TEA PARTY WITHOUT THE HATTER
"To recover the Dark Angel's heart", Meera reminded me.
"No, not the Dark Angel's quest again", I complained to myself.
Fulfilling the Revelation prophecy wasn't something that I really planned to do, especially when there was a possibility the outcome would cause me serious problems.
But Meera was serious about it. It was her mission in life as a Succubus Supreme. So, I won't disappoint her with my doubts about reviving the Dark Angel.
"Rat, try to steal something from here", Chash asked Ratatouille.
The quickest way to motivate Ratatouille to perform his best was to make use of his greed. Ratatouille faithfully complied and tried touching everything, but nothing appeared to be physical in the castle.
Besides the castle building itself, everything inside was ethereal.
"Is this a dream?" Cassandra asked us.
"I remembered that Discord Island was something like this Delirium realm with furniture flying everywhere", I said to them.
Discord Island was where I attended college in Kalydon City in the Kalydon Confederate of Magic Colleges in the central region of the continent of the Ten-Kingdoms.
"In Discord Island, the place was chaotic. It only turned back to normal when I activated my chaos control magic", I added.
"You should try your chaos magic here", Rinna suggested to me.
"That is an idea", I replied to her hoping that her suggestion would be useful.
So, I tried to control the chaos in this Delirium space with my Upheaval magic. Upheaval magic was the chaos magic that I learned which controlled the chaos in Discord Island.
Suddenly my templar skies flashed uncontrollably as the stars in my templar sky rolled violently in irregular orbit.
"Damnit what's happening to my templar skies? It's worse than before", I complained to myself.
After I learned Upheaval magic, my templar constellations became chaotic. Only with the evolution of the uncontrolled stars into stable planets could my magic return to some form of normalcy.
My templar sky became chaotic again inside this realm of Delirium, including my supposedly stable planets which stabilized my chaotic magic.
"Your magic is working", Rinna told me gladly as our world was turning again.
While my templar skies were in havoc suddenly the castle turned back to normal, and we were on the floor again.
The overturned castle turned upright.
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"Welcome to Delirium", the knight in shining armor suddenly said to us to our surprise but now he suddenly transformed into a cat with stripes of yellow and blue on him and hung on his neck was a strap with a golden bell.
Ringgg…ringggg…ringgg
The bell on the cat rung as the cat floated around us in the castle.
"What just happened to us and this castle?" I asked the cat.
"Well, you finally reached Delirium. You are the first one who entered Castle Delirium in hundreds of years", the cat told me to my surprise.
"My templar skies are in havoc. Does this realm have something to do with that?", I said to him and asked.
"Your Upheaval magic reached the seventh stage, which allowed you to pacify the chaos in the outer room and allowed you to enter Delirium", he replied to me.
Like Discord Island, the overturned castle that we came into initially was like an outer, waiting room. Only after I activated my Upheaval magic, which was like a magical key, that we could enter the inner sanctums of Delirium.
However, there was a cost to the magic. Once released, my Upheaval couldn't be controlled and my templar skies went berserk.
"What about all those people who came in with us to the realm? The conjurers, didn't they also enter Delirium?" Melroy asked the cat.
"Well, they are all still wandering in the outer areas and if they can't stand the place they would be chased away by the clouds", the cat told us.
All the conjurers who came into this realm thought they were in Delirium, but they were only in the outer, outer waiting area that looked like a long canyon of cloud made hills, cliffs, and mountains.
Even when we reached the Castle Delirium, we only reached the outer sanctum of Delirium.
"It is really difficult to enter Delirium", I said to the cat.
"Of course, otherwise we will be too busy to entertain all these people who come with no good purpose in mind", the cat replied to me.
"This place is so much like Discord Island", I said to the cat.
"Oh, Discord Island I know that place. They mimicked the magic of our Delirium in its construction", the cat told me to my shock and surprise.
"Really?" I asked the cat, but he didn't reply to me.
No wonder my Upheaval magic could let us into Delirium. The source of our magic was the same or similar.
"I should have brought Dean Xander here", I said to myself amusedly.
Dean Xander was the dean of Discord College. He would be extremely delighted to visit this place if he knew.
"Now, would you like to have tea with me?" the cat with the bell on his neck asked us as the table turned into a tea party with multi-layered trays filled with cakes and sweets served with flying teapots that poured tea for me.
"Don't tell me a mad hatter will suddenly join us?", Sara asked the cat.
A magical tea party with a cat reminded me of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, a popular fiction in the world of my previous life.
"Oh, the Mad Hatter. He is probably in another Delirium", the cat replied to Sara to our surprise.
"There are more than one Delirium?" Sara asked but was not replied to on the question.
"Do you have a present for me? For coming to this place," Ratatouille asked the cat trying to see if he could get something useful from him.
"Of course, if you can answer my riddles", the cat told us.
"Ok shoot your question", Sara told the cat.
Sara contained the brains of the greatest supercomputer, and she could answer any riddle with her AI deduction. She was confident of passing the cat's test.
"What can't you eat during tea-time?" the cat asked us.
"Steak", Ratatouille replied to the cat, but he was suddenly turned into a cup to our horror.
"Wrong answer", the cat told us.