The World of Traps

(That is a exploration of some recurrent tropes in erotic video-games. My focus in this instance is worldbuilding, but the story starts in it, hopefully, by itself.)

Magic has been the dominant **** in our world since as long as registered memory can account for. The most powerful wizards ruled nomadic clans before the first cities could be born. With the weakest magic user being able to reshape reality, control minds and kill with a gesture, those without the living fire in their hermetic core have little chance to match wizards.

Most mages are still **** to be murdered by surprise, in their sleep or moments of weakness. They can still be supplanted by the weight of numbers, but at overwhelming costs.

Those non-mages how decided to make that huge sacrifice to free themselves from their own wizards soon regretted this imprudent decision. Finding themselves without defences against strange wizards and their armies of loyal followers. Nevertheless, the possibility of rebellion, as unlikely as it was, prevented the absolute enslavement of all non-magic populations by a few shamans. Some balance had to be found, and it was never easy to keep, or could be taken for granted.

Civilization emerge under the protective shadow of Wizard Warlords. The passages to other worlds are found by magic researchers and carefully explored. The most powerful mages became those who control a Root Well, this portal that allow the summoning of entities from other realities. “Fishing” in the Well is an arduous and difficult process, but the investment is compensated with considerable profit.

The most powerful among the Wizards develop ways to build parallel realities. Isolated dimensions, that can be as small as a wardrobe, or as large as a village. Capable to escape to those places, completely safe from intrusions since no one can enter or leave without their permission, those wizards became practically invincible. Able to escape at any time, recover, and wait for a convenient time to resume a conflict. Time still catches up with those masters of magic, eventually, but except for that they are deities made flesh.

Only one in 5.000 individuals have living fire in their core. The percentage was much smaller, for most the History of Shayshig, because only men can have the living fire, it is not even transmitted through matrilinear line, and Wizards almost never have male children. Their seed almost always generate daughters.

As Hermetic Doctrine teaches, all living animals are basically females. Metaphysically, an outwardly element mutates the feminine principle before the embryo is formed, an that is what causes the existence of males. The living fire can attach itself to that part of the soul, when the embryo acquires male essence.

Because all living animals are primarily, at their core, females, magic can reshape reality turning a man into woman. However, the opposite is impossible. The change is irreversible.

There is no reason to do that to non-magical men. In fact, it is a serious crime. Wizards learn in their first lessons in battle magic how to shield themselves against this transformation. But there is a reason to do it to wizards. And the Hermetic Society developed in the most recent 700 years around that reason. Magic duels are structured between adversaries who have equivalent power and skill, and agree to duel in such way, risking all their possessions and their very freedom. Along with their sex.

The prize is ram power, and the potential to learn all the spells your foe knew. You still need to “digest” those spells by practice. But they are yours, while usually sharing spells is a matter of national security, something wars are fought for, alliances and arranged marriages negotiated. Also yours is the cultivated magic power of the wizard defeated by you. All the possession of the “dead” wizard go to the victorious, and the woman the wizard turned into also became his enslaved property. The risk is compensated in that way, by significant reward.

Some 150 years ago smart and less than irreproachable wizards started exploring a newly developed way to make their raise to extraordinary power less risky for themselves. Virtually free of danger, actually.

The strategy was named “Wizard Schools”. That strategy consists in use the Root Well to invoke individuals who have the living fire in their souls. But came from Universes where magic is not explored. Completely naïve.

For a period that variates between 1 and 3 years the preys are mislead by some fantastic tales. Given magic instruction, training, exercises. Just nothing about combat.

Some, the less promising, are liberated in the world to raise the percentage of wizards in the nation. The rest get their first and last lesson of magic-duel. It is a mockery of duel, the Head-Master of their “School” easily destroy the student, to steal the magic power.

Those are small drops of power, nothing compared to a proper master. Nevertheless, they are obtained without risk. And quantity, over the years and decades, compensates the small amount of power from each defeated “apprentice”.

The strategy is indecent and those who use it became infamous in the civilized Hermetic Circles. Despite that, society is hard pressed into complicity. Because the Wizard Schools are really valuable as a source of additional magic power. Nations depend on their magic might more than on any other weapon, and one exceptionally powerful Wizard is usually preferable to hundreds of mediocre ones.

In consequence, the Hermetic World end up acting as accomplice, by turning a blind eye to this subject.

Our main character was brough to Shayshing as prey, through one of those walls. Promised the chance to return to his world, and save it from some imminent disaster with the magic he was about to learn here. In reality there is no imminent disaster. And the wizards of Shayshing never learned how to send people to other Universes, only how to bring them. No one told our character those things.

Everything went as planned. Until the “Lesson One” of Magic-Duel.

However, during the duel some eldritch manifestation emerge from main character’s bone marrow. Leading to his unexpected victory.

The old Head-Master ends the duel **** on the floor. A gorgeous 20 years old lassie.

No one can explain what happened.

Well, the transformation is what you expect in any duel. No matter how old, or how ugly, the wizard is, the girl he becomes will always be gorgeous, and look around 20 years old. The part impossible to explain is main character winning this “duel”.

Regardless of any other consideration. We now have our main character as the owner of this fortress and surrounding valley. Needing to decide whether or not close this “Wizard School” for good. He as a Root Well inside his domains, of course. His position in society in this nation is around the lowest of the Hight Noble Wizard-Houses. He is not, by any stretch of imagination, the richest or the most powerful men in this nation. Nevertheless, he is rich, and he is powerful.

As far as magic goes, he has potential. However, he knows and can use only the spells he was taught during this one and a half year of “preparation” to became a victim. That is virtually nothing, by the standards of Hermetic Society on this World.

The first challenge here is to understand the real measure of his situation. Not that his position in society is drastically changed. For the better.

On the same time, or practically so, he must assume the obligations of a wizard in this nation. With the responsibilities that accompany that.

Also, of course, he needs information about the situation of his property. And the only person how knows some of that happens to be the same one who was lying to him, with devious and cruel intentions. A proper master wizard with far less ram power than what he now has would easily extract total obedience with one look, but our main character knows almost nothing about how to make spells. He does not have experience in ****, and has a limited portfolio of options to consider outside those two.

Time in this place waits for no one.

Since the main character is now free to explore this world beyond the area controlled by his Wizard School, he finds a significant variety of opinions about magic, govern, this and other worlds. Also, a surprising predominance of women in society, and beautiful young women mostly. Magic is responsible for that, in a few ways.

Wizards can protect themselves perfectly by magic, unless they voluntarily deactivate the pertinent spell for duel. During wars enemy wizards kill each other, but cannot turn each other to steal the enemy’s power. Normal soldiers carry enchanted items with the same protective effect, but those items are less guaranteed, and in any case they can be taken from the fallen soldiers. This vulnerability leads to a larger use of women as soldiers and bodyguards, since those born and raised as women can train for years and get acquainted with the arts of combat in their own natural bodies.

Men who are turned into women lose all their trained reflexes, and need to learn again how to fight.

That collateral effect of transformation spell, that turn all men older than 20 into women around 20 years old. It works still every time the spell is used on a woman. Even if she cannot be turned into a woman, she is still turned into a gorgeous young woman. Most mutilations, scars and diseases disappear, along with old age. What means that any woman with money to pay for the services of a wizard, or wizard friends, has access to basically eternal youth in perfect health. Something the wizards themselves do not have. This is another factor that pushes up the percentage of women in society here.

All old and ugly people, practically speaking, end up being men.

And on top of that, even, some uses of the transformation spell do happen. Despite being crime, seriously punished when exposed.

Enemy nations send constantly wizard saboteurs to turn the few male sons of wizards into women, preferably in the bellies of their mothers still. That same transformation is done, also illegally, by wizards, to the unborn sons of commoners. Because only men can legally inherit real state and act as heads of families. Vote in the Senate or be Judges. Or, sometimes, just because the idea of a society with more beautiful women and less ugly men feels appealing to the average wizard.

By natural statistic distribution, helped by the benefit of experience, women end up dominating the vast majority of activities they are allowed to participate. Most small and medium business, and activities that can function well in rented buildings, ships or wagons, are conduced by women, who remain unmarried by absolute lack of option. Since men are less numerous.

As for technology, govern has a Ministerial Castle dedicated to control the uses of technology from other universes in Shayshing. Preventing cultural contamination that could lead to anarchy.

That is why most houses still use oil lamps, and most men still own swords and crossbows. High noble houses can afford electricity for few hours a day, and can get minor convenient gadgets like vacuum cleaners or radios as tools of status. They also defend themselves with revolvers, but don’t expend bullets too liberally, because those things are expensive. Military Forces have not only fire weapons but even self-sentient drones, magnetic cannons and ****-fields. All that is hard to get, and cannot match the most powerful spells, but provides an edge to the centralized govern.

Negotiate those items according to law, through regular channels authorized by the Ministerial Castle of Root Affairs, or sell them in the black market, are ways to explore the Root Wells. And get enough to pay the necessary taxes and costs of sustain a Wizard Domain in this nation.

In addition to that, of course, all wizards must participate in military exercises, keep themselves prepared to fight for the nation in case of war. And they must also assist local authorities in keep the law, when required. As much as keep it themselves inside their domains, capturing, judging and punishing criminals by their own initiative. With little supervision from arcane authorities.

Other than tax collectors, mundane authorities seldom visit the domains of a wizard. However, when tax collectors came, you do stop anything you are doing to give them your undivided attention. Because those are potentially dangerous visits.

As long a wizard pay his taxes and is not caught selling tech in the black market, he can implicitly do about anything with those under his power. Inside his domain or even those who live around it. Fail in the second can lead to serious consequences in the long run, but fail in the first means immediate imprisonment and potential ****.

The Church of Ashes, with its nuns dressed in grey robes, monopolises the Financial System in this world. Their temples act as the only legal Banks. And our main character will soon need to borrow money from them.

You have to pay the interest of those contracts religiously. Goes without saying. Fail to do so is almost as bad as fail to pay your taxes.

The Church of Ashes is the official religion in this nation. They have the Black Sisters, responsible for charity, education of masses, and to perform the public rituals required by the people. The Green Sisters deal exclusively with farming, mostly agriculture and the breeding and taming of exotic animal species brought from other universes. The Grey Sisters are the ones who deal with finances, administrate the church and perform the internal religious rituals, they also rule the Church of Ashes as an institution. There are the Red Sisters, who deal with arranged marriages, train women to be wives, and also control the Pleasure Temples, holly brothels basically. Source of health and additional influence for the church. Finally, there are the White Sisters, in charge of internal security and discipline, and also of training and controlling the Ashe Knight Orders, orders of knights that constitute the private army of their church. Also, the White Sisters have one of the most efficient and wild spread nets of spies on the country, disputing with the Royal Court of Shadows and with the Silent Circle that works for the Arcane Senate.

All things considered, our main character is lucky to be here. As the Multiverse goes, that is an excellent place to enjoy life. Specially when you are a wizard with a Root Well in your hands.

That eldritch entity connected to the explosion of power responsible for save him may complicate his situation here, a bit. A White Sister of Ashes will be the one to find out the ancient nature of that entity, considered a demon for ancient and forgotten civilizations. Once imprisoned and believed destroyed, now, apparently, free to seek vengeance from humanity in Shayshing and beyond.

Aside that, and even despite that, our fellow here was blessed by destiny, when that spell fished him in the middle of his affairs on Planet Earth. A lot of fun was waiting for him on this amazing alien universe.

For as long as he managed to survive all that fun.