Dream idea: Love and Warlocks

I had another story dream last night.  It's my habit to write these sorts of things down, and the last time I shared one with you guys, you liked it.

So here it is: The dream I had that I might actually write one day.

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Max lives in a big house with a lot of people.  His background is mysterious.  He showed up years before, half-dead, and managed to save Lyria’s life almost with his last breath.  He was taken in after making a choice to never leave.  This choice, and a magical binding was the price of saving his life.  He must work to pay off his debt.  Since then, he has worked as a lowly gardener and custodian.

He has a friend in a house, a girl he is very close with, Lyria.  She is in her early 20’s, and always looks sad.  One day she screams, suffering a huge scare.  When people run into her room, including Max, they are shocked to see an image on her TV of one of her friends being killed in a grisly and bloody way.  The TV is unplugged--the image is an astral projection.

Nobody knows if the projection is a result of Lyria’s link with her friend, or if it was a sadistic sending.

She is examined by several arcane doctors, part of the magical underground.  They conclude that she is under a curse.  In fact, she’s been afflicted her entire life since she is so close to the other world and surrounded by spirits, even including bite and scratch marks.  But now they are healing and she has not gotten any new ones.  Whatever this new curse is, it's so bad that it's actually overwritten or destroyed whatever she was under before.  The doctors conclude the curse is so powerful, and whatever is hunting her is so malevolent that the other spirits are afraid.

An investigation is launched.  Lyria’s coven is being killed one by one.  A man is found to be responsible for two of the murders, but after he is dealt with, yet another girl is killed.

Max knows it’s not over, and all of Lyria’s family and friends do too. Despite their power, they feel confused and helpless.  Even Lyria’s father, the head of the house and one of the leaders of the North American witches and warlocks is at a loss.

Lyria leaves the house to visit some of her friends/coven.  While they are in a shop having tea, Max addresses some of the other family and workers who are in a bus.  They all basically came to shuttle Lyria to her meeting and back.

Max believes he should be taken seriously.  He tries to tell everyone about his plan to keep Lyria safe and to bolster their defenses.  After listing all the various ways that the curse may affect Lyria and ways to combat them, he is interrupted.  A man angrily demands that Max follow him, and he reluctantly follows.

Outside the bus, the man tells Max to get into his car.  He’s one of the managers of the house help--not of the family, but has a lot of authority--basically Max’s boss.  He tells Max to STFU, that Max is not part of the family, not even security.  His job is to clean, so he should clean.  “Never forget your place.”

Max gets back on the bus.  After a while, Lyria gets back on the bus, too.  Her eyes are red.  She tries to talk to Max.  Even though they have different social standings, they are close.  She tells him that after she’s gone, he shouldn’t mourn her too much.  He tells her that is not her choices to make.

Lyria and Max’s feelings for each other are an open secret in the family, but because everyone knows, they also watch them like hawks to make sure no impropriety happens.

Then Max finally decides on something he’s been putting off for a long time.  He tells Lyria that he’s going to leave the house.  Lyria doesn’t say anything.  She cries more, silently, and throws the teddy bear she’d been holding, a gift from Max years ago.

Max knows that it truly is only a matter of time before Lyria is killed the way things are.

After a meeting with Lyria’s father, Max prepares to leave.  A few people from the house say goodbye, but not Lyria.  She has been hiding out in her room since his announcement.  Max’s heart hurts, and a bunch of people in the huge house hate his guts now, believing he had unnecessarily broken Lyria’s heart during her greatest hour of need.

When Max had first come to the house, he’d had some basic weapons.  He’s given these back, along with the clothes and everything else he’d had back then.  All of his stuff, like his computer and such had been left in his room.  As he’s leaving, he’s hit with a memory charm that wipes all of his memory of his time in the house.

Max leaves, and temporarily has no idea how he got where he finds himself.  He finds a note in his pocket, though: instructions written to himself.

He heads out, and does a few things to alleviate suspicion and shake any tail that might be watching him.  Then he follows his note, heading to a safehouse he had set up years and years ago.

Once there, Max takes a memory stick from his pocket and catches up on the last few years of his life.  It turns out witches are terrible with technology, and didn’t even know things like flash drives existed.  Max was able to have one bought and smuggled to him a year ago.

Once Max fully understands the situation, he gets a handful of his memories back, mainly of Lyria because it’s very difficult for magic to create or alter love.

And Max has power of his own, power he’s hidden for years.

Max is a psionic.  His kind and witches are usually enemies.  In fact, he was not able to use any of his power in the past because of the geas he was placed under while living in Lyria’s mansion.  He didn’t even try to protect his mind when it was wiped or he would have been under suspicion, or even killed while relatively defenseless.  Now he was completely restored, though.

After arming himself appropriately and replenishing his power, Max heads out into the night.  Lyria’s family is too stubborn and narrow minded to protect her or discover who is threatening her, but Max is different.

He’s going to save the girl he loves, and likely spill a lot of blood.  Nothing is going to stop him.  Max was the youngest Enforcer to ever be recognized in the magical world, and while he was working at the mansion, he’d done nothing but train and hone his mind for years.

The next time he met Lyria’s father, it would not be as a custodian, but as an equal...and Max doesn’t have any promises or covenants to hold him back.