Bound - NaNoWriMo2020 11/22

                 The next morning came late for the two women, a combination of physical and mental exhaustion over the past days weighing heavily upon them. Madrona was the first to wake, finding herself in a tangle of limbs. She carefully pulled herself free of Kassadi’s grasp and wandered sleepily to the door. Madrona made it to the top of the stairs leading down to the inn’s first floor before her arm yanked back behind her. She groaned, more annoyed with herself than anything else.

                Madrona heard a pained wine muffled by the door as she returned. Entering the room Kassadi was sat up and rubbing her wrist, looking displeased to be awake again. She mumbled something that Madrona couldn’t quite catch and stood up, walking to the door and swinging it open. The wizard leaned forward and began shouting.

“Hey we have our tits out again bring us some coffee please!” Kassadi immediately shut the door and with a swaying gait made her way to the desk to study her spells.

“We have our tits out?” Madrona said, quirking a brow.

“Worked last time.” Kassadi said with a shrug. A few minutes later Kassadi was pouring sugar into the dark liquid, Madrona drank her’s without any sweetener.

“So I don’t suppose you have an idea of how we’re supposed to do this.” Madrona asked, sitting at the end of the bed while Kassadi peered though her spellbook.

“Mm.” Kassadi said, attention split. “Maaaaaybe?” She said with a face that didn’t hold much confidence, it was the kind of face a court vizier tells a monarch their favored pet had died.

“That bad?” Madrona asked, blowing on the steamy liquid before her, a habit she had learned through mimicry of others as oppose to need. Coffee was rarely served so hot that it burned her mouth.

“Well it shouldn’t be.” Kassadi said, turning in the chair. She leaned on the back of it, chin atop her arm. “I could just learn my Invisibility spell make us both poof out of view but you said that Halfling has like… an eye?”

“Yes.” Madrona nodded. “He says it allows him to see magic.”

“Probably means he can see through obfuscation magic then so no invisibility or illusions. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to see through alteration magic?” Kassadi pondered, then made a face. “I’m not looking to rearrange my flesh right now anyway.”

“We have to come up with something.” Madrona pressed.

                The two spent most of the morning shooting ideas back and forth. There was talks of luring one of them luring Gilbert out while the other went for the wands. Mentions of possibly using teleportation magic to appear on the second floor and waiting till the Halfling closed for the night. And one particularly hard fought for idea from Kassadi, where they both run in and tell Gilbert that the Goddess of the Starlit Night Zorya was facing off against her arch enemy, the Goddess of Darkness herself Nyx! They would convince Gilbert that the Starlit Princess’ and Night Queen’s power were too closely matched and that the Halflings bag of wands were needed to turn the tide! Madrona shot that one down with an emphatic no. The Inferni then suggested they just teleport the bag straight to them here.

“Oh that’s a great idea!” Kassadi perked up.

“Good.” Madroa said, throwing her hands up. “And you can do that?”

“Nope!” Kassadi tilted her head.

                Eventually it was decided that visiting the shop, locating the wands, and then returning later would be the best bet. It did mean that Gilbert would see them but they both agreed that it was inevitable. There was no guarantee that if they simply hid in the building till after closing they would even be able to find the wands. No this was hinging on the idea that the two women who had retrieved the items for the kindly shop keep wouldn’t then turn around and swipe them two days later. Kassadi, now that they had a plan, began working on what spells would occupy her mind for the day and even offered the spellbook to Kassadi so the Warlock might learn Kassadi’s teleportation spell. Madrona at first refused, but Kassadi insisted.

“You’re not taking the spell from me I’m offering it!” She said, thrusting the book forward. “Besides it’s not a particularly powerful spell. It’s not gonna take you across the realm, maybe like half a block. I mean you could get like a mile but that would take a solid five minutes of really building the spell.”

“It’s really okay Kassadi, I’ve got my own spells I don’t need yours.” Madrona tried to assure.

“Seriously write it down in your Grimoire dang it!” Kassadi was growing annoyed. “If you don’t it just means I’m gonna have to expend more magic to get the spell to encompass us both!”

                Madrona relented and sat at the desk, both books laid out next to each other. Once again it was strange, staring at the spell in Kassadi’s spellbook it was again the same nonsense as always, but the moment she lifted the quill she understood it to be named Spell of the Short Hop and that it would instantly transport dependent  upon how much you put into it. Casting the spell quickly meant a shorter jaunt, no further than sixty to eighty feet, but if you drew your concentration onto the spell you could expand the range by a large margin. The longer you took to cast it the further you could go. She also understood that you could take willing creatures with you, but that it doubled the required magical energies to do so.  She even knew the spells limitations, that you needed to see or at least have been where you were looking to go and that if any solid object happened to be occupying the space you would appear, the spell would fail and you would not move. This information crowded her mind in an instant and she felt a headache coming to her. She pushed it all aside and focused on copying the spell. Once she was done she was startled when the quill vanished from her hand.

“What happened?” Madrona asked.

“What do you mean, you’re out of ink.” Kassadi quirked a brow.

“Ink?” Madrona asked, annoyed that Kassadi was acting like she should know what that means.

“Oh man your Devil dude doesn’t tell you anything. Yeah spells need to be notated in special ink.” Kassadi explained. “Spells written in anything else don’t, you know, work. You can summon the Grimoire Quill again when you have more ink. At least I think that’s how it works, I’m not supposed to be telling you this your Patron is.” Kassadi frowned.

“Right.” Madrona said, aggravated at apparently being a Warlock for the Three Hell’s most lazy Devil.

“Well you got the spell so that’s good at least.” Kassadi said, suddenly chipper again. “Let’s get going.”

                The two readied themselves as best they could, being two women without a single copper piece between them wearing secondhand goblin wear. They were quite a sight amongst the growds of people wearing tunics of cotton, linen, and sometimes even silks to be walking down the road in hides and leathers. Kassadi barely seemed to notice the stares and Madrona pretended they didn’t bother her. They approached the Emporium of Mystery, a two story corner shop at the center of town. It was quite nice, if not a little sparce. There were three people in the store and all of them were arguing with Gilbet. All aggravated that most of his normal stock of mundane and only slightly magical items were out of stock. People were coming to him for Potions of Anti-Acid Reflux and Rings of Resistance to Sore Feet, they weren’t particularly interested in Magic Wands that would cause explosions and give the gift of cheetah like speed. They weren’t adventures, they had real problems damn it! The customers, would be customers as it were, each turned away from the Halfling one after the other, a new obscenity or curse lobbed at the short man for not having what they needed. Gilbert himself looked haggard, unsurprising as this would have been the third day of this nonsense. He let out a deep breath as Kassadi and Madrona approached, looking up to them expecting to be yelled at again. When he saw them however his expression changed entirely, now instead of weary and beaten he looked shocked and filled with anger. He thrust out his hand and from his palm a sheet of flame erupted. Madrona grabbed Kassadi and shielded the human with her body as they both dived to one side to avoid the fire.

“What the hell, Gilbert?” Kassadi shrieked, patting at Madrona’s cloak to keep it from catching.

                Gilbert wasn’t interested in talking, he stepped forward and extended his other hand. A gale of wind rushed past him and buffeted the woman who, still sprawled against the floor, couldn’t brace against it and were hurled back crashing into an empty shelf against the wall. They were both rattled but pushed themselves onto their feet. Kassadi thre her own hand forward calling forth the same darts of energy she had used against the hound, they shrieked through the air and crashed harmlessly into a shield spell Gilbert raised. Madrona sprited to the side intend on not letting the both of them be a single target any longer. Her dagger came out and she arced it through the air, a streak of bubbling viscouds liquid appearing as she did so. The steaming fluid lobbed through the air and splattered across the shield, Gilbert smirked. The smirk didn’t last long, looking at his shield it was coated with the stuff now, some dribbled onto the floor and hissed as the acid burned through the wood. The second his shield came down the acid would splash upon him. Which is exactly what Kassadi was looking to make happen. She grabbed from her satchel a velvet glove that she slipped over her right hand. She pantomimed the act of punching the air and before Gilbert a spectral fist appeared and slammed into the shield, it cracked.

“Wait!” He cried out to Kassadi, who had her fist up to make another strike, she paused.

“Why are you attacking us, Gilbert?” Madrona cried out, her own next volley of magic waiting to launch the moment that shield came down.

“Because…” Gilbert huffed, he appeared to be thinking of what to say. “Because I uh… thought you were someone else?” It was less than convincing.

“That’s a load of bull poop!” Kassadi shouted, keeping her fish clenched to maintain her spell.

“No really!” Gilbert called out. “I mistook you for a pair of customers who were unhappy with an item I sold them, you see I sold them a magic brew that would cure their problem of being massive pains in the ass! So you see how I could be confused!”

“You’re stalling!” Madrona shouted.

“Damn right I am,” Gilbert called with triumph in his voice. “Had to give the beastie time to respond to my signal!” He grinned wide and lifted his hand displaying a ring with a red jewel set within it. The jewel was glowing.

                Madrona and Kassadi both turned and saw the same thing, the hellhound descending the stairs. Curses came from both as the creature lunged. Madrona, being the target of the beast, blinked out of existence. She appeared next to Kassadi, having in an instant cast the Short Hop spell. She smiled, and grabbed Kassadi’s wrist, sprinting towards the front of the store. Kassadi stumbled as she was pulled but managed to keep her footing.

“Madrona the exit is that way!” She called as they were running into what was essentially walls on all sides.

“Yes but the front counter is over there!” She said.

                Madrona leapt up and over the front counter of the store, clearing the wood and crashing hard on the floor behind it. Kassadi was less graceful less leaping as much as she tripped hard enough to fly over the counter. Her shoulder made contact with the countertop and she rolled and landed hard on her back. She groaned but had little time to revel in her pain. Madrona was pulling at her to get her off the floor frantically. Kassadi in a daze nearly stook up but Madrona held her shoulder forcefully, which made Kassadi cry out, but it kept the flamed that roared over them from igniting the Wizards hair so it was probably even. Madrona pointed at a safe that was tucked under the counter.

“There!” Madrona said. Kassadi nodded.

With the Hellhound no doubt about to round the counter and tear both their throats out Kassadi needed to move quickly. Reaching into her satchel she frew out a key. It was a simple bronze key and not the one for the safe, as the metal box was locked by a rotating dial set to trip the series of tumblers, without Gilbert’s combination there was no way you could force it open… Unless you knew the right spell. With a simple incantation the key began to glow bright and with a tap of it against the safe door there was a resounding clunk and the safe swung open revealing the bag of wands. Kassadi scrambled forward and grabbed them. Turning she reached out and grabbed Madrona’s hand just as the Hellhound appeared above them, climbing on top of the counter. The beast inhaled deeply and belched out a stream of fire, incinerating everything behind the counter.