Hat

Top of the Class: The Summoning and Immediate Partial Binding of Obe; Or, Slippery, Antediluvian Peg, Round Hole; Or, Study Notes; Or, Pulling a Cephalopod Out of a Hat
Nukey had never been the best student. At her examination for acceptance to Suinaegoiters Academy of Spell-sling and Ensorcellment, rather than produce a fireball or transmute water into vapor, she instead emitted a toxic pulse of magical radiation. The burst of magic contaminated the test chamber and proved to have long-term detrimental effects on anyone exposed to it.

It was not a good first impression.

Despite this, Nukey was admitted to the school, mostly out of fear for the consequences of leaving her magic unchecked. The girl clearly had potential; with training, she could learn to direct her volatile natural power.

During her first year of study, the apprentice witch was fascinated by the magical familiars that accompanied the older students. Each familiar took the form of a human being possessing some sort of animal trait. They were magically competent themselves, so they could help their student masters with their studies. The girl familiars were always beautiful and the boy familiars were always handsome. Nukey wanted one of her own, to prove herself, get an edge in her classes, and gain an attractive friend that would never leave her side. Upperclassmen always talked up the difficulty in creating a familiar, but Nukey didn’t think it sounded that hard. The basis of ritual was just a few lines of chalk on the ground and some smelling salts to coax the familiar into existence, right?

Wrong.

It took Nukey days to sort the ritual out. She borrowed an old grimoire promising to outline the basics of familiar creation, and was shocked to discover that the formulae and matrices required for the ritual were incredibly complex. Nukey would have almost given up if not for the imagined sight of her gorgeous familiar giving her strength. She was determined to see her task through to the end. Nukey found an empty classroom and began slowly and meticulously copying the ritual circle from the textbook onto the floor. After days of labor spent making sure everything was drawn to specification, Nukey added the final touches. She mixed shredded bar soap and perfume in a bowl to entice her familiar into being. She arranged candles around the room for atmosphere. Finally, she waited until late at night when the moon was filtering into the classroom through a window.

Nukey stood before the summoning circle and recited the words of binding from memory. There was a rush of wind, a puff of smoke, and the overwhelming scent of ocean brine. What sort of marvelous companion did Nukey create?

When the smoke cleared, Nukey directed her gaze toward the center of the circle, and immediately wished that she hadn’t looked! Whatever she had summoned, it was not the handsome magical gentleman (or lady) she had intended! The thing which had wetly landed in the middle of the matrix, dark ooze leaking from its body and smearing the chalk, could with some liberty maybe be said to look like some sort of mollusc, maybe a cuttlefish if Nukey was being generous, but it-- It hurt her to look at the thing for very long. Whatever Nukey had created, it made her head sore just to be in the same room as it.

Nukey opened her book, looking at the diagram to see what she had gotten wrong. She turned to the page after the one she had learned the spell and discovered, to her horror, that she had made the mistake of thinking one page of (in her defense, very dense and complicated) information would be enough to create a magical servant. In merely copying the general shape of the ritual circle down, she had failed to specify the exact form of her familiar. Without additional guiding equations, the magic must have been confused, and worked on its own to summon…that.

Nukey clapped her hands over her face. It was all she could do to not cry. Peeking through her fingers, she risked another look at the horror she had inadvertently summoned. She realized that, beyond the visual distortion, the warped haze that hung on the air around it, the thing was clearly alive. Its bloated mass pulsed from some profaned internal effort. Other than that, it didn’t seem like it was moving much. Maybe it was hungry? It was a living thing, and if there was one thing that Nukey knew, living things need food, no matter how horrible they were.

The young sorceress cautiously approached the thing in the circle and threw it some crumbled-up crackers from her bag. She turned away and was treated to a dreadful slurping sound as the creature ate her offering up. She tried her best not to vomit. When she turned to look again, Nukey screamed. It was floating now, tentacles dripping underneath it, and glowing eyes turned toward her with malicious intent. Holding her backpack in front of herself for protection, Nukey tried to back away, but tripped on a bowl and fell on her rump! The last thing Nukey remembered was the awful creature reaching its slimy tendrils toward her head...

Nukey woke up in her bed. Remarkably, she felt fine, other than a pounding headache. Where was the monster? Was it all a dream? It can’t have been, because all of her crackers were missing! Nukey got out of bed and cautiously changed into her school robes. As she put on her hat, something felt off. She tilted the hat over and stared into the space inside. Staring back at her were those same horrible eyes from the night before. The creature had somehow transformed the inside of Nukey’s hat so that it was bigger on the inside. It was way bigger on the inside, in fact. Cavernous, if the echoey dripping sounds were anything to go by. Nukey would have to be careful not to fall in.

Looking at the creature’s eyes sparked something in Nukey’s mind. The girl suddenly remembered…knowing… Whatever the thing had done when it attached to her head, it had somehow told her its name: Obe. Funny that her familiar had come with its own name; Nukey had been looking forward to naming it herself. Then again, Nukey was quite sure that this wasn’t exactly her familiar. She also knew now that it had really really enjoyed the crackers she gave it, and wanted to try more foods. On that, at least, they had some common ground. Nukey took a candy bar from her pocket and tossed a piece into the confines of the hat. The snuffling, slurping sound confirmed that Obe had eaten it, and when Nukey put on the hat again a vague mental notion transmitted into her brain confirmed that it had enjoyed it immensely. So long as Nukey shared some of her food with the thing, it would be happy with her, it seemed.

It was a strange partnership, and not in any way what Nukey had imagined, but in time she thought she could warm up to this Obe.

If not, at least she could avoid having to look at it, so long as it stayed in her hat.

Abyssal Intervention; Or, Hat’s All Folks; Or, Additional Information
Obe is the “adolescent” form of a type of amorphous entity originating in the abyss between worlds. Normally these beings wouldn't possess a distinct physical form, but upon entering a more structured version of reality, they are forced to conform to some extent. Though technically hundreds of years old, Obe does not yet possess the world-rending might of the ancients of its species. Its ability to change its form is limited to minor adaptations, such as sprouting additional small tentacles or extra eyes. Its magical capabilities, while potent, still do not match the apocalyptic power that it will achieve if given a few more millennia to mature. With age, the creature will grow even stronger, gaining a more mercurial form along with the boundless capacity to warp the world around it.

As Nukey suspected, the reason Obe arrived in the world was due to the flawed circle she used in her familiar summoning ritual. Normally, familiars are created beings that possess no prior existence. They are born and defined by the ritual. Not specifying what form the familiar would take left loop holes that opportunistic entities such as Obe could exploit. Sensing the hair-line cracks in reality that the spell caused, Obe slipped through and manifested in Nukey’s world. Despite having a prior existence, Obe is technically Nukey’s familiar; by gaining a physical form in realspace, it also became bound to her until she dies. The only reason Obe hasn’t destroyed the girl is because it was seduced by its own sense of taste. Flavors are a concept that is completely foreign to the void. Nukey is useful to Obe in that, so long as she is around, she’ll keep giving him new snacks. With Nukey around, Obe continues to receive new flavors to experience.

As Nukey’s “familiar,” Obe receives a compulsion to obey any willful commands she gives it. As a nightmare entity originally hailing from a stygian abyss, it doesn’t necessarily have to listen. Snacks, of course, are always a good incentive to get Obe to do what Nukey wants.

It should be noted that magical familiars do not always take the form of handsome half-animal hybrids. Those were simply the ones Nukey was most infatuated with. Other students at the academy create familiars in the shape of traditional animals, such as cats, toads, and owls.

Whether the result of its mind-straining aura or the actual form it has manifested in, Obe does indeed on the outset look very much like some sort of cuttlefish, if you squint a little. The creature stands at about 91 centimeters tall. Viewing it from the right angle suggests that it is predominantly purple-ish in color, but this is up for debate. Within the creature’s wreath of tentacles is a circular mouth rimmed with teeth. Besides feeding on whatever its young mistress has on hand, the abomination can also feed on blood, emotions, small stones, magical energy, pencils, and entire persons if it’s inclined to stretch a little. Obe’s body is squishy and vulnerable to physical harm, so it protects itself using magic, such as its perception-warping field and the pocket space within Nukey’s hat.

Obe is capable of traveling to other worlds, but if Nukey’s hat is destroyed while it’s inside of it, the entity will be sealed within its pocket reality until its young mistress calls it back home.

Obe can take over the bodies of mortal flesh-creatures by attaching to their heads. Often, this leaves the host mind broken and ravaged from its contact with the creature. Nukey, however, is exempt due to the reasons stated above--she can’t very well give Obe treats if her psyche is shattered.

Obe has gotten into the habit of taking over for Nukey when it appears that she’s about to fail a magical exam. Each time, Obe does its best to preserve the girl’s mind and keep her sane, leaving her with nothing for the experience but a winger of a headache and a passing grade. When Nukey realized Obe possessed the ability to possess people, she began fitting her hat onto the heads of boys she fancied so that she was guaranteed someone to take her to the school’s dances and parties. Obe is less careful to preserve the minds of Nukey’s dates, but it can tell she cares about them and does its best. In this capacity, Obe is a very good familiar.

The Hither and Thither Expanded; Or, Drawing Back the Curtain!
The mollusc-like abomination Obe is the alternate universe analogue of the man-spider Daniel Obrove. It is not his former life, his blood relative somehow transformed by the effects of the void, or a close acquaintance. It is the Obrove if Obrove were a squamous, cephalopoid entity helping to alleviate one sweet young witch’s school day blues, while the mutant is Obrove in the form of a mail courier transformed by his city’s mad science underground!

Additionally, this Obe is not the same as other Obes you might have seen, younger by a few hundred years or older by countless eons. Their timelines run parallel to each other, rather than consecutively. The Obe in question here is a possible past/future outcome for an entity whose possible adolescent forms are as varied as its abilities once it matures. By rights there could be another Obe spawnling out there which took the form of a preternatural lamprey.

More Obrove iterations can be found on their alt list, here.

There are more "Danalogues" to come, eventually, so we kindly ask that you...

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