There were far too many witches en route for Cira to feel comfortable. Like ants crawling up her leg, she could feel their auras traveling up the elevator. That damned Dimension Witch was good, too. After wasting most of the day in hours of sluggish ascension, Estelle ordered her to speed the elevator up by pushing on it with a small gravity field. Cira even watched her check inside the artifact to make sure she wasn’t damaging it.

“Nina, what do I do? I don’t want to have to slow them down constantly and trapping them would just force larger and larger spells.” Cancelling them wasn’t free after all, that Astral Witch was the real deal. Nina fluttered her wings lightly as she sat on Cira’s palm. She had learned to mimic the gesture Cira makes when she’s thinking. Still, as the nymph rested her chin in one hand, her gaze was just as blank and focused into Cira’s eyes.

She wanted to see Nanri again… but she knew it was a bad idea. It would only get the witch in more trouble. The best thing I can do for her is finish my work and get the hell out of here before I make things worse. I think I’ve done enough harm today…

There were the rivers, beautification efforts, finishing touches on Zero Stratum—all sorts of things that were drawing her attention in multiple directions, literally. Despite this, Cira couldn’t stop herself from scouring random, dead tunnels throughout the island. To think nobody died after seeing the aftermath had Cira floored. She couldn’t believe it and was in denial, frantically searching every nook and cranny and coming up empty every time.

She had come close to directly killing people a few times and didn’t think it would be too big a deal when the day came, but the idea of inadvertently killing the very cave dwellers she wanted to save from miles away made a pit rise in her stomach. She felt her anxiety growing with each empty tunnel she searched.

Did I skip someone over here…? Was I not looking hard enough? I can’t possibly start over… Not now. These witches are too fast. “Ahhhhh, Nina! Tell me what to do!”

The startled nymph fluttered away and back down in a predatory swoop, zeroing in on Cira’s face.

peh.

A tiny cloud of salt burst on Cira’s cheek as Nina slapped her with all her miniscule might.

“Wha…” Cira placed a hand on her cheek. It did not hurt, but there was a little handprint in prima salt. “What are you trying to say? Am I doing something wrong? Have I angered you?”

The nymph only hovered there with her arms crossed, somehow judgmentally looking down on the powerful sorcerer from above. Finally, after Cira failed to grasp her intent, Nina gave up and her glare seemed to intensify. She dove straight into the ground and through.

“Dammit… I did it again.” Cira lamented her friend’s confusing exit, momentarily stunned. “What did I do though?”

She sighed, “I guess I better do something about the witches.” Even though Nanri was clearly in some manner of trouble, all three traveled together. The elevator ride that ensued was awkward silence marred with intermittent bickering. Lyren wasn’t present for most of the journey, in a sense, but they were rapidly approaching. “Okay, I’ll stop them the couple levels down, let’s see…”

Cira scanned the area below her for the right kind of caves to fit her idea. She only needed a little more time, so she plotted a path to slow them down—an obvious path up right out of the elevator that would still take at least an hour on foot, normally. If she were to stop them completely, there was no doubt in her mind that the Astral Witch would keep fighting it, and she didn’t want to see if it could get out of hand.

After the temporary birth of Fount Cira, she realized fighting her would be a monumentally easy task though. Beating up a really important witch, however, would blow up in Nanri’s face. There was also the off chance of Lyren jumping in if it really came to that, which was some she didn’t want to fight. Not that it would be hard either, but spatial wielders could be quite slippery, and it could even end in Nanri getting hurt if she wasn’t careful. It would be nice if she could avoid turning her against Nanri in the first place, as she seemed alright.

This all left Cira with very little options except to guide their path in a straight shot to her—but with a specially sorcerous touch. There would, of course, be one wall at the beginning. More of a door, really, for some. Beyond that there were four switchbacks which eventually led to the spring, and Cira prepared various obstacles throughout its length to slow their pace.

Okay, before they arrive, how much time do I need…? She tried to stop searching down endless tunnels. By now it was pointless even to her eyes. She had to face the fact that she miraculously didn’t murder anybody. The damage looked really bad, but the flood must not have lasted long.

My salted egg on the horizon is pretty much perfect at this point—I just need to finish Uren, and my materials should be there in say… One hour. I could speed it up, but it will take me that long to get there. I can’t leave until my rivers are complete.

Fount Salt’s waterways were truly a work of art at this point. One solid piece of titanium that spanned for miles, bringing water down the island in eight columns. Each one branched off on its own, spiraling through the salt through hundreds of settlements, all the cities, random places she found nymphs hanging out. There were six hermits living throughout the island by her count, and all of them were scraggly old men.

Why are there so many old men in these skies? She shoved the thought down and gauged how many more rivers she had to line. While Nanri’s structures were among the largest she’d ever laid eyes on, she clearly hadn’t read “Practical Geomancy for the Modern Magician”. It was all solid. Ridiculous, how much metal this ambiguous Earth Vein got their hands on and thinking of how much time and effort Nanri put into it—how many crates of mana potions she had to guzzle down—made Cira feel sick.

She felt terrible to snatch it all away and disappear, but she was also reviled to see the conditions they had forced her into. Would they make her do it again? She was biting her nails thinking about what was in Nanri’s future.

“Dammit, alright… the rivers should reach Uren in two hours… If I can just stall them for that long, I’ll be on my way. I better get their water hooked back up too.”

Uren had been out of water all day, ever since she decided that the brinstahl metal of the ancients would be repurposed. Yes, there was panic, and yes, the giant hovering orbs of water above where each reservoir used to be as adding to that. She even gave them the courtesy of flying a river through town, but no one had gone to get water from it.

Now, the pumps built by the ancients were no joke. Cira had half the mind to steal them and replace them with her own so she could study them, but quite frankly, she didn’t know if she could. The amount of water they had to shove up, say, twenty or thirty miles in a near vertical straight shot, was absurd. Maybe if she had weeks and far better material than brinstahl, but there was no denying their mastery over enchantments. Likely a large group worked on them together.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

This whole time she had been stretching her practical geomancy to the absolute limit to rebuild their water infrastructure. To make such a massive pipe that could support it, she spread the titanium as thin as possible into a hollow lattice while also filling in gaps to support it from the outside with salt. It would be entirely encased with no way to access it without mining straight into it. Brinstahl was much harder and there was now a surplus, so she lined the outside with it in case somebody didn’t know where it was and swung a pickaxe through it. This also saved titanium for the copious other places it was needed.

That’s basically it, right? Am I really almost done? There’s not… a single thing I’m forgetting? While she pondered, she decided to reward that cave dwelling mage who unwittingly protected her virtues. Their village was constructed much like Deep Falls. It looked very old, and she wondered where the wood came from. There were two communal areas on either end, but in the center is where people gathered.

The mage was examining everyone in case the flood and her healing magic had any adverse effects with the help of an apparent medicine woman. Evidently, they had never heard of holy mana or its glorious golden nature, isolated as they were. If moss and mushrooms are the only thing you eat your entire life, do they still taste good every day?

A pillar grew from the salt, rising to just a little above the mage’s head. Everyone froze, looking up at him for guidance. He only stumbled back, stammering as the same glow as the river carved lines and circles into it, forming a series of complex glyphs from top to bottom.

“Impossible!” The mage exclaimed as his eyes shot open. Cira left him to examine it on his own and returned to the old woman running amuck downstairs.

If the mage could decipher her obelisk, he would gain great control over water and the ability to turn it into ice or mist, or at least the proper way to. Perhaps he would need to protect the village one day, hopefully not become its overlord.

Downstairs we had the Astral Witch approaching the gate, leading Nanri and an invisible Lyren.

“What the blazes is this supposed to be?!” Estelle scowled at the dubious salt wall, carved to look like a wooden door strapped shut with iron bars.

“’Beyond here lies the Trials of the Mad Witch…’” Lyren read the wall out loud from her pocket in space.

Nanri stared at the wall aghast, “Those incapable of passing these gates are unworthy. Really, Cira?”

Sorry… This was not a trial for Nanri, and she would find it quite easy.

“Well, I’ll just destroy—” The Astral Witch began charging an attack when a blinding light appeared on the door, focused on a single point. Just like the mage’s gift, the spark burned a glyph on the gate before their eyes. Unlike his obelisk, this was an enchantment, and it nullified light mana with an equal cost on Cira’s end, compliments of their local deritum vein. “Damn witch!”

She let loose her ray of light regardless, and it disappeared.

“Hey, Stella—”

“I told you not to call me that!”

“Sorry…” Lyren’s voice shrunk down, “I think that enchantment nullifies light mana.”

“Obviously!” The Astral Witch was furious, and Nanri skillfully placed some floating titanium to hide her grin.

“Hang on, let me see if I can get through it.” Lyren appeared with partial transparency and walked towards the gate. Then, she disappeared again, straight through the salt. Nanri and Estelle looked at each other for a few moments as a vein pulsed in the old witch’s head.

“Grrr… Who is this witch?!” She charged up her staff again with reckless abandon, washing out the tunnel and blinding Nanri in the process. “I’m going to kill her! Radiant Spear of the Sunkissed Peak!”

A massive column of light appeared above her staff and launched at the wall faster than even Cira could see. She felt a noticable drain on one of her eight auras, and the hallway practically exploded. She watched the mana stored in Nanri’s necklace double just from the backlash. Then the light was gone.

“Are you serious?!” The Astral Witch was reduced to a stomping fit, banging her staff on the wall.

Watching this, Nanri chuckled, “Estelle, Cira said her specialty was light. You might have a hard time on this. Let me get that for you.”

Her staff-orb glowed above her head and the gate disappeared, melting into the salt. Nanri stepped through with a smug grin.

“Oh what, are you the Salt Witch now?”

“Hmmm…. The Salty Sorcerer…” Nanri pondered, “I think that name is already taken.”

Hey!

Lyren was waiting on the other side watching the two argue quietly. As they approached Nanri asked Estelle, “Are you sure you should join us? It could be dangerous beyond this point for one who could not enter of their own strength.”

She ground her teeth, “You’re really digging yourself a hole here, Whelp.”

In that moment, clumps of salt all rose down the hallway, pulsating and protruding until they formed the shape of men and beasts. There were a couple wolves, some birds, a few fairy tale creatures like goblins for fun. They all burned, lighting up the path as enchantments appeared on their bodies.

Naturally, they were all immune to light and light mana, and while this next concept may be difficult, half of them were immune to space. However, all of them were weak to—you guessed it—titanium. This was a carefully, and hastily, crafted mob of salt golems.

The witches fell into a short panic as the small army charged them. A row of men with salt shields brought up the rear while wolves and pristine white jungle cats bounded down the hall quickly closing the distance with rats scurrying along in their wake. Estelle uselessly fired off light arrows, and Lyren wasted no time in pissing Cira off with some spatial area bombs, decimating all except the ones she couldn’t. Cira took solace in the fact that it frustrated the witch when she didn’t immediately know why she failed to finish some off. Meanwhile, Nanri was just shooting darts.

Her first kill was pelted up and down, but she realized they quickly crumbled apart and toned it down, spreading her attacks among the mass of beasts with a slightly confused look on her face. A wolf was able to make it to them and tried pouncing, but was quickly deflected by an angled shield of titanium. In pure accident, it crumbled away pelting Estelle with more salt.

“Would you watch what you’re doing?!” She cried. “Amateur!”

Nanri noticed there were more golems almost constantly replacing the last, but they were focused on one side of the hall. Soon she had carved a path and started to gain some distance from her peers as the ornery one shouted to wait up. Nanri did not, however, now gaining almost fifty feet on them while the horde bogged them down. Enemies only came from the front, and made no effort to turn around as Nanri passed the rest of the surging beasts.

These golems were all weak and as an added bonus to amuse Cira as she watched the slowpokes trail behind, they would turn to dust on contact with skin—weapon and all. The entertainment was in watching them take the golems down effortlessly in a panic just trying to keep up. Of course, they weren’t helpless because Lyren was smart, twirling rods of salt she ripped out of the wall in pockets of space. They rotated at such speeds they clobbered any golem in their path, though she had to keep making new ones.

Estelle was also surprisingly adept with her staff, but that must come with age. Cira thought a spar would be fun, but it was not the time. The witch’s face was contorted in rage and if Cira didn’t know any better, she would say she had a severe sunburn.

Nanri kept a steady head though, she seemed determined to make it ahead of the pack, while her pace was still encumbered. She couldn’t exactly put herself in a dome or she would be unable to see the way forward, so it was a tricky balancing act of rotating shields and darts. Cira was quite impressed actually. Her control was astronomically higher than it was the day she first saw her use magic.

Now, Cira wasn’t just putting the tiny humans through a fun little maze to get her rocks off. She was in denial, but if she ended up seeing Nanri again before she left it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She was scared to face her—that’s what it boiled down to. If the witch made it in time, well, that was beyond Cira’s power.

An hour and a half until I make my ascent… I’m going to have way too much deritium left over. Unfortunately, it had to move as well. She started squeezing them out like splinters so they could meet her in Uren.

“Nina?!” Cira sputtered, “What the hell are you doing down there?!”

“Huh…?” Nanri watched the salt nymph slowly flutter down from the ceiling, “Is that you, Nina?”

No, it’s the other salt nymph with a wizard’s hat. She wasn’t hard to distinguish.

She watched Nina float through the golems and shields only to lightly bop the Titan Witch on the nose, leaving a salty handprint.

“What? …why?” Nanri could hardly spare a moment to think as she fended off golems, advancing around the first bend at last.

Nina took her place on the witch’s hat, sitting on its brim, and crossed her arms. Her eyes stared judgmentally at Cira through a mile of salt.