Outdated Chapter 2 - Fate's Pull

A Chapter by MantaStyle

It wasn’t long before the magus could regain her consciousness because as embarrassed as she might be about it, she’s quite experienced in quickly waking up after fainting. She does try to abstain from losing consciousness after a failed experimental spell, but she had practiced the spell beforehand, though that was when she was at a full vigor and not when she could already barely stand.

It was dark out and she could see the stars that left the moon seem less lonely. She sat comfortably against a large redwood tree that was slightly damaged. There was even a soft blanket that covered her legs and a small burner that provided her heat in this cold lonely forest. On the tree opposite to hers was a girl who seems to have fallen into a wee nap. The girl looked to be around the same age as her, and looking at her garments its quite a wonder how she kept herself spotless after coming this far into the forest. As her eyes continued to pry more into the girl in front of her, the magus sees that the girl’s eyes were now open. Unsure of what to say, she said nothing while the stranger gave out a small giggle as she continued to stare at the magus with an amused look and a bit of a sly smile on her lips.

The stranger’s smile continued to persist and showed no signs of wanting to progress any sort of conversation. It didn’t take long for the magus to finally break the silence as they had already reached some level of awkwardness that was too much.

‘……Can you please explain what exactly is happening right now?’, the magus asked calmly as she looks at the girl that sat in front of her.

No weapons I could see, I wasn’t tied, my satchel is still here, and I can feel the coins in my pocket. Looking closely at her she seems decked out. Maybe a merchant’s daughter? Or maybe a prodigy adventurer?

‘I watched your fight with the chimera, I praise you for your performance,’ she spoke in a manner that quite blatantly declares her excitement along with a short applause.

‘A chimera? Is that not a wyvern?’, a puzzled look on the magus’s face appeared.

‘Definitely, its roar was that of a green drake’s.’ she says as she approaches the carcass. ‘It’s scales are also softer than a standard wyvern. This one was probably made as a substitute for fake dragon leather’

‘I see’, the magus responds a bit unsure of what the girl was talking was going on about.

‘What do you plan to do with this creature right here, miss mage?’, the girl started to analyze the wyvern’s corpse as she looks in fascination at the clean 2-inch wide hole going through its head.

‘Well… I’m not quite sure what to do with it.’, she recalls her current situation and how downright unreasonable it would be to do anything remotely profitable to it; and it’s such a shame as well as she is quite strapped for cash currently and this corpse in front of her would be worth as much as a small house.

‘but if you have any use for it, I’d be happy to hand it to you.’, she looks carefully at the other’s face. There is something off about this girl’s smile, the magus thinks to herself. Staring at the girl’s bright smile and her eyes that seems to be holding back some sort of emotion.

‘I’d feel bad to take your prize just like that. I would like to compensate you, miss mage.’, the girl says as she puts 10 black cubes on the magus’s hands. The magus receives it with a big smile and pockets it instantly as a small tear of comfort rolled down her face.

‘Thank you so much! I actually really needed that.’, she releases a quick sigh as she couldn’t help but be happy about this turn of fortune, but thinking about it now, the magus wondered how this girl is going to get a 4-tonne corpse in the middle of a dangerous forest back to the city.

‘As for getting this back to the city…’, she says while looking a bit embarrassed. ‘I really need to go somewhere quickly. So, I can conjure up a set of treants to have them carry it for you.’

‘I appreciate the gesture but, I can handle it myself.’, she spoke in a stern manner. Not allowing any form of follow-up from the magus, yet gentle enough to not sound rude.

‘T-Then, at least let me give back 5 itmis, since when I think about it, giving me 10 was too much in the first place and now I’m leaving you alone in the middle of the forest with it.’

‘Do not worry about it. You can keep all the units, I have been planning for all of this from the start’, she says in such a relaxed tone that left no room for the magus to worry about even if she wanted to.

It was then when the ground started to shake uncontrollably. The giant trees rustled and an indescribable amount of leaves fell to the forest floor. The magus was quick to take out a scroll of flight, to try to obtain safety in the skies, but the stranger was quick to grab a hold of her hand and stop her from casting anything. She didn’t try to resist as for the first time in their entire meeting, there was a serious look in the stranger’s eyes.

‘Shhhh… Look closely…’, the girl places a finger on the magus’s lips as she carefully looks around her surroundings with vigilance.

‘what is it?’, even though she had no idea why she needed to whisper, the magus felt the need to seeing how serious the girl in front of her was.

‘See that? A lost cherub.’, the girl pointed at a speck of light off the distance. It was quite easy to spot as the burner they had was quickly put out when the leaves started to fell, thus besides the stars, it was the only source of light that they had in this dark forest.

The cherub floated through the forest with much disarray. It’s bellowing cries was where the earthquake was from. Though, it has subsided quite a bit now, the ground would still shake every now and then. One could only wonder at the extent of its powers were as compared to an ordinary magic practitioner. To be able to command the very earth to shake as a child was nothing short of a power that was otherworldly.

‘Maybe we should help him? It’s quite dangerous here.’, she suggests. Seeing how helpful this girl has been to her, perhaps the girl was also planning to help the cherub.

‘No, we mustn’t interfere’, the girl unexpectedly denies the suggestion. ‘Oh. Oh. Oh. Look how flustered he floats around! He must be very scared right now. His master must be trying to find him this very second…’, she pauses a bit and grabs the magus by her arm quickly dragging her away.

It wasn’t long until a single bolt of lightning struck in the middle of the forest for seemingly no reason at all. The magus looked back at the scene behind her and she saw a hunched old lady waving at her, though things were happening so fast, she wasn’t entirely sure if she saw correctly. They ran non-stop for a while and eventually they were able to come across the rugged cobble road that was the pathway to the City of Alguru. Now away from the tall thick trees, and now the sun rising, they could see the other much better.

‘Well…, that was quite tiring I must say, though you still seem quite lively.’, the magus interjected as she worked to catch her breath while seeing the girl beside her seemingly unfazed by the sudden sprint they just had.

‘Mind it not too much, I’ve had my fair share of running far too many times to be fazed by this.’, she said so in such a bragging, but jovial manner, the magus couldn’t help but chuckle at her remark.

‘Now that trouble has been removed from sight, it should be about time to make myself known.’, the stranger declared, spreading her arms around in an exaggerated way while fishing for some reaction from the magus. There was an awkward silence as she looks closely at what the other was doing the same way one would look at a piece of abstract art, for she had not the slightest clue at what she was looking at.

Is this some fad rich girls these days do?

The situation only got worse for every passing tick of time. The magus panicked a bit, cussing at her weak social skills for failing to pick up what was happening, though she somehow had the feeling that the other party was also at fault. Finally, she decides to go all in and carefully approached the stranger to give her a hug.

‘…Amy. My name is Amy.’, the stranger uttered in a monotone voice. She seems quite disappointed at how the magus responded to her gesture in more ways than one.

‘Mine’s Nova, and is it fine if I let go of you now?’, she asked with a bit of nervousness in her tone.

I hope I did it right. Though it is a bit weird how she didn’t hug back. Maybe her not hugging back was part of the greeting?

‘By any stretch of the imagination, have we met before?’, quick to become impatient, Amy forsakes any form of subtlety she might have wanted to have.

Ah, so that was what that was about.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I’ve ever met you before.’, Nova mutters with an apologetic tone. She reviews the face of the Amy and even after sifting through her memory, she could not remember anyone by the name nor face as the girl in front of her, only a slight headache arose the more she tried to think about it.

‘Though, you strangely do feel familiar…’, she trails off with a half-meant remark as a small consolation to the girl whose face had frozen solid from shock.

‘I-I see… it seems to be an error from my part’, Amy says. ‘I was supposed to meet a magus here today. Have you seen one as of late?’, a small smile formed on Amy’s lips as she scratches her head in this light-hearted confusion.

‘A magus, you say?’, Nova could feel herself swallowing a forming lump in her chest. Though the atmosphere from their childish talks still hasn’t left, the fact of the matter is, the girl in front of her just said something very serious.

‘What business might you have with one?’, right now she was scanning Amy’s every word and gesture.

Is she talking about me in a roundabout way or does she really not know that I’m most likely who she’s looking for.

A weird scenario has appeared and to put it simply, it’s all because Nova is a spy. In fact, she’s a wizard’s apprentice under a holy sect. Certain precarious events got her assigned to act as a bestiary tamer who was a magus that got privately executed. It quickly became a bit of a conundrum on whether to classify Amy as an enemy of the original magus, an ally of the original magus, someone hunting for a spy, or someone sent here to help the spy.

Well, she doesn’t seem too familiar with magus’s. Rather, her perception levels are abysmally low…

Nova is currently emitting the same mana output as that of a magus with the help of a complex spell. To a normal person, they might not be able to understand the strange feeling they would be feeling when encountering a magus, but they definitely do sense it and most often times, when the person is weak-willed it would show in their complexion.

‘What business might I have with her? Worry not too much about it; for I myself am not too sure.’, she whispers the last part to a bit embarrassed about it.

‘I-Is that so?’, Nova responds not really knowing how to interpret it.

Another strange answer!

The irking silence dawned unto them once again. This time though, Nova was prepared with what to do next.

‘Well… thank you for helping me back then, but I really need to go someplace else.’, she says in an apologetic tone.

‘Oh, I don’t mind. I would hate to take up more of your time. Other than my missed meeting with the magus, there’s still a list of things I need to do as well’

After hearing that, Nova rejoiced a lot inside as not only did the other party not see it as rude, but it seems that Amy also wanted to dismiss the conversation but encountered the same problem as her.

She bowed her head as a sign of goodbye and scurried back to the city for her next task.

As she ran, she turned back to see Amy and the girl was still calmly waving her off and after noticing Nova glance at her she shouts:

‘If you ever remember everything, don’t forget to tell me about it!’

Confused by that, she shouts in response with nothing more than an, ‘Ok, I will!’

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© 2020 MantaStyle

Author's Note

Thank you again for reading this story. This one is a lot longer than chapter one. Please expect chapters to be this long normally.

edit: made a new chapter 1 and 2. hopefully a smoother read than this

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Coyote Poetry

You are a wonderful story teller. My favorite reading is myth and tale. I liked how you are pacing the story properly, allowing the reader to digest the conversation and the events in the story. A very entertaining chapter shared.