Kene and the Witch (Patreon)

This is a short story set seven months before the events of Mana Mirror begin

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Kene spat toothpaste into the sink, rinsed out their mouth with the slightly alchemical tasting motel water, and then lifted their head back up. As they turned to grab a towel to dry their face, their eye caught on something dark in the mirror.

He whirled around to see a witch standing in the corner of his bathroom.

He ran a hand through his dark hair and let out a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.

“You,” they said, their tone flat and angry.

“Aye, me,” the witch said with a cackle. She was short – if she hadn’t been hunched over, she would have only come up to his chin, and with the hunch, she was only to the middle of their chest. Her hair came down to her waist, and was a jet black laced with silver, and her wrinkles were deep enough to practically be pockets.

In short, she looked like if someone looked up the word witch or hag in the dictionary, they’d find the image of her printed right there.

“What in Primes names are you doing here?” Kene demanded; their voice still harsh.

“What, no hug for your old granny?” the witch chortled.

“The last time I saw you, you used me as bait for a giant dinosaur!” Kene said, his voice rising in anger. He was almost certain that the witch had no actual relation to him, and even if she did, she’d caused him enough pain that he’d have cut her out.

“I fed ye’ a Deathbane Potion, ye’ would ah been fine,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.

Kene’s eyes narrowed. They didn’t remember being fed a potion, and that was the kind of thing that would have stuck out in their memory.

“I couldn’t tell you, then you wouldn’t have given off enough fear,” the witch said, as if explaining something very simple to a toddler. “I slipped it into your soup at lunch.”

“Liar,” Kene said.

The temperature in the room dropped and shadows in the room writhed. For a moment the witch’s shadows seemed to take the shape of a flock of ravens, all staring at them. There was a hunger in their gaze that sent a shiver down Kene’s spine.

“Careful with your accusations, grandchild,” the witch said. As she spoke, her dark eyes seemed to turn into pools of absolute nothingness, a void that could devour anything. “I’ve eaten people’s bones for less insult than that. I’ve come here to help with your… little problem.”

The room snapped back to normal, and Kene let out a sigh of relief.

Kene was pretty sure that Grandmother wouldn’t actually eat him, but… Lunar magic did have some nasty curses, and he wasn’t sure she’d never lay a temporary curse on him.

“The last time you helped with THAT, I was burned with not one, not two, not even three, but four different types of acid!” they blurted out before he could stop himself. He let out a small curse under his breath. Why had he said that?

“And ye’ learned how to heal acid burns because of it. Not tah mention – it worked,” the witch said, a slightly unhinged laugh burbling up as she spoke. “Besides, you little pansy, this one shouldn’t even hurt. Probably.”

“Probably?” Kene asked, their tone dripping with skepticism.

“Aye, probably. If you do it right, then you won’t be hurt. Do it wrong, an’ there’s a small chance you could wind up getting hurt.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Just fetch me ah particularly pretty little mushroom that grows in the depths of Delford Forest and I’ll show you how to brew a lovely little poultice that should help you contain it until you’re strong enough to bind your tattoos.”

“If it’s so simple, why didn’t you just get it yourself?”

The witch’s face twisted in disgust and anger.

“It won’t let me. The thrice-cursed mushroom’s mycelium network makes the mushrooms go completely powerless if it senses any magic stronger than third gate. They’re cowardly little brats, hiding away their magic when someone like me could make such use out of them. I’ve half a mind to burn down the forest for their disobedience, but the local Landed would probably be… Unhappy with me for tha’ one. I may be an immortal, but I got that through mah potions, not through enough spellcraft to challenge him. Primes know ah couldn’t even take on one of his Vassals. ‘Sides, he’s commissioned more than one of my potions before…”

She continued to ramble for nearly three whole minutes before she finally blinked and stared at him owlishly.

“What was I here for, grandchild?” she asked, seeming genuinely befuddled.

“A mushroom that could help me mend some of the cracks in my seal.”

“Ah, that thrice-cursed thing!” she muttered. “I’ve half a mind to –”

“Yes, it’s very frustrating, but what can you actually tell me about it?” Kene said, not wanting her to get stuck in a loop again.

“It grows fairly deep in Delford Forest,” she said. “It looks like this.”

She riffled around in her pockets and withdrew a mushroom. It was bright purple, with white frills and white spots.

“Does a non-dormant specimen glow or anything?” Kene asked.

“It isn’t dormant, the mycelium sucks away all the magic and sends it to the rest of the mushrooms. It’s drained. But no, it doesn’t glow or nothin’.”

She shoved the mushroom in her mouth and swallowed it whole.

Kene stared at her. They should be annoyed at her, but at this point, it was rather expected.

“I don’t have combat magic, is it dangerous?” they asked instead.

“No… Well… Maybe. Delford Forest has a fair few magical beasts and pretty little deadlies in it. But most of the creatures near the mushrooms are fairly weak, since the stronger ones’ve learned long ago they can’t eat it.”

“I’m not third gate yet,” Kene pointed out. Their life magic was only midway through second gate, and their solar magic had barely broached it.

“So?” the witch challenged. “Ye can weave a veil o’ light over yourself to become the next best thing to invisible.”

“No, I can’t,” Kene said.

“You can’t?” the witch exclaimed, sounding shocked.

“Grandmother, you never taught me that spell, and the library system doesn’t love handing it out. Sure, shops and some homes have detecting and alarm wards, but it can still be used for pickpocketing. I’m not a friend of the library.”

“Bah!” she said. “Bah! Bah! Bah! Excuses. It’s a very valuable spell.”

As if to prove a point, she turned invisible, then reappeared, then vanished, then appeared again. She shoved her thumb onto his forehead and he felt a burning sensation as she pushed her lunar mana into his mana-garden, mingling it with his own life and solar magics, then the mana ripped back out.

“Humph,” she said. The shadows in the room boiled, surged up around her, and formed into the shape of a spell diagram.

Kene did their best to memorize it, then sketched it out and cast the spell.

Threadlike strands of light swirled out of his mana-garden and wrapped around him, mixing with the light in the air and blurring his form. His vision dulled, as if he was looking through particularly poor glass, but the image that they left in the mirror faded out of existence, leaving only a small blur where they’d been standing.

It put a hellish drain on his second gate mana, however, so he converted up some first gate and dropped the spell.

“Good! Now ya shouldn’t have any more complaints, should you?” she asked, glaring at him.

“You could show me spells to –”

“No! Now, let’s go.”

She shoved her hand into her voluminous, ratty robes and withdrew a broom. Kene didn’t know why she bothered, the ring on her hand was obviously a storage ring. Even he had one of those, though admittedly, hers was much, much larger than his. His was only the size of a duffle bag.

She leapt onto the broom and shot out of the bathroom, knocking him to the side as she did, out into the room. There was a click and bang as the motel door swung open and she flew out into the night.

Kene cursed, and for once was glad that they kept almost everything they owned in their ring, and had everything they didn’t keep there in the room. He grabbed his own broom, shoved a few things into his ring, then flew off after the witch, using a small mana crystal to lock the door behind him.

The witch was well ahead of him, but her broom was old, and she’d only paid for patchwork repairs, so he caught up to her before too long. She stared at him.

“Are ya' challenging me for control of the skies?” she asked, her voice somehow unaffected by the rushing wind around them.

“Neither of us are tempest mages!” Kene responded, shouting to be heard.

The broom under her vanished and she plummeted towards the earth.

Kene knew she would be fine, but he couldn’t stop himself from jerking his broom to a stop.

As she fell, she tossed her head back, downing a potion, then shot back up into the sky. She cackled and burst ahead of him, flying with speed that eclipsed what his broom could manage.

He did his best to keep up with her, but she was burning the potion recklessly, without care for the duration. She pulled out another one and downed it, and before long, he was having to pull higher up into the sky to keep her in his sight.

After almost an hour of flight, she flew backwards to meet him.

“I win,” she said.

“You do,” he said. it was easier to just humor the witch.

After another hour of flying, she began to descend, and Kene followed. They landed in a small village a day’s flight out from Mossford. It was a quaint little place, actually. The village had several orbs of light and lanterns of eternal flame floating through the air, providing ample light, but the woods around it were eerily dark. In some ways, it reminded him of the witch’s home.

“We’re here! Behold!”

“Where are we?” Kene asked.

“South Valley Village,” she said. “It was named by bureaucrats, tha' miserable little creatures.”

She began to stride down the streets, and Kene followed until he heard a sound that stopped him in his tracks.

A child crying in pain.

Growing up with as many siblings as Kene had, one learned to distinguish between different types of crying.

He stopped and turned to follow the sound of the crying, and the witch sighed.

“Come on child, we don’t – no, you don’t – have time for this.”

“There’s always time,” Kene said softly. They strode down the street, leaving the witch spluttering behind them.

He found the house that was the source of the crying. A woman with short white hair was attempting to strap a baby carrier to her broom, while the parents watched on with worry.

“What happened?” Kene asked, hiding his left hand behind his back as he strode towards them. It had gone completely black. The black tinges on his right hand, and the sharpness of his teeth would probably already disturb the poor couple, no need to make it worse.

“Who are you?” the white-haired woman asked, physical mana stirring around her. Third gate mana…

How dare she try to stand in his – No!

Kene shoved down the impulses leaking through his seal.

“My name is Kene. I’m a healer.”

“A doctor?” the father asked hopefully.

“An alchemist,” Kene clarified. He may not have a degree, but he’d worked in dozens of alchemy shops, and his disastrous on and off again apprenticeship with the witch had to count, right?

“Please, our baby has an ear infection,” the father said.

“We tried treating her with the common tinctures, but there’s something strange,” the mother clarified. “We were going to take the long way to the nearest town to see a doctor tomorrow, but then it got so much worse all of the sudden tonight. We got Alice, and…”

“I understand,” they said, putting their hand on the baby’s forehead gentle. An Analyze Life spell showed him an infection burning in the ears, the nose, and the throat. Pus had built up in the ear, and ruptured an eardrum, which was probably why it seemed so much worse.

Kene’s mana churned. First, he cast a spell that mixed solar and life magic together to purify the infection and burn away the pus. It took significant skill in guiding the spell to work on an infant, rather than an adult, but Kene had that skill in spades due to his alchemy work and healing.

Then he cast a simple first level skin-knitting spell on the ear. It wasn’t going to perfectly fix the eardrum, but it would heal on its own, and this would give it a good head start.

“You should keep giving her more of the tincture to fight infection for at least a few more days, to make sure that it doesn’t come back,” Kene said. “Her hearing may be a bit sensitive too.”

“Thank you,” the mother said. “How much does it cost?”

“Nothing!” the witch shouted, bursting out of Kene’s shadow. “Now, grandchild. Stop wasting time. We’ve a component to eat!”