Sparrow Truman May 17th,20XX

A bright light penetrated through my eyelids and brought me back to consciousness despite my reluctance to be brought back.

“She isn’t waking up! Why isn’t she waking up!”

Dione’s youthful voice, that was filled with her trademark nervous energy shook as she questioned the goblin. It was useless though since the Goblin couldn’t give any opinions.

Under the effects of the brainwashing spell, goblins couldn’t engage in any activities that required a higher level of brain function beyond what was needed to follow orders or deliver messages. It was the most efficient way to keep them under control.

“Shut up Dione. You’re being annoying.”

At the sound of my voice, she immediately clammed up and turned to me at the sound of my voice. I noticed I’d been set down in a corpse-like position but somehow couldn’t find the motivation to move.

“Derela!”

Her loud voice penetrated through the headache I was battling and assaulted my already abused brain.

“DIONE!”

She squeaked and dived behind Ion, like he would be able to protect her against me. I tried to calm down and not isolate the only witch in this place that would talk to me, no matter how annoying she was.

“Why are you here.”

The head of dark hair peeked out from behind the goblin’s slender figure and an embarrassed expression blossomed on her youthful face.

“I- I just heard that you were hurt and wanted to check up on you.”

Her feet shifted as she spoke and Her eyes darted around the room. It was clear she was hiding something. She held an arm to her side with another arm and a gash across one of her tattoos finally caught my arm.

“Ion, bring her here and make sure she can't run away.”

Faster than Dione could resist, the goblin grabbed her by her shoulders and hoisted her over to my side. I grabbed her arm and turned it over to look at the wound properly.

“Tell me who.”

The voice that escaped me was more emotional than I’d intended it to be, it was almost like seeing the younger witch hurt had made me upset.

I dismissed the thought and waited for a response, glaring her down and daring her to lie to me.

“I-It nothing. The others were just wondering what I’d learned from you and got too enthusiastic in testing me.”

Dione was by no means an incompetent witch but in comparison to most of us that had gotten the knowledge packets from older witches, she only had herself to rely on. A witch that had gotten someone else’s knowledge would have a harder time creating packets of their own. This was why it was so important for there to be other witches that could learn the old-fashioned way and make memory packets to pass down to others.

The witches that were chosen to do this were usually among the most talented witches and would receive a lot of resources to aid their growth. The extra resources they got tended to attract a lot of negative attention though, and the witches would usually be tormented by those who had gotten knowledge packets and had more advanced knowledge.

“Ion. Go with Dione and bring all of those witches to me.”

Dione’s purple eyes widened and she began to dissuade me.

“No! you can’t do that! If they find out I told you…”

“They’ll do what? Attack you? Isolate you? Look down on you?”

She grew more and more despondent as I listed all the things they already did to her. That was the harsh reality of growing up in this pressure pot of a society. Those that couldn’t grow fast enough would only get squashed by their peers.

“Ion, go and find the ones that did this to her. Use the other Goblins if you need too. And Dione, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing someone else’s power for a stronger opponent. Rather, it would be pretty stupid not to. Ion, take her. You have an hour.”

Ion dragged her out before she could put forth any more protests and I was finally left on my own.

The tattoo I’d just created sang with power as I filled them to the brim of what my skin could handle. I wasn’t planning on killing Dione’s tormentors, but they would serve well enough as test subjects for my new spell.

While I’d been asleep, I’d finally grasped a piece of information I’d wanted to know. The name of the witch whose knowledge I’d inherited.

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Her name had been Oaklyn.

Oaklyn, who had been an aggressive fighter but an overly cautious person as a whole was a walking contradiction. She attacked to take lives but feared death most of all. She hadn’t wanted to live forever but hadn’t wanted to die either.

The nature of the memory packets was such that it was discouraged to input personal memories into them, and anything that could afflict the inheritor's memories and personality was removed before the knowledge packet had been passed on.

The overambitious Oaklyn had somehow found a way to tie her knowledge of witchcraft so closely with her personal memories that it would have been impossible to separate them. That was why I was privy to more about her than others would have been.

I dived into the knowledge packet to get a deeper understanding of the spell I’d just imprinted onto my skin but found myself drifting to wondering what had happened earlier.

Not that I’d never fainted in my life, but there hadn’t seemed to be any triggers this time. All I could remember was a blinding pain in my head, and then the world suddenly going dark.

I made a mental note to approach Rubella about it. I was sure she had something to do with it.

“Derela.”

A long line of students, nine of them, filed into my room with worried expressions.

There were all around the same age as Dione, fifteen to seventeen, so I didn’t want to hurt them too badly. But they did need to be punished.

The stood in a single line in front of my cot, not daring say anything and staring at my leisurely position. I was tempted to leave them standing like that for the next few hours or so, but that wouldn’t be enough of a punishment for them.

These kids had decided that the strong could righteously bully the weak, so I only needed to act along those lines.

In a single movement, I sat up and summoned my broom, then slid off the bed and onto it.

I maintained a leisurely side-saddle position as I flew into the air and stared down at the children. One of them, probably the leader, finally decided to ask why I had summoned them, despite never having done anything of the sort in the past.

“Derela… Why did you call us?”

Rather than answering, I threw down three seeds from my pouch and then uttered the spell for the forest of death. I was fairly confident in controlling it enough that they wouldn’t die anyway.

It could strangle people to death, but I saw its potential as a restraining spell.

A symphony of surprised screams ripped from their throats as they watched the ominous purple trees sprout from the stone floors and reach out towards them with gnarled branches. A few tried to escape, a few tried to fight them off, and a few simply gave in and let themselves be captured.

“Derela! Why are you doing this?”

The leader spoke again, having been one of the ones that had tried to fight back. His pride was a bit hurt since the age gap between us was only a year and a half but I was so much stronger than he was.

“Calm down Mondos. I’ll offer you guys a deal. If any of you can figure out why I’m doing this, I’ll let them and a single friend go.”

Of course, I had no such intentions, but it would be fun to watch their friend group fall apart. A group founded upon the torment of a single person wasn’t one worth keeping anyway.

A few half-heartedly tossed out a few suggestions but as the branches slowly tightened their enthusiasm reared up. Finally one of them guessed it right.

“Could it be because of Dione?”

The branch wrapped around her waist suddenly withdrew and she flopped onto the floor from the seven-foot drop. She landed on her tailbone and a small whimper escaped from her throat. It wasn’t enough to cripple her, but it would hurt the next day.

“Who did you want to rescue?”

All of her friends looked at her entreatingly and her expression tightened as she made eye contact with each of them.

“h-how am I supposed to-“

What a heartwarming scene, I thought to myself.

I couldn’t let that happen now though.

“What about you start making bids? Shall we start at forty gold prices? Ah, I’ll need an eighty percent commission though.”

All their faces hardened and the leader began to yell at me.

“I should have known! This was about money wasn’t it?!”

“Derela! You make more than we do!”

“I don’t have forty gold pieces to throw around!”

They all began to resent the outrageous price and even had the nerve to yell at me about it. It put me in a bad mood.

“Do you all feel like this? Am I being unfair?”

They all nodded feverishly as if I were someone that could be shouted down by majority rule. I waved my wand and the girl that had just been freed was once again captured.

She was a sweet-looking girl, with cotton candy hair and puffy cheeks that made her look incredibly lovable. But the expletives she let out at her peers were enough to upgrade her to the foulest member of the group.

They all avoided eye contact with her as she cursed them out, both in the sense of swearing at them and attempting to hurl spells at them. I blocked them all though. I couldn’t have such lovely test subjects ruined by a rookie.

“Now Now. Since you’re all so like-minded I suppose you should all go through this together? Ah, Dione.”

The young witch that had hidden at the rear of the room and had watched the scene with a flattering mix of awe and terror, jumped as I suddenly called her.

“Yes, Derela?”

I gestured to the lot of them.

“Among them are there any that you think should be let go? I did tell Ion to go collect anyone he had seen messing with you but he’s only a goblin.”

Once again, they repeated the game of staring entreatingly at their victim. But some of them didn’t even bother, probably having realized the futility of it.

I waited for Dione’s response and was pleased as she shook her head. I’d been expecting her to be soft-hearted and to entreat me to let them go. This was much more fun.

The new tattoo with the fruits began to glow and the trees that held the students did the same.

“Wait! What are you doing to us!”

“Since you all have enough energy to torment a classmate after your lessons, I thought I might relieve you of some. Don’t worry, you should all awaken in a day or so.”

I frowned at my own words then corrected myself.

“Well, some of you might take up to a week but don’t worry about it too much.”

They resumed fighting the branches that held them but quickly gave up once they realized that they only tightened as they moved. The group of students only lost hope once they saw the trees grow stronger and stronger as they fed on their energy.

I flew around the tree to monitor the process and took a few notes on how to optimize the process before I finally remembered the true purpose of doing all this.

“Ah. I shouldn't have to say this but if I ever hear that Dione was targeted or hurt in any way you can look forward to a second round.”

“B-but That’s unfair! We aren’t even the only ones that-“

I cut him off with an understanding smile. I could see the frustration in his yellow eyes and tone but that didn’t have much to do with me. If we were talking about fairness, it wasn’t exactly fair of them to have decided to pick on a single person in a group now was it?

“Then you’d all better keep your friends in line shouldn’t you?”