Chapters 43-45

The Alchemist

Tuesday arrived in no time. The days leading up to it were a blur of work, relaxation outside The Suppression, cooking, and sleeping. The excitement of meeting the alchemist was all Rienna could think about.

They rode into town again on the horses, following the road towards the nobles' district. Instead of continuing into the neighborhoods, they turned and began towards a large building in the distance that was the university.

As they got closer, they entered a small neighborhood of identical one story buildings that lined the road to the school. Rienna tried to look ahead to find the third house from the end, but the fog was too thick to see very far.

As they reached what Rienna thought must be near the end, she noticed a house to the right. A ramshackle addition was built into its side and a hole was sawed into the roof near the front. She slowed as she neared the unusual building. Of the two windows she could see, one had boards nailed over it with a dark fabric covering the window beneath, and the other one was haphazardly stained different colors in each pane.

She looked forward and counted houses from the end. Sure enough, this was the third.

She dismounted and walked to the front door. It looked like any other door. She knocked and it reverberated dully, as though there wasn't actually an open space behind it. She knocked again, harder, but it simply wasn't making enough noise to be heard.

She walked to the stained window and looked inside. She saw a small, dark room with a mess of bits and pieces of things scattered all around. There was a table placed perfectly to receive most of the colored light coming through the window. She saw no lanterns, which was strange.

She tested the window for fragility and knocked loudly. "Hello?" she called. "Ms. Christia!? Is this the right house?!" She looked back at her mother for advice, even though she knew she couldn't know any more than her. She shrugged back.

Then the door in the room opened and a short woman entered, holding a lantern in front of her. She wore dark brown pants and a stained white shirt. There were wide glasses over her eyes that were shoved back into her black hair that was tied tightly in a bun. She saw Rienna and her eyes widened in realization. She quickly turned around and closed the door.

"Hey!" Rienna yelled, knocking again on the window. "Hello?! Are you Christia?!" She threw her hands up into the air and walked back to her horse. "She just turned around and left!" she told her mom.

"Wait, Hon. It looks like she's opening the door now," Evie said from atop Lin.

"Oh?" She turned back around to watch the front door. It jiggled and was slowly pushed open by the woman inside the house.

"Sorry about that! I keep forgetting to make a sign for the doorbell," the woman called. "Are you Rienna?"

"Yes," Rienna called back.

Christia smiled. "Come on inside, then! I have a spot for your horses if you'd like. It's just around the back."

"That's okay," Evie said from the road. "We're leaving. We'll come back here in a couple hours."

"Okay. Come on in Rienna," Christia said with a nod.

Rienna handed Taka's reins to her mother and said goodbye. She walked back up to the house and followed the strange woman inside. As she passed through, she realized that there was a thick second door situated behind the first one as well as a thick black curtain that served as a third door.

She looked curiously at the strange house around her. To one side, a curtained off room had a series of rings and glass coming down from the top of the ceiling and shooting a thin beam of light onto an empty plate. There were unlit lanterns on the one real wall and there were miniature mirrors in heaps on the table.

They passed it as they walked through the dark hallway and another space opened to the other side. An entire wall had been replaced by a window that gave dull light to a dozen potted plants. Another wall of glass separated the room from the hallway.

"This is my greenhouse," Christia said. "I have over fourteen types of medicinal and otherwise magical plants."

Magical? "That's cool," Rienna said politely.

As they left the light of the greenhouse, the light from the windows faded and the glow from Rienna's locket became increasingly prominent. They passed a couple closed doors and strange, dark curtains. There were absolutely no light sources on the ceiling or walls that they passed.

Suddenly, Christia turned and pulled aside a curtain and led them through a short passageway and into a kitchen. There were many pots. Pots hung on the wall, a teapot was on a table in the corner, and pots were sitting on the stove itself. Some were copper, others clay, and others were a dark metal of a sort. It was all very strange.

Christia pulled a curtain across the entire room and sat down at the small table in the newly created space. As Rienna sat on the chair opposite of her, she pulled a rope and curtains pulled back to reveal a window directly beside the table. She placed her lantern on the ground and settled into her chair.

 "If I don't keep the kitchen dark, some of the fluids may react," she explained, picking up the teapot and pouring two cups of tea. She pushed her glasses farther up her nose. They were unusually large and thick, giving her face an inhuman look. "Thank you for coming here, Rienna. It is really quite the honor," she said with a smile.

"Um, yeah," Rienna said, grabbing her tea. "Thank you for having me."

"Of course, I find this very exciting." Christa said, taking a sip of tea. "What makes your necklace glow? Did you enchant it?"

Rienna shook her head and removed the piece of glowing blue crystal. "No, I store this crystal in the locket. I use the crystal to save my magicka. The glowing is really more of a side effect," she explained. "I have a larger version in my bag with me, but it’s barely storing anything."

Christia leaned forward and stared down at the tiny crystal. "Fascinating," she murmured, "Like the Sovereign's, but blue!" She looked up at Rienna. "What is this 'magicka' you mentioned?"

Rienna returned the crystal to the locket nervously. "Oh. It's magic. I use it to make magic, I mean. I can only have so much magicka inside me at a time, so I store it in the crystals so that I can use it later," she explained.

"Fascinating," Christia said again. "I'm very excited to be able to work with you."

 "Me, too," Rienna said. "If you don't mind, could you explain why your house is… like this?" she said, gesturing all around.

Christia laughed. "Good! I’m glad you’re willing to question things, even in a situation where it may be taken poorly," she said appraisingly. "Don't worry, I don't mind. My house is more than just my place of living; it is my laboratory. As an alchemist, I need a space to mix concoct potions and test new methods without risking the students at the school's alchemy lab. I try to keep conditions for my experiments well under control. Hence the darkness.

"If I mixed two plants together that have proven sensitive to sunlight in the past, I store them in the dark. If I want to see what happens to a substance under specific conditions, I have a specific room with those conditions. I have one fireplace that now serves as a hot room if I wish to see what happens in a hot environment and another area that helps serve as a cold room for the opposite. Sometimes, all a potion needs to get going is a little bit of fire," she explained enthusiastically, her eyes gleaming. "There is nothing more exciting than finding the perfect combo for an elixir."

Rienna found it all very intriguing. "What about the room with the stained glass? What do you use that for? And the rooms with mirrors and the strange light contraption?" she asked eagerly.

Christia seemed thrilled that Rienna was so interested. "The color room has yet to prove useful, but the mirrors… You probably saw the hole in the roof from outside. The contraption focuses all of the light from the hole into a singular point. The single beam becomes warm and bright and can charge some substances. The mirrors can be used to move the beam around the room or into others. It took over a month to build!"

"Where do you even sleep?!"

"I have a modified closet," Christia said casually. "It fits my bed and that's all I need." She finished her tea with a final swig. "Anyway, you ready to start experimenting?"

Rienna quickly chugged down the rest of her own cup as well. "Yes!" she said excitedly. "What are we going to do?"

Christia grinned. "When I was testing on the Sovereign's crystals, I had to make assumptions on what affected them since they were impossible to really sand down and we couldn't extract the magic." Her eyes shone with excitement. "I want to see what this 'magicka' reacts to." She dramatically shut the blinds so the only light came from the locket and the lantern. "Help me bring some stuff to the Danger Room."

"Danger Room?" Rienna asked in a mix of intrigue and worry.

"My room for every beginning experiment! Completely empty and blocked off. This way, if anything bad happens, not too much is damaged," the alchemist explained, lighting a second lantern and handing it to Rienna. "Which it won't, "she assured. "But just in case, you know?"

"I guess that makes sense," Rienna said, "What would you like me to grab?"

Christia handed her a large tray. "Just hold what I give to you. We’ll try to take everything we need all at once.”

"Alright."

Christia turned to the table and shelves full of supplies. "Hmm." She grabbed a bottle and placed it on the tray. "I definitely want to test with the magic rosemary. And..." she grabbed another container. "Some tree sap. That worked well with the keystone crystals. Ooh. And this, and this. I wonder how your magic would affect my explosion potion?"

"Umm..." Rienna said as more and more stuff was added to the tray. "This is a bit much, now."

"Oh, sorry about that. I'll carry some of those. This should be interesting enough." Christia said, grabbing the last few items and two more bottles. "How's that?"

 "I'll be able to carry this," Rienna said. "But, the explosion potion? That sounds… really dangerous."

Christia laughed. "That's all part of the fun! Don't worry, we'll take extra care with that one, usually it only activates if it encounters oil. Although it did once react poorly to a fingernail. I'm sure we'll be fine, though."

What?! For a moment, Rienna began to doubt her new mentor. I guess I don't know how explodey the potion really is, she told herself.

Christia led her to an excluded part of the house and into an empty room. The ground was stained and scorched and a robust lantern hung from the ceiling. The room was cold.

"Okay, let's start with the rosemary."

"What makes it a magic rosemary?" Rienna asked as a sprig was placed in a saucepan and then in the center of the room.

"I'm not sure whether it grows this way naturally or if it was enchanted," Christia admitted. "But I know it repels spittle bugs, causes strange dreams when consumed, and floats just above the ground for the first two days after being cut. It also does amazing things when combined with fire or most other plants."

Rienna coughed. "Huh. What should I do?"

"Start with storing some magicka in the rosemary. Can you do that?"

"Sure." Rienna closed her eyes and focused on the rosemary… and stopped. "It already has magicka," she said. "Orange… faint, but still there."

There was a rustling of paper and scratching of a pencil. "Orange," Christia said to herself. "Can you not store magicka in something that already has its own?"

Rienna hesitated, something about that felt intuitively wrong. "I could try…” she said doubtfully.

"Yes! Please do that."

Rienna took a breath and readied herself. She walked up to the sprig and slowly added a handful of magicka to it. "Okay, I added some of my own," she said. She was answered by pencil against paper. "My magic seems to be avoiding the orange magicka," she described. "But a bit has touched and is becoming tangled. It's melding but trying to stay apart." It began to rise into the air. "It's floating, at least the magicka is. It's becoming more violent…"

There was a loud popping noise and Rienna's magic shot across the room and into the wall. The rosemary fell limp, even less magicka in it than before.

"What happened?" Christia asked, writing furiously.

"It just shot out my magic! There is hardly anything in the rosemary now."

"That's spectacular! Imagine if we could control how long it stayed together and where the magicka was shot! Just spectacular!" Christia exclaimed. "And what would happen if they could successfully combine?" She replaced the rosemary with another sprig. "See what happens if you just pool magicka around it."

"Okay." Rienna did as she was told and watched the glowing pool of magic. There was some fizzling, but soon it simply evaporated and disappeared, not truly connected to anything anymore.

"Interesting," Christia said, taking her notes. "So it only reacts noticeably when two magics are in the same container. This is valuable information, Rienna."

Rienna nodded. "Now what do we try?

Christia tapped her chin with the end of her pencil thoughtfully. "We do the same thing with everything else. And we then try multiple things at once and then reactions to boiling water and fire. We'll keep going until we run out of time." 

What felt like a short while later, Rienna’s mother came knocking on the stained window. Rienna was secretly relieved. She was starting to draw on the stored magicka from her crystal and was worried about running out.

They stopped and Christia hurried to the front doors. "Ah! Rienna's mother! Please come in. I can make some tea." She brought Evie inside and shut the doors behind her.

"Hello, Christia. I'm Evie," Rienna's mother said, looking around, flustered. "My, what a strange house," she said.

"Yes, I conduct many experiments here," the alchemist explained. "Come, let's all go to the kitchen."

They sat down at the dining table and Christia brought up a stool from the kitchen while she waited for the tea kettle. Evie seemed fairly bewildered at the state of the room

Christia was the first to talk. "It's been wonderful working with Rienna," she said. "What she can do is amazing."

Evie smiled. "It certainly is."

"We were able to do all kinds of stuff," Rienna said excitedly. "The beeswax held magic very well and when paired with the magic rosemary, floated into the air! And it exploded once I gave more magic to the rosemary, which was super cool!"

Evie raised her eyebrows. "Exploded, huh? That is exciting."

"Yes. We think that with more research, we can find a way to make something fly more predictably," Christia said. "Once we start experimenting with new magical elixirs, we'll get closer to figuring out permanent enchantments."

"We're thinking that using substances like the wax and rosemary, we can store magic that can be used by anyone under the right circumstances," Rienna added.

"That's very good," Evie said. "I take it you will want to be meeting again?"

"Yes! That would be awesome!" Rienna said.

Christia nodded and stood. "Let me get the tea and we can discuss times." She passed through the curtain to the kitchen.

A moment later she came back with a teapot. Evie grabbed her cup and blew on it gently. The warmth from the tea heated Rienna's hands, for which she was grateful; a certain warmth had left her with her magicka.

"What days are you free?" Evie asked as the alchemist sat back on her stool.

"Saturdays are good," Christia replied. "I think I'm free all day next Saturday. We could get a lot done."

Rienna nodded enthusiastically at Evie and her mother smiled. "Yes. I think that will work. We'll come at nine? And is it alright if I stay and watch this time?"

"Yes! Of course. Please do! We can put your horses in the back and make a day out of it. Let me write down the time so I remember." Christian pulled out a pocket calendar from a pocket in her pants and made a quick note. "There. It's settled then. The seventh at nine o’clock."

"I'm glad that this could work out with you," Evie said, taking a sip of her tea.

"Me, too! This is quite the opportunity.”

They drank the rest of their tea quietly. With a cough, Rienna looked out at the still fog and grey landscape. A perfect day for tea. As was everyday in Vieryen. She supposed that was something of a benefit.

Evie frowned. "You're coughing again. Are you ill?" She looked to Christia. "Has she been coughing a lot while here?"

"Here and there. Not much. She seems otherwise fine," Christia replied.

Rienna frowned back at her mother. "I feel normal."

"You've still been coughing."

"How long have you been coughing, Rienna?" Christia asked.

"I don't know."

Evie rolled her eyes at Rienna. "I first noticed it a couple days after she returned from the Alyene," she said. "That was just about two weeks ago, and she's still coughing."

Christia nodded and tapped her teacup thoughtfully. "I see…" She looked up at the ceiling like she was thinking through an idea. Evie and Rienna waited patiently. "It's the haze," she said with certainty.

Evie shook her head. "She never had a problem before she left."

"That may be true, but it's gotten notably worse this past month. I guess the air is clearer in the Alyene since it goes on forever. Smoke wouldn't be trapped like it is here, so she probably got used to it and is struggling to adjust to the new concentration of smog," Christia said without any doubt in her voice.

Evie let out a weary sigh. "Alright. Is there anything to be done?"

Christia shrugged. "I can give her something that usually helps with germ based coughs. This is something else, though, so it may not work," she advised. "And she seems fine despite the cough. It'll be annoying if it stays, that's all."

Evie bit her lip and nodded. "Okay. How much would it cost?"

Christia laughed in surprise. "No, no! It would be free! No, no. You're already bringing her all of the way out here so I can experiment with her magic. No, I'm not going to charge you for something that might not even work," she said with a shake of her head.

"Oh!" Evie exclaimed with a nervous laugh. "Alright then. Thank you so much! Are you sure?"

Christia smiled and waved her off. "Don't worry. I have plenty, and the chance to spend time with Rienna is worth it."

Rienna smiled, flattered.

"Oh. Okay. Thank you," Evie said again.

"Anytime," Christia said with a knowing smile. "Let me go get it." She stood and took the empty teacups back with her into the kitchen. She returned with a small bottle of dark red liquid and handed it to Evie. "One tablespoon a day. If she gets better, see if she stays so without it." She turned to Rienna. "And I'm sorry, but it doesn't taste great."

Rienna nodded to show she understood. She had had medicines a few times in the past. Every time, they had been awful but she had gotten better within a few days. "Thank you."

Her mentor grinned. "No problem. I do suppose you must be leaving soon, though?" She looked to Evie, who nodded.

"Yes. We better get going. We've got to make dinner still."

Rienna's gaze shot to her mother's. "Wait. I thought I was done helping today?" she demanded.

Evie just grinned slyly. "It's still today, hon. We never said whether yesterday was the last time you had to help or not anyway," she pointed out. "And… It seems you have another meeting with Ms. Christia to make up for."

"What?!" Rienna gaped. She hadn't agreed to this. "Not fair," she mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Rienna said with a great sigh. She stood tiredly. "Let's go home."

Christia chuckled. "Getting into that age, are we?"

Evie stood as well and smiled wanly. "Yes. Thank you for seeing her, have a good night, Christia."

Rienna's mother immediately put her to work stirring in vegetables that she added to a stew. Potatoes, carrots, celery, and the like all went into the steaming pot of broth and meat.

When her mother turned away, she scooped up a softened carrot and shoved it into her mouth. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself from spitting out the scorching vegetable. She didn't chew as her mother added another set of vegetables.

Her father set up a fire in the dining room and lit the candles on the table. He saw Rienna chewing the carrot and her eyes widened at being caught. He just shook his head with a smile and, to her relief, returned to his work.

Not long later, they all sat at the table and Rienna was given a tablespoon of medicine. She choked it down and drained a cup of water, making gross faces the whole way. She finally scarfed a hot piece of potato and the bitter aftertaste faded. "Yuk."

Evie, holding the bottle and spoon, glanced at Luke. "Maybe you should have some, too. I've heard you cough a few times," she said.

He grimaced. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

"But it's delicious!" Rienna said with pretend shock. "You'll love it."

"Ha ha. No," he said, blowing on a spoonful of stew. "If I'm sick, this stew will cure me just fine."

"Alright," Evie said. "But if I hear too much coughing from you, you're getting some, too. We don't want you sounding sick for royalty, anyway."

"So that's what's important," Luke joked. He'd been with them long enough that they knew he wasn’t being serious.

Evie shook her head and rolled her eyes. She put the medicine away and sat at the table.

After a moment of content silence, Dave spoke up. "How is that going, anyway?" he asked. "Getting along with the royalty?"

Luke swallowed a bite of food and shrugged insignificantly. "The prince and princess are both about my age, which makes things both easier and more complicated. Apparently, even though they have never truly served as royalty, they feel pretty entitled to their titles. They're good people, though."

"What about the King?" Rienna asked. "And is there other royalty?"

Luke shook his head. "No. And he seems fine. More tame than Nadia and Malcolm, his children. I get the impression that they are more determined to gain back their positions than he is."

"Hmm," Rienna said, a little disappointed. "What do you do there again?"

"I explain outside politics to them," he said tersely.

"Is that seriously all?"

"Rienna, don't be rude," Evie said sternly.

"But surely there isn't much to it?" Rienna pointed out.

Luke hesitated. "I've also started teaching them science," he admitted. "They really have no idea how the world works."

"Who does the best?" Rienna asked before her parents could stop her. She hadn't gotten any chance to interrogate Luke about the royalty until now.

"The prince and princess," Luke said after a moment. "The King is smart, but just… Well, it doesn't matter. They all do fine."

"And the princess? What's she like?" Rienna quickly asked. Her parents were looking at her disapprovingly, but she knew that they wanted to know about the royals too, since they weren’t stopping her.

Luke sighed at her continuing stream of questions and ate a couple bites of food before responding. "She's smart. Kind of bossy, though. She wears all sorts of gowns and jewelry, but she's not shallow-minded. A lot like her brother."

"Is she pretty?"

Luke frowned and became a little flustered. "Um... Yeah, sure. Why?"

"It's just… all of those dresses!" Rienna started, waving her fork through the air like a wand. "So many colors! And variety! And they probably are super comfortable and have pockets… Is her hair like gold? I've heard that princess hair is usually gold, but that's kind of crazy."

"Rienna, let Luke eat his dinner," Evie finally said, "You've barely touched your own!"

"Oh, fine," Rienna said. "It would be cool to meet her, that's all."

"I don't disagree with you, hon," Evie assured her.

They finished dinner and Rienna was left to do the dishes. As she washed bowls, her mind drifted. It would be so cool to be a princess, she thought dreamily. All the things I could do…

She was finally scrubbing the stew pot when she realized something. The princess didn’t have magic, Rienna did, which was way better than any dress.

She smiled to herself and happily completed her chore

She found her parents and felt a cough coming on. She cleared her throat to hide it and found everyone looking at her. "Hi," she said meekly. "Um. The dishes are clean."

Dave nodded in acknowledgment. "Thank you, Rienna." He returned to reading his book on The Best Tree Growing Practices For Magic-less Commoners. At this point, he was reading it more for entertainment than knowledge.

"Um, yeah, of course," Rienna mumbled, taking her own seat on the couch. She picked up her notebook and began drawing mystical creatures. Dragons, wyverns, unicorns and the like. Also cats whenever a drawing didn't go as planned.

Then she was struck with a wonderful idea while in the middle of sketching a shoocan. She was adding a tree branch beneath it that she was struggling to make look like wood, and remembered how some of the jungle trees had been enchanted to grow bigger and faster. The place must have been stuffed with magicka.

Tomorrow, when she went outside The Suppression, she'd find a magical plant to bring to Christia on Saturday. Maybe enough of the forest was controlled by Trusten Ylad that they could experiment with her magicka found within the trees.

All she had to do was not get caught.

Necromancy

The next morning, Rienna grabbed her bag and went to the Suppression with Xio and Xia. The air was chilly where they stepped out of The Suppression, but still warmer than inside Vieryen. The cats immediately went into the sunshine and sunbathed.

She hadn't told them her plan yet.

She went to the edge of the forest and examined the magicka within. There was a rainbow of colors and thousands of shades of green it seemed. But there was a sort of sickly dark green haze throughout. Not enough to gather into her empty crystal, though.

Maybe it was a spell so that Trusten could sense whenever someone entered the forest. That was unfortunate. She’d been hoping to get some of the witch’s magic, but maybe that would be impossible without finding the witch herself, which was something she did not want to do.

She turned to her cats. "I want to get some magic plants for practice with Christia," she told them. She could still get interesting stuff to experiment with.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Xio said, jumping to his feet. "Not from the forest right?"

Rienna winced. "I do want to go a little bit into the forest," she said.

The two cats came running up to her. "Rienna, that a terrible idea! Hateful squirrel thing is in there!"

"We won't go far in. Or I won't. You don't have to come if you don't want."

"No," Xio said. "We won't let you go in alones. But shouldn't go in at all!"

"We'll be fine," Rienna assured him.

"We’ll probably be caught!" Xio insisted.

Rienna ignored the cats and stepped into the forest. Nothing happened. She stepped further forward.

Reassured that nothing terrible was going to happen, she began searching for plants with large amounts of magic. She bent down to a fern with yellowy brown magic and gently plucked a frond to add to her bag. It was small, but the magic went through every vein of the leaves, unlike any of the plants Christia managed to grow in her greenhouse.

She watched as a new frond already began to uncurl in its place.

She heard her cats come in after her and rolled her eyes at Xio's grumblings. They were barely a few meters in, they’d be fine.

She found a tiny white mushroom with sparkling blue magic. It didn't have much, but what was interesting was the cloud of tiny specks of magicka all around it. She carefully added it to her pouch.

Without really noticing it, she wandered further into the forest until the light from the edge was mostly obscured by trees.

"Rienna… we too far in," Xio said quietly from behind her.

With surprise she noticed how far away the edge was. She swallowed and blew it off. "We're fine."

She added an interesting feather to her collection and heard a rustling above her. She looked up but saw nothing.

"I sense it, Rienna. We have to leave."

Rienna calmed herself and turned back to where they had come. She was relieved to see she could still pick out the meadow beyond. "You're right. I have enough."

Then she saw it. A dark green blob of magic in the trees. She felt it staring down at her. "It's right there," she whispered.

It moved in a blur to another tree. She couldn't help but feel that it wasn’t a real being, just a physical form for the magicka. The way it moved wasn’t natural, like the form followed the magicka, not the other way around.

She ran towards the meadow, weaving between trees. She quickly realized that the exit always remained just as far away as before. She took a moment and saw that the haze of magic had become denser; a spell was definitely in effect.

They were trapped, the way out just out of reach.

Angrily, she turned to face the spirit and shot a bolt of force at it.

It fell to the ground, stunned. But as she approached it, it flowed back up the tree and into another one.

She shot another bolt and missed. It was now in another tree and a bolt of magic later, another tree. She thought for a moment and prepared two bolts, drawing slightly from her locket. She shot one and the moment the spirit appeared on another branch, she shot a second one, hitting it perfectly.

It tumbled to the ground and stayed there.

She went to it and examined the red furred creature. It looked like any other forest creature, except for the bright red fur. It didn't seem to be breathing.

"You got it!" Xio said excitedly, admiration in his voice. "Now we go back."

Rienna focused on the magicka again and looked around. "I don't think we can," she said. "The witch's magic is still really dense. The squirrel was probably just a container, not the caster."

She bent down to pick up the body, but her hand went through cold air. It faded and the magicka within it went with. It was as if it never existed.

"How do we gets outeth then!!" Xio panicked.

Rienna looked around and back at Xio. "The squirrel may not have cast the spell, but I think it was maintaining it. It'll wear off, we just have to wait."

Xio mewled in distress. "But what if the witch comes!? Or another hateful squirrel!?"

"I- I don't know," Rienna said. "Trusten didn't come out of her cottage last time to get to us. The squirrel brought us to her."

A strained, crackling voice laughed. "Last time, you didn't manage to kill my spirit."

Rienna jumped and looked around frantically for the source of the voice. It was Trusten; a voice like hers was hard to forget. Yet, she was nowhere in sight.

The witch chuckled at Rienna’s turning in circles. "Let me make it easier for you." A flickering projection of the witch appeared, floating just in front of Rienna. It was made of a dense cloud of her magic. "My pet, I thought you'd never come back," she said with a crooked smile. "And with magic! How quaint! This will make this even better."

"Let us go," Rienna said shakily.

"No, I don't think I'll be doing that," the hag said. "The taste of that which you have waited for is sweeter than anything else."

"We escaped you once."

Trusten laughed. "Not on your own! Måren can't save you this time."

"But I'm trying to stop Sovereign Jenni," Rienna tried. "Isn't that what you want, too?"

“Ignorant child. You think you are part of some prophecy that Måren told you about, don’t you?” the old witch sighed. She sat on a chair that appeared beneath her and waved a hand and one appeared for Rienna as well. "I suppose I shall tell you a story, my pet, before I collect you. Perhaps it will be amusing. I’ve only just finished that funny man from your bubble anyway." A book appeared in Trusten's hands. It had a blank, brown leather cover and moldy pages. Rienna could only hope the leather was from some forest animal. "Well, sit!" the crone bellowed.

The last thing Rienna wanted to do was sit, but maybe if she did, the witch would forget that her trapping spell was fading. She quickly sat down and the cats huddled together on her lap.

"Ahem. Once upon a centuries ago, in a small corner of the world, Måren and I met near what is now a swamp. The swamp bit is partly my fault, but that's no matter. I was older than her, and more experienced. But she quickly became just as powerful and we became like sisters, our own little coven. However, she had yet to learn the perils of humans like I had.

"One day, she saved a man from a bear. In return, the nearby village peoples tried to burn her. She was too kind to help herself, so I stepped in. Finally, she realized that humans would kill all of our kind if they could.

"We both moved to create our isolated realms and we founded a group of witches that would meet once a decade, and still does to this day. Then, I got a little too zealous with my trips to a funny little kingdom." The witch laughed darkly and it felt as if the very air shook. "Then some crazy woman went off and took magic from crystals. Crystals that turned out to be part of an ancient consciousness even older than me! Ha! And now she's slowly killing it!

"So, then, the little council we formed got all worked up. 'Oh, no! An ancient species is going to die! We need to stop it!' 'But there are only five of us left! We can't risk it!'" Trusten laughed again. She seemed to have gone mad, grinning angrily at the book and her voice became even more unstable. "But a funny ol' seer predicted that someone from Vieryen would stop her. Suddenly, no one was worried."

The crone finally looked up at Rienna darkly. "But you see, my dear critters, the seer didn't mention which Vieryen 'escapee' it would be. The first? The third? One of your disgusting fairyeld? You are just one of many who have come through my forest since then. But good old Måren didn't know that. She thought you were the only one." She slammed the book shut and stood. Both chairs disappeared and Rienna fell to the ground in a heap of cats and dirt. The witch laughed at the terrified look on her face.

"So my reasons for not caring about what you hope to do are simple, my pet. First, if it is destined to be, it does not matter what I do. And two, those crystals had it coming if they never realized how awful people are in all their millennia of existence. It's called natural selection, my critter, and it's about to happen to you, since you were foolish enough to come back here."

Rienna stood quickly and looked into the plane of magic. She watched with horror as a wave of dark green magic approached from deep inside the woods, rippling through the ground. She grabbed both cats and yelled at Xia, "Bring us into the air! She's casting a spell!"

They shot into the air just in time. The wave passed through the ground they had been standing on and suddenly stopped and melted through the area. Plants shriveled and blackened, and the ground turned into a living sludge of rot and decay.

Trusten's image frowned. "You've gotten smarter, pets," she admitted. "But don't worry, I'll still get you." The projection winked out of existence.

The ground still liquid beneath them, Xia brought them to a tree and set them down on a branch. Rienna kept her focus on the magicka realm in case anything appeared.

"I told yous this would happened!" Xio said angrily. "You went in anyway!"

“I didn't expect her to come after us so close to the barrier!” Rienna cried hysterically. “I'm sorry!"

 "You should listen more," Xio growled. "Now what we do?!"

Rienna rubbed her eyes and stared intently at the woods. "The magicka cloud is receding some. I don't think she cares that it won't be up too much longer. We just need to be ready to make a run for it."

"But where did she go?"

"She expected her first spell to work, but instead she just used up her magic. I don't know how much she has, but she'll probably send another spell out soon."

"How will we escape it, this time?" Xio asked.

Suddenly, Rienna had an idea. She brought out her empty crystal. "We try dodging it, but if we can't, I can catch the spell and channel it into this!" she explained. "Sorry, Xia. But you'll need to be ready to move us all again."

Xia nodded in understanding.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rienna saw a blast of intense green magicka. She shouted and the three of them shot off the branch and onto another. A violent blast of necrotic heat blew by the branch they'd been on.

"Good job, Xia. Let's head towards-"

The orb of energy slowed into a curve and shot again towards Rienna and the cats. She could feel the gross bolt nick her leg as they barely dodged the spell again. It turned sharply and blasted at them again. And again.

Finally, as they flew out of its way for the fifth time, Rienna brought up her hands and absorbed the magicka. She felt it hatefully trying to burn its way out of her. She gripped the crystal tightly and shoved all of the horrible magic into it, finally putting it in her bag when she no longer felt any of it inside her.

The sludge on the ground suddenly started pulsing and moving. It started to climb up the tree they were on. But instead the tree began to melt and join the ooze, which fell to the ground angrily. Unfortunately, they were on the tree.

"We need to get out of here!" Rienna yelled as Xia barely managed to get them to another tree. "I think the trap has faded enough! We need to go, now!"

"Mama can't bring us that far!" Xio mewled in distress.

"Just bring us to the ground as far away from that thing as possible. We can run from there."

The ooze began to eat the next tree they were on and Xia quickly flew them to the ground, using a little more gravity than magic. Rienna rushed to her feet and ran towards the forest line.

A tree crashed near them and the ooze could be heard sliding its way towards them, faster than it ever should be able to go. But Rienna didn't look back until they made it into the meadow.

And then it was like nothing had happened. Looking into the forest, there was no slime or rot, no fallen trees. Just a regular forest with birds singing from within.

Then something came hurtling out of the trees at Rienna. A crow. It stopped in front of her feet, a couple of mangled feathers dropping and a bit of skull showing through its thin, dead skin. It was a living corpse.

It opened its mouth to caw, but no sound came out. Instead a swirl of greenish dust came out and enveloped the bird. Trusten's voice rasped. "So sorry to see you go. You really must come back to see me some time, my critters. I'll be waiting." Then, the bird was gone, even the feathers that had fallen disappeared.

Rienna shook from fear and stumbled back towards The Suppression and sat under her tree. She saw the terrible light from the crystal in her hand and shoved it into her pack furiously.

Hardly willing to blink, still fully immersed in the realm of magicka. She looked down at her cats. "I'm s-so sorry. Never again. You were right. Never again. I'm so sorry. I’m so sorry." She wanted the comfort of petting the soft kitten fur, but didn't feel she should after what she had gotten them all into.

"Never," Xio said firmly. "Such idiot!"

Rienna felt herself beginning to cry. Xia purred softly and sidled next to her and laid down in a loaf-like position. She gratefully pet the fluffy furred cat and let a couple of tears roll down her cheeks before wiping them away.

"Thank you for coming with me," she sniffled. "You are amazing."

Xio sighed and nudged her hand with his head. "I will always protect you from your dumb," he said. "You cannot help that you mush-brained."

Rienna laughed shakily. "You're the best, Xio."

He purred. "Well, yes. I is cat."

The Necrotic Orb

Three days later, Rienna grabbed her bag of magic materials and joined her mother on the horses. Her mother knew that she was bringing something, but she hadn't told her what since she didn’t know she’d been going outside The Suppression.

They reached Christia's house at around nine in the morning. The alchemist was outside, waiting for them. She led them and their horses around the back to a tree of some kind where they tied up their horses and went into the house through the back.

"I was running some tests and had an idea," Christia said. "Surely, the hardest thing about going against the Sovereign is her magic, yes? What if we created a shield of a kind that deflects the magic?"

"That would be amazing, but how? Rienna asked with a shake of her head.

Christia smiled. "Remember how the magic rose's petals floated off when placed in a pool of magicka?"

Rienna nodded. "Yeah. The moment it touched the magicka, the petals pretty much shot into the air. But how would we make a shield with petals? They'd just rot away." She involuntarily thought of the ooze in the forest and shivered slightly.

"Ah ha! But what if I made a rose petal extract? If it works like the normal petals, your magic will either be repelled or the liquid will shoot a way. Either way, the two would never touch. Go ahead and try it," she said, gesturing to a small bowl with a pinkish discolored clear liquid.

Rienna reached out and dropped a small bit of magicka into the dish. Immediately, it shot up and disappeared.

The alchemist clapped excitedly. "It works! We could even find a way to work it into basic clothing! Fantastic! We've already found something that could be key to removing the Sovereign from power."

Rienna grinned. "I actually have some other stuff I would like to test on," she said, unslinging her pack. She took out the various items and finally the crystal. "I, um, went outside The Suppression and gathered these, and um, also took some of the witch's magicka and put it in the crystal." She avoided looking up at her mother.

However, that didn't stop Evie from hearing what Rienna had said. "I'm sorry, what?! You went into the Alyene?" she yelled. "What were you thinking?! Don't you remember last time? You were gone for weeks!"

"Mom, the Alyene isn't dangerous!" She thought of Trusten Ylad and her forest. "So long you don't go anywhere evil," she amended.

"And going into that witch's forest is safe?" Evie said, dangerously quiet.

“No…" Rienna admitted.

"Rienna!"

"I'm fine, though! See?!"

"Rienna, no. I can't believe you went out there without telling me. You- You’re grounded, alright?"

"What?! What do you even mean?" Rienna's mouth was practically hanging open with surprise. She hadn’t been grounded before. She wanted to say more, but didn't know what.

Christia cleared her throat. "Does this grounding affect our potential research at all?" she inquired.

To Rienna's relief, Evie shook her head. "No. This is important. What is does mean, though," she stared straight into Rienna's eyes, "is that you are not going into the Alyene ever again and someone will be with you whenever you go outside the house."

Rienna was appalled. "What? No! That's not fair!"

"It's for your own good."

Rienna glared at her mother for a moment and sharply turned back to the plants on the table. She picked up the small mushroom. "This one's magicka floats around it," she said without emotion. "It doesn't appear to be connected solely to the physical form like everything else."

"Fascinating," Christia said, trying to bring things back to normal. "Let's run some tests."

They slowly learned all they could about each plant and fungus Rienna had collected. They learned many interesting things, but nothing that could necessarily help them, in Rienna's mind, since they couldn't collect more.

Then they reached the crystal. Its sickly energy made even the glass dish seem sinister. They didn't know what to do with it. It was in a crystal, which they knew was not a very helpful material for experiments. And honestly, it was a bit scary.

"I'm going to transfer it into some beeswax," Rienna said suddenly.

Evie stopped her by grabbing her shoulder. "Isn't that dangerous? You'll get hurt." By this time, she'd learned that you couldn't mix two magickas together and get non-destructive results.

"I'll be fine. I just need to be quick." She placed a lump of wax next to the crystal and put her hand over both. Quickly, she drew out the evil witch's magic from the crystal and transferred it to the wax. It burned, but she managed to keep all of the foreign magicka in her hand and out of the rest of her body. "There," she said, shaking off her hand.

Evie snatched up the hand and examined it. "It's gone all pale! And the tips of your nails are yellowing! Why'd you do that?"

"We need to be able to test it! It'll wear off. I had to do the same thing to get it in there in the first place."

Evie looked at her like she was insane. She couldn't blame her, she felt more than a little crazy herself. "You've changed so much," her mother said with a shake of her head.

Christia finished drawing up a note and brought out another glob of wax. "Rienna, if you may, could you add some of your magicka please?" she asked, placing it on the table and pulling out a pair of gloves made out of a strange material. "Thank you, I just had a crazy, maybe genius, idea." She picked up the two small globs of wax and began pushing them together into one ball.

"Won't that explode?" Rienna asked, worried.

The alchemist grinned mischievously. "Not yet. but when I add some magic rosemary extract, a pinch of dried thyme, a little bit of dye from a coastal blackberry perhaps, and a few drops of my new rose petal extract..." She dropped it suddenly on the table and rushed to the wall, Evie and Rienna quickly following.

They waited tensely for the explosion.

Nothing happened. It just sat in a hunk of ugly goo.

The edges of Christia's excited grin turned down. "Hmm… That's disappointing. After mixing all of those highly uncooperative ingredients, something should have happened." She began flipping through her notes and mumbling various incomprehensible words. "Oh! I forgot to activate the thyme and dye so they could interact. We just need to set it on fire!"

To Rienna's delight, and Evie's obvious terror, Christia bounced forward and plopped the ball of goop into the fire. She ran back and handed the two of them pairs of large thick glasses. "Put these on, the rosemary hates fire."

Indeed. Almost as soon as they'd put on the glasses, a strange smell filled the room and sparks from the fire flew everywhere. One landed on Rienna's arm, which didn't so much hurt as surprise her. It left a yellow-green discoloration on her skin which she quickly hid from Evie.

Then, in a sharp crack, the melting glob split. Rienna could see her magicka fall limp to the ground and fade away, but Trusten's magic rose into a loathsome orb of energy. Rienna recognized it immediately.

The necrotic ball slowly edged out of the fire and began to gain speed. "Keep away from that thing!" Rienna shouted. "It's necromantic magic. Trusten used it on me."

The orb hastened as it curved until it was shooting right at Rienna. They all scattered as the horrible magic wished past leaving a moist heat in the air. Quickly, a gross decaying smell filled Rienna's nose and soon the whole room.

The bolt of death rounded about again and Rienna prepared to dodge. But it wasn't headed for her, it was shooting for Christia.

Christia yelled and barely made it out of the way. It kept coming after her. The room was too small; she'd be hit eventually.

Rienna didn't have anything to channel it into, and no matter how brave she was, she wasn't brave enough to just plain absorb the magicka into herself. So she picked up the chair and ran in front of the orb. Without hesitating, she threw the chair as hard as she could at the magic, which was coming right at her in an attempt to get at Christia, who was behind her. She quickly dodged to the side in case the orb wouldn't be stopped.

It hit the chair with a sickening squelch. The magicka faded away and so did the physical form of the orb. All that was left of the chair was a dense pile of rot on the floor, steaming just slightly.

Christia walked up beside Rienna and looked down at the pile of what was once the room's only chair. She laughed and bent down to get a closer look. "Oh, gross!" she said happily.

Rienna and Evie stared at her with wide eyes. She saw and shrugged. "Not the first time I've almost killed myself with some strange mixture. Thanks for saving me, Rienna. Shame about the chair, though."

"Um, sure? Anytime."

Evie gave a disbelieving laugh. "You're making me wonder about my choice to let her keep working with you, Christia," she said playfully.

Christia smiled and waved her hand in a great flourish. "So long as we have chairs, we will be safe!" she declared jokingly. They laughed somewhat nervously and she finally turned back to Rienna. "Now, am I right and I heard you say that that was the same spell the witch cast?"

Rienna nodded vigorously. "Yes! It didn't stop coming after me until I absorbed it. It even gave me a rash on my arm! Don't worry, mom, it's fine. I can't believe it came back!"

"But you do realize what this means, right?" Christia asked.

"I think it means we can cast spells and save them for later use by anyone?"

"Yes!" Christia yelled, jumping up and down. "This is the most marvelous, spectacular, amazing thing I have ever discovered! This will be a true turning point in our history, Rienna. Twenty years from now they'll say that this is the moment that led to our victory! And we all are a part of it! This is even cooler than the eye color changing potion I made six years ago!"

"We can defeat Sovereign Jenni!" Rienna realized with glee. "No more of The Suppression! I'll be able to talk with Jen again!" She stopped and suddenly looked at her mother. "We've got to tell the Order of the Jevitan."

"Well, the meeting's tomorrow, so we're going to have to find Albert before he starts," Evie said.

"Eh. That won't be a problem," Christia said. "He'll probably seek us out."

Evie suddenly coughed and waved at her nose. "Wow. It stinks like death in here. Are we done testing things for the day? I’m sorry but I can’t stay in here much longer."

A strong whiff of necrotic air passed by Rienna and her eyes began to water. "Yeah, I think. Oh, wow, that's awful."

They quickly hurried out of the room and shut the door. They made it to the kitchen where Christia picked up a bottle and began flicking droplets of whatever was inside it everywhere. It smelled like lemons and was way better than the rotten smell from the Danger Room.

Rienna sat down on one of the dining room chairs with a tired sigh. The two women sat down beside her and they began to drink tea.

"What kind of spells can you do that you'd store, Rienna?" Christia asked, taking a sip.

"I don't know," Rienna said.

Christia nodded. "I guess it would make sense to talk with Albert first. But take some wax, maybe candle wax this time, to cast a couple of spells after the meeting tomorrow, okay? I'd like to get started as soon as possible on finding a more practical way to recast the spell once we meet next."

"Okay, I'll try."

The alchemist grinned. "Good! I'll be seeing you tomorrow."