Monster-making was always an interesting career no matter your specialty. Everyone who did it had to take on a long education and apprenticeship, much more schooling than was required of basically everyone else except doctors. Well, if you wanted to do it professionally, anyway. Just like with doctors, you could have an amateur practice set up with just about zero extra training, but you had to keep that label until you got your license. And Jared wasn’t an amateur.
Even after getting the license, such a Wizard had to both learn and master countless spells tailored towards whatever he wanted to make. Most wild monsters came from amateur practices that had to hire security to make sure nothing escaped, but there were licensed professionals who also made some. Then there were those who made Servants for various reasons and those who decided to make sapient monsters from themselves. And finally, there were people like Jared who took on requests to make monsters from humans: some for jobs, some for magical combat, and some for multitudes of other reasons ranging from obvious to inane. And then the mad scientists in Blacksburg opened a door to another world and Jared gained a host of clients who had no clue what magic could even do.
There was no standard practice when it came to how a monster-maker organized his office, but the fact that he would have clients from all walks of life who may or may not have chosen him specifically from the huge list of Roanoke-based practitioners meant Jared spent significant time gathering records of his past successes and scattering those around what space in the building was his. He didn’t need an ego boost: the records were just to provide examples for potential customers, hopefully weeding out those who might otherwise spend an hour in conversation and determine they didn’t really need Jared. Maybe they needed someone else, or maybe they hadn’t fully considered the service and what it meant, but reducing those kinds of appointments was better on his budget. Nobody was in this business to make a quick buck, and if your clients didn’t leave happy, you would be looking for another career pretty soon. Reviews were everything.
All that said, the current conversation was frustrating beyond belief.
The other world, low in magic as it was, had a rather large collection of people who would probably be transformation Mages if they had been born here. Well, some of them, anyway. Others probably should just be visiting psychiatrists or hanging out with friends more often, if Jared took a guess. He wasn’t a doctor but he was pretty sure that what he saw on the other world’s “internet” was different than what made Mages get spells here. (He’d had to take a trip to the other world after Eric went and directed clients to him from there. You couldn’t make monsters while over there, but you could learn more about your clients without having to speak in person.) This customer definitely made it sound like she was in the latter category; no matter his insistence, she kept talking about her “character” and how this imaginary person was different in personality and circumstance to herself.
“Eleanor, I work with Aspect magic. I can’t do miracles, and this is about you and your future, not ‘Katie.’”
“So you can’t make me match my character?” Eleanor pouted.
Jared professionally folded his hands on top of his desk. “My work is altering your physical appearance and magical abilities so that you can realize dreams previously out of reach. However, none of that allows me to change your personality or popularity. That is between you and God. You will, in all likelihood, experience some level of change in both, but they will not be a direct result of my efforts: you will be more capable, and as one of very few monsters in your world, you will be an object of curiosity for both those you already know and those you do not.”
“So… you can’t do it,” she asserted.
“Eleanor, I can make you look mostly like the creature in the image you provided, but no monster-maker can change who you are.” Unspoken was the possibility of becoming a Servant, a fate that he had a hard time believing anyone would choose. And while that might be able to change the appearance of the target’s personality, it would be forced upon the monster. He had no doubt the Servants at the Good Dogs Café were well cared for, but a creature with that kind of personality would be strange and off-putting. “If you want to be an upright golden retriever with magically enhanced agility and eyesight, I can do that, but if you just wish your family liked you better, you’ll have to work on those relationships yourself. And no, I do not have a colleague who could do any better.”
The girl, for once, fell silent. She had to have some intelligence to show up at Jared’s office; after all, she had to get past the portal security and be willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for this. So he sat and waited the minute or two while she considered his words. Eventually, her mouth opened again. “What did you mean that you could ‘mostly’ copy Katie’s appearance?”
This was a question he expected to be answering a lot and he’d already come up with the response while sitting in the other world’s library. “I can copy colors exactly and shapes generally. Whatever comes out of my work still has to be biologically stable. As an example, I know your culture likes things with unreasonably large eyes, but that would not occur in any normal monster.” He cast an illusion that mimicked his expected outcome for a spell that would make Eleanor appear as she liked. It was a decently close match, though obviously it wasn’t exact. “Would this sort of shape be alright? Tell me anything you would change; this is for you.”
Finally, finally, Eleanor showed some interest in things Jared could actually do. “Is that—is that Katie!?”
Jared shook his head. “No, it’s you. You, if you looked like this character you made. While I’m sure you went over the design a lot, I must remind you that this will be permanent, and nobody can change it ever, so it needs to be exactly what you want. And of course, you can use the standard one-week trial to test the form at home.” Nobody could make non-permanent spells last longer without applying Persist later, so that was the standard. It wasn’t the full change for being a monster, but it would let the potential client try it out around friends, family and coworkers before making a decision.
With that explanation, Eleanor gained a renewed interest in the image before her, standing up and sculpting it how she thought as long as Jared felt it was possible. And while she didn’t exactly skip out of his office, she seemed at least satisfied with her appearance as she left. He was pretty sure she’d ask for more normal colors if she returned for the full thing.
Not every hour of every day was spent in consultations. Not only would that not leave time for actually making monsters, but there weren’t enough clients to go around for that. Jared was thankful for his “down” time, but he spent much of it recently researching the other world, particularly in the vein of its electronic communications. Jared’s name and an inbox for him had been added to the “website” of a high-end “fursuit-maker” who happened to also be a very young adult. To be fair to her, the profession only required practice and artistic talent, much like a fashion designer. He felt her prices were a little steep, but they did make his look affordable by comparison, so he had no reason to complain. But with the inbox came reasons that he had to travel across the threshold every week just to see and respond to any inquiries.
Inquiries came from many different people with different expectations, but something Jared learned from examining the costumer’s website was that he could ask her to add some basic information about him and what he did, cutting back on items that people would know if they could access the information listings back home. Prices, how long he’d been in the business, specialties and so on that had always been by his name found their place on his “page,” in addition to quirks of the people of this world that came up a little too often and were frequently not something that visitors were willing to adjust. He couldn’t give them the education that came from living in his world in a single book, let alone one page, but he could at least avoid some common or odd questions that added to the stack of mail for him. Some still managed to get through, however, and even into his office.
“Can you make me into a robot?” the lean kid with glasses asked. He was holding up a drawing that resembled a metal lizarkin, but that last word was unfamiliar to the Wizard.
Jared took a moment to think about context before deciding it was better to ask than to puzzle through. “I’m sorry; I don’t know what a robot is.”
The kid (well, young man; Jared didn’t work with anyone under 18) sighed. It must be common knowledge in the other world. “A robot is a computer that controls a metal body. Or… it can use other materials, but metal is most common. Do you know what a computer is?”
“The electronic device, right?” Jared knew there was another, older definition, but he had a feeling that was deprecated even longer ago by the more technologically inclined world.
“Yes.” The kid had taken on a demeanor of talking down to Jared, but a few seconds later his posture and face changed with exclamation. “Oh! Sorry; I guess—I guess that might not be obvious over here. Sorry, I’m a sci-fi nerd, not fantasy.”
“It’s okay.” Jared took a moment to think about what had been said. If it was sci-fi…
Jared wasn’t the most avid pleasure reader, but he was aware of the genres described. Fantasy usually had different magic rules to the real world, and sci-fi tended to have more complex technology. He supposed that, technically, the portal connected two worlds that were each side of the genre: his world was like fantasy to the other, which was sci-fi to his own. If this boy wanted to be a robot, then maybe it was some kind of technology that mimicked a metal golem? But Jared was pretty sure all sapient golems started out that way, not as humans.
So he messaged a friend who specialized in something other than biological monsters. «Hey, Richard, got a question for you.»
«I have time,» came the response. «What do you need?»
«Do you know of any spells for turning a person into a golem?»
«Nah, sorry. I’ve not heard of any, either, though I could see the use. Might be good for a research project. Is that all?»
«Yeah, thanks.»
Jared’s guest was now staring at him. Jared’s eyes had been closed during the exchange, but he supposed it might look strange for someone unfamiliar with communication spells. “Sorry, I was asking a friend. If you want to be a golem—er, robot—that might be a project for your world. We can make sapient golems, but only from pieces of the maker.”
“Pieces?”
“Aspect magic can mimic some of other kinds of magic to a lesser degree. Soul magic is accepted as the reason for the offspring of creatures having souls; Aspect magic can create a copy of a part of a Wizard’s soul when we make monsters. We use that to make sapient monsters from things that were never human. But to turn a human into something else, we need a relevant transformation spell, and while I could turn you into a plant, neither I nor my friend can turn you into a rock.”
The boy (Cody, his name was) thought for a moment before replying. “Wait, did you say ‘plant’?”
“Yes,” Jared answered. “Does that interest you?” It looked like it did.
“Not me personally, no.” Oh, never mind. “But I know someone who might want that. Any sort of limits on it?”
“A few.” He listed them off for Cody: shape could be virtually anything, but it had to have a default shape and couldn’t just be decided on the fly; there could only be one kind of plant in it; you couldn’t add much other magic to it beyond basic senses and mobility; the monster couldn’t have any offspring. “And most importantly, the person would live virtually forever. We have a number of monsters here like that, but it might be kind of lonely on your world.”
“Do a lot of rich people do that?”
Jared’s brow furrowed. He couldn’t think of why that would come up. “Not that I know of. Why would they?”
It was Cody’s turn to look confused. “I thought rich people liked living forever. Oh, wait, would this cost a lot?”
It was one of Jared’s most expensive options, since the magic was hard and not a lot of his peers around here had learned the spell, but with the invocation of “rich people” he assumed Cody was thinking in the “millions of dollars” range. Jared shook his head a little before clarifying, “It is expensive, but not to the level that doing it once has me set for life. The base price, using a plant I already know, is eighty thousand.” That was about half as much as a beast hunter (the most lucrative business achievable by virtually anyone) made in a year; since materials without needing to learn spells cost virtually nothing, becoming a monster was more the price paid for the performing Wizard’s experience. You couldn’t charge too much, but getting a license did take a lot of time and money. And most of Jared’s work was with far more common—and therefore less expensive—options.
“Eighty–!” Cody whistled down the scale. “Okay, okay, I suppose I could have seen that coming. And I guess if it doesn’t happen, you wouldn’t know why rich people don’t do it. Though… why don’t you?”
“I did mention the loneliness, right? And I couldn’t stay a Wizard, which means I’d lose my job and couldn’t keep helping people. Wouldn’t have kids, and I like being human, too.” And there were concerns about true dragons, and, well, Jared believed people were made for a certain time and place. Living past that sounded a little like he was trying to play God with his life, a thought he found rather unsettling. He wasn’t going to question people who felt they could handle it, however. He mostly ended up using the spell with clients with terminal illnesses who just wanted a little more time. And no plant lived literally forever.
Cody sat in silence another minute before responding. “Okay. Okay, that’s a lot to think about. I’ll take it to my friend and let him decide, alright?”
“No need to hurry,” Jared said. “I’m not going anywhere.”