Kosmos: The Witch

Vanessa told Morgana that if she wanted to eat anything, she could just go to the cafeteria on the first floor of the main castle and she could get food from there for free. Being extremely hungry in the morning, Morgana made her way there, and was met with a cacophony of discussion, screaming and dishes being moved around ( you know, typical big cafeteria ambience ). She was very bothered by this, since she wasn't used to that level of noise, but she tried her best to ignore it and proceeded to a spot close to the entrance, where people were waiting in line with empty plates that were filled with a variety of foods by a team of people in chef outfits in an open kitchen. Morgana, not understanding what a line is, simply grabs a plate and walks in front of everyone else, cutting the line to get to the kitchen. Some people attempt to protest, but when Morgana turns to look at them to better listen to what they have to say, they quickly go silent. For all of them, she just figured they were just talking and happened to be looking in her direction, so she didn't think much of it. That was until she heard a powerful voice from one of the witches she just passed in the line as she was almost to the kitchen.

- "Hey, what do you think you're doing exactly ?!"

- "Yeah ! That's disrespectful !" a group of witches in red robes around the one who was talking to Morgana yells out.

Morgana turns to face them, and they are slightly intimidated at first, but they seem emboldened by something.

- "What do you want ?" Morgana calmly asks.

- "Get in line like everyone else !" "If lady Cassandra needs to abide by the rules, so do you !" "Know your place !" the witches answer.

- "Line ?" she looks at the line of people, staring at her, who immediately dissociate from the situation and look away.

- "Are you threatening us ?! You're not gonna get away with this !" one of the witches in red robes yells out.

- "I'm not threatening anyone."

- "All of you, move aside." Morgana hears from her original interlocutor.

The witches stand to the side, revealing that said interlocutor was a witch with orange eyes and black hair, whose tips seemed to be glowing, like lingering embers in a campfire. Her robes were a mix of red and orange, beautifully ornate with gold patterns, and her hat had the same style. She had piercing orange eyes, glowing with the same glow the tips of her hair were, and had an expression with a mix of pride and irritation as she walked towards Morgana and stopped right in front of her.

- "I'll give you one chance to apologize." the witch says.

- "Why would I apologize ?" Morgana asks.

- "I see how it is. I'm not going to let you make light of me ! Let's take this outside !"

- "I just want breakfast. Leave me alone."

- "Too late for that I'm afraid ! I challenge you to a Clash right then and there !"

- "A clash ? What's that ?"

- "Oh you don't know ? You must be one of these new witches from outside Eretria. I'll graciously explain it to you: it's a fight between witches, where we each stake something of value."

- "Oh I see. No."

- "What do you mean no ?!" she exclaims. "You can't refuse a Clash, that's a law !"

- "Oh. A law, that means. The queen said that ?"

- "Yes !"

- "I see. What do you want ? You talked about stakes."

- "Formal apologies from you ! This is unacceptable !"

- "Okay. I want your breakfast."

- "That's… all ? Really ? My damn breakfast ?!"

- "Language, lady Cassandra ! Language !" one of the witches in red robes whispers.

- "Silence ! Let's just go to training ground number 3, we don't need the Colosseum for this !" Cassandra yells.

- "...Sure." Morgana responds, looking annoyed.

They make it out of the cafeteria, and Morgana follows Cassandra around the castle, while she's angrily stomping forward. They eventually exit at the back, and are faced with an area that looked identical to the circle of red bricks Sulfuris was laying on the day before, but way larger in radius ( around 100 meters ). Morgana notices that a few dozen students followed them, seemingly curious about the outcome of the fight. Both Morgana and Cassandra position themselves in front of each other at the center of the circle, and Cassandra just looks her up and down before saying:

- "You won't even bring a magic focus ? You're really underestimating me huh ? I'll let you know, I can easily fight without one either so your feeble attempt at humiliation will not bear fruit."

- "What's a magic focus ?"

Cassandra pauses for a second, pinches the ridge of her nose and seems to mutter some not-so-nice things.

- "You're just messing with me now. Alright, I see how it's gonna be, in that case let's just get to it. My name is Cassandra Pyranthis, and I challenge you to a Clash, unknown witch !"

- "I am Morgana."

- "What a dull introduction."

Cassandra immediately follows up by raising her left hand in front of her, and her hair lights on fire. Morgana responds to this by running up to her and punching her in the mouth. Taken by surprise, Cassandra is hit, and she holds her face in pain ( 5 Physical damage ).

- "Ouch ! What the fuck !"

- "Language, lady Cassandra !" they both hear from the crowd around the training ground.

- "SHUT IT !" she yells in response. "If you're not going to use magic, I-"

She doesn't have the time to finish her sentence before Morgana swings in her direction again, but this time she dodges out of the way.

- "You're dead." she mutters as her hair flares up and a small, extremely bright orb of fire forms in her right hand before shooting at a very high speed towards Morgana.

Morgana attempts to dodge, but her physical capabilities were far from enough to outspeed the spell. It hits her, and results in a catastrophic explosion on impact, in a forty meter radius (5 K Fire damage after resistance). She is sent flying twenty meters back and unceremoniously lands on the ground, before getting back up and staring at Cassandra. While she was flying, she noticed that Cassandra was completely unaffected by the spell even though she was directly in the blast zone, as she simply waved her hand and brushed the flames that were about to hit her to the side. Cassandra seems surprised, seemingly expecting her attack to have more effect on Morgana. They start circling each other from a distance.

- "You're resistant to fire ?... That's weird you don't have any magic items on you that seem like they would help with that." Cassandra comments.

- "I am a dragon."

- "You clearly aren't, but sure."

- "I forgot. You're not Mother. I can use magic."

- "What are talking abo-"

Cassandra immediately stops talking as she sees Morgana's hands light on fire, and a spell begins to form around her. It was a volley of ten fire arrows, each two meters in length, that are all simultaneously shot towards her. She tries to form an orb of flames around herself to defend against it, but the arrows so fast that they reach her before she can complete her spell, stabbing into her repeatedly (22.5 K Fire damage). She is obviously very damaged after this, but she stays standing.

- "Adelaios' spell is powerful." Morgana comments.

- "So you were hiding your real game this entire time ? If you think you won just because of this, you're gravely mistaken." Cassandra says in a menacing tone as her right eye starts emitting a bright orange light, and Morgana sees a complex circular symbol rapidly being traced in her iris.

Morgana also hears gasps from the crowd, accompanied with comments such as "She's really using her Crest ?" or "That's going way too far for a low stakes Clash…". One of the male voices in particular was saying: "Things just got interesting !". She doesn't have time to listen to them too closely though, as Cassandra points her right finger towards her and a large, thirty meter radius fireball with its flames violently swirling in a hypnotizing spiral forms above her head and comes crashing down onto Morgana. She raises her arms in front of her to protect herself from it, but it hits her directly regardless, causing the entire training ground to burst into tall flames and leaving Morgana with painful burns ( 20 K True Fire damage ). She is shocked by just how massive the blast was, and even more at the fact that her resistance to fire seemed to be mostly negated by this attack.

- "How did you do. That ?..." Morgana asks, confused, as Cassandra silently begins casting the same devastating spell to finish her off.

Morgana raises her hand above her head in response, and condenses an enormous amount of fire into a 10 meter radius orb of flames, in the exact same fashion Adelaios did in his fight against the serpent in the forest. For a moment they stand there, their spells creating a heat wave blowing through the entire training ground and forcing the spectators to back away from the perimeter of the circle. They then launch their attacks at the same time, and their spells clash in the middle of the distance separating them, both exploding and causing a shockwave of flames larger than she could ever hope to evade to propagate throughout the training ground, and everything goes dark after she is hit.

Morgana suddenly wakes up in a small room with white beds placed near the walls and separated by white curtains, the afternoon light filtering through a single window at the back of the room. A desk was also there, with a variety of flasks containing mysterious liquid hung on the wall above it. A drawing of a human body was pinned to the wall next to the window, with words linked to body parts that Morgana couldn't read.

- "Where am I ?..."

- "At the infirmary." an irritated voice replies to her.

Morgana turns towards the source of the voice, and she sees Cassandra lying on the bed next to her, a bandage around her forehead and stubbornly looking at the ceiling.

- "Oh, Cassandra. Who won ?"

- "Nobody."

- "It was a draw ?"

- "Yes ! I'm pissed."

- "I see. In that case, apologies."

- "Huh ?" Cassandra turns towards her, surprised.

- "We both won. That's what I staked."

- "Oh. You give me a different vibe from before, did you hit your head or something ?"

- "I think you did." Morgana points at the bandage around her forehead.

- "Oh, real clever." Cassandra replies, her mood shifting back to irritation. "Sure, you can have my breakfast tomorrow I guess."

- "I'm still hungry… it's not morning anymore."

- "Then eat this." a third voice says, from the entrance of the room.

They direct their attention to the door, and they see a tall man with white hair long enough to drag on the floor, wearing a simple white shirt and black pants. He was holding a basket of apples in his left hand.

- "Thanks. Who are you ?" Morgana asks as she gets up.

- "I'm Andreas, the doctor on campus. This is the infirmary." he walks over and hands the basket to Morgana.

- "I've never seen you before." Cassandra comments.

- "Maybe because you never got injured ever since you were here, but decided to turn off your brain and be an idiot today. Be more careful." Andreas replies.

- "I was caught by surprise !"

- "Yes, because you were probably acting like a fool. I didn't find any existing brain damage when I examined you, so we can just chalk it up to pure natural stupidity. Try not to hit your head again in the next few days, and please remember to stay hydrated."

- "You !... uh… Thanks I will ?..." Cassandra replies, at a loss for words.

- "If you're fine, get out of my sight !!" he suddenly exclaims. "Make space for the other patients needing treatment !"

- "Woah, fine. What's this guy's deal anyway ?..." Cassandra angrily mutters as she gets up and walks out, seemingly choosing not to question Andreas' sudden tone shifts.

Morgana finishes eating her apple before getting up, thanking him and leaving. At the door, she sees a line of witches, seemingly very superficially injured, waiting in front of it. The one at the front says:

- "Finally, it's my turn ! Andreaaaaas, I scraped my elbow. Can you do something ?"

- "DON'T COME TO MY OFFICE IF YOU'RE NOT SERIOUSLY INJURED !! Let me see that arm, are you feeling lightheaded ?" they hear from the infirmary.

The witch has a satisfied smile before she enters, and the others stare at her with jealousy. Morgana, having seen enough, starts walking around the castle to find her way back out, and after an hour of exploration she finally finds an exit and returns to her dorm. Her encounter with Cassandra made her realize two things: copying other people's spells was extremely inefficient. It worked, but she could tell she was spending around double the amount of magical energy the original caster she was imitating had to. The second thing was that she needed some kind of defense, like those dodges Adelaios was performing or the orb of fire Cassandra tried to block her attack with. She thus began working on that for the rest of the day.

Date: December 12th Location: Cafeteria, Pyromancy Faculty

Morgana was absolutely starving, as she quickly realized the day before that two apples wouldn't exactly take her very far. The cafeteria was closed for the night though, so she just had to go hungry. When she makes it to the cafeteria, she frantically looks around, and sees a long line of students waiting with plates to get served. She also grabs one and gets at the back of the line, food occupying every corner of her mind until she hears Cassandra's voice not too far in front of her:

- "Greetings, Morgana. Here is what I staked."

Morgana turns to see Cassandra walking towards her, with a plate of steamed potatoes and barbecued salmon. The student crowd looks shocked, and they can both hear things like "I can't believe it.", "Cassandra really lost ?..." and "Maybe I can challenge Cassandra now…". Cassandra makes it to Morgana, hands her the plate, and then turns towards the crowd.

- "I didn't lose ! It was a draw ! A draw !! You're very welcome to challenge me to a Clash if you feel brave enough, I will gladly turn you to ashes and scatter you to the winds !"

Morgana walks away to sit at one of the tables that were free while Cassandra is arguing with the other students, and happily begins eating.

She doesn't stop when she sees someone sit in front of her at the table. When she looks up, she sees a brown skinned guy with black hair and orange eyes that reminded her of Cassandra, but they looked like a fire was burning behind them as they were reflecting the light of the torches. He was wearing a white shirt and black pants, with black suspenders.

- "Hey !" he joyfully says, smiling at her.

- "Hello." Morgana replies. "What do you want ?"

- "Let's be friends ! I like your attitude !"

- "No."

There is a moment of silence between the two, only interrupted by Morgana loudly chewing on her salmon.

- "Hahaha ! Why not ?"

- "I don't know you."

- "Not because you're scared of me or something ?"

- "No. I don't like people."

- "Haha ! I think I like you even more now !"

- "You are like Sulfuris." Morgana comments, intrigued.

- "Oh our dean ? The fire dragon ? I'm flattered but I'm not exactly a dragon." he starts staring straight into her eyes, never dropping his smile. "Maybe that's because I use Flame magic too ! But how would you know ?"

- "The leylines. They point at you."

- "Oh I see ! That's fascinating. This place is going to be lots of fun, I can feel it ! What year are you in ?"

- "I am not enrolled. I need to succeed. The entrance exam."

- "Oh so we're in the same boat then ! It's the practical one, in a few days right ?"

- "Yes. I am preparing."

- "In that case good luck ! See you there !"

- "Good luck." Morgana replies as she finishes her meal and they both get up at the same time.

After having eaten properly, Morgana immediately returns to her dorms and starts practicing in the backyard. She was making slow but steady progress, however the date of the exam was rapidly approaching, and she really needed to speed it up. She then remembered Helen's words from a few days ago, and decided to pay her a visit. She took quite some time to figure out how to get out of campus grounds, but she eventually got her answer from Vanessa and left through a building similar to the one they used to enter, in the middle of the residential village.