Mother of Magic

Towers Two and Three

The Northwest tower went more or less the same as the Northeast one. The difference was that Ava was not running her distraction game. She was with them from the start on the second tower. Despite the fact that one tower was out of the business of stirring up the weather, the rain had not slacked here. All the nearby air was still being disturbed by the Witches inside. The short flight over showed the three a marked difference in the weather between the two. They exited an area of thunder, lightning, and pouring rain and entered, once again, pure chaos. A tempest that helped to once again mask their approach and landing.

The three entered the roundtop the same way as the first. Landing a newly created and quickly disposed of sky-sled on the flowing surface of the porch.

Ava stayed at the exit and built a ward to lock Witches in. She bound the new Ward to the entire exterior structure. "No more falling out floors and windows. As long as they have magical access, the Ward will stop them. Just be careful treating someone to Namber that they are not in a position to fall through. We saw with Monte it took a few moments for the Ward to adapt to the new non-magical status, so if you see a newly treated person fall for a hole in the floor? Build a new floor under them. Quickly. You know how." Ava told Le.

"Good. We will. And just hope no other dumb ass destroys the new floor trying to get to us." Le looked back at the first tower. Down at the ground beneath it. In the dark and the storm, all he could see was the outline of the tower in flashes. He could not make out the body of anyone below it.

Stephanie saw where he was looking, and touched his arm comfortingly. In as low a voice as she could use and be heard over the storm, she tried to reassure her husband. "You did not mean to. It was an accident. I intentionally killed a Guild person. You did not even mean to have that happen. We'll just be more careful this time. All that shit they were throwing at us? We did not anticipate what it would do to the building. We'll be more careful. OK? If they blast the floor out from under us we are screwed too, so we just need to extend the care we are taking for our safety to others."

Le pulled her to his side for a wordless hug.

This tower had, for some reason, fewer Witches in it.

"I wonder if the reason we are seeing fewer here is because this tower had the Witches on duty to fix the Ward after Ava punched holes in it." Le asked Stephanie during a lull in a battle for the kitchen area.

"Hard to know. Makes sense they would rotate that. Besides, over here to the west, they are farther from the city and can't see it as well. They'd have to go down there to see action."

"Nothing happening up at our houses or the mountain lakes. Looking West would be boring duty."

Stephanie fired before answering as a Witch came around a corner and into sight. "Not sure how they communicate. I have not seen any radios. But I can see someone from here complaining and someone from the big HQ saucer telling them to go fix the Ward if they want some action."

"You complain Soldier! You get the shit duty." Le summarised.

"As you know I was never in the military, but yeah. Probably how that works."

Stephanie and Le, rested from their brief respite, left the relative calm for a battle in a nearby hall.

The Northwest tower was mopped up in half the time. Despite the extra care they were taking to be sure they killed no one accidentally it went more quickly. Stephanie and Le were getting practiced at the duck and fire motions. Duck an incoming spell. Let it explosively expend on something behind them. Reach into a pouch, and spell some Namber to go melt into the opposition.

Ducking did not always work. Not even half of the time. When the blast directly or indirectly hit them, they were used to getting knocked all about. Buffets of force as a destructive spell landed on their trio-created Ward.