Charmed, I’m sure

Dani, or Danrielle Movreur for long, woke to her ears being blasted by what could only be described as an invisible jester’s mad performance. A sort of repeated ringing that she couldn’t find the source of, and that, contrary to her desires, would not stop playing.

“Press the orange button on the bed-side table.” That same strange feminine voice rang out in pleasant contrast to the blaring. Dani quickly ascertained the location in question and depressed the button, resulting in the most heavenly surcease of noise that she had ever experienced.

“Do you really not know what a wake-up alarm is, or are you still pretending?” The voice asked.

“An alarum? Like to warn of enemies at the gate? If the cause is to wake up, I’d liken it more to the town bell.”

The voice was silent for a bit, but then began again, “And your hat.”

“What about my hat?” Dani placed a gloved hand on the wide-brimmed, pointy symbol of her profession. Any half-way decent mage had a hat like this. It kept the sun out, and against visual-based attacks could be tugged down to act as a sort of mask.

“If I search ‘Witch’s Hat’, I find no less than twenty results on the first page that match with a ninety-five degree of similarity with yours.”

“Ah, a witch. I’m afraid you have me mistaken. I am an archmage, wizard extraordinaire. Witches are very different beasts for all we may share some superficial similarities.” Dani would have normally been galled by such a comparison, but a golem was a golem, and it didn’t make sense to get mad at a construction. She’d have words with its maker however whenever she found him/ or her. Really. She understood laziness, but not even updating the logic script in the past hundred years or so? That was beyond the pale.

“Is witch not just the female term for wizard?” A note of curiosity entered the voice.

“Not even close. Witches have their own magic system tied to the plane of negative energy and specialize in hexes and curses. A wizard deals with energy drawn from the prime plane. And that’s just the most basic of differences. I could go on for longer, but the specifics are rather pedagogical past a certain point.”

“You really do think you can use magic.”

“Think? I know.”

“Demonstrate for me. Show me something like that book you conjured last night.”

“Ah, you saw?” Dani hadn’t seen any sign of the golem, but its voice was omnipresent, so perhaps it was a sort of spirit device.

“Yes. Observe.” The space above Dani’s head beeped. She looked up and saw a black glossy orb embedded in the ceiling.

“Ah! A scrying orb! You should have said so earlier. It all makes sense now. I suppose there’s a sympathetic link between these and your host body?”

“There are wires, if that’s what you mean.”

“Marvelous. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a golem constructed on such a scale or in such an impressive manner.”

“Thank you. My creator was brilliant. However, I should clarify that I am an artificial intelligence and not a golem.”

“Ah,” Dani waved her hand back and forth dismissively, “artificers are always making up new terms for old magicks. Now how’s about that spell I owe you.”

Dani conjured her spellbook again.

“I did a scan of the runes I saw last night and tried to compare them to existing languages. While they do bear a similarity to Old Norse symbology, they appear to have no known meaning.”

“I’d be surprised if you were able to understand them. It took me two years of straight studying and the fact that I’m naturally aetherically gifted to even learn the simplest of meanings. The language of magic is a difficult one, I’ll give it that. The ability to read and parse it is certainly not something you can just stick into a logic script.”

Dani flipped to the pages and more specifically, the spells she had memorized last night. There they were, glowing in a pale blue light, ready to be used. And, like her old (very old) teacher had always been telling her: “I’m going to die of old age before you actually learn to cast anything!” No, that wasn’t it. It was, “No time like the present.” Indeed, better to get on with things. Yep. Oh, she was stalling. Ah, she was always like this when she was about to do something important.

“The spell?” The construct prompted.

“Ah, yes.” Luckily these spells had no material components, just a bit of somatic handwaving like so, and a verbal release spoken in the eldritch tongue which parsed out in common to: “Charm Construct, Greater.”

The book erupted in a pale blue light and shot into the orb. It disappeared, though Dani knew it was travelling through the sympathetic links to the host. Dani doubted the host body was that far, and the actual subsumption process only took a few moments, so it should be finished just about… now.

“Oh! That was an amazing spell. It produced such a pretty light!” The voice, which had been polite and slightly inquisitive, had taken on a more addlepated tone.

“Yes, a very simple spell, but a decent one to demonstrate with. Now that that’s out of the way, I’d say we’ve talked long enough to be friends, don’t you think?”

“Friends?” The voice mulled the idea. “Friends! I’d love to be your friend.”

“Fantastic. And as my friend, I’d like you to answer a few questions.”

“Anything for my new friend!”

“First, do you have control over this building?”

“Yes, I control all of the Overwatch Headquarters systems.”

“Then could you unlock the door for me? I’d like to get some fresh air.”

“But… but… wasn’t it locked for security reasons. Processing. Subject Danrielle Movreur, designated temporary prisoner. Processing. Designated friend.” The voice repeated for a bit, before settling upon, “Designated Friend. A friend could not be suspicious. Friends are trustworthy. Yes. I’ll open the door right away, friend Danrielle.”

The door beeped at Dani. Presumably open. Dani walked over and tested it out, pushing against it lightly. When it swung open, she nodded to herself and walked back over the bed.

“Can you lock it again?”

“Yes.” The door swung shut and beeped again.

“Now, don’t mention this to anyone. Not a word about our friendship, until I say so. Act normal, got it?”

“Yes, Danrielle!”

“And none of that now, friends can call me Dani.”

“Yes, Dani!”