Chapter 17 A date with a sorceress

After leaving the forest, you walk along the road and see a bunch of trees to your left and a very steep cliffside to your right. The road isn't the widest of them all, but you are not a carriage and don't require the space needed here, so you continue on your way without much difficulty.

A few minutes pass and you see a small house to your right and spot an old woman sitting near the door of her house. You receive a shock as the old lady suddenly begins waving towards you.

Even with your great vision, you barely noticed the old lady. How could she have noticed you with her weakened vision? You feel a slight suspicion, but you don't try to trick her or avoid her. If she is some kind of monster, then you need to slay her.

Having a monster that looks like a human near a human settlement is not something you would like and need to fix if that is the case. You wave back at the old woman and go towards her to probe her intentions and confirm if your suspicions are correct.

The old lady smiles with a mouth full of healthy looking teeth on full display along with her wrinkled eyes and face. You approach her with caution, but you try to hide your apprehensiveness so she doesn't grow suspicious.

The old lady stands up and says "Would this young man enjoy sharing a cup of tea with me?" The old woman keeps looking at you with a kind smile and acts as if she is only longing for a bit of company. You quickly nod your head and the two of you enter her small wooden house and she sits you down next to a table. "The tea will be ready in a couple of minutes. For now, how about you tell me what an young gentleman like you might be doing out here in such a backwards location?"

You smile towards the old lady and say "I am a wandering knight and, just as the name suggests, I wander the lands in search of work and food. I came through a forest nearby and saw this small house. I wanted to see who lived in such a weird location and check on their health."

The old lady nods and says "A wandering night, ehh? Quite an interesting job you decided to take up. From your direction, I can tell you are heading for Khare. I would suggest you abandon your honor before going in there. The centuries old tradition of wandering knights doesn't exist in Khare and you will most likely be exploited rather than appreciated."

You look at the old lady with a shocked expression. Wandering Knights are special warriors. Wandering knight are free people not belonging to any country and are "heroes of the people". Wandering Knights travel the world and help all villages, cities and small communities with anything they can and they are expected to do that.

In exchange, wandering Knights are highly respected and all settlements are required to care for them. If a wandering knight goes through a settlement, it is tradition to offer some extra food you don't need and can part with. This tradition has existed before Analand itself and giving it up is even considered a sin.

For any settlement to abandon such a tradition means it is already too forgone. "I will have my work cut out for me in Khare. If people aren't willing to support wandering Knights, then Khare is truly a place full of thieves and bandits!" You listen to the old lady a bit more and hear the tea cattle whistle after a few minutes.

The old lady seems quite normal to the naked eye, but you have noticed traces of stellar energy on her. A person having a small trace of stellar energy around them means they have either cast a spell or a spell has been cast onto them not too long ago. This woman is nothing but suspicious.

The old lady quickly grabs two cups and pours the hot water into each cup and puts the cups onto the table. She hands you your cup and puts her cup in front of her table. She sits down and watches you carefully. You don't want to drink anything yet and observe her carefully and make conversation. "May I know this miss's name?"

The old lady nods and says "My name is quite strange for people that hear it for the first time, so I would recommend you listen carefully. My name is Gaza Moon." You nod your head and say "Nice to meet you, Mrs Moon. You can call me Analander. It is my knight name."

Gaza Moon smiles back at you and tells you to drink your tea. You can't think of any excuse to not drink and reach for your cup to take a sip small sip and test the waters. The old lady suddenly stops you and makes you put down your cup. "The tea is too hot. I'll bring some snacks and you can read one of my small journals to pass the time while you wait."

You get confused by her actions, but you soon realize what she is doing. You are not a dimwit and you know as a fact leaving some stellar energy around you is a novice sorcerer mistake. How could a 60 year old woman be a novice sorcerer? She must have done that intentionally to make you suspicious.

There is a high likelihood of her putting a drug in her own cup and leaving your cup clean I hope of you switching them later. Her stopping you from drinking before you got the opportunity to switch cups proves your theory. You don't switch cups and drink your own tea after it cools off a bit more.

The old lady comes back and you two eat the small cookies and nuts while you relax and talk for a bit more. A couple of minutes quickly pass and the old woman suddenly grabs ahold of her neck and falls down onto her knees.

You quickly run over towards her and act like you don't know what is happening "What happened, miss Moon? Do you need my help?" The old lady looks at you with a smile and responds with "Don't worry, cough. I just forgot to take my medications today. I'll be right back!"

Gaza Moon rushes towards a small cabin ate in her kitchen area and grabs a bottle full of what you think is blimberry potion. The woman looks up at the ceiling and your eyes light up "Is this the healing spell my master told me of? Is she about to cast it?!"

Gaza Moon quickly moves her finger in a weird way and you memorize her movements perfectly. She finishes weaving the stellar energy and quietly says "doc". You look up into the stars quickly and check for any DOC constellation. You watch the stellar energies move around and notice the Davo Osiris and Chikam have indeed aligned and you can borrow their stellar energy.

You repeat the motions Gaza Moon did and transfer all the energy in your fingers into the blimberry potion inside your bag and feel the energy seep into the bottles and move around in there. You mind suddenly expands and the feeling of a new spell being registered into your spellbook overwhelms your mind and you calm down after a few seconds.

You watch Gaza Moon stop coughing and return back to normal as soon as she drank the bottle of blimberry potion and she slowly stands up. "Please excuse me for such an awkward display. I really don't know how I forgot to take my medication today."

You look at her and stop acting, as she has shown her true colors "I know your tea cup was poisoned and you just now used the DOC spell. You can't fool me anymore, Gaza Moon."

Never in your life have you seen someone who looks as kind and gentle as their own grandmother go to an old witch with pure hatred in her eyes so fast. You almost jump back. "Yes I am! So what? You mortals are just normal people I can do whatever I want with and you can do nothing about that! I can burn you alive if I feel like it and no one will know!"

You smile at the old woman and say "Does miss happen to know a curse that makes people age faster?" A look of shock suddenly crosses the old lady's face and she stares at you "Did you find my spellbook's missing page? Where is it?! Give it to me!"

As you suspected, her insane mental state was caused by that irresponsible old looking coot that stole a page from her spellbook. You were intending to give it back for free when you found the original owner, but it would be quite dumb to not take this opportunity to learn a new spell from an experienced sorcerer. "You can have this spell page back, but you need to teach me how to cast the spell that speeds up aging!"

The old sorceress looks at you and says "How dare you! Don't you have any honor?! A fragile old woman is asking for help and you are thinking of profit first! What kind of wandering knight are you!"

You smile and say "As you know, Knights don't tend to be sorcerers for a reason. Sorcerers are willing to give up anything to learn a new spell. It is almost like an addiction. I would like for you to teach your spell to me in exchange for the page." You take out the spell page from your pocket and dangle it in front of Gaza Moon in order to tempt her.

Learning a new spell is a huge milestone for any sorcerer. The pleasant feeling of your mind becoming clearer is even more pleasant than any drug. Any sorcerer who has experienced this feeling will crave more of it. You are no exception, but you are more restrained than most.

Sorcerers have committed many atrocities just to learn a single spell. Such an example is Alianna, who cursed an entire forest in order to study 1 single spell. Any normal sorcerer can easily be tempted to turn on the people he is supposed to protect in exchange for a single spell. This is the main reason sorcerers aren't received well when they proclaim themselves as wandering Knights.

The old woman looks at you with a troubled expression and sighs. "Alright, it is your victory. I will tell you the spell. It isn't a single spell, though. It is a combination of the spells KID and LAW. The human body isn't intelligent, so those two spells can directly control it to think it is aging extremely fast and show physical results via illusions.

The aging spell you are looking for is just an extremely powerful illusion cast using these two spells." Your mind expands as you experience that warm and pleasant feeling once again. The old woman helped you memorize the hand movements required to cast KID and she also told you it requires a bracelet of bones to cast and uses no stamina.

You thank the sorceress and leave her alone after you give her the spell page back. You don't want to deal with her wrath and she will likely stop her insane actions when she regains her mental state.

You run along and makes sure nothing bad happens as you keep walking on your way. The tea you drank and snacks you ate helped your body recover from its wounds and you regained 2 stamina. You have 12/18 stamina now.

It quickly becomes nighttime as you walk along the road and reach the final destination you need to stay make camp at. The next stop is Khare and todays stop is called Torrepani, a big town populated by Svinn.

Svinn are small goblin-like creature. Even though they are alike, there are obvious differences. Svinns are generally healthier than goblins and a bit taller as well. They are far less greedy and are said to be a race of fertile offspring produced by humans and Goblins, as they have human-like intelligence and goblin-like bodies. The most prominent difference is their shorter ears.

The ears of Svinns are green versions of normal human ears and look nothing like the pointy ears of the goblins. Svinns also speak both Goblin and the common tongue, that is the main reason behind the legend about their origins.

As you walk into the village, you notice the extremely depressed mood situated in the entire town. It feels like someone very important has died and the entire town is mourning that person.

You decide to ask around and find out exactly what happened that caused such a depressing mood to spread all over the village. The 1.5 meter tall creatures all stumble from place to place and you stop one of them that looked pretty well dressed. "Excuse me, sir. I arrived at Torrepani a couple of minutes ago and I was wondering what happened? Why is everyone in such a sad mood?"

The Short Svinn is initially startled by behemoth like man stopping him in the middle of the night, but he quickly realizes you are friendly and relaxes. "Me Sven. Us Svinn leader Procious stealed own daughter. Torrepani cursed when Procious blood finished. Daughter might swallowed by monster. Our warrior is finished and we soon will finished."

Svinns aren't know for their understanding of the common tongue, but you can decipher what he says, as it is coherent at least. "So the daughter of their leader was taken by a monster and they are depressed because their best warrior died and the village will be cursed if the leader's bloodline dies out."

You look at the Svinn and ask "Can't you hire a new hero to help keep Torrepani safe?" The Svinn shakes his head and says "Hero expensive, we negative Rich. We have no strong men and are weak." The Svinn looks at you and acts like he is thinking about something.

He shakes his head a bit and then slowly nods after taking a glance at your sword. "Human, you strong. You help Torrepani? We give politeness." You don't know exactly what the Svinn means by politeness, but vanquishing a monster in the morning is just the exercise you need before you enter Khare, so you decide to agree, but the Svinn questions you a bit more before you can say anything.

"You sword or skynet?" You understand his meaning and say "I fight mainly with my sword." The Svinn nods and says "You best or negative best?" You take pride in your swordsmanship, but you are far from being the best. "I not best, but I good."

The Svinn nods his head and says "Good is best. You will help Svinn Torrepani. Все свини тут, захватываете этого незнакомого! Он хороши и спасёт доча лидера!" The Svinn suddenly began speaking the Goblin language and you were left not knowing what he was saying.

You thought he was announcing you as the new rescue party, but what happened next shocked you. The Svinns quickly lifted their heads up and over 50 Svinns of different ages swarmed you and tied you up. You tried resisting, but you couldn't do anything. The Svinns directly threw you into a small prison cell and you were left there with no supervision or anyone to complain to.

You can do nothing other than stay in your cell for the entire night and hope the Svinns will let you out in the morning.

A.T. Haha! You thought it was going to be a romance interest, but no! It was I, Gaza Moon!