12) All her wicked ways
“What the Pit was that?”
Ambergrist pushed her way up to her feet next to her work table as the padded stool she had been sitting in toppled over onto the floor behind her. With her one good eye darting in all directions she twisted her head from side to side, then down a bit as she stared at the corner of the chambers that she used to work her magics in secret.
The interconnected rooms wound their way around what had once been some sort of below ground kitchen of a tavern or manor until it had sunk down deep enough into the foundations of the city that it had started to become too damp to use even for storage and had instead been filled with rubble to provide a foundation for additional floors to be added to the building above.
Just as the ruins beneath it had also once stood on the surface before sinking in turn. Alcoves that had once been windows in the walls showed where the room had once stood fully above the ground itself.
Taking her braided metal cane in hand, the old witch limped over to the corner where she had felt the intrusive Gaze pushing up against her wards. “Felt almost like a Fairy, but…”
There had been a hint of Pyromancy, divination through fire, and something else. “A mortal’s touch, along with a spirit of the All Mother.” But not from any race she had ever known. It had not even felt like anything she had ever heard of.
“Almost… inverted?”
There weren’t any physical signs of anything having pierced the stone walls of the room she had taken from the Vile Groumondic Cult many years ago, and the painted sigils of the wards were unmarked and unharmed.
Sneering, she began checking her Status and quickly found one change in active Curses. The Witch smiled in satisfaction.
The Magic she had invested into the Banefull Luck Hex she had put on Nictob had been freed, allowing her pool to begin to refill. Something… unfortunate, and lethal, had happened to the Vile Arcanist. “You shouldn’t have stolen from me young fool.”
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The steady clanks of her metal cane echoed through her chambers as it struck the stone floor with each step as she made her way to the cauldron that simmered over the low flames burning in the air above the Sigil she had inscribed on the bottom of the great hearth that dominated the room.
With each step she plucked a spring of ash leaf from a bundle hanging from the ceiling, then a pinch of powdered dead man’s hand mushroom from a bowl. Each ingredient gently hanging in the air around her before bobbing along with her as she walked.
Standing beside the boiling cast iron pot, she finally gestured to her own shadow, from which rose a great tome covered in worn and stained leather that she had flayed from her own body.
With a gesture from her left hand, it creaked open to a page filled with tiny writing, images, and stains.
“From what my will has marked, and my magic had left behind, I call. For a dept even death can not pay, I call. Nictob, find me, and then lead me to your home.”
As she spoke she cast in the leaves, the powder, as well as the cloth the fool had bled on to ensure that she could strike him down if he reneged on their agreement.
Ambergrist staggered as most of her magic pooled emptied out, if not for her book of shadow darting around to help support her, she may have even fell.
“Dammit, you would think that this far along Rank Three I would have some power to negate the cost of necromancy.” The old witch cackled to herself. She only needed to tie her magic down long enough for Nictob to find his way to her, and then lead her back to his hidden lair.
“Then my scroll, along with every other thing of value you had begged, borrowed, or stolen will be mine.”
She brightened up, “And all your little Cores you’ve been buying up as well.”
The old witch cackled once more, after all, if you can’t laugh like a mad woman whenever you want, what was the point of being a Witch?
And if you don’t enjoy your work, you’re doing it wrong.
