Nerding Day: Silver's Spells for Protection

Happy Curse Day! I’m dicked.

I’ve antagonized each corner of the coven, and it’s one of those horror shapes with infinite angles. You know, a circle. This Halloween, I’m not worried about curses. They can use fists. I’m one guy, and mortal jumping’s on the table. My future’s endless Doc Marten’s to the ribs, and I burned that kink out in undergrad.

Luckily, the magick shoppe clerks are on my side.

I asked for a spiritual greatshield. Something that could handle fireballs and insults. They were closing in ten minutes, but bookstores love that. The pressure makes it a game. Though this feels a bit light for a greatshield.

What kidders! This is our inside joke, where they pretend to hope I choke. Let’s see what else they left.

Pfft, I went to black middle and white high school. This card just says class started. The textbook’s in here somewhere…

Pay dirt. I assume. The mascot looks mandatory for high-fear Hades II runs. Well, without the Skull of Winning. For the uninitiated: the skull’s a weapon with the power to beat Hades II. The torches are close, unless your fingers work.

These aren’t just counter-curses: Silver Ravenwolf promises to prevent the entire Lifetime catalog. See the back cover:

The first spell: calling your stalker a nasty. Buying precious seconds of confusion.

Anxietymancers, your time has come. If you can catastrophize it, Silver can banish it. No idea if she can teach, but she seems to do fine. Sixteen pre-Skynet spellbooks require some stability. Environmental stability, not mental. Whether you face slander or parking near black people, Silver’s charms forestall panic by entire minutes.

Silver also wrote guides to boosting your bank account and body count, so she has something to protect. As far as spellbooks go, we’re going pop. I found them in a real bookstore, next to books from untaxed faiths.

That, and the name “Silver Ravenwolf” must be a red belt in imagination.

To be clear, Abundance means fat cosmic racks. Becoming the goddess of credit. Cashbending. It’s the smartest book called Abundance. I’d cover it today, but we’d lose our profits to rogues. First, we’ll learn to protect our future wealth.

Though that’s my spin. Silver can chant for herself. Let’s learn her spin on Sith Lightning.

Fuck. Then what in Baphomet’s balls is this? If evil’s powerless, this decade’s even more embarrassing. Civilization’s losing to the Washington Generals.

I’ve heard worse pitches. While I’m no logician, I hear 100% of problems start with bad things occurring. Still, I hoped for wytch-PVP loadouts. In case I have a conversation with Lochlainn. These sound like good luck charms for true crime addicts.

For once, the magickal k isn’t me being very mature. It’s victory surging through the alphabet. With Silver, we can finally become victors. It may sound like jumping at shadows while smelling like stale lavender and fresh urine. That’s just your state of mind. Channel the boomer spirits, and discover the fear of gateless communities that kept your forebears alive. They died anyway, but it took a while.

For all the Ren Faire art throughout, the text mixes genres: this voice is pure self-defense pamphlet. The 65/35 blend of fear and ego ensures you’ll lose the fight that never comes. These spells are just as real as winning a fistfight against two conscious adults. Though Silver’s grounded enough to include an escape clause:

A coin spins in midair: does the above mean Silver’s lawsuit-conscious enough to imagine chanting through a mugging, or lawsuit-blind enough to write spells for muggings? I think the former has a chance. She’s written table scrolls long enough to understand liability.

Either way, you need a pure heart.

Easy. Survey says:

It’s unanimous. I deserve and need protection.

As long as it’s easy, and I don’t have to leave home. Let’s start with Mage Armor. If I can tank the first few kicks, I can reach a subway cop. They won’t do anything, but I’ll know I tried.

Ah, anxiety drills. Therapists teach advanced wards every day. If daydreaming the Conan the Destroyer mirrors doesn’t pan out, ditch subtlety and imagine the womb. Lichproof or not, your blood pressure should dip a few points. Five minutes a day sounds like a lot to me, but I also graduated from a tool factory. Time is a gift to past tutors, present employers, and future graves.

Got it: Practice hard, or my shields might do nothing in a crisis. Now that my worthless meat is safe, what about my reputation? I can live without both feet, but will die in the snow if I lose six followers.

The public relations ward! I’m glad this came out in 2000, “cancel” makes for stiff rhymes. It’s not quite “pilfer a door hinge,” but you can always feel Tom MacDonald struggling. Here are the lyrics for hoarding garbage:

Like I said, stiff rhymes. Something about the topic nerfs verses down to Little Bo’ Peep. In Silver’s defense, here’s “Cancelled” by Motley Crue:

I prefer the garbage. The rotten lunch, not the new anthem. A little witchy confidence is all you need to survive the 13th Woke Crusade. It’s just gossip, not an indictment.

I’m concerned.

Silver’s drifted from the impossible and mundane to life-eating crises. If white magick isn’t a real, tangible force, we’ll make complicated Securis payments. If it is, I’d like to dip into a little dark magick. Just enough to skip picking a suit for sentencing. I trust my tutors’ wisdom, unless it turns gym time into an anxious struggle for survival instead of you get it.

It goes on for three pages. A fine use of your legal prep time, and last evening as a free wytch.

Nice promo for Silver’s Spells for Convicts. While I appreciate the growth from “take back your crap/you filthy rat,” love notes to Olympus don’t block orange jumpsuits. They just annoy lawyers, baffle judges, and delight checked-out juries. Forget I said anything, go for it. Jupiter never let a little DNA evidence slow him down.

Besides, Silver agrees with me. You can’t stake your liability trial on Mordenkainen’s Objection. There are two spells to piss away your public defender’s time.

I’ve seen this one. Not sure what’s up with the shoes, or how black talc and black pillar turn white. But you treat your lawyer before an all-nighter, closing argument, or second date. Pricey, but I get it. A believer fills every spell slot with Maximized Repel Bail.

Silver tends to make sizable promises. Great, if magick exists and you do it correctly like me. But if it were self-help poetry, I’d be concerned. There’s a “Sexual Assault Prevention Spell,” which I won’t mock in full as a templar of the woke crusade. Just know it says to imagine a “protective, white light” and mortal methods may help more.

Fair. We’ll go light: what’s Silver’s cure for the haters?

Haters is, of course, a catch all for people doing better than me. There’s really nothing ruder. I get cheating, but keep it subtle and stay a few cars behind. Lapping me proves that lazy children/spineless adults/fossilized elders lack standards.

Hotdog studies have granted me a sixth sense. Not for danger, magick, or adjunct-friendly openings, that’d be too helpful. Just for immense, crushing humiliation.

Fucking embarassing.

I must’ve stolen Silver’s limelight, because reading this hurt my self-esteem. I take myself less seriously, and skim my own tangents. I even fine myself for littering. Learn from my mistakes: don’t leave trash on your land. You own land, of course. Silver could’ve called this The Bougie Tarot.

Now, I know I’m judgey. But I’m also right. The spells so far are Imagine Godhood, Blight Haters, Melf’s Anti-Accuser Arrow, Corrupt Legal System, and Quickened Corrupt Legal System. This is dark magick. We’re getting twice the hell spells found in Belial’s Baleful Book of Burning Bindings. Silver’s just convinced she’s ontologically correct.

Hell yes. I never doubted you, Silver. Teach me the rites of the One Percent, Oh Mistress ov Suburbia.

Snitch magick sounds handy, but the rite’s a little more flexible. See, Silver’s just as concerned with abstract theft as the real kind. Fair, since this came out after a ten year crime rate dip. The growing wave must’ve been on the astral plane. Here’s the chant to punish anyone doing better than Silver:

Silver’s very worried about usurpation. Perhaps Goldie's Grimoire of Defense was climbing the charts. Perhaps the world is a hive of scheming thieves, plotting to take what Silver inherited fair and square.

For that purpose, the chant seems a bit soft.

There’s the juice. Silver said we’d skip curses today, and stuck to her guns. This is simply Stand Your Ground magick. Perfectly fine under the Hidden Amendment.

And proof that stereotypes blind you. I expected free spirits on the fringe, single-handedly propping up the sage and saffron markets. But there are wytches at PTA meetings. Think tanks. Turning Point memorials. When the court retires an amendment, one justice whispers “So mote it be.”

Thief has a few amusing wordfilters. Now let’s focus on my physical, literal property. The neighbors keep dump haunted trash on mine, and I’m fucking sick of it.

Check out all that nothing. I hate to sound like a melee class, but maybe something more tangible? If GOP magick peaked here, this wouldn’t be a failed state.

Ah, I should’ve already married an officer. Or at least slept with one. All the fuck-magick in other tomes keeps jackboots warm. I’ll grab Silver’s Spells for Love and head to the precinct. This came out when crimes per 100k slipped from 9.45 to 5.52, but who’s counting? Not Silver, and not my new fascist waifu.

Here’s a chant to show you’re on illegal drugs.

Seems odd. Ho. And a little tiresome. Ho. I can’t stop laughing. Ho.

Relationship status plays a small role here. If you’re new, they’re seizing your DMT. If you’re dating, they’re taking half. And if you married into the Inquisition, they have to sit through this. Every time. Repeat it every morning, if you want them home in one piece. Ho.

Silver explains, at unquotable length, that a pentagram looks like a badge. This is, like many unmedicated observations, technically true. Along with the following non-magick safety tips. I’m just not sure how we got there, or what this achieves.

Do you play “wallet frisbee?” Do you tell curious souls where you’re from? Do you french-kiss flagpoles? Do you marry police officers? Do you light magick candles in the courtroom hallway? Do you buy Confederate propaganda from Geocities pages, with your real human address? Your street smarts need work. Much like anyone that says street smart.

Nice Vynase ad. So far, we’ve stoked and nurtured fear. Now to buy a spiritual gun. When life gets dark, when you absolutely, positively need physical help in the physical world, summon a kill ghost.

She raves about Kali for some time. Silver’s vision of a Hindu Goddess talks like Dolly Parton. Inventive, like keeping dragon's blood in the fridge.

In fairness, dragon’s blood is just resin. To be less fair, this ritual’s six pages long for no reason. Kali gets endless breakup pings, skip to the name and smiting desired. To be wholly unfair, why does Kali come up first for white revenge? Paler gods spent millennia melting people for arrogant breath. Tell Athena to stop coasting.

Whatever. First, three pages of circle foreplay. Here’s the important bit:

Despite the word count, you make up most of the ritual. This happens a lot in spellbooks, so I’ll need you to make up the punchline. Maybe tie it into the ballroom thing? Shit’s crazy. As for the casting:

Bam! A murder ghost from the goddess of destruction. I’m glad we didn’t waste any time with dark magick, if karma gets the same body bags with better PR. I’ll pray to the spirits of Delayed Moral Transactions if my enemies burn. I think I’m ready for round one with Lochlainn now.

Against all odds, Silver’s delivered. My spirit and soft flesh aren’t any safer, but now I’m passively and pervasively aware of that fact. We’re finally armed for Halloween. While the crowd mimes context-free rituals to distract from a painful life, we’ll be witches.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: FancyShark, a mid-talent mime who accidentally became the most powerful warlock of all time. And he hands out full size candy bars on Halloween.

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