Cassana PoV [https://i.imgur.com/rgZ0jUj.jpg]

Cassana's eyes could not believe what she was seeing. There on the floor, in the private gallery of Otheric's father, laid her staff. Fashioned from elm wood and measuring five and a half feet in length, it held her focusing stone in its head, made of sapphire synthesized in the frozen tundras of Xian.

She had this staff during her second year in The Tower. It was the most expensive thing she could afford at that time, bought from money she earned from working part-time in a saloon in Ad-Nilem. This was her most prized possession, and she did her best to keep it safe.

The gemstone it carried was also uncommon in this side of Windcoast, and she doubted if she will ever have the money to replace it with something similar once it gets exhausted. For that reason, she rarely used the staff for her spells, opting instead to use tiny nuggets that she could came by cheaply.

When she fell unconscious and dragged out of the inn, she assumed they left her staff behind. They had a sorcerer with them after all, and she of all should know best that a wizard without a stone is like an archer with no arrows. Yet it seemed Cassana was mistaken, because here she was, standing in front of her staff, and the only explanation she could think of was that the drows brought the staff with them when they returned. That would prove to be their undoing.

Cassana picked it up, and the first thing she did was cast the Protection spell on herself. A translucent golden sheen enveloped her body, which should be enough to keep her safe from physical harm and some minor magic. Next, she cast the Heal Wounds spell to accelerate the repair of the damaged tissue and flesh on her belly. She waited a minute for the spell to finish its effect, and then sat down to gather her bearings.

She then cast a Light spell and she finally saw the two dead drows lying on the floor. She recognized them both, one was the archer who attacked them in the inn earlier. His torso was wrapped in bandage after getting hit by Ashvell's axe. The other one wasn't with them during the attack, but he was in the parlor that afternoon with Nymgos.

Cassana looked at the bodies and she saw that the archer's throat had been sliced open and probably died from asphyxiation. The other had a stab wound on his chest and definitely died from blood loss. Their bodies were still warm, meaning they died merely a few minutes ago. She would love to play the sleuth, but there were bigger concerns for her at that moment. So she left them behind with an odd feeling of relief and stepped out of the gallery back to the corridor.

The redhead started walking towards the stairs trying to come up with a plan to save Otheric, but her mind was still fixated on the sight she just beheld. Who killed those two drows? She enumerated the possibilities, and the one that ranked highest was that the two turned greedy with the sight of the treasures from the gallery and murdered each other.

She was about to take one step up when the door from the parlor on the other end of the corridor burst open. Out came a figure made of flesh and soot: the drow mage. She shuffled out of the room and down the hallway: a vision that filled Cassana's face with horror. The drow's skin melted down to her body and bones, and her clothes clinged to her like vines on a garden wall. She could barely move her arms, and a red gemstone was bursting out her left palm. Cassana figured the drow's staff might have completely disintegrated, so her focusing stone must have fused with her body when she tried to grab it.

Cassana felt a pang of pity and guilt. She never meant for the drow to suffer, but it wasn't her fault that the ink didn't contain enough energy to power a full Immolation spell. That spell may be an overkill, but she didn't have a choice since charcoal can only power a fire-based spell. Additionally, fire magic was not Cassana's area of expertise. She was only able to cast it because the incantations and the arkogram needed for it was similar to some of the ice-based spells that she knew by head. If she only had her focusing stone with her, she would've had a wide variety of nonlethal spells she could conjure.

"Where are you going? We're not done here yet." The drow's croaky voice roared across the hallway, far from the sultry, smoky voice she had moments ago.

"Are you sure this is worth it?" asked Cassana, trembling at every word. "I mean, look at you, you look horrible. Maybe we should just call it a day?" She tried her best to sound diplomatic, but diplomacy and persuasion also belonged to her list of inadequate skills.

With a little struggle, the drow managed to cast a spell, and the gem in her hand glowed a shiny red. The wooden planks on the walls around Cassana tore off and started flying at her. Cassana instinctively shielded her face, though the Protection spell she had around her body was enough to keep her from getting injured. But it wouldn't protect her from being restrained. The drow's spell removed the iron railings of the staircase, and wrapped them around Cassana's leg like vines, keeping her in place.

Cassana waved her hand to try and cast Dispel but a plank of wood locked her left arm and fastened it on the wall. The drow slid closer towards her and her mind ran through a list of spells she can cast with one hand. Glacier, she remembered, and she waved her right hand and a wall of ice one foot thick appeared on the corridor, blocking the drow's path.

She pried the plank off her left arm and proceeded with casting Dispel. The debris floating around her dropped to the floor, and the iron bars twisted around her leg loosened. Cassana could hear the drow trying to break through her ice wall so she shook herself free and braced for another spell. She reminded herself of her goal: save Otheric. But for that to succeed, she would need to clear a path for them out of here. Bind spell would stop working once she moved out of sight of her target, so she opted for Blizzard instead.

She waved her hand and as she finished her incantation she stomped her staff on the floor, and a gale of cold wind started blowing from where the wood was touching it. The wind grew stronger and colder, just as the drow managed to bring down the ice wall that was keeping them apart. Cassana's spell blasted through the corridor, immediately freezing its floor and walls.

But the drow mage was quick to respond, quicker than earlier at least. She cast a spell and a spectral cylinder appeared around her, warming the cold air and melting the ice back to water. The air surrounding her expanded, creating a wave that blasted horizontally throughout. The walls of the corridor had completely splintered, leaving only the bare concrete columns and revealing the rooms they kept behind.

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Cassana ran back to the gallery and hid behind a pillar. The glass vitrines were all shattered, and all the artifacts had then littered the tiled floor. The redhead peeked out to see the drow, having made up her mind to just bind her in place and get this fight over with. But her enemy was obscured by the thick fog that resulted from the melting of her ice. She needed an uninterrupted line of sight for that spell to work.

So she resigned herself to another spell, the last spell she learned from The Tower, before she returned home. Cassana waved her arms and with another incantation, the broken glasses on the floor rose up and coalesced right above her, forming the shape of a serpent. She pointed her staff towards the misty mass in front of her and the glass serpent lurched towards it. If she was lucky, one of the thousand fragments of glass would find its way on the drow's neck and slice it open, ending her life right there.

The drow's groans of pain filled the manor as her body was assaulted by tiny pieces of sharp glass. A faint glow emanated from the mist where she was hiding, and the stinging noise of the flying pieces of glass turned to a soft hiss. Cassana's glass serpent had turned to sand and collected on the floor, like a collapsed sandcastle on a beach.

She hid back behind a pillar and took a few loud breaths. She saw the objects around the room started moving and shouted, "Really? This again? You don't know any other spells, do you?" She considered casting another Dispel but opted to recite the incantations of the Bind spell instead. A familiar yellow glow materialized around the jewel of her staff, which now appeared to be noticeably smaller than it was earlier. All Cassana needed now was a line of sight towards her target, so she braced herself and stepped out of hiding.

But just before her eyes could land on the drow's ugly shape, darkness enveloped her vision. The drow mage took the drapes from the windows and wrapped them around her face. The Protection spell Cassana conjured on herself would keep her from getting harmed by the solid objects around the room, but it won't keep her from getting suffocated. The thick curtains continued wrapping around her head heavily, and she began to hyperventilate.

She tried to pull the curtains off, but she didn't have enough strength. She waved her hand, trying to perform a spell, but she felt heavy objects hitting her arms. They didn't hurt, but they managed to keep her from finishing the needed gestures of a spell. She tried to think, but her body was more focused on keeping itself alive, and panic started to crawl out of her stomach.

She pushed it down and calmed herself by thinking of all the spells she knew so far. She combed through them one by one, figuring out if it could help her out of her predicament. But all proved to be either futile, or unfeasible. Then, her mind went to the spell that turned her glass serpent into a mound of sand. She had heard of that spell before, but she never had the chance to cast it herself. She had read about it in books, so she was familiar with its basic principles at least.

It was simple, really: turn an inorganic object back into it's raw, primitive form. In the case earlier, the pieces of glass turned into silica sand. The same spell could also turn a steel sword into granules of ferrite and graphite. In theory, she could use it on the fabric that was wrapped around her head.

First, she needed the incantation. She couldn't remember the spell's name, but that was not important. Names are arbitrary, and it was used only to identify a spell in human conversation. Incantations were what matters. The spell was transmugenic, that much she knew. She rounded up the transmugenic chants she memorized, and picked one that would apply to what she intended to do.

Then she picked another word that related to inorganic, manufactured objects. These were objects that were crafted by humans either by hand or machinery. A similar word would appear on the incantation for Control Objects spell, the spell that the drow had been using all night. If she was an ersatz, like Cassana assumed she was, it would make sense that she would learn another spell with the same words of incantation.

The third word was easy. She could just use the one she uses in her Blizzard spell. Next up, she needed a gesture. For a spell that powerful, she would need both her arms to conjure it. She narrowed down five spells that she had memorized, and picked apart their gestures. She arranged their degrees based on how closely related they were to transmugenic spells.

Guessing a spell was discouraged among the magical community. There were many ways it could backfire, and most of the time, it was not worth the risk. That was why most wizards carry around a tome or grimoire with them, so they could practice and remember the spells, or learn new ones if there was an opportunity. But Cassana left her spellbook in her room, so she really had no other choice.

Danger notwithstanding, Cassana recited the incantation with the final breath she could muster. She moved her arms to perform the spell's gesture, trying to ignore the weighty objects that were keeping them unsteady. She felt a warm sensation coming from her left arm, and then all of a sudden the curtain that was wrapped around her head burst into a hundred cotton puffballs floating in the air.

Cassana could tell the drow wasn't expecting this as she failed to react from her casting a follow up spell. The redhead sent her flying to the wall on sidewards, with yellow spectral bindings attached to her wrists and ankles.

Unrelenting, the gemstone on the drow's palms glowed and Cassana quickly grabbed an axe from among the debris on the floor and hacked off the drow's left hand. The drow screamed in pain and the objects she had been controlling dropped down on the ground, along with her mutilated hand. The redhead kicked the hand and gemstone away, and let out a scream that sounded like a mix of victory and frustration.

"You almost had me, by Eirene you almost had me..." Cassana sighed. She forced herself to look at her enemy, despite feeling awful for her acquired deformity. The drow shook and flailed on her restraints, screaming furiously, hopelessly trying to get free.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't know you would look like that... that must be painful." Cassana glanced at her staff and the gemstone on top of it. It had now been reduced to a tiny nugget, no larger to the one she had on her bracelet yesterday. She looked at the drow's bleeding arm, then at the two other dead drows on the floor. "I didn't do that," she told the mage, apologetically.

Cassana waved her arms once more and cast another spell. This time, directed at the bleeding limb where the drow's left hand was supposed to be attached to. "Stop squirming, you don't wanna bleed to death," she explained. The veins and arteries closed and the blood dried up. The tendons and tissues shifted and the flesh and skin on her arms crawled out to cover the injury, and she was left with a stump. As the spell finished its effect, the gemstone on Cassana's staff disintegrated into nothing, exhausting all of its remaining energy. Cassana shook her head and sighed. She started walking away, head bowed.

"I will fucking kill you!" The drow cursed at her.

Cassana's shoulders dropped, and she turned back to the drow, her face now filled with regret. "You know what, I'm not sorry. I'm sure you and your ilk had killed countless innocent men, women and children. So you deserve this."

"I will fucking kill you, I swear to Maeve, I will rip your heart out!"

Cassana ignored the drow's frantic screams and went for her red gemstone. She pried it out of her dismembered hand, gave it a whiff and put it in her pocket.

As she turned around again, a loud lupine howl broke through the silence of the night and the hairs on Cassana's skin stood on its ends.