3rd Red Witch
Working draft
Rain botched on gilded steel. There was no short of determination among the Lunar Group of the Red Witches. Its Captain, Madeline, held a comically large trident by her side. For all intents and purposes, it was still a wand, albeit less potent in its utility than the Traveler's Wand or the Sage's Wand. Madeline was a woman of meticulous character, and she have always prided herself in understanding trivial details before any kind of execution. From the rough terrain of the forests to the cramped apartments of urban cities, she has always requested every single information to her. An unapologetic planner with a keen sense of caution.
She had worn her battle robe. Steel plates lined up behind her vital organs, and she wore a heart-shaped blackened metal on her chest with shoulder metal pads shielding her joints from dismemberment. Her knees are equally protected, and she wore makeshift sandals. For witches, shoes were never really a prized commodity in her organization. She served two Archmistresses in her time, Rebecca and Emily, and in her entire tenure as an official witch, she has not once seen any of them emphasize agility. The tactile flexibility that running offered was dwarfed by the magic that every witch wielded for they were easily the fastest and most powerful of all humankind.
Things were different this time. Every member of the Lunar Group were on edge, and they were tasked with the impossibility of their time: tracking Undermaster Ghael. Although her large trident more than makes up for any kind of firepower from Ghael, Madeline was still unsure that her plans would thoroughly be executed smoothly. Her feet dug into the muddy landscape of the Peropian Forest, but some of her obsessive insecurities settled in. Perhaps we should have worn protective gear for our sandals, every thing counts when we're fighting an elder, she told herself. Her squad is flanked behind her, all ten of her witches lined in five by five formation behind her. A heavy metal made a huge thud on her compass. She saw her compass churned its gearboxes slowly as it breathed its own mechanical power into life. Visitor aura.
The forest was eerily quiet, except for the fluttering leaves that shuffled as the wind blew about them aimlessly. "Wait for it," Madeline whispered. The gears churned more violently as the aura intensified, but there were no sightings of any visitor. "This has to be Ghael, but we're waiting for spatial distortion and unmarked visitors in his prescense." she declared. They waited for an extra five minutes and those five minutes turn into ten minutes. Not a single word was spoken among them. Deep down, they were hoping that perhaps an odd visitor would show up, naturally powerful but infinitely less so than Ghael. But these were faint manifestations. Fear cloaked a corner in each of their hearts, and they knew not to back down now that gears on their captain's compass churned so violently.
And just as uneasy they were about everything, the leaves and trees shook in a dream-like manner. Straightened barks become wavy barks and leaves twisted into shapes beyond human comprehension. The forest basked in a immediate brown hue, with green leaves distorting themselves into a dark chocholate color. The spatial distortion was here. Madeline dislogdes her Trident from the tree and signalled a "V" sign with her fingers, signalling her squad to take position. Her plan was simple. Overpower and contain Ghael. Snuff out his enthusiasm for human sin so Ghael remains isolated from world events, at least until Meredith ascends the throne and the Red Witches become prominently placed as major superpowers of the world.
The spatial distortion became nauseatingly difficult as trees bent beyond their limit and the vast spaces that the forest provides became complexlingly narrow like a maze. They knew not to flinch at least, as this was simply a hallucination. Forest didn't actually physically shift in such a manner, it's all in the hallucinations of having Ghael within their close proximity. "Ughh," shouts rang out in the distance. Malformed visitors took on slimy shapes as they rose from the ground. Another hallucination. The visitors don't actually exist beyond their disgusting sight. It was only Ghael who was here, and he was somewhere.
As they drew their wands, they enclosed themselves in a tight circle, determined to wait it out until he was sighted. A faint whisper began its prescense in the wind. A word spoken among tress. A revelation akin from a God but not exactly from one. It simply said one thing, "Treasures." A creature sped by through the deep sky beyond the forest so fast it was only a split-second that they all reacted. A witch on Madeline's rear, signaled her sign by drawing her wand upwards to the direction of the creature. Madeline drew her trident as her witches launched themselves into the air, hoping for an engagement with Ghael. They drifted above the forest before seeing a distant village in the Peropian Mountains, and it looked peaceful, even though Ghael was headed there. Madeline herself drifted in the still air above the forest, the hallucinations and spatial distortions lessening as Ghael moved further and further away. Their plan failed as they realized the village Ghael was headed to was perhaps under the control of Queen Arbil, and so, they were under no obligation to fight an Undermaster with an army of visitors there. Ghael fed on humans easily as the next visitor but he had the power to resurrect new visitors to his call upon any human death. To assault on what was essentially turning into a fortress was an unwise call. The Lunar squad slowly casted their teleport spell as they travelled back one by one to their headquarters where their Archmistress lives, bringing news that a village once again fell under Ghael.
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"Him?"
TIna Madeline and Emily