Dark Magic - Chapter 2

It has been three weeks since I blew my apprentice and the little shit up. The field was cleaned, the guards left without a magical fuck to die for their so called cause, and the towns folk are wary of me. I guess I went too far this time. The child deserved it though. He would have gotten me caught and no one would be able to replicate my formulas.
I call them formulas but others call them spells. I combine and mix chemicals and random things based on how they react to being near each other. Philosophers would probably call it a science. At this point, it's just fucking around. I've been around since the age of many young prophets. Some have even passed through town recently.
My oldest friend, Fields, came through town just two years ago. I was surprised he wasn't killed during a border dispute in the eastern countries. He said a man tipped him off about my whereabouts. They was most likely the man who left town thirty years ago. He knew I wouldn't bother going and killing an old man but I was glad Fields came back.
I met Fields during a philosophy meeting about gold and why it was deprecated. I fought to keep gold as the standard so having wealth meant something but the vote was fourteen to six. The six of us knew we lost and didn't fight it. Fields voted to change the standard but I didn't hold that against him.
No one in our immortal group was supposed to know who each other were. I broke that rule quickly and easily. It wasn't even hard to figure it out. At council meetings, I spoke with a fake voice to mask who I was. I would say it helped when the other five who voted to keep gold died in mysterious stabbings. It didn't though because I hired the killers to do it.
I didn't want to be part of a group that would so quickly decide what was right and wrong for everyone. I had the other five naysayers murdered in cold blood just to give reason to the immortals to send me into hiding. They said I would have to choose who would help me hide. I chose Fields because I knew he was a farmer on the outskirts of town.
Fields and I lived together for quite a long time. Almost one hundred years before I said I couldn't spend another day hiding away. He told me to follow my heart and to always find a way to keep in touch. My solution for that was to look for magic. He didn't get it at the time but every time we ran into each other, he figured out what I meant more and more.
I had to kill Fields though. That old man too. If the old man told Fields, he told others. I gave Fields a satchel filled with solidified explosives. I told him to deliver it to the old man as a thanks for helping me find Fields. Fields told me what region he was living in and to come by sometime.
I didn't have to go to find out Fields and the old man died. I passerby from that region told me what had happened. Fields had went to the old mans house and not twenty seconds later, the entire house exploded. It wasn't hard to figure out the immortals knew what had happened. They didn't know I was alive though and that was useful.
I knew Ongie must have been part of the immortals but she shared a quality with three other members. They didn't speak. Everything they wanted to say, do, or announce was written. I killed two of the immortals who always wrote and never spoke which left her and another. It was obvious she was apart of the immortals when guards would visit every town that Fields visited before he become part of my explosive delivery system. They visited every three days for ten weeks before they stopped.
I fear they may find me soon though. Ongie has had the guards coming to this town daily. People here are complacent and the apprentice who exploded was an obvious trick of mine. Of course, the first time I did it to someone, I didn't know they'd explode from using too much of my refined goop. I guess history is written in the blood of those caught on the bad end of the wand.
Back to now though. The people want me out of their town. They want me to turn over the notes on how to make the growth serum and that was it. I won't comply with that though. I tasted their blood in the form of their complacency and I know they won't try anything. Maybe I should leave this town. With a band that would shake the kingdom at least. Let the immortals and Ongie know I will not fucking falter in my real quest.
I want to remove the human element from work. Make it so automatons do the work for us. Many have used other people as a workforce in the form of slavery but it always came toppling down when the slave out replicated their masters. I guess my strategy was a little different.
I will take the metal from Terra and the power from the running water and create workers who will do it all. No human will ever need to work in this utopia. Of course, the way to achieve my goal may have changed. The explosive power of my goop could probably be controlled. Maybe build a machine that takes the violent explosions and moves much like water moved a water wheel.
This new science would change how we do everything. Of course the immortals must go before the people could be free. Fourteen immortals including me. They clearly had ties to this kingdom since many prophets have said greatness awaits a land so bestowed with life and resource. A prophet came through here going on and on about some kind of atomic fires that would engulf the world.
Atomic fire sounds like a spell waiting to happen though. Some theorize that little bitty things make up everything and they would be called atoms. To think, a fire that burns these. Maybe it isn't how it works but it would be amazing. I'm sure I'll be around when someone finally has solid evidence of such a claim.