Once she was back at her hut, Velvet really didn’t want to do anything else more than sleep for a bit longer. Even when she had already been sleeping for a while on the island.
But, she would have to cope. At least until she went over the plan with Tristan, and, if nothing else came out after that, she would go back here to take a deserved rest.
What she couldn’t allow herself to skip was a bath. Under no exceptions, a bath and a change of clothes. Absolute obligation.
Because, even the fairy that brought her back looked at her funny.
A fairy. A fairy of the forest. Where soap didn’t exist, and clothes were made of plants or bugs.
Velvet sighed, dragging herself to the bathroom. One of the best things that mages had was the big bathtubs. Even the cheapest room options had the obligation of including one, big enough for a robust mage to wholly sink and let the miasma out, without polluting all the water.
She had seen the “bathtub” offers for the expensive houses. Marble pools, bigger than her hut (and by that she meant the three floors), with artificial waterfalls and steam coming out from the warm water.
Hell, some of those even gave massages with water, which was probably the best thing to receive after cleaning the body of miasma. The next one being some drink to clean the rotten aftertaste that clinged to her mouth after that.
Even so, Velvet wasn’t going to complain about the house she got.
Even when she really wanted one of those pools with automated massagers.
But enough of that, Velvet pondered, shaking her head as she went to her bathroom. Let’s stop messing around and get ready to face Tristan.
…
After a deserved shower, Velvet was now clean. Clean of blood and clean of dirt, dressed in a rather simple outfit.
A white linen long sleeved shirt, a blue skirt that reached her ankles, white boots and a small, fancy boater hat with a blue ribbon.
On top of all that, she added a cape, dark and thick, because she was a mage, not a tourist, and because the cape helped to hold her trinkets and allowed her to hide her hands when she needed to do sketchy stuff. Which was starting to become an usual occurrence.
Now set, she left the hut, walking carefully across the forest.
Hyde had said that he didn’t feel any of his spiderweb being damaged from something ‘human shaped’, but the formation wasn’t impossible to avoid for an advanced mage, so it wasn’t an exact confirmation.
She had found some crumbs left from the cookies that the fairy ate, but nothing else was different.
Same as the forest surrounding her hut.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Hyde still took some time to fix the threads damaged by wild animals, before they went to the Archives.
And yes, she was stopping to buy Tristan some roasted beef, as the woman told her to do.
…
The cauldron boiled, as the contents inside, chunks of hair, scales, some herbs and a blue liquid were mixed in circles, slowly becoming undone.
If someone knowledgeable about alchemy saw this job, they would totally lose their shit.
The hair was tangled in a ball, when it should be separated in strings before being added to the mix; the scales were still a chunk of fish, and the herbs were unchopped and with some dirt hanging off the roots!
The only correct thing was the blue liquid, and even that one wasn’t at the right temperature!
Now, the culprit of that horrendous, sloppy job, stopped mixing, instead moving their hand to the table next to them, where more ingredients were: like crystals, bottles of different colored dusts, fruits, and a box with a half eaten chocolate cupcak-
Wait, that one wasn’t an ingredient.
And, even when it wasn’t one, the responsible of the worst potion ever picked it, taking a chomp, allowing some crumbs to fall inside the cauldron, which was currently being ignored on top of the fire.
And, even after swallowing with all the calm in the world, and putting the cupcake back in its box, this shameless failure of a cook didn’t go back to the potion, looking somewhere else instead.
Because see, the novel was just sooo interesting and juicy, way more than some bubbly, stinky soup.
And, what if some steps were messed up? Her Paradigm was made just for that! As long as she knew what she was making, the exact way she did it didn't matter!
If Knowledge was about the means, not the end, then Remembrance was about the end, not the means.
(Of course, the ingredients had to be the same, or she would have ignored even that.)
Now, none was worse than the other, but the Remembrance Paradigm was more useful in alchemy and potion making, since the mages of that Paradigm could skip several steps down the line, and still get a perfect result.
And Creftalia was an example of a professional skipper. Even more so when she was the only one at the alchemy room in the pocket dimension for Arhontissian mages.
She could use the excuse of making potions as a way to get out of work, unwanted conversations and being dragged to places.
And, even if she slacked on her current ‘work’, using her Paradigm would fix any errors, so she still would have proof of her absolute business.
All of that as she could read her novel in total tranquilit-
“Creftalia.”
The Creftalia in question screamed, the book falling from her hand into the fire.
Which made her scream again, even before identifying the aggressor.
It was a limited edition! Signed by the author! It couldn’t meet its fate like that! That was what crossed Creftalia’s mind as she instantly moved one of her legs, punting the book across the room, together with some still burning coals.
With some newfound agility, which probably only existed in the deepest parts of her until now, she went after it, jumping and dodging the boxes filled with materials on her path.
She didn’t avoid all of them, though. Not that she cared, acting like a bull.
Got you! She screamed in her mind, making one final jump towards the flying book, extending her arm until grabbing it, hugging it against her chest.
Right before she proceeded to meet the wall with a low thud.
After several seconds of pain, when nothing fell on her, and nothing exploded around her, she opened her eyes, lifted her head and looked at the mage who invited themselves in without knocking.
It was Winter. Oof.
No wonder everything was kept under control.
Curling on the floor, trying to make herself look as small and pitiful as possible, Creftalia spoke. “Miss Winter… you scared me.”
Winter sighed, the kind of sigh used by disappointed tutors, as she pinched her nose. “Creftalia, eating and…” She looked at the book in her hands, making a not really dissimulated grimace. “Playing is ill-advised in the alchemy room.”
“I am sorry.”
Winter sighed again. Creftalia was glad that Winter wasn’t the type of mage that loved punishments.
Of course, most mages with two Escas simply stopped caring about novices’ existences and actions, so it wasn’t a strange occurrence.
Winter simply watched over them because those were the Queen’s orders, nothing more. And the Queen didn’t even care about them.
Creftalia had only seen her twice, once during the Selection and once during the Queen’s Arena she won. And that was the same for every single Arhontissian novice mage.
“Have you seen Dianthus?” Winter asked.
“Not really…” Wasn’t the guy monitored? How did they lose him now?
“If you see him, tell him that the Queen is calling for his presence.”
Well, not for every single one of them. And she wasn’t even jealous of that fact.