The group inspected the woman standing before them.
Loose, dark clothing. Pale but clear skin. And the signature pointed hat upon her head!
Oh yeah, this woman was definitely a witch! A witch that was currently standing with her hands limply raised into the air. She did her best to keep them there until the group said otherwise.
IsabelIe's gaze hardened!
She reached under her robe, pulled out a small wooden wand and pointed it at the unknown woman. "You are a witch! What's a vile person like you doing all the way up here?" Kent and Alisa both looked at their older companion in confusion.
"What's wrong with her being a witch? Is it a bad thing or something?" Alisa asked.
Isabelle quickly looked to see if the girl was being serious. The blank stares on both her and Kent's faces told her that she was one hundred percent serious! "Witches are spellcasters, but not the same kind as any of the others. They learned their magic by researching and imitating demons! They even use tomes gifted directly by demons to improve their casting abilities!"
Kent gently stroked his chin in thought. "I thought all kinds of magic came from weird places? What makes witches learning from demons so dangerous?"
"Are you kidding?!" Isabelle's eyes went round in disbelief! "Demons are creatures hated by the gods themselves! They live for self-preservation and destruction! No mortal in their right mind would even think of holding a conversation with those bastards yet, witches took it upon themselves to learn from them! Such an act is a sin greater than any in all of the holy texts given to us by the gods!"
Kent scratched his head with an indifferent look on his face. "And? What does that have to do with us?"
Isabelle's jaw almost dropped as her disbelief was becoming rage. "Tch! Just like a pirate to side with devils!"
"Excuse me, can I put my hands down?" The woman called out with a whine. "My arms are starting to hurt! You know us spellcasters have weak physiques!" The witch gently swayed in place while trying to find a way to ease her aching arms.
"Don't move!" Isabelle snapped. "For all we know, you've already set up a ritual circle somewhere around us! In fact, you might be the reason for the fog barrier around the town? What is it? Some sort of...large scale trapping magic?"
"Now that would be amazing! I haven't been here nearly long enough to form a barrier that's persisted for three centuries, but it would've been really something if I had! Wouldn't it? What if I was, like, some sort of crazy demon that had the lifespan of a thousand mortals and I had like a sacrificial thing I did to keep the barrier going? That would be so cool!"
Isabelle's eyes shook in horror. "What about that sounds cool? It's just like a sick freak that follows demons to take pleasure in the idea of sacrificing people!"
"Umm, Ms. Chancy?" Isabelle felt Alisa tapping on her arm. "To be honest, mom would also think something like that was pretty cool!"
"Who on earth would...oh. Her..." Isabelle wanted to be upset at the thought of Alix finding something like witchcraft interesting but the girl does always claim loudly and proudly that she loves all magic!
"Also, I didn't say that the sacrifice would be annually or that it would even necessarily be people that I was sacrificing! That would be way too obvious and so much work! I mean can you imagine me convincing hundreds of people to come here every year! It'd be in the papers after the first time!" The witch chuckled.
Isabelle turned her attention back to the woman. "That doesn't change the fact that you are a fugitive!"
The witch placeed a hand on her chest appalled. "What makes you assume that I'm a fugitive? Can't I just be a woman that has interest in witchcraft like that girl's mother?"
"No, because practicing witchcraft is banned in West Pesin as well as most nations of the magic world!"
"...Well how was I supposed to know that?"
"EVERYONE KNOWS THAT! That's why Witch Trials exist and have existed for hundreds of years!"
"I thought that was just some horror story that people told their kids at night to discourage them from practicing witchcraft?"
"Are you serious?"
"No, I knew. That's how my coven went down! I was just messin' with ya~" Isabelle's glare intensified. This woman is really pushing her to the edge! Kent then decided that it is best if he entered the conversation.
"Excuse me ma'am, what's your name? I mean, we've been talkin' to ya all this time and we still don't know what to call you!"
The witch gasped. "Well aren't you just the most polite, handsome fellow I've met in a long time? My name is Yaga! Thank you for asking!" Yaga preforms a grand bow at Kent to which he replied in kind.
"Pleasures all mine, Yaga! I'm Captain Kent but you can just call me Kent."
"Then I will. Thank you, Kent!" Kent nodded to the woman when he felt something burning behind his back. He looked over his shoulder to find that the source is none other than Isabelle. She was glaring at him so hard that she must have been trying to burn a hole through him!
"What is wrong with you?!" The teacher asked through gritted teeth.
"Well it ain't like she can go anywhere! I'm just makin' conversation with someone that we're probably gonna be spendin' a decent bit of time with! Besides, what if she's seen my mother?"
Isabelle squeezed her fists tightly and bit the inside of her lip! She was doing all that she could to not explode right now. After all, there was a real danger standing just a few meters away from them and she could not afford to let the witch them in disarray. She glared at Kent, looked up to Yaga then back to Kent.
"Fine~" She eventually relented, though she was still very opposed to the idea of doing so. "Ask her if she's seen your mother or the other one, but don't use their names! We don't know why she's here so, we shouldn't expose the names of our lost comrads!"
Kent scoffed. "Obviously!" He turned around to talk to Yaga. However, after turning he witnessed a terrifying sight!
"So, how did you get into witchcraft? And I don't mean like how did you come to like it, though that would be a cool thing to know? I mean like how did you go through the process of learning it? Because mom said it was banned so I thought that you couldn't get the stuff needed to learn it? Also, you're very pretty and also kind of motherly? Has anyone ever told you that? By the way, you look kind of familiar? Have we met somewhere before?"
"Alice!" Kent called out in a panic! Alisa turned to him.
"What? I'm talking to the witch!" She whined as though Kent was the one interrupting her!
"Hey, sis? How about we don't talk to strange people that we've just learned are technically criminals?"
Alisa pouted. "Why not? Holiday's technically a murderer but we still hang out with him?"
"He's our brother, Alice! We don't really have a choice in that matter!"
Alisa clicked her teeth. "You only bring up us being a family when you want to get me to listen to you!"
"Then just listen the first time and I wouldn't have to use it like a trap!"
Yaga, who looks incredibly entertained by the scene before her, decides to step back into the conversation. "So, you're looking for your mother?" Kent and Alisa stop arguing and look up at her.
"You've been talking about you're mother for a bit now. You also brought up someone named Holiday that you called your brother? Actually, if you two are siblings then why do you look so wildly different from each other? Was mother a bit promiscuous in her youth?"
Kent stared at the witch in silence before showing a friendly smile to the woman. "No no, our mother is very refined. You are correct about the rest! We are in fact here to find our mother and brother! We all came up here together but we lost them when we got into the mist." Kent chuckled nervously as he did his best to hide the fact that he was only giving part of the story to the woman.
Yaga nodded. "Well, that's great! This is a strange place to have a family vacation but that's besides the point! I'm looking for someone too! We came here together to find something but at some point we got separated Phew, I'll tell ya! This damned mist is so thick! It's easy to lose your way in here! That's why you have to use the landmark!"
Kent raised his brow. "What landmark?"
" Why the temple in the center of the town of course! You can see it no matter where you are! Look!" Yaga turnd and pointed to a large building in the distance. A building that the group had somehow not noticed during the entire time that they'd been in the fog so far, which was strange because it looked very ornate and was very big!
"How did we not see that before?" Isabelle wondered aloud.
"Because you weren't looking for it!" Yaga explained. "This place is all about the connections within your heart or, more specifically, the broken connections!"
"What do you mean?" Alisa moved closer to the woman and asked.
Yaga pondered for a bit before answering. "I don't really understand it fully myself? The magic here is connected to a spell that I've never experienced before? A very powerful one of a kind spell that creates situations based upon what you feel you need the most in the deepest sections of you subconscious! That's why it's so easy to feel like you are lost within the fog!"
"So, when you said you don't understand it, you meant that you fully understand it and what is causing it to happen?" Ms. Chancy called out flatly.
Yaga shook her head. "That's all just a guess! I did some research on this place before coming here to see if there was anything special about the town. I ended up finding many extremely intricate stories about how the Amalgamate Mystic's trust was broken or how their heart was harmed so they split their home away from Pesin and shrouded it from the view of the rest of the world to live out the rest of their life."
"That's still a really strong theory based on just a few dramatized stories written by mystic historians!" Kent complimented.
"Thank you! Now, shall we get going?"
Alisa tilted her head to the side. "Going where?"
Yaga gestured grandiosely at the large temple in the distance. "To the true home of the landmark, of course! If we are to find our companions anywhere would it not be at the only spot that anyone can arrive at in this mystifying town?"
Kent shrugged. "Makes sense to me? Ya comin', Isabelle?" Kent made sure to annunciate the instructor's name in a mocking tone.
Ms. Chancey rolled her eyes but said nothing. She just walked in the direction of the temple. The rest of the group followed along, including the monsters that have been watching from a safe distance in hopes of not startling the group's new travel companion.
Hopefully, we'll be able to find Kent and Alisa's missing "Family Members" at the temple!