Craig watched as man after man was transformed. Some were made young again. Some were made older, more muscular, more and more it became obvious to him that this was no parlor trick. This was really happening! Somehow, the magic of Halloween had become something suddenly, inescapably real.
"I have a request, and I thought I'd make it now. How...does one go about learning to do what you do? Because I have to say, I'm very impressed. And I'm a scientist. I have 2 PHDs and I'm...very impressed."
"You wish to take on a mantle such as myself and learn the art of transformation? It is a good thing for you the spirits came to me just a few days ago, Mr. Thornton."
Craig regarded Madame Illusia with some alarm and then a smile crept over his face.
"The show will be done soon. You will stay after," she told him.
The show lasted what seemed like an impossibly long time. A whole day went by and it didn't seem abnormal to anyone. Outside, time was different. Craig noticed that it was raining in a downpour as some men left. Others found it snowing outside. Others walked out into a hot summer night. Others found themselves back at the exact time they had left. Others found themselves in different time periods, or different dimensions. Craig knew this, though he didn't know quite how he knew it.
"So. Magic is real," Craig stood up. He was a handsome specimen. Smooth, straw colored hair combed back neatly. He was dressed simply in clean clothes. Beautiful, aging gracefully into his 30s with a charming smile, he had no trouble finding men who desired him. Finding quality men was another matter entirely.
The Madame smiled and bid him to come closer.
"I have been expecting you. You will learn from me! It is such a joy to be a member of the League!"
"The league?"
"Yes, with a capital 'L'! You will meet them in time. But first, you must tell me," the Madame Illusia said, sitting down on a rich divan and encouraging him to sit down on a highly refined chair behind him. Craig was suddenly in a very expensive house with very expensive furniture. The ceilings were very high, at least two and a half stories high, and he gave a quixotic smile as he sat down. His gaze didn't falter. He was excited and not intimidated as so many would be.
"How long have you wanted to transform other men?" she asked. A liveried servant entered the room and served tea.
"Since I was 8, I suppose. I wanted to be a huge muscular cop. Policeman. I was obsessed with them. It didn't ever happen, though. I also wanted to turn other boys into big grown men. Make them into soldiers or firemen or big strong construction workers or men in suits. I wanted them to suddenly be grownups, to have fun. I couldn't wait to grow up. I was so mature for my age."
"Yes, and if you step into the realm of transforming others, you will be responsible for them. They don't put that on the brochure!"
Craig considered this.
“I want to reward those who deserve it. I think it would be fun. I’m guessing you have some kind of system for choosing the people who are somehow drawn into your magic little circle.”
“You guess correctly, though I don’t give away all of my wonderful trade secrets! Still, you have already been selected as a possible agent, and this is a most great honor!” The Madame Illusia helped herself to a cookie and made a yummy face, rubbing her tummy. “Time works differently for us, as you can tell. No one in the tent even thought about hunger or thirst. There are so many things to learn but that one is one of the simplest. It’s a trance spell, so that you may enchant. People will forget there is an outside world, or no longer worry about it. Their bodies go into a special stasis, and will not do anything you do not wish them to. This will be your first lesson. We will do many months of lessons here and then you can return to the moment you entered into my tent, which will no longer be present at the Halloween carnival.”
“Can you teach me control over others? The way you did with all those men, making them into your puppets?”
“Yes, but there are rules and regulations. You cannot do it without a good reason. It requires searching through many potential selections beforehand and then bewitching them to show up to the location, whether it’s a carnival, a street fair, Burning Man, Renaissance fair, or occasional orgy. Then you must make sure they are deserving of whatever you decide their fate to be. You can grant their wishes or your own. But it must be approved. We have a system. Like computers but much better…”
Over the next few weeks, the Madame Illusia taught Craig how to create any number of reality shifts, but control and dominance interested him the most. He was interested in making master/slave couples, as well as forcing people to obey others. Craig loved the idea of obedience spells especially. Finally, the Madame taught him some basic age transformation spells, and age behavior modification spells, which was especially interesting. Craig learned he could make younger people act much more mature and knowledgeable, and he could make older people act like immature children. The last thing he learned was muscle growth and theft, which is to say what comes up must come down. It turned out that you needed tit for tat in the universe, so for every man that got age regressed, there must be one that gets older, or you have to spread it out over several people. For every man that shrunk, one got his muscle, or several did. As long as it was even.
It was almost too much for him to bear, he was giddy with excitement.
By the time his training was complete, Craig had absorbed more knowledge on magic than he had ever dreamed possible, mainly because he had been a scientist. But with the knowledge that magic existed, Craig was now all in, and he was ready to accept assignments. He was to make a list of all the people within his own life that he wanted to transform. He would begin his new transformation practice quietly, on the downlow. He could transform friends, relatives, or anyone that he had ever met in his life already. He could only take on “new clients” when his work was submitted and he was accepted as a novice agent into the League of Male Transformation Magicians.