Chapter Forty One

Sidus was a wonderous city, at least to Shuka. Lancrin and Rockmarsh both had paved roads, tall buildings, and large crowds, but what neither of them had was Sidus’ prosperity. The roads were orderly and well kept, despite their frequent use, with ample space for multiple carts to pass each other by. And for the pedestrians there were sidewalks, a rare sight even in cities. Everything seemed clean, and the people, if not wealthy, then at least seemed comfortable. Even in Lancrin, the city of magic, you would still see those less fortunate every so often, but not so in Sidus. If the city had beggars they were either very well hidden or near non-existent. The wealth didn’t all go to the people either, there were temples on every street and statues at every plaza. There didn’t seem to be a single area that the city didn’t fully fund. Worryingly, for Shuka at least, that included their guards. No matter where she went there always seemed to be at least one pair of well-armed and armoured guards in line of sight of her. They did not seem oppressive, in fact, some of the guards she even saw chatting with passerby’s or by snacks at a food stall. But she knew they would not be that friendly with her, so she tried not to get noticed. Inevitably some would look her way though. They never approached her, or even seemed to recognize her, but Shuka had to wonder if they were secretly calling for backup. Or even calling for Validus. Still, Shuka and her new witch companion made their way to a bustling marketplace unimpeded.

“So, what’re we looking for?”

“Huh?”

Shuka turned to Melia, confused at the question she had asked.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re making the talisman aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be using your mana for it, so the talisman’s gotta fit your mana's personality.”

“Personality?” Shuka asked, perplexed. “Mana doesn’t have personality, it just powers spells.”

“Spoken like a true know-it-all mage. Look, there's more to magic than what you’ll find in your boring old books.”

Melia’s response was not at all what Shuka expected from what she thought was a common sense statement.

“I may not be a master at magic, but I think I know the basics well enough to know that’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, that’s because you have only ever told your mana what to do, but have you ever tried asking it? Of course not, you treat mana like a tool, not a partner.”

“How can it be a partner? It doesn’t think, and it can’t do anything on its own without me telling it to do it.”

“So what if mana can’t do magic without you, you can’t do magic without it either.”

Shuka had never thought about it that way before. Still, she had never seen anything resembling personality or thoughts from any source of mana, let alone her own.

“Look, I’m going to need more than just your word on this. Do you have any proof?”

“Proof? I can just show you. Hold out your hand.”

Why does she want me to hold out my hand? Is she going to cast a spell on me? I don’t know how that would prove anything, I have no way of telling what spells were cast by her, and what were cast by the mana. Or assisted by the mana? How is this even meant to work?

Despite her reservations, Shuka complied with the request. Melia grasped her hand with both of her own, but to Shuka’s surprise, didn’t cast a spell. Instead she had more instructions.

“Alright, now, you’re an illusionist right? Or is that disguise you’ve got an item?”

“No, the disguise is my doing. I’m not sure I would call myself an illusionist since I only really know two spells, but if you want me to make an illusion of something I can do that.”

“Great! I mean, not great that you only know two spells, that kind of sucks, but I do want you to make an illusion. Don’t finish it though, don’t even make the… what’s it called? Not the spell circle, the stuff that comes out of it. The magic clay stuff, you know.”

“…Do you mean magicae argillae?”

“Is that the mage name for it? Well, that’s dumb, I like magic clay better.”

Despite Melia’s… vague description, Shuka did know what she was talking about. Illusions were a two-step process, at least at the level Shuka was at. The apprentice illusionist started on the first step, creating a spell circle. The spell circles' purpose was to give the mana different properties that she could then manipulate. The processed mana that came out was called magicae argillae, regardless of what properties it was given. In Shuka’s case she only really knew how to make mana visible and change its colour, but she knew the possibilities were endless if you were good enough, and that was just with the most basic form of magic. The second step of making illusions was shaping the magicae argillae into the form she wanted, in the case of an illusion that meant changing its colour and shape to make it look like something, but for now, she stopped at making the spell circle. It was invisible, made entirely out of mana, and floated in the air just an inch above Shuka’s hand. Most of her training with Ralisdor had been getting her to the point of being able to accurately create her spell circles without being able to see them. Of course, she could still sense the mana, so she wasn’t completely blind, just mostly.

“Is the circle done? Good, now I’m going to do a bit of my own magic to activate your mana before you put it through the circle. Just think real hard about some concept, like, I don’t know, ‘home’ or something, while you make the magic clay and it should do the rest. Don’t try to manipulate the mana past putting it through the circle though, just leave it there.”

Shuka felt Melia’s magic flow into her hands and do… something. Her mana suddenly felt slightly tingly, which was weird since Shuka couldn't normally feel anything from it. She tried to ignore the weird feeling though as she thought of home. It was pretty simple for Shuka, she did own a house after all. It wasn’t anything fancy, but she had nowhere else she wanted to live. Not the colourful streets of Lancrin, or the orderly city of Sidus, just a small cabin in the forests of Rainsburg. She wanted to go back there.

“Hey, ya did it!”

“Huh?”

Distracted as she was, Shuka didn’t notice that floating above her hand was a miniature version of her cabin, surrounded by trees. The details weren’t exactly right, the illusion looked like it was in much better condition, and there weren’t nearly that many trees there, but it was her home. The door was open, welcoming her in as if she could fit inside.

“Well? Believe me now?”

“How is this possible? I didn’t tell the mana to do anything, it shouldn’t be able to make an illusion all on its own. How does it even know what a house looks like?”

“It doesn’t, but you do. Mana comes from your soul and your soul has a lot of opinions on things. Things like what home looks like, or what not being cursed feels like. All you gotta do is tell the mana to remember all that stuff in your soul, and it will copy it. Which is to say, it will copy you.”

“But how does that work? And why isn’t this more well known? Is there some sort of major downside to it?”

Melia had had enough. Throughout the entire conversation, she looked like she had less and less patience left to give, and she had finally run out.

“Gahh, what am I, your teacher? I play pranks, not give lectures. Look, all you need to know is the talisman has gotta look, and more importantly feel, the part. Otherwise, your mana is gonna make a half-assed enchantment or not even work at all. So, what are we looking for?”

“Right, sorry. So do I just think of something that represents protection? A shield I guess.”

“Ehh, a shield is too generic unless you really like shields or something. Probably better to go for a ‘return to normal’ type thing anyway.”

“If it’s what’s normal for me, then it has to be hunting. I’m not sure if that’s too aggressive though, I mean hunting does involve killing, and a bow and arrow is also a weapon.”

Melia didn’t seem concerned, in fact she was idly playing with some metal thing she took out of one of her many pockets.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. If you use a bow for hunting then that’s what it’s for. And you’re killing stuff sure, but just think of it as a circle of life thing. Animals die and we eat them, that’s normal. I think hunting is great, now we just need to find an object to represent it.”

Hmm… an object to represent hunting, huh? A deer? No, even a miniature deer would be too difficult to craft, and it’s not like they are all I hunt. A bow maybe? I do like my bow, but it might be a bit hard to get a stick to bend like one without snapping. Metal might work, but a metal bow would just feel wrong, even if it’s only meant to represent a bow. I think I could do an arrow though.

“Would an arrow work for the talisman? I’m no fletcher, but I have crafted a few arrows before.”

“An arrow? Yeah, that would work great. Might need to shrink it down a bit though. I know just the place to find some ingredients too!”

That sounded good to Shuka so she followed the little raccoon girl through the bustling marketplace until she found herself in front of a very refined wand shop.

“Are we going to buy a wand?” Shuka asked, confused.

“Buy? No way, I don’t even have enough money for that. We’re just gonna steal some of the wood they use to make wands, that should be magical enough for the talisman.”

They were still in the middle of the street so Shuka quickly looked around worried that somebody may have overheard them. Luckily, it seemed like no one was paying attention, but Shuka still shuffled over to an alley next to the shop. Melia humoured her and followed.

“Boy, you sure are paranoid. Everyone already knows I’m a thief, who cares if they overhear me saying I’m gonna rob a place.”

“I care! Do we even need to steal the wood in the first place? If it’s just the wood, and not a completed wand, we might be able to afford it.”

“Yeah, but like… why would we buy it? This guy looks pretty well off, so we are allowed to steal from him as long as we don’t put him out of business. Oh, speaking of which, we only really need a few blocks of wood, but we should probably get extra for Asheli’s heist tax.”

“Heist tax?”

“Yeah, ten percent of every heist goes to her. Twenty percent if you used guild resources, but we don’t need that for one wand shop.”

So I guess that’s how she makes her money. I’m surprised all these thieves are okay with that though. I guess I can see Melia not caring too much about the money, but how does she get everyone else to comply? Oh well, I guess it’s not really my business, it's not like I’m planning on sticking around the thieves guild after the curse gets removed.

Shuka was about to continue to argue against committing crimes, but Melia was already moving on with robbing the place. Not in the way Shuka expected though. The young girl lifted up her large witch hat revealing a small raccoon that was hiding underneath it, which quickly skittered onto her shoulder.

“Hey Scurry, see that window up there? See if you can open it up for us.”

The raccoon, which apparently understood the witch just fine, jumped off her shoulder and started to climb up the wall of the wand store and towards a window on its second floor. Once it got there, Shuka was surprised to see it pull out a set of lock picks from its mouth then begin to pick the lock on the window.

“Why does that raccoon have lock picks? And where was it even keeping them?”

“Oh, well, raccoons will eat anything so he just keeps them in his stomach most of the time. And he learned how to pick locks from me, although I think he’s better at it than me by now.”

“…Anything doesn’t include lock picks. And I don’t think you can teach an animal to pick a lock anyway.”

“You can when that animal is a familiar. They’re almost as smart as us you know, even if the way they think is a bit weird.”

In hindsight it really shouldn’t have surprised Shuka to learn that Melia’s familiar was a raccoon, but somehow it still did. Whatever else he was though, Scurry the raccoon was good at picking locks. In the short moment Shuka was distracted, the window was unlocked, and Scurry was waving at Melia and making small animal sounds from inside the shop.

“You’re done? Good job Scurry. Now curse girl, uhh, Shuko, right?”

“Shuka.”

“Close enough. I’ll be on lookout duty, so you go up and snag some magic wood. If you need any locks picked, just ask Scurry. He can understand you completely so don’t worry about giving him directions. He might bite you if you ask him to do something dumb though.”

“Right… how am I meant to get up there?”

“Ugh, alright give me a second, I need to make sure nobody sees us.”

Begrudgingly, Melia took out a piece of charcoal and a sheet of paper, from two separate pockets, and hastily scrawled ‘FUCK OFF THERE’S NOTHING HERE’ on it. She then slapped the paper onto the side of a crate, which it somehow stuck to, and moved the crate to the front of the alley, with the paper facing the street. If it wasn’t for the faint trace of magic Shuka sensed from the paper she would have thought Melia was just pulling another prank. Once she was done with the paper, Melia reached into a third pocket on her robe and started pulling out a length of rope. She didn’t pull out an entire bundle all at once though, instead she grabbed one end of a loose rope and just slowly removed it one foot at a time. About halfway through Shuka realized that the pocket she was pulling the rope from was far too small to fit the entire rope and it must have been enchanted.

Are all of her pockets like that? She must be carrying a lot of stuff then, if each pocket acts like a bag of holding.

Once Melia was done pulling the rope out, she threw one end of it through the window where Scurry was waiting. The raccoon familiar then securely tied his end of the rope to something heavy on the second floor.

“Well get going already.” Melia urged. “My ‘don’t look over here’ charm only lasts like twenty minutes, so you don’t have much time to waste.”

“Right, got it. Thanks for the rope.”

Shuka wasn’t very experienced in climbing ropes, but she was rather fit, so she didn’t have too much trouble climbing up to the window. She was rather worried about falling, since there wasn’t anything to cushion her fall, but it wasn’t too far to the ground. It would hurt, probably a lot, but she wouldn’t die. Probably. Once she was through the window Shuka had a quick look around the room she had entered. As luck would have it, she seemed to be in the storage area of the shop. She had worried that the wood she was looking for would be stored in the basement, or even a different building entirely.

How lucky even is this though? I’m not exactly excited about being able to rob this guy. It didn’t seem like Melia was going to change her mind though, and the raccoon had already broken in. I thought maybe if stealing from this place wasn’t possible she might have pursued a more legal option, but I guess that isn’t going to happen.

The attic Shuka found herself in was filled with crates and small chests that all had labels on them telling her what was contained inside. Most of it was wood, but there were other miscellaneous goods as well, like tools or other magical reagents. There was even one chest that was labeled as ‘finished wands’ but that wasn’t what Shuka was looking for. It was probably also the most heavily protected, so she didn’t even approach it, for fear of a spell. Instead, she started perusing the various crates for some good wood to take.

Hmm… maybe ghostwood? No, that’s too attuned with death magic; it might mess up the talisman. Ironwood then? Nah, ironwood is barely magical and the wood being extra tough probably won’t affect the talisman too much. Is that gaian wood? That must have cost a fortune, I can't steal that just out of principle. Also, the chest it's in is probably trapped to all hell.

The young huntress was having a hard time deciding, and the fact that there were some woods she didn’t even recognize didn’t help. It couldn’t be so cheap that it wouldn’t help with the talisman, but anything too expensive would make her feel guilty. While Shuka was considering her options, Scurry found a crate he was interested in, and was scratching at it. Shuka looked over and saw the label read ‘witchwood.’ Shuka had never heard of witchwood before, but it was in a crate instead of a chest so it probably wouldn’t bankrupt the owner if a few blocks were stolen. Just then, something clicked in her head as she got an idea.

Witchwood for a witches curse… Melia did say the symbolism was important. This will be perfect.

With a plan formulating inside her head, Shuka opened the lid of the crate and started grabbing the rectangular blocks of wood within. They were dark and had thin lines of black streaking through the grains like veins of corrupted blood. It was the most worrying block of wood Shuka had ever held, but it didn’t do anything special when she touched it, so it was probably safe to handle. She got about eight blocks before her arms were too full to carry any more, but Shuka felt like that was enough, and moved back to the window. Melia was still down there waiting, and there didn’t seem to be any guards investigating, so Shuka called down as quietly as she could.

“Melia! Hey Melia! If I throw down this wood, do you think you could catch it all?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, just go for it, I’ll catch them.”

There wasn’t anything Shuka could do but trust that she would catch them, so with one thrust she dropped the blocks of wood down to the witch. Melia, for her part, just removed her large witch hat and held it out below the falling wood. The hat enlarged, growing almost three times as big, allowing it to easily catch all of the witchwood in its cavity. With that settled, Shuka began climbing back down the rope while Melia examined the contents of her hat. By the time Shuka reached the bottom the witch already had a block in her hand and was examining it.

“Oh wow, you managed to get witchwood. You couldn’t have picked a better wood for this; witchwood reacts very well to emotion infused mana. Normally, it’s used for some of the darker emotions, but it should work for this too. Good job.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, do you have any ideas for other things we could put on the talisman?”

“Actually, I think I do.”