) has informed me that this isn’t true. That’s a damned good thing, too. I know there’s no magic in my family, just a lot of assholes. I guess magic isn’t something you can be born with? Instead, magic is a gift that someone else has to choose to give you. They call this process enchantment. You can’t just inherit it or whatever. It’s not some kinda innate characteristic like, idk, left-handedness or autism.

In any case, it seems like Redoubt itself exists to control magic, to keep it from the hands of the power-hungry and the masses. I guess. Something like that. The particular explanation I got was during training, during the fucking COVID pandemic lockdowns, and was very vague. They said something about how dangerous it would’ve been if someone like the Zodiac Killer, Hitler or L. Ron Hubbard had gotten access to magical clout. They kept saying that magic is dangerous, not only in the wrong hands, but when it becomes too ubiquitous. I guess they have a point there, and they’ve been “keeping the gates” as Smirk says, for a long time.

I’m glad Hitler didn’t become a wizard, I guess. Good job on that one, Redoubt. And L. Ron Hubbard, too. I’m told they’ve been doing this for a very long time, and clearly (I guess?) they’re good at it.

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t exactly trust Redoubt, but damn, I’m curious enough to throw away my cares. The pay isn’t bad, either, and I do want to learn magic. That alone was a huge draw, and they knew it. I suspect that ’s how they grab most of their recruits.

Smirk showed me some weird diagrams, and said that magical power flows in currents. People create these currents by tapping into the unseen dimensions of reality and making contact with spirits and other arcane powers. These forces grant them abilities, and that forges the current in our physical dimension, passing into the person. The person can then pass that ability on to other people through weird initiations, some big, some small.

Yes, Redoubt did something like this to me. It wasn’t difficult or scary, just strange, and it felt unusual in my head, to say the least.

Plenty of these currents have been flowing through human society in secret for centuries, though, if not longer. I know Redoubt itself has existed for a longass time, too. One guy I met in training mentioned Redoubt’s policies being different in the 19th century, so I know they’re at least over a hundred years old. Other magic varies, of course. At very least, most magical currents are decades old. I talked to a guy from Chicago very briefly. He said something about currents in South America and China that go back over a thousand years. That might be true, or he might’ve been making it up. I was really zooted at the time but I think it was legit.

Redoubt doesn’t seem to like new currents being forged nowadays. I’m not quite sure why, but I can only assume it’s because they just find them hard to control. There are still people who have no magic, know about it, and want it, though. Who wouldn’t? If Redoubt hadn’t decided to go ahead and enchant me, I might’ve been in the same position, knowing it existed, wanting it, and not having it. IDEK what they would’ve done…

So, yeah. Some people seek out contact with unseen forces solo, hoping to forge their own brand new current. If they succeed, we call them sorcerers. In contrast with mages (like me), who joined an established current, I guess. Supposedly, some of my job here will involves “monitoring” the area for “sorcerous activities.” I’ll be making sure there’s no evidence of anyone trying to start their own currents here in my own town, I guess. It hasn’t happened like that yet - just lots of mages screwing up.

Before I collided with Redoubt, I’d never even considered the possibility magic could be real. I was able to pick up most skills necessary to do my job within a matter of months. I guess they’re right when they say any job can be taught, even being some kind of weird occult investigator.

The magic I use is powered by celestial phenomena. It involves working with planets, but mostly with stars. I’m not sure why they chose to give me celestial (star-based, actually) occult powers. I got the impression there were others they could’ve offered, and other people seem to have different ones. Smirk doesn’t tell me very much, in case you didn’t guess. I know I’ll learn much more as time goes on, and as much as I need to, but it’s so hard wondering about some of this.

I got my abilities, apparently, from the star Sirius. Yes, I’ve researched Sirius a bunch but it didn’t tell me a lot, and Smirk isn’t telling me more than I really need to know, either. They did this on a freezing cold winter night, too. I don’t know how this worked in theory, and I dunno if I should explain the ritual in practice. Yes, there are rituals - they’re just weird in a boring way. If I told you about the ritual, you could easily replicate it yourself, but it’d have no effect. Unless you’re a mage connected to the star yourself, of course… are you? Probably not.

The other rituals, which are spells I cast nowadays? Even weirder! I once spent days learning to knit a scarf for one single spell to obfuscate my activities from my housemate, Dwayne. Sounds fun and quirky, huh? Couldn’t possibly be legit, tho? I was surprised, but everything I’ve been taught by Smirk seems to work, and better than I could ever imagine. In terrifying and disturbing ways, at times, but I’ve grown accustomed to it after a while. Every job has downsides, especially if it’s… like this.

I gently tied that scarf into a bow on the doorknob of the closet where I keep my encoded magical journals and supplies. Dwayne now refuses to open, or even go near, that door. He doesn’t come into my room often anyways, but I tested it myself. While he’s utterly unaware, he tends to wander around confused if I asked him to get close to the door. Sometimes I worry about what this kind of thing does to people in the longterm, but I really have no way of knowing…

Smirk, and many other Redoubt operatives, have told me that it doesn’t matter if someone else knows about the spells and rituals themselves. Only an actual, enchanted mage (like me, her, or any of her other underlings) can perform them, and only within our current. Still, they all made it abundantly clear that I’m quite sworn to secrecy about everything, like some kind of Cold War spy. To boot, they always also add that “nobody will ever believe me” anyways when it comes to internet stuff.

I’m free to type here on neocities, but only because it seems neocities is inaccessible to Smirk and her buddies, my superiors in this weirdass organization. I’m not sure why Smirk, nor anyone else I know offline, is able to access neocities, but it’s an issue, and I’m taking advantage of it by using this site to talk about my life and achieve some catharsis.

Weird shit, I know. If I go quiet, you’ll probably guess why. It’ll either be me putting out some stupid magical fire locally, or getting kicked upstairs by Redoubt for breaking their rules here on neocities.