The Wayward Witch Chronicles

The silence hanging in the stage room only made West’s thoughts darken. He stood cross-armed several paces away as Sunny continued sketching on the vellum. Whatever she was drawing, she gave it her full attention, mumbling to herself as she labored over small lines and fast notes. Vera emerged from behind the curtain again and continued her investigation of the room, hopping off the stage and inspecting the nearest wall.

Roman pried his eyes away from their ghastly audience at last. His face drawn into grim lines, the swordsman took several steps closer to where the Mani sat. “What is it you’re working on that’s so important?”

“It’s… they k-kept it on them, last time. I shouldn’t have let them, b-but they insisted.”

“Kept what?”

“This. The– it’s not a map, not r-really, because– schematics?” Sunny closed her eyes. “It’s… if there’s anything I can do, th-this is it.”

Closing the rest of the distance and crouching, Roman studied the rough drawing. “It’s this place, is what you’re drawing.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“You know it?”

“Some. J-just pieces, from… exploring with the others, before.” She waved the charcoal stick toward the watching dead, then returned to her work.” But I think I’ve started fitting them together, a b-bit, and it might– it could help–“ Norui glanced up to see the swordsman within arm’s reach, and an anxious fit crossed her face. Her free hand sought out the sleeping creature on her lap, her eyes half-closing. “It’s– you have to have b-better questions. There’s not much….” She sighed.

West was pacing slowly along the stage, making as if to take a better look about– but really, all that was on his mind was being close enough to hear every word, and to intervene if Roman started fidgeting too much over his sword again.

For now, at least, the swordsman seemed calm. More than that – he saw the tension on Roman’s face had been cast away for a friendly smile. Ach.... he’s gonna try to be charming now, isn’t he?

“You haven’t introduced your friend,” Roman commented.

“Oh… th-this is Lím.” She brushed her fingers through the squirrel’s matted fur. “He’s my… ah, w-well….”

“Your pet,” Roman put in helpfully. Sunny accepted the input wordlessly, refocusing on her sketch. Roman observed the creature. “A bit worn-looking, isn’t he?”

“He’s probably s-sick. He hasn’t been getting much food or rest.” Her eyes tightened bitterly.

“Ah.” Roman tilted his head sympathetically. “Well, I don’t mean to offer insult, but you don’t look like you’ve been doing well yourself.”

“I’m better than d-dead, and that’s better than anybody else here’s gotten.” She seemed to regret the biting words as soon as she’d said them, shaking her head and muttering, “Not relevant.” Sliding from resting on her knees to back on her haunches, putting a bit more space between her and the nobleman, Sunny returned to her work with aggressive strokes. "You're wasting t-time. What do you need to know?"

Roman edged back at her scolding voice, and the kindness on his face cooled to a business-like focus. “Well, on that note. Would you happen to know what, ah, happened to–”

“Yes, I know.” She refused to follow his gesture to the patient dead, focused on her drawing. “They were k-killed here, and there was nothing– I c-couldn’t do anything for any of them. And unless you are lucky, v-very lucky– no, forget that. It's done.”

Sunny dropped the charcoal at her side, exhaling as it clattered onto the stone floor of the stage. Her fingers trembled over the page as she retraced the lines. “It’s… okay. It’s as g-good as I can remember it.”

Roman held his hand out for the paper, but she stalled. “I need… you need t-to understand, it’s… it’s p-probably not going to help. There’s not enough yet, and… there might not be a w-way out at all. I don't see why there would have to be–”

As Sunny faltered and fumbled over her words, Roman set his jaw and lifted his chin. “If you really believe that’s the case, then why did you bother?” he asked disdainfully.

“B-because.” Her voice barely a murmur, Sunny offered out the rude sketch. “I just... I h-have to try.”

With a noise of discontent, Roman took the paper for study. His frown deepened. “... How, may I ask, am I supposed to read this?”

Vera abandoned her inspection of the room and walked up to the stage, peering at the map. Curiosity piqued, West also ambled over and peeked over the swordsman's shoulder. The page was messy, and its lines unsteady. But for her having only a few minutes spent on it, he was impressed by the complexity– five circular diagrams, marking each one on a smaller map of circles within circles. Lines connected boxes bordering the concentric diagrams to small rooms sketched in the margins. Large crossed symbols marked key spots along the floors and walls; sometimes a triangle, sometimes a cross, with brief notes like “avoid left side” or “look for wire” squeezed in wherever they could fit.

“It’s as near as I’ve been able to get the layout, so far.” Sunny looked at her hands. “I haven’t p-placed where everything is, so I can't c-combine them all together yet, but–”

Rising to his feet, Roman lowered the map. Sharply, he demanded, “Do you know this place or don’t you?”

“If it were easy, I’d have f-figured it out by now. But the way this place works, it’s… Zorrocean engineering, and c-complex, and….” Sunny pressed a fist against her forehead and took a breath. “Doesn’t matter. No t-time. Relevance only. Right. The layout changes, and–”

“How does it change?”

“Look here.” She pointed to the smaller map, purpose invigorating her voice. “There are five circular halls between the center and outer walls, see? And rooms between the halls.” Her stutter improved as she focused, guiding the group’s attention on the rough schematics, worsened in the moments when anxiety tightened around her eyes again. “I haven’t s-seen all the rooms yet, but I’ve marked the ones I know. But look– the hallway walls shift. They’ll rotate around the center, which is this room we’re in now, see?”

Sunny went on. “There are only a few openings from the hallways, which rotate with the walls. So depending on how they rotate, only a few rooms are accessible at a time. The rooms are… w-well, they’re like puzzles, and v-very–” Sunny swallowed, gaze drifting downwards, eyes losing their focus.

More quietly, she added, "Every room is d-dangerous somehow. But we have to get through them to cross between the h-halls, or sometimes they have mechanisms to trigger the walls to shift. And the whole time, IT.” She gestured toward the back of the stage, recalling the creature that had disappeared there. “It’s going to try to, to separate us. It’s so very important not to get separated, do you understand? If you get caught on your own, you’ll be dead. That’s it. So e-even if it means not getting through the next room– it’s too d-dangerous to be separated– we can't–”

“Get to the point, would you?" Roman snapped, his reprimand reverberating in the echoing hall. Sunny flinched and silenced. West caught the swordsman's eye and shook his head admonishingly. Pressing his lips thin, Roman asked in staccato words, "Do you know a way out?”

Sunny swallowed, struggling to find her voice again. “No. B-but they’ve all walked in from the outer r-rim to the center. So if we find a path that r-reaches the outermost ring–“

“The exit will be there. That shouldn’t be so difficult, then.”

Sunny’s eyes clouded angrily. “It’s– if it were that easy, we would have found a way already.“

“Then what’s keeping you?” he snapped.

Sunny stammered into silence.

Roman took a breath as if to put a lid on his annoyance, then managed something like a smile. “All right. It’s clear you’ve been through something of an ordeal here, but trust me. We’re professionals.”

Far from reassured, Sunny stared in dismay. West couldn’t blame her. The situation was worse than anything he had imagined, and for all Roman’s insistence on being professional, he didn’t seem to grasp just how deep they were in it yet.

With a blithe smile, Roman passed the map to Vera for inspection. “So,” he said, “we have to explore through rooms to find our way to the outer ring. The layout will change as we go. And we cannot allow ourselves to be separated. Simple enough so far.” He sized up the Investigator. “West– you’ve been awfully quiet, haven’t you? What's your take on all this?”

“Well, on the bright side, I suppose there’s nae a necromancer to worry about after all!” West forced cheer, but he couldn’t stand the fake sound of it. Crossing his arms, he let his voice fall to a somber, flat rumble. “This’s a right bad situation, is my take. We cannae afford to take anythin’ lightly. Especially Sunneh, seeing as she’s the only one here with any inklin’ of what’s happenin’ or how we might get out of it.” He shifted to face her directly. “Lass, is there anythin’ else ye think we need to know?”

Sunny froze. Her eyes picked up a thoughtful light as she examined West for the first time, inspecting his face and stature, then faded as she struggled to refocus. “I… yes. There’s a lot I can't p-predict. Even if we find a room I know, details change, so… I can t-tell you what I’ve seen before, but we can't assume it will be the same. But the sort of things we’ll f-find, they’re usually consistent.”

Gathering Lím back into her arms, Sunny stood. “Traps. Very, very unkind ones. Sometimes lethal. I’ve m-marked the ones we’ve found before, and which ones we’ve d-disabled too, but sometimes new ones s-seem to pop up.”

She licked her lips, looking downwards. “Sometimes something monstrous will be out there, something d-deadly vicious. I don’t know what it might bring in, and I can’t… I won’t be v-very helpful in a fight. I’m sorry, I wish I… but… anyway.”

“The other thing you should know, there’s… you probably saw it, the thing that t-trapped us all here. It’s….” Choking off, Sunny’s lips quivered without proper sound. She swallowed, then tried again. “I don’t like n-naming it, but somebody started calling it Whistler.”

Aye, that suits, West thought, tightening his jaw.

The more she talked about the thing, the more her wings hunched and her breathing quickened. “I… I know very little about it. I don’t know what it w-wants, other than… it enjoys this. But it’s d-dangerous. Very, very dangerous. There’s no point in trying to fight it, the only thing to d-do is to keep away from it. And… it’s only here til morning. So it won’t give us any more time than that to f-find a way out.” With effort, the Mani met Roman’s eyes, connecting her bright golds to his deep greens. She pronounced every syllable evenly and precisely as she said, “If you’re still here when d-dawn approaches, it will kill you.”

Roman cursed softly. West rocked back a step, frowning. His hand went to his vest, pulling his silver Investigator badge and flipping it in his palm. On its back, a small line trailed from sky blue to midnight black and back to sky blue, with thin lines to indicate the hours between purple dusk and bright orange dawn. Just past the deepest black now, they had easily six hours yet until the bright orange of sunrise.

Sunny stole a look about the party, eyes trailing over their equipment. "It doesn't look like– n-none of you are magic-users. If I’m mistaken, don’t correct me." She grimaced. “It usually t-targets them first.”

Vera shifted her weight, frowning, no doubt wondering if wand-user would qualify for special attention, but said nothing.

“If it’s nearby, it… well, it’s not usually hard to g-guess if it’s around, though. You can usually hear it whistling when it’s near. If it’s close, you won’t b-be able to think s-straight. When it was here before, you p-probably felt that….”

Sunny took a steadying breath. “It has magic. Illusions. Enchantments, ch-charms. And worse.”

The Mani bit her lip. “Sometimes it can make you do things you wouldn’t normally. Like things that you w-want to do, but you know better than. If it’s around, everyone n-needs to keep an eye on each other. Make sure that n-nobody's acting irrationally.”

Sunny dropped her gaze, shoulders slumping. With no more information forthcoming, West nodded. “Thank ye, lass,” he said, mulling over the information. It was a lot to take in. He had questions, but one look at her drained face, and he decided none of them were so important that he’d press her. “Sounds like we ought to get a move on then.”

“Wands,” Vera reminded Roman urgently.

“Right,” Roman said. “Let’s see what we can get here that might be useful first– Sunny, you should know, shouldn’t you?” Seizing the faintest encouragement. Vera made for where those glowing wands had called to her before. West sighed, crossing his arms. Well, it doesnae sound like there’s any undead to be worryin’ about, so no harm in seeing if there’s anythin’ of use here.

“Well, it’s– you really shouldn’t,” Sunny cautioned, calling Vera to a halt. Vera’s answering glare gave Sunny pause, but she pushed on. “Some of it w-would be useful, I’m sure, b-but there’s no time to sort it out. All the gear, it’s… fused. You can't p-pick it off the body, you have to… to cut it... cut it off. And then the time it would take to identify it, how to use it–”

“Yes, we understand, there’s a time pressure.” Roman offered an apologetic shrug to Vera. “We’ll come back for it later.”

“But–“ Vera huffed. The wands were so close, almost in arm’s reach. “My contract, it says–”

“And I will deliver on my end. But I need your attention on the path ahead now. West, are you still with us?”

“Aye, lad.” Uncrossing his arms, the Investigator looked toward the doorway at the back of the room, where a small set of stairs led upward. “Do we go by the path, then?”

The question was not directed at the noble, but at Sunny. Nonetheless, Roman answered, “We might as well. No going back the way we came, after all– Vera!" The name came out sharply. The scholar had crept up to a body with a wand at its belt and, spurred by the reprimand, she darted out a hand and yanked at it. But as Sunny had promised, it stuck fast to its owner, and Vera only managed to unseat the entire corpse from the chair. It fell awkwardly, its own clothing holding its limbs stiff.

West winced at the undignified scene. Revulsion darkened Sunny’s face, and she looked away.

Roman pointed to the passageway leading onwards and through gritted teeth, said, “Vera, I said attention ahead. Do not make me repeat myself.”

Thwarted, the scholar abandoned the wand. “Yes sir,” she pouted, and scurried ahead. Sunny followed with a troubled frown, easing herself to sit at the edge of the stage and dropping to the floor.

“Hold one moment, Vera,” Roman said. Vera stopped at the doorway, looking back with a slight cock to her head. Towering over the Mani as he stood at the edge of the stage, he asked, “Sunny, since you know this place the best, could you see your way to the front of the group?”

A flare of outrage lit in West’s chest. The Mani flinched, but reluctantly nodded. “Of… of course.”

“Hol’ on there!” West protested. “What’s the sense in that?”

Roman shrugged. “She’s the least likely to stumble into a pitfall. It makes sense for her to lead the way.”

“So long as no one goes runnin’ ahead, I dinnae see that havin’ her in front’ll do anythin’ but put her first in line fer anythin’ nasty we run across,” West said, gesturing with an open hand. “There’s no sense in–”

“It’s fine,” Sunny said, voice hushed and gentle. If the request bothered her at all, she buried those feelings deep, her face impassive and resigned. “I understand. I w-wouldn’t like a stranger at my back in a place like this, either.”

West pressed his lips together. Of course that was what was going through Roman's head. The swordsman nodded confirmation, unabashed. Walking up to him, West said, “Look, lad. She’s the only one knowin’ anything about this place, and she’s in a right poor state deal with any surprises we find. I’ll keep an eye on her if that’s what yer wantin’, but it’s nae good to put her up front.”

“Investigator, are you prepared to waste our time arguing this?” Roman asked. At West’s stubborn nod, he sighed. “You haven’t been proving entirely dependable, you know. That business with interfering with Vera back there–”

“Whistler woulda killed her in a heartbeat if she’d gotten a shot off,” West interrupted.

“How can you be so sure?”

West paused. “Fair. In truth, I was also thinkin’ Vera was bein’ hasty. She was aimin’ to take out Whistler and Sunneh here both, without knowin’ who she was or what she was about.” The Investigator firmed up his stance. “I couldnae let that happen.”

“Why not, Investigator? Given what we knew at the time, Vera’s judgment was sound. No offense to you, Sunny, but the circumstances are very suspicious.”

West felt a muscle in his cheek jump. “I understand her reasonin’, but I’d nae let Vera do that. I’ll nae let ye put Sunneh at risk either. Look, if it’s that ye dinnae want Vera out front, then I’ll take point. Good enough?”

Roman examined West for a long, displeased moment. “All right,” he said at last. Hopping down from the stage, he ordered, “Vera, please take point and keep an eye out for traps. I’ll follow. Then Sunny, then you with her, Investigator.”

Vera moved out without a second glance, and Roman followed. West exhaled as he dropped to the ground from the stage. Sunny fidgeted as she waited for him to catch up, her brows fighting between confusion and relief. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That wasn’t n-necessary, but… thank you.”

Bone-weary and ill as the squirrel was, Lím lifted his head as West neared, nose working overtime. He chattered up at the Mani, then rested his head in the nook of her elbow.

"What's he sayin'?" West asked.

"Ah." Sunny paused, glancing back but avoiding eye contact. "He says, uhm. He says you smell like an old man." Cheeks tinged pink, she hurried after the rest of the party.

“... Huh.” West, bemused, followed after.

As he’d expected, his human guise meant that Sunny– Norui– didn’t have an inkling who he was. And as much as West wanted to tell her, that might be for the best. Roman and Vera seemed twitchy about her– understandably, given the situation– and he hadn’t fully won their trust either. If they caught on that there was a connection between them, they might draw unsavory conclusions.

And beyond that… Sunny was in rough shape, and he wasn’t sure what effect revealing his identity might have on her. As long as they were all in the thick of it, he’d better not do or say anything that might throw off her focus. The chance would come up if he was patient….

And if they all got out of this alive.