Augustus 'Gus' Devries, a scruffy looking lanky dude with a goatee and shaggy hair, took a heavy toke from his bong, before returning his focus to the FPS he was currently playing. The sixth year college student had been spending the afternoon mostly goofing off, ignoring the calls from his sister since they were no doubt just to complain about some random high school crap, and waiting for his girlfriend Winnie to get back from her waitress gig.
Wait, no, my girlfriend's name is Charlie, right? No, no, what am I thinking, it's definitely Winnie. Man, how stoned am I
He was impaired enough at least to not take notice of the silver pentacle pendant he wore going ice cold against his skin several times through out the night as the protective charm his grandmother gave him a long time ago was battered by successive waves of magic. In any event he decided he'd had enough for the night, and decided to focus on the game till Winnie got back to their little shared apartment on the dingy side of Lakeview.
Eventually, an hour or so later, the door to their apartment swung open and he looked over from the couch, expecting to see Winnie letting herself in, only to be met with a startling site. It was a woman, wearing the same black and white waitress outfit Winnie had to wear for work, but it wasn't her. This chick was older, like way older, maybe close to his mom's age, with brunette hair and a tired expression on her face. She walked into the room like she lived there, kicked off her flats and said "ugh, baby, the tips are okay, but waiting tables for a bunch of rich people all night sucksssss." She padded over to the stunned Gus and kissed him on the cheek before he could do anything, "I'm gonna go change out of my work clothes. Meet you in the bedroom in a few minutes."
Gus let the controller fall from his hand as he opened his mouth to protest, before a sudden MASSIVE headache hit him, like a hot knife stabbing into his brain. This was his girlfriend Charlie, obviously. Why shouldn't she be at home, this was her place too and obviously she just wanted to hangout after a tough day at work. Except none of that was right. His girlfriend was Winnie, someone much closer to his own age who was only working the waitressing job to support herself until her acting career took off. But no, Charlie was the wannabe actress. Sure, she complained all the time that the only roles she got offered were as moms in commercials, but it was still her dream. He'd met Winnie at a school mixer; no, it was Charlie he'd met, but why had she been there? Sure Charlie was older than him, but he didn't mind, she kind of had a MILFY thing going on and besides, her kids were mostly grown so he only had to do the step dad thing with....
"FUCK!" He exclaimed as he tried to push the conflicting thoughts out of his head. Almost instinctively he drew a protective sigil in the air and surprised the shit out of himself when it actually made the headache less intense. Was this magic? Like his sister, he'd learned about magic from his grandmother when he was little, but unlike Athena, he hadn't been enamored with it. Mostly because magic was like a nearly extinct species of brill shrimp living in a volcanic vent; it might technically exist, but there was barely any of it, and it didn't do shit. Supposedly back in the day magic had been more plentiful, but there was so little mana in the air these days that most incantations and charms were next to useless.
Still, he didn't have a better explanation, and, pulling on long forgotten memories, he tried to open his third eye and see if there was anything mystic going on. Normally this did nothing, but in that moment he had to instantly close the eye again before he blinded himself, because there was magic EVERYWHERE. On him, back in the bedroom with Charlie, even in the ground and air around him.
"Whoa, something is seriously fucked up," he muttered, wondering what in the hell he was supposed to do.
I guess I should return Athena's call.
