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Message-ID: <39167asstr$1036555802@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Medea F.K." <medeafk@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} The Book of Water (F-solo, magic)
Date: Tue,  5 Nov 2002 23:10:02 -0500
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	In a basement shop, hidden along a side alley in the old downtown area of 
the city, sits a bookstore.  The location is terrible for attracting 
passers-by, but the owner, Cassie Stevens, doesn't mind.  It keeps the 
tourists away, she says when friends ask why she doesn't move it to 
somewhere more favorable.  The store's collection is mostly used and rather 
eclectic.  There are sections for literature, history, mythology, and 
religion, as well as the occult.  The occult books are what attract most of 
her customers, who enjoy being able to pick up an interesting novel to read 
at the same time.  You never know what you'll find on the shelves at Onyx 
Books.
	The selection is impressive, but the tastes of her customers often 
disappoint Cassie.  She keeps a variety of new-agey texts in stock--not 
because she likes all of them them, but because they sell.  The same goes 
for glossy mass-market spell books that any halfway-knowledgeable person 
knows are a joke.  People are forever trying to bring her yet another copy 
of _1001 Love Spells and Potions_.  There are already three on the shelf, 
and it's a popular book, but not one of the spells work, which might explain 
why it always shows up in someone's hands on Saturdays, the store's buying 
day.
	For people who are willing to dig a little further for the real stuff, Onyx 
also provides a very thorough assortment of more reputable books, including 
some of the more rare volumes.  The most rare items that the store buys tend 
to remain in Cassie's private library, though.  There are some things she 
doesn't want going to the wrong person.
	One particular Saturday in fall, she'd turned down not only two copies of 
_1001 Love Spells_ before noon, but also _Animal Spirit Summoning for 
Dummies_ and a copy of _Lizard Magic_ that was covered in some sort of 
sticky residue.  It was getting late into the afternoon, and Cassie didn't 
expect to get much more business before closing.  While she didn't mind 
walking around at night in this neighborhood, enough of the customers did, 
so she tended to close around dusk, even in the winter.  She had left the 
counter to reshelve a few items when the door opened and one more seller 
walked in, carrying a large cardboard box.
	The customer was a woman in her forties, wearing dark clothes and looking 
very tired.  She set the box down onto the counter with a thud.  Cassie 
hurried back over to help her.
	"I want to sell these books," the woman said.
	Cassie opened the box up and started to look.  "Hmm, some good mythology 
collections... we don't buy romance series, but I'll take the tatting 
patterns. "  She began separating the books into two piles.  "What's this?" 
she said, unearthing a small, thick book with a faded cloth cover.  She 
opened it up.  The book was hand-written like a journal, but in German, and 
her quick glance was enough to tell that this wasn't an ordinary diary.  
"Where did you get this?"
	"All of these belonged to my mother," the woman told her.  "She died last 
month, and it's been so hard, sorting through her belongings.  I don't 
really care how much you'll pay for the books, I just want to be done with 
it."
	"I'm sorry about your loss," Cassie said.  "I'll take these," tapping the 
stack with the unlabeled book.  "How does $20 sound?"
	"That's fine."
	"Would you like cash or a check?"
	"Cash."
	Cassie wrote down the purchase, and then pulled a bill from the cash 
drawer.  "Just out of curiosity, why did you come here to sell those?  It's 
a little out of the way."
	"This was my mother's favorite bookstore.  It seemed like the right place 
to go."
	The woman quietly put the money into her purse and left.

	Later, after the store had been locked up and Cassie was sitting alone in 
her apartment, which was really just a series of rooms off the back of the 
store, she pulled the book out again and began to try to figure out what it 
was.  Opening to the first page, she read, "Das Buch des Wassers, 
Abschrifterin Margot von Kreuzburg.  Okay, that's The Book of Water, 
then..."  She looked up Abschrifterin in a translation dictionary, pulled 
from a nearby shelf.  "Oh, transcriber.  Hmm, this must be Margot's 
handwriting."  She turned the page.  "Einleitung.  The introduction?"
	Over the next few hours she worked out a rough idea of the contents of the 
book.  The first few sections were dedicated to the discussion of various 
sorts of Wassergeister (water spirits), followed by a series of spells to 
invoke them, and then descriptions of how the book's author, whoever that 
had been originally, had made use of them.  There wasn't anything to 
identify the author, or explain Margot's involvement in this.  Cassie 
wondered if Margot might have been the woman's mother.  She made a note to 
look up the name online, and see if it was connected to anything else that 
might be relevant.
	One of the descriptions towards the end caught her attention.  It sounded 
like the author had a rather trippy experience involving something called 
Heissfluss.  The text described the feeling of loss of physical boundaries, 
some kind of melting, and the tactile experience of interacting with 
physical objects.  She wasn't entirely sure if she understood the tone of 
the description, but it sounded rather erotic.  Cassie hadn't heard of 
anything quite like this.

	Onyx Books stays closed on Sundays, leaving plenty of time for a little 
research.  She started with a Google search on "Margot von Kreuzburg".  The 
only result was an obituary, dated October 3rd.  It seemed that the guess 
about this being the deceased mother was correct.  Then she checked the 
occult literature indices for references to the book or the spirits 
mentioned in it.  _Das Buch des Wassers_ wasn't listed anywhere, nor was the 
English translation of the title.  She had a little more luck with some of 
the spirits.  A few of them were mentioned in passing as part of the myriad 
assortment of minor naiads.  They all sounded pretty harmless.  No 
Heissfluss, though.
	She was reluctant to try a new spell without more information, knowing far 
too many stories of people who had gotten killed (or worse) by assuming that 
something was harmless when it wasn't.  On the other hand, the spell was 
almost certainly only perception magic, since actually changing form 
requires considerable power and skill--and her curiosity was eating at her.  
She wanted to see what this was like.
	Cassie managed to hold off until after dinner, but finally she gave in and 
decided to try it out.  Checking the book for directions, she set a large 
bowl on the kitchen floor and filled it with water, then added a few drops 
of cinnamon oil.  She sat down in front of it, reciting the protection spell 
she always used before doing magic, "Emitte Spiritum tuum, Domine, et 
custodem."  Then she read out loud:
	Kommen Sie, Heissfluss, Wassergeist.
	Geben Sie mich Ihr Gegenwart
	und bezaubern Sie mich mit Ihrer Begabung,
	von jetzt durch Mittersnacht.
She set the book down and plunged her hand into the bowl.  Suddenly 
everything seemed to dissolve, and she couldn't see anything.
	It felt a lot like she had turned into a puddle on the floor, which didn't 
seem terribly exciting.  Then she noticed a tingling feeling, somewhere 
around where her toes should be.  Out of reflex, she tried to move her foot, 
and noticed that it changed the feeling.  "Maybe I can ooze around on the 
floor a little."  She pictured herself trying to move in different 
directions, and discovered that doing so made it feel like her skin was 
being brushed gently with something soft.  "Ooh.  I like that."
	She tried different things to see how it would feel, like rolling in one 
direction or rocking back and forth.  It all produced a similarly pleasant 
sensation.  The more she moved, the more the feeling spread beyond the 
surface and permeated her.  She was starting to understand the description 
in the book.  It was a lot like turning into an amorphous sex organ, if such 
a thing could exist.  Her sense of physical self was dissolving, making her 
feel less like a discrete entity and more like she was in some kind of 
erotic limbo.  She continued to wiggle in different ways, letting the 
feeling wash through her.
	Soon she was aroused to the point where she would normally be sighing and 
gasping, if the spell hadn't oddly removed the feeling of breathing.  The 
sensations felt wonderful, and she pulsed, reaching for that last bit of 
stimulation that would push her over the edge, feeling her climax build, 
focusing only on getting there--and then it happened like a waterfall, 
rushing through her and holding--until finally she relaxed, resting in the 
pleasant aftermath.
	Afterwards she must have dozed off, because there was nothing else until 
she became aware of being back in her body and sitting on the floor, one 
hand pruny from being in the bowl of water all night.  She looked up at the 
clock on the wall, which read 12:01.  "My, that was some spell," she said to 
herself, smiling.  Cassie cleaned up and put the book away for another day, 
and then went to bed.

	----------------------------------------------------------
Notes:

The German incantation translates to:
	Come, Heissfluss, water spirit
	Give me your presence
	And enchant me with your gift
	From now through midnight

Heiss means hot in German (and has strong sexual connotations if you're not 
careful about how you use it), and Fluss is the word for river, flow, and 
flux.  So the spirit is named Hot River or Hot Flux, something of that sort.

The protection spell should translate to 'send out your spirit, Lord, and 
protect me'.  My knowledge of Latin is pretty meager, though, so I may have 
made mistakes.  If you happen to know Latin, please let me know if it needs 
to be corrected.  Thanks.

There will probably be more stories about Cassie in the future.  I'd like to 
write something exploring her history and the structure of the world she 
lives in.  Stay tuned.

--
Medea
medeafk@hotmail.com		http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/medea/www




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