I glared at the open Bible.
This dithering and hesitation is unbecoming. Act. Do not act. Just decide and do!
Right. Just... In the book series my style of magic came from, Johannes Gutenberg was the first libriomancer (ignoring Bi Sheng) who invented movable type to try his theory on how to make magic work for him. The very first thing Gutenberg did was create and drink from the Holy Grail granting him- not immorality, exactly- agelessness and an impressive degree of regeneration. It was a miracle, the one exception to the rule about transforming yourself with magic costing you your powers.
So, you may ask, why wouldn't someone leap at the chance? Why in twenty years had I never done it?
Well, things don't always work precisely the way they do in books. I mean, you can generally trust that magic sword that cuts through anything in a book will do the same in reality, more or less and ignoring some exotic materials. But get a charm to manipulate Logrus in a world without Logrus, and it may fail, or act as intended despite that, or do something else entirely as it interacts with a new universe, new cosmology, and possibly other magics. I've spent twenty years, almost a lifetime, studying the various ways libriomancy works or doesn't work here. Some days it feels like I've barely scratched the surface.
So I don't think the Grail would take away my power. I'm even reasonably confident. But I can't say with a hundred percent certainty that it won't. The reward has never seemed worth the risk. I thought, starting in, that when I got a little older I might want to try out this immortality gig, pull out some useful items first, maybe some lerasium so I'd have alternatives. But as it turns out, age is not so much an obstacle to someone who has access to apples of youth, water from the fountain of youth, and the odd pinch of melange.
But now the situation is different. I'm not flying under the radar anymore, the plan is to be front and center, in the limelight and make myself a tempting target. I nearly died recently, because I wasn't taking this seriously enough. The regen could be immensely handy. Plus, I was a bit reckless in using the Death Note and it may mess with my afterlife. The rules lie, but might still apply to me if enough people didn't finish the series and still believed in them. I'm all for putting off dealing with that.
And yet, now that I have the book open, bands of mourning and a black elfstone on standby, I can't quite make myself go through with it.
I never asked to be a libriomancer, but I totally would have if I'd known it was an option, right after 'Kryptonian.' I love magic, and books, and cheesing magic from books. I don't know where the line is that will take that away from me, and I won't until I've already crossed it.
Of course, Capricorn has a way of transforming himself without losing his magic. If I'm honest, it has occurred to me that there might be no secret. Maybe the whole "do magic or be magic, not both" rule simply doesn't apply in the DCU. Maybe it really is only my fear holding me back. But again, risks vs. rewards, and I'm not willing to gamble away my powers on the off chance a power-up might work. Not without knowing a lot more. It's simply too much a part of who I am now. If I'm not a libriomancer, who would I be?
An immortal superpowered mastermind? A man of wealth and means?
Alright, already. Snark aside, I just need to stop overthinking and tying myself up in knots and get this done already.
Just need to read up to set the mental scene, at least it's very familiar. "On the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat at Passover?"....
A short bit later and I had it in my hands. Through some quirk of my or the collective readership's imagination, it wasn't an ornate chalice, but a simple wooden cup. Thank you. Steven Spielberg, I guess. No thinking, just bottoms up.
Okay. I don't feel any different. Next step, take up a battered, dog-eared copy of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, find the part where Luke is trying to get into a shed surreptitiously. Reading it, imagining it, trying not to be distracted by hope or fear, I thrust my hand at the pages and pull back. snap-hiss! vmmmmmm vnnn-vn! Whew, I think we can safely say my magic still works. Stashing the saber.
Next test, I run a kitchen knife over my palm... and realize it's going to take a lot more force than my arm can generate to puncture my "demon skin" armor. Now I kind of regret giving back the lightsaber so easily, though lopping off a hand is probably not the best test either, it could take weeks for the Mo Fuqian to grow back even if the hand did. So what are my options?
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"You're sure about this?" Freddie says from the other side of his hand cannon. It's the Desert Eagle he uses when he's serious, and not the pair of .22s he has to help him get around and move things with allomancy, and I swear the thing looks a lot bigger when you're staring down the barrel.
Still, I'm surprised. You'd think life with me would have inured my loyal henchmen to all sorts of strange requests. I know for a fact if I ask him to go graverobbing he'll hesitate only to ask if I'm after something or someone specific.
Note to self: Make more random requests of Freddie in the next few months. Legal ones, probably.
"Yes, I'm sure. I want you to do it. Hit me. Right here." I thumped my chest.
BLAM!
Even braced for it, I take a big step back and my back hits the wall. Though I do keep my feet this time.
Son of a bitch, that stings! Less so now... Annd it's gone. I feel perfectly fine.
Healing powers confirmed then.
"Thanks, Freddie! You're still the best!" I give him a bright smile and a quick pat on the shoulder as I go. He mutters something I'm pretty sure wasn't a compliment.
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In another time, in another world, I grew up around the city of Boston. I mention this because Boston once had a very famous, and equally infamous, mayor (and one-term governor) by the name of James Michael Curley. Curley was less of a man than a character, and in Massachusetts politics, why he was an Era. In matters he cared about, a force of nature. In general, a fast-talking, comically corrupt hustler who did all his best and most criminal acts to help people (particularly his friends) out. Why, the first time he was arrested it was because he took a civil service exam for a friend, using his name, and Curley turned this into a political benefit. When his enemies brought up this shameful criminal history, Curley made it his campaign slogan "He did it for a friend" and he cleaned up.
It helped a lot that he was a working-class Irish Catholic populist in a period this demographic was really starting to take power from the old-school, Protestant, wealthy Yankee elite. And Curley never did pass up a chance to tweak some high-class noses, in fact, class warfare and show them high-tootin' Boston Brahmins what's what became a core part of his platform.
On being first elected mayor, he moved into the famous "house with the shamrock shutters" a mansion far, far beyond the means of his official payscale, built largely for free by a series of contractors each currying favor with the new mayor. As part of his massive expansion of infrastructure and public works, he just so happened to create jobs for seven hundred key supporters of his, and an awful lot of money disappeared sticking to various fingers. But he did massively improve the city, working long hours, and during the Depression every morning he'd wake to a line of unemployed people outside his house and he found them all jobs or brought them lunch from his own pocket. He spent the city through the Depression, borrowing tons of money to start new projects and create new jobs, which according to contemporary Keynesian economists, is exactly what he should have done. He went out and brought a whole bunch of kneepads and long brooms once after seeing a cleaning lady struggle back to her feet after scrubbing the floor. One time, all the banks in the state united to insist they wouldn't lend Boston another dime, so with a gleeful disregard for longstanding tradition and the dignity of his office, Curley set out to beg loans from banks in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, and he got them. Investigations into Curley's crooked finances became a quarterly tradition, as the seasons turned, so did new investigations and scandals begin and end without ever once hurting him in the polls. Heck, he once beat up a reporter over some scathing editorials, not had him beat, showed up himself to fight the man fair, and he didn't get in trouble for that.
They got him just once, on mail fraud. Fair cop, he was guilty as sin and they had him dead to rights. He spent all of five months in prison before receiving a presidential pardon, such was the fuss raised by Massachusetts congressmen, and he returned home to cheering crowds parading him through the street.
Small wonder, then, that when I was growing up Curley was something of a local folk hero, and became something of a hero of mine. It was a sad day indeed when I learned, whatever butterflies or branching timelines were in effect, this new world had never had a James Michael Curley.
Until today.
With the demise of our sitting Mayor, Armand Krol, Gotham called a special election to fill his seat as quickly as practical. It's just like the regular election, except in this case it's three weeks early. By this point, I was way ahead in the polls, even with poisonous little whispers about Krol's death, and my main opponent, Marion Grange, decided to try and boost her numbers with a rare televised debate.
I'm sure millions of Gothamites were shocked to learn they even had a local channel for politics. But we have one, and I was too interesting not to tune in for.
Ms. Grange immediately went on the offensive, attacking my qualifications, my criminal history, my credibility and my character. Through it all, I just sat there and smiled. And smiled. And when it was my turn to speak we destroyed her with a ruthless efficiency that came from James, and my own cheerful amusement. I committed crimes? Only to help my friends, and that because the Diamond District elite made earning an honest living in the city impossible. I fought the Justice League? That took a great deal of physical and moral courage, more than most public officials ever show, I'd say. And in these troubled times, who doesn't want a fighting mayor? I threatened the city with a giant death ray? Guilty, but it was only a model. All her talking points were waved away, or became jokes. Not a single attack landed, and by not retaliating, I slid the moral high ground out from underneath her. Curley himself couldn't have done it better.
That Curley couldn't have procured a cloak of +8 Charisma, nor changed it's color and blended it seamlessly into his outfit is neither here nor there. On an unrelated note, it seems I'm one of the last living people who can pull off an opera cape. There was a poll and everything.
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After that, well, a lot of contributors saw the writing on the wall. They deserted Grange in drives, and pretty much sealed my victory. The vote itself was almost a formality.
The first thing I did, actually, had nothing to do with governing, the good or crooked kind. I went to a New Age store downtown and dropped a thousand bucks on various mystic-looking decorations for my new office. Because James isn't the only one who enjoys the odd spot of gloating. While there, I got quite the reception from people eager to speak with an avowed wizard, got into an argument over ley lines and wound up drawing them a map. I'd charted those out years ago. Though, the map I drew was fairly incomplete since I left out the two biggest nexus points, the Miagani caves and Wayne Manor.
If some kids want to get buzzed and hold a seance on the roof of the Gotham Arms, more power to them, but I'm not sending dumb wannabe mages into the way of real trouble.
I spent the first couple of days just moving in, getting acquainted with the job and the city's financial crisis. While I could probably replicate enough gold to float the city, I don't think that's the best option. Best of all to get people working, governments skim off the excess productivity of the people, so if we're broke either something is seriously wrong with our spending, and I'm looking into that, or the economy of the city is fucked and there's a lot of people n the street in worse trouble than us.
But just untangling the source of the trouble is a herculean task in it's own right.
On the fourth day in office, working late, I found a note in my inbox.
'Brace Yourself.
Get Baum and Barrie.
C + NML Starts
Tonight.'
"Heather!" I called while I walked out front. I have a secretary now, how cool is that? "Did you see who left this note?"
"You did, Sir."
"Did I? Huh." I went back into the office and got my phone. "Freddie? Sorry to bother you. Do you think you could swing by Town Hall, by way of the used bookstore on Chandlers? I think I'm going to need an awful lot of books. Yes, I have a few in particular in mind, do you have a piece of paper?"
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A wild update appears!
James Michael Curley was a real person, and a significant inspiration to me in how to approach Bookworm's political career. Figured he deserved an in-universe shout out.
There are so many stories and anecdotes about this guy, so few of which wind up in an online format. I could have easily doubled the wordcount here by trying to go into them all, but that might bore the people who came for the crazy adventures of a magic gangster. Things he did in front of hundreds of witnesses sound downright unbelievable, and it's a bit hard sixty to a hundred years later to tell which are true and which false. Dozens of books, I'd personally recommend 'the Rascal King' biography, and 'the Last Hurrah' a fictional story about the final election of a man much like, but legally distinct from, Curley. Got a movie version with Spencer Tracy as the aging not-Curley. Speaking of the Rascal King, that was also the name of a musical tribute to the man.
But yeah, apologies if not a lot happened this chapter. Please, don't read anything ominous into that, it's just how things rolled out. You trust me, don't you?