The dark hallways were silent, echoing only the subtle thuds of shoes on soft carpet. Ronvel was ahead of Crusch, her wand at the ready, as meaningless as it felt now as Crusch became increasingly more convinced that her partner well and truly was an inept in the fields of magic far more than herself and that said quite a bit of unsettling news.
Then again, her own mana reserves had been wrung dry. She could replenish them if given an hour or perhaps half but her mind whirled on what would happen if they missed their door again and much more was to garner anymore suspicion from Ronvel than she already had, not to mention the potential judges perhaps overseeing the trial. Redfield hadn't specified that mana replenishment was a cheat but he hadn't exactly called it "basic" either or a skill that any beginner Witch of her caliber was expected to be able to perform. It was perhaps a grey area but then again could it be treated as a breach of regulation, if that's what they even called it.
She opted to take the careful route, if things asked for it and the situation became dire enough then perhaps would her actions be seen as acceptable but the wolf didn't seem to have a distinct tracker on them, it had followed their illusions for the betterment of twenty minutes before the spell had whittled due to her constant use of other spells and had to find them manually. With this could she deduce that the most it had to go on was sight and minimal scent not to mention was there a few floors of buffering before it could actively reach them.
"Are you a charm specialist by any chance?" Ronvel suddenly asked as they turned left in direction of where the hallways continued with no other pathway and the detector spun vigorously, "You seem so well versed in it"
Crusch followed exhaustedly but vigilantly behind, "Course not, my mentor was probably one though and I figured they were quite useful", she shrugged.
"Ah, your use of them was quite interesting" Crusch laughed at the sentence.
"No offense Ronvel but anyone's skills would dazzle you, that barrier was splendid"
Ronvel shot her an incredulous look but it softened as she laughed as well, "None taken, it's my greatest dilemma"
"Dilemma? Magic wasn't your choice to take up?" They glanced over a large landscape painting filling one end of the hall to the other, it seemed aged and ill kept as parts of the paint had already faded through time with a layer of dust covering its surface but the picture itself was still as clear as day. A heroic knight in gleaming silver armour battered and bruised as the clouds above him parted to let in a small fraction of the sun's light beam over him.
"Haaa, parents" Ronvel simply muttered and Crusch chuckled, remembering her aunt from her previous life. It was, like parental figures to set exceedingly high expectations for their children, regardless of whether their child had the capabilities to do so or not.
Crusch's parents weren't that way but due to how sparsely her interactions with them were, she couldn't deny that perhaps they would've harbored a few ridiculous expectations of her themselves, somewhere deep inside their hearts. Her aunt on the other hand was a matter all of her own, she'd tirelessly make it known to Crusch what grades she'd acquired in her schooling years, that she do this course or that course, get into this school or that one. An endless cacophony of fantastical dreams Crusch herself barely qualified for.
"And you don't feel like it's your type of place huh? No matter how much you try, it just…fails" Ronvel beamed at her so brightly.
"Tell me about it, 'We were a family accursed from the magical arts Ronny, it is our destiny to stand atop the highest ranks of wizards like our great ancestor Margaret!' Is what they told me tirelessly till I got here" Ronvel shook her head helplessly.
"Ronny?" Crusch snickered as Ronvel rolled her eyes.
"A nickname, my parents call me that"
"And this Margaret?"
Ronvel examined the detector closely as they once again reached a fork in the hallways within the floor then moving right as she noted at which path did it start losing pace.
"An old ancestor of my family, Lady Margaret, Blizzard of Vanelheer" She coolly explained, "Vanelheer was an old town in the country now it's the estate of my family"
Crusch gave her a surprised look, mixed in with a little awe.
"She sounds amazing" Ronvel scoffed.
"Yeah, everyone says so and then she allowed herself to be led astray by her own heart" Her expression was scornful, "Empress of Winter they said, heart made of glaciers and yet the damn hag found herself smitten. Cursed was her choice, for lack of a better word"
Crusch couldn't help but laugh, "Novelic"
"Right? Father won't let up about having the curse lifted, acquiring what's rightfully ours and all that drivel" They took glances over the doors, figuring out that they were on the higher floors ranging in the 90s and well past the hundreds.
"Ha, that's the worst of it" Crusch continued to reminisce, "placing all the burden on you like thats all you were meant to be"
Ronvel stared towards her, "You're oddly experienced in this, I must say I had the impression your parents were a lot more flexible"
Hearing this did Crusch's hands quickly wave dismissively to the misunderstanding, noticing she'd treaded far too deep into the past.
"No, no, it's nothing like that—"
But Ronvel shook her head, "It's alright, I'm not asking to know what goes on in your own house" She chuckled but Crusch noted that it was a lot less filled with humour and more of an understanding.
Their walk became awkwardly silent after this, Ronvel kept to analyzing the detector and keeping a close eye as Crusch took some moments to replenish a few of her mana reserves. She found it difficult to properly do it while not as fully concentrated as she would be in a quiet space to meditate but it worked well enough, she was replenishing herself at least a tenth a minute but more to it than that was her concerns over the information Ronvel had decided to relinquish with her, more so due to the existence of curses, she was highly interested on the kinds that existed in this world.
'I wonder, does one have to specialize in curses?' Crusch suddenly found herself thinking, more than interested to use a few for herself.
'Coward's magic' She heard Beryl speak.
'Coward's?'
'Dear lord, magic is magic!' Abssynia responded.
'Tch, do not act as though you do not feel any sort of hatred for it, Curses are a coward's and a devil's magic!!' Beryl roared.
'Wait, what's so bad about them?' Crusch felt the hatred a little unwarranted, sure, in a lot of the works of fiction she'd read and Curses were a dark arts rarely learnt by many but it didn't deserve such scorn.
'haa, mutant magic is perhaps a more befitting title' Abssynia spoke, Crusch keeping to Ronvel's side as they walked.
'Their not spells nor are they a speciality although some dark wizards through the ages have called themselves masters of curses it isn't anything to boast about, curses are an obscenely dark affiliation'
Crusch raised a brow, 'As in?'
'As in one has to align themselves with entities from the world's in between Dear Owner, a curse is a corruption, a corruption placed on another person.
Dark wizards who affiliate themselves with these entities end up "gifted" so to speak, mutated by the effects of those....things'
'Cowards!! They throw themselves away for magic that's been tainted, corrupted to perform acts not even demons would abide by' Beryl finished off.
Crusch fell silent, a corruption? Curses were corruptions placed on others? She pondered, in a sense it wasn't much different from the concepts her world made up around curses. In a sense they were corruptions, disfigured a person, messed with their thoughts or bloodline like the death of their future children. It was, in a actuality, a corruption brought upon a person by magical means yet how were entities from there involved?
'Dark entities? How do they corrupt you?' She asked.
'Whispers from nowhere, ravings if you will' Abssynia explained, 'They can't effect you directly but they manipulate and mislead, the end result is either death or insanity'
'Ah, that's...hm..' It was unsettling but she was also intrigued, if that was the case then were some curses only specific to a certain entity only, 'What kind of curses are out there?'
Abssynia didn't answer immediately, keeping silent for what felt like a small eternity, 'Curiosity is perhaps your kinds most debilitating issue, there are things in this world better left unknown'
'Ugh, you're exaggerating' she groaned.
'She says it in your best interest master, Knowledge hurts us more than it benefits us'
Crusch scoffed in what was a suppressed laugh of amusement and annoyance, knowledge hurt? Yeah, studying back in her world did but knowledge was so obsessively revered there, yet here it was treated as some sort of forbidden art better left alone or was that only for magic? Either how, Beryl and Abssynia abstained from telling her anymore than they already had, she did however gain bits and pieces of interesting information, gaining perhaps what was a small wariness to the world her astral self resided in.
"We're close, really close" Ronvel suddenly spoke again, bringing Crusch from her thoughts as she looked up to notice that they were once again in a massive hallway, wide but much grimmer looking than the one before and their room was perhaps somewhere here as Ronvel's detector spun at unexplainable speeds.
"How long have we been searching?"
"Does it matter, Ludy?" Ronvel glanced over the rooms, "We're here, we find the room and we get out of here as soon as possi—"
Ronvel's sentence cut short, she tensed up and Crusch witnessed once more, the color drain from her skin, her breathing ragged as her eyes dilated in fear and panic. It took her a second to realize where this reaction was coming from, ahead, at the opposite end of the room was the beast glaring at them.
Her wand appeared by her side as she gripped it tightly but the monstrosity didn't move, it stood and stared with the same viscous drool pooling over the dark carpet as Crusch noticed something different about it.
"Is it me or has its fur changed and why does it seem a little…larger?"
As though the room sized wolf wasn't already terrifying enough, the beast's fur had changed color, a deep obsidian black meeting their gaze, so dark in fact that it seemed shadowy in nature; the light couldn't reflect the texture of its fur, its body, it seemed as though to be sucked in while the sight of its presence was only notable by the bright blue eyes that stared towards them unmoving and the gleaming white teeth bared at them in predatory delight. Crusch's brow's visibly furrowed, she still barely found herself in spell casting condition let alone facing the monstrosity that had torn through her previous attempts like thin paper while in full condition. There was also the problem of which door their room was on now, really close or somewhere beside that thing.
"Could you distract it?" Ronvel sounded beside her as Crusch's eyes widened.
"Is this where you throw my life away?"
"What!? No, neither of us is able to fend it off right now" She gave Crusch a stern look, "You'll distract it and I'll go looking for the room"
"And What'll I do when you find it?" Ronvel fell silent as Crusch shook her head, "You're really willing to sacrifice me"
"That is not the intention! Any better idea's!?"
"Obviously, I look and you distract"
Ronvel gave her a flabbergasted look as Crusch groaned, "Will that even work?"
She glanced at the beast, "It hasn't chased us yet…"
"Your basing my life on that observation?"
"It's a plan…"
"Plans backfire more often than they actually work, I'll give you two minutes though" Ronvel raised a brow at her, "Two minutes to find the room and if it does fall for such an obvious ruise then I'm setting it on you next if you don't find that door"
'Dear Owner, I am strongly against this!' Crusch heard Abssynia protest in her head but paid her no attention, her thoughts were centered over mentally preparing for what sounded in no way right in a multitude of avenues.
"Right, right," Ronvel nodded then gave her a wry smile, "You're awfully considerate"
She raised a brow but didn't question, two amethyst flames appearing beside her as Ronvel backed away behind her and the flames shot forwards.
BANG!!
BANG!!
A cloud of dark smoke ensued as Crusch erected a barrier that was shattered instantly, the hallway narrowing as the air in her lungs disappeared right after with a crushing pain emanating from her back to front and the sound of splintering and shattered wood deafening her ears.
BANG!!
BANG!!
BANG!!
BANG!!
Crusch's body was thrown through several of the floor's walls, crashing into and denting the last as she screamed at the pain that followed. Her shoulder felt limp and numbed, had it dislocated or broken? She had no time to analyze, finding that the beast was picking her up from the legs, she instantly cast a protective shield over herself but as feeble as her spells were in front of it, was it broken the mere moment its body came in contact and sharp fangs drew crimson blood.
"Argh!!" The feeling was warm and piercing, painful that it drew warm tears but her vision darted over the room around her and at the pieces of splintered wood as a flurry of amethyst strings flew towards them, gripping them tightly before flinging it the beast's way.
A howl ensued as Crusch crashed onto the floor, the wood splinters having pierced through its skin as it staggered back while she limped to her feet; a painful endeavor as her glasses skewed.
'Dear Owner!'
'Master!'
Abssynia and Beryl voiced their concerns as the piercing blue gaze met her once more, livid in a burning vengeance. The purple strings slithered for the other splinters laid across the ground around them, flashing past her as the beast blasted forward.