𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘴 ۞ 𝙙𝙤𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚

11

"Woah." Lenore blurted out, causing Stephen to turn around.

"Lenore!" He exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing? You shouldn't be tampering with that." Lenore stood beside Stephen, now looking down at the book. She knew she was supposed to be stopping Stephen, but she was then overwhelmed with curiosity. Stephen saw this and he released a relieved sigh before bringing his attention back on the book in front of them.

"Dormmamu...Dark Dimension...Eternal Life." Stephen said out loud as he read what he saw on the book.

"What are these?" Lenore asked before both her and Stephen's attention was stolen by a crystalline wall forming in front of them, her eyes widened as it began growing in size.

"Stop!"

As of it had listened, the wall disappeared and the two sorcerers whirled around, following the voices of the people that rushed in. Lenore's body stiffened when she realized how much trouble she was going to get from them.

"Tampering with continuum probabilities is forbidden!" Mordo hissed at Stephen as he approached the both of them.

"I was just doing exactly what it said in the book!" Stephen rebutted, returning his gaze at the book in front of him.

"What did the book say about the dangers of performing that ritual?" Wong questioned.

"I don't know. I hadn't gotten to that part yet."Stephen replied with a quick glance towards Wong's direction.

"Temporal manipulations can create branches in time. Unstable dimensional openings. Spatial paradoxes! Time loops! You wanna get stuck reliving the same moment over and over forever... or never having existed at all?" Mordo yelled at Stephen before he turned to the Lenore, his eyes growing wide as if he'd been surprised of her presence.

But before Mordo could say anything to Lenore, Stephen caught his attention.

"Really should put the warnings before the spell." Stephen muttered as he shut the book closed.

"Your curiosity could have gotten you killed." Wong stated as he placed his hand over the book. He then turned towards Lenore, sending her a disappointed look at her way. "And you! You know what will happen if he did this and yet you just stood there and watched."

Lenore couldn't even lift her head and look at Wong out of shame, she nodded in agreement with Wong before saying, "I-I'm sorry."

"You weren't manipulating the space-time continuum... you were breaking it." Wong took the book from the table and before he walked away to put it back on the shelves, he added, "We do not tamper with natural law. We defend it."

"How did you even do that?" Mordo questioned Stephen, now standing in front of the table and point his finger at him.

"Hmm?"

"Where did you learn the litany of spells required to even understand it?" Mordo asked again.

"I've got a photographic memory. That's how I got my M.D. and Ph.D. at the same time." Stephen replied.

"What you just did... takes more than a good memory. " Mordo commented pointedly.

"I-It's like..." Lenore finally spoke up, bringing all the mens' attention to her, Lenore looked up from the floor and met Stephen's eyes. Her dream from months ago had flashed into her mind. The man standing face to face with that gigantic creature, it was starting to add up but she refused to believe that it was him. it couldn't be him.

She continued after a deep breath, "...You were born for the mystic arts."

"And yet my hands still shake." Stephen muttered angrily, looking down at his hands. Lenore stepped closer to Stephen and placed her hand on top of his right one, giving it a soft, reassuring squeeze.