Ch. 2.2 | Sanya the Witch
PoV: Sanya
Mai giggled as she placed another weight of cloth on top of Sanya's head.
“It looks great on you!” Mai squealed. “We must buy this!”
Sanya's hand twitched up to the rim of the massive hat. It looked like one of the hats a witch from a fable might wear, protruding out from all sides and having that larger cone pointing out from the middle, until it dangled off to the side.
“Ooh! We should get ornaments to hang off of it too! Things like stars and planets! You would look so pretty—um, not that you don't already!” Mai shoved her cute face a little bit too close to Sanya's own. Mai's head bumped up against the rim of the hat as she stood on the tips of her toes. To the side of her head, she whirled a hand underneath the edge of the hat. She was not unlike a cat playing with an invisible toy, which dangled from the hat's edge.
Sanya flushed.
She stared at Mai as she stepped back and continued to examine Sanya in the witch's hat. Sanya had long since memorized the place of each of Mai's freckles, and the cute features of her face. Those lovely green eyes . . . Her hair, tied into two black braids and ending in yellow ribbons tied like a bow . . . Mai was the best! Sanya felt a comfortable warmth and a familiar giddiness. She had been lucky to be able to spend the last three months with Mai.
“Yes!” Mai suddenly exclaimed, running to the left, and out of Sanya's vision. Coins clinked, exchanging hands at the market stall.
It seemed that actually having money had made Mai want to indulge a little bit . . . She had been reluctant at first, but after a while realized it was fine to purchase things sometimes and have fun. “Sometimes” became all the time . . . But they were, like, rich, thanks to the adventurers’ guild contracts and assignments. Okay, not rich, but well-off. Or, like, something? Sanya had been poor before, so she did not really have anything to base this money off. She certainly could not fund a magic academy with her money, though.
Mai came back into Sanya's view merely a moment later. Mai grabbed Sanya's hand and tugged her along.
Sanya couldn't think. She could barely process how quickly they were moving along. For this outing so far, the longest thing Mai stopped to do was examine Sanya, as Mai had plopped the hat onto her without even asking. Other than that, Mai had been an unpredictable whirlwind of movement.
Argh! The hat! Sanya was going to stand out. This was so embarrassing! She literally did stand out! She was, like, a hundred and eighty-two centimeters tall! Mai was around one-fifty-eight. Most men only got around as high as one-seventy-five.
Once Mai was better with fleshweaving, Sanya was going to ask Mai to shrink her height.
Three months later, Mai could only Fleshweave nonsensical abominations and heal fresh wounds. The magic was easier to shape on such wounds. The older the injuries got, the more Mai actually needed to know anatomy for the specific recreation of the human body. Magic would not aid it like it did fresh wounds. Mai was working very hard to learn anatomy though. She was basically learning material equivalent to a doctor. On top of adventuring with Sanya and mastering Spatial magic.
So, Mai did not have her fingers back yet. Sanya was still a tall, chestless freak. Basically completely clockable still. Only her reputation made people know what she was and to not contest it to her face. Her voice was a bit better after diligently spending three months trying to train it, but it wasn't perfectly feminine yet.
“I'm not your dress-up doll,” Sanya said flatly.
Mai paused in the middle of the busy market, she turned to face Sanya, grinning like a villainess. “You like it! And that's where you're wrong—you are my dress-up doll! Come! Let's get you out of these boring robes and put you in a skirt!”
She did like it . . . She liked making Mai smile. She liked Mai paying attention to her.
A skirt! Sanya knew she would look ridiculous in one. But, a skirt! Maybe Sanya could get one, or, like, ten! The only opinion on her appearance that mattered anyway was Mai's (and, uh, Sanya's own, she guessed). Mai would probably go crazy at seeing Sanya in a skirt again.
Mai would probably go crazy for Sanya in anything she wore.
Sanya wore dark robes—almost black. There was a hint to them actually being an extremely deep purple. Mai ditched robes completely, wearing a knee-length skirt and a blouse tucked into it. She wore a small cardigan as well. It was cavern-dweller style, minus the colors. Mai wore eye-bleeding pastels in yellow and pink. Together, the two of them stood out in the crowd.
Esmat and Zahira had originally been on the outing with Sanya and Mai. Although, they had left an hour back because the guildmaster, Of-Jinan had called them.
Market stalls lined the streets more thoroughly than normal, a barrier between the streets and the buildings. It was the designated market day of the week in the city. People bustled through the roads, stopping at various stalls, purchasing and socializing. People gathering to sell on the same day brought more business than when it wasn't coordinated, or something like that.
Someone weaved her way through the crowd and stopped between Sanya and Mai. She wore the uniform of an adventurers’ guild courier—pants and a tunic in gray and white, a satchel at her side, all made from the basaltic cloth of most garb and fabric.
The courier cleared her throat and handed Sanya and Mai a piece of folded paper. “The guildmaster requests your presence immediately.”
Mai tilted her head.
Sanya took the paper and unfolded it. Immediately?
Esmat and Zahira had been summoned an hour ago, and now Sanya and Mai? Interesting.
Sanya opened her mouth to ask about it, but the courier refused to stay, and thus, could not elaborate. She bowed and ran back off into the masses of people while Sanya still tried to come up with her phrasing.
Sanya looked down at the paper. It was just the guildmaster's seal, signature, and a note that didn't say anything meaningful in the slightest.
Sanya sighed. “Let's go.”
The cold air sent a shiver down Sanya's spine—ah, ever since the tempest dissolved, the air continued to get colder. This was apparently the whole “season” thing. According to the records, this time was called “winter,” and was the coldest time of the year.
Many more things had changed, as well. Not just from the tempest dissolving, but as time moved on and magic was cast.
Something gnawed on Sanya's body. She put a hand against her torso, lower-left, where it constantly protested and ached. There, her flesh and bone turned into an ethereal substance, half-there but half-not. Sanya assumed it was Spatial backlash, but no other Spatial mage she knew had brought it up yet.
Her magic was slowly eating her away.
Mai noticed Sanya's gesture, and concern creased her cute and usually-cheerful face.
☆ ☆ ☆
They had left the market of Calderae—yes, Calderae, Of-Jinan and Of-Salama had named it after the caldera-turned-lake that the city wrapped around. They extracted plenty of basalt from it for clothes and other items. Although, basalt cloth was becoming less and less necessary as things like cotton and sheep's wool began growing in greater amounts, with the tempest gone and water abundant. The city's basaltic textile industry was still decent enough. Oh and the metals that could be found or mined in the area made for great staves.
And yes, Of-Salama. Not the Thermal mage from the academy, but an Aeolian mage—her brother, supposedly.
As for the academy . . . ah, that was a story for another time.
Sanya and Mai stepped up to the great guild hall. Calderae was Of-Jinan's and Of-Salama's city, and the guild was theirs too. So, it followed that the hall resided here, the largest of the adventurers’ guild buildings.
They entered the structure. The first room was a calm foyer. Strings of llumifruits hung at the edges of the ceiling, bathing the room in a warm light. Couches and seats with abundant cushions sat at its edges, leaving a clear path between doorways. A servant of the building stood vigilant in the entry between the foyer and the next room.
He nodded as Sanya and Mai passed through.
They entered into a rowdy chamber. Nearly a dozen rows of picnic-bench-esque seats and tables ran along the depth of the room, up to a counter with multiple receptionists—and a tavernkeep who took orders and passed it off to the kitchen staff in another room behind the counter. A massive vertical metal board stood off to the middle-left side of the room, magnets holding papers to it. An aisle broke through the tables to offer a generously wide, clear path towards the board. The seating was essentially divided into quadrants.
Great stone pillars kept the large building from toppling down.
No one turned their heads or paid attention as Sanya and Mai walked inside. Even Sanya's witch hat did not initially grab eyes. People came and went into this building often, and people with odd fashion tastes were not uncommon.
In fact, a group of adventurers were on their way out as Sanya and Mai entered.
These people stopped and gaped before regaining their composure and circumnavigating Sanya and Mai, making an effort to hurry as if their lives depended on it. Sanya wondered how much business she could drive out just by sitting down.
The two of them headed for the back of the building. Only as they passed through the room did they finally get people noticing. Portions of the room went entirely silent. As other people noticed the sudden quiet, those, too, joined the emptiness.
Sanya sighed. She hated the attention. She hated the whispers—both reverent and odious.
They entered into a hallway in the back-right corner of the building. A short trip and a right turn and Sanya knocked onto a closed door.
“Come in,” a voice called. It had hints of femininity but also raspy and deeper. How strange, Sanya might have had a more feminine voice than this person now, with the training (she could keep telling herself that)..
Sanya pushed open the door and headed into the office with Mai.
Of-Jinan sat at a desk, reading through papers, writing on others, and signing off some more.
There she was, gray with hints of purple, and entirely dead. Her white hair was braided on both sides of her head, converging into a bun on the back. Bangs fell down her forehead.
Of-Jinan snorted. “In memory of Rafiq, I seem to have inherited paperwork. Guess it comes with being the head of something. I really should get someone else to do all of this, I want to be out there doing stuff. This is somehow worse than essays.”
Sanya tilted her head. “I hope you don't mean us.” It would be dumb for Of-Jinan to reduce two of her best members to paperwork. So hopefully not . . .
Of-Jinan paused, then barked laughter like a hyena. “No. No. No. Merely a passing complaint.”
Sanya let out a sigh, relieved. So, then, why were they summoned?
“I need my own Zawar,” Of-Jinan muttered. “I guess that's Fazl.”
“Where's Of-Salama?” Mai asked.
“Oh,” Of-Jinan said. “Off on a scouting mission. There's signs of a lich southeast.”
“A lich?”
“A black portal.”
“There should only be purple,” Sanya said. She knew there were other colors by now. It still did not sit right with Sanya at all.
Of-Jinan shook her head. “Something happened. The leylines have converged and more dimensions beyond just the Abyss are nearing ours. Portals are opening at weak points.”
“Huh.” Sanya blinked. Self-opening portals? There had to be more to that, right? Maybe some other mage or mages were going sound opening them. At least it would provide a person to stop, instead of just a force of nature or whatever. “So, what's with the summon?”
Of-Jinan clasped her hands together, elbows on the desk. “Yesterdat, the expedition to a red portal was wiped out by a monster—one of your colleagues died, may he rest well. One of the members somehow turned into a monster as well, she consumed five adventurers and half a town.”
“Consumed? Half a town?” Mai echoed.
“Yeah. That's not even all, we don't know where the original monster is. It's like an inverted, red pig.”
No, Mai probably meant, like, why did Of-Jinan use the word “consume?” Why did Of-Jinan skip over that part?
“Sooo? . . .”
“I need you two to hunt down the monster. Kill it, most likely. It's not worth chaining and researching. Before that—because there's no reports on it, maybe it went back in—I need you to find the turned girl and seize her. Kill her if you have to—if she is violent or no longer human. Then, a foray into the portal may be in order.”
Mai swallowed. She exchanged a glance with Sanya.
“And our dead colleague?”
“Another Spatial mage.”
“Ah. Who was it?”
Of-Jinan shrugged. “A . . . Jibril?”
Sanya shook her head, she looked towards Mai. She shook hers too.
Aw. Sanya was hoping it had been one of the bigots that had bullied her during her time in the academy. Alas, Ishmael, Aaliyah, and the others still lived, as far as Sanya knew.
“Ah,” Of-Jinan responded.
“Maybe he was in Barakat's class. I don't know him personally,” Mai said.
“Ah well,” Of-Jinan opened a drawer of her desk and produced a sack of coins. She placed it on the desk. “Funds for the mission. The girl went on her spree at Emergentia.”
“That's . . .”
“Yeah, a little settlement of cave dwellers gone to the surface and an intermingling of surface folk. It's by Speleothem.”
“West?”
Of-Jinan nodded.
“I have a [Globetrot Anchor] there,” Sanya said.
Of-Jinan raised an eyebrow. “You do?”
Mai nodded. “The cavernous cities are great fun! Also, Sanya doesn't have a reputation there.”
Sanya stepped forward and took the funds before Mai could. “[Pocket Repository].”
The pouch disappeared. Sanya retrieved her staff from the space as well. That was right! Sanya could cast Pocket spells without her staff, allowing her to store it! Sanya closed the black gouge in the air, staff in hand.
Of-Jinan frowned. “You Spatial mages make me envious.”
“You're envious of us?” Sanya asked. “You're an immortal insta-killer who can bend time to her whims.”
“I'm not immortal. Technically, I'm already dead.”
Sanya rolled her eyes.
“I won't dispute the other parts. Fair enough, Voidwitch, Firmament Sovereign.”
Sanya frowned.
“Are Zahira and Esmat coming with us?” Mai asked.
“Glorestra is still unstable. I needed them to take care of something. Maybe after, I'll add them over.”
In other words, some gang probably tried to take over the city. Or some fascist. Or a legislature member got too full of themselves. Or maybe rival gangs? That was novel. Maybe a foreign agent?
Basically, they were busy, and probably for good reason.
Glorestra was kind of a dump after what happened. After three months, they hadn't fully recovered. Turns out losing your Royal Seat the entire monarch line, and your head legislator was a massive stab to your stability. Not to mention the old city turning into a lake and needing to rebuild.
The tempest dissolving brought new opportunities for control and city lines. Of-Jinan wanted to exert control over Glorestra, despite technically being exiled from it. She felt some responsibility for keeping it stable and healthy after what she had done. Also something about maybe one day they would lift her exile. Sanya did not really know why Of-Jinan cared about that, but whatever.
Sanya nodded. “They should have an anchor too. We went together.”
Sanya took a hold of Mai's hand.
[Globetrot—]”
“Before you go,” Of-Jinan held up a hand. “This girl is fast. Like, ‘you'll need a Temporal mage’ fast. And she drains the blood from her victims.”
“A vampire? So, like, use the daytime against her,” Mai said.
“Maybe.”
“Are you saying you want to come with us?” Sanya asked.
Of-Jinan smirked. “Paperwork can wait.”
“Can it?”
“No.” Of-Jinan stood, grabbed the staff leaning off the back wall, and walked around her desk towards Sanya and Of-Jinan. Of-Jinan wore the sun-dried orange mage robes of a Temporal mage still. Her staff was still of Temporal marking, as well.
Sanya almost jumped, she forgot how tall Of-Jinan was. Not to mention, a biological girl taller than her! Finally! The terrible icky feeling inside her receded a little.
“Ready?” Sanya asked.
Of-Jinan nodded.
“Ready!” Mai sang.
“[Globetrot Anchor - Speleothem].”