Mother of Magic

Towers of Power

 The Witches of the First Church of The Mothers Light of Seattle were done with Collins. Not done as in 'quit'. Done as in the Witches were done fooling around. Done with subtlety. Done with Proxies.

They were also done with the direct approach. The invasion and takeover of Collins had not worked out well for them either. Not in Seattle or Collins.

Overtly killing Ava was also not possible at the moment. The Guild was going nowhere near the city. The Militia had been an even bigger bust. If they had been able to get inside the Ward before being detected? Might have worked. Done some damage. Made Ava pay. Pissed off the people of Collins at her for bringing hellfire down upon them.

Instead, the Milita lost their weapons, and worse: they liked Ava. Not a single one of them would go against the city again even if they had brand new Witch-created tanks. The troops that had come in the tanks were firmly set against it. They told their commanding officers they'd rather disobey a direct order than go again.

Other members of the militia, upon finding the ones that came to Collins were all suddenly healed and able-bodied would only agree to go there to get treated for their own infirmaries. On their next leave, many others of the militia were planning to head to Collins for healthcare. Shooting up Collins was now the same thing in their minds as shooting up a hospital.

Ava turned healing into a weapon against the Temple. The damn woman was a colossal pain in Witchy hindquarters.

They were back to where they started. No single Witch could get through the Ward unless they had permission.

No one from the Seattle Temple had permission. Who had permission? They had no idea. It was not them. Every late-night test of that had proven the Ward utterly impenetrable to anyone who tried. It took their Quint to knock it down last time. It was every bit as bad now. And their Seattle Temple Quint was no more. They had fallen to Ava's new Witchcraft and were even less able than the average person without magic. They had no skills other than magic, and they did not have magic.

What exactly the Witches had in mind this time around was not immediately obvious to the residents of Collins. The latest action started with swarms of Witches magically constructing spires near the city. Aligned just outside the edge of the Ward. Three new featureless tower-like buildings were driven into the ground and jutted into the sky. Far larger and taller than the similar construction that had been at the now-former Collins Temple. Two buildings to the north, and one much larger one to the south.

That the land was not theirs to 'squat' on mattered not at all to the Witches. They would be perfectly happy to have Ava come out from behind the Ward and dispute the placement on someone's land.

A small group of the Collins defenders stood in the middle of the brick road at the town square, surveying the surreal buildings towering over the city.

The invading covey aligned the two north-of-the-city towers east and west. The westernmost spire sat at the foothills of the mountains. The other was located in the plains area to the East.

The Southern flat-topped spire sat to the west. As close to the foothills as the uneven outlines of the Ward — a baseline which zigged about especially near that location to run up the mountain to cover the homes of Ava, Stephanie, and Le — allowed. There was not a corresponding tower to the southeast. Since no one had any idea what these constructs were for, no one could guess why there was not a fourth one.

"Because that southern one is twice as big as the other two? Still doesn't make any damn sense. It is not like they are putting cannon turrets up there on the balconies." Silena ventured.