"Problem?" Mercury asked.
"Ex-boyfriend," indicated Urd. "You're familiar with the Cards?"
"No not really." Mercury indicated. "When you're stuck in a ring most of the time, it gets difficult to keep abreast of all the latest developments."
"Okay, 'Readers Digest' version," said Urd, sitting on a flat rock. "During the Age Of Magic there was a mighty sorceress named Arhella Clow."
"Not Clow Reed?" Mercury asked, taking notes.
"Different deck and operating conditions. Arhella was after creating a palace where she could really get away from things and so created a set of rituals that created an 'island' in space/time - a pocket universe she could access whenever she wanted. She gave it up when she discovered that these worldlets could only be accessed from the outside. Her work was discovered and seized on by a guy named Dwellon who decided that as these pockets had everything needed for life, he could put things like his favorite horse in there and the horse would have forage and he could pull him out whenever he was needed. That the horse never got much older wasn't discovered until later.
"Dwellon went around putting a variety of animals and creatures in these little pockets for awhile and it would have just been a handy thing except Arhella decided that as the whole idea had started out as hers, it should be hers exclusively. She got together with some other mages she felt she could control and they decided to split the additional findings over Dwellon's dead body. Naturally, after the dark deed the six killers disagreed on things and split up - each running around and capturing things to use in their attempt to 'one up' or destroy the others.
"They eventually ran afoul of a more powerful mage who wasn't a 'one trick wizard' and got their heads handed to them. That wasn't until a lot of people and things were in those pockets. I was an alchemist, one of my sisters a White Mage, and the other a techno-mage. After a lot of time in imprisonment, each of us was altered by the inherent magic of our prisons." Urd made a gesture, conjuring two apples. She handed one to Mercury and started eating the other herself.
"So couldn't you be freed by this more powerful mage?"
The two glanced over at Saturn who blushed at being caught eavesdropping.
"Yeah, we could. Problem is that it's difficult and requires all the Cards be gathered. That and there's benefits to being Card bound that a genie doesn't have. The Card is just a gateway. You can ignore the gateway if you want. So there's none of this 'forced to do someone's bidding' crap. If Keiichi signs the card, all that means is that he's got a lock on the access. There's also the increased power you have due to the link you've got to your island."
"I found it," yelled Keiichi from some distance.
"Just sign it and put it away," called back Urd. "You don't want to bother with that one."
"So you can be summoned for up to an hour, and it takes an hour for the 'doorway' to recharge," said Mercury. Not nearly as powerful as a Warrior Genie, it seemed. "How many cards?"
"Summoning deck is 12," answered Urd. "Not counting any cards that he's made in the meantime."
Keiichi announced his arrival by showing Urd the card. "Not what I expected."
Urd glanced at it.
(Posted Sat, 12 Oct 2002 14:47)
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