Despite Thea's moanings and groanings about straying from their journey, the three returned to Kown the next day, and soon found themselves in the middle of a dark forest. The night before, Casey had given Wilky a list of simple beginner spells to practice. She practiced every time they stopped to rest or eat, but was never able to recreate the incredible illusion of the ballroom, nor any other room, even when using the light spell to guide them through the forest when it got dark. Wilky was discouraged by this at first, but Casey assured her that her progress was astounding considering such a short amount of time had passed, and so Wilky was satisfied.
There was one drawback to her staff glowing, and that was that she caught the attention of a pack of imps, which attacked her out of nowhere, and tried to rip her translator necklace off her neck, nearly strangling her in the process. Fortunately, Wilky had a skilled wizard on her side, who managed to drive them off with a clever stunning spell, which he taught Wilky afterwards for future self defense. She had fun practicing it a few times, but had to stop after she nearly hit Thea.
"Alright, I get that you're learning magic and all," Thea snapped, when they stopped at about midday to eat. "But it's getting really annoying, so could you be a little more careful? I'm going to go blind from that light spell you keep doing."
"I've got to practice somehow!" Wilky complained.
"Thea," Casey said patiently. "She's not hurting anything."
"You're just jealous that you can't do magic," Wilky pouted.
"No I'm not!" Thea exclaimed. "I have no interest in magic. I hate magic, as a matter of fact, so if you could not use magic at all, I would appreciate it."
Wilky gasped. "Why do you hate magic? Magic is so cool and fun and pretty!"
"Doesn't matter," Thea muttered. "The point is that you-"
"Thea," Casey said, but he wasn't looking at Thea. His gaze was fixed on a point somewhere above her, and he was slowly climbing to his feet, reaching for his wand as he did so.
"What?" Thea snapped, glaring at him.
Wilky followed Casey's gaze. "That's a big spider," she observed calmly.
Thea looked up, then scrambled to her feet, eyes wide with terror. It was, indeed, an enormous spider, with eight prominent glowing eyes, dangling from a sticky strand of white connected to a vast web spread among the treetops above. Thea rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, but looked afraid to draw it.
"Just... back away slowly. Stay calm." Casey had his wand pointed at the creature.
"Its eyes are cool," Wilky pointed out. "They're all glowey."
"How the vile sackan are you not afraid of that thing?" Thea asked, her voice shaking.
"Don't be silly, it can't hurt us! Spiders are mostly harmless, and that's just a big spider!"
"You thrad, those things eat flesh!" Thea exclaimed.
"Wait, what?" Wilky asked, confused.
"Wilky, just stay calm," Casey said. "It's fine. Thea, mind your language."
Thea rolled her eyes. "Ok, so what do we do?"
The spider suddenly hissed, and dropped towards the ground, landing on eight hairy legs. Wilky pointed her staff at it, hands shaking.
"Pya! Pya! Pya!" she yelled, using the stunning spell Casey had taught her earlier. Bluish-white sparks spouted harmlessly from the end of her staff.
YOU ARE READING
The Believer
Fantasy"Wilkynn Geodonna believed everything she heard. Every fragment of lie, every grain of truth, and every joking exaggeration. She was surrounded by truth, and nothing in between. No grey area. Not even black and white. Only white. Only perfecti...
