Nick had an ongoing sense of time passing, despite his limited thinking capacity. He knew his next task was to activate the other button and bad things would happen if he didn't. He didn't want to activate the other button though! He also knew he had 15 minutes to comply or the spell would drive him insane, or to his death, or something similarly horrible.
30 seconds had passed, there was a tingling. Nick now knew he was a quarter pack a day smoker, complete with habits, triggers, memories, and tendencies. He tried to panic but his brain only processed at one speed right now, slow. He is too young to smoke despite his new memories assuring him he regularly strolls in and doesn't get carded because he's a regular.
He understood now, this is a brainworm spell used to force compliance to specific actions. It's forbidden magic. Often, bad actors leave people with life ruining traits for non-compliance. or even delayed compliance. As a minute rolled over he felt another tingle. He now smoked about half a pack a day, and got wasted twice every 2 weeks.
Shit, no wonder he couldn't figure out what this spell did. It's fucking complex. His drinks of choice and brand and type of cigarette are preloaded. Memories to normalize the experience for him. Time triggered features, each progressing with each tick... his professors will love this! Wait, no he needs to fix this before...
He now smokes 3/4ths a pack a day, gets wasted and separately, high, 3 times every 2 weeks. It's trying to turn me into a complete delinquent!
Focused now on stopping the spell instead of how cool and intricate the spell is, he looked at the Grimoire and selected the second spell double tapping for casting. This too auto self cast. The sense of a spell effecting him was palpable. his grimoire which was 99% charged when he began was now hovering around 12%.
His sense of a timer counting up was still there as was the mental fog. "RECAST THE 1st SPELL TO REMOVE IT" The message was so mentally loud it was stunning, he tapped the mental spell to cast it.
Before it could load and cast Nick was turned into a pack a day smoker, gets wasted and high 4 times every 2 weeks, and is physically aging 4 years. He felt the spell wrap around itself and symbolically eat itself as the second instance of the casting went off.. The mental fog dissipated with the timer releasing his mental capacity to its full potential.
The command to recast the first spell was fading from his mind, in it's place was an address he had to get to under threat of "things getting worse". No timer. No brain fog. He just needs to go and converse with someone. His body was still tingling. Nick pulled out his phone and used selfie mode. little dots of facial hair were spreading up his cheeks, he was sure his body hair was thickening too, but 18 to 22 isn't as drastic as say, 16 to 20.
Nick held out hope that all this could be sorted out once he got to school and talked to his professors. On the bright side, he's technically old enough to drink and smoke now. Which will make ruining his life easier... "Ugh!" His voice was gruffer, his clothes were a little off as he completed a final growth spurt and he recognized the craving for a cigarette for what it was even though he never smoked before. His brain also whispered that he should drink tonight because he doesn't know how hard classes will be and he might have to study the rest of the week, along with a similar whisper for getting high.
The train will arrive in an hour... Nick groaned as his life shifted to noticeably less pleasant.
