Chapter 117: 100: Spellbound

Auratic

When Alicia arrived to meet with the Enchantress in one of the temporary lodgings, she found her in a full on prostration. Though it was difficult to know that there was a person with the dark mass of shaggy hair poking out of the umber colored robe strewn over the floor mopping the dust and dirt.

Alicia recently learned that her familiars had often held everyone around her in an inordinately high standard. Of such egregious demands, inability to say no or otherwise refuse anything asked of them was one such example. It was as if they expected everyone to be held in the same dominion as kindred did. It wouldn’t be surprising if they had orchestrated the meeting to have her received in reverence. Perhaps they couldn’t be held at fault for kindred was their birthright. Both their greatest gift and the heaviest shackle.

Still with her brows against the ground:

‘Ah yes, the weirdo magic type of lunatic. Can’t say that I’m enjoying the attention from the different flavors of crazies. At the end of the day, they’re still maniacs.’

Slowly she got up on her feet, white silken patch covering one of her eyes. Alicia recalled the injury and treatment report about her. Besides a few bruisings and other superficial wounds, her left eye had been crushed by a burning shrapnel. Paxton was able to mend all but the eye. Since she was denied an eye transplant from a fresh corpse - due to Alicia’s concerns, as Paxton herself had no idea if it was even viable -  Priest instead only dug out the shrapnels and any other foreign substances and forced the eye to heal with ‘shut’ multiple treatments of her potions, dubbed asclepius. Unfortunately she did not know of a way to restore sight to her left eye. With a promise of finding a way.

Her face brightened at the subject mentioned, after she had just gone over the trouble of having her stand up, she went on her knees.

It caught Alicia off guard, she was not the teaching type. She was genuinely confused as to what this was about.

‘I think the Void surge pyroblast made a little too much of an impression on her… Maybe she’s still suffering from some sort of shell-shock. It’s not like I know that much about the void.’

Alicia was eager to learn about enchanting as it was a facet of magic that was previously unknown to her, and seeing it performed was a chance she didn't want to forego.

‘Why does this sound like weird chemistry all of a sudden.’

It appeared as though she pulled something out of nothing in some display of sleight of hands. But real magic often left small nearly imperceptible traces that quickly faded out. Even someone that was incapable of using magic could feel such disturbances with enough experience. Air spells often left a gentle breeze or a gust, water made the surroundings moist and lingering warmth could be felt from the aftermath of fire spells. From Alicia’s magic though, there was nothing that could be felt other than a deep feeling that something was off. Perhaps that was the trace the void left on the world. This unsettling sense that would put off anyone else, instead was alluring to Strega. Curiosity or some dark attraction, none knew, not even herself.

Between her fingers she held a small chunk of dark quartz like crystal. It was a crystal that she had never seen before.

Alicia tossed it right into her hands. It was then she noticed its unusual properties. The crystals radiated energy like none other and overflowed with it. Even the most purest crystal reagents would pale in comparison. In fact it was the perfect substitute.

Alicia was quite intrigued by the answer. The void crystals were so abundant that they had basically become a litter of shiny rocks to her. Although she found a use for some of them in terms of her refrigerator prototypes. There were simply too many of them lying about. Even after factoring in other projects that she would use them for. Finding another use for them was a welcome addition.

She almost stormed out the door.

In spite of Alicia’s hopes, Erwin could not find any significant abnormality from her psychological evaluation of Strega. Unfortunately, Alicia overlooked Erwin's perception of what is and isn't normal. Excessive idolization at near obsessive levels, unusually high opinion of Alicia due to her proficiency over the Void and unconditional compliance towards her Mistress in question was normal for the Araneae. But for humans who were not touched by Kindred, such tendencies could be considered out of the norm. Lacking this critical insight, Erwin concluded that the errant human witch was of sound mental health.

Alfred, who was in charge of the preparatory work for the enchanting, requested Alicia to provide a bit more time. Not short of work to be done she shifted the order of the tasks that needed her attention. Supposedly the first set of occupants of the apartment buildings were shocked at the amount of privacy, sound insulation and sturdiness of the construction each room had. To create such an effect Gamma basically had the walls stuffed with fleece from the goats. They were however most impressed by the floorboards that didn’t creak. However it was not to say that everything went withouts issues. In favor of the kitchen, in Alicia’s designs there was no fireplace or an oven as she automatically assumed that each of the homes would get an electric oven with a burner on top. This led to some people starting a campfire inside their homes, on top of their wooden floors. Evidently this was a completely normal occurrence with the apartments, especially in big cities for the poorer laboring class. Each building had to be quickly redesigned with proper fireplaces and chimneys, until Alicia could fire out the kitchens.

There had been a few strange behaviors that came from the former refugees that turned to settle down. Most were sleeping on the floor of new buildings instead of the provided beds, citing them to be; “too opulent us kernish folk.” along with other concerns such as regarding the cost of the provided houses to be too grand or fears of sullying the place with just their foul presence. General education became high up in Alicia’s priorities but before that convincing the people to actually use the provided furniture was an easy first step. It was then she learned of the celebrity-esque status she had attained from the showers of gratitude, offers of increasingly concerning forms of thanks and some even falling down some form of prayer motions - even though her interactions with the new people were minimal, infact Alicia was sure it was the first time formally meeting the majority of them.

Investigating further she found out the chain of events that led up to her repute. Apparently, Gamma had performed some reputable exploits while overseeing the constructions, earning the admiration of the peasant folk. That which she then - unknowingly - directed them to instead ‘worship’ Alicia, for the only reason she was doing these chores for the humans was because it was Alicia’s decree, as Gustave was normally disinterested in the overworld affairs. Finding the attention of the gathered crowd quite bothering Alicia wanted to “fade away into nothing” unwittingly using Waveform to turn into a puddle and then scurrying away. While she had managed to escape the gaze of the adherents then and there, what she forgot once more was that she had just performed “a miracle of god” or so the unenlightened people lacking context decided the event to be further deepening their devotion. These series of events would later become the catalyst for Alicia to avoid direct interaction with them as much as possible later on, leaving her close familiars to serve as a proxy. Woefully this meant that there was little in the way of her familiars from taking her instructions and blowing it out of proportions in delivery and granted more freedom of interpretation than she personally would have liked.

Around two days had passed by full of miscellaneous tasks and Alicia had all but forgotten about the enchanting affair until Alfred notified her that the preparations were finally complete. Being invited to witness the process she was called over to the house that was provided to Strega. The house was a modified version of the split level house originally designed for larger households. Because it was built recently and in a rushed manner, the interior was unfinished in many parts with exposed masonry and support structure, and when combined with sparse furnishings, it produced a sense of industrial sterility. A hardly a homely residence, Alicia thought to herself. When she was in Viveria she had the opportunity to glimpse into the interiors of the buildings and the lifestyle of its people. From it she knew that it was commonplace to hang brocades from walls as both decor and perhaps insulation. ‘We have a practically infinite supply of silk and cashmere, might as well put them to use somewhere. I’ll see if I can send over some next time around. Or just panel the walls.’.

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Descending into the basement, it had been completely renovated to become a workshop of sorts, however bare and crude it appeared to be. With no artificial lighting, small horizontal window slits provided some lighting from the outside. At its center a large altar-like fixture had been installed. ‘Excuse me, that’s supposed the be a ‘table?’’ The table appeared only to be an implement to hold up a strange device seemingly made up of concentric circles made from polished stones and metals. Besides that numerous lit  candles providing warm light and a few glassware containing some liquids sat on top of the table. It had two crystalline balls inlaid to it. With a closer look the device had a gentle slope making it a shallow basin of sorts, the surface of the circles were covered in etchings of a language unknown and possessed smaller reservoirs with groovings leading out of it varying sizes as though they were made to funnel liquid or other substances to its large central bowl.

Alfred was already waiting for her. The enchantress herself was standing next to the table, although subdued it was not difficult to see that she was excited, like a child proud to show off their creation.

With her permission as a signal, the witch quickly began her work. She brought over a small square silken cloth and placed it in the center of the table. She then poured fine grounds of something out of a shallow wooden dish into one of the smaller receptacles. It glittering in the light, conveyed its crystalline nature. Then as she leaned on the table, with her grasping over the large ball of crystal. As though reacting to her presence the ‘table’ itself came to life with its etching starting to shimmer faintly and the grinding sound of the stone circles turning. The candles flickered out only to strike up again with a flame of bluish hue, bathing the whole area in its cold light. She started muttering something, and the etchings on the table brightened one by one seemingly in a specific order in response. Suddenly she lifted her hands, the table halting in its tracks and the lights dying out, except for the few bright characters still visible.

She then turned the circles of the table manually by hand from the innermost ring working outwards, matching the groovings on them to create one continuous channel to lead to the central bowl almost like a puzzle. Once the final ring was in its place, a snaking path from the reservoir filled with crystalline dust to the cloth sitting in the central bowl was made. After which she gently poured one of the liquids in the glassware on top of the reservoir. The liquid soaked the dust, becoming infused with it before being channeled away, pulled by gravity. Flow of the liquid passed through the glowing etchings of the table, seemingly absorbing its glow as it flowed over. After a few minutes the fluid had passed over every lit character and its final drops saturated the cloth and disappeared. With the cloth drinking its last, the candles lost their hue of blue and returned to their natural colors.

‘There seems to be some method to the madness but I was too busy being enthralled by the pretty colors… What was it that one guy said? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? Well screw you, it still doesn’t rule out magic!’

With a nod of approval, Alicia picked up the small cloth. Despite being just soaked then, she couldn’t feel any form of moisture in it, though she could notice some glittering was in the silk, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.

With the permission granted, Alpha brought over a wooden contraption resembling a tanning rack holding two more similar cloths stretched and at tension.

With a scornful sigh Alicia pulled her blade out of the vault. ‘I should ask if I could borrow one of Alice’s daggers, a sword is a little overkill with its length.’

Without thinking Alicia stabbed the cloth, without any enchantments. It provided surprising resistance before tearing.

‘Huh, this is Tesla’s weave is it? It’s paper thin and almost good on its own…’

Making a mental note of how strong the regular silken cloth was, Alicia moved on the other one. Absent-mindedly she stabbed it, but instead of piercing through the cloth, the entire contraption with its cloth fell over backwards. It was about the same force she applied. Alfred propped up the rack and held its one side.

This time with a proper preparation Alicia stabbed into magically imbued the cloth starting with slightly lower force than her first stab but gradually applying more as she went. The amount of resistance and strength this piece of cloth exhibited was quite impressive as she had to use both of her hands to get more leverage before finally the cloth started to tear.

Satisfied and impressed with the results, Alicia turned to Strega who was quietly standing beside them.

Her expression full of tension turned to that of happiness as Alicia held out her hand to her.

>Kindred request sent, awaiting confirmation.

Instead of shaking her hand, she turned it around only to plant a gentle kiss on the back of her hand.

‘What the fu-’

>Confirmation authorized, processing request.

Auratic

I wrote about half this filled with hunger and waiting for the food to be done. I can't think straight.

The enchanting table design was highly inspired by the shiny setpiece that was skyrim enchanting tables with a little bit of more functional exploration and added mayan stone calendar shit.

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