Kosmos: The Witch

The day of the practical exam was here, and Morgana was in the middle of a large crowd in front of a large stage located at the front of the castle, where multiple older wizards and witches were standing. One of them in particular was at the front, holding a piece of paper. It was a woman floating above the ground, wearing a black dress with black dragon wings on her back along with a tail of the same color. The inner part of her wings was red, and the end of her tail was on fire. She had black hair and a fierce expression on her face, her red irises glowing slightly.

- "Good morning small fry !" she yells, her powerful voice carrying throughout the entire campus. "Today is the practical entrance exam to the glorious Academy of Magic, or Academy of Eretria for the younger people in the audience ! If you don't think you're up to the task, feel free to run back home to your mother, because this has the potential to become the most hellish week of your miserable lives ! You-" she stops for a moment, as one of the witches on the stage approaches her to whisper in her ear. "I'm scaring them ?... Get to the point ?... Sure ! We're sending you all into the middle of a volcano !"

Cries of protest are heard from the crowd, along the lines of "This has to be a joke !", "Volcanoes are infested with magma monsters and dragons that are highly fire resistant !", "How do you expect us to survive ?!" and "This is unfair ! How are we supposed to do anything ?". The woman with the dragon wings speaks up.

- "If you think you're pathetic enough of a Fire mage to lose a couple fire monsters and elementals, you're not fit for survival ! You're free to leave, and never return !!"

The crowd falls silent and she waits. Only a few students walk away from the stage, and most of them remain at the same spot.

- "Alright, the weakest ones have been weeded out ! Continuing, you have one, very simple task. Return to the Faculty with at least one of the magic cores of one of the volcano's monsters. Simple enough right ? You need to make teams if you want to survive, you just need to officially register. For anyone trying to play it solo, I will retrieve what's left of your corpses, just give me your parent's address. For the ones with a functioning brain, volcanoes are a very dangerous place, and you should pick your teammates carefully to ensure that your chances of victory are as high as can be. There's no limit to your team size. Also, you will get points depending on the quality of the magic cores you obtained, since the higher quality the core, the more you will have to fight for it. You will get more points the smaller your team is, because that also means that you're more efficient and not just being carried by mages more competent than you. Your teachers for the rest of your curriculum will be attributed to you depending on how many points you have at the end. That's all the info for now, prepare yourselves and form your teams ! We will be taking care of transport immediately after everyone is ready."

Morgana starts looking around to find potential teammates, and everyone seems to be dodging her. When she tries to speak to the people nearby, they always find an excuse not to take her in. Eventually, she sees an arm raised above the crowd, waving at her, and she sees the guy she was talking to at the cafeteria the other day jumping up and down, trying to get her attention. She walks over to him.

- "Hey again ! Wanna team up ?" he asks.

- "That would be nice. Thank you." Morgana replies.

- "Haha, no problem ! My name is Magnus by the way !"

- "Nice to meet you. My name is Morgana."

- "I already know ! Should we go find more people ?"

- "Sure."

They both begin approaching other clusters of people or isolated witches and mages, but they get rejected every time. Some people are straight up running from the both of them, trying to get as far as possible. Half of them seemed to be afraid of Morgana, and the other half looked like they were downright terrified at the sight of Magnus approaching them. Eventually, almost all teams are formed, averaging five to ten people.

- "Looks like it's just us then, hahaha !" Magnus laughs.

- "This is bad. We need a team." Morgana starts looking around, remembering something Helen told her about never taking warnings from the Academy's staff lightly, as it always leads to avoidable deaths.

- "Aren't we already a team ?"

- "We're a duo."

- "Ha, you're right !"

- "Make it a trio !" they hear from someone in the crowd behind them.

When they turn, they see the crowd splitting to let none other than Cassandra through. She is followed by her group of witches in red robes, desperately pleading to her.

- "Lady Cassandra, please reconsider !" one says.

- "Yes ! Form a team with us !" another adds.

- "Oh get off my case dammit !" the witches gasp in response. "You'll just slow me down anyways. If I'm going to team up with someone, it has to be someone who can match me." she looks at Morgana.

- "Welcome to the team." Morgana says.

- "Welcome, welcome haha !" Magnus adds.

- "Thanks." Cassandra looks at Magnus. "Morgana, you really need better frequentations. Why would you band with this freak ?"

- "He approached me. Unlike everyone else." Morgana replies. "You know him ?" She then asks, and Cassandra sticks out her tongue in response, looking disgusted.

- "Not personally. He's known for challenging random people to duels constantly, ever since he made it to the campus. The morons who accepted were lucky to get away with just one broken bone." Cassandra turns to Magnus. "Don't act out of line or we're gonna have a problem."

- "You think you can give me orders ?" Magnus nonchalantly replies.

- "We can establish a hierarchy right now if you want to." Cassandra answers, as her right eye begins to glow.

- "Now that's interesting !" Magnus' hands light on fire, and the flames progress up his arm until they completely wrap around them.

- "Stop. No fighting please." Morgana intervenes.

- "If you say so !" Magnus' flames go out.

- "I guess that wouldn't be very productive after all." Cassandra's eye stops glowing.

- "By the way. What's a magic core ?"

- "You're messing with me or ?" Cassandra says, irritated.

- "When a creature aligned with a certain magic dies, its magic circuits usually converge towards a certain part of its body and crystallize into a gem of said magic !" Magnus answers.

- "Oh I see. Thank you Magnus." Morgana replies.

- "Wait, you're seriously asking ?..." Cassandra asks, dumbfounded. "Just how ignorant can you be ?"

- "At least Magnus answered. You're just being mean."

- "Ugh. You tick me off. I'll say that much, usually magic cores are used to create magic focuses, like wands, staffs, rings and other items. With a magic focus, casting spells becomes a lot easier and you have access to a wider range of abilities for your magic. Essentially, it just makes you more powerful. I remember you asking me that the other day, and I seriously thought you were just messing with me."

- "Thank you. I will remember that."

They eventually gather in front of the stage, and are registered as team 28. They are also each given a necklace made of a black metal.

- "It seems everyone is ready ! In that case, I will send you on your way, I will come to pick you up in a week !" the woman with the dragon wings yells.

As she says that, she flaps her wings towards the crowd, and a spiral of flames surrounds all of them. A lot of people start screaming in fear, but the flames did not feel hot to the touch, just warm. They are then all projected into the sky at terrifying speeds, and they see an island below.

It had an active volcano close to its center in the north, and they could see the Pyromancy Faculty's campus from above. The rest of the island was covered in a dense forest, and a river of magma flowed south from the volcano. They couldn't see any land in the distance.

Morgana's fear of the altitude they were at was overridden by the wonder she felt at the sight of the island, since she had never been able to observe anything from that high of a vantage point before. She could hear Cassandra screaming profanities at the top of her lungs, and Magnus laughing maniacally as they were rapidly falling towards the volcano, after the flames of the dragon winged woman propelled them around a kilometer into the air. Said flames seem to separate all groups right before they enter the volcano's airspace, and randomly scatter them around the place before dramatically slowing their fall. When the fire cleared, Morgana, Cassandra and Magnus were standing on the edge of a cliff over a lake of magma, with no other groups to be seen. The gargantuan cave under the volcano stretched for kilometers in front of them.

- "It's hot." Morgana comments.

- "LADY HECATE SAVE ME, I'M DYING !" Cassandra screeches.

- "Haha, I'm melting ! That's a new experience !" Magnus observes as his clothes catch on fire from the heat.

Magnus concentrates on the flames having appeared on him, and they rapidly disappear. He also seems to be managing the heat a lot better after that.

- "Poof ! Heat resistance ! Wasn't that complicated after all !"

- "Magnus ? Can you help Cassandra ? She's not doing well." Morgana says, as she points to Cassandra rolling on the floor while screaming in agony.

- "Sure ! There you go !" he raises his hand in Cassandra's direction, and a veil of fire covers her for a second before it subsides. She rapidly gets up after that.

- "Magnus ? I take back what I said about you earlier. You're the best thing that's ever happened to this team." Cassandra says.

- "You don't know how to cast a heat resistance spell ? I'm surprised !"

- "I do, I just made a little miscalculation." Cassandra takes out a golden ring from under her cape, with a burning red jewel slightly resembling an eye embedded in it. "I just need my magic focus."

When Cassandra puts it on her finger, her hair seems to light up slightly in reaction.

- "There. I should be able to get by on my own now, I just think we would land OUTSIDE of the volcano."

- "This is probably the first test, they're disposing of all the people that can't withstand heat !" Magnus says.

- "That makes sense." Morgana replies. "Look, some people failed." She points her finger up towards the top of the crater, where a few red flaming comets were rising.

- "Oh ? How do you know ?" Magnus asks.

- "The necklaces. They have a spell." Morgana says.

- "Yeah, from what I can tell it's similar to that flame spiral spell that sent us here, but it goes the other way. If I had to guess, the trigger is suffering too much damage from heat or something of the like, it's like a lifeline so you don't get incinerated instantly. I guess they're not exactly trying to kill us." Cassandra adds, and Morgana nods in agreement.

- "Oh ! That makes sense, good thing you two are magic experts !" Magnus lightly laughs.

- "What do we eat ?" Morgana asks.

There is a moment of silence before Cassandra speaks up.

- "Erm… We really should get at least a core or two today and run for the forest as soon as we can. This volcano looks like it's around the size of a city state, so we should already be heading south if we don't want to starve to death. From what I saw, we're somewhere in the southern part of it so that's the quickest way out."

- "Oooh nice plan ! I'm on board !" Magnus responds.

- "Makes sense. Do we have water ?" Morgana says.

Another moment of silence later, they all silently agree to proceed south as quickly as humanly possible. During the first few hours, they are relatively unbothered. Morgana is blindly following the group, Cassandra is scouting around looking for monsters and Magnus seems bored out of his mind. Eventually, Cassandra signs them to stop.

- "Look over there." she points to a flat layer of volcanic rock in front of them, forming some kind of plains.

When they look in that direction, they see a horse cloaked in flames, with a burning horn on its forehead and flaming hooves.

- "Oh. A unicorn ! I've never actually seen one of those before. And a fire one at that !" Magnus exclaims.

As he shouts that, the unicorn turns to them, seemingly having noticed their group due to his yelling.

- "Well, there goes the element of surprise. Good job." Cassandra mumbles.

- "It's charging towards us." Morgana says.

- "My bad !" Magnus laughs as his hands burst into flames.

- "Try not to damage it too much, those creatures are really rare !" Cassandra shouts. "Also be really careful in close quarters, unicorns are known to be brutal and merciless killers !" she yells in Morgana's direction before her hair lights on fire.

Morgana nods to her and a thread of pure, rainbow colored magical energy appears in her right hand, rapidly expanding and being covered in fire as it forms the shape of a large battleaxe entirely made of flames, that she wields with two hands once it is complete.

The unicorn reaches them, and seems to lock onto Magnus who had stepped forward. It rushes towards him, horn forward as its entire body bursts into flames, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. As the unicorn is about to hit him, Magnus reaches forward and grabs onto its horn with both hands. He still suffers from most of the impact's strength ( 5 K Fire damage ), but the unicorn is immobilized as his grip seems to carry tremendous strength. It seems to panic as it realizes how inhuman this amount of physical prowess was, and attempts to pull back, to no avail.

Magnus immediately follows up by increasing the output of his flames, covering his entire body. As they mix with the unicorn's own flames, they both seem to suffer from the effects of the fire while the creature is desperately struggling to break free ( 5 K True Fire damage for both ).

- "Haha, what's wrong ?" Magnus gleefully says to the panicking unicorn as they are both being consumed by the inferno.

Morgana takes advantage of the creature's panic to close in and strike its neck with her axe, cutting deep but being somewhat stopped by the creature's tough skin ( 7.5 K Fire after resistance ). She notices this and the axe rapidly changes shape to become a flaming spear, the flame making up its blade roaring like that of a jet engine.

Cassandra extends her hand forward and she condenses a large quantity of flames into a small orb before it explodes, sending a massive wave of fire outwards in a 30 meter radius. The unicorn is incapable of dodging it, but both Morgana and Magnus are spared as Cassandra waves her hand around like an orchestra conductor, deviating the flames that would hit them as the unicorn sustains even further damage ( 5 K Fire after resistance ). At this point, the unicorn unleashes a powerful neigh, and Cassandra seems to understand what's going on, as she looks around to confirm her suspicions. Then, she sees them.

- "Shit ! It called for backup ! We got three more headed our way !!"

- "Oh ?" Magnus says with an excited smile on his face while he is still holding onto the unicorn, burning it ( 5 K True Fire damage ). He lets go of its horn with one of his hands, which he forms into a fist and punches into its head, concentrating his flames around the point of impact and killing it instantly, even through its resistance to fire ( 10 K Fire damage after resistance ). "Things are getting interesting !"

- "This is very bad." Morgana turns as she sees three identical unicorns furiously galloping towards them from a distance.

She throws her spear at one of the creatures, sending it flying forward with a powerful burst of flames. It flies through the air at a speed that takes the targeted unicorn by surprise, and it pierces through its side before disappearing in the distance, its flames so powerful they pierce through the fire resistant hide of the creature and critically wound it, slowing its movement ( 22.5 K True Fire damage ).

- "Dammit. I really wish it didn't come to this." Cassandra says as her right eye lights up, rapidly tracing the circular symbol Morgana saw during their duel into her iris.

She then starts condensing the fire in the area into an orb of pure heat in her left hand. The absorption effect is so powerful Morgana notices Magnus struggling to keep his spell on his hands active, and she stops feeling the heat in the area. In fact, she almost feels cold as this spell is being casted, and she shivers at the amount of magical energy that was being gathered in one place. The unicorns seem to catch onto the threat posed by this turn of events and all divert their course from Magnus' direction to Cassandra's, while she is focusing on her spell. Two of them charge, horn forward, and the one Morgana injured stays back and its horn glows before it fires a wide cone of flames from its tip, 20 meters in length. The other unicorns seem to be unaffected, and Morgana doesn't have time to react before they pass her by and both skewer Cassandra, who was unable to defend. The cone of flames is absorbed into Cassandra's spell, and there is a moment where time seems almost frozen. Cassandra grits her teeth, blood gushing out from her mouth due to the internal bleeding ( total 35 K Physical damage ). Morgana turns to Cassandra, as she was about to release her spell.

- "Don't do it. We're all. Going to die."

- "Three targets… Ignition… " Cassandra painfully manages to say.

The orb of heat explodes, producing a deafening sound and a blinding light, ravaging the plains in a five hundred meter radius around them with a wave of pure force. Morgana throws herself on the ground to avoid the blast, knowing full well that this wouldn't really help. However, she feels the wave of force bypass her, leaving a perfect circle of stone around her. When the smoke fades, Morgana sees Cassandra, one knee on the ground, panting as she was rapidly losing blood.

- "Not… even the stars… are out… of my reach ! If it can be done…" she coughs up blood. "...you can be damn sure I'll do it !"

- "Hey, that was a super cool spell !" they hear Magnus say as he walks towards them, clapping with his still smoking hands.

- "I didn't think that. You could control it." Morgana says.

- "What happened… to your speech ?… You speak less clearly…" Cassandra blurts out.

- "You need to rest."

- "That's gonna… take a while to regenerate… My bad…" she tries to get up, only to stumble back to the ground due to the blood loss.

- "You did enough ! I'm gonna cauterize your wound now, try not to die !" Magnus says as his hands light on fire once more.

- "Wait whaAAAAAAAAH !" Cassandra screams as Magnus places his hands on her two stab wounds around her stomach area.

Eventually, she stops screaming and is just writhing in pain on the floor.

- "Gotta treat blood loss quickly !" Magnus cackles.

- "You call that treatment ?... Dammit… you almost made me forget that you were such a psycho…" Cassandra says as she is catching her breath.

- "It worked didn't it ? You would've died in 2 minutes and 36 seconds if I didn't do that !" Magnus loudly laughs.

- "Ugh…" Cassandra rolls on the floor to lay on her back. "Where are the damn unicorns ?... I couldn't afford to hold back, these things are monsters in close combat…"

- "Oh I could tell ! I could barely restrain that one !" Magnus laughs. "Also the corpses are over there." He points to the charred remains of the original unicorn, and the three carcasses of the other ones.

- "Alright, mission complete… If you don't mind, I'm taking a quick nap…"

Cassandra falls unconscious, and begins loudly snoring. Slowly, her skin begins reforming and new cells replace the charred ones around the wound ( Hello ! It's me, the author. Remember that thing about Golden Age humans and whatnot ? Another one of their perks is quick and improved regeneration of non grave injuries over time, most of them taking between 8 and 72 hours for a full recovery. They can't regrow lost limbs or cure poisons though ! ). Magnus turns to Morgana.

- "By the way what was that ?"

- "What ?" Morgana replies.

- "The fire weapons. They looked physical enough, so I was wondering how you pulled that off !"

- "Spell forge. I learned from Helen. Use pure magical energy. For the skeleton. And make it solid. Then cover with fire."

- "Hmmmm, makes sense, you gotta teach me how to do that one day ! Also, you never really learned how to speak properly, did you ?"

- "No."

- "That tracks ! Anyways I'm gonna go open up the unicorns to see if the cores survived !" he walks away and grabs a loose rock from the ground that he breaks in his hand into multiple sharp stones before picking the largest one, as he starts cutting into one of the dead unicorns.

- "Your strength is. Not normal."

- "Is it !" Magnus chuckles.

- "That's not an answer."

- "Hahaha !" Magnus laughs even more in response, avoiding her gaze.

- "I give up. You can explain later."

- "I'd rather not ! Oh, will you look at that, this one's good !" Magnus extracts a transparent orb with black and orange abstract patterns inside of it, glowing like embers ( it's the size of a tennis ball ).

- "Oh, nice." Morgana comments.

- "Time to get the other ones !"

While Magnus is working on extracting the core from another unicorn, Morgana curiously approaches one of the corpses. It was laying on the floor, its limbs bent in unnatural angles and its mouth gaping as its horn was emitting feeble sparks due to the magical energy leaving its body. Then, suddenly the head of the unicorn whips around to stare at her, its eyes changing from their black color to a very light gray. A familiar gray. The mouth of the unicorn opens as if animated by an external force.

- "Congratulations, my dear daughter." The corpse of the unicorn says, the words originating from its now motionless mouth. The voice was distorted, but Morgana could recognize that calm and collected tone.

- "Mother ?!" Morgana screams. She jumps back, and her axe of flames manifests in her now shaking hands.

- "Whoa what's going on ?" Magnus calls from a distance.

- "Magnus ! Help !"

- "Oh ?" Magnus smiles and runs in Morgana's direction at an inhumanly high speed. "Are we fighting ?"

- "I…" Morgana hesitates, staring into the motionless unicorn's gray eyes. "I don't know."

- "There wouldn't be much of a fight anyways. This chimera of mine is nearing the end of its lifespan, much like many of my experiments." The unicorn replies, still using the distorted voice of her mother.

- "Oh, that one isn't dead yet !" Magnus comments, amused. "I had no idea unicorns could talk !"

- "This is my mother." Morgana replies. "She can control. Her chimeras. From a distance. I've seen her. Do it before."

- "So this isn't a real unicorn ?" Magnus simply replies as his shoulders slump in disappointment.

- "Do you not know the way unicorns are brought into existence ?" Morgana's mother asks through the corpse.

- "Nope !" Magnus replies.

- "I see you have acquired a powerful but simple minded ally, Morgana."

- "You're not gonna tell me ?"

- "I commend you for remaining unfazed by this situation. In summary, unicorns are usually chimeras created by extremely skilled witches, such as myself. Naturally occurring unicorns are much rarer, as they were driven to near extinction by… a person who's name I do not wish to mention."

- "Oh I see !" Magnus turns towards Morgana, his posture returning to normal. "Your mom knows a lot of stuff !"

- "I'm not. Coming back." Morgana says to the corpse of the unicorn, disregarding Magnus' comment.

- "Oh but you are." The unicorn's eyes turn a darker shade of gray. "If you wish to retain your freedom, you should be prepared to fight for it. These unicorns I sent to capture is but a taste of what I am truly capable of. Countless monsters roaming this world are results of my work, and who knows what, or who else I am capable of using against you."

- "Who ?..." Morgana asks, confused.

- "You will come to know the answer in due time."

- "You always said that. A lot." Morgana's terrified expression turns into a rictus, anger distorting her face as her hands start producing sparks uncontrollably. "I hate you."

- "I assure you that isn't true. Regardless, I-"

- "Why do you ! Get to decide that !" Morgana cuts, yelling. "I want to choose ! Who I can like ! And ! Who I can hate !"

- "This Adelaios truly had a regrettable influence on you. But I guess it is par for the course."

- "That's not- !" Morgana abruptly stops, and her face turns pale as her axe of flames materializes in her now trembling hands. "He never told you. His name… He said it would. Be a problem. If you knew."

- "Do not make the mistake of thinking that you, or any of your allies, are truly out of my reach in Eretria. That aside, I am very curious how this little escapade of yours will influence you, given the fact that I may never have the opportunity to witness your perfected form."

- "Yes. You will never see. Me again." Morgana replies with defiance.

- "That is not what I meant."

- "Then what ?"

- "We will discuss this later. Before this chimera's time comes to an end, I wanted to ask you-"

But she never has the time to finish her sentence, as Morgana's axe falls on the unicorn's neck, decapitating it. Its gray eyes stay fixated on Morgana for a few seconds before they turn back to their black color, and the mouth of the severed head closes.

- "So… is your mother dead now ?" Magnus asks, his eyebrows lowering in concern. That was the first time Morgana saw him express anything else than joy.

- "No." Morgana replies, gritting her teeth. "Not yet."

- "Oh alright then !" Magnus smiles. "You know, even if she's evil you probably shouldn't hate your mom !" He has a loud laugh. "You never know when you'll want to see her again !"

- "Magnus ?"

- "Yeah ?"

- "Don't say that again." Morgana coldly says.

- "Was just trying to give some advice I wish I heard before !"

- "You don't know anything. About me and Mother."

- "Haha, if you say so !" He silently returns to processing the carcasses.

Later during the day, Cassandra wakes up. Magnus was carrying her on his back, and Morgana was walking beside them.

- "Oh look who's back among us !" Magnus says, his voice slightly altered by dehydration.

- "Are you okay ?" Morgana asks.

- "Yes I'm fine, thanks. Magnus please put me down, I can walk by myself." Cassandra replies in a weak voice.

- "No chance !" he coughs. "Guts can only take you so far !"

- "Ugh, look who's talking. You guys don't sound any better, how long has it been ?"

- "About twelve hours since we entered ! We're at the top of the crater, we found a tunnel leading up there !"

Cassandra looks around to confirm, and she sees that they are indeed on the edge of the volcano's crater, and the way down towards the forest was extremely steep. She could see the entrance to the cave system they were in earlier very far down into it, emitting a faint orange light.

- "I can't carry you down to the forest since it's so steep, so we've been looking around for a way down for a few minutes ! No luck though !"

- "We need water." Morgana adds.

- "Dammit. I don't see any rivers in the vicinity…" Cassandra pauses. "Wait, I might have an idea. I need to use my Crest though, so I won't be able to do much fighting for a bit."

- "I wanted to ask. What's a crest ? Everyone talks about it."

- "Right, you're new around Eretria. A witch's magic family Crest an application of witchcraft that is specifically tailored towards supporting at least one magic. A magic circle is permanently inscribed onto you, and used to reinforce that magic, producing more power the more magics you mix, and they can be inherited by the descendants of the witch. For example, my family uses Fire and Explosion magics."

- "Magic circle ? Explosion magic ?"

- "When pure magical energy is manifested in a physical shape, it tends to slightly reinforce all magic around it. Normally, it's very insignificant, but its influence grows a lot stronger if it is arranged in certain patterns, namely circles, rings and spheres. Magic researchers theorize that it's because they're closer to the shape of the Earth, which provides the magical energy we're using, allowing these shapes to draw out more power from magical energy. On top of that, certain symbols and patterns inside the structure of the circle strongly resonate with certain wavelengths of magical energy ( read: specific magics ), reinforcing them even further: we call those symbols aligned with the magic in question. For example, if you take my Crest, the patterns drawn inside the ring might look random at first, but they're actually fine tuned and optimized to support both Fire and Explosion magics. Where you place your Crest is up to you, or your parents if they give it to you at a young age: I chose my right eye just because it's very visible, so it strikes fear into my future opponents every time they watch one of my Clashes ! Also, Explosion magic is just a variant of Fire magic, focused on the manipulation of heat and the force it can be converted into. I avoid using it when I'm not trying to blow up my surroundings and stuff, and it's also very hard to control. Well, not for me though !"

- "Oh I see. That makes sense. Even though it's complicated. You inherited your spells ?"

- "No." Cassandra brutally cuts. "I created all of these myself. Now if you'd please let me focus, that'd be nice. Ask Magnus if you have even more of your damn questions."

- "Are you angry ? What's going on ?"

- "Nothing ! Now silence, I'm trying to save our asses."

Cassandra's Crest appears again, and she seems to be casting a variant of that spell she used to annihilate the unicorns. However, the heat seems to be absorbed at a way slower rate, and over a way wider area. From what Morgana could tell, it spanned for about a kilometer in all directions. Suddenly, Cassandra exclaims:

- "I knew it ! There's a few lakes somewhere under us ! One of them is right under there !" She points to a spot about a hundred meters from them.

- "Oh, impressive." Morgana comments.

- "I don't get it at all !" Magnus adds, tilting his head to the side.

- "I designed this spell to absorb heat on a large scale, mostly for thermal detection purposes. Normally I use it to scan large areas and see how many live creatures are in the vicinity, but here I used to check if any spots underground gave me a negative heat absorption. I usually get those when my spell tries to affect something particularly cold, and it gives it heat instead of taking it." she starts getting lost in her explanation, seemingly forgetting about her prior burst of anger.

- "Oh. And groundwater is cold. Smart." Morgana says.

- "Haha !" Magnus has an empty chuckle. "So we need to dig down ?"

- "Yeah that's kind of the bad part. Those underground lakes or submerged caves are the only water sources I sensed around us…" Cassandra replies in a defeated tone. "From what I can tell, they're about one to two hundred meters under us, this is probably as far as we go…"

- "Oh I can do it, just point me where !" Magnus responds.

- "Huh ? Seriously ? Then it's right there." Cassandra directs him to the location she had indicated.

His fists light on fire and he starts punching into the ground, sending obsidian shards and splashes of molten rock flying everywhere.

- "You're seriously going to punch your way through ?" Cassandra asks, dumbfounded.

- "It's working for now !" Magnus answers as he already is fully underground.

- "We need to move. The rocks. Before he is buried." Morgana says as she materializes a lasso of flames in her hand and starts catching some of the larger rocks as they are being sent flying.

- "Well count me out, I need to regenerate my magical energy. A scan of this magnitude is really tiring, you know ? I deserve a helping of the cafeteria's olive bread." Cassandra replies as she sits on the ground.

Eventually, thanks to Magnus' and Morgana's combined efforts, they manage to break into a cavity, and a breeze of stale air diffuses from it. Magnus immediately falls into it, as he was at the bottom of the hole.

- "I didn't plan that far !" he yells in a jolly tone, his voice echoing up the pit. It is then followed by a loud splashing sound.

- "Cassandra. Magnus fell." Morgana calmly comments.

- "Well we gotta get down there one way or another anyways, let's go get him before he gets eaten by some cave monster." Cassandra replies.

They both jump into the pit Magnus dug, and Cassandra creates a continuous flow of flames under them to slow their fall. They eventually find themselves inside a massive cavern, its floor being a large, deep circular blue lake, only slightly illuminated by the light from the pit.

- "Huh ? Where's he ?" Cassandra asks as they land in the water. She then notices a column of bubbles coming from under them.

- "Help. I can't swim. Help." Morgana pleads as she sinks, flailing around in a fruitless attempt to try to keep herself afloat. Cassandra quickly realizes what's going on.

- "You both can't swim ?! Dammit !"

She dives after them and fights for a couple minutes to drag the both of them to the edges of the lake, which were a lot shallower, allowing them to stand on the bottom of the lake and breathe. For a moment, they are all catching their breaths, Cassandra from exhaustion and Morgana and Magnus from almost drowning. Cassandra's hair lost its glow after touching the water, making her appear with regular black hair.

- "You guys are clowns." Cassandra comments, irritated.

- "I never learned. How to swim." Morgana replies.

- "I know how to deal with that much water, just evaporate it all with enough heat ! Can't drink it afterwards though !" Magnus laughs.

- "You better take fucking swimming lessons after this… Anyways don't drink the water yet, we need to boil it first and also get rid of the excess minerals mixed in there, or else you-" Cassandra stops, noticing that both Morgana and Magnus were staring at each other. "Oh no."

- "I couldn't resist. When I saw water. I drank a bit. Before I sank. I was dehydrated." Morgana says.

- "Same here ! But I drank more because I can multitask, I can drink AND drown !" Magnus adds.

- "Maybe I should just let you die. Let natural selection do its thing and all that." Cassandra calmly observes.

- "Are we dying ?" Morgana asks.

- "No, but you're probably going to be very sick and we have about six days left, so you'll be dead weight."

- "Oh I see. It's because of minerals ?"

- "Yes, and potentially any bacteria that lives in there."

- "I understand. In that case. I'll ask for help."

- "Help ? Sorry but I can't do anything for you at this point."

- "Not from you. From the nature spirits. Hello ? Is there a naiad ?"

The water lightly splashes in response, even though nothing agitated it. Cassandra summons a fireball in her hand, and the water splashes once more, this time more violently. Magnus looks intrigued.

- "Cassandra stop. You're scaring it. It's very weak." Morgana says.

- "Oh. Aren't naiads supposed to be humanoïd divine spirits ? I don't see anything." Cassandra replies.

- "It's not a naiad. Not yet. Too weak. Due to no connection. With outside nature. It doesn't even. Have a form. Poor thing."

- "Wait, you mean there actually is still a nature spirit for every pond or isolated tree on an island ?"

- "Yes."

- "That's… hmm." She has a puzzled expression. "I see. Anyways, it feels weird that you're teaching me about something for once."

- "Is that so."

- "How do you even know about that ?"

- "I'm a fire spirit."

- "And I'm queen Circe."

- "I'm not joking. I'm a dragon too. And a fire elemental."

- "You already did the dragon bit. You don't look like you're lying, but that's hard to believe really. You don't exactly look the part. If you were an elemental, shouldn't you be on fire ?"

- "I can be." Morgana closes her eyes and flames start erupting from her skin, over all the upper half of her body, drying the part of her above water while the water directly around her starts to boil.

- "Woah turn it off, turn it off !"

- "See ?" Morgana

- "Yeah I get it, that's definitely not a spell ! By Hecate, what the hell happened to you ?!"

- "Mother did many things."

- "Oh you were altered via witchcraft ?... That's not going to make the queen happy if she learns about this."

- "She already knows."

- "Oh well that's bad. My mother always told me about the Witch Hunts that happened in the past, with the queen turning the entire country upside down to find one person…"

- "Your mother ?"

- "Yeah, what about it ? You got a problem with her ?" Cassandra aggressively says.

- "No. You're angry again."

- "I'm not. Anyways, do your thing with the spirit."

- "Sure. Hello spirit. Are you named ?" The water splashes again in response. "I see. In that case. I'll name you Splash."

- "Splash ? Seriously ? This should be a crime." Cassandra comments.

- "Crime ?"

- "Something you should suffer heavy consequences for."

- "Oh. Why ? It's a cute name."

- "Your naming sense is beyond broken."

- "That's not nice. Anyways, we need help. Please. We drank minerals. And bacteria. And Cassandra says we. Are going to die."

When she says that, a fine mist escapes from her nostrils, and the same happens to Magnus. The water splashes twice.

- "Thank you." she turns to Cassandra and Magnus. "Splash purified the water. That we drank."

- "Thank you Splash !" Magnus says as he waves at the water.

- "You really are some form of spirit… Only that would explain your ability to communicate with lesser spirits like… ugh… Splash." Cassandra pronounces the name like it causes her physical pain.

- "Splash could you. Purify more water ? We need to drink. Before we move" Morgana asks, and the water splashes twice. "Thank you Splash."

A circular portion of the lake next to them becomes slightly lighter in color, almost glowing in the ambient darkness. They all drink from it, and eventually their thirst is sated. Cassandra takes out a few glass bottles from under her cape and fills them with some of the purified water.

- "Oh Cassandra you're prepared." Morgana comments.

- "I always am ! One of the basics of being a witch is to always be ready to collect interesting stuff for later."

- "I see. That's good for us."

- "Go Cassandra, go !" Magnus chants.

- "It's nothing, really !" Cassandra has an uncontrollable urge to smile.

- "We should go now. We are bothering Splash." Morgana says.

- "Oh are we ?" Cassandra asks.

- "His ecosystem is dying. Not used to light. And big movements."

- "Oh fair enough. Well, thanks spirit, I appreciate your help !"

- "Cassandra says thanks." Morgana says.

- "Right, it can't hear me…"

- "I will be back. To bring you fish. To take care of." Morgana says, and the water splashes five times in rapid succession. "Oh you want. To leave the cave ? Sure, I will. When exam is over."

- "How are you even going to do that ?..."

- "Will figure it out. Splash was nice. Deserves something."

- "Sure, whatever floats your boat. How are we getting out though ? I was planning to use an explosion to send us back up but the spirit is probably not going to like it."

- "I know. I will ask. The wind spirits."

- "Right, you can just do that."

A few minutes later, after Morgana talks to the air asking it for a way out of the cave and is answered by gusts of wind, they are lifted by a powerful wind that takes them all the way up to the surface through the pit that Magnus dug down to the cave.

- "Thank you, wind spirits." Morgana says, and a nice breeze passes by them in response.

- "That's a very convenient ability. Sure must be nice to be able to do that kind of stuff for free huh ?" Cassandra comments.

- "It is."

- "Ugh. Anyways, before we get onto the topic of food, what happened to the unicorns ? Remember, we need the cores."

- "Oh I have those !" Magnus reaches into his pockets and pulls out the four tennis ball sized cores.

- "Wait, you completely salvaged all four of them ?!" Cassandra exclaims. "I blasted these unicorns with all the heat in the area ! You'd need to be exceptionally good at processing carcasses to even have a chance at doing what you just did ! How ?!"

- "Haha !"

- "Give me a straight answer !!"

- "..." Magnus just laughs again after an awkward silence.

- "Magnus !!!"

- "Can't tell, sorry !" He lightly frowns, looking worried and almost scared.

- "Hecate, give me patience."

- "By the way. Who's Hecate ?" Morgana asks. "You bring her up. A lot."

Cassandra worriedly looks to the sky.

- "You're serious here ?"

- "Yes."

- "Cut her some slack, she didn't even get to learn how to speak normally !" Magnus says. "It makes sense she wouldn't know !"

- "Oh, that's why she speaks in short sentences like that ?" Cassandra replies.

- "Yes !"

- "Oh, I thought she was just trying to make us look like idiots. Well anyways, Hecate is the goddess of magic and witchcraft, and she's the patron goddess of the city-state of Eretria, just like Athena is the patron goddess of New Athens, and Ares is the patron god of Sparta and Themiskyra."

- "Oh. The cities worship them ?" Morgana replies.

- "Precisely."

- "That makes sense. Thank you."

- "I'm a lot less passively irritated now that I know you're not trying to make fun of me with the way you speak. You really should just say these kinds of things."

- "I didn't think. About it."

- "If we pass this exam, I'll give you Greek lessons. I can't have people thinking the person I teamed up with is mentally challenged."

- "Oh thank you. That's nice."

- "Yeah, anyways we should split the cores in case one of us gets taken out, so that we still have some remaining."

- "Smart ! Granted I wouldn't be taken out, haha !" Magnus laughs.

- "Overconfidence will just get you to Hades' kingdom. We'll each take one, and the last one of the four can just stay with Magnus. If you lose it, at least that'll give you a nice lesson of humility."

- "Hahahahaha, no way !" he says as he gives one core to each of them.

Eventually, they all start climbing down the volcano. Morgana and Cassandra repeatedly stumble or lose their grip, causing them to start falling, but Magnus always catches them before they can seriously injure themselves. One time, he leaps around ten meters in the air to catch Cassandra, who looked barely surprised due to what she's already seen him do. It's completely night time when they make it to the bottom of the volcano, and they are faced with a very dense forest, where they can hear sounds of seemingly large creatures moving around in the darkness. At this point, they can no longer feel the heat of the volcano, and both Magnus and Cassandra deactivate their spell that helped them survive the heat as it was just causing them to constantly bleed magical energy. They decide to stay there for the night, Cassandra arguing that even though they were hungry, hunting at night would be suicide, especially with all the light their spells would generate, which could attract certain monsters.