The Nightmare and the Discovery
Chapter 5: The Nightmare and the Discovery
In front of the facade of the small stone church, my body simply froze. Feeling the sudden tug, my mother stopped and looked at me with a suspicious expression. To avoid more questions that I wouldn't know how to answer, she scooped me up firmly in her arms and burst right into the temple.
"Carl! Are you there?" Sylvia's voice echoed through the silent hall.
A man wearing rustic clerical robes appeared from behind the altar. Looking at him, my former astral-deity-slave brain went into an economic panic. *Please, where is a hole in this stone floor for me to hide in? Someone get me out of here!* I whined mentally. My worst nightmare was coming true.
Sylvia started talking at a frantic pace, pouring out her anxieties at a speed that made the local language almost impossible to follow. The cleric, maintaining a stern and thoughtful gaze, gestured for me to approach the stone altar.
*I'm screwed. Completely screwed. It's over for me,* I began a mantra of pure despair in my head. *I'm going to be burned at the stake. I'll turn into a roasted kebab before nightfall.*
Without warning, the cleric extended his hands and began reciting a solemn prayer. A strange, golden light materialized in the air, descending toward me. And, keeping true to my zero percent track record of expectations with mystical forces, the result was immediate: the holy light collided with my psychic aura and was violently repelled, dissipating into sparks.
The priest flipped out. He jumped backward, crossing his fingers over his chest.
"By the heavens! This is an abomination!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the walls. "Not even the most cruel demons repel the sacred in this manner! I must contact the Holy See immediately!"
My mother fell into absolute despair, clutching her hair, crying, and screaming that this was a reflection of the terrible poison curse we had faced on the road. I looked at the two of them and thought: *Yep, I'm done for.*
However, my geek-scientist side spoke louder than the fear of turning into a kebab. I looked at the remnants of that golden light floating in the air. What was that? It didn't look like the fluid mana of the mage. That divine energy resembled the mechanics of light photons, but with a different density—almost solid and heavy. *Man... this is phenomenal,* I thought, fascinated. That quantum structure seemed much easier to manipulate by physical forces.
I decided to run a test. I extended my invisible filaments of Telekinesis and tried to touch the holy light. To my absolute surprise, the energy reacted perfectly. It didn't try to fuse with me like mana did; it simply obeyed the pressure of my mind. *Is it possible to shape this thing?* I questioned myself, instantly remembering the floating energy orbs that tyrants used in the interdimensional arenas to target us.
It couldn't hurt to try. I concentrated my neural focus and began sketching in the air. That light was indeed much more malleable than traditional mana. Perhaps it had some direct connection to the mechanics of matter. I would need more laboratory experiments in the future, but there, in the heat of the moment, I ended up getting distracted by the physics of it all. Using telekinesis, I began shaping the remnants of the golden light, transforming them into tiny, shimmering butterflies and light birds that flapped their wings around me.
Suddenly, I realized that the room had fallen into a deathly silence. The silence was so heavy that I swallowed hard. *Screwed again... I don't want to look back,* I begged myself.
Driven by a masochistic curiosity, I slowly turned my head. Sylvia was on her knees, weeping copiously—but not out of fear. Cleric Carl's eyes were wide, his trembling hands raised toward the ceiling.
"It is a miracle..." the priest whispered, his voice choking with reverence. "It is a living divine blessing! The gods have not rejected him... they have chosen him as a pure vessel! The boy is a holy envoy!"
I immediately turned sour. *Come on, they didn't even let me finish the quantum experiment...* I grumbled mentally. But I had no time to complain. Sylvia lunged forward like a leopard, grabbed me in her arms with desperate strength, and ran out the door. Behind us, the cleric shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Do not worry, Lady Vance! I will protect this secret with my life! The envoy of the gods must be hidden from enemies!"
I bumped my head against my mother's shoulder as she ran. *Wonderful. From a kebab at the stake, now I've become a walking religious trophy.* My scientific curiosity had definitely gotten me into a colossal mess.
Sylvia threw me into the carriage and ordered the coachman to fly back to the city. She looked at me with a mixture of dread and adoration, repeatedly begging me to behave and not do that in public ever again. We went straight to the back room of that antique shop where we had bought the monster book. My mother entered a private room with the owner of the establishment, and the two began a whispered, tense discussion.
*I've messed up enough for today,* I thought, exhausted. *Let's try to find out what they are plotting.*
I extended my hand and touched the wooden wall of the room, trying to use Psychometry to catch the vibrations of the voices on the other side. But the exhaustion of the day took its toll. A chaotic flood of old information from that shop inundated my child's brain, making me nauseous and violently dizzy. I cut the link immediately, massaging my temples. *It's still too early to force this power... this boy's brain can't take it.*
I accepted my fate of remaining in the dark. Curiosity had almost killed this scientific cat today. When the door opened, Sylvia returned with a triumphant look on her face. In her hands, she carried a gleaming silver pendant.
"Here, my dear," she said, placing the necklace around my neck. "This will protect you. It is an amulet blessed with high holy magic against curses. It will keep your secret hidden from the world."
I looked at the metal amulet thumping against my six-year-old chest and took a deep breath. *Seriously? More divine protection magic on my chest? I really haven't made a single right call today...*
With the heavy amulet around my neck and my mind buzzing with new physics equations about the holy light, I leaned my head against the leather seat as the carriage took us back to the safety of the Vance Fortress. The day had been absolute chaos, but one thing was certain: this medieval world was about to find out that the science of a geek professor was much more unpredictable than any divine miracle.
