His comm buzzes during the elevator ride upward. Maxwell ignores it, he'd check it later when he felt like it. The doors slide open and he waltzes out to discuss some things with Amy before he goes to bed. She was busy tinkering at her workplace when he arrives. The fledgling vampire stops what she was doing and races toward Maxwell. At first he thought she was coming to hug him. He was wrong. She tackles and pins him to the ground. Apparently her new found vampiric abilities endowed her with strength in addition to speed. Amy didn't look happy though. In fact she looked kinda mad.
Rapaciously she smooches the mage before he had a chance to utter a single word. Her tongue-work was aggressive and smothering. After a few minutes of this, Amy disengages from the kiss. A bridge of saliva had formed between each other's lips as she draws away, leaving a messy mark behind. Despite the sign of affection, she still had this expression of displeasure. Almost like she was unhappy about something. Amy, while still lying on top of Maxwell, inquires what possessed him to do something as risky as leaving without telling her beforehand. Also she asks what the hell happened to Charlie and Sarah.
Maxwell grins slightly. Not even a full day has passed and he was already causing her grief. It took awhile, but he explained to her what he had been up to since they last talked. Her anger was as transient as Maxwell himself. Quickly she apologizes for pouncing on him and says she was just excited that he returned was all. She said that she was scared that he left and wouldn't come back, thus leaving her alone again. He shakes his head and caresses her face, leaning forward to kiss her again.
The two spend a good thirty minutes talking and discussing plans. He fills her in about the toxic mage run and how it'd be a good opportunity to find other runners willing to hunt down Grail. She looked skeptical but shrugged it off. Maxwell bids her goodnight and that he would find time to do stuff with her later. Amy reluctantly let's him leave and makes him promise that he would spend some time with her as soon as possible. Maxwell grins again, and agrees that he will.
He heads back down to his room and takes a load off, closing the door behind him when he enters. He removes his jacket and casually throws it on the other bed. Maxwell wanted to review his collection of tomes and arcane spellcraft before he called it a day. Grabbing his duffel bag out from underneath the second bunk and pulling it to rest beside him as he sat leaning against a wall. Maxwell unzips the bag and begins pouring over some books and journals detailing what it meant to be a black mage.
Very early in Maxwell's awakened life he discovered that in order to survive his new power he would need a framework or paradigm to make sense of it all. He was very fast to adopt Black Magic as the means of accomplishing just that. I mean who wouldn't? The promises of pleasure and to hold dominion over others was very enticing to the newly awakened magician. It was easy for him to learn how to control the minds of lesser men or how to distort their reality in case they proved resistant to his dark puppeteering. It was hilarious to him that he could directly manipulate a person's mind and make them kill themselves, or their friends if he was feeling especially malicious. In fact that's part of the reason why he was forced to travel so much. As soon as it was discovered that he could do something so blatantly fucked up he had no choice but to skip town or state. Eventually he wound up in Redmond because it was lawless enough and he could find work here no problem.
But lately he was feeling different, a change of heart if you will. Grail would use mind magic to dismantle a person's inhibitions and their defenses. Twisting and perverting their thoughts and emotions so he could feed upon them unhindered. Or in Amy's and Charlie's case, to rape and feed. Even to Maxwell, this was a grievous misuse of magic and power. It would be one thing to merely use that power to feed, but what kind of disgusting cowardly pile of shit would just carelessly violate others like that? Maxwell was getting mad at his own self-asked redundant question. He flipped through page after page of his tradition's doctrine. An emotional fusion of disillusionment and self-loathing started to bubble in his guts. Where once he found wisdom and glory within these fascist writings, now all he sees is hypocritical weakness. Maxwell furiously hurls the book across the room and rests his head against the wall staring up at the ceiling.
In depressed thought he contemplates his dilemma. "No wonder The Black Knight hasn't said a word all these years, nor bother to reveal to me his true name. I had thought that by following the rigid discipline of Black Magic would lead me to glory and even greater power. It seems that I was wrong. I'm not much stronger or wiser than when I first awakened. I still hold little understanding about my magic and the nature of magic itself. What the fuck have I accomplished? I might as well just start over and relearn everything. Wait... wait a minute. Why don't I simply create my own tradition and magical paradigm? I mean what's stopping me? It's obvious what i'm currently doing isn't working. I might as well start over from the ground on up!"
Fervently Maxwell digs through his stuff for a pen and blank tome. Jotting down what he knew to be the immutable laws of magic and the art of spellcraft. From there he details his personal thoughts and feelings about how magic works. He'd make the proper edits later when he needed. Using Black Magic as a very basic framework he lists the different spell schools and spirits he knew how to summon. Maxwell gets up real quick to grab that book he tossed across the room and begins to tear out several pages that listed the various magical formulae that he kept physical copies of. These copies were mostly literary mnemonics to remind him how to perform the specific spell in case he forgot. When he reaches the sections detailing how to directly dominate minds or distort the reality of others, Maxwell decides instead to rip up those pages into tiny shreds of paper.
Hours pass before Maxwell was done comprising the written manifesto of all of what he knew or thought he know about magic. It was safe to say that most of it was probably made up. Content with the deconstruction of his old tradition and the aspiring new one he literally just made. Maxwell sticks the grimoire with the rest of his lodge materials and actually goes to bed. He'd add on to the arcane manifesto later when he wasn't tired or hungry.
