Easy Solution Guaranteed, Just Add Clones

L’vanquiet leaned over his oak workbench. Littered with mystic ingredients, wands and potions galore, it looked like the kind of mess you’d only expect from a magical genius. His tower walls were plastered with diagrams for new projects, list of ingredients to stack up on—the list of lists goes on. The only furniture he needed otherwise was his desk and chair, along with an assortment of cabinets for ingredients and shelves for books.

He growled and swept his arm across his desk. Various beakers and batches of herbs fell to the ground, with a few that smashed to pieces. With his hands buried in his hair, he released a scream that raged into the heavens.

“It’s too much! My genius is a curse,” he said to himself. “For no matter how hard I work, I cannot satisfy the ills of this world.”

In a similar fashion to him, I leaned over my desk in my room, staring down copious amounts of homework on my desk and the twenty Motoshop projects on my computer, along with a partially edited lore document. I’d managed to shave off about a couple pages, but I knew it’d be a challenge beyond challenges to get our extensive lore down to a manageable four pages. rainDrips provided a good outsider perspective, but…

“It just—“ I began.

“Isn’t enough!” L’vanquiet cried, and slumped into his chair. “There’s not enough of me, not enough time in the day to dedicate myself to all the problems I need to solve!”

He stomped his foot, creating a large crack in the floor under him. He winced and stepped back. With a mere whisper, he used a spell to fix the crack before sitting back down again.

“Who am I kidding,” he said, “Damn you, I have magic! The gods themselves bend to my will! I cannot possibly given up, with all I’ve achieved already!”

He fixed his desk, going to retrieve what he had thrown off of it before he began to pace around the room. “To begin, I need to remember my priorities. I must perfect this amulet that can restore life to the glass around it within a radius by midnight. But to do that, I must get the enchantment right that will allow a near indefinite source of healing. I have everything I need in front of me, however, I absolutely must make the individual charms first.”

“And for that!”

He raised his wand.

“I shall cast a spell that splits my ego into pieces! If there is not enough of me to fix everything, then I will carve it out so!”

The tip of his wand glowed as it sensed the intention in his heart. Sharp pinpricks of phantom pain tore into every part of his body, piercing through skin as an ache began to radiate through his being. He wanted to scream and toss until it was gone, but he held firm.

“Split the ego, retain the force. Split the ego—retain the force.” L’vanquiet repeated that phrase, and with every chant, his voice distorted slowly into a chorus. The pinpricks penetrated his heart and forced him to scream his words out with the last few chants.

This was the test—the more powerful the spell, the more it took from your life essence to cast. Though it would return to you eventually, in the moment it hurt far more to have a massive chunk of your life energy taken than to give it away bit by bit.

Only the most experienced mages could control powerful spells. If he were to let the pain overwhelm him, it could be deadly.

So he simply wouldn’t fail. For all the people he swore to protect.

Hah, hah…

“I did it!”

I launched out of my chair, but tripped over the leg and face planted on the floor. In my imagination, L’vanquiet succeeded in his dangerous spell. I, on the other hand, couldn’t just summon clones of myself to do my work for me! What was I thinking, getting lost in my imagination like that!?

Against my will, I looked at the clock and felt my heart stop. Somehow, time marched forward two hours without my notice. Brushing aside the research project I had invested my time in, I started working on the graphics I was editing.

Without an artist to help, I’d resorted to utilizing face claims—images and image makers put up for the purpose of being used freely. Not all face claims were of this nature though. Many used websites with doll makers that allowed you to create character references with all kinds of customization options. As long as it was for personal use like our hobby RP, it didn’t pose a problem.

I used a variety of doll makers with different styles, so to bring it all together, dropsgum created a circle graphic where we’d put the head-shot of the character reference in the inner circle, and have an outer circle with an aesthetic image, with the entire circle having an opaque color filter over it. That was only backdrop to the swathes of information I had to write about each one, but…something didn’t feel right.

This all was so simple, sure, but call me an over-perfectionist, because every time I thought I had a graphic finished, I ended up redoing the NPC appearance, or picking a different image, or a different color scheme…

My cause of death would be due to RP moderation. That I knew in my heart. After a few days only three had been finalized from my batch, and so in order to complete them all I would need to sacrifice my life. I’m sure my classmates would understand when I’m unable to finish my part of our group projects—

“Mijo! How’s your studying coming along?” My mom said as the sound of footsteps sounded near my door. My instincts kicked in and once she opened the door, my desk was perfectly cleaned. My computer showed some research about Supreme Court cases, and in front of me were my history class notes as I smiled with my pencil up.

“Going well,” I said. I stretched my arms over my head and yawned. “I’m doing some mental recharging, but once I’m done covering history, I’m going to re-review chemistry. At this pace, I’ll be prepared enough for finals to have a ton of time to study.”

She smiled and approached. With a deft hand, she pinched my cheek. “There’s my boy. Remember, I want to see that essay draft by next week. And don’t forget your projects like last year.”

“I won’t,” I said. “This year’s when I become a responsible student! I promise!”

“Good. And by the way, dinner’s ready. It’s your favorite tonight.”