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Magical Mishaps for Clueless Crisp For FriskeCrisps By Draconicon

Well, that was a...a thing.

Crisp shook his head as he stepped out of the limousine, his butler - or rather, his parents' butler - helping him out with the number of different crates and boxes that he'd been given. The wolf shook his head as he was offered another hand, gently nudging the older husky out of the way.

"I got it...I got it."

"Very good, sir."

As the butler went to the trunk, he glanced up. The old family house, two stories tall and with over six different chimneys coming out of it, loomed over him like an unwanted memory. He hadn't been back here for over five years, ever since he moved out and went out to college on his own. Now, he was back...and not for any good reason.

He shook his head as he pushed down older memories, mostly of gold and green and other colors leaping from the tops of the chimneys, and walked back to the rear of the car. He grabbed some of the smaller boxes, balancing them on top of each other before turning to the butler again. Couldn't remember his name, but the husky might be used to that.

"Get all the stuff into the living room, and then...then just take the day off. Tell everyone in the house to take the day off, and tomorrow too."

After all, anyone who actually needs them are dead...

Crisp shook his head again as he walked through the front door, his ears drooping as he 'saw' the ghosts of his mother and father in every room. Old memories, bits and pieces of his childhood. The pair of them leaning over a book on a kitchen counter, muttering about old treasures; putting little tacks through a map to show where different digs were located; going through old diaries to find the cults and their old treasure hoards. It all came back to him in a rush, and all with one little pup walking around, waiting for attention.

He growled, kicking the railing of the staircase. The sudden pain that came after immediately made him regret it.

"OW OW OW OW OW OW!"

His screaming got the attention of everyone else in the house, with two rats and a poodle poking their heads around the nearest doorframe. Grunting under his breath, the wolf waved them off as they started walking towards him.

"Told the butler already. Take the day off."

"But master -"

"Day. Off. I want to be by myself."

"...Alright."

The poodle gathered the others up and started herding them out of the house, even as the rats started trying to ask questions. Crisp ignored them, focusing more on the stairs. The boxes had been light at first, but the longer that he held onto them, the heavier that they seemed to get. He grunted as he walked up the stairs, favoring his injured toe, and rounded the bend at the landing without too much trouble.

By the time he reached the top floor, however, he'd decided that he wasn't going to bother going all the way down to his old room. There was a second, guest bedroom right next to the top step, and he just slid through the doorway. Almost dropping the boxes on the floor in a desperate need to get rid of them, he made his way to the bed and flopped down.

Memories pushed at him from all sides, and this time, he couldn't get away. His eyes moistened, dampening from the few good memories. After all, how many kids got to sit on their father's lap and hear tales of real treasure hunts? How many people got to have their mother make them special cookies with a real magic wand and oven? How many people...

How many people were left behind for eight months out of the year while their family chased down treasure?

It always came back to that, always back to a reminder that he hadn't really had a family. Not like other people. Crisp sighed, blinking away the tears as he sat up again. It was time to put them to rest. They were already buried; their only remaining ghosts were in his mind.

And...well, in all the crates their wills had left him.

Trust them to pull me back into the family business some way or another. Couldn't they have gotten someone else to handle all their magical stuff?

He glanced at the small pile that he'd left by the door. Three crates, perhaps about twenty-five pounds worth of stuff. It was only a fraction of the hoard that his parents had collected over their lifetimes, and despite his memories of them, he knew that they didn't collect rubbish. Even when most people would have dismissed this as simple crap, treasures and ritual tools that had no real meaning to them, he knew the truth.

Knowing there wasn't much point in putting off cataloguing it, Crisp pulled himself to his feet and walked over, dragging the boxes towards the bed. He set the smallest one on the nightstand and started working at the lid of the largest. It popped off without too much difficulty, and he smiled a bit as he saw several wands on the top.

"Heh, I remember you..."

A small chuckle slipped from his mouth as he picked up a gnarled little stick. Barely more than six inches long, it looked more like the knot carved out of a tree trunk rather than a stick. Perhaps it was, before it was carved up. He lifted it and pointed it at a nearby clock.

"Liftilla."

A flick of the wand, and the clock lifted off of its resting place. He dragged the wand back and forth a few times, testing it to see if the energy was still high. It was; not a single wobble of the clock could be seen before he put it back down.

"Alright, one wand of levitation...let's see how much more we can get through..."

Six hours later, Crisp was tired, sweaty, and had just finished washing who knew how much ectoplasm off of his hands. The wolf grumbled to himself as he dried his fingers on a towel, shaking his head and cursing his momentary enthusiasm.

"A ghost summoning sock puppet...who the hell thought a ghost summoning sock puppet was a good thing?"

"Ooooooooooh."

"Oh, shut up."

Crisp flicked the dispel wand - one of the first he found - at the ghost, and sent it back into the puppet in question. Kicking the stupid thing across the room, Crisp walked back to his bed and flopped down on it.

The whole process had been one ridiculous thing after another. With the exception of the wand of levitation and the dispel wand that he'd found, there'd been maybe four different things that were worth a damn in the whole three crates. A shirt that protected against heat, which he'd put on immediately, was something. So was the little snowglobe that saw across the world. He was pretty sure that the bird skull was just a parroting charm - though he'd need to look into that - and the rings...

They'd been the last thing he found, and he still hadn't tested them. He glanced at where he'd put them on the nightstand, wondering if he dared really do anything with them tonight. It was already late, and he was tired, so he didn't completely trust himself to handle it if things went wrong. At the same time, he did have the dispel wand, which would handle most things.

Might as well get this over with...

Trying not to think of how busy tomorrow would be, Crisp reached out for the rings and held them up. They were a matched pair, though of different metals. One was silver, one was gold, and neither had any real marks on the bands. Hints of magical light, in some places brighter than others. He'd guess that they were runes or something, but he couldn't tell yet. The enchantment had either faded or needed something to bring it to life and light again.

A quick test proved that that they weren't meant for fingers, or thumbs. Too big for any of those, by a long shot. Crisp knew that his mother and father wouldn't have left him sexual items - dear gods, he hoped that they hadn't - so that ruled that out. That left...

He looked down at his shoes, and groaned as he reached for the laces. They were tied tight enough that he had to struggle a little, and he was tired enough that he forgot about their little enchantment. It was meant to be a gift from his mother when he'd moved out, but the spell of making his laces tie themselves when they came undone was not helpful at this point in time.

Untying the first shoe again, and holding the tips of the shoelaces tight enough to keep them from slinking down and re-tying themselves, the wolf undid his other shoe and kicked them off before they could re-tie again. The spell wasn't active if his feet weren't in the sneakers, so that was something.

His socks followed, leaving him barefoot. He wiggled his toes, somewhat plumper than other people that he'd noticed, and he compared the width of the rings to the sizes of his big toes. It was just about a perfect fit.

Well, that's different.

He honestly wasn't sure why he had that thought anymore. Nothing about his life had been normal, ever since he was old enough to remember bits and pieces of it. Shrugging, he slid the first band down over his left big toe, and waited.

Nothing happened.

Thinking that maybe the rings were meant to be paired, he slid the other ring down on the opposite big toe. He leaned back, the dispel wand in hand, and waited for something to happen. Paired items, if this was the case, often had a pretty powerful effect to hand, and he wanted to be ready.

Despite his preparations, nothing happened. At least, nothing that he could tell. Crisp looked back and forth, checking for some sort of effect or summoning that he hadn't noticed, but there was nothing to be seen. He checked himself, feeling for any boost of strength or stamina, but again, there was nothing.

"Probably needs a ritual or something..."

If that was the case, the wolf wasn't about to try it tonight. Spells were hard enough; rituals were something that required full energy and concentration, and after that much testing, he was far from that. The rings would be fine until morning, and as they did look rather nice on his toes...

Crisp slipped back onto his bed, not even bothering to undress. His shorts bunched up a little around his hips, but he tugged them down enough to get comfortable, pulled the covers over him, and went to sleep.

_Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. His feet were wiggling. Wiggling like mad.

The wolf bounced and shivered as he tried to avoid the wiggling, tickling feeling running down his feet, the sensation of something grabbing, squeezing, rubbing at his soles. It was a maddening assault on his arches, a sliding sensation on his soles, a heaving squeezing on his heels, and it simply wouldn't stop, no matter how much he moved.

He danced and jumped, stomped and ground his feet against things, and soon was no longer sure if he was doing it on his own or if something was making him. It almost felt like he was being made to dance, like he had his feet on puppet strings.

He opened his mouth but couldn't speak. He lifted his hands, but couldn't touch.

He was trapped, only able to dance on the strange strings that kept running along his feet, tickling, teasing, and weirdly squeezing. The wolf stomped his feet on everything, grinding them against the ground, clicking his heels together even. He didn't know if he was trying to stop the tickle or put on a show; it was like it was happening in equal measure._

Around and around he went, shuffling backwards, stomping madly, whatever the strings made him do. It was...weirdly exciting, as much as it was weird.

And all through it, there was a voice. A deep, gravely voice that he swore was coming from his feet. Every time it talked, it was like an itch went through his feet, all the way from heel to toe and back again, and he stomped harder, trying to get it to stop.

Eventually, as it got loud enough to hear, he was forced up onto his tiptoes. No more stomping, but plenty of clicking. Heel clicking, that was. His heels tapped, tap-tapped, tapped, almost like morse code. And somehow, he could understand it.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

"Wake up, you miserable little cretin!"

"GAH!"

Crisp rolled right off of his bed, his top half falling into the biggest crate that was left behind. He groaned, his head buried in straw, his feet kicking around in mid-air.

"Ugh...what a dream..."

"It was not a dream, you...what are you? This is not a peasant dwelling, and this is not the home of a servant. What is this?"

Okay...not completely a dream...what sort of fucked up spell came out while I was asleep?

Crisp slowly pulled himself out of the box - being very, very, very careful to not touch the Knife of Annihilation that was in it - and pushed himself back on the bed. He rolled onto his back, looked down to the foot of the bed...

And just flat out stared. His jaw dropped as he looked over the scaly creature that was looming over him, legs crossed and barely covered in what looked like harem clothes. At least, what he imagined were harem clothes; didn't they wear stuff that was sheer and almost see-through, baggy and drapey? That's what the dragon was wearing, anyway, and he sat in a meditative position, his feet pointed upwards, and sitting in mid-air.

"Ooooookay. Am I dreaming? Please -"

"I declare that all mortals ask that sort of thing. Who are you?"

"Uh, well, um, I'm Crisp."

"That's a description. An adjective. I'm asking for your name."

"That's my name. I'm Crisp."

"...No. A thing, an object, is crisp. Or crispy. Who. Are. You?"

"Oh, come on..."

Crisp pulled himself upwards, shaking his head a few times. Whatever had happened during his sleep, he could end it with that wand. He reached for the nightstand -

"I do not think so."

The wand shot past his face so fast that it almost took out his eye, and the wolf whipped around to see it floating above the dragon's hand. It slowly spun around, turning this way and that before the dragon pointed at it with his other hand. A cluster of black dots slipped out of his fingers and spread over the wand, and when they disappeared, so did the wand.

"A wand of dispel. A clever thing. From whom did you steal it?"

"I didn't steal - how the hell did you do that? That...that shouldn't have happened."

"Shouldn't? Nameless mortal, I am a genie. I do as I will."

"A..."

A genie. Well, that just threw all the rules out the window. The wolf remembered his parents mentioning stories of them, rare creatures of ultimate magic. They were different than demons, who lived off of magic and corruption, and still more different from the magical elementals that could be summoned. Genies were the mightiest mages of their time, bound into artifacts that allowed them immortality and still greater powers.

But what was it...there was a weakness...

"Are you dumb as well as stupid, mortal?"

Shaken from his thoughts, Crisp glared at the dragon. If he was a genie, then he'd been summoned from something. But what? There were no other items he hadn't accounted for that had been unpacked. Where could -

His eyes caught the glint off of his toe-rings, and Crisp stared. The gold and silver bands were now lit up by runes, sending strange light against the walls. That hadn't happened before he went to sleep...and he could see a number of scuff marks on the posts of his bed, where...where rings had...

The dream. He'd been stomping and dancing around, and some of those motions must have done something to the rings, waking them up.

"You came from the rings. What ritual did I do?"

"Hmmm. You know a little more than the average mortal, then. Is magic more studied than when I went to sleep, then?"

"Depends on when you conked out."

"I believe the year was 1682."

"...Well, right now, the year is 2016, and we have even less knowledge of magic than they did, I think."

The dragon looked genuinely surprised, though it was a little hard to tell with those eyes. Pure white did not lend itself to showing much in the way of emotion. Crisp shook his head, trying to think. Weaknesses of genies, weaknesses of genies.

"I wish...God, I wish I could understand those runes."

"Hehe. For once, a suitable first wish."

"Wha - Oh. My. God."

As he made his wish, the dragon's magic flowed over him, the black dots flying into his eyes. He couldn't even close them in time, but it wasn't like they were bugs, or even dust. Indeed, they weren't even solid. They covered his eyes like sunglasses, and then faded. When they did, he glanced down at his toes.

Where once had been illegible runes were now letters. Very, very, very tiny letters that made the words at the bottom of a contract look like billboard lettering, but still letters. And from the way that they were arranged...

"It's a contract...I'm wearing a contract."

"Bravo. Bravo. A genius to have figured it out from reading it."

"A little lighter on the sarcasm, huh? I wish -"

"Ah ah. It's not your turn."

"...Turn?"

The dragon smirked a bit, and Crisp scooted back as the great creature floated over his bed. It stopped barely a foot away from him, and leaned forward in such a way that Crisp had a better view than he liked of the transparent crotch of the dragon's pants, not to mention those very large, very bare, and very clawed dragon feet.

The genie flicked a finger, and Crisp was yanked up in the air, right off of the bed. His clothes dragged him this way and that, almost throwing him around from the dragon's grip. After a minute or two of the desperate flinging, he was thrown against the wall, and then pinned there by a large dragon foot. It suddenly felt like gravity had flipped, at least for him; it felt like he was lying down rather than stuck to the wall.

"You may know something about magic, but I doubt that a peasant like you would have knowledge such as mine. What is a genie, to you? Nothing more than a wish granter, I imagine."

"No...More than...that."

"Then tell me what you know, mortal. Perhaps I can complete your education."

"Powerful mage. Bound yourself to an object. Immortal, more powerful. But rules as part of the bargain."

It was kind of a hard way to talk, but then, it wasn't particularly easy to breathe with a giant foot pushing down on his chest, either. Kind of hard to deal with the smell, too; he imagined that the dragon hadn't been bathed too often in his little prison.

Still, his answer got him a small reprieve, as the foot didn't press down quite so hard on him. Not quite so hard, though, still meant reasonably hard.

"That is...correct, for the most part. You are obviously better taught than most. I commend your teachers, peasant."

"You know, we don't really have those anymore. Or in the -"

"I know. I picked up the word from a partner in the 1200s. It has seemed sufficient since."

Great. A dragon out of time, and who knows how much he's going to need to adjust...God, if I just had that wand...

"But there are two things wrong with your knowledge. The first is that the rules that one is bound by are not a bargain. They were added much, much later to any item that a genie was bound in, to control them. Ever since the binding, no genie has been created."

Crisp blinked. That...actually did make some sort of sense. He'd never thought about it that way before, but now that he did, he wondered why any powerful mage seeking immortality would bind themselves to the obedience of someone else. It seemed rather impossible, considering the arrogance he remembered reading about. Not to mention that nobody had found a genie that had been created after 900 AD.

"And...the other?"

"Not all of us bound ourselves to an object. Some of us were bound. But we gained new powers, nonetheless. Such as a means of...altering the terms of our binding. One such one...a wish for you, and then a wish for me."

"You mean -"

"I wish for you to be silent for five minutes."

Suddenly, the wolf's jaws clacked shut. Crisp's eyes went wide as he stared at the slowly disappearing line on the sides of his mouth. It was like watching someone take an eraser to his muzzle, running along his lips until the sides of his muzzle were completely sealed together.

"MMMMPH!"

"Ah, I said, quiet."

The eraser wasn't done, spreading further and further until it had erased everything on him capable of causing sound. His muzzle felt weird, barely capable of drawing air through his nose, and leaving him in complete silence. The wolf shivered, shaking as he realized just how helpless he was from the spell.

One minute, two minutes passed, and the dragon remained silent. Crisp begged him to say something, anything to lift the silence, but there was nothing. And that foot on his chest edged closer and closer to his face, carrying with it the smell of musk, sweat, and a hundred year stench.

It touched his nose just as the five minutes ended, and Crisp gasped and gagged as his mouth suddenly came back. He slipped down the wall as the genie stepped back, and he shivered as he realized just how horrible things could be, how quickly. He stared, panting, at the genie, and glared as that foot was held over his face a bit more.

"I believe you know where you belong, mortal."

"I know where you belong. I wish those huge, smelly feet of yours were wrapped up in perfumed socks!"

"...What? What in the -"

The dragon's magic was already working, though, and Crisp couldn't help but smile as large, purple and white striped socks started appearing. They slipped over the dragon's toes, and then started sliding up his legs, stretching rather than growing as they covered his foot. Bit by bit they swallowed his feet up, and then stretched around his ankle before rushing up his legs. The dragon clawed at them, but the genie's magic was too strong to stop. It even slid under those transparent pants, leaving his legs covered well past the knee.

Pity it didn't go higher, he thought.

With the air less smelly, Crisp pulled himself to his feet and dusted himself off. The genie continued to fumble with the socks, and he looked towards the boxes again. There were a few dangerous things around up here, but nothing that would really be a danger to a genie. He needed something more. Something from downstairs.

Hope mom and dad have something for -

"I wish every step for you felt like you were running over feathers!"

The wolf blinked.

"What...What the heck kind of wish is that?"

"You'll see. Confounded....leggings..."

Shaking his head as the dragon genie continued to fumble at the purple and white striped socks, Crisp started walking towards the door.

As soon as his foot came down, he felt it. A hundred feathers dragging across the bottom of his sole, tickling him like a hundred tiny demons. The wolf sputtered and giggled at the sensation, his toes curling, but even that brought more of the tickling feeling to him. The slightest touch of his foot against the floor brought more and more feathers.

Another step, and the tickling got worse, wiggling between his toes, flicking over his heel and up against his arch. The feathers dug in deep, almost feeling like they were tickling his muscles directly rather than just the skin.

Another step, and he fell over, giggling and laughing as he clutched at his stomach. He kicked out, and the impact stung hard enough to make him stop...for now. Panting for breath, he looked up at the genie.

He was smirking. Of course he was.

"How am...how am I supposed to walk like this?"

"You could always wish for something, mortal. But that means I get another wish...and you have given me so many, many ideas. But before we get to that, answer me this. What is in all these crates?"

"A collection...a magical collection that my parents have been collecting."

"A magical...no wonder I sensed it...No wonder I needed to come out."

Needed...Does he...is he trying to steal it?

The idea was too terrifying to dwell on. A genie with his natural power was bad enough. A genie with the power of his family's collection...they could rule the world. He had to get rid of the genie now. But how? The rings had summoned him, and -

The rings.

Maybe if I block them...

While the genie was still muttering to himself, Crisp flung himself towards his shoes and jammed his feet into them. The dragon shut up - blessedly - and the wolf ran for the doorway. He was halfway down the hall towards the stairway when his shoes suddenly slammed down on the floor, stopping him in his tracks.

"What the..."

"Can't let you do that. The magic -"

"I'm not letting you have it!"

"Will you calm down, peasant? Come back here."

The dragon floated out of the room, and as he lifted his hand, Crisp felt one of his sneakers lift with it. His eyes went wide, particularly as the white and red sneakers started changing color, going from the original stripes to something black and crimson, nearer to the dragon's colors.

"I will not tolerate your struggles."

"Well, I'm not gonna let you just have what you want!"

Desperately, Crisp threw himself backwards. The sudden shift in weight just about threw him down the stairs, and as the dragon waved his hands - like a puppeteer with a set of strings - his feet came out from beneath him. The continually shifting sneakers flew over his head as he went down the stairs. Bumpa-bumpa-bump he went, hitting the landing and rolling further and further down the steps towards the first floor.

He hit it with a grunt, his shoes now almost a dark opposite of what they had been. The wolf groaned, but he could see the crates, only a few feet away. He dragged himself to his feet -

"HAHAHAHA!"

And instantly doubled over at the tickling feeling within his shoes, the strange sensations all the stronger, somehow. He shuffled his feet, hoping that the sensations wouldn't be as strong if he didn't stomp around, but it didn't help. If anything, the tickles got worse, particularly as his shoes pushed harder against his toes and his heel.

Then the dragon was behind him again, and as that hand went up, so did his foot. His shoe lifted up and up and up, leaving him standing on one foot, and the shoelaces started untying themselves, pointing upwards at him like snakes.

"I don't want to hurt you, peasant. You will -"

"Screw you! You're not getting the magic."

"I don't want -"

"YAH!"

Giggling like mad, Crisp leaped off of that one foot, and came crashing down on one of the crates. He could feel it was one of the bigger ones, and he hoped that his parents had put one of the bigger, destructive tools inside. He needed to get rid of as much as possible, as fast as possible. The dragon wasn't going to be nice forever.

The shoelaces grabbed at his hand, but they were hurried, not getting a good enough grip. He shook them free, and pushed the lid open as the genie flew at him.

"No, wait! There's a protective -"

Rune...

Crisp saw it even as the dragon said it, the bright red drawing on the bottom of the crate suddenly lighting up in the presence of all the active magic around it. All his memories of it flashed by in one, simple sentence.

Red rune means kaboom...

He threw himself back at the last second, just as the rune exploded. It blew out the windows with the force of the kaboom, and over a hundred lights went shooting past his eyes, leaving after-image lines behind in the process. Crisp stayed down for as long as he could, even after the lights and explosions stopped.

It wasn't until the genie spoke up that Crisp knew that he was still there.

"Why...why did you do that?"

"I wasn't going to let you have the magic, was I?"

"Have it? Have it?! I was going to banish it and hide it away, you idiot!"

"...You mean that you didn't want it for ultimate power?"

"Why in the seven hells and hundred heavens would I want that? I have more than I can use right now!"

"So I just -"

"Scattered dozens - if not hundreds - of dangerous magical items all over the world with that blast? Into the hands of who knows how many amateurs that won't know how to use them? Yes. Good job. Truly, good job breaking the world."

In one move, he'd managed to lose his parents' entire collection of magical artifacts. Well, almost; there were still the things upstairs, but that was only about 5% of the entire collection. Most of it...most of it was gone. And he knew how dangerous some of those things were.

"I have to get them back..."

He glanced up at the genie, who was still raving.

"And you're going to help me."

"...Excuse me?"

The End